Solution: Talent Advisory

The Hard Truth About Candidate Experience: Part Two

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Insights from the Inside the Candidate Experience Report

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Candidate experience has never been more important. Yet, fewer than two in ten candidates rate their experience as excellent.

So, what can you do about it?

To find the answer, PeopleScout audited the candidate journey of more than 215 organisations around the world, giving each a Candidate Experience Quotient, CandidateXQ, score.

By analysing these CandidateXQ scores alongside data gathered via a survey of over 2,400 job seekers globally, we uncovered a clear disparity between candidate expectations and the reality they encounter while searching for jobs, gathering information to support their decision, and applying. These findings are detailed in our new research report, Inside the Candidate Experience, which will be released on January 25.

For deeper insights into our research as well as actionable ways you can improve your own candidate journey, join PeopleScout Global Head of Talent Consulting Simon Wright for the companion Talking Talent webinar, The Hard Truth About Candidate Experience: Part Two, available now, on-demand..

In the webinar, Simon covers:

  • Our most significant research findings
  • How candidate expectations line up with reality and how you can close the gap
  • How generational differences influence what candidates consider before taking a role
  • An action plan to start improving your candidate experience
  • And more!

If you missed The Hard Truth About Candidate Experience: Part One, watch the half-hour webinar on-demand now!

[On-Demand] The Hard Truth About Candidate Experience: Part One

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The First Part of PeopleScout’s Candidate Experience Webinar Series

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Heading into 2023, employers continue to face a challenging talent market. Beyond a shortage of qualified applicants, candidate expectations for the recruitment process have never been higher. Our latest research shows that fewer than two in ten candidates rate their experience as excellent, which means engaging top talent in the new year will require a new approach.

Make 2023 the year you focus on how you interact with job seekers. Join PeopleScout Global Head of Talent Consulting Simon Wright for the newest Talking Talent webinar, The Hard Truth About Candidate Experience available on-demand.

This bite-sized 30-minute webinar is part one of a two-part series that makes a case for the importance of a stellar candidate experience and provides the data to back up our recommendations for creating one.

In this first webinar, Simon will cover:

  • The state of the global jobs market
  • Current trends in job seeker behavior
  • The impact of changing consumer expectations
  • The cost of a poor candidate experience
  • And our forthcoming research!

The Future of Work: 4 Key Factors That Will Shape the Workplace by 2030

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It’s no secret that the labour market has been volatile over the last several years, and talent acquisition teams have experienced a multitude of highs and lows. In our capacity as trusted advisors, PeopleScout analysed patterns in global workforce trends to help our clients create informed strategies for future-proofing their workforce by examining how these patterns may affect their workforce. While we can’t predict the future of work, we think there are four key factors will shape the world of work over the next decade.

1. Flexibility

Flexibility is here to stay, and it will apply to everything from where and how we work to the roles we do and who we do them for. There will be no hard and fast rules about working hours and shifts in the future.

As life becomes increasingly characterised by change, employees will need to be agile—always ready to reskill. Learning becomes a constant, and we may even find ourselves counting AI robots as our trainers and mentors.

Flexibility and upskilling will manifest differently from generation to generation, so organisations must facilitate working arrangements for different demographics. Over the next decade, the generation gap will widen and then gradually close as Baby Boomers begin to settle down to retirement by blending work and leisure. Millennials and Gen Z will bring their progressive perspectives to work.

10 Predictions for What’s NEXT in the World of Work

DESTINATION 2030

Read the Report

2. Fluidity 

Globalisation will enable much more cross-border, cross-company collaboration. Project teams will be established based on all sorts of factors, not just who’s in what department or which location. People will work with talent from all sorts of specialities as they move from project to project.

Technology helps to support our wellbeing as the lines between work and home become more blurred. But with new technologies come new laws, so security and compliance will also be strategically important, especially for organisations working at the cutting-edge of innovation.

3. Focus 

Organisational culture will become more important than ever before as people make career choices based on ethics, values and purpose above things like pay and benefits. More and more employees will choose to work for organisations that have a clear purpose and are committed to working in the most ethical, sustainable and socially responsible ways.

