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Recently Published Study Indicates Hiring to Pick Up to Pre-Recession Levels — Are you ready?

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Just over half of large, recently downsized U.S. companies plan to boost staffing and reach pre-recession levels by 2012, according to Accenture’s recent High Performance Workforce Study.  The survey included 674 senior executives worldwide from companies with revenue of more than $250 million.

Investment in hiring for the U.S. based companies is expected to increase from 24 percent today to 37 percent within the next 12 months.  The study also found that only 13 percent of executives said that they plan to reduce their employee base over the next 12 months. 

Yet as we all know, the planned growth won’t come easily. If a hiring ‘boom’ is imminent, highly skilled workers will come at a premium again as companies seek to grow.

The focus would soon shift from cost reduction to proactive staffing resource planning required to address spikes in hiring needs.   

Questions you might ask to decipher if you are in for a hiring boom:

  • Does your company have a strong balance sheet with cash to invest in a growth strategy?
  • Is your workforce already stretched thin?
  • Are you using contractors to supplement fulltime staff to get the work done today?
  • If there was a hiring “spike”, do you have the resources to get the job done?

If you answered YES to the first three questions and NO to the last, then it probably is time to start to develop a contingency plan in the event it DOES happen!

Be realistic but THINK POSITIVE about the future!  Most important, be prepared.

I hope you enjoy the last few weeks of the summer.

Posted in Bradley Savoy, Elite Recruiters, Employer Brand, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Sales, Recruiter Top Gun, Recruiter Training, Talent Aquisition, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Getting through the Dog Days of Summer . . . HAVE SOME FUN!

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

In my 17 years as a recruitment coach/mentor, I have found that the beginning of August usually brings with it a common case of “Recruiter’s Rut.”   Many of us drag ourselves into work on Monday after a long weekend of fun in the sun wishing we were still outside playing!  We wake up realizing that the summer is almost over after it just began!  We start to wonder “Where has it gone?” 

In addition, the reality starts to set in that the year is 60% complete and . . . there is still a lot to accomplish!

It is at this point you can wallow in self pity or . . . inject some fun and passion back into your recruitment day!

I first wrote about “Recruiter’s Rut” back in 2002!  I have personally seen this infectious ‘disease’ rip through entire recruitment departments with ease.  The best cure is to gather your peers and develop a strategy to fight it.

Some ideas?

Well, since at the end of the day, each and every recruiter is measured on their ability to identify and recruit top talent for their organization . . .  fun contests centered around generating quality candidate flow is always a great cure!

Recently, our sister organization implemented a contest for August that might help you to steer clear of ‘Recruiter’s Rut’.

  • They are holding three sourcing call blitz sessions each day (from 7:30 to 8:30, 11-12, and 4-5).  These times were carefully selected as times that they had the best opportunity of getting someone live on the phone.
  • These are ‘optional’ sessions for all recruiters recognizing there are other activities that might prohibit you from attending all of them.
  • For each session, they are tracking:
    • Number of dials
    • Number of appointments set
    • Number of “live” conversations   
  • Points are awarded as follows:
    • 10 points: For attending a call blitz session  
    • 25 points: For a candidate submitted to hiring manager from the call blitz
    • 50 points: For a Hiring Manager Interview
    • 75 points: For an offer
    • 100 pints: For a hire

In just the first week, we have seen more productivity, a spike in activity and . . . a little mojo back into the day.

Another fun contest you might deploy is the Recruiter Decathlon .

Even the most motivated, passionate recruiters I know (including me) sometimes need some assistance getting through the dog days of summer.  If you feel Recruiter’s Rut settling in with you and/or your team . . . inject some fun back into the day!

Posted in David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Training, Recruiting Buzz, Sourcing, Talent Aquisition, Time Management, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Time, Tenure and Trust

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

We have recently published our first annual Healthcare Recruitment Benchmark study. A core piece of the study was measuring/benchmarking key process efficiency metrics of the staffing supply chain.

