Talent acquisition leaders around the world face many of the same challenges: how to attract better candidates, how to optimize their hiring processes, and how to best employ technology to help their teams. But each country has a slightly different focus given its economic trends. 

The United Kingdom has faced unique challenges over the last several years: Brexit, runaway inflation, and a volatile economy that tilted from boom to recession almost overnight. To better understand talent acquisition trends in the UK, I sat down with Paul Marchant, Regional Vice President of Northern Europe at SmartRecruiters. 

“During the great resignation, it was so hard to hire that TA leaders were nearly always given the tools they needed,” Paul said. When the economy turned, he continued, “the pendulum swung back, and companies became more focused on cost and efficiency again.”

Brexit’s effect on immigration means that UK companies are competing harder for hourly talent. “The tightening of our border controls post-Brexit means that a lot of industries can’t get the labour they previously had access to,” Paul explained. Retail, hospitality, and transportation roles have been particularly hard hit. Despite the recent rise in cost-cutting, C-Suite awareness of the importance of talent acquisition hasn’t gone away. “Now everyone understands the strategic nature of TA,” he said. “However, this understanding brings a whole new layer of pressure and scrutiny to the practice.” 

Paul spoke about the need for greater cooperation between executive leadership and talent acquisition, particularly when it comes to technology decisions. “We’ve seen TA leadership in companies ready to sign a contract with SmartRecruiters, only to find out at the last minute that their leadership had already signed off on an ERP,” he said. “This level of internal disconnect is unsustainable.” With such immense capability differences between ERP recruiting modules and standalone solutions like SmartRecruiters, it’s crucial that TA leaders consistently demonstrate the business impact of their preferred solutions so that they can influence decisions.

A flexible foundation for hiring keeps companies agile

The ability to influence technology decisions becomes even more important in volatile times. Paul said, “You can start the year with huge hiring goals and be doing layoffs by the end.” With that kind of unpredictability, companies need a talent acquisition suite that can help them adapt quickly, whether that’s adjusting core processes or integrating with point solutions. 

“SmartRecruiters provides a core TA technology foundation that helps companies change, adapt, reshape, redeploy, add to, and control,” Paul said. “Our customers can do that themselves, at the speed they want, without dependence on us.” While customers can adjust their configurations without the involvement of IT or SmartRecruiters, we provide implementation support, ongoing customer service, and access to a community of peers. Combining these self-sufficient tools and best-in-class services enables our customers to achieve powerful outcomes. Our success stories with UK companies Frasers, CityFibre, and Colliers EMEA showcase their achievements. 

Keeping up with innovation in talent acquisition

With decades of experience in HR tech, Paul has seen waves of technology evolution. “There’s constant innovation in talent acquisition,” he said. “The cosmopolitan, global nature of the UK is reflected in the vendor marketplace.” For some, the amount of TA tech can be overwhelming, but Smartrecruiters’ commitment to its partner marketplace can help leaders narrow their decisions. “Not only do we have an R&D team focused solely on talent acquisition,” Paul said, “we have an alliances team that’s constantly researching the marketplace, taking feedback from customers, and looking at market trends so we can make the best functionality available in our ecosystem. Our goal is to help customers differentiate fads from the impactful new tools they should be considering.”

As a geographically small country, the UK offers many opportunities for TA leaders to come together and share best practices. Paul spoke appreciatively of the RL 100, an organization that promotes excellence in resourcing, the British word for talent acquisition. RL 100 members set the example, Paul said, “of being savvy, knowledgeable, and sophisticated at managing their internal relationships so that they get the resources they need to be successful.” Managing those relationships is the key to maintaining a seat at the table and being included in technology decisions that impact recruiting. 

The waves of change aren’t going to stop. “We don’t know what the future is,” Paul said. “But if you’ve got a flexible technology operating system with an ecosystem around it, you’ve taken a step toward future-proofing. SmartRecruiters makes it easier to deal with the unexpected.”

Leading a team through a major technology implementation is a career milestone. Implementing a new talent acquisition platform often involves months of preparation and focused coordination of internal and external resources.

Every day, the customer service managers and implementation consultants at SmartRecruiters are busy helping one of our customers get up and running—or helping them evolve their hiring practices to adapt to new conditions. Some of these customers are so happy with the results that they take the extra step of telling their company’s story with SmartRecruiters in hopes that others can learn from their journeys.

If you think the challenge at your company is insurmountable, let the talent acquisition leaders whose stories are shared below prove you wrong. Their can-do spirit helped them achieve wins that included building a TA system from scratch, transforming high-volume hiring, attracting and retaining new talent, and supporting the success of people initiatives. If they can do it, you can too! 

