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 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.
After building a strong EVP and employer brand, employers face the challenge of effectively promoting and marketing that brand to candidates and employees. The roll-out and management of an employer brand platform is just as important as the care taken to research and craft that positioning.
For many organizations, it’s easy to show enthusiasm while developing a new EVP, but that same enthusiasm needs to continue through the internal and external launches.
A Cornell University report* identifies several tangible benefits of a strong employment brand:
Organizations with an employer brand platform
experience an average turnover rate of 10%; the overall turnover average is as
high as 16%.
When organizations live up to their marketed
EVP, new employees arrive with a higher level of commitment at 38%, compared to
organizations that don’t live up to their marketed EVP, which are at just 9%.
As an employer brand progresses, employees buy
in to the new corporate culture, which increases their motivation.
A strong employer brand can increase employee engagement,
even through periods where employee headcount is reduced and salary raises are
controlled.
In organizations with a developed employer
brand, employees are more engaged in the decision-making and management
process.
Employer brand: Your employer brand is the perception and lived experiences of what it’s like to work for your organization.
Employer value proposition: Your employer value proposition, or EVP, captures the essence of your uniqueness as an employer and the give and get between you and your employees.
Employer brand platform: The creative communications you create and distribute based on your employer value proposition that guides the perception of your employer brand in the marketplace.
Starting from the Inside Out
The internal launch of an EVP and employer branding platform lays the groundwork for the success of the external launch. To make the internal launch successful, you need to bring the EVP to life so employees understand and embrace it. When employees are engaged with your employer brand, they will become brand ambassadors.
The careful process of gathering insights within your organization, which occurs during the discovery phase is key to a successful internal launch because employees need to recognize their own reality in a new EVP. If an EVP and employer brand platform doesn’t resonate with current employees, you will struggle to develop advocates and champions of the brand.
An effective internal rollout needs to accomplish these four steps to create advocates and amplify the brand:
The leadership team and hiring managers should know and understand the elevator pitch of your organization.
The people who are on the frontlines interacting with candidates represent your brand and should be able to articulate your EVP consistently. If you don’t have an effective internal rollout, your external message will not be consistent. These brand ambassadors should be trained on the talking points and should practice sharing the pitch with candidates.
Recruiters know where they can find materials to share your message and how they can reach out to their networks.
Your current employees can also function as brand ambassadors and can create valuable marketing opportunities. They should clearly understand and identify with your new EVP, and they should have the tools they need to share that messaging with their networks. A successful internal launch should ensure they have access to a library or media toolkit of employer branding material, and they should be encouraged to use it. This should include videos, images and even messaging for social media that employees can copy and paste to enable employees – ranging from recruiters to outgoing workers with large networks – to share online.
Your employees should feel empowered to share your message and refer strong candidates.
During your internal launch, encourage employees to share your brand culture and their experiences with their networks. In large organizations, this can be a challenge, but it is a culture you can build through team conversations and highlighting examples of your EVP in action. With this, you can encourage employees to share their own experiences.
Identify talent scouts, a type of employee brand ambassador who can identify people in their networks and encourage them to join your organization.
Some of your current employees will have strong networks and will excel at finding people in those networks with “the right stuff” to succeed at your organization. Some employees will also have the opportunity to share your employer brand at speaking engagements, conferences and other industry events – even if those events aren’t directly related to employer branding.
Launching a new employer brand platform is an opportunity for a renewed focus on employee referrals. Current employees who can understand and articulate your EVP can point you to people in their networks who may also be a good fit.
To drive increased referrals for our client, Virgin Media, we revamped its referrals site to make the employer brand the heart of the site. Additionally, we helped the organization communicate the EVP to current employees so they could identify the organization’s “kind of people.” Less than one year later, referrals increased from 10% to 25% of external hiring; staff participation increase by 40%; the organization saved an average of $9,000 per hire; and the quality of hires increased.
