In this episode of Talking Talent, we talk to Liz Wiseman, the New York Times bestselling author of Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, about how her research and the insights behind Multipliers can be applied to your talent programs.
Liz is a researcher and executive advisor who teaches leadership to executives around the world. In addition to Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, she has also authored The Multiplier Effect: Tapping the Genius Inside Our Schools, and the Wall Street Journal bestseller, Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work.
She is the CEO of the Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. Some of her recent clients include: Apple, AT&T, Disney, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Nike, Salesforce, Tesla, and Twitter. Liz has been listed on the Thinkers50 ranking and named one of the top 10 leadership thinkers in the world.
She has conducted significant research in the field of leadership and collective intelligence and writes for Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and a variety of other business and leadership journals. A former executive at Oracle Corporation, she worked over the course of 17 years as the Vice President of Oracle University and as the global leader for Human Resource Development.
Liz led an engaging interactive keynote and breakout session at PeopleScout’s 2019 NEXT Talent Summit in Washington, D.C. on how to use the Multipliers methodology for cultivating new ideas and energy to drive organizational change and innovation. We spoke with Liz after her talk to ask about how her leadership research can be applied directly to talent acquisition.
In this episode, Liz talks about how the “talent magnet” qualities of Multipliers can power your talent acquisition program, the relationship between having a culture of Multipliers and being recognized as an employer of choice, the role of Multipliers in building an inclusive work environment and the impact Multipliers can have in the contingent workforce space.
You purchase Multipliers and Liz’s other books at
major book retailers. You can learn more about Liz and her research and
services at TheWisemanGroup.com.
Australia’s unemployment rate remained at 5.2% in June with only 500 jobs added to the economy. Unemployment is at its highest level since August 2018. The Bureau of Statistics reports an increase of 21,100 persons in full-time employment and a decrease of 20,600 in part-time positions. The labour participation rate held steady at 66%.
Numbers
500: The
Australian economy added 500 jobs in June.
5.2%: The
Australian unemployment rate remained at 5.2%.
66.0%: Labour
force participation stayed at 66.0%.
+2: The Business Confident
Index fell to +2 in the latest NAB
release.
Upside
The headline of only 500 jobs added in June masks the good news that 21,100 full-time positions were created balanced by the loss of 20,600 part-time positions. At 66%, approximately two-thirds of the Australian population is now participating in the workforce, up 0.3 percentage points from a year ago.
The underemployment rate which includes those who are working part-time but want full-time employment and full-time workers whose jobs were unable to provide full-time work hours dropped 0.4 percentage points to 8.2% in June. Western Australia had a significant gain of 13,800 jobs.
Downside
Every state except Western Australia posted job losses in June. The largest decreases were in New South Wales down 17,400, followed by Queensland, which lost 8,200, South Australia, which decreased by 4,700, and Victoria, which lost 4,100. Unemployment was at 4.9% in February, and it has been higher ever since.
The lackluster job growth combined with other factors is causing some analysts, such as AMP Chief Economist Shane Oliver to forecast limited expansion of the labour market in the near term:
“We see a further slowdown in jobs growth over the next six months,” Oliver said, citing a slowing in jobs ads, vacancies and hiring plans.
Job Opportunities and
Candidates Not Aligned
A recent study by the global employment site Indeed reports that the titles of Australian job seekers were aligned with the jobs being posted only about 50% of the time and that Australia has a higher mismatch rate than the United States or the UK. This disparity was measured by comparing the titles on the active job seekers’ resumes and the titles of the jobs that are posted. In contrast to the mismatch of nearly half of the Australian job seekers, the figures showed comparable mismatches in the UK of 40%, approximately one third in the United States and less than one third in Canada.
One reason for this significant gap in Australia is that the “job mix” has changed rapidly in recent years. Job mix can be defined as the job titles and the number of those holding these titles in a given economy.
Indeed’s Asia Pacific Economist Calliam Pickering noted, “Australia’s labour market is evolving, with the job mix 22% different in December 2018 than in January 2014.”
