Category: Candidate Experience

Interviewer Skills Training: How to Conduct Interviewing Skills Training for Hiring Managers

Posted on by edyson

Interviewing skills training is crucial, as many hiring managers feel that the success of a well-conducted job interview hinges on the interviewers ability to build a connection with the interviewee. What’s more, for many candidates, the interview is a critical factor when deciding whether to accept a job offer, with 50% of candidates declining job offers after feeling disrespected during the interview process.  

When interviews do not go well, they not only lead to candidates declining offers, but they can also lead to poor hiring decisions, possible compliance issues, and hiring manager burnout. Interviewing candidates is arguably the most important part of the hiring process, so interview training for hiring managers is essential. Hiring managers touch many parts of the recruitment process—often opening new roles, writing job descriptions, posting on job boards, interviewing, and in some cases, making that final call on which candidates get hired. 

With all that’s riding on the hiring manager, they must know how to interview effectively. Interviewing tips for managers can come in handy because the interview process can be stress-inducing regardless of which side of the table you happen to be on. In this article, we provide insights into training hiring managers to be effective, impartial and empathic interviewers. 

 

Securing Hiring Manager Buy-In for Interview Skills Training

recruiter training

Both new and experienced hiring managers can benefit from interview skills training. A veteran hiring manager typically has years of hands-on experience engaging, interviewing, and hiring candidates for a variety of roles. However, even the most seasoned hiring manager may need to brush up on their skills through learning emerging interviewing skills and techniques, like combating bias and improving diversity, how to use structured interviews, and avoiding cliché or out-of-date questions that conflict with the modern hiring experience.

For newer hiring managers, interview training can serve as an on-the-job education and can help accelerate their career through learning the latest and most effective interviewing techniques.

Before introducing a new interviewing skills training program, schedule a meeting with hiring managers to discuss the status of your current interviewing process as well as their thoughts and concerns when it comes to engaging with candidates. You can ask them if they use interview techniques such as structured interviews, panel interviews, and blind interviews to gauge areas of interest and potential training topics.

It may be a good idea to create a list of questions for hiring managers to think about leading up to their training. Questions for your hiring managers may include:

  • Can I talk about the company’s strategy, mission and structure confidently?
  • Can I answer questions about perks and benefits accurately?
  • Do I know what the job description involves before going into an interview?
  • Have I coordinated with my team on the candidate and job details?
  • Have I read candidates’ CVs?
  • Do I know what interview questions I’ll ask?
  • Are my interview questions reviewed by HR for legality?

 

Interviewing Skills Training: Help Hiring Managers to Combat Bias

job interview skills training

Meeting a candidate for the first time may prompt a series of unconscious judgements that cause a hiring manager to make unfounded assumptions based on attributes that are not job-related, such as race, gender, religion, or socioeconomic status. These unconscious biases can result in unequal treatment of candidates. Yale University released a study revealing that hiring managers judge candidates’ socioeconomic status based purely on the first few seconds of their speech. Furthermore, the candidates perceived to be from a higher social class received more lucrative salaries and signing bonuses.

Everything that makes a hiring manager a better interviewer in turn makes them less biased. The best way to combat biases during interviews is to be aware of them. This can’t be achieved overnight—it takes time and effort. A good start would be to help the interviewer standardise their interviews.

Unstructured interviews lacking defined questions where a candidate’s experience and expertise are meant to translate naturally through conversation can be unreliable and produce bias. Structured interviews, where each candidate is asked the same set of defined questions, thereby standardising the interview process, help minimise bias.

This outcome (allowing hiring managers to focus on skills and experience that directly impact the role)  comes from having an interview based on job analysis and a structured, evidence-based assessment framework. Standardising the interview process reduces bias by creating a level playing field for all candidates and ensuring that everyone is asked the same questions in the same way.

Combating bias is not easy, however, by addressing bias you will empower your team to tackle bigger challenges and to make a real commitment to building an inclusive culture.

 

What is a Structured Interview? Teaching Hiring Managers to Understand Structured Interviews

Structured Interview

Conducting structured interviews is an exceptional strategy for screening job candidates and finding the best possible person for a role. So, what is a structured interview? Structured interviews ask a set of questions in a structured format intended to help hiring managers to collect valuable data from each interviewee that can then be compared to the response of other candidates. Your should also include a clearly defined rating process for hiring managers and interviewers to follow when evaluating and scoring candidate answers to questions- asked during an interview.

Structured interviews are more objective and legally defensible than unstructured interviews. Interviewers who use this interview format should learn how to prepare behavioural questions, understand rating scales, and score candidates consistently.

In this section, we provide examples of structured interview questions as well as how to conduct and rate interviews.

 

Role-Related Structured Interview Questions

Role-related questions ask candidates directly about the duties and responsibilities of the role. Including role-specific questions in a structured interview can assist a hiring manager in determining whether or not a candidate possesses the skills and experience necessary to succeed in the role.

Examples of role-related structured interview questions include:

  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of the CRM software you used in your last role?
  • What in your career or educational experience do you believe connects you with this role ?
  • What do you like and dislike about working in nursing?

 

Behavioural Questions and Structured Interviews

Behaviour-related questions in structural interviews ask candidates to provide examples of their professional experiences. Including behaviour-related questions in structured interviews can help hiring managers to find out which experiences the candidate may have excelled in and struggled with in the past. Ask a mix of questions to gain information about each candidate’s professional successes and challenges and the way they interacted with their clients, coworkers, and superiors.

Examples of behaviour-related structured interview questions include in interview skills training:

  • Describe a time when you have had to deal with a difficult colleague?
  • How do you ensure that you know what kind of experience your customers are having in your stores?
  • Can you tell me what you look for in a manager or which management style fits you best?

 

Situational Questions for Structured Interviews

Situation-related questions in a structural interviewing skills training ask candidates to think on their feet and imagine how they would handle varying scenarios working for your organisation. Situation-related questions can determine a candidate’s critical thinking and problem-solving skills. There are a variety of questions that assess how candidates would interact with your clients and employees, how they work with a team, and how they would react to common workplace challenges.

Examples of situation-related structured interview questions include:

  • How would you handle an unhappy customer?
  • How would you pitch our new product line to customers?
  • How would you prioritise multiple deadlines from different stakeholders?

 

What is a Mock Interview? Teaching Interview Skills Training Best Practices Through Role Playing

mock interviews

Mock interviews are simulated or role-playing interview exercises designed to give hiring managers the opportunity to sharpen their interviewing skills through formulating responses in real-time. Mock interviews can help inexperienced hiring managers familiarise themselves with an interview setting and give veterans a chance to practice the latest techniques. For example, hiring managers can practice brief notetaking techniques to avoid being distracted by their notes during actual interviews.

Here are the goals of mock interview training for hiring managers:

  • Identifying the common steps of the interviewing process and how to respond
  • Learning how to thoroughly review a candidate’s CV and prepare for a productive conversation
  • Developing technical, cultural, and behavioural questions to successfully evaluate a candidate’s fit in the role and organisation
  • Determining what they need to do before, during, and after an interview
  • Evaluate information gathered during the interview more successfully
  • Understanding how to interview within the law using acceptable and appropriate questions
  • Reading body language

Much of communication is nonverbal. In an interview setting, hiring managers unable to understand body language may misinterpret what is being communicated during an interview. Mock interviews can help interviewers become more aware of candidates’ nonverbal cues, thus improving their overall interviewing skill set. For example, if a candidate’s body language suggests they are anxious, interviewers may make a more conscious effort to relax the candidate. You can train interviewers to control their body language as well. Even if hiring managers think a candidate is unqualified, they should not let their body language negatively affect the candidate’s experience.

