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Employers Want to Hire 44% More Workers in 2018 — IF They Can Really Find Them

A New Year brings new recruitment and employment surveys, and the first one of the year brings information that you probably won’t be all that surprised by.

According to CareerBuilder’s annual forecast, 44 percent of employers say they plan to hire permanent full-time employees this year. In addition, 51 percent of are planning to hire temp workers in 2018.

But here’s the catch — 45 percent of HR managers say they have jobs open that they can’t fill because, as the CareerBuilder survey notes, “they can’t find qualified talent.” And, 58 percent of these HR leaders say they have jobs that stay open for 12 weeks or more.

“A perfect storm … in the U.S. labor market”

If that wasn’t enough, add this into the mix as well: the CareerBuilder survey also found that 40 percent of workers say they plan to change jobs in the New Year, and the combination of all of this makes for a tough recruiting challenge as we try to kick start 2018.

“More job creation, higher voluntary employee turnover and intensified competition for talent will be the main themes surrounding employment in 2018,” said Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder, in a press release about the survey.

And, he also had this ominous analysis:

There is a perfect storm happening in the U.S. labor market. Low unemployment paired with lagging labor force participation and a growing skills gap is making it very difficult for businesses to find qualified candidates – and this is for all types of roles. If employers want to remain competitive, they are going to have to look to new talent pools and significantly increase their investment in training workers to build up the skills they require.”

Overall, the CareerBuilder survey noted that the amount of employers planning to hire full-time, permanent staff in the New Year was pretty similar to last year (40 percent in 2017 to 44 percent in 2018), while 6 percent of employers expect a decline in staff levels in 2018, an improvement from 8 percent last year. Close to half of employers surveyed (45 percent) anticipated no change this year, while 5 percent were unsure.

5 employer trends to watch for this year

Besides the top line poll numbers, the CareerBuilder survey also broke out the five (5) biggest employer trends to watch for in the New Year. They are interesting and also give some insight into the kinds of strategies many organizations are looking at as they deal with finding talent in a hard-to-find-talent market.

Capturing new talent early – From CareerBuilder: “Employers will start courting college students early – 64 percent plan to hire recent college graduates this year.” My take: If American employers are REALLY serious about finding the best and the brightest college students, they will increase paid internships and maybe even bring back some of the structured post-college training programs that were popular back in the 1970s and 80s to increase the pipelines they have to attract young talent.
Importing talent – From CareerBuilder: “Employers will be looking beyond borders to find talent with 23 percent planning to hire workers from other countries to work in the U.S.” My take: Employers may plan to hire workers from other countries, but President Trump’s push to cut back on visas for foreign workers may hamper their attempts to do so.
Re-engaging past employees – From CareerBuilder: Employers will increase outreach to workers who know their business and have a history with them – 39 percent plan to hire former employees in 2018. My take: Hiring “boomerang” employees makes good sense, but there are always complications hiring workers who previously left your employ since most of them had a reason for leaving that may still need to be resolved. I think it’s a pipe dream to assume there will be a big increase in hiring these kinds of people.
Hiring for potential – From CareerBuilder: “66 percent of employers said they will train and hire workers who may not have all the skills they need, but have potential; 44 percent of all employers plan to train low-skill workers who don’t have experience in their field and hire them for higher-skill jobs.” My take: This is a trend I can really get behind, because if it really takes hold it will help break this terrible cycle we’re in where recruiters seems to want ready-made employees with all the skills and experience needed. The question is will companies REALLY invest in doing this?
Boosting compensation – From Career Builder: “While wage gains have not reached desired levels, employers will become more aggressive with compensation levels for in-demand workers — 30 percent plan to increase starting salaries for new employees by 5 percent or more while 36 percent will do the same for existing staff.” My take: This has been the big mystery as employers cry about talent shortages. Why won’t they simply raise wages to attract better people and help hold on to the ones they have? They have stubbornly resisted doing this despite their cries about a tight labor market. Yes, increasing pay REALLY needs to happen, but I’d file it in the category of “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

My 3 takeaways from the CareerBuilder survey

Here’s my take: There is nothing terribly surprising about the numbers in this CareerBuilder survey except that they look a lot like the numbers from last year. The commentary about what employers “plan” to do sounds familiar as well.

What the findings from the CareerBuilder survey say to me is that the employers’ “plan” for 2017 wasn’t executed very well, so they simply tweaked it and rolled out one that looks and feels the same for 2018.

Isn’t the definition of insanity “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?”

My view is that employers need to do three (3) things differently this year if they really want to build their talent and better compete in our hyper-competitive economy:

Pay more and pay better — Increase pay levels to help keep the staff you already have (yes, improve retention), as well as pay more to better compete for the talent you say you can’t find and hire. By the way, this happened during the dotcom boom, and that was the last real period of robust employment the U.S. has had. We could learn a thing or two from that.
Train, train, and train some more — A made a prediction last month that companies would finally start spending more on training, and although I think they will, I fear it won’t be enough. Expecting workers to come fully ready to just step in and work isn’t feasible, and the colleges have never really done this well. Whatever you’re spending on training should probably be increased by 50 percent or more so that you can re-train your current staff as well as train up our new hires. I guarantee that if you do it right, it will be money well spent.
Fix your recruiting function to better evaluate candidates you haven’t been properly considering — Count me as one of those who believe that this notion that we have a huge talent shortage is mostly BS. Yes, there are talent shortages in certain specific areas, but there are also a lot of people — older, or those who don’t match up perfectly, or have the exact kind of experience, or have some other issue in their background — who are looking for solid work and frustrated that they can’t seem to get serious consideration. Your recruiting function needs to change to better consider these people, because there are a lot of them out there (like me) who have the talents and skills to do all sorts of things if they just get a decent chance.

Yes, that’s all that I took away from this CareerBuilder survey. How about you?

The national study was conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder from Nov. 28 to Dec. 20, 2017 and included a representative sample of 888 hiring managers and human resource professionals and 809 full-time workers across industries and companies sizes in the private sector.

Text Recruiting Gets Another Big Boost as iCIMS Acquires TextRecruit

The growing trend of text recruiting took another big step this week.

TextRecruit, which describes itself as “a candidate engagement platform that uses text message, live chat, and artificial intelligence (AI) to help organizations hire better people faster,” was acquired by New Jersey-based iCIMS, a leading provider of cloud-based talent acquisition solutions.

Here’s what iCIMS says about TextRecruit in the Marketplace section of the iCIMS website:

TextRecruit is a candidate and employee engagement platform that uses text message, live chat, and artificial intelligence to help companies hire better people, faster. It’s the first and only platform to centralize all talent communication, allowing recruiters and HR to manage relationships with their talent throughout the entire employee lifecycle.”

TextRecruit will operate as a subsidiary of iCIMS

According to the press release announcing the acquisition, Silicon Valley-based TextRecruit will continue to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of iCIMS, servicing and integrating with other systems based on their clients’ needs. It will continue to operate out of it’s current offices in San Jose, CA and Chicago, IL.

