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Online perception and recruitment reality
Retailers have spent a lot of time and effort building efficient, time-saving online application systems to aid their recruitment functions. But are some poorly considered systems actually driving applicants away? Calum MacLeod reveals the results of a major new survey that suggests a serious rethink may be in order for some businesses.
"This is the easiest, most efficient way to sell our products and these are the products we would like to sell. We're not sure if either matches what you, our target customers, actually want, but if you're really committed to shopping with us we're sure you'll adapt." The adoption of this attitude towards the consumer is fairly close to retail suicide. No organisation, regardless of its size and apparent strength, can afford to ride roughshod over the views and desires of its customers. Nor would they want to, save for an inexplicable delight in abject stupidity.
However, it is a stance not dissimilar to that described above that many retailers may well find themselves adopting inadvertently in their dealings with an important group: job applicants, specifically job applicants applying online. Until they sign on the dotted line, these potential employees are in a very real sense a retailer's customers - internal customers if you like; the only difference being the product they are buying, or buying into, is the company itself.
Many if not most retailers understand that the drain upon the talent pool within the retail industry has intensified year-on-year, with competition for the most able professionals fierce. In order to address this issue they spend a large amount of money trying to attract the right calibre of candidate, investing thousands in the development of their recruitment brand. Therefore it is something of a pity that the means by which the application is handled might actually be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Plainly stated, retailers are losing potential employees because of their online application process. This is not conjecture, it is fact.
The internet affords a myriad of fantastic options for recruitment personnel to make the application more efficient and less time consuming. Rather than waiting for posted applications to arrive via 'snail mail', days can be saved through the use of online application systems. Furthermore, these systems can very often incorporate a number of filtering processes to weed out unsuitable candidates - thereby saving further manhours.
However, for many, these time/labour savings are coming at what is surely too high a price - the loss of candidates, a lot of candidates. In retail's war for talent, too many companies are suffering heavy losses from friendly fire. And why? Because they have not employed the same rigorous analysis of the processes dealing with these internal customers as they do with those targeting regular shoppers.
A couple of months ago The Appointment initiated a survey to gauge our readers' views of, and experiences with, online applications. The results of the poll, which returned close to a thousand responses from across the industry, are really quite sobering. From our results it is evident that while the industry may feel that its recruitment systems are working well, the gap between perception and reality is pretty big.
Of our respondents, 92.5% had completed an online job application. Of this nice healthy percentage, a whopping 82.9% had started an application but not finished it. As you can see from Table 1, the three highest ranking reasons why these professionals failed to complete the applications are all a function of time. Almost half of all respondents just got fed up and gave up because the online application process simply took too long.
If we look at the figures illustrated in Table 2 (below), comparing the time candidates had taken to complete with the amount of time they would ideally like to spend, the problem is highlighted. From the survey data it's clear that the distance between the applicants' ideal time commitment and that which they are being asked to undertake is considerable.
Where only 15.1% of respondents have taken ten minutes or less, almost 40% (38.8%) chose this as their ideal amount of time to complete an online application. If we add in the next time bracket up, the gap widens further with 32.6% having taken up to 15 minutes, against 66.3% stating that 15 minutes was the longest time they would prefer to spend. A full 83.9% of survey respondents indicated that 20 minutes would be the limit of their preferred time commitment but only 51.2% had completed their applications within this period. Even allowing for the fact that some people will take longer than others to complete a form, it's evident that retail candidates are looking to employers to shorten their online application processes.
The real knockout punch, however, comes when we look at the number of people who would be put off from applying as a result of an overly long application. The figures illustrated in Table 3 should be burned into the brain of every retail recruitment professional in the UK . A full 74.5% were either very likely or quite likely to be put off applying if it took longer than they felt appropriate. So for all that money spent on marketing, advertising and brand building companies are risking the loss of three quarters of applicants because of their recruitment mechanisms.
There may well be recruiters out there currently jutting out their chins while thinking "Well, if they can't be bothered to complete the process they obviously don't want to work for us enough." No, no, no, no, no. There simply isn't room for this level of arrogance: you just can't dismiss such a large percentage of candidates as no-marks.
To do so takes us back to the suicidal retail model outlined at the very beginning of this article. Indeed, adopting this attitude is rather like opting to display point of sale materials displaying the message: "Waiting for long periods in a queue is part of shopping with us - if you aren't prepared to wait we suggest you shop elsewhere." This is a message probably not heading to a store near you, so why should such standards be acceptable in recruitment? There will be a lot of good people signing up with someone else because of a system that could be easily fixed. Web software and systems are, happily, incredibly flexible.
Even if you are convinced that your online processes are right, why not go and find out for certain, just to be on the safe side? Take a look at a couple of key statistics, the most important of which would be a comparison of the number of candidates who started an application against the number who finished it. If there is a large disparity, maybe it would be worth considering a change of approach. Just as a little extra incentive, 50.1% of survey respondents stated that being asked to complete a long online application would have a negative impact on their opinion of that company.
The 12.5% of respondents whose reasons for not completing the applications fell into the 'Other' category not only indicate some of the alternative issues but also the levels of frustration candidates experienced. Some 'highlights' include: "the layout didn't make sense and was not user friendly"; "the site wasn't Mac friendly so had to give up as what I entered wasn't saving"; "too long and daft pointless questions that prove nothing other than creative writing skills", and one particularly unhappy candidate remarked: "It's a SERIOUSLY tedious exercise when you can e-mail a CV and covering letter within seconds".
No one is arguing against the use of internet-based recruitment processes - they have been and continue to be a fantastic aid to the HR profession. Their use and influence are only likely to increase over time. However, they need to be used advisedly, their effectiveness needs to be monitored constantly and they need to reflect the preferences of their users. Understandably most systems have been designed with the benefit to the recruiter in mind. This is fine but should not come at the expense of alienating the applicant.
One final, sort of related point. People do not like the 'computer says no' experience of rejection. A whopping 91.7% of our survey respondents declared that, irrespective of how they completed the early stages of their applications, they expected to be informed of their success personally. Just something to think about...
