Introduction

Over the following paragraphs, we will give you a detailed overview of our recruiting process, and we will also explain what makes recruiting challenging and exciting at the same time at Greentube. Also, we will describe which parts of the recruiting process we put particular emphasis on in order to ensure that our future employees are a good organisational and cultural fit.

Studies show that the more information potential applicants receive from a company in the early stages of their selection process, the stronger expectations, and more positive relationships are built in advance (Truxillo et al.). If potential candidates have perceptions that fit with an organisation, this is a strong predictor of applicant attraction to that organisation. Therefore, when hiring, it is essential to have the right organisational and cultural characteristics in place that applicants can identify with.

Employees are the most important resource at Greentube

In today’s fast-paced, global world, and especially in our industry, we cannot take it for granted that suitable candidates will find us and apply. The “war for talent” is a well-known buzzword and something we are confronted with daily, especially when it comes to positions within our technical departments. There is no easy solution to this; we simply have to accept this challenge because “recruiting high potentials is the foundation for creating knowledge, innovation and competitive advantages” (Sommer, Heidenreich, Handrich, 2018). To take on this challenge effectively and get the best results for the company, the recruiting department must take a very active role in the process of not only finding the best fit professionally, but also acts as a “supervisory body” to check the cultural fit of the candidates. We are convinced that every single hire has an impact on the company culture in the long run, so we try to keep the quality as high as possible during the whole recruiting process.

Our recruiters work closely with the hiring managers of each team, doing this creates a dynamic combination that ensures that a diverse and detailed pool of opinions on the candidates is gained, and is much appreciated throughout the whole company. In the recruiting process, we don’t only want to find the ‘guru’ in the required field, but also people who will maintain and elevate our company culture. Common denominators like age, country, religion, race are of no significance to us; everyone is welcome at Greentube as long as they match the required skill-set and fit the culture.

If there is one piece of advice we, as recruiters, would like to bestow upon future candidates, then it is this: Come as you are!

What do we mean by this? To put it simply, don’t be a show-off! We understand that you want to impress and present all of your skills in a very limited amount of time, but the key thing is to be natural, be yourself, be honest, but also be polite and respectful.

We will also always treat you as respectfully as possible. You may be unsuccessful in your application at Greentube, there may be disagreements regarding ideas and expectations of the job being discussed, but just because it didn’t work this time, does not mean that there won’t be an opportunity in the future. Remember: you always meet twice.

The recruiting process at Greentube

Generally, every recruiting process has a similar general structure, as shown in the graphic above at Greentube. However, individual steps and elements of the interview process may be adapted to the needs of the position. Recruitment for an IT position, for example, demands an entirely different assessment and evaluation as filling a position in the graphics department.

Therefore, as soon as a decision has been made to hire a new recruit, the first step is always to have an alignment meeting with the responsible manager. During that meeting, it is central for us as recruiters to get a grasp both the technical expertise required for the job, and the personality profile the ideal candidate should have to fit the team best. Our employees should complement each other’s know-how in order to cover their field of expertise within the company. Also, we pay attention to detail when it comes to the personality of our employees. They should fit our company culture, which was described in more detail in our first article, as well as fit within the team. Together with the recruiter, our line managers create personality profiles and discuss these in detail in order to give the recruiter the chance to prepare the right questions for the evaluation of the applicants’ profiles.

After the requirements of the position are clarified, a job description is created by the team leader and subsequently also the job advert for the position. At this stage, we strive to create a job advert which provides an overall picture of the role and our company benefits. We place great importance on ensuring that these ads are well-balanced and do not offer too much information that may overload the reader. The online media channels we use are often dependent on the type of job. A developer position requires different methods to a graphics position, for example. Trial and error over many years have provided us with enough experience to know which websites work for what kind of positions.

