We hear a lot about ‘customer-centricity’, putting the customer at the heart of everything you do. For years, organisations have been using Net Promoter Score (NPS) to measure their customer experience and to generate feedback that boosts data-driven decision making. However, when it comes to measuring the candidate experience, companies are missing out on candidate NPS.
What is NPS?
Net Promoter Score, or NPS, began as way for organisations to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty. By asking one question—“On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this product/company to a friend or colleague?”—organisations can gauge which customers are promoters, and which are detractors.
Overall NPS score can range between -100 and +100, and the higher the score the better.
Why Candidate NPS?
Why is NPS an important measurement for talent acquisition leaders? Our research into candidate experience revealed that:
Only 5% of candidates rated their experience excellent
But 66% of candidates have never been asked to provide feedback on their recruitment experience.
Yet, 9 out of 10 have provided feedback when asked.
With such a small percentage of candidates having an excellent recruitment experience, it’s imperative for organisations to start benchmarking their candidate experience in order to make data-driven improvements.
Yet, so few organisations are leveraging Candidate NPS. This week, we hosted the second part of our webinar series, “Early Careers Talent: How to Get Ahead in 2021.” During the broadcast we polled the audience, asking whether they currently use, intend to use or have no plans to use NPS to measure their candidate experience. Our attendees told us the following:
7% currently use NPS
21% don’t plan to
64% intend to start
7% have other plans
Getting Started with Candidate NPS
Consider adding a communication to your CRM after critical stages in your recruitment process like the assessment centre or hiring manager interview—regardless of outcome. By asking one simple question and the candidate’s reasoning for their rating, you can gather valuable data to drive continuous improvement in your candidate experience.
After gaining an initial benchmark, you can measure Candidate NPS overtime to see how your process improvements are impacting the candidate experience. Combined with other metrics, you’ll be on your way to understanding the impact of your talent acquisition program and improving your recruitment outcomes.
The best recruiting organisations, and the best recruiters, put effort in to establishing open communication, sharing information, providing appropriate guidance, building confidence and even encouraging risk-taking in candidates. Seeking feedback on candidate experience – providing a platform for applicants to have their voice heard and the space to share their thoughts – supports this too. These are all strategic focuses that an RPO partnership can deliver.
At PeopleScout, we are particularly focused on advocating for candidates throughout the hiring process. I believe this is why we consistently receive high candidate satisfaction scores (like NPS) on the candidate experience we provide for our clients.
Creating Psychological Safety through Candidate Engagement
Applying for a job seems an obvious example of taking a personal risk. Candidates deserve the same level of support as employees; after all, unless your search is poor at least one of them is your next colleague, right?
If a talented candidate does not feel engaged during an application, assessment, interview or any interaction with a recruiting team, what is the result? An inability to express themselves, and their talents fully.
When that talent is blocked, or overlooked, who is at fault? The candidate, or the designers and deliverers of a recruitment experience that failed to consider candidate experience?
It our goal to create a candidate experience in which every candidate can bring their best self to the process and find a new position that will create value for the candidate and the client.
Rethinking Required Skills to Engage More Talent
Through our strategic partnerships, PeopleScout helps a wide audience of candidates think differently about their own potential and skills, and what value they might add to an organisation. That approach reaches and engages talent others might overlook.
Recently our team did some work with Defra to bring to life the purpose of Civil Service Success Profiles. Asking candidates to “show off the true you” is a long way from a job advert (or a recruiter sat behind it) seeking experience in the exact same role or sector as an essential requirement.
A quick question to consider: what do you really need to know about a job applicant? Biographical information, years of education, and even job experience are less predictively valid than other modes of assessment. You’ll get a much better indication of future success from behavioural- and skills-focused interviews and tests. One of our teams recently put together a case for removing CV screening from a customer care recruitment exercise based on this principle.
Here’s to all of them for helping people – particularly those struggling to access employment – to think about skills differently and to put that thinking at the forefront of assessment and recruitment. I’m particularly pleased to see Openreach represented here with the clear message:
“If people have got the right attitude, the right mindset, the right customer service and teamwork ethos, we can train them to be great engineers.”
