Talent Acquisition (TA), in its simplest terms, is the name given to the role of attracting and hiring new employees. Yet, it involves a lot more than being an interview partner.
In our TA team, we focus on a people first hiring approach. This means we consider not only the skills that someone has, but also them as a person that has a unique story, characteristics and needs. This plays a part into why our team love their roles – here are some insights:
Being able to meet people from all over the world, from different walks of life and to listen to their stories is very inspiring. I love being able to connect with people and to make the process of getting their dream job enjoyable, stress free and engaging.
Shona
For me, Talent Acquisition is a lot about establishing relationships. It is about getting to know candidates as a person and really making a match that will ultimately benefit both their career and the company’s development. One of my favorite parts in TA is getting to talk with a variety of people on a daily basis, and learning about their background and their interests. I also really enjoy speaking with them one-two-three months into the job, and finding out they are still really enjoying it. It is really rewarding to see that they love their new career path. I think TA made me more understanding of people and their situations.
Dora
“It’s great to get to know people from all over the world, and I end up learning something new from every candidate, which is fascinating. TA is not just about the company, but also about the people – what moves them, how they can contribute and develop themselves. It’s very fulfilling to see that someone you hired is doing well at their role and enjoying working at Runtastic, it shows that it was the right match.
Felipe
Our love for people and helping others is what keeps us going, even on busy days. We see a person behind each application, even when we received around 2500 applications and held over 300 interviews last year!
We strive for great candidate experience
The number of applications may be high, but so is our desire to provide a great candidate experience!
It is defined as the feeling of the candidate when moving through the hiring process of a company. It starts at the moment they come across the job ad and extends to their very last step in the process, be it a rejection message or an offer to join the team.
Between those two points there are a lot of variables that can influence the candidate experience: how the interviews are set up, how the communication is handled and how the touchpoints with the professionals are, just to name a few.
In a way, those are the “business card” of the company and they give a first impression about how the organization runs and what it is like to work there.
At Runtastic, we strive to provide an outstanding candidate experience that reflects our values and we are constantly considering new practices on how to be even better.
Allowing time to get to know candidates on a personal level in the interviews, use of inclusive language, timely communication – we try to get back to candidates within a week – and clear feedback are some of the measures we have in place to achieve that.
We always provide personalized and specific feedback when someone doesn’t make it further in the process, regardless of the stage they are in. We all have looked for a role at some point, and we know how frustrating it is not to get an answer after investing so much time and effort in the application or in an interview.
By reasoning our decision, we give candidates our perspective on which points they could have done better and, therefore, the chance to work on those for the next application – be it at Runtastic or anywhere else!
As mentioned, we meet a lot of different people, who have different gender identities, different (professional) experiences, different sexual orientations, are different ages, the list goes on! Everyone is different and it’s these differences that make us unique and valuable.
This is why DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) practices are crucial in our day to day work; we want everyone to bring their true self to interviews and feel comfortable in doing so. On top of this, we want to ensure every candidate is treated equally and fairly, with minimized bias in our processes.
At Runtastic, we follow a holistic DEI approach, which entails that TA is a main pillar of our DEI strategy, so this topic is given a lot of importance in our decision-making process.
An example of what we have implemented are structured interview assessments to ensure an objective evaluation of each (internal or external) candidate, creation of a guidebook for our Hiring Managers so all involved in interviews are trained and well prepared for an inclusive interview as well as upping our data game to ensure we are achieving our TA DEI goals, such as an increased diversity of our candidate pool. In all of this, we are also closely collaborating with our Inclusion Agents, team members without a background in TA that bring in a different perspective and help us drive the topic forward.
In hiring, it’s naturally important that the candidate is a fit for the company in terms of values alignment and technical skills. However, it’s also vital that the company is a fit for the candidate. If those expectations are mismatched, it is likely that the person won’t be able to perform to their full potential and that their stint won’t be too long.
We strive to ensure fit for both sides during the process, giving candidates the opportunity to ask questions at any time during the interviews or asynchronously via e-mail. And, during the last round of chats we give candidates the option to come to Austria to meet the team, or have a virtual chat with them. This way, the candidate can know who they would be working with, get authentic insights into what it is like to be a Runtastic, and decide if that fits their expectations.
“The best part of the process was getting to know my new colleagues in a longer call. I enjoyed meeting the whole team and chatting with them”, said Jacqueline, who was hired in 2022 as a Social Media Marketing Strategist.
“What I really appreciated is that you get to talk about your personal side, not only about your professional side. It was nice, because you get a better feeling for the other person”, she added.
“Future steps in the hiring process were very well communicated, and deadlines were clear. There was no waiting for this one email, it was always on time and you always got an answer and feedback.”
Interested in joining? If there’s currently no open role that fits your skills, please consider applying to our Talent Community.
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