Blog

Hiring in the times of #Coronavirus

Hiring in the times of #Coronavirus

There are people who think that nothing can be salvaged when something goes wrong. Those who take things as they are and work their way through the new reality. And those who see every catastrophe as an opportunity to make non-linear changes that otherwise might have taken years.

This post is largely meant for the latter two — the realists and the pragmatists.

Coronavirus is hitting various sectors and functions differently. For sectors like healthcare, pharma, edtech, etc., it requires them to ramp up their operations. But for many others, they have no option but to slow down for 12–24 months.

Hiring, in such times, becomes a complex business. There is a general slowdown but you must speed it up for critical positions. And for those in key sectors, all hiring should have happened yesterday.

In this article, I am listing down the factors that you should keep in mind while giving shape to your hiring strategy for these strange times. Follow these, and you wouldn’t just be managing the complexity extremely well but more likely, coming out bright and shining when the tide finally turns.

And it always does.

 

Ask the business about change of plans

Everything is changing fast. So speak to the ‘hiring manager’ if they are still interested in hiring for those ‘open’ roles. You would be surprised by how many times you would hear a different answer – but only when you ask.

Unless the ‘hiring manager’ is a CXO, it might not be a bad idea to check with the hiring manager’s boss as well which positions are still open and which ones ain’t. Things continue to change fast.

 

Maintain the human touch

Try to make up, as much as you can, for the loss of the human touch in the process. While using video is a no-brainer, it does nothing that allows you to show that you truly care. Leverage personalization, show empathy, make people feel comfortable, explore more candidate experience tools than you have in the past. As Lockheed Martin’s talent technology guru Marvin Smith says, “talent engagement is an area where you can distinguish yourself from your competitors.”

 

Showcase your company and culture

While the in-person interview was a great opportunity for you to know the candidate better, it was an even greater opportunity for the candidate to know you, your team, and your company better.

So open up more about your company, share more information than you have shared previously, tell candidates about their teams and goals, and give people a more holistic picture of both your organization and its people.

 

Reduce the interview bias with data

Contrary to what many believe, in-person interviews have been proven to be one of the biggest bias inducing steps in the hiring process.

This is an opportunity to reduce that bias from the process. Yes, doing so would not magically remove it; but using data-driven, algorithmic methods brings quantification and objectivity to the process, which is much easier to measure and improve.

 

Leverage video interviews

Some companies are completely removing the human from their interview process, this is not a very good idea (see above about maintaining the human touch). Video interviews are an easy way to maintain the connection while also having an opportunity to create better two-way understanding. You don’t have to necessarily use a video assessment tool, you can use one of the free tools like Zoom, Google Meet, etc.

 

Make assessment more holistic

While video interviews are a no-brainer, video assessments do not necessarily have to be your first choice. In fact, vendors like Hirevue have themselves said that non-verbal communication has little predictive power and verbal communication is the most predictive of available data.

One area where you can use available data without interfering with candidate experience is the assessment of soft skills. This should become a must-have step in the process and serve as a partial replacement of the in-person interview. AI-based assessments present an opportunity to do it at a lower cost, faster speed, and better experience, although it is important to ask the vendor about scientific proof of their methodology.

 

Make hiring more humane

One of the steps in our hiring process at Humantic that has given us consistently high ROI is the penultimate step — where we have all but finalized the candidate, but before making the final offer, we take them out for something casual — a game, drink, lunch or anything. Nothing is more important than letting candidates get to know the hiring managers with their guard down, or let hiring managers learn more about the candidates beyond their work and expertise.

In today’s world where everything is remote (mostly) and human connection is at its lowest, this becomes critically important. Consider having an ‘informal’ hiring manager-candidate call where the only agenda is getting to know each other, sharing mutual expectations and aspirations and see if the right kind of connection can be established between both the sides.

 

Use the opportunity to create step change

Step change — a change that makes a non-incremental difference in the outcome —  is extremely hard to implement during usual times. There is too much investment in the status quo, there are too many day-to-day challenges to address.

Unusual times like these upend the status quo. Old rules don’t apply anymore, the only worthwhile pursuit is to build for the future for when the sun would be shining bright again and everything would be back to a new normal.

So use this ‘opportunity’ to explore more HR tech tools, to remove ‘legacy’ steps from the process that add little value otherwise, to build a more evolved, thoughtful talent acquisition process that is efficient, cost-effective, and humane.

You’re Probably Automating Your Recruitment Wrong. Here’s How to Fix That

recruitment process

 

You’re Probably Automating Your Recruitment Wrong. Here’s How to Fix That

When automation first entered the human resources space, many otherwise well-meaning  HR departments embraced it with bit too much enthusiasm. You’ve doubtless heard some stories from that dark time. The earliest days of recruitment automation, when no one really understood what the technology was or how it worked.

Hiring software that eliminated otherwise qualified candidates based on a few meaningless keywords. Questionnaires which arbitrarily and impersonally sorted applicants into narrow boxes. Poorly-coded algorithms which, rather than displaying impartiality, were every bit as biased as the hiring managers who deployed them.

A lot has changed over the past several decades.

Machine learning is now more advanced than ever, capable of optimizing every phase of the recruitment process, from awareness through to onboarding. Some particularly advanced algorithms are even capable of examining a business’s talent pool in order to predict future hiring needs. Unfortunately, even with these considerable advancements, many recruiters still fall into the same trap as 20 years ago.

Namely, they rely too much on automation and too little on their own judgment and instincts.

The core problem, I think, is that they don’t fully grasp what AI is capable of. Yes, it’s incredibly powerful and beneficial. Yes, when applied properly, it’s capable of drawing out incredible insights that might otherwise have been overlooked.

At the same time, it’s very easy to misapply and overuse AI. An algorithm, after all, is only as good as the data-sets it is fed. As such, without analytics expertise and human intelligence to serve as a foundation for its algorithms, AI-driven recruiting software may cause more harm than good.

 

AI: Myths vs. Reality

Popular culture and the media are rife with examples of hyper-advanced AI.

Cyborgs and androids capable of displaying the full range of human emotion. Computers taking away human jobs, performing our duties better than we ever could. Supercomputers which, given the chance, would overthrow humanity in an instant.

The thing that any data scientist will tell you about the above examples is that AI as we currently know it simply doesn’t work that way. Machine learning is not currently advanced enough to exist totally independently of human guidance. It may never be.

Even the most advanced algorithms of today are incapable of experiencing the full range of human emotion. Even the most human-like AI is incapable of truly conceptualizing the unknown, creating things from sheer imagination or acting on instinct. And even the most advanced recruiting software is not a replacement for flesh-and-blood professionals.

“AI will create new opportunities for us to use our uniquely-human gifts like empathy, creativity, and affinity for discovery,” writes Steven ZoBel, Chief Product and Technology Officer for work management platform Workfront. “AI cannot be human…it is here to liberate us from routine jobs, and it is here to remind us what it is that makes us human.”

 

The Role of AI in Recruitment

In other words, AI is meant to augment your recruitment process, not overtake it entirely. Automation exists to make your job easier, streamlining the more routine aspects of your job and freeing you up to focus more on evaluating and selecting the best candidate possible for each position. As such, when you deploy it, there are several factors I would advise you to consider.

