<aside> 🎯 Powered by our insights from Human-Centred Hiring projects in the start-up tech space, our partnership with Garden Vets at Keele enabled us to deploy our learnings in a completely new industry and hire the best veterinary talent.

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<aside> 📣 What our Client said…

“As a start-up business in the highly competitive veterinary market, where recruitment is one of the main barriers to success, it was critical that Garden Vets at Keele engaged a Talent Acquisition partner that could quickly understand our challenges, and provide a bespoke talent solution that aligned with our values and acted as a positive differentiator for veterinary professionals. Never Mind The Job Spec made us stand out by concentrating on candidate experience, talent brand advocacy, and values-based evaluation; they focused on personalised outreach, attraction and engagement of veterinary talent, hosted 7 x Recruitment Open Days, which resulted in us hiring 35 exceptional employees. Our staff still talk about the amazing candidate experience they had and how it reflected our company values, ethos and branding. Never Mind The Job Spec really met and exceeded our expectations in delivering this end-to-end hiring solution and created the foundations for our future growth.” - **Sheldon Middleton, CEO**

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<aside> 💡 You can read more of our Human-Centred Hiring Talent Solution success stories here:

• 10x Hires For E-commerce Start-up </aside>

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On the BBC NEWS…

• Veterinary teaching hospital to open at Keele University </aside>

<aside> 🎯 35x new hires (the equivalent to 25 full-time hires) including 9 Veterinary Surgeons, 11 Care & Operations Stewards (COPs) and 15 Veterinary Nurses with an 81% offer to acceptance rate.

Other Key Wins:

• Talent attraction and engagement: 4,510 prospects contacted over a 9-month engagement period (2,137 Veterinary Surgeons, 1,491 Veterinary Nurses and 882 COPs) with a response rate of 11%, 7% and 14% respectively.
• Bespoke Human-Centred Hiring model: Designed and deployed an industry-first assessment framework to identify key human characteristics, evaluate values-alignment, and quantify ways of working.
• Talent assessment: 115 pre-screening interviews resulting in 86 attendees invited to the Recruitment Open Days, which represents a 75% conversion rate from interview-to-progression ratio.
• Candidate Experience (CX): 5/5 “Excellent” Candidate Experience rating, with the Communication Assessment receiving particular praise.
• Budget(s): Reduced Cost per Hire by 70% on average compared to an Agency model. </aside>

<aside> 📣 Introduction

Our first conversation with Garden Vets at Keele (GVaK) came about from one of our long-term collaborators, Katrina Collier, who introduced us to the People Partner & Culture Lead for GVaK, Michelle Parry-Slater.

From our chats with Michelle, we learnt that the GVaK leadership team were in the early stages of their start-up practice and establishing a clearly defined set of values and operating principles based on industry research.

We were then introduced to the CEO of GVaK, Sheldon Middleton, whose dedication to hiring objectively with a focus on values, culture and a continuous improvement mindset made it immediately clear to us that we were the right fit.

After further endorsing our Human-Centred Hiring model, it became evident that the team were strongly aligned on candidate experience, with talent brand advocacy and values-based hiring being key areas that they were keen to explore.

The project formally kicked off in June 2023, and at this point, we had already got the ball rolling with the talent mapping process for veterinarian talent in the local area.

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<aside> 🌐 Market challenges

Alongside the lasting effects of post-COVID-19 and Brexit, the UK veterinary industry on the whole was facing several problems that were significantly reducing the UK talent pool and damaging candidate experience.

• Industry challenges we identified </aside>

<aside> 🧠 Project challenges

We deployed our PROJECT solution to meet the challenge set by the Garden Vets at Keele senior leadership and investors.

At the time of our initial project engagement, the target number of hires was critical to the opening of the new practice in September 2023, with the expectation that 80% of the team needed to have joined by the opening date (>25 hires).

We designed and shaped the Human-Centred Talent Solution to factor in the below targets, assets and dates:

• Target number of hires
• Advertising
• Recruitment Open Days
• Hiring Metrics </aside>

<aside> 📣 Our Human-Centred Hiring model fuses together positive candidate experience, talent brand advocacy and values-driven hiring.

