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Why Temp-To-Perm Sourcing Is a Great Idea

Is it just me, or have job seekers stepped up a few levels regarding their self-marketing abilities? Have recent social media trends and the perceived blemish-free Instagram stories generation created a cohort of candidates whose CVs and interview personas come across as even more impressive facades rather than the truth of ability?

While a temp-to-perm hiring strategy may have previously been aimed at filling gaps for companies needing a quick recruitment fix, it may be time to adjust our mindsets. Using this strategy to dig deeper into the talent pool and source genuine, quality candidates to which the company could confidently offer full-time contracts if needed.

How Do Candidates Feel About Temp-to-Perm?

The job market is competitive and challenging, and job security should be a high priority for most. When you start digging deeper and trying to understand the mindset of the post-pandemic job market, you realize things are different from what they were.

Australian recruitment services company Aquent reports, “64% of people in permanent jobs within the digital, creative and marketing space would consider leaving for a contract role.” Why would so many consider contract work outside the more traditionally secure permanent position?

The time during the pandemic allowed us all to press pause, re-evaluate and adjust our priorities. Companies have also adjusted their expectations of their employees, understanding their need for more flexibility but also requiring their workforce to maintain and increase the high level of work.

The temp-to-perm hiring strategy, therefore, gives the recruiter a powerful tool. On the one hand, you can give potential candidates trial runs in a position, this we know well. On the other hand, it offers flexibility, career exploration and discovery, which many candidates are after.

Building on Your Temp-to-Perm strategy 

Building a talent pool of potential candidates who can temporarily fit required roles in a company is vital for a sourcer. Your company may require high-volume hiring during an expansion period where hiring temp-to-perm is best suited.

It may find itself in a time of growth, requiring sourcing candidates with specialized skill sets who are unable or unwilling to commit to a full-time position at that stage.

The candidate’s ability to interact with the current team and customers is also essential. Before offering a permanent contract, a temporary employment scenario might be the best strategy.

A temp-to-perm strategy is one that, if used well, really seeks to benefit a motivated and forward-thinking workforce while also giving the employer the ability to get the work done with less financial risk. However, as mentioned earlier, there is more to this strategy.

Candidates are more willing to take risks and find roles that offer more lifestyle-positive opportunities. They are eager to try out new roles and not just sit back in the comfortable armchair of job security.

The Benefits of Hiring Temp-to-Perm Employees

As an essential aspect of your recruiting strategy, there are a few important benefits to highlight. It is well known that hiring on a temp basis allows the company time to assess whether the candidate is a great fit for the company and if permanent employment may be offered in the future, but what about the candidate’s perspective?

Is the Company the Right Fit for the Candidate? 

As a sourcer and recruiter, you need to allow space for the candidate to decide if the company is the best fit for them. Giving the candidate the opportunity for a temporary position could give them the time they need to decide. The recruiter, the company and the candidate can reach the most suitable agreement for continued permanent employment. Alignment is crucial here. After all, permanent is pretty hard set. Don’t cha think?!

Specialized Candidates for Temporary Specialized Roles

Some roles require a specialized skill set for a fixed amount of time. Some companies may be in a time of growth and require someone for a specific time-sensitive role. A freelance candidate may be excellent in this role as they don’t need full-time employment but have the flexibility to offer their skills in the required context over a shorter period.

In this scenario, the company may see tremendous potential and value in the candidate and may want to entice the candidate into a more full-time role.

Cost Benefits of Temp-to-Perm

Moving straight to permanent employment can be a costly exercise for a company if things don’t work out. Hiring temp-to-perm could reduce the risk of unwanted contract termination costs and re-advertising the same role.

From the company’s perspective, employing candidates in temporary roles negates the need for negotiating big employee benefits packages and leads to a more cost-effective way of fulfilling required short-term roles.

Hiring Temp-to-Perm is an Increasingly Popular Strategy

While giving the company more options, hiring flexibility and cost benefits, the temp-to-perm strategy also greatly benefits the candidates. This strategy is steadily gaining traction in the recruiting world while the workforce adjusts and shifts to a more self-assured and adventurous mindset.

Flexibility is the new permanent.

Nymeria Upgrades Their Platform With People Search Capabilities

Nymeria has been a great platform for contact finding and enrichment in the past, but as of today they just laterally expanded to include search capabilities. This brings Nymeria in line with the big dogs of the industry, turning it more into a “one stop shop” suite for all things sourcing.

Being one of the better tools out there for contact finding, it was kind of a no-brainer for them to expand into the people search game.  Their Chrome Extension is also a great tool for enriching contact information on social platforms. Sometimes you’ll have someone’s LinkedIn but want to get their work email, and if you’re on the page and click the extension it will find all associated social profiles, phone numbers and emails.

Note that this is a paid service, so with every paid tool we recommend you try it out yourself using the free trial and make your own decisions about it. Check out their people search capabilities and tell us what you think! We love getting a pulse check from the community about the good, bad, and ugly for platforms like this.

When it comes down to it, you have a lot of options for enterprise level sourcing suites, so it’s good to know that other organizations are punching their way into this space. Competition usually begets innovation and drives down costs for us sourcers, so this is a win for us even if you choose not to use it.

Other Dean Da Costa Content:

Dean has a free page of sourcing tools, links, and other recruiting resources that we highly recommend you check out! That page has an overwhelming amount of stuff, so you gotta really love sourcing to appreciate the infinite hours of work Dean has put into it. For all of the Dean Da Costa resources on RecruitingDaily, click here!

Tips for Overcoming Hiring Challenges in the Global IT Industry

The talent shortage facing today’s global IT industry is undeniable, and it’s no secret that there are more jobs to fill than there are qualified candidates to fill them. Consider this: by 2030, a projected global human talent shortage of 85 million people could result in about $8.5 trillion in unrealized annual revenues, according to studies. 

While the global shift to remote work has widened the pool of candidates, it has also widened the competition for organizations looking to hire the best talent. And although your competitors may be able to offer candidates higher salaries or better benefits, this doesn’t automatically mean your organization is out of the running. 

In the highly competitive global IT marketplace, there are three keys to ensuring your organization can attract (and retain) the best talent. 

Define Audiences and Create Candidate Personas 

The first thing talent acquisition teams should prioritize is knowing their audiences and intentionally thinking about the different candidate personas they are trying to attract – not only today, but also in the future. 

It’s critical for talent acquisition teams and hiring managers to take the time to explore the different cultures related to the various markets they are operating in and to understand what messages and incentives resonate with the different types of people they are trying to draw into the organization. 

What is important and engaging for a software developer in India won’t necessarily be considered important or enticing to a software developer in Bulgaria. The same principle applies to nearly every other position and region across the board. 

There is also a large talent pool that has yet to enter the workforce, and hiring managers should already be thinking about that audience and positioning their organization to get in front of that talent. 

One example of how an organization can create a pipeline of new talent getting ready to enter the workforce is with a structured internship program. If a college student interns with an organization, does a good job and has a positive experience, that employer is effectively creating a talent bench of people who are ready to be hired as soon as they graduate. 

Develop Employer Brand and Showcase Culture 

When trying to attract and retain the best talent in the competitive global IT sector, one of the most important actions an organization can take is publicly showcasing its employer brand and company culture in a truthful, authentic manner. 

Social media is one of the easiest, most effective ways to do this. A strong social media presence that provides visibility into your organization’s inner workings, corporate social responsibility, mission and values, learning and development opportunities, diversity and team bonding activities allows potential candidates to get a glimpse into what it might be like to actually work there. 

When it comes to attracting younger talent and those who have recently entered the workforce, your organization’s social media brand presence is not only important, it’s critical. In fact, 58% of Gen Z and Millennial jobseekers with work experience search for information about potential employers on social media, and 48% have applied to job opportunities they found on social media, according to a study conducted by The Harris Poll. 

It’s clear that when it comes to hiring, Gen Z and Millennials are turning to social media, whether it’s to find job openings or to assess what your company culture is like, but they’re also willing to get involved in company social media if employers simply ask. 

Organizations can establish an employer brand ambassador program with existing employees to exponentially amplify their social media presence. Crowdsourcing social media efforts within your organization has a multitude of benefits including generating higher-quality content, increasing audience reach for that content and bolstering engagement levels. 

Employer brand ambassador programs also have the added benefit of capturing the magic moments behind the scenes of your organization that make it a unique place to work, from feel-good stories about managers who specially recognized a team member, to fun inner-team traditions like weekly trivia, to special moments of hilarity or kindness during virtual happy hours. Your organization’s employees are uniquely positioned to showcase your brand in a way that no one person or team could ever demonstrate on their own. 

