Competition for IT-experts is fierce. The law of supply and demand does not meet in the current recruitment market. The right talents are not easy to find, because there are more open positions than experienced professionals. But how have we succeeded in developing and creating an attractive employer brand during these challenging times?

CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE.

Successful candidate experience is the foundation of any successful recruitment. Putting an emphasis on clear communication and transparency during the recruitment process increases the candidate’s trust in that their application is read with thought and their time is appreciated. If the candidate is left hanging for months, if the recruiter forgets to answer emails or applications are simply accidentally left in the spam folder, the same candidate is most probably not going to apply later again – even if they could be a good fit for a role.

As anyone, recruiters might be very busy at times and have enough tasks on their plate, but candidate communication and keeping applicants informed about what’s happening with their application are things that a recruiter simply has to find the time for. At worst, a failed candidate experience can leave a terrible image of the company in the candidate’s eyes, and it could be pointless to dream of a new application from the same person, even years later.

Do you measure recruitment with data? We do so here at Anders and it’s worth it! We measure the success of candidate experience at all stages of recruitment. We collect feedback on the code test, our brand awareness, social media channels and the factors why people decide to send in their application to us.

Our 2020 candidate experience survey brought us awesome results; our candidate experience rating was 4,56/5 – an achievement that we are very proud of! We also noticed that factors such as culture, technologies and interesting projects were the main reasons why applicants wanted to join our talented and funny (one might say crazy!) community.

I want to give props to Anders on how they have handled this recruitment and that you took the time to inform me about what is happening during the recruitment process. I’m not really familiar with how much value you see in positive feedback, but most of the time IT recruitment doesn’t involve a lot of communication, to any direction whatsoever. I feel that you have succeeded in it. :) – Candidate

We aim to respond to every incoming contact and answer all applications as quickly as possible. Our recruitment criteria vary a lot depending on the season and upcoming projects, so in case we do not continue our recruitment process with you, we are happy to give personal feedback and development tips on your application. If the time is not right, but you are interested in hearing from us later, we will be happy to contact you at a later time.

Our recruitment process includes 3 different stages; First date with HR, technical interview & code challenge and last but not least discussions on employment details.

1) FIRST DATE WITH HR

During the first round of interviews, you will get to know a member of our HR team. Lunch, coffee break or a visit to our office? You decide! We give you the freedom to choose where to meet us. People are different and not everyone prefers to sit across the table in a conference room. A relaxed conversation at lunch can help to bring out your best traits and features – as opposed to a more traditional interview setting, which can be quite thrilling! (Even for recruiters!).On our first date, we’d like to get to know more about your personality, about your passions and future plans. What kind of career path would you be interested in at Anders?

(Note: during the corona pandemic, we primarily utilize remote interviews via Teams)

2) TECHNICAL INTERVIEW AND PRE-TASK

During the following round, you get to meet our technical experts who would like to learn more about your technical background and past working experience. We look forward to hearing about your strengths, what motivates you and in what direction you want to develop yourself in the future.

After this technical meeting, we usually send a coding assignment (depending on your seniority level). This code challenge helps us to evaluate your current competence level as well as outline your possible future role and responsibilities in our organization. This year, we’ve started using the CodeSubmit platform and applicants have given us only positive feedback regarding this new code review process.

If we are looking for experts to any other, non-technical roles, instead of the technical interview you will have the pleasure to meet our Country Manager and at least one of our business managers. We sometimes use pre-assignments while recruiting to non-technical roles too.

3) LAST DISCUSSION

Awesome, now is the time to discuss about the details of the job such as starting date, salary, and your preferred work tools. Our goal is to handle the entire recruitment process to the finish line as smoothly as possible in a reasonable amount of time, so that you could become part of our team as quickly as possible.

Linux, Windows, Mac? With us, you can choose your own work equipment and work environment. When stepping into our office on your first day, we have it all ready for you and our colleagues are looking forward to having lunch with you. Do you prefer working remotely? No problem – delivery of work tools and Anders branded clothing have been taken care of beforehand.

Get to know our recruitment team

During the recruitment process, you will meet Anna-Greta Marttila, our HR Business Partner. IT industry is close to her heart, and Anna wants to make your recruitment experience with us brilliant.

In addition to a successful candidate experience, we also want to provide an excellent employee experience during your first months with us already. We do that by holding probation period discussions 1 and 4 months after recruitment. The purpose of these is to keep to conversation ongoing regarding your first experiences, and to be able to support you at the right time and the right way, if needed. Your successful onboarding to the Anders team is taken seriously, and you are taken care of as an employee.

We feel that creating a great candidate experience does not end with the recruitment decision. After all, during the first few months Anders has the opportunity to fulfill the promises we’ve made and the picture that we’ve painted about our company during the recruitment process.

In this sense, the candidate and employee experience are naturally intertwined. The probation period discussions with our team leaders and HR are an important part of building trust and commitment in the beginning of the employment. Additionally, we organize coffee and game breaks as well as afterwork events often, so that new and old employees can get acquainted in a more relaxed environment. -Anna-Greta Marttila

Are you the next Andersian? Apply now!

Writer: Nani Laaksonen