Get part 1 of what you could and should be doing during your downtime.

What’s that, you say? My applicant tracking system (ATS) is fine the way it is! If that is the case, then you are definitely one in a million. As a contractor, consultant, and in-house sourcing leader, I can’t think of one organization of the twenty-plus I’ve done projects with that had a perfectly set up, well-organized and accurate ATS. And therefore providing every benefit it could perform.

According to Josh Bersin, “HR Tech spending is going to slow… [This] include[s] software for recruiting and ongoing systems for wellbeing.” So getting the most value out of current technology is a must. And I promise you, big or small, fortune 50 or start-up, your ATS can always use an occasional tune-up. 

Benefits of Applicant Tracking Systems

When an ATS is set up correctly, it can do miracles:

• Manage candidate flow
• Perform automatic candidate engagement and outreach to talent communities
• Set up interview scheduling for you
• Provide metrics that can show snags in your recruiting process
• Report actual activity needed to fill different kinds of jobs

Some ATS’ such as Loxo, have built-in resume parsing, outreach tools, sourcing tools, and automated candidate response capabilities that can boost candidate flow, improve candidate experience and automatically source past applicants – but only if they are set up. 

I was in awe when I was consulting for a unicorn tech company that had reached a staggering 1,200 employees to discover their recruiting activity was still being tracked on a gigantic spreadsheet. It was so interlinked to other sheets that daily updates took over five minutes to disseminate through all the pages. Not only was it clunky, but mining the information of past candidates, interview results, rejection reasons, and possible “keepers” was nearly impossible. 

ATS: It’s More Than You May Think

Many organizations simply see an ATS as a centralized location for all recruitment-related information. With all resumes, applications, and candidate information stored in one place, recruiters can easily access and review all relevant data, which can help make more informed decisions about which candidates to interview and hire. However, an ATS setup in alignment with an organization’s needs can also provide valuable insights into recruitment metrics such as time-to-hire and cost-per-hire, which can help companies better understand and optimize their recruitment process.

During a slow job market, I can think of no better (though mundane) task that will have big payoffs than a thorough ATS overhaul. The TA leader, sourcers, recruiters, and coordinators alike can all participate in the fun.

In fact, this is a project that should be a true team effort. In smaller organizations, the entire department should participate. In larger ones, there should be representatives from all the TA departments to provide input on the candidate journey, interview process, presentations and projects that are part of the interview process, and the offer process for different departments. 

Other Aspects of ATS and Beyond

Other items that should be looked at by the team include reformatting job postings in alignment with DEI, updating the old postings with this new verbiage in case they are reused, removing duplicate resumes, and ensuring that candidate information is accurate and up-to-date. Take a good, hard look at the recruitment process and find a way to standardize it between business verticals so that metrics are consistent and more meaningful. Examine sourcing activity tracking and make sure there is a CRM capability set up that seamlessly moves a candidate from prospect to being an active applicant.

Now, would also be the perfect time to add new features, such as a parsing engine or outreach tools to your ATS if you can swing the budget. Training on new technologies and sourcing tools, integrating them into the ATS, and the processes as you build them, will be a huge game changer when the market picks up.

Once all are set up, if so equipped, your ATS could deliver better results by automating many of the manual tasks associated with recruitment. For example, setting up a “drop box” or automatic parsing engine will allow your ATS to automatically search for keywords and qualifications that match the requirements of a particular job, and even schedule prescreens with the most promising candidates. This significantly reduces the time and effort required to find and hire the right people while ensuring that the recruitment process is more efficient and effective.

Some other benefits of making your ATS a well-oiled machine include:

• Improving the candidate experience. With the ability to easily apply for jobs online and receive automated updates about the status of their application, candidates can be kept informed and engaged throughout the recruitment process.
• Provide a platform for online assessments, which can help to identify the best candidates based on their qualifications and skills.
• Improve the overall performance of an organization by providing a more diverse and qualified candidate pool. With the ability to search resumes and applications by keywords and qualifications, you can identify candidates who may have been overlooked in the past.

Final Thoughts

An applicant tracking system can deliver a wide range of benefits to organizations looking to streamline their recruitment process and identify the best candidates for open positions if they are organized, set up correctly, and old, duplicate data is consolidated. Whether it’s through automating manual tasks, providing valuable insights into recruitment metrics, or improving the candidate experience, an ATS can help companies to make more informed decisions. This can reduce the time and effort required to find and hire the right people, and ultimately improve the overall performance of the organization. 

So take a few weeks, grab your cleaning gloves, and dig in. When the job market fires back up – and it will soon – you will be amazed at the boost to productivity and results.

The post What Recruiting and Sourcing Teams Can be Doing During Slow Times: Part 2 appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

In this series, I will explore some of the value-added tasks that TA teams can be doing during these slow times that will add value now and keep your well-oiled TA team in place, sharper than ever, and ready to flick the switch on a cultivated robust pipeline.  

Employer Branding in Outreach

For the 12 Days of Sourcing last month, I wrote about using video clips in outreach to attract prospects to engage and provided some real example outreaches that worked to attract hard-to-find tech talent during the last hiring frenzy. But what about in these slower times? We can still use this time to do customized bulk outreaches to our talent communities or long lists of prospects, using employer branding video content to build a pipeline of interested prospects already engaged with your brand for when the market picks up. Here are a couple of general pointers on what to consider when picking which content to use.  

