The Right Hiring Tools Lead to Better Hires, Chamber Roundtable Highlights
This month, the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce‘s Roundtable program featured Jim Howard, Ph.D., of Performance Resources, who shared insights into the evolving landscape of hiring — and how employers can take a more strategic, data-driven approach to finding the right people for the job.
To begin, the Springfield Chamber’s Senior Director of Advocacy and Economic Development Paige Walters shared a few key data points from the Chamber’s 2025 Business Climate Survey. The survey, which will be released to the public in full shortly, indicated that although inflation costs rose above all else in the Springfield area’s top business challenges this year, the ability to recruit and retain talent remains high priority as the second most identified challenge. Many respondents noted their strategies for talent attraction and retention include things like (in order of most popular) flexible work hours, higher wages, career advancement opportunities, and pay transparency.
Next, Jim Howard gave an interactive presentation highlighting the work of Performance Resources, used by the Springfield Chamber to support its Career Hub, offers affordable hiring tools tailored to the needs of small and mid-sized businesses, nonprofits, and municipalities. These tools help streamline the process from job posting to onboarding, while improving the likelihood of long-term employee success.
Howard also emphasized that hiring mistakes can carry significant costs — often thousands of dollars in lost productivity, turnover, and retraining. By focusing on candidate fit and simplifying the path to apply, businesses can avoid common pitfalls and improve retention.
Throughout the program, Howard identified the three core solutions offered through Performance Resources:
- Tools to attract, engage, and manage candidates
Post jobs once and have them syndicated across multiple platforms, including ZipRecruiter, Indeed, and LinkedIn. The platform offers feedback on how well a posting is likely to perform and helps fine-tune keywords, job titles and language to maximize reach and clarity. - Tools to identify a “good employee,” in the classic sense
Using data collected from current employees and successful hires, the platform helps employers understand the traits and qualifications most closely tied to high performance in a specific role. - Tools to predict fit for your job, in your business
Behavioral assessments, background checks and required applicant questions can be built into the process to vet candidates efficiently — streamlining selection and reducing time to hire.
In true Roundtable spirit, attendees shared their own hiring experiences, from frustrations with platform algorithms to challenges around candidate volume and screening. Many agreed there’s a delicate balance between providing enough detail to filter for the right fit and making the process so cumbersome that candidates drop off.
During the discussion, Howard and participants in the room also highlighted several trends and best practices for modern hiring:
- Meet applicants where they are: Use QR codes, social media, and text-to-apply tools to increase engagement.
- Simplify the process: A streamlined application encourages more qualified candidates to apply.
- Leverage internal insights: Identify the traits of top-performing employees to better match new candidates to the role.
- Incentivize referrals: Employee referral programs remain one of the most effective recruitment tools.
With a rapidly shifting labor market and increased competition for qualified talent, Howard made a compelling case for more intentional and data-informed hiring practices.
The Springfield Chamber of Commerce thanks the team at Performance Resources for co-hosting their June Chamber Roundtable program! To learn more about the Springfield Chamber’s Career Hub and get a glimpse of the systems used by Performance Resources, visit springfield-chamber.org/career-hub.
About Performance Resources
Performance Resources is “Your Hiring Tool Kit on Demand”. They will help you attract, engage, hire, and keep good, productive employees. Along the way, they will save you time and money, and make your business more profitable. They don’t sell consulting; they provide tools that you will use, and they teach you how to use them!
