As a digital high-tech newcomer in the largely traditional staffing sector, Jobandtalent is taking streamlined recruitment to a whole new level. Improving processes and optimizing efficiency, quality, and performance are central parts of their long-term vision to disrupt the way temp workers and employers find each other.
We at Hubert have had the pleasure of working alongside of Jobandtalent since early January 2021 and together crafted a process that sorts out the very best candidates using a minimum of manual steps.
The service that Hubert provides Jobandtalent is an automated screening interview that all applicants are invited to as soon as they hit the ‘apply’-button. The interview with the virtual recruitment assistant Hubert consists of a mix of open- and closed-ended interview questions that give all candidates a chance to tell their story.
As soon as the interview is completed, the responses are analyzed and automatically scored using a robust machine-learning engine. The candidates that are most likely to be a good fit are shortlisted and highlighted for recruiters.
Rolling out Hubert successfully for large clients such as Jobandtalent requires planning and a well-structured process that we are deep-diving into with this article. With a clear process, speed follows. Together we went from project start to soft launch of the first role in less than a week. Let’s jump right in to the process description!
The starting stage of all our projects. Hubert and Jobandtalent agreed on all commercial terms and to start with a package covering 25.000 interviews yearly. We signed a Data Processing Agreement (DPA), and the partnership was finally official!
Next up is a 45 min first start-up meeting with those involved in the project to ensure that everyone understands the implications of the project and secure early engagement and smooth transitions further down the line. We also agree on:
· The layout of the recruitment process
· A soft launch plan
· What roles to screen during the soft launch.
It is important for everyone involved to understand that the stages in the internal recruitment process must go through considerable changes to maximize value.
For example, our recommendation in most cases, is to completely remove the CV collection from the process, but since this is something that most recruiters are so used to having, some choose to keep this stage during the soft launch.
Knockout-questions, however, is a good compliment and does a great job at filtering out the candidates that are obviously unqualified for the job. Those who do meet the formal requirements are invited to the Hubert interview and then sorted according to performance and likelihood of being successful in the role. Aligning the screening steps is crucial to boost efficiency, great candidate experience, and accurate performance prediction.
To get maximum cost and time savings out of Hubert, recruiters only engage applicants that have completed their interview with Hubert to focus on high-quality candidates first and refrain from jumping straight into CV-screening.
As soon as the client decides what roles to include in the soft launch, we start by collecting information regarding the competency profile required for the job. If the client has a well-defined competency profile, we go with that, and if not, we suggest one to start with.
Hubert creates an interview covering requirements, desirable skillsets, and nice-to-haves for the job. The client then tests and approves the interview making sure it meets their expectations.
Secondly, we collect the information needed to integrate Hubert into the client’s ATS. Usually, this only consists of generating an API-key. The Hubert tech team can then complete the integrations in minutes.
Client Tasks
- Evaluate and approve the competency profile
- Evaluate and approve the interview template
Time requirements from client 2–3h.
Jobandtalent are divided into different small teams responsible for different kind of volume hiring. We decided to start with a team responsible for recruiting about 2000 warehouse workers anually and integrate Hubert into their existing ATS Teamtailor in early January 2021.
The purpose of the soft launch is to evaluate Hubert in a controlled environment and compare the changes to the previous process. We agreed on the warehouse worker role since it is one of the most prevalent for Jobandtalent. They hold many years of experience in terms of recruitment quality, costs, and time, which makes it easy to compare the difference before and after Hubert was implemented.
When enough candidates have completed the interview, it is time to evaluate the results and see if any adjustments are needed to match the competency profile better.
For Jobandtalent, the focus for the warehouse worker soft launch was on scoring accuracy, time-saving, and increasing the share of qualified candidates moving to the next stage compared to the previous process. The soft launch was successful and the results were as follows:
- 80% scoring accuracy
- 50% screening time saved
- Half as many telephone interviews needed
The first knockout questions that are filled out during the application stage were adapted to the Hubert interview. Many knockout questions are great to keep in the application step to filter out candidates that are clearly not qualified for the job. But for these entry-level positions, the requirements are often few which means most candidates advance to the next step in the process.
More complex questions are better suited for a conversation. For example, establishing what working permit a candidate holds, how much forklift driving experience he or she has apart from purely having a license, or whether a 50% occupation qualifies under the regulations from the local tax agency or not are perfect questions to let Hubert sort out.
Compared to just using knockout questions, what’s great about Hubert is that the outcome is a sorted list of the best candidates instead of simply presenting the full range of candidates that got past the knockout questions.
“We have had a fantastic experience from working with Hubert, the roll out process has been incredibly quick and easy to follow, the support has been attentive and quick to adapt the product to our needs. Plus, the outcome was far better than what we could ever imagine”
Henrik Korén — Senior Recruitment Manager, Jobandtalent
After careful evaluation, we also concluded that the psychometric tests that occationally were used as a screening step would be placed closer to the end of the process to best add value to the process and decrease processing time for candidates.
With the soft launch successfully completed it is time to roll out Hubert to all processes for the same role nationwide and educate all team members in the new way of working.
By starting the expansion in the big city areas, we could quickly maximize the value of Hubert and collect good amounts of data to increase the understanding of how the process was working out.
We decided to develop more interview templates to cover, for example, full/half/part-time warehouse workers with and without forklift certification for Jobandtalent and held an online education with everyone involved in recruitment for warehouse workers.
Approximately two months after the first contract was signed, the new process had been evaluated in the soft launch and rolled out nationwide.
“Initially, we were a bit hesitant to give up control of the process, but when we saw the difference before and after Hubert it quickly became the preferred way of working for all of us. The product is very intuitive and takes just a few minutes to learn”
Oscar Örtenholm — Recruiting team lead, Jobandtalent
Naturally, we have kept a tight dialog with Jobandtalent throughout the roll out to collect feedback and improvement suggestions. This approach has led to a continuous refinement of the interview templates and making the process as simple as possible for the candidates.
Broaden the scope with In-store personnel
After a few months of focusing on warehouse workers, it was time to repeat the process and let more teams enjoy the clear benefits of Hubert. We expanded our partnership with Jobandtalent to also include the next team of high-volume recruiters responsible for hiring 2000–3000 in store employees/year, in the autumn of 2021, advancing from 25 000 interviews yearly to 38.000 interviews.
The store personnel roll-out followed the exact same pattern as warehouse workers and the process could be completed significantly faster due to our experience working with each other.
1. Soft launch → 2. Evaluation → 3. Scale up
Following a successful roll out of in-store personnel we continued in 2022 with more high-volume teams handling logistics workers, event personnel, and operators covering in total 75 000 interviews yearly.
