Matt Hildred, Webrecruit’s CTO, has played an instrumental role in the development of our Applicant Tracking System (ATS), Fusion Plus, and has expanded its functionality significantly over the past two years.

After leaving my previous role at a gaming company, I wasn’t sure what my next career move would be. I’d worked my way up from Junior Developer to Senior Developer and, finally, to Development Lead throughout my 14 years at the business. I knew that I didn’t want to work in the games industry anymore but I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to take in the future.

I already had four other job offers on the table when I interviewed at Webrecruit. I had been holding out for this role in particular because the opportunity sounded so interesting. It’s not very often you get to develop an existing piece of software from a relatively early stage to something much bigger; the challenge on offer was really exciting.

Since joining Webrecruit, I’ve transitioned from Lead Developer to CTO. I manage the output of the Development team, triage any bugs that come in, set up new releases and plan the future architecture of the system.

The best thing about developing at Webrecruit has to be the potential in our product and the people we have working on it. When I first saw the software I’d be developing, I knew the potential it had; not just with future functionality but also with possible integrations with other products, and how we could make it stand out from the rest of the systems on the market.

Our Development team is great; it has a laid-back culture and Webrecruit provides the flexibility to work remotely. We all maintain contact via Slack and have daily 10 minute update calls to make sure we’re on track but our Developers are given the freedom to work autonomously; I don’t believe in micro-management.

We’re now growing our Development team significantly – whether you want to work in our Head Office in Exeter or work remotely, we’re looking for Developers of all levels with C#, ASP.NET, MVC, JavaScript and HTML skills.

Our product is growing at a rapid rate and you’ll have the chance to get stuck in right away. There’s always plenty of interesting work going on and it’s a great time to join the team as we start to expand. 2018 has already been a mammoth year in terms of new developments and releases and I am excited about what’s to come next year.

Want to find out more about developing at Webrecruit? Check out our latest opportunities on our careers site.

Now, fast-forward to the current work of your hiring managers and HR staff, and you can probably begin to realise precisely why that situation comes to pass so often.

With so many applicants and interview pipelines to deal with at once, you might feel too overwhelmed at times to be able to keep up communication with all of your candidates – what with scrutinising CVs, shortlisting, rejecting and answering questions from candidates all needing to be done.

But communication coming to a halt isn’t acceptable

If a certain déjà vu is washing over you as you read this, it might be because of your familiarity with a very similar phenomenon – that of romantic partners breaking off relationships and ceasing to communicate, without any apparent warning or justification.

It’s called ‘ghosting’, and it’s certainly not something that your company should be doing to its candidates. That is not least because of the potential reputational damage to your company, but also because it just isn’t very courteous.

Are you doing enough to preserve pipeline candidates’ interest?

The more candidates you have in your pipeline and the longer your hiring process takes, the greater the risk there is of some candidates losing interest in your firm and taking up offers from competitor companies. That’s why consistent engagement with your most talented pipeline candidates is so crucial.

Nor does keeping such candidates in the loop necessarily have to be an onerous or complicated process. It may simply be a case of sending them an email, expressing your hope that all is well with them. You may also let them know that your department is currently reviewing all applications and is expecting to schedule interviews by a certain time.

If, at a slightly later stage, interviews have been carried out but there is a delay to the final decision being made, you may then send another email. This new message may inform the candidate that you haven’t forgotten about them and you will be back in touch with them as soon as the hiring managers have made a decision.

Recruitment software can also be instrumental

While such straightforward measures as periodic emails could make a big difference to how your pipeline candidates perceive your company, you also shouldn’t underestimate the similarly invaluable role that the right applicant tracking system (ATS) can play.

As leading ATS providers here at Webrecruit, we can provide you with the solution that could significantly assist in streamlining your recruitment process – and as a result, help to ensure you maintain open communication with every single promising candidate.

Yes, some candidates may simply require a little extra help to be successful in their jobs once they become one of your employees. But others run the risk of causing your company a shocking amount of harm, regardless of how you might attempt to mitigate this.

