3 reasons why you need a Shortlisting Specialist in 2020

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We’ve recently seen the shift from a candidate-driven to an employer-driven market. If you’re dealing with more applications than you can handle, here are some ways a Shortlisting Specialist can help. 

56 per cent of leaders say their hiring volume will increase, and one of their key measures of success in recruitment is time to fill (LinkedIn Global Trends report). Today’s fast-paced recruitment landscape demands a high-performing, flexible and decisive HR department that can accommodate job seekers throughout each stage of their candidate journey. But with a significant number of internal HR responsibilities, this isn’t always possible, and key candidate-management practices can slip through the cracks. Read on to discover the top three reasons why you should leave Shortlisting to the experts.

Here are three reasons you should engage a Shortlisting Specialist in 2020.

1. Gain unprecedented insights into candidates

From Group Assessment Days, Behaviour and Skills Testing, Reference and Background Checks and Video Interviews, it’s clear that this part of the recruitment process demands a range of skills – not all of which may sit within an HR department. With more than two decades in the recruitment industry, Employment Office has tried and tested a range of candidate management tools to optimise the shortlisting process and offer a suite of valuable services, delivering them in a way that garners the most useful candidate insights efficiently.

Group Interviews

Our Shortlisting and Selection Specialists are experts at delivering customised Group Interview and Information Days (GIIDs) that will help you uncover top talent through a range of activities, games and tests. Anyone can run activities or interviews, but it’s the design of the activities and interviews that is pivotal to giving hiring managers the opportunity to observe candidates for a range of relevant behaviours. With experts designing your GIID to uncover specific relevant behaviours, and running the group interview on your behalf, you’ll be able to focus on reading candidate behaviour, instead of being preoccupied with the administration of the day.

Skills and Behavioural Testing

Hiring managers partner with Employment Office to distribute skills and behavioural tests to candidates efficiently. Our  Shortlisting and Selection Specialists are trained to interpret the sometimes-ambiguous language appearing in skills and behavioural test reports (which can be up to 40 pages long!). For example, ‘dominating,’ ‘analytical’ and ‘social’ can differ depending on the industry – and it’s these nuances that can mean the difference between a behavioural fit and a poor choice. Our Shortlisting Specialists can convey these results to you, equipping you with accurate interpretations that you can refer to later during interviews.

Our shortlisting team also helps HR Managers to make the most of the test results – both during and after the recruitment process, and unearth opportunities for employee development. If a candidate expresses passiveness in social situations for example, you’ll know they’ll need extra support when it comes to stepping into a leadership position.

Video interviews

Interviewing a candidate using standard (and fairly predictable) questions is one thing, but seeing the interview as a crucial two-way communication platform to garner as many varied insights about the applicant is another ball park altogether – and that’s where we play.

The key is framing questions in a way that encourage candidates to dive into their past and recall their challenges and triumphs, and ask them to relate this back to the role they’re applying for. By the same token, we gain much more of a three-dimensional picture of a candidate’s skills by asking detailed questions such as, ‘How do you adapt your communication style when liaising with people across different levels of the business?’ rather than simply, ‘Do you have good communication skills?’

2. Save Time

It’s important to ensure that each stage of the recruitment process is conducted in a timely manner. At the same, candidates must be kept updated so they can respond promptly, which in turn, leads to a faster time to hire for you. At Employment Office, our experts streamline the shortlisting process while ensuring both you and your candidates remain informed and a part of the process.

Forget email tennis between candidates and other members of your department, or interviewing 30 candidates yourself. Our Shortlisting and Selection experts will take care of the recruitment process from the get-go, ensuring a positive candidate experience until you’re ready to conduct the final face-to-face interviews. With Shortlisting off your hands, you’ll be freed up to focus on internal HR, nurturing your current talent, which in turn, reduces turnover in the long run.

3. Capitalise on expertise – where you wouldn’t expect to

It’s a common myth that background and reference checks are easy and don’t take long. However, while administrative tasks like this seem quick and routine but, in reality, hours can disappear if you need to conduct a number of checks. Not only will having an expert will save you time on these tedious tasks, but with years of experience behind us, our experts know who to call and when. Small errors, such as calling the person or failing to ask the best question that would help you garner fresh insights about your candidates will mean that these ‘easy’ tasks become pointless time-vacuums.

The more robust your recruitment process, the better chance you have of finding the right person for the role. Give your organisation the best chance of uncovering top talent, and get in touch with our Shortlisting and Selection Specialists, call us on 1300 366 573 or email info@employmentoffice.com.au.

Is high turnover good or bad?

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Some organisations idealise low turnover rates, believing it is a sign they are hiring good people, paying people well, fostering engagement and creating a positive work environment. But despite this, low turnover isn’t always preferable! It can indicate your employees are poorly selected and trained, overpaid, and complacent. In some cases, high turnover may actually be a good thing.

In any organisation, engaged people are usually loyal to their teams and manager, and make meaningful contributions their the quality of your service and deliverables. So, can high turnover be a good thing?

