Solution: Talent Advisory

Global Talent Acquisition Strategy: Time-to-Hire Cut in Half

Posted on by akessler
PeopleScout Cuts Time-to-Hire in Half with Global Talent Acquisition Solution for Manufacturer

Global RPO

PeopleScout Cuts Time-to-Hire in Half with Global Talent Acquisition Solution for Manufacturer

A global manufacturer of engineering solutions turned to PeopleScout for global recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) to fulfill their need for highly specialized, hard-to-find industrial engineering talent at their manufacturing sites, innovation centers and service centers across 16 countries.

50 % Average Reduction in Time-to-Hire
16 Countries & 9 Languages
16 Countries & 9 Languages
Scope Expanded After Exceeding Hires Target
Scope Expanded After Exceeding Hires Target

Scope & Scale

The manufacturer engaged with PeopleScout for a global RPO solution to make 150 hires for over 30 of their sites across 16 countries including Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

For most of their hires, they were seeking specialty talent with expertise in engineering and industrial design. These skills help build equipment for businesses all over the world that focus on chemicals, air and water treatment, mining, pharmaceuticals, marine, construction and other industrial applications.

Challenge

The client came to us after their previous RPO provider failed to deliver on the manufacturer’s global talent acquisition challenges. With some requisitions still open after 500 days, many of their site managers had taken recruitment into their own hands. Each manager had their own approach which resulted in a disjointed candidate experience and high levels of frustration for hiring managers and internal stakeholders. The global talent acquisition leader had very little visibility into time-to-fill and cost-to-fill metrics from country to country and wanted to see a consistent process across all regions that showcased their employer brand. 

The manufacturer also had growing concerns about the future of their labor force. With the average age of an engineer in the mid-50s, a huge portion of the global engineering workforce is due to retire in the next 10 years. The client needed to get ahead of this by recruiting talent with specific engineering skills to prevent a future talent gap.

However, engineers are highly sought after, with 63% of European manufacturers indicating the engineering skills shortage is making it harder to find qualified workers. The manufacturer needed candidates with unique experience in mechanical engineering and automation and who also matched their language requirements which varied by country and role. So, attracting these rare engineers—and convincing them to make a move—meant we had our work cut out for us.

Solution

Our diverse, multilingual and multicultural delivery teams in our Bristol and Krakow delivery centers plus remote teams got to work executing an end-to-end RPO solution. They sourced, screened and evaluated candidates in English, Swedish, German, French, Italian, Polish, Hungarian, Portuguese and Spanish.

Using Labor Market Insights to Inform Strategy

With competition from other well-known, international companies in certain markets, some roles were particularly challenging with over 200 similar open positions across competitors in one location alone. The PeopleScout Insights Team was commissioned to conduct in-depth research across markets and uncover potential candidate motivators that would give the organization a competitive edge.

In one case, our market data indicated that the labor pool for engineers in Czech Republic is small. So, we approached the client with the idea to expand the geography of our search to include candidates who lived across the border in Poland who could commute. By doing this, we filled business-critical automation engineer roles that saved their productivity levels. 

Global Process Meets Local Expertise

We created a global process to meet the requirements of the global talent acquisition leader and then worked with hiring managers in each region to adjust our approach to account for nuances like culture, job role and labor market across their sites.

Applying our team’s deep regional expertise, we adapted our strategy in each location, using the appropriate databases, job boards and online and offline marketing tactics to reach the right candidates for every role in each country. For example, in smaller cities, we knew it was less likely that blue-collar candidates would be seeking employment via online channels, so we took out ads at bus stops.

For other roles, we increased awareness of organization’s employer brand through targeted recruitment marketing efforts on job boards and social media. We also partnered with local universities to get in front of students who were looking for their first jobs after completing their studies. 

Talent Pooling with a Focus on Diversity

Because most engineers in Europe aren’t actively looking to change jobs, our recruiters found most success through proactive headhunting. By engaging directly with passive candidates via social media, email and phone, they filled many existing requisitions and created talent pools for future vacancies, which reduced the overall time-to-fill.

Since women remain underrepresented in engineering fields across Europe, the manufacturer put great importance on increasing the number of women engineers they hired. In addition to adjusting the verbiage in job descriptions to make them more inviting to a wider variety of candidates, our recruiters paid special attention to reaching out to women by targeting online groups for women in engineering and women in tech.

Results

In the first year, we surpassed the initial target of 150 positions to deliver 245 total hires across 30 sites with a quarter sourced through proactive search and engagement. We filled the 500-day-old roles and reduced the time-to-hire by approximately 50% on average through our talent pooling efforts. In the process, we won over sceptical stakeholder groups, including the client’s EMEA engineering leadership. In the second year, we’re growing our partnership with over 300 hires projected.

In one instance, we were asked to source specialist inside sales talent. These individuals needed IT experience, manufacturing experience and to be fluent in German. With such specific requirements, advertising wouldn’t have worked, but because of the talent pool we built, we filled these two positions in less than three days.

“We have forged an excellent relationship with the PeopleScout team. They fully understand our challenges and needs and are able to meet our recruitment requirements in an efficient and professional manner.”

– Talent Acquisition Manager

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Global manufacturer
  • INDUSTRY
    Manufacturing & Industrial
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    300
  • LOCATIONS
    Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom
Let’s Connect

How We Created a Custom Behavioral Assessment Framework for a Leading British Bank

Posted on by akessler
How a Custom Behavioral Assessment Framework Created a £24M Savings for a Leading British Bank

How a Custom Behavioral Assessment Framework Created a £24M Savings for a Leading British Bank

PeopleScout’s talent advisory team created a new candidate assessment center for a large British bank, resulting in a 58% reduction in recruitment costs totalling £24M.

