Successful recruitment instructions
The first priority in our recruitment process is to make sure that every candidate has a good journey with Swedbank. In this page, you will find some principles and instructions to keep in mind during the recruitment process.
Here you will find principles we have agreed and training material.
Prepare and align
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Hiring Manager shall:
●Minimize the use of personal data outside Teamtailor, e.g. do not send CV through e-mail, link to candidate card in Teamtailor instead;
●Keep notes about candidate in Teamtailor using Notes section in Candidate card. Be professional when you leave comments about candidates; ●If CV is received in your e-mail, if recruitment project is active, ask the candidate to apply through Teamtailor, send candidate the link for the project and delete received CV in your e-mail afterwards. If recruitment project has expired and you decide to accept the candidate’s application, add the candidate in Teamtailor and delete CV from e-mail and computer afterwards. Use step-by-step guide in Teamtailor; ●Do not start processing added or referred candidates’ personal data without confirmed permission from them;
●Keep your candidates’ data confidential - we respect the privacy of the applicants. This means that we don’t discuss or send data concerning the applicant to others, especially the current manager of the applicant, unless this has been agreed with the applicant.
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Before any recruitment read Candidate Relationship Management principles here.
Make sure that you think through:
- complexity of recruitment – whether recruitment is urgent, the complexity of the necessary profile, the extent to which headhunting is required and whether you have time to contribute to the recruitment process in the next two months;
- most suitable process – internal candidate, regular recruitment process, emphasis on headhunt, the need to use an external recruitment partner;
- profile – leadership role (self leader, leader for others, leader of leaders) expectations of the profile, most important competencies and experience sought, preparation of the advertisement (with the support of the recruiter), details (does the contract have a fixed term or not), etc. Then enter the vacancy in the RAF log system (group units) if necessary and get the necessary approvals;
- suitable recruitment channels – which channels are relevant;
- further action plan and division of roles – when to use an advertisement and a targeted search, when will the applicants be screened and by whom, when will the interviews be carried out (preliminary appointments in calendar)
Consider whether you:
- could adapt the position’s content, location and working hours according to (special) needs;
- are open to candidates relocation from foreign countries;
- are open to recruit the person to a regional office;
Please note: Quality is more important than the speed of recruitment, the objective of recruitment is to find the right person, which may sometimes take more time.
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The candidate journey is our recruitment process
- We have an inbound recruitment strategy
- We plan and communicate process steps
- We have frequent regular communication with the candidate
- Our first priority in assessment is soft skills
Please keep in mind:
- we recruit diversely so that our teams consist of people of different genders, ages, backgrounds, competencies and strengths;
- we respect the privacy of the applicants, incl. we don’t discuss the information concerning the applicant with others, especially with the present manager of the applicant, unless this has been agreed with the applicant; keep in mind that we always prefer an internal applicant with experience in working for the bank,
In order to start your recruitment process in TeamTailor you would need to write the job ad and set up stages, hiring team and an interview scorecard based on your needs.
NB! By default we have 10 stages in our process (see more under Applicant Tracking). If you see that you need to remove some stages - feel free to do so. Please do not add new stages. You can add or remove triggers, guide times, toggle on anonymous mode and set quick reject settings.
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When you post a new job ad make sure that it consists of:
1) First catch phrase (choose passionate/excited/interested in, and add important keywords which are found through Google search); Format: Heading 2
2) With us you have the opportunity to; Format: Heading 3
- What can the candidate do in this role?
- Main responsibility areas.
- Bring out interesting projects that are ongoing.
- What will the candidate be expected to achieve?
- Who will the candidate work with?
- What is the business criticality?
NB! Keep it maximum of 5 bullet points.
3) What need in this role; Format: Heading 3
Skillset and competences in order to succeed in the role (bring out education/licences, personality/soft skills, language, technical competences etc.)
4) Join our team and; Format: Heading 3
Describe yourself as a manager in a sales point of view (max 100 letters including spaces)
5) Add the Application deadline at the end of the job ad; Format: Heading 3
Attract and engage
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When you have published the job ad and the search has started:
- share the information of the advertisement in social media, create/update your LinkedIn account if necessary;
- think about whether there is anyone you know who could be recommended for the job.
Publish via integrations:
- AMS
Use the trackable share link with (NB! Please add these unique names to the trackable share links for useful analytics):
- cv.lv
- cv.ee
- cvonline.lt
- likeit.lv
- karjera.rtu.lv
- cvkeskus.ee
Upload manually
- Cvbankas
- MeetFrank
Instructions on how to boost our job posts and make it easier for candidates to find us.
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Referrals
We hold in high regard our employees' good will and ability to notice candidates who share the Bank's values and have the required competences. See how the referral process works in Teamtailor.Sourcing
Talent sourcing refers to the process of identifying, researching, generating, and networking with potential job candidates in order to convert individuals into job applicants. The broader task of talent sourcing is to generate a consistent flow of highly-skilled applicants. See how Teamtailor simplifies the sourcing process.
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Vacancies are preferably filled via an internal selection process, favoring experienced candidates from inside the Bank, incl. employees who are to return from parental leave and/or whose position might be in the danger of becoming redundant.
