We typically use aptitude and performance tests to figure out how job candidates will do their best work. They, of course, want to maximize their strengths in crafting their answers. I’ve got a better test: what happens when they screw up?
This is where the rubber really meets the road in job performance. You can vet people all you like for how well they learn and how well they fit in with your culture. What happens when the worst happens? When a valued customer threatens to jump ship or months of work are invalidated by a miscalculation?
You can design pre-hire assessment tests that ratchet up the pressure with scenarios that demonstrate behavior under stress. How candidates respond to these should be your tie-breakers. But, before you do that, what is your company policy in those situations? Your answer will put applicants’ answers into perspective.
Control or Opportunity?
What’s more important when things go wrong in your company—regaining control over the “perps” or taking the opportunity to improve? The trouble with sanctioning those who make mistakes is that honest errors are situational. You’ll always be chasing the next problem.
Using failure as a chance to regroup and find new ways to improve, however, may give you your next big breakthrough. That’s how top companies like Google look at it. They celebrate fumbles. By shining a light on the point of departure from success, they can identify what to avoid or where to turn for a better outcome.
Micromanagement in which business leaders seek to control employees’ behavior often has the opposite effect. Workers will retaliate when morale tanks. Restrictions on how they perform their work will also limit their impulses to stretch and grow with a job. Would you rather have them work within a tiny frame with less risk, or give them the chance to go above and beyond their usual orbit? Less control and greater risk enable innovation, and that’s a trade-off you can live with.
Positive or Negative?
In that vein, mistakes are seen as positives, rather than grounds for dismissal. Now, employees who err repeatedly are making habitual, not situational missteps. They really do need to go. But honest mistakes are part of the trial-and-error process of learning and innovating. We don’t need to argue over whether those are positives or negatives.
As you evaluate your candidates’ assessments, note whether they take a systematic or emotional approach to making—and making up for—mistakes. Having systems to turn to removes the emotional component that can exacerbate failure points. If they mention appreciative inquiry or even a lesser-known methodology, you know they’re on the right track.
One more thing pre-hire assessments can tell you? How you respond to employees’ response to mistakes. That may be as important to retaining great talent as it is to solving the problem at hand.
SeekOut has always been a great and intuitive tool, and we’ve talked about it several times on this site. However, they are constantly improving and innovating. This time, we want to highlight their different AI features, including the new SeekOut Robot.
First, we’ll give a quick overview of the tool’s main functions. The main interface of the tool provides a few different search options. The first of these is the Public Profiles search.
The Public Profile search allows you to search through complete LinkedIn profiles according to your desired specifications.
In addition to standard search terms like location, title, and education, SeekOut provides a Power Filters tool. This allows you to choose detailed and industry-specific skills and titles from expansive lists.
A unique AI feature is built directly into this tool, called Position Magnet. This takes your search terms, makes a general profile that fits the bill, and finds people to match that profile.
There is also a unique research tool built into SeekOut, called Insights. People Insights takes your search terms—such as location, title, skills, etc—and provides you with a variety of research based on this. For example, if you search for all the software engineers at a certain company, it will provide research such as where they are mostly located, what their education is, and how many years of experience they have. This is the perfect tool for starting off your search process.
If all of this functionality was not enough, SeekOut actually has these same tools available for a wide variety of different social sites. Most prominently featured is GitHub. However, under the “Other Social Networks” tab you can find many, many more.
Another unique tool that SeekOut includes is the “Expert” tool. Both the Engineering Expert and Life Sciences Expert tabs allow you to search through sources that may otherwise remain untapped. For example, you can search through conference lineups, scientific journal authors, and more to find talent that may not be accessible via the usual social sites.
The next AI feature that SeekOut contains is used within its folder system. You can create and add to folders from most areas of the tool. Then, once you view a folder, a unique AI features help you to source more talent that is similar to the people you’ve already placed into the folder.
However, the AI does not stop there. The newest AI feature added to SeekOut is called SeekOut Robot. With this incredible tool, you can have AI begin to do some of your work for you! SeekOut Robot allows you to paste in a job description or relevant resume and then goes to work finding talent that matches your needs. This can be a great place to start any talent search and gets you heading in the right direction from the get-go.
With its extensive and inventive range of capabilities, SeekOut is really becoming a must-have in the recruiting process. ~ Noel Cocca
It’s 3 pm on Wednesday. On your calendar is the block of time you set aside to review the information you collected from at least a dozen HR Tech companies who want to “help” modernize your processes or solve a specific problem. Since part of your role includes staying current on market trends, below are three questions to ask yourself while reviewing your latest batch of HR Tech-related emails:
What tools do I invest in now, and do they help me accomplish my goals?
How often do I revisit my budgets and consider using the money differently?
What am I doing to solve my most costly problems?
I was inspired to suggest the first question after interviewing Aaron Karljev from Wells-Fargo who stated his concern very simply, “Job descriptions are a necessary evil for compliance reasons, but we all know these don’t help attract qualified passive candidates. The bigger question is, what would it take to make them jump?”
Believe it or not, we are past the end of Q1 of 2019. After reading dozens of emails, and all the content you collected from conferences in February, no viable solutions that solve your most costly problem seem to emerge—how is that possible?
Sourcing solutions can help search for qualified candidates (i.e. LinkedIn was mentioned most followed by bots, AI solutions, job boards, and career sites). They will continue to evolve with artificial intelligence, yet don’t address talent acquisitions most costly problem.
Let’s face it—confusion over which HR Tech Solutions solve which problems will not go away any time soon though recent research can help direct our efforts.
RecruitingBrief recently published a study which included 5 Common Sourcing Mistakes in 2018. The most common mistake with talent acquisition is “Failure to effectively engage candidates.” The mistake can be partially solved if recruiting had a better grasp of marketing and sales skills combined with engaging content about the job. Content with a human element can also help increase your quantity of qualified candidates.
Tips for Advertising Jobs–Marketing and Sales Skill Development.
If you haven’t done this already, add sales/marketing skill development to your team goals.
Focus messaging on the needs and interests attracts high-quality passive candidates
Develop a multi-pronged digital strategy
Leverage former leaders as part of your job distribution network.
Example: Aaron Karljev from Wells-Fargo, began to add a human element to expand his reach organically, by distributing open jobs to alums/brand ambassadors of Wells-Fargo who referred high-quality candidates. Aaron also began to incorporate a more organic approach to employer-generated video which was very successful!
As Aaron Karljev mentioned during our conversation, “getting recruiting, talent acquisition and employer branding on the on the same page for branding helps the team get known as a resource for managers and leaders.”
Now, Aaron asks himself the second question based on this recent development with employer-generated video. “How often do I revisit my budgets and consider using the money differently?”
The answer to that question is still unclear, though adding more video is on everyone’s radar.
A good initial involves training recruiters to develop a marketing and sales mindset combined with change management. These two steps can definitely enhance the human element and attract a higher quantity of qualified candidates.
Now for the toughest question, “What are you doing to solve Talent Acquisitions most costly problem?”
You may not like this but it needs to be said. . .convincing qualified, perfectly happy candidates to join your company takes more engagement and creativity than a great job description and candidate-focused outreach. Search engine technology solutions help some, but the next step is still a struggle—motivating the candidate to “press the apply” button.
Adding the Hiring Manager to your Employer-Generated Video Team
Including hiring managers as part of the recruiting team offers Talent Acquisition a great opportunity to demonstrate value and an easy, scalable way to elevate credibility for the job and the company. Leaders who used employer-generated video reported that hiring managers who generate employer-generated videos attract a higher percentage of quality candidates
Employer-Generated Video Scales Collaboration in Recruiting
Recruiters who use employer-generated videos experience results that far exceed results from professionally produced longer videos. Here are a few comments:
“Using informal video technology makes it easier to generate interest from a younger audience.”
“When hiring managers and colleagues create an informal video, they are more likely to share jobs over social media with friends, colleagues and professional groups.”
“Videos made by the hiring manager improves the quality of hire when combined with search engines, career sites and more.”
“Videos bring the job description candidates never read, to life.”
Candidates “Press the Apply” Button with Employer-Generated Video
Employer branding and talent acquisition leaders agree that convincing qualified, perfectly happy candidates to join your company takes more engagement and creativity than a great job description. Search engine technology solutions help some, but the next step is still a struggle—motivating the candidate to press the “apply” button.
During our conversation about video solutions, Aaron mentioned, “The less formal the video, the more qualified candidates we attracted—it’s kind of counter-intuitive but it works!”
Short and Sweet (Meet your Future Boss) Increases Candidate Engagement
Talent Acquisition leaders agree that less formal video is more effective, specifically when advertising a job–these videos last no longer than 30 seconds and are designed to motivate candidates to “press the apply” button.
On-site workshops for employer-generated video help speed up adoption and add a collaborative component when recruiters, hiring managers and co-workers work together to spark interest from qualified candidates.
Final Thoughts and Actions to Take
No one can relate to words–they relate to human beings–add a scalable human-centric solution to your social media/marketing toolbox.
Candidates are hungry to meet their future boss for jobs that are advertised using videos from hiring managers.
“Short and Sweet” 30-second videos motivate candidates to “press the apply” button for the job.
