Top 3 takeaways

1. Job security is more important now, up to 38.6% from 32.1% two years ago
2. Career advancement is growing as a job attractor from 15.8% to 22%
3. Compensation is still the top consideration for a job across all scenarios

Job security is always important, of course – people need to put food on the table and to pay their bills, so they’re reliant on that employer-employee arrangement where they provide their services in exchange for compensation. It’s the basic structure of labor.

Naturally, it would follow that one side of that equation would have leverage over the other. One may have a luxury of choice that the other may not have. In the last few years, we saw employees exercise their leverage by pushing for higher salaries, more flexible working arrangements, and better working conditions.

But now, things have shifted again. Job security is growing in importance for US workers when evaluating the value of a new job. In 2021, 32.1% considered job security as a significant factor in what they’d find attractive about a new opportunity – and this climbed to 38.6% in 2023.

This suggests a desire for stability and predictability among workers who are rattled by the weird chaos of the post-pandemic economy. Workers now want to be able to count on a reliable income stream for the foreseeable future.

The percentage of workers looking to move to another job overall is also dropping. Why fix what ain’t broke, right? When workers would rather stick with something they already have rather than go into the wild blue yonder looking for new roles, that suggests they’re valuing stability over opportunity. It’s another effect of the uncertain times we’re living in right now.

What else is growing in importance for workers who are looking for new opportunities? Career advancement. In 2021, 15.8% of workers in the US considered this a major factor in changing jobs – that’s since climbed to 22%.

But it’s still mostly about the money

Money still talks. No matter how you look at it, compensation in the form of salary, perks, and benefits is still the top priority for all workers regardless of the situation they’re in – whether they’re looking, whether they’re staying in their current job, or anything else.

Comp is also growing in terms of attractiveness when potential candidates are being wooed to a new job – from 62.2% in 2021 to 68.9% now.

Interestingly, we asked active jobseekers why they’re looking for a new opportunity, and we found that compensation dropped in terms of importance from 63.4% in 2021 to 58.5% now. What’s growing in importance for those who decide to start looking for a new job are, yes, career advancement opportunities and meaningfulness of work (25% now compared with 20.8% two years ago).

Job security in itself is valued hugely – that much is clear. And compensation is part of that security – when a worker gets paid more, that’s security in the form of personal finance.

Even a focus on career advancement can be indirectly related to workers’ desire for greater security – people don’t want to be just mercenaries brought in to do a specific job with an end date to that job. They want to flourish, grow, and evolve in their existing role. They want to be invested for the long haul.

Today’s workers are looking beyond the financial aspects of a job, seeking roles that offer intrinsic satisfaction. Plus security and stability, too.

What can you do?

1. Promote job security

As job security grows in importance, employers should communicate the stability of their organization and roles during the recruitment process.

You can demonstrate this by showcasing a strong company history, financial stability, and a reliable pipeline of future projects. Your careers page is a great opportunity to show off all this stuff about you.

2. Highlight growth opportunities

With career advancement becoming more important to workers, employers should highlight opportunities for career growth in their organizations.

This can be communicated by promoting examples of career progression within the company, mentoring programs, and opportunities for ongoing professional development. Again, put this in your careers page in the form of employee testimonials and workplace videos.

3. Keep your salaries competitive

Despite the growth in importance of job security and career advancement, compensation remains key. Ensure ensure your compensation packages remain competitive, encompassing not just salary but also benefits and perks.

This can demonstrate your commitment to rewarding and retaining your employees – leading to a happier and more productive workforce in the end.

The post Don’t rock the boat: stable and secure is the way to float appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Top 3 takeaways

1. Seven out of 10 are now working full time, compared with 55.3% in 2021
2. Those “not working” is down from one in five to one in 10 – more due to choice than extraneous factors
3. One in two workers are now only passively open to other opportunities, up from 37% two years ago

In 2023, nearly seven out of every 10 respondents (69.2%) in the United States reported that they are working full time. That’s up from 55.3% in 2021.

Meanwhile, the percentage of those who say they aren’t working dropped from 20.8% in 2021 to 9.9% now.

In short, the US job market is healthier than it’s been since pre-COVID. There’s more work out there, and it shows.

But it’s not just the raw percentages that tell the tale; it’s the reasons behind them. When those respondents were asked why they’re not working, they point to personal choices rather than job scarcity or financial pressures.

For example: the top two reasons cited by US workers for not working in 2023 are family priorities (31.1%) and health priorities (25.7%). That’s up from 30% and 18.8% respectively in 2021.

Also, it seems to be largely due to choice rather than simple necessity: the percentage of those who aren’t working because they’re focused on personal and professional development also more than doubled to 8.1% in 2023 from 3.8% in 2021.

And they’re hardly looking

Those who say they’re actively looking for new opportunities dropped from 33.4% in 2021 to 22.6% now – regardless of whether they’re currently working or not.

For those who are working, this suggests that workers in the US are now more content to be in their current work situation.

But does that also mean they’re not interested in other roles? Not necessarily. Those who say they’re passively open to new opportunities – in other words, they’re open to a conversation or are curious to see what’s out there, but not actively hunting for new roles – grew significantly to 51.1% from 37.3%.

What does that mean for hiring teams? Well, for one, the talent availability out there isn’t limited to those who actively apply for your open roles. If you open a new job and aren’t seeing those star candidates showing up in your inbox, rest assured that they’re out there. You just have to reach out to them and initiate the conversation.

What can you do?

1. Prioritize your employees’ happiness

The increase in job stability means employers should focus on enhancing retention strategies.

This could involve prioritizing employee satisfaction, job security, and providing opportunities for growth and development within the organization.

2. Allow your teams to be flexible

As personal reasons, i.e. family and health priorities, are leading factors for not working, employers need to consider flexible work policies that accommodate personal needs.

This might include offering remote work options, flexible hours, ease of commute, accessibility, or increased family and health support.

3. Market yourself as a great place to work

With more than half of the respondents only passively open to new opportunities, employers should work on making their company stand out as an attractive option.

This could involve marketing the unique benefits and opportunities of their organization, showcasing strong company culture, and emphasizing their dedication to employee well-being and personal growth.

The post 69% employed and 51% passive: Working hard & hardly looking appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

The pandemic pressed the Great Reset button on work. We’re entering a new era that calls for evolved priorities and preferences from employers.

To help leaders adapt, we surveyed 750 US and 500 UK workers to better understand what’s important to them in a job. We then compared the findings to the data from our original Great Discontent survey in 2021.

The results – in Workable’s brand-new Great Discontent 2.0 survey report – spotlight clear transformations in what employees now value most. Companies that tune in to their people’s changing needs will be primed to attract and retain top talent. Those that ignore the new reality risk driving their best people away.

Across both markets, one priority emerges crystal clear: employees are seeking stability. Commitment is a two-way street: when organizations commit, this breeds loyalty in return among today’s workforce.

With economic and geopolitical uncertainties abounding, workers crave a reliable income stream. Full-time roles are increasingly in demand, with a drop in self-employment and side-hustles. The active jobseeker herd has thinned as employees hunker down in their current roles – although they’re not entirely dropping out of the new-job sweepstakes.

Smart companies are promoting stability and security. This could involve highlighting a strong company history that makes one proud to work for them, robust plans for growth that tap into workers’ desire to grow and shine in their careers, and assurances around job security to show people that someone’s got their back.

Beyond stability, the data reveals evolutions in what attracts and retains workers in the US and UK today:

Flexibility

Flexibility has become firmly entrenched as the new normal. Whether it’s remote work, hybrid arrangements, or flexible scheduling, employees want options. After adapting so extensively through the pandemic, inflexible work seems unthinkable to many. Savvy employers aren’t just allowing flexibility – they’re embracing and perfecting it.

Society and humanity

The social and human elements of work matter more than ever. Employees want to connect with leaders who inspire them. They want collaborative relationships with colleagues who feel like family. Cold corporate machines have little appeal – workers seek warmer environments where they feel valued. Forward-thinking companies are strengthening culture, facilitating connections, and communicating with transparency.

Growth and advancement

Hunger for growth and advancement persists. Employees still want opportunities to continuously develop skills, take on new challenges and progress their careers. However, potential now outweighs paychecks for attracting new talent – highlighting the motivational power of personal growth. Workplaces that invest in people’s futures, instead of just exploiting their presents, have the edge.

Compensation

Of course, compensation still stands number-one atop the priority pyramid. While other factors have grown in importance, pay still matters. Fair compensation, generous benefits and updated rewards strategies are essential for retention. But they’re just one part of a bigger picture – financial incentives alone aren’t enough in today’s environment.

In many ways, the new era requires a back-to-basics approach. What prevailed before was often surface-level attractions and momentary exchanges. Moving forward, employees are seeking simplicity, clarity and meaning. They want to connect, contribute and grow. Employers that tap into these fundamentally human desires will be poised to flourish.

Those that cling to outdated assumptions risk losing today’s top talent to those that just “get it”.

This is just a high-level overview. The full data provides richer insights into the forces shaping the workforce. Check out the highlights!

Are you ready to not just survive, but thrive in the new era of work? Uncover more about what employees value most today – and how to align your organization with their evolving needs and preferences.

The post The Great Discontent 2.0: What workers want in this new era appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Generative AI is still very new, and we’re all still figuring out how it works, but it’s already changing the way we attract and hire talent – mostly for the better. From automating routine administrative tasks to offering data-driven insights, ChatGPT and other AI tools are helping recruiters streamline their processes, make better and more informed decisions, and ultimately get more done with less time.

Let’s dive deeper into the different innovative use cases of ChatGPT for recruitment purposes – how it can improve the candidate experience and lead to better hiring outcomes.

The impact of ChatGPT for recruiting

Integrating ChatGPT into recruitment processes helps us recruiters be more efficient at our jobs, so we can offer a better hiring experience for the candidates we work with.

Using ChatGPT and other generative AI tools frees up time that we can use on the higher-value, more strategic aspects of our roles. It also makes life better for candidates by giving them instant responses to queries, and a seamless, interactive recruitment process.

Making use of ChatGPT for recruiting and HR can also make our recruiting process more inclusive. When we use generative AI to craft job descriptions that are free of biased language, we can create a more diverse and inclusive hiring process.

7 clever ways recruiters can use ChatGPT

The power of AI lies in its versatility and adaptability. Processes like onboarding and initial candidate screening are just some of the use cases for using ChatGPT in recruitment, but the possibilities of the technology are potentially limitless.

It’s important to remember, also, that ChatGPT and other AI tools are here to help us enhance our skillsets and help us be better recruiters – not to replace our jobs.

1. Creating dynamic job descriptions

Making the perfect job description is equal parts art and science. It takes a clear understanding of a role and the skills required, and the ability to communicate them effectively.

This is the kind of work that GPT-powered AI tools excel at. Workable has its own AI job description generator which you can use to create a solid foundation.

Then, using ChatGPT or a similar AI tool, you can further refine and enhance it in a way that works in the nuances of job requirements, skills, and other key aspects of the role.

Let’s say you use Workable’s AI job description generator to make a basic job posting for a project manager role in the animation industry and give it a friendly tone:

You can ask ChatGPT to build on that foundation and flesh it out with a prompt like:

“I’ve used Workable’s job description generator to create a basic description for a project manager role. Now, I’d like to add more depth. The role involves overseeing project execution, managing team members, and ensuring the timely delivery of projects. Can you help me elaborate on these responsibilities and suggest some desired skills and qualifications?”

Using ChatGPT in conjunction with other AI and recruitment tools like Workable, you can create dynamic job descriptions that stand out from the crowd amongst dozens of postings for similar roles.

2. Automating initial candidate screening

The average recruiter has to sift through a practically biblical flood of resumes and cover letters to go through the initial screening of candidates for any given role.

AI tools can greatly streamline this process when you train it to review resumes and cover letters and identify the most promising candidates based on specific keywords and required qualifications.

For example: using a prompt such as: “Review these resumes and rank the candidates based on their qualifications for a software engineer position” can help you quickly pick out candidates who match the criteria you’re looking for:

3. Setting up an interactive FAQ chatbot

Candidates have to face off with hundreds of applicants no less deserving than themselves for the same role, so they’re anxious for quick and frequent updates and easy access to information.

A way you can meet their expectations is by using ChatGPT and other chatbot recruiting tools to answer common candidate questions regarding the company culture, job roles, and the application process.

While ChatGPT is powerful and useful on its own, you can use it in conjunction with other tools to enhance its capabilities. Tools such as Drift, Intercom, or LivePerson can be used to handle the main interface, while you make use of ChatGPT for any queries that require more personalized responses.

For example: a prompt like “Answer common questions about our company culture, job roles, and application process” can help you anticipate common FAQ questions, make appropriate responses, and plan your chatbot automations accordingly.

4. Conducting initial interviews

Initial interviews are your chance as a recruiter to get to know the candidate as a person, and assess their suitability for a role beyond what you see on their resume.

Workable’s video interview question generator can give you a solid foundation for questions to ask in the initial interview, and another AI tool like ChatGPT can make those questions more clear, more specific to the role, or more personalized to the candidate – diving deeper into their story, their experience, and their ability to succeed in the role.

For example: After having the Workable interview question generator create questions for a sales manager position, you can give them to ChatGPT with a prompt like: “I’ve used Workable’s interview question generator to generate some basic interview questions for a sales manager position. Now, I’d like to add more depth. Can you generate a list of behavior-based interview questions that focus on leadership, team management, and sales strategy?”

5. Automating follow-up communications

There’s an old line of thinking in recruitment – “it’s all in the follow-up.”

Timely follow-ups and updates show candidates that you respect their time, but consistent communication is time-consuming for the average recruiter who is already juggling multiple candidates and priorities.

AI tools can be used to automate follow-up communications with candidates to schedule interviews, provide feedback, and offer updates on the status of their application – and personalize the emails to each candidate.

For example: a prompt like “Draft a follow-up email to a candidate after their interview, providing feedback on their performance and discussing the next steps in the process.” can be tweaked and templatized to streamline your communication workflow with job candidates.

6. Streamlining the onboarding process

The onboarding phase gives both the new hire and you a chance to start things off on the right foot and enable them to succeed.

It’s in both your and the candidate’s interests that it go smoothly, but creating individualized onboarding plans is too resource-intensive to do for each new hire.

Enter ChatGPT – which can be used to streamline your onboarding process and make it tailored to each new hire’s role, ensuring that they receive the right training and guidance as they begin their new role.

Try using a prompt like: “Create a personalized onboarding schedule for a new software engineer hire. The schedule should include an introduction to the team, training on our software development processes, and a meeting with their project manager.”

Tweak and individualize it to make a consistent onboarding process that sets up new hires for success from the day they start.

7. Enhancing training and development with simulations

Recruiters need to continually refine their skills to be good at what they do, just like any skilled work. Using ChatGPT in recruitment training processes can create realistic training simulations and role-playing exercises, so you can prepare for a variety of recruiting situations and respond to candidates accordingly.

You can use HR chatbots to play the part of a candidate and practice your interviewing skills, which in turn can lead to better hiring decisions.

For example: try a prompt like “Act as a candidate for a role-playing exercise for interview training. The role is a software engineer and the candidate has five years of experience in the field.”, test out different responses and see what the outcomes are.

Embracing ChatGPT for recruiting

The future of recruitment is here, and AI is its engine. These are just a few examples of how recruiters can use ChatGPT to be more effective at their jobs, but they are by no means the only ones. The potential use cases for ChatGPT and AI tools in recruitment are limited only by your own imagination.

Using ChatGPT for recruiting can streamline your workflows, make a better interview and hiring experience for candidates, and find and keep the best talent.

If you’re ready to take your recruitment process to the next level with AI, Workable is here to support your transition every step of the way. Get in touch with us to learn more about how we can help you make the most out of ChatGPT for your recruiting process.

The post 7 clever ways ChatGPT can help recruiters get more done appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

However, with so many options available to top-tier engineers and tech talent in Greece, it can be challenging to attract them to work for your company instead of a foreign one.

In this blog post, we explore some tips and strategies for attracting the best talent in the Greek software development market – particularly those that have worked at Workable.

1. Offer competitive compensation and benefits

One of the most important factors for engineers when considering a company is the compensation and benefits package. To compete with international companies, it is suggested to offer a competitive salary, health insurance, paid time off and bonuses.

It is also recommended to consider offering perks like flexible working hours, remote work options, and opportunities for professional development.

At Workable, we have consistently offered salaries that exceed the market average to maintain competitiveness. During and after the COVID era, we recognized the impending changes in the engineering market. Consequently, we implemented a strategic plan to elevate our compensation schemes to 20-30% above the Greek market average.

This proactive approach aided us in retaining our software engineers, enhancing their productivity, and attracting superior talent.

When engineers are happy with their compensation, they will promote their organization throughout their own communities.

2. Foster a positive company culture

Creating a positive company culture is the key in attracting and keeping the best talent for a long time. This is especially true in the close-knit software development community of Greece where news, good or bad, spreads quickly.

We take pride in the positive reviews we get about how we hire people. We don’t just look for expertise in certain programming languages or tools. Instead, we search for skilled developers who have a solid foundation and a good understanding of the best practices in the industry.

Our engineering team has put together a detailed training program. This includes online learning and hands-on experience to fully prepare our new team members in their first few months.

When it comes to hiring tech talent in Greece, we look for potential. We feel proud when we see our employees advance in their careers and earn pay raises due to their hard work and dedication. This success comes from bringing on board individuals with potential and talent.

We organize our teams in a way that encourages employees to stretch their professional limits.

3. Provide a challenging and stimulating work environment

Engineers seek stimulating and challenging projects. Attracting top talent requires an environment that encourages creativity and innovation. This means providing access to advanced technologies and tools, allowing engineers to experiment and take risks, and cultivating a collaborative and team-oriented culture.

At Workable, we appreciate that the best candidates are adaptable engineers eager to learn. We don’t concentrate solely on the specific technologies an engineer knows, but rather on strong computer science fundamentals and best practices. We achieve this by providing challenging technical assignments that potential candidates can excel in.

Small hackathons, like those we’ve hosted in the past, can also help us uncover talented individuals. Lastly, we maintain a the Workable Tech Blog where we share the latest technical updates at Workable with the community, to attract talent.

4. Emphasize the impact of the work

At Workable, our engineers deliver valuable tools to recruiters, with client feedback on new features uplifting our team. We hold all-hands meetings quarterly to update everyone on company goals, progress, and our product roadmap. In these meetings, we also highlight our engineering teams’ achievements and future projects.

Product managers announce newly developed features on our Slack channel across the company, acknowledging the efforts of the involved team members. This practice brings a sense of achievement and recognizes hard work.

This way, everyone at Workable stays updated and collaborates towards shared success.

5. Emphasize the benefits of working locally

Working for a local company can offer many benefits that working for an international company cannot. For example, for tech talent in Greece, working for a local company can offer a better work-life balance, as engineers will not have to deal with time zone differences or long commutes.

However, offering the option of a hybrid working model can also be a huge advantage, as it allows for more flexibility and a greater work-life balance. At Workable, we offer both options to our employees, with offices in Boston, Athens, and London, and a flexible remote work policy.

When working on premises we provide our employees with perks like parking, fresh food, snacks, and a variety of drinks daily, and we also have various games like tabletop board games, foosball, programs with vendors for mental and physical well being and to make their day more fun at the office and bring them closer together as teams.

Additionally, we organize an annual company retreat as part of our employee engagement initiative, fostering a sense of unity and camaraderie among team members.

Related: The power of a corporate retreat: 5 reasons why you should do it

Moreover, we acknowledge the contributions of our remote employees and understand the importance of face-to-face meetings for certain business needs. To facilitate this, Workable covers the travel expenses for our remote employees when they are required to visit the office. We believe in supporting our team members regardless of their location, and ensuring they have all the resources they need to be successful in their roles.

6. Offer opportunities for career advancement

Engineers want to work for companies that offer opportunities for career advancement. This includes things like training and development programs, mentorship opportunities, and opportunities to take on leadership roles.

By providing engineers with opportunities to learn and grow, you can keep them engaged and motivated to stay with your company for the long term. In Workable, our development plan gives engineers the opportunity to grow as an individual contributor or as a lead of a team.

This means training in new tech skills, training in soft skills, salary raises and other compensation benefits.

The Greek software development market is highly competitive, and it can be a challenge to attract top talent in Greece to your company. You can get around that by offering competitive compensation and benefits, providing a challenging and stimulating work environment, emphasizing the impact of the work, and fostering a positive company culture.

Add to that the benefits of working locally or remotely and opportunities for career advancement, and you can convince talented engineers to work for your company and help it grow and thrive.

Want to learn about attracting top tech talent in Boston or London? We’ve got those covered as well:

• Wooing top tech talent: Recruiting in the Boston tech scene
• Tech recruitment in London: Luring and sourcing top tech talent

The post Attracting top tech talent in Greece: an approach to success appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Which bears the question: how do businesses recognize Juneteenth in a way that shows substantive support both now and in the future? And more importantly – it’s not just for the actual holiday itelf. Consider this a primer on how to ensure a truly inclusive working environment throughout the year and to recognize the day going forward.

Let’s start from the beginning:

What is Juneteenth?

A portmanteau of the words “June” and “Nineteenth”, Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas to announce the abolishment of slavery in the state under President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

Also called Jubilee Day, Black Independence Day and Emancipation Day, Juneteenth is regularly celebrated across the United States but until Biden’s announcement was only a paid holiday in eight states including Massachusetts, New York, and Washington.

Five ways for employers to offer substantive support

While it’s important for employers to recognize this federal holiday, it’s also critical to strike the right tone considering the day’s historical significance and gravitas. Striking the right balance between celebratory and serious is essential.

With that in mind, here are five ways for employers to effectively show their support:

1. Offer paid time off

While employers aren’t obligated to offer time off — or holiday premium pay if staff work on federal holidays — this is the gold standard of support. If this isn’t logistically possible given the short time between the presidential announcement and the holiday itself, consider adding an extra day’s paid leave to staff accounts for them to use later this year, and subsequently recognizing Juneteenth as a paid holiday every year thereafter.

This is the approach taken by Workable. According to a recent email from CEO Nikos Moraitakis to US-based employees, “Workable will honor Juneteenth in 2021 by adding 1 bonus day to employee time-off balances. Going forward, Juneteenth will be observed following the federal holiday calendar.”

2. Create corporate events

Another way to show support for Juneteenth is by creating corporate events. These could include in-person information sessions or digital webcasts featuring guest speakers and experts who can help explain the history of Juneteenth, why it matters and how it relates to other U.S. holidays such as the Fourth of July. Here, your best bet is creating a healthy mix of fun events that celebrate the impact of Juneteenth while also paying respect to its more painful legacy.

3. Invest in worthy causes

Investment in causes such as fundraisers, charity drives or memorial races can also highlight the impact of Juneteenth and help corporate team-building efforts. If your company takes this approach, two components are critical: Finding the right cause and ensuring staff buy-in.

Before spending on any support effort, do your research so you understand the backstory of the event, are confident in where donations are going, and are clear about the expectations. Once you find the right cause, encourage staff participation by making it a full-day event during the regular work week that’s focused on both social recognition and socializing, rather than asking staff to show up on their own time.

4. Connect with black-owned businesses

Money talks. And with a host of black-owned businesses operating in every state and city across the United States, companies can show their support for Juneteenth by supporting black businesses owners that are instrumental in their communities.

While it doesn’t matter what product or service your company chooses to support, it does matter that this is an ongoing relationship — if you’re only supporting these businesses in June, expect some backlash.

5. Share staff stories

You can also recognize the federal holiday by highlighting the stories of your own employees and what Juneteenth means to them. Sharing these stories (with permission) across both internal networks and external social media accounts can serve to showcase your support — but must be done with caution. While posting on social media is quick, easy and offers substantive reach, this approach will appear self-serving unless it’s paired with more substantive support efforts.

Ready to show your support for Juneteenth? Just remember the three Rs — relevant, responsible and respectful — and you’re on the right track to highlight this federal holiday.

The post Juneteenth: 5 ways employers can recognize the holiday appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

1. You’re understaffed

Word on the street (and on places like Glassdoor) is that you’re understaffed, and in some cases, this is intentional. You expect employees to give you their heart and soul and to be at your beck and call 24/7. In return, you’re willing to issue them a paycheck for 40 hours of work.

This approach may have worked during the last recession but won’t pass muster in a highly competitive labor market. Today, employees have choices and are choosing to work for companies where work/life balance is obtainable.

Look at the culture you’ve built with an eye towards becoming a more people-friendly company. Train your managers to set boundaries for accessing employees and establishing reasonable work expectations.

2. Your pay isn’t competitive

The people who say money doesn’t matter are the people with money. For the rest of us, money matters.

When was the last time you moved your salary ranges? If it’s been longer than a year, get moving! Have you benchmarked your pay? Do this now.

Salaries have skyrocketed over the past several years and are continuing to rise. If you want to stand a chance of hiring the best, you must be willing and able to pay for talent.

3. You’re taking way too long to hire

Your current hiring process may be why you can’t fill jobs. By the time you get a candidate through your process, this person is already off the market. Today, more than ever, speed matters.

Try this. Make a list of everyone currently involved in hiring for a particular position, with the key decision-makers at the top. Draw a line through the middle of this list.

Thank those below the line for their willingness to participate and inform them their services for evaluating candidates will no longer be needed.

4. Your job requirements are inflated

You’ve loaded up the job requirements for a particular job with the hopes that your boss will approve a great compensation package. Now, try finding someone who meets all these requirements! If this feels like an impossible task, that’s because it probably is.

Does a receptionist really need a college degree to greet clients? Must a production manager with 13 years of experience genuinely need the 15 years of experience you’ve listed in your posting to succeed in your organization?

Take a closer look at your job requirements and ask yourself if everything listed is a “must have” or if some items are “nice to have.” Then adjust your job descriptions and postings accordingly.

5. You’ve got lousy managers

People don’t work for companies. They work for people. All the money in the world won’t help you attract and keep talent if your managers chase these people away.

More than 4 million Americans voluntarily left their jobs in each of the past 18 months. Meanwhile, employers, especially in low-wage sectors, are still struggling to fill open positions.

A recent report from employment and background screening services company GoodHire points to managers as a critical factor. In the survey of 3,000 workers, 82% told GoodHire they would consider quitting their job because of a bad manager.

Be careful whom you let into management; only some are cut out for this job. Provide managers with the coaching they need to be talent magnets – the type of managers that easily attract and retain talent, and you won’t have to worry about constantly having to fill jobs. People will gladly remain in your employ for years to come.

The post The real reasons your employees don’t want to work for you appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In other words – what do candidates want in a job?

With employers struggling to attract and retain candidates (in some sectors, at least), the natural move would be to enhance their employer value proposition (EVP).

So let’s look at what employers find is most appealing to candidates in today’s job market:

Total rewards are totally rewarding

Perks, benefits, time off, etc., is seen to be becoming far more important now than they were perceived to be in 2020. In other words, that package is called “total rewards”. The more an employer can offer in total rewards, the more alluring a job can be for a prospective hire.

Check the data: 56.9% of employers find that overall compensation is now becoming more important in the eyes of candidates compared with 36% two years ago.

That number has gone down from half of all employers in 2020 to just one quarter in 2022 (49.9% to 25.3%) for those who say it’s relatively unchanged in terms of importance.

Show me the money – yes, again

One part of total rewards is, of course, compensation. How much actual money will be paid in terms of salary and bonuses and so on?

As it happens, this is also becoming more important for candidates according to employers in 2022 (56.2%) compared with 2020 (33.3%).

And again as above, the percentage of employers who say the importance of compensation for candidates is relatively unchanged has dropped from 51.9% in 2020 to 29.5% now.

One respondent did say that the expansion of companies to international talent markets has created a new challenge:

“For me the most difficult part is employee engagement and compensation. It’s a big challenge to keep a big company engaged (many people miss the ‘family’ feeling, while other people don’t know what it means as they joined remotely). Regarding compensation, many international companies are now offering US salaries in Spain, which makes it difficult to reach for Spanish companies.”

“For me the most difficult part is employee engagement and compensation. It’s a big challenge to keep a big company engaged (many people miss the ‘family’ feeling, while other people don’t know what it means as they joined remotely). Regarding compensation, many international companies are now offering US salaries in Spain, which makes it difficult to reach for Spanish companies.”

Upward trajectory a necessity

Career paths and growth are also in the minds of candidates. This year’s employers say that career opportunities are becoming more important for candidates (49.6%) than in 2020 (34.6%).

The percentage of employers who say the importance of this is unchanged has dropped from 56.3% in 2020 to 40.2% now.

No need for security now

Job security – at one time quite an important value proposition – became less important for candidates in 2022 than it was two years ago.

Only half (50.9%) of this year’s employers say it’s becoming more important now, drastically down from four out of five (79.8%) two years ago.

With recent economic instability and increase in layoffs, however, this number may change again going into 2023.

What does all this tell us?

Candidates and jobseekers have the upper hand now when evaluating job opportunities. They don’t worry about job security as much because they know employers need them more than they need employers.

So, they’re more interested in what they can get out of a specific job opportunity – i.e. the compensation, the benefits, the career growth – than they are interested in simply getting a job.

We mentioned this above – this may look slightly different in 2023, but only in some industries. Companies are still struggling to fill roles in some sectors, whereas other sectors are seeing a nearly unmanageable influx of talented candidates every time they open up a new job.

The post Employer value proposition: how has it changed since 2020? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

• Fill your pipeline faster by proactively contacting passive candidates
• Scroll more – AI Recruiter will continue suggesting candidates
• Get improved results through our updated candidate matching algorithm

As soon as you activate a job, start finding candidates. No need to wait for your job to appear on boards, you can begin filling your pipeline right away. Add passive candidates and reach out personally or in bulk to introduce them to the job and your company. Take your candidate sourcing to the next level and expand your talent pool with AI-recommended passive candidates.

When you generate passive candidates for a job, AI Recruiter uses the title, job description and other post settings to find relevant candidate profiles. Profiles appear in a list for you to review. Add the best candidates to the Sourced stage of the job pipeline with a click. Plus, remove candidates who aren’t relevant to help train the AI.

We’ve also made improvements to how auto-sourced candidates are matched to your jobs. AI Recruiter has been updated to better understand your jobs’ requirements and extract matching skills from passive candidate profiles. Auto-sourcing continues to get smarter, with more and better data.

AI Recruiter is just one of the ways to source. Use People Search to manually look for potential candidates, post to 200+ job boards, get referrals from your team, advertise on social channels and more. No matter how you find candidates, Workable has you covered.

The post AI-driven candidate sourcing: AI Recruiter just got even better appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Taking advantage of a larger talent pool

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a new era in terms of workplace norms. The pandemic proved, for the most part, that geography is irrelevant when it comes to hiring. The technology developed and deployed to allow employees to work from home during COVID now allows tech professionals to do their work from any location.

In short: Thanks to COVID and the changes it inspired, it doesn’t matter if your programmer lives in California, Cambodia, Chicago, the Cayman Islands, or Cameroon.

In addition to having more options available when it comes to prospective employees, the new landscape also allows employers to use labor arbitrage to build a more cost-efficient workforce. Hiring an engineer in the US may cost a company $200,000 a year, whereas an equally skilled engineer based in India can do the same work for $56,000 a year.

When adjusted for the cost of living in each engineer’s location, the compensation is equivalent and the company receives the same volume and quality of work. This represents an opportunity for significant savings for tech companies.

Salary based on location vs. salary based on value is a topic of debate. Read the Evil HR Lady’s take on this.

Identifying top talent released in layoffs

Layoffs are another development adding opportunities to the talent pool. Typically, big technology companies stack rank their employees on an annual basis, which involves rating employees based on their performance. When layoffs happen, it is most often those perceived to be the lowest performers or contributors who are let go. In recent years, however, tech companies have both overhired and held on to weaker talent due to labor shortages and lower employee productivity.

As 2022 came to a close, shifts in the US economy created an environment with high levels of inflation, high levels of interest rates, and a softening housing market. There has also been an inverted yield curve in the 10 year-3 month Treasury Yield Spread, which has historically signaled an impending recession. These developments have triggered major tech players like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google to launch layoffs.

While some of the technology professionals now available for hire were let go due to low performance in their past roles, others are out of work as a result of overhiring in the tech field in recent years. In some cases, tech companies closed entire divisions to trim their staff size, sending many seasons and highly capable professionals into the talent pool. This means companies have a phenomenal opportunity to hire top performers in 2023, provided they choose carefully.

Boosting productivity with new technology

Artificial intelligence (AI) is causing a huge stir in the tech space as we move into 2023. Microsoft, which laid off 10,000 workers to start the year, also invested $10 million in the ChatGPT AI platform in early 2023.

Why? Because the AI-based language model chatbot, which is still in its infancy in terms of development, can code, automate, configure tech, and find problems with software, among other things.

In some cases, AI-driven tools like ChatGPT can take the place of hands-on tech workers. In others, technology professionals equipped with AI-driven tools can deliver as much as 10 times the output of those working without AI. Employers who commit to leveraging AI tools stand to gain considerably in terms of increased productivity.

Targeting talent with business savvy

There was a time when those who could support technology were in high demand. That time has passed. Not only is today’s tech more reliable, but AI-driven solutions promise to provide the support that tech workers once delivered. As a result, the most valuable tech workers will be those like cloud architects and enterprise architects who understand how technology can be used to solve business problems.

Tech companies hiring in 2023 should be looking for employees who can provide more than technical expertise. Professionals who bring business acumen, leadership skills, sales skills, executive presence, and emotional intelligence will prove to be those who can thrive in their positions and add value to the company.

They have what it takes to go beyond working with technology to design solutions that can improve business performance and transform organizations.

The post Tech hiring: how it’s different now for employers in 2023 appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Fostering a positive environment that supports team members as people instead of human capital is important, and in many instances, those initiatives are actually part of a compensation strategy, but a generous compensation package is a surefire way to catch the attention of quality candidates and establish loyalty with high-performing employees.

What does employee compensation really mean?

When people think of employee compensation, it’s usually the base salary of a position that initially comes to mind. However, total compensation includes employee benefits and perks.

Health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, 401k matching, stock options, employee assistance programs, profit sharing, paid time off, sick days and additional incentives could all potentially be included in an employee benefits package and would count as compensation.

Read more: Money for nothing: are we ready for universal basic income?

Direct and indirect compensation

There are generally two different types of compensation: direct and indirect. A generous mix of both helps create an attractive compensation package for employees and organizations alike.

Direct compensation

Direct compensation is monetary and usually the most appealing aspect of employee compensation. Direct compensation options include:

• Salary/base pay
• Hourly pay
• Commission
• Bonuses

Indirect compensation

Indirect compensation may have a financial benefit, but doesn’t involve an exchange of money. Indirect compensation usually includes benefits and perks that improve an employee’s quality of life, such as:

• Healthcare
• Life Insurance
• Paid time off
• Family leave
• Sick leave
• Retirement plan contributions
• Company car
• Technology allowance
• Remote or hybrid work environment
• Four-day work week or flex days
• Tuition reimbursement
• Physical or financial wellness program
• Team outings or retreats
• Childcare
• Other perks

Indirect compensation options offer the additional advantage of increasing engagement, improving employee satisfaction, and demonstrating company culture.

Although a mountain of money always holds great appeal, a fair balance of cash plus life-improving benefits is a sustainable way for organizations to stay competitive when it comes to recruiting and retention.

Read more: New overtime law: How it works and what changes for employers

The importance of competitive employee compensation

The vast majority of employees work as a way to secure financial stability. So although your product could be amazing, your mission statement inspiring, and your corporate culture the coolest, it’s your ability to positively impact someone’s bottom line that’s going to make or break your staffing efforts.

Securing a highly skilled and/or productive workforce is one of the best investments an organization can make, and recruiting can be a challenge in a competitive job market. A generous compensation package can help attract talent, but maybe even more importantly, it can also help you keep valuable employees.

We learned this ourselves. According to our Great Discontent survey of over 500 full-time workers in the UK, 70.1% of respondents listed compensation as the leading motivator that could lure them from their current job. In the US, that number is 62.2%, but still the top choice for workers.

Employee turnover is costly and disruptive — the act of seeking out applicants, interviewing candidates, onboarding, equipping, training, and developing employees requires time, money, and expertise. An attractive employee compensation package builds loyalty and makes employees less vulnerable to competitor offers or recruiters.

As stated by a US-based respondent from the survey, “Employees will go where the money is. And where they’re treated respectfully and valued. But, mostly, it’s the money”.

This does raise a question around when in the hiring process you can start discussing salary. There’s a growing consensus on including salaries in job descriptions from the get-go – here’s why you can and should consider this in your own recruitment process.

How to build a competitive employee compensation plan

As you develop your employee compensation strategy, the first step is to decide how you’ll determine compensation for individual employees or positions. Options include:

1. Pay structures

Also known as salary or compensation structures, pay structures clarify an employee’s path to career growth and higher pay. This process for determining salaries is more transparent, predictable, and equitable than other options, particularly for companies with more than 250 employees. This compensation and development template can also be useful for your own work.

2. Salary history

Offering compensation based on prior salary history is tempting to many employees, however, it may perpetuate systemic pay disparities and could leave your organization vulnerable to discrimination lawsuits. Also, a growing number of US states prohibit employers from inquiring about salary history.

3. Arbitrary figures

A position that’s urgent or difficult to fill, or a particularly qualified candidate, may cause employers to offer whatever salary might persuade a candidate to accept their offer. A potential adverse effect is that direct reports could end up earning more than their managers or more than already-established employees with more seniority or experience.

Structure and strategy are key

To establish a pay structure, you need to first perform a job analysis to better define each position, and its duties, requirements, and qualifications. Then you need to determine the relative value of positions within your company.

You can determine base salary through benchmarking, where market trends would influence salary ranges or pay grades, where jobs are grouped and ranges are applied to each group. Some organizations use a combination of benchmarking and pay grades to establish compensation structures.

Enhance your compensation strategy by deciding on indirect compensation offerings to include in your employee benefits package. Consider not only benefit costs, but also what aligns with your company culture.

A competitive employee compensation package paired with being the type of organization talent wants to work for can pay off far beyond the costs.

The post Employee compensation – what you need to know and why appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Here’s a list with five thoughtful presents that can be ideal resources for recruiters and talent professionals:

1. A library of templates

Anyone involved in the hiring process knows how much time is spent on writing job descriptions, composing emails to candidates or crafting lists of interview questions. So, for this holiday season, give a recruiter a library of templates for every purpose, from job ads and offer letters to interview questions and Boolean searches.

How do you present this gift? If you want to add a touch of holiday spirit, you could send it as a card. Use a relevant service or create your own card using a tool like Adobe Express Card Maker. Here’s one I created with Spark within 10 minutes:

2. A book on modern recruiting

Recruiting has grown exponentially from the time of newspaper job ads, and it’ll keep evolving and changing. Forward-thinking talent professionals who stay updated on new techniques and technologies will be the big winners in the recruiting game.

So why not give a new, exciting book to a recruiting professional? Here are a few great options:

• Culture-Driven Recruiting by Lee-Anne Edwards (the first-ever book on the topic)
• Smart and Gets Things Done by Avram Joel Spolsky (an oldie-but-goody “concise guide to finding the best technical talent”)
• Exceptional Talent: How to Attract, Acquire and Retain the Very Best Employees by Mervyn Dinnen and Matt Alder (a guide on using modern technology, methods and media to hire and retain great employees).
• Writing Without Bullshit by Josh Bernoff (an easy-to-read, comprehensive guide to better written communications including emails, announcements, and reports)

As for presentation, nothing too fancy is required. Get some festive wrapping paper and you’re all set!

3. A cool subscription

For recruiters, receiving new knowledge frequently is important – you can grasp new techniques, find hiring methods that work and discover new recruiting strategies, just by keeping abreast of the buzz in the market. But how would a recruiter do that easily, when they’re already so busy with everyday tasks?

One thing you can do is to choose a fun, interesting and reliable newsletter/podcast they don’t already subscribe to, and sign them up or send them a link (you can include a card to make it more of a gift). Here are a few ideas:

4. A new Applicant Tracking System

Yeah, I know, shameless plug of our own product. But the truth is, we wouldn’t be making recruiting software if we didn’t think of it as a definite game-changer. If a recruiter doesn’t have an ATS, or uses an ATS that’s clunky and inadequate, you could address this in the new year. That’s especially so if you’re part of the recruiting team or one of the decision-makers at your company.

What you can do is conduct some research on ATS vendors and sign up for a demo or free trial. Then, invite the recruiter to sit in demos or explore the different software solutions along with you. You can also share an RFP template with them to help in their hunt for the perfect ATS.

5. Recruiting swag

Swag is less useful than the other options on this list, but things that cheer us up and boost our morale are always welcome. For recruiters, you could choose a funny slogan (for example: “Keep calm and call that candidate,” “Trust me, I’m a recruiter,” “Talent superstar”) and print it on a mug or a T-shirt.

You could also go straight to websites that sell swag for recruiters, like Etsy, Cafe Press or Zazzle:

You might even look for a stuffed purple squirrel or a mug or T-shirt that has one on it. Recruiters will probably get the reference!

The holiday season and New Year go hand-in-hand for many people. If that’s the case for you, too, then check out our list of 5 New Year’s resolutions for recruiters.

The post Resources for recruiters: 5 fun and useful presents appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

New Year’s Resolutions for recruiters

1. Learn a new skill or hobby

Whether you want to cover a skills gap or simply expand your knowledge, learning something new can make the difference in your job. It doesn’t have to be a formal training or a totally new field of study. Pick something that you’ve always wanted to learn, ask a coworker to share some bits of expertise with you, or enroll in an online course.

Here are some ideas:

• Take a basic coding course, if you’re usually hiring or plan to hire many tech employees. You’ll understand how to write better, buzzword-free job descriptions that give candidates a clear picture of the position.
• Shadow colleagues from different departments. Next time you’re hiring a new employee for their team, you’ll know which candidates will be a good culture fit/add.
• Refresh your labor legislation knowledge. With new regulations like GDPR, political changes like Brexit and social movements like #blacklivesmatter that impact our lives, it’s important to ensure that you and your company are compliant.
• Review and improve your company’s onboarding session. While your job technically ends with hiring, what happens after that is also important for your employer brand.

2. Save some money

Spreadsheets full of numbers, complex calculations and cost forecasting reviews are never fun. But expense reports are an integral part of HR. For example, if you want to buy a new ATS that’ll make your life easier, you have to first build a case to get your manager’s approval. Or, if you want to hire a junior recruiter to assist with administrative tasks, you need to calculate their salary range based on the value they’ll bring to the team.

Here are some ideas to reduce some of the pain associated with costs and will help you allocate budgets to your benefit:

• First, calculate how much you’re spending on recruiting. Break down costs by category, like job boards, recruitment events and HR software. This will help you prepare and track your recruiting budget.
• Cut – or reduce – unnecessary expenses. For example, work with agency recruiters only for specific, hard-to-fill roles or stop publishing job ads on sites that don’t bring you qualified applicants.
• Set up a referral program. Getting referrals from your current employees on a regular basis can have a great impact on your recruiting budget – even if you offer a referral bonus. You’re saving from job advertising expenses and you’ll reduce turnover (and the costs that are tied to it) as referred employees tend to stay longer.
• Invest in smart HR technology. We don’t recommend buying the most modern software just for the sake of it; it’s all about being strategic. If 2023 is the year that you want to double headcount, it makes sense to purchase a sourcing tool. This way, you’ll reach your goals faster and save money in the long run.

3. Be healthier

Bad recruiting habits tackle your career, without you even realizing it. These habits could be outdated methods to evaluate candidates (see personality tests) or long application forms and drawn-out hiring stages that make candidates lose interest. On the other hand, a positive candidate experience will make your company more attractive for job seekers and you, the recruiter, a more trustworthy professional.

Here are a few things you could try:

• Apply for one of your open positions – as a test. What do you notice? Are there perhaps some questions that are not mandatory? Also, make sure to use your mobile to apply, too. Job seekers tend to look for new opportunities on their phone, so it’s important that your application form is optimized for mobile.
• Redesign your careers page. Or give it a fresh look. An outdated careers page sends the wrong message to potential candidates. Think of ways to make it more appealing, like adding employee testimonials or pictures from your offices.
• Introduce structured interviews. It may look like a lot of work, but once you put your questions in place, you will interview candidates faster and more objectively.
• Revisit your job descriptions. If you’re using the same templates for too long, you probably need to re-write some of the job duties, the requirements, or even the “About us” section. Get rid of any buzzwords that may sound cool but don’t really describe the position, use gender-neutral language, and consider including the salary to increase transparency.

4. Nurture strong relationships

Toxic relationships don’t refer only to our personal lives; they can be work-related, as well. This year, try to build healthy relationships with everyone you interact with, from colleagues and candidates to hiring managers and other HR professionals. Relationships, though, require you to invest time; it’s not a one-time thing you can cross off your list.

Here are some ideas you can implement throughout the year:

• Have regular informal meetings – such as on your lunch break – with team leaders. Your first meeting shouldn’t be when a new job opens. Instead, you should get to know each other and establish a solid, trusting relationship before you end up needing them in your work.
• Book a “sourcing time” in your calendar. It could be an hour or two in your week when you’ll proactively look for potential hires online or reach out to passive candidates, or send a quick email to catch up with past applicants who might qualify for another role in the future.
• Attend at least one local job fair every few months and host a career day at your offices. Not only you’ll get the chance to meet job seekers and see the world through their eyes, but you’ll also build your employer brand.
• Set up a process for communicating promptly with candidates, even the ones you reject. Book some time in your schedule and respond or reach out to people who are in your hiring pipeline. If you have an ATS, simply double-check the settings to ensure that candidates get automated replies when necessary.

5. Exercise more

A mindset of continuous improvement is what separates a good recruiter from a great recruiter. Measure your successes and failures, experiment with different techniques and find your most effective ways of working. Starting this year, track the metrics that matter to you (e.g. email response rates, quality of hires and yield ratios.) These measurements will serve as your guide to determine which methods are working for you and where there’s more room for improvement.

Set tangible sub-goals like:

• This year, I want to decrease time to hire from X days to Y, so I will advertise open roles in more channels including social media.
• By Q3, I’d like to increase my email response rate by X%, so I will personalize my messages to passive candidates and test new subject lines.
• I want to build more diverse teams, that’s why I will connect with local communities that support minorities and host career days specifically for under-represented candidates, such as women and people with disabilities.
• I aim to improve the overall candidate experience, so I’ll design and distribute candidate experience surveys to get a better idea of what’s working and what could be improved in our hiring process.

Bonus goal: Enjoy your life to the fullest

And your job. You’ll have better results if you put your passion into your work. Take a moment to reflect on why you chose this field, in the first place. Stay positive and look for the best – in yourself and in others. Happy recruiting in 2023!

What’s your resolution for the new year? Share with us on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.

The holiday season and New Year go hand-in-hand for many people. If that’s the case for you, too, then check out our list of 5 holiday gifts for recruiters.

The post 5 New Year’s resolutions for recruiters appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Assuming you’re able to attract a decent number of candidates per role, you still have to balance this quantity with identifying and shortlisting the most talented engineers. Otherwise, you’re likely sacrificing an average of $30,000 (not including compensation) for each bad engineering hire.

In this article, we’ll talk about screening and interviewing the software engineering candidates that you do get – quickly and at scale. By the end of it, you’ll be in a better position to build or improve your technical hiring process. This means:

• Clarity – everyone is aligned on the way you screen and hire engineers.
• Speed – faster time to hire so you avoid losing strong applicants during the hiring journey.
• Retention – hiring the right person in the first place can improve employee retention.

To achieve these goals, we’re going to suggest a standard hiring process for you to use and tweak for your organization. We’re also going to present the dos and don’ts for screening and interviewing developers based on CodeInterview’s first-hand expertise based on more than 100,000 engineering interviews per year.

But first, why should you have a separate hiring journey just for engineers?

What’s different about hiring tech talent?

Hiring technical talent is, in many ways, similar to hiring other types of professionals.

You define a role, advertise the job post, evaluate candidates, negotiate an offer and onboard the new employee.

However, there are details in this process that need special attention.