Through this initiative, we found the average Route to Hire Efficiency Metric to be 6.7 to 1.

That is, it takes 6.7 candidates routed to the hiring manager to achieve 1 hire.  While this actually is pretty darn efficient compared to studies we have done in other industries, Best in Class organizations (representing the average of the top 25%) Route to Hire Efficiency was 2.48 to 1! 

Basically, the Elite, efficient organizations required half as many candidates (routed) to get 1 hire! 

Or course there are/were many things they did differently to develop a Lean, efficient staffing process, but something all systems had in common was this concept of Time, Tenure and Trust.

  1. Time – All Elite organizations spend a considerable amount of time on:
    • The intake session with the hiring manager. They made sure they clearly understood the need, how to market the opportunity; define clear service levels for service, etc.
    • The pre-screen process. Whether they used an automated assessment tool and/or some combination of phone interview, they spent enough time with the candidate to ensure they were someone that was worthy of consideration and should be interviewed by the hiring manager.
    • Discussing candidates with managers and proactively setting interviews.

While all these steps might seem obvious to some experienced recruiters, many recruiters/organizations still struggle to INVEST the time required in these three steps.  The usual results include routing too many candidates to managers that they in return reject to be interviewed/considered.   This is clearly evident in that the average Route to Hiring Manager efficiency was 43% while the Elite organizations efficiency was 80%!

  1. Tenure – Most Elite firms agreed that they had many ‘tenured’ recruiters on staff that had built rapport with their hiring managers, taken the time to understand the business unit they supported, etc.  All firms agreed that you can overcome short tenure by investing the time in the three steps above.
  2. Trust – Elite recruiters have the trust of the hiring managers and they respect them as staffing consultants. 
    • They interview the candidates the recruiters send rather than scrutinize!
    • They ask for their opinion when deciding on making an offer (or not).
    • They respect their input on compensation discussions.

While I don’t want to over simplify how the Elite organizations have become hyper efficient, I don’t want to lose the forest through the trees either!  Time invested up front can quickly turn a non-tenured recruiter into a staffing consultant that garners a ton of TRUST FROM their hiring managers. 

Some food for thought on a Wednesday!

PS – If you are a healthcare organization that wants more information on our Healthcare Recruitment Benchmark Study, please contact us!

Posted in David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Sales, Recruiter Top Gun, Recruiter Training, Sourcing, Talent Aquisition, Uncategorized | No Comments »

‘Elite’ Recruiter Assessment Results!

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Thanks to all those folks that participated in our ‘Elite’ Recruiter self assessment!  We have just reached the 1500 participants mark! 

For those of you who have not participated, please do so.

For those that have participated, you can check out the results to date.

After reviewing the results, one skill/attribute score that caught my eye was:  

  • Acts as a trusted advisor to a candidate and articulates the career opportunity with your organization when negotiating salary offers.
    • To date, folks have rated themselves a 2.97 (out of 5). 

Over the years, I have written many blog posts on this topic including:

Don’t forget the reason we talked in the first place

What every recruiter can learn from spaghetti sauce

I know you were not looking, but you listened

52 reasons why someone should join your organization

So as you connect with candidates this week, I want you to reflect and make sure you are able to identify 2-4 non-monetary “motives” for which a candidate would leave their current position. 

If you haven’t had this conversation with them, there is a high probability that if/when you make an offer they will do one of the following:

  1. Take a competing offer from a firm that does know their motives and can articulate how their company can meet them.
  2. Stay where they are. Since it is easier to stay put than venture to new, unknown challenges.
  3. Walk away simply because you don’t have enough “ammo” to “close the deal”.
  4. Lure you into negotiating ‘monetary’ motives like salary, bonuses, vacation, etc.  All the things you DON’T want to negotiate!

