Beware of the posers- mobile site deceptions

Beware of the posers- mobile site deceptions

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: Your Organizations Ability to Attract Candidates

Many of us know that the way we are interacting with the internet is changing rapidly, moving away from the time when we had a PC, tethered to a desk on a slow dial up connection to a fast means of accessing almost anything in the palm of our hands from almost anywhere.  People are changing the way they find jobs in the same way they are changing how they shop and how they post content to their social media platforms

Although I have been and continue to be an advocate for companies moving to mobile career sites and apps, I come to you this month with a warning that should not be a surprise.

Beware of the posers
Just like in the early days of job boards and social media, there are a number of companies that are out there trying to convince you that what they have is what you seek- a mobile career site.

Last year I wondered why ATS providers were not jumping into this to gain competitive advantage.

Through my networking and collaborations with some of you, I have become aware of some interesting developments and this year we saw some of the first ATS providers coming out with mobile sites and unfortunately a couple that are outright posers.

Sadly, these companies are not small start ups or fly by night companies, they are sizeable and well known and it’s a shame that at least some of the in their organizations are pitching something that is not the truth until pressed.  This month I will give you the basic questions to ask and the unfortunate half-truths that I am aware of…

The question
The first version of the question is actually quite simple and that is probably why it can be easy for a sales team to try to pull a quick one over on people.  The question is:

“Does your product provide a mobile career site?”

This is where the problem lies… in its simplicity.  I will take you through three instances where a potential customer could have come away with entirely the wrong impression and would have made the wrong decision, at least in regards to mobile recruiting, as a result.

Problem answer #1: Yes we have a mobile site
You may be thinking what is the problem?  Well in this case, I actually don’t think the vendor was being purposely misleading, but here is a synopsis of the rest of the answer:

“Recruiters can log in review candidates, post jobs, schedule interviews, etc.”

Notice there is no mention of candidates?  When asked a slightly different question, the vendor had a different answer:

“Does your product provide a mobile career site for job seekers…”

The answer? “No”

It’s nice that Recruiters can do stuff, but it’s far more important that job seekers be able to do stuff.  Plus, I don’t know about you, but as a Recruiter there is only so much I am willing to do from a smartphone.

Problem answer #2: Yes we have a mobile site
Again all seems well, and the vendor happily showed the potential customer his iPhone with a cool looking app.  The problem didn’t arise until one of the review team members said “Where do I look for a job?” and another asked “Why is there the ability to run payroll?”

The first problem answer was forgivable, this one is not.  There was not only no ability to search jobs, there was nothing to do with recruiting on the app either… this was an HR/Payroll app shame, shame, shame.

Problem answer #3: Yes we have a mobile site
So you get it by now and are wondering what happened.  Similar to the previous example, someone was proud to show off their iPhone and the team looked at it and seemed impressed until someone noticed that this was just the full website of the a client company.  When pressed, the vendor maintained that they had a mobile site and it looks great.  Continued pressing from the review team finally got the vendor to admit that they didn’t have a mobile site, but that “the site renders beautifully on an iPhone.”

That’s all great, but since the screen, even an iPhone is tiny, and 0.5 pitch is difficult for anyone to read I would say this vendor is a total poser… the sad thing was the person being pressed was the company’s President, not an over-eager sales person trying to get commission.

Conclusion
So beware when you meet with vendors about this new platform we all have to manage.

The key question is not whether or not they can provide a mobile site, but is actually a series or slightly more complicated questions.  Here are some of the questions I recommend asking:

Does your current product provide a mobile careers site that enables job seekers to have a mobile experience similar to those visiting our full version website, including searching for and viewing jobs?

What mobile platforms do you support?  iPhone, Android, iPad, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile?

Note: If they support iPhone and Android you are well covered, many iPhone apps work on an iPad; Windows Mobile market share is too small and BlackBerry is declining rapidly.  If you did want to add a third platform, add iPad since an iPad app can be much more robust than an iPhone app.

Do you support mobile websites or downloadable apps, or both?

What types of content can you support?  Is the site simply a job search interface or can we have text content, pictures and video to create a rich user experience?

How refined can the job search be?  Do users have only a couple options or several that deliver targeted results?

Does the mobile site at any time send the user to the full version site? If the answer is yes, then it is not a mobile site!

The important thing is to not go into this blind… just like anything else!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!

© 2011 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

How placement firms can work better with corporate recruiters and how corporate recruiters need to step up.

How placement firms can work better with corporate recruiters and how corporate recruiters need to step up.

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: Your Organizations Ability to Source Candidates

Hardly a day goes by without receiving some sort of pitch from a placement firm.  I think this isn’t a big difference from anyone else in a leadership role within a Recruiting department, but I think what would surprise some people is what I hear from corporate recruiters that makes me want to slam my head into my desk.

So this month I thought I would give my unscientific top five things that each side needs to do better list.

