Posts Tagged ‘staffing process improvement’

February 13, 2012

Industrial Organizational Psychologists – Uncommon Career, Uncommon Value

Kaitlin Madden, a CareerBuilder writer recently posted a list of the 18 least common jobs according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Number 6 on the list is Industrial Organizational Psychologist (IOP). Kaitlin also shares a BLS stat that there are only about 1,420 of them employed across the country. (This does not include the self employed IOP.)

Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology

Also on the list was the occupation ‘model’ . A colleague of mine, (an IOP), wondered: “How often do IOP and Model show up on the same list?” Great question. This might be the only occurrence. As it is reported, there are even fewer Models than IOPs. Both rare, but both have an impact on large audiences. Models are used to create engaging views FROM a large audiences – namely consumers. IOPs are used to create insightful views ABOUT a large audience – namely candidates.

Advertising professionals use a model in conjunction with consumer research to optimize market potential . Recruiting professionals use an IOP to conduct candidate research to optimize hiring decisions for performance potential.

IOPs are the experts who design and validate simulations for pre-employment testing and assessments. They are the professionals behind selection science. IOPs are the scientists that create the s coring algorithms for candidate evaluation and document the economic impact of staffing process improvement. In his recent post, Bill Kutik of HR Executive states HR professionals fear analytics. IOPs are the professionals with a Ph.D. in HR analytics.

Have no fear, we are here.

OK, so this is stretching an obscure labor stat into a blog post. I am as guilty as Kaitlin. However, according to the BLS, Ohio is one of the top five job markets for IOPs. And we have over 10% of that career market here at Shaker.

So, if you would like to talk with an individual who has chosen an uncommon career that can deliver uncommon value, give us a call. 888.485.7633

When it comes to HR analytics our figures are impressive.

January 19, 2012

Steffan Martell of CareerBuilder on the Candidate Experience

The candidate experience includes rejection for most. Steffan Martell of CareerBuilder recently offered some clear guidelines on how the candidate rejection process should be handled. Click PLAY to hear what he has to say, and then scroll down to read more.

Steffan offers four main points to consider for keeping the rejection process in-line with the candidate experience and expectations.

Use the same level/form of communication established
Provide details on where they stand in the process
Keep them informed along the way
Provide candid feedback regarding fit and potential for future prospects

Use the same level/form of communication established
Steffan puts out some great criteria here. If you have spoken with a candidate, give them the bad news over the phone. If you have only had an email exchange, a digital dialogue is appropriate.

The personal relationship established with a phone call or an interview sets expectations high for the candidate. They know out of all the candidates you were highly interested in them. As many as 90% of candidates never get to a phone call, so this level of engagement sends a message that their qualifications are a close match. This creates hope and expectations for additional personal contact. (See more about candidate hope.)

The impersonal nature of the internet may at times make it easy for forget each applicant is another sentient human being. Delivering an exceptional candidate experience, even for the act of rejection, calls for some level of sensitivity and reciprocity.

Provide details on where they stand in the process
Gerry Crispin is an advocate for providing candidates with an interesting variety of data such as how many candidates typically apply per week or month and how many are hired during that same period. It’s a bit like the lottery publishing the winning odds. But, it also sends the candidate a message about the scope of challenge the company faces. In high applicant to hire ratio scenarios this can be a powerful form of level setting communication. This type of data does not have to be real-time data. Generalized stats should serve you well.

Having typical timeline and expected next step information can also be shared in a general format. With open or standing requisitions a blanket statement such as: “We contact the most qualified candidates by Friday of each week.” For one-off requisitions you may have more specific details. “The most qualified candidates will be contacted for a phone interviews by DATE. On site interviews will be conduct during the week of DATE. We anticipate a hiring decision to be made by DATE.

Candidates who do not hear from you by each of those dates know what that means. That does not remove the need to communicate with them, but it does in a Steffan Martell of CareerBuilder on the candidate experience manner let them know they have not advanced.

Keep them informed along the way
In our work on understanding candidate expectations, job seekers clearly stated one of their highest needs for information is on the status of their application. Steffan mentions the ‘black hole.’ It is too real for many candidates, due to recruiting processes that are void of communication tools being set up properly and recruiters who underutilize automation resources.

Any ATS worth its license agreement will have a candidate disposition process and automatically triggered communications. Make sure your process has well written messages to advise candidates of where they stand in your process.

Provide candid feedback regarding fit and potential for future prospects
Steffan offers another excellent point here. Job seekers want to know why they did not get the job. The evasive answer we used to teach our recruiters was to always use the “We were fortunate to get a lot of candidates to consider. After careful review, we advanced those candidates who seemed most qualified.”

