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The Recruiter’s Playbook for Competency-Based Hiring in 2020

Recruiter screening for competencies instead of degrees

 

Hiring the right candidate involves more than just assessing their technical skills and knowledge. Competencies play a crucial role in determining how successful a candidate will be at your organization. Each candidate brings their own set of traits and behaviors that help them to work effectively within teams and the collective competencies of all your employees contribute to the human capital of your organization.

At a time when organizations globally are struggling to plug their skills-gaps and are sourcing talent from unconventional channels, competency-based hiring is the solution to ensuring you have the right person for the job.

So, what are competencies and how can you identify them to make better hiring decisions for your organization?

What are Competencies?

Competencies are nothing but a combination of skills and attributes that determine how well your potential employees are positioned to succeed in their jobs within your organization. Competencies can broadly be broken down into two components:

  1. Skills, knowledge, and qualifications
  2. Behavioral characteristics and personality traits

While traditional hiring practices have focused primarily on the first component, i.e., skills, knowledge, and technical qualifications, much of business success today is driven by the right mindset and culture, so, candidates’ behavioral disposition becomes a critical factor for ensuring sustained, long-term performance.

A competency-based approach to recruitment begins with matching job roles (not only job levels) to competencies. This will also help you reveal current skills gaps within your organization. Next, identify competencies that relate to specific job levels – entry-level job competencies, mid-level competencies, mid-senior, and so on. These competencies can further be broken down into personality traits, analytical skills, or leadership abilities. Finally, ensure that your inhouse HR team is well equipped to identify and use competency-based hiring practices to recruit talent. Surveys and training programs can be incredibly effective to drive organization-wide adoption of a basic competency framework.  Focus on training recruiters for creating job descriptions and talent assessment models that comply with your competency framework.

Put simply, a competency-based recruiting system empowers talent acquisition and recruitment professionals to make smarter and better hiring decisions that directly impact the business bottom-line.

Why Do You Need a Competency-Based Hiring Process

There are several advantages to competency-based hiring. Here are five reasons why competency-based hiring is necessary for successful talent acquisition:

  1. Competency-based Hiring is More Objective: Competency frameworks make it easier for you to focus on the performance of a candidate rather than perceived indicators of competence like educational levels or years of experience.
  2. Reduce Turnover: By identifying the drivers of job success, competency-based hiring can help you identify candidates who are likely to succeed or fail at your organization, thereby, reducing employee turnover.
  3. Thrive in an uncertain environment: We live in a VUCA world where vulnerability, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity threaten business longevity. By implementing a competency-based approach to recruiting, you can leverage your employees’ skills and talent in times of uncertainty or unanticipated change. Since competencies are readily transferable across work situations, competency-based hiring can help your organization function effectively even during a crisis.
  4. Eliminate Bias: Since you already have a standardized framework of competencies, you focus on hiring candidates who meet your requirements regardless of their age, sex, ethnicity, religion, or other considerations that have little or no bearing on their ability to perform.
  5. Reduce Time-to-Hire: By using a standardized questionnaire or framework, you reduce the time you would need to identify the right candidates for a specific role or position.

Let’s take a look at how you can begin identifying the right competencies through your existing recruiting processes.

3 Ways to Identify Key Competencies in Candidates

Now that we’ve established what competencies are and their components, here are three ways to identify candidates’ core competencies in your hiring process:

  1. Conduct Structured Interviews: A structured interview follows a standardized sequence of questions designed to assess candidates’ technical, situational, and behavioral aptitude. These questions are typically created by hiring managers and recruiters and are administered to all candidates in the same order. Structured interviews ensure that the hiring process is consistent and there are minimal chances of bias as all candidates are asked the same questions. Additionally, structured interviews also decrease the time to interview, enabling organizations to interview more candidates efficiently.
    Structural interviews are typically designed to reveal abstract attributes like attention to detail, integrity, behavioral traits, critical thinking skills, and coachability.
  2. Include Pre-Employment Testing: Pre-employment testing is another best-practice for competency-based hiring. Pre-employment tests are an objective way of evaluating candidates’ capabilities and traits. They yield a standardized score, rating, description or category, informing recruiters of potential fit. Pre-employment tests typically evaluate a candidate’s cognitive abilities, aptitude, personality traits, and technical skills. Pre-employment testing can help you reduce the risk of a bad-hire by applying the principles of data-driven recruiting to streamline and improve your hiring process.
  3. Use Feedback from Managers and Team Leaders to Redefine Core Competencies: Your performance management system is a rich data source for identifying what future competencies might look like. Use manager feedback to redefine your organization’s core competencies periodically. Performance management tools and solutions are a great way of gathering your performance-related data in a single place to identify how technological evolution and changing workforce demographics are impacting the nature of your organization’s business. Use this data to create newer, more current competency frameworks to identify the right-fit candidates for your organization.

Recruitment is undoubtedly undergoing a seismic shift. The way we look at talent is gradually changing and a competency-based approach to hiring can help you get up to speed in these changing times. We’re hiring for roles that came into existence a little less than five years ago. As technologies transform business models, the rate of disruption will only accelerate, which makes it crucial for organizations to focus on what really matters – their talent. And identifying the core competencies that will drive your competitive advantage in the years to come should be a significant part of your growth strategy.

Conclusion

To succeed with competency-based hiring, you’ll need as much feedback as you can get on the process. After all, it is iterative and must adapt to changing organizational needs and job roles. If you need help figuring out which competencies to measure for specific positions, seek help from consultants, your skills assessment vendor, and most importantly, your line managers. Managers are best positioned to tell you what competencies to evaluate in each occupational area. Next, set benchmarks using your existing top performers – they have already excelled at their jobs, so, they hold the key to succeeding at your organization.

Regardless of the size of your organization or your business vertical, competency-based hiring is the answer to getting the right people with the right capabilities to further your organization’s growth in a hyper-competitive business environment. Lastly, let technology and data guide your decisions, but remember that recruitment is still a human-driven process, so, use instinct and experience when all else fails.

