Blockchain technology being used to support recruitment in Greece’s civil service

A major issue for today’s civil service is how to optimise the recruitment process.

In response to a European call for projects, which Portugal is also participating in, Greece has decided to put a burgeoning technology to use to help transform the status quo.

At the start of 2021, the ASEP (Greece’s Supreme Council for Personnel Selection) signed a memorandum of understanding with the HBH (1) consortium and the University of Athens to use blockchain—a distributed ledger technology—to streamline and improve the recruitment process and make it more secure.

Using the QualiChain platform, government departments will have access to new features and can offer personalised services to potential candidates.

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There are three groups of stakeholders: educational institutions (academic and vocational training), public employers and citizens.

By distributing roles among these stakeholders, it is possible to perform a dual check of applicants’ degrees and other qualifications. Applicants are then encouraged to flesh out their profiles with as much additional detail as possible, self-reporting information about their skills, areas of interest and search criteria.

Once that’s done, they’ll receive personalised notifications every time a well-matched job opens up, ranked in order of importance to help them with their decision making. They can apply to jobs directly from their account.

For recruiters, a two-step applicant ranking module was developed specifically for senior positions and incorporated into the tool. First, it helps the recruiter with pre-screening in advance of interviews. Then it helps determine which candidate(s) would be the best fit for the position.

According to the rollout team, the added value of this new model is significant, saving HR departments time on both background checks and analysing applications. The major asset of blockchain is its unique system for protecting information against forgery or alteration, using a cryptographic algorithm to ensure data integrity.

¹ Hellenic Blockchain Hub.