Category: Candidate Attraction

The Importance of an Employer Value Proposition and Employer Brand Strategy

Posted on by skatz

As employers face increasing competition for the best talent, a well-defined employer value proposition (EVP) and employer brand strategy have become more important than ever. In a candidate-driven market, employers need to stand out to their target talent audiences through a unified EVP and employer brand. High-quality candidates know what they want out of a future employer, and organizations that don’t effectively show their value to candidates risk losing them to the competition.

If you google EVP and employer brand, you’re likely to find thousands of definitions. At PeopleScout we define EVP and employer brand as the following:

  • Employer Brand: The perception and lived experiences of what it’s like to work for your organization.
  • Employer Value Proposition: Captures the essence of your uniqueness as an employer and the give and the get between you and your employees.

Both concepts revolve around the qualities that make a company a great place to work, as well as the benefits, career growth opportunities, work-life balance and company culture that attract top talent.

EVPs are particularly important in today’s job market, as a majority of candidates heavily evaluate companies before they even consider applying for open positions, and it can be a critical differentiator in a company’s ability to attract talent.

Key Elements of a Successful EVP

As HR Technologist explains, “An employee value proposition must be thoughtfully designed since it has a direct impact on behavior. It must look into the tangible and intangible elements of the psychological contracts between the employer and the employee. It must start way before the employee joins, even before the person is a job candidate; it must appeal to the person irrespective of whether the person intends to work with the organization or not.”

A successful EVP articulates the value that you offer to your employees. At PeopleScout, we establish three elements to support a successful EVP:

  • Pillars: Pillars are the core components of your EVP and are informed by insights into your cultural DNA and your audience’s motivations. Pillars are used to define the relevance of your EVP and are based on research.
  • Narrative: The narrative is usually a single, manifesto-style paragraph – it’s the emotive “sell” of what you offer. The narrative defines consistency throughout your EVP and employer brand strategies.
  • Strapline: Finally, the strapline is a concise phrase that summarizes your overall offering – it focuses on being memorable rather than detailed. The strapline defines a point of focus throughout your EVP materials.

By creating pillars, a narrative and a strapline to support your EVP and employer brand strategy, employers will be set up for a successful deployment both internally to current employees and externally to candidates and the broader marketplace.

For example, we recently completed an EVP and employer brand project for a global law firm based in the UK called Linklaters. Here are the pillars, narrative and strapline that we created to bring the project to life.

Linklaters employment brand pillars
Linklaters employer brand narrative
Linklaters employer brand strapline

Benefits of a Well-Managed Employer Value Proposition and Employer Brand Platform

Organizations that effectively deliver on their EVP can enjoy a host of benefits, including decreased annual employee turnover and increased new hire commitment, according to Gartner research. Other benefits include improved brand sentiment, increased reach to target audiences, a greater sense of commitment from current employees and cost savings related to compensation.

Improved Brand Sentiment

Organizations with effective EVPs are more attractive to candidates and are considered employers of choice – organizations where candidates want to work. In order to make yourself an employer of choice, you have to be able to appeal to your ideal candidates by differentiating your company from your competitors.

A compelling EVP and employer brand can move your brand sentiment in a positive direction. A clearly defined EVP creates the foundation on which to build your internal and external employer brand messaging, which allows you to have greater influence over what you are known for and how you are perceived.

Increased Reach

A thoroughly researched and tested EVP is designed to speak more effectively to your target talent audiences. When you are able to tailor the core of your message to individual audiences, while keeping your narrative and strapline consistent throughout, more diverse groups of candidates will respond favorably. This has real business impact. According to a Morgan Stanley study in The Atlantic, there is a positive relationship between equity returns and the gender composition of an organization’s employee base, as an example.

We work with an organization in the UK that was once an online automobile magazine but is now a digital publication. The organization struggled with brand perception. Many candidates thought the company was old-fashioned, and they struggled to attract women to their open positions. We developed an “adventures in awesomeness” EVP that spoke to the digital transformation that had already happened at the employer. This EVP not only increased brand attractiveness and shifted sentiment, but also increased the number of women visiting the careers site by 300 percent.

Greater Employee Commitment

Organizations with strong EVPs enjoy significantly higher levels of engagement from employees. In one example studied by Cornell University, a beverage bottling and distribution company launched an initiative to develop an integrated employer brand. Around the same time, the company decreased headcount by more than 6 percent and maintained tight control over salary raises. Despite these difficulties, employee engagement grew at the company from 36 percent to 55 percent over a five-year period.

This study suggests that when you clearly articulate your EVP and the behaviors you’re looking for from employees, it can be a factor in successfully attracting and retaining employees with the right cultural fit for your organization. This yields more engaged employees.

Compensation Savings

Organizations with effective EVPs are able to reduce the compensation premium required to attract new candidates. Another example highlighted in the Cornell paper found that organizations with a well-managed employer brand had a 26 percent economic advantage in terms of labor cost.

Key Considerations When Creating an EVP and Employer Brand Program

There is ample data that shows that effective EVPs generate real business benefits. To realize those benefits, there is a lot of work that goes into creating a successful EVP and employer brand. Before launching an EVP internally or externally, it’s critical that companies spend time researching, defining, developing, optimizing and deploying an EVP that accurately represents the company’s value to employees.

Recruitment for Retention

Posted on by skatz

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” It is perhaps the most time-worn question in a job interview. But if the candidate answers that if they are hired, they will be happily working in your organization, the odds are against this ever happening. Why? The average time workers in the U.S. remain in one job is just 4.2 years. And in other leading economies, the average single job tenure can be similarly brief. In the UK, workers change jobs every five years, while in Australia, the national average job tenure is just three years and four months. In Canada, the average length is 8.5 years, but the averages vary widely depending on the industry.

For those hoping to attract and retain top talent, these figures can be familiar – and a cause for concern. When human resource professionals look inside their organizations and identify employees who have defied the statistical average, staying with the company far longer than five years and contributing significantly to its success, they wonder “how do I get more of them?” With low unemployment making many job markets the most challenging in recent memory, there is genuine urgency not only to retain the best talent but to find a way to attract talent that will stay with an organization for the long-term. In other words, there is a need to recruit to retain, but how?

Know Your Talent: Why They Leave and Why They Stay and Thrive

Like many organizations, your company may already have an employee retention program in place. Enterprises are making considerable efforts to retain talent, and the processes they deploy to improve employee retention can also be incorporated into your recruitment process.

For example, it is relatively common to have exit interviews with departing workers to better understand why they are leaving the organization. When a sufficient number of exit interview results are available and evaluated, trends can emerge that can lead to actionable items to improve employee retention. Certain common traits or characteristics may also appear among those who voluntarily leave their jobs.

Less common, but potentially just as valuable, is the “stay interview.” These interviews with current employees allow them to express their concerns before they are in a position to leave, which can help leaders address issues and take steps to retain top talent.

And just as exit interviews can bring into focus the characteristics of those who quit, the stay interview can help identify the traits of those who remain and thrive. Once a group of long-term successful employees is identified, a stay interview can be designed for this group with the goal of identifying why they have remained with the company, what factors have contributed to their success and what characteristics many or most of them have in common. Identifying these characteristics in your candidate pool during the recruiting process could be an indicator of future success.

In today’s tight job market, if you are not working to identify candidates with the characteristics that have been proven to lead to long-term achievement in your company, your competitors probably are. SHRMreports that “Many organizations are seeking more of a ‘whole person’ gauge of candidates, experts say, assessing not just skills or intellectual horsepower but also personality traits, cultural fit and motivational drivers that can prove the difference between candidates who thrive over the long run and those who quickly derail.”

