by David Barrett, Chief Commercial Officer of global assessment specialist cut-e.
Employees in your frontline sales, service and support roles are hugely important for your business, as they’ll personify your brand for your customers. Here are five tell-tale signs that will reveal whether or not you’re successfully recruiting for these roles:
1. You can identify the ‘quality’ candidates within the ‘quantity’ of applicants. Because it is now so easy for individuals to apply for jobs online, recruiters can become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of applications. You need to screen out unsuitable applicants, so you can focus on the best candidates. This demands an objective, efficient and rigorous assessment process which can consistently identify those who meet the requirements of the role. The right people will have the right skills, as well as the potential to learn the knowledge they’ll need. They’ll also fit the values of your organisation and they’ll be motivated to succeed at work.
2. Your recruitment process is automated and highly efficient. Processing a large number of applicants, assessing the individuals, conducting interviews and undertaking reference checks is time-consuming and expensive. You also have to factor in the ‘cost’ of involving local hiring managers and other operational teams. Without an efficient selection process, you’ll not only be wasting money, you may be losing out on talented candidates because you’re not able to process their applications quickly enough.
3. Your candidate experience is ‘extraordinary’. Gone are the days when employers could provide a laborious application process, limited communication and little feedback to applicants. In a world of increasing digital acceptance, candidates have become accustomed to engaging online experiences. Now, with Generation Z joining the workforce, organisations need to provide an extraordinary candidate experience that communicates their values and fits their employer brand. Make no mistake: your candidate experience is a sales tool that you should use to convince your applicants to come and work for you. To engage candidates, your assessments need to be short, visually-appealing, fair, objective and indicative of the everyday situations that individuals will experience in your workplace.
4. You’re utilising ‘mobile-first’ assessments. When nearly everyone has a smartphone or a tablet, it makes sense not only to promote your jobs online but to allow candidates to apply – and take their assessment tests – via mobile devices. This offers the benefits of speed and convenience, because candidates don’t have to switch devices to complete the assessments. However, in assessment, there’s a distinction between mobile-enabled and ‘mobile-first’. A mobile-enabled test may be viewed and taken on a mobile device but it will not be optimised for this format, so the candidate experience may not be ideal. A mobile-first assessment will have been purpose-built for any mobile device, taking into account how it displays on the screen and how the candidate interacts with it. These tests will have undergone validity and reliability trials – across different devices to check candidate performance and completion times – to ensure that they are fit for purpose. Unless you’re using mobile-first assessments, you could be missing out on the right candidates for your frontline roles.
5. Your stakeholders are champions of the recruitment process. Any process you utilise has to be acceptable internally, to your own recruitment team and to hiring managers, operational teams and stakeholders within your organisation. Hiring managers will be under pressure to fill their vacancies quickly. You can help them by using assessments that automatically generate ‘interview guides’ that enable them to interview candidates more effectively. With stakeholders, it’s important to create a business case for volume recruitment, communicating the outcomes and the benefits for the business – as well as the detrimental impact of recruiting the wrong people.
If you’re missing any of these steps, it’s time to take a proactive look at your volume recruitment process, to ensure that your organisation is able to recruit great candidates for all sales, service and support roles.