58 % Reduction in Recruitment Costs

resulting in a £24M savings

55 % Reduction in Attrition

in the first year

50 % Reduction in Application-to-Hire Ratio

from 32:1 to 16:1

Situation

Arriving at the right assessment solution for a complex, multi-billion-pound contemporary business is a major challenge. But, this was a challenge that PeopleScout’s team of psychologists was built for when our banking client came to us with a big brief. The banking group had just launched a crucial new set of values. They wanted us to create a custom behavioral assessment framework, along side a full suite of candidate assessment tools to support hiring into core customer-facing roles across the bank.

Solution

Insight

We began by carrying out a comprehensive job analysis, involving focus groups with over 300 colleagues as well as one-on-one interviews with job incumbents, senior stakeholders and transformation stakeholders. We identified synergies and differences between role requirements and complexity across the financial services organization. The detailed research and analysis revealed three job families across all roles, each with four levels of complexity. We developed definitions and behavioral indicators for each group and each level in the framework.

Design

Following sign-off on the new behavioral framework, we developed the assessment matrix and recommended key assessment methods. We streamlined and simplified the existing multi-stage process, bringing both the process and tools into alignment with the new values. This made it easy to understand and implement across the bank. We recommended a three-stage process across the framework, allowing for tailoring to job family and complexity levels, using specific skills assessments and assessment center micro-exercises.

We recommended a two-stage application, with a short form at the beginning to reduce early candidate drop out.
We followed this with a more comprehensive data collection form, completed after candidates were more engaged with the job opportunity.

Pre-Screening: Situational Judgement Test

The pre-screening stage comprised an online scenario-based behavioral assessment or Situational Judgement Test (SJT). SJTs are strong predictors of future job success, and it gave the bank an opportunity to provide deep insight into the brand culture and their values. It also created a positive candidate experience, while increasing diversity and reducing both time-to-hire and recruiter effort.

Mid-Screening: Motivational Fit

The mid-screening stage took place through video or telephone interviews, dependent on the role. The interview provided the client with deep insight into motivational fit and communication skills and enabled them to evaluate numerous critical behaviors for the roles. Plus, it ensure only the best applicants reached the most time-intensive, face-to-face final stage.

Final Screening: Assessment Center

This final screening stage was an assessment center for the more complex roles, incorporating interviews, role-plays and group exercises. We introduced a series of inclusive and realistic micro-exercises, assessing the candidate’s values, potential and mindset as they correlated to the job family and level. For example, to assess for a growth mindset, we created a micro-exercise in which the candidate was provided with feedback on their previous performance and given the opportunity to reflect and learn from it. They were then asked to demonstrate how they would incorporate that feedback.

We significantly upgraded the bank’s assessment center capability by increasing the use of behavioral exercises for primary evidence gathering, combining scores across assessment tools to triangulate data and providing robust final evaluations.

Informed Choices

Candidates shared appreciation for the chance to demonstrate the breadth of their skills and that they felt fairly assessed. They also gained sufficient insight to make informed decisions about whether the organization was offering the environment they were seeking, and whether its values and purpose were aligned with their own.

Our solution showcased the bank’s brand and culture, and the built-in job preview features ensured candidates were given sufficient knowledge at the automated pre-screening stage to make an informed self-assessment of their own match to the organization. This meant that poor-fit candidates withdrew before resources were unnecessarily committed in the higher-touch, mid-screening stage of the process. It also supported the client in creating a respectful, two-way selection process, which is expected by modern job seekers.

Results

We built-in various ways of measuring the cost-efficiencies and overall return-on-investment of the end-to-end assessment solution. The client was delighted with the results:

  • A reduction in the classroom-based training time required as the caliber of candidates was improved.
  • Improved conversion at every stage of the assessment process, meaning less business time was required for assessment.
  • The application-to-hire ratio was cut by half, from 32:1 to 16:1.
  • There was a 55% reduction in first-year attrition.
  • There was a 58% reduction in recruitment cost, saving £24M.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Leading UK bank
  • INDUSTRY
    Financial Services
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory
  • ABOUT THE CLIENT
    This client is a leading UK financial services group that includes several retail banking brand. The company has been partnering with PeopleScout for over 20 years, making it one of our longest-standing client relationships.
Let’s Connect

Co-Op: How We Significantly Reduced Time-To-Hire for a Leading UK Insurer

Posted on by cspivack
Co-Op: How We Significantly Reduced Time-To-Hire for a Leading UK Insurer

Co-Op: How We Significantly Reduced Time-To-Hire for a Leading UK Insurer

Co-op Insurance came to PeopleScout for a new assessment center and streamlined recruitment process, resulting in a reduced time-to-hire and quality new talent.

Reduction in Time-to-Hire
Reduction in Time-to-Hire
73 % Assessment Center Pass Rate

up from 41%

Positive Candidate Feedback
Positive Candidate Feedback

Employing 70,000 people, the Co-op is known across the UK as a leader in socially conscious, community-led business. As well as being the country’s fifth largest food retailer, it is also a major general insurer. Co-op Insurance came to PeopleScout with a problem. They were having big issues recruiting the voices of the organisation: high-quality, productive, right-fit Claims Advisors who would stay. Also, the time-to-hire was very slow and a drag on the time of the resourcing team. Their recruitment process needed a complete overhaul.

SITUATION

The process we were presented started with a manual-intensive résumé screen. Because of the volumes that were coming through, the Co-op resourcing team was conducting daily résumé screens. This ate up immense amounts of time and resulted in the team screening candidates based on experience. That meant they were inconsistent in the way they were screening candidates (about 70% passed the screen). Those who passed this stage then had a qualifying call. This was not a formal telephone interview, but an introductory call to check the experience on their résumé, discuss any gaps and make sure they were eligible to work in the UK (85–95% passed this stage). Finally there was a face-to-face assessment centre—consisting of a computer-based assessment and interview. Following this, was the offer and induction.

SOLUTION

The right solution meant two considerations: what to assess and how.

