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‘Two cents’ from the road

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

As I have mentioned in the past, I am one lucky “recruiting guy” because I get to interact with talented recruitment professionals throughout the world on a daily basis. 

With our Solution engagement, I also get to become a ‘teammate’ of many recruitment organizations!  With our Benchmark Study, I have intimate interaction with many, many more!

This unique opportunity always provides me with many thoughts/observations/insights! 

Some  recent “Lean, JIT ‘Elite’ Recruitment Thoughts” from the road:

Discipline, sense of urgency, and self-direction are a few of the most important ELITE recruiter competencies you can possess.

  • The busier you get, the more time you need to plan your perfect day. If you are not planning at least 30 minutes a day . . . I bet you are 10-50% less productive than those that do!
  • You can plan all you want but . . . if you are not “true to your schedule”, if you do not commit to crossing off your TO DOs (ETFs, MTNs), starting/stopping meetings ON TIME, etc., IT IS WORTHLESS!

Trust is also very important.  If your hiring managers don’t TRUST that:

  • You understand their business
  • You have an eye for the talent they want/need
  • You know how to find top talent
  • They will continue to:
    • Ask to see all resumes before setting up interviews
    • Always want to “see more”
    • Not listen to your salary/offer recommendations, etc.
  • To earn trust, you must learn their business by attending staff meetings, learning from employees/candidates AND become an expert at performing intake sessions and setting SLAs

A strong ability to solicit interest is equally important.  With technology, social media, it is much easier to FIND passive candidates . . . but still very difficult to SOLICIT THEIR INTEREST.

While there are many facets to recruiting, if you:

  • Are able to plan for, and execute more Perfect Days (with passion :) )
  • Have earned the trust of your hiring managers via knowledge and engaging/executing flawless intake/SLA sessions.
  • Have mastered the ability to engage and recruit top talent.

You are pretty darn ‘elite’ in my book!

My ‘two cents’ from the road . . . Please share any of your ‘two cents’ from the field!  :)

I hope you have (or had) a good spring break!

The 80/20 Rule

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

Author: Karen Antrim – Lean Human Capital  

Years ago, my boss said to me “this place has too much of the 80/20 rule.”  “80/20 rule?” I asked.  “It’s when 80 percent of the work gets done by 20 percent of the people.” he answered.

In my real life, when I’m not sourcing or teaching sourcing, I’m a mom.  I volunteer at my kids school, at our church, and for little league.   I often observe the 80/20 there.  You’ve probably noticed this in your real life too.  80 percent of the work is done by 20 percent of the parents.

Weekly, I read about a new tool, technique or process that is going to change the way we source.  Or, I get an email for a class on how to improve and write better Boolean strings to find resumes or lists on the net.  I’m all for constant learning and constant improvement.  It’s the mantra our firm is based on.  However, I work for recruiters who have very little time and a mountain of openings to fill.  So my ability to get them accurate prospective candidates in a short time is a priority.  My sourcing techniques must provide the biggest return for the effort.  They must adhere to the “80/20 rule”.

The principle applies to recruiters who do their own sourcing. They have even less time for each activity in the recruitment process without a sourcing staff to assist them.  The “80/20 rule” should become a guiding principle.

Simply put, the 80/20 rule is how to get 80% of your candidates with 20% of the tools and processes of sourcing.

Let’s take some specific examples.  We all know that Linkedin.com has the largest community of profiles of any social professional network.  If you have time constraints on your recruitment process, why use any other network?  Get 80% of your prospects, build 80% of your network, start 80% of your conversations in LinkedIn.

Here is an inverse example.  I understand the appeal of long and sexy Boolean search strings.  As a Boolean geek, I dig‘em.  But as a person who must be pragmatic in her practices, they do not return enough bang for the buck.  They don’t adhere to the 80/20 rule.  For example, the popular string (Intitle:resume OR inurl:resume OR intitle:cv OR inurl:CV  OR etc..) generally finds resumes that have been posted on a personal website or perhaps a university faculty bio. There just isn’t a large population of these out there.  One can spend a great deal of time playing with keywords in this string and not get a large return for their time investment.  This is an example of the 20/80 rule.  20% return on 80% of the investment.