Diverse Companies To Source From With DiversityReports

 

DiversityReports.org will show you the most and least diverse companies

Let’s talk about Diversityreports.org. This is a great site that we really should be paying more attention to. We know that women and minorities are still underrepresented in the workplace, and Diversityreports.org has aggregated all of the employee data from the Drafted Network into one site. What it does, is it gives the diversity percentage breakdown of gender and ethnicity for all the top companies. You can look at the breakdown per company that shows their percentage of gender in tech, or gender in leadership. You can see the diversity percentages of ethnicities overall as well as in the tech sector. Sexual orientation will be added to the site down the road as well.

Pretty cool, but how does this help you? Well, it’s all about the data. If you’re looking to target women in technology, this would be a great way to pinpoint the best companies to source from. It will show you what companies are best to target, and also who not to.

~ Noel Cocca

 

Look inside with Dean Da Costa:

Chrome extension: Print Friendly and PDF

Save paper & ink, and create print friendly pages from profiles

 

Here’s another productivity tool for you! We have a Chrome extension called Print Friendly and PDF.  What this tool does, is right in the name. You can create a much more print friendly page right from this extension. It allows you to print, print to PDF, as well as email the page to yourself.

You can customize the sections if it pulls in things you don’t want printed as well, by deleting whatever you don’t want on there. It will automatically get rid of any ads from the page, as well as the navigation bar and footer information. Any links that are on the page will be saved in the PDF or email versions, so if you’re using this to print out someone’s resume or profile, that can be very useful.

This tool will work pretty much anywhere, and we think it’s great! This is also environmentally friendly, as it will help you save on paper and ink, if you’re doing a lot of print jobs. Highly recommended!

~ Noel Cocca

Look inside with Dean Da Costa:

Talent Acquisition Movers, Shakers, & News Breakers – December 2019, Part 1

Talent Acquisition News

 

Finally. The quiet period. Well, relatively quiet. Overall, it’s been an exceptional year in HR technology and recruiting, thanks to low unemployment, a growing interest in initiatives like diversity and inclusion, massive amounts of funding entering the space, and what seems like a collective global focus on all things work-related. Here’s a look at some of what’s happening as we wrap up 2019 and slide into 2020: 

With the New Year in mind, ADP put out a release anticipating five “HCM realities to come.” These include a team-based approach that will change how work gets done, an emphasis on personalization, growing complexity around all things compliance-related, a merging of the minds between data scientists and business owners, and an evolving workforce that will require more adaptable technology. 

In a similar vein, the question of personalization seems top of mind for both recruiters and marketers. HCM Technology Report shines a light on individualization from the marketing perspective, a game that discipline seems to be moving away from, not towards. Looking five years out, Gartner for Marketers predicts 80 percent of marketers will wind down these efforts, citing a lack of ROI and the risks inherent in customer data management. As for recruiters? Only time will tell. 

In the meantime, a new Harris Poll on behalf of the talent outsourcing company, Yoh, addresses another elephant in the recruiting space: artificial intelligence. Survey says? Eighty-eight percent of Americans would feel uncomfortable with an AI job interview app being used during the candidate screening process. Top reasons why range from preferring in-person interviews to a lack of trust and understanding around the technology to self-consciousness. 

Apps Run the World, the technology-market research company devoted to applications, recently published its HCM Top 500 Software Vendors list. To create this ranking, the Apps team ranks and analyzes vendors by annual revenues across 21 verticals and 22 segments in three main groups: Core HR, Talent Acquisition, and Workforce Management. This year’s top ten goes as follows: SAP, Microsoft, Workday, ADP, Oracle, Ultimate Software, Kronos Incorporated, Ceridian, Paycom, and Cornerstone OnDemand. 

The Myers-Briggs Company, the folks behind the ubiquitous personality test, put out a new report titled, “Type and the always-on culture.” The research explores how personality types affect attitudes and behavior as well as productivity and engagement in a 24/7 world of information and connectedness. No surprise, the findings indicated those with access to work emails and phone calls outside of the office have more trouble switching off, tend to compulsively check their devices, and struggle to keep their work and home life separate. 

Capital Investments, Mergers, & Acquisitions

Workforce upskilling platform Degreed acquired Adepto, a Total Talent platform that provides visibility and access to the skill sets of current, past and potential workers. Perhaps best known for its learning solutions, Degreed is looking to this move to expand its presence globally and add features including “enhanced skill inventories, on-the-job development experiences, and career mobility.” 

Another learning experience-type provider, EdCast, which bills itself as the operating system for the knowledge economy, raised $34 Million in additional funding. The company also shared the news that it surpassed two million paid users across hundreds of customers, both enterprise and public sector. EdCast intends to leverage these accomplishments to fuel its overall acceleration. 

Over the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, PageUp, the Australia-based talent management lifecycle platform, confirmed its acquisition of Dublin-based Clinch, a recruitment marketing SaaS. PageUp sees this as a way to expand its current software offerings to include tools for proactive sourcing, content management, recruitment marketing automation, and advanced candidate relationship management. 

A few days later, Sage, which offers integrated accounting, payroll, and payment systems to small and medium-sized businesses, is taking on CakeHR, a native cloud solution that simplifies and automates HR tasks. With CakeHR, Sage will continue to build out its Business Cloud, boost its offering for small businesses, and advance the company’s SaaS vision.   

RPO partner Cielo invested in Visage, which combines human and artificial intelligence to improve candidate sourcing and delivery. Cielo will use Visage to enhance its Distributed Sourcing Model and connect recruiters and sourcers globally to deliver with qualified candidates to clients faster. This comes a year after Cielo made a similar investment in Talentify. 

Upcoming Events & Conferences

Other recent highlights:

 

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

Use Swordfish To Source Facebook Groups

Swordfish can help you use Facebook groups for sourcing

 

One of the biggest untapped resources for sourcing are Facebook Groups. There are so many of these groups available, and they are filled with professionals for every type of profession available. Except, finding contact information for each person would be tedious, right? Not with Swordfish!

If you don’t know about Swordfish, check out some of our past posts and reviews, here and here! Their Chrome extension is free to download, and it’s free to sign up. With their trial, you get 5 credits each month for two months just to try it out.

First, find the group you want to source from. If the group is public, or if you are a member of the group, you will be able to see the entire member list. Open that page up and you will see Swordfish automatically pull all the names out of the group for you. Select the ones you want, or select them all and then save! You can also limit to the results that only have a mobile phone or email address available if you’d like.

Save to a new or existing list, and you can have Swordfish start locating the rest of their contact information! This will save a whole lot of time and leverage these groups as a resource!

