How to Improve Your Company's Recruitment Process by Implementing These ideas from Companies with best recruitment practices.
Recruitment is one of the most important aspects of any business. The recruitment process can be defined as a set of steps that are taken to recruit, screen, and select candidates for a job opening. It includes advertising the position, interviewing candidates, and making an offer.
A good recruitment process will help you find the best candidate for your company. It will also reduce your time spent on recruiting.
What are the most important factors when it comes to recruiting?
Recruitment is an important process in any company. It is the process of finding the right people for the company in order to fulfill its needs. The most important factors when it comes to recruitment are:
-The skills and qualifications that the person has
-The culture of the company and candidate fit
-The work environment that they will be working in
-Their personality traits, like being a team player or being able to work under pressure
- New skills and qualifications can they bring to propel the business forward
With that being said, for companies to make those best fit for hires, they need to have a robust recruitment process.
In this blog post, we’ll take a look at companies with the best recruitment practices. In aid to inspire you to improve yours.
Examples of Companies with best recruitment practices
1. MCKINSEY’S PROBLEM-SOLVING GAME
McKinsey & Company have innovated their recruitment process to be interactive and fun.
As a strategy and management consulting firm, it’s important that they hire talent with strong problem-solving skills.
In order to effectively narrow down their candidate pools so only the best filter through, McKinsey strategically involved the use of an interactive game. - A simulated world that lets candidates demonstrate how they’d think and solve problems.
The game is used to test candidates abilities and enables them to showcase their skills in an engaging manner.
This is positive for the following reasons:
- Massively reduces the time to hire, and all the associated costs along with it.
- Enables the best person for the job to be hired, regardless of race, age and gender.
- Creates an enjoyable candidate experience.
Companies that can create positive candidate experiences will have their brand identity improved and are more likely to attract a stronger talent pool.
2. Lloyd’s virtual reality assessment
Similarly to McKinsey, Lloyds has utilized a virtual reality tool to play out real-life scenarios to test candidates' resilience. This is an engaging way for the banking group to test whether the candidate is right for the role and vice versa.
The puzzles within the VR tool enable applicants at Lloyd’s to “demonstrate the strengths and capabilities required of its future leaders”.
They also give candidates insights into the role at Lloyds and let them decide whether the job is right for them. This is great for reducing company turnover.
3. Unilever’s psychometric games
To test the soft skills of candidates, Unilever has implemented behavioural assessment games into their recruitment process. The games reveal the characteristics and personality traits of each candidate. Exposing skills that would otherwise be difficult to identify in a traditional interview.
The games also give candidates feedback. This not only gives a personal touch but massively improves the candidate experience.
Likewise, the whole of the application process for Unilever is swift, streamlined and effective.
The four-step application process consists of:
Step 1: The online application.
This involves candidates needing to answer x3 competency-based questions. As well as sharing academic success, interests, and passions.
Step 2: The profile assessment
This step involves the 5 online games to test different skills.
Step 3: The video interview
Unilever uses a one-way video intervening tool. This is where questions appear on the screen and the candidate has to record themselves answering them.
Step 4: The Virtual discovery centre
This is the online assessment centre that helps candidates get prepared for the demands of the job. This tests candidates' knowledge on the Unilever brand, competition and target audience. But if candidates are unsure of answers there is no real penalty against them. At this stage is a learning process to best prepare for the role. However, candidates who can answer diligently will have a stronger first impression.
4. RedBull’s Wingfinder assessment tool
RedBull has innovated its recruitment process to be a very exciting candidate experience for users.
On their website, they utilize a four-part assessment tool called Wingfinder.
The Wingfinder interactive tool helps candidates to recognise their own strengths. This is through asking questions that focus on four key areas of personal success.
This tool enables candidates to utilize this in their future roles.
Red Bull have cleverly stuck within their branding and used their trademark slogan to fit within their recruitment process. By stating “Red Bull Wingfinder, give wings to your career.”
The test takes about 30 minutes and is based on 30 years of psychological research.
The genius behind this recruitment technique is that often candidates want a role in a company where they can develop and progress within their career. Red Bull is paving the way for employee learning and progression. Making them attractive prospective employers.
Like the McKinsey example, this impressive candidate experience results in attracting a stronger talent pool of candidates.
5. GOOGLE: CODE JAM
Google is infamous for its competitive hiring. Running multiple coding competitions such as Code Jam, Hashcode, and Kick Start. Candidates compete against other coders in a series of tests and games to become the Code Jam champion. The top winning spot gets a healthy $15,000 USD prize as well as a job offer.