In addition, the staff and management team of TextRecruit will remain in place, and, existing partnerships and integrations with other recruiting systems will also continue. The TextRecruit road map stays the same although there are plans to prioritize stronger integration throughout TextRecruit’s entire suite of products — introducing text, chatbots and AI capabilities across their CRM as well as applicant tracking to new hire onboarding technology.

Currently, TextRecruit has more than 400 customers using its solutions, including a large number of iCIMS customers such as Banner Health, Cracker Barrel, Aramark, Enterprise Holdings, and other enterprise organizations.

There was no price disclosed on the deal, which is effective January 8, 2018.

The two companies have been working together as partners for a few years, and as the iCIMS press release points out that,

TextRecruit has built a rapidly growing business by recognizing today’s candidates prefer to communicate via text message and mobile apps, rather than email. The company introduced its first product in 2015, and used iCIMS’ UNIFi platform to create a seamless integration between TextRecruit messaging applications and iCIMS’ talent acquisition suite. Since then, TextRecruit has expanded its portfolio and partner network to become the leading real-time messaging application for recruiters.”

This is an important point, because as The Wall Street Journal noted last summer, “The use of smartphone-based tools for job interviews shows how employers are trying to adapt to young workers’ communication habits … (and) some 12 percent of Millennials … prefer the phone for business communication, according to a 2016 report on internet trends from venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. By contrast, 45 percent prefer chatting online or exchanging messages by email or text.”

“A logical acquisition”

According to ICIMS, TextRecruit will extend the capabilities of the iCIMS Talent Acquisition Suite with deeper integrations and solutions that will simplify the recruiting process for candidates and recruiters. In addition, TextRecruit will bring iCIMS customers “ARI,” its configurable Automated Recruiter Interface, which leverages natural language processing and AI to automate communication with candidates via chatbots.

“The first time I met the founders of TextRecruit, I was impressed with their passion for improving the candidate experience by enabling candidates, recruiters and hiring managers to communicate via text during the hiring and onboarding process,” stated iCIMS Senior Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development, Michael Wilczak. “The strong product capabilities, growing customer base, and mutual commitment to customer success made TextRecruit a logical acquisition for iCIMS.”

TextRecruit Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Erik Kostelnik stated, “This couldn’t be a better fit. TextRecruit and iCIMS share the same vision for transforming the recruiting technology market. We serve many of the same customers and partners, offer complementary products, and most importantly, have the same deep values that drive our respective cultures. I’m thrilled to see what we can accomplish as part of the iCIMS team.”

Another indicator of where talent acquisition is going

Here’s my take: I wrote this last summer and it is even truer now than it was then. It’s this — text recruiting is a natural evolution of the recruiting process, and it’s particularly effective as an early-stage tool to narrow your options to the very best candidates.

I also said that I thought text recruiting and interviewing would quickly become a standard practice for recruiters and TA professionals, especially since Millennials really prefer to communicate that way.

Read in that context, this acquisition of Text Recruit by iCIMS isn’t all that surprising, but more of a sign of the times and another indicator of where the never-ending search to find and acquire the best talent is going.

Need a New Year’s Resolution? How About Building a Diverse Talent Pool?

Start your new year with a new strategy: Build and implement a diverse talent pool for your company.

Whether you use social media or traditional sourcing pipelines to do it (and ideally, you have both), a diverse talent pool is a must have in 2018 and beyond.

We all know and recognize the benefits of a diverse workforce —

More creativity;
More innovation;
Enhanced customer loyalty;
More financial growth; and,
Greater insight and access to new marketplaces.

Here’s how to get going on this.

Social media can be a big help

You could begin with Facebook and Twitter. They can help you recruit more diverse candidates and also spread your diversity brand message.

In fact, if you want to cultivate a Talent Community of diverse candidates, then Facebook and Twitter can be key players.

Obviously, a Twitter account can be created to attract followers. This could be an effective channel for tweeting out your firm’s programs, processes, awards and accomplishments in Diversity and Inclusion. Daily tweets by your diversity networks and employees could be a powerful magnetic for attracting “people of difference.”

But don’t stop there; use Instagram and Pinterest for capturing key moments, events (such as your firm’s MLK breakfast this month), gatherings (your Employee Resource Group celebrations) and building your larger diversity brand image.

More traditional methods will work, too

Similarly, traditional methods can be leveraged to create and build a Diverse Talent Community for your organization.

Think about partnering with these kinds of groups:

Professional associations, such as Women in Technology clubs;
Students groups, such as NBMBAA — the National Black MBA Association — and 4-H Clubs, as we did to great effect when I was at Monsanto;
Alumni associations;
Colleges and Universities;
Trade associations;
Community groups such as the Urban League (local chapters); and
National veterans organizations as well as local veteran chapters in your city.

These are just a few examples, but there are many more you could reach out to and pull in to create this “virtual” talent community.

Inspire your staff to help spread the word

Additionally, inspire your recruiters and the Talent Acquisition staff, as I did, to network widely and broadly both on social media and within (and outside of) your industry.

You might want to consider this: keep a running list of people you meet (speakers, workshop facilitators, attendees, etc.) at industry and professional conferences and trade shows — and then ACTIVELY network with them after the event.

Also you might consider partnering with companies and organizations (regardless of industry) in your own area in hosting shared events.

Back when I was at Monsanto, I once organized a “shared event” for our U.S. summer interns and partnered with Boeing and Edward Jones to help host the gathering. This fun event was a huge success and it allowed the students to mix, mingle and network with peers at many other firms in St. Louis as well.

Remember — don’t miss the chance to be a leading edge company in 2018 in this critical talent acquisition area. Doing so will help insure that your organization has a distinct competitive advantage in the marketplace by creating and building a Diverse Talent Pool.

So get going and start one now so you don’t get left behind.

This Year’s Big Challenge: Integrating the Rapid Growth of On-Demand Talent

The age of the gold watch is dead.

The relationship between employers and employees has dramatically changed.

It used to be that we went to work for a company, stayed with them for life, got the gold watch and a nice pension, and retired. But, things are changing.

We have become a society of consumers of everything on-demand — Amazon, Netflix, one-minute instructional videos — and that concept has also shaped the way we work and procure talent. By the year 2021, 34 million workers will be opting out of traditional employment in favor of working independently.

Welcome to on-demand talent.

It’s no secret what recruiting’s top priority is

The contributing factors are abundant: Millennials will make up half our workforce, and the side hustle has become commonplace to supplement, or in some cases replace, income from a full-time job. The appeal of flexibility and control is key to a wide population of highly skilled, seasoned, on-demand talent, which is driving explosive growth in the independent workforce (expected to be 40-50 percent of our total workforce by 2020).

Some of your best talent can ONLY be found in these communities.

Finding top talent is priority No. 1. Some 40 percent of companies can’t fill the positions they need and it’s estimated that $10 trillion will be lost in GDP due to lost productivity as a result. We are hearing from many clients of their desire to widen their net for talent in order to have options to leverage this growing workforce, mitigate risk, and make it seamless to incorporate them into their total workforce strategy.

Despite the ongoing worker misclassification lawsuits with Uber, FedEx, Lowes’, 61 percent of employers plan to replace up to 30 percent of their permanent positions with on-demand talent — freelancers, gig workers and independent contractors — to become more agile and flexible in the changing economy, according to Randstad Sourceright’s Q4 2017 Talent Trends report.