So, here are five types of staffer that your company will want to swerve clear of – or at least let go of quickly if they do gain a role with you.

The toxic employee

Some workers can have a poisonous effect on those around them, whether this takes the form of general negativity in meetings and around the office, or even stirring up conflict for no good reason. Effort should be made to determine what may be causing the employee’s disgruntlement. However, if there is no sign of the problem being fixable, you shouldn’t keep this person on your staff for long.

The constantly late employee

As an employer, you need to understand the fact that almost everyone is late to work from time to time. However, when your worker is supposed to turn up at the office at a specific time each morning and consistently fails to do so, you need to investigate the possible reasons for this. Nor should you retain the employee’s services if they don’t respond to your attempts to address the issue.

The violator of company policy

Any serious violations of company policy by one of your employees should be met with a zero-tolerance approach – even more so if they are tasked with managing others, and therefore a potentially bad influence. By ‘serious violations’, we mean such genuinely serious offences as the misuse of company funds or toxic behaviour, rather than occasional lateness.

The employee who won’t accept responsibility

We all make mistakes in our line of work every now and then. When we do, however, we need to accept responsibility for those errors, not least so that we can learn to do better. An employee who always blames someone – or something – else for their failures is extremely likely to repeat those failures. Again, however, the key is to watch out for a consistent pattern of such behaviour, rather than let an employee go simply because they made one or two honest mistakes.

The grossly incompetent employee

It is one thing for a staff member to be short of the training that would enable them to properly understand and perform well at their job, and quite another thing for an employee to simply be grossly incompetent in the role. This incompetence may be wilful on the employee’s part, or they might just be a poor fit for the job. Regardless, swift action needs to be taken to get rid of these staffers and in the process, minimise damage caused to the company’s productivity, performance and reputation.

Are you doing everything possible within your firm’s hiring department to ensure only the most suitable and capable employees are recruited to your team, every time? By drawing upon Webrecruit’s many highly rated online recruitment tools and resources, you can help to ensure your company regularly attains the right results from its campaigns.

Different recruitment agencies and applicant tracking systems can certainly throw up widely varying results in your hunt for quality candidates. Then, there are the aspects that your company has more direct control over, such as your interview process and the speed of your recruitment campaigns.

Don’t over-obsess about attracting ‘enough’ candidates

It’s so easy for organisations to fall into the trap of trying to reach a certain minimum number of interview-worthy candidates first. The reasons for this are understandable, as it sounds lovely, at least in theory, to have lots of applicants to choose from.

However, the key will always be to attract the right people, rather than a specific minimum number. Focusing on the latter may mean you compare candidates to each other, rather than against your pre-set requirements for the role. This, in turn, could lead you to pick a mediocre candidate, simply because they happen to be the ‘best’ of a so-so field.

So is there not a single number to aim for?

While we would suggest that five or six highly qualified candidates should be an adequate number to aim for in your next talent search campaign, if the quality of your candidates is high, it should be realistically possible to make a decision from fewer than this.

Are you working with the right people and technology?

Of course, a great recruitment company should make a big difference here, as they won’t simply throw candidates at you, instead thoroughly identifying and vetting prospective applicants in accordance with the skills and qualifications that your organisation requires from its next employee.

However, technology can also be instrumental in giving you a better complement of candidates to choose from – not least in speeding up the hiring process and empowering your HR team to make the most informed decisions.

The most innovative applicant tracking systems, such as Webrecruit’s Fusion Plus platform, will empower you to better manage your recruitment pipeline, post job adverts quicker and set up interviews with candidates. This will enable you to reach a satisfactory number of high-quality candidates all the sooner, with a given applicant’s relevance and suitability determined using advanced metrics, reports and search options.

We could be your invaluable hiring partners

Factors like the above help to show that quality matters more than quantity when you are considering the optimum number of candidates to invite to interview.

A swift, well-managed hiring process will be crucial if you are to snap up the right talent in timely fashion, whether or not you also work with Webrecruit as your recruitment agency and one of the premier applicant tracking systems now available on the market – Fusion Plus.

