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Small Companies, Big Need: HR Technology & Small Business Recruiting

Kyle Lagunas-9 (1)Guest Post by Kyle Lagunas – Talent Acquisition Analyst, Brandon Hall Group As many of you know, Brandon Hall Group launched its first annual Talent Acquisition Benchmark Survey at the start of the year. In the time since, I’ve been slicing and dicing the data – by levels of effectiveness, by industry, and most recently by company size.  Across the board, survey respondents indicated hiring better talent is their highest talent acquisition priority for 2014.

I have a lot of questions bouncing around in my mind, but as I get further and further into analysis of survey responses, I keep coming back to one: How?

How do they plan to achieve their goals? How are they adapting talent acquisition strategy to meet changes in the talent market? How are they leveraging technology to support more effective process?

With that in mind, I came across a staggering statistic while working on my forthcoming white paper comparing and contrasting talent acquisition data by company size: 70% of companies with fewer than 1,000 employees are not using an applicant tracking system of any kind to manage their talent acquisition process.

According to our survey, the vast majority of small companies are using their own assortment of tools – a slapdash combination of emails, spreadsheets, and paper files.

Methods for Managing Talent Acquisition Processes

Chart Source: Brandon Hall Group, 2014

It should come as no surprise that small companies are struggling to source and hire qualified candidates. Only 13% rated their talent acquisition process as more than moderately effective – with nearly 1 in 3 rating their process as less than effective. For these companies, time to hire is running rampant, with 54% taking four to eight weeks to hire a new employee from the time an application is received until the day an offer has been accepted.

These days, an organization’s ability to engage candidates and maintain momentum from first touch to offer extension is vital to their ability to hire better talent. That’s because high-quality talent expects high-quality process. For some employers, a candidate’s interest in the job opportunity will make up for the inherent flaws and bottlenecks in their hiring process. For the rest, however, things are only going to get worse.

While top talent may not care what technology you have in place, they are certainly paying attention to whether or not you’ve acknowledged receipt of their resume, how quickly your recruiters respond to their questions, and how many different times you have them come in for a 20-minute interview.

Stepping your technology game up can make a significant difference in talent acquisition performance. I recommended a few power-ups in my blog a few months ago, but at the time didn’t realize just how many small companies are still hiring without an applicant tracking system in place. It would seem we have much more basic needs to address first.

Hiring better talent is no walk in the park. Upgrading your talent acquisition technology is a good start, but it requires more than an applicant tracking system. I have a few ideas, and will cover them in my forthcoming benchmark by company size – as well as another report on the talent acquisition vendor landscape.

For now, I’d recommend that small companies look at solution providers like SmartRecruiters and WePow, which offer free versions of their products. For more detailed advice, stay tuned.

See more at the Brandon Hall Group

Net Promoter Score & Candidate Experience

gerryApparently, asking your customers a direct question: “How likely are you to recommend our company/product/service to your friends and colleagues?” is a pretty solid indicator of your brand’s relationship with its customers and, in fact, has real value in differentiating one company’s performance from another.

Fred Reichheld introduced the customer-focused Net Promoter Score (NPS) in his 2003 Harvard Business Review Article, “The One Number You Need to Grow”.
 
NPS can range from -100 (everyone would not refer others) to 100 (everyone absolutely would refer others). Anything above 0 is considered ‘good’ and above 50 is ‘excellent’.
In the intervening 11 years since its introduction, research has generally supported the hypothesis that firms who raise their game with their customers find NPS a valuable tool in measuring their success in doing it and, that companies with a higher NPS, perform better.
Could the NPS approach, adapted to Candidate Experience, offer a comparable way to look at an employer’s Brand relationship with its candidates?  Several bloggers have speculated on this recently and several [un-named] companies are attempting their version of NPS with candidates.
 
There is little question in my mind that an easily obtained and reliable ‘indicator’ that represents the relative value of recruiting – one that is generated by candidates who have touched your hiring process…and, more importantly, that predicts company and/or recruiting performance would be enormously helpful.
To even think about getting there however, a few questions need to be asked.
Here are three sets of questions:
  1. What are the [1-3] questions that link an employers’ candidates’ experience to a positive or negative “score” that is easily interpreted and compared to other employers (assuming they measure it the exact same way). What is the reliability of the measure? Does it meet academic standards?
  2. What are the common and perhaps not so common recruiting practices that impact candidates for good or ill from the moment they begin researching the company through the on-boarding of a new employee? And, can that number we just generated above point to which practices are merely annoying (or pleasing) and which practices, either alone or in combination, represent a continuum of positive and negative attitudes?
  3. Does it matter? We are intent on hiring the best quality candidate in the shortest time at the lowest cost. The systems, technologies, and organizational variables involved are challenge enough without additional time and money to assure all these still-unhired candidates (half of whom are not qualified), are treated well…unless these attitudes are somehow related to recruiting costs, time or quality- either now or later.
The good news is that the employers participating in TalentBoard’s Candidate Experience Awards in 2013 are generating considerable data and beginning to analyze their results in order to answer these questions. Like Reichhold’s NPS, we think it will take several years to connect all the dots but the work is clearly underway.

Building The Foundation: Calculating a Net Candidate Experience Score (Net CES)

In its third year, TalentBoard, a non-profit 501c, collected detailed recruiting practices from ~122 firms. 95 of these employers also invited their candidates to share their observations and reactions in a comprehensive survey that took up to 40 minutes to complete (depending on how far the candidates went in the process). 80% of the candidates who responded were not hired. More than 46,000 candidates responded. 64 firms were ‘net positive’- in other words these firms, to a greater and lesser degree, delivered a positive candidate experience.
(Note: Employers did not pay to participate and the results are free. Employers whose data suggested a negative candidate experience remain anonymous but participate in the results and have a clear opportunity to pinpoint the practices they need to change.)
2013 Candidate Experience Award Winners
2013 Candidate Experience Award Winners
 
Among the 60+ questions asked of candidates who applied for a job at any one of the 95 employers completing the CandEs were these three direct questions:
  • “Based on your experience as a candidate how likely are you to change your customer status?”
  • “Based on your experience as a candidate how likely are you apply again to [Company Name]?”
  • “Based on your experience as a candidate how likely are you refer others to [Company Name]?”
For each question there were four optional [anchored] answers that ranged from (and I’m paraphrasing here) “Not on your life” to “Absolutely” with a couple “Maybes” in between.*
*We calculated a Net Candidate Experience Score (CES) for the ‘pool’ and for each company by dismissing the % of those who responded to the middle 4 answers (#2 & #3) and, simply subtracted % who responded to the most extreme negative response (1) from the % responding to most extremepositive response (4) for each question. (Note: This is similar in approach but operationally quite different from the calculation of Reichheld’s NPS which is based on an unanchored 10-point Likert scale where the % responding to #1-#6 is subtracted from the % responding to #10.) The resulting ranges for both approaches however are -100 (Very Bad) to +100 (Very Good).
 
Candidates also responded to a comprehensive set of questions about each stage in the recruiting process from their ability to research the employer to onboarding depending on how far they went.
At each stage Candidates were asked about their awareness of specific recruiting practices related to their experience (i.e. “how many interviews took place?” or, “how long did it take you to complete the application?”) and offered a rating of their experience of that segment (as well as an overall rating) that ranged from “very” or “slightly” negative to “very” or “slightly” positive on a 5 point Likert scale. 
 
(For ~20,000 candidates, the overall experience was positive and for ~10,000 it was negative. Logically, the firms who chose to participate in the CandEs were also more likely to believe that they delivered a more positive candidate experience so it wasn’t surprising that the results included proportionately more positive candidates than we might expect from a general population.)
 
Of the three core questions related to NPS, we found uneven results comparing the question “How likely are you to change your status as a CUSTOMER?” to the other questions or to the candidates’ ratings of their experience. The main variable was whether the participating employer had an established retail/product brand. In general however, the answers to this question may eventually be critical to calculating the actual cost of a bad candidate experience for retail firms that have large numbers of their customers applying for jobs.
38.8% of the Candidates who rated their experience as positive said they would “increase their purchase of the [Company’s] products or services while 30.8% of those candidates who rated their experience as negative said they would “take their buying power elsewhere”.
 
customer 
For firms whose products and services were not easily identified, the answers given by the candidates about their purchasing intentions had less connection to the ratings of the candidates’ experience.
Candidates’ intentions to apply again or refer others was clearly affected by their experience.
For Candidates who rated their experience positive:
62.0% were “extremely likely” to re-apply (only .6% said “definitely not”)
61.5% would “actively” refer others (only .5% would not refer and “actively discourage” others from applying)
For Candidates whose experience was rated negative (4, 5)
24.7% were “Definitely Not” likely to re-Apply (only 5.6% said “extremely likely to re-apply”)
27.0% would “Actively discourage others” (while 5.8% would “actively encourage” others)
Looking at each employer’s results for both the “Would you Apply Again” and Would You Refer Others” questions we calculated the NetCES using the method described earlier.
The results shown below suggests that either question could serve as the Net Candidate Experience Score.
scatterplot
(Note: the 5 firms circled did not win the CandEs but participated in the effort to benchmark their experience.
Every other firm represented by the data point above was acknowledge as having a net positive rating for candidate experience.)
 

