Getting inclusivity and diversity right for talent acquisition teams means properly sourcing, interviewing and hiring candidates from underrepresented groups. What’s more, talent teams must understand not only where different candidates search for jobs, but also the factors important to those candidates.
To that end, a PeopleScout survey of job candidates focuses on inclusion and diversity, found important differences in how diverse groups find, research and apply for jobs, and employers can use these insights to make their recruitment process more equitable and inclusive. The survey focused on job candidates throughout the U.S. from a wide variety of backgrounds. However, due to the relatively small sample size, these survey results should be taken as purely directional. Below, we share the most important insights.
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Data and Diversity: Using Technology to Achieve Your DE&I Goals
Inclusivity and Diversity: Candidates From Underrepresented Groups Find & Research Jobs Differently
Racial and ethnic minority candidates are more likely to hear about a job opportunity through word of mouth than white candidates. More precisely, nearly half of Black or African American candidates report learning about their most recent job through word of mouth, while only 35% of white candidates found their most recent job in the same way.
Black or African American candidates are also the most likely group to research an employer or job opportunity by talking to people in their communities—at more than double the rate of white candidates.
Inclusivity and Diversity: What This Means for Talent Acquisition
Your current employees from underrepresented backgrounds are important partners in sourcing and recruiting diverse talent; they understand your culture and values and can share both job openings and their experience at your organization with other candidates.
Women Rely on a Larger Range of Sources When Researching Employers
Notably, women in the workplace are more likely than men to research an employer through third-party channels, whereas men are more likely to rely on your careers site. For instance, while half of men report researching an employer through the employer’s careers site, only one-third of women do the same. Women are also twice as likely as men to use employer review sites, like Glassdoor.
What This Means for Talent Acquisition
Many candidates rely on your careers site for research. As such, your careers site should showcase your employer brand, but it cannot be your sole focus. Instead, also invest in improving your employer brand through employer review sites, like Glassdoor. Additionally, encourage your employees to share their positive experiences of working at your organization on social media sites, like LinkedIn.
The way you showcase diversity efforts also makes a difference to candidates, with the biggest gap between white and Black or African American candidates. For instance, when asked about the factors that candidates consider when applying to a job, Black or African American candidates were five times as likely as white candidates to consider your diversity efforts. Black or African American candidates were also more than four times as likely to consider whether your careers site features “people who look like me.”
What This Means for Talent Acquisition
Your diversity efforts are important to your candidates; they want to hear about what your organization is doing to improve diversity, equity and inclusion at your organization. And, in a competitive talent market, it’s important to feature those commitments, as they could be the deciding factor for candidates.
Now more than ever, an organization’s hiring strategy should be adaptable. Throughout the last two years, many employers have had to reimagine their recruitment processes. Due to the pandemic, organizations rapidly moved recruiting processes to virtual models, shifting in-person interviews to digital and transitioning traditional office roles to remote.
Today, as businesses bounce back and job openings are at record highs, employers need to hire top talent—and fast. And, just as a hybrid approach to in-person and remote work for employees has become the norm, so, too, will the need for a blended recruiting strategy that will optimize the candidate experience advantages of in-person, while also continuing to leverage the benefits of virtual.
So, in this article, we’ll walk through what a hybrid hiring strategy is, discuss the benefits of in-person versus virtual techniques and provide tips for how to create a hybrid hiring strategy that works for your organization.
What is a Hybrid Hiring Strategy?
Hybrid hiring—or hybrid recruiting—is a strategy that allows organizations to maximize the benefits of both in-person and virtual hiring techniques. Specifically, a hybrid approach allows employers to leverage the advantages of virtual recruiting where it makes sense, while simultaneously using strategic, in-person methods to add value to the candidate experience along the way.
Granted, hybrid hiring isn’t new; many organizations employed a mix of virtual and in-person techniques prior to 2020. However, COVID-19 rapidly accelerated the need for safe, efficient hiring models, thereby leading to greater adoption of virtual strategies. Now, because employers have seen the advantages of virtual recruiting, the benefits of a hybrid model have become clear. Depending on the type of role you’re hiring for, having a strong hybrid hiring model in place makes it easy to recruit staff 100% virtually if and when it’s needed, or with a blended approach.
