If you're a talent acquisition leader sitting on a process you know needs to change, the hardest part isn't choosing a new tool. It's getting everyone else to come with you.
That tension, between knowing change is overdue and actually making it happen inside a complex organisation, is at the heart of this episode of the TA Disruptors podcast. Host Robert Newry sits down with Jennifer Goldsmith and Helen Alkin, who jointly lead early careers resourcing at BDO UK, one of the largest professional services firms in the country. Between them, they manage a programme that attracts more than 30,000 applications and recruits close to 1,000 apprentices, interns, and graduates every year.
In early 2024, they decided to overhaul their entire recruitment process - assessment methodology, technology stack, vendor relationships, and candidate journey - all within a six-month implementation window. What follows is a masterclass in recruitment process redesign: how to build the internal trust, plan the change, and execute at pace without losing the business along the way.
When Jen and Helen arrived at BDO in January 2022, they didn't rush to change things. They spent their first couple of years getting under the skin of professional services hiring, building relationships with partners and stakeholders, and identifying gaps in the existing process. That patience was deliberate — and, as it turned out, essential.
The market pressure was real. Professional services hold some of the highest vacancy volumes in the UK, but the sector's attractiveness to graduates was declining. Competition for talent was fierce. And by 2024, generative AI was beginning to reshape how candidates applied: polishing CVs, generating application answers, and making it harder than ever to distinguish genuine capability from a well-prompted chatbot.
Jen framed the challenge clearly: "Assessment becomes the anchor for resourcing teams. It becomes that point at which you can trust the quality you're assessing. And without a good assessment product that cuts through some of that AI noise, you can't do that." The existing process wasn't broken, but it wasn't built for what was coming.
Both Jen and Helen were emphatic on this point: the groundwork you do before going to market determines whether your implementation succeeds or fails. They didn't start with an RFP. They started with conversations — educating senior stakeholders on why the market was shifting, what the risks of inaction were, and what a redesigned process could deliver.
By the time they were ready to go out to vendors, they had key sponsors already invested in the outcome. Their legal team knew contracting was coming and had it prioritised. Their Workday (ATS) team understood the scope. The business wasn't hearing about this change for the first time when implementation started — they'd been on the journey for months.
Helen put it simply: there's a natural temptation when you spot opportunities to move fast. But stepping back and making sure the foundations are right — the relationships, the trust, the shared understanding of why — is what makes speed possible later. "When you start to table the big change ideas, and you can put the business case around it, that makes the transition a slightly easier one."
The lesson for any TA leader contemplating a recruitment process redesign: the how and the what are important, but the why has to come first, and it has to be communicated relentlessly.
One of the boldest decisions Jen and Helen made was moving away from a single assessment provider and towards a best-in-class approach — partnering with multiple specialist vendors across different stages of the selection process, including task-based assessment, video interviewing, and scoring.
This isn't the easy route. Multiple providers means multiple integrations, multiple relationships, and greater complexity. Most TA teams in volume hiring would instinctively shy away from it. So what tipped the balance?
For Jen, it came down to longevity and evolution. A single provider might simplify things today, but would it keep pace with the rate of change in the market? With a best-in-class approach, each specialist is advancing their own product — making it more robust, more AI-resilient, more future-proof. "We need to know that this is going to stand the test of time and we can evolve it," she explained. "It's not buying something off a shelf that then is going to go stale within two years."
The key to making it work was getting all the providers in the same room during the pitch process — stress-testing how they'd collaborate, ensuring direct lines of communication, and confirming that the internal team wouldn't be slowed down by added layers of vendor management.
With the decision made, BDO had roughly six months to design, build, test, and launch an entirely new assessment process — while keeping the current campaign running. The job share proved invaluable here: Jen led implementation while Helen kept the existing programme on track, with both continuously sense-checking decisions together.
Three practical choices made the timeline achievable.
First, they mapped every candidate touchpoint before writing a single line of project plan. They identified where there was opportunity to improve the experience and where they'd need to accept limitations in year one. Jen was upfront with the business from the start: this is a three-to-four-year programme, and year one is about getting the product design and candidate experience right. Setting that expectation early took the pressure off trying to solve everything at once.
Second, they connected their internal technology team with vendors early — not just to handle integrations, but to understand the context. "If you give them the why, they might have a better solution than A to B," Jen noted. When your Workday team understands the business case, not just the technical spec, they can problem-solve rather than just execute.
Third, they were realistic. They identified what could be delivered in six months and what would need to wait. That discipline — resisting the temptation to scope-creep under pressure — kept the project on track.
For Jen and Helen, candidate experience wasn't a nice-to-have bolted on at the end — it was the primary design criterion for year one. Their logic was straightforward: if the new process goes out to the external market and candidates don't respond well, nothing you've done internally matters.
BDO also had a strong diversity agenda. They wanted a process that would level the playing field for candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds, many of whom can be penalised by traditional text-based assessments. Helen noted that they'd looked at contextualisation tools, but ultimately wanted assessment methods where a candidate's background wouldn't influence their ability to demonstrate their potential.