NEXT STEPS- Test, Replicate, Expand 

We want to prove our hypotheses that Net CES can meet academic standards for reliably measuring deeper attitudes and predicting behavior.
We also want to validate which specific recruiting practices (if present and if candidates are aware of them) are merely annoying but do not by themselves change attitudes and behavior. And then there are those that do, immediately, change attitudes.
Several of the 2014 volunteers involved with the TalentBoard, our CandE Council as it were, have I/O connections or access to PhDs willing to help. One dissertation committee for a PhD candidate in a major firm has already requested access to the data we’ve collected. We expect more. Meanwhile we are interviewing several firms willing to share openly their Net CES andPart II will offer their current insights and efforts to learn from the data they acquired this year. A Case-Study Summit on the Candidate Experience is being planned on September 19 in Chicago. More on that in the future.
At the very least, any employer who routinely and automatically asks candidates (within a short time of closing out a requisition) whether they would apply again or refer others would have their own internal indicator of the strength of their candidate experience (firms like Mystery Applicant that have emerged and offer services such as this.)
Like the canary in the mine, this approach, reported by geography, class of worker, etc. can provide an initial warning about insufficient or deteriorating recruiting practices- although it isn’t a test of what, where, when and why.
The true test that we are on the right track is being able to replicate the significance of the candidate’s experience year over year. We hope to encourage even more firms (200 is our goal) to REGISTER this year. As of this writing we are at 120+. If you’ve read this far, join us and participate or encourage your friends, colleagues and clients to do so. (A parallel effort by the UK is also open for registration)
–        We want to encourage each employer participating in last year’s CandEs to analyze the results they’ve received. The data isn’t as important as what you do with it. TalentBoard is not a consulting firm. We do supply some analysis of the data in our CandE whitepaper but not to the depth that each firm has the potential to mine. Employers need to partner with internal data analysts, hire quants as interns or consultants to assist.
We have asked multiple winners of the CandEs to volunteer as a ‘Voice of the Employer” Members of this group meet monthly as our CandE-Bar and they will be featured in a 1-day Candidate Experience Case Study conference in Chicago on September 19. Employers participating in the 2014 CandEs will not be charged to attend. Out of this effort, we hope to see how Net CES might relates to time to fill, cost per hire and quality and other performance and efficiency measures such as conversion rate, retention and employee or company performance.
We want to expand globally. We know that different cultures, even different regions, may deliver very diverse candidate experiences. The North American CandE Council has added Canadian volunteers who have launched a French Canadian version of the employer survey this spring. An active CandE council has been operational in the UK for two years and recently (February, 2014) conducted its second annual CandE awards event.
Plans are to expand the council in the UK to one that is focused on Europe as a whole by the end of 2014. Discussions in April with more than  a dozen professionals in Australia and New Zealand offer a positive view to Councils in that region of the world by 2015.
Read more at the Career XRoads Blog
Full Disclosure: Gerry Crispin is a co-founder of TalentBoard. He receives no compensation from this involvement. This is true for the other founders, Elaine Orler and Ed Newman and, for all the volunteers – practitioners, consultants or, vendors.
About the Author: Gerry Crispin, SPHR is a life-long student of staffing and co-founder of CareerXroads, a firm devoted to peer-to-peer learning by sharing recruiting practices.

See, Sweet! 10 CEO Tips for Leading A Company Everyone Wants to Work For

Recently, Glassdoor announced the Highest Rated CEOs of 2014 for both large companies and SMBs. The third highest rated CEO on the large company list, Richard Edelman, president and CEO of public relations agency, Edelman, wrote an inspiring post of CEO tips detailing 10 leadership lessons he’s learned over the past 18 years. Edelman’s words serve as tips for any CEO who wants to win the support of his or her employees, which can also carry valuable recruiting and employee retention benefits.

Here’s the CEO tips Edelman shared in his own words:

richard_edelmanThe Joy of Leading

BY RICHARD EDELMAN

I have been meaning to write this blog post for the past week. I have a good excuse — my youngest was home for a week from college. I took the opportunity to spend as much time as she would allow with me; going to museums, taking long walks and just talking. So now she is back on campus and I am back to reality (and my blog).

It was truly stunning to learn that I was the third ranked CEO of a major company in employee approval ratings, behind the CEOs of LinkedIn and Ford.

To all of the Edelman colleagues who said in the Glassdoor survey that they approved of my leadership, thank you. Your enthusiasm, dedication and desire to excel get me out of bed every day determined to do better than the day before. It is a family after all, Team Edelman, with a 62-year heritage of client service, creativity and commitment to growth. I will give you a few of my leadership lessons, which I have accumulated over the past 18 years.

1. Call and Write—I am in touch once or twice a week with most of the members of the Edelman Executive Committee. I am a phone person… I would rather have a chat than exchange emails. My emails tend to be cryptic and to the point (one person at Edelman describes them as a haiku). Calls allow the serendipitous, the inference, and the sense of confidence or lack thereof.

2. Get Into the Field—My two week trip to Asia and the Middle East was an invaluable reminder of the simple truth that personal connection is required in business. I see clients, listen to our teams, visit with the media. You cannot do the CEO job from behind the desk (not well, anyway).

3. Remain Humble—I take the subway to work and Southwest Airlines to Chicago (all coach). This is not an imperial job; it relies on others telling you the truth, especially when you as emperor have no clothes on. This only happens when you are approachable and human. I don’t agree to do many interviews unless the stories are related to the Edelman Trust Barometer or to our annual financial results. It is not about me, it is about us. The greatest balm in my recent loss of both parents was the outpouring of support from Edelman people all over the world. My sister, brother and I did videoconferences with the entire team just after each parent passed away (my mom was there for my dad’s passing) from the Chicago office. It was raw, it was deeply human and it was hugely cathartic.

4. Have a Sense of Humor—When Edelman became the largest PR firm, I went deep into the creative reservoir to create Captain Morgie, a take-off on the pre-historic Morganucuadon, a rat-like character than eventually led to Homo Sapiens. The big idea was that our firm could out-think and out-last the giant dinosaurs of advertising. My new tradition is the selfie from a ladder with the local office colleagues, with due warning to the insurance company.

5. Give Your Senior Team Real Latitude—You cannot grow if you run a company in a circular fashion with you in the middle, as if all roads must go through Rome. You agree on a strategy, watch the implementation, then ask for course correction as needed. And don’t jump to conclusions based on six months or even a year of negative results; change takes time and patience. Delegation of authority is an art that also requires accountability; in our business, watch the quality of the work and the satisfaction of the team more than the numbers. Be generous with praise and careful with criticism.

6. Be Recruiting All of the Time—I have been thinking about a senior executive whom I met nearly two decades ago when I was running Edelman Europe as a possible addition to the team. When somebody leaves the firm whom you rate highly, you begin the wooing process right away. And to retain your top talent, you must again have a personal link. In my case, I go with them for long walks or bike rides. I am not so good over drinks and dinner (low tolerance, early to bed).

7. Don’t Be Afraid to Admit Error—I was the one who agreed to implementation of a global accounting system without adequate testing, which prevented us from sending out bills for a few months and sent our credit line sky-rocketing. I got a new CFO, we fixed the system and we got back on track. But when it came time to update the system about four years ago, I had the experience to insist on installation in a relatively small market (Canada— sorry to my pals up North) to work out the bugs before going live in the U.S., our biggest market.

8. Ambition—When I moved to New York City, I remember walking up Park Avenue, looking at all of the skyscrapers and thinking, how can I get these companies to use Edelman, a little-known firm? So I made up a list of companies I wanted us to work with and did cold calls. One of them was on Lever Brothers… which took us on to do the launch of a detergent. Now Unilever is one of our largest clients. The truth is that in your 20s, you are too green to know what you cannot do. And by the time you reach your 50s (I am almost out of runway on that decade) you have to maintain that boldness and determination to network and hustle.

9. Lead from the Front—Of all of the advice, this is the most important. If you do not serve clients, if you do not pitch media, if you do not go to new business pitches, you have no right to run a PR firm. It is easy to second guess, but harder when you are the quarterback with five giant people bearing down on you and you needing to deliver the big pass. Strategy must reflect reality, facts on the ground, intelligence gathered from experience.

