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What are the best employers for veterans?

When we hear “support the troops,” we often think about men and women deployed overseas. But those in military service face challenges not only in active duty — there are challenges for them at home as well, especially when they leave service.

In 2017, there were 20.4 million veterans in the US, of whom 4.1 million served at any point from 2001 forward. And up to 360,000 people leave military service each year. This large labor pool has valuable skills such as leadership, agile decision making and teamwork that can be an asset to many jobs. However, it can be difficult for veterans who are job seekers to see how their military skills are transferable, so veterans often pursue jobs without much previous experience required.

Problems exist beyond finding work. When veterans take corporate jobs, they often have trouble getting promoted and can feel underutilized and uninspired. In fact, between 60% and 80% of veterans leave their first civilian jobs before reaching two years there. But it is too important to let this talent go to waste. That’s why many corporate companies are investing heavily to recruit veterans in order to take advantage of their technical and leadership skills and are thinking strategically about how to retain them.

This Veterans Day, we wanted to celebrate the Top-Rated Workplaces by veterans. Indeed’s analytics team identified reviews from veterans in our 100-million-strong ratings and reviews database to come up with our rankings. Then we dug deeper to find out about specific initiatives supporting veterans in the top ten (scroll down to the bottom to see the top 50). Here’s what we found.

Top-Rated Workplaces by veterans

Our inaugural list of Top-Rated Workplaces by veterans includes a diverse mix of companies, from fast food to federal security. At the top of our rankings we see Texas-based international real estate franchise Keller Williams Realty.

Keller Williams boasts a family-like company culture and outlines the reasons they think veterans make great hires, such as their entrepreneurial nature, on a career page designed for veterans. Aside from flexible work schedules, some of the perks they offer employees include paid sabbaticals (the real estate giant also placed first on this year’s Top-Rated Workplaces for work-life balance) and discounts on fitness programs.

Fast-food restaurant Chick-fil-A came in as the number-two Top-Rated Workplace by veterans. The company has long been friendly to veterans, offering discounts and free meals on Veterans Day and other occasions. Chick-fil-A is also dedicated to hiring veterans and regularly features stories about veterans-turned-employees on their blog.

Airline giant Delta also receives strong reviews from veterans, coming in at number three. Delta employs over 10,000 veterans and is a participant in the 100,000 jobs mission, whose goal is to hire 100,000 transitioning service members and veterans by the year 2020. Delta also showcases stories of their employees with military backgrounds on a dedicated military hiring page, spotlighting skills like aviation mechanics and technical operations. According to Delta, “hiring transitioning service members and veterans isn’t just good for business. It’s the right thing to do.”

Wholesale retailer Costo comes in at number four this year. Not only does the company offer military discounts to customers, it also offers flexible hours for those attending school on the GI Bill, thus supporting education.

Rounding out the top five, meanwhile, we see H-E-B, a Texas-based grocery chain, who also topped our Top-Rated Workplaces in retail list this year. The company has highlighted the natural fit between veterans and H-E-B, citing their leadership experience and ability to work as a team.

Numbers six and seven seem like a direct fit for military skills. Northrop Grumman (#6) is an aerospace and defense technology company that was also rated number one among top-rated workplaces for millennials this year. In seventh place, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) provides veterans with opportunities to extend their service to the country beyond the military context.

Finally, rounding out our top ten are number-eight Kaiser Permanente, the largest managed-care company in the US; number-nine Marriott International, Inc., a US-headquartered international hotel chain; and  number-ten Capital One, a bank and lending corporation. The variety of companies included in the top ten list show that any firm has the potential to offer opportunities and great experiences to veterans if they dedicate some effort to it.

Skills and interests of veterans

We also wanted to know the types of jobs veterans are searching for. To do this, we analyzed the top job searches by veterans. The result is our top 15 list of job categories.

Similar to the range of companies included in those rated highly by veterans, the list of top job categories that they search for reveals a range of interests, from retail to food to health. However, over half of the top 15 job categories require relatively little prior experience to enter the field, perhaps indicating a job-search strategy of quickly getting a foot in the door, as opposed to capitalizing on specific transferable skills or interests.

Job searches by veterans that require minimal prior experience include installation (#1), driver (#2), protective (#3), admin (#5), warehousing (#6), manufacturing (#7), retail (#8), customer-facing work (#9), food (#10), construction (#11) and service work (#13). Some of these skills would be a fit for some of the top-rated companies by veterans: many of them require food and service work (Chick-fil-A, H-E-B, Marriott International), admin duties (all companies) or customer-facing skills (Keller Williams Realty, Delta, Costco and Capital One).

We also see jobs that potentially require more experience such as number 4 sales, number 12 education, number 14 mednurse and number 15 medtech. These fields often require at least a bachelor’s degree. These skills would match at top-rated Kaiser Permanente, for instance.

