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Sourcing is the New Engineering

New Normal in Labor Demand and the Rising Importance of Sourcing

As of this moment, there are more open jobs for recruiters than there are for software engineers. With 12 million job and 10 years of historical data behind me, I feel confident in saying, sourcing is the new engineering.

What is the new normal and when will we get there? The short answer: we are already there. The long answer is below.

So what has changed and what changed it? 

The first thing that changed is that there is a massive increase in the demand for labor.  Let me put some numbers around it.  In 2012 most of us would have considered the job market and the economy in general to have performed well. 

We started 2012 with 3.9 million open jobs.  By the start of 2019 that number had grown to 7.4 million. Almost 4 million new jobs were created in that time period.

  Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey

*First line 10 year trend line, 2nd line 2 year trend line

By contrast we started 2022 with 11.3 million open jobs. Almost 4 million jobs have been created in the last 2 years.  We also started 2022 back to pre-pandemic unemployment levels. As of this writing unemployment sits at 3.8%. This should give you some context around the type of growth we have experienced.  

Long-Term Drivers

What then is driving this growth and what does it mean to us as sourcers and recruiters? There are a number of factors that are causing the growth in demand we are seeing in the market.  Many of them are long-term drivers. 

That means, the pattern we see today is likely to continue, even COVID hasn’t changed the overall direction of the demand for labor.  If anything, it has accelerated the demand for labor.  We see that in the overall increase in the number of jobs. So let’s dive into the numbers and see if we can understand what exactly is driving the new normal. 

Economic Recovery

There is 2 trillion dollars more in Americans’ savings accounts now than in 2020.  Now that the economy has recovered, Americans are spending not saving again.  People are buying cars again, going on vacations again and buying things that they couldn’t during the pandemic. This spending spree is one of the under-reported drivers of the current economic growth. 

Organic Growth

The pandemic stopped some things from happening that were commercially viable but required too much in-person work to make real progress during a pandemic. Travelers insurance just issued guidelines on how to safely bring construction sites back online that have been closed due to the pandemic.  Many construction projects have now restarted, thus driving the demand for jobs.

The Move to Renewables

The Department of Energy  released a report saying that more than 50% of new energy production in the US will be solar with an additional 17% as wind.  This is because renewables are less expensive now than other options. The economics of renewables means that moving forward, more and more renewable capacity will come online. 

The recent global events are going to accelerate this trend. Energy independence will become a national security issue, not just an economic one. Look for the pace of this adoption to increase now globally.

pastedGraphic_1.png

Here is a partial list of new renewable energy investments that have been announced. 

The Move to Electric Vehicles

Tesla is already the most valuable car manufacturer in history, once valued at over 1 trillion dollars.  GM and Ford have announced they will stop making gas-powered cars by 2025 at the latest.

The impact of this change cannot be overstated. Now that renewables are sure to be the future of energy generation, the move toward electric cars will only accelerate. This is a huge driver of the economy.  Everything from supply chains to charging stations, to billions of cars and trucks have to be created, built and integrated.  This is a long-term project that will cost trillions of dollars and take years of time.

There is a secondary impact of this change.  Costs will drop.  Currently, on average, a full tank of gas costs around $50 in the US. Compare that with the $7.50 it would cost to recharge an electric vehicle and the savings across an entire economy start to become obvious.  Additionally, electric motors will run much longer and require less maintenance than your current gas-powered car. 

A gas-powered car will run for about 200,000 miles if you take care of it.  There is no reason an electric motor won’t last a million.  After all, when is the last time you turned off your refrigerator for maintenance? Most of the things you use every day are powered by electric motors. Your dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, TV, computer, nearly everything else in the modern world is run by electric motors.  This is the end of the industrial revolution as cars too, will now be powered by electric motors. 

Government Spending

The US government passed “The Infrastructure and Investment and Jobs Act,” a 2 trillion dollar spending bill.  The projects are focused on infrastructure: building roads, fixing bridges, replacing water pipes, building electric charging stations, additional investment in renewable energy, high speed internet infrastructure, upgrades to airports and ports. These are long-term projects that translates into millions of jobs. The first of these jobs are starting to hit the market. There are going to be a lot of these jobs for the next 10 years.

So what does this mean for us? It means that we are experiencing the beginning of a new normal. In November 2021, 4 million people voluntarily quit their jobs.  We are experiencing the first true candidate market. From this point forward, online applications will drop for most companies. To meet their needs, companies are going to increasingly rely on sourcing or outbound recruiting.  

We are used to seeing commercials on TV where there are people crowded in a lobby waiting for an interview.  In the future, the candidate will be in the office and representatives of different companies will be waiting in the lobby. There has been a fundamental shift in the balance of power. 

In the first 24 hours of January 2022, 8,000 recruiter jobs were posted LinkedIn. Look for companies to start hiring the sourcing capacity.  The competition for talent in tech, AI, healthcare, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing are at record highs and will continue to increase. 

Find Fresh Leads in Unconventional Places: Journalist’s Toolbox

There’s hidden leads all across the digital globe, don’t be suckered into thinking that sourcing platforms are the only way to do this job! SO, what does a Journalism website have anything to do with becoming a better Sourcer and finding fresh leads? To you, maybe nothing…but to Dean Da Costa it’s everything.

The Road Less Traveled

While a bit unconventional, some leads on the web are almost completely untouched by the rest of the community. It’s a prudent Sourcer’s job to realize that those contacts on popular lists have been bothered into oblivion by a thousand carbon copies of you.

Competing with others in the Sourcing world isn’t a deal breaker, but imagine the probability of success with a contact who isn’t completely jaded from an overwhelming sea of headhunters! This is why Dean is always on weird websites scraping the bowels of the internet…Sometimes those tucked away, hard to find contacts have the highest reply rates.

Don’t Copy his Clicks, Copy his Thought Process

While you could very well just go to Journalist’s Toolbox and scrape everything you see, consider this more of a fishing rod than a meal.  He went to a journalism website to find fresh leads. That might not make sense to the uninitiated, but there’s devilish intellect behind it all.

We want this community to be crafty and unconventional. Procedures are for Doctors, we don’t have the luxury of learning the correct way to source because there is no “one path to success” in this line of work.

Without question, there are fundamental truths, but the rules to this game change faster than we can write them down. If you do the same process for every Job Description with great results, know that there’s only a finite number of times these steps will be effective.

Emulating the button presses of these expert Sourcers is only half the journey. The other half is gaining enough insight to understand why they do certain things, and how to grow on your own.

Without a growth plan and a willingness to adapt, you might struggle now…or even 5 years from now. Find a suitable workflow that gets you results, but always be searching for something better or something unconventional. It’s in the word wide cobwebs you learn the most about reverse engineering the internet.

Closing Thoughts, Upcoming Events, and Other Nuggets

One of Dean’s philosophies is “Everything is a tool”. He sifts through hundreds of uncommon sites just to find y’all these useful tools. If you wanna hear more of his sourcing wisdom, check out this page of all his content with us.

Narrowing your search is just as important as finding fresh leads. Luckily, we have a great event coming up by one of the greatest talent Sourcers on earth: Shally Steckerl! He’ll be diving into Google Custom Search engines, and how to make the most of them. Register now!

Use the LinkedIn Comment Section of Posts to Find New Leads

There are many sources we can use to identify talent, many of which include using platforms such as Twitter, SeekOut, Instagram, Github, personal websites, and more. However, what about leveraging the LinkedIn comment section of a post?

It’s a good idea to pay attention to your notifications in LinkedIn from your connections’ posts anyhow. A recruiter or sourcer in your network may share a tip that could be useful, especially in the comment section.  

Mikey Weil is a 1st connection of mine, and he is posting a Boolean string a day. JK (Jung Kim) shared a Twitch Boolean X-ray search string of his own in the comment section!

Comment Section of LinkedIn Posts to Find New Leads.1

 

FYI: JK was a 2nd connection for me not 1st, which meant I now have another person I can reach out to and connect with in the sourcing community!

If you look at the string shared from the comment section, there are some formatting issues. So, pay attention to that. Always make sure before adding a string to a search engine, to check for formatting.

 

Comment Section of LinkedIn Posts to Find New Leads.2

 

Let’s break down the string: 

    • The string is x-raying into the Twitch website by using the site command (site:) and website domain pastedGraphic_3.png in order to target a specific website (in this case, Twitch)
    • If you were to look at a profile, you will notice that the userid is included within the URL. So, for the purpose of the string, an Asterisk is put in place so that you can pull up multiple users in a result pastedGraphic_4.png
    • Next in the URL, you will notice the word about pastedGraphic_5.png. This is because when viewing a profile, it brings up the about page of the profile. By adding this piece in your string, you are sure to pull in profiles
    • This is the basis of your string, anything else that comes after it, you can use different kinds of keywords to specify the types of profiles you’d like to see. In this case, software developers or software engineers. The quotations lock in the words.  pastedGraphic_6.png
    • Lastly, you will notice social media included in an OR statement: pastedGraphic_7.png. (Note: the pipe | can be used as OR in google rather than having to type the operator OR). This will pull in profiles that have links to any or all these social media sites within the profile. Helpful, because now you not only have a way of viewing this person within another channel, but a way of messaging or gaining personal contact information. 