10. Be an Omnivore—I have taken this week off, in part to be with my youngest, in part to recharge my batteries. I went to a Council on Foreign Relations event on Clean Cookstoves (did you know that seven million people a year, largely women, die from after effects of cooking with coal in enclosed homes). I have read Simon Schamaa’s Story of the Jews. I have gone to the Neue Galerie to see an exhibition on Degenerate Art (the lovely term used by the Nazis to describe the Bauhaus School including Beckmann and Kirchner) and to the Frick Museum. When you travel overseas, go with your locals to understand the culture, as I did with Ross Rowbury to an ancient Shinto shrine outside of Tokyo this fall.

There is a special responsibility for a person entrusted with leading a family company, to maintain the crown jewels for the long term while improving competitive position in the industry. I have come to consider that a privilege and a competitive advantage. Thanks again to our clients and to our Edelman team for all you do every day.

See more at Glassdoor


glassdoor logoAbout Glassdoor: Glassdoor is the world’s most transparent career community that is changing the way people find jobs, and companies recruit top talent. Glassdoor holds a growing database of 6 million company reviews, CEO approval ratings, salary reports, interview reviews and questions, office photos and more.

Unlike other jobs sites, all of this information is entirely shared by those who know a company best — the employees.

For employers, Glassdoor offers effective recruiting and employer branding solutions via Glassdoor Talent Solutions. We help more than 1,500 employers promote their employer brand to candidates researching them and advertise their jobs to ideal candidates who may not be aware of them. What differentiates Glassdoor from other recruiting channels is the quality of job candidates we deliver and our influence on candidates’ decisions as they research jobs and companies.

The Importance of Measurement in Recruitment Marketing

shutterstock_166857338 copyA couple of weeks ago, I met with the recruiting and talent leadership from a local tech startup that’s entered a period of hyper growth. They had read a report I published earlier this year on High-Performance Recruitment Marketing, and wanted to get my thoughts on how they can prioritize efforts to attract more talent while still managing the day-to-day.

We kicked off the meeting with a few standard questions: What do you want to accomplish? What resources do you have available? Are you doing any recruitment marketing or employer branding now?

While there was no shortage of ideas for bolstering recruitment marketing and improving their employer brand, the conversation came to an abrupt halt when I steered the conversation in another direction.

I asked, “What are you doing to measure the impact of recruitment marketing efforts?” They shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Measurement, it would seem, was not their forte.

As is the case with many small companies growing rapidly, their sole focus has been getting candidates in the door. It’s all they have time for – all most recruiters have time for. So when it comes to recruitment marketing, the only measure that really matters to recruiters is whether their lives are getting easier.

The Measurement Challenge

Few recruiters have more than a passing understanding of the difference between recruitment marketing and consumer marketing, or how metrics differ between the two. Quantifying the impact recruitment marketing efforts have had on their ability to attract better candidates, or how improved candidate experience affects employer brand, isn’t exactly on their to-do list.

Measurement in recruitment marketing is an especially tall order for small and medium businesses (SMBs). Front-line recruiters in these organizations have their plates full. Any recruitment marketing efforts fall wholly on their shoulders: They’re expected to develop a compelling employer brand and to sell high-quality candidates on a unique employee value proposition – all without slacking on their other duties.

To take things one step further and ask them to establish and track meaningful metrics around recruitment marketing efforts is simply asking too much.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Any number of applicant tracking systems these days can track key metrics. But tracking even the most basic measures like time to fill and offer acceptance rates require recruiters to actively update the status of jobs and candidates.

If I had to take a guess, I’d say three out of five SMB recruiting teams aren’t consistently doing this. The aforementioned startup certainly isn’t. And for a company in hyper growth, that’s a serious problem.

The Importance of Aligned Priorities

One of the biggest hurdles to clear in recruitment marketing is establishing a practical understanding of its purpose and potential – from the CEO to each individual contributor on the recruiting team. The former speaks the language of measurable outcomes, return on investment, and business impact. The latter, as previously mentioned, is primarily concerned with getting candidates in the door and less concerned with data entry.

Before the two can align, something’s got to give – and chances are the change isn’t going to occur in the C-Suite.

Success in recruitment marketing can vastly improve recruiters’ ability to attract more talent, and get better candidates in the door, but as I advised the recruiting team I met with, measurement is the key to getting everything on their recruitment marketing wish list.

The same is true for any other talent initiative these days: the ability to demonstrate business impact will affect your ability to get leadership buy-in, which will affect your ability to get more resources for bigger initiatives. But it all comes down to measurement.

See more at the Brandon Hall Group. 

How To Get ROI From Social Recruiting and Social Media

social_recruitingI consult with recruiters in social media, social recruiting and recruitment technology.  The number 1 question I get from directors and leaders of recruitment teams and third party agencies is often:

“How do I get ROI from social media?”

…and my answer is often, simply, “what “I” are you making?”

Their answer is often zero – or, maybe, “I’ve bought some LinkedIn Recruiter Licenses”.

That’s just not good enough – how can any recruiter expect to get something back without appropriate investment?

The “State” of the Union between Recruitment and Technology

I really see social media as technology – and technology only works when it is used at the right time for the right reason.

This is what I often see (too often, in fact) in the recruitment agency and third party staffing market:

  • Online tools given to recruiters with little or no training
  • Assumptions by the management that they are too old to get technology, so the “young’uns” can cope – it’s in their genes (as @StephenOdonn says “bunkum”)
  • Downloaded, misunderstood social media policies designed to give comfort to Directors and IT Departments, whilst often demoralising the workforce (and on the whole being almost impossible to enforce day to day… but wait until you get to court and then it gets exciting!)
  • New grads/interns with mice delivering community manager style roles without the necessary training, experience or strategic insight
  • Misbranded companies, led from the front by misbranded recruiters – all with their own unclear objectives and outcomes – expecting massive engagement from passive communities who could really care less
  • Agencies not demonstrating how to recruit their own staff (so why should I believe they can do it for me?)

…and the over-riding goal for their social media strategy? To make money.  What else?

Little Money Spent – Too Much Time Wasted

When did it become ok in recruitment to waste time without being able to qualify the outcome?  I’ve been in recruitment since 2000, and it never used to be that way.  Yes, some recruiters needed Sellotape to keep them on the phone (really!) but we studied phone calls / meetings and came up with magical formulas which gave us the confidence to yell “get on the phone” when things went quiet in the office.

Now it seems that the recruiter’s world (and recruiter experience – see previous blog) is littered with loads of “cool tools” and the outcome has massively disrupted the workflow and visibility of the process.  But the pressure to get ROI has increased.

A Shopping List to Guarantee Social Recruiting ROI

  1. Train your staff – Sorry, this is obvious, I know.  Please dump the assumption that young people get it.  I am recruiting an undergraduate for an intern role, and trust me, they don’t necessarily get it.  And neither will recruiters with busy desks and more tech than they know what to do with.
  2. Invest in your CRM – Your overall goal is to place more people in more jobs, right?  Review your CRM’s capability to log social engagement (in the very least ask it to track source of candidates, clients and vacancies) – and don’t forget that the source of the candidate may differ from their eventual source of application to their placed role.
  3. Get some measurement tools – How can you possibly measure ROI when you don’t scrutinize?  Recruiters (sweeping statement) are not measuring the real stats behind social  and digital recruitment.  Who cares how many followers you have if you are following double that?
  4. LinkedIn Recruiter Licenses – This is not a pitch on behalf of this software (I have blogged about this before), rather a shout out to firms who need to think about at least understanding the product before they make statements like “it’s too expensive”.  These are often the firms who want to make money from social… I have clients on the product who happily renew and are evangelical about it!  I equally have clients who are not ready for it yet – but at least they know what it is and the value it could be.
  5. Dump the Old School Print Advertising – get digital people – 73% of LinkedIn searches happen on a mobile – mobile devices (and mobile candidates) are crap at reading “my client is, yada yada yada” job ads.
  6. A strategic social media manager – More and more recruiters are hiring community managers or social media interns.  Please, please think about what their outcomes are/should be.  Young marketers ticking boxes and spamming tweets are not going to deliver ROI.  Be better.
  7. I could go on… Another blog, methinks?

What’s Your Ideal Social Recruiting ROI?

What are your expectations? In old money, we knew that making 150 calls would get x contacts =  x meetings = x jobs.

What’s changed?  Well, the theoretical candidate shortage (or “talent gap,” if you like) has shifted the focus away from client and client engagement (apparently recruiters have enough clients?!) to candidates; hence we are now spending more time online spamming candidates – or “sourcing” them, as most think of it these days. And of course, this activity seems unmeasurable.

Build What your Clients Can’t

Building communities is a totally visible (and pretty rewarding) thing… and even your clients can see it (and they can measure your effectiveness in this area).  Have a strategy around gathering ideal talent around you – not a silver bullet for today, but an effective weapon to add to your arsenal for tomorrow.

Hence, my view?  Your ROI should reflect the ‘I’ – what actual investment are you making? Can you measure what you are doing?  And are your expectations of what social recruiting can do realistic?  Are you looking at long term goals or short term tactics?


