LEAN, Just-in-Time Recruiting!

How do you rate as an ‘Elite’ Recruiter?

Last week I had the pleasure to start a customized Recruiter Academy Education & Development Solution for one of the largest companies in the world, with recruiters from countries literally spanning the globe, including the Philippines to England, and the United States to Saudi Arabia.

As part of our program, we encouraged the recruiters to baseline their performance by participating in our ‘Elite’ Recruiter Competency & Skill Self-Assessment Study. We also asked each and every recruiter to rate which 5 competencies and which 5 skills they believe are most important for being recognized as an ‘Elite’ Recruiter.

As I analyzed the data, it was amazing to see how transferable these competencies and skills were even though the recruiters represented different cultures from all over the world.  The results were very similar to the ones I might find from an organization with U.S. based recruiters in Seattle and Peoria vs. those in Saudi Arabia and the Philippines! 

Our ‘Elite’ Recruiter Competency & Skill Self-Assessment model has evolved over the last 15 years through interaction with recruitment leaders across the country.  And over the last three years, over 2500 recruiters have participated in this FREE study.

We also encourage you to spend just 15 minutes and Participate Today. When completed, please feel free to provide us feedback on how it compares with your model.  We will be posting some of the aggregate results and interesting findings from this round of participants very soon.

Most importantly, we encourage you to:

• Utilize this tool to identify and hire ‘Elite’ Recruiters.
• Baseline performance before you embark on a performance improvement initiative or an educational program, like one of our Recruiter Academy Certified Education Programs.

NOTE: Recruitment leaders – if you would like us to perform a customized analysis for you team, please contact ckendall@leanhumancapital.com.

I hope you have a Perfect Week!

Q & A with their Recruitment Leaders!

Bonnie Kriescher, Vice President Human Resources, Workforce Planning and Staffing, and Matt Pattelli, Manager – Strategic Staffing, recently facilitated a fantastic webinar for our healthcare recruitment community. 
 
They discussed Advocate’s Lean Transformation Journey from a decentralized site based model to a centralized, LEAN recruitment model that:

• Aligned site-based Staffing Consultants to manage hiring needs and the candidate experience.
• Created a Talent Acquisition Specialist team of experts to source, screen and present the most qualified candidates to the site Staffing Consultants and hiring managers for consideration.

Their journey . . . and its results are impressive, to say the least:

• #1 ranked hospital system in our LEAN Human Capital Healthcare Recruitment Metrics Benchmark Study.
• One of only 6 systems that made our ‘Elite Honor Roll in 2011’.
• Only hospital system to rank in the top 75^th percentile in all 11 key performance metrics!

Based on the overwhelming size of this audience, we were not able to answer all the questions folks had. I invited Bonnie and Matt back to answer some questions that were left on the table. 
 
Check out the recorded podcast! 
 
It contains some very valuable information for anyone seeking to migrate to an optimized, Lean recruitment model. Thanks, Bonnie & Matt, for taking the time to answer these questions.
 
I hope everyone is having a Perfect Week & A Perfect Day!

….so you can become a better recruiter & consultant

You’ve probably heard the old quote “You have two ears and one mouth, use them in that proportion.”  I like to call it “Balancing listening & talking.”

In our profession, we are spending so much of our time listening, evaluating, and making informed decisions, that our ability to effectively listen to our candidates, hiring managers, and other key stakeholders is paramount.

Yet the reality, and this is statistically proven, is that the majority of us only really absorb between 25-50% of what we hear.  If the important parts of a conversation are in that 25-50%, great. If not, then we are ineffective and inefficient.

Being a better listener will do a number of fantastic things for you. It will benefit you in improved productivity, influence, persuasion and negotiation. You will avoid misunderstandings, improve rapport and communication, and be more effective to your customers.

To enhance your listening skills, you need to practice “active listening.” This is when you make a conscious effort to listen to not only the words being spoken, but the meaning behind them. This takes a lot of effort on your part.

You need to remain very focused on what the other person is saying. You need to ignore what is going on around you, as well as forming counter arguments in your mind while they speak. The moment you stop concentrating fully on the other person, you are no longer actively listening.

Top five tips for practicing “active listening” – If you are doing this well in a meeting, you will be amazed how much more tired you are than normal at the end of it!

1. Pay complete attention

You need to give the person speaking your undivided attention, and continue to acknowledge what they are saying. Look for all non-verbal communication in addition to listening to the spoken words.