As a leading, global talent partner for a diverse range of businesses, PeopleScout’s RPO solutions have long been designed to amplify employer brands with a recruitment approach that focuses on an enhanced candidate experience. The missing talent can be won by placing the employee experience at the heart of your talent strategy and I’m proud to say in Q1 2022 we are re-delivering hundreds of employees each month into consumer goods and retail sectors for our client partners in the UK, with fulfilment trending positively each month.
Until about 10 years ago, simply posting a job opening to a career site like Indeed or Glassdoor may have been enough to get you the right talent to fulfill your hiring needs. That’s because in economic climates where job-seekers are abundant, active candidates would search open positions, see your job posting, read the description and decide whether they wanted to apply. Often, that job posting might have been the first time a candidate engaged with or even heard of your brand.
Today, candidates can see and engage with your brand at hundreds of touchpoints before ever seeing a job posting or visiting your career page. And millions more people are looking for lasting employment now due to the pandemic. Whereas traditional in-person interviews declined, the importance of virtual hiring and an organisation’s online presence have drastically risen. While this may sound daunting at first, digital recruitment marketing and the rise of social media mean organisations today can spread their message and establish a strong knowledge of their employer brand with prospective candidates – often before those candidates even think about looking for a job.
Regardless of the economic climate and whether we are at the lowest unemployment rates experienced in decades or the highest, a strong social media presence is imperative to an employer’s recruitment media mix. Now, more than ever, we are all tuned in to what our networks are saying, sharing and recommending online.
In fact, according to a report by LinkedIn, 72% of recruiting leaders worldwide agree that employer brand has a significant impact on hiring. Moreover Jobvite research showed that 59% of candidates followed companies on social media to gain insight into their company culture – myself included! When I was considering joining PeopleScout, social media was one of the main ways I researched what it would be like to work here.
Specifically, I kept an eye out for engaging content, interesting comments and overall employee engagement. PeopleScout’s active social pages with relevant content and employees passionately sharing their work achievements were one of the deciding factors when I chose to come on board. After all, if an omnichannel recruitment marketing strategy were what I would advise to my clients, I had to work for a company that led with the best examples.
Building Your Brand
When it comes down to the critical moments throughout the candidate’s journey, what an employer presents online could be the deciding factor for whether a candidate joins an organisation. Truly, if a candidate is debating between two employers and one has a nearly nonexistent online brand presence while the other showcases personality, culture and industry-related insights, it’s clear who will win the talent.
And, it doesn’t just come down to one quick, last-minute Google search. To improve your employer brand in a candidate’s mind takes a persistent effort. For example, say you’re looking to hire a nurse, but the ideal prospect is located outside of your region. Attracting that candidate will be a huge undertaking that isn’t going to happen overnight.
It’s unlikely that the candidate will apply for a job at your hospital out of the blue, especially if they’ve never heard of you before. But, what if that candidate saw one of your Twitter posts about the “10 Things You Should Know as a New Nurse”? Or, maybe a friend sent them your Instagram post of an uplifting quote about providing patient care?
By reaching prospective candidates at multiple touchpoints throughout the hiring cycle with a consistent brand presence, you’ll have a much higher likelihood of establishing a positive impression of your brand. Then, when it comes time to apply, and eventually accept a position, the persona you portray online will have a huge impact on those decisions.
But, while your ideal nurse might be active on Instagram, not all candidates will be. For instance, if you’re looking for a C-level executive, you’ll have better luck on LinkedIn. Conversely, if you’re hiring an elementary school teacher, you might reach them best on Facebook. Determine which social media platforms make the most sense to engage your prospective candidates and focus your strategies there.
If You Want to Improve Your Employer Brand, Go Beyond “We’re Hiring”
Regardless of the platform, simply posting job openings isn’t going to cut it. Instead, think about how you can best show prospects what it’s truly like to work for your organisation – whether that means showcasing how your people engage virtually or what life is like when you’re all in the office. In addition to insightful thought leadership, share employee activities, first-person stories, and anything that shows a candidate how they can contribute and connect to your company in ways beyond their skills.
Let’s look a little deeper into how you can improve your employer brand presence on each of the four largest social media channels and how you can utilise each of their unique features to your benefit.
LinkedIn
As the largest professional network, LinkedIn is unlike most other social media platforms. With more than 660 million registered users, almost half of whom are active on a monthly basis, it’s the number one platform to reach both passive and active prospective candidates.
