Recruiting a vaccine army: How AstraZeneca has staffed for Covid-19

Years of research

This hugely detailed process is underpinned by reams of research and investigation, designed to optimise both the output of the AstraZeneca managers and the experience for the candidate.

When Maggie and her team first mapped out their current talent acquisition model, they looked specifically at the volume of requisitions that each talent acquisition partner should manage at any one time.

“We found that there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ and factors like business area and the seniority of the vacancy make a difference,” Maggie says. “However, across the board, we aim for our Talent Acquisition Partners to oversee 20-30 vacancies at any one time and to deliver between 65-100 hires per year.”

More recently, the focus has shifted to the candidate experience; in 2020, the talent acquisition team spoke to over 4,000 candidates across 18 countries. “This data has helped us to clearly define the expectations of our candidates and we’ve updated our process and standards accordingly.

“One example was about response times. We found that candidates expect – on average – to hear back after an initial application in around one week whereas our previous standards were four weeks. We now measure our candidate experience as part of our BAU (business-as-usual) and have data collection points across the entire candidate journey – including both successful and unsuccessful candidates – and this data will continue to inform our processes and standards.”

Digital drive

To deliver this quick, smooth process and minimise the burden on the acquisition managers, AstraZeneca has invested a huge sum of money in technology. Even without Covid-19, this would have been important. In the wake of lockdown, which scattered the talent acquisition team to all corners of the UK and Europe, it has become essential.

“Within a week of Covid-19 breaking out, we had pivoted to carrying out interviews and onboarding remotely,” Maggie recalls. The new operation, she says, is integral to the interview process and even more important at the onboarding stage, enabling managers to “mirror a face-to-face meeting as closely as possible.”

To further streamline the process, managers are able to access their training via a dedicated online portal, and the onboarding team is currently piloting a new technology called Eli, which strives to build understanding with new hires about AstraZeneca and its values.

Like many companies, AstraZeneca is also using gamification to energise its interview process and assess candidates who may be located on the other side of the world. In their assessment centres Maggie and her team have adopted Pymetrics, a tool which assesses a candidate’s credentials with 12 different challenges, collecting thousands of data points on metrics such as fairness, generosity and decision-making.

As well as providing rapid-fire data on a candidate’s abilities, this type of technology ensures that candidates have the digital skills that the vaccine programme demands. “We’ve been proactive with sourcing talent with [digital] capabilities and have developed bespoke campaigns to reach that audience,” Maggie says (in parallel with its recruitment drive, AstraZeneca has created a Digital Awareness Hub to upskill its existing employees).

Above all, these digital assessments are fair. They remove prejudice and preconception from the recruitment process and ensure AstraZeneca is as representative as it possibly can be.

Representing everyone

Indeed, it is clear that AstraZeneca has used the pandemic as a catalyst for change. As well as taking steps to meet the digital future, it has also attempted to make itself more diverse. With so many applications flooding in, the last few months have provided a prime opportunity to open up the talent pool.

“Diversity is one of our key requirements,” Maggie says. “It goes hand in hand with innovation, and it’s something we’ve practised for several years. Inclusion and diversity is built into our global standards.

“We aim for 50% male-female, and although we don’t have specific targets around ethnicity because it might not be possible in some areas, we aim to ensure that our workforce represents the communities we are based in. This balance is one of the goals of our interview process.”

The talent acquisition team employs a wide variety of recruitment channels including LinkedIn, job boards and referral programmes, and requires recruitment partners to do the same. They have successfully piloted using blind CVs to remove bias from their decisions when receiving applications in certain areas, and are looking to automate this more broadly.

Reflecting the technological advances made elsewhere in the recruitment project, a pair of razor’s-edge digital tools have been piloted to facilitate the diversity process: Mya, a conversational programme that screens early-stage candidates and coordinates interviews, and Textio, an augmented writing platform that roots out potentially problematic phraseology (the software is also used by Fujitsu, the subject of an earlier HRD case study).

But the key role is played by the hiring managers. As Maggie explains, this has been a subject of close attention.

“We train all our hiring managers on inclusion and diversity to ensure there’s no unconscious bias, using an online training platform. The training is compulsory, and it lasts about an hour. It’s a mixture of roleplaying, examples, multiple-choice… there are a lot of little tests.”