- Case Study
- Employer SkillScreening
Exceeding Ltd.
How Exceeding Cut Time-to-Hire by 40% and Eliminated Mis-Hires with SkillScreening
A procurement and consultancy business plagued by repeat mis-hires transformed their entire recruitment process — moving from gut-feel CV screening to data-driven skills assessment, with measurable results from week one.
Client
Exceeding Ltd.
Location
London, England
Industry
Procurement & Consultancy
Date
February 2025
At a glance — Key Outcomes
40%
Reduction in time-to-hire
Zero
Mis-hires since implementing CareerGuard
3 wks
From onboarding to first successful hire
Clients served through SkillScreened hires:
National Crime Agency
Chaucer
NHS
University of Sussex
The Challenge
Five Mis-Hires. Twelve Months. A Recruitment Process That Wasn't Working.
Exceeding, a procurement and consultancy services business, faced a persistent and costly challenge: in just twelve months, they made five mis-hires across procurement and project management roles. Each one meant wasted salary costs, management time, retraining overhead, and delayed delivery for their clients.
The root cause wasn’t a lack of applicants — it was a process built on manual CV screening and unstructured interviews. Without a consistent, evidence-based method to evaluate technical ability or cultural fit, hiring decisions were slow, subjective and unreliable. The business needed a better way.
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The Solution
SkillScreening — From CV Roulette to Data-Driven Hiring
Exceeding partnered with CareerGuard to introduce SkillScreening — a recruitment solution designed to evaluate both technical and soft skills through validated online assessments. The onboarding process was fast: within three weeks, the Exceeding team was fully set up and had integrated SkillScreening into their live hiring workflow.
From that point, every candidate for procurement, project management, and commercial contract management roles was invited to complete assessments before interview. CareerGuard’s platform then surfaced the strongest matches — giving Exceeding a reliable, evidence-based shortlist and dramatically reducing the hours spent reviewing unsuitable CVs.
The result was a hiring process built on capability data, not first impressions.
The Results
Measurable, Immediate, Lasting Impact
“Before CareerGuard, we struggled with lengthy recruitment cycles and repeated mis-hires. In just one year, we onboarded five candidates who weren’t the right technical or cultural fit — costing us significant time, money, and lost opportunities.
Since switching to CareerGuard, our recruitment process has been transformed. Their SkillScreening product allows us to test candidates across both soft skills and technical skills, giving us data-driven recommendations instead of relying on CVs alone. We were fully onboarded within three weeks, and immediately started seeing results — faster hiring, better quality candidates, and greater confidence in our decisions.
Thanks to CareerGuard, we’ve successfully hired procurement managers, project managers, and commercial contract managers who are now delivering trusted advisory consultancy support with clients such as the National Crime Agency, Chaucer, NHS, and the University of Sussex. The platform has cut our time-to-hire by 40%, reduced mis-hires to zero, and given us a scalable process for both junior and experienced hires. CareerGuard has truly raised the bar for our recruitment process.”
SR
Steve Rowland
Exceeding Ltd. — London
Project Details
Client
Exceeding Ltd.
Date
February 2025
Location
London, England
Industry
Technology & Procurement
Product Used
SkillScreening
Roles Hired
Procurement Managers, Project Managers, Commercial Contract Managers
Topics
Skills-First Hiring
SkillScreening
Mis-Hire Reduction
Procurement
Time-to-Hire
Employer Branding
Assessments
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