Are you looking to streamline your talent acquisition process with technology? Look no further than the insights of Reece Batchelor, Talent Acquisition Manager at tray.io. With over three years of experience at the company and a background in agency and consultancy recruitment, Rhys has a wealth of knowledge to share. I sat down with him on Episode 120 of Talent & Growth to discuss how we can improve talent acquisition with technology. 

What software do you use to test candidates during the interview process?

We’ve implemented a great platform called Codility and introduced it as early as possible in our hiring process. Our commitment to candidates remains strong as they progress through our process. In between interviews we provide 20 coding tasks, which take no longer than 45 minutes to complete. Candidates must finish the task before their call with the hiring manager so that we can provide feedback on both their code and interview performance. This process saves time by identifying fit early on. We’re not using Codility as a task-based exercise with no feedback or commitment from our end, we’re using it to ensure the right fit for everyone involved as early as possible.

What metrics are you measuring during your talent acquisition process? 

The metrics we measure depend on who needs them and why. We report some things to our clients and track different things for ourselves. To determine what to report to each business, we consider what they need and care about. For example, last year, I was tracking time to fill and time to hire, but then our head of talent told me that she only cares about hiring the right person, regardless of how long it takes. As a result we focus on tracking the quality of hire, which is difficult to measure until the candidate has been with us for six to twelve months. We track this by using a scorecard-based criteria during the interview process.

In addition, we measure interview efficiency by tracking time to source, average time spent in each stage of the process, offer acceptance rate, and candidate experience. These metrics help us understand our sourcing efficiency, how well we are calibrated with the hiring manager and how quickly we are moving candidates through the process. We also assess recruiters by the standards we believe our talent acquisition partners should meet. We track metrics such as 100 Outbound per week, 50 new prospects into the process per week, 20 recruiter screens per week, 60% pass rate at stakeholder screen, 90% offer acceptance rate, and 65% underrepresented hires.

We do not track hires per month, we measure performance. That helps us identify areas for improvement. If we are not making the hires we need, we work backward through the process to identify where things went wrong and what we need to improve. By focusing on these metrics we are able to ensure that we are hiring the right people as efficiently as possible.

Is your messaging sequence automated? 

We use an automated tool called Jim for our messaging, but that doesn’t mean our messages lack personalization. When we add people to a project, we use a templated email with tokens that allow us to add extra information based on what we find on their LinkedIn profile. For instance, if we see that someone has spoken on a podcast or received a recommendation, we add that information to the tokens. By doing this, we ensure that our sequences are efficient while still being personalised.

Is there anything else software-wise that you use and you find really useful?

Ashbee is an excellent tool for managing data and generating metrics. We use it to build various data dashboards that give us the metrics we need because its lifetime data is accessible, exportable, and shareable with hiring managers. 

For sourcing, we are big fans of Hired. It’s a platform where we find amazing candidates, and their customer success team is brilliant. We also use Try to automate some parts of our recruitment process, especially in HR and onboarding. Our own platform allows us to build up those automation features.

Although we love technology, we believe it should not take away the human aspect of the recruitment process. We value building relationships, which technology cannot replace. While some tools like Calendly can be useful, we prefer to keep the human touch by asking for availability during a call rather than sending a calendar link later. For us, technology is great if it makes things more efficient and automates manual processes that we don’t need to do ourselves, but it should not replace the human touch.

To learn more about using technology in your TA function, tune in to the Talent & Growth Podcast here.