While that response told the candidate the company process, it was void of insight for their personal growth. Martell suggests we share more. And to share in a manner that sets proper expectations for the future. Candidates hate to be strung along. Be frank and straight forward on whether you will keep them on your radar or not.

Remember, due to the fact that only one candidate gets hired, recruiting is the business of rejection. Look for ways to do it well. Make better rejection part of your staffing process improvement initiatives for 2012.

Where Next?
Once again, there will be an application process for the Candidate Experience Award.
2012 will provide another opportunity to highlight those organizations that are doing it well, getting it right and being a leader in delivering an exceptional candidate experience. Check in here to begin the application process.

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | January 19th, 2012
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, Tags: Candidate Experience staffing process improvement | Posted in Candidate Experience, General, Videos

August 22, 2011

Recruiter Rights Vs. Candidate Experience

Rayanne Thorn of Broadbean sets out a call for recruiter rights over candidate experience in her blog post.

Recruiter Rights begin with recruiter responsibilities. Sourcing that creates unnecessarily high applicant to hire ratios, candidate evaluation methods that rely on subjective word search and resume data review technology, and posting methods that present jobs to geographically distant populations are examples of recruiter self-inflicted wounds.

Resume spam is a function of technology looking for a solution versus recruiters designing a candidate experience that adds two-way value to the information exchange. Most applicant technology interfaces are incapable of offering an assessment of candidates that differentiates job-fit capabilities in a meaningful and valuable way. Beginning candidate evaluation with resume data is a GIGO proposition.

Gerry Crispin and I, plus a small, but growing list of people see a more candidate centric process as raising the rights and responsibilities of both parties in the business process called staffing. Placing a more engaging and meaningful candidate experience into your process can reduce unwanted through a percentage who self-select out, and by providing data that compares candidates in a more useful manner. Candidates and recruiters who have been through a meaningful experience offer testimonials that document the win-win.

The new Candidate Experience Award is about the entire, balanced approach to staffing process improvement. Recruiter Experience AND Candidate Experience.

Come visit us in booth at 351 the HR Technology Conference. Learn about the power of a Candidate Experience that improves the Recruiter Experience.

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | August 22nd, 2011
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, Tags: assessment Candidate Experience Recruiter Experience staffing process improvement | Posted in Candidate Experience, Conferences, Recruiter Experience

May 10, 2011

Are You Measuring Your Candidate Experience?

I have been writing about the candidate experience. As such, I thought it might be good to go back to the first look we took at how companies evaluate or think about the candidate experience.

We conducted a survey of attendees at the Taleo World 2008 User Conference in Boston, MA. The purpose of the survey was to assess the degree to which organizations are evaluating the candidate experience and measuring the economic impact of staffing process waste or early turnover. Given the expanding focus on the Candidate Experience, it seemed fitting to share the results again.

As a sponsor and exhibitor of the conference, we asked recruiting professionals who visited our booth to complete a five-question survey. Three multiple-choice questions explored candidate experience issues and two questions examined 120-day turnover.

Observations and Assertions

The data suggests that the vast majority of companies (86%) do not ask candidates for feedback about their on-line employ-ment 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. The survey did not explore referral rate issues, so we are left to contemplate why this belief is held.

The survey asked if a multi-media realistic job preview (RJP) was part of their on-line candidate experience. An RJP presents a balanced look at the job, describing both the rewarding and satisfying, as well as the challenging and demanding elements of the job. Ninety-four percent (94%) of respondents said no. This is further evidence of significant room for improving the interactive and informative nature of the candidate experience. Web 2.0 re-cruiting implies a more engaging user experience. Web 2.0 recruiting might include job-specific video, streaming audio, and animated images which engage and educate the candidate.

The 120-day separation rate is one measure of hiring decision effectiveness. A total of 57% of respondents stated that their company tracks and reports this data. This is contrasted with 72% of respondents stating they do not know the cost of on- boarding a new employee into a high-turnover position. Respondents who did offer an on-boarding cost dollar figure, created a range from a difficult to imagine low of $300 to a high-end figure of $29,000 in addition to the often quoted estimate of 1.5 times salary.

As a firm, we are quite interested in the economics of early turnover. We believe that more attention should be given to this staffing process outcome. Reporting turnover as a percentage obscures the economic impact of hiring decisions which result in early separations and further blurs lines of responsibility and ownership of this result. Multiplying the cost of on-boarding times the number of 120-day separations calculates the total dollars lost from this form of staffing waste (Series on Staffing Waste).

Staffing Process Improvement

A core step in any process improvement initiative is the collection of data. The mere act of collecting data begins to change the process, according to W. Edwards Deming. Determining which data to collect, by its nature establishes a sense of significance and a focus. One source of data for staffing process improvement is the candidate’s reaction to your on-line experience. If you want to create a better candidate experience, begin by finding out how candidates view your current experience.

