Even when talent is plentiful, bad hires happen. Maybe the hiring process is rushed or sourcing is done incorrectly. Perhaps the team interviewing the candidate lacked the experience to determine fit. But when talent is in short supply, even the most practiced recruiters can make bad hires as the pressure builds to fill positions that have been open far too long.
Now that we are in the tightest labor market in decades, is it time to open our doors a little wider and consider less perfectly matched candidates? If so, how wide – and can we still get the right talent in front of hiring managers? The answer is yes – you can strike the right formula to relax qualifications as long as you stick to your sourcing and screening best practices.
Take a gradual approach to relaxing hiring criteria
If you are recruiting for a tight profile, you may have to educate your hiring manager that “find me some more” may no longer be an option. Work together to identify concessions that will have the least impact on a successful candidate match. This might mean moving from a strictly mechanical engineering degree to a wider variety of degrees but with applicable experience. It may be lessening the requirement on years of experience, the number of months unemployed, or offering more generous compensation or relocation packages.
While most recruiters will quickly recognize where profiles or compensation bands can be relaxed, avoid loosening too many qualifications at one time so you can accurately gauge the impact of each adjustment.
Invest in upskilling less experienced hires
In a competitive market, it’s easier to justify relaxing requirements for degrees, certifications, and experience, as long as the candidate demonstrates some education and experience comparable to your bullseye qualification. Interestingly, there was a recent article in TheWall Street Journal that described how some employers are now taking it to an extreme with a “no experience necessary” approach or “downskilling”.
To compensate for these less experienced hires, more companies are investing in employee upskilling programs – particularly companies that are heavily reliant on skilled trades. Siemens USA, for example, offers apprenticeship programs in areas such as digital lifecycle management and computer-aided design, classroom training and access to hundreds of online training programs. Cummins, another manufacturer, uses apprenticeship programs to partner with local institutions and organizations to develop local talent that benefits the company as well as the community. And just recently Amazon announced it was investing $700 million to train 100,000 employees for higher-skilled jobs by 2025 in order to retain and attract more talent.
Understand how to leverage transferable skills from other industries
Receptiveness to candidates with relevant experience from other industries is another viable way to broaden the talent pool. Clearly articulate your willingness to accept applicable skillsets in job descriptions, and make sure recruiters understand precisely how these transferable skills will be leveraged in your organization.
Case in point: We frequently work with companies that recruit military veterans – a highly sought-after talent pool with the skills and attributes companies are looking for. However, veterans typically lack equivalent civilian experience and most recruiters do not understand how military expertise correlates with civilian skill sets. In these situations, we often recommend that recruiting teams tap into resources with greater military experience, including specialized recruiting firms, referral networks, and military job fairs.
Focus less on resume gaps and more on competencies
While we are close to full unemployment, not everyone who wants a job is working. According to the latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 1.4 million unemployed individuals who have been looking for work for six months or more. Hiring the long-term unemployed -as well as returnships and retired folks coming back to the workplace for part-time or project work -is not only a viable way to extend your reach to motivated talent but also a valuable retention tactic as these individuals are less likely to make a sudden departure.
Use language in your job posts and social media to encourage the long-term unemployed and returning workers. Make adjustments in your hiring process by removing filters that require dates of employment. Consider creating a dedicated microsite or even developing a returnship program that offers these workers the opportunity to develop new competencies or hone their skills. I’ve also seen companies create onboarding programs specifically designed for individuals who have been out of the workforce for months or years.
Get What You Need
Strict adherence to tight candidate profiles may have worked ten years ago when millions of workers were laid off after the Great Recession, but today’s competitive market requires a shift in mindset about how we qualify talent. While we might not always get the ideal combination of education, background, and expertise we want, we can certainly get the motivated, trainable talent we need.
Talent Acquisition Movers, Shakers & News Breakers – July 2019
Even as we approach the dog days of summer, the HR tech and recruiting space remains hot. Throughout July, we saw a slew of new announcements ranging from M&A to product launches. Here are some key headlines:
CareerBuilder Survey Finds 50% of Employees Have “Just a Job.”
According to CareerBuilder’s research, 50 percent of employees feel like they have a career while the rest are just working for the weekend. At the same time, 32 percent of employees plan to change jobs this year, with some 58 percent feeling unsatisfied by the training and development opportunities offered by their employer. Echoing this sentiment, CareerBuilder also sees that job-hopping is on the rise, with 78 percent of workers open to the idea of a new opportunity, even though they aren’t actively looking.
The “Ultimate” Place to Work for Millennials
HR software darlings, Ultimate Software, topped the Best Workplaces for Millennials™ list for the third year running. According to the results, 98 percent of #Ultipeeps say the company is a great place to work, with nearly perfect scores for benefits, community, special events, inclusivity, and pride of work. Ultimate also made the People Magazine 2019 Companies that Care list.
Namely Reveals New CEO, Workplace Diversity Report
Long-time industry leader, Larry Dunivan, is in as CEO of Namely, leaving his previous post at ThinkHR (which recently merged with Mammoth HR). In addition to that flurry of activity, Namely also released its second annual Workplace Diversity Report, which tells us just how much work needs to happen around D&I. Not much of a surprise here, but white men make up of 63 percent of all managers, while fewer women and non-majority employees remain subject to lower compensation than their male or majority peers.
First Advantage Launches Tool that Uses Selfies for Screening
First Advantage unveiled a new solution called RightID, which uses AI to confirm that candidate selfies match their government-issued IDs to help expedite the screening process. Says the company, the “powerful technology verifies the individual’s identity within seconds, making for a near-instantaneous, trust-based interaction.
HiringSolved Unveils PROPHET II, PROPHET Pro
The AI-powered recruiting automation software company, HiringSolved, rolled out PROPHET II and PROPHET Pro, both helping to improve candidate sourcing. PROPHET II searches hundreds of millions of records, using any combination of skills, job titles, past employers, experience, and geographic location. PROPHET Pro gives recruiters access to info on 6,000 new candidates per month and includes an Advanced Expert Search mode.
Capital Investments, Mergers, & Acquisitions
Early in the month, we saw three significant acquisitions in the programmatic space. First, StepStone acquired 85 percent ofprogrammatic job advertising software, Appcast. Less than two weeks later, popular job site, Indeed, announced its agreement to acquire the U.K. based, automated job advertising technology platform, ClickIQ. And rounding out things out, TMP Worldwide is taking on Perengo, a programmatic recruitment platform. The consensus seems to be that these moves will help keep the acquirers relevant in today’s rapidly evolving tech landscape.
Speaking of relevance, Workday is also making moves, with the purchase of TrustedKey, an identity authentication company that uses blockchain technology. According to the business and cloud software giant, “With our new platform, Workday wants to change that by bringing credentials into the digital age.”
Gusto, the cloud-based payroll, benefits, and human resource management software focused on the SMB, raised $200M in Series D funding, from Fidelity Management & Research Company and Generation Investment Management (founded by former U.S. vice president Al Gore). The new capital will go towards scaling the company’s product and team.
Allegis Global launched an autonomous startup known as QuantumWork. The total talent solution gives recruiting, procurement, and HR leaders a single view of talent by integrating with core HCM, ATS, and VMS data.
