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Looking For That Dream Applicant? They’re Probably a Team Player

If you ask the average hiring manager what they’re looking for when interviewing new candidates, most will probably mention some variation of skills, experience, and qualifications. After all, the most common reason new hires fail is that they aren’t qualified for the position in question.

Or is it?

According to a commonly cited study by Leadership IQ, only 11 percent of new hires fail because they lack the technical skills to perform the job at hand. The vast majority of new employees — the other 89 percent — fail for reasons that have more to do with temperament and emotional intelligence.

Here are some of those reasons:

  • Feedback — One in four (26 percent) of all new hires fail because they are unable to accept and react appropriately to feedback.
  • Emotions — Another 23 percent fail because they can’t manage their emotions.
  • Motivation — Another 17 percent fail because they aren’t self-motivated enough; and,
  • Job fit and culture — Some 15 percent fail because they’re a poor fit with the job and the culture of the company.

These statistics don’t mean that it isn’t important to screen for technical skills and experience. If anything, they show that hiring managers are already good at using proven processes to find employees who are technically qualified to perform the positions being filled.

No, the problem that these statistics showcase is that employers are focusing on skills and experience exclusively — that is, viewing those qualities in a vacuum instead of trying to envision them in context.

What employers need to do is focus on finding people who are not only technically qualified to perform the job at hand, but who also have the maturity, temperament, and teamwork mentality to function in a demanding work environment.

Your Dream Applicant is almost always a team player

Some hiring managers turn up their noses at the phrase “team player” — whether it appears in a resume or a recommendation from a professional reference. These managers might assume that a team player is a follower instead of a leader, or, that the person doesn’t stand apart from the crowd and just blends into the background.

A team player is someone who works well in collaborative settings, gets along with managers and co-workers, provides and receives feedback gracefully and constructively, and cares more about seeing the team succeed than standing out alone.

These qualities are incredibly valuable because they foster a healthy, happy work environment in which ideas can be shared freely, and team, department, and organizational goals are always top priority. Being a team player and possessing these qualities is almost always a sign of maturity and emotional intelligence.

You can avoid most of the top reasons for new employee failure (including many identified in the Leadership IQ survey) simply by putting your focus on hiring team players.

How to start hiring team players

One of the great things about hiring team players is that the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

Team players are drawn to businesses with reputations for great company cultures, and few things foster a more positive work culture than a true team environment in which everyone feels valued. By focusing on building that kind of collaborative, welcoming atmosphere, you will be giving yourself the greatest recruitment tool possible for attracting the kind of candidates you want.

It’s building the foundation for a team-focused company culture that is most difficult.

Of course, there are genuine team players in any applicant pool. However, identifying and hiring those candidates can be tougher when there aren’t as many of them. Here are a few strategies you can use to seek out team players during the interview process.

Ask the right questions

 So many interview questions focus on the individual: individual skills, individual accomplishments, and individual goals. These questions are important to get to know your applicant and what they might be able to bring to the table.

However, it’s also a good idea to fit questions about teamwork and team mentality into the equation. For instance:

  • Ask questions about feedback, including how the person gives it and how they receive it. Ask them to talk about situations in which they improved their work through feedback from a colleague or manager, or needed to provide criticism or feedback to a team member, and how they went about doing it constructively.
  • Ask what defines a team player. Can a team player disagree with their manager? If so, what’s the best way to handle such disagreements? What attributes are valuable in a team player? What questions would they ask at a first meeting for a new team project? These questions can give you a good idea of how much the person has worked in teams before and how much they value that kind of working environment.
  • Ask how they define good leadership. Do they see a good leader as someone who has a strong vision and dictates their will to their employees and team members? Or, does a good leader try to foster communication, innovative ideas, and engagement within the team?

Pay close attention to the questions applicants ask

If you’re looking for a top-tier team player, then perhaps the most telling stage of the interview is the final part when you encourage the applicant to ask any questions they may have for you.

During this segment, pay attention to how many questions the candidate asks about purely personal subjects (pay, benefits, vacation, personal job responsibilities) versus bigger picture questions (such as company mission, leaders, team members, current projects, and future growth opportunities).

In most cases, the best team players aren’t the people who are applying for a job with you just because they need a paycheck. Team players are the people who are passionate about your business and what you do, and who want to play a part in that.

These candidates are already thinking about how they will fit into the bigger picture, and employees who are interested in seeing themselves in that context are the ones who are going to fit well with your company’s team culture.

Why Hiring Managers Never Call Back

Hiring managers have their hands full when there is a job position to be filled.

They sift through a lot of resumes and evaluate candidates to make sure that they make the very best decision and find the right person for the job. They definitely don’t have it easy, despite the fact that recruiters are the ones who engage in the initial screening and interview process.

While the recruiters get in touch with all the candidates who applied for a particular position and interview them in order to get a clear insight into whether he or she is suited for the job and can fit into the organization, it’s the hiring managers narrow down the list of interviewed candidates so that they can pick THE most qualified person who can truly contribute to their company.  It’s a tough job market and the number of applicants is always rising, so hiring managers often find it difficult to call back each and every one of those who are no longer in the running to let them know that they should continue their job search.

There are many reasons why hiring managers never call back candidates, but almost every recruiter agrees that these reasons are the most common ones for candidates not getting that long-awaited call.

1 – Lack of Organization

This may be the most common reason for hiring managers not letting candidates know that the job they applied for has been filled. Many companies are not organized well when it comes to who should be making that call and there is no clear agreement regarding this step among the responsible departments within a company.

Recruiters are the ones who sometimes call candidates back, but a recruiter rarely does that job unless they are given clear instructions to do so. Many hiring managers actually expect recruiters to continue doing what they are doing — recruiting candidates — without ever thinking that they’re the ones who should also inform the candidates that didn’t get the job.

This lack of organization doesn’t paint a pretty picture. Companies want candidates to have a good impression of them because they may reapply in the future, recommend the company to family and friends, or, they may even become customers.

This is why recruiters think it wise for hiring managers to take the time and follow up with candidates after the interviews so that they can improve their experience with the company and not lose any potential future prospects.

2 – No Candidate Follow-Up

Hiring managers expect candidates to follow up after the interview. Of course, doing so doesn’t guarantee they will get the job, but it’s certainly something that every recruiter and hiring manager appreciates.

When candidates follow up after their interview, it shows initiative and that they are truly interested in becoming a part of the company. It shows they really care about the job, and that is something recruiters and hiring managers value.

3 – High Volume of Applicants

Hiring managers are busy, especially when there’s an open job that needs to be filled. They receive a lot of applications — sometimes, an overwhelming number — and it can be nearly impossible to call back each and every candidate after their interview to let them know whether they are still being considered for the job or not.

Many recruiters think that responding to applicants and not leaving them hanging is the right thing to do, but unfortunately, some hiring managers don’t share that opinion. Of course, many do believe they should respond but they simply can’t take the time to follow up with all the candidates because of the high volume of applications they deal with.

4 – Keeping Their Options Open

Many hiring managers want to keep all of their options open, so they never call back candidates after their interview.

What does this mean, exactly? They may have a specific candidate in mind, but when they connect again and try to schedule another meeting, they find out that the candidate doesn’t want the job anymore.

This is where having an another candidate as a backup comes into play. Since they don’t want to keep their options open for when this happens, many recruiters decide to not call back everyone immediately after an interview in order to ensure they have backup candidates available.

Here’s another scenario: Perhaps a top candidate’s work experience turns out to be less than they made it appear to be, or maybe they were less-than-honest about their references. These are also reasons why hiring managers tend to prolong their decision-making process without letting any of the candidates know anything

In the end, recruiters and hiring managers want to be absolutely sure that they have found the right person for the job before they let their secondary candidates know they’re out of the running.

Final thoughts

There’s no denying that waiting for the call from the recruiter or hiring manager can be really frustrating.

For job seekers who get stressed waiting for a response back, it’s best to put the kibosh on the “what-if” thought process by pursuing online skill and career enhancement courses to gain an edge.

You can also get in touch with web tutors who create online training courses so that you are able to crack the next job interview without fail.

Talent Shortage? Maybe You Need a Good Employee Value Proposition

“There’s a shortage of talent.”

That viewpoint is constantly popping up in the news. From the Internet to print media, the message is everywhere these days, because many companies are struggling with how to attract the right people.

However the problem is not shortage of talent, but how to attract talent to your doorstep.

Not every company draws applicants like Google, Tesla, Facebook, or SpaceX. Some are trying to fix this problem by adding more benefits, or more ping-pong or foosball tables to the office, because they believe that will show how cool they are.

Nevertheless, none of these things work in the long term, and companies that think they do are not attracting the top talent that they want and need.

A simple solution to the talent problem

Most high performers already have a lucrative job, can interview with top companies, or have some other interesting options on the table.

So how can an organization without huge resources at its disposal add top talent to its workforce? This is a question many company owners and talent acquisition leaders are trying to answer every day.

The “simple solution” has a name: the Employee Value Proposition.

An Employee Value Proposition (EVP) can be defined as the benefits that employees accrue as a reward for the skills, capabilities, and experience they bring to an organization. It is a reward system commensurate with the employee’s performance.