Candidate Experience Factors

Candidates are decision makers too. Your application process should provide candidates with the information they need to make a sound career decision. Questions you might consider asking include:

Did you experience any problems with our on-line process? (Ease of use)
Are you in a better position to decide if this job is right for you? (Educational)
Based upon this experience will you refer others to opportunities here? (Exceptional)
Please provide any comments on your application experience. (Evaluative)

Data can be used to zero in on improvement opportunities, create testimonials within the careers page and support sourcing efforts. Examples of candidate responses may look like this.

Open-Ended Responses

“I think the virtual job tryout is great! I really like that (Company) gives you an example of what you are expected to do before you even step foot into their offices. It is a very good factor in deciding if this is the right job for you!”

“I really enjoyed this way of getting to know the job. It allowed me to see what it will be like to work for your company. Thank you for the opportunity.”

Staffing Economics

Staffing is a business process. As such, the process has inputs or candidates and candidate data. It has value-add procedures such as candidate evaluation, decision-making, and on-boarding. In addition, the output of the staffing process can be measured in terms of separations (voluntary and involuntary), and perform-ance variation of those who remain on the job.

Separations that occur in 120 days or fewer can be labeled as False Starts and can be measured as a form of staffing process waste. For purposes of discussion, one might compare hiring decisions that result in early separations (<120 days) to the manufacturing of defective products. The raw goods are lost and new goods must be put back into the process, causing rework. Staffing waste triggers rework in the form of replacement hires which doubles the cost of talent. Staffing rework is repeating the process elements of sourcing, evaluating, decision making and on-boarding for the False Starts.

Many of our clients have documented the cost of on-boarding. We define this as the investment in time to proficiency. How long and how much does it cost to create a competent performer? The timeline ranges from a few weeks to two years. The methodologies used to arrive at these dollar figures range from an informed esti-mate to the identification and linking of general ledger accounting codes in conjunction with a black belt Six Sigma project. Organizational belief in and acceptance of the figure is an important factor in each of these examples. Calculations and projections based upon these figures become the agreed upon basis for projecting and calculating return on invest from staffing process improvement.

Cost of On-Boarding

Investment to Proficiency

When you know the real costs of on-boarding, it is easy to develop return on investment projections. As an example, reducing 120-day turnover of tellers by 10 people would save $100,000 in on-boarding costs from replacement hires (10 X $10,000 = $100,000). See our interactive Staffing Waste ROI Calculator.

Opportunity

The candidate experience can make a difference in your recruiting process. However, if you don’t ask, there is no data to use for process improvement.

The results of this survey speak more to the great opportunity before us than to the kudos that can be taken for best in class staffing practices. There is room for improvement. Wiser approaches to the business process known as staffing can be adopted.

Start small. Identify one job as the focus for process improvement.
Explore the ability of your applicant tracking system (ATS) to conduct candidate surveys. Decide what information would be valuable and develop a survey process.
Collaborate with the CFO to isolate general ledger codes that can be tied to the cost of on-boarding. Examine the possibilities to create new cost reporting for jobs with high 120-day separation rates.
Partner with your Quality, Process Improvement or Six Sigma teams to examine staffing as a process. Document inputs, value-add methods and outputs or yields. Begin to track, document and report current state and changes over time.

Notes

The results of the survey are a small glimpse into the practices of a recruiting niche: Taleo customers and prospects (Sample size is 35 of about 500+ attendees, or approximately 7%). Given the size of the entire recruiting universe, this data is not presented as a statistically significant look at recruiting practices. However, we do believe the responses are representative of common practices in corporate recruiting today, and the results are similar to other surveys we have conducted with larger sample sizes. (Shaker Consulting Group and The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM); Quality of Hire, N = 585, 2004; Objective Candidate Evaluation Methods, N = 282, 2005; The Turnover Misnomer, N = 645, 2006). Contact us at info@shakercg.com for copies of these additional survey reports.

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | May 10th, 2011
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, Tags: Candidate Experience realistic job preview recruiting staffing process improvement staffing waste | Posted in Candidate Experience, HR Analytics, Surveys

March 22, 2011

Candidate Experience – Communication Preferences, Part 3 of 6

This is Part Three of a series connected to the Candidate Experience Monograph

We asked job seekers about their preference for how they wanted to communicate with recruiters and hiring managers during the application process. We wanted to see if there were strong preference one way or another, and in fact there are.