  1. WHAT – We conducted a period of job analysis to understand what good looked like in the role.
  2. HOW – We needed to identify a solution which would support progressing candidates at speed through the process, providing a realistic job preview and automatically screening candidates so there was less manual intervention by the resourcing team.

We suggested removing the résumé screening step which meant there was less reliance on experience only. This allowed us to assess the whole person, progressing candidates who had no experience but great potential. We developed an online tool that incorporated a situational judgement test which tested for attention to detail and a video interview. Candidates completed this in one sitting, further reducing the time-to-hire. We also supported in the design of an assessment center.

RESULTS

The Co-op’s resourcing team was delighted with the new process. It’s easy to use and gives them back invaluable time to work on other projects. The assessment center significantly reduced time-to-hire, owing to the speed and efficiency of the new process. The pass rate at the assessment center stage is 73%—a big increase on the previous rate of 41%. This means that a much higher proportion of the best-fit candidates are going further in the process. In addition, new hires have been identified by the business as individuals who are motivated to succeed, with a propensity for learning and a growth mindset. Candidate feedback has been very positive, with many saying it gave them a proper understanding of the role.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Co-op Insurance
  • INDUSTRY
    Financial Services
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory
  • ABOUT CO-OP
    Co-op Insurance is part of Co-op Group, one of the world’s largest consumer co-operatives, owned by millions of members. As a leading UK insurer, the organization offers coverage for business, home, life, motor, travel and pets.
Let’s Connect

Employee Engagement at King’s College Hospital: Saying a Big “Thank You” to Nurses

Posted on by akessler
Employee Engagement at King’s College Hospital: Saying a Big "Thank You" to Nurses

Employee Engagement at King’s College Hospital: Saying a Big “Thank You” to Nurses

As one of the busiest NHS trusts in the UK, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust turned to PeopleScout for help with attracting nurses and other clinical professionals. Learn how we helped the Trust say a big “thank you” to their staff with a larger-than-life employee engagement campaign.

300 Pieces of Artwork
18 Installations Across 3 Sites
13,159 Thank-yous Sent to Staff

King’s College National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust is one of the busiest trusts in the UK, providing healthcare services for a population of over 1 million people. It supports numerous clinics and hospitals, including King’s College Hospital, a leading teaching hospital and trauma center serving several boroughs in southeast London. Their vision is to hire brilliant, diverse staff who provide outstanding care for their patients and continue to educate and innovate for the future of medicine.

The Challenge

King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust came to PeopleScout with a challenge. They were, like many other healthcare organizations, struggling to recruit for clinical roles such as nursing.

To address this, our initial objective was to develop a “Why King’s” message for an employer brand campaign. But after conducting focus groups with employees, it became clear that, to fix the attraction issue, we needed to start with employee engagement.

Retention of staff wasn’t an issue—King’s was overarchingly seen as a place where, with the right motivation, employees could grow in their career. The problem was an overall feeling among staff that there was a lack of recognition and appreciation from senior leadership. While there was a great deal of pride and loyalty within teams, there was no strong sense of unity across the five sites within the Trust.

Before we could go out with an authentic employer brand message, we needed to show employees that they are valued, encourage staff recognition and galvanize the organization.

And we needed to do this on a big, Trust-wide scale.

The Strategy           

We designed an employee engagement campaign that would not only recognize employees, but would also be a big, bold, morale-boosting showcase of Kings’ values:

  • Always aiming higher
  • Working together
  • Inspiring confidence in our care

Little did we know just how important this message would become as the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world. As the UK began clapping for the NHS in March 2020, we were designing a campaign that would greet the King’s staff on the frontlines and serve as a constant reminder of their incredible work, both before and throughout the pandemic.

This was so much more than an attraction campaign. It was our ‘Big Thank You’ to those who had sacrificed so much to keep us all safe.

Bringing It to Life

Six Days. 166 Participants.

As soon as lockdown restrictions lifted, we safely photographed and filmed people from across a range of clinical and non-clinical roles from all of King’s sites. Staff gave up valuable break time to take part in something that honored their colleagues as well as recognized their own contributions.

350 Thank-Yous

Using comments made about participating staff members by their colleagues, we created 350 thank-yous—for both individual participants and general messages to all staff.

300 Pieces of Artwork. 18 Installations Across Three Main Sites.

We used the secondary color palette from the NHS brand to create something that would stand out from the usual NHS blue to celebrate our King’s stars. With 300 pieces of eye-catching collateral in tow, we plastered our larger-than-life installations across three main sites, including a huge projection onto the outside of the hospital at their central location. Images went up on walls; inside and outside of buildings; on fence railings, stairs and windows.

Imagine the feeling: Arriving for another exhausting shift on the COVID frontlines to see an over 300-square-foot personalized message of gratitude to you, from your employer, projected on the outside of your workplace for all your colleagues and the local community to see.

That’s recognition on a big scale.

Not only did the installations delight staff, they also expressed the appreciation of King’s leadership and echoed the community’s warmth and gratitude for the Trust and the wider NHS.

Results

In times of unprecedented turmoil, unimaginable pressure and unbelievable sadness, this uplifting campaign created a feeling of belonging, camaraderie and engagement among staff. As COVID-19 raged, what had started as an idea to recognize and celebrate those who brought the King’s values to life, evolved to become a wider message for all, “Thank you to all of you, for everything—and whatever comes next, we’re all in this together.”

The campaign has been instrumental in building a sense of pride not just in individual teams, but in the Trust as a whole. We’ve helped create positive advocates who are proud to be Team King’s and who contribute to a culture of recognition and gratitude. As a result of this campaign:

  • There was a 50% increase in the number of recognitions made by staff to their colleagues following the campaign.
  • 13,159 thank-you letters and badges were sent out to all staff.

Their Chief Nurse is beyond thrilled with the results. Not only with the execution (which has also, on a practical level, brightened up some of the older hospital buildings), but with the impact she directly attributes to this campaign—renewed feelings of inclusion, recognition and engagement across the King’s staff.

