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Loxo ups their game with a sourcing integration

loxo source

 

Loxo ups their game with a sourcing integration!

 

New and improved in the game of thrones…I mean tools. Loxo is already one of the best ATS/CRMS in the business, and now you can use it for sourcing as well! You’ll have access to their database which contains over 510 million candidates.

 

How so, you ask?

Open the application, and perform your searches by location, zip, title, and then filter further by keyword. Then you can grab their emails, phone numbers, and other contact information.

This is pretty darn good. This is one of the few ATS/CRMs with a sourcing capability!

 

Apart from the standalone application, there’s a Chrome Extension. You’ll have to log in to LinkedIn to use it. Pop Luxo open and then visit a LinkedIn user page. Luxo will display whatever contact information is available for you to add to your list. Plus, you can email/sms right from the extension.

 

In the video below, Dean takes us through a walkthrough. Definitely take a look at what it can do!

 

~ Noel Cocca

 

Look inside with Dean Da Costa:

 

Chrome Extension Review: Email Discovery Tool

Email Discovery Tool

Find Email Addresses with the Email Discovery Tool

 

Here’s a new Chrome Extension for you to check out! This tool is called the “Email Discovery Tool” and you can find it on the Chrome Store or sign up and use the web version instead.

Email Search Features

The first feature is search company data for contacts by title and company name. This seems to work pretty well, note that the source appears to be LinkedIn data. Also, these are work emails, so you may not want to use your free credits for this unless you don’t have another LinkedIn search tool.

Another feature is the search by domain. This will allow you to search web data for any email addresses on that domain. As an example, we popped in “expedia.com” and it was able to find a bunch of different emails at Expedia. So, this could be very useful if you don’t have a contact name. Great!

Next, if you’re looking for a specific person’s email address and you know their name and domain, you can use the search name feature. This will allow you to search a specified domain with a first and last name to locate an email address.

Other features

There are a few other features that aren’t for locating email addresses. You can use the email verification tool to check if an email sent to an address is valid or if it bounces. Note that this does not count against your credits, so you can check as many emails as you like per day. Use the location search to look for companies within a specified geographic location. Lastly, you can also add different search terms into the tool to get curated business news and social media data sent to you on a regular basis.

The free version of this tool allows you to use 5 requests per day, so you can really get a good feel for what it does and decide if you want to pay for additional requests. It’s probably not going to replace other tools that you’re already using, but it could be a decent addition to your toolbelt!

~ Noel Cocca

 

Look inside with Dean Da Costa:

Behind The Buzzword: What Recruiting Innovation Really Looks Like.

buzzword innovation

 

What Does Innovation in Recruiting Mean?

 

It seems counterintuitive to take a step back and challenge the basics of innovation. All things considered, it seems appropriate to pause and wonder: when did innovation become so, well, stale?

The word ‘innovation’ gets bandied about so much in the HR and recruiting space that it has become a tired cliché.

Just like the word ‘influence’, this is one subjective term that, objectively, really can’t be defined or measured. The term “innovation” seems to be the new ‘transparency’ or ‘community.’ An annoying, meaningless buzzword, for start-ups and established players alike.

No innovative company has to talk about being innovative. The proof is in the product. Except, as I keep learning, when that product is designed specifically for recruiting. This was reinforced recently. I served on the judging panel of a fairly prestigious annual award for the most promising start-up product in HR Tech.

This meant sifting through a whole lot of almost identical product pitches. Almost unilaterally, every single one of those submissions made some reference to how innovation was one of their competitive differentiators. It would be kind of funny if it weren’t so damned sad.

 

What makes something innovative?

Of course, the familiar tropes about innovation could be because this was one of the five categories on which to judge submissions. I’m guessing that most of these pieces of purple product prose were probably penned by a plodding publicist or pedestrian product marketer, to be fair to the start-ups under consideration.

In reviewing these few dozen entries, I realized that none of them were doing anything that would be considered “innovative” by any objective measure. Adding video capabilities to a SaaS install isn’t innovative. Neither is using APIs to create a “marketplace” (read: channel sales). Visual or non-traditional resumes (why is this still an f-ing thing?). Building an app. Gamification isn’t innovative – it’s not even a word, TBH.

Since I saw nothing even remotely resembling innovation, I had to return to the organizers. I voted for a talk to text plugin for enterprise HCM systems for crying out loud! I asked for clarification on what the hell they meant by “innovation.” It seems we had drastically different definitions for this seemingly simple word.

This was their oh so helpful reply:

“Innovation is simply considering how innovative their approach is relative to recruiting.”

 

That doesn’t help

As any third-grader knows, you can’t define a word by using it in its definition.  But asking for clarification is similarly amorphous, particularly in an industry like HR and recruiting where almost everything is a late market catch up play.  At least not compared to consumer tech.   But as this ballot illustrates, only in this industry are independent outcomes of technology, business value, and viability rather than prerequisites for the existence of innovation.

Many of the start-ups who submitted to this (fairly legit) competition are incredibly well funded. They have gone through several rounds of financing and unsustainable growth of both headcount and hype. So, one has to ask when does a company need to stop starting up and start, you know, actually doing.

 

Changing the name doesn’t make it innovation, either

Video interviewing was around five years ago.  It was just called Skype.  Enterprises were using it as an established part of the international hiring workflow for one Fortune 50 company in 2007, according to official HR policy and personal experience.

Job applicants were looking for jobs on their smartphones then, too. I have vivid memories of scouring Indeed every day, on my state-of-the-art Blackberry Curve, style sheets, and all. It’s just that at some point, candidates had to go on your career site and apply.  Or, I suppose, have very nimble thumbs and keen eyesight to go through page after page of ATS populated pop-ups and pull-downs.

