Optimization

Time has come for me to write a bit about the 3rd aspect I consider to be vital in order to succeed as a one person recruitment team, namely Optimization. I would say that what I have already written about in Part One and Part Two contributes to exactly that, optimizing the process, but there is still more that can be done.

Optimization to me means not doing unnecessary things. For example stripping back the recruitment process to only contain the necessary steps, not being too much of a perfectionist (and being willing to let things go) and so on. All of that and more fall into the category of optimization. And optimization takes time, so I wouldn’t say I have done that much optimizing yet. I’ve only been at Toca Boca a short while. However, I have done a similar job before, so I have some lessons learnt I can apply already.

Lessons from the past

One of the things I learnt working at TV4 is that it is near impossible to get someone to write a blog post. Getting someone to prioritise employer branding content is not easy. Therefore I’m taking a new approach to this here at Toca Boca. Rather than writing a big long blog post, we will create short snippets to be published on our LinkedIn company page only. So for it’s going well, and the first post was published last week.

Only the future can tell if this is a better approach than a full blown blog post, but my guess is that it is.

Lessons from the present

Despite not having been at Toca Boca too long, I have learnt some lessons in this short period of time. One of them is about scheduling interviews. As you know, if you have read part one & two, I use Calendly to schedule the phone screens. But once a candidate passes the phone screen it’s time for me to schedule interviews with the hiring managers.

Even when recruitment is a priority, most hiring managers have more than this on their agenda. Meaning that scheduling interviews might be a bit tricky. Not just finding time in everyone’s calendars, but making sure no-one is overwhelmed with the amount of meetings.

What works best for me is to decide from the beginning how many interviews a day is reasonable (this might differ from person to person) and how many days ahead to book the interview (it might not be very nice if I on the Monday afternoon schedule an interview for Tuesday morning). If the hiring manager and I can agree on this from the beginning, things will run smoothly.

Sourcing in you ATS

One thing I have never done before is properly utilizing the ATS for sourcing. Your ATS is basically a big database of people who at one point, or more, has expressed an interest in your company. There might be people who previously failed the test, but what’s to say they haven’t improved since then?
There might be people who took a job elsewhere, what’s to say they still like it there?

Seeing as we are looking for quite a few game developers at the moment I have gone through all our old applications to see if there is anyone in there with potential. I can tell you there is. The great thing about reaching out to these people is that they are already aware of who we are, and what we do. So far have only identified potential candidates, and will spend some time together with one of our senior developers going through them, before reaching out.

Time blocking

The more time that passes in this assignment, the more things I have to do. I have realised I will need to start managing my time better if I am to succeed. I can be a little bit like a headless chicken, running around trying to do everything all at once. This doesn’t work in the long run.

One thing that I have started doing a little bit is time blocking. This means you block time in your calendar for a specific task. There are a few re-occurring tasks that I will try to have an allocated time for. These are:

1. Checking e-mails. My inbox is my todo-list. If it’s in my inbox, it needs action. Therefore I always start my day going through my inbox and making my plans for the day thereafter. Recently I have found I don’t always have time for this so I with time-blocking in mind, I will block 30-60 minutes each morning for this specific task.
2. Checking the ATS. I have a love-hate relationship with applications. I love getting a great one but get really annoyed when getting too many crappy ones. But, always on the hunt for that great applicant, I can’t help myself checking the ATS multiple times a day. There’s really no need for that. I’m gonna limit myself to checking the ATS 2-3 times a week, at a set time. Time-blocking sorted.
3. Creating content. Using a social media tool helps me plan and schedule our posts for LinkedIn. I love this part of my job, so I might sometimes give this priority over something else. Something that might be more important. So, in order to avoid this, I will set up a block of time for me to do this once a week.

There are a few things I can’t schedule in advance, like interviews. But it’s also difficult to schedule creativity. I will need to keep air in my calendar and be open to moving my predefined time-blocks around, for when creativity strikes (e.g for writing job ads).

Time-blocking is new to me, but I know there are people out there who swear by it. I will give it a go and see how it works for me.

Lessons for the future

As mentioned above, optimization takes time. There are lots of things that can be optimized and improved that I haven’t yet come across, or looked at. What will help me is remembering to ask “why?”. Not just asking other people, but also asking myself “why am I doing this this way? Is there a better way?”. The truth is, most of the time there is. I just haven’t thought of it yet.

So I’m gonna keep on experimenting, keep on trying new tools, new ways of doing things. My processes will be under constant change.

So what have I learnt about myself these past couple of months?

• I care far more about GDPR then I’ll ever admit
• I’m passionate about candidate experience
• Automation is king.
• I absolutely love my job!

There is no such thing as a “one person recruitment team”

I might be the only one at Toca Boca with title to include the word “recruitment” but being the only recruiter doesn’t mean I can take all the credit for everything to do with recruitment. For example, we have what I consider to be an awesome pre- and onboarding process created by our People Operations Manager Lina Persson. And everyone at the office is helping out with ideas for content, answering the questions for my interviews etc. Everyone is involved. So I am not alone.