Job Interviewing Skills Training: Compliance Training is Key

One of the best ways to avoid potential legal compliance issues is to ensure that all interview questions are related solely to the role the candidate is interviewing for and are in compliance with the employers hiring laws and practices. To determine if a question is truly role-related, have your hiring managers ask themselves the following questions:

  • What type of information is the candidate likely to provide in response to the question or the comment?
  • Is that information related to the job?
  • Is the question that I am about to ask, or the comment that I am about to make, necessary to make a legitimate assessment of the candidate’s qualifications?
  • Could it appear to the candidate that I was trying to encourage them to reveal information related to the candidate’s inclusion in a legally protected class (based on age, race, disability, national origin, marital status, etc.)?
  • Do I need to know the information that I am about to (or likely to) gather?

What’s more, many countries have laws protecting job candidates from discrimination during the hiring process, so it’s important for hiring managers to understand how discrimination can occur in recruiting, interviewing, and hiring and how to remain complaint with local laws. You can provide guidelines for handling your interview-related responsibilities fairly and legally. Guidelines may include:

  • Guidance on identifying candidate categories protected from employment discrimination
  • Follow a standardised interview process to help ensure a fair and consistent hiring process
  • A list of questions to avoid during interviews that can lead to discrimination claims
  • How to differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate interview behaviour from candidates

 

Skills Training for Interviewers Begins and Ends with Relationship Building

As a talent acquisition leader, investing in interviewing skills training can mean the difference for your organisation’s ability to hire quality staff in today’s candidate-driven market. With a well-run interviewer training program, you can increase the chances of securing the talent your organisation needs for a competitive edge.

It is no longer only about candidate experience, it is about building candidate relationships. Candidates expect their job search and hiring experience to be positive, and the interview is a key component of fulfilling their expectations.

Talking Talent: Reducing Unconscious Bias for an Inclusive Recruitment Process

Posted on by nfuqua

In this episode of our Talking Talent podcast, we hear from Simon Wright, Global Head of Talent Advisory, about tactics to reduce unconscious bias and make your recruitment process more inclusive.

Unconscious bias affects us all. In the two years since the death of George Floyd, public consciousness around the issues of diversity, equality and inclusion has risen throughout the globe. As such, employers can no longer remain silent. 

Not only are investors and shareholders paying greater attention to social challenges, but employees, candidates, and consumers are also pushing businesses to make public commitments regarding diversity and inclusion—and to publish their progress. In today’s job market, where job vacancies are outpacing unemployment, candidates have more choices than ever about where to work—and they’re choosing employers that prioritise DE&I: According to Glassdoor, 76% of candidates said that a diverse workforce was an important factor when evaluating companies and job offers. 

Unconscious bias is one of the key forces holding employers back from making strides in DE&I initiatives, and it’s a complicated issue to tackle. In this article, we’ll walk through the different types of unconscious bias, how they can affect your recruitment process and how to effectively reduce their effect.   

What is Unconscious Bias? 

What is Unconscious Bias?

Unconscious bias—sometimes called implicit bias—is a term that describes the associations we hold outside of our conscious awareness. Everyone has them, and they don’t make you a bad person; they’re an evolutionary adaptation designed to help our brains make decisions.  

Imagine if, every time we made a decision, we had to consciously take into account every piece of information available to us. Unconscious bias develops from our life experiences to help us navigate the world more quickly. However, it can also have negative consequences. And, the fact that it happens unconsciously means it can be difficult to bypass.  

For instance, in action, unconscious bias can look like what happened in the Boston Symphony in 1952. The Symphony was looking to diversify its male-dominated orchestra, so it conducted an experiment with a series of blind auditions. In an effort to remove all chance of bias and allow for a merit-based selection only—a selection that would hopefully increase the number of women in the orchestra—the musicians would be auditioning from behind a screen. To their surprise, the initial audition results still skewed male. Then, they asked the musicians to take off their shoes. The reason? The sound of the women’s heels as they entered the audition unknowingly influenced the adjudicators; once the musicians removed their shoes, almost 50% of the women made it past the first audition. 

This is just one example. There are several different types of unconscious bias that affect our decision-making: 

Confirmation Bias 

Confirmation bias causes us to seek out information that confirms something that we already believe. We hear about this type of bias most often in relation to politics. People are more likely to seek out positive news about the candidate they support, reinforcing their belief that they are supporting the right person. It can also play out in the hiring process. Recruiters and hiring managers can make snap decisions about candidates based on perceived truths. Then, they ask questions to try to justify these biases, rather than evaluate each candidate on the same criteria.  

Affect Heuristics 

Affect heuristics are mental shortcuts we take to make decisions based on our emotional or mental state, rather than taking all of the facts into account. In the recruitment process, this could play out with a recruiter or hiring manager discounting a candidate because of personal feelings that have nothing to do with the role. For example, if you used to have a friend named Pete, who you fell out with, you might still carry a negative bias toward a candidate named Pete. 

Anchor/Expectation Bias 

An anchor or expectation bias happens when we allow ourselves to anchor on to one piece of information to make a decision. This can happen in the hiring process when a hiring manager believes that a new hire needs to be a carbon copy of the person who used to have that role, so they anchor on one aspect of a candidate that is similar to the previous employee and ignore other information. 

Halo Effect 

The halo effect is a bias that causes us to use a general positive impression of someone to influence how we evaluate their specific attributes. For example, if we’re impressed by one fact about a person (like if they went to a prestigious university), that could make us see them in a generally positive light. The halo effect often kicks in when we wish we were more like another person. This plays out in the hiring process when a hiring manager or recruiter focuses heavily on one positive aspect of a candidate’s background and lets that guide their opinion moving forward.  

Horn Effect 

The horn effect is the opposite of the halo effect; it happens when we let one perceived negative aspect of a person influence the way we think about them. For instance, something as simple as not liking a candidate’s outfit or the way they speak can cloud a recruiter’s or hiring manger’s judgement during the recruitment process and be difficult to get past. 

Affinity Bias 

The affinity bias causes us to connect with people who are similar to us. This is different from the halo effect because it happens when we identify a similarity with someone, rather than looking up to them. We like the feeling of affinity because it makes us feel connected and part of a community, and we also want to surround ourselves with people who we feel we have rapport with. In the hiring process, this can lead to teams with little cognitive diversity as recruiters and hiring mangers lean toward candidates similar to themselves.  

Conformity Bias  

In essence, conformity bias is peer pressure. It causes us to rely on the opinions of others when making decisions, rather than making an independent choice based on our own interpretation of the facts. This can kick in when making the hiring decision: If you’re on a panel and you think one candidate is really great, but the rest of the group prefers someone else, you could get swept along by the majority. 

Contrast Effect/Judgment Bias  

The contrast effect happens when we compare two similar things to each other, rather than assessing them independently. During the recruitment process, this can happen when a recruiter or hiring manager compares one résumé or CV to another they viewed before. In doing that, they shift the goal posts; instead of judging a candidate based on their suitability for the role, they make a decision based on what they thought of another candidate. 

Combating Unconscious Bias 

Unconscious Bias

Understanding the different types of unconscious bias is only the first step toward reducing its influence on your organisation. And, while training can raise awareness, it rarely changes behaviour. So, to make a real change, employers should implement a robust diversity and inclusion program that touches every aspect of the hiring process. Following are some proven steps you can take to reduce bias.  