How to make veterans feel at home at your company

There are huge opportunities for companies to market their jobs to military job seekers, targeting the wealth of transferable skills they have and enabling them to realize their full potential in the workforce.

Based on a study by Innolect reported in the Harvard Business Review, the following are recommended practices to help veterans transition into your company.

  • Making sure recruiters and staff understand military terms and culture will help those looking for talent be able to recognize it on a resume, even if it’s worded slightly differently.
  • Along the same lines, an onboarding program that clearly teaches your company’s terminology and jargon will help veterans acclimatize more easily to how you talk about business.
  • Because teamwork and camaraderie are such important parts of active duty service, resources like inclusion groups and mentorship programs can make veterans feel more connected to a company culture. Indeed is proud to have a 220-member veterans and allies resource group that identifies challenges and opportunities faced by veterans, provides support for ongoing career development and builds company-wide awareness of the value veterans bring to Indeed.
  • And because it can be hard to compete with the mission of serving and protecting one’s country, be sure that job activities at your company are connected to a larger purpose when possible to inspire and motivate employees.

If military talent isn’t looking for you, it may be time to look for them. One way companies can tap into the veteran workforce is by using tools like Indeed Resume. A proud member of the Veteran Employment Advisory Council, Indeed has created  a unique portal for veterans to post their resumes and access job search resources, resulting in a database of over 1.25 million qualified military candidates for employers to search through.

The easier we make it for veterans to enter the workforce and utilize their skills to the maximum, the more companies and vets themselves will benefit. It may take an effort on the part of employers, but it is worth it. Let’s all work together to find a way to attract and retain this unique talent in our workplaces.

For more information and solutions to guide your veteran hiring strategy, visit the Indeed for Veterans employer resource hub.

High quit-rate problem? You can fix that.

As Americans continue to take advantage of a tight labor market to search for better- paying jobs, retention has become a serious concern for all companies. With healthcare, financial services, transportation and warehousing leading the way, 3.5 million workers voluntarily left their jobs in April 2018, the highest quit rate since the dotcom boom peaked in 2000.    

The reasons behind the trend appear obvious: Good talent is in high demand and people are confident they can find a better job elsewhere. While most quit their jobs for better pay and benefits, today’s environment also makes it easier for employees to act on their desire to escape a bad boss, uninspiring environment, or work in a hotter industry.

Most economists blame the high quit rates on low wages – an apparent historical hiccup since wages tend to rise when unemployment falls. The reasons behind the low wages have also left economists debating, offering scenarios such as declining unionization, increased outsourcing and the rising costs of benefits.

As the quit rate movement gained serious momentum in 2017, management became increasingly concerned. In recent months we seemed to have hit a threshold and companies are becoming more resourceful in fending off attrition. Not only are employers starting to raise wages, but are also becoming more flexible in benefits, work schedules, or offering the ability to work remotely for a portion of time or all of the time.  Recruiters, too, are becoming more proactive as they search for replacement talent, turning to “headhunting” to lure passive talent.

High quit rates impact management, from front-line supervisors up to CEOs

While a high quit rate is often considered the sign of a healthy economy, it brings significant business consequences. Keeping critical jobs filled is an increased stressor on management or for anyone who is expected to grow their company, division, or segment. If you cannot keep your people, you cannot hit your budgeted revenue numbers.  Plus, turnover is expensive, further reducing profits. Employers need to invest more resources to retain staff. With more people departing or just getting started and ramping up, it becomes difficult to keep projects on track and morale positive.

It takes work to keep your best employees around  

The high cost of quit rates should compel HR and Talent Acquisition leaders to recommend new solutions to management, clearly explained in terms of P&L, rather than typical HR-speak. For example, is it possible to use new technology to replace labor? This would increase productivity of the existing workforce and pay could be increased accordingly. Should business units be realigned or re-organized to enable a better labor pool to draw from or to free up more revenue opportunities to increase pay? What are the benefits of moving to a more remote workplace?  Should there be a more concerted effort to understand the behavior of management as a contributing factor to attrition?

Take into consideration the training and upskilling opportunities your company offers.  According to a recent survey from McKinsey & Company, executives now see “investing in retraining and ‘upskilling’ existing workers as an urgent business priority that companies, not governments, must lead on.” On-the-job training and team development not only safeguard your ability to stay competitive as a business, it sends the message that you are dedicated to helping your employees achieve meaningful careers.

Do you have compelling and competitive long-term benefits? A recent Glassdoor survey says that “while perks, an easy commute and a high salary may be what gets employees in the door, they aren’t necessarily what keeps them around.” Employees also care about career growth within the company, long-term potential, and a commitment to matching 401ks. Pay attention to social media sites like Indeed, Glassdoor and Yelp to help keep a pulse on employee concerns that HR might not yet be aware of, and put a strategy in place to improve your employment brand.  