We live in a world where robots are working at Walmart, telecom companies are rolling out 5G networks and astronomers are celebrating the first-ever photograph of a blackhole. Yet here we are approaching the year 2020 and recruiting hasn’t gotten much easier. If anything, it’s become more difficult, thanks to today’s skills shortage and historically competitive job market.
Despite a wealth of hiring tools and technologies at their fingertips, employers still struggle to acquire qualified talent. Likewise, job seekers can’t seem to find that perfect career, as evidenced by today’s high employee turnover rates. While unrealistic expectations may be a factor, a clear disconnect exists between these two groups. And, with millions of unfilled jobs in the U.S., this issue must be addressed sooner rather than later.
To determine how recruiting practitioners can better connect with top talent and vice versa, we surveyed more than 1,650 U.S. employers and job seekers about their online recruiting and job search experiences. Here are our top findings:
More than half of employers aren’t receiving applicants who meet their needs: When asked to cite their No. 1 challenge with recruiting through an online job board, website or community, 30.9% of employers said they receive too many irrelevant applications and 22.6% said they receive too many underqualified candidates. These findings are not necessarily surprising but confirm what we’ve long been hearing: the quest for qualified talent is an uphill battle.
“Ghosting” is scaring both candidates and employers: 26.4% of job seekers said their top challenge was not hearing back from employers after applying or interviewing. However, employers noted similar issues with applicants: 5.8% of employers said being ghosted by candidates was their top challenge, while 4.6% cited reaching out to applicants and not hearing back. This implies that stronger two-way communication is needed between employers and job seekers.
Job seekers and employers aren’t aligned on the importance of company culture: More than 62% of candidates said they are more likely to apply to a job ad if it includes company culture information, but just 46.1% of employers said they include these details in their ads. To stand out from the competition, employers should highlight what it’s like to work for their company in their job ads and across their recruitment marketing materials.
General job boards cast a wide net but aren’t delivering results: Both employers and job seekers said general job boards are their go-to recruiting and job search resource, respectively. However, 53.7% of employers who cited receiving too many irrelevant or underqualified applicants as their top challenge prioritize using a general job board. In contrast, just 14.7% of those employers said the same about an industry-specific job board. On the job seeker side, 45.6% of respondents who have been searching for a job for more than 12 months listed general job boards as their preferred platform.
Employees aren’t afraid to pursue greener pastures: 43.1% of job seekers said they are actively searching for a new job even though they are already employed. Unfortunately for employers, these findings imply that employee turnover rates aren’t going to improve any time soon – it is certainly a candidate-centric market where job seekers hold the upper hand.
Connecting the Dots
As technology evolves, finding qualified talent should become easier, but only if recruiting strategies and tactics advance at the same pace. With these survey findings in mind, consider the following tips:
Focus on quality over quantity: Evaluate how you are sourcing applicants – which resources are you using, and which have been most successful in yielding qualified candidates? You may find it’s time to try a more targeted approach. For instance, test out industry-specific job boards. With a lower volume of applicants and higher quality candidates, you’ll recruit more efficiently. In other words, without having to sift through dozens of irrelevant applications, you’ll save time and can shift your focus to other value-add tasks.
Review and revise your job ads: Ensure your ads are compelling, clear and include information most valuable to your target candidates – according to our survey, job seekers believe salary requirements, job location and a list of qualifications for the role are the three most important details in an ad. Also, don’t forget to highlight your company culture and your brand.
Communicate clearly and often: Treat candidates as you would a customer. Provide detailed steps about the hiring process and useful information along the way, whether through personalized emails, an ATS or an email marketing tool. More importantly, don’t ghost your applicants if you don’t want them to ghost you.
Participate in workforce development: Get proactively involved in closing the skills gap. Offer your own training resources, webinars and seminars related to your industry. Attend networking events, volunteer to speak at local schools, start an internship program and provide on-the-job training. Yes, these are time-consuming efforts, but they can also help expand your sources of applicants, drive referrals and support employer brand recognition.
Tap into your talent pipeline: If you don’t have one already, create a talent pipeline – a shortlist of potential candidates for future positions. This list should include “silver medalists” who narrowly missed out on a previous role or were not an exact fit. Keep in touch with these individuals and reach out when you’re ready to fill positions. You’ll save time, resources and HR headaches in the long run.
No matter how fast the job market changes or technology evolves, one thing is for certain: employers and job seekers should take the time to better understand each other. By empathizing with one another’s wants, needs and nuances, you’ll more easily find qualified talent, and candidates will more quickly find meaningful work. Maybe then recruiting will finally catch up with the times.
The talent landscape has changed dramatically over the past two decades. New skills, digital disruption, and changing workforce dynamics have compelled organizations to rethink their recruiting processes. Recruiting top talent is no longer just a transactional function. The candidate-recruiter relationship has become fundamental to the hiring process. Today, recruitment is more about building unique relationships with talent than merely filling a job opening.
The balance of power in the candidate-recruiter relationship has moved away from recruiters to the candidates. Candidates have more choice than ever before when it comes to choosing an employer. Online job boards, professional networking sites, employer reviewing platforms, and most importantly, social media have all had a key role in disrupting the status-quo in recruiting. Building lasting relationships with candidates, let alone hiring them, in this environment can prove to be quite a task. So, how can recruiters navigate this tight labor market to hire the right talent and drive business success?
The answer is simple – use innovative recruiting strategies to land top talent.
5 Creative Recruitment Strategies for 2019
Although recruitment is not an exact science and there’s no guaranteed formula for success, combining the right technology with the art of effective communication can produce phenomenal results. So, without further ado, let’s look at some of the top creative recruitment strategies you can begin deploying today.
1.Design a Winning Mobile Careers Page:
By the time you’ve read this, you’ll probably feel a strong urge to check your phone. According to a study by Asurion, the average American checks their phone every 12 minutes. That’s 80 times a day! And that’s where your candidates are as well – on their smartphones.
At a time when candidates are increasingly turning to their smartphones to aid their job search, delivering a consistent mobile experienceacross your careers pages, social profiles, and your applicant tracking systems (ATS) is crucial to sourcing the right talent. If you aren’t using mobile recruiting already, start small – forget about mobile apps, for now, begin with your careers page. Responsive careers pages can be your most important sourcing and employer branding tools. They help you showcase your company culture and brand – attracting prospective candidates and guiding them down the recruiting funnel. Your careers page is the best place to sell your jobs to candidates. Put some thought into how you want to position your employer brand; Your vision and mission statements should give you some inspiration. You can also list out the perks and benefits of working for your organization. If you offer flexible work options or remote work, be sure to add it to the page.
You can also invest in a mobile ATS solution that will integrate your mobile careers page into your recruitment CRM or HCM system, giving you a unified view of candidates in your recruiting pipeline. You can then run nurture and engagement campaigns to guide them down your funnel.
For organizations already using a mobile ATS solution or mobile-optimized careers pages, it’s time to up the ante. Analyze your careers page to understand how candidates are interacting with your careers page.
Are they dropping off at the resume submission stage?
What part of your career page are they engaging with, and what part is being ignored? This will help you optimize your careers page for a better candidate experience based on the insights you gather from behavioral data.
