The recruitment challenge
At the majority of large companies, HR departments have traditionally used dedicated HR-led software and remained heavily reliant on external agencies for the recruitment of staff. Kier was no exception, but now increasing numbers of HR departments are bringing resourcing and recruiting in-house to take advantage of the additional business benefits
this can bring. The challenge, however, is that most HR-led software packages are incapable of managing high-volume recruitment drives.
When we advertise for positions externally, we can be inundated with applications; to the point where we have now had to shorten the application process. This is obviously due to the state of the economy and the fact that there are more people looking for work. A prime example is the graduate market, from which we have seen the number of applications significantly increase year-on-year.
Now, much of our resourcing and recruitment is handled in-house – direct with the candidates, rather than via external agencies − so by default we are now managing higher volumes of applications internally. The up-side of this is that we now have an extensive talent pool database.
With such inherent structural complexities across the group, working at a national and international level, we needed to tailor a solution that would address a range of
business and HR needs. As we did not want a combination of disparate software products that do not communicate transparently to one another, we chose Eploy.
The solution
Eploy’s system provides many time-saving benefits, from speed of response to reduced administration and time to hire. The software’s CV parsing tool, for example − which can handle an unlimited number of CVs and automatically process any format with 95% accuracy − has proved very beneficial.
We can now manipulate data and accurately match candidates to roles, which not only saves time during the recruitment process, but means we can quickly pre-sort applications before sending them by email to line managers across the UK and abroad via a ‘hiring manager portal’. The central web portal also provides Kier personnel with unified access to all information, introducing further time-saving functions at both regional and group levels.
The result
We have also been able to build a company-wide talent pool, which we can quickly search through to find suitable candidates. As a direct result of the time savings achieved by adopting Eploy’s system, we have been able to take on more business contracts. We have also significantly reduced our agency and advertising costs. For Kier, it made business sense to create its own in-house recruitment model because it is more cost-effective than using external sources.
For us, however, it’s not just about doing things quicker and at lower cost − having direct communication with candidates is really important from a branding and
marketing point of view, and with Eploy we have created a more exciting and user-friendly experience for the candidate.
Raising brand awareness
The Kier Group is a large company, with an expanding workforce of nearly 12,000 people. We are a leader in our field, and as such we want to attract the very best talent for continued business success. Brand awareness is therefore very important. Plus, we believe that candidates who apply direct via our Eploy-powered recruitment website are more likely to be committed to Kier.
From a management point of view, Eploy enables us to capture all transactional data. The system records all recruitment activity, allowing us to evaluate and measure the effectiveness of campaigns. At the touch of a button, we can constantly monitor the success of our recruitment campaigns and tailor our resourcing strategies to be the most effective and cost-efficient.
Peer advice
Most recruitment managers already use some form of software. But as we all know, the role of the HR department has significantly changed over the last decade, and there are now software solutions that can help you manage all the roles and responsibilities placed on recruiters.
A standard ATS is no longer good enough. Software needs to be flexible, customisable and manage all the technical, administrative and communication aspects of in-house recruitment – importantly it also has to perform as a business, HR and compliance management reporting tool.
Eploy has streamlined and increased the professionalism of Kier’s recruitment processes and transformed the way we work. In my opinion, Eploy’s one web-based platform is streets ahead of its counterparts.