For some reason, we haven’t fixed this yet. But hey, I’m sure managing those crazy Millennials or figuring out how to increase InMail response rates are way more important. Sigh.

 

HR Tech can’t deliver on candidate experience

Look, the problem with candidate experience remains fundamental. We find it somehow profound when someone says “candidates are consumers and customers.”  This means, from a software perspective, at least, they’re users, too.

What seems to be missing in a lot of the demos and pitches I’ve seen this year: While the candidate focus is nice, HR Technology can’t deliver on even the most basic experiential expectations. Even the best HR and recruiting systems still suck when compared to what we expect from consumer technology.

If candidates are consumers, they’re going to be disappointed. Even if you do have a killer career site and compelling employer brand. You can polish a turd, but you can’t make Taleo shine, as they say – or work on a mobile device.

 

Most HR Tech would never pass the consumer test

Of course, the mindset of most end-users of talent acquisition and management has already changed. That change, however, mostly ends at work (or a corporate firewall).  Think of the level of scrutiny taken for a big-ticket electronics purchase. If they were to apply that scrutiny to these expensive enterprise point solutions, then these talent leaders (and even industry analysts) would likely realize how ridiculous and commoditized this space has become.

Imagine walking into, say, an Apple Store or Best Buy. You want to upload videos from a new digital camera into your computer. So you buy software that’s a little pricey. But, the software won’t solve the problem since it’s not what you need. You need a lightning cable instead of micro USB. But that’s fine, since the software will give you professional editing capabilities for the videos trapped on the camera.

Most consumers wouldn’t make that purchase in the first place, or at least until they had solved the initial problem.

What if that same software you just laid down the plastic for not only had no return policy but also locked you into a three-year contract?  And most of those promised cool features and functions were just “on the product roadmap,” and “should be ready by next quarter?”

You’d never make that purchase – no consumer ever would.

That’s precisely the premise so many HR and recruiting technologies flooding the marketplace seem to espouse as a viable go-to-market strategy.  The trade-off, of course, is innovation. No one wants to be a late adopter.  If the fundamental problem is that your operating system – your ATS – is obsolete or cumbersome – then no amount of aftermarket add-ons will make the core user experience any better or more up to date.

 

Subpar integration and reporting capabilities

Take some of the most “cutting edge” and “innovative” products and technologies in the recruiting space over the past few years. It’s no wonder that the biggest challenge for pretty much every recruiter out there remains systems integration and standardized reporting capabilities. These capabilities aren’t as sexy as, say, “inbound sourcing” or some shit, but probably a pretty good indicator of why maybe, just maybe, innovation isn’t actually all that important in our industry.

The existence of so many disparate systems in the first place suggests that this kind of “innovation” has already been done.  Had any delivered as promised, the integration challenge wouldn’t be a pervasive problem.  Or any problem at all.

But, of course, viability and business value aren’t really independent of innovation. Nor is innovation subject to the terms and conditions of a three-year contract.

 

Focus on iteration instead

Innovation is a long term goal. In the short term, it’s beyond most of our collective capability gaps. Look, we all want great software. Maybe we need to work on building processes around the foundational stuff that no software in the world can fix. In fact, innovation is a convenient talking point. Especially when trying to get money for tech designed to solve a problem that doesn’t exist outside of analyst reports and product marketing collateral.

So shut up about it already. Innovation is overrated. Worry about iteration, instead.

Because if we keep sweating the small stuff, maybe someday, recruiting will finally be ready for significant changes. But for today, it’s imperative to build recruiting roadmaps around people. Not products. Or else our profession will inevitably stay stuck in the same stagnant status quo. And no one wants that.

Better Applicants with Chatbots

 

What’s the deal with recruiting chatbots?

 

As a quick summary, recruiting chatbots can optimize your hiring process. This allows recruiters to spend more time with the best quality applicants. 

 

Ok but how?

While recruiting chatbots have shown to improve efficiency, they also add to the candidate experience as Brazen found in their survey of job seekers.

 

There’s more.

In this video, we explore some data to back up the claim that adding an HR chatbot to your tech stack is a good idea. You’ll have to watch, though.

Plus, after you watch this video, head on over to last week’s post, where I talk about Virtuous Cycles in HR.

Article: What Motown Can Teach Recruiters

motown recruiters

 

What Motown Can Teach Recruiters

 

Berry Gordy knew how to hire. Even before he launched Motown Records, he made his way around the Detroit music scene as a songwriter. In doing so, he learned the music business, and through that, he developed the ability to recognize talent and parlay it into organizational success. Which, of course, is the basis of hiring.

Now, Gordy also worked with the greatest musicians in history. Artists who helped take the label to the top of the charts for decades. Not everyone has that level of fortune when it comes to recruiting, at least not without alignment between vision and execution. And that demands a close relationship between recruiter and hiring manager. Here are five things Motown teaches us about improving those interactions, as told by the hits:

 

The Temptations – Get Ready

Written and produced by the legendary Smokey Robinson, the lyrics of Get Ready encourage one party to get ready for the other, in an amorous way. Yes, this is a love song, and we’re talking about hiring – this is an analogy, people. Recruiting is a courtship of sorts, just not the romantic kind. Before anything can happen between the two parties, the pursuant side needs to prepare for the other. An organization can’t get ready for a candidate with getting itself ready first, and that starts with the initial conversation between recruiter and hiring manager. The balance of the process will rest on this encounter and a foundation of mutual understanding and respect.

 

The Velvelettes – Needle in a Haystack

This highly underrated song posits that finding a good partner is akin to finding a needle in a haystack. Anyone who has ever recruited for a highly specialized or highly technical position can vouch for the difficulty of said task. With the hiring manager, take time to talk through the position in full, dig into the needed skills and experience, and work through any the challenges the search may encounter. Because as The Velvelettes sing, “Those fells are sly, slick and shy, so don’t ever let ‘em get you starry-eyed. Well, you may think their love is true, but they’ll walk right over you.”

