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Why Are So Many Talent Pools Underutilized and How Can Recruiters Tap Into Them?

 

Spoiler alert: There’s a talent shortage in the world of work. And it’s pretty big.

Ok, so that probably comes as no surprise to anybody who works in the staffing and recruiting industry.

It seems like every day, we read new stories about how the number of open jobs exceeds the number of available people who can fill them.

How, thanks to advances in technology, people have more options than ever. As a result, they’re trying out flexible, gig-based options and making a decent living doing so.

How, because the economy is in good shape, people are increasingly quitting their jobs to take their chances on finding something better, which could mean many things to many people—higher pay, better benefits, increased responsibility, more flexibility, inspiring managers, better cultures, shorter commutes, yummier office snacks… the list goes on.

How, in the midst of all of this, staffing firms are struggling to find enough skilled workers to keep up with client demand.

The talent shortage is a hot topic because it’s a huge issue. In fact, the global talent shortage is at a 12-year high with 45 percent of employers globally saying they can’t find the skills they need, according to ManpowerGroup’s 2018 Global Talent Shortage Survey.  

“The days are over when you could post a job and wait for a response. You have to be disciplined about casting a wide enough net to capture the right talent,” says James Vallone, Vice President, Staffing Solutions, Motion Recruitment Partners.

So if the talent shortage isn’t going away anytime soon and recruiters need to cast a wider net to find qualified candidates, what can staffing firms to do to ease the pain? One potential solution: help recruiters tap into underutilized talent pools.

 

Why should recruiters explore underutilized talent pools?

Put simply, there are now more jobs open than qualified people who are available to fill them.

Recruiters who want to bridge this gap and continue delivering enough qualified candidates to clients must become exceptionally creative when it comes to reaching and engaging with candidates. And tapping into underutilized talent pools is one particularly sharp arrow in a savvy recruiter’s quiver.

Underutilized talent pools are comprised of people who, for one reason or another, may not match the perceived criteria for a particular job.

Take the traditional 40-hour work week, for example. There are many people who may not be able to work it or who may not want to work it. There are people returning to the workforce after an extended period away from it who may just need to freshen up their skills in some areas. And there are people with disabilities who may simply need a reasonable accommodation.  

These are just a few examples of people who could be a great fit for a client’s job order, but who may often be overlooked in the hiring process because they don’t check all the boxes on a list of job requirements. The reality is, there are a lot of people who could be great candidates but who may not seem like a great fit on paper.

Recruiters who find themselves struggling to come up with enough qualified candidates might be well-served to have a conversation with their clients to ask, “Are all of the job requirements and criteria for this particular role absolute must-haves? Is everything in the job description, including how, when, and where work gets done, set in stone? Could the work still be performed with a degree of success, even if some of the boxes on the requirements list go unchecked?”

Maybe you’re thinking, “Sure, it’d be nice if my clients could relax a little on the job requirements, but many times they won’t. Some jobs just have to be filled with people who have these specific skills or that exact type of experience.” That’s perfectly reasonable and understandable. It’d be unrealistic to think that every job’s skills or experience requirements could be flexible. But in many cases, they can be. And a bit of flexibility or thinking outside of the box may be the difference between a shallow and a deep pool of qualified candidates.

 

What are some underutilized talent pools recruiters can explore?

Many talent pools often go untapped during a candidate search, yet they could yield many qualified people to consider. Here are seven underutilized talent pools recruiters can explore:

 

1. Workers Who Want or Need Flexible Arrangements

In today’s modern workforce, people increasingly want and need workplace flexibility, yet many still don’t have much access to it. According to the Harvard Business Review, a recent survey found 96 percent of employees said they need flexibility, yet only 47 percent reported having access to the types of flexibility they need—a gap of 54 percent.

Seemingly, this is one of the largest underutilized talent pools recruiters can explore because so many people fit under the umbrella of wanting or needing flexible work arrangements.

Some people can’t commit to working a consistent schedule—say a 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday job or a 7 p.m.-7 a.m. night shift—but they may otherwise possess all the skills for a given job. For example, maybe you have a candidate who’s an experienced copywriter who’s serving as a primary caregiver to an aging parent. She needs to be able to take him to frequent doctor’s appointments during the day, but she can write or edit in the evenings or on weekends. Could your client provide the writer with a flexible schedule so long as she meets her deadlines? Or perhaps you have a candidate who’s a seasoned trauma nurse who’s recently become a single parent and he can’t work overnight shifts. Could they assign him to day shifts instead of night shifts?

There are also many people who don’t want to work 40 hours consistently each week. Maybe you have a candidate who’s working as a freelancer because he wants more flexibility and choice in the work he does, and he doesn’t want to work for one employer. He has deep experience as a paralegal that could work well for a contract job you’re trying to fill, so could your client perhaps restructure the work arrangement a bit?

Then there are who have retired or who are about to retire—either by choice or by their employer’s mandatory retirement policies. Many of these individuals don’t want to stop working, or can’t afford to stop working because they’re helping to care for adult children or aging parents, but they also don’t want to work full-time. They have a wealth of skills and experience to draw upon, and the ability to mentor younger workers who are building their skills, which would make them great assets to employers who can offer flexible or compressed work arrangements.

Recruiters who are having a hard time finding qualified candidates can speak with their clients to see if things like flexible scheduling could be an option. Offering flexible work options might be one of the simplest tweaks your client could make that would yield many more qualified candidates.

 

2. Workers Who May Not Have the Right Education or Training

In many cases, people simply don’t have all the education or skills that perfectly match a specific job description. But do they perhaps meet some criteria? Some people may have transferable skills that could be useful for a particular job.

For example, say you have a candidate who has his CDL license. He’s driven 18-wheelers cross-country for the last decade, but he has no experience driving city buses and you’re trying to fill 10 positions for city transit drivers in the next week. With some on-the-job training, perhaps he could leverage his truck driving experience and be a great candidate for this role. Or maybe you have someone who’s never graduated high-school, but she’s successfully built and run her own e-commerce business and has been active in fundraising efforts for many of her local community organizations. Perhaps she’d be a great candidate for one of your client’s open business development roles.

Recruiters can work with clients to understand which types of transferable skills could be useful for a particular job. If a candidate can demonstrate a track record of success in some capacity relevant to the job’s requirements or skills criteria, it could be worth exploring whether she could be successful with some on-the-job-training or reskilling initiatives.

 

3. Veterans Who Are Entering the Civilian Workforce

Speaking of transferable skills, many people find themselves entering the workforce after a period of military service. During this time, these individuals have often learned skills like technology, leadership, reliability, attention to detail, and the ability to make decisions under high-stakes and stress, to name a few. Such skills could help them perform well in a civilian job, especially if they had access to some on-the-job training programs.

For example, perhaps you know a candidate who worked as a combat medic. He might be a great candidate for a paramedic job you’re trying to fill if given some additional training and certification. Or perhaps you have a candidate who worked on aircraft maintenance while enlisted. Maybe she would be able to successfully perform a similar job for a domestic airline with some specific training.

As of November 2018, the veteran unemployment rate was 3.1 percent, the lowest it’s been since 2001, according to the Department of Labor. Employers are recognizing the benefits of hiring veterans, especially in such a tight job market. Amazon, for example, employs 18,000 veterans and their spouses—3 percent of its global workforce, according to the Wall Street Journal. And with the company’s second headquarters slated to open in Arlington, VA, the company “plans to expand its roster of U.S. military veterans to 25,000 over the next three years.”

Recruiters can work with clients to understand their commitment to hiring veterans and what kinds of reskilling or job training resources they’re willing to offer as they reach out to veteran candidates.  

 

4. Military Spouses Who Can’t Consistently Remain in One Location

Military spouses often struggle to find viable job options because they frequently have to relocate due to their spouses’ assignments and can’t stay in a particular location for too long.

“While much of the country is experiencing the lowest unemployment rates in decades, military spouses are still unemployed at a rate of 16 percent, over four times the rate of their civilian counterpart,” finds the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes program.

And “military spouses with degrees face the greatest challenges in nearly every measurable employment category, and they face the highest rates of unemployment and the most difficulty finding meaningful work,” according to a report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

Say you have a candidate who has nearly a decade’s worth of accounting experience, but she’s recently married someone who’s on active duty and will likely be moving around regularly for the next decade. Perhaps if the job could be done remotely, she’d be a great candidate for one of the temporary accounting roles you’re trying to fill to ensure your client has enough coverage for the upcoming tax season.