“You’ve captured the people and heart of King’s and brought our values to life. The staff response to these images has been extraordinary and has created a real buy-in and the internal buzz that we were after.”

Nicola Ranger, Chief Nurse & Executive Director of Midwifery, King’s College Hospital

In addition to the employee engagement benefits, the Trust is leveraging the content in their on-going talent attraction and recruitment efforts via a custom careers portal and targeted recruitment marketing campaigns. We created a video for each person we interviewed to showcase King’s employer value proposition (EVP) and communicate the opportunities they offer.  

This feel-good, reputation-healing employee engagement project will have an impact on the King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust workforce for years to come.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    King’s College NHS Foundation Trust
  • INDUSTRY
    Healthcare
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Talent Advisory
  • ABOUT KINGS:
    King’s College NHS Foundation Trust provides healthcare services through numerous clinics and hospitals, including King’s College Hospital, a leading teaching hospital and trauma centre serving several boroughs in southeast London.
Let’s Connect

Supporting Service Members with Career Counseling for a Major Retail Chain

Posted on by jpatel
Supporting Service Members with Career Counseling for a Major Retail Chain

Supporting Service Members with Career Counseling for a Major Retail Chain

A major multinational retail chain partnered with PeopleScout to support its counseling program for transitioning members of the military, veterans, military spouses, and National Guard and Reserves who are looking to take the next step in their career.

Dedicated career coaches for all program participants

Customizable career paths for participants 

Virtual intake meetings and ongoing calls

Situation

This retailer has partnered with PeopleScout since 2013 to support its veteran hiring initiatives. In 2013 when the program launched, veteran unemployment was higher than civilian unemployment. PeopleScout supported the client with direct placement, helping veterans honorably discharged on or after Memorial Day 2013 to find jobs at the retailer. The spouse component was added in 2018.

In 2019, while the veteran unemployment rate had dropped to just under 3%, the retailer was aware of the challenges that military service members were still facing when transitioning to civilian employment. The client wanted to reinvent the program to put an emphasis on career coaching and counseling for all service members to help them apply their leadership skills and teamwork experience to new careers.

Solution

The new program, which officially launched in May 2021, broadens the umbrella of the program to include veterans of any era and actively serving members of all branches of the military, military spouses, and National Guard and Reserves as well. It connects program participants to a plethora of resources from various organizations that have been vetted by the client.

When a new member registers for the program, PeopleScout assigns them a coach who helps facilitate the transition into civilian work. The PeopleScout coach schedules a virtual coaching session with the participant to perform an initial intake. This intake assesses skills, helps identify goals and determines the time commitment they can make to the program.

From there, participants confirm three paths: employment, education, or entrepreneurship.

EMPLOYMENT

PeopleScout career counselors help participants assess their strengths, build their resume and translate their military experience in a way that it applies to the civilian workplace. They also help service members and spouses find opportunities that match their career goals—whether that means employment with the retail client or another organization.

EDUCATION

PeopleScout coaches help participants get the educational foundation they need to reach their overall career goals.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

PeopleScout helps connect participants with the right resources to start their own businesses.

This emphasis on career counseling allows the participant to drive the program at their own pace and use their coach as much or as little as they like. Service members and spouses can take what they want from the program as they build their future.

Results

  • 3,500+ registrants since program launch

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Multinational retailer
  • INDUSTRY
    Retail
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory
  • ABOUT THE RETAILER
    This U.S.-based retailer operates in 24 countries with 2.3 million employees. The organization has a rich history of supporting and hiring veterans and their spouses.
Let’s Connect

Sainsbury’s: Transforming a Traditional Retail Role with Recruitment Marketing

Posted on by jpatel
Sainsbury's: Transforming a Traditional Retail Role with Recruitment Marketing

Sainsbury’s: Transforming a Traditional Retail Role with Recruitment Marketing

As customer experience becomes the battleground for retail differentiation, Sainsbury’s turned to PeopleScout to help them hire the next generation of store managers.

19,000 Applications Received in First 12 Weeks, Beating our Target by 171%
4,500 Hires Made, Exceeding the Target of 2,400
1 M Candidate Engagements

Shopping habits have changed. And in the highly competitive UK retail sector, customer experience can make or break results for retailers. To capitalize on this, Sainsbury’s, one the UK’s big five supermarkets, decided to transform one of its traditional roles—and reimagine store management in the process.

Their goal? To create a simpler, more rewarding experience for staff and customers alike. Sainsbury’s wanted to replace the traditional role of retail store manager with a new role, Customer & Trading Manager.

This new role gave managers the freedom to get out of the weeds and really lead teams—creating a new era of retail management. This required new skills and a different mindset. Some of their retail professionals would be able to transition into these new roles but some wouldn’t have what it takes. So Sainsbury’s turned to PeopleScout to help them attract new talent from the outside.

Turning Negatives into Positives

From the start, we faced some significant challenges:

  • The role was entirely new to the market, so we had to explain the new, unfamiliar employment proposition clearly to audiences both inside and outside of retail.
  • The role of retail manager had an image problem. It was seen as a transactional role that often saw you stuck on the registers.
  • The media was confusing the issue. We needed to counteract several misleading, negative reports of large-scale retail redundancies.

Sainsbury’s considered this to be one of their biggest recruitment challenges. They asked us to challenge and overturn negative public perceptions of retail management, introduce an entirely new type of role and hire 2,400 managers, from 24,000 applicants—in just six months.

The Core Message

First, we took apart the job profile to challenge the requirements. It was clear that the single most motivating benefit of the role was the potential to be a leader and to get the very best from a team. This suggested that the best candidates for this new type of retail role didn’t necessarily need retail experience.

We wanted to reconnect people with the emotional core of what’s great about management. It meant presenting the role—and Sainsbury’s—in a new light. So, we stripped away the language associated with the day-to-day tasks and instead put the focus back on employees as people.