Pick your top 3-5 successful sourcing activities, and stick with those.  Mine are:

  1. Site command to harvest linkedin.com
  2. Subscription resume database such as Monster
  3. My ATS
  4. Finding associations and membership lists
  5. Target companies to raid with call campaign

As a recruiter, you may change out #4 for working your own existing network.

Regardless of whether you’re a recruiter doing your own sourcing, or a sourcer supporting recruiters, putting 20% of your time in these activities will produce 80% of your prospect list.  That leaves a whole lot of time for other tasks, such as candidate interaction, building your network, or branding yourself and your organization.

Happy Sourcing!

Mindful Recruiting/5 Simple Ways to Reduce Your Recruiting Stress

Thursday, April 7th, 2011

My wife and I just completed a course on Mindfulness.  Yes like most husbands I didn’t go willingly, as it was her idea!  But, by the end of the class I learned quite a few tips that I thought I would share with all of you.

Now you should know that I am the king of multi-tasking and a type “A” personality.  I’ve tried these techniques myself and many of them have worked for me.  I believe that if applied consistently these techniques will help many of you in your stressed recruiting lives. 

The idea of mindfulness began at U Mass under Jon Kabat-Zinn.  He sums the concept in this way.  “Mindfulness is about being fully awake in our lives.  It is about perceiving the exquisite vividness of each moment.  We gain immediate access to our own powerful inner resources for insight, transformation, and healing.”   

  1. Do one thing at a time.  Single tasking may sound archaic in our multi-tasking world, but it can be quite powerful and can renew your focus.  The concept comes from the Zen proverb “When walking walk, when eating, eat.”  If you’re on the phone with a candidate or hiring manager, focus on the phone call.  Don’t try to juggle your emails, IM, or other distractions.  Just focus on the phone call.  Simple focus on the one task at hand leads to better focus on your objective, and better service to your customer!
  2. Put space between things.  Putting space between calls and meetings throughout the day, even if it’s only 10 minutes, will give you a more relaxed schedule, and leaves space in case one task runs longer than another.  It can also give you a chance to take a mini-break (note the next tip).
  3. Spend at least 5 minutes a day doing nothing.  I know you’re thinking “Oh No!  But what will my boss, or partner, or kids say!” Yet sitting in silence, and simply breathing (yes breathing) can give you renewed focus for the next task, or the remainder of the day!
  4. Stop worrying about the past or the future. Just focus on the present.  We all do it, we spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the last call or meeting, or thinking about the one you have next week or in an hour, during the call or meeting you’re currently in!  How many times have you missed an important point from your customer (candidate, hiring manager) or your family member, because you weren’t focused on the here and now?  If you shift your focus to the present, you’ll see your stress drop, and your satisfaction with key relationships improve.
  5. Enjoy the silence.  On your next commute, when you come to a red light, try to just sit back for those 30 seconds and relax.  Don’t pick up the phone and check email or voice mail.  Just sit quietly.  Another technique to try is to not use your commute time for phone calls, but as time for you to reconnect with yourself.

Keep practicing.  When you feel yourself frustrated or stressed with your day try one of these tips.  Or simply close your eyes for 10 seconds and breath.  For home practice there’s a website called www.emindful.com that has online classes.  Also if you’re an iPhone user a good app to try is SimplyBeing! 

Finally I’ll leave you with this brief saying from Saki Santorelli, a mindfulness teacher.  Try repeating this to yourself sometime.

May I be safe and protected from all inner and outer harm.

May I be happy, peaceful, and calm.

May I be as healthy and strong as possible for me.

May I care for myself with joy and ease.

Have a great week!