Remember, once you decide you like a candidate, it’s your job to help them understand how this move will benefit their career long term based on what they’ve told you about their career goals and aspirations. Not only do candidates have to sell themselves on the idea that your job could be a good move for their career; they also have to “sell” it to family and friends. The more you can do to help the candidate see how this position fits in with their career aspirations, the easier it becomes for the candidate to do the same.

Some food for thought after a long memorial day weekend!

I hope you have a perfect day!   

___________________________________________________________________

In a recent post, “You know you are an Elite Recruiter if . . . .”, we shared some attributes we believe Elite recruiters possess.  We thought we would share other folks thoughts on this topic! If you have others – - please share

  • Your clients take you with them from company to company when they advance their own careers! – Patti Yaritz
  • You know that you are an elite recruiter if former candidates/new hires seek out your advice unsolicited and without your follow-up. Some of the most rewarding pat-on-the-back compliments I have ever received have come from new hires contacting me after I have left a company. – Thomas Bolt
  • You are included on emails from the SVP of HR to members of the internal recruiting team with comments like…”Team, let’s make this happen”. – Sandra McCartt   
  • An elite recruiter is willing to share his/her knowledge with junior recruiters and is willing to mentor them to success. – Chuck Clevenger
  • An Elite recruiter gives back to the community by volunteering to freely help people in their job searches. An elite recruiter is known for his/her pro bono work.  – Chuck Clevenger
  • An elite recruiter has the ability to advise and influence HR and Hiring Managers in regards to job specifications and compensation based on their knowledge of the local/national marketplace and talent pool – Dan Helpka
  • Candidates you once turned down, turn up 1 & 2 years later, successfully compete for jobs they now can do having gained the knowledge, skills and experience you advised them to get. – Gerry Crispin
  • More students are graduating from local high schools inspired by your efforts and more of them are looking to aspire to a college degree. – Gerry Crispin
  • More college students are inspired to major in areas that will drive company performance, innovation and collaborative culture. – Gerry Crispin
  • Company alumns send you leads of high performing prospects who they believe will benefit your firm and grow in the bargain. – Gerry Crispin
  • You are a local pro-bono pay-it-forward support of time and advice to One-Stop employment centers, community organizations offering employment counseling and resource limited health care organizations is lifting the brand image of your entire community and increasingly attracting candidates who previously wouldn’t relocate. – Gerry Crispin
  • You are dedicated to assuring that their quality referrals and hires include diversity. You don’t have to be told by hiring management, “We want to see some diverse candidates in the mix.” You bring it and wow even those hiring teams who didn’t expect, didn’t want it, and didn’t ask for it. – Valentino Martinez
  • You help build an elite TEAM! – Julie Rehbein
  • The C-level in your company gives you a call when it wants to add “impact level” talent and believes you can find it. – Mat Apodaca

Posted in David, David Szary, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Sales, Recruiter Training, Recruiting Buzz, Talent Aquisition, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Expectation versus Reality – Deliver on your promises, consistently

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

Companies who are serious about their talent need to deliver on their promises consistently.  When a candidate goes to your careers website, it’s the first step they take in their research of your company. They are looking for information, drivers, and attractors that make your company a more intriguing proposition than others.  Let’s say they decide to apply and they’re invited in for the interview. 

From the moment they arrive at your office they are gauging if the company they saw online is reflective of what they see in reality.  As you go further down the path of hiring someone, expectations continue to develop based on the information you portray to the candidate. 

If the recruiter or hiring manager driving the interview process makes statements such as:  “We have a strong work/life balance at our company” or “We believe in learning and development”, or “We have an open door policy in which management is readily acceptable,” then the organization better be prepared to deliver on those statements consistently.

Take the Gen X group and the Millenials.  Both of these groups are getting a lot of focus from companies right now to ensure they fill talent gaps as boomers reach retirement.  From our research, one of the key areas of attraction for both of these groups is learning and development.  Another dynamic of these groups is a lack of long-term company loyalty.  If your company states a strong position on learning and development online during the interview process and on-boarding, and then you don’t deliver on that promise; then these groups will leave quickly.

