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One of the Best Jobs for Single Mothers is Recruiting

With all this talk emphasizing rare, high-demand tech skills for industries like cloud, AI and cybersecurity, there is one highly in-demand job that has been largely overlooked: recruitment. Are you a single mom with a few gaps in your resume, or is in need of some work flexibility? Recruiting can provide a stable job that allows for high earnings, a flexible schedule, and a sense of fulfillment.

The increased demand for talent combined with historically low retention rates has made recruitment and HR a critical aspect of any functioning business. If you are a single parent on the job hunt, consider broadening your search to include recruiting positions.

Five reasons to consider recruiting:

Recruitment is easy to get into and easy to grow in. It’s a profession that many come to after having a career in a different function or field. Best of all, it doesn’t require a specialized degree or training. Many companies are willing to provide training for recruiters and hire candidates who may not necessarily have direct experience but are willing to put in the work and learn. This also makes it a great re-entry point for candidates who have a career gap. If you previously worked in tech services before taking a break, you can leverage your understanding of the industry, the jobs and the specialties within it in order to find your first recruitment gig. Keep your long-term career trajectory in mind and specialize as a recruiter in a high-growth field or industry.

Recruitment is in high demand. Companies around the world are struggling to hire and retain employees. Recruiters reach out to potential candidates, screen them for technical and cultural fitness and guide them through interviews with hiring managers. This work is invaluable to businesses, especially in our current job market, as hiring freezes left over from the pandemic lift and companies compete with one another in an aggressive talent market.

Recruiters often work remotely and with flexible hours. These days, most steps of the recruitment process are virtual, many companies have even been allowing their recruiters to work remotely since long before the pandemic. Recruiters typically speak with candidates over the phone, and often conversations take place outside of typical business hours as many candidates job seeking are currently employed. This is ideal for any single parent looking to craft their own schedule or work outside of the usual 9-5.

Recruitment has the potential to be a high paying job. Some recruiters work on a set, salaried basis, but many work on commissions. Typically, when a company hires a candidate they pay search agencies or recruiters a percentage of that hire’s base salary. The harder you work, the larger the payout. Recruitment is a job in which you get out of it as much as you put in. 

Lastly, helping companies build great teams and helping candidates land their dream jobs can be deeply rewarding and fulfilling. Recruiters get to help businesses build great teams, as well as connect job seekers to their dream jobs. If you’re looking for more than just a job, for a chance to really have an impact on a business and play a critical role in its growth, recruitment is an excellent option.

Instant Data Scraper – The Most Straightforward Free Scraping Tool In Existence

Dean Da Costa is at it again with his nuggets of wisdom! I have spent hours sifting through messy and convoluted data scraping tools and chrome extensions. They were either integrated into a paid platform or too complicated (and I code for fun in my free time for some reason)  I can proclaim that Instant Data Scraper is where the magic is at! You’re a click away from a beautiful and fulfilling relationship with a chrome extension! (i am so lonely)

Watch Dean use this tool while scouring the Latino Corporate Executive Organization website, a great place to look for diversity hires in high level positions!

The nuts and bolts of this free scraping tool:

Instant Data Scraper has a straightforward design, and does what you need it to in about 2 or 3 clicks. Like I mentioned, there’s a smorgasbord of other scraping tools out there that are just a tad too complex for me to bother with. They usually require you to make a scraping profile for each website and map out data points, ew.

This chrome extension kinda just…guesses. and it guesses VERY intelligently.  It even assumes you’re searching through a database that has multiple pages, so you can tell it where the “next” button is and watch it do its magic.  You might need to spend a little time cleaning up the CSV contact file afterwards, but thats a relatively straightforward process.

So, whats there to complain about? I’d say it can’t handle databases without a proper next button. If the page list has no clickable arrows or next button, this extension literally can’t handle life. Those non-standard databases are few and far between. It just so happens that in this video, the Latino Corporate Directors Association database has that exact problem.

Only a few buttons, but they get the job done!

A few weeks back I tried to scour the chrome extension library for a proper scraping tool so I could write an article about it. I failed, they all sucked and I felt defeated….then he sent me this video. This just shows that if Dean has this tool in the “pinned” section of his chrome window, you probably should too!

This is a free extension that we have no paid affiliation with or any of that jazz, we just want to make the sourcing community’s lives easier. When it comes to easy and free scraping tools I think this one shines pretty darn bright.

Dean links and upcoming events:

Dean Da Costa provides a lot of amazing sourcing tools and techniques for the community. He always has a free page of Sourcing tools, links, and other resources that we highly recommend you check out!

Snag that snazzy, free scraping tool: Instant Data Scraper!

Shout out to the Latino Corporate Executive Organization for proudly representing their heritage and talents! Their member list can be viewed here.

#HRTX June is also a great learning experience for sourcers and recruiters of all skill levels.  On June 23rd, we’ll be teaching the hiring process from beginning to end so you can learn all the nuances of every step! It’s an all day event, so pop in whenever you have some time for self improvement! We have 12 top level trainers from various recruiting industries! Sourcing for Dev Ops Engineers, Data Security Engineers, Full Stack Devs, and Front End Devs. Register for free here!

Five Skills to Look for When Hiring Technical Recruiters

While companies struggled with high attrition over the past year, recruiters also found it hard to find and hire their own. Many recruiting firms have been pressed to meet client demands with an ongoing recruiter shortage. As competition for talent intensifies, the high demand for technical roles (like software engineers) has also led to rising demand for technical recruiters.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in computer and information technology occupations is projected to grow 13 percent from 2020 to 2030. These occupations will likely add about 667,600 new jobs, growing faster than the average for all occupations. Demand for these workers will stem from greater emphasis on cloud computing, the collection and storage of big data and information security.

The recovering U.S job market and COVID-19 vaccines led to a sharp increase in the demand for technical recruiters last spring and is only rising. This year, the demand for tech recruiters exceeded pre-pandemic levels, with more than 1,700 job openings for tech recruiters added in January 2022 alone. Emsi Burning Glass, collecting data from the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, found a 200% increase in job postings compared to January 2021 and a 135% in postings since January 2020. 

If you plan to add a technical recruiter to your team, read on to find out what technical recruiters do and what essential skills to look for when hiring them.

Why Do You Need a Technical Recruiter?

Non-technical recruiters adopt a generalist approach and hire for various positions based on the company’s needs. In comparison, technical recruiters hire for specialized positions in tech like developers, engineers, data analysts and tech operations. They are in charge of sourcing, screening, interviewing and hiring for these positions. 

Unlike generalist recruiters, tech recruiters possess deep knowledge about these fields. Since these posts require full-time, specialized and experienced candidates, tech recruiters need in-depth understanding to converse with, assess and screen potential candidates.

Tech recruiters also work closely with hiring managers to understand business needs, identify the necessary tech skills and source candidates accordingly. Apart from that, they are responsible for designing the recruitment plan, writing job descriptions, marketing and attracting candidates. 

Based on your urgency and volume to hire, you can either hire an in-house technical recruiter or outsource to external technical recruiters or recruiting firms.

In-House Technical Recruiter – Having an in-house expert is essential if you frequently hire for technical roles. They are full-time employees of your organization and perform recruitment activities only for your organization. 

External Technical Recruiters are usually independent consultants or associated with recruitment firms. You can hire them based on your needs. However, they are not exclusive employees of your organization. 

While looking for technical recruiters, consider the following essential and desired skills.