 

The Supremes – You Can’t Hurry Love

Likewise, as Ms. Diana Ross and The Supremes advise, love doesn’t always come so easy, especially in a game of give and take. The perfect candidate is unlikely to appear overnight, and hiring managers need to be practical about how long it will take to source, screen, and select the right hire. Walk through the process together in the planning conversation to ensure all interested stakeholders know what’s really involved. You want to build trust and rapport. From there, proceed with caution and share updates when available. While no one wants to wait alone forever, recruiting requires patience and persistence on all sides.

 

Barrett Strong – (Money) That’s What I Want

The best things in life might be free, but no one wants to work for free. As long as money is needed to pay the bills, candidates will be looking for information about salary, benefits, and compensation. If you’re unable to provide this level of insight, they may move on – and quickly. Get on the same page with the hiring manager about the particulars early on, including those other potential perks like remote work. With the whole picture in hand from the start, it’s a lot easier to seal the deal when a candidate reaches the offer stage. Don’t skimp on the details.

 

Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell – Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

In one of the greatest duets of all time, Gaye and Terrell proclaim to one another, “If you need me call me no matter where you are, no matter how far, don’t worry baby, just call my name, I’ll be there in a hurry, you don’t have to worry.” As a recruiter, this is your pledge to the hiring manager. No wind, no rain, will stop your pursuit of hiring. Scour the depths of every internet valley, climb the highest peaks of the resume pile. Make the commitment and stand by it to the best of your ability. If something unforeseen occurs, or additional help is needed, communicate, and then communicate some more.

The point is that hiring doesn’t work without buy-in from both the recruiter and the hiring manager. And as the one leading the search, it’s also the recruiter’s responsibility to build and nurture this relationship. Knowing what’s going on serves recruiters well, even if that means having to make the hiring manager love you. Berry Gordy recognized this in himself and the people he employed, using this to Motown’s advantage for more than 60 years. Strike the right balance from the get-go, and you’ll be dancing in the streets after each new hire.

 

Yep – we’re still riding the Motown train.

Get groovy with Steve O’Brien

March 24, 2020, at 2 pm EST.  Be there or be square.

Motown Webinar

The Most Common Recruiting Mistakes in 2020

recruiting mistakes

 

The Most Common Recruiting Mistakes in 2020

 

Recruiting is a crucial process for most businesses, and most invest a significant amount of time and money into finding the best candidates. Finding top talent that’s a good fit for your team can boost your company’s productivity, return on investment, and overall success. Despite the $10,000 + annual cost that more than 60% of businesses invest in recruiting, nearly three-quarters of employers are affected by bad hires, costing an average of $15,000 each time. In this article, we share companies’ top recruiting regrets in the past year and show what steps you can take to avoid these five common recruiting errors.

 

1. Not Testing Candidates’ Skills

Trusting a candidate’s assessment of their own skills, on resumes or in interviews, can lead to disaster for several reasons:

  • Some candidates overestimate or underestimate their abilities.
  • Some candidates are dishonest about their skills or experience.
  • Sometimes a recruiter and a candidate misunderstand each other during the interview.

To fully evaluate a candidate’s skills and abilities, you need to use skills assessment and testing. More than 80% of companies use some form of pre-employment screening, most commonly using job simulation and culture fit assessments, even for entry-level employees. While getting to know candidates through resumes, interviews, and background checks is a critical part of the recruitment process, companies should make a point to include the type of scientific evaluations that only testing can provide.

 

2.  Only Relying on External Candidates

Promoting from within your company provides you with several leadership advantages:

  • Provides you with leadership that’s already a good fit for your company culture
  • Demonstrates a viable path for growth to your staff
  • Candidates adapt quicker since they are familiar with company ethics, policy, and best practices

Although bringing new people into your company can offer advantages such as fresh ideas and an eager attitude, promoting from within your company can sometimes provide greater long-term benefits.

 

3.  Rushing the Recruitment Process

In today’s job market, it can be tempting to rush promising candidates through the recruitment process. Rushing happens for many reasons. Sometimes, you don’t want to lose a candidate to other companies. Other times, your staff may be struggling to compensate for a missing team member. Or, perhaps an employee’s quick departure left a gap that’s causing production issues. Rushing the recruiting process, however, can cause you to make mistakes and compromise your hiring decision, resulting in several disadvantages:

  • Poorly conducted interviews
  • Exclusion of key decision-makers
  • Ignored red-flags

If you rush the recruiting process, you’re more likely to overlook shortcomings that indicate a person may not make the best candidate. You’re also at risk for overlooking candidates that could be a perfect fit for your company.

 

4. Limiting Job Postings to Singular Platforms

Share your job postings on multiple platforms to attract the best candidates for your open positions. Instead of posting on all available job boards, though, research your industry to learn what resources work best to find the best type of candidates. For example, Stack Overflow Careers and Github Jobs are excellent resources for recruiting tech talent. If you’re searching for designers, Behance and Dribbble are great places to post your jobs. LinkedIn and Indeed are excellent recruitment tools for general and niche business professionals.

Pay attention to where your competitors post their jobs. They may have valuable insights on what job boards work best for your industry. Additionally, consider tracking where you post positions, and take notes on the quality of candidates that the job boards drive to your door. Over time, this can help you discover the best places to post when you’re looking to hire new people.

 

5.  Failing to Use Recruiting Technology

When asked what recruiting strategies they plan to invest in next year, the most significant percentage of companies (23%) said recruiting technologies. Recruitment software such as Workable and Applicant Pro can save your HR team time on repetitive tasks and time-consuming research, such as:

  • Applicant screening
  • Managing interview schedules
  • Answer candidate’s basic questions

Recruiting technology is essential to successful recruitment in today’s fast-paced business world. This is because it automates repetitive, time-consuming tasks and leaves more time for HR personnel to focus on selecting the best candidates.

