Personnel Today Awards 2024 shortlist: Candidate experience

In a tough recruitment market, a positive candidate experience is essential to attract skilled candidates and boost employer brand. The shortlisted organisations in the Personnel Today Award for Candidate Experience innovated their approaches with impressive results.

Dishoom

In May 2022, Dishoom needed to grow its workforce from 1,250 to 1,900 within two years due to increased business and new openings. This increase in headcount was the largest it had ever faced, set against the backdrop of a challenging hiring environment caused by Brexit and Covid.

In 2017 it had centralised recruitment but found that the candidate experience had been diluted due to operations being so big and busy. It also wanted to focus on internal promotions while ensuring the candidate experience and employer brand would still help it to attract high numbers of workers each week.

Dishoom reviewed its entire hiring process, making key changes such as rewriting job adverts, enhancing the applicant tracking system, and simplifying referral management, resulting in a 10% increase in applications. It adjusted interview scheduling and onboarding, reducing candidate drop-off rates significantly. Training was restructured with in-house trainers, which halved turnover during the first week of employment.

To nurture long-term growth, Dishoom has developed programmes like Babu Masterclass and Kitchen Academy for internal promotions. The revised process has enabled the successful opening of two new cafes, reduced team turnover by 30%, and led to 211 promotions last year, alongside special recognitions such as Bombay Bootcamp for long-serving team members.

Grant Thornton

Grant Thornton wanted to create a seamless and positive candidate experience where every individual in the recruitment process is valued and respected, no matter the outcome. Its trainee recruitment process reflects the firm’s commitment to fairness and inclusivity.

It avoids rigid cut-offs, allowing candidates to adjust their performance and demonstrate their abilities without facing automated rejections. There is a dedicated employability hub with resources to support applicants, a responsive query inbox, regular communication touchpoints, and personalised feedback throughout the process. An opt-in coaching programme supports underrepresented ethnic groups, while a streamlined neuroscience-based assessment enhances inclusivity for neurodiverse candidates.

Leveraging technology, the process provides transparent support and practice interview questions on its careers site, as well as a Positive Action Interview Scheme for candidates with disabilities. The firm ensures interviewers are trained annually in inclusion and respect, enhancing the overall candidate experience. Feedback is given to all candidates, successful or not, to support their future careers.

For senior-level hiring, there is one-to-one coaching support and tailored guidance, including mock interviews and networking with experienced individuals. Grant Thornton extends its commitment to a positive experience with a comprehensive onboarding process that ensures new hires feel welcomed, supported and equipped with the tools they need.

Kier Group

Kier Group’s previous recruitment system was hindering it from providing a positive candidate experience in a challenging market. It involved a complicated application process that took over 10 minutes and caused more than 30% of candidates to abandon their applications. Onboarding was slow, taking nearly two weeks, and recruiters lost over 500 work hours a year to admin tasks and system failures.

Furthermore, the careers site was hidden within the main investor-focused website and was not integrated with Google for Jobs, adding barriers for candidates. Competency-based interviews focused too much on past experiences rather than values, which didn’t help in creating an inclusive workplace. To enhance the candidate experience, Kier wanted to address four key areas: accessibility, simplification, engagement, and future-proofing.

It first needed to ensure the careers site was easy to find and accessible to all, simplifying processes for both candidates and recruiters, and enabling direct engagement between recruiters and candidates. The aim was to create an industry-leading experience that could adapt to market changes.

A new recruitment system, eArcu (internally called ‘Kier Recruit’), was introduced to streamline the recruitment and onboarding process. This included creating a standalone careers site, simplifying application forms, prioritising accessibility, and shifting to strength-based interviews to better understand candidates’ values and approaches to teamwork, diversity, and inclusion. This has led to a significant improvement in conversion rates, much fewer incomplete applications, and the company has reduced agency usage by 40%.

Police Now

Police Now wanted to enhance the candidate experience for its National Graduate Leadership Programme (NGLP) to align with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner’s vision of transforming police culture in the force. The organisation’s mission is to recruit, train, and inspire diverse high-achieving graduates, making policing more representative of the communities it serves.It aims to build leaders who challenge racism, bias, and discrimination.

Given that more than half of Police Now’s hires have not considered policing before, an exceptional candidate experience was essential to retain interest and encourage referrals. Police Now partnered with Talogy to create an immersive online assessment for candidates, offering a realistic insight into the role of a Neighbourhood Police Officer (NPO). This assessment was based on a sensitive narrative that followed an NPO working on a case, highlighting the complexities and rewards of the role.

The assessment included various psychometric tests, such as self-assessments and situational judgement tests, evaluating candidates’ alignment with Police Now’s mission, resilience, key behaviours, and cultural awareness. To support accessibility and reduce anxiety, candidates completed a practice assessment, had access to live support, and could use any device to complete the assessment with no time limit. The assessment received positive feedback, with 99% of candidates finding it engaging and 98% feeling clear about Police Now’s mission. The initiative resulted in a 73% completion rate, up from 59% the previous year, and contributed to achieving recruitment targets for the Met.

Tata Consultancy Services

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) needed to hire highly skilled technology professionals in a tough recruitment market. The technology sector was particularly affected by a shortage of specialised skills such as software development and data science. TCS needed to enhance its recruitment process, improve candidate experience and make the company the preferred employer for candidates.

TCS launched an employer branding campaign under the tagline “It means more,” which highlighted career opportunities and resonated particularly well on LinkedIn, helping the company rise in LinkedIn’s 2024 Top Companies list. TCS also revised job descriptions, incorporating a commitment to inclusivity and showcasing its Disability Confident Employer status, improving the diversity of its intake. The recruitment process was streamlined to include timely feedback within 24 hours of each interview stage, supported by an Applicant Tracking System and feedback surveys.

To maintain engagement, TCS ensured recruiters maintained high accountability and frequent communication with candidates. A post-offer engagement plan tailored to each candidate’s timeline led to an increase in the offer-to-joiner ratio. A seamless virtual induction program, complete with a comprehensive two-day orientation and personalised materials, increased induction satisfaction scores. As TCS continues to enhance its recruitment processes, it remains focused on leveraging AI and further advancing its approach to diversity and inclusion.

The HALO Trust

The HALO Trust is a leading global NGO operating in over 30 countries, employing more than 11,000 staff. Its primary mission is to assist those affected by conflict by clearing landmines and other explosive remnants of war. The Trust also supports individuals impacted by ongoing violence and works to create lasting stability. Most of HALO’s staff are deminers living and working in conflict zones, recruited directly by field offices. Field officers, however, are recruited through selection events led by the recruitment team. The Trust significantly increased the number of staff it hires in the past year.

Recognising a crisis of confidence in NGOs due to scandals and funding cuts, HALO’s new recruitment team set out to improve candidate experience by setting high standards. Their strategy, introduced in October 2022, focuses on clear job adverts, timely responses, accessible interviews, and inclusive policies. They aimed to show respect and provide a positive experience that reflects HALO’s values.

To enhance the candidate experience, the team redesigned internal processes, including a new applicant tracking system and streamlined pre-employment checks. They introduced video interviewing to overcome time-zone challenges and adopted a more personal communication style. The team improved transparency, ensuring every applicant received a response and experienced a consistent, respectful process.

The results have been impressive: the proportion of women applying for leadership roles increased to 33%, and the average time to hire reduced to 35.1 days. The Trust’s Glassdoor rating improved to 4.0, with positive feedback highlighting the transparent and supportive recruitment process. HALO’s commitment to a dignified candidate experience has led to greater trust and satisfaction among applicants.