Try Video Employer Branding 

Video employer branding is a powerful tool for attracting top talent in the current job market. With the rise of social media and video-sharing platforms, it has become increasingly easy for companies to showcase their culture and values to a wider audience. Research from Bain & Company has found that employer branding can lead to a 25-50% reduction in the cost of hiring and a 50-80% improvement in the quality of hires. 

As a Talent Sourcer, when using employer branding video content effectively in cold outreaches to highly sought-after tech talent, I saw a response rate skyrocket from a meager 4-5% to over 30%! While every response was an enthusiastic “Let’s GO!”, it doubled the number of prospects willing to explore the position while creating a robust pipeline of future prospects now engaged and following our brand.  

Video Employer Branding in Action

Benefits of Video Employer Branding 

The benefits of including video employer branding content are endless, and few stand very tall.  

1. Increased reach and visibility: Video employer branding allows companies to reach a wider audience and showcase their culture and values to potential candidates. According to a study by the Boston Consulting Group, job seekers are increasingly turning to social media and company websites to learn about potential employers. By creating engaging video content, companies can stand out from their competitors and attract top talent.
2. Improved candidate experience: Video employer branding provides an immersive and authentic look at what it is like to work for a company. This can help candidates better understand the company culture and values and make a more informed decision about whether they would be a good fit.
3. Enhanced employer reputation: By creating compelling and authentic video content, companies can improve their reputation as a “great place to work” and attract top talent. According to research from McKinsey, companies with strong employer brands tend to have higher retention rates and are more successful at attracting top talent.

In addition to the campaign I highlighted in 12 Days of Sourcing, here are some other examples of successful video employer branding:

1. Airbnb: Airbnb’s “We Accept” campaign, which featured a series of videos showcasing the company’s commitment to inclusivity and diversity, was highly successful in attracting top talent and improving the company’s reputation as an employer.
2. Google: Google’s “Life at Google” video series gives a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to work at the tech giant and highlights its innovative culture and values.
3. Deloitte: Deloitte’s “Life at Deloitte” video series showcases the company’s commitment to work-life balance and provides a glimpse into the various career paths available at the consulting firm.

Considerations for Using Video

No doubt, these campaigns have been successful. But what are some general guidelines on what to consider when using video material in prospect outreach? Here are some considerations for using video employer branding:

1. Clearly define your company culture and values: Before creating any video content, it is important to represent your company’s culture and values to help ensure that your video content aligns with your employer brand and attracts the right candidates.
2. Showcase the employee experience: It is important to showcase what it is like – “A typical the day” -to work for your company to attract top talent. This can include highlighting company perks and benefits, showcasing team bonding activities, and giving a behind-the-scenes look at daily life at the company.
3. Use storytelling: Effective video employer branding often utilizes storytelling to showcase the company culture and values. By featuring real employees and their experiences at the company, companies can create a more authentic and relatable image.
4. Utilize social media: Social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, are great channels for sharing video employer branding content. By posting engaging and authentic videos, companies can reach a wider audience and attract top talent.
5. Seek employee input: Involving employees in creating video employer branding content can help create a more authentic and genuine portrayal of the company. By soliciting ideas and information from employees, companies can ensure that the content accurately reflects the employee experience. Better still, have employees in the video explaining how they do what they do and why they love doing what they do. 

Final Thoughts

If it sounds simple, it’s because it is. Video employer branding is a powerful tool for attracting top talent. By showcasing the company’s story and the employees’ experiences, prospects can better picture themselves working in your culture and, in turn, will more fully engage when they feel that connection.  In this slower market, all we need to do is change the message from “come work here now” to “if you ever consider a position change, you should consider my company.” And funnel responses into organized pools of engaged, ready-to-talk prospects once the hiring machine is cracked back up! And you know it will.  

The post Use This Downtime to Promote Your Employer Brand appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

There is a common belief that in order to be diverse in hiring that you have to give up hiring for the best of the best.  I think that is a wrong idea based on false pretenses.  I believe that when we learn to focus on hiring based on what a candidate can bring to an organization from their total life experience and proficiencies,  not just as a sum of their skillset plus experience, but the sum of their total life experience, that the result can be an “A” hire every time.

To foster a diverse and inclusive culture, we have to learn to look at candidates beyond them being a sum of their work like and experience and see them as to how they as a total person can contribute their overall life experience, including career proficiencies and skills, to an organization.

This makes us sit back and consider what is truly important in hiring – not just which skills, but what personality attributes, obtained wisdom, and insights can be even more important than a skillset or even work experience- and hire for that!

Once an organization figures that out for themselves which can often be a challenge, I have constructed a quick reference guide to help reduce bias in hiring to help keep them true to their path.