Technology also plays a role here, in helping people focus on the work that matters to them as automation takes over the mundane tasks. However, more AI and machine learning will make some roles redundant and create many others—generating even greater demand for technical, analytical and digital skill sets across sectors.

4. Forward-thinking 

Organisations will continue to compete when it comes to creating innovative new technologies and using those technologies in the most creative ways. But they’ll also be happy to pool some resources to create a better future for everyone. 

Issues like equality and climate change will continue to grow in importance, forcing organisations to find new and better ways of making social and environmental improvements at speed.

Onward, Upward and Who Knows Where

You may feel more prepared for some changes more than others as we approach 2030, but it’s safe to say that there will be plenty of surprises that will require creative thinking in order to stay resilient.

PeopleScout will be on the journey with you to support, challenge and inspire you—no matter what the future holds.

To learn more about how we came to these predictions and see our research findings, check out our Destination 2030 white paper.

Creating an Effective Employer Brand for Volume Hiring 

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It’s no secret that job vacancies continue to outnumber job seekers.  But what many employers focused on volume hiring don’t realise is that they already have one of the most effective tools for out-recruiting their competition at their disposal: their employer brand.

Investing in your employer value proposition (EVP) and employer brand is one of the best ways an organisation can differentiate and attract the volumes of candidates it needs without compromising on quality-of-hire. In this article, we share ways to make your employer brand work harder for your volume hiring needs.

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Employer Brand vs Consumer Brand        

At PeopleScout, we define employer brand and EVP as follows:

  • Employer brand: Your employer brand is the perception and lived experiences of what it’s like to work for your organisation.
  • Employer value proposition: Your employer value proposition, or EVP, captures the essence of your uniqueness as an employer and the “give and get” between you and your employees.

When an organisation’s brand is well-known, there is frequently an overlap in sentiment between the consumer and employer brands in the minds of the general public. What candidates expect from you as consumers will be very different from what they’re looking for as potential employees.

Your employer brand should showcase the characteristics that make a company a great place to work, as well as the benefits, career growth opportunities, work-life balance and company culture that help you attract and retain talent.

Understand Your Audience & Tailor Your Content

The key to an effective employer brand is to know your audience. Zero in on who your ideal candidates are by looking at the most successful employees in each role. Are there similarities in their work experience, motivators or personalities? For example, we helped a telecoms client create candidate persona profiles for their contact centre and found that many of their longest tenured employees were previously employed in beauty salons. These employees were applying their previous customer service experience to their phone and online customer interactions.

By shifting the mindset from getting candidates with previous call centre experience to getting applications from candidates with past customer service experience in salons, restaurants and hotels, we were able to help the client increase offer acceptance and reduce attrition.

Similarly broadening your target audience will help you hire at scale in today’s tight market, and understanding who is most successful in a role—what makes them tick, what motivates them—will help you lean into the aspects of your employer brand that will be most meaningful to them. That could mean playing up your flexible work shifts, growth opportunities or your organisational values.

Create a Positive Candidate Experience

Even if you receive an influx of applicants for a role, don’t sacrifice the candidate experience. Word of mouth is still alive and well, and candidates have no problem sharing their experiences (especially negative ones) on social media.

Investing in CRM tools to introduce more personalisation into your candidate communications can boost your candidate experience. Look for tools with texting and SMS capabilities to reach candidates where they already are. Texting is often more accessible for many hourly job seekers who are more likely to rely on their mobile devices for job searches and internet access.

Automating your screening and interview scheduling processes via text helps free up time for your recruiters and hiring managers to connect one-on-one with candidates and hold meaningful conversations that improve the candidate experience.

Your recruitment process should leave every applicant, regardless of whether they get a job with you, with a positive impression of your organisation. Candidates are often your customers, and the last thing you want is for your candidate experience to negatively impact your consumer brand reputation. An exceptional candidate experience is essential not only in engaging the talent you need today, but in establishing a strong employer brand that will serve you well into the future.

Get Tips to Optimize High-Volume Recruitment

Want more tactics for high-volume recruitment? Check out our ebook, 9 Strategies for Solving High-Volume Hiring Challenges.

