Update: 2024 Candidate Expectations Report is now live!

BambooHR Webinar, March 2024 24-Q1-GL-SCH-P000046-BHR

Cronofy

Mark Harbottle

Practical strategies for elevating the hiring experience for everyone involved.

BambooHR        

Erica Wallace

How to improve your hiring experience for candidates and the hiring teams

Mark Harbottle 0:00
Welcome, everyone. Welcome to this webinar on how to improve your hiring experience for candidates and the hiring team. It's a topic that's very close to my heart. Let me introduce myself. My name is Mark. I'm the head of talent at Cronofy. As you will have heard earlier, live in Newcastle, and big football fan. We also have the amazing Erica joining us as well. Erica, can I let you introduce yourself?

Erica Wallace 0:25
Of course, yes. Hi. So my name is Erica Wallace. And I'm a Talent Acquisition Manager here at Bamboo. I've been with Bamboo a little over two years now. And before that I've always worked in talent acquisition about 12 or 13 years now of just being in this field. But I love, it's been so amazing. I think with Bamboo, it's a very talent acquisition friendly environment, we have such a great culture. And there's a lot of freedom and a lot of autonomy to to really have a great experience. And I just I think I'm so lucky and fortunate to be part of this team.

Mark Harbottle 1:03
Right. And I'm sure we'll be diving into that culture in a little bit as well over this conversation. So again, a big welcome to everyone who's attended today, we really want this. While we were planning this, we really wanted this to be a conversation, not an interview q&a style webinar, we do have some topics that Erica and I are going to be discussing all related to the hiring experience for candidates and hiring team. But we thought it'd be worthwhile starting kind of setting the scene a little bit. So Erica, would you mind telling us a little bit about the setup of the current TA function at the minute. So when we're talking about candidates and hiring team experience, we've got the context as well.

Erica Wallace 1:44
Um, so yes, for just for Bamboo?

Mark Harbottle 1:48
Yeah, that's right. For Bamboo. That'd be really helpful.

Erica Wallace 1:50
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So right now at Bamboo, we have, we have specialised teams that kind of focus on different areas of, of hiring, and our, we have a very, I think, very process oriented environment. And one of the things that we really focus on is having an outstanding candidate experience. So to have that setup, we have recruiters who are very knowledgeable about the teams that they're recruiting for. And we almost have them like kind of immerse themselves into that team so that they can really understand what those hiring managers are looking for. And then we have, like, you know, a commitment to making sure that the candidate experience is moving along quickly. And I think that that's one of the ways where automation can really help help benefit that that quickly moving pace. And that's what I think is so important for all of us, when we're looking at what can what can we do to improve the candidate experience, I think, automating what can be automated so that you can have things moving at a reasonable pace and getting back to candidates. I'm sorry, I don't know if that was what you were referring to.

Mark Harbottle 3:00
No, no, it's good. It's really helpful to set the scene really. And it sounds it sounds like a really, really busy function. Let me, I guess interesting for the context for the listeners as well. So on a slightly different scale with those, I'm the only person in TA or recruitment in Cronofy. We have six hiring managers across our departments. And we're hiring a lot right now. So kind of similar to yourself, but for very different reasons. My priorities are really, really good experience. But yeah, it's interesting to hear you talking about the process because we're, my again, priority is about trying to make things as lightweight as possible for our managers, because we know their time is super, super precious. You touched on automation before. So just before we get into the detail, it's worth saying to everyone, we're going to cover a few themes. Today, we'll talk about automation, we'll talk about human elements, and we want to focus on the importance of feedback and trust. I also need to ask because JK's just reminded me that you're welcome to ask any questions in the q&a section. And we'll try and get around to them at the end. Or if I can answer them as we go. I'll try my best as well. But I think probably let's start Erica with the candidate experience. And I want to ask you, what is your definition of the candidate's experience?

Erica Wallace 4:22
Yes, it's it's such a good question. Because there's so many buzzwords, and I am not -- I don't love having a lot of, you know, corporate speak and over reliance on the corporate buzzwords I think that they can I sometimes I cringe when I hear myself use them. And it's inevitable, you know, we start to do them. And I think with candidate experience, it can become corporate buzzword. It can become a little bit meaningless if you're not really applying it in a way that's impactful. And for my team. I think when we think about candidate experience, it's really what the candidate walks away with and what they're saying to their friends. What are they saying to their community or their neighbour? So from the moment that they start interacting with our company all the way through getting their interview scheduled, having their interview, and then the follow up and the interactions that they have with the recruiters throughout that process. That's what we would, we would want that to be a great experience that the candidate walks away from, feeling really good. And I think when when you're talking about candidate experience, it's hard to really know what makes it great, but it's very easy to know what makes it bad. And for me, I think the the things that kill a good candidate experience are a long time to get back to the candidate having responses that are meaningless, or templates that don't have any, you know, real direct tie to the candidate, and then just having just having like getting ghosted, and I think those are the things that most candidates will complain about, or will make them feel like, oh, I was really excited about this job. But then I had a terrible candidate experience because of those one of those three things happened, or even all three, I don't think it's ever a situation where the recruiter is like bullying or calling names or, you know, doing anything really, like outright cruel, but typically what will happen is the candidate will have a good experience, because they've heard back, they've had something personalised, and they felt like they were really seen and valued. And that's what we want every candidate to feel like they've gone through an experience that meant something to them, for me, the bar is, I mean, I feel like the bar has gotten very low, like a lot of people are just delighted to hear back in any capacity. And we don't want to just take that and just say like, oh, well, at least we got back to them. We want every candidate. And I know you and I have talked about this, we want every candidate to have that an experience where they felt heard and valued. And that they felt like they they had some meaning, and that they don't just feel like a number.

Mark Harbottle 7:03
Yeah, nice, nice. And it's really funny you say that because I I've recently received and we'll talk about kind of tracking and trying to record experience over this conversation. But it a couple of days ago, I had someone feedback that it was the first interview they had in a while where they felt respected as an individual and an applicant and judged solely on their skills and experience as well, which for me feels very, very normal. But it always amazed that people aren't, aren't getting that experience everywhere. It's really interesting to hear you talk about feeling that the bar's, possibly a little bit low at the moment. And I don't disagree with any, I agree. Let me not say I don't disagree. I completely agree with everything you said about the definition of the candidate experience. And I think what it's really what people find really easy to forget, is it's not about necessarily about the one person who accepts the job. Yes, of course, we recruit to fill positions, the chances are the person who accepts your job is going to have a great candidate experience. And I think if you can shift your mentality when when thinking about the candidate experience to focus on that all those other people who didn't get the job, but them having a positive experience says a lot more about who you are and how you do things than just the one person who has a great experience. Does that make sense?