The creation of an EVP is necessary for any company that is trying to attract top industry performers. An EVP focuses on the major reasons people want to work for an organization — the workplace culture, study leave, motivational vision, and a sense of inclusion and community.

When correctly implemented, a good EVP will help an organization attract top talent. An EVP is not only for luring top talent from outside an organization but is also useful for retaining those within the organization and preventing a high employee turnover rate.

Employee satisfaction involves more than an attractive salary and paid leave. Numerous reports prove that the reason people stay at their jobs often transcends money, and a properly formulated EVP will go a long way in helping management prioritize useful HR policies, create a strong and respectable brand, and build a happy and content workforce.

A valuable tool to win the War for Talent

EVPs have become a valuable tool and strategy that helps recruiters and employers win the War for Talent.

It’s important to note that employee satisfaction has evolved over the last decade. Even the average candidate today, as well as the the top talent, wants a job that is fulfilling and meaningful. Yes, today’s employees are looking beyond a job with just a good paycheck and great benefits.

Here are some of the big things employees want in a job today:

  • A sense of community and inclusion;
  • A caring and fulfilling culture;
  • Workplace vision, recognition and motivation;
  • Study leave and a chance for employee growth.

These are just some of the key things employees want in a job, and this is where an EVP come in.

It outlines the things that will help attract more talented people to your company. When implemented in the right way, an EVP has the ability to not only lure in industry stars but also become one of the tools that have a positive impact on employee retention.

As many surveys and reports have shown, candidates (especially Millennials) want fulfilling jobs that are about more than just the just the money. When an EVP is formulated properly, management can focus more on creating a strong employer brand, building a content, happy workforce, and implementing valuable HR policies that favor both the employer AND the employee.

Creating a unique and compelling EVPs

If you want to create a compelling and unique EVP, there are few things you need to focus on:

1. Get — and analyze — your data

Every strategy or plan should start with an analysis of the data you collected. First, you must look inward and try to understand what your current employees think about your organization.

Inquire internally about your employees’ thoughts and feelings about your organization. Why are employees staying with your organization? Why do they leave? Why do they quit after a month or two? Questions like these should be your main focus when collecting data.

This type of information is very easy to collect from employee surveys, focus groups, exit interviews, feedback from previous employees, retention metrics, onboarding surveys, and so on. You can also analyze this data for patterns and themes.

2. Find a central theme and involve your key people

The second stage is rooted in the engagement of your stakeholders. Talking to current employees and even potential employees is an important aspect of creating a credible EVP.

Involve the key people from your company. Groups should consist of members of the HR team, management, marketing, existing staff, and even potential employees.

Combine the marketing and HR teams. While the people from marketing bring insight about external perception of the company, HR engages the internal stakeholders. The main objective of this process is to point out the central themes of your EVP through discussion and feedback.

Remember, your present employees play a critical role in the decision-making process. Because an EVP strategy focuses on your employees as opposed to a marketing strategy that defines the brand and sells it to the public, care should be taken to really involve existing employees in the decision-making process.

The bottom line is this: You’re trying to create an environment where you honor and care for your workforce.

3. Develop an EVP specific to your brand

To generate a unique EVP that speaks to your brand, feedback from internal sources and prospective employees must be collected. After this, you need to outline the central themes of your proposition.

Here’s what you need: A compelling statement that embodies the essence of your employee experience and employer brand commitment. Whether it is super employee growth, a great work-life balance, employee recognition, or community service, focus on your strengths and think about how to build on them.

It’s essential that your EVP statement is founded on a strong employer brand and employee experience.

Finally, ensure that your Employee Value Proposition supports your HR strategy and practices. Without collaboration with the human resources team, your EVP will not deliver on its promises.

4. Implement and spread your EVP message

Your EVP message should flow throughout an employee’s work timeline, starting during the recruitment process and building in the onboarding stage. From career growth to an employee’s exit from the organization, the EVP must be implemented across all sectors.

Be clear about this: The way you communicate your EVP matters. If you fail to communicate it properly, it will never reach its full potential.

To spread your EVP message, it must go through the right channels. In dealing with people, communication should be properly dispersed to reach its desired effect. You want people to hear how great your organization is.

In everything, focus on improving and cementing your corporate brand. This brand gives weight to your EVP message. Also, take note of how well (or how poorly) your EVP is doing. What is its value, financial implications, and return on investment?

If you want to be sure your EVP generates maximum returns, build it around attributes that genuinely engage, attract, and retain the talent you seek. You should promote your corporate brand from the inside out, and don’t focus on outside HR marketing or employer branding activities just because they’re trendy and everybody is doing it.

Remember, great things always begin from the inside.

How can recruiters leverage a unique EVP?

Because a properly designed EVP outlines employee rewards, benefits, and policies that attract top talent, recruiters who utilize an EVP strategy have the upper hand in the War for Talent. Since potential candidates are more likely to trust what current and past employees say and feel about an organization, recruiters can harness the power of a well-formed EVP to build on that and continue to aim for the very best.

Remember, an Employee Value Proposition is not just about making promises to your potential employees, because in the end, your organization must fulfill those promises.

A smart EVP strategy always starts from within. It is always smart to build from within and turn your people into evangelists who preach how rewarding and fulfilling your organization is.

Final thoughts

Having a strong Employee Value Proposition on paper is great, but you also need to implement it AND live it. Don’t forget to promise and deliver. If you state in your EVP that you offer the best learning possibilities in the market, you need to deliver on that.

It is also important to review the EVP annually; it’s a great way to ensure that the EVP still reflects the employee’s changing experience. People and companies are still evolving, and your EVP should reflect that too.

The career and professional goals of every employee should be considered in the EVP program. Why? Because when an organization’s EVP matches what employees’ value in their work, the program will be 100 percent successful.

That’s when an employer can say with confidence that they have motivated and committed employees who will go the extra mile to ensure the organization is successful. Employees will tell anyone who’s listening that their job is fulfilling and rewarding.

An Employee Value Proposition is a great tool to help you attract and retain the right talent. Focusing only on adding more benefits, or buying more foosball or ping-pong tables, will never replace a good EVP.

Another Year of Crappy Raises. Should It Matter to Recruiters?

Every summer for nine years, I have written a blog post that nobody really wants to read. That’s because it always seems to give the same bad news — that American companies will again be giving employees, on average, a 3 percent pay raise in the coming year.

This year is no different.

A new survey just released by from Willis Towers Watson, “a leading global advisory, broking and solutions company,” found that U.S. employers say that they expect to hold the line on pay raises for their employees — again — in 2018.

The survey, which was conducted by Willis Towers Watson Data Services, found that virtually all respondents (99 percent) plan to give employees raises next year. That’s the good news. The bad news is that salaries for exempt (i.e., professional), non-management employees will increase 3.0 percent — the same increase they received in each of the past three years.

Employers are also planning 3 percent average salary increases for management and non-exempt employees. Executives can expect slightly larger raises — 3.1 percent in 2018, slightly less than executives received this year and in 2016.

What do 3% raises do to recruiting?

As someone who has been in the workforce managing people for a long time, I know first hand that a 3 percent average raise isn’t much of a raise at all because it doesn’t give much room to truly reward high levels of performance.

But, another year of 3 percent raises makes you wonder: How can employees continue to get such small raises despite record corporate profits and the continuing chatter from recruiters about their inability to find enough skilled talent?

Earlier this month, MarketWatch.com dug into this odd dichotomy in a post titled, Companies to Workers: We’re Hiring, But Don’t Expect a Big Raise. They wrote:

Companies big and small are rushing to fill a near record number of job openings, but what they aren’t doing is offering bigger paydays.

The economy added an impressive 209,000 jobs in July to drive the unemployment rate back down to a 16-year low of 4.3 percent. Yet even the tightest labor market in years hasn’t translated into hefty raises for most Americans.”

A major part of the problem, according to MarketWatch, is that many of the jobs being created don’t pay very well. For example:

In July, restaurants generated one-quarter of the new jobs. Most restaurant positions pay well below the average hourly rate for U.S. workers, however.

“Professional” firms and health care providers also hired lots of workers in July and these white-collar jobs usually pay quite well, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. Many new health care jobs, for example, involve lower paid social work or assistance for the elderly. This is a big reason why it’s so hard to find workers.”

You can’t believe the unemployment rate

Here’s my take: There’s a big disconnect between recruiting/hiring and the meager raises employees have been getting, and that’s the hallmark of our tepid recovery from the Great Recession. As an Associated Press report pointed out in July:

Even with June’s strong hiring, average hourly pay rose just 2.5 percent from a year earlier. The last time the unemployment rate was this low, wages were rising by roughly 4 percent. Normally, as the number of unemployed dwindles, employers raise pay to attract job seekers.

Economists offer a number of explanations for why that dynamic hasn’t yet kicked in.

One factor: The influx of job seekers last month — who had previously been on the sidelines, not counted as unemployed — might have offset some upward wage pressures.”

This follows my premise that the way the Bureau of Labor Statistics measures unemployment needs to be seriously revamped to correctly measure the many varied ways that people work in today’s economy.

Nick Bunker, a senior policy analyst at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, put it perfectly when he said, “There’s more people willing to work than the unemployment rate would have you believe.” 

