Hidden Messages and Smarter Hiring: Part 3/7 of The Best Hiring Process: #024
This Week in the Holistic Recruiter Club #024
This Week In The Holistic Recruiter Club
This week has been very much a building week. We have also been following the news about the newly elected president, so at least we know we will have headlines every day for the next few years!
I have booked some French lessons as I really need to get over this bump I have hit. For anyone else there that speaks more than one language do you get this when you feel your progress and then a week later feel like you know nothing? 😅 Anyway I have Verb posters up and a lesson booked. I’m determined to do a Two Tired Dads episode in French this year!
For those of you who don’t know what I do. I help companies with candidate experience, data audits, TA tool selection, and company culture projects, and I am a sparing partner for you in getting to the next level of TA leadership. Feel free to reach out for a free 30 mins chat at john@holisticrecruiter.club
GUESS WHOS BACK??? No Not Slim Shady Even Better, It’s The Two Tired Dads, That’s Who!
Come and join us as we talk all about the Blue Dot Theory and what it has to do with recruitment. This was excellent raised in
’s newsletter last week.Register for the show by clicking this link
Recruitment Campaigns You May Not Have Seen
In 2022, Volkswagen France had a problem, like many companies and industries today, they needed to recruit skilled people in a market where talent is scarce and competition is fierce.
Rather than posting traditional job ads, they decided to do something cunningly different. It was called the
The Inside Jobs campaign.
They desperately needed to recruit 1,000 skilled mechanics and technicians to meet growing demand.
The results were outrageous: the campaign generated
Over 6 million impressions,
2.5 million views across platforms, and
It led to a 153% increase in visits to their careers website.
Ultimately, over 53,705 résumés were submitted, making the campaign a resounding success.
Volkswagen, with the help of DDB Paris, came up with a clever idea: they hid job offers inside car parts, where only the most qualified candidates would find them.
Yes, you read that right. They engraved recruitment messages onto vehicle components like exhaust pipes, clutches, and air filters. Then, these vehicles were sent to competitor garages for routine maintenance.
The logic was if you're a skilled mechanic, you're likely to notice the engraved message while working on the car. And if you're curious enough to scan the QR code included, you'd land on Volkswagen's recruitment page.
The Mechanics who were actively engaged in their craft discovered these messages and applied for positions. This campaign not only led to successful hires but also positioned Volkswagen as an innovative employer willing to think outside the box (or under the hood, in this case, come on I have to get some dad jokes in here ;)
Again another campaign I loved - if you are an English speaker you may not have seen this one before.
Oh and while I was scrolling with my morning coffee yesterday I saw this post from Tiphaine De Larquier. I love it when companies listen to the people on the ground and implement their ideas. Great example of it here: -
If you have an example of these types of campaigns you have done I would love to feature them, send me a message:-
Turning Research Into Actions: 7 Part Series of The Most Effective Hiring Process. Part 3/7
Welcome back! Over the past two weeks, we’ve explored the rich history of recruitment and the research-backed predictors of job performance. Now, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and create a hiring process that’s not only effective but also fair, efficient, and candidate-friendly.
If you’ve been following along, you already know the power of structured interviews and job-specific assessments. But how do we turn these insights into a scalable, actionable process? Let’s dive in with an example and a blueprint for success.
So How Do We Apply This in Real Life?
How to Hiring a Head of Talent Acquisition
Your company has 100 employees but plans to scale to 250 over the next 18 months. You need a Head of Talent Acquisition who can design a scalable hiring strategy, build a recruitment team, and hit demanding targets whilst maintaining an excellent candidate experience.
How do you design a hiring process for this critical role?
Here’s the step-by-step guide using the blueprint I just shared.
Step 1: Define Success for the Role
Start by answering this fundamental question: What does success look like?
For a Head of Talent Acquisition, success might include:
Hiring 150 people within budget and on time.
Building a high-performing recruitment team.
Enhancing employer branding to attract top talent.
Report to the Executive Committee on progress, challenges and successes.
Action: Clearly outline the competencies and outcomes required for the role. For example, focus on skills like strategic thinking, leadership, and adaptability. Once you have all of this you will have alignment on what is realistic and needed for the position.
Step 2: Use Structured Screening Criteria
Narrow the field efficiently with structured screening:
Application Filters: Identify candidates with relevant experience in scaling teams, managing budgets, and executing hiring strategies. Like a game of guess who this will help you filter very quickly.
Consider Automated Tools: Use technology to filter applications, but make sure it’s transparent and in line with the laws and regulations of the country you are in. My warning here is to continue to have human intervention to ensure fairness
Top Tip: Define objective criteria upfront to avoid random choices and ensure diversity of profiles, experiences and backgrounds in the candidate pool.