You can then take the string and put it into the Google search engine.

 

Comment Section of LinkedIn Posts to Find New Leads.3

In this first example, you can see that all the results are of profiles. Let’s take a look at the first profile. 

Comment Section of LinkedIn Posts to Find New Leads.4

 

On mewtru’s twitch profile, you will notice that the Boolean string pulled in exactly what we were looking for: 

    • About page (further confirms why using about in the URL was necessary in bringing up profiles)
    • An engineer  
    • Social media profile link

If you have Hikido (email finding tool for Github profiles), you can check if mewtru’s Github profile has a personal email using the tool. However, don’t forget that some Github profiles will include a personal website.  

In viewing mewtru’s Github profile, you can see that there is a link to the personal website. The personal website did not have a personal email but does provide a link to the LinkedIn profile.

 

Comment Section of LinkedIn Posts to Find New Leads.5

 

In the LinkedIn Profile, go to contact info, and look at the LinkedIn user id. If you put the [email protected] you can test email in Gmail to verify if it is in fact the correct email. When plugging in the email, it does in fact belong to the individual.  

 

Comment Section of LinkedIn Posts to Find New Leads.6

 

You now have personal contact information for a software engineer, working for a great company, found on Twitch, originally sourced through the LinkedIn comment section, from a notification alert of a 1st  connection’s post. 

In this 2nd example, we use the same string, but let’s see if in addition to finding personal contact information, if we can pull out anymore information to lead us to other searches. 

 

Comment Section of LinkedIn Posts to Find New Leads.7

 

When clicking on the Twitch link for AdamMc331, you are brought to his profile, but he does not have as many social media links as the previous example. However, he does have a link to his Github. The Boolean we used let’s us know that there is going to be at least one social media link if not all. 

 

Comment Section of LinkedIn Posts to Find New Leads.8

 

So, from the Github link on the Twitch profile, you can get both a twitter account and personal website link.

 

Comment Section of LinkedIn Posts to Find New Leads.9

 

When you click on the link to take you to the personal website, you have now gathered the following additional information: 

    • LinkedIn profile link 
    • Stack Overflow profile link
    • Dev Community profile link
    • Personal email address
    • Resume

FYI: when you click on his dev community profile link, it provides similar information. This could be another source to try and find talent. Always look at the profile to see what you can pull.

 

Comment Section of LinkedIn Posts to Find New Leads.10 

 

In many cases, if you come across one profile, there may be more just like it that can become another source. On the profile, there is a location, an email, the person can provide where they work, it also provides a time the person joined the site. A Boolean string could be created from this. So, let’s test it out by looking at the URL and seeing if we can X-ray to get more profiles. 

Comment Section of LinkedIn Posts to Find New Leads.11

 

IT WORKS! 

Note: you can always try other email domains, location specific (or no location at all, your choice), etc.

To wrap up, notifications from your 1st connections is a great alert/reminder to check out LinkedIn posts as it can provide you with valuable information that may lead you to find even more sources.

Always look at everything around you in profiles, on posts, in LinkedIn comment sections, and be curious.

One lead can lead you to even more leads. Happy Sourcing! 

Amid Record Need for Recruiters, Teams Use Virtual Assistants to Boost Capacity

Companies and HR teams are desperate for recruiters—demand for the roles have increased more than 300 percent according to job search site Adzuna. Recruiters are the highest-demand role in the firm’s survey. 

“Our latest research underscores that the demand for recruiters is happening at scale, across industries, and around the world,” LinkedIn researchers found. “Recruiter job postings on LinkedIn have steadily increased since the beginning of the year and have surpassed pre-pandemic levels.” 

As Novus search founder Brandon White said, “I am being contacted daily by new and existing recruitment clients, all with the same problem, they cannot find good, experienced recruiters!” 

With labor shortages at all-time highs, a lack of recruiters can slow businesses down. It is not surprising that demand for the role is soaring with the need for more workers across industries. 

Recruiters Buried in Administrative Work 

Meanwhile, recruiters spend about 30 hours a week on administrative tasks. It is no wonder that HR teams are turning to virtual assistants to supplement recruiting. Virtual assistants can do much of the administrative work behind the scenes so that recruiters can spend more time, well, recruiting. 

Taking admin work off recruiters’ plates makes sense if you cannot find more recruiters, enable your current team to spend more time recruiting by giving them 30 more hours to focus on what they do best. 

For example, take what Ceridian GM Somen Mondal calls the “Three Killer Ss of Recruiting”: 

    • Sourcing. 
    • Screening. 
    • Scheduling. 

“What should you be doing as a recruiter?” Mondal said. “Most would answer this by simply shifting the word: You should be recruiting, of course.”  

But when administrative work takes up so much time, “There is not a lot of engagement for the recruiter: come in, task task task, lunch, task task task, leave, rinse and repeat.” 

Virtual assistants can do the “task task task” part of the job.

Finding Passive Candidates 

Often, the most time-consuming step of recruiting is sourcing passive candidates. Recruiters spend 13 hours a week, per role, searching for candidates. 

Screening candidates is also time-consuming, whether reviewing resumes or applications or conducting calls to go through scripted questions. Resume screening takes up to 23 hours for just one hire. 

Then there is scheduling. It takes 30 minutes to two hours to schedule an interview. You know the back-and-forth just two people must go through to find a meeting time that works for both. It is even more difficult for group interviews. Multiply that across multiple candidates for multiple positions, and it adds up fast. 

Sourcing, screening, and scheduling are tasks that are easily delegated. A virtual assistant can assist with: 

    • Sourcing—searching for candidates on platforms like LinkedIn or ZoomInfo to build lists of potential candidates. 
    • Screening—working through applications and resumes for candidates that meet your hiring and job qualification criteria. 
    • Scheduling—eliminating the email ping-pong to get interviews on your recruiters’ calendars. 

“It is an open secret that recruiters and HR professionals spend a significant amount of their time on mundane and repetitive tasks,” according to Recruiter.com. 

Slow Response Times Cause Candidate Dropout

Being bogged down in admin works slows recruiters’ response times and candidates with multiple offers in a hot job market will not wait around. According to research by Career Builder, candidates are dropping out of the hiring process at record rates. Sixty-eight percent of companies said candidate dropout is a genuine problem, and the biggest reason applicants disappear is poor communication. 

“The primary reason for a drop off in hire quality is that with a delayed hiring process, all the top candidates will drop out,” HR expert Dr. John Sullivan said. “In this highly competitive marketplace, the most desirable candidates quickly receive and accept other offers.”

The need for fast, responsive communication with candidates is essential in a tight job market. 

    • Workable found that most candidates that accept interviews and jobs hear from the employer within two days at each stage in the interview process. 
    • The average response time, according to Indeed, is more than three weeks. 
    • 89 percent of job seekers say that the speed and quality of recruiters’ communication can make them accept a job offer faster. 

You can ill afford to let your overwhelmed recruiters get stuck doing admin work and slow down their communication with candidates. The candidate’s experience suffers to the point of failure. 

How to Use Virtual Assistants to Speed Up Recruiting 

The most time-consuming part of finding the best candidates is at the front end of the process—reviewing LinkedIn profiles, reading resumes, following up on inquiries takes time, especially when you are trying to find people that are not looking—those passive candidates. Delegating administrative tasks to virtual assistants can speed up recruiting without dehumanizing the candidate experience. In addition to sourcing, screening and scheduling, virtual assistants can: 

    • Build lists of passive candidates. 
    • Reach out to passive candidates via email, phone and social media. 
    • Follow-up and answer questions. 
    • Prepare tear sheets and resumes for interviewers. 
    • Communicate with candidates about the next steps in the interview process.  
    • Enter and maintain candidate data on your ATS. 
    • Stay connected with high potential recruits that do not get hired immediately. 
    • Provide personal rejection emails and calls when needed. 
    • Compiling job offers and benefits packages. 
    • Schedule onboarding activities for new hires. 

These are important tasks, but they do not require a recruiter or HR professional to perform them. Recruiters can spend their time having conversations with candidates, not scheduling them. You will hire faster, and you will also hire better because your recruiters will have time to work with candidates thoroughly and personally and deliver a better experience. 

The Business Case for Supplementing Recruiting with Virtual Assistants

It is no secret that people are businesses’ most valuable assets. The Predictive Index asked 600 executives across 20 industries how much their companies value they directly attribute to employees. The answer is 72 percent. People generate more value than technology or any other asset. If three-quarters of a company’s value comes from its employees, a recruiter’s role is at the heart of business success. 

“We hear every day from our member companies—of every size and industry, across every state—as we move into 2022, they are still facing unprecedented challenges trying to find enough workers to fill open jobs,” the US Chamber said. “The most critical and widespread challenge facing businesses is the inability to hire qualified workers for open jobs they need to fill.” 

Recruiting is critical for capacity building for business capacity and investing in the recruiting team is like investing in productivity software like your CRM or ERP. You cannot grow without people, and you cannot find people without adequate recruiting resources, so the demand for recruiters is rising faster than most capacity-building roles. 