Employers may need to pay more – just not next year

What all this means for recruiters is pretty simple:

Your employee churn factor, whether it is low or high, good or bad, probably won’t change much next year in the face of yet another 3 percent annual raise. 

People who were going to leave because they want to get paid better are still going to leave, and those who are OK with their pay, or too timid to make a move, will stay put.

For recruiters and hiring managers, your job hasn’t changed. Whatever recruiting and hiring parameters you work under today will probably be the same next year, too.

For workers who see huge corporate profits and a stock markets at record levels, 3 percent raises suck, and it kills me to think we have a generation of employees who don’t really know anything different. At some point, I’m sure, employers will have to pay more to keep their top talent. That’s bound to happen as the law of supply and demand becomes a bigger issue for CEOs.

Yes, employers will eventually have to dig in and pay more to keep their talent happy. It just won’t happen next year.

About the survey: The Willis Towers Watson Data Services Salary Budget Survey was conducted between April and July 2017, and includes responses from 819 companies representing a cross section of industries. The survey report provides data on actual salary budget increase percentages for the past and current years, along with projected increases for next year.

Personal Data, Public Record: What hiQ v. LinkedIn Means for Recruiting and Hiring.

Throughout its history, LinkedIn has slowly, albeit deliberately, evolved from what used to be a fairly innocuous social network into one of the internet’s most extensive sources of personal data.

Some of this, of course, is inevitable, given LinkedIn’s longevity on the market – it’s been collecting personally identifiable data (er, “professional information”) for well over a dozen years now, on hundreds of millions of individual users all over the world. Much of this has been perpetuated by people like career coaches and, yes, recruitment bloggers.

We’ve collectively perpetuated this myth that if you don’t have a LinkedIn profile – and an optimized one, at that – you pretty much don’t exist professionally. It’s been a self-fulfilling prophesy; while LinkedIn has by no means replaced the resume, its ubiquity in today’s job search is similar.

Unlike the resume it purports to augment (or displace), however, the dozens of self-reported data points the site collects in order to effectively set up an account and create a profile have created one of the most valuable assets in all of technology.

Anti-Trust: Who Owns Your Personal Data?

The company, of course, sold for $28 billion to Microsoft last summer, and Redmond certainly didn’t buy LinkedIn because they wanted a “professional network” populated only by connections that the user really knows in real life.

That would be a fairly whopping valuation for a digital Rolodex, if the company’s traditional party line about privacy was to be believed. But of course, it was that treasure trove of PID that Clippy and Co. was really after , and ultimately, sufficient justification for the pricey premium Satya and friends shelled out.

Its proprietary data has already become an integral component of many Microsoft products, such as Office 365 and Dynamics; it’s also given birth to new product lines and profit possibilities, such as Microsoft Talent, released last month to little fanfare, albeit most ATS vendors.

Unlike Google, whose much hyped Hire product explicitly launched to serve a very select group of small businesses who are already Google Cloud customers, Microsoft’s recently released ATS is aimed squarely at the lucrative enterprise market.

While it’s not revolutionary (or even particularly innovative), Microsoft Talent’s hiring module, which is more or less Dynamics (ugh), with some recruiting features bolted on, it requires no implementation (albeit, a fair bit of migration) and is effectively already installed on every enterprise instance of Microsoft’s productivity suite.

Of course, HR Technology is a cutthroat, competitive space, but LinkedIn data – assuming, of course, that this data is proprietary – obviously offers a huge differentiator and significant selling point for Microsoft’s aspirations for taking over talent. LinkedIn has always been a heavily walled garden, its recently released user agreement and terms of service effectively shut the data door to all third parties, particularly those that profit from or monetize the PID the company asserts is its exclusive intellectual property.

This includes, most prominently, the entire subset of startups in the profile aggregation space, particularly those specifically designed for sourcing and recruiting.

The company revoked API access from dozens of vendors, particularly by cutting off calls through Chrome extensions (game on, Google), which have more or less created a precedent for LinkedIn’s ability to shut out the competition from the online profiles – and professional footprints – of its millions of global end users.

This policy, without a doubt, would obviously help grab HCM market share if it were extended to granting access to LinkedIn data exclusively to Microsoft enterprise end users – a direction the Redmond based behemoth seemed to certainly be headed in the wake of Microsoft Talent’s recent debut.

LinkedIn, Tear Down This Wall.

For Microsoft, its greatest asset isn’t people; it’s the data about those people that really matters most. Unfortunately for Microsoft, however, a US federal judge on Monday ruled that much of this data isn’t exclusively theirs, in a severe blow to Clippy’s product roadmap and a significant win for the HR Technology industry and sourcing and recruiting professions (and civil libertarians, for that matter).

The New York Times has reported that U.S. District Judge Edward Chen “granted a preliminary injunction request brought by hiQ Labs, and ordered LinkedIn to remove within 24 hours any technology preventing hiQ from accessing public profiles.”

RecruitingDaily has obtained a copy of the full injunction, originally filed June 7 in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California. And, honestly, we’ve had it for a while; while it’s always had the potential to be precedent setting, the fact that LinkedIn misappropriates user data, uses legal wrangling and intimidation to effectively shut down competitors and inconsistently enforces its own policies while selectively blocking out third parties with little to no warning just didn’t feel like news anymore.

You can read the entire brief below, but essentially hiQ, if you’re not familiar, is described in the filing as “a tech startup which collects and analyzes public profile information on LinkedIn in order to provide its clients – mostly large companies – with insights about their employees, such as which employees are likely to be poached by a competitor or which skills employees have.”

This statement, obviously, could describe dozens of emerging and established talent technology startups, many of which rely heavily on LinkedIn’s public data in order to populate their databases and train their algorithms; in fact, pretty much any profile aggregator, paid or otherwise, is heavily reliant on LinkedIn’s data. I could name a bunch of companies in this category – many of which are far more established and better funded than hiQ – but you’re probably already familiar with many of them.

To date, they’ve assured talent organizations and employers that because they only utilize publicly available data and don’t actually scrape or index LinkedIn’s proprietary data, their product is fully compliant and their business model perfectly legal. hiQ made a similar argument in its initial injunction, pointing out:

“hiQ does not analyze the private sections of LinkedIn, such as profile information that is only visible when you are signed in as a member or member private data that is visible only when you are “connected” to a member. Rather, the information that is at issue here is wholly public information visible to anyone with an internet connection.”

The truth of the matter is, there was no precedent – and therefore, no guarantees – that products like Full Contact, Hiretual, Entelo, Prophet, etc. were legal, despite their protestations and assertions to the contrary.

That the court established a precedent for Microsoft to “remove all barriers” from third party data companies accessing public LinkedIn data is important simply because, well, the central question of the private ownership of the site’s public profiles had not yet been defined by the courts.

For now, at least, this ruling means that companies formerly operating in a legal gray area now have black and white case Federal case law around if – and how – they can utilize LinkedIn profile data.

The Dynamics of Data: Finally, A Legal Precedent for LinkedIn Profiles.

While the injunction granted by Judge Chen is merely preliminary, the ramifications are significant – and a huge victory not only for profile aggregators, but also anyone who has ever created a public profile on this and (ostensibly) similar social sites: it essentially establishes that one’s personal information cannot be fully proprietary intellectual property.

As hiQ argued in the injunction, by denying third party services access to its public data, they are not, as the professional network’s legal team has long argued, “harming LinkedIn’s members,” but instead is providing those members “precisely the type of professional and employment opportunities that lead LinkedIn members to make those profiles public in the first place,” provided that these services do not represent a “substitute social network or job posting forum” (sorry, TalentBin by Monster).

This means that if a product can demonstratively add value to job seekers or employers, than it should be open season on public profile data, given the case was filed on anti-trust grounds, with hiQ accusing LinkedIn’s motives of being “obviously anticompetitive.”

And for good reason.

Without exclusivity to profile data, and sufficient legal ambiguity to justify its long-established precedent of shutting down the competition through legal threats, intimidation and injunction notices, LinkedIn will actually have to develop some form of competitive differentiation and reinvest in developing new features and functions beyond the constant UI/UX changes in order to maintain its current market share in sourcing and recruiting.

LinkedIn will have to somehow justify its exorbitant price tag to both its corporate parent and its customers now that the playing field has been effectively leveled; given the fact they’ve historically relied more on their product counsel then their product managers to determine their product roadmap, it remains to be seen whether they can outmaneuver the competition they’re obviously so afraid of, hiQ and otherwise. And all I can say is, game on.

Of course, rather than, you know, giving into inevitability, bulking up its engineering team and bunkering in against competitive threats, LinkedIn is, instead, challenging the decision in court; a spokeswoman told the New York Times, “We will continue to fight to protect our members’ ability to control the information they make available on LinkedIn.”

With yesterday’s initial ruling, however, it looks as if those members might finally have that ability, after all. Which is good news for everyone, of course, except for LinkedIn.

Karma’s a bitch like that.

Bad Press Can Kill a Company’s Reputation – AND Its Recruiting

Given all the recent chatter about Google after an engineer got fired for writing a diversity manifesto, it makes you wonder — what does a polarizing event like that do for a company’s brand and reputation?

