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Adapting the Job Description in the Post-COVID-19 Business Environment

Anyone familiar with hiring is also very familiar with the typical job description. Reporting structure, high-level purpose, key skills, and attributes for the ideal candidate. This is something of a historical standard.

However, leaders in a post-COVID world need to reassess how they develop job descriptions to succeed in this new reality.

JDs are often designed after traditional ways of managing white-collar employees.

It’s fair to point out situations where the classic apprenticeship model builds a tactical toolkit in a constructive way and without micromanagement. Managers teach the employee how to balance their time working closely until they feel that they “get it”.

This way of teaching a new employee made a lot of sense in traditional organizations. Logical, as these organizations had learned how to produce the desired results. Could a different method lead to the same outcomes? Possibly.

However, most organizations didn’t have the capability to properly define, implement, and track key performance indicators for each role, let alone monitor success to see if using a different method achieved better outcomes.

Instead, the mantra was “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

This traditional method is a product of decades of leadership inertia and also continues to reinforce itself. It is the lower up-front energy solution to bringing in new employees. Big picture qualitative themes are easier to define than specific quantitative objectives.

Pre-COVID, leaders did not only rely more on qualitative (as opposed to quantitative) milestones to onboard and measure employees. They also used qualitative metrics to attract talent.

Big picture concepts – those high-level strategic models that the candidate would be tasked with owning – do a great job of catching the eye of ambitious top performers.

Once on the ground, mechanics and tactical day-to-day objectives that either slowly manifest on their own or take shape with nudges from leadership.

Fast forward to onboarding employees virtually.

Good or bad, this hands-on apprenticeship just doesn’t have as strong a foothold in the post-COVID workplace. The opportunity for constant coaching and interaction has become much more challenging in this new virtual team setting.

The first challenge we run into is that it’s difficult to walk the line between being supportive and a micromanager. A constant flurry of tactical redirections from above can keep the employee driving more or less in a straight line, but the line for micromanagement can get crossed quickly.

What may seem like a welcome suggestion in week 2 can easily become an annoyance in month 2 and a fire alarm in month 4. Everyone has different levels of tolerance. Crossing the line not only annoys the employee and leads to productivity loss among other issues. But also takes a LOT of the manager’s time, who feels like they have to point the employees north again every other day.

Fortunately, there is a way to combat both the challenge of remotely located/dispersed teams as well as the risk of micromanagement. It is accomplished through a focus on explicitly spelling out the details of the role with activity metrics, tactical objectives, and desired outcomes.

The intent is to lay out the critical tactical goals, focusing the new hire on what the company wants their efforts to yield. The employee is familiarized with the holistic view of the system as a whole. Understanding the full value chain, cause, and effect, and how their tactical achievements feed the success of the company is a critical piece of this systems thinking approach.

The new hire then can make daily decisions based on how it will affect the system. IE, their role, team, and company as a whole. Couple that with clear guidance on big-picture desired outcomes and you’ve got a new hire who can make tactical decisions on their own based on the company’s strategic mission.

It’s a win-win-win.

Less required hand-holding, less micromanagement, and a deeper, more meaningful alignment between employee and the overall objectives of the organization.

Consider the role of a salesperson with the charter of selling widgets in New England over the phone. Historically, from there an onsite sales team would guide daily activities, share best practices, and mentor a new salesperson to be successful.

Put the salesperson at home in a different city with the same job description but only limited daily virtual coaching. They may be successful depending on how they attack the challenge. But consistency or alignment with the sales team strategy, let alone company ethos, is a crapshoot.

Now consider a job description that articulates key daily activities, the quota of sales calls, sales conversion metrics as well as top-line sales goals.

In this scenario, the new hire is armed with the tools and levers to easily measure themselves on or off-plan at any point, as well as to measure overall success in their high-level objective.

This method allows their manager to focus on providing apprenticeship in areas where this salesperson is underperforming, as opposed to micromanaging the employee in all aspects of their work.

This in turn will foster creativity and a truly diverse way of building workplaces. Where employees are not just encouraged to be diverse on the surface, but also in how they achieve the desired results in their work.

Designing JDs more conducive to the remote office environment.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the business world in countless different ways. It has caused whole industries to crumble and others to thrive. Nonetheless touching just about every organization in one way or another.

Adaptability and agility as a leader in response to this global phenomenon is at least part of the solution for a successful path into tomorrow. More and more organizations are adopting virtual and remote work arrangements. So, leaders must also respond to the evolving interpersonal dynamic where face to face engagement has changed dramatically. And, in some cases, disappeared altogether.

Objective, tactical, and outcome-oriented clarity on the employee’s role is one valuable way to ensure the virtual workplace can continue as a viable framework for the office of the future.

The Year of Magical Rethinking

Safe to say, 2020 threw the whole world a giant curveball. Everything from grocery shopping to conferences and concerts looking a lot different than they did back at the start of the year. And while technically it’s still summer, 2021 isn’t that far off.

But here’s the thing – things aren’t going to change when the clock strikes midnight on December 31. What’s happened these last several months isn’t going to disappear. If anything, the promise of 2021 offers little more than the chance to rethink how we’re operating right now. Which, for many, is survival mode.

So how do we move from surviving to thriving without any certainty in the future?

We rethink.

2020 allowed us to unthink, to undo years of “Because we’ve always done it that way” and pivot as quickly as possible to keep on keeping on. There’s been a lot of talking about resilience and empathy, about showing compassion and giving one another space. Of reading the room and recognizing that we’re working through “unprecedented times.”

And while all of that is true and necessary for our continued existence, it’s unsustainable. At some point, we need to reframe the narrative and adopt new thinking – in our daily work, in recruiting and hiring and beyond.

Rethink how we connect

Events are one example. It’s hard to say when we’ll all be back in a big beige ballroom again, bouncing between booths, commiserating over tasteless food, and comparing notes on session speakers. It will happen at some point, but maybe not in 2021.

So, for now, we need to rethink how we connect. Maybe they become smaller, more exclusive offerings. Or perhaps we build a virtual campfire to sit around.

Many within the HR and talent acquisition spaces have started creating groups around relevant interests, like diversity and inclusion book clubs.

Revising our understanding of work

More than the conference circuit, there’s the day-to-day to get through. With the line between work-life balance all but erased, how do we maintain productivity without losing our sanity?