Bringing your EVP to Life Through
the Candidate Experience
After a successful internal launch, in which your employees understand your EVP and brand ambassadors have the tools they need to share your message, you will be ready to launch your employer brand platform externally through your candidate experience. This launch should be a multifaceted approach driven by the audience insights you gleaned during the earlier stages of EVP development. Before you launch externally, you should understand the types of candidates you want to attract, what type of media they consume, where they are and how you can speak to them. As you build out your employer branding platform, vary your media and messaging to speak directly to those audiences.
Below are several external employer branding platforms and examples from Virgin Media. Virgin has a large workforce and needs employees who can support its organization today and adapt for the future. The company struggled to fill senior corporate roles, field sales advisors and part-time retail positions. We helped build an EVP that emphasized the open-minded, less corporate, fast and flexible culture of Virgin Media.
Brand Ambassadors
Your candidate experience starts with the first time a candidate experiences your brand. In many cases, this could be by interacting with a brand ambassador, like an employee who shares job openings and encourages people in their network to apply.
According to Marketing Week, nearly 70 percent of consumers don’t trust advertising and 42 percent don’t trust brands. Additionally, nearly six in 10 consumers don’t trust brand communication unless they see “real-world proof” of the message.
In an employer branding campaign, your employees functioning as brand ambassadors can provide that real-world proof. Changing algorithms on social media sites also make the voice of the employee louder than the voice of the brand. Facebook changed its algorithm in early 2018 to favor content from friends and family as part of the company’s response to the platform being used to spread disinformation, according to Wired. This means that messaging from employees will reach more people than messaging from your brand, and you should match your strategy to this reality.
Recruitment Toolkits
To make sure your brand ambassadors can share your message effectively, build a media toolkit that recruiters can use to find images, videos or even text they can copy and paste to share your message. This also ensures you have some control over what employees post and share so that it ties to a consistent message. This toolkit should include things like video, shareable social media images, guidelines, ideas, templates and even pieces of prewritten copy and design elements that employees can piece together. These pieces of media should be stored where employees can easily access them, but the storage method will depend on what technology your organization already has in place, such as an intranet or a platform like SharePoint.
The assets should be varied, using different messages to target the variety of audiences you’ve identified during the research and development stage. Using this library, recruiters and hiring managers can easily share high-quality, specific images, video or text with their networks, which improves efficiency and extends the reach of your brand.
For Virgin Media, we created a toolkit with more than 100 different pieces of media to make it fast and easy for recruiters to disseminate brand communications. To help tackle their challenge of attracting candidates for senior corporate roles, we produced online video content in an informal and unpolished style. It showcased a day in the life of an employee at different office locations, and we made it available through the toolkit. After these videos were shared on social media by recruiters and other employees and on specialist job boards the number of the number of days-to-offer decreased by 44% for management accountant roles and by 26% for analyst roles.
Personalized Career Sites
A career site with personalized content will help reach the different types of candidates you want to attract to your organization. It is no longer enough to brand your career site with a one-size-fits-all approach. Certain candidates may be drawn in by the social purpose of your organization. Others may be looking for career advice. Your site should speak to all of them.
For Virgin Media, we created a clean, compelling recruitment brand destination that is easy to use. The careers site laid out the EVP through web copy, and the site also included personalized information for candidates for the wide variety of roles.
To support the hiring of part-time retail employees, the career site heavily featured these roles – listing them as hot jobs on the home page. This strategy, combined with new imagery from the employer branding platform and promotion on social media and relevant job boards, increased applications for these roles by 107 percent.
Onboarding
Your employer branding platform cannot simply end with the offer letter. Between being offered a job and joining the organization, you want these future employees to feel like they are part of something. An onboarding process that reflects your EVP will validate a new hire’s choice and underscore the EVP communicated during the hiring process. Your onboarding process should bring the culture of your organization to life in a way that’s tailored to each role.
We updated the internal onboarding site for Virgin Media with information about locations, benefits, the company’s vision and values, frequently asked questions and information about the people they need to know and who they can go to for help. The new site saw double the average number of pages viewed per visit and people spent 2.5 times longer on the website.