Candidates have preferences for communication modes

In order of preference:

Telephone
Email
Paper mail
Texting
Chat

You Know My Name, Look Up My Number

Job search is a personal endeavor through a largely impersonal maze or obstacle course. Candidates want to make a connection on a personal level with another human being. At the end of the day, each candidate knows the hiring decision will ultimately be made by another human being. As such, candidates have the highest preference for talking with recruiters on the phone. A very common retort from unsuccessful candidates is the classic:“if only I could speak with someone, I could sell myself.” The telephone was the communication vehicle of choice for 88% of respondents

Everybody uses the phone somewhere in their recruiting process. However, the personal connection of a phone call is reserved for the most highly qualified candidates. And with the applicant-to-hire ratios common to high volume sourcing, this means that 50% to 98% of candidates will never hear the ring, never experience the type of interaction they prefer the most. It creates a clear and pronounced expectation gap that will not be closed. Even making the ‘No thanks’ call to the unsuccessful is impractical, given the number in the rejection pool.

Digital Hand Shake

There is hope. Email was rated at an almost identical level of preference with the telephone at 87.4% and 88% respectively. And the number of respondent who are neutral (10%) or do not prefer email (1.6%) are also fundamentally the same as with telephone. The simple answer here is that an email can fill the communication gap and, if done well, deliver a candidate experience that meets certain expectations for communication.

The similarity here raises my curiosity. The relative value of each medium is on par. My assumption is that candidates may sense that a reasonable degree of thoughtfulness might go into each form of exchange – a dialogue or a digital handshake via email.

For candidates receiving an invitation to continue in the process, it is easy to see how an email will have a similar impact as a phone call. The ‘you are wanted’ message will ring true and provide the needed details for the next step.

In spite of mail-merge mass messaging, that powerful phrase – “you’ve got mail” must meet a certain need and override (at least initially) any negative perceptions of getting rejection spam. As was detailed in Part II, candidates want to know where they stand. Email can be expedient and personal to a degree, in conveying the message and closing an expectation gap.

TXT? Not!

Given the heavy balance of twenty-somethings in the survey, it is somewhat surprising to see the strong negative attitude (52.9%) toward the use of texting as a form of communication in the job search process. Without any qualitative data behind these responses, a few assumptions come to mind. The foremost being jobs are far too important a topic to be left to abbreviations and truncated phrases.

While not completely discounted, 22.7% of respondents would find texting acceptable. I only have one personal trend line as a point of reference here. My college-age son’s use of texting peaked during junior year at about 2,500 per month. I understand this was a pretty typical volume in 2010, but the 75% fall-off in his use of this form of communication caught my attention. Certainly not a vehicle going the way of the telegraph, but maybe a shift in the how and why it is being used now. (Excuse me while I tweet this post.)

This also points to the viability of text based job posting such as TweetaJob. It may make it easy to distribute – the push into a community. But does it get the attention?

Chat me Up? Not so much.

Chat service has immediacy and it comes with some sense of intimacy. After all, someone is reading and responding, often pretty quickly. Job seekers might feel the personal connection with the individual at the keyboard on the other side. However, having done job observations in contact centers, I know an individual agent may be carrying on six or more conversations at once. It’s easy to see that candidates might feel the person on the other end of the chat box has little or nothing to do with evaluating job-fit or making a hiring decision. That may be why44.2% of candidates prefer not to use chat for the recruiting process and only 16.9% indicate a preference for this mode.

Give a Letter to the Postman

How can you go wrong with a letter to the candidate? Think of the reaction you would get from candidates. Sending snail mail almost seems arcane, but how classy. And 50% of job seekers still rate this form of communication as highly preferred. The most consistent use of snail mail in today’s staffing process might be the offer letter. Again, this form of communication only touches the small percent of candidates who make it to the finish line.

However, with a combined 85% of candidates prefering or being open/neutral about hard copy, there may be a place for physical components in your candidate communications.

Final Thoughts

The good news is that job seekers are OK with email. Email is extremely efficient and low cost. Automated methods make it easy to use this tool to communicate with your candidates. All your candidates, the successful and the yet to be.

When considering the need for process information described in Part II, and the preferred method of communication described here, you should be able to add value to your candidate experience and achieve a measurable degree of staffing process improvement.

In the next part of this series, we will explore candidate reactions and behaviors to technology problems with your on-line application. Patience may not be their virtue.

Part One, Part Two, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | March 22nd, 2011
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, Tags: Candidate Experience employee selection staffing process improvement Surveys | Posted in Candidate Experience, Surveys

March 15, 2011

I am not a number, I am a free man!

“We want information, information, information.”

“Who are you?”

“The new number two.”

“Who is number one?”

“You are number six.”

“I am not a number, I am a free man.”