Erica Wallace 8:28
Absolutely. 1,000%, I couldn't agree more, I think that's where candidate experience can get a little bit muddled, where people focus so much on the end goal, and that result, and they're just focusing on getting to the finish line and saying, Oh, we want to have, you know, this, this great candidate that we've come across, we've met and we see them working at this company, so we're gonna roll out the red carpet for them. And then there's all of these other candidates, and if they don't have that good candidate experience, that's, that's really what, that's so much more of the majority of the experiences that people are having so many more people have an experience of applying for a job and not getting the job. And if you just look at hiring ratios, you know, there's probably going to be, I mean, for one of our roles, we have 1000s of applicants, we probably screen, you know, a few hundred. And then we make a selection of you know, for some of these roles, maybe maybe five or six throughout the year. And we're getting so many applications right now, because of the economy and people you know, that are job hunting, there's, there's, I think a little bit higher number of applicants. But for all of those people, that's who we need to be focusing on is that candidate experience that those hundreds of people are going to be having. And of course, we do want to get the end result. We do want to get the hire, we want the person to be part of our team, but for everybody else that we're interacting with, they should still feel just as valued and still walk away. You know, walking away to their community and talking about having a great experience and a great interaction with our company. And I think too, when you're when you're looking at like the total package that pays off so much, that investment in a good candidate experience with those hundreds of people, it continues to pay off, because that becomes your talent pipeline, that becomes your talent pool, that becomes the people that you can go back to later. And there's so many like myriad ways that those people end up coming back to you. And I can I have like hundreds of stories, maybe not hundreds, maybe dozens of stories, where people have come back. And it's because, you know, they had a good experience, and they didn't get the job, but they were declined well, and they felt valued. And they told their friend, or they told their neighbour, and then we ended up hiring that person. And that person ended up being a really difficult hire or a really key, you know, person that was going to be making a huge game changing moment in our company. And we got them because we had declined somebody else well.

Mark Harbottle 10:56
Yeah, there's, there's a magic, I was reading a book recently. And they were talking about there's a magic data point, which is referrals of people who've been unsuccessful in your recruitment process. And the fact that if people haven't had the positive experience, the positive outcome, sorry, the positive experience, haven't had the positive outcome that they wanted. But they've had a positive experience along the way, and is still happy and comfortable and able to recommend you to other people. It's just that it's utilising a specific access to talent that I can guarantee or those people who have a very low bar for the experience aren't able to tap into in any other way. Yeah. We'll talk about human touch shortly. But I do want to talk about automation, because we can't do the candidate experience one all by ourselves. Right. So you touched on automation a little bit earlier. Erica, what are you automating now? Can you share that with us?

Erica Wallace 12:00
Yeah. So every person who applies will hear back from us instantly, you know, they'll instantly get like an automatic email that says we've received your application. For many of our positions, we actually have like, a couple of different automations and triggers. So we do phone screening. And a lot of that can be pretty automated, where if we move them to this stage, they're going to get an automatic email that asks them for their calendar time, and they can set up a, they can set up a time on our calendar to do the phone screen, we have a lot of the like pre screen, we pre screen pretty hard, we do a lot of these before they get to the manager. And we're fortunate to be able to do that, because we have a good team. But we will set up a lot of those pre screens fairly automatically. And as an example of that, we might say, you know that this role pays this amount per hour, is this an okay amount for you? If yes, then you know, you can kind of go, you go here, and that's kind of automatically sorted for us. Some other things that are automated are with our scorecards and our notifications. So a lot of our systems are built to notify managers when they have an interview, what the interview is going to be about, and what it's going, what the next steps will need to be from that manager perspective. So the manager knows, here's the resume, here's the person that they're meeting with. And then they also know like I have, you know, this, this amount of time to get my notes in. And we have, you know, kind of notes in there that say, as soon as this happens, this other thing will automatically happen so that the managers are aware of where they are in the process. And they're not the bottle neck for any of those those processes either. And for my, one of my roles, we are very, very process oriented, we can only hit the numbers and the times that we need to hit if everything moves according to plan. So we have to have all of these things happen automatically. And if we're stopping and humming and hawing over, you know, what happens here it slows the whole process up and it ends up having a really dire impact on how the rest of the team's hiring projections look, like it helps us to have this process that's so oriented around, you know, once the person's interviewed, then they get this notification once the notification has gone out, this happens and it's it's really well structured.

Mark Harbottle 12:03
Nice. So automation for you, is is providing information for candidates and hiring managers during the process, but it's also to to allow the flow of communication as well. Once this happens, this is going to happen and it ensures that that process is following the process, right?

Erica Wallace 14:59
You said that's so much better than me. Thank you very much, distilling everything down and really helping to clear up what you're talking about. Absolutely.

Mark Harbottle 15:08
Well, I appreciate the detail you gave honestly, it's helpful because the reason I asked that is because we're quite lightweight on our automation, we've, we see the value of it, we've got a sort of, we have an ATS, of course, which which does our, as you say, the thank you for applying emails and things like that we've, we have our scheduling solution for very efficient hiring and speeding the process and the experience as well. But I'll also use, so I use AI to transcribe some of our interviews for training and note taking, which is something that I might come back to a little bit later on. But it's, it's, for me solutions like that are allowing our managers to focus on having the conversation, as opposed to making notes on the conversation. So for me, our tools are about improving the experience of those parties, not necessarily the process, and I think we're, we're a smaller, evidently, a much smaller organisation than us so that the nature of those, those conversations lines are probably a little bit shorter than, perhaps yours, too, I understand the importance of that process and how automation is working for you in that sense. Tell me, does it work 100% of the time for you?

