The secrets to designing a top tier recruitment strategy

The Human Resources team explores best practices across the recruiting spectrum through award-winning case studies from ANZ, InMobi, and Kadence International.

In fact, according to a survey by OfficeTeam, 36% of HR professionals surveyed highlighted recruiting new employees as their greatest staffing concern as an HR professional. In line with that, 36% of respondents also pointed out that the most challenging aspect of their job is identifying and hiring candidates for open positions.

In order to help HR leaders improve their recruitment strategies to secure top talent, we dedicate this feature as a guide to the best practices across the recruitment spectrum - from employer branding to candidate experience and candidate evaluation.

All case studies used in this feature are from gold award-winning programmes and policies from this year’s Asia Recruitment Awards, held across Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

Case study: How InMobi’s fresh employer brand rose referral rates by over 100%

High wage costs, coupled with a limited talent pool is a challenge for any company, especially for one that is trying to attract the best talent in a dynamic and highly competitive technology space.

And such a challenge was exactly what InMobi set to overcome, having realised that its internal hiring practices needed a performance boost. Only 1% of the organisation was involved in recruitment and its hiring practices were devoid of any set processes. The firm’s mission was to rebuild an entire recruitment team to cut down on costs and produce beneficiary results.

Hence, InMobi began a long term, sustainable approach to tackling the problem of talent shortage, in order to make significant improvements in its employee retention, attrition and attraction rates.

Rather than winning the war for top talent purely by enhancing compensation packages, the firm began to launch initiatives that actually define what made InMobi an employer of choice, as Human Resources’ Akankasha Dewan found out.

Strategy

InMobi saw a tremendous opportunity and a window to build on its employee centric culture. Rather than concentrating business alone, its initiatives reiterated and enhanced the firm’s commitment to prioritise the needs of its employees.

For instance, the firm’s branding and communications were highlighted with the launch of its new social networking handles. InMobi began posting all the happenings at the office on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter which was then mass shared by the employees themselves. It targeted every medium; video, blogs, posts, poster and many others.

Instead of hiring external experts to lead its branding strategies, the firm hired two college interns to help it craft an authentic employer brand. InMobi wanted a fresh set of eyes to also help it discover its culture in the eyes of its employees and enhance the brand. The firm didn’t incur any additional people costs, but the help of its interns, empowered the entire team along with 900 InMobians to be the brand ambassadors for InMobi.

In addition, when it came to the firm’s rewards and recognition strategies, the company encouraged InMobians to decide on the best people to join the firm. It rewarded ‘experiences’ for referrals as opposed to the normal cash amounts - international holiday vacations, iPhones, Rockrider bicycles and the Royal Enfield Terminator.

"Our culture is our brand. InMobians take pride in speaking positively about our culture and sharing it with the world everyday," revealed Kevin Freitas, InMobi’s human resources leader (Asia).

The firm’s sabbatical policy also encourages InMobians to try out their hand at entrepreneurship, take a break to return refreshed. The company offers infrastructure, support and meals at free of cost for InMobi alumni who have turned entrepreneurs.

Besides this, InMobi’s Springboard philosophy, which is rooted in career development, also offers internal internship opportunities across functions to every InMobian who wishes to focus on developing oneself.

Results

As a consequence of all these changes, the firm made significant improvements to its attrition and referral rates.

Referral numbers rose by over 100%, while InMobi’s recruitment costs reduced by 95%.

The firm’s saving per hire metric also increased to 107%

Importantly, InMobi’s branding programmes also evoked positive responses from its employees. They proved their commitment towards the company by referring the finest of talent in the industry by closing more number of positions at lesser turnaround time along with an improved quality of hire.

Case study: How Kadence's excellent candidate experience leads to business profit

Kadence’s ‘communication culture’ has been the bedrock of all its ongoing success - so, in 2014, the consultancy firm felt it important to explicitly articulate this winning principle to ensure its sustainability for the years to come.

Building on from its mission statement and HR policy, Kadence decided to invest time and thought to ensure that every new colleague is smoothly assimilated to the Kadence team, regardless of background, and that they know the expectations Kadence has of them as a team member.

“Kadence has bold strategic goals to raise the profile of our company AND to re-position what market research stands for in the eyes of the wider marketing community. An integral part of this process is how we communicate with our candidates,” explained Phil Steggals, managing director, Kadence International, to Human Resources’ Jerene Ang.

“We want to share our vision from the outset and ensure that people buy into, and are enthused by, our ideas. It is our firm belief that we are being interviewed as much as we are doing the interviewing – and this ensures that we clearly communicate the direction that we want our business to move in.”

Communicating from the very start

However, Kadence’s on-boarding experience doesn’t start only once a job offer has been made, it actually begins even before the interview.

“Our candidate experience strategy is built on three core objectives: Simple, Timely and Personal.  We read all CVs and cover letters within 24 hours of receiving them to ensure that we can respond to candidates in a timely manner,” explained Ashley Nin, associate director, Kadence International.

She added that once the right candidate is identified, Kadence will send them a few simple questions to understand their interest in the industry, company and the role in order to accurately gauge the candidate's’ engagement with the application.  