Well, a recent CareerBuilder survey dug into this very topic, and it found that negative publicity like that not only can severely damage a company’s brand and reputation, it also hurts its ability to recruit talent.

The survey found that 71 percent of U.S. workers would NOT apply to a company experiencing negative press, and female workers felt the most strongly about it with 79 percent saying they felt that way, compared to 61 percent for their male counterparts.

Yes, that’s what a bad reputation can do for your company.

It’s all about trust and loyalty

“In today’s 24/7 news cycle and social media world, earning and maintaining a good reputation can be a challenge,” said Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder, in a press release about the survey.

She added:

It’s easier than ever before for job seekers to research potential employers. Employers that value transparency and take a proactive approach to issues or complaints will have a better chance of securing trust and loyalty and maintaining a positive reputation that can strengthen their recruitment and retention strategies.”

The national survey, which was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder from May 24 to June 16, 2017, included representative samples of 2,369 full-time employers and 3,462 full-time U.S. workers across industries and company sizes in the private sector.

Bad publicity, the CareerBuilder analysis notes, can cause a serious ripple effect across companies — as Google is now feeling after the company’s recent decision to fire an engineer who penned a memo that called into question a number of issues inside the company.

Negative publicity hits candidates hard

The survey just showed how much of a ripple a decision like the one Google made can cause:

  • More than a quarter of employers (26 percent) say their company has experienced negative publicity, resulting in a hit to their hiring process.
  • Nearly two-thirds (61 percent) of these employers report fewer job offers being accepted, fewer candidate referrals from employees and fewer job applications as a result of the negative publicity.
  • Other negative impacts to the business that were mentioned by survey participants include lower employee morale, higher voluntary employee turnover and a decline in sales.

But here’s an interesting wrinkle that the survey also revealed: although bad publicity may turn off candidates from applying, it rarely deters current workers from leaving their jobs. Less than 1 in 10 workers (6 percent) say they have left a company because of negative publicity.

In other words, according to the survey data, Google’s big worry in the wake of it’s latest controversy isn’t in losing staff, it’s in its diminished ability to compete with other Silicon Valley companies for the very best talent.

There’s a flip side when companies get good PR

What’s interesting about the CareerBuilder survey is that it just didn’t focus on how negative publicity impacts companies; it also asked what employees experienced when their employer received good or positive press coverage.

According to the survey, nearly 4 in 5 employers who have experienced positive press have seen beneficial impacts such as:

  • Higher morale among employees (42 percent);
  • Employees more likely to share positive things about the company on social media channels (36 percent);
  • A boost in sales (36 percent);
  • More job applications (32 percent);
  • More job candidate referrals from employees (22 percent);
  • More accepted job offers (21 percent); and,
  • Lower voluntary turnover (19 percent).

Recruiting at Google just got a whole lot tougher

Here’s my take: This survey makes it clear that companies that get negative press and damage their reputation really take a hit when it comes to their hiring process.

Although that may be the case with a regular company, the big question when it comes to a hot, in-demand employer like Google is this — will it really matter when you’re a place where everyone wants to work?

Everybody has an opinion about how Google handled the situation with the engineer they fired, and my view is that company management showed they really don’t have a great commitment to diverse opinions and free speech despite having values that say that they do.

This is NOT a good front to present to the world, especially if you’re fighting other Silicon Valley companies for top of the line talent. In fact, I’d say that this controversy has not only damaged the company’s reputation but also made the job of Google’s recruiting team a whole lot tougher.

As my friend and HR guru Kris Dunn put it in his HR Capitalist blog:

The most interesting thing I’ve seen about this case is polling on whether the engineer should have been fired across the major tech companies in America. Blind, an anonymous corporate chat app, asked its users if they thought Google should have fired him over 4,000 from different companies weighed in.

Perhaps most pertinently, 441 Google employees responded. Of them, more than half  – 56 percent to be precise– said they didn’t think it was right for the company to fire the guy.”

In other words, Google’s own workforce is split on whether the company did the right thing, and in fact, leans more towards the notion that management pretty much screwed this one up.

That’s how good company reputations can turn bad in a hurry.

They need all the help they can get

By the way, CareerBuilder released this poll in late July, and honestly, it didn’t really grab me then. Well, add a few weeks, throw in a big Google controversy and, WHAM, suddenly you have a survey that is not only intriguing but well ahead of the curve too.

Google may offer all the goodies and perks in the world, and it may be a cool workplace with a solid reputation, but one bad controversy later — one that shows no sign of settling down — and you can see just what this survey was getting at, in real time, to one of America’s best known companies.

So keep a good thought for Google’s recruiters, because if this survey holds true, they’re probably going to need all the help they can get.

Will Recruiters Bite When Your Email Address is Seriously Uncool?

When I was 11, I collected rubber ducks, my favorite color was purple, and Blink-182 was trendy. So behold, my first email address — [email protected].

Tragically, this email address did not stand the test of time.

You too have probably come to the realization that your email address from the early 2000s is no longer cool. If you haven’t, allow me to drop some knowledge on you — no matter how impressive your credentials are, absolutely no one will take you seriously if you’re emailing them from [email protected].

Sorry, but that’s the world we live in.

If this is the first you’re hearing of this, have no fear. It’s pretty easy to set up a new email account. Your life does not have to be defined by your first email address, as long as you’re not the guy from this Quora thread who used [email protected].

There’s no recovering from that, but for everyone else, there is hope for you yet.

What does your email address tell recruiters?

If you’re a job seeker, your email address is one of the first touch points a hiring manager will have with you. It’s their first impression of your personal brand, and if your personal brand is baller4lyfe69, then all the power to you. But if you think your email address could be ruining you professionally and you’re not sure how or why, you’ve come to the right place.

As we all know, reveling in the mistakes of others never fails to make you feel better about your own, but you can also learn a thing or two in the process. With that in mind, let’s examine some of the most cringe-worthy email addresses of all time.

Pro tip: Don’t put 69 in your email address (if you don’t know why, I’m not here to explain that to you). But the real issue with this email address is the lack of any distinct identifiers.

The world is teeming with fat booty cuties. A recruiter would have no way of knowing which fat booty cutie the email was coming from, so they might end up giving the job to the wrong fat booty cutie.

Avoid confusion by letting your fat booty speak for itself, and use an email address with your first and last name in it instead.

Yes, you need to keep it simple

This email address succeeds where the last one fails because most people would remember meeting the candidate who was half shark, half girl. But regardless of your demographic background, it’s best to avoid referencing it in your email address.

Recruiters don’t need to know details about your age, religion, or great white shark parents to decide whether you’re qualified for the job. All in all, just keep it simple. First of all, change your password. Second of all, this email address simultaneously commits both of the offenses outlined above.

But more importantly, it highlights what is probably the most common email address faux pas in 2017 — it uses a distinctly unsexy hosting site.

What’s your hosting site? Do you use Gmail? Yahoo? God forbid, Hotmail? Sure, some employers probably couldn’t care less. But how about this CEO who said:

“If an applicant applies for a job with us and is still using Hotmail or Yahoo for email, they’re immediately eliminated.”

Don’t want to take his word for it? Here are the results of our recent Twitter poll on this topic: Help in landing that dream job

s you can see, the company email address got the most votes. But if you’re applying for jobs, you might want to think twice before listing that address on your resumé.

It’s likely that your employer has access to that account, so things could get awkward. You’re better off using a personal domain or a Gmail account for your job search.

If you have a personal vendetta against Gmail and making your own domain sounds like too much work, have no fear. We did another poll for some more hosting sites:Verizon was also included in this poll and didn’t get enough votes to be visible on this chart. But we do see some vindication for Yahoo after all!

So if you’re thinking “Holy shit, I just applied to 30 jobs from [email protected],” don’t panic. The good news is that setting up a new email address is easy and only takes a few minutes.

When job candidates make the switch, it puts them one step closer to landing that dream job.

Insights on a Candidate-Driven Market

UNLESS you’ve been doing the Rip Van Winkle act for the last 10 years, you know that finding a job has changed in a many ways both big and small.
But I really hadn’t focused on just how much the job search process had evolved until I saw this guide from Vienna-based kununu (they say they’re “the original employer review and ratings platform committed to creating transparency in the workplace”) titled The New Expectations of People Looking for Jobs.
It’s based on research from kununu, and it breaks the job market into “then” (2007) versus “now” (2017), and they pick 2007 to compare to because that “marked the beginning of the most recent U.S. recession. The economy lost more than 2.6 million jobs by 2009.”
They also note that the research makes it clear that “companies need to adjust the hiring processes to meet the new expectations of job seekers and successfully attract talent.”

What job seekers are thinking

Some of the statistics that kununu is providing to support The New Expectations of People Looking for Jobs are interesting, but they’re not anything that most recruiters and talent acquisition professionals haven’t seen before. For example:
  • Nearly a third (30 percent) of job seekers say it’s difficult to receive honest information about the day-day experience of a job.
  • Job seekers use up to 16 different sources in their job search (including internet search, career pages, social media, review sites, and more).
  • Half of all job seekers (52 percent) say that the No. 1 frustration during the job search is the lack of response from employers.
  • Some 60 percent of job seekers said they wait less than two weeks to hear back from the employer before considering it a lost cause and moving on to another.
  • Half of job hunters (51 percent) cited opportunity for professional development as the No. 1 factor influencing their decision to accept a job, and,
  • A whopping 69 percent of job seekers consider “company culture” to be critical or very important when considering a job — and 78 percent of Millennials feel the same way.