Reach more candidates by:
Posting career advice
Promoting posts to employees
Targeting your posts
Optimizing your company page with keywords
Instagram
With more than 1 billion monthly active users, Instagram has seen a 43% increase in users since 2017. What’s more intriguing is the fact that 90% of users follow a business on the platform – users are likely to keep up with brands and see what people are saying about them. Plus, according to Sprout Social, Instagram is the leading platform when it comes to engagement, with a median engagement of 1.6% across all industries.
What does that mean for you? Essentially, Instagram is a great way to utilize employee brand advocates and visuals to showcase company culture.
Engage employees and candidates with:
Instagram stories
Story highlights
Creative grids
Instagram Live
Instagram TV
Comments and direct messages
Twitter
Twitter has about 330 million active users worldwide, and 79% of them like to discover what’s new. This fast-paced social network encourages the real-time sharing of engaging and relevant content, so post often and with timely responses to showcase your expertise.
Utilize:
Interest-based targeting
Twitter Ads
Twitter Polls
Retweets with comments
Tweet replies
Facebook
Facebook has 2.5 million monthly active users, and 66% of them say they “like” or “follow” a brand on the platform.
To showcase your industry expertise as well as your company culture, take advantage of:
Facebook Insights
Facebook Pixel for retargeting advertising
Page invites
Boosting posts
Social Media as a Recruitment Tool
By taking efforts to improve your employer brand on social media and taking advantage of what all the different platforms have to offer, candidates should already have a good understanding of your brand and what it represents by the time they’re on the job hunt. Ideally, they’ll have connected with some of your posts and already have a positive feeling about your company culture.
Then, when it comes time to create a targeted recruitment campaign, your social media presence will have done some of the work for you. To capitalise on this momentum and start generating a stream of qualified candidates, a trusted talent advisor can help.
When Vodafone came to PeopleScout in the UK, they asked us to: help position Vodafone with prospective employees at key universities as a youth employer of choice; change the perception of their target audience; and promote Vodafone as a technology company.
After researching the behaviour and interests of Vodafone’s target audience, we learned how Gen Z and Millennials want to engage with employers (through short and succinct videos) and what values drive their decisions. We found that they want to work for companies that focus on making the world a better place, as well as promote a social and fun work environment.
This led to Generation Possible – a social media campaign that speaks to Vodafone’s campus and graduate audience, as well as their desire to have a positive influence in the world. The Generation Possible campaign celebrates everyone’s individuality and empowers them to speak from the heart about how to make change for the better.
Vodafone Generation Possible Campaign Creative
Conclusion
It’s no secret that candidates are going to research your organisation prior to applying for any of your positions or even considering you as a potential employer. By balancing postings on job boards with social media and other touchpoints along the hiring process, you can create a well-respected online presence that accurately represents your employer brand and company culture. So, the next time a candidate researches your company, reads reviews or looks at what current employees are saying online, rest assured that a strong social media presence and strategic recruitment campaign will give you all you need to create a lasting impact in a candidate’s mind.
The seemingly never-ending obstacle course of 2020 has been filled with highs, lows and everything in between — from a landmark ruling for LGBTQ+ workers to an international awakening to systemic racism and a global pandemic that has impacted the lives of millions. As organisations around the world face a future more unpredictable than ever before, one thing remains certain: the business case for diversity and inclusion (D&I) is stronger than ever.
In order to face unique challenges, organisations will need unique thinking, the kind that only comes with a truly diverse team — whether in age, gender, sexuality, race or otherwise. According to a report from the World Economic Forum, companies with above-average diversity scores report nearly 20% higher revenue due to innovation. Moreover, this article from The Conversation cites research frommore than 300 Australian studies that conclusively shows how workplace racism has a direct, detrimental impact on performance, accounting for an estimated 3% loss in average annual gross domestic product.
That said, the driving motivators for organisations to foster effective D&I programmes should not be focused only on performance metrics, but rather the desire to make employees feel represented, understood, respected and cared for. While most companies are able to increase their level of diversity, they struggle with cultivating a culture in which those diverse voices are heard — leaving room for improvement in their inclusion efforts.