1. Clearly Outline the Role 

Taking time to really understand what the role requires is essential for weeding out bias in the recruitment process. Specifically, by identifying eight to 10 objective criteria that are predictive of role success, you’ll decrease the likelihood that decisions are made using unconscious bias. It’s important to evaluate what it takes to be successful in the role. Is there anything that could stop a candidate from applying? Does the role need to be performed in person or can it be done remotely? Are the criteria you’re using accurate predictors of success? Are you relying on the vague concept of “cultural fit” that breeds affinity bias? 

As an example, some of the big four accounting firms have reduced their reliance on academic achievement for their early careers and campus hiring programs because they know it’s not an accurate predictor of future success in the role. Instead, they’re now focusing on potential by using other measures that they’ve tracked over time to show their effect on performance. 

2. Build an Inclusive Job Description 

Once you’ve outlined your role internally, focus on your external job description. Is there anything that could discourage a strong candidate from applying? In particular, remove gendered language from your job descriptions and check the pronouns you’re using. Additionally, avoid words like “expert,” “superior” or “rockstar” that turn off female candidates. A variety of online tools can help highlight and remove biased language. 

Next, ensure that the requirements that you list for the role only cover what is absolutely necessary. Women are less likely than men to apply to a role if they don’t feel that they meet all of the requirements, whereas men are more likely to apply if they only meet a portion of them.  

Finally, when creating a job description, ask multiple people from different backgrounds to review the job description—and take their feedback into account.  

3. Update Your Screening Process 

The next area to consider is your selection process. Are you relying too much on résumés and CVs? Research shows that CVs are not only fraught with bias, but that they’re also bad predictors of success. That’s because there are many factors on a CV that can trigger unconscious biases, like the person’s name (gender or ethnicity), the school they went to (geography or economic class) or the year they graduated (age).  

For example, according to the National Centre for Social Research, people with white-sounding names are nearly twice as likely to get callbacks for jobs than people with ethnic-sounding names. In their study, job applicants with white-sounding names were a significant 74% more likely to be invited to a job interview compared to applicants with an ethnic/minority-sounding name. 

4. Rethink Your Interviews 

Recruiters and hiring managers often rely heavily on interviews, which can be rife with unconscious bias. On top of that, interviews have a predictive power of 56%, according to Don Moore, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. That means that, if you’re making your decision based on an interview, you’ll make the wrong decision nearly half of the time.  

Plus, most interviews are conducted one-on-one or with small groups, where bias can flourish. However, mixed panels with diverse interviewers and objective criteria used to assess each candidate can lower the risk of bias when compared to traditional interview settings.  

Meanwhile, there can be an increased risk for bias in the new world of virtual interviews, as well. That’s because, when interviewers can see the inside of a person’s home, they can make unfair assumptions. So, if you use video interviews, ask candidates to blur their backgrounds. 

It’s also important to standardise your interview process so that all candidates are evaluated on the same criteria. This helps you avoid the contrast effect where you only compare candidates to each other, rather than against an objective set of criteria. And, to further reduce the chance of bias, reduce the power of the interview. Can you add other assessment techniques, instead, like work simulation tools or sample tests? 

5. Formalise Your Decision Process 

The final piece of the recruitment process is making a hiring decision. Don’t just get together at the end of the interview and say, “You know, I think John was really great,” or “There was just something I really liked about Kathryn.” Conformity bias can play a strong role in these types of discussions.  

Instead, have your panel step away individually, reflect on each candidate and score them based on your objective criteria. Then, you can review those scores as a group and discuss what you learned about the candidates during the recruitment process.  

Defining Success 

Because unconscious bias is so deeply embedded in all of us, it takes the efforts of everyone to reduce it. However, reducing bias in your recruitment process is a long-term commitment and not something that can happen in three or six months—or even a year. Rather, it involves backing from across the organisation and all the way up to the leadership team. It also requires hiring managers to really engage with the process and be willing to give up making “gut decisions.” Finally, it also calls for a clear picture of where you want to go and how you’re going to monitor, measure and communicate success.  

Learn more about how to evaluate your program and progress in our ebook, “Progress in Action: Moving Toward a Globally Diverse and Inclusive Workplace.” 

High-Volume Hiring in the Contact Centre: 3 Challenges and How to Tackle Them

Posted on by akessler

By Andrew Weston, RPO Solution Director, PeopleScout EMEA

In our world of e-commerce and online banking, consumers want slick digital experiences. But they still want the human touch when they run into a problem. Despite the growth of digital channels, excellent customer service is still a must-have in a business landscape where companies compete on customer experience. High-volume hiring in the contact centre has never been more important or more challenging.

Customer queries are more complex and high-value, and contact centre agents are now expected to not only answer calls, but interact with customers through chats, emails and social media. Contact centres need highly-skilled talent who are comfortable working in a myriad of technology platforms. Customer service representatives (CSRs) must also exhibit strong soft skills like listening and empathy—especially as consumers are experiencing more financial hardships and mental health struggles post-pandemic.

Indeed, 84% of contact centre leaders—whether part of a BPO or an internal contact centre—believe the pandemic permanently elevated the importance of the contact centre for their business. But, it’s hard to deliver against your service levels when you’re struggling to hire or when you’re losing staff amidst the Great Resignation. Since 2019, the number of vacancies has increased, while the number of applicants per opening has dropped by 50%.

Chart showing reduction in applicants for high-volume hiring for the contact centre
(Source: Indeed)

So, how can a contact centre director and talent acquisition leader team up to tackle today’s tough landscape? Here are three top recruitment challenges in the contact centre and tips for overcoming them.

1. Use Your Employer Brand to Attract the Right Kind of Talent

ContactBabel’s UK Contact Centre Decision Maker’s Guide states that contact centre attrition reached 23% in 2022, with 1 in 6 operations experiencing annual attrition of over 30%. This results in UK contact centres making over 212,000 hires annually. With turnover like this, how to make high-volume hiring more effective is always on the minds of contact centre directors.

As consumer behaviour has changed, a different set of skills is needed in customer service. Contact centre agents need to exercise problem solving and analytical skills while also displaying empathy to customers who may be upset or emotional. Agents who lack these skills are more likely to struggle to resolve customer issues and to suffer from increased stress levels.

By honing your employer value proposition and attraction messaging, you can stand out amongst your competition but also zero in the characteristics you need for your contact centre. By shifting your mindset from focusing on getting the most applications, or even those with customer service experience, to getting applications with the right profile, you can reduce attrition by increase the likelihood of your new hires being successful.

Case Study: Finding Candidates with Problem Solving Skills

We helped Direct Line, a British insurance provider, improve their recruitment outcomes in the contact centre through employer branding and recruitment marketing. We found their ideal candidate profile was someone with strong analytical skills and who could proactively problem solve—rather than those with past experience in customer service.

We then expanded our search efforts, looking for candidates who would have honed these skills in non-customer service roles who would be interested in making a career change. Not only did this open the doors for Direct Line to access a new pool of talent, but it also helped to increase the quality of their hires and reduce attrition.

2. Rethink Your Assessment Centre to Reduce Drop-Off Rate

With growing complexity in customer service, organisations need contact centre agents with strong listening skills and written communication skills (for chat, email and social media enquiries) as well as the ability to self-manage and multitask. Leveraging candidate assessment tools to find candidates with the right combination of skills and behaviours is imperative to the success of your contact centre.

