In today’s fiercely competitive job market, crafting an exceptional candidate experience is more than just desirable—it’s essential. This holds true even amidst economic uncertainties characterized by layoffs, hiring freezes, and budgetary constraints. In such a climate, excelling in candidate interactions is an imperative. It necessitates that hiring teams refine their approaches, ensuring every candidate interaction is characterized by efficiency, empathy, and a steadfast dedication to providing an exemplary experience.

Sprout Social stands out in its efforts to create people-centric, data-driven candidate experiences. Established in 2010, Sprout Social has emerged as a career destination for technology worldwide. To gain insights into their approach to enhancing candidate experience, we spoke with Miguel Zambrano, Recruitment Enablement Program Manager at Sprout Social.

• What makes for an exceptional candidate experience? What characteristics do you think are vital here?

In today’s competitive job market, I believe that fostering a positive candidate experience begins with clear and transparent communication throughout the interview process. Candidates really crave information, and as recruitment practitioners, we feel it’s our duty to keep them informed and guide them seamlessly through the process. It’s also crucial to recognize that each candidate is unique.

We prioritize personalized interactions because no one wants to feel like just another cog in the machine. By tailoring our approach to understand and address each candidate’s motivators, behaviors, and individual circumstances, we ensure that every person feels seen and heard during their journey with Sprout Social.

• How do you ensure that candidates receive timely and clear communication throughout the hiring process? Can you give us some examples?

In our recruitment process, we take advantage of automated features within our applicant tracking system to streamline communication with candidates efficiently. We employ customizable templates which allow us to tailor our communication and meet each candidate’s unique requirements. While automation helps us to enhance our workflow, we always strive to maintain the human touch that’s so essential in recruitment. Balancing the benefits of technology with the warmth of personal interaction is a priority for us.

These customizable templates are especially useful for our engineering organization. We have developed them based on specific engineering personas. When we find a candidate who aligns with these personas, we ensure that we send them communications designed to capture their interest and effectively convey what Sprout Social offers for that particular engineer.

• What methods do you use to personalize the candidate experiences and make candidates feel valued?

Part of our dedication to delivering an outstanding candidate experience involves our recruitment teams actively engaging with candidates both before and after their final interviews. Before the interviews, we focus on preparation — we address any technical concerns and provide detailed insights into who the candidates will be meeting with. Post-interview, our recruitment partners meet with candidates to gather feedback, answer any lingering questions, and align on the role’s expectations and timelines. This is a crucial moment for candidates to decompress and share their impressions of the interview process.

At Sprout Social, we are deeply committed to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), which is a core value and an integral part of our working culture. During the final interviews, we offer candidates the chance to connect with members from our various community resource groups. This not only gives them a glimpse into our dynamic company culture but also reinforces that Sprout Social is more than just a workplace — it’s a diverse community. We strive to foster meaningful connections and ensure that candidates experience a sense of belonging throughout their journey with us.

• How do you and your teams leverage HackerRank in enhancing candidate experiences? 

HackerRank has proven to be an incredibly intuitive and robust platform for our candidates. It’s equipped with powerful tools that allow for an efficient demonstration of a candidate’s coding skills and professional experience. In our live interviews, we make the most of HackerRank’s features, such as the IDE, virtual whiteboarding, and diagramming tools. The platform’s centralized nature ensures a smooth interview process, and its user-friendly interface is advantageous not only for candidates but also for us as recruitment practitioners and hiring managers, enhancing our ability to effectively assess skills. This makes HackerRank an invaluable asset in our recruitment arsenal.

We’ve also noticed that many candidates are already acquainted with HackerRank, and this recognition undoubtedly adds a layer of comfort to the interview process. It’s reassuring for them to interact with a platform they’ve previously heard of or used. The established brand presence of HackerRank certainly plays a role in easing candidate anxiety during interviews.

• How do you incorporate feedback from candidates to improve your hiring processes? Does the candidate feedback on assessments also help you iterate hiring and experience strategies?

In our pursuit of excellence, we consistently seek feedback from our candidates through surveys disseminated via our ATS. Analyzing this feedback is integral to our practice—it’s pivotal in our mission to deliver a world-class candidate experience. We maintain and rigorously measure our performance against high standards to ensure we’re providing this top-tier experience.

In response to candidate feedback, we’ve developed what we call ‘candidate prep guides’ to ensure thorough preparation for interviews. These guides are customized to both the candidate and the role, detailing each session’s structure, topics, and evaluation criteria. We firmly believe that equipping our candidates to present their best selves during the interview fosters more dynamic discussions and overall satisfaction. Ultimately, our goal is to alleviate interview anxiety and set up each candidate for success, leading to better outcomes for all involved.