We developed an overarching campaign message, Leading Starts Here, to clearly state our employment offer.

And to bring it to life, we used the following concept as our organizing thought: We all need someone to inspire us.

This universal, relatable truth was what used to capture the moving stories of individuals who have overcome huge obstacles—everything from low self-esteem to disability—with the help of inspirational leaders.

Making it Authenitic

Video was our chosen vehicle. Our diverse cast reflected Sainsbury’s approach as an inclusive employer and included people from a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds, people with common mental health issues and people with disabilities. While some of the responses were scripted, the strongest were spontaneous reactions to the simple prompt, tell me about someone who inspired you.

The campaign featured a blended approach of active and passive channels on- and offline:

  • Active channels included Indeed and a wide variety of other job boards as well as Google Search and Google Display Network.
  • Passive channels included billboards in key locations near major offices, newspapers, social media and other online destinations.
  • We used geo-location and behavioral targeting on search and social media to put our videos in front of audiences across the hospitality, travel, cabin crew, leisure and care industries.

We created 69 individual pieces of artwork, a campaign landing page with the hero video and an in-store toolkit, which included pull-up banners, poaching cards, posters, leaflets and stickers —everything a store needed to amplify the campaign.

The Results

  • Less than 10:1 application-to-hire ratio of high quality candidates.
  • Over 19,000 applications received in first 12 weeks (beating our target by 171%).
  • 4,500 hires made, exceeding the target of 2,400.
  • 69 content pieces produced.
  • £71 attraction-cost-per-hire achieved.
  • Close to 1 MILLION people engaged with the brand as part of the campaign.
  • After 12 weeks, the campaign had generated 376,986 clicks across online paid media. This has been achieved at an average cost per click of just £0.59.
  • The core film has been played 462,168 times and counting, receiving extremely positive feedback, praising its inclusive message.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Sainsbury’s
  • INDUSTRY
    Retail
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Talent Advisory
  • LOCATIONS
    600+ supermarkets across the UK
  • About Sainsbury’s
    Sainsbury’s in the second largest supermarket chain in the UK. Their focus is to bring high quality food and household goods to consumers in-store and online, supported by their brands, Argos, Habitat, Tu, Nectar and Sainsbury’s Bank.
Let’s Connect

Vodafone: Overcoming a Powerful Consumer Brand in Graduate Recruitment

Posted on by jpatel
Vodafone: Overcoming a Powerful Consumer Brand in Graduate Recruitment

Vodafone: Overcoming a Powerful Consumer Brand in Graduate Recruitment

To overcome misperceptions about their mission, Vodafone engaged PeopleScout for employer branding and a recruitment marketing campaign to support its early careers recruitment program.

16,000 Applications Received, Beating our Target by 60%
23 % Increase in the Numbers of Female Candidates
27 Places Jumped on the Times Top 100 Rankings

Counterintuitive as it sounds, strong consumer brands can hinder recruitment. Applicants can get an idea of what to expect that doesn’t match the reality of the careers experience being offered. This was the case with Vodafone. For consumers, the organization is a high-profile mobile phone retailer. But, behind that perception sits a multifaceted tech innovator with a mission to make the future world a better place.

In order to achieve this, Vodafone turned to PeopleScout to help it become a youth employer of choice, because changing the future meant gaining the buy-in of those who would be influential within it for years to come.

Research

As part of our research phase, we took a deep dive into Vodafone’s future jobs strategy. The client wanted to overcome high levels of youth unemployment by providing up to 100,000 young people with a digital workplace experience at Vodafone. Plus, given that one-in-five young people say they feel under-prepared for the digital economy, the business set another ambitious goal to support 10 million young people with access to digital skills, learning and employment opportunities.

So, how could Vodafone attract Millennials, Gen Z and beyond? These generations are big achievers whose ambitions soar higher than working in mobile phone retail. We needed an attraction strategy and recruitment marketing campaign that changed their audience’s perceptions about Vodafone and all the different kinds of careers—and impacts—they could make there.

The Brief

Vodafone asked us to create a campaign that would spark conversations and stand out as part of their instantly recognizable brand. They needed to generate 10,000 applications to fill 150 graduate roles and 100 intern/industrial student placements across the business. Plus, the overarching goal was to change misperceptions of Vodafone, showing it as a major tech company, not a retailer, and build its reputation as a youth employer of choice. Importantly, we were asked to reach a more diverse audience and increase female applications.

Audience Insights

Of our target audience, 90.4% regularly used social media. On top of this, 91% of all social media users access channels via mobile. So, we developed a mobile-first, social media friendly campaign. Further research revealed that many students with the right background and personal qualifications were put off from applying due to a lack of confidence. So, we needed a message that was bold, relatable and empowering.

Just as important as the audience insights were the strategic considerations. Candidates are also customers. When buying products, they expect a streamlined, user-friendly, friction-free process, and they had the same expectation when making career decisions. So, we made every touchpoint (especially the application) as slick and easy as possible.

No contemporary attraction approach can be just about advertising. Long-term connections are far more powerful. So, central to our strategy was to set Vodafone up to engage in conversations and initiatives with high-potential university students throughout their full university lifecycle. In short, the strategy was to start on day one, not year three.

The Core Message

Our message, #GenerationPossible, aimed to capture the spirit of change and possibility and draw on the opportunity young people have to make an impact on the world for the better. Our visual approach used photography that reflected our target audience combined with bold headline statements.

Social media and career site content featured current grads and interns sharing their advice for the next generation of Vodafone employees, with a #GenerationPossible video at the heart of this campaign. Our six-month social media strategy for mobile consisted of 104 social posts with 20 mini-videos/GIFs. We posted, tracked and analyzed this content on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Get to Know Us Videos

Our research had identified that our target audience felt like they weren’t good enough or lacked the skills to take on these roles. So, we created a series of videos featuring current Vodafone graduate recruits and interns. Filmed in and around Vodafone’s main campus, these videos gave real-life insights into what they could expect when it came to work, wellbeing, social responsibility, innovation, the assessment center and the interview process.