Provide “hands-on” training for recruiters that includes templates
Don’t wait and become one of those FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) Recruiting Leaders. Team up with your hiring managers and jump on the employer-generated video train!
It should come as no surprise, but if you look at trends for search words like “recruiting metrics” or “data-driven” over the last five years, the lines tick upward. Related topics appear too, drawing a clear correlation between data and sourcing, metrics and talent management, artificial intelligence and analysis. You get the picture. And yet somewhere amid all that searching, the practice of examining recruiting data and metrics seems to have gone totally off the rails.
Finding the Problem
The trouble probably began around 2013 with the rise of “Big Data.” Back then, all anyone could talk about was the promise of capital B, Big Data and what it would do for recruiters, seemingly bogged down by thousands of resumes. At the time, the job market was starting to come around post-Recession, and for we could predict at the time, there might always be hundreds of interested candidates per job opening. So Big Data made sense – recruiters would be stupid not to leverage it! Or so we’re were told.
Coupled with Big Data came another timely favorite: predictive analytics. Pairing Big Data and these analytics together and recruiters were going to be able to take over the world. Or something like that. Digging back into the archives, we found proof of this kind of lofty thinking, summarized by Jonathan Ferrar, “As Big Data and Analytics penetrates the entire organizational structure of any business looking for new ways to gain a competitive advantage, some companies have already realized that getting that edge over the competition really relies on analyzing and using this data as a driver for extremely precise, extremely informed decision making in areas like sourcing and recruiting, productivity, customer service, innovation, execution and the behaviors of individual employees and aggregate workforces alike.”
Quite a tall order – and things only picked up speed from there. We spent the next few years debating the specifics of how and why all this data would improve talent acquisition – not just locally but globally too. And so recruiting teams the world over started quantifying every single thing they did. Heck, there are probably recruiters out there bragging about their response time down to the millisecond. It’s that out of control.
Amending Use
Of course, all this nitpicking aside, metrics do matter. One-hundred percent. But a good chunk of that data we’re collecting isn’t going to improve hiring outcomes, no matter which way we slice or dice it. Plus, “data-driven decision making” is only as good as the data you’re using…and the recruiting strategy you’re supporting.
Not to mention everything else that’s happened over since this conversation got started. Now there’s AI and machine learning to factor into the equation, giving us “intelligent automation” that learns as it goes and supposedly makes us mere mortals smarter as a result. In theory that sounds great. In practice, most of us don’t even know which data to measure anymore – or who is actually looking at it. We’re wandering around in a forest of information, and all anyone really needs is a compass, to help find true north. Not that anyone has the time for that.
At last count, there were dozens of metrics ripe for the tracking – from the arguably subjective “quality of hire” to the objective “application completion rate.” And I’m sure arguments could be made for the value and efficacy of each, provided you’re using these to better the recruiting process. Though, are we? Because chances are, the majority of active candidates would list the same common complaints we’ve heard for upward of a decade – the application is too long, the fields don’t autofill once their resume uploads, they never heard back from anyone, they don’t know their status, so on and so forth. The very definition of a disconnect (and a digression).
Data Dieting
The good news is, recruiters are no longer eagerly anticipating the arrival of Big Data and predictive analytics. That already happened. It’s here. It’s available. It’s useful – mostly. And with that in mind, we’re empowered to find low key ways to make metrics work – in moderation. No more do recruiters need to try and keep up with the results of every metric imaginable. That’s right. I’m giving you permission to track only the things that serve your recruiting needs – or really, only the things you’re going to have time to look at and implement in a real way.
That might sound scary to some, considering how reliant we’ve become over the last few years. In reality, cutting back on the data binge and focusing only on those impactful metrics will likely aid in the efficiency, enabling recruiters to dig deeper rather than spreading themselves too thin. You don’t need to turn the firehose off entirely, instead, turn down the pressure. The hires won’t stop, I swear.
Amazing Hiring has added a great, built-in AI feature
Amazing Hiring is a great sourcing search website that builds a lot of different capabilities into one tool.
The search aspect of the tool is divided into four main tabs, that each helps you streamline your sourcing process.
The Search Form allows you to create very specific search qualifications. For example, you can include a variety of different skills, choose a location, and add or exclude certain conditions.
The Saved Queries tab allows you to make searches that you have previously saved, and search them again without going through the entire process. This can be particularly useful if you are doing a very specific search that includes many conditions, and can end up saving you a lot of time.
The History tab shows you all of your past searches. When you are doing search after search after search to find talent that is just right, you can easily forget what search conditions you’ve already tried. This History tool allows you to avoid unnecessary repetition and saves you time.
Last – but certainly not least – is the new AI Sourcing option.
Amazing Hiring has recently added this AI Sourcing tool, which prompts you to select a category and input a location. It then finds you detailed contacts that match your search. From this search, you can easily add and take away other filters, such as years of experience, types of contact information available, education, diversity, and much more.
Amazing Hiring also provides a way for you to take all of these contacts that you have found and sort them into folders for later use. The Folders aspect of the tool is actually quite powerful and can act as a mini CRM of sorts.
In addition to these great functionalities, Amazing Hiring also has the ability to work with other tools (such as Greenhouse), work as a team with multiple members, and has a designated Chrome Extension. With all of these options, Amazing Hiring is definitely worth exploring – it could be the perfect tool for your workflow. ~ Noel Cocca
Seamless.AI is both an app and an accompanying Chrome extension that helps you to both search for talent to find contact information and organizes your lists.
The tool has many of the same functions as other comparable tools: searching for companies and people based on location, industry, title, etc. However, Seamless.AI sets itself apart in that it prides itself on being more than just a glorified LinkedIn search. Yes, it searches and finds you contact information from LinkedIn. However, the tool searches over 150 million companies, 250, 000 news sites, a billion social profiles, and more. This can allow you to find the contact you may not when using other sourcing tools.
The tool gives you a variety of options when it comes to searching through, sorting, and saving this large amount of information.
When searching for Companies, Seamless.AI simply outlines the industry, size of the company, and location, and provides links to each company’s website and social sites.
In a search for People, it conveniently displays the title and company and provides an easy and fast way to reveal contact information. Revealing contact information using a credit, of which you are given a number for free.
AI also includes the unique “Research” button, which can find additional information on people.
Once you have found people you think are a good fit, you can easily add them to your contacts and sort them into lists. If you would like to take a list and export it for use outside Seamless.AI, the tool provides a few different options.
You can export the Raw data, which provides an excel-style document with all the information Seamless.AI has found on the selected contacts. This format is a bit messy, and may be redundant, but gives you all the information you may need in the future.
You can also choose to export Clean data. This provides you with a neater list, that simply provides the information you are most likely to need, such as contact information and social links.
Overall, Seamless.AI is a very versatile and powerful tool, and definitely worth checking out. ~ Noel Cocca
AI and Automation are all the rage right now and if you are working in a high volume recruiting environment look for automation to be a coming attraction at a process near you. There are several tasks in high volume recruiting that are prime targets of those involved in process automation. I am going to give a high level overview of some of the tools available and how you might use them to reduce time to fill, cost per hire while improving the overall candidate experience.
Programmatic Job Advertising Platform
The first tool to consider for high volume recruitment is a programmatic job advertising platform. It may not be the first suggestion you would expect but I believe it is one of the simplest and most cost-effective places to start. A programmatic job advertising platform is an AI-powered tool that is designed to monitor and adjust your advertising placement and spend. While it may seem trivial the correct application of this technique has made Amazon billions of dollars in sales and should not be underestimated.
A programmatic job advertising platform can adjust your spend so that the jobs that are not seeing enough traction get more funding and are seen by more relevant prospect while reducing funding of roles that are performing well organically. Some are also even able to remove job postings after a certain number of prospects have applied. This is a double efficiency gain as it helps you stop spending money on advertisements that are working organically while focusing the advertising dollars in the places where the most focus is required.
Getting a better ROI on your job advertising dollars should be enough to justify the expense of a platform but it isn’t the only benefit to this approach. In the US alone there are over 7.5 million jobs posted online. Unemployment is also near record low levels. The tactics that worked when there were 4 million jobs online will not produce the same results when there are 7.5 million jobs posted online. As an industry, it is time for us to change our tactics and adapt to our new environment. To my mind, this is one of the simplest, inexpensive ways to being the path toward process automation.
Chabot
Another type of tool that would be worth investigating is a Chabot. NLP (Natural Language Processing) is a rapidly improving technology in the world of AI. Last year Google demonstrated their new Chabot that could actually make phone calls and schedule reservations with a live person. NLP is a term used to describe the technology that allows a computer to understand and converse with humans. A Chabot can be programmed to get take a basic application, create a profile, apply for jobs, request updates and take assessments. The nice thing about chatbots is that they are available 24/7 and can talk to more than one person at a time.
In addition to using the latest in NLP, chatbots can also take advantage of machine learning. This means that generally speaking over time, they not only get better at understanding and responding but they are also able to begin to predict who will and who will not be a match for the organization based on previous hiring decisions. This can be a double-edged sword and it is imperative that the reporting produced by a Chabot be monitored closely. Amazon learned that their matching technology, that included chatbots, was automating an unconscious bias in their recruiting process. However, closely monitored a Chabot can greatly increase recruiter production by allowing them to focus on the prospect most likely to be hired.