The ‘Must-Have’ Skills of Technical Recruiters

Data-Driven Mindset

Recruiting has become more data-driven than ever before. Recruiters rely on hiring metrics and key performance indicators to inform their recruitment decisions. 

Technical recruitment differs from other recruitment due to its specialized nature and limited talent pool. Hiring software engineers is often a lengthy process, and technical recruiters use data from the hiring process to determine inconsistencies and deliver a better candidate experience.

Moreover, tech recruiters often use specific assessment and screening tools with candidates. These tools are AI-powered and provide feedback to candidates on their performance. Recruiters can also use data from these tools to enhance their hiring strategy and achieve their goals. 

While hiring a tech recruiter, check for familiarity with data analysis. Since data analysis is now embedded in various hiring tech stacks, candidates must have experience working with data. The candidate need not be an expert or a data scientist. But, it is crucial they can understand statistical results and put them into action. 

Technical Aptitude & Proficiency with Tech Tools

While not themselves in a “technical” role, technical recruiters should have a basic understanding of the technology and the industry they are hiring for. Having foundational knowledge about the industry, like key terms engineers use,  will enable them to identify qualified candidates. 

What makes a successful technical recruiter? According to DK Burnaby, Senior Talent Acquisition Leader on the Amazon Alexa team and President of Seattle Talent Acquisition Collaborative, “..a curious technical recruiter will go beyond simply matching candidates to positions. They will investigate more about the skills they are recruiting for. This means that they will understand how the position fits into the product. All too often, candidates are put off by bad technical recruiters who treat them as one-size-fits-all.”

Here are the top technical skills to look for: 

Know Your Tech Stack

A tech stack, or the technological infrastructure, differs for every organization. Your tech recruiter should be aware of the frameworks, applications, front and back end tools and the programming languages your engineering and data teams use. 

Although they do not need formal training in these tech applications, they will need to learn about them. Since tech recruiters deal with highly technical information, their average salaries are also higher. No, they will not be writing code. But they will interact with the candidates about the job roles, responsibilities and qualifications.

So if your tech recruiter doesn’t know the difference between Python and JavaScript and what they are used for, they will struggle to connect with and determine the right candidate for your organization. 

Technical Writing 

Technical recruiters are also responsible for writing the job descriptions and job ad copy for various platforms. They will also communicate with different stakeholders, and may write press releases or web and marketing content. The ability to clearly and precisely communicate complex information is a must for technical recruiters. 

While hiring, you should assess your candidates’ writing and communication skills. 

ATS, CRM & Microsoft Office Proficiency

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) makes the recruiter’s work easier and more efficient by screening and shortlisting the best applicants. Although many ATS’s are available in the market, they all work similarly. More holistic recruitment solutions are also making a segway into the market with advancing technology. For technical recruiters, if they have previous experience with an ATS, they will quickly get the hang of the one you use. 

Similarly, proficiency with Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) systems is an  essential skill for recruiters.  

Candidate Sourcing with Boolean

Technical recruiters are under pressure to attract and hire candidates for hard-to-fill tech roles successfully. The candidate pool is comparatively smaller, with talented candidates already employed and not looking for a change. It is often a ‘needle-in-a-haystack’ situation for technical recruiters. In such cases, Boolean searches can be beneficial. 

Boolean search saves you valuable time and helps optimize your preferred search engines to perform technical sourcing resourcefully and efficiently. When you use Boolean search strings, each search you perform is customized to meet your prerequisites. Moreover, Boolean search is a fantastic tool for discovering passive candidates. You are likely to miss them with the traditional sourcing methods.

Lastly, the Boolean search will also enable you to overcome bias and fulfill your organization’s diversity initiatives. With targeted Boolean search strings, you can more easily reach candidates belonging to historically underrepresented groups. 

Marketing and Branding Skills

In a candidate-driven market, recruitment is all about selling the job and your company to the candidates. So, technical recruiters will also perform employer branding activities, including content creation, developing an employer value proposition and telling your organization’s story to potential candidates.

Analytics from the recruitment campaigns will help tech recruiters understand:

    • The best channels for tech roles
    • Optimizing social media to increase reach
    • What kind of content works in attracting candidates
    • Find passive candidates who regularly engage with your content

Look for candidates with experience developing the right social profile and branding for technical roles. Social media, marketing and branding are all crucial skills in candidate sourcing.  

Interpersonal and Soft Skills

An excellent technical recruiter will have more than just technical skills; interpersonal and other soft skills are equally important. 

Technical recruiters often partake in networking and relationship-building activities. While hiring for specific roles, these professional networks can be game-changers. Relationship management is also necessary as they often work with different teams like marketing and sales. Moreover, interpersonal skills help tech recruiters nurture candidate relationships that can convert a candidate into a hire. 

Lastly, recruiters must possess skills like curiosity and openness to learning. Technology is rapidly evolving, and an openness to learning can help tech recruiters stay at the top of their game. When you are hiring technical recruiters, remember to consider these essential interpersonal skills. 

Conclusion

Rising recruitment in technical areas has led to increased demand for technical recruiters. While hiring technical recruiters, look for technical aptitude, familiarity with data analysis, a willingness to learn and marketing experience. In addition, don’t overlook interpersonal skills like networking and relationship management. 

Is Your Applicant Pool Running Dry? Six Ways to Uncover Hidden Talent

As the labor shortage crisis and the Great Resignation continue to hit employers hard, some traditional applicant pools are running dry. Rest assured, recruiters – your new hire is out there. But to find them, you’ll need to adjust your hiring strategies and rethink your evaluation methods.

With U.S. job openings reaching a record 11.5 million this spring and unemployment hitting 3.6%, candidates hold all the cards. Now, job seekers can be ultra-selective in the roles they apply for, the interviews they agree to and the offers they accept. If they don’t like their current job for one reason or another, they’ll leave without hesitance, knowing something better lies right around the corner.

Start with these six ways to uncover hidden talent. 

Tap Into Overlooked Groups

Find hidden talent by targeting commonly overlooked and underrepresented groups such as veterans, immigrants, formerly incarcerated individuals and people with disabilities. (Did you know that one in four adults have some type of disability, yet only 17.9% of those with a disability were employed in 2020?)

You’ll not only widen your talent pool, but also strengthen your DE&I strategy, bring new voices to your team and address the needs of a wider range of customers. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (or HBCUs), The Veterans Employment Center (VEC), The Employer Assistance and Resource Network on Disability Inclusion (EARN) and your state Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) agency are great places to start searching for your next new hire. 

Filter In, Not Out

Are your job postings too full of “must-haves”? Is your evaluation process based on qualifying or disqualifying applicants, with little room for considering candidates who don’t check every box?

Find hidden talent like career changers and people without degrees by filtering candidates in, not filtering them out.

That means being less strict with your requirements for specific degrees, credentials or titles and focusing on applicants’ transferable skills and experience. If the position doesn’t legally require a certain license, certification or degree, consider making those qualifications “nice-to-haves” rather than “must-haves.”

Use skills tests to give candidates a fair chance to demonstrate what they know, regardless of whether they have a degree, and weigh the importance of soft skills versus hard skills. For example, if an applicant has the right soft skills, could they readily train up in other areas?

Also, think about hiring for “culture add” instead of “culture fit.” Embrace new perspectives, backgrounds and experiences that expand your company’s culture, not simply fit into the existing mold. 

Don’t Disqualify Based on Employment Gaps

Employment gaps should no longer be immediate red flags or disqualifiers. Especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s common to encounter job seekers who have taken time off to change careers, relocate, handle a personal illness or injury or be a full-time parent, student or caregiver. 