Campus Events

Away from social media, we built a series of 41 on-campus events to connect students directly with Vodafone employees. We carefully chose our campuses based on those with the highest female-to-male ratios for tech degrees, as a way to help us drive up female applications.

Results

The campaign comfortably exceeded Vodafone’s expectations.

  • We generated over 16,000 applications – beating our target by 60%.
  • We increased the number of female candidates by 23%.
  • We increased Instagram impressions by 89.3% (post-campaign vs. pre-campaign).
  • We saw 1.5 million Facebook impressions.
  • We gained 6.8 million impressions on organic posts on LinkedIn.
  • We created a hyper-targeted paid Facebook campaign which produced 390,510 impressions and 2,541 clicks – all from the target audience.

These numbers are backed up by audience sentiment. We improved Vodafone’s reputation as an employer significantly, jumping 27 places in the Times Top 100 rankings. As a result of its success, Vodafone asked us to develop the concept for their apprentice campaign audience and roll it out through a new assessment process design.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Vodafone
  • INDUSTRY
    Telecomms
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Talent Advisory
  • ABOUT VODAFONE
    Vodafone is a British multinational telecommunications company. They provide connectivity and digital services for over 300 million people to work, learn, stay in touch with friends and family, access healthcare and more.
Let’s Connect

NCA: Reaching Investigators Through Targeted Recruitment Marketing

Posted on by jpatel
NCA: Reaching Investigators Through Targeted Recruitment Marketing

NCA: Reaching Investigators Through Targeted Recruitment Marketing

The National Crime Agency (NCA) turned to PeopleScout for a recruitment marketing campaign to help them stand out in their search for crime fighting investigators.

15,703 Applicants Across 143 Roles
225 Job Offers Extended
800 + Candidates in a Talent Pool for Future Openings

The National Crime Agency is responsible for leading the UK’s fight to cut serious and organized crime. The agency’s focus is on the big threats—targeting and pursuing serious and organized crime and criminals who pose the greatest risk to the UK. The work is hugely complex, high-level and large scale. Officers operate at the forefront of law enforcement, building intelligence, pursuing the most serious and dangerous offenders and developing and delivering specialist capabilities for partner organizations.

It could have been an impressive proposition for the 1,500 investigators and other professionals the NCA wanted to recruit. But the NCA was competing with MI5, MI6, GCHQ and police forces for this talent. The intelligence organizations could be considered “sexier” brands. The police forces are better known and understood.

The NCA had been flying under the radar and needed to arrive on the scene with a bang. They turned to PeopleScout for a confident, attention-grabbing campaign to put their employer brand front-of-mind for their target audience.

Key Research

We conducted wide-ranging qualitative interviews and focus groups with key people across the agency in order to really get under the skin of the human experience of working there.

The key insights were:

  • When NCA investigators succeed the impact is huge and far-reaching. The criminal activity they stop covers everything from child sexual abuse to illegal firearms trafficking, cyber crime, kidnapping and extortion. The police, by contrast, have to deal with everything from shoplifting upwards.
  • A lot of the criminals the NCA targets feel they are untouchable. It’s very exciting to prove they are not.
  • The work is exciting, and we shouldn’t underplay that.
  • Investigators are often serving police officers or have strong links to policing. They rarely engage with usual recruitment channels, so we needed to think differently.
  • The agency saw location as key—they were keen to recruit candidates close to the locations of their regional offices.

The Core Message

To work in crowded streets and packed transit stations, our campaign needed to have immediate visual impact. The NCA hunts the big fish of the criminal world. So, we chose the shark as a perfect visual metaphor to illustrate the level of criminality the agency handles; it’s the ultimate hidden predator with a fin that creates an emotional reaction.

Our visuals show a huge shark fin bursting through the ground, towering over well-known landmarks and wreaking havoc in recognizable, urban UK locations in London and Manchester. Each visual represented the scale of damage caused by high-level crime, while storm clouds provided a suitable dark and menacing backdrop. These visuals were complemented with a simple message: No predator too big.

Media Strategy

We focused the recruitment campaign on outdoor media to reach the widest possible audience in our target areas. We identified outdoor locations that serve police officers on their daily commute—for example, Manchester Piccadilly station and the Metro line to Greater Manchester Police HQ—in addition to specialist online media.

The Results

We rolled out the campaign for digital, data, tech and specialist firearms audiences. The results were very impressive:

29,684 candidates to the NCA landing page.
15,703 applications across 143 roles.
2,228 candidates invited to interview.
225 job offers.
825 held in talent pool awaiting job offers.

This was a hugely successful campaign which drove a large number of applications. We exceeded NCA’s expectations, raised awareness of the NCA as an alternative employer for serving police officers and improved perceptions of the NCA as an employer with a unique offering.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    National Crime Agency (NCA)
  • INDUSTRY
    Government & Public Sector
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Talent Advisory
  • LOCATIONS
    Regional offices in the UK’s urban centers
  • About NCA
    The National Crime Agency (NCA) is a national law enforcement agency in the UK focused on fighting organized crime, trafficking, cybercrime and fraud.
Let’s Connect

Leveraging Your Employer Brand to Stand Out in a Sea of Job Openings

Posted on by jpatel

It’s no secret that the pandemic greatly impacted the labor market over the past year and a half. First, job openings plummeted, and unemployment skyrocketed. Now, we’re amid the Great Rehire and organizations are finalizing plans to reopen offices and get back to business as usual.  

As lockdowns ease, vaccination numbers rise and consumers get back to spending, job openings are at an all-time high—as a result of millions of prime-age workers leaving the labor market or switching to part time. Employers in industries like leisure and hospitality, healthcare, manufacturing and more are struggling to fill open positions with qualified talent. 

