Case Study: High Volume Recruitment
CLIENT: BROADBANDTV
Making 50 quality sales hires in just 60 days does not have to be complicated
The Challenge
BBTV had been given significant funding ($36 million) to grow its business, with a major focus on developing its sales team from top to bottom. Specifically in mid-2015 its goal was to launch a 50-person domestic sales team. With very little brand recognition and a small HR team, this fast and prolific growth presented a major challenge.
BBTV felt it could hire 50% of the team through their own network, employee referrals and advertising, but needed significant external help to actively find, engage and hire the remaining 25 bright and interesting people for their sales roles (Talent Partners). It was specifically looking for young, vibrant millennials with a real interest in digital media and marketing.
The Company
Founded in 2005, BroadbandTV (BBTV) is an industry leader in the media and technology space.
The aim of its business is to help content creators on major online video platforms such as YouTube, optimize, monetize and protect their brand identity. It is able to do this through exceptional technological advantages and strong strategic partnerships that significantly benefit content creators.
As of 2017, BBTV is the largest multi-platform network globally, representing some of the most successful online talent in the world. It generates in excess of $18 billion monthly views making it the 3rd largest video property in the world (right behind Google and Facebook).
Snapshot of BBTV’s Vancouver office
The Solution
Screenshots of candidates during the video interview process
CANDIDATE OUTREACH
Sales Talent Agency (STA) identified the biggest gap in BBTV’s capacity was proactively reaching out to candidates through headhunting and guerrilla marketing efforts. As such, STA took on this challenge, utilizing state of the art recruitment tools, its prolific candidate network built over 10 years, and also by going to malls, stores, and actively having conversations with high-potential candidates. In all, STA reached out to more than 1500 young professionals and had more than 700 conversations about BBTV as an employer.
POSITIONING BBTV AS AN EMPLOYER OF CHOICE
To compete with the many other companies recruiting the same talent pool at the same time, Sales Talent Agency interviewed BBTV leadership, investors and employees to develop an ’employer value proposition’ that clearly stood out. Well positioned as an employer of choice, BBTV now had the pick of the best quality candidates in the market. Of the 700 conversations, more than 70% expressed interest in BBTV as an employer.
SELECTING THE BEST CANDIDATES
BBTV determined that the profile required a strong work ethic, high emotional intelligence and excellent people engagement skills, as well as a bright and curious mind focused on technology and marketing. Sales Talent Agency used its DNA/PRO™ candidate assessment methodology to determine each candidate fit for this role. Approximately 200 candidates were shortlisted as being high potential BBTV hires, and ultimately 117 were presented and interviewed.
SPEED WAS KEY
A bottleneck was determined early with the number of people at BBTV who could take the time to phone screen candidates as a first stage, a critical step in ensuring BBTV sales leaders were not meeting unqualified candidates. To combat this, STA used video interview technology, recording each presented candidate’s answers to interview questions highly related to our defined profile. This meant that the whole phone screen component of the process could be eliminated. This saved more than 100 hours of work for BBTV HR, and ensured that only the best candidates were met by BBTV sales leadership.
The Result
BBTV successfully made 25 hires in 60 days. Within 18 months 9 were promoted into leadership roles.
“We’ve promoted 9 of the candidates we have hired to management levels. This was epic.”