Belfast-based consultancy firm, Corvus People, has launched a new HR for Growth service aimed at helping their clients harness the power of people to drive business growth. The focus of this service, along with others offered by Corvus People, is to support businesses to recruit, develop, and retain the market’s top talent. Northern Ireland has skilled talent across various industries, but businesses are finding it hard to engage and keep their teams. Corvus People believes that now, more than ever, business leaders need to take stock of what their top talent requires to thrive.

According to recent research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), Northern Ireland workers are least likely to say that their job offers good opportunities to develop their skills (31% v 25% UK average) or would help develop their careers (46% v UK average of 41%). Today’s talent is looking for more than just a salary, and the company’s culture is becoming increasingly important, including its approach to professional development.

Announcing the new HR for Growth service, Ian Weatherup, MD of Corvus People, said, “Our approach, since we started in 2011, has always been about people – they are the greatest asset to any business. Placing people at the centre of any business strategy is not only essential to business growth but is key to their success. Our collaborative approach with our clients means we become their people strategy partners. We work alongside them to deliver solutions across the entire employee lifecycle to support their teams and help them thrive.”

Ian added, “This is an exciting time for Corvus People as we prepare to work with businesses as they take that next big step toward growth and success.”

The new offering, HR for Growth, bolsters Corvus People’s existing solutions, which provide 360 support and integrate seamlessly into their clients’ existing processes. It costs more to recruit than retain, with some studies, such as the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), predicting that it costs on average 6-9 months’ salary to replace a salaried employee, which is why all Corvus People services are geared toward long-term retention.

Corvus Assured, the Executive Search methodology launched at the beginning of the pandemic, uses market-leading behavioural analysis tools to assess cultural fit as well as the skills match. This service creates long-lasting retention, with 97% of candidates still in position after 12 months and is already achieving notable success for a range of Northern Ireland and international clients.

Corvus People has built its reputation on helping businesses to manage change, reduce risk and improve their people strategies, and this new offering is no different.

Corvus People has extensive experience in working with clients across a range of industries, including manufacturing, technology, construction, and financial services. The company is committed to helping businesses of all sizes to develop and grow, and the HR for Growth service is just one example of this.

Businesses looking to improve their people strategies and drive growth can benefit from Corvus People’s solutions. The service offering provides a comprehensive range of solutions to support businesses in recruiting, developing, and retaining top talent. With one of Northern Ireland’s most experienced team of consultants and a focus on long-term retention, Corvus People is the perfect partner for any business looking to take that next big step towards success.

On 1st December 2022, OpenAI (co-founded by Elon Musk and backed by Microsoft) launched ChatGPT, a general-purpose chatbot that creates AI-generated content in a human-like response.

It brings AI to the masses as it offers non-technical people direct access to AI as you simply type your question, and it will reply to you in a few seconds.  This is the major step forward – predecessors didn’t have a user-friendly interface which makes it accessible to virtually anyone. Unlike previous AI, ChatGPT will admit to its mistakes, understand context, ask follow-up questions, and correct your false assumptions. 

There are endless potential applications – students writing end-of-term papers and assignments (it has already been banned by the NY City Department of Education), poetry, emails, answering philosophical questions and even writing limericks.

Today ChatGPT has the potential to significantly change how companies recruit by automating and streamlining activities to include CV/Resume screening, conducting initial interviews, Candidate matching and HR assistance (answering candidate queries). 

In the future, it will be able to assess soft skills and ask behavioural interview questions, but these will require interpretation by a professional recruiter or hiring manager. 

Currently, ChatGPT cannot search and find job-specific candidates and it is not a replacement for human decision-making and judgement in the final hiring process. 

The launch of ChatGPT has been described as a watershed moment and poses more questions on the ethics of AI.  How should it be regulated and what barriers and restrictions will be applied to searches?

Some sectors, such as traditional search engines are likely to be disrupted and the stakes are high.  Google launched Bard, their AI enabled chatbot, but an error in its first answer cost $100bn being wiped off their share price.  Microsoft also announced in that they are enhancing their Bing search engine with similar technology that ChatGPT is built on, which led to a 4.2% increase in share value. 

Every industry should be keenly watching to see what impact, both positive and negative conversational AI solutions could have on them.  

Companies, Hiring Managers, and recruitment companies should have AI chatbots on their Threats and Opportunities radar for 2023 to consider how it can be used to automate certain tasks in the recruiting process such as initial candidate screening, answering frequently asked questions, and scheduling interviews.

Footnote – thus far I have written this blog myself.  Below is ChatGPT’s reply to my query “What is the future of recruitment and technology”.