Discover hidden talent by giving applicants an opportunity to address employment gaps in the interview – be understanding and don’t make assumptions. If you’re using an applicant tracking system (ATS) or another form of artificial intelligence that automatically disqualifies applicants with employment gaps, adjust your settings. 

Expand Your Reach to Remote Workers 

If your industry, type of business and open position allow it, expand your search to include remote candidates. Whether you source remote workers locally, regionally, nationally or globally, your talent pool will grow exponentially. Plus, hiring “work-from-home” employees can cut overhead costs (office space, insurance, etc.) and raise productivity.

Target Passive Candidates

Don’t wait for the right applicants to find you. Great hires for your team may not be actively looking for a new position but would make a move if the right opportunity came along. This is where you can take advantage of the momentum of the Great Resignation when workers are more inclined to leave their posts than ever before. 

So, where do you find passive candidates? Use an online resume database, check your pipeline of previous applicants, browse social media or ask your employees for referrals. You might also approach former employees (“boomerangs”) with whom you still have a good professional relationship to see if they’re interested in returning to your company. 

Search Within

Could the right person for the role be hiding right under your nose? In other words, could you promote one of your current employees or move them laterally to fill the position?

Think about whether there is already someone on your team or company at large that has the necessary institutional knowledge and the potential to learn new skills quickly or grow into a different role. However, if you do hire from within, plan accordingly to backfill their position.

While traditional methods for finding applicants like job boards, networking events and career fairs won’t go out of style any time soon, today’s employment climate requires recruiters to leave no stone unturned. Supplement those traditional approaches with these tactics for uncovering hidden talent and you’ll be one step closer to finding your next hire.

How Learning is Changing Along with Employees

The corporate landscape for learning and development is changing rapidly. It’s more important than ever, of course. There’s an unprecedented level of change in the world around us as technologies evolve ever more rapidly, and a corresponding acceleration in the need to update skills. For companies to compete, it’s imperative that their employees keep up.

In addition to those changes on the demand side, the way training is delivered to employees is changing as well.

The Traditional Learning Model is Obsolete

For years, of course, forward-thinking companies have had a well-defined structure in place for employee development. They’ve worked to understand their current skill base, then thought strategically about aligning development plans with the organization’s objectives. These development plans have then been executed – in some highly structured cases through a learning management system, but in almost all cases directed and driven by the employer rather than the employee. The training, as good as it has been, has been cookie-cutter. The same content, delivered the same way, to all the employees receiving it.

That model has been the progressive model. It’s swiftly becoming obsolete.

Generational Influences are Largely Responsible

This model is outmoded largely due to the same generational influences that have affected nearly all other aspects of workplace culture.

With the first members of Gen Z having arrived, and projected to make up 30% of the total US workforce by 2030, there are now two generations in the workplace who are true digital natives. This generation, and their immediate Gen Y predecessors, have grown up with information at their fingertips. For them, there’s never been a need to not know the answer to a question.

YouTube has provided them with the largest library of how-to tutorials in the history of the world, with virtually no barrier to entry. They’ve always had an expert close at hand who can teach them to do just about anything (and they’ve also become relatively adept at differentiating experts from non-experts).

For those looking for more rigor than YouTube, online learning platforms like Khan Academy, StudySoup and Coursera have offered skill improvement on demand. All of these influences also intersect with a generation that knows the value of knowledge in the knowledge economy. 

In short, younger generations know that continuous learning is essential for their career success; they embrace it, and they know how to seek it out.

Here’s What to Do Now

First, throw out the cookie cutter. There is no longer one size that fits all (assuming there ever was). 

Reorient your focus and effort away from designing structured learning plans. Instead, invest that focus to design a structure in which employees can be as fully engaged as they want to be in the learning process, including the direction that learning takes, and even the resources that will be used. That structure should be as easy to navigate as possible, with a very minimal – or nonexistent – barrier to entry.

Think on-demand and crowdsourced. No organization can create a YouTube for learning and development, and there’s no need to do so. However, there is inspiration here to be had. Creating a menu of training options that can be accessed on-demand will do more to encourage takers than a structured plan directing the what, where, why and how.

The other lesson to be taken here is the value of crowdsourced information. Every organization has a wealth of expertise carried by its employees. Whether in the form of video tutorials, downloadable papers or cross-generational workshops and mentorships, there’s tremendous value in peer-to-peer learning.

Don’t restrict these ideas to skill-based training, either. Younger generations are not confident that they have the soft skills – communication, teamwork, leadership – they need to succeed, and they want on-the-job training and mentoring opportunities that will help develop them.

Above all else, demonstrate that learning is a priority for your organization. While it’s true that lifelong learning is of particular value to the younger generations in your workforce, employees of all generations need to evolve and grow with the changes happening in every industry. Show that your company is ready to support the learning and development of all employees by investing in it, making sure the opportunities are available and speaking about it often.

One final note, lest you think that these changes are about pandering to just one or two generations. Not so. The same generational influences that have created Gen Y and Gen Z have also molded and shaped every other generation along the way.

Previous generations may not be digital natives, but they are digital migrants who generally have adapted to and embraced the on-demand world. Successful companies will be those who respond by providing development opportunities to all of their employees in a way that reflects these changes.

Three Reasons Why Job Switching is The Key to Recruitment and Retention

Labor shortages have been a top challenge for employers across sectors over the past two years and this trend does not appear to be slowing down. The recent Career Optimism Index® study from the University of Phoenix Career Institute™ shows that nearly a third of workers in the U.S. say they would quit their job without having another one lined up. This figure is representative of deeper shifts in the relationship between employees and their workplaces. 

Among workers who have changed careers in the last six months, the top reasons for job switching included seeking a better work-life balance, pursuing a higher salary and the desire to try something new.

These insights provide a roadmap for employers looking to recruit new talent; leaders should examine what is already being accomplished in these areas to determine how existing offerings can be better marketed throughout the recruitment process, in addition to making improvements where necessary to make their companies more attractive to new employees. 

Even better, these findings present an opportunity for employers to up-level career development support for their existing workforce. Sixty-five percent of employees say they would consider staying that their current job if they thought things could change—and we now know the exact areas where employees desire improvement. By prioritizing enhancements that directly address these priorities and values, employers can quell the need for extraneous, continuous recruitment by starting at the source.  

Whether employers are prioritizing attracting new talent, retention of their current workforce or both, here are tactics to consider implementing to tackle the top three workplace values driving employees’ career decisions.

Prioritizing Mental Health and Wellness to Increase Work-Life Balance

Overall, approximately half of employers and employees currently feel work-life balance is being prioritized at their companies. These are figures that need to improve in order for businesses to maintain a resilient workforce. One aspect of how work-life balance can be better addressed in the workplace is through the provision of mental health and wellness resources.

Eighty-five percent of employers say such offerings are already offered within their companies, however, less than half of employees say that they have taken advantage of these resources to manage work-related stress. This points to an issue of workplace culture, which must incorporate encouragement around the utilization of such resources to instigate real progress.

It should be noted that healthy workplace behaviors often need to be modeled from the top-down; from demonstrating participation in mental health and wellness programs to holding ongoing conversations that perpetuate a value of wellness at every level of the company, leaders’ engagement in this aspect of the workplace is critical to its ongoing success. 

Strengthening Transparent Communication Around Compensation 

It is a well-known fact that pay has been a significant driver of attrition throughout the Great Resignation. Our study found that a missing piece in this part of the conversation is the lack of communication from employers around employee compensation and financial rewards.