Due to our candidate-first approaches we’ve observed a positive trend of candidates returning to us. The open-ended feedback in our surveys often highlights how candidates, even those who were not selected, consider our process the best they’ve experienced. They express enthusiasm about the prospect of reapplying to Sprout Social. It’s been quite revealing to read comments from candidates who, despite not getting the role, still rated the experience very highly. This has been a clear indicator that our approach is resonating well with candidates, marking the effectiveness of our processes.

HackerRank also helps greatly in this regard; we place great importance on reviewing feedback from both candidates and interviewers. This input is invaluable, and we conduct regular audits to ensure we’re making the best use of HackerRank, which fits seamlessly into our workflow thanks to the excellent collaboration with our Customer Success Manager (CSM) at HackerRank. This continuous feedback loop is vital, as it allows our recruitment process to evolve and adapt to the needs of our candidates and the internal teams using the platform.

For instance, sometimes interviewers might encounter a technical issue they need to troubleshoot shortly before an interview. We’ve taken such feedback seriously and ensured that internally, all our interviewers, especially for roles like associate software engineers, have the necessary resources. This includes having access to support contacts, help pages, and a detailed guide on troubleshooting—provided by our CSM at HackerRank—so that nobody feels unprepared or in a scramble right before an interview. This is just one way we’ve turned the feedback we’ve received into proactive steps to improve our process.

• How does Sprout Social create seamless interview and assessment experiences for tech candidates?

Central to our recruitment philosophy is a human-centric approach to hiring. Our priority is to keep candidates well-informed about their progress and set clear expectations at each stage to mitigate the stress typically associated with interviews. Crafting a comfortable and supportive environment is fundamental to our method. 

When it comes to our tech candidates, preparation is crucial. We provide them with detailed interview prep guides ahead of their face-to-face interviews, alongside a specially designed HackerRank new user guide. Our aim is to ensure candidates are well-acquainted with the platform, easing some of the inherent tension of job interviews. This dedication to a smooth experience is reinforced by our tech stack, which includes efficiency-enhancing tools like HackerRank, facilitating a streamlined journey through our recruitment process.

• What steps do you take to minimize bias and promote inclusivity in candidate interactions?

At Sprout, we’re deeply committed to nurturing a culture rich in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and this ethos is embedded right from our onboarding process. Every new Sprout employee is required to complete bias training, reinforcing our dedication to an inclusive workplace. Additionally, our interviewers and hiring managers undergo comprehensive interview training, which includes a focus on recognizing and addressing bias, before they conduct any interviews.

Our applicant tracking system (ATS) is instrumental in minimizing bias throughout the recruitment process. It’s designed with numerous features that act as proactive reminders and guides for DEI best practices during various recruitment stages, such as sourcing candidates, job creation, interviewing, referrals, and extending offers, ensuring we stay true to our values every step of the way.

Moreover, in partnership with our DEI team, we have initiatives that visibly affirm our commitment to DEI, prominently displayed on every user’s ATS portal interface. This reinforces our resolve to weave DEI into the very fabric of our organization. We also publish a DEI report and share it on our company website, offering more insights into our DEI efforts. 

• Could you share some innovative strategies Sprout Social employs to engage candidates, ensuring they have a positive experience regardless of the outcome?

We’ve focused on creating a holistic and engaging recruitment process by weaving our employee value proposition into various stages of recruitment. This includes unique initiatives like our engineering coffee chats, the candidate personas, DEI coffee chats, and proactive outreach from hiring managers. These efforts illustrate our distinctive approach to recruitment.

Our employee value proposition, “see work differently,” is a philosophy that permeates our culture. For example, we’ve established focus days and hours, recognizing the importance of uninterrupted time for deep work. During these periods, we avoid scheduling internal meetings, a practice that has significantly transformed our work dynamics.

For example, at Sprout Social, our EVP is ‘See Work Differently,’ and we’ve embraced creative methods to weave this into our processes. For instance, we focus on communicating both to our candidates and our internal engineering team the significant impact they can make at Sprout. We launched an initiative where we created a blog crafted by engineers for engineers, showcasing the engineering journey at Sprout. It features engaging stories like the progression of an entry-level engineer and insights from different CRG groups, such as women in tech or other underrepresented genders in tech, offering a glimpse into their experiences and growth within Sprout.