Are we REALLY in a “candidate-driven” job market?

Here’s my take: The insights in The New Expectations of People Looking for Jobs won’t be all that surprising to recruiters, but I found that seeing the many changes in how people hunt for a job today, as compared to 10 years ago, is a great lesson in how change creeps up on us all.
When you see a decade’s worth of changes laid out in one document, well, it tells you how much recruiting and talent acquisition has changed, too. If you’re like me, you’ll find that The New Expectations of People Looking for Jobs is worth digging into for that alone.
But one thing in the document kept bothering me, like something that has gotten into my shoe and makes walking a pain. It’s the premise of the paper that states categorically that:
“We are now in a “candidate-driven market” and the power has shifted from the employer to the job seeker.”
While the job market has grown steadily since the bottom of the Great Recession, I’d hardly say that “the power has shifted from the employer to the job seeker.” If that’s the case, why haven’t wages rebounded the way they should after a recession? And why are there so many qualified job seekers who can’t find a decent job? I’m related to three highly educated Millennials who all work but also are all greatly underemployed and can’t seem to find anything better.
Ask them, and a whole lot of other people who are unemployed, underemployed, or working a gig or as a temp, if they feel that “the power has shifted … to the job seeker.”
I hear this all the time, but the anecdotal evidence — what you hear from talking to people — is that the unemployment rate doesn’t accurately reflect the state of the U.S. job market. In fact, I’ve made the case for quite some time that the Labor Department has been asleep at the switch by not doing a major overhaul of their employment statistics to better reflect the many and varied ways that people work here in second decade of the 21 Century.
Frankly, I don’t think the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ numbers do that — and they really need to.

Today’s job market isn’t anything like the dotcom boom

I also don’t feel the hunger of companies to hire people today that I did during the dotcom boom from 1995 to 2001. Back then, it seemed like jobs were falling from trees like overripe fruit in your neighbor’s backyard.
I was hiring people then, and I myself got hired during that period. It was a time where companies were ready and willing to take a chance on someone if they had the right skills even through they didn’t have the actual title or experience.
In other words, they were desperate to find good people back then and willing to pay whatever was needed to land them. How often can you say that today, and without that, can you really say we’re in a candidate-driven market?
None of this should detract from the interesting and worthwhile information that kununu provides in The New Expectations of People Looking for Jobs, and you should take a look at it to see for yourself. There’s a lot of good stuff there, and you shouldn’t lose sight of that.
But I don’t buy for a minute that we’re in a market where candidates have the upper hand. Just talk to regular people who are out there looking and you’ll see what I mean.

Senior Recruiter, Junior Recruiter, It Doesn’t Pay to Ever “Diss” a Recruiter

How many times did you hear, “You don’t have enough experience.” while looking for your first job?

I heard that statement many times during my search. It was a strange situation. I didn’t have enough experience for them, but I couldn’t get any because many of them would only hire people with experience.

It was a Catch-22.

We all start our careers somewhere, and most of us start without any experience after finishing school and in a junior position. Slowly, we gained more experience from our more senior colleagues, mentors, and from all the mistakes that we made along the way.

We grew into more senior roles.

You can’t become a senior member of an organization if you don’t have any experience. None of us immediately started in a senior role without, first, learning our craft. This is applicable not only to recruiters but to other professions, too. But we often forget about that first year when we struggled trying to find our place.

Don’t forget where you came from

Recently, I saw a number of LinkedIn posts where people shared that junior recruiters don’t have enough experience to interview managers and directors. One post, in particular, stuck in my mind. A manager believed that he should speak only with the senior recruiter and not the junior one, and he shared some details from his last interview.

He showed up for an interview for a new position, but when he found out that the junior recruiter would be the one conducting his interview him, he left. And based on that LinkedIn post, he seemed pretty proud of it. He left because the junior recruiter, in his opinion, did not have enough skills to assess his experience, and that only a senior recruiter could understand that.

My first reaction after I read that post was, “Is he serious?” followed by “Is he really a senior person?” because he’s not acting like one. Well, I can’t lie; my first reaction was something that I can’t post here.

I was curious about what other recruiters thought about this, so I shared his post and asked others if they had faced something like this in their careers.

I was lucky that I never had, but I remembered one situation that happened to one of my colleagues many years ago at a previous job. She was supposed to have an interview with a senior manager, but the manager canceled the interview with her because he was expecting to speak with a senior recruiter.

Every interaction is an interview

At that time, her job title was “junior recruiter,” and just because of that title, he canceled it. The recruiting team, as a whole, refused his request, but to be honest, I still regret not having called him directly to share my feedback. But sometimes you can’t do this sort of thing because your actions affect the reputation of the entire team.

The manager that posted that comment that I mentioned before left the interview, and he didn’t just leave he but ran away, as he described it in his post. He could have previously had a similar bad experience that helped fuel his strong reaction in this case, but I don’t think that all recruiters act badly.

If he had 20 interviews with 20 different recruiters and got the same result, I would ask myself if the problem wasn’t with his attitude, or how he acts in interviews. That’s because in my book, if the result is always the same, the problem doesn’t lie on the side of the recruiters.

Every interaction we have with others is a mini interview. You never know when you’ll meet them again, so that first impression is important. Everyone has messed up a few of these interactions in their life, and and if that  leads to some companies barring their doors to you, well, that’s life.

But remember: The people you meet in life could sit on the other side of the table one day. And they will have the power to decide if you get that new job or not. That’s why a good reputation is incredibly valuable and important.

I’m curious as to what that “interview runner” would say if the recruiter who was cancelled hadn’t been a young person, but instead, had been an experienced person in their 50s. Maybe age, and not the job title, was a deciding factor for that “runner.”  

It’s all about respect

If you think that sharing these posts with others is the right thing to do, here are a few things you should know:

  • These posts are not funny, even if you try to make them sound funny. The only thing you are doing is killing your personal brand.
  • With every “like” you get, your chances of getting a new job shrink a little. Every “like” under your post makes it more visible to others. And if you believe that some recruiter will call you because of that post, think again. Most of us support other recruiters and nobody wants to work with haters or invite them in. And who sees these posts? The people who are on LinkedIn 24/7 — the recruiters.
  • People like to share, and recruiters are no exception. We all share and we certainly share the bad experiences, too.
  • If you post something similar to our “runner,” you will be looking for a new job at least 3-4 times longer than other people with similar skills. And, it’s likely you will only last 2-3 years in that position. I know that because I did a little research on all the “haters” that I saw on LinkedIn over the last 12 months.
  • Even a junior recruiter can put a small note into the ATS that a candidate is not a good fit for the company. That note will be connected with your name for a long time. So even if that recruiter is working somewhere else, the other recruiters from that company will still see the note. And that small note could turn your application into a rejection.
  • Recruiters change jobs, too. If you post some hate about a recruiter who is working for Company A, then don’t expect different treatment when he or she starts working at Company B.
  • It’s all about “karma“ (yes, sometimes it IS working).

I’m curious what these people who are sharing these posts about bad recruiters are going to post about after they go through an interview with a Chat Bot or Artificial Intelligence. How senior does the AI needs to be? Two years, four years, or maybe more?

Final Thoughts

A job title is only a title. It doesn’t have magical power to turn a person into someone senior and experienced.

The thing that REALLY matters is how that person treats you in the interview. If you’re running from interviews because the interviewer has a junior title, then really, you’re not acting like a “senior” person.

It’s important to treat the cleaning lady with the same respect and courtesy as you treat the CEO. And yes, junior recruiters really DO deserve the same respect as everybody else.

In other words, if you would want to be treated as a “senior candidate,” start acting like one.

What Tech Talent Really Wants May Shock You

Let’s just get right down to it; everyone wants the best bang for their buck. Work hard, get paid. Sure it’s cliche but how many times have you heard someone say, “I never considered a career move until they told me the salary increase.” However, when thinking about the offer a candidate “can’t refuse,” it’s not all about the money. In fact, according to an article on FastCompany, salary only typically accounts for only about 70% of an employee’s total compensation. The other 30% is made up of benefits. However, they may not be the benefits you think.

4 Benefits That Attract Tech Talent

1. Open Source Projects

Open Source; source code that is open to everyone and allows tech talent to achieve more. It also implies a certain list of values. OpenSource.com wrote,

“Open source projects, products, or initiatives are those that embrace and celebrate open exchange, collaborative participation, rapid prototyping, transparency, meritocracy, and community development.”

The other piece is that by allowing Coders to work cooperatively, it ensures a more quality product, helps them build their skills and allows them to give back to the developer community. Say this five times, developing developers.

You may be thinking, “If you want to work on Open Source projects, go for it!” but, most companies have agreements in place that prohibits developers from working on anything outside the company. Also, many employee contracts have a restrictive policy that states that the company owns anything they produce they work for. So when recruiting, let your tech talent know explicitly if your company embraces an Open Source culture.

