The Phenom Blog

Articles to help you hire faster, develop better, and retain longer.

Phenom AI Day - Mahe Bayireddi presents at AI Day 2023

Kasey LynchSeptember 13, 2023

All Blog Articles

Customer Stories
Bringing Employee Experience to Life: How GE Plans, Engages, and Retains with Workforce Intelligence

General Electric Company — more commonly known as GE — is not just any electric company. From creating innovative kitchen gadgets to massive turbines that power entire cities, GE operates in industries like aerospace, renewable energy, manufacturing, finance, and more.

They’re also going through a well-publicized and planned segmentation of their 140 year old business, moving to create three individual organizations that will operate independently — focusing on the healthcare, energy, and aerospace market respectiv

As a result, their corporate office is shutting down, requiring thousands of employees to search for and apply to new jobs. Sean Murphy, Head of Global Talent Acquisition Operations at GE, shared more about this process, as well as the importance thefind new roles within the company through the use of Phenom’s Intelligent Talent Experience platform.

You can watch the full webinar on demand here, or read on for the highlights.

Creating a Great Employee Experience Amid a Company-Wide Separation

Murphy’s question to his Talent Acquisition (TA) team was direct yet complex: What do we do with all the talent who will be affected by this huge separation process?

Never in the company’s history has the TA team had to move such a large number of employees in such a short period of time — so they turned to the Phenom technology they’re already using, and iterated on it to create exactly what they needed.

What did they need?

  • Internal sourcing capabilities for recruiters to connect with and source talent, and find the right fit for all of these new and open jobs

  • Insight into what employees wanted: What they would like to do, what subsection they would like to work for, and how this would impact their families

  • Collaboration between recruiters and managers. Specifically, a way to combat managers’ fears of recruiters “poaching” their employees

The underlying goal through it all was to ensure they were bringing the human touch to their employees, rather than saying “Here’s a bunch of brand new jobs… good luck,” explained Murphy.

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A Solution in the Form of an Internal Talent Community

GE is currently using products across Phenom’s full platform — including Candidate Experience, Recruiter Experience, Manager Experience, and Employee Experience tools.

After assessing their capabilities (especially those that Phenom Talent Marketplace affords), Murphy and the team built an internal talent community that their employees could sign up for and then add their skills, competencies, job preferences, experience, location, and more. By enrolling in this marketplace, employees gain tailor

Because recruiters could be more specific about why they were reaching out to employees about a particular role, the TA team saw an increase in interest and response rates from employees; employees were more apt to engage with a recruiter and apply f

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The Phenom CRM played a big role in how the team actualized this.

For starters, recruiters were already used to using it, so they didn’t have to learn a new tool to start engaging with employees. Murphy’s team simply leveraged the same technology they were using for external candidates, eliminating the common roadb

“An employee can go to the talent community, submit the preferences they wish on a future job, their profile is coupled with their skills they’ve compiled in Workday, and all of that is presented to our recruiters in a nice tidy profile package in th

With a unified skills profile from their ATS and CRM, employees are getting job recommendations and filling out their profiles all in one place, while recruiters are automatically getting best-fit matches based on those profiles.

Results So Far

“The results so far have exceeded our expectations in many ways,” Murphy said enthusiastically.

Here are just a few of their successes:

  • Employee engagement has increased due to the easy communication channels they’ve established

  • Several thousand employees have gone through the internal talent community, leading to thousands of employee interviews

  • Updated employee profiles helped recruiters short-list potential candidates, and then skill-matching AI could be used to find best-fit employees for roles

“All of that, in my mind, is a huge win, because the more fluent our employees are with the tools we put in place to help them search and navigate their own career path, the more effective we all are at our jobs," said Murphy.

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GE’s Future

Looking to the future, Murphy and his team are excited to implement Phenom Intelligent Sourcing. Intelligent Sourcing gives TA teams access to millions of profiles, with the ability to filter for specific needs and pull them into the CRM.

This will allow GE to maximize access to the right candidates, regardless of whether they’re in the company, in the CRM, or in the wild. “We’re keeping a pulse on where our roadmap needs to take us next, and I think intelligent sourcing is right at the top of the list,” said Murphy.

It will help arm his TA teams with better, more efficient tools to cut down on time-to-fill, find great talent, administer more accurate assessments, and more. “This can supercharge our recruiter outreach ability.”

Takeaways

Murphy shared a few takeaways from the implementation of their internal talent community:

  • Leverage employee preferences as a guide to internal engagement. You don't want to just throw people into a job. You want to be thoughtful and purposeful, especially during an anxiety-ridden time.

  • Promote a culture of movement to simplify change management. This is imperative because you don’t know if or when a forcing function is going to happen, so you want to make sure employees are as comfortable as possible when it does.

  • Supplement data collection with data generation through a dynamic skills architecture. Employees don’t always provide as much info as you would like, which is why relying on a dynamic skills architecture is paramount.

To build your own successful strategy that builds upon employee skills, download our Workforce Intelligence Guide.

If you’re not sure what technology is right for your organization, take our 5 minute Workforce Intelligence Maturity Assessment.

Maggie BleharSeptember 7, 2023
Employee Experience
Cracking the Code: Explaining the Skills Gap and Its Impact on Careers

In today’s fluctuating job market, “skills gaps” have become an increasingly important topic in relation to employee retention and development. But what exactly is a skills gap, and why is it important? 