For example, the sourcing channels you use may be developer-focused or you may have to rely on headhunting more than usual due to high demand for talent.

When it comes to screening and interviewing, you will need to take into account criteria such as the specific technologies the role requires. And then, test for them.

You will also need different evaluation tools beyond questionnaires and meetings.

With that in mind, let’s take a detailed look at the key changes you need to introduce when designing and improving your technical hiring process.

1. Prioritize skills over experience and education

Few disciplines move as quickly as software engineering.

New technologies and frameworks emerge all the time and candidates that become complacent may fall behind, despite having many years of experience.

Moreover, the best developers are often self-taught tinkerers with little or no formal education in computer science.

So while a candidate’s professional and academic background is important, you should pay more attention to their skills and thought process demonstrated throughout the hiring journey.

2. Rely on coding tests and portfolios more than CVs

Don’t get me wrong – your screening process is still likely to start with a CV.

However, this is more of a tripwire to make sure irrelevant candidates are filtered out. For example, if you’re hiring for a Senior Ruby on Rails engineer, you should not waste time on candidates that are unfamiliar with this technology.

So in contrast to most other roles, the CV will not be an anchor point for you during further stages like an interview. Rather, it’s going to be projects the candidate has worked on and how they approached them.

Nowadays, you will typically have access to the candidate’s GitHub as a reference to previous projects. You can also send automated coding tests and discuss these during an initial interview.

While some candidates may be better at selling themselves on paper, hard coding skills can’t be faked or exaggerated. For these reasons, you should prioritize objective evaluation methods rather than resumes.

3. Send take-home projects instead of competency interviews

Take-home projects are typically longer (2-4 hour) assignments that dive deeper into a specific skill or technology required for the role.

These assignments are often paid and serve to narrow down your shortlist to just two or three candidates who make it to the final cut. As such, they are well suited as a follow-up to the initial interview.

While you can still have a competency interview, the take-home project can serve as the anchor point for this, discussing their thought process during a solution presentation.

4. Implement a solution presentation

While coding tests and take-home projects are relatively objective measurements of skill, some candidates may be able to bypass the rules by re-taking the test multiple times or getting help from a friend.

This is where a solution presentation is handy – think of it as a chance for the candidate to justify their approach. It’s also a good way to evaluate the candidate’s communication skills.

5. Hold virtual or in-person whiteboard interviews

For senior-level positions that require extensive knowledge of software architecture and design, you will often need to conduct a classic whiteboard interview.

6. Equip yourself with new tools

Hiring developers requires tools beyond online conferencing and email – particularly when hiring tech workers remotely. For example, you’ll need a coding interview tool, technical assessment software and a virtual whiteboard.

7. Adopt a new perspective for technical hires

As you can see, hiring technical talent requires changes to your hiring process and tools.

But there’s one more thing to keep in mind – the competitive landscape, especially if you’re not on the tech workers’ A-list. Because engineers are in such high demand, you need to adopt a perspective around speed and candidate experience to avoid losing candidates to competitors.

In addition, good developers are hard to find so make sure you optimize your sourcing channels and make the most of the applications that you do get from your efforts.

Standard technical hiring process to use

To present the best practices when screening and interviewing developers, we’ll suggest a sample framework you can use directly or tweak for your organization. Here’s the process:

1. Pre-screen

CV upload and a brief questionnaire to filter out candidates that don’t meet your minimum criteria. Your ATS should have the ability to filter applications based on self-selected skills.

Here’s the rationale: The CV and questionnaire are low barriers for getting candidates through the door. Engineers, probably more than anyone, don’t like lengthy hiring processes. When you reduce the barrier to apply, you create the initial commitment to complete the application.

At this stage, it’s important to develop a simple checklist to help you filter candidates faster. For example:

• Years of experience
• Programming languages & frameworks
• Any big achievements
• Salary expectations

2. Screen

Send an automated coding test to all candidates so you can objectively rank them based on skills and speed. Review the top candidates’ GitHub accounts to get a better understanding of their experience. Optional: request a short video introduction, especially for engineering management roles.

Note: Coding tests are prone to cheating (despite plagiarism detection). So don’t skip step 3 below:

3. Initial coding interview

Here’s what you should do here: prepare! Candidates are not the only ones that get assessed at this stage. You will also represent your company and creating a bad impression by not being organized or having the right questions prepared in advance can ruin the experience and compromise your hiring.

Now, on to other practical considerations:

Schedule the initial interview to talk about the candidate’s approach during the coding test as well as specific points of interest on their resume. Prepare a set of questions depending on the role so you can see the candidate code in real time.

To help you, here are some proven interview questions to ask:

• How would you solve problem X?
• Why did you select this specific technology/approach?
• What kind of resources can you recommend for someone earlier in their career?

In addition to critical thought, you should notice how many clarification questions they ask (the more, the better!); are they enthusiastic when talking about a solution? Are they able to present compelling arguments?

These types of questions will typically go a longer way than theoretical questions from CS 101.

Optional: for senior roles, you can include an additional whiteboard interview.

4. Take-home project

Narrow down your candidates to the top two or three using a paid take-home project. Allow at least a week to complete so the candidate can work around their schedule.

Here are some checkpoints to help you evaluate take-home projects:

• Does it run?
• Can the candidate write good test cases?
• Does the candidate clearly log changes?
• Did the candidate use a technology/approach they know well?

5. Solution presentation

Schedule a presentation to discuss the take-home project. The idea is to get a better understanding of the candidate’s decision making and communication skills. It’s also a good idea to invite the candidate’s potential co-workers so they can meet (online or in person) before step 6 below.

6. Trial day

Invite the best candidate to work with your team for a few hours or a full day. This is the best way to see how they would fit in and gain input from their potential team. The session can be in-person or remote, depending on the role requirements. Revert to the second-best candidate if you notice any red flags during the trial.

While this may sound like a lot, it’s nothing compared to the costs of hiring a bad engineer. As long as you approach the journey with respect for their time and effort, candidates will remain engaged throughout.

Once you go through the process several times, you will streamline the steps and achieve greater speed. You can also modify the process by removing or automating certain parts so it fits your own needs.

Needless to say, junior-level hires will not have to go through as rigorous an assessment as a senior engineer or manager.

What to avoid

Now you have a starting process for hiring technical talent. But what are some things to avoid at all costs to preserve your employer brand and the candidate experience?

Little or unclear information

Overcommunication is the way to go here. There’s nothing more frustrating for a candidate than a set of unclear instructions before meeting a hiring manager that’s waiting to be impressed.

Theoretical “trick” questions

Many candidates will have years or decades of experience so introductory CS problems are likely a distant blur.

Good developers are able to find the information they need quickly and have the necessary experience and intuition for effective problem-solving. Avoid theoretical questions designed to trip candidates unless it’s crucial to the role.

Lengthy evaluation periods

Good engineers will likely get several offers when looking for a job.

This is why you need to prioritize speed and avoid lengthy hiring procedures – or risk getting outpaced by competitors.

Make sure your process is streamlined and everything is ready for new hires to begin – from standard questions to onboarding documentation and legal contracts.

Conclusion

After years of recruiting engineers and seeing how the best companies do it, this is clear:

Developers are hard to get and harder to keep.

If you want to attract the right talent and increase your chances of retaining them, I hope the advice above will prove valuable in your technical hiring process.

To summarize:

• Create a parallel hiring process for engineers to accommodate adequate skills assessment.
• Utilize a standard procedure that’s understood by recruiters, hiring managers, candidates and other stakeholders alike.
• Tweak the procedure we have suggested to fit your own needs.
• Avoid the common pitfalls when hiring engineers such as long evaluation periods and irrelevant questions.

And if there is one thing to take away from this whole article, it’s this: hiring a bad engineer is worse than not hiring at all. So make the most of your incoming applications by rigorously selecting the best and most relevant talent for your organization without compromise.

Munir Usman is the founder and CEO of CodeInterview – a technical assessment platform for software engineers. Previously, he founded and later sold development agency Pi Labs where he personally recruited 100+ software engineers to work on high-stakes projects for companies like Microsoft, P&G and Nokia.

The post How to screen and interview software engineers at speed and scale appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

1. Introduction to Applicant Tracking Systems
2. Overview of Applicant Tracking Systems
3. Is an ATS the Right Choice for your Growing Business?
4. Benefits of Applicant Tracking Systems
5. Choosing an Applicant Tracking System
6. Keys to Recruiting
7. Managing the Hiring Process
8. Optimizing Your Company’s Career Page
9. Managing the Interview Process
10. Assessing Your Requirements
11. Checklist of Applicant Tracking System Features

1. Introduction to Applicant tracking systems

The first applicant tracking systems (ATS) evolved to help employers take that old standby, the paper resume, and scan it into a database. Like most technologies that emerged to replicate analogue ways of doing things, they left a lot of room for improvement.

The processes were bureaucratic, unwieldy and complicated. The aim was to mirror old world paper and filing processes in a custom database. The word “clunky” was often overheard. In its formative years the ATS was similar to basic customer relationship management systems (CRMs), that sought to offer very basic resume screening and trace an applicant’s path through the hiring process.

Just like the CRMs, which began life as digital rolodexes and turned into the current cloud-based powerhouses, the ATS has evolved. Today, there are a wide range of ATS software options, some that concentrate on automating as much as possible of the hiring process and others that help the hiring manager to make their own decisions.

The ATS has become an integral part of every aspect of hiring from building an employer brand and smarter application forms, to resume parsing, automatic retrieval of candidates’ public profiles, and scheduling interviews. Recruiting analytics and reporting tools can now help companies get a clearer understanding of the hiring process and make improvements that have a real impact on the business.

The purpose of this applicant tracking system guide is to help you understand your needs as clearly as possible in order to make an informed choice of recruiting software.

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2. Overview of applicant tracking systems

The quality of a company’s hires are the single best predictor of its future success. Even though this is widely understood, hiring is still seen as frustrating and messy by many business owners, HR Directors, hiring managers and recruiters who grapple with it. But now, better software is righting this wrong.

Human Resources has been poorly served by technology for too long, when compared with the pioneers in sales, but we are seeing a renaissance in HR software, thanks in large part to the potential unleashed by cloud-based computing. At the heart of all of this is the Applicant Tracking System (ATS).

What is an ATS?

What is an applicant tracking system (ATS)? In its simplest form, it offers relief to these commonly acknowledged pain points in recruitment:

Pain: Submitting the same job ad to multiple job boards costs time and money.
Relief: An ATS integrated with these listings sites can post to a wide range of free and paid job boards with a single submission.

Pain: Building and maintaining a careers page takes up valuable developer time.
Relief: An ATS can make managing a careers page as simple as changing your background image and bio on Twitter.

Pain: Recruiting triggers an avalanche of PDFs and emails.
Relief: ATS recruiting means you collect, organize and show job candidates in the same way LinkedIn or Facebook show your contacts or friends.

Pain: Resume styles are nearly as various as the people sending them.
Relief: Recruiting software can parse these resumes, break them down and present the data they contain in a standardized format where it can be quickly reviewed.

Pain: The absence of standardized information like “how many years of work experience has she got?” add to the time burden.
Relief: Applicant tracking software mines the resumes you receive and presents candidate data in a way that makes comparisons fast and simple.

Pain: Precious time is routinely wasted on irrelevant applications.
Relief: ATS recruiting offers the facility to automatically filter dud applications from job candidates or highlight 3-4 priorities on the application form that enable human judgement to be swifter.

Pain: Using email and spreadsheets to track candidates with a hiring team quickly becomes overwhelming.
Relief: An ATS can enable you to add notes to candidates just like you put comments on Facebook.

Pain: External recruiters remain a great resource for high value hires, but they shouldn’t be a necessity for businesses.
Relief: An ATS can provide recruiting tools that let you fill a talent pool and save your recruiting dollars for the tougher hires.

This kind of pain relief is only part of an applicant tracking system definition but it points to what you can achieve with ATS recruiting. The right applicant tracking software is a major step towards creating a repeatable, systematic hiring process, from posting a job to having an offer letter accepted.

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3. Is an ATS the Right Choice for your Growing Business?

Whether you are looking for your first applicant tracking system (ATS) or considering investing in an upgrade, the best starting point is a clear understanding of your needs. The first step to achieving this is to map your existing hiring process.

Questions to get started with evaluating applicant tracking software:

• How do you do your hiring planning and budget costs?
• How are your job ads written?
• How and where do you post your jobs?
• How do you currently collect applications?
• How do you progress candidates through from applied to hired?
• Do you use pre-screening questions or job-related assignments?
• Do you work with external recruiters?
• Who is on your hiring team (this may differ from one position to another).
• How many steps does a candidate go through prior to a final interview?
• Do you conduct background checks prior to a final offer?
• What kind of data and reporting do you use to improve your hiring process?

Now step back and think about how this could be improved. What are the pain points? How do you cope with the volume of applications, how are communications between your team during hiring, how well does your interview and call scheduling work?

The point of this exercise is to identify the gap between how things are done now and what your ideal recruiting process would look like. If you sailed through the 11 questions and liked your own answers you’re in a happy minority. Most companies, of all sizes, find recruiting challenging, in one way or another.

The vast majority of small and medium-sized businesses are still using email and spreadsheets to run their recruitment. Less than one in five SMBs has switched to applicant tracking software, according to most estimates. But the big switch has begun.

Larger companies have long since adopted software for their ATS needs but many of the enterprise solutions adopted by Fortune 500 firms have inherited the same bureaucratic dysfunction they were meant to cure. It might seem sensible to cram in features for all eventualities but feature-heavy applicant tracking software can be both expensive and unwieldy.

Hiring processes are not the same at an organization with 2,000+ employees as they are at a firm with 250 employees, or one with 25. By being clear from the outset over your real hiring needs you can eliminate the prospect of paying for features you don’t need and concentrate your investment on an ATS that does the best possible job on the features that you do need.

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4. Benefits of Applicant Tracking Systems

Most recruiters report that at least 50% of job hunters don’t possess the basic qualifications for the jobs they are pursuing. Applicant tracking systems came about when employers needed a way to deal with this flood of irrelevant resumes.

Today’s ATS systems are developed to scan for keywords, employment history and college records to identify viable candidates. The best ATS now available will take the data entry out of your hiring and leave you time to concentrate on the chewy human question of who you should hire and work with.

Using recruiting software means you don’t have to stitch together spreadsheets, email and elaborate filing systems. The advantage of an applicant tracking system is that it provides seamless and customizable collaboration features so that you’re always in the loop.

Applicant tracking systems help employers by providing a business process to follow during recruiting:

• Save time recruiting by automating job board posting, resume submission, and pre-screening
• Open the way to better candidates with standardized metrics and access to a pipeline of previous successful applicants
• Standardize your hiring so you don’t have to reinvent the process each time
• Keep you compliant with hiring laws
• Give you a headstart on employee retention with better screened and qualified candidates
• Ensure a striking and personalized candidate experience

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5. Choosing an Applicant Tracking System

One of the first questions you need to answer when making the ATS comparison is whether you want an applicant tracking software solution installed on your own server or hosted by your software vendor. The old way of purchasing was to get “on-premise” software but in recent years this has been overtaken by software as a service providers (SaaS), companies who host the software on the cloud and offer it as a service online.

What are the benefits of SaaS:

• Accessible anywhere where you have an internet connection, with some SaaS applicant tracking systems offering mobile functionality for recruiting on the move
• No fixed server costs
• Updates to the software are the responsibility of the vendor
• Removes the need for an IT department

The nightmare scenario for any growing business that invests in the best applicant tracking system for their needs, is for the vendor to then close down for its own business reasons. Yes, this has happened: there are numerous businesses who have seen their ATS shut down. Due diligence in this case means asking the right questions about vendor viability.

Another route altogether is an open source applicant tracking system. The advantage of this option is clear: it’s free, and you can modify the software as you please. Where’s the catch? Do you want to manage your hiring or to rewrite software? Unless you’re more than tech savvy or have an IT team that can afford to spend the time, you will run into issues installing, running and integrating one of these systems. And when you run into those problems there is no dedicated support to turn to.

The sensible ATS buyers’ checklist:

• Does your ATS match your company profile? The three main categories are enterprise, staffing agencies and SMBs. There are good solutions for each of these categories but these are big tents — think clearly about which one you belong in.
• Does the ATS provide real ease of use? There’s no point in investing in software that no one can or will use, or that is stuffed with features that you will not need or use. Look for an intuitive design that your hiring team will buy into. There are systems that require no installation, training or manuals.
• Does your ATS enable you to post to multiple job sites? Overwhelmingly the most important feature for smaller companies. Check which jobs boards and social networks the ATS is integrated with.
• What kind of search capability does the ATS have? Make sure that it boasts a fast, accurate search with results organized in a logical and intuitive way.
• Does your ATS offer strong customer support? This can quickly turn what looks like the best applicant tracking software into an expensive farrago. Be clear over response times and availability in your time zone. Check to see how well organized and detailed the support section of the ATS website is.
• What kind of reporting does the ATS offer? Be clear about your own reporting needs to track your recruiting efforts. Make sure they are matched and covered before making a choice.
• Does the ATS enable employee referrals? Referrals are the oldest and still the best method of finding employees. The best applicants tracking system will provide you with a clear way to attract and reward referrals from your team.
• What kind of candidate experience does the ATS offer? Your team is not the only user of the applicant tracking system, there’s also the candidate to consider. You will lose valuable prospects if its application process is clunky and off-putting.
• Check your applicant tracking system vendor’s viability. You want a solution that will last, make sure the same applies to your vendor’s financials.
• Get references for an ATS like you would for a hire. There are tons of applicant tracking system reviews online, take them into account. From Trust Pilot to Capterra and Software Advice to Getapp, check what other users are saying on third-party review sites.
• It has become standard practice to work on the move. Smartphones and better software allows us to work when and where we want to. Your ATS should not be the exception. The whole of your hiring team should be able to review candidates, schedule interviews, leave feedback and check the pipeline via your ATS on the device of their choice.
• The best ATS options have useful integrations. Check for integrations with leading and niche job boards and for sourcing tools that help you source and attract passive candidates. Your ATS should help you get more candidates by getting your job in front of prospects you can’t reach when you’re manually posting jobs to job boards. Does the ATS offer easy integrations for background checks and with a modern HRIS, like Namely and BambooHR?

If you’re tight on time, this list of the 12 best applicant tracking systems in the market can help guide your decision.

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6. Keys to Recruiting

If you’re not new to the hiring process or you’ve been working without any recruitment software you have most likely trekked through forests of resumes and descended bottomless email threads. This is not to mention giant spreadsheets, and a constant wrestling match to coordinate interviews and feedback.

If you’ve been getting the job done with an older generation applicant tracking system or candidate management system you will have faced different problems: poor or no customization options, usability problems, no buy in from your hiring team, insufficient integration.

Simplifying recruiting means the ability to post to multiple job boards and source candidates from all over the web, making it as easy to browse candidates as it is to follow friends on social networks. It means beautiful career sites that update themselves and good-looking job ads.

For candidates it means one-click applications. For hiring managers it means candidate timelines that show the ‘when and why’ of who made the shortlist. Hiring software should enable you to message candidates and keep track of comments in context.

Social recruiting is still more talked about than practiced but a first step that an ATS can help with is to bring resumes to life by automatically combining them with public social media profiles. Social media integration is a useful first step to getting your whole team involved in hiring. It’s everyone’s job to share open positions with their networks.

The best applicant tracking software enables you to track and reward referrals. The oldest and still the best source of high quality candidates, an employee referral program, relies on having a simple method for employees to recommend prospects and to record the initial source of job candidates (who recommended who). Companies of all sizes are beginning to recognize and reward referrals systematically.

Candidate management

The full value of an ATS becomes immediately obvious once candidates begin to flow into it. With the proliferation of job boards and the facility to apply with one click, many companies have been overwhelmed with applications.

This is where proper resume parsing technology comes into its own. A resume parser takes the weight of candidate data flooding your way, breaks it down and presents it to you in individual candidate profiles with comparable, standardized fields, like years of work experience and education.

The best ATS will enable customizable application forms with pre-screening questions that will quickly eliminate unqualified or irrelevant applications. Applicant tracking software enables you to standardize the information you’re receiving for each candidate, making it possible to be quick and decisive.

Candidate management then becomes paramount. A single profile for each candidate that keeps all comments, notes and documents (resumes, cover letters, work samples) in one place, revolutionizes hiring teams. No more searching inboxes for hiring managers looking for that all-important piece of feedback on a candidate.

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7. Managing the Hiring Process

There has never been a better time for businesses of all sizes to get strategic with their hiring. The tools needed to attract the right candidates and get from application to hire are both more affordable and more effective than ever before. What the best of them deliver is a hiring process that works.

The right recruitment process is streamlined enough not to waste your time, but inclusive enough to enable you to hire ambitiously. Process is not a word to light fires in the imagination but there’s nothing duller than trying to work without one. Having a series of standardized steps in the hiring process that have been chosen because they maximize the likelihood of a good outcome makes sense.

The most effective way to think of the steps of the recruiting process borrows from sales orthodoxy, with a hiring pipeline. Try this simple exercise. Jot down the current basic steps of your recruiting process. It may vary a bit but it probably looks something like this:

• Applied
• Promising
• Phone screen
• On-site interview
• Executive interview
• Offer

The hiring process is a funnel — you get a lot of applicants, you speak with some of them, you meet a few of them, you hire the one you like best. An efficient filtering process will save you and your candidates time.

Rather than floundering with an inbox full of resumes and a thicket of spreadsheets tracking candidates’ progress, the recruiting pipeline tracks and manages multiple candidates offering simple workflow management.

The recruiting pipeline enables hiring teams to work together collecting all comments, feedback, notes, social media profiles or assignment results on the same page. It removes the need for endless email threads and avoids the possibility of misplacing vital feedback or conversations with candidates.

The efficiency offered by an applicant tracking system takes on added importance when hiring at scale or across multiple locations, as is the case for multinationals or the increasing number of SMBs working across borders.

When your business is spread across regions and/or divisions some form of territory management is typically called for. Territory management can apply to any system which groups candidates according to predefined sets of criteria. It enables hiring teams to co-operate on the basis of location, division or function.

This can become even more important when it comes to assessing and improving your recruitment efforts. It can deliver clearer insight into the recruitment results in each territory, as well as generate reports based on locations and divisions to measure relative progress on hiring.

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8. Optimizing your Company’s Careers Page

The clearest way to think about your company careers page is to see it as a shop window. The careers page is not the only means at your disposal to market the job opportunities you offer but it should be the starting point for all these efforts.

Whether candidates note that you’re hiring after seeing your open position on a job board, or hear about it through social media or even a word-of-mouth referral, they will typically head to your careers page to find out more about the vacancy, your company and the application process. In other words, there needs to be something worth visiting when they get there.

Far from replacing careers pages, the proliferation of job boards that began in the 1990s has made a fully-optimized careers page a necessity. Placing the right applicant tracking software at the heart of your recruitment efforts removes much of the hassle associated with creating, hosting and maintaining an attractive and up-to-date careers page.

For companies without the IT resources to develop a careers page in house, the best ATS options offer simple tools to build a good-looking and professional site that’s connected to your applicant tracking system. An ATS offers automated job posting to ensure that all open positions that you post to job boards, social media or any other platform will also appear on your careers page.

But a careers page is about more than getting your jobs seen. It’s also the anchor for your employer brand, a broader concept of your company’s reputation in the digital age. The main difference with reputation is that it’s easier than ever for prospective hires to get an advanced idea of what it’s like to work for your company.

Wherever you, your colleagues or employees appear online whether it’s your company Facebook page, a Twitter conversation, or a Linkedin profile, you’re talking to two audiences: customers and talent. While this makes some businesses nervous, it’s actually a considerable opportunity for companies of all sizes.

It’s become popular to say that “hiring is marketing” because it’s increasingly true. Happily it doesn’t have to be done on prime time television to be effective. Digital platforms offer an affordable and potentially enormous reach. In many ways the traditional strengths of small and mid-sized businesses like personal relationships, approachability and tight-knit teams are ideally suited to the social media age, where authenticity is rewarded.

Feeling unsure what your employer brand is? Give yourself one minute to describe it on a piece of paper or a whiteboard. Stuck? Get some of your core team together and brainstorm on what is unique or special about working for your company as opposed to other similar companies? Is it the people, the mission?

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 9. Managing the interview process

Interviewing is the most interesting and least automated part of the hiring process. This also means it’s the hardest and frequently the most poorly executed part as well. Unstructured interviews are no more likely to end with the right candidate than choosing a name from your shortlist at random.

An ATS can’t teach a hiring manager how to interview, but it can help them create an interview process that assists them in making an informed decision. Interviews don’t begin on the day someone walks into your office. Done properly the hiring process has worked like a funnel, you spoke to some candidates, you met a handful, now you want to work out which is the best of them to hire.

The support that the best applicant tracking software can deliver at this key phase is to streamline the scheduling of interviews and provide a rounded view of the candidate from sourcing or application, through screening and any assignment to the actual interview. It enables hiring managers to approach interviews in a structured and prepared manner.

Scheduling and communications with candidates goes from tangled to straightforward when your ATS integrates with your company email (typically with Gmail or Outlook) and calendar. Proper mail and calendar integrations ensure the right people are informed in a timely manner whether it’s the candidate who needs the time and location of an interview or phone screen, or if it’s the hiring team who need to know when an action is required.

The same is true for feedback that will inform the interviewer’s approach to each candidate. When all comments, notes, documents and communications are in one place a hiring manager can get up to speed in a fraction of the time an old-style briefing or a review of an email thread would otherwise take.

As well as time saving and automation, the benefit that the right ATS can deliver is a better candidate experience. As the hiring process has become more sophisticated it has begun to take longer. The “time to hire” means that in every hiring cycle you are losing qualified candidates because the interview process is taking too long.

The best candidates are fielding multiple offers, or recent research suggests, losing interest in your company because they assume that the lack of response. The response times are critical for the candidate experience, which is where the streamlining, team tools and scheduling capabilities of an ATS can make the difference.

The hiring pipeline offered by an ATS enables hiring managers to keep track of how many candidates are in each stage and where bottlenecks may be developing. Advanced applicant tracking software can also warn you when a candidate has been left hanging for a certain number of days.

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10. Assessing Your Requirements

At the core of the performance of any applicant tracking system (ATS) are its integrations. A full suite would include not just job board integrations that enable a single submission to a host of free and paid job boards, it would also extend to:

• Social media integration with LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook
• Full integration with a trusted background check provider
• Integration with popular office productivity tools such as Slack 
• Give you a headstart on employee retention with better screened and qualified candidates

Since LinkedIn remains the venue for most recruiters’ working lives, an ATS should offer deep integration with the world’s favorite resume repository. Things to look out for include the ability to:

• Use your personal LinkedIn account to sign in to your ATS and post jobs to your own professional network
• Connect to your LinkedIn Recruiter account to post jobs ads
• Buy a LinkedIn job ad directly from your ATS (without the need for a LinkedIn recruiter account)
• Access to LinkedIn Cross System Awareness that enables your hiring team to view full LinkedIn profiles inside their ATS, as well as make candidate information stored on your ATS available in your LinkedIn Recruiter account

Analytics

Recruitment analytics offer a high level view of your whole recruiting effort. Recruiting without the right tools is a disposable experience. To extract full value from any recruitment process the steps taken need to remain visible and repeatable. Recruiting metrics are not just about measuring things, they exist to answer questions about your business and to help you improve your hiring. Which recruiting metrics to use remains contentious with some organizations overly focused on Cost Per Hire (which is open to widely differing interpretations). Some effective recruiting Key Performance Indicators worth tracking are:

• Time to fill: The planning metric
• Time to hire: The efficiency metric
• Qualified candidates per hire: The sourcing metric
• Interviews per hire: The process metric

Most effective recruiting organizations favor a flexible suite of analytics in their ATS that allow for custom reports and a variety of high-level visualizations. Look for an ATS that has the ability to break down reporting areas like candidate flow and candidate source into data that can be exported to Excel.

Complying with the thicket of US equal opportunities employment laws can consume your time and fray your nerves. This process cries out for automation so opt for an ATS with an EEO Reporting feature.

Performance

As we pointed out previously when discussing vendor viability, the right balance of features is ineffective without a viable product and business supporting it. It’s worth checking independent review sites such as TrustPilot, Getapp, Capterra and Software Advice to see how actual customers rate each ATS on its efforts at avoiding downtime.

A minimum should be an up-to-date status page that details all scheduled downtime. But it’s worth spending some time on your chosen ATS vendor’s Twitter timeline to see whether their ATS performance is drawing complaints.

Similar research should quickly establish what levels of support customers can expect from specific vendors. Look out for tiered support tied to the value of your account (with subscription-based SaaS applicant tracking software). At the one extreme you should expect 24/7 support globally but most vendors offer business hours support concentrated on the region where they’re based.

Security

When choosing a cloud-based ATS over an on-premise solution it’s logical to ask some questions about the security of your data. Here is what to ask an ATS vendor regarding security:

• Does the ATS have an ongoing or regularly scheduled process of security and penetration testing of their infrastructure by a reputable third party?
• Does the ATS offer a Service Level Agreement (SLA) which includes uptime guarantees?
• What is the historical uptime percentage of the ATS?
• Does it have a DDoS mitigation infrastructure in place?

Data ownership

Due diligence in choosing the best applicant tracking software would include a clear agreement on ATS data. Check the vendor’s privacy policy and terms and conditions to make sure that you retain exclusive ownership of all your data (if there are exceptions, make sure that they are clear and justifiable), and make sure that you will be able to export your data if you decide to move to a different vendor.

Search functionality

Without a powerful search facility the full promise of an ATS as a candidate database is seriously undermined. Find out whether the ATS search includes natural language processing, semantic search and any extras.

If this sounds confusing ensure that it enables candidate search by name, headline, tag, education/work experience/skills. Does the search draw data from resumes, cover letters and summaries?

A final feature to look out for is what kind of search is offered on the support section of the ATS. Does it offer prompts and auto-completes to offer help documents relevant to your questions? If not, keep looking.

Customization

When choosing a SaaS ATS one of the theoretical cons is the comparative lack of customization. An on-premise solution can be customized, in theory, to meet any hiring needs. In reality this is only an option for businesses with a large in-house developer capacity. If that doesn’t describe your business (or is not what you want your developers working on), look for an ATS that allows significant personalized settings. Look out for customization options for:

• Application forms
  
• Letter templates to candidates
  
• Custom hiring pipeline stages
  
• Custom reports in recruitment metrics

Take time to understand how your ATS vendor deals with managing classified hiring information. The best ATS options enable clear, customizable hierarchies within hiring teams governing which comments are private between the hiring team and the candidates, as well as notes that are not visible to everyone on the hiring team.

Users should be able to invite hiring team members with different status, i.e. admin, hiring manager, team member that govern their viewing and editing permissions, as well as dictating which communications they’re copied into during the hiring process.

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11. Checklist of applicant tracking system

Even the most affordable business software is an investment. The time taken to conduct a proper evaluation and applicant tracking system comparison will pay for itself many times over. Going with the wrong choice now will mean future disruption for your team and more work down the line. To help you make the right decision for your business as you compare applicant tracking systems, here is an evaluation chart to score your top choices.

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The post Applicant tracking system guide: From A to Z appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Now I report to the HR Director. It’s been a terrible experience, and they have run off two more of my coworkers. I’m overworked, and our HR disrespects TA for some reason. When I bring up my concerns, it’s ignored or gaslighted. I have a meeting with my interim leader next week to discuss this. I’ve always had strong performance reviews and respect from my managers.

I recently shared those performance reviews with them. I’m at a loss here and extremely frustrated. We are supposed to be getting a new TA leader at some point, but in the meantime, it’s such a toxic situation. I’ve updated my resume and will do my best to make things turn out ok where I’m at. I know I’m needed here by the business with the req loads. My hiring managers are great and respect me. Thank you for letting me vent!

There is often conflict between Talent Acquisition and HR. Are they two sides of the same coin or two distinctly different organizations?

Katrina Collier, author of The Robot-Proof Recruiter, asks, “Do you see talent acquisition on the agenda of HR events? Rarely.” If HR doesn’t focus on talent acquisition, can you expect a good synergy in your current reporting relationship? Probably not, but there should be.

Katrina recognizes the need for a close relationship, but there is conflict: “TA should partner closely with HR but, if they’re to be the strategic department they’re evolving into, then they also need to partner closely with the business; marketing, sales, finance and more.”

She’s right, of course. To be successful at your job, you need to work closely with all departments, not just HR. But, for HR to be successful, they need to work closely with all departments as well. They can’t sit in a silo, creating policies and conducting investigations.

And, Katrina continues, “Fact is one lot bring in the people, the other lot look after them. So, no matter the structure, they should focus on recruitment and retention. Together. In partnership.”

Right now, you don’t have a partnership – you have tension and conflict.

This may be because of a fundamental difference in how you, an expert in Talent Acquisition, look at recruiting and how your boss, the HR Director, looks at recruiting. That may be creating the toxic environment that you sit in now.

What can you do about this?

I don’t look through the world with rose-colored glasses, so I agree with your decision to start looking for a new job. If you can find something non-toxic, run and never look back.

But, as a recruiter, you know that job hunting can take considerable time. In the meantime, what do you do?

Likely, the HR Director has always been awful, and your previous great boss just ran interference and protected his staff. But it’s no wonder he moved on. Now, with no protection, you’re seeing the conflict.

If the HR Director is a rational person and perhaps just clueless about TA, you can work with this. If they are just a horrible person, keep your head down and send out resumes.

The rest of this answer assumes some rationality on the part of the HR Director.

It’s time to have a sit-down conversation about the problems and the conflicts. Use your TA skills and work on “recruiting” the HR Director to your side.

A proposed solution: People Operations

What is the difference between People Operations and HR? In some companies, nothing. It’s just window dressing. But there should be a difference.

Related: What’s the difference: People operations vs. HR management

Glenn Martin, Founder & Director of the podcast Never Mind The Job Spec, says that People Operations should have a “blend of expertise across TA, HR, Culture, and really have a progressive people-first mindset.”

That’s what you need. And you need to propose it to the HR Director. How can you work together to help everyone accomplish their goals?

This may mean asking the HR Director what you can do to help them. Your goal is to show the director how working together can be a benefit.

Yes, this method sucks. Your boss should look for ways to make your job easier, not the other way around, but sometimes you have to get creative.

Focus on how good recruitment supports retention and engagement – which are probably high priorities for your boss. Helping to relieve their burden may alleviate some of your burdens. Helping build a people operations team instead of joining an HR team may be the trick.

If that doesn’t work, it may be time to step over the HR Director’s head. If that’s the CEO, so be it. If it’s another layer of HR, then don’t wait so long to go there. The TA team has already lost several people. They can’t afford to lose you too. (Don’t let this make you feel guilty if you go – you go if you find something better.) You may have more leverage than you think.

Speaking up about your needs and how it affects the business as a whole, combined with your efforts with the HR Director, can be beneficial to your career and may solve your problem. Or at least alleviate it enough to make it tolerable.

Have an HR or workplace-related question for the Evil HR Lady? Email contact@workable.com with “Evil HR Lady” in the subject heading and it may be featured in an upcoming article!

The post Ask the Evil HR Lady: How to resolve your TA vs. HR conflict appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

So, we’re entering the recruitment marketing space ourselves with Career Center – a new website focused on the jobseeker.

The Career Center has four main elements to it:

1. We’re helping answer jobseeker questions and concerns

First, it addresses common questions and pain points that a jobseeker or employee might have – such as:

• Best video interview tips for candidates
• The challenges of remote work (and how to overcome them)
• Getting back to work after a career break

There’s a lot more, of course. Ultimately, job hunting can be a little stressful for the best of us – and our Career Center wants to provide helpful and supportive tips to support jobseekers and employees wherever they may be in their career.

2. We’re helping candidates master the interview

We also have interview answer templates to help candidates best prepare for an interview and make a strong impression on a potential employer.

It may seem counterintuitive to give a candidate the “answers” to your interview questions ahead of time – but it in fact can benefit you because we’re helping candidates deliver the exact kind of information you need, so you can make a better decision on who to hire.

3. We’re guiding candidates to your open roles

When jobseekers arrive at our new website – be it via a network referral, a social posting, or even a basic Google search – they’re now just one click away from going to the Workable Job Board where all your job postings live.

This means more applications on your doorstep from candidates who are active, engaged and interested.

4. We’re helping you support your candidates

The recruitment process can be a stressful one, both for you and your candidates. It’s also a defining moment for them in terms of how they see you as a potential employer. If you step up and support them as a hiring manager or recruiter by sharing helpful content from Career Center, you’re showing them that you care about them and want them to do well. That speaks volumes for your reputation as an employer.

This isn’t the only way in which we’re bringing candidates closer to you. We are already making it easier than ever for candidates to apply for your jobs, keeping your past candidates top of mind whenever you open a new position in our ATS, and surveying workers to learn what they’re looking for in a job. And, of course, we’ll continue building helpful content for jobseekers and for hiring teams.

Think of us as your “employer concierge”. With thoughtful, engaging, and actionable jobseeker-facing content, we’re ultimately bringing more value to our customers by showing jobseekers that they’re just as important as you are.

Our enduring mission is to remove the barrier between talent and opportunity – and that barrier is shrinking even more with Career Center. Dive in and have a look!

The post Launching Workable’s Career Center: a website for jobseekers appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

The challenge

The solution

• Opening and hiring for a new international office
• Finding and hiring employees who have a passion for solving vision impairment
• Identifying candidates with experience in eye care
• Lack of standardized hiring process, leading to costly inefficiencies and redundancies

• Hire in Pakistan using localized job boards
• Use Workable Referrals to encourage employees to refer like-minded talent
• Source candidates via AI Recruiter that have the exact expertise IrisVision is looking for
• Establish a single-truth system for all recruiters and hiring managers
• Implement a cost-effective hiring solution

According to the WHO, visual impairment is reported as a serious eye health hazard prevalent across the globe. As of 2012, 285 million people were visually impaired worldwide, with 12 million in the United States alone.

For some folks, poor sight may just be a slight inconvenience that is easily catered to with prescription glasses. However, most people who suffer from low vision barely see enough to make it through the day on their own. IrisVision built a team of medical experts and tech workers who together helped materialize the idea of an all-in-one low-vision solution, the IrisVision Electronic Glasses.

This was a challenging feat – not only did this call for employees who share IrisVision’s values of creating a more inclusive world for the visually challenged and legally blind, it also called for a skill set that met the company’s operational and growth needs.

Coupled with plans to expand to international markets, the need for reliable and scalable hiring software became crucial to the success of the company. An unstructured talent acquisition method and time-consuming hiring procedures required a powerful solution.

Instead of manually searching for qualified individuals across several networking sites, IrisVision needed a tool that would help streamline the entire hiring process, from attracting top-tier talent to onboarding the selected few – minus the hassle of maintaining the candidate pipeline or manually looking for candidates who fit the job role.

IrisVision’s vision now in sight

When IrisVision signed up with Workable, it gradually overcame the above talent acquisition challenges. First off, Workable’s automated hiring process simplified the tracking of the candidates’ pipeline – including those who had applied for multiple positions.

“The referral feature on Workable was a game-changer for us. It really helped us make the most of our company’s existing resources as more people poured in!”, said Khayyam Jafri, IrisVision’s Content Marketing Manager.

Workable’s AI sourcing tool was also valuable for IrisVision’s users, enabling members of the hiring team to look up suitable candidates and find those who best fit the job description. This helped IrisVision get the best hires possible, ensuring better employee performance and greater job success in the long run.

Optimization is the way

Another core value of IrisVision is customer satisfaction, which it believes to be at the very heart of the company’s success. Its ultimate goal is to help visually impaired people regain their vision and their independence in daily life.

Because of this, the company requires capable and highly skilled low-vision coaches who can help customers get acquainted with IrisVision glasses, personally guiding and training them to make the best use of IrisVision’s breakthrough technology.

Again, Workable’s software proved to be invaluable, with IrisVision onboarding a number of key low-vision coaches and ensuring a top-quality user experience for customers.

“Workable deserves the credit for equipping us with comprehensive recruitment features that smoothed out the process of searching, identifying, and onboarding new talent,” said Khayyam. “Alongside many others, Workable helped us onboard one of our most talented team players in Brian Murphey, who was appointed as the Director of Sales with 18 years of experience in the eye care and ophthalmic products space.”

And it has a great ROI

Workable became IrisVision’s preferred choice because it offered a cost-effective solution to their recruitment needs. AI-powered sourcing, along with other popular recruiting and HR tools, was a one-of-a-kind package in its price range that turned out to be crucial in making IrisVision’s HR processes even more efficient.

IrisVision is set out to build a team of visionaries to improve eye healthcare and transform thousands of lives, and Workable is supporting IrisVision in achieving this every day.

The post IrisVision grows a team of visionaries with Workable appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

What is an alternating four-day workweek?

The idea of a four-day workweek is nothing new, and it’s something some companies have been offering as an option – or even a required schedule – for years. In most cases, this means that the employee works 10-hour days instead of eight, so the standard 40-hour workweek is completed in just four days. That way, instead of two days off per week, the employee gets three.

An alternating four-day workweek is a little different. With this plan, the employee works five days one week, and four the next. The day off could be Friday to allow for a three-day weekend every other week, but that is up to the individual employee and employer. Those additional days off provide the employee with tremendous flexibility to take extra trips, engage in their favorite hobbies, or whatever else they’d like to do with their spare time.

Why an alternating four-day workweek?

When the pandemic hit, we had to transition our team from being in-office to being a fully remote workforce. It was really all hands on deck to help the company come through the pandemic unscathed, and our team hunkered down and helped us figure out how to make our day to day operations more effective as a remote workforce. This meant lots of retooling and new process development … and long hours.

Working remotely can make work-life balance challenging and increase risk of burnout. A recent survey discovered that 69% of remote workers are experiencing burnout symptoms and 59% of remote workers are taking less time off than normal. Another survey stated that burnout at work doubled from March 2020 to April 2020.

Our hypothesis was that implementing this new perk would help prevent burnout, increase employee job satisfaction, and make our team feel more rested and ultimately, more productive, at work.

Our main concerns

My primary concern was ensuring that our clients and customers still had the level of support that they have come to expect from us. At the same time, I didn’t want this effort to make it harder on our support team as a result of any client frustrations or support ticket backlog. It was important to me that we still had adequate coverage for all teams and for all departmental responsibilities.

My secondary concern was making sure that this new schedule wouldn’t prevent anyone from being able to do their job. I didn’t want this alternating schedule to create any unnecessary stress for employees that couldn’t get something done because a key stakeholder was out of the office. But, all of these concerns can be prevented with proper planning.

How it’s been going so far

We piloted this new program from April to June 2021, a full quarter. We then said we would ressas with leadership, and see if this is something we would want to implement for the long term. Once the pilot was nearing the end, we sent a survey around to our team to get their feedback on this new work schedule.

Here are a few key takeaways:

• 100% of employees said that they wanted us to continue offering this benefit
• 93% of employees have said their productivity has improved, while the other 7% said their productivity has been the same
• 85% of employees said they feel more rested and happier at work

Anecdotally speaking, we also had a few key learnings, including;

• It really enabled better habits when it came to time management and meeting scheduling. For example, everyone seems to be more thoughtful about scheduling meetings in general, so as to not waste time.
• Many of the team members use Fridays for “deep work” days, with no meetings or interruptions.
• This has been a great perk to mention to job candidates during the hiring process, and has been a deal breaker for some of our recent hires.

Four-day workweek tips for you

If this is a concept that you are considering for your team, here are a few things to consider and tips for implementation.

1. Try it as a pilot program first

I highly recommend you “try it on” by first implementing it as a pilot or trial program, with a specific start date and end date, to see how your team and customers adapt to this change. This gives you the flexibility of trying it out before having to fully commit. You may learn that it’s great and everything is fine to move forward with it long-term, or you may learn that you need to tweak a few things.

2. Make any special conditions very clear

Ensure everyone is aware of any special conditions or restrictions to this process to set the right expectations. For us, we didn’t require longer hours during the week of their Friday off, but other companies do. So, if there are special conditions, make them very clear from the start.

3. Make the schedule transparent and visible

Meet with your team leads and schedule out everyone’s Friday off in advance. Make sure it’s clear and visible in a shared calendar so everyone is aware of who is and who isn’t “in the office” on a given Friday. This also helps the team think in advance about any vacation days that may overlap or big events or meetings that need planning around.

4. Ensure your leaders lead by example

Leading by example is essential not only because leadership also needs time to recharge, but also because failing to follow through with the process can send mixed messages to employees and could cause anxiety on whether or not they should take the time off.

Matt Buchanan is the Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer at Service Direct, a technology company that offers local lead generation solutions for service businesses. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University. He has 15+ years of expertise in local lead generation, sales, search engine marketing, and building and executing growth strategies.

The post Implementing an alternating four-day workweek: how & why appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In fact, some surveys tell us that as many as 54% of all members of Gen Z want to become freelancers or start their own business. The number of self-employed people in 2021 was up 34% from 2020 to a staggering 51 million people in the United States. That’s roughly 15% of the entire population in the country working for themselves.

Cultural factors such as the rise of side hustles and part-time employment opportunities available through the Internet and social media are contributing to these numbers. More than two-thirds (68%) of those who began freelancing in 2021 were either millennials or Gen Z. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that self-employment is due to rise quicker than average employment growth over the next 10 years.

Employers need to catch up

During the pandemic and this challenging employment market, employers must reckon with these trends and consider how to incorporate this cultural shift into their recruitment policy.

During the pandemic and this challenging employment market, employers must reckon with these trends and consider how to incorporate this cultural shift into their recruitment policy.

While some effects of these trends can certainly be traced back to timing and the pandemic, the broader move towards virtual work and self-employment is a permanent one.

Those who choose the freelance and self-employed route are doing so for a variety of reasons. Employers need to understand what those are, and think about how to replicate them in their own workplaces if they want to remain competitive in the talent market.

There are, of course, benefits and drawbacks to self-employment and business ownership. Let’s first look at the main benefits:

What are the advantages of being self-employed?

1. Flexible schedule

Our collective understanding of work-life balance is changing to prioritize more time with family and better mental health. One of the themes we saw over and over again in the research we shared in our Great Discontent report was that candidates increasingly value a flexible work schedule.

This trend is reflected in candidates’ preferences – and often, their need – for jobs that allow them to work when it’s most convenient for them.

Flexible work, of course, is one of the hallmarks of self-employment. By definition, the contractor/client relationship prohibits clients from dictating how and when the contractor does their work, as they do for their employees.

2. Remote work

Despite some predicting that remote work would end en masse as soon as the pandemic did, we haven’t seen that occur. Instead remote work, like COVID-19, appears here to stay.

Candidates in our recent survey responded that, like flexible work, remote work options were very important when making the decision on where to work. Many are flat-out turning down jobs that are requiring employees to return to work in-person. And as is also the case with flexible work, countless self-employed people choose to work remotely.

Remote work also reduces or eliminates time spent commuting – we found that to be a perk in the Great Discontent survey as well. It’s also a benefit in other areas, as commuting is bad for our mental health, our finances, and the environment.

3. Better balance of caretaking/parenting challenges

Self-employed people can choose to work when and where they please. This is a bonus when it comes to caring for other family members – especially parents of young children.

They can take time off to take children to doctor’s appointments, or for a leisurely lunch with a friend, without needing to justify their actions.

4. 100% ownership of your business

Freelancing allows individuals the chance to create and retain their business’ value. This compared to a full-time employment scenario, in which a person rents out their labor to build value for a company, but retains no ownership stake or long-term financial investment in the company’s success.

The self-employment model potentially offers more financial stability and opportunities for wealth generation in the long term than traditional full-time employment. In fact, in a recent Upwork-commissioned study from September 2020, 60% of freelancers said they make more than they would in a traditional full-time job – and that percentage is up seven points from 2019.

5. No red tape or corporate politics

Excluding the red tape associated with handling your own business affairs like taxes, self-employment is refreshingly free of the red tape and politics associated with the corporate world.