Recognizing the growing trend of remote and hybrid work models, Sprout fully embraces these for our distributed teams. We empower our employees to excel in environments where they feel most comfortable. Another aspect of how we “see work differently” is our robust culture of feedback, equipped with tools and training for both giving and receiving feedback. This culture promotes open communication in all directions – top-down, bottom-up, and peer-to-peer.

Specifically addressing our employee value proposition, our recruitment team collaborated with our brand creative and engineering enablement teams to develop a targeted marketing strategy. This strategy is centered around candidate personas – fictional profiles with distinct needs and traits. These personas guide our recruitment team, interviewers, and hiring managers, helping them understand candidates better and effectively communicate the benefits of joining Sprout.

These personas were meticulously developed by our brand creative researchers using key insights and data. We tested them with internal and external participants, gaining valuable insights into candidates’ motivations, preferred tools, and reasons for applying or not applying to a role.

At Sprout, we strive to empower candidates, ensuring they feel they’re evaluating us just as much as we’re assessing them. We aim for a mutually beneficial relationship, fostering a sense of enthusiasm and commitment towards joining our team. This approach significantly contributes to our success in attracting passionate candidates.

• Could you share examples of how AI has successfully improved the candidate experience and recruitment results?

The integration of AI has been a transformative force in recruitment, significantly enhancing and streamlining our processes. Recognizing its potential, we focused on making our recruitment team comfortable with this technology. To demystify AI and its role in recruitment, we conducted workshops and provided comprehensive resources. 

One significant application is using AI by our recruitment partners to generate Boolean strings for niche roles. This approach helps us extend our reach and build stronger candidate pipelines; AI can also help us optimize our messaging to fit within character limits without sacrificing key selling points. Embracing AI strategically has improved our efficiency and our ability to attract top-tier talent. Our goal with AI is to eliminate manual tasks, freeing us to be more creative and strategic where it matters most. This balance between AI efficiency and human creativity is where we’ve found great success.

• What advice would you give to other leaders aiming to improve their candidate experiences?

My primary advice for enhancing candidate experience revolves around the critical importance of active listening. Much like customer data is vital in sales, candidate feedback is crucial in recruitment. By quantifying and understanding what candidates say about our process, we gain valuable insights that allow us to make informed adjustments. In recruitment, every conversation and interaction serves as a significant data point. This information should guide leaders to make decisions that are not only informed but also data-driven.

Recognizing the diversity of candidate preferences, it’s essential to stay attuned to job market trends. Lastly, I believe that building a connection early in the recruitment process is fundamental. We view our company as a career destination, and this starts with aligning with candidates from the beginning. Tailoring our approach to resonate with candidates’ motivators and drivers ensures a more personalized and positive experience throughout their journey.

The post Optimizing Hiring Efficiency: Sprout Social’s Strategic Approach for a World Class Candidate Experience appeared first on HackerRank Blog.

In an era marked by economic fluctuations and evolving industry landscapes, early career recruitment requires careful planning and people optimization. Talent acquisition teams are pressed to deliver exceptional results amidst hiring pauses, budget constraints, and heightened expectations. 

Moreover, candidate experience holds significance in early career recruitment efforts. Engaging with candidates effectively, providing timely feedback, and offering valuable resources are crucial components in building a positive impression of the company. In an environment where potential hires have an abundance of options, creating a memorable candidate journey is a key differentiator.

So, to understand how to set candidates up for success early in their career, we spoke with Mary Teolis, Talent Acquisition Manager, Early Careers, at UKG. 

Mary Teolis is a seasoned talent acquisition professional who has played a pivotal role in supporting UKG’s growth in the last five years.  Presently, Mary holds the responsibility of overseeing UKG’s Americas internship program, which encompassess sales, finance, tech, and other departments. In addition to her core responsibilities, Mary is actively engaged in navigating strategic challenges such as mergers, acquisitions, and resource limitations.

1. How does UKG leverage technology to streamline and automate the initial stages of candidate screening?

At UKG, the process of candidate screening is a critical part of our recruitment strategy, considering the sheer volume of applicants we receive, often numbering in the tens of thousands for a couple of hundred positions. Our primary goal is to quickly identify and engage with qualified candidates, ensuring a high-touch and timely candidate experience. We recognize that today’s candidates, especially Gen Z, value prompt responses from prospective employers.