Talent acquisition teams should also ensure they are working closely with their organization’s marketing team to help maintain the organization’s brand identity across all platforms and channels. From Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to LinkedIn and Glassdoor, the content that’s being posted by and about your organization is a reflection of your overall employer brand. 

Research has shown that the majority of candidates who are seriously considering a job offer will look at their potential new employer’s social media profiles for any potential red flags before making a decision about whether to join the company or not. 

Prioritize and Personalize Candidate Experience 

Finally, the last and arguably most important piece of the puzzle in helping organizations solve their global IT hiring challenges is ensuring the best possible candidate experience. This helps distinguish your organization from other companies out there vying for the same talent and also because the candidate experience is essentially the brand experience at the end of the day. In fact, 78% of candidates say the overall candidate experience they receive indicates how a company values its people. 

Candidates have reported withdrawing from the recruiting process because of the candidate experience. The top three reasons: 

    • Disrespect during interviews 
    • Poor rapport with the recruiters 
    • The hiring process simply took too long 

A negative candidate experience also has potentially harmful ramifications for your brand. According to research, 72% of candidates with a negative experience will tell others about it or post about it online. That’s not the kind of word-of-mouth any employer brand wants to spread about their organization. 

So, how do we perfect the candidate experience? The first step of this long, holistic process requires meticulously and carefully reviewing the entire journey – starting from the moment an individual decides to apply for a role at your organization, all the way up until their first day on the job – and looking at what’s happening at each stage of the process. 

Organizations should ensure the process is as easy, accessible and straightforward as possible. Is it simple for them to apply online, or does your organization require them to go through ten steps and provide excessive amounts of information? If the answer is the latter, talent acquisition teams should refine the process. 

Throughout the entire candidate journey, frequent communication is key. Candidates should be updated along every step of the process and kept in the loop on the next steps or thoughtfully and timely informed of why they are not right for the position. 

The interview stage is where your hiring team really has the chance to shine. The candidate’s resume and experience should be thoughtfully reviewed in advance by all team members conducting the interview. This shows the individual you are genuinely interested in them and appreciate and value their time. As well, specific questions based on their experience should be asked, and the team should also give the candidate a chance to provide feedback and ask any questions they may have. 

A survey conducted in the U.S. suggests that as high as 93% of job seekers experience anxiety as a result of interviews. A great candidate experience can be a good way of relieving stress among candidates, enabling them to focus on showing your team their best qualities and skills. 

Final Thoughts: Solving Global IT Hiring Challenges 

In today’s candidate-driven global market, candidates often have their choice of job offers. That’s why it’s crucial for an organization’s hiring managers and talent acquisition teams to prioritize knowing their audience, developing their employer brand and perfecting the candidate experience. When these three components work together in perfect harmony, your organization has the best chance of hiring the right candidate for the job and attracting the right talent to your company. 

Why Building an Inclusive Workplace Begins With Job Descriptions

Historically, companies use gender and racially-biased language, discriminating against people with disability, those belonging to LGBTQIA+ groups and minorities, albeit unintentionally. Take a look at any recent job description, and you are bound to find some biased language. 

The solution is to adopt inclusive job descriptions and communication practices. While it seems complicated, we can break it down to the fundamentals. This means that your job descriptions should contain these three aspects:

    • Role overview and description
    • Overview of daily tasks, performance indicators and deliverables
    • Inclusive benefits, including diversity statements or mental health, PTO benefits or other accommodations for employees

Most importantly, remember that thoughtful job descriptions are often considered the best ones. The time, effort and care you invest in crafting the perfect job description will make a significant difference for the candidates. The results – engaged and diverse teams and more inclusive workplaces. 

Impact of Inclusive Job Descriptions 

It matters what you say and how you say it. Organizations often unintentionally use discriminating language that actively discourages candidates from applying for open roles. Job descriptions with exclusive, gendered or racial language send a message that the position is limited to specific groups of people. 

Instead, language that promotes diversity and inclusion and is welcoming to all is essential to attract and retain employees. Here are some crucial reasons why inclusive job descriptions truly make a difference: 

Prevents Candidates from Self-Selecting 

Companies frequently use terms like ‘ninja’ or ‘rockstar’ and adjectives like ‘dominate’, ‘outspoken’ or ‘confident’ to describe their ideal candidate. Although it might not seem like it, these terms are gender-coded and discourage female candidates from applying for the job. In another example, terms like ‘digital native’ are ageist and exclude those who were not born during the internet and social media era. 

Similarly, having many essential requirements also deters applicants. It makes it harder for regular candidates to see themselves in such positions, and they don’t end up applying. This leads to candidates self-selecting themselves out of the recruitment even before the formal process begins.

You might already be aware of the famous study which found that women don’t apply to jobs in which they don’t meet the criteria 100%. On the other hand, men apply even if they meet 60% of the requirements. This finding is supported by more recent research by LinkedIn, which reported that women are more selective when applying for jobs. 

Inclusive job descriptions avoid using such terms that might prevent applicants from applying and stick to the role and performance-based neutral terminology. According to research by LinkedIn, men and women both relate most positively to strong performance-based descriptors. 

Targeting a Larger Candidate Pool

Job descriptions with biased language are bound to limit your candidate pool as candidates exclude themselves without applying. They are also unlikely to share the application with their friends and acquaintances if they don’t believe in your commitment to DEI. 

Research by McKinsey reports that candidates are unlikely to pursue jobs in an organization they perceive as non-inclusive. 44% of women, 45% of ethnic or racial minorities, and 50% of LGBTQIA+ respondents said they decided against pursuing or accepting a job because they believed the organization would not be an inclusive workplace. Overall, non-inclusive practices cause you to lose 39% of potential applicants. 

The job description or ad constitutes your first point of contact with the candidate and is crucial in demonstrating your organizational values and employer brand. Using inclusive and role-specific language motivates candidates to apply for the job and share the opening within their social groups. 

Sets the Tone for Candidate Communication 

The JD is one of the first documents that the candidates and the recruiters will use and evidently defines future communication. Job descriptions are designed collaboratively to provide insight into the role and are used across departments.

Not everyone knows everyone in the organization. And JD will act as a point of reference to navigate candidate communication within the department and the organization at large. Getting the job description right is important as it determines how managers and supervisors interact with new hires. 

If these descriptions are riddled with gender-coded and biased language, it can also add to the inherent biases of the employees. For instance, if the job description has a long list of ‘must-haves’, it creates unrealistic expectations of the candidate among managers and colleagues. This impacts recruitment as hiring managers will reject employees who don’t meet such strict requirements. It also affects employee performance reviews and satisfaction in the long run.

In contrast, inclusive job descriptions allow hiring managers to engage meaningfully with the candidates and hire them for their skills. In addition, they learn how to convey feedback and constructive criticism to the employees while nurturing their growth. 

Conclusion

Job descriptions determine how you talk about your candidates and the role they are set to fill. When these documents include exclusive and biased language (age, gender, sexuality, disability or socioeconomic status), it makes candidates feel unwelcome.

It also paints you as an employer that does not value diversity and inclusion. This will prevent candidates from applying, limiting your talent pool and hampering diversity growth in your organization. 

Inclusive job descriptions include language that does not discriminate against people based on age, gender, sexuality, race or socioeconomic status. It allows candidates from all backgrounds to visualize themselves in the role, encouraging them to apply.

Consequently, you reach a large number of talented candidates who believe in your company and values. Lastly, an unbiased JD ensures inclusive communication within the company at all levels, creating an inclusive workplace at large. 

Are You Ready to Upgrade Your Job Descriptions? 

To create belongingness and inclusivity in your organization, you must establish best practices to eliminate unconscious bias from your descriptions and other communications. By investing time and effort into revamping your job descriptions, you will attract more diverse and engaged candidates.

If you want to optimize and streamline your job description management process, JDXpert can help. To know more, request a demo today!

From the Great Resignation to the Great Layoffs: What to Expect in 2023

Boy, it’s been a bumpy ride for talent acquisition. From the Great Resignation to quiet quitting to mass layoffs, the job market tone is changing – rapidly.

In November 2022, Amazon announced 10,000 job cuts. In the same month, Meta announced 11,000 layoffs. And then, making major headlines across the U.S., Twitter announced an almost 50% workforce reduction.

But these significant layoff numbers didn’t just start in the fourth quarter of 2022; other companies were cutting employees throughout the year, including:

  • Peloton laid off 20% of its employees in February 2022 (with another 12% in October 2022)
  • MasterClass laid off 20% of its employees in June 2022
  • Snapchat laid off 20% of its employees in September 2022.

However, it’s not all terminations.  Employees are still quitting their jobs in high numbers, giving rise to the thought that the Great Resignation isn’t quite over. According to Business Insider, in September 2022, 4.1 million Americans quit their jobs, just under the 4.2 million that quit in August. At the Great Resignation’s peak, 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs in late 2021.

