Claudia Giugovaz outlines how a Lab17 partnership works, what it looks like for your organisation and where you’ll see the impact across talent acquisition
The Lab17 doesn’t recruit in the traditional way. That’s why you won’t get costly, time-consuming hiring processes here.
Instead, you’ll get a recruitment partner who deeply embeds themselves within your business so you can scale up, eliminate bottlenecks and improve the candidate experience.
So, how do we actually ‘embed’ ourselves in your business? What does the day-to-day look like? And what will it entail for you and your colleagues?
As one of The Lab17’s Senior Talent Managers, I’ve spent plenty of time recruiting inside organisations like yours.
Here’s what to expect from your first 4 weeks and beyond:
Week 1: Researching your organisation
This is our time to absorb as much information as possible about your organisation. In other words, we’ll be everywhere, soaking in everything.
For example, you can expect us to:
- – Sit in on company town halls
- – Meet stakeholders
- – Listen to podcasts of your founders speaking
- – Read any articles that will give us insights into the way you do things
- – Review your marketing materials and existing employer brand resources (so we know what to use or build upon).
This is also the time to kick off your job brief processes. That means working closely with you to determine your priorities – and how to tackle the roles you’re recruiting for.
Armed with data, we’ll sit down with your hiring managers so they know exactly what’s ahead and how we’ll support them along the way.
Week 1 in a snapshot
> Introduction to management + core leadership team
> Outlining hiring needs + core objectives
> Auditing your employer brand
> Unpacking your vision + mission
> Sessions to scope out the roles you’re filling
> Prioritising roles
> Editing (if needed) job descriptions
> Connecting with your team
> Onboarding to your systems (e.g. email, comms channels)
> Designing candidate marketing materials
> Clarifying roles + prototyping candidates
Week 2: Building your strategy, resources and processes
By now, we know why we’re here, what your business problems are and why you want to scale your team.
Your roles will be live and out to market and your Lab17 partner will have created resources around interview processes and tasks.
They’ll also establish a weekly cadence to keep your hiring managers up-to-date and across their roles.
With candidate applications now coming in, we’ll have the right information to design your sourcing strategy.
Like product managers, we tend to work in 6 week sprints for this part – with the ultimate aim of making a hire by Week 6.
That means:
- – Determining how much outreach is needed to attract candidates (and make that hire by Week 6)
- – Building InMail or email templates
- – Getting your hiring managers involved in outreach (generally for those tricky or senior roles you’re trying to fill).
– This is also when we’ll start screening candidates. This is a chance for you to see whether we’ve truly understood your team, culture and candidate pool.
Rest assured: if we don’t nail the first screening and pitching call, we’ll refine it until we do.
Week 2 in a snapshot
> Creating candidate identification + attraction strategy
> Articulating your EVP
> Beginning outbound sourcing
> Establishing weekly progress reporting
> Screening candidates
> Designing + delivering interview processes
Week 3: Gaining momentum
By this time, your Lab17 partner (like me!) is well and truly in the trenches. You can expect them to have:
- – Spoken to a handful of candidates
- – Presented profiles
- – Hiring Manager interviews have started
- – Some candidates will be progressing to the next interview stage
In other words, momentum is building. But don’t worry: your partner will continue sourcing candidates – no matter how busy they are with the screening process.
They will connect weekly with your hiring managers to:
- – Summarise candidate profiles
- – Share insights into candidate strengths and weaknesses
- – Prepare them for upcoming interviews. This could include supporting them to develop interview processes and questions, as well as ways of probing candidates.
Week 3 in a snapshot
> Shortlisting candidates
> Introducing candidates to the hiring team
> Improving process + system evaluation
> Continuing to grow the candidate pipeline
> Analysing candidate / outreach data
Week 4: At (or nearing) the offer stage
With any luck, we’ll be close to making an offer. And if that’s the case, you can be sure of a well-earned celebration with your Lab17 partner!
If not, your Lab17 partner will consider:
- – Refreshing the job posting
- – Changing the job title or scope
- – Expanding the search beyond the current location
- – Adding other titles to the search
- – Advertising on alternative sites or pages
- – Looking internally for the role
- – Seeking input from the hiring manager
At this point, your partner may also start thinking about other ways to ingrain themselves even more deeply into your team.
They’ll want to bolster your interviewing capabilities, which might mean:
- – Booking in some interview training sessions
- – Building out a Talent Playbook for your team to create more consistency across processes
- – Holding a session on how best to use the ATS system
- – Providing high-level insights to your partner lead – including how things are tracking and feedback on the partnership to date.
- – Boosting your EVP and employer branding
- – Strategic planning around organisational growth + structure
Week 4 in a snapshot
> Moving to offer
> Making hires
> Training on interviews, systems and processes
Life after 4 weeks
As you move beyond your initial month with Lab17 as your embedded recruitment partner, you’ll find yourself in a humming hiring rhythm. You will notice that the quality of candidates coming through the pipeline has improved, saving you and your hiring team a lot of time.
Your capabilities are growing – along with your in-market brand.
But, no matter how long your Lab17 partner remains in your organisation, you’ll now have the skills, strategies and processes in place to confidently scale up – when and where you need to.