The future of recruitment and technology is likely to be marked by continued automation and digitization of various aspects of the recruitment process, from sourcing and screening candidates to scheduling interviews and onboarding new hires. This will likely result in increased efficiency and speed, as well as data-driven insights into the talent acquisition process.

In addition, there may be increased use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other advanced technologies in the recruitment process to make it more personalized and effective. This could include personalized job recommendations, candidate sentiment analysis, and predictive hiring analytics.

There may also be a greater focus on virtual and remote hiring, driven in part by the ongoing pandemic and the increasing trend towards remote work. This could lead to the development of new virtual recruitment tools and technologies that enable employers to reach and engage with a wider pool of candidates from around the world.

Overall, the future of recruitment and technology is likely to be shaped by a combination of factors, including advances in technology, changing workforce demographics, and evolving employer and candidate expectations.

 

Written by Ian Weatherup

I don’t know what happened…one minute it was going fine, and then the next, they had gone!

If you are a manager or employer who has found yourself saying this, in all likelihood, it wasn’t all going fine for a while. But a critical member of your team has resigned, and you’re left wondering what happened – and even worse, you have to move fast to replace them and their expertise.

Wouldn’t it be easier to retain your talent in the first place?

According to Bonusly, “Employee engagement is already one of the most important differentiators for modern organisations, and it’s on the minds of nearly every organisational leader”.

So, what can you do to help keep your top talent?

Creating strong employee morale and job satisfaction is key to ensuring you remain competitive in the market. After all, your employees could be the ones who bring in business, deal with customers and add to brand value. Your employees allow your company to grow and are crucial to business success.

Richard Branson is quoted as saying: “Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients”.

Hopefully, the following points are useful in your pursuit of retention:

Make the employee feel special. Ensure that your employees feel they are contributing to the company’s success. If possible, involve them in decision-making, let them take ownership of their role, and trust them to do their job. Recognise and reward achievements and motivate them to seek opportunities to learn. Continuing professional development is a key tool in ensuring job satisfaction, so creating an environment where learning is central will help you keep employees engaged.

Make sure that the package on offer is competitive in your industry. Notice I say package and not just salary. Nonfinancial benefits can include bonuses, recognition, on-site opportunities, training, work-from-home options, vacations, company shares, involvement in decision-making etc. All of the above can have a major bearing on employee retention. Combine this with a fair and transparent policy on promotions and you’ll help encourage your team to stay around.

Be flexible. I suppose this is the new mantra of lots of organisations regardless of size or sector. Given the changes to the global job market over the last few years it’s for the most part now an expectation that companies offer opportunities for a better work-life balance.

According to Owl Labs, “Companies supporting work-from-home have 25% lower employee turnover than the organisations that don’t.”

Try to match headcount to workload. It makes more sense to grow your team rather than put undue pressure on existing employees. Not an easy task in the current climate I know, but it will help to ensure that your current team remain focused on their core activities. You should forecast your team size along with your planned growth. Not only will this make for smoother running of the business should you unexpectedly lose a team member, but it will allow you to take on more work as it arises.

Be supportive and empathetic. Never forget that your team are people and, as people, are unique. Each will have different aspirations, motivations, attitudes, challenges, distractions, and frustrations so it’s rarely a one size fits all approach which works. However, ensuring that you spot when someone needs support for whatever reason and then doing something about it can mean a lot in terms of continued motivation.

Have a clear vision or mission statement. For your organisation that your employees understand, believe, and are committed to. Having a clear vision or mission statement is important for aligning employees towards a common goal, increasing motivation and engagement, establishing the organisation’s brand identity, and providing a framework for decision-making.

Of course, having a good employee retention strategy requires an understanding of real-life statistics and data. It is through analysing the trends within your business that you can identify the areas where you can improve.

Retaining top talent is crucial for the success of any organisation. To achieve this, companies need to create a positive work environment that supports employee morale and job satisfaction. By following these steps, organisations can increase employee engagement and reduce turnover, ensuring long-term success.

At Corvus People, we have a clear purpose – we want to see people succeed. We offer support across the entire employee lifecycle, and our range of solutions fits seamlessly into your business. Please get in touch if you feel we can help.

 

Written by Myles McKeown

Regardless of whether you invest any time into it or not, we all have a personal ‘brand’. Simply put, a personal brand is how you are perceived by the people you engage with. It comes through in your conversations, the stories told about you, and even what you wear, so anyone you interact with will have some opinion of who you are and what you stand for. Because you are curating this brand all the time, either consciously or unconsciously, it is worth taking a step back to ensure that how you present yourself is truly aligned with your values and beliefs – and a good place to start is where you work.

