Category: Talent Technology

What’s Next in Talent Acquisition

Posted on by skatz

Let’s face it – we live in an ever-changing world, where one of the biggest challenges is keeping up with the latest trend.

For an update on talent acquisition trends, PeopleScout hosted Madeline Laurano, talent analyst and founder of Aptitude Research, at our North American Talent Summit. Laurano spoke on the top trends she is seeing through her qualitative and quantitative research, and provided clarity on the crowded market.

Laurano shared that the current state of talent acquisition has fundamentally shifted due to the record increase in job openings and decrease in the available talent pool. This contributes to the rise of competition for talent across industries and the tremendous pressure organizations face to find the right talent.

Laurano presented a few key solutions to aid in managing this overarching challenge, including strengthening employer branding, simplifying your talent strategy with technology, improving candidate communication, using data to drive decisions and exploring total workforce solutions.

In this article, we’ll walk through Laurano’s report on the current state of talent acquisition, and dive into how a focus on employer branding can help you stay on top of the trends in talent acquisition.

Current State & Challenges

Laurano’s research shows a fundamental shift in talent acquisition over the past few years, which she attributes to changing market conditions. The numbers prove it – there’s a high demand for skills and a low supply of candidates, which increases both competition for talent and the cost of a quality hire.

High Demand for Skills

Nearly half of U.S. employers attribute unfilled job openings to a lack of qualified candidates. Additionally, 75% of human resource professionals who have recruiting difficulty say there is a shortage of skills in candidates for job openings. However, 74% of organizations are investing just $500 per employee on training and development between upskilling and reskilling.

The skills gap is widening particularly for IT, healthcare, manufacturing and really any industry that has specialized or technical roles. Based on her research, Laurano recommends that organizations invest in technology and digital roles to foster ideas and monitor industry trends. More than 5 million jobs in information technology are expected to be added globally by 2027.

Low Supply of Candidates

“Statistics show employers are having a difficult time filling job openings and are competing across industries for talent, which is a major challenge in the industry and one we haven’t seen before,” Laurano said.

A 2017 PWC survey of CEOs found that 77% said the greatest threat to organizations was the availability of talent. The unemployment rate is at a record-low 3.7% in the U.S., with 106 months of continuous job growth – the longest stretch in the nation’s history. Canada ended the first half of the year with an unemployment rate of 5.5%, and many leading European and Asia Pacific economies posted strong job gains and continued low unemployment.

Quality of Hires

Laurano’s 2019 Quality of Hire Trends Report states that only 26% of organizations in her study have a formal methodology for defining quality of hire; one in three of those organizations said that they’re interested in tracking quality of hire, but they don’t know how to start. Therefore, there’s a lot of opportunity to improve how we calculate quality of hire.

Ultimately, organizations have to rethink their strategies and technology to attract the right candidates for them. So, how do organizations stay on top of these trends? Laurano says strengthening employer branding is one important way.

Strengthening Employer Branding

As a reminder, your employer brand is the perception and lived experiences of what it’s like to work for your organization. It also incorporates your employee value proposition (EVP), which captures the essence of your uniqueness as an employer and the give and get between you and your employees.

In her presentation, Laurano discussed the importance of strengthening employer branding as one way to stand out in the crowded market. As research shows, many organizations are investing plenty of resources into employer branding, but there is still room for improvement. As Laurano’s research shows, 62% of organizations invest in employer branding, however:

  • One out of four organizations is unsure about its employer branding.
  • 50% of organizations are unhappy with their employer branding tools.
  • 37% of talent acquisition and recruitment specialists consider their knowledge of their employer brand as “weak” or “getting by” – despite it being identified as an area of critical importance.

Industry research agrees with Laurano, as one study shows that companies with stronger employer brands see a 43% decrease on average in the cost per candidate they hire, compared to their competitors. Additionally, when organizations specifically in the U.S. live up to their marketed EVP, new employees arrive with a higher level of commitment at 38%, compared to organizations that do not live up to their marketed EVP, which is at just 9%.

Digital Transformation

As Laurano noted, the digital space is a major aspect to consider in talent acquisition and employer branding. Whether it’s introducing digital or data specialist roles, the skills associated with those jobs assist organizations in recognizing their weaker areas and providing innovative ideas to capture their intended audiences. Laurano recommends incorporating the digital role heavily in your talent solution and to improve messaging.  “Go where your candidates are,” she says. And, for the most part, that is the digital space. Research confirms this concept:

Reactive vs. Proactive Recruiting Strategy

In Laurano’s presentation, she emphasized the value of organizations nurturing talent before they apply, or a proactive versus reactive approach:

Reactive

“If we were to take the reactive recruiting approach and turn it into a funnel, it might look something like the diagram above. Sourcers fill up the talent pipeline while recruiters manage the selection process on behalf of the organization. However, there is no one working on behalf of the candidate and no real engagement process at the top of the funnel. As a result, the recruiter spends more time on screening résumés, phone screens, etc.”

Proactive

“If we flip the time allocation where recruiters spend less time on screening and focus on ensuring they have targeted, qualified candidates to begin with, the results would differ. There would be a higher rate of effectiveness by investing in relationship-building with targeted pools of talent, as opposed to a reactive, start-stop recruiting approach.”

Additional research only reinforces the proactive method, as 67% of employed American adults agree that the application, interview or offer process would make or break their decision on whether to take a job.

Global Aspect

Employer branding is difficult for global organizations, as it’s not always about the organization, but also the specific location, as well, which can get complicated. 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. Laurano suggests a need for transparency for global organizations, as well as local flexibility and solutions to strengthen your employer branding.

What’s Next for Your Talent Solution?

Keeping up with the latest trends can be challenging to say the least, especially in the talent industry. Laurano’s research into the fundamental shift in talent acquisition provided some key insights and solutions that are beneficial when combating such rapid changes.

About the Expert

Madeline Laurano’s primary focus during the last 12+ years has been on the talent management market, specializing in talent acquisition. Her insights are based on her work as an analyst and advisor in the human capital space and her latest research with HR and talent acquisition practitioners. Laurano’s work helps companies both validate and reevaluate their strategies and understand the role technology can play in driving business outcomes. Before Aptitude Research, Laurano held research roles at Aberdeen, Bersin by Deloitte, ERE Media and Brandon Hall Group. She is co-author of “Best Practices in Leading a Global Workforce,” and has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Yahoo News, and The Financial Times. She is a frequent presenter at industry conferences, including the HR Technology Conference and Exposition, SHRM, IHRIM, HCI’s Strategic Talent Acquisition conference, GDS International’s HCM Summit, and HRO Today. Visit her website at https://www.aptituderesearch.com.