Here are a few simple behaviors to practice which can help eliminate unconscious bias and cultivate a culture of diversity and inclusion:

• Don’t Abandon the phone screen. We all have gotten in the habit of jumping on a video call for everything. But often we can immediately form bias by appearance, the state and appearance of their home office etc.  Phone calls take away the bias of appearance and allow us to focus on the content of the conversation.
• Be mindful of Technology. People everywhere are experiencing glitches, hangups and freezes on their video calls due to demand on the bandwidth. This can be even more of a challenge for great talent who live in more remote areas. Often several second delays between parties cause extended periods of silence, or conversely, parties seemingly interrupting each other.  Don’t let this be a determining factor in your interviews.  Tech issues can be resolved to hire great talent! If it’s a real issue, revert to the phone for now.  Facetime can be postponed or rescheduled.
• Script the Interview. Using the same questions to cover the same topics (skills or human experiences) assures that all persons interviewed are screened the same way and that important key points of the job and how they contribute to the organization are covered.  Do not skip over a question – doing so is in some way being biased, no matter what your reasoning. Asking the same questions to every candidate assures we are measuring all candidates by the same criteria.
• Interview with a diverse team. When putting together interview teams, be as inclusive as possible.  Especially in this new virtual office world, candidates no longer visit an office full of diverse people working together. Make sure that interview teams reflect the organization’s true diversity.  Not to mention that this also brings a diverse viewpoint to hiring and that candidate.
• Don’t jump to conclusions. Sometimes during an interview a candidate might say something that takes us aback or is not what we expected.  We are all prone to do it, but make sure you notice you may be jumping the gun, take a step back and dig deeper. Don’t assume anything- clarify and seek to understand a candidate’s response.
• Don’t ask that. Remember that even casual chats to fill dead space during the interview process can cross the line and create bias.  Stay away from “Are you married’ or even asking how old the kids are if the candidate brings them up.  Keep focused on the interview.
• Every candidate could be an “A” candidate.  Competition for talent is fierce. Sure- we all want the candidate who can walk on water and needs no help or training. But let’s be real, the rest of the candidate pool is also worth interviewing and hiring.  Give every candidate the chance to show how they can shine too, even if on paper they don’t look like “A+” material. Every diamond starts out rough. Be open to doing some polishing, and exploring other ways they can contribute even if their primary skillset is a little shy of ideal.
• Treat all candidates as passive candidates. The idea of only wanting to hire people who really want to be at your company will limit your candidate pool.  Just because someone wants to work for you does not guarantee they are the best at what they do. In fact, those who are the best at what they do are usually paid well, have positions they want to be in and are working for companies to who they are loyal, and very well may be diverse. Isn’t that the profile of the ideal employee- A+, Loyal, highly-skilled, likes their current role and career path, and thus has no desire to leave? Don’t pass on someone because they are not super excited, or ask about comp.   Like us, they are trying to weigh their options- and candidates these days have many.  Hiring managers, executives, recruiters and panelists alike have to sell every candidate on the opportunities that their company can offer- and whys and how joining them would be helping their career growth and satisfaction.  Once they can see this, the candidate will engage more actively, be more realistic in their comp expectations, and will engage in a more meaningful interview.      
• Every candidate is diverse in some way- discover diversity together-  We are all different in some way all of us from different backgrounds, religions, family traditions, religious upbringings and ethnic heritages.  All of these affect our worldview. It is easy to confuse personal beliefs and experiences with company culture. Just because we “fit”  into an organization does not mean that someone from a completely different experience won’t.

In a very real way, practicing inclusivity nurtures diverse hiring which then becomes the company culture. Does this mean every company has the same culture?  Well, yes and no.   Many organizations have prided themselves in having the “Secret Sauce” all figured out and spend a lot of money in administering tests, evaluating employees, and trying to ascertain what makes a successful hire.

No doubt these can be valuable tools to help us understand ourselves and or our organizations better. And surely it helps managers better understand how to appreciate and maximize the value and contributions by all kinds of people, not just the ones that fit into one neat category which we label as “our cultural fit.”

Instead, as the world becomes a smaller place through the use of technology and virtual workplaces, the diversity that we have been practicing locally is going to take on a global scale.  But it is really no different.

One of the things I have learned traveling the world is that we – human beings- are all basically the same.  We all want to be safe, give our children better opportunities than we had, and feel as though we can contribute in some meaningful way.

By taking the time to use more behavioral-based questions, listen to stories and experiences of those who also possess skills and experience we need for any particular role, the more we will discover how those experiences, life lessons, skills and experience are valuable in whatever weight and combination we can find them in.  It becomes, who is the best person for the job- not just who is the best qualified for the job. That opens the world to endless diversity in hiring.

The post Being Mindful of Unconscious Bias appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

In the first piece of this trilogy, we discussed prioritization and the steps needed to help you shift into high-speed recruiting in a candidate’s market. The second article focused on small adjustments that can be made to maintain recruiting velocity and improve candidate experience and throughput. Here, we’ll discuss how to shift and adapt in even more involved and intricate ways.

Part 3: Complexity

In addition to many little adjustments to daily behavior and the way we treat candidates, there are also changes taking place in process, financial resource allocation and the overall screening that may take a little longer to deploy but will have significant impact on velocity.

Adopt a Standardized Interview Process

Ask questions that acknowledge bias while being concise enough to indicate a candidate’s skill level without a skills assessment. Multiple interviews with hiring managers and panels, along with skills evaluation tests, will add at least another week or more to the interview process.