As Eve Ash reporting for Smart Company explains, “paradoxically, there’s something to be said for companies where there’s high staff turnover. Maybe some companies are such great places to work that employees feel ready to move on, and indeed do so.”

Some leaders believe that high turnover is an indicator that things in the organisation are going badly, and replacing and training new hires is expensive.

But what if you used high turnover to understand areas in your organisation that need attention, the changes that need to be made and how to streamline your processes. You can also use it as an opportunity to inject new talent and skills into your existing teams.

Here are some strategies to make the most of high turnover.

Use exit interviews to your advantage

“If exit interviews are handled correctly, a departing employee feels free to highlight the positives and negatives of working at your organisation and in turn, based on their feedback, you can improve the workplace’s internal dynamics and practices. Exit interviews thus become a chance for both parties to be refreshingly honest, instead of lying through their teeth to be free of each other.”

Beware: do your exit interviews reveal any patterns? Make sure there are no toxic types buried in your existing teams that are causing your attrition rate.

Harness the value of fresh talent

Not every hire will be perfect. Sometimes people are lacking in certain skills or cultural fit. Perhaps they stop enjoying their roles and become complacent. Their departure represents an opportunity for you to bring new talent in and take advantage of fresh skills and perspectives.

Review and implement effective performance management

High turnover may indicate you are not making the most of your performance management processes. Use this as motivation to review your current process, and implement an effective performance management strategy.

“Your performance management strategy should include:

  • performance goal-setting — encouraging individuals to set their own goals;
  • establishing agreed timelines and expected outcomes;
  • day-to-day feedback amongst team members and managers;
  • structured induction;
  • targeted skills training;
  • ongoing professional development;
  • coaching; and
  • periodic career conversations.

“It is not enough to simply attract good talent — they must remain engaged, challenged and given opportunities to develop. A two-way culture of giving and receiving feedback must be encouraged so staff feel confident to be able to give their managers feedback and be heard.”

Use turnover as motivation to stay competitive

Feel secure in the knowledge that employee poaching occurs regularly and letting people go is a natural recurrence too. When people stop performing or start to display a lack of motivation and engagement, a candid, but caring, talk may assist them in finding another career pathway that suits their interests, skills and abilities.

“Your ‘loss’ therefore can be another’s ‘gain’.”

“When it comes to employee turnover, don’t be like a great many companies that throw proverbial babies out with the bathwater. Develop a vision that takes into account the market’s realities and individual needs of both the company and its people.”

 

 

Source

High staff turnover – good or bad?

Eve Ash

Smart Company

Your 2018-2019 Financial Year Recruitment Resolutions

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The new financial year is on the horizon. It can be a hectic time as you try to finish off your yearly budgets, complete some of your deadlines, and try to prep for the needs of the upcoming year.

Although it can be tricky to find time during this busy period, it’s perhaps the best time to assess your current recruitment strategy.

Last year, we shared with you some recruitment resolutions aimed at improving the quality of your hires. If you haven’t yet, have a look at the list to see if there’s anything you’re missing out on that could be implemented!

However, a year has gone by since we shared that article, meaning there are new strategies, new ideas, and new resolutions to take advantage of! Integrate any or all of the below into your recruitment practices to make your 2018-2019 financial year even better.

  • Repurpose Your Onboarding

The best HR Managers understand that recruitment isn’t just about making great hires. It’s also about what you do with these new hires when they arrive. Even the best candidates may struggle if they are not properly onboarded, resulting in lower productivity, morale, and longevity.

Onboarding is the process used to integrate new employees into an organisation through introductions, training, support, and mentorship programs. This is one of the most important strategies you have for success.

Take a look at the hires you’ve made over the last financial year. Chat to them about the onboarding process they went through to get an idea of effectiveness. See where you can make improvements, lay out a plan for implementation, and make it a priority for this new financial year.

  • Give Your Employees Reason to Stay

Way back in 2012, Forbes looked at research into employee longevity and found that the average employee stays with a company for only 4.4 years, with millennials planning to stay with a company fewer than 3 years. With the emergence of Continuous Candidates in the wider talent market, the number of employees who are considering a career change at any given time has increased significantly.

As such, now is the time to invest in your employees, but not (just) in terms of salary. You should be thinking about the factors that will attract and retain your top talent, and ensure your work environment addresses these motivating factors. Some key considerations for today’s candidates include leadership pathways/career progression opportunities, flexible working arrangements and whether your company values align with their personal ones.

  • Understand and Highlight Your Point of Difference

As a recruitment consulting firm, one of the first questions we ask our clients is “why should someone work for you over a competitor?” You’d be surprised how often the answer is something along the lines of “Because I’ll pay well” or worse, “I’m not sure”.

Candidates these days have dozens of options. As a company, it’s increasingly more important to establish your point of difference. If you aren’t highlighting this in your recruitment efforts, you may lose out on top talent.

