Introduction: an HR dream
CitrusHR have been disrupting the HR scene for seven years. Their software is designed to help growing businesses easily manage employees. The surge in working from home this spring led to more companies looking to digitise their operations. This meant that CitrusHR had to do some growing itself.
Its owners approached DigitalGrads when they were in need of two new, charismatic customer support staff to meet the ever-increasing demand.
The Challenge: too many people to manage
Some businesses see HR as an extraneous, boring form-filling annoyance and not as what it really is: managing and understanding people. CitrusHR is challenging this by offering simple digital HR solutions. But even though their company is built on tech, it’s powered by people.
So it’s no surprise that when DigitalGrads advertised their Customer Support – Software Specialist role, it got a lot of attention.
We were inundated with applications. People from all walks of life were wanting a slice of the Citrus pie: software developers, customer service veterans and fitness fanatics flooded in.
But CitrusHR were looking for a certain type of person. They wanted a passionate high performer that could hit the ground running.
Our Approach: quality over quantity
At DigitalGrads we like to do a lot more than let applicants come to us. We go out and find them ourselves.
CitrusHR wanted someone who could work in the office, so our team began the hunt for all-star applicants by doing some digging into the University of Bath and Bath Spa alumni pool. We combed through their graduates and reached out to see who was looking for work.
“Finding graduates in the area was the first challenge. The second challenge was finding the right people with the right experience.” – Kristina, DG Recruiter
The CitrusHR team were looking for a natural people-person. Someone who could be on the phone all day talking to customers. But they were also looking for someone technical, who could learn their software and teach other people how to use it. These things can be hard to screen for.
“I took all of the applicants – the ones that I found and the ones that applied themselves – and put them to the test with our screening process.” – Kristina, DG Recruiter
We screened out 50% of the applicants very quickly: this wasn’t a basic entry-level role, so anyone that didn’t have work experience or extracurricular activities on their profile was removed from the longlist.
The next round of screening was more complex: anyone that didn’t have a profile video – or make one fast enough – was taken down.
“If you’re not willing to put yourself in front of a camera and sell yourself, how are you going to call customers and sell a product?” – Kristina, DG Recruiter
Conclusion: the best of the bunch
In the end, the hiring team at CitrusHR were left with the top 10% of applicants. They were looking for high performers, and that’s just what they got.
Our shortlisted applicants went through a multi-stage interview process that began with a task. CitrusHR took a piece of the role – teaching someone how to use their systems – and challenged the applicants to demonstrate how they would approach this.
“The task was brilliant: it gave everyone on the shortlist a fair chance to prove their skills. There were no tricks and no surprises.” – Kristina, DG Recruiter
In the end, our rigorous screening process paid off. CitrusHR were originally looking for two all-star hires, but they made an astonishing four job offers. Three of these were accepted. CitrusHR now has two new Customer Support – Software Specialists and one Junior HR Software Analyst. We know they’re going to do great things.
“Thank you so much, DigitalGrads! Yours is the first recruitment service that has made recruiting really simple and easy. I love the clarity of your UX and the profiles, setting out what really matters clearly and making it super easy to compare candidates.
“We have used all kinds of other Applicant Tracking Systems, and yours is by a long way the best that we’ve used. You’ve also helped us attract some excellent candidates, and the service you’ve given has been fabulous.
“We will definitely use DigitalGrads the next time we’re hiring – thank you!” – David Lester, Co-founder of CitrusHR
