Improving employer brand and reducing agency spend for JT

JT was stuck with a clunky piece of legacy software and using it was seriously time-consuming for their busy HR department. 

Hiring managers were complaining about a lack of updates on their recent vacancies, but with an old system and recruitment admin taking up more hours than needed, the HR department felt there was nothing more they could do.

As 80% of hiring was being done through recruitment agencies, the managers would be waiting on CVs to be sent from agencies to the HR team, then to them before they could even start to review the applicants. There were far too many people involved in the recruitment process, and it was causing extra admin for everyone. Things needed to change.

JT’s in-house recruiters needed a new software solution that was easy to use, that they could roll-out across the business quickly, share with hiring managers, and that would save them time all round.

Now that JT has implemented Talent Gleam, hiring managers can log in to their Talent Gleam account and check the status of their candidates to see where they are within the recruitment process. They’re also able to move applicants along as they see fit, using tools like candidate scorecards, interview scheduling, and templates for candidate communications.

It means no more chasing the HR team for updates, and that the recruitment load is shared.

Now hiring managers have been empowered to get more involved in the recruitment process, and with one easy-to-use piece of software in place, it’s saved time for everyone.

Before Talent Gleam, JT was very hands-off with their approach to recruitment.

Traditionally, any new vacancies got sent to recruitment agencies who’d then respond with candidate CVs, which were forwarded to hiring managers. Feedback from hiring managers was collated, and the HR team got left to play the piggy-in-the-middle.

Although they got a lot of applications, hiring teams found that the quality and caliber of candidates was just not up to scratch. Plus, it took a lot of time for the HR department to filter through applications and conversations with agencies.

A huge 80% of vacancies were being filled via recruitment agencies.

With the average cost of using an agency resting at 15-30% of a candidate’s annual salary, it’s an expensive way to grow – and does nothing to give a company a strong employer brand within the market.

JT hadn’t used a direct hiring strategy before, and the team was concerned that moving to direct hiring would increase their already admin-heavy workload. What they didn’t know is that direct recruitment often produces better quality applicants and, in turn, reduces the burden of admin.

Using the programmatic recruitment software within Pinpoint, JT’s HR team is now able to set up and manage their own intelligent digital recruitment marketing campaigns.

Within just a couple of clicks, the HR team can set up a branded advert with messaging targeted at communicating their employee value proposition. Machine learning means that every time they run a recruitment campaign, the technology gets smarter at recognizing who JT likes to hire. It then serves people who fit this profile JT’s recruitment adverts next time.

This automated tool, paired with some support in their initial advert design, meant that the team got really good results from their recruitment advertising campaigns.

In just six months, JT has reduced its reliance on recruitment agencies by 80%. Now, they only use headhunters for very specific senior roles.

As JT had been using recruitment agencies to manage their vacancies for years, when they did some research around their brand within the candidate market, they found that they didn’t have as good a brand presence as they first thought.

Before Talent Gleam, when an applicant saw a role, they’d have to apply through a recruitment agency – getting no idea of what it’d be like to work for the organization, bar what the recruiter had told them.

But now JT has an on-brand careers site designed by Talent Gleam, which boasts what it is like to work at their organization.

Professional images of real-life teams show diversity and capture the culture of the business. When an applicant clicks through from a recruitment advertising campaign, they land on the JT careers site, which includes messaging around company values and mission statements. Click through to the vacancy itself, and the applicant is met by a brief biography of the hiring manager that they’d be working with.

The application process is now very simple for the candidate – forms have been created only ever to be one page long, and there is the ability to apply with a Linkedin profile.

More great candidates have been encouraged to apply, as they can get a feel for what it’d really be like to work for JT, including who they’d be working with.

JT’s employer brand is stronger than ever – and it is encouraging a higher caliber of candidates to apply directly than what they were previously seeing using recruitment agencies.