Leveraging a hybrid hiring strategy means you get the best of both worlds. But, what does that entail? Here are some of the biggest benefits of both virtual and in-person hiring techniques—and how they’ll play out post-pandemic.
Benefits of Virtual Hiring Techniques
Reduced Cost & Greater Efficiency
When you remove the physical component of recruiting, you see a greatly improved speed-to-hire and an overall reduction in costs. For example, PeopleScout helped this retail client reduce time-to-hire by more than 20% by implementing a mobile-first, shortened application process. Plus, expenses that would normally be spent on hosting recruiting events—such as travel costs, venue fees and printed materials—suddenly drop to zero. Additionally, your employees save time by hosting events remotely and also reap the benefit of having more candidates in attendance.
Expanded Reach & Reduced Bias
With travel out of the equation and with remote job options in place, employers can then expand the geographies from which they source talent. This offers greater opportunities for candidates and also opens up the candidate pool to top talent who may not have been on your radar previously.
Virtual hiring also reduces the amount of hiring bias experienced during in-person interviews. As humans, we judge people on many things (unconsciously or not), including how a candidate may look. But, with virtual interviews, recruiters are able to focus less on a candidate’s appearance and more on what they have to say.
According to the American Psychological Association, when it comes to height, every inch counts—in fact, in the workplace, each inch above average may be worth $789 more per year. This is the kind of bias that can be eliminated with virtual interviewing techniques.
Overall Convenience
Virtual interviews and other virtual recruiting tactics are convenient for both candidates and recruiters alike. For example, candidates can schedule on-demand interviews at a time that is most convenient for them, and recruiters can watch those recordings at their own convenience. What’s more, through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, candidates can also self-schedule follow-up interviews, ask questions and receive real-time responses that would have previously taken much longer without the technology that has come from the rise of virtual.
Benefits of In-Person Hiring Techniques
Showcase Your Company Culture
One challenge of virtual recruiting is the ability to effectively showcase your company’s culture. While there are certainly ways to do so, nothing quite compares to experiencing how individuals in an organization interact with one another in-person. Especially for roles that are required to work in an in-person or office setting, providing a time to come in for an in-person interview or assessment can be a great way to show your candidate what it would really be like to work for your company on a day-to-day basis.
Human Touch
While AI and automated tools help with efficiency, improve candidate experience, and speed up the overall time-to-hire, today’s talent pool can also find benefits from a blended model. In fact, candidates today are feeling more confident, in general, and more comfortable negotiating their salary when meeting face-to-face. A phone call and video interview can get the candidate in the door, but an in-person conversation can seal the deal—especially when it comes to hiring senior talent who would really appreciate being brought in for the final stages of the interview process.
Furthermore, utilizing in-person techniques can also add value to the candidate experience overall. From office tours to final interviews, it’s difficult to recreate human touch and company culture completely virtually. To that end, where it makes sense, in-person meetings can help sell a candidate on why they should work for your organization, as opposed to the competition.
How to Recruit People Now: Balancing Your Post-Pandemic Hybrid Hiring Strategy
Your hybrid hiring strategy will likely depend on your organization’s needs and what your workforce will look like on the other side of the pandemic.
For example, if some or all of your teams will work entirely remotely, it would make the most logical sense to complete the entire recruiting process virtually. Inevitably, bringing the candidate in for an in-person interview or office tour would waste time and money, and would likely confuse the candidate and, therefore, lead to a poor candidate experience. Instead, recruiting for these roles completely virtually and providing opportunities for human interaction and culture along the way can help candidates feel like they know what it will be like to work remotely for your company.
“How do we show candidates our company culture when we can’t invite them to the office? We send personalized, handwritten cards to candidates before their start date (as well as some swag!). We want to give them a feeling of being really welcomed into the company—which is what we’re really about.”
Ewa Zajac, Recruiting Operations Manager at Zendesk
On the other hand, if some of your teams will be working both from home and from the office, a hybrid approach would be the best fit. Virtual options save a lot of time and money in the beginning stages of sourcing, screening and interviewing, and candidates will want the flexibility to complete those initial interviews and assessments from the comfort and convenience of their own homes.