Recession, Recruiting and Resilience: Creating Opportunities for Workforce Planning Success

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With signs pointing toward a global recession, employers are preparing their workforces for what’s to come. This may mean cutting back on their investment in talent acquisition, delaying HR projects or even reducing their workforce.

While economic uncertainty can lead to difficult decisions for employers, it’s also important to recognise the opportunity it provides. This may be the perfect time to assess the resilience of your workforce and invest in workforce planning to make it fare better in the long run.

Is your talent acquisition program resilient enough to weather the storm? Here are four questions to ask to find out where you stand.

1. Is your employer brand and EVP still relevant?

If you haven’t updated your employer value proposition (EVP) in the last 18 months, it’s probably out of sync with the market and what candidates want. Now is the time to sense check if it’s fit for purpose in 2023 and beyond. Does your employer brand work for a remote and hybrid workforce? Is it an authentic reflection of what you have to offer your employees?

Even if you’re not planning to hire actively in the near future, employer branding is also important for retention. Auditing and updating your brand will help you retain your current talent and ensure you’re ready to attract top talent in the future.

2. Is your hiring process working for remote and hybrid employees?

At the start of the pandemic, if you shoehorned your old in-person hiring process into your new hybrid or remote work reality and never looked back, it’s time to assess whether that’s really working for you. Remote work often requires a different set of skills than office-based work. Is your current process helping you assess those skills to achieve the quality-of-hire you need?  

Review the competencies and behaviours you need for each role to ensure they’re relevant for hybrid or remote employees. Now is the time to update job adverts and evaluate your assessment process to ensure they are in tune with the success factors that drive your business now—instead of those that drove success pre-pandemic.

3. Are you achieving your DE&I recruitment goals?

While you may not be actively hiring, now is a good time to engage with diverse communities to ensure candidates from underrepresented backgrounds make up a significant portion of your talent pipeline when you’re ready to ramp up hiring again.

Increase your visibility in diverse communities via campaigns or event sponsorships. Look into your diversity analytics to understand what’s working and what’s not when it comes to sourcing and hiring your target audiences.

4. Is it time to consider RPO?

Now is the time to re-evaluate how you’re going to market for talent, whether via an internal talent acquisitions team, staffing agencies, recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) or a hybrid model. Work with your procurement partner to scrutinise your spend and evaluate your options to streamline and minimise risk—including standardising with one global RPO partner.

Just because you’re not hiring at the same volume you were before, doesn’t mean outsourcing is out of the question. Project RPO engagements offer flexible solutions for targeted hiring needs. An RPO partner can also offer value-added talent advisory services like market insights, employer branding, assessment services and more. Plus, once engaged, your RPO partner will be on tap to hit the economic recovery running and scale up for your hiring surge.

An economic slowdown is not the time to put your talent acquisition strategy on the back burner. Use this time to take stock and get prepared so you’re ready to bounce back faster. You’ll be able to beat your competition and create a resilient workforce that’s ready for whatever the future has in store.

Want more insight into the future of work? Check out our ebook, Destination 2030: 10 Predictions for What’s NEXT in the World of Work.

Targeted Recruitment Marketing Campaign Delivers Talent for Global Theme Park Brand

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Targeted Recruitment Marketing Campaign Delivers Talent for Global Theme Park Brand

Targeted Recruitment Marketing Campaign Delivers Talent for Global Theme Park Brand

During a unique time in the market with remote and flexible work options becoming the norm, this multinational chain of family theme parks required help hiring for critical in-person roles including customer service, performers and lifeguards across two of its major U.S. theme parks. PeopleScout helped hire over 1,500 workers using recruitment marketing campaigns and our talent advisory expertise.

1,500 + hires made in just six months across two locations
reduced drop-off by streamlining the application process
reduced drop-off by streamlining the application process
30,000 clicks from recruitment marketing ads across social media and online display networks

Situation

This multinational chain of family theme parks required help hiring a variety of roles across its California and New York resorts including customer service roles, performers and lifeguards.