Contact Employment Office for Your 2018-2019 Recruitment Year

There’s no wrong time to start improving your recruitment efforts, but there’s no denying that it helps to have a set start date. This year, let the above priorities be your focus and contact Employment Office if you’re after more ideas, strategies, or better candidates for your recruitment needs

Recruitment Trends in 2018 to Watch For

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“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.” ~Stephen Hawking

Recruitment isn’t a static process. It needs to adapt to change. Companies that perform the same recruitment tactics as every other company will attract the same standard of hires and quickly get left behind by the businesses that learn and apply new strategies and techniques.

As we end the financial year and begin the new one, it is always a good idea to stay up to date on the pulse of today’s recruitment world. The following are some of the latest trends in 2018 that are worth integrating or paying attention to over the next year.

  • Applicants in Control – It’s been a long time in the making, but we are finally seeing applicants take complete control over the jobs they want, as the candidate decides where they work, not the company. One of the best examples of this is the Switch App, which allows users to “Swipe Right” if they like a job, swipe left if they do not. It’s the Tinder of job seeking ads, matching people with companies and putting control back in the hands of the applicant. That is why it is now more important than ever to prove to job seekers that you are worth working for.

 

  • Mobile Job Optimization – Even as more and more people switch to mobile for their media consumption, recruitment was one of the few areas that still seemed desktop focused. But those times are changing, and optimizing your job search and application pages for mobile has become an increasingly prominent need in the recruitment industry.

 

  • Testing 1, 2, 3 – When a company knows how to review CVs and perform effective job interviews, they are far more likely to find a great candidate. However not every company can do that and in the absence of learning, more and more businesses are using a different tactic: testing. The first step is understanding which tests best fits your role and process. Whether you need to address personality and reasoning ability through psychometric testing, expected behaviour through behavioural testing, or specific proficiencies through skills testing. These all bring that extra edge to your decision-making process to make the best-fit hire. Understanding where you want more information on candidates lets you identify what test best suits each recruitment campaign.

 

  • The Golden Rule – 78% of candidates would tell friends and family of a bad recruitment experience and 22% would actively encourage those friends and family to never apply for a role at that company! Now more than ever, it is crucial to look at the level of candidate care in your recruitment process to protect your employer brand and make sure future recruitment campaigns aren’t hampered by a poor reputation in the candidate market. Remember, it isn’t necessarily about being nice, but having open communication channels to ensure all candidates know where they stand in the process and have a clear understanding of its results in a timely manner.

All of these trends are worth paying attention to. But there is one thing to remember about trends – the winners aren’t the ones that follow the trends, but the ones that start them. That’s why it is important to always evaluate your own strategies and see what new techniques you may want to employ next.

How To Deal With More Than One Great Candidate

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Recruitment is all about finding that perfect candidate, but what happens when we end up with more than one? Every now and then, an effective recruitment process gathers multiple suitable applicants, any of which you would love to hire, but unfortunately only have one position.

While this is a good problem to have, it can be a situation where we miss out on strong talent that could be valuable down the line or even currently in a different section of the business. So how do we address it?

 

How to Handle Several Excellent Applicants

 

  • Find a Lateral Position – Often we find applicants who seem like excellent organisational fits but due to a slightly better applicant, they miss out on the position and you miss out on a potentially valuable employee. When you have situations like these make sure to keep in mind any upcoming or other current  positions you will be hiring for that may match the candidate’s skill-set. Furthermore, communicate this consideration to the candidate. This will keep their job seeking mentality engaged with your organisation and potentially line up a strong hire down the line.
  • Talent Pooling – Building off the last point, even if you have no other positions available, communicate your own positive feedback to the candidate in terms of their application performance and their strong fit and ask to keep their details on file in a talent pool. While this is not revolutionary, this is often just used as a way to mollify disappointed candidates, but if managed correctly can over the long-term, build a database of already positively-screened candidates as your first port of call for future roles. Additionally, a strong Candidate Management System, such as Scout, is invaluable in the process of building these kind of pools.
  • Keep them on in a Project or Contract Basis  – An additional approach you can take is to consider outsourcing work to the promising individual on specific projects or for a particularly busy period. This has the double effect of keeping them engaged with a presence in the organisation for when a role becomes available, while allowing you to examine their on-the-job performance. While many candidates may not engage such a proposal, the individuals who are exceptionally motivated to join your organisation will often seriously consider such an offer, and relish the opportunity to get their foot in the door.

 

Now while this may seem a best-case kind of problem, it still is a problem. Recruiters need to be ready and possess the tools to track and manage human talent as it moves around their organisation. By building a positive connection with all candidates through strong candidate care and considerations like the above, you can streamline your recruitment to not only make current applicants more valuable, but build your employer brand positively within the market.