For instance, do you really need candidates to upload their resume as the first step?
Can you use their LinkedIn profiles as a substitute to their resumes?
Do you really need them to fill pages upon pages of personal information right away? Making it easier for candidates to discover and apply to jobs will certainly improve applications and conversions.
With a mobile-optimized careers page, you can now start exploring creative ways to present your employee value proposition. Videos and employee testimonials are a great way to showcase your brand to prospective employees.
2. Unleash the Power of Recruiting Videos:
Videos have become one of the most consumed content formats in recent times. As visual creatures, we are pre-programmed to engage with video content more easily than other content formats. Moreover, rising smartphone usage has fueled video consumption to unprecedented levels. According to CareerBuilder, job postings with videos are viewed 12 percent more than those without video content. In addition to a wider reach, videos have also been found to increase application rates by 34 percent. Recruitment videos are bound to get the attention of job seekers on social media too. Let’s take a look at some of the most creative recruitment videos you can take inspiration from:
SodaStream
This video by SodaStream is a great example of an effective recruitment video. It provides an in-depth view into the company culture – you can see the CEO joking around with the employees, they’ve also used humor to outline the ideal candidate profile, and they conclude with a powerful message about celebrating diversity. They also score extra brownie points with the environmentally conscious candidates. All this wrapped into a slick two and half minute video!
Epic Games
The North Carolina-based gaming company created this video to address candidate concerns about life in Raleigh, NC. Their approach to the video tells you that the company acknowledges that life for employees extends beyond the 9-5 grind. As a tech company located outside of the usual tech hotspots (San Francisco, New York, and Seattle), attracting diverse talent from across the world was a constant challenge. This video solved for that problem by focusing on the best that Raleigh had to offer.
Fiverr
Fiverr, one of the most popular online marketplaces for freelancers pokes fun at generic recruitment videos while demonstrating its unique and fun culture. The narrator speaks directly to the candidates which lend it a personal touch.
3. Use Hidden Job Ads to Find Top Talent:
One of the best ways to find critical thinkers and problem solvers is through hidden job ads. Organizations like Apple, Google, Facebook, and IKEA have all launched incredibly unique and creative recruiting campaigns to engage with the brightest talent. For candidates, job hunting can boil down to chance and luck. Hidden job ads on your website, social media, print or marketing collaterals can certainly make things much more interesting. Also, you get candidates who already demonstrate signs of high competence.
In 2017, Apple created an innovative recruiting campaign using breadcrumbs throughout its website to entice curious programmers looking to solve the mystery.
In 2004, Google bought billboards in Silicon Valley that displayed an URL in the form of a math puzzle. The message read “{first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com”, which brought users adept enough to solve the challenge, to a website that featured another challenge. It was only after solving the second challenge that Google revealed that the challenges were a part of its recruiting campaign.
It certainly is easier to find what you’re looking for if it comes looking for you!
4. Source Candidates through Text Messaging:
Well, text messaging in itself may not be very innovative. However, for organizations looking to hire young talent,text messaging as a recruiting strategy can prove to be surprisingly effective. In the age of instant gratification, text messaging offers a cost-effective and faster solution for hiring. Millennials and Gen Zers already use their smartphones more often than their computer to look for jobs. Because candidates are more likely to have their phones on their person rather than their laptops throughout the day, you can be assured of faster responses and more opens than emails. Additionally, text messages seldom get deleted or sent to spam – their lifespan is much longer than emails. Text messaging is a must-have recruitment tool for any organization looking for quick and cheap recruiting strategies.
5. Go Social:
Social media is undeniably one of the most significant inventions of the 21st century and offers a host of benefits to recruiters looking to mix it up. Social recruiting goes beyond posting vacancies on your company’s social media handles. It helps you proactively connect and engage with prospective candidates and build authentic relationships. In a tight labor market, candidates often window-shop jobs and the right message delivered from a trusted source at the right time can result in a successful hire.
Social recruiting platforms and employee advocacy solutions can vastly improve your social hiring efforts. Frequent posts about your culture, activities, and values can help you build trust and allows candidates to engage with you in a low-stress environment. Moreover, social media is also quickly emerging as one of the most effective platforms for employer branding. LinkedIn groups, ongoing conversations, and [popular hashtags are all great ways to get your jobs in front of the right candidates.
Over the past couple of years, there has been a sharp decline in the organic reach of popular social platforms. Especially when it comes to branded content. Recent reports linkthe decrease in organic reach to the perceived push by social media platforms to encourage brands to invest in advertising on their platforms. Creating content tailored to each platform can help you boost your visibility. For instance, using Twitter to host discussions or live chats with prospective candidates and industry professionals will help your content reach your target audience. Or using your LinkedIn recruiter profiles to send out direct messages (DM) and hold meaningful conversations with candidates can help you build engagement. Similarly, your Instagram handles can be leveraged to give your candidates a sneak peek into your company culture and popular activities (think weekend quizzes, bring your children to work days, and the like).
Posting unique content across each of these platforms provides your prospective candidates with insights into what working with you really entails. It forms the foundation for organic engagement that’s in short supply for brands on social platforms. It’s one of the most powerful ways of standing out as an employer of choice.
Recruiting has never been more challenging than it is today. By using the right mix of creativity and technology, you can easily take your recruiting game to the next level. Use these five tips to get inspired and find your next great hire.
It’s pretty apparent that sourcing and recruiting go hand in hand – you can’t hire successfully without finding candidates first. And you can think of sourcing any which way you want. Sometimes it’s like a spring that recruiters drink from, with a constant flow of fresh, qualified candidates pouring in. Other times, like now, when the job market tightens up, sources can slow down and even dry up. That’s why we (meaning talent acquisition pros) need to look beyond the obvious and learn to source from all sides. Because quality sourcing, the kind that helps build pipelines and improve outcomes, will almost always require more than a cursory search over on LinkedIn.
As a result of this need, we see a lot of articles talking about espousing tips and tricks, dos and don’ts. But before you get to that, you need to understand the difference between excellent sourcing and hack sourcing.
Making the Distinction
Truly great sourcers border on sorcerers (say that three times fast). They’re able to produce potential candidates from seemingly thin air, using a combination of imaginative thinking, tech-savvy, unique search skills and good old fashioned persistence. They look in places others wouldn’t think of, they connect and network with like-minded individuals and make their presence – and passion – known everywhere they go. These are the folks you want in your corner when unemployment rates drop and top talent goes the way of the buffalo.
When you come across such a fantastic resource, you may marvel at their findings and wonder how they do it. And while there are some secrets at play, the fact is these people put in the work. They take the time to figure out what they’re searching for; they spend hours crafting their searches and expand from there. They take into consideration other initiatives like diversity and inclusion and adjust their strategy accordingly. After that, they review the results, looking for buried treasure and new directions to explore. They keep thinking as the process progresses, refining their approach as they go.
Hack sourcers don’t do any of that. They stick with what they know and what they’re given, and that’s about it. They rely on a select source or two to find a handful of maybes that will satisfy the base requirements. They rarely think outside the box, comfortable with their existing routine and approach. Their concerns rest with simply fulfilling the request, nothing more and nothing less. They tend to fly under the radar, unable to offer any more than what’s asked.