First, ask yourself why you need it. What part of the recruitment process are you looking to streamline and automate? Are you trying to make it easier to sift through CVs, or do you want a more comprehensive system for managing and connecting with approved applicants?

You must deploy automation with a goal in mind.

Second, lean on an expert to help you with your implementation. Machine learning is a surprisingly complex field, and while there are certainly cloud platforms that are easy to understand and deploy, there’s always something to gain by acknowledging your own knowledge and skill gap. Seek a third-party analyst, or attempt to train someone within your own organization.

Finally, understand that AI is not like traditional software. Deploying it is an ongoing effort. You will constantly revisit, tweak, and re-evaluate your algorithms and your overall platform, further refining your recruitment process over time.

By understanding that automation is not a panacea but simply another component of your toolkit, you’ll enhance and improve your recruitment in ways you never imagined possible.

Match Jobs to Candidates with ZapInfo’s Talent Matching

 

Match Jobs to Candidates with ZapInfo’s Talent Matching

 

Zapinfo has released a new feature that should help make your life easier. Especially in the event that you are a bit overwhelmed with an influx of candidates! This new feature is called Talent Matching and it helps compare data between job posting and a candidate to see if they are a good match.

The process is simple. First, you want to extract the job details using Zapinfo. Check to see if it has extracted properly, especially pay attention to the skills portion. That’s the important bit. You can add them manually if it’s not captured by the extraction. Note that you can add more than one job to your board.

Next, start extracting your candidates using Zapinfo. You can compare them one at a time, or compare all candidates against a job. In the video example, one candidate was a 66% match for skills.

On your Zapboard, you can look at the overview, download everything, or remove candidates that aren’t a good match. By the time you’re done, you will have a list of candidates you really like.

 

Overall, this new feature is useful, simple, and easy to use. These tools that allow time-saving can be a lifesaver. Moreover, if you’re recruiting for an industry that’s booming in this crisis, you can really save some time with it.

 

~ Noel Cocca

 

Look inside with Dean Da Costa:

 

Military to Civilian: Top Transferable Military Skills

Yes, Maybe You Should Hire a Nuclear Machinist’s Mate

Over the years writing for Recruiting Daily, I have extolled the extraordinary skills and experience that veterans bring to the job, and for good reason. Most veterans develop sought-after skills during their years of service that translate well to a wide range of workplace scenarios. From entry-level to management roles, to blue-collar and white-collar work.

Regardless of industry and company size, veterans have proven themselves as disciplined, adaptable, and high-performing employees.

If you’re thinking that none of your open positions are suitable for veterans, you may be surprised at how many former service members meet your hiring requirements. The key is to understand how a military candidate’s background and qualifications translate to the requirements for the position you are searching to fill.

When the skills align and the match is right, there is no limiting the potential of a veteran new hire. In reality, too many veterans walk away from their first civilian jobs within the first year because they were inappropriately matched for a role.

 

Military to Civilian: Top Transferable Military Skills

Many of the resumes you see from transitioning veterans will probably include language you do not understand.  Experience as a “Nuclear Machinist’s Mate,” “Fire Control Technician,” or “Air Force Avionics Craftsman” may sound impressive. But they’re also confusing and may even cause you to question a veteran’s capacity to transition into the civilian workplace.

And once you get into the MOC (military occupation code) letter and number labels, it gets even worse! Some of the skills on a military resume are familiar and readily transfer to candidate profiles. But, it often requires a deeper understanding to assess opportunities for post-military careers. Especially for veterans who served in the infantry, artillery, as well as other combat arms backgrounds.

If you’re in any of the following industries, here’s a guide to improving your understanding of how to tap into this trained and transitioning talent pool.

 

Manufacturing

Many veterans flourish in this industry and can operate in a wide variety of industrial environments. From labor-intensive and low-tech, to highly sophisticated product development. They are accustomed to working in tough environments with little supervision. And have a keen ability to understand the relationship between quality, quantity, maintenance, safety, and the people they supervise.

Military technicians are highly skilled in electronic, electrical, and mechanical systems. They excel in roles such as Maintenance Technicians, Quality Engineering and Improvement, Logistics and Transportation, Production Supervisor, Maintenance Manager, Manufacturing Supervisor, and Manufacturing Engineer.

Look for military titles such as Navy Nuclear Trained Technicians: (Nuke ET, Nuke EM, Nuke MM). As well as those with electronics, electrical, and mechanical backgrounds from all branches of service: (Army, Navy, United States Marine Corps (USMC), Air Force, and Coast Guard). And finally, Junior Military Officers (JMO) from all branches.

 

Banking/Finance

Opportunities in finance make sense for JMOs and Noncommissioned Officers. Or, service members who obtain their position of authority by promotion through the enlisted ranks. Looking to leverage their communication, management and leadership skills to engage with clients and co-workers.

Appropriate roles for these veterans include but are not limited to the following. Mortgage Officer, Operations Manager, Business Analyst, Supply Chain Manager, Project Manager, Team Leader, Retail Operations, Assistant Branch Manager, Customer Service Manager, and Sales/Service.

Look for military titles such as 1st or 2nd Lieutenant, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Captain, Civil-Military Operations (CMO). Those with backgrounds in Finance, Supply, Logistics, and Administration. As well as combat arms service members with military occupations such as infantry, armor, artillery, air defense artillery, armored cavalry, and combat engineers.

 

Skilled Technicians

Enlisted Technicians serve in the military at least three years. They have world-class technical training and intensive hands-on experience, excelling in any situation regardless of difficulty. They are ideal for positions in electrical, electronics, mechanical, maintenance, field service, operations, and technical supervision.

Specific roles that are a potential match include but are not limited to the following. Maintenance Technician, Facilities Control Technician, Site Engineer, Data Center Technician, Data Center Operations Manager, Diesel Generator Mechanic, Mechanical Technician, and Maintenance Mechanic.

Look for military titles such as Navy Electronics Technician, USMC Technician, Navy Nuclear Electronics Technician, Nuclear Machinist’s Mate (Mechanics), Nuclear Electrician, as well as those with electronics, electrical, and mechanical backgrounds from all branches of service.

 

Sales

Military leaders excel in sales positions. Leveraging their management skills and work ethic to build client relationships. Motivated and competitive, veterans are known to quickly grow into leadership positions within the corporate sales hierarchy.

Consider these veterans for roles such as the following. Industrial Sales, Sales Engineer, Inside/Outside Sales Representative, Territory Manager, Sales Manager, Business Development Associate, Pharmaceutical/Medical Device Sales, and Financial Sales.

Look for military titles such as 1st or 2nd Lieutenant, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Captain. Plus, Noncommissioned Officers with or without a bachelor’s degree, depending on position requirements.

 

Medical Device and Pharmaceutical

Military officers have a practiced understanding of the link between leadership and production, quality, safety, maintenance, and procedural compliance. Veterans with a technical Military Occupational Specialty code (MOS) utilize their unmatched technical training and expertise. Along with proven communication and customer service skills. To install, calibrate, and service medical equipment while professionally representing your organization.

