In our latest recruiting feedback case study, Craft Brew Alliance (CBA) demonstrates that asking the right questions at the right time can dramatically affect overall recruiting effectiveness AND uncover powerful connections between recruiting and revenue generation.
With highly regarded brands like Kona Island Brewing, Widmer Brothers, Redhook and more, Craft Brew Alliance is headquartered in Portland, Oregon. CBA has approximately 500 employees and processes about 20,000 applicants per year.
CBA began using Survale to measure and improve candidate experience in early 2018. Senior Manager of Talent Acquisition Andy Edmundson had been exposed to Survale via The Talent Board’s annual Candidate Experience Research Project. As a self-described “data guy,” Andy immediately recognized the value of being able to look at his candidate experience, and the entire recruiting process, through the lens of the experiential data that candidates provide.
Survale integrates with the CBA career site and their Taleo Business Edition ATS to automatically gather and analyze feedback from job seekers through each step of the hiring journey. Until Survale, there simply was no viable way to get the kind of real-time data that CBA now relies on to meet their hiring goals.
CBA uses Survale to:
- Measure candidate and employer brand satisfaction on their career site and throughout the hiring process
- Gather hiring manager feedback from candidates after each interview
- Measure internal training satisfaction
- Pulse internal employees for employee experience feedback
Recruiting and Revenue
Edmundson regularly seeks to validate or invalidate general recruiting assumptions by testing them against the volumes of data he gets every day from Survale. One of the first things he set out to do was find out if there was a link between job applicants and beer sales. We all assume that candidates are often customers, but Edmundson doesn’t need to assume. He has Survale’s automatic feedback platform gathering data for him around the clock.
So CBA added a simple question to their “Always ON” career site feedback survey: “When considering applying for a role with us, did you go buy some beer or visit one of our brewpubs as research?”
Turns out, 75% of job seekers say they bought a six pack or a pint prior to applying. That’s approximately 15,000 job seekers purchasing products as part of the application process. That’s a lot of transactions generated as a by-product of recruiting. It’s also valuable data for Edmundson to use to justify additional advertising and employer branding budget to help him compete more effectively for talent.
Note: In conjunction with this recruiting feedback case study, Survale just released a feature that allows consumer-facing organizations to reward candidates with promotional codes for free or discount upon completion of surveys
Breaking Assumptions about Competition and Satisfaction
Another assumption tested by CBA was that they competed for talent with other craft brewing companies.
Not true.
Using Survale’s constant candidate feedback, they learned that their primary competitors were Nike, Adidas and Intel. Bigger brands with more name recognition and much larger talent acquisition budgets. Understanding this dynamic has allowed CBA to punch above their weight class and become one of the top five companies to work for in their market.
Finally, Edmundson and his colleagues always assumed that candidate satisfaction was strongly correlated with whether or not the candidate got the job. In other words, there’s always one satisfied candidate who got the job and many dissatisfied candidates who didn’t.
Again, not true.
Edmundson points out with pride that 91% of his candidates would recommend CBA to other job seekers. That’s a testament to the CBA team and their feedback approach to perfecting the candidate experience. This ability to gain referrals and remarket positions to previous applicants is a huge win in a market where talent is scarce.
Edmundson believes that “just asking” job seekers for their opinion is a big part of that satisfaction. “Just going through the process of being asked about their experience has an immediate, positive effect on candidate experience,” said Edmundson. “It gives people an idea of what kind of company we are.”
Download the CBA Recruiting Feedback Case Study for More
This fascinating CBA recruiting feedback case study contains a lot more details, along with data about how they’ve used Survale to:
- Hold hiring managers accountable for interview performance
- Help them diversify their talent pools
- Optimize internal training
- Refine internal cultural programs prior to roll out
In this recruiting feedback case study, CBA is an example of how companies can use constant feedback to optimize recruiting, as well as add value to internal employee experience. As we like to say, the more you use Survale, the value it provides. Click here to get an instant download of the CBA case study.
While you’re at it, you can browse several other case studies to learn how top employers are using Survale to change the way they hire. Click here for the full case study library.
