Category: Candidate Experience

Talking Talent Leadership Profile: Jon Porter

Posted on by nfuqua

Jon Porter doesn’t have a typical recruiting background. He started out as an accountant with KPMG and made his way through the advertising sector before finally landing as the Managing Director of PeopleScout in the UK and Head of EMEA Operational Delivery. Along the way, he was lucky enough to work with many organizations with diverse recruiting challenges – from the British Army and the Metropolitan Police to Diageo. So, when Jon looks at talent challenges, he doesn’t just look at them as a recruiter; he views them through the wide-angle lens of the entire business, and he sees them as a storyteller.

Jon shared his story from PeopleScout’s London offices. He explained how the unique and ever-evolving challenges and opportunities in the UK and Europe will influence talent acquisition leaders around the globe.

What are some of the biggest challenges facing the UK and Europe in talent acquisition right now?

The biggest challenge has been the uncertainty around Brexit since the referendum in 2016. Organizations have not had certainty around the future, and this has influenced decision-making around how to potentially invest and grow a business. The focus of government around the normal investment programs has also been affected, as much of parliamentary time was focused on the many Brexit bills progressing through both Houses. It almost felt that the UK was on pause and we just needed to press the play button. After the election result of December 12, 2019, it now looks like some of that uncertainty has been removed. The newly formed government, now with a working majority, is pushing for a conclusion of the Brexit debate by the end of 2020.

What are the talent acquisition trends you’re seeing in the UK and Europe today?

There are some clear trends in the marketplace. The obvious one is technology. There is a fragmented and hugely diverse technology landscape in the UK and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), and leaders are looking at how to better navigate that landscape. How do they make the most of it – to drive efficiency, cost savings and better-quality candidates – and optimize the way they do things?

There is also a trend of organizations looking at multi-country programs, with a focus around EMEA. Organizations seem to be looking at talent more globally and around the concept that talent isn’t limited by traditional country boundaries or geography, or even technology. It’s fast-becoming a boundary-less environment.

How is the introduction of Affinix™ to Europe fitting into and changing the conversation about technology in the region?

I think that our timing couldn’t be better. We’ve had loads of great feedback on Affinix since our September launch at our Resourcing 2025 event at the London Science Museum, and I think it’s because it provides a flexible solution at a time when organizations are still a bit cautious about how they’re going to evolve their technology solutions. Because Affinix is a middleware, it affords our clients the opportunity to get the great technology of the now, but also it provides them with security for the future. It’s a manifestation of now to next.

How do you tell a cohesive and relevant story when recruiting across borders?

Finding “space” in a busy talent marketplace is hard; differentiating one company offer from another requires a deep understanding of brand and channel. Developing target personas, and understanding how they live their lives and how to create a one-to-one dialogue is essential. At PeopleScout, this approach and understanding is in our DNA. It’s how we think.    

When looking at cross-border campaigns, we first consider the message – the employer brand promise; the value exchange between the organization and the candidate – the deal. This message needs to be authentic across all borders. It needs to reflect the lived experience of employees within the organization. It can be aspirational; however, it can’t be an exaggeration of the truth. That can only lead to unfulfilled expectations, reduced engagement and increased attrition.

The art of the storyteller is to deliver a consistent, overarching message while accommodating the nuances of the countries in which it needs to be delivered. The language, tone, imagery and cultural touchpoints may change, but the essence of the promise remains consistent. Good recruiters understand how to bring the story to life in conversation with candidates and yet remain true to the organizational narrative.

What are some of the lessons from the UK and Europe that leaders in other regions should be paying attention to?

Many organizations have a structured view around their approach to talent and where they think hires might come from – whether it’s specific geographies, sectors or universities. I think one of the things that we’re doing in Europe – which does seem to be a message that’s landing elsewhere – is that we need to be more open-minded and a bit more conscious around things like social mobility and inclusivity.

Organizations are looking past the barriers of geography, society and technology. They’re seeing that talent is going to be pivotal to the evolution of business. That’s driving a mentality of embracing talent without any boundaries and taking a more progressive and equitable view of talent.

What are you most excited about for the future of talent acquisition?

The speed of change in talent acquisition is going to accelerate. Technology is absolutely going to fuel that acceleration. Clients are going to have greater and greater expectations, requiring more dynamic talent acquisition strategies. That will be driven by the fact that talent will be even more of a differentiator for organizations.

We’re also going to see employer brands and employer value propositions (EVPs) play an even greater role in the hiring process. The EVP is going to become the cornerstone of the people agenda – so, not just recruiting, but also learning and development, organizational design and more. How does the EVP play into the culture and behaviors of the organization?

Additionally, the vast majority of jobs that will be created five to 10 years from now probably don’t even exist today. So, there will be the evolution of new job roles, new technologies, new demands from organizations and new challenges in the world and political landscapes. This makes talent acquisition an exciting place to be.

The AA: Bot-Powered, Brand Boosting Innovation

Posted on by edyson
The AA: Bot-Powered, Brand Boosting Innovation

Chatbot for Talent Acquisition

The AA: Bot-Powered, Brand Boosting Innovation

The AA brought PeopleScout on board for a major redesign and rebuild of their careers site, including developing a cheeky chatbot to increase engagement and improve the candidate experience.

30,000 applications, up from 8,000—a 275% increase
60 % increase in career site traffic year-over-year
17 % reduction in bounce rate

The AA is often referred to as “Britain’s fourth Emergency Service.” But, being known for doing one thing very well is both a blessing and a roadblock when it comes to attracting brilliant candidates. We developed a new employer brand for the AA to help them overcome this challenge. The next step was a major redesign and rebuild of their careers site. With a totally new way to navigate and a recruitment industry first—a website-based chatbot—we helped them boost not only their employer brand, but their number of site visits and applications.

Situation

Say the AA and a lot of people can’t see beyond roadside recovery. Heading to the careers website, visitors are overwhelmed by choice or jump straight to the same old roles. Which means they miss out on the impressive variety of careers they offer (from customer advisers to digital professionals), and the AA loses the opportunity to engage with excellent candidates.

The AA brought PeopleScout on board for a major redesign and rebuild of their careers site. We were set a sizeable task, to attract and engage more visitors and increase applications – all underpinned with innovation.

Solution

Solution Highlights

  • Navigation Innovation
  • Bleeding-Edge Software
  • Booting Site Traffic
  • Huge Increase in applicants

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    The AA
  • INDUSTRY
    Roadside Recovery Services
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Talent Advisory
  • ABOUT THE AA
    The Automobile Association (The AA) has been supporting motorists in the United Kingdom since 1905. With over 14 million members, breakdown cover is always their number one priority, but The AA has branched out into finance, insurance, leisure and lifestyle services.
Let’s Connect

A RECRUITMENT INDUSTRY FIRST

When is a website not a website? When it’s chatbot-powered. We launched a reimagined careers site that could do justice to the new brand proposition, “Ready for ANYTHING?” At its heart is a totally new way to navigate and a recruitment industry first: a website-based chatbot.

BLEEDING-EDGE SOFTWARE

To achieve it, we sought out bleeding-edge software—Microsoft’s Bot Framework—which was still in beta and constructed new bot pathways even as the core code changed under our feet. The result, AAbot, is your guide to the world of AA.