As soon as we receive the first applications via our recruiting tool, we start screening the CVs. In most cases, this includes having a look at the CV, the motivation letter, reference letters, and any certificates candidates upload. Phone screenings may also take place at this stage if requested by the responsible managers. This involves conducting short phone interviews with interesting candidates.

Checking the most important requirements at the very beginning of the process can save some time and prevent disappointment for all involved parties at a later stage in the process. If all the boxes can be ticked, and the applicant fulfils the preset requirements, the process will be continued in the form of a first interview. These interviews can either take place via MS Teams or in person at the office.

Usually, the first interview is used as a general introduction. The goal of this first round is to get as much information as possible about the applicant’s professional experience and skills, as well as develop an idea of their attitude and personality. From Greentube’s perspective, it is vital for us to provide transparent and realistic insights about the vacant position, its challenges and responsibilities. Furthermore, we provide an overview of the company structure, culture and the team.

An applicant starts building up their first impressions and expectations about a company at the very first contact with a recruiter, or perhaps even earlier, when looking at the company’s website for the first time.

As we continue in the interview process, in most cases, a second interview follows; on rare occasions, there may even be a third. To ease the process or to make things more time-efficient, we may sometimes ask our applicants to complete certain tasks at home ahead of the interview. These tasks are not designed to waste the candidate’s time, but are individually created tasks for that specific position, and are given to provide the applicant with an idea of what the position is actually about. It also provides us with an impression of the candidate’s working style and how they approach different scenarios.

Our tasks vary from coding assignments to presentations, case studies, or other types of assessments. Our new employees often tell us that the task was beneficial for them, because it allowed them to get an idea of what to expect from the new job in advance. It also gave them the opportunity to decide if this position and the tasks involved was really something that they would like to work on in the future. In addition to this, discussing the tasks with applicants can lead to fascinating outcomes and also give our internal teams new angles, ideas and solutions to existing issues.

Once the task is complete, applicants are given the opportunity to meet other members of the team. As information is key to our recruiting process, it is central that both the applicant and the team members have the opportunity to get an impression of each other. Meeting potential colleagues also often involves a tour of the future workplace if the interview takes place on-site. Being introduced to the company environment at an early stage of the relationship between employee and company can help shape and sustain the impressions and perceptions of future employees.

After the final interview, a discussion round will be set up where we collect the opinions of all the colleagues involved and review the facts of each candidate. Furthermore, applicants are compared with each other to make sure the best decision is made regarding who best fits into the team, both personality-wise and also in regards to know-how, skills, and experience.

What is so unique about Greentube’s Recruiting approach?

International Recruiting

Diversity and internationality are words that describe Greentube very well. We are proud to call ourselves part of a very open and international company, and we embrace this diversity by recruiting new employees from around the world. We currently have employees from over 40 nations, and we are striving to make this number even higher. We have found that teams are able to work more creatively and more productively if they are diverse.

We have passionate employees who have relocated from all over the world just to join Greentube. Interviewing people from around the world is not without its challenges, and over the years, we have developed an enormous amount of experience with online interviews. We have learned that it is much more time and cost-effective to conduct the first interview remotely. If an international candidate makes it to the last round of the application process, we invite them to our offices in Vienna/Graz to also meet in person and show them their potential future workplace. To make sure that each candidate can afford their trip to our office and ensure it runs as smoothly as possible, we arrange the trip and cover the costs for them (we also arrange the hotel if needed).

We try to use all kinds of synergies within the Greentube group of companies, especially when it comes to finding the best talents. We are in constant contact with our HR managers in Malta and the UK and work very closely with them. We try to support each other as much as possible and gain value from using this synergy. Sharing experiences is of utmost importance to us, as every market works a bit differently. We’ve also started to involve our local managers more, one of the biggest things we have learned is that it is crucial to have someone on-site. Even the best remote recruiting process can never compare to the quality of having a person on-site to manage everything that is needed.

