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November 24, 2010

More Value from Your Social Media

Kevin Wheeler wrote about Social Media on his ERE post Nov 23.

Kevin offers an excellent invitation to have a strategy and metrics for social media sourcing.  Each one of the social media sources offers a different front end to the candidate experience.  Each social media has a user base of potential candidates with similarities and differences.  The use of exceptional HR analytics can help identify the meaningful differences.

To optimize social media it must tracked by source through various stages and filters such as number of candidates who engaged in the application process by source, number of hires by source and quality of hire by source. 

Sources can vary significantly in overall yield. That means more objective understanding of the value stream is essential.  An example of a firm doing it well is here.  This client case study has lessons to leverage.

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | November 24th, 2010
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, Tags: | Posted in Candidate Experience, HR Analytics

September 30, 2010

Social Media and Quality of Candidate | Candidate Competencies Vary by Source (Part 2)

A few months ago, I posted a blog on social media and quality of candidate. In the post, I suggested that we need to use HR analytics to evaluate this source of candidates not only by the volume of candidates generated but also by the quality of candidates produced.  We conducted some preliminary analysis using assessment scores from the client’s Virtual Job Tryout and candidate conversion rate (what percentage of candidates that actually hired from a source) as quality of candidate measures.  Results were somewhat mixed, but suggested that social media was generating a quality of candidate that was less than other sources used by the organization (e.g., referrals, job boards, etc.).

Candidate hiring rate varies by social media source

Well, we dug a little deeper into this data and a very interesting picture emerged.  When we looked at the data by the various social media sites used by recruiters, two surfaced as being particularly effective:  LinkedIn and Facebook.   Candidates sourced via LinkedIn performed much better on the pre-employment assessment than candidates sourced through other channels.  In addition, these candidates were hired at a higher rate than the typical candidate.  This pattern held true for Facebook as well, but the results were not as impressive.

Candidate quality varies by social media source

We also compared pre-employment assessment results for candidates surfaced from LinkedIn versus Facebook and found some differences that at first glance seem to make sense.  Candidates sourced through LinkedIn performed better on professionally oriented competencies such as Leads Courageously, Develops Others, and Achieves Results.  Conversely, candidates sourced via Facebook performed better on more socially oriented competencies such as Customer Focus and Works Well with Others.  Source can impact quality of hire.

While we have only scratched the surface here, these results from detailed HR analytics show that there is great promise and potential value to evaluating social media, as well as other recruiting sources, on the quality of its yield.  Further, the data suggests that different social media channels generate different types of candidates with unique competencies and characteristics.  Recruiters can use this kind of information to drive more strategic sourcing efforts by placing their bets on the channels that are best aligned with the type of candidate they’re looking to source.

Part 1

Posted by: Mike Hudy | September 30th, 2010
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, Tags: | Posted in Client Case Studies, HR Analytics

July 7, 2010

Raghav Singh(s) the Blues

Raghav Singh(s) the Blues in his ERE post on Social Media.  Although he suggests it might be more like Lawrence Welk’s “Wonderful wonderful.” Mechanical bubbles with a brief rise, then a burst.

Citing data, such as the number of connections and time spent in social media activities are interesting commentary on the role these virtual communities play in our life.  When Shally Steckerl found the upper limit of LinkedIn via connection mania, the superficial side of digital relationships was exposed.

Fact is, recruiters are sourcing candidates from these pools and companies are making hiring decisions.  Like Steve Lewis mentions in his comment on Raghav’s article, he is taking Deluxe into new space and hopes to share his results.  He is waiting for his data to come in.

Well it has been happening long enough to evaluate on-the-job performance of those social media hires.  Those data are starting to tell the rest of the story. 

We did some social media – quality of hire analytics with one client and found some interesting results regarding yield and quality of hire scores by competency, by source.  To learn more check out our summary here.

To expand your network, and begin to develop a new relationship, call us at 216.292.0202 and ask for  my colleague Mike Hudy.  He would be delighted to provide additional details from his work with HR Analytics.