Lisa JonesAbout the Author: Lisa Jones is a Director of Barclay Jones, a consultancy working with agency recruiters on their recruitment technology and social media strategies. Prior to Barclay Jones. Lisa worked in a number of Recruitment, IT, Web and Operations director-level roles. She is a technology and strategy junkie with keen eyes on the recruitment and business process.

You’ll see Lisa speaking at many recruitment industry events and being a recruitment technology and social media evangelist online. She works with some of the large recruitment firms, as well as the smaller, agile boutique agencies.

You can follow Lisa on Twitter @LisaMariJones or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Great Place To Work: Behind the Scenes at #GPTWConf

great_place_to_workI recently went down to the Bayou, joining 1,100 HR practitioners and leaders in downtown New Orleans for the 11th Annual Great Place to Work Conference.

It made sense that this super event was held in the Super Dome, because, in my opinion at least, China Gorman and her team did a super job putting on an event worth two thumbs up.  I’m pretty sure most other attendees would agree.

My colleague Matt Charney, ever cynical, recently asked me what, exactly, makes an event worth two thumbs up instead of a thumbs down, and that’s a fair enough question.  In fact, it’s one we should be asking at every event we attend – and in this industry, that’s a whole lot of conferences.

After all, our time (and money) are precious – and we’re all under pressure to return from these events with a few goals and objectives to justify us being out of the office and away from home.While getting the chance to connect with and learn from our professional connections, clients and colleagues is great, let’s be honest: the price tag is often too steep to just have a great time without getting some great takeaways that result in ROI and actionable information and quantifiable impact. And no, a sponsored bar doesn’t count.

As you likely know, I’m something of a veteran in the HR event space, having put on quite a few of them myself over the years, and that means I attend every conference with something of a critical eye – call it a professional liability.  Sure, I evaluate events through the most common criteria – the content of agenda and caliber of attendees count – but I realize there’s so much more to an event than meets the eye.

There’s no second chance to make a first impression, so what attendees see when they first arrive is of critical importance in setting the tone: the look, feel and even smell of the venue itself; the registration process; the conference bag, collateral and contents; the printed program; the event staff and volunteers; the amount of traffic and the movement of attendees; the expo hall and the sponsoring companies – the list literally goes on and on.

At the Great Place to Work Event, I was lucky enough to stay more or less behind the scenes courtesy of a press pass, and had the pleasure of conducting some behind the scenes interviews.  What I came away with in conversations with Victoria Mars, Chairman of the Board at Mars (yes, the M&M lady! – more on that to come), Anita Grantham, VP Cultural Development at Infusionsoft and Laurel Smylie, Great Place to Work Consultant, I was reminded that no matter what industry or company you represent, having enthusiasm and passion about your work really does make all the difference.

What Makes Great Place To Work Great

I’m lucky enough to share that same passion, so here’s my quick take on the event:

Speakers & Agenda: A great mix of smart CEOs and leaders who understand that if you take care of your people, your people will take care of the business.  The presentations were all very well received, with on point content by dedicated talent & HR leaders who understand the value of attracting and retaining good people through a transparent and truthful culture.

This should extend throughout the life cycle – Infusionsoft’s Grantham addressed “dignified, respectful off-ramping” when cultural goals and individual goals no longer match – which was a first for me, but shows that the best brands know the importance of employee experience from hire to retire.  Check out the rest of the presentations here: http://www.greatplacetowork.com/2014-conference-keynotes.

Sponsors: How can you go wrong with a Mercedes-Benzes sponsored reception at the Super-Dome in New Orleans? Or an “M Café” sponsored by Mars Drinks and it including a full M&M bar? Not to mention the chair and hand massages sponsored by Bright Horizons, and let’s not forget the potpourri bags for us girls. Nice.

Attendees: A great mix of employees there to celebrate their inclusion on this year’s list of 100 Great Place To Work and a lot of top leaders and practitioners from some of the world’s top brands there to learn how to transform their company into the kind of best in class employer from their colleagues who are getting it right (or at least, worthy of the seal of approval from Great Place to Work – no easy feat).  Most attendees came from the C-Suite or the executive ranks, with broad responsibilities and a big bottom line and business impact in their roles as leaders.

Venue: The Hyatt Regency New Orleans was a welcoming, well run venue that was just a “Hop On and Hop Off” shuttle ride away from a cup of chicory coffee at the Café Du Mond – or any other beverage of choice available in the world famous French Quarter – which made the proximity a very good thing for many of us.

Food: It’s New Orleans! I don’t need to say more, except maybe “laissez le bon temps rouler.”

#GPTW Staff: Dedicated and excited, and deservingly – so they put on a great event.

Conference Management Staff: M Factor – consummate professionals who did a great job making Great Places to Work, well, great.

Volunteers: Very helpful, always smiling and easy to find with their red shirts – not to mention extremely knowledgeable and proactive in helping attendees get the most out of their time there.

So, I know you’re probably wondering what, exactly, my ROI was for spending a few days out of the office and in New Orleans.  I had some great conversations with some great talent and business leaders; made several new connections as well as strengthened existing ones – including getting some invaluable 1:1 time with the inimitable Elaine Orler, and learned that what we do every day at RecruitingBlogs is really the same as what it takes for an employee brand to work: putting the right people in the right place with the right expertise.

That’s where the magic happens – no voodoo required.

Immersion: Mapping The Original Social Network In Your Inbox

Immersion, out from MIT Labs (so you know it’s gotta be legit), claims to provide a “people centric view of your e-mail life,” which, according to their website, provide “a detailed description of our personal and professional history” that’s “older than the web.”  By logging in through a secure server through a GMail, MS Exchange or Yahoo! account, Immersion will sift through your e-mail history – it will take several minutes to sort through years and gigabytes of “metadata,” but the results are really cool.

I authenticated through GMail, which, unbelievably, I’ve been a member of for 8.9 years, which proves, like Immersion, you can get pretty good results while still beta testing.  After the numbers finished crunching (aka, “big data), here’s what my e-mail inbox looks like as a network:

immersion

This is the cluster that’s related to [email protected], which I map into my personal GMail, and obviously, that displays as a completely different network altogether.

It shows the way I’m connected and the people who matter most in my daily communications – and how they’re connected with each other.

It makes sense that Noel, Anna and Ryan (with apologies to my boy Tim, but we mostly use IM) are the biggest and most tightly clustered connections, since they are my coworkers and therefore, are responsible for a lot of closed loop, high volume communications.

But I can also see how my other connections know each other – which could come in handy for asking for introductions or establishing a connection for a candidate you’re already engaging with.

It also digs deeper, in this case, creating a visualization of my communication with Noel, my boss:

noel shot

 

I can see the frequency of communications over time, the direction of that communications and the connections shared on every conversation, which, in aggregate, are a whole lot of e-mails.

Immersion is a pretty easy, pretty cool way to make those old e-mails meaningful and take a big data approach to an often overlooked, but most frequently utilized, of all social networks.

To try Immersion, click here. 

Tip of the hat to Kevin Wheeler for showing me this tool while in Helsinki for #HRTechTank.

4 Companies With Top Talent Brands (And Why Everyone Wants To Work for Them)

I love WorkCompany brands are not the same as talent brands, and the best-known businesses are not always the ones who recruit the top talent – although they often have the equity to do so.

Here are four employers with top recruitment brands who have developed magnetic employer brands so successful that they quite literally have to turn away top talent.

If you’d rather stop sourcing and start attracting talent, here are some of the companies getting it right – and what every recruiter or employer needs to know to put these best practices into real action.

1. Google

Google is a large, powerful company at the heart of the Internet explosion. Their hiring process is constantly being reviewed and improved upon. When they select candidates, they include all team members in the process, rather than just management. That’s one reason why people enjoy working there – they have input into many aspects of their jobs.

Google had more than a million applicants for jobs in 2012. Over 50% of these were referrals from current employees. Employees are paid per referral, in amounts approaching $5,000. Their most unique recruitment goal is for the company to hire someone smarter than the manager, so that the new employee can challenge him, and from which he can learn new ideas, says Great Place to Work.

In job candidates, Google seeks:

  • Problem-solving skills
  • Diversity
  • A thirst for knowledge
  • Curiosity
  • Creative thinking
  • An ability to think outside the box

Some of Google’s successful hiring practices include Google Games, which is a recruitment event where participating students join teams to work together at solving mind-bending puzzles.  Google recruits on college campuses, and gives students a chance to learn all about the newest Google services and products while they offer feedback from the university experiences.

People love working for Google for the reasons mentioned above, and also for the unusual perks, which include star speakers, a sports complex, alterations and dry cleaning, on-site laundry and free gourmet food. They even have custom-made work stations tailored to their individual size.

2. SAS, Inc.

The SAS motto says it all: “Great Software. Great People.” The company prides itself on recruiting top talent and in properly utilizing the commitment and skills of their exceptional employees. They state that their success is based on the talent they hire and develop.