ENTERTAINING, INFORMING & ENGAGING

By asking questions, candidates can access all website information from within the chatbot—utterly tailored to their interest—and, if desired, full job listings. With expressive animations for (almost) any occasion and banter full of cheek and surprise, AAbot is packed with personality. He takes the employer’s tone of voice in a bold, playful new direction. And he shows that functional UX copy can entertain and build a brand, as well as inform.

Results

BOOSTING SITE TRAFFIC

Site visitors are now engaging with the wider AA story and roles. We’ve successfully boosted candidate interest, as site traffic has risen by 60 percent year-over-year, while the bounce rate has fallen by 17 percent.

HUGE INCREASE IN APPLICATIONS

Applications, meanwhile, have increased from 8,000 to more than 30,000, taking direct hire numbers from 55 percent to 95 percent of all applicants. And it’s just the start.

MULTI-CHANNEL APPEARANCES

AAbot is already a breakout star, appearing in digital ad banners and social media communications. You’ll already find him at the Wycombe Wanderers football stadium, emblazoned all over the AA offices and popping up on LinkedIn. And we have big plans to let AAbot loose across the end-to-end recruitment process.

Talking Talent Leadership Profile: Kathryn Minshew

Posted on by nfuqua

Around 15 to 20 years ago, the first millennials entered the workforce – frustrating and sometimes frightening the baby boomers and Gen Xers who hired and managed them. Since then, the world of work changed, and millennials grew up and advanced in their careers. In that same time, Kathryn Minshew moved from her roles at McKinsey & Company and the Clinton Health Access Initiative and founded The Muse, a career platform headquartered in New York City and used by more than 75 million people to research companies and careers.

Kathryn also authored “The New Rules of Work,” which made it to The Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) national bestseller list. She has spoken at MIT and Harvard, contributed to the WSJ and Harvard Business Review, and appeared on TODAY and CNN. She has been named to SmartCEO’s Future50 Visionary CEOs and Inc.’s 35 Under 35. Additionally, The Muse was named one of Fast Company’s 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World in 2018.

Kathryn is an expert on the workforce transformation she observed and helped drive as a millennial herself. But now, the process is beginning all over again as Gen Z starts entering the workforce. We talked with Kathryn about how these new workers will influence the way companies attract and retain the best talent.

What are the biggest similarities and differences you see between current workers and those who are just now entering the workforce?

It’s a really interesting time right now because the workplace is in flux. While I’m not a big believer in the idea that the millennial generation is fundamentally different, there are a few trends I’m seeing in The Muse’s community and the employers we work with.

First, there‘s a strong interest in flexibility and work-life balance. The younger generations are pushing employers to recognize their work based on output and not the number of hours sitting at a desk. I actually think that change benefits us all.

Secondly, a lot of younger workers are willing to relocate for the right job. We surveyed The Muse community, which is very young and diverse with two thirds under age 35, 55% women, and 50% nonwhite. We asked them, “Would you relocate and consider moving for the right company and role?” An overwhelming number – 89% – said yes.

As millennials went from entry-level workers to the biggest cohort in the labor market and now into leadership roles, we saw the conversation change. How do you expect the conversation about Gen Z at work to change?

There’s one pattern I’m very confident will play out, which is that we’ll see a bunch of people predicting the end of the workplace as we know it. Then, over time, some of the hysteria will quiet down, and people will realize that we’re all fundamentally more similar than we are different. A few years ago, there was a lot of, let’s just say, pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth about millennials. Now, many of those same millennials are managers and some of them are becoming executives.

The workplace has changed. Companies are forced to compete for talent. There is a bigger emphasis on connecting the overall purpose and mission of a company with the individual roles of workers.

When I look at the changes that I believe we’ll see with Gen Z, there’s the classic one – which is that Gen Z is very mobile first. So, I think we’ll see less and less tolerance for legacy technology products and more of a push for the adoption of consumer-grade products. Gen Z is starting to look for workplace tools that are built on data and personalized for their needs.

How will employer branding change?

I think we’ve evolved through a number of phases of employer branding, starting with what I call phase zero, where companies just posted jobs online without any marketing or information. Then, phase one was stock photos and companies trying to pretend they were perfect, using jargon like, “we’re a team of innovators committed to excellence.”

Now, we’re in phase two, in which companies are realizing the need to be more authentic. With Gen Z, we’re going to see an increasing trend toward personalization. Platforms and tools that can provide a more personalized experience are going to win. That’s something I’m very focused on at The Muse.

I think there are platforms out there today that deliver volume, but give you very few opportunities to really build a relationship with talent and explain your company, your values and your opportunity. My money is on the platforms that are allowing different channels for candidates and job seekers to research companies and for employers to build relationships – and, of course, I count The Muse among them.

Employer brand is ultimately just brand, right? It’s not like you get to have a consumer brand and employer brand that don’t interact with each other. Employer brand has the potential to be powerful, but only if you recognize that it’s a piece of your larger brand and the lines between your applicants, candidates, employees, customers and users are blurring in the modern world.

Ultimately, I think the holy grail for employer brand is going to be giving candidates more information and a better experience up front. That leads to tangible business results through better and longer-retained hires.

How will employers change their retention strategies for Gen Z?

Retention is directly linked to how much information people receive and how accurate that information is before they come through the door. We’ve seen companies that work with The Muse increase retention when they’re more transparent about what it’s like to work there.

Many people earlier in their careers are looking for clarity and guidance around what the future holds. Companies that are successful in retaining millennial and Gen Z employees often lay out very explicit career paths. Employees can see what milestones they need to hit to get promoted to the next level and what those steps look like. By documenting a clear career path, younger employees can understand what the future will look like if they invest in your company.

If you had to boil this entire conversation down to one piece of advice for employers, what would that advice be?

When I started The Muse, I had this deep belief that both job seekers and employers would be better off if they found matches based on fit. Even the same person might look for different things at different points in their career. I want The Muse to help create fit – to help individuals research companies and careers, and help employers hire great people on the strength of their employee experience and employer brand.

If I had to pick just one piece of advice on how to do that, I would say focus on storytelling. Humans love stories; we can connect with them. So, think about employee storytelling – whether that’s telling stories on your career site, through The Muse or through another channel. The more you can communicate the uniqueness of your opportunities and your organization through the real human stories of people who work there, the more successful I believe you’re going to be.

Creating a Compelling Employment Offer

Posted on by edyson

Talent acquisition teams and hiring managers are always on the hunt for candidates who check all of the boxes: the five-star talent with all of the right skills and experience to excel in a role, but who also fits the culture of the employer. When these candidates are screened, interviewed and assessed, they pass each phase of the process with flying colors, leaving hiring managers eager to extend an offer of employment. However, there is one catch: will the candidate accept?

When you make an offer to a candidate, you hope they want the position as much as you want to hire them. But, sometimes, you nurture a great candidate through the entire recruitment process only for them have a change of heart. Candidates declining job offers can be disheartening for recruiting teams – and costly for organizations trying to fill vital open positions. In this article, we’ll cover candidate expectations and key points in the employment offer process, as well as explain how to connect with candidates on a more personal level.

Meeting Candidate Expectations: Then & Now

Candidates Expect an Inviting Company Culture

In the past, candidates applied for positions without knowing or expecting to know much about an organization’s inner workings or culture. As a result, when candidates were extended an offer, an organization’s culture played less of a role in whether they would accept the position.