Erica Wallace 16:24
It definitely doesn't. And actually, one of the things that we're looking at is how AI will interact with that when we've started to look at different processes and tools that where it would make the most sense for that to to help us. We -- it definitely doesn't work 100% of the time. And I think that that's what kind of leads into our other section about, you know, the human touch. But for any, any machine or anything that can be automated, there's still a necessary human element of it. And I think one of the things I had been thinking about when I was, you know, what does an ATS do, and what does, you know, these automatic, like calendaring, tools use and are automatically have all of these automated, you know, like pre screening tools, that kind of sort people and pull characteristics out about people. And for me, I was kind of kind of thinking of like the metaphor of like a washing machine, you know, like, you still have to have somebody sorting the, the laundry, you still have to have somebody putting the laundry in, they just don't have to spend all of those hours and hours and hours that before the invention of a washing machine, you know, would have been spent actually cleaning the clothes, but there's still a person who's involved and there's still a person who's who's doing a lot of the thinking part of it, they just don't have to do that, that part of that takes a long time. And so it's making things faster, but it's not taking away from you know that there's still a person doing this thing, there's still people at both ends of it, that are making sure that things are working according to plan. And we've had so many instances of you know, we put the wrong notes on the wrong candidate, we put the notes, we've, we've moved this person to a stage, they weren't ready to be at yet. And so then they got scheduled for it final before they even have their first and all those kinds of things happen. So often. And sometimes it does feel like oh, we've over automated. There's all of these things happening. And we're having to go back and like trace through the process and figure out where that where that error happened and troubleshoot it and we're using all of our corporate lingo to to unravel the mess there.

Mark Harbottle 18:45
Easy to do, isn't it I can recall an occasion of it's a really simple one. But a candidate who I was super excited about who we moved to the second stage of the interview process, I sent the scheduling link over. And then there was other things going on, we've got other interviews and other jobs to fill another demands of the role and you kind of go, where's that candidate gone, they haven't booked it in and the long and short is they just missed the email or it landed in their junk or they were on holiday for a week and just missed it and they were just stuck in the process of I've moved to this stage but haven't organised this stage. And it's that, that you say nice washing machine analogy, a little bit of attention to ensure that there is no candidates left behind. And that personal touch which we'll cover really, really really really contributes to the candidate experience. I'm making sure that although automation is doing all this amazing work for me and saving me all this time and allowing me to do these really important things and making sure that that's happening and a little bit of work under the under the under the bonnet right? Makes a difference. You talked about over automating. How do you stop yourself from over automating, there's these shiny tools out there that are going to change your life and improve the recruitment process and half your time to hire. They're all out there. How do you stop yourself from over automating?

Erica Wallace 20:18
That's such a good question. And I feel like I get a lot of pitches and, you know, invites for solutions to things. And I think you have to have a really good understanding of what the process is, and focusing on what having people do what people do best, and having, you know, a machine do what a machine does best. And having a clear sense of what those two things are. And I think really defining what you can't have, you know, offloaded and I think that changes. I don't think that there's like a silver bullet answer that's always right. Because I know, you know, in the past, like, you thought, oh, like scheduling is something that has to happen from a person because you have to be, you know, talking about different events, and you have to be talking about different times, like that's something that you have to have a conversation to do. And now we have that so, it's so easy to know that you can use Cronofy, you can use like other tools to, to automatically set up a lot of these calendar invites, that we in the past wouldn't have even conceived of like that would have seemed impossible. But I think that that's always in and then having a lot of respect for what people uniquely are capable of doing and letting that part stay and shine. And for us, I think it's just making sure that we always have a focus on the candidate experience. And if it's ruining the candidate experience at any point because it's become over automated, then that's when we would that's probably what our symbol would be.

Mark Harbottle 22:00
Yeah, nice and having that real focus. Sorry, did I interrupt you then?

Erica Wallace 22:04
No, no. I just was going to ask and I saw a question in the chat. And also, I had the same question as this person in the chat about what AI transcription service you use, because we were just having a meeting about it and talking about different tools. And I was a little bit I was like a little bit intimidated about which ones to use.

Speaker 1 22:24
Thank you, Beth, for -- thank you, Beth, for the question. So the tool that we use is called Metaview. And we use it for a couple of reasons. So it's really, really lightweight that we have really don't need to I don't want to be selling it. It's not, this is not the place to be selling it. But we add it to our zoom calls. So when an intimate of the candidate has to consent and can opt out of it as well. But we, it just turns up in the interview, and when the interview is finished, I get an email which says hey, here's the transcript. And here's the recording as well. So what I'm using it for now is the AI gives me recommendations. So it says, Hey, you asked this question, which is a closed question. And you could have asked it like this in a more open question. Or it says you asked this stacked question. But when you should have, you should have split them in. So it gives me really nice advice. But what I'm using it for is so I don't need to make notes. So I can focus on the conversation. And I'm starting to take some now our hiring managers are using it. And I'm starting to take some of those recordings, and produce training material for our hiring managers as well. So we're, I'm still on I'm still early days with this journey. But my plan is to sit in coaching sessions and say, look at this question that this candidate asked how would we respond to that or look at the way that this hiring manager asked this question, how could we address that better? Or look at this answer? How could we follow up with a with a question to get more insight. So it's twofold. For me, it's streamlining my ability to do better interviews. It's improving my interviewing technique, and it's providing some real training material for it as well. So yeah, thank you. Good question.

Erica Wallace 24:11
Yeah, we were working on that as well. And I think asking a lot of the same questions, and I love that it's able to help you craft better questions, because that's something that, you know, it's a skill, like anything else that you're kind of always improving is, you know, I've asked questions, and then I can tell by the way that the candidate answers, that the question wasn't clear, and it wasn't helpful and it's not going to get me the answer, and it's put the candidate and maybe an awkward spot. And so I I am always trying to figure out and like tweak and it's nice that we have tools that can help with that as well.