Consider veterans for roles in field service. As well as manufacturing equipment maintenance, FDA compliance, quality, sales, and marketing.

Look for military titles such as 1st or 2nd Lieutenant, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Captain, Navy Nuclear Trained Technician (Nuke ETs, Nuke EMs, Nuke MMs). As well as those with electronics, electrical, and mechanical backgrounds from all branches of service.

 

Construction

Attention to safety plays an important role in this industry. An issue that easily translates to the very nature of what many active-duty veterans do every day. Whether it’s about weapons, live ammunition, or simply the general mission of the military. There is ample opportunity in this industry for Class A mishaps and other safety issues.

This can be from home building to commercial to industrial construction. Veterans can also utilize their technical degrees and experience in driving timelines, resources, and manpower for a wide variety of roles in construction. Including Project Manager, Superintendent, Estimator, Project Foreman, Quality Inspector, Project Engineer, and Construction Manager.

Look for military titles such as 1st or 2nd Lieutenant, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Captain, Navy Nuclear Trained Technician (Nuke ETs, Nuke EMs, Nuke MMs). As well as those with backgrounds in Supply, Logistics and combat arms. Service members with military occupations such as infantry, armor, artillery, air defense artillery, armored cavalry, and combat engineers.

        

Don’t Forget the Soft Skills

Beyond the many sought-after hard skills veterans bring to the workplace, there are also the intangibles. The core soft skills not easily gleaned from a resume. Not only are veterans fast learners, self-disciplined, and have the ability to work autonomously. They are also adept at thinking on their feet to overcome obstacles in extraordinarily high stakes environments.

 

Do Your Homework. Get the Right Candidate for the Job!

I encourage all recruiters, regardless of industry, to understand the differences in terminology and phraseology between military skill sets and civilian job descriptions.

Not only will you identify more veterans who are well-matched for the job and improve retention, but you will also be rewarded with qualified, committed, and high-performing employees with bottom-line impact.

HCM Talent Technology Roundup – May 8, 2020

HCM Talent Technology Roundup – May 8, 2020

 

Who’s In Such a Hurry to Reopen?

“When will life get back to normal?” is the question on almost everybody’s mind. From parents who want to get their kids out of the house to employees who want to get back to work and executives who want to get back to business.

According to The Wall Street Journal, 21 states have begun allowing some nonessential businesses to reopen, often with restrictions. Some jurisdictions are taking a more aggressive approach than others. Iowa’s and Oklahoma’s governors, for instance, have signaled that they’ll take away the unemployment benefits of anyone who opts not to return to work once their employer has reopened.

They may be swimming upstream. Surveys by PwC and Qualtrics show that both corporate leaders and their employees are warier about reopening business than are many officials.

 

What the Workforce is Feeling

According to PwC’s COVID-19 Pulse survey, CFOs have grown more cautious about business conditions since the crisis began in early March. Eighty percent now expect to see their revenue or profits drop this year, compared to 58 percent two months ago.

Eighty-six percent are mulling some kind of cost-containment. That’s sure to impact HR technology plans since 70 percent are considering deferring or canceling IT investments. While 62 percent may cut workforce investments.

Meanwhile, Qualtrics’ Return to Work & Back to Business Study found two-thirds of U.S. workers—from Boomers to Gen Z—aren’t comfortable with the idea of returning to their workplace right now. Nearly as many, about 63 percent, want to hear assurances from public health organizations like the CDC or World Health Organization before they go back.

It’s not only the idea of close quarters at work that makes people nervous, Qualtrics found. Some 68 percent are uncomfortable with the idea of playing a team sport, 60 percent wouldn’t want to attend a religious service and 51 percent are uneasy with the thought of going shopping. People are nervous, Qualtrics said. Employers should consider what the workforce is feeling even as they study hospitalization and infection rates.

 

HR Technology Feels the Pain

With businesses taking a drubbing and the unemployment rate just shy of 15 percent, it’s not surprising that HR technology vendors are under pressure. Even some of the industry’s most promising companies have made deep cuts as they try to weather the storm.

Namely, an HR platform that targets mid-sized employers, laid off more than 40 percent of its workforce. Including the company’s CFO, chief security officer, and the entire customer success team. The company had little choice but to downsize because the COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted its customer base, TechCrunch reported. Before the layoffs, Namely had about 400 employees.

Meanwhile, Greenhouse Software will lay off about 120 employees, or 28 percent of its workforce, also because of the pandemic. The layoffs will be focused on its sales and marketing teams, wrote CEO Daniel Chait in a blog post. That will allow the company to “[preserve] capacity in customer success, account management, support, and R&D,” he said.

 

Doing Business

On the ground, the pandemic’s fallout continues to drive the activities of recruiters and recruiting technology providers. Some moves this week:

About 84 percent of talent acquisition teams are adapting their processes to the world of remote work, according to a survey by Jobvite. Some 46 percent are posting more on social media to advertise jobs. While 58 percent are using social media to promote their employer brand and connect with candidates. Surprisingly, only 8 percent are using chatbots for initial screening.

Dice launched Dice Sourcing Services. A resource intended to handle many of sourcing’s nuts and bolts so that recruiting teams can focus on relationship development. The service provides specialists who work with customer recruiting teams and use Dice TalentSearch to source candidates. In addition, it offers customized job posts, integrated marketing campaigns, and brand-awareness tools.

SilkRoad Technology updated its core solutions to help employers become more “resilient” while they maintain their employee experience. The new features in SilkRoad’s recruiting, onboarding, learning, and performance modules include automation for compliance and regulatory standards, mobile-only tasks for virtual onboarding, and a modernized UI. Customers can also deploy workflows that can be customized during the COVID-19 pandemic or any other business disruption that may occur in the future.

CareerPlug launched Hire Up, a program to help new customers recruit during the pandemic. Through it, businesses receive two months of free access to CareerPlug’s hiring software and 30 days of free sponsored job ads on ZipRecruiter.

AllBiz is more than a business search engine

allbiz

 

AllBiz is more than a business search engine.

 

We’re talking a new tool, new site called AllBiz. What this site does, is give you a business search engine. If that were all it did, though, we wouldn’t be here. There’s more to it when you look a little closer.

In the search as a test, we put in Microsoft and Washington state. You can see that it comes up with a bunch of different results. Take a look at that first result: you have a business contact and a title.

Not only that, but there’s an email address…and a direct line.

You can also see the sectors they work in and other cool information about the company stats. You don’t get a ton of info, but this looks like something useful to add to your research pile.

Something worth looking at.  Check out the video and see what happens when Dean does an x-ray search using AllBiz.

 

~ Noel Cocca

 

Look inside with Dean Da Costa:

New Research Reveals the Polarized Realities of Recruitment in 2020

Article updated 7/13/2020 to include podcast featuring William Tincup and David Wilson

New Research Reveals the Polarized Realities of Recruitment in 2020

The new 2020 Fosway 9-Grid™ for Talent Acquisition is now live, created by Fosway Group, Europe’s #1 HR industry analyst. Here, their analyst team shares some of the key findings on Recruitment in 2020 with us.