Being a hack sourcer doesn’t make them a bad person per se, more likely it makes them uninspired or uninterested in their job. You wouldn’t want to be that sourcer, and you certainly don’t want to hire them to help with hiring others.
Resources for Sourcers
Of course, it’s possible to grow and evolve one’s sourcing practice, too. Few of us have any idea what we’re doing when we start a new job, having to take weeks or even months to feel comfortable and become productive. There’s hope for sourcers across the spectrum, provided they have the drive to take their craft to the next level. And this is where recruiters and hiring managers come into play. Because sourcing is a collective effort. It involves input and direction to get them started, far beyond a few bullet points or keywords to search. It requires alignment between stakeholders, and agreement around the job description. Even the best sourcers need guidance. Otherwise, the whole exercise will be for naught.
Too often you read missives outlining the tensions between recruiters and hiring managers, but rarely, if ever, do you see how this impacts the sourcers. Think of a three-legged stool. Recruiters, hiring managers and sourcers each take a leg. What happens when you remove one of the three? The stool falls. So if you’re looking to improve sourcing, you need to think not just about who you’re working with but also how you’re working together. What do you bring to this equation? The less you give, the less you get. The more you give, the more you’ll get in return. This isn’t rocket science; it’s how the world works.
By actively supporting sourcers, opening up lines of communication and providing thoughtful feedback, you can strengthen the entire recruiting process. Likewise, for sourcers, gathering up the right resources can dramatically improve your success rate – and sometimes, that means asking more questions before engaging.
The point is sourcing functions as the backbone of recruiting. By keeping your practice robust, you’re able to stand up and tackle any req that comes your way – allowing this to slouch does you a disservice in the long run. So before attempting that next shortcut, take a look at who is sourcing and what they’re working with – and leave the hacks to the professionals.
Last week, Indeed released their list of the top-rated workplaces for 2019 – and if you’ve seen the list before, this year’s findings may or may not surprise you. Typically when we see these types of lists come out, the same five companies vie for the top spot, trading places with one another depending on who did the analysis. Not so much this year.
To put such a momentous list together, Indeed dug into some 150 million ratings, looking specifically at members of the Fortune 500 with at least 100 reviews posted between June 2017 and June 2019. From all that analysis, they were able to identify the highest rated companies for overall employee experience. That’s a whole lot of data, sweat and tears, folks.
And you might wonder why they would do this, year after year, besides for promotional purposes. Well, as Indeed explains, “Online reviews have impacted the world of work, giving both employers and employees alike a line of sight into what companies are doing right — and what they’re doing wrong. The power of online reviews and the tight labor market mean it’s crucial for employers to create positive employee experiences to attract candidates and retain employees.” No doubt anyone who has ever bought something online or applied for a job would agree. So let’s get down to the findings.
The Winner: Adobe
You’re probably thinking…the PDF people? Seriously? Yep, that would be the one. Of course, Adobe is way more than Acrobat and Reader. Perhaps you’ve heard of a little called Photoshop before. But in terms of Adobe as an employer, they’ve mostly snuck under the radar. Until now.
Slowly but surely, Adobe built up a name for themselves as an employer of choice. According to those Indeed reviewers, it’s “one of the best places to work.” Doesn’t exactly say a lot but it counts for something!
A quick peek at their Indeed page, and you start to get a better sense of why they might take top billing. Almost 600 reviews, with a 4.3 overall rating that includes high marks for work-life balance, compensation and benefits, culture, job security and management. What more could an employee want?
Second Place: Facebook
Turns out, even after a rough couple of years, Mark Zuckerberg is doing something right – and that’s recruiting and retaining some of the world’s best and brightest. Says one reviewer, “Getting hired at Facebook has been the highlight of my career.” Wow.
Interestingly, the Facebook company page on Indeed shows only 461 reviews, but an overall rating of 4.2 with its culture called out again and again. What’s more – 85 percent approve of the Zuck as CEO! That’s got to feel good after having to testify in front of Congress.
Still, a recent review from a People Operations Manager pulls the curtain back a bit, explaining that the company grew quickly and without the right leadership or policies in place. “Too much time waters on performance reviews and pulse surveys twice a year that caused a lot of anxiety and tension with new managers and employees.”
Third Place: Southwest Airlines
Appears that these days, flying the friendly skies includes the hard-working team from Southwest Airlines. Even after the loss of co-founder and former CEO Herb Kelleher earlier this year, the airline remains beloved among employees.
At press time, the Southwest Airlines profile on Indeed indicates a 4.3 overall rating with nearly 1700 reviews calling out the company’s compensation and benefits and culture. Not sure how close the race was with Facebook, but the Southwest workforce shares a lot of positives. The most recent comments exclaim “Best company and job ever” and “Excellent place to work,” while a few others point out issues with management. Even so, it’s no easy task when you have more than 10,000 employees to keep happy.
Bonus – The airline touts a 75 percent diversity score on its profile, something you don’t find on the Adobe or Facebook pages.
Everyone Else
Rounding out the top ten, Indeed shows events promoter and venue operator Live Nation; business and financial software company, Intuit; beloved, members-only warehouse retailer, Costco Wholesale; a little airline called Delta; internet giant and multinational e-commerce corporation, eBay; some tech company called Microsoft; and the maker of Band-Aids and Benadryl, Johnson & Johnson.
Says Indeed, “One recurring theme this year among employee reviews seems to be the importance of an enjoyable work environment —whether that environment is fun, supportive, true to its company values or all of the above. An enjoyable work environment ladders up to the bigger theme of employee experience, which encapsulates everything an employee feels over the course of their journey at a company.” What a dream.
Notably absent from the top ten? Google/Alphabet, Amazon, and Apple.
An email drip campaign is a series of marketing emails that work together to nurture consumers. They’re called drip campaigns because they provide buyers with useful information by slowly dripping over time.
Not everyone knows about its advantages and simply the difference between a drip campaign and bulk emailing. Actually, there is a great difference, but we’re here not for this issue. We have to show you the key advantages of such a great email marketing strategy.
Automated funnel movement
A drip campaign is a chain of emails sent to people depending upon the actions they perform. These actions herein triggers lead to the next step in the campaign. The only thing to remember is that the campaign flow is as good as the idea of it.
So sit down and make the stunning adventure you want the prospects to take. Just start the first message, set up triggers, delays, and goals. Then, the system does everything for you.
Drag-and-drop editor
If you are a new user here and you are completely afraid of making such a great job as a drip campaign, don’t worry. Online, you can find easy-to-use visual editors. This is the place where you create the campaign.
The drag-n-drop campaign builders are the easiest, as they have a number of convenient features. For example, while building a campaign brunch, you visualize the whole sequence. This way, it’s really easy to check if the stages are connected logically.
The visual editors were made for your comfort. Also, you can set up a schedule, pauses, triggers, and goals. Everything else is defined according to the prospects’ actions: whether there will be the next step or the campaign will stop once and forever.
Own list of subscribers
It is possible to create your own list of prospects and clients to whom the messages will be sent. If the lists are already made in Google Sheet or Excel file, you can just upload them to the platform. People from the lists will receive messages until they unsubscribe or you delete them.
