Backbase

Brief

Timeline & Stakeholders

First round: September – November 2021
Stakeholders: Gaia Armellin, Sr. UX Designer, Recruitment Teams in AMS, Hyderabad, Poland

Second round: 2022
Stakeholders: Gaia Armellin, Principal UX Designer, Resul Sr. UX Designer, Recruitment teams in AMS, Hyderabad, Poland.

In 2021, Backbase assigned me a design optimization project to restructure their recruitment strategy and uncover new opportunities.

I was responsible for project management, design, and evangelization of the design recruitment process for the global Customer Success department, helping them develop new methodologies and optimize the internal and external hiring experience for 2021 onwards.

Initial Pain Points

• Lack of a streamlined global recruitment process for the Customer Success Design Team, leading to autonomous operations across hubs.
• Minimal communication between the Recruitment and Customer Success Design Teams.
• Absence of official documentation for recruiters, designers, and candidates, resulting in inefficiencies and biases in the hiring process.

These challenges contributed to difficulties in sourcing suitable candidates, prolonged recruitment timelines, designer burnout, candidate dissatisfaction, inconsistent quality of hires, and poor hiring decisions.

Our Approach

1. Resource Review: Assess existing resources, including Confluence pages, case studies, Greenhouse, and job descriptions.
2. Stakeholder Engagement: Collaborate with recruiters to understand their challenges and educate them on effective designer engagement.
3. Documentation Creation: Develop a comprehensive step-by-step guide in Confluence outlining the recruitment process.
4. Job Description Update: Revise job descriptions to accurately reflect current responsibilities.
5. Designer Overview: Create a directory of available designers to facilitate better resource allocation.
6. Stakeholder Review: Engage stakeholders in reviewing and refining the recruitment process.
7. Implementation: Secure stakeholder agreement and implement the new process.
8. Monitoring & Feedback: Track results and gather feedback from new hires to continuously improve the process.
9. Iterative Improvements: Based on feedback, enhance the recruitment process with technical interviews and improved case studies.
10. Ongoing Maintenance: Ensure the process remains streamlined and updated across all stakeholders and the Customer Success Design Team.

Result

By 2023, the team grew to 50+ designers across Amsterdam, Atlanta, Guadalajara, Hyderabad, Krakow, London, Mexico City, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Toronto, and Tucson, with a retention rate of 78%. 

By 2024, the recruitment time for new CS UX designers dropped from 4-6 months for Backbase to 2-3 weeks for the candidates and 2-3 weeks max for the recruits.

Learnings

MUST HAVE

• Simplified ongoing education and knowledge sharing for all recruiters and designers involved in the interview process.
• Alignment between documentation and daily CS UX practices for better expectation management.
• Alignment across hubs and support from the Global Talent Acquisition head
• Learn from other departments too (e.g., candidates handout FE)

FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES

The recruitment process is a living entity, always evolving. In my final weeks at Backbase, we kicked off another round of investigation on both recruitment and onboarding processes. The goal is to simplify and enhance the effectiveness of the recruitment and onboarding strategy, ensuring it meets the dynamic needs of the organization.