Only fifty-six percent of employers say their companies hold regular conversations around pay, with a mere thirty-seven percent of employees agreeing with this claim, which is concerning as transparency and open communication are key to attracting and retaining a workforce. Across the board, it must be a top priority for employers to gain understanding of employees’ needs and expectations, so that they may take action to alleviate key pain points and build trusting employee-employer relationships. 

Upleveling Skills Training to Increase Internal Career-Change Opportunities

Knowing that a large population of workers are desiring to try something new in their careers, employers should provide opportunities for their workers to explore such options internally before making the decision to leave. One way employers can do this is through increased skills training.

According to our research, sixty-five percent of employees said they would be more likely to stay with their company throughout their career if their employer did more to re-skill them.

By focusing on creating a culture of learning and continuous improvement and, consistently offering upskilling and reskilling opportunities and sourcing talent from within, employers are not only aiding people in their career enhancement and increasing engagement and retention but building a more agile workforce and stronger organizations that are better equipped for the future. 

We are at a crossroads in terms of the future of work—employees have made it clear what their needs are, and they have been direct with the fact that they are willing to move on if their needs aren’t met. Now it is up to employers to decide how they are going to apply these learnings to ensure the future of their businesses. 

What Candidates Want vs. What They Get

Even after a solid decade of conversations about candidate experience, if the Great Resignation accomplished just one thing, it helped remind the world about the power of the worker – and in turn, the job seeker. And whether folks regret their decisions to switch jobs or not, in most cases, their expectations have changed. Even so, there remains a Grand Canyon-sized chasm between what candidates want in the recruiting process and what they get. 

The Job Posting

While not a scientific claim, it is my experience that nine times out of ten, job posts follow the same format. Plug and play the following information: job title, organization name, location, employment type, a brief overview of the position, more detailed requirements and responsibilities in the form of too many bullet points and finish with the perfunctory EEOC/legal language.

While there’s nothing wrong with the information included, it’s not necessarily what candidates want to know, especially when there’s ample evidence that certain job seekers (read: women) are less likely to apply if they aren’t a perfect match.  

Women are less likely to apply if they aren’t a perfect match.

Most articles say this stems from a confidence gap, and while that’s probably true in many instances, there’s also the matter of time. It takes candidates time to find and read through job postings, prepare their resume and cover letter and complete the application. Why bother taking the time if the job posting isn’t a fit? Why bother if the job posting doesn’t tell a story they can be a part of?

Related to the job posting is the matter of pay transparency. Some states have enacted laws requiring that employers put salary information in the job post. Employers in some of these states have hit back by looking for workers in other locations.

Weird flex, but I get it. Some of the HR and TA leaders I’ve talked to express concern about sharing salary in the job post because the organization might not be seen as competitive. To which I usually ask a few questions: Is the pay fair? Is pay the whole story? What more does the organization have to offer? 

Value

Value goes beyond monetary rewards, and it plays a significant role in what candidates want. From the second they engage, they want to feel valued and with job posts, that means going beyond the cursory details to show them where they might fit within the organization.

Once they’ve applied, value comes in the form of open communication. That doesn’t mean they expect flawlessness. It means they expect humanity. Candidates will make typos on their resumes and show up late to interviews. Recruiters will forget to send an update on Friday afternoon or get delayed by a hiring manager who wants to see just one more candidate before they make a decision. In today’s job market, candidates often say, “It has to be worth my while.” 

Showing grace from the get-go helps to ensure candidates feel supported. It’s when the position is full-time in office at $200K, and the candidate wants to be remote at $300K, and the process was supposed to involve three interviews and take three weeks but drags on for months that it becomes a problem.

It might appear the candidate is being picky, and perhaps they are; this is a big decision for them too. And yes, while they sometimes enter into the process with a chip on their shoulder due to previous work traumas, it is possible to get on the same page by listening and setting expectations.

What’s behind the curtain? Is there really a wizard? 

Hiring is messy, and while there seems to be this belief that somewhere, somehow, there is a magical organization that has it all figured out. That’s simply not true. It ebbs and flows, following an unpredictable job market that makes it impossible to “future-proof” anything. Likewise, technologies and trends come and go, and at this point, I’m sure most would agree the robot recruiter narrative has gone on for far too long.

The challenge is that resources are limited, and having meaningful conversations about what candidates want requires individual interaction rather than relying on hearsay, generational stereotypes or unreliable research. 

The best outcomes happen when recruiters and candidates align, when recruiters cut through the noise to see candidates as real people looking to improve their lives through their work. Instead of generalizing, or judging candidate expectations, work to understand and level set.

Gaps will always exist because everyone wants better for themselves, recruiters included. And isn’t it great when that’s what’s delivered?  

Day One Benefits Eligibility

My first day at Guild started out wildly different than I planned. There was no HR orientation or welcome lunch — just a nervously typed email that I had been drafting in my head since 6 a.m.

“I’m writing with an unexpected update — I was just admitted to the hospital and am expected to give birth today.”

This wasn’t a complete surprise. 

When I began interviewing at seven months pregnant, I knew the timing could get tricky between starting my new role and welcoming the newest member of my family. Still, my baby was arriving two weeks early, and I thought I’d have more time to get my feet underneath me at my job before taking parental leave.

Amidst this first-day-of-work anxiety and the prospect of, well, giving birth, Guild did have a policy in place that gave me some peace of mind: fully paid parental leave, available to all employees from day one on the job. 

This policy — rare for parental leave benefits outside of big tech companies and a few other innovators — spoke volumes to me about my new company’s culture and values. It gave me the confidence to continue in the interview process and served as reassurance when I ultimately accepted the offer. 

When expanded to other types of benefits, Day One eligibility can be a huge boon to individuals and can help companies maximize their war for talent strategy when it comes to attracting and retaining workers. 

Tenure Benefits Eligibility, a Gating Mechanism

Benefit eligibility based on tenure may seem like a minor consideration when compared to  administrative policies as a whole. After all, the first crucial step is providing benefits. Determining when a benefit is available to employees, however, also matters a great deal and can have significant impacts on individual employees. When designed strategically, it’s a powerful lever that employers can pull for attracting and retaining talent, with high returns on investment.

Except for regulated benefits, such as healthcare, tenure eligibility for most benefits is at the employer’s discretion. In an effort to control costs and limit the risks of providing a benefit for an employee who immediately leaves the company, it’s tempting for companies to view benefits as almost a kind of privilege that comes with tenure. 

Using tenure as a gating mechanism for benefits is needlessly restrictive, though. By moving beyond that consideration, employers have the opportunity to make purposeful design decisions that optimize benefit programs to their full potential. 

Companies must ask themselves, what talent objectives (attraction, retention, diversity, engagement, etc.) are we targeting? Is there a particular employee population to target? Determining what the benefits investment aims to achieve will help to intentionally design its eligibility, which in some instances renders tenure requirements irrelevant. 

The Difference a Few Months Can Make

We closely track how Day One policies play out in the education benefit space at Guild. For legacy programs, we see an average tenure requirement of at least six months. Unfortunately, this prevents employers from realizing one of the most powerful return-on-investment levers that a strategically designed education program offers: significantly increased retention for both program participants and employees who express interest in the program, otherwise known as “engagers.” 

For a company that sees serious retention challenges toward the beginning of its employees’ tenures, offering an education program with Day One eligibility ensures it will reap the maximum impact on retention.