Solution

PeopleScout conducted in-depth market research to determine the biggest challenges the client faced when recruiting for their theme parks and resorts. We identified remote work, “candidate is king” and higher pay as the three main challenges facing the client. Here’s how we solved each:


Challenge #1 — Remote Work:

More people want flexibility. Front-line and hourly positions are less attractive to candidates after the growth in remote work during the pandemic.

Our Solution: We leveraged the client’s “play” branding to emphasise the fun and rewarding aspects of working on-site at one of the theme parks. This was fed through into recruitment marketing creative and copy. 


Challenge #2 — “Candidate is King”:

With open positions outnumbering candidates for much of recent memory, today’s candidates know their worth, and the Great Resignation is proof that people are less willing than ever to settle.

Our Solution: By testing alternative job titles, improving job copy, and reaching out on different channels, we were able to widen our reach and pool of candidates. We strategically targeted candidates most likely to apply for the roles, such as those looking for seasonal or part-time jobs.

Challenge #3 — Higher Pay:

When faced with increased living costs, candidates are demanding higher pay.

Our Solution: The client was not in a position to raise wages for these roles. So, we got creative by restructuring job copy to better position the client’s competitive benefits. By quantifying these benefits and putting them front and centre on job postings and recruitment marketing materials, we were able to generate interest without raising wages.

Results

  • In the first six months, we were able to fulfil our goal of 1,336 hires in California & 190 in New York.
  • The client’s previous application had up to 22 sections where the candidate had to input information. PeopleScout optimised and shortened this candidate journey by employing a variety of channels including Indeed One-Click, Indeed Hiring Events and Talent.com. This reduced the application abandonment rate.
  • PeopleScout restructured job descriptions to create job advertisements. In other words, we rewrote the copy to focus on the value the client and the role have to offer their employees rather than what the client wanted from candidates.  
  • PeopleScout performed A/B tests to determine which job titles would help reach a wider pool of candidates. For example, we found that “Waterpark Attendant” received almost 300 applications in the first week, while “Lifeguard” received only 15.
  • Social outreach using Facebook, Instagram and Google Display Network resulted in 4.1 million impressions and 30,000 clicks across the California and New York audiences.

AT A GLANCE

  • COMPANY
    Multinational chain of family theme parks
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Talent Advisory
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    1,500+
  • LOCATIONS
    Over 10 theme parks around the world
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Who’s Down With OVP? Getting Your Office Value Proposition Right

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By Joe Mongon, Head of Recruitment Delivery, PeopleScout EMEA

From Twitter going hardcore, to protests at Apple , returning to the office is the working culture story that won’t go away.

The BBC reported on the potential disparities between employer and employee expectations on this topic as far back as June 2021. Right now, there is evidence that the expectation gap may be growing, with the supply of remote work options shrinking while demand increases. U.S. job market data from LinkedIn shows remote job listings have decreased to 14% of available opportunities, but they still attract 52% of all applications.

In this context, it’s surprising that so many blunders continue to be made. Plus, there is little reporting of companies getting this process right and virtually no discussion on how to achieve a win-win position. Instead, we hear about the clumsy tactics some organisations are using, like pointing to ‘job requirements’ as the primary reason employees must return to the office or trying to limit fully remote work to what employers perceive as ‘must-have’ talent.

How can talent leaders move forward and break the deadlock?

Introducing the OVP

TALiNT Partners and PeopleScout recently hosted and published a strategic discussion among TA leaders and introduced me to a new concept—the Office Value Proposition (OVP).

This term immediately resonated with me. The journey my own teams have been through over the last 12 months, from simply trying to make the office a safe place (think sitting at opposite ends of big meeting rooms, obeying one-way systems, putting up dividers) to considering ways in which we optimise team days shows the value of making an effort.

Making OVP Part of Your EVP

My broader experience in RPO has shown me that an effective Employer Value Proposition (EVP) can do much of the heavy lifting in candidate engagement and experience. Employers with poorly defined and managed EVPs are left behind in the competition for talent with candidates drawn to organisations with EVPs that align clearly with their own personal values.

