COVID-19 has forced a lot of us to become remote workers by default. Now more companies are now declaring it is likely to become their new norm, with little understanding of what successful remote teams look like.

Zoom exhaustion is a thing. The reality of working from home for many of us has become long days trying to get small tasks done between back-to-back video calls. The founder and CEO of Automattic, Matt Mullenweg, a company with over 1000 remote workers spread across 75 countries, chose remote as the working norm for two key reasons. First, to access a broader pool of talent, and second to unleash productivity. He describes five levels of remote work maturity. Most companies now forced into WFH are at Level 1. We have just moved our way of doing things to a different location and are following the same daily routines that we always have.

Mullenwag describes Level 5 as the ‘nirvana’ for remote work where your distributed team works better than any in-person team ever could. He says his company is not even there yet.

So, what are we all doing wrong?

We have missed one of the drivers of remote work productivity gains which is asynchronous work- which needs asynchronous communication. This simply means that work doesn’t happen at the same time for everyone. Productivity and flexibility for employees come when we don’t all have to get in a room or via Zoom. That means communicating in writing, not by video is imperative.

Forcing people to do video meetings also risks continuing to drown out team members who don’t thrive in a live group setting. The introverts. The deep quiet thinkers. The ones who prefer to reflect on an issue and not be forced into making a contribution because everyone else is on Zoom. Again, written communication solves for this.

It’s quite simple, if you want a fully functioning remote team written communication is the way to go. It has to be the way you define a business problem, debate the key issues, and fast track from idea to execution.

Case in point: Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos cottoned on to this years ago. Amazon requires every meeting to be guided by a six-page memo laying out all the key issues. Everyone, regardless of their title, has to read every word. Bezos turned written narrative into a competitive advantage, recognising that writing clearly requires clear thinking. Effective written communication is a foundational building block of a successful remote workforce. GitLab, another fully remote organization with over 1000 employees across the world highlights this fact in their Remote Work Playbook (page 19).

This ‘new productivity hack’, how you write, whether via text, Slack, Wiki or on Google docs also impacts your hiring processes. At what point do any of us test for written communication skills when hiring? If you want to hire people who can work autonomously, be productive and who can collaborate you need to test their text communication. This calls for a radically different approach to talent acquisition.

A solution!

Mullenweg worked that out early in Automattic’s remote working journey and all their job interviews are via text. The other obvious benefit of this approach is it means there is far less room for bias. In contrast, put someone in front of a camera for a video interview and the bias risk is amplified. Hiring going forward has to test for written communication. This is not something you can ignore anymore.

How to hire for a remote environment?

If you speak to C-suite about why it’s taken so long to permit remote work, the word trust will come up a lot. Bottom line, managers don’t trust that people will actually work when at home, creating instead an unproductive culture of ‘presenteeism’. To manage the risk of hiring ‘slackers’, the other thing you have to test for is motivation.

Other personality traits that relate to good remote workers include discipline. The advantage here is that we stop Big ‘P’ personality-based hiring. We have all made those hiring mistakes – inclined to the person who tells a good story. In a remote work environment, self motivated employees, big talkers and non-doers get discovered quickly!

What may not be known to many people, is that testing for written fluency, clarity of thought, motivation, discipline, can all be done via text analysis in the hiring process. Testing should not be just limited to the skill of writing. It should also test the motivation behind expressing something in writing. That requires more effort and thinking than speaking it out. If someone is not motivated to express themselves in writing when a job is on the line, you can assume what it might be like once they are on the job.

The power of NLP!

The power of Natural Language Processing (NLP) based machine learning models that can tell you all of this immediately is here today. From just 300 words, we can infer writing skills, personality traits and job hopping motives. This means there is no excuse for not hiring for the key skills required for remote work right now.

Noam Chomsky, a pioneer of language studies said it best –

“Language is a mirror of mind in a deep and significant sense. It is a product of human intelligence. By studying the properties of natural languages, their structure, organisation, and use, we may hope to learn something about human nature; something significant, …” (Noam Chomsky, Reflections on Language, 1975)

To find out how to improve candidate experience using Recruitment Automation, we also have a great eBook on candidate experience.

New insights from Aptitude Research suggest recruitment automation can play a much greater role in talent acquisition than just improving efficiency for hiring managers, it can also make the interview process more human for candidates.

The research shows that when you shift the focus from an employer-driven view to a candidate-first view, then it is possible to reduce bias in hiring and improve the overall human element of talent acquisition.

For most companies, the value of automation is perceived through the recruiter and hiring manager experience, with the benefits to the candidate often ignored. However, recruitment automation has to be about more than simply moving candidates through the process quickly to have any significant benefit to a company.

When you focus on the impact and experience of the candidate, the benefits to both recruiters and candidates can significantly improve through recruitment automation.  This approach has given rise to a movement called humanistic automation technology.

