About Ocado
Ocado is the global leader for delivering online grocery profitably, scalably, and sustainably. The company has transformed this space through its world-class systems and solutions in automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT, Cloud, simulation, big data, and more. Ocado Technology is the ‘innovation factory’ that powers Ocado.com, and the Ocado Smart Platform (OSP) – which retailers around the world are buying to allow them to deliver online grocery scalably, sustainably and profitably for the first time ever.
The Challenges of Maintaining Quality in High Volume Recruiting
A number of factors make grocery the most challenging online retail segment to operate in successfully. To start with, the profit margins are very low. The average shopping basket is made up of 50 items from three temperature regimes and includes many delicate or short shelf-life products. Consumers have little tolerance for substitutions and high-expectations for on-time delivery. To solve this sheer complexity, Ocado Technology’s innovation factory seeks to recruit technology candidates of the highest calibre.
Looking for a way to optimize tech hiring processes
“We were able to make a full shift to a virtual process in about 8 days,” says Bowers. “But it was important for us to get hiring managers to a point where they feel comfortable that the new process properly evaluates candidates at our high bar.”
“We’re hiring for roles in Software Engineering, Product Management, and Data Science to name but a few. Being able to quickly filter out applications so only the most suitable candidates move forward to meet our hiring managers is helpful.”
What changed after implementing Codility?
Implementing technology that would speed up the evaluation process and reduce time to hire—all while ensuring hiring managers are confident in their decisions, is one way to support this. Codility (and specifically CodeLive) has helped strike that balance for the Software Engineering roles.
The Role of Codility in Ocado Technology Hiring
The primary role that Codility plays in Ocado Technology’s hiring processes is to filter applicants at scale through an effective skills assessment. The recruiting team is able to manage thousands of applications more effectively with an objective baseline of coding capabilities through CodeLive
“For us, using CodeLive is all about managing applications,” says Bowers. “It’s one of the factors that helps us evaluate who to move on to our later stage of the hiring process. When you’re dealing with huge numbers of applications every month in over a hundred different roles, this streamlining is a significant benefit, which leaves our hiring managers more time for quality interviews later in the process.”
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