Any brand, personal or business, should be created from the inside out. It isn’t about having the best logo, or the biggest following on social media – it goes much deeper. Values and purpose should be the foundation of any strong brand and informs everything from how teams work together internally, right through to the external initiatives the business supports.

While this is easy (or at least easier) to do on a personal level, it’s much harder as a company, but why? Businesses are an accumulation of people, all with their own values and beliefs, and sometimes these are misaligned from the start. Values are set by the senior team and when there is little buy-in from the wider business, these are diluted over time. This impacts the organisation as a whole and could also lead to damage to the brand from an external perspective.

As an example, a business can say that ‘openness’ is a value. This will form part of their external messaging and be promoted in their marketing materials. However, if the staff in the business conceal information from clients or are known to tell half-truths, the brand will be perceived as the opposite. This is why the values in your business must be representative of the values you hold, as ultimately, it is the staff that showcase them to the market.

Having an alignment between your business and personal brand matters – you spend a lot of time there, and the association alone will have an impact on how you are perceived. Let’s say, for example, you are a long-serving senior manager in a business with a poor reputation. How does this look to the outside world? People may assume that you, at least to some degree, align with the brand of the business. You have been there a long time, you have led the team, and you have had significant input into the business itself. As the old saying goes, actions speak louder than words – and what you do, or in this case, where you work, will have an impact on your personal brand.

We have covered the bad, but what are the positives of having alignment between brands? As cliched as it is – synergy. Synergy is working together to create a combined effect that is greater than the sum of their separate effects. When you align with your workplace, you become an advocate for them. You fit into the organisation, you feel connected and engaged with the values, and you support them wholeheartedly in their purpose. You work to create success, and this is shared together. Your personal and business brands will complement one another, and you can start to leverage their content to promote your own brand. It increases the reach of the business and, if you work for a strong brand name, you have an opportunity to utilise its status to enhance your own visibility.

So, what can you do to align your brand with the brand of your business?

Firstly, you should try to work with a brand that you believe in. You should hold similar values and feel confident that the way you do business is the right way. Of course, this is no mean feat if you are already in an organisation that you don’t align with, but it is worth considering the longer-term impact of working for a brand that you don’t believe in. When looking for a new role, it’s important to ask questions about culture and values to ensure that it is a fit for you. You should do your research into the company, look at the initiatives they support, and the messaging that comes from senior leaders in the business. At the end of the day, you can’t align your brand to a business if you don’t agree with anything that they stand for.

Secondly, you should tailor your message to suit your businesses brand. It’s unlikely that you will be an identical match to where you work – even if your values are the same, your priorities will be different. However, they will be similar and easily adapted to your style and brand. You should keep to the business’s tone of voice while adding your personality and views. Because your personal brand is just that, personal, it should always feel authentic to you. If you move to a new role, you will carry this with you, so you don’t want to appear like a carbon copy of the company LinkedIn profile. This might seem challenging, but if you are bought in to the organisation’s values and purpose, it will happen almost naturally.

Finally, be an advocate for your business. When you are proud of where you work, it is much easier to shout about it. It makes up a huge part of our lives, so we should be glad to share this with others. You can be an advocate for people to join your team, or for customers to buy your product. Either way, when everyone is working together and toward the same goal, success will be shared with all. Opportunities will also arise within your business that will benefit you in the long run. It could be to create new content, be the face of a campaign, or maybe lead a project. Regardless of what these opportunities look like for you, they will help you advance your career and bolster your experience.

Having a strong personal brand has its benefits – it can help you develop your career, get in front of potential clients and customers, and will give you more control over how you are perceived in the market. When this aligns with your business and is utilised for shared success, it can open up even more opportunities – not just for you, but for the wider organisation as well. And remember, your brand already exists, so make sure it’s true to you.

“How management chooses to treat its people impacts everything – for better or for worse.” – Simon Sinek

Having conducted a recent survey on why people leave, I found it interesting that culture was identified as the number one reason that people left their last role. With over 43% of respondents giving this as their rational for leaving, it is clear that company culture cannot be ignored.

The results of the survey pose a few interesting questions as a talent professional – What exactly is culture? How much does culture really matter and why? Is hiring a cultural fit the way forward? And if so, how can you measure and assess this?

So, what is culture and why does it matter?  

Firstly, culture is a loose term with hundreds of definitions – some see it as something vague which cannot be controlled, others see as something simple that can be managed. For me, it sits somewhere between the two.