Monster’s New Power Search Tool

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

As many of you know, I am a passionate Research professional and lead instructor for Lean Human Capital’s Internet/social media sourcing sessions.

Last week I spent several hours reviewing (also did a demo) the new Monster “Power Search” tool and thought I would provide a synopsis of what I learned. 

There is a new way to do search.  It’s called “semantic search”.  The old way most search engines work is by using keywords based on digits in fields and Boolean commands.  The results provided back to the user match the keywords you typed in based on what you are looking for.

Semantic uses an approach based on providing answers that ALSO included synonyms or common correlations to the search word or phrase you typed in. (i.e. if you type “lawyer” you will also get “attorney” “barrister” etc).  (Important: These correlations are only as good as the developers who make them for each site).

Semantic search uses tools developed by a couple different companies, and universities.  It is cutting edge, new technology. With that said, I suspect it is not fully refined or embraced in corporate development… yet.

Monster has taken a bold approach AND a $100 million investment to make their database searchable with the semantic search methodology.

Bottom Line:

I WOULD recommend Power Search to organizations that:

  • Do not have a sourcing team.  
  • To recruiters that have limited Boolean and or search experience.

It does have a terrific interface and it is easy to use and learn. It provides easy returns.

However, I would probably not recommend it to those organizations that have a sourcing team and/or recruiters skilled in Boolean search techniques based on my ROI/Cost analysis. 

I give kudu’s to Monster. They are investing in technology TODAY (and getting a jump on their competition?) that I suspect  will eventually (don’t know time frame) become standard (and classic search option will fade away). 

Some stat’s that Monster provided me are outlined below.

Shoot me an email if you have any success stories/challenges with this new search tool and/or semantic search technology!!!!

___________________________________

Monster conducted detailed return on investment (ROI) studies with 48 recruiters from 15 large enterprise accounts to measure the value of Power Resume Search. In side by side comparisons with competitive products or standard keyword searching, customers found that Power Resume Search produced the following results:

  • 65% average time saved using Power Resume Search compared to keyword-based search engines
  • 150% average increase in the number of qualified candidates found
  • 90% of recruiters prefer using Power Resume Search over other keyword-based search technology
  • 97% of recruiters found qualified candidates faster using Power Resume Search

Karen Antrim
Associate
Research and Sourcing
Lean Human Capital

2011 Recruiting Trends

Wednesday, March 16th, 2011

As many of us begin to wrap up the first quarter of 2011, I’d like to explore some of the trends that we’re seeing and how they may affect the remainder of the recruiting year. 

Heightened Focus on Employee Engagement

As the economy continues to recover this will be an interesting indicator to watch.  Employee Engagement and retention were two of the biggest concerns for HR professionals in 2010, according to a survey conducted by Human Resource Executive magazine, and will continue to be in the year ahead.  Based on 2010 survey data of employees from HR Solutions, only 27 percent of employees are ‘Actively Engaged.’  The remaining 73 percent is divided between ‘Ambivalent’ employees (60 percent) and ‘Actively Disengaged’ employees (13 percent).  To address this issue, organizations are utilizing their most Actively Engaged employees as mentors to motivate and re-energize their disenchanted peers.  According to the 2010 HRE survey of 802 HR Executives, 48% of participants responded neutral when asked about the current state of Employee Morale/Engagement at their organization. Such ambivalence has lead more organizations to increasingly focus on the results of their annual satisfaction surveys.  This has included conducting break out focus groups or additional surveys to address engagement.

Voluntary Attrition Increases Dramatically

Most employers have been concerned about this for some time, as the past few years may not have been kind to their employees with regard to pay freezes, lack of bonuses, and increased workloads.  The importance of retaining employees, especially high performers and those in critical roles is paramount.  According to Harris Interactive, 54 percent of employees plan on looking for a new job once the economy improves. In an effort to thwart this, one trend we’re starting to see is the formation of strategic retention plans that go beyond just focusing on traditional compensation, to include professional development, career pathing and succession planning.

