Consistency is key

At the heart of recruitment is the idea of comparative assessment. Numerous candidates – sometimes running to hundreds of people, all unique in their qualities and skills – must be judged against each other to find the best fit for the job. Effective recruitment practices need to preserve an understanding of that human individuality, whilst still making rigorous comparison, using consistency and objectivity to guide the process.

That can be hard enough to do for just one recruiter. But when you have a whole team of recruiters working together, how can you ensure that they are all ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’ (or as we say in Dutch, de neuzen dezelfde kant op krijgen)?

The simple answer is: effective measurement, benchmarking and training in order to make sure the teams’ approach to interviews is consistent and fair, in both style and content.

Facing challenges in the real world

The problem is, training and performance assessment are incredibly resource intensive, and for large-scale recruitment firms operating across dispersed geographical sites, this can be a real challenge. Indeed, this was exactly the challenge that faced one of In2Dialog’s potential client. With recruitment operations being undertaken across 19 different sites and only one formal trainer, the company was finding it impossible to allocate enough training time to ensure the consistency they needed from their recruitment team. It was simply impossible for their trainer to review, critique and refine the performance of dozens of recruiters, collectively undertaking hundreds of interviews every day.

Driving better interview oversight to deliver better interview outcomes

Fortunately, In2Dialog was developed with exactly this challenge in mind. While the core function of In2Dialog is to streamline and improve the interview process by recording, recapping and generating AI-augmented reports and metrics for greater individual candidate insight (and thus more objective and accurate comparison), it also delivers a significant added benefit: it aids management of the recruitment team by applying the same analysis and metrics to the interviewer, not just the interviewee. Management and trainers can then use this to gain insight into the way their teams are working; their similarities and differences, their strengths and weaknesses.

How? In2Dialog gathers metrics on the interview style of each team member, discovering the average length of engagement, the rate at which each recruiter extracts key details, the type of questions they’re asking, the dimensions of their speech, and the match and flow they maintain with each interview candidate. Managers and trainers can tally this data with the outcomes achieved by recruiters to identify not only who their best performers are, but what specific elements of their practice contribute to that success.

And In2Dialog allows managers to take this one step further: they can use these metrics to create benchmarks that other recruiters can then orientate their performance towards. Because In2Dialog can deliver this feedback with every single interview, this means all team members can engage in a process of constant incremental improvement and refinement. And most crucially, this can all be done without a trainer or manager ever needing to be present on-site or in-interview: everything can be managed remotely. In2Dialog even generates recommendations for improvement based on research-based best practice.

Delivering Real Results

The company we engaged with considered the benefits as game-changing:

  • They perceived the possibility of saving 50K for hiring an additional full-time sales trainer
  • They realised that they would save 20-30 minutes admin time per interview

Their head of training was able to gain insight into and oversight of their interviewing process across 19 different sites, allowing them to then use their in-person training time strategically to target the weakest areas and performers, whilst still ensuring that recruiters across all sites were getting the feedback they needed to constantly improve.

All this sits alongside the foundational benefits delivered by In2Dialog. Every team member saved time writing reports and freed themselves from the distraction of notetaking, allowing them to focus more on their candidates. The organization as a whole streamlined communications, ensuring greater objectivity, consistency, and clarity in reporting, which led to better collaborative decision-making.

Additionally, management was able to improve organizational interview techniques collectively, making more efficient use of their training team. Overall, In2Dialog was a crucial tool in raising recruiter performance, satisfying clients through improved outcomes, and enhancing the company’s competitiveness in the market.