CASE STUDY

CA Technologies

CA Technologies improved candidate experience by improving application review processes and responding to every applicant.

ca.com/careers

“No one likes rejection, but the fact that I know someone actually looked at my application and responded (good or bad) is amazing and a true statement to the desire for exceptional customer service.”

~ CA Technologies Job Applicant

OVERVIEW

The purpose of this operational change within recruiting was to ensure that every candidate that applies for a role at CA Technologies either receives an email or a phone call response. Thousands of applicants annually were being ignored, and with these staggering numbers an initiative needed to be put into place to ensure that we closed the proverbial black hole and that every candidate, whether qualified or not, would receive at least an email advising them of our decision. This effort has markedly improved the perception of our process by candidates.

• 100% of applications now reviewed by a human • Responses sent within an average of 3.5 days • 60 hires made from pool of previously missed applicants

HOW CA TECHNOLOGIES SOLVED THE JOB APPLICANT BLACK HOLE

CASE STUDY

CA Technologies

CHALLENGES

In a year, CA Technologies receives an average of 100,000 applications to our requisitions, of which only 12% were being reviewed. The majority of applications received are not relevant to the roles being applied for, which discourages the Talent Acquisition Team from reviewing every single one, as this would take away from them finding qualified candidates and filling the roles.

This created a bad candidate experience, and detracted from the brand we are striving to embody. We were therefore unable to fully realize the ROI on marketing investments.

HOW WE DID IT

We resolved to build a team in India to perform application screens of all candidates that apply through our applicant tracking system. This would ensure that each and every candidate that applies for a role receives a response, thus heightening the candidate experience and ending the so-called “black hole” when they apply for a role online.

The Talent Assessors would then review for a match to the minimum requirements of the role, pushing those who match the requirements and disposition along to our recruitment delivery center and sending those that do not match email inviting them to join our talent community so we can keep track of their careers and remind them of other positions when they are available. Today we have three Talent Assessors - an annual cost of less than $20,000.

We’ve outlined our process in the three simple steps below.

CA Technologies CASE STUDY

STEP 1: Evaluate the Need

Every brand has different needs for applicant review based on number of applications received per year, ATS functionality, difficulty for filling average reqs, etc. We asked ourselves the following questions to evaluate the needs specific to CA Technologies:

• How many applications are lost to the HR black hole in our organization? • How long will it take for a Talent Assessor to review an application for basic requirements? • How many full-time people will that require over the course of a year? • Does the value of decreased time-to-fill and increased quality-of-hire exceed that of the Talent Assessor team

investment?

Leadership roles must also be considered in the initial planning and investment calculations. Who should lead this team, and do they have the bandwidth? We found this to be an opportunity to give transitional responsibility to a talent acquisition team member seeking leadership development.

STEP 2: Create Operational Standards and Governance

At CA Technologies, we started building our Talent Assessor program with a Candidate Disposition Guide. This document lays out global and regional standards for rejecting candidates at each stage of the application and interview process. These guidelines have been established for internal, referred, and external applicants.

The Candidate Disposition Guide includes the following standards:

• Disposition Flow Chart - Americas • Disposition Flow Chart - Asia Pacific • Disposition Flow Chart - Europe, Middle East & Africa • Disposition Flow Chart - India • Applicant Tracking System Templates • Guidelines for Disposition Conversations

The document also establishes a governance model, as it applies to which role is responsible for making disposition decisions and sending rejection communication to the applicant or candidate at each stage.

STEP 3: Implement and Train

As with any new process or program, adoption success depends entirely on the execution of change management. Recruiter buy-in is crucial to the success of a Talent Assessor program. Through carefully crafted messaging, we ensured our recruiters understood the value of the program and how it would improve their own personal metrics and help them better achieve their business goals. After affected teams were provided with all information about the new program, we began sending weekly adoption updates and reminders about the importance of the new Talent Assessor process; this helped to quickly establish engagement.

CASE STUDY

CA Technologies

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RESULTS

Every application now receives a response, whether positive or a rejection. This is completed within an average of 2.5 days, with that number trending down since the implementation of the team. The team has worked on over 25,000 applications. There have been 60 hires from this pool of candidates that previously may not have been reviewed. It is also helping us identify the right areas of investment from a marketing channel perspective based on the assessment of candidates received from each one and their progress in the recruitment process. With their introduction we have been able to curtail our sourcing spend in certain areas, freeing up dollars for branding initiatives.

WHAT WE GOT WRONG

The initial training of the Talent Acquisition team was limited and there were candidates identified by the Talent Assessors as qualified, but were not being reviewed by the Recruitment Delivery Center. This KPI was monitored and measured weekly, and the Recruitment Delivery Center team was trained on the value. The initiative is now wholly embraced and implemented as a part of daily business.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

When every applicant is reviewed and receives a response, candidate experience improves. We receive kudos from candidates weekly on the process and the results of our survey data bear this out. We are also uncovering candidates who are a good match that may not have otherwise been in play. Finally, we are better determining which channels our best candidates are funneling through and able to save money on sourcing by focusing marketing and branding areas in the right places for the best ROI.