Why all this growth despite the co-employment risks?

It’s simple: There is an ecosystem of workforce consulting and technology solution providers stepping up to support this new normal to provide service options that enable the seamless onboarding, payment and risk management of this highly talented workforce.

New tools to help manage on-demand talent

These solution providers are enabling the way we work today. Per Deloitte’s 2017 Global Human Capital Trends report, we are moving away from a full-time workforce and skill requirements to multiple workforces and technologies defining delivery.

Enter Bunker, a San Francisco-based company that makes it easy to onboard this workforce. Working with the property and casualty insurance company Chubb, Bunker offers short-term insurance policies tailored to the free agent and independent workforce. Bunker is licensed to sell insurance in all 50 states.

Bunker is a natural fit within the standard independent contractor onboarding process to provide the exact insurance required per specific company guidelines, or collect and evaluate existing certificates to get talent to work faster, in as short as a few minutes, rather than a few weeks. Bunker’s free platform is an intuitive, co-branded experience with a short application form (12 questions), the ability to tailor coverages based on the engagement length (ex. three months) and costs about 20 percent less than traditional insurance.

Bunker also provides a free compliance management tool for enterprises that complements existing tools, like sourcing marketplaces and VMS systems. The tool provides a systemic audit trail and visibility into certificate validity, as well as dedicated team of licensed insurance agents that engage talent to screen for compliance, manage renewals and ensure happiness. The end result is removing administrative and risk factors that previously would delay or prevent the hiring of highly skilled, motivated talent to your organization.

Bunker is not alone in their pursuit to reduce the relationship barriers between enterprises and on-demand talent (aka, independent contractors). An entire ecosystem of companies, from background checks (Checkr) and payment (Qwil) to recognition and networking have emerged to enable the seamless engagement and onboarding of on-demand talent.

Getting ahead of the competition

And don’t forget: Your competition is already leveraging this blossoming independent contractor ecosystem to gain market share and growth. If whoever has the best talent wins the game, then having a comprehensive supply chain to source, deliver, and vet on-demand talent is a necessary strategy to engage talent communities that cannot be found or are transitioning from traditional means.

We believe in a talent supply chain architecture approach – the building of workforce solutions around technology, processes, ecosystem providers and consultative expertise that provide a scalable framework for workforce fluidity, while delivering visibility, risk management, operational control that enterprise stakeholders require.

The blossoming independent contractor and on-demand talent ecosystem – defined as “a network of companies, individual contributors, institutions and customers that interact to create mutual value,” by the Boston Consulting Group – is a pivotal component of talent supply chain architecture.

So, where to start? As Lao Tzu says, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” or in our case, with a discussion.

We’ve created a guide (you can find it here) to lead internal discussions on identifying the current state of your existing talent supply and options to evolve your talent strategy by leveraging the growing provider ecosystem. It will help take your internal discussions to the next level.

Having a solid plan and thought leadership to integrate the on-demand ecosystem with gig and contingent workforce strategies will enable enterprises to leverage changing worker values, produce an effective, dynamic talent supply chain architecture, and ultimately, provide access to the best resources to drive speed and innovation.

At a minimum, it will save the money traditionally spent on all those gold watches.

The Good and the Bad About Hiring an Overqualified Candidate

Over the years of reading countless LinkedIn posts, which normally make no sense, there are always a few that group together and stand out.

The group usually starts with a recruiter complaining that they gave a Hiring Manager the resume of someone that was “fully” but really an overqualified candidate for the job, and they can’t even begin to comprehend why the Hiring Manger said “NO!”

A common sense approach may tell you that someone having MORE experience than what was even needed would be a good thing, right?

Does having more experience than needed really matter?

In a perfect world and under certain circumstances, this may be true. For example, if I was looking for someone to cut my hair (and not me specifically, because I am bald, but this seems like a good example), my criteria is that someone who had been cutting hair professionally for two years (an overqualified candidate) would do this job for $20.

But, what if I found someone that had been cutting hair professionally for 15 years and would still do it for $20? Sounds perfect, right? I get more bang for my buck and a more experienced person for the same price!

A few questions still remain in this scenario, however.

This over-qualified person could probably charge $25 based on experience. Are they only doing it this one time for $20 because they happen to have availability at the moment?
Is this a sustainable price for this service down the road?,
Or, will they want more money because they can get a higher price elsewhere based on experience?

Here’s where the real problem sets in: This scenario could very well be a great “band-aid” for your temporary problem, but maybe not the best long term choice. I’m not saying these reasons will not also be applicable to a haircut, but I am thinking of this more in a corporate setting.

Here are a few reasons why an overqualified candidate may not always be the best option:

1 – Level of job ownership

Generally, as you gain experience and move up the corporate ladder, you are also required to take more ownership over responsibilities.

If the role you need filled requires a “mid-level” project manager, it could be because this person will not have full ownership over that particular project which would be suitable for a person with only “mid-level” experience.

Within any project, there are multiple verticals that require someone to oversee. A very senior Project Manager is probably used to have full ownership over the entire scope of the project, including project assessment, estimations, solution planning, and execution. But if this role is only responsible for the estimation portion of the project, that senior candidate will quickly feel underutilized and not challenged in the role.

Sure, you may be able to make the compensation work for the moment, but what is the long term effect? After the honeymoon phase of a new role wears off, not having a challenging project or the level of difficulty the managet expects, only headaches can develop.

2 — Moving up the Ladder

Everyone loves a promotion and the benefits that come from a promotion ($$), and I’ve heard on numerous occasions people say, “I am willing to take a small step back to get my foot in the door.” It is the cliché of cliché’s.

Are you aware of the promotion cycle at a particular company, or the criteria to get to that next job level? In many flat organizations with few levels, a promotion can be a big obstacle to overcome.

A big drawback to this scenario, during the first 6-12 months of employment, is that the overqualified candidate who was hired is more focused on getting a raise/promotion that they believe they deserved in the first place when they took the job than actually focusing on the work at hand.

This causes a problematic scenario for everyone involved.

It brings stress to the employee themselves but also creates unnecessary distraction on the part of the hiring manager and team too. On top of everything, the last thing a manager needs is someone feeling they are in need of a promotion before they figure out where the bathroom is.

3 — Compensation

This may be the elephant in the room. Please note: I am in total belief that compensation is not the driving factor of employee happiness, not even in the top 3, or the reason someone will take/switch jobs. There are other factors that will typically be the make/break point.

BUT don’t get me wrong — compensation does play a large role.

Remember, taking a role that you are an overqualified candidate for means also taking a step back in responsibility, which also generally equates to deducting a few numbers from your direct deposit which no one will be excited about. A person’s lifestyle usually morphs as their compensation goes up, and cutting back a bit feels like one is heading in the wrong direction.

Think of accepting a counter-offer which, ironically, is compensation based. It may fix a particular situation for the time being, but it is not a long term solution. That candidate may take a lesser role with lesser money, but the first recruiter that comes knocking with a better title and better pay grade and peace out!