For those of you who are not up on your heavy metal, the above lyrics are from Iron Maiden’s “The Prisioner.” The song opens with the above dialogue inspired by the 1967 British television series of the same name.

I listened to the song yesterday with my 9 year-old son who is learning to play guitar and has taken a liking to 80s hard rock / metal. Later that day (with the lyrics stuck in my head), I listened to a friend complain about his frustration looking for a job online and how he felt that he was nothing more than a number, rather than a person. In this online digital world identities are being lost. Individuals and companies are finding it difficult to differentiate themselves.

My friend described his painful candidate experience sifting through job sites loaded with too much spam and no way for a candidate to get through it easily. He recounted that many online job ads look the same and online job sites don’t offer companies a way to stand out. Most job ads seem fairly generic and full of buzzwords – unique opportunity, world-class team, rewarding career path, etc. Job ads that list criteria for success include the following skills and behaviors: highly motivated, bright, persuasive, self-assured, excellent communicator. As opposed to what: unmotivated, unintelligent, unconvincing, timid, and poor communicator.

For those determined enough to make it through the maze and actually find a differentiated job posting, the reward is to provide information, information and more information to the prospective employer. Unfortunately, many companies have yet to embrace candidates’ expectations for bi-directional sharing of information. Those companies that don’t “get it” leave candidates with a brand-negative experience.

Technology is a great thing, but when it comes to applying for a job, one could argue that it’s all too easy. A person can apply for hundreds of jobs with a few mouse clicks using a boilerplate cover letter and typical resume. With multiple people applying for multiple jobs, employers spend a ridiculous amount of time filtering resumes. The sheer volume of applicants makes it almost impossible to pick out the best candidates. It is just too hard for employers to assess talent in this manner. I was dismayed to learn (off the record) of a Fortune 500 company that looks at only a fraction of the applications it receives. I suspect that they are not alone in this practice.

So, undoubtedly some people’s job searches falter since they can’t get on the radar of the right decision maker – either because of the numbers game (too many applicants to look at) or the inability to differentiate themselves via the click the radio button / paste resume here process. They are left behind because they failed to get noticed – even though they were well qualified – perhaps even the best qualified. In today’s tough economy there are many competent, reliable, and hard working individuals that are not given the opportunity to demonstrate this fact to an employer. As HR professionals we can do better.

At Shaker Consulting Group we offer companies an engaging, web-based, interactive experience to assist in the business process known as staffing. Our Virtual Job Tryout® gives candidates an opportunity to try out the job, while providing recruiters and hiring managers with insights into the candidates’ likelihood of success. A recent candidate aptly described his Virtual Job Tryout experience as “Not your typical online job application. I actually really enjoyed the process and I feel as though I have a better understanding of the job and its requirements and that the company will have a better understanding of me as an individual – not just what is on my resume.” If you want to stand out from your competition with a candidate experience as unique as your brand and an evaluation process as challenging as the jobs you are looking to fill, give us a call.

Candidates expect two-way information exchange, a realistic job preview, and an opportunity to demonstrate what they bring to the table. They also expect to be treated like customers and to be kept informed on a periodic basis. Applicants are often left pondering many questions such as, Did you receive my application?, When will I hear back from you?, Have I been knocked out of the process?, etc. My colleague, Joe Murphy, has blogged about the candidate experience and expectations elsewhere.

Several years ago, Dr. John Sullivan wrote about the mistreatment of applicants and called for an applicant Bill of Rights. Gerry Crispin along with a group of collaborators has written a monograph on the Candidate Experience, and Dr. Charles Handler has proposed a Pre-Employment Assessment Candidate Bill of Rights. These are all positive steps in the right direction. After all, none of us want to feel as though we’re just a number.

Posted by: scott.goodman | March 15th, 2011
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, Tags: assessment Candidate Experience staffing process improvement Virtual Job Tryout | Posted in Candidate Experience

March 9, 2011

Candidate Experience – The Big Seven Process Expectations, Part 2 of 6

This is Part Two of a series connnect to the Candidate Experience Monograph

We believe one of the customers in the business process called staffing is the candidate. And being interested in customer expectations, we asked job seekers what were the most critical bits of information they wanted to know about their application process. Their responses are not real surprising, but they may pose a challenge to recruiters, in particular, recruiters with high applicant-to-hire ratios.

In this second in a series, I will share the job seeker’s top seven expectations of what they want to know about their application, but first, I digress.

Back in the day, before the web, I would hang a sign in the front door of our building – Not taking applications at this time. I did not want to deal with a pile of applications from walk-in candidates that I had no use for at the moment. I did not want to establish expectations that the prospect of a job existed either.