Taking that into consideration - sourcing (+looking through candidates from previous projects) is still needed.
Teamtailor has the functionality to improve the way of finding candidates in your database by saving your filter search as unique segments. Here you can see how to segment and filter out candidates.
Evaluate and select
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Candidate screening is the process of reviewing job applications. This comes in right after candidate sourcing and involves skimming through resumes and cover letters to find the closest applicant-job-description matches keeping in mind qualifications, experience, skill sets, and projected candidate-organization fit. Screening can also include asking the candidate to answer some additional questions.
To evaluate a candidate's fit for the role use "Role fit" on candidate profile under Interviews.
Keep in mind that we seek not only the candidate's fit for a role but also and most importantly for Swedbank culture and People Philosophy.
*Please keep in mind that values, competencies, diversity and inclusion should be assessed during entire recruitment process.
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During the selection process, candidates undergo several selection or assessment stages, which selectively utilise combinations of assessment methods. The choice of assessment methods depends on the complexity of the position and the required competences.
By default we have 10 stages in our process*.
- Inbox (guide time: 8 days)
- First selection
- First contact
- Meeting with the manager (guide time: 5 days)
- Case study/home task
- Meeting with the team/closest stakeholders
- Personality test/mental ability test
- Reference call
- Background security check
- Job offer
If you see that you need to remove some stages - feel free to do so. Do not add or rename any stages.
You can also add or remove triggers, guide times, toggle on anonymous mode and set quick reject settings.
To make your work simpler, Teamtailor has the message templates to use in the process. See how to use message templates.
*Please do not change the default settings.
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In order to finish up a recruitment, it is important that we perform a background check on external candidates in order to ensure that they are trustworthy and suitable and to identify any conflicts of interest as a potential employee.
All external candidates who make it to the final round are subject to a background check.
External candidates must be informed of how, why and by whom their personal data are processed.
In the case of some external candidates, the Bank also makes enquiries in the criminal records database in order to ensure that they do not have any pending criminal convictions. Such queries are mandatory in the case of positions where this is required by law.
There are message templates for sending out data gathering for background checks in all countries.
- Background check EE
- Background check LV
- Background check LT
- Background check SE
If a candidate replies to the email sent out from Teamtailor, the documents will be stored under "messages" and "Candidate documents".
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In order to ensure recruitment quality and determine mutual expectations, we focus on having a thorough process and assure that candidate's attitudes and values are in line with those of the bank. There are at least three meetings with final candidates (incl. the preliminary interview, the meeting with the team and the meeting with the manager of the recruiting manager and/or the HR partner).
Candidates can also be invited to job shadow the team/position where possible.
We also have suitable assessment tools in each country:
Estonia
- Assessio -> see instructions on how to get the results to Team Tailor
- Tripod
Latvia
Lithuania
Sweden
Offer and hire
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After the selection, the chosen candidate is made a job offer. The terms and conditions of the employment agreement are agreed on beforehand in accordance with the Employment Contracts Act. negotiations and make the job offer.
The making of a job offer and its acceptance are fixed in writing. Once the job offer is accepted in writing, the Career Specialist* forwards this and the employee data form to the Employment Relations Department.
*In Sweden the offer letters are handled by hiring managers.
Offer letters are inserted in the Teamtailor environment. You can use the "Job offer" message template to send out a written offer to the candidate.
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It is important to keep in mind candidate confidentiality and use the data accessed in Teamtailor responsibly and ethically.
Everything you want to know about how Teamtailor works with GDPR compliance and the GDPR feature can be found here.
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With Analytics, you will be able gain complete insight and reports on all parts of your recruitment. See more on how the analytics functionality is working.
Recruitment for Leadership roles
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We believe leadership is not ”one size fits all”. It is different leadership jobs depending on if you are leading direct reports, if you are leading other leaders or if you are leading yourself as a self leader.
To support both leaders and employees perform at their best, Swedbank has defined leadership roles:
Self Leader;
Leader for Others;
Leader for Leaders.
To make Recruitment process for leadership roles - Leader of Others and Leader of Leaders more effective and hiring team could attract leaders according to Swedbank standard, some changes from default process has been made in steps:
1. Job advertisement in Teamtailor
2. Evaluation tool in Teamtailor
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When you are creating a job ad for leadership roles - Leader of Others and Leader of Leaders, make sure you use job advertisement template: Leaders job ad and follow the instructions there.
Please keep in mind that structure of the job ad must stay the same, just if you would like:
- you can add additionally main responsibilities;
- you can add or edit main expectations from candidate.
NB! Please keep max 5-7 bullet points for each section in order to keep jo bad attractive.
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For recruiter: create a recruitment project in the Teamtailor, in section - Interview kits - remove one of two interview kits based on leadership role, select Hiring manager in Raflog and follow in information is it Leader of Others or Leader of Leaders.
Interview kit: Leader of Others and Leader of Leaders has been created to help Hiring team evaluate candidate based on defined Leadership framework. Suggestion is to use this evaluation kit during an interview with candidates. For every expectation there are three possible evaluations:
Fully meet the expectation
Partly meet the expectation
Do not meet the expectation
To support recruitment process for every leadership expectation there are few possible questions Hiring team can ask to evaluate specific skills.