We often see examples of this with our employer partners. One partner, a large national retailer, experienced first-hand the benefits of switching to a Day One policy. The company’s education program originally had a 90-day tenure eligibility requirement. 

As more time passed and outcomes data became available, we saw that employees who enrolled in the program at the six-month tenure mark were about 75% more likely to retain than employees who hadn’t engaged with the benefit. 

Based on this significant increase in retention, the employer decided to shift to Day One eligibility. It began seeing retention increases earlier, which helped tackle the high turnover that occurred in its employees’ first 90 days of employment. Outcomes like these have led most Guild partners to design their education programs with Day One policies, allowing them to pull their ROI forward and deploy their investment most effectively.

Simple, Flexible, Supportive: What Employees Are Looking For Now

Employers know that most new hires will not begin using many benefits or enroll in education programs on Day One. But given the one-in-a-million chance that it does happen (like going into labor on your first day of work!), companies know it will help that individual employee tremendously.

In today’s fiercely competitive talent landscape, employees are looking to bring their full selves to work, at a company that cares about them. Day One benefit eligibility sends a strong signal of consideration from a company – even if it is a symbolic gesture. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, workers also demand increased flexibility and fewer restrictions. That includes flexibility in work location, hours and more. Removing a tenure requirement is one less restriction to implement, and employees can have easier access to the benefits their employers have chosen to offer their workforce.

In the broader sense, Day One eligibility for education programs and other benefits provides employees a foundational sense of well-being and psychological safety. In turn, companies gain more stability, engagement and dedication with their workforce. Similar to how employers offer healthcare on day one because the body is historically seen as the primary method of productivity, offering education initiatives nurtures the worker’s mind and helps employees show up ready to contribute. 

With no signs of the war for talent slowing down, forward-thinking companies that bake Day One eligibility into their benefits and education programs have a powerful tool to edge out competitors. And as I get ready to celebrate my baby’s first birthday, the impact of Day One policies couldn’t be clearer. Rather than me having to delay professional moves by a year or more to grow my family, Guild leveraged that tool and provided me the opportunity to continue building and progressing my career. 

How to Listen to Candidates

Candidates tell us everything we need to know about their suitability and fit for the jobs we’re recruiting for, the applicability of their experience and what they’re really thinking – even when what they’re really thinking is different than what they’re saying. But we can only hear what they’re telling us if we’re listening. How well do you listen to your candidates? 

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” Whether the philosopher Epictetus actually said this 2,000 years ago, we’ll never know for sure. Another apt sentiment – and a more recent and verifiable one – comes courtesy of George Bernard Shaw: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

Active Listening

The illusion Shaw was thinking is the assumption that just because someone has said something, the other person heard and understood. That’s not always the case, and the culprit is a lapse in active listening.

Think back to a recent conversation you had in the workplace. When the other party was speaking to you, were you already planning what you were going to say in response? It’s human nature to do so. And yet, when we’re listening to respond, we’re no longer listening to understand. Therefore, we’re no longer really listening.

It’s especially easy to slip into this state when things are busy – as they are now. When there’s a lot to do, and a very limited amount of time in which to do it, we need to get the information we’re looking for as quickly as possible. That makes it particularly difficult to remember to slow down, to stop thinking ahead to the next question you plan to ask and to simply listen.

Listening In: Outreach

When you connect with a candidate for the first time, whose agenda are you most interested in? It’s natural to be focused on your priority – you’ve got a job to do, after all – but what if you shifted your perspective and placed the candidate’s agenda first?

First, you’d probably be less likely to hear what you want to hear. Instead of unconsciously shaping the answer to fit the shape we hope it will be (as people tend to do), we’d be more likely to hear what’s actually being said. Secondly, we’d likely ask some different questions if, more than anything else, we were trying to understand their goals and aspirations.

If they’re interested in a given opportunity, why? What are the specific things that piqued their interest? And why is that? We reached out to them, of course, but now that they understand the role we’re talking about, how do they believe that their skills and experiences make them the candidate we’re looking for?

If they’re not interested, why not? What can you learn from them during the conversation about the role you’re recruiting for, or about their perception of the company? What can you learn about them by understanding the nuances of their experience, and the direction they see their career taking?

All of this leads to a deeper relationship with someone whose goals and aspirations you understand – a far better outcome than just one more entry in an ATS.

Listening In: Interviews

Interviews typically begin with a slate of questions that the interviewer plans to ask, but from that point forward it shouldn’t be a process of just checking boxes. There is so much more to be gained when we actively listen to the answers to our questions; when we listen to understand.

Think about the last time a close friend told you about a funny or exciting event in their lives. Without even thinking about it, you likely asked probing questions to prompt the storyteller along. What if you brought the same level of curiosity and engagement to your interviews? You’d listen to each answer, and follow up with questions to pull out even more information: “Why was that?” “Why do you think that happened?” “How did you feel about that?” “What did you do then?” You’d leave an interview like this with a far more thorough understanding of your candidate, putting you in a better position to understand where they really fit, and to position them for that role.

Listening In: The Final Stages

As the competitive field narrows to several finalists, or perhaps just one, the tension increases. There are so many unforeseen issues that can arise at this stage – counter offers, changes of heart, cold feet. But must those issues be unforeseen?

There’s a tendency at this stage to shy away from tough questions. It makes far more sense to confront them head on. A candidate won’t decide to consider a counter offer just because an interviewer asked them if they might. If a candidate’s interest has waned, it’s better to know that sooner rather than later.

So ask the difficult questions. “Have you considered what you might do if your employer counters?” “You’ve been a bit tough to schedule lately. Has something changed?” “Changing schools is going to be a big move for your kids! How does your partner feel about the relocation?”

The answers to these questions are helpful in two ways. Clearly, an honest answer to them is important information you need to know – particularly if it’s not the one you hoped to hear. Just as importantly, the answers you do want to hear put the candidate in the position of ‘reclosing’ their own candidacy, reminding themselves about their interest in the role and their reasons for taking it.

In Closing

Don’t let your most critical communication be the illusion Shaw warned about. At every stage of the recruitment process, ask good questions. Then close your one mouth, open your two ears and listen to truly understand your candidate.

Six Things to Know about Recruiting Gen Z

The first time I heard the term millennial, I was a few years out of college, and the world was melting down amid the Great Recession. In the decade and a half since, the millennial narrative has changed more times than I can count and somehow still gets bandied about despite our rapidly advancing age. But finally, it seems the tables have turned, with a new generation starting to graduate college while the world is melting down amid the Great Resignation. Only fair that we take this opportunity to consider who Gen Z is and what they’re looking for in the recruiting process. 