Finally, let’s not underestimate the role that meaningful work plays in retention. We spend a lot of time at work, and most people need to understand how their work provides social or economic value. Just as an employee may quit to escape an uninspiring environment, managers who care about providing motivating jobs earn loyalty. Whether through cross-functional teamwork or an opportunity to participate in a company-sponsored volunteer project, meaningful work inspires and makes even mundane activities uplifting.

A precaution for job hoppers

While I predict high quit rates will stick around until jobs get filled or openings get reduced for other reasons, here’s one message HR and recruiters need to get across: Taking the higher paying job in a ‘greener pasture’ can have consequences. If a company hits a rough spot and considers a reduction in workforce, the first people identified for cuts are typically the most recently hired people and, in particular, those with the highest pay. So, be careful what you ask for, it can bite back if things go south.

Think about Friday at work differently

Jobs can vary in any number of different ways (blue/white collar, factory/office, etc.), but I’d say one consistent is that Friday afternoon is usually dead. Maybe if you work at a bar or in a service industry job, this might be a bit different — but probably not before 5pm. At around 2pm, 3pm on a Friday afternoon, there just isn’t a lot going on. Again, it varies — but I think that argument is relatively sound. (Of course, we all have worked with the total gasbag who schedules some 90-minute deep dive on some major strategy for 3:30pm on a Friday. Every soul in that meeting is completely checked out.)

There is some logic to how to manage your time day-by-day in a job, but many people do not follow said logic. Instead, we tend to have workplaces where “busy” matters more than “productive.” We also tend to have workplaces where the quantity of work done matters more than the quality of it. In sum: most people aren’t very good users of their own time. We’ve been trying to “growth hack” this deal for years — maybe Big Data can help us! — and we’re still not exactly there yet. There’s a psychological element to all this, of course. People often look to work for self-worth and definition, and “having a lot on your plate” is certainly one way to provide that.

[Tweet “Want to set up your next week to hit the right goals? Focus on Friday afternoon.”]

But we’re all living in The Time Management Era now, so let’s get a little better at this. That’s where Friday afternoon comes in.

Continue reading “Think about Friday at work differently”

The 90-day elephant in the room

Standard new bullshit-y article on Fast Company about why new hires leave in 90 days. None of this should be complicated to the people that make decisions in organizations, but somehow it still is — all-consuming focus on the margins, I’d reckon — so let me just give you a breakdown quickly. First off, about 30% of new hires are considering leaving at 90 days. That’s about what most studies say. As for why?

Forty-three percent say their day-to-day role wasn’t what they expected, 34% report that an incident or bad experience drove them away, and 32% didn’t like the company culture.

I’ve covered off on all this in my day too:

So, in the eyes of Fast Company, what are the solutions?

Continue reading “The 90-day elephant in the room”

Five Tips That Will Save Every Recruiter Time

Technology has revolutionized everything from our social interactions to the way we work. While these advancements have made recruiting more convenient and efficient, human connection is essential to attracting and engaging top talent.

A recruiter’s work requires a wide range of skills: a deep understanding of the business, especially the role; the ability to cultivate and build relationships with candidates across all levels; strong active listening skills; and the expertise to align the right candidate with the right opportunity at the right time. While there are programs and technology platforms that can help match job seekers with open roles, aspects of the candidate journey are uniquely personal and human.

Here are a few strategies for using technology to optimize your process so you can spend more time engaging with candidates and tailoring their experience to what matters most to them.  Continue reading “Five Tips That Will Save Every Recruiter Time”

Fixing the U.S. STEM skills gap {Part 2}

Are you finding it difficult to find the right candidates to fill Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) related positions? You’re most certainly not alone. According to the National Association of Manufacturing and Deloitte, 80 percent of manufacturers report a moderate or serious shortage of qualified applicants for skilled and highly skilled production positions. With the shortage in STEM talent reaching historic levels, it’s essential to have a blueprint for success to ensure your firm can source and place candidates in highly skilled roles.

In part 1, we discussed the many challenges, both foreign and domestic, that largely contribute to the STEM talent shortage. Until these structural challenges that are driving the shortage are addressed, here are a few strategies recruiters can put into practice in the here and now:

Continue reading “Fixing the U.S. STEM skills gap {Part 2}”

5 Staffing Tech Tools You Need Covered

 

Staffing Tech

Job Simulations

Partaking in a virtual, interactive day-in-the-life simulation of a particular role is an engaging way for a job applicant to determine her fitness for the job and the job for her. It also can be designed as an assessment tool, so that recruiters can test the candidate’s aptitude for the position.

Vendors such as HR Avatar create the simulations for employer clients; some, such as Cut-e, are focused on smartphone access. Owlchemy Labs, bought by Google in 2017, is the creator of the Job Simulator video game, which enables industry rather than employer-specific day-in-the-life simulation. SandBox provides software that allows employers to build their own customized simulator games.