When you’re outside of the corporate hierarchy, the contortions that full-time corporate employees must go through to manage social expectations, coworker relationships, and bosses are none of your concern.

This can be remarkably freeing, especially for introverts or others who are averse to the petty politics that often govern an office’s social structure.

6. Uncapped earning potential

Very few traditional full-time professions offer the benefit of uncapped earning potential, though this is one of the coolest and most convenient benefits of freelancing.

Freelance work, and therefore one’s income, can be scaled up or down depending on a person’s income targets for a given month. Your nanny is on vacation so you need to focus on taking care of your three children this month? Scale down for less responsibility and more free time. Looking to save for a down payment on a home? Scale up by looking for more, or higher paying, clients.

7. Ability to do work you’re passionate about

For many, self-employment represents the opportunity to do work they’re deeply passionate about. Often we are skilled in areas that we’d enjoy working in but in which there are no real full-time jobs available. Freelancing can give individuals the opportunity to combine their unique skill sets and pursue work they’re uniquely qualified for.

We see this play out in the arts industry specifically, where rates of self-employment are significantly higher than of all other professions – with 30% of artists working in freelance, according to a report from the National Endowment for the Arts. Full-time, profitable jobs in the arts are few and far between, but working as a freelancer can offer a better income and more job opportunities.

8. Freedom and control over one’s own career

A freelance career offers complete freedom. Lost interest in accounting and instead prefer to start a business doing wedding floral arrangements? Go for it! Want to cancel all your Friday meetings and go to a spa? No one’s stopping you!

It’s never been easier to start freelancing with zero startup capital, making this an open-source opportunity available to anyone with a solid internet connection and a willingness to work hard.

9. Pride in a job well done

Freelance work offers rewards based on a job well done, rather than simply showing up to work every day. Because it’s so results-focused, freelancers feel a sense of pride and ownership when they complete a project.

Got all that? Good. Now, let’s look at the main disadvantages of running one’s own operation.

What are the disadvantages of being self-employed?

1. Lack of insurance/benefits

One of the most difficult (and expensive) issues to navigate as a freelancer is finding benefits. With the widespread prevalence of employer-offered healthcare in the United States, leaving one’s job and finding healthcare on the open market can feel scary and risky. Self-employed people often end up paying more for healthcare.

Self-employed people also miss out on other financial benefits offered by employers, like 401K matching, stock options, temporary disability insurance, and vision/dental care.

2. Fluctuating income and work load

This one is a double-edged sword. While a variable work schedule can be harnessed for benefits like scalable workload and uncapped earning potential, it can also be difficult to cope without financial literacy, a healthy emergency fund, and the tenacity to get through some lean months.

3. Risk and stress

Likewise, some find that the risk inherent to business ownership, innovation, and self-employment is simply too stressful to cope with. That’s okay! What works for one person doesn’t work for everyone, and we all have different levels of risk tolerance depending on our financial situation.

While risk is to some degree a key component of any business venture, many self-employed people testify that they actually feel freelancing gives them financial security they never had while working a traditional full-time job. No one client makes up the entirety of a freelancer’s income, and should one client go under, they are easily replaced.

4. Loneliness and isolation

Psychologically, working for yourself is quite challenging. To use a common phrase, the buck stops with you. If something needs doing, you’re probably the one who does it.

While you can pick up many unique and helpful skills in this situation, it can also be lonely and isolating to deal with everything about your business on your own. There’s no one to hand the reins to when you want a break.

5. Tax disadvantages

There are financial advantages to traditional employment that employees take for granted. For example, employers pay half of the payroll tax due for their employees. The other half is generally automatically withheld from an employee’s paycheck. But self-employed people pay both parts themselves in the form of self-employment tax. The difference? Freelancers pay an additional seven percent of gross revenue to taxes, or 15.3% in total. That’s a major financial disadvantage.

Self-employed people also have to manually withhold their own taxes and pay them quarterly throughout the year to the IRS and their state’s department of revenue.

6. Added burden of business development

Freelancers must regularly spend time marketing their services to other businesses. This can add to your workload, but without it, it may be difficult to find new clients. Some find this cycle exhausting.

Use this to your advantage

As mentioned above, a key talent attraction opportunity for employers here is to incorporate the benefits of self-employment, and emphasize the things they can offer in a job that self-employment does not.

Employers suffer when they struggle to hire or retain great people, and employees suffer when their employers don’t respect their full lives and personal responsibilities. Creating a more balanced working relationship benefits everyone involved.

Employers suffer when they struggle to hire or retain great people, and employees suffer when their employers don’t respect their full lives and personal responsibilities. Creating a more balanced working relationship benefits everyone involved.

How employers can attract candidates with the benefits of self-employment

1. Fast-track the hiring process

Getting rid of unnecessary red tape is an easy way to emulate the freedom self-employed people enjoy. And furthermore, everyone hates it when the hiring process takes too long.

2. Support a collaborative culture

The managerial hierarchy of large corporations can be exhausting, confusing, and demoralizing. Creating a more collaborative culture, where employees of all ranks feel listened to, can give a taste of the creative freedom self-employed people enjoy.

3. Offer ownership stake in the company

Partial or full ownership of the fruits of your labor is a key element of financial freedom, and while small business ownership offers this in spades, traditional employers typically do not. But they can. This desire for ownership stake is a significant reason people work at startups – because they offer the chance at partial ownership which can become extremely profitable down the line.

There are also other methods of sharing ownership for companies that aren’t public, like tying bonuses to company performance.

4. Compensate fairly and competitively

With record inflation this past year, employees across the country are hurting financially. Finances are one of the most commonly cited reasons employees give to explain why they’re switching jobs. Reevaluate your compensation structure to make sure it truly is fair and generous in today’s environment.

Unpredictable finances are a major factor that drives people to leave freelancing and seek traditional employment. You can take advantage of this angle by offering a generous, regular paycheck.

5. Give flexible work and remote options

Flexible and remote work are now the norm for most white-collar workers, and if you don’t offer these perks, you’re falling behind. Keep in mind, too, that many people become freelancers because they can’t cope with the rigid work schedule most employers require.

Whether because they deal with a chronic illness or because they have young children to care for, flexible work is the answer for many who struggle to balance personal and work responsibilities. If you already offer flexible or remote work options, sweeten the deal with a home office stipend or student debt repayment assistance.

6. Encourage creativity and independence

Creative or entrepreneurial employees often leave to start their own businesses in part because their unique contributions go unappreciated or ignored within the narrow-minded managerial structure.

If you can show employees that those qualities add value to the company and are appreciated, you’re more likely to keep them. Everyone likes to have autonomy and agency at work.

7. Create purpose and engagement

What does your company serve? Whose lives do you benefit? Do you manufacture products that destroy the environment or rely on inhumane, cheap labor?

People are highly motivated to give their time and energy to causes they believe in. Emulate the feeling of purpose and pride a person feels when they do work they know will make a positive impact.

8. Foster community and team building

Many self-employed people struggle with feeling isolated. There is nothing quite like working on a team of intelligent, hard-working people to collaborate on a common goal. Present your company culture as a real employment benefit – because it should be.

9. Give praise where it’s due

Self-employment is often thankless. Retain your employees by showing them that you support them, financially and personally. Spotlight employees who are doing great work and offer opportunities for growth and higher education for everyone.

If your organization is struggling to find candidates right now, as so many are, take note of the trend towards self-employment. There are real cultural and economical factors driving many highly qualified candidates to choose self-employment right now. If you want to work with them but aren’t willing or able to do so on a contract basis, you can use this insight about advantages of self-employment to tailor your recruiting messaging for today’s labor market.

The post Starved for talent? Support the freelance lifestyle at your work appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

The pandemic walloped just about everyone, but women were impacted most. According to research from the McKinsey Global Institute, female job losses due to COVID-19 are 1.8 times higher than men’s. As of February 2021, women lost 5.4 million jobs during the pandemic compared with 4.4 million lost by men.

Related: Gender and COVID-19: 7 stats on women at work in 2021

You might be thinking, “This is old news.” It’s not.

According to a recent report from the National Women’s Law Center, only 39,000 women entered the labor force in January of 2022, while at the same time, 1 million men entered the labor force.

At the same time, U.S. employers in need of talent are faced with extremely low unemployment rates of 3.6%. Many are singing the candidate shortage blues, which isn’t going away anytime soon.

How to solve two problems with one solution

Here’s one strategy that can help solve two problems – returnship programs, or Return to Work Programs.

A returnship is basically a full-time paid internship for people who have been out of the workforce for several years. The idea is that technologies and best practices may have changed while the person has stepped out. These programs help experienced workers quickly come up to speed.

This trend appears to be slowly gaining traction.

Some of the more high-profile companies offering returnships include Disney, Amazon Web Services, PayPal, and Microsoft.

Now is the perfect time to incorporate a returnship program into your talent strategy.

Some business owners are skeptical when hiring people who’ve been out of the workforce for a while. That’s unfortunate, as this means they’re missing out on a large pool of well-qualified candidates.

These programs can help you strengthen your company culture, and who couldn’t benefit from that these days? It won’t take long for word to get out about your family-friendly work policies, which will help you recruit and retain talent. This approach could be an excellent solution for staffing some of the harder-to-fill positions in your organization.

How to start a returnship program

Now that you’re aware of the various benefits of having a returnship program, here’s how you can go about starting one in your company.

1. Establish the guidelines

How long will someone need to be out of the workforce, to be eligible for your program? How long will your program run for? Will participants be paid or not? Will members remain in one position or rotate through several departments?

Will everyone be paid the same, or will pay rates vary depending on experience? Is the program solely for women, or will men be permitted to apply too? Can participants work from home, or will they be required to come to the office?

2. Assemble the job description

Check with your department heads to see if they’re interested in participating in the program. If so, have them write a job description that outlines the role, expectations, and requirements.

Be sure to state “returnship” or “return-to-work” in the job description so that everyone understands this is a temporary position.

3. Get the word out about your program

Create a separate page on your career website to showcase this forward-thinking program. Post the job descriptions on job sites to help increase your reach. Don’t forget to let your employees know about this new offering, as many may have friends or family members who may be interested in participating.

4. Assess candidates

When evaluating candidates, remember to focus on the person’s potential and current skills rather than experience. Consider the skills gained while stepping out of the workforce.

5. Launch your program

The most effective returnship program includes onboarding, opportunities to meet senior executives, and skills training. It’s also a best practice to assign a mentor to each participant.

6. Adjust your program as you go

It’s unlikely that everything will be perfect right out of the gate. Gather ongoing feedback from participants and adjust your program accordingly.

Returnships are like internships – but for skilled workers. Establishing such a program can help soothe some of your hiring blues.

Roberta Matuson, The Talent Maximizer® and President of Matuson Consulting, helps world-class organizations like General Motors, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and Microsoft hire and retain world-class talent. Roberta is the author of six books on talent and leadership, including the newly released, Can We Talk? Seven Principles for Managing Difficult Conversations at Work, and Evergreen Talent. Sign up to receive her free newsletter, The Talent Maximizer®. Follow her on Twitter.

The post Why a returnship program can soothe your hiring blues appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

This integration optimally advertises your jobs on Indeed to increase the likelihood of hire by 4.5x (Indeed data, worldwide). Sponsored Jobs displays your jobs to candidates who are most likely to apply — helping you attract quality applicants.

Shine a spotlight on your need-to-fill roles

Workable already provides a free integration with Indeed that connects all your job postings to directly feed into Indeed. You can now use the new Indeed Sponsored Jobs integration to bolster your job postings. Sponsoring jobs can help you gain more visibility and attract more talent because they reach the candidates who are most likely to apply. Sponsored Jobs are 4.5X more likely to result in a hire.

Easily analyze and share campaign ROI

Sponsoring a job through Workable now provides the option to set a budget and end date for a campaign. Control costs, plus get access to the data you need to assess campaign performance.

See how many times your sponsored jobs have been shown and clicked on and what your average cost per click is, so you can confidently report on current performance and use that data to help plan future sponsored campaigns.

Want to sponsor an existing job? You can start today in just a few easy steps

Please note, a valid Indeed account is required before your Sponsored Job campaign can go live, so be sure to verify that your account is set up correctly at https://ads.indeed.com/job/ads.

• Create a Workable account or sign in to your current account
• From the Workable dashboard go to the Find Candidates page for a job
• Select the Premium Job Boards option, then Indeed
• Set the budget and dates for the campaign
• Once you’ve completed your first sponsorship in Workable, you should visit https://ads.indeed.com/job/ads to verify that your campaign is live

Get started now by signing in to Workable.

The post Workable’s new Indeed Sponsored Jobs integration boosts job visibility and analytics appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

We at Workable and Bryq have the data to help you build your talent attraction package so you can attract – and keep – those star employees. Let’s dive in!

Want to see all the data in one place? Jump to the full infographic below or download it for your own files.

Remote work by gender

Employees who work remotely in their current role:

• 51% men
• 54% women
• 52% overall

Employees who want to work remotely in their next role:

• 65% men
• 75% women
• 69% overall

Nearly 70% of candidates are looking for remote roles, while female candidates are 15% more likely than male candidates to be looking for remote work.

Breakdown of what workers most often cited as what’s most important to them in their next role:

Both men and women prioritized the same things when looking for their next role but at different rates. Men looked for better advancement opportunities 16% more often than women and looked for more meaningful work 20% more often than women.

Women, however, looked for a higher salary 12% more often than men and looked for better work-life integration 30% more often than men.

62.2% of US respondents and  70.1% 0f UK respondents cite compensation as a top factor in deciding to move to a new company.

Support your employees’ home lives as well as their work lives

Females in the US are more than twice as likely as males to cite family priorities as the reason why they’re not working, with a difference of 39.4% vs. 19.3%.

In the UK, the difference is much more pronounced, with 41.7% of UK women and 6.7% of UK men citing family priorities as the reason why they’re not working.

Lack of advancement opportunities for minority workers

The percentage of each group in terms of how likely they’d leave their current job for another one with better advanced opportunities:

• 27% American Indian- Alaskan Native
• 31% Asian
• 43% African-American
• 34% Hispanic/Latino
• 27% Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander
• 25% Caucasian

Black workers are 70% more likely than white workers to leave their jobs for better advancement opportunities. In fact, white
workers were the least likely of all ethnicity groups to leave their roles for better advancement opportunities.

Workers with disabilities want remote work

Of the population of workers with a disability in the workforce, over 60% of them were already working from home. Going into 2022, a staggering 76% of workers with disabilities are looking to work remotely in their next role.

Younger workers are the future of our workforce

More than two out of five (42.8%) of those aged 21-29 say they’re actively looking for a new job, compared with just one quarter (24.7%) of those aged 50-59.

We live in a diverse society. A one-size-fits-all strategy can only get you so far. With flexibility in your benefits package and working environment, you’re providing an environment in which your employees can thrive.

Workable is where the world hires. Find and hire the right person for every job. See how we’ve enabled over 20,000 companies to make over 1.3 million hires – sign up for a demo or 15-day free trial. And learn more about candidate attraction in our Great Discontent report. 

Bryq is an award-winning talent intelligence solution that will transform the way you recruit and manage talent. Use Workable and Bryq together to eliminate bias within the hiring process, promote internal mobility through career pathing, and grow and cultivate your company culture. Download Bryq’s full hiring report here and book your free demo today.

The post INFOGRAPHIC: Want to keep your employees? Give them what they need appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Document why you are implementing an ATS in the first place

Before you implement an ATS, define your purpose, scope, and intent in doing so. Explaining the functionality of the ATS system and outlining how it can help streamline tasks can encourage your HR team to see the advantages of going through the implementation process.

An ATS can simplify or automate the following tasks:

• Creating job descriptions
• Publishing job postings to social media, LinkedIn, and job boards
• Processing job applications
• Parsing resumes
• Tracking and reporting recruitment metrics
• Automating communication and follow-up with job seekers
• Scheduling interviews
• Extending job offers
• Executing contracts
• Assisting with onboarding tasks

Make sure your team understands which aspects of their workflow can be alleviated with recruiting software, who will be affected by the changes, and how it will allow them to focus their knowledge and expertise on more important aspects of talent management, such as recruiting qualified candidates and improving the overall candidate experience.

Alert the team and get everyone on board

Some team members may not want to learn a new process, even if it will make their job easier in the future. It’s important to remember that people are comfortable in their routines and change can be difficult.

Your recruiting team may have fears about being replaced by technology, might lack confidence about their technical ability, or could worry that using recruitment technology could inadvertently make their job more difficult.

Successful implementation of an ATS starts with clear communication about the logistics and timeline of using the new software, along with any demonstrations or training that can help make the transition less intimidating or disruptive.

State clear goals and measurable metrics with new ATS

Being specific about your expectations for an ATS should be part of your implementation plan. Communicating that you believe the system will streamline the hiring process may be true, but it is also too vague to inspire confidence.

Instead, use clear goals and measurable metrics so that your team knows that the performance of the ATS implementation is being monitored in a quantifiable way. Ask your ATS vendor for case studies that include actual data such as percentages or statistics so you can foster a better understanding of the value of the new system.

Also, discuss your short and long term goals and ask hiring managers for feedback on what else could be improved upon or addressed.

Test the software and troubleshoot bottlenecks

As is often the case when learning something new, you’re likely to have some questions or challenges as your team gets familiar with a new ATS. Make sure you’re familiar with the level of support an ATS vendor offers, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Your vendor knows their ATS from front to back and can troubleshoot or offer suggestions in a way that’s far more efficient than just struggling to learn on your own.

Knowing that help is only a few clicks or a phone call away can help your team feel more confident and comfortable about incorporating a new tool into their workflow.

Integrate feedback and train your team

Once your team experiences the benefits of an ATS, they’ll be eager and willing to overcome any minor challenges that arise along the way.

Keep the lines of communication open, be clear about your plan and goals, make sure that you have a working understanding of the software and its support options, and train your team on the system’s functionality — that’s the formula for implementing an ATS and optimizing the talent acquisition process from beginning to end.

Ready to get started? Learn more about how easy it is to implement an ATS with Workable.

The post How to successfully implement an ATS appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Here’s how to get both elements right.

1. Recruitment

A personal anecdote: I remember searching for jobs about five years ago. While passing through the railway station in Leeds, UK, a gigantic advert caught my eye, sprawling across the platform wall in the eyeline of thousands of travelers and commuters.

It was a recruitment advertisement for a healthcare software company, with a fantastic starting salary figure and ‘no experience required’. I made a mental note, checked their website for a suitable role, found a marketing and communications position I liked the look of, and sent off my CV later that day.

A couple of days later, my phone rang. A recruiter from the software business liked the look of my application and wanted to invite me for an interview. Great!

“Just one question first, Alex. Where do you live right now?”

I told her: about 30 miles away, just less than an hour’s drive and within an acceptable commute radius for me.

“Ahh… would you consider moving for this position?”

I was taken aback and paused for a moment. “No, I’ve just moved house actually. As I say, I’m happy to drive that dista…”

“No, it’s just that we have a policy. All of our workers have to live within a 20-minute walk of the office.”

“… Right. Okay. Why?”

I can’t remember the reason she gave, so it can’t have been a good one. And that was the end of that.

In all honesty, I felt I was a great fit for the position I’d seen and could have offered something to the business. But a ridiculously small catchment net had filtered me out, and no doubt many other more skilled and experienced candidates.

Mind your candidate filters

This extreme case of ‘candidate filter’ is the perfect example of the opposite of what a remote recruitment strategy can do for your business.

Jettisoning the physical considerations of commuting can offer your business access to a talent pool many times larger than if you were in an office.

Depending on the products and services you offer, you may require your staff to be situated in the same country or time zone. Or, like the company I work for, it may not matter – allowing you to target the best talent across countries and continents.

Ultimately, the long-term strength of your business depends on the quality of the new talent you can onboard and integrate. The power to take your pick is the primary benefit of a remote-friendly recruitment strategy – so give some thought to how wide your recruitment net can reasonably be!

Once you’ve settled on that, ensure that:

• Job advertisements are properly categorized as remote and contain remote-related keywords for SEO
• The hiring process uses the same tools and approaches as your day-to-day remote work to familiarize candidates early on
• Candidates are adequately screened and prepared for a remote culture before hiring completion

This final point is a crucial one. During the hiring process for my current position, I passed through multiple Zoom interviews where I discussed the role and my suitability, followed by a final interview with a member of the people team. This focused entirely on values and culture rather than the actual role, and involved a discussion about remote working. Had I worked remotely before? Did I have any reservations about remote work which could be cleared up? Did I have any questions about what the working day would look like?

This final discussion allowed me to make my decision to accept the position with complete preparedness and with both parties confident I’d fit in.

2. Retention

The best retention strategy is to not have one.

In other words, fostering a genuinely attractive and empowering culture without consciously worrying about retention will take care of employee attrition itself.

Here, too, building with remote work in mind is crucial. People are embracing remote work for three primary reasons:

• Work-life balance
• Flexibility
• Clearing out commutes and distractions

Crafting your culture to maximize these benefits will ensure employee retention is maximized with them.

The company I work for, Qualio, is a good example of how this works.

Alongside our core activity of making, marketing and providing eQMS software, our people team are hard at work continuously shaping, evolving and cascading a remote culture.

Key ingredients include:

• Emphasis on asynchronous and flexible work, allowing people to work around personal commitments and schedules
• Employee resource groups (ERGs)
• Slack channels for work and non-work communication. Alongside team-specific groups like sales, marketing and customer success sit groups for gardening, football, cooking, pets and more
• A ‘local everywhere’ focus, including expensing books from local independent bookstores during the holiday season
• Celebration of remote work through a dedicated #culture-remote Slack channel, with shared images of where people are working from
• Focus Fridays without scheduled meetings

Getting elements like this in place will help a remote culture coalesce and, in turn, help retain the same employees who were drawn to your business with your remote-focused recruitment.

Remote work has huge value

Modern workers are clamoring for remote opportunities. Making the conscious effort now to build a remote culture, then using it to attract new talent, is an unskippable step for organizations who want to maximize recruitment and retention efficiency in the post-COVID world.

There are no shortcuts to a genuinely empowering and flexible remote culture – but get it right, and your recruitment and retention efforts will take care of themselves.

Alex Pavlović has worked in the quality and compliance space for 5 years, producing a range of industry content to help Qualio blog visitors understand the complex and highly regulated environments of modern life science.

The post How to craft a remote-friendly recruitment and retention strategy appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Here are five hiring skills to have if you’re working in the HR department.

1. Organizing a hiring strategy

Bringing the best talents on board is no mean feat. You need a foolproof strategy in place to do that successfully. But, it will be difficult to create one if you don’t have the skills to do so.

A good hiring strategy defines the best plan of action for seeking the best individuals for the organization’s vacant positions. It describes the kind of candidates that the organization needs and details ways how to attract them. In addition, it explains the different ways that you intend to use in recruiting them.

This might mean coming up with complex or simple strategies depending on the hiring that you intend to do. For instance, if you plan to hire non-local talent, the strategy needs to be more defined as compared to hiring locally. You must think of issues such as compliance, inclusivity, cultural awareness, and more, which are not necessarily important when hiring locally. You need to be in a position to create a strategy that keeps these issues in mind while still being realistic and focused on the company goals.

2. Marketing and selling the employer brand

Times are gone when employers choose the candidates that they want to hire. Modern workers are very particular about the ideal employer that they want to work with.

If you are to attract these candidates, you have to make them choose your brand. Moreover, this involves positioning your brand as the ideal employer and placing it in front of these candidates.

To do this, you need to employ current marketing and selling skills and strategies – in other words, recruitment marketing. This could mean taking videos of your workforce showcasing your best and most positive company culture and posting them on platforms where your ideal candidates hang out.

3. Expertise in candidate experience

In any hiring process, the candidate is the most important aspect of the entire process. As a recruiter, it is very important to make every candidate feel valued in each step through a robust candidate experience strategy.

Otherwise, you risk hurting your employer’s brand and discouraging the right people from applying for jobs in your company in the future. To give the candidates the best experience, you must be able to ensure transparent and regular communication about the hiring process with the candidates that you connect with.

In addition, you have the task of ensuring that all candidates are treated well during the entire process and that they receive a follow-up message whether they got the job or not.

4. Negotiating skills

During the hiring process, you need to be able to navigate situations that might call for negotiations with the candidates as well as any other person involved in the process. A good example is salaries. You need to be able to negotiate smartly, keeping in mind the best interests of both the company and the candidates.

In addition, you need to be equipped with skills to enable you to achieve the desired results while building and fostering a good relationship with the people who are soon to join your organization.

5. Multitasking and time management

The hiring process involves multiple tasks that need to be completed, at times simultaneously. You will be writing compelling job ads, posting them, screening candidates, consulting with management and members of the hiring team, and more. You need to be able to complete these tasks without mistakes if you are to achieve the desired success.

This is not forgetting that time is of the essence when filling positions. You need to be able to find replacements as soon as possible to ensure business continuity. Moreover, this takes strong multitasking and time management skills to pull through.

Level up your hiring skills

Hiring individuals is one of the major responsibilities of an HR department. If you are in HR, developing skills that can enable you to carry out this task with ease is paramount.

Many hiring skills are needed for successful hiring. But, it is important to know about the key ones such as negotiating, multitasking and time management, strategy building, marketing the employer brand and candidate experience.

Leah Collins is a business development manager who is passionate about her work. Her favorite activities include reading and writing regarding her career, but she also enjoys nature and spending quality time with her family. She also helps with content writing at Statyrs. 

The post Hiring skills you should have if you’re in HR appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

U.S. President Joe Biden recently announced that the United States would accept up to 100,000 more refugees from Ukraine, though some fear that this will put an additional strain on the system. Still, in reality, it is a tremendous opportunity for both American citizens and Ukrainian refugees to help each other out.

When those refugees arrive in the country, these refugees will need jobs, and American businesses need people to fill open positions. If a mutually beneficial solution can be reached, everyone can thrive and prosper.

Related: What companies are doing to support Ukrainians and Russians

Qualifications of Ukrainian refugees

Ukraine is one of the most-educated societies globally, with an 83% tertiary gross enrollment ratio. That means most people from Ukraine have received some level of higher education, many of whom were driven out of their country. There is a phenomenon known as Brain Drain that occurs in times of significant conflict, and it results in high-talent individuals leaving their home countries to pursue opportunities elsewhere.

Nevertheless, some American businesses have failed to recognize credentials and experience gained in other countries. Admittedly, the education system in every country is different, and the education system in Ukraine is likewise different from that in the United States. Some critics argue that the quality of the training and education received by these immigrants is unverifiable.

Still, in a country where literacy and education are as valued as it is in Ukraine, you may expect Ukrainian workers to be exceptionally qualified.

Even though only 11% of the Ukrainian population speaks English, the English literacy in the country is dependent on their occupation and what region of Ukraine they come from. Their age is a factor as well – younger Ukrainians are more likely to have learned English than their older counterparts. Also, people working in professional sectors in the country’s urban centers will be more likely to speak English than people who work blue-collar jobs in rural areas.

But beyond that, there are several tools that refugees have at their disposal to help them learn English so that they can successfully find a job.

The United States is particularly suited to bring these Ukrainian refugees into the workforce because of the shift towards remote work. The humanitarian parole provided to Ukrainian refugees provides them with temporary work authorization, although it does not offer the same path to citizenship that comes with traditional refugee status.

It’s a handoff – these emergency solutions are a quick way for these refugees to reach safety, but they are only temporary solutions.

How Ukrainian workers can help fulfill the need for staff

However, given the labor shortage that the United States is facing right now, qualified refugees from Ukraine could be a source of relief for American businesses. The current job market is seeing more vacancies than there are job-seekers, and these 100,000 new workers that are going to be entering the country may be able to fulfill this need while providing for themselves and their families.

It is the business’s responsibility to ensure that they comply with all tax and immigration laws when they are employing refugees. Companies cannot favor hiring Ukrainian refugees, but they can make the process much easier for them to be considered. Legal guidance is an absolute necessity in situations like this, especially in such volatile times.

Regardless, the most important thing that employers should do when hiring refugees is to treat the situation with empathy and care. Just because they are coming to you when they are in need does not mean that they are worth any less to your business. You must treat them like you would any other worker. In fact, with the level of need that the job market has right now, it is a mutually beneficial setup.

Many Americans may not realize the skills and talents that Ukrainian refugees have because they only see them as immigrants who are now struggling to assimilate into a new society. But refugees have left an entirely different life behind, many of them with education and experience that rivals or exceeds that of American candidates.

Recognizing their potential is the first step in supporting refugees and fulfilling the needs of your business.

Ms. Winans is the Chief Executive Officer and Principal HR Consultant for Next Level Benefits.

The post What Ukrainian workers can bring to the American workplace appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Today we’ll discuss:

• What does a recruiter do?
• Why you might want to hire an in-house recruiter
• How a good recruiter can help your hiring managers
• Average salary of a recruiter
• When to hire a recruiter to join your HR team
• How Workable can help you find great recruiter candidates

What does a recruiter do?

A recruiter has a broad range of responsibilities that reach every aspect of the hiring process. Writing job descriptions, advertising open positions on job boards, scouring Linkedin profiles to find potential candidates, reviewing cover letters and resumes from job seekers, managing the interview process, extending job offers, and following employment law and legislation are just some of the many tasks associated with being a recruiter.

The ultimate goal of a recruiter is to attract and acquire top talent so that you’ll always have the best candidates to choose from for any position. However, the duties of a recruiter will vary depending on your business, the hiring tools you use, and the specific role you’re looking to fill.

Why you might want to hire an in-house recruiter

When it comes to recruiting, you have two main options: using a recruiting agency or hiring an in-house recruiter. Although hiring an in-house recruiter comes with the extra expense of paying another employee’s salary and benefits, it can actually save your company time and money in ways that may surprise you.

An in-house recruiter has more at stake when it comes to finding the best long term fit for your business. Since agency recruiters have many different clients and often work on commission, their focus is often on filling a new job opening as quickly as possible. Consequently, their search for qualified candidates may not be as extensive — and might even be limited to their own database of job seekers.

Also, in-house recruiters know that the hiring process can be laborious and employee turnover is expensive and disruptive, and will work harder to ensure that a candidate is a good fit for company culture in general, instead of just the role that they’re filling – leading to greater retention and higher employee engagement.

Finding the right in-house recruiter and equipping them with the tools that they need to succeed makes it easier to attract and retain the right employees.

How a good recruiter can help your hiring managers

The advantages of hiring a good recruiter go far beyond the myriad of tasks associated with filling a new position. Understanding the various facets of the business, including the technical details of the role as well as the nuances of company culture, gives an in-house recruiter a significant advantage in providing detailed candidate information that can assist with making the best hiring decisions.

The ideal recruiter has the time, interest, and talent to assist hiring managers by providing more in-depth information about potential candidates, and an in-house relationship is more conducive to candid conversations that might reveal relevant details.

Average salary of a recruiter

The actual salary of a recruiter varies, based on factors that include geographical location and years of experience. However, according to Glassdoor as of April 2022, the average base pay for an in-house recruiter is $56,456 with $27,185 of estimated additional pay for a total of $83,641.

When to hire a recruiter to join your HR team

Knowing when to hire a recruiter is one of many recruiting-related challenges CEOs face. To determine whether or not it’s time to hire an in-house recruiter, consider the following:

• What are your current hiring needs? Are you looking for someone to fill one specialized position or do you have big hiring decisions ahead – or even a hiring plan – that would benefit from insider knowledge?
• What is your budget? Are you limited to a contract of a few months with a recruitment agency? Could you afford to hire a part-time or full-time in-house recruiter?
• What is the anticipated growth of your business? Are you a startup on the verge of explosive growth? Are you an established business with a capable human resources department?

An in-house recruiter is particularly advantageous if you’re hiring high-level positions or have ongoing hiring needs and a strong desire to reduce employee turnover.

How Workable can help you find great recruiter candidates

As an ATS with a full suite of recruiting and hiring tools, Workable is in the unique position of being able to help organize and manage the search for a recruiter and then help that recruiter excel at their new position by automating the tasks associated with their role in hiring others.

From posting on social media and job search boards to self-scheduled interviews and fast-tracking contract execution with e-signature capabilities, Workable is a valuable part of your recruiting team — before you even have one.

The post How to hire a recruiter for your company appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

• What does KPI mean in recruitment?
• What are recruiting metrics?
• What can you learn from recruitment metrics?
• Which are the most important metrics to track?
• How can I have better visibility into recruiting metrics?
• Who should be tracking recruiting metrics?
• How do I calculate recruiting metrics?
• What metrics should matter most to a Talent Acquisition team?
• Which metrics should matter most to an external recruiter?
• What metrics should matter most to HR?
• Which recruiting metrics matter most to the CEO?
• What metrics should I track when working with an external recruiter?
• How do I increase the number of job applicants?
• How do I increase the number of qualified applicants?

Intro to Recruiting Email Metrics

• What are recruiter email metrics?
• How do you measure recruiter email metrics?

More Recruiting Metrics

• Recruiting costs FAQ: Budget and cost per hire
• Time to fill and time to hire metrics FAQ
• Recruitment process effectiveness metrics FAQ
• Candidate experience metrics FAQ
• Job offer acceptance rate metrics FAQ

Intro to Recruiting Metrics

What does KPI mean in recruitment?

KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator and it can be used in any field or business function to measure performance. In recruitment, key recruiting metrics refer to the important factors related to the hiring process that you should consistently examine. For example, the speed with which hiring teams make a decision may be a KPI for a company that values quick turnaround and does mass hiring.

What are recruiting KPIs?

How do you measure success in recruitment? Recruiting KPIs (or hiring metrics) measure how effective and efficient your recruitment process is. Some metrics are expressed as percentages or ratios (e.g. yield ratios), while others are absolute values that you can compare to industry or company standards (e.g. time to hire.) Use them to discover how well your recruitment process works and identify where you could improve.

What can you learn from recruitment metrics?

Recruitment metrics can answer any question you want them to. At a high level, you probably want to know the quality, cost and productivity of your hiring process. More specifically, you could ask the following questions:

• How good are we at spotting the right candidate and how long does it take us to hire them?
• How many qualified candidates do we need to make a hire and how quickly do we move them from one stage to the other?
• Do we effectively engage the best candidates and getting them to accept our job offers?
• How much money do we spend per hire and how does our spending change depending on the role we’re hiring for?
• How efficient is our hiring process and which steps or stages are most productive?

Which are the 6 most important hiring metrics to track?

There are many available KPIs, but what are some common recruiting metrics? Usually, companies choose to track the following recruiting metrics examples:

• Quality of hire
• Cost per hire
• Recruiting yield metrics
• Time to fill
• Source of hire
• Offer acceptance rate

If you want to dig deeper recruiting metrics that matter, add metrics like application completion rate, hiring manager satisfaction or new hire turnover. Choose metrics based on your company’s individual needs.

How can I have better visibility into the best recruiting metrics??

Most recruiting metrics are easy to calculate, but hard to keep track of. The first step is to determine what kind of data you need to monitor. Then, you could invest in an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to track your preferred metrics automatically via a recruiting metrics dashboard and generate reports. Alternatively, business intelligence tools (e.g. Tableau) can collect the recruiting analytics you need.

Looking for better reporting analytics? Workable’s reports will refine your recruiting process. Sign up for our 15-day free trial.

Who should be tracking recruiting metrics?

Recruiters or HR are usually in charge of tracking recruitment metrics. If your company doesn’t have a dedicated recruiting team, executives could monitor metrics for their respective departments and functions. Hiring software, like an HRIS or ATS, can help you collect relevant data.

How do I calculate recruiting metrics?

To calculate various recruiting metrics, use the following process:

• Determine what to measure. Some metrics may be important to your company, while tracking others may be counterproductive.
• Decide how to collect recruiting data. The simplest way is to use spreadsheets and enter data manually. But, this method is not efficient if you’re working with large datasets. To make things easier, it’s best to use analytics software or your ATS to store and report on data automatically. You could also import data from these systems to spreadsheets when needed.
• Identify which calculations to do on your own. For example, your ATS can report on your time to fill or recruiting yield ratios, but it can’t calculate your average cost per hire.
• Collect the formulas. Find the formulas and decide the time frame within which to calculate different metrics. For example, you may choose to calculate new hire retention rates annually, but decide to track your source of hire on a quarterly basis.

To get you started, here are the most common formulas you can use for recruiting metrics that matter:

Common Quality of hire formula:

– QoH index = (PR + HP + HR) / 3 where:
PR: Average job performance of new hires (e.g. 80 out of 100 based on quantifiable targets or hiring managers’ feedback)
HP: percentage of new hires reaching acceptable productivity within a determined period
HR: new hire retention rate after a year

See more about calculating quality of hire.

– Cost per hire formula:
CPH = (Internal recruiting costs + External recruiting costs) / Total number of hires

See more about calculating cost per hire.

– Common Time to fill formula:
Time to fill = Number of days between opening of a position until candidate accepts the job offer

For average time to fill, you add all times to fill from different positions and divide them by the number of positions.

See more on calculating and benchmarking time to fill metric in recruiting.

– Offer acceptance rate:
Offer acceptance rate = Number of offers accepted / Total number of offers %

See more on calculating offer acceptance rate.

– Common qualified candidates per hire formula:
Qualified candidates per hire = average number of candidates who were found to be qualified in each hiring process after the initial screening phases (e.g. screening call, resume screening)

See more on benchmarks for qualified candidates per hire.

If you’re interested in more detailed recruitment metrics examples and benchmarks, check out our complete guide.

What recruitment metrics should matter most to a Talent Acquisition team?

Corporate recruiters can use almost every metric to help them improve the recruiting process, though some recruiting metrics will be more useful than others.

Here are examples of the best metrics for recruiters:

• New hire turnover rate or new hire length of stay. New hire turnover rate measures the percentage of new hires who leave your company before their onboarding period ends (usually three to six months.) If you compare turnover rates over time, you can pinpoint when there’s an issue and look into your onboarding or candidate screening processes. Also, many recruiters measure their success according to the length of time a new hire stays with the company.
• Candidate experience scores. Candidate experience is an essential part of building a good employer brand. Companies can benefit from setting up candidate surveys to discover what candidates liked or disliked about their recruiting process. As a complementary metric, track hiring manager satisfaction with the hiring process, too.
• Qualified candidates per hire. This metric measures the number of candidates who made it past the first stage of your hiring process. This metric shows how effective your sourcing and advertising techniques are in attracting the right candidates.
• Offer acceptance rate. This metric expresses the percentage of candidates who accepted a job offer. If this percentage is low, Talent Acquisition teams may need to rethink what candidates want or how competitive their job offers are.

Recruiting teams can track many more metrics. Ultimately, what you choose to measure depends on your company’s unique goals and needs.

Which metrics should matter most to an external recruiter?

External recruiters are usually evaluated on two fronts:

• How quickly they provide candidates.
• And the quality of the candidates they bring in.

Tracking quality of hire and time to fill over time can help recruiters determine whether they are delivering value to their clients. For example, if their time to fill starts increasing, then they may need to revisit expectations with hiring managers or try new sourcing techniques.

What hiring metrics should matter most to HR?

The HR department has a common strategy and budgets for every function, including recruiting. A VP of HR needn’t delve into the mechanics of the recruiting process, but they are likely interested in metrics that indicate recruiting success. Those include:

• Quality of hire.
• Cost per hire.
• Source of hire.

Source of hire measures how many qualified candidates or hires each recruiting source brings in. HR needs to know which sources are most effective in a given period (e.g. a year), so as to rethink its partnerships and external spend.

Which recruiting metrics matter most to the CEO?

CEOs are interested in the strategic impact of recruiting. Metrics that are concerned with business value and promote action are the most useful. For example:

• Quality of hire. This metric encompasses performance and retention rates of new hires. Retention and high performance increase revenue and are important on a strategic level.
• Actual hires to hiring goals. This metric shows what percentage of hiring goals hiring teams met. It indicates how well the entire recruiting function works.
• Diversity goals. This metric measures what percentage of diversity goals were met or the percentage of diverse hires. If increasing diversity is an important company objective, then this metric can say a lot about your company’s success.

What metrics should I track when working with an external recruiter?

When working with external recruiters, you can still use corporate recruiting metrics (e.g. actual hires to goals), but you should also think about how you’ll specifically measure the external recruiter’s success. Usually, you’ll want to ensure that they provide quality candidates as quickly as possible. You could measure:

• Candidates to interview (e.g. percentage of recruiters’ candidates who were invited to a first or second interview.) If you’re working with several recruiters, compare their scores. Those who deliver consistently low numbers of qualified candidates may not be the best match for your company.
• Time to fill. If your recruiters manage more phases of your hiring process, instead of just providing you with resumes, then time to fill is important to track.

How do I increase the number of job applicants?

If you need to bring more candidates into your talent pipelines, aim to attract more people to your job openings and encourage them to apply. To achieve both of these goals, you could:

• Advertise in both niche and mainstream job boards.
• Enhance your sourcing by using various techniques (e.g. social media recruiting, Google and Boolean search.)
• Hire a recruiting agency that will provide you with qualified resumes.
• Create a short, straight-forward and mobile-optimized application process.
• Ensure your careers page has useful information for candidates (e.g. benefits, culture, perks.)

How do I increase the number of qualified applicants?

Here are ways to attract more qualified applicants:

• Advertise in niche job boards or websites to target a specific audience.
• Write detailed and complete job descriptions to clarify your requirements.
• Add qualifying questions in your job application forms. Your Applicant Tracking System (ATS) can automatically disqualify candidates who don’t answer important questions.
• Conduct screening calls to ensure that only qualified candidates will advance to your assignment and in-person interview stages.
• Enhance your sourcing. When sourcing passive candidates, only contact those who are fully qualified for the job.

Introduction to Recruiting Email Metrics

What are recruiter email metrics?

Recruiter email metrics measure the impact that recruiters’ emails have on candidates. If your emails are attractive, informative and aimed at the appropriate candidates, then candidates are more likely to open, click though and reply to them. Here are four recruiter email metrics:

• Recruitment email open rate: Percentage of (delivered) emails that candidates opened.

• Recruiting email response rate: Percentage of emails that candidates replied to.

• Recruitment email click-through rate: Percentage of recipients who click at least one of your links in an email.

• Recruitment email conversion rates: Percentage of emails that translate into a desired action (e.g. recruitment emails that result in interviews.)

How do you measure recruiter email metrics?

Just count emails that were delivered, since candidates can’t respond to emails they didn’t receive.

More Recruiting Metrics FAQs:

• Recruiting costs FAQ: Budget and cost per hire
• Time to fill and time to hire metrics FAQ
• Recruitment process effectiveness metrics
• Candidate experience metrics FAQ
• Job offer acceptance rate metrics FAQ

The post Introduction to Recruiting Metrics FAQ appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

With tech being the backbone of all workplace changes, it also opened the door for job migration – from the comfort of your home. Job seekers suddenly found themselves with a plethora of options on a global market, and recruiters gained access to a global talent market. All of a sudden, there were new considerations to take into account. Let’s take a look at the workforce trends you need to keep in mind going forward.

Educational diversity

The path to employment is different for every employee. This has been true for quite some time, and this workforce trend is getting more spotlight time as jobs across industries overlap with one another. The skillset needed to get a certain job done has expanded, meaning that a job can be done by people with diverse educational backgrounds.

Not only that, but the question of experience vs. education has never been as prominent as now and will continue as a workforce trend – previous work experience creates habits that might be more valuable than education with no actual workdays logged.

This educational diversity is an asset for businesses. Different educational backgrounds can take various forms: your candidate might be jumping into your industry with a totally different skillset; or you might get candidates with appropriate education but from a different part of the world. Both scenarios have the potential to broaden your team’s capabilities.

However, educational diversity can also be a source of conflict – be it cultural or operational – due to the increased likelihood that different backgrounds bring different approaches to workflows and processes. This can easily be mitigated through custom onboarding procedures: take your time when shortlisting candidates, and create a custom learning and onboarding journey for each of them. That way you’ll address their starting point, and also be able to lead all candidates to the same endpoint.

Generational differences

Today’s workforce is generationally very diverse, possibly more than ever. The workforce includes Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Y, and Gen Z – and all their individual peculiarities contribute to diversity further than mere age differences.

Different generations want different things and value different perks. Gone are the days when financial stimulus was the sole driver of employee satisfaction; workers nowadays have a much deeper pool of benefits they like to see at their job of choice. One major consideration is work/life balance, which stems from hybrid and remote work models, as well as different approaches to work schedules.

Naturally, this means recruiters need to take all of these into account if they want to attract and retain multi-generational talent in the future of hiring. Remote work, flexible shifts and hours – there is still considerable disparity between employees and employers on the importance of each, but this gap needs to go away since mutual benefit is at stake.

And speaking of gaps: companies with low scores for gender and ethnic/cultural diversity are 29% less likely to drive their profit margins above the overall average. This is another major issue to address.

Cultural considerations

This workforce trend was already in motion before the pandemic hit, but lockdowns forced us to open up to the global market much faster. The job market suddenly went global, with tools developed to circumvent stay-at-home orders now being the facilitators for quick and efficient online communication.

As recruiters find themselves doing recruitment with candidates from abroad – and from other parts of the world as well – cultural differences and sensitivity come into play. A simple talk can get more complicated moving from someone from your vicinity to someone from a different continent; a job interview just multiplies the considerations to bear in mind.

Recruiting for an abroad branch poses a very similar adaptation problem, although a bit different than drawing talent to your HQ. While you might funnel differences towards yourself when recruiting for your HQ, setting up a branch in an entirely different culture poses a new set of challenges.

In any case, it’s wise to keep in mind that companies with top performance in ethnic/cultural diversity on executive teams are one-third more likely to reach profits that are industry-leading.

Fighting bias

With all of the above being very tangible and legitimate processes that were already happening before COVID (up to a point), it’s now time to accept that things have irreversibly changed. This might have a grim ring to it, but things have also irreversibly changed for the better in many other ways.

What this all means is that recruitment specialists need to have their priorities straight, and on top of the list is fighting bias on all levels. Bias is the final instance that we can efficiently eliminate from our workflows, and doing so will not only positions your organization as inclusive and diverse, but might end up being a driver for bottom lines as well.

Unconscious bias may lead us to project character traits onto people based solely on some superficial characteristics, such as attire, accent, personality, physical appearance, etc. This can lead us to think well of undeserving individuals; if the projected traits are negative, the bias might end up being unfairly discriminatory. Eliminating the bias variable at each step in the recruitment process – whether conscious or not – will broaden your reach in the search for talent.

It’s all for the better – time to roll with it

The working environment has irrevocably changed. Generally speaking, it changed for the better. New generations have been brought up with a much wider scope of available information, and it has formed them into much more aware, conscious, and inclusive individuals.

Much like these workers prefer brands who do their part for the community, they are also likely to search for workplaces that align with their values and their preferred way of work. All of this is a gateway leading to better matches in recruiting, as well as getting talent with a border worldview and better capabilities.

The one thing standing in the way of these workforce trends is identifying the changes in motion, and putting them into the recruiting equation. From there, your work is cut out for you.

Derek Jones spearheads key initiatives at Deputy, a global workforce management platform for employee scheduling, timesheets and communication. With a focus on workforce, Derek helps business owners and workforce leaders simplify employment law compliance, keep labor cost in line and build award-winning workplaces. 

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Then in 2020, many people took their work home, and some moved from California to Kentucky.

But their job didn’t change, and the pandemic continued for too long, and now, no one wants to come back to the office. Just what do you do about salaries now that the employee can choose their own cost of living?

Since salary is top of mind for many active and potential jobseekers, it’s an important discussion.

So, let’s look at the options you have as an employer when considering salary structure:

Option 1: Ignore location when considering salaries

Historically, all salaries were local because everything was local. Your clients lived next door, and you couldn’t charge more than they could pay. Today, whether you are in manufacturing or app building, your clients could be anywhere across the globe.

So, it makes little sense to determine a salary based on where someone lives when their labor brings revenue from elsewhere. (There are, of course, strictly location-based jobs: plumbers, retail workers, dentists, etc.) But even a manufacturing plant could be supplying products for New York City just as easily as it supplies products for Nebraska.

With these thoughts in mind, you calculate salaries based on the value the person brings to the company – regardless of where they sit. Whether in an office or from home, it’s all about value.