Keeping it Dynamic
After undertaking an internal and external launch, it can be daunting to keep an EVP dynamic so it changes as your organization evolves. However, if you create, launch and measure the success of your EVP with that in mind, the process will be much easier.
The majority of the data collected during the initial research stage is likely data you continuously monitor on your career site through job applications, from new hires and through employee pulse surveys. With these sources of data, you can optimize hiring metrics through AB testing and tracking and refine your message as your organization evolves in the future. By testing this way, you can see what works. For example, you could experiment with different images or a message that emphasizes a certain aspect of your EVP and see if the right candidates respond.
If you created an EVP that is truly unique and authentic yet aspirational, the DNA at the core of your employer brand will remain true as you move forward. However, as you monitor success, data will show which messages are effective with each audience. Armed with that information, your employer brand should grow and flex as you face new challenges.
Finding an EVP Partner
If your organization is looking to develop and launch a new EVP and employer brand platform, an outside partner is valuable because you are often too close to see your organization from a candidate’s perspective. You may also lack the internal expertise and bandwidth. Here are three things to consider when looking for an EVP and employer brand partner:
Look for a partner that goes beyond an academic
exercise of presenting data about “what people want” and instead takes a more
bespoke approach to develop an EVP and platform that is fully tailored to you. Ask
what that partner will do to get under the skin of your organization to define
what is authentic for you.
Your talent advisory partner should be
future-focused and understand the cultural, economic and geographic differences
of the employees who work at your organization and the candidates you want to
attract. Ask how they will be able to shift your communications and messaging
to speak to different audiences.
Ask a potential partner how they translate the
quantitative and qualitative data they collect into stories that will resonate
with your audiences and stand out from the crowd.
Key Takeaways
The launch and management of an EVP and employer branding platform are just as important as the research and development stages.
A successful internal launch needs to be the first step so you can develop brand ambassadors.
Your external launch should be a multifaceted, research-driven approach that speaks to your audiences through every step of their candidate journey.
There are four key factors to building a strong EVP: uniqueness, authenticity, aspiration and dynamism.
You can see how they interact in the EVP of our client, Linklaters, an international law firm. The role of a lawyer is changing with AI and automation; it’s becoming more consultative and advisory as opposed to administrative. We developed the EVP, “Great Change is Here,” for Linklaters to help them attract the candidates they need to take their organization into the future. Below, I’ll share how this EVP is unique, authentic, aspirational and dynamic.
Unique
Your EVP should stand out from the crowd and have a unique point of view. Many organizations promote statements like “Our people are our strength.” Because a statement like this is generic, it doesn’t tell a job candidate why they should work for your organization specifically, which makes it less effective.
The “Great Change is Here” EVP is unique because rather than emphasize the traditional aspects someone might attribute to a lawyer – attention to detail or strong analytical skills – it focuses on where the profession is going.
Authentic
An authentic EVP should reflect the true culture and values of your organization. If your EVP doesn’t reflect who you are, you can’t speak to the people who would excel in your culture. An EVP that lacks authenticity could leave new hires feeling confused and betrayed if they find the culture is different than what they were led to believe.
“Great Change is Here” speaks to the way the culture truly operates within Linklaters – they are market leaders and future-focused. In the employer branding platform, we featured real employees and real stories to ensure the message was authentic to what the firm is and who the employees are.
Aspirational
Your EVP should also reflect where your organization wants to go. The aspirational aspects of your EVP will help you attract people who have the skills and passion to help you get there.
For Linklaters, the EVP calls out the fact that change is at the organization and in the industry and, no matter what the future holds, they are ready.
Dynamic
Your EVP should be dynamic in two ways. The first is that it should be agile enough to respond to change, but also future-focused. The second is that parts of the message should be able to be dialed up or down to speak to different audiences. Over time, the current state and the aspirational state of your organization will change, and your EVP should shift with you.