Top five things that placement firms can do to work with corporate recruiters

1. Know yourself and/or your organization
   If your firm specializes in helping organizations that have little to no corporate recruiting capability, or does especially well helping organizations in regions that people don’t want to move to or a certain size of organization, etc. learn that, know that and own that.  I can’t tell you how many times I talk to firms that in the course of our review I determine do a good job placing people, but only because the companies they work with have no recruiting team to speak of. 
2. Figure me out before calling
   I don’t expect you, as someone that is cold calling me, to know all about me (although it’s pretty easy to find out a lot about people nowadays), but at least know what industry I am in, what openings I have and a little about my teams capability.  For example, on a regular basis I get calls and emails from companies that want to place people with me for Software Engineering or Electrical Engineering… well since I work for a hospital system it’s a waste of my time to even return your call now isn’t it? 
3. Just because I have an opening doesn’t mean I need help
   I can’t stand it when I open a position and an hour later I get a call from someone saying “…I see that you just posted xyz position open, do you need help?”  Or I see you have (fill in the blank for an entry level position) open, can we work on that?  In the first case, it would be rare that I would feel that we needed outside help and that I would post the position without already talking to someone, in the second case, I honestly should be fired it I can’t find an entry level person. 
4. Don’t be clueless
   If I am going to go to a hiring manager and recommend that we use you, do you really think if you call me and you know nothing about my company, the role, the industry, the profession and already have presented a plan to fill the role that goes beyond posting something on a bunch of job boards (guess what- I know how to do that too) that you are going to be the one I recommend?  Don’t waste my time, but if you want to waste yours more power to you and call someone else… 
5. Work within my process (if there is one)
   I know you hate this, but we do need to have some kind of process in place.  Most of the time, this shouldn’t get in the way and sometimes it ends up benefiting all involved.  You will also appreciate the next section though, because this is one of the things I address on the corporate side as well.

Top five things that corporate recruiters can do to work with headhunters (surprise- some of this is similar to what is above!)

1. Know yourself and/or your organization
   For the corporate side of things, we need to know our organizations, the openings, the managers, the requirements (tangible and intangible).  We also need to know what we are good at as a recruiting team and plan and react accordingly when positions are open.  So if we aren’t strong recruiting certain specialties, we need to still put our best effort in and get better at it, but also need to come up with plans that probably include placement firms to meet the objective of finding the talent we need, regardless of where it comes from.  Many organizations know when they have a tough position to work on, but they fail to do anything about it. 
2. Let go of “us vs. them”
   I sort of understand where this comes from… the adversarial relationship that some corporate recruiters hold on to.  This is a classic example of you get what you incent.  In the past, many corporate recruiting departments looked at needing a placement firm as a sign that they failed because many times that is indeed how it was viewed by leadership and internal clients.  I think this has largely changed because of the complexity of the workforce and the acknowledgement that everyone cannot be good at everything.  Placement firms do need to be used diligently (I would not be employed if suddenly 80% of the placements came from outside firms), but the adversarial view needs to go and good placement firms need to viewed as partners and an extension of the internal teams capability.  I can’t stand it when a corporate recruiter will keep doing things they know have very little chance of working just to keep from using an outside firm. 
3. Get out of the way
   Corporate Recruiters also need to know when to get out of the way.  We have a role in helping with the selection of the placement firm, negotiating the contracts, setting up reasonable processes, etc., but beyond that the gate keeper mentality needs to go.  Once the contract is in place, let the placement firm talk to the hiring manager directly, there is no value in the corporate recruiter relaying this level of information.  Have the placement firm submit directly to the hiring manager and have them cc: you so the candidate can be checked out internally (did they recently apply, are they a former employee?) and set up regular short status meetings so all those involved can stay on top of issues.  Beyond that step aside! 
4. Don’t be clueless
   Nothing drives me nuts like when I ask a Recruiter to tell me about the role they have been working on for 2 months and all they can do is stumble around while they read me the posting… really?  Well since we’ve submitted 20 people that meet those requirements, perhaps it’s time to actually pin the manager down on what they really want!  We need to know the department, the manager, the role, the skills needed, etc.  If we don’t then we have failed and certainly if the placement firm is not able to find this out, they will also fail. 
5. Create a reasonable process
   I touched on this a bit in number 3, but it’s worth emphasizing.  Make sure the process you have is reasonable.  This starts with a reasonable contract and as little intervention as possible by you.  Good people can only do good work when they are allowed to by not having others get in the way.  I think it’s reasonable to sit in on the meeting or conference call as the placement firm talks to the hiring manager (you will probably learn some things), but it’s not reasonable to be the gate keeper and not allow the placement firm to speak to the manager at all.  It is reasonable to ask to be copied on submissions so you can check on past interactions with the candidate (if any), but I would be cautious in requiring that resumes be submitted to you and then you in turn send them on to the manager.

Conclusion

I certainly understand where a lot of the problems with the corporate recruiter placement firm relationship come from.  Past measures of success (or failure) are among them, but there is an unfortunate number of placement firms that are not interested in being anyone’s partner and are only interested in fees and still more that are not malicious, but are either poorly run or are trying too hard to be what they are not.

On the corporate side, the problems also abound, with Recruiters that are nothing more than administrators that process paper to those that have no clue what their internal clients need to those that simply insecure.

Successful organizations realize that there are plenty of problems on both sides and work toward resolving them by having a strong review process in place for placement firms and in coaching and sometimes removing recruiters when they do not align themselves with the greater needs of the organization.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!

© 2011 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

What if this is the new normal?

What if this is the new normal?

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: Nearly all

One thing that I wondered when watching the weather here in Southern California was, if were always below “normal” or average rainfall, shouldn’t the average (or “normal”) start to move down until it reaches some sort of equilibrium, where recent “normal” is roughly equal to reported or referenced “normal?”