Some best practices to address this are:

  • Make sure that the messages you state on your website, during the interview process, and beyond are consistent and truthful. 
  • Ask the employees what they think about their experience on a frequent basis through focus groups or employee satisfaction surveys. 
  • Use realistic job previews on the careers website.
  • Make sure the candidate has a chance to see the work environment and talk with prospective peers as part of the interview process
  • Train recruiters and hiring managers on interview practices 

By following some of these steps and others you’ll experience higher retention rates and employee loyalty as the key results!  Contact me with any questions or to discuss how we have worked with clients to bridge this gap.

Posted in Bradley Savoy, Candidate Pipeline, Elite Recruiters, Employer Brand, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Talent Aquisition, Uncategorized | No Comments »

The Most Important Service Level Agreement

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

Of the 1000 recruiters who have participated in our Elite Recruiter self assessment benchmark study, they rate themselves a 3.29 on the skill:

  • Sets Service Level Agreements with Hiring Managers to define roles/responsibilities and control the hiring process

Having talked to countless hiring managers, I am not surprised at this response. 

One of their biggest frustrations is not knowing what is going on with a particular search. They post a position, talk to their recruiter, and then . . . wait for candidates to come their way.

I thought I would share a post we published that received a ton of positive attention and discussion!

______________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

The Most Important Service Level Agreement

While many recruitment organizations have created Service Level Agreements that define the recruitment/hiring process and each parties’ (hiring manager and recruiter) responsibilities (NOTE- if you want a Best Practice example SLA document – please email us), many do not define and establish a “time to first submittal” SLA. This SLA is (what I believe to be the most important) the one we can control the most.

We call this SLA: Requisition Received to “First Submittal.”…. to read more please follow this link

Posted in David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Training, Sourcing, Talent Aquisition, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Initial Results of our ‘Elite Recruiter’ Competency/Skills — Self Assessment

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

The response to our ‘Elite Recruiter’ Self Assessment has been great!  To date, over 600 folks have participated! 

If you have not participated yet, please do (see below).  Our goal is to have 2500 recruiters participate by July of this year! 

Some initial interesting findings ……

Recruiter Competencies:

High self-assessment rating (4.0 of 5.0):

  • Interpersonal Skills (4.21): Treats others with respect and dignity.  Promotes a productive culture by valuing individuals and their contributions.

We are not surprised; I think most recruiters feel they have good interpersonal skills. :o ) 

Areas for improvement (3.5 or below):

  • Customer/Client Focus (3.49): Maintains unwavering focus on delighting the customer/client.
  • Leveraging Networks (3.44): Draws upon a wide range of professional and/or business relationships for help and support in achieving individual and organizational goals.
  • Staffing Lifecycle Management (3.24): Plans and successfully executes a recruiting, selection and hiring process that results in top talent for the organization.

These numbers are consistent to many of our clients’ Voice of the Customer surveys.  The clients (hiring managers, key stakeholders, etc.) still see these as areas of improvement as well, particularly Customer/Client Focus and Staffing Lifecycle Management.

Recruiter Skills:

High self-assessment rating (4.0 of 5.0):

  • Build relationships with peers, hiring managers and executives (4.09)
  • Remain upbeat, positive and energetic about opportunities with your organization(4.18)

Again, we are not surprised at these results. I think most recruiters believe they can build relationships and are upbeat, positive and energetic.  In a 360 evaluation, do others believe the same? :o )

Areas for improvement (3.5 or below):

  • Posses the ability to create a compelling value proposition statement(s) to engage and recruit passive, top talent for critical-to-fill positions (3.38)
  • Use technology to manage data, candidate relationships, etc. (3.33)
  • Set Service Level Agreements with Hiring Managers to define roles/responsibilities and control the hiring process. (3.29)
  • Provide timely constructive feedback to candidates not selected for hire after interview. (3.29) 

These numbers are again consistent with many of our clients’ Voice of the Customer survey results.  All four of these areas are critical to the success of a recruiter, BUT . . . often not areas that recruiters (or teams) focus on for improvement.  Too often, the focus is on ‘finding the passive candidate’ or lately – social networking and/or SEO – - rather than tactical skills that are critical to customer satisfaction!  I’m not saying these other areas don’t deserve our attention (passive candidates, Social media, etc.) but – - sometimes I believe we lose the forest through the trees and lose sight of what the customer wants! 