By now, then, great numbers of Millennials aren’t merely entering the workplace – they’re also eyeing up leadership positions or contemplating the next big step to take in their careers.

But is your organisation in a strong position to not only lure, but also retain and develop such Millennial employees, so that you get the best long-term value out of your online recruitment? Even if you feel the answer is “yes”, it’s well worth considering the below tips for maximising your effectiveness and giving your Millennial candidates and workers a rewarding and holistic experience.

Give Millennials avenues for developing their leadership potential

Millennials have a reputation for being highly collaborative. The fact that according to the results of one 2015 study, 91% of them aspire to be leaders might therefore surprise you.

However, Millennials’ motivation for pursuing leadership opportunities doesn’t appear to be the same as was often the case for previous generations. When asked what most motivated them to be a leader, 43% said “empowering others”, with only 5% citing money and 1% power.

You should therefore consider how your firm can redefine leadership to enable your Millennial employees to hone their skills in this area. It isn’t necessarily about giving them a specific position, but may instead manifest in handing them responsibility for special projects and initiatives.

Flatten your organisational structure

Another revealing finding from the aforementioned study was that 83% of Millennials expressed a preference to work for a company with fewer layers of management.

This tallies well with the common observance that Millennials don’t tend to respond well to overly rigid hierarchical structures.

By flattening the leadership structure at your firm, you may therefore be greatly helping your Millennial workers to do what comes naturally to them, including building personal relationships with people throughout your business, and assuming greater responsibility for their own work.

Loosen stiff and time-honoured attitudes and expectations

It should be common sense, but Millennials are bringing attitudes to the workplace that differ from those of the generations before them.

It may be much harder, for example, to simply throw money at your Millennial employees to work overtime or unsociable hours than would have been the case for their counterparts of several decades ago – such is the value that they place on a healthy work-life balance.

Overly rigid schedules or old-fashioned rules with regard to clothing, tattoos or piercings are also likely to turn off Millennials, who often demand to be able to ‘be themselves’ at work.

We’re past the stage at which your organisation should be trying to adapt Millennials to its existing workplace. Instead, Millennials are likely to be shaping your workplace in their own images.

Give Millennial candidates opportunities that are in line with their values and that provide them with the right development opportunities, and your firm is likely to reap the benefits for many years after the online recruitment campaign that brought such 20 and 30-something workers into the company.

If so, you might want to rethink that view. Numerous studies have emerged over the years indicating that diverse teams tend to perform better than homogenous ones. Then, there’s the fact that UK and Western workforces are simply becoming more diverse anyway, in line with ongoing demographic change.

So, would it be best for your hiring staff to embrace diversity, instead of simply seeing it as a consequence of the changing population or even undesirable? Here are a few reasons why we think the answer to that question should be an emphatic “yes”.

Diverse teams perform better

Various studies have been undertaken down the years that have pointed firmly to diverse teams doing better than their less diverse counterparts. Consider this one reported by The Independent, for instance, which found that the least diverse companies – with regard to both gender and ethnicity – were 29% more likely to be less profitable.

There are many reasons why such findings shouldn’t be too surprising. After all, a diverse workforce tends to mean a wider range of perspectives on the same issue, which helps with innovation and problem-solving. This means your team is less likely to be strangled by conformity and groupthink, as can easily creep in when every employee thinks and behaves broadly the same way.

A more diverse workforce reflects the reality of our world

In common with other Western countries, the UK population has become more diverse over the last 50 years, a trend that looks set to firmly continue. Given that this is the population your company is probably serving, why wouldn’t you wish this reality to be mirrored in the people you choose to work for you?

As globalisation breaks down ever-more barriers between cultures, so a diverse workforce better enables your business to understand what products or services will best meet the requirements of a similarly diverse target audience. Such a company will also be able to cultivate the strong intercultural relations that will probably prove greatly advantageous in the decades ahead.

How can your hiring practices evolve to embrace diversity?

When you make the right moves to embed a positive attitude towards diversity in your company’s hiring approach, you can help to avoid the implicit biases in your current recruitment processes that may result in you frequently bringing in the same kinds of people.