Multi-purpose tool
One of the beneficial things about drip emails is that you can use them for any needs.
For instance, for sending welcoming and farewell emails, onboarding and confirmation emails (to confirm a customer’s purchase by setting up a “thank you” autoresponder), educational and nurturing emails, etc.
Nevertheless, everything depends upon your desire; what you are going to spread in particular.
Delighted customers
With drip campaigns, you deliver the right information at exactly the right moment. Because customers get only the valuable content, they’re more welcoming and pleased.
If a prospect visits your website by clicking the attached link, the automated trigger works out. Then, the campaign sends a thanking email to the person for checking out the stuff or a follow-up email with something worthy or anything else. Your imagination is the only limit which next email will be sent.
Continuous conversation with users
One of the main purposes of drip emails is to nurture leads until they become loyal buyers. Drip emails can serve as an ongoing conversation between you and the prospects. This way your brand will be top-of-mind and the relationships with the users will be full of trust. Keeping in touch with the recipients shows that you keep promises to always deliver more.
Moreover, the continuous supply in the sales process helps to maximize the revenue.
Increase brand recall
Even if the customer ends up buying the product, a set of highly relevant emails would make sure that you still remember them and are accessible at any time the user needs you.
So, the customer can come back for a second purchase, renew the subscription (in case it was deleted) or at least recommend your product to friends, relatives, business partners, etc.
Are there more advantages?
Of course, there are. Anyway, the above-mentioned were worthy of your attention. This tool is the easiest way to reach the leads’ hearts and keep them straight in the hands for a long period of time.
Nurture the prospects with the necessary information and increase brand awareness through continuous conversation with customers. Make your own prospects list, build a campaign, and just watch the sales increasing.
Adding this tool to your armory, you will easily automate email marketing and get all the benefits with bare hands.
I’m sure you have seen vendor sponsored white papers galore that claim that they have created the best sourcing tool ever known to humanity. It is AI powered, comes in a variety of colors is inexpensive and even does the dishes! While the dishes pile up on me I’d like to also, respectfully, refute any vendor’s claim of having created the ultimate sourcing tool, AI powered, shiny button heavy or otherwise.
“I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” – Albert Einstein
I’m here to share a revelation that might shock you to the very core. The best sourcing tool in the world is located directly between your ears. The most valuable asset you own is your mind. The most important trait for any sourcer to have is a passionately curious nature. That may seem counter intuitive. After all, we spend countless hours learning how to create better searches or how to write better outreach and wrangle unrealistic expectations of our hiring managers.
A claim without evidence is just an anecdote so I will try to convince you that while the shiny toys are nice and they can help us with our work there is no substitute for a curious mind. The first professional example I have came early in my career.
In 2009 I attended the first Recruit DC conference. The featured key note speaker was Gerry Crispin. He gave a great presentation on candidate experience and I waited to speak with him after he was finished. I remember extending my hand to him, introducing myself as a recruiter for the company I was working with at the time. He extended his hand back to me and said, “Gerry Crispin, eternal student.”
Gerry has forgotten more about recruiting than I know but his introduction was a key turning point in my career. I have taken his words to heart and it has paid rich dividends over the course of my career. In 2011 I was working as a sourcer for a large financial services firm. I was required to attend a meeting about how our jobs were posted. As a sourcer, I had little interest in a meeting about job postings but I attended all the same.
During the meeting, the presenter shared with us that the prospect that had started filling out an application but had not completed it, had their information stored in what was called a drop off report. In a meeting with roughly 300 recruiters, I was “that guy” and asked how a person could run that report. I was given the instructions and acted accordingly.
Once I was granted access I ran the report for all of the jobs I was working on. I had over 800 results. I thought to myself, what if I just run the report for the entire company? After seeing the spinning circle of death, I got up to get a cup of coffee. On the way back to my desk I stopped to have a quick chat with my boss. When I returned to my desk I was able to download over 11,000 prospects. Over the weekend I divided up my contacts and delivered them to the different business units on Monday morning. I learned a valuable lesson. Stephen Hawking had this to say about asking questions “As a father, I would try to instill the importance of asking questions, always.”
The most valuable thing I have learned from my mentors and my heroes is the importance of asking the question. The most brilliant minds that humanity has produced have passed on the same advice over hundreds of years. It helps me to think even the greatest minds were never satisfied. My advice to you is to ask the question the little voice in the back of your head presents you with. Never silence that voice. Many times it might lead you nowhere but I appeal to the words of someone who was much smarter than I am:
“no great discovery was made without a bold guess.” –Isacc Newton
In parting, I leave you with one more bit of wisdom about a life of learning from the same genius:
“What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean.”
As far as recruiting goes, the last decade has been…eventful. From the job market rebound post-Great Recession and rise of the candidate experience, to the current push toward artificial intelligence and automation, recruiting innovation continues to enhance and advance our abilities. But at the end of the day, tools and technology aside, the job remains the same. It’s about getting out there, finding qualified candidates, forging relationships, and if all the variables line up, making the hire. The trouble starts when we lose sight of that and become overly reliant on the solutions that support us. That’s right, support, not supplant – and striking that balance is harder than it seems – and here’s why:
Nature’s Push
Now, when we say nature, we mean the things that happen organically (or at least seem to). With recruiting in 2019, almost nothing happens by chance. Through top of funnel awareness efforts like recruitment marketing, even a candidate that appears to have stumbled off the proverbial street may have been seen your brand at some point or another. They might not even know or remember that they saw you somewhere first, before finding a job post that fits their needs and experience.
And while there’s no definitive count on the number of ads we see in a day, most estimates put the number somewhere between 4,000 and 10,000. There’s simply no way for a candidate to remember everything we’re exposed to online in a given day. The thing is – that’s the new normal, a stand-in for an otherwise naturally occurring environment. Candidates can’t escape the Internet and neither can recruiters and so we’ve adapted. But no one – not even the gainfully employed – are immune to the onslaught of recruiting-related materials we encounter daily. And like the moons impacting the tides, this new reality influences candidates, active and passive alike.
Unnatural as it may seem, we’re talking about a universally recognized approach, employed by many organizations. This is where we need automation the most, where technology serves to expand our reach and peddle our openings to a broader audience. Because without the right tools in place, recruiters default to straight sourcing mode and spend the bulk of the time searching, with little time for anything else.
Nurture’s Pull
That said, there are tools for nurturing candidates, and yes, they can and do help in certain instances. But let’s talk about the other type of nurture, the kind that happens with two humans interact with one another. Getting the chance to speak to candidates and learn about their background and experience is arguably one of the more enjoyable parts of recruiting. It’s the real-life interactions that brighten up our weeks and keep us going.
Recruiters have the pleasure of helping people at every stage in their career, whether that means just starting out or working their way up. Sure, candidates show up late, forget to say thank you and sometimes disappear without a trace. But for every one of those job seekers, there are the grateful ones, the people eternally thankful for helping them, the ones who stay in touch as the years pass. That’s the part of the lifecycle that sparks joy.
Of course, getting there requires some heavy lifting, typically in the form of personalization, transparency and (over)communication. Much like the micro-experiences described above, candidates feel good when we’re able to reach out and share an update personally, be it a phone call, email or text. We sometimes joke about the existence of the black hole, but to candidates, it’s tangible. Nurture provides the comfort of knowing there’s another person on the other end, rather than a vacuous bot or database. It’s about pulling candidates close and keep them engaged by check-in regularly and making an effort to know them.