My predecessor had filled part of a file drawer with a number of pre-printed no-thank you letters, organized by job family, to send to those individuals who sent in unsolicited resumes. My assistant would slip one of these thoughtfully crafted letters into the typewriter and quickly drop in a name and address. I’d sign it and the post office would deliver it. In a few days, the candidate knew I had received their resume and that we were not hiring at the time, or that we had no position that met their qualifications. It seemed efficient, respectful and was considered common courtesy. There was an implied social contract: “when I put effort into expressing interest in your firm, please acknowledge me.” Now that whole process can be done not to one, but to large groups with a few mouse clicks.

30 years later the resume spam funnel is wide open, some requisitions are never closed, social media and extravagant sourcing campaigns pour millions of applications into ever increasing cloud-based web farms hosting applicant tracking systems databases. Companies no longer really know who has applied, but candidates still want to know one thing – “Did you get my application?”

The Big Seven

What job seekers want to know about their application

The big seven job seeker expectations were determined from process communication factors rated as critical need to know by 80% or more of the survey respondents.
1. Do you receive my application?
2. When will I hear back from you?
3. Have I been knocked out of the process?
4. What is the time frame for filling the job?
5. What is the next step in the process?
6. Has anyone actually looked at my application?
7. Where am I in the process?

Did you receive my application?
Put yourself in the candidate’s shoes. Every Apply Now click carries with it a degree of hope, an edge of anticipation, maybe even desperation. Next month’s mortgage payment may be riding on obtaining a job.

Candidates have to commit time and energy to get into your digital lobby and drop an application in the box. Most ATS or CRM systems have a login and profile creation step. The paste a resume or, recreate a resume functions also require effort. Then there are the minimum qualification questions, the EEO self report questions, the legal right to work questions, the willingness to provide biological samples, the allow us to check out your bill paying history questions and is it OK if we fire you if we found out you lied on any of these questions question. After heading down this one-way information drain and answering all those questions, finally getting to the SUBMIT button, the candidate has one important question for you. “Did you get it?” They want a two-way exhange. Some common courtesy.

Each touch-point with your careers page leaves a brand impression. How you respond to each candidate can be brand positive or brand negative. As a frame of reference on brand impression, sit down with your senior brand executive and review the candidate flow from one requistion. Describe the number of acknowledged and unacknowledged candidates. Then have a dialogue on what system and process the brand executive has in place to communicate with every individual that requests information about your company. There may be a lesson in brand experience management that can have implications on your candidate experience.

When will I hear back from you?
Job seekers have a life. And they may want to make plans, commit to various events, opportunities or alternative options. Bring back the hope or desperation factor and again, put yourself in their shoes. Your door was open and you took my application. What is the timeline here.

Addressing the need to be acknowledged by letting candidates know you have their application allows you to also include a timeline. When I was involved in the staffing process at a Fortune 300 company, our practice was to always use the sundown clause. “We will be contacting the most qualified candidates no later than (DATE). Granted, it is a more subtle version of “If you don’t hear from me by Friday, you are out of the race.” But, it established a degree of understanding in the candidate’s mind.

Your job posting or application process overview can provide timeline expectations. You can use sundown clauses on-line: This position will be filled by DATE. Or Interviews for candidates advancing in our process will be conducted by DATE.

And of course there is always the Select All> Disposition>Send. Use the mass communication features at your disposal. Extend some common courtesy.

Have I been knocked out of the process?
Job seekers, for the most part, are grown-ups. In or out, let them know where they stand. The benefit is better time management for all involved.

When I worked with sales teams, I would implement periodic ‘kill the maybe’ initiatives. Sales reps were invited to contact indecisive prospects and customer in their territory. The objective was to get a YES or NO from every indecisive buyer in the next 30 days. Sales always had a nice upward spike and the time wasted chasing a yet to be heard NO was brought to an end.

Being strung along is a waste of everybody’s time. Candidates do not want a Maybe. Extend some common courtesy, give them the straight story.

What are the steps in your process?
Job seekers want to know the steps in your process. And they want to know where they are in your process.

Process maps are often shared in on-line applications. However, the steps often include only the sequence in the online portion of the process. Consider expanding the amount of information you provide. Let them know if you conduct phone screens, webcam interviews, on-site one on one or group/team interviews. Describe any assessment or pre-employment testing you may use. And commit to telling your candidates where they are in your process. Again, you most likely have mass communication resources in your recruiter’s tool box. Step up your two-way communications and extend the courtesy of a reply to those who answered your call. Remember, you asked them to show up and give you their contact information. So use it.

Has anybody actually looked at my application?
Careers are born from personal connections. Careers begin at the end of that process of discovery that arrives at a mutual conclusion – this job is the right fit.