Jury’s Still Out on Social Media, LinkedIn becomes More Dominant

While we still haven’t seen strong ROI from the use of social media, organizations are still “dipping their toe” in its use.  Within our client base we’re seeing little success with the usage of Facebook & Twitter beyond simple brand recognition efforts.  But, we expect that over time these mediums will become more important once the mysterious ROI equation is solved and there are strong success stories as a result of their use. LinkedIn has continued to be the dominant player in the social media recruiting space but we expect to see even more pronounced usage this year. Our clients are adopting its usage at a more rapid pace and beginning to see the results from its use.  The primary driver of return for LinkedIn seems to be finding enough time to use it.  If you have enough time you’ll see the return. 

We’ll continue to add to this list as we see more trends develop to keep you informed. 

Hiring Manager Intake Sessions: Poll Results

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

One of our recent polls asked:  “Do you meet in person with your hiring managers to qualify a new open requisition (IE – Intake Session)?”

The results of our poll confirm that we’re seeing a positive trend with more and more organizations migrating towards “best in class” methods of managing their hiring managers.

“Do you meet in person with your hiring managers to qualify a new open requisition (IE – Intake Session)?”

40%:   Yes – 100% of time. It is the most important step in the staffing process. 

42%:   Most of the time – if not, I schedule a meeting via the phone to perform the intake session.

5%:     Sometimes – if we don’t meet, they send me the position description. 

7%:    Rarely – they send me information on the position and/or input into our ATS system.

6%:    Never – my managers expect me to know what they are looking for!

82% of respondents conduct an intake session with hiring managers.  A critical step in the management of any consultative relationship is the ability to establish a strong foundation to the partnership (yes, you’re the recruiting consultant to your hiring manager!). 

This starts when consultants engage with clients in the initial intake session. 

Intake Session = Foundation:  If you have a good intake session then you have a strong foundation to build a relationship! A good intake session is not only about uncovering the basic wants and needs of your hiring manager but it will allow you to explore the position in great detail as well, including:

  • Why is the position open?
  • What are the top 3-5 key objectives for someone in this position?
  • What are the challenges a person will face in this position?
  • How is performance measured?
  • What is your hiring manager’s style/personality/culture?
  • Sourcing strategy questions
  • Who are some of your top performers that I could network with?
  • What are the selling points of the position?
  • What “knock out” questions do you suggest I use?

I hope you are including some of these questions in your intake sessions!  Remember, a well conducted intake session goes a long way to assure that your position will be filled by the best possible candidate and in as little time as possible!

Planning Your Time – Perfect Week/Perfect Day

Thursday, March 3rd, 2011

Recently we hosted a poll to see when some of you plan for the next day of work. The results were interesting in that 76% of you do plan ahead either when you’re wrapping up your day or the next day with your cup of coffee.  However 27% of you either don’t have time to plan or only plan a couple of times a week.

When do you plan your day?

I plan for the next day before I leave each day — stress reliever!                    51%
I am a morning planner — with my cup of coffee                                                  22%
Plan? I barely have time to go to the restroom!                                                    20% 
I sometimes plan my day — maybe 2 to 3 days a week                                         7% 

If you’re like me it’s difficult to manage your schedule and complete your “To-do’s” while operating in an environment of constant change, fire drills, etc. One of the techniques we teach to overcome this obstacle and become more productive and efficient is to adopt what we call “A Perfect Week, The Perfect Day” routine. This routine can help you and your team improve time management, planning, and organizational skills, manage multiple projects and tasks, and get more accomplished!

“A Perfect Week, The Perfect Day” routine helps set a strategic course for the week and allows for changes.  The best time to develop “A Perfect Week” is in advance of your week (maybe Friday afternoon or early Monday morning). 