 If you are interested in the complete results of the self assessment surveys to date, you must:

  1. Participate in the assessment!
  2. Email us at info@leanhumancapital.com.  In the subject line put:  Please send ‘Elite Recruiter’ results!

If you want your team to participate and have us tabulate your team’s results, please email us at info@leanhumancapital.com!

Have a Perfect Day!

 

Competency/Skills of an Elite Recruiter – Healthcare

Competency/Skills of an Elite Recruiter – Financial Services

Competency/Skills of an Elite Recruiter – Retail

Competency/Skills of an Elite Recruiter – Technology

Competency/Skills of an Elite Recruiter – Third Party

Competency/Skills of an Elite Recruiter – Manufacturing/Engineering

Competency/Skills of an Elite Recruiter – Other

Posted in Changing Role of the Recruiter, David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Training, Strategic Business Partner, Talent Aquisition, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

The “Elite” Employer Brand

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

A couple of weeks ago I teed up this concept of an employer brand .  Here are some key areas to consider when measuring your employer brand.

First, you must measure it.  You can’t manage what you can’t measure, and you can’t improve what you can’t measure.  If an organization wants to maintain and consistently improve on the performance of its employer brand it must have a meaningful analytical philosophy that seeks to apply a quantitative and objective view to its brand.  Without this, there can be no analysis and comparison for improvement. 

Source effectiveness – The lifecycle of your employer brand begins with the first contact, which is typically an organization’s careers web site and subsequent sourcing stage.  At this stage an organization should measure the effectiveness of the methods they have relied upon to attract candidates.  This can allow the organization to view the most effective sources of attraction and consistently return to those sources based on the ROI achieved.  We capture this in our current benchmarking study and what we find is people may be measuring it but they’re not taking action.   If they see overspending in a certain area, they don’t adjust their spend in time and often wait until the year has passed. What should take place is that there should be an immediate shifting of the spend to the most effective sources as quickly as possible.

The recruiting process – This is a series of measurements at each stage in the life-cycle of the candidate’s experience during the entire recruiting process.  The recruiting process is one of the most critical aspects in making the decision to join an organization, and often the most overlooked.  An organization should measure the effectiveness of every single step a candidate attains in the recruiting process.  Each touch point the candidate makes with your organization should be considered beginning with the online application, assessment, interviews, the offer, and orientation.  If there is a negative impression that occurs during the initial online application stage of the recruiting process, then there may be a dramatic decrease in the candidate pool.  In the initial discussion with a candidate, another negative impression may cause a candidate to withdraw from the process, and tell others about their negative experiences.  Negative impressions at any stage of the recruiting process can dramatically reduce the candidate pool, and may provide fuel to create a significant gap for an organization that must meet their hiring needs. 

Recruiter Effectiveness – In our elite recruiter benchmarking study  we’re taking a groundbreaking look at the competencies and skills of elite recruiters.  What we’ve found is that effective recruiters engage candidates with the promise of the brand experience (EVP) and continually deliver on the promise.  The elite recruiters even check in with their hires to make sure promises are being kept, and the expectations delivered when someone was hired match the reality of their experience. 

Fit – How a candidate perceives their fit within your organization, the culture, and the position you are offering are critical elements in the messaging of your employer brand.  Organizations should measure the effectiveness of the messaging in all elements of the employment brand through various media channels.  These channels could be print or interactive media marketing and can also extend to the communication with the candidates recruited and interviewed by your company.  Analyze the effectiveness of the messaging communicated about the culture within your company to improve the long term impact that fit can have on the attraction of your needed talent.