But humanistic automation sounds like an oxymoron right? Is it even possible?

The Aptitude Research showed not only is this possible, but that when Ai is used this way, it creates personal connection at scale, and works to reduce bias, something no other technology or even human-centred solution can deliver.

So, how exactly does it do this?

Here are four main areas of talent acquisition that candidate-focussed recruitment automation improves on,and how it achieves this:

1. Connection

There have been some slight improvements in building connections through the hiring process recently, but only 50% of companies have a single point of contact for communication, which results in candidates feeling engaged or valued through the process.

Recruitment automation with a candidate-focus means that communication is personalised for high-engagement with the ability for the conversation to adapt to what it learns about a candidate almost immediately.

As a candidate finding out that you are not successful is tough, and worse, most companies just ghost those they don’t wish to move ahead with. Automation can ensure that every candidate is engaged and cared for even when they are not moving forward in the process – and that doesn’t mean a standard rejection email. Ai can deliver highly personalised communication that builds connection even for those unsuccessful in their application.

2. Inclusivity

Although some companies have made efforts to remove bias from resumes, companies still have a lot of work to do on inclusion. For starters, many are relying on training programs, which have shown to be largely ineffective in delivering long-term change.

It’s true that recruitment automation can amplify bias, but automation that works to reduce bias is continually testing against biases in the system and has been shown to be effective in reducing the impact of bias in hiring decisions. Somethings humans cannot do (we’re inherently biased, whether we like it or not).

When you have the right data input gathered through blind screening and blind interviews – that don’t rely on CV data – then you can help companies achieve an equal and fair experience to all candidates.

Want to remove bias from recruitment and not just talk about it?

Download the Inclusive Hiring e-Book here

Inclusive hiring is not limited to gender and race. Companies need a broader view of diversity, equity, and inclusion that includes individuals with disabilities and neurodiversity. This requires the right digital tools and technology to ensure that candidates have a positive experience. In many cases, chat and text are more inclusive over video or even phone screening and interviews for these candidates.

3. Feedback

Most companies see feedback as a risky area and something they have no ability to do in a fair and timely manner. Essentially this is a lost opportunity for learning and development.

When you see feedback as a value proposition of an employer brand, its power in transforming your TA strategy becomes clear. Recruitment automation allows companies to deliver personalized feedback building trust and strengthening your employer brand.

Personalized feedback with tangible action items, means that candidates feel empowered even if they are rejected. Technology can help to deliver these action items in a human way, that even humans are not able to do at scale or even very well.

These insights are only made possible through natural language processing and machine learning that work in the background to reveal important information about the candidate. When a candidate feels like they are ‘seen’ that can be a transformational moment in their career paths.

Only recruitment automation can deliver individual feedback to everyone who takes time to do a job interview.

4. Trust

In an era of growing awareness around the privacy of data, only 1 in 4   candidates trust the data being will be used to drive hiring decisions. As companies look at recruitment automation through a candidate-centric lens, they must consider both the quality of the data they use and how to build trust between employers and candidates.

The biggest mistake that most companies make is using the wrong data. Resume data is not necessarily an indicator of performance or quality of hire.

Ethical Ai is something that hiring managers need to understand and use to evaluate providers. Providers using ethical Ai operate transparently,  are backed by explanations, describe their methodology, and frequently publish their data.

Aptitude Research found that when data is transparent, it increases the trust in talent acquisition leaders, hiring managers, and senior leaders. With data transparency, 84% of talent acquisition leaders stated that they trust the data, and 78% of senior leaders trust the data.

Talent acquisition transformation has accelerated the demand for recruitment automation.

55% of companies are increasing their investment in recruitment automation this year. These companies recognise that automation can improve efficiency, lift the administrative burden, reduce costs, and enable data-driven decisions.

This report focuses on a new look at automation through the eyes of the candidate

After all, automation is more than moving candidates through a process quickly. It should also enable companies to communicate in a meaningful and inclusive way and build trust between candidates and employers.

Download the full report here.

Interested in a demo of our Lever integration? Fill out the form below!

Like Sapia, the team at Lever like to make life easy for recruiters. Lever streamline the hiring experience, helping recruiters source, engage, and hire from a single platform. Now you can supercharge your Lever ATS by seamlessly integrating interview automation from Sapia. Integrating is easy, and secures fairer, faster, and better hiring results. In the war for talent, you’ll pull ahead of your competitors even faster with Sapia + Lever. 

Hiring is more complex than ever

There’s a lot expected of recruiters these days. Attracting candidates from diverse backgrounds and delivering exceptional candidate care whilst selecting from thousands of candidates isn’t easy.