As I thought about this, I began thinking about the employment market and how long this recession has been and how much longer it seems like it might be, when a similar thought hit me… what if this is the “new normal?”

So if  the new normal is 9.0%+ long term unemployment, wild swings in the market, complete lack of consumer confidence and next to nothing housing market what does that mean to us in talent acquisition?  Do we throw out all the old strategies because all our positions are filled?  Do we shift to becoming gatekeepers again?  Do we do something entirely different?  The answers could be different than what you expect.

Top three impacts

Impact number one- working longer whether they want to or not
We need to be prepared for people to work with our organizations not only longer, but we need to be ready for them to work with us when they really didn’t want to.  This is not just about people working past retirement, although that is part of this, its people that are working with you because they have few other options.  This can be someone that was highly competent and motivated 6 years ago, but now they are ready for a change but cannot find that opportunity because of the market.  What does all this mean?  We need to have strong performance management systems in place, proactive practices that identify when someone is struggling and/or dissatisfied and good tools for assessing what the true root cause of the problem is.  Companies need to look at themselves from a cultural perspective and decide exactly how much they are going to be willing to work with people to resolve these issues and be consistent as litigation will likely increase as frustrations among workers continue to build.

We also need to have strong succession plans in place for when people do leave as it may be a sudden move… whether it be the person that gets fed up with waiting and just leaves one day or someone that moves quickly out of fear of losing a new opportunity, we need to be ready to turn around much more quickly than we have before with much more purpose.

Impact number two- smart screening
Screening technologies and techniques could become more critical than any of us thought if unemployment continues to remain high.  We will need to build competency assessment systems that not only give us basic information about what someone knows, but will need to be strong enough and reliable enough for us to be able to convince doubting managers that even though someone has been out of the workforce for 5 years, the tool indicates that they have remained competent and that this is the individual we should hire.  Sadly in a market with prolonged unemployment, the best person for the position may be the person that does not have a job right now.

The system also needs to be reliable for another reason; it needs to be able to withstand close scrutiny in a court and by government agencies like EEOC, OFCCP and state agencies like DFEH.  Complaints, charges and lawsuits go hand in hand with frustrated people and we’ve seen this already for some time.

Impact number three- social media and CRM become more important
Being able to fill positions quickly from a group of potential candidates that are already engaged, interested and perhaps somewhat pre-qualified may become a critical firewall for companies that are trying to shield themselves from mass numbers of candidates and the potential liability that could come along with them.

Companies could build relationships with people on social media sites, eventually move them into a talent community and start marketing new positions to them first.  Of course you could not exclusively market to them, you do need to make your positions publically available, but you can significantly shorten the time your position is open to the public by having people ready and engaged for opportunities with your company.

Conclusion
While I hope this is not the “new normal” I think it is prudent for all of us to think about what that could mean for our respective organizations.  Obviously my top impacts may be very different than an organization with a strong international presence or that works with a different segment of the market than I do.

In either case, we may need to be prepared to both screen and engage people at the same time, which is a challenge for many of us.

In reality, whether this is the “new normal” or not, these practices are sound ones that would be good to pursue in any economic environment.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!

© 2011 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

Let’s make employee opinion surveys meaningful…

Let’s make employee opinion surveys meaningful…

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: Your organizations ability to source candidates and Your organizations ability to sell open positions

At most organizations employee opinion surveys (EOS) are viewed skeptically.  Employees roll their eyes, thinking that once again they are asking for my opinion and it will lead to nothing.   The managers, namely the ones that need the feedback most, hate this exercise because it only confirms what they don’t want to admit.  Human Resources beats their head against the wall because they have to administer this ritual only to be frustrated by the combination of suspected poor managers being confirmed as such with actual data and the lack of willingness by leadership to do anything about it.

I could point out the obvious things that we should be doing, anchoring portions of the manager’s annual bonus to their EOS score, recognizing those that are doing a great job or, the most obvious, simply doing something about those that perform poorly.

But I am not here to point out the obvious… I am here to share something different.

What if, we borrowed some concepts from the familiar practice of peer reviews on product and retail sites like Amazon.com?  What if we put the overall EOS score for each department on their job postings?

Resistance
I’ll be the first to admit that my own organization probably wouldn’t go as far as putting every departments overall score on the departments postings, but I think this is something to move toward.

Certainly the knee-jerk reaction would be “are you crazy?” from both leadership and Human Resources.  VPs and Directors would immediately know and be concerned about the impact on recruiting for poor performing departments… after all, who in their right mind would apply for a position where the department’s score is 1 out of 5 or even 2 out of 5?

The real problem
What is more disappointing is that we allow unsuspecting candidates to apply for those positions out of ignorance…  How upset would you be if you found out that a retail website was actually withholding or manipulating peer review scores on their products?  I suspect you would be pretty pissed.  If pervasive enough, there would likely be investigations and inquiries from the authorities and tremendous brand damage…  But here we are, essentially doing the same thing!

But once again, since we all live in the Information Age, anyone that thinks they control information simply by suppressing it is delusional at best and is doing more harm than good.

As we all should have learned by now from social media, just because we aren’t talking doesn’t mean that no one is talking.

The problem is the person doing the talking is generally a disgruntled employee that is really “motivated” and they are going to any number of sites to let everyone know what they think about your poor performing department.

