PETA

PETA is committed to transforming careers and building the next generation of business leaders and technical experts by providing apprenticeship programmes and training to young people. Its award-winning training and apprenticeship programmes have helped thousands of businesses and individuals across the UK to reach their full potential.

Having access to a wide network of schools and candidate sourcing channels, such as job boards and social media, PETA attracts quality candidates for apprenticeship roles in Engineering, IT, Business, Finance and Management.

Employers work with PETA to save time, money and effort when employing apprentices through an effective route to recruit and train future talent, address skills shortages and develop careers across core parts of a business.

PETA work with SMEs and Enterprise companies to support the recruitment of apprentices through its corporate approach to recruitment. The Recruitment Team at PETA manages everything until the point of a job offer and liaises with the candidate regarding sign-up activities, objective setting and introducing themselves to the new company.

“We offer a unique apprenticeship recruitment service which emulates a commercial recruitment agency to help our employers recruit apprentices.”

Improving recruitment effectiveness

The Recruitment Team at PETA previously handled recruitment using an off-the-shelf Applicant Tracking System (ATS) with limited functionality that required manual intervention.

The Team had a vision to:

• Automate the existing recruitment process
• Improve the online candidate experience
• Easily report on progress.

The Team evaluated ATS vendors against requirements and scenarios to see the software’s functionality and ensure it would do what was required.

PETA chose to implement Eploy’s ATS and Recruitment CRM to fulfil its requirements of recruiting apprentices on behalf of employers looking for an effective way to grow talent and develop a motivated, skilled, and qualified workforce.

Implementing Eploy to deliver PETA's commercial recruitment service offers

• Improved candidate choice
• Improved candidate quality and suitability
• Effective candidate onboarding
• A revenue stream for the organisation.  

“The relationship with Eploy is built on a mutual sharing of values that delivers a commercial benefit for PETA when using Eploy as part of our services.”

PETA are confident that recruitment automation using Eploy provides an enhanced online candidate experience that engages with its target audience. Eploy has removed manual interaction, automating everything from the posting of jobs to arranging interviews and engaging with candidates throughout the process. Eploy is also used for internal recruitment.

Beth Bridgen, Recruitment Manager at PETA, commented, “Automating our recruitment processes enables us to engage with candidates in a way that resonates with our typical target market of 16–24-year-olds. Eploy has the functionality we were looking for with its customisation, Video Interviewing toolkit and multi-posting functionality. Using the core Eploy platform, combined with the hiring manager portal and candidate portal, has transformed how we operate, removing heavy admin activities through automation.

“Our processes and recruitment technology are working to find the right people with the right aspirations and connect them with the right employer. A robust process helps place passionate candidates to gain the skill sets that impact the qualification achievement rate.”

A competitive edge

As a training provider, one of the key metrics for the Department for Education is the qualification achievement rate - the number of people that go on to achieve their apprenticeship programme. PETA accesses a wide network of schools and candidate-sourcing channels to attract quality candidates for apprenticeship roles that provide the best opportunity for success.

Not only is PETA looking for a different type of candidate in the first instance, but many funding guidelines require compliance that involves candidates completing rigorous eligibility checks to ensure they are suitable for the apprenticeship programme. These checks are now standard as part of the recruitment process using Eploy.

“It might be a candidate’s first ever job application who hasn’t been through the process of having their CV reviewed or having a telephone interview or an employer interview beforehand. Having the necessary tools to support individuals through the process is imperative.”

Eploy enables multiple recruitment workflows for the range of apprenticeship roles available and for direct employment with PETA. Eploy’s complete Applicant Tracking System is much more efficient in job posting, managing candidate engagement and tracking recruitment progress that supports financial planning and reporting.

Eploy’s Video Interviewing toolkit enables candidates to express their personality and provides a more rounded overview of the candidate. Eploy offers candidates the flexibility to either complete a video interview or submit written answers to avoid losing candidates who prefer to respond in this way. It provides the ability to be more inclusive to the candidate’s requirements. This functionality within Eploy is popular with hiring managers who have the autonomy to make informed decisions about candidates to interview.

Built into the recruitment process are candidate touch points to engage with candidates by sending reminder emails or following up on outstanding actions. Candidates get advice and guidance, and the recruitment team talks to candidates about why they want to work in the chosen industry and why they’ve applied for an apprenticeship. Everything is recorded in Eploy, including any assessments.

“Automated scheduling and recording of activities remove heavy admin and candidates receive text messages which fit with how the target audience want to receive reminders rather than through emails, for example. We now have the flexibility to adapt our recruitment process to our target audience”.

Continuous improvement

Eploy is supporting the Team’s data-driven decision-making. The Recruitment Team sit down every quarter and reviews the entire recruitment process from start to finish, using the recruitment data within Eploy, looking at what works well and what improvements can be made.

This continuous improvement approach allows tweaks to be made to the processes in place. Beth added, “The reporting dashboards we have in Eploy provide visibility of all recruitment activity and capture the data we need to understand performance. We review data to assess a candidate’s eligibility and support improved decision-making. We now look at ED&I data to check if there is a stage of the process where candidates drop off and if there are improvements to be made, for example, for neurodiverse candidates and if we can offer a way to do things differently.

“The early leaver rate has reduced because our recruitment process is much more in-depth. It is helping us to improve as a quality training provider and in the service we offer to our clients.”