Innovation in recruitment and selection. Rotterdam vs Porto experiences

Recruitment and selection in the Public Administration could affect innovation process. In this article we compare two methods of recruitment, of the City of Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, and of the City of Porto, in Portugal. With interviews with Ivo Wissink, Program Manager of the City of Rotterdam, and with Salomé Ferreira, HR Municipal Director of the Porto City Council.

Rotterdam has a diverse team of specialists within the different fields of recruitment, including hiring, reintegration and career guidance. The main priority of the team “Servicepunt capaciteit” is to match the supply and demand of human capacity. This can be done in many ways. E.g. temporarily hiring an external candidate, making a temporarily assignment available for an interested colleague or starting up the process of internal or external recruitment for a job opening.

Porto City Council has a specific team to act on the recruitment and selection and manage the internal and external process of recruitment for vacant position, suppling the best workers to all city services. As an entity of the public sector, Porto City Council is regulated by legal norms, namely at recruitment and selection under the terms of the National Constitution, General Labor Law in Public Functions and a specific legal document (Order No 125-A/2019).

Data driven and value free recruitment @City of Rotterdam
Ivo Wissink, Programmamanager Gemeente Rotterdam, underline their “Data driven approach”: “To determine the best solution for the demand issue, acquiring data has become increasingly important. Each job opportunity within the Rotterdam organisation can be uploaded in a single digital system. With this database we can learn from the results of prior similar recruitments so that we can estimate the best solution of filling the demand for capacity. This system also facilitates us to better link the demand with the supply of already available people. It will also support us to predict future mobility in our organisation and to take appropriate actions.Furthermore, we use external data sources that chart the external labour market for us. This helps us to determine the feasibility of the recruitment of every announced job opening. We look at several criteria like scarcity of the labour market, availability of the target group (full time/part time) and other preferred employment conditions. When we decide that external recruitment is the preferable path, we use again different sources to define the most effective and sustainable labour market approach: Career site (i.e. working for Rotterdam.nl); Recruitment system “ATS”; Target group dashboard labour market. It is already possible to predict how many applications are needed to fill in a job opening. In the short run we even expect to predict how many interviews will be necessary and what the estimated time to hire will be. In the meantime, we are progressing to gain understanding of the ‘quality of hire’. Result is that we not only receive quantitative information about our process but are also able to measure its quality”.

Employer branding strategies of the Porto City Council
Salomé Ferreira, HR Municipal Director of the Porto City Council pointed out on the branding strategies of the Porto City Council: “Annually, in a strategic planning perspective and based on the mission, objectives, planned activities and projects, a management plan of the workforce is built for all services. After being analysed, an annual recruitment plan is created, within the number of vacant positions at each service, the role description and the admission criteria, namely academic or professional training area and the definition of a skill profile. The standard for public recruitment in Porto is the recruitment for current needs (common competition procedure) according to the planning. But it can also be done to reserve pools, aiming for future employment needs (for the formation of recruitment reserves modality). “Vacant position may be fulfill by current workers of the public sector, by internal recruitment or mobility or by candidates on external labor market”. 

From labour market communication to recruitment marketing in Rotterdam
Ivo Wissink: “Due to fragmentation of the labour market, increased trade specialties, different active generations and the wide use of social media, job marketing has become an essential role within recruitment. Once again data plays a key role. Firstly, to predict which recruitment marketing strategy will be most effective for which target group and in a later stage to measure the effect. One of the main reasons why Rotterdam has chosen to start its own career website, is to acquire this relevant data. Via the website all activities related to recruitment marketing come together and are measurable”. 

Innovation in recruitment and selection in the City of Porto
Salomé Ferreira: “The external recruitment always requires the opening of competition procedures publicized on the Official Journal (‘Diário da República’); on the Public Employment Pool website nd on the Porto City Council website. Spontaneous applications are not considered, in this context. Laws mentioned above include, as well information about mandatory steps at all recruitment and selection processes. On one hand, it is a guarantee of transparence, equitable access to a job in the public sector (independently of the public entity), but on other hand, that lead us to take some time from the beginning to the end of process and to limit the use other type of recruitment strategies, such as those more proactive or maybe more suitable for a specific profile”. 