A recent article in the San Diego Times explained how many technology companies are foregoing technical skills evaluations and relying more on tactical interview questions along with reviews of projects and industry mentions and contributions.

For example, suppose an applicant for a staff-level engineering position can’t produce samples of the work they were asked to bring to their interview and has no professional contributions to share. In that case, they may be a better fit for a mid-level role. Hiring managers should not be scrutinized for an ineffective hire, but instead asked to adjust their interview questions to be more effective in catching a deficit.

By developing a group of position-specific questions aimed at the desired skill level, candidate responses can be weighed against each other to find the experience and skillset most relevant to that position. Asking for a project summary and perhaps an example of a sanitized work product to review can add nuance to a candidate’s relevant experience where assessments offer only a score.

Be Open To Changing Processes

Even if the old ones served you well in the past. Agility means the willingness and the ability to quickly change processes and practices to meet the market’s demands and the customer’s needs.

It is understandable why the hiring manager may feel that waiting for the results of multiple interviews and testing to find the perfect candidate is the best way to service the customer. However, the customer may feel that having their product delivered on time or having someone in the seat of their customer liaison is the important factor, even if there is a little fine-tuning to be done.

Other changes — such as reducing the number of steps in the interview process, simplifying the online application and streamlining the offer and onboarding process — can take time to design and implement but will have a notable impact on the velocity and throughput of moving candidates through the pipeline.

Reallocate Money

Move some of the money no longer being spent on AAA office space. By leaving expensive office space behind, many companies anticipate putting those dollars back to the bottom line. But in the absence of an office environment to create synergies and a buzz around your culture of inclusiveness and learning, other things must be implemented to create cohesiveness. Dollars invested in employer branding, premium job postings, blogs and virtual recruiting events will come back to you.

Money invested in hosting tech symposiums, hack-a-thons and special events to make sure tech professionals see what innovations you are working on and the demand for your product will come back ten-fold. The more tech professionals who know who you are today, the more applicants you will get for the jobs you post tomorrow.

Applicant Base and Talent Communities

Use these shifts to build your candidate database and talent communities. Yes, 30 percent of all tech professionals will change jobs in the next year, and demand for their skills will rise by nearly 100 million jobs in just five years.

This is the long-awaited digital transformation accelerated by COVID and a need for companies to maintain functionality even when not under the same roof. This will increase applicant flow, and now is the time to get ready. Expect an increase in the number of overall applicants, which will make weeding through them more time-consuming.

Now is the perfect time to consider top end-of-funnel technologies and CRMs to track prospects’ career progression and include them in communities focused on their skills and locations. There are AI software solutions that reach out to every new job seeker in real-time, welcoming their application and standing by to answer basic questions.

There are also affordable, automated Q&A and video screening applications that can ask prescreening questions created by the recruiter or hiring manager. These help the recruiting team hone-in on hundreds of applicants to the handful with the best responses.

CRMs can manage ongoing outreach campaigns and track results over time, keeping former applicants, “silver medalists” (second choices) and coveted prospects engaged with the employer brand, new products and further innovation, waiting for the day when the prospect’s situation changes, and they reach out to you.

What better way to increase recruiting velocity and throughput than to have a pool of engaged and interested talent reaching out to you every time you post a new position?

Keep Learning

No doubt there is much more that can be done to increase recruiting velocity; please share your ideas or successes in the comments. One thing we surely can agree on — there is no magic wand to increase the speed or the number of candidates who move through the process. It’s up to us to find real-world working solutions.

The post Tech Recruiting Velocity in a Candidate Market: Part Three appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

Welcome to part two of a three-part series written to help you shift into high-speed recruiting in a candidate’s market.

In the first piece of this trilogy, we discussed prioritization and the steps needed to put recruiting at the top of your team’s list. “Executive leadership must declare that recruiting takes precedence for both the short-term and long-term ability to meet customer needs and company growth demands.”

Here, we’ll focus on the small adjustments that can be done to maintain recruiting velocity and improve candidate experience and throughput.

Part Two: Agility

Agile. This means the ability to adjust to current market conditions and customer demands in real-time in order to deliver results quickly while maintaining quality and service standards.

In other words, turn on a dime for the sake of satisfying customer demand, even if that means abandoning prior processes and so-called “best practices.” These pointers can seem like common sense in an agile mindset and are simple to initiate. However, they can feel like major overhauls to organizations married to the structure.

Keep these concepts in mind:

Goldilocks Syndrome

This one’s too tall. That one’s too small. This one’s too high. That one’s just right.

Like Goldilocks, companies are looking for a perfect fit for culture and skills. Let’s face it ­­— not everyone in the workforce is “A” talent, but that does not mean that every position at every level has to be filled by an “A” candidate to perform the job’s duties.

Companies spend a disproportionate amount of money and time compared to their return on these methods of evaluation. In this market, don’t expect to see an endless tunnel of candidates. Too often, amply qualified candidates are lost while employers wait for more applicants and directly sourced prospects. Either they possess the skills and experience to perform the duties of the position, or they don’t.

If they do, hire them.

What You Say Matters

Job postings, correspondences during the interview process and even rejection letters matter — a lot. What a candidate perceives defines your company.