The highest industries with employees quitting? According to the most recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report, accommodation and food services, retail and professional and business services take home the highest number of quits per industry.

Keep reading to learn more about the continued Great Resignation, the growing Great Layoffs and what to expect as we move ahead.

The Continuing Great Resignation

Today, employers are retaining workers for longer periods of time, no longer offering “crazy” compensation packages to attract workers. Because of this, “the Great Resignation is far from over, but it is clearly winding down,” according to Julia Pollak, the chief economist at ZipRecruiter.

However, there were 10.3 million U.S. jobs available in October 2022, proving that this “wind down” is slow, as industries such as healthcare and social assistance spike a record number of job openings.

Enter the Federal Reserve, which as of late has been attempting to curb inflation and reduce the gap between the number of available jobs and those seeking a job (or a different job). But, according to Mark Hamrick, Bankrate.com’s senior economic analyst, “[t]he high number of openings continues to underscore the huge divide between supply and demand for labor, contrary to what the Federal Reserve wants to see as it battles inflation.”

McKinsey says “[i]t’s the quitting trend that just won’t quit.”  Even today, workers are still switching jobs, industries, and locations – starting their own businesses, changing industries or roles, or just taking time out to care for their families.

But are workers making the right decisions by changing jobs (or even industries) in such unpredictable times?

In a RecruitingDaily.com discussion with Amazon’s Marc Hamel, Principal Sourcer, Hamel noted that the decision to change jobs during these turbulent times wasn’t the “wrong” decision as several competing interests played into these choices – from family responsibilities to wanting higher salary packages or better benefits.

Hamel notes, however, that even if these decisions to find new employment weren’t “wrong,” many workers have felt buyer’s remorse in doing so.  According to a recent Joblist study, 26% of workers surveyed said they regretted leaving their previous jobs, leading to new phrases such as “The Great Regret” or “boomerang employees” (of which Hamel himself is one, moving from Amazon to Meta and back to Amazon).

One of the main reasons for this regret?  Forty-two percent of employees who found a new job after quitting said that the new job hasn’t lived up to their expectations.

The Reasons Behind High 2022 Layoff Numbers 

With so many workers leaving their jobs during The Great Resignation, employers were forced to hire en masse to fill open positions. Or did companies overestimate how many workers were needed to fill these positions?  After all, it was a crazy time.

But, this hiring en masse has led to mass layoffs, primarily in the tech industry, such as Meta, Amazon, Salesforce, Doordash and Twitter, to name a few. Hamel stated that employers saw these layoffs coming, especially with the exceedingly high number of hires in the previous years.

However, even though these layoffs are confined to a specific industry, the problem is that they are “loud.” They are front-page news.  They are public.  They are talked about on numerous social media platforms.

So, even though these layoffs are primarily contained within the tech industry, these layoffs have earned the nickname “loud layoffs” – negatively impacting how workers outside of the tech industry feel about their current jobs.

Moving Ahead

Looking forward, McKinsey predicts that with voluntary quit rates 25% higher than in pre-pandemic times, job openings won’t return to normal for some time as we continue to move through the Great Resignation and the Great Layoffs – or is it the Great Attrition or the Great Renegotiation? (So many “Greats.”)

Hamel agrees.  In our RecruitingDaily.com interview, he says that it’s not all doom and gloom. Instead, this too shall pass – a welcome thought for professional recruiters out there trying to fill roles.

However, Hamel said not to be surprised if we see still more layoffs. For example, within the large tech industry, companies tie compensation to equity and restricted stock units (RSUs). As a result, when companies lose value – and sometimes significant value – employees’ compensation is negatively impacted.  This can easily cause more employee upset, more attrition and more need to backfill and hire. And round and round we go.

Additionally, Hamel suggested that we’ll see more consumer spending over the next year, necessitating more hires for new positions, not just attrition hires.  And this is a positive for employers and employers alike.

Cumulatively, lessons have been and will continue to be learned.  In 2023 and beyond, recruitment professionals will be able to better manage these significant workplace ups and downs – better positioning themselves for whatever the job market throws their way.

Transforming Recruitment With People Insights

COVID-19 dramatically disrupted the way we work. Today’s workplaces are more dynamic, with change happening faster than ever before. In order to succeed in this new world, organizations are increasingly realizing that they need to have a more powerful real-time understanding of their employees. But while marketing, sales, operations and other business units all have the real-time insights capabilities they need to effectively operate and make decisions, recruitment is the only department that does not have access to continuous, data-driven insights to inform and support decision making. 

 The World of Work Has Changed

The pandemic and the severe long-term disruptions it has caused have completely altered how work gets done. In particular, office closures led to the normalization of remote and hybrid working, making us more disconnected than ever before. Employees have had to adapt to a completely different way of working, finding new methods to communicate and collaborate online using digital tools.

The lack of face-to-face contact poses unprecedented challenges to people management so managers too have had to adapt the ways they manage their team members remotely.

In addition, work-life balance issues have been brought to the forefront. The transition to remote or hybrid work has blurred the lines between work and personal life. Digital communication platforms can lead to increased interruptions, and the requirement for frequent video meetings can cause a specific form of exhaustion known as ‘Zoom fatigue’.

Moreover, there are now fewer opportunities for social support through work, so many employees feel less connected and engaged in this new world of work.  

For better or worse, the digitalization of the workplace is accelerating at its fastest ever rate. The success of this transition, judged by the impact it has on employees’ wellbeing and productivity, will come down to how effectively it is managed.

HR will play a central role in supporting organizations as they adapt to the new world of work. In the post-pandemic era, it is up to HR to propel organizations forward, as it is now a key stakeholder in the strategic decision-making process, providing visibility and understanding of the key issues, trends and people challenges within the business.

To effectively manage the distributed post-pandemic workforce, the need for accurate people insights is more acute than ever before. This requires analysis of people data flowing through the organization and the utilization of powerful new technologies (such as Machine Learning and AI) to transform the data into insights and actionable recommendations for employee management – the ‘people insights’ approach. 

Traditional HR Approaches Are No Longer Enough

The need for organizations to get data-driven insights into their people has never been more crucial. Indeed, a survey by Deloitte showed that more than three-quarters of organizations aspire to an effective people insights HR strategy, but fewer than one in five has succeeded in putting it into practice. Instead, many organizations are still using the same cumbersome and outdated approaches to understand their employees and teams.

The two most common methods are employee engagement surveys and sophisticated business intelligence (BI) tools, both of which are fraught with issues. Employee engagement surveys are burdensome for both analysts and respondents and they must be sent infrequently (generally once every six months) as they tend to introduce friction into the organization.

The responses provide a snapshot view of a single point in time, and therefore surveys are not suitable for supporting continued decision-making months later, when the situation may have changed. Many employees either do not respond due to the length of the survey, because they are worried that their responses are not truly anonymous, or because they believe management will do nothing with the results.

The responses that are gathered might be biased, for the same reasons. Finally, another issue is that the data from surveys tend to be aggregated and is only accessible to a limited group of people, typically executives and HR leaders.

 Likewise, business intelligence (BI) tools that capture data to produce people analytics dashboards are limited in various ways. They suffer from the same ‘rear-view mirror’ approach, taking old point-in-time data to inform their daily decision-making in an ever-changing business climate.

BI dashboards provide aggregated insights, making it more difficult to understand which strategies will be most effective for various teams and individual employees. These tools are also complex to use, require expensive trained analysts and do not scale to the whole organization.  

For all these reasons and more, employee engagement surveys and BI tools are not suitable for managing employees on a day-to-day basis. Instead, employers should seek to implement solutions that provide real-time, continuous, dynamic people insights that are personalized and customizable to everyone in the organization.

What People Insights Brings to the Table

The rate of change in the modern workplace is faster than ever before. To keep pace with this change, it is imperative that organizations find new ways of understanding their people. They must harness opportunities provided by the digitalization of the workplace for data-driven, personalized, relevant and timely insight into their people.

This is made possible through the masses of data that organizations already collect, but unfortunately many lack the expertise to know how best to utilize it. To fully realize the value of information flowing through the organization and make better decisions, companies must transform their approach to people data.

The people insights approach does not seek to do away with employee engagement surveys and BI tools, rather, it aims to create a system where all elements come together so that employees can thrive and leaders can make everyday people decisions with confidence.

By bringing together the vast tranches of data that already exist into a single platform, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) can be applied to generate real-time insights into employees and their behavior. The data can be automatically and continuously analyzed to help organizations extract valuable insights which can be transformed into informed people decisions.

