Bulk Hiring Done Right
BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Prosum has been helping a leading telecommunications company implement people, process and technology solutions that allow their business to grow efficiently since 2009. As they have grown and evolved, our seasoned recruitment team has been fulfilling their staffing needs across the enterprise. We work as an extension of their team, as we do for all our clients, and by applying our tailored relationship management and recruitment process we find candidates that thrive in their organization; over 250 of them to date. Whether this telecommunications enterprise was hiring one candidate at a time or hiring in volume, our unique approach allowed us to find the right people for the job. But as companies with experience needing to bulk hire know, the amount of time invested when following a typical hiring process (resume review, multiple interview rounds, etc.) to fill several roles quickly makes the initiative an incredibly difficult and taxing proposition. But does it have to be?
We are always looking to evolve, and serve our clients better, so we took on the initiative of improving the bulk hire process and experience. So when they started talking about an upcoming list of projects that were still being scoped, requiring an as-yet-unknown number of project managers with various backgrounds (application development, infrastructure, SCRUM masters, etc. with many needing specific company experience) we knew that we could develop a proactive process that allowed this leading telecommunications company to have the right candidates ready to hire whenever they were.
THE SOLUTION
A process that would help our client succeed by not only delivering the best candidates, but also reducing soft costs of a typical hiring process and the overall time-to-hire.
Recruitment industry standard is to wait for fully defined job descriptions, budgeted bill rates, number of positions, specific start dates, and engagement durations, but that is a reactive approach and a true partnership should be proactive. Instead of waiting for these exact details we started building and sharing a “Virtual Bench” of available candidates for each potentially required skill set category 8 weeks before the particulars were confirmed. Our deep understanding of our client’s various project portfolios and their respective candidate matches (tangible skills and experience as well as intangible personality traits, etc), enabled us to more accurately gauge and rank the best candidates on the open market. Our seasoned recruitment team screened over 250 unique candidates available and interested in these opportunities all before the roles were budgeted and confirmed.
To further help the client make the right hiring decision for all of the eventual 14 required roles, we shared our “ranked virtual bench” per skill category on a weekly basis to help them prioritize which candidates to vet when they were ready. It was the trust they had in us because of our deep understanding of their needs and our proven process to source the best candidate matches that allowed us to successfully create these rankings. As previously available candidates secured employment or newly available candidates became known to us our Virtual Bench rankings changed each week.
THE RESULTS
Proactive approach allowed for more time to source and evaluate candidates:
- 250 candidates were evaluated internally and yet only our top 35 were introduced to and interviewed by the client
Interview to placement Ratio
- 3 interviews to 1 Placement
Overall placement win ratio
- 11 of 14 positions filled by Prosum = 80% Win Ratio (5 other agencies submitted candidates)
CONCLUSION
We strive to always be a great partner and position our client’s for success. It may seem risky for recruiters to start sourcing, qualifying and matching candidates when the details aren’t known. But when you truly become an extension of your client’s team it’s not a risk, it’s a responsibility.
At Prosum we don’t have clients, we have partnerships. Any partnership requires mutual trust and a partner should always strive to be proactive versus reactive. We are now fulfilling bulk hiring needs for other departments within this telecommunications enterprise. And once candidates are placed, the support from Prosum continues. We establish a supportive community for our consultants through mentorships, quarterly lunches, and a dedicated consultant care team.