There is a strong business case for using virtual assistants to take care of recruiting and other HR administrative tasks. With administrative work taking up 75 percent of recruiters’ time, the opportunity is to substitute hiring new recruiters with a plan to give your veterans 30 more hours per week to do what they do best—fill vacant positions. They will fill more roles, and they will also be much happier and more satisfied because they can focus on what matters most and increase their contribution to your company. 

The other side of this is that virtual assistants cost much less than your recruiters and paying them to do repetitive administrative work amid a hiring crunch does not make much business sense. The average salary of a recruiter in San Francisco, for example, is about $150,000, while a professional virtual assistant cost about $25 per hour—30 hours a week adds up to just $41,000 per year.

Flexibility for the Changing World of Work

We know that the world of work has changed, that the change is not over. HR and recruiting pros are at the center of disruption. The Great Resignation, the Turnover Tsunami, the Big Quit—call it what you will– is one more curveball after a couple of years of wild pitches.

Innovative technology and new staffing models are emerging that give businesses the flexibility to do more with less and connect people with opportunities. Virtual assistants offer meaningful work to people where opportunities are scarce and enable recruiting operations to meet business goals and can fill permanent or temporary gaps amid the shortage of recruiters.

Wages, Employee Retention and Benefits Align to Create Recruitment’s “Perfect Storm”

The entire world has been sailing through rough waters these past few years, and the job market is no exception. Fast forward two years, with businesses now working hard to retain their staff and offer competitive benefits and wages as they face a trifecta of issues: the pandemic, inflation and unfulfilled jobs.

Labor participation hasn’t fully rebounded since its precipitous drop that was triggered by the pandemic. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports the nation lost 8 million workers back in March/April 2020 and, to date, we have recovered approximately 70 percent of these jobs.

The number of jobs available nationally is still hovering around 11 million, and the most recently published unemployment figure for February 2022 was 3.8 percent. We are once again flirting with 50-year unemployment lows.

Wage growth continues to run hot, with increases expected to continue into 2022, and at the highest levels since 2008’s Great Recession. Much of this growth is concentrated in the professional space, non-union or labor. Also at decades-high is the Consumer Price Index which, according to BLS  climbed 7.9 percent for the 12 months ended February 2022, the largest 12-month increase since 1982 and higher than expectations.

High consumer demand following the first year of the pandemic collided with supply chain issues, driving incredibly high rates of inflation – 2021 saw inflation increase to 4.7%. In response, the Federal Reserve Bank raised interest rates in March 2022 and is clearly telegraphing multiple interest rate hikes for 2022.

The Great Resignation or the Great Upgrade?

The Great Resignation began almost a year ago, in April 2021, when 3.8 million workers quit their jobs following the tumultuous first year of the pandemic, as many sought a better work-life balance. Fast forward to today, where the “job quits” rate continues to be considerably high, with much of that concentrated in lower-wage earners who are transitioning back into the workforce with positions that offer higher compensation.

Much of the increase in wage growth has come from manual occupations, including those that don’t require a bachelor’s degree, in jobs that include transportation, repair, maintenance, security and health support, among others, according to The Conference Board. Some have referred to this as “The Great Upgrade.”  

As we flirt with 50-year employment lows, there is a considerable imbalance in the number of resignations vs. terminations, and negotiating leverage is back in the hands of employees. 

With very few employers terminating staff, most employers are doing everything in their power, both inside and outside of the box, to retain their talent: their most important asset. 

Not Just Dollars, Equity and Increased Perks Packaged Into Offers

The U.S. Labor Department has reported that corporate spending on wages and benefits in 2021 increased at the fastest rate in two decades amid record resignations. In an effort to retain and attract employees while maintaining the growth of their businesses, companies are delicately balancing salary numbers with other benefits. For example, due to high inflation,  some firms are offering perks such as additional PTO or permanent work-from-home options, according to the Wall Street Journal, as they strive to limit salaries.

Start-up companies, for instance, have been offering equity at an increasing rate to boost their compensation packages and reduce attrition. Many of the Fortune 1,000 are strengthening their total compensation and benefits packages as well, because they have not been immune to the attrition either. In total, wages and salaries increased 4.5% in 2021, which was the biggest increase in more than 20 years, according to BLS data. 

Navigating Efficient and Creative Ways to Court Talent

Defining and articulating your company’s purpose and mission is a start. Rebalancing your internal infrastructure and resource allocation towards the employee is a trend we’ve been seeing for well over a year.

Human Resource departments are not only expanding well beyond benefits and employee relations, but they are also often re-branding their departments into more humanistic titles, sending the message that people are an integral part of their operations, with terms like “People Operations” taking hold.

Preventing burnout has been a reoccurring theme in many organizations and it is no longer de rigueur to expect people to sacrifice their personal lives and well-being for a job, especially and despite the fact that they are able to work from their homes. 

With the imbalance between job openings and available workers expected to continue well into 2022, it will be interesting to see how the Fed’s actions to fight inflation will impact the imbalance over time. Until then, organizations are being forced to pivot both in their offerings and in the way they get work done.

Whether that is taking advantage of the remote work movement to expand their overall talent pool at lower labor costs, utilizing independent contractors and gig workers for even more functions than had previously been common, or continuing to evolve in their overall employee offerings to attract and retain talent, companies will need to adapt to daily challenges.  

Those in recruitment are well aware of the changing landscape and the increased amount of time it is taking to find the best-aligned talent for their current needs, while also anticipating their future needs.  Increasingly recruiters are turning to partners that can help them recruit and retain talent with options such as direct sourcing solutions, HR technology and the means to build diverse talent pipelines.

Working with specialists such as these that have proven and efficient solutions can certainly help recruiters navigate and plan for an uncertain, yet potentially very exciting, future. The overall important thing to remember is those employers who listen to the needs of their employees will be the ones who earn the top talent. 

How & When To Say No To An Interview Or Offer

Job seekers often remain in their job search for many months, causing them to either face scope creep of the roles they’re targeting or become tempted to say yes to the wrong interviews or offers.

While there are many variables for job seekers to consider in order to zero in on their best-fit roles, it’s helpful for candidates, recruiters and employers to be as honest as possible at every step of the search, so that all parties can most efficiently find a strong two-way fit.

Here are a few tips that candidates can consider to decide which opportunities are most aligned with their background, expertise and intended direction. Doing this will ensure that all parties are showing up to the right interviews, in an honest fashion, and using each other’s time wisely.

Explore Options and Clarify Best-Fit Career Direction

The clearer you get on what is right for you, the easier it will be to share your goals with recruiters and networking connections. This way, you can efficiently identify fitting opportunities, show up to interviews confidently and seamlessly find a strong role and company fit.

  • What titles strongly align with your natural affinities? Is there more research, networking or reflection you can do to gain confidence in which role is the best next step for you? In my experience, if you still have options here, you’ve not done enough learning, reflection, or both.
  • What industries align with your background or areas of interest? What mission, purpose or problem do you want to put your time toward? (Understanding this helps you get ahead of and authentically answer the interview question, “Why do you want to work here?”)
  • What do you need or want out of a company’s environment (i.e. culture, values, style, personality, remote work, hours/flexibility, etc.)? What should it look and feel like? What should it NOT look and feel like?

Use Self Awareness to Assess the Proper Response to an Interview

While all interviews can be treated as practice, would it be better to be honest with the recruiter or employer if the role they propose isn’t aligned with what you’re looking for? For all you know, they may have other open roles available. You can simultaneously be polite, professional and authentic if you mention your intended career direction and see what other relevant opportunities they may be aware of.

Make Your Questions Specific, Creative, Concrete and Comprehensive

Remember that interviews are a two-way assessment of fit. Take the time to prepare and craft the questions you want to ask so that you can get a full, accurate picture of the role, team, company and environment, and thus easily and adequately assess your fit.

  • When learning about a role, here are a few key topics you can consider and ask about:
    • Understand where the person holding this job would typically spend their time, as well as the role’s ultimate goals and performance expectations. Understand who you’d typically interact with. First and foremost, understand the style and nature of the day-to-day and consider whether that aligns with what you are great at and enjoy doing.
  • When learning about a company, consider and ask about:
    • The core of what they do, how they do it and why they do it. What’s their place/positioning in the industry and does that intrigue you?
    • Also consider how their teams and departments are organized, how they approach growth and career development, how and when they handle promotions and how they handle performance reviews.
  • When you ask about hot topics like culture, management style or diversity/inclusion, get creative with how you ask questions so that you can get accurate answers.
    • First, be clear with yourself about the most specific key factors that are critical to you to see in this employer.
    • Then, phrase questions in a way that can elicit stories or examples. For example, instead of saying, “What’s your company’s culture?” you can ask something like, “Tell me about a time when someone on the team brought up a new idea and how did that go?” That will help you assess how the company empowers employees, whether it’s meritocratic and/or whether it’s open to improving processes.
    • When you ask for real stories or examples about things that matter to you, the company will “show” rather than “tell” how it operates so you can accurately understand and assess its style versus hearing fluffy, generic answers. (They ask you for stories, and you can do the same).
    • Know that a fluffy answer can also be treated as an answer itself if it seems like the company’s sugarcoating or not being specific enough.

