LEAN, Just-in-Time Recruiting!

As the market continues to improve (thank goodness?!) some of you are screaming because you’re still inundated with too many requisitions and way, way, way too many candidates.  Yet it’s important to remember that as the market does continue to improve that we need to be even more aware of the viral impact of how we treat candidates.  The viral impact refers to Six Degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon, where every candidate knows at least 6 more people (or 500) that may be qualified to work at your organization.  For every potentially negative experience we give a candidate, the ripple effect of the experience will pervade the market, and sap your reputation as a recruiter and that of your employer brand.

Here are 3 simple techniques you can apply right away to improve candidate satisfaction and positively impact your employer brand!

1. Explain the Hiring Process – We all know that candidates consistently get frustrated when they don’t know what’s happening next or what the steps look like in the hiring process.  Best in class organizations have a moderately detailed overview of the hiring process on their career site, so that at a high level candidates understand the major steps in the process.  Some have even gone so far as to put relative timelines for each step online!  Another more tactical approach that can be applied right away is to give a high level overview of the process in an email correspondence you send to your candidate at each stage.  
   1. An example would be:  ”Carrie we have you scheduled for an interview with Bradley next Wednesday at 10am.  Once that step is complete I will gather feedback from the interviewers and then schedule a follow up call with you within 3 days.  If we decide to move forward from that stage we will schedule a second round of interviews within two weeks based on everyone’s schedules.  After gathering feedback from the final stage of interviews we will be able to make a decision and discuss an offer with you if appropriate within another week.”
   2. So with the above outline the candidate has a sense of what’s next in the process and the timing of when they will hear back from recruiting.  You can set this up as a general signature you select from your email that could be used for high volume positions or even critical to fill positions. 
2. Create a warm report – Create a list of candidates that you need to “keep warm” or engaged in the hiring process.  Each week you assign CIE (calls, interruptions, emails) or MTN (Move the Needle) time to contact each candidate with either an email or brief voice mail to let them know you’re still driving the recruiting process for them and still interested in their candidacy.  The frequency of contact and personal touch will give them a better perception of the experience with you and will positively impact your brand.
3. Spend 5 more minutes on the phone – The best recruiters spend an extra bit of time with their candidates. Whether it’s during the initial phone screen or a simple update on their status in the process those 5 extra minutes will set you apart from the competition and may even allow you to probe more on critical aspects.  
   1. Some example topics might be “Hey you mentioned you were exploring other opportunities with XYZ, whatever happened with that?  Are they moving forward?  Have any other opportunities come up for you?”  OR “You know we’re growing again and just opened 3 more requisitions in Nursing.  Do you know of any other RN’s that might be interested in opportunities with us?”

Try these simple tactics in the next week and send me any success stories you have.  If you have other simple tactics you use I would love to hear them, and I’ll highlight you in a follow up blog post!

As many of you know, I have partnered with Rebecca O’Neil at HealthcareSource to provide Just-in-Time Education Video’s/Podcasts on topics we are passionate about and/or questions we receive from recruiters across the country.

In our latest audio episode of Just-in-Time Education, we had fun with the topic – “You Can’t Manage what You Don’t Measure”  Download the MP3 file to listen to our 6 minute podcast or click here and listen to it online! 

In our latest Video – we hit on a topic I wrote about last October – “Recruiters – The Backbone of an Organization”.  Check it out below.

Happy Leap Year Day!

In our training classes we enable recruiters to find their Passion Statement. The Passion Statement is THE statement that defines your value as a recruiter; it’s what your passion enables you to do.
 
My favorite example of a Passion Statement is: ”I change people’s lives for a living!” This is a real life story of how a recruiter not only changed lives, but saved one.
 
A couple of weeks ago I was in the middle of small talk with a guy named Mark in the seat next to me on the plane. Inevitably the question of what I do for a living came up and I explained what we do at LEAN.
 
Usually people ask more questions trying to understand the philosophy of LEAN (or simply what recruiting is!).  He quickly said “Oh, so you consult recruiters in the healthcare industry? Well tell them to keep up the good work, because, one of them helped save my life.”
 