As industries continue to advance and respond to the economic climate, the disparity between the skills employers seek and those possessed by job seekers has widened, sparking the need to pay closer attention to the concept of skills gaps. Overall, t

Whether you're an individual navigating your professional path or an employer striving to build a skilled team, understanding the essence of the skills gap is a crucial step toward informed decision-making and future success. Keep reading to uncover

What is a Skills Gap? 

A skills gap refers to the mismatch between the skills and qualifications that job seekers possess and the skills and qualifications that employers require for a particular job or role. This disparity can manifest in various ways, such as a need for

The skills gap is often a result of rapid changes in technology, evolving job market demands, inadequate educational and training systems, and other factors that lead to a disconnect between the skills available in the labor market and the skills dem

Unlock critical insights by downloading our Workforce Intelligence Guide: A Skills-Based Deployment and Adoption Plan now.

The Impact of the Skills Gap

Although a skills gap may seem like a simple issue with potentially straightforward solutions, its negative impact can actually cause a ripple effect across your organization. Here are two unexpected results that can be caused by a large gap in skill

1. Stagnation of Career Growth and Employee Advancement

The skills gap can hinder individual career growth and advancement opportunities. Employees who lack the necessary skills to move up the career ladder may find themselves stuck in their current roles, and lack of visibility to which skills they lack

Additionally, with advancements in artificial intelligence technology and automation, workers will often need to hone or develop new skills to better work with technology — or even support new areas of the business. When it comes to employee developm

2. Struggles in Innovation and Competitiveness

Today, innovation is everything, regardless of the industry. Everyone is continually looking to the next big technological advancement to improve their lives. 

The skills gap poses a significant threat to innovation by limiting the availability of skilled workers who can contribute fresh ideas and perspectives. Organizations that lack the necessary expertise may struggle to adapt to new technologies and mar

Closing the Gaps With Workforce Intelligence 

Overall, addressing the skills gap is not just about meeting immediate workforce needs; it's about ensuring long-term economic vitality and sustainable growth for both businesses and society as a whole.

But historically, creating skills architectures that outline the capabilities of every individual within your workforce has been cumbersome and time-consuming. Plus, by the time your team finished, it was more than likely outdated. 

This is where workforce intelligence comes in. This emerging technology provides critical context that drives talent mobility and career development throughout the enterprise by offering deeper insights into supply and demand, skills gaps, and succes

Workforce intelligence is also used as the intellectual backbone of a talent marketplace — intelligently connecting talent with learning and development opportunities that help close skills gaps and create an agile workforce. 

By leveraging artificial intelligence and workforce intelligence, your teams can skip the manual work while unlocking a breadth of insights that evolve alongside your employees — ensuring you have up-to-date information that allows for more streamlin

Overall, artificial intelligence helps power workforce intelligence for HR leaders while a talent marketplace is the end solution that translates intelligent insights into actionable steps employees can take to progress in their careers. This unique pairing offers powerful solutions that positively impact numerous stakeholders within the business. 

Find out how your company can get started with skills insights and workforce intelligence by taking our Workforce Intelligence Maturity Assessment here.

Kasey LynchSeptember 6, 2023
Customer Stories
There Are Career Sites, and Then There’s Regions Bank’s Career Site

Recent research by EY on attracting talent to the banking sector is worth a deep dive to every CHRO in the industry.

The report asks all the right questions: Are we thinking creatively about how to source tech and data talent? Are we exploring a broad range of talent pools to identify candidates?

If there’s one financial institution that can definitively say “yes” to those questions, it’s Regions Bank, headquartered in Alabama and home to a workforce of 20,000 strong. Nearly 90% of associates say it’s a great place to work, compared to 57% of employees at a similar company.

What is it that makes Regions so admired by its people? Is it the brand or the culture? Ryan King, Executive Vice President and Head of Talent Acquisition, sat down with me on “Smarter” to share insights into his organization’s success. With a team of almost 60 recruiters across the company, King oversees strategic recruiting initiatives related

[Watch the full episode, listen to it on Apple and Spotify, or continue reading for the big takeaways]

From 5,000 to 7,500 Hiring Transactions a Year

Banks can’t compete for talent based on compensation alone. They must build teams, a top-notch culture, an effective learning environment, and help their employees grow technically and financially — according to separate research by Crowe, the global consulting firm.

The banking industry has long struggled to attract younger employees. Usually, retail banker wages and job requirements have been low, technical expectations are limited, and experienced individuals were prioritized over college graduates.

Crowe’s research showed a distinct shift in mindset, where companies now seek younger generations to increase technical proficiency and bring more diversity. In fact, two job areas in high demand at Regions are bankers (typically mortgage originators, corporate and commercial bankers, and wealth advisors) and professionals with technology and digital expertise.

Digital innovation is a distinct competitive advantage for Regions, which
comes in handy when there is more demand for talent than supply, as customers increasingly bank from anywhere.

Adopting an AI-powered intelligent talent experience platform in 2021 proved to be rocket fuel.

The company hired 15,000 people over two years (that’s both internal and external hires) after averaging about 5,000 annual hires previously. Time to fill has decreased by 10 days, completely transforming everything Regions does from a talent acquisi

This is a remarkably quick transformation for an organization that had, only a few years earlier, centralized the HR function. HR generalists were doing everything from benefits to compensation to talent acquisition. “As you start to prioritize those

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Elevating Recruiting

As Regions went through the discovery process for improving the candidate experience, King recalled questions he was asked about the existing environment, which consisted of a static career site with little to no dynamic functionality.

“What happens to all of the candidates who come to your career site? How do you keep in touch with them?”

King didn’t have an answer.

“Now we have a talent community,” he said. “We have ways to capture leads. We have talent marketing campaign capability so that we can continue to keep in touch with these candidates in hopes that they become applicants.”