Then, when it comes to final interviews with candidates you’re very excited about, bringing them in for an in-person interview can be the final step before extending an offer. The candidate will appreciate the time you’re investing to bring them in, and they’ll get a taste of what it will be like when they work in-person. This will be especially important for roles that will be primarily in the office or in which relocation is necessary.
In the end, hybrid hiring won’t be a one-size-fits-all strategy. Whether your organization opts to keep recruiting fully virtual or works in opportunities for in-person techniques, the candidate experience will need to remain at the forefront of any model. Think about what candidates will want and how the recruiting process will make the most sense for the role you’re trying to fill.
Global RPO: Hiring Engineers with Niche Skills for a Global Manufacturer in LATAM and Europe
A multinational automotive components manufacturer at the forefront of electric driving technology engaged PeopleScout for a full-cycle, multi-country Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) solution. To continue supplying automotive technology for millions of the world’s cars, they needed to source the next generation of engineering talent across 54 locations in 21 countries in Latin America, Europe and Asia.
100%New Hires Completed Ahead of Schedule
80%Candidate Submissions Invited to Interview
1300Applications Received for 150 Positions
Scope & Scale
A global automotive parts manufacturer partnered with PeopleScout to initially source 150 hires across locations in Poland, Spain, Italy, Germany and India as well as facilities in Latin America. They needed a global RPO provider who could handle sourcing for niche engineering roles in English, Polish, Spanish, Italian and Hungarian languages.
Challenge
As the client expanded manufacturing into new regions to support their global growth agenda, they turned to PeopleScout to partner with their in-house talent acquisition teams to drive their transformational change projects.
Hiring in Latin America had stagnated as the region became the go-to region for automotive manufacturing. With major car brands moving more of their operations into the region, competition for talent became more and more steep.
Meanwhile in Europe, a shortage of niche engineering skills was impacting operations in Poland. The talent war between organizations in the area hiring for similar roles was driving up salary expectations, but the manufacturer lacked the labor market data to make informed decisions to adjust their strategy.
Solution
Analyzing Labor Markets on Two Continents
Our Client Delivery team started by undertaking labor market and workforce analytics in each region. We worked with the client’s HR and operational teams to support their workforce strategy through a competitive analysis which led to recommendations on salary bands for each role and level of experience. For roles in Poland, we helped them explore the possibility of relocating new hires in order to widen their talent pool to other parts of the country where there was more access to experienced engineering professionals.
“PeopleScout has done a great job to support the project, showing high commitment and flexibility in this difficult and changing environment. We’ve had great collaboration together.”
Senior Director of Engineering
Sourcing Passive Candidates with Personalized Videos
Meanwhile, our multilingual teams in Bristol and Krakow began sourcing experienced Product Application Engineers in Latin America and across multiple European locations, as well as Design & Test Engineers in Poland.
Not satisfied with one outreach, we employed a different approach with candidates who were unresponsive after the first communication. Our recruiters created and sent personalized videos introducing themselves and the opportunity to the candidate. This personal touch drove higher engagement and interest from talent who hadn’t engaged initially.
Over 80% of applicants were identified via passive sourcing, with the remaining candidates coming from ongoing advertising campaigns across job boards and social media.
Leveraging Social Media to Boost Employer Brand Awareness
Through our Social Network Awareness Package (SNAP) we identified the best social channels to reach the manufacturer’s audience and created tailored posts, including imagery and headlines. We used this social media content to boost awareness of the client’s employer brand among relevant groups and individuals based on their locations, professional details and interests. Throughout each campaign, we provided a reporting dashboard and analyzed engagement which helped shape recruitment marketing activity going forward.
Testing Technical Skills with a Custom Assessment Center
These highly specialized engineers, regardless of region, needed to have a good command of English as well as technical aptitude. We assessed for both by designing and executing a technical testing program. Our assessors administered these exams virtually, freeing up hiring managers to focus on running their operations.
Once offers were made, our team continued to keep in contact with successful candidates during their notice periods and onboarding. We notified the client’s HR team of any potential concerns of dropouts, working together to mitigate risks.
Results
In just 10 months, we filled 100% of the manufacturer’s niche engineering headcount, including all openings in Poland—two months ahead of schedule. Our team reviewed over 1,300 applications and screened over 250 candidates, supporting hiring managers with initial phone screens, technical assessments and post-offer communications.