Chart of most valued characteristics for high-volume hiring for the contact centre
(Source: ContactBabel)

Case Study: Moving the Assessment Stage Forward

One of our longest standing clients, tasked us with high-volume recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) for their financial services customer contact centres. The bank needed to recruit more staff to meet their service levels and create a great experience for their customers. We designed the customer contact recruitment process from scratch, including a recruitment marketing campaign.

As part of this new process, we advised the bank to introduce an online test immediately after the candidate applied using an automated email. This caught them while the application was still front of mind and also ensured that only best-fit candidates progressed. This meant that hiring managers were committing their time to top talent and helped to reduce the overall time to hire. As a result of identifying high quality candidates sooner, we were able to reduce the attrition rate to just 11%, well below the industry average.

More Assessment Centre Tips to Reduce Drop-Off

Here are some more assessment centre tips:

  • Try introducing assessment tasks earlier in the process or combining assessment stages. This helps increase hiring speed and keep candidates engaged.
  • Rather than traditional multiple-choice tests, try a role play scenario or an interactive experience that gives the candidates a real-life feel of what their day-to-day job will look like. The benefits are two-fold—you get a better idea of how candidates will perform in the role, and they get a better idea of what to expect before they accept the offer.
  • Ensure candidates are prepared for the assessment centre by offering webinars, instruction videos and even practices tests. This helps to eliminate nervousness and boost confidence amongst candidates—reducing candidate drop-off before the assessment centre phase.

Learn more about our whole-person model for assessments and we leverage it for evaluating customer service reps for the contact and other high-volume hiring situations.

3. Boost Your Communications to Eliminate Ghosting

Newly hired customer service reps are increasingly ‘ghosting’ their call centre jobs—not showing up for day one with no reason given and often no communication from the candidate at all. According to an Indeed survey on ghosting in the workplace, 22% of candidates say they have accepted a job offer but didn’t show up for the first day of work.

Following the tips above on finding the ideal candidate profile and assessing for the right skills to start with, will help reduce ghosting on day one. In addition, you can also work to speed up the recruitment process and improve communications to keep candidates engaged after offer acceptance.

Speeding Up the Recruitment Process

With so many contact centres vying for customer service talent, employer response time is crucial as you want to beat the by being the first to move the candidate through the recruitment process. About a quarter of candidates state the reason for their ghosting was because the hiring process was too long or too slow. So, take a look at your recruitment process. Are there any steps you could eliminate or combine? Are there ways you could reduce the time between steps?

If it’s feasible for your organisation, you might consider moving to same-day offers, even if they’re contingent upon reference verification, background checks or drug testing. Also, moving the start date up will reduce the likelihood of a competing offer turning your candidate’s head. Waiting for your next training class could be risky, so think about running smaller training classes more frequently to accelerate hiring.

Staying Connected with Regular Communication

Communication is also a key part of combatting ghosting during the crucial period offer and onboarding. Staying in touch with candidates is imperative to keep them interested. If you ghost your brand-new hire by forgetting to check in, they’re more likely to ghost you in turn. The same Indeed study found that 77% of jobseekers saying they’ve been ghosted by an employer.

Assessing the touchpoints between your organisation and the offer holder is an important way for employers to ensure they keep the lines of communication open and increase engagement with candidates. Are you using your CRM to the fullest? Investing in creating content that showcases your employer value proposition (EVP) and sending it out regularly to your candidates via engaging emails will ensure they are reminded regularly of the value you offer—whether through benefits, flexibility, growth opportunities, diversity and inclusion initiatives and more.

Personal touchpoints are another way to stay connected. Check-in emails from the recruiter or even messages of congratulations from the hiring manager will help candidates feel valued and special. You might consider asking existing employees to act as an ambassador and share some onboarding materials with more information about your organisation, your culture and values or your employee resource groups (ERGs) so they start feeling like a part of the team.

These small gestures can help your candidate feel connected to the organisation before they start—and could end up being what keeps them from changing their mind when they receive a competing offer.

RPO for the Contact Centre

Facing a recruitment landscape in which you need high-volume hiring to support your contact centre operations? Check out our latest webinar in conjunction with Personnel Today, featuring CCMA, in which we discussed how to maintain speed and agility in high-volume hiring whilst keeping the quality of hire. Watch it on-demand!

WEBINAR ON-Demand:
Hire quality vs speed: Finding the perfect balance

Watch Now

Insights From the Volume Hiring Market: Hire Quality vs Speed

Posted on by cspivack

We all know it’s a candidate’s market. A lack of applications and number of suitable candidates, ghosting, dropouts, and a high level of attrition are all making hiring more difficult than ever. In 2020/21, the customer services market saw a record number of vacancies. However, the number of active candidates per vacancy reduced by half. This has further highlighted the need for organisations to use innovative solutions to attract talent.

A recent poll by PeopleScout asked participants what their biggest hiring challenges were in the current market:

  • 50% of candidates answered that they faced the most problems getting good quality candidates to apply
  • 27% said that holding onto candidates throughout the hiring process was their second biggest challenge

In addition, time-to-hire is also an issue that has been at the forefront for our clients. So, the question becomes, how do we accelerate the hiring process without jeopardising quality?

In the last 12 months, PeopleScout have helped organisations such as Virgin Media, the AA and Heathrow to make 4,000 new hires, ranging from graduates and apprentices through to customer service agents.

Our hiring success is a result of working in partnership with our clients, understanding their employer value proposition (EVP) and activating their employer brand. We bring to the partnership expert planners, designers, and implementation specialists who provide innovative strategies to recruit the right quality and volume of talent in the shortest timeframes.

We recently hosted a panel for our Hire Speed vs Quality webinar including speakers from PeopleScout, Virgin Media O2, easyJet, Shakespeare Martineau and the Call Centre Management Association. These experts discussed the challenging market situation and how innovation can provide solutions. The panel agreed that, taking greater precedence than ever before, is the need for more creative solutions to making the process smoother and quicker. This in turn ensures that the company’s investment in the candidate is not wasted.

A clear and informative job profile that brings the role to life can be the first step to finding the right candidate.

Once they apply, setting clear expectations and providing interventions to keep candidates informed between recruitment stages keeps them engaged. A good EVP that brings company culture to life also helps the candidate understand early on whether they want to remain part of the recruitment process or not.

Essential tools that are gaining traction include day-in-the-life videos, virtual office tours and segmented and enhanced referral schemes. Watch the full webinar Hire Quality vs Speed and gain an edge in today’s challenging hiring market.

Early Careers Recruitment: Hiring for True Potential

Posted on by akessler

By Joe Mongon, Head of Recruitment Delivery

School’s out for the summer, but in the world of our RPO partnerships this is the time of year where we focus on early careers recruitment, in anticipation of entering apprentice, undergraduate and graduate markets in the autumn. Right now, we’re talking with clients both established and prospective about their needs in this area and, as ever, the focus on using EC programs to correct or balance diversity of workforce and (future) leadership remains a priority.

Most organisations will not necessarily view themselves as having a “diversity crisis” of the kind described in a recent article highlighting research into consulting and finance hiring in the City of London. However, many will benefit from accepting its key takeaway that, “employers are more likely to hire black candidates if they rely on anonymised, ‘skills-based’ assessments in the hiring process”.

In my experience, employers have long moved on from the most “traditional methods”. It’s certainly been a decade or more since I’ve heard of an early careers program requiring a cover letter or making space on an application form for candidates to list all the University societies of which they were definitely the President.