Take a look at Regions’s career site and you’ll see what he means. Awesome graphics and plenty of photos. No mile-long list of open roles in sight. A chatbot pops up on the screen and says “Hi! Are you looking for a job?” There are 13 categories to choose from, including accounting and corporate banking, as well as the number of open jobs in each category. There’s something for everyone.

The five pillars of Regions’s corporate culture is spelled out right there on the career site as well.

Feedback is vital to an outstanding experience, so Regions actually asks visitors, “Please tell us about your experience exploring our career site.”

Why would a company go to such lengths?

Packaging an Employee Value Prop

“There are companies that spend millions upon millions of dollars trying to come up with employee value prop,” King explained. “We already had one. Now it's just a matter of taking that employee value prop and packaging it up into the right campaign

Within the career site are four micro sites. So if someone is a branch banker and wants to know what a day in the life of Regions is like, there are videos of actual Regions branch bankers doing their jobs.

The ROI?

Regions used to average about 6,000 applicants a month. After going live with the Phenom platform, that figure has now increased to about 14,000 per month. In fact, since the start of 2023, the company is averaging about 25,000 applicants. “That’s in

So is eclipsing 400,000 people in Regions’s talent CRM. I mean, that’s flat-out amazing when you consider that Regions is in a lower requisition environment. Then add career site visits going from 70,000 a month to more than 100,000 — more than 70% o

Sixty-six percent of visitors rate the site positively. Regions wants to raise that number to 85%.

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Certainly there’s always room for improvement, but I think that 66% indicates the moves that Regions has made.

Compared to other organizations, I’d say the company is doing pretty well, which is why I felt compelled to bring it up in the first place. It’s not for nothing that job seekers, whether they did or didn't have the outcome they wanted, still rated th

Connecting Talent to the Broader Strategy

One other important takeaway from my conversation with King is the quality of conversations he’s now having with other senior decision-makers in the company. He explained that TA professionals and HR partners at Regions are having more strategic and

Talent conversations around the boardroom table would usually get relegated to the back of the PowerPoint deck, King said. But now, “we're bringing that up to the first or second page because if you don't have a people acquisition strategy to achieve

Can you say the same in your organization? Are you “just” a TA partner, or are you a talent marketer too?

I’d like to hear how you made that transition, or if it’s still an aspiration. Maybe I’ll invite you to come on an episode of “Smarter” to talk about that journey. Let’s connect on LinkedIn.

Note to readers: Since this interview was recorded, Regions Bank reported sharply higher applicants and career site visits, which is why some of the figures in this blog are higher than the numbers disclosed in the video interview.

About Smarter

“Smarter” is a podcast where I engage with top experts and senior leaders to uncover the big people trends, unlock the insights, and listen for new ideas related to purpose, people, and the processes that work the best. Let’s get smarter together.

Jess ElmquistSeptember 6, 2023
Customer Stories
How ScribeAmerica Is Transforming Candidate Screening Experiences With Video

Are you spending time screening every candidate by phone one by one? With automated video interviewing software, your teams can speed up the hiring process while gathering an authentic impression of candidates and eliminating the need for time-consuming phone screening calls. 

At IAMPHENOM, ScribeAmerica’s Adam Jacoby-Rankin, Program Manager, Talent Acquisition, walked us through how using video has helped his team optimize collaboration, create better candidate experiences, and reduce time to hire. He was joined by Phenom

Read on to get the key takeaways from this inspiring session on the benefits of automation for hiring at scale. 

The Demands of High-Volume Hiring 

At ScribeAmerica — the world’s largest medical scribe company — the TA team makes roughly 2,500 hires per month to keep up with the demand for filling medical scribe job roles. According to Jacoby-Rankin, his team faced challenges related to time constraints, lack o

“We were burning a lot of admin time on low-quality candidates or no-shows. People either weren’t a good fit, or they weren’t interested once they got to the phone screening. We had a team of 40 coordinating phone calls, and there was no way to commu

In fact, in one month, those 40 team members spent a cumulative 225,000 minutes solely on screening and interviewing 7,500 candidates — about 15 to 30 minutes per session.

A contributing factor to the struggle to find top talent? “We had no candidate engagement tools. We didn’t have a career site, blogs, or chatbot. Candidates would just apply through the ATS and that’s where it ended,” Jacoby-Rankin explained.

That meant recruiters were stuck performing repetitive manual work coordinating and conducting phone screenings with candidates who really had no idea what it would be like to work at ScribeAmerica, or what the job role entailed. 

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At the end of the day, the candidate experience fell short of the company’s high standards: ScribeAmerica has a strong employer value prop and has garnered the Forbes Best Midsize Employer designation many times over. Jacoby-Rankin’s team realized th

Phenom’s Intelligent Talent Experience platform gave ScribeAmerica the career site capabilities it lacked to boost attraction and engagement — but it was Phenom One-Way Interviews (with video, audio and text-based screening capabilities) that was one of the biggest game-changers for ScribeAmerica’s TA teams.

Related: The State of Automated Interview Management: 2023 Survey Report

Why Is Video Becoming a Must-Have in the Interviewing Process?

Phenom is seeing an increase in the number of users asking for video capabilities, according to Newohner. “We had 2 million video assessments or interviews completed in the last year,” he said. “[Employers] are reaching a point where [they] need to i

In fact, recruiters typically spend just 2 to 3 minutes on average viewing each video assessment, compared to allotting 15 to 30 minutes for a phone screening. 

