Challenge
When we first were in contact with UCB they were using 2 job boards directly but found that with increasing job board costs and a decrease in completed applications via their website they were looking for a new approach that could help reduce the requirement to advertise roles multiple times.
Solution
With over a decade of experience working with the education and public sector we were very familiar with the requirements for enhanced application forms in the sector, and the associated difficulties organisations face as a result. This, we felt, made us uniquely situated in our industry to assist UCB, initially by increasing their coverage from only 2 boards to over 10 of the most well known platforms in the UK and thanks to our economies of scale it was similar in price to what they were paying for just 2 platforms.
This obviously led to a huge increase in traffic for their vacancies and by extension an increase in completed application forms however our goal wasn’t just to increase traffic but also improve the percentage of completed forms as well. There are a couple of ways this can be achieved, one that is often overlooked is to write down the whole process for candidates at the end of the spec, which can help prepare candidates for the next step and they can ensure they’re ready to progress. The other way we improved completion was to capture candidate information and make a more personalised approach to them and help walk them through the process or just send them reminders throughout.
Conclusion
The team at University College Birmingham saw an immediate improvement in their completed application rate and as such saw an 80% increase in roles being closed after only 1 round of advertising, which considering the nature of some of their roles was a fantastic result for them. In fact they saw such success that we’ve been their exclusive recruitment partner for 3 years now, helping them close over 650 vacancies in that time.