The working environment at SAS supports employees, giving them chances to grow professionally. They also are involved in developing innovative solutions to help decision makers in businesses worldwide. Their recruitment brand states that they treat employees as though they make a difference, and then they do make a difference, states SAS.com.

Their business model also is employee-focused: Satisfied employees create satisfied customers. They reward innovative employees and don’t penalize them if they take risks to solve a problem. The employees want to continue working at SAS because the company cares about their professional and personal growth.

SAS offers work-life programs that have landed it on Fortune’s list of “100 Best Companies to Work For” in the United States. They were ranked at #1 in 2010 and again in 2011, #3 in 2012 and #2 in 2013.

3. Boston Consulting Group

The Boston Consulting Group has made the Top 12 in the Fortune 100’s Best Companies to Work For in each year since it began participating, in 2006. They have been in the top five for three years straight.  The company concentrates its recruiting time on attracting the top talent, and also in maintaining a working environment where employees can develop rapidly. This is essential to their success.

BCG invests in its people by offering them many unusual perks. In addition to career mobility and flexibility, and extensive training, they also flag burn-out danger by tracking when employees are working a lot of weeks that are too long. New consultants are allowed to delay the date when they start by up to six months. They also receive up to $10,000 if they volunteer with a nonprofit group, according to Fortune.com.

In addition to these benefits, BCG also pays 100% of their employees’ premiums for health care and offers sabbaticals at full pay. They also offer their employees many LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender) -friendly policies and benefits.

 4. CHG Healthcare Services

CHG advertises that it “puts people first”, and that includes its employees. They strive to create a work environment where people can feel and perform their best. They offer two health centers on-site, as well as lineups of team events and a comprehensive benefit program, according to the CHG awards website page.

CHG has a recruitment brand that gives prospective employees a realistic look inside their work environment. They offer many perks to employees, including a $350 bonus for referrals, with an unlimited cap and generous health and PTO benefits. CHG also offers employees security, since they work for a company that has been leading the industry for more than thirty years. There is also pride involved, since their providers touch millions of lives every year, both of patients and of their family members.

3 Reasons Your Employer Brand Should Differ From Your Consumer Brand

employer_brandYour company likely focused on building its consumer brand long before you began worrying about building an employer brand. And while the two are promoting the same company and may share the same message of values and culture, your employer brand is actually quite different from your consumer brand.

A consumer brand proposition defines a product or service offer, while an employee value proposition defines your organization’s employment offer.

The human resources department and the marketing department may use many of the same tools to promote their brands, those brands should be distinct in at least three ways:

Target Audience

Your company’s marketing department is interested in promoting its consumer brand to the people or companies that might be interested in purchasing your products or services. In most cases, those are not the same people your human resources department would target as potential star employees. The target audience for your employer brand is the people you would love to have join your team. Because your employer brand seeks to reach a different audience from your consumer brand, it must communicate in ways that are likely to reach those potential employees, not potential customers.

Not only do the two brands aim to reach different groups of people; they also aim for a different number of people. Consumer marketing typically attempts to maximize the number of people attracted to purchasing the brand, while employers focus on attracting the optimum number of employees with the right fit for the job or the culture. It’s a matter of quantity versus quality.

Relationship to Audience

Not only is your employer brand attempting to reach a different group of people than your company’s consumer brand, but it is also pursuing a different type of relationship with those people. The consumer brand is strictly transactional; the brand promise simply needs to attract customers who will purchase your products or services. The employer brand is much more intimate. For instance, consumers usually are not aware of all of the organization’s flaws, while employees know them all too well.

The relationship difference is a bit like the difference between your son’s male buddies who come to the house to watch football, and his fiancé, who will become family once they are married. The male buddies just need to like you and your home enough to spend a little time there with your son, and they will never really care about your family quirks. The daughter-in-law, on the other hand, will learn most everything about you and your family; she will become an insider.

Risks and Rewards

Finally, for your brands’ target audience, the risks and rewards and very different. For a consumer, choosing which brand of cereal or computer hardware to buy is a decision that usually doesn’t involve much complexity or emotion. On the other hand, for a potential employee, deciding where to accept an offer of employment usually involves an extremely high level of complexity and emotional engagement.

When you make a brand promise to a potential employee, the weight of expectation to fulfill that promise is intense. Unlike a consumer who is unhappy with a purchase, an employee who takes a job and then finds it to be inconsistent with the brand promise cannot simply return it. Instead, reconsidering that employment decision can represent major life upheaval. Because the risks are so high, employer brands must especially focus on living up to their promises.

From the Glassdoor Talent Solutions Blog

glassdoor logoAbout Glassdoor: Glassdoor is the world’s most transparent career community that is changing the way people find jobs, and companies recruit top talent. Glassdoor holds a growing database of 6 million company reviews, CEO approval ratings, salary reports, interview reviews and questions, office photos and more.

Unlike other jobs sites, all of this information is entirely shared by those who know a company best — the employees.

For employers, Glassdoor offers effective recruiting and employer branding solutions via Glassdoor Talent Solutions. We help more than 1,500 employers promote their employer brand to candidates researching them and advertise their jobs to ideal candidates who may not be aware of them. What differentiates Glassdoor from other recruiting channels is the quality of job candidates we deliver and our influence on candidates’ decisions as they research jobs and companies.

Shut Up, Startups: Why Recruiting Technology Can’t Fix What’s Really Broken

What follows is an account of a successful early careerist having a career discussion with an influential mentor:

After I graduated from Harvard and took my first job as an investment banker earning $150K, upon returning home for Thanksgiving my Mom cornered me in the kitchen and in an exasperating tone asked (or rather, demanded):

“You’re 26 years old – [raising her voice] WHY AREN’T YOU A CEO ALREADY LIKE YOUR FRIEND JIMMY? I AM SO FREAKING TIRED OF LISTENING TO HIS MOM LINDA BRAG ABOUT, ‘JIMMY’S A CEO, HE HAS ANGEL INVESTORS, HE’S GOING TO BE A BILLIONAIRE’ – WHEN THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO PAY ME BACK FOR ALL THE YEARS I BATHED YOU, FED YOU, CHANGED YOUR GOD-DAMNED DIAPERS? WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO START YOUR OWN COMPANY AND BE A CEO? WHEN, WHEN, WHEN?!?!”

[In a calm soothing voice] “But Mom…”

[Mom’s really pissed off now] “SCREW ‘BUT MOM!’ WILL YOU JUST START UP A DAMN COMPANY THAT FIXES RECRUITING?!?!”

Oh, if it only were this easy.

And yes, it is the reason why “new” recruiting technology is exploding globally – because entrepreneurs truly believe that technology, any technology, will cure the ills of recruiting.

recruiting_technology_brokenRecruiting Technology: Entrepreneurs vs. End Users

In The Future of Recruiting and Hiring Technology, Sharlyn Lauby of HR Bartender fame says, “When you automate the right tasks, then it frees up time to do the in-person ones better.”

The problem here is in how the entrepreneur (a) comes to their conclusion that recruiting is broken; and, (b) comes up and develops a solution that will undoubtedly make them an angel investor or venture capitalist’s pet. In other words, Sharlyn would be spot-on if the underlying recruiting processes were optimal and the recruiters tasked with implementing the processes were optimal as well. Neither is.

Automating the “right” tasks is what stumps most recruiting technology entrepreneurs; are they automating the right task or a part of a process that is broken, aging, or downright useless?

Here’s a typical comment about a better way to recruit (this one is pasted from the above article – all I’ve done is turn on italics):

The fundamental assumption that recruiters need to do more outreach, be it automated is wrong.

Recruiting should and will become more inbound. Should companies always reach out to potential talent (be it on the form of automatic mails)? Shouldn’t technology actually make engagement and data driven hiring more efficient. The problem with many technologies being developed today is that recruiting is still seen upon as a filling up a job and not in terms of making a career. Take the very successful companies like Google, Netflix. Apart from posting jobs (if they post i.e.), do they do direct selling of their position.

The future of recruiting is in inbound marketing. If one tries to understand the relationship between marketing, sales and recruiting you would see a pattern. Marketers are early adoptors, Sales adopt technologies and practices if they seem to be successful in marketing. Recruiters are generally late adopters.

The likes of Amazon, Apple etc (I consider them as Sales and Marketing Companies, these companies buy and sell stuff and keep a margin) etc are focussing on more inbound tactics. They do marketing and not sales. These companies don’t buy email databases and send mass mails. They put the right ad in front of the right customer and gets their sales done.

I see recruiting too moving in that direction. If a company is able to post the right job in front of the right candidate, the sale is going to happen. How can this happen?