In this way, organizations can go from the static, point-in-time insights generated using traditional HR tools to real-time insights that are customized and available to everyone. This will have benefits at multiple layers of the organization:

    • HR professionals get live updates on critical people issues as they develop (e.g., low employee engagement, poor retention, diversity and leadership) to be resolved more quickly than ever before. They get a detailed view of the organization, from the big picture down to the team-level, with driver analysis and the ability to slice and dice the data easily.    
    • Executives keep their finger on the pulse of their organization with smart alerts in real-time and decision support enabling insights. Allowing them to quickly address people management needs while improving engagement, retention, wellbeing and more.
    • Managers get visibility and personalized recommendations on key team metrics such as team engagement, wellbeing and productivity, so they can build healthy successful teams. Personalized leadership insights enable managers to grow into leaders and fulfill their potential. 
    • Employees receive customized insights to help on everything from cognitive load and workload, wellbeing, relationship building and career growth. To help them to proactively maintain their wellbeing, grow their career and improve their satisfaction and belonging at work. 

Conclusion

  The seismic effects of the pandemic – geographical dislocation, collaboration challenges, wellbeing issues, the Great Resignation, accelerating rate of change and more – have made the modern workplace an incredibly complex place to navigate.

Existing outdated tools such as employee engagement surveys and BI tools are no longer enough. With organizations increasingly demanding HR to provide visibility and guidance at all times, the need for HR to be data-driven and real-time has risen significantly.

To accomplish this, organizations must transform the way they approach data, and recognize the value of an HR strategy centered around frictionless people insights. 

7 Productivity Tips to Become a Better Recruiter

Time is perhaps the most valuable resource for recruiters. What you do with that time directly affects how many candidates you recruit and what return you bring in. And spending time doing the wrong things eventually costs your company in the long run. 

Did you know that the majority of a recruiter’s time is spent on admin activities and repetitive tasks that usually don’t add much value to the core work of a recruiter? 

So why is this happening? Why are recruiters not able to focus their time on important tasks? 

It is probably because of poor planning, intense workload, mismanagement and a lack of productivity measures and tools. 

So, to help you out of this situation, we are here with seven tips that will help you manage your time better and boost your productivity.

Create a To-Do List and Focus on Important Activities

Overarching deadlines and hovering tasks are some of the reasons for feeling stressed and burnt out at work. However, making a list of tasks you need to do each day would help you plan your day better and allow you to make more room for important tasks. 

Having a target list of long-term targets and then breaking them down into different short-term goals helps in focusing your efforts in one direction. To keep track of your to-do lists, tasks, projects and deadlines effectively, you can use task and project management applications.

These tools allow you to keep all your projects and tasks related to them in one place and remind you about your tasks as the deadline approaches. You can also use them to automate mundane tasks, take feedback, keep a check on your team and share daily updates among many other things.  

Invest in Right Technology and Tools

Scaling, workflow management, process improvement and other issues are standard as a company grows. Managing an organization’s human capital becomes more difficult as the number of employees grows.

Especially if your organization is growing, it is more likely that the increasing size of the organization will exhaust the company’s recruiters at some point.

Investing in HR software and platforms will assist the HR department in meeting its goals and objectives by streamlining administrative operations across areas such as hiring, training, and workforce management. Employing the right tools makes things easier, saves time and cost, provides better insights and ultimately boosts the productivity and efficiency of recruiters. 

Automate As Much As You Can

Previously, the human resources department required manual operations such as clocking in and out, managing leave and calculating payrolls. But as of today, things have taken a 360-degree turn and are heading rapidly toward automation.

Automation technology continues to revolutionize businesses across industries, and the recruitment market is no exception. Not only does it save you time by allowing you to focus on important responsibilities, but also results in better hires and streamlines the candidate experience.

Some of the processes that take up a lot of time and can be automated are:

    • Payroll Administration – One of the most important tasks of human resources is to appropriately calculate and pay salaries on time. This computation takes into account the number of hours worked, the number of leaves taken, bonuses and any other incentives.
    • Leave Administration – Manually managing leave necessitates keeping separate payroll records. Companies, on the other hand, can utilize a proper leave management system to apply, authorize and check to leave requests without any fuss.
    • Employee Onboarding – The recruiter is responsible for several duties that must be completed regularly and might be time-consuming. Some of these include gathering and sorting resumes, creating employee handbooks, providing new hires with access to tools, clarifying business rules and much more. Nowadays recruiters can automate employee onboarding activities as well.
    • Timesheets for Employees – Again, manually tracking employees’ time and attendance is not an option. The process can be time-consuming and exhausting. You can use an automatic timesheet app or attendance management software to track the number of hours worked, the amount of commission received, leaves taken and other information.

Leverage the Existing Talent Pool

You’re wasting your time if you have to hunt for fresh candidates every time a new requirement pops up. An effective and proactive recruiter requires maintaining and using a strong talent pool rather than searching every single time.

A talent pool is a database of people who have previously shown an interest in working for your organization or those you’ve identified as being well-suited through social media, employee referrals, networking events and other channels.

You need to keep a database of these eligible candidates and contact them whenever a relevant post comes up. 

This proactive strategy will save you both time and money, as well as increase the quality of your hiring.

Utilize Email Templates

A large part of a recruiter’s day-to-day tasks involves communicating and sending a whole lot of emails. 

Rather than writing each email from scratch, it’s better to keep email templates ready for each situation, whether it is a cold recruiting email, interview request, job offer, rejection email or even an internal crisis communication email.

This way, you won’t have to start over with an email every single time and waste time in the process. The use of templates also helps to standardize the process and ensures a uniform experience.

Remember to tailor the emails to each candidate’s profile and needs before sending them. Also, make sure you sound both professional and natural.

Stop Multitasking

Multitasking is romanticized much beyond its necessity. Multitasking is an interesting talent to have, but doing so at the expense of your interest, productivity and health is not something you want. Working long hours and on numerous things at once will lead to burnout, lack of focus and decreased productivity.

So don’t be proud of your ability to multitask. Instead, consider strategies to arrange your day, stay focused and work smarter rather than harder.

The first place to start is to prioritize your work, assign proper time slabs for each task, and spend time focusing solely on a particular task at a time. This means, you have to master the art of managing time effectively, which brings us to our last but not tiniest tip – utilizing time management techniques.

Use Time Management Techniques

Among the multiple time management techniques, we have picked out four techniques that can assist recruiters to distribute their time efficiently across their activities throughout the day.

Inbox Zero Method

Recruiters communicate with candidates primarily via email. And emailing, especially when done on a large scale, can be extremely daunting and time-consuming if not well structured.

Using the Inbox Zero Method, you can allocate all your email activities to a specific part of the day and declutter your inbox while replying to important emails. 

    • Designate a specific time each day to manage your inbox, and stick to it.
    • Prioritize your emails, label them, reply to important emails, delegate less important emails and archive or delete unwanted old emails.  
    • Turn off email notifications and close your browser’s email tab for the rest of the day.

Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is a popular, simple self-management strategy that enhances focus and productivity by dividing time into short, 25-minute work sessions separated by frequent breaks. 

The purpose of this strategy is to keep the individual focused while inspiring them to complete a task within a set time frame. It is great for people who struggle with task completion, overcoming distractions and procrastination.

    • Make a to-do list and set a timer for 25 minutes. Make sure you focus on one task until the timer goes off.
    • When your session is over, mark off one Pomodoro and write down what you accomplished.
    • After that, take a five-minute pause.
    • After four Pomodoros, take a longer, 15-30 minute breather.

Time Blocking Method

The time-blocking technique requires you to break your day into time blocks. Each block is dedicated to completing a single task, or a series of tasks and only those chores. Instead of keeping an open-ended to-do list of things to complete as you have time, you’ll begin each day with a specific timetable that outlines what you’ll work on and when.

    • The key to this strategy is to prioritize your to-do list ahead of time (with the help of a task management tool like SmartTask or Todoist). 
    • Take stock of the upcoming week’s events and sketch out your time slots for each day. 
    • Review any tasks you haven’t completed and any new tasks you’ve received at the end of every day to adjust your time blocks accordingly.

All you have to do is stick to your timetable. If you become sidetracked or off-task, simply refer to your calendar and return to the task for which you set aside time.

The Eisenhower Technique

This approach was invented by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Its primary goal is to assist recruiters with task prioritization.

You will be able to learn the following using this technique:

    • DO: Which tasks should be completed right away?
    • Delegate: Which tasks can be delegated?
    • Decide: Which tasks can be postponed?
    • Delete: And which ones should be excluded?

Final Words

Remember that the key to better productivity is efficient prioritizing. When you know what is more important and what is not, you will be able to manage things effectively. 

