Transform Hiring with Design Thinking

In today’s digital world, organizations are striving harder to be more competent. But some organizations are having trouble in finding the right talent or their ability to attract skillful candidates.

 

To be able to draw high-calibre talent, we can follow the design thinking framework.

 

So, what is design thinking?

 

Design thinking is a creative problem-solving process with a human-centric approach. The process is non-linear, iterative that teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions. Moreover, it focuses on creating meaningful experiences.

 

How does design thinking transform hiring?

 

The design-thinking framework facilitates transformation and evolution. Using this framework, you can solve problems and discover new opportunities applying a structured process.

 

The framework comprehends to solve complex challenges compared to the traditional ones. Using the novel design-thinking approach, you can uncover the root cause of the problem and fix it with the right solution. Thereby, design-thinking enables us to work with in-depth understanding to transform hiring by creating better and solid solutions.

 

Big names like Google, Apple, and Starbucks have already adopted design thinking and yielding results, and the rest is history.

 

To follow their strategy to success, we need to understand each step of the design thinking process to fetch better results.

 

Here we go:

 

Define—the main problem you want to solve

 

It is critical to know the existing problem that curtails the recruitment team. You have to stay focused on the problem statement. For example, what is your biggest recruitment problem today? Is it:

 

1. Eradicating manual activities for the recruitment team?
2. Re-inventing the processes to hire quality talents faster?
3. Providing ultimate candidate experience?
4. Handling too many escalations? 

 

If providing a remarkable candidate experience is your prime concern, you need to look for ways to improve the candidate experience.

 

What you can do is:

 

Wear your design thinking hat and draw a process that supports candidate engagement right from the first interaction until they are on board. You can keep in touch with the candidate through emails, messages, and phone calls. You can use video conferences while interviewing so that the candidate doesn’t have to travel. 

 

Moreover, when the candidate is waiting for the offer to be rolled out, you can provide updates on the current status of their candidature. By doing so, you can ensure the candidate feels ‘informed’ at every stage of interaction.

 

Empathize—with the end-user

 

Understand the user and the challenges they are facing. We have already identified the main problem, so the next step is to gather user experience to know their pain points. Discuss with your end-user to find out the root cause of the problem. Just then, you will be able to provide a solution that will arrest the issue permanently.

 

For example, when you know that the recruiters are having challenges scheduling interviews for high-volume roles, you can pose the following questions to the recruiters handling high-volume hiring.

 

1. How do they plan their work?
2. How do they source profiles for the roles?
3. How do they track interview schedules?
4. What did they do after candidate selection?
5. What aspect of their job process is very challenging?      
6. What do they want to change in the recruitment cycle they follow?

 

When you probe and ask questions, the end-user, in this case, it is the recruiter who will provide real-life situations. Using the points discussed, you can streamline the entire process for volume hiring or only a particular segment in the process.

 

Ideate—identify patterns

 

Now, we have identified the problems and asked relevant questions. With all the groundwork done, it’s time to break down the points and synthesize the data.

 

Whichever user group it is, whatever the problem they may face, if you can connect the dots and derive the patterns from the responses you gathered, nothing like it.

 

Involve different types of groups in the ideation session to obtain a diversity of thoughts. Recruiters, coordinators, hiring managers, executives and candidates can be in your ideation group. The more inputs you gather from the group, the better is the result. By conducting ideation sessions effectively, you can achieve the best solutions for any problems.

 

Prototype—convert your ideas into a workable solution

 

With all the research done, problems analyzed, points gathered, ideation sessions held, it’s time to create a prototype and make your ATS yield better results. Choose a good ATS partner, and they will be able to translate your ideas to solutions quickly. Once the prototype is ready, launch it to a focus group and brainstorm its output.

 

If the focus group provides suggestions to improve the prototype, you can make the required changes.

 

Remember, the prototype can be anything, a policy, a process, a tool, or a technique. Be ready to brace the impact. It is always better to change parts of the prototype instead of changing the entire solution.

 

The feedback you receive for your prototype will facilitate you in making the changes and validating the process.

 

Validate—testing brings perfection

 

Test your prototype until you are sure your solution works. The iterations in your prototype are because of the constructive feedback that you’ve received from the focus groups. For example, if you have amended the ATS, you can check with your existing employees how easy the UI was for referring their friends. Check if they could connect through to the social media platforms via the ATS. 

 

If employees face challenges, work on the prototype, and change the backend programming that takes the employee to the social media sites to share job descriptions with their friends.

 

Once the testing is complete and validated, you can go LIVE with your program, tool, process, or technique.

 

Ripplehire is extending support to make recruiting effortless with innovative ways of transforming hiring. So, choose Ripplehire as your partner, and we’ll direct you to adopt design thinking to transform hiring.