Dealing with hundreds of candidates is challenging enough. Throw in unconscious bias, interview no-shows and slow, manual processes, and your recruitment is taking your store managers away from what really matters – your customers. We’ve worked with some awesome businesses to streamline their hiring processes. Here we share the success stories of three of our clients, and what they’ve been able to achieve.
Well-known retailer Target is one of Australia’s largest employers, with 12,000 team members across more than 130 stores.
For many years, managing recruitment for retail staff was left to the individual store managers, which took their focus away from customers. The company needed a better, faster way of screening candidates for fit and availability, and a streamlined system for booking interviews.
As Head of Talent and Acquisition for Kmart and Target, Meisje Powley embarked on a mission to centralise store recruitment to take pressure off the store managers.
That’s where Weirdly came in.
Now, rather than submitting a resume, candidates apply for a job using the Weirdly assessment, which automatically filters candidates based on location, availability and values-fit. And integration with Calendly means candidates can book their own interview times.
“This piece of getting candidates to interview is so slick and quick,” says Meisje.
The portal also aligns with Target’s ongoing quest for diversity and inclusion. Doing away with resumes has helped reduce unconscious bias, shining a light on values-fit rather than work history or education. That focus has paid off with a huge increase in indigenous candidates interviewed.
Hit rates almost double
When you’re dealing with such high volumes, speed is key but quality matters too. Before implementing Weirdly, only half of the candidates interviewed were the right fit to hire.
“That rose to a 90% hit rate initially and now we have settled to around 70-80%,” says Meisje. “I would definitely recommend Weirdly, and already have. It works so well for us.”
A top player in the telecommunications game, Vodafone recently refined the values they call ‘spirit behaviours’. These are at the core of everything they do, from the way people interact while working to how the company recruits.
As Vodafone’s global head of talent assessment Margarita Echeverria explains, integrating these spirit behaviours into the recruitment process would achieve three outcomes. It would help both the candidate and the hiring manager assess how well they’d fit, build the brand and improve the experience for applicants.
The challenge was finding a tool that would support this vision – and work across eight vastly different markets.
That’s when Margarita met with Dale, Weirdly’s CEO – and immediately saw potential in the software.
With Weirdly at the beginning of the recruitment process, Vodafone could get to know candidates pre-interview – and candidates could get to know Vodafone.
Alongside a quick, engaging assessment, the Weirdly team prepared a pack of interview questions for hiring managers. The assessment results would automatically produce recommended questions.
“It meant we weren’t just looking at credentials. It was more about how you behave…and the people who were hired always had good alignment with our values framework,” Margarita adds.
For Vodafone, candidate experience was the most important measure of success, and Weirdly achieved that and more, Margarita says.
With a completion rate of 95%, candidates rated the Spirit Assessment experience 8.9 out of 10. Across all eight markets, candidates scored the tool well above the goal of 8/10 – impressive considering some candidates were answering questions that were not in their first language.
“The UX was great. Candidates thought it was a nice surprise to see a company focussing on getting to know them as people. It gives them the freedom to be themselves.”
It was a solution that ticked all the boxes.
“Weirdly let us be more strategic – we could become ambassadors for the brand.”
In its 100-odd years, RACQ has broadened its offering as a motoring organisation to include financial services and insurances. Nick Leach, manager of talent acquisition, likens the company to a bank – with one very important difference. It’s member-owned, with all profits funnelled back into benefits for the members.
Nick and his team needed to streamline how they managed their 700 hires a year. Improving speed and efficiency was one thing, but Nick also saw that they could include values assessment in their recruitment process, something their existing HR system couldn’t do.
Nick had bumped into Weirdly by chance at a recruitment and talent event – and was impressed. He filed us away until he joined RACQ.
Weirdly customised a pre-application assessment for RACQ to instantly create long lists based on values alignment.
“We liked the flexibility – the other tools you just slapped your brand on. We got a bespoke look, feel and function that suited us,” he explains.
Once the tool went live, Nick says they started seeing the results almost immediately.
Automation, a talent pool and instant long lists through Weirdly have made RACQ’s high-volume recruitment faster and more effective.
Its turnaround time on urgent hiring requests from staff has significantly improved. It’s hiring people a week faster than a few years ago, and Weirdly has helped build the profile of the talent team within the organisation.
It helps stop unconscious bias from creeping in.
“We’re doing a big push on it now and it’s great having a tool like Weirdly to support that,” Nick says. “It makes our life so much easier and saves so much time. Also, being agile has a huge impact on how we’re perceived.”
While every business faces its own recruitment hurdles, there’s one thing you’re all aiming high for – a better candidate experience. A streamlined system that enables faster screening of the best-fit candidates enables a good experience for all applicants – even those who aren’t successful. At Weirdly, we’re over the moon at what our clients have been able to achieve, and we’re pretty sure they are too.
