Every year they set out to fill places on their Graduate and Modern Apprenticeship schemes and this year, they embraced a new recruiting method – video interviewing.
Context
In an interview with Scottish Water, they discuss how they manage their recruitment process with 750 Apprenticeship applications.
Some of the Highlights
1. Scottish Water recently embarked on a graduate and modern apprentice recruitment drive. How did it go?
We recently brought recruitment in-house and you solution helped us to cover areas of Scotland in a more efficient way. We found that using video interviewing allowed for much better geographical coverage and lowered our overall production costs.
2. Scottish Water is an established and well-known company. On average, how many applicants do you receive for your apprenticeships?
On average we receive 750 applicants for our apprenticeship vacancies.
3. What did you find were the biggest advantages of using video interviewing to recruit young people?
The biggest advantage we found was how you ultimately provided us with the tools to see different people across Scotland in a more efficient way. We felt we had opened doors to more candidates and allowed for further equality and diversity employment.
From a candidate view, prospective hires were able to apply and be pre-screened without having to experience the costs and implications that travel can incur. For us, during the pre-screening stages we didn’t have to arrange and allocate hiring managers to attend set interview days, during this stage we were able to keep costs down by having the flexibility of conducting interviews at any particular time, on the weekends or during the evenings.
4. How did you recruit before you found us?
Before your tool we adopted traditional hiring approaches. We didn’t have an online recruitment system so it was very much a case of candidates responding to job vacancies through email and mail.
5. Has replacing your old recruitment process with our solution made a significant difference to the time it takes for you to recruit?
Your online process has definitely sped up our recruitment procedure. The software has allowed our hiring managers to access candidates instantly, we are able to set up the interviews with ease and in most cases we give candidates 5 days to complete the interview.
6. What about the costs of your recruitment drives? Are measures in place to keep expenditure to a minimum and ensure Scottish Water customers don’t pick up the bill eventually?
We most certainly continue to monitor the costs of our recruitment process, as we did before using Modern Hire. Overall, we’ve experienced significant reduction in spend this year in our graduate and internship recruitment by bringing our recruitment practices in-house. We will continue to monitor the costs and are expecting the reductions to remain as we continue our relationship with you.
7. Our video interview software allows companies to reach candidates in remote places. Did you find that more candidates were applying from these areas as they could answer questions over the internet, rather than traveling?
I don’t believe the use of your tool effected our overall geographical reach, we can’t claim that more people applied. However I do agree that the chances are higher in reaching those further afield.
A big benefit to using our solution was highlighted to us during the recruitment process; pre-screening candidates prior to inviting them to attend interviews meant that the costs associated with travel were eliminated and when they were invited for face-to-face interview, they knew that they had met our criteria and so faced a higher chance of employment.
8. Have any of the candidates given feedback on using our solution? Did they prefer the process?
We have received plenty of feedback from candidates who were all very positive toward your screening process tool. We were seen as an innovative company, who had found an innovative solution.
Most found it a novel and unique experience; and for the majority it was the first time they’d experienced video interviewing. Naturally candidates felt initially apprehensive, however this was soon eliminated and positive comments followed.
9. Will you continue to use our solution when you are recruiting in the future?
Absolutely yes, we will continue to use your solution, not only in graduate recruitment but in day to day hiring. We have already started graduate recruitment 2014 and again, we will be using your tool in this process.