With almost everything in the world now seemingly divided into pre-COVID-19 and not-yet-post-but-still-during the crisis. It’s interesting to reflect back on the origins behind Fosway’s first full 9-Grid™ for Talent Acquisition. We published an interim version in 2019 after four years of research in talent acquisition, and over eight years of evolving the 9-Grid™ methodology across our other market areas. Including Cloud HCM, talent management, and next-gen learning.

 

 

The way the world was looking for recruitment in 2019…

We decided to focus on talent acquisition for multiple reasons. Including corporate priority for change, market growth and disruption, and the lack of good analyst insight on the main vendor options and their performance. The key factor though was the increasing importance to companies of reinventing talent acquisition.

Both strategic conversations and our quantitative research kept saying the same thing. The key priority for nearly all companies: fix the broken talent acquisition process.

David Wilson, CEO, explains, ‘The ‘war for talent’ remained a cliché for a reason. As all good clichés do. And that’s because it was tough for organizations to attract and retain the best people. Existing recruiting solutions were, frankly, outdated, and just not fit for purpose. Given the massive innovation in the TA market though, over half (53%) of organizations are increasing their investment. Recruiting and onboarding solutions are the top two areas for replacement systems in the next two years.’

So, with a clear research priority, much needed by corporate buyers. The research cycle was set with the intention of publishing our first full 9-Grid™ for Talent Acquisition in April 2020, to be maintained on an annual basis thereafter…

 

COVID-19 creates two polarised camps in 2020 (and beyond?)

Fast forward to February 2020, where much of the insight was already gathered. Including functional scoring and formal quantitative input from the vendors. Providing thousands of lines of data that distilled into five main areas of focus. The performance, potential, presence, trajectory, and total cost of ownership of each solution that makes into onto the final 9-Grid™.

Often the most telling parts of any of our research are the customer conversations and meetings we have with buyers, heads of, and C-level execs across Fosway’s Corporate Research Network. These are always the most valuable. They give us the inside story of what really works and what doesn’t. As well as what the customers truly think about vendors and their performance. It is this insight that feeds into the rest of the research and primarily influences how we calibrate a solution and its final 9-Grid™ position.

All of this happened before COVID-19 impacted the world. Which has changed the economic climate and subsequently, corporate priorities.

But as Sven Elbert, senior analyst says, ‘recruiting is always a bellwether for economic disruption. And so it proved here too. Even before Europe locked down as a result of Coronavirus, in-house recruitment teams were telling us about hiring freezes and retractions. It made us acutely aware of what was about to happen.’

 

The next level

Then came the next level of insight. Grocery retailers, logistics and delivery firms, manufacturers of packaging, and obviously healthcare all suddenly facing huge spikes in demand. Needing to hire at a scale and pace that their processes simply weren’t ready for.

David Perring, director of research comments, ‘Organisations dealing with increased demand desperately need the right technology to help process and filter candidates at a scale that probably breaks their existing platforms. At the opposite end of the spectrum, other companies are managing furloughs and lay-offs and for them hiring is on hold.

For them, while investing in recruiting technology is not likely to be a top priority, maintaining visibility and positive relationships with applicants are arguably more important now than ever.’

At a stroke, the recruitment in 2020 landscape has polarised into two separate camps thanks to COVID-19. Fosway is sensitive to the challenges so many people are faced with at this time but believes the story needs telling and still share the analysis.

 

The market for talent acquisition solutions is wide open. There is everything to play

The goal of the Fosway 9-Grids™ is to support HR teams in seeing what solutions are available on the market and which might suit their unique context. One immediate conclusion from the 2020 9-Grid™ is obvious. There is no Strategic Leader!

Bear in mind that Fosway aims research at European headquartered corporate buyers. Solutions are rated on their performance in the European market. So some vendors might perform better or have a greater presence in the US, or elsewhere. Worldwide, the legacy enterprise leaders were disrupted by innovation from new players, and also destabilized by acquisitions.

They declined under growing pressure from new, best-of-breed specialist providers. As well as by pressure from full-suite Cloud HCM solutions. Candidate relationship management and recruitment market solutions have disrupted traditional applicant tracking systems.

User experience has become critical as corporate buyers seek to create a differentiated candidate experience. Every vendor is adopting artificial intelligence and machine learning technology. Having better intelligence that delivers better hiring decisions, prompts better behaviors, and takes the friction out of the process is clearly beneficial. But from a European perspective, AI still faces real questions regarding implicit bias and even ethics.

 

A good cliché should withstand crises

For now, the economic pressures brought on by COVID-19 and the resulting impact on unemployment means that some of this will just have to wait. In those organizations still hiring, the focus is going to be on filtering and managing increasing volumes of applications. Solutions that are weak here will find themselves becoming targets for replacement.

As some European countries start to carefully reopen their economies, the overarching question will be if the ‘war for talent’ will resume for those highly sought-after profiles. Or whether labor markets are about to shift into a ‘war for jobs’ instead.

A good cliché should withstand crises and as early indications from Austria (the first European country to reopen) suggest. The number of job openings is likely to jump up quickly once this happens. Let’s hope this trend sees many economies imitating it.

Download a copy of the 2020 Fosway 9-Grid for Talent Acquisition, including the report on solution and market trends here.  Follow @fosway for more updates and insight on recruitment in 2020.

The Rise of Recruiting Operations and Why It’s Essential Now

The Rise of Recruiting Operations and Why It’s Essential Now

As the battle for talent has intensified, so has the sophistication of the modern recruiting team. Systems, roles, and processes have all evolved in service of finding the best candidates and impressing them with differentiated candidate experience. This increased complexity has created the need for Recruiting Operations, now an essential piece of the recruiting puzzle.

 

What is Recruiting Operations?

In short, Recruiting Operations enables the rest of the recruiting team to be successful. They accomplish this goal by owning the processes, tools, and data collection for the entire team. As the “project managers” of a recruiting team, they’re focused on driving efficiency while keeping candidate experience top-of-mind. Recruiting ops keeps everyone on track by having a hand in setting goals and processes, creating strategies, and implementing interviewer training.

In other words, recruiting operations is like Air Traffic Control. They make sure that each person knows what their role is. Keep infrastructure and systems running smoothly, and take a step back to look at the bigger picture in order to measure overall performance. Without Air Traffic Control, our skies would be in chaos. Without recruiting operations, the rest of the team will be much less effective and cohesive. The work of recruiting operations keeps teams time- and cost-efficient. And turns good recruiting teams into great ones.

 

Getting the Tech Stack Just Right

Recruiting technology has completely transformed over the last 10 years. The ATS is no longer a filing cabinet for resumes. It’s the hub for an ecosystem of tools and services that will supercharge the recruiting team. It’s no small feat to manage this portfolio of products and vendors. Some of the most commonly used platforms that recruiters will use include:

  • Applicant tracking systems (ATS)
  • Job posting aggregators
  • Recruitment CRMs
  • Scheduling software
  • Background checks
  • Employer branding
  • Sourcing
  • Candidate Travel
  • Assessments
  • HRIS integration

Each of these platforms plays an integral role in time and money efficiency on a recruiting team. The good news is, there’s a large catalog of software that you can choose from when selecting a platform. The bad news is, not all of them are created equally. Especially since the needs of every recruiting team are different.