To achieve this, we leverage technology to streamline and automate the initial stages of candidate screening. One key aspect of our strategy involves establishing strong partnerships with local college campuses and student-led organizations that align with our company culture and values. Over the past few years, we’ve invested significantly in these partnerships, allocating resources, and engaging individuals who can provide valuable insights, teach courses, or conduct knowledge-sharing sessions with students.

Now, to address your question directly, we use our application system to create special links for each of these partnerships. These links are tied to specific tags and source codes within our application system, allowing us to identify candidates who have come through these partnerships. When candidates apply through these special links, they are immediately highlighted in our system, effectively moving them to the top of the candidate stack. This approach ensures that we promptly identify and prioritize candidates who have engaged with our partner organizations.

For example, we send hard-coded links to students through the platforms we have, enabling us to track candidates originating from specific campaigns. This data-driven approach helps us focus our attention on the right candidates efficiently.

Additionally, we employ a similar strategy on external platforms to identify and engage with candidates from diverse talent sources. These efforts are all part of our commitment to providing a high-touch and responsive candidate experience, which we believe sets us apart in a competitive talent landscape.

• Do you also use any personalized methods to enhance this experience? 

We organize webinars where we provide a detailed walkthrough of our interviewing process, especially for technical candidates. We highlight common pitfalls and offer tips for success. One of the most frequent inquiries we receive is how candidates can best prepare for interviews or applications. In such cases, we consistently guide them to the valuable resources available on HackerRank. As someone without a software engineering background myself, I’m impressed by how extensively our team relies on HackerRank’s expertise and knowledge base. It’s reassuring to know that, particularly for early career candidates, there’s a rich repository of resources on HackerRank. While it’s not feasible to personally walk through every technical assessment with candidates who didn’t pass, we can confidently communicate that our assessment questions serve as a foundational measure of what’s required for success in our initial interview stage. If a candidate finds it challenging, we encourage them to revisit the resources on the platform.

2. What best practices would you recommend for crafting job descriptions that attract the right candidates and promote diversity and inclusion?

When it comes to crafting job descriptions that resonate with candidates and promote diversity and inclusion, there are a few key practices that have proven effective at UKG. First and foremost, we understand the importance of brevity, especially considering that candidates often read job descriptions on their mobile devices. This drives us to be concise in our descriptions, while still effectively conveying our culture, mentorship opportunities, and the support system we provide for success.

In our job descriptions, we make it a point to highlight our comprehensive onboarding process. This includes targeted training, access to resources, and mentorship, all designed to ensure a smooth transition into the corporate world. We believe this sends a strong message to early career candidates that at UKG, we’re invested in their growth from day one.

Additionally, we emphasize factors that matter most to early career professionals. They want to work on real projects, collaborate within teams, and see the direct impact of their contributions on the organization’s success. We make sure to communicate this clearly in our job descriptions, letting candidates know they won’t be working on theoretical exercises, but rather on projects that drive real-world results.

Furthermore, we take a proactive approach to ensure inclusivity by using gender-neutral language in our job descriptions. We utilize tools that analyze the language to ensure it doesn’t unintentionally exclude or target specific demographics. This helps us attract a diverse pool of candidates who can contribute their skills and perspectives to our organization.

Overall, these practices have not only helped us attract top talent but have also fostered an environment of diversity and inclusion within our organization. We believe that by implementing these strategies, we are not only setting candidates up for success but also cultivating a work culture that celebrates differences and values the contributions of every individual.

• Can you give an example of how thoughtful, people-centric practices have led to recruitment wins for UKG? 

I’d like to highlight an innovative approach that our recruiting strategy in India has taken, particularly in the realm of women in technology. While I don’t directly oversee this strategy, I find it truly commendable. They’ve implemented a unique initiative aimed at welcoming women into the tech space. What sets this approach apart is the recognition that the most senior person in the household often plays a significant role in decision-making. To address this, they extend invitations to family members, including parents and in some cases, even grandparents, to come and experience our culture firsthand. This gives them an opportunity to engage with our leadership team and gain a clear understanding of how their loved ones will thrive within our organization.

This approach has proven instrumental in breaking down barriers and dispelling reservations some may have about entering the workforce. It’s a testament to how thoughtful cultural considerations can revolutionize recruitment, particularly in areas where early career opportunities are prevalent. This approach has significantly contributed to the successful integration of women technologists into our team. So, beyond utilizing gender decoders, we also place great emphasis on understanding the unique cultural dynamics in each region where we offer early career opportunities, ensuring that our recruitment efforts are tailored to meet the specific needs and preferences of candidates.