How do we recreate water cooler talk without “hopping on a call” or scheduling yet another Zoom meeting? There are voids to fill as we collectively revise our understanding of work.

At the start of the lockdowns and call to shelter in place, the four-day workweek conversation reopened before quickly fading back into the ether. Maybe starting January 1, we stop scheduling calls on certain days, giving ourselves the ability to slip away from the screen without anyone noticing – including ourselves.

Allow the candidate to shine

Then there are the processes to consider. Yes, there are higher numbers of candidates on the market, but that doesn’t make the process any easier. If anything, it’s placing additional pressure on both the people filling reqs and those looking for work.

Job descriptions and resumes have long faced scrutiny for feeling one dimensional. How do we accurately communicate who we are if we won’t have the ability to meet one another in person?

Video is the logical solution, but maybe we’ve made things overly complicated in recent years. Let’s focus more on allowing candidates to shine than trying to decode the meaning behind their facial expressions.

Preferred communication styles

Communication is another big one, especially after months of “now more than ever” and “the new normal.” We need to face facts when it comes to the employer brand. It could be months or even years before teams get the chance to spend quality time together in a tangible way.

What stories can we tell in the interim through job descriptions, career sites, and during onboarding that will resonate and bridge the gap? Virtual cocktails hours get old fast and feel just about as awkward and impersonal as the in-person ones.

We need to bring intimacy back into the equation by learning more about preferred communication styles and meeting each other where they want to be, despite the pandemic stay-at-home circumstances.

Resilience and empathy

And finally, going back to resilience and empathy for a moment. We’re still going to need these in 2021. But both can take many forms. Pause and take a moment to really think about what success will look like next year.

It might be as easy as upgrading home offices or instituting a daily or weekly cap on meetings. It could also mean rebuilding your HR tech stack from top to bottom. There is no roadmap to follow in pandemic times, but it’s clear that the way out is going to take some time.

Even so, we need to start laying the path, changing our own behaviors and abilities to fit current conditions.

Marketing Your Company as Safe During COVID-19 Return to Work

As if recruiting isn’t challenging enough, now companies are faced with the realities of the post-COVID-19 world. Which means convincing talent they can provide a safe and healthy environment. For those companies that have return-to-work strategies in place, this should be a no-brainer.

But for others, the problem has been exacerbated by daily reports that highlight how some states are following the rules to reduce the number of infected.

Recruitment in an uncertain world

Josh Bersin says this pandemic is “a big wakeup call that Employee Experience is now primary to every business in the world.”

This goes for candidates too. With all this uncertainty, it’s a given that they do not enjoy the prospect of rushing into an office for an interview, putting themselves and their family at risk of getting sick.

Added to this is the long wait to see if former employers may or may not call them back. Even the extra pandemic assistance unemployment insurance payments have been blamed for candidates not getting excited over job interviews.

Now, with the extra weekly payment gone, there should be better traction getting candidates interested in interviews.

Interestingly, while cautious, candidates are willing to participate in interviews in both virtual and in-person formats, with some exceptions. A recent Zenefits study indicated:

77% of candidates reported having a positive virtual experience in virtual interviews.

59% of candidates felt more comfortable meeting face-to-face to negotiate salaries.

80% of candidates agree that face masks should be worn during in-person interviews.

One in three candidates said they would not attend an in-person interview until a COVID-19 vaccine is released.

Recruitment marketing’s role in making candidates feel safe.

Based on information from global talent management firm PageUp, the pace of recruitment is expected to ramp up as companies start to resume operations and fill new jobs. The competition will likely heat up, meaning now is the time to deploy, “automated recruitment marketing software to build high-quality pipelines of talent. Much more than your regular job ad: recruitment marketing allows you to engage with candidates at every stage of their application journey, using powerful targeted messaging to build and maintain a positive relationship.”

At the same time, companies should be examining their employer value proposition (EVP). To ensure that it’s appealing to the candidates they will need while detailing the steps being taken to keep candidates/employees safe.

For example, retailers may not need on floor personnel as much as they need people who are experienced with managing online orders. This requires a whole set of different skills and therefore a different EVP should be deployed to attract candidates with the right skills.

The EVP can also give candidates a sneak peek at the hiring process, from screening to onboarding.

Communicating safe recruitment policies to candidates.

It’s obvious that clear communication of safe recruitment policies is at the heart of what the EVP message should be. This can also go further in how the company brands itself including it’s social networking efforts.

Tony Restell, founder of Social-Hire told us, “I’d create a short video detailing the steps the company is taking to make interviewing safe and then 1) pin that to the top of their social media profiles and 2) retarget an advert sharing this video to anyone who’d visited the company’s careers pages.

What elements belong in your candidate safety policy?

At the very least, it’s important to communicate to candidates that the company is taking the CDC required steps to maintain a clean workplace, practicing social distancing, and providing access to personal protective equipment (PPE) to all workers and candidates.

The company can also outline it’s recruitment steps, much of which will be handled remotely using virtual meeting technology and computer applications (for example, digital document signing). The company policy must also state any requirements if a candidate has tested positive for COVID-19, such as seeking health care and notifying the company.

Taking shortcuts puts employers at risk.

Organizations can control things for their own candidate hiring and safety policy, but what about sending candidates to agencies like drug testing centers, government offices, and healthcare centers for pre-employment testing?

Should companies be tempted to skip these things to keep candidates safe? Alonzo Martinez, Associate Counsel of Compliance for HireRight, said in a Forbes article, “Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, employers may be considering revising their screening programs to accelerate time to hire. But doing so comes with risk, not only of negligent hiring or negligent retention but of justifying the validity of criminal checks in the future.”

What can recruitment teams do to help make their candidates feel safe?

To start formulating a plan, it’s important to understand the psychological state of individuals. According to Dr. Timothy R. Clark, founder and CEO of global leadership training firm LeaderFactor, Oxford-trained social scientist and author of “The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety”, he is considered to be a renowned authority on organizational change management.

Clark told us, “We all realize that the pandemic has upended the status quo. The net effect of this is that we are entering into the ‘no gimmicks’ era.”