It also improves the candidate experience. One of the great frustrations of candidates today is that they feel like their resume falls into a black hole never to be heard from again. A Chabot is a practical way to minimize this experience and interestingly I’m told by the vendors and end-users alike that nearly 75% of all people who engage with a Chabot say, “thank you.” I would guess this is higher than the number of people that thank an ATS for taking their application. Chatbots can help you not only sort out the no but also help you get to yes in less time.
Video Interview Platforms
The final tool I would recommend considering is video interview platforms. Video interviews have a number of advantages in a high volume environment. The first advantage is of course scheduling. Candidates can take the interview whenever they have the time. The data indicates that as many as 40% of all the interviews conducted on video interview platforms are recorded after business hours or on the weekend.
Additionally, it can help standardize the recruiting process and help to make it fair. Everyone gets the same questions in the same order in the same way. It gives candidates a chance to show, not tell, their skills and abilities. To my mind, it is a part of a solution to the candidate black hole problem. Finally, it allows your hiring managers to compare candidates side by side. They are able to move from candidate to candidate with ease and this not only helps them save time but gives them a true candidate pipeline to review. An on-demand candidate pipeline has been a dream of many of the world’s hiring managers.
Automation can be a powerful way to not only sort out the no’s but also to get to yes faster. The high volume recruiting programs are the ones that will see the largest ROI from programmatic advertising, chatbots and video interviews. So if you are in a high volume recruiting team then I would start looking seriously at these tools, schedule demos and bring them to the attention of leadership. If we want to be seen as true business partners one of the things we must do is bring ideas to the table that help our organizations run better, faster and cheaper.
For all the benefits that technology brings to recruiting, advanced tech has also caused us to hire reactively. Hundreds of candidates (to no fault of their own) fill out a job application online based on the job title — with no little to no clues of what the job involves or if they’re a good fit for the organization. On the hiring side, we’ve turned the resume into a keyword search instead of being a window into a person’s performance potential. Hiring automation that’s designed to create efficiencies instead creates a human resource nightmare and ruins the candidate experience.
There’s good news: Tech can help us return humanity to the hiring process. And it’s all thanks to a technology we’ve had since roughly 1951. Video.
Why Is It Important to Hire the Right People?
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates a bad hire will cost you 30 percent of that person’s first year’s earnings. Consider one of our retail clients. Their recruiting process was broken. They were unable to hire clerks that could eventually be promoted to managers. Because of this, they wasted — yes, wasted — $10.5 million on recruiting clerks and managers.
Hire Better: Video Promotes the Rock Star
Video technology fosters meaningful person-to-person interaction in the hiring process. Organizations see and hear an actual candidate and listen to them answer questions.
And candidates are comfortable with video. According to the 2018 Nielsen Total Audience Report, adults in the U.S. are watching almost six hours of video per day. The growth of Instagram is largely video-driven. Think Google, YouTube, Skype, and more. In short: Video is widely-accepted.
Video is also crucial for controlling business costs. Multiple in-person interviews are expensive and often waste time and money. Using interview video technology saves time and money while preserving meaningful interactions in the pre-hire journey.
A video interview is engaging and personal for candidates. They can be themselves.
And as a recruiter, you have a more dynamic measure of the candidate, their personality, and their potential culture fit than you would have from a static piece of paper.
It’s Time To Evolve Recruiting Through Video
Video benefits your hiring process immensely. Your business can:
Save time
Save money
Truth-test the resume
See a candidate for who they are
Understand who is more likely to be a cultural fit
Be more human overall
It’s time to start seeing candidates as people and not just bullet points or LinkedIn profiles. That begins with increasing your use of video in the hiring process.
Organizations are increasingly investing in video as part of the hiring process. Sixty percent of hiring managers were fully using or beginning to use video in 2015, and that percentage has grown each year since. As it continues to arrive at scale, we can continue to humanize hiring.
Video can truly revamp and improve the hiring process when it is integrated with assessment technology — seamlessly dovetailing scientifically-valid questions with the more human element of video interviewing. Together, organizations can get answers that better relate to the job profile and better predict job success. We can put an end to the keyword search by replacing it with something better.
Intuit, maker of TurboTax, QuickBooks, Mint, and Turbo, has released its Pursuit of Prosperity Study, offering fresh insights into US perceptions of prosperity. Further, the report offers insight into the complexities people perceive to achieving prosperity.
To that end, this study provides solid data for TA professionals to review. How so?Research findings here uncover or affirm perspectives candidates and employees bring to the job hunt or workplace, in the form of (potentially unspoken) goals or “wish lists.” What are they? And how does knowledge/review of these goals or wish lists help us do our jobs even more effectively, to find and to retain talent? Let’s look more circumspectly.
Prosperity Feeling “Out of Reach”
In partnership with Kelton Global, Intuitsurveyed more than 3,000 Americans, to better understand the complexities of achieving prosperity today. The study found that many Americans, while facing many financial barriers, feel prosperity is currently out of reach. However, the study also uncovered how Americans are optimistic for the future and fueled by a new “entrepreneurial spirit.”
Americans Struggle to Reach Financial Goals
The study found that nearly four out of five Americans (78%) feel prosperity is currently out of reach. Just as many Americans (78%) are delaying personal milestones like purchasing a home (30%), retiring (22%), starting a family (22%), starting a business (19%) or getting married (19%).
Meanwhile, over half of Americans (55%) don’t feel confident in their ability to manage their finances and cite this as a major barrier to prosperity, along with:
living paycheck-to-paycheck (45%)
not having any money in savings (44%)
being too far in debt (36%)
not being able to fully support themselves (19%).
Further, the study reveals how many Americans are exploring future in ways that imply more self-guided direction (or as researchers reported, “taking future into their own hands”). More than a third of Americans (36%) are considering getting a side gig or an additional source of income, while 37% are considering becoming business owners or self-employed within the next five years.
Deep Diving Mask: How is this study significant to us in TA?
Intuit’s study opens a “big canna worms” in recruitment and retention of talent. But rather than leave it at how readers will “get the point,” let’s examine implications from these small slices of study together.
Delayed Milestones
Just one glance at the “delay of milestones” list – as well as how these impact about 20% or more of job seekers and employees and – well. Maybe time for TA professionals to emphasize even more with candidates (who may not be upfront how they share such concerns):
Retirement planning strategies and workshops offered by your organization
Family maternity/paternity leave as well as maternity health care benefits (think, copays, deductibles, and co-insurance totals).
Telecommuting options, if available
Lacking Confidence in Financial Management
Consider that finding, “not having any money in savings.” Cultivate a piggy bank culture within the organization, so everyone remembers those rainy days while sitting in their sunny offices and break rooms. And — be sure to show, not just tell how folks can improve upon this goal with what options are available within your organization.
Highlight desirability of those pre-tax health care employee premiums deductions. And then — make graphic charts that help folks visualize how much more of their paycheck can go straight to premium payments as opposed to tax boxes on pay stubs. While you are at it, do the same with any available Health Savings Account (HSA) options. Help folks see with just a few visuals how much savings they accumulate by paying for eligible health expenses, tax free, each year via HSAs.
Be sure to emphasize what the employer matches are for retirement savings plans. And then — make graphic charts to help employees see the difference between $100 going home vs. $100 each payroll period going and growing in that retirement account. Again, while we are at it — bring those local credit union folks to the cafeteria when possible, with their own ready-made visuals for how small rainy day savings adds up with drip deductions.
One glance at “too far in debt” percentages — and think about how many folks carry heavy student debt. Here, organizations might wish to alert folks to the pending H.R. 795—Employer Participation in Student Loan Assistance Act. This bill, introduced to Congress in February 2019, amends the IRS code to extend tax exclusion for employer-provided educational assistance to include payments of qualified education loans by an employer to either an employee or a lender. The more candidates and employees who know about this pending legislation, (as well as how or if your organization supports the bill) in light of debt findings in this study — the better.
Finally, consider how many Americans report here a wish to add “gig” jobs, start up their own businesses, or become self-employed. Tapping into this data, reflective assessment within the organization might begin with guiding questions such as:
What re-training/upskill needs may be lurking within the organization, so recruits/employees can move on to bigger and better paying positions, over time?
What projects are outsourced, that may realistically be contracted internally, as “gig work” for current employees to complete, from time to time? (As one example, the higher education sector does this all year, every year.)
This study helps us in TA keep sight of a “bigger picture” vortex swirling around a tightening employment market and candidate pool. Unemployment now is hovering at 3.8% compared to a record low of 2.5% in May 1953.In other words?
The American Dream is alive and well…That is, desire to live with fewer debts, marry “on time,” have kids with the white picket fence – is as true today as over one-half century ago. Overall, how is your organization communicating with candidates/employees, in these key areas, to attract and to retain the best possible talent? The knowledge presented here by Intuit’s research adds power to the great work we do to retain and to recruit the best folks out there, daily.
Severance Benefits Continue to Increase via RiseSmart
According to the results of a new RiseSmart survey, employers are offering more generous severance packages and job placement assistance to departing workers. Representing a 6% increase from 2017, data shows how 44% percent of survey respondents report that their organizations currently offer severance benefits to all workers.