Pickering warned that the evolution of Australia’s job mix could result in skills shortages, which could harm both job seekers and employers:
“Businesses may lower expectations for skills or experience, while job seekers might accept positions that fail to fully utilise their skills or education,” he said.
The report presents a scenario in which roughly half of
Australian job seekers may not have the skills or experience to succeed in the
current job market. This suggests that Australian employers cannot rely on
their traditional recruitment strategies and should actively seek out expertise
from organisations like recruitment process outsourcers to attract the right
talent in a rapidly changing environment.
The interview and assessment process is challenging for both candidates and employers. Traditional skills assessments focus on evaluating the capability, behavior and results of candidates.
Research shows that these traditional measures can predict the future success of certain candidates in specific roles; however, now that change is constant, we believe that traditional assessments work best under two conditions:
When the candidate has had the opportunity to
develop specific knowledge, skills and abilities through their past work
experience.
When the organization is very clear about the
requirements of the role.
While traditional assessments can predict the success of an individual candidate under those circumstances, they may not accurately predict failure. We also know that they can actually lead to less diversity because certain groups perform worse on narrow skills assessments. According to the Harvard Business Review, U.S. companies that have instituted written skills tests for managers see decreases of 4 percent to 10 percent in the share of managerial jobs held by white women, African-American men and women, Hispanic men and women, and Asian-American women during the proceeding five years.
Current economic conditions and the growing competition for talent call for a better process. Traditional assessments can be effective; we shouldn’t ignore them. However, they are only a portion of what research shows can predict success in a role. By combining traditional capability, behavior and results assessments with new measurements that focus on passion, purpose and mindset, we can better predict the success of candidates.
Challenges of the Current Process for Candidates:
The process is often long with multiple stages
of video, phone and in-person interviews as well as potential skills
assessments.
Candidates don’t feel they can show the full
spectrum of who they are, and they may miss out on an opportunity because of
one weakness even though they have several strengths.
The
process doesn’t give candidates enough of an opportunity to understand the
culture and values of the organization or show hiring managers why they would
want to work there.
The process provides minimal opportunity to
demonstrate their passion.
Candidates don’t get a lot of feedback as they
move through the process, especially at the earlier stages.
Challenges of the Current Process for Employers:
Strong candidates can become disengaged and
remove themselves from the process if there are too many stages.
Strong candidates are often screened out when
they have unmeasured strengths that would lead them to succeed in the role.
There is no objective way to measure if a
candidate will be engaged and happy in the role.
Certain assessments can be more difficult for
certain groups of people, resulting in less cognitive diversity among the
candidates who make it through the process.
Defining the Terms
When thinking about the factors that we evaluate to determine if a candidate is a good fit, it’s best to think of them like individual gears that work together to drive how a candidate works. What each candidate brings to a role is a combination of their capabilities, behavior, results, passion, purpose and mindset. When those gears work together in the right environment, the candidate will be a successful employee.
Capability: Capability is a candidate’s core intellectual ability and capacity. Cognitive ability tests that measure a person’s verbal or numerical capabilities can have a moderate to strong correlation with performance. Traditional assessments and interviews measure capability.
Behavior: A candidate’s past behavior and personality-based behavioral preferences work relatively well to predict performance. These can be measured through structured interviews where a candidate explains what they did in the past or during an assessment where an employer can observe a candidate take an action. Behavior is measured during traditional interviews and assessments.
Results: Results are what a candidate has already achieved in terms of the knowledge, skills and experience that are required to deliver in a role. Results can be evaluated through skills-based work examples. This is something traditionally reviewed during the interview and assessment process.
Passion: Passion is a candidate’s enthusiasm, enjoyment and commitment to mastering the requirements of a role. When an employee is passionate about a role, they are engaged. According to Gallup, 85 percent of workers are not engaged in their current roles. Dale Carnegie Training reports that organizations with engaged workers outperform their peers by 202 percent. However, most employers don’t currently have a method to effectively understand what a candidate is passionate about.