Cluttered job postings with biased language, jargon and industry clichés can drive off the most talented and diverse individuals. Bias is real, and though you might not overtly say anything inappropriate or mean-spirited, your tone, innuendo and nonverbal communication on a Zoom interview can be just as loud.

Having a clear and concise job posting that has been checked for bias will encourage a better quality of candidates to apply and reduce the number of non-qualified candidates, each of which has to be reviewed and rejected by a recruiter.

A requisition that gets several hundred applicants can take hours to read through. These are hours that can be spent sourcing or giving a candidate more of a concierge’s level of service.

On the other end of the process, no one loves rejection letters, but wording such as “have decided not to move forward” seems finite and discourages applicants from applying again — ever. Instead, leave the door open and invite them to keep looking. “We found someone who was ideally qualified for this opening, but keep looking. Chances are at some point there will be an opening ideally suited for you,” is an honest but open-ended approach to letting a candidate know they are no longer being considered for a particular role they applied for.

Concierge Service for Candidates

A candidate-driven market means that companies no longer call the shots. It is estimated that most professionals in tech are getting 10-15 recruiter touches each week. That’s as many as 60 per month. When you think about it this way, you’ll understand why we are addressing maintaining velocity in the process.

Every day that passes allows at least one or more new opportunities to be presented to your applicant.

They will also want to know why they should work for your company. If this is not addressed throughout the entire interview process, those companies that do present well will win over the talent.

We have to make candidates feel as important as they are. If the hiring manager wants to draw in a prospect, have them reach out early in the sourcing outreaches. In a candidate-driven market, interviews for all candidates should take on a sales feel more than a traditional grilling over every possible aspect of the job.

Suppose the impression is that the environment is hypercritical or presents as elitist. That will repel a variety of talent groups and personas who are exceptionally skilled but overly critical of their own work.

Expand Your Perimeters

The shift toward working at home permanently has opened entirely new pockets of talent to be explored all over the world.

In the U.S. many tech companies were huddled around a few cities, often higher cost of living areas, offering higher comp and incentives to be competitive. But there are highly skilled professionals in other areas of the country that are not as expensive, such as Raleigh, Charlotte, Minneapolis and Pittsburgh, to name a few.

Even more remote locations like Bloomington, IN, or Binghamton, NY, have pockets of talent to feed giants like IBM. The Global market is the same, opening talent pools outside of the high-cost cities of Paris and London and the competitiveness of Bucharest and parts of Asia.

Fresh applicant pools mean less competition for more motivated, equally skilled, less expensive talent, increasing the throughput and velocity.

Stay Fresh

Deeper talent pools, personalized care for your candidates, not only watching but actively eliminating bias and staying open-minded to fit will all strengthen the agility of your hiring process. When considering velocity, agility will help push your team forward during The Great Recession and beyond.

Stay tuned next week for the third part of this three-piece series, where we’ll discuss how to shift and adapt with more complex situations.

The post Tech Recruiting Velocity in a Candidate Market: Part Two appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

It’s not going away anytime soon, either. A Microsoft report earlier this year stated “tech-oriented” jobs would increase from 41 million in 2020 to over 140 million by 2025.

There has not been a higher requirement for tech professionals since the 1990s web boom. And with more companies adopting work-from-home and hybrid models, talent is on the move. Some estimate that 30% of the entire tech workforce will change jobs in the next year.

This will create chaos but, simultaneously, an opportunity to snag new talent fresh on the market. The competition in this candidate-driven market is fierce, forcing companies to rethink how to put the candidate experience first, how they recruit and who they hire, sometimes turning to training and apprenticeship programs.

Agile organizations who are willing to part with legacy processes and adopt new, candidate-focused recruiting and hiring practices will surely reap the benefits.

Velocity means just that; how long it takes a candidate to pass through any single step will directly affect how many actually complete the interview process and even get to an offer stage.

This is the first of a three-part series that will help you shift into high-speed recruiting.

Part One: Prioritize

Executive leadership must declare that recruiting takes precedence for both the short-term and long-term ability to meet customer needs and company growth demands.

Put these policies in action:

Adopt a 24-48 Hour Response Time

We’re all busy, and it’s easy for work to pile up. Before we know it, we are a page of email behind. But when a position goes unfilled, a full inbox can become a tsunami and affect overall productivity and customer satisfaction.

Adopting an agreement between all persons involved in the interview to agree to 24-48 hours of hiring process reduces bottlenecks.

It’s up to managers to enforce this and practice it, as well. Candidate reviews should be returned to the recruiter in that 48-hour timeframe. Any delay means another company has a legitimate shot at snagging a potentially great prospect.

Show Up and Stay Engaged

Recruiters, hiring managers and interview panel members should equally understand that if they reschedule, they lose time and velocity. Plus, a candidate may perceive that they’re not a top contender and move along because, well, they have options.

Keeping your appointments and making people feel valuable and important during the interview process is critical. But in a candidate-driven market, we must allow flexibility to make sure we don’t spend a week waiting for an available time slot.

Candidate engagement is crucial. Hiring manager outreach is an effective ice breaker because it allows a high-level, low-key assessment of the individual. It also allows the applicant to communicate on a deeper level and gather enough insight to ask detailed questions about the position, which could spark more interest or shift them to withdraw earlier in the process.