Always try to spend as little time as possible on non-important and mundane activities and focus that energy and time on the things that add value.

And by implementing these 7 productivity tips, you’ll surely be able to make room for critical tasks like monitoring your recruitment activities, promoting employee engagement, creating connections and identifying new sources for attracting talent.

Are Certifications Worth It for Recruiters and Sourcers?

Just about anybody can call themselves a recruiter. There’s no specific academic pathway that teaches recruiting as a profession in college and limited standards. Most recruiters and sourcers have had to learn the necessary skills on their own. Empathize much? 

If you’re a company trying to hire a high-quality recruiter, you want someone experienced and knowledgeable. If you are a recruiter, you want a way to demonstrate that expertise to separate yourself from others. And you might think that certifications are the way to do this. 

However, most of what’s available is more in line with training for human relations teams. HR certification may touch on recruiting, but it’s not going to provide the depth of knowledge to master recruiting. There are plenty of training courses online, but the quality can vary significantly. 

Unlike other industries, such as a CPA for accountants, there’s no formalized standard for earning a certification or even an industry association that is accepted by the industry as a whole and sets standards for certifications. 

So, Are Certifications Worth It? 

Maybe. 

If you can get the training and coaching you need to be a better recruiter, then they are worth the investment. If they can help you learn new skills and strategies to improve the way you perform, then definitely. 

For example, the online learning center from Jobvite Academy provides a more structured approach to developing recruiting skills and core competencies for recruiters. It goes beyond talent acquisition and TA certification. There are also training courses and modules from AIRS by ADP, LinkedIn, Coursera and online certificate programs from some Universities. 

The right skills and training can help you better serve your customers, whether that’s your employer or a company that contracts with you, and that’s the most important thing. 

Saying you are a certified recruiting specialist can help you stand out from others. That may get you in the door with a company, but it’s what you do after you land the job that will determine your success. Just as a college degree is beneficial to separate a job candidate from someone without one, it doesn’t guarantee success. It’s what you do with the training and education that makes the difference. 

Can You Be a Successful Recruiter Without Certification? 

You can. Much of the skills needed to work effectively as a recruiter or sourcer can be learned from experience, especially if you have the right mentor or team to teach and coach. 

It may be a little tougher for someone looking for that first job without certification, but most companies would value someone with a track record of sourcing, recruiting and landing top-caliber candidates over someone with a pedigree that doesn’t have such a history. 

The Best Recruiters Are Lifelong Learners 

As the job market changes, it’s important to stay on top of evolving trends and stay up-to-date on best practices. Fortunately, that’s what we do. 

Regardless of whether you seek certifications, the best recruiters and sourcers are inquisitive and lifelong learners — always looking for ways to polish their skills and gain an edge when it comes to attracting, nurturing and closing top performers. 

Job Description Keywords to Get Noticed Quickly

Finding qualified workers, especially for niche positions, is a significant challenge for recruiters. Companies worldwide invest large sums of money in publishing job ads on well-known job boards, paid promotions and many other methods to reach as many candidates as possible. But have you ever wondered what role SEO could play in this? 

This article will tell you how to choose keywords for job postings. Follow our tips and make your ads generate traffic from the search engine.

What Are Keywords And Why Are They important?

Keywords are groups of words that form phrases used to find specific information on search engines.

Keywords are crucial for SEO, as they relate directly to the search terms that internet users type into search engines. They are focused on search intent, which means that they help the search engine to understand what the searcher is looking for.

To rank high in the search engine, you should ensure that your site contains keywords that are popular with searchers and related words that the people you want to reach may also type in.

For example, if you’re looking for a Java Developer, you should type in the job title a few times, and not only one keyword. It would be best to consider other recruitment keywords your candidates might type. In the case of Java Developer, it could include a Backend Developer, Software Engineer or Software Developer. 

The same also applies to the job description, including duties and requirements. For instance, if you’re hiring a Marketing Specialist, you should emphasize the most crucial job description keywords, such as social media, SEO, advertising, paid ads, graphics, copywriting, content creation, etc.

Why You Should Use Keywords in Job Description

You already know what keywords are and why they are essential for SEO. But why should you use them in your job descriptions? We’ve listed the top reasons below:

    1. Increase website traffic – thanks to job posting optimization for search engines, you can get more traffic and increase your website’s SEO performance.
    2. Reach candidates directly from the search engine – keyword job description will help you reach candidates looking for new job opportunities by typing particular phrases directly into the browser.
    3. Stand out in competitive markets – SEO practices are not yet popular among HR professionals, so it’s a great way to stand out in competitive markets and find more candidates.
    4. A chance to find perfectly matched candidates — SEO is vital when you are looking for scarce talent. For example, by using so-called long-tail keywords (more extended and specific keyword phrases), you can find candidates looking for jobs in a particular location or offers that meet specific criteria (remote work, temporary work, part-time work, freelance work, etc.). Then, it’s a good idea to use long keywords. To do that, you can add the location or other characteristics after the job title (for example, Account Manager – London, Software Developer – a part-time job, Copywriter – a freelance job, etc.)

How to Identify Which Keywords to Use in the Job Description?

As you can see, using recruiter keywords is an essential element that can positively affect the results of the recruitment process. The first step is choosing the right keywords to include in specific job postings. How to do it? Follow the instructions we’ve listed below.

Keyword Research

To put keywords in the job description, you need to know which ones to use. Therefore, your first step should be keyword research. It will provide you with a list of terms job seekers might use to find positions that match various job descriptions.

For this purpose, you can use the advanced keyword ideas tool. It will help you get additional long-tail keywords and determine which keywords are most popular among your target audience. Moreover, these types of tools will show you phrases with low competition. It is an excellent way to concentrate on keywords, stay at the top of the search engine and get traffic from the search results.

Spy On Competitors

The next thing you can do is check what keywords your competitors are using. If you have a specific list of competitors, you can check their job offers. Another good way is to review job descriptions for similar positions on LinkedIn or job boards. 

For example, if you are looking for a Copywriter, you can check and see how your competitors looking for a person with similar skills referred to the position. They might have used a different name, such as “Content Creator,” “Content Manager,” or something else.

If you have an SEO tool, then use the competitor analysis feature, which will allow you to see what keywords competitors are using, the results they get, and what other activities they perform. It’s a great source of inspiration and a way to be even better than the competition.

Choose Keywords That Are Suitable For Your Job Description

When choosing job search keywords, you should find the golden mean between:

    • keywords that are relevant to the job posting (job title, alternative job titles, and also terms like “job,” “job offer,” etc.)
    • phrases that are very specific and company-specific terms (like your company’s name or a specific product you deliver) 
    • industry-specific terms or locations (specific tools, software suites, or even special certifications)

Next, you need to consider which job posting keywords will work best. You can use the most popular ones, but it’s also worth considering those that have great potential, according to the SEO tool.

When choosing keywords, consider whether they meet the search intent of your candidate. Then, you can determine whether the entire job posting will match the intent of the person who types in a particular phrase and clicks on your offer.

For example, if your main keyword is Java Developer Remote Work, you can focus on describing the rules regarding remote work and how it works in your company. Since you recognized that your candidate typed this phrase into the search engine, you can assume that remote work is important to him.

If you want to attract him to your offer, you can set yourself apart from the competition by writing that remote work has been part of your company’s culture for many years or include photos of your company’s remote workers. Doing so will show readers they have found what they were looking for.

Great Practices of Adding Keywords to the Job Description

Job Title Optimization

Regarding SEO, the title is the most crucial part of a job posting. It is important not only for users who can quickly see what kind of position you are looking for but also for search engine robots. Thanks to certain elements of the page, they can quickly recognize what kind of role your offer is about.

No matter whether you publish an ad on your site or an external job board, the job title is usually included in the title, referred to as <title>, and the header, referred to as <h1> or <h2>. The words in these places are the most meaningful to search engine algorithms and give them the most value. Moreover, the title also appears in search results, so it is essential in attracting people to your offer.

It’s a good idea to add the job title several times in different elements of the job description. It helps search engines understand that the word is significant.

Remember that you can use a long-tail keyword in the job title. Depending on your decision, it could be, for example, a Project Manager Job in Paris or Freelance Graphic Designer with French, etc.

Example of using job title and location in job listings.

Job Descriptions Optimization

In the next step, you should include 3-5 keywords in your job description that you chose during keyword research. Ensure they are related to the job title and other industry-specific terms that may be important for your candidates.

For example, if you are looking for a sales professional with English in Rome, your main keyword might be: Sales Specialist with English in Rome, but you should also include other important key phrases there such as sales management, sales business development, account management, customer service, international sales, leads generation, Salesforce, a sales specialist in Italy and more.