Early results are encouraging. Candidates are responding positively to the task-based elements. The feedback they receive — whether they progress or not — is being well received. And crucially, despite launching into a year of record application volumes, the process has held up. BDO went into Christmas over 80% filled in their early careers roles, with improved conversion rates at both assessment and interview stages compared to the previous year.
If there's a single thread running through everything Jen and Helen shared, it's that successful recruitment process redesign is mostly about people, not technology. The technology matters — but it only works if the people around it understand it, trust it, and have been part of the journey.
Their approach can be distilled into a sequence that any TA leader could adapt.
Start by building credibility and relationships in the business before proposing change. Invest in understanding the problem deeply before jumping to solutions. Engage stakeholders early and continuously — not just decision-makers, but legal, IT, and the resourcing team who'll live with the process daily. Be honest with vendors about your challenges so they can genuinely help. Set realistic timescopes and resist the urge to solve everything in year one. And design the candidate experience first, because that's where trust in the process is won or lost.
Now, with a full campaign season nearly behind them, Jen and Helen are turning their attention to what comes next: deeper MI and data analysis from the new process, efficiencies for their resourcing team, and continued evolution of the end-to-end journey. The hard part isn't over — but the foundations are built.
Jen and Helen's full conversation with Robert Newry covers much more than we could fit here — including how their job share works in practice, the relationship between early careers and experienced hire strategy, and what they're planning for years two and three of the programme.
Listen to the full episode below.
If you're exploring how to redesign your hiring process for the challenges ahead, get in touch with Arctic Shores to start the conversation.
Robert Newry
Arctic Shores Co-Founder and Chief Explorer
Jennifer Goldsmith
BDO UK, Head of Resourcing & Recruitment Strategy Lead, Early Careers
Helen Alkin
BDO UK, Head of Resourcing, Early Careers
Robert: Welcome to the TA Disruptors podcast. I'm Robert Newry, chief explorer and co-founder of Arctic Shores, the task-based psychometric assessment company that helps organisations uncover potential and see more in people. We continue the series' focus on ripping up the rulebook in volume hiring, and in today's episode, we will be looking at early careers.
So I'm thrilled to be talking to Jennifer Goldsmith and Helen Alkin, who between them manage one of the biggest early career programmes in the professional services sector. To put this in perspective, they are responsible for recruiting and onboarding close to a thousand apprentices, interns and graduates a year. The programmes for which attract more than 30,000 applications.
I've known both of you for some time, although Helen, you and I first met back in 2016 when I was pitching Arctic Shores to Marks and Spencers. And I remember at the time being told, if you want to know what's going on in early careers, then talk to Helen. In the 25 years you've been in the sector, there is probably not much you haven't seen or witnessed. After a long career at Marks and Spencers, you moved to British Airways where you teamed up again with Jen, which continued when you both moved to BDO. Jen, your background prior to BDO was more an experienced hire, driving recruitment transformation initiatives, and it was while you were at British Airways that you shifted your focus to early careers.
And I particularly like that on your LinkedIn profile, you state that you are a custodian and champion of a candidate-centric experience. Candidates is clearly an element of recruitment that is often overlooked and so something that's really important and we will certainly discuss a bit more of that when we understand about how you make change and factor that in. Now you will gathered from this introduction that Jen and Helen know each other really well but what you may not know is that they job share. I'm sure they will elaborate more on this when we get into the conversation.
But it adds an interesting dimension to the huge change programme they decided to take on and bring the business with them in early 2024. And this is what we're going to talk about today. You were both in the role for two years and the early recruitment process that you were looking after was largely working. You'd been with your provider for several years and had a good relationship with them. Yet the graduate market for professional services was highly competitive and fact remain so. Demand for skills was higher than the supply and there was a diminishing interest in the sector. And Gen.ai was only just starting to emerge, but there was clearly pressure to re-evaluate your recruitment approach. So, Jen, Helen, welcome to the TA Disruptors podcast.
Jennifer: Thank you.
Helen: It's great to be here.
Robert: So, before we get into what led you to redesign your process, can you start with sharing with us about your job share? Because I'm sure many people, when they hear the term job share, will have some preconceptions around this. Most of which probably start with the thought that job share means you do the same thing and you probably just split your task. But I imagine it's probably a bit different from that. So how does it work?
Helen: Yes, absolutely. So as you've already alluded to, I started my career actually on the graduate training program at Marks and Spencer's out on the sales floor and then had the opportunity having had a great career out in stores at M&S and worked my way up through the ranks to join the central recruitment team after I returned from maternity leave with my daughter. And that's where my relationship with Jen first started. I picked up responsibility and accountability then for all things graduate and at the time it was predominantly just the graduate world and over my tenureship at M&S looking after early careers it clearly evolved from a kind of graduate piece right the way through into the apprenticeship market we saw the big reforms that came through from an apprenticeship perspective.
Robert: But it wasn't a job share at that point, was it?
Helen: Not a job share at that point.