 

5 Mistakes to Avoid When Talent Pool Fishing

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While for many ‘talent pooling’ is still a buzz word – In reality, it no longer is. What is often a pool of forgotten people is in fact a group who are already bought into your organisation – they’ve either taken the time to subscribe to your content or they’ve previously shown interest in you and applied. Leading organisations investing in their long-term strategy are seeing the benefit of nurturing high-quality talent in overcoming recruitment challenges.

Talent pooling done right can save you time, reduce ongoing recruitment expenses, and deliver you high quality candidates. When it’s done poorly however, it can negatively affect your recruitment results, your reputation as an employer and your wider organisational brand. Remember, candidates are often your customers too.

Read on as Holly Taylor, Employer Branding Specialist at Employment Office, shares how to articulate your Employer Brand and nurture your talent pools through ongoing content. Here she shares the top 5 mistakes Talent Managers commonly make

  1. Mass production of depersonalised content

Let’s imagine your talent pool has a Sales Account Manager and a Graphic Designer – both positions you employ for. These candidates are motivated by unique factors, interested in specific benefits and ultimately seeking different things. Should these people receive the same content? No!

A good rule to follow: always segment and always send content that is relevant. Think employee videos, project highlights, infographics related to your industry or published by your company, employee blogs or profile stories.

  1. Enough said. 

No one likes opening their inbox to see the same email at the same time, every day! Especially when their previous application experience with you might have been not too long ago. Ultimately, how often you choose to engage your talent pool will depend on your frequency of hires and volume of positions. Invest in working with experts in talent nurturing to strike the right balance between exciting and inundating.

  1. Where do I hit unsubscribe? 

Not giving people an unsubscribe button is not only annoying for them, but also illegal. They need to be able to opt out, particularly if they are a previous candidate automatically added to the pool, having not actively opted in. If people don’t want to receive your content – that’s okay! It will do a lot more for your reputation to give people this option. Transparency really is the key to successful recruitment… plus, you want people who want you too!

  1. Don’t get lost – map it out.

If you don’t plan, you plan to fail – and this will definitely be clear to your potential talent! Providing candidates with an engaging and seamless recruitment journey will not only improve their perception of you as an employer, it will also help streamline your operations. As a start, put yourself in the candidate’s shoes and consider what experience you would like to have. Map out all the possible ‘routes’ a candidate could take once they join your pool – whether they join, apply for a role and are acceptable, or maybe they leave your pool after a year. No matter their journey, it’s a chance for you to make an impression as a great workplace and employer.

It’s also important to think about your internal teams and who needs to be involved at what stage. For example, do your hiring managers need to be in control of their own pool or, will HR Managers take complete responsibility? Ensure you regularly update your hiring manager with who’s swimming in your pool so when they’re ready to hire, they know where to look first before going out to market on mass. This will save time, resources and money – what’s not to like about that?

  1. No Employer Brand? No Idea! 

What underpins all communication with potential candidates is your Employer Brand. Simply, it is the way you differentiate and market yourself as an employer, and ideally, as an employer of choice. This is articulated through images, stories and videos, but most importantly your Employee Value Proposition – this is the ‘why work for us?’ that should engage candidates. This should be embedded within all your talent communication and is fundamental to ensuring your brand is perceived accurately and honestly to what the experience as an employee is! Most importantly your Employer Brand gives you a voice and that voice is integral in sharing the organisation’s feel. Authenticity is key!

Editor’s note: Employment Office’s Employer Branding Specialists are experts at understanding and articulating your Employer Brand.  Contact our Specialists to learn how we can craft your Employee Value Proposition and amplify this to target segments of your talent pool with our technology Scout Talent: Engage. We will nurture your high-quality potential candidates so they are ready, right when you need them. 

 

Shortlisting on a Shoe String

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Your Pocket Guide to Shortlisting on a Budget.

Recruitment can be costly – in terms of time and money. Finding the right person can take up to 68 days, according to a 2015 study by management consultancy company, CEB. Regardless of the process, recruitment costs can reach up to two-thirds of an employee’s annual salary, according to WorkplaceInfo.

At Employment Office, we believe the recruitment process is an exciting opportunity to discover your next star – and should not be seen as a burden to your bottom line!

With this in mind, we have put together a little pocket guide to shortlisting on a budget – a guide to finding the right people for your organisation, minimising the time and cost impacts, and without compromising the quality of your recruitment process.

Read on as we share with you the most efficient way to conduct shortlisting – a six step strategy focusing on getting recruitment right from the get-go, that promises to keep your hip-pocket happy.

  1. Conduct a detailed job analysis

It is essential that you identify, and get all stakeholders on the same page regarding; the aim of the role, the position description, the selection criteria, and the vision of your ideal candidate.

Organise a single meeting with all staff involved in the hiring process (Recruiter, HR team, Future Leader) to ensure everyone is on the same page.

Be sure to brief each staff member on the aim of the meeting beforehand and inform them to bring any relevant material (previous job descriptions, hand over notes and an exit interview transcription). This simple but critical step will minimalize email-tennis and set the ball in motion for the next stage of recruitment, helping condense the time to hire.