Purpose: Purpose is a candidate’s alignment with and willingness to contribute to the vision and values of an organization. One study reported by McKinsey found that, out of 100 variables, employees reported that seeing purpose and value in their work was their most motivating factor – even more so than compensation.
Purpose-driven work is especially important for younger
workers. According to Cone,
75 percent of millennials and 55 percent of all age groups in the U.S. would
take a pay cut to work at a socially and environmentally responsible company. Despite
this, the traditional interview and assessment process doesn’t include a deep
dive into whether the candidate aligns well with the purpose of an
organization.
According to Deloitte, companies that practice a growth mindset create “designed growth” and stretch assignments and openly discuss mistakes to promote learning. Those companies are three times more profitable and have four times better retention than those that do not.
We believe that passion, purpose and mindset can have as much impact on performance as core intellect, what you’ve achieved and how you’ve behaved. Most employers are not assessing for all of these factors, so they are missing out on a comprehensive look at candidates. As part of PeopleScout’s talent advisory practice, we have developed a model that evaluates all six performance indicators.
The Whole Person Model
We developed the whole person model to evaluate capability, behavior, results, passion, purpose and mindset and how they interact. In this graphic, the gears operate together to contribute to the success of the candidate.
At the center is context. The way we measure all six factors depends on the role and the broader context of the organization. In the whole person model, assessments are built with a deep understanding of the organization and the factors that contribute to success in a particular role. For example, the way we measure results and passion will be different for an engineer at a large tech company than a retail sales representative.
In this graphic, you will also notice that each gear is a different size. The relative size of the gear demonstrates the weight of each factor in predicting success. We believe that mindset, passion and purpose should be key factors in assessing candidates for a particular role; however, the relative weighting of each factor will be determined by the context of the role and the organization.
The whole person model measures each candidate in a way that gives all candidates the opportunity to show their best selves. For example, if a candidate has not shown significant results thus far in their career, but they demonstrate a large amount of passion for the industry and the role, that passion could make up for the other weakness.
By looking at candidates through the lens of the whole person model from the start, we provide a more intellectually diverse slate of candidates. This is because the model identifies candidates who excel in different ways. The model more effectively identifies candidates who have the passion and purpose that align with an organization and the mindset to experience continued success in the future.
Benefits of the whole person model:
Increase ability to source candidates with
skills of the future
More engaging candidate experience
Shorter hiring process
Enhance the ability to measure the strengths of
a person earlier in the process
Expand the ability to measure future readiness
Improve cognitive diversity
Lengthen employee tenure
Boost perceived fairness from candidates
Key Takeaways:
Traditional assessments that focus on a
candidate’s capability, behavior and results are not enough to predict success
in the current candidate market.
We believe that passion, purpose and mindset
should be key factors in assessing candidates for any role.
The whole person model is built to look at each candidate holistically, so employers get a slate of stronger, more diverse candidates.
The July Labour Market Report released by the Office for National Statistics includes the quarter covering March through May 2019. In that period, 28,000 jobs were created as the unemployment rate remained at 3.8%, continuing its lowest level since 1974. Nominal annual wage growth increased to 3.6%, a level not seen since 2008.
Notable figures from the June report include:
The UK employment rate was estimated at 76.0%, higher than a year earlier (75.6%); however, the rate was 0.1 percentage point lower since the last report, the first quarterly decrease since June to August 2018.
The unemployment rate for men was 4.0%, slightly lower than a year earlier (4.2%). For women, the rate was 3.6%, the lowest since comparable records began in 1971.
Estimates for March to May 2019 show 32.75 million people aged 16 years and over in employment, 354,000 more than for a year earlier.
This annual increase was primarily due to more people working full-time jobs, up 247,000 on the year to reach 24.09 million.
Part-time work had an annual increase of 107,000 reaching 8.66 million.
Slowing Job Gains
The 28,000 jobs created in the March-May period is only slightly lower than the 32,000 new jobs reported last month, but it is less than one-third of the 99,000 jobs reported in May. The contrast is even more striking against other recent quarters including the last three months of 2018 when 222,000 jobs were added.