In my opinion, McKinsey & Company sum this up well, defining culture as:

“As the common set of behaviours and underlying mindsets and beliefs that shape how people work and interact day to day”

Because culture is created by a “common set of behaviours and underlying mindsets and beliefs”, the people who lead your business, and those who sit under them, have a huge impact on the culture throughout the organisation. Essentially, if those running your team have some bad behaviours or beliefs, this will trickle down and have a knock-on effect across the board. A good and bad culture alike can have various effects on your business, some of these are:

• Correlation with high / low performance
• Impacts employee engagement
• Culture impacts agility
• Research shows impact on long-term financial performance
• Culture differentiates you from the competition
• Culture is difficult to replicate
• Strong Cultures attract the right people  

Finding a Cultural Fit

From a recruitment perspective cultural fit is often talked about – this is how someone fits into an organisations culture. Get it right and you can achieve remarkable things, get it wrong and the culture or subcultures can become toxic.

An article in the Harvard Journal describes Culture fit as “the glue that holds an organization together”. That is why it is a key trait to consider when recruiting. The result of poor culture fit due to turnover can cost an organization between 50-60% of the person’s annual salary, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Cultural fit is important in any recruitment process and is even more critical when making senior hires. Over the years, it is something I have heard clients ask for repeatedly when discussing assignments. When we ask clients how they assess cultural fit the answer is often “it’s down to gut feeling” or “we get the applicant to complete a psychometric test”. I would argue this is too simple a view, and to truly assess cultural fit it must be a two-sided process. The required behaviours needed for a role, and by the company, should be assessed by both the client and the candidate.  

So, how do we assess cultural fit?

At Corvus, our Executive Search methodology, Corvus Assured, makes this a little more scientific and is based on leading research into behavioural assessments. We use several behavioural tools that use AI to check for alignment between the clients needed and expected behaviours and that of the applicants. The process considers both sides – firstly the desired behaviours for a role, and then the actual behaviours of the person applying.

The starting point for this is to look at client expectations of the role, by having the key people involved in the recruitment process undertake an assessment that shows the key behaviours they want in a role. This is also an opportunity to check that they are aligned internally on what their expectations of the person are. Sometimes this gives interesting results, where clients expectations differ between people internally, and ultimately are misaligned. Clients often welcome this feedback, and it gives them a clearer picture of different perceptions and allows them to consider these in their decision making. Making sure the key stakeholders are aligned before starting the process is key to its success, after all, how can you find a fit if you all are looking for different things.

Some questions to help assess cultural fit

• What type of culture do they thrive in
• What type of values are important to them and why
• What do they know about our company culture
• What type of working environment do they enjoy

There is no simple, unified, way to assess cultural fit but there are tools to make the process more scientific and robust. 

So, in terms of the question, ‘does culture matter?’ I would say very much so – the Simon Senik quote at the start of this sums this up very eloquently.

If you would like to talk to us about a different approach to recruitment or some fresh thinking for your next hire. Please feel free to reach out. Corvus is a team of highly experienced and passionate consultants who deliver recruitment and HR related solutions to companies in NI, RoI, GB and internationally.

Have you ever wondered why the right people don’t apply to your job adverts? I did too.

Back when I was a teenager, I was super creative, but when I joined the recruitment industry in my early 20s, it was quickly trained out of me. Somewhere along the line, it dawned on me that a lack of creativity almost always equalled a lack of interest from candidates.

After wondering how we could inject some originality back into the world of recruitment, I decided to attend a Copywriting for Recruiters course by Mitch Sullivan and Jackie Barrie. I have to say, this training was one of the best I have ever been on. It gave me permission to be creative again and proved that decent job adverts do work.

So how did I go from a job ad zero to a job ad hero?

Ultimately, it comes down to this: A job description is not the same as a job advertisement.

Don’t get me wrong, job descriptions are useful. They’re an excellent tool to explain how the position fits into an organisation – it tells a candidate about what the role entails, and the skills they need to do the job.

But what exactly is wrong with using the job description?

Picture some flat pack furniture. Ikea wouldn’t use the instruction manual in their advertisements – they don’t plaster it on billboards or bus stops, or have it front and centre at their stores. What they do instead is include the furniture in their showrooms. It sparks the imagination of their audience and gets them thinking about how it would look in their home or how it could improve their lives.

The same principles apply to job averts. It should explain how this role is different from similar roles out there. What impact will this job have on the candidate’s life? Will it pay them more, will they develop faster, will they get to use cool technology or tools, will they get cracking benefits, are the projects bigger & better, will it offer them a better work/life balance? 

