Organizational Transformation: Built to Win Students in a Digital-First World

Jordan Ingersoll
September 11, 2020

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Frida Polli, CEO and Founder of pymetrics, Marlena Taynor, University & Diversity Attraction Lead at McDonald’s, and Jessica Peluso, Director of Enterprise Partnerships at Handshake discuss the new normal of digital early-talent recruitment. The panel covers how you can kickstart your digital transformation process, the recruitment tech stack, challenges of a digital recruitment, and best practices for maintaining a focus on D&I. Read more below:


A push for digitalization 

Due to COVID-19, many universities and organizations are facing the tough decision to remain remote or resume in-person. A study conducted by Handshake found that 46% of universities and 52% of employers surveyed will be entirely virtual for the fall. Additionally, 7 out of 10 students surveyed are currently conducting an online career search. With a busy recruiting season ahead, employers and job-seekers are finding themselves in a unique transitional period that is driving enhanced virtual engagement instead of traditional in-person recruitment tactics. 


As an employer, you may be finding yourself asking questions like, how do I host an engaging virtual recruiting event? If I’m not hiring, how can I continue to engage with students so that we have recruits when hiring resumes? And how do I onboard new hires remotely? 


The recruitment tech stack case study 

Marlena Taynor, D&I lead at McDonald’s, laid out the recruitment tech stack that her team has taken extensive time and effort to curate. McDonald’s utilizes Handshake to drive a formal university program that sources and manages end-to-end recruiting, which five stages are; source, manage, engage, nurture, and evaluate. For an applicant tracking system, McDonald’s deploys SmartRecruiters. Lastly, for applicant screening, they leverage the pymetrics platform to remove resume bias and create a more efficient process. 


Challenges of a digital strategy for university recruiting

Without traditional recruitment methods such as career fairs and interviews, a large question remains, and that is how can you recreate the human-side of hiring digitally? The key is to find creative ways for the hiring committee to engage with candidates that are both exciting and authentic. Most students exploring careers digitally prefer small and more casual settings, so employers ought to take this into consideration to create the most comfortable environment possible. 


Installing a completely digital recruitment process to replace traditional tactics can seem daunting for an entire team to adopt, but something of this magnitude does not happen overnight. Trial and error is needed to pilot successful digital recruitment. Marlena from McDonald’s attributed her team's success to the user-friendly interfaces of both Handshake and pymetrics. While converting recruitment to digital is a tall order, most acknowledge that this is the future of early-talent recruiting anyway, so attempting the transition now will position employers extremely well going forward. 


Maintaining a focus on Diversity and Inclusion amidst change management

Many employers rely on resumes and GPA’s to implement cutoffs to sort through candidates more efficiently. However, data shows that these data points are not predictive-- in fact they are the least predictive- of a candidate’s future success. This is why the pymetrics platform offers soft skill assessment tools that make filtering, among many other talent management processes, more equitable and fair. Soft skills are a uniquely fair way to assess potential, match talent, and increase access to opportunity through employment. 


In addition to utilizing the unbiased assessment tool offered through pymetrics, McDonald’s applies other recruitment mechanisms that optimize fairness. They ensure job descriptions are bias free and use inclusive language, post jobs nation-wide through Handshake, and implement diverse groups of interview panelists. One of the most equitable ways McDonald’s has reduced bias is through evaluating candidates in a variety of settings both formal and informal, giving everyone a chance to express themselves because not everyone does so in the same exact way. 


If you’d like to learn more about how pymetrics can help you digitize your recruitment process to acquire early-talent faster and more fairly, contact us here.