Amazon Web Services: How AWS Helps Futureproof our Talent Technology

Posted on by skatz

The technology development cycle is accelerating at a pace that is hard to catch. New services, new devices, new products – it can be overwhelming. When I was exploring joining PeopleScout as the Leader of Technical Delivery, I knew the organization was keeping pace because of the modern architecture and skilled technical teams that were already in place.

At PeopleScout, we effectively manage our development cycle to produce products like Affinix, a talent technology platform built on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud platform. We continue to reap the benefits from that foresight today. Our Affinix development team is located at our global headquarters in Chicago, and we have team members in Latin America, Costa Rica, Peru, Australia, Manila, India and Europe. Every day, around the world, our staff works together to release code for Affinix using AWS.

What is Amazon Web Services?

AWS became the cloud infrastructure arm for Amazon in 2006, when it began offering pay-as-you-go, infrastructure-as-a-service to businesses – now known broadly as cloud computing. AWS started selling cloud “instances” others could reserve when companies needed additional capacity. While AWS started first with public cloud compute (EC2), the company now offers more than 90 different services to clients ranging from storage to Internet of Things (IOT) applications. PeopleScout uses Elastic Cloud Compute Service (EC2), Simple Storage Service (S3), Lambda and other AWS services to power Affinix.

How AWS Makes Affinix Better

We chose AWS as the foundation for Affinix because it is the market leader in cloud infrastructure services. AWS invests more resources than its competitors, and is the leading innovator in this space.

When my team has to solve challenges, we have the independence and flexibility we need with AWS. Sometimes, with other providers, you are limited by what you can use due to license costs or contracts you can’t get out of. With AWS, we don’t have limitations in terms of other technologies or resources we want to use as part of the Affinix platform. We are free to use the right technology as we innovate and evolve Affinix.

Scale and Expansion

Most people have participated in an IT project that took way longer than expected. I think that is a shared experience. Why does that happen? Most delays trace back to scaling out infrastructure or hardware. In order to do this, you need permission to procure, select, configure, test and load balance infrastructure for each new project you launch. This is a huge undertaking, and can become an exhaustive process to complete. 

AWS eliminates these steps, allowing us to scale our infrastructure through the cloud. If you don’t already understand how “the cloud” works, think about it as a utility – let’s say your water supply. Imagine one day your yard needs more water than usual; it has been extremely hot, so you run your water for a few hours instead of a few minutes. Even though your water supply is spiking more than average today, your sprinkler doesn’t stop working. You also don’t store water in your basement in giant, intimidating, wall-to-ceiling containers that sit below your deck waiting to be used. Why would you?

The public cloud is similar. Traditionally, companies have owned on-premise data centers full of expensive equipment that’s often underutilized. Alternatively, some companies rent part of a data center through third-party providers. This is more efficient than using your company’s on-premise location, but you still need to buy more infrastructure to prepare for peak usage. With AWS, we can turn computing and storage needs up or down virtually – without having to buy infrastructure to manage each project. With Affinix, we use AWS’s autoscale capabilities that allow us to set thresholds on capacity.

AWS is also a great partner for international expansion, offering regional and country-specific support for data residency, data sovereignty and certain region-specific compliance initiatives. Increased speed-to-completion is a factor here, too. Previously, it took months to bring a new international location online; now it takes a lot less time. For example, we just launched an Affinix instance in Europe. The rollout from start to finish took about a month. With traditional infrastructure and hardware, it would probably take three to six months.

Security & Compliance

Security is one of those topics that isn’t that interesting until it is. For us, security is critical because our brand reputation and our clients’ reputations are at stake if these issues are not handled correctly. The innovation AWS offers Affinix and our clients in this area –  including data encryption, intrusion detection and firewalls, and much more – provides me with peace of mind.

AWS takes responsibility for the software services its clients use, as well as its hardware in various regions and zones through its Shared Responsibility Model. As a client of AWS, we manage operating systems, platforms and data.

After security, the next logical step to think about is compliance. I view compliance as a byproduct of security, or proof we are as secure as we say we are. AWS makes it very easy to be compliant. With giant regulatory projects such as the EU’s GDPR and the upcoming California Consumer Protection Act in 2020, we have encountered no problems using AWS.  

Speed

AWS can dramatically reduce the cycle time it takes to launch an idea on our Affinix roadmap. We release code regularly – now more than once a day – by releasing very small software updates. The smaller the release, the easier it is to observe and react to quickly. If we see any issues, we can pull that code back. We do this by using AWS’s monitoring capabilities that track how every bit of code is performing. And, if one of these small releases isn’t performing correctly, we immediately roll it back and fix it; it is that easy.

This type of release cycle is extremely efficient. We can now take a giant collection of features and incrementally – and predictably – release them with improved speed throughout many days. Previously, development teams would wait three months for these types of results, using older software development methodologies generally referred to as “waterfall”-type processes. PeopleScout is an Agile development shop, meaning broadly that we focus on small, regular improvements at a faster pace. AWS aligns well with our philosophy.

Conclusion

Growing with AWS has made Affinix better – for our end-users, candidates, clients and PeopleScout. We are a more modern, innovative, tech-focused organization because of the AWS platform. AWS has created benefits for our internal teams, as well. Five years ago, our team was spending 50% of its time performing repetitive tasks related to infrastructure support. Today, because AWS manages the scaling of our hardware, international expansion and streamlined information security, our team has time to focus where we should focus – on new product development and ongoing Affinix innovation. 

Assessing for Passion, Purpose and a Growth Mindset: The Whole Person Model in Practice

Posted on by nfuqua

The whole person model is a highly bespoke assessment process. We have found that the model functions best in two contexts: high-volume hiring and highly specialized leadership hiring.

If an organization needs to hire a large number of candidates for a specific role or type of role, the whole person model can produce stronger, more diverse candidates and can result in longer-tenured employees. The process of building out the tailored assessments is time- and cost-effective for high-volume hiring.

The whole person model can also be valuable when searching for the right candidate for a leadership role. For organizations in times of transition, it can be especially difficult to identify candidates with the ability to lead through change.

In this article, we will explain how we at PeopleScout apply the model practically to both hiring examples.

Whole Person Model Use Case: High-Volume Hiring

whole person model infographic

This infographic is one example of the whole person model in practice for high-volume hiring. It includes three stages and each stage measures different aspects of a candidate’s background, or gears of the whole person model:

  1. A realistic job and culture preview
  2. The One Experience online assessment
  3. The final stage of online assessments, which we call the Assessment Center

During the realistic job and culture preview, a candidate gets a practical look at what it would be like to work for your organization and in this particular role. This section will include media like a video job description, shaped by your EVP and employer brand and customized to a job’s responsibilities.