4 — Manager relationship

Management books tell us that a good manager will hire people smarter than they are in order to make the team stronger.

But let’s be honest — it doesn’t always happen that way.

In human behavior, the thought of “will this person take my job?” potentially starts to creep in at some point. It’s also a two way street with the candidate themselves. You don’t want someone thinking they should be in charge instead of their manager because it creates an uneasy working environment.

Be honest about when an overqualified candidate might work

At the end of the day, there are numerous scenarios where hiring an over-qualified person could work out just great, but just be aware of the consequences of your decision.

If you are looking for a short term fix or short contract role, this can certainly be an entertaining option. But, if you are team planning for a long term strategic road map, these points need to be thought through.

As a Hiring Manager, if overqualified candidates are all you’re getting from your recruiter, a whole other conversation needs to take place so you can synchronize with them and figure out if what you are looking for is available.

That, however, makes for an entirely different article.

How Recruitment Reinvention Starts

Recruitment isn’t the same creature it used to be.

Before dotcom grew up, recruiters operated on a different set of rules, with closed doors and gate-keeping that frustrated the most eligible candidates. John Hollon noted on my inaugural podcast episode for The Emotionally Intelligent Recruiter that candidates used to have a harder time getting in touch with headhunters and recruiters. They had to adhere to stricter standards and tighter rules for the application process.

With those stricter standards came a ruthless industry shrouded in secrecy.

The digital revolution has changed everything, both in the workplace and in the recruiting world. As recruiters, we have a responsibility to change with the times. Those changes aren’t just about the technology that we employ to ensure the right fit for a company and a candidate — it’s about the emotional work that we have to do, too.

Searching for a better way

Every big change in a person’s career is preceded by an epiphany. Mine came shortly before I left my partnership in Europe. We’d placed a former Amazon employee, a Seattle resident, at a Groupon clone in Europe to work with Italian CEOs. But instead of celebrating this enormous win, I thought: “There’s something wrong here.”

The way the system had been working left candidates and their new companies out in the cold at the end of a placement. There had to be a better way.

When I started FORWARD, I wanted to build an agency that did more than just place a candidate. FORWARD needed to provide support as a candidate and their new company moved through those early phases together, learning the intricacies and nuances of one another.

So, I evolved my work from being just a “recruiter” to being a recruitment reinvention “specialist.”

While the undercurrents of technology often bump up against the work that recruiters do with candidates and companies alike, it’s more important than ever to do the real work. As recruiters, we must hone our interpersonal skills if we’re going to thrive in today’s new digitally advanced world.

Forward-thinking companies are also beginning to recognize that they need focus on recruitment reinvention to function across departments and truly engage employees in creating effective pipelines with a deep understanding of department needs from both interpersonal and cognitive perspectives.

The importance of recruitment reinvention

I asked David Namkung, Partner of The Counsel Network, about why recruitment reinvention is so important. He said:

Transactional recruitment is becoming increasingly replaced by technological solutions and lower-paid (and outsourced) talent therefore driving a race to the bottom at this end of the market. I regularly receive inquiries from third-party vendors aiming to sell lead-generation solutions (i.e. mass-headhunting); this suggests to me that headhunting/talent solicitation, by itself, will have diminishing strategic value for the client, and also the candidate.”

The era of drive-by recruiting is over. We must be able to earn and maintain trust in order to develop relationships. A great recruiter is a deal maker who can keep the relationship and ultimately negotiations moving forward.

The process requires excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to understand each side. Listening and understanding are the two most important skills to hone as we move from the way things were and into the new global standard of artificial intelligence and automation.

But tech cannot replace the human experience. In fact, it’s never been more important to be human.

“Recruiters need to have demonstrable and current expertise in the area they are involved in. This generally requires specialization in a given field. [They] will have to place additional emphasis on maintaining relationships and adding real value to the client,” Namkung said, when asked about how recruiters can “future proof” their work. “[They’ll have to do this] through distinguished emotional intelligence and unparalleled responsiveness.”

Taking the time to transform your mindset and really take charge of your career and brand is a challenge. Developing a niche in a particular area is key, as well as engaging in ongoing professional development.

A focus on working for both candidates AND your company

As the talent wars continue to heat up, recruiters who can effectively help both talent and companies will quickly rise to the top. Recognizing that we work for talent as much as we do for companies is pivotal and nurturing those long-term relationships is a vital skill. We need to be able to identify high potentials early on and then nurture those relationships.

It’s never been more important “to stay relevant and competitive,” Namkung said. “At the end of the day, if you aren’t resourceful and on top of market trends, technology, and your own personal development, it will impact your ability to deliver talent.” The nature of work is changing and we need to respond to with thoughtfulness and precision in every facet of the placement process.

It doesn’t matter if we belong to an internal recruiting department, external sourcing company, or if we operate as an independent agent; as recruiters, we need to take charge of our professional brand and professional development in order to thrive.

Recruiters will continue to be the lynchpin for organizational success. Continuing to find ways to work in harmony with technology, talent, clients, and ourselves will be the measure of how effectively we are able to move the world of recruitment – and the people we work with — forward.

3 Hot Technologies That Will Disrupt Recruiting in 2018

It’s that time of year again when we dust off our crystal ball and try to gaze into the future of recruiting.

So after making my standard resolution to lose that 15 pounds in the New Year, I’ve given the stars another gander to see what the future of recruiting will hold.

1 — Supercharged referrals and the future of recruiting

The first thing that I see that can make a major impact on recruiting in 2018 is Teamable.

We all love to tout the employee referral numbers made rightly famous by recruiting Godfather Gerry Crispin, and in the past, recruiters have been mostly passive recipients of referrals from a handful of active employees who enjoy the extra lump sum in their paycheck from time to time. As hiring becomes critical, we often times go in front of the company, hat in hand, to plead for some candidates so that we can help staff their projects with enough people to get the work done.

Enter Teamable.

They are set to turn the employee referral model on its head. By allowing the recruiters of a company access to employee’s networks, the recruiters are able to search LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other networks for prospects that are already connected to the company. They can — and here is the part I love — proactively solicit specific referrals.

The UI reminds me of an aggregator set up. A search is conducted of the networks of the employees that they are already connected to. We can then ask the employee to directly contact the person, recommend them, or at a minimum allow us to reach out to the prospect and use the candidate’s name.

According to Daniil Karp, Director of Marketing at Teamable, employees who use the system to reach out to their connections have had 80 percent plus response rates. I haven’t seen anything in my career that has the potential to disrupt employee referral programs like Teamable.

2 — The world of technology recruiting gets an upgrade

Many recruiters are familiar with HackerRank. It is a customizable technology quiz, a mini certification exam if you will. While innovative and disruptive, it does have a few notable drawbacks.

The first is that you can never be sure the person that the test is sent to is the person that actually took the test. I know it sounds paranoid, but in my many years of IT recruiting I can’t count the number of times one of my interviewers thought that the candidate was acting fraudulently. I’m not kidding — it comes up more than I expected.

The other challenge is, of course, the price tag. Now personally I think it is a pretty reasonable price tag to give back billable time to developers, but not every company views it that way.