So the key takeaways here are that the brand is pervasive, and all encompassing across someone’s life-cycle of experiences with your company.  It must be measured through the sourcing, recruiting process, and fit of a candidate and then through the employee with your company.  Finally, you as the recruiter, play a critical role in the portrayal of the brand promise, and should act as an ambassador to ensure its delivered!

Posted in Bradley Savoy, Changing Role of the Recruiter, Elite Recruiters, Employer Brand, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Training, Talent Aquisition, Time Management, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Measuring Your Employer Brand

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

I can only go a few days without having an insatiable craving for Starbucks or Caribou Coffee.  Sure I can make coffee at home, but it’s just never seems as good.  In addition, there’s the great atmosphere when I enter the coffee shop. The wonderful, helpful staff that remembers my name when they greet me. 

And to top it all off – - for only four dollars – - I walk away with beautiful drink in a cup with cool logo and colors!  

Okay I may be taking that a little too far, but as a consumer I have that passionate and long standing relationship with these brands.  These consumer brands conjure up indelible images that resonate and remain with me.  These are brands I will consistently use and recommend to others based on my experience and the feelings I get from patronizing their organizations.

So how do you define an employer brand?

Quality candidates – - whether they say so or not – - are looking for the same experience with an organization’s employer brand as a consumer would.  The messages, images, and feelings presented shape the candidate experience they will receive. The “feeling” they get as they move through the recruitment process will not only be pivotal in their employment decision but in their recommendation of your organization to others!

Simply put, an employer brand is a long-standing relationship cycle of experiences between the employee and employer. 

Your employer brand should resonate like a consumer brand with a distinct difference in the messaging.  The messaging should be tailored to the future employee, and should be understood by all stakeholders – both current or future employees, and even customers.  Having an effective employment brand means providing an enticing proposition for one to seek the opportunities at an organization.  It begins at the sourcing stage and carries through the entire life cycle of the recruiting process, and continues throughout an employee’s tenure with the organization.

While most employers understand the value of an effective employer brand, they struggle with how to measure its’ effectiveness to ensure that their branding efforts are achieving the necessary ROI. 

Some brief questions to ponder for next week’s post:

  • How do you measure your Employer Brand?
  • How do you know if you have an effective Employer Brand? 
  • Do you have a gauge on how your sources tie into your employer brand?
  • How are you measuring your customers’ recruiting experience?
  • Do you have a sense of why people join, stay, or leave your company?

In my next post we’ll begin to discuss these questions in more detail.  Also look for us at ERE San Diego where we’ll be talking about this during our session.

Posted in Bradley Savoy, Changing Role of the Recruiter, Elite Recruiters, Employer Brand, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Sales, Talent Aquisition | No Comments »

Good To Elite

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

For those folks that know us, we are passionate about the pursuit of being “Elite” recruiters.  Over the years, we have written about it on numerous occasions. 

 Some posts that have received chatter include:

Success Attributes of World-Class Recruiters

The Changing Role of the Recruiter

On March 10th, we will be facilitating a webinar with ERE entitled “Going from Good to Elite – Becoming an Elite Recruiter”.  In preparation for this event, I have been collaborating with colleagues in the industry discussing this topic and getting their opinions on: 

  • Skills/competencies of Elite Recruiters
  • What Elite Recruiters do that average recruiters don’t.
  • How to go from average or good to elite.

If you have thoughts/opinions on this topic, I would love your input. Just drop me a note (email)! 

Over the last year we have been working on a competency/skill model for recruiters.

If you are interested in taking a self-assessment, just click on the links below!

Recruiter Skills Assessment

Staffing Competency Assessment

I hope you all can join us for the webinar on the 10th! 

Just as important, I would love your input on this topic!

Posted in Changing Role of the Recruiter, David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Training, Talent Aquisition, Uncategorized | No Comments »

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