How to Hire Average Employees

February 24, 2013 By Leave a Comment

hiring_grindOver the past decade the job market has undoubtedly taken employers and applicants on a rough ride.  When the economy tanked, our country’s unemployment and jobless claims went through the roof. Knowledge workers and less-skilled workers alike went from leisurely job-hopping to knocking on every door.  Now, as the economy is balancing out, talented job seekers are once again in demand.  Employers in a variety of competitive industries are energetically seeking those job applicants that can help give them a competitive edge or just to provide dependable, high-output labor.

One confounding question that has come up during the economic ebbs and flows is:  “Why have employers stuck to the same, old hiring processes throughout it all?”  Bloomberg Businessweek recently published an article titled “Why HR can’t innovate” that examines this phenomenon.

Instead of focusing on proven methodologies for process improvement – flexibility, nimble responses and strong collaboration – most employers have instead resorted to more of the same during thick and thin; slow, mechanical and often stand-offish hiring practices that are great a fostering participation from average performers. From Bloomberg: “The whole encrusted recruiting process (not to mention unfriendly, robotic auto-responders and the unending stream of honesty tests, writing tests, and other recruiting hurdles) makes it easy for organizations to hire drones, and it makes it hard for them to hire the brilliant and complex people they need to solve their problems.”

There are always going to be a few gems in the every industry, stories about employers that have a reputation for innovative and inspiring recruiting processes.  However, for the most part, we hear about employers that simply can’t get out of their own way. If that sounds all too familiar, it’s time to ask yourself if your recruiting program is attracting real talent or just a bunch of average applicants that are willing to tolerate your ineptitude.

Even if your company has a fresh face, a ton of funding, a good reputation and decent products and services, until proven otherwise, applicants will continue to be weary of your recruiting process. It’s up to you to break the mold and make it easier to attract the best people. Surprise candidates with a slick online application process, meaningful correspondence, prompt feedback and good service. Ooze a little creativity and be inspirational. After all, as an employer you want to be in the driver’s seat to make the decisions on who you want to hire instead of settling for who you can hire.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Corporate Recruiting, HR and Recruiters the New Marketers, Industry Trends, Recruiting Advice, Recruiting Industry

3 things you must do to improve your recruiting program this year

January 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment
As a part of our blog series “HR and Recruiters the New Marketers“, I want to share practical ways HR and recruiting professionals can put real marketing concepts to work to improve corporate recruiting programs right now. Now, I am not advising everyone to run out and spend tens of thousands of dollars on full-blown employment branding initiatives (if you want to, we have a great partner for that). Rather, I am suggesting that while the year is young, HR and recruiting pros should consider creating (or revamping) a marketing framework to optimize recruiting communications. Here is where to start.


Create / refine your corporate recruiting story

The company that provides candidates with the most information almost always ‘wins’. Remember, when people look for jobs, they are simply assessing risks. Relevant, well organized information mitigates risks and assuages fears.  Your organization may not pay the most. You may not build the sexiest product. You may not provide free organic juices or host foosball tournaments. But, if you provide opportunities that truly leverage people’s strengths, reward hard work, have flexible working hours, provide good benefits, allow people to work from home, you absolutely need to communicate this and highlight your unique attributes as part of your corporate story.


When building or refining your corporate story you need to really think about your audience. Who are you trying to appeal to?  Next, think like a marketer and build a framework to organize your message. The story needs to be personal, genuine, compelling, and delivered with commitment and consistency (we’ll get into the delivery in a bit).  Below is a framework that I’ve used to build and organize Newton Software’s corporate recruiting story. When you create this think Twitter not War and Peace.


  • Mission statement: short company history, clarify our purpose, who we serve, how we provide value
  • Key differentiators:  what makes our product exceptional in a market of mediocrity
  • The culture:  how we treat our employees, why people choose to work here, what to expect

Select and educate your ambassadors

Anyone who has the opportunity to interact with a potential employee has the privilege to tell the corporate recruiting story.  Keep in mind, interview processes should be bi-directional exchanges. It’s critical to choose interviewers that will not only effectively assess skills,talent and character but are willing and able to convey the right message.  Additionally, it’s imperative that anyone that will be exposed to candidates is a trained ambassador for your recruiting brand. Everyone’s behavior has a direct impact on each candidates’ perceptions about the organization. This is easily and often forgotten.