Recruiting operations, also known as talent operations, is in charge of figuring out which tools are the best fit for the team. Starting with working with each team member to define their requirements, then evaluating the various vendors, going through a budgeting process. At the end of all of that purchasing the software.

Then, of course, they must manage the implementation and rolling out the software. Collaborate with IT and HR. Migrate data from any previous tools they might have used. Then, train their team on how to use the software.

It’s an ongoing process as they continue to stay in touch with the vendor for the best support service for the recruiters and share any feedback they’re getting from their team. It’s not an easy responsibility. But given that these are the tools that multiple people on your team are using every day, it’s an important one.

 

Making Data-driven Decisions

Defining objectives, team direction, and criteria for success is a teamwide responsibility. Recruiting operations is largely responsible for compiling feedback and data to drive such decisions. This data is spearheaded end-to-end by recruiting operations. Who first figure out what they should collect, how to collect, and how to implement the findings.

This intentional goal setting is what structures the entire recruiting funnel. For example, recruiting ops may help with pulling figures from your ATS and scheduling system, and then run them against your HRIS data. In order to assist with decisions about capacity planning, hiring targets, and time-to-fill.

The act of simply gathering candidate feedback and compiling it to guide improvements is an invaluable practice.

This data collection and analysis needs to be tracked for the benefit of all stakeholders. From the recruiters to the interviewers, to the candidates themselves. Specifically, trends in the candidate experience can help everyone get a better picture of what is working and what’s not.

It is crucial to have someone own the analysis and improvement of the candidate interview experience to run a successful recruiting process.

 

Make or Break: Candidate Interview Experience

The interview experience is a key factor in how a candidate feels about your company, the role, and whether they accept an offer. That’s why recruiters need to do whatever they can to provide an environment for candidates that truly showcases their skills. While their interviewers also put the company’s best foot forward. And with platforms like Glassdoor, the candidates you don’t even end up hiring can leave positive reviews about their experience for other job-seekers to see.

The front-line of your candidate experience includes coordinators, recruiters, and interviewers. Recruiting operations are responsible for training everyone involved. Which ultimately creates a seamless onsite experience. This includes clear, easy to follow instructions for both candidate and interviewer. A welcoming environment, diverse interview panels that represent the company, personalized touches, and adding breaks throughout the day.

Recruiting operations creates a baseline for interviewer training. Everything from anti-bias training, responding to candidates’ questions, and ensuring that feedback is tracked consistently. All of this, of course, must be completed in a timely manner. The end-to-end candidate experience is under recruiting operations’ watchful eye, resulting in fewer instances of dropping the ball.

Prelude is a platform that makes impressing both your candidates and interviewers easier. By automating scheduling, what used to be hours of playing calendar Tetris for coordinators now turns into minutes. It also eliminates the need to translate time zones on your own for your remote interviews. And keeps everyone in the loop when last-minute cancellations and changes occur.

 

Why you need Recruiting Operations ASAP

Although the specific role of recruitment operations is relatively recent in the talent acquisition world, its component parts are the makeup of a thriving recruiting team. From making sure that the latest trends are being accounted for, like remote working, to perfecting the tech stack that a recruiting team relies on to be efficient. That is, recruiting operations is what keeps your team working seamlessly.

Undoubtedly, recruiting operations overseeing the entire recruiting process can provide a guiding light for goals, objectives, and changes that need to be implemented in order to delight all stakeholders. From the candidates to the interviewers to the recruiters.

The Law of the 9 – A Sourcing Philosophy

The Law of the 9 – A Sourcing Philosophy

Sourcers rely on hired applicants to prove their worth and measure their return on investment. It is a cornerstone metric to take a unique candidate from prospect status to new hire status. Despite your position in talent acquisition, a hire is an event to celebrate. Performance standards also measure against this hire metric.

But what if leaders took a step back to invest in the prospects who neglect our attempts to connect? Far too many talent professionals ignore the candidates who aren’t hired or note they are uninterested in an organization. I call this tracking of no-thank-you leads and uninterested candidates the “Law of the 9”.

The old view of talent acquisition says that if you send out ten connection attempts to ten separate leads, and one responds and gets hired, you are successful. The Law of the 9 says that if you send out ten connection attempts to ten separate individuals and focus on the nine who ignored you or told you “no”, that this is a better definition of success.

This focus on the nine who are either uninterested, unavailable because they are on contract, unable to relocate, or just plain happy in their job is what we call pipelining. These nine now become our focus to pursue. These nine are now as important as a hire.

If there is only focus on those who say “yes” to your passive candidate inquiries, you are essentially ignoring a hefty part of the labor pool.  Does that sound like a good tactic in this market?

 

Engage those passive candidates

There are Sourcers who took their current jobs without much experience or training. To some, the role of sourcing means you search candidates off LinkedIn and Indeed and send off emails with reckless abandon.  By this, I mean some Sourcers will perform a search, and without discretion, send a contact email to all candidates that show up in the search.

It is akin to a throwing a dart, with your eyes closed. This style of sourcing focuses only on the candidates who respond favorably to additional interest. This technique is easy, fast, and has previously yielded great results.  Now that every industry is feeling the unemployment squeeze, response rates are back to below ten percent, and multiple connection paths are required before a lead will respond to a passive email.

When we consider the Law of the 9, we must think about how those nine passive candidates can be engaged over time, no longer does a candidate no truly mean no.

There is time now to reflect on how we treat our nine. Do you log their rejections? Do you stay in touch with engaging content and genuine interest in their career? Or do you end the process when a candidate fails to respond? Successful Sourcers know that every candidate now matters.  An under-qualified new graduate needs only to be followed for a year or two before they become the perfect experienced hire.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics states the average employee, across any occupation, stays in their job only 4.1 years. You never know where a candidate is in that tenure journey.  Sourcers who understand the Law of the 9 known to log all candidates and understand that silence or rejection is only temporary.

 

Tips to put the Law of the 9 into practice:

1. Understand Your Candidate Rejections

A candidate who tells you that they are happy in their job and uninterested in your role are to be celebrated! The celebration is due to the fact that the candidate responded and told you their needs.  You now have a competitive advantage. Leverage that information and offer to just stay in touch with the candidate from time to time.

 

2. Have a way to Manage Candidates

If it takes seven or eight connection paths before a lead responds to your passive campaigns, how are you going to log and keep track of all those attempts?  Avoid potentially looking silly and use a spreadsheet, CRM, or recruitment marketing platform to manage and remember your attempts. The candidate wants to be special, not knowing who they are when they finally call with kill any effort you have put into the relationship.

 

3. Have a way to Manage Correspondence

Create a cadence calendar.  Perhaps today you email a candidate, three days later you leave a voicemail and text, and then six days later leave another email.  Whatever cadence you create is probably fine, the point is to know when to reach out next. Create tasks in your CRM or email invites to remind you to follow the cadence so no one falls through the cracks.

Remember the Law of the 9 in that every candidate is now a valuable part of the pipelining process.  Happy hunting!

