By
Magnus Bucht
In 2015, a large number of refugees, primarily from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, began arriving in Europe to seek asylum. The primary entry point for most refugees was Greece, arriving from Turkey.
The high number of refugees resulted in overcrowded camps and unsanitary living conditions. The crisis led to political tension within European countries and between several EU member states, with stricter border controls and tighter immigration policies as result.
"The 2015-2016 refugee crisis had a significant impact globally on us. We had to adapt quickly to the changing environment, expand (or refocus) our operations and recruit more staff with diverse skills to provide much-needed assistance to the increasing number of displaced people. " Continues Marcos.
DRC adapted quickly to a new talent-sourcing reality
In hindsight, with all results at hand, the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) played a significant role during the refugee crisis in providing assistance to refugees and asylum seekers around several European countries. The organization provided legal assistance, psychosocial support, and education and vocational training to refugees to help them integrate into their host communities.
To succeed DRC adapted quickly to the new reality of the large number of refugees arriving in Europe.
Refugee camps went quickly overcrowded and refugee organizations faced challenges in providing basic needs like shelter, food, and water. This led to an increased need for Camp Coordinators, Camp managers, and On-site managers. So-called CCCM teams.
Many of the refugees had experienced traumatic events in their home countries or during their journey to Europe, which led to mental health issues like depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This led to increased demand for specialists in Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS).
Another significant challenge was the integration of refugees. Many refugees faced language barriers, making it difficult for them to access services or find employment, which made it harder for them to integrate into the community. This led to an increase in the demand for Protection officers, Legal support officers, Vocational trainers, and Interpreters/Translators.
The new reality and scale had a price, and the increased cost created funding and resource constraints: Providing support to refugees requires significant financial and human resources. The DRC faced challenges in securing funding to support its operations and ensure that it could provide adequate support to refugees in need. This led to a demand for Human Resources capacity, Finance managers, Monitoring and Evaluation expertise, Grant writers, Fund-raisers, and External relations experts.
DRC turned to Impactpool for talent outreach support
It was during the time of adaptation that DRC turned to Impactpool for talent outreach support.
"The strategic reason to start using Impactpool's outreach services was to reach a wider pool of qualified candidates globally - while also rethinking how we spend our internal resources in the most efficient way." says Marcos
To try out the Impactpool services, DRC started with the Impactpool partnership. The Impactpool partnership targets Active and Semi-Active talents but not Passive talents.
In other words, the partnership targets talents that use Impactpool for job search and/or who have created a profile and subscribed to Impactpool's job alert and newsletter. However, it does not target Passive talents, candidates that may be a perfect fit but need to learn about job opportunities at DRC or who don't actively search for a new job. To also reach Passive talents, an Impactpool premium subscription is required.
Onboarding meeting - Identify challenges and define the outreach goals
The Impactpool partnership is a subscription service where the impact company/ organization enrolls in a yearly subscription to automatically gather all their jobs from their career site. On Impactpool the jobs are indexed, published, and distributed to matching candidate profiles in weekly job alerts.
A human-trained AI job-matching algorithm completely carries out the service. The collaboration starts with an onboarding meeting to get the jobs up on Impactpool and correctly trained to understand the clients' vacancies.
DRC informed Impactpool about their talent needs, both in terms of expertise areas and diversity objectives. Besides the profiles listed in the bullets above, DRC has also been using Impactpool's talent network effectively to source Humanitarian Mine Action, Weapons and Ammunition Management (WAM) Experts, and similar roles.
Impactpool's job-matching algorithm is trained by inserting information about the client's jobs and seniority. The AI algorithm is provided with a list of:
DRC's Job titles (the titles are manually mapped to Impactpool's skills tree)
DRC's different grade levels (if applicable). To train the AI algorithm to understand seniority, the algorithm is either trained on a grading table or the organization's title nomenclature. An example could be that the algorithm is trained to know that an Associate is a junior and a Director is a senior role.
DRC's Recruitment types. In the DRC case, some jobs are locally recruited, some internationally, and some both. At this stage, the algorithm is trained on what signs to look for to determine the recruitment type. For organizations using a grading table, this information is often included in the grades, easing the determination.
"We needed to find the right talent to support our operations, and Impactpool's outreach services provided an effective solution to help us reach more qualified candidates worldwide. Impactpool's automation of this process helped us streamline our recruitment efforts, saving us time and resources that we could allocate towards supporting our mission instead."
Up and running the same day
The Impactpool AI algorithm is ready to be started the same day as the onboarding meeting. Ever since the launch day, all DRC jobs have automatically been collected, indexed, published on Impactpool, and distributed to matching candidate profiles in weekly job alerts.
The DRC recruitment team actively monitors the outreach results through the Impactpool dashboard and can easily add extra outreach efforts when needed.
"We have appreciated Impactpool's understanding of our sector, which is demonstrated through their communication to job seekers, as well as their commitment to strengthening diversity & inclusion within our sector." Says Marcos.
Below is a sample report of how it looks in the dashboard when DRC monitors the accumulated outreach effects on Impactpool. The same type of report can be generated at the job level. As you can see, there are more than 1 million job views.
Get in touch
Are you interested in learning more about the DRC success story or if you are interested in exploring how we can collaborate to achieve your talent souring objectives? Fill out the contact form below and an Impactpool representative will reach out to you.