A job interview should be a decisive moment to understand whether or not you would like to advance a candidate in your hiring process. When conducted correctly, it becomes a powerful screening tool. 

Effective interviews will tell you what you need to know about a candidate. It’s important for you to invest some time in preparing questions that make sense for the specific position, but also,  make the interviewee feel relaxed and welcomed. 

If you want to learn more about how to conduct an efficient job interview, we have some tips to share that can help you prepare! 

We’ll go over:

• The importance of a job interview 
• 6 Types of job interviews that you can conduct 
• How to make your job interview more efficient 

What is the importance of a job interview?

During your hiring process, applicants can undergo a series of screening steps in order for you to better understand if they’re qualified to work in the role they’ve applied to. The job interview should be conducted during this screening process, in the beginning, middle or end.  

It is up to you to decide on the best moment to interview your candidates. As a general rule of thumb, you don’t want to spend too much time interviewing unqualified candidates because that would slow down your time to hire. So it’s important to add a couple of screening steps to eliminate applicants who are not fit for the position, before you begin interviewing. 

However, do not leave job interviews out of your hiring process entirely because they do serve an important purpose.

Job interviews allow you to understand the following candidate attributes better: 

• Their past experiences, skills and professional interests 

• Their personality traits, posture, communication skills 

• Whether or not they’ll be a good fit for the role, team and organization overall 

Benefits of conducting a positive job interview 

To guarantee a smooth interview process, it’s important that your candidate walks away feeling like they were listened to. Depending on where you are in the hiring process, they should also be provided with the important information they need to make an informed decision about the role. The job interview should always be a positive experience for both parties.

 Even if interviews don’t result in hiring, which they won’t for many candidates, a thoughtfully designed process that is personalized for the position, can bring several benefits to both you and applicants. 

Some of these benefits are: 

• Interaction with your candidate
• More precise information about the professional’s profile
• Humanization of the R&S process
• Strengthening of your Employer Branding
• Increased NPS
• Reduced Turnover Rate

The 5 different types of job interview models

There are several types of ways that you can conduct your job interviews. You should choose a job interview type based on the type of role you’re hiring for, where you are in the hiring process  and what information you’d like to get from the interview. You may also mix these models into one interview as well.  Below, we have selected six types of job interview modes that you can use in your hiring processes: 

Technical Interviews 

The main goal of a Technical interview is to better understand if the candidate has the specific  hard skills required for the role.  In this type of interview you and your team can assess technical knowledge, problem solving skills and critical thinking abilities as needed for the position. In this model, the interview can play out like an exam, where candidates are expected to solve problems along with answering questions. Or the candidate might have done a technical assessment before the interview and you might use the interview to discuss their answers. This type of interview is best for the roles that demand certain hard skills as a prerequisite. 

Behavioral Interview

Behavioral interviews are essential to understand the candidate’s personality, posture and communication skills, regardless of the type of job they’re applying to. In a behavioral interview you may present day-to-day work situations and analyze how the candidate responds to them. It’s also a good opportunity to learn more about the candidate’s past experiences and ask them about their professional goals. 

Problem-solving Interview

The problem-solving  interview consists in working through a business scenario (real or fictitious) that may be related to the position. The idea is to allow the candidate to present a solution on how to solve an issue, make quick and accurate calculations and explore creative options on how to best reach an  outcome. 

Group Interview

The group interview model consists in assessing more than one candidate at a time.  This type of interview can reduce time, but most importantly, it can be used as a strategy to see your candidate’s teamwork in action. This format can provide unique insights on how your applicants behave with other work colleagues. 

Activity based Interview

Similar to the problem solving model, the idea behind the activity based interview is to propose a series of activities based on real situations. In this type of interview, you can use tools such as games and challenges, which may require some planning. The idea is to simulate a realistic scenario and determine how the  candidate will approach and navigate.   

How to make your job interviews more effective

To help you efficiently screen candidates in your recruitment process and hire the most qualified professional,  there are key questions that you can ask to help you better assess your candidates.  

To make your interview process more effective investigate the following topics below: 

• Experience
• Achievements
• Requirements

Experience

With the right questions, you can gain better insights about a candidate and what value they can bring to your team and role. By giving the candidate an opportunity to talk about their career path and experiences, you can evaluate how that helped shape them into a qualified professional for the position in question. 

When asking about experience, explore  particular achievements and failures in recent past roles.  Take notes of the answers you’d like to explore in the next questions.

Be sure to understand:

• Whether the candidate enjoys the kind of work they have done (or are expected to do).
• What motivates them in their day-to-day 
• The career path they’d like to pursue 
• If they have relevant experiences and applicable skills 

Data-Driven Achievements 

It’s also important to know what past performance results your candidate can share with you during an interview. Whatever measurable indicators or data your candidate can talk about, the better!  Your goal is to learn about previous achievements, to hire someone who is able to bring specific results.  