So, with all these open jobs, how can employers stand out above the competition to attract the next generation of top talent? It starts with focusing on key ideal candidate touch points—from your employer value proposition (EVP) and employer brand to your recruitment marketing strategy, careers site and application process.  

In this article, we’ll take you along the candidate journey and touch on each aspect you should address to make your open roles stand out in a sea of job openings.

Create an EVP and Employer Brand that Speaks to Your Ideal Candidate  

The ideal candidate journey begins long before the candidate even applies to your job, when they first engage with your employer value proposition and your employer brand. At PeopleScout, we define your EVP, as capturing the essence of your uniqueness as an employer and the give and get between you and your employees. In many ways, your EVP is the foundation of your employer brand—the perception and lived experiences of what it’s like to work for your organization. 

Your EVP and employer brand carry a lot of weight for the next generation of top talent, because they serve as differentiators between your brand and competitors and allow you to align your organization’s purpose with your candidates’ passions. It is important to do your research and be aware of what candidates hold in high regard, such as the opportunity for growth personally and professionally or the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Learn what drives your ideal candidate, identify what drives your organization’s mission and values, and establish an EVP and employer brand that speaks to both.  

Building an Employer Brand for the Lawyer of the Future 

The Situation:
Linklaters approached us with a talent problem for the ages. They needed an entirely new type of lawyer. The profile Linklaters recruited for in the past would no longer bring them the ideal candidates necessary to secure and expand on their position as a heavyweight global law firm. 

The Research: 
We conducted one-on-one interviews and focus groups with hundreds of professionals in 20 Linklaters offices across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. The output of these interviews gave us everything we needed to create the EVP and the framework of the brand on which to build our global advertising campaign. 

The Solution: 
We created an employer value proposition that was a combination of big picture philosophical and a Linklaters-specific selling point. 

GREAT CHANGE IS HERE 

Message: Change is healthy and exciting, as well as unavoidable. Join this modern, international, hugely diverse cohort and you’ll have a truly influential voice that redefines the legal sector and sets you up for an ever-evolving career. 

The Results: 
Glassdoor scores for Linklaters have risen by 8% in the last two years and, importantly, applications from female lawyers – which was a key objective – have increased since the EVP launch. 

Read the full case study

How to Communicate with an Ideal Candidate through Recruitment Marketing  

After evaluating your organization’s EVP and employer brand, it’s time to showcase both in your recruitment marketing strategies. Digital recruitment marketing is a way for employers to source and attract potential candidates, it can include social media, email marketing, display advertising and more. Consider these three stages when building your recruitment marketing strategy: 

Stage One: Increase Awareness 

When it comes to increasing awareness with recruitment marketing, you want to reach ideal candidates and promote your organization as desirable. To ensure you are marketing yourself properly, it can help to create content that drives a potential candidate to come back to your site, even if they aren’t actively looking for a job. 

For example, acknowledging company accolades and awards can spark interest in your organization for both active and passive candidates, like this Instagram post from HubSpot. However, content at this stage does not need to be directly correlated to your organization to be effective. Content regarding professional development and motivation can also lead ideal candidates to inquire further on your website, such as these resume tips from Nestle Purina.   

Stage Two: Generate Interest 

Now that you have increased awareness, the next step is to generate interest. You have succeeded in showcasing your organization’s knowledge and place in the industry, now it’s time to show what it is like to work at your company. This is where you stress your employer brand, especially via social media. This can give potential candidates an inside look as to what it’s like to work for your company.  

A great way of promoting your company culture is giving firsthand experiences from current employees, via quotes about their experience working at your company. 

Social media is a powerful tool that not only generates interest but can also increase applicants for vital roles. For example, PeopleScout helped this manufacturing client increase the number of female applicants and hires in a male-dominated industry. Through the usage of employee spotlights, videos and stories to showcase how women are integrated into the culture and integral to the company’s success, the client was able to increase female hiring by 3% annually from 2018 to 2021. 

Stage Three: Nurture the Decision 

After increasing awareness and generating interest in your company, it is now time to promote open positions and the benefits, perks and compensation that will come with these roles. The promotion of open roles within your organization will lead the candidate to your careers site, which will play a pivotal role in the candidate’s journey toward employment with your organization. Here, it is important to do research on your competitors to see what they are offering for similar open roles. If a competitor is offering better pay, benefits, or perks, that can be a deciding factor for an ideal candidate to choose them over your organization, despite your strong recruitment marketing strategy.  

Build a Careers Site that Stands Out 

At this point in the candidate journey, the potential applicant has made their way to your organization’s careers site. It’s important to remember that a careers site is not only an area for job postings, but it is also home to many opportunities to stand out above competitors. For example, your careers site is a great place to reiterate the employer value proposition you built out in your recruitment marketing strategies to ensure that message is carried through every step of the candidate journey. Your careers site should be inclusive of everything a potential candidate would like to know about what it would be like to work for your organization. Consider these key areas of opportunity when refreshing your careers site:  

Ensure Accessibility 

In the digital age, it is important to make sure your careers site is user-friendly for those on a computer or a smart phone, especially since 61% of applicants applied to jobs via a mobile device in 2020. If a candidate struggles to navigate your careers site, chances are they won’t be staying on that site for long. It is also important to make sure your careers site is accessible for those with disabilities. Here are some suggestions from SHRM on how to make your careers site accessible for all:  

  • Screen reader compatibility  
  • Alternative text for images  
  • Color contrast 
  • Keyboard accessibility 
  • Controls for moving content  
  • Captions  
  • Controls for timed content  
  • Labeled forms  
  • Accessible downloadable files  
  • Plain language  

Search Engine Optimization 

It is important to utilize search engine optimization on your careers site. This can play a pivotal role in your careers site showing up first over a competitor on major search engines. The usage of keywords and traditional, highly searched titles will play an important role in helping your roles stand out above your competition. Research of popular keywords can boost your place among major search engines, leading potential candidates to your careers site first. Google Analytics and UTM tracking codes are important tools to utilize in your SEO journey to track and report where your clicks are coming from.  

