What We Learnt at Bristol Live

In November 2023, we were lucky to attend In-House Recruitment’s Bristol Live event. It’s a wonderful opportunity to get to know so many brilliant TA professionals, and we could not have enjoyed the day more.

That’s not all. It was also the perfect chance to hear some of the latest industry insights, on subjects ranging from embedding DE&I and understanding what your potential candidates look for in a job to crafting an outstanding candidate experience. We’ve put together some of our highlights from the day-enjoy!

How can you deliver a great candidate experience? You need to foster a human connection.

It’s one thing to find the perfect candidate; crafting a positive candidate experience is another! As Paul Sumner from National Express pointed out in his talk, transparency and open communication are central to both your brand image and the recruitment process.

He highlighted just how essential it is to establish a relationship with your candidates before they even enter the workplace. He suggests that by prioritising human connection through regular contact, face-to-face interactions, and avoiding making offers via email, you can give your candidates crucial agency and engagement.

Here’s a great example: by calling candidates post-offer weekly, they were able to reduce the dropout rate by an impressive 25%!

Want to understand candidate priorities? Salary tops the list.

Paul Sykes from CV Library shared some great insights into the psychology of recruitment, understanding what your candidates want and why they want it.

He revealed their top findings on the hierarchy of candidate priorities, with salary topping the charts at 78%. It’s quite a contrast with 2021, when 57.3% of 2,000 survey respondents identified salary as the top area employers should focus on to avoid losing staff in 2022. It’s also interesting to see that both flexible working and ability to work from home have also fallen, at 29.7% and 20.2% respectively.

Ready to elevate your DE&I strategy? Facilitate social mobility.

Sam Turnpenny presented a fantastic talk on putting social mobility at the heart of your DE&I strategy. As he points out, it’s a facet of DE&I that is often overlooked. It's also absolutely crucial to enriching, uplifting, and elevating your workforce, as well as challenging industry norms.

Here are some statistics that really stood out: 64% of senior leaders come from families with a professional background while only 37% of people come from families with a professional background. Even more concerningly, 26% of senior leaders attended fee-paying schools. Less than 8% of the population attended fee-paying schools.

It’s a huge challenge, and opening lines of sight for candidates who have been excluded from reaching those roles is key. Sam highlighted that DE&I strategy should have long term impact in mind, and practices such as reverse mentoring can direct informed decision making.

A huge thank you to both IHR and all the fantastic contributors for making this event so enjoyable-it was an absolute pleasure to hear what you all had to say!