Predictive Analytics: Unlocking the Key to Recruitment for Retention

Predictive analytics is a type of data analytics that uses data to find patterns and then uses those models to attempt to predict the future. Consider the most basic data you likely have about a single employee who worked for your organization and left after five years. A sample of data points could include:

  • How they were sourced
  • Their addresses over their tenure at the company
  • Their education and certifications
  • Previous employers

These data points alone may not provide insight into why this employee joined your organization and why they left. But, if just these pieces of information were aggregated for all your employees, both past and present, here are a few insights which could be determined:

  • Is there a correlation between how an employee is sourced and their tenure at the organization?
  • Do employees who live far from the workplace quit sooner than those who do not?
  • Do employees from certain schools or that have particular certifications stay longer with the company than others?
  • Are there previous employers which produce more long-term employees than others?

The information found in even one of these examples could be built into your recruitment strategy and have a meaningful impact in recruiting talent that will remain with your organization.

The right technology using predictive analytics can provide effective recruiting insight, as PeopleScout’s Allison Brigden explains:

“In this tightening talent market with unemployment rates at record lows, predictive analytics is emerging as an essential AI tool for employers looking to stay ahead of the competition. Predictive analytics allows employers to use the power of data to make predictions about candidates and drive efficiencies throughout the entire talent acquisition process…

Predictive analytics can’t tell you what will happen, but it shows what is likely to happen based on past trends. It’s as close as employers can get to predicting the future.”

Solving for Retention

The dilemma faced by a major auto retailer was challenging but not surprising. The annual turnover rate in the retail sector is much higher than the national average in the U.S. With a 50% turnover rate and a need for 10,000 annual hires, there was an immediate need for drastic improvement

PeopleScout partnered with this automotive retailer and was able to rapidly address their turnover challenges by implementing the following solutions:

A Standard Hiring Model

An uneven hiring process was replaced, and a standard hiring model was put in place that included consistent OFCCP compliance and standardization across the company.

An Efficient Process

PeopleScout deployed a time-efficient screening process which focused on the quality of the candidate, with a guaranteed response from recruiting teams within 48 hours of application. To quickly present candidates to hiring managers, PeopleScout implemented block interview scheduling with great success.

Hiring Diversity

To help source and engage more diverse candidates, PeopleScout developed a comprehensive network of community organizations for partnered recruitment.

In-Region Recruiters

Collaborative relationships between recruiters and the client’s area managers were fostered by in-region placement of PeopleScout recruiters.

Transparent Reporting

Continuous improvement was driven through transparent reporting and analysis for the client’s executive and field leadership.

The Results:
  • PeopleScout hired 10,000 employees in the first year of the engagement.
  • The technician turnover rate improved by 5% and retail turnover by 6%.
  • Hiring diversity improved by 40%, including an increase of 2% for veterans and 6% for female hires.

Talking Talent Leadership Profiles: Andrew Wilkinson, Group Managing Director, Europe and Asia Pacific

Posted on by epadmin

There are a lot of new perspectives and British accents around PeopleScout since our acquisition of TMP Holdings LTD (TMP UK) in June 2018. For Andrew Wilkinson, who was the CEO of TMP UK prior to the acquisition, it’s been a whirlwind. He has crisscrossed the globe visiting PeopleScout operations in Chicago, Krakow and Sydney, meeting with PeopleScout clients in the U.S. and Australia, speaking at the Candidate Experience Awards (CandE) Awards in Orlando and HRO Today Forums in Amsterdam and Hong Kong, and attending the PeopleScout NEXT Talent Summits in Chicago and Sydney.

I caught up with Andrew in PeopleScout’s Central London office to get the scoop on PeopleScout’s UK operations, talent advisory practice and his insights after six months in his new role as PeopleScout Executive Leader, Group Managing Director, Europe and Asia Pacific.

How has our acquisition of TMP Holdings LTD changed PeopleScout?

I believe that we significantly expanded PeopleScout’s on-the-ground capabilities and expertise in the UK with an EMEA HQ in London and a highly effective RPO delivery center in Bristol. Since June, we’ve begun to have a lot of collaboration as a global leadership team talking with clients that want to expand their program to new geographies as well as starting new conversations with global prospects.


The deal not only established a European PeopleScout footprint, it also significantly enhanced PeopleScout’s talent advisory capabilities in employer branding, assessment and recruitment marketing. Our RPO model was built on our 25-year legacy in the UK as an award-winning employer brand and recruitment marketing agency and is a huge differentiator. Whilst underpinning our RPO business, we also offer talent advisory services directly to clients to help them tell a compelling story to their target audiences and create a positive candidate experience.

Why are talent advisory services becoming increasingly relevant in today’s market?

With talent shortages in virtually every global market, the candidate is in control. For that reason, helping our clients bring their employer brand to life to give them an unfair advantage in attracting critical talent is very timely. Additionally, there is a growing awareness of the positive and negative impact that employer brand experiences can have on your bottom line.


For instance, one of our clients – a telecom company – studied the cost of having a bad candidate experience and found that candidates that had a negative experience were inclined to change providers. Given their candidate volume, this equated to millions of dollars in potential lost revenue annually. Global research from the CandE Awards aligns with this – showing significant positive and negative revenue correlation with candidate experience.

How does employer brand relate to creating a compelling candidate experience?

Every company has an employer brand – intentional or not. This brand is based on their reputation, how they communicate, what others say about them and the candidate experience that they deliver. As they say, perception is reality.


To that point, having a managed employer brand is critical. For us, that begins with helping our clients understand what they want to achieve and who they really are through insights gathered from current senior leaders, employees, exit interviews and existing corporate materials.


Starting with those insights we begin to identify the themes that allow them to tell their story, one that allows them to “own” a space in their target talent groups’ minds and ultimately draws this talent into their pipeline. This is their employer value proposition (EVP) and we use that as a compass point from which we design their whole employee experience. The EVP defines what you deliver to your employees but also what you expect in return. This last point is critical, in that you don’t want to be a magnet for all talent, you want to be a magnet for talent that will thrive in your organization.


Clearly, this is a balancing act between authenticity and aspiration – you’ve got to deliver from the inside out on your EVP through the entire candidate and employee lifecycle.

How do you help create positive employer brand experiences – whether the candidate gets the job or not?

Creating great employment experiences begins long before a candidate joins an organization. The typical candidate journey has upwards of 25 touch points. These touchpoints inform a candidate’s opinion of your organization and ultimately their decision to join.


When you consider a candidate’s experience as they explore multiple job opportunities, they are sorting through a lot of messages. To stand out, your employer brand message must be compelling and consistent because candidate attention spans continue to decrease for anything but the most compelling engagement tactics.


Our goal for every interaction is to enhance the candidate’s perception of our client’s brand. We’ve done our job when a candidate doesn’t get the job but walks away from the experience thinking “that’s a great company.”

What’s next?

2019 looks like another exciting year. We have now completed the key integration project and I believe that the opportunities for PeopleScout next year are huge as we start to unlock our true global potential. We are already having so many different conversations across geographies as we better link our total capabilities to clients’ needs. We are bringing to the UK the scale and resources of being part of the PeopleScout team which will benefit our existing RPO customers as well as dramatically change our offer to potential new customers.


In addition, for me, that also means supporting Guy Bryant-Fenn, our new Managing Director for Asia Pacific operations, and strengthening our global ties with each region. I am excited to be working together with some amazing talent on the global team to develop synergies across regions and build on our current success to continue to drive growth in Asia Pacific and around the globe. Traveling is back on the agenda with visits to Chicago, Washington D.C., Sydney and India all on the itinerary but not before a ski break to relax!