Step 3: Job-Specific Assessments and Cognitive Ability Tests
Assess candidates on their potential to solve problems, adapt, and succeed in the role by using cognitive ability tests and real-world scenarios:
Cognitive Ability Tests: These measure problem-solving, logical reasoning, and learning ability. Research shows they are one of the most reliable predictors of job performance across industries and roles, particularly for complex positions like a Head of Talent Acquisition. Think of this as assessing how quickly a candidate can adapt to new challenges.
Work Samples: Ask candidates to deliver a 30-60-90 day hiring plan tailored to your company’s growth goals. (You can ask them to create a skeleton of this as you don’t want them to think they are doing a free piece of consulting work, or consider paying candidates for this time.)
Scenario-Based Assessments: Present scenarios to evaluate how they handle challenges like competing priorities (imagine they have a report to make and 8 High priority jobs to deliver on) or rapid growth, specifically in your company’s context.
Why Add Cognitive Ability Tests? These tests help you identify candidates who can:
Quickly learn new skills.
Adapt to changes in the workplace.
Solve complex problems effectively.
Example: If you're hiring a Head of Talent Acquisition, include a short test to evaluate their strategic thinking or ability to analyse hiring trends and make data-driven recommendations.
Step 4: Conduct Structured Interviews
Structured interviews feel weird when you are not used to them, they can feel robotic and forced. So you must have training beforehand and over time it will feel more natural. Use scoring rubrics to evaluate responses objectively and reduce bias. You will then have a range in of answers in which you can score the answer and then you will end up with a full score at the end. If and where possible do not let other interviewers see the scores for the questions they have asked.
Sample Questions:
"Tell me about a time you built a hiring strategy from scratch. What was your approach and result?"
"How have you handled competing priorities when scaling a team?"
A meta-analysis by Sackett et al. (2022) found that structured interviews have a mean predictive validity of 0.42, with a standard deviation of 0.24, indicating variability across different settings.
For example imagine you’re picking the best player for your sports team. You can ask them random questions like, “What’s your favourite team?” (I mean this can make you build report but will it help decide if they are good at the job?, this is like an unstructured interview), or you can ask them to actually show how good they are at passing, dribbling, and scoring goals (this is like a structured interview).
Now, the research says that when you use the “show me your skills” method (structured interview), you’ll pick the best players 4 times out of 10 (this is the 0.42). That’s pretty good, especially compared to just guessing!
But, the results can vary depending on how you set up the test. If the questions or tests aren’t fair or focused, it might not work as well (this is the standard deviation, meaning it can be much better or worse depending on how it’s done).
So, structured interviews are a smarter and more reliable way to find the best players—if you do them right! But that’s the key and I will repeat you must train people to conduct the interviews in this way.
Step 5: Make Data-Driven Decisions
Avoid gut feelings or the "HiPPO Effect" (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) by relying on data:
Combine scores from assessments and interviews.
Conduct alignment meetings to ensure decision-makers are on the same page.
Fun Fact: Workday's introduction of AI-powered tools like HiredScore AI for Recruiting has led to a 25% increase in recruiter capacity and a 34% faster review process for hiring managers.
Step 6: Obsess over the Candidate Experience
If you can give an excellent experience no matter the outcome everyone will feel seen and heard, that is all you can do during the experience. Treat people with respect and humility. After all, looking for a job is an extremely stressful exercise.
Transparency: Keep candidates informed at every stage.
Respect Their Time: Minimise unnecessary steps and time away from the process.
Follow-up: Always provide closure. Ghosting is a no-go.
Fun fact: A survey by Indeed found that 44% of job seekers reported being ghosted by a company after an interview, and 69% of those candidates are less likely to buy from that company as a result.
Why Follow This Process?
Because it works!
Put this all together and you will have by my math around a .50 to 0.74 chance (including standard deviation) of the people you hire being right. That means roughly out of every 10 hires:
At 0.50, you can expect 5-6 out of 10 hires to be the right fit, based on the strength of the process.
At 0.74, this improves to about 7-8 out of 10 hires being strong performers.
By taking these steps in your hiring process with research-backed predictors, you can:Hire Better: Evidence-based methods lead to stronger hires who deliver results.
Save Time and Money: A streamlined process reduces inefficiencies and avoids costly mis-hires.
Reduce Bias: Structured interviews and assessments create fairness and level the playing field.
Strengthen Your Brand: A transparent, respectful process makes candidates want to work with you—even if they don’t get the job.
At the end of the day, we’re following the research and taking a multi-faceted approach that science has shown leads to better outcomes. It’s about working smarter, not harder doing more with less. But you have to take the time to put these foundations in.
My challenge is to try this with one position first and see how it works!
Again if you want to discuss this with me I’m always open to talking so send me a message john@holisticrecruiter.club
Coming Up Next: Week 4
We’ve built the process! Bravo Squad! Now it’s time to measure its impact. Next week, we’ll explore Metrics That Matter, diving into how to track and optimise your hiring process that aligns with your business goals.
See you next week!
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