Recruitment is branding — poor portals send the wrong message, says expert discussing importance of transparency, due diligence, interface design and AI
This month, the Canadian military faced scrutiny after applicants complained of technical glitches in its newly released recruitment portal, meant to modernize the application process.
One applicant described the portal as being “very slow” and not remotely “state of the art,” says Global News. He explained it took him dozens of attempts just to set up a profile.
These glitches come at a critical time, when the military has been looking to recruit applicants to fill the gap left by Canada being more than 14,000 troops short.
According to a spokesperson from the military, the problems applicants experienced have now been “rectified”.
However, Eddy Ng, a professor of Equity and Inclusion in Business at Queen’s University, says these technical glitches at the application stage can hurt recruitment efforts.
And this poor rollout of online recruitment tool is nothing new: .
“The government of Canada has had several poor IT rollouts,” he says.
He points to when Canada’s government payroll system experienced similar glitches after it introduced the Phoenix system in 2016, leading to many federal servants not being properly paid.
Charlotte Duval-Lantoine, vice-president of Ottawa operations at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, told Global News that the new tool was causing a lot of confusion and raising concerns about deterring individuals from continuing with their applications.
Ng says that’s exactly what can happen when online recruitment tools tend to perform poorly.
“I get frustrated every time I go into an application that doesn't work. I will try two or three times; if it doesn't work, I will just give up,” he says, sharing his own experiences.
The applicant who spoke to Global News said he applied two months prior and has since heard nothing back.
“I was hoping to be in uniform by summer, and it’s clear that’s optimistic,” he said. “Any enthusiasm I had for reenlisting has completely evaporated.”
So, what could have prevented this fallout? Ng says it comes down to transparency and fallback options.
When the military discovered the glitches, they should have acted quickly to avoid deterring people or confusing applicants, he says.
In situations like this, Ng says, employers should inform candidates about known technical problems and offer assistance to reduce frustration and prevent application abandonment.
“They should remove the application right away and then reinstall the old application process that worked for them—even if it's archaic,” he says.
For urgent recruitment needs, organizations can also consider using commercial application platforms.
“Once you have done the preliminary and this is a serious candidate, then you can have them go through your secure portal,” he explains. “Not everything has to be developed in house.”
Beyond communication, Ng says the goal of recruitment is typically to gather as many applications as possible before moving on to screening.
To do that effectively, he says, employers should ensure their online recruitment tools or portal interfaces don’t fall flat—something the military portal notably struggled with.
“The first reaction I had was, ‘Well, this is the group that wants to join the military because they want to do cool things.’ But, of course, [with] the very first interface,—we failed to deliver that message. So, I thought that was a letdown,” he says.
Ng adds that, employers should aim to design interfaces that reflect the jobs and the types of individuals they’re trying to attract.
“You want to get as many people who are qualified to meet all the criteria that you have to apply for the job. So, it's really a marketing or branding process.”
Additionally, there should be efforts to keep applicants engaged and motivated to continue. Ng says applications should also suggest alternative roles the applicant may qualify for, encouraging them to explore other opportunities.
“Sometimes people don’t know what they don’t know,” he says.
Nowadays, artificial intelligence is present in almost every part of the hiring process. Research from Hirevue found that 83 per cent of U.S employers use AI in some form during recruitment.
Ng says these tools can support the online recruitment and application process by making it much faster. It's not known whether the Canadian military portal has implemented AI, but one issue the new system faced was how long it took for candidates to hear back.
With AI tools, Ng notes, individuals shouldn’t have to go through drawn-out processes—such as manually entering names, addresses, education, and experience.
“Get people to upload a CV in any way that they have it, and then use AI to scan and systematically classify that information into useful buckets,” he says.
The tool can help quickly assess applicants and streamline the process so employers can focus on selecting candidates and reaching out when needed, Ng says.
Other ways to make the process more efficient include creating access systems and firewalls that allow people to log in through a single, unified account—something that, he says makes the U.S. Army’s recruitment process much faster. In the U.S., anything involving federal agencies typically doesn’t require multiple logins to access different portals.
Ng points to existing infrastructure within the Canada Revenue Agency that lets users access services through major banking partners.
A similar approach, he suggests, could streamline military or public- sector applications in Canada while still maintaining high security standards.
While these online and AI recruitment tools can streamline applications, Ng says employers should still be vigilant about the biases built into automated decision-making.
“AI is a predictive model. It's based on data that we have,” says Ng. “It often, at times, will reflect what you call dominant or traditional groups.”
For example, if an employer asked AI to shortlist candidates for a managerial role, Ng notes, it might select applicants based on the attributes of existing managers, such as men which can create a source of bias.
He says that regardless of whether employers use AI tools or not, recruitment teams need to consider the potential biases that may be embedded in the process.
“I would say, try it on different populations just to see if it consistently ....excludes certain groups of people” he says.
However, even well-designed platforms can fall short if they’re not inclusive—especially for candidates with disabilities.
According to the Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work (CCRW), a national not-for-profit organization that supports the employment of people with disabilities, common barriers in online job applications include incompatibility with screen readers, inconsistent navigation, or insufficient user support.
Ng says applications and recruitment tools should provide clear options for applicants to reach out through different avenues if they need assistance. For example, portals can include a message offering alternative ways to contact the employer for support, he explains.
Live chat— including AI-assisted bots for common questions—can also improve the experience, Ng says.
“Oftentimes, when you go to different websites, there's a chat, and the chat is now increasingly being serviced by AI,” he says. “Have people who are able to respond in a chat like a live person, because chances are that if they encounter something, then you can respond right away.”
It’s better than having individuals wait a long time or feel stuck in the process for days if they run into issues, he says.
“ That way, you catch everybody and don't miss out people that you shut off without even knowing”