D&I: Defined
Diversity and inclusion in the workplace has been a hot topic for years, so why does it often seem like minimal meaningful change has occurred? Unfortunately, the downfall for many organisations is the misinterpretation that diversity and inclusion are synonymous. To avoid making this mistake, it is important to understand the difference between diversity and inclusion, to better understand why it’s time to shift focus to the latter.
The definition for diversity is relatively straightforward, and simple enough for most organisations to achieve by tracking demographics and collecting concrete data to ensure they hire and promote people of varying backgrounds.
However, the definition for inclusion is more difficult to effectively measure results against because every organisation can interpret words like “including” and “accommodating” differently.
According to Deloitte, “without a shared understanding of inclusion, people are prone to miscommunication, progress cannot be reliably evaluated, leaders can’t be held accountable and organisations default to counting diversity numbers.”
Deloitte goes a step further by using its research to create a holistic definition comprised of four distinct yet connected elements:
Fairness and respect: The starting point for effective inclusion is ensuring people are treated equitably and with respect — in both nondiscrimination and basic courtesy.
Valued and belonging: People will feel included when they believe their authentic self is valued by others and they feel a sense of connectedness with their peers.
Safe and open: Inclusion is experienced when people feel safe to speak up without any fear of embarrassment or retaliation.
Empowered and growing: True inclusion happens when people feel empowered to grow in their role and do their best work — diversity of thinking can emerge.
By looking at the depth of these definitions, it’s clear that building and maintaining an effective inclusion programme requires considerably more time and effort than it does to reformat a hiring process to increase diversity. While diversity can be measured and those metrics can be used to set and achieve goals, inclusion calls for a continuous cultural reset.
Inclusion Requires Action
In a 2020 report by McKinsey & Company, data from three industries with the highest levels of executive-team diversity — financial services, technology and healthcare — showed that “while overall [employee] sentiment on diversity was 52% positive and 31% negative, sentiment on inclusion was markedly worse, at only 29% positive and 61% negative.” Furthermore, the levels of negative sentiment about equality and fairness of opportunity, key indicators of inclusion, were also particularly high — proving that even more diverse companies struggle with effective inclusion.
So, what are some steps organisations can take toward fostering better inclusion? To gain some insight, LinkedIn asked Black talent leaders their thoughts on what talent acquisition teams can do to accelerate diversity and inclusion. Here are three of their tactics:
Change how and where you look for talent
This starts with having diverse recruiting teams. Having recruiters from a wide variety of backgrounds will help employers change the way they think about how and where they find talent — shifting their sourcing beyond the geographies, companies and schools they’ve become accustomed to.
Make a “top-down investment” in diverse employees
To build diversity into the succession plan, organisations should invest time, money, training and executive sponsorship into their diversity efforts, ensuring representation across the business. By hiring and promoting diverse talent, an organisation sends a message of inclusion that ripples throughout the company and into the industry — positioning you as an inclusive workplace that recognises the value of diverse talent.
Leverage the power of remote work
Continuing distributed work strategies beyond the current crisis will allow recruiting teams to source, engage and hire talent where they are. Organisations will no longer be limited to talent that lives in the same geographies as their physical offices, meaning they can expand their scope to locations that are historically diverse.
These tactics may seem like large feats, and that’s because they are. Building an organisation that is truly diverse and inclusive is a huge undertaking that takes time, effort and serious commitment. While you work on the organisational overhaul, keep in mind that there are also some smaller steps you can take along the way:
Break up cliques. We are naturally drawn toward others who are like us, which can often result in cliques. Create opportunities to position employees outside of their comfort zone and into work groups made up of people with various backgrounds.
Form inclusive groups. Create a dedicated task force focused on updating policies that promote your company’s values. Project Include offers more suggestions for creating systemic inclusion here.
Offer professional development. Offering development programmes and mentorship opportunities to underrepresented employees who may have a steeper hill to climb can help them in their career ascent.
Showcase diverse talent. Representation matters, and employees and candidates will understand how you value diverse talent when you celebrate and share their stories.
A Continuous Journey
It can be easy to get lost in the mindset that inclusion is a “one and done” activity. That mindset has a certain allure, because it would mean we could all rest assured knowing we’ve created a workforce that is 100% diverse and effectively inclusive. In reality, inclusion is a continuous journey that requires a concerted effort, focus and determination to effect meaningful change. You can think of it like a long road trip — one that requires multiple checkpoints, refuels and stops to check you’re still going in the right direction. To ensure you’re always on the correct path, it can be helpful to perform a regular inclusion audit that asks:
Does the organisation have a continuous representation of diverse talent?
