It is an absolute delight to be back after a slightly longer summer podcasting break than I was anticipating. I’ve nearly finished my book and, most importantly, have put a lot of time into planning the future of RecruitingFuture. The first thing to announce is that there will now be a full transcript of each episode in the show notes to make recruitingfuture.com more accessible and more searchable. The transcripts start from episode 369 onwards. I’ll have more exciting news to share in the coming weeks, so keep listening and make sure you subscribe to the show whether you get your podcasts.
So on with Episode 370, earlier in the year, my long-time collaborator Mervyn Dinnen and I partnered with the team at SHL on a piece of research into the future of candidate experience. We identified six fundamental shifts in thinking which will help employers deliver an exceptional candidate experience and have published all the findings in a new whitepaper.
To talk through the six shifts, I’m delighted to welcome one of my co-authors on the whitepaper Sam Whiteman, Head of Solutions at SHL. Enjoy the conversation, and please download the whitepaper once you’ve had a listen.
In the interview, we discuss:
• The current state of candidate experience
• The employer brand opportunity
• Translating lessons from consumer experience into candidate experience
• Automation and asynchronous empowerment
• Realistic job previews
• Real-time candidate experience optimisation
• Offering personalised feedback at scale
• Authenticity
• Demonstrating Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
• The role of technology
• Realistic and practical advice for talent acquisition leaders
Listen to this podcast in Apple Podcasts.
Transcription:
00:00
Matt Alder
Support for this podcast is provided by SHL. From talent acquisition through to talent management, SHL’s science and technology maximize the potential of your greatest asset your people. SHL help you create the diverse, agile and innovative workforce you need to succeed in an unpredictable environment. Their data driven people insights, unmatched portfolio of products, engaging experiences built on science and global expert services are all delivered one platform for all your people. Answers Visit SHL.com to learn more about how SHL can unlock the potential of your workforce.
01:06
Matt Alder
This is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 370 of the Recruiting Future podcast. It’s an absolute delight to be back after a slightly longer summer podcasting break than I was anticipating. I very nearly finished my book and most importantly, I’ve put a lot of time into planning the future of Recruiting Future. The first thing to announce is that there will now be a full transcript of each episode in the show Notes, which will make recruitingfuture.com more accessible and more searchable. The transcripts start from episode 369 onwards. I’ll have more exciting news to share in the coming weeks, so keep listening and make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. So on with episode 370.
01:59
Matt Alder
Earlier in the year, myself and my longtime collaborator Mervyn Dynon partnered with the team at SHL on a piece of research into the future of candidate experience. We have identified six key shifts in thinking which will help employers deliver an exceptional candidate experience and have published all our findings in a new white paper. To talk through the six shifts, I’m delighted to welcome one of my co authors on the White Paper, Sam Whiteman, Head of Solutions at shl. Enjoy the interview and please download the White Paper once you’ve had a listen. Hi Sam and welcome back to the podcast.
02:40
Sam Whiteman
Matt, thanks so much for having me back. I appreciate it.
02:43
Matt Alder
An absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Could you just introduce yourself and tell us what you do for people who may not have heard you speak before?
02:51
Sam Whiteman
Sure. My name’s Sam Whiteman. I’m with SHL. I lead our Talent Acquisition Solutions. I was on the podcast maybe I think 12 or 18 months ago. Matt and I know time has stood still in some ways, but a lot’s happened since we last spoke and really excited to come onto the podcast as a guest on top of being a frequent listener.
03:10
Matt Alder
Yes, I think it was Middle of the first part of the pandemic and were sort of really talking about what effect it was having on recruiting and talent markets around the world. And that’d probably be a good place to start this conversation, actually. Just sort of really interesting. Obviously in the work that. Do you talk to employers and see what’s happening all over the world? Where have we got to now? We’re recording this beginning of August 2021. What’s everyone thinking? What’s everyone doing?
03:36
Sam Whiteman
Yeah, I think it’s really interesting. I think at the start of COVID no one really knew what was going to happen and any predictions were sort of wrong in a number of different ways. But I think what was really interesting from a recruiting point of view was the resilience of recruiting teams first and foremost and the ability to move operations and move how they looked at candidates and candidate pipelines, just even simply from in house interviews to virtual interviews. So I think there was a great show of resilience by teams in terms of that adaptation. I think the other couple of things that were really interesting for us, influenced by external events, huge focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.
