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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 »

Are you recruiting ‘Passive’ Candidates as if they were ‘Active’?

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

I had a recent conversation with a very frustrated hiring executive: The conversation resurfaced some ‘best practices’ around recruiting quality talent.

He was frustrated with the current recruitment efforts on critical to fill positions in his department. While they had gone through great lengths to deploy a sourcing strategy to drive quality, passive talent into the recruitment process, the vast majority of candidates they were interested in were “bailing” out of the process.

Pondering the situation, I asked a few simple questions to try and identify the root cause of the defects (for those that sat in on our 7-Deadly Sins webinar – - you know what I am talking about :o )).

  1. How are you engaging candidates into the process?
  2. How quickly are you engaging candidates into the process?
  3. Who are they meeting with on their first visit?
  4. Where are they meeting?  
  5. Does the candidate fully understand the next steps after their first meeting?

 The answers I received from the recruiter/hiring manager might not surprise you:

  1. “Well we have them go through the normal process.  If they are interested, we ask them to go online to register in our system”.
  2. “Once they hit the system, the recruiter is calling them within 24 hours – - hopefully – - to do a pre-screen with them.”
  3. “We like to have them come into the office and meet with the recruiter first – - then meet with the hiring manager.  Ideally, we like to get a slate of candidates to come in and interview all the same day/afternoon.  It is much more convenient for the hiring managers.”
  4. “Ideally – the office. It makes it easier for us.”
  5. “We let them know that we are interviewing several candidates and will have feedback within 3-5 business days.”

I think you know were I am going with this!

So after listening to his answers, I reflected and responded:

“So your managers are requesting the recruitment team to find the highest quality (often passive) talent possible but . . . you want the passive candidates to engage on your TERMS?

  • Fill out paperwork before I will talk to you
  • Come to my office
  • Sit in lobby with other candidates
  • Wait for a response

I don’t know about you folks, but if the University of Alabama used these technique to ‘recruit’ the most talented football players – - I bet they would not have won the national title last year!

While I don’t want to make light of this situation, I find this dilemma within hundreds of companies throughout the country.  Simply put:

They are trying to recruit quality, ‘Passive’ candidates with their ‘Active’ candidate process.

Organizations that excel in recruiting top talent, take a holistically different approach to the passive candidate recruitment efforts.

Some Best Practices

1.     How are you engaging candidates into the process?

Once the recruiter makes contact with a top prospect and does a preliminary pre-qualification (hopefully on the same call), they immediately seek to set up a “cup of coffee” meeting with a dynamic hiring manager.  No initial paper work. We can take care of that later. No resume? No problem, lets just meet and have an exploratory conversation.

2.     How quickly are you engaging candidates into the process?

Immediately (as outlined above)! I have worked with hiring managers that literally say – - if you get a top notch person on the phone, I will meet anywhere, anytime.

3.     Who are they meeting with on their first visit?

While I am not saying they shouldn’t meet with a recruiter on the first visit, the quicker you get them connected with a dynamic hiring manager the better.  From experience, it is much easier to engage a talented professional to have a “confidential, exploratory discussion over a cup of coffee” if for nothing else – - to network VERSUS – getting them to come for an interview with a recruiter!  

4.     Where are they meeting?

When you are not looking for a job, the last thing you would want is people to THINK you are looking.  Coming to a competitors office for a visit – - in this day and age of LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. – - is very risky at best.  And to ask them to sit in the lobby with other “candidates” is disrespectful in my book.

5. Does the candidate fully understand the next steps after the first meeting?

If you meet someone and like them, you should recruit that person. What is wrong with showing your excitement for taking the next steps – ask them their availability to meet with a key executive – - BEFORE you leave that first meeting?  I am not implying an offer? I am just showing sincere excitement about moving forward and keeping the positive momentum during our courtship!

These are simple best practices I have seen successfully deployed by organizations that don’t fall into the trap of trying to recruit quality, ‘Passive’ candidates with their ‘Active’ candidate process.

If you find yourself in this dilemma, please share this with your hiring managers :o )

Posted in Bradley Savoy, Candidate types, David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Top Gun, Recruiter Training, Sourcing, Talent Aquisition, Time Management, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Ensuring Staffing Process Excellence

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

By Bradley Savoy

This week I had the pleasure of presenting to our local SHRM chapter on Staffing Process Excellence. Here are some of the highlights:

I know what you’re thinking, “We’re hiring fewer people this year”, or “Our hiring’s flat, so why bother with a Staffing Process Excellence exercise?”