This can be difficult to calculate – with a salesperson, it’s easy: it’s a percentage of how much they sell. It can also be easy for a manufacturing plant – how much product do they produce? But what about your HR person? Your IT person?

While good people in these positions bring value to the company, that value can be hard to calculate. Just how much money does your HR person save you by ensuring your company complies with employment laws? The answer could literally be millions. But, no one calculates it that way.

Fortunately, you don’t have to do too much fancy math to figure this out. Take your current salaries and advertise new positions based on those salaries. If qualified people apply, great! You’ve found the right compensation. If only unqualified people apply, bump it up. If you get 100 overqualified people applying, you’re probably offering too much.

Option 2: Location is everything

Google said they would vary salaries based on location as part of their return-to-work program. If you stay in California, you’ll make more money than if you relocate to Texas.

You can buy a much bigger house in Texas for a lot less money than your tiny San Francisco apartment, so people are pretty okay with that.

But, what if you currently operate out of Texas and say, “Everyone who wants to can work from home!” and then someone moves to San Francisco? Most companies will balk at increasing a salary when someone moves. It’s worth noting that Google’s headquarters are in a costly location (San Francisco) so they save money by following this plan.

Towns that have been inundated with big-city refugees are tired of watching their housing prices soar as big-salaried Californians snap up properties. It can be devastating for local groups.

Option 3: Think hybrid

The best solution is a hybrid one: you need to consider both location and national salaries for jobs – especially those in high demand that can be done remotely. While it may not seem fiscally responsible to pay more than you absolutely have to, the Great Resignation means that you may have a hard time keeping people if you’re not willing to be on the high end of compensation market rates.

People who need to be onsite – either full time or a couple of days a week – will need to live close by and you can look towards more localized salaries. People who can literally live anywhere won’t want to take a lower salary just because they’ve moved away.

Be very clear about your salaries when hiring. And be honest about remote working opportunities. Candidates don’t like the bait-and-switch technique where you advertise the position as “remote” but then switch that to in-office or even hybrid.

And, as far as keeping costs down, remember, if an employee is working 100% remotely, you don’t need to pay for space for that employee. You’re saving money on office costs – pay that forward in the form of higher salaries.

Shifting salaries, shifting locations

This may all become a moot point as local market rates start to disappear – at least for jobs that can be done remotely. Even if you require your accountant to work onsite, you may find that you’ll have to pay the same amount as someone in a wealthier area would. Right now, salaries are changing, and we’ll see how it plays out.

And while people clamor loudly for remote work opportunities, there is no guarantee that those preferences are fixed. When it’s just you and your spouse working from home, it can be pleasant. Add three kids and a dog, and you just might look forward to the office every day.

Related: What about salary transparency? See Suzanne’s take on that as well.

And people are moving – from California, Illinois, and New York (among others) to Idaho, Florida and Texas. As things shift around, the most important thing is for you to pay attention. If you struggle to hire or retain staff, you’ll need to change how you do things. If you’re open with your salary ranges and working conditions and get plenty of applicants, you’re doing it right.

Remember, if you wait to adjust until some expert tells you what you should do, you’re too late. And that may mean paying based on location and it may mean paying on skills only. You’ll have to pay attention and get ahead accordingly.

The post Salary based on location versus pay for value: which is better? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Resurface Candidates compliments these sourcing features by looking to another source – your talent pool. Resurface Candidates uses Workable’s AI Recruiter technology to read your job description, identify what you’re looking for, and then find the best matches in your account before you even publish your job.

So, how does it work? It matches the candidates based on keywords, prior evaluations, as well as the sentiment of your team’s comments.

Expect to cut down your time to hire and improve your quality of hire with Resurface Candidates.

It’s easier than ever to re-engage and hire candidates that you already know. Start using it.

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Unfortunately, there is rarely one individual who checks every single box the company prefers. In addition, spending hours upon hours interviewing many candidates is a waste of time. In fact, it’s an added burden on one’s work obligations. “Managers typically have their own job, and when they have an open position, technically may have two jobs,” says a senior advisor at SHRM.

“Managers typically have their own job, and when they have an open position, technically may have two jobs.” – SHRM senior advisor

By scheduling interview after interview in search of the one candidate that fits 100% of the criteria, companies are wasting time and money. Instead of waiting around hoping for that one perfect unicorn to apply, many companies are adopting the 70% Rule for hiring talented employees quickly and efficiently.

Based on the Marine Corps teachings, the 70% Rule says that: “You take action on any decision when you have 70% confidence in the success of the decision”. By using the 70% Rule, hiring managers can cut the time they spend evaluating candidates in half.

In addition, it gives room for talented trainers to bring those 70% employees up to the 100% level they need to be to achieve greatness in that role.

Here are the top benefits of using the 70% Rule of hiring when interviewing and recruiting new employees – we’ve done the research, so you don’t have to:

1. Grow your employees to their full potential

No matter what level of candidate you onboard, everyone needs some sort of training to acclimate to the new work environment – and more so in recent years. In fact, the 2020 Training Industry Report finds that the average number of training hours per employee increased from 42.2 hours to 102.6 hours between 2017 and 2020 for large companies. While training expenditures took a dip during the early part of the pandemic, it’s since bounced back – showing its value.

So, hiring managers might as well onboard professionals who meet 70%+ of their criteria and spend a little extra time training those new hires for company needs. Why not save the time you would spend interviewing hundreds of candidates and just bring on talented employees who will be perfect with a little bit of training?

Think about it. Would you prefer to waste hours of valuable company time sitting in interviews? Or would you rather hire candidates who meet 70% of your requirements and spend that saved time giving them valuable knowledge and experience in the actual job?

2. Motivate your employees to strive for excellence

When employees know that their hiring manager and company took a chance by hiring them, they are more likely to strive for excellence. Hiring someone who may not be immediately qualified, but could soon get there, is one of the best ways a company can develop employee loyalty. This is widely documented, including in a recent Deloitte report on what they title as “unleashing workforce potential.”

The report quotes: “In the 2021 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends survey, executives identified ‘the ability of their people to adapt, reskill, and assume new roles’ as the top-ranked item to navigate future disruptions.”

Likewise, a joint survey by Workable, TalentLMS and Training Journal found that 75% of hiring managers, C-suiters and decision makers saw a benefit to company productivity when upskilling and reskilling their workers.

The emphasis on adapting and reskilling can also be an emphasis on providing new employees with a dedicated training mentor, which will foster a positive work climate while ensuring your new hires are adequately trained. In addition, it is proven that employees who receive attention from an advocating mentor are more likely to feel valued within the workplace.

Creating a sense of inclusion and support within your workplace culture is the perfect recipe to develop happy employees. As stated by the University of Oxford, “Happy workers are 13% more productive.”

Developing employees who are already 70% what your company is looking for will accelerate your efforts to develop a positive atmosphere.

3. Develop your employees to your specifications

Employees who are overqualified or fit 100% of your criteria likely have years of experience in their chosen field. Oftentimes, they come with a college degree and have been exposed to the training programs of a few companies.

As such, they are less likely to develop long-term company loyalty as they are more comfortable leaving workplaces after just a couple of years. Plus, as David Silverberg writes for BBC Worklife: “overqualified workers can develop negative attitudes, such as a sense of entitlement about their skills or resentment through boredom, that can ripple out to every cubicle in an office.”

Another potential scenario is that those “perfect fit” employees are potentially creatures of habit, in that they have succeeded for so long in their way of doing things – which makes it more challenging to onboard and adapt them to your company’s existing work processes.

There’s another possible challenge for employers and hiring managers – the “perfect” hire may inadvertently set high expectations for their managers who may think they don’t need to be managed since they already know how to do the job from day one.

While these aren’t necessarily the case for every overqualified employee, it still makes sense that with onboarding and training being natural experiences for a new employee, employers can take advantage of developing employees to be a stronger fit in their work processes to benefit everyone involved.

4. Save money and retain talent

Plus, there is quite a bit of research that suggests training fresh new hires with less experience may be less costly to the company overall. Statistically, employees who are in-house trained and given ample professional development opportunities are more likely to stay with that company.

Notably, employees value working for a company that invests in their education – there’s a clear link between professional development and job satisfaction. Again, 58% of respondents in the above-mentioned survey saw greater retention when upskilling/reskilling.

Budget-conscious companies also have the option of offering learning & development – which is growing in popularity with candidates – in place of a higher salary.

Hiring employees using the 70% Rule of hiring and providing them with professional development creates a win-win for employers and employees.

Put in 70% and reap the benefits

Today, we are currently living in an era referred to as the Great Resignation. That is, millions of employees are fleeing workplaces in demand of better working conditions. Shockingly, around four million Americans left their places of employment just about every month in the second half of 2022.

That number is projected to continue throughout 2022 as well. Employees are seeking job opportunities that align with the lifestyle they want to live. This includes holding a job that brings them a sense of connectedness and fulfillment.

Hiring employees who meet 70% of the requirements to perform the role of the job is a surefire way to save time and money. This method can have both a long-term and short-term positive impact on the company.

The short-term impact is that the hiring manager will save time by reducing the number of interviews they conduct while holding out for that 100% employee. On a related note, the long-term impact is that those 70% employees are more likely to stay, thrive, and excel as they receive professional development.

Ron Sharon is an IT executive and cybersecurity leader leveraging 17+ years of experience translating business requirements to deliver innovative solutions and mitigating risk. Sharon was named Vice President of Information Security for Mercer Advisors in 2021 and is happily married with one wonderful daughter.

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It was a tough decision in the end, of course, but that now means you have four high-quality candidates that you could consider for another, similar role in your organization.

The benefits of resurfacing past candidates

The value of resurfacing past candidates may be already clear, but let’s quickly walk through those tangible benefits one by one:

1. Candidates are already pre-vetted

The candidates in your system have already been evaluated – especially the finalists – even if it was for another, different job. Your hiring team is already familiar with them – and notes can be shared with new hiring team members. In short, these candidates are already pre-vetted, enabling you and your team to get a head start on evaluating them for a new role.

2. Your time to hire is quicker

Because candidates come pre-vetted, the time it takes from that first application to the first day of the new job will be markedly shorter. You may not even have to post the job ad again – just start reaching out to those past candidates and close the loop on the whole process.

3. It can be a better candidate experience

It’s a great experience for candidates, too. Jobseekers who are contacted for new opportunities with you will be encouraged to know that they won’t have to go through the whole evaluation period again from scratch. That’s very attractive to candidates exploring multiple opportunities or are weary of the job search.

Plus, it’s always nice to know you’re wanted. That’s a powerful message to a candidate.

4. It saves time and money

The recruitment process can be time-consuming and expensive. All the costs associated with posting a job ad and other tangible expenses, combined with the number of hours invested in the process by members of the hiring team, can add up.

You’ve seen our tutorial on how to calculate the ROI of an ATS. Some of those expenses can apply here as well to show the ROI of resurfacing past candidates. There’s a huge amount of time and resources saved by recontacting candidates you’re already familiar with.

5. You know they’re interested

These are candidates who have already gone through the process with you. They’re already more familiar with your company now, and if you’ve communicated your side well, they clearly want to work for you. Otherwise, they wouldn’t apply, right?

The risks of resurfacing past candidates

With every new solution, new challenges arise. There can be risks in reconnecting with past candidates. Let’s go through those risks one by one.

1. Reconnecting can be awkward

It’s just like when you break up with someone – and then you text them later to check in on them and see about going on another date. Awkward, right?

The same applies here. The ego of a rejected candidate may be bruised and they may feel put off by the fact that you’ve just contacted them again for another role.

Fair enough. Put yourself in their shoes. You’d feel like you were the “second choice’ because the other person didn’t work out or something like that. Not good for a candidate experience, and doesn’t bode well for your employer brand.

2. The new job is ‘less’ than the old one

It’s possible that the new opening you’re reaching out to candidates about is at a lower pay grade or requires less experience than the original job they applied for. That’s not a great message to send to a candidate: “You’re not good enough for that role, but perhaps this lower-paid, less interesting job in the same company will be a better fit for you.”

Would you go for an opportunity like that? Probably not.

3. There are data privacy issues

Thanks to social media, outbound marketing efforts, and other developments, data privacy legislation – and awareness – is popping up everywhere. At best, people can be wary and feel invaded when contacted out of the blue. At worst, they may be suspicious as to how you got their contact information and challenge you on that point even publicly. Again, not a good look for your brand.

The best practices of resurfacing past candidates

OK, now that we’ve been through the good and the bad – let’s go to the best practices. How can you do it in a way that wins the best candidates to your team? Let’s start:

1. Preempt the potential awkwardness

Every interaction with a candidate – even though they’re not yet an employee – impacts their impression of you and your employer brand. Everything counts – your timely messaging, your friendly, engaging manner, the time in between stages, setting expectations, the whole bit.

Making a strong positive impression on the candidate may actually increase their willingness to work for you. If you end up selecting someone else for the job, the candidate may be disappointed but responsive when you tell them you’d love to keep their resume on file for potential future openings with the company.

2. Clarify that it’s not a “rejection”

No one likes to feel rejected – whether you’re turning down an expression of affection, a project proposal or, of course, a job application. It may be a candidate market right now, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting when you tell a candidate, “Sorry – you were great, but we went with this other person instead.”

It does matter how you do it. You can outright reject the candidate, and they’ll walk away in a huff, and you’ll never hear from them again. Or you can turn it around and explain that they aren’t actually being rejected – it’s just that they weren’t the right fit for this specific role that you’re hiring for. But you would love to keep their application on file because your company will be opening up more roles very soon (see above).

Related: Learn how to reject candidates without burning bridges

3. Allow candidates to self-select in

When you’re hiring at scale or turning away dozens of candidates in the screening/first interview stage, you may not have the time or opportunity to engage each and every one of them using the above two tips.

That’s where you can include an option in the application form giving candidates the opportunity to self-select in for future opportunities with you. This can be a checkbox, a verbal agreement, or something else. Note that this may be a requirement in some jurisdictions due to privacy laws.

4. Look at notes about candidates

A good practice for members of the hiring team is to keep clear and consistent notes on candidates after an interaction with a candidate be it an email, interview, screening call, or another form of communication. If those notes are comprehensive, that’s where you should look to get a good understanding of whether candidates are interested in a specific role with your company or in being part of your team overall.

Read more: How to document interview feedback for your hiring team

Maybe you’re looking to fill a similar role (i.e. another opening in sales) or you’re hiring in another area altogether – one way or another, these notes will help you hugely in predicting their interest in pursuing a new opportunity with you.

5. Engage only the top-shelf candidates

Finally, you don’t want to give false hope to those middle-of-the-road candidates who probably wouldn’t have gotten the job anyway. If you do that, you’re wasting their time – and yours as well. That leads to a poor experience and could reflect badly on your brand as an employer.

It’s better to only reach out to those star candidates who you sincerely think will be great fits for the new role. When you’re looking at those resurfaced candidates, ask yourself if you’d hire them on the spot. If the answer is yes, reach out to them. If it’s no, then move on.

6. Set clear messaging and expectations

This best practice is probably the most important. You don’t ever want to send a clumsy message to a jilted candidate and leave them with even more questions than answers. It’s worse if you skip over the reality that you rejected them the first time around.

Instead, be clear in your language so the candidate has all the information they want and need. In a friendly email, you can cover the following points, for instance:

• Your previous relationship – include quick details about the previous job, who they communicated with, and the conclusion of that process
• Why you’re reaching out to them now – include information about how they opted in for future opportunities and that you have a new role they might be interested in
• Details about the new job – include job description, who the position reports to/works with, salary (if applicable), and other related details
• Why they’re a great fit for the new role – this one is especially important. This is also your opportunity to address issues around lower pay grades, different responsibilities, and other question marks the candidate might have.
• A timeline – ideally with preset dates for interviews and a decision.

Here’s an example of how all of that can be addressed in a short, punchy email:

“Hi [candidate], I hope this email finds you well. We talked with you previously about job X, and you expressed your interest in staying in touch.

While we ended up going with another candidate for job X, we’d love to meet with you again about job Y in our company. I’ll be honest – it’s at a lower pay grade/has different responsibilities than job X, but there are elements of this new job that we think you’d be very excited about.

The job description is attached, and the role will report directly to our CMO. We’re looking to make a hiring decision by Thursday, January 10.

If you’re interested – and we hope you are – please book a time with me at [calendar link].”

Remember, you’re both professionals talking about a business arrangement in the end. You’re both mutually interested parties; if you go about it right, you’ll attract those candidates and hopefully win them over in quick time.

Getting candidates for a job is no longer as simple as posting a job ad. You can now market your company and role to them, you can source new candidates, and you can get back in touch with candidates who are already back in your system.

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And there’s a lot of work to be done yet. One of Amy’s core objectives going into 2022 is to maintain employee retention and engagement while at the same time tripling the size of the business throughout the year.

In her words: “We’re going to have some enormous growth.”

In the midst of all of that is keeping her team members – both current and future – motivated.

This means, she says, “investing in all of our people to ensure that our culture is one that everybody’s super excited to be a part of and where they can grow their careers and do some of the best work of their lives, and have a lot of fun in the process.”

Doing that in a high-volume tech hiring space is a big undertaking – but she’s succeeding in the venture with a combination of expertise and street smarts.

On surviving the Big Quit

One of the significant developments of 2021 is, of course, the Great Resignation in the United States. Quit rates in the country are at an unprecedented high – reaching as high as 3% of the total working population with upwards of four million workers handing in their notice every month from July 2021 to November 2021.

Add to that an increasingly loud voice among younger workers about their disillusion with current work culture – so succinctly and blatantly on display in Reddit’s Antiwork community (which employers do need to pay attention to).

While obvious, this does signal a clear shift in the talent market. The onus is no longer on candidates to prove their worth to an employer; it’s now on the employer to position themselves as a place where people want to work. So, the question bears asking: what’s the employee value proposition that you can offer to make your job opportunity more attractive to a prospective employee?

For Amy, that value prop includes the working environment that you’re creating for them.

“I think the trend in 2022 is that people are going to look for companies that want to invest in them,” Amy says. “They’re going to look for companies that are flexible and aren’t going to require that they go into an office that they don’t want to go into, that will continue to afford them the flexibility that they’ve all grown to appreciate.”

And this isn’t going to end anytime soon. In fact, it marks a paradigm shift that employers need to adapt to. The Great Discontent report released in mid-2021 shows that flexible work options is high up the list of things that candidates value in a job, with 37.5% of US workers saying it’s one value proposition that would attract them to a new opportunity.

And SMBs that think about their employees first are the ones that’ll get ahead in the new talent game, says Amy.

“Companies are starting to realize how important engagement and investment is in their people,” she explains. “And those are the companies that are winning. And so if you were to talk to those companies, they would probably report lower than market averages in terms of loss. And the reason is because they have the formula. They understand what they need to do.”

Amy does offer a caveat – this needs to be done in a way that supports both ends of the equation.

“[Employers] have to create a trusting environment and a supportive environment and still be able to drive productivity and all the things that are core and critical to the business in an effective way. So I realize that there’s a balancing act here. Employers want to be able to maximize the return from the people.”

There’s tangible proof of the ROI in all this. A 2017 Gallup study finds that highly engaged employees lead to a 17% increase in company productivity, and 24% less turnover in companies in high-turnover sectors.

Amy doubles down on that message – because of that clear ROI, companies need to put in the work to meet those new expectations in the talent market.

“[That’s the] balancing act for 2022 that people really have to figure out.”

On investing in your workers

So how exactly do you ‘invest’ in your people? One area surging in popularity in 2022 is learning and development. In a survey commissioned by Workable and TalentLMS, 91% of tech workers want more learning opportunities from their current employers and 58% cited “skills development” as one criteria in choosing who they want to work for. It’s also a top motivator for tech employees.

And there are other ways to attract and engage employees – Amy shares a few more with us.

The value of connection

Amy stressed several times the importance of ensuring that workers feel connected to the company, whether that’s in a remote environment or otherwise.

“First of all, you have a full-time person dedicated to building the community, whether it’s different activities, whether it’s different communication strategies; there’s a number of different things that have to happen in order for that to be done effectively.”

We’re humans after all – the sense of community in the workplace can be a powerful thing.

The value of compensation

In the above-mentioned Great Discontent worker survey, 63% of workers cited salary as the reason why they’re looking elsewhere for a new job – and 62% say it’s the top factor in their decision to move to a new job.

It’s clear: companies must think about compensation in their value proposition.

“I do think you have to pay people competitively for the market, for their job. And so if you’re underpaying people and you’ve gotten away with it so far, you probably won’t continue to get away with it because people are starting to realize what they’re worth because of how hot the market is.”

This doesn’t mean giving raises across the board, she cautions. It’s more about fair market value.

“You have to pay people what the market suggests they’re worth or they’ll find a company that will.”

The value of people

Ultimately, whether it’s salary, learning & development, or connectivity, what people officers need to be thinking about is the ‘people’ factor. Employees are people too.

“If you’re treating people the way they want to be treated and they feel connected to your mission and connected to the business, they aren’t leaving. People that are leaving because they don’t feel connected. They don’t feel appreciated and they feel like there’s better opportunities for them.”

When your employees take pride in what they do and feel part of a larger mission, that can be even more motivating than a straight-up higher salary – if you’re one SMB that may be challenged in your ability to offer higher wages, this can be a good workaround.

On proactively sourcing candidates

Now, let’s get to the other challenge of the Great Resignation – the dwindling number of candidates that we’re seeing in our Hiring Pulse data and elsewhere. When you take a month’s candidates per hire and compare it with the average CPH of the previous three months, there was a negative trend in that data every single month in 2021:

It’s doubly a challenge for companies like the one Amy works at when high-volume hiring is part of the overall company strategy.

“We don’t have much of an employer brand [because] the company’s only three years old. And so our lower candidate pipeline, I would attribute to not having a strong employer brand because we’re a new company.”

But that means the work is cut out for Relay Payment’s recruitment team, which has resorted to fresh strategies to bring new candidates into the hiring process under Amy’s leadership – at high volume too.

“We get a lot of hires from referrals. I would say 30% of our hires in 2021 were referral-based,” Amy says, adding that they offer bonuses to team members who have successfully referred a candidate who ultimately gets hired.

The lack of a strong, recognizable employer brand is a challenge facing many SMBs, and Amy is well aware of that. She has ways to get around that.

“Our recruiters have had to work really hard to source candidates proactively because people don’t know us well enough to have a big application pipeline.”

So how do you do that? A ton of stuff, says Amy, who cites LinkedIn Recruiter – which she admits is expensive – as a tool to get the word out about a job, and external recruiters when they need to make a niche hire or when time is of the essence. Searching for candidates in Google using related keywords is also an effective strategy.

On growing the team that grows teams

But that’s a lot of work, of course. Amy has a solution for that: Hire more recruiters.

“I actually just doubled the size of my recruiting team in the last week,” she says. “I hired my first dedicated recruiter last summer. I hired a second recruiter in October [2021] and I just hired two [in early January 2022] that will start [in February]. So I’ve gone from one recruiter to four in like eight months.”

The reason being – if you have more team members dedicated to the specific goals in recruitment, you’ll draw more applicants for your open roles.

“The volume of people that you’ve got building your brand and sourcing and building pipelines will also help generate an enormous amount of activity as compared to having fewer people.”

“The volume of people that you’ve got building your brand and sourcing and building pipelines will also help generate an enormous amount of activity as compared to having fewer people.”

Anyone in sales and marketing will understand Amy’s thinking process here. If you want to see increased conversions (i.e. hires), you not only have to bring in the right kind of candidate via referrals and online search – you also have to bring in more candidates.

“For us, it’s about bigger pipelines. We want bigger top of funnel. So how do you invest to get your top of funnel big enough, such that if you have 90 of a specific type of role that you want to hire in a year? [This] is what we’re doing with our AE team. We’re going to add 90 AEs [in 2022].”

And even with the candidates-per-hire metric steadily dropping month over month in 2021 and 2022, any SMB worth their salt – including Relay Payments – will want to have a healthy selection of candidates for any given role. Amy is vividly aware of that.

“If you do the math to back into 90 hires, what do you need your funnel to be? It’s gotta be enormous.”

That’s hiring and retention at scale in Amy’s world. What’s yours? Share your workplace story with us and you may see it get published!

The post Hiring at scale in tech for 2022: A top CPO shares her tips appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

1. Employees have options

Take this story: CEO said, “If you want to work from home, go work somewhere else,” so most of my team and I did just that.

The writer details how even people hired to work remotely were told they had one year to move their families to a town with an office. The employees responded by quitting in great numbers.

Is this a true story? Maybe. The number of people who quit may be an exaggeration, but it may not be. With more than 60,000 upvotes, though, it’s clear that this resonates with people.

This is a case where the CEO thought that the employees would fold and do whatever the company said. It turns out your power over your employees is limited. With lots of people hiring (the writer says he found a new job with a 50 percent pay bump), you have even less power than you did a few years ago. Don’t make an ultimatum thinking your employees will back down. They have options they didn’t use to have and a whole lot more guts.

If in-office work is important to your business, ask your employees how to go about it. Would quarterly all-hands meetings work? Monthly regional get-togethers? If it won’t, accept the turnover.

2. Insults are not the way to go

There’s this sign, for instance.

Whether this was put up by an out-of-touch owner or an angry employee, who knows? But, combined with the glut of “no one wants to work” signs and people struggling to fill positions, it’s not a smart thing to insult employees.

Or this handout from McDonald’s that reminded employees that “tax returns don’t last forever.” Yes, this is a true principle, but it’s insulting to your employees. The last thing you want to do is insult the very people you want to work for you.

You may think your employees just need to know that it will be harder to find a job again if they quit, but it comes off as condescending.

3. Don’t keep secrets

Not explaining things can also cause problems. “In the absence of information, people make stuff up,” says HR consultant Brenda Neckvatal. So, assume that when someone has a ridiculous complaint, it’s not that they are stupid or whiny, it’s that they don’t know what is going on.

Take this tweet from Jon C. Stone.

One reason people insist that you use the proper channels to change things is because they have control of the proper channels and they’re confident it won’t work

— Jon Stone (@joncstone) June 8, 2020

It’s now circulating on /r/antiwork and drawing considerable attention.

First, we need to acknowledge that in bad businesses this is absolutely true. But, in good ones, systems exist to make things better, but your employees may not understand why.

For instance, if Jon comes to his manager and says, “Look, I’ve done the research, and the market rate for this position is 10% higher,” he may feel like his manager is putting him off by saying, “I need to talk to HR.”

But, here’s what the employee doesn’t understand and you can explain to him that the manager doesn’t control the budget, jobs vary greatly even within the same title, and the company can’t adjust Jon’s salary without adjusting a bunch of other people’s as well.

Plus, it may be time to pull out the books and show that there just isn’t money left. Not all companies have fatcat CEOs that can give up a million without blinking. For companies with under $10 million in revenue, the CEO earns under $200,000. He may still be angry after you explain, but at least he’ll know.

Another place where behind the scenes processes can make things look insensitive or downright mean is with layoffs. This person said he was laid off because he didn’t meet his boss’s vision.

This is a clear case where there could be explanations, suggestions for improvement, and perhaps some coaching. But, the manager chose to use a vague term like “vision.”

4. Listen to your employees

One very important note about listening to employees: Don’t do employee engagement surveys if you are planning to ignore the feedback you receive. This person posted an obscene rant on an employee survey (click at your own risk), and again and it demonstrates the frustrated feeling employees have.

If you’re not planning to make any changes based on the results from an employee survey, do not do the survey. It’s bad to ignore your employees’ feelings, but it’s even worse to ask them about their feelings and then ignore them.

You likely won’t be able to resolve the above employee’s concerns – because the damage appears to be done. But, for every employee that spews vitriol, there are undoubtedly others who feel neglected and abused. Listen to them.

At a bare minimum, tell your employees what you learned and what things you will address. No company can solve all employee complaints (nor should they – sometime employees are unreasonable), but you can let people know that you hear them.

Don’t spend your life at /r/antiwork. But keep in mind that there are humans here who are hurting. And even if you run the best company ever, they influence your employees. So, keep an eye out, make changes, and communicate with your employees. Honesty truly is the best policy.

In short: people – including disgruntled employees – will be more likely to accommodate imperfections if they understand that you are trying.

The post 4 lessons for employers from Reddit’s Antiwork community appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

It’s not just that flexible work has benefits – it’s a highly desired, and in many cases, much-needed component of work. If you, as an employer, can realistically offer this option – especially flexible schedules – your value proposition can only grow in the eyes of candidates who have a wealth of choices at their disposal. You may even find that the Great Resignation and the much-bewailed candidate shortage are things that don’t even apply to you.

If you don’t offer flexible work, especially if you could, the consequences could be considerable. Consider the backlash against Apple in their initial drive to move back to an in-person working environment. Employees left in droves for other options, and the media coverage was fierce and uncompromising.

This can’t reflect well on their reputation as an employer. A return to office has its merits – and in some cases, requirements – but in many cases, businesses have the technology and wherewithal to make it work. Employees themselves have shown that it can work as well.

The second lesson is that for workers, an outstanding brand reputation such as Apple’s doesn’t even matter that much (more on that below). Rather, people simply want the option to work flexibly.

We’re going to see more of this misalignment of priorities between employees and their employers – going forward. When we asked respondents about the current situation in regards to remote/hybrid work at their place of employment, more than half (52.8%) say their employer introduced it during the pandemic and will (or probably will) return to on-location work once things stabilize.

The same disconnect applies to flexible work schedules as well, with 43.8% saying flexible work schedules were introduced during the pandemic and will (or probably will) go back to set schedules when things return to ‘normal’ – whenever that may be, or whatever that may be.

There’s a clear divide between employees and employers in work setups. Many employees like remote work and especially love flexible schedules. Many even need one or both. And a good portion of employers aren’t adapting to that new reality – the stigma against flexible work doesn’t help much, either.

With such a resounding voice in our dataset valuing flexible work, consider establishing it as a permanent strategy where possible if you want to attract new talent and retain your existing employee base. Your success as a company may depend on it.

The post 37.5% of US workers value flexwork – but companies aren’t on board appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

It’s not just that flexible work has benefits – it’s a highly desired, and in many cases, much-needed component of work. If you, as an employer, can realistically offer this option – especially flexible schedules – your profile as a desired place to work will grow in the eyes of people looking for new work. In short, it’s a significant value prop in your arsenal.

And if you don’t offer flexible work, especially if you could, the consequences could be considerable. Consider the backlash against Apple in their initial drive to move back to an in-person working environment. Employees left in droves for other options, and the media coverage was fierce and uncompromising. This can’t reflect well on Apple’s reputation as an employer.

Sure, a return to office has its merits – and in some cases, requirements – but in many cases, businesses have the technology and wherewithal to make it work. What’s more, the many employees who kept working in a remote fashion from the onset of the pandemic to today have proven that they know how to do it.

The second lesson is that for workers, an outstanding brand reputation such as Apple’s doesn’t even matter that much (more on that below). Rather, people simply want the option to work flexibly.

“My company is unlikely to allow any home workers when restrictions end and it gives me great concern. I want to be able to work flexibly and from home at least occasionally.”

We’re going to see more of this kind of situation – a misalignment of priorities between employees and their employers – going forward. When we asked respondents about the current situation in regards to remote/hybrid work at their place of employment, 44.7% say their employer introduced remote or hybrid work during the pandemic and will (or probably will) return to on-location work once things stabilize.

The same discrepancy in expectations goes for flexible work schedules as well, with 46.8% saying flexible work schedules were introduced during the pandemic and will (or probably will) go back to set schedules when things return to ‘normal’. (Side note: ‘normal’ may not even be a reality anymore.)

This marks a vast chasm between employees and employers. Many employees like remote work and especially love flexible schedules. Many even need one or both. And a good portion of employers aren’t adapting to that new reality – the stigma against flexible work doesn’t help much, either.

“I think most office workers are able to work as productively, if not more so, than in an office environment. Bosses, who usually aren’t very good, don’t think that’s possible.”

With such a resounding voice in our dataset valuing flexible work, consider establishing it as a permanent strategy where possible if you want to attract new talent and retain your existing employee base. Your success as a company may depend on it.

The post Flexwork a must for 43.5% of UK workers – but are employers listening? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

So, you have plenty of company when struggling to attract candidates or even finding that your candidates are dropping out midway through the recruitment pipeline.

However, just knowing this is not helpful. You need to solve this. Simply put, you need qualified candidates now to fill up those positions – and fast.

But first, let’s look at a few possible reasons behind the shrinking CPH metric in these times.

Why are good candidates so few and far between?

According to seasoned recruiters, here are the major reasons why you are not getting suitable candidates, or why they are dropping out:

• The job post fails to deliver the intended message to the candidates
• The job posts are not posted on the right channels
• You are not leveraging new and emerging talent sourcing trends, like social media campaigns and passive candidate outreach
• Your search team is struggling with a lack of tools and resources
• You are not utilizing the innovative new strategies of talent search
• Candidates are more selective in applying for openings
• Lack of sync between what the employer is looking for and what the candidate wants in a job
• Other factors, like weak culture, benefits, and employer brand

Logically, we can say that if we can eliminate these reasons behind the scarcity of candidates, we will see improvements in our hiring results.

So, how can we rise above the roadblocks and get an abundance of great candidates?

5 ways to find good candidates

Follow these tried and tested strategies to get a flood of qualified candidates:

1. Create clear and high-intent job descriptions

Create your job descriptions and job announcements with as much precision as possible. It’s more about adding the “right” information, not the “most” information.

Workable has job description templates on almost every job that you might need to fill out. These templates are organized according to industries and job types.

A way of showing empathy directly in the job description is to address the major concerns about work-life balance and company culture that many candidates have today. On top of that, show that you have a development plan for the newly hired employees – tech workers, for instance, highly value this.

It should be apparent from the job posting that they can gain something from working with you. If they just want to be paid well, they have that opportunity in many places. But what gets you ahead is if you value them as a person and you’re interested in helping them in their career arc.

2. Pursue passive candidates

You need an active recruitment team that vigorously searches out passive candidates.

Passive candidates are candidates who are not actively looking for a new job but would consider switching given the right offer. In fact, 37% of US workers are passive candidates.

You never know the opportunity you have to offer might make a lot of the talent rethink their career trajectory.

If you come up with an inclusive package and reach the right candidates, hiring can be made easier.

You just need the right strategy and tools.

Here’s an email template that you can customize for reaching out to passive candidates:

Subject: Open [Position Title] role at [Company Name]

Hi [Candidate Name],

I am [Your Name], [Your Job Title], at [Company Name]. I saw your profile on [LinkedIn, Github, Behance, etc.] while searching for candidates for the open role of [Position Title]. (**Link to job posting here.)

Based on your extensive expertise on [key skill/s], I believe you would be an excellent fit for the job, and I would love to know more about your interests and career goals.

Would you be available for a quick chat anytime this week or the next? Just let me know your availability, and we can set up a call.

Looking forward to meeting you soon.

Thank you,

[Your Name]

[Signature]

3. Got LinkedIn? Fine! But where else?

Okay, so you are posting your JD on LinkedIn, Indeed, and other places, and you are also getting quite a few applications. But guess what? None of them is quite the match you are looking for.

What more can you do? Diversify your options.

Consider the following:

• Industry-specific job boards
• Exploring remote job boards
• Leveraging the freelance workforce

You can also try reaching out to recruiters outside of your current network to share and collaborate on talent database enrichment – that’s one way of thinking outside of the box.

Here’s a template email for reaching out to recruiters that you can customize as per your needs:

Subject: Potential collaboration for an expanded candidate pool

Hi [Name],

I am [Your Name], [Your Job Title], at [Company Name]. I found you on LinkedIn while searching for fellow recruiters working in the [industry/sector name]. Given the talent crunch we are experiencing, I thought of reaching out to you in the hopes of forging a mutually beneficial collaboration.

I would love to talk with you about the possibility of sharing our talent pools so that we can hire faster and more effectively.

Would you be available for a quick chat anytime this week or next? Just let me know your availability, and we can set up a call.

Looking forward to meeting you soon.

Thank you,

[Your Name]

[Signature]

On the other hand, the job market has sprouted up a different sort of recruiter – the reverse recruiter. They work directly for jobseekers and help them find their dream roles. They network and find open positions on behalf of jobseekers and help them apply for the position.

Creating and building connections with these professionals can be mutually beneficial. They can help you if they have a jobseeker with the skills you need.

4. Build savvy and empathetic recruitment processes

The whole recruitment process needs to show a certain savvy and empathy.

Today’s candidates have seen workplaces and will know what kind of environment it is. So it’s important to put your best foot forward and ensure a great candidate experience.

From the way you message to how the information is being disseminated to the candidates will show them that you care for the professional partnership that you are about to embark on.

More importantly, emotional empathy should always remain as a guiding light. Even sharing an interview preparation guidebook – such as this video interview guide – as a gesture of care after setting up the interview date can show that you support their growth.

5. Take advantage of recruiter tools and resources

Acquiring knowledge and information can be tricky. Sometimes, we simply don’t know what we don’t know and what we are missing out for not having that piece of knowledge or information.

Take, for example, the Boolean search strings while searching for candidates. This simple piece of knowledge can be so powerful.

Yet another point in case would be technologies like the mobile hiring app and recruitment email automation that can immensely help with productivity and time management.

New tools, strategies, and resources continue to emerge, and when you’re in the hiring business, you need to be on the lookout for new developments. Be agile. Be nimble. Don’t hesitate to introduce new things in your work processes.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way

Yes, finding and retaining the right candidates might have become more challenging than ever before. However, the new avenues of talent sourcing are also emerging rapidly.

All you have to do is keep an open mind to the new and emerging tools and techniques, try out different things, and above all, know where and how to get in front of your potential candidates.

We hope the above tips, ideas, and suggestions will help you get through this talent crunch gracefully.

Liz Hogan is the Content Outreach Manager and a CPRW at Find My Profession. She regularly shares her advice on job search strategies. She is also passionate about volunteering and learning new languages.

The post Can’t find good candidates? Here are 5 ways to get on top of that appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

An applicant tracking system (ATS) streamlines the hiring process by automating and organizing each step along the way, making it easier to connect with qualified candidates more efficiently. Using an ATS benefits your talent acquisition strategy in the following ways:

1. Automate boring and time-consuming administrative tasks

One of the greatest challenges of finding new employees is the sheer amount of work required. It’s far more involved than simply reading resumes and making a list of questions to ask during an interview; it involves posting listings for job seekers to find, follow-up messaging, interview scheduling, and other tedious tasks that are important but don’t feel like a productive use of time.

2. Improve collaboration and easily involve relevant people in the hiring process

Due to the many tasks involved, it’s fairly common for multiple people or departments to be involved in the hiring process. Aside from the administrative aspect, including relevant managers and team members in the decision-making process is an effective way to protect and promote company culture, as well. ATS software offers a collaborative space to evaluate applicants, offer feedback, and more.

3. Say goodbye to wasted time on non-relevant candidates

Correctly identifying top talent takes time. There are so many different facets to what makes a candidate a high-quality hire — do you want the smartest person in that stack of resumes if they lack the ability to communicate effectively? Is the most experienced candidate a good fit if they’re incapable of accepting feedback? An ATS can help you strike the right balance between cognitive ability and personality with assessments that offer a deeper look at candidate data.

4. Reduce recruitment cycle and time-to-hire

Streamlining the recruitment cycle and reducing time-to-hire helps minimize the distraction of hiring efforts and maximizes productivity. Collecting and assessing recruiting metrics helps deliver actionable insights about your hiring process, and can highlight potential bottlenecks or recurring patterns. Using an ATS to collect and report data can help answer valuable questions about how your business is handling hiring and what improvements could be made to speed up the process.

5. Streamline your hiring process and make it predictable

Regardless of how refined your talent acquisition strategy is, the process of finding, processing, interviewing and onboarding ideal candidates involves a lot of moving pieces. Writing a job description, posting job openings on social media, scheduling interviews, and guiding new team members through the onboarding process could easily involve four or five different departments. It’s easy for confusion to crop up along the way. One of the most significant ATS benefits is organization; the system ensures that no follow-up email or interview appointment is forgotten and helps create a replicable routine around fulfilling hiring needs.

6. Scale your hiring pipeline without losing your sanity

Growth is good for business and managing an abundance of potential candidates is a nice “problem” to have. ATS software can create and scale a talent pipeline strategy so that you can source, attract, and screen hundreds of candidates more efficiently and effectively.

7. Supercharge employer branding

Although the main objective of the hiring process is for prospects to impress you, the reverse is true as well—presenting your company well can help attract top talent. Having a branded job board, customized emails, and a polished look for all collateral and communication that relates to recruitment assures candidates that your business is established, professional, and trustworthy.

8. Offer a better candidate experience

The functionality of an ATS can help streamline the hiring process from the candidate’s perspective, as well. Prospects can initiate the application process via mobile or desktop, receive follow-up communication that keeps them informed, and offers greater flexibility in scheduling interviews. Using an ATS benefits your business and its prospective employees by making the process more convenient and keeping all parties informed along the way.

9. Put an end to hiring bias

Creating uniformity around the talent acquisition process helps prevent hiring bias. An ATS ensures that everyone is going through the same steps, which protects candidates (and employers) from the risk of unconscious bias. Eliminating unconscious bias in the hiring process provides the opportunities that come with selecting from a larger pool of talent.

10. Measure, report and improve

Good data helps drive better decisions. The ability to track and report recruiting analytics can help you refine the hiring process and improve your quality of hire. Tracking metrics that relate to time of hire, candidate sources, and diversity surveys helps accurately gauge the productivity and performance of your hiring process.

11. Make compliance easy

Build inclusive hiring processes and demonstrate compliance with EEO/OFCCP/GDPR guidelines with ATS tools that optimize job posts, expand your hiring reach, and help navigate local, national, and international regulations. Automated tools and reports take the administrative effort out of compliance.

12. Sourcing tools

Job boards are an important piece of the hiring puzzle, but an ATS can help expand your reach even further by using AI and public data to search, sort, and deliver qualified candidates before your job listing is even posted. Reach passive and existing candidates as well as valuable prospects with instant sourcing.

13. Integration with job boards

Attract more candidates with automated posting to hundreds of job boards and social media platforms. One click can help you instantly reach millions of prospects without the time investment of finding, visiting, and posting job openings on sites across the internet. Diversify your applicant pool and stand out in a crowded hiring space with job board integration features.

Ready to discover your own ATS benefits? Let’s grow together. See Workable in action.

The post 13 ATS benefits and what they mean for your business appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Embrace transparency

For those of us who started our careers twenty or more years ago, we remember when you couldn’t simply go to a search engine and type in ‘recruiter jobs London’ and see 29.6 million results. You couldn’t find and track salary information or read reviews that showed life behind closed doors. The world of work was fairly opaque.

All this changed with the explosion of the Internet and the 2008 global financial crisis. People flooded online, using sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to share, connect and look for work. With the Internet came transparency, and the shift from the company being in charge to the employee being in control of their destiny.

And now? In 2022, companies can no longer arrogantly think, ‘be grateful to work for us’. Instead, leaders should be grateful that people choose to work for them.

This employee power has led to many initiatives that have been the focus of HR in recent years in the hope of retaining talent. These include employee engagement, DEIB, mental health, flexible and hybrid working, and more.

The companies who have not become people-first are the ones that fear The Great Resignation or, more aptly, The Great Reassessment. They cannot throw open the door, because people wouldn’t choose them.

Get radically transparent

No company is perfect, and it’s not realistic for people to even expect that. But people do look for leaders who are honest, approachable, confident, reflective, open to learning, caring and trusting of their people.

Future employees also look for the impact the company is making, and if this is something they want to be part of. Look around at the companies that have thrived through the pandemic, and you’ll find great leadership qualities to emulate and missions that are clearly defined.

Plus, ​​according to research from Gartner, organizations that deliver on their employee value proposition can decrease annual employee turnover by nearly 70% and increase the commitment from new starters by up to 30%, so it makes business sense.

Moreover, Gartner’s research finds a well-thought-out EVP can reap dividends in the candidate attraction process – when candidates view an EVP as attractive, companies can reduce their compensation premium by half, and reach 50% deeper into the talent market.

So take your great EVP and share it online, far and wide. How do you do that? Try these three strategies for starters:

1. Compelling human stories

In my book The Robot-Proof Recruiter, marketer Bennet Sung explained the value of using human stories like this.

“Persuading candidates to come and work for you is one of the most complex story tells that anyone has to engage with. Unlike products, which have a tangible list of features, selling your values, mission, culture, team and manager (employment brand) is much more experiential and personally different for each candidate. This storytelling requires finding a way for a candidate to virtually experience the employment brand and that could be via a wide range of channels including hiring manager videos, employee videos, reputation sites, and so on.”

“Unlike products, which have a tangible list of features, selling your values, mission, culture, team and manager (employment brand) is much more experiential and personally different for each candidate.”

Over the course of 2021, you may have noticed that hiring recruiters became incredibly difficult, and not every company or agency can compete on price. Take not-for-profit recruitment agency, Radical Recruit, as an example; they exist to bridge the gap between disadvantaged job seekers and the world of work.

Radical Recruit cannot compete on salary and yet amazing recruiters choose to join them. Why? Because they share their human stories on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. You will see videos and posts from their leader, Emma Freivogel, from the team who genuinely love the impact they are making, and from the people they support. They are not perfect, but they are an open book for people to opt into.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Radical Recruit CIC (@radicalrecruit)

 2. Non-monetary incentives

Consider what you can offer that doesn’t involve reaching into your pocket. Can you offer equity or true flexibility, for example? Or offer bikes, electric cars and other incentives via a salary sacrifice scheme?

Chatting with fellow Workable contributor, Suzanne Lucas, about this dilemma, she proffered the 4-day working week. Not revolutionary – there’s even a how-to implement post here – but it is effectively a 20% pay increase. Just by changing your hours, you could attract new people on the same salary rather than having to offer an increase.

Plus, by getting into the trend early, your current employees will not only love it, they’ll struggle to find another employer doing the same so you’ll increase retention.

But Suzanne also warns that you must not offer a 4-day working week and still expect people to respond or even attend meetings on their day off. In my work, I have seen these kinds of leaky boundaries lead to all sorts of problems, including reduced employee engagement and bad reviews impending future hiring. Be sure to agree to and stick to a set of parameters with your employees and new joiners, so it is easy to manage and morale stays high.

3. Ask your people for ideas

You are not alone. You already have a team of people working for you who would be happy to get involved. Often though, they don’t understand how challenging the finances are or that, perhaps, you have barely paid yourself during the pandemic, until you tell them.

Sometimes the simplest things are the most effective. A great example is seen in the Ministry of Defence in the UK. By encouraging employees to share new job vacancies with the women they knew, they saw an increase in the number of applications, job offers and accepted offers by women, even in traditionally male-dominated roles.

So even though asking for help can raise all manner of feelings from fear to shame – especially as the company leader – your people will love your vulnerability and appreciate your trust. They will also have plenty of suggestions. After all, they choose to work with you; maximize it!

In summary, while it’s high up the list for many, money isn’t the only reason people will choose your company. Take advantage of the free tools available that let you open the door to your business.

Let people see it, warts and all. Share your employees’ stories, your mission, and your successes – and even your failures and lessons learned. Get creative, get everyone involved, and watch the difference it will make to your recruitment, even in this market!

The post Can’t afford to pay more? Be radically transparent with candidates appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

This isn’t an exaggeration either. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported record-high quit rates in four of five consecutive months from June to November 2021. What we thought was just a talent “reshuffle” to accommodate long-term remote work has spiraled into a full-blown economic crisis.

So where do we go from here?

While we could spend time hashing out the same recruiting tips that you might turn to anytime your team is experiencing turnover or needs to do a big hiring push, the talent market conditions we’re in now are unprecedented. This means old tricks aren’t going to cut it.

So, instead of basic recruiting tactics, let’s have some honest conversation about what recruiting tactics will actually work in this labor market, what tactics won’t, and why.

3 recruiting tactics that don’t work

1. Sign-on bonuses

You’ve probably seen that a signing bonus could be a good way to attract candidates, but here are a couple of reasons why it’s not a good idea.