3. How do you incorporate skill-based assessments and work simulations to better evaluate candidates’ capabilities?

In evaluating our candidates, particularly for entry-level internship positions, we employ HackerRank’s skill-based assessments to gauge their foundational understanding of object-oriented programming and algorithms. This assessment serves as a crucial benchmark for us to ensure that candidates have the fundamental skills required. We guide our interns towards resources on the platform to help them feel adequately prepared for this assessment. Additionally, we provide them with insights on the optimal stage in their curriculum to undertake this assessment, based on the experiences of previous cohorts.

Given that I don’t have a background as a software engineer, having a robust assessment component is invaluable for a talent acquisition organization like ours. It allows us to objectively affirm that a candidate possesses the necessary baseline skill set. This, coupled with their performance in behavioral interviews and their potential cultural fit within the organization, forms a comprehensive evaluation.

While we don’t include capstone projects in our assessment process, we do require candidates to undergo a technical interview, specifically a live coding interview utilizing the HackerRank platform. The objective here is not to assess perfect syntax, but rather to observe their ability to think critically, articulate their thought process, pose insightful questions, and collaboratively work towards a solution with our interviewer. The platform effectively replicates a real-world office environment, providing candidates with a glimpse of what they would encounter on the job.

It has become an integral part of our standard evaluation process, ensuring that candidates are not only technically proficient but also possess the problem-solving and collaborative skills essential for success in our organization.

4. How does HackerRank’s skills analytics factor in when it comes to optimizing and iterating hiring strategies?

One crucial aspect we delve into is assessing the effectiveness of our team’s initial talent evaluation from resumes. We aim to improve our pass rates and set benchmarks using HackerRank analytics as a scorecard metric. Essentially, we evaluate how proficient we are in analyzing resumes to make informed decisions about whether candidates should progress to the first interview stage. If we observe a lower pass rate, it prompts us to reevaluate our assessment criteria and potentially adjust our strategies. This year, we’ve taken a deep dive into these analytics and have set new goals based on the insights gleaned from HackerRank reports.

In terms of specific metrics, we don’t heavily focus on time-to-fill metrics within my team, especially for early career positions, where the fill rate can extend up to eight months from posting to hire. Instead, we emphasize candidate quality as a significant metric. It’s worth noting that we refrain from sharing a candidate’s score on the initial assessment with the hiring team. We believe in providing a holistic representation of a candidate’s capabilities, rather than relying solely on assessment scores as a measure of quality.

Our unique approach involves conducting behavioral interviews before the technical assessment—a practice that differs from standard procedures. Instead of sending only those with perfect or near-perfect scores to our team of recruiters, we engage with a broader pool of candidates. This shift in strategy has been a game-changer for us. By interacting with candidates face-to-face, we can better gauge their readiness for the role. For those who may not be fully prepared, we offer guidance, resources, and timelines to help them improve their skills. This approach has not only resulted in a more diverse candidate pool but has also allowed us to nurture talent effectively.

In essence, our strategy prioritizes candidate support and engagement over efficiency metrics. We believe in providing candidates with clear expectations, resources, and opportunities to develop their skills, fostering a more inclusive and diverse talent pool for our organization.

5. Has UKG made any changes in the recruitment team’s structure given the need of skills analytics, recruitment analytics, and changing skills expectations?

In terms of skills analytics and recruitment analytics, we acknowledge the ever-evolving nature of skills in today’s dynamic landscape. Cataloging and precisely defining skills, even within our own organization, can be a complex endeavor, especially in the recruitment process.

Regarding changes in our team structure specifically geared towards skills analytics, it’s a nuanced situation. While we recognize the importance of analytics in recruitment, especially in terms of data-driven decision-making, our approach differs slightly. We understand that in order to remain competitive in the next three to five years, addressing the knowledge and skills gap is imperative. We’re already witnessing this need, as specific technologies, such as Kotlin, are gaining prominence.

For our early careers team, which we affectionately refer to as talent advisors, we adopt a two-fold approach. On one hand, we appreciate the organization’s need for specific skill sets, and we work closely to understand the basic and preferred qualifications sought after. However, we also take on the responsibility of providing training and resources to bridge any potential gaps.

Ultimately, our focus, especially for early career, centers on bringing in individuals with a foundational skill set, coupled with a passion for learning and a propensity for quick adaptation. While we may not have an extensive analytics dashboard at the intern level, we believe in the value of nurturing talent with a strong foundation and the potential for growth.

6. What recommendations do you have to improve the candidate experience to ensure a positive impression of our company, regardless of the hiring outcome?