Robert: But you were, that's where the relationship started and you were getting to know each other and respect each other.
Helen: Yeah, so our relationship started really quite strategically at that point. So Jen was working alongside me, as you've already articulated in the experienced higher stage, and we quickly identified that there was a massive opportunity and requirement and need for us to work cohesively together between early careers and experienced hire. So I would...
Robert: And just on that note, because I think that's really interesting, often people assume that experienced hire is fundamentally different from early careers. I've seen in quite a few organisations, early careers are seen as the sort of either poor cousin or the oddballs in recruitment, when in fact, there's probably more crossover than people imagine. So, it was was that what sort of brought you together a bit that actually you found that you could learn a bit from each other.
Helen: Absolutely. And I think we recognise that there was a need to have both of us in the room when we were talking to senior leaders across the Marks and Spencer business. We were talking about what's the industry yielding and what are we able what talent and skills are we able to buy in? versus actually what do we need to start building skills-wise from scratch, which is clearly fundamentally where the early careers piece absolutely had a seat at the table. So that's where Jen and I started in quite a deliberate way, working quite closely together.
Robert: And Jen, did you just pick up something from, know, because you hadn't had early careers then and did you pick up something from Helen on that about what she was doing in early careers that you thought, oh, okay, yeah, that's something that I can use or actually this how they do early careers gets me thinking a bit more about how I might do experienced hire recruitment.
Jennifer: Yeah, I think when people look at it, they see the logistics and therefore think you're a million miles apart. know, actually experienced hire is a very bespoke process. You're working with individual vacancies and you're deep diving. Early careers tends to be a volume process and you're dealing with multiple candidates. So I think on the face of it, they seem polar opposites, but actually early careers is really vital for experienced teams because it forms the foundation of exactly what Helen said, actually where we're not able to yield talent from the external market. If we see an experienced hire, the same roles actually, you know on our pad for lengths of time, unable to yield the candidates, then we need to go back to that early career strategy and let's grow it ourselves.
Because we need to ensure that actually we're kind of foreseeing where we're going to have gaps and we're planning succession around that. So it becomes critical to work together. But I don't think it happens often enough.
Robert: Absolutely. And I think that's such a fascinating element to what brought you together was as much a, oh, actually there's lots we can learn from each other and support each other. And so how, how did that then turn into a job share? Because there's lots of people who work closely together and respect each other. But it's quite another thing to go, you know what, I'm going to trust you to each other, not just you, but trust each other to go and manage something when I'm not there. And that's a big extra leap to take.
Jennifer: Yeah, it took some time. So we went, so I went from M&S to British Airways and then Helen followed shortly on after. At that point we were still doing our respective areas. So I was looking after the senior higher and experienced higher teams in British Airways and Helen had early careers. Again, we adopted the same strategy. We were seeing kind of senior stakeholders together. Interestingly enough, we probably put more of a future focus on it because at that point they had quite a big senior hire drive and we were seeing actually there was no succession for some of those roles. So we need to start right at very beginning.
But that obviously takes time. And then actually I think it was circumstance initially. the pandemic hit, as we know, airlines had a tough time and there were various restructures and they proposed combining our teams and we said, well, we do it part-time anyway, we're looking after our teams and we work together really closely. How about job share? And we proposed that and that's where it was born. We continued that and looking after both teams and the strategy for a couple of years at British Airways. And then we actually interviewed together for a role at BDO. that's...
Robert: And that's highly unusual and I love...
Jennifer: More so for them.
Robert: Yes, exactly how you do that. So what does the role look like at BDO then? Do you do the same things or do you have different areas of responsibility with a little bit of overlap? Perhaps you can just elaborate a bit on that.
Helen: I think we play to each other's strengths a lot in what we do. So arguably there has to be an overlap where we both have accountability and responsibility overarchingly and from a day to day perspective there obviously is that trust that when it's my day, I make the decisions, when it's Jen's day, she picks up and makes the decisions and that piece of it is always to give. But I think when it comes to specific projects, when it comes to launching some of the new stuff that we've had on the pad for the last 12 months, then arguably the benefit of a job show is that you do get to divide and conquer a little bit and play to each other's strengths. But I think the bit that makes this really successful is that whilst we're individually playing to each other's strengths and leading on certain things, actually the work that we do behind the scenes and in the background to ensure that we're discussing that, we're debating it, we're having those kind of discussions as a pair so that we're in kind of in an agreement and with the way forward, that bit is absolutely fundamental.
Jennifer: And we're each other's challenge. And I think that that is a really privileged thing to have within a job share is that actually we tend to start from very different perspectives quite often. We're very different in terms of our style and our communication in terms of the way we think. And so we regularly challenge each other and thrash that out to get to a solution. But then ultimately usually means the solution is more robust.
Robert: It is. And I think that's a really good insight as to what makes a successful job share, it is not being perfectly aligned in terms of your thinking, it's actually around trust and mutual respect and being willing, like you would do with a good friend, to be able to challenge the other person, knowing that it's done from a respectful place.