Why the marked rise in companies offering severance? Survey results show how employers feel even more need, in today’s employment landscape, to remain competitive in the labor market and to promote a work-friendly culture. As also detailed in this report:
Nearly half (48%) of respondents (1,500 HR professionals) report need to foster company culture and to take care of employees as reasons for offering severance and job placement support.
Respondents also reported various other benefits as being offered to involuntarily separated workers, such as more comprehensive health care benefits/COBRA, retirement benefits/planning, bonuses and/or commissions, and outplacement services.
Online brand reputation remains a top reason for organizations ramping up severance benefits. Of particular note: 38% of respondents reporting how they saw a rise in negative reviews on social media after a layoff.
Creation of custom algorithms to scan for payroll fraud
Multi-factor authentication on all systems that require a login
Approaches to protecting direct deposit transactions
As reported by various media sources,GMS President, Mike Kahoe conveys how essential these measures are in protecting his client base. A peek into that client base and one can see why: GMS handles a billion and a half dollars in payroll, benefits, and taxes with 1,300 businesses, representing over 25,000 employees across the country. As such, GMS plans to continue investing in state-of-the-art technologies, as the concern of cyber-attacks remains a genuine, ongoing concern for small business owners.
While GMS works with small businesses across the country, the organization provides comprehensive HR solutions to companies of all sizes, including Payroll, Human Resources, Risk Management, and Benefits. GMS operates in ten locations across the US.
Jet Airways Employees Sought Out by Indian start-ups
Last week, headlines revealed Jet Airways shutting down of operations. Speculations continue with where that leaves its 22,000 employees, many of whom allegedly remain unpaid after several months.
This week brings new reports of start-up companiesCureFit,Bounce, and StayAbode using social media to recruit candidates from the troubled airline. On his Twitter page, CureFit CEO Ankit Nagoriexpressed interest in hiring candidates, asking others for referrals, posting the employment inquiry address, and asking readers to share his tweet “widely.”
Such efforts serve as a poignant reminder for how start-ups continue to step forward with recruiting efforts after announced corporate downsizings. And in India this is even more significant: Startup unicorns are reportedly the biggest source of employment in the country. Today, India has over 22 unicorns, while ten new unicorns emerged between 2011 and 2017. Media reports include speculation that many will soon touch the $1 billion valuation mark in the next 1-3 years. Conversely, Jet Airwayscontinues to face bankruptcy threats, according to Indian media new sources.
Paradox launches new Retail & Restaurant AI Product
Paradox, a leading Assistive Intelligence platform for talent acquisition and talent experience, announces the launch of a new product, Olivia Hire for Retail & Restaurant.
Olivia Hire for Retail & Restaurant is a unique, mobile-first, candidate-centric solution built for the specific recruiting needs of high-volume retail and restaurant locations. The solution offers employers an opportunity to manage the hiring process with multidimensional help from AI:
Provides role-based hiring model for consistent roles and shifts
Offers the ability for candidates to apply quickly and easily via SMS and web conversational apply while on location
Screens and green-lights candidates, speeding up the hiring process through automation and intelligence
Manages the hiring process, including back and forth candidate interactions so managers can spend more time with talent
Aya Healthcare Acquires Symmetry Healthcare Solutions
Aya Healthcare, the company transforming healthcare staffing and workforce solutions across the United States, announces its acquisition of Symmetry Healthcare Solutions, the Managed Services Division of Symmetry Healthcare Strategies. The acquired company will operate as Symmetry Workforce Solutions and be part of Lotus Workforce, Aya’s vendor-neutral division which also houses Healthcare Select and Qualivis. The Symmetry leadership team will remain fully intact and Symmetry will continue to provide workforce solutions to hospitals through its longstanding relationships with state hospital associations.
All Symmetry Managed Service Programs will be conducted under the Symmetry Workforce Solutions brand. With this addition of Symmetry, Lotus Workforce’s services are now endorsed and offered by 22 state hospital associations.
Coursera Raises $103M of Series E Funding
Online education platform Coursera has raised Series E funding of $103 million. The round was led by SEEK Group, a firm known for investing and scaling online education and employment businesses and listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX: SEK). Also participating in this round of funding were Future Fund, and New Enterprises Associates (NEA).
How does Coursera maintain growth like this – and how is the organization securing such astounding levels of funding? A closer look reveals a lot of deals have occurred at rapid-fire speed, recently.
The company states, for example, that since raising a Series D in June 2017; their learner base has grown from 26 million to 40 million. Further, just three months ago, Coursera signed a deal with the Abu Dhabi School of Government, an entity set up to train 60,000 government employees in digital skills such as data science and AI. Add to that how Coursera also offers over a dozen(14 to be exact) online master’s degrees, in areas such as computer science, business, and public health, from renowned universities, i.e. the University of Michigan and University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana). And – how Coursera has recently launched its first online B.S. degree with the University of London.
Coursera was founded by Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng with a vision of providing life-transforming learning experiences to anyone, anywhere. As a leader of Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs), Coursera joins amarket speculated to reach nearly $21B by 2023.
Spencer Stuart Acquiring a Piece of Aon’s HR
Ben Williams
Chicago TA firm Spencer Stuarthas announced a piece of Aon’s human resources work involving about 550 employees in 26 countries. The Chicago-based recruiter says it has an agreement to close the deal in “several months.” Terms were not disclosed. Ben Williams continues to lead at Spencer Stuart as CEO and Managing Partner.
Why you should attend: A full day of learning, workshop, and training with sourcing leader Shally Steckerl, Ronnie Bratcher, Sarah Goldberg, Holly Mallowes, and Brian Fink. All for a cause! RecruitingDaily and The Sourcing Institute have joined forces to bring much-needed awareness to a great cause. TSIF helps to reduce unemployment by providing sourcing & recruiting education to military veterans, spouses of active military, and disabled individuals. All Info Available HERE. Update SOLD OUT
People & Places on the Move
Alexander Mann Solutions, a global leader in TA and management solutions, welcomesKensy Sy as its China General Manager. With over 23 years’ experience in the finance, Talent Acquisition, and talent management fields, Kensy’s role will primarily be with developing the firms’ China business and further supporting its growing APAC business. This addition is the latest in a number of senior management hires already welcomed to Alexander Mann Solutions in recent months as the company focuses on its global expansion plans.
Jose Andinohas been hired in the newly created role of SVP Human Resources at CBS News, CBS News says that Andino will focus on overall human resources strategy along with employee relations, programs and processes, cultural and leadership development, employee education and development, and compensation and benefits at the division.
PeopleStrategy, a provider of comprehensive, cloud-based human capital management (HCM) solutions and full-service brokerage, announcesLesley Lyons, Chief Marketing Officer, will speak at the Human Resource Executive® Health & Benefits Leadership Conference in Las Vegas, April 24. The presentation will focus on how PeopleStrategy is disrupting the HCM technology market by offering employers the ability to purchase an end-to-end suite of human resources tools for less than what companies typically pay for payroll services, especially for companies with under 500 employees.
Ian Williamshas joined SAIFin Oregon as vice president of human resources. Williams will oversee all aspects of HR, including compensation and benefits, employee engagement and retention and recruitment.
Somosa leading registry management and data solutions company,announces that Deborah Thomas has been hired as their Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer reporting to Gina Perini, Somos’ President and Chief Executive Officer. Ms. Thomas’ responsibilities include transforming and aligning Somos’ human resources and talent strategies with innovative and scalable solutions to drive Somos’ future growth.
Spotx, the leading global video advertising, and monetization platform has announced the appointment of Jeanne Leasure as its first vice president of people. Leasure has worked in human resources for over 25 years and brings her expertise and dedication to creating a purpose-driven company culture to the role. After leading the Human Resources Department at Boa Technology for the past four years, Leasure will now lead and oversee all global human resources, training, career development, recruiting, and employee experience functions within SpotX.
(On left) Tim McKenzie (On right) Gene Scott
Travel Nurse Across America, a national travel nurse staffing company based in North Little Rock, Arkansas, announces promotion of Tim McKenzie to president and CEO, effective May 1, 2019. McKenzie joined Travel Nurse Across America in 2017 as chief innovation officer and chief growth officer. He has more than 30 years of executive leadership experience in data-driven marketing services. Current President and CEO Gene Scott now moves to the role of executive chairman of Travel Nurse Across America.
Recruiters need for hiring speed, and for sourcing and engaging with passive candidates are bound to dominant AI recruitment technology trends in 2019. While some of the following ten are recent upgrades rather than brand new concepts, each is an essential tool for sourcing, engaging or assessing prospective job candidates.
1. Programmatic Job Advertising
This job-posting method takes the decision making out of human hands. Predictive recruitment algorithms look at market data and an employer’s historical ad tracking, to determine how each advertisement will perform. This AI-driven technology then makes enlightened placement and scheduling decisions for job ads. Essentially, programmatic job advertising is about placing the right ad on the right site at the right time, to reach the right candidates.
While per-impression bidding on advertisements has been around for quite some time, AI technology that drives real-time bidding is a terrific new enhancement. No more manual tracking and monthly reporting of ad performance, to finally make a placement and bid decision.
