30 Mar Corrections on Recruitment Excellence

Congratulations to the Department of Corrections on winning the award for Recruitment Excellence at the HRINZ 2018 Awards. Jo Evans, Programme Manager Recruitment shared with us some of the keys to their success, including their journey in partnership with Talegent.

The category identifies organisations which demonstrate excellence in the hiring process and includes, but is not limited to, all aspects of the talent resourcing lifecycle from identifying the need through to employment of an individual.

The Rise in Prison Population

Between June 2016 and June 2017, The Department of Corrections needed to respond to a rise in the prison muster by recruiting an extra 600 new Corrections Officers. This could only be achieved by targeting every day New Zealanders who had never thought of becoming a Corrections Officer before. The 24-hr work environment adds another level of complexity, along with the stringent safety requirements, so finding the right people in a short space of time was nothing short of a challenge.

How Corrections Solved this Problem

The current recruitment process needed to be scaled to accommodate the number of candidates required to meet the target whilst maintaining the safety standards required for our prisons.

Corrections selected Talegent as the ideal partner to tackle this challenge. Corrections worked with us to create a customised Corrections Officer competency profile, which was used to assess over 3,000 candidates. The improved recruitment process meant the time to hire reduced from 13 weeks to 6 weeks.

Talegent’s Corrections Officer solution provided important benchmarking for the Corrections recruitment team, giving them confidence that every step of their decision-making process was valid, reliable and backed by scientific rigour.

How candidates found the process

98% of the candidates invited to do the online screening completed all the elements thus showing a very high level of candidate engagement. The assessments included a questionnaire, Situational Judgement Assessment and video questions. Using videos and photos in an authentic prison environment to assess candidates’ judgement in real life on-the-job scenarios has increased candidates’ awareness of the role they are applying for. The team were on set at Wiri prison to film the situational judgement clips, starring actual Corrections Officers!

The Results

After completing Talegent’s assessments, 24 successful candidates at a time were invited to attend an assessment centre to complete various exercises evaluated by trained assessors. Over 70% of candidates who attended assessment centres proceeded to the next stage of the selection process. In the end, 850 Corrections Officers were hired in the space of 9 months!

Again, congratulations to Jo and the team at Corrections, the recruitment excellence award was thoroughly deserved. We look forward to future successes in our journey of continued partnership.