The Rottedam Value free (pre)selection
Ivo Wissink: “The objective of the municipality of Rotterdam is to be inclusive and its working people should therefore reflect the city. Diversity is an important issue, not only cultural wise but also diversity in terms of age and gender. We prefer inclusive recruitment and to make this successful it is important to organise our recruitment and selection value free as much as possible. On top of this we notice that knowledge is rapidly outdated, mainly caused by digitization and automation of routinely jobs. Developments are somewhat unpredictable but in general, jobs in which cognitive abilities are essential are in demand. Looking at this trend we believe that we should focus our selection process more on personal skills and motives of people and not too much on education, degrees and working experience. Success from the past is absolutely no guarantee for success in the future. This conviction is supported by research arguing that the reliability and predictability of a traditional asset like a resume is nihil. While in most cases a ‘good’ resume is still decisive whether to invite an applicant to continue the job procedure”. 

Selection methods of the Porto City Council are defined by law
Salomé Ferreira: “Selection methods that may be used are also defined by law, as compulsory and optional/additional, being applied according to career and type of future employment relationship, which is fixed or unfixed term contract. To define methods to be used in the selection process, competences, skills profile and technical knowledge need to a given work post (having as reference the skill profile previously defined), are also considered. The selection is done using a multi-method technique to assess technical knowledge and competencies to a specific activity/function, according to profile description at the recruitment planning. Different methods include: Knowledge tests (aims to assess, in a practical or theoretical way, the technical or professional knowledge for the fulfillment of the function); Psychological assessment (aims to assess skills, personality characteristics and behavioral competences, through personality inventories, intelligence tests and psychological assessment interviews); Curriculum analysis (aims to analyse the existence of the educational and professional qualification to fulfill the position and other elements of higher value, such as experience to carry out the functions); Selection professional interview (aims to assess the professional experience, competences and skills – defined according to a profile – and behavioral aspects, namely communication, interpersonal relationship, motivation); Physical tests (aims to assess physical abilities needed to perform inherent activities to a function); Medical examination (aims to assess the physical health conditions required for the fulfillment of functions). For the same reasons why the steps are defined by law, other selection methods (different from those legally predicted) and perhaps, more innovative methods, such as phone interview, pitch, assessment games or simulated exercises, are not accepted as part of the selection process in the public sector”. 

Assessment Game in Rottedam 
Ivo Wissink: “Rotterdam decided to use additional tools to select value free and to focus more on the personal skills of the applicants. A good example is an assessment game based on neuro science. With this game we can build a “target profile” in which key skills for that specific job will be put in a ‘pyramid’. Applicants are invited to play this (language free) game and they will be matched according to the profile which was built in advance. The first results are promising. We have recently hired our first colleague, where the reason for invitation had been based on the score of the assessment game instead of the resume”. 

Innovation and employer branding strategies in Porto 
Salomé Ferreira: “Despite being strongly regulated by law, the Porto City Council has been introducing some innovative aspects, not only to adapt to the evolution of the labor market and to different generations, but also as a reflection of its own vision and values, especially innovation, continuous, improvement and competitiveness. The recruitment and selection team is comprised mainly of psychologists with expertise in psychological assessment, who have access to a rich test library. In addition, these professionals receive training in other key areas, such as public employment and administrative law. An employer brand program is being implemented to help build the image of Porto City Hall as a modern and innovative entity, to attract talent and promote job opportunities. A changing paradigm online recruitment platform was developed to attract the new generation candidates, to communicate in a more modern way and to simplify the application process - it is fully online. The impact of this instrument is not restricted to the candidate's experience, our recruitment and selection department also benefits from the introduction of this platform with: increased productivity; focus on high value tasks; higher worker satisfaction; greater efficiency and effectiveness in performing tasks; mitigation of human failure; daving space and paper (applications and curriculum analysis are done online). Other initiatives of this employer branding program are: participation in job opportunities fairs; delivery of workshops at universities and schools; partnership with training providers and universities to advertise competitive procedures, thereby increasing the connection between the students and Porto City Council”.