One thing you should be evaluating as an employer is if you are conveying with the authenticity that your workplace can provide candidates with a sense of security and safety? Clark advises,” Attracting and retaining talented employees depend more than ever on an organization’s ability to deliver on the fundamentals. And what are the fundamentals? A safe, inclusive, respectful work environment. That’s the foundation and no other benefits or perks can compensate for what you may lack here.”

What candidates want:

Dr. Clark told us, “People want transparency, empathy, and meaningful work. They want a culturally flat organization in which they can be acknowledged, heard, and understood regardless of demographics, title, position, or authority. The time to toss out the junk theories of superiority that we so often use to govern our organizations has finally come!”

Employers can do their part to attract candidates by conveying these values in their recruitment marketing strategies.

Rockstar Finder: Search and Engagement

Rockstar Finder Search and Engagement: One tool to do it all

Let’s talk about the latest update from our friends over at Rockstar Finder. This is a great sourcing tool, especially for agencies. Well, now you can also use it as a tool to find clients with the Rockstar Finder Search and Engagement.

Within your prospects, you can now find new clients. Search by company, state, etc and you get your list to add to your database. Select people that are worth reaching out to and add them as a contact.

You can then view their profile and then select to enrich the profile data with contact information. Your next step is to begin your client engagement with outreach right from within the system.

Easy and simple, all in one tool. You already had the candidate finding, and now you have the ability to find clients as well. One tool to do it all!

~ Noel Cocca

Look inside with Dean Da Costa:

Personal Branding for a Sourcer

Companies take time to consider their brand; they decide how they want to be seen and what they are known for in the industry. Their brand can uplift them to more monetary success from their product or service awareness or draw in the right type of employees. But, how does this translate to an individual?

Many people consider their company’s brand an extension of their own brand. Some even consider their company’s brand as their only professional brand. However, how can an individual extend their brand past their company– and why should they?

Personal branding as a professional generates awareness, just as company branding does. However, personal branding creates awareness about YOU and your capabilities as an employee. People will begin to know you as “the Boolean Guru” or “the best in the industry at working with security clearances” or even “Wonder Woman” rather than “that woman who worked for {fill in the blank}.”

Having your name come to someone’s mind based on skill sets ensures that you have connections if/when you are on the job market. Having a brand can also reach the ears of clients, and generate business for yourself and your company. In turn, you will become an asset for your company.

So, now that I (hopefully) have got you thinking about taking the time to invest in your personal brand, where should that time go?

First off, what do you want to be known for? What do you think your professional strong suits are? Maybe you are an elegant writer, or you are an expert in a specific type of sourcing. Maybe you work heavily with executive search or a certain industry.

Figure out what you’d like people to associate with your name!

From there, you can research potential recruiting or talent acquisition organizations to volunteer with. Working as a volunteer will not only enrich the industry that you work in, but it will also help you meet other TA professionals who you can learn from and vice versa. You’ll be broadening your network and those folks will know you for the work you do as a volunteer.

If you know of anyone who you look up to for the skills that you want to be known for, reach out to them! Try to learn from them on how they built their personal brand and maybe eventually, ask them to be your mentor. Having a mentor will help you strengthen your skillset and open your eyes to ideas you may not have had on your own.

Lastly, write about it! You can publish your own articles through LinkedIn or you can reach out to the blogs that you follow to see if they need an extra writer. Sharing your expertise for others to learn from will establish your credibility.

The more articles a person reads that you’ve written, the more they will recognize your name. If you are not a confident writer, you can always speak on webinars!

Creating a personal brand does not happen overnight. It is time-consuming and hard work, but slowly you will see the payoff more and more frequently. Eventually, you meet someone who says, “No way! I saw you on this webinar and learned so much!”

Having a personal brand will help your career, but the process of building your personal brand will help numerous others with theirs.

Recruiters Have Fewer Resources & More Challenges. Help!

COVID-19 has put intense pressures on recruiters, who now find themselves navigating a landscape of widescale layoffs, restricted hiring budgets, and an ever-increasing inbound talent pool. These may be uncertain times, but there is a silver lining.

Amongst numerous challenges, the pandemic presents a unique opportunity to improve your hiring process. Whether your business is booming or on pause, it’s the perfect time to rethink your recruitment strategy as we head into the new normal.

And with fewer resources at your disposal, automation can help streamline and enhance your current processes, resulting in peak productivity.

The Current State of Recruiting

Almost every industry has been affected by layoffs in the past few months. In April, U.S. job postings dropped 43%, resulting in almost half of all staffing businesses and recruiting agencies experiencing layoffs or furloughs.

Due to these cutbacks, you might be wearing more hats than ever, with fewer colleagues to shoulder the workload. Alternatively, if you are a member of the 10.2% of Americans who are currently unemployed, you might be using this time to educate yourself on new tools & resources. So you can hit the ground running in your next role.

Regardless of whether you are working with a leaner team or unemployed and looking to stand out, it’s essential to leverage the right tools to source the best talent efficiently and effectively.

More Work, Less Time

With 30 Million Americans unemployed, the job seeker talent pool is bigger than ever, and you may be getting more inbound applications than you can manage. But even if you are being inundated with applicants, it is still necessary to source candidates, as the perfect prospect might not be sitting in your inbox.

How are you supposed to find time to sift through inbound applications and source for qualified candidates … all with a smaller team than before?

Sourcing talent is time-consuming. Recruiters spend one-third (13 hours) of their week finding candidates for just one role. In today’s recruiting world, the time required to source effectively becomes increasingly difficult with smaller teams and with increased job responsibilities.

Committing one-third of your time to sourcing just isn’t reasonable given the added responsibilities the pandemic has forced upon us.

However, it’s still important that you move quickly to find the best candidates for your open positions, or you risk losing them to competitors. And don’t even get us started on the challenges of sifting through inbound applicants fast enough. With many newly unemployed applicants being top performers, they won’t stay out of a job long, meaning speed is everything.

So how can you make the most out of your limited time while maintaining strong candidate relationships and juggling inbound and outbound sourcing (and parenting, teaching, cleaning, cooking… ahhh!)?

The Solution

If you haven’t looked into recruiting automation technology previously, now is the time to do so! For example, Fetcher is a full-service, recruiting automation platform that helps cut down those hours spent on sourcing and outreach. With recruiting automation, you can automate more monotonous, time-consuming tasks, giving you time back to focus on more strategic work (or just keeping your head above water!).