Is diverse talent represented in leadership roles?
Are we regularly surveying employee sentiment on D&I?
Do we know what’s working? What isn’t?
Have we asked employees what they want and need?
It’s clear that simply hiring diverse talent is not enough. While it’s a start, it’s only part of the solution. Workplace experience and true inclusion is what will help employees feel represented and valued, leading to diverse hires that stay, grow and thrive. The road ahead is a long one, but by implementing the strategies outlined in this article, your organisation will be well on its way toward a better diverse and inclusive workplace.
Support workers make a genuine difference to real lives and Kent County Council (KCC) were finding it hard to attract the right people to fill their vacancies. They approached PeopleScout to develop a campaign to reach an audience that may not realise they had the skills and attributes to become care workers and show them they could have a meaningful career, just by ‘being you’.
SOLUTION HIGHLIGHTS
• RAISING AWARENESS OF MISUNDERSTOOD ROLES • REACHING AN UNAWARE TARGET AUDIENCE • CREATING STAND-OUT FROM THE CROWD
Kent County Council, along with over 1,400 partner organisations, are committed to providing essential care and support, working with some of the most vulnerable members of the community. Their need to recruit was based on the requirement to alleviate pressure on nursing homes and hospitals by providing care in the clients’ own homes, therefore freeing up valuable beds elsewhere. Enabling clients to remain at home (when it is suitable) has been proven to be a good solution in healthcare pathways.
It was also important to demonstrate to the wider Kent population that KCC was taking positive and supportive action in what was a high profile and often criticised area for all local authorities.
SITUATION
With vacancies that aren’t clearly defined by specific skills or experience, it’s often challenging to convince potential recruits that a role is right for them. With ‘unskilled’ (in terms of qualifications) positions such as these, the lure of other opportunities, including retail, is often more appealing and the lack of visibility or explanation of support roles alongside a misunderstanding of what is entailed, compounds this issue. In addition to this, there was a lack of clarity about the genuine career potential that these jobs could offer potential candidates. KCC’saim was to raise the profile of the work they do in an area that is both sensitive and one that touches most people at some stage in their lives.
THE SOLUTION
To fully understand why existing support workers do what they do, we ran a focus group to investigate the motivators and to hear real life stories. Our creative team then set to work to produce a personal and appropriate creative identity; one that would put the empathy and natural caring skills needed for these roles, at the very heart of the campaign. We concluded the best way to communicate this was by film, showing everyday situations where people made a difference, doing everyday things and how this translated into a care workers job.
This was driven by the central campaign message of “You’d be surprised how qualified you are to be a support worker – just by being you’’. With a small promotion budget and to ensure that the power of the film’s visuals were maximised, we used our Social Media product, SNAP, to push the film out to the target audience; using geographic and behavioural targeting methods.
RESULTS
The SNAP campaign ran for just over 2 weeks and in that time delivered over 51,000 impressions, converting to over 1,000 ‘clickthroughs’ – an impressive rate of 2.1%. Equally impressive, YouTube delivered almost 172,000 impressions and over 75,000 views.
As organisations around the globe confront the challenges presented by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, even the most seasoned talent leaders find themselves in uncharted territory. We’re creating a series with our experts here at PeopleScout about the issues that are most pressing during this uncertain time.
We are focused on the safety of our employees and clients, friends, families and loved ones. However, it is important for many organisations to keep their talent acquisition functions moving – whether to provide essential services or to serve our communities by providing jobs. Many organisations are also now adapting to a newly virtual workforce.
In that spirit, we are sharing insights from PeopleScout Global Leader of Business Operations Cindy Cutaia on building modern business continuity plans.
Cindy brings more than 12 years of leadership and 20 years of industry experience in partnering with global organisations to build and deliver strategic, scalable talent acquisition solutions with a focus on operational and process excellence. In her current role, she is accountable for enabling operational effectiveness to support PeopleScout’s unparalleled commitment to clients, including supporting the execution of the strategic business plan and governance of the operational goals and priorities. Cindy’s role also includes executive leadership of PeopleScout’s global delivery centers in India.