Mark Harbottle 24:45
Yeah, I agree. And it's funny because I was talking to someone I keep starting this with I was talking to someone the other day or the other day this thing happened, but it is true. Honestly, the other day I was talking to someone about I really feel that there's this the is old school mentality that interviews are designed to catch a candidate out? Remember the whole sell me this pen thing? I really feel that there's this, this expectation that I'm a new hiring manager or I don't have much experience with interviews, my job is to try and catch them out and ask them questions to make them think on their feet and see how their reactions are. I just don't think people work like that. And I don't think that's a fair way to assess how will this person perform in a role where they have context where they have context, sorry, and they, they know where their job is going, they know the strategy and objectives of the organisation and what we're trying to achieve. And I feel that, the better prepared, the more prepared I can be, the more prepared a candidate can be, the more information we can give them more we can help someone to prepare, the more likely they are to do better in the interview as well. Therefore, we're gonna make better decisions. So yeah, good, good. Interviewing is really hard. Really, yeah.

Erica Wallace 26:01
So we do an interview training at Bamboo. And one of the things we talk about in that is that we're trying to find the best person for the role, not the person who's the best at interviewing. And a lot of times, you can get confused that the person who's the best at interviewing is going to be the one that that you need to hire. But there's so much about interviewing that, you know, makes people uncomfortable, and it puts them on the spot. And it's, it's a really awkward process for many people, and what can we do to help, you know, eliminate the that awkwardness and really to make the person have a have a better experience, have a better candidate experience. And I completely agree, I think, if you can be really clear at the outset of what you're looking for, and what the goal this is, and what qualities you're looking for, it helps the candidate to be much more open and to be, I think, to be more authentic, if this is going to be a good fit, it's it really should be a mutual, of course, you're going to have a little bit more power as the interviewer and as the company. But really, both people should be opting in and deciding if this is going to be a good fit. Because you don't want to hire a bunch of people who are fantastic interviewers, but are miserable in the job. And then you have turnover and then you're just replacing those people. And so we've we've got really like I think that's one of the things that stood out to me the most when I first interviewed as a candidate with Bamboo HR, that they they essentially did what you were just describing of saying like, this is what to expect in your next interview. These are the kinds of things we're going to be looking for. This is what you know, our vision is for this for this conversation. And it's to be authentic, genuine, so that we can really get to know you and not how good you are at gaming the system. And I think a little bit of that was because they they thought, Well, you're a recruiter, you'll probably know a lot about how to be interviewed very well. I don't know if that's true. I think interview, I think you know, interviewing is hard for anyone, even if they're a recruiter.

Mark Harbottle 28:05
It really is yeah, really hard. Really, really hard. Especially it's, it's hard to talk about yourself sometimes, isn't it? One of the things that I've done is one of the core words of things that we talked about Cronofy is the importance of transparency and truth. So I created a document page, which lays out interviewing with us. So it, of course talks about the process. But it also says and this is our assessment criteria. And this is, you talked about the evaluation form before so I say here's our evaluation form. These are the questions we ask and this is our rating criteria. And these are the things that we're going to be asking you about. And this is why we're asking that and these are these are our principles and the things that are most important to us. And this is what alignment with that looks like. And we also talked about that this is the dress code and everything and laying all that out. I noticed -- it was I couldn't measure it, specifically until the nose but I noticed a higher quality of, of interviews and and candidates progressing through to further stages of the interview process. We weren't wasting time isn't the right the right word. But we weren't using time in the interview saying And so what's the process now? And what's the dress code? And you know those very those questions which I can now really easily answer before the interview takes place, but what what I'm allowing candidates to do is prepare for what we're looking for. So they can bring their best self to interview. So the questions that they give, this is the best of me. And we can fairly compare that with other candidates who said well, this is the best of me and we can we can make the best assessment we're not risking someone being unprepared because they didn't have all the information or needing all the information to be able to prepare properly and that that contribution to the candidate experience has led towards making better decisions across the interview process. And I think it's it, we've had some great feedback on it as well, which has been really helpful.

Erica Wallace 30:08
Yeah, we, I am so glad that you've had that same experience. And I think it helps the candidate have a greater candidate experience, it also helps the hiring manager have a much better interview. And we've had similar feedback, that was a pretty big shift for us to go from, you know, trying to just, you know, run through a script of all of these different questions and try to get through as many questions as possible and pack it into an interview and then shifting that instead to be more about, okay, let's, you know, these are the few attributes that we want to really focus on. And we're going to telegraph it to both people at the beginning. So that, like you said, then we're assessing the candidate, all of these candidates who have really felt like they've had an opportunity to share their best version of themselves. And the managers have just been, like, overjoyed by the kinds of candidate conversations they're having. And it's helped us to build a lot more trust with our hiring managers, because they, they feel like we have a better sense of what they know that their recruiter knows what they're looking for, they know that their recruiter is is helping to prepare the candidates. And so then, like you said, you're not, you're not spending time that could be more meaningful, having these conversations. And I think that that actually is the same motion of what we're talking about with automating, you know, if you have these things, like kind of taken care of already, then you're more free to focus on these more meaningful kind of meaty topics that move the needle for everybody else. And I think that's, that's where we want to be pushing things towards.

Mark Harbottle 31:45
Yeah, nice. Yeah, completely agree the quality of the conversation, not necessarily the number of conversations either as well, as we can all probably think of companies that will have 10 interview processes along the way. Because why do you ten when you can do one really, really well, right? We we touched on -- We've danced a little bit around kind of human touch points as being a really, really, I think, for you and me Erica, a non negotiable when it comes to what a really great candidate experience. Let me ask you this. Do you think that human touch points in the recruitment process speed up or slow down the recruitment process?

Erica Wallace 32:26
That is a great question. I think it can go both ways. I think when it's the right point, when you have a really good process, and then you're, you're balancing, you know, a good system and a good process with these with more meaningful human touches, I think that it really does make the process go a lot quicker and a lot smoother, not just that one interview process, like from start to finish of that candidate, but also, the, you know, the hiring process, you're not having to rehire people, because more genuine and authentic connections with the candidates along the way, so you know, that this candidate, you have a better chance of this candidate being a good hire and working out, when you have the right touch points. I don't think, you know, having like a, like a lot of, you know, messy interactions, just to have them is, is necessarily helpful. And one thing that we've been, and I would actually love to hear your thoughts on this, we've been trying to figure out like the best way of declining people, when, and if it's better to do that over the phone and have like a conversation about why somebody's been non selected. Or if it's better, sometimes to have that be another another step of automation. And then instead to focus on, you know, more time spent interviewing or more time spent preparing candidates, we've heard feedback on both sides of it. And so we're still kind of weighing out which one is best. I think my instinct had always been, oh, call people, you know, make the call, make the make the phone call. But it seems like now, I think a lot of people, they see the phone call, and they think I've got the job. And it can be harmful, potentially, to now be kind of in this longer conversation. That's really heavy. And so I wanted to hear what your thoughts are on that. And I probably just derailed the conversation. But when I was thinking of human touch points, that's what I've been thinking about that element of it. Another thing though, is, we used to rely on on people to do things like scheduling interviews. And so that was where a lot of our human touch points were happening was, you know, calling somebody to say you did a great job on your interview, we're ready to set up the next interview. And now a lot of that has been more streamlined and more automated and so instead we're having like a conversation that's much more intentional about Hey, we're calling you not to set up the interview, which you already know when that's happening, but instead to prepare you for this interview and give you kind of like better insight and getting giving you better questions.