Recruiters can work with clients to see if a job’s desired location is really an issue or whether the job could be successfully completed by a remote worker. If so, recruiters could expand their search to include military spouses and others who may have relevant backgrounds, but who may not be able to be present in a specific location for a consistent period of time.

 

5. Workers with Disabilities

Many people have disabilities that make it difficult to perform certain tasks for a given job, but they could do the job successfully if some accommodations could be made.

“Nearly 40 percent of employers are having challenges hiring qualified employees, while at the same time one in five people in the United States have some type of disability and are facing challenges in getting hired,” according to Kris Foss, Managing Director of Disability Solutions at Ability Beyond.  

Recruiters can work with clients to understand what components of a particular job could be modified with reasonable ADA-compliant accommodations or which duties may be non-essential to a particular role and rearranged accordingly.

For example, could a candidate for an IT help desk job successfully perform its duties if he had the ability to work flexible hours or a different shift that would help alleviate some of the challenges he may experience in getting to and from work? Must the candidate be able to lift boxes of up to 10 pounds for a call center representative role or could that element of the job description be removed or redirected to another more relevant position?

By working with clients to understand which factors of a job’s requirements are essential and which could be accommodated or rearranged, recruiters could expand their search criteria to include people with disabilities.

 

6. Workers Who Have Been Incarcerated

Many people are re-entering the workforce after a period of incarceration. Historically, these individuals have faced significant challenges finding job opportunities once they’ve returned to society.

“Ex-prisoners fare poorly in the labor market,” according to Adam Looney, Director for the Center on Regulation and Markets, and Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, for the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. “In the first full calendar year after their release, only 55 percent [of former prisoners] reported any earnings, with the median earnings being $10,090. Of those with earnings, 4 percent earned less than $500, 32 percent earned between $500 and $15,000, and only 20 percent earned more than $15,000.”

But former prisoners could be successful if given a second chance and an opportunity.

While incarcerated, many individuals have held jobs where they’ve worked in food service, landscaping, or custodial capacities. Others have participated in work-training programs, such as UNICOR. These programs have helped people improve their skills in basic areas such as language (for example, ESL courses), reading, and math. Other programs like The Last Mile have taught former inmates modern technology skills and other skills that can be useful in business such as how to write blogs, tweets, and how to use social media.

Since we’re in “one of the tightest labor markets in decades, some employers say they are more willing to consider applicants with criminal histories,” reports the Wall Street Journal.

Recruiters can work with clients to understand their willingness to consider candidates who’ve previously been incarcerated. If they’re open to doing so, recruiters have another pool of potentially qualified talent to consider.

 

7. People Who Have Previously Applied  

Last but not least, candidates who’ve previously applied to an open position could be a great fit for a future role. They’ve proactively expressed interest and have reached out to your firm for help.

Perhaps you had a candidate who didn’t meet a specific job’s criteria, so you never placed him in a role. Look into why this candidate didn’t make the cut and see if anything has changed. Did he not have a specific skill at the time that was required for the job? Maybe he has developed that skill since he was last considered for such a role. Were the requirements for another job too strict? Maybe your candidate didn’t have three to five years of experience at the time she applied, but she’s since gained another couple of years of relevant experience that could be useful in a given role.

Recruiters who develop relationships with candidates tend to be much more successful than those who don’t. And by working with clients to understand, as much as possible, why a particular candidate was not a fit for a particular role at a certain point in time, they might be able to place that candidate in another more relevant role in the future.

 

5 Ways to Tap Into Underutilized Talent Pools

Recruiters are constantly under pressure to do more with less, so figuring out how to tap into so many underutilized talent pools could be time-consuming and tricky. Here are some strategies you can try out as part of your expanded candidate search efforts.

 

1. Explore the Features of Your ATS That Will Help You Create Expanded Search Pools

What does your current recruiting technology allow you to do and how is it set up?

One thing to take a look at, especially with respect to your applicant tracking system (ATS), is how you’re tagging people in your database. Creating specific tags for each candidate record, such as “veteran” or “part-time availability only”, can help you run expanded searches in your database when it comes time to search for specific candidates.

Say you’ve been running a search for a Java developer for the last month, but you’ve only been able to find two qualified candidates who are based locally. One isn’t open to new opportunities because she just took a new job and one simply won’t respond to your messages, no matter how compelling you’ve tried to make your emails, texts, and inMails. Would your client consider hiring someone who might not be based locally? If so, you can run a search across expanded geographies. Include those candidates with a “remote” tag associated with their candidate record, as well, to see if you can find more qualified candidates to present to your client.

 

2. Write Inclusive Job Descriptions

Are your job descriptions written so they’re inclusive? Are they loaded with language that conveys gender or other forms of bias? Are you using words that are simply unappealing to target candidates?

Many potentially qualified candidates may voluntarily take themselves out of the running simply by not applying to a job if its description makes appears as though wouldn’t have a fair shot at being considered for it.

Recruiters can work with clients to review the job’s list of requirements, the language used, and get a better understanding of how the role might be perceived by candidates.  

For example, does it seem like the client has tailored the job description toward male candidates? Is it really necessary for a candidate to have five to seven years of serving experience for a three-day temporary catering staff job at a conference that’s coming to your city’s expo hall? Could a single-parent who has to pick up his son from school each afternoon still successfully perform the job if he was able to work flexible hours? Has the client made it’s commitment to EEOC and ADA compliance clear?

By writing more inclusive job descriptions, you can increase the pool of candidates who’d likely apply for an open role and who’d be willing to talk to you if you reached out to them about an opportunity.

 

3. Diversify How You Advertise Jobs

In tandem with coaching your clients to consider how they’re writing their job descriptions, it’s equally important to think about how and where you post those descriptions.

In marketing, there’s a saying: “Content is King, but distribution is Queen and she wears the pants.” You could have the best, most inclusive, most enticing job description in the world. But if you’re not getting it in front of the people in these underutilized talent pools you’re working so hard to reach, then you’re back at square one with a limited set of candidates to consider.

Just like the language used in a job description, a one-size-fits-all approach to advertising jobs won’t work in a tight talent market.

Look at the talent pools you’re trying to tap into and get to know the preferences of the people who are part of them. What websites do they visit? What social media channels do they use? How do they look for jobs? How can you reach them so they’ll take notice?  

By understanding the preferences of potential candidates and how they go about looking for work, you can better tailor your job advertising and recruiting strategies to attract them.

 

4. Ask Clients if They Can Be Flexible on Where Work Can Be Done

In today’s knowledge economy, many jobs can be done if a worker has access to the internet and a computer. And because of advancements in technology, companies now have access to some of the best and brightest workers in the world, regardless of where they may live.

If you’re having a hard time filling a few web developer positions, for example, perhaps candidates who live in another city (or country, even!) could be a great fit for your client.

In many instances, recruiters have an opportunity to work with clients and counsel them to consider whether a particular job’s work must be done on-premise and if candidates must be based locally, or if candidates could successfully perform the duties of the job while working remotely.

By determining what’s absolutely critical in terms of where work gets done and what kind of flexibility the client can offer, recruiters can often eliminate unnecessary geographical boundaries and broaden their search.

 

5. Counsel Clients to Reconsider Which Job Requirements are Absolute Must-Haves

In addition to working with clients to see if they can offer candidates any flexibility on where work gets done, consider working with them to see if they can offer candidates any flexibility on how work gets done, as well.

For example, if a client has a temporary opening for an administrative position that’ll be paid hourly, last for six weeks, and includes 40 hours of work per week, you could ask your client if they need exactly one person to perform 40-hours of work per week or if the job’s requirements could be successfully be met by two people working 20-hours per week at the same pay rate.

By working with clients to carefully examine which requirements and skills are absolute must-haves, you may find an opportunity to expand your searches.

 

Custom Chrome Extension Manager: A Recruiting & Sourcing Must Have

 

Custom Chrome is the extension that manages your extensions

 

When recruiting, you often build up a massive collection of various Chrome Extensions, apps, and tools. Most likely, you get to a point where they no longer can fit at the top of your browser. This means, to get to your other tools, you have to dig deep in the settings. However, there is a solution to this problem.

The Custom Chrome Extension Manager is one simple extension that allows you easy access to the rest of your apps and tools. When you click on the Custom Chrome extension, it brings up a user-friendly window that displays your other tools and provides a number of customizable options.