But now, candidates want to know about the work environment and company culture so they can assess whether they think the organization is a good fit. Help candidates get that information by having a section on your careers page that provides cultural insights into your organization, and include videos and images that display what it’s like to work for you.

Candidates Expect Greater Transparency

It used to be that a candidate applied for a job, sent in their résumé and waited patiently for a response from the employer. All too often, candidates were left in the dark regarding timelines, with few ways to find out where they were in the hiring process.

Now, candidates expect rapid responses to their inquiries and greater transparency into a potential employer’s hiring process. Therefore, make sure that you inform the candidate about when they can expect an offer or rejection and deliver on it. This shows that the organization is respectful, responsible and disciplined. Plus, if you make transparency a core piece of your recruitment strategy, you can improve your offer acceptance rate.   

Candidates Expect More from Your Employer Value Proposition

Your employer value proposition (EVP) is the distillation of what you offer candidates and what you expect in return. In the past, organizations relied heavily on brand recognition and compensation as their primary EVP. But, more than ever, candidates expect flexible work options, formal succession planning, mentorship programs, open communication and real-time feedback to be part of an employer’s value.

Before candidates reach the offer phase, make sure you have clearly communicated what makes you different as an employer. When candidates understand your story and how you view your role as an employer, they can get a picture of what they can expect if they accept your offer.

Plan ahead to ensure that candidates have information about the team they’ll be working with and the types of projects they’ll work on. When appropriate, you can also create an opportunity for the candidates to meet their future coworkers during the recruiting process.

Compensation, Benefits & Perks

Presenting benefits and compensation begins with your job postings. According to a survey conducted by Glassdoor, more than half of the respondents listed salary (67%) and benefits (63%) as top factors they looked for in job ads. By listing the salary range, benefits and perks this early on, you are less likely to lose a candidate at the end of the process solely because the salary and benefits offered are less than they are willing to accept.

When making a job offer, begin with an in-depth discussion with the candidate to determine which benefits and perks they value the most; it may be possible to create an offer package that is personalized enough to meet their needs. Furthermore, it’s important to know the difference between a perk and a benefit, as they are two different categories of non-wage compensation items.

employment offer letter

Benefits: Benefits are best described as a form of non-wage compensation that complements salary. Health insurance, transit assistance, stock options and retirement contributions are some of the most popular benefits offered by organizations.

Perks: Perks are above-and-beyond offerings that may sway a candidate to value one organization over another. Think about these like the “icing on the cake.” Perks at work may include a company car; retail discounts; summer hours; gym memberships; standing desks and off-site, team-building activities. These perks can really sweeten an employment offer and increase the likelihood of acceptance.

Non-Traditional Perks & Benefits

A survey released by TriNet found that 91% of respondents at small- and medium-sized businesses view non-traditional benefits as an important aspect of their job satisfaction. According to the survey, non-traditional benefits include perks such as flexible work schedules, commuter benefits, unlimited paid time off, paid volunteer time, remote work options and more. 

If your organization offers non-traditional perks and benefits, leverage them to sweeten job offers. These days, candidates are becoming less concerned with salary alone and more concerned with overall compensation – including a better work-life balance and greater workplace flexibility. If your organization offers employees access to a gym, the option to work from home or other alluring perks, make sure to mention these when discussing benefits with candidates.

Entwining Benefits & Employer Branding

Fusing your benefits package with your employer brand gives your benefits program a distinct identity and purpose aligned with your core values. It’s something that candidates should be able to recognize in every aspect of your benefits presentation. In particular, your benefits mission statement should be clear and concise, but also unique to your organization. Strive to make it a natural extension of your broader organizational values. For instance, if excellent customer service is an area of focus at your company, craft your benefits mission statement to highlight how your benefits seek to anticipate and meet the needs of employees.

A financial services client of PeopleScout’s is one example of blending employer branding and benefits. Specifically, the client provided a comprehensive and generous maternity leave policy for expecting mothers. However, when communicating its maternity leave policy, the benefit wasn’t featured in a way that effectively highlighted the company’s commitment to supporting new parents. While informative and to the point, this approach to educating employees about the policy was misaligned with the client’s employer brand of empowerment.

PeopleScout worked with this client to craft new and more brand-aligned communications about the maternity leave policy. The new messaging shared in the excitement of expecting employees, while also highlighting the challenges expecting mothers face in the workplace. Employee communications about the maternity leave policy centered on the values of empowerment and support for employees – inside and outside of the organization’s walls.

Engaging & Communicating With Candidates During the Employment Offer Process

Initial Conversations

Once you’ve decided on a candidate, don’t waste time reaching out and sharing the good news. Otherwise, the candidate may accept a position elsewhere or develop a negative attitude about your organization if they are left waiting too long.

When you contact the candidate, discuss the details of the job offer. If the candidate is satisfied with your offer, ask for verbal acceptance and let them know a formal offer of employment will be sent shortly.

Follow Up & Keeping Candidates Warm

After verbal acceptance of your offer, stay in contact with the candidate to keep them engaged and interested in the role. When following up, don’t be overly eager or too pushy; instead, allow the candidate some time to think about your offer. While the candidate considers your job offer, stay in touch through the candidate’s preferred method of communication. The purpose of your follow-up correspondence should be to reinforce your enthusiasm about having the candidate join your team.

Follow-ups with new details about the offer, like “You will be working at X location” or “Would you prefer to work on a Mac or a PC?” allow you to stay connected while relaying information that is relevant to the candidate. What’s more, keeping in touch enables you to continue to build a positive relationship with candidates after the offer.

The Official Offer Letter

An offer letter represents the final stage in your recruiting process and is the legal document that defines the employment relationship between your organization and the candidate. For those reasons, it is critical to get it right.

Think of the offer letter as a formal invitation for the candidate to become an employee of your organization. Like any invitation, your offer letter should send a warm and positive message to the candidate. Articulate a friendly, welcoming tone and indicate your anticipation of the candidate’s future contributions to your organization. The offer letter should inform candidates of their compensation and benefits, as well as include a description of their role and responsibilities.

Consider creating multiple templates for offer letters, especially if you have distinct categories of employees. Then, personalize them to match the candidate and to ensure that each candidate receives the right information for their situation.

Organizations that want to fill open roles with qualified and talented employees need to approach recruitment in the same way that sales and marketing teams approach engaging and closing clients. Look for creative ways to show why your organization is a great place to work.

And, finally, solicit and provide feedback to candidates; this communicates that you value their input and that your organization – like the candidate – is using the exchange as a teachable moment meant to foster growth, which is an indicator of a positive workplace culture. By focusing on your brand, culture and benefits, as well as keeping in touch with candidates, you’ll maximize your ability to land – and keep – the best talent.

Dos & Don’ts of Automating Your Candidate Experience

Posted on by skatz

On a sleepy Saturday morning, you grab your laptop and spend two hours applying to your dream job. It’s worth the extra cup of coffee because you like this role and company enough to ignore the annoyance of a long application. Finally, you submit your application. An instant later, you receive a reply in your inbox. “We regret to inform you that, after careful review, you are no longer being considered for this role.”

