Alexander Mann Solutions creates impressive talent acquisition experience with ServiceNow

Managing more than 250,000 job interviews every year

Alexander Mann Solutions works with hundreds of blue-chip organizations in 90 countries, providing talent acquisition and management services
Alexander Mann Solutions’ vision is to enable people and organisations to fulfil their potential through talent acquisition and management. The company works with 100+ blue-chip organisations and across 90 countries to provide solutions across the entire talent lifecycle–from strategic workforce planning, to assessment and selection, to onboarding and employee engagement.

As part of its role in optimizing the talent lifecycle, Alexander Mann Solutions frequently becomes the recruitment team within a client organisation, tasked with managing the entire delivery as efficiently as possible, while providing a world-class experience to candidates. However, the time-consuming nature of the recruitment process created big challenges and inefficiencies.

Andrew Wayland, Chief Technology Officer at Alexander Mann Solutions, explains: “As part of our service our global team manages more than 250,000 job interviews every year. The scheduling process was extremely time consuming, with schedulers relying on spreadsheets and manual processes to synchronise the numerous tasks in the recruitment process—such as meeting room bookings and calendar invites—with client systems.”

Alexander Mann Solutions wanted to automate repetitive processes and after evaluating several solutions, chose ServiceNow because it’s cloud-based and provides maximum flexibility and agility
Alexander Mann Solutions wanted to automate the repetitive and manual parts of the interview scheduling process and augment the candidate experience, while offering clients an end-to-end recruitment application that could be easily customised and integrated with existing systems.

Alexander Mann Solutions evaluated a number of solutions and ServiceNow was the clear choice, with a cloud-based delivery model that provided maximum flexibility and agility for a fast deployment.

The company partnered with Spoc, a ServiceNow Gold Partner, to create a bespoke recruitment application on the Now Platform^®. It handles the entire process through intelligent workflows and automation, from candidate application through to vetting, interview scheduling all coordinated to the moment a candidate accepts and signs their contract to start. 

“ServiceNow was the perfect fit for our long-term strategy, providing the ideal backbone to create applications that can run a critical business process for our clients,” comments Andrew. “ServiceNow has enabled us to fully integrate with our clients’ organisations and take their candidates on a recruitment journey that is bespoke to their brand and approach.”

The app plays a key role in the shortlisting aspect of the recruitment process, pulling details of the role and available interview timeslots into a responsive design website that is client branded. Candidates can pick a time when they are available, which is reconciled with everyone involved and the calendar systems they use. The workflow books meeting spaces, parking spaces, and even recommends a nearby coffee shop.

The application includes a chatbot called HANA that provides information, supports onboarding, and acts as a gateway to a live agent or facilitator.

“ServiceNow has allowed us to reduce this service from five to just two days on average, with the current record being less than half an hour,” says Andrew.

ServiceNow app has profound impact on Alexander Mann Solutions schedulers, freeing them to be high-touch recruitment facilitators and solution designers
The new application has had a profound impact on the role of Alexander Mann Solutions’ interview schedulers, freeing them up to evolve their role into high-touch recruitment facilitators and solution designers.

Hundreds of hours were being spent on scheduling interviews and if a candidate cancelled at short notice it would trigger a frantic process of re-scheduling. Through automation and workflows, invites can be withdrawn, meeting rooms cancelled, and everyone involved in the process communicated to about the change in minutes.

Andrew explains: “Previously, the job of our schedulers was extremely dull and process-driven. ServiceNow has transformed the way they work, opening up opportunities to play a key role in developing our client services and the experiences we can offer candidates. The team can focus on the key touchpoints that make a difference to our clients and reassure candidates with a human touch when it is needed most.”

The clients of Alexander Mann Solutions are seeing the value in a fully-integrated, customised, and branded recruitment platform
Alexander Mann Solutions’ clients recognise the value of a fully-integrated, customised, and branded recruitment platform that improves their talent acquisition process and integrates with ease with their internal IT systems.

The speed of implementation of the application into client sites is a key benefit. The lead time to integrate into the client’s systems when starting the recruitment process has dropped by 30%, with Alexander Mann Solutions delivering the application to clients in 8-10 weeks.

Alexander Mann Solutions has been fine-tuning and improving the application by adding details such as a candidate portal for smartphones, text message reminders before an interview, and profiles of interviewers. The results have been impressive, with 93% of candidates reporting satisfaction with the recruitment process.

“The Now Platform is always learning, evolving processes across clients, and measuring performance, and this is driving continuous improvement,” says Andrew. “As the platform matures, its efficiency is increasing and the services we offer are becoming more sophisticated.”

ServiceNow helped the Alexander Mann Solutions’ IT department change its perception from a cost centre to a strategic driver
ServiceNow has become an integral part of Alexander Mann Solutions’ digital transformation, helping to change the perception of the IT department as a cost centre to a strategic part of client service.

“We attend client pitches regularly, which was not the case in the past. We expected clients to ask questions related to costs during those meetings but they fully understand the benefits and see the technology as a way to augment their engagement with candidates,” comments Andrew.

“IT is no longer seen as the team that is running infrastructure, but instead a facilitator of strategic conversations,” Andrew adds. 

The IT team at Alexander Mann Solutions can already see opportunities develop the recruitment application and expand its use to other processes. One of them is handling the full onboarding process and another involves blending artificial intelligence with talent acquisition to review CVs and automate other tasks.

“We see our future approach as ‘blended bots and bodies,’ with the aim to evolve the client and candidate experience. This is not at the expense of headcount—it’s about creating more interesting roles for our team and making their work life more rewarding,” concludes Andrew.