They say prevention is better than a cure when it comes to retention and recruitment, but this doesn’t mean we don’t all experience our fair share of challenges in today’s recruitment world.
It’s fair to say we don’t have a lot of our team leaving (over 40% of our Australia crew have been with us for more than 5 years) but we are growing quickly so we’ve still got a lot of hiring to do. I have been doing recruitment since I started 3 years ago, and I’ve seen some big shifts over this time.
THE UPSIDE
Most prominently, we’re seeing a very candidate-led space in 2022 and often I hear this talked about as a bit of a challenge. It certainly can be challenging, there’s no doubt about it – but overall, as an in-house recruiter, I’ve enjoyed this shift.
One of the best aspects is candidates are applying with clearer expectations of what they want – which as a recruiter is fantastic. Candidates who are willing to ask for what they want means we can check for alignment and if we agree this becomes not just great for retention, but for us to have a positive impact on our team members’ lives.
The three areas I am hearing from candidates as their top priorities they are looking for in their next role are:
- Great culture
- Growth and development
- Flexibility
For me, it’s a bit of a no-brainer! A good culture often encompasses a focus on opportunities for growth, personal and professional development and flexibility.
I love having conversations with candidates who might not have heard of Insentra yet but know what sort of company they want to work with – collaborative, supportive, honest, accountable, no politics, transparency, teamwork, open communication, and trust are some of the key area’s candidates are looking for in company culture. For me, this aligns with my experience here and what a great culture looks and feels like! I know. You are probably thinking “Bec is in the Vibe team so she has to say good things… But I’m here to tell you it’s true.
We hire for values first – we are fundamentally looking for people who share our emphasis on honesty, integrity and trust.
In turn, once a candidate learns about us and our approach, the right one is often happy to explore becoming a part of the team (or joining the train as we say). These conversations are always two-way. Gone are the days of a boring set of interview questions and answers! It’s just as important for the candidate to get to know us as it is for us to know them.
Interviews are the time when we really dig into what our candidates want (this is where the culture, growth and development, focus and flexibility come into play), and during these interviews we talk about how we do things.
When it comes to growth and development, our approach is “you own your own career”. What I love about this is it puts you in the driver’s seat – you have the steering wheel, the accelerator and the brake, and you’re in control of the direction, how fast you go and when you need to slow down.
In a practical sense, we are very invested in our crew’s growth – which is often synonymous with OKRs for individuals and is a frequent topic in 1:1s between crew members and their leaders. You choose what you get involved in and how much you learn, which I believe is the most empowering aspect of all – you are in the driver’s seat of your career.
Flexibility is another big one, and even more so since the onset of COVID-19 – our approach is to focus on output not input. If your outcomes are being achieved, we continue to be super flexible and support you to travel the world, enjoy spending those special moments with your family during the working week or move overseas!
It’s really these moments which make recruitment enjoyable – being able to give someone a great role at an awesome company which aligns with their values and supports them in their endeavours wholeheartedly, both personally and professionally.
THE CHALLENGES
On the flip side, there are still challenges I face in recruitment, two of which I’ve identified below:
- Attracting candidates
While more candidates applying for our roles are generally a closer match to the role because they know what they want, there are considerably fewer applicants out there (sometimes there aren’t any for highly specialised roles)!
We’ve tackled this in a few ways, but as always, the organic approach is best.
So many organisations are talking about the EVP (Employer Value Proposition) and how to really get your message out there.
We take a slightly different approach to how we talk about our EVP – we have our platform, but we want our team to speak about their experience. For example, recently we sent a few gifts out to our team to celebrate our UK birthday – and they shared their happy celebratory pictures with their connexions on LinkedIn. This has resulted in several conversations about considering us as an employer, and at least one referral (it’s only early days, so it might even eventuate into a hire!).
Our team talking about their experiences, be it on LinkedIn, Glassdoor or just in general conversation has always been a valuable way for us to attract candidates via referrals – in fact, over 70% of our roles globally have had a referral in the last 12 months.
- Frustrated candidates
In 2022, it’s no secret we’ve got to move fast in recruiting, but one major challenge in the industry is for candidates themselves. Job seekers globally have expressed their frustrations when applying for opportunities and not receiving any updates on their progress. That is why we have joined the Circle Back Initiative.
Although this hasn’t changed our approach as we’ve always made the effort to get back to our candidates on the outcome of their application, we were very keen to support this as an industry standard. The feedback I have received from candidates is really positive to see we’re committed to this – and I believe it’s in alignment with our core values too.
TO SUM IT UP
We are very focused on our culture, and while we don’t know what the future holds for the recruitment world, I know we will continue to be focused on culture first. If you’re interested in joining Insentra, check out the opportunities we have on offer on our Careers page.
For those of you who are looking for a little more inspiration, our Train Story has some great insights about our great corporate culture.