04:21
Sam Whiteman
And so we’ve done a lot of work with our clients in terms of sort of making sure that’s a forefront, it’s at the forefront of the outcomes that they’re looking for when they’re using shl, which is great. And then on top of that, just knowing that the market is in one market, it has sort of bifurcated a little bit depending on what kinds of roles you’re looking at. But the candid experience, obviously, which is what we’re going to be talking about, is more critical than ever to get good candidates off the market. There are good candidates out there looking for jobs. There’s also, with the move to remote, there’s also a wash of new candidates who think they might be interested in particular roles or particular careers.
05:00
Sam Whiteman
And so there’s actually been a flood of applicants in a number of different careers or a number of different roles. And so understanding how to engage and excite those candidates which might be new into the talent pool, I think has been a really big opportunity for the recruiting leaders that we’ve talked to across the globe.
05:17
Matt Alder
It’s such an interesting time and there’s so much going on and especially in terms of people sort of planning for the future and how we move forward from here. One of the things we’ve also done since we sort of last spoke on the podcast is we have recently collaborated on a white paper. So with SHL and with also my good friend and longtime collaborator Mervyn Dynon. And we sort of work together to really look at the candidate experience in the context of what’s going on today and how employers should be thinking about it and what’s happening. Obviously candidate experience is something that we’ve been talking about for decades now, but I think the key thing about it is an ever evolving process, an ever evolving situation and it obviously is affected by the market and by technology and everything else that’s going on.
06:06
Matt Alder
I suppose by way of introduction to the white paper, you know, what are your sort of views on candidate experience at the moment? Where do you think it is from what your clients are doing and saying?
06:14
Sam Whiteman
Yeah, so I think there’s been a real shift from our clients and recruiting leaders that we talk to in terms of understanding what the opportunity is. And so I think for a number of years where there might have been an education component to say this is why candidate experience is important. I think I’m relatively bullish that recruiting leaders understand the opportunity in terms of a good recruiting process. A good candidate experience can actually change candidates minds or they can create advocates for future opportunities and actually strengthen the employer brand through the process. Even though statistically we know that maybe only 2 or 3% of candidates actually get through to get the final job. So I think that understanding is there now, Matt, whereas previously it was a bit of an education opportunity.
06:57
Sam Whiteman
And so I’m really heartened that people see the opportunity and now we can probably move, generally speaking to well, how do we execute that and how do we go after that opportunity for my company, for my industry and my country, whatever that might be. So that is a movement that I’ve seen certainly in terms of the recruiting leaders that we’ve worked with, it’s less a case of should we, but more now. How do we.
07:24
Matt Alder
Absolutely. And I think also what’s interesting is we’ve been talking for ages about giving candidates the same kind of experience that they get in the consumer world with all the purchases and services and things that they interact with. And I think the really interesting thing that we did with this white paper, this, this piece of research is we really looked at what that meant, what some consumer companies were doing, and identified six sort of key shifts that employers can think about if they want to deliver that world class consumer experience. What are your thoughts on that.
07:59
Sam Whiteman
Yeah, I think that’s one place that we look for inspiration. I think, you know, we all know the buzzword around digital transformation, but we want to make sure that the benefits of digital transformation accrue to recruiting as well. Right. And I think they have over the past number of years for sales and marketing motions and innovations and technologies. And I think there’s a real opportunity for recruiting to be sort of real fast followers and even then innovators in terms of looking at our candidate pipelines in the same way that companies look at their marketing pipelines. And so that was one place that we looked at for inspiration, if you like, in terms of, well, how do we bridge that gap between candidate experience and consumer experiences?
08:45
Sam Whiteman
And what we did was we looked at what has been effective in consumer experiences over the last number of years and then applied that to a recruiting context. So that’s what we’re really excited about in terms of where we think candidate experience might go in the next 6, 12, 24 months.
09:02
Matt Alder
So to bring this to life for people, I think let’s talk through the six shifts that we detail in the white paper and it’d be great to really get your thoughts around them. So the first one is all about, it’s all about giving value. It’s moving from candidates being passive to being interactive. Talk us through the thinking there.