2. Show that you are listening

Your own body language is very powerful in conveying your attention. Nodding, smiling occasionally, and noting your posture are all important and easy things to practice.

3. Give feedback to the person speaking

Our job as a listener is to clearly understand what is being said. One very easy way to do this is to occasionally check your understanding. Asking questions and reflecting back to the speaker are simple ways to accomplish this. 

Ask questions like, “What do you mean when you say….?” Or reflect by saying, “Sounds like what you are saying is…”

Summarize your understanding for them, and get them to correct you if necessary.

4. Don’t interrupt

Interrupting is not only rude, but it wastes time and risks frustrating the person speaking to you. It may limit the conversation, and hence limit the message you are given.

5. Make only appropriate responses

Active listening requires respect and understanding. You add nothing to the conversation by countering inappropriately, or attacking a point of view. You should be open and honest in your responses, and respectful in your opinions.

Putting these 5 tips into practice takes a lot more work than you would expect. It takes concentration and determination.

If you practice “active listening” and continue to remind yourself that this is what you are doing, not only will your understanding of your clients and prospects improve, but so too will your conversion rates. You’ll be a better communicator and build better relationships.

It really is amazing how much you don’t hear.

Have a phenomenal week!

Bradley Savoy | LEAN

…holding them accountable!

I had the recent pleasure of creating a podcast titled “Hiring Manager Accountability” with Carol Statter, Employment Manager at Infirmary Health System and Rebecca McNeil from HealthcareSource.  During this podcast, we discussed service level agreements, value stream mapping and how to keep hiring managers engaged and responsive during the recruitment process.

Please Listen Online or feel free to Download the MP3 file now.

Managing the search process, setting service level agreements and holding managers accountable are critical keys to managing time-to-fill and maintaining excellent customer satisfaction ratings.
 
Some other educational tidbits on this subject that you might want to check out include:

• The Most Important Service Level Agreement
• “When are you available” vs. “What do you think about this candidate?”
• Value Stream Mapping – Eye Opening Exercise

I believe this topic is so important that we dedicated one full module to it (Tactical Client Management) in our Recruiter Academy Certified Education Program.

I hope you are having a Perfect Day.

……and set yourself apart from the crowd.

In the competitive landscape of recruiting, we often pride ourselves on the ability to attract top talent.  Yet it’s the way we treat that talent throughout the staffing lifecycle that defines our brand.  Elite organizations discovered long ago that top talent needs to be given a memorable experience as they consider employment.

We have found that these types of organizations have a five star approach for their candidate interaction, i.e. they give them the VIP treatment.  

HERE ARE A FEW BEST PRACTICES TO CONSIDER:

Apply simple, straightforward, LEAN Recruiting Processes

A great deal of our work with clients is around finding and improving efficiencies in the recruiting process.  In addition, we have found that Elite organizations focus on a positive candidate experience which includes:

• A streamlined assessment process that is effectively communicated up front in the recruiting process.
• Job descriptions that are clear, informative and enticing.
• Recruiting practices that ensure that recruiters are responsive to star candidates by returning emails and phone calls within 2-3 days, rather than weeks.

These might sound like fundamentals, but many organizations skip these steps.  However, they go a long way towards delighting the candidate and getting your organization noticed.

Impress from the first greeting 

Make it a point to make eye contact and smile as you greet the candidate.  In our Smartphone-addicted culture, it’s rare that people make eye contact with one another, let alone do it from a distance. When a candidate walks in and is greeted by a heads up smiling face, it sets the perfect tone.  

When the recruiter has the same approach during that first introduction, it will send a refreshing message that applicants don’t often receive; You’re important to me and you have my attention.

Treat your finalists like finalists

Many employers may not realize it, but they frequently treat job applicants with discourtesy (e.g., unreturned phone calls). Turn that into your advantage by treating your finalist candidates with a Midas touch.  When calling them to schedule a final interview, turn the conversation into more than a robotic calendaring exercise. 

Mention how excited everyone is to meet them, and how glad you are that they’ll be paying you a visit. Apply the same approach when the candidate arrives onsite. Don’t treat them like a number or shuffle them around like a piece of paper — focus on making them feel welcome.

Anticipate their needs

Any five star experience involves someone anticipating your needs in advance.  Depending on how long their trip was to your location, they may appreciate a bottle of water or directions to a restroom. If you have a receptionist greeting visitors, have them offer these things to the applicant upon arrival (or, if not, offer them yourself). 