  1. Seek the right information from applicants

With certain competitive roles attracting hundreds of applicants, it is simply not viable to read every resume and cover letter. ‘Screening questions’ refers to a series of questions determined by you that will immediately ‘knock out’ unsuitable candidates, and equally, draw attention to outstanding candidates.

75 to 88 per cent of applicants are screened-out when the recruiter first glances at their resume.

Screening questions help accelerate the recruitment process as you no longer need to sift through hundreds of irrelevant resumes that recruitment software will automatically identify as unsuitable.

When designing screening questions, consider which factors are ‘make or break’ in terms of legal requirements and the candidates’ skills.
Legal necessities: If your role requires a heavy vehicle licence or re-assignment to a remote location, be sure to flag these in your screening questions. It sounds simple, but all too often recruiters forget to ask candidates about key criteria, resulting in time being wasted by sorting through resumes of candidates who legally cannot do the job.

Qualifications: Many competitive jobs have non-negotiable requirements – you can set the bar high with screening questions, weeding out candidates who haven’t yet reached the required number of years of experience or level of education that the role demands.

In-depth insights: Design open-ended questions with the key requirements of the role in mind. Your questions could include anything from ‘Describe what you have learned from other leaders, and how this has shaped your leadership style,’ to ‘Discuss a time when you had to deal with a serious customer service issue – how did you handle the situation?’

  1. Screen with phone or video interview

Before investing time and energy in face to face interviews, it’s essential to communicate with candidates in real-time to get a sense of their personality and verbal communication skills. A phone interview, or better, a recorded video interview as conducted at Employment Office, will help you arrive at a high-quality shortlist with new intel that you can use to guide inform your questions in the final face-to-face interviews.
When resources are tight, every minute counts, so be ready with a list of questions at hand and know what you are looking for in terms of essential, desirable and undesirable responses. 15 to 25 minutes should be sufficient for you to decide whether to continue the candidate to the next stage.

  1. Conduct Face to Face interviews

Structure and standardise the interviews – Have a clear plan of how your interview should go and keep an eye on the clock to stay on track. This will get easier each time. Secondly, ensure all interviews follow a similar structure to make it easy to compare applicants later.

Involve others – Having multiple interviewers reduces bias and enables recruiters to focus on one or two skill sets each, rather than one interviewer looking for all qualities in the candidate. Alternatively, one recruiter could ask questions, while the other HR representative takes notes.

Address what’s important: the behavioural and theoretical – To craft your interview questions, revisit the job description and consider the key selection criteria. Ask questions that address experience, skills, values and desired behavioural tendencies.

The best questions challenge candidates to share an anecdote with you – perhaps a time when they overcame pressure or made a significant change to processes within their company in the face of unyielding resistance. Telling a story makes it easier for the candidate to relax, and gives you the opportunity to tease out the candidate’s skills, rather than the candidate simply listing their attributes.

Compare apples with apples – Many recruiters assign ratings to each response in order to have a numerical figure that will enable them to quickly identify outstanding candidates. To reduce the margin of error, ensure all interviews have the same idea of what a ‘10’ and ‘0’ looks like.

Consider cultural fit – The face-to-face interview represents a critical opportunity for you to consider if the person would adapt to your work environment and feel comfortable among your team. Does the candidate prefer to work independently or with the team?

  1. Consider a Group Assessment Day (GAD)

For organisations hiring in bulk or testing a number of strong applicants for a competitive position, a Group Assessment Day is a popular alternative to multiple interviews. GADs afford recruiters the benefits of an individual interview (as some recruiters choose to conduct individual interviews during the GAD), and the opportunity to observe candidates in teams, and in role-play situations relevant to the role.

Observing candidates for two hours or more for both behavioural and skills qualities means that you improve your chance of uncovering the best match for the role, compared to only analysing a candidate in an individual interview.

In the short term, GADs save HR managers, who are hiring in bulk, from hours in the interview room. In the long term, GADs lead to higher quality hires and thus, reduced turnover.

  1. Give your candidate the all-clear

Remember, more often than not, outstanding candidates are also applying to your competitors. Thus, at this late stage of the recruitment process, your candidates are a ‘flight risk’ – they are time sensitive, so you must be too. We recommend conducting background and reference checks as efficiently as possible.

Background checks– Keep your workplace safe and protected from legal nightmares by conducting thorough pre-employment checks. This could include police checks, education verification checks, medical checks and visa checks.

Skills testing– A simple online skills test could mean the difference between an outstanding hire and an incorrect hire. A skills test is an easy way to ensure candidates have the skills they claim. Skills testing could include Microsoft office testing, typing, numeracy and literacy, and attention to detail, technical writing and business communication tests, or more comprehensive tests relevant to particular roles.

The Key Take-Away

Ultimately, the key take-away is that you can only save time and money in the long term by implementing high-quality recruitment practices today. A streamlined recruitment method as outlined above will save your team hours in manual labour and will cut-out non-essential communication. This means your candidate-attraction strategy will be lean in terms of resources but mean in terms of hire-power.