09:21
Sam Whiteman
Yeah, I think we did a, I think as an industry we did a good job at providing information around, you know, context for a role like this is, you know, this is what it is and here is a link to our X policy. And you know, we are in these locations and all those types of things. Some of that there was good information, but maybe not that interactivity. Right. And so what we thought here is in terms of giving value to candidates, how can we place them in the role and how can we give them that realistic preview of what the job looks like, what the culture looks like, how their strengths could be applied on the job and make that an interactive experience rather than just a sit back experience. It’s more of a lean in experience.
10:01
Matt Alder
The second one is all about empowering candidates. And I found this particularly interesting because it really fits in with a lot of the discussion that we’ve been having on the podcast in the last year about automation, but also about the power of working in a asynchronous, an asynchronous way and how actually the pandemic has really enabled people to think like that. Tell us A little bit more about that one. Yeah.
10:23
Sam Whiteman
I think the great thing about this is that it’s a. For both sort of recruiting organizations and candidates as well. Right. It’s taking what used to the activities that only used to have in between 9am and 5pm or thereabouts and making that a 247 operation. I think the key thing there is from a candidate point of view is that they’re in control of that process and they can sort of fit it around their schedule in terms of how they want to optimize their days and weeks. But from a recruiter point of view, it’s allowing candidates to get off the market, good candidates to get off the market quickly as well.
10:54
Sam Whiteman
And so if there is a good candidate that is showing interest in your role, why should they have to wait until someone, you know, logs into a system during 9 to 5 in a particular office on a particular day just to. Just to progress their application? So putting a lot more of that empowerment into candidates is going to help them and it’s going to help recruiters sort of with those time to hire and quality of hire metrics that I know they’re keen on.
11:21
Matt Alder
The third one here, it kind of really appeals to my background in marketing because I think it’s something that perhaps we don’t think of enough in talent acquisition. So it’s the idea of being able to continually iterate something rather than just leaving it to run. So, for example, candidate experience is always seen as a single project, as something you go and fix and then you sort of leave it and it runs and then you fix it again a few years later when it’s really broken. But actually the technologies and the ways of working that we have now means that you can be making adjustments all the time in real time and be doing things like AB testing and really using technology to really enhance the process for everyone. And I know that’s something that is of a lot of interest to you as well.
12:06
Sam Whiteman
Yeah, I think this is going to be fascinating. A huge opportunity in marketing, sorry, in recruiting, that we can learn from marketing. I’m sure one of the really interesting things we looked at was sort of Netflix and Matt, if you and I opened a similar version of Netflix, we might actually get different titles sort of shown to us, obviously, but then even the pictures behind the titles might be different as well. And so Netflix, they’re ab testing the smallest things, like do we show this main character or that main character on the thumbnail image when Matt opens his Netflix tomorrow? And they use that data to sort of to look at. Well, how might that impact engagement and advocacy by using Netflix.
12:48
Sam Whiteman
And I think that’s a great example of where we can look at data and we can look at small things to iterate over time. It doesn’t need to be. I’m going to spend the next three months and waterfall my way to what candid experience will be for the next 18 months here at Company X. It can be, here are my outcomes, here are my principles, here’s where I’m going to start, and here’s how I’m going to learn along the way. And so one of the things that we’re really excited about is being able to use that mix of quality, of hire data, of engagement data, of diversity data to make sure that we’re continually iterating that over time as well.
13:24
Sam Whiteman
So I think this is, you know, to the extent that you can have favorite sort of children or shifts in a candidate experience white paper, this, this could be it for me.
13:34
Matt Alder
Well, if that one’s your favorite, the next one is my favorite. And it’s something you touched on there, which is all about personalizing experiences. And I think that if were to look at something that is likely to be a huge trend in talent acquisition and recruiting for the next few years, the ability to give people a highly kind of personalized candidate experience is going to be one of the biggest things. I mean, talk us through your perspectives on this one.
14:00
Sam Whiteman
Yeah, it’s an interesting one because from a candidate expectations, they sort of know that they’re 1 of 50 or know that they’re 1 of 100, but they still feel like they, you know, they don’t want to be treated like a number as well. And so there’s a number of different things that we can do during the candidate experience and the applicant process and the recruiting funnel to help bring out that personalization, because it is a moment of truth. Going for a job is a very, sort of a very emotional milestone, I guess, for a lot of candidates. And they do expect the same personalization that they might get from consumer technology as well.