Don’t believe me?  Go to Glassdoor.com and see what is listed about your company.  This is in addition to anything people are saying on social media and to their friends.

So once again, we have turned the conversation over to a wacko and we’re hoping that no one listens…

What’s worse is that you can’t win either way on these sites… any positive reviews are a best viewed with suspicion that the post was from someone who has other motivations (i.e. HR).

A better way
Now let’s imagine an alternative where your company takes the bold step of posting all their EOS scores.

Managers would suddenly pay attention to the scores, for different reasons, but they will be focused them.  They could be concerned about being able to recruit staff (and funny the bad ones probably need to recruit the most), they may be concerned about how their director of VP would react, but I suspect for most it will be that they simply don’t want to look bad in front of everyone.   What is nice is that the ones that need help will be more motivated to seek it.

Some employees that weren’t being honest before will be honest now.  Why?  Because even the semi-smart ones will realize that if I am slamming the boss just to slam them, they will have a hard time hiring new people to replace those that left, leaving more people for the remaining staff.

Employees will also see that the survey has value.  Instead of just being an exercise of checking off the EOS box for the next “Best Placeto Work” survey there is useful, actionable data and rewards and consequences for managers.

Human Resources will finally see that something constructive is being done with the survey information and perhaps this will be just the beginning of things that make EOS worth it.

Candidates will obviously gravitate to higher rated departments and will likely respect the organization for putting the scores on postings.  The company would also get a great boost in word of mouth type recognition among prospective candidates for being open and honest.

Retention would also improve because candidates will make more informed decisions.  Your company would also decrease the brand damage from good talent coming into bad departments and leaving to tell anyone that may consider your company how bad it is.

Information on sites like Glassdoor would still be posted and reviewed, but if your site has EOS data on it, many prospective candidates would not feel the need to check the site.  Those that do go to Glassdoor will realize that they can check the comments posted there against the EOS information to see if it matches or if there is inconsistency between the two, allowing them to make a more informed decision.

Ways to implement
I would be surprised if most companies posted EOS scores for all their departments, but there is a less threatening way to at least start adding some of the information.

I suggest that you start with posting EOS information about the best performing departments only.  You could work with Marketing or your Advertising Agency to create a special logo that indicates if a department is a “Top 10” department as rated by its employees, or the top department at a particular site, etc.

This allows the concept to get started as a recognition program.  Which will encounter significantly less resistance after all, how could leadership not support both lending credibility to the EOS and having a cheap (nearly free) way to recognize high performing departments?

This could set the stage to later expand the program in the future to include more and more scores until they become more widely used.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!

© 2011 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

Why Hiring Managers Don’t Get It

Why Hiring Managers Don’t Get It

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: All

If you’ve worked in Recruiting for any time, you’ve said it, or something like it, “…why don’t they get it?” with they being the hiring managers.

While I don’t know why they don’t get it all the times we sit and wonder “what were they thinking…” I do know why they don’t get it sometimes, so today I will explore the top three complaints about hiring managers that I’ve heard and what we can do about it.

The manager doesn’t know what they are looking for…

So you’ve sent a ton of qualified people and none of them meet the manager’s needs, they all are missing something, or they don’t “fit in.”

What do you do?

A)   Keep sending more candidates

B)   Stop sending candidates

C)   Send an inquiry to the manager and hope it isn’t ignored (like your candidate submittals)

D)   Stop sending candidates, meet with the manager and nail down what they are really looking for

Now, the sad thing is, for some of you there is the answer that you see on paper and know is right and there is the entirely different thing that you actually do.

This is the classic, “the hard thing to do and the right thing to do are the same thing” issue.  I know that politically this can be hard and sometimes the managers like to yell and scream and complain to your VP, but guess what, they are probably going to complain anyway and you might as well get complained about while doing the right thing vs. doing the wrong thing or the passive aggressive thing.

In some organizations we have “commoditized” candidates to our hiring managers.  What I mean is that they simply don’t care about candidates because from their perspective we don’t care either.  If they ignore the candidates, we keep sending more, if they ignore our emails, we still keep sending more candidates and we don’t even bother to make a big deal out of being ignored.

We need to teach the managers that candidates cannot be “commoditized” and that damage will be done to the employment brand if prospective candidates feel that your organization is the infamous resume “black hole.”

Will changing these managers mindset be difficult and take a long time?  Absolutely, but your only other alternative is to keep allowing it to happen and allow your employment brand to be destroyed in the process.

The posting/job description is bad…

So you have one of those verbose job postings that say something like this.

Nurse
Valid nursing license
Perform nursing duties
Apply now

So what do you do?

A)   Accept the description as is

B)   Send the description back asking the manager to provide something more descriptive

C)   Write something better yourself

D)   Meet with the manager, determine what the true requirements are, gather enough information about the role and the department so that you can write something compelling that you can use now and for future postings.

Once again, the right answer is obvious on paper but it is not what we sometimes do.

In this case I believe that even more of the responsibility is with the Recruiter.  Hiring managers should not be expected to do anything more than put some real thought into the job requirements and answer your questions about the role and the department.

Hiring managers are not Recruiters, just like Engineers are not Marketers, and we shouldn’t be surprised when managers do not know how to write a compelling paragraph about why someone should want to work for their department.  At best you will get the generic “we do challenging work” and “we have great people” or “we are like a family” crap that we have seen all too often.

