Bathroom specialist Siko has around 980 employees. The company, which has a thirty-year tradition, also operates in Slovakia, but the majority, upwards of 700 people, work in over 30 branches in the Czech Republic. There are selection processes going on everywhere.
Recruitment specialist Lucie Bernardová wanted to check what kind of recruitment experience applicants who apply for sales positions, administrative positions and as storekeepers in the distribution center have across such an extensive Czech network.
“My goal was to identify where we have weak points and, based on that, to help hiring managers implement corrective measures to standardize and improve the entire recruitment process ,” summarizes the specialist. In retrospect, using Arnold to help her find out everything that was needed was an excellent move.
recruitment specialist Lucie Bernardová
The project ran from August as a pilot, and in November it started in full mode. The chatbot collected feedback from candidates in two stages: the day after the first round, so it focused on the course of the interview itself. At this stage, 119 candidates responded out of a total of 338, which is 35%.
Candidates evaluated several aspects during the conversation with Arnold: for example, the atmosphere in which the interview took place, whether they had enough space to express themselves, and whether they received answers to their questions. “We formulated the content of Arnold’s conversation in accordance with my requirements in cooperation with LMC,” says Lucie Bernardová and notes with a smile that she can be satisfied with the results of the first phase of research. 99% of respondents rated the interview process as problem-free.
During the second phase, the candidates evaluated the overall course of the selection procedure. At Siko, they were interested in their opinion a week after the interview, which is the deadline by when the candidate must receive an official job offer or a rejection with feedback.
“At this stage, the response rate dropped to 20%,” admits the recruitment specialist. Even so, according to her, the feedback received was valuable. Almost 60% of candidates perceived the recruitment process as problem-free.
Their answers also revealed what to focus on in the future: “It is mainly the observance of the feedback deadline and also the quality of its content. So that the candidate, even though we rejected them, takes away from the selection process an incentive for what to improve, what to work on and can return to us in the future when they have gained more experience. And overall, they get a good impression from the recruitment,” sums up Lucie Bernardová.
According to her, other suggestions for improvements related to the lack of details regarding the organization of the selection process – especially regarding the place, time or contact persons mentioned in the invitation.
“I admit that I was afraid that the survey would turn out worse, but fortunately my fears were not confirmed, the candidates rated us quite well,” Lucie Bernardová says happily.
She views the use of Arnold very positively, after all, even the candidates were positively surprised by his questions, some added nice comments to the conversation indicating, among other things, that they had never experienced anything like this in connection with recruitment.
“We would like to continue using Arnold, I see a role for him in onboarding and outplacement especially. And also in Slovakia. It makes absolute sense to me in the future,” concludes the recruitment specialist.