When Mark was only 29 years old he was at work one day and complained of chest pains.  After a few minutes he realized this pain was more than simple heartburn and he asked a co-worker to take him to the ER.  His wife rushed over just in time to give him a hug and sit next to him holding his hand. When the results came back, the Doctor presented some terrible news. Apparently his heart had grown to twice its size, and the prognosis was that he had about 4 months to live, unless they could find him a heart donor.  A couple of months of anxious waiting went by and one night Mark walked into the bedroom to find his wife crying. She was pregnant.  They both tried their best to be strong for each other but this was going to be their first child, and maybe their only one.  After a restless night Mark awoke to the phone ringing at 6am. They had found him a heart.  A year later Mark is doing fine and enjoying his 3 month old daughter named Emily.  
 
Mark shared with me that from the moment he learned of his condition, to the testing, to the surgery, to the recovery, he felt he had received the best care he could have ever imagined. Everyone that he came into contact with (admins, orderlies, nurses, doctors) seemed to have a true sense of passion for his care as a patient.  
 
Mark said that the people I work with, you as recruiters, helped to save his life by hiring the right people that were passionate and caring about what they do. Without your passionate work effort, the hospitals and systems we work with would not find the passionate, dedicated talent to care for our patients and deliver quality care.
 
So as you think about your passion statement, I challenge you to think of Mark, and realize that you not only change people’s lives for a living, but you also have a great impact in saving them!
 
The recruiters, employees, and system referenced in this story all work at Ochsner Health System in New Orleans, LA. Keep up the good work team, and I’m proud to have you as a client!
 
Bradley Savoy | LEAN

Setting the most important SLA & Weekly Communication!

When performing hiring manager Voice of the Customer surveys, one of the biggest complaints hiring managers continually bring up is the lack of communication regarding their open position(s) from their recruiters.

I want to discuss two simple tactics you can implement tomorrow to improve hiring manager satisfaction.

1. Implement the Service Level Agreement (SLA) – Requisition Received to First Submittal

This is arguably the most important SLA you can set with your managers.  It is the time between receiving a requisition (and doing the intake session) and routing over the first candidate (or slate of candidates) to interview. Most recruiters don’t set hiring manager’s expectations of when they should start seeing applicant flow.  The manager says I want the position filled “ASAP” and typically the recruiter says “I am on it”.  Managers don’t know if they should start seeing resumes the next day or three weeks from now.

I wrote a blog on this SLA a couple of years ago. I would check it out to learn more!

2. Weekly Status update around 12 noon on Fridays

One question in our Hiring Manager Satisfaction Survey is:  How often do you want status about your open positions from your recruiter? Over 80% of hiring managers we surveyed said weekly.

If you can get into a ‘weekly communication rhythm’ of providing status on Friday afternoons (a simple email regarding activity, candidates in process, etc.), you can help eliminate the ‘fear of the unknown’ that usually exists with managers.  Since they haven’t heard from you, they are usually fearful that you are not working their requisition or simply don’t know what you are doing!

Providing them a quick status (via email) will go a long way for eliminating this fear and instilling confidence in your search strategy. Even if your status is “I don’t have new candidates for you to interview but . . . this is what I am doing to find top talent “, it at least shows that their position is important to you and you do have a plan of attack to fill it.

We have found the best time to send your Activity Status is around 12pm on Friday afternoons. Since most folks usually reflect on what they accomplished (and didn’t) during the week on Friday and . . . what they need to accomplish during the next week on Monday . . . it is best to connect with the manager before they connect with you, since one of the things on their plate is filling their open positions!

If you have not developed and implemented these two best practices, I would encourage you to start this week. Send out your first Activity Status this Friday letting managers know they should expect this status update each Friday.

From experience, this will go a long way towards improving hiring manager satisfaction! 

I hope you have a Perfect Day!

Over the last month, I have been working with my clients analyzing CY 2011 recruitment performance, calibrating performance scorecards and planning LEAN transformation initiatives for 2012.

I wanted to share some of the interesting insights and ’Ah-ha’s we have uncovered that can help you:

• Quantify ROI to key stakeholders
• Identify/drive performance improvement initiatives
• Celebrate success!