Once again, we are our own worst enemies by not understanding what our role and responsibility is.  I agree that we cannot write the posting in a complete vacuum, but that does not absolve us of all responsibility, far from it!

The manager never gets back to me…

 

You have sent a fair number of candidates to the hiring manager for review and you have not heard back from them… you have tried a couple times to get feedback, but haven’t heard anything of substance.

What should you do?

A)   Accept that you won’t get feedback and keep sending more people

B)   Stop sending people until the hiring manager answers the email you sent a week ago

C)   Stop sending people and meet with the manager to determine how you can get feedback from them

Another case where the right answer is easy to spot and we many times will do something else.

The tired old saying is that “insanity is trying the same thing over and over again expecting a different result” and this is another example of that.

We need to take charge and find the solution to our problems and in this case it could be simply that the manager does not communicate effectively (or at all) in your chosen medium.  I would much rather be in a meeting with my VP trying to explain why a position isn’t filled with three or four different ways I have tried to communicate with the manager about candidate status than to only be able to say “well I emailed them a  couple times…” That simply isn’t an excuse.

Conclusion

I have found that the vast majority of challenges with hiring managers fall into two categories.

Communication issues
The fact that a problem exists indicates to me that the manager either cannot communicate or doesn’t feel it is a priority to communicate.  Our responsibility is to facilitate a means of communication by finding what works and to make it a priority for the hiring manager by leveraging what we can.  Most of the time, bringing it to their attention and letting them know it is important to you too is enough.  Sometimes, you need to leverage the fact that they have a position to fill and you are the one that can solve their problem.

Unrealistic expectations
It is natural for people to assign higher importance to what they do than what others might, after all most of us don’t work in a profession because we feel it is unimportant.  It is also natural for us not to understand that what we know as important is not instinctively important to another person in another field.  So we need to help others understand better why what we feel is important is important to them.

What all this comes down to is that our scope of responsibility as Recruiters is larger that perhaps we realize or would like it to be.  We need to control what we can control and often times that is simply trying a new way or an alternate way of doing things.  We need educate managers about why things are important.  We need to realize that it is our responsibility to not allow hiring managers, knowingly or unknowingly, to take advantage of us or our candidates by commoditizing them.

We need to take responsibility for the recruiting process, be stewards of the employment brand and when push comes to shove, get our critical issues up on the list of important items that our hiring managers struggle with everyday because we arguably one of the few groups that can actually resolve very critical issues for the manager if we can get them to take the time to help us, help them.

Next month will be my end of year report card on my 2010 predictions!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!

© 2010 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

ATS v2.0 is more than just changing the name to TMS

ATS v2.0 is more than just changing the name to TMS

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: All of segment two with the exception of Universal Variables

I remember the days when there were only really two ATS systems, Resumix and Res Track and how I was amazed that something could search through thousands of resumes and deliver ones with keywords you input in a matter of minutes.

That was before the internet and long before Google allowed us to search billions of sites to find information that we need, no matter how obscure.

Since those early days of the ATS we have seen it change somewhat, but perhaps not as much as one would have expected given that my experience was more than 15 years ago.

Many argue that the ATS really serves as an electronic file cabinet and that it hasn’t changed significantly.  Since their inception, the only substantial change has been that it “integrates” with other products like background checking systems, HRIS, etc. and is much simpler to configure by a user.

I believe that “integration” is merely a fancy way of saying “file transfer” or electronic paper shuffling.   As we all know, administrative tasks are far from the most important thing about recruiting… it’s about the relationship, the brand, the marketing plan and so many other things before merely retrieving information and sending it off somewhere else.

We are already seeing headhunters starting to move away from the ATS/TMS in favor of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool because with some modification they can handle the electronic paper shuffling, but are far more effective at helping manage a relationship with a candidate, which is vital to a good headhunter.

I believe that we are not far from seeing small corporate environments make the shift to CRM if some haven’t already done so and quite probably a CRM vendor making a serious run at the ATS/TMS market.

But a CRM is only part of the solution.

So ATS/TMS vendors, here are my thoughts on what I think v2.0 of your space should be:

Use your current product as a baseline to launch into entirely new areas

While I do think that information retrieval and integration is far from meeting all our needs, it remains an important base component, so continue to develop and refine this.

Create real CRM capability so we can engage candidates over the long term

I know an ATS/TMS cannot include all the elements that a sales CRM can; but there are many elements that it could.  Some ATS vendors say their product can be used for CRM but I am willing to bet at best it allows someone to do some mass e-mails to semi targeted groups, enables people to be notified about jobs and track notes of conversations that a Recruiter inputs.  It may even integrate with Outlook to let a Recruiter create tasks and calendar items, but that is clunky and not enough.  But systems need to support Recrutments shift from being about how quickly one can fill the job most cheaply to building relationships with strong candidates over a period of months to perhaps years.   We need to be able to engage candidates using a variety of tools that works seamlessly by helping us set up an engagement plan ahead of time for each critical candidate group and executing the plan with little manual effort.