Cut straight to the chase and ask questions such as the following: 

• What accomplishments are you proud of and what results did you achieve? 
• How can you help our team improve XYZ?

Requirements

It’s also essential that you understand during an interview if your candidate meets all the requirements listed for the job. Go down your list of required qualifications for the role and ask unique questions or tell your candidate to give practical examples of how they’ve put these skills into practice. This will be critical in helping you assess if your applicant is qualified for the role. 

Use job interviews as a powerful screening tool and retrieve essential information about your candidate that will help you identify if they’re qualified for the role or not. Don’t forget to also assess culture-fit and align important expectations to make sure both parties are on the same page regarding benefits, roles and responsibilities, and eventually compensation. 

Want to start today? Join Plooral. 

O post How to conduct a successful job interview apareceu primeiro em Plooral Blog.

Employees within this environment are to be seen as key players in the company’s growth and success and are given the possibility of developing their skills and talent by working in a collaborative culture.   

In this article, we’ll see: 

• The meaning behind Employee Centric 
• Benefits of an employee-centric culture
• How to create more engagement with employee-centric strategies 

​​What does it mean to have an Employee Centric environment?

In a few words, adopting an Employee Centric environment is about improving your employees’ experience, respecting and caring for them, and investing in actions that encourage a sense of purpose. Ideas, creativity,  free-flowing communication and innovation are encouraged throughout the organization.

The main idea behind the Employee Centric environment is to build a welcoming space, to be open to new ideas, feedback and where the employee can express their thoughts in an atmosphere of cooperation amongst their entire team and across the organization. 

More than just offering a space of dialogue and respect, the workplace and the benefits offered to employees must also be considered. Building a comfortable workspace that promotes your employee’s well-being or offering benefits that help them maintain a healthy work life balance, are also Employee Centric strategies.  

Benefits of having an Employee-Centric culture

The main benefit of having an Employee Centric culture within your organization  is making your employees feel that they are a part of the company’s overall mission and believe in its purpose. 90% of employees that work for an organization that promotes an  Employee Centric environment, are proud of their employers and ultimately help foster the company’s growth.

When employees can be a part of flexible work  environments, they also manage to have a better balance between their personal and professional life, which can positively impact their professional productivity.

Attracting Talented Candidates

Having an Employee Centric culture can bring many benefits to employers as well.  Companies that promote Employee Centric strategies can increase their employee retention across the board. In addition, these strategies, as a result, attract a higher number of talented candidates as they seek to work for a company that values ​​the care of its employees.

Driving brand awareness

Employees who work for a company that invests in Employee Centric processes, are more likely to share their work experiences and achievements on social networks, which ultimately helps attract more talent to your company as your employer brand strengthens.  

Companies that support their employees also build more trust amongst their clients, influencing the public’s view.

Reducing turnover

Companies that listen to their employees and build an environment based on suggestions and feedback, achieve much higher levels of workforce retention.

Feeling seen and validated  creates more productivity. Employees pay attention to whether or not their feedback is being accepted, which encourages them to be more invested in their daily tasks.  

Companies that encourage employee ideas, suggestions and challenges will be able to  attract talent who are more likely to stay loyal to your business and put 100% into their work, because they feel invested with the company.

How to create employee-centric strategies

To create employee-centric strategies, companies must first understand their employees’ basic needs and desires. In other words, finding out what can impact your employee’s sense of wellbeing within your organization. This can be community, respect, appreciation, understanding, space for dialogue and discussion on issues related to the company’s growth, being able to give and receive feedback, among other things. 

Before becoming an employee-centric company, HR teams and other key leaders should come together and review what strategies can be implemented that are easily scalable and can last long term.  A great starting point is to survey employees across the board to receive feedback, learn where gaps exist  and be able to create a list of priorities. 

If your company offers hybrid work or you have full-time remote employees, this feedback is even more important. Promote communication and employee feedback by implementing recurring team meetings, brainstorming sessions, distributing short surveys or keeping online communication channels open at all times (ex: Slack). 

Your company can improve its environment by simply listening, taking action on feedback and letting your employees be people! Offering more autonomy to  employees is a simple yet profound strategy that can go a long way.  

Remember that by putting your employees first and building a more pleasant workplace, you directly increase your company’s productivity and growth. Employee satisfaction and health should matter to your company because at the end of the day, everyone wins. 

Want to start today? Talk to our team of specialists. 

Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram.

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Hiring the right people for your team is a big challenge. This process, many times managed manually, can become extremely complicated. Without the right tools in hand, opening and closing a position can take days – or even weeks – of hard work. That’s where an Applicant Tracking System comes in. This software optimizes your hiring process by helping you automate tasks and screen candidates efficiently. 