Today’s application process has stripped away the opportunity to connect on a personal level for the vast majority of candidates. One of our clients can have a 500 to 1 applicant to hire ratio at times. A recruiter looks at 50, calls 10, interviews three and hires one. What about the other 450?

Have we created an uber-sourcing mentality? The staffing process has fallen victim to the more is better mind-set. What is the implied social contract in today’s ‘post and hope’ and ‘spray and pray’ job posting-job seeking exchange? Tongue in cheek I suggest this response to candidates:

“We have attracted far more candidates than we need. We cannot possibly get back to each of you on a personal level. There is a very low probability your will hear from us.”

But without any closure to your applicants, that is you message by default.

Inviting people to apply for a job creates an expectation and hope for some degree of career change intimacy. It may be the beginning of a dialogue with a storybook ending. But contrary to that invitation to career change consideration, our sourcing models create populations that are beyond the scope and scale of achieving any semblance of meaningful interpersonal exchange.

Does that mean our staffing process model is broken? Not necessarily, but it may need some attention. And your candidates definitely want some attention. As is always the case, there is room for staffing process improvement. We can deliver a better candidate experience.

For additional information on this topic visit the Candidate Experienc emonograph at CareerXroads

In the next installation of this series, I will share some insights on how candidates want to hear from you.

Part One, Part Three , Part Four, Part Five, Part Six

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | March 9th, 2011
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, Tags: Candidate Experience recruiting staffing process improvement | Posted in Candidate Experience, Surveys

March 4, 2011

Candidate Experience – Voice of the Job Seeker, Part 1 of 6

This is Part One in a series connected to the Candidate Experience Monograph

We conducted a candidate expectations survey in 2010. There is a lot of dialogue about the candidate experience from the recruiter’s perspective. However due to high applicant to hire ratios at most organizations, fewer than 10% of candidates ever speak with a recruiter. The survey we conducted deals predominantly with job seeker expectations for the online portions of the candidate experience.

A few years ago I conducted a rather small survey, more of an anecdotal look at the practice of asking job applicants about their candidate experience. At that time, the vast majority of companies I spoke with did not seek feedback from candidates. New hires, yes. But new hires are the ones who ‘won’. I bet this group thinks the candidate experience is pretty darn good! It seemed only fitting that the entire candidate population have a voice in the dialogue too. So we asked the job seeker for their point of view.

We targeted college seniors, unemployed and active job seekers with the assistance of Rob Minjock, an intern from Saint Vincent College. Over 300 individuals responded between July and October of 2010. I will share the results over a series of articles. Read on to learn what job seekers stated they want in their candidate experience.

Who Responded?

N= 305 – 316

Age

59% – 18 to 23 years old
33% – over 40

Gender

47% male
53% female

Ethnic origin

89% Caucasian
3.5% African American
2.5% Hispanic
2.5% Asian

Education

41% some college
31% bachelors degree
11% masters degree
2% doctorate degree

Employment Status

41% Student
20% unemployed
34% employed full-time
21% employed part-time

The group includes a diverse mix of gender, age, education and employment status. However, the ethnic mix includes a predominantly Caucasian sample.

Career Site Basics

What Do You Expect to Find on the Careers Page

Candidates have pretty basic expectations for the Careers page. They want to find details about jobs, and most companies are pretty good about that. However, 64% of candidates want recruiter names and contact information. And most companies are rather stingy with that information.

Gerry Crispin along with a group of collaborator has written a monograph on the Candidate Experience. It provides examples of companies that are working hard to address an improved candidate experience.

I just reviewed a client’s candidate flow data. They attracted over 12,000 candidates and made 151 hires for one call center position. There are 4 recruiters in the company. It is easy to see their reluctance of offer 12,000 candidates the e-mail and phone number of four recruiters. Hiring just over one percent of your candidates can make for communication challenges. Tools scaled and automated to this scope must be used effectively to leave candidates with a brand positive experience. As I wrote in an earlier blog, in some respects, recruiting is the business of rejection. How you handle that rejection process can make a big difference in the candidate experience you deliver, and the impression you leave with the 90+% who do not land a job.

Dispositioning candidates and using the mass communication features of candidate management system are essential best practices. That topic will be covered in more detail in the next issue of this series: Critical Process Information

Our question regarding FAQ, admittedly was vague, but the interest in having FAQs on the careers site is pretty high. Fifty-five percent of respondents have questions about your recruiting process and they want answers. You may want to use FAQ to establish expectations: Will a recruiter contact me personally? Will you let me know you have reviewed my application? Will you let me know if I have been eliminated? and so on.