Maybe that PowerPoint proficiency question you skipped was a disqualifier? With such a general response, it’s hard to know. In the modern candidate’s world, rigid automation rules that lead to a message like the one above rarely make sense. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 82% of candidates report the ideal recruiter interaction is a mix between innovative technology and personal, human interaction. Employers should be on notice, too, as 72% of candidates who have a poor experience share it online, according to the Human Capital Institute.

In this article, we’ll define what automation is, the overall benefits of it, and specific examples of what to do and not do as the use of automation in talent acquisition grows.

What is Automation?

Automation is not new, but it is rapidly evolving. In the industrial revolution, for example, local weavers were replaced by machines that could perform the same tasks in factories. This was an example of a manual task that was replicated into a process and automated. At its most basic definition, automation is:

“The technique of making an apparatus, a process or a system operate automatically.”
– Merriam Webster

What, then, is the relationship between automation and artificial intelligence (AI)? The two terms are sometimes confused and used interchangeably, but AI is defined as:

“ … the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions.”
– Investopedia

Types of AI include machine and deep learning. Machine learning involves computers that learn without being explicitly programmed; an example of this is sentiment analysis, in which computers make decisions about how individuals feel based on their activity on or off line. Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that teaches computers to take the next step and learn in the same way that humans do. For example, machine learning is displayed when a driverless car recognizes a stop sign and stops.

Today, modern automation almost always involves AI. Finding and scheduling candidates via chatbots, for example, is a type of AI-infused automation in the world of talent acquisition. Automation using AI also includes tasks that were neither quantifiable nor automatable five years ago – such as measuring the interest level of passive candidates from social media metrics.

How Does Automation Affect Talent Acquisition?

When designed correctly, the right levels of automation help the recruiter and candidate create a better candidate experience.

Automation affects recruiters and candidates in different ways. For recruiters, automation helps reduce repetitive, administrative tasks – such as manual searching or appointment-setting – to focus more time on meaningful activities, like face-to-face interviews. On the other hand, automation can help make the process feel more personal for candidates through customized attention and added convenience in the job search by reducing the time it takes to apply. As an example, candidates know chatbots aren’t real people, but most appreciate the instant feedback bots give them.

While automation can be a game changer, there is such a thing as too much or the wrong type of automation. Each stage of the recruitment cycle has an “automation opportunity,” as well as an associated risk to the candidate experience; the risk may be low in the case of automating a candidate’s onboarding experience, for example. In comparison, the final stage of the hiring process is rarely automated and instead involves interviews conducted by humans.

The most effective automation tools have one or more of the following attributes:

  1. Ability to reach candidates in a more meaningful way. With automation, recruiters can have more timely, personalized interactions with candidates. For example, a retail candidate working at a pharmacy can receive email alerts about new roles matching their skills at another pharmacy as soon as the roles are posted.
  2. Ability to make the hiring process convenient and simple. Long gone are the applications that take two hours to complete. Instead, candidates fill out auto-populated applications catered to their interests and backgrounds in just five to 10 minutes.
  3. Ability to maximize recruiter productivity. As previously mentioned, automation can complete more manual tasks – such as passive sourcing 24/7 – freeing up more time for recruiters to work on activities that benefit from the human touch.
  4. Ability to deliver better performance metrics. With more data comes the opportunity to measure it more effectively. The digitization process helps make these metrics part of the recruiter’s ongoing dashboards to measure success.

How to Avoid Candidate Experience Automation Flaws

Automation without the correct supervision can go awry. Consider the programmer who created a social media profile of a fish that was looking for a job. Algorithms took the bait and sent this qualified catfish profile requests for interviews based on keywords and a falsely construed online account. It certainly was fishy.

Here are some common automation mistakes to avoid so you don’t get caught on the hook:

  1. Putting your automation on auto-drive without ongoing input can create unintended bias. While the catfish profile is a more humorous example, you may recall the case study of what not to do from a leading online retailer. The company was hiring programmers, and while well-intentioned, accidentally built bias into the program based on patterns in its database of résumés from the past 10 years – which were mostly male. The company responded quickly, scrapping the program and retooling its efforts to make its profiles more gender-neutral. These types of mistakes are not only bad for your recruiting process and candidates, but can also create issues for your compliance and legal teams, as well.
  2. Too much automation can cause candidates to lose interest. This can occur when interactions lack a human element, causing candidates to tune out during the hiring process.
  3. Too much communication may make candidates disengage. Once a tipping point is reached, it’s hard to come back from a failed interaction; most people have experienced applying to a role and then receiving an influx of unwanted emails. Furthermore, for candidates looking at multiple job opportunities, less personalized forms of communication can create a quick change in interest.

How can these automation flaws be avoided? Test every automation step you incorporate into your hiring process – from both the experience of the recruiter and the candidate – all the way through the candidate journey. Are there any gaps you need to review or hazards you encounter? You can also pilot larger, more disruptive automation with a control group of internal employees to assess results. Make your mistakes up front, fix them, then release to a wider audience. If you think your automation strategies could create biases or a negative hiring experience, stop and retool.

You can also bring your partners along with you on your automation journey. For example, consider establishing an advisory committee to make sure concerns are alleviated, and conduct candidate evaluations to make sure the candidate experience is improved.

When Automation Works

So, when is automation helpful? In addition to eliminating manual tasks and creating time for recruiters to be more strategic, there are five key instances when automation benefits candidates and recruiters.

Automation helps when:

  1. It enhances the candidate experience. An example of this is sending an email to passive candidates asking them to apply. If this process is automated, the candidate gets an identical email, but the recruiter can focus time on other recruiting activities, instead of sending individual emails to multiple candidates.
  2. Flexibility or convenience is added to an existing recruiting process. This benefits recruiters by reducing manual work, by using text reminders to the candidate to select and systematically schedule an interview, for example. This way, the hiring manager and the candidate avoid playing phone tag.
  3. A recruiter can add a personal touch in an automated way. As an example, candidates interested in accounting roles can receive personalized content through career pages and only see positions that apply to their personal skillset when they search.
  4. High-volume positions create hundreds of applicants with a short interview process, such as during the holiday retail hiring season. Quick “yes” or “no” text screens with lower thresholds can help sort candidates through specific questions, such as availability and hourly salary requirements. Doing so helps bring in a smaller, more qualified applicant set to the interview process.
  5. Recruiters need to send reminders to a specific group of candidates. For instance, perhaps you want to invite to a hiring event candidates from the Midwest who have engineering degrees. In this case, automation rules can help determine a discrete set of candidates that meet these requirements and then send the alerts on your behalf.

Automation works well in specific parts of the recruiting process, depending on your target hire. For example, high-volume roles benefit from automated sourcing, screening and basic assessments, whereas only automating the search for passive candidates may be necessary for highly skilled roles.  

Your Guidelines to the Dos & Don’ts of Automating Your Candidate Experience

Keep these guidelines as you scale your automation rules to meet your talent acquisition goals.

Do:

  • Measure, phase in automation and measure again to determine effectiveness.
  • Involve everyone in the process to determine where automation makes the most sense.
  • Take advantage of A/B testing to help measure different ideas.
  • Treat every situation as unique; don’t assume that what works for one will work for another.
  • Remember that candidates want a personal touch, and what you don’t automate is as important as what you do.
  • Use your people to make critical decisions.

