Insight Paper: Optimising Diversity in Future Talent Recruitment - We are Amberjack

Removing resource drain, reducing time to hire, improving effectiveness, improving the candidate experience… a recruiter’s dream… BDO’s reality.  

Hiring new talent shouldn’t be complicated. 

Amberjack’s innovative automation technology helped BDO optimise and transform their Early Careers recruitment. By creating a fully virtual recruitment process without compromising on quality and experience, Amberjack’s services helped widen the scope of BDO’s hiring and talent acquisition processes. 

Contact the team today by filling in the Contact Us Form, to discover how Intelligent Automation could help your business. 

BDO: The Objectives 

BDO, experts in all things auditing, tax, and business services, believe in helping their clients succeed. To support this purpose, BDO embarked on a journey with Amberjack as their guide. By partnering with us here at Amberjack, BDO was able to focus on how they could drive their efficiency and provide benefits for their clients, the candidates, and the firm. 

The objectives were clear: 

• Remove resource drain and headcount requirements 
• Reduce the time it takes to hire new talent 
• Improve effectiveness 
• Improve the experience for their candidates 

The New Solution 

Amberjack technology helped BDO’s recruitment process become an example of Intelligent Automation, where candidates progress through application stages automatically, reducing the many house taken to complete the assessment and providing a comprehensive experience. 

After a short application form, candidates progress to an online combined assessment and video interview, focusing on four critical areas: Grit, Digital Intelligence, Applied Intellect, and Creative Force. This new approach was developed in partnership with diversity and neurodiversity specialists. The assessment offers questions and tasks in multiple formats, and are time recorded rather than time limited. 

Comprised of a short introduction video, a mix of applied intellect and behavioural questions, a self-reflection video, closing video and an automated candidate feedback report, the test delivers a highly interactive and face valid experience, realistic of a potential candidate’s future work environment. 

Next, the applicant progresses to the Virtual Assessment Centre. Traditional, paper-based assessment centres have been transformed into virtual experiences which engage candidates. The system is simple and intuitive, and does not require any prior training. The automated scheduling and scoring functionality has meant the transition from face-to-face to virtual AC’s saved hours of planning and resource time.  

The new 3-stage process takes less than 1-day to complete. 

BDO’s Results 

• The new process and technologies provided improvements across the application and assessment process, whilst requiring 2-3 less headcount than the previous year. 
• BDO reduced stages in their hiring process from 7 to 3 and reduced hire time from around 4 months, to just 1 month.  
• There has been a 241% YOY increase in offers which has led to 72% of roles being filled by Christmas. This is an increase of 45% from 2019.  
• Pass rates have increased by 15% and due to overall candidate quality. 
• The number of assessment centres was reduced by 10%, and while the overall number of assessment centres reduced, the amount we were able to hold prior to January rose by 315%. This was critical to ensure BDO were securing the best talent for their business, early in the season.  
• The average time for candidates to complete the assessment process was reduced from 2.5 hours to 45 minutes. 
• The average candidate wait time between submitting an application and attending an assessment centre was reduced by 75% compared to last season. This was achieved through pipeline efficiency which allowed the filling of assessment centre slots earlier. 

“The fact that all these improvements came in conjunction with the pandemic and an HR systems implementation, is a testament to the importance of automation and the hard work and dedication of both Amberjack and the BDO Early in Career Resourcing team” 

To see how your business could benefit from Amberjack’s services, you can get in contact with our team by filling out the Contact Us form!