The positive news is that jobs are still growing, albeit at a slower rate. Employers continue to be challenged by the low unemployment rate as well as an increase in the number of self-employed, particularly those who are working part-time:
“The labour market continues to be strong,” said ONS deputy head of labour market statistics Matt Hughes. “The number of self-employed part-timers has passed one and a half million for the first time, well over double what it was 25 years ago,” he added.
Healthy Wage Growth
Wages for UK workers grew at the fastest pace since in 11 years with gains significantly outpacing inflation. New National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates have both been introduced in recent months, and some NHS staff have been given pay increases. These government fueled initiatives should have the biggest impact on lower-paid and public sector workers.
However, it appears that market forces, such as the tight supply of talent, may be the key to the substantial rise in wages. Among the sectors which reported the largest annual wage increases were Finance and Business Services at 4.3% and Construction at 4.4%, both of which would have been relatively unaffected by the new wage measures.
Extended Brexit Deadline and Improved Employer Confidence
The Brexit extension until October 31 appears to have had an impact on the outlook of UK employers.
According to a recent report from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC), “employers’ confidence both in the UK economy and in their own businesses has started to improve since the extension to the Brexit deadline, with employers’ confidence in making hiring and investment decisions increased by 4 percentage points from the previous rolling quarter, returning to positive territory at net +1.”
Lack of suitable candidates remains a concern as 43% of employers expressed concern over the sufficient availability of appropriate candidates for permanent positions this quarter. The three sectors causing most concern were health & social care, hospitality and engineering & technical. These areas have a legacy of high dependency on non-UK nationals.
The labour market also remains tight with four in five employers (78%) reported having little or no surplus capacity in their workforce this quarter. This included 37% reporting having no extra capacity at all.”
Even if the rate of job growth continues to slow and as the
uncertainty of Brexit looms, it is clear that those employers with the
expertise to recruit and retain talent will continue to have a definitive
advantage over their competitors in a turbulent market.
Department For International Trade: Securing the UK’s Future Trade Deals
The Department for International Trade (DIT) commissioned PeopleScout to help them recruit professional candidates to staff the new Trade Remedies Authority (TRA).
1,600Applications Generated
92%Assessment Center Attendence
48%of Applicants were from Minority Ethnic Backgrounds
Situation
In preparation for Brexit, the Department for International Trade (DIT) in the UK needed to create a Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) that would govern and monitor the UK’s future trade deals with the rest of the world. DIT commissioned PeopleScout to help them hire 75 exceptional lawyers, investigators and economists to join them in their new Reading, England office.
These roles hadn’t been seen in the UK for over 45 years, which created a complex challenge. Firstly, many candidates might not know whether they were qualified to do the jobs as these opportunities were unique in the market. Secondly, we had to populate a department that could operate post-Brexit, taking into account changing immigration laws. Thirdly, we faced an extremely tight deadline.
Solution
Full-Cycle RPO Solution
We provided a dedicated account team that was responsible for every element of the process including:
An attraction campaign
Application management
Assessment and selection material
A microsite
Candidate management
Interviewing
Offer negotiation
Onboarding including BPSS security check
Crucially, our team was media trained to deliver approved messages, receiving explanations of what they could and could not say in case journalists tried to apply for the roles to find out more about this high-profile organization.
Creative Candidate Attraction & Engagement
Our approach was two-fold. We combined free and paid-for advertising with a strong social media campaign. At the same time, we undertook market mapping and candidate identification whereby we engaged with key candidates directly. All activities ultimately directed candidates to our carefully crafted microsite which detailed the uniqueness of the roles.
Bespoke Tools
As these roles were brand new in the UK, we developed a “Match Me” tool that helped candidates understand the role that would best suit their ability, skillset and experience. We also devised a tailor-made application process that included screening questions, an online ability test that evaluated numerical, verbal and inductive reasoning, a telephone or video interview, and a face-to-face assessment. Throughout the campaign, we provided DIT with weekly updates.