Recruiting automation platforms to give you more time to focus on candidate engagement and team collaboration. It’s like your very own external sourcer working for you 24/7 – and we need all the help we can get right now!

Imagine being able to send 150+ emails in just an hour vs. the 10+ hours needed to do this manually. One hour of work and 10 interested candidates in your inbox – an easy way to get in front of qualified candidates before your competition. Through automation and optimization, you will be able to fill your hiring pipeline seamlessly.

Not only will automation save you time, but it will also save you money (and we know everyone is watching their budgets these days!). Automation is here to make your job easier, giving you time back to wear all those other hats you’ve been given this year.

You’ve Got This!

There’s no point in sugar-coating things. Times are changing and you are facing more professional and personal stress than usual. But, you will get through this. Recruiters are known for their tireless determination, resilience, and adaptability.

Now is the time to implement tools that will help you emerge stronger than ever before.

The 7 Words You Cant Say in a Resume and What They Really Mean

The 7 Words You Can’t Say in a Resume, and What They Really Mean to Hiring Teams

I’ve never met a resume writer who admitted to aspiring to become a resume writer the way most kids want to be firefighters or doctors. Furthermore, the knowledge of how to write resumes is not ingrained in typical public school education the way algebra and French conjugations fill up hours of students’ time.

The result of this lack is that even very bright, capable professionals grow into their roles without having a clue about what goes into a great resume. The same might be true of human resources professionals and hiring teams. Writing resumes might not be part of your role. Even if reading hundreds, if not thousands of resumes is part of your quotidian experience.

Lackluster Content

Now let’s imagine the moment when a candidate with extremely high potential sends a resume with lackluster content into the inbox (or the ATS) of the human resources or hiring team.

Let’s assume that the candidate’s career brilliance is utterly dimmed by the resume’s poor presentation and dull word choice. How does a smart hiring team reach into that document to understand the candidate’s capability while forgiving the poorly written resume?

As I’m a resume writer, I don’t think such a poorly written resume should ever reach a hiring team. There are highly accessible resources, not to mention tangible solutions, available at every level.

So, on some level, I understand that a hiring executive might not want to take the time to do the resume writer’s work. But let’s continue our scenario and imagine that the candidate is a referral. Meaning that there is some external corroboration that the candidate has the talent and the chops for the job at hand.

The hiring team thus needs to interpret the text of the resume with the foundational belief that a deep reading will uncover great things in the candidate.

You might find that the candidate uses one of the 7 words you can’t use in a resume. (Homage to the mighty George Carlin, RIP.)

These words are bland and boring. But their use should indicate to you that you need to engage with the candidate to ask very specific questions about how well they do what they do.

1. Responsible for.

Candidates are likely to be responsible for something in their roles. But that responsibility was likely conferred by a job description, not an actual on-the-ground job. Ask the candidate to tell you what they project managed, jump-started, delivered, or even led.

Let them show authority and action within their areas of oversight and expertise.

2. Managed.

Did they just manage to do something, more or less passably well? Likely they were controlling, spearheading, or overseeing the execution of something critical. They might also have been mentoring or coaching a team.

Inquire about their level of administration and engagement.

3. Acted as.

Was the candidate putting on airs or putting the needs of the client before the needs of the team? How did the candidate determine that the level of work they were doing was an order of magnitude greater than their typical assignment?

Learning how your candidate took the initiative—and succeeded at a greater level authority—could influence the way you think about their talents and leadership.

4. Grew.

If the project expanded organically, that elevation was probably not at the behest of anyone but nature. Nor was it an intentional process. Learn from the candidate what they increased, generated, amplified, or developed. That will tell you the extent to which they challenged the norm to make a promise into a reality.

5. Was involved in.

This is similar to responsible for, given that the phrase connotes detachment and passivity. Your candidate likely had deep engagement with or influence on.

Ask them how they piloted some aspect of the project or introduced a novel process. The candidate might be unintentionally downplaying their contributions in their resume, and you have an opportunity to investigate the ways they added value.

6. Brought.

Your first thought when a candidate tells you they brought something somewhere was whether it was hand-delivered, and you might not have a clue where it came from. Ask the candidate to tell you how they originated the idea for something important, or how they demonstrated excellence.

When candidates are installed into a role with their skills already sharpened and ready to go, the ramp-up time to excellence is faster than if they need a lot of mentoring. Find out what skills, talents, and expertise they can start with on their first day in the role.

7. Assisted.

Clearly, corporate projects don’t happen through only one individual, and if a candidate tells you they single-handedly accomplished a big project you definitely need to put them on the spot about it. Assisted, however, might imply that the candidate stood by while others did the work. Ask them how they facilitated, collaborated, or assured the success of a step of the process.

See Beyond the 7 Words

George Carlin wanted television producers and viewers alike to lose their fear over words whose mere mention on the air could immediately provoke negative action. He confidently spoke the words, in order to disarm them of their power. Showing that they were just syllables to which we assigned influence.

You, too, can rethink the blandness, or even the lack of power of the language you see in candidates’ resumes. You might decide instead to choose the more difficult path to identifying top candidates through a deeper investigation of candidates you think have potential.

Remember, most candidates don’t have a lot of job search experience. Maybe they look for new roles three or four times in their lives. They (most likely) are not a resume writer, a recruiter, or a human resources expert.

Viewing their excellence through that lens might help you understand that they simply don’t know what they should be writing. However, if you take the time to ask them, they will absolutely tell you how they have succeeded in the past and how they will shine in the new position.

Imagine what could happen when you see beyond the 7 words and allow candidates to explain their excellence!

What Freelancers Want: How to Attract Freelance Talent

With many companies having laid off millions of people due to the pandemic the use of freelance talent is going to grow immensely in the next year. Platforms like Upwork have already reported huge increases in demand this year and that trend is unlikely to diminish.

So to attract these consultants let’s take a look at what they want and how to work with them.

Finding Talent

Looking for potential freelance talent is more than just looking through an online profile. Companies need to look at more than just relevant experience and past projects, but also the traits that help teams succeed. Like communications, curiosity, and ability to learn.

As a freelancer myself, our cohort is easy to understand. We simply want the ability to showcase our skills by partnering with clients who make us an extended part of their team and help them solve problems.