Your EVP should also be able to speak to the diverse group of candidates you want to attract. Your current employees are not one homogenous group – they have different roles and responsibilities and come from different backgrounds. The candidates you are targeting are equally diverse. The core of your employer brand should start with a universal truth, but effective employers will also create messaging that speaks directly to different audiences and geographies.
Gathering Insights to Produce
Results
An effective EVP should be developed through a process of embedded discovery. This is what we do at PeopleScout. We spend time in each organization, developing a deep understanding of the culture, the goals and what makes the organization unique. We ask hard questions and gather insights that leaders may miss when they are too close to be objective. Our approach also allows employees to speak more candidly.
This process includes qualitative research – like conversations with leaders of the organization and former and current employees – and quantitative research, including data from candidates as well as engagement and pulse surveys. During this initial insights phase, we collect data and information from new hires, current employees and alumni of your organization so you can understand what motivates people to stay and what drives people to leave. You may have some of this information from exit interviews, but you can learn more by adding stay interviews and new-hire surveys.
After completing the discovery process, we define three elements:
Your
organization’s aspirations: This includes short- and long-term goals about
how the organization wants to change in response to industry and cultural
transformation.
Your
organization’s current state: This should reflect the reality – the good
and bad about what it is like to work at your organization right now.
The
outside perception of your organization: This should include the level of
brand recognition you have as an employer, as well as what potential candidates
think of your organization.
There will be areas of overlap between these three elements, and by analyzing they intersect, we can begin to build your EVP. We put together a statement that reflects those three elements and what is unique, authentic and aspirational about your organization. We also build the EVP so it can bend to speak to different audiences and change over time. Once that statement starts to take form, we test, refine and optimize.
Testing, Refining and
Optimizing
The process of building an effective EVP is more akin to the process of testing and refining prototypes than it is to a grand reveal. In many ways, gathering insights and testing will happen at the same time. Throughout the process, start with a hypothesis, and then test and refine the message. Your hypothesis will be challenged through conversations with leaders and employees so that it can be refined for an initial roll-out.
Throughout this process, you will make changes to your initial EVP framework as you see what aspects of it resonate with your audience and current employees. During the testing phase, you should also identify your audiences. Your organization will have several, depending on the type of work you do. The type of candidate you want for a digital or creative position will likely be drawn in differently than a candidate for a floor manager or call center position. Test your EVP with these different audiences and build a spectrum of employer brand messaging, rather than one that simply splits the difference. Once your EVP is ready, you move into the roll-out stage – gaining buy-in from your current employees and infusing it throughout your entire candidate experience.
You can see how we adapted the EVP for Sainsbury’s, a UK grocery store, in the following case study.
Once you roll out an EVP, you aren’t done testing, refining and optimizing. One way to think of this process is that your EVP should always be “in beta.” This doesn’t mean you need to undergo the process of discovery from the beginning each time you modify your EVP. Instead, as your organization evolves, continuously test and evolve your brand messaging so that it always reflects where your organization is and where your organization is going.
For banks and financial services firms looking to build a robust workforce with the skills of the future, now is the time to develop a winning talent acquisition strategy. New highly specialized technical skills, coupled with the need to recruit talent from a diverse range of candidates, has made the task of recruiting in finance more challenging.
In this article, we cover the top challenges currently faced
by finance recruiters and actionable advice on how to manage and overcome them.
So, why is this happening? For starters, the competition to attract and retain talent in financial services is no longer contained within the industry itself. It’s no longer feasible to view finance talent as bound to the industry because many of the new skills needed today transcend industries.
This is in large part due to the increasing use of technology and the emergence of new non-traditional roles within finance, such as data scientists, market makers and social and behavioral scientists. Many professionals with these skill sets have little to no experience in finance and may not have an interest in working in the field.
There is also a greater need to build a more diverse workplace, not only in the kind of skills your employees possess but also in terms of demographics, such as gender, age and ethnicity. PwC’s Female Millennial Report found that 85% of respondents felt that “an employer’s policy on diversity, equality and workforce inclusion was important when deciding whether or not to work for that employer.” Moreover, workplace cultures that embrace all backgrounds have been proven to build a more productive and engaged workforce.
