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FT

Breaking Barriers: How CareerGuard and the FT Opened Doors for 80+ Students

A career insight day partnered with the Financial Times — combining SkillScreening assessments with live workshops to give students from low socio-economic backgrounds a genuine chance to enter journalism and project management.

Partner

Financial Times

Location

London

Industry

Journalism & Tech

Date

April 2025

At a glance — Key Outcomes

80+

Students participated from colleges and universities

25%

Shortlisted for internships via SkillScreening results

FT

Successful hires including placements at the Financial Times

See the Day in Action

Watch highlights from the CareerGuard × Financial Times Career Insight Day — including student reactions, workshop footage and the moment skills-first hiring came to life in a real setting.

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01

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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02

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.

03

The Results

Measurable, Immediate, Lasting Impact

40% reduction in time-to-hire — faster shortlisting through skills-based matching, fewer rounds of interviews for unsuitable candidates.
Zero mis-hires since implementing CareerGuard — a complete reversal from five mis-hires in the twelve months prior.
First successful hires within 4 weeks of onboarding — procurement managers, project managers and commercial contract professionals placed with confidence.
Significant reduction in manual CV screening time — hours previously spent reviewing unsuitable applications now redirected to higher-value hiring activity.
Improved confidence in hiring decisions across the team — with data behind every shortlist, alignment between hiring managers increased significantly.
Improved candidate experience and employer branding — candidates reported the structured, transparent process as a positive signal of how Exceeding operates as an employer.

“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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