  • First, you have the option to show just the extensions, or both extensions and apps.
  • You can easily turn extensions on and off from within the tool, saving you the time of going to your settings.
  • Groups allow you to sort your tools however you want. For example, you can group all your contact-finding tools together, all your data-scraping tools together, etc. You can then turn all the tools in a group on or off at the same time.
  • The tool also provides both a compact and extended view.

The tool works very well, and the tool’s creator also seems to be aware of and responsive to feedback, making for an overall great user experience.

The versatility and ease of use of Custom Chrome make it a no-brainer for anyone who uses a lot of different tools. ~ Noel Cocca

Look inside with Dean Da Costa:

 

It’s Not What Candidates Say, But What They Hear

Listening

This part of the communication equation doesn’t get enough credit for what it can reveal

Are your job interviews structured toward what people have to say, or how they, well, listen? We tend to use face-to-face encounters to gain information verbally. We may ask candidates to repeat their work and education histories, to pursue some facet that jumped out of their resumes. We may ask about their goals and values, to see if those jibe with the company’s mission. Sometimes we use what-if scenarios to get prospects to go deeper and reveal how they act under pressure. Then, we sit back and let them talk.

Suppose we could get all that by looking at how they listen. This part of the communication equation doesn’t get enough credit for what it can reveal. Here’s a new take on an interview technique that can show you how well potential employees would transact business in your company.

First

Track a typical exchange among relevant parties in the job role you are looking to fill. Take a few situations, such as peer-to-peer remote chats, formal group meetings, and customer-facing contacts. Then, compose templates for role play.

Second

Identify instances of “good” and “bad” internal communication and their consequences. Maybe a staff member failed to pursue an answer when a colleague did not respond to an email. A key piece of information needed for a report may have fallen through the cracks, which can be traced back to this lapse. A legal filing based on the faulty report might have earned a penalty or harmed a client’s standing. Or, perhaps the opposite happened: a swift and sure exchange of accurate data led to a stellar outcome. Use these scenarios to pose problem-solving questions for candidates.

Third

Highlight the role of listening—both in these hypothetical circumstances and in interpreting what you want to know right now—in the interview.

It goes like this:

Model good listening in the presence of candidates. Instead of “taking charge” of the interview, let your prospect know that you are all ears. You might start by asking, “What is it you’d like to learn from me about this job or the company?” Then, stop talking! Note whether the response answers your question, or whether that person is more focused on tooting their horn.

Move through the role-playing, noting how your candidate would communicate in typical situations.

Do they:

  • listen to understand, and not just to respond with their own views?
  • repeat what they’ve heard and ask for confirmation?
  • ask clarifying questions?

Asking for additional information or a nod as to whether they’ve interpreted the speaker correctly does not indicate a lack of ability; it’s a sign of good listening!

Finally, set up the good/bad communication vignettes for your candidate. (Bonus points if they ask for clarification as you go along.) Ask them to analyze the good and bad outcomes, detailing what they would do differently and seeking a cause for the consequences. If they chalk up those wins or losses to strong or weak communication, you’ve got a real listener on your hands!

Every business situation requires people to connect, understand, and act on what they’ve heard. Job candidates with superior listening skills will simply excel at this practice. Sometimes, in an interview situation, what they hear is far more telling than what they say.

 

Employee Experience Doesn’t End At The Exit Interview

Employee Happiness

 

Deloitte preaches it. Nestle proves it. Former employees want it.

The answer: What is a post employee experience?

The data is unanimous. Companies that invest in lifelong relationships outperform those that don’t. The most compelling performance metrics see a 6x increase in employer attractiveness, 2.8x increase in revenue per employee and 4.5x increase in Innovation.

In addition, a 1% increase in a company rehire rate typically yields $1.25m in annual cost savings, and a meaningful Alumni experience can take a rehire rate from the average 3-4% up to 8%.

For those that are still skeptical, some highlights from companies with engaging programs. One customer saw their glassdoor approval rating increase by 4% in a single month. Another customer attributes 40% of all net new business to be influenced by former employees; And another customer hires 600 boomerangs annually with not only a reduced cost of hire but also a vastly increased time to value/productivity and as icing on the cake, they have a much higher retention rate than non Alumni hires.

A 2018 Alumni Survey of companies with Alumni programs found the unarticulated values of an Alumni program are often far-reaching and more than the original intent of launching to widen your talent pool.

Alumni programs are enabling companies to directly impact the bottom line with measurable results across the entire organization and for companies who believe the stigma around departing employees, or for organizations who do not think they have the appetite for an Alumni program, you are placing your organization at risk. Risk of enabling knowledge to leave your organization, the risk of not getting the right person for the role quick enough and risk of allowing a tremendous investment you made to find and retain the right person to then walk out the door with nothing more than a “LinkedIn Post” thanking colleagues.

As organizations recognize the need to formally engage their Alumni community, they are also recognizing that the excel spreadsheet or a legacy community site with news, jobs and some events is no longer sufficient to engage their community. Alumni do not need a platform to find email address information for other Alumni nor to read about the new company office opening in Frankfurt. Instead, Alumni Platforms are about providing meaningful reasons to engage and provide members with not only a sense of belonging and inclusiveness but also driving enrichment into their lives through learning, mentoring, sponsoring and knowledge among other reasons.

Isn’t it time for your organization to recognize that when your employees leave they are essentially being promoted to customers? And maybe it’s time for your organization to be known as “a great place to be and a great place to be from?”

Going From Zero To Hero

Technology today allows customers to be live rapidly, iterate their platform based on changing business priorities and integrate across their existing investments from HR/ATS systems to CRM, LMS, Content Management and more. A modern Alumni platform allows almost the entire process to be automated, requiring limited resources both financially and time from the company. A program launching today no longer needs a dedicated resource from day one and instead allows an organization to start small and let success be the driver of growth.

The Hidden Stakeholder….

One of the greatest reasons to engage Alumni is to serve the hidden stakeholder – the stakeholder impacted by the 6x increase in employer attractiveness….and that’s new recruits. New recruits know they will not be with one employer until retirement. They know leaving is inevitable and they are thinking about that inevitability before they even start. So how does an Alumni program help?

Quite simply, new recruits are an additional stakeholder in an Alumni program because it is critical to show them people who have joined your company and left and gone on to achieve incredible and interesting things. Or they have come back and done amazing things. Your NEW RECRUITS want to put themselves in someone else’s shoes and an Alumni program enables them to do this. In fact, if you want a stunning statistic …. more than a third of visitors to a company’s Alumni page can be tracked back to a new recruit. And that statistic spikes after a career day or graduate fair.

A company can no longer afford to offer an employee’s experience to end at the exit interview – rather must set up an alumni platform to engage new recruits, to improve talent sourcing and to ensure their investment in people is protected – because they might come back.

 

Student outreach and diversity: The state of the state

Generation Z

 

to effectively recruit students and younger populations, there needs to be more to the story

With the next wave of Generation Z getting ready to march down the aisle toward graduation, we need to talk about college recruiting in the real world. And not the “what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real” world beloved by Gens X and Y. Instead, let’s take a long hard look at student outreach in today’s hiring landscape. Just who are these students? This generation? What do they want from an employer? Well, for one, they certainly aren’t Millennials, something that’s already well documented. In fact, they seem to reject the idea of being lumped together, determined to stand out as diverse individuals. That’s right, note the d-word.

By now you’ve likely heard about the benefits of workplace diversity: higher innovation, stronger profitability, improved culture and so on. But how does that translate to student outreach and what does it mean to this next generation of workers? For starters, it’s time to rethink that stock definition of diversity.

Broadening our understanding

As previously discussed, somewhere along the way, diversity got reduced down to two categories: race and gender. Of course, race and gender matter immensely, but frankly, there’s a whole big world out there beyond the corporate confines, and students probably know that better than anyone else. Which is why Oleeo and Universum’s recent report on student recruiting trends in the U.S. sought to expand diversity, surveying 20,879 business students from across the country. Of that total population, 4,903 identified as LGBT; 1,841 as people with disabilities; and 1,063 as veterans. The goal being to learn more about their take on employment and to understand how companies can capture the attention of different student communities.