Yin and Yang
There’s no doubt that technology plays into the recruiting process – it represents the state of the industry and the future of work. The trick is using tech in a way that helps everyone involved: candidates, recruiters and hiring managers while maintaining ample time for nurture in the purest sense.
No one goes into recruiting for the glamour – there’s no big fortune, no chance of fame. We recruit because we understand how people operate and like helping them find their way. Without that, the work becomes tedious, with hours spent scrolling and scrolling in hopes of finding a golden goose. Leave the information collection to the ATS and use your skills to build bigger networks and stronger relationships. But don’t worry – there’s still plenty to do. We didn’t even get into conversion – and where would we be without actually hiring.
The trucking and logistics industries are the backbone of the U.S. economy. Naturally, as the economy flourishes, the need for trucks, and drivers, skyrockets. However, the high-volume, high-turnover nature of the industry makes recruiting truck drivers difficult. Research from a 2017 study shows that driver turnover is exceptionally high, reaching as high as 98 percent in 2017 with 70 percent of that turnover occurring in the first year of employment; this rate of turnover places an added layer of difficulty on driver recruitment.
Driver turnover is only one contributing factor to the uber-competitive hiring market for drivers. In 2017, the American Trucking Association estimated that the trucking industry will need to hire roughly 900,000 new drivers over the next decade. Nearly half of the new drivers will be needed to replace drivers who are expected to retire.
Trucking also comes with a slew of recruitment hurdles, including driver age limits. In the United States, the age limit to become a truck driver is 21 years old, creating a barrier for recent high school graduates to enter the field. While this creates an uneven ratio of driver candidates entering the market to drivers retiring out of the industry, lowering the age for interstate CDL to 18 could compromise road safety with younger drivers. Maintaining a balance between replacing the aging driver population and maintaining road safety standards furthers the furthering the hiring competition in trucking.
Study Methodology & Report Findings
To fully uncover the extent of the recruitment difficulties in trucking, driver sourcing platform FindaTruckerJob.com conducted a study of HR decision makers from various fleet types and sizes. Through the survey, trucking hiring leaders were polled about their biggest recruiting challenges, past recruitment approaches, driver applicant channels, and future recruitment trends.
Recruiters indicated that their greatest challenges in trucking recruitment were the following:
● Unqualified Candidates: 72 percent of recruiters reported that of the applicants received, the majority of candidates were not qualified for the role. Candidate qualification goes further than driver licensure. Disqualifying factors can also include previous accident or violation history, missing endorsements, DUIs, driver’s age, and more. ● Lack of Applicants: 50 percent of recruiters shared that they do not receive enough applications to meet their hiring targets. The lack of applicants is likely due, in part, to the increasingly competitive nature of the hiring market in the industry. ● Passive Candidates: 36 percent of recruiters struggled with receiving information of candidates who did not directly apply to the role. The primary source for “database leads” is aggregate job boards such as Indeed and ZipRecruiter who use candidate-match algorithms to share information with employers of candidates who did not actively apply.
Recruiters also identified two technological trends that they believe are key for successful trucking recruitment: social and mobile recruitment.
● Social Recruitment: 98 percent of recruiters polled agreed that social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are essential for trucking recruitment. Their response coincides with data from a 2019 Trucker News survey that showed that 63 percent of drivers said they use Facebook versus only 14 percent on LinkedIn. For industries like transportation and logistics, the typical “white-collar” networking platforms like LinkedIn do not suffice. ● Mobile Recruitment: 92 percent of recruiters polled believed that a seamless mobile application experience is a must in 2019. Optimizing applications for a mobile device does more than improve the candidate experience. According to a 2019 Glassdoor study, 74 percent of truck driver applicants are applying on a mobile device, meaning recruiters who employ mobile-first applications will see a boost in applicant conversion.
Trucking is an increasingly nuanced industry to recruit for with unique hiring challenges like high competition for qualified drivers and uncertain future of government regulations. Despite hiring uncertainty, technology adoption and the evolution of recruiting best practices can help trucking companies outperform their competitors in driver recruiting efforts.
Check out the full report here: tinyurl.com/fatjrecruit
With the first half of 2019 firmly in the books, a few trends become apparent, but none more so than the ongoing consolidation going on within the talent acquisition space. Most recently, this played out with iCIMS announcing its acquisition of Jibe. Before that, we saw Shaker International merge with Montage, and of course, earlier in the year, the big Jobvite announcement that saw the company take on Talemetry, RolePoint, and Canvas in one fell swoop. What we haven’t seen is a lot of talk about why this is happening now and what it means for the industry.
If you’ve been around HR tech long enough, you’ll likely remember that we’ve seen this happen before. Not with TA per se, but on the HCM side. After some time, these large core systems became relegated to serving as big “file cabinets” used for storage, compliance and approval processes, acting as a conduit to feed data into other business systems like benefits and payroll. Once the promise of the file cabinet systems was fully realized, the focus started to shift to “What other important things could tech be used for?” And looking to drive and derive additional value from employees and their information, we saw the birth of talent management, when innovation focused almost exclusively in this then-new category.
The Present
Today, we see something similar taking place, with the ATS functioning as the HCM in this metaphor. Even as a feeder system for the HCM, the ATS also became a big file cabinet used for storage, compliance, approval processes and sending information to other systems. Having evolved so far, the ATS is now table stakes, with TA professionals already considering different ways to use recruiting technologies.
Compound this with a keen understanding that you can’t manage talent if you don’t have the right people in these roles; a growing appreciation for “engagement” and “experiences” as critical to securing and developing a workforce that meets business needs; significant advancements around artificial intelligence, machine learning, data and analytics that decrease the cost of buying and deploying these technologies; and record low unemployment rates. All of this leads to the perfect storm, where progress and interest in TA tech dances around the ATS, though ultimately, it remains central to the recruiting workflow. The net effect, but unintended consequence, is that the talent acquisition ecosystem is fractured, leaving customers with the pain of dealing with an overwhelming number of choices and systems that don’t interoperate.
Ironically, while each of these point solutions may demonstrate gains when used in a vacuum, if melded together into a business process, the outcome is a tech stack of systems that don’t play well together and in turn, decrease productivity.
The Future
So what’s next? Well, from what we’re observing this year, the larger players are waking up to the fact that their smaller, younger counterparts innovate faster than they can. This is leading to the concern that new entrants will either erode market share or limit the opportunity for expansion. The “eat or be eaten” law of the jungle tends to kick-in during situations like this, further facilitating the scenario where “old” meets “new” and then acquires “new” in an effort to stay relevant.
Of course, other forces are heating up activity in talent acquisition, too. These include, but are not limited to the establishment of “mobile first” as a platform consideration; the rise of the gig economy and freelance talent pool; proliferation of on-demand talent marketplaces; emerging dialogue around the “total talent” and “talent advisor” perspectives; and expanded use of data to understand the talent landscape and how to leverage those insights for talent attraction. All of this combines to draw additional attention to talent acquisition and as a result, the underlying technologies that serve to bring talent and work together – we’re well beyond parsing resume data at this point.