The hiring managers were thrilled with the quality of the candidates they saw, with over 80% of candidates put forward by our team being invited to interview.
Following this success, we expanded our engagement with the client to their India operation, taking over from local third-party agencies. This Recruiter on-Demand solution will support volume hiring challenges and drive cost savings.
“PeopleScout did really great work across hard-to-fill disciplines. We had a fantastic sense of partnership across the whole project.”
Global Head of Talent Acquisition
At a Glance
COMPANY Global automotive manufacturer
INDUSTRY Manufacturing
PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS Recruitment Process Outsourcing
ANNUAL HIRES 150+
LOCATIONS 21 countries in Latin America, Europe and Asia
Talent Assessment: Bringing in Better with Passion, Purpose & Mindset
Most employers are still using legacy assessment processes that are ineffective in today’s competitive recruitment landscape. With the cost of one bad hire reaching as high as $50,000, it’s imperative that organizations ensure they’ve assessed candidates’ current skills, future potential and cultural fit.
So, how can you adjust your assessment process to bring in talent that will support their business now and into the future? In this book, Talent Assessment: Bringing in Better with Passion, Purpose and Mindset, we explore how employers can rethink their assessments to hire talent that will thrive.
In this ebook you will learn:
Why assessing only for knowledge and skills puts you at risk
How investing in technology helped one retailer modernize their assessments and improve the candidate experience
How to customize your assessments to find the right passion, purpose and mindset
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.
At PeopleScout, we are committed to providing you with information to help guide you on your DE&I journey. We aim to cover a wide range of DE&I topics, including issues regarding BIPOC, the LGBTQ+ community, gender gaps, people with disabilities and more. This article is the next in our library of DE&I resources, and specifically focuses on the Hispanic and Latinx community.
In the U.S., National Hispanic Heritage Month is observed from September 15 to October 15 to honor the cultures and contributions of both Hispanic and Latinx Americans by celebrating the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America.
And it’s no doubt their contributions have been great—especially in the workforce and to the economy. Consider the impact this group has had and will continue to have in the future:
Creators of Jobs Within the last decade, 86% of all new businesses in the U.S. have been launched by U.S. Latinos, with Latinas creating business six times faster than any other group.
Yet, organizations still lack Hispanic representation across all seniority levels. People of Hispanic or Latinx ethnicity make up 18% of the labor force but only 4.3% of executive positions in the U.S., making the gap between the labor force and executive representation wider among Hispanics than any other group.
So how can organizations do their part in closing this gap? Employers should make conscious efforts to attract and retain this diverse group of talent and provide them with opportunities for growth and development.
Understanding the Many Names of this Diverse Group
Before you can effectively attract candidates from Hispanic and Latinx backgrounds, it’s important to understand the terminology that identifies this unique group.
According to Pew Research Center, “the terms ‘Hispanic’ and ‘Latino’ are pan-ethnic terms meant to describe—and summarize—the population of people living in the U.S. of that ethnic background.”
Some have drawn distinctions between the two terms, and their widely used definitions can be summarized as the following:
Hispanic: A person residing in the U.S. with descent from Spanish-speaking countries (this excludes Brazil, where Portuguese is the official language).
Latino: A person of Latin American descent residing in the U.S. (this includes Brazil but excludes Spain).
However, this group has mixed views on how they prefer to describe their identity, with over half describing themselves by their country of origin.
In recent years, a new term has emerged as an alternative to Hispanic and Latino: Latinx. The term is one of many in the global movement around gender-neutral language. Latinx serves as a gender-neutral alternative to Latino and Latina and aims to encompass Latin American and Hispanic people from all racial backgrounds while also including those who identify as transgender, queer, agender, non-binary, gender non-conforming or gender fluid.
According to trend data from Google, the term first appeared online in 2004, but didn’t begin to gain momentum and wider usage until 2014. Today, it sees use around the world, most often in the U.S.