 

Avoid Common Recruiting Mistakes When Hiring

Test your candidates’ skills, consider promoting from within, avoid rushing the process, share your job postings widely, and incorporate recruiting technology for the best chances at hiring top talent that’s a good fit for your company.

Recruitment Fraud Notice: Warning Signs to Watch Out For

recruitment fraud notice

 

Recruitment Fraud Notice: Warning Signs to Watch Out For

 

Are your candidates getting bombarded with job offers out of the blue?

Perhaps you’ve even received them and wondered what was happening. Here’s some advice on how to recognize them and what to do when it happens.

Recruitment fraud cases are on the rise, a type of scam that targets job seekers with fake employment opportunities made up by fraudsters. Scammers list non-existent jobs, hoping to get money from unsuspecting people. Threat actors also use recruitment fraud and fake headhunting to steal personal data they can use in identity theft.

 

The Bulk of Recruitment Fraud Incidents Happen Online.

Scammers post fake jobs on legit job boards or send fake recruitment emails and text messages (SMS). Criminals also create fake websites, usually copying a real site and changing a letter or two in the URL to fool visitors. Scammers reinforce the facade with fake social media accounts and plagiarized posts on LinkedIn.

The cherry on top is unsolicited emails with lofty claims of being from a well-known organization. It’s easy to locate an employee’s name and use the organization’s logo to project legitimacy. It seems that these criminals have all their bases covered to pull-off recruitment fraud.

 

Education is the Best Defense Against Fraud.

Employers follow a set of universal rules during the recruitment process. If you need more information on how a company’s recruitment operation works, you can always contact them or visit their website.

Here are a few you should know about:

  • For the most part, employers or legitimate recruitment agencies will always use their domain and email address. If you see company.com (domain) and [email protected] (email), it’s most likely legit. Scammers often use free email services like YahooMail, Gmail, or Hotmail and free site hosting services. You’ll likely see something like company/freewebservices.com and john@company/freewebservices.com. So, if you get an email, verify the source first.
  • Real companies will never ask for your personal information through email or any other means. They only ask for your details once you get the job and sign the contract. If you get an email from someone that does, it could be a phishing attempt that aims to steal your data for identity theft. Protect yourself by using an identity theft monitoring tool that will alert you if your credentials were compromised.
  • Legitimate companies won’t send out job offers without a formal interview first. If you know that you didn’t apply for a position in a company, but get a job offer out of the blue, contact the company’s recruitment office to clarify. Real companies also always call using the company landline. They won’t send a text or call using a mobile phone.
  • Real companies will never ask for money or compensation from job candidates. If someone asks payment for taxes, background checks, travel expenses, accommodation, or any fees, you can bet that person is a scammer.

 

Warning Signs of Recruitment Fraud.

  • The message is not addressed to you personally.
  • They ask you to send money to pay for fees, travel, training, or credit checks.
  • The message doesn’t list the company’s street address, only a PO box. or email address.
  • They request that you share financial information to set up a company account for direct deposits of your salary.
  • The sender uses a free email address (Yahoo, Gmail, etc.).
  • You receive unsolicited email or text for job offers you never applied for.
  • The job details are vague, and the sender doesn’t specify any skills, previous experience, and other qualifications.
  • The compensation package is too good to be true.
  • The sender is asking for personal details like your DOB, Social Security number, or banking details.
  • The message has a lot of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.
  • They require you to set up a Hotmail account because the recruitment officer will contact you via Skype.
  • Your computer’s antivirus system flags the email as malicious or detects malware in the attachments.
  • You are sent links to fake websites so the scammers can record any information you enter.

 

What to Do When You Encounter Recruitment Fraud.

Call your local authorities if you receive a suspicious email about a job. Contact your bank immediately if you gave the criminals your banking details. You can also send notifications to email providers that the email account is fraudulent and request that they close it:

Do your homework on companies through research and due diligence best practices. Find out everything you can about them to ensure that you’re dealing with a real organization.

COVID-19, Recruiting, and Community

 

Recruiting Daily Community

 

Hello, with respect to the ongoing life and work changes we are all going through, RecruitingDaily will continue to publish content and serve our community online. 

If it makes sense for you, we are eager to hear how your work has changed, how you and your companies are handling hiring, recruiting, sourcing, and training.  From our own experience, we know that there are numerous personal items to deal with right now and in the weeks to come. A silver lining may be that this unique time is one we can learn and grow from.  Send your stories or interest inquiry to [email protected]

As you know, our HRTX educational events are one of our favorite things to do.  This year would have made our 5th year of conducting these roadshow style training events.  We all enjoy the interaction, education, questions, answers, and networking in each city. Just like the rest of the world, we have to adjust and postpone our events until we can see a clear path bringing people together again when it is safe and makes sense.  We’ll update you as soon as we know something concrete in terms of dates and cities, etc.

We will continue to offer our online webinars and podcasts as we always have done.  We also will expand our offerings with more online events. If you would like to take part, just reach out.  We want to hear from you, and we want to learn from you.

Most importantly, please take care of yourself, your family, and your loved ones. Try to serve your community the best you can and hold steady.  Many of us have been through national and global crises before, and one thing is for certain, it will pass, and we will get through it.  

Work is so important to every one of us, and while it will likely get worse before it gets better, it will get better. We all look forward to that day. 

Best to you all.  