For one, there’s the big possibility of candidates “cashing in and running”. Many candidates in today’s tight labor market know they’re in high demand and are often juggling multiple opportunities. So even if they take the bait of your tempting sign-on bonus, if your role doesn’t fit what they’re looking for on a more holistic level, they could easily leave for another opportunity.

Another reason sign-on bonuses may be a waste of your time is the fact that it’s actually not that impressive to candidates when looking at their compensation as a whole. For example, if the role offers a $150,000 yearly salary and the sign-on bonus is $5,000, some might see it as barely a drop in the bucket. It’s not the most effective of recruitment tactics.

2. Asking “why do you want to work for us?”

Somehow, over recent years, this question has become the ubiquitous interview talking point amongst hiring managers. It has prompted more than 200,000 advice articles on the internet guiding job seekers on “how to answer ‘why do you want to work for us?’”

The problem with this recruitment tactic? Well, for one, this question rose in popularity before the pandemic when there were fewer jobs to go around and employers had the clear upper hand in the talent market. Given that employers had a position of power, this question turned into hiring managers’ way to freely test interviewees on their undying love for the company.

That’s simply not going to have the same effect in today’s candidate-driven talent market. In fact, asking this question to candidates in this market – who likely have other opportunities lined up for them – might even turn them off from you for good. If you insist on covering how your company is great during the interview process, try making “why our employees enjoy working for us” part of the conversation as more of a discussion rather than a spitfire question.

3. Adding personality to the job description

Let’s get one thing straight, many job descriptions leave much to be desired. That includes especially those that get copy-pasted from old internal team documents, or worse, from competitors’ job ads.

https://youtu.be/m8Ip3mLOjOs

But aside from making your job listing slightly easier to read and possibly more entertaining and honest, adding some personality to your job description – without fundamentally changing what the role is about, the pay and benefits, and the impact the role will make in your company – isn’t going to help all that much with your recruiting efforts.

Go ahead and make some updates if it’s to be more honest and or to sweeten the job description. But, if it’s just a ploy to make your company sound cooler, just know that that may annoy candidates enough to make them click next.

7 recruiting tactics that can make a difference

1. Assess your needs before you post the job

Whether you realize it or not, you may be putting too much emphasis on just the recruitment process itself. Sure, losing a team member or noticing a department is stretched for bandwidth are classic signs that you need to hire. But if that’s all you look out for before rushing to hit “Publish” on a new job listing, you might be jumping the gun.

Before you post the job ad, be sure to do your due diligence as a team:

• Meet with hiring team (hiring manager, interviewers)
• Align on current needs vs. long-term needs
• Identify skills gaps within the larger team that may impact new hire
• Put together team-building strategies
• Carefully craft what you need in the new role
• Build a long-term development plan for that new hire

Doing these exercises before every new recruiting process will ensure a great job description and a well-oiled process that’ll make for a great candidate experience AND help you decide on the right hire.

2. Shorten your job descriptions

This one is an easy tactic that so many hiring teams could benefit from, especially those having trouble getting enough applicants and in need of some quick wins.

With today’s job market in candidates’ favor, job seekers are weary of lengthy lists of requirements and duties and they’ll swipe right pretty quickly without even a second look. It would be good to pare down the list to a few must-haves so that you bring in a healthy number of candidates who also appreciate that you’re showing some flexibility in the process.

3. Design jobs that people want

We’ve talked a lot about how to improve your job descriptions. But it’s worth mentioning that no matter how much you rewrite, promote, and incentivize an undesirable job with subpar pay, it’s still undesirable to candidates.

In pre-pandemic days, finding people to accept these types of jobs wasn’t actually all that hard to do. But since we are now experiencing a very real surplus of jobs and a more emboldened talent market, companies have but one choice of action if they want to attract candidates: design better jobs that pay more.

That means not lumping three different jobs into one person’s role. That means matching the role with market-rate (or higher) pay. That means not using arbitrary or inaccurate job titles to be clear or whatever other reason. Those are just a few examples, but the point is, be more than fair when designing your new job roles.

4. Revamp your compensation package

The last two years have challenged every workplace tradition that we all used to expect as standard aspects of employment, such as draining daily commutes (a major gripe resolved by flexible work in the UK), synchronous-only team communication, micromanagement, unfair pay, being measured by hours worked vs. outcomes, and so on.

Not only are employees finally able to take a stand against these unappealing (and unacceptable) work standards, they’re also not going to budge unless companies start paying up.

Here are some examples of how to revamp your compensation package to not only attract more candidates to individual job listings, but also upgrade your entire organization’s employee value proposition:

• 3+ weeks of PTO to start
• Upgraded parental leave for all parents
• Better insurance plans
• Stipends (for remote work, wellness, learning, etc.)
• Stock options
• Ability to work remotely
• Schedule flexibility

5. Tap into a broader talent pool

As they say… if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. This applies perfectly when it comes to the hiring process.

• Do you base all of your new job postings on old or pre-existing template job posts that you haven’t updated in years?
• Do you just post your jobs on your careers page and LinkedIn, sit back and hope for the best (a.k.a. the “spray and pray” method)?
• Do you automatically set all of your job listings in your region only, with no option for (or mention of) remote work?

These aren’t bad things to do, per se, but they’re severely limiting your reach and talent pool size. As one-time Workable SVP Rachel Bates says about how this limits the diversity of your available talent: “If you put on your job description that you need two to three years of sales experience and you’re hiring in Boston, guess who you’re going to get?”

“If you put on your job description that you need two to three years of sales experience and you’re hiring in Boston, guess who you’re going to get?”

To ensure your recruitment efforts reach more candidates, avoid “going through the motions” of an outdated recruitment process. Think about who your ideal candidate is, where they’re looking today, and what you’re up against in this job market.

Use that knowledge as you write up your job description and start promoting it, with the assumption that if what you’re offering isn’t interesting, inspiring, and generous, candidates aren’t going to give you the time of day.

6. Start hiring earlier than you need to

Hiring has always taken longer than most company leaders would like. Whether it’s hiring managers being over-selective, unique job requirements, or a complex application process that includes extra hurdles like drug tests, background checks, personality tests, and skills assessments, it would seem that time isn’t in anyone’s favor when it comes to recruitment.

Knowing this is true, start the hiring process well before the need becomes urgent. This might involve:

• Having regular and early conversations with hiring managers and department heads about future headcount needs
• Drafting job descriptions even before they get through the approval process
• Treating your talent pipeline like a supply chain by sourcing talent proactively, monitoring your team’s networks for potential good future fits, and also keeping an eye on internal candidates and training them as needed

7. Follow up on what you’ve promised after the hire

Recruiting today means pulling out all of the stops and, in many cases, giving up way more than you’re used to. For example, you’re likely offering higher pay and better benefits, putting tons of effort into making job descriptions compelling, and promising candidates tons of learning and development opportunities.

If this sounds like you, you better be following up on everything you’ve promised. That’s not only the right thing to do for integrity’s sake, but also, in delivering what you’ve promised you will be nurturing that new hire to be an awesome long-term employee and establishing a career arc for them so that they can thrive (and so can those around them).

This builds more employee loyalty and a stronger organization, which makes recruiting easier in the long-term.

It’s time to step up as an employer

The working world we live in today is light years away from how things were two years ago when it comes to candidate expectations, habits, and desires. And as the job market itself continues to lean heavily in candidates’ favor, the companies that will stand any chance of attracting and retaining great talent today are the ones who throw out the old recruiting strategies they used to hold dear and deeply reexamine and reinvigorate their recruiting approach going forward.

Taking heed of these seven recruiting tactics (and skipping the three we told you to avoid) is a great first step. Applying these tactics with a genuine effort and an open mind will ensure the next time you put recruiting activities in motion, they’ll actually bear some fruit.

Linda is a Boston-based content writer who crafts content for human-centric B2B brands. With nearly 10 years writing for tech and HR startups, she covers topics ranging from remote work and productivity, to recruitment and employer branding, to mental health and the future of work. Her goal is to promote transparency, empathy, and honest introspection within companies and their leaders. Find her on LinkedIn.

The post 7 recruiting tactics that work for this talent market – and 3 that won’t appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Let’s look at the 11 main takeaways:

1. The shakeup of the work environment
2. We’re social animals; we have needs
3. Surviving the Big Quit
4. Healthy minds and bodies mean healthy outputs
5. Look for the silver lining in all of this
6. Think about your employees first
7. Technology will pave the way ahead
8. Work be nimble, work be quick
9. Increase your range of motion
10. Don’t be a manager – be a leader
11. Change in hiring strategy

1. The shakeup of the work environment

Early in the pandemic, we learned via the New World of Work survey that more than 70% consider the shift to remote work to be the biggest paradigm shift as a result of COVID-19. So, it’s really no surprise that one of the biggest lessons of 2021 according to SMB employers continues in this vein: the shift to hybrid, remote, and asynchronous work.

But the real challenge is found in the logistics and feasibility of this shift.

CEO Amy Wampler of Indiana-based HVAC firm Spartan Mechanical found that a hybrid structure was the best way to go for her company, but remained skeptical that a completely remote environment could work.

“I believe that man is a social animal – and does require a level of human interaction rather than slaving behind on a screen.”

Because of that, Amy wants her employees to get the full hybrid experience.

“Therefore, I intend to introduce an efficient hybrid working model, where rotations of staff will be done in order to make sure that all employees get a taste of both types of situations!”

Giving employees a choice

Meanwhile, Lovebox founder and CEO Jean Gregoire is giving employees the choice of where they want to work.

“Right now, 5 of our employees are permanently teleworking from Lyon, Brest, Sydney, Paris, and Barcelonnette while the rest of the team is in Grenoble, France. The Grenoble team members have a comfortable office they can go to, but for the moment there is no obligation.”

But as the top boss at his tech-driven international love note messenger service, Jean does subscribe to Amy’s dictum that there needs to be some in-person exchange.

“We are thinking about setting up one or two mandatory days on site (for those who live near the office) to facilitate exchanges between the different divisions. This is a subject that is being discussed collectively to make sure it does not become a burden for anyone.”

Ultimately, he did find that his employees are happiest when given the choice of how and where they want to work.

The connectivity challenges of hybrid

On the other hand, founder Eden Cheng of software company PeopleFinderFree in Singapore found hybrid to be her top challenge of 2021, due to the management challenges.

“I discovered that managing both in-office and remote teams is a job that requires a significant amount of emotional intelligence, as it’s all about the ability to successfully build interpersonal connections and maintain them.”

It’s something that Eden’s especially mindful of with so many employees quitting during the Great Resignation.

“This meant making an effort to connect with each staff member on a more individual level through frequent dialogue, in order to ensure that they are satisfied with their current work environment and that they have what they need to deliver on the results.”

VP Logan Mallory also considers hybrid to be the biggest challenge faced at Motivosity, a company that helps employees stay engaged both in office and remotely.

“We had to find the right methods of communication to ensure that no one was ever left out of the loop due to their choice of working location,” says Logan, “as well as making sure that we had frequent enough check-ins with our employees.”

Remote work struggles – even now

Devin Schumacher of SEO agency SERP points to the lack of experience of workers in a remote working environment, calling it a relatively new concept for many and therefore the value isn’t readily evident for them.

He says his company, which is fully remote, bears the responsibility to ensure success in remote work.

“I help my new hires grasp the long-term employment possibilities at my company through extensive onboarding procedures and coaching sessions. My goal is to emphasize the full potential of remote work. I explain the handsome compensation package, offer competitive company benefits, and, of course, reassure new hires that they’ll have several career growth opportunities.”

There is a unique value in working from home, however, says CEO Nicholas Vasiliou of health supplement product company BioHealth Nutrition:

“While working at home you often have to find your own solutions, so employees are constantly in a state of innovating whether they realize it or not. Our biggest goal is to further recognize and reward employees because we realize these efforts are not easy.”

Mark Pierce, the CEO of Cloud Peak Law Group in Wyoming, points to added nuances in remote management.

“It took a bit of time to find the right balance of checking in with employees so that they didn’t feel over-managed or like they were being ignored.”

Time is of the essence

One significant challenge of remote work is teams working across different time zones, noted Stefan Ateljevic of PlayToday, an online gambling resource center.

“I think we struggled most with combining asynchronous and synchronous types of communication between team members, in order to function seamlessly.”

That was one lesson tech CEO Nate Tsang wishes he had learned earlier so he could have gotten ahead of the challenges associated with asynchronous work.

“I’d like to have started the conversation around asynchronous work sooner. There was a bit of hesitancy to move away from the 9-5 synchronous model of work, where everyone’s online at the same time of day, more or less,” says Nate, who runs WallStreetZen, a stock research and analysis site.

“Employees know which parts of their work need to be handled this way, but deciding what kinds of work can be staggered is often a process of discovery. You have to be looking for asynchronous opportunities to make them a reality.”

2. We’re social animals; we have needs

Amy at Spartan Mechanical pointed to the importance of social interaction – and we found that many SMB employers would agree.

For instance, Zoku International Co-Founder Hans Meyer in Amsterdam found from his research that the future of work needs human connection.

“Companies must facilitate in-person employee relationships in 2022 in order to keep individual talent and teams engaged, aligned and productive in this new era of remote work.”

This was also John Gardner’s lesson from 2021. He’s co-founder and CEO of Kickoff, a remote personal training platform based out of New York.

“[It’s] the importance of engaging our employees and using strategies to increase effective communication, share company culture and boost employee productivity despite the remoteness of the work.”

John shared one of his company’s tactics to ensure engagement.

“We started implementing a strategy where we create fitness challenges on social media. Each month, one of our trainers starts a fitness challenge video where they choreograph fitness movements to a video. The challenge is that the next person who does the challenge has to add on an extra movement, so the faster you participate, the less you do!”

He found this tactic worked, too.

“The videos are a lot of fun, people and teams do them together when they can and it really encourages employee productivity as well as shares a positive, fun environment and culture at the company.“

3. Surviving the Big Quit

If the mindset of employers could be summed up in one phrase, it would be from Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, where one of the Wild Things exclaims to a departing Max: “Oh please don’t go – we’ll eat you up – we love you so!”

That’s the spirit in the Big Quit environment, where employee retention is lauded as one of the biggest accomplishments of 2021 for many SMB employers.

Sally Stevens of FastPeopleSearch.io in Los Angeles is one of those employers – even going so far as to learn from others in the same situation.

“To think of it, the employee retention challenges faced by other companies have been big lessons for our business. We’ve had to change a lot in order to retain our employees. Ending the year with most of the employees we started with is certainly a success for us.”

It was a hard lesson for Sally’s small business, however.

“Lacking an adequate number of hands when you’re growing the business may be debilitating in many instances. That period almost crippled us. We had to hold back on some facets of our scaling process because we simply couldn’t find someone to deal with it.”

Show them you love them

Jeff Johnson, a real estate agent and acquisition manager at Simple Homebuyers in Maryland, resorted to tangible measures to retain employees in his company.

“We had to give out weekly bonuses, paid time off and subscriptions to mental wellness applications. This helped us manage and retain our existing talent.”

“We had to give out weekly bonuses, paid time off and subscriptions to mental wellness applications. This helped us manage and retain our existing talent.”

Steve Anevski’s own experience was not so much mitigation of turnover as it was actual improvement of retention – and this was a result of initiatives implemented prior to 2021.

“In 2021, my biggest accomplishment was increasing my company’s retention rate by a whopping 15%! Throughout 2019 and 2020, the rate was hovering between 70 and 75%, which I felt was relatively low and needed significant improvement. I worked on this and introduced a few attractive perks and benefits in late 2020 to great effect. Throughout 2021, my retention rates remained firmly between 85 and 90%.”

And in his work as CEO and co-founder of staffing platform Upshift, Steve says you have to really think about what your employees expect – and go higher than that.

“My biggest learning from 2021 in terms of employee retention is that if you go above and beyond in meeting the expectations of your employees, they’ll become more loyal to your company. It’s not just the financial rewards that compel employees to stay at an organization; they also seek non-monetary rewards like appreciation, autonomy and career advancement.”

And if the tangible parts of all this cost a lot of money, that’s fine, says CEO and founder Nick Drewe of WeThrift, an e-commerce and coupon site based in California. That’s because the ROI is obvious.

“Overall, it doesn’t matter if I get a bit generous with salaries and company benefits because employee retention still costs less than training new hires,” Nick explains. “They also produce better output. Better quality management ensures that my customers get the service they deserve.”

Keep your workers front of mind

Stefan at PlayToday also pointed to retention as his company’s biggest win in 2021, and that was because they adjusted the working model to be more employee-first.

”We followed their inputs and requests and made sure to make their workday as seamless as possible. This is how we opted for hybrid work and flexible schedules, but also included some perks such as childcare and home office stipends.”

And Logan at Motivosity points to the importance of a healthy, thriving, and inspiring work culture as the reason for his company’s 10% turnover rate.

“Every single one of the employees who left did so on good terms,” he says. “We attribute this to the fact that we truly live our workplace values and make our company a place where everyone is respected, employees are recognized and rewarded for their accomplishments, and flexibility is the norm.”

4. Healthy minds and bodies mean healthy outputs

Ahmed Mir, founder and editor of the self-proclaimed online coffee mecca Sip Coffee House, says one of his biggest plans for 2022 would be to emphasize a healthy interest and curiosity in work – but that overall health always comes first.

“I want my team to be comfortable enough to come to me whenever they feel overwhelmed so that we can find a solution that works for everyone. Nowadays, people often feel the need to overwork themselves, especially those who are working remotely, and I want to help ease them out of that mindset as productivity and the quality of work increases immensely when the people working on them are happy and healthy.”

Rather than looking at the raw math of employee retention as his company’s biggest accomplishment in 2021, co-owner Dan Barrett of Pacific Precious Metals pointed to mental health in employees that enables them to “work efficiently without pressure”.

Dan, who operates a chain of precious metal stores in and around San Francisco, says his biggest challenge “lay in the unpreparedness of the employees to take on challenges and the inability of many to contribute owing to their mental health.”

Gabriel Dungan of Charlotte, NC-based sleep company ViscoSoft aligns his employee health with his company’s product.

“As a company that sells sleep products, we have always encouraged people to take their sleep and self-care seriously, but it wasn’t until the pandemic hit that we truly realized how important this was for our team as well. This could be anything from weekly check-ins with members of your team, or even a team-wide virtual yoga class.”

5. Look for the silver lining in all of this

Albert Einstein once said: “In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity.”

That was also the mindset for many SMB employers throughout 2021.

Kamyar K.S., the CEO of business consultancy World Consulting Group in Florida, found that the skills gap faced by his business was an opportunity to try something new – such as offering more training and skills development for existing employees rather than simply trying to find new workers.

“In turn, that leads to a bigger pool of candidates with relevant skills and makes it easier for us to find them.*”

Nate at WallStreetZen ensures that new workforce additions have benefits beyond just backfill.

“We want to make sure additions to our workforce really create opportunities for other staff members. If it’s just about reducing workloads and taking tasks off someone’s plate then we can do that more quickly and easily with freelancers,” says Nate.

“When we need new know-how and outside experience to augment a team, that’s when you hire. Knowing the difference is tricky but it’s something we’re trying to improve.”

Dan, meanwhile, says he would have emphasized skills development in his existing worker base if he could do the year over again.

“If I had the chance to meet with my team in 2020, I’d have trained them into becoming a multi-skilled workforce. In addition, I’d have taught them resilience, fearlessness, and the ability to take on change.”

6. Think about your employees first

Notice a trend in what contributes to employee retention? Exactly – it’s the greater emphasis on employee well-being through benefits, compensation, development, and all the other stuff.

NY-based CEO Alex Mastin of the DIY barista resource site, Home Grounds, highlighted the importance of that.

“Try to provide your workers with opportunities for growth,” Alex says. “If they’re happy in their job and they know there are opportunities for advancement, they’re going to be more likely to stay with you.*”

CEO Mike Nemeroff of custom apparel brand Rush Order Tees in Philadelphia will take that employee-first mindset as well going into the next year.

“We’ve been working on a new strategy to help employees feel their importance and that they are the most important asset of our business and it has been working great so far.”

Get them involved

A two-way communication street is at the core of that strategy.

“This is by encouraging employees to share their opinion, propose new strategies and innovative ideas that can help improve the business,” Mike says. “Every month, we invite employees to come up with a new idea or a strategy that can improve our workflow and post it anonymously. During the month, we share these ideas and everyone in the company votes for the idea they think is best.”

And there’s incentive in it as well.

“Whoever wins is in charge of leading a team to implement their idea and give it a shot. This allows employees to feel trusted to be given a chance and trust that the company and employers believe in their skills regardless of their age, position, gender or experience.”

Lisa Richards, CEO and creator of The Candida Diet, which supports individuals with candida, is in the same boat and also plans to invest tangible resources to boost the experience of her team.

“Happy employees contribute to a company’s resilience and adaptability,” she says. “For this reason, a bigger portion of our annual budget will now be going towards maximizing employee satisfaction. It’s also important to ensure that the resources provided are compatible with the direct needs of the employees, so that they have the biggest impact on employee satisfaction, retention, and employee experience.”

Show confidence in your people

Michael Knight is co-founder and top marketing boss at business incorporation service Incorporation Insight in Salt Lake City. His 2022 will also include greater flexibility and a more employee-centric work model because, he says, there are clear benefits.

“An organization that is steadfast in prioritizing its employees’ satisfaction through generous and guilt-free PTOs and complimentary assisted access to mental healthcare is the goal.”

“An organization that is steadfast in prioritizing its employees’ satisfaction through generous and guilt-free PTOs and complimentary assisted access to mental healthcare is the goal.”

Jared Stern, who heads a team of 20 employees at Uplift Legal Funding in Santa Monica, California, also knows the value of employees in a business, highlighting their well-being as crucial.

“Employees are the linchpins of any organization,” says Jared, whose company provides legal loan services to clients. “We have braved through the past year, as we had committed employees. We want that to continue for us. We are taking all measures from our side to ensure they are prepared to tackle any adversity.”

Nate looked at output to identify opportunities to standardize and streamline the work his employees put in – with employee experience front of mind.

“We got serious about data productivity tracking for staff in early 2021. By mid-year we had a much stronger sense of where the gaps were and how to use automations, outsourcing, and freelancers to fill in the slack. Amid highs and lows, lulls and busy periods, our full-time staff have been able to remain steady and avoid burnout. That’s been a huge accomplishment, especially given the state of the world.”

Find out what they need and want

Meanwhile, Nicholas isn’t just taking initiative or planning strategy for employee happiness at BioHealth Nutrition. He’s also asking what employees themselves want.

“We’re currently conducting a survey about our work culture, team structure, and other company initiatives. We will accumulate all of the feedback at the end of the month and share a report with updates we plan to implement in 2022,” Nicholas says.

“We want employees to know that we take their feedback seriously and that their happiness is a priority. It’s really important for companies to embrace this mentality now if they haven’t already.”

Childcare was one of the biggest concerns voiced by employees throughout the pandemic, and Marina Vaamonde heard that as well from most of her employees at HouseCashin, an off-market house marketplace in Houston, Texas.

“Working parents are struggling to find decent and affordable childcare and need my help with it. Without childcare, the labor force will struggle because people will be forced to choose between working and quitting their jobs and staying home.”

7. Technology will pave the way ahead

Digital transformation was a significant development during the pandemic, with the shift to remote requiring more technology to succeed. But there’s more, says Kamyar at World Consulting Group.

“If you’re meeting with members of your team right now in terms of planning your workforce for 2022, this is the time to consider the impact of artificial intelligence, robotics and automation on what will be left for humans to do.”

Kamyar’s not concerned about the so-called rise of the machines, suggesting that it be embraced rather than feared.

“You can’t stop technology. It’s going to happen anyway. What you can do is prepare for it by planning for the time when your company won’t need as many human workers,” says Kamyar.

“What are the jobs that will be replaced? Will they all be replaced? What new positions will emerge? How do you train your workers of the future? How do you prepare them to stay ahead of the curve and avoid being replaced by a computer or a robot or an algorithm? You have to ask these questions now, not wait until 2027 — that’s too late.”

Nicholas highlights the importance of skills development in the workplace to accommodate the trend towards greater digital capabilities.

“Technology use is prime, and people need the internet more than ever. So, getting familiar with the new work approaches is key to success.”

“Technology use is prime, and people need the internet more than ever. So, getting familiar with the new work approaches is key to success.”

But finding the right tech to meet collaboration needs in the digital-first world was the single biggest challenge cited by Ruben Gamez, CEO and founder of SignWell, a B2B SaaS tech company helping businesses with contracts and legally binding e-signatures.

“Initially, we were experimenting with different tools,” says Ruben, who manages a team of 10 employees out of Portland, Oregon. “This led to scattered data. We then used one common tool to integrate all processes. It was very challenging to find the right tool.”

Challenge or not, Michael at Incorporation Insight says tech is core to his business going forward.

“Adopting more updated automation is also an objective that can potentially increase our efficiency both productivity-wise and operating cost-wise.”

And HR will be part of that

And this isn’t just the case for overall business operations and workforce management, according to Lynda Farley, the co-founder of reverse phone number lookup service NumLooker. While AI became accessible in 2021, she says, 2022 onwards will see a lot more of that in HR specifically.

“From 2022 onwards, there will be an increased adoption rate in social HR platforms. The reason for this development is the loss of trust between humans and machines. I’m not saying that AI will become our parents, but it can definitely help us in some aspects of our life. By 2022, there will be a lot more to come as a part of the digital revolution.”

8. Work be nimble, work be quick

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen,” said Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

That quote definitely holds true for the last couple of years especially for SMBs who have had to adapt regularly to a seemingly relentless barrage of unexpected developments during pandemic times.

CEO Ian Sells is clear on the importance of nimbility, as one of the biggest lessons at coupon/cash-back website RebateKey over the last two years.

“What we’ve learned from 2020 is to learn to be flexible and continuously adapt our processes based on what works,” says Ian, who heads up a team of just under 25 workers working full- and part-time, as well as per-project, in Wyoming. “Do not be afraid of changes and transitions.”

And there’s opportunity in that, Ian points out.

“Our team has experienced a lot of transitions and have done well not only to adapt to changes but to thrive in them. Scaling is always difficult, but is a crucial and necessary step for the continuous growth of any business.”

Flexibility took place in a different form for Gregory Rozdeba, president of digital insurance brokerage Dundas Life in Toronto. He called the COVID-affected year the most challenging of his managerial career, having to let go of a leadership team member.

Instead of having to go through that again, Gregory took on a different strategy – including moving some functions to remote and freelance.

And this includes employees too

A more agile approach also means encouraging more adaptability in employees – including tackling sudden and steep learning curves, says Dave Ericksen, the founder of WaterZen.

“Due to the crisis that the pandemic brought, a lot of our best performers were given additional responsibilities to help keep operations going,” says Dave.

That ultimately had a silver lining for his Utah-based company, which promotes awareness and shares information on accessibility to drinking water.

“Later, we discovered that some of them were more fit for their new responsibilities,” he says. “We’re changing our employee structure to give these gifted employees a role and title fit for their skills.”

Prime your people for success

Adjusting onboarding and training processes both for new hires and current employees was the biggest challenge of 2021, especially due to the volatility of the environment, says Gabriel at ViscoSoft.

“The pandemic required a lot of sudden pivots, so consistency in overall operations was kind of thrown out the window. You had to be malleable and adaptable. Because of these, developing any sort of training for your employees was very challenging,” he explains.

“You want to set up new hires for success by clarifying roles and encouraging relationship development, but when a company is dealing with constant shifts and transitions that can be very difficult.”

And forget about thinking back and looking forward, says Jared at Uplift Legal Funding.

“The biggest learning from 2021 was to be in the moment. We made grand plans in 2020, only to watch them fail. We have learned to become more agile and dynamic. We intend to make plans, but we have also known how to pick ourselves up if things go south. We are planning to continue the same in 2022.”

“The biggest learning from 2021 was to be in the moment. We made grand plans in 2020, only to watch them fail. We have learned to become more agile and dynamic. We intend to make plans, but we have also known how to pick ourselves up if things go south. We are planning to continue the same in 2022.”

And that mindset – with teamwork – can get us through it all, he adds.

“I’d say, here’s a chance to think on our feet. Let’s try to be more open-minded and adaptive. Let’s also remember to stick it out for each other. That’s the only way we will get through this madness.”

9. Increase your range of motion

Gregory at Dundas Life pointed to the diversity that comes with the global talent market as a huge bonus for companies.

“Diversity and inclusion is one critical insight in 2022 to manage an employee base. Companies worldwide should learn to diversify their employee retention this year as a workforce with unique skills is invaluable. It makes the potential of growth for each employee scalable, and they can learn new skills from their peers along the way.”

As CEO of secure e-sign service CocoSign, Stephen Curry also found the value of having workers from different decades was a crucial lesson picked up from 2020 and 2021.

“You’re able to capitalize on their unique experiences in different decades and accurately gauge the sorts of issues they’ll help you overcome in whatever decade you’re trying to make your mark,” Stephen says.

It all comes down to experience.

“Say, for example, an eighties employee helps you run a successful business in the nineties. That’s good. But if a fifties employee helps you run a successful business in 2022, that’s even better, because fifties employees have been through all this once before, so they’ll help you steer away from the mistakes of the past and point out things that worked best for them during the first time around.”

Paul Sherman is CMO at auto warranty service Olive, which employs more than 50 people in Chicago. He learned the value of age diversity the hard way.

“Many of my team members retired early in 2020 and 2021. While many companies tend to be ageist and prefer younger employees, I lost a wealth of experience and wisdom through the retirement of these workers.”

10. Don’t be a manager – be a leader

SMBs also took a long hard look at employee management styles, again as a result of developments during the pandemic.

Eden at PeopleFinderFree suggests breaking down the traditional structure of top-down leadership, saying it’s part of “preparing for a long-term eventuality”.

“From a leadership standpoint, it will be best to just get rid of hierarchical structures and instead, focus on implementing multidisciplinary and autonomous teams that are able to operate without micromanagement. In other words, place more of an emphasis on shifting your current management responsibilities and distributing them throughout the organization.”

Gabriel wishes he and his team had taken on a more collaborative approach to work.

“The pandemic has meant having to make constant decisions without really being able to predict the outcome. Having a collaborative and supportive team not only makes for a fantastic workplace culture, but makes those difficult decisions much easier.” Gabriel says. “Remember, there is a way for employees to have autonomy over their work, while still working closely and collaborating with others.”

And the irony is that Gabriel sees this as a top-down initiative.

”I would tell myself that as a leader, it is up to me to set the precedent. A collaborative workplace needs to be fostered.”

”I would tell myself that as a leader, it is up to me to set the precedent. A collaborative workplace needs to be fostered.”

And empathy has huge, huge value

Meanwhile, one of the biggest lessons from 2020 for Sally of FastPeopleSearch.io was the need for empathetic leadership in the workplace – it’s something that can’t be overlooked.

”Quite often, business leaders get lost in the hustle and forfeit the personal connection between them and the employees. This plays a huge role in lowering team morale and decreasing productivity within the workplace.”

Being empathetic also makes her a better manager and enables her to bring more out of her workers.

“Practicing empathetic leadership over the past year has taught me valuable lessons in soft-skill management, and how employee morale plays a crucial role in creating a vibrant culture within the workplace.”

11. Change in hiring strategy

One of the big developments of 2021 is, of course, the Great Resignation. Quit rates are through the roof – and companies have had to adapt quickly to the sudden onslaught of vacancies and need for backfills.

This meant an update in hiring strategy for many businesses, including CEO Dragos Badea of Yarooms, a hybrid work management software.

Dragos’ plan? “Hire for all positions as early as possible, as we’re going to be experiencing a bit of a shortage of qualified personnel!”

The reason being, as the adage goes, ‘done is better than perfect.’

“Even if you hire a specialist that might be working at 50% capacity initially,” says Dragos, “just having more hands on deck when opportunity comes knocking is incredibly valuable.”

Christiaan Huynen’s hiring approach as the CEO of DesignBro is similar.

“Hiring a perfect candidate is like finding a needle in a haystack. Oftentimes, the closest thing that you can find to a needle is a bobby pin and you just have to go with it. Try to keep the candidate pool small and set a technical interview as a prerequisite to avoid unnecessary traffic.”

But there’s a danger in quick backfill for stopgap purposes, as Dave at Waterzen learned.

“One of the biggest challenges we’re going to be facing in 2022 is getting rid of pandemic hires,” says Dave. “The labor supply shortage caused us to hire people who weren’t the best for the job. We were in need of employees and hired those that just fit the bill. In 2022, when the shortage will finally end, we’ll have to let go of staff who cannot meet expectations and rehire for those roles.”

Add new channels to the pipeline

One potential solution is internal mobility, according to Ian at RebateKey.

“We’ve scaled so much as a company this year and required new roles to be filled. However, instead of hiring an outsider, we opted to look for potential applicants from stellar members from our current team, who have at least some working knowledge, interest, and bandwidth to take on new roles.”

Ian, incidentally, also turned to less traditional methods of finding talent when looking outside of his organization.

“Instead of the known job boards, we’ve ventured into using Slack and Discord groups, and more importantly FB niched groups. These places are teeming with potential. Many applicants do not want to use regular job boards because they lowball employees, not to mention having very high competition.”

Jared also turned to these channels as a solution.

“Our single biggest accomplishment was recruiting new employees using social media as one of our primary recruitment channels. We’ve heard about social media recruiting as a strategy, but we were skeptical if it would work. Using multiple channels on a trial and error basis has been the quickest way to employ a diverse pool of talent.”

And Paul at Olive went directly to the source of new talent.

“Our biggest achievement was to partner with the marketing department of a local university. This partnership creates a pipeline of talent from the university by creating internships and permanent positions for graduating students with marketing degrees. This way, we’re less vulnerable to the labor market shocks like those we see with the Great Resignation.”

A deluge of talent

Dan Barba, who provides writing and editing services at DanBarba.com, had the opposite problem – that of too many candidates.

“When I posted job openings throughout 2021, it wasn’t uncommon for me to receive multiple hundreds of applications from people looking for freelance work. With so many applications to sift through, these hiring rounds would take up a lot of my time and pull me away from revenue generating activities,” he says.

And he had a solution: giving candidates the opportunity to screen themselves in or out.

“Through the lens of hiring and human resources, my biggest accomplishment was finding a way to make these applicants ‘pre-qualify’; in other words, making sure that only the top 1% of the talent pool apply.”

To do this, Dan rewrote the job copy he was using.

“My first version was too vague in terms of expectations and day-to-day responsibilities, so I focused on going into greater detail and getting clear on the skills and experience that candidates must have before applying. I didn’t list desirables, just must-haves and deal breakers.”

“My first version was too vague in terms of expectations and day-to-day responsibilities, so I focused on going into greater detail and getting clear on the skills and experience that candidates must have before applying. I didn’t list desirables, just must-haves and deal breakers.”

And it made a difference.

“By giving applicants this kind of context, they were better equipped to evaluate their own ability against the standards that I laid out. As a result, the quality of my hires shot up in Q4, as did their rate of output and productivity.”

Glen Bhimani owns and operates BPS Security, a security firm in San Antonio, Texas. He also pointed to the importance of a well-crafted job ad.

“I have found that thinking through the kind of person we want to hire and crafting job postings that appeal to that kind of person is extremely effective in cutting down the time we have to spend searching for guards,” says Glen, whose firm employs just under 30 employees.

“Different people respond well to different kinds of English [and other languages], so designing a job posting inside the communication style of our ideal employee helps raise the success rate of job postings.”

The digitization of hiring

One huge aspect of recruitment is the incorporation of tech into the process, says Michael.

“Technology played a significant role in helping us efficiently screen candidates and onboard new members without being physically present. It was another milestone to now permanently integrate advanced tech into our hiring process in place of our traditional recruitment practices.”

Jeff at Simple Homebuyers pointed to changes in his recruitment process as his single biggest achievement of 2021.

“Many companies take years to change how they recruit talent, but we were forced to do it overnight. Budget constraints made it hard for us to retain current employees, so we opted to recruit talent worldwide, proving to be significantly cheaper.”

And yes, tech supported this.

“[That] included virtual interviews, global recruitment, and asynchronous working hours. This proved to be vital as we had access to talent worldwide.”

Technology also benefited Logan at Motivosity, who found an innovative solution in identifying the potential of a candidate for a job.

“A hiring hack that’s been helpful for us is: Asking candidates to record an introductory video in lieu of a cover letter. This helps us see a candidate’s personality, and it allows them to share more about themselves than they’d be able to just by writing a cover letter. It also helps us weed out candidates who haven’t fully read the job application.”

You know what to do going into 2022

There you have it. Myriad challenges of 2020 and 2021 being overcome with innovative solutions and strategies – that’s the spirit of entrepreneurship.

And it’s always good to have a well-thought-out strategy going into 2022, but leaving room for quick pivots in that strategy as needed, because who knows what might happen.

Want to share your own story of what you’ve learned over the last couple of years and what you think will happen in 2022? We want to hear it – and share it with our millions of readers. Submit your pitch and you may see your name – and your company’s – in lights!

The post Employers’ top wins and lessons of 2021 – and what they’re planning for 2022 appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

1. Most helpful when building a case for a hiring solution

This one’s easy. You want to get the smoothest, baddest applicant tracking software in the land, but your boss is too embroiled in their own processes to take notice. You know what makes them sit up and take notice? If you present them the value of an ATS in their own language – which usually is in monetary terms.

So, our piece on how to calculate the ROI of an ATS comes in hugely helpful here. Pull out the old calculator, get a pen and paper, and start crunching those numbers!

Read now: How to calculate the ROI of an ATS

2. The most informative for driving DEI where it matters

Awareness of diversity, equity and inclusion shot into the stratosphere in mid-2020 and it’s still top of mind for many employers worldwide. But we have two major messages when it comes to DEI: first, there’s a difference between D, E, and I, and second, you don’t “win” at diversity just because you’ve managed to achieve it throughout your company.

Rather, you need to attain diversity in leadership. There’s a glaring imbalance in diversity numbers in leadership when compared with overall diversity, and that needs to be improved on if real progress is to be made. And if you’re not getting buy-in from your leaders, you can convince them that it makes good business sense to do so. This infographic gives you everything on all of the above, and more.

Check out our infographic: Diversity in leadership: Why it matters and what you can do

3. The most audacious piece of content

We’ve been talking (and writing, and video-ing) about the future of work for a long time now. We’ve discussed remote work, flexible schedules, gender parity, salaries, global talent markets, candidate discontentment, talent shortages, and a lot more.
‘
But one topic really tickled our fancy (and yours, too, if you’re accustomed to a standard Monday-Friday work week) – the four-day work week. The Chief Growth Officer at Service Direct shared their first-hand account of how the company tried an alternating four-day work week as an experiment, and found it hugely successful.

Read now: Implementing an alternating four-day workweek: how & why

4. The most comprehensive (and timely) study

This one is a no-brainer to us. Out of all the blog posts, infographics, videos, etc. that we’ve produced throughout 2021, two 6,000-word survey reports published in September really stand out. They’re the result of two in-depth surveys to better understand what matters to workers in a job – one for the United States and one for the United Kingdom.

If you’re an employer looking to understand what candidates really want so you can attract more of them to your company, grab a cup of coffee (or beer – we won’t tell anyone), and have a read.

Read the US report: The Great Discontent: 2021 Worker Survey (US)

Read the UK report: The Great Discontent: 2021 Worker Survey (UK)

5. The best for geeking out on hiring data

We know that hiring benchmarks are important to our audience, especially in these wacky times where nothing feels normal anymore. So we developed a new way to look at hiring trends because month-over-month and especially year-over-year data doesn’t make sense anymore considering the volatility of the labor market.

The result of that new methodology is the Hiring Pulse, which was launched in September. It’s a monthly series of data-packed insights so you can see where hiring is going, be it based on industry, function, location, or overall.

Read the latest: The Hiring Pulse

6. The most insightful and commandeering

A big contributor to our content in 2021 is the Evil HR Lady, Suzanne Lucas. A veteran in the HR space who now can speak from direct experience, her sharp to-the-point tone is popular with our audience.

One message we want to drive home is that in this rapidly evolving talent marketplace, the onus is on employers to adapt to this new environment if they want to attract candidates. Suzanne drove that point home with her piece on how the rules of talent engagement are changing.

Read now: The rules of talent engagement are changing: What’s new now?

7. The most inspirational content of the year

The Evil HR Lady isn’t the only contributor we saw in our content in 2021. In February, world-renowned talent management expert Josh Bersin joined us for what turned out to be the most-attended virtual event we’ve hosted all year.

The webinar, titled Step Into the Future with Josh Bersin, led off with one of our favorite descriptions of the tumultuous work world: “We’re entering an effervescent time.” It’s a refreshingly optimistic delivery on all the things that HR can look forward to, and left many in our audience smiling during these tough times.

Check out the webinar:

Check out the podcast:

And if you don’t have the the time, we’ve compiled the top 10 takeaways into a blog post for you.

Read more: Josh Bersin’s recruiting and HR trends for the future

8. Most popular Tutorial

A list like this can’t simply be left to our judgement of what we think is our best and most helpful hiring resource because, well, our judgement alone can’t always be trusted (we’re human, after all). We also need to look at the raw numbers too – for instance, the title of most-read tutorial of the year goes to (drum roll): the top HR interview questions!

It is what it says: the top 10 interview questions asked in the HR interview – which would mostly be at the screening stage of the hiring process. It’s a very nuts-and-bolts piece which delivers – which is probably why it’s number one in terms of popularity for the year.

Read now: HR interview questions: The top 10 questions asked in the HR interview

9. Most popular Stories & Insights

Our Better Hiring site also includes thought leadership and insights in the hiring world. Which means it would make sense to share the top hiring resource from our Stories & Insights section as well. Again, it’s something that’s very top of mind for recruiters in our audience: the most common recruiting challenges and what you can do to overcome them.

What’s great about this piece is how cut-and-dried it is. It lays out very neatly the top challenges that recruiters are dealing with (especially right now), and shares actionable solutions which can be valuable for an overworked, tired audience that’s just looking to get the job done so they can sleep at night.

Read now: The most common recruiting challenges and how to overcome them

10. Most popular video(s)

We noted above that the Josh Bersin webinar was the most impactful in terms of attendance – but what was the most popular video hiring resource of the year? Well, we’re going to cheat and share two, because they’re so different in terms of tone and purpose and both deserve their moment in the spotlight.

First, our customer case study featuring Cytora, an insurance startup in London, and their story of how they accelerated hiring from 20 to 60 employees in just 2.5 years:

And second, an expert-led video tutorial on how to build up your DEI initiative, from someone who does it as a full-time job:

Both videos saw immense reach throughout 2021 and continue to be popular today.

What’s your top hiring resource of 2021?

A list like this would be remiss if we didn’t ask our audience directly: what do you think is the top hiring resource we’ve created all year? We want to know. Send us an email to content@workable.com with “Hiring resources” in the subject heading, and tell us why you liked it so much and what else you’d like to see from us going into 2022.

And without further ado, wishing you the best for 2022!

The post Top 10 hiring resources to help you hire in 2022 appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Your recruiters are telling you they can’t handle any more job requisitions.

Your head of talent just gave notice.

Sound familiar?

Could you possibly be responsible for burning out your hiring team?

According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the national average across all industries and employer sizes is somewhere between 30-40 open requisitions per recruiter at any one time. Sounds like a reasonable number, right?

Before you agree, it’s essential to understand that this data point doesn’t tell the whole story of what may contribute to recruiter burnout.

The following are other factors to consider when determining what a reasonable workload is for your recruitment team and the effectiveness of your recruitment efforts.

1. Unemployment rates

When the unemployment rate is high, more applicants will lead to a more robust applicant pipeline and an increased offer-acceptance rate. The time to fill rates, affording a recruiter time to manage a greater number of job openings, will also decline.

However, the opposite is true as well. When we have low unemployment rates, which we’re experiencing right now, employers are seeing significantly fewer qualified applicants, which means it’s taking considerably more time and effort to fill positions. So, in essence, we’re asking those responsible for recruiting to produce the same results with no additional support.

2. Absence of a dedicated recruiting team

Many organizations don’t have dedicated recruiting teams, which means that many HR folks are under enormous pressure to fill jobs while balancing the rest of their responsibilities. At the same time, those who work for companies with limited budgets are told they cannot pay recruitment fees. If this is what’s happening in your business, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

If you continue to ask your HR team to do more with less, you’ll soon be in the unenviable position of recruiting a new HR department. You want people to feel good about their work. For many, that means having the necessary resources to do their jobs well, such as a budget for recruitment fees and approval to hire a contract recruiter.

3. Lack of resources available

We briefly touched upon resources available (i.e., budget for recruitment fees, headcount for contract recruiters, etc.) However, there are more factors to examine to ensure you’re up for the hiring challenges that 2022 will bring.

Have you updated your talent strategy? If you haven’t, then no wonder why your people are frustrated. Working off a talent plan established pre-pandemic is the equivalent of reading the user manual for your old Sony Trinitron when trying to figure out how to operate your smart TV. Throw that plan (and that manual) into the trash and establish a relevant strategy, given the times we are in.

Do you have an effective employee referral program? The key word here is effective. Many of you have programs in place that your employees aren’t aware of. Now’s the time to rebrand those programs to ensure they are top of mind in your organization. Do you have a robust social media recruiting program? If not, your recruiting team may be working way harder than they should be.

4. High employee turnover

Most people don’t understand the full impact of high levels of employee turnover on attracting candidates and filling jobs. It’s no secret which companies churn employees, which means that your people must work twice as hard to land a candidate as a competitor with low turnover.

You can’t go back and change history. However, you can take immediate steps to stop the churn. First, you can find out the real reason why people are leaving. Many people on the way out the door say they are leaving for a “better opportunity.” But what you really want to know is why they considered a better opportunity in the first place.

Next, you want to have your managers meet with their teams and ask the following questions:

• What were your hopes and dreams when you took this job?
• Are you advancing towards your dreams?
• What can I do to help you get there?

Remind managers to listen for those areas where they can support their team member’s wish to achieve a desired state of being.

5. Underutilized resources

The quickest way to help your recruiters fill jobs is to turn your entire team into a hiring machine. Every person in your organization should be responsible for recruiting talent. To make this happen, you must train your people to recruit and select for success.

These are some of the ways to reduce the burnout and stress recruiters are feeling these days and suggestions on how your organization can better fill jobs rapidly with suitable candidates. The next step is up to you. Do something now to ensure your hiring team is refreshed and ready to face the challenges 2022 will bring.

Roberta Matuson, The Talent Maximizer® and President of Matuson Consulting, helps world-class organizations like General Motors, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and Microsoft hire and retain world-class talent. Roberta is the author of six books on talent and leadership, including the newly released, Can We Talk? Seven Principles for Managing Difficult Conversations at Work, and Evergreen Talent. Sign up to receive her free newsletter, The Talent Maximizer®. Follow her on Twitter.

The post Recruiter burnout: Why it’s happening and what you can do appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

We agree. Employers need to start figuring out their game plan right now.

The challenge of the vax mandate

Every employer who must comply with the mandate will face some sort of difficulty in execution – where testing will be performed, for example, and how to craft the vaccination and testing policies, as well as the downstream impact on productivity.

Some employers will be able to pull it off, but many will struggle to create yet another new process that takes away from revenue-generating activity.

In addition, employers must know:

• if they are going to require vaccinations as an employment contingency or offer weekly testing
• how they will track vaccinations/testing results
• what repercussions will occur when a violation occurs
• how to handle positive testing results
• whether or not to pay for weekly testing
• where and when to perform testing
• and, ultimately, who within their organization will be responsible for administering the tracking and testing within the organization.

The vaccine mandate will, in one way or another, add expense to every organization and very likely to all of us as consumers.

With millions of Americans having dropped out of the workforce since April – the so-called Great Resignation – beleaguered employers are wondering how this mandate will affect their ability to recruit – and keep – talent.

The bad news is that the tight labor market will probably continue for at least the next few years as the major catalysts that led people to leave the workforce – e.g. retirement, early retirement, health concerns, lack of child care – have not and will not change soon.