Results
Overwhelming Interest
We generated a staggering 47,522 visitors to the microsite with 1,597 applications submitted. Candidates remained engaged throughout the process with an impressive 92% assessment center attendance.
Exceptional Candidates
DIT were spoilt for choice with 43% of candidates passing the assessment center. They eventually made 93 offers, are 75 of those were accepted. As a result, they now have 75 high-caliber members of staff who are committed to governing and monitoring the UK’s future trade deals.
Enhanced Diversity
Diversity was very high on the priority list for both DIT and PeopleScout, and while we didn’t have specific targets, we did track applications. To everyone’s delight our diversity statistics were extremely positive, with 38% of applicants identifying as female and 48% identifying as a person of color.
At a Glance
COMPANY: Department for International Trade (DIT)
INDUSTRY: Government & Public Sector
PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS: Recruitment Process Outsourcing
ANNUAL HIRES: 75 professional roles including lawyers, investigators and economists
ABOUT DIT: The Department for International Trade (DIT) was a department of the UK Government responsible for trade agreements between the United Kingdom and foreign countries. The department was replaced by the Department for Business and Trade in 2023.
Derby City Council: Candidate Generation for Future Generations
Devilering outsourced recruitment for this government agency.
Situation
Derby City Council needed to recruit several Directors to drive forward their 2030 vision for a safer, stronger city. They engaged PeopleScout for recruitment process outsourcing (RPO), including candidate generation and talent assessment in a robust, pragmatic way. We delivered a streamlined, structured solution to ensure they had the information they needed to make successful appointments based on objective, role-specific insights.
Solution
In-Depth Insight
To target suitable candidates for each of the roles, our team immersed themselves in the culture of Derby City Council. They asked questions to understand the key success requirements, experience and qualities essential for each role. This also supported the development of a compelling, yet realistic, narrative that could be used to keep candidates motivated to complete the recruitment journey.
Measurement & Validation
Our assessment consultant ensured that each candidate completed two personality questionnaires to measure their profiles against the organization’s key strategic level competencies. In addition, our occupational psychologists conducted a 60-minute validation call with each individual to bring their behavioral profiles to life.
Bespoke Candidate Reports
We then compiled a report on every candidate, highlighting their key strengths and development areas, providing briefs for the panel to use to probe further during the selection interviews.
Results
This streamlined, structured solution ensured that Derby City Council had the information they needed to make appointment decisions based on objective, role-specific insights.
It also made for a fair process which both successful and unsuccessful candidates found to be enriching, as they received insightful feedback throughout. Similarly, the assessor panel reported that the briefings helped to focus their questions at the final stage interviews for each candidate.
At a Glance
COMPANY: Derby City Council
INDUSTRY: Government & Public Sector
PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS: Recruitment Process Outsourcing
ABOUT DERBY CITY COUNCI;: Derby City Council is the local authority for Derby, a city in the East Midlands region of England.
The world is changing faster than ever before – as employers grapple with the digital transformation, skills shortages and competitive economic conditions. In response to these drivers, job responsibilities change rapidly and organizations need to hire creative employees to innovate and implement new ideas.
According to McKinsey, the pace of change in the workplace is so rapid that, by 2030, as much as 14 percent of the global workforce could need to change occupational categories.
To remain competitive, employers cannot simply hire a candidate who can meet the requirements of a job as they are written on day one. The candidate needs to have the skills and drive to grow, learn and adapt as the organization moves into the future.
Despite this need to attract candidates with growth mindsets, the interview and assessment processes used by most employers are stuck in the past. For the purposes of this section, we refer to assessments as any stage in the interview process where a selection decision is made. So, an assessment can be a traditional skills test, a requirement that must be met on an application or type of interview, like behavioral or video interview. For most employers, these assessment processes have too many steps and are narrowly focused on hard skills – allowing too many candidates to become disqualified early, before they are able to demonstrate who they really are.
Employers need to broaden their use of candidate assessments to allow for measuring factors that impact a candidate’s ability and willingness to learn and grow, as well as their passion for the role and alignment with the broader purpose of the organization. Organizations need to assess a candidate as a whole person as early in the process as possible to really understand what they may be able to offer.
