How to make public sector hiring more equipped

There are currently over 12 million people who serve the public in federal, state, and local roles who are critical to our society. However, hiring challenges have long-faced public sector teams due to antiquated processes that can turn off candidates and cripple hiring teams, preventing them from making smart, fast hiring decisions.

Workday acknowledges that federal hiring is different. “Considered the most complex field in the United States, the federal government must deliver on critical objectives in a vastly changing landscape. Agencies and departments face budget uncertainty and a variety of workforce issues, such as lengthy hiring and onboarding cycles, high turnover, and diversity disparity, just to name a few.”

The hiring challenges facing the federal government are two-fold. Teams are not only facing uncertain economic conditions, but many public sector hiring teams are still losing talent to the private sector due to ineffective hiring methods. 

GovEvents describes the federal hiring process saying that while “the missions of the federal government are vast and complex, agency leaders are increasingly pulled away from those missions to focus on administrative responsibilities.”

This month, the local and federal HR community came together in Washington D.C. for the Workday Federal Forum, produced by FedScoop, for discussions on how to make public sector hiring more equipped for today’s candidates and teams.

Here are the top 4 takeaways from Workday Fed Forum:

Strong integrations enhance employee experiences.

Candidate experience matters—and so does the experience of your hiring teams. In today’s climate, hiring teams are being asked to do more with fewer resources, and streamlined, automated processes are the key to efficiency. When optimizing your hiring tech stack, it’s critical to think through your ATS integration—because a strong integration is key to peak performance. 

HireVue is proud of our integrations partner program, which includes a wide range of partners including:

• Oracle Gold Partner offering integration for ORC and Taleo with over 100 live customers 
• SAP Silver Partner offering a SuccessFactors Recruiting integration with 50 live customers
• Workday Select Partner with pre-built certified integration for over 140 live customers
• SmartRecruiters certified partner with a pre-built integration with self-service activation
• Page-Up pre-built integration 
• iCIMS ATS integration
• Eightfold Talent Intelligence Platform integration
• Avature ATS/CRM integration
• Infinite BrassRing pre-built integration
• Greenhouse ATS integration\
• Oleeo ATS integration
• Cornerstone ATS and Talentlink integrations

A strong integration allows teams to work seamlessly in one hiring ecosystem, instead of bouncing between different screens. Automation makes one, efficient end-to-end hiring solution possible and easy—allowing teams to expand their reach and hire faster at the same time.

In the recent Enterprise Essential Report titled How Workday Customers are Transforming TA, it’s reported that 73% of the companies surveyed cited elimination of in-person interviews and HR administration burden as their primary reason for purchasing next-generation talent acquisition (TA) products. 

Additional top reasons cited for the use of next-generation TA applications include conducting live video interviews (58%) and the ability to attract and engage with top talent. This is particularly important for companies that often encounter a high turnover rate, providing new tools that make it easier to move faster and identify better candidates to fit these positions.

Automation is key to positive candidate experiences.

Your candidate experience is a reflection of the employee experience, so ensure it’s a positive one. 

In today’s age, it’s imperative you meet candidates, especially Millennials and Gen Z, on their phones with mobile-friendly solutions like video interviewing, texting, and chatbots.  Text recruiting allows hiring teams to reach 4x more candidates 5x faster. And when the average email inbox has almost 200 unread emails, reaching out via email is inefficient. HireVue technology allows hiring teams to send personalized SMS campaigns or 1:1 messages from the platform (not personal devices)—so your candidates stay engaged throughout the entire process. 

And instead of manual scheduling, our solutions allow candidates to schedule (and reschedule) their own interviews—creating a more positive experience for candidates (and employees). 

Plus, on-demand interviewing allows candidates to interview when it’s convenient for them—which may be outside the typical 9-5 hours, a factor especially critical for those overseas.

Data empowers hiring teams to make fairer decisions.

The President’s Management Agenda (PMA) exists to “attract and hire the most qualified employees, who reflect the diversity of our country, in the right roles across the Federal Government.” Hiring teams in the public space are looking to modernize their HR processes, which has been reinforced by the PMA—where the top priority is to strengthen and empower the federal workforce. 

Hiring teams need to be structured and aligned on their priorities so that the right information is captured from interviews. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) requires assessments for various roles, and even the interview itself can be used to evaluate candidate skills.

Make your hiring fairer with technology. Structured interviewing is driven by text and allows agencies to lean into technology. Power your hiring with data and incorporate competency-based interview questions that help teams make informed, science-backed decisions. In addition, Assessments are a great way to evaluate the hard and soft skills that better predict success—not resumes.  

HireVue believes the best hiring decisions are made when AI and humans work together—so our technology provides teams with the data needed for smarter hiring decisions. Structured interviewing and assessments ensure all candidates are evaluated equally, mitigating bias in the hiring process.

AI is a tool that requires data, so the quality of the data must be taken into consideration—before it’s used to make decisions. Today’s landscape is cluttered with HR tech options and finding the right one can feel overwhelming, so be sure to think through the explainability factor when looking for a vendor. Vendors should be able to:

• Easily explain how their technology works
• Explain in it a way that makes sense
• Share the technology’s validity and ROI

If they can’t, you should probably be wary. If you’re interested in more information about HireVue’s technology, read the industry’s first AI Explainability statement here.

Security is always a top priority.

In our digital world, software security is imperative, especially in the HR space. Running enterprise systems in the cloud requires strong security standards, and in the Federal Government, FedRAMP is required for Software-as-a-Service solutions.

Both Workday and HireVue run on AWS, and at HireVue, we leverage security protocols that allow us to meet FedRAMP certification and protect customer data. HireVue is the only FISMA and Privacy Act-compliant talent experience platform, and is used by 8 of the 10 largest federal agencies. 

Ready to start hiring at the speed of industry? Request a demo.