So, throwing their proverbial hat into the ring of disruption is Skype. Yes, that wasn’t a typo; I’m talking about a Microsoft product.

Skype Interviews has just been released and it is set to make an immediate impact on the futre of recruiting. It allows an interviewer to set a coding challenge to the candidate and watch them live over webcam as they take the challenge in real time.

Yes, goodbye to all those claims of fraud. Also, since it is currently available at a cost of free, it’s sure to fit every recruiters’ budget. It is one of those tools you can pull from your belt and offer to the company as one of those creative sourcing ideas.

You’re welcome.

3 — A job aggregator on steroids

Finally, I get to the tool that I’ve been hiding in my back pocket for over a year now.

Joberate is set to change the way that we look at “candidate pools” and “talent pooling.” In other words, Joberate is an aggregator on steroids.

Aside from the normal function of gathering data, it allows you to export the data and monitor individuals for job seeking behavior.

Let me break this down for you.

You are now able to identify the candidates in your “talent pool” and then monitor them for job seeking behavior. Joberate provides the candidate’s name, the company they work for, their job title, links to their social profiles, and in an increasing number of cases, their contact information.

Having this type of data allows recruiters to focus on the high value, highly likely-to-respond prospects. In my own experience with small data sets, I have seen response rates ranging from 80 to 100 percent according to data provided by Joberate

In addition, you can export reports into Excel and share them with your hiring managers. Imagine being able to walk into an intake meeting and sharing with the hiring manager the list of potential candidates. I mean specifically tell the HM who they are too, and not just a number.

You can walk in give your hiring manager the talent pool complete with candidate name, the company they work for, where they live, their job title, links to their social profiles, AND, a score indicating how likely they are to respond to your outreach.

This type of data will allow us to have categorically different conversations with the business then we have been able to have in the past.

If you read anything I’ve written you know that I’m a big fan of sharing data with the business. While demand side data has been available to the market for some time, the supply side has never been tracked for a specific market much less a subset of specific competitor companies inside of that market.

But what about AI disruption in the New Year?

I know what you’re thinking: Wait, Mike, you didn’t mention AI? What gives?

Well OK, here is the long and short of it. I think AI has a place in disrupting the recruiting function, but I think it is overstated for the moment when it comes to the future of recruiting.

AI has very specific and limited areas where it can improve your performance. It can make getting approvals simpler and it helps with scheduling.

If you have a lot of inbound traffic it can help you sort that traffic and improve candidate experience, but the vast majority of us don’t face that problem. AI can help you uncover talent that the average recruiter might have missed but it doesn’t help you activate and convert those new leads into candidates, and that’s the entire point anyway, right?

So while I think AI will eventually come into its own, it is still too unformed to have a large disruptive impact on recruiting (or the future of recruiting) in 2018, but who knows? Back in 1911 Thomas Edison predicted, “It will be an easy matter to convert a truckload of iron bars into … gold.”

Well, when it comes to the future of recruiting, maybe I’m just another Edison.

Happy New Year, But Beware People Bearing Silly Recruiting Resolutions

Here’s a New Year’s wish for recruiters and talent acquisition professionals everywhere: Do whatever you can to stay away from bad advice that doesn’t help you be better in 2018.

Yes, there’s good advice, there’s bad advice, but then there’s advice that is so vague and pedestrian that you would need to be brain dead to even consider it.

5 resolutions you should simply forget about…

For example, here are five (5) recruitment-related “resolutions” that were touted by a reputable website at the beginning of 2017 to “give (recruiters) some inspiration.” You be the judge of how inspiring they are. I think they’re pretty silly overall:

Be more creative.
Be more efficient.
Remove unconscious bias.
Think about social.
Respond to all candidates.

Feeling inspired yet? I’d be surprised if you were because these “resolutions” could be offered for just about any job anywhere. The only exception is the advice to “Respond to all candidates” — and that resolution SHOULD have been at the very top of the list because it’s the most important thing that recruiters and TA professionals need to be doing.

Look, I don’t want to get cranky about this, but telling recruiters that they need to “Be more creative” or “More efficient” is just dumb. My guess is that MOST hiring pros are trying to do this all the time, year in and year out.

And counseling them to “Remove unconscious bias?” I think they’re probably sick of hearing about that and know all too well that it needs to be front and center when they’re doing their job.

... and some suggested “resolutions” you might consider

I hate to generalize, but in my experience, New Year’s resolutions that others want to foist upon you aren’t worth very much, so take these resolutions that I’m offering as simple suggestions or possibilities for things that MIGHT improve your lot as a TA professional in 2018.

RESOLVE: To communicate better — early and often — with job candidates all year long.
RESOLVE: To not believe all the hype about a huge shortage of talent, especially with so many people out there who are unemployed, underemployed, have given up their job search in frustration, or, are considered too old or too expensive and aren’t captured in the Labor Department’s monthly employment report.
RESOLVE: To remember that hiring for diversity includes a lot more than just race and gender.
RESOLVE: That a great many people judge you and your organization by the quality of your candidate experience. After all, how you treat people who want to work for you sends a big message to those who already work with you or who choose to do business with you.
RESOLVE: To make sure you remember the Golden Rule. Yes, you should always treat people the way you would want to be treated.

So, that’s what I have to help you get started in this New Year. You may think my resolutions are just as lame as the ones I didn’t like from last year, but at least my resolutions are more specific and focused on TA pros rather than being so general that they could be for just about anybody anywhere.

My advice is OK, for the most part I think, and I’m sure many of you will tell me if you feel it’s not. At any rate, here’s hoping you have a great 2018 and will spend some of it reading the great content we have for you here at RecruitingDaily.

From all of us to all of you, we wish you all the best in this coming year.

The Adversity Question, or Why You Need to Have a Strong Hiring Philosophy

Recruiters and TA professionals know this for a fact: There’s no magical formula to hiring.

If there was, hiring would be easy, but instead we spend a lot of time looking for qualities and experiences that may be clues to how successful a job candidate might be if we hire them.

Yes, everyone has a different hiring philosophy and different things that they look for when they recruit and hire.

Looking at how a candidate has dealt with adversity

One of those things can be reduced to a single word, and that’s especially true for Kathy Giusti, founder of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. And as she told The New York Times’ Corner Office column, that one word is “adversity.”

She looks for people who have been through adversity, know adversity, and have a sense on how to deal with it. Adversity is THE one quality she looks for in job candidates, and that’s probably because she has been through so much of it herself. As she told The Times:

I had always been disciplined and had this level of urgency. But then I was told I had a fatal disease and I was going to die. It was black and white — write your will. It wasn’t like there was any gray area. And I had a 1-year-old daughter. I thought that if I can stay alive until she turns 5, maybe she’ll remember me. That was my dream.

So I started taking on this foundation, and thinking, I’ve got to make some decisions, and I’ve got to make them quickly…I found that because I was told I only had three years at the most, and I wanted to get as much done as I could, I was incredibly bold. If anybody was going to be mad at me for what I was doing, I didn’t really care. And if I had to make a decision, I wasn’t going to sit there and say, well, let me do more research on that. I had to make decisions incredibly quickly.