In other words, the labor market remains an employee’s market and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

Agility and attentiveness will win out

More than ever, HR professionals will need to be agile and creative, both in their thought processes and in execution. They must immediately focus on mandatory practices, while over the long-term, they need to be prepared to support employees and the business which will require versatility that may not have been required in the past.

As an executive of a large multinational recently told The Wall Street Journal: “We couldn’t keep employees very long if we weren’t attentive to their personal lives and professional aspirations.”

Welcome to the new deal, or what we’re calling, The Great Reassessment.

The good news is that the vax/testing mandate provides clarity and deflects a major onus from employers. But it requires them to be the enforcers, tracking vaccinations and testing results, fielding complaints from employees, then managing the fallout that comes from a positive test result.

Large employers will feel the pain at scale; smaller ones will struggle to operationalize these new practices in an efficient way. No employer will be immune from the complexities.

The game is on

In other words, the Biden vaccine mandate is a “game on!” moment. The winners will be those employers who create more efficient processes and/or more flexible policies.

For example, if an employee is already on the fence about changing jobs and does not want to follow their current employer’s mandatory vaccination policy, they may opt to leave for a company that offers testing in lieu of vaccination. (Job switchers are reportedly the vast majority of job quitters.)

The reverse could happen too; there are many employees who want to work in the safest environment possible; they will seek out an employer who requires vaccination.

In either case, employers cannot afford to lose employees at a time when there are millions more job openings than workers to fill them.

What can employers do?

So what can the employer do, right now? Ensure that pay is equitable and competitive, for a start. They should also double-check that their benefits are comprehensive and meaningful, and that employees feel a sense of inclusivity and belonging.

In addition to these “big three” initiatives, companies will need to benchmark their offerings and regularly survey their employees in order to know what areas require focus.

Don’t fall behind

This is the most dynamic job market we’ve seen in our lifetimes. Americans are reassessing their priorities on a regular basis. Many want to slow down and be more present in daily life. They’re looking for a way to earn a living while enjoying free time, family, friends, and hobbies. Employees who sense a lack of flexibility or are unable to dedicate time to what matters to them suddenly have a lot of options. To keep them from dropping out, their employers must figure out how to offer flexibility in all types of jobs, even hourly shift positions – and fast!

While we await a final court decision regarding Biden’s vaccine mandate, employers are adding these pending requirements to the long list of people policy, process, and practice changes they have been buried in since March 2020.

Ms. Winans is the Chief Executive Officer and Principal HR Consultant for Next Level Benefits.

The post What the Biden vaccine mandate means for employers – and how to manage it appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

What can you do? Here are five ideas to help you build an agile recruitment process, and hire when there aren’t extra people and extra dollars in the budget.

1. Target your recruiting efforts

The big job boards cost a lot of money and provide access to a wide variety of candidates. However, you don’t need a wide variety of candidates – you need candidates to fill your positions. Who cares how many plumbers there are in Pomona when you’re recruiting accountants in Akron?

Focus your recruiting efforts and money on niche job boards and through networking. You need to find people who can and want to do the jobs you need to fill. Narrowing your search can help you find those people.

2. Utilize your current employees’ networks

Everyone talks about networking to find a job, but you also need to use networking to fill positions. Who is likely to know a bunch of people that do X? Why, people who work for you that also do X!

Many companies have employee referral programs to help encourage people to refer their former colleagues, and that can be a reasonably inexpensive – and quicker – way to gather candidates. But, you can go a step further and ask hiring managers to take a look through their own networks and see what they can find. Have them look at their LinkedIn connections and see if anyone seems qualified.

This part of agile recruitment has another distinct advantage: Hiring managers know what they are looking for better than a recruiter can know, so if the hiring manager looks through contacts, something may pop out that a recruiter would overlook.

3. Focus on your current staff

Yes, we were talking about hiring, but too many companies make the mistake of focusing on hiring new people and forgetting about your current employees. For every employee you keep, that’s one less person you have to hire!

Take a look at what it takes to get new people in the door and make sure your current employees have that salary and benefit level. If all your competitors offer sign-on bonuses for new hires, your employees may jump ship if you can’t provide a stay bonus.

This seems like it costs a lot of money, right when you’re trying to stay lean, but what costs more?

• Giving a stay bonus and a raise to a current employee who does a good job and is already fully ramped and trained; or
• Going through the recruiting process, offering a market rate salary and a sign-on bonus to someone new?

And keep in mind you then have to train that person. No matter how experienced this person is, they still have to learn your systems and methods. It’s always cheaper to retain than it is to recruit.

4. Ask the employees themselves

Sometimes employees have insights that managers (especially senior managers) don’t have. This isn’t because managers are bad – it’s just that sometimes they don’t understand the day-to-day. They’re not in the trenches, after all.

When trying to run agile recruitment, ask the people who do the daily running what they need. Maybe no one sees a need for a senior team leader for their group because Jane is handling it well, and everyone likes her. Perhaps everyone wants the most is a group administrative assistant to help with the paperwork.

While it’s true that managers have a more empirical perspective of what’s needed and what’s not needed – but you won’t fully know unless you ask employees as well. Forget about traditional structures and ask away. You may be surprised how much you learn where you can cut back and which positions you need to target immediately.

5. Put the money where it counts

Often companies have salary budgets, travel budgets, and facilities budgets, and they cannot take money from one category to pay another.

Why?

What is the most important thing to your company? The default reaction is “the people!” That is probably true, but it doesn’t have to be. It depends on what your company does and what product or service you produce. It may be that the best use of your money is something that will automate tasks (including in recruitment itself), meaning you can have a smaller headcount.

But, I’ll tell you what it almost surely is not: your location.

Sure, location, location, location. But, with many people wanting (and expecting) to work from home and fewer people willing to do a long commute, having that downtown office space may not be the best use of your budget.

Of course, not all companies can or should have a fully remote workforce, but you need to consider the rent costs of where you are when you’re attempting to recruit people. If your employees commute long distances, moving to where they live may be better. If many jobs can be done at home, maybe a smaller office is in order.

Focus your money on the most important thing – which is probably your employees.

Recruiting isn’t easy at any time, but with tight budgets and high salary demands, it can be even more complicated than usual. Hopefully, some of these elements supporting an agile recruiting process will help you get through it.

The post The agile recruitment process: hiring with leaner teams and budgets appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Note: Workable’s Hiring Pulse also identifies a drop in candidates per hire:

Some companies and industries are certainly faring better than others, but the hundreds of customers and HR leaders I’ve talked to throughout this year all agree – this job market is unlike anything they’ve seen before.

Fortunately, after a year of this upturned hiring market, there may finally be some glimmers of hope. No, it’s not that employees aren’t going to stop quitting. The latest quit numbers are still at record highs and those types of numbers don’t just fall off overnight.

An opportunity for employers

There might just be something like a “Great Return” in our future. Meaning, the tide will turn – at least somewhat – back to employers’ favor and a portion of those millions of workers who quit are going to come back to their old jobs, industries, and careers.

That’s what I and other company leaders are thinking – and hoping for – right now. And while it’s too early to know for sure how it’ll happen, lots of employees who quit this year will return (or be willing to return) under the right conditions. Most of those conditions have to do with aspects of the employee experience that were already outdated or broken.

So, based on what I know about the employee experience and how it’s played a role this past year, these are the three conditions I can see bringing talent back after the Great Resignation:

1) Company culture issues are being addressed

First off, the company culture issues that drove employees away in the first place have been addressed.

Health concerns, toxic team members, poor management, low pay, employee burnout, lack of career growth, lack of diversity and inclusion – these are all top reasons workers have been quitting their jobs during the pandemic. Notice that these are all factors that companies can change and improve as long as they make a real effort.

Whether that means creating new systems and policies, investing in management and skills training, and/or letting go of toxic team members, now’s the time to face these issues head on or else continue to experience talent struggles.

For employees who were otherwise satisfied with their role but “rage-quit” due to one of these culture issues, you can likely lure them back by focusing on fixing what was broken and creating a positive culture where they can thrive. Employees who haven’t completely abandoned their careers might find their way back.

2) Work-life flexibility is now supported

Secondly, employees are getting the work-life flexibility they need in their lives, in location and schedule.

The shift to remote work last year turned out to be a really great setup for many workers and just as productive as in-office work. Employees got so accustomed to it that many decided to quit instead of give up working from home.

It’s important to note though, that it’s not that people wanted to trade in office life with working at home in their pajamas. What they really wanted was the flexibility and freedom that remote work affords them. No more long daily commutes, more opportunity to be with and care for loved ones, choice in where, when and how they work, all while saving money and escaping from office distractions and micromanagement.

Companies that give employees this freedom and flexibility (and set employees up for success through things like remote-friendly internal processes and a remote stipend) will definitely see more workers returning and staying than those that don’t. You can already see companies recognizing this by the uptick in remote jobs and companies going fully remote or hybrid.

3) Comp is now more attractive

And finally – compensation packages and perks are actually competitive and enticing for employees, as well as meaningful and inclusive.

Being underpaid and given odd random perks like ping pong tables and gift cards (or nothing at all) were sadly the norm before the pandemic. And since employers have long held bargaining power in the job market, workers had no choice but to accept it.

Well, the tables have completely turned and candidates now have the upperhand. Demand is so high for workers nowadays that there’s a growing trend of candidates ghosting companies because what companies are offering – in pay, benefits, hours, or other conditions of the job – simply isn’t competitive.

To get workers to return, it’s time to offer pay that actually goes above and beyond market rates and give personalized perks that employees would actually enjoy.

How to offer competitive pay doesn’t need explaining, but perks are more complicated since every employee has unique needs and preferences. A great solution is to offer one or more flexible stipends to help set your company’s compensation package apart.

For example, you can offer a monthly health & wellness stipend that employees can use however they want to support their own wellness journey from emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, etc. This variety of health support is crucial in times like these and leading companies like Microsoft, Webflow, EventBrite, and Investopedia all offer wellness stipends to their employees.

Another idea is to offer a remote stipend that covers employee costs for everything employees would get in an office such as food, internet, technology, productivity, and learning, where they get to choose everything themselves. With more employees working remotely and expecting the company they work for to be fair and inclusive, this would both surprise and entice workers who are searching for greener pastures.

Conclusion

There’s no denying that we’re in an era where employees are seeking change in their work lives and are more than willing to pursue it. For many employees who have decided to leave their jobs for different career paths or for early retirement, that’s exactly the right move for them.

However, I’m willing to bet that for the large number of workers who quit that don’t fall under those two categories, many will make a return to what they left behind under the right conditions.

If your company addresses these three conditions above, you’ll be a top contender in recruiting the talent that’s so difficult to hire these days and also be more successful at keeping the talent you already have.

Amy Spurling is the CEO of Compt.io, an employee stipends platform that offers flexibility in perks and benefits for employees.

The post A ‘Great Return’? 3 conditions that may bring talent back appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

There are very few reasons for a candidate to apply for a job if the salary is below their threshold:

The real question is, if you want to attract top talent with high potential, should salaries be included in the job description?

As an embedded recruitment firm, the ACELR8 team works with a wide range of clients from a variety of industries. Despite this variety, there are many common themes that play a big part in creating a solid hiring strategy. One of the most well-worn paths is the discussion on salaries.

Should salaries be mentioned in job descriptions? Should it come up only in the interview stage?

Or, should they be not mentioned at all until the job offer stage?

It’s a hot-button topic right now and you’re looking for answers. To learn more, ACELR8 polled its talented team of recruiters to find those answers for you:

A third of our recruiters maintain that salaries should be shared only later in the hiring process, while twice as many believed the opposite.

To learn more, ACELR8’s Head of Marketing, Milda Skladaityte, posted the same question on LinkedIn. Here, things were a little different.

Out of 582 votes, an overwhelming majority of 91% wanted to see the salary in the job description.

This is an interesting finding, because it shows that there are completely opposing views on the market. At first, this may seem off the mark, but when you look at the reasons why, the issue becomes a lot clearer.

So, we spoke with Sara Bent, the recruitment lead at Hotjar, to learn more about Hotjar’s opinion on disclosing salaries.

“When I first started with Hotjar, I set us up with a Glassdoor account. The interview reviews that came through on it quickly highlighted one main area causing a negative candidate experience,” Sara explained.

“With candidates who we wanted to move forward with beyond the initial application stage, we’d email them to ask about their minimum compensation expectations. Our intention with this was to be sure that we would only move forward with candidates who fit within our compensation banding; we wouldn’t want to waste a candidate’s time if we knew we couldn’t match their expectations.

The Glassdoor reviews, though, made it clear that a lot of candidates felt we were doing this to ‘lowball’ them – plus these extra emails could add days to a candidate’s recruitment journey.”

That conclusion motivated Sara to be more open about salaries in job ads. And the response was quick and favorable.

“So, based on candidate feedback and guided by our own core value of building trust with transparency, we made the decision to immediately start posting all compensation ranges onto job descriptions. If we use the Glassdoor reviews as a measure of success, this change did seem to immediately make a positive difference to our candidates’ experience.”

Salaries are a tough topic to negotiate and discuss, and it’s often easy to scare away or disincline candidates. What Sara found, though, was that asking for feedback and adjusting processes to suit the candidate’s expectations was a quick, insightful, and easy step to take.

To learn more about people’s reasonings behind salaries and job descriptions, we asked our recruiters more questions. Let’s start with why many recruiters believe salaries should be disclosed in job descriptions.

Salaries in job ads: the argument for

Another recruiter made it clear – it’s about being transparent.

“I believe that transparency in hiring is the most important value. I believe that if we are hiding the salary, we know we pay less than we should or we are not transparent internally. Also, it may be that people in the company earn less than we are now offering to the new candidates.”

Transparency is a vital aspect of a well-run business. If everyone is on the same page and respects each other, the culture of the company will undoubtedly improve.

By disclosing the salary at the very beginning of the process, you start off on the right track – by creating trust. As said above, this not only allows the potential hire to understand their financial position, it can also give current employees an insight into the salary structure of the company.

This, in turn, mitigates any risk for attrition.

Moving with the times

Another important factor to take into consideration is that approaches and attitudes to disclosing salaries have changed considerably in recent years.

Another recruiter, Jonathan, explains:

“It’s something of an archaic taboo in my view,” Jonathan says. “Pay is often tied in with feelings of self-worth, so to openly discuss it manifests as either an ego boost or feeling undervalued.”

Candidates are also at a major disadvantage when it comes to salary disclosure, he adds.

“What has happened is people no longer have any real grasp of salary banding from industry to industry or role to role. The only people who know what the correct salary expectations broadly are, are recruiters. People generally have no idea whether they are under or overpaid…who can they compare to?”

And opening up that discussion from the get-go can make significant positive differences – not just for the individual candidate but overall benefits as well.

“If salaries, stock options, etc. were openly disclosed, people would then have a critical piece of intelligence required to make important career decisions. We would all be able to clearly see what is happening in the marketplace. It would also oust any disparities on account of gender, age, race or religion.”

These are some excellent points that lead to a much larger issue of diversity, equity, and inclusion. By creating a more transparent salary structure, everyone, including outside candidates, gets a better understanding of their financial self-worth.

In all, disclosing salary expectations allows for a level playing field and a transparent hiring process that ensures that time is not wasted and equal opportunities, both internally and externally, can be achieved.

Let’s look at the counter-argument. While disclosing salary does save time at the outset, but there are many eye-opening implications from our recruiters.

Salaries in job ads: the argument against

“I think companies have much more than a salary to offer … a remote-work policy, stock option, different benefits,” says another recruiter in the network. “It’s a complicated topic because I also see a potential benefit in having the salary on the job description.”

The modern company has to offer more than just a good salary. Remote-first working, equity options, and a whole host of other benefits can be just as important to potential hires.

For example, an early-stage startup will often not be able to compete with an established company for talent due to its lack of resources. However, incentives such as equity, bonuses, and remote work can level the playing field. Disclosing the salary may skew the candidate’s impression of the full value of the position.

Another recruiter shared three reasons why disclosing the salary may be problematic:

1. The salary can put people off of applying if it is too low or below current salaries. Then, the company also gets a reputation in the market for underpaying.
2. It can encourage juniors or unqualified people to apply to more senior roles if they are attracted just by salary and the bands are too high.
3. It can run into situations at the end of a process if you offer 80k but the candidate sees the band pays up to 90k.

Overall, disclosing the salary puts the ball in the court of the candidate. It can lead to a glut of unsuitable candidates applying for the role, can affect the reputation of the company, and can also make closing the deal significantly more difficult.

Competitive issues

Another issue that may arise is that competing companies will see your offered salary and now know the benchmark for out-offering you.

Yet, while disclosing all your cards early in the game certainly gives the other players an advantage, it also avoids spending time on candidates who are unsuitable for the role.

There is also the issue of under-offering. If a company discloses their salary offer in the job description and it is much lower than the expected amount desired by the client, they won’t bother applying for the job.

In all of these situations, it’s important to remember to take things on a case-by-case basis. Every employer is different, and one rule does not apply to all. Take the time to understand what your company really needs, and approach the salary dilemma from there.

The issue of salary trends

The other aspect of the salary issue comes into what we’ve discussed previously: salary trends are changing fast.

2020 and 2021 have been two of the most paradigm-shifting years in hiring trends, communication methods, and work environments. A large population of the world had to change their work habits, and so they have become used to a certain style of employment.

Now, many people are leaving old jobs which do not adhere to their desired lifestyle, creating a boom in candidates and employers vying for position. This has led to a wide series of changes, including in the world of salaries and salary estimates. Again, we asked recruiters what they thought.

To the future: salary trends in 2022

“Aside from a competitive salary, companies need to offer competitive benefits to stay ahead,” says one recruiter. “These can include remote work, hybrid, flexi-work, company equity, family days/additional sick days, mental health days, remote office set-up allowance, learning and development budget and room for career growth.”

As above, salary is not the one carrot which you can use to lure a great candidate into your company. After COVID, people have higher expectations for work-life balance and the availability of remote work – this is documented along with the importance of compensation in the Great Discontent study released in September 2021.

By creating a progressive offering and work environment, you can attract exceptional talent that is looking for those freedoms and benefits.

Another issue in regards to the shift of work to remote is the issue of salaries. Hiring has gone global – EU-based candidates that would recently have had no chance of getting a role with a German company, for instance, can now count on being considered.

One recruiter explains:

“A thing I have noticed is that as remote work soars, candidates who are working remotely for San Francisco/Silicon Valley start-ups are getting paid San Francisco salaries and they then will expect this level of compensation in Europe.”

Now, when you’re hiring, you have the entire globe as a talent pool. This issue is only going to become more widespread as time goes on. The world is more interconnected than ever before, and it is up to you to learn how to adjust your hiring strategy to counteract this.

Learn more about the global talent market in our podcast or read about it here.

Choose wisely

In the end, the choice of whether to disclose the salary or not is up to you and your hiring team. But, hopefully, this article has helped to shed some light on the pros and cons of each situation.

A high salary posting can certainly attract excellent candidates, but it’s important to ensure you can foot the bill when it comes to the offer stage. Additionally, the only way of maintaining this appraisal is to create a transparent salary structure throughout your company. This avoids issues of unfair pay, employee morale problems, and general miscommunication.

When it comes to keeping your cards close and not mentioning the salary, make sure that you are supplementing that with another attractor important to candidates. Excellent candidates will only respond to well-thought-out and attractive job descriptions. Promote your company values and ambitions to entice top talent into the application process before they even think of the salary.

Again, in the modern world of recruitment, salary is not everything; other benefits can become even more important to candidates – especially issues such as remote working or flexible hours.

Take the time to really understand the job position – who is the ideal candidate? Will they respond better to a high salary or company equity? Are there other benefits which haven’t been considered yet?

The world of recruitment is dynamically changing, and it’s important for each company to take a deep, introspective look at how they want to hire. Jobs descriptions need to be more than just salary postings now. Although, statistically, it may seem as though the public wants to make sure salaries stay present.

Above all: stay transparent, don’t overpromise, and remember to keep an open mind.

Lewis Mc Cahill is the Content Marketing Manager for ACELR8. With over half a decade of experience, he has worked with a range of major brands and upcoming startups alike. With ACELR8, he is helping push the Embedded Recruitment Model forward with the help of the rest of the marketing team.

The post Should you include salary in a job description? Let’s talk! appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

But how do you get them to apply to your open roles? As anyone in sales knows, getting someone’s attention is easy enough. But getting them actively interested is another thing altogether.

Once you have an interaction with a passive candidate lined up, you need to first understand what would excite them about a job in your company. We’ve already done that research for you. Let’s dive in!

Want to see all the data in one place? Check out the full infographic below or download it for your own files.

The law of attraction

Think about passive candidate attraction in terms of magnets. For them to move to you, your company’s “magnet” needs to be stronger than their existing company’s magnet.

So, what are the primary properties of a company magnet that would pull a passive candidate into a new direction? Let’s take a look.

Job attractors

Passive candidates in the UK would be very attracted to jobs that offer work flexibility and competitive compensation. If they care about training, they’re likely already actively looking.

Employer attractors

And what about companies themselves? Passive candidates are interested in companies that have a strong moral and social foundation – company mission / vision / values and social / environmental / DEI engagement and action rank very high among passive candidates. Company culture is big as well.

The law of retention

Now, let’s look at their existing company’s magnetic qualities. Not everyone wants to move to a new job. They’re fine with where they are, but there are some “nice to haves” that would boost their loyalty to a company.

Here’s your opportunity: when talking with passive candidates, highlight those “nice to haves” and promote them as already existing in your own company, and you might attract them to your open roles.

So what are those “nice to haves”? Let’s have a look:

Job retainers

If your company promotes the potential for advancement within its ranks, that’s a huge attractor for both passive and active candidates – but the biggest difference is seen in those who cited compensation as something that could be better in their existing job.

Employer retainers

Passive candidates aren’t loving their current company’s level of transparency or responsiveness to individual worker concerns. The same holds true for overall company culture, executive leadership and social / environmental / DEI engagement and action, all of which could play a role in attracting them to your own company.

We hope these insights are helpful to you. You can also read more about passive candidates and how to source them. Personalizing your outreach is very important as well.

Also consider updating your careers page and fine-tuning your job descriptions so they engage a potential candidate’s best interests.

Check out our other infographic to understand who these candidates are and where they’re actually working. And what about passive candidate attraction in the UK? We have that covered too.

In the meantime, you can save time and resources using powerful AI-driven tools to source the best candidates for your company. For instance, Workable’s AI Recruiter automatically sources the best 50 candidates for every job from a diverse pool of 400 million-plus potential jobseekers worldwide.

The post INFOGRAPHIC: How do you pull passive candidates in the UK? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Want to see all the data in one place? Check out the full infographic below or download it for your own files.

And there’s a lot of them out there. Our recent Great Discontent survey of UK workers found that 45.1% are passively open to new opportunities.

But, before reaching out to passive candidates, let’s first understand who they are so you know who you’re dealing with.

So who are these passive candidates?

Passive candidates by sector

Let’s start with where they’re working. If you’re hiring in tech, logistics / supply chain, education, or healthcare, passive candidates are your opportunity to get ahead.

Interestingly, no sectors showed more active than passive jobseekers in the UK.

Passive candidates by company size

The larger the company, the more likely they’ll have far more passive than active candidates. Although all company sizes showed more passive than active candidates, those in the 500-999 FTE range showed the most even balance between both.

Now, let’s look at their actual jobs:

Passive candidates by function

Those working in product, service / customer support, and operations are more set in their roles but they’re open to talking about a new job.

Those working in recruitment are the polar opposite – they’re very much actively looking!

Passive candidates by job level

If you’re hiring for senior positions – especially VP level – the majority of those are actively looking, as well as those at the entry level. Managers, directors, individual contributors, and executives are much more passive.

That last group also includes owners – perhaps they’re happy to take on a job rather than deal with all the hassle of running a company, but not actively looking (yet)?

Passive candidates by job status

Full-time workers and those working for themselves are the most passive of all job statuses – likely because they’re in a good situation at the moment.

But to the previous point about owners, perhaps those working for themselves are likewise open to taking on a full-time paid position so they don’t have to run their own operation.

And finally, their demographics:

Passive candidates by age

The most passive age group in the UK job market is in the 50-59 year range – in other words, those likely to be already established in career and life and nearing retirement, but perhaps still open to one more job jump.

Meanwhile, the youngest adult cohort is more actively hunting for new work opportunities.

Passive candidates by minority status

One of the demographic questions we asked in the survey was; “Do you identify as a member of a minority group (be it race, ethnicity, language, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation, gender, or another characteristic)?”.

We found that those identifying as a non-minority are more likely to be simply curious about other jobs but not outright applying. And those identifying as a minority are more actively looking and far less settled in their existing roles – perhaps because they’ve decided their current situation is no longer acceptable or tenable.

Passive candidates by gender

Those identifying as male are far more likely to be passive than active candidates than their female counterparts. Females are either more actively looking or not looking at all.

And importantly, the reason why they might be open to new work:

Workers who are looking for a better balance between their work and home lives are far more likely to be passive candidates. The same rings true for those interested in career progression and those who see more work opportunities out there than in hte past.

The opposite is true for those who need more support in their work – those candidates are much more likely to be actively looking.

We hope you found these insights helpful. You can also read more about passive candidates and how to source them. Personalizing your outreach is very important as well.

Check out our other infographic to understand what would attract these candidates to a job with you. And what about passive candidate identities in the US? We have that covered too.

In the meantime, you can save time and resources when utilizing powerful AI-driven tools to source the best candidates for your company.

The post INFOGRAPHIC: 45% of UK workers are passive candidates. Who are they? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

But how do you get them to apply to your open roles? As anyone in sales knows, getting someone’s attention is easy enough. But getting them actively interested is another thing altogether.

Before interacting with them, you need to understand what would excite them about a job in your company. We’ve already done that research for you. Let’s dive in!

Want to see all the data in one place? Check out the full infographic below or download it for your own files.

The law of attraction

Think about passive candidate attraction in terms of magnets. For them to move to you, your company’s “magnet” needs to be stronger than their existing company’s magnet.

So, what are the primary properties of a company magnet that would pull a passive candidate into a new direction? Let’s take a look.

Job attractors

Passive candidates would be very attracted to jobs that offer work flexibility and have plenty of day-to-day logistical support. Oh, and compensation is big as well. They don’t care as much about training – if they do, they’re likely already actively looking.

Employer attractors

And what about companies themselves? Passive candidates can be attracted if your company is transparent with employees, possesses a healthy company culture, and has great leadership.

The law of retention

Now, let’s look at their existing company’s magnetic qualities. Not everyone wants to move to a new job. They’re fine with where they are, but there are some “nice to haves” that would make a difference in their loyalty to a company.

You do have an opportunity here: when talking with passive candidates, target those “nice to haves” and promote them as already existing in your own company, and you might attract them to your open roles.

So what are those “nice to haves”? Let’s have a look:

Job retainers

If your company actively supports its employees at work and offers job security and advancement potential, that’s a positive attractor as many passive candidates wish they had those in their existing role. Salary, perks and benefits are of course big as well.

Employer retainers

Passive candidates aren’t loving their current company’s social and environmental positioning, or even reputation. They’d also like to see better leadership, transparency and overall company culture where they currently work.

We hope these insights are helpful to you. You can also read more about passive candidates and how to source them. Personalizing your outreach is very important as well.

Also consider updating your careers page and fine-tuning your job descriptions so they engage a potential candidate’s best interests.

Check out our other infographic to understand who these candidates are and where they’re actually working. And what about passive candidate attraction in the UK? We have that covered too.

In the meantime, you can save time and resources using powerful AI-driven tools to source the best candidates for your company. For instance, Workable’s AI Recruiter automatically sources the best 50 candidates for every job from a diverse pool of 400 million-plus potential jobseekers worldwide.

The post INFOGRAPHIC: How do you lure passive candidates in the US? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

We’re seeing unprecedented quit levels in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That means a lot of backfilling – perhaps for roles with you as well.

But there’s one potential solution. Have you considered reaching out to passive candidates? They may not be actively looking, but they’re open to a conversation. More so, they may not even know they want to work for you until you talk with them first.

Want to see all the data in one place? Check out the full infographic below or download it for your own files.

And there’s a lot of them out there. Our recent Great Discontent survey of US workers found that 37.3% are passively open to new opportunities.

But, before reaching out to passive candidates, let’s first understand who they are so you know who you’re dealing with.

So who are these passive candidates?

Passive candidates by sector

Let’s start with where they’re working. If you’re hiring in accounting, education, retail, or healthcare, passive candidates are your opportunity to get ahead. Supply chain, tech and design have the most active jobseekers.

Passive candidates by company size

The larger the company, the more likely they’ll have far more passive than active candidates. But the sweet spot for candidates in general are in the 100-999 FTE range.

Now, let’s look at their actual jobs:

Passive candidates by function

Passive candidates by job level

If you’re hiring for senior positions – especially VP level – the majority of those are actively looking. Managers, directors, and individual contributors are less active.

Passive candidates by job status

Unsurprisingly, full-time workers are the most passive of all job statuses – likely because they’re in a good situation at the moment. That doesn’t mean they’re not open to a new opportunity though.

And finally, their demographics:

Passive candidates by age

The most passive age groups in the job market are in the 40-59 year range – in other words, those likely to be already established in career and life – whereas the youngest adult cohort is very actively hunting for new work opportunities.

Passive candidates by minority status

One of the demographic questions we asked in the survey was; “Do you identify as a member of a minority group (be it race, ethnicity, language, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation, gender, or another characteristic)?”.

We found that those identifying as a non-minority are more likely to be fine where they are, but open to conversations about other jobs. And those identifying as a minority are more actively looking and far less settled in their existing roles – perhaps because they’ve decided their current situation is no longer acceptable or tenable.

Passive candidates by gender

Among those who consider themselves available for new jobs, those identifying as female are more likely to be passive than active candidates. There are studies finding women to be less aggressive in applying for new opportunities, which may be a factor.

And importantly, the reason why they might be open to new work:

Interestingly, those who see more work opportunities out there than in the past are also more likely to be passive candidates. That’s also the case for workers who need more balance between their home and work lives.

We hope you found these insights helpful. You can also read more about passive candidates and how to source them. Personalizing your outreach is very important as well.

Check out our other infographic to understand what would attract these candidates to a job with you. And what about passive candidate identities in the UK? We have that covered too.

Most of all: you can save time and resources when utilizing powerful AI-driven tools to source the best candidates for your company.

The post INFOGRAPHIC: 37% of US workers are passive candidates. Who are they? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Those organizations that are taking their diversity and inclusion efforts seriously should understand that one area makes up a crucial part of it – positive discrimination. When done right, it has the potential to holistically improve your company’s diversity hiring practices.

Since diversity in the workplace continues to be held back due to recruitment biases, positive discrimination is even more important to further the cause. Let’s get to it then, shall we? #DEI 101!

What is positive discrimination?

The first thing that comes to mind when I hear the term “positive discrimination” is the lack of awareness around this subject. What does it mean, where does it stem from, why is it needed, and is it even OK to add this to your company’s DEI policies?

By definition, positive discrimination refers to preferential treatment demonstrated with the intent of bringing an underrepresented group (who possess one or more protected characteristics) to a level of equity in the workplace.

Whether positive or negative, it still is discrimination of some kind. Why should we do it then?

To understand why positive discrimination is required, we need to educate ourselves about equity, equality, and how they differ from each other. Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities, which takes into account an ideal situation where all people are equal.

Addressing the imbalance of marginalized groups in our workplaces is only possible through equity. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the necessary resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.

For a better understanding of these terms, let’s look at two examples:

1. A community meeting, where all members of the community are invited, about a local environmental health concern is held in English although 30% of the residents do not speak English.
2. At another community meeting, the community leaders hire translators to attend the meeting or offer an additional meeting held in another language.

The first case treats everyone the same (equally), which does not guarantee a positive outcome for all the members. The second instance recognizes the individual needs of the members and takes proactive steps to meet those needs equitably.

My first-hand experience with the above:

Over a period of time, I’ve personally experienced situations at work where I’ve had to learn, and then unlearn to strongly move away from the word ‘equality’ and associate the word ‘equity’ with inclusion and diversity instead. Coming from this place, I believe in positively discriminating for ‘equity’.

More about protected characteristics

Positive discrimination can apply to any person who has at least one of the protected characteristics. The policy was put into place in the 1960s to level the playing field for historically discriminated/overlooked groups. There are nine protected characteristics that fall under this policy:

1. Age
2. Disability
3. Gender reassignment
4. Marriage or civil partnership
5. Pregnancy and maternity
6. Race
7. Sex
8. Religion or belief
9. Sexual orientation

Examples of positive discrimination in the workplace

Positively discriminating for equity can lead to dramatically good outcomes for marginalized communities. The practices a company implements to foster inclusion in the workplace directly help in fostering positive discrimination in the workplace. Examples of positive discrimination that I’ve personally seen are:

• Hiring drive specifically for women candidates to increase the pool of candidates at the source and further gender (women) diversity
• Specific career development program for women, to increase the pipeline and gender ratio of women senior leaders at the top

Such practices help you understand the gaps in your workforce and improve workforce equity so you will be better equipped to make strategic hiring decisions.

What we do at HackerEarth

At HackerEarth, our intent and approach focus on inclusion with the end goal of achieving equity in the workplace. Keeping this at the heart of whatever we do, here are some policies we enforce at work:

• Under our leave policy, we include period leaves for women and paternity leaves for one month
• Employee insurance coverage offers same-sex partner inclusion as part of the policy

We hold awareness sessions specifically to talk about how to use the correct gender pronouns, spread awareness about gender stereotypes and the need to accept non-binary employees into the workforce, and touch upon inclusive behaviors in the workplace, among other topics

My first-hand experience with the above:

Ironically enough, when we first started discussing including period leave in our leave policy, I was hesitant. There were two reasons for this – one was that periods don’t give me acute pain/cramps or discomfort so I can handle it pretty well. The other was we would be showing preference to one gender by giving time off so should we also do something for men, just to keep it even?

I had to think, assess, and justly accept that we have our differences and similarities, despite being of the same gender. While all women have periods, not all react in the same way, which is exactly why we need to provide individual resources based on need. And the same can be said for men. As genders, we are biologically different and will require a separate set of resources to attain the end goal of equality and foster an inclusive workplace.

This was my first brush with the equity vs. equality conflict and needless to say, I’ve been on the side of equitable policies ever since.

Ways to positively discriminate

1. Do your DEI research

Before you blindly start on your DEI journey, you should do your research. Companies must educate themselves on where they currently stand in their diversity hiring, the industry research of past and present companies, and sociological studies. This helps identify gaps in the existing workforce and a better understanding of the strategy you should devise. Go back to the basics of what diversity and inclusion mean for your company and take it from there.

2. Implement a shared vocabulary

Creating a shared lexicon around the correct pronouns to use, and important DEI concepts they should know in your organization – and explaining meanings – is the first way to establish equity. By incorporating shared vocabulary into the workplace, both employees and employers are more likely to identify what is acceptable and what is not.

3. Select leaders who believe in the cause for equity

Identify champions for DEI and positive discrimination at senior leadership and top management levels. They are the ones that can communicate policies and values top-down, ensure that it is a priority, and be role models for the employees to emulate in their behaviors. Also, the higher levels of a company should reflect the diversity of their employees to be a truly inclusive workplace. The data is clear: DEI leadership is crucial for success.

4. Integrate positive discrimination into your strategy

At HackerEarth, inclusion is at the heart of whatever we do. We believe attaining equity in the workplace does not happen overnight. It has to be woven into the threads of the entire organization to successfully build an inclusive culture. Use a combination of leadership training, behavioral coaching, and planning to integrate positive discrimination for equity into your strategy. Give people the correct language to use, ask them to call out behaviors that are not accepted, and sensitize others towards these behaviors. Don’t restrict spreading awareness to only on the marginalized groups – include concepts like ‘allyship’ and positive discrimination.

5. Keep an ongoing dialogue on positive discrimination

Use research and learnings from other companies to start the conversation with your employees who are invested in this cause. Creating an inclusive workplace is creating an organizational culture of belonging that invites and values the contribution and participation of all their people.

At HackerEarth, this is one of the reasons why I decided to keep an open dialogue going to exchange thoughts, opinions, and ideas from different perspectives on my LinkedIn channel.

A word of caution

Practicing positive discrimination to simply fill a company quota is as harmful as taking up diversity hiring just to meet some numbers. It inadvertently perpetuates bias and affects the morale of a company.

Personally, the trick here is to keep equity at front of mind and not lose sight of that. And then use positive discrimination to create better opportunities and visibility for underrepresented groups.

The main word to place the spotlight on here would be “to be given equal opportunity / visibility.” Use the lens of merit, accordingly for all the candidates in consideration. Practice with intent and not just for the sake of it.

Swetha’s bio in her own words: As an HR professional, I’m fiercely passionate about the value I add to the individuals and teams that I associate myself with. Absolutely enjoy working on organizational development, change and transformation management. ‘Cultural transformation’ and ‘Inclusion’ are a few of my favorite topics to talk about. My personal style and approach come from the interest and passion that I share for art and various forms of mind-body expression. I strongly believe in challenging the status quo, whether it is by standing on my head once every day (read yoga), or by standing up and voicing my opinion on diversity and inclusion in our workplaces.

The post Positive discrimination: What it is and how you can implement it appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Also, when recruiting, you’re not only competing with other companies for candidates. You’re also competing with candidates’ life priorities. People now want work that aligns better with their personal lives – whether that’s family, passion projects, personal plans and ambitions, or something else outside of the daily grind.

Want to see all the data in one place? Check out the full infographic below or download it for your own files.

Yet, many employers don’t seem to be especially attuned to this. A Future Forum Pulse survey in Oct. 2021 finds a major disconnect between decision makers and employees when it comes to return-to-office plans.

This is especially true for those identifying as a woman:

Or as a minority:

But it’s not as simple as offering flexible work arrangements as a company policy. Well – it is that simple, but the idea of flexible working itself is a little more nuanced. Flexible work is actually comprised of two very different things under one umbrella: flexible work schedules and flexible working by location.

And one can exist without the other. As it happens, both are valued – but one much more than the other:

Now here’s where it gets interesting. A significant chunk of respondents in the US think their employer will return to the way things were before the pandemic.

Are you one of them? Perhaps there’s a need for on-location work or on-time work in your industry or sector – which is fully understandable. But perhaps there isn’t – and the only thing holding you to the traditional on-location, 9-to-5 grind is because you’ve always done it that way.

When you have workers who do think they can do their jobs remotely or on their own schedule, perhaps it’s time to evolve your value proposition as an employer.

So, is there a candidate shortage? Maybe not. There’s potentially an employer shortage – in that not enough employers are offering flexibility in the workplace.

This is your opportunity. Adapt and update your policies to support your employees to bring their full selves both to home and the workplace, and you’ll find more candidates knocking at your door.

We hope these insights are helpful to you. You can also learn how to implement flexible work schedules into your workplace and use our flexible working hours policy template to get started.

Also consider updating your careers page and fine-tuning your job descriptions so they engage a potential candidate’s best interests. 

The post INFOGRAPHIC: Flexible work arrangements and US priorities appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Also, when recruiting, you’re not only competing with other companies for candidates. You’re also competing with candidates’ life priorities. People now want work that aligns better with their personal lives – whether that’s family, passion projects, personal plans and ambitions, or something else outside of the daily grind.

Want to see all the data in one place? Check out the full infographic below or download it for your own files.

Yet, many employers don’t seem to be especially attuned to this. A Future Forum Pulse survey in Oct. 2021 finds a major disconnect between decision makers and employees when it comes to return-to-office plans.

In all of this is an emphasis on flexible working in the UK. UK workers want it, according to Workable’s Great Discontent survey:

This is especially true for those identifying as a woman:

But it’s not as simple as offering flexible work as policy. Well – it is that simple, but the idea of flexible work itself is a little more nuanced. Flexible work is actually comprised of two very different things under one umbrella: flexibility in schedule (working hours) and flexibility in location (remote work).

And one can exist without the other. As it happens, both are valued – but one much more than the other:

Now here’s where it gets interesting. A significant chunk of respondents in the UK think their employer will return to the way things were before the pandemic.

Are you one of them? Perhaps there’s a need for on-location work or on-time work in your industry or sector – which is fully understandable. But perhaps there isn’t – and the only thing holding you to the traditional on-location, 9-to-5 grind is because you’ve always done it that way.

When you have workers who do think they can do their jobs remotely or on their own schedule, perhaps it’s time to evolve your value proposition as an employer.

So, is there a candidate shortage? Maybe not. There’s potentially an employer shortage – in that not enough employers are offering flexibility in the workplace.

This is your opportunity. Adapt and update your policies to support your employees to bring their full selves both to home and the workplace, and you’ll find more candidates knocking at your door.

We hope these insights are helpful to you. You can also learn how to implement flexible working hours into your workplace and use our flexible working hours policy template to get started.

Also consider updating your careers page and fine-tuning your job descriptions so they engage a potential candidate’s best interests. 

The post INFOGRAPHIC: Flexible working and talent priorities in the UK appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Hiring managers need to get creative to solve this staffing problem. By doing so, they can solve today’s crisis and address lingering, systemic inequalities in our employment system.

• Look to women to solve the hiring crisis
  • Women are an undertapped resource for hiring teams
  • The unique social and economic burdens on women
• The economic impact of the pandemic
• Women as an undertapped resource
  • 1. Part-time work
  • 2. Flexible and/or remote work
  • 3. Salary
  • 4. Child-care benefits
  • 5. Parental leave programs
• Case study: Working mothers in education
• Why are so many teachers women?
  • 1. School schedules
  • 2. Parental leave policies
  • 3. Benefits

Look to women to solve the hiring crisis

Women are an undertapped resource for hiring teams

Women have overwhelmingly borne the worst of the economic and occupational impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has only worsened existing structural inequalities. Hiring teams have a unique opportunity to tap into this group, which has been largely overlooked as a potential solution to ongoing staffing difficulties. Companies that address barriers to female success at work can take advantage of all they have to offer.

The unique social and economic burdens on women

Women have been economically oppressed for centuries. Only in the last hundred years have women’s rights truly begun to expand: to education and literacy, work, and voting rights. Even when women’s rights began to expand, women of color faced barriers to equality. The effects of these historical inequalities are, in many ways, still felt today:

• Women earn less than men in every professional category tracked by the Department of Labor, including in education, an industry in which women are more than twice as likely than men to work.
• And while women as a whole earn about 82% of men annually, that number is even lower for women of color. Black women with a bachelor’s degree only earn about 65% of what white men with the same education earn.

Under U.S. federal law, women have the right to 12 unpaid weeks of maternity leave, but paid maternity leave varies drastically by employer. Poor labor provisions for new mothers as well as the exorbitant cost of daycare for young children lead many new mothers to exit the workforce completely, often for years at a time.

Working mothers must balance their full- or part-time work with taking care of children and the unpaid labor involved in running a household. Women spend between two and ten times more time on unpaid labor than men.

The economic impact of the pandemic

These were the factors at play when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States in March of 2020. The effects the pandemic has had on gender equality at work are downright chilling. Women’s labor force participation rate, meaning the percentage of adult women who choose to work, fell to an astonishing 55.8%. The last time the number was this low? 1987.

As school went virtual for much of the country, working mothers were put in an impossible bind: find a way to guide their children through virtual school while somehow still working full-time, or quit their jobs. Many chose to leave work, finding maintaining the balance impossible.

Our research found that American women are more than twice as likely than men to cite family duties as the reason they’re not working. In the U.K., women are more than six times (41.7%) as likely as men (6.7%) to say that family priorities keep them from working.

Women lost 5.4 million jobs during the pandemic, compared to 4.4 million for men. This is largely due to so-called ‘pink-collar jobs’; women hold many of the low-wage positions in the United States. In fact, in 2018, 46% of working women were employed in low-wage jobs. A quarter (25%) of working women are mothers of a child under the age of 14, but many of those women struggle to find affordable childcare, with childcare for toddlers averaging $900 per child per month. To learn more about the ways the pandemic is affecting working women, check out our article and infographic.

Jump to the full infographic – or download it for yourself here.

Women as an undertapped resource

This much is certain: our economy is not making use of women’s labor the way it could, and when it does, women are not fairly compensated for their work, experience, and education. The pandemic has worsened existing disparities along racial and gender lines, and hiring professionals in general seem to be overlooking the under- and unemployment of women as an opportunity for recruitment.

But simply recognizing the way that women have been unfairly impacted by the tumultuous work conditions of the pandemic is not enough to execute a solution to ongoing staffing issues. The largest barrier, perhaps, is the fact that for many of the nearly three million women who have left the workforce over the last year, they have no intention to return to the workforce anytime soon.

Even among women who are still employed, a survey from Deloitte found that 60% are planning to leave their jobs in the next two years.

Why? Lack of work-life balance was the number one cited reason that women are planning to leave their jobs.

In order to hire women, companies are going to have to incentivize them to return to work. What will it take to get women to consider rejoining the workforce? Let’s discuss some of the benefits you can offer women to encourage them to join your organization.

1. Part-time work

Many new moms would like to continue working after they have their child, but are faced with an impossible choice: stay home and quit altogether, or return full-time and find a way to afford full-time childcare. Part-time work continues to carry a stigma in the corporate world – and without good reason, because it is actually a potential solution to staffing problems and gendered workplace inequality.

Our survey found that women are more than twice as likely to say they’re currently working part-time than men. If you can’t find candidates to fill your full-time position, consider switching it to a part-time position instead.

2. Flexible and/or remote work

Allowing your employees to work on a flexible schedule can make work far more accessible for working mothers. Consider, for example, the typical 9-5 work day. For parents with children in school, their workday ends after school (with school days typically ending between 2 and 4:30). This can put parents, especially single parents, in a bind. In fact, 44% of women we surveyed said that work flexibility would attract them to a new opportunity, as opposed to just 31.6% of men.

Similarly, 39.7% said they like remote work because it makes it easier to integrate personal and professional priorities. Remote work can be a better option for women who have long been excluded from the workforce due to competing priorities.

3. Salary

Women are motivated by salary and benefits just as men are. In our survey, men were slightly more likely (67.3%) to say that salary attracts them to a new opportunity than women (61.8%).

That being said, consider the cost of child care and the gender wage gap when thinking about salary in the context of employing women and working mothers.

4. Child-care benefits

How can your organization support working parents? Work-life integration is one of the top priorities for working mothers, so to hire women, you’re going to have to show concrete proof that your culture is supportive.

One way to do this could be through offering child-care benefits, such as company or subsidized child-care, or credits for employees with children in child care.

5. Parental leave programs

Do you offer parental leave? How generous is your parental leave program? Generous parental leave shows your employees that you support gender equality.

Why? Because having a child is physically taxing, and inadequate parental leave dismisses the physical and emotional recovery that parents go through following the birth of a child.

With childbirth, household duties, and childcare falling unequally on women, parental leave is one way to balance the scales.

Case study: Working mothers in education

To explore other ways your organization can hire and retain women and working mothers, let’s look at a sector that employs women at one of the highest rates: education.

Nearly nine out of 10 (87%) of primary school teachers in the U.S. are women, according to the World Bank. Teaching is the second-most common profession for American women, after nursing. Women are twice as likely as men to be teachers.

We also know that, overall, one-third of full-time workers care for a child under the age of 18. Compare this to the fact that 48% of teachers have at least one child to care for, and we see that there are more working mothers in education than other professions.

Why are so many teachers women?

There are many factors to consider here. The history of women as teachers may play a role, as might be the fact that women hold more jobs in less traditionally prestigious professions like education.

Some would point to the caregiving and nurturing aspects of teaching as reasons that the profession attracts a high number of female employees.

But perhaps the most compelling theory is that the profession simply fits better structurally with the life of the working mother. Here are a few ways that education sector policy lines up with working parents’ priorities.

1. School schedules

For working parents, corporate schedules that demand presence in an office from 9-5 make it challenging to care for children. Even if the children are school-aged, most school days end between 2 and 4:30 p.m. This leaves working parents scrambling to coordinate expensive daycare or babysitters.