Even if the candidate declines, they’ll appreciate the offer and view it as a signal that you actually care about the well being of others.  

Provide directions

We often forget that even local candidates may not have been to our office before.  When scheduling the onsite interviews, ask them if they would like directions to and from your location, and send them out.  In the old days it would be written directions, now it can be as simple as sending them the links to the Google map information.

For your company, if they’re finishing interviews around a meal time, highlight some local restaurants on the map. 

Give a “swag” bag

As your list of finalists starts to emerge, consider giving them a basket of promotional items (a mug, t-shirt, etc). This would be reserved just for the final few candidates, so it wouldn’t cost much, and is guaranteed to make a memorable impression. After all, how often is it that a candidate goes to an interview and leaves with a gift?

Offer a shadow session

Candidates may be thrilled with everything they hear about your business and the role, but they may be left wondering — what’s it really like working there? If you have confidence in the quality of your work environment, consider offering the most promising candidates a “shadow session” with an existing employee who is already doing the job.  Even if it’s just for one hour, it gives them a real view of the role they’ve applied for, and an opportunity to pepper a future potential colleague with questions. It’s a pleasant surprise for the candidate because it reflects uncommon transparency, and a genuine effort by the employer to ensure a good mutual fit.

Demystify the compensation package

Eventually, you’ll make a job offer to an applicant. But the games not over there, because the individual might still be considering competing offers — the opportunity remains to influence them with a pleasant surprise. 

After making a verbal offer, follow-up with a polished information packet that clearly and simply describes all the elements of the package — benefits, training programs, and other unique offerings (e.g., employee discounts).  Many businesses view this as an “administrative” communication with a prospective employee. View it instead as a final sales pitch, a platform for making their decision easy and straightforward.

CONCLUSION

Consider incorporating these simple VIP treatments into your recruitment strategy to create positive, memorable impressions. They can be very powerful sources of differentiation in any type of business interaction. 

Presuming you’ve got the recruiting basics nailed, it’s the pleasant surprises that applicants will remember when they return home and evaluate their employment options.

Have a phenomenal week!

Predictive analytics are driving many healthcare organizations’ hiring decisions in today’s competitive market.

 I was recently interviewed for an article regarding the use of metrics to manage and streamline hiring processes in today’s competitive marketplace.

The focus of the article includes: 

• Significance of organizations capturing the right data to help optimize their recruitment strategies and eliminate the time and money holes spent on untargeted recruitment campaigns.
• Predictive analytics and hiring.
• Prioritizing hiring.

I thought you might find this article called Data-Driven Healthcare Recruiting worthwhile!

It is true, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure”. And if you don’t have a predictive, performance management scorecard – it will become more difficult to manage recruitment as the market for talent continues to heat up!

PS – If you’re seeking to learn more about how you can use metrics to:

• Quantify ROI to key stakeholders
• Drive performance improvement initiatives
• Celebrate success

I would encourage you to become a LEAN Healthcare Community Member so you can participate in the LEAN Healthcare Recruitment Metrics Benchmark Study. 

I hope you are having a Perfect Day!

David Szary

The Perfect Storm – For the Mind!

From our work with clients, and through our extensive training experience, we have found that recruiters often struggle to source quality candidates because they:

• Can’t think strategically or innovatively about new ways to source candidates 
• Lack time to execute new sourcing ideas
• Do not create a written plan of action – aka a Sourcing Strategy

To address these missing actions, we pioneered a concept called Mindstorming. This approach enables the use of the collective knowledge of you as a recruiter, your team, your customers, and others to formulate a way to capture passive candidates where they “live, work, or hangout.” Mindstorms inject creativity into your search, help you to create a Sourcing Strategy, and give your hiring managers the confidence that you have a formal plan of action to source quality candidates that match their requirements. Mindstorms are commonly used by elite recruiting organizations for all critical, difficult, or visible to fill positions, as well as any volume hiring positions that they consistently struggle to find top talent for.

The Mindstorming process should start with your hiring manager during your intake session.  During this session, you’re asking the hiring manager questions about their star employees, where they came from, who they know, what associations they’re involved in, etc.  After you’ve gathered this intel from your hiring manager you are fully prepared to create the shell of your sourcing strategy, but why stop there!