Noel Cocca and everyone at RecruitingDaily

Talent Acquisition Movers, Shakers, & News Breakers – March 2020, Part 1

Talent Acquisition News

 

Talent Acquisition Movers, Shakers, & News Breakers: March 2020, Part 1

 

Pre-pandemic declaration on March 11, Paychex released a study that found 66 percent of U.S. business owners felt prepared should the virus become widespread. It would be interesting to see what those same organizations think now that the World Health Organization has sounded a more panicked call. While you’re working from home and avoiding any unnecessary human contact, here’s what else is happening in the recruiting and HR world.

 

Recent News

Personalization appeared to be a common theme in the first half of March. Several vendors introduced new features that seek to customize the user experience. Formerly known as Phenom People, just Phenom launched what it’s calling True 1-to-1 Personalization. It can analyze candidate interactions to present relevant job recommendations, search results, and more, along with three other updates.

Glint unveiled Glint 360s, an accessible, insightful, and actionable feedback tool for organizations looking to develop leaders. At the same time, BetterUp announced two new products – Identify AI and Coaching Clouds. These products will deliver hyper-personalized coaching at scale to any employee at any level in an organization.

Likewise, SmashFly’s latest career site update includes enhanced job descriptions, blogging, and dynamic content personalization functionality. Alight got in on the trend, too, with the deployment of an intelligent, data-driven solution that provides employees with targeted alerts and guidance. 

 

Research

On the research front, and related to the recent International Women’s Day, Mercer put out its When Women Thrive 2020 Global Report. The findings indicate that 81 percent of organizations worldwide claim that improving D&I is essential for gender equality in the workplace. However, only 42 percent have a plan in place.

With Equal Pay Day coming up on March 31, Mastercard revealed its pay gap. They disclose that female employees make almost 8 percent less than their male counterparts. Markedly, Mastercard is only the second U.S. financial institution to offer this level of visibility after Citigroup. 

 

Capital Investments, Mergers, & Acquisitions

OutMatch

Talent intelligence platform OutMatch secured a majority investment from Rubicon. Rubicon is a private equity firm specializing in enterprise software companies. The move will reportedly help accelerate and expand the existing OutMatch roadmap in terms of product innovation and strategic acquisitions. Over the last three years, OutMatch acquired analytics solution provider Pomello. They also acquired video interviewing solution Wepow and assessments and talent analytics firm The Devine Group. 

 

Aon acquires its competition

In larger business space-related news. Global professional services firm Aon acquired its rival, Willis Towers Watson. This merger was a $30 billion deal. Aon and WTW are both heavily involved in risk management, insurance brokerage, and advisory work. Says the press release, “The transaction unites firms that share a belief in the power of data-driven insights to create new sources of client value.” Additionally, the combined entity will operate under and trade as Aon.

 

Criteria Corp

Fresh off a significant growth investment, SaaS employment analytics platform Criteria Corp obtained Revelian. The emotional intelligence and game-based assessments firm are Australia based. The move enhances Criteria’s existing enterprise-grade assessment offering. It also positions the company to better serve customers through an expanded assessment portfolio and additional product and services. 

 

Learning Technologies Group

Learning Technologies Group agreed to acquire intellectual property and assets related to Blackboard’s Open LMS for $31.7 million. The transaction will take about four weeks to complete. Following this, LTG will leverage Open LMS as a standalone brand within its portfolio. Additionally, a subsequent partnership will also enable LTG to resell Blackboard products integrating with Open LMS. 

 

Talespin

Spatial computing company Talespin raised $15 M in Series B funding, in a round led by its new partner, Cornerstone On Demand. Focused on workforce knowledge transfer and skill alignment, Talespin will be delivering its extended reality training solutions to Cornerstone customers. With the influx of capital and partnership, Talespin will work to develop technology and products to up-level HR and L&D and continue growing its VR learning content library. 

 

Upcoming Events & Conferences*

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are event cancelations around the world. Please check in with the individual organizer for the latest information. 

 

Other recent highlights:

  • HCM company Paycor introduced its Open Enrollment Wizard tool. This tool promises to streamline the process for small to medium-sized businesses. 
  • Candidate engagement platform WorkLLama rolled out an AI-driven chatbot named Sofi. Sofi intends to boost recruiter productivity. 
  • Service industry-centric MogulRecruiter teamed up with mobile and development firm KiwiTech to build hospitality’s first private elite talent marketplace. 
  • Staffing technology platform Bluecrew launched Bluecrew Manager. The mobile app is for employers looking to find and manage hourly workers. 
  • Tech talent marketplace Hired announced Hired Flex and Self Service to give employers more flexibility in their search. 

 

Got news to share with us for our next update? Contact [email protected].

COVID-19: Changing the work and hiring landscape

COVID-19 work hiring

 

How COVID-19 is Changing the Work and Hiring Landscape

 

Let’s level-set to begin

Whenever there is a major, major news story, a lot — and we mean a lot — of people try to piggyback on that content ecosystem with their supposed expertise and hot takes. One example: Wednesday, March 11th was an insane day for the world, broadly speaking. The USA suspended the NBA season. Italy is on full lockdown and doctors are having to make wartime triage decisions in hospitals. Americans cannot fly to Europe. We don’t know the exact data coming out of China. It’s chaotic. And what is happening as all that is happening? Well, people are selling books with fake information on Amazon in an attempt to make a few bucks. Digital and mobile made us much more connected. That’s great in many ways — it can be great for recruiting, no doubt — but it also puts a lot of, well, BS into the ecosystem. The digital noise becomes overwhelming and people cannot sort through it effectively. 

Now let’s talk work and recruiting within that picture. You are going to see dozens, if not hundreds, of hot takes on what the COVID-19 virus means for work and hiring and the broader economy. How you perceive these hot takes will be influenced by your background, your industry, your belief set, etc. We cannot necessarily change thinking. We can offer you a little bit of a nuanced guide here, however.