    1. They’ve heard about the rest of us. Gen Z is keenly aware of the generational divides plaguing the workplace, from Boomer on down. They have heard about it their whole lives and understand that it freaks employers out. The New York Times even published a piece titled “The 37-Year-Olds Are Afraid of the 23-Year-Olds Who Work for Them.” This level of consciousness empowers Gen Z job seekers and gives them an advantage in hiring scenarios where they know they’re needed. 
    2. That don’t impress them much. During the pandemic, as the balance of youth power shifted from Millennial to Gen Z, the latter took a stance against the former. Gen Z went after their predecessors on social media, sharing their thoughts about everything from Harry Potter fandom to hairstyles. While this may seem unrelated to recruiting, it demonstrates an astutely observational nature and willingness to share opinions. Both of which fall firmly under the umbrella of “soft skills.” 
    3. They’ve lost out but won’t anymore. With everything Gen Z witnessed over the last two years, it’s no wonder that nearly half (46%) of survey respondents admitted to being stressed or anxious most or all of the time. They don’t want work to make that worse. Says content creator DeAndre Brown, “I wouldn’t necessarily say that as a Gen Z [worker], we’re spoiled. I just say that we’re doing what everyone else should have been doing a long time ago: setting strict boundaries at work. In the past, it’s more that you’re working for the company and now [Gen Z] has an approach where the company is working for us.”
    4. They don’t have the same experiences. Hiring managers and stakeholders love to appraise candidates on nebulous factors like “gravitas,” much to the chagrin of recruiters. With Gen Z specifically, these job seekers haven’t necessarily worked in an office before. Heck, some of them have barely stepped foot in a classroom, let alone a trade show floor or business dinner. The difference between business casual and casual Friday might not resonate, and that doesn’t mean they’re not ready, willing and able to get the job done. 
    5. Because they get what’s going on, they also see the role they play. Gen Z is keyed in on a number of issues, and as Deloitte noted, “They’re tired of waiting for change to happen and are taking action to hold others accountable. But they understand their actions as individuals can only do so much to reverse climate change, create pay and wealth equity, and end racism and bigotry. They want organizations to work together – governments, education systems and business – to drive change on a much broader scale.” 
    6. Digital natives or not, there’s no one way to communicate. Even though there’s plenty of evidence that confirms Gen Z loves to multitask on different devices, they don’t necessarily want you to lump them together just because they like their screens. Rather than assume anything about these candidates, the recruiting process needs to ask them about their preferences. The first step in personalization is the person, and when it comes to finding a job, Gen Z expects nothing less. 

Perhaps the most important thing to note about Gen Z is that they aren’t afraid to use what they know – and compared to most generations (Millennials included), they seem to know their fair share. They are entering into the job market with well-defined ideas about what they want and need from their potential employers – and they aren’t going to settle for the way things were before. Why should they? We’ve seen how well that worked for … other generations. 

But rather than try and fit everyone born from 1997 to 2012 into the same box, let’s use this opportunity to build processes that appreciate whole people. Let’s cut the young folks some slack, allow them to job hop without judgment and make a type or two on their resume. They may even teach the rest of us a lesson or two along the way. 

Four Key Strategies to Future Proof the Workforce

Your workforce is always going to be the most important influencer of your company’s success. As such, alongside upgrading technological tools, you need to make sure you maintain practices to future-proof your teams. This will help you to retain the best talent and make certain your workers are productive and innovative no matter what the future holds. However, this isn’t always easy to accomplish. 

We’re going to take a look at 4 key strategies you can use to future-proof your workforce.

Relevant Recruitment

Too often, human resources (HR) departments focus their recruitment on the immediate needs of the company. This is understandable to an extent. After all, there may be elements of unexpected turnover and HR must respond to meet specific demands. However, it’s still important to take the long-term approach in identifying candidates with future-relevant skillsets.

There is a range of skills that ensure employees can adapt to the evolving digital landscape. This includes not just basic digital literacy but also using software and hardware tools with a creative mindset. Soft skills such as emotional intelligence can also ensure employees can interact with colleagues and consumers with greater empathy. This is especially vital as workplaces become more positively progressive and inclusive.

As such, when planning a recruitment campaign, it’s important to clarify more dynamic needs. Establish the immediate requirements for the department but also what skills will be valuable in the future. Adjust searches and recruitment literature to reflect future-proof candidate personas.

This doesn’t mean your candidates must possess all these abilities now. But it’s worth identifying growth potential. During interviews and application screening, ask questions about what skills candidates are interested in developing further. This gives you insights into how your company and the candidate could evolve together.

Bolstered Culture

Your company culture is an integral part of your workers’ experience. It feeds into their satisfaction and can encourage them to be more innovative. Having a poor company culture will see your worker retention plummet. As such, making cultural changes can be instrumental in future-proofing your company by keeping your workers more meaningfully engaged.

Creating a positive work environment is essential for strong company culture. Take the time to assess how your company supports and respects your workers at all stages of their journey with you. Consider how you can make the hiring and onboarding processes smoother and clearer. Build trust among your staff by being transparent when making key business decisions. Find ways to authentically align your company values with the environmental, ethical and social concerns of the contemporary workforce.

Among the most important ways to future-proof your company culture is a commitment to diversity and inclusivity. This isn’t simply about making entry-level opportunities available to a wider range of candidates.

You need to establish ways for employees from all backgrounds to actively influence your company culture. Leadership must avoid making cultural decisions autonomously. Ensure a selection of workers from all levels of seniority can make an impact. This not only keeps your business relevant but also shows employees their views are valued and respected.

Accessible Development

There is a tendency to think that workers with consistent skills in a certain area are most valuable staying in their current positions. This neither results in worker satisfaction nor ensures the company can keep up with the changes in the business landscape.

Indeed, a recent study found that 94% of employees would work for a company longer if it invested in their learning. It is, therefore, mutually beneficial to create accessible development programs.

This should begin with creating transparent paths for progression. You can best future-proof your workforce here by designing it around oncoming needs. Focus on rising technological fields such as machine learning.

But you should also offer training in skills that empower employees to be effective no matter what department they move into. Problem-solving, conflict resolution and communication will always be valuable as workers progress through levels of seniority.

Importantly, these development programs must be designed to support all workers on their paths. Those who aren’t comfortable in traditional academic environments may need more hands-on learning.

Provide relevant mentors for employees from marginalized socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. This commitment to inclusive education makes sure you not only get the most from your workers but also makes for a stronger overall culture.

Intelligence-Led Decisions

Company leaders and HR professionals have vital expertise in maintaining a workforce. However, it’s important not to operate in an echo chamber. Regularly gaining alternative sources of intelligence can be key to better understanding changing needs. This allows you to make more informed decisions that keep your workforce future-proof.

This can include working with business intelligence and data analytics consultants. They can help you to identify the most relevant sources of information in forecasting the direction of the market and your company.

This may involve assessing the evolving demands of your core demographics so you can recruit the right staff to meet these. It could also influence where recruitment should be focused to meet your company’s scaling ambitions.

That said, it’s also important to gain intelligence from your staff. They often have more nuanced insights into how their roles and the nature of the industry are changing. Seek their input and build their suggestions into your solutions.

Gathering this data could revolve around anonymous company surveys or just positive workplace conversations between leadership and staff.

Conclusion

Future-proofing your workforce helps to make certain you can meet the changing needs of your industry and retain your valuable staff. Wherever possible, utilize a range of HR strategies that best suit how your business is evolving.

Recruit for relevant skillsets, enhance your company culture and make sure development programs are accessible. Remember to seek outside intelligence to bolster your leadership and HR expertise. Your time, energy and attention here are vital investments in ensuring the longevity of your company.

Dear Hiring Managers: Search TikTok, Not LinkedIn this Grad Season

As a geriatric Millennial (as I fondly refer to myself), I deviated from the more analogue job seeking path of my predecessors, leaning heavily on online platforms to build my network, connect with employers and explore new career opportunities. Now, it appears Gen Z has taken up the mantle, largely rejecting ‘traditional’ networking sites like LinkedIn and leveraging TikTok and other social platforms where they already have an established interest and presence.