Don’t:

  • Proceed if it doesn’t feel like it’s best for your candidates.
  • Influence the candidate experience in a negative way.
  • Assume that automating your entire hiring process is the right thing for your business.
  • Make an automation change and assume it will work forever. Always be reevaluating!

Hiring for Highly Skilled Workers and Hard to Fill Jobs

Posted on by edyson

When facing a tight and highly competitive talent market, employers find it even more difficult to hire for hard to fill jobs. What’s more, the dearth of highly skilled talent in critical industries can lower an organization’s productivity, which, if let unabated, could have a major effect on the global economy.

According to a Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) report, vacancies for jobs requiring highly skilled workers or in-demand skills are among the most difficult to fill. The talent acquisition professionals surveyed in the report said the following job categories are most difficult to recruit:

In this article, we’ll cover how organizations can identify, source and hire highly skilled talent more effectively.

Creating Candidate Personas for Hard to Fill Jobs

Before you source, recruit and hire highly skilled talent, you must first outline the skills, attributes, experience and tendencies of your ideal candidate by creating a candidate persona. A candidate persona is a semi-fictional illustration of a candidate who exemplifies what you are looking for in a specific role. An accurate candidate persona will help your talent team tailor its strategies and approach to best suit the talent you are looking to hire. This is especially important when recruiting highly skilled candidates who have diverse and unique requirements, drivers and employment expectations.

Your candidate persona needs to answer key questions. Begin by answering these questions using existing data from your applicant tracking system (ATS) and customer relationship management (CRM) databases on candidates and employees. You can also interview current employees – especially those who align with your ideal candidate – for their feedback. Below is an example of a candidate persona template:

Hard to fill jobs

Make sure your personas are representative of actual human beings – rather than a portrait of an overly idealized, fictional candidate. Also, be cautious when creating candidate personas; giving your personas names and pictures to make them seem more realistic and multi-dimensional is great, but it may also lead to bias. Instead, keep personal identifiers to a minimum to avoid discrimination and maximize diversity. 

Sourcing Highly Skilled Candidates

Leveraging Social Media

LinkedIn is a favorite social media recruiting tool for talent professionals. However, oversaturation is the predominate reason that many hiring managers claim that recruiting on LinkedIn has become less effective. Despite being inundated with competitors, LinkedIn is still one of the most important tools in a recruiter’s toolbox. However, sourcing talent on other social media is also a vital part of a modern recruiting strategy.

  • Twitter: Use Twitter’s advanced search function to hunt for user profiles that use industry-related keywords and hashtags. Then, refine your search based on location and other important criteria. For example, if you’re looking to fill a developer position, search Twitter for specific software and developer-related keywords within your organization’s target market. This search can uncover developers in your area with the experience you’re looking for.
  • Facebook: Facebook’s targeted search capabilities enable you to find high-quality, skilled workers who align with specific criteria. For example, if you search “copywriters with packaging marketing experience,” Facebook will return a result with matching profiles. Reach out to these candidates to see if they would be interested in interviewing with your organization.

The power in using your social media accounts goes beyond sourcing candidates for hard to fill jobs; you can also showcase your organization’s employer brand and culture to entice and engage talent.

Employee Referrals

To gain a competitive edge, look to your employees. An employee referral program can help your organization expand its network with a ready-made talent pool. Employees have contacts with former classmates and co-workers, and their referrals are more likely to be qualified and a good fit with the company culture.

Additionally, consider posting open positions in office areas, announcing openings at company meetings and sharing them in company-wide communications to help employees keep referrals top of mind. Also, regularly remind employees about the rewards for referrals, such as financial compensation or other perks. Even if a referred candidate is not a good fit for a particular position, you can still consider them for different roles, which can help supplement a robust talent pipeline.

Leverage Recruiting Automation & AI Tools to Source Candidates

Innovations in talent technology have transformed every phase of the recruiting process. One phase that has seen enormous change due to technology is candidate sourcing. Candidate sourcing is the most important phase in recruiting highly skilled talent because the talent pool is more constricted.

Today, talent tools powered by artificial intelligence can locate passive candidates for hard to fill jobs much faster and more efficiently than ever before. AI technology crawls the internet to collect and analyze a wide variety of candidate data – from résumés to social media activity. Based on this data, AI-based tools can help make predictions about which candidates will be open to switching jobs, making it easier for recruiters to prioritize those candidates.

Selling Your Hard to Fill Jobs

When it comes time for the interview, you’re not just interviewing highly skilled candidates; they’re interviewing you, as well. To effectively “sell” your opportunities, outline and communicate the benefits of working for your organization. Effective communication on the front end can save your company significant time and effort.

Understand What It’s Like to Work for Your Organization

To properly sell the role, make sure that you have an accurate view of your organization from the perspective of your employees – both current and former. Consider deploying surveys to obtain feedback from current employees and make sure to conduct exit interviews with departing talent. Take the feedback you receive and craft an objective report of your employee experience. When you understand the day-to-day experiences of your current and former employees, you can better sell an accurate and positive depiction of what it’s like to work for your organization. 

Understand Your Employer Value Proposition

Your employer value proposition (EVP) is what you are selling to the candidate. Recruiters and hiring managers need to know – and be comfortable articulating – the value proposition of your organization. In other words, you need to answer the question, “Why would someone want to work for you in this position?” Your employer value proposition includes a range of tangible and intangible benefits of working at your organization, such as: work/life balance, flexibility, culture, values, compensation and benefits. Know the benefits of working for your company, and make sure that you effectively “sell” it to highly skilled candidates.

For instance, PeopleScout helps a client to maximize its employer brand to attract a healthy pipeline of top talent. The client, which has a global presence in the construction industry, works with PeopleScout to highlight its unique culture to potential employees. During the hiring process, hiring managers communicate the client’s mission of: minimizing environmental impact and maximizing sustainability; creating innovative approaches to complex industry problems; and promoting the well-being of its employees.

As an example, the client offers three days of “well-being” PTO that can be taken in addition to the traditional leave offered by the client. These days are seen as necessary for employees working in a physically and mentally taxing industry, and illustrate the client’s commitment to the well-being of its staff. What’s more, the client also offers multiple flexible work arrangements to increase work-life balance – a prudent, yet uncommon, benefit in the industry. By helping our client weave in its mission, culture and brand into the recruiting process, the team has been able to establish the company as an employer of choice for highly skilled talent. 

Be Careful Not to Oversell

In addition to the perks, it’s also important for candidates to have an objective understanding of the challenges that may come with working at your organization. You don’t have to paint an unflattering picture of your hard to fill jobs, but it is important to provide accurate information up front. Overselling or omitting information will start the employment relationship off on the wrong foot should they accept your offer, and could lead to higher turnover. It won’t take a new hire long to figure out that what they were told before they were hired is not the reality of the role. For example, if your role requires irregular or long hours, communicate that to the candidate. This allows the candidate to make a fully informed decision and mitigate the risk of immediate disengagement.

