Like many organisations of its size (a national staff of 320), The Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind's (RNZFB) strategy is to minimise cost by managing recruitment in-house - with area managers making most placements themselves. Traditional employment agencies are rarely used.

Although the Foundation has low staff turnover by industry standards, recruitment for some specialist skills requires a focus on attracting talent from overseas, and fundraising manager Jeanette Manson says the foundation needs to be seen by applicants as an employer of choice. "When it comes to hiring staff," she says, "we're vying for the same talent as highly-funded corporates and health agencies - so we have to position ourselves competitively."

The Foundation is also keenly focused on building its talent pool, says Manson, with graduates from physiotherapy, occupational therapy, nursing and veterinary disciplines required for specialised roles in the service areas of Orientation & Mobility (O&M) and Techniques for Daily Living (TDL).

As the Foundation prides itself on being technologically advanced (important in a sector where technology can be a great enabler for the blind and vision-impaired), Manson says the StaffCV online recruitment solution appeared to be a good fit for the organisation - enabling it to continue managing recruitment in-house while adding enormous value in admin cost-savings, data management and sharing, candidate short-listing and future-proofing by building a valuable talent pool.
 
Speedy Deployment

The Foundation's recruitment site was designed by StaffCV and ready to launch within two days. Complicated staff training was not an issue says Manson, as a day in training had users competent on the system.

"It's very intuitive," she says, "and because it's Windows based it's very similar to most of the applications we're already using." The first job posted online (an HR Officer) attracted 77 applicants. Interestingly, only 41(53%)of these met the 'must have' criteria set by the Foundation, and were returned automatically by screening filters - saving valuable staff time from the get go.

In addition to staff time and efficiency, Manson estimates using the new recruitment site saved the Foundation $14,000 in employment agency fees for its first two placements. Savings have also been accrued in advertising, communications (email versus postage, phone calls), time involved in opening and responding to applications, the automatic preparation of required written correspondence, and most significantly, the time saving in actually comparing applicants to achieve an unbiased, quality shortlist.

Faster short-listing

Manson says the HR team was impressed with the standard of applicants returned in the search and the ease at which a quality shortlist was found. Shortlisted candidates were emailed a request to complete an online 'More Information' form that asked targeted questions such as salary expectation and degree of previous HR experience. This information was used to further shortlist, identifying the most suitably qualified candidates. Ultimately, the whole process of hiring a new HR officer took just two weeks.

Applicants Feel Valued

The Foundation was keen to know how job seekers felt about applying online. "In order that our recruitment process was a good fit with the expectations of our applicants," Manson says, "we asked all short-listed candidates what they thought of the website and application process." The responses were unanimously positive. Candidates reported that the process was a fun, easy and enjoyable way of applying for a job. What appealed to them most, she says, was the "equal opportunity" aspect of knowing they were providing the Foundation with exactly the information required, rather than putting a CV together and "hoping it was what they were after".

Psychometric Profiling Made Easy

Early in the process, candidates were also invited to complete an online psychometric work-preferences based profile. A known 'star performer' within the Foundation was also invited to complete a profile, so that a measure of the degree (via a simple percentage result) to which shortlisted candidates aligned to the 'Star's' profile could be calculated.

Candidates were also ranked according to the essential job goals of a 'Human Resources Assistant' as provided by StaffCV's integrated O*Net data (a comprehensive database of 950 jobs and associated job goals). Each candidate was scored by their 'fit' to the HR role with a percentage result. The insight gained from work preferences profiling has been invaluable, says Manson. "We can now easily distinguish between people with a good skills fit and those with good cultural fit. That's not something you can easily pick up just from a CV".

Thinking Outside The Square

While the Foundation was assessing the recruiting solution for its job placement needs, another exciting application for the software came to light. Manson says StaffCV also offered a perfect match for the needs of the fundraising division to better manage volunteer and collector data. The division will soon be able to collect information from people wishing to be volunteers and collectors, such as name, contact details, preferred dates/times/streets/areas for collecting and friend/family referrals. Manson says the system is a very cost effective way to reach and secure new collectors for appeals.

The benefits to the Foundation of collecting this information in an online interactive environment include the ability to create geographic search filters for national collections, and communicate with large groups of people very inexpensively via email or SMS (mobile phone) texting, before, during and after these important fundraising events. Having all the data in one place for future use is a key advantage, as is the ability to keep in touch with RNZFB volunteers and collectors year round with email messages and news items. "We've been very impressed with the software," says Manson, "and I think the StaffCV process is extremely valuable to the Foundation"

May 2003