Circular 2.0
Circular as the hiring community for tech recruiters and developers
At Circular, our main mission is to improve the hiring experience for candidates and recruiters. Since we launched in late 2018, we’ve been able to help hundreds of recruiters and candidates grow in their professional careers and get new jobs at companies they love.
However, for the last few months, we’ve been reflecting on what we have accomplished, how truthful we are to our mission, and how we can take Circular to the next level.
Circular’s success can be easily measured in two sides: providing a great hiring experience to recruiters and an amazing candidate experience to people interested in new jobs.
Of course, the first step for improving is in measuring and identifying what does not work. We are a very data focused company and our internal KPIs showed that we had two main issues:
- The “fill ratio” –percentage of opportunities that ended up hiring in Circular– was significantly lower for specific kinds of roles (product, marketing and design).
- Some candidates reported consistently bad NPS for their Candidate Experience.
The world on pause
We were analyzing those numbers when the dreadful COVID-19 pandemic basically stopped everything. 80% of open job opportunities in Circular went on hold in the last two weeks of March but we were confident that most will immediately get back when the harshest parts of the pandemic is behind us (and they are!).
As soon as we had made sure that the Circular team was safe and fully working from home, we had to decide what to do with the time that had been given to us.
After two months of work, today we are sharing a number of changes that will make Circular better. Get ready!
Recruiters: hiring developers is now faster than ever
Focusing on developer roles
Circular was originally focused mainly on tech roles, where we had the fastest way to hire. According to our data and Lever’s, our conversion from candidate to hire was 10x compared to other tools!
Late last year we also included marketing, design and product management job opportunities. We’re happy to have helped a lot of candidates get new jobs in these fields and recruiters to fill their open positions.
However, because the particular needs of these non-tech roles and the general nature of the market, 50% of total opportunities published and 85% of the hirings in Circular remained in developer and data science roles.
For many marketing and product opportunities we couldn’t even connect enough candidates and recruiters to make it worthwhile for them to work with us. The “fill ratio” was not enough.
That’s why, starting this week, we’ll be no longer accepting new marketing, product management and design roles in Circular. We will accept them back in the future, when we are able to guarantee the excellent fill ratio we are offering to developer roles.
⚠️ Follow up on marketing, product and design roles: Don’t worry, for these roles, we’re still helping existing candidates and opportunities. We just won’t accept new ones.
Adapting our product for developer roles
As part of our focus on developer roles, we’re now providing extra information about matching candidates on your opportunities. You will be able to see specific tech skills the developer has experience with, languages they speak or work permits they have.
Developers: a good hiring experience is now guaranteed
Candidates having a bad experience in Circular was clearly against our mission and fixing it was a priority. We started by thinking about what great candidate experience is. We only had to go back to everything we learned from the community in the Candidate Experience meetups, our interviews with top international experts and the feedback we’ve been collecting from candidates.
With those learnings, we’re publishing the Great Recruiting Manifesto that we hope will become a standard in the industry on what a great Candidate Experience means:
- All info, upfront: Job descriptions at Circular will provide all information upfront: salary range, the technical stack, and remote work policy.
- No surprises: we’ll make sure that recruiters share in advance what the process is like at their companies. What are the different steps, what people you will be interviewing with, code tests and what comes next after each phase.
- 100% transparent, both ways: Visibility is key for a good experience. Recruiters will always be responsive and clear, developers will be honest about their intentions up front. All messages must get a prompt response and we’ll make sure that all candidates get updates every two weeks, tops.
- Feedback guaranteed: Whatever happens in a recruiting process, recruiters must give clear and honest feedback to developers that ask for it. Learning what went wrong is a big part of interviewing!
- Inclusive: Circular will foster an inclusive community with companies that value diversity and fairness in their recruitment processes.
- We’re here to help: every developer is matched with their own personal Talent Advocate. Our Talent Advocates are there to answer any questions that developers might have. Our Talent Advocates will also take top companies best practices to improve developer’s interview skills and preparations. We’ll guide you through the whole hiring process to help you make the right career decisions. You will never be alone.
From now on, we will guarantee that these rules from our Circular Manifesto for great hiring experience will be followed in every opportunity that is published in our platform.
What else is changing
Remote launch
Until now, recruiters with opportunities in Madrid and Barcelona could use Circular to find great candidates and only local talent could benefit from our platform. Helping recruiters and developers working with fully remote opportunities has always been on our roadmap–it was highly demanded pre-COVID.
The remote trend is only accelerating due to the mandatory work from home policy during the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re responding to that. We’re happy to let you know that this week, we’re launching “Fully remote” jobs in Circular. If you’re looking for developers, no matter where they’re based, or if you’re a developer that wants to work for distributed companies, Circular is here for you.
Our Candidate Experience surveys
A good candidate experience is not only important for developers. It’s a proven fact that recruiters that provide a great Candidate Experience in their recruiting processes can hire faster. In Circular, the conversion from candidate to hire is significantly higher (up to 8 times) for the recruiters with great Candidate Net Promoter Score (CNPS).
Therefore, we are making our CNPS a central piece of Circular. All the private feedback recruiters get from these surveys will help them improve their candidate experience and therefore hire faster. Also, each “promoter” from this survey (developers that think you have an outstanding interview process) will boost your public reputation in Circular. A better reputation means developers will be more likely to accept your interview requests (yes, faster hires again!).
What’s not changing
Even with these changes, a lot of Circular remains the same!
- Collaborative community: We are still a collaborative community. Recruiters will be able to endorse developers anytime they want. Remember that this makes a difference when it comes to rejecting candidates and that their perception of the hiring process improves when they get helped.
- Job Opportunities: As usual, recruiters will be able to post job openings in Circular. Our team of experts will hand pick the best profiles for the role and share them with the recruiter. If it is a great fit, the recruiter will be introduced to the candidate to let the hiring process begin!
- Free Beta Version: Remember that unlike other hiring platforms we’re offering our free beta version to our recruiters and candidates so it will be free of charge at the moment. If you’re meeting us for the very first time, don’t hesitate to register and start hiring with us!
Do you have any questions? Please, contact our team of experts at contact@circular.io and we’ll be very happy to guide you through.