Beyond the dramatic savings in recruiter time and effort, video screening candidates helps employers get ahead while offering the following benefits:

1. Authenticity that transcends the cover letter

Saying goodbye to this old staple of the hiring process saves time for candidates and recruiters. It also guards against the emerging challenge of job seekers using generative AI to write cover letters that may not accurately represent their true abi

2. Faster and more informed decision-making 

In a high-volume hiring scenario where you get thousands of applicants, video helps define those who are truly interested and have learned about the position. This is something that ScribeAmerica has seen first-hand, Jacoby-Rankin said. “It allows us

3. A win with candidates who are already familiar with video content 

Just as recruiters appreciate getting an authentic look at job applicants, candidates like having the opportunity to showcase their personality. In fact, candidates rate the tool 4.6 out of 5 stars on average, Newohner said.

4. Enhanced collaboration among hiring team members 

When one-way interviews are part of a platform, they’re accessible for interviewing team members to view and share feedback in real time. That way, interviewers can quickly reach a consensus on which candidates to move forward instead of dealing with

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Video in the Hiring Process: What’s the Experience Actually Like? 

When a ScribeAmerica candidate applies for a medical scribe position, they immediately land on a video assessment screening page. But this isn’t a default setting

ScribeAmerica opted for this format because they find that candidates complete the assessment more reliably this way, Jacoby-Rankin said, and they leverage automated emails and SMS reminders for candidates who leave the screen. This decision is follo

  • End-to-end personalization. The assessment begins in a branded lobby that centralizes everything the candidate needs to successfully complete their recording. Critically, the Phenom tool allows recruiters to warm things up by creating a personalized intro and closing video. “I

  • Efficiency for all stakeholders. What do you need before you can run a video assessment? You need the right questions. With Phenom X+, Generative AI helps recruiters draft contextually relevant questions to be completed by applicants via One-Way Video Interviews. Recruiters can pre

Related: Electrolux Group Digitalizes Key HR Processes for Distinct Hiring Edge

Spotlight on Results 

Just six months after implementing One-Way Interviews in the form of video assessments, ScribeAmerica tracked show-stopping improvements that led to faster hiring and more strategic decision-making: 

  • 30,000 assessments completed 

  • 40% adoption by candidates

  • ⅓ fewer unnecessary interviews conducted

  • 24-hr completion rate by 80% of applicants

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Watch the entire session on demand here.

To discover how One-Way Interviews can fast-track your screening process, book a personalized demo with our team today.


Jenn ThomasSeptember 29, 2023
Recruiter Experience
How to Streamline the Interview Experience For Candidates

Does your hiring process focus on the candidate and creating a phenomenal experience for all job seekers? This is an aspiration for many, but time and again organizations are falling short in their execution, ultimately suffering the consequence of l

Let’s dive into how to best streamline the interview experience so organizations can improve collaboration, communication, and efficiency — and so candidates, even if they don’t end up with the job, still leave with a positive view of your company.

Walk in Your Applicant’s Shoes

Many candidates are either looking for a change of scenery or pursuing more growth opportunities — 76% to be exact. This is why getting off on the right foot is crucial. In today’s market, candidates have plenty of organizations to choose from. In selecting their next landing spot, they’ll want transparency as it relates to:

  • What the interview experience and process will look like from application to offer

  • Who they’ll be meeting with (recruiters, interviewers, hiring managers, etc.) and what to expect from each interaction

  • How to adequately prepare for each engagement in order to put their best foot forward

  • Feedback on how to improve their interviewing skills

Furthermore, a candidate’s time is valuable. The best talent may only be on the market for days, versus weeks or months. This means the process should not only be clearly laid out, but should flow seamlessly — and this is where AI and automation can help. Course-correcting measures to address the unexpected (e.g., interview scheduling conflicts) should be streamlined and minimally disruptive to all stakeholders.

Remember: Often, the fastest hiring process will win the war for talent; the competition will gladly capitalize if you’re taking a clunky, sluggish approach.

3 Ways to Reflect On and Optimize Your Current Interview Process

Now that we’ve looked at things from the candidate’s side, let's dive into the elements that make an interview process suboptimal. This will make it easy to pinpoint the areas that need the most improvement in order to create a better interview exper

1. Centralize Your Communications

Most candidates expect instant updates and a streamlined communication process, yet they’re often forced to bounce between phone calls, emails, their voicemail box, text threads or messaging apps to get updates. This can be exhausting to keep up with

If you don’t have open and organized communication channels, it’s time for an upgrade.

By introducing a Candidate Hub, you can provide applicants with a one-stop-shop that provides real-time updates on interview progress and eliminates the ambiguity that exists between an application being submitted and an offer being extended. Centralin one place eliminates the need for candidates to bounce back and forth between different communication streams to know where they currently stand.

And because Candidate Hub is powered by AI, it allows for personalized communications to be delivered to candidates, providing them with contextually-relevant information that sets appropriate expectations, outlines the next steps, specifies the inte

2. Automate Interview Scheduling

All too often, recruiters serve as a conduit between candidates and the hiring team to manually schedule interviews — juggling constantly changing availability from multiple stakeholders. Not only is this a time-consuming process that reduces recruit

If your interview scheduling process is primarily manual, adding AI and automation to your toolkit will change the game.