Begin by listing all the activities you want to accomplish into two categories:

  1. Billable. Billable activities directly relate to hiring new employees. Obviously this activity contributes to making money for your organization. Examples of billable recruiting time might include prospecting for candidates, making offers, attending job fairs, setting up interviews with hiring managers, qualifying a requisition, etc.
  2. Non-billable. Non-billable activities are things that you must accomplish and typically support your billable activities. Examples include entering candidates into your ATS, developing postings for the Internet, activity reporting, department meetings, training, paperwork, etc.

If you’d like to see an example of the template we use to document our “Perfect Week” please contact me.  At a high level it would look something like this:

  • Source six hours for BM position. Get three submittals to Kendall – Billable
  • Get requisition from Szary for the SVP of IT – Billable
  • Source four hours for SVP position – submit two candidates – Billable
  • Spend 2 hours in staff meetings – Non-Billable

The next step is to plan your days differently, something we call “Time Based Planning.”  Most people manage their schedule using outlook or some other online scheduling system with a “To-do” list.   Most of these “To-do” action items are not sequenced in order of priority and most people don’t embed their “To-do’s” into their daily schedule.  Time-based planning allocates a specific time during your day to accomplish your “To-do’s” based on their priority.

In the example below I’ve taken the perfect week list above and mapped out one of my days through time based planning:

7:30 – 8:30           Planning, return emails, call Bob about Sue
8:30 – 11:00        Sourcing for SVP position
11:00 – 12:00      Interview with Joe Edwards for SVP of IT
12:00 – 1:00        Lunch – call Mom for birthday!
1:00 – 2:00           Interview Bill Wallace
2:00 – 3:00           Schedule Lisa & Catherine interviews
3:00 – 4:00           Phone screen BM candidate
3:00 – 5:00           Return all emails from net postings

Rather than having my day scheduled and then trying to map my “To-do” list to it, the two are embedded together! 

Of course each week and every day won’t go perfectly!  If activities you’ve documented in your perfect week change during the week then readjust and develop a new plan of action. Plans were meant to be changed!   

Try this routine as a pilot.  We think you’ll find it improves your planning, time management, and organizational skills.   

Results of Our Quality of Hire Poll

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

A few weeks ago I posted some thoughts on Quality of Hire, and asked you to share the ways in which your organization measures this metric. 

  • 33% of respondents measure Hiring Manager Satisfaction:  This is an indication of Hiring Managers’ overall satisfaction with recruiting, gathered through surveys or focus groups, or in our terms, Voice of the Customer work. 
  • 29% measure New Hire Turnover:  This is turnover of new hires versus their peer group.  Most organizations & systems we work with measure voluntary terminations, but some also measure involuntary terminations.
  • 17% don’t currently measure Quality of Hire but would like to.
  • 13% measure New Hire Performance versus Their Peer Group:  How does the performance of the individuals that were hired in the last six months/year compare to their peers?  Are they meeting, or exceeding expectations?
  • 8% measure various Other Aspects of Quality, such as turnover of top performers or voluntary versus involuntary termination rates.

The results are not surprising based on what we see and hear in the market.  I’m pleased to see that many of you are capturing the “voice” of the Hiring Manager as a customer and also looking at new hire turnover. 

New Hire Performance versus Peer Groups is gaining acceptance as a meaningful metric to use.  But, the percentage of use could still be improved upon.  The primary issue with this metric seems to be the inability to draw comparisons across performance management systems versus applicant tracking systems, such as integration (ensuring the two systems “talk to each other” to share data) and of course data integrity.

The key is to start to measure Quality of Hire any way you can!  Only then will you be able to communicate the impact your recruitment function is having on transforming the talent landscape.  Start somewhere, anywhere!

We’re working with a few systems on measuring quality of hire now.  If you’d like to discuss how we can partner with you on measuring Quality of Hire please contact us.

Eliminate Waste — Letting Internal Candidates Control Their Future

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

In a recent Value Stream Mapping (VSM) exercise with a client, it became apparent (as it usually does) that a majority of the wait/waste time associated with their staffing process resided in the hands of the hiring manager (I’m sure you are surprised!).