Mark Harbottle 35:11
Nice. Nice. So, just want to make sure I understand your question, because you said you'd be interested in my thoughts on you talking about specifically reaching out to candidates during the recruitment cycle your phone versus email, that side of things?

Erica Wallace 35:27
Yes, for a declining a candidate, if you've got a candidate who made it to the end of the process, and they're not going to be the one that we are hiring?

Mark Harbottle 35:38
So really good question. I think. I think generations are different. I think I'm making a very sweeping statement here. And I can't refer there's something new and I was musing on the other day, but I think the the generation coming in entering the workforce now don't want to receive phone calls, I think they prefer the message functionality of it. And I also think when it comes to delivering difficult feedback, or constructive feedback is probably a better word. I think there are more people who prefer to see it written down so they can digest it. Yeah. So when it comes to us, turning candidates down, what we say and I think you guys are the same with us. If you've had a conversation with someone at Cronofy, you will get a personalised email explaining why you've been unsuccessful from the last person you met as well. So on a grander scale, it's allowing our hiring managers to practice getting better feedback, which is super important to us. But it also gives us the opportunity by writing it and sending it over email to really make sure we're being clear, and provide the evidence and leave nothing unknown. These are the things that you did really, really well in the interview. This is the reason why we won't be progressing with you. And actually, we want to give the candidate something constructive as well. And here's something that you know, this is something you did really well that you can take into an interview. So your next interview, or do you know you had a habit of doing this or you get answered in these types of ways. And I think that if you'd have done it this way around, it would have allowed you to let this part of your experience shine better. So for us, we tend to do it in writing. But saying that today, I called the candidate to give them some feedback, because it was some very, very, very specific feedback that I personally wanted to deliver over the phone. It's my personal experience, really. That hasn't answered your question at all, has it?

Erica Wallace 37:38
No, it absolutely has. And I really, I really liked that perspective. I think that is really interesting, and I don't we don't do anything like that. And I haven't heard of a company that does it. So I really appreciate it, I think it's really it's a really fresh approach to have the last person that you spoke with be the one craft and write that, a lot of times when there's tension between recruiters and hiring managers, a lot of times that become comes from the hiring manager and the recruiter having different experiences with a candidate. And if you're a recruiter, is always the one who's giving feedback to the candidate, they don't have all of the information. So they'll say something like I've had that experience where I've given a candidate feedback about why they're not moving forward, and they want to discuss it or push back or understand more or defend themselves. And having not been in that interview or having not had that exact conversation that had led to that decision. It's harder for me to give more meaningful feedback because I, you know, I only know as much as the manager told me and sometimes the manager, you know, just hasn't hasn't had time to share as much, because we haven't been using our AI transcription to get their notes on it. But having the having the recruiter, you know, maybe give some feedback, but having the the manager kind of crafting that feedback, I think it eliminates a lot of that friction that you feel from the recruiter going to the manager saying, Why are we declining this person, and then also from the recruiter, and the candidate saying this is why we're declining you. I know a lot of times we might fall in love with a candidate, and then they end up not getting selected. And so it's almost like devastating for us to to have to deliver that feedback. But having the hiring manager or whoever the last person that spoke to that candidate was to create that, it's so helpful, so smart.

Mark Harbottle 39:33
Yeah, it allows us to -- if the hiring manager can't be specific on exactly why someone isn't right for the role, then that hiring manager isn't interviewing properly. There's something that they're not finding out either. They don't understand the role that they're looking to hire for properly. They didn't delve deeply enough into the candidate's experience to be able to articulate exactly what was right and what wasn't right. So that there's an opportunity there for me to provide training and upskilling. And make sure that all of that is correct, you know, and then you learn from that you make sure you don't do that next time around. But at the same time, as well as a huge contribution to the candidate experience. Yeah, it's hard work. It's an effort for our hiring managers to do and particularly for hiring managers who aren't as used to providing feedback, as you know, in their previous roles as maybe they would with us. It's awkward, and it's sticky. And it's difficult, and it's hard. It's so uncomfortable. Right. But it makes us absolutely sure that, that we know what we're hiring for. And it means that when we can find the right person, there's a lot more agreement, there's a lot more. You know, we're all know why this is the right the right hire, it helps but yeah, it's it's hard work. It is hard work. It's just about being absolutely crystal clear. And yeah, sometimes people push back, but it happens, of course. But if we're clear, it's all we can do is be completely honest and transparent to people.

Erica Wallace 41:01
And that's such a good gift for for that candidate to get that. Do you feel that a lot of times your managers, are you like you mentioned that, you know, it's an uncomfortable or unusual experience for them? Do you feel like they can delay or push out the time? If they're, you know, maybe procrastinating or trying to really make sure that they're finding the right words, does that end up creating any kind of delay or lack thereof?