You Can Start From Scratch

When Marcel Rütten joined PACCOR, a global packaging manufacturer, as the Global Director of Talent Acquisition & Employer Branding, the company had no system of record for recruiting. With careful planning, he used the time before SmartRecruiters went live to understand hiring practices in PACCOR’s 24 locations in 17 countries so that the company’s configuration and employer branding could be more effective. In PACCOR Builds Mature Recruiting Ecosystem in Less Than One Year, Marcel summed up the experience this way: 

[SmartRecruiters] gives recruiters and hiring managers everything they need to fill positions and track performance across channels.

 We have increased the maturity level within the whole organization so that everyone is capable and can use every available function. We have full transparency about our needs. We have a clearer picture of our target groups and what we need to say to them from an employer branding perspective. And we know what we need to budget.

Reporting on the full picture of hiring is a must for talent acquisition to have a seat at the table for talent decisions. Marcel’s thoughtful work in that first year set the stage for even greater maturity at PACCOR as the years progress.

You Can Transform High-Volume Recruiting

Frasers Group is a UK-based company that operates iconic brands such as Sports Direct, House of Fraser, Frasers, and FLANNELS. The company hires thousands of retail associates during the holiday season and throughout the year. Its previous system was outdated and not purpose-built for recruiting. Here’s what Adam Reynolds, Head of Talent Acquisition, said in Frasers Streamlines High-Volume Hiring with Automation in SmartRecruiters: 

We found it quite appealing that we could configure the [SmartRecruiters] system to suit all the different needs of what is, in essence, a sprawling estate: 22 countries, 30,000 employees, and 3,000 users of the system.

In the first year with SmartRecruiters, Frasers set a record of 20,000 new hires in one year. Adam added:

It was a game changer to have the templated job profiles, automated messages in our branding and tone of voice, and calendar integration. With the automation inside SmartRecruiters, we can move through high volumes of information from a high volume of candidates in a systematic way.

A great candidate experience is a hallmark of a strategic talent acquisition function. The automated and templated responses help Frasers maintain its reputation in a competitive hiring environment with candidates who are also likely to be customers.

You Can Improve Retention

When Ben Handyside, Director of Talent Management, joined Colliers EMEA, a global real estate services and investment management company, SmartRecruiters was already in place, but adoption had slowed since its implementation. Once he started digging into the metrics in partnership with his SmartRecruiters representative, “the lightbulbs started to go off,” he said in an interview. Over time, the data he brought to the table provoked discussions and moved the needle on behaviors that supported better hiring and ultimately improved retention. 

In conjunction with enhancements to its employer brand, Colliers experienced “a massive uplift in candidates,” Ben said in How Colliers EMEA Reduced Agency Spending with SmartRecruiters. The company began to attract talent from outside its conventional sources. The expansion of skillsets led senior executives to think differently about who Colliers hires, how they hire, and what the company could do to nurture that talent once they turned into employees.

The focus on hiring new types of talent resulted in a big win: Colliers EMEA saw a 25% year-over-year increase in retention for first-year hires. Ben’s experience sets an example for all TA leaders on how to maximize their seats at the table to achieve an overall talent-centric outcome.

You Can Support People Initiatives

Sustainability

Informa, a leading international events, digital services and academic knowledge group, puts a big focus on sustainability. To understand how the company’s credentials as a sustainable business factored into the choice to apply, Ben Wielgus, Head of Sustainability, set up specialized screening questions in SmartRecruiters. In How Informa Uses SmartRecruiters to Measure Sustainability Campaign Success, he said:

Because SmartRecruiters allows us to put the same questions to each candidate and rapidly deploy them to get results at scale, we’ve been able to get a much better understanding of how much our candidates care about sustainability, and how much of a difference it’s making in their choice to come to us.

DEI

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is another hiring topic on everyone’s minds, and CityFibre wanted to pave the way for more women and people from diverse backgrounds to work in its tech-focused roles. In CityFibre Hires for Diversity with SmartRecruiters, Richard Hutchinson, Head of Resourcing, explained the company’s data-driven approach:

We used [SmartRecruiters] Report Builder to create a DEI-focused report which helps us develop our attraction strategy, drive recruiter and hiring manager action, report on performance, and engage with our business stakeholders to present accurate and real-time insight into our DEI challenges and results.

Talent acquisition demonstrates its true value by supporting the direction in which the business needs to evolve. With accurate and actionable recruiting data, companies can make progress on even the most challenging goals.