Showcasing the job and the employer brand of the organization is critical during the realistic job and culture preview because it assesses the passion and purpose of the candidate. If the candidate identifies with and is enthusiastic about your organization, they will continue through the process. If a candidate does not feel as though their passion and purpose align, they will not continue in the process.

The One Experience assessment is an online holistic tool that assesses each part of the whole person model. Candidates answer questions in a variety of formats that allow them to demonstrate their different strengths Each of the six factors is weighted differently based upon their ability to predict candidate success and the requirements and expectations in a role.

In the One Experience tool, the scores for each type of assessment will be combined and weighted, and candidates who meet a certain threshold will be moved along to the next step. Because there are a variety of ways to earn a passing score on these assessments, there will be a more cognitively diverse group of candidates that make it through this part of the process.

At this stage, the assessments include automated feedback reports so that candidates have a better understanding of why they do or do not move forward. This improves the candidate experience because candidates who do not get the position are not left in the dark. It gives them an opportunity to see why they may not have been the best fit.

The final step is the last set of online assessments, which we call the assessment center, to further narrow the candidate pool. In this example, it measures mindset, passion, capability and behavior. However, it can be adapted to focus on the categories that show the strongest predictive ability for a specific position. This stage also includes automated feedback reports.

Using this model, we see fewer candidates making it past the realistic job and culture preview to complete the One Experience tool, but 50 percent of those who do complete that step go on to pass and move to the assessment center. Those who make it to the assessment center have a pass rate of 75 percent, which is higher than the traditional process. In the old process, clients viewed a pass rate of 50 percent at this stage as high.

Assessments in High Volume Hiring: Healthcare Case Study The Problem: A PeopleScout healthcare client wanted to improve quality-of-hire and decrease turnover for their nearly 2,000 annual call center hires. The Solution: PeopleScout partnered with the organization to deploy an online assessment that identified the key behaviors and personality traits that correlated with success at their organization. The assessments also identified candidates who are aligned to the organization’s mission and who have a growth mindset, and those who could be successful in leadership roles. The Results: After two-and-a-half years, the client has seen an increase in the quality of candidates and is expanding the use of the assessment to all external positions. They may also deploy the assessments for internal positions as well.

Whole Person Model Use Case: Leadership Hiring

In the case of leadership hiring, rather than using the One Experience tool, the whole person model uses a deep-dive interview in which the questions are designed to assess the candidate’s passion, purpose and mindset, as well as their capability, behavior and results – the six factors included in the model. By assessing top candidates for these factors, organizations can better identify leaders who fit well with their organization and goals.

To understand how this works, let’s look at how we applied the whole person model to help the Scottish Police Authority appoint the next Chief Constable for Police Scotland.

Title: Using the Whole Person Model to hire the Chief Constable for Police Scotland The Job: Chief Constable The Chief Constable is one of the most influential, rewarding and impactful law enforcement jobs in the country. It is also a critical and high-profile position. Challenges: • High public and political scrutiny • History of leadership challenges • History of extensive change • Need for the Chief Constable to live and breathe the values, culture and purpose of Police Scotland • Nearly impossible to find a candidate with experience in an equivalent role Needs: The Chief Constable needs to be able to restore credibility and public trust, as well as continue to work toward the 2026 strategy. The Solution: The Whole Person Model PeopleScout built a customized assessment process designed to identify candidates’ alignment with the passion, purpose and mindset necessary to fit with the Scottish Police Authority culture and values because no candidate had the work experience to demonstrate the results needed. Step One: Online Psychometrics and a Deep-Dive Interview Techniques used: • Storytelling questions • Push/Pull dichotomies • Blueprint questions Does the candidate have the passion, purpose and mindset to align with the needs of the position? (Sidebar question) What are Psychometrics? The measurement of knowledge, abilities, attitudes and personality traits. Results: An in-depth report was compiled and shared with the Scottish Police Authority identifying which candidates have the factors necessary for success. Step Two: All-Day Immersive Assessment Center The top candidates are assessed in two immersive exercises: 1. A media briefing with professional journalists 2. A stakeholder engagement exercise with 12 senior-level leaders from a range of public sector organizations Can the candidates succeed with the public pressure and leadership scrutiny of the role? Results: Another report for the Scottish Police Authority to take into its own final interview stage exploring strengths, development areas and specific questions to probe further. A benefit for candidates: A 90-minute verbal feedback call and detailed developmental reports are provided at the end of this stage. End Result The Scottish Police Authority had the information to make an objective, fair and well-informed appointment decision.

How did this impact the onboarding process?

The new Chief Constable continued the developmental work they invested in during the assessments process and received a series of coaching sessions throughout the transition.

All candidates reported a positive experience that provided ample opportunity to demonstrate their capability and suitability for the role.

Applying the Whole Person Model to Your Hiring

In the current economic climate, employers who hire and retain candidates with a growth mindset and who align with the passion and purpose of the organization will be at an advantage. By assessing for these factors and looking at the whole person, employers can better identify those candidates and set themselves up for success.

When employers face the challenge of hiring a large volume of employees, the model can be customized to efficiently identify the best candidates with a passion for the work and the organization. When an organization is looking to make a leadership hire but is struggling to find candidates with relevant experience, the model can be customized to identify those who can learn, lead and grow with the organization.

Key Takeaways:

  • The whole person model is a bespoke process and works best for high-volume and leadership hiring.
  • When used for high-volume hiring, the whole person model can produce stronger, more diverse candidates and can result in longer-tenured employees.
  • When used for leadership hiring, the model can identify leaders who fit well with an organization and its culture and goals.

This article is the third in a series, you can read the first article, Assessing for Passion, Purpose and a Growth Mindset: Drivers for Change, hereand the second, Assessing for Passion, Purpose and a Growth Mindset: The Current State of Assessments and a Better Way Forward, here.

Five Ways Talent Technology Will Make HR More Strategic

Posted on by nfuqua

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to look at the past twenty years and see the inflection points where companies and industries either embraced or avoided disruptive technology. When Kodak struggled to adapt to the digital world, the company eventually declared bankruptcy. Blockbuster passed on the chance to purchase Netflix, and now, the video rental chain has just one store left open. Taxis fell to Uber and Lyft. There are countless examples in the graveyard of defunct or irrelevant companies and industries.