 

~ Noel Cocca

Look inside with Dean Da Costa:

Filling a Pre-Req: Getting to Know Today’s College Candidates

college recruiting techniques

 

College recruiting is a unique facet of talent acquisition, dedicated to attracting and engaging the emerging workforce – before the competition. That’s the high level, professional-sounding take. The reality is actually much, much different. We’ll skip the particulars on what college recruiting looks like and get into what this talent pool really wants. Or at least what they think they want. Now, I don’t know about you; if asked around my graduation date what I wanted in terms of a career, I probably would have answered “a job.” But times have changed, and today’s emerging workforce is a touch more sophisticated. 

It’s here that it becomes necessary to call the current slate of college graduates what they are: Generation Z. I know we’ve been down this road before, and if the recent “OK Boomer” meme trend tells us anything, it’s that the Millennials have yet to recover. Recognizing these previous mistakes, it’s important to learn about and understand college graduates as they are today, hoping to find the way to the right opportunity, and doing so requires baseline knowledge of Gen Z. Subject to rapid development and evolution, here’s what that means today: 

  • According to the Pew Research Center, the post-Millennials, also known as Gen Z, were born between 1997 and 2012, meaning the oldest around about to turn 23 while the youngest hasn’t quite hit age eight. While not the only definition, it’s a solid enough point of reference and gives Gen Z the same number of years as their predecessors (1981-1996). And that’s pretty much where the comparisons between Gen Z and Millennials stop (finally a break for the full-fledged adults!). 
  • The same study found that among those no longer in high school by 2017, 59 percent were enrolled in college, the highest, recorded rate to date. At the same time, these 18-to-21-year-olds are less likely to be employed, probably due to their enrollment in school. Even seasonal employment is out for teens and young adults reveals the Brookings Institute. That’s good news for college recruiters (and bad news for students tasked with writing their first resume). 
  • Doesn’t mean they don’t have goals though, with a report from Indeed indicating that these students demonstrate a strong interest in “future-proof” jobs. Translation: they’re going full tech. That’s right, they know technology, walking amongst us as the world’s first digital natives, unable to remember life before the internet. As a result, they’re going for developer and engineering titles, along with evergreen career options like dentists and daycare providers. 
  • Today’s student population spends more time on YouTube than Netflix, clicking, tapping and swiping their way through the day, so they’re hip to marketing and appreciate creative visuals. Brand recognition counts with this lot, and something Universum proved with its annual “World’s Most Attractive Employers” list. Whether working in business or engineering/IT, there’s not a single company that doesn’t have global brand recognition. And even with all the negative press, Google still ranks at the top. 
  • Even so, they’re all a bit uncertain about that whole economy thing. Maybe it’s because those currently attending college would have lived through (and remembered) the Great Recession. Maybe it’s because all of this trade war and tariff talk is impacting their ability to purchase Parmesan cheese and their favorite items off of Amazon. Either way, they’re eager to find stability – but not how you might think. They’re eager to avoid what happened to their parents and siblings in favor of entrepreneurship and disruption. 
  • They’re coming in with expectations. Look, the dialogue about work is bigger than ever, inside and outside of the talent acquisition space. It’s in the newspaper and on TV, and college students know it. They’ve heard the grumblings about work-life balance and desire for remote work, growing cost of health care and pitfalls of insurance, demand for pay equity and call to end workplace misconduct, and being young and idealistic means they’re not ready to settle. They want potential employers to meet them where they are, even in communication.

College is an interesting time in life, one that allows exploration and ideation at every turn, because, or perhaps in spite of this, college recruiting needs to remain equally agile and open-minded. That doesn’t always jive with formal talent acquisition, overly reliant on set strategies and processes. To overcome this mindset, it’s worth reviewing the research, polling recent grads, talking to current students, and getting a first-person sense of what they want from a potential, what they bring to the table and how you can recruit them into your organization. Their answers might surprise you. 

   LINK TO FREE WEBINAR ON THIS TOPIC: https://recruitingwebinars.com/the-state-of-college-recruiting-what-the-emerging-workforce-really-wants/

Bring Visual Acuity to Talent Acquisition at TA Week: Top 10 Reasons Why You Can’t Miss It

20/20 vision is a term used to express normal visual acuity (the clarity or sharpness of vision) measured at a distance of 20 feet. If you have 20/20 vision, you can see clearly at 20 feet what should normally be seen at that distance. 

Having 20/20 vision doesn’t necessarily mean you have perfect vision. 20/20 vision only indicates the sharpness or clarity of vision at a specified distance. Other important vision skills, including peripheral awareness or side vision, eye coordination, depth perception, focusing ability and color vision, all contribute to your overall visual ability.

Salman Rushdie said it well when he wrote, “The only people who see the whole picture are the ones who step outside the frame.” We challenge you to step outside your role and see the entire candidate lifecycle.  Looking at the full spectrum may change your mindset and your ability to execute your strategy.  

The goal if TA Week is exactly that – to provide industry professionals with an overall learning opportunity that provides an understanding of the entire value chain from sourcing to onboarding – not just a segmented experience. 

Our 2020 vision takes a step into the future of talent acquisition.

Talent Acquisition Week brings sourcing, recruiting, and employer branding strategies together in San Francisco to provide you with the most comprehensive conference experience – providing clarity to your outlook of the entire value chain of the candidate life cycle.

Start the new year with a fresh mindset and outlook at #TA_Week.  The Talent Sourcing Strategies Summit, Social Recruiting Strategies Conference, and Employer Branding Strategies Conference will all be hosted January 28-30th in San Francisco – offering the latest case studies, trends, and solutions to power your overall talent acquisition strategy with focus, depth, and awareness for true acuity. 