So you'd start together at BDO, you give yourself a little bit of time to get settled in. There's all these market pressures that I referred to at the beginning, and then you decide we need to rethink how our recruitment process works. So can you share how you went about that? Was that something that the partners and the business were naturally coming to you saying we need to change the recruitment process or did that come about from your own evaluation of the market and what was going on?
Helen: To your point, we arrived at BDO, we arrived in the January, so we were mid-campaign when we first arrived, so we took some time to see what the existing process was to get to understand professional services, because as you've alluded to, we came out of a very different type of sector, so really kind of get under the skin of the services.
We took some time then over the next couple of years to really look at putting the foundations in place first and foremost, identifying where we've got obvious gaps, to look at within the existing processes that we've got, where were there more efficiencies that we could drive, building those internal relationships with stakeholders was key. We'd obviously moved into a partner led organisation, so we took the opportunity to be able to do that. And I think coming out of that, kind of pandemic, the world was obviously a very different looking place. So there was an opportunity there.
I think also our business at that point was on a big growth plan, as you've already alluded to in your opening, hugely competitive. We were facing into a real supply and demand challenge where, you know, as a sector we hold… the largest volume of vacancies, but we know that the attractiveness of the sector was potentially diminishing. And therefore we knew that, you know, as one of the big players in that sector, we needed to start to put some things in place to start to move some of that forward and to change that. So the first couple of years was all about putting the foundations in place.
Equally, I think we recognise an opportunity to diversify the talent pools that we were starting to attract, move away from some of the traditional attraction strategies, although they continue to be important, but look at how we were getting out in front of young people earlier, how we were engaging with talent that we wouldn't necessarily pick up through the normal attraction strategies. And I think we had an agenda within the business that supported us in being able to do some of that.
Robert: So you had the business supporting that, you had a bit of market pressure to reevaluate where you're at. So when you started, when you went out to market and you put an RFP out there, was your thinking, we'll see what comes out from this process and we'll see what the business feels about it or were you quite open to actually, we might end up doing something quite radically different because you're regulated. I imagine, you know, radical change is a bit of an oxymoron and it's not for the regulated business. So yeah, where was your thinking at the start of the RFP process and where did you end up?
Jennifer: I think Helen's already alluded to the fact that there was an awful lot of engagement prior getting to RFP stage and that undoubtedly allowed us to be a bit bolder and braver because we had some key sponsors within the business. I think we also, we couldn't hesitate too long because the market was moving on. We had all the advancements in technology, AI coming along. It was forcing a change. And actually for those businesses that weren't going to get ahead of that, they were gonna find themselves in difficulty. that was an encouragement internally to have the backing and put out an RFP that really addressed some of those issues.
We know that AI was reshaping how candidates apply. was polishing all applications.
And therefore, I think that the pitch was that actually assessment becomes the anchor for resourcing teams. It becomes that point at which you can trust the quality you're assessing. You can really judge potential. And without a good assessment product that cuts through some of that AI noise, you can't do that.
Robert: And that trust and that integrity in the process was crucial because these huge investment that's going on in here, taking on a thousand people, many of whom are then going to have to do a qualification. So that trust and integrity has to be critical then to the expenditure and the return on investment that the partners are looking to you.
Jennifer: And the regulatory piece that you've alluded to actually, you we need to be confident that the process is robust. And that it's going to meet the challenge of the further AI developments that are going to hit the market. It needs to have longevity as well. So I think to answer your question, it was really important to get buy-in internally first before we even got to the RFP stage. And I suspect we probably were impatient to run, but we recognised the need to do that at a steady pace.
And then when the RFP goes out to market, I think it's really, really important that we were as honest as we could be with the suppliers that we invited in. You have to be honest about the challenge. You have to be honest about your business, honest about actually where you're struggling and where you see potential and opportunity m so that you can have those really robust discussions when you get to that RFP stage, the pitch stage, et cetera. You need robust discussion with those suppliers because you need to know that you can work together.
Robert: It's really interesting because that's often organisations, and I like your point about honesty on that, that I feel going out to market, it's a bit like talent traction, we've got to put our best foot forward, we can't possibly mention what we've got challenges with. But actually the whole point of the process is to recognise and it's perfectly normal to have some challenges in recruitment, it's a complex activity.
And that's quite refreshing to hear that. And the benefit of the honesty is that then it lends itself to a uh more robust evaluation of who you want to work with. And ultimately, and we'll come into the implementation next, but ultimately, was that the key decision criteria for you? Because there's many, you know, criteria of what you want to get from an RFP. a complex process, but is it ultimately come down to is this somebody I feel I can trust and work with as well or what were the key factors for you?
Jennifer: Yeah, think that partnerships are really important to us and I think we've both come from a place where those external partners form part of, they're an extension of your recruitment team. So that was first and foremost, can we work together? Do you recognise the challenges? Do you understand that? Are you happy to work with us on the solutions? And then I think it's also, you know, faith in that quality piece. We were being driven for quality. The sector, the regulatory piece drives that need to bring quality in.