Automation during COVID-19

Uses for Automation in Recruiting During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an upheaval in employment and recruiting. Changing what jobs are in demand and throwing millions back into active job searches. Staffing professionals have had to contend with the shifting jobs landscape. Plus, there have been changes in how they perform their own jobs.

Recruiting teams have gone remote. The hiring process itself has had to go virtual as well. Recruiting professionals find themselves making sure they can put in place ways to perform as well as – or better than – they did before the pandemic hit.

Over the last several years, the staffing industry has adopted an increasing number of tools incorporating automation. From sourcing to communications. To onboarding and more. They increase the speed and efficiency of the entire process.

Automating repetitive tasks and using machines to help make smarter decisions have taken on greater importance now. Those already taking advantage of such technologies have set themselves up for an easier transition to the new reality of their work.

However, another question many recruiting professionals find themselves asking at this moment is “What else can we use automation for right now?”

 

Applied to the Current Pandemic

To go beyond the ongoing benefits of automation, there are examples of recruiters applying these tools specifically to the current pandemic. One helpful use case we have seen is that companies are sending daily push surveys via text to workers.

These surveys give workers the opportunity to indicate whether they are available to work that day. With the coronavirus spreading and adding to the reasons some workers are unable to show up, gauging the availability of workers is far more dynamic now than merely managing contract end dates. The problem of employers needing to know – on a daily basis – who is not able to come in that day, and being able to replace those workers quickly is much more prevalent.

Where automation enters is in being able to identify on a mass scale which workers should get these surveys, and which should not – each day, and in processing those messages and responses with great speed.

Another factor, of course, is accuracy. Even if you could handle the number of outgoing messages manually. Processing the responses and analyzing the data by hand is guaranteed to be full of errors and omissions. Meaning missed shifts, unfilled positions, and frustrated customers.

 

Automated Candidate Surveys

Another example we have seen is companies managing the influx of new job seekers by sending automated surveys to new applicants. Asking for information including availability, location, notice requirements, skills, and the reason they are looking for a new role. This automated communication and data-gathering can help staffing professionals more quickly process new profiles and match them with potential openings.

Staying with communications, there is a need for staffing firms to share up-to-date policies. As well as to ensure that workers have received and understand the information has become more important. For example, if an employer implements new safety requirements for contractors working on-site. Automated tools help push the update messages to all workers who need them.

In addition to needing to reach an audience that can change greatly each day, these policies may require only a passive acknowledgment. Knowing that the worker has received the message – or active, explicit acknowledgment indicating consent. Such as a “click to confirm” button or a request to text back a response code.

 

Streamline the Process

Finally, recruitment firms can put automation to work to streamline the sourcing and hiring process. To focus on the most important steps and eliminate those that aren’t necessary. In cases where workers are needed to fill roles urgently. (Emergency room nurses being a timely example.)

Recruiters can benefit from skipping some steps in identifying, hiring, and deploying workers more quickly. And, without skipping requirements. If a candidate in the database fits all known criteria. Such as location, availability, and skill set. Then, automation allows recruiters to bypass the niceties of non-critical communications they might normally send.

Instead, go right to a text or email to book time directly with the person who will get them through the credentialing process.

Automation tools are powerful accelerators for recruiting in normal times. The COVID-19 crisis, with the changes in demand and work situations for staffing professionals, customers, and workers alike, makes that power stand out more. And, it highlights the needs and advantages of automation in ways that will also change how staffing is done in the future.

How to Screen and Interview a Software Engineer

How to Screen and Interview a Software Engineer

We’ve all been interviewed before, and we can all acknowledge that the process is immensely stressful. However, while many guides exist to help interviewees through the process, very little attention is paid to the recruiter conducting the interview, arguably the most important component of a successful meeting. After all, the recruiter is the one required to ask the right questions and appropriately expand on any answers they receive.

So, whether it’s your first time conducting an interview as a recruiter or it is your hundredth. This advice will help steer you in the right direction to ensure things go smoothly for everyone involved.

 

Interviewing Advice

  • You don’t need to be “better” than who you’re interviewing. Many interviewers suffer from the imposter syndrome, meaning they fret over whether they have the right to interview the person. They may also wonder if the candidate knows more than them or if the candidate will see them as a fraud. Interviews aren’t about superiority, it’s merely a conversation about past experience.
  • Understand the job level: When preparing to conduct an interview, you should always review the organization’s documents that explain the hiring bar and go over the necessary skills and values needed for the position. When it comes to engineering jobs, there should be a ladder that outlines the characteristics that are important for each level.
  • Review the technologies: Software Engineers want to know what kind of tech they’ll be working with, so preparing in this regard is one of the best things you can do. You should be able to explain what technologies the candidate needs experience with and also do so in an appealing manner.

 

Follow the Interviewing Pipeline

Every organization differs when it comes to the interview process, but most will start with a 45 minute phone call with the recruiter. This is when you can determine if there is a fit for the candidate and sell the company on them. This is followed by a phone call with the hiring manager and then a series of interviews with the candidate.

Each interview will assess a different area, like their coding abilities. After the interviews, you should host a team decried where you can share notes to improve the interview process and the company can decide whether to make an offer.

 

Set the Right Goals

  • You only have a short amount of time with the candidate, so you should be focused on the following to make the most of that time.
  • Gather data points that help you reach a “hire” or “do not hire” decision. Every interview should conclude giving you a clear idea of whether you may consider hiring that person, and why or why not. Follow-up questions will help you get to the bottom of things to know for sure.
  • Sell the organization. The candidate should get a clear idea of what the organization does and why they will want to be a part of it.
  • Always make candidates feel good. Interviews are stressful, so never try intimidation tactics as they’ll only make it harder for the candidate’s true self to come through. Focus on being nice, welcoming, and informative. Candidates should leave feeling like they had a fair and professional experience.

 

Follow These Best Practices

If you want your interviews to go well every time, follow these best practices.

  • If a candidate goes off on a tangent or begins to ramble, cut them off. It’s okay to take back the conversation and redirect them.
  • Let the candidate do most of the talking, just make sure to keep the conversation on topic.
  • Don’t waste time with questions that any candidate could easily answer in an acceptable manner, they get you nowhere unless you’re intentionally using them to try and calm a candidate’s nerves.
  • Transcribe as much of the interview as possible and then review the conversation afterward. This will help you reconsider what was most useful to you.

At the end of the interview, you should review all of your notes and use them to help form your individual decision to consider hiring them or definitely not hiring them. Rate them on a scale. From strong hire to hire or no hire to strong no hire. Don’t be on the fence. Consider the facts and look at all of their technical, problem solving, and communication skills together to come up with the right vote.

 

General Screening Questions for Tech Skills:

  • How many years have you worked as a Software Engineer or Developer? (Industry-specific vs. University)
  • What programming languages have you been using the majority of your career?
  • Tell me about your current role. Working on, scope, tech stack, etc.?
  • What % of your time is spent coding?
  • Are you involved in architecture and/or design decisions?

Bonus: I wrote another post about Phone Screening applicants here.

 

Onsite Interviewers will cover these areas:

Logical and maintainable code

Logical: Any software engineer should be able to read your code and understand what you are trying to accomplish.