PeopleScout has a strong track record of thought leadership and results in this area, and we’re making a call-to-action for talent acquisition and resourcing teams:

Post-pandemic, your EVP is almost certainly out of date. It must incorporate a clear OVP that lays out the benefits of a higher degree of proximity to your office spaces.

There are two things employers must get right when it comes OVP:

  • Identify and communicate all the things your physical workplace offers that enhance the employee experience
  • Consciously create time on-site for teams to interact, socialise and learn together.

Some time ago, Gallup identified the ‘four Cs’ for shaping a compelling workplace value proposition: connection, collaboration, creativity, culture. Use your office space to maximise the personal, professional and competitive advantages office time provides them at every opportunity.

The value of office working is no longer a given—it must be defined and re-defined. In the recruitment space, the OVP (just like your EVP) provides clarity to potential employees on organisational expectations and demonstrates the extra effort needed to engage talent. When it comes to bridging the office vs remote work expectations gap, it’s employers who should make the first step.

Global Banking School: Increasing Offer Conversion to 87% for a Suite of Hard-to-Fill Roles

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Global Banking School: Increasing Offer Conversion to 87% for a Suite of Hard-to-Fill Roles

Global Banking School: Increasing Offer Conversion to 87% for a Suite of Hard-to-Fill Roles

Global Banking School (GBS), a higher education provider offering a range of sector-relevant courses, turned to PeopleScout for Project RPO to fill 35 professional and academic roles across eight campuses in London, Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds.

Roles filled through strong collaboration
Roles filled through strong collaboration
87 % Offer acceptance rate across all roles
Increased diversity within roles filled through targeted messaging and sourcing
Increased diversity within roles filled through targeted messaging and sourcing
Enhanced candidate and hiring manager experience
Enhanced candidate and hiring manager experience

Situation

GBS needed to fill 35 roles across a range of job families and levels, including professional and academic positions. They had a challenging timescale of just four weeks to go-live.

GBS was facing several challenges:

  • Some of the roles had been out to market several times, in some cases for up to a year, with little traction.
  • As an educational institution, face-to-face teaching is a vital part of the student experience, and therefore essential for the client. GBS needed this to apply to staff availability as well and wanted to avoid a two-tiered approach for academic and non-academic roles. This meant the client was unable to offer remote or hybrid working models. In a market where candidates have more choice around how and where they work, this resulted in a low interest from candidates.
  • Sourcing from other higher education institutions and universities meant the audience was hard to engage.
  • Hiring managers were disengaged due to high workloads. Plus, the previous recruitment processes were transactional and didn’t keep candidates engaged.
  • The hiring managers also had competing priorities, which meant the overwhelmed internal recruitment team were struggling to obtain the required information to fill the roles.

Solution

Our dedicated and skilled recruiters became an extension of the in-house team, optimising and managing GBS’s recruitment process from attraction to offer for a four-month Project RPO solution. PeopleScout managed each position in its entirety, from briefing through to verbal offer acceptance, including creating a sourcing and attraction plan for each role.

Our team seamlessly integrated into the organisation’s culture, mapping the end-to-end candidate journey in collaboration with hiring managers. PeopleScout very quickly became trusted colleagues with the in-house recruitment team, and through our consultative approach we offered recommendations based on our labour market research and feedback.

A dedicated PeopleScout recruitment marketer was brought in to reimagine the organisation’s messaging, job descriptions and attraction channels. GBS received a suite of copy, both bespoke to individual roles and templates which they could use into the future. Our recruitment marketing strategy included a social media attraction campaign featuring a one-click application.

On top of these attraction efforts, we directly sourced passive candidates to raise GBS’s profile in the market. Throughout the project, we gathered market feedback and tracked hiring metrics, presenting it through bespoke dashboards to guide hiring decisions. GBS received weekly analysis of market insights, salary benchmarks and candidate feedback.

Result

Our consultative approach to hiring and tailored strategies for each role resulted in:

  • An 87% offer acceptance rate.
  • An enhanced candidate and hiring manager experience.
  • Increased diversity within roles filled.