With U.S. unemployment at a critically low 3.9 percent, reducing turnover by providing candidates with a clear and accurate look at the job’s daily tasks is a must.

 

Bots

Their recruitment uses vary, from Natural-Language-Protocol (NLP)-based chatbots that reside on job applications and prompt hesitant candidates to complete the application, to two-way conversational bots that text assessment tests to candidates and invite them to interview.

Hubspot’s Chatbot Builder empowers non-techie employers to create their own bots; for those using the Hubspot CRM the bots are free.  The AppliedAI blog has a chatbot how-to guide and a list of the top 60 vendors.

With two-thirds of candidates dropping off job applications prior to completion, a 24-hour tool that re-engages them midway can be the difference between filling crucial positions or not.

 

Augmented Writing

Firms such as Textio and TapRecruit provide software that recruiters can use to improve job post and job description content.

The purpose is twofold: To further entice and engage candidates, and to test bias in job posts and descriptions. The software typically studies the content, indicating any words or phrases that tend to attract or detract a particular gender, age or ethnic group. It then suggests alternate unbiased content. It also scores the content, by comparing it with that of competitor employers.

Diversity spurs creativity and boosts productivity. In fact, researchers have found that racially diverse teams outperform non-diverse ones by 35 percent, and teams with equal numbers of male and female members earn 41 percent more revenue. A tool that curbs bias is a bottom-line must.

 

Text Recruiting

While some vendors such as TextRecruit and Canvas are focused solely on candidate/recruiter conversation by text, others such as Jobvite and Yello offer texting as one option among their suite of recruitment products.

The concept is simple: the replacement of email, Web-based or phone communications for candidate screening, interviewing, and /or scheduling, with a two-way text conversation, often by way of NLP.

Its primary advantages are its appeal to millennial and other digital natives, its boost in response numbers and level of engagement, and its reduction in response time. Text messages overall have a 98 percent open rate, and nearly all within 3 minutes. Their 26 percent response rate compares favorably with email’s 4 percent. According to TextRecruit, 37 percent of candidates respond within 12 minutes.

 

Location-based mobile recruiting

Real estate platforms such as Zillow and Trulia have been doing this for years. Now recruitment apps such as WorkAround.Me, and software providers such as WorkHere are sourcing and hiring candidates hyper-locally.

The WorkHere smartphone software geo-locates the candidate, chats with them to help build their online profile and assess their suitability for various nearby openings, and then acts as the conduit between candidate and employer.  In contrast, employers can advertise their openings on WorkAround.me.

While it’s not a service well suited for C-level openings, it’s a quick and handy tool for volume recruiting, especially for unskilled, temporary, or on-demand jobs. The WorkHere folks explained the appeal to job seekers: “Someone earning an hourly wage is disproportionately impacted by any commute, let alone a long commute.”

 

Why the U.S. has a STEM shortage and how we fix it (Part 1)

You may already be aware that employers from across the globe face the worst talent shortage in the 10 years since the Great Recession.

However, it may come as a surprise just how incredibly daunting the shortage will become in the next few years, according to predictions from researchers in the field. This is especially true for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in particular.

The National Association of Manufacturing and Deloitte report that the United States will have to fill 3.5 million STEM jobs by 2025, with more than 2 million of them going unfilled because of the lack of highly skilled candidates in demand. Additionally, Bullhorn’s 2018 North American Staffing and Recruiting Trends Report found that 73 percent of firms serving manufacturing industries, and 65 percent of those in information technology and accounting, finance, and insurance fields listed skill shortages as one of their top challenges.

Continue reading “Why the U.S. has a STEM shortage and how we fix it (Part 1)”

Mission: Help for Hiring the Military

Military Hiring

 

Focusing your recruitment on the 250,000 military veterans that enter the civilian world each year certainly seems a noble venture; after all, these folks have risked their lives to secure our freedom.  But does it make fiscal sense to the powers that be?

What if military veterans aren’t a good fit for your company culture? What if the corporate world is so unlike what they’re used to that they just can’t measure up? And what job could a tank driver, helicopter pilot or infantry soldier possibly do, anyway?

Your concerns and your confusion about how military occupations translate into the civilian world aren’t the only obstacles to veteran hiring. The veterans themselves don’t always get it either.

To help us, Google’s Cloud Talent has just added a feature that translates military MOS, AFSC and NEC codes. Transitioning military veterans enter their specialty codes. Then, Cloud Talent finds civilian jobs that require the same or similar skills as the service member used in her military role.

Among others, recruitment platform provider Jibe has added the feature free of charge to its Recruiting Cloud repertoire for its employer clients. PepsiCo, Encompass Health, and FedEx have recently launched veteran-specific career landing pages, with the code translator enabled.