 

The work from home angle

This is going to be everywhere. People are going to post about this for weeks — hacks to work from home, why you need this SaaS suite to be more productive at home, etc. The stock market is in the tank right now, and senior leaders are worried about sustainable revenue, so they unfortunately will flip some of these narratives into immediate sales opportunities.

Having worked from home now for the better part of five years (most RecruitingDaily people do), I can tell you that really it just comes down to focus. You need to be able to focus. Some people will tell you that it’s “un-woke” or “anti-hustle” to stop down and watch an episode of something on Netflix. It’s actually not. We like to talk about how much we hustle and how busy we are, but the eight-hour workday — or the 10-12 hour workday — has a lot of flaws. The actual “ratio” of work to inactivity that science favors is 52 minutes on, 17 minutes off. Try that. So it’s fine to work on a project then go watch a sitcom rerun (with fast-forwarding sitcoms are about 22 minutes). It’s OK. You’ll come back to your work refreshed.

Obviously make sure your tech works, and if you want human connection, go to a coworking space. You might fear the coworking option right now; that’s valid. Just know that most bans that Mayors/Governors are enacting are “gatherings of 250 people or more” or “gatherings of 1,000 people or more.” That’s why the NBA got suspended — those are gatherings of 20,000, often. Co-working spaces, at most, you might run into 10-12 people across a day there. Practice the two-meter or so social distancing. 

Finally on this angle, here’s a good take on working from home from Wired.

 

covid-19 work at home

 

OK, so what about hiring?

The market is drilled right now — the Dow dropped 2,100 points early Thursday. Events are being canceled more frequently than some people change socks. There is one natural conclusion that’s going to happen here, at least for the next six weeks or so: there will be a non-essential role hiring freeze in multiple industries. (We may see a short-term “all roles” hiring freeze.) This is already commencing: the state of Alaska froze (not a pun!) all hiring, as did Delta (logical, as they’re an airline), and you’re seeing both hiring freezes and layoffs in multiple industries, including the Port of Los Angeles, which just laid off 145 truck drivers. We were also hoping at one point for an “IT hiring bounceback,” and now that’s also been delayed. Overall, there’s an expected massive global hiring slowdown to end Q1 (end of March). Early Q2 is likely not much better, but a bounce could come by the middle to the end of Q2.

Coronavirus, or COVID-19, is also decimating the conference/trade show circuit. Say what you will about trade shows, but a lot of companies — esp. Tech companies — use them as big lead generation playgrounds. As more and more conferences get canceled, the people within those companies in event-facing roles will quite likely be laid off. If they’re not (best-case scenario), there will be a hiring freeze on those roles.

So, short-term you’re going to be hiring less. With a bear market and oil issues in the Gulf, there won’t be aggressive growth targets in the near-term. When the market bounces back, which it invariably will (summer?), you might have an insane hiring ramp-up. Store some energy now. 

 

Will we get to a place where productivity matters more than seat time?

Let’s say you’re a moderate to a high growth company and you need to move a bunch of white-collar employees to WFH for a while. Say, 3-4 weeks. Some “old-school” managers in your squad might think “Oh, this is not how work gets done.”

But if those employees are straight hitting targets in a down economy and not coming to the office, isn’t that a good argument for work-from-home productivity? If the bottom line is there, can we finally start to sunset the seat time discussion? Is this — a global health pandemic — what it took? This COVID-19 seems like a steep price to pay, but productivity should always matter more than seat time. If you’re delivering value for the company, no one should care where you physically are sitting. Period. Full stop.

 

The class warfare argument

Is COVID-19 “class warfare?” What the heck? What does that mean? Well, all these white-collar professionals who will be working from home …they might want to go out to lunch. Or have an Amazon package delivered.

Someone still needs to work those jobs.

That’s what “class warfare” means. It’s not really class warfare, no — that is an extreme term — but not everyone can work from home. A lot of people need to show up somewhere and work so they can make ends meet and pay their bills. We tend to forget about them in narratives. No Bueno. We saw a class uprising around the last recession (2008) with Occupy Wall Street and definitions of “the 1 percent.” Will something similar come from this?

 

covid-19 wash hands

 

The bottom line

Be safe and do you. But keep a macro eye on everything going on around you. This is an important time. Find trusted, non-partisan, non-politicized sources on COVID-19. Don’t chase every hot take. Wash your hands. Don’t go into large crowds if you can avoid it. Manage yourself. You got this.

And the market will come back. It will. It always does. But it might be a few weeks, yes. 

 

Chrome Extension: Email Lead Hunter will scrape emails from webpages

Let’s go over a productivity tool. This is a brand new Google Chrome extension called Email Lead Hunter. The trial version is available to download in the Chrome Store. This little extension works exactly as it sounds: It will grab emails off the page for you.

Let’s go over a productivity tool. This is a brand new Google Chrome extension called Email Lead Hunter. The trial version is available to download in the Chrome Store. This little extension works exactly as it sounds: It will grab emails off the page for you.

First, you will need a page with a bunch of email addresses on it. You can do an x-ray search with Google, or whatever search you prefer! To do your scrape, just launch the extension and it will pull them into a list that you can copy. Pretty easy!

One bonus feature this has is that you can send mass emails from the tool. Just sign up for the web email service Aweber.

Another cool feature is the automation option. Choose the “Auto” setting, and have it scrape emails off pages as you browse. Or, choose “Automation” and enter a list of URLs for it to process and scrape. This would be useful in pulling emails from saved searches or links.

It’s worth checking out, along with some of the other extensions they offer, which can be found here. However, once you’ve reached your max of 50 emails, you will need to upgrade to the pro version.

