How to achieve effective recruitment

In research for UX or CX design, qualitative methodology is essential to know and understand the attitudes and behaviors of customers and users. From wanting to know what matters to them to how intuitive they find our app, this type of study is useful in all stages of the design and development of a service or product. However, it is not all about choosing techniques and designing samples: the quality of the data we obtain will correspond to the effectiveness of the recruitment we carry out. In other words, a study that is well designed but answered by the wrong people is useless. This is why it is crucial to get those who matter to us to participate. In this post, we will tell you the steps to carry out an effective recruitment, in order to ensure that the information you get is of quality.

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Fundamental steps for recruitment

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Recruitment involves seeking, finding, inviting and scheduling the right people for the research. To do this, three basic steps must be followed:

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1. Determine the target or target group

It is important to have some preliminary knowledge about the problem to be investigated to avoid mixing audiences with different characteristics and behaviors.

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2. Find representative members of that group

Once the target audience has been defined, it is necessary to find representative members. This is known as screening. Recruitment is a job in itself, with specific techniques, which can be done by professionals or companies with experience in this activity.

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3. Convincing people

Finally, you must convince people to participate in the research. In many cases, they are offered a reward known as an incentive. This must be valuable to enable us to attract quality participants. But be careful! It is essential to prevent them from participating for this reason alone, as the data obtained will be biased. How can this be done? Through a key tool: the Recruiting Guide.

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What is a Recruitment Guide?

It is a specific tool to provide the recruiter with the appropriate criteria and to be able to call the right people. Although it depends on the type of project, we share some general tips that will help you at the time of the call:

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It should be as brief as possible: you should not exceed 20 questions. In this way, you will be able to use other means such as telephone or e-mail.

Start with the "slogan". This step involves:

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Conceal the identity of the survey recipient: whenever it is not necessary, it is better not to include the identification of the person commissioning the survey. The participant's emotional ties to the company will condition the answers for better or worse. The mediation of a neutral actor (e.g. a consulting firm such as Proaxion) will avoid bias.

Do not make the purpose of the research explicit: it is better to state "a study on the hotel service" than to say "a study on the use of an accommodation booking app".

Format: interview, group, etc.

Place, date and approximate duration.

Nature of the incentive (whether it is cash, a bonus, etc.).

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Continue with "filter" questions: these allow you to exclude undesirable profiles by means of easily identifiable variables. If we need an audience of a certain age range, it is advisable to start by asking their age. If you do not meet this condition, you will not be considered.

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Focus on the questions that allow you to find the right person: it is important to keep in mind that the Recruitment Guide is not a survey. In other words, it is advisable to avoid asking ancillary questions.

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Avoid being in evidence with biased questions: for example, from Proaxion we did a research for a healthcare company in which instead of asking "Do you use the app to request appointments?" we asked "What means do you usually use to request appointments?" This brings us to the next point:

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Use open-ended questions: they will avoid exposing the desired participant profile.

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Ask closed-ended questions with carefully chosen options: if what we are looking for is very specific, it is not very effective to ask open-ended questions. For example, if we are designing a platform that accepts payment with QR and we are looking for users with experience in this modality, it is convenient to ask in a closed form: "Which of these payment methods have you ever used? a) Cash, b) Credit/debit card, c) Bank transfer, d) QR".

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Allow flexibility for the recruiter to record issues outside of the questions: if the participant can only participate for one hour, it should be recorded as the research may be extended and end up cancelling.

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Give to receive

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As we said, it is common to pay participants for their participation in the study since, unlike surveys, this type of research requires a lot of time, probably physical transportation and, undoubtedly, a greater cognitive demand.

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Keep in mind that the value of the incentive is very subjective. The perception of an amount of money, a discount, a product or a service given as a gift depends very much on the profile of the participant.

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In our experience, a value equivalent to a good dinner for two is, in general terms, a useful benchmark when setting the incentive.

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But keep in mind that no matter how attractive the incentives are, they do not guarantee the participation of those called. Which brings us to the last point...

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No show

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It's a fact: many people who said they were going to participate, ultimately do not. According to Nielsen Norman Group, the average no-show rate for a usability study is 11%. For this reason, potential cancellations should be taken into account and a higher number of people should be invited than necessary.

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While the dreaded "no show" is inevitable, at Proaxion we have protocols in place to minimize both no-shows and additional replacements to prevent these issues from impacting studio time and costs.

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