It is more difficult to spot that inflection point in the moment. For human resources, that moment is now. With an influx of new technologies entering the market, the role of HR is about to transform, and if it cannot adapt, it is bound to be left behind. Currently, many HR professionals are pulled away from more strategic work for simple repetitive tasks – which are prime targets for automation. Emerging tools can also provide HR with new insights – about things like which candidates are more likely to stay with the company and whether a role is better filled by a contingent or permanent worker in the current economy. These insights will provide HR with the opportunity to play a more significant role in decisions that impact the future of the business.

In this article, we walk through five ways new and emerging talent technology will make HR more strategic and why leaders should embrace change.

1. Automation Will Save Time

Everest Group predicts emerging technology has the potential to automate half of all talent acquisition activities. According to the report, “processes that are highly transactional and repetitive in nature have a higher potential for automation.” This includes tasks like resume screening, interview scheduling and sourcing candidates. However, other tasks, like communicating with top candidates and hiring managers, will continue to require a human touch.

Robotic process automation is already taking over some of the communication with candidates through recruitment marketing campaigns, interview scheduling tools and chatbots. RPA technology can ask prescreening questions or answer FAQs about positions and a company’s hiring process through a chatbot, send automated emails to engage candidates through a candidate relationship management tool and find an empty spot on a recruiter
or hiring manager’s calendar to help a candidate schedule a phone or in-person interview through an automated scheduling tool.

These tools mean that the way recruiters and talent acquisition professionals spend most of their days will transform drastically. Rather than spending time sifting through resumes, scheduling interviews and responding to emails, recruiters will be able to focus on the best candidates, develop creative solutions for hard-to-solve problems and build better candidate engagement strategies. This will reduce recruiter burn out, leaving them fresher and more engaged in important tasks.

Automation also improves the candidate experience. Rather than waiting for a response from a recruiter with an inbox full of emails, candidates can have a simple question answered instantly by a chatbot. Candidates won’t have to play phone tag or do the awkward dance of comparing schedules over email because they can easily schedule interviews on their own. This means, regardless of whether or not the candidate ultimately ends up in the role, they will be left with a more positive image of the organization. However, HR leaders need to take care to select the correct tools. If they don’t work as intended or don’t integrate well with other systems in place, recruiters may not be able to use them effectively and candidates could be left with a negative impression.

2. Data Analytics Will Provide New Insights to Inform Decision-Making

Big data is everywhere, and when applied to HR, it can allow leaders to make better, more informed decisions on both the micro and macro levels. Data analytics tools have the power to provide insights and predictions about individual candidate behaviors, the best tactics to use to fill a role and even long-term predictions about local job markets.

Predictive analytics is a type of data analytics that uses data to find patterns and then uses those models to attempt to predict the future. Predictive analytics can’t tell you what will happen, but it shows what is likely to happen based on past trends. Tools that incorporate predictive analytics can tell recruiters how likely a candidate is to leave their current job or stay in a position at your organization, for example.

These tools can also identify new channels to find strong candidates by identifying common themes in previous successful hires. For example, a predictive analytics tool could tell a recruiter that the best candidates tend to come from a few specific educational backgrounds. That way, a recruiter can focus on recruiting efforts to identify the best candidates with those qualities.

Predictive analytics can also help with more strategic business decisions. Workforce planning tools focus on the future by assessing current hiring needs and modeling how those needs will evolve. This data-focused approach can help organizations match talent forecasts with analysis of the talent pool to create a realistic view of the labor market. On a micro level, analyzing market data can help predict whether a role is better filled by a permanent or contingent worker in a specific location.

Workforce planning tools can also identify potential problems before they arise. For example, hiring patterns in a market could signal an impending shortage of talent six months into the future, allowing organizations to prepare and stay ahead of the competition. If an organization is looking to expand, predictive analytics can identify areas with the best candidates to fill the needed roles. This empowers HR to have a larger role in shaping the direction of the company. Because of this, it’s key that the right tools to collect historical and current data are in place. If the predictions are inaccurate or the data is not used properly, it could have the opposite effect.

3. AI Tools Will Develop More Effective Candidate Profiles, Job Descriptions and Recruitment Marketing

Another way technology can impact HR is through the use of AI tools that make recruiters more effective in interacting with candidates. This process starts during candidate generation, where AI tools can help you craft job titles and descriptions and continues as recruiters communicate with candidates throughout the hiring process.

AI tools can help recruiters put together stronger candidate personas, by using data to show what factors predict success and where recruiters can find the best candidates, as we discussed earlier. Then, certain technology tools can help recruiters optimize job titles and craft job descriptions that will show up in search results and appeal to the greatest number of candidates.

AI can also help identify exclusionary language that could discourage a certain gender or minority group from applying to a position. This is particularly important because unconscious bias can allow gendered words to creep into our vocabulary without us realizing it. According to Harvard Business School, words like “ninja” discourage women from applying, while words like “supportive” and “collaborative” can discourage men. By using technology to avoid this, recruiters can build better and more diverse candidate pipelines.

As recruiters communicate with candidates, other tools can make the process more personal. Career sites can track what types of jobs candidates view, apply to or start, but never finish. Tracking this data allows recruitment marketing tools to recommend jobs that appeal to the candidate and match their skills and expertise, or to prompt a candidate to complete their application. Once a candidate provides their information, recruiters can use recruitment marketing tools to build personalized marketing streams that will appeal to candidates and encourage them to apply.

These tools help recruiters identify and market to stronger candidates more efficiently, which not only frees up time but also helps build a better workforce, improving business outcomes for the organizations. Here, AI algorithms need to be carefully monitored. Because AI is constantly evolving, errors in an AI platform’s logic can quickly grow, making problems hard to trace. This is especially true if errors are made at the beginning of the process causing the common problem of garbage in, garbage out.

4. AI Sourcing and Improved Assessments Will Identify Candidates with the Right Cultural Fit

Talent technology will also help recruiters identify passive candidates with the skills of the future and the ability to learn and grow with an organization. Passive sourcing tools use artificial intelligence to identify the best candidates for a role – regardless of whether or not those people are actively looking for jobs. The tools can search social media, job boards and more, finding candidates who match target personas. Passive sourcing provides recruiters with a list of strong candidates without the time required to conduct manual searches.

New types of assessments will also help recruiters identify the best candidates. Video interviewing tools can provide additional information about candidates from their facial expressions and tone of voice. This can provide insights into a candidate’s personality, which will help recruiters make better choices about which candidates are the best cultural fit with an organization.  