In this series of articles, we explore the current state of assessments, the ways we at PeopleScout have worked to expand assessments to evaluate a candidate as a whole person, how these new assessments work in practice and the benefits and results of the whole person assessment method.
The Experts on How to Recruit Employees: Fiadhna McEvoy and Veronica Officer
Fiadhna McEvoy and Victoria Officer are two of the minds behind PeopleScout’s approach to assessments and the whole person model. They strive to create a talented team that can push boundaries and continuously grow and develop its assessment offering.
Fiadhna and Victoria are occupational psychologists – which means they have completed an accredited undergraduate degree or conversion course and an accredited master’s degree in occupational psychology. Fiadhna has also completed two years of practice supervised by the British Psychological Society to become a chartered occupational psychologist.
Their work is research-driven. The whole person model they outline in this section is based on decades on academic research into what makes an organization effective and how to improve the job satisfaction of employees. Their work is based on the proven forces that drive people at work.
Fiadhna and Victoria are fascinated by why people come to work and perform, how they can be happy and why they stick around. They blend the science of occupational psychology with the art of thinking differently to solve problems.
Statistics Canada reported that the nation’s unemployment rose to 5.5%. In June, the economy shed 2,200 jobs, a month in which analysts had expected job gains. Weekly annual wage increases were up 3.6%, a significant jump from the previous month. Job losses were entirely due to part-time employment. The economy shed more than 26,000 part-time jobs while gaining just more than 24,000 full-time positions.
The Numbers
-2,200: The economy lost 2,200 jobs in June.
5.5%: The unemployment rate rose to 5.5%.
3.6%: Weekly wages increased 3.6% over the last year.
The Good
Statistics Canada reported that the economy added more than 24,000 full-time jobs and that weekly wages were up 3.6% over last year. This is a marked increase over the 2.2% annual increase in May. The nation’s unemployment rose to 5.5% from last month’s record low, but the increase occurred because more Canadians joined the workforce.
In the second quarter of this year, employment rose by 132,000 with almost all of the new jobs coming from full-time positions. In the last year, employment increased by 421,000 or 2.3%. Most provinces saw little change in their employment level, but both Alberta and Saskatchewan had job increases. In June, there were more Canadians employed in health care and social assistance; educational services; transportation and warehousing; and information, culture and recreation.
The Bad
The headline statistic of the June report is a loss of 2,200 jobs in June, and that could be interpreted as a sign of a slowing economy. More than 26,000 part-time jobs were lost in June. Manitoba, New Foundland and Labrador lost jobs last month. Sectors that had job decreases included wholesale and retail trade, “other services,” manufacturing and natural resources.
Employment in manufacturing dropped by 15,000, which is the first monthly decrease since July 2018. Several provinces had job losses in manufacturing including Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta. Additionally, Canadian production has fallen at its fastest rate in three and a half years, with the decline attributed to trade tensions and uncertainties.
The Unknown
June’s job report showed dramatic increases in annual wage gains. In addition to the weekly annual increase of 3.6%, hourly wages grew a full percentage point over May to 3.8%, the strongest growth in a year and the second best in a decade. In Quebec, annual hourly wage growth hit 5%. It is not clear why there was such a sharp increase in wage gains in June, and it remains to be seen whether this trend will continue. If it does, employers may see an increase in those voluntarily leaving their jobs if they feel that their wages are not rising quickly enough.
However, as the CBC reports, Canada does not have an equivalent to the U.S. Job Openings and Labour Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, which could provide a better picture of the strength of the labor market.
“Julia Pollack, labour economist with the California-based job search company ZipRecruiter,…is one of those who says rising jobs and wages may be part of a trend…Like central bankers, the Harvard-trained Pollack thinks a bit of wage inflation could be a good thing for the economy. And unlike some who think low wages make an economy strong, the private sector economist begs to differ.
‘Rising wages are the way to improve people’s real consumption and living standards,’ said Pollack.