When automation is put into practice for interview scheduling, organizations can drastically improve how they arrange time to evaluate potential hires — whether for one-to-one interactions or panel discussions. With AI Scheduling, advanced algorithms match recruiter, interviewer, and hiring manager availability with candidate preferences, ensuring efficient scheduling while eliminating the need for prolonged email exchanges that slow down an already complex and multifaceted

3. Fine-tune How You Provide Feedback

Everyone who commits to submitting an application and interviewing with a company is taking a risk by spending time preparing for events that could amount to nothing. At the very least, organizations should recognize the time and effort being expende

However, many organizations fail to communicate at all. In fact, 0% of Fortune 500 companies communicated application status to candidates after the initial confirmation that their application was received. Companies that do communicate often relay feedback after the final interview, doing so with varying degrees of detail and consistency. At the end of the day, candidates should be able to walk away with concrete takeaways to be accounted for the next time they’re bein

When a single platform is being used for screening, scheduling, interview exchanges, and hiring decisions, it makes it possible for data and context to be gathered and enriched as a candidate moves from one stage to the next. This holistic approach m

By introducing intelligence and automation into your interview process, you can reduce manual steps, speed up processes, and create better outcomes for your business and the talent it’s trying to attract.

Incorporate Intelligence into Your Interview Process

No matter which aspect of the interview experience you have plans to improve for candidates — communication, scheduling, or feedback — you won’t be able to do it as effectively without incorporating AI and automation into your approach. In combinatio

  • Streamline how you schedule interviews

  • Improve transparency by recording the conversation

  • Enable your team to share personalized feedback

  • Reduce the number of interview rounds

  • Decrease time-to-hire

Interview Intelligence is part of a holistic hiring intelligence solution that was designed to optimize the way organizations interact with candidates during the hiring process — creating better experiences while improving hiring outcomes.

Request a personalized demo today to see how Interview Intelligence can transform the way you interact with candidates at the most critical stage of the hiring process.

This blog is the final installment part of a five-part series that is dedicated to improving the way organizations approach the overall interview process to create better candidate experiences, improve hiring team collaboration, and reduce total time

John HarringtonSeptember 29, 2023
Recruiter Experience
6 Companies Successfully Using AI in Their Recruiting Strategies

Using artificial intelligence technology in the recruitment process is essential for companies to stay competitive — especially in the current labor market.

AI can help recruit top talent, streamline and personalize the application process for candidates, enhance the employee experience through skills matching and job alerts, save recruiters time to focus on other important tasks, and more.

Our CEO and co-founder, Mahe Bayireddi often says AI is like oxygen. “It’s everywhere, and it’s essential to filling open roles with incredible talent and retaining them for the long haul.”
However, many Fortune 500 companies are lacking when it comes to their use of AI in attracting, engaging, and converting talent. In fact, 89% scored poorly in this area according to the 2023 State of Candidate Experience Report.

Adopting AI to help reduce time to fill and connect TA teams with quality talent shouldn’t be difficult — and with the right technology, it isn’t.

Check out the following six companies that are successfully using an AI recruiting platform, and learn just how they’re doing it.

1. Electrolux

Multinational home appliance manufacturer Electrolux Group faced a talent shortage last year — and “in times of labor shortage, it’s essential to stay ahead of talent market trends,” said Anja Ullrich, their Global Talent Acquisition Director. To keep a competitive edge, the TA team recognized the need to d

To overhaul almost their entire recruiting process, they needed an AI-powered platform that could keep up.

The powerful combination of a hyper-personalized external career site, internal talent marketplace, active talent community, talent CRM, and automated campaigns functionality empowers their recruiters to nurture leads by sending relevant content targ

With the help of the platform’s AI-driven fit scoring, candidate matching, and one-way interviews, recruiters and hiring managers can improve the screening and selection process for better fits, faster. If candidates do apply and qualify for an interview, automated AI scheduling removes the time-consuming back-and-forth — expediting the process

Since implementing this comprehensive AI-powered platform, Electrolux has seen:

  • 84% increase in application conversation rate

  • 51% decrease in incomplete applications

  • 9% decrease in time to hire

  • 20% recruitment time saved using one-way interviews

  • 78% time saved through AI scheduling

This “is the right [technology] for proactive talent pipelining, both inside and outside the company,” said Ullrich. “It’s critical in the HR technology landscape and allows us to evolve.”

Read the full story: Electrolux Group Digitalizes Key HR Processes for Distinct Hiring Edge

2. Cigna

Cigna, with a highly skilled workforce of 70,000+, had a major challenge: it was easier for employees to use LinkedIn to find a new position at Cigna than to use the company’s job board. On any given day, they’re hiring physicians, attorneys, pharmacwithout employees having to find another company.

To do so, they leveraged the same holistic Intelligent Talent Experience platform they use for external hiring to unite efficiency through AI and automation — resulting in an incredible experience.

With their talent marketplace, they were able to “build a tool that created an ecosystem for us, not just for people to find their next jobs, but to actually grow within the company, build a network, and build mentorships. We’ve retained employees th

"Gone are the days of employees posting for a role they’ll never get because they’re just trying to fish and find anything,” she added. “The AI behind it helps employees find jobs they never would have found before. It's giving them suggestions on jo

Six months into this implementation, Cigna has seen:

  • 60% of employees with completed profiles in the talent marketplace

  • 50% of employees updating their skills and interests

  • 24 skills per employee and 33,000 unique skills across the organization

This increase in internal mobility has benefited the company as a whole by strengthening its skills base and retention. “Combining those skills keeps employees engaged, invigorated, and continuing to grow within the company [rather than] looking outs

3. Kuehne+Nagel

For far too long, the employee experience has been often overlooked by companies. Global logistics leader Kuehne+Nagel, however, knows that an incredible employee experience is a major factor that drives retention and increases ROI.

To ensure their employees were satisfied with their work and given opportunities to evolve, Kuehne+Nagel turned to AI for their internal recruitment strategy to help cultivate career growth and internal mobility options for their people.