The results are telling, especially when it comes to the top attributes that students look for in an employer. Overall, those surveyed honed in on factors like leaders who support their development, high future earnings and a clear path for advancement. In looking at students with diverse backgrounds, these preferences change focused more on respect for people and an inspiring purpose. So for employers interested in attracting diverse talent and building advocacy among these communities, balancing out different recruiting messages definitely matters.

Making it count

But beyond a tailored word choice, there’s also a growing call to meet the needs and ambitions of individuals throughout their employment journey. As no two people are created equal, neither are their goals and aspirations and going to work for one organization over another is a serious decision. So it’s no surprise that chief among the desires of those surveyed is a work-life balance, followed by job security and stability. However, when you take a look at the most attractive employers in the U.S. and compare it with the best workplaces for diversity, there’s minimal overlap. The only company that appears in the top ten on both lists is NBCUniversal.

So what is this company doing right? LinkedIn points to the fact that the NBCUniversal hired more than 36,000 new employees in 2017, attracting job seekers with expanded parental benefits, free cable and internet and even complimentary park passes. Check one for work-life balance. According to the Forbes ranking, current employees say it’s because “In any team or division you work for there are people from all walks of life.” Check one for diversity. Still, to effectively recruit students and younger populations, there needs to be more to the story – something else NBCUniversal seems to have all figured out.  

Solutions, steps, and resources

Breaking into new talent pools, particularly those that are just entering the workforce, requires planning, foresight and the right combination of strategies and solutions. Going back to NBCUniversal for a moment, one thing that’s worked for their student outreach or “early career” initiatives is events.

Whether in person or virtual, events offer employers a way to connect with candidates early on, learning about their background and career goals while establishing a relationship. With support from a designated recruiting event platform, the company can accurately capture this information and stay in touch with top talent well after the event ends. Easy access to calendars helps highlight diversity-centric events, including date, time and location, while candidate profiles maintain resumes, supporting documents and any details shared at check-in. And given all that recruiting teams need to keep track of, especially as they welcome Gen Z job seekers, this works to increase efficiency and ensure key factors such as diversity remain top of mind moving forward.  

To find out how recruiting events facilitate student outreach and improve diversity, visit https://info.oleeo.com/recruiting-event-software-diversity-watch-mini-demo.

 

5x your candidate communication by not talking to them

From a sourcing or talent acquisition perspective, we are “constantly communicating with candidates.” But are we?  Majority of recruiters I know that interface with a candidate looks something like an interview, a phone screen. They are asking ‘deep probing’ questions like how soon are they (the candidate) looking to change jobs, what is their biggest motivator, what are they looking for in compensation (except my California peers, of course, cough cough).  What the Sourcer and or recruiters is missing is everything. When a candidate is ‘on’ they are not going to tell you anything that isn’t packaged. The answers they give you are the same answers they always say in every interview. So when it comes time to make an offer or negotiate a title change, or perhaps just getting an onsite scheduled there may be unforeseen issues because the recruiter or Sourcer has not built real rapport.

Most will say “ I have (insert whatever number seems large to you, no judgment) searches, I do not have time to get to know every candidate.”  My counter to this is, what if you could close your hiring managers top 3 picks just about every time? How much time would that save you in the long run?  It turns out, authentic candidate communication and relationship building do not only lead to a better candidate experience overall but also faster fills and more candidate referrals.  That said, of course, I have some hacks to make this more manageable and make the impact to your schedule not so bad.

Communicate where your candidates already are.  This is true for sourcing in general. Why on earth other recruiters and Sourcers try to pull candidates out of one platform (GitHub, Facebook, Linkedin, etc.) to another one makes no sense to me.  Convert them right where they already are! (Yes I am yelling at you). The same goes for candidate communication. I love direct messengers and have constant streams coming in across WhatsApp, text/iMessage, Skype, and the list goes on and on.  

Communicate where they don’t have to get a quiet room.  So what is so special about direct messengers or text? Your candidate can be communicating with you in the meeting they hate, while their boss is talking in front of them (happens all the time).  In fact, there is no better time to convert a candidate.

Assuming you have personality, show it.  Short form communication allows the sourcer / recruiter to inject some personality.  You can get away with some brevity and candor that you probably could not get away with on a live call.  This will go a LONG way with your candidate, both when it comes to nudging them to accept an offer or giving them not so great feedback.

…but not too much.  Brevity and Candor are one thing but do not overdo it.  Make sure nothing you say can be misconstrued as hitting on the candidate.  Also, a smiley face is probably ok but do not go emoji crazy.

Process updates.  A candidate that can communicate with you in two seconds will make all the difference if something goes wrong, even if you have handed off the candidate (in the case of sourcers).  I cannot tell you how many times a candidate is sitting in an onsite that somehow went wrong ( on the clients’ end, not the candidate). It is a great way to get alerted and be able to put the fire out quickly and in many cases save the interview.  Building that report goes a long way.

Final thoughts, if you sound like a telemarketer you are one, regardless of medium. So as you are communicating, keep the corporate speak at a minimum.  No seriously, if you are going to copy/paste job descriptions and apply here links, please stop ruining it for the rest of us.

Tech, Platforms, and Tools to enhance your Employer Brand Efforts in 2019

Enhancing your Employer Brand is always the goal (for many reasons). Today’s Employer Branding practitioner and devotee can take advantage of technology and some tools and platforms for building and enhancing a formidable and endearing Company Employer Brand.

Consider theses: why not use the current technology of your “ATS”/Applicant Tracking System to stoke and pump up your Employer Brand. The advantages of using an Applicant Tracking System are obvious so since you are already using it (selectively) to review resumes and communicate with prospective candidates as well as interview scheduling, offer letters and on-boarding—why not use it for communicating with the entire ATS database for publicizing (to the captive audience of both active and passive candidates) all sorts of information about your firm’s “EVP” and your Employer Brand Program. You can even add a field in the candidate input section that highlights “why the candidate is interested in your firm”, namely your firm’s Employer Brand.  Similarly, you can organize a Talent Community (a stepping stone to the “ATS”). This platform can be also used for stoking and priming your Employer Brand.

Also, consider designing, as I am doing on my current global overseas assignment, an “Electronic EVP” template which can be: displayed on flat screens throughout your organization; embedded in your “new employee” welcome email; and conversely, can be embedded in your exit interview survey forms as well as occasional “alumni” communications. In other words—get them off with a good start upon joining and reinforce it on their way out. A word about exit interview surveys: why not publish them– praises and warts, and all. On the negative comments, you could state what steps you are taking to address and correct these; needless to say, the “warts” will appear anyway of Glassdoor and elsewhere—so why not meet them head on.

Here are a few tools you can acquire and use to also aid your Employer Brand: Dynamic Signal, PathMotion and the Employer Brand Index. For example, Dynamic Signal can drive business growth by developing a workforce that is connected, engaged, and activated. PathMotion (is an artificially intelligent candidate experience platform) that enable your employees to share stories and engage directly with prospective candidates via online. And, on the measurement side, there is the Employer Brand Index which is a measurement tool which measures everything candidates, employees, and alumni are saying about your company online and analyzes everything to give you an objective understanding of your external reputation as an employer. Furthermore, assign an employee survey “opinion” project to the Learning & Development or Communications Department—allowing adequate time for all participants to respond and avoiding conducting the survey during peak business periods. Then match up and compare those results with your EVP/Employer Brand focus group results. There a tons of employee opinion surveys tools to purchase on the open market or just simply leave it to your inside professionals.

Finally, Job Boards can also provide a platform for Branding and “Employer Branding” your company. On Monster (the Company Profile Page) and Indeed (the Why Join Us Page), you can explicitly talk about and list your EVP and Employer Brand Program in the Company Profile Section; perhaps, develop and publish a Video explaining your Employer Brand and EVP. In fact, why not do the same thing on your Glassdoor Overview Page.

The Video should provide insights into the “glories” of working for you and provide authentic employee (on camera) testimonials and stories about“why they love working there’. Needless to say, also talk about your EVP and your Employer Brand Program on your external Career page and internal HR portal page, and in new hire orientation and induction sessions and events, as well; and embed it into your job descriptions and offer letters and in all employee communications such as benefit letters, etc.. Also, talk it up in the C-suite/Executive suite. Lastly, a good case can be made to also include an Employer Branding goal into your annual performance appraisals (for high performers).

These are just a few insights that I have picked up and employed in my 17 years of doing Global Employer Branding and Global Talent Acquisition.