Remember to use them naturally and at the proper frequency. According to current SEO standards, the density of main keywords should be between 2% and 3%. When it comes to secondary keywords, it should be between 1% and 2%.

Fortunately, you don’t have to count it manually. If you use WordPress, you can install free plugins like Yoast SEO.

Relevant Keywords in an Advertising Campaign

If you promote your job offers, you also need to keep keywords in mind. Choose the main keyword (e.g. Freelance IT Content Writer) that has the most potential according to the SEO tool. You can also try setting up several ads with different recruiter keywords (such as: Freelance IT Copywriter, IT Content Marketing Specialist, etc.) and see which ones work best.

Backlinks With Keywords in Anchors

One of the most effective ways to improve SEO results and build authority is back-linking, which is linking your site to other relevant websites. 

So, if you create guest or sponsored articles, participate in interviews, or have other opportunities to link your job offer, take advantage of this opportunity. To get the best results, focus on anchor text, the clickable text in a hyperlink that links to your site. It shouldn’t be a simple URL or text like “click here.”

It would be best if you linked to a specific keyword to take full advantage of the potential of backlinks. In your case, it could be a selected main key phrase, taking into account the name of the position and a possible characteristic element, for example, HR Manager Remote WorK

Use Keywords as Hashtags in Social Media

Social media can also help you improve your SEO performance. All you need to do when posting a job on your social media is add hashtags with keywords related to the position, like: #RemoteWork, #JobInHR, #HRManager, #HRjob, #HumanResources, #PartTimeJob, etc.

This way, you will also make your advertisement available on social media search engines and users will be able to find it easily.

Rely on Local SEO

If you are looking for an employee for a specific location, you should focus on giving an exact location. Suppose you’re looking for an Office Manager. In that case, your candidate probably won’t type the phrase “office manager jobs” into the search engine but will try to specify the search results with specific locations.

​​That’s why you should include the city name a few times in the job description (you can also use many variations like: Office Manager job London, Office Administrator job London, job in London, etc.) to make your listing appear high in search results when your location is typed in. However, remember to do it naturally and not overuse the phrase in the job description.

Emphasize Your Job Ad With a Visual Experience

A job offer doesn’t have to be just a wall of text. Remember that its primary goal is to encourage people to apply for a job, so you should try to make it attractive. You can do this by adding photos, graphics, or videos that will complement your ad and make it stand out from the competition. 

You can take inspiration from HubSpot and add videos of employees talking about working at your company.

To positively affect SEO, you need to remember to add the so-called alt text. Alt-text is the text that appears in place of an image on a website if it cannot load. It is also vital for search engine robots to better crawl your site’s content. Therefore, to improve your SEO performance, you should fill in the alt text with a short image description, including the keyword.

For example, you can add a photo of your team with the image description: Our NYC team is looking for a Data Scientist for full-time work. 

You can take inspiration from HubSpot and add videos of employees talking about working at your company.

Summary

As you can see, adding keywords in the job description dramatically impacts how many people will see your ad. You can follow our recommendations on your own, without technical skills or the help of SEO experts, so it’s definitely worth taking the time to do it and optimizing your job ads as soon as possible. We are sure that you will quickly see the first results.

If You’re Not Hiring for Skills, You Probably Aren’t Keeping Up With the New World of Work

For as long as I can remember, the most important thing for recruiters and hiring managers was just this one thing: your job title.

If you were applying for a position, having the preferred experience, which generally meant having the right job title on your resume, was the key to having your application taken seriously, and more importantly, for you to have a real chance of landing the job.

The big focus on job titles was part of the military-like command-and-control management style that permeated so many organizations (especially in the United States) from the 1950s well into the 1990s. It was defined like this:

In the more traditional command and control structure, all of the decisions in an organization are made at the top. The CEO makes decisions, which are passed down through a chain of command, and everyone in the organization is lockstep in line with those decisions, doing exactly what they’re told without the freedom to make judgment calls of their own or offer feedback.

While the command-and-control approach to management may work in small organizations where the CEO knows all of the employees and work that needs to be done, it actually breaks down in larger organizations.

One of the big problems with command-and-control was that decision making frequently broke down the lower in the organization you got.

In large organizations, the CEO simply cannot be aware of everything that goes on. By trying to make all of the decisions at the top, they may fail to take into account factors at the frontline of which they’re unaware. Top-down decision-making also becomes problematic when a manager runs into something unexpected at the frontline.

When that frontline manager doesn’t have the authority to make a decision regarding the issue, they have to send it all the way back up to the top of the organization. Then, when a decision is reached, it has to come all the way back down the organization to the frontline. This wastes an enormous amount of time and inhibits the organization’s ability to respond to issues in a timely fashion.

Although command-and-control management hasn’t been totally discarded, the focus has changed a great deal in the new, post-pandemic world of work. Job titles may still have some importance, but they are nowhere near as relevant as they once were.

The Old Working World is Going Away

Back in 2016, Forbes predicted that that the old ways of working were changing and that organizations that wanted to get ahead of the curve needed to change too, As Forbes put it:

The old working world is going away, and the organizations that are fastest to get the memo and shift their cultures are the ones who will keep growing and innovating over the next 30 years. The organizations who pretend it’s still 1955 will lose talent and lose customers. We have to wake up and realize that our ability to snag talented people and hang onto them is our only sustainable competitive advantage — but it’s an incredible benefit to have.

Yes, part of the culture shift Forbes describes is about a stronger focus on retaining talent given how much harder it has gotten to recruit and hire that talent today, but there are two other elements that have emerged in the 2022 workplace that are equally important.

One is a focus on employee skills rather than their previous job title, and the other is building a culture where workforce agility, defined by SHRM as “An organization’s ability to alter its direction or … to swiftly adapt to the changing needs of customers, employees and the marketplace” as is a critical element to both developing and retaining talent.

Recent research from Fuel50, an AI Talent Marketplace technology company, described this workplace shift in a LinkedIn newsletter post titled The Move Towards a Skills-Based Talent Strategy: Why it Matters. Here’s how they put it:

“In today’s world of work, the tides are changing. Technology is continuing to evolve at rapid rates, and organizations are finding it harder to predict and prepare for the future. This is exactly why workforce agility has now become imperative to organizational success, growth, and future readiness. A skills-based talent strategy – where the focus shifts from jobs to skills – enables organizations to respond to change more efficiently, helping to boost their agility, adaptability, and nimbleness.”

The Transition to Skills-Based Workplaces Makes a Lot of Sense

They also described the big shift from traditional role-based or job-based workforces, where employees are put into positions based on education, credentials and experience, to a skills-based approach where tasks are assigned based on people’s skills instead of their previous roles. A recent report made this case as well, bluntly describing the challenges most organizations are now facing:

We all know the world of work is continually evolving. In fact, strategies that may have worked just a few years ago aren’t as fit for the work environment we have today. The rapid changes in technology over the past decade have boosted digital adoption in all aspects of work. As a result, experts predict that 50% of workers will be displaced by technological automation in the next five years and 40% of skills will no longer be relevant.

These workers will need to reskill to stay competitive in the job market or may even need to change the direction of their careers altogether. Forbes says this is what has led to many organizations developing a skills-based talent strategy.

Here’s my take: It can be difficult to wrap your head around the seemingly sudden shift from a roles-based workplace to one that is focused instead on skills and agility. But, it also makes a lot of sense when you dig into it, because the notion that organizations can simply continue to just churn through people and then crank up the recruiting to find more again when needed is not only costly to their employer brand but also terribly expensive and counter-productive.

That’s Just Not the Way to Build a High-Performing Workforce Anymore

The Harvard Business Review saw the skills-based approach coming back in June of 2021, and they made it clear then that this was a train that was gaining speed and that leaders would do well to jump onboard right away. They pointed out that:

Evaluating employees and new hires based on their skill sets instead of their work history can help level the playing field — and help companies realize the talent they already have. It also makes talent pools more diverse and often makes hiring more effective.

This is the future of hiring and development. To get ahead of it, companies need to start weaving learning into their company cultures. Organizations slow on the uptake will be left behind and forced to deal with unsatisfied and unmotivated employees and significantly less innovation overall. At a time when talent is the number-one commodity in business, companies can’t afford to remain stuck in old mindsets.

Well, the future of hiring and development is here.

The true game-changer comes when leaders connect skill-building to internal mobility. Prioritizing employee development is now a non-negotiable for organizations to drive retention and engagement. Employees are looking for ways to grow their skill sets and plan their careers, and the best way to facilitate that is through internal opportunities.

People want a career path they can count on, and employers want more agility to move workers around as workforce needs continue to change. A skills-based approach that recognizes the power of more internal mobility that helps both workers and the needs of their organization is the modern way to build a better business.