Ensuring a positive candidate experience, regardless of the hiring outcome, is paramount for us at UKG. One crucial aspect that I would highlight is our commitment to providing detailed and constructive feedback to candidates who have dedicated their time and effort throughout the interview process. We understand that this process can be rigorous, involving application, assessments, and multiple interviews.

When a candidate progresses to the final interview stage, we make it a point to have a thorough conversation with them. During this discussion, we take the time to break down their technical and coding interviews, offering specific and actionable feedback. Additionally, we extend an invitation for them to reapply after six months.

This practice reflects our belief in investing in individuals’ development, even if they may not have advanced to the final stages of the hiring process. We want candidates to leave with the understanding that their journey with us doesn’t end here. Especially for early career candidates navigating this process for the first time, it’s important for them to know that there are opportunities for growth and development.

The feedback we provide is tailored and precise, aiming to give candidates actionable insights. Instead of broad assessments, we focus on specific aspects, highlighting areas where candidates can strengthen their understanding or skills.

This practice has proven highly effective for us. We’ve seen a robust pipeline of individuals who return after six months, armed with new insights and ready to excel. It underlines the value of investing in candidates’ growth and development, even when the immediate outcome may not result in an offer.

7. Do you also think the EVPs have changed with the recent changes in the working methods, and what role do they play when it comes to hiring?

In light of organizational changes at UKG, we did go through a process to create an EVP (Employee Value Proposition) using an external partner. This has influenced how we engage our employee and candidate audiences. However, the essence of our EVP, which revolves around our focus on people, is simply a manifestation of our culture, as shared by our employees in focus groups and 1:1s. Eventually, the goal is to use our EVP to guide us in organizational decision-making.

Regarding tailoring EVPs to specific demographics, we do have distinct persona messaging for different segments within UKG, especially for our intern program. This tailored approach offers tangible benefits. For example, when communicating with teams like sales or technical engineering, it’s essential to highlight aspects that resonate with each group. For instance, emphasizing innovation and cutting-edge technologies is likely to resonate more strongly with technical teams, while other aspects may be more appealing to professionals in sales roles.

I believe that investing the time and effort into listening to employees and crafting tailored messaging for different audiences is highly valuable. It allows you to effectively communicate the unique benefits and opportunities  that will resonate with specific groups within your organization.

8. What measures can be taken to speed up the decision-making process while still ensuring thorough evaluation of applicants?

A strategy we’ve employed successfully, and one that I recommend for expediting the decision-making process without compromising on thorough evaluation, is to establish a pool of interviewers. Specifically, for our early careers team, which focuses on engineers with two to five years of experience, this approach has proven highly effective.

Rather than heavily relying on one person’s hiring decision, we’ve implemented a standardized evaluation procedure. This involves extensive training on mitigating bias and promoting diversity, along with a clear explanation of how our interviewing process is designed to assess crucial qualifications such as communication, problem-solving, and the ability to think out loud.

With multiple interviewers in place, each gathering feedback, we can swiftly move towards the hiring phase. This approach empowers a dedicated hiring team to carefully evaluate the collected feedback and make prompt decisions. This stands in contrast to a scenario where individual evaluators would need to go through each assessment individually.

This method has played a pivotal role in streamlining our decision-making process, ensuring a fair and comprehensive evaluation of applicants, while also maintaining efficiency in our hiring timeline.

9. What metrics are you using to measure the success of your HackerRank-powered hiring initiatives, and what results have you seen so far?

In terms of measuring the success of our HackerRank-powered hiring initiatives, we primarily rely on candidate feedback and survey results. This summer, we took the time to meticulously review all the feedback provided by candidates in the survey. This thorough examination revealed areas where our questions and directions needed improvement. Consequently, we were able to make significant enhancements to ensure clarity and effectiveness.

Additionally, we closely monitor the pass-through rate and the scoring of candidates, using these metrics to evaluate the performance of our selection process. These indicators serve as valuable benchmarks in gauging the success of our HackerRank-powered hiring initiatives.

If I were to highlight a specific HackerRank solution that has helped us greatly, I would point out the survey feature. The ability to access and utilize this function turned out to be a pleasant surprise, providing us with incredibly valuable insights. For those using the tool who might not be aware of this feature, I would highly recommend exploring it as it offers a wealth of useful information for refining your hiring process.

10. In what ways HackerRank helps you optimize hiring strategies and identify skills over pedigree?

HackerRank has played a pivotal role in helping us shift our focus from pedigree to a more comprehensive evaluation of candidates. It’s been a refreshing change to move away from an overemphasis on educational background and really delve into understanding the individual as a whole.