Mark Harbottle 41:27
That's a brilliant question. So we do hold ourselves accountable to quick to fast feedback. What we'll often say to candidates is something like, I don't know, you'll hear back from within 48 hours, but we'll get back to you. We'll try it we'll aim for 24 hours or something like that, but I think probably will be a good example is there was there was a time when we had an applicant who it was really hard for us to give feedback on. Because they ticked a lot boxes for the role. And the hiring manager wasn't sure. But that's what we have our evaluation form for is what we have, you know, more people involved in the interview process to provide that kind of diversity of opinion as well. So that actually ended up with a kind of wider conversation to make sure it was right. One of the other things, our approach to recruitment is as well is we interview until we find the right hire, there's a lot of businesses and I'm not saying one is right and one is wrong. But I know a lot of organisations will say, Okay, we need 50 people at first stage interview, we're going to whittle that down to 25, for second stage, and then we want to get, I don't know, eight people through to final stage. And we'll make a decision of those eight. That's assumes that one of those eight, or that initial 100, or whatever, is the perfect applicant. So we've had recruitment processes where we've had a very small number of people through but that's because we've we've been able to identify the perfect person at the end, you know, and you're right, we're going to offer you the role. But sometimes it takes us longer to hire for. So what it means when it comes to being able to provide feedback, we can do it quite quickly, because we can quite quickly identify, either we're going to offer this person a role, or we're not. And if we're not, we need to be absolutely clear on why, if we're absolutely clear on why then we should be able to feed that back very quickly to our applicants, therefore not waste their time, not give them a week of thinking did I didn't I could have asked that question. But you know, again, it's providing a better experience. But we're moving through the process, because we need to hire positions, so do our competitors who are hiring for, you know, similar types of roles, for example. Does that match with how you guys do things?

Erica Wallace 41:28
So we do a little bit of both? And I think it depends on on the type of role as well. But I think we will have some positions like we've got a couple of positions that I'm thinking of right now that we were absolutely looking for this, this really specific person and we weren't going to make a hire, until we found that candidate that had you know, this unicorn candidate that had everything we were looking for. And so in that case, I think we did, we did a very similar process where we were, you know, moving through, you know, making decisions quickly, but keeping the posting open and kind of keeping the search open until identifying that perfect person. But then a lot of our other roles that are maybe more like more evergreen roles or roles that are kind of filled in a in a higher capacity. For those ones a lot of times we are are going to do that kind of funnel approach. And we actually have like a visual funnel that we use in our data to say like you know what, we took it from here, and we try to get that ratio down. You know, we want, if it was 100 applicants to one hire, we're trying to whittle that down and you know, trying to get a more a leaner or leaner statistic there. But we will sometimes do that process of, you know, we've got 100 people at this stage, we now need to get it down to 50. And then we get it down to 25. And then from that 25, you know, we're going to be able to make our hire, we definitely have roles that are like that. And I think that that's to be expected, the different roles will have different, you know, have to have a different kind of process, when there's the roles that are more systematic or, you know, more frequently more seasonal, maybe those roles can be, can almost be harder, because you're going to have a lot of like, sometimes it's just a timing issue. Sometimes it's not even like we don't really even have feedback, we've just already hired enough people and we don't have a spot for you now, we'll have to put you in a talent pool. And that feedback can be really difficult to give. But you know, a lot of those times the feedback that we do end up telling people is we just didn't -- it just was a timing issue. It was nothing personal. You do -- some candidate or not some candidates, some of the people on our team who will find, you know, some of them, they found and identified like What are some common things that people are getting declined for, and then giving them like, either articles or like LinkedIn learning links to say, you know, this is something that we've identified, a lot of candidates are, you know, not not getting, and we want to give you this, you know, these tools and these resources to kind of give them a more like a more tangible action after their feedback. So that there's not that, now what, but instead, there's something that's actually concrete that you can take an action on. And that's been actually we've gotten a lot of really great feedback from candidates about about those kinds of declines.

Mark Harbottle 46:54
Amazing, amazing. And the success story, I'm guessing is going to be when someone comes back to you in a year or so and says, I went on that LinkedIn session, I learned this, I got into this development experience. And now I'm back, I'd like to get a job with you guys.

Erica Wallace 47:09
That's the dream. And especially, you know, we had, we've had a couple of stories like that where we we had a position, then we were able to fill it in like 10 days flat, because we'd already had two or three candidates that we had talked to in the past that -- hadn't the timing hadn't been quite right, or there had been some kind of not quite right thing at that time that has now worked itself out. And so, you know, six months later, or a year later, things have changed, and they are a great candidate, and they've been able to get the position. And for them, it was amazing, because, you know, they, they were able to take action on some of the feedback we gave them. And for us, it was amazing, because now we have this need that was quickly hired and quickly filled, it allowed us to move on to other roles.

Mark Harbottle 47:52
Amazing, amazing. You talk -- I really love your your passion for giving that feedback to candidates. And I'm the same, agree with you wholeheartedly. What about hiring managers and feedback? So how would you give feedback to hiring managers?

Erica Wallace 48:09
Oh, that's, that's a really good question. And I think it depends, I mean, for us, a lot of times we try to have that relationship. Right at the very beginning, you know, we we do a lot of pretty thorough intake at the beginning at the outset of that search and say, you know, what are we looking for and kind of setting expectations that we're going to about how long it might take, or what what are some of our best practices for the timelines, a lot of times too with those intake meetings, we will give them the expectation that we're going to have a wider net at the beginning. And then the more feedback that they give us, the more you know, close will get exactly what they're looking for. We've had to give feedback. I mean, even just like the other day we gave feedback that the process that they were, you know that they were taking, basically taking too long. They were they were dragging their feet a little bit. And so we were you know, kind of looking at like this is, you know, this is the expectation we had set at the beginning. And because we had such clear expectations at the beginning, we were able to refer back to that. And so the feedback was, wasn't as much you know, you're doing this thing that you don't know you're doing. It was more like, hey, remember when we wanted to do this, let's go back and let's, let's try and do this again. But I think having a really good relationship with a hiring manager, by building trust and knowing that you're like you're there to bring them, somebody who's going to help them and who's going to help their team and having kind of some, like it's a shared goal. I know this is going to be my corporate speak that I hate to do is shared goals that can really make a difference for how feedback is received. Because if you're saying, you know, I'm trying to hire somebody really quickly, a lot of friction there, but when the feedback is coming into, you know, we really want to hire this person, and we both want this person to land so that your team can be successful so that our company can be successful. We share this is something we're both having, we do that what are some things that I can do to help make make sure that this is happening? I think that the feedback be a lot better received at that point, just by having a clear goal that you're working towards.