Changing your approach can be challenging, so here are my top tips to give your ads the best chance of success:

• Avoid clichés like an exciting opportunity, hit-the-ground-running, passionate, team player, award-winning etc. They’re everywhere, we have all seen them, and ultimately, the candidate is likely coming from a role that was described in the exact same way
• Talk directly to your audience and use words like you, you’ll, you’re – this gets the candidate imagining themselves in the role
• Look at the perspective of your target candidate. What would they like to know? What’s likely to be frustrating them about their current job? What makes your job/company better? 
• Follow the AIDA structure – Attention, Interest, Desire, Action
• Be honest, talk about the challenge or goal that the role will overcome/achieve
• If you make a claim/statement, follow up with evidence – if you’re proud to be “award-winning”, mention what award you’ve won and why you won it.

All in all, writing a job advert can be difficult. It’s hard to get to the crucks of what makes your business different, and as ever, time is short for hiring managers. However, the positives will always outweigh the negatives, and getting the job advert right could be the difference between landing the perfect candidate or chasing your tails for applicants. If you need any assistance with creating impactful job adverts, reach out and one of our team will be glad to help where they can.   

Stressful working environments can be a huge factor leading to high staff turnover and high levels of absenteeism. As a business owner, it may have become more difficult to recognise and manage stress with larger amounts of the workforce working from home.

What Is Stress?

HSE defines stress as ‘the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them’.

Employees essentially feel stress when they can’t cope with pressures and other issues. It is encouraged that employers attempt to match demands to their teams’ skills and knowledge. Also, providing planning, training and support can reduce pressure and bring stress levels down.

There are a number of ways of identifying stress in your team, for example, employees may feel or suggest that they:

• are not able to cope with the demands of their jobs
• are unable to control the way they do their work
• don’t receive enough information and support
• are having trouble with relationships at work, or are being bullied
• don’t fully understand their role and responsibilities
• are not engaged when a business is undergoing change

Stress affects people differently – what stresses one person may not affect another, with factors such as skills and experience, age or disability potentially impacting whether an employee can cope.

There are six key areas of work design which can affect stress levels:

• demands
• control
• support
• relationships
• role
• change

Employers should assess the risks in these areas in order to manage stress in the workplace.

What Are The Signs Of Stress?

Although not an illness, an unmanageable level of stress can make you ill. Recognising the signs of stress can help employers to take steps to reduce and manage stress in their workplace.

If workers begin acting differently, it is often a sign they are stressed. Managers should look out for signs of stress in teams and workers and consider whether the stress could be associated with work pressure.

Stress in teams

• arguments
• higher staff turnover
• more reports of stress
• more sickness absence
• decreased performance
• more complaints and grievances
• Employers must assess the risks of work-related stress in their workplace and take action to protect workers.

Stress in an employee

Changes in the way someone acts can be a sign of stress, for example, they may:

• take more time off
• arrive for work later
• be more twitchy or nervous

Changes in the way someone thinks or feels can also be a sign of stress, for example:

• mood swings
• being withdrawn
• loss of motivation, commitment, and confidence
• increased emotional reactions – being more tearful, sensitive, or aggressive

Acting early can reduce the impact of pressure and make it easier to reduce or remove the causes. If managers are worried that a worker is showing some of these signs, they should encourage them to see their GP. These signs can be symptoms of other conditions. If there is something wrong at work, and this has caused the problem, managers should take action.

If you are feeling signs of stress at work, it is important to talk to someone, for example, your manager. If you talk to them as soon as possible, it will give them the chance to help and stop the situation from getting worse.

If the pressure is due to what your line manager is doing, find out what policies are in place to deal with this. If there aren’t any, you could talk to your:

• trade union representative
• worker representative
• HR department
• worker assistance programme/counselling service if your company has these or
• GP

Many workers are unwilling to talk about stress at work, because of the stigma stress has. But stress is not a weakness and can happen to anyone.

What Your Employer Must Do

Your employer has a legal duty to assess the risks to your health from stress at work and share the results of any risk assessment with you. Your employer may follow HSE’s Management Standards approach, which helps identify and manage the main causes of stress at work.

Stress risk assessment

Employers have a legal duty to protect employees from stress at work by performing a risk assessment and acting on it.

If you have fewer than five workers, this does not have to be recorded, however, it may be useful in order to. Once you have five or more workers, it is a legal requirement to write the risk assessment down.

Any paperwork you produce should help you communicate and manage the risks in your business. For most people, this does not need to be a big exercise, but rather noting the main points about the significant risks and what actions have been decided upon. There are a number of risk assessment tools and templates available from the HSE.

Help with stress caused by non-work issues

For help outside work, the following organisations have useful websites or helplines you can phone for advice in confidence.

Finding a new job is challenging, as is finding the perfect employee. Your senior hiring team, along with any potential candidates, need to go through different stages of the hiring process. The most pressing issue is, defining how this tailored candidate journey should look to ensure that you are attracting and selecting the right people?