 

~ Noel Cocca

 

Look inside with Dean Da Costa:

Recruitment Is Not a 9 to 5 Job

recruitment job

 

Why Recruitment Is Not a 9 to 5 Job

 

The work of a recruiter goes beyond the expected nine-to-five hassle of corporate life. Most recruiters put their sweat and toil into getting the right candidate. It’s no surprise that many recruiters begin each day well planned—only to end up in complete disarray as many unexpected activities spring up and nearly drive them insane.

Unfortunately, many job seekers see recruiters as annoying or unnecessary intermediaries to their next job. But the reality is quite different. Although the recruiting process looks like merely matching people with available job openings, a lot of strategic, personal, and analytic skills go into managing thousands of resumes and correctly fitting in that candidate with a prospective employer. To understand a job seeker, recruiters need emotional intelligence too.

And if you are still not convinced, here are nine reasons why recruiters aren’t sleeping on the job:

 

  1. They are struggling to keep up with the trends

Recruiters that are not at least trying to follow the latest trends will lag behind. We live in a fast world that just can’t seem to stop changing. Every new year brings new opportunities for us. It also brings new tools, methods, and processes. From dusk to dawn, recruiters strive to understand their clients’ business and candidate trends.

Apart from endless meetings and calls with candidates and clients, the recruiting process requires a continuous drive to carry out and analyze research. It involves pooling knowledge to understand growing industry trends. And all research takes a lot of time and dedication to remain updated on new technology trends, local and international government regulations, and market trends.

 

  1. Growing domain and sourcing experience

Acquiring domain experience means understanding, to the smallest detail, the industry, and the specific areas of business. On the other hand, getting sourcing experience means knowing exactly where to find the best candidates.

Recruiters strive to grow their domain and sourcing experience. The desire to gain industry insight, broaden reach, and find a new source of candidates is not just necessary but compulsory to survive in the battle for talents.

 

  1. Always bringing in empathy

An arrogant or cold fish recruiter will be out of a job in no time. Empathy is a valuable aspect that many people in the corporate line fail to harness. Candidates are people, too. They want to get treated accordingly. But the hard part for most recruiters is getting into the candidate’s head.

These are people with different emotional and educational backgrounds, different ambitions, fears, social responses, and behavior. Recruiters have long realized that to make a successful hire, you win half the battle when you understand the candidates’ mindset.

 

  1. Beating competition

Recruiters with a better reputation and personal brand can attract and secure top talent. Top-tier recruiters can put a company ahead of its competitors. The war for talent is real. Keeping up with the current fast-paced labor market is hard. Therefore, recruiters work around the clock to track their client’s competition.

Knowing how to beat the perks and benefits a competitor is offering to talents might be what separates a successful recruiter from an incompetent one. But all of these require a great deal of time.

 

  1. Managing an overwhelming database/network

Delivering that right candidate requires a continuous effort of meeting up with the requirements of companies whose expectations sometimes could vary from understandable to staggeringly absurd.

Therefore, when companies outsource their staffing responsibilities to freelance recruiters, a good database or good network of contacts is needed, especially if the company is expecting quick results.

And building a vast database of contacts requires time. And it goes beyond running the best recruitment software. Recruiters are continually extending their database by pursuing candidates through effective offline strategies and exquisite candidate experience and building their network in the online and offline worlds.

 

  1. The need to churn out results

Companies want the “best”—no employer wants anything less. But in the real world, the best talents aren’t seeking jobs. What we have is the “scarce best” in the market. However, a recruiter’s top motivation is to snap up that “best” against all the odds and never let go.

A primary target for every recruiter is to serve job seekers and companies just what they are looking for: that perfect culture fit, work ethics, skillsets, employee experience, etc. That’s why most recruiters are always on the lookout for the mythical candidates that we call unicorns.

 

  1. Working with a clear focus

For any recruiter, nothing is as important as the end goal: bringing that sought-after talent as quickly as possible. A significant amount of information needs processing in the hiring process. Focus is needed when meeting new people, forming lasting alliances and networking with other recruiters.

To hold their own against the competitive market, recruiters work with a tremendous amount of focus whenever they meet people and attend trade fairs, job fairs, expositions, or industry exhibitions.

 

  1. Never-ending communication

Candidates want reassurance about their applications. Who doesn’t? The psyche of a job seeker is quite a delicate one—and recruiters understand this very well. To be successful, a recruiter needs to be a good speaker and a better listener.

Explicit communication involves the timely distribution of information, which is key to everything in recruiting. Even when handling unpicked candidates, the conversation should never stop between the candidate and the recruiter. Ensuring tailored messages and delivering timely feedback is always the bedrock of a target-driven seeker of talents.

 

  1. Mixing speed and patience for a better outcome

Deadlines and angry candidates can destabilize any recruiter at any time. An open position is a deficit for any company. Moreover, some job seekers are desperate to land a job fast. This situation is where speed and patience come into the recruiting process. Of course, they look like unlikely traits. Yet these are two qualities that work together to grease a creaky hiring process.

Good recruiters know that having the utmost patience and flexibility is needed to survive. There will always be last-minute rescheduled meetings, interviews, and new demands from candidates and clients.

Overcoming the shortage of time is very important. Job recruiting involves being hard at work to provide fast and expected results as soon as possible.

 

Final Point

Even if recruitment is not rocket science, it requires dedication and a lot of time that goes beyond a 9-5 job, especially when candidates tell you that they are open to discuss a new opportunity with you after their 9-5 job. That’s why some recruiters’ jobs start after 5 pm.

The productivity and overall success of a company are mostly dependent on the recruiters. Night and day, they labor to take the talent burden off the shoulders of companies and find the right people who will help their company grow.

 

Any recruiter worth his or her salt must work tirelessly to provide end-to-end recruitment success that ensures the provision of the right candidates, and simultaneously save hiring costs and time.

Being a recruiter is great, but if you want to succeed, you need to realize that it’s not a 9-5 job.