1.       Increased Time-to-Fill (TTF) could be a good thing:  We had a couple of clients that had a few positions trending over 250 days old.  They implemented aggressive client management tactics and proactive sourcing strategies to fill the positions. The client is happy. The recruiter is happy. But since these positions closed in Q4, their overall TTF increased in Q4!  You should celebrate success regarding closing these positions!  I would recommend putting an Asterisk (*) next to this data point and add a comment on your scorecard related to filling X position and Y position in 250 and 265 days respectively.  I would also recommend outlining TTF with these positions pulled out.  This will reflect the positiveness associated with filling the position even though TTF went up that quarter

2.       Your overall Applications to Hire metric is trending too high (which means you spend too much time dis-positioning unqualified applicants). I would isolate those positions that are driving waste and figure out how to reduce applicant flow.  It is usually high volume, non-exempt positions with minimal requirements to apply. Consider:

• Reducing the amount of time you keep the position posted (shut down after you get enough quality applicant flow).
• Be more specific  with your requirements.

3.       Don’t treat each opening equally!  Every position is not equally important with respect to Cost of Vacancy, patient safety and patient satisfaction.  You need to work with your managers to define positions based on these critical factors and other business objectives. Don’t assume you are working on the positions that are the most important. And don’t let the “squeakiest manager that barks loudest” drive your activity.  Also avoid working on and filling the positions that are the ‘easiest to get off your plate’ :) Consider:

• If your ATS system has ‘knock-out’ functionality – be specific about minimum qualifications.

Driving a Lean recruitment process requires constant commitment to driving performance improvement initiatives such as these.

And Top 5 Recruitment Trends for 2012!

This year, I have partnered with Rebecca McNeil from HealthcareSource to co-host Just-in-Time Educational segments!  We plan on tackling topics that are relevant to the challenges recruiters face!

Check out the podcast we did with Miranda Maynard of EMH Healthcare regarding the Top 5 Recruitment trends of 2012.

We also had fun creating a short video on Avoiding Recruiters Rut.

I tell you, I have been practicing what I preach in this video since the beginning of the New Year and…it has helped be more productive, focused and fulfilled every day!

I hope you are having a Perfect Day!

One of the class exercises in our Recruiter Academy Certified Education Program is identifying rebuttals for unrealistic expectations from hiring managers.

The first step in the exercise is to identify unrealistic expectations.  Outlined below are a few of the expectations the students have discussed. 

Sound familiar? !

Whenever I facilitate this exercise, I am reminded how much time, effort and energy is wasted when we are not able to overcome (or more importantly – avoid) these unrealistic expectations.  

If you do not consult your managers and educate them on why these are unrealistic (and set realistic service level agreements) . . . your job becomes TWICE AS HARD!

Elite Recruiters are skilled at avoiding and/or overcoming these unrealistic expectations.

If some of these apply to you (see below), I would recommend that you dedicate some time to develop rebuttals to the ones that cause you the most pain . 

I plan on providing rebuttals to common unrealistic expectations in the near future!  So please shoot me an email of other expectations not listed below that you might be experiencing, and any special rebuttals you may use to overcome some of the ones outlined below!

I hope you are having a Perfect Day! 

_________________________________________________________________________

Unrealistic Expectations from Hiring Managers

ASAP To fill:

• That we will have qualified candidates the day we post the job!
• Wanting a new position filled yesterday.
• Hire a hard to fill job in less than 2 weeks.
• Want position filled ASAP but they don’t make room on their calendar for interviews.
• Wanting to offer a position on Thursday or Friday and have the applicant start on Monday.

You work on MY schedule!

• Wanting you to drop everything for their phone call or email…constant communication. 
• If you are on the phone making an offer you can’t answer their phone call.

I follow my own process!

• Expecting a high quality hire with a poorly defined job (requirements/qualifications).
• Hire someone prior to credentialing being complete because they need someone to start now!
• Give me the information to schedule interviews in the afternoon for the applicants to interview the next morning.
• After I’ve sent over 15 qualified applications and the position has been placed on hold, the manager wants you to repost the job so 1 person can apply.
• Find me a candidate for this position, but you can’t post the job or tell anyone that we actually have an opening.
• Wanting applicants to interview with 10 + executives and have it scheduled in 2 days.
• Not really knowing what they’re looking for but expecting us to fill the job-they will just know when it ‘feels’ right…

Candidate experience/compensation issues:

• I want someone who has the most experience, education, skills – but I don’t want to pay them that much money.
• Wanting the best qualified candidate, yesterday, and they don’t want to pay them their market value!

Other unrealistic demands!

• Oh by the way, I have a preferred candidate I forgot to tell you about, after you’ve screened 100 candidates.
• Changing their mind about which specific position they want offered to a candidate after the offer is already made!
• Being responsible for coordinating a large group to interview one person….along with travel time, hotels, airline, etc.