Editor’s Note: Congratulations to Johnny on his nomination for the Employer Brand Leader of the Year (Global Leader Category) The winner will be announced at World Employer Branding Day 15-17 May 2019 | Lisbon www.worldemployerbrandingday.community

What Story Does The 2018 Staffing Buyer Study Tell Us?

2019-02-20 22:25:08.413000


Chicago is home to great pizzas, sports teams, and “Da Auto Show,” a renowned annual event advertised broadly. Admittedly, my husband and I trek out yearly to gawk at rows upon rows of “da” gorgeous vehicles. However, we depart with few, if any, plans to purchase a ride, let alone the $4.5M Lamborghini Veneno (pictured above).

Combining our annual salaries, it would take about 137 years to gather funds to purchase one (and sadly, that’s in dog years). After all, cost is almost always key to driving big decisions, right?

So does the same apply when using corporate profit or ROI (vs. my family’s dog-years income)?

Recruiters and Hiring Managers Study: Overview, Purpose…Pertinence

Chicago is also home to CareerBuilder. As we know, CareerBuilder sponsors/reports on research that drives decision-making across all verticals of TA, and recently they’ve co-sponsored yet another loaded study.

CareerBuilder, along with Inavero and American Staffing Association, released their sizable 2018 Staffing Buyer Study. This extensive survey instrument research was conducted throughout August 2018, with 859 hiring managers sharing perceptions/attitudes toward staffing firms.

This study’s cohort was comprised mainly of lead contacts for their primary staffing firms and corporations exceeding 250 employees (65%), with nearly 1:3 participants bringing 20+ years’ experience.

Inavero CareerBuilder Study

Need for study/Purpose.

Reasons for the study seem transparent: In today’s tighter labor market, there is increased struggle for talent. This is heightened by high cost and lengthy hiring processes.

As such, purpose here was framed around these Guiding Questions:

  • What obstacles are hiring managers facing now?
  • How can staffing firms address challenges that hiring managers are facing?
  • How can firms attract hiring manager relationships?
  • How do hiring managers view and use technology?

To see full study, click here: 2018 Staffing Buyer Study

We report here on major findings of this study, including:

Recruitment obstacles that both hiring managers and staffing firms face, as well as how organizations can attract more managerial relationships.

We also summarize hiring manager perceptions of technology use.

What will our readers gain?

Corporate TA/hiring manager readers can glean great data here about what keeps them awake at night and how staffing firms can be cost savvy. Staffing readers can extract what should be done to attract more hiring manager business, what obstacles might be impeding upon that, and how tech currency is golden.

Ok, um…how does this connect to Auto Shows — $4.5M sports cars? (Think, Wait for it!) Let’s peek at Attention-Grabbing segments from this study next.

Pain Points, Tech Utilization…and a Big Surprise

This study reveals hiring managers’ main pain points.

  • Access to quality candidates (50%)
  • Time to Hire (40%)
  • Budgets (34%)

Talent Acquisition readers find here what struggles their peers are also experiencing. More importantly, staffing firms find gold nuggets nested in this data: How they can add value to companies by finding candidates with the right skills, within budget and timelines.

Staffing firms should be immediately taken by one significant finding 54% of hiring managers report plans to increase utilization of staffing firms in the next five years.  5

What might this imply? Hiring manager readers who don’t utilize firms might sleep less soundly knowing growing numbers of staffing firms might be seeking talent passively from their organizations. Staffing firms may rest better knowing utilization is up-ticking.

Meanwhile, 67% of hiring managers believe it’s very/extremely important that staffing firms use up-to-date technology.

Nearly 3:4 hiring managers (74%) believe using up-to-date technology differentiates staffing firms from those who haven’t implemented them.

This finding finger-points to firms that don’t have up-to-date TA technology. Business will go to competitors more prepared in key areas managers identified as essential:

  • Matching technology (39%)
  • Video/online interviewing (32%), or…
  • Search of multiple 3rd party resume databases within a single search bar (30%).

The Big Surprise?

As 1:3 hiring managers report Budget as a challenge — one of the study’s most obvious questions seems a no-brainer. When 54% of hiring managers report their future plans to engage with staffing firms for TA recruiting, cost (think, Lamborghini’s) is not primary consideration when choosing staffing firms.  

But, it should be close, right?

Hiring managers say, Nope. Let that answer sink in before proceeding, as this study reveals an even bigger surprise.

Astonishingly, price ranked so low in this study that it fell to the absolute bottom of reasons for managers choosing firms after hiring managers vetted which to choose.

More specifically, after a company vets staffing firms (outlined later), the ultimate decision to use a primary firm is often not the one with lowest cost. Instead, it is the staffing firm that’s determined to best A) find high quality/specific candidates; B) meet a company’s specific criteria for carrying a strong reputation and ability to find high quality talent.

These findings underscore how important it is for staffing firms to perform their primary functions at very high levels and to maintain a pathway for excellence. Think searchable ratings results, cultivating existing relationships, seeking client feedback for public purview, etc.

Hiring Manager Insights for Staffing Firm Growth: Key Findings from the 2018 Staffing Buyer Study

Even more notable is how findings highlight that, while hiring managers cite Budget as one major recruiting pain point, Staffing Firm Pricing is barely significant. Why? Metaphorically speaking, wouldn’t they too exit “Da Auto Show” thinking that what they have already is suitable for now?

Let’s explore more research to examine their possible reasoning more closely.

How does this relate to one of the world’s most expensive cars?

In 2010, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh estimated how bad hires had cost over $100M. So in 2010 dollars, Zappos bought about 22 of those $4.5M Auto Show Lamborghini’s.

In 2014, US Dept of Labor estimated average cost of bad hiring decisions to be 30% of a person’s first-year earnings. Using salary of $80,000 here, and factoring in 10% down payment on our Lambo, we need just 5.62 poor hiring decisions to lose our down payment altogether.

Lastly, CareerBuilder’s 2013 survey of 6,000 hiring managers worldwide reveals how a single bad hire could cost more than $50k.

Take just 90 of those worldwide bad hires and, collectively, we all just bought a Lamborghini Veneno.

And sadly, we are left only with fluctuating parking spaces in our companies’ garages to show for that $4.5M expenditure vs. one of the world’s most expensive cars. Unless you’re in charge of Talent Acquisition for Uber or Lyft, that’s not a very settling consequence.

Extensive Vetting, Technology’s Impact, & Remote Worker Utilization

Staffing firms shouldn’t get too complacent with this study’s major findings. How will the winningest staffing firms continue to best meet hiring manager needs and drive more business relationships?

According to the data, it’s not merely use of up-to-date technologies (as noted/specified above). Additionally, it’s being ready for 9:10 hiring managers commitment to scrutinize staffing firms over vetting processes that average a daunting 5 hours.

How to prepare?

  • Referrals
  • Reputation
  • Online Resources
  • Reviews

This means staffing firms can impact buying behavior by managing website and reputation presence online. More specifically, this means excellent client testimonials, third–party awards, website content highlighting service commitments/outcomes, etc.

Further, as previously addressed, staffing firm use of the most current technology, especially matching technology, is pinnacle.

But even further, this study strongly suggests that recruiters face uphill climbs going forward. How so? Many hiring managers, especially in the Millennial subgroup, prefer online job orders/platforms vs speaking to recruiters. Lack of intimate communication is a difficult challenge to face when attempting to meet hiring managers’ needs (recruiting niche skills, culture/fit requirements, etc.). This appears to increase staffing firms “Strike” chances when at bat, trying to meet tailored requirements from mainly/only online posting platforms.

Further, while 54% of hiring managers see increasing staffing firm utilization over the next five years, a startling 2:3 conversely suggest that recruiters will play smaller roles afterwards due to improved technology.

However, one saving grace may offset this speculation: remote hiring.

Increasingly, companies report more reliance on finding quality candidates who live and work from anywhere. With 73% of companies currently reporting remote worker utilization, here’s a silver lining for staffing firms to start sewing.

Final Thoughts

Here, we examine CareerBuilder, Inavero and American Staffing Association’s co-sponsored 2018 Staffing Buyer Study, capturing research conducted throughout August 2018, utilizing 859 hiring managers perceptions/attitudes toward staffing firms.

Through examination of data/findings, we summarize obstacles that both hiring managers and staffing firms face, as well as how staffing firms can attract more hiring manager relationships. We also summarize hiring manager perceptions of technology use.