But my experience is not universal. I’m not a graduate looking to start my career, and I’m lucky enough to work in a recruitment business with an award-winning assessment consultancy arm, partnering with clients who take hiring for true potential seriously. That doesn’t mean there’s not more work for us to do within these partnerships—even for those who’ve taken positive steps in this area. Each year brings a new implementation cycle, and new opportunities to improve. 

Here are some solutions we’ve developed, launched or refined in our 2022-23 early careers RPO partnerships:

Assessing for Skills & Strengths in Early Careers Recruitment

Over time, many employers have reduced focus on abilities in favour of strengths- or behaviour-based testing, which is considered more conducive to measuring potential. Organisationally we broadly agree, but, where appropriate, we continue to recommend reasoning tests covering verbal, numerical and cognitive ability.  

The key here is not to use them in isolation as a blunt tool. Benchmark or cut off scores should be set only within the parameters of adverse impact analysis using anonymised candidate diversity data, and ability tests should be followed up with strengths or behavioural assessments. The link RPO expertise can create between recruitment technology, recruiters, and business psychologists is critical in this space.

Recruiting for Role Fit to Enhance Diversity

Predicting workplace performance and potential through behavioural assessment is often seen by early careers talent acquisition leaders as a smarter approach to hiring. Experiential tests, backed by data and research, producing personal interview guides for final stage assessment often leads to better outcomes and maintains diversity in the process. 

This approach highlights candidate suitability against role fit over culture fit, the latter being a potential barrier to creating a more diverse workforce (the concept of aligning new recruits with a prevailing culture or mindset being an obvious denial of the need for organisational change).

Focusing on Culture Add Rather than Culture Fit

I am not yet aware of any early careers programs where assessment is now 100% anonymised. Whether online via video, as part of a wider virtual assessment experience, or in a traditional face-to-face meeting, an interview is going to happen before a hire is made. Removing anonymity can introduce bias, and we promote two key mitigations.

Firstly, design and deliver structured interviews which are competency-based and/or focused on culture add (what the candidate can contribute to your organisation’s culture) over culture fit. Our teams often partner with hiring managers on best practice in this area, even facilitating or assessing directly where needed. This helps maintain consistency and relevance, avoiding questions on personal interests or previous experience—instead asking specific questions on working styles and preferences. 

Secondly, put candidate experience first and learn from feedback to provide support and guidance, setting the stage for success. By hearing the candidates’ voice, and measuring their experience across, we’ve been able to improve outcomes for employers.

We’re looking forward to seeing how these solutions progress, and what improvements they bring as we take early careers RPO from now to next, supporting the diverse workforces of the future—identifying and unlocking true potential wherever it exists.

Learn more assessment best practices in our ebook, Candidate Assessment: Bringing in Better with Passion, Purpose and Mindset.

How Project-Based RPO Can Solve Your Toughest Talent Challenges 

Posted on by nfuqua

More than two years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, employers are still dealing with ripple effects influencing their ability to hire qualified workers. Organisations are still rebuilding their workforces and turnover is high. Talent acquisition teams are spread thin—spending even more time than usual sourcing passive candidates and working with candidates who have multiple job opportunities.  

On top of that, it’s difficult to hire recruiters in the current market. According to LinkedIn, the number of open job postings for recruiters has increased nearly seven times year-over-year. Additionally, uncertainty continues. According to a survey by PwC, CEO optimism is down 20% compared to last year—and this survey was taken before geopolitical conflict and high inflation began to affect consumers and employers.  

These factors have left many employers looking for short-term talent acquisition support that can be set up quickly to respond to changes in the market. Rather than a full recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) solution, many employers are turning to project-based RPO, sometimes called Recruiter On-Demand. In this article, we’ll walk through the different ways a project-RPO partnership can be deployed to address specific challenges within talent acquisition programs.  

What is Project RPO? 

labor on demand

Project-based RPO represents a talent solution designed to meet the demands that internal resources may be unable to accommodate. Specifically, project-based solutions provide focused support for organisations in all industries during challenging periods of the recruitment cycle, such as peak hiring, hard-to-fill positions, compressed timeframes and more.  

Project RPO is a great option for organisations that don’t need or want a full RPO engagement, but still feel that they could benefit from some extra talent acquisition expertise and a small number of extra recruiters (or even just one). 

While these types of programs typically begin with a defined timeline and scope, they also have the ability to expand, extend and evolve as needs arise. There are three major use cases for project-based RPO engagements; below, we’ll cover what they are, how they work and how they fit together. 

Use Case: Top-of-Funnel Sourcing 

The first Project RPO model is a top-of-funnel sourcing solution. This model is exactly what it sounds like: Your partner works to fill the top of your recruitment funnel with more candidates. From there, your own internal team takes over reviewing their applications, interviewing candidates and making all of the hiring decisions. 

When Should You Use it? 

This type of solution usually appeals to employers for a few reasons, but the overarching theme is that internal talent acquisition teams don’t have enough time or bandwidth to source enough qualified candidates for open roles. This could be due to a hiring surge, ramp up or expansion. We also see this challenge for employers that have great consumer brands: They often get a lot of applicants, but can struggle to source candidates for specialised roles that aren’t what their brand is known for. This is common when hiring for IT or technology roles at companies that are not in the tech space.  

Likewise, as many organisations work to meet their diversity and inclusion goals, talent leaders can also struggle to find enough candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. The challenge can be further amplified when employers have locations spread across dozens, if not hundreds, of communities. That’s because recruiters and sourcers have to understand all the demographics and nuances of disparate locales.  

How Does it Work? 

At PeopleScout, a top-of-funnel sourcing engagement proved successful for one of our clients, a national retail sporting goods company. The team at this company was experiencing two challenges: They needed to fill a few specialised IT roles and they were struggling to source candidates from underrepresented backgrounds at their different locations. They also needed many candidates for their manager and assistant manager roles.  

In this situation, the retailer needed five sourcers: one person supporting their hard-to-fill IT roles, and the other four working to source for their high-volume area of retail and distribution roles. They had also identified several Midwestern states where they wanted to focus their diversity efforts and bring in more candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. To help them reach their goals, we created a detailed sourcing strategy. We also worked with local chambers of commerce and community-based organisations, in addition to leveraging social media platforms. By the end, the sporting goods retailer was able to meet its hiring and diversity goals, and the benefits even continued for weeks after the engagement ended.    

Use Case: Source/Screen/Present

Meanwhile, for employers that need slightly more support, there’s the next level of project-based RPO support: source/screen/present. This type of engagement starts out the same as a top-of-funnel sourcing partnership; recruiters and sourcers support an internal talent acquisition team for a period of time, sourcing candidates to apply to open roles. However, rather than handing those lists of candidates off to internal teams, the recruiters take the next step of prescreening the candidates to ensure that they are both qualified and interested in the role before presenting prequalified candidates to hiring managers.  

When Should You Use It? 

We’ve seen a significant increase in the number of employers looking for this type of support. By taking on the front end of the recruitment process, these recruiters and sourcers give more time back to internal teams. This means that they have more time to interview candidates, put together competitive job offers and onboard new hires. 

This solution can be helpful for employers for a number of reasons, but the most common is that they need to hire for a large number of roles at the same time. This could be because they’re in expansion mode or rebuilding their team after the challenges of the last few years. Or, maybe they have a seasonal hiring surge as they gear up for a busy season, and it doesn’t make sense to have a large internal team when they only need the extra help for a few weeks or months at a time. We see this type of need frequently with retail clients gearing up for the holidays; educational organisations adding staff for the school year; and healthcare companies preparing for open enrolment.   