6. INSTACART
As the world transitioned into remote interviewing by the Covid pandemic, Instacart- an online grocery delivery service didn’t want the candidate experience to drop from their usual standards.
As a result, they send all candidates for video interviews a care package ahead of time. In the pack includes a branded mug, tote bag and useful company information brochure.
They explain that in a usual in-office interview, the candidate would be offered a beverage and so forth. That’s why the same warmth and hospitality is extended to the remote candidates.
7. JET.COM
Jet.com is an online shopping platform. They’re improving their recruitment process by utilizing VR to have a full tour experience for their candidates applying remotely. In their VR tour, candidates cna see and experience the full company culture and workspace. Candidates can meet the CEO and even enjoy the company band during happy hour.
8. THE SWEDISH ARMED FORCES
The recruitment practices from the Swedish armed forces are something really out of the box.
They implemented a 4-day social experiment to raise their profile.
The test involved placing a mysterious black box in central Stockholm, to which every hour someone was invited inside the box. The person could only leave the box if someone else was to exchange their place with them for another hour.
This crazy experiment naturally hit a social media frenzy and within a short period of time met nationwide attention.
As a result, the army received 9930 applicants for just 1430 positions!
A great example of utilizing social media to spread information and increase applications for a larger candidate pool.
9. BOEING
Boeing has gone in a different direction to get top talent to them. Instead of focusing on campaigns, they put their efforts into search engines!
By focusing on keywords, Boeing will appear in one of the tops of the search engine result pages when typing into job searches for software engineers.
Commonalities between successful company recruiting examples?
All of the above examples of successful recruitment practices all share some of these common features:
1. Transitioning to online recruitment
The recruitment process is changing and companies need to adapt. The new recruitment process is a lot more digital and it’s happening online.
Companies are investing in their online presence. As well as hiring recruiters with a strong understanding of the digital world and how to reach potential candidates. They are also taking advantage of tools that can help them attract more candidates. Taking these steps to have a strong online recruitment presence is essential to keeping up with the competition!
2. Utilizing technology to filter through large candidate pools
The world is changing and companies need to change with it. The best recruitment practices are those that use technology to filter through large candidate pools and identify the right talent for the job.
Companies looking for a competitive edge in today’s market are even using AI-based recruiting tools. Which can help them find the right talent faster than ever before.
Technology can speed up the time to hire significantly, massively reducing recruitment costs and improving the candidate experience.
3. Focus on an improved candidate experience
Companies with best recruitment practices focus on the candidate experience. They know that a company is only as good as its employees and that a great candidate experience will result in a great employee.
The most important part of the recruitment process is the applicant experience. It’s what separates them from their competitors and will ultimately determine whether or not they get hired. A lot of companies have been focusing on improving their candidate experience in order to stay ahead of the competition.
4. Using Interactive recruitment methods
The use of digital tools in recruitment is becoming more and more popular. The number of companies that use them is increasing every year.
Companies with the best recruitment practices are those that have embraced the power of digital tools. By using all the available resources to find the best candidates for their company.
Interactive recruitment methods are used by companies to attract the best talent. These methods are more effective than traditional ones because they provide a better candidate experience. Interactive recruitment strategies also allow for a better understanding of what the company is looking for and what the candidate can offer.
As we’ve seen in the above examples, some of these interactive recruitment methods include:
Online tests:
These tests help recruiters assess candidates' technical skills, problem-solving skills, and personality traits.
Gamification:
Gamification is an innovative way of trying to create the feel of a job-like experience for users – it often involves competition and those who do well can become employees.
This method helps recruiters find candidates that match their company culture.
Competitions:
This method is used to find the best talent in a given field or industry.
Companies like Google, Facebook, and Netflix use competitions to find the best candidates.
Using competitions for recruitment is a clever strategy. It can be accomplished by creating contests that appeal to competitive natures and that might go viral. The company will then see an increase in applicants which can make things more promising in terms of recruitment and future success.
Company tours:
This method is used to give candidates an inside look at what it's like to work at the company. Just like the Jet.com example above.
Companies with best recruitment practices
Companies that create their own hiring processes are an example of how the economy is not stagnant. They're creating their own edge by disrupting traditional business schemes.
Employers and candidates will both be pleasantly surprised by this different approach to applications. It improves an employer’s brand while leaving a lasting impact on the candidate’s experience.
For more posts like this see our post on great candidate experience examples.