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Catalyst | Digital
Applicants use a headset to travel
between virtual ‘rooms’ where they
are set real-life work tasks. “It shows
how applicants make decisions – their
potential rather than their pedigree,”
explains Adrian Love, recruitment
director for UK and Ireland. “One
room could look at how they might
work as a coder, but without a coding
test, so it’s looking at problem-solving
skills and how they apply logic in that
environment.”
Gaining a sense of people’s
aptitudes means hiring managers
can see how they might be able to
train them in other skills further
down the line, he adds. “The virtual
situation shows how they act in the
moment, what their approach to a
particular issue might be, how their
mind works as an indicator of their
future potential.”
Ecosystem of hiring
effective way they can identify their
long-term goals and where they need
to develop skills they do not yet have.”
Choosing apprenticeship routes
for in-demand technology skills does
not mean employers have to stall their
development plans, she argues. “It
doesn’t have to be an either/or; you’re
creating a talent pool but if you need
specialist talent you can still bring
someone in.”
The fact that 80% of apprenticeship
time is spent on the job means that
those employees are applying
their digital skills to real projects,
supporting the organisation’s wider
goals. In a recent BCS survey, the top
three skills organisations wanted to
focus on were technical skills (such as
specific software), data analysis and
integration with business processes.
Because the pace of technological
change keeps accelerating, building
an adaptable workforce can be a
better return on investment than
simply hiring for specific technical
qualifications. Consulting firm
Accenture, for example, has been
using virtual reality in its graduate
recruitment campaigns for the past
two years.
“We need to approach
workforce planning in a
different way; rather
than a direct relationship
between employer
and employee, it’s more
networked”
An added bonus is that candidates
can experience how it feels to work
at Accenture and get an idea of how
they would interact with clients. The
graduate recruitment programme
forms part of a wider ecosystem of
hiring at the company that focuses
on potential rather than ‘hard’ skills.
“We’re making sure the recruitment
process, as a whole, moves away
from a binary assessment on a set of
competencies,” says Love.
Zarkadakis from Willis Towers
Watson believes that treating your
skills requirements as an ecosystem,
as Accenture does, can reap real
benefits. “We need to approach
workforce planning in a different
way; rather than a direct relationship
between employer and employee,
it’s more networked. How you
manage that network will influence
your success.”
This extends to how organisations
manage their freelance and
contractor workforce. As companies’
products and services change,
Issue 4 - 2020
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