Recruitment technology provider Appcast’s Clickcast automates job-ad bidding and budget. The algorithm can quickly place job posts in front of the most applicable of 200 million job candidates through smart placement choices among 70 major and niche job boards and job aggregators. Clickcast tracks all advertising activity and integrates with all reporting platforms including proprietary.
JobAdX has a network of more than 1,000 websites. It automatically imports from and schedules ads posted on an employer’s career site, and tracks and analyzes the results, to keep improving scheduling decisions.
2. Augmented Writing
The most important use of this tool is the elimination of job-ad bias. Gender Decoder and Textio study job-ad content and job descriptions for words or phrases that suggest or blatantly state a preference for or aversion to gender, age, or ethnic-specific group of candidates. Textio continually gathers vast amounts of data from job-ad content and their results, to pinpoint words or phrases that could negatively impact response. It then suggests smart alternative content to expand ad reach and improve application conversion rates.
BoostLinguistics enhances emotional response to job content, by questioning the recruiter about the emotion he or she is trying to evoke, and highlighting the areas that did not properly convey the intended message. Are you trying to make the applicant feel happy? Angry? Amused? Once it knows your goal, the algorithm will assess your content and suggest alternatives.
3. Interview Chatbots
Chatbots, “speaking” by way of Natural Language Protocol (NLP), first became part of the recruitment landscape as landing page calls to action, and then as prompts within job applications. The latest mobile-enabled chatbot advancement is for early assessment and pre-screening interviews and scheduling.
TalkPush not only engages with applicants in a human-sounding text conversation and collects their audio responses, but also collects pictures, videos, and documents. The chatbot is intuitive, empathetic, and assumptive. It prompts the candidate to choose from a variety of displayed jobs, asks open-ended “Tell me about yourself” questions, records and comments on responses, thanks the candidate, advises the next step and the time frame, and within minutes assesses the interview. If the candidate has passed the pre-screening, she will quickly hear from the TalkPush chatbot, with an invitation to a live interview, and a directional map.
Far from robotic, the bot is warm, friendly, and even colloquial. Candidates are likely to forget they’re not talking to a human. My Ally’s Alex bot sets up and schedules candidate interviews, responds to candidate questions, books conference rooms for the interviews and can even reschedule if needed. He’s a very cool NLP dude that can converse by email, text, or chat.
4. Recruitment Marketing Software
This is a recruitment strategy change, from advertising to marketing. A far more “soft sell” approach than a job ad, recruitment marketing is a subtle way of reeling in the passive candidate. Its two most important elements are enticing job-ad content and consistent employer branding. A new way of looking at ad content, recruitment marketing converts typical “tuition reimbursement” bullet-point content, for example, to a more flavorful and enticing “Eager to graduate but out of cash? No worries! We’ll pay for that, and even schedule your job hours around your class.”
Recruitment service pioneer Jobvite put together a terrific Recruitment Marketing 101 whitepaper that details the process.
5. Resume Screening Software
Recruiters spend, on average, 23 hours manually screening resumes for each open position, with no guarantee they’ll choose well. AI-based technology can screen resumes in a fraction of that time, with far more accuracy.
Ideal scans and filters resumes, and grades every candidate for position suitability, in real time, assigning them an A, B, C or D score. It works within the employer’s own ATS, studying the job description and the firm’s historical hiring decisions, to familiarize itself with the needs of the role. It then grades and ranks the candidates, creating a searchable profile for each.
HireWand empowers recruiters to build their candidate database, and its bot then acts like a virtual recruitment assistant, scouring the database with each new opening. The bot also contacts each qualified candidate, to gauge their interest in the position. Once the bot has created a list of qualified, interested candidates, it sends that on to the recruiter. Hire Wand also scouts any resume databases to which the employer is subscribed.
6. Talent Rediscovery Software
An applicant tracking system is a “dumb” list of candidates that is seldom sourced after the initial profile entry. Because it’s dependent on keyword and Boolean searches its results are fraught with error. Candidates stuff keywords into their resumes that don’t reflect their actual skills or qualified candidates are missed because of keyword searches that are too limiting.
In contrast, Restless Bandit’s talent rediscovery algorithm works in the background any time that the recruiter has open positions. The technology scouts the employer’s ATS for matches and contacts those candidates by email or social media. It looks at the social profiles of the candidates, parsing new employment history to add to the candidate profile.
7. Gig Mobile Apps
The number of contingent (on-demand) U.S. workers is predicted to double, to 9.2 million, by 2021. Mobile apps such as Wonolo, Bellhops, and FigureEight quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively pair on-demand workers with employers or clients.
Wonolo connects job seekers with immediate same-day or hourly gigs that fit their time and location requirements. The worker registers and creates a profile of skills and experiences, completes a background check and uploads a photo, so no resume, application or interview is required to apply for any job. She simply accepts the job and starts work. Each gig earns the worker a rating, and ratings determine how many and which gigs he is subsequently offered. Employers only pay Wonolo once someone has been hired.
Some gig apps are industry specific. Bellhops puts laborers with individuals or businesses that need moving help. Figure Eight finds work for work-at-home entrepreneurs such as programmers, mathematicians, psychologists, and Web developers.
8. Job Aggregators
While Google for Jobs, Indeed, LinkedIn and Monster provide job advertising possibilities, you may not need to pay one penny to get your job openings listed on these vast, ever-evolving job aggregators. That’s because they use spiders and bots to crawl corporate career sites, job boards, social networks, association sites and the like, looking for job openings to add to their database. To take advantage of this free job advertising, you need a separate URL for each listing.
Aggregators can also help with recruitment marketing and employer branding. That’s because when the listing gets picked up, the candidate is directed back to the originating location to apply.
Some, such as Monster and CareerBuilder, have robust resume databases of millions of job candidates, which you can access for a fee to build or grow your talent pipeline, but without having to pay for a job posting.
Primarily due to their volume, job aggregators are great places to explore your competitor’s listings as well, and compare benefits, wages and job description content.
9. Recruitment CRMs
Candidate relationship management platforms are a crucial part of any recruitment marketing effort. Their search, sourcing and reporting functions enable management of your talent pipeline and smart, organized engagement of the candidates within.
Gr8’s CRM includes an AI-driven recommendation engine for sourcing and matching candidates with open positions, an interview self-scheduling tool for candidates, programmatic job placement, strategic analytics for advertising decisions, tagging and texting capabilities, and employee referral management features.
Phenom People uses AI to grow an employer’s talent pipeline by automatically scouring the Internet for profile updates by way of candidate activity. It automates ongoing engagement, enabling the creation of dynamic candidate lists and scheduled drip campaigns, with the help of pre-designed email templates.
Candidates are organized by stages in their recruitment process, whether they’re new applicants, have subsequently engaged with a recruiter, have an interview scheduled, and so forth.
10. External Referrals
Employee referrals are, by far, the most reliable source of quality hires. But what about referrals from contractors, vendors, customers, employees’ families, friends, and anyone else that knows you have a great job opening and knows someone who would be a great fit?
Two companies assist with these external referrals. Drafted uses AI to plumb employee social connections. This helps companies prompt their staff and other affiliates for referrals, by way of weekly emails of job openings and suitable matches among their connections. It recently introduced a priority job function, which showcases those positions first in the notice to employees.
Aliro and its new AliroVets for military-veteran hires provide a robust recruitment marketplace that not only publishes job openings but solicits, showcases, and manages bonuses from $250 to $6,000. While the new employer is responsible for the funds, Aliro pays the referrer and then later collects from the employer.
These and other recruitment technologies launching or evolving in the coming year are bound to focus on the crucial needs of this competitive job market: Hiring quality candidates quickly; Sourcing passive candidates smartly and cost-effectively; and maintaining ongoing engagement with a robust talent pipeline of candidates for current or fewer opportunities.
When I’m scrolling through the web on my phone, I often land on websites where customers are encouraged to leave reviews. There’s a big reason behind that request: A 2017 survey found that 97% of consumers factor reviews into their buying decisions. It’s called social proof.
Just as consumers want to “try before they buy,” job seekers want to see whether employees like working at a given company before they apply. That’s why they check out employee reviews on the ever-expanding list of rating sites such as Indeed Company Pages. In fact, 95% of U.S. workers in a recentIndeed survey say that when considering a new job, insight into the company’s reputation is “extremely” (62%) or at least “somewhat” (33%) important.
For anyone multitasking at home (or bad at math), that’s only 5% of people who say that an employer’s reputation ISN’T important at all.
But what if your organization is small and has only a handful of reviews, some of which are out of date? Or what if you’re with a large company that has some negative reviews because of a problem that has since been resolved? In situations such as these, it makes sense to pursue new reviews to sweeten that bitter cocktail. But asking for them is tricky. If handled improperly, your efforts can backfire — let’s face it, asking for reviews is usually implicitly asking for positive reviews.
Here’s how to ask for employee reviews in ways that are not only ethical but also likely to garner honest, positive feedback:
1. Never ask for positive reviews.
Directly asking employees for positive reviews is bound to make them feel pressured, angry or suspicious of your motives. Don’t do it. Ever.