I also learned to be much more grateful. When you’re working in multiple myeloma, nobody’s ever heard of it, and it takes you half an hour to explain it. By that time, people’s eyes are glazing over. So now I had to raise money around it. When people actually responded to me and my personal story, I was so grateful. It’s 20 years later, and I’m now in remission, as are many others.”

Focusing questions with an emphasis on adversity

It is Kathy Giusti’s own personal health experience that helped to shape her outlook on hiring, because as someone who has been through a lot of adversity, she appreciates how it helps to focus your mind and adds to the qualities that a candidate brings to the table.

So, here’s how she answered when The Times posed the question to Giusti of “How do you hire?” Here’s what she said:

I study the résumé. In the early years, where did you go? Did you get the strong training base I’m looking for where you honed your industry knowledge and developed your leadership skills? Did you start in sales, or did you get promoted early? What did you learn from some of those early mentors? I do think those years are incredibly formative. Then I want to see how you grew and what new experiences were you trying to take on.

Then I start asking questions like, what do you want me to know about you that’s not on this résumé? Help me understand your role on a team. How did you lead?

And tell me when you have faced any level of adversity, and how did you deal with it? I love people who have been through certain types of adversity. It doesn’t have to be that they got a death sentence. I just want to hear what happened and how they resolved it. If you’ve been through that, it will help you, and it will make you more compassionate with the patients we’re dealing with every day.”

You gotta define your values, then hire for them

Here’s my take: I love that Kathy Giusti puts a laser-like focus on adversity when she interviews job candidates because she knows all too well how dealing with adversity can shape people in very different ways.

And, she appreciates it because she has lived through it. For her, adversity is a value she puts high up on the list of qualities she feels that her potential employees really need to have.

You may not agree that adversity is something to look for in candidates, but that’s not the issue here. What Kathy Giusti’s hiring philosophy simply tells you is that you need to have a strong hiring philosophy — whatever it happens to be.

Of course, what works for Kathy may not work for you, so you need to figure out what DOES work for you and make sure that you use that when you talk to serious candidates for your organization. When you know what to look for, as Kathy clearly does, it makes hiring easier and helps build your organization with people who reflect your values.

Is there any better way to hire than that?

5 Ways You May Be Damaging Your Candidate Experience

As a hiring professional, you have a lot of responsibilities, and fostering a better candidate experience is one of them.

Your job is to find the best fitting, most suitable candidate, but you are not completely sure that the candidate for the job you really want also wants you. Chances are that the candidate you would like is not interviewing with just your company. He or she may be interviewing with a lot of other companies.

Therefore, it’s very important to make sure you know how to properly sell the current position — and your company — to candidates. In an era where people are racing for the top jobs, it is necessary to create a very positive candidate experience.

It’s important to know how to create a positive candidate experience and avoid the five (5) most common mistakes hiring professionals make. Here are the most common mistakes that can damage your candidate experience, and, how you can avoid them:

1 – Not giving a taste of the company’s values and culture

This is a very common mistake employers make with candidates. You should endeavor to introduce the culture of your company to your candidates.

This helps in creating a positive workplace experience.

The first thing you will be doing after meeting a candidate is asking a lot of questions. But, you should do something besides just talking to the candidate.

You should be able to try something different which will make the candidate aware of the work place and its cultures and values which it holds. Candidates will see you as a different kind of a company altogether if you can manage to do something completely out of the box.

2 — Not sharing all the negative aspects of the job

This is another big mistake that TA professionals make.

You should be open and honest with the candidates, then they will feel that they are being offered a position which will cater to their needs. Sharing this type of information with them will also help you to understand how they would react or operate in various situations.

3 — Neglecting passive candidates

This is something you must avoid at all costs.

You should not neglect the needs of passive candidates and instead work with them to help them understand your company better. You should be able to successfully engage them in your company and make them really want to be a part of it.

And when you fail to land a passive candidate, you should make sure you spend a lot of time digging into your post interview questioning and communication.

4 — Not giving a tour of the office

Sometimes, not giving candidates a tour of your office can reflect badly on you.

When you show your candidates around the office, you’re creating a certain level of transparency with them. It helps if they will fully understand how they are going to work, where they are going to work, and, will feel that you have absolutely nothing to hide.

5 — Not properly reading a candidate’s body language

Not properly reading a candidate’s right body language can prove to be a vital loss for you.

It’s important to be respectful with your candidates and make them feel comfortable and at ease. Ask them about their hobbies and passions, and be inquisitive on factors which make them happy. Try to show concern and respect for your employees, and then see how their body language changes as you talk to them about these issues.

Do they open up, or, do they tighten up when you talk to them about these things? How they react will tell you a lot about them and how they might fit into your environment.

You NEVER want to damage your candidate experience

These are some of the common ways in which you may be damaging the overall candidate experience for your employees and you should definitely make sure you work to find ways to improve upon them.

Are there any such mistakes that you have made in your organization? Share with us in the comments.

5 Ways You Can Help Improve Candidate Loyalty

If you are getting thousands of candidates applying for your jobs, you’re probably not concerned about candidate loyalty, so you can focus on other things.

But, the impact of candidate loyalty on the recruitment industry has taken center stage recently. There’s no doubt we are in a progressive digital age where candidates can conveniently jump ship to other recruitment options at the click of a single button.

Getting the loyalty of job seekers involves finding what works, improving on it, and then sticking to it.

Candidate loyalty is hard to find

Of course, today’s candidates have become extremely meticulous in their choices, and who can blame them?

There are many recruiters out there and they all have hiring plans that need to be met. Moreover, there are just as many job openings available — and the numbers keep growing, but the number of candidates is not growing that fast. Many recruiters jump into the market every day, promising competitive packages that clearly beat their competitors with amazing promises of opportunities that sound like the next dream job.

Therefore, losing a candidate at the last possible moment (now a common occurrence) is a massive blow to any recruiter, not to mention the frustration and waste of time. And this is not connected only with recruiters in agencies, where recruiters lose their fee, but also recruiters in companies have their KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to consider.

Most recruiters understand that the game has changed and that candidate loyalty is a critical issue. Candidates can no longer be taken for granted, and the average candidate is not at your beck and call. Those times have long gone.

Candidates today, like every customer, want quality service. And, candidates really want to form a relationship with the recruiter at the other end.

Here are five (5) ways to improve candidate loyalty:

1 — Ensure good communication — all the time

The power of communication can never be overemphasized. However, keeping in touch with people 24/7 can become an arduous task for busy recruiters.

Every member of your recruitment team should be committed to reaching out and connecting with your candidates.

Candidates want to feel listened to, they want their information updated, and they want to be kept in the loop. They also want quality feedback and tailored messages that speak to them clearly.

There is nothing worse for your company than to ignore candidates and give them no response. Keep in mind that every candidate is also a potential customer, and every customer is also a potential candidate. We all have experience as customer with companies that, if they reach out to u, we will turn down because of a bad experience with them.

Explicit communication doesn’t just mean listening; it also means giving timely information on the inner workings of the industry, from the period of offer to the onboarding stage. Therefore, you need to break down complex terms for your candidates. In addition, never forget to leave an open line of communication. They should always be able to easily get hold of you.