Through The Grapevine: How to Create and Manage an Employee Referral Program

Posted on by epadmin

A well-managed employee referral program may be the single most powerful weapon in an organization’s recruitment arsenal.

In fact, according to Silkroad’s Sources of Hire Report, employee referral programs continue to be a top source for hires.

By encouraging employees to refer contacts in their professional networks for open positions you can reduce recruiting costs, improve candidate quality and increase employee engagement.

In this article, we explore the case for employee referral programs, some of the top considerations organizations should be mindful of and how to properly manage a referral program.

The Case for Developing an Employee Referral Program

employee referral program

Intuitively, developing a formal employee referral program makes sense.

After all, who better to refer great candidates and sell those candidates on why they should join your organization than your own employees?

Employee referral programs make good business sense. Some of the benefits your organization may reap from an employee referral program include:

  • Faster time-to-hire: A LinkedIn study uncovered that it takes an average of 29 days to hire a referred candidate compared to 39 days to hire a candidate through a job board.
  • Less impact on your talent acquisition budget: An employee referral program is an inexpensive sourcing strategy that relies primarily on word-of-mouth and internal communication. You don’t have to pay to advertise job posts. Due to the faster time-to-hire, organizations can cut internal costs as well, since recruiters won’t be spending as much time sourcing and interviewing candidates for open positions.
  • Top talent begets top talent: Another LinkedIn survey revealed that star employees tend to refer other star employees. Tapping into your top talent can help organizations source and hire high performers more effectively.
  • Better employee retention: Not only are candidates hired via an employee referral typically of higher quality, they also tend to stay at their jobs longer, with 46 percent remaining in their position for at least three years.

Employee Referral Programs as an Extension of Employee Engagement

With employee referral programs, saving time and money is just the beginning.

Employee referrals also add value through improved employee engagement.

Using employee referrals to hire candidates builds a more robust corporate culture by intersecting performance and engagement to drive business success through tapping current employees for qualified candidate referrals, thus simplifying the sourcing process.

Employees who recommend a new hire have a vested interest in onboarding and retaining that person, as many referral programs include a requirement that the referred employee must be with the organization for a specific period of time before the referring employee can get a referral bonus.

What’s more, employees who refer candidates will feel a sense of commitment to ensure their referral’s success because they recommended the position.

Moreover, employees who are involved in the recruitment process may feel a greater sense of purpose towards the future of your company.

By encouraging employees to submit referrals, you are letting them know you value their input and contribution.

What to Consider Before Implementing an Employee Referral Program

Set Program Objectives

Before implementing an employee referral program, organizations should outline objectives in order to set a clear goal.

Defining objectives early on in the process helps ensure your team is on the same page and knows exactly what is expected and when.

Setting objectives can be achieved by holding planning sessions with key stakeholders where you share the vision for the program, develop strategies to achieve success and find solutions that are mutually agreed upon.

Objectives for an employee referral program might include:

  • Improving quality-of-hire
  • Increasing new hire retention
  • Boosting employee morale and recognition
  • Lowering overall recruiting costs
  • Increasing diversity within the organization
  • Sourcing candidates with a specific skill set
  • Reducing the time-to-hire for external candidates
  • Better targeting and sourcing of passive job seekers
  • Deepening the pipeline of potential applicants

Leverage Technology

Technology can help make the employee referral process better for both employers, employees and referrals. Using your technology tools can streamline processes and minimize inefficiencies and missed opportunities in the referral program.

In an article with SHRM, Jennifer Newbill, Director of Global Employment Brand, Dell explains that Dell uses a combination of “white glove” and automated communications to manage its more than 40,000 annual employee referrals, making the process more manageable for the organization’s talent acquisition teams.

Social Media Referrals

Recruitment marketing technology can allow you to post jobs on your organization’s social channels in seconds. You can also leverage your existing employees’ social media networks – if your employees are willing to post on your behalf – to expand your reach.

Auto-Posting Open Roles

In order to get your employees more engaged in your employee referral program, you should consider sharing job openings on a regular basis. Instead of sending out emails manually every time a position opens, you can automate this process through your recruitment email marketing tools.

For example, gig-economy start-up Fiverr leverages employee referral software that gamifies the referral process by adding a competitive element to referring candidates. The software assigns points to employees and credit for all the actions they take. The software also keeps employees up-to-date on the status of their referrals.

Make Jobs Shareable Through Employee Portals

Make it easier for employees to share job opportunities through their social media accounts and email. Adding social links on job posts will allow employees to automatically share job openings with just a few clicks. The quicker and easier jobs are to share, the more likely your employees will participate.

Referral Tracking

Tracking and appropriately attributing a referral is crucial to the program’s success. To make tracking easier, a referral field should be added to applications. The referral field on the job application can be filled in with information about the referring employee, making referral tracking easier.

Managing an Employee Referral Program

When it comes to managing a successful employee referral program, there are a few elements to keep in mind. Ideally, every program includes the following:

  • Incentives
  • A simple process
  • Feedback

Below, we explain how your organization can manage each of these three elements within your employee referral program.

Employee Referral Incentives

According to a survey conducted by LinkedIn, 40 percent of respondents were motivated to refer candidates for a monetary reward. What’s more, 68 percent stated they submitted a referral because they wanted to help their organization. If you want to get the most impact out of your organization’s employee referral program, you should offer a combination of monetary and creative, non-monetary incentives for referrals.

  • Experiment with monetary reward amounts because there is no magic number that will motivate all employees. Periodically testing different amounts can allow you to optimize your financial incentives.
  • Employees who are more altruistic in nature may prefer the option of donating their referral bonus to a charity or cause close to their hearts.
  • An alternative to offering individual monetary incentives is to hold a quarterly prize drawing where every employee who has made a successful referral during the period is eligible to win.
  • While prizes and cash incentives can be great motivators, other perks can be just as effective. Non-monetary rewards can include reserved parking spots, extra time off or first choice of shifts and schedules.

For a PeopleScout client and multinational auto parts and accessories manufacturer, we encourage their store managers, area managers and team members to refer quality candidates, including friends and family, to current job openings.

Once the employee’s referral applies to a position, our client lets a member of our recruiting team know that a referral has applied.

In the system the candidate selects referral and the client lets us know. This ensures we do not miss a referral and/or they selected the wrong source code when applying. 

Our team then schedules an interview with the referral and if qualified, proceeds to extend a verbal offer. 

If the referral is qualified, they will be scheduled with the store/hiring manager for an in-person interview, unless the referral was a quality candidate from the store manager and they already met them in person.

To assist our client in tracking the referrals coming in, our recruiters maintain a digital log of the number of referrals that were phone screened and referrals that were hired.

Our client values this referral program because it yields quality candidates and results in a faster time-to-hire for critical positions. 

When a referral is screened the recruiter ensure the source code is correct in the ATS so we provide stats and results of referrals.

Program highlights include:

  • When we onboard and train our client’s new managers, PeopleScout emphasizes the employee referral program and its importance to the recruiting process
  • PeopleScout’s team has specific SLAs to ensure referrals are expedited
  • PeopleScout tracks time in status and conversion rates specifically for referrals
  • More than 25 percent of hires for our client come from referrals
  • More than 50 percent of referrals submitted are ultimately hired
  • PeopleScout hires between 9,000 and 11,000 people for this client annually

Simplify the Employee Referral Process

95 percent of HR professionals believe their employees fully understand how to submit referrals.

However, 63 percent say they “very often or frequently” receive feedback that employees find it too complicated to refer someone.