What If You’re Not Sure?

Every job seeker is different in terms of their personal needs and timeline. Consider these factors to help you decide on an offer:

  • How much personal financial runway do you have? If you’re in a dire situation, any job will help you feel a sense of security. You can always consider your broader career plan and growth once you begin working in the role. That being said, if you have more time on your side, consider how closely the role aligns with your intended goals.
    • Trick: Give 1-10 ratings for your fit with the role, your interest in the industry and your alignment with the company culture given the people you’ve met so far.
    • If you’re at least a 7 on each category, it’s a safe bet to take the role. If there are any ratings below 7, ask yourself if these are areas where you can go back to learn more, or important enough to be deal breakers.
  • Do you have any key concerns or hesitations given everything you’ve learned (considering the role, industry and environment)?
    • If so, any potential positive answers to the below questions may be irrelevant. Don’t ignore red flags, and if you’re not sure how serious they are, get perspective from a peer, mentor or coach.
    • Decide if there are things you need or want to ask more about.
    • Understanding what you want or need upfront, before your job search, is a key to ensuring that you notice red flags and assess whether an issue is in or out of line with your needs.
  • How long have you been searching?
    • If it’s been a while, could this be an interim move to get you closer to a better future step? If it hasn’t been, do you think, given your background and your intended direction, you could see some more traction?
  • Do you have the right guidance or support to make your job search as efficient and effective as possible? If you’ve only used your own devices and strategies so far, perhaps with some career coaching or mentor support, you may strengthen the odds of nailing more interviews for roles that you’re excited about.

    Saying No Takes Courage… But Can Open The Door to Yes

If you feel that the role or offer isn’t the right fit, here are some tips on how to handle it:

  • Get support so that you’re not just saying yes for convenience’s sake, but rather you’re, finding a way to get comfortable with the difficult, yet necessary, act of saying no to something that isn’t right for you. (Remember you’re doing the employer a favor here by being honest).
  • Thank each interviewer for their time and reiterate what was interesting about your conversations with them.
  • Be authentic about how your reflections or realizations changed during the journey and which roles you feel would be a better fit for you to explore. Could that lead to an introduction with a different team within the organization?

Mention that you’d love to explore other opportunities that are a closer fit, would appreciate any other personal or professional introductions they’d be willing to make to help you in your job search, or that you’d be grateful to simply stay in touch in the future.

How To Handle Poor Compensation Communication

With fairness and equity being the defining issues this year, clear compensation communication is a must. Although employers may come up with impressive compensation plans, they often handle the communication poorly.

Dissatisfaction with pay is rarely about money, it is about value. An employee’s perception of their compensation significantly impacts engagement and performance. When employees are paid less than the market rate or they feel they are being paid less than the market rate, they feel undervalued. Poor communication will lead to dissatisfaction and frustration among your employees. This is where communication comes in. Explaining clear reasons for the compensation policy helps employees contextualize their pay in presence of other facts. 

Communication about your pay is typically unstructured and performed on a 1-1 basis. Most employers even go as far as avoiding communication around compensation altogether. Avoiding communication about compensation only adds to dissatisfaction, inequality, and turnover. In contrast, precise communication about compensation builds trust and transparency. When an organization is proactive about compensation communication, it helps build confidence, resulting in higher morale, engagement and retention. 

The following steps illustrate ways you can manage compensation communication effectively:

Identify and Communicate Your Compensation Philosophy

Many organizations often overlook the critical task of developing and incorporating a compensation philosophy. A compensation philosophy is essentially a formal written document that conveys the company’s compensation policy to the employees. However, companies either do not create one or simply conceal it from the employees. 

For the companies that do share their compensation philosophy, employees find it hard to understand. The goal of defining a compensation philosophy is to highlight a company’s compensation process in advance. While designing your philosophy, you should make sure that you are focused on pay equity, business goals and objectives, market trends, talent acquisition and retention and budgeting. 

Creating the Perfect Compensation Communication Strategy

Along with a compensation philosophy,  communication strategy is essential to deliver the right message, demonstrate transparency and manage employee expectations. While dealing with sensitive information like compensation, it also matters how it is conveyed. A solid compensation communication strategy takes care of it all. 

Your communication strategy will be based on the compensation philosophy. It will also focus on demystifying the complexity of the compensation process. Not all employees are well-versed in the technical jargon and your communication strategy should account for that. In addition to language, consider your audience. Your employees belong to different races, cultures and generations. Hence, the strategy should focus on conveying the message about compensation to all. You might have to customize your communication to reach these different employee groups. 

According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) a compensation communication strategy should consider these factors:

    • Company’s financial position
    • Size of the organization
    • Industry
    • Business objectives
    • Market salary data
    • Level of difficulty finding qualified talent

Emphasize Training Your Managers

In most organizations, compensation communication is led by managers who are often unprepared to navigate the situation. According to PayScale’s 2021 Compensation Best Practices Report, managers lack formal training in communication. For ages, compensation has been discussed behind closed doors and with limited information. Without proper training, managers provide incomplete information to employees who are left to fill in the blanks. This gives rise to various assumptions and misconceptions regarding their total compensation. 

Once your communication strategy is in place, train your managers for the same. Training your managers for compensation communication should include:

    • The complete compensation strategy
    • Acquaintance with the company’s compensation philosophy
    • How compensation decisions are made
    • How to communicate compensation effectively
    • Addressing queries and difficult questions
    • Handling conversations with employees who are dissatisfied with their compensation.

Managers can also use employee data to contextualize compensation and connect it with performance and growth. This will enable employees to focus on the benefits while motivating them towards higher goals.

Educate Employees About Compensation and Growth

Information about compensation can quickly get overwhelming for the employee. Even if they are receiving complete compensation reports, without follow-up discussion, they may just be useless for the employees. Take the time to educate your employees about important terms and data points. This also helps you focus on each employee personalizing the process. 

Lastly, while talking about compensation, managers have the opportunity to discuss employee performance and growth. This is also a good strategy as it helps employees understand the nuances of the compensation strategy. Moreover, this eliminates the confusion over pay transparency and dissatisfaction. Highlighting performance in light of their compensation makes it easier to identify growth opportunities. 

Address the Difficult Questions with Tact

Communication is not a one-way street. It is equally important for HR professionals and comp leaders to remember that communication is effective only when employees’ questions are resolved. While explaining your compensation plan, your employees are bound to have questions. Needless to say, some questions might catch you off-guard. 

Before beginning the conversation, prepare for the questions that might come up. You can also create a FAQ of the most important questions that you want to address. The FAQ can be a publicly available document and be regularly updated to integrate changes as they occur. Here, it is important to differentiate between the questions that should be answered and the ones that should not be answered. 

Nevertheless, all the preparation can sometimes fall short. If not handled promptly, the conversation may spiral out of control unraveling all your efforts. When faced with a particularly difficult question, train the managers to not attempt to answer it. It is best left to HR to address pertinent questions. The situation can be controlled by acknowledging the question and directing the employee to HR.

Conclusion

Compensation and communication are both crucial aspects of human resource management in any organization. Communication about compensation is also equally important. Poorly communicated compensation strategies can impact productivity, engagement and even turnover.

Defining a compensation philosophy, incorporating it into the compensation communication strategy while training your managers to communicate effectively are the most effective ways to improve the process.

Additionally, educating employees, personalizing the process and focusing on their growth and performance are also great ways to talk about compensation. Lastly, initiating a healthy dialogue, inviting questions and addressing difficult questions tactfully helps build confidence in the company’s compensation strategy. 

#HRTX March 2022: Helping Recruiters and Sourcers Prepare for the ‘Great Rehire’

We at RecruitingDaily had the pleasure of hosting our latest #HRTX Virtual, a training event for the talent acquisition community, on March 23 and 24, 2022.

With the increase in difficulty to hire within our own teams, our focus for this event was how to find and hire for talent acquisition professionals.

We put together a team of 24 rockstar recruiting and sourcing experts and came up with 12 different requisitions for varying levels of TA roles.

Their job was to first show their approach on how to find candidates for this role, live sourcing on screen to show their strategy and approach. They then paired up with the other trainer with the same requisition to show how they engage and hire candidates as recruiters.

For the role play sessions, trainers took turns acting as both recruiter and applicant to offer unique perspectives or highlight what they would have done differently. Brian Fink and Craig Fisher joined them on stage to moderate and field questions from the audience.

We ended each day bringing the role-play moderators and Shally Steckerl on the main stage for a discussion and analysis of each day’s events.

You can check out the recordings for this event here. For an overview, highlights, and takeaways…keep reading!

 

The Trainers

Mike Wolford and Pete Radloff kicked off day one’s live sourcing in search of campus recruiters, while Shawna Lawson-Flintroy and Dean Da Costa sourced candidates for a junior sourcer position.

Later, Jonathan Kidder and Kevin Walters sourced for a diversity recruiter, with Jenna Aronow and Junius Currier pursued a technical recruiter position.