ATS providers such as Webrecruit can certainly play a key role here. Our intuitive Fusion Plus solution incorporates the advanced reporting functionality necessary if your firm is to make the most data-driven hiring decisions, while also closely monitoring its diversity efforts.

‘Diversity’ doesn’t have to be a dirty word for your company – indeed, it can be one that your business falls in love with. Furthermore, few ATS providers offer a platform as convincing as Fusion Plus for empowering your firm to make it all possible. So, why not get in touch with Webrecruit today to book a demo of this acclaimed software?

That question is: “Tell me about yourself”. Many hiring managers start an interview with this grand question. However, some employers understandably wonder whether it’s a very useful one.

After all, in theory at least, your candidate will simply respond to such a request by listing the contents of their CV, and perhaps some inoffensive details about their non-work life and background. This might not seem great for determining how well the candidate would fit your vacancy, not least as you’ve presumably already looked through their job application.

The best candidates, however, will tend to give you a rather more insightful response to this question than a mere checklist. So, here some clues to watch out for that a given candidate is a promising one.

Consider whether the candidate is compatible with your firm – not just ‘your type’

It’s natural that a candidate will wish to endear themselves to you, which may mean they are careful not to give any obvious signs of being anything less than the best fit for the role. This could manifest in them spending a lot of interview time nodding or mirroring your language or mannerisms.

What you really need to get them to do, then, is talk about themselves, so that you can listen to what they have to say. The truly important thing isn’t whether they like doing the same things as you during their spare time. Instead, you need to get a sense of their level of engagement with your business and vacancy.

You therefore need to look out for signs that they will be compatible with your company, its values and culture, rather than merely ‘your type’. Listen carefully to how they talk about themselves, their background, family, money and work. When they start to go beyond the bare details of their CV, you will hopefully see whether a real connection exists between them and your company.

A question that can provide a great platform for a flexible interview

Using “Tell me about yourself” as the first question you ask of a candidate may enable you to gain insights around which the rest of the interview can be tailored. Sometimes, a rigid set of questions – decided before the interview – isn’t the best approach for ascertaining whether a candidate is the right fit for your organisation, instead of merely well-qualified on paper.

“Tell me about yourself” can therefore be a potent starting point for a very productive and flexible interview, from which you glean important lessons about the most suitable candidate for your open role. This does, of course, also depend on you having a good general idea of what you need from a candidate in the first place.

Could you do with appropriately tailored and informed guidance and assistance with your company’s online recruitment approach? If so, don’t hesitate to call the Webrecruit team today, on 01392 829 400, and we will discuss the solutions with you that could power your brand to hiring success.

We therefore thought we’d pick out just some of the elements of your HR that you should be thinking about afresh right now.

Recruitment

The summer can be a notoriously slow hiring period for many organisations. So, why not take the time now to review your recruitment efforts during the first two quarters of the year, and carry out a sizable revamp or a few smaller tweaks if necessary?

You’ll need to ask yourself the big questions. How long did it take for your firm to transform that candidate making his first query about your open position into a paid employee? Also, how many vacancies did your firm have during the first half of the year, and how many of them did you fill?

Employee harmony

Even if your employees normally work together without a hint of friction, it’s inevitable that there might be conflict from time to time. However, you also shouldn’t write off the occasional argument as simply being representative of the territory of a stressful office or workplace.

Instead, be proactive by reviewing the last six months’ complaints. Do certain patterns of disagreement keep coming up? Have all issues giving rise to arguments been completely resolved? If you have any lingering concerns, it might be worth following up with your employees.

Technology

The HR software space is changing all of the time, and it can be very easy to miss the emergence of new packages that you could do a lot to bolster your department’s efficiency and results. Much the same can be said of all of the problems with your existing HR technology that you may not otherwise ‘have the time’ to identify and troubleshoot – so why not do so now?

Applicant tracking systems, for instance, are a big speciality of ours here at Webrecruit, with our Fusion Plus package being our best yet. You might therefore be very thankful for having booked a demo of our highly rated software, to which we are adding new features on a monthly basis.

