Volume hiring of creative and technically skilled people could keep hiring managers mired in administrative work. 

However, at The Moving Picture Company (MPC), Ryan Broad, global head of recruitment, has focused on streamlining the role of hiring managers and their responsibilities in the recruitment process.

MPC, a visual effects and post production provider to the international film and advertising industries, receives between 500 and 1,500 applications per month that must ultimately be considered by between 10 to 15 managers spread out at different locations around the world. Broad told Recruiter: “How do we make things really easy for the hiring manager?

“The key thing with technology is, instead of looking at it as really complicated and thinking, ok here’s what the manager needs to do, we take the view that here’s a manager, what do we need to take away from him? What do we need for them to be able to make a decision and tell me why?”

Broad and his team pre-screen applicants. Hiring managers then review the applicants’ CVs and show reels (the applicants’ creative portfolios), take the decision “to progress or decline”, then give feedback in response to a system prompt. “That way, it allows us to get the feedback back to candidates, but it also means the manager can get through 10 or 20 people in half an hour, and that’s it, done,” Broad says.

Broad has worked for 18 months at MPC, where structuring and streamlining the recruitment process has been a priority. He said his philosophy of recruitment was breaking the project into five days worth of work. “Typically,” he said, “if you give me the information I need, I can find what you want in five days. And the second five days, we can agree and screen out, and make sure you’ve got the shortlist. By the third week, you’re going to be interviewing. But I need everything up front.”

His advises recruiters to “keep it simple. Make sure your information is gathered up front … totally know what the proposition is for the individual you’re going to talk to, and then you go and find the right person. Experience has taught me, as long as you can go to market within five days, you can generate a decent slate of candidates” (see also Profile, Recruiter, December 2012, p28).