How to Hunt A Unicorn: The Quest for Executive Emails

As a recruiter, you sometimes are tasked with some lofty, high level requisitions. Whether or not you’re already familiar with the process of hunting a unicorn, Dean Da Costa has a few tricks up his sleeve he’d like to show you. With some skill and luck we’ll help you hunt down these mythical executive emails.

It’s more complicated than just shopping around CEO Action, as C-level emails are a bit hard to come by.  So, the real question is: what do you actually do with this fragmented information to get an email address? That’s where some creativity comes into play.

The Process

So, we know two things: their company and their full names. Seems like a long shot, right? Well, luckily corporate email addresses mostly all follow the same conventions. As long as you know their unique format we can take an educated guess.

Email-format.com is a great place to start. There are hundreds of sites like this, but we like that this one shows the most likely formats. Once you figure out the conventions, you can plug it into email-checker.net/validate to verify if the mailbox is available. Boom, executive email sourced.

If you get the green light, try sending them a thoughtful, personalized email. Remember, these people are busy and anything that sounds generic is gonna get ghosted, dumpstered, or even worse..flagged as a promotion.

It’s hard to find a halfway decent employee, never mind one to fill the biggest shoes in the company. If you’ve been tasked with this…best of luck, God’s speed, and may the source be with you.

Other Dean Da Costa content:

Dean has a free page of sourcing tools, links, and other recruiting resources that we highly recommend you check out! That page has an overwhelming amount of stuff, so you gotta really love sourcing to appreciate the infinite hours of work Dean has put into it. For all of the Dean Da Costa resources on RecruitingDaily, click here!

What Employers Should Do Differently to Remain Competitive in a Tight Labor Market

The financial burden on individuals and households continues to worsen with rising inflation and global instability, causing many employees to feel the pressure of meeting their day-to-day financial needs.

At the start of 2022, 64% of the U.S. population was living paycheck to paycheck, even among those earning six figures. These employees often rely on payday loans, advances, credit cards and overdraft extensions to make ends meet as they wait for the rigid two-week or four-week payday. However, bills, subscriptions and necessary expenses don’t wait for payday. 

These challenges are pushing employees to take control of their own financial futures. Employers must act now and think differently when it comes to employee satisfaction.

Employees Seek Companies that Prioritize Financial Wellbeing

In the era of the Great Resignation, employers are seeking ways to retain their employees and hire new talent. 

According to PwC’s 2022 Employee Financial Wellness Survey, financially-stressed employees are more likely to look for a new job. Among employees who say that their financial worries have had a severe or major negative impact on their productivity at work, 67% are struggling to meet their household expenses on time each month, 71% have personal debt and 64% are using credit cards to pay for necessities they couldn’t otherwise afford. 

To keep up and stay competitive in a tight labor market, companies need to take a closer look at the benefits most valuable to employees today. Financial wellness and planning resources are key focus areas to retain and attract talent across industries because employees need to feel empowered. One way to do so is to provide them access to their earnings as they earn it, removing the hurdles of cash flow timing from traditional payment cycles.

The Role of Earned Wage Access for Employee Experience

Earned wage access (EWA) offers employees a way to tackle the challenges associated with the speed of money, freeing them from employers’ payment cycles. By offering access to money right after employees work, employers increase employee satisfaction, motivation and productivity and experience better retention and recruitment.

In fact, an industry study conducted during the pandemic uncovered how early access to wages impacted people, finding that 82% of employees felt the services made them less stressed about their financial situation, 77% noted an improvement in their mental health, and 81% say they had higher self-esteem. The access to on-demand pay allows people to buy groceries, pay bills and cover life’s unexpected expenses with their own money.

This access also brings benefits to the employer, as financially stressed employees are 77%more likely to leave for another employer and spend two to five hours a week dealing with personal finances at work, impacting productivity.

The balance of employees being satisfied with their financial situation and employers offering an option that helps translates into happier, less stressed employees. It also manifests itself in better interactions with colleagues and customers, all of which results in improved customer experience, brand image and sales.

How Job Offers Are Made at 8 Companies

How are job offers made at your company? Let us in behind the scenes.

To help you get a sneak peek into how job offers are made, we asked CEOs and hiring managers this question for their best insights. From making job announcements fun to identifying desired skillsets and possible red flags via resume screening, there are several real-life examples of how these business leaders offer job positions within their organizations.

Here is a behind-the-scenes look at how job offers are made at these eight companies:

      • I Make Job Offers Announcements Fun
      • Prioritize Alignment to Values, Checks and Balances and Speed
      • Job Offers Are Based on Potential and Fit
      • We’ve Got a 2-step Process: Meet & Greet and Skills Assessment
      • We Check For Technical Ability and Behavioral Fit
      • We Use An High Touch Approach and Position-Specific Compensation Research
      • Search Committees Recommend 3-5 Applicants and we Take it From There
      • We Review Resumes to Identify Desired Skillsets and Monitor Red Flags 

I Make Job Offers Announcements Fun

As a former recruiter, I love being the bearer of good news so I like to make good news fun. Whether it is for a new hire or a new vendor relationship, I enjoy making the candidate/vendor feel special and wanted.

When a candidate hears from the hiring manager it is already a tense call with mostly doubtful thoughts running through their minds. Which is the perfect opportunity of letting them know our team, company, or CEO thought you were “heads above the rest”. I love politely asking “Will you be our Director of Marketing?”

For a vendor, our team requested one last meeting to ask their team questions and as things began to look serious I walked in with bottles of champagne letting them know they won our business.

LT Ladino, CEO & Founder, vCandidates.com

Prioritize Alignment to Values, Checks and Balances and Speed

At nth venture, we start with testing every candidate’s alignment to our purpose: setting talented people free through the value of ownership, and the comp model we have built around that. We also have a question bank aligned to our professional values: Integrity, Discipline and Acumen.

Individuals generally start with the hiring manager or in a screening interview, and then move to a panel interview and finally an interview with our CEO – but it can vary a bit depending on the role.

One important tenet of our process is the concept of “two keys” – no one person can make a hiring decision, they must have the approval of a peer outside their reporting structure (and generally, the whole team participating should be aligned).

Finally, we move fast – we typically go from posting to offer within 3-4 weeks – every req is “top of mind” in part because we run so lean.

Nathan Deily, Chief People Officer, nth Venture

Job Offers Are Based on Potential and Fit

At our company, we make job offers based on the potential and fit of the candidate. We do not have a formulaic way of making offers, but we take into account the candidate’s prior experience, achievements and unique skill set. We also look at the team’s current needs and growth trajectory.

When we make an offer to someone, we do so with the understanding that they will make a significant impact on the company’s growth strategy. This is one of the most important decisions we make, so we take great care in understanding if this will be a good match for both parties.

Admir Salcinovic, Co-Founder, Pricelisto

We’ve Got a 2-Step Process: Meet and Greet, Skills Assessment

Job offers at my marketing job at CyberPilot are offered based on the experience of the two interviews that you have beforehand.

The first interview is a friendly meet and greet! You talk a bit about yourself, ask about the job, your skills, and to see if you fit in with the company in general. If the first interview goes well you get invited to the second interview!

The second interview is where you get to test your skills in the form of a specific case you have to work on. In my case, I had to work on a blog post about a very technical subject and turn it into something that everyone could understand. Luckily it went well. I got a phone call a few days later, where I got offered the job.

Søren Jensen, Junior Digital Marketer, CyberPilot

We Check For Technical Ability and Behavioral Fit

At Disrupter School, we base our job offers based on technical ability and behavioral fit. As great as a good background is, ensuring the candidate can do the job at a high level is essential for us as a small business.

Being a good behavioral fit is our other key requirement. Knowing how a potential candidate will fit within the company culture coupled with their ability makes the decision much easier when we make our offers.

Charles Tichenor IV, Founder, Disrupter School

We Use An High Touch Approach and Position-Specific Compensation Research

We use a combination of a standard offering, position-specific compensation research and a personal call to present the offer.

A standard offer letter is a formal, written offer from an employer to an applicant. It outlines the basic terms and conditions of employment, including salary, benefits and any other relevant information. It is usually sent by mail or email.

A position-specific compensation research is usually completed by our compensation department. It is a detailed analysis of the market data and offers of our competitors in the same role. It is used to inform us of the correct compensation package we should offer the candidate.

A personal call is usually made by our hiring manager or recruiter to personally present the offer. It is used to ensure that the candidate understands the offer and can ask any questions they may have.