There are any number of reasons why the TA is so hot right now, and it will be interesting to see what guides the market’s expansion and consolidation. Hopefully, the majority of today’s disruptors and innovators will survive and thrive – either as stand-alone companies or as part of larger organizations. But even so, sometimes an increase in acquisition activity kills off a concept, or as is all too common, when the acquirer doesn’t know what to do with the acquired and runs the solution into the ground.
The HR tech history book is full of great companies dead and buried. As for those that remain, seeking to change the space as we know it, it’s time to pay attention.
Next Steps
It is long understood that early adopters have first mover advantage. Traditionally, though, while latecomers miss out on the initial excitement, they “catch up” relatively quickly. This is primarily because of the lessons learned from early implementations that get codified into playbooks and best practices rapidly adopted by late entrants.
In the case of TA tech in 2019, we’re seeing rapid innovation around recruiting automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing and advanced analytics. Candidates see these technologies in action every day, mostly through their consumer activities, and soon to expect that their HR experiences follow suit. With this in mind, know that consolidation happened before, back when all anyone could talk about was talent management, with those products rolled up into one unified suite before being acquired by the core systems. History will repeat itself, and vendors will come and go.
The real question is, which side of the line do you want to see your business on? Can you afford to be five or more years behind the early adopters? Don’t sit back on the sidelines, watching and waiting. Start exploring and experimenting to learn how emerging technologies support your business outcomes. The time for action is now.
June continued the 2019 trend, with lots of big announcements coming from companies across the space. We saw mergers and acquisitions, funding rounds, new products and more – on top of all the events and hiring happening. Here are ten highlights from this month:
Eightfold launched RPA Talent Connect – This integrates the Eightfold Talent Intelligence Platform with any existing talent management system, making the company the first provider of talent solutions not limited by the type of legacy systems used by enterprise customers.
HireVue introduced a new version of CodeVue – Latest update to CodeVue coding assessment product enables technical hiring managers and recruiters to spot cheating in pre-hire coding tests through code-similarity scoring, new playback and timeline functionality and question randomization.
Sense released recruiter marketing tool “Journeys” – The candidate and contractor engagement platform recently shared details about its new automated workflow functionality. “Journeys” aims to help recruiters create personalized experiences with candidates, clients and internal teams at scale.
AllyO raised $45M in Series B– The end-to-end AI recruiting platform completed the round with two new investors, Sapphire Ventures and Scale Venture Partners, as well as existing investors Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI fund), Randstad Innovation Fund, Bain Capital Ventures and Cervin Ventures.
Enboarder completed its Series A with $8M – This brings the company’s funding up to $12 million to date, as it seeks to give employers better ways to onboard, delivering personalized experiences and driving human connection well before new hires begin their roles.
Alexander Mann Solutions acquired Karen HR– AMS adds “cognitive recruiting assistant” Karen AI to its portfolio of products. The move supports the company’s growth plans and commitment to extending its global footprint.
iCIMS continued growing, picked up Jibe – With Jibe, iCIMS puts additional emphasis on front-end candidate experience, helping employers improve recruiting effectiveness by promoting employer brand, engaging passive talent and measuring recruiting ROI.
And that’s just scratching the surface. Got news to share with us for our next update? Contact [email protected].
You’ve seen it before. Heck, most of us see it every day. You enter an elevator or wait in line at the store and witness a sea of people with their heads bowed staring down at their phones. Tap, swipe, scroll, repeat.
Had I seen this coming, I might have become a chiropractor, catering to the needs of craned necks across the country. But I’m not, and I’d venture a guess that neither are you. Instead, we work in a space where technology rules supreme, streamlining and automating even the most basic of HR functions. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having tech, and I can’t even imagine having to write this long-form without the aid of a computer.
Still, despite the benefits, there are also the drawbacks. Some are obvious, like the scenario mentioned above. Others are more subtle, the slow decay of soft skills that’s leaving younger generations of workers without a foundational understanding of the way the world works. And recognizing the varied impact of tech innovation, there’s a conversation happening around how “human” fits in with “resources” in 2019 and beyond. Because chances are, this whole situation will get worse before it gets better, with little hope for a return to days when the slide rule and Rolodex embodied advancement. Although talking about it gives us a place to start.
“Humane” Technology
On the flip side of this conversation is this idea of “humane” tech. Media theorist Douglas Rushkoff has a sharp take on this one, explaining that some developers have seen the error of their ways and now they want to make technology for the greater good. Except as Rushkoff explains, calling any technology “humane” makes as much practical sense as the idea of “cage-free chickens.” So on the surface, these tech caters to its users, while simultaneously extracting as much data and money as “humanely” possible (see what I did there?).
Rushkoff cites several examples that operate under this disguise. Social media for one. Most of us would agree that the purpose of these channels is to connect with other humans. But what many fail to realize is the data collection going on in the process, building out statistical profiles and then delivering content to influence our future behaviors. This weighs heavy on the efficacy of social recruiting and other online interactions.
Finding the Line
Of course, going back to an earlier statement, there’s nothing wrong with using tech like social media as long as we do so consciously. The trouble starts when we over-automate, relying on tech to do work better suited to human beings.
For instance, maybe you’ve met Marty, the funny looking robot that’s roaming grocery stores to help identify spills. The word on the street is that Marty’s work frees up store employees so they can spend more time with customers. Though it’s apparent that Marty is there to do more than call out “Clean up in aisle six.” The robot is observing customers and inventory and collecting data along the way. Could a human do that work? Sure. Is Marty more qualified? Probably not. Is Marty creeping out customers more than a human would? More than likely, yes. But at the heart of matter, is what we’re losing by having Marty there. Now the humans who work there become harder to find and shoppers move about their business without talking to anyone, they self check-out and leave to go tap, swipe and scroll at home.
Just Care
So, perhaps you’ve heard of a little tagline that says, “Just do it.” Three simple words that have circulated the world for over 30 years. To strike a balance between humanity and technology, I only need two words: just care. That’s it. Because here’s the thing, until we learn to manage ourselves in a way where you can be in the moment and present, while leveraging technology, caring is our best option.
Caring means understanding how people want to work together and delivering experiences that cater to the individual. Caring means putting in the extra effort to personalize the recruiting process from start to finish in order to hire and retain the best candidate for the job. Caring means going the extra mile to ensure that your workforce has the tools they need to succeed, both at work and in life. Caring means acknowledging engagement and achievement throughout an employee’s tenure and working to support their development and nurture this relationship. Caring means taking a step back and looking at the big picture when it comes to business impact.
Without caring, we risk becoming complacent, and that’s bad for us on a personal level, and it sure doesn’t spell success for our organizations. It might also give Marty the chance to take over, and nobody wants that to happen. So do us all a favor and just care.
Want to strengthen the human connection at your company? Join me on July 25 at 2 p.m. ET for the webinar “IRL is the New Black” with Eventbrite and Enboarder.
Suppose you were caught on the edge of a cliff, being pursued by an angry elephant. Would you stand and fight? Or jump off into the abyss? If you’re like most people, you’d choose the elephant. When faced with a choice between the known and unknown, humans cling to the information gained from past experiences. This has allowed us to make reasonable projections and act accordingly. But it also makes it difficult for us to accept change.