14:38
Sam Whiteman
And so one of the ways in which we’ve applied this is around sort of feedback and giving candidates specific and personalized video feedback so that it can be consumable in a way that they can understand it and they get some value from it. But I think when people use technologies these days, they’re absolutely expecting that to be tailored for them. The algorithms are supposed to work. And I think there’s a great opportunity here to make sure that what we can’t do with a white glove approach with army of recruiters, we can use technology where we have it available to bring that personalization in again.
15:15
Matt Alder
The next shift really leads on from that, which is all about, it’s all about being authentic. And we’ve talked about authenticity for a very long time when it comes to things like social media and employer brand. But it very much tends to be talked about from a recruitment marketing perspective rather than a candidate experience perspective. How can authentic content fit into the actual candidate experience?
15:42
Sam Whiteman
Well, I think this is another one where if you look at sort of consumer trends and marketing trend, the rise of just someone putting a phone in front of their own face and uploading something to TikTok or Instagram live or streaming services like Twitch, that content isn’t overly produced. People like content that seems a bit more real than rehearsed. And I think when were thinking about what that shift might mean for recruiting and for candidates, we thought, do candidates really want to hear from the CEO about the 2030 vision and the five values? Maybe they do, but I also think they want to hear from someone who’s like doing the job that they’re in. And I think it doesn’t matter if it’s not, if they’re not lit with a perfect background three different ways in a, you know, with a boom mic.
16:33
Sam Whiteman
I think just getting that content in there to see what the job looks like and what the reality of working at Company X looks like I think is probably more important to candidates. One of the things that we will know is by using what were talking about earlier with AB testing, maybe we’ll find out. So maybe graduates would prefer to hear from last year’s graduate than the CEO about how important graduates are to their company. That’s something that we can test for. But I think there’s a real shift towards show me the real stuff because I’m more likely to believe that and accept it and understand it and incorporate that into my decision making than the agency produced CEO video with beautiful music and lighting.
17:16
Matt Alder
The final shift that we talk about in the white paper is round diversity, equity and inclusion. It’s all about how companies can demonstrate that rather than just talking about it. What are you seeing sort of happening around that?
17:29
Sam Whiteman
Yeah, I think there’s, I mean there’s just a large amount that companies can do at all touch points in the recruiting funnel. And I think I’m heartened that we’ve come a long way and we’ve got a long way to go. I think with this one, making sort of previously understanding and sending someone a link to the diversity policy might have been sort of enough. But I think two things have happened. One is I think sort of per some of our other shifts, people appreciate stories more so than anything else. And also I think it’s going to appeal to all candidates where they can understand that their candidacy is being treated fairly with rigor and some thought behind how they might level the playing field in terms of how candidates are evaluated.
18:15
Sam Whiteman
And so demonstrating that in the process, both with stories around what diversity looks like at that particular company and the efforts that are being put together, but then also sort of showing that throughout the process in terms of what you do, I think is really important.
18:29
Matt Alder
Well, it’s been really interesting for me in the conversations that we’ve been having over the last few months is I think when traditionally when people talk about candidate experience, they’re talking about the application process and kind of what happens after the assessment process in terms of people getting feedback and all that stuff. And I think what’s really interesting in terms of what you’re focusing on is how the assessment process itself is such an integral. It is the candidate experience and the power that technology can bring to that is kind of fascinating and driving sort of a lot of these shifts. Talk us through some of the things that you’re doing as an organization or some of the things that you can offer which speak to the sort of shifts that we’re talking about.
19:17
Matt Alder
Because I think it would really help to contextualize it for people.
19:20
Sam Whiteman
Yeah. The way we think about it is thinking about it as a Thursday problem. And I’ll explain what I mean by a Thursday problem. But what is the candid experience of an applicant that applies to a job on a Thursday? And the reason why I pick out Thursday is that just based on recruiter workload, someone’s not likely to get back to them tomorrow, Friday. And so they’re going to have between Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, where the Friday, if they’ve got nothing to do and nothing to learn and nothing to interact with, they’re going to be back on the job boards looking for other roles. Right. And you’ve got this good candidate there, you’ve got this awesome website, employee brand content, social channels, this, that whatever new ATS mobile apply, you’ve got all of these things.