Luciano Colos, Founder & CEO, PitchGrade

Search Committees Recommend 3-5 Applicants and We Take it From There

At my company, we have a search committee that reviews resumes and does the initial interview. The search committee will then recommend their top 3-5 applicants and have another interview with the applicant and include the hiring manager. The hiring manager will then decide which applicant they feel is best suited for the position and offer them the position based on a successful background check. HR will conduct the background check and, if it comes back clear, the hiring manager will contact the applicant to set up their first day, etc. HR will take it from there and begin the new employe onboarding process.

Lindsey Hight, HR Professional, Sporting Smiles

We Review Resumes to Identify Desired Skillsets and Monitor Red Flags 

The job offer process at my company typically starts when we begin reviewing applications and resumes. This involves filtering through all of the applicants to find the most promising candidates based on their qualifications, experience and skillsets. We also look for any red flags or warning signs that might indicate someone is not the right fit for the job.

Once we have a list of potential candidates, we usually start with phone interviews to get an initial sense of their qualifications and experience. This helps us narrow down our list even further so that only the most promising candidates are invited to come in-person for an interview.

Once we have interviewed all of the candidates that meet our initial criteria, we then make a decision about who to extend an offer to. This is usually based on their interview performance and overall fit with our company culture.

Martin Seeley, CEO, Mattress Next Day

How Businesses Are Utilizing Digital Marketing Campaigns To Hire Employees

Digital marketing can be a real asset during your next recruiting drive. You can use digital materials to promote your business, find qualified candidates and outperform your rivals. 

Digital recruiting is popular, too. Over 67% of prospective employees use social media to find new opportunities and 90% of recruiters use LinkedIn to find and evaluate talent. 

After all, recruitment is a form of marketing your company — just with an audience of potential new hires. It’s one of the most common recruitment mistakes to not harness digital marketing. However, creating a digital marketing campaign that attracts talented employees can be tricky. You need to make a few key strategic decisions and should tailor your content to suit the talent you want to attract. 

Digital Marketing Basics

Merging your recruiting efforts with digital marketing can help you land great talent. However, if you’re new to digital marketing, it’s easy to get lost in technical jargon and complex editing programs. 

Instead, stick to the basics of effective digital marketing by creating a clear, well-strategized plan. At minimum, this plan should include key details like: 

      • Budget
      • Goals
      • Target audience
      • Tone and voice

Establish these parameters before you start posting to social accounts or writing for a blog. A clear strategy will get everyone on board and save you plenty of headaches in the future. 

Inclusive Content

All of your digital content should be intentionally inclusive. However, inclusivity is paramount during recruiting campaigns, as exclusive content will turn talented employees away from your business. 

You can create inclusive content by highlighting existing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in your workplace. This is something that major brands like Virgin Atlantic already do well. 

As part of their recent digital recruiting campaign, Virgin Atlantic updated their gender identity policy so all staff could present their true self while on board. They highlighted these changes in their “See the World Differently” campaign and highlighted the experience of current employees. 

You can follow suit by assessing your existing policies and highlighting any areas that you’re particularly proud of. Prospective employees care about working with businesses that share their values, so your inclusive content is sure to garner attention online. 

Benefit-Based Content

Employees care about the benefits packages they will receive when working for you. Sixty-three percent of prospective employees look for careers with great benefits during their job search. As a recruiter, it’s your job to get the word out there about the benefits your business offers to employees. 

Start creating benefits-based content by surveying your current employees. Ask them which benefits they value the most and which make the biggest impact on their day-to-day lives. Use these insights to plan a series of posts, blogs and video content based on the benefits you offer. 

You may need to expand your benefits in order to attract the best talent. For example, many employees today are interested in working for companies that actively promote mental health services. You can help employees choose the right mental health professional for their specific needs by funding treatment from licensed psychiatrists, psychologists or psychotherapists. 

Make the most of your robust benefits policy by interviewing willing employees and foregrounding their testimonials. This will present your business as an authentically people-friendly workplace. 

Social Media 

Social media is often underutilized by recruiters and hiring managers. However, if you want to find talented younger employees, advertising on social channels is a must. 

Consider investing in paid content on Instagram and Facebook, as over 79% of employees have used social media to start their job search in the past year. Be sure to do your market research first, as you need to meet the genre conventions of each social media platform. 

If you’re planning to sponsor posts on Instagram stories, try to create visually appealing, data-driven content. Content that grabs users’ attention and quickly gives them key details is more likely to resonate with job seekers than content that contains too much information. 

If you’re advertising on Facebook, consider including further information in your post. Posts on Facebook tend to be lengthier than Instagram posts, as users can quickly scan for key details on Facebook. 

Once you’ve run your sponsored campaign, utilize your account insights to determine which posts were the most effective. Facebook and Instagram allow you to see how much engagement each post receives. You can combine this with data from Google analytics to see how many referrals you receive from your social media pages. 

Tailor future content based on your findings to increase your reach and engagement next time around. For example, if your data shows content videos of employee experiences perform well, try to create more posts that foreground your current staff. 

Conclusion

Digital marketing can take your recruiting campaign to the next level. Start by covering the basics: create a clear budget, identify your target audience and establish a voice you want to establish. This will get everyone on board and maximize the effectiveness of your campaign. 

When it’s time to start creating content, consider pushing material that shows off your commitment to DEI and benefits. Employees today want to work for firms that share their values and support their well-being. Creating content based on your existing policies will convince talented employees that you’re right for them.

The Kids Are Alright: Indeed Survey Shows Rising Employee Satisfaction

Call this some good news as we endure some stormy weather, and the 2020s continue to remind us that chaos sometimes isn’t just a state of mind. As it turns out, some of the efforts employers have been making to improve the employee experience may be working. A new Indeed survey is showing that employee satisfaction – despite rising layoffs in some sectors – is actually improving.

Weirdly, even if they were personally affected by layoffs, 82% say they’re happy at work most of the time; 92% are completely satisfied with their work; 81% say their work has a clear sense of purpose; and 71% feel they aren’t stressed at work most of the time.  On top of that, the largest percentage of respondents – by far, at 27% – came from the information and communication technology sector, which has been impacted the most by layoffs. Somehow, the bulk of them are still reporting job satisfaction and optimism about their career prospects.

Behind the Numbers

We caught up with Charlotte Jones, Global Employer Brand Leader at Indeed, and she gave us some color commentary around the results.

Are employees happier due to actions of their employers, or is the possibility of recession causing employees to check themselves and reconsider if the grass is really all that greener?

“The results of this survey show us that the work employers have done up until this point is paying off with 82% of survey respondents saying they’re happier at their jobs regardless of company wide layoffs. While the looming recession could change how employees view the world around them, nearly half of the respondents said that they’d still consider going to another job in 2023. This likely indicates that employers are doing a great job at maintaining workplace sentiment but will still need to invest in it in 2023 in order to maintain their headcount.”

Considering that some of the programs in place are costly to maintain, if the perceived ROI shifts will employers begin to cut back on some of them?

“Regardless of the economic uncertainty that could come in 2023, it is still very much a job seeker’s market.  The labor market continues to hold steady with 263,000 jobs added in November and the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.7%. Additionally, job seekers are still finding jobs at elevated rates, and our recent Hiring and Workplace Trends Report 2023 with Glassdoor shows that employee happiness and wellbeing are still top of mind for employees. The trends report also shares that hiring will remain challenging for years to come. This tells us that workers will still have the upper hand and will demand the programs that make their lives happier.”

In a separate interview, she adds: “For HR professionals to note, any deviation from practices, processes or standards that employees have become accustomed to will be a potential threat to retention. As much as a focus was to build and strengthen offerings to attract top talent, it is equally critical to examine what is keeping employees in their current roles.”

The Sun Shone, and Hay Was Made

Some of this, of course, may be tied to wage gains. Job changers have seen meaningful income changes when they have switched employers recently.

From April 2021 to March 2022, a period in which quit rates reached post-pandemic highs, the majority of workers switching jobs – about 60% – saw an increase in their real earnings over the same month the previous year. This happened despite a surge in the rate of inflation that has eroded real earnings for many others. Among workers who remained with the same employer, fewer than half (47%) experienced an increase in real earnings.

But, behind that, employees satisfaction has improved beyond simple happiness around income. Additional Indeed-Forrester research found that 90% of people “believe how we feel at work matters,” and a majority think it’s their employer’s responsibility to create a happy work environment. “Get a bad [boss] and you are almost guaranteed to hate your job,” Gallup CEO Jon Clifton wrote as part of the company’s 2022 State of the Global Workplace report.

Good news, but keep in mind it’s more confirmation that the ongoing work is working. Don’t stop.

That said: go on, employee experience team: pop some champagne. Or – in some states, anyways – enjoy a nice edible. You’ve earned it. And then get some rest – 2023 is still one of the 2020s. It ain’t over yet.

You can find the full survey results here.