Steve Levy and Bret Feig sourced for senior sourcer roles, while Steve Rawlings and Vanessa Raath looked for recruiting operations specialist candidates.

Day two brought us into the higher level roles for hiring within Talent Acquisition. We saw a shift in the methods for both finding and hiring, with a smaller pool of candidates and an increased focus on the recruitment process.

Carrie Collier and Chris Brady tackled sourcing candidates for a recruitment marketing specialist. On the other hand (or screen), Ronnie Bratcher and Sophie Okonkwo sourced a TA technology specialist.

Keirsten Greggs and Glenn Gutmacher sourced for a director of recruiting as Dena Davis and Laura Mazzullo sourced for director of people operations.

Lastly, Alla Pavlova and Patrick Moran looked for a head of sourcing, while Mark Hamel and David Galley worked to find candidates for a head of talent acquisition.

 

Day One: Thought Leadership

Finding Hidden Talent

Eric Jaquith of SeekOut shared seven strategies that recruiters often overlook while using LinkedIn and other job sites. The first step is to “find the language people are using,” Eric said, while speaking on the need to keep tabs on open positions and look for various job titles. He also spoke about the role technology plays in helping recruiters uncover “diamonds” by using tools like AI-matching, power searches, filters and dynamic email templates. 

Diversity of Talent

Phil Ross of Untapped also spoke about reaching “untapped talent,” focusing on increasing diversity when hiring. Organizations are often stuck in a self-reinforcing cycle where they hire from a group of candidates who reflect the organization’s demographic, though the recruitment funnel and the attrition funnel are vastly different.

While diversity initiatives may seem intimidating, Phil simplified the process by suggesting the creation of sustainable systems. He emphasized the importance of improving employee experience and satisfaction and highlighted the idea of “centering the most marginalized” while designing policies and building and placing a culture that celebrates diversity at the front and center.

 

Scaling Recruiting Teams

Leslie Loo of Celential.ai shared insights on scaling recruiting teams while leveraging AI. Since hiring for recruiters is increasingly tough, hiring teams can use AI to fill in the talent gap and increase efficiency. He also spoke on how gaining deeper insights into the candidate can increase the accuracy of talent matching as well.

A More Holistic Approach

As we moved closer to the end of Day 1, Spencer Liu of MojoHire tackled the ATS, saying, “The ATS is dead, at least as we know it. Today, it is imperative to track more than just our ‘applicants.’ We can do talent management and talent recruiting in one system.” Building on the importance of adopting an integrated HR approach, Liu discussed how recruiters can begin using holistic talent acquisition and management solutions. 

 

Day Two: Thought Leadership

Market Research

While we’re talking about data, in Gillisa Pope’s session for HireEZ, we learned how recruiters can tap into market research to inform their hiring decisions. Though you might think that research is time-consuming and tedious, Gillisa took us through the entire process in just under 20 minutes.

She also pressed the importance of understanding market conditions, data-driven multi-source tools, using HireEZ’s outbound platform to identify your total addressable market and generating talent maps to find the right talent.

With the right tools, it will take you only 20 minutes to do all of this and widen your talent pool, incorporate diversity and even detect and address roadblocks before they become a challenge. 

Gender Wage Gap

In honor of Women’s History Month, Natalie Grandy of Gem turned the spotlight onto the gender wage gap with “How Gem Uses Gem: Women in the Workforce.”

Natalie spoke about the challenges women face in hiring, followed by best practices organizations can adopt to improve gender diversity.

For recruiters, avoiding bias is easier said than done. We all fall prey to unconscious biases and noted that even female recruiters can overlook female profiles.

 

Highlights and Takeaways

The live sourcing and role-play sessions were undeniably the highlights of the event. Despite the similarities in approach, what stood out was how the same tools and methods were used differently.

Bret Feig spoke about using social media and online communities, Carrie Collier found candidate engagement to be the key, and Chris Brady highlighted personalization in the candidate experience.

Role-playing gave the audience insights into what questions to ask, and how to vet candidates while focusing on skills, personality and future plans. It was also remarkable to see how the presenters “engaged” with candidates, retaining the human element of the hiring process.

Mike Wolford and Pete Radloff shared the importance of approaching specialty schools and student clubs for campus recruitment. Dean Da Costa and Shawna Lawson-Flintroy focused on what is essential to the candidate. Alla Pavlova provided insights into the international market, while Keirsten Greggs and Glenn Gutmacher discussed change management.

Dena Davis and Laura Mazzullo spent time on questions the candidate should ask, listening and responding to candidate needs and focusing on HR as a strategic function.

 

A Thank You

A huge thank you to our attendees for your questions, comments and participation, as well as to each of the trainers, sponsors, moderators and hosts for sharing your knowledge and expertise with the audience.

We’ll be back with another event in June. See you there!

Employee Benefits: An Instant Impact on Employees’ Lives

As we commemorate National Employee Benefits Day, I’d like to share a benefit that is so simple in implementation, yet can have profound effects on your employees: on-demand pay.

The Great Resignation is upon us with no sign of letting up. With over 4.5 million Americans quitting every month, we are facing unprecedented challenges in retaining our greatest asset: our people. As we emerge from the global pandemic, we are all faced with the challenge of doing things more efficiently and empathetically. How can we improve the employee experience in a cost-effective way that has an immediate impact on an employee’s wellbeing and satisfaction?

We live in an on-demand world where we can order anything from dinner to a ride home with the simple press of a button at a moment’s notice. Consumer expectations have changed with the advances in technology, and so have employees who are in essence now – the new consumer. 

In an effort to keep up with the many “instant” elements of our life, the traditional two-week pay cycle has run its course. Employees no longer want to, or need to, wait weeks on end to access the money they’ve already earned. 

Because employees now have unprecedented options when it comes to job opportunities, employers have a critical need to stand out from the competition to survive. With on-demand pay, employees are empowered with choice and control over their earned income.

They can access their earned pay with a touch of a button to pay bills, save, spend and invest, all on their own schedule – not an arbitrary date selected for them. After all, it’s their money and they’ve already earned it.

With on-demand pay, some incredible things can happen. Research conducted in partnership with the Aite Novarica Group shows that 95% of those with access to on-demand pay no longer resort to using payday loans while 75% no longer have to incur overdraft fees to make ends meet.

Research also shows that with on-demand pay, nearly 80% of users experience less financial stress at work and are more productive, taking extra shifts and feeling more engaged. At the same time, over 80% of employees report their satisfaction with their employer has improved since the company offered on-demand pay.

Just recently, I was inspired to learn about a user utilizing on-demand pay benefits to help pay for transportation of family members fleeing Ukraine. Other stories include users accessing their funds to help tackle unforeseen medical treatment expenses that don’t fall in sync with their standard pay cycle.

Most of all, on-demand pay reinforces trust. We know pay is very personal. Having access to your pay and the financial flexibility that comes along with it reinforces that bond between employer and employee. It demonstrates trust. It demonstrates commitment. And it works.

A recent report from the Mercator Advisory Group shows employees stay up to 73% longer with an on-demand pay benefit. That means nurses are saving more lives. That means caregivers are tending to more of those in need of constant care. That means a consistent friendly face at your local restaurant or supermarket.

It’s an employee benefit that truly benefits us all.

Fireside Chat with William Tincup & Michael Pires of Decusoft

So, I started working with Decusoft roughly 100 years ago. Great tech, outstanding leadership and excellent relationships with their customers. They’re a player in the compensation management space, but they treat everyone they interact with like family.

I’ve seen this first hand with how they’ve worked with me and their customers. Solid citizens. And, they’ve added a leader that’s cut from the Decusoft cloth when Michael Pires joined their already stacked leadership team. That’s why I wanted to sit down with Michael and get his take on a few things.

Fireside Chat with William Tincup & Michael Pires of DecusoftMichael is CEO of Decusoft and is responsible for the company’s overall strategy, direction and growth. He is a seasoned entrepreneur and HCM/Fintech executive with more than 20-years of leading/building organizations of varied sizes. A product innovator and thought leader in the human resources and human capital management industry, Michael’s first start-up, HR411.com, delivered a suite of digital tools, content and practitioner resources to HR professionals globally. 

He sold the company to ADP, where he led the creation of new “bundled” services offerings instrumental in the company’s rapid increase in HR Solutions sales; the HR411 platform continues to be a central solution in ADP’s ecosystem today. He has launched dozens of new HR, Payroll and HCM related products, services and platforms throughout his career and led growth initiatives and digital transformations at JetPay/NCR as the President & CEO and then at PrimePay as the President & COO before joining Decusoft.

So, let’s get this party started, Michael. 

 

Work-Related, What’s Keeping You up at Night These Days?

These days, I find it difficult to separate what is keeping me up work-wise vs. personally. We have more than a dozen employees residing in the Ukraine and Belarus regions; this has been a very disruptive and emotional time.

Thankfully they have all moved (at least temporarily) elsewhere since the attacks began, but they have had to walk away from their homes, families/friends, etc. I can only imagine how difficult that has been, but it is hard to get out of my mind, and I am hopeful for a resolution soon.   