So we needed to almost kind of stress test the products that were being presented to us and understand all aspects of that. And then the longevity piece.
for me was crucial. We need to know that this, you know, this had significant resource and investment behind it. And it was quite a radical change. So actually we need to know that it's going to stand the test of time and we can evolve it and we can keep driving it forward. It's not buying something off a shelf that then is going to go stale within two years. So that became really important.
Helen: I think additionally to that, we also at this point, we're looking at that diversification of talent, how can we ensure that we're attracting more diverse candidates into our talent pool than perhaps traditionally we had been? We've got a really big focus and agenda on kind of driving better outcomes for students from more disadvantaged backgrounds, for example. And I think we also wanted to ensure that within that process, we looked at a solution that would help level some of that playing field out as well.
So, you know, we'd looked at contextualization type tools, et cetera, but we know that, you know, students can sometimes be disadvantaged from more traditional based testing tools. And actually we wanted to also, as part of that process, look at what was out there that might enable students, regardless of their background, to feel like they'd got an equal opportunity through that process based on how we were assessing them end to end.
Robert: I think that's a fabulous point, Helen. And one of the interesting things around all of this is when people are considering this kind of change is, quite often the attraction side and the selection side are different teams and not always joined up. And I've seen in many cases where organisations have gone out to market and say, anybody can apply and then they come into the recruitment process where the playing field isn't level at all and that there is advantage if you can either pay for it or you have a certain background.
And so if you really are going to reach out to people and set that promise that anybody can apply whatever their background, then absolutely the recruitment process has to fulfill that promise because very quickly people will see the disconnect otherwise. And that kind of lends itself then into one of the things that I know you were particularly keen on when you made your selection on all of this was this concept of the golden thread and linking. And often this doesn't always happen. How do you link from what the oh, what the trainee of the future is going to be look like. And you've got many different service lines within BDO and that to the attraction.
So perhaps you can just share a bit about, you know, what was it around the golden thread that helped around all that, because you were going for a technology change as well as a process change. You know, that's a double hit. So there's quite a lot that's going to have to you needed to get reassurance on that this was all going to work.
Jennife: Yeah, I think by that stage, we were kind of in the mindset of go big or go home. That was we were there. And the beauty of a job share, is that you always have a cheerleader waiting in the wings to kind of allow you to make those decisions. I think we knew that we needed something that was future proof. And for us, when you look at that golden thread aspect, actually, you've got best in class at every stage of your assessment process. But what you've also got is the advancements being made by those individual suppliers for each stage of the process to ensure that actually, you know, if we're going to put a video interview into the process, actually, Willo are looking at how they can advance that, how they can make that bulletproof to AI. What does that development look like? Rather than perhaps discard that product, replace it with something else.
We need it to be future-proof because we're investing in it. And I think that was encouraging for us. We knew we were taking on greater complexity and there's no getting away from that. know, actually partnering with one supplier is much easier than partnering
Robert: Well, that's fine. Yes exactly.
Jennifer: I think we went into it with our eyes open knowing that, but for us, the gains were there and actually the reassurance that we were going to be able to really evolve our assessment from beginning to end with the right experts in place to support us in doing that.
Robert: Yes. And let's dig a little bit into that best in class versus a single provider in there because most people in the volume space find it complex enough anyway without then having to go down the route of multiple providers, which means multiple technologies to understand which means multiple integrations with an ATS.
There obviously clearly are benefits of best in class, but it comes with a compromise. So what tipped you to being willing to move from a single provider to multiple providers?
Jennifer: I think when I think back to the pitch process and the RFP process, having all of those providers in the room. Absolutely, because there was that reassurance as we've said, those robust discussions happened. We were connecting with each provider and ensuring that actually we felt we could work in partnership with those suppliers. I think yourself and Arctic Shores saying that we will front that. We will actually.
Robert: Because that's unusual. You're the one that's having to manage the different providers and all of that.
Jennifer: And understanding equally, know, because I think that as an in-house team, you always want quick access. That's always going to be a thing. So actually, I remember us having a very kind of robust discussion, Robert, around actually, yes, we want you to front it, and yes, we want you to facilitate this, but can we talk to them directly too? Because that's really important.
Robert: We don't want to add to the chain. Slow things down.
Jennifer: and actually, you've really worked with us on that. And that became crucial for us. We wanted cut through we didn't want the complexity of having multiple providers to then end up in a place where actually the recruitment was slowed down. The efficiencies for our team felt tricky and challenging. So I think we fleshed all that out at that pitch stage and having those people in the room and able to do that was vital.
Robert: That's really helpful. Thank you. And I'm sure a few people are thinking, and obviously helps having Helen as your cheerleader on this too, but you had six months to, once you'd made the decision to then, maybe a bit longer, but you have got to test and then you've got to make sure that all the comms are there. So you've got six months, seven months to implement this while at the same time keeping the show on the road for the current program. How did you, did having a job share mean help in keeping you sane on that one? Because this was a lot of change and to do that, feels like changing aircraft mid-flight.