Mark Harbottle 50:33
Yeah, that's nice. And that kind of rings with, with my thoughts around, obviously, the trust, but the the mutual respect for the value that that individual is going to place on that part of the process. So for me, the lowest hanging fruit example is for us, often a lot of new managers, and new hiring managers will tend to put specific years of experience on job descriptions, let's say, I need four plus years experience of this. And I'll often say, Well, what if it's three? What if someone has three years and they'll say, oh, yeah, we still consider it. So we'll take it off the job description, don't say you need four, if you're willing to take less than four, just put on the job description, what you're looking for. But on the other end of the scale, a hire we made not too recently, was a brilliant candidate who, over the course of a few interviews, we realised that they offered so much more than the role we were hiring for. And it was one of our hiring managers who identified this and the feedback that they gave was, this person is more than than we're looking for, you know, not just have the role but they could bring more to this position and this department and this business. But I didn't have that, that depth of knowledge of that department in that role to be able to make that assessment. So we ended up offering that person a bigger job than we'd than we'd anticipated which has been a real success story for us. But without that kind of feedback loop without that constant communication. And without, you know, the process being in place to make these types of assessments, that trust meant we were able to make proper assessments and, and find the right person for we didn't know was that job at the time, but was the right person for the business? So yeah, trust and communication, I think is massive, right?

Erica Wallace 52:15
Yeah, that's a great example. And a great story, we have had one recently where we were hiring for an entry level role. And they were asking for several years of experience. And so we had to give that feedback, you know, if it's an entry level role, they can't have this many years of experience, they're they're counteracting it, you know, you're kind of asking for one thing, and expecting another and we were able to do it with with a little bit of humour and not too much tension. But it was me being able to know the job description and the market and have a good understanding of what they were looking for, to be able to give that feedback and for them to be, you know, kind of confident that I was looking out for their best interest and for the company, to know that I'm not just you know, trying to quibble over details, but instead, like, this is very intentional feedback, that's going to lead to a better result.

Mark Harbottle 53:07
Do you think? And when I asked you this question, I'm referring to the candidate experience, TAs, hiring managers, you know, everyone involved in that. So, is there ever a reason not to give feedback?

Erica Wallace 53:23
Oh, that's also a really good question. You're really good at this.

Mark Harbottle 53:28
I'm not trying to put you on the spot, I promise.

Erica Wallace 53:34
I think that there can be times when feedback isn't helpful. I think, when you're giving a candidate feedback that they can't apply, there's not anything that they can do. I think that that can be detrimental. And I think it can erode trust a little bit, because they're kind of like, well, what am I going to, you know, what, what do I do with this, and I think that putting yourself in the shoes of a candidate who's, you know, maybe facing a lot of rejection or facing a really difficult job search, to kind of get feedback, that's not anything that they can apply or really take an action on, can sometimes, you know, you know, dampen their, their hope, or, you know, their enthusiasm for their job search. And I think for managers, too, if they're being told, you know, I think sometimes the managers do need to hear that the, what they're looking for isn't, you know, necessarily possible, like, we're not necessarily going to be able to find a candidate with, you know, this many years of experience with an entry level salary, but we might be able to make some adjustments here and there to get to get what you're looking for. And sometimes I think that that, like that can be almost like a cop out. And so you have to be really careful with how you give that feedback to a manager. Because sometimes what the manager will hear is, I'm not going to try and find this person for you. I'm not going give this a good search. So I think that that feedback, if it's true, then it can be really helpful. But sometimes I think I've had that experience where a manager just heard, you know, I'm not able to find that person like, that's, that's what they kind of walked away with. And they kind of eroded trust a little bit in that moment, because the feedback wasn't what -- it was my fault that I didn't give good feedback in that scenario.

Mark Harbottle 55:26
That's amazing. That's really interesting. And it's interesting to talk about the quality of feedback as well, because I think, I think my attitude of it is, feedback should never be given with negative intent, it should always be given with positive intent. And I want to give you this feedback, because I want you to improve hiring manager or candidates or, you know, member of my of my team as well. I think the times were for me, the times when if you can't justify the feedback, you shouldn't, you're not in a position to give it properly. And I think we should reflect on a talk before about knowing why someone isn't suitable for a role. But at the same time, I think, if it's personal, you shouldn't give it either, hey, we're not going to progress with your application, because you were biting your nails in the zoom, call. It's not. It's not good enough. And I am conscious of time. And I want to make sure that we're covering everyone's questions as well. Do you mind if I jump into the q&a and touching? Well, I think we've touched on some topics that have have people were really interested. So Laura, here, it says, I appreciate Erica bringing up the conflict around a verbal rejection, and would love to hear other people's thoughts. In my experience, it can open up potential legal ramifications, Lee's had similar expression, and we've had an anonymous person mentioned it in the US there are laws and concerns around giving an explanation to a candidate and why you haven't proceeded. So. I just wondered if that's something that you'd be you could expand on Erica.

Erica Wallace 56:55
Yeah, there's, you do want to be careful of you know, that you're not rejecting somebody, and it's a, you know, they're in a protected class, or that their feedback is something that could be misconstrued. And you want to be really cautious around that, we tend to have kind of categories of why people are not being selected. And then kind of pulling from those categories. But I think, like, what I will often do is if I am calling the person and talking with them, about why they're not moving forward, I'll ask them if they're open to feedback. And then I'll give feedback that is really specific to the culture add qualities like qualities that they, you know, mentioned in the interview, rather than saying, you know, we're selecting this person who was this much more experienced than you will instead say things like, I mean, I almost would never, I can't imagine a time when I would say why we looked at somebody else. But instead of focus on that person, you know, this individual that I'm connecting with, right then, and giving feedback, if it's personalised to them. And it's, and it's really relevant. But being mindful of protected classes, and being mindful of anything that's kind of outside of that realm, like, like you said, we're not going to say like, we're not selecting you, because you, you know, like, had weird fingernails in the Zoom interview. But instead, because it was weird fingernails, we would talk more about, you know, this, this quality that we're, you know, we've identified and that we've, you know, made clear, and it's part of our job description, and connecting that back to the candidate. I also when I do trainings with managers, and like we do an interview training, we talk a lot about going back to the job description. And so if the job description doesn't say, they need to have this quality, and then you're not selecting them, it's not quite fair. And so you really need to be sure that you're looking for the right things in that job description and pulling out the specific qualities that you're going to be looking for. And making sure that that's clear with the recruiter, so that the recruiter is able to communicate that clearly to candidates.

