Talent Cloud Results Report

Back in 2017, before we launched the Talent Cloud staffing platform, we put together a list of 20 assumptions that we had about time to staff that we wanted to test. These were areas where workshops indicated there might be ways to save some time. While not everything we tested was useful (and there were a few hypotheses we didn’t get a chance to test), here’s the list of what proved valuable in reducing time to staff in our experiments.

Our Top 5: Larger Impact

• Integrated Priority Screening: Working with the Public Service Commission, Talent Cloud was able to consistently reduce the time to staff required for this step to zero days by developing an integrated priority screening process that ran concurrently with other steps in hiring on the platform. Managers reported that this saved them approximately a month in their usual timeline. (For a full write-up, see Integrated Priority Screening in this section of the report.)
• Redesigning the job advertisement to reduce application volume: Talent Cloud worked to reduce the volume of mis-matched applications by giving applicants more information about the job. By democratizing access to this information, Talent Cloud gave applicants more responsibility for deciding whether they thought they would be a “fit” for the job, reducing screening burden on managers and improving applicant experience. (For a full write up see Optimizing the Volume of Applications in this section of the report and Research Section 2: Optimizing the Talent-to-Team Match.)
• Assessment planning support: Talent Cloud provided hiring managers with an online tool to create a custom assessment plan that was pre-populated with the essential and asset criteria in the job advertisement. This provided a single place to develop questions, attach assessments to skills, and write the rating guide. Managers and HR advisors could both edit the plan, and rearrange information according to their preference. For example, managers usually liked things arranged chronologically, so they could plan their calendars around upcoming steps, whereas HR advisors preferred to organize information by essential and asset skills, and their corresponding assessment method(s). We estimate that this tool (and the nudges in it) reduced time to staff by approximately 2-6 weeks. (For a full write up see A Tool for Assessment Planning in this section of the report.)
• Screen in real time: In mid-2020, Talent Cloud released a feature that allows managers to begin assessing their candidates once the advertisement goes live. The early results suggest this could reduce time to staff by anywhere from 2 weeks to several months, as managers reported higher enthusiasm levels for sorting applicants as they came in, reducing procrastination. Managers felt that evaluating a handful of applications a day was much more manageable than receiving them all at once, and they were excited to see who had applied each day. This speed in the initial screening phase also helped managers to retain top talent by making their initial contact with high quality candidates more quickly.
• Applicant screening tool, with pre-sorted applicant categories: On Talent Cloud, managers are able to view applications directly on the Applicant Screening Tool, and found their applicant pool pre-sorted into veterans and priorities, Canadians, non-Canadians and those applying with skills below the required level. Both managers and HR advisors are also able to sort and comment on applications (each through their own portal), reducing email-based conversations by introducing a central platform (which also tracks time). We estimate that the introduction of this tool was able to reduce the time to staff by 2-4 weeks (See A Tool for Applicant Tracking in this section of the report.)

"Small changes to platform design can add up to big impacts in results."

2 Worth Doing: Moderate Impact

• Support for creating the job advertisement: While the time leading up to a live job advertisement happened before the clock started on our target of ~30 days (plus security clearance), there were still weeks to be saved here for managers and HR advisors. Optimizing the choice architecture on the platform and providing a tool to help with crafting job advertisements resulted in several weeks of time savings for managers. (For a full write up see A Tool to Build Optimized Job Advertisements in this section of the report.)
• Nudges to keep things moving: Talent Cloud built in a series of nudges to encourage managers to move swiftly, including automating nudges, like email reminders about how many days until top applicants might start seeking other opportunities, and showing managers and HR advisors how many days have passed since their advertisement closed when they log into their portal.

3 to Consider: Lesser Impact

• Rethinking merit criteria: While this didn’t impact time to staff overall, it was an important consideration in optimizing the hiring result. Through testing with live processes, we identified an optimized number of selection criteria, and encouraged managers to target this. This resulted in a more focused assessment plan that took less time to complete, and contributed to managing the volume of applications. (For a full write up see Optimizing the Number of Selection Criteria in this section of the report.)
• Alternative approach to reference checks: Reference checks often get tagged on to the end of a hiring process and can take days to complete. Talent Cloud gave candidates the option to provide “micro-reference checks” as evidence to substantiate their claims during the application process. Micro-reference checks were only used a handful of times. We still see potential to reduce time to staff by up to a week, but this will require further work with HR advisors to develop tools that they feel confident are as valuable and rigorous as traditional reference checks.
• Collecting supplementary information early on: We identified supplementary information needed for later steps in the staffing process that could delay the employee's start date, and provided nudges to encourage candidates to start gathering this information earlier on. This included encouraging applicants to fill out their security screening forms and have them ready, and request out-of-country police checks early on. Applicants were also prompted to have copies of things like their education credentials ready. Qualitative data showed employees that started collecting this information after submitting their application reduced time to staff by 1-2 weeks, but this is a very limited sample size.