• The fusion that creates Human-Centred Hiring

Read more details about the Project Talent Solution successfully deployed for this client here: Project

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<aside> 🔍 The Discovery Phase

As part of the Discovery Phase of the project, we combined our extensive knowledge and insights with several 1:1s and group sessions with the hiring team, focusing on the following:

• Discovery activities

During our Discovery Phase, we also gathered valuable data and insights through the below activities. All of these activities were delivered in person or virtually and typically required between 1 day for an in-person workshop and up to 30 minutes for an online questionnaire.

• Leadership and hiring team workshops
• 1:1 user research sessions
• Online questionnaires </aside>

<aside> 💡 You can read more of our Human-Centred Hiring Talent Solution success stories here:

• 27x Hires For UK & EU BNPL Fintech
• Sales Hire For Biometric Start-Up
• 40x Hires For Global Fintech Startup
• 7x Hires For Climate Accelerator Start-Up </aside>

<aside> 🎨 The Design Phase

The Discovery and Design phases of our PROJECT solution lifecycle are intrinsically linked and critical to the success of any human-centred hiring process.

Combined, the principle aim of these two phases is to find the right problem as opposed to solving the symptom of a problem.

The design of the assessments for the Recruitment Open Day was focused on the need to identify key characteristics and a ‘Pioneer’s mindset’, combined with the ability to evaluate candidates’ ‘ways of working’ and their values-alignment to the Garden Vets at Keele mission.

To generate the final design, we combine deep-dive data analysis, ideation, solution design, and prototyping, which resulted in the a framework based on 6 x assessment areas:

• Collaboration
• Communication
• Data analysis
• Decision-making
• Prioritisation
• Problem analysis </aside>

<aside> ♻️ Test, Analyse, Iterate & Deploy Phase

Our Test, Analyse, Iterate and Deploy phases are part of a recurrent process that requires the commitment to continuous improvement, the enthusiasm to explore new ideas and concepts and the ambition to make changes.

During the Test phase of the project solution lifecycle, we tested out the design in a live environment with 16x attendees at the first Recruitment Open Day and gathered useful data and insights via the following:

• Calibrating the scoring matrix for the 6x assessments.
• Qualitative information from the values-based workshop where we i). clarified the values, ii). explored the definition, role, and application of the values in a real-world scenario, iii). gathered feedback on the values.
• Data based on the interviewee/attendee experience (Candidate Experience).
• Quantitative and qualitative information from the debrief with the entire leadership team.

Once the data and insights were collated, we began our Analyse phase of all aspects of the design. We were then able to implement changes as well as generate data dashboards and reports to share with the leadership team to inform the Iterate and Deploy phase of the project solution lifecycle.

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<aside> 🎯 Thanks to our established human-centred hiring approach, Never Mind The Job Spec helped identify over 4,500 potential candidates which resulted in the welcoming of 25 new faces to Garden Vets at Keele, just in time for the opening of their fetching new practice.

Our keen focus on candidate experience, talent brand and values contributed to attracting and hiring 35 exceptional veterinary professionals including Veterinary Surgeons, Veterinary Nurses and COPs.

Client after client, candidate after candidate, our Human-Centred Hiring model continues to prove that by putting the human first and focusing on their individual needs, you’ll be able to attract, engage, and hire motivated and productive team of professional who align with your organisation’s goals and wider vision.

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📲 Let’s connect to talk

<aside> 💬 Are you thinking of recharging your talent and people strategy in 2024? Our Human-Centred Project Talent Solution is proven to identify, activate, attract, and engage the best talent for your rapidly scaling startup or scale-up business.

If that sounds of interest to you, we’re open to a friendly, non-committal chat about your hiring ambitions.

Reach out today at…

Glenn Martin, I’m the Founder and CEO of Never Mind The Job Spec

Mobile/WhatsApp: +44 (0) 7834 786 889

Email: [email protected]

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