To help you see why attending TA_Week San Francisco should be on your calendar, here’s a list of 10 reasons to be there: 

 

Top 10 reasons to attend TA Week this January: 

  1. INNOVATE OR DIE. Okay, this sounds harsh but really, we all know learning and talking to others about what they’re doing (and what you’re doing) is the best way to keep you on top of your game.
  1. LEAVE WITH THE LATEST, MOST RELEVANT RECRUITING AND TECHNOLOGY TRENDS.  It can be difficult keeping up with what’s happening with talent acquisition in the outside world when you get so entrenched in your work.  You’ll be able to demo top talent tech to win talent in a candidate-centric market. 
  1. SHARE 3 DAYS WORTH OF TAKEAWAYS WITH YOUR COLLEAGUES. You’ll leave with a list of practical ideas and takeaways so you can hit the ground running once you’re back at your desk. Missed a talk? Recorded talks and speaker presentations are available to download and review at your leisure.
  1. HANDS-ON WORKSHOPS WILL EQUIP YOU WITH FRAMEWORKS AND TEMPLATES YOU CAN INTEGRATE INTO YOUR STRATEGY.  Attending these classroom-style, intensive workshops is an effective way to dive into the most challenging topics around recruiting training and strategy. 
  1. NOBODY NETWORKS QUITE LIKE RECRUITERS.  Let’s face it — networking is your job. The value of face-to-face connections is realized at #TA_Week. Network with other recruitment companies to increase your personal brand, your recruiter brand. and ultimately, your success in talent acquisition.
  1. OUR SPEAKERS BRING CASE STUDIES TO ADDRESS YOUR CHALLENGES. We vet our case studies to make sure they address on-the-ground challenges of talent acquisition that impact your bottom line.
  1. GREAT CONTENT YOU CAN RELATE TO AND LEARN FROM. You’ve probably been to a number of employer branding conferences where you’re inundated with product pitches. Not at TA Week. Our speakers are here to teach you the how-to of social recruiting initiatives that increase hiring results.
  1. EXPAND YOUR PERSONAL BRAND AND CAREER OPPORTUNITIES. You came, you saw, and you left, with a refreshed outlook on your brand as a sourcer/recruiter/marketer, and a great connection or a job opportunity for yourself.  A lot can happen in a week…
  1. SAN FRANCISCO.  I hate to say it but come on, San Francisco in January!?  Escape your winter wonderland for an amazing week in this beloved city! 
  2.  BECOME A PART OF THE TRIBE. It is a small world…in the talent acquisition community.  Luckily, there is so much support and inclusion that once you attend a Talent Acquisition Week event, you’ll become a part of #SRSCtribe and gain a network of resources and a community of supporters.

Learn more here or contact Jessica Vargas for more information at 619-597-7315 or [email protected].  Ask Jessica about Early Bird and Group discounts! 

Talent Acquisition Week is presented by GSMI, a leader in professional educational events and trade shows. GSMI is an approved provider for HR recertification credits through HRCI and an approved provider of SHRM PDCs. 

 

 

 

 

 

Q&A: The Digital Transformation in Staffing

 

 

Patrick Beharelle & William Tincup

There’s a lot to be said for digital transformation as it stands today. 

It’s taken on a variety of industries, from transportation to grocery shopping to banking. New words like “Uberization” have entered our collective lexicon, proof positive of the broad reach of the changes afoot. 

Still, while some organizations embrace the transformation wholeheartedly, others seem to struggle with the concept, unsure of what it all means.

For the sake of getting on the same page, we’ll point to Deloitte’s definition: “Digital transformation is all about becoming a digital enterprise – an organization that uses technology to continuously evolve all aspects of its business models (what it offers, how it interacts with customers and how it operates). In simple terms, digital transformation is how to futureproof a business.”

With such a tall order, hesitancy is no wonder, particularly for organizations that deal in the business of people. 

 

It’s impossible to deny the disruptive power of digital transformation, however — something Patrick Beharelle, CEO at TrueBlue, openly acknowledged in a recent conversation with RecruitingDaily.

TrueBlue is a $2.4 billion staffing company that operates in 70 countries and connects 730,000 people with work annually. They’ve been around for 30 years, so have good insights into the evolution underway in staffing.

 

Here’s What Patrick Had to Say

Q1

Digital transformation has been somewhat of a buzzword for a couple of years in HR; it has and is being applied to staffing.  What’s your take on that evolution?

Staffing has always been a people-first business. It is built on the strength of the relationships that a company has with its clients and its workers or associates. The accelerated adoption of digital strategies in staffing has come with the realization that technology can actually help build stronger human connections, especially with the ubiquitous use of smartphones. 

Digital transformation has been a top investment priority at TrueBlue over the last several years, and we’re experiencing firsthand how technology is reinventing the traditional staffing model. Our PeopleReady division has a platform called JobStack that has filled approximately 6 million shifts digitally since its inception. It’s currently filling a job every 9 seconds.

After we onboard our workers, they can proactively book jobs through a mobile app anywhere, 24/7, versus going to a branch early in the morning or waiting for a text or call. 

On the flip side, clients can post job assignments 24/7.  We have a client that runs a major league baseball stadium who needs hundreds of people to work during the game and assist with pre- and post-game activities. The post-game cleanup is tough for them to staff because these are lower-paying jobs, oftentimes at night. They never know how many people are actually going to show up.

Our technology allows the client to actually see the jobs filled in real-time. Many of your readers have used Uber before where they can place an order, and they can see the car coming. So they know exactly what’s happening. It’s the same sort of digital transformation that we’re engaged in. Our client can place an order and see the jobs being filled and who’s filling them in real-time. That’s especially critical for high-volume or last-minute hiring needs.

That friction removal for workers and for clients, in my view, is the future of our industry.

 

Q2

You and TrueBlue have some fantastic stories of transformation that need to be told. 

How have you seen your customers change? And the laborers — how have you seen them embrace this new way to work?

We now have close to 90% of our workers signed up with our JobStack mobile app. The cool thing is the system has machine learning. So it gets smarter about what jobs each worker would like, and they see the most relevant opportunities. Workers also get paid quickly.

On the client-side, nearly 20,000 are using JobStack. They can see jobs filled in real-time, rate the workers, and set parameters to only see workers that have ratings of 4.0 or higher. Clients can also approve time on the tool among other things. It creates a lot of efficiencies.

We had a client that had a tanker tip over on a highway. They essentially had to close the highway because cars couldn’t drive through the chemicals, which were somewhat hazardous. The client needed 25 people to come out immediately to do the cleanup. They were, of course, providing safety gear for the workers. With JobStack, they were able to find 25 people within six minutes. 

 

Q3

Wow, Patrick. If you’re not careful, you may wake up one day and find yourself running a technology company.

You’ve mentioned Uber.  What do you think about them entering, or quasi-entering, the staffing market?