 

Editor’s note: In celebration of the holiday season, Employment Office is delighted to offer clients our Candidate Video Star Special. Book by 5pm Thursday 21st Dec and we will:

  • Rate and rank your candidates according to your criteria
  • Record up to 10 video screening interviews (each approx 10 minutes duration)
  • Tailor the interview questions to your needs
  • Accelerate the screening process, getting you to the best candidates quicker and without hassle
  • Handle all candidate care over the Christmas period
  • Assist with scheduling your face to face interviews

Contact us today and mention ‘Christmas Special’ to take advantage of this fantastic offer.

Employment Office is the leader when it comes to uncovering top talent. Click to learn why we are not a traditional dinosaur recruitment agency, and how we can give you bang for your buck.

Sources:

 WorkplaceInfo, Recruiting Costs, accessed 2017,

http://workplaceinfo.com.au/recruitment/problems-and-challenges/recruiting-costs

Signature Staff, The True Cost of Hiring New Employees, 2016

https://www.signaturestaff.com.au/blog/true-cost-hiring-new-employees/

CEB, Recruiting Slowdown Hurts the Bottom Line, 2015: https://www.cebglobal.com/human-resources/recruiting/accelerating-recruiting.html

Ideal, Shortlisting Step-By Step Guide For Candidate Recruitment, accessed 2017, https://ideal.com/shortlisting/

 

 

 

 

 

Video Interviews: An Untapped Resource in Recruitment

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Recruitment costs are unavoidable, but a good-value recruitment process will not only be efficient, but sustainable. Thus, your budget dedicated to finding your next talent should be spent wisely. When it comes to upgrading to a robust and holistic recruitment strategy, that alleviates unnecessary costs, video interviews are an under appreciated asset in the HR tool box. Employment Office Shortlisting and Selection Specialist, Christie Pollock says, “By incorporating video interviews into your recruitment strategy, not only will you be able to accelerate your hiring process and reduce your recruitment costs, you’ll be able to benefit from the many other advantages of a two-way recorded video interview.”

Read on to learn the key advantages of video interviews as a screening tool.

  • Accelerate your recruitment process.

Two-way video interviews can save as much as 67 per cent on necessary travel costs compared to more conventional recruitment techniques, found Undercover Recruiter. Further, video interviews will save you time when it comes to face-to-face interviews, as you will be able to narrow your shortlist to candidates you believe would be a good fit, based on their video interview. You will no longer waste time enduring poor interviews in which candidates quickly reveal themselves to be a mismatch.

  • Pick up on warning signs earlier.

According to Harvard Business Review, 80 per cent of turnover can be linked to errors in the hiring process. With video interviews, you’ll be able to pick up on warning signs earlier in the recruitment process – before face-to-face interviews, and thus, you will reduce the risk of shortlisting an unfit candidate. Unlike with a phone interview, you’ll gain insights into not only candidate’s level of punctuality, but organisation and professionalism. “Something as simple as whether the candidate has their resume handy can be a sign of organisational skills. It’s always interesting to see who makes an effort in their professional appearance. Their choice of location can also be important – are they in a loud or chaotic space? Sometimes the candidate can’t control the location, if they are in an airport for instance, but if they are at home sitting in a messy bedroom, this might be another sign of unprofessionalism,” says Christie.

  • Gain insights that a phone interview simply cannot provide.

Video interviews provide the opportunity to assess your candidate’s body language, non-verbal cues and personality. Psychologists report non-verbal cues to account for between 55 per cent to 90 per cent of communication. Video interviews enable you to gain insights into your candidates based on non-verbal cues such as nervous movements and certain facial expressions which might reveal that a candidate is not being completely upfront – impossible to pick up on in a phone interview.

Secondly, if you partner with an external recruitment services provider to conduct video interviews, such as Employment Office, you’ll be able to see how the candidates interact with someone outside of your organisation. “Usually candidates are polite because they want the job! However, sometimes, candidates won’t put their best foot forward if they believe negative behaviour won’t be reported,” Christie says. “Having a third party carry out the video interviews allows you to fully engage in the analysis of the candidate rather than the operational worries of facilitating the interview.”

Finally, with specific insights gained about candidates in the video interview, you’ll be able to further tailor face-to-face interviews. This nurtures your employer brand by showing candidates they are valued.

  • Engage candidates.

Forget sifting through hundreds of resumes. Talk to a real person, no matter where they are in the world, and hear first-hand about the experiences that have made them who they are today. Not only is it more engaging for you to watch shortlisted candidates in video interviews, but candidates can take part in a two-way conversation and ask questions at their discretion. This often makes applicants more comfortable, especially in the lead up to meeting a client for a face-to-face interview.

  • Review the video interview when it suits you and consult your hiring team more easily.  