What Candidates Want to Know

Just like you want to know about a candidate’s background and experience, highly skilled candidates also want to know what they can expect from employment at your organization. In particular, during the recruiting process, they may be interested in: 

  • The candidate’s potential for growth: Highly skilled candidates want to know how leaping to a new organization is going to benefit them – especially in relation to the growth and overall well-being of their careers.
  • The role’s potential for growth: Candidates may want to go beyond the position in its current form and discuss what the position could be and how the role ties into the organization’s plans for the future. 
  • Your organization’s potential for growth: Highly skilled candidates want to be part of a winning team, so show them how your organization is driving success.
  • Your organization’s culture: Candidates want to know that the position is going to be a good fit, and that includes how they fit into your organization’s culture. 

The evolving landscape of talent acquisition requires a more proactive, multi-touch approach to attracting highly skilled talent and converting them into applicants and, ultimately, hires. As the global economy continues to grow and the demand and competition for highly skilled talent rises as a result, organizations need to stay abreast of the scope of talent available in the market.

Retail Recruiters: Creating a Winning Retail Recruiting Strategy

Posted on by edyson

There is no doubt that the internet has forever changed the way customers shop. Despite this, in-store sales continue to trend upward. In fact, in-store sales revenue growth has outpaced e-commerce sales steadily over the last decade. To support in-store demand and continue growth, retail employers need top-performing talent in the right positions.

Unfortunately, with a tight labor market and various retail recruiting challenges, it is now harder than ever for retail recruiters to find the right candidates. In this article, we cover the best hiring practices for retail recruiters to help you source, attract and hire the best retail talent.

Defining Your Hiring Goals as Retail Recruiters

Regardless of industry, the first step in the recruiting journey begins with outlining how many hires you need to make, what positions you are looking to fill and the timeline you need to hire by. By outlining these goals early on in the recruitment process, you develop a clear strategy that helps you meet your organization’s talent needs.

As a retail recruiter, your organization’s hiring goals may fluctuate or change depending on seasonality and store openings, so in addition to your current hiring needs, also anticipate future needs when creating your hiring goals.

Do not be afraid to change your goals as you go. Outside factors, such as new competitors, a change in demand or opening of a new store, might influence the goals you established. If you need to make a shift to your strategy, remain agile enough to do so.

Sourcing Retail Candidates

For a retail organization to thrive, it takes a diverse range of individuals working together towards a common goal. So, it should come as no surprise that when searching for top retail talent, retail recruiters need to cast a wide net.

While some companies may focus on hiring high school or college students looking for part-time or seasonal jobs, others may want experienced full-time candidates in search of careers. If you’re hiring low wage, low skill labor, community sites like Craigslist or standard job boards can help you attract students or young individuals looking to gain some experience. If you’re looking for more experienced retail workers, try more targeted job boards like iHireRetail or LinkedIn.

It is essential to know where your potential candidates are active and advertise your open jobs strategically. Use location-specific job boards, local papers or blogs, or other targeted strategies to help pinpoint your area for the best candidates.

When sourcing for seasonal positions, using digital and social media ads along with email as a way to find and attract talent can pay huge dividends. Just make sure you create a specific careers site to send seasonal candidates too. This way it will be easier for them to find information on the opportunity without having to navigate your full careers website.  

Finally, you can also look at your customers as potential candidates when recruiting new employees. When your employees are passionate about your brand and products, like loyal customers often are, they can help increase sales and educate new shoppers about what you offer.

Retail Recruiters Need to Go Online

Retailers of today are operating in a competitive space that requires forward-thinking as well as online and social savviness. If you want to attract applicants who have those traits, you should take your recruitment efforts beyond traditional channels such as job boards. Social media is known to be an effective recruitment tool. LinkedIn, for instance, has a number of talent solutions that enable you to find, vet and contact candidates.

Social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter, while not specifically made for recruiting, can also help you find new hires. Use Twitter to spread the word about your openings and put a special careers tab on your Facebook page where your fans can browse and apply for jobs.

Even Instagram has proven to be a good platform, particularly for companies looking for young and fresh talent. As Software Advice cited in this piece on Instagram recruiting, a study by the Pew Research Center found that the largest group using Instagram is adults between 18-29 years of age with some college education. This makes it an ideal platform to attract a new generation of applicants.

So, make it a point to spruce up your employer profile on social media. A good way to do this is to share fun team photos on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. And if you are actively recruiting, spread the word by posting “we’re hiring” images on your accounts and running targeted social media campaigns to attract the right candidates. You can also show your company culture and promote things such as the flexibility in the workplace you provide, your commitment to diversity and inclusion and more.

For Retail Recruiters, Attitude is the New Experience  

When hiring in retail, which is a bigger predictor of a candidate’s success: attitude or experience? In the case of industries like retail, an employee’s attitude is often more important than their experience. What’s more, The Future of Work: The Augmented Workforce study conducted by Deloitte found that “skills such as empathy, communication, persuasion, personal service, problem-solving, and strategic decision-making are more valuable than ever.”

Retail Recruiters

Whether it’s assisting customers at a department store or managing an automotive supply store, each role within the retail industry requires the right attitude. So, how can retail recruiters ensure they hire candidates who have the right attitude? You can start by assessing candidates’ soft skills in the workplace.

Key soft skills to look for in retail candidates

  • Willing and eager to learn
  • Patient
  • Inquisitive
  • Competitive
  • Problem-solving skills
  • Responsible
  • Good communicator
  • Strong listener
  • Team-oriented
  • Emphatic
  • Can-do attitudes
  • High emotional intelligence

The good news is that many of these soft skills go hand-in-hand, so finding retail candidates who exhibit these qualities and attitudes will not be as difficult as it may seem.

Group Interviews and Assessing Soft Skills

A great ways to find candidates with the right soft skills is to conduct group interviews. Candidates at Disney’s retail Store go through a group interview process where they are quizzed on Disney trivia and are asked to sell a product to the rest of the team.

Conducting group interviews provides you an opportunity to glean insights into someone’s soft skills by observing how they conduct themselves around other people, how they handle a stressful situation and you get to understanding of how they will fit with your team.

The Gist

Retail recruiters and the industry as a whole face a unique set of challenges when attracting top talent with the right skills. With the majority of the retail workforce comprised of hourly, part-time and seasonal employees, recruiting quality workers quickly is a tall order.

There is no one-size-fits-all strategy or tactic to retail recruiters. However, armed with the tips we have shared you can develop a retail recruiting strategy that fits your organization’s unique issues, needs and culture. Remember, get to know your candidate pool, create a robust employer brand, utilize the internet and talent technology tools. If you cover all of these bases, you can improve your recruitment process and make smarter hiring decisions.

Talking Talent: Recruiting and Retaining the Next-Gen Workforce with Kathryn Minshew of The Muse

Posted on by nfuqua

In this episode of Talking Talent, we’re talking about the next generation workforce. For years, this conversation has been about millennials, but now the oldest millennials are in their late-30s and the youngest, their mid-20s. Now, most recent graduates are members of Generation Z.

How do employers attract and retain this new generation of workers? As they enter the workforce and start their careers, what sets them apart? And what are they looking for in an employer?

Joining us to talk about this is Kathryn Minshew, the CEO & Founder of The Muse, a career platform used by more than 75 million people to research companies and careers. In 2018, The Muse was named one of Fast Company’s 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World.

Kathryn is also the author of “The New Rules of Work,” a Wall Street Journal national bestseller. She has spoken at MIT and Harvard, contributed to the WSJ and HBR, and appeared on TODAY and CNN. She has also been named to SmartCEO’s Future50 Visionary CEOs and Inc.’s 35 Under 35. Kathryn worked on HPV vaccine introduction in Rwanda with the Clinton Health Access Initiative before founding The Muse and was previously at McKinsey & Company.