A quick poll for all the Gen Ys in the audience: How many of us can remember the last time we printed off our resume and hand-delivered it to a potential employer? That’s crickets you’re hearing. But ask the same question to your Gen X or Baby Boomer parents, and I guarantee you’ll receive a resounding raise of hands and wild tales of “Help Wanted” sections in newspapers and trade magazines, awkward cold calls to companies and hours spent sifting through bulletin boards at career centers or other community spaces. 

While some tried and true techniques seem to be timeless – career fairs, networking events, recruiters – the job hunt is defined by each generation of professionals who incorporate the latest technology and tools to best showcase their abilities and engage potential employers. 

How Are Gen Z Job Seekers Using TikTok?

In a single word – edutainment. No longer simply celebrity dance-offs and funny cat videos (although there is still plenty of that), TikTok has morphed into a marketplace of short, informative content where influencers, established brands and people you went to high school with vie for clicks, views and relevancy. 

TikTok has undoubtedly become a key resource to aid and educate Gen Z professionals, helping to distinguish themselves from their peers and connect directly with the companies they want to work for. I’ve had several recent hires who reported their first interactions with brands were through content posted on  TikTok.

Career advice, resume tips, interview red flags, not to mention a way to establish a rapport with key brand managers and influencers, TikTok has transformed into an incredibly effective tool for job seekers. During a TikTok Live I recently hosted, one of our panelists, Jonathan Javier, co-founder and CEO of Wonsulting, said the platform has helped humanize job seekers and hold the attention of potential employers three or four-fold compared to traditional CVs and cover letters.

“I feel like TikTok and other social media platforms have made it that the power of landing a job is truly in the job seeker,” Javier explained during the session. “Like, if you just put yourself out there and you’re able to make a video about yourself exemplifying your experiences, imagine me, as a hiring manager, not having to go and read a resume that takes six to seven seconds on average to read. I’d rather just look at a TikTok and it’s more engaging.”  

So, does this mean traditional platforms like LinkedIn, with its hundreds of millions of global users, will eventually become obsolete? Doubtful, but it certainly appears younger professionals don’t place the same need or value on these standalone networking sites when they can access the same opportunities and more on channels they’re already active on. I wouldn’t be shocked to see a slow drip away from platforms like LinkedIn with younger job seekers, just as Gen Z users have flocked to Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat from Facebook and other OG social networks.   

Hiring on the Horizon 

It should come as no surprise that the pandemic era has accelerated a seismic shift in how most businesses approach recruitment. This virtual-first push, with its increased efficiency, convenience and cost-effectiveness for both candidates and companies, is likely to continue to be the norm for most employers well into the foreseeable future. 

Additionally, we’ve already witnessed the possible evolution of virtual interviews and onboardings, going from the floating heads of Zoom or Google Meet to innovative developments in metaverse technology. It’s easy to envision a not-so-distant future where candidates and hiring teams interact in fully immersive, digital interviews through avatars and other representations, all from the comfort of our respective domiciles. 

Earlier this year, in partnership with metaverse conferencing startup, Venu, there was a first of its kind metaverse hiring event with 200-plus founders and job seekers. Here, attendees and their Sims-like characters could listen to roundtables, network and even job/candidate hunt. The highly interactive experience was such a success that there are similar events planned for later this year. 

While the last two years have certainly made recruiting simpler and more efficient, unfortunately, transparency in this process has yet to make the same leap. There have been incremental improvements recently – USWNT equal pay settlement, jurisdictions such as New York City and Colorado enshrining salary transparency legislation – but these are few and far between. 

Thankfully, when it comes to a greater focus on unconscious bias in the hiring process, we have seen more conversations and general awareness permeate the larger business community. Many companies across sectors and industries have invested in broader bias training and more diverse hiring teams to help combat this, but with the rise of TikTok Resumes and other video-first application platforms, how exactly these impact or complicate potential recruiting bias remains to be seen.

Final Thoughts for Hiring Managers

Whether it’s TikTok or some yet to be imagined platform, it’s essential hiring teams remain nimble to stay on top of these trends and reach younger job seekers where they’re most active. In particular, Gen Z is searching for jobs, career information and advice in unexpected (or at least untraditional) places that previous generations – myself included – wouldn’t have thought to use. 

As we’ve all been reminded constantly, it’s a job seekers’ market. It’s paramount businesses and hiring teams, especially in the tech and startup spaces, get creative with their compensation packages to attract and retain talent. Of course, competitive salaries are important, but enticing perks such as remote flexibility, equity stake (for startups and young businesses), childcare or transportation stipends and even student loan reimbursement should be given serious thought and consideration.

Good luck, and happy hunting.

Three Best Ways to Test Language Proficiency While Hiring

According to last year’s CIPD Labor Market Outlook survey, nine out of ten employers say they rely on workers possessing language skills other than English. Apart from that, 56% of respondents say their needs for multilingual workers have increased significantly over the past few years, which brings up the need for language proficiency verification.

If you would like to add more multilingual employees to your team as well but don’t know how to verify their skills, we’ve prepared a list of three practices to test the candidate’s language proficiency level while hiring. Let’s get right to it. 

Why Assess the Candidate’s Language Proficiency?

First of all, let’s answer this question. 

The main reason to go through the assessment process is to confirm the candidate’s qualifications. The supplementary test will help you confirm their certifications and understand the actual level of proficiency they possess. 

That’s why the whole assessment process usually involves a written test and a speaking part. During the text, you have an opportunity to evaluate the core language skills (grammar, vocabulary, listening). Plus, it’s a good chance to check their writing skills, for instance, by asking them to fill in the documentation they would be working with at their job. 

At the speaking part, it’s an opportunity to see how well a candidate can support a conversation. For instance, if you want to check their conversational French, you can ask them to speak on the topics that would put forward their knowledge of job-specific vocabulary. Besides, it’s also a chance to evaluate their level of expertise. 

Now, let’s get to the practices you can employ during the hiring process to test the candidate’s language proficiency. 

Test Before Interviewing

As a recruiter, you know that hiring a candidate can be quite costly. In fact, according to the report by Yello, companies spend $3,000 on average per hire. 

So, how can you cut these costs when hiring multilingual candidates?

You can use language proficiency tests as a way to filter out those job seekers whose competencies are not at the level you expect. Putting a test first is also crucial in work environments where language proficiency is integral to all the processes. 

How Elaborate Should the Test Be?

It can cover basic competencies, such as grammar, listening and writing. Next, if the candidate fits your expectations, you can test their speaking skills during an interview by switching to a different language to discuss their experience or other topics. 

Take a Comprehensive Approach to Testing

Language proficiency is a complex notion and is not about the number of words or grammatical constructions one knows but rather what a person can do with that knowledge. For instance, if you expect a person to have an advanced level in a particular language, they should be able to support their opinions, hypothesize, discuss different topics and be able to handle a particular situation using the linguistic knowledge they have.

That’s why it’s important to test your multilingual candidates holistically, which means you might need to involve several types of tests. There are four of them:

    • Diagnostic – assesses the person’s level and points out the areas of improvement. 
    • Achievement – measures whether a candidate meets specific goals with their language skills. 
    • Proficiency – evaluates how well a candidate can use their knowledge of a language in specific situations (you can make them work-related). 
    • Aptitude – shows the candidate’s ability to learn languages. 

You can incorporate all these test types in the evaluation process. You can skip aptitude testing if you don’t expect the candidate to work on improving their language skills while working at your company. But the most diverse your testing process is, the better it helps you reduce bias during the recruitment. 

Invite a Certified Foreign Language Instructor

As a recruiter, you’re certainly well aware of the company’s expectations when it comes to the candidate’s language proficiency level. However, when it comes to the assessment process, you might not have the skills to actually confirm their skills. 