In this article, we’ll learn more about ATSs: 

• What is an Applicant Tracking System?
• How does an ATS work?
• Benefits of applicant tracking systems
• How to choose the best ATS?
• Why is Plooral the best ATS platform?

​​What is an Applicant Tracking System?

ATS is a software that offers all the features your company needs to manage its entire hiring process. 

Applicant Tracking Systems are similar to a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system, but it is tailored for HR teams and their recruiting needs. With an ATS, your team can consolidate all company hiring processes and applicant information in one place.  

How does an ATS work?

You will use your ATS in all the stages of your hiring process, from the moment you need to open a position to the moment you’ve hired your candidate. 

Many ATSs today will automatically publish your open positions on job boards or other sourcing channels as a way to attract more candidates to your jobs.  

When candidates apply to a position with your company, your ATS will most likely give you the opportunity to set a few qualification questions for your applicants to answer as they attach their resume. 

Once they apply and send in their resume, they will appear in your recruitment funnel. Your ATS will come into play in this phase of your hiring process as well.  Many ATS’s offer features that allow you to filter and screen candidates,  conduct interviews, apply tests and collaborate with your hiring team, within your application funnel.    

Applicant Tracking System – Benefits 

Investing in the right Applicant Tracking System (ATS) can give your team major benefits, such as automating your hiring processes and helping you find qualified candidates in less time. Many growing businesses are still hesitant to invest in these types of technologies, specifically for their recruitment needs.       

However, regardless of the number of positions you open a month or the size of your team, Applicant Tracking Systems can still bring amazing results to your hiring strategy and process. 

1. Helps increase team productivity

ATS’s help reduce, if not eliminate, manual operations, which can replaced by automated features. This allows your team more time to dedicate their brain power to other important tasks!  

2. Improves internal and external communication 

Most Applicant Tracking Systems integrate with your inbox, allowing you to communicate directly with candidates through your account. With Plooral, you can also speak to team members and hiring managers directly through the platform, tagging them in tasks or to view candidate resumes. We provide an email template feature and automatic communication triggers to promote end to end seamless communication strategies. 

3. Streamlines processes and gathers key analytics 

One of the main benefits ATSs provide is the ability to organize all of your open positions, candidates and processes in one place. You’ll be able to track key indicators and metrics that give you valuable insights on what’s working and what isn’t! 

The best way to understand how an Applicant Tracking System can help your team is by talking to other businesses who use these tools. 

    4. Speeds up your hiring process

 Applicant Tracking Systems offers features that automate your workflow and day to day tasks. It also provides intelligent filters to find qualified candidates easily in your funnel, ultimately speeding up your hiring process. 

How to choose an ATS thats right for your company?

Now that you know the importance of having an ATS, you need to decide which one out of the thousands that exist, is right for YOUR company! 

It’s  important to choose a system that meets your needs, gives you a good ROI and fits your budget. 

Don’t forget about candidate experience when choosing an Applicant Tracking System. It’s important that you provide applicants with a humanized process and you’re able to give everyone a fair chance to be screened and evaluated. 

It’s important to ask yourself the following questions when looking for an ATS: 

• How personalized do you want your recruitment process to be? 
• What does the candidate journey look like? 
• Do you want to automatically eliminate candidates without screening them first? 
• How many job portals would you like your ATS to connect to? 
• Which tasks do you need to automate? 
• Do your managers need to be involved in your recruitment process? Do they need different permissions? 
• Would you like to apply tests or ask your candidates questions? 

What makes Plooral stand out from other ATSs? 

Plooral is a modern and intuitive applicant tracking system that not only streamlines your recruitment process from beginning to end, but also delivers a fantastic candidate experience to your applicants. Count on Plooral to automate your workflow, involve your entire team, help you attract and screen candidates efficiently and much more. Plooral is very simple to navigate and use on a daily basis, offering  powerful features that allow you to make the most of your recruitment process. 

Plooral features include:

• Automatic job board integrations 
• Schedule and conduct online interviews 
• Collaborate with your entire team 
• Promote your company benefits and culture through vídeos 
• Track KPIs and Indicators
• Create and manage  talent pipelines
• KanBan board to organize processes 
• Apply screening and search filters 
• Apply assessment tests and video interviews 

And much more! 

Here’s what our clients had to say about Plooral in our newest survey: 

If you like what you see, speak to one of our team members!

Finding the right ATS for your organization  can be a difficult task! After you understand exactly what needs to be met in your hiring process, speak to other recruiters in your network and learn what ATSs have worked for them! Schedule demos and make sure to have at least three options to choose from when making your final decision!

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How is learning happening today? 

Despite the continuous investment companies put into traditional  curriculum building for their employees’ L&D programs, these learning strategies are beginning to become more inefficient with the rise in technology and the impact that has had in our social behavior patterns in the past decade.  So how do employees truly learn? 