Help Recruiters create and execute maketing plans for each specific position

I would like to see an ATS allow a Recruiter or Recruiting leadership to sit down and think about how to promote a position ahead of time and with some input and guidance have the system execute that plan with only conformational input from the Recruiter.  For example, A Recruiter is about to open a tough to fill position.  They input some information and not only does the system present back some recommendations of where to promote the position (some systems do this already) but will allow the Recruiter to either follow a predefined plan that Recruiting leadership has input or create a new plan to be approved by leadership.  Thirty days after the position has opened, the system will prompt the Recruiter to post the position to a particular Twitter feed or send a message out to specific employees to solicit employee referrals, pushes the position out to company alumni that fit a relevant set of criteria and sends the information out to specific user groups.

Real integration with social media

I have seen systems that allow people to share information off the careers site and may support a Twitter and Facebook feed, which is a great first step, but I would like to see a system that not only integrates with multiple Twitter feeds, but helps manage a marketing plan that includes social media, and also searches social media sites for potential candidates by matching requirements of critical jobs with profiles on social media platforms.  Some systems do some of this, but it is not a robust and reliable as it should be. In addition, a system that would allow a Recruiter to manage conversations with multiple people across multiple platforms is also critical. Conversations with leads generated via social media interactions would have to be kept separate from notes about interactions with candidates, but many systems already allow leads and candidates to be kept separately.

A mobile site

There are some great vendors out there with very good modestly priced mobile website products, but I why can’t an ATS that can power a corporate career site also provide a mobile site that facilitates a seamless experience for the candidate.

Robust real time metrics and analytics

This is perhaps the thing that has disappointed all of us most about the ATS. There are some that are more successful than others, but even the best ones seem to fall a little short at times.  So I cannot write this entry without asking for something more about metrics.  We need more than marginally reliable sourcing information.  I need to see website analytics that I can slice and dice information by source, by time, region, yield ratio, etc.  I need to be able to take any two variables and associate them to see if there is a relationship.  At the most basic level, I need to be able to measure not just the pedestrian measurements of cost per hire and time to fill, but more important things like quality of hire throughout an employee’s tenure and the Recruiter Efficiency Ratio developed by Dr. John Sullivan and Staffing.org, etc.

Conclusion

So I have shared my thoughts, but what are yours? Feel free to let us know what you would like to see in an ATS/TMS.

Until next month…

© 2010 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

Recruiting metrics by the dashboard light

Recruiting metrics by the dashboard light

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: Directly- Your Organizations Ability to Source Candidates.

Being an active networker I get the opportunity to talk to other recruiting leaders from a variety of industries and parts of the country.

Invariably, the conversation turns to organizational performance and how well we are doing and how well they are doing.  This isn’t a surprise, but what is a surprise to me is how many people still use old, pedestrian metrics to measure their performance.

Today I wanted to share my thoughts on recruitment metrics and see what your thoughts are.

My view of metrics

To me metrics generally fall into 3 categories.  To make this somewhat simpler, I will use driving a car as a metaphor.

“GPS Metrics”

The first category is what you may call “GPS metrics.”  These metrics allow you to see where you are going to, what your objective is, etc.  Just like a GPS system in your car, they indicate where you are going, what progress you have made and some of the potential obstacles you may run into (traffic, accidents, etc.).

So, what are these metrics in Recruiting?  They are driven by your strategic initiatives.  So a common measure may be top of mind awareness by candidates, which would be a measure of the effect of nearly all your advertising efforts.  If you are moving into Social Media, it may be the number of fans, friends, followers or connections that you have, or the number of referrals that you are getting or the message traffic among community members.

Just like your destination is not always the same when you drive, with some being more difficult to reach or being further away, these metrics change depending on where you are going as an organization.

“Speedometer/Windshield Metrics”

These metrics allow you to see a snapshot of what you are doing at the moment.  For example, in a car, no matter where you are heading to, your speed is your speed.  It does have some impact on when you will get to where you are going, but going faster or slower does not change the destination.  Fortunately that also means that this set of metrics is less dynamic than the ones I described earlier.  The items measured on the dashboard of your car remain the same over time.  There is a speedometer, maybe a gauge that indicates your engines RPMs, and perhaps some other gauges.  While the readings may change, the items you are monitoring remain the same.

So what are these measures in Recruiting?  Two critical ones that come to mind are Quality of Hire and the Recruiter Efficiency Ratio that is supported by Dr. John Sullivan.  Just like the dashboard in your car provides you with information about the immediate impact of your inputs on the vehicle, these measures do something similar within your recruiting organization.

“Warning Light Metrics”

These metrics can be critical (like the red check engine light) or simply a warning (like the yellow low fuel light).  So if a red warning light comes on while you are driving, that means that a critical system is experiencing a problem and you should pull over immediately, and if a yellow light comes on, that means you should address the issue soon, but it’s OK to keep driving the car.

Oddly, these are the metrics that I am most often asked about.  Measures like cost per hire, time to fill, time to start, new candidates received and to some degree the Source of Applicants are all common metrics that I am asked about.  If this is something beyond a casual conversation (say during an interview), it really makes me wonder about the organizations operations.

Am I saying they shouldn’t be monitored at all?  Absolutely not, there are times that they come in handy.  For example, we recently moved away from one of our job boards.  Potential negative impacts of this change could be seen in cost per hire, time to fill and new candidates received.

Conclusion

We all know that if someone decided to drive their car by only staying focused on the warning lights of our dashboard, we would crash very quickly.  Being focused on the speedometer and looking out the windshield is certainly better, and may be OK for basic “around the town” driving.  But if you really want to take your organization someplace new, you have to start measuring something that gives you the bigger view!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!