2.  Professional Development

I know that I am dating myself, but when I first started recruiting, I had an excess of COBOL and Mainframe developers (whose skills were completely outdated). As companies were leaving Mainframe and going to Client Server, developers found themselves in the dust. Would it have been so hard to train the existing and loyal team on the new software they were implementing rather than just out with the old and in with the new? In today’s market, candidates are well aware that this is a potential risk. That is why they want to work for a company that will invest in them to be the best they can be in the current market and beyond.

3.  Vacation Time and Work Life Balance

Gone are the days when Developers would sit in a dark, dank room in the basement with no luxuries other than RedBull and Starbucks to allow them to code for 18 hours a day. Not only do developers want work life balance, but it’s necessary for Developers to be at their best. Itamar Turner-Trauring, a contributor to CodeWithoutRules.com, stated:

“Working a reasonable, limited work week will help focus you on becoming a more productive programmer rather than trying to solve problems the hard, slow way.”

4.  Honesty

Honesty should definitely be a part of your hiring policy. If the company has a culture where everyone shows up an hour early and stays an hour late – let the candidate know. If most of the developers stay strapped to their desk during the workday – let the candidate know. Most people are afraid to get real about what the company culture is. But the truth of the matter is, if you are trying to avoid reality you are wasting your time as well as the candidates. And really, if your company isn’t presenting it’s “real” self then maybe the problem is employer branding and the candidates you’re attracting are all wrong to begin with – but that’s another topic for another day.

 

Basically, Coders, Developers and the like, all want the same thing the rest of us do. Check out the breakdown below.

2017 survey by Stack Overflow:

Sure, we can make the case that the list doesn’t include every aspect of what attracts tech talent. Everyone’s needs are personal to them. Just remember; better benefits mean better employees, a better company and ultimately the attraction of better candidates.

A big thanks to getTalent for sponsoring this article and don’t forget to check out this awesome webinar featuring Matt Charney where he gave us even more tips for finding tech talent.

 

The 5 Stages of Recruiter Grief

Each year, those of us who still have some burning passion for Hollywood (for whatever reason), gather to watch the Oscars.

For 3-4 televised hours, there’s excessive backscratching and a celebration of the Cult of Personality going on. Inevitably at some point in the show, there is a tribute to those in the industry who have passed on since the last gathering of the cinematic lemmings.

In the music ecosystem, its very much the same, and we’ll likely see tributes for the Chester Benningtons of the world at the next Grammys. Rest in peace, Chester Bennington, but I’m not sure why people are acting as Led Zeppelin‘s surviving members just went down in flames.

But I digress; that’s not the point.

Somehow, this all got me thinking about the families, co-workers and fans, and what they go through when they lose someone they were fond of. Having been there myself, and having been a Psych major back in college, I was already familiar with the Kubler-Ross stages of grief and bereavement. I wondered what the equivalent for this would be in the recruiting world, since we lack not for drama and a plethora of interesting situations to find ourselves in with this profession of ours.

The irony of me writing about this is not lost on anyone who has known me for a long time.

When the perfect candidate goes south

At times, I’m a bit neurotic and emotionally-driven. It’s served me well over the years, but I have figured out a balance that works. I’ve also learned to just shut the hell up in meetings sometimes. You decide which has been more beneficial.

So, here’s the scenario at hand: Earlier this year I had been working on a role for a fairly senior level position. The search had dragged on, and after a few false alarms with strong candidates, I hadn’t been able to secure the right person. But just as I was slowly starting to lose my mind on what appeared initially to be a run of the mill search, I had the perfect candidate referred to me.

This candidate — let’s call him John Doe — hit on all the cylinders — industry experience, senior-level presence, affordable, the trifecta, really. It’s one of those moments that recruiters have more often than we realize or care to admit. We get pushed to the very brink of what we think is our breaking point, only to be pulled back in like Michael Corleone.

Whee! It’s all better again — except when it’s not.

To make a long story short (and protect the innocent), the background check comes back with an offense that would have been easily found in the top 10 Google search results. And while probably not something that is a career killer, there was no way it was going to work for this very specific role.

Well, “there goes the neighborhood, back to scratch” was my thought, but not before having to walk through my own Kubler-Ross stages of grief with this position.

1 – Denial

This couldn’t possibly be happening. This was the absolute perfect candidate from a more that casual acquaintance that had no idea about the offense either.

I exaggerate in no way when I say that I checked the SSN and all the identifier points at minimum of seven (7) times. Part of that was pure disbelief, and part was Type A – OCD if we’re being honest.

2 – Anger

I was furious. “How could you NOT tell me about this?!” was my initial reaction.

It’s hard to fathom, because who thinks that things won’t show up on a background check? And if the concern was to just “see what happens,” and then explain it when it comes up, that’s no good either. I want to be ahead of things like this, and I was seeing red because I was at a dead end once again.

It’s self-serving, I know, but that wasn’t the point. I felt I had my trust betrayed, and that’s one of the things in my line of work that I cannot get past — a violation of trust.

3 – Bargaining

Of all the phases in the Kubler-Ross theory, this is toughest one because it does no good to bargain with yourself since that doesn’t move the needle, and good luck passing this through HR or the department’s VP.

But hell, I was willing to sacrifice a few other sure-thing deals for this one that had become the bane of my existence.

4 – Depression

There’s nothing quite as painful in a recruiter’s world as the candidate who got away.

Like it or not, as recruiters, we’re almost conditioned, in a Pavlovian way, to get that adrenaline shot when filling an impossible role. Any recruiter that doesn’t get that isn’t in the right profession.

The flip side of this proverbial “ringing of the bell” is that not getting the reward for the work is soul-crushing — and I dare you to go look at the list of positions you still need to work on after this.

It’s easily to slip into a paralysis of sorts after this kind of thing happens, particularly if you are the kind who “leaves it all on the field.”

5 – Acceptance

At the end of the day (or week, as the funk’s length was for this one), I have two choices:

  1. I can fester and let my job suffer; or,
  2. I can put my big boy pants on and take this as yet another lesson in a seemingly endless Master’s degree program in “Recruiting Life.”

I probably festered on this a bit more than I should have, and that’s something that most of us are guilty of from time to time.

The bad news is that this will probably not be the last time I get thrown a curveball like this before I call it a career. The good news is that I’ve gotten better at hitting the curve over the years. I can get myself back on track faster. And frankly, I think that’s acceptance in it’s purest form.

While things are going to go sideways from time to time, we need to be cognizant enough to get ourselves through to the other side. The clock doesn’t stop because the play didn’t go your way, and life, as it always does, will go on.

The Five: Reasons Recruiting Should Report to the CEO

Recruiting Should Report to the CEO“We are opening 20 locations and will need to hire 300 in the next 30 days.”

All of the recruiting management staff was pulled into a room, and that was the opening to our staff meeting.

“How are we going to do that?” I asked. “We are going to hire five field recruiters that will work with us and allow them to make hiring decisions for managers in the field. We have to find the candidates, and they will close.”

Again, I have a question: “How are we going to find five recruiters that we can trust in making this decision?”

“Well, we have to — and they need to start this week.”

For the rest of the meeting, honestly, I tuned out. I just couldn’t understand why we were finding out about this so late in the game. I mean, acquisitions are strategic and never happen overnight.

This sounded stupid — maybe one of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard in my illustrious recruiting career.

“Jackye. Jackye! You look like you have something to say.”

Fancy that. Me, with something to say. “Yeah, I do. However, again it is a question. If we have to hire all of these people, why are we having a meeting about it instead of looking for candidates?”

That was the day I realized this was not the place for me. It was also the day it became glaringly obvious that the field of recruiting was not respected in the way it should be by the C-Suite.

The biggest problem, in my mind, was that we were not invited to the executive table soon enough to make an impact. Had we been part of the conversation earlier, we would have let them know how long it would take to make the 300 hires they needed. We could have shown them the metrics. On top of that, we would have let them know the technology and staff needed to meet the staff augmentation deadlines.

Additionally, we also could let them know the cost involved and what they may have overlooked. As a team, we may have been able to succeed in our goals. Overall, we did … kinda. I mean, we put asses in the seats. I still don’t know how successful the staff we hired was. I left before we knew that.

The bottom line is this: To have a ridiculously successful and productive recruiting team, recruiting should report to the CEO. Here are five (5) good reasons why.

1 – Development of Company Culture and Values

According to PWC’s 20th annual CEO survey:

A sizeable number of CEOs are firmly convinced that, in an increasingly digitalized world, it is harder for businesses to gain – and retain – people’s trust. They also think it is become more important both to run their companies in a way that addresses wider stakeholder expectations and to establish a strong corporate purpose that’s reflected in their organization’s values, culture, and behavior.”

That is great and all, but most employees have no idea what an “organization’s values, culture and behavior” are. If recruiter’s reported to the CEO, they would have a firm grasp on what the company needs from their candidates. Furthermore, recruiters would then be able to identify whether or not the candidate’s values are aligned with the company you are recruiting for.