AT A GLANCE

  • COMPANY
    Global Business School
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory
  • ABOUT GBS
    Global Banking School (GBS) is a higher education provider with campuses across the United Kingdom. GBS offers a range of courses in banking, management and healthcare designed to enhance students’ career prospects in the financial services industry.
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Labour Market Trends Impacting Customer Services Hiring 

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By Andrew Weston, RPO Solutions Director, PeopleScout EMEA 

PeopleScout recently hosted a webinar with Personnel Today featuring a panel of talent leaders across the financial services, energy and retail sectors. These experts from Centrica, The White Company, Renewco and Newcastle Strategic Solutions discussed their challenges and approaches to hiring and engaging a customer-focused workforce in today’s labour market.  

Organisations like these are competing on customer experience. A consumer survey from PwC shows that the four most important factors for an exceptional customer experience are speed, convenience, knowledgeable help and friendly service. The key to excelling in these factors is happy, engaged employees. Organisations with highly engaged workforces are 21% more productive, outperform competitors by 147% and have customer loyalty rates 233% higher than companies without engaged employees. 

I joined our panel to discuss the current tight labour market and trends that are impacting talent acquisition. Here’s what I learned:  

Trend 1: Hiring for Potential 

As customer expectations have changed, so have the skills needed for top customer service talent. When we polled our audience during the session, they indicated that soft skills related to emotional intelligence are highly sought after. 

The most desired skills for customer service recruiting are communication, empathy and relationship building.

Several of the experts on our panel have implemented a culture-centric approach for attracting talent. Instead of assessing candidates based on previous work experience, candidates are assessed based on whether they possess the right skills, values and behaviours to be successful in the role. Interviews and assessments are being reimagined to be more focused on soft skills and higher purpose as talent leaders and hiring managers are embracing candidates coming from outside of their industry.  

Trend 2: Expanding Talent Pools  

With job openings outnumbering job seekers, organisations across sectors find themselves getting creative as they try to expand their talent pool. For some, this means looking into new talent audiences, like underrepresented group or military veterans, and putting programs in place such as apprenticeships to future-proof their talent pipeline.  

For many companies, the growth of remote work means that they’re looking outside of their physical contact centre locations to candidates across the country and even expanding to new countries. This requires an adjustment to your talent acquisition strategy to ensure your employer brand and recruitment processes are ready to handle dispersed talent.  

Trend 3: Adapting to Remote Work 

Remote work is impacting more than just where talent comes from, it also affects how organisations onboard and engage their staff. Especially in our current cost-of-living crisis, customer service representatives are fielding queries from vulnerable customers which can be especially draining. Talent leaders are getting creative in how they connect with staff to ensure a sense of belonging and wellness—regardless of where the employee is working.  

Some contact centres have even adjusted their operational structure to work in “pods” which ensures agents—both in the office and remote—get the support they need to solve customer queries efficiently. Before, managers and team leads could walk around the contact centre floor and see when agents looked stressed. Remote working has made it harder to monitor employee wellbeing. Customer-focused leaders are investing in employee wellbeing, from training managers to catch the signs of burnout to offering wellbeing support programs.  

These are just a few of the labour market trends that are impacting how companies hire and engage talent. Clearly, organisations are finding creative and bold ways to invest in their employees to maintain a resilient and customer-focused workforce. To hear more from our panel of experts, watch the replay on-demand. 

Candidate Experience Pitfalls That Impact Diversity Recruitment [Infographic]

Posted on by akessler

Diversity, equality and inclusion (DE&I) is a top priority for global organisations, but only 5% say they’re succeeding with their DE&I initiatives. We decided to look into where talent acquisition programs fit in and how the recruitment process may be contributing to this disparity for companies.

In looking at the research, we uncovered some common pitfalls within the candidate experience in which organisations unintentionally sabotage their DE&I efforts.

CHECK OUT OUR INFOGRAPHIC TO EXPLORE SOME OF THE DATA WE UNCOVERED IN OUR DIVERSITY & THE CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE REPORT.

To learn even more about diversity recruitment, download, Diversity & the Candidate Experience: Identifying Recruitment Pitfalls to Improve DE&I Outcomes.