When evaluating your program, ask yourself these questions:

  • Do employees know about your referral program?
  • Is it clear with whom or where an employee should submit a referral?
  • Is the technology used to submit referrals user-friendly?
  • Is it easy to track if the referring employee was given credit?
  • Is it easy to track the incentives that were earned?

If the program makes your employees jump through hoops to place a referral, you can be sure that it won’t attract many participants.

To simplify your program, start with the following steps:

Explain your employee referral program: Employees need to understand exactly how your referral program works to make it successful.

How you teach employees about the program depends on your size and how the workforce is dispersed geographically.

You might gather your employees together and give a brief presentation or create an online training course.

Or, you might do something as simple as sending an informational email or flyer for employees to review.

Set your requirements up front: If you want your employees to refer quality candidates, they need to know what traits and skills you are looking for.

Share the open positions you are hiring for and provide employees with the job descriptions, so they get a feel for the types of candidates that would be a good fit.

Provide regular reminders: You should periodically remind employees about the referral program. If you don’t, they may quickly forget about it.

InMobi, an Indian-based mobile technology company, offered a motorbike—a very popular vehicle in India—to any employee who referred a successful engineering manager candidate.

To keep the referral program top of mind, InMobi parked a motorbike right in front of their corporate headquarters so employees were reminded of the referral incentive every day while entering the building.

When you have an influx of open positions, send a reminder to your employees that explains how they can refer candidates and what the reward is for hired candidates.

You can also promote the referral program when you aren’t actively hiring.

An employee might refer a candidate you do not want to miss out on. You should add those candidates to your talent pool.

Collect and Provide Feedback  

Measure Program Results: Measuring results is critical to evaluating the success of the program and to finding improvement opportunities.

While metrics can vary depending on the goals you’ve set for the program, here are some good metrics to track:

  • On-the-job performance of referral hires
  • Retention/turnover rate of referral hires
  • Program ROI or the cost/benefit ratio
  • Employee satisfaction with the overall process

Provide notifications after an employee referral is made: Referring employees may be nervous about whether their referrals were any good. The best practice is to notify employees immediately when their referral is accepted/rejected, if the candidate is invited for an interview and when the candidate is finally hired or not.

Employee Referral Program: The Gist

Employee referral programs remain one of the top sources for candidates because they are a cost-effective, engaging talent acquisition strategy.

To get the most out of your referral program, understand what motivates your employees to refer candidates, make the process as easy as possible and maintain good communication with both the referrer and referee.

Rethinking Candidate Generation Strategies

Posted on by epadmin

Candidate generation strategies are crucial. In this time of rapid transformation and high competition for talent, employers face the challenge of evolving their talent generation strategies to stay ahead. For years, employers focused on attracting as many candidates as possible with the hypothesis that generating more applications was the best strategy to yield better quality hires. That approach to talent attraction and the metrics used to measure success are changing.

The old goal: Attract as many candidates as possible.

The new goal: Attract the strongest candidates who are the best motivational fit for your organization.

In this article, we cover the changing landscape of candidate attraction and why employers should develop a new, data-informed way of looking at job postings. We also present some specific strategies employers can put in place now and explore the benefits of these strategies.

When Sourcing Candidates Change is Not Optional

Many organizations remain stuck with outdated candidate generation strategies. Job titles and descriptions can go years without being updated to reflect the reality of the position or the ways that candidates look for jobs. Long, expensive contracts with specific job boards are common, even though the return on investment may be decreasing. There are several reasons why the old way is no longer working.

1. Employers look at the wrong metrics when building candidate generation strategies.

Many employers assume that a large number of views, clicks and even applications indicate an effective strategy, even when those numbers don’t translate to strong hires. At the same time, candidates are left frustrated by applying to jobs that are different than advertised and then facing rejection because they don’t align with the true requirements of the position or with an offer or a job that isn’t a good fit.

If a job posting yields too many unqualified candidates, it creates the risk of harming an organization’s employer brand. This is because when there are too many unqualified candidates, there is the risk of poor communication. Those candidates could become frustrated with a lack of communication and form a negative opinion of the organization which they could share with their own networks.

Employers need to modernize their candidate generation strategies and metrics to keep up with changing candidate expectations and advancements in workplace technology.

2. Candidate generation strategies: The process is expensive.

The practice of attracting large numbers of applicants is expensive. Employers pay to attract and process candidates who aren’t good fits. At one UK organization, we found that a dismissal at the CV review stage cost £1.92. This organization hired 6,000 employees for every 67,000 applicants. This means the cost of just the first stage was £117,000.00. The process of dispositioning an applicant after an interview is even more expensive.

3. Job postings aren’t optimized for the changing landscape.

The changing role of job boards is also disrupting the traditional process. The rollout of Google Jobs, for example, has made it easier for candidates to search for job postings the same way they search for everything else on the internet – and candidates have grown to expect this. Because of this, employers need to optimize job postings and use SEO strategies to ensure candidates will see those postings.

Candidate Generation Strategies for the Future

Building a Centralized Recruitment Function

By centralizing the recruitment function, employers build a team that can adapt more quickly to change and works more efficiently to put new strategies in place. HR leaders find that a centralized function allows all members of the team better insight into the full hiring process and helps them better understand how each step impacts the broader candidate journey.

It is also easier to test new strategies and deploy successful ideas throughout the entire recruitment function. Because there is no need to get the buy-in of other offices or teams, a centralized function can deploy changes quickly.

A centralized recruitment team also helps maintain consistent metrics and employer branding. When multiple teams are accountable for different parts of the process, those teams can start to shift over time to the point where aspects of an employer brand or the metrics used to define success can look different from team to team.

When processes are siloed it makes it more difficult for leaders to get a full view of the recruitment team and maintain consistency throughout the process. When the entire recruitment team is accountable to the same leader, the process remains more consistent.

Benefit: An accountable and synchronized recruitment team that can more effectively share your brand message.

Sharing an Honest Employer Brand

An authentic yet aspirational, unique and dynamic employer brand is key for employers looking to stand out in the competitive talent market. This type of employer brand will speak to candidates who fit with the current company culture but can also be an effective way to keep current employees aligned with shifting organizational priorities.

According to a report by Cornell University, organizations with a strong employer brand experience less turnover, a higher level of employee commitment, more buy-in to the corporate culture and increased engagement.

Successful deployment of an employer brand will include the development of media toolkits, with language, images, videos, social media posts, emails and more than the recruiting team can use to disseminate brand communications. Materials like these can be used to make sure your employer brand consistently comes through in job postings and advertisements.

Benefit: A strong employer brand will generate applicants who understand and fit in with your culture and who are excited to work for you.

Swapping Vanity Metrics for Sanity Metrics

As your goal changes from attracting the most candidates to attracting the right candidates, you need to adjust what metrics you monitor to see if you’re achieving your goal.

Vanity metrics can include data like the number of clicks or views you have for a job posting and the number of applications. These metrics don’t tell you whether the people who are clicking on your job advertisements or the candidates who are applying are good fits for the position or enthusiastic about working for you.

Sanity metrics are numbers like the ratio of clicks-to-hires or applications-to-hires. Sanity metrics can also include data about the performance and tenure of your new hires. These metrics tell you whether or not the right people are finding and applying to your job postings.

If you are looking at vanity metrics, you cannot tell if you are attracting the strongest talent.

Benefit: A more clear measure of whether you are meeting your goal of attracting the strongest candidates who are enthusiastic about working for you.

Using Data to Inform Decision Making When Sourcing Candidates

Data should be central to the candidate attraction process. Your team should consistently ask these four questions and make alterations to your recruitment process based on the answers the data provides.