For mothers who work as teachers, their schedules align far more closely with children who are school-aged. In addition to making pick-up and drop-off easier, if a parent works in the same school district where their child goes to school, they share the same school holidays and break schedules. Working mothers are able to care for their children full-time at home during the summer holiday.

2. Parental leave policies

School district policy on parental leave varies dramatically by geographical location. In North Carolina, for example, new parents are entitled to up to a year of unpaid leave following the birth or adoption of a child. This is far more generous than the 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave guaranteed by federal law.

This is just one example, though, and certainly many parents can’t afford to take an unpaid year off of work following the birth of a child.

Some teachers use school schedules to time their pregnancies with summer break to get the most possible time with new children under a system that doesn’t meet their needs.

3. Benefits

Public school teachers, as government employees, generally have access to decent benefits, a must for any working parent. While teachers are underpaid, most school districts offer robust healthcare options and even pensions.

With education offering little prestige and no promise of wealth, the number of educated women choosing to pursue this career path speaks to the other advantages it offers. Organizations looking to bring working mothers back into the workforce can learn from the opportunities and pitfalls of one of the most common professions for women.

Educate your business – in more ways than one

Your company can contribute to ending decades of gendered economic inequality by making your organization a haven for working moms. But in order to get women to return to the workforce, you have to fix what’s broken and address their needs. Shift to align your priorities with working women and you’ll gain the benefit of them as an untapped staffing resource.

The post The education solution: Address gender barriers as an employer appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

They’re there for a reason – to keep the books aligned. The person in charge of finance is an empathetic, patient person with enough organizational skills to ensure that everything is as much balanced at year-end as at year-beginning, and with enough contingency planning in place to allow the company to successfully navigate even the rudest awakenings that befall organizations.

That’s where Craig DiForte comes in as Workable’s CFO. He’s been in the finance biz since graduating with an MBA in Finance from Boston University Questrom School of Business in 2002 and has been managing Workable’s money since 2016.

So, he’s seen a lot in his work. He also knows what costs money and what makes money, and to take it to another level, he knows where money can – and can’t – be spent in order to have it reflect on the bottom line. And mostly, he knows how to make sure it all ties together into a nice bow.

So, according to Craig, here are seven ways you can optimize the recruitment pipeline without getting hit too hard by the actual cost of hiring staff:

1. Communicate, communicate, communicate
2. Measure the process regularly
3. Remember, timing is money
4. Consider different timing processes
5. Plan for the inevitable turnover
6. Implement clear processes
7. Keep checking in

1. Communicate, communicate, communicate

“The one thing you have to make sure that you’ve done,” Craig says, “is that you’ve effectively communicated the plan to all of the hiring managers.”

He explains, using an example: everyone – including the hiring managers – needs to be fully informed on how many they can or need to hire that year. “If your VP of Sales doesn’t know that she only has the budget to hire 20 heads,” he says, “and she opens up a requisition for 30, you’re immediately going to have a problem.”

That scenario is a lot of things, but it’s especially a problem for Finance. This planning conflict will throw the books out of whack because your VP of Sales has put a process in place for something that your budget won’t allow for. Ten additional heads being hired means 10 more salaries than you’ve planned for. And 10 more interview processes that are a time and resource suck for your hiring team. And, of course, there’s the expensive damage control in rolling everything back to the original 20. All of these things cost money and force Finance to move things around to accommodate.

You don’t want that to happen in your company, so you need to make sure everyone is on the same page for absolutely everything. This means meeting regularly, keeping communication channels open and keeping everyone together in the loop as to where you are and where you’re going in the hiring plan.

“You need to make sure that this hiring plan is communicated,” Craig reiterates. “You want to be sure that the plan has been communicated out, and that you’re now executing on it.”

2. Measure the process regularly

You must continually check the pulse of your recruitment process at regular stages, and measure where you’re staying on plan and where you’re going off plan, Craig says.

“Your [hiring] plan basically comes down to the question: ‘Have I hired the people that I meant to hire, at the time that I meant to hire them?’ There’s a timing variance you need to think about.”

Measurement doesn’t just apply to timing and scheduling – true to Craig’s background, he reminds us to look at the actual money being spent on payroll: “Did I hire them at the right salary that I thought I was going to hire them at?” he asks as an example. Again, a slight variance in salary for multiple roles can add up, creating a fresh headache for Finance.

Salary differences isn’t the only flux in the cost of the hiring process: measuring also means looking at reports and identifying the areas where you can optimize the recruiting process.

For example, Craig asks: “What are the savings related to cancelled hires?” Once that’s in place, he says, “then you can have a net hiring plan adjustment number, where you can say; ‘OK, the original hiring plan has 100 people, but we added 15 and took out five, so now we’re really at 110.’”

“The extra cost of doing that is Y, whatever Y happens to be. That’s one metric you want to be able to track,” he says, because you’re going to want to measure your anticipated outcome against your real outcome. “You want to be able to ask, ‘How am I doing against the original plan? And what are my variances?’”

When you look at reports regularly, and identify opportunities for optimization, then you’re tightening up the process and making it move more effectively – making things more cost-effective. You’re not just saving money, you’re also making your existing money go further.

3. Remember: timing is money

Drilling down deeper, Craig says that looking at the savings opportunities in the hiring plan isn’t just about looking at salaries. When you’re looking at the cost of hiring staff or hiring ahead of schedule, you also have an opportunity to cut back costs.

Craig says, “Hiring people too slowly can be a bad thing from a performance standpoint, but it can save you some money because you thought you were going to fill a role in January and you didn’t fill that role until March. That might be a problem from a company performance standpoint – but from a headcount standpoint, you just saved two months’ worth of salary.”

It’s just one example of many, but the intricacies of the many moving parts of the recruitment pipeline are such that money will always play into the overall equation. It’s not so easy to budget for a hiring strategy, particularly since you’re often accounting for unexpected events and benefits.

Crunch those numbers: learn how to calculate recruitment costs for budget planning in our new tutorial.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking timing alone is a valid criterion. For instance, you may need to speed up the hiring process and hire someone earlier than originally planned – despite the cost of doing so – if this means you’ll hire an exceptional candidate who may not be available later.

Or, in some cases, it makes sense to offer a higher salary because of the higher productivity that new employee can bring to the table. You’re not necessarily costing your company money if you paid a higher salary than a competitor – you’re recruiting better talent who will ultimately boost productivity.

In short, keep an eye on timing (when you open up a new requisition and when you hire a new person compared to when you need them), but also factor in these other qualitative and quantitative gains.

Craig explains further: “You need to be able to find the mechanism to take all of those things into consideration to determine; How much am I saving on my hiring plan right now? Or how much am I costing myself more? Because if I’m hiring everybody fast, and I’m hiring them at higher salaries than I thought, I’m costing myself too much money.”

“But maybe,” Craig notes, “I’m making myself more productive. There can be a benefit.”

4. Consider different timing processes

You also have to think about onboarding schedules for new hires and upcoming projects that you’re hiring for. These both take into account the type of roles you’re filling for.

“For instance,” Craig says, “if they’re salespeople, there can be a great benefit to hiring early because they start ramping faster and they’re going to get to full productivity earlier.”

The impact to the bottom line is easily tangible for sales: with more salespeople – particularly if commission-based – you get more sales, and your company is more productive.

But what about engineers? “If you’re hiring an engineer for a certain project that you’re going to work on, but the project doesn’t start until April and you hire them in February, that might not be the best early hire; depending on the project, and the skills of the person you’re hiring, the ramping time can be different in each case.”

Whether you’re hiring ahead or behind, Craig says, it’s a strategic decision based on the role you’re hiring for. You don’t want employee salaries burning a hole in your pocket when they’re not contributing anything to your bottom line or producing anything.

5. Plan for the inevitable turnover

“You’re going to have something come up during the year,” Craig warns. “The ubiquitous backfill. Some people will leave – there’s no getting around it. You’re going to have to replace them.”

Of course, turnover is a real fact of business. But there’s something else impacting the cost of the hiring process: “One of the things that you need to make sure of in your plan is that when you backfill, you’re not adding an extra position.”

This could happen if, for example, “Jane tells you she’s leaving, but gives you a month-long notice and you say, ‘Well, Jane is very important. She has to be replaced.’ So you open a new request for Jane’s replacement while Jane’s still there.”

Which is fine, until: “A month later, Jane actually leaves. Then if you’re not watching your hiring plan, somebody might open a new request for Jane’s replacement because Jane has actually left now,” Craig says.

“That’s how one position turns into two positions. You want to make sure that you have a good process for managing your backfills and how they go into your hiring plan so that you don’t double-count them.”

6. Implement clear processes

“You could have created the greatest budget in the world, and within a month or two months depending upon the industry that you’re in, it will start to go sideways a little bit,” says Craig. “You’ll find out that either because certain people leave or because you come up with new initiatives, or because something changes the economy or the market, that you need either more or less people than you thought you did.”

So, you need to have a procedure in place from the get-go for removing or canceling hires and requests in the hiring plan. You’ll also want to open up some resources – be it time, money, or otherwise – to accommodate unbudgeted hires.

And what’s more, Craig says, you have to have a clear approval process in place. “What’s your process for making sure those [new hires and cancellations] get approved? Sometimes people forget to get approval on both sides of that – they know they need an approval to add a new hire, but they forget they need an approval to remove one.”

And communication, again, is key. “Sometimes they’ll remove one, and then the manager will think they still have a request in place and they’ll try to hire for that role.”

Check out here how GCC Services fosters a more inclusive hiring process with Workable Video Interviews.

7. Keep checking in

We come full circle here: in the spirit of communication, keep checking in with each other on a regular basis. “You need a clear communication and approval process for making sure everyone’s coordinated on how you put in new positions and how you take out positions you decide you don’t need anymore.”

Once you have those kinds of changes, you’re adding another level of complexity to your reporting where, Craig notes, you want to measure, for instance, the added cost of unbudgeted hires.

Again, communication is key, Craig says. And this involves everyone who’s involved in the hiring plan, including HR, Finance and hiring managers. “Plus, the hiring manager should understand clearly what’s happening with their respective teams so people know where they are.”

In the end, your hiring strategy for the upcoming year should be run like a business within the business. Have regular meetings and check-ins with everyone who’s a part of the whole process. “Make sure that you have policies and procedures in place to handle changes to the plan, which could be additions, subtractions, cancellations if you will, or backfill positions. You need to have processes for all three of those.”

And then make sure you have the numbers crunched regularly. “You want to know: what are your metrics and what are you reporting against in terms of total cost-to-hire, total time-to-hire. Then, there’s the other more nuanced pieces that we talked about; that is, how many are you hiring early? How many are you hiring later? What’s the net effect of that on your numbers for your total cost?”

Craig smiles, knowing this is a lot to take in if you want to run things smoothly with an outcome as optimal as possible. What if you don’t have the time to incorporate all of that into your hiring process? Well, he has an answer to that, adding a joke about shamelessly plugging the Workable product: “That’s one of the reasons the Hiring Plan module in Workable is incredibly useful, because everybody has access to the same platform and can check in and see what’s happening at every step of the way.”

That’s a sure-fire way to get Finance on your side in the hiring process. Your work life will be a lot easier in the end, and the bottom line will thank you.

Want to figure out what’s normal and what’s not in your budget calculations for a hiring plan? Check out our tutorial on how to do that.

You can also see Craig and Matt Buckland – who was Workable’s VP of Customer Advocacy for two years – on planning a strategy for high growth in this webinar:

The post Devil in the details: The cost of the hiring process and what you can do about it appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Jobs in retail and healthcare are most at risk for high turnover due to the high demands and stress of working throughout the pandemic that caused irrevocable damage to employee loyalty. The tech industry also saw high turnover rates due to burnout, but they also had more competitive remote work options to turn to.

While it is typical for younger employees to have a higher rate of job turnover, that has recently shifted to employees aged 30-45 years old with an increase in resignations in this group by over 20% between 2020 and 2021. The US Great Discontent survey report also finds that employees in this group are more likely to be passively open to new opportunities than other age groups.

Younger employees are less mobile due to lack of job security while Boomers and Gen Xers are more content with their current employment.

Employers should perform their own self-audit to determine what is causing employees to resign if it does not fall under these more obvious categories.

Certain benefits such as working from home have become a premium in the job market due to the pandemic. As the appeal of juggling two workspaces fades, hybrid jobs do not inspire as much employee loyalty as fully remote jobs – 58% versus 73% employee loyalty. Considering desirable benefits that will inspire loyalty will be necessary to avoid costly high-turnover rates.

The cost of high employee turnover

The cost to replace an employee in terms of marketing the position, paying recruiters, interviewing, relocation costs, signing bonuses, and training the replacement comes to about 33% of an employee’s annual salary according to a retention report by the Work Institute.

It will also take time before the new hire is productive – in other words, the time to ramp, as Workable CFO Craig DiForte describes it – and this factors in lost revenue. These hiring costs can add up when one in three hires leave a company in their first two years and is why it is most beneficial to emphasize best practices for employee retention.

An unfortunate hidden cost of high turnover is that the workload falls on the remaining employees who must pick up the slack until the new hire is up to speed. This can be damaging to staff morale which makes it important to add incentives for those loyal workers who remain before they become resentful.

How to improve employee loyalty and retention

For the employees who remain loyal it is important to recognize when they go above and beyond their job description, especially for those who are responsible for training new hires and picking up the slack. Workers who feel appreciated by their supervisors – and are well-compensated – are more likely to stay. This, again, is confirmed in the Great Discontent survey, with two-thirds of US workers saying they need to make more money as a reason why they’re looking elsewhere.

One proactive solution is to incorporate team-building exercises because keeping employees happy translates to higher productivity which is the ultimate goal. Employers will need to make time in their schedule to be accessible and communicate with their team either at work or at more relaxed employee excursions like going to a sporting event, playing mini-golf, or participating in an escape room experience.

There are other ways to make employees happy that do not cost anything. Some workers simply desire career mobility and transparency about how they can grow in their roles at work. Providing job training and a clear path to career advancement are important to keeping loyal employees – 47% of survey respondents reported that feeling stagnant in their roles was the main reason for looking for a new job that had more opportunities for growth and fulfilment.

Hiring and recruiting strategies

Hiring a new employee is an investment and it is important to establish honest job expectations from the start to guarantee that you do not end up wasting each other’s time – not to mention the money involved in training a new hire.

Employers should carefully craft their job description to reflect their company values and should not shy away from explaining the job role in detail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8Ip3mLOjOs&ab_channel=Workable

Future interviews and training should reinforce these ideas so there is no confusion regarding expectations.

It can also be helpful to advertise the fun company culture in job advertisements since workers who are leaving due to burnout may be seeking a better work environment.

It is not enough just to be fun right now because the pandemic is still a serious issue affecting job searches. Offering healthcare benefits is more important to employees than ever due to the pandemic and putting onerous restrictions on when benefits go into effect can deter applications.

Advertising initiatives for mental health resources can be a useful selling point as well and should not be overlooked. Social isolation from remote work is one of the downsides despite its popularity and proactively addressing it instead of ignoring the problem that so many are now facing can be a marketable feature for your employer brand.

Visibility is the key to future-proofing your business

The first step to creating a targeted retention program is to establish greater visibility into the root causes of turnover. This may also involve having uncomfortable conversations with employees that have chosen to resign by performing exit interviews. Ultimately, this data will empower your business to attract leading industry talent, retain loyal employees, and reduce turnover costs.

The post How do you overcome the Big Quit as an employer? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In the midst of the remote work phenomenon, a return to office actually has significant benefits according to Chris Bodensieck, HqO’s talent acquisition director. In this podcast, he discusses why remote work is overrated, how there can be room for both remote and in-office workforce strategies, and most of all, what makes RTO a potential attraction advantage for talent-starved employers.

The post Podcast episode #16: Why returning to the office could be your hiring differentiator appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

As industrial/organizational psychologists with years of experience in the military and in corporate hiring and co-editors of the recent book, Military Veteran Employment: A Guide to the Data-Driven Leader, we are here to offer new ideas and suggestions to take your veteran hiring and recruiting to the next level.

First, some good news: research shows that many companies talk about hiring veterans. However, not many companies are putting their words into action when it comes to a research-informed approach to hiring veterans. Even fewer companies are executing programs targeted at veterans – the smaller the company, the less that they are doing.

For example, in a survey of employers by the Edelman global communications firm, only 23% of employers said that they saw veterans as strategic assets for their companies and only a little more than two out of five (43%) said that they are receiving enough veteran applications.

Here are some suggestions to improve your veteran hiring efforts, whether you are just getting started or already have a robust dedicated effort in place.

1. Update your job descriptions
2. Look at vets’ transferable skills
3. Track your hiring pipeline data
4. Learn about the military’s culture, values, and language
5. Capitalize on veterans’ networks
6. Utilize your customer support team
7. Don’t overlook military spouses
8. Focus on retention as well

1. Update your job descriptions

Focus on experiences and competences and avoid listing years in a position or certificates or diplomas as requirements or qualifications for the role. Many veterans may lack academic degrees or formal certificates but have nevertheless gained the relevant experience and skills that you need.

For instance, ask yourself why your job descriptions dictate a master’s degree or six years of experience? Are these critical to the position or do they merely serve as a signal of what you want to see in candidates?

Take the time to re-think who can do the job and break the job down into the absolutely required critical constituent knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies, and then list these in your ads.

Not only will this help with your veteran hiring efforts, but it will benefit your hiring members of other populations that may not have the formal education but do have the right skills.

2. Look at vets’ transferable skills

About half of military members want to leave their military occupation and do something different in the civilian world. The RAND Corporation has conducted extensive research on the transferability of military skills and new ways to connect military occupations with civilian ones.

RAND’s work highlights that employers should not assume that an infantryman is only qualified to be a cop because the prior service member carried guns. Many infantrymen have become successful computer technicians, salespeople, managers, and even comedy writers.

Learn to see past an applicant’s military occupation to their skills and experiences and learn how your company can utilize these in different occupations.

3. Track your hiring pipeline data

Monitor your candidates at every stage to identify where you lose or gain veterans throughout your talent pipeline. Look at the demographic make-up (including veteran status) at each stage of hiring to see if there is a fall-off at a certain stage.

For instance, do you get enough veterans applying? Are your recruiters sourcing veterans? Do you have a sufficient percentage at each step but then their percentage decreases because of the interview?

Find out what your numbers look like so that you can address the area where the shortfall begins.

4. Learn about the military’s culture, values, and language

If you understand the culture, values, and language of the military – and share that knowledge with your business leaders and hiring managers – you’ll more effectively engage your military veterans. Research from the Center for a New American Security shows companies that make the effort to understand and honor the military culture and military family experiences do a better job of recruiting and retaining their veteran employees.

Make sure your recruiters who work with veterans understand the military – and if you have veterans in your company, see if they want to serve as recruiters, brand champions, or want to advise your company on its efforts.

5. Capitalize on veterans’ networks

Word of mouth will be your most effective tool for recruiting and retaining veterans. Veterans have learned to trust comments from other veterans and military members.

A pro-veteran web page or brochure – with flags and pictures of soldiers – will mean nothing to a veteran if they have heard negative comments about your company from current veteran employees. Make sure you deal honestly with veterans, respect the military and its culture, take care of military families, and utilize their skills well.

Also, encourage your current veteran employees to share their experiences with other veterans who might be interested in working for your company. For example, JPMorgan Chase & Co. created a series of videos where existing employees explain how they use their military skills in their jobs. Here’s one of those videos.

https://youtu.be/FEEH9nM65uA

6. Utilize your customer support team

Your reputation as a company can influence your brand as an employer. Create a military-focused customer support team (made up of veterans or military spouses) and train other agents to recognize nuanced military terms and offer extensions on payment or other special treatment for military family customers.

If a military spouse mentions that they may have difficulty paying a bill because of a PCS (in military terms, a permanent change of station or relocation) or because the spouse has been deployed overseas, have the call transferred to your military team. These agents will be able to speak to them in the right ‘language’ with proper contextual understanding and offer extensions or other special handling.

When the military member starts looking for employment, the spouse that received payment extensions or other special handling will have a positive feeling about the company and will recommend them as a good place to work.

Building a positive brand and employee value proposition is important for all companies and even more important when working within the military and veteran communities.

7. Don’t overlook military spouses

Veterans will understand that companies that take care of military families will be good places to consider for their own employment. We also suggest being inclusive of spouses of currently serving members of the military and veterans – often termed “military spouses”.

Military spouses are a well-educated and often under-utilized talent population that frequently relies on tight military community networks to find employment and support due to the demands of a military lifestyle.

Make an effort to hire and retain military spouses by understanding that the gaps in their resumes may be caused by frequent moves for their spouse’s career and that their experience may not be reflected in a traditional resume or standard metrics. And, to help spouses who move frequently with their families, offer remote or distributed work options where possible.

8. Focus on retention as well

Many companies have learned how to hire veterans, but few can successfully retain veterans in their companies. Data from LinkedIn demonstrates that while veterans may have higher turnover than non-veterans during their first year of employment, the rate drops to less than that of non-veterans once they stay for more than a year. In fact, overall, they stay 8.3% longer in their initial place of employment than non-veterans do.

Here are some suggestions to improve retention:

Provide a sense of purpose or mission.

Many veterans self-select into the military because they want to serve something greater than themselves. The need to support a mission doesn’t end when they take the uniform off.

Provide your veteran employees with a new mission or purpose and fulfill this innate need for them. Communicate your company’s mission to your employees so each employee can see their direct “line of sight” to fulfilling that mission. Leadership should not only communicate this vision but help each employee see how they personally drive it as leaders.

Understand that veterans have finely honed “BS” detectors

Be open and transparent with your veteran employees. Don’t try to couch the truth or avoid difficult conversations – especially since veterans are skillful at identifying lack of transparency after their time in the military and will be carrying that over into the civilian world.

Being accustomed to a strong culture of leadership and development, veterans are used to direct feedback, to hearing bad news directly, and adapting quickly to fix the situation.

Provide frequent and regular feedback

Military members do not wait around for an annual performance review. Service members are used to having formal “After Action Reviews” after every operation and informal check-ins or “azimuth checks” regularly. Take care with your veteran employees to provide informal feedback regularly.

A rich well of talent

Veterans are a vastly undertapped resource in our society – and a rich well of skill to fill those important roles in your organization. These ideas will help you ensure your veteran hiring and retention programs will be highly successful. Good luck!

Kristin N. Saboe, Ph.D. is an Army veteran, nationally recognized leader, award-winning psychologist, public speaker, and strategist. While an officer and Research Psychologist in the Army, she deployed to Afghanistan and served as a staff officer at the Pentagon. Her writing, research, and community involvement focuses on veteran and military spouse employment, human performance optimization, leadership, and well-being in both military and civilian settings.

Nathan D. Ainspan, Ph.D., has researched, written, and spoken extensively about military-civilian transitions and veterans’ civilian employment. He is currently the Senior Research Psychologist with the Military-Civilian Transition Office (MCTO) at the Department of Defense. His work focuses on improving civilian employment opportunities for returning service members and the psychosocial benefits that employment provides to wounded warriors and injured veterans.

More reading: How to hire veterans

The post 8 new techniques to hire and retain military veterans appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

• 73% of candidates are passively looking
• Recruitment emails have an open rate of 21.14%
• 33% of recipients open emails based on the subject line

Based on these numbers, we can see that passive job seekers need more than uninspiring cold emails to make them check out a new job profile and ultimately, apply for that job.

We’ll go through an eight-step process to give you enough ammunition to turn run-of-the-mill emails into high-converting ones.

1. Create an email copy outline
2. Write compelling subject lines
3. Find the candidate’s info & research their background
4. Personalize your outreach
5. Keep your email brief and on point
6. Include a clear CTA
7. Utilize the power of email signature
8. Establish a follow-up strategy

1. Create an email copy outline

To start off, you need to get your email outline right. Cold emails are by design, notorious for cookie-cutter outlines. And this is where most companies fail to attract the right talent. Your cold emails need to be precise, relevant, and unique. One way to write a good email is to know how not to write it. Take this email for example:

Stack Overflow unearthed this cold email that’s about everything a recruiter shouldn’t send to a cold candidate. It’s not addressed to anyone in particular, it doesn’t show the value the roles provide, it uses a long list of skills as the body, and it ends with a weak CTA. It’s hard to impress job seekers with emails crafted as poorly as this one.

While creating an outline for email, it is important to have fleshed-out answers to these questions:

• Who is this email for?
• What is the purpose/goal of sending the email?
• Do the emails need attachments?
• What writing tone should be used?
• What is the best CTA and where should it be placed?
• How to start/end the emails?

The purpose of the outline is to allow companies to automate and scale recruitment strategies. But it should still leave enough room to improvise the copy depending on context and the information available.

A good example should look like this:

The email quickly hooks the candidate with a relatable experience and goes on to explain all the information relevant to the job. The email body is laser-sharp and ends with a good CTA.

2. Write compelling subject lines

Most people only look at the subject lines of the emails to decide whether to delete or open them. Job seekers are no different.
It’s not uncommon for active and passive job seekers to receive hundreds of recruitment emails each day. The only way they can keep the inbox tidy is by deleting the emails that don’t add value to their lives.

When you’re writing a subject line, put yourself in the recipient’s shoes and see what lines you wouldn’t click at all. Take this line for example:

A surprise career opportunity that’ll change your life. Check right now!

Bombastic, misleading, and long sentences are precisely the things you need to avoid when it comes to writing cold emails. It’s important to spend a good bit of time and effort ironing out the subject line. In general, it has to be short, ideally 4-6 words, punchy, and loaded with value.

Great recruitment subject lines should look more like these:

• UX Writer position open at [company name]
• [Company name] is looking for Product Managers
• Data Engineer position available in Vancouver, CA

Along with perfecting the subject line, you should also write a preheader text that provides more information about the email. A lot of recruiters miss the free space so this should be your opportunity to stand out.

3. Find the candidate’s info & research their background

Research plays a key part in practically every aspect of marketing. Recruitment in 2021 can be made better by infusing marketing elements to cater to the right talent pool.

It’s not just the job seekers who have to find the hiring manager’s email address. Recruiters must also deeply research the candidates and go over the information that might be useful for the job. This can be previous roles and companies, qualifications, and career goals. LinkedIn is where talented professionals discuss jobs, careers, and personal lives. You can make connections and even join LinkedIn groups to see what your ideal candidates are up to. LinkedIn InMails are a great way to warm up cold candidates but the sheer volume of undercooked and spam messages by recruiters often drive professionals off the platform.

LinkedIn, however, is not the only option. Techies are available in GitHub and Stack Overflow, writers are sharing ideas in Medium, designers are using Pinterest and Instagram to showcase their art. Social media channels and even portfolio websites are goldmines of information that you can use in your outreach campaign.

Apart from social media and portfolio websites, there’s another channel for effective communication – emails. But it’s not always easy to find the correct email addresses of candidates. With a tool like Hunter’s Email Finder, recruiters find the right people faster.

But people often change jobs and forget to update their email addresses. They might even stop checking their old inbox. That’s why you also need to verify email addresses to make sure you’re not emailing inactive addresses. An email list full of irrelevant addresses will increase your bounce rate, and drag down your deliverability and reputation score.

4. Personalize your outreach

Now that you have enough information about your targeted candidates, it’s time to put the knowledge into action. Approach your recruitment emails the way you write a cold pitch.

Candidates (and humans in general) love to be seen. Always address them by their name at the start of the email and immediately establish a personal connection to show what’s in it for them.

Email personalization is critical in outreach campaigns. A personalized email template should look like this example from Stack Overflow:

It’s a detailed cold email that gives all the information the recipient needs to make a decision. The friendly tone also goes perfectly with the context and the job profile in the discussion.

There’s proof in the pudding too – Boston-based full stack developer Mark Bates talked about the importance of personal connection when reaching out to tech candidates:

“I want to be talked to directly as a person,” Mark said. “Show me that you know who I am and you know the things that I do. And you can tell me in that initial contact why I would make a huge difference at your company.”

5. Keep your email brief and on point

The previous email is a good example of a personalized copy. Coupled with a solid subject line, it should clock good responses from job seekers. But it’s not just the personal connection that sealed the deal. The email is easy to read, offers only the relevant information, and more importantly, tells the candidate what to do after reading the email.

Depending on their career trajectory and position, job seekers either want enriching opportunities, financial benefits, or both. The email offers all these details.

Workload: I’m hiring another mobile engineer to join us here at PuppyHomeTech.

Salary: We offer better pay than any startup in NY.

Process: Our interview only takes one day. We move quickly and if we decide to make an offer, you’ll receive it in 24 hours.

The sender shouldn’t also drag recruitment emails too long with unrelated information. Job applications are often lengthy. As a result, 60% of job seekers give up filling up applications midway. This pattern is true for cold emails as well. Excess information in recruitment emails makes it hard to find the important parts for busy professionals.

That’s why recruiters should distill it down to a few key points and drive home the importance of the email. You can embed graphics or a video on email banners to showcase company culture and provide a bit more details about the role without cluttering the email body.

6. Include a clear CTA

Take a look at this email:

Dear candidate,

We are [company name], a fast-paced company with global footprints. We’re looking for data analysts and you fit our description. Please click on the link below to fill the form.

About us: We’re [ a bit more details about the company]

If you’re interested in the opportunity, please reply to this email so that we can schedule a call.
Thanks!

[Email Signature]

Apart from being vague, the email also confuses the recipient. When you’re cold-emailing candidates, you must remember that the person doesn’t know you, the company, or the role yet. The email will give all the necessary information for the first time, and the information must flow naturally.

This email has two calls to action. One asking to fill up an online form, the other asking to schedule a call. Contradictory or multiple CTAs are confusing and it shows that you haven’t done your homework. Candidates are less likely to go ahead when the lack of effort is clearly visible from the recruiter’s end.

That’s why it’s important to stick to a single CTA. If you have a separate job board that you want them to apply for, only add that link. If you want them to directly reply to your email, mention only that.

One CTA shows your clarity of thought and helps candidates navigate through the next process.

Especially, look at those last two questions – straight and to the point in a way that makes it easy for the candidate to respond. This recruiting email not only sticks to a clear CTA but also goes ahead a step further to offer more information about the call.

7. Utilize the power of email signature

Email signature in a recruitment email tells a lot in a short space. Including an official signature is important because:

• Email signature offers a name that can be searched online by the candidate to verify legitimacy. It instantly creates reliability and is far better than using an unidentifiable sales rep persona.
• An email signature can be used to link company vision and other details. Candidates can check the links to know more about the role, and company culture.
• A huge number of emails go to the spam folder every day and recruitment emails are also part of it. Including an official email signature is one way to avoid getting flagged for spam by the recipient

A good email signature should look like this:

8. Establish a follow-up strategy

Far too many recruiters miss out on talent after not getting a reply the first time. Professionals are busy and it’s easy to miss an email. Cold emails are not expected to generate a 100% response rate but they can be seen as a part of the warm-up process to fetch a response from the candidate later. Ideally, you’ll want to follow up with 3-4 emails before accepting the fact that the candidate is not interested in the opportunity.

To write compelling follow-up emails, you need to add value, lead with the previous email and keep the copy short.

• A follow-up email that leads with the previous email:

• A follow-up email that’s short:

• And one last follow-up email:

Wrapping up

Most recruitment cold emails are uninspiring and impersonal, which actually gives you the opportunity to stand out and attract ideal candidates with a well-thought-out cold email strategy. By following the 8-step process, you’ll be able to craft cold emails that job seekers love to read and respond to.

Irina Maltseva is Head of Marketing at Hunter. She enjoys working on inbound and product marketing strategies. In her spare time, she entertains her cat Persie and collects airline miles.

The post 8 tips for writing outstanding cold recruitment emails that convert – with templates appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Consequently, to stay relevant and apace with increased competition for new hires, recruiters and hiring managers need to possess sharp talent acquisition skills and have a robust recruitment tech stack to capture the best talent for the position. Recruitment guru Josh Bersin emphasizes the evolution of recruitment and how this is an opportunity for recruiters to really step up their game.

One big step in the right direction is purchasing an ATS and other technologies to support that. If it’s your first time investing in recruitment software, ensure you have the following capabilities in your recruitment tech stack:

1. Employee referral program
2. Chatbots
3. Candidate texting
4. Email automation
5. Social media automation
6. Talent network
7. Virtual recruiting events
8. Job postings
9. Content management system
10. Candidate relationship management

1. Employee referral program

An automated employee referral program helps in creating a solid company culture by building high-performing teams. It reduces the hiring process and costs and, at the same time, getting more high-value future employees.

Most recruitment marketing softwares have built-in employee referral programs. Job openings are automatically sent to the employees’ email addresses with the job description and the ‘refer’ button to submit the referred candidate.

Some of the automation rules or processes you can create with your referral program include:

• Monitoring where the referred candidate is in the hiring cycle and send updates to the referrer.
• Linking your ATS to your payroll system, so referral fees go straight into your employee’s salary.
• Measuring the success of your employee referral program – i.e. number of shares via email or social, number of referred candidates, number of successful hires and the quality of those hires.

Check out our complete guide to employee referrals.

2. Chatbots

Chatbots are a form of AI used in messaging applications. They are automated programs that interact with web visitors like a human would do.

In recruitment, chatbots can help increase your engagement with candidates, hasten the recruitment process, reach out to more candidates, and provide quick answers to their questions.

Chatbots can be the first point of contact after the candidate submits his resume. They can be tasked to contact candidates to explain the overall application procedure.

Chatbots can also gather contact information, answer applicants’ initial questions and schedule interviews. More advanced capabilities include ranking and scoring candidates, enabling recruiters to remove unsuitable candidates for the specific role.

Incorporating chatbots eliminates the HR team’s repetitive tasks so they can focus on more critical activities. In addition, chatbots are easy to scale and can keep the hiring process progressing fast, even when you are inundated with candidates for an open role.

3. Candidate texting

With candidate texting technology, recruiters can send job openings right to candidate’s phones. It is a big help for recruiters, especially during seasonal or bulk hiring or in sectors with a large component of deskless workers and high turnover such as in hospitality or food services.

Plus, with a 98% open rate for SMS and text messages, it’s a great communication tool with assurance that your message will get through.

Recruiters can reach thousands of job seekers quickly with customized text messages. Textbots can automate screening, so the process continues. Since these texts are integrated into the recruiting software, data is collected automatically so interviewers and hiring managers can evaluate whether to pursue a candidate or not.

Another feature is automated intelligent interview scheduling. Texting makes it easier for candidates to reply and confirm interview schedules. Scheduling changes or unexpected cancellations can be communicated instantly.

The automated messages help answer common application questions quickly on the candidate’s side, empowering them to screen and move ahead or out of the recruiting process quickly.

If they’re hired, automated text-based communications will help facilitate the candidate’s onboarding process and provide a seamless candidate experience.

Read more on candidate texting best practices and texting strategies for different scenarios.

4. Email automation

Automated email sendouts allow personalization at scale and can recommend ideal content for every candidate.

Despite being around for some time, HR teams can still capitalize on this marketing strategy to communicate with targeted candidates regularly and stay on top of their minds.

Email marketing automation comes with templates and sequences to save time and resources when reaching out to candidates to introduce the company, announce current job openings, send follow-ups, send alerts for future vacancies, etc.

Once the candidate is hired, you can send an email on the first day of work explaining the onboarding process and setting expectations. The hiring manager can then send a follow-up in six weeks to check how things are going and maybe schedule a call or a lunch.

And then again, if they’re on a fixed contract, emails can be scheduled at a determined later time if they’re reaching the end of their contract and looking for their next opportunity.

5. Social media automation

Social media automation enables recruiters to distribute jobs across Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media channels. They can set logic-based rules around which vacancies should be sent to which social networks, the date they should be posted and taken down, based on the performance of specific jobs.

Social job distribution can also broaden the demographics of the target job seekers – a must for any DEI-minded employer – enabling recruiters to broaden the candidate pool by reaching out to media-savvy social applicants.

Recruiters can also compose and edit new content via mobile devices while on the go. This ability to work remotely provides flexibility to deliver other content like blogs, industry updates, company news, etc.

The benefit of using social automation tools ensures that recruitment messaging is consistent across Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and other social channels. It also helps you find qualified candidates easily, and add them to your list of potential hires in the future.

Check out our FAQ guide on social media recruitment strategies.

6. Talent network management

You can automate your talent network by adding a form to provide an alternative for candidates to opt in if they don’t complete the application. Having CTAs scattered across your site and content can capture those all-important passive candidates.

Once the candidate opts in, you can set up rules in your recruitment marketing platform to segment talent based on preferences, interests, and skills. You can send preference emails asking the types of content they want to receive and the types of roles they are interested in, and record email opens and links clicked.

To set up your automation, you need to understand and build your target candidate personas and the type of information they are searching for. Then, create a messaging sequence for their journey.

The more targeted your messaging, content, and job you send to your talent network, the better candidate experience you can deliver and possibly, outbid your competitors for those star candidates.

7. Virtual recruiting events

Virtual recruiting events allow HR to expand and diversify the talent pipeline by reaching to them anytime, anywhere. It can also improve your diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.

With this software, you can build your events page that allows you to handle interviews and registrations. For career expos, as an example, candidates undergo a screening process set with pre-qualifying questions. They are scored and matched directly towards jobs and recruiters for engagement.

VRE software provides a better candidate experience and avoids wasting each other’s time if they do not match.

Other features include the ability to promote events across social media, manage on-site attendees, capture leads and resumes, and build employer brand by emailing invitations, post-event surveys, and other campaigns for ongoing candidate engagement.

Some virtual events you can adapt to suit your staffing objectives: career expos, professional development events, educational workshops, info sessions, hackathons and creative challenges, theme-based panels or presentations, virtual presentations, and much more.

8. Job postings

A good recruitment marketing platform allows you to automate the process of writing (with pre-defined job description templates) and posting jobs on various free and paid job boards and social media networks within a single platform.

You can also manage your media budget and inventory and even facilitate the use of programmatic job advertising to optimize advertising spend.

Check out our Ultimate Guide to Job Posting.

9. Content management system

Today’s candidates search employers the same way consumers find products and services.

To stand out in the crowd, organizations must build unique candidate experiences through employer brand content and recruitment marketing strategies to attract the right talent. This is called inbound recruiting, as emphasized by Hubspot:To perform inbound recruitment, you need a CMS.

With a CMS (Content Management System), you can quickly and easily create and update content, optimize your job listing and share vacancies on social media, to name a few. You can also integrate your applicant tracking system (ATS) and configure your content to be searchable on search engines.

10. Candidate relationship management

CRM (Candidate Relationship Management) helps you nurture relationships with passive candidates.
With the right CRM, you can:

• Track candidate’s journey during the application process
• Easily build and segment talent pools and cascade targeted communication to the right job seeker at the right time
• Update all your ATS information so you can target the best applicants for open roles
• Automatically track and measure your campaigns’ performance and results to improve future marketing strategies

Your hiring tech stack matters

Talent acquisition is poised to evolve post-pandemic and beyond as recruitment platforms become savvier and more sophisticated, largely due to AI and emerging technologies.

Hence, it would be best to keep abreast of the latest developments in recruitment automation software to stay ahead of competitors in the high-stakes talent game.

Gem Siocon is a digital marketer and freelance content writer at Recruiter Copywriter. She specializes in recruitment marketing and employer branding, helping staffing agencies and recruiters for over 10 years. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

The post Your recruitment automation tech stack: 10 must-haves appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

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The employer posts the job, you apply, beg for a job, and then, if lucky, the employer will offer you the job. If you’re brave, you can negotiate the salary up a bit, but it’s pretty much a take-it-or-leave-it situation.

Job interviews were like dog-and-pony shows where candidates tried to impress judges, and the judges didn’t feel obligated to try to impress the candidate.

During this time, you saw a lot of ghosting – on the employer’s part. Come in for two, three, five interviews… and then silence. And that was just how it was. It was wrong then, but everyone knew to expect it.

The booming economy in the pre-pandemic days and then the pandemic itself turned all these rules on their heads. Here is how it is now.

The new rules of talent engagement

If you are hiring or looking for a job, you need to know how to play the game. Here are the new rules.

1. Job descriptions are marketing documents
2. Salary comes first
3. Candidates are interviewing you
4. Lack of flexibility makes it harder to hire
5. Everyone is ghosting
6. Candidates won’t play the long interview game

1. Job descriptions are marketing documents

The labor shortage means companies compete for the best candidate. Your job descriptions need to be well written and focus on the critical aspects of the job. Just as recruiters can reject an applicant in seven seconds or less, job candidates can breeze through job postings.

Make sure your job postings:

• Use good formatting to draw eyes to key points
• Stay away from jargon (fast-paced, exciting environment is a red flag to today’s candidates)
• List the top responsibilities only. Long lists get you rejected as nit-picky.

Related: Why Maslow thinks your job ads suck

2. Salary comes first

Several states banned recruiters and hiring managers from asking about previous salaries, which means you can’t get an advantage by asking for a current and past paycheck size.

But that doesn’t mean money is taboo – in fact, candidates want to know the salary budget for the job. Colorado even requires companies to post their salary and benefit information in the job posting.

Candidates don’t like wasting their time interviewing or even applying for jobs where the salary is unknown. Plus, salary is still king when it comes to job decisions, according to September’s Great Discontent survey.

Putting a salary in your job description, or discuss it on the initial phone screen, and you’ll get a lot further. Some candidates will refuse to go on without this knowledge.

3. Candidates are interviewing you

It’s no longer a beauty pageant but a date. The candidate wants to know about your business, management style, and benefits. Candidates expect to have conversations rather than have you interrogate them.

This is a benefit to all parties – after all, you want to hire someone who wants to be into the job, not just a warm bod.

And keep in mind, candidates feel like they have more options, so they will carefully consider your answers as much as you consider theirs.

4. Hiring now requires flexibility

Seventy-two percent of people prefer a hybrid situation, where they can come into the office sometimes and work from home occasionally. While there are plenty of jobs that must be done onsite (dentist, grocery store clerk, janitor, etc.), there are plenty of jobs that can offer options.

Not offering a work-from-home or hybrid option for most white-collar jobs will reduce the number of people interested in your position. People worked from home during the pandemic, liked it or hated it, and now want to control that aspect of their lives.

Including flexibility information in the job posting can help you attract candidates.

Related: One in three US workers value remote work – and three in five value flexible hours. Learn more in our Great Discontent survey report.

5. Everyone is ghosting

It used to be just recruiters and hiring managers that ghosted candidates; now, it’s candidates ghosting interviewers. While this is terrible manners regardless of who does it, you can hardly blame candidates who now feel they have the upper hand. Recruiters treated them poorly for years, and now it’s payback time.

However, the ghosting doesn’t end at the interview stage. Candidates can accept job offers and yet not show up on the first scheduled day or leave after a couple of weeks without saying a word. You may not feel secure in your new hire until several months have passed.

6. Candidates won’t play the long interview game

Many candidates are no longer willing to go through six rounds of interviews plus a presentation when pursuing a job. They will jump to a company that can decide after one or two rounds of interviews. Some companies are even doing on-the-spot job offers.

Adjusting to the new reality

Change is hard for everyone, but candidates jumped at the opportunity to have more power in the hiring relationship. You need to train your recruiters and hiring managers in this new reality.

Shorten your time to hire

It may be a struggle for a company that traditionally has long interview processes or hides salary information until the offer stage. Still, if you continue on this path, you risk losing out on the best (or any) candidates.

Stay on top of salary trends

You also need to keep an eye on market-rate salaries. Things change rapidly. You may think that the fast-food restaurant’s increasing pay doesn’t affect your business, but when unskilled labor jobs start increasing their pay, you’ll find people expect more money for more skilled jobs. No company operates in a vacuum. Salaries can change rapidly across the system.

Don’t hold out for the unicorn

You also cannot afford the perfect candidate to drop out of the applicant tracking system. The labor shortage is a real thing, and you may need to settle.

But, don’t worry – hiring someone who isn’t perfectly equipped to carry out the job means you have the opportunity to train the new employee according to your desires. In other words, you can create your own unicorn – you don’t need to find one.

It’s not a revolution – it’s an evolution

You don’t have to start completely over with your hiring processes. Many things remain the same – you’ll still screen resumes, interview candidates, and make job offers. You’ll just need to do it all a bit faster and a bit more openly.

Be upfront about salary and benefits and keep to a tight timeline. Otherwise, your competitors will race ahead of you in the war for talent.

The post The rules of talent engagement are changing: What’s new now? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

That’s something you should be concerned about as an employer, so let’s look at why they’re thinking of leaving and what would compel them to stick around. It turns out that skills development, training and overall growth are high up the list of priorities for tech workers.

For instance, in the same survey, 91% want more training opportunities from their current employers.

And it’s not just training. When tech employees are making a career choice, salary and benefits are by and far the most important criteria when deciding who to work for, with 76% picking that as their top decider.

Workable’s Great Discontent survey echoes this sentiment as well, with 63.4% of US workers saying the top reason they’re open to new jobs is because of compensation.

As a tech employer looking to retain your staff, you also want to focus on a career path structure in your company. That’s because two out of five tech workers say the lack of career progression is the main reason they’re leaving their current job.

Three out of five (58%) also tagged skills development as their number-one motivator in choosing a new company. Likewise, three out of five (62%) say that more training and learning as a part of their job will make them more motivated at work.

To quote from the report: “Combined with L&D opportunities being one of the top criteria for selecting a job, the message is clear: training can help slow down the wave of resignations.”

When we’re seeing four million American workers quitting their jobs every month – including in August alone – it’s time for action. Employers need to step up their game with new recruitment strategies to compel their workers to stick around.

But there’s a bright side to all this

Texas A&M professor Dr. Anthony Klotz, who coined the now-famous term “The Great Resignation”, says these insights actually provide an opportunity for employers to get ahead of the problem of turnover.

“While the percentage of individuals thinking about resigning may be high, the good news for organizational leaders is that many of the top reasons that employees provided for wanting to leave are readily addressable,” says Anthony.

He emphasizes that investing in more opportunities for development and career advancement, greater flexibility, and boosting compensation and benefits are all things that can be quickly implemented in one’s own company as significant talent attractors.

And, he adds, keep that two-way street open with your workforce. For example, you can and should use employee surveys to better understand what’s expected of you as an employer.

“There is an opportunity here for companies to talk to their employees about these issues in the wake of the pandemic, and then trial or implement potential solutions.”

The post Invest in your tech workers – or they’ll move on: Survey appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Females want more flexibility

First, we found differences by gender identity when asking about top attractors for a new opportunity. Those identifying as male are attracted to more job-specific factors including compensation of course (67.3% vs. 61.8%), clarity of job role (23.3% vs. 19.1%) and especially job security (39.4% vs. 25.5%).

Those identifying as female pointed to factors not necessarily about the actual day-to-day job itself, but rather about the supportive aspects of working life. For instance, if a mother is able to leave work early to pick up her kids or meet other home life obligations – all with the express support and encouragement of their employer – that’s hugely valuable for them.

The data shows this: work flexibility (44% vs. 31.6%) and moral / emotional support from the company (13.6% vs. 9.4%) are more important for females than males.

This is not to suggest that job-specific factors are not important to those identifying as female – rather, these responses indicate that there are other needs that have to be met in order to make their working arrangement feasible and better aligned with their personal needs and priorities.

“With more moms in the workforce than ever, there is flexibility lacking in schedules to accommodate children related needs. Child care is astronomical and salaries are not reflecting that.”

Minorities want more support

One of the demographic questions we asked in the survey was; “Do you identify as a member of a minority group (be it race, ethnicity, language, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation, gender, or another characteristic)?”. A full third (33%) say they do, compared with 61.6% who say they don’t, and 5.3% prefer not to say. So we also looked at responses based on those answers.

We found significant differences in minority status here as well, particularly that compensation is more important for non-minorities than it is for minorities (67.9% vs. 55.1%).

So, what’s more important in a new job opportunity for someone who identifies as a minority? Training & development (18.9% vs. 13.5%) and moral / emotional support from their company (11.4% vs. 6.1%) top the list in terms of how much they differ from non-minority answers.