Whether you’re hiring 5 people or 10,000 (yes – there are still companies that are hiring that many people), it’s the beginning of someone’s tenure with your company, and it acts as an extension of your brand.

A Staffing Process that’s excellent will enable you to utilize Voice Of the Customer (VOC) data to define and deliver an error-free fulfillment process that will deliver world-class customer satisfaction, improved retention, and even quality of hire.

The simple steps in Staffing Process Excellence are:

  1. Gain Executive Buy-In.  With every process improvement initiative you need the executives’ buy-in.  Typically the best way to do this is to align the project to a business initiative.  Are you trying to trim costs, improve customer satisfaction, or reduce attrition.  All of these can be addressed with an improved staffing process.
  2. Gather the Voice Of the Customer data.   Begin by using surveys, focus groups, or other channels to tap into the perspective of those that work through your process each day.  Hiring managers, candidates, recruiters, and others that are involved, should be consulted on how the process should look.  Find out what opportunities exist to streamline the process from their perspectives.
  3. Gather Process CTQ’s (Critical to Quality).   These are aspects that are critical to meeting and exceeding customer expectations.  These will also typically come as part of your exercise to gather the VOC information from your stakeholders.
  4. Align the process.  By now you have the needs of the customer (VOC) and you’ve gathered those aspects of the process that are critical to them (CTQ).  Now you have to align the two, making sure the wants of the customer and the critical needs can be met.  Exec or Org.  Initiatives??
  5. Define the staffing process.    At some companies this is a detailed chart of the staffing life cycle; for others it’s a simple list of bullet points.  While best-in-class is a clearly articulated and defined process, even bullet points on a Word document are a start.  The end goal is that with the input from customers you can now define the world-class process – and the best part is no one can say “Hey you didn’t ask me!” because each of the customer segments gave their input.
  6. Educate, Implement, and Continuously Measure the new process.  You’ve put all of this effort into your new process; now make sure it “sticks!”  Don’t just email the new process out to everyone; instead, leverage executive buy in to have a big kickoff.  Executive announcements, internal staff meetings, and even e-mails can have more power jointly coming from line execs and HR/recruiting.

You’re also going to need to educate each of the stakeholders on the new process, and then of course continually measure the results.  Consistent surveys, focus groups, etc with the “customers” of the process will ensure long-term adherence.

If you have questions on staffing process excellence, or you’d like to discuss an audit of your staffing process, contact me

Posted in Bradley Savoy, Changing Role of the Recruiter, David, David Szary, Deadly Sins of Waste in Recruiting, Elite Recruiters, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Sales, Recruiter Training, Strategic Business Partner, Talent Aquisition, Uncategorized | No Comments »

“Seven Deadly Sins of Waste” in Recruiting – Preview

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

I found an excellent report on Lean (Toyota production Systems – TPS) by Wharton and the Boston Consulting Group called, “Rethinking Lean: Beyond the Shop Floor.”

It provides excellent examples of how you can apply the principles of waste elimination and process efficiency within service organizations (including healthcare and financial service industries). 

As I read the report, it became evident why implementing the principles of waste elimination, worker involvement and continuous improvement within the recruitment/hiring process can be so successful.  

While the principles of waste elimination, worker involvement and CI haven’t changed much since TPS was created 50 years ago the results are very impressive.

In January, we will discuss eliminating the “seven deadly sins of waste” in the recruitment process.

If you are interested in how we use the principles of lean, materials release planning, and supply chain optimization to answer the age old question, “What is the acceptable number of requisitions per recruiter?” check out our published white paper on the subject.

I hope you have a great “pre-holiday” week!

Some snippets that I found particularly interesting from the report are outlined below:

  • “Do you understand your customer segments?” Can you serve the most valued customer more effectively?
  • Companies should always begin their lean efforts by asking, “What are you trying to achieve?” “It doesn’t begin with a rule. And it’s not about isolating one piece of the business and deciding its fate.  It’s about rethinking every business process.” “It’s not about cost cutting across the board,” he says. “It’s about judicious investing. It’s not about starving. It’s about building muscle, trimming fat.”
  • Many companies struggle to align lead times, inventory and other data to financial measures, even with performance metrics in place.  This is probably because they are not measuring the right things. Instead of coming to a better understanding of your organization and how to improve it, “Many die a death of a thousand metrics.”
  • “When people think about lean, they often associate it with reducing the workforce,” Faber says, “But the cost is not in the line labor; it’s in the overhead.”
  • A key part of Lean involves looking at the business differently. You need to have metrics on moving applicants through the staffing supply chain. That requires sourcers, recruiters, coordinators, HR business partners, and hiring managers engage in a collective dialogue around ensuring efficiency.
  • In manufacturing no one sees how things get made. They probably don’t care. But in staffing/hiring – customers see the process and it is extremely personal.  So if your service doesn’t track customer dissatisfaction you might never know what people thing about your organization.
  • Lean initiatives begin with identifying and standardizing a process. “Try to think of your business as repetitive. Once you have that identified – think of how long someone stays in that process, the waste being created, the dissatisfaction occurring, and the impact of that person staying in that process. Next, measure performance.
  • TPS is a way of life. A continuous improvement process that never stops. TPS wasn’t implemented just once. Its constant improvement, constant innovation and constant elimination of extra steps. The most important principle is that this is not a four-month project. You will see benefits, but you must do it continually.
  • Key principles of lean ask the following questions, “What is important? What matters to the customer? What delivers value?”
  • Lean is not new or rocket science. It’s like your diet. You know what to eat and how much to eat but old habits are hard to break. That is why behavior modification, measurement, accountability, training is so important.
  • “Lean works best as a balanced top-down and bottom-up effort.” Christian Terwiesch, a Wharton professor, remembers trying to talk with hospitals about lean initiatives several years ago. “They thought I was evil. They said ‘We’re doctors. We help people.’ Now these same institutions have chief medical officers saying, ‘We want to run this place like Toyota!’”

Posted in Bradley Savoy, David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Training, Strategic Business Partner, Talent Aquisition, Time Management, Transactional Recruiter, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Best Practices in Moving to a Management by Fact Culture

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

McKinsey recently released results of a study of practices of 230 companies across the globe.

The firm’s primary goal was simple – what makes companies perform well?  For the sake of this post, I’ll hone in on one key point:

“Executives, in their search for ways to make organizations function more successfully, frequently adopt simplistic solutions.   A new analysis of more than 230 global businesses shows that combinations of carefully selected actions can be far more effective than one-dimensional interventions.”

McKinsey makes an interesting point here.  In some cases adopting the simple – or easy – solution is not always the best approach.  Unfortunately in many instances the decisions are made through a high degree of subjectivity and then tempered with a small depth of objective criteria (data).

Over the last 20 years, management concepts such as the balanced scorecard, process management, key performance indicators (KPI’s) and strategy deployment have prompted many executives to revisit their measurement systems.   Practices such as Management by Objective (MBO) and Management by Fact (MBF) have become increasingly popular. 

Successful companies strive to combine real world management experience with the objectivity of data.  This is not to negate the subjective experience of a tenured executive, but to aid in their arsenal of decision making tools. 

As a result, many companies are adopting objective based measurement systems.   These systems ensure objective data measurement is added to uncover the missing elements, or facts, needed to make key decisions.

So if you’re aiming to launch a new measurement system to shift your culture to one of Management by Fact, here are my top three best practices to consider:

  1. Tie your measurement criteria to the goals of the business.   Each business unit or department of your company must provide input related to their specific business goals, and the needs of their customers.  During this exercise the synergies of various departments will come to light.  For example, customer loyalty could exist across multiple departments, and the overall company strategy.  If that is the case, customer loyalty then becomes a key indicator of performance across the various departmental stakeholders.  In this example, an overarching measurement criterion may be customer retention or customer satisfaction. 
  2. Ensure adoption and accountability at the right levels.  Those parties responsible for this new way of thinking must have the knowledge and authority to manage the performance of new processes.  Establishment of a core team of metrics and process owners representing critical functions of the organization is critical to ensure the mind shift is successful. 
  3. Communication is key.  Development of a comprehensive communication strategy is critical to ensure broad understanding and acceptance.  All employees need to understand the importance of the new philosophy and their roles within this process.  Care should be taken to ensure that each employee is able to answer the question, “What’s in it for me?”  Each employee needs a clear understanding of how they, as an individual, can impact key metrics.  Creating communication aids such as learning maps and utilizing executives to act as personal communication channels can increase acceptance of the strategies as the goals of the organization are achieved.

If you’d like to lean more and see a great example of utilizing the Management by Fact approach, check out David’s article on why requisitions per recruiter is not a great method for resource planning.

Companies will achieve success by ensuring that the management measurement solutions they create tie to core business objectives and are accepted, adopted, and communicated effectively by all stakeholders of the process.