Prepare Offers and Negotiations

A real offer is often the first time your candidate will stop and weigh their options. Give the recruiter a little power to negotiate so time is not wasted in the approval process.

In this heated race, don’t be surprised if four or five offers hit a candidate at once and stall acceptance. Sign-on bonuses for key roles can help solidify more urgent offers. Even consider offering to double the sign-on amount if they accept on the spot and show up the first day of work.

You’re Optional

No one likes to hear those words, but it is the harsh reality of a candidate-driven, tech recruiting market. Much like any other relationship, prioritizing and staying considerate of your candidates’ time, interest, attention and value helps create confidence and a better candidate experience. To say that this dynamic is critical now more than ever is an understatement.

Stay tuned for part two of this three-part series, where we’ll discuss agility, bias, demographics and more.

The post Tech Recruiting Velocity in a Candidate Market: Part One appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, companies have defined themselves by their “Brick and Mortar.” Or, their hard assets, in the form of equipment, warehouses, manufacturing facilities and corporate office buildings. Though this remains for many, such as manufacturing-based companies or business models for service companies.

Those with no tangible products have still been defined by what happens within the walls of their offices; the culture, collaboration and energy being the crucial components for the success of the company.

This solid foundation has also caused certain inherent realities such as finite, local talent pools. Pools expandable only by opening more brick and mortar offices everywhere the business wants to function. Thus, costs of living, office space and vendors’ availability and support services often dictated expansion plans and customer satisfaction.

Along comes COVID, and everyone is working at home. Suddenly, the office culture is gone. No more daily lunches, Friday Happy Hours, office parties, birthday parties or in-person collaboration.

Without the office structure – the brick and mortar containing and offering a structure to the organism – companies felt they were on shaky ground and uncharted territory.

How do we preserve our culture? How do we foster Synergy? What about productivity? Can everyone be productive working at home? What are the needs of our employees while working at home? How can we possibly measure this?

Work at Home Skepticism

Traditionally, companies have been very skeptical about allowing team members to work at home. The assumption has always been that productivity would suffer as everyday distractions continuously interrupt the old 9-5 workday.

There was also the unsaid concern that employees that wanted to work virtually had something to hide: a questionable work ethic, poor interpersonal skills, or some kind of social anxiety that made working in an office stressful. The overall assumption was that they were not team players if they need to work at home.

I have worked virtually for over 20 years and personally have encountered these assertions. I have been passed over for roles that were strong fits for my experience and background because of my desire to work at home.

I have been the subject of daily 7:30 AM meetings: to make sure that I was awake, at my desk, and ready to work by 8 am. Or the “random” checkpoint phone call or even being instructed to tape-record my recruiting calls so that I could present at least 8 hours of cold calls per week to prove my activities.

A Forced Evolution

COVID forced the rapid shift of the organization’s dependence on the office to define their culture and assure productivity, toward depending on the employees themselves to ensure personal productivity and be personally accountable for producing quality work on time.

Companies have discovered that they don’t need the brick and mortar of the office building to bind the business – essentially being the company’s cell wall. Instead, they can turn to Technology to be the binding force – the cell membrane – in a much more flexible and agile organism.

Not only did we find that we can use tech for measuring productivity, contribution, build teams, and foster collaboration, but found that the assumption of people being less productive and more distracted working at home was not true.

We also learned that the expectation of family life not interfering or distracting from work has always been a farce. Even when in an office, people would step into the stairwell or go for a walk to handle personal affairs during office time.

Sometimes these distractions could take up hours in the course of a workday. While parents make call after call to take care of urgent family issues that cannot be put off until later, or even to leave the office to take care of the family. Which would often result in the loss of the entire workday or a return to work later with other things on their mind.

Work-life integration while working at home has shown employers that it is better to let people understand that they have obligations for performance, deadlines and making video call appearances as needed to satisfy customer needs.

We have realized that more important than the 9-5 workday is the expectation of performance and completing quality work on time, and always keeping the customer’s need at the center of our activities.

So then does it matter if someone works 8-4? Or 9-5, or 9-9 with a couple of breaks throughout the day to drive the kids to piano lessons or go to appointments?

No. It doesn’t. Shifting to the work-at-home environment has proven what I have always known: Most people are more productive at home.

Though the family might be physically right in front of us – they always have been as the phone calls or text messages blow up the phone – what is missing are the office distractions.

Gossip, water cooler chats, office parties, dress-down days, happy hours, farewell cakes, gift exchanges, Halloween dress-ups, and any number of other little events aimed at building team comradery, all designed to make the office less grueling.

At home, we are less distracted when we can handle life’s little problems as they come up and get back to work. Rather than ignoring problems, allowing them to snowball until we can no longer ignore them, then taking much more time to resolve.

Not Defined by Walls

We have discovered that indeed, we do not need walls of an office to define us. Instead, Technology can now bind us together, allowing us to meet in real-time.

Productivity software tracks project progress, reminds us of upcoming deadlines, shows managers when someone on their team is falling behind or struggling, and shows the capacity of other team members who may be able to step in and help.