And she said that for those who think they are falling behind, now, during a labour shortage may be the time to put yourself out on the job market.
‘On average, quitting a job
leads to something like a seven per cent or eight per cent increase in
earnings, and it’s responsible for a pretty large share of overall wage
increases over one’s lifetime.’”
With unemployment at historic lows, and only 30% of candidates actively applying to jobs, looks like it’s time to get passive! Passive? This might seem like an odd word choice, but passive candidates are simply highly qualified candidates not currently job hunting, while active candidates are applying to your open roles right now.
Research indicates that passive candidates may be more successful in organizations. According to Glassdoor, passive candidates are more efficient workers. Furthermore, passive candidates are twice as likely to join an organization. However, some do not think passive candidates make better employees, partly because tracking passive candidates’ success at organizations has been poorly measured.
Regardless, data shows that it takes an average of 42 days to fill a role for a qualified external candidate. Some roles take longer, such as 67 days in the UK to fill a product management role. Engineering roles are also consistently harder to fill, taking 58 days in the U.S. and UK and 56 days on average in the rest of the world. When these types of hard-to-fill roles are needed, passive sourcing can be the best option to pursue.
What is Passive Sourcing?
Finding a qualified hire usually consists of a mix of active and passive applicants. Today, recruiting teams find passive candidates through various means, such as referral programs, online forums and job boards. More recently, recruiters have also started posting to social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to find their next hire.
Passive sourcing searches were historically done through tedious Boolean search strings using dozens of search terms, like location, phone number and email address, to find candidates. These searches are manual and time consuming.
How Does AI Improve Passive Sourcing?
Recruiters spend approximately $200,000 per hire and 23 hours to screen for each open position. Meanwhile, recruiters carry a workload of 30-40 positions at a time. Add these numbers up and it might take several months for a recruiter to fill their open roles. Meanwhile, organizations also lose months of productivity and revenue from unfilled roles. Compound these losses with the rush to hire someone that might not be right for a role, and there is a possibility the recruiter may have to start the cycle all over again.
How can AI help? As AI’s influence throughout talent acquisition grows, sourcing qualified passive candidates in record time is now possible with AI.
Massive Data
AI excels at scale. Finding candidates instantly, AI algorithms can improve with each search, creating increasingly more intelligent sourcing. This is done by compiling and analyzing a massive data set of millions of pieces of information including potential candidates’ social media profiles and past online activities, among other data.
AI’s passive sourcing function can also find triggers that indicate a candidate’s interest. Using an engineering requisition as an example, AI tools can scrape the Internet for candidates with specific job skills. For example, a search can be set up to find candidates with electrical engineering backgrounds with five to ten years of experience that are active on LinkedIn. AI will identify these parameters, search all additional available channels for intel including email, text, chatbot and phone records then aggregate the data and deliver a pool of qualified candidates to the recruiter.
Improved Personalization
AI applications can also send targeted information to candidates using marketing-like campaigns, bringing in “leads” to help grow talent pipelines. This activity targets the right persona or type of candidate needed for a role and keeps passive candidates better engaged or “nurtured.” It also creates a unique candidate journey.
A recent report cites that organizations with an employer brand platform experience an average turnover rate of 10% compared to the overall turnover average of 16%.
At PeopleScout, we know a positive employer brand plays a significant role in their ability to hire talent. We implement AI sourcing and digital brand recruitment marketing campaigns through our Affinix™ platform that streamlines the sourcing process. Using these digital campaigns reinforces a company’s employer brand and consequently increases the nurture and conversion rates of future potential passive candidates.
Considerations for AI Passive Sourcing
While using AI to help source passive candidates is beginning to help organizations, there are a few considerations to keep in mind.
Mind Your Algorithms
Countless articles lament how well-meaning coders accidentally create biased AI tools. Most recently, Amazon released a recruiting tool that put female applicants at a disadvantage by highlighting more masculine language such as “executed” and “captured.” Therefore, AI algorithms should be used in concert with other recruiting tools and constantly monitored pre and post-build. Organizations such as OpenAI, the AI Institute and Explainable AI, among others, are reviewing AI’s impacts to make sure issues like unconscious bias are appropriately addressed.