2 – Play the Long Game for Company Growth

Jimmy Maymann, CEO of the Huff Post said in a 2013 video:

I would like to hire people that, in five years’ time, I could see playing a big role in this organization. I always try to hire people that are playing the long game, not just the short game. Yes, they need to do a job right now, but what is it they can do for this company if we really unlock their full potential?”

Unfortunately, most of the requisitions we work on are task-based. Maybe, we lost someone in accounting that needs to be replaced, or IT is moving to a SASS platform and needs someone who can help with the crossover.

Rarely do we see that recruiting is looking for long-term hires, mainly because we (again) do not have access to that information from the C-Suite.

3 – People are Your No. 1 Asset … Right!?

Recently, I sent out a tweet saying, “A company’s greatest asset is not their people. It is their people’s data.” However, most companies still like to say that they value employees more than anything else.

Anne M. Mulcahy  said,

Employees are a company’s greatest asset – they are your competitive advantage. You want to attract and retain the best; provide them with encouragement, stimulus, and make them feel that they are an integral part of the company’s mission.”

Recruiting Should Report to the CEOSure, every company wants a competitive advantage. That means keeping an inventory of what people you need on the team to create that advantage.

For example, those of us in recruiting know that things like diversity, employee engagement, referral programs, and training all create a competitive advantage. Unfortunately, most in the C-Suite have no idea how important these things are.

Also, none of these programs will work without executive buy-in. If recruiters do not have a seat at the table, no buy-in will exist.

As a friendly reminder, executive buy-in is not when the CEO says, “Yeah, that’s a good idea!” Buy-in occurs when you have the senior line leaders’ understanding, agreement, and support of the solution. They are actively involved in selecting methodologies to get things done and understand the business value. They back up what you are doing and present it to management as an expectation.

4 –  Company Acquisitions and Mergers

As in my example above, it is glaringly evident that when a corporation goes through a merger or acquisition, there is panic. You can feel the tension floating through the cubes. Robyn Melhuish, in her article The Dream Team: Building After A Merger, stated the impact brilliantly. For recruiters, M&A means:

  • Re-evaluating Roles;
  • Finding Gaps ;
  • Looking For New Skills; and,
  • Updating Employer Branding.

It’s imperative that recruiters know about these decisions and can prepare for the impact that they will have when it comes to hiring.

Watch Anne Taylor speak on this subject. As a guest on RecruitingLive, she shared what she is experiencing now that Alaska Airlines has acquired Virgin America Airlines, where she has worked for over four years.

5 – Educate the C-Suite on the Pulse of the Candidate Market

Most people find out about what is going on in the larger world of talent by reading about the unemployment rate. However, that number does not reflect exactly what is happening specifically with the company you are hiring for.

Recruiters know well before the news comes out when there is a candidate shortage, what roles are the hardest to fill, what people think about working for the company, and other things like that. Consequently, don’t you think the CEO wants to know what are the successes and challenges you’re having when it comes to talent?

Of course, they do! It impacts the bottom line.

In all fairness, CEO’s don’t know what they don’t know. Only the recruiting team can offer this insight. Without knowing who you have on the team, as well as the teammates you lack, CEO’s cannot plan effectively and strategically.

As you know, this debate as to who recruiting should report to has been going on forever. The whining about not having a seat at the table (in the C-Suite) has been going on forever as well. If recruiting is to be taken seriously, there has to be a solid relationship with the CEO.

Ideally, recruiting would report to the CEO and be viewed as the key to a company’s planning success and growth. If this series was called “The Six,” I would add that most HR professionals have never recruited in the first place. If it was called “The Seven,” I would say it is because they have a lot of other very important things to do, but I will save those for another article …

How to Screen Resumes When You Hate the Process or Aren’t Good at it

Raise your hand if you enjoy reviewing and screening resumes.

Keep your hand up if you believe that you are good at it. This means that a high percentage of people you select from the resumes actually meet your expectations in your interviews.

If your hand is still up, congratulations! There is no need for you to continue reading this article. Please feel free to forward it to your less fortunate friends and acquaintances who need some help.

For those of you who put your hand down and acknowledged that you either dislike reviewing resumes, find that it difficult to do well, or both, this was written for you.

I will address the two challenges separately.

Challenge No. 1: You dislike reviewing/screening resumes

If you fall into this group, there are three options:

  1. Do it yourself and find a way to make it less painful, more efficient, and more effective;
  2. Delegate it to a trusted subordinate or co-worker; or,
  3. Use an outside advisor or service that you trust.

Let’s cover these three options in further detail:

1 – Do it yourself and find a way to make it less painful

Realistically, there may be times where this is your reality. Here are a few helpful practices to make your life easier:

  • If you have an applicant tracking system, great. This helps. If the resume submittals go into an email account, put them in an email folder and keep those from different positions in different folders.
  • Begin with the end in mind. Have a clear idea of what is truly required vs only a preference. A requirement generally means a person could not do this job without this characteristic. If your requirements are extremely difficult to find or you have too many of them reconsider your approach. You may end up searching for unicorns or purple squirrels. When is the last time you saw either of these?
  • Set aside blocks of time where you can sit down and review a block of resumes at one time to establish some momentum. Starting and stopping can make things much more difficult. Some people prefer to turn off interruptions to stay focused and others like to listen to music, watch TV, etc. Know yourself and what works best for you.
  • Create A, B and C categories or ratings of the resumes.
    • A – This is just what I want. Contact these people first.
    • B – Maybe yes or maybe no based on how many A resumes I see. These can also become important if your interviews with the A resume candidates don’t progress as hoped.
    • C – Definitely not what I’m looking for. Move on.

2 – Delegate it to a trusted subordinate or co-worker

This can be a terrific option, especially when reviewing and screening resumes is not one of your great loves or talents. There are still some important guidelines so that you don’t miss out on great candidates or waste your time:

  • Clearly communicate what you see as the requirements (must haves) vs. preferences (nice to haves).
  • Have your delegatee start with a small sample of the first 25-30 resumes that he/she has reviewed, screened and separated into the A, B and C categories. Then review these together and provide feedback. Make sure early on that you are on the same page with expectations.
  • After you are on the same page, make sure to respond back to your delegatee promptly with feedback on the “A and B” screened resumes Few things will discourage engagement in this task then becoming silent after asking for help.

3 – Use an outside advisor that you trust

If the first two options are not viable or are simply not providing the results you need, working with an external recruiting firm may be a good option.

The guidelines for success are similar to delegating to a subordinate or co-worker. The difference is that you should not need to manage their screening process of A, B, and C categories of resumes. However, the need to communicate and provide prompt feedback still pertain.

Challenge No. 2: You decided to review/screen resumes and want to be a lot more effective

Hey, sometimes, you’re the appropriate person to carry out this task. Great, how do you become more effective? Here are some principles that can help you improve:

  • Reconsider your beliefs. It is very common for people to believe that they can determine a great deal about people from their resumes. Like palm reading and tarot cards, some people may be able to decipher a great deal about a person from this one piece of data. Most of us cannot. Here’s why: A resume is a marketing piece. Some are better at producing marketing pieces than others. Some received outside help and others did not. Some were more honest on their resumes than others. The real question is whether or not the resume is a good indicator of fit for the specific job you are hiring. It would be wise to consider the resume to be bits and pieces of information and not an extensive biography.
  • Having made the above statement, let me state that the resume does provide some value. It is best to know where it is valuable and where it isn’t. Here are a few guidelines to allow the resumes to assist you and not deceive you:
    • Interpret the resume through the lens of how it pertains to the specific job you are hiring for. We all have our biases. I really like some things and dislike others. The problem is when these biases impair our effectiveness. For example, I may have a bias for a resume that is well-written and creative. If I’m hiring a marketing person who will be writing creative ads, my bias may be appropriate. But, what if I am hiring an accountant or engineer? My preferred style of communication may have nothing to do with effectiveness in those jobs. and I may want to look more for clear, concise, organized and accurate written communication. What if the job does not even involve writing but involves face-to-face verbal communication. How well will the resume indicate this skill?
    • Focus more on the resume being a tool to eliminate the candidates who are not appropriate rather than to determine who is. Determine the appropriate “elimination factors.” Common examples of this would be: lacking key skills, experience or credentials, unstable job history, unfavorable geographical proximity, etc.
    • Expand your options. It is usually more effective to have a larger pool of candidates than just considering “two or three best resumes”. For the reasons above, the best candidate for your job is often one of the people in the B (maybe) category.
    • Create a brief screening step before inviting people in for interviews. This might include include sending an email with specific questions that are relevant to the job which the candidate responds to and conducting a brief phone screen with specific questions that are important to determine fit.

Remember — the first step in the interview process usually begins with the resumes. The key is to be mindful of is how to navigate through this step efficiently and effectively.

The end goal? It’s spending your time interviewing the most appropriate candidates while also not passing up on high-potential candidates whose resume did not “wow” you.

Are You a Luddite Recruiter? Here’s How to Find Out

In protest of labor-saving machines in the textile industry, Ned Ludd supposedly busted up a few knitting machines in the 1770s. Jump forward a hundred years to a group of self-described Luddites smashing machines during the Industrial Revolution.

In both cases, people were protesting and resisting the emergence of technology that made work more efficient, more precise, and more effective.