Since we are digitizing the employee experience, we can now also qualify skills that are being nurtured and opportunities for improvement. Training can happen one-on-one in real-time when we first identify we need it.

Employees can find opportunities to grow specific skills, and managers can plug those into projects that will nurture their passions into proficiencies. This means companies must immediately reallocate budgets for physical office space toward technologies that now are the organization’s structural cohesion.

This evolution of business from the hard cell body of a tree – brick & mortar – to the more flexible cell membrane of an animal with the agility of a Cheetah.

A company bound by technology and talent will enable companies to grow faster, be more agile to address customer needs, and move in any direction driven by customer demand.

Stagnation should become a thing of the past. The old, stodgy, restrictive, and conformist model of the cubicles in stacks in an office building will be replaced with virtual, diverse, globally inclusive companies that foster creativity, growth and collaboration.

What an exciting time to be in Talent!

The post From Plant to Animal: The Evolution Of Business appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

Batman was always my favorite superhero because he wasn’t from some far off planet or given some magic ring or irradiated by gamma radiation. He was just an average person who knew how to use the most advanced tech to figure his way out of the craziest problems. Batman was Agile before the term was all the buzz.

COVID Side-Effects

COVID-19 has forced companies to take a look at every aspect of their business in order to adapt to the changes that had to take place. Though many of us have worked virtually for decades, the idea of having entire companies working at home was frightening, as if the office building itself was some kind of cell wall that held the organism intact. Providing an integral structure so that the organization could be cohesive enough to function as a business.

But COVID showed us the truth. It’s not truly the brick and mortar shell holding the company intact, but rather the technology.

In a recent article published on October 13th by McKinsey and Company, they outline 5 key factors that they have observed to be common amongst their customers who are navigating the COVID world using Agile thinking and transformation to succeed no matter what curveball comes next.

These key factors are:

1. 1. Establish a common purpose and clear communications.
   2. Set up structures to allow rapid decision making.
   3. Created networks of teams with clear and accountable roles.
   4. Develop a culture that empowers people.
   5. Provide people the technology they need.

Tech-Centric Tools

They are simple really. In looking at them, they are all centered around technology. Clear and open communication is accomplished by having the best video tech and to keep communication channels open.

Rapid decision making is only accomplished competently when technology provides us with real-time data and facts to base those decisions on. Teams are working virtually. So once again, technology is the binding element assuring team coherence and success.

All this when working together truly does empower the people of an organization and it cannot be done without the technology.

Coming from a background of recruitment enablement and talent sourcing, getting sent for the next best bell or whistle has been a challenge throughout my career.   HR budgets have traditionally given a small portion to most organizations’ in-house recruiting functions, making Batmans out of all of us. (Though, more reminiscent of MacGyver using duct tape and string and paperclips to produce world-class results.)

But business is now interwoven with technology and software. You don’t have to be a SaaS company to benefit from dozens of SaaS technologies and cloud computing solutions to help make whatever it is you do easier, more accurate, and more streamlined to get done with more transparent results shared across the organization.

The Evolution

The real evolution from COVID 19 will be embracing technology like our new brick and mortar. See it not as a neat tool to have in the Bat-belt, but as a necessary part of the life of an organization that it couldn’t survive without.

Just like the infinite gadgets in Bruce Wayne’s bat-belt, there might only be a very occasional, specific use for that tool. But he would have been burned alive had he not had it.

As a 25-year sourcing SME, my job has always been recruitment enablement. Finding the tools out there, I have always had to argue to justify every paperclip in my Bat-Belt.

We are moving to a world where tech tools, cloud-based tech solutions, enterprise platform solutions, and cell phone apps are integral as to how each of us does our job. They are no longer bells and whistles. They are now necessary tools in our belt to be competitive.

Availability

The availability of those tools will not only directly affect the ability of a company to perform in the market, but also its ability to grab the attention of and recruit the most gifted and innovative talent in the marketplace.

After all, who would respond to an ad for Batman if it said:

“Wanted, athletic, quick to HIS/HER feet, quick to heal superhero wanted.  Must be able to stitch own wounds and develop their own agile solutions to problems brought on by the most notorious supervision(s).  Experience with the building of own gadgets required- raw materials not provided. As a superhero, you will be accountable for the arrest and detainment of the most dangerous people in the city.  This a contract/ as needed opening with per project compensation and no healthcare benefits.” 

If companies truly want to hire the “Bruce Waynes” of the Tech world, they have to be ready to give these innovators all the tools in the tool bat-belt which make Batman a Superhero.

As Recruiters and Sourcers who look for the Bruce Waynes of the world every day, we have to make sure our Bat-Belts are filled too.

The post The Bat-Belt of Recruiting appeared first on RecruitingDaily.

Coming from “old school” retained search has given me what I think is an advantage over my peers even a few years younger than me, and taught me that still even with all this tech, nothing beats talking to people and forming relationships.

I got good at sourcing passive, hard to move candidates, and bringing them to the table. After several wins of bringing 8 figure revenue producers to a few of my banking clients, I started to be called “The Hired Gun.” Because I was reliably on target, expensive and always got the job done. Always.

Despite my sterling track record and 20 or so recommendations on LinkedIn, I found it disheartening that even many HR and recruiting peers found it hard to believe that I worked from home for almost all of my career. And yet was the “Hired gun.”