And much like the terms ‘Hispanic’ and ‘Latino’, surveys also reveal mixed feelings on ‘Latinx’ among the population it is meant to represent. Younger people, ages 18-29, are most likely to have heard of and use the term, while older people 65 and up are least likely. Specifically, use is the highest among young Hispanic women—14% say they use it, compared to the 1% of Hispanic men in the same age range. Here are other factors that impact how likely a U.S. Hispanic person is to have heard of Latinx and use the term:
Whether the term Latinx should be adopted as a pan-ethnic term for the U.S. Hispanic and Latino population is still up for debate, with one third of those who have heard the term believing it should be used more broadly, according to data from the Pew Research Center.
Like many scholars, journalists, activists and publications, PeopleScout will opt to use the term for the remainder of this article in an attempt to better include the many groups of people who make up the Latinx population.
Strategies to Recruit and Retain Hispanic and Latinx Candidates
If your organization is committed to improving its diversity, equity and inclusion practices, Latinx employees are a vital group to include in this initiative. Latinx individuals come from a wide variety of backgrounds, making the group extremely diverse in culture within itself. By including people from this group across your organization and in executive positions, your business will be better equipped to evolve and innovate as time goes on. Consider these strategies for recruiting and retaining Latinx candidates.
Recruit with Intention Employers need to be intentional in improving representation of Latinx employees in leadership and across the workforce. Make it a point to recruit from industries and universities that are highly diverse.
“If you do not have intentionality with diversity and inclusion, you have nothing.” – Cid Wilson, President and CEO of the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility (via Invariant)
Utilize Employee Testimonials Show candidates that your organization is home to diverse talent by showcasing those employees in your recruitment marketing tactics. You can share their experiences working for your organization through quotes, videos, personal stories or recruiting case studies. It is especially important to highlight diverse talent from all levels of your business.
Expand Your Search When possible, it can be beneficial to expand your talent search nationwide, or even internationally as your organization allows. With the immense rise in remote work since the onset of the pandemic, many Latinx candidates will be looking to organizations with remote and flexible work options as they make the next move in their careers. Or, if your business requires in-person work, a competitive offer might have that top talent considering relocating for the position.
Leverage Employee Networks Look to your existing Latinx employees, as well as all employees, for diverse referrals. In addition, you should seek input from these employees on how to attract candidates with similar backgrounds, as well as hear their ideas for organizational change and goals. In other words, empower them to have a voice.
Provide Mentorship Even if your organization is highly diverse, any member of a minority group might feel excluded at times. By providing opportunities for mentorship both with individuals of the same background as well as those with different backgrounds, employees will feel more included. Encourage mentors to help employees meet their professional goals so they can grow within the organization.
How to Support Your Hispanic and Latinx Employees
Recruiting Latinx employees is the first step in improving diversity in your organization. The next is focusing on ways to make those employees feel supported and included.
For example, at PeopleScout and the broader TrueBlue organization, we have the Hispanic Opportunity & Latin Awareness (HOLA) employee resource group to embrace and support our Latinx employees and associates within the communities we serve. HOLA aims to increase cultural competency and awareness around Latinx issues and concerns throughout TrueBlue, support TrueBlue’s efforts to attract and retain the best Latinx talent and provide the development and support necessary for Latinx employees to grow both personally and professionally.
Here are examples of other companies with impressive initiatives to support their Latinx employees:
Coca-Cola Coca-Cola’s “Hispanic Leadership Business Resource Group” offers its Hispanic and Latinx employees development, networking, community involvement opportunities and helps the company drive innovative business ideas. In 2017, the group had an idea for a Point-of-Sale Spanish Adaptation Tool which allowed bilingual employees to submit their interpretation of Coca-Cola taglines and phrases in different Spanish dialects to avoid the phrases losing their meaning through literal translations.
Furthermore, the company showed their commitment to Hispanic and Latinx employees when there was uncertainty about Dreamers in the U.S. by covering the $500 DACA renewal fees for employees in the program.
Ellucian Ellucian, a software and solutions development company for higher education, gave employees a sense of belonging by celebrating their heritage. The company planned volunteer events, office potlucks celebrating Latinx and Hispanic culture, highlights of influential Hispanic Americans, and an Instagram takeover for Latinx employees to share their experiences working at Ellucian. The first takeover on the company’s Instagram account came from the leader of ¡wepa!, the company’s Latinx ERG.