We also see a need for this solution when employers have a lot of branches or locations spread across a large geographic area—especially if hiring decisions are made at the local level and not at the corporate office. Similarly, we often see that local, branch-level teams don’t have the manpower to source and screen large numbers of applicants.  

How Does it Work? 

In practice, this type of solution can have a major influence. For instance, we have a client that provides early childhood education for children six months to 12 years of age; at one point, they had more than 900 openings across the country. Simultaneously, they were dealing with the Great Rehire, classrooms were reopening and they were working on an acquisition. Their final hiring decisions were also made by the school at a local level. Clearly, this was more than the small internal team could manage.  

When we partnered with this organisation, our engagement started with two recruiters on a 16-week project. Those recruiters conducted the sourcing and prescreening of a minimum of 25 candidates per recruiter per week. Then, they sent prequalified candidates to the assigned school, where the hiring managers conducted in-person interviews, job offers and onboarding.   

Now, 10 months later, the project is still going strong. Because of the success of the initial team, the PeopleScout team has grown to six recruiters and, so far, they’ve phone screened nearly 3,000 candidates and submitted nearly 2,000.    

Use Case: Full-Cycle On-Demand Recruitment

Full-cycle project RPO partnerships are the most involved and most closely resemble traditional RPO partnerships. Think of them as “RPO light.” 

In a full-cycle partnership, recruiters support an employer’s internal team for the entire process—from intake to offer. There’s also even more space for a consultative partnership as the support extends throughout the entire process—not just bits and pieces. This means that there’s a greater opportunity to learn from the experiences and best practices that your partner has gleaned from years of working with employers across industries in all types of talent markets. Yet, despite the increased support, these types of full-cycle partnerships still retain all of the benefits—including the billing structure, shorter defined timeline to secure on-demand labour and more. 

When Should You Use It? 

This type of partnership typically works well for employers that are struggling to keep up with their hiring load. This could be due to attrition or a hiring surge and can cover every part of the process—from applicant management to interview scheduling to offer. 

We also see it work well for employers that want the best practices and experience of an RPO provider, but don’t have the need for a traditional, large, long-term engagement. In this case, these often start out as short-term projects, but end up being long-term partnerships.   

How Does it Work? 

At PeopleScout, we currently support a client that hires licensed clinical social workers. Because they provide virtual therapy and counselling sessions, their internal team was struggling to keep up with the increased demand caused by the pandemic. 

Once again, this Recruiter On-Demand project started small, with a 13-week planned engagement with two recruiters who handled everything form sourcing candidates to initial screenings and setting up interviews. The project also involved sourcing candidates from across the entire U.S. Finally, our team also handled offer letter execution and management.   

Now, 19 months later, the recruiting team has grown to 14, and we’ve hired more than 1,000 licensed social workers. We’ve also extended our services to support the client’s hiring needs in their call centre and IT department.  

A Growing Partnership to Provide Labour with On-Demand Recruitment

Project-based RPO engagements have built-in flexibility, which makes it easy for them to shift in scope. In this way, a partnership can start out focusing solely on top-of-funnel sourcing and then later expand when needs change to cover more of the hiring process. A project RPO partnership can even migrate to a traditional RPO partnership.  

Challenge Accepted: Tactics & Strategies for Hiring in a Candidate’s Job Market

Posted on by nfuqua

The job market and the world of work have changed drastically in the last few years, leaving employers to deal with the new challenges. For example, in the U.S., there are currently more than 11 million job openings, and year-over-year wage growth was at 5.2% in May. On top of that, the Great Resignation has record numbers of workers leaving their jobs: In the last six months in the U.S., more than 4 million people left their jobs each month. And, it’s spreading across the globe; CNN reports that resignations have also jumped in countries like the United Kingdom, Australia and France. 

But, employers are dealing with more than just a tight talent market, increased turnover and rising wages; the world of work has changed permanently—and so have candidate expectations. For instance, nearly two-thirds of the workforce wants some form of remote work option and nearly one-third wants hybrid work. As such, employers can’t simply plan to return to the pre-pandemic ways of doing business; instead, they must adapt. 

More precisely, to succeed in this job market, you need to both hire the best talent and retain the workers you already have—and that requires multifaceted solutions that address the specific issues within your organisation. In this article, we’ll cover the potential sources of your talent challenges, some signs that they may be negatively affecting your organisation and strategies you can use to get ahead.  

Is Your Employer Brand on Life Support? 

Throughout the pandemic and initial recovery, many organisations didn’t have the resources to invest in their employer brands. Unfortunately, if this was the case for your organisation, it may be affecting your ability to recruit top talent. That’s because, if your employer brand is weak, qualified candidates won’t apply because they simply have other options.  

So, how can you tell if your employer brand is holding your organisation back? Watch for these warning signs: 

why is there a labor shortage 2022

Solution: Rebuild Your Employer Brand 

If any of these signs look familiar, it’s time to focus on your employer brand. Luckily, there are a few things you can do. The first is to build out a strong employer value proposition (EVP) as the foundation of an employer branding campaign.  

At PeopleScout, we define your EVP as the essence of your uniqueness as an employer, as well as the give and get between you and your employees. In many ways, your EVP is the foundation of your employer brand—the perception and lived experiences of what it’s like to work for your organisation.  

It’s important to note that building a strong EVP to drive your employer brand requires research into the short- and long-term goals of your organisation; the reality of what it’s like to work for you right now; and the outside perception of your organisation. That information is distilled into an EVP that’s unique, aspirational, authentic and dynamic. From there, you can communicate your message through an employer branding campaign via your careers site, social media campaigns, hiring events and more.  

At PeopleScout, we supported work on the employer brand at Vodafone, a telecommunications company in the UK. In this case, consumers knew the brand well as a mobile phone retailer, but didn’t see it as a multifaceted tech innovator. So, to help Vodafone hire more young workers, we worked to create an employer brand campaign that captured the spirit of change and possibility that’s part of their EVP. At the end of the project, PeopleScout had generated more than 16,000 applications and increased the number of female candidates by 23%. 

Does Your Candidate Experience Leave Much to be Desired? 

If your employer brand is in good shape, but you’re still struggling to hire qualified candidates, the next area to evaluate is your candidate experience. Candidate experience has always been important, but it’s even more critical in today’s job market. Nowadays, people have plenty of other options, so they won’t take the time to complete a long application or wait weeks for a call back.  

How can you tell if your candidate experience is the cause of your hiring woes? Look for these signs: 

Candidates accept other offers while in your recruitment process.  You have a lot of interviews, but make few hires.  Your process is slow and requires multiple steps for candidates. Candidates ghost before starting

Solution: Update Your Talent Tech Stack 

The right technology can have a significant influence on your candidate experience. Candidates want the recruitment experience to be fast and easy and allow them to feel in control. For this reason, evaluate every step of the candidate journey to identify where you can make improvements with technology. 

Your first step is to look at your application. Have you tried filling out your own application recently? How long does it take to complete? Is it simple or does it feel drawn out and tedious? Can you complete the application on a mobile device? If the process takes a long time or requires a desktop computer, it’s time to update your application.  

Then, look for other points in the process where you might make things easier for candidates. Do candidates have to wait weeks to schedule a screening or interview? If so, consider adding a self-scheduling interview tool or virtual interview solution, like text interviews or on-demand interviews. Furthermore, adding something as simple as a status bar that shows candidates where they are in the process can help them stay engaged. 