The immediate impression you provide to any new candidate will be representative of your employer brand and the culture your organisation present. It is imperative that you provide a great candidate experience and hire the right person for the job, which essentially comes down to the hiring journey —from attracting candidates to onboarding them into their new position.  

So, what exactly is the candidate journey is, why is it important, and how can you utilise it to pave the way for future employees.

What is a candidate journey?

A candidate journey is comparable to a customer stepping into a shop to buy something. 

Before they decide to buy, a customer will think about if a product is right for them, make an effort to learn about the brand, read reviews of the product and the brand, and ultimately decide whether they want to buy.

The journey to purchasing a product mirrors the journey a candidate takes when they’re looking for a new job. A candidate will look for a job that’s right for them, research the company, and make a decision based on the treatment and actions towards them during the hiring process. 

The candidate journey can be described as the experiences a candidate will encounter during the job-hunting process. For a candidate, the journey starts well before they apply for the job, and it doesn’t finish until after the company has made the hiring decision, and they have gone through their initial onboarding.

The simple fact is a candidate’s experience while going through your company’s recruitment process matters. The impact of a poor journey can have a detrimental effect on an employer’s reputation, “of candidates who have had a poor experience, 72% have shared that negative experience online or with someone directly.” – CareerArc

Touchpoints on a candidate’s journey

A candidate’s journey can be mapped out through touchpoints, which makes it easier for both job seekers and recruiters to envision how the process will work.

There are a number of online & offline company touchpoints a candidate will experience during their hiring journey, which includes:

• Viewing your job ads
• Visiting your career site
• Visiting your company social media pages
• Interactions they may have had as a customer
• Talking to a company representative at an event
• Proceeding with a job application
• Pre/Post-application emails
• Receiving feedback on their application, etc.

Every touchpoint on your candidate’s journey plays a crucial role in their decision on whether to proceed with their application. That is why your recruitment process must make sure every touchpoint gives candidates a positive experience.

The difference between active and passive candidates

Everyone you encounter could potentially be a future candidate for your company. However, these candidates can be divided into two categories—active and passive.

The majority of Executive level candidates are passive as they are not actively looking for a job, whilst active candidates are searching for a new employment opportunity. 

The problem companies often face is, if they are only focused on attracting active candidates, they are missing out on a huge opportunity to attract the best people for the job.

Whilst passive candidates might not be actively applying for jobs, 91% of people in employment look at job opportunities at least a couple of times a year. Therefore, if recruiters don’t have a plan to capture passive recruits, they will likely miss out and it will work against them when they are looking to fill a position on their team.

The good news is, by building a more polished candidate journey for your company, you will not only capitalize on each touchpoint but also capture active and passive candidates. 

Tips to ensure a smooth candidate journey:

Place the candidate in the centre of the process 

The journey needs to be consistently candidate-centric at every stage, otherwise, you are at risk of alienating job seekers. To create a candidate-centric recruitment model, the focus needs to consistently be on the candidate’s needs and overall experience.

However, the goal of candidate-centric recruiting is not only to provide a great experience and make it easier to pick the right person for the job, but to build long-term relationships with them, so they continue to interact with your company, even if they aren’t hired. 

Talent Management expert Dr. John Sullivan claims that creating a candidate-centric approach means altering the overall design of the recruiting processes, including the application process, interview scheduling, and the information provided to candidates, to put the applicant’s needs first. 

Your application process should be short, engaging, should help manage your candidates’ expectations by offering them an authentic representation of the job, and should provide timely feedback to all parties involved.

Consider the pre-application stage 

More often than not, the candidate journey begins long before they even apply for a role.

In reality, 3 in 4 job seekers take into account an employer’s brand before applying for a job. Unsurprisingly, recent studies have suggested that 69% of people would not consider taking a job with a company with a bad reputation, even if they were currently unemployed.

It is crucial to reflect on what candidates see in your company before they choose to look at whether or not they would want to work with you. An applicant’s journey begins as soon as they encounter one of your touchpoints, whether that’s viewing your company website, reading your reviews on Glassdoor, receiving an email, or browsing your social media channels.

To deliver an effortless candidate journey, you need to understand how people are interacting with your company and how you can rely on it to attract high-quality talent.

Each of your company’s touchpoints that a possible candidate interacts with may potentially turn them into active job seekers. Therefore, making a positive impression is the first step in attracting the right candidates.

That’s why building and managing strong employer branding is essential to ensuring a smooth candidate journey.

If you would like to find out about how Corvus can assist you with your Employer Brand Strategy, contact our team at hello@corvus.jobs or click here.

Identify Your Candidate’s Needs & Priorities

Hiring is much more than simply filling a position in your company. It involves deciphering what precisely your candidates are looking for in their ideal job role.

