James Spearing

VP, Global Talent Acquisition, Scotiabank

Supernova Award Category: 
Future of Work: Human Capital Management
The Organization: 

Scotiabank is a leading bank in the Americas. Guided by our purpose: "for every future", we help our customers, their families and their communities achieve success through a broad range of advice, products, and services, including personal and commercial banking, wealth management and private banking, corporate and investment banking, and capital markets. With a team of over 90,000 employees and assets of approximately $1.3 trillion (as of April 30, 2022), Scotiabank trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: BNS) and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: BNS).

The Problem: 

Scotiabank strives to strengthen and sustain its culture and value proposition as a humanistic brand. The company is conscious that every interaction it has with the market or with candidates—particularly how it approaches talent acquisition—impacts its employer brand. To optimize the hiring process to be fair, objective, and data-driven, Scotiabank wanted to establish an approach that would allow them to know the whole human—hiring individuals for their potential and the behavioral skills they bring, rather than just for their education previous work experience.

Scotiabank sought to:

  • Build an employer brand aligned with its humanistic vision.
  • Establish a hiring approach to allow the company to hire individuals for their behavioral skills and potential, not just for their education and previous work experience.
  • Launch hiring mechanisms that are fair, objective, scalable, and inclusive.
The Solution: 

Scotiabank wanted to ensure that the screening process didn’t filter out deserving candidates from entering the pipeline due to biases. It wanted to establish a mechanism to objectively determine job fit and potential for early talent with little or no previous work experience.

In 2020, Scotiabank canceled resume requirements in the campus hiring process. IT also piloted new assessments for roles in Scotiabank Digital Factory. This internal function works to transform digital banking to serve customers via the development of customer-facing digital products.

Scotiabank:

  • Eliminated resume requirements in the campus hiring process.
  • Deployed a talent assessment that supports the company with an innovative approach by providing credible data on employees’ behavioral skills.
  • Empowered candidates with an understanding of the types of job profiles they are more likely to succeed in and helped recruiters identify the right fits for various job opportunities.
The Results: 

Going resumeless was well received by students and significantly improved the candidate experience. The transformative approach expanded Scotiabank’s reach to more than 30 colleges and universities nationally, where candidates have been hired in the first year of the launch of the innovative process. Moreover, the retention rate of campus hires has almost doubled from 26 percent prelaunch to 46 percent postlaunch of the new approach.

Metrics: 

Going resumeless was well received by students and significantly improved the candidate experience. The transformative approach expanded Scotiabank’s reach to more than 30 colleges and universities nationally, where candidates have been hired in the first year of the launch of the innovative process. Moreover, the retention rate of campus hires has almost doubled from 26 percent prelaunch to 46 percent postlaunch of the new approach.

The Technology: 

Plum is a talent assessment platform that measures personality, social intelligence, and problem-solving ability. The platform empowers candidates with a better understanding of the types of job profiles they are more likely to succeed in and equips recruiters with the information they need to identify the right fit for various job opportunities. The assessment is also an integral enabler of the company’s overarching “relationship-based model” for campus hiring.

Disruptive Factor: 

Going “resume-less” is a big and bold move for the business. For Scotiabank, the decision was well-received by students, saving them a substantial amount of time typically invested in drafting resumes and cover letters. The new approach went a long way in improving the candidate experience. The conversion rates have been high since the launch of the new approach, with positive reviews from hiring managers and leaders and great feedback from students.

Check out this great video on Scotiabank’s “resume less” approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocdNyv3fRKU

Shining Moment: 

Through its strategic transformation of the hiring process, Scotiabank has successfully amplified the experience across the entire spectrum of stakeholders involved— candidates, recruiters, and hiring managers—furthering its DEI agenda of bringing in more diverse candidates. The new approach to hiring also serves as a strong testimony to the humanistic brand that the company wants to build and sustain.

About Scotiabank

Scotiabank is a Canadian multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. With a team of approximately 100,000 employees and assets of approximately $1.2 trillion (as of January 2020), Scotiabank is the third-largest Canadian bank by deposits and market capitalization.