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | July 7th, 2010
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June 25, 2010

Disruptive Recruiting and Pre-Employment Assessments

Kevin Wheeler in his June 17 ERE article discusses Disruptive Recruiting and asks us to rethink recruiting.  Specifically he suggests automation and process simplification, among others.  I had an opportunity to ask Kevin about improving the candidate experience at ERE, where he suggested we make it easy to apply.  We may have made it too easy to apply. While valued from the candidate perspective, making it too easy to apply creates severe unintended consequences for the company and the recruiters.

A few years ago I did a survey, asking if the candidate experience was measured or evaluated.  The vast majority of companies (86%) DO NOT ask candidates for feedback about their on-line employment experience.  In spite of a lack of candidate feedback, a surprisingly large group, (29%) believe their candidate experience is so positive that it creates referrals and viral marketing.  During my presentation at the 2010 Staffing Management Conference, only 3% of participants stated they were evaluating the candidate experience.  The trend is down, and the quality of the experience is vastly unknown.  Disruption is needed indeed.

Candidate use “Spray and Pray” resume distribution.  Companies use social media, job preview videos that are more hype than help and create viral attraction that can clog the ATS or CRM pipeline with numbers of candidates that make the personal touch un-scalable.

There is a maddening belief that more is better.  And to a degree, there is truth to that.  However, without decision science, some form of pre-employment assessment, more is just a recruiting nightmare and it creates a challenge to workload management not to mention a greater number of candidates that may be disappointed by lack of personal touch.

When an individual is in the job market, each employer touch point – human, digital or otherwise is part of your brand experience.  With some companies experiencing a 50:1, or even 500;1 applicant to hire ratios, coupled with high requisition loads, the brand positive nature of the digital experience must be considered.  Rest assured, if they applied with you, they applied with your competitor.  The digital experience matters even more, largely due to the fact that this might be their only touch point. The candidates will see the difference, if there is a difference to see.

Kevin also suggests recruiting build talent communities.  Candidates are decision makers. The on-line experience should keep that in mind.

Based upon your on-line experience, candidates decide if they:
Like your company,
Have learned enough to want to apply
Feel better about your brand as a result of applying
Are inclined to speak favorably about your company
Will refer others, based upon their initial experience
Will join your talent community

Read some of these candidate testimonials and see what an engaging and informative pre-employment assessment can do to contribute to a positive candidate experience, even when your team is faced with large applicant to hire ratios and high requisition work loads.  Then think about just how disruptive you need to be.

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | June 25th, 2010
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, Tags: | Posted in Candidate Experience, General

April 16, 2010

Pre-Employment Assessments, Social Media and Quality of Candidate

Social media is quickly becoming a way of life for recruiters.  It’s the hottest topic at recruiting trade shows, such as the recently held ERE Expo.  While many are venturing into this space, we still don’t know very much about the effectiveness of social media efforts.  Most of the statistics quoted to date are around number of candidates generated and share of conversation.  These numbers tell the story about increasing the candidate pool size, but they don’t answer the question, ‘are we attracting the right candidate?’.

We recently got our hands on some data that begins to shed some light on this question.  For one of our clients, we received a large data extract (over 20,000 candidates) from their Applicant Tracking Systems that included among other things recruiting source, one of which was social networking site.  We were able to link this data to quality of candidate indicators:  1) overall job-fit scores on our pre-employment assessment and 2) conversion rate.  By conversion rate, we mean what percentage of candidates that were hired from each source.  We looked at this data for two different managerial jobs.

For the entry-level managerial job, candidates sourced through social media performed below average on the pre-employment assessment and had a lower conversation rate than other sources.  These candidates were seen as less capable and it was reflected in the low hire rate.  For the mid-level managerial job, candidates sourced via social media performed above average on the pre-employment assessment, but had a below average conversation rate.  This candidate pool for the mid-level job was obviously lacking along other criteria in spite of performing well on the pre-employment test.  Taken together, these results suggest that social media isn’t generating the quality of candidates that this company is looking for.

While social media holds tremendous promise in the talent acquisition space, better and smarter data will help us apply these technologies in a way that truly impacts the bottom line – by connecting recruiters to great fit, rather than great volumes of candidates.

Part 2

Posted by: Mike Hudy | April 16th, 2010
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, Tags: | Posted in Client Case Studies, Conferences, HR Analytics

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