• Through social learning strategies: Learning today happens organically through self-taught and independent habits or with close colleagues.  The most  efficient L&D teams don’t do much in terms of curriculum building, but instead offer opportunities for people within the organization to connect with each other and other resources, building an environment that fosters learning instead of the learning structure itself.  

• By having access to workplace tools and other learning resources: Learning can happen from anywhere:  apps, specific websites, professional networks, blogs, social networks, your organization’s in-house tools,  amongst others. Despite some tools  being more efficient than others, today’s student wants to have the option to learn more different resources  and have these tools integrated into their daily work routine. 

• By shifting from learning to skilling: A powerful driver for workforce development is the motivation employees have to learn for their own personal growth. To foster this, organizations should shift from a learning mindset to a skilling one. 

What’s the difference between learning and skilling? 

Learning: is about information transfer and retention, not necessarily application and impact. If knowledge is transferred, learning is happening, even if it doesn’t solve any particular problem.

Skilling: is the transfer of knowledge with an intent to bring impact through behaviors and actions on the job. When people are able to apply knowledge to address specific issues, they are using their skills.

According to the 2021 Degreed survey “How the Workforce Learns”, 61% of employees want to align learning to their skills gap. This means that L&D teams should be offering resources that assess their employee’s skills deficit.

In order to give their workforce a better understanding of what skills they need to build to fill important roles and reach their own personal and professional goals. 

 The future of learning is here. 

Learning isn’t a one-size-fits all experience. Creating value, building skills and promoting intellectual capital within your company to remain competitive in the market is a big task to tackle.

Remember to take into account when, where, how and what your employees are learning.  Keep your learning strategies highly personalized and supported by data that can help reinforce whether you’re on the right track. 

Skills are now a top priority for CEO’s and business leaders, so now is the time for your  L&D team to take this opportunity to transform your organization and implement the right learning strategies that will drive your  business forward. 

Want to start now? Speak to one of our specialists!

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Team collaboration is essential for all businesses, big or small. It results in more innovation, efficient processes, increased success, improved communication and the list goes on! However, when it comes to hiring, many recruiters often work with each other without involving other members of their company.

Despite hiring managers being an important piece of the puzzle of the hiring process, many managers don’t have time, don’t prioritize or don’t believe it’s their job to get involved – which is the wrong mentality to have! 

Hiring managers should get their hands dirty as well since this will ultimately avoid bringing serious problems for your organization. The lack of this type of teamwork during an application process can result in bad hires, a difficult relationship between recruiters and managers, lack of organizational transparency and a disparity in expectations and the reality. 

Continue reading to learn how these 7 tips can help you involve your hiring managers in your recruitment process in an engaging and efficient way! 

The essential steps your hiring manager should be a part of 

(CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A STRATEGIC INFOGRAFIC ABOUT 7 WAYS TO INVOLVE YOUR MANAGERS)

Involve managers in your hiring process is VERY important. Especially for decreasing candidate turnover rates and helping you fill positions quickly with qualified candidates.  

This doesn’t mean that you should be requiring managers to spend a lot of time in your hiring process. Simply that managers should be invited to collaborate in strategic specific steps along the way, bringing long-lasting benefits to everyone involved.   

1) Prepare the job description together:

Writing a job description is no easy task, especially when you really don’t know the ins and outs of the role or department. Hiring managers should be helping you  create a detailed  job description, outlining activities and responsibilities. While your hiring manager defines what they need. You should pay close attention and make sure their expectations are aligned with industry standards.

 The hiring manager should explain to you as clearly as possible what type of candidate they need and describe in detail what activities need to be performed in the role. It’s up to you to format this information in a way that is clear and understood easily by applicants. 

2) Candidate Persona Alignment 

Simply creating a job description isn’t enough when it comes to attracting, screening and hiring great talent efficiently. You should also speak to hiring managers while you’re creating a job description. And of course, (preferably face-to-face/zoom-to-zoom!) to gain a better understanding of the type of candidate your hiring manager wants and needs.  

• Why is the position open? 
• What does the team’s day to day look like? 
• Talk about the experience, characteristics and skills should this ideal candidate have? 
•  What experience, characteristics and skills are a plus for this ideal candidate to have? ‘

These are some important questions to ask your hiring manager and their team members when you’re opening a new position. Again, use this moment to check if the hiring manager is aware of industry trends. So that you don’t open a position for a candidate that doesn’t exist! 

3) Align expectations beforehand 

It’s important that you and your hiring managers work together to set realistic expectations about the position. So that both sides are aware of what to expect.

For example, if you are opening a very difficult position to fill, make sure you report that to your hiring manager with some strategies you may use along the way to improve this process. This way they understand that not all positions should be treated the same and are aware of the delays you may have along the way.