In particular, we found it not uncommon for it to take managers:

  • 7 days to respond to resumes submitted for consideration
  • 7 days to get interviews set up.
  • Another 7 days to get feedback!

A simple, pragmatic idea came from our VSM session that I thought was worthy of sharing for discussion.

Once the manager has decided they want to interview an internal candidate, have the internal candidate take the lead to contact the manager to set up the interview, provide feedback to recruiter on status, etc. Of course a defined process/service level agreement (SLA) would have to be in place.

Possible process/SLA:

  • Internal candidate contacts Hiring Manager to set up interview within 24 hours of receipt that the manager is interested in interviewing them.
  • Once interview is scheduled, notify recruiter (via outlook?) that the interview is set.
  • Provide feedback to recruiter within 12?/24? hours of the interview with the hiring manager.

Think about the benefits:

  • Puts the responsibility on the internal candidate to “manage” their opportunities/career within your organization.
  • Relieves you of the wasted time required to set up interviews (who knows their schedules better than the two parties that need to meet?).
  • If you rely on the managers to set up interviews with internal candidates, it reduces substantial wait time inherent to managers handling that process!

Of course some inherent pitfalls:

  • Manager doesn’t provide timely feedback to internal candidates (causing employee dissatisfaction).
  • Internal candidate doesn’t keep the recruiter “in the loop” with regard to status of interview, feedback, etc. (can’t keep track of candidates for the position – wasting more time hunting down feedback).

I clearly see these two pitfalls as performance management issues versus process control issues. And as I think about this more, I think the pro’s out way the con’s.

I am curious . . . Does anyone manage their internal candidates like this?

David Szary

Recruiting Passive Talent – Learn from our Children

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

 

I’m very lucky to be exposed to so many great thoughts, ideas and inspirational messages as I travel the country!  I received one such message this week from Recruiter Academy Alumni, Erich Hartnett that I thought I would share!

If you have any great stories to share, please send them. I would love to broadcast to our community of over 17,000 recruitment/HR professionals.

Thanks Erich for the inspiration!

____________________________________________________________________________________

The New Year always brings fundraisers for good causes that our children get involved in.  These fundraising events often involve going door to door to raise money for the particular cause. 

For those of us that have had the opportunity, you would probably agree, there is no harder way to make a living “selling” something (or asking for money) than going door to door!

Well I recently had the opportunity to go door to door fundraising with my daughter Grace and witnessed pure excitement. Grace hounded me every day after school to get out there and knock on doors so she could ask folks to buy her cookie dough. She had no inhibitions, no preconceived “rejection” thoughts, just pure enthusiasm. To her the task was simple and fun. She skipped up to the door, rang the doorbell, introduced herself and began showing the cookie pictures on her sheet, then showed folks where to sign their names (the close). If folks said “no thanks”, she would skip to the next door and repeat the process.  She had no idea why anyone wouldn’t want cookies and shared that excitement with everyone that answered their door. It was pure innocent enthusiasm for cookies, and nothing more. Grace showed me there is no such thing as rejection.  There is just another door to knock on!

While there are many keys to being successful selling door to door, probably none is more important than a positive attitude about what you are selling and who you are selling to. If you BELIEVE you have something of value and . . . there are people out there that need/want your product or service, you will continue to walk door to door (through rejection after rejection) in pursuit of the next sale!

How does this relate to recruiting passive talent?

When recruiting top talent, we must:

  • Believe you have an awesome opportunity for the right individual.  If the person you contact is not that person, they might know who is!
  • Believe that you will change the person’s life (for the better :) ) that you find and hire into this role! 

If you (I) attacked each sourcing session like my daughter Grace attacked door to door fundraising, ‘passive candidate recruiting’ would be a heck of a lot easier and a lot more fun!

Something we call can learn from!

Erich Hartnett