Provide a Personal Touch 

On your career site, adding a personal touch, such as a welcome video, can go a long way. It can help the candidate see the human side of your business; it can offer an inside look of the facility and it is also an opportunity to showcase where these applicants may fit in within the structure of the organization.  

This is a great chance to sell the applicant on working for your company and really showcase your company culture. Offer insights, quotes or firsthand experiences from senior leaders to newly brought on employees. Highlight opportunities for growth both personally and professionally and provide examples of success stories from your existing employees.  

Let Applicants Know What to Expect 

If the process to apply and interview is not given or discussed at all, many applicants can be led to believe their application will get lost among others. Be upfront and transparent about what the application and interview process is like and offer timelines for the applicants. 

Streamline the Application and Interview Process  

Although the candidate has made it this far, you’re not done yet. After all, 80% of the time, candidates don’t finish filling out job applications, according to Glassdoor. To ensure candidates complete your application and interview process, focus on these key aspects to help you stand out:  

  • Mobile-friendly application 
  • Quick response time  
  • Virtual interviews  
  • Automated chat and scheduling 

Consider how technology can help streamline your process in each of the categories listed above. A mobile-friendly application, easy interview scheduling and quick response times can all be enhanced by AI and automation and provide a superior candidate experience. 

Standing Out Beyond the Application 

Despite having a well built out EVP and employer brand, recruitment marketing strategy, careers site and application, the deciding factor for an ideal candidate to choose your organization will often come down to a strong employment offer. It’s important to keep in mind that if your compensation, perks and benefits (like flexible work options) don’t match up to competitors, ideal candidates in today’s market have the ability to choose to work elsewhere. 

That said, by creating ways to stand out and showcase your EVP and employer brand at each stage of the candidate journey as outlined above, you will be one step closer to securing the top talent your organization needs.  

Linklaters: Attracting the Lawyer of the Future with a New Global Employer Brand

Posted on by jpatel
Linklaters: Attracting the Lawyer of the Future with a New Global Employer Brand

Linklaters: Attracting the Lawyer of the Future with a New Global Employer Brand

PeopleScout helped the firm create a global employer brand to attract and retain the best and more diverse legal talent across 30 global offices.

8 % Boost in Glassdoor Scores
27 Jumped 27 Places in Best Global Employer Brand Awards
Increase in Applications from Female Lawyers
Increase in Applications from Female Lawyers

Situation

The world Linklaters was facing was one of rapid, multifaceted and unprecedented transformation. New technologies, sectors and innovations were disrupting the world and dismantling old assumptions about business success and the role of the law.

The profile they had recruited in the past would no longer bring them the candidates necessary to secure and expand on their position as a heavyweight global law firm. Linklaters needed a whole new type of lawyer—a nimble business advisor using their legal expertise and global mindedness to help clients navigate a time of huge complexity.

The problem was that every law firm in the world was chasing this new breed of lawyer.

Linklaters approached PeopleScout to help them define, promote and manage a compelling new global employer brand, allowing the business to cut through the noise as an employer of choice in a ferociously competitive market.

Solution

Knowing, Not Guessing

We met with hundreds of professionals in 20 Linklaters offices across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific including recruitment, HR, hiring managers, associates, graduates and interns to gather insights.

After 17 focus groups in 13 international offices, we had a sense of the key themes which gave us a foundation from which to build the employer value proposition (EVP) and the framework of the employer brand which would inspire our global advertising campaign.

  • Linklaters is global firm with almost unmatched strength across practices and geographies.
  • Linklaters lawyers don’t just embrace the change, they direct it.
  • They are at the epicenter of work that will shape law, commerce, industry, the environment and society for decades to come.
  • The quality of training on offer and the caliber of colleagues to learn from means those who join will never stop learning.

A New EVP – Great Change is Here

We created an employer value proposition (EVP) that was a combination of a big picture philosophy and a Linklaters-specific selling point: GREAT CHANGE IS HERE.

In a time of unprecedented change, this EVP makes progress healthy and exciting. It serves as a foundation for an employer brand that reflects Linklaters as a modern, international, hugely diverse cohort offering employees the opportunity to have an influential voice that redefines the legal sector and sets them up for an ever-evolving career.

Global Relevance

As an international brand with diverse target audiences, we built flexibility into the brand so it would resonate widely across geographies and cultures.

We created four underlying message pillars that we could dial up or down as required to create the right combination of messages with the right geographies.

  1. Human Experts – Collaborate with smart, down-to-earth people on complex issues.
  2. One Team – Multi-jurisdictional work calls for a truly aligned and collaborative environment.
  3. Innovation – Whether you’re solving client problems or setting legal precedent, Linklaters celebrates creative thinking and innovative approaches.
  4. Career Platform – Through prominent projects, high-profile clients, training, support, early exposure, external secondments, Linklaters is investing in their employees’ careers.

Linklaters received a full employer brand toolkit explaining the EVP, the messaging behind the brand, visual design and advertising principles and the tone of voice to be used internationally. We rolled this out to recruiters across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific so that local activity could be fully supported.

Results

The project was a significant success and was shortlisted for Best Global Employer Brand in 2018. Following the launch, the firm’s reputation as a graduate employer improved significantly over several years, rising 27 places from their 2016 position to 19th place in 2021. Glassdoor scores for Linklaters have risen by 8% in the last two years and, importantly, applications from female lawyers—which was a key objective—have increased since the EVP launch.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Linklaters
  • INDUSTRY
    Legal Services
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Talent Advisory
  • LOCATIONS
    30+ offices across 21 countries in Europe, North America and Asia
  • ABOUT LINKLATERS
    Linklaters in a global law firm specializing in corporate practice areas including mergers and acquisitions, finance, litigation, antitrust and tax.
Let’s Connect