While we offer broad overview/specific findings from this study, we remain curious as to what our readers consider here, too. How does this information potentially affect you as hiring manager or staffing firm? What aspects/findings do you relate to closely — or not at all? How might technology alter how you work with hiring managers or staffing firms, now? Five years out?

We welcome your insights. What say you?

Forging an Industry Through Community: Introducing Talent Brand Alliance

Talent Brand Alliance (TBA) is the brainchild of Bryan Chaney, Director Employer Brand at Indeed, and Will Staney, CEO and Founder of Proactive Talent, who knew that in order for the industry to move forward, we first had to give back. The duo formed a scrappy Facebook group that slowly gained traction through WoM.

A Growing Coalition of Employer Brand Builders, and Employee Experience Storytellers

Born out of what was once dubbed ‘social recruiting’, the talent brand space has exploded in the last decade taking form in employer brand(ing), recruitment marketing, employee experience and other like functions, all with the shared focus of attracting, engaging and retaining talent to an organization.

Practitioners of the craft come from all walks of life – recruiting, marketing, communications, even entrepreneurs – and are all at a crossroads of figuring out how we plug into the employee story, and drive tangible results for the companies we serve. There are inherently no experts, which can be both refreshing and daunting, and that’s where the need for a community of peers comes in.

Talent Brand Alliance (TBA) is the brainchild of Bryan Chaney, Director Employer Brand at Indeed, and Will Staney, CEO and Founder of Proactive Talent, who knew that in order for the industry to move forward, we first had to give back. The duo formed a scrappy Facebook group that slowly gained traction through WoM.

“Several years ago, Will Staney and I were sitting across the table from one another over a pint, and looking for the official place to find answers to our talent brand questions. We realized that there was no vendor neutral place to connect and learn with our peers. After some research (and a few more pints), we decided to build it.” ~Bryan Chaney

Today TBA is community of 600 plus — and growing! — talent brand practitioners, gathered around a shared mission that together we help push the talent brand profession forward through community and mentorship, to create and show greater impact on the businesses we serve.

Our vision is to become the leading practitioner-led forum for the exchange of ideas, experiences, opportunities and knowledge sharing around the evolving tactics and strategy of employer branding and recruitment marketing. Through our online community, events, and member-driven resources, we hope to uplift the talent brand profession and build the standards for our industry.

  • To educate and advocate to the recruiting industry and the greater business world on the impact of talent branding on hiring and business goals.
  • To help define standards and set expectations of the broader talent branding profession.
  • Empower networking with each other in this growing community of talent branding professionals both online and in-person.
  • Continue cultivating a group of practitioners who are doing the work and providing value to the talent brand community.
  • Provide a safe place to discuss lessons learned, create and share ideas, as well as ask and answer questions about the constantly shifting technology and vendor landscape.

There are no experts.

We believe that we are stronger because of sum of our diverse backgrounds and experiences, because of our practitioner-first mindset and because we are not afraid to fail, as long as we are failing forward.

2018 was a whirlwind for our community, having hosted the first Talent Brand Summit, doubling our members, naming a board, and launching our blog and podcast — and we are just getting started. Later this month we will make our second pilgrimage to Austin, TX, to talk shop, throw tomahawks and most importantly, forge relationships. Attendees leave #TBSummit with a tangible strategy to usher their own program into the future and new relationships that will last a lifetime.

Learn more about our mission and request your ticket to come along for the ride at talentbrand.org.
 

The Automation Revolution

Automation

There is a ton — a literal TON — of talk these days about automation. It’s the next great promise. The Fourth Industrial Revolution. All that. The New Yorker actually had an article last year saying automation would be like compressing the Industrial Revolution (the one you learned about in school) into the lifespan of a beagle. Everything is going to change.

This includes sales, marketing, and recruiting too, of course — but is automation going to change everything for the better? That’s not yet fully determined.

[break]

The elephant in the room to acknowledge first

Why are people so excited about automation?

At a company level, you have essentially two buckets:

  1. Some companies will understand that automating lower-value, rote, logistical tasks can free up their people to do more valuable activities during the day and contribute to the business.
  2. Many companies will just see automation as a cost play to get salaries off the books.

Those are the two buckets you’ll increasingly see as automation gets to scale.

What about sales?

Automation is already full ingrained in sales. Many email marketing suites that reps use to blast prospects are essentially automation. They’re not necessarily an advanced form that learns as it goes, no, but they’re an automated tool.

But here’s the problem.

Let’s say a sales development rep (SDR) is given access to an AI-connected sales platform. The AI is supposedly the all-knowing holy grail of this new program the company just bought, so the SDR is probably tempted to do less research.

Now the SDR blasts out 1,000 AI-qualified emails as opposed to 500 personalized cold emails. Because he did twice the work in less time, we’re supposed to see that as a benefit.

But is it?

What if the 1,000 nets 2-3 “leads” or demos, but the 500 would have netted 10-15 because of the research-driven personalized approach?

Quality always beats quantity in email prospecting.

A/B Test Yourself

What if you did 1,000 automation suite emails one week, and then the next week did personalized cold emails?

See which process nets you more interested parties. Apply the right KPIs and sales metrics. Don’t be tempted to measure success on in the number of outbound emails of your SDRs.

This all works with recruiting, too

You can use automation to advance your candidate pipeline/funnel by a factor of 3-5x, honestly. But you need to do it right. Smart. Quality.

The bottom line

The point here is this: automation is great, and will help with the workload and targeting over time. But when you use automation, you can’t subsequently be a robot. You need to still research, find overlapping elements in potential customers/candidates, articulate value, network, define product-market fit, message-persona-fit, and everything else.

My two cents: automate the lowest-value stuff you need to do all week (scheduling, email folder cleanup, finding email-addresses, etc.) The real value-driven stuff around product and people and outreach? Automate the underlying processes but not the actual connective part of it.

Robots may replace some of our functionality in the next 30 years. Why become one now?

What’s important to next-gen professionals entering the workforce?

HR teams might have it all wrong Merrill Corporation survey provides unique insights

New professionals who are currently in their first jobs, and young professionals looking to make their next career moves, find themselves in one of the hottest job markets in recent memory. In this job-seeker friendly environment, candidates are looking at factors beyond salary and benefits when making decisions about their next move.

Earlier this year, Merrill Corporation queried several hundred junior associates working across the financial services industry to gather perspective on the key factors these next-generation leaders consider when evaluating employers and planning their personal career trajectories.

Their opinions and experiences provide rich data regarding what young professionals consider most important for themselves right now – and for the workplaces of the future – offering human resources professionals and talent recruiters some clear guidance as they seek to transform the way they do business in an increasingly competitive hiring environment.

The headlines matter

When considering a job offer, company reputation and cultural fit were the top concerns among young professionals when considering an employer.  Most respondents (58 percent) noted that a company’s reputation was a critical factor when accepting or declining a job offer, while more than half indicated culture fit is just as significant.

For corporations, this insight is confirmation that the youngest professional generation, often maligned as the “smart-phone generation” with limited attention spans, is keenly aware of the news. If your company finds itself in the news for the wrong reasons, the people you hope to hire will notice.

Additionally, location (43 percent), compensation (38 percent) and work-life balance (30 percent) were notable key factors in their decision-making-process.

Interestingly, there were variations across the employer spectrum. Employer reputation was a major factor for young professionals working at law firms (68 percent) and banks (64 percent). Cultural fit was the single most important factor (64 percent) for respondents working at banks and in private equity.

Moving beyond location

Location and compensation are important factors for young professionals when making major career decisions.

Male respondents indicated they are more likely than women to consider both location (46 percent to 37 percent) and compensation (42 percent to 29 percent) when determining an employer, while female respondents are more likely to take work-life flexibility into account (34 percent to 27 percent) when plotting their career moves.

With more than half of respondents listing cultural fit as an important factor, it is evident that work-life flexibility is becoming increasingly important as organizations look to recruit new talent.

A boss should be more than a boss

Young professionals are increasingly seeking bosses and supervisors who go beyond giving orders and task-mastering; they are seeking leadership that helps them grow professionally. This trend was particularly evident among capital markets respondents, who indicated they wish their boss was a better mentor (46 percent) or a better manager (36 percent).

Fifty-eight percent of very new professionals – those who are less than two years into their careers – indicated a strong desire to have better overall mentorship throughout the workplace.