Jennifer: Absolutely. And yeah, the job share was invaluable for that because we were able, we were in a privileged position to be able to go, okay, I was going to focus in on the actual implementation and getting that done. Helen was going to be, you know, my kind of… bounce ideas, actually let's discuss it through, let's flesh things out, but also let's keep the recruitment going, let's keep the programme going, the campaign running alongside that. So we were very fortunate to be a job share at that point, I think, and it definitely made things easier, but it was still a tough time scale. It was quick.
Robert: It was, it was. And what would you, for anybody that's contemplating doing this, what… What have you learned from this process and what would you say were the key foundations that meant that you could do this?
Jennifer: I think get your ducks in a row first. I think that internal engagement, please, we can't, we keep saying it and we can't say it enough. Actually having those conversations internally, ensuring you've got key sponsors, ensuring that all teams are aware that this is coming is important.
You know, I think at one stage, you and I, Robert, were trying to get the contracting done and we had kind of four weeks to do it, which is unheard of in a corporate business. But our legal team were engaged, they were ready, they knew it was coming and they worked with us to get that done. And I think it's that line everything up, ensure that actually, you can't talk about this enough internally. Tell everybody what's happening. Tell everyone why. Educate on actually, why is this needed and why now? and what are the consequences of not doing this so that you've got that investment? Because ultimately that did allow us then to move with pace and speed. If we hadn't been able to do the kind of how and what with stakeholders before implementation, we wouldn't have got to the why.
Robert: Yes.
Helen: Totally.
Robert: That's a really interesting one.
Helen: I also think that there's a natural tendency when you arrive in a new organisation as we did to, you you can spot the opportunities relatively quickly. But I think there is an absolute part here in stepping back and making sure that the basics are right and that the foundations are in place. And I think we spent a lot of time doing that and building those critical stakeholder relationships before we started then tabling all of the big kind of change ideas that were potentially we had and were coming down the down the line, so I think that's really, really critical to kind of get that.
We already had that investment in early careers. We'd built some relationships, we'd got some trust in the business that we were hopefully taking early careers in BDO in the right direction. And we'd put some foundations in place that were starting to make traction and move in the right direction. So therefore, I think then when you start the table, some of, okay, this is what's coming next, and you can put the business case around it, that makes that a slightly easier transition.
Robert: It does. And I think it's a really, really good point because when you get into the implementation, at that point, everything's time critical. You don't have opportunity to go through, what was the business case? Why were we doing this? How, if you come to this solution at that point, you've just got to already remind people we had this discussion. And I know part of what discussions I had with both of you on this and certainly from my side, it made it so much easier was that when we were in the implementation piece, people knew what was coming and why they were doing it, even if was the practicalities of it were different from what they might have expected and there was no doubt that there were a few eyebrows raised when they finally got to see what this new assessment was going to be like.
But at that point, you've done so much in preparing them, justifying why and how this was going to work, it certainly, from my experience, it was then moved quite quickly to, right, okay, how does the process need to work? What kind of input do you want? And a lot of times that can be underplayed, which is probably why a lot of projects end up overrunning and costing more is because they haven't done that upfront.
Helen: Absolutely, and I think it's that benefit of taking people on the journey with you, but also helping people understand where that particular element of the project sits in the overarching strategy. And as you know, at that point, we were looking at two very different elements. We were looking at the diversification and early engagement of our talent pool. So how can we change the top of the funnel, right the way through to what's coming out of the funnel and then are they sticking with us in the business? And I think being able to help stakeholders understand where this particular element fits in that end goal and that overarching strategy is really important.
Robert: Yes. And interestingly, I think too, because we talked a bit about best in class there, you've got your key business stakeholders and all this and they need to understand how does what does the golden thread look like and I do think having that holistic, having somebody that can help you explain and implement a really holistic from attraction all the way to a final interview is so important. And then alongside of this you have a big technology piece too.
And it must have been quite a worry thinking, well, I can get the process, but what about the technology piece? How did that work? Because we're talking about three different integrations. You've got a whole different set of stakeholders, information security, data privacy, consent, all sorts of things. So how did you manage that and what made that successful in the end?
Jennifer: I think it was...some heavy duty planning up front. So we sat down with the Arctic Shores project teams. We mapped out every touch point. We mapped out actually where were there opportunities to evolve that and actually what was going to be realistic in year one. Where were we going to start…
Robert: So you know, you can't solve everything. And I remember that being a sort of a really enlightening discussion that you and I had is that you are realistic as to what could be done in year one and particularly in the six months that we had to implement.
Jennifer: Yeah, absolutely. And I've always sold this into the business. This is a three, four year future focused project. And actually we need to ensure that in order for it to win and see success that we do it in the right order and so for us, know, initially year one is about product design and it's about candidate experience because if it goes out to the external market and it's not a success then actually anything we do internally doesn't matter.
So that's where we focused our energy as I said we mapped it all out we looked at every touch point and where was where was there opportunity in the design piece to touch the candidate to give a better experience and to ensure we were driving quality in the candidates coming in.