A test to help you find out

When it comes to recruiting technology, are you an adopter or a Luddite Recruiter? Take this test to find out.

  1. Candidates can apply with just a name and email address.   Yes or No
  2. I establish minimum qualifications in discussion with the hiring manager.   Yes or No
  3. I rely on a keyword search to identify “good” resumes.  Yes or No
  4. I work with candidate data outside of my ATS/CRM.   Yes or No
  5. I place more value on referred candidates than those in my ATS/CRM.   Yes or No
  6. I administer assessments after candidates are interviewed.   Yes or No

How many times did you answer Yes? If it was three or more, you may be a Luddite Recruiter.

Some approaches to recruiting technology

Some insights into each statement and what your answers might say about your approach to recruiting technology:

  1. Candidates can apply with just a name and email address.
    Making it very easy to apply makes your work more difficult. Objective, job-relevant application data can help differentiate candidates. Luddites would rather work harder.
  2. I establish minimum qualifications in discussion with the hiring manager.
    Hiring manager opinions may be inaccurate. Job analysis is an objective process for defining minimum qualifications, and it provides documentation to support your rationale. Luddites may value opinion over evidence.
  3. I rely on a keyword search to identify “good” resumes.
    Two people with similar qualification may use different words to describe their experiences. Searching for keywords only identifies groups of people who chose the same words. Luddites value resume reading as a form of job security.
  4. I work with candidate data outside of my ATS/CRM.
    ATS/CRM technology can add consistency, fairness, and speed to comparing candidates. Using the ATS/CRM to analyze all of your candidate data allows you to optimize the investment in this technology and work faster and smarter. Luddites seek ways to retain old practices and glorify legacy skills.
  5. I place more value on referred candidates than those in my ATS/CRM.
    Referred candidates typically get hired more frequently than non-referred candidates. However, objective candidate evaluation makes it possible to see which kind of candidates is actually the best fit. Luddites often prefer the path of least resistance.
  6. I administer assessments after candidates are interviewed.
    Candidate data that can be scored and ranked will quickly and objectively identify who to interview, reducing the interview-to-hire ratio and making your recruiting efforts more efficient from the outset. Luddites may confuse the number of tasks they perform with the quality of tasks performed.

The scramble to migrate to mobile platforms

Assessment as a form of objective candidate evaluation has been in place for over a century. However, the interactive, multi-media nature of the web has transformed what the assessment experience can be. The ubiquitous nature of mobile devices has put a high-fidelity assessment delivery tool — and extremely sophisticated measurement experience — into the palm of the candidate.

According to the Pew Research Center January 2017 Mobile Fact Sheet, 77 percent of American adults have a smartphone. And among 18 to 29-year-olds, ownership is 92 percent.

Despite this level of market penetration, according to the 2016 Candidate Experience Awards and Research survey, only 12 percent of the 98,831 responding candidates completed their employment application via mobile device. And of those who applied via mobile device, about 75 percent of them completed a test or assessment on that device.

Who is the Luddite here? Is it the candidates, who are likely to use mobile technology whenever possible, or companies not understanding their candidate population and making use of available technology to streamline and facilitate the application process?

Applicant tracking systems have been scrambling to migrate to mobile platforms, and the status of that migration ranges from mobile adaptive to mobile-first design.

Have you found a partner to implement a mobile-first design candidate evaluation? Or — honest, now — are you a Luddite Recruiter?

The value of an engaging assessment experience

According to the 2016 Candidate Experience Awards Survey and Research Report, 75 percent of companies are using assessment. More interesting is that 85 percent of Candidate Experience Award-winning companies are using assessment. As for evidence of best practices, 69 percent of winning organizations have conducted in-house validation of their assessments versus 46 percent of non-winning organizations.

Organizations recognized by their candidates as delivering a favorable experience are using assessments — and using them with high standards and high expectations. There’s no Luddite Recruiters in these organizations.

Use of simulations grew by over 50 percent from 2015 to 2016. A little more than half (54 percent) of Candidate Experience Award Survey participants now state they are using simulations as an element of their candidate evaluation. Candidates who are engaged in simulation-based assessment have the highest level of satisfaction with the opportunity to present their abilities.

Simulation-based, multi-method candidate evaluation is an emerging form of technology being adopted by the segment of talent acquisition community that understands how big data, predictive analytics, and selection science are revolutionizing candidate engagement and evaluation.

The evidence is clear: Candidates value an engaging assessment experience, and organizations are ramping up their adoption. Luddites beware.

Better efficiency, increased retention

Expectations for a measurable business impact run high with organizations that use assessments. Some 46 percent of companies using assessments say they invested in the strategy to improve candidate flow efficiency, while 57 percent of companies expect to increase new-hire retention.

The biggest expectation for business impact focuses on new-hire performance, with 81 percent of assessment users stating a goal of improving metric. Together, these benefits translate into faster time to hire, greater retention, and higher levels of new-hire productivity.

Luddites may protest all of that. How about you?

The Week that Was 8.4.17: Indeed, Interviewed, CareerBuilder, Personio, Hiretual, #TRAILBLAZING2017

In case you missed it, here is the ‘The Week That Was’, a Friday series to share the cool stuff you may have missed. This week we learned CareerBuilder was finally bought, Indeed acquired some cool tech, Personio acquired some cool cash, Hiretual got some cool features, #Trailblazing2017 features cool science and the Roberts’ know some cool ish.

Tweet of the Week:

Word of the Week:

Indeed Buys Interviewed

Indeed, is acquiring Interviewed, the online job assessment tool. The terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed, but all 12 of Interviewed’s employees, including the three co-founders, will be going to work at Indeed.

 

Going forward, Interviewed’s service will continue to live on independently for the time being, with the ultimate goal being to further combine the platforms so employers on Indeed can have the option of making simulations a core part of their job applications. You can read the complete article by clicking here.

 

 

 

 

CareerBuilder LogoCareerBuilder is SOLD!

Tegna Inc. completed its divestiture of CareerBuilder on Monday in a move that will net the McLean-based digital media company about $220 million. Under the final sale agreement, Tegna will maintain a 12 percent interest in CareerBuilder and keep two seats on the company’s board. Tegna had owned a 53 percent controlling interest in the company. With the sale, CareerBuilder will no longer be consolidated within Tegna’s earnings reports. Click here to read more.

 

Personio Receives 12 Million

Personio, the German HR-management and recruiting platform based in Munich has raised $12 million in a series A round from investor Northzone.With the investment, Personio will push its SaaS-product and establish itself as the leading software in Human Resources for small and middle-sized companies.

In the future, Personio will be offering further solutions around its HR-operating system that are incorporating the branches recruiting, administration and development of staff. Customers from over 30 countries are using Personio already but the focus over the next years is on the expansion in Europe. “The target of Personio is, to be developing the central platform for human resources management that is bundling all digital HR-processes, e.g. payroll accounting or continuous feedback within one software solution. Ultimately HR-responsibles will be spending less time with administrative tasks and thereby can focus more on valuable personal work”, said Hanno Renner. You can read the article in its entirety by clicking here.

 

 

Hiretual AI Update adds Basic CRM Functionality – By Jess Roberts

Earlier this year I cover some of the tools that every sourcer needs in their toolbox. One of those tools was Hiretual. This week, Hiretual has added even more functionality. In addition to being an amazing tool to find emails and build Booleans, Hiretual has a great AI search feature that helps find prospects. It’s a quick way to save some time on the front end of your search. Now you don’t have to export into a .csv or ATS to keep up with your stages or re-discover candidates that you may have identified in a previous search.

 

You can now track what stage in the process you have a candidate within a pipeline, add tags & notes…. but that’s not all!  You can now filter candidates. Even across all your projects. This has made a great tool even better. Happy to see the team over there with the steady improvement!

 

#TRAILBLAZING2017 Conference Explores New Avenues For Meaningful Employment Of Neurodiverse Individuals

Pioneers in the field of human resources and the study of neurodiversity will gather at the #TRAILBLAZING2017 Conference in Ft. Lauderdale on September 30 to explore opportunities to learn, understand and appreciate how persons with neurological differences can be an asset to the workforce in a one-day, business-to-business, global conference.

Speakers and panelists at #TRAILBLAZING2017 serve as a critical piece of the education, inspiration and guidance for the business community at large – to help others see the neurodiverse as a value proposition to the workforce. Panels will include examples of meaningful and sustainable work as well as employment initiatives and discussions around solutions and additional ideas. The conference will feature presentations by leading human resources and neurodiversity experts, including:

  • Dr. Temple Grandin, renowned neurodiversity advocate and Professor of Animal Science, Colorado State University
  • Amy C. Cosper, CEO, Radical Upstarts & Former Editor-in-Chief, Entrepreneur Magazine
  • Jose Velasco, Global Lead, Autism at Work SAP
  • Dr. Stephen Shore, world renowned inclusion expert and Professor of Special Education, Adelphi University
  • Taryn Williams, Supervisory Policy Advisor, U.S. Department of Labor
  • Susan Mazrui, Director Public Policy, AT&T

Learn more about #Trailblazing2017 by clicking here.

 

RecruitingLived?

There is no RecruitingLive this week but check out this recording of guest Jeremy Roberts, I think you will love it!