Regarding how HackerRank aids in this shift, it’s a tool that we’ve been using for five years now, and it has become an indispensable part of our recruitment process. The confidence it brings, especially for non-technical recruiters like some members of our team, is invaluable. They can concentrate on assessing behavioral aspects like teamwork, adaptability, and problem-solving skills, knowing that the technical evaluation is being effectively handled by the HackerRank assessment.

Our hire rate has significantly improved through this approach. Candidates who reach the interview stage have already demonstrated their technical proficiency through the HackerRank assessment, which builds a high level of trust between our team and the candidates. This streamlined process ensures that both parties are investing their time where it truly matters – in meaningful conversations and assessments rather than filtering through resumes and technical evaluations.

11. What advice would you give to other leaders who are looking to optimize their current early career hiring processes?

The key advice I would offer is to prioritize the candidate experience. While a technical assessment is a powerful tool, it’s important to introduce it at the right juncture. Presenting it right off the bat can discourage your candidates. It’s crucial to establish a connection first. When timed correctly and supported with the necessary resources, it can significantly benefit your organization. Additionally, leveraging the HackerRank platform’s features like video capabilities, technical interviewing tools, and a well-curated question bank tailored to your organization’s specific experiences can streamline the process and enhance the overall candidate journey. It’s all about creating a positive experience!

The post Empowering the Next Generation: UKG’s Transformative Approach to Early Career Recruitment with HackerRank appeared first on HackerRank Blog.

Companies count on data-driven insights from recruitment analytics to navigate the ever-changing talent landscape. To really make a difference, those leading talent analytics need to assess how well their efforts are working, find ways to improve, show their value, and reinforce the need for ongoing investment.

So, to get a better understanding of how it’s done and learn the key components of it, we had a conversation with Leví Barbosa, Talent Operations at Nubank, to discuss how they’re leading this change. 

Nubank is one of the world’s largest digital financial services platforms. Its central operations hub is stationed in Brazil. Additionally, the company maintains offices or technology hubs in five countries: Mexico, Colombia, Uruguay, United States and Germany.  Moreover, when it comes to talent data and analytics, Nubank is ahead of the game. They’ve developed various internal metrics and tools that help optimize hiring processes, enhance candidate and interviewer experience, and become a base for all talent-related decisions. 

What are some key metrics or indicators that you’re using today to evaluate the success of your hiring strategy?

We utilize internal tools to gauge universal metrics such as time-to-fill and cost-per-hire. Moreover, we’ve established a standard for measuring quality, which forms the foundation for evaluating the quality of hires. Our focus also extends to enhancing the candidate experience, particularly during the interview process.

How is Nubank measuring hard-to-measure metrics such as candidate experience and inclusion?

Regarding candidate experience, our approach involves assessing “candidate freshness.” We track the duration candidates spend in specific stages of the recruitment process compared to stages without any activity. This leads to categorizing candidates as green, yellow, or red, encouraging our teams to maintain candidates in the green category. This method helps us identify engaged candidates and provides room for enhancing their experience through active communication. Additionally, we’ve introduced coordinators who engage with candidates, hiring managers, interviewers, recruiters, and possess comprehensive knowledge of the entire process.

Can you provide examples of specific data points or sources that can be leveraged to analyze hiring effectiveness?

We’ve developed an extensive skill catalog for each of these positions.

HackerRank has been instrumental, as its readily available skill catalog has been customized to our needs. For instance, when hiring for roles like analytics engineers, we often tap into this catalog and even consider internal candidates when external hires are challenging. This skill mapping initiative from the previous year has significantly improved our hiring practices. In essence, we’re constructing a skills ontology for the entire organization and utilizing skills-related data and analytics to guide our hiring decisions.

How do you use data and analytics personally in your role?

Currently, one crucial aspect of our analytics focus is on interviews. Before the interview stage, we utilize an internal system that assists us not only in understanding the volume of interviews but also in capacity planning for schedulers and interviewers. We analyze data to determine peak interview times during the day, broken down by department. This helps us optimize team activities, ensuring that certain tasks are carried out during the most productive hours. We also track the time candidates spend in different interview stages, comparing internal efficiency to the time taken by the business. This analysis guides our communication strategies with candidates, explaining potential delays and setting appropriate expectations. We also often tell candidates “hey, we’re busy and might need additional time”, but keeping conversations transparent helps in managing expectations from both organizational and individual perspectives. However, the crucial part is that now we have the intelligence to say “here’s where you’re the most productive” and guide the teams on how to prioritize.