Recruiting channels

Generally, at Greentube, we distinguish between internal and external recruiting channels. Both channels are equally important to us and need a lot of attention. Depending on the company culture and the target audience, recruiting teams have to come up with dedicated sourcing strategies suitable for their company’s needs.

Internally, we have established a recruiting process using our referral tool – Firstbird. We have been using this tool for over three years now and appreciate its simplicity and user-friendliness. The tool enables our employees to share existing job advertisements with just one click. As soon as the job ad is posted, our employees are our best recruiters. The frequency and success rate of these internal recommendations is amazingly high, even though the recommended candidates also have to pass the “normal” recruiting process. There is no short cut for these candidates.

External recruiting is done passively as well as actively at Greentube. By passively, we mean the several diverse platforms we use to post our job ads. Apart from our website, we actively use other platforms to promote our jobs in order to increase awareness, and also ensure that we are targeting and approaching the right candidates. You can find our job adverts on LinkedIn, Karriere.at, Stackoverflow, Indeed and Glassdoor. We are continuously working on our online presence on these different channels, trying to have a central, corporate strategy, while also using the different platforms to attract a broad range of candidates. Active external recruiting is done via active sourcing. That means that recruiters have to be proactive, not reactive when it comes to finding the perfect prospective employee. For positions that are hard to fill, we are actively contacting potential candidates via various platforms like LinkedIn. Active Sourcing requires a lot of work, but the benefits of being able to hand-pick the right candidates outweigh the disadvantages. At Greentube, we found that the more experienced we became with Active Sourcing, the higher the success rate was.

Getting to know the team

At Greentube, team spirit is highly valued. Recognition, praise, feeling part of a team and being able to socialize with colleagues all contribute to this. This is why we try to include the team members in our recruitment process. As mentioned earlier in the article, in the last step of the process, the candidates have the opportunity to meet the team, ask them questions and get an impression of the team mentality. From our experience, this has been really helpful for everyone to see if the candidate could be a long-term fit for the team and the company. While skills and competence are important factors when it comes to obtaining a job, the cultural fit is just as important, and it may often be the deciding factor as to whether an employee stays at a company for a longer period or not.

We also see it as very beneficial for our new employees to have a dedicated mentor, whom they already met during the recruiting process. Greentube’s mentoring program aims to offer new employees a stable and advantageous start and welcome them into the Greentube family. The team member who has the role of the mentor is not only responsible for defining a tailored onboarding program according to the future tasks of the new employee, but also to define a timeline for the first few weeks. Providing internal documentation and information, explaining the departmental structure and processes and helping the new members feel like part of the team are also key responsibilities of a mentor. The aim of this is to ease the socialisation process with the team by including the mentor in the recruitment process and, as a result, lead to a better and more effective onboarding in the end.

Collaboration between hiring managers and the Recruiting department

One big puzzle piece in our recruiting process, which we would like to highlight again at the end of this article is the close collaboration between our recruiters and the hiring managers. These internal processes took a lot of time to set up, and there is always room for improvement, but we are extremely pleased with the effectiveness and efficiency of the collaboration we have with our hiring managers. This positive relationship naturally has a positive impact on the hiring process as well. The candidates we hire are hired on a mutual agreement between the respective hiring team and the responsible recruiter.

For Sandra Zeinlinger, Greentube’s Director of Group Employee Services, this is one of the key success factors of recruiting at Greentube:

„Our recruiters work closely with our line managers to ensure we hire the right people. We understand the importance of a well set up recruiting process, which includes the time it takes to respond to applications, the communication flow between applicants and us, and the interview structure.“

Recruiting at Greentube is challenging, diverse and fast-paced, as is the whole industry. There is no guarantee that all applicants will fit our company culture, but we put our hearts and minds into ensuring this process is the best it can be at Greentube. At the same time, we also try to ensure that our recruiting efforts are not only well known, but also appreciated and respected, because we agree with i.a. Legge, Porter and Boxall, who showed in several studies that employees are the most important resource for a company’s success.