When partnering with our Shortlisting and Selection Specialists at Employment Office, Hiring Managers have the choice to view the recorded videos at their leisure.  If you’re having doubts about a candidate or can’t decide which final candidate to shortlist, recorded video interviews provide you the opportunity to share the interview with your colleagues, in a way that simply isn’t possible with phone or face-to-face interviews.

Not only will video interviews save you time and money by avoiding inefficient traditional recruitment costs, but you’ll reduce your time to hire, identify unfit and outstanding candidates earlier, gain insights through non-verbal cues, and engage candidates on a personal level – all before you get to face to face interviews. Learn more about video interviews here.

Editor’s note:

At Employment Office, we not only record our interviews for you, but give you full insight into every stage of the recruitment process that you choose to work with us. To take advantage of the above benefits of video interviews, without the hassle, get in contact with our Shortlisting and Selection Specialists today.  

Your Best Group Assessment Day Ever – A Guide for Recruiters

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Group Assessment Days (GADs) can be overwhelming for candidates, but they can be just as much a challenge for hiring managers. Observing multiple people at once, across a range of activities for a range of behaviours is no small feat. It takes an organised team of recruiters, hiring managers and supervisors to make sure the day runs smoothly, and most importantly, you make the most of it.

Read on for best-practice tips on how to structure your Group Assessment Day, with insights offered by Employment Office Shortlisting and GAD Specialist, Jenna May. 

Preparation is key

A well-structured GAD is the only way you’ll be able to focus on the activities that will uncover your candidates’ strengths and equally, behaviours that might be a red-flag. A smooth GAD consists of an introduction including an icebreaker and run-down of the day’s schedule, the GAD itself with a break, and a conclusion. 

Round the troops

The more eyes on the candidates the better. Jenna recommends at least four representatives from the organisation. Each will bring a valuable perspective to the day’s events.

“Having a supervisor present – who is currently in the role, is invaluable. They’re able to analyse candidate behaviours in a way that most relates to the position – more than HR or a recruiter can. For example, we recently held a GAD for a parking inspection officer where the candidates were asked to do role play. To the human resource managers observing, one candidate seemed to be lacking confidence – as if he was not ‘holding his ground’ as the role would require. But a supervisor watching viewed this behaviour from the candidate as a positive thing. Having been a parking inspector himself, the supervisor saw this behaviour to fulfil essential customer service skills required for the role,” Jenna says.

Different assessors bounce off each other and can check their interpretation of actions, words and attitudes of candidates, and bring a holistic understanding of everything that occurs throughout the GAD.

Observe with purpose

Too often, hiring managers and supervisors go into a GAD with the vague intention of ‘observing candidates.’ Jenna says that each recruiter must know exactly what they’re looking for.

“There are simply too many people and there is too much going on during the day that general observation is not an efficient or standardised way for recruiters to accurately assess and compare candidates,” she says. The best way to approach the GAD, she says, is to divide and conquer the room.

Ensure the team of assessors understands how each activity works, and most importantly, they know the purpose of each activity. Whether it’s a role play, discussion or game, each task during the day should be as relevant as possible to the role, and designed to measure certain traits.

“Every assessor should carry a clip board with activities listed in the left column, and a set of measurable traits to look for beside the activities. There are three types of attributes to look for: those that are crucial, desired and detrimental to the role,” Jenna says.  

Divide and Conquer

To gather as much quality information as possible, Jenna says it’s best to have a mix of assessors circling the room, as well as assessors stationed with groups. “A recruiter or hiring manager should be stationed at each group, to monitor the same candidates throughout the entire day. Then, up to two hiring managers should pace the room all day to gather information across every candidate,” Jenna says. This way, recruiters stationed at each team are able to gather plenty of information on a few candidates, which they can compare with one another later. The two hiring managers pacing the room will have a birds-eye view of all candidates, can see how teams compare and will be able to pin-point particularly strong or weak candidates amongst the group.  

Be prepared to get involved.

Whether it be acting an angry customer in a role play, or getting involved in a group discussion, active participation will give you get a better insight into the personality and communication skills of candidates. Don’t overdo it though – generally, you should take advantage of the limited time during the GAD to absorb as much as you can about your candidates as an observer. 

Keep your notes organised.

Jenna recommends a 2-page to view clipboard with a list of activities paired with the traits to the rights, with a column for general notes, and a separate page with a list of all candidates to use for general notes throughout the day. It can be helpful to request candidates to provide a headshot of themselves at the application stage, in order to assist your team of assessors to recognise candidates and take accurate notes.

Debrief… ASAP!

At the end of the day, the hiring team needs to meet and compare notes. This should be done as soon as the candidates have left, or, at the latest, first thing the next morning. There are subtle (but potentially critical) behaviours you may have thought nothing of, but you might realise they are important because your team noticed them as well.