Flexibility is the main reason why people choose to freelance. So companies should offer flexible hours and projects that align with their skills. Use freelancers to fill gaps not covered by your FTE’s.

But don’t micromanage your consultants. Give them a project and let them go.

Be clear about your specific goals for the project so they know exactly what you want. The last thing they want to hear on a kickoff call is an unprepared plan and confusion about the project.

Look for freelancers who exhibit traits and characteristics such as:

Entrepreneurial focus

According to the website Inc, the definition of that focus is “a true passion for building something great from nothing… willing to push . . . to the limits to achieve big goals.” Most freelancers love the entrepreneurial aspect of their job and that drive and energy is easy to spot.

Persuasive communication

Businesses should search for individuals who are able to express their ideas and concerns to a variety of audiences such as project managers, CEOs, and other workers. Good freelance talent knows how to summarize their skillset and translate that to any audience.

Curiosity

Those freelancers who are constantly adapting by learning new strategies and improving their skills make an excellent choice. I look for people who are “constantly curious” and always learning.

Industry acumen

When vetting a freelancer, a good candidate will show interest and ask questions about the problems that the company is dealing with, and they will want to know the specifics. They should speak the language of your industry and be knowledgeable of the trends taking place in it.

Also, look at how they market themselves. Is their website nice? Do they have a podcast? What do they post on social media? There are clues here to help you evaluate them.

Businesses should keep the following things in mind when it comes to attracting freelancers:

Know what you want.

Provide the right milestones and definitive details for the project including all deliverables.

Write an accurate project description.

Set specific milestones and requirements for the project. Outline the deliverables you expect to have at the end of the project.

Provide examples.

Give a good example of what the finished product should look like. This is especially helpful for design-related engagements.

Set them up for success.

Onboard the freelancer correctly by including them early and often with your project team. Make them as much a part of the team as you can so they know all the stakeholders and so they can gain a deeper understanding of your needs.

Communication

Leverage tools like Zoom, Slack, and texting to seamlessly keep your freelancer in the loop. I love to use Slack to communicate with my clients. It makes it much easier to not only chat but share files and links.

What Freelancers Want

Freelancers want to work with businesses that know precisely what they need (and are not afraid to admit that they do). Businesses and HR departments must change their ways to connect with the talent on these new terms and change their old ways of recruiting compared to hiring full-timers.

There is so much freelance talent on the market right now that your company could be leveraging to increase sales, generate more leads, or fix a broken process. My favorite tools for connecting with them include Upwork, Freelancer, Communo & Fiverr.

In fact, we are starting to see a “nichification” of the gig economy with industry-specific sites popping up such as MarketerHire (marketing), HR Lancers (HR & recruiting), and Biteline (dental hygienists).

I am predicting nearly every industry will eventually have their own freelance marketplaces to help companies adapt to the new way of work.

Could ‘Personalized Work’ Be What We Aim For Post-Covid?

Could ‘Personalized Work’ Be What We Aim For Post-COVID?

Last week, the jewel of Australia’s tech sector, Atlassian, was lauded for giving staff the privilege of working from home – forever.

After posting this on our team slack channel with a comment by me warning of the longer-term impact of ‘remote forever’, one of our senior team members had this to say:

“Why do people travel in the morning to an office, in a packed tram/train carrying a laptop , then work on that laptop only to carry it back home in a packed train, wasting precious time?”

When I worked for another technology company, we spent a lot of energy trying to convince leadership that WFH did not mean a free ride. And, in fact, would unleash productivity and improve engagement. COVID has brought forward the idea of WFH as an alternative arrangement for many that wouldn’t have otherwise considered it.

Whilst we may be reveling in the success of dismantling the long-held bias, that you need to see someone at work to trust that they are doing the work, it comes with its own set of challenges around organisational relevance.

Work is a relationship

Does it matter what company you work for if the only difference between one job is for whom you are completing a task, and perhaps the one or two people that you work with closely?

Work is a relationship, and relationships thrive on intimate and frequent connections. When we all worked in offices some of that intimacy was built by the serendipity of conversations that you had while going about your day’s work. There was always the potential to catch someone from outside of your team and share an idea and solicit a different perspective.

There was an ease of connections and interactions that can be hard to replicate in a remote work context. Being remote is a little bit like trying to establish a long-distance relationship. Which all of us know have the chances of success stacked against them.

Then there is the influence of place, and of space. At REA Group where I worked for some years the building fed the culture. Its design and redesign were carefully thought through to maximize connections and space to collaborate. With anyone. Not just those in your immediate team.

Connection

Why do people go to church to pray, the pub to drink, and the footy to watch their team, when they have the bible at home, beer in the fridge, and a TV in the living room? Because they are looking for connection, community, and inspiration.

Once the novelty of WFH wears off, and for many it already has, comes the very real challenge of maintaining connection, building affiliation, and building cultures when people and teams are not spending time together – physically, in any shared space.

Ongoing remote work presents very practical challenges for organisations, particularly around company culture and organisational HR.

How do you assess performance when you can’t see people at work?
And how do you look out for people, mentor them, develop them when your interactions are all booked in, bound within a strict working day?
How do you acknowledge someone for something you heard they did well in another meeting, like you might as you jump in a lift together?

There is a real risk that our employment relationship becomes transactional, which then impacts engagement, which then impacts productivity etc.
We know from our own work in this space, personality is not 16 types on a table, it is way more nuanced and diverse than that. In a population of 85,000 equal men and women, we find at least 400 uniquely identifiable personality types.

Personalization

While we live in a world of hyper-personalization – our morning news feed is our feed, our Netflix profile is our personal profile based on our viewing history,

How can an organisation retain that diversity of perspective when it usually thinks of two binary ways of working – in an office, or at home? It can’t.

That’s why the future of work has to involve a new type of technology, technology that can navigate the rich mix of types we work with, adapt to their communication style, their working style.

While I have championed for WFH in senior HR positions I’ve held, this experience has highlighted for me the many things I might have always taken for granted in an office environment.

It has nothing to do with fancy décor and an ergonomic chair. More those human moments of serendipitous connection. It all disappeared so quickly without almost any time to say good-bye.

I’m learning what my motivations are, and what connections I want in a day.

From the conversations I’ve had with friends and workmates, they’re also making similar self-discoveries. I’d like to think we all emerge from this situation with a mind to honour the things we’ve learned about our “work selves.”