Leveraging an intelligent talent marketplace — AI-powered technology that’s built to connect employees with learning and development opportunities — they were able to market open jobs to employees, personalize job recommendations, and provide recruiters with a smart tool to find quality talent

Through a talent marketplace, “our own recruiters turn into internal head-hunters and proactively search for, pre-screen, and reach out to employees with job opportunities that could be of interest to them, before searching for external candidates,”

"Like this, we are able to build a strong talent pipeline, offer hiring managers the best available candidates, reduce time to hire, and create an all-around better — even unique — employee experience.”

After just 2.5 months of implementing this AI technology, Kuehne+Nagel:

  • Increased their conversion rate for internal candidates 22% overall

  • Decreased their time to fill for internal requisitions by 20%

  • Achieved a 74% employee satisfaction rate with the experience

Read the full story: How Kuehne+Nagel Empowers Employees To Own and Grow Their Careers

4. Brother International Corporation

Brother International Corporation — a premier provider of home office and business products — needed a better way to market their brand and attract talent. So they set out to use AI to promote their brand and in turn, attract quality candidates.

What they needed — and fast — was a career site that could showcase their authentic employer brand, personalize job recommendations to candidates, and host a conversational chatbot that would serve as site visitors’ first introduction to the company.

After their new and improved career site was up and running, they adopted a new CRM to help screen passive candidates and capture qualified leads, and they relied on artificially intelligent talent analytics that automatically applied data insights to optimize apply options for candidates.

Without this AI platform, Brother’s recruiters “wouldn’t be capturing any leads from the chatbot, similar job subscriptions, or partial applications. This type of efficiency is extremely helpful, especially for our higher volume positions in sales an

After just three weeks of their career site rebrand and launch of new AI recruiting tools, Brother achieved:

  • 140% increase in completed applications

  • 45% increase in total page views

  • 40% increase in job seekers

  • 15% increase in returning job seekers

  • 25% decrease in time to fill

The truth is that when you’re hiring for one position, a large percentage of candidates will walk away without the job. But by using an AI recruiting platform to create an amazing candidate experience, they won’t forget your company or their desire t

Read the full story: How Brother International Corporation Increased Completed Applications 140% with Rebrand

5. Stanford Health Care

It’s hard to visit a website without being greeted by a conversational chatbot these days. But, successful chatbots are those that can help employers provide a stand-out experience for candidates and give TA teams the ability to deliver personalizati

This is exactly what Stanford Health Care set out to achieve with their artificially intelligent chatbot, which has streamlined and simplified the candidate journey to allow candidates to complete the application process at their convenience — and right from their cell phones if need be!

What else does their chatbot do?

  • Provides relevant job matches. The chatbot takes candidates through a few questions, then suggests positions that best fit their skills and experience.

  • Makes applying easy. If a job candidate can’t complete the application process in one go, the bot allows them to pick up where they left off at any time.

  • Communicates through the CRM. When the bot captures candidate details and the position they’re interested in, that information gets passed along to the CRM where recruiters can pick up communication from there.

  • Answers and forwards FAQs. Any question asked by a candidate also gets sent to recruiters so they can follow up with that candidate personally.

Not only does the chatbot save recruiters hours of time, but in only six months, it garnered a quarter of a million interactions. It also drove 35,000 unique visits, 11,000+ candidate leads, and 12,000 apply clicks.

Finally, by using insight from the chatbot, the team was able to proactively address issues that typically would have resulted in calls and emails to HR from confused candidates. As a result, support tickets in the recruiter queue have dropped from a

Read the full story: It’s All About the Bot: How Stanford Health Care Connects with Candidates

6. Thermo Fisher Scientific

Many organizations meet talent demands by buying talent. Pressed to fill critical roles or fill skills gaps, employers pay a premium to acquire employees — many of whom turn over quickly, leaving the organization back to square one.

But not Thermo Fisher Scientific. They set a goal to fill 40% of their open roles with internal talent by 2024 — and they’re well on their way to accomplishing that.

How are they doing it? Through:

  • An internal talent marketplace that highlights a variety of opportunities, including open job roles and learning courses

  • AI-driven career pathing recommendations

  • Automated campaigns to generate excitement and engagement with the platform

  • A talent CRM to source internally as well as externally

All this technology lives in a centralized platform — the same platform they’re using for their external recruiting. This technology is built on a foundational AI model using an ontology of roles and skills to rapidly create career progressions. The

“When you show employees that using the platform helps them grow and develop, that’s the best mechanism to keep enthusiasm going,” said Amy Ritter, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at Thermo Fisher.

Read the full story: How Thermo Fisher Scientific is Filling 40% of Roles Internally

Let AI do the heavy lifting when it comes to your recruitment strategy. AI-powered technology can save recruiters hours of time they would have otherwise spent on administrative tasks, attract quality candidates to your talent pool, and boost employe

If you’re looking for more ways AI can work for you, download The Definitive Guide to Artificial Intelligence for Recruiting.

Maggie BleharSeptember 28, 2023
HR Experience
The Consequences of Ignoring Skills Data in Organizational Success

Organizations are increasingly recognizing the pivotal role that people play in their success. 

Now that we can quantify the data and make strategic, tactical decisions based on them, more and more organizations are asking their HR teams to bring greater transparency into: 

  • Who their employees are

  • Employees’ aspirations

  • How employees can help achieve business successes

So what has changed? The ability to easily aggregate and visualize organizational and individual skill data. This data serves as the cornerstone for understanding individuals within an organization, unleashing their potential, and driving sustainable

Lets dive into why skills data is critical for organizational success — and the consequences of not integrating it into the workflow of your employees, your people managers, and your HR teams.