Fit AI into Your Strategy
AI has the potential to improve aspects of the full recruitment cycle from sourcing, screening, selecting, hiring and onboarding. However, AI is only part of your toolkit and should be thought of as an efficiency tool to find better candidates faster. Monitor and adjust your strategy by testing AI’s sourcing skills. Because of the rapid data feedback loop you receive from AI, you’ll be able to quickly tweak social media and email campaigns as well as content you use to interact with candidates.
Getting Started with AI
According to a Deloitte Human Capital Trends report, 38% of companies are already using AI, and 62% expect to implement AI in some way by the end of 2019. In order to prepare for AI passive sourcing, keep the following in mind.
Assess your current state. Are your operations streamlined today? Do you have existing issues with your methodology that need to be resolved before AI is added to your recruitment platform?
Centralize your efforts so your AI tools tie together and create information in one place. Also, make sure all data streams, such as information from candidates and job boards, are collected in one place.
Choose your vendors wisely to bring your AI ambitions to life. If the vendors you use are not able to articulate their business plans and longer-term technology capabilities, you should walk away.
Conclusion
Recruiters need to monitor AI passive sourcing capabilities as one of many AI efficiency tools to execute in the recruiting process. While ongoing debates swirl about the effects bias from AI efforts can create, if implemented and monitored properly, AI can also yield huge returns for your passive sourcing efforts. Organizations should consider PeopleScout to help source passive roles through PeopleScout’s proprietary, simple-to-use talent technology platform, Affinix.
The Labor Department released its June Jobs Report which shows that U.S. employers added 224,000 jobs in June, beating analyst expectations. The unemployment rate increased to 3.7% last month. Year-over-year wage growth remained at 3.1%, well ahead of the rate of inflation. U.S. employers have added to payrolls for 105 straight months, extending the longest continuous jobs expansion on record.
The Numbers
224,000: The economy added 224,000 jobs in June.
3.7%: The unemployment rate rose to 3.7%.
3.1%: Wages increased at a rate of 3.1% growth over the last
year, the same rate as last month.
The Good
224,000 new jobs were added to the economy adding to the longest continuous job expansion in US history. The unemployment rate increased to 3.7%, but for a positive economic reason, more Americans joined the labor force. Year-over-year earnings remained at a solid 3.1% significantly beating the latest reported inflation rate of 1.8% as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
June hiring was led by significant gains in the healthcare sector, which added 50,500 jobs, and in transportation and warehousing. The manufacturing sector, which has not seen strong increases for much of the year, added 17,000 jobs last month. Construction firms posted 21,000 new employees in June.
The Bad
Despite the strong gains in June, there is evidence that the rate of job growth is slowing. Employment growth has averaged 172,000 per month so far this year, compared with an average monthly gain of 223,000 in 2018. The broader measure of unemployment and underemployment which includes those who are too discouraged to look for work, plus Americans working in part-time jobs but who want to work full-time, rose to 7.2% in June from 7.1% in May.
The retail sector shed jobs in June as the brick and mortar retail apocalypse continued. As retail businesses shutter, related jobs such as security, warehousing and maintenance may also be adversely impacted in the coming months.
Prime working years are considered to be from the ages of 25 to 54. In June, 79.7% of those in this age group were employed, down from 79.9% in February and well below the record high of 81.9% in April 2000. If this downward trend continues, there may be significant challenges in the nation’s talent supply in the years to come.
The Unknown
The rate of those voluntarily leaving their jobs or “quit rate” has remained unchanged at 2.3% for nearly a year. Even though job openings have eased somewhat, the number of unfilled positions remain near historic highs. While the number of US job openings and the number of unemployed reached its widest gap ever according to reports released last month, employers cannot rely solely on those without work to fill their talent needs. It is unclear if the rate of workers voluntarily leaving their jobs, presumably for new ones, will increase in the near future.