Plus, some job-review sites have algorithms and filters designed to automatically detect fraudulent reviews. When discovered, these reviews are immediately deleted.
What you can do is craft a message, via email or another format, that helps motivate employees to post a review — as long as you don’t suggest you’re hoping for a positive one.
For example: “Many job seekers read employee reviews to identify places they’d like to work. Authentic reviews from workers like you, listing the pros and cons, can help us appeal to top candidates in this competitive labor market. Please consider contributing your honest feedback.”
2. Time your requests for reviews strategically.
For obvious reasons, if your company just laid off a dozen workers or its stock market share prices have plunged, it’s not a good time to ask for reviews.
A better bet is to time your request around positive employee milestones and key company moments. Here are a few examples:
Orientation and training: Ask employees in each new-hire class to leave reviews of their interview experiences while they’re fresh in their minds.
Milestones and anniversaries: When an employee hits a work anniversary (we call them Indeediversaries), congratulate them on the milestone and leverage their experience for a review. You might send them an email with a link to a reviews site, such as, “Now that you’ve been here for a bit, would you mind sharing what it’s like to work here from your perspective?”
Promotions: When employees receive promotions, give them kudos. And while you’re at it, let them know they’re a great example of people who make a positive impact at the company. Tell them you’d appreciate it if they’d share their honest career path experience online.
Special events: Did your company just hold a fun event, such as a team-building off-site or sponsor a charitable activity? Ask for employee reviews in the weeks following an event, especially if they were given time off to participate. However, don’t ask during an event, as this could imply that you’re “attempting to lead the witness.”
Positive company moments: Has your company earned an award? Received a positive mention in the media? Rolled out a particularly strong onboarding program? Each of these scenarios presents a golden opportunity to ask for candid employee reviews, as well.
One caveat: The algorithms of some reviews platforms may flag a flood of new, positive reviews as suspicious. When possible, spread out your requests for reviews over time. You can also limit requests to one department or team at a time, rather than asking on behalf of the entire company. Again, the timing should be organic and make sense for the individual employees, not your desire to raise your company rating.
3. Always respond to negative reviews.
No one expects to see all five-star employee reviews; in fact, that could count as a red flag. Every company can expect negative feedback at some point. Instead, what’s critical is if and how you respond to negative employee reviews.
#ProTip: NOT responding to a negative review is, in fact, responding to that review with silence.
When an employee posts a negative review, respond to it right away. The worst thing you can do is ignore it. Others will see that you didn’t respond and may conclude that you simply don’t care, that the reviewer’s criticism was accurate — or both.
On the other hand, authentic, transparent response to an unfavorable review can actually change perceptions of your company from negative to positive. In the aforementioned Indeed survey, 36% of workers say their perceptions of an employer would be “much more positive” if that employer had responded to a negative employee review, and 36.2% say their perceptions would become “somewhat more positive.” Only 19% of respondents say an employer response wouldn’t change their minds.
Responding to reviews may also encourage other employees to post their opinions since they’re more likely to feel their voices are heard.
4. Validate – Empathize – Call to Action
In my opinion, here’s the best way to respond to a negative review.
Thank the reviewer for the honest feedback.
Show them you understand the criticism.
Explain what the company is doing, or plans to do, to correct the problem (without making promises you can’t keep).
Don’t argue with or question the criticism; this can make you look defensive, which is worse than not responding at all.
Ask for more information if you need it. The context isn’t always clear with double anonymous reviews, so reach out if you need to make changes and even provide direct contact options in your response.
Respond to positive reviews, too, by thanking reviewers for taking the time to provide feedback. This further reinforces the message that the company is aware and appreciative of everything employees have to say. I especially like responding to reviews that were clearly written with thought and detail.
5. Above all, show you’re listening
My advice (in case you missed it) is to never ask for positive reviews; time your requests strategically; and respond to all reviews, when possible — but especially to the negative ones.
When it comes to employee reviews, your primary goal isn’t simply to convince candidates to apply (though that’s extremely important). Instead, it’s to keep the talent you already have feeling seen and heard. By encouraging honest feedback, listening to it with an open mind, responding to it thoughtfully and learning from it, you’ll make your workplace even better than before.
You know who I don’t envy? Tech recruiters. At least not now, anyway. Their job may change in the coming years as more of Gen Z slides on into the workforce, but at this exact moment, tech recruiting…well, it sort of sucks. Hear me out. You’ve got the perfunctory stuff, i.e., low unemployment rates, a lengthy list of reqs to fill and hyper-growth around previously underutilized technologies like AI and machine learning that’s causing that growing skills shortage. And that’s just the start. But you want to know the real reason I don’t envy these recruiters? Tech talent straight up doesn’t like them, and that’s making this work ten times harder than it should be.
Seriously, if you do a quick Google, you’ll see results like “Why does tech recruitment take so long” and “Why do tech recruiting.” What’s worse, there are articles titled “Why so many developers hate recruiters” and Reddit threads calling tech recruiters the “scum of the earth.” Ouch. That’s harsh. Still, when you click through to see what candidates are saying they’ve got receipts. Like the aforementioned Reddit poster who explains the time a tech recruiter got him a job with no start date…that turned out to be an offer from a cult to build a brainwashing AI program. Even so, tech recruiters seem to have developed a bit of reputation – and one that only they can undo.
External Factors
But before we go there, let’s back up and see what tech recruiters are dealing with day-to-day. Per the latest Stack Overflow Developer Survey results, the issues are well-founded. For instance, of the 86,447 developers asked, some 77 percent are employed full-time, while another 15 percent report working at least part-time. That leaves 8 percent of developers unemployed – or so you think. Look closer, and you see that more than 3 percent either aren’t looking for work or already retired. So 5 percent of this sample size, about 4200 developers, are looking for a job. That’s split between the U.S., India, U.K., Germany, and Canada. That’s 4200 developers between all those countries. It’s not much better when you isolate the U.S. with that employed full-time number jumping up to 83 percent.
Of course, developers represent only one sect of tech talent, though it’s a pretty big category, covering everything from web development to IT to SaaS. If you go by the Bureau of Labor Statistics definition of tech jobs, we’d also need to talk about computer scientists, network architects, programmers, analysts, administrators and the like. We’ll save that deep dive for another day.
Organizational Pressure
However, further complicating matters, you’ve got the organizational needs. These range from the standard challenges like reactive hiring, forcing tech recruiters into a corner trying to find someone with very specific qualifications in a pinch, to the vague hiring managers who don’t see the point in completing your intake meeting. But with a shortage of active candidates, tech recruiters don’t have the time or luxury to deal when the reqs keep piling up.
That’s not to mention the specific initiatives you need to account for, like diversity and inclusion. So now, on top of the teeny tiny talent pool, you’re wading in, you’re expected to source, engage and ultimately, woo these candidates into accepting a particular role. This puts additional pressure on you to find someone with the perfect blend of skills and experience, who fits or adds to the corporate culture and in essence, checks the right boxes. Not exactly the best approach for improving outcomes in the long-run either.
Don’t Take it Personally
The reality is, tech recruiting isn’t every all that easy – and right now it’s harder than ever. The good news is, there is some hope, with roughly 76 percent of developers open to hearing about new job opportunities (within in reason, no doubt). But first, we need to go back to that image issue and find time to rehab how tech recruiters present to candidates. You might be thinking, why bother? And I don’t blame you. No one wants to admit there’s a problem until it’s staring them in the face – and though I hate to be the bearer of bad news, according to tech talent, it’s you, not them.
The point is, tech recruiting in 2019 is mostly magic. You’re pulling rabbits (or purple squirrels, or unicorns, or whatever) out of hats and yet, candidates and corporations seem to think you’re the bad guy. Not cool. Not cool at all. So here’s to you tech recruiters, for everything you put up with and everything you do. You’re the real MVP.
The memories of this experience stay with me after all these years. It made me realize what he was working for and why, and I have a first-rate education and a great career as proof.
When I was a kid, I wondered why my dad worked all the time. Then, one year on Take Your Kid to Work Day (as it was referred to back then), he took me out for the day in his telephone company work truck. He spent the day doing difficult, manual labor, climbing up telephone poles and down underground to access utility lines. Riding along with him, in a truck without air conditioning, despite the heat of south Texas, put it all in perspective. It was on that day when I learned that what pushed him, what gave him purpose, was being able to provide me an education so I could follow a different career path. One that hopefully included air conditioning. Without the first-hand exposure to his job, and the daily challenges he faced, I would not have appreciated the sacrifices he made for his children and found the personal motivation to achieve what I have. The memories of this experience stay with me after all these years. It made me realize what he was working for and why, and I have a first-rate education and a great career as proof.
National Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day is a deeply rewarding experience that gives children a glimpse into the working world and aims to educate them about future job possibilities. And maybe a little appreciation for what mom or dad does and why they may be a little grumpy when they get home. For businesses, it can be an effective tool for talent engagement and retention as it helps to make a big difference in the lives of both children and their parents and it doesn’t cost much to make it extraordinary. Take it from me.