And then I think with the technology piece of it, I think it's about not being precious in terms of actually who you connect. So we have a really, really strong workday team within the company. That's our ATS currently. And actually it was really, really important early on to connect those with the various tech teams from the different providers and give them a straight line in. So actually they were present in those discussions from the off, seeing actually what the art of the possible was, because quite often you can have these discussions in our capacity and think that you've got a solution in place. And then actually the kind of technical expert will go, no, that doesn't work.
So we got them involved really early stages of the process and had them talking to your teams, Arctic Shores, the teams at Willo and Topscore, just to really understand what's possible, what are the timeframes, what can we do in year one and actually what's gonna need to be pushed out, what's realistic. And I think that's definitely helped with kind of calming some of that anxiety initially.
Robert: And I think certainly from my side, one of things that made it so, I say successful, but it meant that we were able to hit all the timelines on all of this. There's always bumps in the way that along the journey on this, but it was clearly a… project for the year that your workday team had put in as one of their priorities. It wasn't a part time while they were doing something else and when they got to it. And I think that's really important. You can't do, you can do a process change with existing tech or you can change the tech around all of this, but it's got to be a priority. It can't be something, otherwise everything starts to fall apart and there isn't the
connections around all of this. that, that I think is an interesting part is when you're planning all of this, that the various stakeholders have understood that this is going to need to be when you come knocking on their door, a priority for them to make happen.
Jennifer: And involving them in some of those contextual discussions first, because I think you can very often sometimes just bring in the tech teams when you're trying to connect A with B. We need to connect A with B. And actually they don't have the why. Because actually if you give them the why, they might have a better solution than A to B. So actually they were involved quite early on with why are we doing this? What are the broader market challenges? Why have we settled on this as a solution? What ultimately do we hope that gives us? So they had that context and I think that was really important.
Robert: Totally agree One of the things that seems blindingly obvious, which is you've got to get the process right. And then the job of the automation and technology is to automate an effective process. But if the process isn't effective and well designed in the first place, then you're just automating disaster. But equally, if the tech implementation team don't understand the context and the process, they are just implementing something blindly on this and they can't even advise you saying, well, actually that won't work in the way that you're planning it to just because of the way the tech is. But because I understand the process, I think we can get around it this way. And that is just another example of why you've really got to in the IT setup as well.
So you got to the end of the six months, got to September last year. You were both largely smiling then, you're smiling now. Somehow you kept saying through all of this, it went live pretty well on time on all of this, despite the enormity of what you were doing. And so now we are six months or so into the process. How's it going? What have you learnt? What are some of the early indicators?
Helen: Absolutely. And we obviously also decided to launch in a year where everybody's been reporting huge volumes, increases of applications. So a great year to really kind of test out the whole process piece here. Early indications are positive. We obviously are still finalising the campaign, so there's still recruitment happening. However, indications initially from the candidates seem to be that they are enjoying the online process. They're enjoying the task-based elements of the exercises, the feedback that they receive post application and at the point of which they come out or of the process is being really positively received.
I think from a conversion rate, we are seeing improved conversions at both assessment and interview year on year. Obviously the real proof of the pudding will be when we get those individuals landing in our business with us in September and then seeing how they perform in the business, but really, really encouraging em indications so far. And I think the other bit is actually broadly speaking, when you launch a new system of this magnitude into an organisation, the level of noise or pushback that you get from the organisation internally can often be an indicator as well, and that also has been broadly positive, really well received. And I think again, in no small part to the kind of preparation that Jen particularly put into ensuring that people came on that journey with us.
Robert: That's incredibly exciting to hear because when people understand, as we have through this discussion, the level of complexity, the level of change, you probably would have been happy with, it's no worse than what it was before, because this is a three year program. So as long as it's not worse, then, you know, I've done really, really well, given the level of change. But it sounds certainly the early indicators are conversion rates are going up. And that means that, you know, certainly as the indicators are now, that things are going in the right direction.
Obviously the proof and the pudding in all of this will be with the final results. But just to pick up on something that you said there, Helen, around the time when volumes have been increasing too, because that's the other worry, oh introducing change at a time of huge volume increases, which is stressing the process, are the indicators there that actually you've been able to… not just process the volumes, but also to something that you've both alluded to, keep a good candidate experience. Because that's the other test really on all of this. you said candidates were giving positive feedback. But the system has survived the stress, I suppose. Is that what you felt so far?
Helen: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, again, we've been able to kind of really manage that process effectively and efficiently to ensure that the candidate-centric approach was absolutely at the heart of it. I think the process has allowed us to manage those candidates through that process really, really effectively and efficiently. We went into Christmas over 80% filled in our roles. It's actually the bigger challenge for us now is making sure that we hold onto and keep those candidates engaged for… the period of time that we've got.
Robert: Because you probably got a bit longer now, have you? Because you've filled the roles. That's interesting that, you if you get the process working in the right way, you should convert faster. But then it gives a different challenge, which is how do we keep them warm until they start?