4) Create an open communication channel: 

During your recruitment process, candidates may ask some difficult questions only your hiring manager may know the answers tos. 

Make sure hiring managers are available to answer these questions directly to the candidate or to you – so that you can efficiently move on in your process. 

5) Ask for helpful feedback and quick turnarounds: 

Recruiters are tired of knowing that the faster they can close a position, the better it is for the overall organization. Hiring managers on the other hand, might not be so aware of this and take time to give you feedback on candidates or respond to emails.

It’s extremely important to create a streamlined process with hiring managers around the tasks they should perform during the hiring process.  

6) Developing an internal interview strategy: 

Depending on the type of position you’re opening, you might want to approach your internal hiring process differently and this includes candidate interviews. Based on you and your hiring managers availability and the role that is being filled. Determine how many interview stages are needed. And of course, which team members should be included in interview rounds, what type of interviews will you conduct (remote or in-person) etc. 

To help you with this process, Plooral offers an embedded interview feature. Which allows you to schedule, invite and conduct remote-interviews within our platform. 

7) Providing feedback to disqualified candidates: 

When candidates are disqualified from your hiring process by hiring managers, it’s important for you to  understand why. This will help you give appropriate and personalized feedback to candidates. In addition to offering you valuable insights that might speed up screening for next time.  

How to involve your hiring managers on Plooral: 

Plooral makes it easy for you to involve hiring managers throughout your recruitment  process. Not only can you add unlimited users to the platform (for no extra costs!). You can also set labels to manager different positions and organize reporting, create voting and collaboration strategies, allocate tasks, set different permissions for managers and take advantage of other collaborative features more flexibility to your work! 

Want to learn more?   Click here to talk to our team of specialists.Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram.

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It’s important to ask yourself a couple questions before investing. Is it really necessary to invest at this moment? What can you invest in?  

What about Recruitment?

Every company strives to become profitable one day, therefore eliminating unnecessary expenses is a mindset adopted by all teams within the business. 

Eliminating unnecessary expenses doesn’t always equivalent to letting employees go or changing the business model. It can be a strategy as simple as increasing work productivity in less time. Optimizing your team’s time means they can focus on the revenue generating projects and tasks that actually matter. 

So, let’s analyze a company’s recruitment process, from the time it takes to open a position to the moment of hiring.  

What some of the standard steps present in a selection process?

• Defining the candidate’s profile and position description/requirements;
• Job posting and marketing to attract the right candidates;
• Resume screening
• Candidate screening and evaluation;
• Scheduling interviews or quizzes/tests;
• Applying interviews and quizzes/tests;
• Candidate evaluation by the company’s team;
• Hiring.

What’s the reality today? 

Most companies still haven’t automated their recruiting process. Many companies for example, still receive resumes by email. 

Even if the company is organized and diligent with their emails, or has a team specifically dedicated for this task, it’s still an activity that demands a lot of time. Opening the email, downloading the pdf, organizing them in folders or Google Drive, classifying each email, getting in touch with the candidates, scheduling interviews/quizzes/tests, etc…).

How do you calculate your recruiting costs?

If companies open a job position,  they’ll share it in social media, job boards and invite candidates by email or with LinkedIn. How do you calculate how much time is being spent hiring a candidate for this position?

Let’s say it takes around 30 minutes to post a job and share it on social media.

So if a company received 300 resumes, but only analyzed 100, and it took only 30 seconds to evaluate one resume, you can take approximately one hour to review one third of candidates. 

Of the 100, you called only 8 which took 10 minutes each. However, you only applied a test with 5 of them. All the tests lasted for about 2 hours and 30 minutes.

 After reviewing the candidates and their tests, you schedule interviews with 4 of them lasting  4 hours in total. 

Out of these 4 candidates, only 2 of them advance to 1 hour in-person interviews with 3 different executives. There goes 6 more hours.   

Everything took about 21hrs, almost three full work days. 

How much time and money does a company spend with a manual recruiting process?

Let’s say that an HR Senior Recruiter and a Director were involved in this process. The Recruiter’s salary is approximately $70k and the Directors is US$90k per year. 

This means that their hourly rate is approximately $34 and $44. So in the end, the entire process costs approximately $1.638.

What changes will automation bring to my recruiting processes? 

In our next post we’ll dive deeply into all the benefits of using a recruiting platform will bring you!

 With Plooral you can automate every step of your recruiting process, spending less time (and money) with administrative and manual tasks! 

Use Plooral today!

O post How do you reduce recruitment costs? apareceu primeiro em Plooral Blog.

Of all the work environment trends, maybe the most desired and talked about one is the Home Office. A lot of companies are offering it as a leverage nowadays.

However, even though it’s very popular, it still raises a lot of discussions amongst HR professionals. Many researches and articles show the importance of home office for attracting and retaining talent, but a lot of companies are ignoring these trends and are trying to lure employees back into the office space.