1. Are you marketing your job properly for the audience you’re looking for?

Sanity metrics will tell you if your tailored approach to candidate attraction is working well. The exact ratios will vary from organization to organization and position to position, but your goal should be to decrease the ratio of clicks-to-hires and applications-to-hires while increasing performance metrics and tenure numbers on those hires. If you aren’t already tracking this information, you should gather historical data on the relevant positions and continue tracking performance and tenure data.

If, for example, you spend a significant amount of time and money reviewing applications from unqualified candidates, you can revise your job copy to reflect the more challenging parts of the job. One of our clients had challenges hiring for a door-to-door salesperson. The job posting gave a rosy view of the position, without mentioning the tougher parts.

This led to a high number of applications, but as candidates moved through the process, many realized they didn’t want the position. The cost of processing these applicants was high, as was new hire turnover once candidates started in the role.

By making the job posting more transparent about the challenges, applications decreased by 11 percent, despite a 10 percent increase in the salary for the position. The client saved 305 hours of hiring manager time over a three month period, made the same number of hires as before, spent less on candidate attraction, held fewer phone and face-to-face interviews and new hire turnover in the role dropped significantly.

2. Is your job title optimized for your audience?

Often, job titles at individual organizations are informed by organizational culture and tradition. These can lead to titles that haven’t changed in years or new and creative titles, like “digital prophet” or “crayon evangelist.” While these titles may function well inside an organization, they can’t attract candidates who search online for positions like “business analyst” or “design director” because those candidates will never find the positions.

Regardless of the job title you use internally, the job title you use in a posting should be informed by data. Tools like Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner can help develop SEO-friendly job titles that will help put your position at the top of search results. Popular job boards also provide click data, and you can perform A/B testing with your recruiting team to determine which job titles bring in the best candidates fastest.

One client was struggling to hire for a position they called “help desk advisor,” although the position was customer service related. Data showed that more people in the client’s location searched for jobs like “customer service representative.”

By changing the job title in the external job posting, the client received the same number of applications in two weeks that it normally received in six to eight weeks. Because of this, the time-to-offer and time-to-fill both decreased, and the client spent less on attracting candidates.

3. Is the most important information in your job posting laid out in the best way for readers?
Candidate Generation Strategies

If your marketing and optimization efforts are successful at bringing job seekers to your posting, you also need to make sure they get the information they need to decide if the position is the right fit and they want to take the step to apply. According to research by The Ladders, job seekers spend an average of 49.7 seconds deciding that a job isn’t right for them and 76.7 seconds deciding that it is a good fit. This only provides a short window of time to provide the information you want them to see.

By developing a strong employer brand, marketing the position properly and optimizing your job title, you will be able to provide the type of information the candidate needs to see to decide if your role is the right fit. Your challenge is to make sure they can digest it in less than one minute. The Ladders’ study used eye-tracking software to determine that most job seekers follow an “F” shape as they scan job postings.

This means, as you write up and lay out a job posting, you need to put the most important information in the first places a candidate will look. Using headings can also help candidates identify key criteria.

4. Are you using job boards effectively?

The introduction of Google Jobs drastically changed the landscape of job boards. For our UK client base, we are already seeing a decreased return on investment from job boards which has decreased our own spending. To ensure you are spending effectively on job boards, you need to constantly evaluate which boards perform better.

To do this, you need to find out which job boards send an appropriate number of the right candidates. Some boards may send a lot of candidates but very few are qualified. Others may send fewer and fewer candidates altogether. By monitoring this data, you can invest your budget into the right job boards to attract the right candidates. You should also monitor whether the job boards you use integrate with Google Jobs and what impact that will have on your application data because it could vary among different industries.

More benefits of data-driven methods:

  • Increased candidate quality and decreased turnover because you are attracting candidates who are enthusiastic about the position and your organization and who understand the responsibilities and requirements of the role.
  • Decreased time-to-fill and cost-of-vacancy because candidates who aren’t a good fit self-select out of the process, so you don’t waste money evaluating the wrong people.
  • Increased ability to attract the candidates of the future because you’re speaking to them where they are and in ways they expect as they search for new positions.

Candidate Generation Strategies: Key Takeaways

  • Rather than attracting as many applicants as possible, employers should focus on decreasing the number of unqualified or uninterested applicants while increasing the number of strong applicants.
  • Employers should use a data-informed process to guide their candidate attraction strategies.
  • Employers should consistently evaluate their use of job boards to match the quickly changing job board landscape.

Four Factors Impacting the Way Employers Interact with Candidates

Posted on by epadmin

Across the globe, employers and candidates live in an accelerating state of change. Adapting is difficult for both workers and employers, but the process of changing strategies as an organization is more complicated. There are legacy systems in place – especially for large organizations – and traditions can become entrenched. Remaining nimble is a challenge. For that reason, it is important to watch the employment landscape and respond with smart and targeted strategies.

In this article, we will explore four factors driving changes in the way that employers interact with job candidates: the digital transformation, current global economic conditions, shifting trust and privacy expectations, and the changing landscape of job boards.

1. The Digital Transformation

In a study by Gartner, 80 percent of executives reported that they have a digital initiative underway and 69 percent believe that they need to become significantly more digital to remain competitive.

According to McKinsey, 51 percent of job activities can be automated, but fewer than 5 percent of jobs are can be completely replaced by machines. The report also determined that the pace of change is so rapid, that by 2030 as much as 14 percent of the global workforce could need to change occupational categories.

Employers need to respond by finding candidates who can lead through change and learn and adapt – rather than candidates who only excel at a job as it exists today. This is becoming even more difficult as top candidates are in high demand due to record-low unemployment rates in many major global economies.

Fast Company reports that in May 2018 employers posted 314,000 tech job openings and only filled 8,700 of them. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also projects employment of software developers to grow 24 percent through 2026, faster than the average for all other occupations.

What does this mean?

Employers need to be able to attract and identify the candidates of the future – the people who have the skills and mindset needed to drive success into the future. That means developing an employer value proposition, or EVP, and an employer brand platform that is unique, authentic yet aspirational, and dynamic, sharing your EVP with your target audience, using innovative, data-driven strategies to attract candidates for the future and assessing candidates to identify those with a growth mindset.

2. Global Economic Conditions

In the decade since the start of the global economic downturn, many countries have recovered and now have competitive, candidate-driven markets for talent.

In the U.S., the unemployment rate is down to 3.7 percent. In the UK, it is down to 4.0 percent. There are strong employment numbers around the world. In a competitive market, employers need to be proactive about attracting both active and passive candidates.

Additionally, people are starting to feel more comfortable leaving their jobs, which is both an opportunity and a challenge for employers. It means that you have an opportunity to bring in strong candidates, but it also means that some of your strongest employees could leave for greener pastures.

With all of the press coverage about the state of the global economy, in-demand candidates will also recognize that the hiring landscape has changed. This, coupled with the potential for multiple offers, means that top candidates will have higher expectations – not only in regard to salary but also the purpose, mission and culture of the employer they choose.

What does this mean?

Employers around the globe should look for the best talent and use innovative assessment techniques to identify those who derive purpose from the work done by the organization and who are passionate about the mission. Employers should also ensure their offers and workplace culture lives up to and exceeds the expectations of the best candidates, and they should invest more in retaining top talent.

3. Shifting Trust and Privacy

Candidates are growing more cautious about which organizations they trust and who can have access to their personal data. Candidates in the U.S. and Europe have been exposed to political disinformation campaigns that left many reevaluating their sources of information. Additionally, privacy issues at Facebook have motivated many candidates to increase their social media privacy settings.