Additionally, Kathryn is the host of a new podcast from The Muse called “The New Rules of Work,” which interviews experts and leaders to explore the changing landscape of work. The New Rules of Work launched in November.

Increasing Retention: Through the First 90 Days & Beyond

Posted on by skatz

If you’re only focused on recruitment but not retention, you’re throwing away money.

According to Forbes, the cost of replacing an employee can range anywhere from 50% of the salary of an entry-level employee to more than 200% of the salary of a senior executive. Increasing retention – even by just a couple of percentage points – can save millions of dollars each year.

I think “engagement” and “retention” are just different words for the same thing. If you want to retain people, you need to engage them, and you should start as early as possible. Recent surveys have found that about 30% of job-seekers have left a job within the first 90 days of hiring. Despite this, most onboarding programs are too short. According to SHRM, nearly 40% of onboarding programs last one week or less.

This is important across the talent spectrum. In extreme-burnout, high-volume roles, culture counts. Rather than just dealing with unwanted turnover, you need to onboard employees to your culture early. You need them to be invested with you so they have a reason to stay.

On the other end of the spectrum, I consistently see specialized, rock-star candidates deflate when they become new employees. During the recruitment process, they are engaged and excited for a new role. But, when there is no onboarding process, they are left on their own – unengaged and more likely to respond to the next recruiter that pops into their inbox.

In this article, I’ll walk you through how to set up an onboarding program that builds engagement from day one. Then, I’ll share strategies on how you can continue to measure that engagement and build it further.

The 90-Day Onboarding Program

A well-developed onboarding program for the first 90 days makes all the difference in the world when it comes to engagement and retention. When new employees start on day one, they have a lot of expectations, and they’re excited. However, many employers forget how critical the first impression is to a new hire.

For many organizations, the onboarding program starts and ends an employee’s first day with HR basics. Employees fill out paperwork, get a badge, find their desks, complete a training and often receive some sort of handbook. That’s it. Employees are left without any idea of what their first 90 days will look like. In some cases, employees go home from that first day not even knowing what’s in store for day two. These programs are set up by default. They’re easy, and they’ve often been in place for a long time.

I recommend a 90-day program that is designed to give the employee control over their onboarding experience. When a person owns their career experience and expectations are clear from the beginning, they are more likely to stay. They will be set up for success in those first 90 days and beyond.

The Background

I like to think of a new employee’s first 90 days in three phases.

Phase 1: Shadowing

Phase one is often the first 30 days a new employee is at an organization. They are integrating themselves into your organization and absorbing your company culture, structure and processes. They’re learning what their own role entails and what’s expected of them.

Phase 2: Reflecting Back

Phase two takes place during days 30 through 60. The new employee is taking the information they learned in the first 30 days to start developing and sharing their own ideas. However, they are doing this cautiously, looking for feedback and checking to see how their role fits in the organization.

Phase 3: Starting to Soar

In phase three, or days 60 through 90, the employee is taking more freedom and action on their own, but still checking in with some regularity. As they transition out of this phase, they have a base where they know who to go to and how the organization operates, but they are taking control over their own career.

Building the Program

As employers build an onboarding program, I encourage them to think of it as a 360, where they introduce the employee to everything they will touch and be touched by at an organization. To do this, employers need to ask two questions:

What tools, technology and equipment does the new hire need to do their job?

Most organizations have some sort of onboarding program to get a new employee acquainted with the tools they need, but they fall short on the second question:

What processes and people does the new hire need to know to do their job?

We can break this question down into more pieces. Who is the new employee going to interact with? Who are they going to learn from? Will they have a mentor? Who will they go to for what kinds of information or resources? What is the operating philosophy at this organization and in different departments? What are the fastest and most efficient ways to navigate this organization?

Your onboarding program should provide a new hire with the answers to both of these questions and empower them to take control of their role.

A Program That Empowers

In many organizations, it’s unusual for companies to give a new hire control of their onboarding process, but I recommend creating an onboarding plan and handing it over. With that plan and the right guidance, employees will be engaged in their own career success from day one.

However, that doesn’t mean they are on their own. There’s a lot of hand-to-hand or shoulder-to-shoulder work that has to take place. If you have people working virtually, video is important. You can gauge someone’s total emotional responses. You can see if they’re learning and absorbing. Make sure you can see each other more than once or twice in the first 90 days. It makes new virtual employees feel like part of the team.

As a best practice, I encourage one-on-one, short meetings with key team members. This can be as short as 15 minutes. Managers should provide a new hire with a guide to what their first 90 days will look like – who they are going to meet with, where they are going to get the things they are going to need, and access to people’s calendars. In these meetings, the new hire can learn team members’ responsibilities, processes and philosophies, and can also share information about themselves. These conversations help facilitate better working relationships.

Instead of relying on traditional trainings for critical material, I encourage different interactive teaching styles so the new hire can absorb and apply the knowledge. This could be training on technology, best practices for outward-facing roles, or company culture – things that are tempting to stick in a guidebook or slide deck. However, because people often don’t retain information well from passive, instructor-led training, challenge the status quo and explore better ways to deliver training.

Transitioning Out

The transition out of the formal onboarding period should also be included in the onboarding plan you provide new employees. When you empower them to take control of the process, it should be simple. In the last 30 days, the new employee should already be starting to soar in their role, and check-ins will be less frequent. However, for some strategic roles, the process may take longer than 90 days. 

What About New Promotions?

I also recommend using this same approach with people who are promoted from within. While most employers typically have at least a very basic onboarding program, newly promoted employees are rarely given any onboarding support. You can use the same strategies, but I recommend – at the very minimum – an abbreviated version.

How to Measure Engagement & What to Do With the Numbers

We know what engagement feels like. When you walk into a workplace with an engaged workforce, you can feel the positive energy. When you walk into a workplace with a disengaged workforce, you want to turn around and walk back out the door.

Your battle for engagement may start with the onboarding process, but it doesn’t end there. Once, I took over a company for a founder and morale was really low. We measured it, and it was a three out of 10. Within six months, we scored it again and we were at a seven out of 10. When engagement is low, you need to measure and then act.

Measuring Engagement Effectively

There are so many engagement tools out there, but I say: just keep it simple. Measure engagement consistently, do it on a frequency that makes sense for your organization, share the results, and share what you’re willing to do about the results.

Most companies have some form of employee survey, and tons will do these surveys once a year like clockwork, but they don’t do anything with the results. If you’re going to survey people and do nothing with it, don’t survey at all. You actually do more harm to yourself and to your employees because you’re demonstrating that their wants, needs and engagement don’t matter.

First, ask for the right information. There are three areas I always recommend:

  1. Do you know what is expected of you at work?
  2. Do you have the tools that you need to do your work?
  3. Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best at work?

From there, you can ask more specific questions related to your organization or changes you are considering making, but only ask about areas where you are willing to make changes. You can ask more simple questions to make early wins. For instance, you could ask about upward mobility, career pathing or development – if you’re prepared to put something in place to address it.