On the FedEx for Veterans landing page a retiring Army tank driver (armor crew member) could enter his 19k MOS, and find 147 FedEx jobs for which the company deems his skills well suited. If he were to narrow down the search to within 25 miles of Memphis, TN, he’d find eight openings, that include Human Resource Data Analyst, Shop Technician 3, and Customer Experience Intern.

 

fed ex for vets

While some of these might seem a misfit, it’s important to understand the training and skills for the 19k MOS. This is not just about operating a tracked vehicle over various terrains. It’s also about respecting and accepting authority and chain of command, of learning to load and accurately fire complicated modern weapons, and to read digitized maps, compasses and battle plans.  Modern technology acumen, scouting techniques, and calm, controlled strategizing and decision making amid life-threatening chaos are crucial parts of the job as well.

Talent Cloud for veterans is not perfect, though this might simply be the first step in the feature’s evolution. What it can’t do now, and what is sorely needed, is a way for civilian employers to enter a job title and description and have Cloud Talent advise what MOS training and experience would be the best preparation for success.  Still, it’s helpful.

Aliro, creator of an innovative SaaS employment referral program and mobile app, launched AliroVets, to get military veterans back to work. Not only does the military-focused site put employers and prospective veteran hires together through its robust job board, but it also empowers internal as well as external referrals, even managing the referral rewards for its employer clients.

Aliro Vets

AliroGroup CEO Robert “Arch” Archibald showed us around the impressive site.

“More than 60 percent of post 9/11 veterans tell us that their skills are going unrecognized in the corporate world,” Archibald told RecruitingDaily. “We’re focused on changing that, through the number one source of quality candidates – referrals.”

Aliro posts the jobs, pays the referral bonuses, and then collects that reward money from its employer clients. (The bonuses, by the way, are paid to the referrer as well as the referred veteran, and they’re not small. In our brief search we found bonuses from $250 to $6,000. Nice!)

Aliro donates a portion of its profit to organizations such as Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust and others that help injured veterans.

We talked with Jason (Jay) Montgomery, army veteran and manager of the Wounded Warrior recruitment program for Randstad. The global human resource consultancy is a long-standing, successful recruitment advertiser on AliroVets.

“Veterans have been held accountable in uncontrollable, uncomfortable environments,” Montgomery told Recruiting Daily. “During war time from 2001 to the present, for example, they’ve had to learn and embrace a mission. Many vets are natural born leaders. They’re highly organized, they work well in teams, and are trained to think about the bigger picture and not just themselves and their success.”

The best jobs for military vets, according to Montgomery, are those who have team functions or missions to accomplish end to end. A call center position, for example, would be a good fit.

“You pick up that phone, address the problem, and find a solution,” he said. “When you put down the phone that’s mission accomplished.”

In contrast, he said, many of today’s jobs have no end in sight. There’s always more to do, something greater or bigger to accomplish.

“But if the task is providing solutions to customers, veterans tend to do very well,” Montgomery said. “The idea of making someone happy is very wonderful to them.”

Bill Fenson, former president of the National Employment Counseling Association, and recipient of its Judy Gohegan DOI award spent some of his counseling years as a career specialist for the wounded warrior’s career project of the National Organization on Disability. He talked with Recruiting Daily about the powerful features of Onet, the U.S. Dept. of Labor’s career analysis and job exploration.

“Onet draws its information from the Occupational Outlook Handbook,” Fenson told us. “Veterans can go into its MyNextMove section, indicate their military branch and their MOS, and from there get information about similar civilian jobs, including their outlook and salary. It’s an excellent government site.”

mynextmoveWe looked and was he right! The job search help is amazing.

After entering the Air Force AFSC 113ka code for Trainer Pilot, MyNextMove directed us to a hyperlinked airline pilot, copilot, and flight engineer landing page, which explained the civilian opportunities in far more detail than we have seen elsewhere. There’s a video that showcases the work, and a What They Do section that briefly explains the jobs. Eight other sections cover the knowledge, skills, abilities, and personality needed for the jobs, the technology involved, and the education needed.

The Outlook section explains the expected salary range and provides radio buttons that allow the veteran to filter that information specific to state or local area. The vet can then click on Find Jobs and filter the search by zip code or state, and access job listings by way of her choice of National Labor Exchange, CareerBuilder, Indeed, or America’s Job Exchange. There’s also an Explore More section, which hyperlinks to a few jobs that might also be of interest, such as Commercial Pilots, Freight and Cargo Inspectors, and Ship and Boat Captains. It’s a very slick service!

Randstad is working closely with its RiseSmart subsidiary, to train wounded service members, and get them back to work. The Randstad / RiseSmart pilot program includes courses about LinkedIn fundamentals, powering your personal brand, and networking for job searches, for example. Nor is it just about finding a career at Randstad. The company has partnered with other employers as well.