100% work-related, it’s another war, the war for talent. I know my fellow CEOs worldwide are all feeling me on this one. Decusoft is accelerating growth very quickly, which has triggered the need to expand on our outstanding core team in many areas, including; sales, marketing, services, product and engineering.  Finding great talent is always tricky, but it has been challenging of late; there is so much noise in the market and people are chasing shiny objects everywhere. 

We are doing all the things any other company does to promote opportunities as we grow but are heavily focused on building an incredible culture, creating an effective workplace and doing impactful work every day by helping organizations evolve compensation, address DE&I challenges, make better decisions and to shape fantastic employee experiences. 

I wake up almost every night thinking about this one and then remind myself to be patient; great people will gravitate to a great organization like ours. When they do, they will find a rewarding career in a dynamic company in one of the hottest and fastest-growing areas of HR Tech. As Shoeless Joe whispers in Field of Dreams, “if you build it, (he/she/they) will come.”  We are all in.

 

You’ve Got a Great HR & TA Background; How Has That Shaped Your Leadership Style?

Growing up in the people business has given me a very wide lens. I’ve facilitated the hiring of thousands of employees for dozens upon dozens of companies.  One of the greatest gifts my experiences have given me is understanding how a person aligns to a role and the culture of a company and what happens when you do (or don’t) get that formula right.    

I have also been fortunate to have been around and thrived in various business structures and environments, from pure start-up to big-box corporate America. While I favor the fast pace, agility and energy that comes with start-up and/or established venture-backed growth companies, the constant I have found is how influential culture and outstanding leadership are to success. It is not only crucial in attracting extraordinary talent but, most importantly, developing, growing and retaining it.  

All organizations rely on having great people and people come to work to earn a living: income. However, they stay with a company because of outstanding leadership that recognizes them, where they feel respected and part of something special; it’s the feeling of belonging. 

I work hard to lead in a way that fosters these aspects of our culture. If you know me, I show up every day with my sleeves rolled up, and I am all-in on everything we do. I work hard to lead with empathy, to create an open environment where all of our associates have a voice, are respected for their opinions/views and expected to bring their fresh new ideas and ways of doing things to the party each day. 

 

I’ve Talked Openly About Comp Being at the Center of HR; What’s Your Take on That?

I am passionate about the HR profession and have advocated for HR’s elevation in an organization throughout my professional life.  

I started a company focused on talent acquisition many moons ago and that quickly expanded into a boutique HR consulting firm. We did compensation and performance work for clients. Why? Because Comp is at the center of HR. 

Let’s be candid here, despite all the meaningful reasons someone may join a company, they work for one reason only at the end of the day: INCOME.  People have families, homes, cars, expenses, and this requires MONEY. Therefore, no matter what else happens day-to-day in an organization, no matter what other tremendous and compelling HR initiatives and programs they may have, the one thing they better do well and get right is compensation. 

This isn’t necessarily more important today; it has always been important, but it is more visible, and there is an increasing awareness around fairness and transparency that means compensation is not only the center of HR but also at the center of so many of the social and economic forces happening around us today. 

 

I Know Pay Equity (Gender / DE&I) Is Something Significant to You; What’s Your Vision for How We Resolve Some of These Historical Mistakes We’ve Made?

Diversity, equity and inclusion have been a miss by so many organizations for far too long! Progress forward is non-negotiable, but we have to be honest that there is no way as a society we can simply right all the wrongs that have transpired over the years. 

It seems that, by force or by choice, many organizations have at least started to pay attention. There is no silver bullet. The natural evolution and change require serious, consistent commitment at all levels in the organization, particularly from the Board and executive leadership teams down.   

At Decusoft, we are committed to helping organizations realize change and growth. We provide powerful DE&I and compensation analytics and insights that enable our clients with the awareness and visibility they need to drive improvements. 

This is something we have found so many companies continue to struggle with. In addition, we help them by enabling them to elevate compensation and build models that can begin to reconcile and close the divide.

Clients who use our Compose Suite at least have the tools they need to create equality, but it doesn’t happen magically, they have to be committed to making it happen. I hope that as awareness and the collective energy around change in the world rings out, organizations will live it out.   

 

Most Comp Professionals I Know Start With Sophisticated Spreadsheets to Manage or Continue to Do So; What’s Problematic About Spreadsheets From Your Perspective?

Where do I begin? It never ceases to amaze me how some of the biggest companies in the world are managing their crown jewel, compensation and recognition, on spreadsheets. Look, Excel is a great tool, but it is highly inefficient when planning and managing compensation, performance and analytics particularly to realize pro-active insights.  

Operational risks: The number of times a company has come to us (in literal tears) because one of their complicated Excel calculations, models and formulas have been corrupted or broken and they cannot run their planning cycle is simply mind-boggling. 

Security risks: Spreadsheets are circulating across the company via email, on share drives, etc., and no matter what they think, the security of this hypersensitive information is compromised throughout.  

Resource inefficiency: Excel is all manual and requires intense oversight so it takes far more resources and significantly more energy than managing the process in a cloud-based, secure and scalable platform like Compose by Decusoft. 

Audibility and compliance: It matters and is incredibly complex when managing multi-tabbed spreadsheets and workbooks. A trustworthy Comp platform like Compose provides precise tracking, reporting and audit trails that protect the organization and ensure compliance with ever-changing legislation. 

 

As You Started Recruiting, I Have to Ask You About the Trend of Salaries Being Disclosed Within Job Ads. What’s Your Take on the Trend, and Where Do You See It Going?

Long-time coming, I am hopeful more (and eventually all) states will pass legislation.  Pay equity and fairness will not happen until there is total transparency. 

 

From a Leadership Perspective (C-Suite & Board), What Analytics or Metrics Should They Look at Regarding Compensation?

There is a ton of opportunity.  According to a recent HR Trends study by McClean & Company, 83% of HR leaders have been given a discrete goal in at least one of the critical areas of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and/or Environmental and Social Governance (ESG). 

Therefore, in my opinion, it is table stakes that every board, every private equity and venture firm, every investment bank and every organization is providing visibility around these critical areas.  

 

What Advice Would You Give Leaders When Purchasing Comp Technology?

Compensation is unique to an organization’s DNA and culture. We believe compensation is a fluid process that must be continuously responsive and connected to business goals and employee experiences. In this world where one size most definitely does not fit all, Decusoft doesn’t just simplify managing total compensation; we tailor it to provide a company’s unique and evolving needs, goals and changing budgets.

We deliver the tools and insights necessary to thrive through ever-shifting markets and to attract, engage and retain top talent. We help organizations to build a definition of compensation that is inherently connected to their company’s culture and its promise to employees—putting them in control every step of the way.  

So if I am a compensation leader, company executive, or board member and the organization uses spreadsheets, other compensation software, or other tools that do not meet these standards and objectives. I would suggest asking why and prioritizing a change.

Questions All Candidates Should Ask About Compensation During The Interview

Compensation not only includes a salary but other monetary benefits like vacation pay, health insurance, travel allowance, work-from-home allowance, stocks and equity and retirement bonuses. All this information is necessary for the candidate to have before deciding to work for an employer.

An interview is when both the employer and the candidate get to know each other. Discussing compensation during the interview is one of the most important strategies for candidates to gain all this information.   If  expectations around compensation are not aligned, it is a problem for both parties involved. 

The current labor market is highly candidate-driven. Organizations are looking to attract talented employees rather than the other way around. Candidates not only consider the salary or the base pay but also other additional benefits while evaluating a job offer.

With a large number of open roles, candidates have choices. On the other hand, organizations must hire quickly and efficiently. Honest conversations about compensation will save time and energy for everyone involved.  

But Why Should You Ask About Salary?

For a long time, compensation has been a tricky subject to discuss. Without compensation and benefits information explicitly mentioned in  job advertisements, candidates are often left guessing what to expect.

Despite this, discussing salary during interviews is not often advised. Candidates are actively discouraged from initiating conversations around compensation. This is especially true during the preliminary stages of the interview process. But the times they are a- changin’. With an increasing push towards pay transparency, candidates and employers alike are being encouraged to talk about compensation.

In the state of Colorado and others like Nevada, employers are required by law to disclose compensation ranges to the candidates applying for employment. Come May 15 2022, employers in New York will also be required to disclose salary ranges for advertised positions.

However, despite this welcome change, conversations surrounding compensation can be difficult and nerve-racking. They also require the right balance between tact, assertiveness and timing. A good question timed wrongly will do more harm than good. Avoid raising the salary question during the first interview itself.

Focus on showing what you bring to the table and then initiate the compensation dialogue in the second interview. Dialogues about compensation go beyond, ‘How much will I make in this role?’. Here are a few crucial questions that every candidate should ask about compensation during a job interview.

How is the Salary for This Role Determined?

This question is not so much to understand the administrative process of determining a salary but to understand if you are being offered a fair wage. If you have already researched the present market rate for your role, you will know if the organization is being liberal with their definition of “market rates.” 

If a company is offering low pay but chalking it up as being ‘competitive’, it will reflect in their answer to this question. If they disregard your expertise and qualifications by offering lower pay, you will know you may not want to join the organization.  