Additionally, new assessments can evaluate the passion, purpose and mindset of candidates. This means recruiters can learn about a candidate’s enthusiasm, enjoyment and commitment to mastering the requirements of a role, their alignment with and willingness to contribute to the vision and values of an organization and whether they have a growth mindset, which is the belief that one’s talents can be developed through education and effort. With this information, recruiters can identify candidates who will align with the goals and culture of an organization, increasing the likelihood that the candidate will stay long-term. By identifying candidates with a growth mindset, recruiters can select candidates who have the ability to learn and grow in the rapidly transforming world of work.

This empowers talent acquisition leaders to better identify and hire the candidates who align with the long-term goals of an organization, enabling the company to meet strategic objectives faster and stay ahead. However, this is another case where HR should be aware that the wrong tools and assessments could actually inject bias into the process, so leaders should be sure to partner with an organization that is aware of and carefully monitors for that risk.

5. Compliance Tools Will Reduce Risk, Freeing Funds and Resources

Another significant aspect of HR is dealing with the multitude of compliance risks that vary by jurisdiction. Technology can automate parts of that process, making it not only more efficient but also more compliant.

Compliance tools can automate background checks and drug tests as a part of the pre-employment and onboarding process. This ensures that every potential employee completes the testing and that the process aligns with all local and federal regulations.

According to SHRM, predictive analytics tools can also be used to assess pay equity, an incredibly hot topic in compliance right now. At least 12 jurisdictions have some sort of pay equity law preventing employers from asking about salary history in an effort to reduce pay discrimination. Because the issue is at the forefront, employers should track this information and take steps to reduce pay inequality at their own organizations. Data analytics tools can monitor and report on any pay gaps for protected groups.

Additionally, Forbes reports that AI can identify “red areas” where fraud or unethical behavior may be more likely and bring those to the attention of HR so they can intervene early or even before bad behavior occurs. AI can also identify behaviors that cause poor work performance, recognizing patterns of stress or bad behavior that could cause safety concerns.

Technology can also assist in the process of collecting documents from workers, and providing workers with required forms and legal documents, protecting the organization from potential regulatory errors. Compliance lapses can be expensive and time-consuming; having reliable tools can keep your organization safe.

Conclusion

The current talent acquisition technology landscape is both exciting and complicated for employers. Technology already available on the market will allow HR to be more strategic, but it needs to be implemented and used effectively. When selecting the right tools, employers need to look for solutions that have tangible benefits – not just tools that are interesting. Using the wrong tools has the potential to do more harm than good, so employers should look for partners that can meet their needs now and flex and growth with them into the future.

Cutting Time-to-Hire with On-Demand Digital Interviews

Posted on by skatz
Cutting Time-to-Hire with On-Demand Digital Interviews

Multi-Country RPO

Cutting Time-to-Hire with On-Demand Digital Interviews

PeopleScout delivers multi-country RPO for a multinational food distribution company to hire warehouse workers and truck drivers, reducing time-to-hire by implementing digital interviews.

58 % of candidate complete the recruitment process—up from 33%
12 day reduction in time-to-hire
6,200 annual hires

PeopleScout partnered with a multinational food distribution company to facilitate its warehouse and driver hiring across the United States, Canada, the Bahamas, Ireland and Northern Ireland. PeopleScout’s full-cycle global RPO program manages more than 6,200 annual hires, 3,000 of which are distribution truck drivers. PeopleScout’s solution provides the client with the insights and expertise to improve recruiting outcomes.

Situation

Before engaging with PeopleScout, the client struggled to meet its global hiring goals. Approximately two-thirds of candidates dropped out of the hiring process between the first two steps of the screening process as many candidates couldn’t complete screening during traditional business hours while they were on the road.  

In response to these challenges, PeopleScout’s international RPO solution provides a highly scalable delivery team to meet the client’s fluctuating hiring needs and address regional and cultural preferences during the screening process. PeopleScout’s centralized recruitment support ensures compliance and streamlines the process through innovative technology solutions.

Solution

SOLUTION HIGHLIGHTS

  • On-Demand Digital Interviews
  • Improved Interview-to-Hire Ratio
  • Improved Time-to-Hire

ON-DEMAND DIGITAL INTERVIEWS

PeopleScout uses on-demand digital interviews that candidates can complete at their convenience—outside of typical business hours.

REDUCED CANDIDATE FALLOUT

PeopleScout’s digital interview process is designed to be completed in 10 to 12 minutes to reduce candidate fallout.

CANDIDATE REVIEWS

PeopleScout’s team reviews the digital interviews and scores candidates based on adherence to safe work practices, demonstrated ability to do the job and genuine interest in the organization.

Results

EXPANDED CANDIDATE ENGAGEMENT

The number of candidates who completed the screening process increased from 33% to 58%.

IMPROVED INTERVIEW-TO-HIRE

The interview-to-hire ratio improved from 2.25:1 to 1.7:1.

IMPROVED TIME-TO-HIRE

Time-to-hire was reduced by 12 days.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Multinational food distribution company
  • INDUSTRY
    Transport & Logistics
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Affinix
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    6,200
  • LOCATIONS
    Across the United States, Canada, the Bahamas, Ireland and Northern Ireland
Let’s Connect

High-Volume Global RPO Solution for International Hospitality Brand

Posted on by Kate
High-Volume Global RPO Solution for International Hospitality Brand

Global RPO

High-Volume Global RPO Solution for International Hospitality Brand

An international hospitality brand—and longstanding PeopleScout client—was experiencing growing pains after an acquisition. The client needed to source, screen and hire an additional 20,000 staff for both corporate and on-site positions at hotel properties across multiple continents—bringing the annual headcount to 65,000 new hires. PeopleScout’s global RPO solution proved agile enough to seamlessly scale up to absorb the increased hiring volume, while hitting target service levels across regions.

90 % Customer Satisfaction Scores Among Hiring Managers
84 % Time-to-Fill Targets Achieved for In-Market Roles
100 % Time-to-Fill Targets Achieved for Corporate Roles

Situation

PeopleScout facilitates more than 65,000 hires annually for the hospitality brand, delivering RPO through a 350-member team across continents. Roles include management and hourly hiring needs in both corporate and in-market environments, including sales, accounting, technology, e-commerce, infrastructure, risk management, engineering, architecture, property management, customer service, housekeeping, culinary and more.

In addition to corporate hiring in the U.S. and Canada, we’ve recruited for their operations centers in the UK and India and hospitality properties spanning North America, Latin America, EMEA and APAC.