Recruiters are expected to:

• Find the right people, ensuring a diversity of candidates
• Fill roles quickly and efficiently
• Interrupt bias in hiring and promotion
• Ensure every person hired amplifies the organisation’s values
• Create a candidate experience that is engaging and rewarding

Simplify Lever ATS hiring

A lot is expected from recruiters, from screening thousands of applicants to attracting candidates of diverse backgrounds and delivering a great candidate experience. But technology has advanced a lot and can now better support recruiters.  

The great news is that when you integrate Sapia artificial intelligence technology with the powerful Lever ATS, you will have a faster, fairer and more efficient recruitment process that candidates love.

You can now:

• Reduce your screening time by up to 90%
• Increase your candidate satisfaction to 99%
• Achieve interview completion rates over 90% and
• Reduce screening bias for good!

Sapia + Lever

Gone are the days of screening CVs, followed by phone screens to find the best talent. The number of people applying for each job has grown 5-10 times in size recently. Reading each CV is simply no longer an option. In any case, the attributes that are markers of a high performer often aren’t in CVs and the risk of increasing bias is high.

You can now streamline your Lever process by integrating Sapia interview automation with Lever.

We’ve created a quick, easy and fair hiring process that candidates love.

1. Create a vacancy in Lever, and a Sapia interview link will be created. 
2. Candidates receive the link. Every candidate will have an opportunity to complete a FirstInterview via chat, automatically sent to them after completing their application in Lever.
3. Candidates receive feedback. Every candidate will automatically receive a personalised personality profile and coaching tip after completing their first interview! No more candidate ghosting.
4. See results as soon as candidates complete their interview. Each candidate’s scores, rank, personality assessment, role-based traits and communication skills are available as soon as they complete the interview inside Lever. 

By sending out one simple interview link, you nail speed, quality and candidate experience in one hit.

Integrate Lever and get ahead.

Sapia’s award-winning chat Ai is available to all Lever users. You can automate interviewing, screening, ranking, and more, with a minimum of effort! Save time, reduce bias and deliver an outstanding candidate experience.

Experience a Sapia FirstInterview for yourself

The interview that all candidates love.

As unemployment rates rise, it’s more important than ever to show empathy for candidates and add value when we can. Using Sapia, every single candidate gets a FirstInterview through an engaging text experience on their mobile device, whenever it suits them. Every candidate receives personalized insights, with helpful coaching tips that candidates love.

Together, Sapia and Lever deliver an approach that is: 

• Relevant Move beyond the CV to the attributes that matter most to you: grit, curiosity, accountability, critical thinking, agility, and communication skills
• Respectful Give every single person an interview and never ghost a candidate again
• Dignified Show you value people’s time by providing every single applicant with personal feedback
• Fair Avoid video in the first round of interviews and take an approach that’s 100% blind to gender, age, ethnicity, and other irrelevant attributes
• Familiar Text chat interviewing is not only highly efficient, but it’s also familiar to people of all ages  

There are thousands of comments just like this…

• “I have never had an interview like this in my life and it was really good to be able to speak without fear of judgment and have the freedom to do so.”
• “The feedback is also great. This is a great way to interview people as it helps an individual to be themselves.”
• “The response back is written with a good sense of understanding and compassion.”
• “I don’t know if it is a human or a robot answering me, but if it is a robot then technology is quite amazing.”

Test drive it for yourself here (it takes 2 minutes!)  

Recruiters love using artificial intelligence in hiring.

Recruiters love that Sapia TalentInsights surface in Lever as soon as each candidate finishes their interview.

Together, Sapia and Lever deliver an approach that is: 

• Fast Ai-powered scores and rankings make shortlisting candidates quicker
• Insightful Deep dive into the unique personality and other traits of each candidate 
• Fair Candidates are scored and ranked on their responses. The system is blind to other attributes and regularly checked for bias.
• Streamlined Our stand-alone LiveInterview mobile app makes arranging assessment centres easy. Automated record-keeping reduces paperwork and ensures everyone is fairly assessed.
• Time-saving Automating the first interview screening process and second-round scheduling delivers 90% time savings against a standard recruiting process.

HR Directors and CHROs love reliable bias tracking.

Well-intentioned organizations have been trying to shift the needle on the bias that impacts diversity and inclusion for many years, without significant results.

Together, Sapia and Lever deliver an approach that is: 

• Measurable DiscoverInsights, our operations dashboard that provides clear reporting on recruitment, including pipeline shortlisting, candidate experience and bias tracking.
• Competitive The Sapia and Lever experience is loved by candidates, ensuring you’ll attract the best candidates, and hire faster than competitors.
• Scalable Whether you’re hiring one hundred people, or one thousand, you can hire the best person for the job, on time, every time.
• Best-in-class Sapia easily integrates with Lever to provide you with a best-in-class AI-enabled HRTech stack. 

Getting started is easy!

Let’s chat about getting you started – book a time here ⏰