Elite organizations will also include a team approach to Mindstorming, in which the recruiting team (or a subset of it) will meet and strategize on other creative sourcing channels that may not have been tapped yet. The team might discuss a strategy for tapping into their new hires for referrals, or mining references from recent hires that might be in the critical jobs the team is recruiting for. These elite organizations will conduct these every few weeks, or once a month, or as often as needed based on their open positions and the difficulty to fill them.

Here are some real life examples from a recent Mindstorm with one of our clients:

• Employee Referrals – Each recruiter decided to pick 10 top performers within the line of business they support. Then they engaged these employees for specific referrals for openings within the organization.
• Association Membership Lists – Each recruiter was tasked with “harvesting” the most qualified association membership lists from their hiring managers, peers, employees, etc.
• Hires from References – Each recruiter targeted 10 of their recent hires and sought to engage qualified references from those hires for their key positions.

As you can see from the above list, the ideas were ones that were simple, but had probably been neglected. The key was that the entire team (hiring managers, recruiters, etc.) came up with this list together as well as the approach they would take to make this strategy happen.

So try a Mindstorm with your peers or team in the next week, even in its most basic form, and see what creative ideas you can come up with to drive your search strategy!

And if you’d like additional sourcing ideas, check out our Just-In-Time Educational Recruitment Resources.

Four things you need to think about before you send out your next email!

There is a lot of buzz around recruiting and mobile media devices.  The fact of the matter is most people are either: 

1. Actively or passively seeking job opportunities with their mobile device AND/OR

2. Viewing your recruitment emails for the first time via their mobile device

They are doing this on breaks at work, in transit, and while sitting in coffee shops across the country. 

This trend adds a whole new dimension to things we need to consider when crafting and distributing our compelling recruitment messages via email.

Over the last 6 months, we have developed a passion for this topic, and have spent a great deal of time teaching recruiters how to craft compelling, ‘mobile- ready’ emails in our Recruiter Academy Certified Education Program. 

Outlined below are Four Best Practices you need to think about BEFORE you send your next email .

If you prefer to listen in on our relevant podcast – click here!

1. You need to craft your emails in a font/format that is most widely accepted by mobile devices. Today – that is Arial font and Rich Text format (RTF).  Using this format will help your email communication keep its format and look ‘clean’ when opened on most mobile brands/devices!
2. The significance of your Subject line and the first 40 characters in the ‘body’ of your message!
   1. When you open up your email on your mobile – you are most likely only going to see: 
      1. Name of sender.
      2. First 40 characters of the subject line.
      3. Another 40-60 characters of the actual message.
   2. From this information, most candidates will make a quick decision to either Open it, Save it or quickly Delete it!
   3. Assuming they do know who you are (i.e. they recognize your name in the sender field – don’t forget to make that clear), the first 40 characters of text in the subject line and the opening 40-60 characters in the body are critical for ensuring they open your message.  If this is not compelling copy . . . your email will probably be deleted by folks like me that are obsessed with deleting emails out of my inbox!
3. Even if the candidate opens your email, less content is better! Have you ever tried reading a long email on your mobile? It is painful. Rule of thumb – 100 words or less.  Your recruitment email should be designed to get them to react positively so they:
   1. Email you back to learn more about your opportunity.
   2. Click on your links to send them to your web site/landing page.
   3. Forward your email to a friend.
   4. Too much information will usually send your email to their DELETED ITEMS
4. Don’t know if your emails are ‘mobile’ ready? – “test” them!
   1. Send your email to yourself, co-workers or better yet – employees that are in that position (or recently hired!) Ask them how it looks. Is it compelling? Would they open and read it? Was it clean? Did the format look good?

Mobile devices really have changed the ‘rules’ regarding our email communication! Keep these ideas in mind before you shoot out your next email to a quality candidate to ensure it gets noticed AND NOT deleted.

You can’t Manage what you don’t Measure!

I have been having a great time developing video and audio “Just-in-Time Education Blogs” with Rebecca McNeil from HealthcareSource.

We recently did two audio blogs:

1. 5 Focus Areas for Improving HCAHPS!      
2. Why ‘You can’t Manage what you don’t Measure’

Both of these provide good ideas and reinforce how recruiters can become Recruitment Business Partners and help align your goals and objectives with your healthcare organizations strategic initiatives.

I hope you are having a Perfect Week!

