“Unless you have a good recruitment system, you’ll never hit any of your business objectives”

When it comes to managing talent acquisition, a leading multinational information and analytics group relies on several key tools. Foremost among these is its workforce plan, which sets out its hiring requirements over the coming quarters. It also uses a variety of different channels to advertise positions – including job boards, online forums, LinkedIn and recruitment agencies – and it tracks the success of its recruitment campaigns using applicant tracking systems.

“We use applicant tracking systems to post vacancies, to know where vacancies are in the cycle, to field applications effectively and to review cost per hire, time to hire and how many candidates have been slated against a particular vacancy,” explains the Global Head of Recruitment for one of the group’s businesses. “So if we don’t have enough activity on a particular vacancy, we can react very quickly and use more job boards or an agency. The metrics provided by the applicant tracking systems also drive the performance of the recruitment team.”

“If someone’s first interaction with a business is recruitment – which is the case a lot of the time – the candidate experience needs to be thought through.” For this reason, the group has solid processes in place for screening people, interviewing them (using both competency-based and behavioural-based interviews) and making offers. In order to ensure that the best people are being brought into the business, candidates also undergo personality profiling and are tested for literacy and numeracy using digital tools.

“Having a focused approach to recruitment helps the business to make sense of what can otherwise be a chaotic process,” says the Head of Recruitment. “Unless you have a good recruitment system to find people to replace staff who have left or to incrementally grow the business, you’ll never hit any of your business objectives.” 

AUTHOR

Jon Mannall
EMEA Managing Director and Global Head of Sales, Solutions and Innovation, Hays Talent Solutions
Jonathan is the EMEA Managing Director and Global Head of Sales, Solution and Innovation for Hays Talent Solutions, having joined Hays in 2011. Previous roles held at Hays included Client Director, Service Delivery Director and Head of Sales for the UK. He is now responsible for leading the approach to engaging and securing new clients and to ensuring that the products and services offered by Hays Talent Solutions continue to meet the changing needs of our global, regional and local customers. For more information about Hays Talent Solutions, visit our website. 

Prior to joining Hays, and after completing his Masters in Philosophy and Management, Jon worked in the RPO and MSP sector for 10 years with a range of Financial Services, Public Sector, IT & Telecommunications, and Insurance clients in Sales and Operations Director roles.