And most importantly, to build company cultures that thrive by accommodating those diverse needs.

WhoKnows Sourcing Tool Adds Insights and more!

Let’s go over a few updates to the WhoKnows Sourcing Tool. What’s new?

Besides offering over 370 million people in their searchable database, they have added some new functionality to the WhoKnows application.

Messages

You can now create campaigns from within the tool. Whether you wish to send a message to a single person or do some mass messaging, you can now send these right from your desktop.

Profiles

The Profile page allows you to view your own or any candidate’s profile, which is compiled from skill and work history data.

Personality

You can take an integrated personality test to help you figure out what you can improve on.

Insights

This whole new section is based on user data within your organization and will help you target candidates. Utilize this to identify knowledge and skill gaps and hiring trends in your organization. You can also compare talent across different departments in your organization. Look at people’s connections with each other, or compare the apps and tools you are using.

Has COVID-19 Made the Data and Analytics Industry Stronger?

Prior to COVID-19, Data and Analytics was a fast-paced, candidate-led market but, unlike so many other industries, the pandemic has neither slowed down or reduced the need for the technology and services that the profession offers.

This article highlights four key areas where the industry continues to grow and excel during this unprecedented time, and Data and Analytics is expected to keep thriving post-COVID.

An active jobs market

This period of unrest has moved the Data and Analytics world to a much more business-led trade, with the number of jobs on offer in steep decline but the amount of available and engaged talent increasing day by day.

Ultimately, this means a much more competitive environment which, in turn, leads to stronger, more technologically equipped teams who derive from the crème de la crème of the talent pool – a phenomenon we haven’t seen since the 2008 recession.

As organizations vie against each other to nab the top talent, this has created a candidate pool which is not afraid to stick its head above the sand and develop their skills at rapid speed.

For those businesses who have assumed that the current pandemic will create a much more loyal, stable workforce, they need to be aware that this simply isn’t true. If anything, candidates are more ready than ever to climb the ladder.

And this is because employers in the Data and Analytics space are still hiring, with clients holding a desire to be able to understand their market and its future and, now more than ever because of the recession, it is a need not a want.

The insights the market offers not only allow its clients to forecast financial and industry predictions, but also gives them a deeper understanding of their own customer base, providing stronger and more agile working relationships.

Therefore, there’s no surprise that this turbulent time has led to most brands and businesses leaning on Data and Analytics to continue as normal, leading to a significantly less turbulent and uniquely active market.

Career priorities – the contract market

Whilst permanent job offers have seen some slowdown, contracted and freelance roles have not. With 77% of contracts being renewed this year, we are seeing a mirror image of the financial crash in 2008.

While employing a bigger number of contractors may suggest the market is in an unsure state, for Data and Analytics, this move is preferable for many in the industry. Contractors within the market worry very little about job security. With 81% feeling more or just as secure in their roles than this time last year. This level of security most likely derives from extensive contract lengths; 30% of workers are in contracts for a year or more, 42% for anywhere between four to 12 months, and 80% in jobs for at least three months.

Alongside the drive to upskill and develop is the need to move on once certain skills are acquired and perfected. Those within the market understand that it is an industry that moves very quickly. Therefore, the more you can learn in as little time as possible, the better; a short to mid-term contract is just as sought-after as a long-term, permanent settlement, especially for those still developing their skillset.

Gender Diversity

For years, there have been notable movements made to increase the number of women in STEM, and whilst we can’t ignore that some areas of the market are still lagging, in others we are beginning to approach that desirable 50/50 split.

However, what we must highlight here is that this change is happening very much at the entry-level. Which does then have a knock-on effect to areas such as the gender pay gap. This derives from the disproportionate numbers of male senior leaders compared with their female counterparts.

Further on in the career ladder, the largest issue mainly lies in women taking maternity leave and the ingrained attitude that this goes on to stall their career. Going forward, the industry needs to look at how equality is created for women who choose to have children, and how we create equal access and opportunities at work for them.

Nevertheless, the changes we are beginning to see with a much more diverse split of genders within the industry provides a lot of hope for the future of STEM, including Data and Analytics. In the next five to 10 years, we hope to see a much more balanced level of seniority within all firms and a closed, equal pay system. One driven by employers who are seeking to make real, actionable change within the industry.

Flexible working

The current ‘new normal’ – which is mainly comprised of a larger percentage of remote working and flexible hours – shouldn’t be something to fear for any industry, but especially not for the tech market.

For Data and Analytics, working from home is not a new concept, in fact a lot of people were utilizing the flexibility of the job long before COVID. Therefore, when we revisit this topic in a year or two, we don’t expect to see any sweeping changes in the level of those who choose to work remotely.

Data and Analytics is a relatively new market, and therefore it may be viewed as an industry that does test the boundaries of ‘usual’ or ‘traditional’ working attitudes and methods, especially in the US.

However, this is not a bad thing, with many reaping the mental and physical benefits this flexibility gives such as reduced anxiety and increased work-based performance.

As COVID continues to mold and shape our society, both personally and professionally, we will undoubtedly see peaks and troughs for many months. But, as the economy and the overall jobs market recovers, we can be sure that Data and Analytics will play an integral part.

The reliance on statistics to determine the future success, or decline, of industries, markets and their brands has never been so rife, and this is a trend that will stay for the foreseeable future.

Resources for Recruiters Looking for a Job

As recruiters, we understand the hiring process better than anyone. But when it comes time to bring our own search, we can feel lost at where to start. It is one thing to search for people for our open jobs, but it is something else entirely to search for open jobs for ourselves. I’ve put together a few resources to help you with your job search.

Recruiters Recruiting Recruiters

The first site to check out is RecruitersRecruitingRecruiters.com. From their own website, they say,

“RecruitersRecruitingRecruiters.com is a consortium of recruitment industry vendors and private industry TA leaders who have committed themselves to the art and science of great candidate experience.

While this unique talent exchange portal was created during the COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic doesn’t define the mission. The goal is to start with recruiters and replicate the model in other professional areas.

The core team is made up of Chris Hoyt and Gerry Crispin of CareerXroads; Roy Baladi of Smart Recruiters; Brad Cook of Intuitive Surgical; Ralph Rabbat of Consider.com; Maren Hogan from Red Branch Media, and Jack Coapman of GR8 People.”