Solution

Starting with a small pilot in 2007, our relationship has developed into a strategic partnership over 15 years. At the start, the client had disjointed hiring processes across regions. PeopleScout’s RPO team streamlined their recruitment processes and developed robust, standardized compliance practices across the entire recruiting program.

Following an acquisition in 2017, the client gained nearly 1,300 properties across over 100 countries. PeopleScout scaled our global talent acquisition program to ensure the established standardized processes and compliance practices were applied to the newly acquired properties, while keeping costs down.

PeopleScout seamlessly absorbed a 20,000-position increase and easily increased resources to meet a 50% increase in the scope of services. This included scaling our RPO solution to cover the end-to-end recruitment process for management positions for all hotel locations and the U.S. and Canadian headquarters. This allowed the in-house HR team to focus on training, workforce planning and employer branding.

PeopleScout also supported the client through three talent technology transitions over the course of the partnership, creating new levels of efficiency through automation. Plus, our in-house creative agency TMP assisted the client with their recruitment marketing efforts, creating attraction content in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish.

Results

In just two months, PeopleScout was able to achieve the same level of performance at the newly acquired locations as they had at the legacy locations.

  • Created standardized recruitment processes and robust compliance practices across all in-market locations resulting in significant cost savings through efficiency
  • 84% time-to-fill targets achieved for in-market hires
  • Nearly 100% time-to-fill targets achieved for corporate hires
  • 90%+ customer satisfaction scores hit for both in-market and management hires
  • Achieved nearly 100% consistency in SLAs thanks to standardized operations across PeopleScout’s global delivery centers.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    International hospitality brand
  • INDUSTRY
    Hospitality, Travel & Tourism
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing
  • ANNUAL HIRES
    65,000
  • LOCATIONS
    Hospitality properties, corporate offices and operational centers across North America, Latin America, Europe and APAC
Let’s Connect

How Google Jobs is Taking On Talent Acquisition

Posted on by skatz

Google’s first commercial for the 2019 Super Bowl showcased Translate, Google’s language translation feature. Google’s second commercial of the night was also about the power of translation, only this time the focus was on helping veterans translate their military skills into civilian careers.

The aforementioned ad illustrated how Google for Jobs helps veterans and other U.S. service members quickly find civilian jobs by searching “jobs for veterans” on Google and then entering their military occupational specialty codes. They are then provided with search results for civilian jobs with similar skills to those used in their military roles. Now, a group of job seekers that had difficulty finding roles online can easily conduct a simple Google job search.

Launched in 2017, Google for Jobs, or Google Jobs, is a job search platform that goes well beyond simple search efforts by pulling relevant job-related data from multiple partners and company sites into one intelligent search function. In this article, we will walk through an explanation of what Google Jobs is, how it works, how it can affect talent acquisition and what to keep in mind before incorporating Google Jobs into your recruitment strategy.

What is Google for Jobs?

Google Jobs connects interested job seekers with relevant positions from job boards and career websites around the world. Google allows users to filter job searches the same way you can search for anything else online, with criteria like location, posting date, type of company, etc. It even includes pay estimates from several outside sources. With more than one-third of Google’s monthly searches coming from job-related requests, Google Jobs helps bridge the gap between job seekers searching for career opportunities and employers looking to provide them.

How Does Google Jobs Work?

Google Jobs pulls job board listings from around the web into its platform through partnerships with LinkedIn, CareerBuilder, Facebook, Monster and others. Postings on a company’s career site are also pulled into the Google Jobs engine. Initially launched in the United States, the platform is available to millions of job seekers from North and South America, Latin America, Africa, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

When a user searches for a job, Google serves up the most relevant job description, location, seniority, job types and salary content available courtesy of machine learning. Machine learning is a subset of AI that adjusts and learns without being explicitly programmed. Traditional Google search queries use algorithms to sort through hundreds of billions of web pages to find and present the most relevant, useful results to a user. Google Jobs’ search mechanism operates similarly, only its enhanced use of machine learning only retrieves results from job postings, which it lists at the top of a user’s search results.

If you start by searching directly in Google for “jobs near me for ‘Nurses,’” using Chicago as a location, roles with a few local healthcare organizations, along with 100+ more jobs, appear. Additional filters also are available, such as jobs posted in the “past 3 days” or “full-time” jobs. Users can view these filters at the top of the screen.

Google Jobs screenshot

If a user clicks to see additional jobs using the “100+ jobs” link at the bottom of the results page, this next screen appears:

Google Jobs screenshot

Users can then explore their Google Jobs search using the following features:

  • Jobs are displayed in the left column.
  • Filters are available across the top of the screen, such as title, date posted and type of employer. For example, if you click on “title,” related titles appear, such as a surgical or clinical nurse.
  • Pay comparisons are available at the bottom of the listing from other sources such as Glassdoor.
  • Alerts are available for your job search in the lower left-hand corner. You can turn alerts on or off with your Gmail account and save for future use.

How Does Google Jobs Affect Talent Acquisition?

Extending your recruiting strategy by integrating with Google Jobs benefits talent acquisition programs through increased reach, better candidate choice and reduced costs.

Expands Your Reach

Google Jobs expands your pool of candidates by crawling millions of job listings across the internet and presenting jobs relevant to a user’s inquiry that may not appear during a traditional search.

So, once you’ve posted your open positions on job boards integrated with the Google Jobs platform – your reach is instantly amplified.

Google also provides developers and website owners access to the new “jobs search feature” where they can embed company logos, job seeker reviews, ratings and job details. This feature functions outside of organic and paid search on Google, so job postings are easier to find and more prominent than before.

And for organizations with smaller recruiting teams, Google Jobs helps level the playing field by allowing their job postings to appear organically to the same candidates as those advertising on job boards.

Filtering Out Unqualified Candidates

When a job gets posted online, recruiters get inundated with a torrent of qualified and unqualified candidates alike. Filtering through these resumes is time-consuming and reduces a recruiter’s ability to quickly identify quality job candidates.

With Google Jobs’ multiple filters, it is possible for recruiters to better target candidates and only receive the resumes that best align with specific roles.

For example, instead of receiving generic resumes for nurses, now it is possible to filter results so that recruiters only receive resumes from entry-level nurses with two-years of experience in a hospital setting who live in Atlanta and expect to be paid $35K-$70K annually.

Reduces Cost

Increasingly, the need to go to CareerBuilder, Glassdoor, LinkedIn and others to post your job listing is waning as Google Jobs principally provides the same service in a more cost-effective manner. The average cost of interviewing, scheduling, and hiring a candidate is thousands of dollars; this cost could be reduced if recruiters work with fewer third-party job boards and advertising partners.