These results highlight that the youngest members of the workforce are hungry for more knowledge and clearer guidance to help them build careers that include both professional success and personal fulfillment.

More than a paycheck

When it comes to employer spending, capital markets employees are also seeking environments that emphasize investments beyond simply handing out paychecks. More than half (53 percent) of respondents noted a desire to see companies spend more on performance bonuses. Additionally, 45 percent would like to see more spending on training and 38 percent see a need for increased spending on benefits.

Digging deeper, research revealed critical data about employer spending preferences. Strong percentages of men (55 percent) and women (49 percent) were in favor of more spending on bonuses.

Additionally, those in the private equity industry (59 percent) were in favor of employers dedicating funds toward employee bonuses, while respondents who work in banking placed value on increased training (55 percent), more investments in benefits (45 percent) and more spending on facilities (39 percent).

Stay put or move on?

It’s natural for any professional to wonder where their career might be years, or even decades, down the road. Only 40 percent of survey-takers expect their professional futures to be with their current type of employer.

When envisioning their future career steps, men and women have different trajectories. Thirty-nine percent of men and 20 percent of women are eyeing careers in private equity. In the realm of entrepreneurial ventures, 28 percent of men and 21 percent of women indicated interest. Meanwhile, investment banking held appeal for 19 percent of men, but only five percent of women.

Notably, those who already work in private equity (67 percent) were the most likely to predict that they will stay with the same type of employer, emphasizing the strong job satisfaction of those within this industry.

What does the future hold?

This critical insight from young professionals working in financial services debunks much of the conventional wisdom that we’ve heard about Millennials. Instead, it lends clear credibility to the drive, engagement and forward-thinking perspective that this generation brings to the workforce. Purpose-driven and thoughtful, they are looking at their paths with unique goals and a clear sense of how they want their careers to unfold. To recruit and retain the best young talent, organizations across all industries will need to embrace these changing workforce dynamics in order to benefit from the skills and perspectives of today’s emerging talent.

The Five Things You Should Know to Tap the Contingent Workforce

Did you know that more new jobs opened in January 2019 than any previous month in the last several years?

In the tightest labor market in decades, employers are increasingly relying on the contingent labor force, now up to 15.5 million people — that’s 10 percent of the U.S. workforce — to supplement their staff.  

Contrary to popular misconception, the majority of gig workers are not low-paid, hourly workers supplementing their income or between full-time positions. They are, in fact, mostly college-educated women with higher paying jobs, who prefer the flexibility and variety of contract work over regular full- or part-time positions.

To help recruiters better understand the gig economy and its rich talent pool, iCIMS recently surveyed more than 1,000 Americans who hold at least one contingent job as their primary or secondary source of income. We found that, for many people, contingent work is a preferred path that provides the ability to build a career across different companies, industries and areas of expertise, especially in education, health, technology, business, and financial services.

Online platforms exist to enable employers to easily find and retain their services as needed. Here are five insights for recruiters pursuing independent contractors to support their talent needs:

  1. Find contingent workers through their professional networks

Sixty-five percent of contingent workers find their next opportunity through their friends and professional networks followed by job boards specifically for gig work (32 percent) and employers’ career sites (26 percent). To source potential contractors, join and participate in specific groups for the freelance community on LinkedIn and Facebook. Use dedicated, skills-based websites, such as Toptal or Dice for tech talent, or Evanto Studio and Behance for creative projects. The sites are purpose-built for recruiters to expedite the process of finding and hiring qualified contractors in specific industries.

  1. Expand your career site

Your career site is the most important, but often overlooked, channel to post contingent work opportunities. A surprising number of employers don’t post temporary assignments as open positions on their career portals. If you’re unable to dedicate a section of your career site for contract opportunities, then state that you will welcome applications from contractors or freelancers in the job posting. By inserting keywords like contingent, project work, independent contractor or freelance in the job description, it’s much easier for gig workers to find your opportunities through their Google search.

  1. Think of millennials and Gen Z without borders

Many professionals pursue gig work because it provides them with an opportunity to relocate. Twenty-two percent of gig workers have taken a contract job in order to relocate within the U.S., and 9 percent have done so to relocate internationally. Of those gig workers who have taken a contract job to relocate, 46 percent of them are millennials, while 35 percent are Generation Z.  So, if looking to attract Gen Z or millennials, consider sourcing from a variety of geographic locations.

  1. Budget for benefits

Sixty-one percent of contingent workers claim that a lack of benefits, such as company retirement plans or health insurance, is their top challenge. If engaging contractors is a top priority, work with your hiring managers and finance departments to ensure that you have the budget to pay competitive rates as many of individuals have a choice as to which projects they work on.

  1. Know the rules before working with contingent workers

The contingent workforce includes part-time temporary workers, independent contractors, consultants, contract employees, leased employees, and direct hires. Prior to hiring contingent workers, be sure to know which category the candidate falls into and the corresponding legal requirements. From federal and state laws to which tax forms to issue, it’s critical to stay within the confines of the law to ensure compliance as an employer.

Read this report to better understand the motivations and expectations of contingent workers in today’s tight labor market.

Is Your Employer Brand Showing?

With every exchange, it had better be.

Here’s a new take on corporate transparency: when you connect with job candidates, the only thing between you and them should be your employer brand. We can promote transparency by developing a talent-facing brand that tells it like it is when it comes to what it’s like to work at our companies. After all, workers these days are used to reading Yelp and Amazon reviews before they buy a toothbrush. It’s the closest thing remote shoppers can get to “try before you buy.” In their work lives, these people also want a darn good idea of what they might be signing on for—before they make a commitment.

And who can blame them? Full-time tenures are shrinking, and the use of contract talent is increasing. Artificial intelligence and robotics advances promise to further consolidate available jobs, and candidates know automation can cut short a career at any time. They want as much control and insurance as possible from an employer, whether they’re seeking a salaried role or short-term project.

Consider making transparency a cornerstone of your employer value proposition. The more people know, the better decisions they can make, whether it’s accepting a job offer or getting a job done. Starting off with a clear idea of your company’s structure, values, and goals suggests to candidates that this trend will continue after they are hired. Here are three steps for rolling out the transparent carpet to talent prospects.

1. Job Post

Sell your company first, and the position second. Who isn’t intrigued to know what’s in it for them right off the bat? Declare what your organization does for its people—how it feeds their need for flexibility, training, and interactive management. Once you’ve thrown the enticements out there, you can detail what the job demands in exchange.

2. First Contacts

Every exchange should be a megaphone for your employer brand. You’ve received a query or a résumé; now you can respond by wearing your values on your sleeve. How does your company culture support, say, an interactive management style? Is it an open-door policy? Is it a communications system that prompts manager and direct reports for feedback at critical project stages?

Do let job candidates know that you have accountability frameworks built into your operations. You have plenty of ways to vet candidates’ skills and potential. Use this first-impression contact to let them know that what you can do for them is as important as what they can do for you.

3. Interview Process

Although interviews provide a window into candidates’ personalities and abilities, they also offer a golden opportunity to begin to build trust. Transparency is the vehicle. Be as candid as possible when answering specific questions. Candidates may want to know how their position dovetails with others’ to work toward goals. They might ask what paths to advancement exist, or even how solid the company’s financial standing is.

Be as direct as you can without divulging sensitive information—but give them as much as they need to know in order to project their future prospects with your company. The shorter the leap they have to make to feel comfortable with their choice, the better. And the less you are “wearing,” as far as your brand goes, the easier that choice will be.

Ready to Scale and Grow? Why The Answer Could Be Hiding in Your Time and Attendance Data.

News of tech acquisitions splash your favorite news publications every other week; all the moving and shaking is just another day in the life for tech companies big or small.

But what does that mean for you?

As a professional in human resources or payroll, working tirelessly to enhance processes while striving to make efficient (but mighty) contributions to your organization, news of a time and attendance acquisition impacts you more than you might realize.

Whether you’re running a one-man show on all manual processes with your desk covered in files and forms or you’re leading a 12-person team and have just implemented your second HRIS – acquisitions in our space mean opportunity to optimize as an organization.

Quick case study: What are your employees up to & what does that cost?

Ryan Fuller is the founder of a company called VoloMetrix, which Microsoft acquired in 2015. Writing for Harvard Business Review a year later, Fuller talks about consulting with a multi-billion dollar technology firm that shifted its emphasis from “aggressive growth” to “profitable growth.” In the process of that shift, the company wanted to analyze productivity and effectiveness across its employees and partner ecosystem.