Posted in Bradley Savoy, Changing Role of the Recruiter, David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Top Gun, Recruiter Training, Recruiting Buzz, Relationship Recruiter, Strategic Business Partner, Talent Aquisition, Time Management, Uncategorized | No Comments »

What every Recruiter Can Learn from Spaghetti Sauce

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

I was introduced to this great video clip by Malcolm Gladwell the other day. Malcolm Gladwell is the best-selling author of “The Tipping Point” and “Blink”. In this talk, he explains what every business can learn from spaghetti sauce.

As I watched it, I realized not only what every business can learn from spaghetti sauce but also what recruiters can learn from spaghetti sauce.

A core message (amongst many) in his presentation is the concept of “embracing the diversity of human beings”.

He shares how back in the 70’s, spaghetti manufacturers like Ragu and Presto were all trying to make the “perfect spaghetti sauce”. What they failed to understand is that there is no “perfect spaghetti sauce” because all of us have different tastes, likes, etc.

This core message applies to candidates. I think all too often organizations spend too much time and money trying to come up with a core brand image or theme of why individuals should work for their organization. They are trying to create “the perfect image” which will entice everyone to want to work for their organization which as Malcom illustrates . . . is not possible.

With that said, I find most recruiters spent way too little time embracing the diversity of candidates and identifying and understanding what is truly important to a specific candidate and then communicating how their organization can (or cannot) meet those objectives/needs.

Outlined below are some simple questions you can ask (we embed these in our Candidate Pre-screen/Interview process) to help identify a candidates true motives, needs, wants, concerns, etc.

What is the biggest concern you have in your position right now in relation to your future?

  • On scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you in your current position? What would have to change to make it a 10?
  • Have you spoken to your manager about making these changes?
  • What are going to be your 3 most important criteria you will use in your decision to accept or not accept a position?
  • (Depending on the answers above) What would a new position have to offer you that would get you to leave your current one?

The information gathered by asking these questions is critical for:

  • Developing rapport with your candidate
  • Ensuring your organization (as well as the position) is a great match for their needs
  • Gathering the intelligence critical to successfully “closing the candidate”

If you are not spending at least 5-10 minutes understanding “what type of spaghetti sauce they want or like”, your probability of luring top talent to your organization is greatly diminished.

The other point I believe recruiters can take from this video is that people (and in this case, hiring managers) often don’t know exactly what they want. Malcolm made this point by revealing that when interrogated about their spaghetti preferences, no one ever said “Extra Chunky” and yet, what do you think is the most popular type of spaghetti sauce? That’s right – Extra Chunky! Often we, as recruiters and HR Managers, expect the hiring manager to tell us what type of candidate they’re seeking for a certain position. The truth is, most hiring managers don’t know! The better question to ask is, “What needs to get done?”

We all know that people with different sets of skills and different backgrounds can be successful in the same types of jobs, yet we continuously try to narrow the scope of candidates we review to the point that we are certainly passing up people who could be excellent. Too often the discussions between recruiter /HR manager and hiring manager focus on personality traits or soft skills instead of the business problems to be solved with the hiring of this new individual. The hiring manager will spend a lot of time talking about the fact that they want someone who is energetic, driven, dedicated, etc., etc…..sometimes to the point that they say, “I’ll know it when I see it!” While personality traits are certainly part of the hiring process, in the end it’s all about results. Our job as recruiters/hr managers is to guide the hiring manager through their thought process to determine the necessary experience/skills the candidate needs in order to get the job done and then quantify each aspect so that we understand the level of expertise needed for each. Some sample questions we like to ask hiring managers include:

  • What isn’t getting done currently because this position hasn’t been filled? (i.e., what precipitated the need for the position?)
  • How will you know if the candidate has the right level of experience with… (I ask this question regarding every skill or type of experience the hiring manager states as a requirement. They often haven’t thought through this yet and this is a wonderful question to help them start formulating the questions they’ll want to ask in the interview. I also ask them for sample questions I can use in my screening to make sure I’m able to gauge whether or not the candidate has the right level of expertise in each area.) I follow this question with, “And how will the individual be using this skill/experience in the job?”
  • We all know that you can have two candidates with the same number of years of experience and one is very good while the other isn’t. What will the right candidate need to have accomplished in their past position(s) to give you the confidence they can succeed in this position?

Working through these questions with the hiring manager helps all involved to get away from envisioning just one type of candidate (spaghetti sauce!) that can fill the position and be open to the fact that there may be several candidates from a variety of backgrounds who can get the job done (and maybe even bring some new perspective to the company!)