About half of the respondents stated that training and development (51%) and career path insights (47%) are important. This may demonstrate an underlying interest in growth and progression. It’s not just about the job, but more about what will I learn and where the job will lead. People want to have some line of sight to their future. In each job description you might provide a few details to where people in this job have naturally progressed within the company.

The big surprise to me was how low the expectations are for testimonials from current employees, both written and video. Over the last 5 years or so, there has been an explosion of testimonial and realistic job preview activity on corporate career pages. My take on this is the down side of marketing spin in the message.

Testimonials are a form of realistic job preview. I have written about realistic job preview and the balanced (or lack of balance) in the message about the job and the company. When marketing overrides realism, the message goes from Help to Hype. Candidates are pretty savvy. They see through the hype and react with a bit of skepticism.

The automation of the application process has dehumanized career pursuit. The strongly held desire to have contact information for recruiters is evidence that a personal connection is highly valued. Given the volume of candidates, it is important to look at your candidate experience and explore ways to build a connection, and provide information. Ask your candidates what would be of value to them.

In the next part of this series we will examine: Critical Process Information. Candidates tell us what they want to know about their application.

Part II, Part Three, Part Four. Part Five, Part Six

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | March 4th, 2011
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, Tags: Candidate Experience realistic job preview recruiting staffing process improvement | Posted in Candidate Experience, Surveys

March 2, 2011

I Have A Question For You: Thoughtful People Speak Out at ERE Expo

I want to ask you a question. A one question interview.

In the past year, I have had the good fortune to conduct a one question interview with a number of thoughtful people involved in recruiting and staffing. Thoughtful people can put a lot of information into a 60-90 second response. The diversity of suggestions, ideas and insights about improving the candidate experience has been fantastic. After listenting to what thoughtful people have said, you may think so too. The interviews can be found on our blog here, or on our YouTube channel here. These interviews are really a great collection of ideas for staffing process improvement.

While at ERE in San Diego, I want to hear from you, collect your views, opinions and suggestions. Stop by our booth – #408 and set up a time to speak out. Your point of view is important, and I will assist you in opening a dialogue with the recruiting and talent community.

I look forward to seeing you in San Diego

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | March 2nd, 2011
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, Tags: Candidate Experience staffing process improvement | Posted in Candidate Experience, Conferences

January 30, 2011

Do We Need Internal Recruiting? Ask the CFO.

Kevin Wheeler posted an article on ERE that got the recruiting community fired up. He asked, “Do we need Internal Recruting at all?” His premise seems to rest with effectiveness, accountability and differentiation that a recruiting function may or may not deliver.

With 32 comments as of this post, it ranks near the top of the charts for getting folks riled up.

Here are my two cents, with a few more details than what I posted on ERE.

The dialogue is all good. It may be like the question about cars, is it better to buy or lease? And the answer is: It depends.

Kevin’s main point may really be rooted in economics. When an internal team has the same mandate to measure, track and report economic impact that an external provider does, there is most likely performance parity.

Unfortunately, the issue lies with the fact that many CFOs and CEOs do not hold internal recruiting teams accountable to document contribution and deliver continuous staffing process improvement. And without a mandate for economic accountability, the accounting infrastructure to document contribution is often lacking. A vice president of sales or manufacturing would never be allowed to operate with the poor economic reporting and accounting infrastructure that is deployed for the business process of recruiting. As such, it is common for internal recruiting teams to use ATS based reporting, thus relying on activity based measures instead of economic measures.

Henry David Thoreau gives us words to ponder for this situation: “It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?”

One gauge we use to explore the economic accountability of a recruiting team is how literate they are about job-specific performance metrics and how quickly they can access data sets of performance metrics. Ask a staffing professional, internal or external, if they measure and report on the cost of time to proficiency (total investment from sourcing to self-sufficient performance) for the position with the highest hiring volume. Ask who owns the budget for staffing waste. The answers to those questions reveal a great deal about the accountability expectations set by the CFO and CEO for recruiting.

Reporting on days to fill, requisitions open, requisitions per recruiter, and opinion-based quality of hire while good to know are a bit like busy ant metrics. Recruiters with economic accountability use HR analytics to document and report reductions in staffing waste and rework, increased yield in new hire productivity, reduced time to proficiency, increases in job family average performance metrics and the like.

From my experience, corporate resources flow to those who build a good business case and then document return on investment. Outside providers have to do this to earn repeat business. The best internal providers do so as well. Here is an example of how Key Bank documented high ROI from using pre-employment testing as a form of measurement rigor to reduce staffing waste.

Posted by: Joseph P. Murphy | January 30th, 2011
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, Tags: HR Analytics pre-employment testing Quality of Hire recruiting ROI staffing process improvement | Posted in General, HR Analytics, Recruiter Experience

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