It is essential to be transparent and to consider what do your candidates need to know to help them engage with your company? 

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs provides an insight into what some of your candidate’s needs and motivations may include, thus enabling you to communicate how your job position could fit into your candidate’s life and career goals, and further how it can fulfil their needs.

Recent studies have discovered that above all else, employees are looking for flexibility, work-life balance, a sense of purpose and opportunities in their job roles. By identifying and answering the needs early in the process, it creates a pathway for a smoother candidate journey. 

Simplify your application process

How easy are you making it for candidates to apply for your job roles? The best way to understand this is to go through your own application process.

If you need to answer too many questions, make it difficult to apply on mobile, or can only upload necessary documents, such as a CV, in a specific format, your application process may ultimately be deterring candidates.

There are a number of actions which could be introduced to make the process more user friendly, such as minimizing the time it takes for candidates to apply for a job, cutting out unnecessary fields on your forms, and by offering control as possible to your candidate in steering their application process, such as introducing self-schedule interviews for candidates.

Visualise your ideal candidate journey 

It is imperative that you have a visual of how your ideal candidate will engage with your company from the beginning of their journey.

Plot out what you consider to be the key stages that they will go through in their candidate journey, from brand awareness to onboarding, and create a chart.

Charting your candidate’s journey will enable you to see what touchpoints a candidate might be hitting on each stage of their journey, not to mention, it will support you in determining which factors most impact candidate behaviour, experience, and attitude.

By charting what the ideal candidate journey looks like, it makes it easier to build a plan to make it a reality. 

Showcase what it’s like to work at your company

One of the key elements of any candidate’s journey is whether or not they can envision themselves working at a particular company. 

A role may appear perfect on paper, but unless a candidate can get a realistic idea of what their day-to-day life will be like at the company, it’s hard for them to picture themselves in the role. The most effective way of achieving this is through realistic job previews or virtual job try-outs.

Besides giving candidates a clear picture of what the role entails, your company will be able to communicate what your core values are, what your team is like, and what your culture represents.

The simplest way of achieving this is by creating purpose-built career pages to channel the message to future candidates. There are some fantastic examples of career pages that clearly and effectively communicate core values, responsibilities, culture, and expectations from Global entertainment organisation Netflix to Northern Ireland founded software company Kainos.

These company careers pages provide an extensive amount of information on the company’s inclusion & diversity stance, work/life balance, and philosophies, through a range of Employee Generated Content, blogs, podcasts and videos.

Another example is McDonald’s, who partnered with Harver to create an engaging, fully digital candidate experience.

The application process incorporates a series of pre-employment assessments that help recruiters find the candidates with the right skills while showcasing the company culture and work environment.

Be Transparent and Always Deliver

Nothing is more deflating to a candidate during the job process than a lack of clarity and poor communication. Once a candidate has to begin chasing information, updates, feedback or experiences unprofessional processes, their overall perception of the company will be somewhat tarnished.

Each job listing should be considered as a marketing campaign rather than just a job ad, where your company is being represented. With 72% of job seekers airing their feelings about a company online on platforms such as Glassdoor, the consequences of providing a poor candidate experience can impact on your future applicants.

Automation can be a huge benefit to many companies when it comes to streamlining the application process, whereby actions will be automated based on candidate status or level of engagement, such as following up with candidates on your shortlist or after an interview

Don’t forget about Pre-boarding

It is essential to remember that a candidate’s journey does not end once they have accepted your job offer. This is the perfect stage of the candidate journey to get them excited about working for your organisation and start building their commitment to you.

This process is pre-boarding.

Start by building a relationship with your new hire, letting them know how excited you are that they are going to be joining your company. Building the foundations of these relationships can prevent you from losing an employee in just a couple of months after spending so much time, effort, and resources on the recruitment process.

LinkedIn’s Onboarding in a Box states that pre-boarding increases new hires’ excitement and fosters a relationship with them even before orientation. The guide recommends putting together a new hire checklist for your recruiter to complete, along with a welcome email with clear instructions to help candidates feel welcome and included.

Final Thoughts…

The hiring process has changed significantly over the past 18 months. Providing a simple interview and job offer is no longer adequate for either candidate or employer. Hiring managers need to be thinking more about what their employees’ needs are, their impression of the company and channelling a message that goes beyond the salary.

Today’s employees are looking for the complete package. Outlining and planning the hiring process allows companies to see what a candidate is thinking and feeling at each stage of their journey, and how they can improve it every step of the way. 

It is not just simply you interviewing your candidates. They are also interviewing you. Your obligation is to make sure you are providing a transparent and authentic representation of their expectations in each step of the candidate’s journey.