If you have been in the industry for more than a minute you know that this an all-star list of recruiting industry leadership. They took it upon themselves to help their fellow Talent Acquisition professionals in a time of need.

It is a great resource for just recruiting jobs. Additionally, in order to join, the companies involved had to commit to providing timely and honest feedback to the applicants they receive via this system.

It will provide not only a better candidate experience but hopefully help those recruiters looking for work the difference transparency and timely feedback to candidates can make.

Free Resume Review

This Facebook Group FreeResumeReview is a group of over 600 volunteer recruiters who are offering free resume review and interview prep for those who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic.

This is a free Facebook group to join. All you have to do is fill out a few questions about your search and agree to the rules of the group. Once you are in, post a little about yourself and your search.

You will then be paired with at least one, but often several volunteer recruiters, who will volunteer to look at your resume and provide you with feedback. Often they are also willing to share your resume and profile with their networks.

Finally, they will schedule a time with you to do some interview preparation. Take the time to use this free resource, improve your resume, and build your network.

Remember, sharing is caring. So if you find the group helpful they also ask that you share the group information with your network. This is how they have grown to over 2,500 members in a matter of months. Their work was actually featured by Facebook, so they also have a solid reputation.

Recruiter Job Ads

This Facebook Group RecruiterJobAds is run by Michael Keleman “The Recruiting Animal,” and has been around since before the current pandemic. However, the group has recently grown to over 7,000 members.

This is a group that explicitly and only posts for recruiters that are looking for a job and employers looking to grow their talent acquisition teams.

Typically you are able to connect directly with the recruiter who is posting or sharing the job. I have personally posted open jobs for my sourcing team and have had several interviews with people that there is no way I would have been able to connect with otherwise.

Other Resources

Don’t forget there are some other ways that you can get your name out there. Blogs like recruitingdaily.com are always looking for contributors. (Editor’s note: Yes please reach out to us: [email protected].)

You can write and post your own materials to your LinkedIn if you don’t feel comfortable in the spotlight, but it does help to establish your reputation as an expert in your field. Even if you don’t have a breakthrough insight it does help potential employers to see that you are passionate about what you do and you want to be part of the larger conversation.

It is hard to ask for help but the truth is it takes a village. All of us need help it is the nature of being human.

Reach out directly to people you know and ask them if they would be willing to share your profile with their network. It is hard to say no to such a basic request. And, it is easier for someone to help you in that way. The odds that any one person you know will have a job that is a fit for you at any one day or time is actually fairly slim. However, everyone can share your resume and profile to their network at any time.

This is a moment of difficulty for millions of people around the world. You aren’t alone and it is okay not to be okay.

Just remember, as isolated as you feel, you aren’t alone. Like Mr. Rogers said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

Are Recruiters Responsible For The Pay Equity Gap?

Recruiter: “Well we haven’t talked about comp yet, what are your expectations?”

Candidate: “I need to be somewhere between $170,000 and $180,000.”

Recruiter: “Okay, I think that’s doable. Of course, I’ll double-check with the hiring manager. That said, if we came in around $173,000-$175,000, would we be okay?”

Candidate: “Yeah, as long as it’s above $170,000.”

Recruiter: “It won’t take me long, let me get it nailed down and I’ll send over your offer letter today. Thanks again, we can’t wait to have you on the team.”

In America, this type of compensation conversation between recruiters and candidates happens every 53 seconds*

From the scenario above, three additional data points for you to consider:

The candidate in the scenario above is a female, a person of color, a veteran, a member of the LGBTQ community, a disabled person, etc. Essentially the candidate is not a pear-shaped middle-aged white guy.
The compensation budget for this position is $200,000
White men at the same firm doing the same work with the same experience earn on average $192,000

The problem:

Well, this is where it all gets tricky. Recruiters have been trained to think that they just saved the business $20,000 from the peer average or $30,000 from the max comp.

They’re winning, right? No.

They’re not winning, they’re losing and hurting the business simultaneously. Again, they’ve been taught to believe that they’re supposed to get value in hiring. Value in this case comes with an unsettling consequence of distancing peers from a pay perspective.

They’re thinking about value in terms of getting someone to say “yes” to a job where they’re paid differently, (far) below what their peers make. In their minds, value equals below market price.

How recruiters should think about this is simple yet complex. When they receive a job req, the first thing they do is think of job descriptions and traffic to the ads and funnels and interviews and scheduling, etc.

What they should think about when they receive a job req is the relative nature of compensation. What does this person need to make that will make them equal to employees within their firm? They need to know what that “precise” compensation number is before they do anything else.

Think of it like this, they should start the compensation discussion for a new opening with a review of what they’re “supposed” to pay the candidate. NOT where they think they can get someone cheaper. Thinking about value in hiring is one of the reasons we’re in the place we are with regards to pay equity.

It’s not the only reason, but recruiters have made it difficult for employees to reach an equitable position because they’ve started them so far back from their peers.

The good news:

Most companies have a compensation team buried in the basement of their fancy headquarters. Comp people are Excel people. Compensation people know compensation like recruiters know recruiting.

These internal compensation teams know exactly what the budget should be compared both internal to their firm, external to their location, AND external to national averages. They know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the candidate above should be making $192,000.

Note to self, recruiters need to build better communications with their comp teams so that they know for sure what candidates should be paid.

If you’re not lucky enough to have an internal compensation team that’s okay, compensation software for the enterprise is readily available and will help guide you with, again, what candidates should be paid.

A few recommendations:

Before a job ad gets posted internally or externally, compensation should be vetted by those internal to the firm that understand compensation. For that position and with similar if not the same experience, what do white men make? The budget should be that or damn near that number.
When a candidate suggests a number that is below their peers and/or budget, like the scenario above. A part of the job of a recruiter, nay, their responsibility is to explain what similar employees make and advise them to increase their ask. I know what I’m asking for here.
And I’m sure it sounds wacky or counterintuitive but recruiters are (at best) candidate advocates and recruiters should know what candidates should make. IMHO, recruiters have a moral and ethical obligation to make sure they don’t add to the pay equity gap within their firm and/or life in general.
As it relates to job ads, recruiters should include our compensation averages. Ask yourself, why aren’t we more transparent about compensation from the get-go? What are we hiding? Well, it’s an unraveling of years of poor hiring ideology that helped create the pay equity gap.
Recruiters didn’t help themselves by trying to purchase value and so they should think of transparency as a way for them to right some of the pay equity wrongs of the past. “This is the job, this is what employees in our firm make that do the job. We want to hire you on a level playing field.”