Then, publish your results. You don’t have to share every detail, but you do have to publish the themes, and you do have to be authentic. If the results aren’t great, people already know that. However, it gives you an opportunity to demonstrate that you hear your employees and are willing to make changes to address their concerns.

Building a Pulse Team

I also like to create what is called a pulse team – the culture team for your company. The team should be a cross-functional group of key stakeholders – not executives. The group can pulse what’s going on, how people are feeling, if they are supported, if they are happy and if they are productive.

The pulse team reports up and out to the executive team on a frequent basis – many do it quarterly, but some companies even have it monthly. This gives everybody a pulse on what’s happening on the ground, especially if an organization is virtual or global. Then, leaders have a chance to understand when something isn’t going well and address it.

Organizational Influences

When you take time to follow these steps – building an onboarding program, measuring for engagement and responding, your people are more likely to become invested in your organization. They can see their career path. They can see that your organization cares. There’s depth and predictability. All of that increases engagement, which increases retention.

Recall what I said at the start of this article: engagement and retention are just different words for the same thing. To increase both, you need to start with the first 90days, and you can’t stop.

About the Expert

Dana Look-Arimoto is a mentor, speaker and change agent. Dana has more than 20 years of experience in the talent ecosystem. She’s created Phoenix5 to evangelize a new mindset: Stop Settling™. She coaches executives and leaders of all kinds to become their all in every part of their life: work, home, community and giving back. Dana also recently released the book, “Stop Settling, Settle Smart: Rethinking Work-life Balance, Redesign Your Busy Life.”

Digital Recruitment Marketing: It’s All About the Online Candidate Experience

Posted on by skatz

Recruitment marketing in the world of talent attraction, a brand’s presence online can lead candidates to discover new opportunities. And, employers and brands are taking the hint – maximizing the online candidate experience through personalization and optimization.

This brings us to the importance of digital recruitment marketing. Digital recruitment marketing is a way for employers to source and attract potential candidates; it can include social media, email marketing, display advertising and more.

Through this article, we’ll share some important aspects of digital recruitment marketing, including building personas, trending digital marketing strategies and channels, and website optimization.

Recruitment Marketing Begins with Understanding & Creating Candidate Personas

Understanding the key characteristics of the candidates your organization wants to hire provides context to who they are, which is why organizations create candidate personas. Personas are profiles that represent different types of candidates, focusing on individual characteristics. They create alignment across your recruitment and sourcing strategies.

Personas are organized, analyzed and assembled by gathering internal data that reflects candidates’ behaviors, interests, goals and challenges. Let’s dive into how to build your personas.

How to Build Your Personas:

1.Gather Your Data: Focus your data on successful hires and placements within your organization. Interview professionals who currently work in the type of role you’re seeking to fill to understand what qualities make them successful. Prioritize data points such as:

  • demographic information
  • background
  • personal attributes
  • qualifications
  • goals
  • objections
  • web activity

Also, try to gather anecdotal evidence or commentary by consulting other recruiters and hiring managers who have hired for that role in the past.

Quick Tip: Aim to gather as much information as possible regarding each position or job opening. The more data you have to work with, the more detailed your personas will be.

2. Identify Trends: Once you’ve gathered your data, it’s time to analyze the information and identify shared trends and traits. This is where your personas will really start to take shape. How do you do this? Start by asking some important questions:

  • Which characteristics or traits do ideal candidates share?
  • What motivates the ideal candidate?
  • Where does the ideal candidate search for jobs?
  • What are the ideal candidate’s goals and aspirations?

These questions – and those similar – will lead you to draw conclusions about the candidate who will best meet your needs for any given role or job opening.

3. Assemble Your Personas: After collecting and analyzing your data, the next step is to assemble your candidate persona profiles. At this stage, you will use the insights you’ve discovered to create a profile of your hypothetical candidate. Some organizations create personas and associate them to profiles with names and pictures to seem more realistic and multi-dimensional; however, be aware of unconscious bias. A good way to avoid bias is to create personas that are based on research and surveys done within your organization, and to focus only on the specific needs and challenges of potential candidates.

What’s Your Digital Recruitment Marketing Strategy?

Content Marketing 

Before you post on your digital marketing channels, focus on the importance of strategically crafting your content. The content you post should be more about your audience, or potential candidate, than it is about your brand. It’s a conversation that says, “We would be lucky to have you as an employee,” versus, “You would be lucky to work for us.”

To have this conversation, your content needs to adhere to your candidate persona’s desires and interests. Your content also has to create a narrative and capture your audience’s attention, while driving home your selling points in a concise way. For example, social media is one trending digital marketing platform. It is a very distracting environment, and you have very limited time to connect with candidates. So, it’s vital to know what you need to say to them via posts, tweets and images, and truly connect the right candidate, or persona, with your open jobs.

Social Media Recruitment Marketing

I recently hosted a Talking Talent Webinar, “Digital Recruitment Marketing: A Guide for Employers.” During the webinar, I asked attendees to answer the question, “Which recruitment marketing strategies would you like to implement at your organization?” What was one of the top answers? Social media marketing, of course, with 36.4%.

  • Conversion rate optimization – 45.5%
  • Social media marketing – 36.4%
  • Email marketing/marketing automation – 36.4%
  • Pay-per-click advertising – 9.1%
  • Display advertising – 9.1%
  • Search engine optimization (SEO) – 18.2%
  • Viral digital marketing – 36.4%
  • None of the above – 0%
  • Don’t know – 27.3%

Although proven to be effective, not all social media channels are created the same. Each platform has its own particular set of users with their own quirks as to how they interact with content. Candidate personas can help you identify your target candidates and shape your social strategy to fit each candidate’s specific preferences. You can utilize them to prioritize the platforms you use, to personalize your messaging, and to share content that engages your ideal candidates.

Digital Recruitment Marketing

A helpful tip when approaching social media marketing is to start by researching all of your top competitors. Check each of their social media pages and see:

  • what content they are posting
  • how often they are doing so
  • how many users are engaging with that content
  • what platforms they’re using

Once you conclude which social media platform is yielding the greatest results – whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, etc. – focus your personalized content on that particular site.

Quick Facts:

  • 80% of employers say social recruiting helps them find passive candidates
  • 70% of hiring managers say they have successfully hired through social media
  • 91% of employers are using social media to hire talent today

Career Sites Matter – A Lot

If your targeted candidates engage with you on digital recruitment marketing channels, often they then arrive at your website. Your website is the backbone to your digital footprint and communications. Not only should an immense amount of effort go into creating a site that has engaging content and is aesthetically pleasing, but it must also be user-friendly for potential candidates.

It’s vital that your website or career site is optimized for job-seekers. Optimizing keywords in job descriptions, and ensuring your links are working properly and that your site is mobile-friendly can help candidates find your organization and apply to your jobs, and is a

When building a career site, the process, structure and flow of the site must be deliberate. Site flow is a major contributing factor to increasing the number of candidates that move through the funnel and make it through the application process; It’s all about user experience.

What’s Important in the End

Ultimately, an effective digital marketing campaign takes time, patience, planning and teamwork. It’s important to build customized campaigns that cater to candidate personas, be clear on your branding efforts, really push your employer brand’s unique selling points, and optimize your careers site for search engines and conversions. Put together, each aspect creates a strategy that is focused on personas and will be beneficial as you move forward in searching for candidates in the digital recruitment space.