Best practices from Elite Recruiting Organizations  

We all know that our primary job as recruiters is to identify high-quality candidates that meet our organization’s needs and will thrive in our culture!  We spend inordinate amounts of time sourcing, screening, and interviewing talent.  But if by the end of the hiring process we fail to make that final “close” and hire the candidate, then we have left ourselves, hiring managers, key stakeholders and customers unfulfilled.  We have wasted countless hours of time, effort and energy in the hiring process for all parties.

As we work with and study hundreds of organizations we have uncovered that Elite Recruitment Organizations follow 4 Keys to effectively closing candidates.

1) Identify all negotiation factors on the front end, and before the hiring manager meets the candidate.

Elite recruiters look at overall candidate motivators for making a change, going beyond simple compensation. The weakest motivation for changing jobs is money, and if it happens to be your candidate’s primary pain with their current job, it’s the easiest problem for their current employer to solve. Beware of the counter offer! It’s an easy way for your candidate’s current employer to keep them (if even for just 6 months) and maintain their tenure equity and subject matter knowledge in their current position.  Asking questions to uncover other motivators beyond money such as their career goals and aspirations, their current work environment, relationship with their boss or peers, ongoing education, etc. can lead you a long way towards selling the right value proposition to the candidate that matches your employer.  

2) Understand the value proposition of their employer and what they can offer the candidate.

Elite recruiters have a deep understanding of their organization. They have worked with their hiring managers to understand the “stories” of successful hires – from movements up the department, to those that have internally transferred up the ladder to another department.  They know the unique selling factors of their organization’s value and know how to portray those to prospective candidates. Does the candidate have an interest in continuing education?  Then the recruiter will describe their internal learning departments approach to education, or their tuition reimbursement or other programs that have lead to ongoing education.  Elite recruiters have a list of what has been attractive to new hires at their organization (even by department!) that they can use to sell their various candidates based on their motivators.

3) Develop rapport and trust with both the candidate and hiring manager.

Elite recruiters make it known to both candidates and hiring managers that they have their best interests at heart!  Hiring managers are looking for quality talent that wants to drive the business forward.  Candidates want a great work environment where they can grow and succeed.  Recruiters can create that marriage!  As mentioned earlier, knowing your organization and hiring manager is paramount to success!  Elite recruiters will also provide a great deal of “white glove” treatment to their top candidates.  In interacting with both hiring managers and candidates, these recruiters will typically spend more time, communicate more frequently, and be more responsive to the needs of both groups.  

4) Understand the “leverage” points in the negotiation and how to sell those back during the closing process.

Best in class organizations know that the closing process is a simple education process exploring the value of their organization compared to another.  Once you have the negotiation factors uncovered and the value proposition understood for your organization, you can then sell those back to the candidate as part of the closing process.  An average recruiter will present an offer to the candidate that might include their compensation, the organization’s benefits package, start date, and manager. This may involve a 10-15 minute conversation.  An Elite recruiter will spend 30-45 minutes on the phone closing the candidate.  They will walk the candidate back through ALL of their motivators for considering a move, and sell their organization’s value proposition back to that candidate.  Only then, do they go into the compensation, benefits, and other HR information.

A snippet of the conversation might look like this:

“Jackie we discussed early on that you were looking for a forward thinking organization that aims to develop talent from within, promote internally, and has long-term stability with a history of satisfied employees.  You also expressed an interest in adding more value to your employer, getting exposed to new projects, and continuing to “build your nest egg” for retirement.  ABC would like to offer you the position of _____, in this role you will be conducting the following duties day to day, and in addition we would like to consider having you involved in an internal improvement project working directly with a team and your new manager.  We know you have an interest in being exposed to new projects, and feel this would be a great starting point to get you engaged.  I know you value ongoing development, our organization will provide up to 30 hours of training per year, with up to $1,500 in tuition reimbursement.  In addition as new projects or development opportunities come available internally we will keep you in mind for those as well.  In regards to saving for retirement, our 401K plan takes effect after 30 days of employment, and we match up to 6% of your contributions.  I know you value internal growth and stability, so as a reminder we traditionally promote from within, the majority of your peers have been with us for 3+ years, and we have an internal department/employee satisfaction rating of 90%.” 

Obviously the above conversation is just an example.  The key point is that the recruiter listened to the candidate’s motivators and sold their opportunity to match it.  

Try some of these techniques in your next courting and closing process with your candidates, and you’ll be well on your way to becoming an Elite Recruiter!