Canada Cartage’s customer story
Canada Cartage’s customer story
I don't necessarily wait for candidates to apply. I contact candidates mainly through LinkedIn. Generally when you're reaching out to candidates, the average response rate is 20%. I have a really high acceptance rate. So typically 47% of the candidates that I contact, actually get back to me.
Cheryl has more than 20 years experience recruiting for various sectors and got her start in HR and recruitment by chance. She started out as a receptionist for a recruitment agency, but quickly moved her way up before getting into corporate recruitment.
“Money is not my motivator. It's important of course, but it’s more about the challenge and what I get out of a job.”
Spending too much money
Before Cheryl joined Canada Cartage, they were spending a huge amount of money bringing in new staff, and were relying heavily on employment agencies. They felt this was no longer sustainable. Just before Cheryl joined Canada Cartage, Brad Gehring, VP of HR, started implementing HireHive.
The HR department used to receive everything by email and candidates were not tracked. It was chaotic and difficult to ensure correspondence with candidates. There's a lot of work that goes into hiring someone. If you hire someone, you have to look at their references, look off their letters and all the hire admin stuff. So you need to get it right at the start.
Lack of online presence
Identifying this talent and then attracting them is one of the biggest challenges companies like Canada Cartage are facing, and as a B2B company, emphasis wasn’t placed on employer branding.
Canada cartage is more business to business. We’re not business to consumer, so it’s taken a while for our marketing team and even our leaders to see the importance importance of a strong employer brand.
Cheryl knows that they need to start focusing on employer branding and social media as soon as possible.
I want us to build our employment brand and to embrace social media, over the next year.
One aspect of this challenge is that there is a common belief that drivers don’t use social media. This belief is now changing. Drivers who spend long periods of time away from home are using social media to stay in contact with their families and friends. This makes Facebook and Twitter great platforms for recruitment and enable Canada Cartage to continue their explosive growth with great talent.
They wanted a lightweight system that would help manage the overall recruitment process. An aspect of HireHive Cheryl loved was that she didn’t need training to get set up and the good usability. Now she’s a power user, with HireHive constantly open on her PC every day.
I would probably say 80% to 90% of my day is spent with HireHive open. Either reviewing candidates or following up with them.
She also liked the easy to set up careers page, which has kicked started her social media drive for the future.
It’s been a great year for Canada Cartage having hired more than 100 people across Canada and North America, and it looks like 2016 is just as busy.
“HireHive makes the team a lot more productive. We’d be lost without it. Team Leaders can do it all themselves if needed or jump in at the right time and know exactly where everything is and what’s happening.”
Hilary Dempsey Head of HR at Life Credit union