There is one rule you should always follow: Never keep a candidate waiting.

2 — Build a growing foundation of trust

We have all experienced the call from a recruiter describing his company or his client’s company and it sounded so amazing that we said yes to an interview. Sadly, the reality was completely different from what was promised to us.

Remember this: Trust is built and maintained by many small actions over time, and once broken it’s hard to repair. In fact, you can lose candidates for your company forever. However, promising what you cannot deliver also leads to negative word of mouth, and that can cause you to lose even more candidates.

Your candidates want to know that they can depend on you. If you are working in an agency, your candidates want to believe you are working behind the scenes to get them the best possible deals and deliver what you promised. A foundation of trust blossoms only when your candidates believe in you.

They just need to know that your company or agency is not all about promises, but also on what you deliver. Once your candidates trust you, they will come to you in future if they are looking for a job.

3 — Build a relationship that extends beyond the job opening

Any recruiter can provide a candidate with a job, but not every recruiter can build a meaningful relationship with their candidates. Building a strong relationship means forming friendships, sharing deep industry expertise, and showing goodwill throughout the recruiting process.

Some recruiters are interested in candidates only if they have some current opening and they need candidates for it, but it’s crucial to be there for your candidate even if the candidate is not open to a role right now.

Make sure you are helpful even when it does not benefit you because, at the end of the day, your candidates are like customers.

4 — Improve your interview process

Nothing bothers candidates more than an application process that seems to take forever to fill out. And the same goes for an interview process that has unnecessary rounds of interviews that could make or destroy your chances of getting that candidate. Does the interview drag on for hours? What about the questions you ask? Are they relevant to the job or industry?

Understanding the mindset of today’s candidates is essential. During the interview process, many things run through the mind of your candidate. It’s an experience that can easily turn from smooth to extremely uncomfortable for the job seeker.

When your candidates start dropping off during the interview process, it is time to re-evaluate the inefficiencies in what you’re doing. That’s why it’s also important after the interview to ask your candidates for their feedback. This could be collected anonymously and it could reveal important information about the blind spots of your interview process.

Keep in mind that one bad interview experience can lead to a candidate saying, “I will never ever apply for a job with that company.”

5 — Set realistic expectations

Promising mouthwatering employment packages or out-of-this-world job openings is all well and good if you want to keep candidate loyalty. However, promising something you are not entirely sure you can deliver can be disastrous.

As a recruiter, it’s necessary to understand that the job market is not immune to overnight fluctuations. Misleading your candidates with unmet expectations, even when you have their best interest at heart, will make you look unprofessional — and worst of all, deceitful.

In fact, reputation precedes everything in the recruitment industry. When you fail to set realistic expectations, you stand the risk of not only losing your candidate loyalty, but also getting a damaged reputation.

Nobody likes to be misled, which is why you need to always be honest with your candidates.

Final thoughts

As in so many things in life, it’s the small gestures that matter. Gaining the loyalty of job seekers, who can easily find another avenue when things don’t work out for them, might not be an easy task. Nevertheless, it IS possible.

It doesn’t matter if they fail during the interview or they were rejected during the pre-screening process, it’s important to provide them with aftercare. Feedback is always important, but make sure to keep the relationship constant until the right role for them comes along.

Apart from excellent service and valid expectations, share with them news about your organization, the culture, and industry trends, or send them your newsletter and invite them to meet-ups or events that are organized by your company.

And if you do, they will keep coming back to you in future.

Do You Recruit For People Who Know Exactly What NOT to Do?

Here’s something to think about when you’re recruiting and hiring: Is it possible that the very best person to hire is the one who knows what not to do?

I’ve hired people with varied skill sets over the years, but take it from me, this is not something I have ever screened for. That’s why I was intrigued by this story in The Wall Street Journal with the headline, Hiring Tip: Find the Person Who Knows What Not to Do.

**The importance of knowing what not to do**

Somewhat confused? That’s OK because I was too, but here’s the essence of what the story was trying to get at:

It’s easy to assume that star employees are the ones who can pick the best course of action when confronted with a business problem. But new research suggests there is a better predictor of performance: a person’s ability to identify the worst solution when given a range of choices.

That talent is evidence of “practical intelligence,” which includes knowing how to avoid pitfalls and potential crises, says Steven Stemler, a psychology professor at Wesleyan University and an author of a paper called “Knowing What NOT To Do Is a Critical Job Skill.”

This is a pretty fascinating concept, and it has to do with the notion of “situational judgment,” where employees are hired because of their ability to make smart choices from a series of scenarios where the right choice isn’t always simple or easy to figure out.

Finding people to keep you out of trouble

That’s because, as Steven Stemler notes, there’s a big difference between understanding what the wrong thing to do is, and, being able to avoid doing it. Really, it’s not as easy to navigate as many people think.

As The Journal story notes:

People often think there is a linear continuum of best to worst options, says Mr. Stemler. But in real life, the best solutions vary depending on context, corporate culture and other factors, so the choice of a single solution on a test is not all that meaningful.

On the other hand, “across an industry, there seems to be clear consensus about what’s going to get you in trouble,” he said.”

How to improving your batting average

Here’s my take: This WSJ story makes it clear how terribly important it is to know exactly what skills you need when hiring for a specific job.

But, it seems incredibly simplistic to say that, and a little crazy too. What kind of recruiter or talent manager would hire someone without having a good sense of the skill set needed for someone to be successful?

Actually, this problem is more common than you think, and it’s one that drives many recruiters crazy.

The hiring manager — the actual decision maker in the hiring chain — sometimes fails to be completely clear on what is needed in the job, and this can leave the recruiter in a situation where they’re finding good candidates that keep getting rejected because they don’t have some unknown quality that the hiring manager hasn’t shared with anyone else — especially the recruiter.

Believe me, this happens a lot because I’ve seen it on many occasions.

Any TA professional knows this, but it’s always a crap shoot when you hire someone. Sometimes, the very best person who excelled in one job just doesn’t do the same thing in a very similar job in a different company. This is a reminder to get lots of people involved in the hiring and interviewing process, and to think long and hard about what qualities someone you hire need to have to be successful working for YOU.

The more you think about this, the better hires you’ll make. Of course, you will never, ever be perfect, but the more thoughtful you can be, the better your hiring batting average will be.

And THAT is something we all should be striving for.

A Little Holiday Cheer For Recruiters Everywhere — Courtesy of LinkedIn Talent Solutions

Everyone, everywhere needs a little holiday cheer.

Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, the last two weeks of the year are a season for everyone to reflect on all that has happened in the past year, and, to anticipate all the good things we hope for in the New Year to come.

Given that it’s my first year as Editor at RecruitingDaily, I don’t have a lot to reflect on as the year winds down except to say that to my way of thinking, recruiting and talent acquisition is probably THE most important function in just about any workplace.

Finding the next generation of great talent that will drive your organization ahead is a critically important need in any operation. That makes recruiters, sourcers, hiring managers, and all TA professionals the backbone of the company, the bass line in the orchestra, and something that no organization can do without.