HR teams today are caught between wanting to offer great perks and rewards, but being unable to do so because of internal protocols, high costs, or a combination of both. That’s why understanding your employment value proposition in terms of distinguishing between what you can and cannot control is becoming increasingly important. Lately, I’ve been having a lot of discussions with my clients about this. It’s no easy task but making the best of what you can control can have a significant impact on your culture.
The most intangible benefits, like the chance to spend more time with our children or design our own job, are usually the most effective in terms of talent retention.
The catch is that while these are deeply meaningful, long-term benefits, they are also extremely difficult to measure.
Leveraging national awareness days like Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day is a great way to promote a company’s brand. When orchestrated and marketed well, it can become a much bigger part of your greater strategic talent retention initiatives. So, how can you raise the bar for this day, and make it more impactful? View this day as part of the bigger picture. HR managers can incorporate it into their broader talent engagement and diversity strategies to showcase differences in organizational culture and employee benefits related to the family.
Overall, it’s important to challenge your assumptions and remember that today’s workforce is more diverse than ever. The key is to think holistically about family and the workplace and how it can become a meaningful contribution to employee engagement and culture. When orchestrated thoughtfully and marketed authentically, Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day can become a key differentiator when showcasing what makes your company’s culture truly different from the rest.
Tom Chavez with co-founders Debra Kadner, Dr. Tolonda Tolbert, Roopak Gupta, and Vivek Vaidya, has announced release of their HCM platform, Eskalera.This groundbreaking platform combines evidence-based findings on implicit bias, AI and machine learning. Eskalera aspires to help companies forge inclusive culture and diversity initiatives as a source of competitive advantage.
The flagship product, Eskalera Engage, uniquely marries Diversity and Inclusion insights with a company’s core HR data to engage and grow employees. Outcomes of this data fusion put actionable insight into the hands of HR practitioners to support organizational growth and revenue objectives.
How does Eskalera benefit organizations?
A recent SHRM report found that 41% of managers claim to be “too busy” to implement diversity initiatives. With Eskalera Insights, companies will have a holistic view of their employee base with a single glance:
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion dashboards derived from a complete signal across multiple data sources
Real-time, prescriptive insights that leverage the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning in order to bring you data-driven, up-to-the-minute insights about your organization
Diversity & Inclusion benchmarking across industry, location, and company size
Further, With Eskalera Experiences, companies can distribute branded, evidence-based Diversity & Inclusion training to the entire organization with learning experiences that are tailor-made for a company’s needs, goals, and situation to cultivate inclusive workplace practices. For more information: https://eskalera.com/.
Sexual Harassment Complaints (but not where you might think)
Multiple news sources have revealed how Microsoft is revising HR policies in response to recent sexual harassment complaints filed within their organization. So more of us might be even more attentive upon seeing sexual harassment emerging yet somewhere else, in the here and now.
Now, some compelling sexual harassment research findings has also been published in the April volume of Annals of Surgery. And this report reveals compelling sexual harassment research findings in surgical training programs:
Seven in 10 young female surgeons say they have experienced at least one form of sexual harassment during their training.
Sexual harassment is self-reported among nearly half of surgery trainees, of both genders.
Nearly 33% of those who had not personally experienced sexual harassment said they witnessed or heard about an incident of sexual harassment among their peers.
Only 7.6% reported the incident among the respondents who experienced sexual harassment.
The most common cited reasons for nonreporting were believing that the action was harmless (62.1%) and believing reporting would be a waste of time (47.7%).
All general surgery training programs nationally were invited to participate. Overall, sixteen general surgery training programs participated, yielding 270 completed surveys (response rate of 30%).
How does this data impact employers?
Though not generalizable to all organization settings, the study at least suggests how surgical training programs should have HR offices with ears to ground. The study also offers at least two remedies that organizations, both within and outside of healthcare, may benefit from reviewing/clarifying/edifying. Suggested remedies include:
Provide all-level education on sexual harassment,especially to help those unclear on what constitutes harassment, to better understand what is justifiably and credibly reportable
Delineate the best mechanism for reporting of sexual harassment,with emphasis on how time resources are not wasted but, rather, pre-emptive. Employees need reassurance that reporting these incidents potentially offset even more issues such as this within the organization.
Wellness Programs: Potential Efficacy Issues?
Results of a new Harvard study suggest workplace wellness programs and interventions yield unimpressive results in the short term.The findings, published April 16, 2019 by JAMA, raise questions about the effectiveness of these programs, representing an $8B industry. Of course, the hope is to make employees healthier and more productive — while reducing health care spending. But how are these, and other goals, faring?
What IS working? Worksites offering a wellness program had a/an:
3 percentage point higher rate of employees who reported engaging in regular exercise
6 percentage point higher rate of employees who reported actively managing their weight, compared to those working at sites where a program wasn’t offered.
What ISN’T working? Programs examined in this study had no significant effects on other outcomes including:
27 self-reported health and behavioral measures such as employees’ overall health, sleep quality and food choices.
38 measures tracking spending and utilization for doctor’s visits, medical tests, procedures and prescription drugs.
three employment outcomes—absenteeism, job tenure and job performance.
What does this mean to employers?
One line of questioning relates directly to whether or not the 18-month time frame in the JAMA study is enough time to see an impact from a wellness program. Or, whether the kinds of changes in healthy behaviors the program produced take longer to yield measurable health benefits. As such, long-term return on such investment may not be seen/realized in the short term. (So, don’t throw the baby out with the lemon spa spritzer bath water — yet?) Meanwhile, if/when candidates inquire about absent wellness benefit(s)—well, then. Here is some handy data to have ready when outlining other health benefits an organization has to offer, instead.
Kronos and Human Capital Institute
A new study released from Kronos Incorporated finds more than half (53%) of organizations are planning to make major changes to their TA strategy within the next two years.
These planned changes are in response to increases in time-to-hire and cost-to-hire created by the ongoing competitive job market. The study, How High Performing Organizations Compete for Talent, was conducted by Kronos and The Human Capital Institute (HCI).
Highlights from their report, summarizing what leaders at 234 organizations are doing differently to recruit talent, include:
Talent void: Recruiting in 2019 is more challenging by every key metric
Approximately half of all organizations say the number of open hourly (48%) and salaried (53%) positions has increased over the last two years.
It takes longer to fill roles now, as 36% of organizations report time-to-hire from original job posting to accepted offer for hourly positions has increased, and 38% of organizations report time-to-hire for salaried positions has increased.
Extended time-to-hire is also driving up cost-per-hire, which has increased at nearly half of all organizations for both hourly (48%) and salaried (47%) positions.
Nearly three-quarters (73%) of organizations have increased starting pay for salaried roles, while half (50%) have increased starting pay for hourly roles over the past two years.
Strategic vs. tactical: High-performing organizations look inward for recruiting success
At High Performance Organizations (HPOs) the most important talent acquisition strategy considerations include alignment with business priorities (56%), strength of internal talent pipeline (48%), and availability of specific skills (48%).
Growing gap: Not all organizations are investing in TA at similar rates
Better employer brand/recruitment marketing is top focus for nearly two-thirds (59%) of HPOs compared to just 40% of other organizations.
HPOs plan to invest in TA & HR Tech more aggressively than other organizations (59% vs. 37%).
More than half (51%) of HPOs will focus on improving recruiter effectiveness compared to just 27% of other organizations.
What conclusions can we reach?
1)Many more open positions have surfaced over the last two years, while recruiting has gotten costlier and lengthier. As possible consequence, more organizations are boosting starting pay/salaries.2)HPOs look inward, focusing on business priority alignment, internal talent and existing skill sets to bolster TA success. 3) Patent gaps exist between HPOs and other organizations, insofar as professional development, brand recruiting/marketing, and funding allocations to TA and HR Tech.
Implications of this study suggest the following will help narrow gaps identified here: beginning pay boosts; organizational scoping, aligning and skills assessment; allocation of lacking HR resources and bolstering professional development opportunities for recruiters in particular.
Macorva
Macorva has introduced a new employee rating platform to improve engagement and workplace culture. With its platform, Macorvaaims to help organizations retain top talent, improve workplace culture, and grow their business. As such, Macorva reimagines the employee survey as a feedback tool that not only measures engagement but also drives meaningful action.
How so?
Macorva aims to increase engagement by empowering employees to anonymously rate their experiences with coworkers. To that end, the Macorva method measures/tracks employee engagement, while returning detailed feedback scores that promote action in multiple directions, at every organizational level. With Macorva, individual employees give/receive anonymous feedback based on their experiences. This way, each employee can understand his/her strengths and opportunities to improve.
Recognizing that employee engagement is critical to the success of any company, the Macorva solution is designed to promote specific, meaningful action to improve engagement by identifying common issues before they negatively impact business.
The HR business, part of Centaur’s professional services division, includes Employee Benefits Live, Employee Benefits Connect and the Forum for Expatriate Management. Each are supported by the Employee Benefitswebsite and supplements, which provide news, analysis and research on the UK rewards and benefits industry.
DVV Media International is the UK subsidiary of DVV Media GmbH, a business publishing house, specializing in professional information in the transport & logistics and HR and Recruiter services sector.
WebMerge is a leading provider of automated contracts, applications, and proposal PDF and Word documents. With the acquisition, Formstack is further enhancing its document automation product, Formstack Documents—which helps transform data into fully designed, customized PDFs, PowerPoint presentations, and more.