Likewise, when asked about what their current employer could do to improve employee experience, minorities pointed to career growth (38.7% vs. 28.5%), work flexibility (32.3% vs. 23.5%) and day-to-day work support (21.5% vs. 14.9%) as areas in need of improvement.

Of those who are open to other opportunities, those identifying as a minority are much more likely to pick “I need more meaning in my work” (23.8% vs. 16%) as a reason for doing so.

This isn’t to suggest that compensation isn’t important for someone who identifies as a minority – it, as said above, remains the top factor across all groups. It’s also important to note that the question of “Why are you looking for – or open to – new opportunities?” asked respondents to pick just one reason from a list, whereas for the other questions, they could choose up to three items. So if they must choose one priority and disregard all others, compensation will generally top the list.

Compensation aside, these results indicate that minorities are more likely to want support from their employer in other areas than non-minorities. Plus, there’s a clear need to feel more engaged in their work – likewise something that can be delivered by a thoughtful and empathetic employer as much as the role itself. The overall amplification of voices highlighting DEI in society may be a factor in all that.

Compensation grows with age

Likewise, we found differences across ages. Salary is more valued in older generations, whereas career growth opportunities tend to be more valued by younger generations. Those in the 21-29 age bracket ranked salary significantly less than those in the 40-49 and 50-59 age brackets (51% vs. 67.9% and 69.9% respectively).

Career growth opportunities trends the opposite direction, with those in the 21-29 and 30-39 age brackets valuing that higher than those in the 50-59 age bracket (40.7% vs. 33.1%).

This makes sense, as those in older generations will tend to be past the peak of their career development and starting to migrate out of the workforce, while those in younger generations may see the opportunity to grow in a career as having much stronger long-term benefit than straight-up compensation.

Plus, younger generations tend to have fewer financial obligations than their older, more settled counterparts – and therefore can be more flexible in what they need in a job.

Why is all this stuff important?

Let’s face facts. Money makes the world go around. It’s also a powerful measuring stick when showing the value you place on what someone brings to your company. Also, the correlation between money and happiness has been established in studies, including a widely cited one by Matthew Killingsworth of Penn’s Wharton School in Philadelphia.

And the reason why, says Killingsworth:

“When you have more money, you have more choices about how to live your life. You can likely see this in the pandemic. People living paycheck to paycheck who lose their job might need to take the first available job to stay afloat, even if it’s one they dislike. People with a financial cushion can wait for one that’s a better fit. Across decisions big and small, having more money gives a person more choices and a greater sense of autonomy.”

More choices, more autonomy, more command over all aspects of life. Keep that thought in mind as you proceed in your talent attraction game.

This is an excerpt from our Great Discontent survey report – want to read the whole thing? Check it out here.

The post Not everyone in the US values the same things in a job appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Females want more flexibility

First, we found differences by gender identity. Those identifying as male lean to factors around longevity and ascension, such as job security (43.7% vs. 36.1%) and career growth opportunities (30.8% vs. 26.1%), when thinking about what would lure them to a new opportunity.

Those identifying as female pointed to factors not necessarily about the actual day-to-day job itself, but rather about the supportive aspects of working life. For instance, if a mother is able to leave work early to pick up her kids or meet other home life obligations – all with the express support and encouragement of their employer – that’s hugely valuable for them.

The data shows this: work flexibility (47% vs. 39.3%) and moral / emotional support from the company (13.7% vs. 9.3%) are more important for females in the UK than for males. Day-to-day work support also is preferred more by females – 11.2% choose this attractor compared with 8.1% of males.

The priority of compensation doesn’t differ all that much – both genders ranked it equally high (71.7% for males, 69.5% for females).

This is not to suggest that career growth and job security aren’t important to those identifying as female – rather, these responses indicate that there are other needs that have to be met in order to make their working arrangement feasible and better aligned with their personal needs and priorities.

Minorities want more support

One of the demographic questions we asked in the survey was; “Do you identify as a member of a minority group (be it race, ethnicity, language, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation, gender, or another characteristic)?”. Three out of 10 (30.9%) say they do, compared with 66.1% who say they don’t, and 3% prefer not to say. So we also looked at responses based on those answers.

We found significant differences in minority status when asking about top attractors to a new job. Those identifying as a minority placed less priority on the most popular items than their non-minority peers, particularly compensation (58.7%% vs. 75.2%). We also found significant differences in work flexibility (36.8% vs, 46.8%) and job security (35.5% vs. 41.7%).

So, what’s more important in a new job opportunity for someone who identifies as a minority? Career growth opportunities (35.5% vs. 25.7%) is a big one, followed by training & development (25.2% vs. 21.1%).

Although not a popular overall item, moral / emotional support from their company (14.8% vs. 6.9%) is still a much higher priority for minority respondents than for non-minority respondents.

Likewise, when asked about what their current employer could do to improve employee experience, minorities are twice as likely to want more clarity of job role and responsibilities (28% vs. 13.3%), and more likely to want better career growth opportunities (39.2% vs. 27.6%).

Again, this doesn’t mean that salary isn’t important for those identifying as minorities. In fact, it’s actually more so. When asked to choose just one reason why they’re looking for – or open to – new opportunities, three out of five (59.5%) picked compensation, compared with half (50.6%) of non-minorities.

“I need more meaning in my work” is also a more popular reason for minorities than non-minorities (26% vs. 20%), and “I need more support in my work” is likewise a higher priority (13.7% vs. 6.4%).

On the flip side, non-minorities are more likely to say they don’t feel valued in their present capacity (15.3% vs. 10.7%).

This suggests that minorities in the UK are more likely to want support from their employer in other areas in addition to compensation. There’s also a need to find more meaning in work, something that can also be delivered by a thoughtful and supportive employer who values its people.

Compensation grows with age

Likewise, we found differences across ages among UK workers. Salary is more valued in older generations, whereas career growth opportunities are more valued by younger generations. Those in the combined 21-39 age bracket ranked salary less than those in the 40-59 age brackets did (66.9%-67.9% vs. 71.5%-77.6%).

Career growth opportunities trends sharply in the opposite direction, with those in the 21-29 age bracket valuing that significantly higher than those in the combined 40-59 age bracket (39.3% vs. 24.3%-24.7%).

Younger generations also lean to training and development whereas their older peers are more aligned with the need for job security.

This makes sense, as those in older generations will tend to be past the peak of their career development and starting to migrate out of the workforce – perhaps increasing the need to build up their financial support base as they prepare for retirement.

Younger generations, on the other hand, are heavily inclined towards progressing in their career with training & development being a logical ingredient in that.

Why is all this stuff important?

Let’s face facts. Money makes the world go around. It’s also a powerful measuring stick when showing the value you place on what someone brings to your company. Also, the correlation between money and happiness has been strongly established, including in a comprehensive survey carried out in 2016.

And the reason why, says study author Matthew Killingsworth of Penn’s Wharton School, who carried out a similar study in the US:

“When you have more money, you have more choices about how to live your life. You can likely see this in the pandemic. People living paycheque to paycheque who lose their job might need to take the first available job to stay afloat, even if it’s one they dislike. People with a financial cushion can wait for one that’s a better fit. Across decisions big and small, having more money gives a person more choices and a greater sense of autonomy.”

More choices, more autonomy, more command over all aspects of life. Keep that thought in mind as you proceed in your talent attraction game.

This is an excerpt from our Great Discontent survey report – want to read the whole thing? Check it out here.

The post Different UK workers appreciate different things in a job appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

We all wear rose-colored glasses at times, and when we’re looking for a new job we want to believe everything we’re hearing and seeing: opportunities for promotion, professional development, and work/life balance are often embellished in the recruitment cycle. And we eagerly accept this on face value – we want to believe we’re test-driving a Mercedes.

Read more on the importance of authentic recruitment marketing.

What’s wrong with corporate values?

Almost every company has a set of values that adorn its office walls. There’s much talk of the culture these values underpin, and their virtues are extolled in annual reports and investor briefings. There’s just one problem: it’s rare that these aspirational values actually align with the reality of the company’s culture.

Most often, corporate values are developed to describe the way an organization would like its employees to behave, not how they actually behave. They describe a desirable future state that we should aspire to, yet the leaders of the organization pay little attention to the values day-to-day, and certainly make no attempt to build the culture that they imply.

There’s nothing wrong with having a set of corporate values that describe a desired future state. But to implement a constructive culture that embodies that state, the company’s leaders would have to agree, communicate, and enforce a minimum acceptable standard of behavior and performance.

It’s common for leaders to lose sight of the values when the pressing issues of the day dominate their attention. But, unfortunately, it’s also common for them to speak about the company as if the values are representative of reality – they overstate the role that corporate values play in the running of the business.

Overselling the opportunity

When you’re hiring someone new, you want to showcase your organization in the best possible light, and it’s easy to oversell the opportunity to a prospective employee. You have to remember that your potential hires are quite vulnerable and impressionable during this process. They wouldn’t have applied for the job unless they wanted it, and they’re looking for positive validation: You want the job? Well we want you for the job!

You’ll often find plenty of evidence to support your claims of grandeur, because the board and the CEO create brand collateral to showcase the company in its best light. Many companies produce brochureware to extoll the virtues of their corporate values, the strategic plan, and the positive culture that the leadership has created (oh, and our people are our greatest asset, right!?)

But it doesn’t serve anyone’s interests to bring people into the organization, only for them to become disgruntled and disillusioned when the stark reality sets in.

The Employee Value Proposition (EVP)

As CEO of a major energy business Australia, competition for high quality people was sometimes fierce: but we weren’t in a sexy industry where the best and brightest young graduates lined up each day to fight their way through the crowd and hand us their résumés.

So we decided to take a more methodical approach, and put some serious effort into understanding how to sell the benefits of the organization, without overselling them. This became known as our employee value proposition (EVP).

We started with two key questions:

1. What’s the difference in perception between someone with little knowledge of the company, and someone who has worked here for some time?; and
2. How can we best convey that to prospective employees so that we showcase the organization’s benefits accurately, and enable them to make an informed decision about joining?

In this research, we took time to capture people’s perceptions at different stages of the recruitment process. We surveyed those who had just applied for the job to capture their impressions of the company based on the scant information in the public domain. We surveyed them again at the end of the interview process, whether they were offered the role or not. And for those who chose to join the company, we surveyed them again at various stages during their first six months.

From this, we managed to identify how people’s perceptions changed from the relative ignorance of a first-time applicant to the experience of a person who had ‘lived the dream’ for long enough to form a sensible opinion.

Once armed with this knowledge, we were able to develop our EVP. The main objective was to increase our chances of attracting the best candidates for any role, while at the same time avoiding costly hiring mistakes. But the EVP also became a reminder for everyone in the business about the positive aspects of working for the company, in a way that was both positive and authentic.

Developing an employee value proposition will allow you to accurately and honestly communicate your company’s values and culture to internal and external stakeholders alike.

Where should you start?

Not every company is able to invest the necessary time and effort into developing an EVP. But there are some simple steps you can take to ensure your company’s benefits are represented accurately to anyone who happens to ask.

Start by identifying the gaps. It’s important to understand and articulate the reality of the company culture, as opposed to the aspirational corporate values. People need to know where the company is now, where it’s heading, and what you’re doing to take it there.

Words are cheap, and if leaders don’t focus on driving change every day, the company becomes stagnant. So don’t fret about the gap in the corporate values – just take whatever steps you need to ensure that gap is being reduced every day, as you lead your team to a higher standard of behavior and performance.

Martin G. Moore is the founder of Your CEO Mentor and author of No Bullsh!t Leadership and host of the No Bullsh!t Leadership podcast. His purpose is to improve the quality of leaders globally through practical, real world leadership content. For more information, please visit www.martingmoore.com.

The post Do your corporate values reflect reality? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

The only real ‘surprise’, if there’s one, is that other studies show a growth in value placed on job attractors besides compensation – such as the willingness to take less salary in order to remain remote according to a TeamBlind survey, and the value of perks over salary as a motivator according to Staples.

Our dataset, however, clearly indicates that compensation remains the number-one driver in career opportunities across the board. As one respondent succinctly put it:

“Employees will go where the money is. And where they’re treated respectfully and valued. But, mostly, it’s the money.”

Take a look at the dataset and see for yourself.

Money above all

As stated above, a full seven out of 10 respondents are open to new opportunities, whether they’re passively open or actively looking.

When we asked those respondents to choose from a list of top reasons why they’re open to new opportunities, nearly two-thirds (63.4%) selected “I need to make more money”.

That’s more than double the next-most popular reason, which is “I need a fresh challenge” (24.6%).

Work flexibility (20.8%), meaningfulness in work (19.3%) and career advancement (also 19.3%) are other leading factors prompting the drive to explore new job opportunities. Still, those numbers pale in comparison to compensation.

We also asked respondents what would lure them from their present job to a new one, again choosing from a list of popular attractors. Again, compensation remains the top attractor, with 62.2% of respondents in the US citing that as a top factor in deciding to move to a new company.

Again, other major attractors here are similar to the previous question, with career opportunities (38.1%), work flexibility (37.5%) and job security (32.1%) being reasons why someone would jump to a new job.

Another respondent was frank about their emphasis on salary as the dealmaker:

“If someone pays me more than I make running my own company, I’ll do it!”

We know there are nuanced differences between what an individual might want in terms of a new job at a different company and what they might want to see improved in their current capacity. It’s the difference between being ready to leave and being satisfied, but not 100%, with one’s current workplace.

So we asked that question separately: what could be improved in your current job for a better employee experience?

The answers are still very much the same. Compensation, again, is the number-one area where their current employer can improve, with 57.4% picking that as a top area for improvement.

A third respondent noted the importance of keeping salaries proportionally balanced throughout a company – especially when a company is growing and accumulating wealth:

“As a business owner, I understand that you can not cave to every whim your employees have, but instead of prioritizing balloon money bombs for executive persons, make the wealth of the company available to the people that make it happen. Smaller executive bonuses in favor of increased bonuses / benefits / perks for the workers/moving parts of a successful company.”

Is salary important? Yes, it is, but there are other forms of compensation worth noting.

The different types of compensation

Now, compensation doesn’t necessarily mean only a base salary. It can also mean paid time off, paid vacations, bonuses, incentives, extra perks and benefits, company lunches, team outings, tuition or mortgage reimbursements, pre-tax benefits, and many other things.

Intangibles can include company-wide recognition, advancement potential, the ability to work remotely and on flexible schedules, mentorship, network building, and so on.

Even then, support from their employer – whether it’s in the actual day-to-day work or moral/emotional support – are at the bottom of both lists. The traditional core elements of having a job (compensation, career opportunities, job security) continue to be top of mind.

The motivators are clear – workers in the United States want and need to make more money. Salary is important. Full stop.

There is just one area of the intangibles that deserves a deeper dive: work flexibility, which ranks highly across all these lists. We’ll go deep into that area in the next chapter.

The post Is salary important to workers? Bet your bottom dollar it is appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Our own dataset, however, finds that compensation remains a leading motivator when looking at career opportunities. A US-based respondent from our other survey report on the same topic puts it perfectly:

“Employees will go where the money is. And where they’re treated respectfully and valued. But, mostly, it’s the money.”

Money above all

As stated above, a vast majority of respondents are open to new opportunities, whether they’re passively open or actively looking. When we asked those respondents to choose from a list of top reasons why they’re open to new opportunities, more than half (53.5%) selected “I need to make more money” as a major reason.

Closely following in second place is “I need a fresh challenge”, with 43.9% citing that as a reason.

The need for more meaning in work is a distant third, at 21.9%.

We also asked respondents what would lure them from their present job to a new one, again choosing from a list of popular attractors. Again, compensation tops the list, with 70.1% of UK respondents citing that as a leading motivator when deciding to move to a new company.

Work flexibility (43.5%) and job security (39.5%) are the second and third-most popular attractors in a new opportunity.

One UK respondent noted their disappointment at their current employer cutting corners on compensation:

“The company pays less as we are touted as ‘independent contractors’, they can seemingly bend the rules.”

We know there are nuanced differences between what someone might be hoping to get in terms of a new job at a different company, and what they might want to see improved in their current capacity. It’s the difference between being ready to leave and being satisfied – albeit not 100% with one’s current working situation.

So we asked that question separately: what could be improved in your current job for a better employee experience?

Again, compensation is the number-one area where their current employer can improve, with 60.7% picking that as a top area in need of improvement.

It’s worth noting another comment from the US, on the importance of keeping salaries proportionally balanced throughout a company – especially when a company is growing and accumulating wealth:

“As a business owner, I understand that you can not cave to every whim your employees have, but instead of prioritizing balloon money bombs for executive persons, make the wealth of the company available to the people that make it happen. Smaller executive bonuses in favor of increased bonuses / benefits / perks for the workers/moving parts of a successful company.”

The different types of compensation

Now, compensation doesn’t necessarily mean only a base salary. It can also mean paid time off, paid vacations, bonuses, incentives, extra perks and benefits, company lunches, team outings, tuition or mortgage reimbursements, pre-tax benefits, and many other things.

Intangibles can include company-wide recognition, advancement potential, the ability to work remotely and on flexible schedules, mentorship, network building, and so on.

Even those intangibles – while still valued – aren’t worth as much as raw compensation. Support from their employer, whether it’s in the actual day-to-day work or moral/emotional support are at the bottom of both lists. This suggests that the traditional core elements of having a job (i.e. compensation, career opportunities, job security) remain paramount for workers.

The motivators are clear – the working population in the UK want and need to make more money. Full stop.

There’s just one little intangible that deserves a much deeper dive: work flexibility, which ranks highly across all these lists. We’ll take a deep dive into that in the next chapter.

The post How valued is salary in the UK? Quite a bit, actually appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

What employers really want is what they’ve always wanted: to fill all their open positions with hard-working people who stay with the company, grow and pledge their loyalty. Ideally, employees who refer others, work until retirement and never consider seeking employment elsewhere.

But, in today’s workforce, is it possible for any employer to get all the things they want?

Let’s look at the employment landscape: In the United States, 1 in 4 people has been unemployed for over a year. The UK saw 1.55 million people unemployed in the three months up to July 2021. And the worldwide unemployment number increased to a documented 220.5 million people – although in reality, it’s likely much higher than that.

So, with an abundance of employers who want to hire combined with a record number of unemployed people, why can’t companies find workers? What do these job seekers want? And what benefits do they value most?

To help answer these questions, let’s look at the top three workforce trends to be cognizant of so you can fine-tune your hiring strategy into the last quarter of 2021 and beyond.

Workforce trends to watch in Q4 of 2021

The pandemic accelerated several trends and changed the future of work. But as a recruiter, what are the three most important things you should watch out for? Read on to find out.

1. The Great Resignation

Although new job openings are through the roof, workers are leaving companies in droves. In August 2021, 4.3 million workers quit their jobs. That’s the third consecutive month where the number was higher than the previous month.

In the UK and Ireland, a study from Personio of workers revealed that 38% of people surveyed intend to change roles in the next 6 to 12 months. The same study showed that 45% of HR decision-makers are worried about employees leaving their positions when the job market improves.

“COVID brought the great awakening which is leading to the great resignation. It helped us align what is really important and highlighted what brings us happiness and fulfillment,” says Rachel Halsey Bullard, Senior Recruiter at Emeritus.

“If the workforce does not provide the same fulfillment we experienced during the shutdown, then employees will go somewhere else to get it. ”

So, who exactly is resigning from their jobs? Let’s take a look.

Quit rates are highest among mid-career employees

Younger people in the workforce have high expectations from their employers. They’re done with the current system and refuse to go back to “business as usual.”

We recently surveyed 750 people – some employed, some self-employed, and some unemployed – in the United States to find out how content they were with their current jobs. The study revealed that 80% of those aged 21-29, 74.9% of those aged 31-39, and 75% of those aged 40-49 are either open to work right now or actively looking for a new opportunity.

We also surveyed 500 people in the UK and found that 79.8% of those aged 21-29 and 85.1% of those aged 31-39 are either actively looking for or passively open to new work right now. This means just one in five of those aged 21 to 29 and less than 15% of those aged 30 to 39 can be seen as quite settled in their current roles.

Tech and health care have the highest quit rates

The manufacturing and finance industries saw a slight decrease in resignation rates but the healthcare industry saw a 3.6% increase over the previous year. The tech industry also had a rise in resignations of 4.5% more than last year.

Related: Learn from Boston tech leaders on what attracts tech workers to your company.

These resignations were largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many workers – because of the extreme stress and increase in job demand – felt overwhelmed and burned out. It inevitably follows that they should drop out of the workforce as a result. It’s not a sustainable situation for them.

2. Increased competition for top talent

In March and April of 2020, millions of people also lost their jobs. Now, not only are employers looking to refill those positions back to pre-pandemic levels, but they’re also adding more jobs to their existing payroll in Q4 of 2021.

Because so many people now have the ability to work from home, the competition for top talent is continuing to increase. Candidates today have many more choices – not only are they applying to local jobs but they’re also considering opportunities nationally and internationally.

Employees with the most desirable skills and experience are most in demand.

Another thing about these job seekers is they’re more informed. They prefer to actively research companies themselves rather than relying on the word of a recruiter.

3. Labor shortages

In the United States, the unemployment rate in August was 5.2%. July’s number was slightly higher at 5.4%.

The average monthly job growth this year has been 586,000 – although that number has dropped in recent months. And while employment rates declined in the retail industry, other industries – like professional services, transportation, warehousing, manufacturing, and private education – saw job gains.

Related: Check out our Hiring Pulse for the latest in recruitment data, including job openings, candidates per hire and time to fill metrics.

In August, the number of unemployed people decreased to 8.4 million, which is lower than previous months but still much higher than the pre-pandemic level of 5.7 million.

In the UK, however, the numbers show more signs of promise. The unemployment rate fell to 4.6% in the three months ending July 2021, which was the lowest it had been since June-August 2020.

So what’s going on with this labor shortage? Let’s look at that.

What contributed to the current labor shortage?

One factor many believe played a major role in the labor shortage was extended unemployment benefits. To assist workers laid off due to the pandemic, US Congress passed several relief bills. One in particular gave people receiving unemployment benefits an extra $600 per week in addition to what they were already receiving from their state.

After a few months, the $600 amount decreased to $300 per week. But, this additional assistance expired on September 6, 2021. Consequently, it makes sense that this should increase the number of active candidates in the job market.

But, in spite of the end of extended unemployment benefits, many companies aren’t confident that factor alone will be enough to entice workers to rejoin the workforce.

What will continue to impact the labor market in Q4?

As we progress through Q4, some impending challenges still remain that may continue to impact the current labor market. These include a lack of child-care options, the surgence of the Delta variant, and the continuing threat of COVID-19.

Hiring tips moving forward

So, as a recruiter, what should you do moving forward? Here are a few tips to help you find, hire and onboard great candidates in Q4 and beyond.

1. Directly engage your dream candidates

Showcase and highlight the most important employee benefits to attract qualified candidates. Show job seekers – and passive candidates – why they should choose your company over all the others who also want to employ them.

2. Diversify your candidate sourcing methods

Are you only getting a few inquiries for your job posts – like 20 potential candidates showing interest instead of well over 200 applicants? If so, you’re not drawing enough attention. Spread the word by using a combination of methods: a wide range of job boards, social media, your company careers page, employee referrals, advanced sourcing tools, and other strategies to get the word out and draw qualified candidates.

3. Focus on the candidate experience

One in two job seekers admits to having a negative experience in the recruitment process. How you communicate with candidates, conduct interviews, and follow up with them all impact the candidate experience – and can encourage qualified candidates to either accept or decline your offer of employment.

4. Prioritize diversity and inclusion

Make your company’s environment appealing to the people you want to attract. Highlight your unique workers and show accessibility options throughout the office. Put policies and procedures in place ahead of time to show you’re an inclusive employer.

5. Offer a desirable perk or incentive

The benefits package you offer could be the reason that a candidate decides to choose your company over another. Offer the best benefits you can and make the offer as compelling as possible. In short, make it worthwhile for someone to spend their time and energy working for you.

6. Create a positive onboarding experience

Your onboarding process introduces the new hires to your company, your culture, and shows them their roles. Make new hires feel welcome and comfortable by providing continued training and consistent feedback.

Now, once you get their attention, it’s time to think about how you might attract them to your company.

Consider flexible working arrangements

Flexible work is one of the most coveted employee benefits an employer can offer. It allows workers to better integrate their home and work lives, and gives them the opportunity to meet their personal needs, family obligations, and other responsibilities.

According to our New World of Work survey, flexible work is one of the biggest and most important workplace changes derived from the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey revealed that 71.1% cited remote work and 35.7% cited flexible/staggered schedules as paradigm shifts going forward.

Our UK Great Discontent study also found that 57.7% of UK workers also crave flexible schedules and say it’s quite important to them.

Now, flexibility is a part of the compensation package many employers are offering. For jobseekers, it’s a must. Some won’t even consider an offer unless it includes some level of flexibility – like the option to work from home a few days per week.

FlexJobs surveyed 4,612 people between July and August of 2021 about their job-seeking plans. Three out of five said they want a fully remote position while 39% surveyed wanted a hybrid working arrangement. Only 3% said they wanted to forego flexible arrangements and return to fully in-person work.

The same survey found that 21% of people desire flex work so much they were willing to make significant sacrifices for it – like giving up some of their vacation time in exchange for working remotely. In addition to that, a quarter said they would even consider taking a pay cut of 10% to 20% if they could work from home.

Some of the fastest-growing career opportunities offering flexible work are computer and IT, medical and health, sales, project management, customer service, marketing, accounting and finance.

It’s not just a fad

The rate of remote work is also expected to nearly double what it was prior to the pre-pandemic number of 16.8 million. By 2025, it’s expected that 36.2 million Americans will be working remotely.

This arrangement is beneficial for both workers and employers. Some benefits for workers include no commute time, reduced stress and fewer distractions. Employers, on the other hand, get to enjoy their own benefits like increased employee engagement and more productivity.

When 20.8% of US workers and 16.6% of UK workers say the main reason they’re open to other opportunities is the need for better work flexibility, pay attention. So, plan accordingly in your talent attraction strategy.

What should you do if flex work is not an option?

We’re not naive – we know flex work isn’t always an option. To counter that, consider the different types of flexible work. It’s about more than giving people the opportunity to work from home. It includes the option to adjust the days and hours when you’re working and to modify your schedule.

If your industry can’t accommodate work-from-home arrangements, try offering flexible schedules at the employee’s discretion. And if you can’t give full flexibility, you can offer staggered schedules, especially for service and other customer-facing roles. Here’s an example: Schedule one employee to work 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. and have another come in from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Here are a few more things you can do to make your company more attractive to job seekers:

1. Pay a competitive wage

Many employees are at increased risk because of the pandemic, especially essential workers. Adjust your salary to reflect the current financial realities of your employees. This was a resounding conclusion from our Great Discontent surveys – compensation is still a top factor in jobseekers’ minds.

2. Invest in health precautions

Show your employees the health precautions you’re taking and how far you’re going to keep them safe. Include this information in your job advertisements – including details on vaccination mandates and other areas of concern – to show candidates how committed you are to their well-being.

3. Improve your company culture

A positive company culture – such as Proxyclick’s – will help to increase employee retention in your organization. It can also help you attract the best candidates – who share your company’s beliefs, goals, and values.

Workforce trends post-COVID

So, what’s the new future of work? Here’s what it boils down to: job seekers want change and evolution in their work setup. They have a new set of expectations for companies and they aren’t willing to settle. And most of all, they want to be happy and engaged.

After enduring the past year, they rearranged their priorities – and got to see the important things that matter most to them, and for many, this was a baptism by fire. Now they’re taking that attitude and those expectations into the workforce.

The things employees want aren’t groundbreaking discoveries. They want to work for companies that are sensitive to their needs. Companies that value what they do. And companies that acknowledge and appreciate their efforts.

They care about work-life balance, meeting family obligations and maintaining health and wellness. They also covet flexibility, because it allows them to do these things with simplicity and convenience. Consider these trends in your workforce planning strategy and you may find yourself ahead of the pack for the new year.

The post 3 workforce trends to prepare for in the last quarter of 2021 appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Job openings are through the roof – but where are the candidates? As the important candidates-per-hire metric continues to plummet month over month, employers need to start thinking about other strategies in talent attraction. This means looking at skills and culture fit rather than background and qualifications – the latter of which are ineffective and subject to bias.

In this episode, learn from Certn CEO Andrew McLeod about his company’s unique – and very successful – approach to hiring during these new times.

The post Podcast episode #15: The ‘Great Talent Shortage’: Hiring beyond work experience appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

But there’s a middle ground. The largest companies in the world use both outsourcing and directly managed offshore teams to support multiple parts of their business to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

For example, major industry players like JP Morgan, Amazon, Microsoft, Google and more have a significant amount of their workforce overseas.

Why? The global talent pool is remarkable and is fortuitously available to the United States businesses who, with more than 10 million open jobs across the United States, are currently facing a detrimental workforce shortage.

However, for many small and mid-sized business owners, building an offshore team has its own challenges. It’s not as simple as setting up their own offshore subsidiary or submitting a bid to Accenture to help them build an offshore team. The scale is just too small. Enter the virtual captive model, which allows small and medium size enterprises to build, train, and manage remote staff.

What is the Virtual Captive Model?

In the virtual captive outsourcing model, companies are given the opportunity to build their own team of offshore professionals of any size through a business process outsourcing vendor. The vendor handles the recruiting, HR, facilities, IT, and equipment while the organization controls the processes, metrics, and output.

Contrary to conventional thoughts, it’s a win-win. Companies are afforded the same control and visibility they have with a local employee when accessing the global talent pool.

Now that we’ve dispelled the bad outsourcing rumors, let’s define talent; specifically, as it applies to remote staff, introduce different opportunities for outsourcing, discuss training and managing an outsourced team, review the pros and cons, and determine if outsourcing is right for your organization.

How do you define talent?

As an HR professional, you’re well-versed in numerous ways to define talent, but for the sake of this article, let’s define it from the perspective of a company who successfully recruits and hires remote staff.

For instance, let’s define talent based on aptitude, attitude, and experience regardless of where they live.

There’s no need to discriminate between local and global talent. If you interview someone in the U.S. who is detail oriented, kind, intelligent, a critical thinker, and has slightly less experience than another candidate who is lazy and arrogant, who are you going to hire?

Probably the former.

The same applies when evaluating remote staff. A common scenario involves looking for specific experience levels rather than examining high-quality attributes that make a great employee. To take full advantage of remote staff, you must determine how you define talent locally and apply that same judgment to the global talent pool.

Now that we have defined talent, let’s dive into how you are deploying talent across the organization. In the Philippines, where Connext operates, we consistently find that it is straightforward to build a team that performs process-driven tasks such as accounting, medical billing, title and escrow, mortgage processing, underwriting, estimation, and so on.

How do you get started with outsourcing?

Our own experience with outsourcing shows that companies need to think differently about training and ramp up for a remote staff.

The first step should be to have well-defined and thought-out processes and to start with something simple and at a manageable scale. Over time, the company can then add complexities as the offshore team becomes more proficient and consider bringing on more advanced or complicated roles.

At the end of the day, companies that outsource want to see productivity growth across their organization, both offshore and local. To accomplish this, it needs to be done right and with the right partner. If outsourcing is something on your radar, start thinking about which roles and tasks could be potential candidates for an offshore team.

How do you overcome outsourcing challenges?

Accessing the global talent pool not only saves on staffing cost, but it also allows you to fill roles quickly and efficiently because of the expanded market.

More important than hiring an offshore employee, it’s critical to be able to manage and train them. Managing and training employees is hard enough locally and is even more challenging when done remotely. A trusted outsourcing partner can help with this but there is work to be done on both sides to ensure success.

When training a new employee, we usually suggest screen share training, or a manual walk through. For this to be successful it requires well-defined codified processes that can be easily taught. That’s a client responsibility.

On our end, we make sure the employee takes notes and creates a manual of their own to ensure maximum knowledge, retention, and learning.

We suggest 100% quality control on trained tasks in the beginning, and then ramp down as the employee becomes more confident and proficient. The cool part is that as clients expand their teams, oftentimes the first employee brought on becomes the trainer, and the team builds its own infrastructure for onboarding new talent.

How do you manage outsourced talent?

Now that your team is trained, let’s talk about managing a remote team because that has its own challenges. You can’t simply walk into an employee’s office to check in on what they’re doing or see them at their desk working until 5 p.m. So how do you know they are performing, and how do you fix performance issues? You measure, analyze, and measure once again.

Several examples of this are employee feedback surveys, key performance indicators, and specific performance metrics to help measure employee performance and provide feedback through employee incentives or performance improvement plans.

Three metrics that are great to start with are productivity, utilization, and quality. Productivity measures the number of widgets completed over a certain duration, utilization measures time spent on each task, and quality measures precision and accuracy for each task.

These three metrics provide great insight into the performance and behavior of remote employees. They allow managers to adjust work schedules, identify potential instances of overwork, re-adjust or balance tasks within the team, and examine other potential issues that could negatively impact the employee or the task.

How do you decide when to outsource?

Outsourcing can be an excellent way to fill open positions quickly, reduce cost structure, and create opportunities for productivity growth, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. Remote staff is significantly more cost-efficient than local talent (50-60% savings) but needs to fit into your business.

Excellent tasks or roles to start with include those in accounting, medical billing, customer service, payroll and HR support, underwriting, estimating, engineering, title and escrow or mortgage processing, architecture, and more. Virtually anything can be outsourced, from accounting and medical billing to systems engineering and virtual optometry. Yep, that’s right offshore virtual optometry.

So how do you decide if outsourcing is right for you? Outsourcing is used by some of the largest companies in the world to be more efficient and cost-effective, but it must be a good fit for your organization, and there must be a proper amount of buy-in for it to be successful.

(At Connext, we advise our clients to treat their offshore teams the same way they treat their local teams. People in different countries working hand in hand to achieve a common goal works very well.)

Additionally, if you are having issues hiring or retaining local staff to perform mundane, back-office processes, your business is a strong candidate for outsourcing, especially if you are looking for ways to reduce costs while building capacity for growth. If your employees are overworked and are having trouble keeping up with the day-to-day tasks, you may consider building an offshore team to support them.

Which type of outsourcing is right for you?

If you want control over your people and processes, visibility of metrics, and a customized solution that is tailored to your needs, select a vendor with a virtual captive model. If you’re not concerned as much about those things and would prefer your outsourced team be out of sight and out of mind, a traditional outsourcing approach may be right for you.

Taylor Goucher is CMO of Connext Global Solutions, which powers small and medium enterprises by helping build, train, and manage excellent remote teams.

The post Outsourcing your talent: when, how, and especially, why appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Here’s what we learned:

Most of our respondents say they’re working full-time (60.1%), and another fifth (22.2%) working part time. Just one in 10 (10.4%) say they’re not working right now.

Another 7.4% of respondents say they’re working for themselves, whether that means they’re a contractor, freelancing, or running their own business.

One in 10 respondents (10.4%) say they’re not working right now.

But when we looked at the responses by gender, the numbers were more striking. Those identifying as females are far more likely to be not working (14.5% vs. 6.1%) or working part-time (31.3% vs. 13%) than males.

Females working for themselves also represented a much higher percentage than their male counterparts (10.8% vs. 4%).

On the flip side, more than three quarters of males (76.9%) are working full-time, compared with just 43.4% of females, a significant difference of 33.5 percentage points.

Of those not working, nearly two out of five (38.5%) have not worked in more than five years.

Three out of 10 (30.7%) say they last worked within the last year, with 19.2% saying they have not been working for less than six months.

And now, the important part for you, the employer: a vast majority (74.6%) say they are either actively (29.6%) or passively (45.1%) looking at new opportunities.

That’s three quarters of all respondents who might leave you at any time – meaning when you look at your current workforce, just one in four are pretty settled in their current working capacity.

And many are actually just starting to look for other opportunities right now. Of those actively looking or passively open to new work, 56.6% started looking within the last half year (26.7% just started now, 29.9% in the last half year).

Employers take note: this means a majority of your people are looking to leave or they’re open to that possibility. On the flip side, if you’re looking to hire or build teams, you have a wealth of available talent to tap into here.

This requires a deeper understanding of who these people are and why they’re looking so you can evolve your recruitment and people strategy, as Personio’s CEO recommends. Let’s dig in.

Minorities are looking

One of the demographic questions we asked in the survey was; “Do you identify as a member of a minority group (be it race, ethnicity, language, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation, gender, or another characteristic)?”. Three out of 10 (30.9%) say they do, compared with 66.1% who say they don’t, and 3% prefer not to say.

So we looked at responses based on those answers. Those identifying as minorities are also much more likely to be actively looking (41.3% vs. 24.2%) than those not identifying as minorities. And nearly twice as many non-minorities say they’re not looking for new opportunities when compared with minorities (29% vs. 15.5%).

Younger people are looking

Those in the “actively looking” category are more significantly represented by younger cohorts. More than two out of five (41.7%) of those aged 21-29 say they’re outright looking for new opportunities, with that number skewing sharply downwards when looking at higher age groups.

When combined, the numbers are striking: a staggering 79.8% of those aged 21-29 and a significantly higher 85.1% of those aged 31-39 are either actively looking for or passively open to new work right now. This means just one in five of those aged 21 to 29 and less than 15% of those aged 30 to 39 can be seen as quite settled in their current roles.

Interestingly, the top age group passively open to new opportunities is 50-59 (54.1%).

We know that tenures are usually shorter for younger people. Also younger people tend to be more in rank-and-file positions than managerial/upper-crust positions, and those roles tend to see higher turnover.

But it also indicates younger generations in the UK expect more from their employers and are less willing to put up with the current reality in the workplace.

All in all, people are looking

Again, the message is clear: three quarters of your employees at your company have one foot out of the door at any given time. Your talent is ready to jump ship as soon as they find something better. That’s particularly if they’re younger or if they identify as a minority.

But looking at it from another perspective, this also means a huge talent market that you can tap into when hiring. That raises a new question – how do you attract them to your company?

We’ll cover this in detail in the next few articles, but if you want to read more right now, jump right into our comprehensive Great Discontent worker survey report right here.

The post 74.6% of UK workers open to new work, survey finds appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Here’s what we learned:

Most of our US respondents say they’re working full-time (55.3%), with an additional 13.5% working part-time.

One in 10 respondents (10.4%) say they’re working for themselves, whether that means they’re a contractor, freelancing, or running their own business.

One fifth of respondents (20.8%) say they’re not working right now.

Those identifying as females are far more likely to be not working (26% vs. 15.3%) or working part-time (17.7% vs. 8.6%) than males.

We also found an equally striking gender imbalance in those who are working. Those identifying as male are resoundingly more likely to be working full-time (68.4% vs. 46.3%, a difference of 22.1 in percentage points).

And for part-time workers, the opposite is true – 17.7% of those identifying as female are working part-time compared with 8.6% of males.

Of those not working, more than a third (34.4%) have not worked in more than five years.

More than a fifth (21.9%) say their current status not working began just in the last six months, with an additional 13.8% saying it’s been half a year to one year since they had been working.

And now, the important part for you, the employer: seven out of 10 (70.7%) say they are either actively (33.4%) or passively (37.3%) looking for work.

This means that when you look at your existing workforce, just three out of every 10 aren’t potentially looking for work at this time.

And many are actually just starting to look at other opportunities. Of those either actively looking or passively open to other work, 54% started within the last half year (28.1% just started now, 25.7% in the last half year).

Employers take note: this means a majority of your people are looking to leave or they’re open to that possibility. On the flip side, if you’re looking to hire or build teams, you have a wealth of available talent to tap into here.

This merits a deeper understanding of who these people are and why they’re looking, so you can evolve your recruitment and people strategy. Let’s dig in.

Minorities are looking

One of the demographic questions we asked in the survey was; “Do you identify as a member of a minority group (be it race, ethnicity, language, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation, gender, or another characteristic)?”. A full third (33%) say they do, compared with 61.6% who say they don’t, and 5.3% prefer not to say.

So we looked at responses based on those answers. Those identifying as minorities are much more likely to be actively looking (42.9% vs. 29.3%) than those not identifying as minorities.

Younger people are looking

While the “passively looking” category is equally represented across age groups from 21 to 49 years of age, it’s the “actively looking” category that is significantly represented by younger cohorts, with 42.8% of those aged 21-29 saying they’re outright looking for new opportunities.

And when combined, the numbers are striking: a staggering 80% of those aged 21-29, 74.9% of those aged 31-39, and 75% of those aged 40-49 are either actively looking for or passively open to work right now.

We know that tenures are usually shorter for younger people. Also younger people tend to be more in rank-and-file positions than managerial/upper-crust positions, and those tend to see higher turnover.

But it also means younger generations in the United States expect more from their employers and are less willing to put up with the current reality in the workplace.

All in all, people are looking

Again, this points to a clear message: seven out of 10 employees at your company have one foot out of the door at any given time. Your talent is ready to leave as soon as they find something better. That’s particularly if they’re younger or if they identify as a minority.

But again, this is a huge talent market right here that you can tap into when hiring. Which raises a new question – how do you attract them to your company?

We’ll cover this in detail in the next few articles, but if you want to read more right now, jump right into our comprehensive Great Discontent US worker survey report right here.

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We’ve seen a volatile transition from one presidential administration to another. We’ve seen the increased awareness of issues in the form of Black Lives Matter, Stop Asian Hate, and other socially dynamic movements. We’re still navigating a terrifying virus.

And what’s happening among all this is that we’re experiencing an upheaval of the way we operate as a society – both at home and in the workplace.

What’s also happening – and something you’re likely noticing as an employer – is unprecedentedly high levels in job quit rates in the United States, coupled with equally striking levels in job openings. This graph from the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) speaks volumes:

People in the United States aren’t merely changing jobs. They’re bowing out of the traditional workforce altogether. It signals a discontent unseen in our history.

“The Great Resignation” is no longer a prediction; it’s a current reality, and it’s evolved to a Great Discontent. It’s becoming more challenging to motivate people to stay in their jobs, and harder to attract candidates to new roles. Data from the Workable network confirms this as well.

We see this, and we want to help you – the employer – overcome this challenge. After all, you need your people.

So we surveyed 750 people in the US – some employed, some self-employed, some unemployed, all more or less employable – to understand the most important factors influencing their career priorities. And now, we have results.

We identified four major themes in the dataset:

Money still talks

Despite all the new workplace developments, salary, perks and benefits are still top of mind. People want – and need – more of it when working.

Flexy is sexy

Flexible work arrangements are important to many workers – and much more for women than men – but it’s not as high of a priority for their employers.

The power of connectivity

No matter the kind of work involved, people are at the heart of it all. When people feel connected to their colleagues and leadership, they’ll stay and they’ll thrive.

There’s no place like home

Integrating personal and professional lives is very important for people – it’s the top reason why those not working aren’t working and the top benefit of flexible work.

Major takeaways include the following:

• Want to attract people? Increase the salary, and build up the perks and benefits. 63.4% say it’s the reason why they’re looking for other opportunities, and 62.2% say salary, perks and benefits represent the top factor influencing their decision whether to accept a new job.
• Build strong teams with people who work well together. Relationships with colleagues is the number-one most attractive factor about a potential new employer (37.1%), and a major area for improvement at their current employer (31.3%).
• Make it worthwhile for your workers to stay. Seven out of 10 (70.7%) respondents say they are either actively or passively looking for work, and 54% started looking just in the last half year.
• Pay attention to your younger workers. More than two out of five (42.8%) of those aged 21-29 say they’re actively looking for a new job, compared with just one quarter (24.7%) of those aged 50-59.
• Establish remote work and especially flexible schedules as a permanent policy. Both are highly valued by workers, with 58.2% saying flexible schedules are important to them – particularly because it’s easier to integrate personal and professional lives.
• Keep an eye on the potential disconnect between you and your employees in the importance of flexible work. Nearly half think their employer will ultimately return to in-office (44.7%) and set schedules (46.8%).
• Support your employees’ home lives as well as their work lives – especially if they’re women. Females are more than twice as likely as males to cite family priorities as the reason why they’re not working (39.4% vs. 19.3%).

Read more: check out our in-depth analysis of what matters most to workers in the United States in a job. Or stay tuned for the next excerpt from our Great Discontent survey report for the US.

Interested in seeing what’s going on at the other side of the pond? Check out our UK version of the Great Discontent report in its entirety.

The post Great Discontent: It’s time to evolve your US talent attraction appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

We’ve seen a volatile exit of the UK from the European Union in the form of Brexit, combined with a terrifying virus, both of which have shaken our society at the foundation – leading to economic and social upheaval at home and in the workplace.

What’s also happening – and something you’re likely noticing as an employer – is a mass talent exodus in the country, with one study by Workable partner Personio finding that four out of 10 UK employees will leave their job in the next six to 12 months.

This puts the onus on you, the employer, to take action, and quickly, says Personio CEO Hanno Renner:

“As businesses look to emerge from the crisis in a position of strength and turn the tide on the costs of a potential talent exodus, they now need to come up with a long-term people strategy. By prioritising their people and taking a more strategic approach to people management, employers can prevent an impending talent drain and drive their business performance as well as the wider economy.”

“The Great Resignation” is no longer a prediction. it’s a current reality, and it’s evolved to a Great Discontent. It’s becoming more challenging to motivate people to stay in their jobs, and harder to attract candidates to new roles. Data from the Workable network confirms this as well.

We see this, and we want to help you – the employer – overcome this challenge. After all, you need your people.

So we surveyed 500 people in the UK – some employed, some self-employed, some unemployed, all generally employable – to understand the most important factors influencing their career priorities. And now, we have results.

We identified four major themes in the dataset:

Money still talks

Despite all the new workplace developments, salary, perks and benefits are still top of mind in a job. People want – and need – more of it when working.

Flexy is sexy

Flexible work arrangements are important to many workers – and especially more so for women – but it’s not as high of a priority for their employers.

The power of connectivity

No matter the kind of work involved, people are at the heart of it all. When people feel connected to their colleagues and leadership, they’ll stay and they’ll thrive.

There’s no place like home

Integrating personal and professional lives is very important for people – it’s the top reason why those not working aren’t working and the top benefit of flexible work.

Major takeaways include the following:

• Want to attract people? Increase the salary, and build up the perks and benefits. 70.1% of workers say that’s one of the top reasons why they’ll bolt to a new job.
• Build strong teams with people who work well together. Relationships with colleagues is the number-one most attractive factor about a potential new employer (47.3%), and also the top area in need of improvement at their current employer (31.8%).
• Make it worthwhile for your workers to stay. Three quarters of respondents (74.6%) say they are either actively or passively looking for work right now – and 56.6% started looking within the last half year.
• Pay attention to your younger working population. More than two out of five (41.7%) of those aged 21-29 are actively looking, compared with just 12.9% of those aged 50-59.
• Establish remote work and especially flexible schedules as a permanent policy. Both are highly valued by workers, with 53.8% saying flexible schedules are important to them – particularly because it’s easier to integrate personal and professional lives.
• Mind that disconnect between you and your employees in the importance of flexible work. Nearly half think their employer will ultimately return to in-office (44.7%) and fixed schedules (46.8%).
• Support your employees’ home lives as well as their work lives – especially if they’re women. Females are more than six times as likely as males to cite family priorities as the reason why they’re not working (41.7% vs. 6.7%).

Read more – check out our in-depth analysis of what matters most to workers in the UK in a job. Or stay tuned until next week for the next excerpt from our Great Discontent survey report for the UK.

Interested in seeing what’s going on at the other side of the pond? Check out our US version of the Great Discontent report in its entirety.

The post Evolve your UK talent attraction and survive the Great Discontent appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

HR audits are a critical part of ensuring an organization’s employees are productive, satisfied and constantly improving. Audits are kind of like checklists for HR managers. According to SHRM, audits are most commonly used to go over current HR policies, systems, documentations and other various aspects within an organization.

After working in human resources for various corporate organizations over the last 20 years, I know firsthand how important auditing is to both HR professionals and to the overall health of an organization. Audits and productivity go hand in hand.

Here are a few auditing tips for HR professionals to facilitate an organization’s workflow.

1. Focus on the employee experience
2. Fine-tune your candidate experience
3. Conduct ROI analyses
4. Create consistent audit schedules
5. Survey your employees