When you roll out a new initiative or IT solution, then, you can count on some folks to resist it. It’s easy to write off change-averse people as timid, or stubborn, or old-fashioned. But you’d be missing out on the why. If you want to get around roadblocks to change, learn why they were constructed in the first place.
What Is Cognitive Bias?
The human brain’s creative side may mislead us into thinking that we have the power to dream up novel scenarios or make wholesale leaps of faith. But the truth is, people can only operate from information they already have. We learn new things all the time, but we can only make sense of them based on what’s already in our memory banks.
This is why “the devil you know”—in our case, the elephant—usually wins over the unknown, or whatever lies at the bottom of that cliff. There may be a lovely oasis down there, with a soft mattress to break our fall. But because we know that elephants like peanuts and drink with their trunks, we’re more comfortable jousting with them.
In the office, your coworker Jean might not know why she doesn’t like the idea of the new computer program. She might not even have liked the old one that much, but was able to find work-arounds for its bugs. The new one, she supposes, might be worse. Or, maybe she thinks the boss has decided she is inefficient and wants to replace her job with automated software. No way is she on board with that!
Assumptions, misinterpretations, fear of what we don’t know … all of these reasons to resist change come from having too little information. Cognitive bias lets us sidestep the decision-making process by assuming we already know the answer, or by supposing that the answer will be negative. Add an emotional element, such as being goaded about her viewpoint by Brian in the next cubicle, and you’ve got even greater resistance. The antidote, then, must be the accurate presentation of information—and, perhaps, a little smoodging.
How Can We Overcome Opposition?
The first step is to remove resistance from the realm of the personal. Jean is a problem. Jean’s a Luddite; she hates change of any kind. These are uninformed biases themselves. Placing people in limiting boxes increases the odds of their fulfilling our low expectations. So, before individuals can raise their shields, give them the data and guidance they need to understand the what and why of any change to come.
In fact, before rolling out your new initiative to the whole group, approach those with a natural affinity first. Maybe Brian has a knack for database management. Enlist him to train on the new software first and to mentor the rest of the department when you unveil the new system. Let him know that you want to set an inviting tone, to pull others on board and get them up to speed. He’ll be less likely to snipe at Jean.
And remember, what we see as opposition may just be hesitancy. We aren’t all on the same “clock” when it comes to accepting new things. If you know that someone considers themselves to be “not tech-savvy,” take some extra time to ease that person into the new routine. A little one-on-one with Brian, enhanced by some tasty snacks, might win Jean over.
Relevant information presented in a diplomatic and positive light can work wonders to circumvent cognitive biases. What if, as you rushed toward the cliff with that irate elephant at your heels, you read a sign: soft landing and free cookies, next exit? Now you can make a real choice. You can jump, or you can step aside and let the elephant take the fall.
You probably know you should use assessments to help screen job applicants. However, with thousands of assessments available, how do you know which ones are right for you? What should they assess, and how many should you use? Should you use the same assessments for every job in your company, or should you use different assessments depending on the job?
Depending on your company and the nature of the work you do, some assessments might make sense to use for all (or at least most) positions, but usually different jobs demand different skills. If that’s the case, you need to figure out the best assessments for each position. This can be challenging but possible if you take these steps.
The First Step: Define Your Job Requirements
The best way to choose assessments is to do some homework and investigate what it takes to do the job you need to fill. Base your choices on solid information and not on your “gut feelings” about the job. The first step in designing an assessment program for a particular job is to determine the major knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics (KSAOs) candidates need to perform the job with excellence.
K: What do they know (for example, do they have knowledge of legal procedures)?
S: What skills do they have (for example, are they proficient in Excel)?
A: What are their aptitudes (for example, can they learn quickly)?
O: What other qualities do they need (for example, does the job require a friendly personality or a level of physical strength)?
The Second Step: Figure out What You Need with a Job Analysis
Conduct a detailed analysis of the job by studying and documenting the nature of the tasks performed, the KSAOs needed to perform those tasks, and setting in which the job is performed. You can gather job analysis information in many ways — there is no “best way” to do it.
1. Doing Your Own Job Analysis
The most precise way to gather KSAO information is to conduct your own job analysis on the specific job in question. Such a customized job analysis can be difficult and time-consuming. They involve interviewing or surveying existing employees and supervisors in the position in question to get a snapshot of the job and its KSAOs. Large companies usually conduct such studies when they have many positions for the same job within the company. They use their own in-house experts or hire consultants to do their job analyses.
2. Relying on Existing Job Analysis
Often small firms or large firms that have only a few people doing the same job will turn to existing job analysis databases to determine KSAOs for that job. The best example is the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics O*NET website. This publically available website provides extensive job analysis information on nearly 1,000 jobs. You can go to the website, enter the job title, and find the major KSAOs related to that job. O*NET’s job analyses are based on samples of employees and jobs around the country, so they only give a snapshot of the typical KSAOs for each job.
Nevertheless, O*NET can be a good starting point. You can compare O*NET’s KSAOs to your current job to see which are applicable and which are not. Or, you can see if O*NET recommends requirements missing from your job description. For example, if O*NET says a person must have skill in using database software such as Access, you should check to be sure that your position lists the same requirement. Though it is a useful resource, keep in mind that using O*NET is not as precise as doing your own job analysis.
I have the KSAOs. What Happens Next?
Once you know the KSAOs for a job, you can determine the best way to assess them in applicants. Some KSAOs can be determined from applicants’ backgrounds. For example, if they are licensed CPAs, you might assume they have knowledge of accounting principles, based on their education and have passed the CPA exam.
However, if you want additional verification that their knowledge is current or if the job needs specific knowledge not necessarily covered in a university curriculum or included in the CPA exam, you would need to assess candidates in a different way, and that often means the use of skills assessments. For many KSAOs, it would be difficult to accurately determine a person’s skill level without some sort of an assessment or test. For important KSAOs that a person must possess at the time of hiring, an assessment is a smart investment.
As with job analyses, some companies create their own customized assessments in-house. Other companies they will work with assessment providers, who offer a wide range of already-developed assessments that can be customized particular KSAOs. In either case, be sure to do your homework and let your job’s KSAOs inform the assessments and any other selection devices you use.
What KSAOs do you assess in your job applicants? Let us know in the comments below.
Authors:
Eric J. Friedman
Eric Friedman is the founder and CEO of eSkill Corporation, a leading provider of online skills assessment for pre-employment selection and training. Since 2003, eSkill has tested millions of job candidates for employers worldwide such as Zappos, ADP, Coca-Cola, Randstad, and GE. With academic degrees in Psychology and Business and experience with both mature and expansion-stage company growth, Eric has focused on how to hire and motivate team members to be the best they can be for their roles.
Paul E. Spector
Paul E. Spector is a distinguished professor of industrial-organizational (IO) psychology and business at the University of South Florida. He has taught and written about HR topics for more than 40 years and has a leading textbook on IO psychology, now in its 7th edition. He has more than 200 publications mainly concerning the people side of organizations. His main focus has been on employee misbehavior, the mistreatment of employees, and occupational stress.
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