Yeah, it’s hard.

I know some of what I’m asking for is hard because it goes against our training, our experience, what hiring managers or HR want from us.

But dammit, if recruiters want the pay equity gap to shrink in their lifetime then they have to do something to change it. Wishing it away simply won’t work. They must work differently, expect more out of themselves, and fight like hell to challenge the status quo to fix the pay equity gap.

Recruiters are literally on the front lines where pay equity is decided. Recruiters are partially responsible for why the gap exists AND recruiters can change the pay equity gap with changes in their mindset and their approach.

The choice is theirs, they can bitch and moan about the pay equity gap or do something about it.

As always, please let me know what you think in the comments below or however you feel like it, err, the Facebooks, Twitters, and LinkedIns.

Thanks, William

3 Simple Ways to Visualize Your Brand (And Get Noticed Now That Everyone Is Online)

Gather a few pieces of your business’s marketing materials. Do you see a consistent visual theme? If the pieces don’t feel like one whole, but a mishmash of confusing tones, schemes, and imagery, you need to sort out your brand’s visual identity.

No need to panic.

You don’t need to be a talented and experienced graphic designer or marketing guru to visualize your brand. The following steps are fairly simple, and yet they are all you need to build out your visual brand.

Consumer Brand vs Employer Brand

As defined by AMA (American Marketing Association), a brand is a design, symbol, term, name, or any other feature that identifies a business as distinct from the competition. Your visual brand is the most tangible aspect of your branding. It includes your colors, logo, imagery styles, composition styles, and typography.

If you want to visualize your brand just so that you will sell more products, you are setting yourself up for failure. Branding doesn’t revolve just around the consumers.

Your brand is how employees and potential employees perceive your business as a whole. Your brand is important because it is a point of pride and satisfaction for your employees; it doesn’t only serve to establish an emotional bond with the consumers.

Your brand message should resonate both with the customers who are browsing your site and the potential candidates who are following you on social media. Your employer branding and consumer branding are distinct, but connected. Yet, you can only have one visual brand, so it needs to cater both to consumers and recruitees.

Define Your Audience

First, you need to understand who your target audience is, as well as their wants and needs. This makes every step of the branding process easier, including visualization. To define your audience, think of the perfect customer.

Consider psychographics and demographics. The following questions can help:

What’s their gender, age, education level, and income level?
What is their lifestyle?
What are their interests and hobbies?
What are their values? What is their personality like?
What problems and challenges do they face? What solutions are they looking for?
What are their day to day concerns?

Define Your Vision, Mission, and EVP

Your visual branding should reflect your vision, mission and employee value proposition (EVP). So that you can properly visualize your brand, you need to clearly define the “why” behind it.

Your vision defines your long term goals and what you ultimately want to achieve through your work. You need to come up with a clear vision statement that explains why you are doing what you are doing.

Your mission defines what you do, the purpose of your work, and how you want your work to impact the world around you. Think of your mission as a path to achieving your vision.

So that you can better understand the relationship between these two concepts, let’s check out LinkedIn’s vision statement and mission statement:

Vision: “To create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.”

Mission: “Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”

Your EVP is not to be confused with your mission statement. In simple terms, it’s what your employees stand to gain from working for you. The following questions can help you define your EVP:

What makes your business a great workplace?
Why should someone work for you and not for someone else?
What qualities do people need to reach success in your company?

You can also ask your employees a few questions:

What work are you most proud of?
How is our company different from the other organizations you worked for?
What are your biggest motivators?

Create a Mood Board

The best and easiest way to visualize your brand is to create a mood board. A mood board, also called a vision board or inspiration board, is a visual tool that embodies the feeling and vibe you want your brand to evoke—hence the name.

A mood board is a very simple concept—it is a curated collage of visuals that define your brand. It can include photos, paintings, pieces of text, materials, etc. Together, the items you include in your mood board should evoke a specific concept.

It is a great tool because it visually expresses what your brand exudes. It gives a more tangible form to other aspects of your brand, such as your vision, mission, and your employer brand.

Your mood board can be digital or physical. For instance, you can use Pinterest to create a digital mood board. You can use a large cork board to create a physical one.

When creating your mood board, consider the following elements:

Color: Color psychology is an important part of brand visualization. The color palette you choose will affect the way your audience perceives the other elements of your visual brand, such as your site and logo design. This guide by 99designs can help you choose a color palette that best reflects your brand.
Images: The old adage, “a picture is worth a thousand words” is best applied to branding. When putting together a mood board, it is important to find images that tell your brand story. For example, if you are building an organic juice brand, you should include illustrations of organic farms, as well as fruits and veggies.
Textures: Look for textures that are in line with the vibe you’re trying to create or the type of brand you’re creating. If you are launching a boho-inspired brand, for instance, you can include macrame. If you are launching a lingerie brand, you can include lace.
Patterns: Make sure to include patterns that speak to your brand. For instance, you can go for subtle stripes or a more loud polka dot pattern.
Text: You can include inspiring quotes, fonts, and other typographic elements in your mood board as long as they speak to your brand. Adding text to your branding mood board is a great way to strengthen the visuals.

Takeaway

To create a cohesive and memorable experience for both your customers and your employees, you need a visual brand that will resonate with them. And to visualize your brand, you need to know who your audience is, what you stand for, and what you have to offer. Once you have all that, your mood board will help you tie all the intangible elements of your brand together and create a visual representation of your brand.

Save Credits with Precontact Tool Update

As you know, PreContact Tool is one of the better email finding tools out there. PreContactTool is a Chrome extension that allows you to find the contact details for a person’s LinkedIn profile page. With their latest update, it gives you more!

You can now get phone numbers as well, and it will let you know whether it is a landline or a cell phone. They have also added a dropdown menu where you can save credits by specifying what type of email address you want to find: work email, private email, both or none.

To use this tool you will need an account. Sign up for an account on their website, and then install the extension. You get 5 free credits per month for free, and additional credits are reasonably priced.