Again, all responses within 24 hours and candidates are then invited for an interview. 

“During this interview, we invite candidates to deliver a short presentation, which demonstrates their creativity, proficiency in market research, and a bit about their personal interest as well,” Nin said. “This provides the ideal means for us to get to know the candidate and for the candidate to get to know the Kadence philosophy and way of working.”

Wanting all new employees to hit the ground running, Kadence’s on-boarding involves extensive preparation in terms of logistical requirements and human requirements.

Once the employee has signed the contract, they are included on email correspondence to be kept in the loop from the very first day. Additionally, a week before starting work, new employees are invited for social drinks to allow any questions to be addressed, and to stoke their enthusiasm about their new role.

Subsequently, the employee’s ‘welcome week’ and orientation is specifically tailored to the level and experience of the new colleague, ensuring that information is delivered in a timely, engaging and personal manner. Beyond the standard orientation issues, this ‘welcome week’ typically consists of a balance of interactive discussions, social integration and reading material.

Kadence Advocates from the first few days

Kadence first assesses its on-boarding experience through feedback from the new employees themselves. New employees often feedback that they feel integrated, inspired and productive from their very first hours in the company and become Kadence Advocates from their first few days.

As a result of Kadence’s excellent candidate experience, employees are committed to the firm’s goals, leading to enviable retention rates by the standards of any industry - in 2015, only two employees had left the Kadence team.

“With a nearly 95+% acceptance rate, we believe this strategy has been highly successful at identifying and engaging the right candidates,” Nin said.

Additionally, the timely, personal and engaging induction, which doesn’t break the bank in terms of investment - around S$700 (per new colleague) – has played a part in accelerated productivity and familiarity, as well as the long-term commitment to the Kadence vision. This has helped the firm bring in a consistent net profit of 12-15%, in addition to being crowned the gold winner for Best Candidate Experience, among in-house recruitment teams, at the recently-concluded Asia Recruitment Awards.

Case study: How ANZ sped up hiring whilst enhancing quality

With a history of more than 180 years, ANZ is committed to building lasting partnerships with its customers in 34 markets internationally, with a focus on connecting them to Asia Pacific’s expanding trade and investment flows.

ANZ's Singapore journey started in 1974 through its representative office.  Since receiving its Qualifying Full Bank license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore in 2010, ANZ has further entrenched its presence in the country with a wide range of products, services and insights and some 2,000 employees. To support the Bank’s agenda, the HR team has focused on attracting, developing and retaining a highly diverse workforce to meet their customers’ regional and international needs.

However, an internal review of its hiring practices highlighted a worrying trend which reflected a decrease in the number of local hires. In addition, local employee attrition was above the market norm for the financial sector.

These factors drove the team, led by Maximilian Then, Head of Resourcing for Singapore and Hong Kong, to make enhancements to ANZ's recruitment rigour that ultimately impressed the judges at the Asia Recruitment Awards to hand ANZ the Gold for the Best Recruitment Evaluation Technique. He spoke to Human Resources’ Aditi Sharma Kalra, and explained: “Enhancing our evaluation techniques has enabled ANZ to screen quality candidates faster, efficiently honing in on specifically tailored role requirements, removing the opportunity for unconscious bias and adding extra emphasis on some of our core people priorities, including gender equality and developing local talent.”

Tools used to drive recruitment rigour

Over the course of 2015, ANZ’s Recruitment Team established a continuous improvement plan encapsulating five new initiatives. One of these was the introduction of questions during the pre-screening application process, via the Taleo Recruitment System. Not only does this include business-specific questions tailored to roles, but it also helped ANZ identify a candidate’s legal right to work to factor into the screening process up front.

In addition, ANZ's Singapore Candidate Summary Form which provides line managers a consistent framework to evaluate talent was refreshed. The form now includes metrics such as the inclusion of a female interviewer on every interviewing panel, gender-balanced interview shortlists and consideration of local Singaporean talent for all roles in alignment with ANZ’s commitment to develop local home-grown talent.

Results that matter

A review of the recruitment process post the implementation of the new initiatives showed that ANZ's average time to hire externally is only 25 days, proof the improvements in recruitment evaluation techniques are speeding up the interview and selection process.  

The strengthening of selection criteria has contributed to great results, including a 2% increase in Singaporean talent, 49% of external hires being female and an employee attrition rate which is now within banking sector norms. ANZ is tracking well to further improve on these figures in 2016.

While these numbers continue to be monitored, ANZ’s award-winning team is extremely pleased with its progress and their focus on continuous improvements remains unwavering.

Designing a top tier recruitment strategy

After looking at these recruitment best practices, here are three quick tips for designing a top tier recruitment strategy.

• Authentic is key for employer branding. Instead of getting an external perspective, focus on the company culture in the eyes of employees.
• When it comes to candidate experience, remember to communicate from the very start using simple, timely and personal responses.
• To speed up the candidate evaluation process, screen applicants during the application process with business-specific questions tailored to roles and make sure a consistent framework to evaluate talent is in place.