Organizational Triumphs: People, Baby!

People are the heart and soul of any organization. They’re the ones creating cutting-edge technologies, streamlining processes, and developing innovative solutions to problems. 

But to ensure the business continues growing and achieve lasting success, organizations must invest in and support employees who possess the ability to foster innovation, forge meaningful collaborations, and gain a competitive edge. 

Consequently, comprehending the diverse abilities, experiences, and aspirations of individuals is crucial for effective management and sustainable growth. Luckily, we now have an easier way to achieve this for everyone that plays a role in an organiz

Related: Get the Official Guide to Building a Skills-Based Deployment and Adoption Plan


How Employees Flourish through Skill Awareness

Unveiling employees’ unique skills opens up a world of transformative benefits. 

It empowers them to identify their strengths and areas for growth, paving the way for personal and professional development. 

A LinkedIn report has shown that 94% of employees express a desire to stay longer with an organization that invests in their career advancement. When armed with a clear understanding of their skills, employees can make informed decisions about career trajectories, ta

Moreover, self-awareness regarding skills instills a sense of confidence and empowerment, allowing employees to articulate their value within the organization, ultimately leading to heightened job satisfaction and motivation. 

Many organizations are leaning toward solutions that have an easy way for employees to see recommended skills, add their own skills, and, most importantly, take actions on their skills — whether it means to help build a career path and trajectory bas


How People Managers Thrive with Skill Insights

People managers hold the key to unlocking the immense potential within their teams. By truly grasping the skills of each employee, managers can make well-informed decisions regarding task allocation, team composition, and training initiatives. 

According to Deloitte, organizations that integrate skills data into the everyday workflow of people managers experience an increase in employee performance. 

This is done by having insight into: 1) individual employee skills, 2) an aggregate of team skills data and gaps, and 3) recommendations on how to leverage data to support their employees and team. And this information needs to be readily available d


How HR Revolutionizes with Skills Proficiency and Trend Analysis

Human resources departments are at the forefront of talent acquisition, talent development, and workforce planning. Profoundly understanding individual employee skills empowers HR professionals to make strategic decisions in these areas. 

The World Economic Forum estimates that by 2025, 50% of workers will require reskilling. HR, armed with skill data, can proactively address these changes by developing reskilling and upskilling programs tailored to the evolving skill landscape. 

Tools that support workforce planning, succession planning, and skills gap and trend analyses help HR teams identify key people, roles, and job families in the organization that need attention. This data-driven approach to workforce planning ensures


Understanding People and Leveraging Skills Data are Vital for Organizational Success

Without real-time people data, succession planning efforts suffer, hindering the identification and development of future leaders. And without data-driven insights into emerging skills requirements, organizations may face skill gaps and struggle to a

To empower employees, drive performance, and fuel innovation, organizations must invest in capturing and leveraging skills data to optimize talent, adapt to changing market demands, and foster a culture of growth and engagement. By embracing it as th


Find out how your organization can leverage workforce intelligence to grow, evolve, and retain talent — get your
personalized assessment and action plan.

Lora Kantorovich Headshot
Lora KantorovichSeptember 25, 2023
Talent Experience
Employer Branding vs. Recruitment Marketing: What’s the Difference?

Employer branding and recruitment marketing are both essential strategies for establishing stronger connections with job seekers. Although they are similar and overlap in some ways, it's important for organizations to understand the intricacies of ea

So how is employer branding and recruitment marketing different, what are the benefits, and what approaches should organizations take to get started? Let’s break it down.

Employer Branding vs. Recruitment Marketing

Main Goals For Employer Branding

Employer branding primarily concerns the reputation and perception of an organization. Having a successful employer brand is about creating a positive and attractive image of the company in the eyes of current and potential employees. It encompasses

A few ways to create a successful employer brand include:

  • Define your Employer Value Proposition (EVP): What do you offer that makes you unique and attractive to potential employees?

  • Understand your current brand perception: Conduct surveys, focus groups, and online research to understand how your organization is currently perceived as an employer.

  • Re-evaluate and identify opportunities to continue growing the brand: This can be through social media channels you haven’t used before or marketing campaigns that are different from the norm.

  • Highlight employee stories and/or testimonials: Share authentic stories from your employees about what their experience is like working at your organization.

  • Collaborate with HR and marketing: Ensure close collaboration between your HR and marketing teams to align employer branding efforts with overall company branding and marketing strategies.

Main Goals For Recruitment Marketing

Recruitment marketing is a subset of employer branding that is more focused on the strategies and tactics used to attract and engage potential candidates during the hiring process. Recruitment marketing involves the use of various marketing technique

Successful recruitment marketing looks like:

  • Engaging, hyper-personalized career site optimization: Ensure that your career site and application processes are easy-to-use, personalized, and mobile-friendly, since a responsive design is crucial for keeping candidates engaged.

  • Clear content marketing: Create and share informative and engaging content (e.g., video, emails, SMS messages, social media) related to your company, industry, job roles, and career development.

  • Effective recruitment events: Host in-person or virtual career fairs, webinars, or information sessions to engage with potential candidates.

  • Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) implementation: Make sure you have a CRM tool to manage and nurture relationships with potential candidates and identify best-fit talent quickly (including passive job seekers), even before they apply for a job.