His perplexing findings, post-analysis:

After much iteration, the general conclusion was that at least 50 percent of the total time employees spent engaging with these partners had no correlation with enterprise value. That’s one million hours annually (not including internal prep time), or the equivalent of 500 full-time workers. Every day, they were dedicated to activities that appeared to be at best redundant or potentially even value destroying, with multiple employees from multiple teams engaging with the same people at the same partners in an uncoordinated way.

What does this tell us?

  • A company making billions of dollars has the equivalent of nearly 500 employees working full time on projects with “no correlation with enterprise value.”
  • Leaders may not have a way to be effectively managing their employees’ top priorities, or time in general.

This is a white-collar example, but this lack of clarity around what exactly employees do with their time is hardly limited to white-collar roles.

Let’s take a closer look at blue-collar jobs. Although this sector has fallen to roughly 13.2 percent of the American workforce, they almost always require a strong time and attendance context. Physical presence on site often matters more in blue-collar roles than in enterprise-level positions. For example – retail! Retail is hugely tied to tracking time and attendance and makes up a whopping 5.9 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, or about $1.14 trillion in value-add.

$1.14 trillion in value-add in one industry alone. Not to mention business models where hours are the product, like law firms, professional services firms, and some agencies. And what business leader doesn’t have a firm grasp on their product? The answer: None that are successful.

Getting back on track

Any business needs to demonstrate growth in the modern economy. We’ve all heard the mantra, “If you’re not growing, you’re dying.” It applies to companies regardless of whether they’re white-collar, blue-collar, retail, or a billable model.

The thing is, there are different paths to growth. Many business experts and investors start down that path wanting to see scale. Scaling products is valid, of course. But any business that grows needs to also scale its people and their work.  And work becomes much more complex when two co-founders become 10 employees, 10 employees become an office of 50, 50 become a campus of 100, and so on.

The current labor market is very tight. At the same time, numerous industries report an understaffing problem, i.e. the oft-referenced “skills gap.” In many cases this is completely true. Oftentimes, though, the perception of being understaffed comes from a lack of understanding around what people are doing all day. When you have a better handle on time and attendance, you have a better handle on what your business needs overall — which is crucial in the modern labor market. Now you can center talent acquisition around value-add roles, as opposed to an assumption of what might be a value-add role.

The bottom line – you can’t scale or grow unless you understand:

  • where your people are physically
  • when they’re in the building and when they’re not
  • what time they’re taking off
  • what hours are going to have what impact on clients and partners
  • where the redundancies lie

It is literally impossible to scale and grow without understanding those basic building blocks of what employees are doing and when they’re doing it.

So, you ask, what makes the news of a time and attendance acquisition so relevant?

It’s the foundation of how we work. These acquisitions are the building blocks for scale and growth in the HCM technology space; they help the acquiring HCM suite become an end-to-end solution. End-to-end suites offer more options to their clients. Most companies don’t want to manage 20 platforms just to get their basic work done… They want everything they need in one place. Having time and attendance baked in with other HCM table-stakes features makes a ton of sense. Keep it simple.

Listen up business leaders, analysts and investors – for the right kind of work to get worked, we need time and attendance acquisitions all over the ecosystem.

Recruitment of Women: Rethinking Gender Diversity

What a surprising surge in women executive hires reveals about companies’ reactive approach to gender diversity.

In the last quarter of 2017, we saw a significant uptick in the number of female senior executives hired by U.S. companies. This wasn’t just a blip in the hiring data, it was a massive spike. Scout recruiters placed 632 women in executive-level openings paying more than $100,000. By December 2017, 41 percent of leadership roles that were filled were filled by women – more than twice the rate of the prior quarter.

We knew this was a big deal. After all, McKinsey and LeanIn.org’s recent Women in the Workplace study found that no appreciable improvement had been made in the representation of women in corporate America since their research started four years ago. When we saw our own numbers, we asked ourselves the obvious question: What the heck is going on?

Historically low unemployment and a well-documented talent shortage are two factors we could point to. But unemployment has been on a steady decline since 2009 and the share of companies saying they can’t find the talent they need has been on the rise for the same amount of time. If these factors had as much impact as we might hope, we’d expect to see a steadier trajectory.

Was there suddenly greater awareness of the return on gender diversity? There’s certainly no shortage of evidence. Research by Bank of America found businesses with more women in top roles had less volatility in their earnings and higher returns on equity. A McKinsey study found companies in the top quartile for gender diversity experienced far greater profitability and long-term value creation. But these findings are decades in the making. They wouldn’t explain such a sudden increase.

Diversity Pays

Regulatory changes are another area to consider. In September, California became the first U.S. state to require publicly traded companies to have at least one woman on their board of directors by the end of 2019. BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest money manager, announced in February that companies in which it invests should have at least two female directors. The timing was right, but there was just one problem. The numbers fell just as sharply and as quickly as they had jumped.

And that’s when we were able to see the story in the data. In the second week of October 2017, the New Yorker exposed staggering sexual assault and rape allegations against Harvey Weinstein. The revelations rocked the film industry and sparked the #MeToo movement. They also appear to have prompted a significant – albeit temporary – increase in recruiting women for leadership roles. In other words, current events seemed to be driving companies’ gender diversity strategies.

Such a reactive approach is neither optimal nor sustainable. As a platform with thousands of recruiters doing tens of thousands of placements each year, we have access to unique insights into who excels at recruiting and placing women and which types of organizations are poised to seal the deal. And as recruiting professionals who recognize the value of gender diversity, we wanted to know how our insights and experiences could inform companies’ strategies.

Here are five keys to a successful gender diversity strategy:

1. Secure leadership engagement and accountability

Gender diversity starts at the top. If the board and c-suite aren’t engaged and accountable, any other efforts will fall short. And this isn’t just a matter of the CEO talking about it publicly. Words need action. Senior leadership must be actively involved in setting the agenda and appropriate resources need to be made available.

2. Analyze your gender data – all of it

Collecting baseline gender data on employees, managers and leaders is essential. From there, things get quite a bit more complicated. There are a lot of different dynamics at play – from analyzing data on recruiting and pay equity to understanding how well a corporate culture is set up to recruit, retain and advance women. This is the kind of information organizations should prioritize in any gender diversity research agenda.

Start by learning from others. Google has released its methodology for measuring pay equity and Eli Lilly has shared some great insights on studying culture – something that’s notoriously difficult to measure. At Scout, we’ve found that certain traits among recruiters can predict success when it comes to sourcing, recruiting and placing top female talent. Be sure to recruit strategically.

3. Involve stakeholders across the organization

This is where expectations are set at every level. Employees should be made aware of where the organization stands, what its goals are and how it plans to make an impact. These are the leaders who mentor great talent, the managers who learn how to recognize bias in the projects they assign, the hiring managers who impact everyday outcomes, and the coworkers whose actions influence everyone’s experiences.

Be sure to engage employees in your research agenda as well. Do the work to understand their experiences, expectations, challenges and opportunities. Anonymous surveys will go a long way toward getting a clearer picture of your current state and work to be done.

4. Develop a strategy and commit to it

Once you’ve got the leadership buy-in, a handle on your data and internal engagement, you’ll need a formal plan of action. Like any strategic plan, it should include measurable objectives, strategies and tactics. However, the plan should go well beyond simply getting more women in the door. Instead, it should consider the talent lifecycle. Specifically, how will you recruit, retain, develop and advance talent?

Be as explicit as possible about what you’re trying to achieve and hold leaders accountable to specific targets. Measure against external data, such as competitor, industry or role-specific benchmarks. And define a plan for regularly and publicly reporting progress.

5. Embrace transparency

Companies that are getting this right aren’t shy about sharing their progress and lessons learned. Google and Eli Lilly were mentioned earlier. Companies like Unilever and Salesforce are quick to share their strategies. That means celebrating successes as well as being open about any challenges. And yes, even failures. This is not easy and as much can be learned from missteps as the achievements.

The fact that the #MeToo movement was associated with such a significant yet brief surge in the recruitment of women to leadership roles is telling. It gives us a sense of just how common it is for organizations to forego strategy altogether when it comes to recruiting women. Likewise, it highlights the need for companies to be far more deliberate about their approaches to gender diversity. These are important lessons learned and something we can all use as a call to action moving forward.