While the video of Malcolm is a little lengthy (18 minutes), I think it is a great one to watch!

I hope you had a nice holiday weekend!

EMBRACE THE DIVERSITY OF HUMAN BEINGS!

Posted in Bradley Savoy, Candidate Pipeline, Candidate types, David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Sales, Recruiter Training, Sourcing, Strategic Business Partner, Talent Aquisition, Transactional Recruiter, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Developing an Effective Recruiter Training Program

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

Perhaps one of the most neglected functions for on-going development is the recruiting function. Most organizations hire recruiters based on previous experience and then expect them to apply that experience into their culture and hiring processes with minimal instruction.

The majority of training for recruiters is focused on technology training, whether it’s the applicant tracking system, the candidate database, performance management, or HRIS system. These are just the technology elements of the job.

A career recruiter will bring a strong foundation of skills in sourcing, screening, creation, and closing of candidate offers, etc. Those coupled with technology understanding are the fundamental skills any recruiter will need to be successful.

However, there are a few things that a company will need to provide in order to make the recruiter successful in your company environment:

  • What is the detailed employment value proposition that makes your company more attractive than your competition?
  • Within the department or group of jobs that the recruiter is aligned to, what are the aspects of that department or job that makes it more attractive? What are the pitfalls?
  • What are the opportunities the recruiter can “sell” that differentiates your company from another?

Here are some best practices in developing an effective recruiter training program:

Design your program to address gaps in the competencies of your recruiters.

First, you need to gain an understanding of the fundamental competencies that are most important for your recruiters. If you looked at your most successful recruiters, which competencies or behaviors set them apart from the others? Do they know the business for which they recruit better than their peers? Are they better “closers”, securing more hires per offer than their peers? If you don’t have a sense of this, then consider creating a Success Profile.

Conducting a series of focus groups or interviews with your recruiters, and the subsequent analysis, creates a tool that acts as a roadmap to management and all recruiters demonstrating the traits and competencies of your best recruiters. Once this is complete, you can then analyze the gaps within the rest of your department. Once you have this gap analysis completed, you can then design the elements of your program. These program elements would address gaps that exist in your current staff, not teaching them something they already know.

Use an external party to train.

The biggest mistake a company can make is to have their staffing or HR executives act as coaches to the people they manage everyday. The executives are to act as everyday coaches and developers of the talent, but in a forum such as this, the executive’s supervisory capacity can conflict with his or her role as a trainer.

In addition, the external party can bring best practices outside of the company’s environment that have worked across multiple organizations. Finally, an external party creates a more open environment, in which dissenting opinions, everyday issues, and other frustrations can be voiced in a “safe” environment.

Have a plan to evaluate success.

It can be as simple as a training evaluation form that is completed by attendees at the end of the course, or a focus group conducted after the session. The key is to gain a sense from the attendees that the content mapped to the competencies you planned to address in the training. This will entail setup on the front end and analysis of the results of the evaluation forms/focus groups, but this is a key step.

Commit to on-going training & effectiveness.

Establish a focus group with recruiting leaders 3 months after the training program to determine the effectiveness of the program and address any remaining areas for improvement. Commit to providing the same training program as on-boarding for ALL new recruiters that enter your organization. Finally, plan to update your training every 6 months and launch the program once a year for all recruiters.

Posted in Bradley Savoy, Candidate Pipeline, Candidate types, Changing Role of the Recruiter, David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Training, Relationship Recruiter, Talent Aquisition, Transactional Recruiter, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Thoughts from the road!

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Over the last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to participate in numerous industry events allowing me to talk “shop” with many talented staffing professionals.

 As always, these events allow me to learn from others and provide me time to incubate thoughts/ideas that often turn into future strategies. 

 Some interesting thoughts/ideas from my travels:

  • Ideally, I think most would agree that hiring people based on competencies (versus skills) will drive better hiring decisions. Unfortunately, because it is not easy to assess someone’s competencies, we most often hire based on skills.  With internal candidates, we should have a more accurate understanding of past performance, candidate competencies, etc. allowing us truly to focus the hiring decision based more on competencies versus skills.
  • Probably only 5 to 20% of all hires need some type of direct sourcing activity. Do you understand the positions that will NOT be filled by active/internal candidates before you dedicate time, money, and resources on active/internal strategies that take precious time away from direct sourcing activities?
  • Shally Steckerl challenged the thought that one’s internal website is a “source of hire” – rather, it is a destination.  Think about it.  Most often candidates search for jobs via ‘google searches’, job boards, sites like www.simplyhired.com or www.indeed.com, SEO/SEM, social networking, advertising, etc. If one source of hires is your website, you probably do not truly understand how your candidates ‘found’ your opportunities. 
  • For those of you that have multiple license agreements with large job boards, how many of your recruiters actually use them on a regular basis?  Many companies have saved money by cutting back on licenses!
  • David Lord had some interesting statistics on retained executive search firms. 
    • The submitted candidate to hire ratio for retained search firms was 6.5 to 1 in 07 and 5.2 to 1 in 08.  Is this more efficient than your internal team?
    • 4 out of 10 retained executive searches fail!  WOW!   
  • While most executives see recruiting as “essential”, do they really perceive it to be strategic to their organization? One way to shift their thoughts is to answer the question, “How does recruiting solve corporate problems?”
  • Here’s an idea – Create an annual report for your 2009 recruitment activity/ performance. Present the report to CXX level.
  • To truly create an effective Talent Relationship Program, you need to get hiring managers involved with the ‘relationship management’ activity.
  • If your sourcing team does an effective job of identifying/sourcing quality talent for key job families over time, your sourcing team will spend less time “identifying” talent and more time developing relationships with the talent found!   
  • Create questions to ask your hiring managers:
    • What positions are most critical for changing the market value of our company?
    • What positions are less critical and really only need good people? 

Posted in Bradley Savoy, Changing Role of the Recruiter, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, Just-In-Time hiring, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Sales, Recruiter Top Gun, Recruiter Training, Relationship Recruiter, Social Media, Sourcing, Strategic Business Partner, Talent Aquisition, Transactional Recruiter, Uncategorized | No Comments »

52 reasons why someone should join your organization!

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Regardless of the economic conditions, top talent is always in demand, difficult to find and even tougher to hire!

Critical to your success is developing – - and articulating – - a positive brand regarding your company, the culture, and the career opportunities that exist within your organization.

We recently did a pretty cool exercise with a company that resulted in some awesome marketing material and recruitment collateral.

At a recent HR/recruiter meeting, we posed the following questions to the entire staff:

  • What truly are your candidates’ motives?
    • Why would they leave their current organization and join yours?
    • Why would they select your organization versus your competitor’s?
    • What is important to the candidate in accepting a position with a new company?

Then we asked them to articulate 52 reasons why someone would want to join their organization versus the competition

Now when we started the exercise, we started getting the same canned marketing clichés that EVERYONE uses:

  • We have a dynamic culture.
  • We have excellent benefits.
  • Our employees are #1.
  • Blah, Blah, Blah….

So I encouraged the team to develop articulate, granular statements that would convey flashy adjectives like “great”, “excellent”, “flexible”, etc. without using the same words everyone else uses. Instead of saying, “We have excellent benefits”, explain or quantify why they are excellent.

Phrases started to come out like:

Great Benefits

  1. Cutting edge, innovative healthcare program
  2. 100% preventative healthcare coverage
  3. Health Savings Account; Triple Tax Savings!
  4. 50% match on 401k/retirement plan up to 6%
  5. Healthcare coverage as low as $1.00/week!

In the end, we were able to craft 52 reasons why to join this company under the following categories (note – this is a manufacturing company):

  • Company Stability
  • Career Path
  • Great Benefits
  • Ongoing Education
  • Work Schedules
  • Trivia
  • Innovation
  • Face behind the Face
  • Global Expansion
  • Safety 1st
  • XYZ family

 
So did you figure out why we challenged the team to come up with 52 reasons why a candidate would join their company? We ended up creating a customized playing card deck with these statements on each card.

Talk about a cool branding tool. This organization currently uses them at a job fairs, gives them to employees, etc.

The response has been amazing. Many fellow “job fair” recruiters have asked how to get their hands on such a customized branding tool that candidates will use (especially college grads).

Employees have commented, “I didn’t know all these things about our company!”

This organization has gone even farther with these statements to hang them in hallways, cafeterias, etc.

The statements have become great reminders about the company they work for and the great things it has to offer.

If you are interested in obtaining more information on performing this worthwhile exercise and/or examples of these playing cards – - please contact me!

Posted in Bradley Savoy, David, David Szary, Elite Recruiters, LEAN recruitment, Lean Human Capital, Recruiter, Recruiter Academy, Recruiter Boot Camp, Recruiter Sales, Talent Aquisition, Uncategorized | No Comments »

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