Maintainable: If another software engineer wanted to build upon your existing written work, they should be able to easily. Is it overall clean? Is it overall efficient?

 

Problem-solving

Are you able to break down and solve a tech problem? Are you able to solve something with minimal hints? If you don’t know how to solve it, do you know which questions to ask? Can you communicate your thoughts on how to approach something and why you chose to do something? What are some trade-offs you considered?

 

Data Structures and Algorithms

Complex problems are stemmed from important fundamentals. Be knowledgeable about topics like binary search trees, hash maps, linked lists, queue, blanks, stack etc.

 

System Design

When given a high level, ambiguous question, can you break it down and design something? Do you ask questions to gather requirements? Can you diagram system components and talk extensively about them? How do you make sure it’s scalable?

Hiring with Intent, Hiring on Purpose

Hiring with Intent, Hiring on Purpose

Until the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, talent acquisition was moving at lightning speed. Everywhere you looked, there was another resource or technology designed to help accelerate the process further, deliver results, and put time back in your day.

Then everything came to an abrupt halt. Economies froze and recruiting teams started to look around the proverbial room, unsure of what to do next. Those with lengthy tenures in the space almost immediately interjected and started drawing parallels between the current reality and the Great Recession. You could smell the collective fear, even from the comfort and safety of your home office.

There are few positives to come out of this situation. Millions of people have lost their jobs, including countless talent acquisition pros. And while we hope this is all just temporary, it’s impossible to know how long this slowdown will last. All that said, those able to push forward and continue recruiting have a unique opportunity.

 

The Inevitable

Change is an inevitable part of what we’re experiencing right now. The way the world worked at the beginning of 2020 is unlikely to be the way it works by the end of December. Physical offices will become increasingly passé as higher numbers of workers opt to remain remote.

Recruiting processes will start to mirror this move, as more employers adopt video interviewing and virtual onboarding practices. Digital transformation will no longer seem like some far off intangible dream. Though at some point, the ad hoc solutions put in place to maintain business continuity will get replaced by more permanent infrastructure.

Even though a recruiting resurgence will happen, the associated recovery is going to take some time. In the interim, we can start talking about what needs to take place. No one has a crystal ball. But we do have life experience and industry expertise to help put guideposts in place. Even if we have to rewrite the script once or twice between now and then, these exercises will allow us to identify potential paths and then build the road ahead. There is perhaps no higher value we can offer than developing the next steps.

 

The Intentional

As part of striving towards a more agile and resilient future, we need to take this moment to reassess how we hire. That means reframing our approach to factors like speed, quality, and cost. In many instances, speed remains critical, especially when it comes to healthcare and frontline hiring. Quality is evergreen, though what this means may change as new needs arise. Similarly, cost is always a concern, particularly as organizations work on rebounding from lockdown.

In talking about a “Big Recovery,” William Tincup encourages us to reconsider speed, quality, and cost under new auspices. Asking questions like “What did you learn about your organization regarding speed? Meaning, how fast could you mobilize and/or agility to pivot quickly?” As part of this, Tincup reminds us that, “Pre-COVID-19 candidates were faster than most TA teams, how did you make your team faster during COVID-19? Meaning, can you hire (from sourcing to onboarding) within two weeks? If not, why?” Should you already know that answer, great. If not, find it.

Use this moment to dig into the data and get specific about what you can accomplish. Apply intent to each step in your process to prepare for the other side of this experience.

 

The Individual

Even if hiring isn’t a top priority within your organization at this time, there are people in need of work. As someone on the inside of talent acquisition, you have a unique understanding of how hiring works. Take this skillset and offer help to someone else. Mark Stelzner, founder and managing principal of IA HR, helped start the Job Angels movement back in 2009. He sounded the call again recently, encouraging those within the industry to use their resources for good. That might mean reaching out to your network, editing someone’s resume, or otherwise making the connections that lead to job offers. If we’re genuinely all in this together, we need to demonstrate that commitment to one another.

Likewise, as a recovery and hopefully, a resurgence takes place, focus on the individual. The job search already stirs up a lot of emotions for candidates. The number of resumes per opening will inevitably spike. When it does, it’s up to recruiters to maintain lines of communication and prioritize the human touch whenever and wherever possible. Our current reality won’t last forever, but even after the storm passes, aim to incorporate intent and purpose into the process.

Taking an Optimistic Approach at Sourcing

I tend to be a pretty optimistic person overall. However, when it comes to sourcing, I take a pessimistic stance. Recently I realized that sometimes approaching sourcing with a more optimistic approach can actually make me a stronger and more successful sourcer.

We all know the feeling of finding the “diamond candidate.” The candidate that checks every box that the hiring manager is looking for and then some. “Oh man, they’re going to be so happy when they see this candidate!” I think as I excitedly add the candidate to my project.

I usually end up aggregating a shortlist of candidates that check off every must-have and most of the nice-to-have skills the client is looking for. Since I have a tendency to assume that these are the only candidates worth my and the hiring manager’s time. Also, I want my work to reflect that I am a strong sourcer.

However, I recently realized that this may not be the most effective method or the best use of my or my hiring manager’s time.

 

The Approach

When I joined Wayne Technologies, I learned a completely different approach to sourcing. Rather than glancing at each profile in my results and adding them to my project when they are a good fit. I was told we would pull every candidate that our search pulls back. We’d then add the list to a project and narrow it down from there.

This strategy offers more data for the client. We are able to show the client what search strings we used and the total amount of profiles we then started with. Then we quickly remove any candidate that we can easily eliminate based on their title, location, company, etc. The list still tends to be a couple of hundred people at this point.

From here, we take a quick glance at the candidates’ profiles and decide whether they would be worth screening. This is where I really noticed my pessimism with sourcing and had to work at retraining my thought process.

 

Ranking

We rank our candidates one through five (one as the highest score, and five as the lowest) based on their fit with the role and company we are working with. We consider anything one through four worth speaking to. It shocked me. Honestly. I would’ve thought that we would present ones and twos to the client and just keep the threes, fours, and fives in our back pocket.

I immediately polarized my rankings. Nearly everyone I ranked was a one, two, or five (but honestly, mostly fives).

 

I turned in my results, pretty proud of what I had done, to find out that I was being excessively harsh with my ratings. It became a running joke that no candidate was good enough for me and if a candidate received a five, I was probably the one who ranked them.

 

What it comes down to: Can they do the job?

It’s been explained to me that I had to change the way I was looking at the profiles. Don’t think, “This candidate is perfect, but this one is not.”

But rather, think “This candidate is really great, this one is good. And this person can probably do the job. Then, this candidate’s background is cool but they probably can’t do this job.”

It was not as black and white as I thought.

I took a moment to realize that not all companies tend to hire their “diamond” candidate. They may be the perfect fit on paper. But usually, there is a roadblock, such as culture fit or price. Hiring managers often think they want a 1.

But after interviewing a few candidates, end up going for the middle of the pack candidate. The candidate who is an awesome culture fit for their team and seems very trainable. Hiring managers tend to gravitate toward the candidates who we rank two to four.