Mark Harbottle 59:06
Nice. Nice. So it's a really, really nice point, I think, yeah, I'm in a similar boat as well. It's about if you can be absolutely specific enough, and even use the examples as well. There's been times when we've kind of constructed rejection messages to candidates, which have said, you said this, and your example was this. But what we needed to hear was this, or, you know, just to be absolutely crystal clear that there isn't another reason behind it. And like I say, if our hiring managers can justify that to us as well, then it really, really helps. Another question that was brought up from Helen and thank you for your question was around sharing our assessment criteria. And Helen said, you don't think that giving candidates an outline on the questions to prepare would only make them move past or progress in the interview, because they practice their answers. Do you know what, Helen? That's a good thing. For me, I want if I said to every single candidate, I'm going to ask this question, you give me your best answer. And if they went away and prepared and prepared and prepared and rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed, and then came to me and said, This is my best answer. On my best day, using the best of my knowledge, let's say there was 10 applicants, I can take those 10 examples and say, which is the closest to my job that I'm hiring for, for the experience that we're looking for. Nothing is left uncertain, there is no candidate being left behind. It's accommodating for that, let's say neurodiversity applicants who need maybe need a little bit more time to prepare, it's people who don't do well thinking on their feet. Honestly, it's about levelling the playing field for me. And if I need to tell everyone exactly what we're looking for, then we do and what I, to be fair, I don't share the exact question. I share our assessment criteria, or evaluation form, and the principles of our organisation that we assess people against when making a decision. So yeah, hopefully that answers your question there. So thank you very much for that. Erica, anything to add on that? I've just went on my soapbox, then.

Erica Wallace 1:01:09
No, I think that was -- I completely agree. I think the same thing. I think with when we're telling people, we're looking for certain attributes, I've had it where I remember I had a candidate, I was asking them, if they'd ever received you know about their experiences receiving feedback, and how they, how they receive feedback is that, you know, just kind of comes full circle. And the person just could not think of anything, and they, they blanked out and really like kind of turned the interview, which had previously been going really well it kind of turned it around to me to now this candidate was felt like they were spinning and they couldn't really recover from that moment. And I felt terrible. I felt like, Oh, if I had just given them that heads up, or, you know, what could I have done differently to help that candidate because I think they were on paper, a perfectly great candidate, and they ended up kind of kind of spinning in a direction that that wasn't as helpful because they weren't as well prepared. I think that there's some fear from hiring managers that if we give them like the answers to the test, then people are going to cheat or, or like game the system. But I haven't found that to be very true. I've mostly had people, you know, feel like they are able to come and present their best selves and kind of show up the best way. But and I think if people are going to be dishonest, they'll find ways to be dishonest in in any, in any scenario, but I love having more prepared candidates and having candidates that feel like, like I said, you know, we want people that are the best for the role, not necessarily the most extroverted, you know, best at interviewing people. Because then we would just only hire recruiters, we just have all these recruiters roles. And we wouldn't get all of our, you know, neurodiversity, and, you know, just the different personalities that you need to make a team really function well, and some of those personalities, you won't find in an standard interview. Yeah, no, I

Mark Harbottle 1:03:06
Yeah, no, I completely agree. Erica, do you have time for one more question? Of course, absolutely. And we will make this the last one to thank you, everyone, honestly, this is from Christina, who said in terms of measuring the candidate experience, you and me promised the other day, we were going to talk about data we haven't -- how do you connect your candidate experience at stages of the process with the questions in the candidate experience survey? If any? Okay, because how are you measuring that candidate experience?

Erica Wallace 1:03:35
So we definitely measure the candidate experience with surveys. It's also with quality of hire, I think we talked about with data that it's hard to track things that you're not measuring. So if you're saying that candidate experience is important, but you don't have a way of measuring it, then then how important can it really be? And I don't know that there's a perfect way we do have kind of a collection of surveys that we use to track and to measure data. So one of them is the one from the hiring manager. So the hiring manager can assess their quality of hire. From the candidates experience, though, we asked them specifically, once they made it past the first round, what their experience was like, right now, we've only gotten about 15% of those candidates to respond to the survey. But it has given us a lot of insight into things that are working well that we want to continue to do. So it hasn't given us as much of like a game changing kind of like, you know, huge area of shifting, but instead it's emphasised what is working and what we should continue to do.

Mark Harbottle 1:04:45
Nice. That's an amazing answer. I would say it's hard to track things you aren't measuring is one of the greatest quotes I've ever heard anyone in recruitment ever so very well put. I'm really, really interested in that really, really interesting and Thank you so much. I think we've obviously gone over time. So thank you, everyone for your question. And I really hope that this was helpful as well. Before a round off, I need to say, a huge thank you to Erica for joining me today. It's been amazing getting to learn more about you and how you do things at Bamboo HR. And hopefully I speak for both of us when I say everyone who's listening here today is welcome to connect with us on LinkedIn and give us a follow. But yeah, I think really to round it off. Thank you so much, Erica, thank you for your time as well.

Erica Wallace 1:05:30
No, thank you. Absolutely. It's been amazing. I'm so honoured and pleased to be a part of this chat. And I learned so much from you, like immediately, I'm like, gonna go back to my team and say like, Oh, we got to do this. And all these wonderful things. But definitely, I would love to have people connect with us on LinkedIn. And I feel like we could keep talking for hours. So this has just been...

Mark Harbottle 1:05:50
Right. Yeah, absolutely. I could agree with you there. Absolutely. Maybe we'll let me we'll have to do series two if people want it, if people want it, right. Thank you so much, everyone. Have a wonderful day. Thank you for your time and hope to see you all again. All right. Thank you so much. Have a great one. Thanks, Erica.

 How to improve your hiring experience for candidates and the hiring team

Mark Harbottle and Erica Wallace touched on important themes surrounding the dynamics between recruitment teams, hiring managers and candidates. In this webinar we explore:


Feedback and trust between recruitment teams and hiring managers

Whether you're a seasoned HR professional or new to talent acquisition, this webinar offers invaluable insights into optimizing your hiring practices and attracting top talent.