How has HackerRank helped you to streamline your hiring process and identify top candidates more efficiently?

HackerRank has proven invaluable beyond simple test results.

The capability to create live cases and the range of features have empowered our engineering team. They can even schedule their own interviews, enhancing efficiency. This tool is particularly beneficial for high-volume hirings, saving time and resources compared to developing custom internal tools.

What metrics are you using to measure the success of your HackerRank-powered hiring initiatives, and what results have you seen so far?

With HackerRank, we’re already equipped with nearly everything we need. Internally, the only focus is on developing more localized questions because our headquarters are in Brazil, where many interviews take place. But besides that, having the results available on the HackerRank platform is proving advantageous. It’s not only facilitating quicker decision-making but also providing deeper insights into candidate quality, allowing us to better understand the caliber of candidates we’re considering.

Has HackerRank provided any benefits that you did not anticipate?

Yes, indeed. GPT raised concerns initially. Many individuals worried about the possibility of candidates using AI to generate correct responses, prompting questions about prevention methods.

HackerRank responded rapidly by implementing AI-driven solutions to detect such instances. This went beyond just the AI feature itself, extending to additional functionality that identifies tab switching and potential copy-paste answers. This unexpected feature has proven quite valuable. For example, we encountered challenges with our internship program, but recent discussions with the HackerRank team have yielded valuable results. We’re now able to modify tests to address these detection challenges more effectively, enhancing our overall assessment process. This has the potential to identify individuals who might be using unauthorized tools.

It’s worth noting that in the era of AI’s increasing prominence across industries, maintaining assessment integrity is crucial. This additional feature helps ensure the authenticity of candidates’ efforts and results, promoting a fair evaluation process.

What are some effective ways to use data analysis to identify and reduce time-to-hire and cost-per-hire? Can you share examples of how Nubank has successfully optimized their hiring strategies using data and analytics?

Certainly. Time to fill offers an overarching view of a particular position’s recruitment journey. However, focusing on time in the stage allows us to pinpoint specific stages that might have posed challenges. This analysis can help us discern whether difficulties stemmed from candidate availability, internal team processes, or business-related factors.

By examining these three dimensions, we gain a more comprehensive understanding of time-related aspects—not only concerning the recruitment process but also regarding the subsequent impact on the quality of the hire.

What advice would you give to other companies looking to improve their technology hiring process?

This year has brought about a significant shift in many companies, almost like a 180-degree change. In numerous organizations, there’s been a noticeable trend towards adopting extensive and costly technology stacks within their talent acquisition departments.

From discussions with colleagues in other companies, it’s evident that these technology stacks have grown substantially. They often comprise not only Applicant Tracking Systems (ATSs) but also an array of additional tools. However, this abundance of tools sometimes results in their underutilization due to time constraints. Consequently, while they may possess several tools, they typically only rely on one or two, rendering the others redundant.

Would you like to add anything about the growing need of analytics in the talent and people functions?

I’d like to underscore the crucial role of data analytics in this context. Having spent a decade focused on data analytics in talent acquisition, I recognize its immense value. The DIKW (Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom) pyramid serves as an effective framework. It outlines the progression from raw data to actionable wisdom. Someone dedicated to bridging this gap is essential, as not everyone possesses the technical skills required to transform data into meaningful insights, particularly in talent acquisition. Consequently, having an expert who can facilitate the transformation from data to knowledge is vital, especially now.

Furthermore, analytics in talent acquisition has evolved beyond basic descriptive analysis. We’ve ventured into diagnostic, predictive, and even prescriptive analytics. The incorporation of tools like ChatGPT showcases the potential to revolutionize analytics. It’s important for organizations to recognize the value of having dedicated talent acquisition analytics professionals who can harness data for strategic decision-making.

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It was a missed credit card payment that introduced Ohad Samet, CEO of TrueAccord, to the frustrating world of debt collection. After fielding endless calls, receiving unexplained “convenience fees,” and having one-sided conversations with unreasonable collection agents, Ohad knew there had to be a less stressful way to pay off debt.

Today, with the help of HackerRank, TrueAccord is quickly hiring the right developers who can help them create a new debt collection path.

Learn how the TrueAccord team streamlined its hiring process and accelerated its developer hiring with HackerRank.

The post TrueAccord Accelerates Developer Hiring with HackerRank appeared first on HackerRank Blog.