How Webrecruit partnered with the National Park Authority to transform its recruitment processes through a bilingual careers site and Applicant Tracking System.
The Company
The Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority was created in 1996 to conserve the beautiful area of Pembrokeshire for future generations. Pembrokeshire Coast National Park is one of three National Parks in Wales and one of 15 in the UK.
The purpose of the Authority is to conserve and enhance the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of the Park, as well as promoting opportunities for public enjoyment and understanding of its special qualities.
The Challenge
We caught up with Helen Crocker, the Authority’s Personnel Data Systems Officer. Having worked with the organisation since May 2017, Helen is tasked with automating recruitment and supporting all end-to-end personnel processes, systems and reporting.
Introducing a bilingual Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and careers site was a high priority for the Authority, ensuring it delivered the same experience to English and Welsh speaking candidates and compliance with the Welsh Language Standards. The bilingual requirement involved months of research as it added a huge amount of complexity to the project and limited Helen’s choice of suppliers.
Getting a system in place quickly was also essential as their lean recruitment team were managing all applications manually.
“We advertise between 30 and 40 vacancies a year but for one part time person managing up to 500 applications, that was quite a heavy manual workload,” Helen explains. “Our recruitment agents at the time noticed that candidates were looking at our jobs online but failing to complete our application process. Reviewing hits on our website for specific vacancies highlighted dwindling applicants for traditional core roles. This was not surprising given the candidate experience at the time.”
The Authority needed to review its advertising strategy; hiring managers and Personnel staff would decide where to advertise vacancies and many still relied on costly print media as the primary option which didn’t have the same reach as online advertising.
The Solution
Helen discovered Webrecruit’s ATS through her online research; the modern appearance of the software stood out against many of the other products out there which were more dated. After requesting further information, a full demo was booked in to showcase the ATS and its capabilities.
“Our Account Manager was excellent. He set up a clear timeline and timescales for everything and designed workarounds to help us overcome any stumbling blocks and achieve our bilingual requirement.”
Due to the intuitive interface of the ATS, Helen managed to get up and running on the system quickly with limited training and any questions were quickly answered by the Product Support team, via telephone or screenshare. Our Product Support team also travelled to Pembrokeshire to deliver on-site training to the hiring managers to support the change.
Helen’s favourite part of the system? The automated email communications that are sent to candidates and the notifications sent out informing hiring managers of any new applicants.
“I absolutely love the ability to manage email communications through the system. I’d been covering one of my colleagues’ work manually before and it was a nightmare. Now with email templates, everyone is receiving the same communications. A consistent experience is being provided and information is available to hiring managers at the click of a button.”
To complement the Authority’s use of Webrecruit’s ATS, they also purchased a premium package of Webrecruit’s job board advertising credits.
“We wanted to use Webrecruit’s online advertising solution to move away from more costly print advertising and introduce a new way of working. We’d trialled the service before and achieved good results hiring successful candidates so we thought it’d be useful for our Head Office and managerial roles. The online exposure was key for us because of the remote nature of our location.”
The Results
Since partnering with Webrecruit, Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority has achieved the following results:
– Successful launch of a bilingual careers site and ATS to meet requirements of the Welsh language Standards
– Improved processes between the recruitment team and hiring managers
– Improved candidate experience
– Reduced administration for team
– Online advertising strategy in place
“Webrecruit’s ATS takes all the noise away so we can focus on where we’re going. It gives us the time to be more strategic in our approach because we’re not up to our eyes dealing with candidates and administration.”
What’s next on the agenda for Helen and the team in Pembrokeshire?
“I’m targeting our hiring managers to make sure that they are fully confident in their use of the system. I want to make sure that they’re using it properly and not printing off applications anymore. I also want to focus on refining our advertising and making more of the reporting functionality held within the ATS.”
Final Words
“Would I recommend Webrecruit? Definitely. They do what they say they’re going to do and the turnaround time is really quick. They’re very good to work with.”
– Helen Crocker, Personnel Data Systems Officer, Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority
Want to learn more?
Find out how Webrecruit can transform your recruitment process through technology.