Uber created a division called Uber Works. It’s aimed at expanding reach into more traditional shift work. We saw the leaked Uber announcement back in October or November of 2018 and decided to reach out and let them know, “Hey, we’re in this space. We know a lot about it. We’re trying to transform the industry digitally. Sounds like you all are thinking along the same lines. Let’s have a conversation.”

We created a new division ourselves called PeopleWorks. It essentially serves as the employer of record for workers who book jobs through the Uber Works app. We’ve started in Chicago, and once that’s proven out in terms of the business model in Chicago, it’ll expand into other markets.

Jobstack is a completely separate initiative from this, by the way. 

There is a little bit of a competitive element, but we believe there’s room for Uber. When you study Uber and look at what they’ve done with cab dispatch, Uber Eats, and Uber Freight, what has ultimately happened is the pie has grown in every market they’ve entered and disrupted. In New York City, for example, there used to be 500,000 cab rides each day. Now the number of cab rides is down, but when you add in Uber and Lyft, you’re up to close to 800,000 rides happening each day.

So the pie grew from 500,000 to 800,000. The same has happened for Uber Eats. More people are ordering food as opposed to cooking themselves, so the pie got bigger for restaurants. This is going to happen over time in staffing; there will be a bigger pie because friction will be reduced in the process.

 

Q4

You could have seen that as a threat and put up a bunch of defensive walls. 

Instead, you said, “No, let’s embrace this. Run towards this. Let’s see what we can do together and how we can learn together. We want to grow the pie together.”

Being in the industry, you know that’s not normal with most staffing leadership teams. Kudos to your company and to the vision of everybody involved. 

Take a look at the dynamics of our industry. We are the second-largest light industrial staffer in North America with a 4% market share. The largest provider has 5%. So, it’s a very fragmented industry.

In my view, expanding the pie is the best of all worlds because everybody’s benefiting, but we’d like to take some of that other 96% we don’t have today. Whether it comes through TrueBlue going out and taking that 96% or Uber coming in and taking some and we profit from that partnership — I think there’s a lot of goodness that comes from that.

 

Q5

Last question.  I want to understand your vision or what you think is next.  What’s right around that corner?

Staffing companies today are somewhat rigid in terms of how they engage clients. For example, most staffing companies have a minimum of a four-hour shift because the economics don’t work as well if people work one, two, or three hours.

Say you have a restaurant. Following the lunch run, there are a whole bunch of dishes that need to get washed and ready for the dinner period. If it only takes two hours to get the dishes washed and dried, you’re not going to want to hire a contingent laborer to work for four hours. You make do with the resources you have.

But, if you could fill that need with a two-hour shift, suddenly it makes economic sense for that restaurant to engage a contingent laborer to come in and do the dishes for two hours and then leave.

That’s an example of a pie expanding outcome that I think ultimately is going to happen.

I also expect that technology investments will continue to accelerate in our space. The way clients and associates work with staffing firms will continue to evolve. Most companies are relying on temporary labor to avoid fixed costs, particularly in an environment where there’s a lot of uncertainty. They’re looking to stay nimble with a variable cost structure, and technology is simplifying and expediting that process. 

Some aspects of temporary staffing, such as professional skills assignments that last six or nine months, aren’t a fit for a digital app focused on shift work. But, I think staffing companies need to decide whether they’re going to drive the disruption or sit on the sidelines and watch it happen.

TrueBlue is making some pretty big bets that there is real value creation by removing friction from the process and digitalizing how clients and workers interact with staffing companies. We are actively working to drive disruption in our space because we believe the intersection of technology and human support is the right model for staffing.

 

Final Thoughts (William)

If we don’t evolve as a business, as clients, as candidates, employees, etc., or labor, we’ll cease to be relevant, and you’ve done a fascinating job.

I’m just really impressed with what you and TrueBlue have done, and there are some amazing stories there.

 

Going Back To That Deloitte Definition

Staffing organizations become more agile by removing friction, providing customers on either side of the equation with access to the information they need in a readily accessible format.

Of course, as Beharelle acknowledges, not all staffing requirements are the same. But either way, given the option to adapt or not, Beharelle advocates for the former, encouraging organizations to drive their transformation, rather than just let it happen – and it’s easy to see why.

 

Using Dev.to Sourcing For Developers

Dev.to logo

Dev.to is a Cornucopia of Untapped Resources!

 

We’re going to take a look at this little website called Dev.to. This was created as a networking site for software developers to discuss projects, learn, and collaborate. You can use it as a place to search for potential developer candidates, similar to LaunchPad.

First off, you will see that the site is organized by topics by using tags. Simply choose a tag from the left-hand side or through the search at the top of the page, and you’re on your way! Once you have the topics, drill down into the discussion to find people’s profiles.

Many profiles on Dev.to have their social media information listed, as well as other contact info, skills, past projects, and links to other posts and comments. Some even list whether or not they are open to, or looking for new opportunities!

In conclusion, Dev.to is a great resource to get in touch with people in software development!

~ Noel Cocca

 

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Chrome Extension: PixLeads Extractor

 

Free Social Sourcing using PixLeads Extractor

 

We have another interesting and free social sourcing tool for you to check out! PixLeads is available as a free Chrome extension, and this great little tool allows you to pull email and phone number data out of social media sites like Instagram and Facebook.

Install through the Chrome extension store, and launch using the icon in your browser. This will open up a Google search page, and the tool will open with your search options. Note that this social sourcing tool does not link to profiles, and will simply pull email address and phone number data out, so you will need to do some legwork and connect this data with people. Upload to ZapInfo, Swordfish, SeekOut, or any others to make this data workable!

In this example, we are starting with Instagram and filtering out for Gmail addresses. Populate the keyword and let it run! Other social media sites that can be used with this are Facebook and potentially even LinkedIn.

It’s a free tool, so play around with it and you could get some leads out of it! Note that there is a limit on the number of searches you can do before Google will think you’re a robot! If you stop getting data out of it, you may need to click on the tool’s preview button and fill out the captcha to continue.

Once you have the data, download it into the text file and then you can cross-reference the information to qualify the leads. The better your keywords are, the better your search results. Good to go!

 

~ Noel Cocca

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The Recruitment Marketing Cheat Sheet for 2020

With 2020 just around the corner, it’s time to think about how you can take your recruitment strategy from good to great.