Jennifer: The pressure at the other end.
Helen: The world of early careers always has a challenge at one end or another. So, yeah, absolutely.
Robert: OK. Well, that's that's really encouraging to hear. So the final question then around all of this is, well, reflecting back on these six months, what next? What have you learned from this time? What's whirring away in your minds as to, you know, other things that you might tweak or change going forward?
Jennifer: I think that we've talked about this is a three year journey that we're on. And I absolutely believe that I think. Like any early careers process, we will naturally get to a point at the end of the season where we're looking to evolve and develop the whole offering. With that will come, you know, undoubtedly, let's look at the materials, check they're still current, make sure they're still resonating with our stakeholders because actually it's really important to give an authentic view to the candidate and to have them have that authentic experience when they start with us.
So we will revisit all the materials again, we'll check that they're still fit for purpose, we'll check that they're still resonating with our stakeholders. I'll probably stress the psychologists within that, I think, until they say yes, then we'll keep going back. But then alongside that, I think that we didn't do this on our own. We did this with a fantastic team behind us in the Resourcing Early Careers team. And this year for us is about actually the evolvements have to benefit them. We've looked at candidate-centric experience. We've looked at the design. Now we need to turn our head to, you know, where can we make efficiencies for our team to ensure that they are seeing cut through, that actually we're addressing, you know, any issues, any teething problems we've seen in the first season to really move that on for them and allow them to feel confident in how they move forward with their roles and to open up some space in their role for them to turn their head to the external market, to understand that, to be able to drive their own businesses.
And I think that alongside that comes also a deeper dive into MI and what the MI capability is of this. Because we need to stay informed.
Robert: Data and that.
Jennifer: Yeah, we need to stay informed. We've got a year now or a campaign season kind of almost behind us. And now it's about actually what can we learn from that? And we can't learn without the MI. So for us, it's gonna be actually evolving that and really strengthening what we can.
get out of that to maximise where we go going forward.
Robert: Yeah, I love that. And I think that's the goal and the dream for many people in busy early career programmes is after we've made the change, and it's very intense when you make the change, are we then in a position to do what we've always wanted to do, which is to be able to focus on where we can add the most value.
And I think that's a… a great thing that you share for others. And it's the light at the end of the tunnel in all of this, that there is a spike in work to kind of make this change. But if you get it right and you do it in the right way, it means you can get to that sort of haloed land of where recruiters are doing what they add the most value to do, what they enjoy doing, and they can support the business in the right way.
Well, it's been a fascinating discussion. You've shared some brilliant insights that I know lots of people will take a great deal of value from. And I've learnt from this too, and I've loved working with you. And thank you very much for coming on the podcast.
Helen: Thank you.
Jennifer: Thank you.
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Robert: Well, that was a fascinating discussion. And the depth of information that we explored from both of them. But in particular, it was their very practical and honest answers to how to deliver on a big change program that is quite complex. And I love talking to people who have really been at the cold face of these things. You learn so much from them, as well as walking away with even greater respect.
And for me, there were three really great tip bits and tips that I got from both Helen and Jen in that episode.
The first, I think, comes down to trust. And it's a word that we often use but don't always implement and think about in the best way. And when you think about the trust that they built with the business in the first place, and then also with their technology vendors after the RFP, it all stems from, and this was the word that Jen used, of honesty. And there's a lot to be said for being… trustworthy and honest when you're embarking on this kind of level of complexity because it will be challenging and it will involve a lot of hard work and some robust conversations. But if you've been honest from the beginning and you've built that trust, then there is no challenge you can't work through.
I think the second thing is clearly around good communication and planning and really putting the effort up front into doing that lot of the time, organisations will just put out the RFP, they will have come from maybe a short working committee or board decision, but clearly both Helen and Jen spent a lot of time preparing the business, planning for how they were going to do this and as we learn from them all of that pays dividends when you get into the weeds of the implementation. The more that people understand what is coming and why it is being done in the way it's being put forward means it's so much easier to do the implementation which will always be time constrained and at pace.
And I think the last, the that's really interesting about what the BDO team under Helen and Jen have done is thinking about when you make a change like this is going back to first principles. Really understanding what you want to achieve, what's right for the business, what are the challenges that you really want to address, what are the things that you want to ensure that you preserve.
And then going out to market and seeing what the market offers you rather than preconceiving whether a single provider and there's been a lot of talk about consolidation and the benefits of having a single provider because potentially that means less complexity than going a best in class approach. But what they've demonstrated is that you can manage a multiple provider set up and delivery if you think about it and plan it and set it up in the right way. And at the end of the day, it's all about achieving the business outcomes and then working with the right vendor or vendors to be able to deliver it.
I hope you enjoyed that episode as much as I did and if you're thinking about a similar shift, please do reach out to either myself or Jen and Helen via LinkedIn and Please remember whether you're listening to this on Apple podcasts or Spotify or watching on YouTube. Please be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast if you found this episode useful or helpful, b ecause the more that you do that the more other TA disruptors like you will find us.
Thank you for listening.