How Synthesia reduced drop-off and time to hire

Hiring globally at an accelerated pace, Synthesia's Head of Talent wanted to introduce technology that would help them maintain the quality of their recruitment processes and decisions, while simultaneously achieving their key recruitment metrics. To do so, the team had to address various issues:

Best candidates dropping out and not enough data to understand why
The best candidates were dropping out of Synthesia's process and they had no visibility or data to help them understand why. Their ATS candidate surveys were limited and had low response rates, meaning they couldn't learn much from them. With over 50 open positions, this was a serious problem.They wanted a tool that would help them identify which stages of the hiring process were causing top talent to drop out, so they could fix it. They also wanted to increase response rates on candidate surveys so they could learn even more about what candidates want and need.

Top engineers in high demand and short supply
Synthesia's Head of Talent wanted to introduce technology that would help them hire the best engineers on the market, without affecting the productivity and time of their existing engineers. Prior to the partnership with Screenloop, screening calls and first-stage interviews could be filled with a mixed calibre of engineering talent. A lack of data and insights into what great looked like made improvements slow and difficult to implement. Existing engineers spent a lot of time interviewing candidates who never hit the hiring bar.

Candidates accepting other offers due to long reference process
Prior to using Screenloop, team members were tasked with collecting references that could take several days, leading top candidates to accept offers elsewhere and have a negatively impacted experience. There was no way to objectively track their quality of hire - a critical metric for forward-looking talent teams.

How Screenloop helped

Automated and custom candidate surveys

The Solution
Synthesia implemented personalised candidate surveys across key stages, locations and teams in their recruitment process. Triggered at custom moments, the Synthesia team knew they could now track candidate feedback in a scalable manner. The survey questions were customised, which allowed them to have answers to questions specifically for their business.

"The ability to analyse the data by stage allows us to see where in the process and by department there is a problem. It’s about optimising the candidate experience and making sure we’re keeping that bar high." - Sara, Senior Technical Recruiter

“The ability to analyse the data by stage,” said Salim, Head of Talent, “allows us to see where in the process and by department there is a problem.” In addition to helping solve issues for the talent and hiring team, Synthesia’s CEO has been able to use their tool to gain a new perspective and find ways to help improve the process.

Collaboration and alignment across teams

Interview intelligence recorded, transcribed and analysed all screening and first-stage interviews. Interviewers and recruiters could now be up-skilled in real time. AI-driven highlights enabled teams to reflect on key moments and provide instant feedback. Standardised questions and automated training ensured a fair and consistent process for all candidates.

"I am able to cut the interview into really super small videos of exact parts I want the hiring managers to see. I really love that part." - Sara, Senior Technical Recruiter

Sara, Synthesia's Senior Technical Recruiter professes to being a huge fan of the sidekick feature and asserts that, "If someone was to ask me about Screenloop, I would say that I would not want to live without interview intelligence, I really really love it.”

Automated references and tailored onboarding

By integrating Candidate Success with their Applicant Tracking System, Synthesia’s hiring team was able to automate and improve their referencing process. With this solution, they no longer need to chase down references, but can expect references to be delivered within 48 hours of making an offer.

"The automation, the consistency in questions, and the visibility. That’s where we see the most value from it." - Sara, Senior Technical Recruiter

In addition to time saved, the solution allowed them to uncover key insights from former peer and manager feedback, such as the objective validation of the new hires’ soft skills. "We look at all the success reports and where there are flags around certain areas, we make sure to 

over-index for those during onboarding," says Sara. Armed with this data, they were able to customise onboarding plans to ensure that each new hire was fully supported no matter their strengths or areas for development.

“The impact was considerable - turnaround times generally have gone from like a week to around two days.” - Sara, Senior Technical Recruiter

Let’s talk results

Candidate feedback response rates were 2.5x higher than their previous tool. With this new data, the team could implement important improvements into their process. As a result, there was a 76% decrease in candidate drop off. This was all possible because they could get actionable feedback from those who had dropped out of the process, which lead to an increase in candidate satisfaction rates and an improved candidate experience.

Synthesia’s engineering team are now able to save critical time on every hire made. Moreover, the new approach to interviewing improved their Candidate Net Promoter Scores by 35%.

Synthesia is now able to offer an incredible candidate experience by reducing hiring time by 5 days, a whole 60% decrease. As a result, they can now retain the best talent in the process. In addition, by adapting onboarding plans for each new hire, they have enabled candidates to ramp up their productivity and performance 3x faster across all teams.