1. Replace job description with tasks : Job Description are dead, no candidate has the time to read them. Just like a recruiter looks at keywords in resumes, the talent looks for keywords. Product companies are already doing task based sourcing and hiring
2. Focus on inbound : The really successful companies focus on inbound recruiting. This is about a.identifying those right nodes and playing them in front of the candidate b.keeping your employees happy who in turn will lead you to more talent.
3. Push careers : Imagine you are a highly talented candidate. One company offers you a job and a really good package. There is another company which is offering you a job, a well defined career progression cycle (Things like google’s OKR based promotion cycles) and a decent salary. Which one would you chose?

The future of recruitment technology is not about outbound tools, it is about creating tools that would lead to inbound recruiting.

PS : This is a sales pitch. if you believe in what we do, check out HuntShire.

A sales pitch. Ah, I hadn’t noticed. Anyone want to guess how many years of recruiting experience the team of three co-founders has between them?

Is there anything in this fellow’s sales pitch that makes you confident that he understands the ins and outs of recruiting – the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly? What I do see is a rehashing of the same phrases we’ve been hearing for decades – like “Job descriptions are dead, no candidate has the time to read them” – and a pitch for a “better way.” Ho-hum, wake me up before you go-go…

If it’s not replacement for job descriptions, it’s gamification; if it’s not gamification, it’s mobile; if it’s not mobile, it’s how to recruit software developers. It’s a new ATS, a new assessment tool based upon the teachings of Carl Jung (yes, I’m being sarcastic), a new social job board that no one has thought of before.

What Recruiting Technology Is Missing

My point here is not to denigrate entrepreneurism or recruiting technology but do you see what’s missing from all this new recruiting technology?

  • Recruiters
  • Company leaders and how they view the importance of recruiting…
  • Hiring managers (notice how much recruiting technology takes recruiting away from recruiters and places it back into the hands of the hiring managers)…
  • Jobseekers

How often do recruiting technology entrepreneurs with a better way conduct focus meetings with not just someone from each category but with someone from each category who is good, bad and even ugly? How often do these focus meetings result in a re-engineering of a “flawed” process? Or is this new recruiting technology designed to make easier a flawed process?

I’m asked to review more recruiting technology than I’d like, but as part of my personal belief in stewarding the recruiting profession, I rarely decline the chance to see if the reality meets the hype. I listen to the person’s background, where they went to school. I breathe in all the words of the pitch, the reason why recruiting is broken.

Finally, I’m given a business card with a phone number and email to call later to discuss.

And the title reads, “CEO”…

steve levyAbout the Author: Steve Levy is well respected as one of the best sourcers in the business, combining old school and new cool technologies to identify and engage exceptional talent – and actually knows those mythical “purple squirrels.”

Levy, a member of the RecruitingBlogs Editorial Advisory Committee who has been referred to as “the recruiting industry’s answer to Tom Peters” has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Most Social Human Resources Experts on Twitter;

The 10 to Follow in Social Media Recruiting; Top 25 Twitter Accounts for Job Seekers to Follow; Top 100 Twitter Accounts Job Seekers MUST Follow: 2012; Top 50 Twitter Accounts Job Seekers MUST Follow: 2011; 101 Career Experts all Job Hunters Should Follow on Twitter; and Top 100 HR & Recruiting Pros to Follow on Twitter.

Follow Steve On Twitter @LevyRecruits or Connect With Him on LinkedIn.

When Will We Stop Talking About Social Recruiting?

social recruiting shut upSocial technology has had a huge impact on the enterprise. From the way we do business to the way we find business – it’s changed many things.In recruiting, it’s changed the way we source talent, the way we assess candidates, not to mention the way candidates assess us.

There are still many organizations only dabbling in social recruiting. In fact, as noted in my recently published State of Talent Acquisition 2014 report, only about 7% of organizations have a formal strategy with clear goals and KPIs. Perhaps this is why there are so many blogs, webinars, and even entire conferences dedicated to educating folks on tactics and key practices.People clearly need help.

One question has been running through my mind for the last year or two: When will it end?

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think the Facebooks or the Twitters or the Tumblrs of the world will be going anywhere anytime soon. Frankly, few things excite me so much as the myriad opportunities we have to continue innovating in talent acquisition through the catalyst that is social.

What I want to know, however, is when social talent acquisition, social recruiting, et cetera will become just plain, old talent acquisition in our minds. Five years? 10? 20? Something tells me it’ll be quite a while.

Case in point is a call I had last week with the recruiting product lead from one of the world’s largest enterprise solution providers. We talked for nearly an hour about the features and functionality needed to both support and drive a more social-enabled, collaborative talent acquisition process. Being Grade A nerds, we had plenty of ideas – surprisingly few of them far-fetched. But as soon as we ended the call, I kept thinking about my survey, about the 7%.

I realized that less than 1 in 10 organizations – those with formal social strategies in place – were likely to find any value in any of the ideas we’d spent the last hour discussing.

A rather sobering thought.

You see, what I didn’t tell you earlier is that while 7% of organizations have clear goals and KPIs for social recruiting, 43% of companies are using social technology on an ad hoc basis with no strategy in place. That means almost half of recruiters are using social with zero oversight, no rules, no regulation. As if that weren’t enough of a reality check, 24% aren’t using social at all.

It’s easy to get caught up in the latest and greatest goings-on in talent acquisition, to lose yourself in the various use cases for advanced talent analytics or the business impact of recruitment marketing. While these things make for interesting conversation up in the ivory tower, however, I think it may be time to rein things in a bit – lest we render ourselves irrelevant to the masses.

We’ve got a while before social (and mobile and video and…) is so ingrained in hiring practices that people stop talking about it. Getting social more deeply integrated into the technology we use to source, assess, and onboard will help, but I think the bigger challenge is establishing key practices and tenets of mature social process. That’s where I come in.

76% of companies are using social in talent acquisition to one extent or another, and I want to know how. More than that, I want to know what’s holding the remaining 24% back. In the coming months, I’ll be investigating tactics, programs, and strategies for social talent acquisition to get an idea of when we can move past all the talk and start discussing the next “big thing.”

Stay tuned.

 See more at Talent Acquisition Today


Kyle Lagunas-9About the Author: As the Talent Acquisition Analyst at Brandon Hall Group, Kyle Lagunas heads up research in key practices in sourcing, assessing, hiring, and onboarding – as well recruitment marketing, candidate experience, and social recruiting.

Through primary research and deep analysis, he keeps today’s business leaders in touch with important conversations and emerging trends in the rapidly changing world of talent.

Kyle has spent the last several years offering a fresh take on the role of technology as part of an integrated talent strategy, and focuses on providing actionable insights to keep leading organizations a step ahead.

Previously the HR Analyst at Software Advice, he is regular contributor on SHRM’s We Know Next and TLNT, and his work has been featured in Forbes, The New York Times, Business Insider, Information Weekly, and HRO Today.

Follow Kyle on Twitter @KyleLagunas or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Intelligent Resume Search: How Boolean Basics Outperform Paid Tools

intelligent resume searchIntelligent Search Agents, a DC based staffing company specializing in combining “easy and affordable tools” with “expert support” for small business staffing, has recently released a new tool called Internet Resume Search. This seemingly simple tool was developed to do pretty much exactly what the name implies: searching and returning resumes from sites like Google, Bing, Ask.com, Craigslist and Indeed, among others.

Like many other tools out there, such as EMailFinder.Io, which I looked at last week, Intelligent Resume Search was built to essentially automate many Boolean basics that even the most novice sourcing professionals should be familiar with, but like most of these tools, there are strings attached to those strings.

In this case, that’s a paid subscription model that not only charges between $19 and $69 a month, but also limits the monthly resume views recruiters can access with the tool.And while the basic premise sounds pretty promising, Intelligent Resume Search results are limited to resumes files in Microsoft Word (.doc) and Adobe (.pdf), which is incredibly limiting, given the preponderance of resumes out there written in alternative formats like HTML, TXT, RTF, etc.  That’s a whole lot of resumes it’s leaving out.

After taking this tool for a test drive, I decided to do a comparison, using the tool to search for a position I often source for: Java developers in Seattle.  Using the paid tool, which purportedly looks across search engines and sites, I was able to find three resumes meeting the basic skill and location parameters I inputted.  Compare that to the basic Boolean string I used – and limited to Google – without even looking at these other sites like Indeed or Craigslist.  The string I used was:

“-resume java “seattle, wa” ext:(PDF | Doc) -job -jobs -example -sample”

The results returned with this free string were significantly larger than the resume set returned with the paid tool.  In fact, the first 10 results returned by Google on the first page alone seemed to fit the bill as far as recruiting goes.  Now, obviously, utilizing this string for sourcing doesn’t guarantee that they are currently located in Seattle, as some of these results might be outdated or inaccurate (as in cases where their company is headquartered in Seattle, even if their jobs are located elsewhere).

boolean

So I took this basic search a step further by using this string:

-resume java ext: (PDF | DOC) 98100..98199 -job -jobs -example -sample

The Boolean string above looks for any resume or related word (e.g. CV; “Work History”) and will return only Word documents or .PDF files which fall within the full range of zip codes assigned to the Seattle area, in this case, 98100-98199.  Needless to say, I got way more resume results than just the three returned by Intelligent Resume search.  On Page 1 of Google alone, 8 out of 10 results were viable resumes – and, again, I found these in seconds without paying a cent.