“There are 400,000 service members who have physical injuries due to recent military conflicts, or invisible wounds ranging from depression to PTSD,” Montgomery said. “We created and delivered a training program so that 80 percent of them can return to work.”

Recruitment Marketplaces

Several recruitment marketplaces focus on veteran job seekers as well. Some, such as GiJobs, MilitaryFriendly, and MilitaryHire not only provide a job board but as well as offer tips and news relevant to retiring vets. MilitaryFriendly investigates and assesses employers and educational facilities for their value to transitioning soldiers and sailors. Its Viqtory career site partners with GIJobs for a worldwide search of thousands of civilian openings, searchable by military job code, geographic location, and/or company.

For recruiters and military veterans confused about how a military occupation will translate well to a civilian job, we found many online resources that clarify, and then help pair retiring vets with employers. Still, those employers must help their recently-hired vets’ transition.

“Employers can help by explaining the new hire’s role in the large organization, and by assigning them mentors, preferably another veteran who had to overcome the same transition,” Montgomery said. “Help your newly hired vet network and offer her the opportunity to attend a professional development course. Most importantly, make him feel like an integral part of your big picture. That’s the success recipe for everyone involved.”

 

Are millennials and Gen Z actually looking for “passion over profit,” or is that bullshit?

I’m going to try and spend about 500 words or so on this idea of “passion over profit,” often attributed to the millennial generation.

I think a lot of how we think about the concept of “passion over profit” is a bit twisted.

Let’s explore.

Continue reading “Are millennials and Gen Z actually looking for “passion over profit,” or is that bullshit?”

Job Auditions: Don’t Everybody Thank Me At Once

job auditions 

Accurate Bias-Free Test of Job Fit

George Lucas has just finished screenwriting his first Star Wars movie and is casting for the role of Han Solo. He peruses a resume from a little-known actor, Harrison Ford, whose only role has been in some silly teenager movie. Lucas rejects him. Then he reads the resume of Hamm Ytup, who has had supporting roles in two science fiction movies. Hmmm, might be a good fit. He brings him in for an interview.

“So, Hamm, tell me about your acting skills.”

“I’ve taken several method-acting classes and have a voice coach. I have played both comedic and dramatic roles, can cry on demand, and am very agile. I can do my own stunts. And I love science fiction.”

“That all sounds great, Hamm. Tell me of a time when you had a conflict with a fellow actor, and how you resolved it.”

“In my last picture, the leading man kept trying to steal the scenes we were in together. I realized that he was the star, and I needed to make the first conciliatory move. So, I invited him to join our sand volleyball team. We had a great time, and from then on, we were friends. No more scene stealing.”

“How is your attendance, Hamm?”

“I’m never sick, and I’m always on time for rehearsals.”

“You sound like a terrific fit for the role, Hamm. You’re hired.”

Crazy scenario, right?

Hiring for this or any role by relying on a resume and interview and foregoing an audition to find out whether the candidate can do the work, might have you rejecting a Harrison Ford in favor of a mediocre Hamm Ytup. 

Hamm Ytup??

For one thing, resumes are vague and often downright dishonest. Yep, candidates lie. UK job aggregator Adzuna conducted a recent survey of 3,587 workers and job candidates. Of the 1,300 respondents that admitted lying on their resumes, 83 percent said they still got the job. Of course, these are the ones that admitted lying. Experts suggest as many as 81 percent of resumes have obfuscations, deceptions, and or outright lies.

What they’re lying about should disturb you, because it clearly indicates that relying on a resume is a horrible way of deciding a candidate’s fit. According to CareerBuilder, 62 percent of applicants embellish skills, 54 percent pad responsibilities of past employment, 39 percent lie about employment dates and duration, 31 percent upgrade prior job titles, and 28 percent fib about education. 

Interviews can be flawed as well, because human interviewers are flawed, often without meaning to be, or even realizing they are. This unconscious bias might, for example, sway a recruiter into hiring the woman whose face reminds him of his high school sweetheart or who attends the same gym and loves tennis like he does, or rejecting the Vietnamese candidate because his dad is a wounded Vietnam War vet.

What is a Job Audition?

A job audition is a bias-free, interactive job simulation to test candidate skills. It can take place live, at a brick and mortar location, or by way of online video or mobile app.

Live Job Auditions

Quite often, live job auditions are group events, with candidates working as teams or competing against one another. The candidates are either tasked with performing a simulation of the essential daily tasks of the job for which they are applying, or with tasks that prove that they have the personality and skills necessary to learn the essential tasks. 

WordPress owner Automattic is a long-standing proponent of job auditions, though the Automattic concept is somewhat akin to a paid temp-to-hire situation. Once a job candidate makes it to through the interview stage of the application process, she becomes a $25 an hour contractor, for three to eight weeks depending on the job. That hourly rate doesn’t vary no matter how subordinate or senior the position. The candidate contractor works right alongside Automattic staff that would be his colleagues were he hired permanently. If he’s working in customer service, he interacts with customers. If she’s in an engineering role, she writes code. To lure passive candidates who may be working elsewhere, Automattic allows them to work evenings and weekends, around their current work schedule.