As a result, research shows that many people have grown to distrust traditional advertising from brands. Instead, more people are relying on recommendations from friends and relatives, according to Nielson. Forbes reports candidates are asking more about reviews on Glassdoor and issues that they read about online like turnover rates and layoffs. Consumers are also taking steps to avoid ads, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that 80 percent of adults in America use at least one ad blocking method.

While most candidates have some information available online for employers to find, some of the most tech-savvy are cutting back. According to Pew Research, 74 percent of American Facebook users have either taken a break from the site, adjusted their privacy settings or deleted the app from their phone. Another survey found that half of consumers in the UK don’t trust anyone with their personal information.

Beyond reactions from candidates, employers also face increasing regulations. The GDPR, or EU General Data Protection Regulation, took effect in May 2018. It requires businesses to protect the personal data and privacy of EU citizens for transactions that occur within EU member states. TechRepublic reports that 61 percent of compliance professionals say they’re concerned that the reduced data availability and new requirements of GDPR could impact future sourcing and recruiting. In the U.S., California recently passed the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018. These laws are popular with voters, and employers should expect privacy concerns to be a continuing issue.

Despite these issues, Forbes reports that HR teams still have more data now than ever before. Employers benefit from the growing amount of data available, but they should keep in mind its limitations.

What does this mean?

Employers should work to build an authentic EVP and employer brand platform to gain trust and buy-in from candidates. This should include the development of brand ambassadors who can reach candidates who are skeptical of traditional information channels. By developing an employer brand platform that takes advantage of peer-to-peer networking, employers can break through the walls put up by ad-blocking software and ad-skeptical candidates. The authenticity of the message is key to appearing more trustworthy.

4. The Changing Role of Job Boards

The role of job boards is also changing rapidly. Google Jobs makes it easier for candidates to search for job postings the same way they search for everything else on the internet – and candidates have grown to expect this. According to Forbes, the second page of Google search results accounts for only 6 percent of all website clicks. This means that to ensure your target audience can find your available positions, you must have job descriptions optimized for search.

Inc. reports that Google’s preference for relevant text- and video-based content will also apply to Google Jobs results. Employers need to be SEO-savvy to get postings in front of candidates. Additionally, many candidates now search for jobs using the same search engines that supply information like Glassdoor reviews and news stories about your organization.

Job boards and aggregators have also changed in response to Google Jobs. Candidates no longer need to search a variety of job boards to find postings that match their skills. Because of this, for our UK client base, we are already seeing a decreased return on investment from job boards which has decreased our own spending.

What does this mean?

Employers need to be able to respond quickly as the job board environment changes. Google Jobs has only been available in the U.S. since 2017, and it was only introduced in the UK in 2018. This means there are still more changes to come. Employers should constantly evaluate which job boards bring in the most high-quality candidates in a cost-effective way and consistently adjust their strategy.

Where to Go from Here

In response to this rapid change, these four factors should be seen as challenges and opportunities, not barriers to success. Employers can use strategies like employer branding, new ways of generating candidates and assessments built for the future to set themselves apart. 

Talking Talent: Addressing the Workforce Gap in Nursing

Posted on by epadmin

In this episode of Talking Talent, we talk about how to address the workforce gap in nursing and the solution developed at Sutter Health in Northern California to increase nurse retention.

Healthcare organizations across the United States are grappling with the nursing shortage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the employment of registered nurses is expected to grow 16 percent between 2014 and 2024 based on an increased emphasis on preventative care, growing rates of chronic conditions like diabetes and obesity and demand for healthcare services for the baby boomer generation. At the same time, baby boomer nurses are retiring in unprecedented numbers. By 2020, the number of baby-boomer nurses in the workforce will decrease to just half their 2008 peak.

Joining us to talk about the unique solution at Sutter Health is Christine Cress, the Director of Nurse Workforce and Leadership Development. A skilled executive coach and Stanford-trained facilitator, Christine has led inter-disciplinary teams to create functions and company programs where they did not exist before. She has been named honorary nurse by her nurse executive colleagues and is a strategic business partner generating results that require no spin. Christine blends mind, heart and business to her practice as a healthcare leader. She brings the insights of 18 years in healthcare – partnering with finance, supply chain, clinicians and HR to serve those who take care of patients.

In this interview , Christine explains how she and her team developed and funded an internal program that increased nurse retention during the nursing shortage.

You can read more about skills shortages in healthcare here:

Listen to other Talking Talent Podcasts about healthcare:

Expanding the Talent Landscape by Recruiting Virtual Employees

Posted on by epadmin

With very low unemployment in many of the world’s major economies, those seeking to attract talent should explore the benefits of recruiting employees that work from home. Since a number of these countries, such as the United States and the UK, are considered to be at “full employment,” where nearly everyone who wants a job has a job, the traditional formula of recruiting in the market where a company is located may no longer be as effective as it has been in the past. And since the top reason for quitting a current job is to increase wages, employers face the challenge of meeting candidate expectations for higher pay based on local salary ranges.

While remote work may not be viable for some positions, expanding the pool of candidates outside a specific geographic area allows employers to take advantage of the growing trend in telecommuting as well as potentially reduce attrition, decrease cost-per-hire and even improve productivity.

The Virtual Workforce is Substantial (and Growing)

A study by Global Workplace Analytics and FlexJobs released earlier this year reported that 3.9 million U.S. employees, or 2.9 percent of the total U.S. workforce, currently work from home at least half of the time. This number is up from 1.8 million in 2005, an increase of 115 percent. And as of 2017, 43 percent of U.S. workers worked remotely at least occasionally, up from only 9 percent of workers in 2007.

Growth in remote work is not limited to the United States. In the UK, one in seven people work from home, according to the Office for National Statistics. In Canada, nearly half (47 percent) of employees work from outside one of their employer’s main offices for half the week or more. And in Australia, the number of people who work from home has risen to 30 percent. The significant percentages of telecommuters is not the case for all economies. Eurostat reported earlier this year that working from home was slightly more common in the Eurozone than in the EU as a whole. And some non-Eurozone countries have a negligible virtual workforce. Bulgaria has only 0.3 and Romania just 0.4 percent of its workers working from home, as an example.

A Deloitte study on Global Human Capital Trends reported that 70 percent of employees value telecommuting, but only 27 percent of employers offer this option. Therefore, companies that provide opportunities for telecommuting may have a competitive advantage in attracting talent.

Reducing Employee Turnover and Increasing Productivity

While study results vary, there is evidence being offered that working from home can increase employee retention. One study by OwlLabs found that companies that support remote work have 25 percent lower employee turnover than those that don’t.

A study conducted by a Stanford University professor set up a control group between office-based workers and those were allowed to work from home. As the Harvard Business Review reports:

“Half the volunteers were allowed to telecommute; the rest remained in the office as a control group. Survey responses and performance data collected at the conclusion of the study revealed that, in comparison with the employees who came into the office, the at-home workers were not only happier and less likely to quit but also more productive.”

The professor noted that “The results we saw at Ctrip, (the company studied, which is the largest online travel agency in China and the owner of other travel sites worldwide including Trip.com) blew me away. Ctrip was thinking that it could save money on space and furniture if people worked from home and that the savings would outweigh the productivity hit it would take when employees left the discipline of the office environment. Instead, we found that…Ctrip got almost an extra workday a week out of them. They also quit at half the rate of people in the office—way beyond what we anticipated. And predictably, at-home workers reported much higher job satisfaction.”