 

The Result

I’m not going to lie. It blew my mind. I had spent several years producing lists that could have looked completely different. I didn’t want to dwell on the past. I decided it was worth my time to take more time on each profile, to take a holistic view. And try to become less strict with my rankings.

Over the course of a few weeks, I retrained the way I looked at a candidate profile. Now, I’m not producing a short list of “perfect” candidates with very little data to back my strategy. Instead, I am producing a larger and more diverse list of candidates with data to explain everything.

From the total candidate pool down to my final list of candidates that we plan on messaging. While my list is longer and has more variety of skills, I actually feel like a stronger sourcer than I had while taking a more pessimistic viewpoint while sourcing.

 

Conclusion

A pessimistic stance when it comes to writing search strings may make you a stronger sourcer. However, a positive stance while viewing profiles can help you deliver a more well-rounded and effective batch of candidates to a hiring manager.

It is important to remember that the “diamond candidate” is not usually the candidate that gets the job. Instead, we should present all those who can do the job.

Value Proposition is a Not a Four-Letter Word

Value Proposition is a Not a Four-Letter Word

The phrase “Value Proposition” recalls cliché corporate buzzwords like synergism or paradigm shift. If I hear it up in conversation, I tend to zone out and drift to pleasant thoughts. I’ll give you a cliché that is appropriate.

Have you heard of the phrase “peeling back layers of an onion”? It is used to try to break down a complex idea or person. Candidate Value Propositions (CVP) are more like skinny scallions or tiny pearl onions.

CVP’s are not that complicated, but somewhere along the line we’ve jacked up the CVP definition, put our corporate spin on the model, rearranged it for recruiting purposes, and convoluted the idea beyond practical understanding. For many, the CVP is either too vague or too specific or too conceptual for general everyday use.

 

I have good news.  Time for school.

I am going to break down a CVP for normal talent acquisition professionals, and even more specifically, for Sourcers trying to woo candidates in the market today. I’ll use words chosen specifically for easy comprehension. Ready?

Find something of value about your company that fills a candidate need. That’s it. Your value proposition might just be that offer of a revolutionary product. It might be that you are offering bonuses during this crisis. Maybe you have a great philanthropic culture, or it might be that every growth opportunity is filled by an internal employee.

The value proposition is different based upon what each candidate values. One size does not fit all.

Value propositions started in the late 1980’s with McKinsey consulting as a set of tangible and intangible benefits to which the consulting firm would offer their clients, based upon needs, for a fee. This concept has evolved from product and services to employee value propositions and then to candidate marketing and recruitment.

Essentially the idea is the same – find out what your customer wants, provide it, and make it known to them. For marketing professionals, you may think that I have oversimplified and dumbed down the definition. And I have.

Value propositions for the sake of marketing products can be very scientific There is a lot of money in a value prop.  I’m just trying to break it down to practical steps for Recruiters and Sourcers. We got enough to do; some things for us need to be easy. K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid).

 

What should be included in a candidate value proposition? Here are a few ideas:

  • Organization recognition, designations, or awards
  • Leadership philosophy
  • Company vision for the future (curing cancer, ending homelessness, business disrupter technology or product, etc.)
  • Philanthropic work or giving philosophy
  • Hiring Manager benefits (leader in field, mentor mentality, publications, etc.…)
  • Benefits that are different from your competition
  • Any technology, machines, service, knowledge, etc. that you are known that might be better than the competitions
  • Culture, culture, oh, and did I say culture?  Be specific, paint a picture of what that culture looks and feels like. Use descriptive words.

 

The key to any candidate value prop is to make it compelling and then communicate it.

What would make me leave my job, in the middle of such economic uncertainty? Make sure you can answer that question.

Is the CVP strong enough to make me resign from my job today?  Value propositions can attract candidates but can be responsible for reasons why candidates accept an offer.

In conclusion, embrace the value proposition. Know the importance of meeting your candidate’s needs, especially in this market. Track what is important to them. Then share it.

Shout it from the rooftops, make it a part of your brand, email, or text campaigns. Segment the needs of your candidates into groups so your messaging to them strikes the specific need they require. Make the value proposition gripping and captivating. It should make a person excited about applying.

Lastly, keep updating your value prop for as long as it takes to keep you excited about the company.

Happy hunting!

From a People Lens: Managing Your Workforce in Times of Crisis

Managing Your Workforce in Times of Crisis

As the COVID-19 pandemic encroaches on our working and personal lives, employers all over the world find themselves in uncharted territory. People are faced with a sudden, enforced transition to remote work. And, at the same time, most are scrambling to ensure their business has a sustainable future at the end of the crisis.

In these uncertain times, people leaders and HR teams have never had a more critical role to play. Employees must be supported as they switch to working from home. Many, for the first time. They need to feel supported, well informed, and safe. Particularly in light of the many anxieties this pandemic brings.

Here are three things people leaders can do to support employees during this time.

 

Provide clear guidance

A recent study shows three in four people globally are worried about ‘fake news’ and the spread of false information about COVID-19. Nearly half say it is difficult to find reliable and trustworthy information.

Unsure of who or what to trust, workers are turning to their employers for trustworthy guidance and information. While they want to know about how COVID-19 is directly impacting their work, they also want their employer to filter information and provide more general information about the pandemic crisis. Not necessarily only information related to their employment.

As the situation changes rapidly by the day, HR and people teams need to communicate frequently and clearly to help employees stay informed. People want regular information regarding COVID-19, with 63% asking for daily updates.

These updates can be provided through any number of channels. Emails, internal communication platforms, virtual town halls, or through the company’s social media updates.

 

Help leaders navigate new ways of working

Remote working is not a new concept in Australia. In fact, two-thirds of Australian employers offer some form of flexible working arrangement. However, it would be a mistake to assume that all leaders are skilled at managing and getting the best out of teams working remotely.

Take feedback for example. Virtual feedback can be easily misconstrued. Without a smile or physical cues, a short, sharp email can come across as aggressive or dismissive and cause anxiety for the recipient.

Managing employees remotely requires leaders to adapt. HR professionals should be supporting them to ensure they understand the dynamics of non-verbal communication and are trained and equipped to manage remote teams.

 

Keep employees engaged through performance goals and regular check-ins

Working remotely, by its nature, can disrupt the sense of connectivity between team members. It can also increase feelings of isolation. Business leaders must find ways to compensate to ensure workers remain engaged with their teams during this time. People leaders should encourage business leaders to check in with their teams regularly. As well as reinforce focus areas, help them find solutions to problems, and ensure they are not suffering undue stress. Where possible, try to conduct these check-ins via video calls, so there is face-to-face contact.

HR teams should ensure these connections are maintained. And, that leaders and teams have the right tools and support. Beyond using video and messaging platforms, HR teams should also consider performance management software to help drive and maintain engagement. Ensure employees stay connected and focused on their own personal goals, as well as the company goals.

In times of uncertainty, those in leadership roles with the support of HR and people teams need to step up. To empower their workforce to remain engaged and productive with the right tools and processes. Being able to manage your workforce effectively can have a big impact.

Not just on employee engagement, but also the organization’s ability to come out on the other side of this crisis stronger, more agile, and resilient than before.