Not everyone completes their contract time, and not everyone decides to become a permanent employee, or is invited to become permanent. That’s the point of the contract. As CEO Matt Mullenweg told Harvard Business Review, Automattic needs to see “how well candidates self-motivate, how well they communicate in writing (because most of us work remotely, we rely heavily on instant messaging), and how they deal with mistakes.”

Once the contract concludes Mullenweg conducts a final interview by text-only Skype chat or instant messaging, for a conversation that disguises the candidate’s gender and ethnicity. Mullenweg hasn’t participated in the interviewing so far and doesn’t want to know these things.

“I see only the words on the screen,” he said. “It’s as close to a double-blind process as you can get.”

At this stage, Mullenweg is primarily assessing the candidate’s passion and fit with company culture.

Approximately 40 percent of applicants are invited to contract, and 95 percent of those who make it to this stage in the interview process get a job offer. Mullenweg says these statistics attest to the effectiveness of the audition process.

Citadel Job Auditions

Investment giant Citadel does high-volume hiring for data science and quantitative analysis positions by way of group job auditions.  For help, Citadel turned to the Datathon services of Correlation One, which develops custom talent auditions for the STEM community, provides quantitative assessment and AI tools to qualify technical candidates, and even offers training courses on machine learning and data science.

“We’re competing with the world’s best technology companies, finance companies and academia,” Citadel Head of Talent Strategy Justin Pinchback told LinkedIn’s Talent Connect conference audience. “So, we had to approach the problem in a very dynamic way.”

So far, more than 10,000 students have applied for Citadel’s The Data Open, a team competition held at various times during the year, primarily on college campuses. The winning team members take home cash prizes and an opportunity for a live interview for a position at Citadel.  During the Datathon, competitors have two hours to analyze data and submit their paper. It tests the candidates’ ability to write code, work with a team, lead others, and solve problems. At the most recent Data Open, held at the New York Stock Exchange, the winning team shared a $100,000 cash prize.

Virtual Job Auditions

Recruitment gamification developer Cut-e, among its several gamification apps, has a ChatAssess platform that creates day-in-the-life mobile-first games customized for each employer client, and specific to each job. Cut-e managing director Marinus Van Driel showed us around the awesome app.

“In the U.S. we lead off with job announcements [to create the customized app],” he told RecruitingDaily. “We want to know the content of the job descriptions, from a task point of view, as well as the personal attributes needed. For any of our platforms we can choose tools off the shelf, or we have the capability of building them custom. Both ChatAssess and our video platform VidAssess are custom only. ChatAssess builds a narrative, a plot, a storyline, and plugs in characters and pictures. Within the game it asks the candidate questions relative to the job.”

Once Cut-e has created the ChatAssess game, all recruiters need do is invite the candidate to participate, and wait for the results, which scores and ranks each candidate, and provides a “deeper dive” report of each candidate’s fit for the position.

The Cut-e dashboard for recruiters integrates with major ATS systems such as Taleo, SuccessFactors and Oleeo. On the dashboard recruiters can see statistics and analytics around views and conversions, to track candidates and tweak games as needed.

Overall, 55 percent of candidates who view jobs on ChatAssess apply.

Perhaps most importantly, the mobile-first concept helps diversify the employer’s workforce.

“For a lot of minorities, smartphones are the primary way they access the Internet,” Van Driel said. “All our tools have an orientation feature, to level the playing field across all applicants. Before applying, candidates can get a real understanding of how ChatAssess works.”

ChatAssess

Beyond accurately assessing a candidate’s fit for your job, job auditions position your firm as forward-thinking and creative. This compels candidates to complete the application and boosts your firm’s positioning as employer of choice.

According to Justin Pinchback, creativity is what sets your talent auditions apart.

“You have to magnetize the candidates,” he said. “That’s a function of your creativity, the capital you deploy, and the strength of your talent brand relative to the pool of applicants that’s important to you.”

Job auditions accurately and efficiently test candidates’ fit for your job, free up recruiter time, engage candidates, and significantly improve your employer branding.

 

iCIMS Gets Background Checks, New Hires Have Wrong Skills, & Coople Raises $21 Million

iCIMS Launches Prime Connector Background Screen, A First Advantage Integration

icims prime connector

Talent Acquisition software giant ICIMS just announced its new Prime Connector for background screening. Powered by an integration of software by global background check and drug screen leader Prime Advantage, Prime Connector immediately provides one-click activation to iCIMS clients. No implementation or tech support is needed.