At PeopleScout, we work with a large retailer that had a strong consumer brand, but still struggled to recruit candidates. Their application required a computer and took more than 30 minutes to fill out. As an alternative, we developed a mobile-first application with just 11 questions that took less than eight minutes to complete. Now, half the candidates apply on mobile devices and the application conversion rate rose to 85%. For comparison, employers using a traditional application have an average applicant conversion rate of just 35%. 

Are Your Offers Competitive Enough in the Job Market? 

Salary and benefits are the elephants in the room in any discussion about hiring challenges. Wages are rising significantly. While the average year-over-year salary growth in the U.S. is at 5.2%, some industries are experiencing even steeper wage growth. For example, in the leisure and hospitality sector, wages are up more than 11% in the last year. In fact, the World Economic Forum reports that wages are rising in every region of the world. Therefore, in the current job market, your offer needs to be competitive.  

Here are some signs that your offers may not be competitive enough: 

Candidates make it through the process, but turn down offers.  Candidates cite salary expectations significantly higher than your budget.  Employees who leave frequently cite increased pay. 

Solution: Adjust Your Compensation to Current Job Market Rates 

If you’re experiencing any of these warning signs, evaluate your compensation against the market and adjust where necessary. Due to remote work, the job market has changed. Now, you’re not just competing against employers in your area for talent; you’re competing for talent across the country and, in some cases, the entire world. 

To that end, an RPO or MSP provider can help advise you on market rates and what types of adjustments are needed to make your offers more competitive. Plus, increasing your wages could even save you money in the long run.  

This happened for one PeopleScout client, a major rural healthcare system. Hit hard by the ongoing nursing shortage, the healthcare organisation was relying on expensive travel nurses and struggling to bring in enough candidates. PeopleScout advised the provider to implement a $10,000 hiring bonus. This resulted in a cost savings as the client was able to reduce its nursing recruitment spend by 77%, totalling more than $4 million. The client was also able to reduce its use of travelling nurses by 68% and experienced its lowest-ever nursing vacancy rate—just 1.3%. 

Does Your Company Culture Send People Running? 

Perhaps the best way to avoid staffing shortages is to ensure that you don’t have to backfill large numbers of roles due to turnover. The Great Resignation is in full swing, but employers shouldn’t just throw their hands in the air as employees leave for new jobs.  

The good news is that employee turnover isn’t just about money. Talent leaders are finding that a major driving factor is employee disengagement. Throughout the last few years, many employees have experienced negative effects on their mental health, causing burnout and driving a reevaluation of work/life balance. Conversely, company culture can play a huge role in keeping employees happy, healthy and engaged. 

Is your company culture a problem? Watch for these warning signs:  

job market

Solution: Determine What Employees Want in the Job Market & Meet Their Needs 

To improve your company culture, you must first determine what employees feel they’re lacking from your organization. You can gather this information in two ways—and both are valuable. First, you should be conducting exit interviews with employees who have resigned. Try to get an idea of why they decided to take a new role. Is it simply increased pay? Did they feel they lacked a clear career path at your organisation? Did they not feel appreciated by managers and colleagues?  

Next, try to identify problems before they drive employees to leave. You can accomplish this through anonymous pulse surveys; there are a number of tools you can use to track employee engagement and look for areas of improvement. Do employees want more opportunities for training? Do they want to feel as though they’re part of something bigger? Do they feel as though company leadership is not addressing their concerns? 

Then, once you determine the biggest pain points for employees, make targeted improvements to your company culture. You can demonstrate appreciation for your workers in tangible ways: Communicate actively and often. Define paths for advancement and look at learning and development programs. Offer more flexibility. Provide training for managers. Not only will these kinds of investments keep tenured employees from leaving, but they can also improve your employer brand and make your employment offers more competitive.  

There’s no doubt that the current talent market is difficult for employers, but the sources of the struggle are multifaceted and complex. There isn’t an easy, one-size-fits-all solution. Employers need to evaluate both the candidate and employee experience and alter their processes where inadequacies reveal themselves. You can’t keep waiting for “things to return to normal.” We’re in the new normal, and we have to adapt. To learn more, check out our ebook, “Employer Brand: Helping the Right Talent Choose You.” 

Ghost Hunting: How to Keep Candidate Engagement Alive After Offer Acceptance

Posted on by jpatel

Candidate engagement after extending a job offer is now more important than ever, as employers across most regions are seeing a dramatic increase in the number of new hires who are ghosting on their first day: Data from Robert Half shows that 28% of professionals have backed out of a job offer after initially accepting it, thereby costing employers time and money on a job offer ghosted. 

In today’s candidate-driven market—and with the major influence that the pandemic had on the way people view work and personal life—it’s no surprise that candidates are receiving multiple job offers and thinking critically about what they truly want in an employer.  

Top 3 Reasons Candidates Backed Out of an Offer They’ve Already Accepted

Job offer
Source: Robert Half

With candidates in the driver’s seat, employers need to do everything they can to keep new hires from taking an early exit. So, in this article, we offer actionable strategies for your organisation to do just that. 

Why Do Candidates Ghost?

With record numbers of job openings, job-seekers are more empowered than ever to be picky about the company they choose to work for. This means that candidates are likely interviewing with multiple companies at the same time—and they may not disclose it.  

At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic was a catalyst for an immense digital transformation of the recruiting process, with everything from phone screens and interviews to offers and onboarding being conducted completely online. Of course, while this has made it easier and faster to apply to jobs (with “easy apply” options and text interviews the norm), it has also informalised the process and made it feel less personal than a face-to-face hiring journey.  

As a result, employers who rely solely on these technologies without establishing a human touch might struggle to build a more personal connection with candidates. Furthermore, because the majority of the hiring process now takes place online from behind a screen, it can be difficult for recruiters and candidates to build the same rapport that they would have when communicating in person; when you remove the investment that comes from traveling to meet someone in person and replace it with a simple click, the entire process can start to feel more transactional and less human. 

All of this can lead to poor communication overall, leaving candidates feeling like they might not need to provide any formal closure. According to Indeed data, here are some of the consequences of ineffective communication with the recruiter or hiring manager:

Candidate engagement

And, not only is ghosting happening, but it also appears to be a rapidly growing trend: According to a 2021 survey from Indeed, 28% of job-seekers have ghosted an employer—a 10% increase from 2019 data—and 57% of employers believe it’s more common than ever before. 

It’s important to note that the same Indeed survey found that ghosting in the workplace is a two-way street, with 77% of job-seekers saying they’ve been ghosted by an employer. So, while ghosting has become a normalised part of the hiring process (with employers starting the trend and candidates catching on), there are some actionable steps that employers can take to avoid ghosting on both ends and help combat this rising trend.

Strategies to Keep Candidates Engaged After Job Offer Acceptance 

In addition to the increasing likelihood that candidates will renege on an offer, employers should also keep in mind the various notice period requirements in countries around the world, which could be anywhere from two weeks to six months, in some places. Clearly, half a year is an incredibly long time to keep someone engaged and excited about your business, especially when that candidate is exploring other offers and evaluating the benefits of each. So, how can you do it? Consider the following: 

Focus on Employer Brand 

It should come as no surprise that keeping candidates engaged after they accept an offer starts with the work that’s done prior to them even applying; maintaining a powerful employer brand is key to keeping candidates with you throughout the entire hiring process. More precisely, when a candidate receives a competing offer or a compelling counteroffer from their current employer, is what your company offers going to be enough to keep them from changing their mind?  