That’s why it’s highly recommended to involve a certified language instructor to help you with the process. They can put together a comprehensive test for the well-rounded evaluation of the candidate’s knowledge and be present at the interview to hear them speak. 

However, hiring a language instructor can be a costly matter, so consider this option only if you’re hiring a team of multilingual employees. 

To conclude our article, language proficiency testing is a necessity rather than an option in the recruitment process if the job presupposes frequent use of a foreign language. There are three practices of incorporating this assessment when hiring:

    • Testing before interviewing – helps you select the right candidates right away and cuts recruitment costs.
    • Approaching the assessment holistically – involving different types of tests to get a full picture of the applicant’s skills. 
    • Get the help of a certified language instructor – they will help you organize the entire process. 

Supercharge your ATS with Power BI

A recent analysis from Deloitte found that 83 percent of surveyed companies suffered from “low people analytics maturity.” The same report described existing data tools as “under-equipped to identify potential problems and solutions” in talent acquisition processes. These challenges can be addressed by embedding cutting-edge visualization software directly into a client’s ATS, and providing custom training in industry-standard business visualization to establish a common language for graphs, diagrams and tables.

This dual approach democratizes access to data so that entire teams are empowered to discover and communicate strategic insights using business visualizations that everyone can understand.

This low analytics maturity is not the fault of individual teams. In the majority of organizations that I have worked with, TA is given neither the tools nor the training to engage with data in a way that truly drives insight.

The Quarterly Business Review

We’ve all been there: your company’s leadership team invites you to present at the Quarterly Business Review. This is your moment to showcase your ability to use data to create strategic insights.

You go to your ATS for ideas, but unfortunately the visualizations you find there aren’t of much help. That’s because while all applicant tracking systems provide dashboard reporting, these charts are designed to meet the needs of the greatest number of customers.

They do not reflect your unique processes in a way that would produce visuals you can simply plug into a presentation. Worse, the charts themselves aren’t built with graphic design best practice: colors are used arbitrarily, labels are crowded out of view and nothing can be customized to your preferences.

So your ATS user admin spends hours creating complicated reports and exporting that data into Excel. Once there, myriad data integrity issues reveal themselves. Your team spends more hours addressing inconsistencies until the data meets expectations.

Then you spend even more hours going back and forth with an analyst trying to figure out which charts will make the most sense. A pie chart? A donut chart? A 3D pie chart? There are too many options, and nobody on your team can articulate why one choice is better than another.

What could have been an opportunity to craft strategic insights is turning into an anxiety-producing mess. It’s eating up far more time than you have available, and since you only have to do this once every three months, you never get to the point where any of this is easy.

I’ve certainly been there. I’ve been that User Admin ironing out discrepancies for days until my data was clean. And I’ve been that Director spending hours agonizing over which charts to include.

When I finally presented my data to the executive team, too much of their attention was spent deciphering how I had represented the data—choices that had made so much sense to me when rehearsing the presentation the night before.

Soon the audience I had hoped to impress was pointing out ambiguities and anomalies. By the time we were finished, any strategic insights I had carried into the room were marred by a general distrust of the data. And there is no faster way to lose C-Suite credibility than to present suspect data.

From my work with clients, I know this is a common story. Every quarter, organizations big and small squander countless hours extracting data from their ATS, addressing data integrity issues, and guessing at which graphs, diagrams and tables they should include in their presentations.

But there is an even larger loss: by investing so much time and energy into producing data that won’t raise alarms, the general attitude towards data becomes fear-based. A conversation that should be centered around creatively engaging data degenerates into merely delivering results that won’t rock the boat.

What if you were able to spend the majority of your time interpreting data instead of cleaning it? What if your visualizations were so robust and so consistent that you were free to tell stories with your data, stories that revealed fresh strategic insights?

Business Intelligence Automation

The answer to this conundrum lies with business intelligence automation. The tool we use to achieve this is Microsoft Power BI. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of Power BI: it’s only been commercially available for about five years. The good news is that if you can do it manually in Excel, you can automate it in Power BI.

Power BI is leveling the playing field, giving companies of all sizes the ability to process huge amounts of data. However, only larger organizations currently have the resources to support a full-time Power BI analyst, and many of these analysts are overwhelmed with requests from multiple departments. Very few have a background in Talent Acquisition, or training in data visualization best practice.

The Executive Dashboard

Power BI can be directly embedded into your ATS, completely automating your reporting and data visualizations. Everything you used to create in Excel would now be live, automated and instantly available.

Since crunching the numbers and creating visualizations have been automated, each member of your team can now explore patterns and trends independently, helping your company mine the gold of your talent acquisition data.

Never again will you arrive at a Quarterly Business Review with suspect data or inconclusive visualizations. Automation does a lot more than just allow you to survive a QBR. This shifts the conversation away from fear-based compliance to enthusiastic adoption.

And that’s what we really need to thrive with data: not just a few people at the top driving the conversation, but everyone involved with data in a meaningful way. This is only possible with intelligent automation and consistent design.

Diversity Is an Imperative for Growth, Says Recruiting Trends Report

Diversity is among the top-three challenges facing talent acquisition this year, according to Findem’s Recruiting Trends Report 2022.

Of the 100 senior HR leaders surveyed, 57% said diversity was a top priority, while 46% said automating processes, 45% filling roles and 23% upskilling and reskilling.

Meanwhile, 52% said that hiring a diversity leader is in their future plans. “Diversity has become an imperative for growth,” Findem said.

Nearly two-thirds, 0r 59%, expect diversity, equality and inclusion to be the top trend affecting business for the next few years. Fifty-one percent said it will be the remote workforce, while 47% said automation, 47% identified machine learning and AI and 41% said upskilling of staff. Thirty-eight percent predicted it would be outsourcing.

The fact that diversity outranked remote work and upskilling was something of a surprise, but as the report notes, “diversity is virtually a superpower for all key performance metrics.” As recruiters build their teams to address high growth and performance, they believe more diverse experiences and backgrounds can increase innovation, creativity and improve financial performance.

During 2022, talent leaders will have to find new sources of candidates to build diverse teams aligned to key business initiatives. In a highly competitive market, the more diverse your talent pool, “the more likely you are to find people no one else is looking for,” the report observes.

With competition increasing for the best talent, HR teams have given priority to finding passive candidates, the report said. To locate these candidates with “passive sourcing,” 63% said that email is the most effective tool, while 48% said LinkedIn, 46% text/phone, 40% in person outreach and 37% social media.

Passive Sourcing, Advanced Tools

True passive sourcing needs more refined recruitment tools. Although Findem’s study gleaned that recruiters are using more tools than ever (64% said they rely on technology more than they did in 2021), 82% believe sourcing automation would increase their productivity.

That being said, sourcing is a major concern of HR teams for this year ( 32%), followed closely by employer branding (19%), candidate experience (17%) and outreach tools (15%).

“Sourcing and candidate outreach are by far the biggest trends driving the future of recruitment tech,” said Michael Case, CEO of Neptune People, in a statement provided by Findem. “If talent teams can unearth qualified candidates using AI and other advanced technologies,t that frees up more of their time for relationship-building, which is key when you’re dealing with passive job seekers.”

Findem suggests that talent-acquisition tech stacks “should be simplifying, streamlining and setting recruiters up for success,” which means that “it’s time for a complete audit of what’s working, what’s not and what’s new in the market to address points of friction.”