My New Year’s wish is to bring you not only more great information in 2018, but also more insightful, interesting, and thoughtful content here at RecruitingDaily that you simply can’t live without.

If I can do that, even in some small way, it will be a very merry New Year indeed.

A little cheer to brighten your holiday season

I hope you have a great and glorious New Year, too, and with that, here’s a little holiday cheer courtesy of LinkedIn:

Back in 2013, LinkedIn Talent Solutions came up with this festive holiday video titled the 12 Days of Recruiting Christmas. It’s a little goofy, but it does seem to really capture a bit of the season, even if you don’t celebrate Christmas.

That’s what a holiday video from somebody like LinkedIn Talent Solutions is supposed to do, isn’t it?

They tried to recapture the spirit again in 2014 with an accapella version of White Christmas. It’s OK, sort of, and although it has it’s moments, it just doesn’t match the goofy fun and seasonal spirit that the 12 Days of Recruiting Christmas did.

No matter. So it goes. Sometimes, you have a year when you did really good work, and then, sometimes you find that even though you tried just as hard and gave a similar effort the next year, it just doesn’t go quite as well.

All of us can appreciate that, I’m sure. That’s why we all need a bit of holiday cheer at this time of year.

C’est la vie, and from all of us at Recruiting Daily, we wish you and yours a very merry holiday season and a happy and fulfilling New Year!

PS — I’m ALWAYS looking for people with great insights and perspective on recruiting, sourcing and anything having to do with talent acquisition. Got something to say you’re passionate about? Drop me a note here at [email protected]

One Big Thing That Recruiters Really Looked For This Year

It’s a term I hear a lot even if it isn’t always clear what it means, so don’t feel bad if you’re also a little fuzzy on the definition of “soft skills.”

Lots of hiring and talent management professionals seem to be looking for candidates with soft skills, so in case you’re confused, here’s a definition I like from SearchCIO:

Soft skills is a synonym for “people skills.” The term describes those personal attributes that indicate a high level of emotional intelligence.”

Here’s why soft skills really DO matter

In other words, according to Wikipedia, soft skills are “a combination of interpersonal people skills, social skills, communication skills, character traits, attitudes, career attributes^[ and emotional intelligence quotient (EQ) among others.”

This is important because The Wall Street Journal proclaimed that Employers Find “Soft Skills” Like Critical Thinking in Short Supply. Here’s their point:

Companies across the U.S. say it is becoming increasingly difficult to find applicants who can communicate clearly, take initiative, problem-solve and get along with co-workers.

Those traits, often called soft skills, can make the difference between a standout employee and one who just gets by.”

Is this really a growing problem?

As someone who has always had pretty good people skills yet was told numerous times how much more important “hard skills” — a person’s technical skill set and ability to perform specific tasks — were, this was a pretty big surprise.

The WSJ also says that,

A LinkedIn survey of 291 hiring managers found 58 percent say the lack of soft skills among job candidates is limiting their company’s productivity.

In a Wall Street Journal survey of nearly 900 executives last year, 92 percent said soft skills were equally important or more important than technical skills. But 89 percent said they have a very or somewhat difficult time finding people with the requisite attributes. Many say it’s a problem spanning age groups and experience levels.”

**Something you must be hiring for**

Here’s my take: Soft skills just don’t get very much respect in the workplace. As one article from a few years back observed,

A lot of managers turn up their noses at the mention of “soft skills.” But they ignore that part of the supervisor’s role at their peril.”

Yes, soft skills seem to be downplayed at just about every level, from recruiter to hiring manager to line manager to top-level executive. And this isn’t a new trend because it has been going on for as long as I’ve been working. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen high level managers, particularly executives, downplay and pooh-pooh the need for good people skills in the candidates that their company is hiring.

But the ability to better connect with employees and get the most out of them is growing in importance, especially when it comes to the Millennial generation given how they don’t respond very well to top-down edicts or command-and-control management systems.

If you manage Millennials, you better have collaborative skills

Millennials want to collaborate, and it takes managers with good “soft skills” to really be able to do that, as well as recruiters and TA professionals with a nose for finding candidates with it, that really matters.

Given the race to hire people with top-level technical skills — like engineers, who aren’t exactly known for their people skills — it’s no wonder that people with good soft skills are in short supply. They simply haven’t been valued all that much, and in many workplaces get treated like Rodney Dangerfield — “they don’t get no respect.”

Here’s something you can count on: The need to connect with people personally will never, ever go out of style. I can guarantee that.

If you aren’t focusing on soft skills in your recruiting and hiring, you better start because you’ll need people skills more and more as Millennials and Gen Z become the backbone of America’s workforce.

Don’t Panic! A Brief But REALLY Useful Guide to Req Management

Have you been recruiting for more than 30 seconds? If you have, then you probably know the truth of recruiting.

It’s this: Every req (also called “rec,” or the job requisition) that hits your desk is the most important one in the world.

In our industry, we face the unrelenting pressure to produce that only sales people will ever fully understand. In the course of your day-to-day work, you undoubtedly speak to hiring managers, operations professionals that ask you where are the candidates while they wonder what it is we do all day.

OK, you know that part — so what do you do about it?

Yes, it’s all about making tradeoffs

Step 1: Don’t panic. But really, if you made it to this point we are already past what Step 1 should have been.

Step 1 should really be qualifying your req. Qualification of your req shouldn’t be just about avoiding a wild goose chase; it should be your time to educate the hiring manager about the market and how long it will take to fill the job.

If you read my last post about adding value then you will understand the next suggestion. When it comes to project management there are three things that the business wants to know. If you take a class on project management you will learn about the project management triangle. There is a trade off between good, fast and cheap.

If you remember my article about Amazon, the reason investors were willing to wait so long for Amazon to turn a profit is that investors wanted a good product that was inexpensive so they understood that if they want those two things they are going to have to wait.

Yes, in project management you only can get two of the three.

The value add for recruiters? It’s delivering someone “good”

What your hiring manager really wants to know is this: How long is it going to take to get someone good, and what is it going to cost me? There is a baseline assumption that the hiring manager wants to hire someone who is quantifiably “good.”

So that is why the hire is the value add for the recruiter. You delivered something that is really “good.”

The place to save yourself some stress is by quantifying how long it will take and what it will cost. This is the reason for the three main metrics of recruiting:

Number of hires (good);
Time to fill (time); and,
Cost per hire (cheap).

The thing we fail to understand is that what we produce is a product the same as any systems implementation that the software engineers are paid to produce. If you want to think of your hiring managers as clients, and yourself as a consultant, then you need to understand that it is bad customer service to make your customer have to ask you for an update on the delivery of your product.

Final advice when filling a req? Don’t panic!

Something else you can do to save yourself some time is to take a lesson from software developers and hold a daily scrum.

You don’t have to call your hiring manager every day for a scrum, but you should email them on a daily basis and keep them informed about what is going on, what your plan for the day is, and what you need from them.

This simple email that takes two minutes to write will build you credibility and keep the critical conversations from ever happening.

So my advice is this: Understand that every req is the most important one, and if you want if you want to focus on filling the role, then do what you need to so your hiring managers don’t panic.