Denver Peak Academy

By Joel Drahos, Associate Recruiter, Denver Office of Human Resources – January 2018. 

Track, track, track, this is what they tell us – in leadership books, at the Peak Academy training, etc., but tracking can be challenging for a variety of reasons. I am a visual learner that prefers to utilize whiteboards to track my notes and important reminders that sit directly in front of my face. Two-sided documents and millions of useless pieces of paper can be quite daunting, cluttering and not attractive, especially in small cubicles like mine.

I first started using whiteboards to track my progress when I worked for the Denver Sheriff’s Department as a Human Resources’ Technician. During the hiring process, there were 18 steps to follow and many dates that we had to track. We even created a “Whiteboard Tracker” to assist in our daily work and to keep track of where candidates were along in the process and how long it took our team to get the candidate to the next step.

Now, as a member of the Talent Acquisition Recruiting team in the Office of Human Resources, we utilize a recruitment strategy form to learn more about the position before posting it live to job-seekers. As a Peak innovation, we set a goal of 45 days from the moment a job posts until filled; to complete the recruitment process. I have utilized the timeline portion of the strategy form that we highlight to managers and have simplified it by writing the key components on my whiteboard, so it is something I see every day. I separated my whiteboard into six different sections to assist with the bigger picture.

1. Active: This part is for all current/open recruitments.

2. Open and Close: This area includes the date when recruitment has begun (posted) and ended.

3. Interview: This section focuses on the times discussed during the strategy meeting between myself and the hiring manager of when interviews will take place for the position posted.

4. Interview Confirmation: This section confirms the email I send to the candidate for their interview.

5. 45 Days: This section holds me accountable as the Recruiter to ensure our goal actualizes as a team – the moment a candidate returns their signed offer letter, the timer ends, and we track how many days the recruitment process took.

6. Notes: This section allows me to add other information regarding the recruitment.

In today’s hiring environment, candidate experience is more important than ever. I’ve learned to think about the process from the perspective of the applicant, to see if the process could be more comfortable, more straightforward, or better in any way. And most importantly, keep good relationships with all candidates and offer a great candidate experience from start to finish, no matter the outcome. Staying organized and ensuring a smooth, standard process on the HR side of things can certainly help us achieve that.