Written by Sarah Holton, Digital Consulting Solutions Director, UK
With the majority of early talent campaigns launching in autumn, right now is the perfect time to finalise your strategy and ensure your next campaign launch is set up for success. Whatever your budget and resources, conducting an audit of how things went in the last year is valuable, whether it leads to some incremental enhancements or a full overhaul of your recruitment strategy. But with so many plates to juggle, where should you focus your effort and energy?
6 tips to optimise your hiring process for early career applicants
1. Be innovative
For any large-scale redesigns, be sure to leverage data and do so at the right time when you and your organisation can commit focus and energy to thinking critically about the opportunities and risks. Introducing innovation to the process is recommended to differentiate your experience and create buzz with your applicant pool. Determine where best to bring this in, considering both DEI impact and prediction while trying to remain objective about newly emerging recruiting fads.
In our own research, Talogy found that when asked to select up to five features they deem most important when completing a recruitment assessment, UK School Leavers and Graduates suggested their top two needs were for the experience to “feel relevant to the role” (68% of sample) and “give a realistic insight into the types of tasks [one] might encounter in the job” (69% of sample).
We are hearing from clients who have fallen for quick-win innovations – delivering style over substance – who are now pivoting to robust methods with a demonstrable track-record of delivering impact. It’s best to use widely applicable and extensively validated methods such as cognitive reasoning assessments and situational judgement tests which bring roles to life in a meaningful way that is backed by rigour and science.
2. Inspire integrity
We often get asked, “How are we going to assess fairly and accurately in a context of generative AI where some candidates are willing to cheat to get ahead?” Let’s be frank – it is not possible for any recruiter or assessment solutions provider to entirely mitigate the risk of cheating in unsupervised environments, nor has it been since the emergence of unsupervised testing. What is reassuring though, is that self-report evidence from candidates indicates that the likelihood of cheating is considerably lower than recruiters believe it is.
With generative AI now a well-established commodity embedded in the way early career talent operates, the use of honesty statements as a simple enhancement to your hiring process could inspire integrity in candidates. In addition, multi-stage, multi-method assessment of key behaviours and skills ensures additional verification. Some clients are even opting to move back to utilising face-to-face or hybrid assessments at the final stages of their hiring process which can engender a sense of psychological contract, presenting a human side to the organisation and encouraging the fulfilment of honesty obligations from candidates.
3. Keep the human connection
With extensive fearmongering around the ‘imminent’ demise of Talent Acquisition, a very firm message must be shared: People are important and there will always be a role for people to deliver value above and beyond what tech automation and artificial intelligence can. The value of human connection in driving memorable, personalised candidate experiences that inspire brand advocates should not be overlooked.
Consider where in your pipeline to best allocate human resources to create organisational efficiencies and perhaps more importantly, to deliver a differentiated, caring candidate experience. The less their experience feels personalised, the less supported they will feel and the more likely it will be that you lose potential early career talent to competitors.
Some of our most progressive clients are investing great effort and energy into fostering a human-led, supportive element to their volume early career processes in scalable ways. One example is providing one-on-one recruiter support on request. This supplements collateral providing transparency around the process, what to expect, and practice materials. Candidates differ in the way they consume information and the option to speak to recruiters provides candidates with the agency to make decisions about their assessment journey. This is particularly relevant for candidates who require reasonable adjustments or individuals who experience test anxiety. What are your human touch points? What more could you do to better support your candidates through your process?
4. Leverage data
Is your data landscape a key source of frustration for you right now? Are your data transit processes ‘sub-par’ when it comes to GDPR compliance? Data centralisation and security is essential for deriving efficient insight on key business metrics. So, this is the time to tackle data head on and ask yourself the following:
- What insights are you missing currently?
- What other data do you need to make optimised hiring decisions?
- What about return on investment and pipeline data such as application rates, attrition rates, time to hire, candidate satisfaction ratings (qualitative and quantitative), conversion at each stage, and fulfilment/acceptance rates – are you tracking these centrally and if not, can you start doing this moving forward?
If your answers to the questions above indicate opportunities for improvement in your recruitment process, consider working with an ATS and talent assessment partner to programme the data you need into your workflows. By doing this now, you can further bolster success by overcoming legal and technical blockers that limit data insights.
For the purposes of EDI monitoring and continuous improvement, work with your legal teams to explain the robust rationale for third parties having access to demographic data such as the opportunities for people analytics and mitigating bias in your hiring process. ATS systems alone do not always have the data visualisation capabilities to show impactful analytics based on live applicant data. Talogy’s talent dashboards can significantly enhance decision making during and post-campaign to inform year over year improvements. These insights can enhance prediction and protect diversity through exploration of intersectional trends, helping you to target specific areas for improvement and ensuring effective funnel management to meet fluctuating fulfilment rates.
5. Prioritise behavioural assessments
Whatever you call behavioural constructs, whether it be behaviours, competencies, skills, or personally less-favoured ‘soft skills,’ your areas of focus for assessment activity should be reviewed regularly as job roles evolve. With mass-adoption of AI and a shift in skills and behaviours required to work, the rate of change in the nature of roles will be swift, with less visibility than ever of what the horizon for ‘typical’ early career roles look like.
Future-ready work competencies provide some indication of competencies of interest, but human behaviour is multifaceted and complex, and organisations must narrow down and prioritise competencies into a manageable set for fair and consistent measurement. Correspondingly, career trajectories for early careers in today’s matrix organisations are varied and focused more on breadth of experience across disciplines, job functions, and departments. As behavioural competence lends itself to a broader range of roles than technical competence, behavioural assessment will continue to be a central focus in your assessment methodology.
The number of behavioural constructs on which people vary is fewer than the range of technical skills that could be required across any given role. With human behaviour less susceptible to change with AI emergence, behavioural assessment becomes a key focus for maximising longevity of your assessment methodology. The notion that behaviours are more important than technical skills is not new; the market has for several years reduced reliance upon degree qualifications in place of behavioural assessment in recruitment activities. This is a trend that is set to continue so consider whether it is time for you to review your framework for its suitability.
6. Create a seamless candidate journey
Have you received feedback that your candidate journey is lengthy? Are you experiencing attrition as you are reliant upon manual decision-making in the early stages of your funnel? This is because your application experience is not optimised for your candidates’ expectations. A smooth and nurturing journey for candidates is of critical importance. Brand engagement, values alignment, speed, and differentiation are key for clients to create powerful experiences that are immersive, informative, and technically seamless.
Quick decisions and progression through multi-stage processes, with messaging that keeps candidates warm and brand-aware, is key when applicants are applying for multiple competitor organisations. Demand for talent far outweighs the supply of interested applicants, making it critical that a seamless candidate experience be available for all. Utilise an inclusive design with planned reasonable adjustments available from the outset to ensure each applicant is able to perform at their best and feel supported.
Maximise your early career hiring efforts with Talogy
As you prepare for the next wave of early career applications, Talogy’s team of business psychologists can add valuable external perspective in helping you to streamline your recruitment process and identify continuous improvement opportunities using data and expertise. Making these incremental changes will optimise your process for early career candidates and ultimately help you achieve your hiring goals.