To that end, it’s important that your organisation presents itself—on social media, employer review sites and your careers site—in a positive light. You’ll want the candidate to be reminded of the value you offer—whether that’s in the form of benefits; flexibility; growth opportunities; diversity and inclusion initiatives; or otherwise—everywhere they look. The mental picture a candidate keeps of you in the back of their mind (or when someone mentions your company’s name) is make or break when it comes to them following through on an offer acceptance and showing up for day one. 

Make Open Communication Standard 

Lack of communication is one of the top reasons candidates ghost after accepting an offer, so establishing strong, open lines of communication from the start can make a huge difference in how the hiring process plays out. For example, encourage recruiters and hiring managers to communicate with candidates frequently by keeping them informed of their application status, providing updates on next steps and simply checking in to see if candidates have any questions. This can help build a sense of familiarity and rapport that is often lost when recruiters only communicate when absolutely necessary. 

Your organisation can also stand out from others by candidly asking candidates where they are in the hiring process with other potential employers. Then, depending on your recruitment timeline, you can adjust key interviews and deadlines to avoid losing your candidate to a competing job offer. A personalised offer letter for job candidates will place you ahead of competitors. This will also help you get an idea of whether your candidate is entertaining other offers that they may be more interested in overall; then, even if they do accept an offer from you, this can help you be better prepared for the possibility that they’ll renege and accept a position elsewhere. 

Finally, the key is to maintain that line of communication even after the candidate has accepted an offer; if you ghost your brand-new hire, they’ll be more likely to ghost you in turn. 

Get the Offer Out Fast 

The more time your hiring process takes, the more time candidates have to consider taking other jobs. You’ve received a verbal offer acceptance; that’s great. Now, the time it takes for you to get official paperwork out and signed is critical. Engagement levels are highest at this point, and it’s critical that you get the offer out before the candidate has the chance to get cold feet.  

If possible, get all of your organisation’s internal approvals finalised prior to your verbal offer so that the official written offer can be sent almost immediately. If your organisation has a lengthier process that cannot be shortened, then be sure to communicate that to the candidate so their expectations are set accordingly.  

Utilise Thoughtful Touchpoints 

Perhaps most important, maintain frequent communication with the candidate during the period between offer acceptance (whether verbal or written) and day one. This can include messages of congratulations from the hiring manager and anyone else they may have met and interviewed with during the hiring process. 

Additionally, consider pairing your new hire with a current employee who can help them prepare for their first day. Or, in smaller organisations, set up a one-on-one meeting with a key leader to welcome them to the company. This can help the candidate feel connected to the team before they’ve even officially started—and will help keep the organisation front of mind. 

Redefine Onboarding & Start Immediately 

When competing with multiple offers and long notice periods, beginning your onboarding process before the new hire officially starts can be a great way to keep them engaged and feeling like they’re a part of the team. For instance, if you’re in an office, consider sending your new hire a video tour or inviting them in for a real one. Or, if your team is planning to get together for an in-person or virtual happy hour, invite the new hire to join. 

You can also send your new hire more information about your company, culture, employee resource groups and more to help them start feeling like a part of the team. Plus, what better way to foster a sense of connection and pride than by sending a welcome kit and some company swag? Finally, encourage the new hire’s colleagues and manager to reach out frequently to check in and express excitement for them to officially get started on the team. 

The Whole Job Offer Package 

Essentially, candidate experience is really about the whole package—from establishing a strong employer brand all the way to onboarding. How you present your organisation—as well as how it’s perceived by the public—is paramount. Moreover, remaining front of mind for candidates throughout the entire hiring process (and especially post-offer) is critical so as not to lose them to competing offers or a change of heart. In today’s market, employers can’t afford to slip and miss any opportunity for communication, connection and engagement. 

The Cow Behind the Pig: Why Economic Slowdown May Not Reduce the Need to Invest in Talent

Posted on by mbinshahid

By Joe Mongon, Head of Recruitment Delivery

I’ve tried to hide from the inevitable and deeply wanted to write about anything other than the ONS’s recent UK Labour Market overview for fear of adding to the pervading gloom of economic news. But as a recruitment professional, and as a worker, the findings are too stark and too significant to ignore.

The main impact is for employees, not employers, with a grim picture of pay in real terms falling at its fastest rate in over a decade as the cost-of-living crisis bites. This might lead to churn as those in work seek higher paying opportunities to maintain, not improve, their lifestyles. And they might well have choice—a record number of job vacancies have been recorded (again) in the UK. It is certainly a challenge to businesses that, while “pay is growing strongly as companies seek to attract people to work for them,” salaries are still falling well behind rates of inflation, putting ever more pressure on investment.

Higher Salaries Won’t Fix the UK’s Talent Shortages

It will be very difficult to use salaries alone to mitigate against the lack of supply the UK jobs market is seeing. The current position is indeed incredibly tight and exacerbated by ever increasing levels of economic inactivity: a “missing million” from the workforce. I’ve been guilty of viewing this as being driven by a positive choice to work less for lifestyle reasons (which does happen), so the view here of (rising, long term) ill-health keeping people from work was especially sobering.

This all adds up to something no one in my network will be surprised to hear—recruitment is harder now than in 2019.

Talent Acquisition in an Economic Slowdown

What’s next? Follow the long-term graphs, and you’ll see repeatedly that economic slowdown = reduction in job vacancies.

It seems obvious that we can expect that again—an overall cooling of the job market as businesses reduce spend towards the end of the year. Does that mean recruitment will get easier? In some cases, yes: but the longer-term picture also shows critical talent shortages sticking around, driven by economic and demographic factors. Without an emphasis on connecting more people with work through education, training, and flexible support, recruitment efforts (and economic growth) will fall short.

This is what Peter Bendor-Samuel of Everest Group calls, “the cow behind the pig”: the bigger long-term challenge that can’t be ignored while digesting the smaller, short term one (for this analogy to work you have to imagine you are a python—or just read Peter’s blog it’s very good).

White knuckling the short-term in the hope that fewer people will be needed is a complacent talent strategy, where a winning one means a continued focus and investment in finding and keeping outstanding talent. Smart organisations must hold that course as much as possible in the face of slowdown, recession, stagflation and other economic headwinds.

Hiring Great Customer Service Staff is Tough: Take a Cue from the Consumer Experience

Posted on by mbinshahid

By Robert Peasnell, Deputy Managing Director


With consumer experience heralded as the prime battleground for businesses, it’s not all about technology. According to PwC, 74% of European consumers want more human interaction in the future, but only 46% agree that the employees they interact with understand their needs.

And the stakes for customer-facing staff keep rising.

With 71% of customers paying more attention to corporate values in 2022 than they did in 2021, 89% of customer experience (CX) professionals confirm that their contact centre agents are expected to be better versed on their brand’s stance on social issues compared to a year ago.

Plus, there’s a real focus on personalised, non-scripted engagements. Boston Consulting Group research shows that NPS scores are 20% higher for businesses that deliver a high level of personalisation, compared to those that don’t.

Candidates Want a Consumer-Like Experience

These trends are mirrored in candidate expectations of your recruitment process.

Take these stat—80% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services, and 65% find a positive experience with a brand to be more influential than great advertising.

Snap.

Plus, 79% of consumers say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends or family. Negative reviews can have a significant impact on consumer behaviour, making 92% of consumers less likely to use a business.

Same in recruitment.

So, if we check what consumers want from a great digital experience, it’s likely to mirror candidate aspirations.

The key contributors are – the Three S’s – Speed (94%), Seamlessness (92%) and a Sense of Control (92%). Combine that with an individualised experience (83%) and you’ll have a winning strategy.

Is it time to review your candidate experience through a consumer lens?