Considerations

Before your job postings begin appearing in millions of Google searches, here are a few tips to get started.

Optimize Your Job Listings

Keep your descriptions short and specific. Avoid any internal jargon that candidates would not search for or know. Study other ads in the market to make sure your job description has some similarity. Also, check to make sure your listing is consistent with your employer brand.

Enhance SEO

Google Jobs is a powerful tool. However, to harness its full potential, you should make sure your job postings are optimized for search. This means making sure you are tagging the correct keywords, titles and other attributes.

Mobile Ready

Make sure your listings are updated for mobile search, where 90% of job seekers now search first. You can use the quick test Google offers to check to see if your website is currently mobile-optimized as well.

What to Keep in Mind?

Connect Your Job Listings

There are a few main paths to connect your listings with Google Jobs. If you post jobs directly through your website, you can connect directly with Google. However, this option requires some technical knowledge such as marking up jobs, crawling, indexing, enriched search, APIs and structured data. This direct connection path can also come through your applicant tracking system (ATS) provider. Another option is to work through a third-party to manage your postings, e.g. LinkedIn.

Remove Old Listings

Google may penalize your site if job postings that have been filled are still being displayed, so make sure you regularly remove old listings.

Understand Not Everyone is Involved (Yet)

Certain jobs may not be included in Google Jobs search results, as some job boards are not integrated into the platform. As of April 2019, job search giant Indeed has not yet partnered with Google Jobs, so any efforts talent acquisition groups have with Indeed remain separate for now.

Conclusion

Working with Google Jobs benefits talent acquisition programs through increased reach, better candidate filtering and reduced costs. Before integrating Google Jobs into your TA strategy, organizations need to optimize their job postings. Companies need to understand the pros and cons of managing a Google Jobs program in-house versus working through an ATS provider or third-party integrator. Most ATS providers are optimized for Google Jobs, but make sure to confirm with your vendor. Talent acquisition leaders can also consider using the ATS module within PeopleScout’s proprietary talent technology platform, Affinix. Google Jobs is available today through Affinix.

Talking Talent: Applying Global Lessons in Talent Acquisition with Guy Bryant-Fenn

Posted on by skatz

Guy Bryant-Fenn doesn’t like to sit still. In the two decades he’s worked in HR, he’s moved from an IT search to PeopleScout’s APAC managing director, transplanting from London to Sydney along the way. This global recruitment experience has given him a future-focused point of view and humility – a value he says drives honesty, integrity, ambition and tenacity.

We spoke with Guy from PeopleScout’s Sydney headquarters about the biggest issues in the Australia and New Zealand talent market and how they are shaping the talent acquisition industry. In our open conversation, Guy shares how the lessons from innovation in APAC should influence leaders around the world.

What are the biggest challenges facing the Australia/New Zealand region in talent acquisition right now?

That’s a great question. There are numerous challenges facing Australia, New Zealand and the broader APAC market in talent acquisition at present. First off is the availability of talent. It really is a compressed market here. We’re seeing a lot of employment growth in the healthcare and social assistance market, construction, education and training and professional. As we look forward to 2023, we’re seeing projected growth of half a million jobs or more, and the challenge that lies within that is the availability of skilled labor to fulfill those roles.

What are some of the biggest trends that you’re seeing?

The biggest trends that I think we’re seeing are a reaction to the availability of talent. So, we’re seeing a high degree of recruitment solutions that are focusing on passive sourcing—not those active candidates in the market, but those left-handed astronauts out there that we need to tap on the shoulder and attract into our clients’ organizations. We’re seeing a keen focus on market insights to provide the information of where that skilled labor is, who they are working for and how we can best attract them. That is done by a symbiotic relationship between people and technology, which means using advanced AI technology and attraction strategies that are enabling the people components to drive that passive sourcing.

Another big focus is diversity and inclusion. Organizations obviously see the benefit of diversity within their companies, and they want to ensure that they have a workforce that is reflective of the national demographic. So, they’re trying to balance the lack of availability of talent within the market but also drive a more inclusive workforce.

The final piece for me is really a greater focus on attraction and assessment. Organizations are wanting to understand the perception of what they are saying to the market. How does their employer brand portray them as an organization? What are the values that they are speaking to within market, and how do those values really flow through to how and who and what they are assessing within the recruitment process?

It sounds like in dealing with these challenges and working with these trends, technology plays a significant role. So, can you tell me a little bit about the role that tech has in transforming the industry and tackling the biggest issues you’re seeing now?

Tech is increasing in importance across the industry. We’re seeing an emergence within the HR tech industry of technologies that sit across each element of the lifecycle. So, workforce planning tools, AI passive sourcing tools, various different assessment tools from personality profiles to realistic job previews, situational judgment – and they go all the way through to onboarding and employment. The trick for us as a provider is to ensure that we are utilizing the best of those tools that will enable the recruitment process but also drive automation and efficiencies that allow us to elevate our talent acquisition teams to act as more as a business partner or in an advisory capacity.

What are some lessons from Australia/New Zealand that leaders in other markets should be paying attention to and learning from? 

I’ve lived and worked in Australia now for eight years, having come from the EMEA market, and what I continuously enjoy is the lateral thinking of talent acquisition leaders across Australia and New Zealand. We are not afraid to look at things through a different lens, take the best of the learnings from the Americas and EMEA and rightsize that for the Australia/New Zealand and broader APAC market.

We are also seeing a faster adoption and emergence of total workforce solutions, where providers have a view of both permanent and contingent labor across their enterprise. That’s partly because of lateral thinking, but that’s also because we are smaller in scale and can be more agile which allows for us to innovate quickly.

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

We touched on it in pockets throughout this conversation—the advancement of technology is an exciting component. I firmly believe that there will always be a human element in what we do, but how can we continue to create that symbiotic relationship between people and technology and really evolve and advance our solutions?

An example of that for me is evolving the planning element of what we do from a data and insights perspective. Right now, organizations are working on their resource forecasts driven by a demand plan. Where we will see this evolving to is true workforce planning, future-backed workforce planning, where organizations will be able to predict the resources that they need – one, two, three years out. We will also see the emergence of that workforce planning component flowing across the whole recruitment lifecycle, and it will enable us as a business to ensure that we are driving those passive candidate pipelines.

We are setting ourselves up across both our attraction and assessment strategies to really enable our clients’ business objectives and ensure that we are executing talent at a strategic level and acting as a true business enabler for our clients’ organizations. What I’m most excited about is really the elevation of talent acquisition to that level, and it can’t happen quickly enough.