© 2010 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

Six Sigma in Recruiting- Part II

Six Sigma in Recruiting- Part II

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: Nearly all of segment two except the universal variables

This article continues and completes our look at the Six Sigma Recruitment project we completed.

Why Variability is the Enemy

Very often we focus on what we perceive is broken, not on how stable a process is.  Process steps become black and white.  We all know that things aren’t that simple.

So why should we care about variability?  Because variability is the one thing you cannot plan for very effectively.  Stop and think about it… we all have things that we need to do that we know are almost always inefficient and we plan and anticipate accordingly.

For example, if you always knew that you could get in and back out of a certain store in less than 10 minutes, you can figure out easily if you have time to stop by that store before your next appointment.  Even if you knew that you could never get out of that store in less than an hour (although you also know that it shouldn’t take that long) again, you could easily figure out whether or not you have enough time to stop by before your next appointment.

So, what if the visit to the store took 5 minutes 40% of the time, 10 minutes 5% of the time, 30 minutes 30% of the time and 60 minutes 25% of the time?  There would be no way you could figure out if you could stop by before an upcoming appointment…  At best you would be hoping to be lucky!  This is why variability is the enemy.  People cannot plan and cannot rely on the process.

How Does Six Sigma Work in Recruitment

As you know, I look at Recruitment as a supply chain.  To apply Six Sigma to Recruitment is relatively easy in concept, but admittedly more difficult for some in practice.

Just as with any other process, Six Sigma will ask that you document your existing process, step by step, including how things inter-relate, how long each step should take place and what each step consists of.

If they don’t already exist, you will need to determine (or Define from DMAIC) guidelines for each step with the customers needs in mind.  Within Recruitment hiring managers are typically defined as the customer and candidates are typically defined as the product.  You will then compare how your actual process performs to how you think it needs to perform to meet everyone’s needs.

Sounds simple, but trust me, this can become very complicated.

Things to Know Before Taking on a Six Sigma Project

There are a few things that you need to know when you consider a Six Sigma Project.

The first is that Six Sigma is extremely data dependent.  If you do it right, simply sitting back and saying “I think we take two days to contact an applicant” is not good enough.  That way of thinking may be the reason why a Six Sigma project is needed!  You need to actually measure… many times, people are surprised by the disconnect between how they think the process works and how it actually works.

So your ATS either has to be able to give you numbers that you can rely on, or you need to be able to get them another way.

The next thing you need to know is that data is a double edged sword.  When the Six Sigma project was announced a handful of managers actually stood up and clapped.  They thought this would finally reveal that Recruitment was the cause of their inability to fill positions.

The funny thing is that those voices suddenly fell extremely silent when the process review finished with Recruitment and found mostly minor issues that were not accounting for the scope of variability…  Those same managers recognized if Recruitment’s taking 2 days in a 60-90 day process and HR is taking 5 days then I must be taking 53-83 days.

You can imagine how a vocal critic would suddenly wish the project would go away.

The final thing you need to know that I will share is that you need to be open to other peoples input and perceptions.  The process has a good way of getting information about processes out to people and breaking down perceptions that are false.  One may believe a process that takes 5 days is way too long, but when they look at it they realize that 5 days is actually very quick.  Conversely, we need to be open to hearing that there may be a difference between what we think the customer wants and what they actually want.  It is this openness that will determine if the project is successful or not.

Results

So you may be wondering how well we are doing with our project, when the project took place, what are our results.

We have made some significant improvements, but as I mentioned, we have things that we can still work on.  There are things I would like to see our ATS provide, that I am hoping will come when we complete our upgrade.  We can still make improvements to our website.  Of course there are always a host of other things we can do better!

The results I am sharing are the product or many things, including Six Sigma.  We are a large organization with lots of improvement initiatives going on at any given time.  We also must not forget about things like employment market conditions, etc. that have an impact on our performance.

Our project started in November 2005 and finished in the summer of 2006.

All the measurements listed below indicate the change as of June 2009 compared to March 2005 unless otherwise noted.

Open Positions

78% reduction

Time to Fill

32% reduction CY 2009 as of June compared to all of CY 2005

New Applicants

79.6% increase

Applicants per Posting

216% increse

Registry (short term interim staffing coverage for RN positions)

52.9% reduction in costs

54.6% reduction in hours worked

Traveler (long term interim staffing coverage for RN positions- 13 week assignments)

34.9% reduction in hours worked

Quality of Hire (as measured by changes average merit increase for those hired after the project started)

FY 2004 vs. FY 2005: 15.3% increase

FY 2004 vs. FY 2006:  23.1% increase

FY 2006 vs. FY 2007: 20.5% increase

FY 2007 vs. FY 2008: 23.1% increase

Conclusion

As funny as this may sound during a Six Sigma article, I think the non-measureable benefits are the most important ones.

These include things as simple as better relationships with the managers, including having the Recruiters receive more recognition from them and being able to provide our input to the managers with more confidence and more acceptance.

We also have a much more data driven justifiable approach to reviewing new media and other initiatives that make us more comfortable taking risks.

Another boost to our credibility is the awards that our team has won recognizing our efforts and our use of resources.

So I always highly recommend looking at your processes to try to improve and stay head of your competition.  Six Sigma is a great way to approach making changes, but it also is not for everyone.