Get in touch with the experts

Group Assessment Days are a fantastic way to interview on mass – whether you want to on-board many recruits at once for peak season, or test multiple strong candidates for one competitive position. A team of co-ordinated and engaged assessors who know what they are looking for when it comes to observing candidates is the best way to hire with confidence. Contact our shortlisting and selection specialists to discuss how a Group Assessment Day will help your organisation effectively uncover top talent, with insights that can’t be gained in an interview.

Your New (Financial) Year Resolutions

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Your New (Financial) Year Resolutions
By Susanne Mather, Executive Director of Employment Office Group

It’s that time of year again. For many of us, the end of the financial year means extra coffees, a little more paperwork and, of course, a party to celebrate!

But don’t let the financial year slip by without reviewing your recruitment results to date. It can be easy to settle into bad recruitment habits, so it’s important to take a step back and assess what is and isn’t working for you. Now is the perfect time to assess where you could improve when it comes to your recruitment efforts, and set yourself up for a successful new financial year.

Here are my top five suggestions for how you can make the new financial year your most successful year of recruitment yet:

Change the way you interview

This year, commit to basing your hiring decision on what candidates do, not only what they say. While one-on-one interviews will always be a necessary part of recruitment, group assessment days add incredible value and allow you to observe candidates in a professional context.

If you’re needing to hire in bulk, have a high turnover or want to better understand candidates’ interpersonal and communication skills, then group assessment days are right for you. Group interviews provide a more robust and tailored process than you might get using one-on-one interviews alone. You can observe candidates’ skills, decision making strengths, leadership qualities and teamwork abilities in action so you make the most informed hire.

Our team designs, executes and facilitates a range of bulk hiring processes tailored to any vacancy type and criteria. Click here to learn more about our assessment centres from some of our clients and our Global Shortlisting Leader, Amber Dique-Bellette.

Put your candidates to the test

How much do you really know about your shortlisted candidates? It’s easy for them to talk the talk, but without making them walk can you be sure you’re making the best hiring decision? If you want to put your top candidates to the test, you need to be using skills and behavioural testing.

Behavioural testing is the only way to effectively and accurately measure someone’s predicted job performance, temperament and fit within the role and organisation. Hiring people who don’t align with workplace culture is a common mistake made. But there is good news – behavioural testing is easy to include in your recruitment. Our Shortlisting and Selection Specialists can guide you through the entire process and even provide an interpretation of your candidates’ results.

When it comes to skills assessment, accurately measuring candidates’ abilities will put you ahead in the recruitment game. You’ll not only find that selecting the right candidate is easier, you’ll also find that once they join you in the workplace they will be able to hit the ground running.

Harness the power of recruitment software

Don’t let a poor candidate management system get in the way of securing the best talent. Streamlined recruitment technology can reduce time spent on recruitment administration by 50 percent. The right candidate management technology can decrease turnover, improve HR processes across the board, and ultimately save organisations thousands of dollars year on year.

Employment Office provides recruitment technology that enables hiring teams to easily access candidate information in one database, determine both unfit and outstanding candidates quickly with screening questions, conduct reporting, and deliver customised mass communication across a number of platforms including email and SMS. And that’s just to name a few!

What’s more, we even offer access to our sophisticated candidate management system for the duration of recruitment campaigns without the long-term investment, with Scout Talent: Select.

Uncover your employer brand

Did you know that companies with a strong employer brand are twice as likely to receive responses from candidates they contact? As predicted in our recruitment trends for 2017, the time for employer branding is now.

Our Head of Employer Branding, Mark Puncher, explains that “your employer brand is who you are. It’s the feeling your employees get when they walk through the door. It’s what comes to mind when job seekers see your brand.”

Your employer brand is embedded in your company culture and vision, so you can’t alter it overnight. But you can implement a clear approach to position yourself as an employer of choice. Partnering with external employer branding specialists who understand how to design and deliver an end-to-end research project and strategy is the best way to articulate who you are, what you stand for and the benefits of employment at your company. Make your employer brand a priority this financial year.

As a start, have you visited Glassdoor recently to see what your employees are saying about you?

Don’t go it alone

Whether you handle all your recruitment in-house or not, we know the challenges and frustrations that you face. That’s why we offer a suite of trusted products and services which give you the best of both worlds: an efficient, effective recruitment process where you lose the stress but keep full control.

This financial year, don’t go it alone in your recruitment journey. And more importantly, don’t settle for traditional recruitment models that overcharge and underdeliver. Partner with a leading recruitment provider at a flat fee for all your hiring needs. Save time and attract skilled candidates without the hard work, while keeping full control of the process and the outcome.

The start of a new financial year is the perfect time to check if your recruitment efforts are on track and if not, make changes now for the best results and high-quality candidates across the 2017/18 year. If you’d like to discuss how Employment Office can revolutionise the way you recruit, get in touch with us today.

Susanne Mather is the co-founder and Executive Director of Employment Office Group. With over 20 years’ experience in the recruitment industry, Susanne, along with Tudor Marsden-Huggins, leads a dedicated team of specialists who know how to get the best results for clients, every time.