• Case Study

A successful talent register in record time – Bureau of Meteorology case study

BOM

Bureau of Meteorology Case Study

Federal agency achieves rapid improvements in quantity and quality of applicants, along with time to hire, with Talent Register powered by Recruit by HireRoad.

The Impact

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) partners with HireRoad and creates a wildly popular Talent Register that quickly attracts hundreds of better-qualified candidates than ever before, with the desired skills.

The Challenge

BOM, Australia’s national weather, climate and water agency, assists Australians in dealing with the harsh realities of their natural environment, including drought, floods, fires, storms, tsunami and tropical cyclones. It is led by a Chief Executive Officer, Director of Meteorology and six Group Executives. BOM maintains 8 state and territory offices and 14 field offices across Australia.

The Bureau has an ongoing need to attract, hire and onboard temporary workers, for engagements that can last as few as several months. A wide range of skills, talents and competencies is required across these positions.

The process of finding qualified candidates can take up to several months, from approving of staffing requisition to advertising of the position, shortlisting of applicants and following by interviews. The entire process was quite time consuming. While managers want their positions approved and posted ASAP, HR had the chore of locating approvers and getting them to act. Furthermore, sometimes it was difficult to find candidates with the desired set of skills or few quality candidates surfaced.

The Solution

BOM determined that it would greatly benefit from a new Talent Register system for temporary employees that would help it locate, attract, hire and onboard high-quality candidates quickly and with a reduced burden on HR staff. The bureau looked at what some other agencies had done with talent registers and used those as a base for creating its own register.

BOM worked with HireRoad’s talent management solution specialists to build the job template. Different staff were then invited to test the new system and provide comments. Based on this feedback, BOM worked with HireRoad to incorporate the wishes of everyone involved. In just a few months, the system was up and operational.

“We’ve gone from a cumbersome, timeconsuming system of trying to locate candidates with difficult-to-find technical skills to a robust talent register that succeeded in bringing in high-quality applicants beyond our expectations,” said Dorcas Ho, Senior Recruitment Manager at BOM. “We received about 300 candidates in just the first two weeks of making the Talent Register system live – the feedback from managers and applicants has been overwhelmingly positive.” Ho attributes the system’s ease of use to much of its success.

“Now numerous qualified candidates come back to HR in just days,” added Ho. “These candidates can then be quickly assessed, followed by interviews if required and then a job offer.”

BOM’s Talent Register also allows key words, making it easy to locate candidates that match a job or skill. For example, HR can select a location and then search for a position – for example, “executive assistant,” and the system will return candidates who match the search request.

Using Recruit by HireRoad’s Talent Warehouse capability, BOM has been able to set up searches to help HR and hiring managers locate candidates more quickly. “This will be very handy for people looking for a specific skill or trying to find someone in a certain location,” said Ho.

BOM’s new Talent Register has ignited the hiring of qualified applicants across Australia, and the result is an agency that is now much better positioned to meet its ongoing mission and challenges.

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