Designing a bespoke recruitment marketing strategy for your business is a good place to start. Easier said than done? Well, that’s exactly what we’re here to help you with! Our recruitment marketing cheat sheet for 2020 will provide you with clear and actionable insights on building a successful recruitment marketing strategy for the new year.

What is Recruitment Marketing?

Recruitment marketing is a relatively new concept in HR which refers to the application of modern marketing methods to attract, engage, and convert top talent. Recruitment marketing is founded on the principles of digital omnichannel and account-based marketing (ABM) to improve recruitment outcomes. It can be thought of as relationship marketing in the recruitment context.

When used effectively, recruitment marketing helps organizations build talent pipelines, hire faster and better, and realize an excellent return on investment.

Over the past few years, recruitment marketing has evolved from siloed, stand-alone marketing activities to encompass the entire candidate experience. As consumer technologies continue shaping candidate expectations and influence behavior, the right approach to recruitment marketing is more crucial than ever. So, let’s begin by taking a look at the essential components of a successful recruitment marketing strategy.

Deconstructing the Candidate Journey

Recruitment marketing includes multiple moving parts – job advertising, developing an employer brand, building career pages, messaging, email and more. Without a structured approach, it can quickly become a nightmare for recruiters to manage. The first step to designing a successful recruitment marketing strategy is to map the candidate journey. A candidate journey represents the various stages a candidate would ideally progress through before taking up a job offer.

By understanding how they feel at every stage of the journey can help you plan your messaging strategy for each decision point. For instance, if you are targeting candidates who’ve never heard of your organization before, sharing information about the business focus of your company, vision, and values might be a good idea. Similarly, the next step would be providing them a glimpse into what working at your organization entails – your work culture, values and the like. From here on, you can begin personalizing your messaging and guide them further towards conversion.

Mapping the candidate journey makes it easier for you to strategically plan your campaigns and target the right candidates. This way you also end up filtering candidates and are left with the crème de la crème who are genuinely interested in working with you.

A typical candidate journey can be broken down into six major stages:

The six stages of the candidate journey as shown in the recruitment funnel
Figure 1: The Recruiting Funnel

Recruitment marketing typically involves the first three steps – awareness, interest, and consideration. Here’s a quick look at each of these steps:

  1. Awareness: The first step is targeted at job-seekers who’ve never heard of your company. This is an opportunity to build brand awareness and trust in potential candidates. Providing information about your company and making it easily discoverable is a good place to start. Here are a few specific steps you can take to start attracting candidates:
    • Social Media Marketing: Social media platforms and career pages offer an excellent avenue for organizations to use the power of content marketing. Posting regularly on your company’s social pages on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or even Instagram can help you build a loyal following on these platforms. You share posts about your organization’s work culture, pictures, and videos on celebrating milestones or events like your Halloween office party, and real employee stories.

      Figure 2: McKinsey Does a Great Job of Promoting its  Diverse Culture on LinkedIn

    • Content Marketing: On your career page, you can take a similar approach to familiarize potential candidates about what it is really like working at your organization. Storytelling through videos and carefully created content around your key business focus is an effective way to building your employer brand. Netflix’s career page is an exceptional example of branding done right:
      Netflix’s career page reflects its core values, engineering excellence, and interactive content
      Figure 3: Netflix Sets the Tone for its Employer Brand on its Career Page

      It tells potential candidates about what makes it one of the best places to work –  it’s values, technological excellence, and the culture.

      In both the examples above, McKinsey and Netflix successfully leveraged content marketing to build their employer brand, position it, and communicate their employer value proposition (SVP).

      Once you’ve cultivated a group of followers on social media and designed your career page, providing a clear call to action can help you engage your potential candidates further. It can be as simple as asking your career page visitors to sign up for your newsletter or your social media followers to share their stories in comments or using hashtags. This sets the stage for future engagement through emails and dedicated career handles on social media.

    • Word-of-mouth Marketing: Other important channels for projecting your employer brand through content are employer rating platforms like Glassdoor. Candidates are very likely to check what your previous and current employees are saying about your company. Moreover, Glassdoor also provides insights into the candidate experience for applicants. It is crucial that you include an employee advocacy program that encourages employees to share their experience on these platforms and social media.
    • Display Job Advertising: Attracting great talent to your website can be frustratingly slow and difficult in the beginning. Using display advertising is a great way of scaling your recruitment marketing efforts to land top talent. Programmatic display advertising can help you reach a wider pool of potential candidates and increase website footfalls.
  2. Interest: Moving on to the next stage. Now your potential candidates are definitely aware of your brand and might have engaged with your messaging in the past. In the interest stage, you want candidates to begin considering you as their future employer. Targeted messaging and communications about your company should provide the push candidates need to start assessing their prospective employment with your organization. Let’s look at some ways you can develop their interest and guide them to conversion:
    • Email and Nurture Campaigns: Candidates who have crossed the awareness stage are likely to have signed up for your newsletter. Adding information in your emails and newsletters about open positions and including a call-to-action will encourage candidates to re-visit your career page and check specific job openings. It’s also a good practice to include a link to your career page or job posting to make navigation easier.

      Additionally, creating a personalized nurture campaign is a great way of keeping passive and potential candidates hooked. You can share further details with your candidates after they take specific actions – for instance, if they engaged with a video on your site on preparing for an interview with you, you can then share additional resources with them over email on preparing for interviews, mock tests, quizzes, and more. The idea is to deliver hyper-personalized content that helps candidates consider working with you.
    • Job Descriptions: You also need to look at your job descriptions before you invite potential candidates to learn more about your company. An authentic job description goes a long way towards making you a desirable employer. Using language that demonstrates the objectives, goals, and your values can create a real difference in how candidates perceive your company. It goes without saying that you must avoid language that connotes gender-bias in your job descriptions. Additionally, basic SEO principles hold good for job descriptions as most of your candidates might land on your website through the search engine.

      GitHub creates thoughtfully crafted job descriptions to increase conversions
      Figure 4: GitHub’s Nails this Job Description
    • Targeted Social Marketing: As we saw earlier, social media is one of the most effective channels for reach and candidate engagement. In the post-awareness stage, you can amp up your social marketing strategy through paid promotions and direct messages. Facebook job ads, LinkedIn Recruiter, and LinkedIn contact targeting are some of the most common tools you can use to get started. The objective here is to get candidates to your career pages to discover relevant opportunities.
  3. Consideration: By the time candidates get to this stage, they are beginning to seriously consider applying for jobs at your organization. They’re evaluating you against competitors to evaluate the perfect match for them in terms of skills, values, and perhaps compensation. Now, you need to provide candidates with detailed information about the role itself to help them make an informed decision about employment with you. Please make sure that you are no longer selling them your brand or the job, but are providing them with authentic information on what the job entails, the parameters for success, and other specifics. Adding elements like chatbots on your career pages to answer FAQs can also help candidates decide faster. Overall, better transparency around the interview process and the application assessment makes a big impact on candidates’ decision.

    Top 5 Recruitment Marketing Tools You Can Use

    Recruiting solutions have changed dramatically over the past few years. The move from legacy to intelligent automated solutions provides you with more opportunities than ever before to build a killer recruitment marketing stack. Let’s take a look at some of the tools that you can use to boost your recruiting efforts in the new year:

    1. Beamery: Beamery is a leading talent CRM and marketing platform that allows recruiters to deliver consumer-grade personalization and an exceptional candidate experience. It offers dedicated capabilities aptly dubbed Beamery Attract, Beamery Engage, and Talent CRM for recruitment marketing. Beamery Attract enables organizations to build their employer brand from the ground up, build career sites, and manage recruitment events like campus drives, job fairs, and more. The engage module, on the other hand, uses data analytics and enrichment to deliver personalized engagement. Its CRM is also one of the most mature ones in the market.
    2. SmashFly: The enterprise recruitment marketing technology solution boasts of an AI-powered recruiting CRM that automates time-consuming and inefficient recruiting workflows. Emerson, the company’s AI-powered recruiting assistant, automatically creates new contact records and tracks every conversation to create talent pipelines for long-term engagement. Its CRM also features Pipeline Intelligence, an AI-driven recommendation engine that helps recruiters immediately identify and engage the most promising leads based on engagement and job roles.
    3. iCIMS: iCIMS acquired Jibe, a leading recruitment marketing solution provider, earlier this year and ended up with some of the most powerful recruitment marketing capabilities in the market. iCIMS’ Recruitment Marketing Suite now offers an end-to-end talent CRM and career site builder that helps recruiters optimize content for search engines and provides dedicated analytics and dashboarding support. Its Advanced Communications Suite integrates text, live chat, and AI throughout the candidate journey.
    4. Yello: Yello is yet another recruitment marketing solution with three distinct modules – Source, Engage, and Advance. Source and Engage are its two dedicated recruitment marketing modules with capabilities such as talent CRM, recruitment event management, candidate engagement, job boards and more. Yello can easily be integrated with your existing ATS or recruitment solution which makes it one of the most flexible solutions in the space.
    5. Talemetry: An enterprise-grade recruitment marketing platform, Talemetry, offers full-cycle recruitment marketing solutions. Key capabilities include career sites, CRM, job broadcast, analytics, employee referrals, and analytics. Talemetry also integrates seamlessly with other ATS and recruiting solutions, job boards, and collaborates with Google Cloud Talent Solution to provide AI-powered insights into candidate intent and engagement.

    Conclusion

    The job market is increasingly becoming candidate-driven as technology evolves – both consumer and enterprise. Job-seekers also have the luxury of being more selective when it comes to deciding who they want to work for. Given these realities, recruitment marketing is essential.

    Examining the candidate journey through the lens of candidate experience should help you create a successful recruitment marketing strategy that in turn enables you to develop a talent pool of the right candidates even before they apply.

    Lastly, building your employer brand and inviting candidates to apply takes significant time and money. Therefore, measuring the outcomes and tweaking your strategy regularly is a must. Check out our article on recruiting analytics for more details.

SeekOut Releases an Enhancement Update

SeekOut.io

 

New SeekOut enhancement increases the ability to find contact information

 

As we have discussed before, SeekOut is a fantastic tool that making recruiting and sourcing easier and more efficient. We have called SeekOut a “no-brainer” for any recruiter and will say it again. Part of the reason they can stay at the top of our top tool list is because of their continuous enhancements and improvements! Most recently, their latest enhancement was to increase their ability to find contact information.

We had to test that out! In the tool, we have a folder that we’ve already run for contact information. You can click on the get email address or get phone, and re-run that search for your missing data. We did this and were able to add new contact information for all but 4 contacts on our list of over 150! That means that using SeekOut, over 95% of contacts on the list resulted in email address information, plus over 90% have phone numbers as well. Incredible!

SeekOut is definitely an industry leader and this update makes this tool even more of a must-have!

~ Noel Cocca

 

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Learn To Love Using Video For Recruiting & Job Descriptions

How to make video job descriptions

 

Ready for Your Close-up?

I know what you’re thinking: “I didn’t become a recruiter to put my face on film.” Or maybe you are one of those that love it.  Fair, but at this exact moment in time, we’re all about a minute away from appearing on video, whether that means TikTok or closed-circuit TV. Might as well be good at it, no? And listen, I hear you, recruiting, by nature, feels inherently like a behind the scenes role, where we’re better heard than seen, except when absolutely necessary. But in recognizing the power of video content and visual storytelling, we’re able to transform our practice and become better recruiters. The kind of videos that people want to watch, whether that’s to learn more about a specific job or just because it’s part of our brand (roll tape). 

If you’re not doing it, you’re already behind the curve.

Here’s the thing though, the video doesn’t always come naturally. We see it happen during video interviews as well as recruiting materials. People who typically command attention and light up a room become stiff and unable to converse, relying too obviously on scripts and cards. At the same time, without the right storyline in place, the content will feel forced or challenging to follow, causing viewers to tune out before you make your point. Which is why we’ve put together the following tips for your reading pleasure: 

Define Your Vision –

In filmmaking, there are three stages of production: pre-production, production, and post-production. If you’re serious about using video for recruiting purposes, you should follow a similar model. During pre-production, you’ll define your vision and set about planning, scripting, and storyboarding. What type of video are you making? Where will it get posted? Production covers your actual shoot. Who is doing the filming? What equipment is required? Post-production involves all the editing and polishing needed before your official launch. How will you deliver the product? Who will see it? If that sounds like a lot, it’s not. Pithy, off the cuff content, takes time to perfect, and you’re just getting started. Choosing a film school 101 approach offers just enough coverage to ensure an audience-worthy outcome. 

Get Comfortable –

OK, with your plan in hand, it’s time to figure out what it’s going to take to look good on camera – and I don’t mean hair and makeup). Nerves happen to all of us, even the most seasoned actors. Heck, there’s research out there that indicates video interviewing makes job seekers more nervous than in-person meetings! But coming across as stiff and stodgy isn’t going to make your case to candidates. Whether you need to practice, practice, practice, or create videos that feature multiple people to alleviate some pressure, you need to make sure that the final cut instills confidence in you and your organization. If nothing else, remember that you’re a star, and this is your time to shine. 

Bring the B-Roll –

Also known as “skip the stock.” Look, I get it, stock images and video clips make all of our lives easier. The problem is, stock footage doesn’t offer an accurate sense of reality, and that’s what your candidates need. They need to see your offices, hear from your employees and get a sense of what they’re signing up for if and when they receive an offer letter. This applies to your career site and any other collateral you’re creating, too. Now, I get that it’s a struggle to jazz up the conference room and wrangle team members into appearing on camera talking freely about the organization. Instead, think editorial. Throw some resources (hello, local students!) at editing in order to layer in supplemental shots. 

Change Perspective –

Once you have some clips put together, start shopping them around to people outside of your organization. That’s right before you get the team on board and excited, have a fellow recruiter take a look. Or ask a friend in the middle of a job search. Set up a test market and collect a few responses before finalizing anything. We’re all guilty of groupthink, especially when it comes to shared topics, and frankly, you’re more likely to experience backlash during pre-production than you are posting. Pending no significant catastrophes during filming, most people will assume that everything went fine, and that’s it too late in the game to make substantial changes. It’s not. 

Video in recruiting opens up a whole new world of possibilities, from job descriptions to employer brand awareness. At a time when every candidate interaction counts, developing an action plan and making the necessary investment can help put you ahead of the curve, even before you hit upload. Whether you use your smartphone or retain Spielberg, make sure your content puts the spotlight on what matters most to your hiring strategy. 

Want to learn more about using video in recruiting and job descriptions from people doing it? 

FREE WEBINAR: https://recruitingwebinars.com/film-school-for-recruiters-video-content-visual-storytelling-best-practices/

How To Use Gitlogs to Source & Recruit on GitHub

Use Gitlogs to delve deeper into GitHub and find more people!

 

Gitlogs is a free tool that aggregates all the GitHub project logs and allows you to search within them. Search or browse through topics, see what the top trends are, and you can also use it for sourcing!

When looking at any project you’ve found through Gitlogs, you can get into the commits and add the .patch to the URL to find the contact information for the developer that worked on it. Or, use this in combination with the GitHub email tool to skip that part and then all you need is their username!

When testing this, we noticed that we were able to find people that we weren’t able to find when directly searching in GitHub. Gitlogs opens up more searchable data for your GitHub sourcing!

~Noel Cocca

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Talent Acquisition Movers & Shakers – November 2019, Part 2

Talent Acquisition News

 

With only a few weeks to go before we close the book on 2019, it appears there are still miles to go when it comes to recruiting and HR technology. While many vendors are starting to quiet down heading into the holiday season, others are making one last push to get their news out there, be it company-related or otherwise. We’re seeing plenty of capital raised, a few notable acquisitions, product features, and a slew of research. Here’s a look at the latest:   

Indeed recently confirmed to HCM Technology Report that they are, in fact, considering a product geared towards the gig economy. But beyond the subdomain, gigs.indeed.com, which appears to have been live since the June timeframe, that’s about all we know right now. A spokesperson made light of this, telling Mark Feffer that the company frequently experiments with new products to “improve the overall experience for job seekers and to make the process of hiring better overall,” and that “Indeed Gigs is a product that we are testing to see if it provides value for our job seekers and employers who use Indeed to hire.” Watch this space. 

Workday shared its intent to acquire Scout RFP, a cloud-based platform for strategic sourcing and supplier engagement, for $540 Million. With Scout RFP, Workday aims to “transform the office of procurement” and accelerate the delivery of a “comprehensive source-to-pay solution with a best-in-class sourcing offering.” The goal being to reduce spend, improve policy compliance, and maximize engagement across stakeholders. The transaction will close on January 31, 2020, with more than 160 Scout RFP employees set to join the Workday team.  

KPMG released its Future of HR 2020 global survey of more than 1,3000 HR executives across 55 countries, posing the question “Which path are you taking?” in an effort to determine how organizations are shaping the workforce and HR for the future. The key finding being, 3 in 5 percent of HR leaders believe that if the function doesn’t modernize its approach, it will become irrelevant. That could be why 95 percent of respondents are prioritizing the employee experience as a focus area. At the same time, 56 percent agree that preparing the workforce for AI and other technologies will be the biggest challenge HR faces in the coming months. 

Capital Investments, Mergers, & Acquisitions

Headstart, a London-based tech startup using AI to remove bias from the recruitment process, raised $7 M in seed funding. The company, a graduate of Y Combinator, was founded in 2015 by Nicholas Shekerdemian and is now under the leadership of CEO and HR industry expert, Gareth Jones. 

Also out of London, MyKindaFuture, a recruitment program, and platform provider connecting businesses and students across secondary and higher education, brought in $3.5 M. The company intends to use the funds to grow its existing reach and strategy and improve U.K. workplace diversity. 

Moving over to Singapore, end-to-end staffing platform Workmate (formerly known as Helpster) closed out a $5.2 M Series A round. The funding will go towards increased investment in sales, expanding the technology team, and building out the company’s presence in new cities. Workmate’s current locations include its headquarters in Singapore, as well as offices in Bangkok, Jakarta, and Bali. 

Jobiak, the creator of an AI-based recruitment optimization technology for search and social media platforms, announced $2.3 M in seed funding, and the preparation for its full commercial launch. During its beta phase, the company processed more than half a million jobs. 

On the M&A side, global executive search firm, ZRG, acquired the Toft Group, which specializes in the placement of Life Science and Biotech leadership. As a result, the business will now operate as a ZRG company and continue to focus on client needs for senior life science professionals. 

Upcoming Events & Conferences

Other recent highlights:

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