General Motors General Motors, a vehicle manufacturing company, supports Hispanic employees from the very beginning by specifically targeting professional Hispanic organizations and Hispanic Serving Institutions as part of their recruiting strategy. The company focuses on raising the number of Hispanic professionals in STEM through their recruiting efforts and by providing over $5 million in scholarships for Hispanic STEM students.
Leidos When the defense, aviation, IT, and biomedical research company discovered that the Hispanic and Latinx community was being disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 nationwide, they made it their priority to help. Leido’s Latinx ERG partnered with the Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs in Washington, D.C. and Neighborhood Health in Alexandria, VA to donate more than 6,000 face masks and 1,500 bottles of hand sanitizer to help combat the spread of COVID-19 within Latinx communities in those areas.
You can find more examples of companies who prioritize their Hispanic and Latinx employees here.
Hispanic and Latinx Inclusion in the New World of Work
The new world of work is not just about where and how work is done, but it’s about the people who are doing the work. It’s a candidate’s market, and people will choose employers who care about their employees as people. In order to be truly successful, organizations must fully understand their workforce, starting with their employees’ diverse backgrounds and identities.
By understanding your underrepresented groups of people, like Hispanic and Latinx employees, consciously recruiting them, celebrating their heritage and investing in their growth, we’ll work our way toward a workforce with equal representation and strong inclusion of diverse groups across industries and at all levels of seniority.
HSE: How a Webinar Increased Applicants for Scientists
How do you persuade valued, highly sought-after scientists to move jobs in this market? By providing an opportunity to engage with the employer and understand the work and culture—before applying.
Increased Awareness of HSE and This Niche Division Within It
55Questions Submitted to Help Inform Candidates
70%of Attendees More Likely to Apply Since the Webinar
The Chemicals Regulation Division (CRD) of the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) is regulatory science at its best. Work here is forward-thinking, strategic and connected to decisions made by both the UK Government and large-scale business.
In undergoing significant change, our client was evolving and working hard to meet the challenges ahead. This required the recruitment of a significant number of scientists to help ensure the safe and sustainable use of chemicals. This is science with a scale, scope and influence few organizations can match.
Situation
The vacancies were based in Bootle and York and market mapping was undertaken into the number of suitable candidates with the relevant skills and qualifications for these roles. This highlighted the scarcity of candidates available. In addition, there was the challenge of how to engage with the target audience and give them the insight and opportunity to better understand the organization, the vital work they undertake and the opportunities for career development. A recent national study found the number one question from candidates is, “What’s it like to work there?”
Solution
With this in mind, we devised and developed a webinar to introduce the work of the CRD. The webinar featured a panel of existing employees, giving the participants an opportunity to hear first-hand what the job would entail. Alongside this we offered a live Q&A so that each person could ask questions. The webinar brought the organization to life and painted a picture of what it would be like to work there.
Results
The webinar significantly increased awareness of HSE and the niche division within it. The attendees were able to view the webinar remotely and on-demand. During the Q&A, 55 questions were submitted. These filled the information gap for candidates and gave them insight as to how they would fit in. As a result, 70% of attendees said they are more likely to apply since attending the webinar.
At a Glance
COMPANY Health & Safety Executive (HSE)
INDUSTRY Government & Public Sector
PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory
ABOUT HSE The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) is a independent regulator in the UK responsible for work-related health, safety and illness.
What’s more, the recruitment marketing ecosystem is evolving at an accelerated pace. Tactics that worked in years past may no longer move the needle with candidates. So, how can employers better attract, engage, entice and hire top talent? In this ebook, Recruitment Marketing – How to Stand Apart in the Battle for Great Talent, we explore how employers can build a world-class recruitment marketing program.
In this ebook you will learn:
Establishing your brand narrative as a north star
Building authenticity and trust with your employees’ voice
Connect to talent with data-driven insights
Differentiating your brand through human experience
Cut through the noise and get the attention of top talent with a recruitment marketing program, including programmatic advertising, nurture campaigns, social media and content marketing.
Download this fact sheet to learn how PeopleScout’s recruitment marketing solutions can help you attract the talent you need.
Our latest research shows a detailed picture of the current state of skills in the global workforce and how HR leaders are preparing for the impending skills crisis
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.
19,000Applications Received in First 12 Weeks, Beating our Target by 171%
4,500 Hires Made, Exceeding the Target of 2,400
1MCandidate 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.
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