Providing the option of working virtually can be a crucial factor in retaining valuable talent. If an employee needs to relocate temporarily for family reasons, such as caring for an older parent, or permanently due to a spouse’s job transfer, the employee can remain with the company by working remotely. Having this option available allows the employee to remain with the organization while the employer retains experienced talent and saves the costs of hiring and training a new worker.

Cost Savings for Employers and Employees

This same Stanford study showed that the company saved $1,900 per employee working from home over nine months. Remote workers allow employers to save money on furniture, parking, office space, insurance costs and other expenses. Global Workplace Analytics’ research shows that a typical employer can save more than $11,000 per year for each half-time telecommuter, the result of a combination of increased productivity and reduced real estate, turnover and absenteeism.

The cost benefits of remote work also extend to employees. Those working remotely save on commuting expenses, depreciation on their vehicles if they drive and gain the time back that would normally be spent going to and from work.

Can Remote Work Be a Solution for Your Business?

The difficulties of recruiting locally and the potential returns of developing a remote workforce may be attractive, but it is also uncharted territory for many companies. How would you source candidates throughout the nation and even beyond? Can you develop recruiting processes, including interviewing, that are effective using video and other tools if you have only relied on face-to-face meetings until now? And once a candidate is hired, how will you manage the onboarding process remotely? The answers to these and many other questions confronting a company exploring a remote workforce option can be provided by a recruitment process outsourcing company (RPO). An RPO can provide the experience, technology and expertise to ensure your success as you remove the geographic limits of your talent pool.

Military Spouses: How to Hire the Overlooked Talent Pool

Posted on by epadmin

While a strong focus on veteran hiring has significantly lowered the unemployment rate of U.S. veterans, many employers are now starting to focus on another challenge. Military spouses still have a difficult time finding employment that matches their skill sets.

According to a study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, the unemployment rate for military spouses has hovered around 20 to 25 percent over the last decade. This means that military families are more likely than average to rely on a single income.

As employers work to support the military, the focus should now shift to the entire military family. While many employers have built robust veteran hiring programs, military spouse hiring programs struggle to gain traction despite the help and stability employment can provide for military families. By focusing on military spouse employment, organizations have the opportunity to not only support the military but also hire strong employees. In this article, we will dig into the demographics of who military spouses are, the challenges they face and how employers can hire and retain these valuable workers.

Who are Military Spouses?

In order to effectively recruit military spouses, it’s important to understand who they are. Military spouses form a diverse group with a variety of backgrounds and skill sets, but there are some commonalities.

They’re Overwhelming Young and Female but not Exclusively

A White House report on Military Spouses in the Labor Market shows that 92 percent of military spouses are female, and the average age is 33-years-old. The average American working age is 41-years-old.

This means average military spouses are within their prime working years. While the population is mostly female, employers should also recognize that male military spouses face many of the same challenges as female military spouses, but often lack support groups or feel overlooked.

They May be Veterans Themselves

According to the White House report, 12 percent of military spouses are active duty military themselves. Male military spouses are much more likely to be veterans. Nearly half of all married female active duty military members are in dual-military marriages.

They are Highly Skilled and Highly Educated

Military spouses are more likely to hold a bachelor’s or advanced degree than the general population. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation study, 34 percent have a college degree and 15 percent have a postgraduate degree. In the general population, according to census data, those numbers are 32.5 percent and 12 percent, respectively.

They Often have Children but not Always

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation study finds that 41 percent of military spouses have dependent children, and more than 70 percent of those children are 7-years-old or younger.

Having young children in the home can increase the pressure on military spouses to find flexible work, but military spouses without children can also benefit from flexible work arrangements.

They Manage Stress Effectively and Work Well Under Pressure

Because of the pressures associated with being a military spouse, including frequent moves, managing change and running a household through a deployment, military spouses learn to effectively manage stress and deal well with pressure.

According to Military.com, military spouses are quick learners, committed to service, adaptable and they bring a diverse set of skills. Military spouses pick up these skills dealing with the high stress of the military lifestyle, including managing and adjusting to frequent moves and taking on extra responsibilities and stress during a deployment. These traits often make them strong employees.

The Challenges Faced by Military Spouses

The issues faced by military spouses have broad implications. Finding work and managing a career is one of the top stressors for military families, just behind deployments and moving away from friends and families.

That stress plays a significant role in a veteran’s decision to leave the military, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation study, and impacts the military’s readiness and ability to recruit.

Increased Difficulty Finding Work

When searching for a job, military spouses say the most frequent issue they face is that employers don’t want to hire them out of fear that they will move. They also struggle explaining gaps in their resume and often need a more flexible schedule while their spouse is deployed.

Because of these challenges, about a quarter of military spouses say it has taken them more than a year to find a job after a move and many work part-time or seasonal jobs or work more than one job when they want permanent, full-time employment.

Need for a Flexible Work Environment

Military spouses may move frequently. In the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation study, more than half of the military spouses surveyed report having moved more than 50 miles three times due to their spouse’s military career.

Additionally, more than 80 percent of military spouses have experienced a deployment during their spouse’s career. A deployment, especially for a family with children, can be disruptive to work life and make it more difficult for a military spouse to maintain a strict schedule. Because of this, positions that allow for remote work or flexible hours are ideal for military spouses.

Underemployment

When military spouses find employment, about 70 percent report that the job does not take full advantage of their work experience and education. Nearly two-thirds of military spouses say they have taken a decrease in pay or responsibilities in their current role.

Most military spouses with post-secondary education say that the military lifestyle does not support career opportunities for both spouses.

Best Practices for Recruiting and Retaining Military Spouse Employees

Identify Ideal Positions for Military Spouses

Because of the unique pressures faced by military spouses, organizations should determine if any positions would be an ideal fit for a military spouse or if any adaptations can be made to help a position fit better with the military lifestyle. Flexible working hours and the ability to work remotely should be considered.

Set Hiring Manager and Recruiter Expectations

Military spouses may have long resume gaps or short tenures at previous jobs. They may also have taken positions outside their area of expertise or made lateral career moves. Organizations should educate recruiters and hiring managers and set reasonable expectations. These factors alone should not disqualify a military spouse candidate.

Find Military Spouses Where They Are

Organizations looking to hire military spouses should post to job boards that target military families and partner with military advocacy organizations. A variety of national and local veteran organizations have job boards specifically targeted to military spouses. Employers should research to determine which are most often used in areas they are targeting. While job posts targeting veterans should use language that reflects their military experiences, military spouses have a wide range of experience and expertise. Because of this, employers don’t need to use military-specific language, but highlighting job benefits that are appealing to military spouses and stating a commitment to hiring military spouses can be beneficial.

Establish an Affinity Group for Veteran Spouses

Hiring a military spouse is just the first step. Much like veteran affinity groups, a military spouse affinity group can help new employees feel welcomed. An affinity group is a voluntary, employee-driven group of people with a common interest or goal. An affinity group is an opportunity for military spouses across a workplace to connect and support each other and help with the stress and pressures of being in a military family.

Focus on Retention Through Life Transitions

Because of the military lifestyle, a military spouse may need to relocate to follow their partner or adjust work hours to take care of their family if their partner deploys. In order to retain strong military spouse employees, organizations should determine what types of adjustments can be made to retain these employees through times of personal change – including remote work, temporarily reduced hours or a flexible schedule. This can increase employee engagement and help the military family through transitions.

Find a Partner with Experience Hiring Military Spouses

Organizations without experience hiring military spouses should consider turning to an RPO partner with experience hiring veterans and military spouses. RPO providers can bring their strong connections with partners like Hiring our Heroes and share their expertise in veteran and military spouse hiring.