There’s much more that we can help you with here at Webrecruit, as far as getting the best out of your company’s HR activities is concerned. Give our team a call today on 01392 829400, and we can talk to you about the industry-leading hiring solutions in our range that may best suit your business.

We’ve noticed many of these same things – as well as that small to medium-sized brands haven’t got to grips with online recruitment videos to the extent deeper-pocketed rivals have.

But not having a multi-million-pound budget shouldn’t bar you from creating a compelling recruitment video or two. Indeed, below are just some of the characteristics of such a video that could be instrumental in making it stand out from the crowd.

A diverse, varied and challenging company culture

In today’s age in which so much emphasis is played on the very real business benefits of diversity, depicting a range of employees from many different backgrounds in your video could be important for communicating to a prospective staffer that they will feel included and ‘one of the team’.

However, it’s also really helpful to produce an online recruitment video that shows diversity in the work that the candidate will do for you. There should be a sense, too, that their work with you will be meaningful and challenging. You will want to attract the best from the best of such diverse backgrounds, after all, rather than those looking to just cruise along in their career.

Emphasis on a great work-life balance

If anyone applies for your vacancies at all, it’s because they will want to make their own lives better in some way, which will hopefully go much further than an improved ability to pay the rent.

So, why not reflect this in your online recruitment video? Many of the most effective such videos don’t even show the employee at work. Instead, they might feature lots of shots from the worker’s recreational life, or with their family. By employing similar devices, you can make clear you share your candidate’s belief that their work life should benefit their home life, and vice versa.

Authenticity

This is a really important one. Even if your online recruitment video theoretically has all of the right elements – such as lots of useful information on your brand and what working for you involves – it won’t be convincing if it doesn’t feel natural and authentic to the viewer.

If your video comes across as forced and stilted, the best candidates will probably be affected by this in their decision on whether to apply for a role with you. So, be very careful not to overthink or overproduce your recruitment video.

Remember that we can assist you with many different elements of your online recruitment campaigns when you contact our team here at Webrecruit. It also couldn’t be easier to contact us, by emailing info@webrecruit.co.uk or calling 01392 829400.

Introducing HR analytics

People analytics can be described as the process of analysing data related to employees and/or candidates, so that the most informed, data-driven HR decisions can be made.

Unsurprisingly, HR analytics has become a big focus for many ATS providers that are eager to incorporate the most advanced reporting functionality into their recruitment software solutions.

Being able to analyse important data about your current workers or candidates could be instrumental in measuring how effective your HR processes are, evaluating your workforce’s performance and hiring the right people for your vacancies.

But what do you need to think about when you are seeking to give HR analytics a central role in your talent acquisition efforts?

Are you collecting the right type of data?

In today’s new era following the passage of GDPR privacy rules in the EU, more and more employers are looking again at their processes for the collection of employee and candidate data.

If your business is doing the same, it’s a good time to consider whether you’re collecting the data that will truly aid you with your hiring decisions. It isn’t necessarily the sheer quantity of data that’s most important – instead, the quality of the data and how you use it should probably be the key areas of focus.

You may currently collect data in relation to such things as a candidate or worker’s location, years of employment, university degree and personality assessment results, and maybe even past performance data, like customer service rankings or performance reviews.

What do you need to find out?

With so much data to sift through, it’s crucial to consider what answers you wish to get from your use of HR analytics. For instance, your big focus may be on addressing what you feel to be the driving cause of your current retention issues. Alternatively, there may be certain soft skills or qualifications that you wish to target when on the hunt for candidates.

Then, it’s about pinpointing the solutions

So, you now have a clearer sense of what questions you need to answer with your people analytics. This means you’re finally in a position to start seeking the solutions that will enable you to best utilise such data. You’re therefore likely, in turn, to be comparing a range of ATS providers.

That’s why you may ask the Webrecruit team about our Fusion Plus software. It could be the ideal applicant tracking system when you are eager to better monitor vital metrics and view multiple key reports at a glance.

Book your own firm’s Fusion Plus demo today, and you could be making a vital first step to more data-driven, and therefore better-informed, talent acquisition decisions.