The challenge:
Each year, our client, a large media organisation, makes over 150 hires across its early career schemes, selecting the very best in UK early talent into apprenticeship, intern and graduate roles.
They have a very strong brand and are very much a destination employer of choice, so their early talent programmes are very popular and attract large and diverse set of applicants.
The organisation was undergoing a major transformation programme within its talent acquisition function, which, alongside wider market challenges with recruitment, resulted in issues around retention and reduced productivity.
As a result, the client was experiencing some acute challenges, including:
Insufficient resource to manage this year’s applicants through the assessment and selection process, risking its overall ability to deliver against early career intake targets
A backlog of unsuccessful applicants from the previous year’s scheme that had not received a proper follow up, resulting in a poor candidate experience that could potentially negatively impact employer brand perception
Reed Talent Solutions’ Head of Talent Delivery, Jadie Hodgson, said: “The client required a provider that could deploy an experienced team at short notice to quickly take on both management of the assessment and selection of new applicants, as well as clearing the backlog of feedback to the previous year’s applicants.”
The solution:
Within six weeks of the initial briefing from the client, we had agreed a solution and identified and deployed a team of six experienced talent acquisition partners, assessors, and recruitment administrators.
Jadie said: “Working closely with the head of early talent, this team were trained up in delivery of the client’s selection and assessment methodology and built an understanding of the client’s culture and values.“
Our service starts from receipt of initial application, managing the candidate journey through to point of offer.”
This work included:
Carrying out the initial screening call
Enrolling applicants on a pre-assessment centre task
Booking applicants on to a day-long assessment centre
Managing delivery of assessment centres including orientation, briefing on tasks, supporting delivery of group exercises and applicant interviews (alongside client hiring managers)
Supporting client with scoring and levelling prior to finalising offers and rejections
Delivering applicant feedback
Jadie added: “We also worked to quickly clear down the backlog of applicants that were yet to receive feedback from the previous year’s programme, providing valuable feedback and closure for this cohort of applicants, and helping to rebuild the client’s brand perception.”
The results:
To date, there have been a number of successes within the programme. These include:
We deployed an experienced early careers team of six people within six weeks
We processed over 6,000 applications over a 16-week programme
More than 800 candidates attended the assessment centres, and at peak our teams were running 11 assessment centres each week
More than 100 people have been successfully placed into the early careers programme
More than 500 backlogged candidates were given feedback and cleared down from the ATS within six weeks
Key success factors for this client included Reed Talent Solution’s ability to:
Rapidly mobilise a team, providing a scalable augmented service to support their in-house function
Onboard and deliver a consistent, high-quality recruitment process, adopting the client’s systems, assessment and scoring methodologies, and reflecting the client’s culture and values
Find out more about our recruitment process outsourcing solution, or get in touch with one of our experts to talk through your needs.
