Telenor Group is a Norwegian telecommunication’s company that is top 1 or 2 on most of their markets, and have more than 20.000 employees and 182 million customers worldwide.
Their key purpose is to connect people and to empower societies. Therefore, Telenor wants to provide and extend the quality and access to the Internet, and to make it more personalized to increase engagement from its customers. That is why they are building efficient operations that would lead them to build a strong digital position in the market.
In order to maintain this strong digital position, Telenor is currently changing and evolving to adapt their business to the digital world and the new consumers of this era. In that sense, for the past years, they have been performing a Digital Transformation. This is not only about embracing the latest technology and bringing the best talent to build new services, but it also means engaging in a change of mindset and leadership within the organization.
During the past year, Agile Search has been part of the digital transformation at Telenor by helping them bring the right talent to different tribes and setting up a new, more digitized process. This cooperation has been very successful – not only in terms of the number of recruits but also in building long-lasting relationships and synergies with hiring managers, developers, and agile team leads.
It all started one year ago with one of Agile Search’s recruiters, but today Telenor has a team of three Agile Search recruiters on-site working side by side in two tribes, helping them face the challenges of tech recruitment in Sweden. Together with the recruiters, Telenor has been able to build up speed and optimize recruitment processes. This way, both the company’s and the candidates’ time is valued in order to create a good experience for the candidate. What are the benefits of having a tech recruiter on-site?
“You quickly understood our needs and what we were looking for. By using your expert knowledge on how to find and attract candidates, it has been much more efficient and smooth. Only using an ad would not give the right inflow”, said one of the hiring managers.
“The recruiter creates a lot of value in finding the right candidates, which gives the manager time to focus on relevant candidates”, another one replied.
When the recruiters are on-site, the company has people who know the company first-hand and can quickly follow any changes made. They are working dedicatedly on attracting candidates and helping with other administrative tasks which allow the hiring managers to put their focus on other tasks.
Of course, recruitment work has not been a one-person job. Telenor has been very forth-coming and cooperative, open to improvements, and most importantly, dedicated to recruitment. With good communication with all parties involved, it has been proven to be possible to have an efficient process even when the pace is high and many people are involved. At the same time, introducing digital project management tools to track the status and unify communication between all parties has been very useful and well-received.
“With your help to set up the process and make it digital, it became very smooth. We did not have that experience before and it is something we can learn from”
A Manager at Telenor
With the recruiting teams who understand the high demand of developers and respect the candidates’ time, Telenor has together with the recruiters created a process that is short but with high quality. By involving the hiring managers, agile team leads, and developers in the process, the company can evaluate the candidate efficiently and give speedy feedback, but also allow the candidate to early on meet the people that are going to be their immediate managers or team members. The response from developers in the process has been very positive, and they have also appreciated the smooth process.
“My expectations were mainly to receive help in finding relevant candidates, and with that, I have received a lot of help. Especially in using more innovative and relevant channels for sourcing” said a hiring manager.
What is the key to this successful cooperation? Communication and transparency have been the main ingredients. Obviously, there are challenges along the way, as always when working with tech recruitment, but together with the hiring managers and HR, the challenges are met and being used as opportunities to improve. Telenor is a place full of opportunities, where much is happening. It has been a pleasure, as Agile search recruiters, to be a part of the digital transformation that Telenor is going through and to have been given the trust to help them with the recruitment of their new talent.
What is your experience as an in-house recruiter or working with an in-house recruiter? What are the main challenges you face? We would like to know your opinion on this matter. Get in touch with us to hear more about our experience and share your stories.