20:00
Sam Whiteman
But they go to apply and they’re showing all this intent and then what do they do? Like, are they waiting around for a Human. And that’s something that doesn’t happen in marketing, right? There’s automation behind it and there’s interactivity and there’s engagement. And sort of trying to focus on this part of the application process I think is really critical because there’s a lot of intent there. And now it’s a, and now it’s a joint decision making process between the candidate and the company. I think a few things that we want to do there. One is make sure that in all of the things that we’re doing, it’s not just an assessment they’re looking at. It is a realistic preview of the culture and the job like we spoke about earlier. They can see some of that, some of those things.
20:42
Sam Whiteman
Maybe it’s not as rehearsed, it’s more real. Maybe it shows some of the diversity opportunity and demonstration in it. Going through the tasks in an automated way to say, hey, look, here’s where you are in the process. You’ve done this, you have got through to the next stage and you’re doing this automatically and doing that so that a Thursday morning application could be Thursday morning assessment, Thursday afternoon something else. And then all of a sudden the candidates are progressing themselves through that pipeline with no intervention from a recruiter. So there’s a huge opportunity there in and of itself to get good candidates off the market and stop them going to your competitors to apply for other jobs, but then giving them that value and that feedback, like you mentioned.
21:21
Sam Whiteman
And so the introduction of personalized video feedback where it’s not just, hey, you did fine, we’ll come back to you. It’s a video produced with your name. It says, hi, Matt, thanks for taking this assessment. This is what we’ve learned about you. Here are the opportunities here. I’m going to give you a bit of feedback and you can tailor that feedback for your company, for the role, for the amount of feedback that you want to give to sort of candidates as well. And that’s just mirroring their consumer experiences, right where they see short, you know, TikTok or Instagram videos. And so we’re just trying to match that consumer experience at that really important part of the applicant funnel. And we’ve got really good feedback so far. And so we’re sort of super excited about where these shifts might take our clients. Especially.
22:05
Matt Alder
You talked at the beginning about the resilience of talent acquisition teams and everything that they’ve really had to sort of go through in the last 18 months. And it’s very easy sometimes to talk about improving candidate experience and there’s lots of content out there telling people how to do it. But you know, obviously the reality of the situation is it’s still a very difficult time to be in and talent acquisition things are changing, people are planning for the future and also we’ve got these sort of incredibly difficult talent markets all across the world. So even just the sort of day to day hiring of people is very hard. What would your advice be to talent acquisition leaders when it comes to improving the candidate experience and this kind of thing, how should they be thinking about it? What could they be doing?
22:49
Matt Alder
And how realistic is that in terms of all the other pressures that they’re under?
22:52
Sam Whiteman
Yeah, it’s a great question and I think it is going to be different for different markets and sort of companies. But I think as a general rule, one of the things that we’ve seen really work is firstly knowing your outcomes, right? Knowing yourself, knowing your own company and what it is that what are the outcomes that you want to generate both for the candidate and for yourself, I think is key. We obviously do that right across sort of, you know, engagement, efficiency, diversity, quality of hire, et cetera. But knowing those and being really clear about them is the first thing. The second thing is probably just starting small.
23:24
Sam Whiteman
I think again it’s sort of moving from candidate experience from being a business case to business as usual and saying, look, based on what I know about my outcomes, here’s what I want to try and trying to work in candid experience as OPEX rather than capex so that we can continually look at maybe parts of the funnel, specific roles, specific opportunities and then sort of start small and iterate. There is no such thing as candidate experience improvement season anymore. That is 12 months over year. And it’s about how we sort of as a recruiting team and that includes the ecosystem of partners, be it assessment partners like ourselves or ATSS or CRMs, working with your partners to make sure that opportunity is clear for very specific outcomes and revisiting those on a continual basis.
24:14
Matt Alder
Sam, thank you very much for talking to me.
24:15
Sam Whiteman
Matt, always a pleasure.
24:18
Matt Alder
My thanks to Sam Whiteman. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts on Spotify or via your podcasting app of choice. Please also follow the show on Instagram. You can find us by searching for Recruiting Future. You can search all the past episodes at recruitingfuture.com on that site. You can also subscribe to the mailing list to get the inside track about everything that’s coming up on the show. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time, and I hope you’ll join me.