I don’t want to say that Intelligent Resume Search isn’t a good or effective tool, nor single it out as there are a ton of technologies out there designed to exploit the fact that most recruiters these days have absolutely no knowledge or experience with even the most basic Boolean searches.

But if you’re even a competent sourcer or know Google well enough to just find a cheat sheet for basic Boolean strings, you should save your money and not spend your limited sourcing budget on Intelligent Resume Search – at least not until it adds some worthwhile features and functions that can’t be easily replicated by basic Boolean.

Which, given the fact that the product is still in beta, will hopefully be coming soon.

They’re desperately needed if they expect to actually sell this tool to experienced recruiting and staffing professionals.

 

dean_dacostaAbout the Author: Dean Da Costa is a highly experienced and decorated recruiter, sourcer and manager with deep skills and experience in HR, project management, training & process improvement.

Dean is best known for his work in the highly specialized secured clearance and mobile arenas, where he has been a top performing recruiter and sourcer.  Dean’s keen insight and creation of innovative tools and processes for enhancing and changing staffing has established Dean as one of the top authorities in sourcing and recruiting.

Connect with Dean at LinkedIn or follow @DeanDaCosta on Twitter.

How To Get Press Coverage for Your HR Tech Startup

hrtechtankThis week at the HR Tech Tank, a startup incubator & networking event for startups and emerging technologies in the human capital management and recruiting space, one of the major topics that emerged as front of mind for attendees echoes that of entrepreneurs everywhere. Once you’ve got a great product, how do you get people to notice?

Getting the word out means mastering the art of public relations, even if you don’t have a full time PR department or dedicated agency.  The most effective way to get coverage, particularly for the purposes of getting credibility while building buzz around your brand, is getting media coverage.

While that seems obvious, even those companies that are the most active at press relations don’t always do it right.

Dmitri Sarle, CEO of ArticStartup, a leading independent technology blog covering digital startups and entrepreneurship in the Nordic and Baltic countries, gave HR Tech Tank attendees advice on how to break through the noise and make sure your pitch gets heard – and your product gets covered.

Inbound PR: Being the Source

“80% of startups don’t do inbound PR,” Sarle said.  “But it’s the easiest way to not only get other people to cover your company, and also to get found without press.”

Sarle pointed to blogging as being a necessity for startups trying to build their brand, particularly in PR efforts, where many journalists turn for context and content to augment their own news stories or features.

According to Sarle, product updates, industry trends and changes as well as your own experiences as an entrepreneur are fundamental topics for blog coverage, but just as important as quality is quantity, Sarle said.  “We see so many companies with blogs that are inactive, or have a post every few months – an inactive blog sends a message to journalists.  If you don’t cover your company, why should they?”

Sarle advised the end goal of blogging is to establish your expertise and, consequently, your validity with journalists (not to mention potential customers, investors and employees).

“Don’t write about yourself.  Write about how you fit into the larger ecosystem or your industry,” Sarle said.  “For us, as media, we become interested in your expertise, and that leads to coverage – for you and your company.”

Another necessary, but often overlooked, inbound methodology for building inbound PR is a dedicated  press or media section on your company website, Sarle advised.  “Most companies don’t have one at all, or else their press page is weak – but it takes minimal time and creates maximum impact.”

Sarle advised that at a minimum, corporate press pages should include contact details, company background, past press releases and news coverage, employee profiles, rich media assets like photos and videos, and quick, effective data and statistics to help your company stand out while reinforcing your messaging.

Pitch, Please: Meet the Press

Getting media coverage involves more than just a pitch or sending a press release through a wire service, according to Sarle.  Like recruiting, HR or marketing, the goal isn’t volume, but personalization.  “Be human,” Sarle said.  “Not everyone gets excited or engaged by the same stuff.”

Sarle advised startups to do research on journalists through social media channels, previous content on competitors or the industry they’ve published and what their primary beat or coverage focus is instead of sending out messages en masse.

When sending an e-mail, Sarle advised, it’s best to keep it short and sweet.  “Leave the journalist wanting more,” Sarle said.  “Don’t give them everything – give them a reason to get in touch with you.”

Pitching by e-mail should include the following information – ideally on a single screen that doesn’t require the journalists to scroll or look at a block of text.

  • One liner: Start off by summing up what you do in a single sentence.  Journalists call this the “lead,” but it’s equally important for companies, too.
  • The Angle: Journalists need stories, not fluff, so it’s important to not only share news, but a very clear angle that definitively answers why your news is a big deal.
  • Bullet Points and Highlighted Text: Call out the important parts by bolding text and breaking up text blocks, Sarle said, as most journalists look at literally dozens of press releases and correspondence daily
  • Stats and Data: The qualitative is the story, but the quantitative gives the story context.  Make sure you’ve got proof of concept and make this clear by using numbers to prove your point and make your pitch more compelling.

Ultimately, recruiting startups may have an inherent advantage, as success at pitching products involves the same basic currency as talent acquisition: building relationships and adding value.

It’s not always the best companies or most compelling news that get covered, Sarle said, but those who the reporter actually knows and trusts.  That’s why he advised startups and entrepreneurs to share tips on the industry, engage on social media, and start building relationships – and trust – well before you actually have news.  That means laying the ground work early and presenting yourself as an industry expert, not necessarily an entrepreneur.

“We’re journalists, which means we know nothing – we need people to tell us what’s going on,” Sarle said.  “And it’s not professional – it’s personal.  All stories, even those about technology, are human interest stories.  If humans aren’t interested, then no content will get read, period.”

Top 5 Secrets for LinkedIn Success

Okay, you’ve created your LinkedIn profile, updated all of your past experience and education, so you’re all set to go, right? Wrong. If you don’t actually DO something with your LinkedIn account and make the most of it, then you’re missing out. Here’s what your REALLY need to know about LinkedIn to land that dream job.

1. You never know who your friends know.

  • That college kid who cuts your grass? His dad is the CEO of XYZ, your dream company.
  • Your frat brother from college? His sister works in HR at XYZ.
  • Your neighbor? He was the best man in the wedding of that hiring manager at XYZ.
  • Your poker buddy? He used to work at XYZ and knows hundreds of employees there.
A business card can’t tell you any of this, but LinkedIn can. At the end of the day, this difference is what makes LinkedIn the most important tool in your job search strategy.
To do: Start connecting and build your network. How? See #2 on this list.

2. A small, limited network is an ineffective network.

“It’s not WHAT you know… it’s WHO you know.” Never has this saying been more true than in a bad economy and job market. People feel safer hiring a known quantity so the wider your network, the better your chances. Each first-level connection links you to everyone THEY know and everyone that THOSE people know. Powerful, huh?
To do:  Really grow your network. Connect with friends, family members, past & present coworkers / clients, neighbors, classmates, professors, recruiters and maybe even a handful super-connectors (to really give your network a boost). Then network with those connections to land that dream job. Your buddy putting in a good word for you could be the tipping point that landed YOU the interview instead of some other guy/gal.

3. If you don’t think about keywords, you’ll miss the bus.

LinkedIn is the biggest, best resume database ever created (plus a ton more, obviously – see #5 below – but the resume database part is key to my point here).  93% of recruiters used LinkedIn to hire last year and that number is only growing. We do searches to find candidates who meet the requirements for our openings. We use long, elaborate “search strings” to sift through the 277 million user profiles in LinkedIn. Yes, 277 MILLION. We search for specific keywords and only look at resumes that contain the right combinations of those keywords. If your resume doesn’t contain those specific terms, recruiters aren’t even looking at your resume. And you can’t win the prize if you’re not even running in the race.
To do: Look at job descriptions for your dream job. What skills are listed as requirements? What job titles are they using? What specific terms are listed in these descriptions? Is the same concept listed three different ways by three different companies? Make sure your resume is varied and diverse in its language to incorporate each possible way of saying the same thing. (For me, it might be “recruiter” v. “talent acquisition” v. “staffing” v. “sourcer”…) Use keywords to be found.

