Setting up Your Recruitment Team for Success — Our Hiring Process
Stoiximan/Betano occupies more than 700 talented professionals across 6 different countries. It goes without saying that we consider our people as our biggest asset and making our way as one of the GameTech industry rising stars, is nothing less than our people’s success story.
Attracting, hiring and retaining exceptional talent from around the world and across disciplines, is not an easy quest for today’s job market though.
With employers pulling out all the stops to attract the best candidates, from speeding up the hiring process to personalizing job offers, every new hire might feel like a win by itself.
In this article, you can have a glimpse of how we’ve set up our Talent Acquisition team and operational flow, as well as our efforts in designing an engaging and solid Recruitment Process, hoping that you will find some useful tips for your team as well.
Stoiximan/Betano Talent Acquisition Team — The journey so far
As a developing start-up company, we used to rely on fast-paced hiring processes supported by HR Generalists in order to be able to keep up with the increasing hiring needs and so, initially, recruiting great talent was a responsibility shared between the HR Generalists and a Talent Acquisition specialist dedicated to tech recruitment. As the company grew and, evidently, invested in creating in-house centres of expertise across divisions, such as Trading, Services and Marketing & Communications, the need for more specialized professionals arose. As such, the need for a dedicated team of Talent Acquisition Specialists to sustain the company’s expansion and headcount growth has emerged, to better service the hiring needs of the different departments and create employer branding and acquisition strategies to sustain the business growth.
Reflecting the demands of a developing business, our Talent Acquisition team is now formed and consists of 3 Talent Acquisition Specialists, a Talent Acquisition Coordinator, an Employer Branding Specialist and α Head of Talent, servicing holistically our recruiting needs in Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Portugal, and Brazil.
The Recruiting Process
We respect candidates’ time and energy and put a lot of our focus on the candidates’ journey by having two important aspects in our minds when it comes to evaluating candidates’ skills and competencies:
- The most accurate assessment practices
- The most efficient way to implement them
Hiring is a process that requires considerable time allocation and energy. Thus, in order to identify and assess the right talent for the organization in a timely manner, we work closely with the hiring managers to create fast and meaningful hiring processes as well as assessment strategies. Recruiting is a joint effort between the Talent Acquisition team and our business partners and working together in identifying developmental opportunities, growing our expertise and improving our results empowers and motivates us every day at work.
In addition, as an Agile-oriented company, cross-functional hiring teams are the key in making the best hiring decisions. This is why not only HR evaluates the candidates but a mix of different stakeholders from hiring managers, team members, Human Resource Business Partners, to our C-level, with our Talent Acquisition Specialists orchestrating and playing a vital role in the overall process.
For the majority of open vacancies, the hiring process consists of 3 stages which often begins with “Hello you” and followed with a warm “Welcome aboard”. Nevertheless, being advocates of agility and always investing in continuous improvement, we frequently evaluate and adjust the process per case and role in order to meet the rapidly changing needs of candidates and stakeholders.
Responding to the new Covid-19 reality for example, we have switched our operations and processes to “online mode”; as such, all interviews are conducted via phone and video conferencing tools across all interviewing stages. In few cases, where the hiring process has to accommodate the assessment of the candidates’ technical skills, new tasks and business cases were prepared and implemented along that direction.
But lets through our typical hiring process:
1st Stage — Know your Candidate
The scope of the first interview is to acquire a clear understanding of the candidate’s experiences, skills, competencies and aspirations. At the same time, an important part of the candidate’s journey is to make sure that enough information about the role, the team and culture is provided in order to create clear expectations to the candidate and contribute to the smooth onboarding and retention of the potential new employee.
Meeting someone for the first time, already feels quite anxious, doesn’t it?
Empathy is one of the attributes of a good Recruiter, and as we understand how stressful interviews can be, we are dedicated to making the candidate feel comfortable from the very first moment. For example, we engage with candidates in light and pleasant initial discussions, offer on-premises tours around our offices when possible and invest some time to present ourselves and our roles within the company. Candidates feel more confident having a good understanding of their potential employer and to whom they are talking to, making them more engaged and open for discussion.
Additionally, throughout the process, we want our candidates to have a tangible view of how life at our organisation is. For instance, it is quite common to have a coffee in our cafe, or even lunch for interviews that tend to last longer. On remote interviews instead, we might share with the candidate a video of our offices, corporate events, team bonding activities, hackathon, etc.
2nd Stage — Assess Candidate’s Knowledge, Skills and Competencies
The aim at this stage is to assess the hard skills of candidates, as well as explore together how they could apply their experience skill-set in the role at hand. Some of the techniques we’ve adopted include role-playing, ad-hoc presentations, business cases, technical assignments, white-board programming sessions, data analysis tasks etc.
This is a very important stage in the process, as it allows the Recruiter and Hiring Manager to not only evaluate candidates’ technical skills but also have a clearer view of the candidate’s personality and team fit. Does the candidate have active listening skills? Is she/he positive in receiving feedback? Does side by side work on a daily basis feels right? These are some of the aspects that are being revealed during this stage.
3rd Stage — Evaluate Overall Fit
At the final step of the recruitment process, the short-listed candidates have a more personal and in-depth discussion with the leadership of each team/department. At this stage, we fortify our decision for the best hire while we ensure that the candidates have a holistic impression of our team, culture and what the role requires.
Responsiveness and transparency is a very important element of the Recruitment and Interviewing process. Our candidates always receive a response with regards to the status of the recruitment process, or the result of their candidature whether the outcome is positive or negative. Valuing and respecting your candidates’ time and effort, as well as providing feedback is the minimum respect and appreciation towards their candidature. Following that belief, we are always available to answer any questions the candidate has and provide feedback.
Upon successfully completing the hiring process, job offers are delivered via phone and email while our new colleague enjoys a smooth onboarding process.
Talent Acquisition Coordinator is a Recruiter’s Best Supporter
The Recruiting Coordinator provides essential operational support to the Talent Acquisition team, allowing the Recruiters to focus their efforts on more strategic recruiting activities.
The coordinator organises our interviews by managing most of the scheduling and communication with the candidates on a daily basis and provides essential support to the Recruiters by acting as a quality keeper for the candidate experience. We recognise interviews can be stressful, so the Coordinator provides guidance and ensures that the candidate receives all the necessary information prior to each interview and caters to the logistics to facilitate them as smoothly as possible.
The role of the Coordinator also acts as the first point of contact for candidates and works closely with the interviewers to pin down interviews in a timely and convenient manner. The coordinator also makes sure, together with the Talent Acquisition specialists, that every candidate is left with a straightforward and positive impression of our organisation, regardless of the candidate screening process’s outcome.
A company is only as exceptional as its people and a solid recruitment process is imperative to onboard exceptional people.
Remember that top candidates are evaluating you as much as you’re evaluating them, so it’s important to prioritise candidate experience, as well as offer them the appropriate working environment, conditions and the opportunities they need to grow professionally and develop their career.
We hope our story will inspire some positive change, whether you’re building your recruitment process for the first time or optimizing a current one.
Authors: Vasilis Roufanis, Kalliopi Zambafti, Fay Siafleki, Maria Besiri