How Does the Compensation for This Role Compare to the Compensation Offered by Other Companies for Similar Roles?

This is a simple, assertive and polite question to begin the conversation about compensation. While applying for a job, you would expect a competitive compensation package. A competitive package is based on the living expenses, the market value for similar roles and other additional benefits.

Do your own research before springing this question.

You can gain information about salaries and benefits from online portals like Glassdoor. If you have information about the market rate and compensation offered at other organizations, you will be able to negotiate better with the employer. If the offer is not comparable, you can choose to discontinue the application and pursue other leads.

What Are the Salary Ranges for Remote Workers? Is Salary Different for In-Office, Virtual and Hybrid Employees?

Location is an important factor in salary ranges across the world. With varied living costs in different cities, salary ranges also differ significantly. Since the pandemic, remote and hybrid work arrangements have become commonplace.

Remote work allows individuals from anywhere to work where they desire. However, in the United States, employment laws differ from state to state. So, if an organization employs individuals from another state, they are required to take into account the laws from those states. 

This has now prompted some organizations to adopt geographic pay policies. According to a survey, 67% of remote workers expect their pay to reflect their location. If you are looking to work in remote and hybrid work settings, this is a question you should definitely ask. 

Is There Room for Negotiation?

Usually, employers do not mention compensation in the advertisement as they fear losing leverage during negotiations. Based on how the organization answers your other questions, you will know if you can negotiate a better deal for yourself. 

If this is a new job or your first job, and you see yourself working here for a few years, a good starting compensation might be more motivating. In addition, you might need certain things like a travel allowance or a work-from-home set-up to make your work easier. 

What Are the Additional Benefits Included in the Compensation Package?

A complete compensation package consists of a salary or hourly pay and other benefits like bonuses, overtime, vacation pay, retirement plans, education reimbursement and insurance. These additional benefits are what make the offer lucrative.

In the current competitive market, you should consider these additional benefits while talking compensation with a potential employer. 

What Does Growth Look Like for This Role?

Work or employment is more than just about money or a fixed salary. Although money is an important factor that impacts work, personal and professional development is equally important. Candidates thrive in a work environment where they can learn and progress.

Promotions and raises allow employees to do just that. If you are joining a new job, you will likely spend the next few years here. However, if there is no room for development, you may develop feelings of resentment and stagnancy.

While assessing your future at the company, if you expect to stay on for longer, it is essential to determine if they encourage growth and progress. You should also confirm that there are monetary benefits that go hand in hand with your advancement.

If a potential promotion is not accompanied by an equivalent salary increase, it is something to consider. 

Conclusion

Organizations often use appealing compensation to attract new employees. However, honest discussions surrounding compensation are still a little off-limits. In this tight labor market, compensation dialogues are important to determine the right fit. Candidates should confidently initiate the conversation about compensation.

The questions should go beyond just base pay, however. Candidates should ask about how the pay is determined, and how it compares with other offers, the benefits, promotions and raises associated with the job. As a candidate armed with the right information, you can make an employment decision more confidently. 

Maximize your Google Search Potential with HireEZ Boolean Builder

The top geeks at Google are a bunch of sneaky devils.  They hold in their hands the most powerful search engine on the planet, yet low-key don’t bother explaining its advanced features. Luckily a different group of cats at hireEZ (formerly Hiretual) unwound all of those advanced boolean building features and crammed them into a steamroller of a search tool.

Boolean building
Example of what Google has been working on for the past decade

Any good Sourcer worth their salt knows exactly how to search with intent. Nobody’s gonna give you a gold medal to the clout contest for getting the most C++ developers in one search. It’s about narrowing that search down until you get a couple hundred people that exactly meet your criteria.

 

Let’s get to the point of all this: searching more effectively on Google. We want all these advanced search features, so whats next?

  • Step 1: Learn Boolean and Regular Expressions.
  • Step 3: Profit.

Well first off, what the heck is a Boolean Expression? Well, kind of like a Goosebumps: You Choose The Scare novels, if you don’t know Boolean you’re not gonna make it too far. Boolean is pretty much a required mastery if you plan on doing Sourcing for a living.

Unfortunately for the casual audience, theres more to Boolean Expressions than a pamphlet read. Boolean statements have quotation marks, parentheses, and other database-looking jargon that shares a lot in common with database languages like SQL.

If you put all these brackets, minus signs, and other quirky characters together, you can turn your dud search into a solar powered, pavement ant scorching beam of a magnifying glass. These expressions, while tedious to learn, unlock the full power of Google’s search features.

Okay, but we have ONE teensy problem. Nobody wants to learn a laundry list of wingdings and nonsense just to talk to Siri’s older brother better! Well, if you plan to be sourcing with the big dogs, you kind of have to.

BUT, LEARNING BOOLEAN IS HARD!

Open up a spot in your bookmarks (or chrome extension dock), because we have an essential searching freebie that’s gonna make your transition into becoming a Boolean master a whole lot easier.

Until you spread your wings and fly, the HireEZ Boolean Builder should be your success crutch. This tool, available as both a webpage and also a neat chrome extension, sets the standard for both ease-of-use as well as functionality.

With HireEZ’s Boolean Builder, you don’t need to know all of those special characters or picky phrasing nuances that Regular Expressions and Boolean demands from you. To get your query as specific as you need it to, simply fill out the applicable search parameters. Let’s quickly run through how to ride this dragon and you’ll be sky sailing far above the search engine clouds in no time.

The Good, Great, and Not So Ugly of HireEZ Boolean Builder

The search parameters are fairly straightforward, we have:

  • Job Title(s)
  • Skills (AND, OR, NOT)
  • Location(s)

One beautiful feature that the HireEZ tech wizards implemented is predictive topics.  The tool generates a comprehensive list of other job titles and skills you might want to search for, letting you blast through filling out this form. Thoughtful and effective ways to save time makes me want to happy cry, so well done, HireEZ.

So you clicked “Generate Boolean” and got this big chonk of spaghetti text, now what? Paste it into Google, right?  You’re welcome to stop learning here and repeatedly revenge query Google to get back at it for all those times it hurt you, but there’s some more fun to be had if you’re willing to go one step further down the rabbit hole.

googleception

Effects of Boolean on my brain

A search layer on top of a search layer…This is the unnecessarily complicated world we live in. Before long our couches will have sassy AI’s that begrudgingly help you achieve maximum comfort, and our dogs will have translator collars so we can ghost write dog romance novels for them about the one stick who got away. This next level technique that Dean does might either cure your migraines permanently or make your head explode so you’ve been warned.

You can use Google to plug those parameters into a specific site. You may or may not know this, but you can narrow searches to a specific URL. Say you have this arbitrary search I made with HireEZ’s tool:

(“software engineer”) c# c++ (c) (“Portland, OR”) -java

Now say I want to only search these parameters on LinkedIn, how would I do that?

site:LinkedIn.com (“software engineer”) c# c++ (c) (“Portland, OR”) -java

It’s that easy! You can search whatever site is indexed by Google, which is pretty much all of them. Using this for LinkedIn is great since their built in search bar is notorious for being near-useless.

CONCLUSIONS

If you plan on casually using Boolean expressions, I’d stick with the HireEZ Boolean Builder Bookmark. If this is gonna be a long term relationship then perhaps you could try out their google chrome extension. Just for clarity’s sake the extension requires setting up a free HireEZ account.

If you’re interested in learning advanced searching techniques, building search engines, and turning your searching techniques into spells, check out this 4 hour long Master Class lead by the Godfather of Sourcing Shally Steckerl. For all things Dean Da Costa, check out here!

Understanding the Gig Economy and Modern Compensation Management

Over the past couple of years, the gig economy has added a new dimension to the workforce. In 2021, Pew Research found that 16% of Americans have undertaken some form of gigging – driving for a ridesharing service, shopping or delivering groceries, performing household tasks or doing something else along these lines. 

The study also found that a majority of the workers who’ve made money through a gig platform said that they’ve either spent less than 10 hours in a typical week performing these tasks or haven’t done these jobs most weeks. 

Understanding the Gig Economy and Modern Compensation Management.1

Source: The State of Gig Work in 2021

 

At the same time, gig workers are more financially dependent on their gig incomes than others. Among current or recent gig workers, roughly six-in-ten say the money they earned through these platforms over the past 12 months has been essential (23%) or important (35%) for meeting their basic needs, while 39% say the income has been nice to have, but not needed.

Understanding the Gig Economy and Modern Compensation Management.3

Interestingly, while the gig economy has been hailed for providing flexibility and encouraging entrepreneurship, it has also drawn considerable flak for the lack of benefits and job security. Advocates and lawmakers across the country have been deliberating on the legal status of gig workers. 

The bone of contention is whether it’s appropriate for gig workers to be classified as independent contractors or employees. Which brings us to the point about compensation. Does a new way of working call for a rethink around traditional approaches to compensation management?

The answer is a resounding yes!

Regardless of how gig workers are classified, they carry out important economic activities. However, most gig workers work without benefits or pay protections in place. Nearly half of the gig workers (46%) surveyed by Pew said that companies have been unfair to them when it comes to benefits.