4. Post and pray doesn’t work.

You wouldn’t dream of creating a LinkedIn profile and just waiting for someone to reach out to you, would you? Don’t do that with job boards or company career pages either. You can’t just apply online for a job and then cross your fingers that you’ll hear back from the company. Remember that dozens or, more likely, HUNDREDS of other applicants applied for that very same job. What are you doing to stand out from the pack?
To do: After applying online via a company’s website, you should ALWAYS follow up afterward. LinkedIn is the perfect way to do this. You can search for recruiters and/or hiring managers at that company. Reach out to them and let them know that you’ve already applied online and wanted to follow up to reiterate your strong interest in working for XYZ. Mention the specific job number and briefly emphasize how perfectly you match the top handful of requirements. Let them know that you are available to interview at their convenience and thank them for their time. Cover letters are dead. This “post-application LinkedIn follow-up” is the new cover letter. This is where you use your own words to shine and stand out from the pack. Proactive, enthusiastic and driven are all good qualities in a future employee!

5. LinkedIn is so much MORE than just a resume database.

To redeem myself for what I wrote in #3, I must remind you that LinkedIn is so very much more than a resume database or job board. There are so many wonderful features that you just can’t find elsewhere. There are groups, status updates, recommendations, endorsements, visual attachments/links you can add to your profile (love these!), profile pics, messaging, LinkedIn Today – an aggregator of trending articles on any number of categories that you can customize to suit your needs (bye-bye, morning paper!), posts by thought leaders in your industry, you name it!
To do: Block time each day to play around on LinkedIn and explore the various features available to you. Some may not speak to you but others may make all the difference. Use these tools to brand yourself as an expert in your field and make yourself attractive to recruiters, hiring managers, future employers. Fully leveraging the LinkedIn tools available to you could make all the difference in your job search…. which, hopefully, means you won’t be a jobseeker for long!
Good luck out there. I know it’s tough, but LinkedIn can be an amazing resource if used effectively. There are so many helpful people and experts on LinkedIn who are willing to help and share their knowledge… put yourself “out there” and take advantage of it all! You CAN do it!
What’s YOUR best tip for LinkedIn networking? Any other tips you’d like to share? We’d all love to hear from you!
Learn more tips, tools and tricks for getting the most out of LinkedIn at StacyZapar.com
StacyZaparHeadshot-SmallAbout the Author: Stacy Donovan Zapar is a 16-year recruiting veteran for Fortune 500 tech companies and CEO & Founder of Tenfold Social Training, a recruiter training company for talent acquisition and staffing teams around the world. In addition to in-house recruiter training, she is also currently working for Zappos as their Candidate Experience & Engagement Strategist, working on fun projects around social recruiting, talent communities, talent brand, candidate experience and more.

How To Become A Recruiting Thought Leader In 5 Easy Steps

5 tips to become a recruiting thought leader, note sarcasm.

douche-stuffOne question that I get asked way more often than I’d like is, “how do I become a recruiting thought leader?”  Well, here’s a tip: if you need advice on that particular topic, you’re probably out of your element here, Donnie.  But the whole concept of thought leadership is, well, a little nauseating to me.

What we call “thought leadership” is really just a moniker for the people who are the best at playing the game.  And really, crap like Klout and scheduling Tweets to automatically go out at optimal times for generating impressions is just a game.

The rewards are pretty solid.  You get to stay in Marriott properties, eat like a minor league baseball player on a tight-fisted per diem, and get to spend time you’d normally be channel surfing “networking” with local HR ladies and regional sales guys you’ll never see again, since they pop up for one of these a year.  Of course, do it well enough, and you get to go to all of them.

Once you’ve spent some time pretending to be a thought leader, life becomes Kafkaesque – you keep doing the old soft shoe routine not because you’re actually buying what you’re selling, but because you know it works.  A lot of “thought leaders” have a weird Messianic angle, that they’re the only ones who can save the damned, namely agency recruiters and HR generalists.  Which makes sense considering the first thing I think when I hear most of the drivel these mouth breathers put out is “Jesus Christ.”

But since you asked, here are the 5 steps to becoming a thought leader:

1. Become Unemployable: You might think it’s glamorous to fly coach to user conferences in Tampa, but the fact is, most of the people prepping those decks while munching on peanuts would rather be doing what you’re doing.  Sitting at a desk, getting to go and leave the office at predictable times, receiving regular paychecks and steady benefits.  The thought leader, like most ascetics, needs none of these niceties – mostly because those things come with having a real job.

None of the people who do this crap for a living actually want to be doing this for a living.  Tweeting about HR or recruiting literally 24-7 eventually becomes enough to make you want to slit your wrists.  The only reason “thought leaders” put up with it is because they know they can’t do anything else, mainly because they don’t like doing anything.  Which is why they largely don’t even deign to put together their own Powerpoint presentations.

newbcard2. Embrace Your Inner Douche: You don’t have to be the Incredible Hulk getting pissed or Superman in a phone booth to undergo a sudden shift from nebbish everyman to super powered “thought leader,” SHRM conference circuit celebre and Spirit frequent flyer.  You just have to find that part of you that doesn’t care what anyone thinks.

Because you can’t be a thought leader until you’ve convinced yourself, at least on the surface, that you are the shizzit.

Need inspiration?  Think of the frat guys in Revenge of the Nerds or Jets fans or that guy who posts all the stupid Business Insider stuff in every one of your LinkedIn groups.

The guy who blows smoke from a finger gun after making a hire or who laughs every time someone mentions anything related to sexual harassment.  If you’re really going to be a thought leader, you really have to be a giant douche.

3. Automate and Advertise: If you’re just now getting started as a thought leader, your success will depend largely on your budget.  That’s alright, though, because you can’t be above paying for followers or buying ads for your personal brand marketing.   After all, you’ve got to get your face out there – and you can casually bring up stuff like, “I just crossed 78,000 followers on Twitter,” even completely out of context to sound cool.  People who don’t know what they’re talking about are impressed by big numbers.

Of course, once you’ve acquired a few thousand followers who are mostly either fake or dumb enough to click on display ads, you’ll want to engage them.  And because you’re a thought leader, you can’t get enough of engagement, because it’s meaningless but no one will ever disagree with the overall premise that engagement is good (except, perhaps, those left at the alter).

Because engagement is so important, you do the only thing you can to make sure your growing fan base continues to know you exist and are relevant: by making it rain content like an NBA player at a strip joint.  The key is automation – because you’ll have more important stuff to do, like pretending to need stuff from Target to get out of your “home office” during the day, you don’t want to have to remember to check social media and post stuff that’s timely and relevant. Great thought leadership, after all, is timeless.

Instead, find a tool that lets you copy and paste other people’s tweets and put it in a hopper with a bunch of links to Mashable posts and garbage from Forbes Online that happens to have catchy titles.

4. Prove How Awesome You Are: You know it, and if you schedule a bunch of irrelevant posts in high enough volumes around related enough topics, and Klout will too.  But how do you make real people know your thought leadership chops and respect you, even though you’re driving a ’94 Miata and living in a studio?

Make sure you add a hashtag to every noun, and at least two more to the end of each to make it easy to “join the conversation.”  Use phrases like “join the conversation,” because thought leaders are all about growing their communities through relevant, authentic and transparent dialogue.  Also, if there’s ever a current event, TV show or Twitter chat, make sure to append those.  People like recruiting, but they love #Scandal and trending topics that you don’t get, but help you get seen.  What’s a #thatcouldbeusbutyouplayin?  Doesn’t matter.

The important thing is showing that you’re not VH1, you’re still MTV, and that you get Gen Y.  Who, by the way, you need to be really passionate about and ready to speak of them frequently in sweeping, second-hand stereotypes because scaring old people is good business (as reverse mortgage companies and Boolean trainers already know).

5. Delegate Everything: Here’s a secret: a real thought leader is so busy thinking that they literally don’t do anything.  To really move from occasionally retweeted guy who shows up once in a while at conferences to the person lucky enough to pay out of pocket to do a break out session for an audience of 25 benefits coordinators sleeping off a box lunch, you need to devote yourself to the big picture.

The fact that you have no money to pay yourself, much less anyone else, shouldn’t scare you.  After all, they will be able to bask in your glow and you can make them believe you have pull with the people who actually make hiring decisions at companies because the agency who runs their careers account occasionally favorites your updates.  They will most likely be unemployable, meaning they’re already one step towards becoming a true thought leader, but those who don’t go into recruiting can put their sociology and poly sci degrees to good use by getting to put the prestigious name of your shell company on their resume, and even a reference from someone with a Kred of 72.

Follow these 5 steps and watch the followers flock to your thoughts like bugs to a bug light.  Once you’ve lured them in with your personal brand, you’ll want to zap them with the stuff that made you a world leading expert, mostly because you’re making the stuff up for the purposes of sounding smart.  It helps that innovation more or less means no one can accuse you of being a completely worthless slob in the present.

If you liked this post, please connect with me on SnapChat or Google+.  Because while thought leaders have no idea how the hell any platform besides maybe Facebook really work, you will need to show you know social networks that are “in” with the kids today (PS: apparently Second Life isn’t a thing anymore?).  You’ll even need to show you know social networks no one else knows about, like Coatr.Fi.  Nah, don’t worry about it – it’s still in closed beta.  Thought leaders only, you know.