To take this further,think about this concept in practice. You’re  a job seeker. You’ve spent a couple of hours preparing for an interview. You arrive at the interview and are greeted at the door (yes, this should be part of HR’s plan) by someone that is expecting you. Throughout the interview process, all the actors know who you are, everyone has a consistent message and  they are clearly prepared to spend time with you. Whether you loved the content of the job or not,  your impression would be that this company has its act together and they took the process seriously. More importantly, they took you seriously. That goes a long way. The bottom line is that HR and recruiting teams must build the message and everyone that touches the recruiting process  from beginning to end. Error to the side of being a control freak.


Personal Note: While I haven’t been a job seeker in a long time, I do visit lots of businesses that are interested in our applicant tracking software. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked into a company and stood around looking for someone to help me find the person that I am supposed to meet.  My first thought: is this what happens when people come in for interviews? Probably.


Create a customer experience.

As our service economy has evolved, recruiting isn’t just about processing people anymore. To attract the quality of hire necessary for modern businesses to grow, we must build relationships with candidates just as we would with potential customers. As HR professionals and recruiters, our marketing responsibilities now include creating an experience for our candidates that mimics how we treat our customers.


Professional candidates spend countless unpaid hours preparing for interviews. They research our companies on LinkedIn and Glassdoor.  They build up expectations. Unfortunately, all too often, they are met with an experience that is disappointing at best. Many candidates are still subjected to disorganized, disjointed, uncommunicative and even adversarial recruiting experiences.


By creating a recruiting process that provides candidates with a great experience – a customer experience,  you put your company in a position to make the decision as to whether you want to hire the candidate or not. Some would refer to this as being in the driver’s seat. Think of it this way,  it’s a lot easier to hire applicants when they want to come work for your organization.  Furthermore, if your recruiting process is disjointed, inconsistent, unfriendly or all of the above, you’ll not only lose the opportunity to hire top talent,  you’ll lose other hugely important hiring by-products  like employee referrals,  repeat candidates, word-of-mouth candidates, etc.


Some closing thoughts.
There is no better time for HR and recruiting professionals to build and refine marketing communication programs to support the initiatives that we own – like hiring the best people. Find time, no matter how painful that sounds, to take a step back and reflect on how your organization communicates with candidates. Examine your interview processes and find out what’s being said and how candidates are being treated. Ask yourself if you’d be excited about the opportunities being presented by your firm. I’ll bet you’ll find some things that surprise you and that you’ll want to adjust. And, I guarantee that even small changes will make a difference and allow you to be in the driver’s seat more often.



Filed Under: Blog, Corporate Recruiting, Customer Service, HR and Recruiters the New Marketers, Industry Trends, interviewing, Recruiting Advice

HR and Recruiters are the New Marketers

December 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Lately,  I’ve been thinking a lot about the intersection of human resources and marketing and how critical it is these days for HR and Recruiting professionals to think like marketers.  Admittedly, I didn’t invent this concept.  Rather, I was turned on to the idea by a London-based recruitment firm Dylan. With help from Tom Fishburne, a.k.a the Marketoonist ( by the way, a friend and former co-worker of my wife’s), the notion that HR’s role as marketers is brought alive in a speech that he gave earlier this year in London.

During his talk, Tom points out that one of the ways that we as HR and recruiting practitioners can start embracing our roles as marketers is to avoid silos. That is, we can’t operate under the pretense that marketing is not our responsibility. Marketing is everyone’s responsibility. As employees we all need have the ability to concisely communicate our corporate story. And, as HR and recruiting professionals , we of all people, need to be the ambassadors of our employment brand able to convey our organization’s unique qualities, advantages and mission expertly.  After all, our job is no longer just to ‘process’ people. Our job is to ‘influence’ people.

Read more about HR and Recruitment Marketing on Newton Software’s Applicant Tracking Software blog.

Filed Under: Blog, HR and Recruiters the New Marketers, Industry Trends, Recruiting Advice, Trends, Videos