You Can Start Today

What these leaders have in common is a desire to do the right thing: provide an exceptional candidate experience, deliver top talent to the business, and analyze the results of their efforts. They’re on a journey of continually growing their strategic leadership skills as market conditions change. 

In support of your journey, we’ve created a resource to guide you to getting—or making the most of—your seat at the table. Download the ebook today.

The role of talent acquisition has changed substantially in the last few decades. Long viewed as an administrative function, recruiting was seen as a cost center, and systems were built to support this mentality. 

If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that the old model and old systems no longer work in a candidate-driven market. Recruiters need to be marketers, data analysts, and organizational enablers all-in-one. And TA leaders need to ensure that their teams have the technology to support this expanded role so that their companies can compete in an ever-changing marketplace for talent.

Data from the recruiting tech stack gives TA leaders the ability to become strategic partners to the business – valued participants in the evolution of a company’s talent strategy. But how does one navigate this sea of solutions for everything from a core applicant tracking system to point solutions for background checks and assessments?

In a conversation with SmartRecruiters Hiring Success experts Dave Novak, Engagement Manager, and Jared Best, Regional Practice Leader, I explored the topic, “What can talent acquisition leaders ask of their technology that will help them obtain and maintain their seat at the table?” Some of those ideas are summarized in our ebook,   A Seat at the Table: A Guide to Leading a Strategic Talent Acquisition Function. This article takes a deeper dive into five key points in the ebook’s eight-point Technology Checklist.

1. Empower Recruiters

“If you don’t have the right technology, your recruiters spend a lot of time doing administrative, non-value-added work,” said Dave Novak. “Recruiters should be focused on talent: sourcing talent, talking to talent, negotiating with talent, hiring talent. If they’re spending too much time filling out spreadsheets and coordinating schedules, they’re not maximizing their value proposition to your organization.” 

An Aptitude Research survey found that only 48% of recruiters are satisfied with their technology, compared to 78% of TA leaders. This disconnect shows how important it is for TA leaders to choose technology that makes recruiting easier, not harder.

2. Foster the Candidate Experience

“A hallmark of a mature TA organization is the acceptance that the candidate is at the center of everything they do,” said Dave. “It has to be a synchronous experience for the candidate and the employee who comes through the system. The ideal scenario is that your talent acquisition processes provide a realistic preview of how your company operates and what it’s going to be like once they get hired.” That includes everything from your talent attraction methods, career site, interviewing experience, and onboarding process. 

Reducing the number of clicks in an application and connecting systems with automation improves the candidate experience and drastically reduces the time to fill. KinCare saw a 60% reduction in candidate drop-off when they reduced the time to complete an application from 17 minutes to 3-5 minutes.

3. Engage Hiring Teams

“Another hallmark of a mature TA function is that your organization engages with the hiring process,” Dave said. “When your system invites engagement, people use it consistently, which enables you to tell a story with data.” With more visibility into the impact of their behaviors, “hiring teams can get excited about building an awesome interview process,” he said.

KinCare experienced a growth in organizational trust once they implemented new hiring software. Ben Rynja, Head of Talent Acquisition at KinCare said, “It’s become more of a collaborative environment. When you’ve got transparency, you’ve got trust. Trust was no longer an issue.”

4. Lead with Data

“Good talent leaders need to make data-driven decisions, said Jared Best, “but many are  handcuffed by not being able to report on the full picture of the TA funnel.” Echoing Ben Rynja’s experience, he said “Data allows leaders to hold not only their teams accountable but also their partners in the business.” Jared also mentioned how important data is in the journey to being viewed as a strategic partner rather than a cost center. “Data can help you better position your story around where the gaps are in driving equal partnership from the organization,” Jared said. “It helps you justify additional resources and investments because you can explain the past performance and forecast scenarios about the future.”

“Reporting has to be pragmatic and accessible for the organization,” Dave Novak added. “Sometimes the data is there, but it’s not presented in a way that people can easily understand it.” Read our post 6 Steps to a Talent Acquisition Reporting Strategy for tips on how to get started on leading with data.

5. Adapt to Changing Recruiting Practices

A system’s level of technical flexibility—with the help of open APIs—helps companies adapt to change. Recent examples of the need for flexibility include the pandemic-induced pivot to video interviewing and new salary transparency laws in many states. “Your platform should be nimble,” Jared said. “You shouldn’t need an entire HRIT team to support you.” Today’s strategic teams typically have a TA ops resource rather than a big HRIT team that takes months to make updates. A platform that supports self-service and has built-in integrations enables changes to be made in days rather than months. 