Recruitment for Retention

Posted on by skatz

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Predictive Analytics: Unlocking the Key to Recruitment for Retention

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Solving for Retention

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

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

A Standard Hiring Model

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

An Efficient Process

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

Hiring Diversity

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

In-Region Recruiters

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

Transparent Reporting

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

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

What’s NEXT: Prescriptive Analytics

Posted on by epadmin

Imagine your day as a lead recruiter for a major retailer. You have delivered successful results, but sometimes you get bogged down with small details. By the end of this month, you need to fill 27 requisitions for store managers and customer service supervisors – a pretty normal workload that you’re used to.

At 8 a.m., you look at a weekly dashboard report sent by your VP that describes how you are performing against monthly recruiting goals. You are doing well, but you have to turn it up a bit more. Ten of your requisitions are new, five are in the interview stage and eight are in the offer stage. You know how to manage this – you are a pro – but there is so much to do.

From 8:21 until 10:59 a.m., you respond to several calls, filter so many resumes you lose track, and perform a couple phone screens; it makes it hard to take a minute and plan with this type of pace.

By 3 p.m., the day has flown by and you now need to spend time reviewing your activity log for the day. In an ideal world, you’d clear your plate of your morning tasks and instead spend time building candidate relationships. However, you remind yourself that this type of pace and workload is true for most recruiters.

At 4:30 p.m., you receive some predictions from your finance team of where you need to shift your focus. This will help you manage your time better, but to be honest the data would have been more helpful if you had received it last month. You love reading the color-coded strike zone reports though and take note of how long it is taking to fill some of your harder-to-fill roles.

By 5:30 p.m., you leave feeling like you’ve done your best to tackle the day and made some real progress. You are putting out fires and making everything work, but what would be really helpful would be a prescription telling you what and where to attack each day to help you achieve even better results and be more efficient.

Maybe your prescription could look something like the following:

Prescriptive Analytics

Prescriptive Analytics is Next

In our story, the recruiter received several different types of information, but the amount of disparate data was still unhelpful in the recruiter’s daily work. What our recruiter needed was some form of prescriptive analytics metrics to figure out where to focus their time.

What does prescriptive mean in the context of analytics? Prescriptive analytics solutions make predictions and answer questions related to “what to do” and why some action will take place. Prescriptive analytic output also delivers results from different options to help support various decision paths.

Prescriptive analytics solutions are only beginning to enter the mainstream world of talent acquisition. Rob Wells, managing director of Workday in Australia and New Zealand said, “The most innovative companies are relying on analytics in their HR programs and those that are implementing prescriptive analytics will reap the biggest rewards.” Gartner predicts that the prescriptive analytics software market will reach $1.1 billion by 2019. InformationWeek lists resource optimization, broadly termed as matching resources such as people and goods with an organization’s needs (e.g. talent acquisition), as a strong target for growth.

Prescriptive analytics is more easily understood in context with its relationship to descriptive and predictive analytics.

Predictive vs. Prescriptive Analytics

While predictive and prescriptive analytics sound alike, prescriptive analytics is the more advanced solution of the two. Prescriptive analytics builds on predictive analytics forecasts and transitional analytics solutions such as diagnostic analytics to evolve toward overall better decisions.

Predictive analytics today is more widely deployed. Predictive analytics uses data to find patterns and then uses that information to make forecasts that can shorten the recruiting process and produce stronger hires. While predictive solutions produce forecasts based on existing data, prescriptive solutions answer problems. As Gartner states, companies should ask “What can we do to make ____ happen” – prescriptive analytics helps answer that question.

Talent Analytics Adoption: Most, Some, Few

Descriptive Analytics

Receiving detailed data on past behavior equates to descriptive analytics. Most companies have this today.

Most organizations, up to 90 percent, are using some type of basic analytics function such as descriptive analytics. This is a common activity in talent acquisition as well. Descriptive analytics activities in talent acquisition looks at activity related to candidate generation, like the volume of candidates, time-to-close, cost of the candidate search and source-of-hire.

Predictive Analytics

Reviewing predictions of what might happen is predictive analytics. Some companies have this today.

Giant retailers such as Amazon are known for their predictive analytics solutions that manage data, inventory and customer needs. Some recruiters in talent acquisition have also begun to use predictive analytics tools. Predictive analytics throughout the sourcing process is also integrated into PeopleScout’s proprietary talent technology, Affinix.

Prescriptive Analytics

Knowing where to act and how to move in a specific way is prescriptive analytics. Few companies have this today.

The healthcare industry has seen success using prescriptive analytics. One company implemented a prescriptive analytics solution that analyzed the number of obese patients and then added cholesterol and diabetes risk levels to customize specific treatments. A few early possibilities are evolving for prescriptive analytics in talent acquisition. Prescriptive analytics could help predict learning paths for employees, helping to extend their tenure at an organization. Recruiters can also anticipate when candidates might ghost an opportunity – known as a candidate’s joining probability – and get a prescribed solution to fix the situation.

Challenges

As prescriptive analytics models enter the talent acquisition world, what are some implementation challenges to keep in mind?

  • Price. Right now solutions are targeted and priced more for larger organizations.
  • Talent. Many in-house analytics teams may not have enough people with the right skills to implement a prescriptive analytics solution. In fact many organizations are still struggling with adopting predictive.
  • Buy-In. Organizational buy-in to implement a solution like prescriptive analytics is critical. Many organizations are still in the consideration stage for predictive analytics as mentioned and are not ready for prescriptive analytics offerings.

Preparing Your Prescription

How should you prepare for the use of prescriptive analytics? Regardless of your organization’s readiness for prescriptive analytics, you should keep the following planning tips in mind:

  • Review your current analytics capabilities. Where is your organization in its analytics “journey?” Are you delivering complex or more simple descriptive analytics functions today?
  • Evolve your analytics business case. What problems can you solve today, what would you like to solve in the future? What tools will help you meet different challenges?
  • Assess potential vendors. Some vendors may say they are selling prescriptive analytics solutions but are not. Terminology across AI, machine learning and different analytics terms is sometimes misused. Do your due diligence to find out if your vendor can deliver the results you need.

Key Takeaways

  • Prescriptive analytics is the most advanced stage of business analytics currently available after descriptive and predictive analytics solutions.
  • While prescriptive analytics may not be used widely in talent acquisition, the potential for this next-generation analytics offering is promising.
  • To prepare for prescriptive analytics implementation, assess your company’s existing analytics challenges and determine if prospective vendors are prepared to help you with the analytics problems you want to solve.