Until recently, employers had a general reluctance to hire virtually. Fearful that there would be many distractions affecting productivity, or believing that we would abuse the “freedom” and “screw around all day.”

I even had a few of my bosses that held daily 7:30 AM team meetings on my account to make sure the guy working at home was at least awake if she had to be on her way to work. Yet when asked in interviews with prospective clients what the key reason was for my success, I would always answer: Working virtually.

A Sudden Leap of Faith

COVID suddenly forced companies to take a leap of faith, and I would lie if I said there were not challenges. Of course, there are always going to be those employees that are not the most productive of the bunch. And in those cases, their fears were realized. But to their surprise, the overwhelming majority have done okay.

As a matter of fact, they are doing pretty good, and in many instances productivity has blown the roof off.

The Harvard Business Review published an article just this past May amidst the COVD Crisis entitled, “The Pandemic Has Exposed the Fallacy of the “Ideal Worker.” Curiosity got them to take a look at the new virtual worker, citing a 2013 article on the topic. When employers were starting to grasp the concept, but still having problems with that leap of faith.

And what did they find? Now that we all work from home, almost all our productivity is up!  Some may say that it’s because we have been quarantined and have nothing else to do. However, further survey questions revealed we spend more time learning and researching topics of interest. While at the same time taking more initiative (not less as old school management has long held true) in completing our work and checking the quality of work.

And that need for an office to drive productivity and keep people on task? Evidently, that was a fallacy too.

Work-Life Integration

As team-oriented and exciting as an office environment can be, it is often the home of distraction, cliquish behavior, and unnecessary rivalry. All of which inhibit performance, morale and productivity. With the introduction of particular technologies and software such as project and team management apps, managers are becoming more comfortable with the fact that they don’t have to have an eye on each of their team members every moment of every day.

I am most productive when my day is a mix of work-related responsibilities and personal commitments. Soon, they are going to realize what I have been living for over 20 years:  The work-life balance is becoming work-life integration.

I have learned to schedule my personal affairs as part of my day. I understand that it is always my responsibility to be there when my customers (internal or external) need me to be. It is also my responsibility to be available whenever my team members, subordinates or superiors, require my input.

It is expected that I’ll be productive and get my work done, and before the deadline. I will be 100% transparent and ask for help if I need it. It doesn’t matter, therefore, if I had a personal appointment during the business day. Or, if I have to take my kid to the doctor. Or if I get distracted for 20 minutes taking care of a little family drama that each of us has from time to time.

Employers are learning that it’s better to allow folks to handle personal matters as they come up during the day and get done with them so that they can get back to work. Better yet: if one knows these are coming, we can schedule them around our urgent work tasks and meetings so that we don’t miss a beat for our customers.

Most people find they can handle personal matters and duties quickly and effectively when a productive home office is available. Think about how many times have you had to take half a day off work because the cable guy can only give you an appointment that’s a four-hour window. Or the repair person for the washing machine can only promise they’ll be out sometime on Thursday. And then they cancel and ask to reschedule!

These are huge holes in our work schedule that when we are not set up to work from home, our productivity is disrupted. That 20-minute conference with the school teacher can take up most of the morning of work.

Measuring Productivity, Not Time

Thanks to COVID, Work/Life balance has sped up Work/Life integration. That means employers accepting that we all have personal lives and responsibilities that need to be addressed. It also means believing that capable and committed employees are going to make sure that their commitment to their employer and customers is complete. No matter how late they have to work. The notion that they can be kept entirely separate is unrealistic. It always has been. But now that our office is right down the hall to our bedroom, it’s impossible.

We as Talent Acquisition professionals need to be strong voices of this new paradigm and take the time to educate our anxious Hiring Managers and executive leadership of how this is going to affect what we consider to be a typical workday.

Productivity is going be measured by tasks achieved, the quality of work, projects completed and most importantly, customer satisfaction. Instead of how many hours and which hours we sat behind a desk, on the telephone or behind our computer.

Most of us know we are at our best when trusted and left to do our work with pride. And most of us ask for help when we get in over our heads. Hiring managers roles shift to the support, the coach, the life raft when deadlines must get met.

This is the new paradigm shift that we as talent acquisition professionals face, in helping our hiring managers feel comfortable with hiring the “right” people onto their teams who they’ve never had an opportunity to meet face-to-face. It is also our responsibility to help our new employees adjust to this new normal of integrating their daily lives with their work life.

Tapping Into Hidden Skills and Wisdom

Companies had already been moving to help employees manage and grow their skills so that they can have more agile contributions. We are going to find that as we learn more about our employees as people and not just task doers, that they are a store of all sorts of hidden skills, experiences and wisdom, that we were never able to tap in the typical office environment.

This will allow companies to embrace that more agile approach and find ways to truly capitalize on employee strengths and abilities while creating solid career paths and never before realized job satisfaction. All this trickles down to happier customers, which translates into more business!

Add to that the savings of not spending millions on expensive office space and companies are going to be kicking themselves in the pants that they didn’t embrace the idea of the virtual virtuosos years ago.

The post Virtual Virtuosos and the Masters of Virtual Work appeared first on RecruitingDaily.