Hello and welcome to the March edition of the Hiring Hub product update!
March saw us struck with COVID-19 and forced us to retreat to the confines of our homes. As a small company, every one of us plays an important role in keeping the company going, so making sure everyone was as safe as possible was paramount.
With the abundance of content in the ether about working from home and how to manage this colossal change to our daily lives, we decided to reflect on our own experiences. One more blog won’t hurt! You can check them out here and here if you fancy.
Team Update
As a team, we were quick to get up and running from home when the order came. We were sharing photos of our new workstations on Slack – a nice way to get to know a bit more about your teammates. Many precarious desk setups were witnessed in the early days.
On our daily team calls, we talk about anything and everything we’ve done or learned or experienced that day, to maintain a bit of non-work chat that we now miss. We’ve all appreciated learning about snails, space clocks, online fitness classes and gardening – it’s a wild ride! Cameo appearances from children are always welcome, too.
This is a challenging situation with many in our team now moonlighting as teachers, but onwards we must go. We’re all here to support each other however we can (social distancing permitting, of course).
Our thoughts are with those affected by the virus and to the NHS and all critical workers for their valiant efforts and personal sacrifice. Mr Churchill said it best – never was so much owed by so many to so few.
Premium
“What is Premium?” I hear you ask.
Premium is a new, paid proposition for employer users to help those that could do with an extra pair of hands to help them with the admin associated with managing multiple recruitment campaigns and agency relationships. It features a full (human!) concierge service, alongside an advanced data and analytics dashboard to give employers greater insight into their recruitment activity, performance benchmarks, and spend.
As we’re in the depths of a pandemic, we recognise that we all need some extra support to get us through the day. As such, we decided to offer it to all users for free during the Covid-19 outbreak, to support those who have been impacted by furloughing and/or sickness and are operating with fewer resources than normal.
If you’re intrigued by this, have any questions or thoughts, please feel free to give us a call. We all need a new person to talk to these days!
Shortlist Status
When you’re in the middle of any process, such as buying a house, waiting for a package to be delivered, or applying for a new job; you always want to know exactly where you are in that process at any time.
We started building more of a parcel delivery view into the platform last month, by displaying to agencies when a CV had been viewed or downloaded. Then, you could see that your order was with your courier. Now, you can see that your order has reached your local depot!
This new feature is called the shortlist status. The purpose of this feature is to allow employer users to review candidates and add them to their shortlist if they feel they meet the brief. The appearance of the candidate card will change from pink to yellow, so employer users can instantly see which candidates have been shortlisted. It’s important to note here that the ‘shortlist’ status does not count as an interview or offer, it’s simply a way for an employer to add a marker to the application to say ‘I like this one’. Feedback within the agreed time scale is still required if candidates have been added to the shortlist.
From a recruitment agency perspective, this is another step in understanding what the employer is really after. Agencies will be notified if their candidate has made the shortlist, which will help them refine their search for further candidates. It will also give them more information on where their candidate is up to in the process. Even if they haven’t been invited to interview yet, at least they can see they’re being considered. This is all about giving some power back to our agencies, so they can tell their candidate “Great news! You’ve been shortlisted for the role!”.
Our advice to employer users is always the same – if you like the candidate, interview them. They won’t hang around waiting for you to make up your mind.
Activity Feed
When you say the word ‘marketplace’, what does it make you think of? To me, it makes me think of a hive of activity, with vendors trying to sell their services to make their way in the world.
Right now on Hiring Hub, it’s hard to see that hive of activity from inside the confines of your own account’s dashboard. We’ve been in quarantine for longer than we thought!
Our recruitment agency users don’t have much visibility of activity on the platform other than new jobs appearing, their engagements being accepted or rejected, their candidates being progressed or rejected, and placements being made.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could create a feeling of community instead of the digital and real life quarantine? Wouldn’t it be great if our agencies could see when new agencies joined the community, and who was getting interviews or placements, or even anniversaries?
At this time, we’re still working out the details of this but we wanted to float the idea by some of our users and readers. Any and all thoughts welcome.
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