When a talent acquisition team is seen as flexible and responsive, they’re better positioned to maintain their influence within an organization. For example, CityFibre relied on SmartRecruiters to ensure its DEI initiative was carried through the recruiting process, earning the company an award along the way. And Informa found out how to weave its company-wide sustainability initiative into its messaging to attract talent. 

There’s no end to the creative ways that talent acquisition can be involved in company-wide people initiatives. For a deeper dive into understanding how to get and maintain your seat at the table, download our ebook today. Read this post for a sneak peek at the contents. 

As recruiters and Talent Acquisition leaders from across the globe came together at Hiring Success 2016, the excitement could hardly be contained. SmartRecruiters’ inaugural customer conference drew high profile clients like Square, AOL, Atlassian, and Skechers.

Kicking things off, Jerome Ternynck, founder and CEO of SmartRecruiters, gave an inspiring welcome highlighting the importance of the customer’s voice in building the industry’s leading talent acquisition platform. The speech started with a round of thanks to SmartRecruiters customers for helping the organization thrive. As Jerome says, “We would not be here today if it were not for all of you who share our belief in changing the way the world hires. Thanks for making it personal.”

The mutual appreciation transitioned into a panel on the Future of the Industry. Panelists, including industry thought leaders like Jason Averbook, Jeff Diana (CPO, Atlassian), Kyle Lagunas (Founder & Principal Analyst, Lighthouse Research & Advisory), Ben Eubanks (Learning Analyst, Brendon Hall Group) and Madeline Laurano (Co-Founder, Aptitude Research Partners) examined the global trends of a service-based economy. Gone are the days of simply posting a job and expecting good candidates to come to you. The focus of recruiters is changing. “You must run recruiting strategically like an amazing marketing and sales function. If you do, you might win. If you don’t, proceed at your own risk” states Jerome Ternynck.

The analysts took a look at the state of recruiting and how far it has come compared to the days when you simply had a way to track resumes. Today’s modern TA platforms enable recruiters to demonstrate ROI and drive business value for their organization. “Have fun with it” says Madeline Laurano of Aptitude Research Partners regarding how robust platforms like SmartRecruiters are in their ability to integrate with all HR solutions. “Instilling a culture of modern measurement is the best way to evolve”, relayed Kyle Lagunas of Lighthouse Research. He also added: “Act like a business analyst instead of just another recruiter.”

Everyone wants to know what comes next, and no customer conference would be complete without a product roadmap. During the morning session, Rebecca Meissner, VP of Customer Success, brought everyone up to speed on recent improvements. Highlights included the game-changing scheduler, which allows recruiters to organize interviews without leaving the platform, and the deepest integration with Docusign in the industry.

Later that afternoon, the anticipation and excitement could hardly be contained as Jerome Ternynck lead the journey into future releases of the SmartRecruiters TA platform. Customers were particularly impressed by candidate lead generation, live profiles, and self scheduling. Candidate lead generation uses related content to build a job applicant pool even before a position has been posted. Live profiles keep candidates’ information up to date, and candidate self scheduling for interviews brought applause from over-scheduled recruiters.

The day continued with breakout sessions led by SmartRecruiters customers that use the platform every day to enable their success in global rollouts, executive hiring, effective and efficient recruiting.

In Maximizing ROI, Cesar Rosales from Skechers shared how they increased job application rates on their career website from 40% to 80% by having an easy one-click apply. “Many candidates are also consumers, so foot traffic is key”, noted SmartRecruiters’ Charlie Nelson as he explained how mobile and in-store job applications contributed to success. Skechers also cut their job board spend in half by using Smartrecruiters analytics to understand which boards are most effective.

The Transparent Hiring Process featuring Tony Lopez and Daniel Gromik from Illumio showcased how focusing on a collaborative hiring process engages nearly half the company in the SmartRecruiters platform, including more than 80% of their hiring managers. This has lead to improving the quality of their hires and enabled them to focus on other projects like investing more time in active sourcing, building the pipeline and a high touch candidate experience.

The first ever SmartRecruiters Awards capped off the day. These awards highlight truly exceptional efforts in recruiting across four categories: Best Recruiting Team, Best Candidate Experience, Best Hiring Process, and Best Platform Deployment.

After the winners took their awards, there was a brief thank you and summary by Brett Queener, President and COO of SmartRecruiters, followed by a rocking Smarty Party held on the 30th floor of the Marriott where recruiters celebrated Hiring Success with stunning views of the city by the bay.