 

Virtuous Cycles in HR

 

Virtuous Cycles in HR

What are Virtuous Cycles?

Organizations tend to task HR and recruiting with a lot.  Usually, with next to no resources. However, many of the most successful teams have figured out a virtuous feedback cycle where they can evangelize their success.  This evangelism turns into credibility, which turns into resources they can use to buy new HR software. These new tools then lead to more success, evangelize, and then watch the cycle repeat itself over again.

 

How can I adopt this at my organization?

Watch the video above…I’ll explain it all!

 

Keep Watching

If you enjoyed this, why not head back to my last post in this video series, on finding those “diamond in the rough” software engineers.

Access 2 million physicians through Data.Medicare.gov

 

Access 2 million physicians through Data.Medicare.gov!

 

Let’s talk about Data.Medicare.gov for a minute. This is a government-sponsored database that contains over 2 million contacts, and it’s downloadable.

To use this, simply head over to the site, and click on Physician Compare Data. From there, scroll down to the Physician Compare National Downloadable File and click on the name. Then, hit that blue View Data button and it will load in your browser. Of course, if you want to download it and refine and filter on your own, feel free to download the whole zip file!

You’ll get their name, where they work, phone numbers, all sorts of neat stuff, including where they went to medical school and their graduation year. Additionally, their specialty is listed, so you can focus on matches for Emergency Medicine or Podiatry, whatever you wish. Aside from physician data, there are similar datasets for hospitals, nursing homes, and more. If you’re doing any recruiting or sourcing for the medical field, this could really come in handy!

~ Noel Cocca

 

Look inside with Dean Da Costa:

WaveTrackR Report on UK Industry Insights Reveals Candidate Behaviour

WaveTrackR report 2019

WaveTrackR Report on UK Industry Insights: Candidate Behaviour

 

The WaveTrackR Annual Report, forged from data taken from built-in, real-time analytics, investigated what did and didn’t work for recruiters in 2019. The report also reported on what might be in store throughout 2020. First, candidates most actively search for jobs in the first quarter of the year. Another interesting fact is that the beginning of the week is the best time to post jobs. Additionally, flexible working is steadily making its way up a candidate’s list of priorities when searching for jobs. These are just a few of the industry insights revealed in a report by recruitment software company Wave.

 

2019 Trends

2019 was a year of two halves in the UK. It was an excellent year for job seekers. Employment rates soared to 76.1%, the joint-highest seen since records began. Unemployment rates were low at just 3.8%. On the flipside, 2019 presented another year of uncertainty for recruiters. The continuing Brexit saga hit the economy. According to the Recruitment & Employment Confederation’s JobsOutlook report, hiring confidence plummeted to -0.8% in the run-up to the General Election. With the CIPD’s Autumn 2019 Labour Market Outlook reporting that 43% of employers experienced difficulties in filling vacancies, that lack of confidence seemed to be justified.

 

A Candidate-driven market

In a candidate-driven market, where jobs outnumber jobseekers, how do recruiters ensure they net the best talent? Taking industry trends into consideration can be of enormous help when forming recruitment strategies. Additionally, noting patterns in behaviour is hugely valuable when scheduling job posts. One must also effectively manage budgets to attract the right talent and see the greatest ROI. Tailoring adverts in terms of content and length, plus knowing where and when to post them, should form an essential part of every recruiter’s talent acquisition strategy.

So what key trends did the WaveTrackR report uncover? Candidates are most actively job searching during the first quarter of the year. This likely corresponds with a new year prompting many to look for new career opportunities. Job boards still account for the vast majority of posted jobs at a massive 83%. This fact proves that they remain the platform of choice for recruiters. Permanent jobs remain the highest percentage of vacancies posted, at 71%, with temporary jobs accounting for 21% and contract positions at 7%.

 

IT and Tech see a skills shortage

The IT & Internet sector outstripped all other industries when it came to the number of jobs posted. Transport & Logistics closely followed. Given an ever-increasing global population, the rise of the digital consumer, and the development of AI, the growth in both markets is perhaps unsurprising. However, despite an increase in IT jobs, there was a 9% drop in applications in this sector. This can be indicative of a skills shortage and a sign that recruiters might face challenges in attracting more talent here.

 

Advertising

The average advert length was also analysed for the report. This revealed that most candidates prefer adverts of 200-300 words when applying for jobs, although some industries show a specific tendency. For example, candidates applying for jobs in the Education sector. These candidates are happy to read and apply for positions with a job advert of between 800 and 900 words. In contrast, many in the Oil, Gas and Alternative Energy sector prefer much shorter job adverts in the 100-150 word range.

 

Keyword Trends

Keyword research undertaken for the report revealed some key trends. Candidates are commonly searching for keywords linked to flexible working. The words ‘part-time’ and ‘remote’ made the list of top keywords. This is important both from a job advert content perspective and a job type one. In this case, it represents a shift towards a desire for flexible working in the marketplace as a whole. The inclusion of ‘diversity’ and ‘diversity inclusion’ on the list reveals the importance many candidates place on workplace culture. It also showcases a desire to work somewhere that supports and champions diversity.

 

Job Post Timing

When it comes to posting jobs, timing can be everything to reach candidates with fresh jobs when they’re actively searching. The report shows a tendency for recruiters to post jobs on a Friday. However, most candidates apply for jobs towards the start of the week. This is across all industry sectors.

 

Strategies for 2020

What can we take forward from all this? The key is to make the candidate experience a priority when thinking about your recruitment strategies in 2020, ensuring their journey through the recruitment process is smooth. To thrive in these continued uncertain times, catch candidates when they’re active, tailor your adverts in terms of both content and length, post on the right platforms, and, ultimately, understand your market and what candidates are looking for when searching for jobs.

To read the full WaveTrackR UK report, download a copy here.