RMIT is a world leading university that is forging the way with new innovations and now their recruitment process is no different.
The old way
Each year RMIT runs an international recruitment campaign to attract leading research fellows to join the highly prestigious research fellowship program at the University.
The program attracts thousands of applications each year and in 2018 this resulted in a highly manual, document heavy process which took 4 weeks to compile all of the necessary application information. Candidate applications required around 50 documents. The documents were sent via USB, postage and CDs to RMIT stakeholders in various schools for consideration and review.
A complete restructure of the process
In 2019, RMIT partnered with Vervoe to design an industry leading selection process to match the high status opportunity. To cater to the requirements of each Hiring Manager and Head of School, the application process for candidates needed to include clear, consistent and provide insightful information on their applicants to be accessed on-demand for a positive user experience for all.
Vervoe’s flexible and engaging assessment software was customised to include critical key selection criteria as well as RMIT brand information. Vervoe offered an online solution that was accessible to candidates globally, with little intervention from the RMIT recruitment team. Because of this, the ability to engage with lots of candidates and assess on more than just resumes in the recruitment process was highly attractive to the university and provided deeper insight into candidates.
The Vice Chancellor created videos to address and speak to candidates to ask them questions directly. This enhanced candidate engagement and personally addressed individuals in the application process.
Vervoe enabled RMIT to send assessments on demand which contained RMIT questions, content and branded messaging. This meant, when complete, the answers could be exported to a central database for research heads to access and review securely with consistency of information. This enabled a level of instant collaboration and feedback which had not been possible previous years.
The Impact
The most significant impact for the RMIT recruitment team and hiring panel was the significant efficiency created through Vervoe’s online assessment. In 2018 the process for compiling the research fellowship applications took 4 weeks, in 2019, using Vervoe the same process was complete in 48 hours.
This complex recruitment process included multiple stakeholders, received over 1,400 applications with 20 prestigious research fellowships available. Vervoe has been honoured to be involved and able to completely enhance the process for applicants and RMIT stakeholders.
Further, candidates reported enjoying the process as it enabled them to demonstrate more about their skills and competencies outside of their achievements on paper, as well as being able to complete anytime that was suitable to them, regardless of timezones. The design of the assessment meant lots of candidates could complete all of their applications within a central assessment, without having to compile information from various sources.
“This is such a wonderful way to showcase a multitude of different Candidate’s skills, unlike the traditional panel interview which puts a huge focus on how candidates perform in a highly intimidating and pressurised environment. I wish all interviews were conducted this way!”RMIT Candidate
“The interview has an interesting set of questions which greatly test the abilities of a data scientists professional ranging from technical skills to workplace skills. I had a fun and fruitful time answering statistical questions on RMIT dataset.”RMIT Candidate
“Good balance of technical and non-technical questions. I was able to practically showcase my skills with a use-case.”RMIT Candidate
Because of this, the RMIT recruitment team have become so efficient they’ve saved themselves weeks in the recruitment process of this program. This enabled them to focus more on attraction, on-boarding and stakeholder engagement.