In general, employer branding is a long-term strategy that aims to shape the company's image as an employer over time. It considers how the organization is perceived by current employees, potential candidates, and even the general public. Recruitment

Related reading: 350,000 Candidates for 28,000 Open Roles? The Power of Life Time’s Employment Brand

Audience For Employer Branding

When creating a strong employer brand, organizations must market to current employees, potential future employees, customers or clients, and the general public. It's about creating a positive image of the organization as a whole in a way that the majority of people can relate to and envision themselves engaging with.

This is why creating a successful employer brand can take time and resources to execute effectively. It’s an ongoing effort that extends beyond the immediate hiring needs and requires continuous investment in building and maintaining the organization

Audience For Recruitment Marketing

Recruitment marketing is time-sensitive, and focused on the job seekers and candidates who are actively looking for employment opportunities at your organization — both externally and internally. And it’s important to keep in mind that your employer all recruitment marketing efforts.

Attracting and engaging candidates who are interested in specific job openings or who would like to make a change internally is what recruitment marketing is all about. That’s why having a personalized career site that can deliver tailored job and co

Related reading: 5 Features to Look for in the Best Recruitment Marketing Platforms

As you're considering updating or revitalizing your employer branding vs. recruitment marketing — or both —, it's important to evaluate and identify your end goal and desired audience. Both are important for talent acquisition and retention, but they

To dive deeper into employer branding vs. recruitment marketing, check out our Definitive Guide to Recruitment Marketing.

Maggie BleharSeptember 21, 2023
AI
Regulating the Future: A Conversation on AI Legislation

AI has been revolutionary in many ways, but without an understanding of the laws in place to regulate its use, organizations put themselves at risk.

Josh Goren, Senior Director of Contracts and Legal Compliance at Phenom, joined us on Talent Experience Live to share his knowledge on the rules and regulations that govern the use of AI. Learn about emerging legislation affecting the use of AI in HR and Goren’s advice for staying out of “trouble” in applying this technology.

Get the highlights below, or watch the full episode right here.

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AI is in our lives in many forms these days, from work-related applications, to art, entertainment, and online shopping. Generative AI (GenAI for short) specifically has been on the rise, but with this mass adoption comes the need for guardrails to e

How have you seen AI used irresponsibly?

In his own field, Goren has seen lawyers use GenAI to write their legal arguments. In at least one circumstance, the judge questioned the lawyer about some cases cited in a claim. “As it turned out, the Generative AI had just simply made up the cases

“That’s a pretty flagrant terrible use of GenAI,” he added, as well as a great example of why we always need humans in the loop to keep tabs on the AI they’re using. This type of fabricated information known as “hallucinations” in the world of AI is

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What type of legislation is emerging to regulate AI?

Currently, more than 100 jurisdictions are drafting and implementing rules and regulations, Goren said. “It’s a hot topic, and it’ll affect people all around the world in various industries.”

New York City Local Law 144 (NYC 144) is perhaps the most prominent piece of legislation regarding AI and HR practices. The law, which took effect in July 2023, requires that employers perform a bias audit if they are using automated employment decision tools (AEDTs) to guide their hiring decisions. An AEDT, as defined by nyc.gov, is a computer-based tool that uses machine learning, statistical modeling, data analytics, or artificial intelligence to substantially help with employment decisions.

“The law is attempting to eliminate bias in hiring practices that may stem from such tools,” said Goren, adding that there had been a certain amount of resistance on the part of tech vendors and some companies. However, “companies should be auditing their hiring processes regardless,” he pointed out.

Why the pushback? Cost may come into play if companies don’t want to invest in any new infrastructure necessary to implement the auditing process. “But I see that as being pretty shortsighted — the cost resulting from lawsuits and claims about biased

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Although NYC 144 applies only to companies within the city’s borders, it’s worth taking note of for any employer using an AEDT, Goren said. He used the EU’s GDPR laws regarding data privacy as an example. When GDPR went live, the requirements technically only applied to European companies, but he made sure Phenom brought practices into compliance with them.

Laws like these serve as writing on the wall for what’s to come, he noted. In fact, several other localities are considering implementing similar legislation. “It’s always best to be in compliance with the law, because this is going to be a growing t

What are some positive trends you’re seeing in AI?

Used correctly, generative AI makes a great assistant. In fact, Goren said he uses it to help him structure his thoughts and find information for presentations more quickly. The caveat? AI’s role should remain as assistant, not chief creator. Think of those lawyers mentioned earlier as a cautionary tale.

Then there are the fun ways to use it:

  • AI image generators

  • AI-generated entertainment like the comedy skit featuring “Tom Brady” (which in itself is a bit of a cautionary tale, considering Brady is suing the creators)

  • AI-generated songs

In the realm of HR, a positive use case for AI is its ability to alleviate talent acquisition and talent management professionals of administrative tasks like manual sourcing, screening, and scheduling so they can focus on more strategic work and rel

Related reading: Introducing Phenom X+: Generative AI for HR

What are your key takeaways on AI regulations?

“With any technology, get to know it first. Don’t rely on it completely,” Goren said. “Remember the episode of The Office where Michael blindly followed GPS right into a lake? You don’t want to be the lawyer citing fake cases, and you don’t want to d

“We’re in the infancy of Generative AI, and there’s obviously a ton of unknowns about the potential consequences of its use,” Goren said. “Never completely rely on it … make it a tool that enhances your work, and make sure the output you’re getting i

If you want to go a step further and dig into Phenom’s data models powering HR technology, impact and use cases of AI across industries, regulatory compliance, and integrations that streamline data into models, you can view AI Day, Phenom’s annual AI tech showcase for HR, right here.

Maggie BleharSeptember 19, 2023

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