If you are looking for the perfect candidate to join your team, get in touch with Corvus for a no-obligation discussion to see how we can help.

The Great Resignation is the informal name for the widespread trend of a significant number of workers leaving their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Texas A&M professor Anthony Klotz defined the term  “The Great Resignation” (paywall). 

“How we spent our time before the pandemic may not be how we want to spend our time after,” says Klotz.

Klotz believes how we spend our time pre and post-pandemic will cause a massive shift in the future of work he identifies the key factors of Hybrid and remote work as a key driver in people reassessing the status quo. 

The great resignation, if the stats are to be believed, will massively affect organisations from the US to the UK and their ability to function and drive businesses forward. 

Some Stats: 

• According to a survey conducted by LinkedIn, 74% of the participants said time spent at home during the pandemic caused them to re-evaluate their current work situation.
  • survey of 1,000 UK workers reveals that almost a third (29%) of UK workers are considering moving to a new job this year. Findings also uncovered the industry’s most likely to be affected by this with Legal (44%), IT & Telecoms (42%), and Sales, Media & Marketing (40%). 
  • Employees between the ages of 30 and 45 have had the greatest increase in resignations with a 20% increase between 20 and 2021. (Harvard Business Review)
  • More than 19 million US workers and counting—have quit their jobs since April 2021 (McKinsey & Company)
  • 65% of employees say the pandemic has made them rethink the place that work should have in their lives. Gartner

Top Reasons for the Great Resignation 

• The Covid Pandemic: The covid pandemic has given workers time to reflect on their current work, what this means to them and how this aligns to their life and values. 
• A backlog of resignations: workers considering resigning from their jobs prior to COVID-19 stayed in roles due to the uncertainties surrounding the pandemic.
• Working from home: remote work became the norm for a lot of people, so when businesses started asking them to return home full-time many wanted to remain working from home.

• Sense of belonging being valued: there is a disconnect between what the employees consider important and what their managers and companies see as important. (McKinsey’s & Company)
• Employee burnout: while 42% of employees were already experiencing burnout before the pandemic, that number skyrocketed to 72% during the pandemic, due to increased anxiety, heavier workloads, and people taking less time off. (Limade)

An Opportunity for Change   

Many believe the great resignation is an opportunity for change, forward-thinking companies are shifting their focus towards retaining employees and making work more meaningful. For work to be more meaningful employers need to focus on true authentic employee engagement and understand the root cause of leavers and develop strategies, engagement models, and tools that make employees want to stay. 

Companies in 2022 should  focus on: 

Understanding Employee Key Drivers: Companies need to understand what is driving employees at a company and social level so that they can shape their offering to be more meaningful to employees. Companies need to take their employer brand seriously and understand how this aligns with employee values. Companies that invest in their employer brand see staff turnover reduced by 28%. (Office Vibe)

Flexible work Arrangements: Forward-thinking companies will focus or Hybrid, work from home and remote first models to tap into the talent pool that sees flexible working as their preferred model of work. COVID, it was a novelty. The rise of the four day work week in 2021 may start to become the norm in 2022 for forward-thinking companies and become a competitive advantage for companies in the war for talent (LinkedIn). Recent research has shown job seekers Searches for jobs that allow employees to work from home in Ireland were six times higher in December 2021 than before the Covid-19 pandemic began Irish Examiner.  (Irish Examiner – Remote Working)

Focus on employee Wellbeing and mental health: With burnout being a significant factor in the great resignation, companies need to focus more on the mental health of employees according to research from the CIPD, Fostering employee wellbeing is good for people and the organisation. Promoting wellbeing can help prevent stress and create positive working environments where individuals and organisations can thrive. Good health and wellbeing can be a core enabler of employee engagement and organisational performance.  

Employee engagement technology: With hybrid, WFH, and remote working, companies need to make use of digital technology to improve employee experience and engagement, there has been an explosion of technology in this area that focuses on both productivity, communication, and internal social elements of the business. These software products can strengthen business communication, employee engagement, culture, and connection to the business. Products such as Workplace from Meta, Viva from Microsoft, and Humu all focus on the workplace and improving employee experience and engagement. 

The Future 

As COVID 19 has had major impacts on the world of work across the globe lots of organisations and individuals are still in a period of adjusting to a new normal. Companies that thrive will be the ones that hire employees that authentically share their values. Forward-thinking organisations will focus less on the transactional elements of employment and more on: 

• Understanding employee key drivers
• Employer Brand
• Employee experience and engagement 
• Mental health 
• Flexibility In the workplace 
• Equality, Inclusion, and Diversity 

2022 will be an interesting year for organisations as they develop new strategies to retain and hire staff post COVID.