Employers can now order background checks, keep an eye on their progress, and view the results within the iCIMS platform. Candidates are prompted to electronically sign for permissions and add any needed information. This video gives you a brief overview.

“As we looked at the initial background screening solutions to be ‘primed,’ we knew First Advantage with 4,000 employees across 26 locations had the breadth and depth to embrace our next-generation solution,” iCIMS CTO Al Smith said, in the announcement. “Our shared clients will benefit because it eliminates the need for recruiters to switch between systems, streamlines their recruiting process and ensures candidate data compliance.”

 

Two in Five New Hires Have Wrong Soft Skills, Study Finds

Ineffective Pre-hire Assessments to Blame

In a study of 2,500 employees and job seekers in the U.S., UK, France and Germany Vanson Bourne researchers hired by recruitment services firm HireVue found disturbing lack of effectiveness among some employer pre-assessment tests for job candidates. According to the survey, two of every five new hires found they had the wrong soft skills for the job they’d been hired to do, and 53 percent later left the company for that reason. Those 53 percent stated that the hiring process format had prevented them from realizing the mismatch prior to accepting the job offer.

Key findings:

  • 82 percent of respondents were confident of their ability to convey their personality and soft skills in an interview
  • Of those who had taken a pre-hire assessment, 37 percent questioned the tests’ accuracy in measuring their personality traits; 35 percent questioned its accuracy in measuring their soft skills; 41 percent doubted that the tests accurately gauged their potential.
  • 58 percent found the pre-hire assessment less than straightforward.
  • Only 39 percent found the assessment to be professional.
  • 26 percent of those surveyed had dropped out of an assessment prior to finishing, while 30 percent complained of the assessment’s lengthy process.
  • Only 48 percent reported getting an employer response after completing their pre-hire assessment; response time, when given, averaged two days.

“This study demonstrates a real urgency for organizations to reimagine their approach to identifying and retaining the best talent for the job,” said Clemens Aichholzer, Senior Vice President of Game-Based Assessments, HireVue, in the announcement. “This becomes even more critical when you consider that candidates are often customers, and their interaction in the hiring process will impact how they engage with the brand in the future. Indeed, according to our research, over a quarter will engage more with the company on a personal level after a positive assessment experience.

 

On-demand staffing platform Coople raises $21 million

coopleSwitzerland-based on-demand staffing platform Coople plans to expand services in Switzerland and the UK thanks to its latest $21 million funding round. This brings its total funding to $45 million. Latest investors are One Peak Partners, Goldman Sachs Private Capital, and Harbert European Growth Capital.

Founded in 2009, AI-powered Coople finds temporary staff for employers who need to hire on short notice. HR managers can plan hiring, recruit, manage their workforce and process payroll with the Coople platform. With the Coople mobile app, for IOS or Android, recruiters simply create their profile, post a job and set the salary, then start choosing candidates from its database of 310,000 workers. They can create a personal pool of favorite candidates.

A whopping 98 percent of all jobs are filled within four hours.

14,000 businesses and events that include Deliveroo, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, and Formula 1 Grand Prix have hired temporary staff on the Coople mobile-focused platform.

Coople founder Viktor Calabro has stepped down as CEO, to be replaced by Rinaldo Olivari, previous UK managing director. Anthony Vaslin, the company’s new COO, had been managing director for Switzerland.

coople logo

 

Using LittleSis To Find Links Between Your Connections

LittleSis Database

 

 

Use Little Sis to find links between your connections

 

Little Sis is a site dedicated to a free database outlining the connections between powerful people and organizations. It contains information about a variety of different fields and industries. Though the site does take some exploring, you may find exactly what you need.

Though the homepage will give you a few suggested lists to look through, the site is best explored by inputting your own search terms.

  • Input the keywords or industries you are searching for connections in. Little Sis will bring up relevant Lists, Entities, and Network Maps.
  • Lists are collections of relevant information, such as the top donors to a cause or top companies in a particular industry.
  • Entities are specific companies or committees. Little Sis lists the top leadership, political contributions, and more of these entities.
  • Network Maps are visual representations of how various people and entities in an industry are connected. They range from large to small, and can contain a lot of valuable information.

All of this information allows you to draw connections between your contacts and those you are trying to reach, in order to further your own network.

Additionally, Little Sis is a free site. It is maintained by a non-profit organization, and though you have the option to make an account and donate, it is not necessary. ~ Noel Cocca  

 

Look inside with Dean Da Costa:

 

 

 

Here are seven things to do before everyone starts checking out for the holidays

The transition between the end of a year and the beginning of a new one can be a busy time for HR departments: there are policies to review and update, payroll schedules to assess or revise and performance reviews to conduct.

Be proactive in the final months of 2018, so you can start the new year on the right foot. If you set goals and do some housekeeping now, you can enter 2019 refreshed, organized and focused. Here are 7 things to clean up at your company before the new year.

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