How Global Affairs Canada standardized global hiring through an end-to-end solution
VidCruiter worked with Global Affairs Canada to unify the global processes and normalize hiring practices for locally-engaged staff across its network of more than 175 missions worldwide.
The Client
Global Affairs Canada (GAC) is responsible for advancing Canada’s international relations. Global Affairs Canada manages Canada’s diplomatic and consular relations with foreign governments and international organizations, engaging and influencing international players to advance Canada’s political, legal, and economic interests, including poverty reduction, the empowerment of women and girls, the promotion of a rules-based international order, international peace and security, human rights, inclusive and accountable governance, peaceful pluralism, inclusion and respect for diversity, and environmental sustainability. GAC also provides crucial assistance to Canadians abroad such as during global or personal emergencies.
The Challenge
GAC has long sought to unify its global recruiting processes under a single platform to increase efficiency, transparency, reporting, and security. This objective is complicated by a variety of obstacles to overcome, including:
- Varying levels of infrastructure and technology from country to country
- Compliance requirements with Canadian and host country employment laws and policies
- Dynamic and variable environmental risks from within a particular host country environment due to conflict and social stability
- Robust technology security and data continuity capabilities to withstand any threat that may arise from the circumstances described above
As any global organization can attest, ensuring consistency in hiring practices across all global regions is a significant challenge. Before partnering with VidCruiter, GAC was reliant on different technology systems with limited integration. Data transfer was often filled by manual processes. It was a challenge to identify and reconcile hiring practices that varied across regions. Each region had a specific job requisition procedure, application, and interview process. Applicant data was also stored in separate locations worldwide. When combined with manual processes, identifying accurate time-to-hire metrics or real-time progression between hiring stages was a difficult task.
In light of these challenges, GAC requires a strong, end-to-end technology platform that would standardize the hiring process globally while being flexible enough to accommodate the varied circumstances specific to each host country. VidCruiter’s team presented a comprehensive partnership model to work with GAC to tailor the platform to meet immediate needs and future requirements.
The Decision-making Process
GAC issued a Request for Proposal to explore the technology options available. In addition to requiring an end-to-end platform that would help them overcome the challenges above, GAC’s top concerns included:
- Enhanced capabilities for data collection, storage, recordkeeping, and contingency/continuity systems
- Accommodate internally regulated controls and audit procedures
- Meet current and future key performance indicators and service level agreements
- Flexibility to adapt to changing government landscapes and regulations and circumstances specific to each mission in the network
Approximately fifteen vendors responded to GAC’s Request for Proposal. VidCruiter won the competitive process by combining price, functionality, and the ability to deliver a single, end-to-end platform. VidCruiter differentiated itself from other vendors in its ability to:
- Adapt the platform and automate workflows to GAC’s proprietary processes
- Implement strong controls to meet the approval of all stakeholder layers, from national security and privacy concerns, transparency and freedom of information requests, security clearance, and protection in high-risk environments.
The Solution
‘Standardized flexibility’: Strong global controls with regional customization
GAC now uses VidCruiter as the single, end-to-end hiring platform for locally-engaged staff. VidCruiter’s team supported GAC in navigating the complexities of approvals and policy analysis and helped bring solutions to overcome barriers as part of the stakeholder consultation process. Prior to onboarding, all aspects of the platform were tailored to meet the needs of GAC’s policies and procedures, with specific workflows and automation to accommodate regional variables and cultural requirements.
Within the journey to create a consistent hiring experience globally, GAC launched a custom career page. The career page was developed in compliance with all Government of Canada regulations, internal standards, and web requirements to match existing government pages.
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Streamlined hiring practices
Together, VidCruiter and GAC simplified the complex hiring process for global consistency and regional specification.
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A single source for all applicant data
Hiring information and processes are now completely digitized and accessible in real-time.
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True time-to-hire metrics
Insights into the time division between GAC and its missions, and real-time data into hiring stages.
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The highest security standards
The platform meets all of GAC’s security, privacy, and business continuity planning requirements to safeguard hiring data.
“The level of collaboration between our team and VidCruiter has exceeded our expectations when looking for a technology solution provider. Their rapid responsiveness and deep understanding of our nuanced processes make it feel like we’re part of a single team.”
Felicia Zevgolis
Deputy Director
Global Affairs Canada
The Results
VidCruiter and GAC worked closely to standardize hiring processes through the customized platform development. The final product meets both the strict internal controls, outlined by GAC while providing the flexibility required for use and high adoption at the mission level throughout the network. Key results include:
- Global standardization of hiring practices with structured interview and rating guides
- Global normalization of GAC job application form
- Consistency of interview and job requisition processes globally
- The ability to access all applicant data easily
- A single, centralized storage location for all applicant information
- An improved job requisition process with standardized, comprehensive, and automated forms
- A more efficient screening process
- A streamlined position creation process that nearly doubled the number of positions advertised over the last 10 months compared to the last 3 years
- The ability to measure each stage of the hiring process to eliminate bottlenecks
- Automated reference checks that reduce time-to-hire
- Live interview ratings are easy to retrieve, and review after interviews have ended
VidCruiter provides fair hiring capability and the ability to customize end-to-end platform processes to meet internal requirements and facilitate consistency and transparency. The ongoing partnership between GAC and VidCruiter has led to the development of new standardized hiring processes that raises the standard across the network.
The platform features allowed GAC to incorporate new equitable hiring practices. For example, the ability to implement anonymized recruitment with a single click to remove applicant names or accommodate time constraints for people with disabilities supports diversity, equity, and inclusion. The full transparency of data stored in a single location also ensures compliance can be monitored.
"The strength of VidCruiter's core competency interview guides and rating systems in delivering a standardized evaluation process means that it's become my dream to eventually incorporate their structured methodology into our internal performance management process. And it could be used for performance training, promotions, and follow-ups from manager to manager in the locally-engaged staff HR world."
Felicia Zevgolis
Deputy Director
Global Affairs Canada
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