An interesting case comes from Yahoo!. In 2013 their president decided to remove home office from its more than 11k employees. The reasoning behind the decision was that “speed and quality a lot of the times are sacrificed when working from home”. In other words, for Yahoo!, home office was affecting its business growth and productivity.

There are always two sides of the coin. In Phillips’ Brazilian headquarters, every employee (even their president) must choose a week-day to work from home. According to their HR team, the benefits of home office range from saving on resources to increase in productivity.

Is the home office the hero or villain of professional success? Based on recent studies, we’ve gathered the pros and cons of implementing a work from home policy in your company. Check them out:

• Cons

It’s not just the lack of employee ‘control’ that makes the Home Office principal less appealing. A recent study revealed that 43% of Brazilians employees admit that working outside the office causes loneliness. Which in consequence, results in the lack of team communication and involvement, producing negative impact in their day-to-day.

Besides the isolation factor, many of the interviewed opened up about having difficulty concentrating when working from home. Family is the primary distraction during Home Office, according to 64% of Brazilians.

Other barriers of home office

• Legislation: In Brazil there’s a lack of laws and legislations about Home Office, making companies wary about the subject.
• Money: The change to a home office business model requires investment in resources such as equipment and technology. This generates extra costs to businesses. 
• Conservatism: Many managers don’t know how to handle their team remotely, jeopardising relationships and trust. A research at Stanford University revealed that the promotion rate of employees who work from home is 50% lower than the ones that work at the office.

• Pros

Even though many people show difficulty focusing at home, many thrive when working away from the office. A study from the American Institute Gallup showed that employees working in home office are capable of producing the equivalent of 4 hours of extra work. Besides that, they show more engagement and satisfaction.

At Phillips, the annual gain in productivity grew from 4% to 5% with the implementation of home office, according to their management team.

Between Brazilian companies that are accepting of home office, 54% show growth in productivity with this practice. According to the organizers of the study, 71% of companies who offer home office describe it as “management based on results, rather than physical presence”.

Other benefits of home office:

• Employee Retention: Having alternatives ways of working, besides good salaries and promotions, it’s already a desire to many Brazilians.
• Absenteeism Control: Flexible work options (including home office), facilitate the life of parents who don’t wish to abandon their career. For companies, it can be a great solution for high absenteeism rates.
• Mobility Solution: In big cities, home office appears as an alternative to lower traffic, decrease lateness and increase quality of life for those who suffer from the stress of modern life.

Given these numbers and facts, now we ask you.

Are you against or in favor of home office?

And if you are an employee or company planning to try it out,  how about using Plooral to make it happen?

O post Home Office: Productivity’s Hero or Villain? apareceu primeiro em Plooral Blog.

The world has become automated. From grocery store checkouts to voice command Amazon orders, it seems everyday life is becoming more machine than human.

In the world of recruiting, this is also very true. Chatbots, applicant tracking systems, automated messaging, online assessments, and video interviewing are just some of the technologies widely used these days. And they provide value by making the hiring process easier to manage, and in turn, make our lives a bit easier.

But, here comes the record scratch…does this also benefit candidates and your efforts to engage and hire them?

Probably not.

Just think about when you have to call a “helpline” of any sort. You go through the automated prompts (“press 1 for account issues, press 2 for support issues, etc.”) and start feeling your blood boil prompt after prompt. You are relentlessly pressing 0 to get to a real, live, human being you can talk to. This same frustration already exists within systems and tools for recruiting, and as automation continues to overtake the process, this frustration from candidates will only increase as they scream: “Can’t I just deal with a human being?!!”

Take a look at your social feeds after searching “recruiters.” Let’s just say it’s not good, and that a lot of what is really being said under all the frustration is one constant message: “Treat me like a human being!”

Case Study: Flexion’s Hiring Process

One such company doing this very well is Flexion Therapeutics (headquartered in Burlington, MA). As a small business ( about 300 employees), Flexion has to make itself stand out from the competition. Julie Green, vice president of human resources, says their efforts to be less robot and more human have helped them to do just that — and beat their competition and receive around 5,600 job applications annually. 

Here’s what they did to make this happen:

1. Defined who they were, what they stand for, and presented it honestly

“We put a lot of thought into defining our values and building our company culture, and we want candidates to know what we stand for,” says Julie. Because of that, they started sharing behind the scenes views of what life at Flexion is like on social media and via live conversations with their network:

Flexion Named 2018 BBJ Best Places to Work

They also added this video describing Flexion’s values to every external job description in order to give potential job applicants a better sense of what the company is all about:

Flexion = Best Place to Work!

In creating these videos, Flexion was careful to ensure that the employer brand they were putting out there was an honest depiction of what it’s like to work at Flexion. “It’s important that the employment brand match the actual culture,” says Julie. “The worst-case scenario is that a company creates a false impression that doesn’t align with reality.”