These sentiments seem to align with the broader narrative around the gig economy – that it does not sufficiently address issues around unemployment, healthcare and paid leave. 

A Modern Compensation Philosophy for the Gig Economy

Gig workers are profitable for organizations. A report from the University of Oxford identified some of the key motivations for organizations to hire gig workers. These include easier scalability of the workforce, skills and expertise. Organizations have also been able to reduce costs and navigate hiring barriers with gig workers. 

Clearly, the gig economy is here to stay. The war for talent has also intensified. So, how can organizations create fairer compensation strategies for their gig workers?

  • Offer Portable Benefits: Portable benefits are best suited to the realities of the gig economy today. Portable benefits are connected to an individual rather than an employer, so they can be carried over from gig to gig without interruption in coverage or loss of funding.

Most portable benefits are also prorated, meaning the amount of coverage is proportional to the gig time period. Common examples include 401 (k)s, 403(b)s, and most health savings accounts (HSAs). Companies like Zego in the UK have created hourly, 30-day, and annual insurance policies for their drivers. Organizations looking to continue reaping the benefits of the gig economy need to come up with pay-as-you-go benefit plans that are digitally administered for easier roll-on and roll-off. 

  • Benchmarking Pay for Skills Rather than Jobs: Organizations must rethink their approach to compensating their gig employees. As more knowledge workers enter the gig economy, organizations must pay for skills rather than jobs.

This can be a challenge for larger organizations, especially when they break down  projects by skill requirements and microtasks. The simplest way of approaching this problem is by creating a new skills/microtasks vs cost matrix and feeding it into the compensation management system. 

  • Keeping Compliant: Classification of gig workers has been a controversial topic for some time now. Organizations need tools and strategies in place to remain compliant with tax legislations across states. The easiest fix is to rely on a digital compensation tool that automates compliance requirements by individual use-cases. 

There’s little doubt that gig workers will become a more entrenched part of the workforce. However, for organizations, this means reorienting their compensation strategies to reflect their commitment towards cultivating long-term relationships with their best gig workers. 

Compensation will also determine how gig workers choose their gigs. Organizations that strike an optimal balance between benefits and compensation will be able to tap into the growing gig economy faster and more effectively than their competitors.

Proximity Bias in Hybrid Work Environment

Proximity bias happens when individuals favor or give preferential treatment to people who are physically closest to them—such as those who come into the office when other colleagues are hybrid or remote.

In-Office or At-Home

Here’s an example from the knowledge industry, where more than two-thirds of employees are in hybrid arrangements. Recent surveys show that the hybrid option is popular with all demographic groups. However, minority workers and females are more likely than white males to actually use the option. And executive-level employees are most likely of all to work in-person. 

That’s where the real challenge arises.

Unless executives are aware of and actively mitigating their proximity bias, they may be more likely to reward those who are in the office with them. 

Proximity bias is just one of many cognitive biases that can be stumbling blocks for decisions within organizations. While it’s very natural for our brains to take these shortcuts, we need to be aware of them and not fall victim to blind-spot bias, or the failure to recognize our own cognitive biases. 

As labor markets continue to evolve, employers who embrace a purpose-driven philosophy and rethink their work processes to focus on outcomes will be better positioned to recognize and effectively address proximity bias.

Follow the Work, Not the Worker

Past business practices drove a false equivalence between hours spent in the office and productivity, a holdover from the early days of the industrial era and time clocks. Nothing is further from the truth, and we’re all seeing that as the focus shifts to what really matters, which is outcomes. 

Employers can update their practices to consciously prioritize bottom-line results over where people are located. They can be agile and give employees flexibility with defined expectations. They can focus on the value created rather than tasks that employees do or how often executives see them in the office. 

Technology is an excellent tool to avoid proximity bias. We have a wealth of tech tools to assist people in communicating effectively, engaging with each other and automating performance management so teams can function more dynamically. 

Leadership sets the tone of the corporate culture. If executives want a hybrid environment to succeed, addressing proximity bias as a concept and confirming that it doesn’t have a place within the organization is a significant first step.

Top management can also schedule monthly or quarterly opportunities for virtual communication with employees to allow them to ask questions via a virtual chat. 

Executive management teams that emulate a hybrid work environment assure through their actions that being in the office is not advantageous. If everyone participates in a hybrid work setting except the executives, there is no question that this would instill proximity bias within an organization.

Moving executive management teams into hybrid work also would compel them to use and engage in technology tools to make hybrid work environments seamless. When all people working remotely within an organization can communicate effectively, including executive management, we have started the shift in the culture.

Negate Drawbacks

One of the perceived drawbacks to remote work is the anxiety that upward mobility will be awarded to those who have more “face time” with management. Developing a structured mentoring program to discuss career goals takes some of that fear out of the equation.

Through the mentoring program, the mentor can collaborate with the mentee to best meet their desired goals. This may require professional development on the mentee’s part, such as leadership training, product training or customer service training. This ultimately makes the employee more effective and the company more productive, so it is a win for everyone.

Employee Engagement

Another critical factor is employee engagement. Developing employees and making sure they feel valued, heard and recognized for their contribution to the success of the entire organization takes physical proximity out of the equation.

Empowering employees and involving them in a collaborative process yields better results and gives everyone a sense of ownership. Additionally, implementing an ongoing feedback loop for employees to make suggestions for addressing proximity bias and other cognitive shortcuts will engage them in the process of creating a positive corporate culture. 

At our company, we leverage technology as we look at objectives and key results (OKRs). We also encourage employees to tie their job objectives to larger shared goals. And we track it all online in ways that help us measure tangible progress rather than focusing on perceived busyness. This also prevents managers from micromanaging and empowers employees to do their job effectively. 

Through effective leadership, a focus on outcomes, employee empowerment, collaboration and the use of technology, we can mitigate proximity bias and honor the contributions of each of our employees, wherever they choose to work.

Recruiting With AI: How to Prepare

Every time a tech company introduces something new, people kind of freak out. When Netflix sci-fi anthology Black Mirror came out, many people were shaken by the technological advancements it predicted. The series seemed to portray a fantastical future where crazy new tech brings out the worst in humans, but in fact, some of these technologies are already here. And far from hurting us, many of them are significantly improving everyday lives.  We’re often afraid of new advancements at first—we fear the unfamiliar and that’s natural. The pattern is no different in the recruiting field. Actually, recruiting with AI can, in fact, simplify the process.

But most times, in retrospect, we fear, we adapt, we embrace and we love these new technologies. Before we know it, we can’t imagine our lives without them. 

Soon Enough, It’s the Norm

Back in 2006, fast food chains like Subway, McDonald’s and Arby’s were beginning to experiment with in-restaurant kiosks.  At first, many restaurant runners were worried about changing the dining experience so drastically. Others raised the alarm that automating the customer experience would edge out human workers and shrink the number of available jobs.

However, restaurants and other establishments that took the leap found that customers enjoyed their experience and tended to spend more money than they would with a human taking their order.

Fast forward to today, and customers generally report a better experience when using self-service kiosks compared to placing orders with cashiers. The once-controversial technology is quickly becoming a staple of the fast-food experience. And fast-food workers aren’t losing their jobs because of it—on the contrary, fast food is notoriously understaffed and the kiosks simply help make up for the labor shortage.

But this is an article about recruiting, right? So why do I keep talking about fast food? 

Well, the case of self-serve kiosks are a helpful way to illustrate a change taking place in the recruiting field right now. HR tech is getting more advanced than ever, and sometimes that might seem intimidating. But overall, these changes are positive.

The Future of Recruiting is Already Here

As AI talent sourcing and other recruiting tools gain traction, it might feel like the future is arriving faster than you’re ready for. These tools can seem a little scary, because they fundamentally change the way talent sourcing and engagement has always been done. 

However, much like in the case of fast-food workers, recruiters’ jobs are also more difficult and high-pressure than ever. You’re working with a more competitive talent market that requires a much larger variety of strategies and considerations to navigate.

When one hiring team needs to worry about marketing, company branding, reworking job definitions and more in addition to interviewing, screening and onboarding, allowing a machine to take on some of the workload doesn’t seem so crazy.

Unfortunately, traditional manual searches and manual engagement campaigns can take an unprecedented amount of time and energy. That energy would surely be better used on the parts of recruitment that require real human judgement, like understanding the exact needs of a position, assessing soft skills or whether an individual would fit your team.

When it comes to the search and engagement process, AI that automates the whole affair is ultimately beneficial. And that automation already exists, so why not embrace it?

Staying Up-to-Date Will Keep You Ahead of the Game

Considering that AI and automation in recruiting are quickly becoming an accepted and even expected solution, being one of the first to take advantage of them will keep you a step ahead of your colleagues and competition in the search for talent.

It’s important to educate yourself and to stay up-to-date with current technologies and trends—that way when a solution appears that will save you time or improve your results, you can adopt it right away and get the most out of it possible.

Yes, things are changing in the recruitment industry, but really, things are changing everywhere as new technologies change how we order food, commute, share experiences and connect with clients.

In your life, you’ve probably embraced lots of new stuff from smartphones to GPS. Now it’s time to embrace talent sourcing automation.