Given these challenges, finance organizations need to
rethink and re-conceptualize what it means to recruit candidates in the modern
talent landscape.
AI tools, such as those within PeopleScout’s proprietary platform Affinixtm, can help you quickly identify candidates who have a high probability of changing jobs. This is a crucial advantage in sourcing tech talent early and engaging with them before the competition. Recruiting technologies leveraging predictive analytics can help you evaluate the quality of your recruiting sources and forecast the results of tweaking certain job qualifications, such as required years of experience, job title, credentials and so on.
Revamp Your Job Postings
Typically, job postings in finance are heavy on listing
credentials and years of experience. To effectively recruit digital talent, jobs
postings on your career page and job boards should emphasize skills such as
software proficiency, computer engineering, data management and data analysis.
By revamping your job posts, candidates with tech skills will feel more
comfortable applying to roles in finance.
The following are some of the top drivers for millennials
when considering job opportunities.
Provide Mentorship and Feedback
Millennials tend to be more loyal to their managers than to their employers. This makes it imperative for finance organizations to develop a strong working relationship between leaders and millennial employees. Rather than practicing directive leadership, try to provide millennials with a more collaborative, mentor-oriented approach with one-on-one meetings that involve open discussions, feedback and career advice.
Provide Professional Development Opportunity
Millennials look for professional development opportunities
to keep up with fast-paced changes in technology and industry standards, and
they value employers that are willing to help pay for these opportunities.
According to Gallup’s
How Millennials Want to Work and Live, 59% of millennials say
opportunities to learn and grow are extremely important to them when applying
for a job.
By providing clear, structured professional development programs, your organization will be seen as more progressive and attractive in the eyes of millennial candidates. This can be a huge competitive advantage when recruiting in finance.
Values Matter
A Deloitte survey
found that “61% of senior millennials (those with higher ranking job
titles) chose not to undertake a task at work because it conflicted with their
values.” Understanding what values matter most to millennials is vital in attracting
them to positions in finance. If millennials feel the work they’re performing
is for a greater good, is fair, and is meaningful, will be much more motivated
to perform their best and stay with an employer longer.
You should consider your organization’s goals and match them
with the values your millennial employees hold as important. Things like
sustainability, integrity, community contribution, and customer care are all
areas that could be reviewed.
Improving Diversity in Finance
As the makeup of the U.S. workforce continues to diversify,
many organizations in the financial services industry have recognized the
importance of recruiting and retaining minorities and women in key positions to
improve business or organizational outcomes and better serve the needs of a
diverse customer base.
Unfortunately, diversity in the finance industry is lacking–especially
in leadership roles—and there’s a lot of room for improvement. Here,
we highlight strategies to help attract candidates from diverse backgrounds and
ways to promote diversity in your workplace more effectively.
Find the Right Diversity Program for Your Organization
There are many types of diversity and inclusion programs that
are designed to address the special considerations that arise in a diverse
workplace. For example, if your organization is looking to hire more women in
management positions, creating an outreach program that seeks out top female finance
talent and positions them for success in leadership positions can help achieve
this goal.
Create a Culture of Diversity
Rather than simply convening a committee and setting diversity targets, you should create a workplace culture where leadership vocally and visibly supports the spirit of diversity in the workplace. People need to work in a culture that encourages them to bring their diverse skills and experiences to the table. Managers and leaders need to support growth, help raise awareness of opportunities and, as needed, invest in the professional development of employees from diverse backgrounds.
Encourage Individuality
Help employees build confidence in their capabilities and
the value of their unique perspectives rather than asking them to conform to a
mold. When building teams, look for employees with diverse viewpoints and
encourage them to speak up. Employees need to believe that their perspectives
are valued and respected.
Conclusion
Whatever individual talent acquisition challenges your
organization faces in the recruitment of finance professionals, becoming more
agile and flexible in your recruiting strategy is the first step to improving
outcomes.