2. Created more personal responses for every single job application

As the candidate continues to progress through the process, their communications become much more frequent and personal. “We want them to know we appreciate the fact that they are choosing to spend time learning more about us,” says Julie. “There are many companies out there, and I know we can’t take that for granted.”

3. Began reaching out to candidates proactively throughout the process and providing personal contact info

The Flexion interview process focuses on the human aspects of hiring, keeping the candidate’s experience in mind throughout.

“I tell candidates right up front that we will be there with them throughout the process,” says Julie. “I’ve been in their shoes and wondered, ‘It’s only been 3 days…do I call?’ I don’t ever want candidates to feel that way. I tell them if they have a question or want to know what’s going on to call me or email me anytime. And I mean it. We’re not perfect, but we try to keep them informed at each step of the process.”

4. Took the time to make rejections more thoughtful and useful

The HR team at Flexion takes time to consider how they should interact with candidates every step of the process, and not just the successful candidates. They think about the tone and type of information they would want to receive if they were on the receiving end of a rejection letter.

“Whenever possible, I try to share specifics with people so they understand why we went in a different direction,” says Julie. “I take the time to be more personal, because it’s the golden rule — treat others how you want to be treated.”

Final thoughts: Making the effort to be more human has paid off for Flexion

“The results have been incredible,” says Julie. “I immediately saw my network explode. I was connected to more people, and more people learned what an amazing company Flexion really is. We saw our direct applications to our website go from 9% to almost 40% in less than a year. This is real ROI.”

A lot of companies forget that a big (and vital) part of their “employer brand” is the candidate experience. I don’t care how great your content is or how amazing your careers site is, if the candidate’s experience doesn’t match the messaging, you will lose 100% of the time — and that’s a fact.

No one wants to be treated as a “transaction” — especially when it’s someone’s career we are dealing with. Flexion has benefited greatly from its human-centric approach, especially in a job market where that is getting exceedingly rare. Taking the time to be human can impact your recruiting and help you win.

With Plooral you can enjoy the best of both worlds! We automate every step of the process so you can spend your time creating memorable, human experiences, with your candidates, rather than spending it analyzing a piece of paper. Try it for yourself!

O post How to make your hiring process more human apareceu primeiro em Plooral Blog.

Imagine you’ve just spent months recruiting the perfect candidate. Their first day finally arrives … but they don’t. You’ve been ghosted. In case you’re not sure what “ghosting” means, Urban Dictionary has the answer:

And while it may sound like something that’s only relevant for dating or friendships, ghosting has crept into the employer/employee relationship as well. Companies across the United States are noticing promising candidates vanishing and employees walking out and never coming back. And this phenomenon is on the rise.

In the current talent market, candidates can afford to be picky about the opportunities they pursue, which means more work for you to make sure they show up on day one and stick around. 

But you needn’t be spooked by ghosts. To keep candidates engaged and interested at every stage of the hiring process, here are a few simple steps you can take:

1. The application process: keep candidates informed about where they stand to improve their experience

For candidates actively looking for a new job, there’s no shortage of opportunities out there right now. So if candidates apply to your company and don’t hear anything for weeks or months, chances are they’ll simply give up and look elsewhere.

Keeping candidates in the loop can be time-consuming, especially when you’ve got a lot of people to get back to. Luckily, you don’t have to write every response manually if you have an ATS. Sending automatic responses through your ATS is a simple fix to the application black hole. Even a short message lets candidates know their application has been received and you’re on the case. If possible, give them a rough time frame for the review process, inform them about next steps, and notify them if their application wasn’t successful. Even bad news is better than no news at all.

2. The initial outreach: if a candidate goes quiet, send a friendly, nonsalesy follow-up

If you’ve been courting a candidate through LinkedIn or email, you may be disappointed if, out of the blue, they stop replying. But don’t let their silence discourage you. The best candidates are fielding a lot of messages from recruiters, so it’s possible they’re swamped and they’ve just forgotten to respond.

Give them a reason to remember you. Sending a quick follow-up message never hurts, especially if it sounds friendly and organic. This isn’t the time for a pushy sales pitch.

3. The interview stage: shift the conversation from the company to the candidate’s goals

The interview is your best opportunity to find out if the candidate is a good fit for the role. But it’s also a chance for the candidate to decide if the role and company are a good fit for them. If they don’t have a feeling for that by the time you show them out, they may be less open to considering an offer.

By making your interviews less about the company’s goals and more about the candidate’s personal and professional development, you’re showing that you’re invested in their future. In turn, they’ll be more invested in your company, reducing the likelihood that they’ll leave the interview and never be heard from again.