WebMerge will stay a stand-alone product, and existing integrations, partnerships and functionality will remain intact. Additionally, WebMerge will continue supporting customers who use other online form providers and third-party data sources, such as Salesforce, Zapier and Constant Contact. All WebMerge employees have joined the Formstack team. Founded in 2011 by Jeremy Clarke, WebMerge services more than 3,000 customers in 80 countries. Since launch, WebMerge users have processed more than 50 million documents, saving millions of hours on manual document creation.
SHI reports how this move will better provide training to customers looking to better take advantage of SHI’s professional services activities. SHI hopes bringing CTG in-house will add flexibility and scale to its training activities and boost its professional services. Corporate Training Group will also help SHI improve its internal training, according to Ed McNamara, senior director of communications and marketing for the Somerset, N.J.-based solution provider. SHI International alredy has worked with Corporate Training Group for about 15 years to train customers and its own personnel.
Why you should attend: A full day of learning, workshop, and training with sourcing leader Shally Steckerl, Ronnie Bratcher, Sarah Goldberg, Holly Mallowes, and Brian Fink. All for a cause! RecruitingDaily and The Sourcing Institute have joined forces to bring much-needed awareness to a great cause. TSIF helps to reduce unemployment by providing sourcing & recruiting education to military veterans, spouses of active military, and disabled individuals. All Info Available HERE.
People and Places on the Move
Cisionannounces the appointment of Susan Steele as the company’s new global Chief Human Resources Officer. Steele, who brings more than 25 years of HR expertise, is known for pioneering the use of AI in the HR function to improve productivity, enhance the employee experience, and improve business results. Prior to joining Cision, Steele served as HR Reinvention Lead for Global Talent & Transformation at IBM. At Cision, Steele will focus on fostering an environment of continuous learning & career mobility, enhancing productivity for all employees via scalable talent processes, resources & technologies, and delivering employee experiences that accelerate client success & revenue growth.
Diebold Nixdorf, a world leader in driving connected commerce, announces thatBeth Patrick has joined the company as senior vice president, chief people officer. She is responsible for managing employee-focused initiatives across the organization and overseeing the global HR program for more than 23,000 Diebold Nixdorf employees. Patrick has more than 30 years of experience in global talent management, organizational design, HR data & analytics, compensation & benefits, succession planning & labor relations. Prior to this, Nixdorf served as senior vice president & CHRO for Veritiv Corporation.
Gusto the leading payroll, benefits and HR technology platform for small businesses in the U.S., announces it has hiredformer Google executiveDanielle Brown. As Chief people officer, Brown will lead talent acquisition & development, employee experience, diversity & belonging, people operations & workplace environment initiatives at Gusto. She will also work to reinvent HR as an advocate for Gusto’s more than 60,000 small & medium-sized business customers across the U.S. The appointment comes on the heels of Gusto’s incredible growth as it counts more than 1 percent of all employers in the U.S. as customers.
Interplay Learning, the leading provider of online training for skilled trades utilizing virtual reality (VR) and 3D simulations, has announced that serial entrepreneur and tech industry veteran Sam Deckerhas been appointed to the company’s board of directors effective April 1, 2019. Decker’s tech industry experience spans more than 30 years in both the Internet and Enterprise software sectors. Prior to his multiple startup experiences, Decker led the growth of Dell’s consumer online revenue to $3.5 billion in 1999 and early 2000s.
Ipsos has hired Debi Lee as President, Human Resources Head for North America. Lee joins Ipsos after nearly four years at AIG, where she served as Senior HR Strategic Business Partner. Previously, she worked for JPMorgan Chase as Global Head of Organizational Development & Strategic Initiatives; and she held HR leadership/consultancy roles at Ernst & Young, Deutsche Bank and AmericanExpress. Lee’s areas of expertise include management consulting, people analytics, diversity & inclusion, organizational effectiveness, cultural transformation, and change & talent management.
Louisiana-Pacific Corporationannounces thatRobin Hirsch Everhart has been named to the position of Senior Vice President, Chief Human Resources and Transformation Officer. Everhartwill lead LP’s overall organizational effectiveness and transformational change management. She has a critical liaison role in leveraging key capabilities of LP’s consolidated HR strategy, compliance and shared services teams while having direct strategic oversight of partnering with the CEO and other LP teammates to deliver on the organization’s annual operating plan as well as its long-term growth strategy.
PGT Innovations, a national leader in the premium window and door category, recently appointedRachel Evans as Vice President of Human Resources, where she will be responsible for the company’s HR activities across the southeast region. With more than 25 years of experience within the HR sector, including 14 years of leadership, Ms. Evans brings extensive knowledge in talent management, employee and labor relations, organizational development, and executive coaching. Prior to joining PGT Innovations, Ms. Evans held the position of VP of Human Resources for Fortune Brands Home & Security.
Rocketrip announces that Jennifer Leahy has joined as the company’s Vice President, People, a newly created position for the organization that is a leading employee engagement platform for reducing business travel spend. A 21-year veteran of Human Resources, Leahy will lead the company’s hiring and talent development through its current period of rapid growth. In addition, Leahy will continue developing Rocketrip’s high-performance culture and employee engagement. Prior to joining Rocketrip, Leahy was the Director of Human Resources for Aventri, a global event management SaaS platform.
What news would you like to share with us for upcoming weekly news updates? Contact us at [email protected]
We’re recruiting in a proactive, ethically-minded climate, where initiatives like diversity, inclusion, and belonging take precedence over merely filling reqs. At the same time, talent acquisition teams are already thinking about the next round of student recruiting and what they can do to hire the best new talent. With graduation time almost upon us, this is the perfect moment to pause and reflect, before moving forward. Leveraging Oleeo’s recent report with Universum, here’s what we learned from the last campus recruiting season:
1. Understand the Audience –
This might sound like a no-brainer but today’s college students represent Gen Z, an entirely new class of candidates. Their life experiences, career goals, and employment asks differ from their predecessors. Factor in D&I and it’s clear that we need to shift our approach. For instance, two-thirds of students report that after graduation they want to work for an international or privately-owned national business. Good news for those types of companies, but further complicating matters for startups and government entities.
2. The Art of Attraction –
Likewise, to attract students, we need to know what resonates. In conducting research, Oleeo and Universum surveyed students to identify what they were looking for from potential employers. The overall findings ranked supportive management, earnings potential, a dynamic work environment and career advancement high on the list. However, in diverse subsets, the attributes differ. LGBT students prefer ethical standards, a dynamic work environment, job security, purpose and respect above all else, while people with disabilities reorder these, swapping training and development in place of work environment. Veterans offer yet another take, interested in supportive leadership and leadership opportunities.
3. Be Goal-Oriented –
Seeing the future laid out before them, students also react to messaging that relates to career goals. Here, work-life balance comes first, followed by job security, leadership opportunities, challenging work, and purpose-driven work. Weaving these ideas into college recruiting materials is a must, as a way of illustrating what an organization has to offer and creating competitive advantage. It might be tough to entice fresh-faced students with the idea of 401(k) and retirement savings, but a generous PTO policy and the option to work remote could do the trick.
4. Cover the Bases –
And while those doing the recruiting likely remember life before the Internet, today’s students do not. So it’s no surprise that employer career and career services websites are the number one way they find opportunities. Even so, we can’t discount the other sources that students look to – on-campus events and career fairs; referrals; diversity groups and forums; and offline marketing efforts. Each should be taken into consideration and worked into the overall campus recruiting strategy, with a particular emphasis online and at events.
5. Outreach Effectively –
Similarly, though “top of funnel” doesn’t mean much to a college student, they do foresee a logical order of recruiting operations. To account for expectations, companies should take a multi-tiered approach to communication, moving from awareness down to the application (more on that in a minute). Within this talent pool, awareness means advertising and social media, while consideration includes the career services websites and job fairs mentioned above. Down the funnel, we see the need for reinforced on-campus presence as well as dedicated employer websites.
6. Ease of Application –
One of the more interesting tidbits to come out of the Oleeo-Universum study, and one that bears repeating, is that 40 percent of the job applications analyzed went incomplete. That’s a big red flag for recruiters. One that equates to millions of new hires dropping off early in the process – to the detriment of potential employers. To avoid this, we need to centralize the process, shorten up the application and make it easy to apply from anywhere and at any time.
7. Improve the Infrastructure –
Of course, making any of this happen without the right technology in place seems nearly impossible in 2019. That might mean upgrading an existing ATS or finding the right event management solution to facilitate career fairs. Either way, we’re working in a data-driven world that all but requires deep insights and analytics, allowing recruiters to update and improve outcomes continually. Something that will grow in importance as increased numbers of Gen Z students enter the job market.
8. Walk the Walk –
Last, but certainly not least, we need to follow through and make good on our commitment to college recruiting. Even after drop off, there are still those students who do apply, in hopes of getting hired. And though the numbers don’t always match up, we should strive to be thoughtful and consistent. That means thinking through the messages we send, ensuring diversity appears throughout our efforts (#NoMoreManels!) and remaining open, honest and forthcoming in our interactions on and off campus.
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