Healthcare Workforce and Recruiting Trends to Watch

Posted on by epadmin

The healthcare workforce is highly specialized. As a result, the healthcare workforce and labor market are uniquely competitive. To gain a competitive edge, healthcare organizations are looking for innovative recruiting solutions to find top-quality candidates who provide world-class care for patients.

In this post, we examine the trends in the healthcare workforce that will influence the future of healthcare recruitment.

Employer Branding for Healthcare Workforce

Top healthcare candidates have many options when it comes to employers and can easily research the experiences of employees in your organization on career sites such as Indeed and Glassdoor.

In fact, a survey conducted by LinkedIn found that 75 percent of job seekers consider an employer’s brand before applying for a job. What’s more, a study conducted by Healthcare Recruiters International found that over 90 percent of candidates think employer branding is an essential recruiting resource. So, how can you ensure you have an impactful employer brand?

How RPO Can Solve The Top Challenges In Healthcare Talent Acquisition

Get Your Free Ebook

Conduct an Employer Brand Audit

Before developing your employer brand, you should conduct an employer brand audit. Your employer brand audit will help you understand how your brand distinguishes itself from competitors and provide a starting point from which you can build your strategy. Below are key questions to ask yourself during the audit:

  • Why would someone want to work for you?
  • What is the perception employees and candidates have about your organization?
  • What percentage of your employees would recommend your company as a great place to work?

Set your Employer Brand Strategy

Prospective healthcare employees are similar to patients in that both select the healthcare provider they feel most comfortable with. Your employer brand strategy should help make a candidate’s choice easier and provide assurance that he or she has chosen the right employer. Your employer brand strategy should contain the following three components:

  • Differentiators: A list of the benefits and unique qualities that are different or better about working at your healthcare facility.
  • Employee Value Proposition: Using your list of differentiators, craft a brief paragraph that positions your organization against other healthcare employers and demonstrates why candidates view you as an employer of choice.
  • Employer Brand Promotional Plan: Develop a plan to share your employee value proportion with candidates, including the tactics you will use, the tools you need and the schedule you will follow to attract potential new hires and retain current employees.

Promote Your Employer Brand to the Healthcare Workforce 

Once you have established your employer brand, it is time to promote it. You can promote your employer brand by highlighting your workplace benefits and culture in recruiting materials, on your website and social media channels and in your job postings and candidate outreach emails. Some examples of ways to promote your employer brand include:

  • Sharing videos and pictures of your workplace to show what working for your healthcare organization is like.
  • Leveraging your social channels to show off your workplace and company perks so that a candidate can assess what you have to offer.
  • Building a career site that makes visitors feel welcome and gives applicants the information they are looking for, such as details about employment opportunities, company culture and work environment.
  • Telling engaging stories from current and former employees to better attract the type of healthcare candidates who could see themselves in those stories.

Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce

Healthcare is experiencing a shortage of workers, and professionals of diverse backgrounds are particularly underrepresented in many occupations and in the upper ranks of many healthcare organizations.

Minority Workers in the Healthcare Workforce

With demand in many healthcare professions at record levels, career opportunities abound for individuals of all backgrounds. However, Black, Hispanic and Indigenous Americans make up almost a quarter of the U.S. population, yet as a group, they account for only 6 percent of physicians, 9 percent of nurses and 5 percent of dentists according to the Sullivan Commission on Diversity.

Healthcare organizations can play a significant role in addressing this issue by:

  • Promoting healthcare careers to diverse populations via school programs and community organizations.
  • Encouraging students to shadow healthcare professionals and explore careers in healthcare.
  • Recruiting ethnically diverse individuals for every-level positions to increase current minority representation.
  • Offering internships, residencies and fellowships to ethnically diverse students. For example, the Institute for Diversity in Health Management in Chicago offers summer internships to college students.

Healthcare Workers with Disabilities

Individuals with disabilities can pursue successful careers in the healthcare field. Opportunities are available, but so are obstacles, from expensive equipment to accommodate workers to licensing requirements.

Some disabled healthcare workers take advantage of programs specifically designed to recruit those with disabilities. Project Search at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center gives high school students with disabilities the opportunity to learn about careers in healthcare. Healthcare organizations can also provide assistance to workers with disabilities by:

  • Creating formal policies and procedures on accommodations for staff with disabilities. Invite employees with disabilities to work with on these policies.
  • Making the online application process easier to use, with fonts that can be enlarged or a site that can be used with a screen reader.
  • Advertising your healthcare organization as an equal opportunity employer and including contact information for anyone having problems accessing your organization because of a disability.

Aging Healthcare Workforce

According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing the median age of a Registered Nurse (RN) is 46 years old. Plus, more than a quarter of RNs report they plan to retire or leave nursing over the next five years. These demographic trends portend significant employment challenges in the near future in the U.S.

Healthcare employers will need to rethink their current employment policies and practices to simultaneously retain talented older staff and create job opportunities for new workers of all ages. Many healthcare organizations are taking proactive steps to confront the problems that will occur as the healthcare workforce matures. Some of these strategies include:

  • Developing strong outreach mechanisms to attract promising senior candidates to healthcare management careers.
  • Publicizing career advancement opportunities, such as continuing education, professional development organizations, networking events and vacancies inside the organization, in a manner that appeals to everyone, especially older individuals.
  • Creating environments that encourage retention, development and promotion of qualified elderly or senior employees.

Greater Use of Technology

As technology continues to become more sophisticated, it will play an increasingly important role in finding and hiring talent in healthcare. In fact, according to Ideal, 96% of senior HR professionals believe AI has the potential to greatly enhance talent acquisition and retention.

AI can help reduce unconscious bias during the hiring process by anonymizing candidates and focusing on skills, not age, gender or race, auto. AI technology can also be used to improve the screening process and manage interview scheduling.

Drafting Better Job Posts

Finding the right candidate in the healthcare workforce begins with the right job posting. In fact, it is often the first thing candidates see from your organization, so it is important to make a good impression.

Today, AI technology can utilize algorithms to assess and analyze language patterns in job postings to determine why some fail and others succeed and suggest keywords to make job descriptions more appealing to candidates. As the AI technology analyzes more job posts, it becomes more accurate with its language suggestions, helping employers draft precise job descriptions.

While there may never be a perfect job posting, AI technology is getting us closer.

Advanced Candidate Screening

Traditionally, candidate screenings begin with reviewing an applicant’s resume followed by a brief phone call. This means that recruiters and hiring managers have only their judgment of a resume to assess whether a healthcare candidate would make a good hire.

Healthcare recruiters know that resumes are an incomplete picture of someone’s skills, achievements, capabilities and most importantly, personality and culture fit.

AI technology can also be used to cull data and metrics healthcare organizations have on their employees to build predictive models and personality profiles that help lead to candidates who fit the company culture and job requirements more accurately and can reduce time-to-fill metrics.

Automating Recruiting Tasks

In healthcare recruiting, administrative tasks such as resume screenings and scheduling interviews can be time-consuming. With the assistance of AI, recruiters and hiring managers can reduce their time spent conducting administrative work by using AI and Robotic Process Automation technology to automatically screen candidates’ resumes using keyword and qualification searches.

AI can also help schedule interviews with candidates through email or chatbot programs that bring more personalization to the communication process. Not only does this save time that recruiters can spend on more critical tasks, it also accelerates the interview process, helping reduce time-to-hire and ultimately providing healthcare organizations with an advantage when competing for talent.

Conclusion

Your healthcare organization’s success depends on your ability to adapt to changes in recruiting and healthcare talent management. Healthcare RPO is one way the sector is staying on top of a difficult hiring environment.