4. The offer phase: establish a clear timeline to let candidates know when they’ll hear back from you

When the final interview is over, you’re faced with the task of choosing the best fit. After all that effort, this would be the worst time for your top candidate to ghost you.

The best way to avoid it is simple. Don’t ghost them first.

Establishing a clear timeline is vital at this stage. If you plan to have a final answer for your candidates within five days, tell them that immediately after the interview and then stay true to your word. If they’re invested in the role and know when they’ll hear back from you, they’re less likely to accept another offer first.

Candidates will appreciate knowing that you haven’t forgotten about them. If you just go silent, on the other hand, you can’t be surprised when candidates respond in kind when you finally reach out with an offer.

5. The first day and beyond: ensure your employer brand delivers on its promise

People sometimes ghost on jobs because it’s easier than having an awkward conversation about a change of heart. And often those second thoughts arise because the job or company didn’t live up to the expectations of the new hire.

Be honest about possible downsides of the job and tell candidates how your company is striving to improve. If your employer brand is transparent and accurate, your new hire will certainly be excited for their first day — and probably for most of the days that follow.

Ghosting goes both ways: keep candidates as informed as you want to be

Communication is a two-way street. While you’d never intentionally ghost a candidate, it is easy to do inadvertently when you’re busy. The more you communicate with candidates, the more they’ll communicate with you.

With Plooral you can keep an open channel of communication through our Email Campaigns and Direct Messages! The candidate receives and can keep track of everything through our Plooral App, making the communication instant and direct!

You can use these and many other advantages by including Plooral in your Recruiting Process. Facilitate and streamline your recruiting process!

O post Are your candidates not showing up? apareceu primeiro em Plooral Blog.

Marketing teams create engaging content with thoughtful messages in efforts to attract more customers. Recruiters should create engaging content with thoughtful messages in efforts to attract more candidates. 

Taking a digital marketing course will allow you to think of your recruitment function with the mindset of a marketer. It will allow you to trash the bad ideas faster, and double down on your good ideas.

Here are somethings you’ll be able to do better by learning the fundamentals of a digital marketing course. 

Candidate Journey

Marketers map out the customer’s journey to understand and improve their experience with the brand. Applied to recruitment, this can be a very effective way to understand your candidates better. That is, understanding how they hear about the company and how many times they interact with a brand before they complete the CTA (Call To Action). Candidates are doing a lot of research on companies before they actually take the time to apply. You need to think about how they are going to interact with your content, where they are interacting with it and ultimately how you’re going to convince them that you are worth their time. 

Storytelling 

Candidates aren’t reading your three-page job description. They are probably not watching all 10 minutes of that culture video either. Storytelling is so important in marketing. It’s equally as important when hiring. To tell your story effectively you’ll first need to figure out your Employee Value Proposition (EVP). You need to know what resonates with candidates and employees. Bringing someone into your company that specializes in this could be helpful, but if you don’t have the budget or resources you can take this project on yourself.

Landing Pages

When Marketing creates an advertisement for a product it doesn’t link to the homepage of their website, it directs to a landing page. The landing page is filled with very specific and targeted information designed to convince and convert the visitor to become a customer. These are separate pages on your career site that give specific information about a department, role, or even a location or committee/group. Before you go paying for ads on Facebook or LinkedIn, make sure you have the perfect place to drive that traffic.

Call To Action 

If you have a desired outcome then you need to have a clear call-to-action. If you want them to apply for a job, make sure it’s in the copy, with a link that brings them right to the application.  If you want them to join a talent community then don’t ask them to follow you on LinkedIn or Glassdoor, don’t ask them to apply, just give them the talent community form. 

Communication Channel

It’s mandatory to study and get to know your candidate’s profile, and part of this is identifying which communication channels are being used by most of them. Each channel has their own specific audience.

Our day-to-day is mostly digital, we go from app to app in the blink of an eye. That’s why, when creating your marketing strategy,  place all your bets in a single social media platform – or decide on the one you THINK is the most used.

To effectively make this decision, you have to run tests and analyze their results. Before this, there are essential questions to ask about your platform options:

What is the age range of Pinterest users? And of Facebook? Where are my competitors present? Do I have any competitors on Twitter? How are their interactions with their audience?

This is just the beginning! Have you ever heard of Recruitment Marketing? We published a piece on it recently, you can check it out and discover more reasons as to why you should start applying marketing strategies into your recruitment processes.

“Ok, but can Plooral help me with my marketing activities?”

Of course! We have tools to help you showcase your company’s brand and value. Our job board and platform is much more than a  “send us your resume and pray for an answer” option. Plooral lets your candidates know exactly what your company is all about, where they are in their application process and what expectations are required from them in their new position from the beginning.

Learn more about Plooral and explore your endless possibilities.

O post Recruiters need to learn about Digital Marketing? apareceu primeiro em Plooral Blog.