I believe that there is greater benefit to trying Six Sigma and later finding it’s not the right approach than not doing anything.  Even getting just part way through the process will provide benefits for your organization!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!  All the best to you until next month!

© 2009 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

Six Sigma in Recruitment- Part I

Six Sigma in Recruiting- Part I

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: Nearly all of segment two except the universal variables

Six Sigma seems to be a hot topic within Recruitment and there is certainly good reason for it.  This methodology has a proven track record that helps organizations improve processes in a sustainable manner based on data, not emotions or best guesses when correctly and fully deployed.

A lot of people within Recruitment have only a limited understanding of Six Sigma other than it is an approach to improving processes.

Recently I was asked to give two presentations on the topic because my organization completed a Six Sigma Recruitment project with significant results.  The first of these presentations was co presented by one of our Six Sigma Black Belts.  An archived copy of the presentation is available to members of the Human Capital Institute if you’d like to check it out.  Of course as an organization, we still have opportunities to improve, but the project set us on a new path which delivers value add well beyond the scope of the original project.

What is Six Sigma?

Six Sigma is a data driven methodology that strives to bring a process to levels of near perfection by reducing variability.

The term Six Sigma is actually a mathematical term that refers in this case to “defects per million.”  So something that is one sigma has 697,672 defects per million pieces or roughly 70% of your product is defective.  Something that is six sigma has 3.7 defects per million pieces or roughly .0003% of your product is defective.  So as you can see, there is a dramatic difference as we move up the sigma levels.  Most processes and organizations operate at approximately the 3-4 sigma level or .7% defective.

Translating these numbers into real world examples, comparing the classical view of being 99% reliable as good (or about 3.8 sigma) to six sigma means that the postal service would go from losing 20,000 articles of mail to 7.  The US would go from 5,000 incorrect surgical operations per week to 1.7.  We would go from 2 long or short runway landings at most major airports per day to 1 long or short runway landing at most major airports every five years.

Within Six Sigma there are also supporting approaches that enable to project to run more successfully.  They are DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) and Lean.

DMAIC

So you probably already have an understanding of what DMAIC is just from what I mentioned above, but let me take you a little more into a couple of the pieces that I think people easily overlook, which is Define and Control.

Define- I cannot say how many times I have been involved in a project only to stop about half way through and ask “what does success look like on this?” with no good answers.  We are very good at focusing on task completion, or milestone achievement, but that is almost always just part of the story.  During this initial phase of the project, you have to find a way to really look at your objective.  It’s got to be SMART or specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time oriented.

For example, we are currently upgrading our ATS.  I could say the goal is simply that we upgrade to the new version by a certain date.  But is that the real measure of success?  Of course not!  We need to not only upgrade by a certain date, but we need to pick up certain tangible capabilities, we need to see measurable improvements to processes, we need to see measurable improvements to system reliability and staff productivity.

Control- This is where many projects fail.  Once we finish implementing many times we walk away thinking we’re done.  Nothing can be further from the truth… that is like saying that once you get married you no longer need to worry about your relationship.

So the key is to set up processes, measurements and structures that allow you to hold onto your gains.  Failure to do so is what has led to the cynicism that many of us have when a new initiative is unveiled.

Lean

At this point you may be wondering what Lean is.  Lean is what I would describe as a complimentary process to Six Sigma.  While Six Sigma focuses on reducing variability, Lean focuses on reducing waste with the idea of making the process efficient (or lean) and improving process velocity (right direction and speed).

So how does Lean work with Six Sigma?  There are two uses for Lean in Six Sigma that come to mind.  Lean is a good approach to improving smaller scale processes or one where you know which step(s) present challenges.  The second benefit is that it can be used to eliminate waste which is making it difficult to complete an accurate Six Sigma review.  Waste clouds the data that you are gathering as part of your review and makes it more difficult to identify true root causes.

A key part of a Lean process review simply asking why.  Look at a process, ask why are we doing this or why does that happen?  When you get the answer, ask why do we need that?

A great example that I saw during my training involved one of the monuments in Washington DC.  They had a problem with the statues rusting faster than they should have.  So here is how just asking why got them to a solution:

Why are the statues rusting faster than they should?

Because there are a lot of birds that congregate in the monument and they do what birds do (hint: they do the same thing to your car after you wash it).

Why are the birds congregating in the monument?

Because there is large population of spiders (mostly harmless) that resides within the monuments structure and the birds feed on the spiders.

Why is there a large population of spiders that reside within the monument structure?

Because there are a lot of insects in and around the monument which the spiders feed upon.

Why are there a lot of insects in and around the monument?

Because in the evening the monument is illuminated, this attracts insects.

The root cause of the statues rusting is the lighting.  I am willing to bet that no one would have guessed that.  The lighting attracts the insects which create an environment desirable to the spiders; which then attract the birds that then accelerate the process of rusting.

If we eliminate the insects the entire chain of events that lead to the problem is broken.  So what did they do?

They illuminated the monument later in the evening which apparently reduced the number of insects enough to break the chain of events.

Certainly if this was only one of many reasons that led to the problem, implementing this simple corrective measure would make it much easier to focus on other causes to address.

So next month we will complete our talk about Six Sigma in Recruitment by talking about why variability is the enemy, how Six Sigma works in Recruitment and of course, our results.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!  All the best to you until next month!

© 2009 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved