Monthly Archives: June 2019

@ZipRecruiter Launches a New Product to Help Get Candidates Recruited by You!

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I’ve been trying to tell people for the past year or so that you shouldn’t be sleeping on ZipRecruiter. They have quietly been working on their tech with their heads down and they might currently be the best value recruiting product on the planet that no one is really talking about.

Well, yesterday they launched another product enhancement that is an AI-based matching technology to help candidates get recruited by organizations. Check it out:

The company’s AI-powered matching technology now instantly presents strong-fit potential candidates to hiring managers who post a job on ZipRecruiter. Employers can signal their interest with a single click, and ZipRecruiter connects the two sides to fast-track the hiring process.

“The number one job seeker complaint is applying to jobs and hearing nothing back,” said Ian Siegel, ZipRecruiter Co-Founder and CEO. “We’ve flipped the process on its head by letting employers initiate first contact. Job seekers can, of course, still apply to jobs, but now employers have the option to, in effect, apply to job seekers.” 

The product debuted in early April. During that month, 624,000 job seekers received outreach from employers, contributing to a 13% month-over-month increase in hires* across ZipRecruiter.

Here’s what Zip has figured out. The single most powerful recruiting tool any organization has is its ability to make candidates feel wanted. Sure they can make more candidates apply to your jobs, but what candidates really want is for you to want them. That’s a powerful attraction component that we miss when all we think about is getting more applies.

Having AI reach out and match candidates and give your recruiters the ability with one touch to show interest will deliver a highly engaged candidate that matches the needs of the position. With really very little effort on your teams part to get it all started.

Good, solid candidates, the kind that doesn’t need to apply to jobs, want to be wanted. We all want to be wanted.

Now, this might sound like recruiting 101, but the sad fact is most corporate recruiting, especially for SMBs, is just post and pray. Post a job on a site like Zip and pray someone will apply. This doesn’t work when there are over 6 million jobs out there for candidates to apply to! We have to show candidates we are interested in them and ZipRecruiter has created a technology that will make this simple and efficient.

Take a look and check it out, well worth a demo. ZipRecruiter is very inexpensive to test, so there’s really no reason not to.

Career Confessions of Gen Z: “Greener Grass”

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A criticism I often hear of my generation is that we don’t stay at a job or company as long as previous generations. I call it “grass is greener” thinking. It’s on my mind often, both because of the direct and indirect experiences in my own career. I wish I had a clearer position on it, but I don’t. I’m still figuring it out and thought it might help to throw some stuff down on paper.

As with everything in our lives, we have tremendous visibility to new opportunities more than ever before. I receive daily updates of not only the new opportunities at new companies available to me but the potential earning power I might have at those opportunities. I don’t think this is a bad thing, but how will it continue to shape the way we, as Gen Z, view, interact, and ultimately move between opportunities? Furthermore, what are the positive and negatives to “grass is greener” thinking?

In my opinion, this type of thinking is ever-present early in one’s career, and it’s arguably the most important time to act, or not act, on the thought. The majority of us switch jobs at an incredible pace, and we all have our own justifications for doing so. We sometimes get frustrated at work when the fruits of our labor do not appear to pay off the way we think they should, which can lead to feeling undervalued or simply stuck. As those feelings well up inside of us, we begin to take advantage of resources that show us where the grass could be greener. Rightly so, but are we truly helping ourselves and those around us by looking at new opportunities outside of our current company?

Fully exploring and vetting a new opportunity is a TON of work. It’s not difficult to submit applications via LinkedIn, and many companies make it simple to apply to a few different positions at once. This isn’t what I am talking about. I mean actually taking the time to research the company and opportunity requires a lot of time and attention. Not simply for what both are, but also for how they align with your own goals and mission statement. Should you be fortunate enough to move through the interview process, another set of commitments begins. You may need to spend a few additional hours per week prepping, in addition to the hours you will spend interviewing. After all of this, there is still your current role. One of these opportunities will be sacrificed. If you’re thinking you can handle both, stop. Maybe you’ll get close, but one of your opportunities will take a backseat.

I think that there are serious pitfalls to juggling new opportunity exploration and current role responsibilities. What might you miss out on in your current role? You might be getting by day-to-day, but just getting by isn’t going to lead you to a promotion. Just the same, are you giving your all to exploring the new opportunity? I’d argue that people can certainly move through an interview process and successfully get the job without doing an appropriate amount of opportunity vetting. Simply put, the grass seems green, so they graze. However, after a few months, they realize that the grass isn’t greener and so begins the process of looking for something new all over again. Nobody wins in this scenario; the company is out the investment they put into the new team member, and the person has taken a few steps back, both professionally and personally.

I recently read “The Servant” by James C. Hunter, and it led me to contemplate how leadership intersects with grass is greener thinking. One of my key takeaways of the book is that leadership opportunities present themselves on a daily basis. It really doesn’t matter the position we have or where we are at in life. So, the question is, as we look for greener grass, are we being the best leader we can be? I truly am not criticizing because I don’t have the answer, but I think it’s worth pondering. If we slack a little in our current role, however minimal because we are looking for the next big thing (for ourselves), are we being a good leader? Or, if we happen to obtain that new opportunity, but ultimately find ourselves unhappy because the grass isn’t as green as we thought, are we being a good leader?

Don’t get me wrong:  As much as this sounds like a criticism of Gen Z’s insatiable desire for the next great opportunity, it isn’t. I graduated from college 6 years ago. I’ve worked at 3 different companies for an average of 2 years. Truthfully, I didn’t expect to move this much, and the jury is out on whether or not I think I’ve made the right decisions. I’ve seen a lot of positives in my moves, but I can’t overlook some of the negative impacts they have had on my career development either. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I currently work in talent engagement. The grass is greener thinking keeps me in business. However, I urge you to really think about your career. Do you want to build a portfolio of experience, or is grinding in your current role perhaps better for the long-term? I don’t know, but you will.

All of this said, at the end of the day, sometimes you need to find greener grass 🙂

What are your thoughts?

Quintin Meek a talent consultant at Pillar Technology (part of Accenture Industry X.0). Also an active member of Detroit’s startup and tech community. Every day is something new and challenging, and I am learning more than ever before. I’m finding that I’ve become a lifelong student, and I’m excited to see how that continues to shape the road ahead.

Should You Be Promoted Every 3 Years?

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If you didn’t catch it this week, a job board executive came out with how often you should be promoted early in your career. Basically, he said it should be every three years. Do you agree?

Early-career employees should aim to get a promotion around every three years, according to Ian Siegel, CEO of ZipRecruiter. “If you aren’t moving up after three years, there is a problem,” he said.
Let’s say you start your new job right out of college at 22 years old.
First job title (Individual Contributor): HR Generalist 
Second job title at 25 years old: Senior HR Generalist
Third job title at 28 years old: HR Manager 
Fourth job title at 31 years old: Senior HR Manager
Fifth job title at 34: HR Director 
Sixth job title at 37: Sr. HR Director 
Seventh job title at 41: Vice President of HR
I’ve told this story before but I had a goal coming out of college that I wanted to be a Vice President by 35 years old. I spent the early part of my career chasing titles. I became a Vice President at 38. Upon becoming a VP at 38 I immediately realized it didn’t matter at all!
Titles are organizational-size specific. If you work for a 250 person company (or a bank or a startup) becoming a VP of whatever probably isn’t too hard. If you work for a company that has 25,000 employees becoming a VP is going to take some time. Also, are you really a Vice President when you have 2 direct reports, or when you are responsible for an organization of hundreds or thousands?
The reality is titles are basically meaningless to everyone except yourself.
I think Ian’s math actually works out for large organizations. If you start working for large companies, the three-year promotional cycle probably works out in most normal economic environments for above average performers who meet the following criteria:
  1. Have the desire to continually move up.
  2. Have the ability and desire o relocate.
  3. Have a specialized skill-set or education.
  4. Have a willingness to go cross-functional and learn all parts of the business.
  5. Have the ability to play the political game.

You don’t get promoted for just showing up and doing the job you were hired to do. Every idiot in the company can do that. Showing up doesn’t make you promotable.

There are probably a few things that can help you move up faster that I think most upwardly mobile professionals don’t know. You need to make your boss know that you want to move up and you’re willing to work with them to make that happen. Working with them doesn’t mean trying to push them out, it means you will work to push them up.

You need to have a developmental plan that your boss, and maybe the boss above them, has signed off on. This plan is your responsibility, not their responsibility. If you think it’s your bosses responsibility to make your development plan and push for your promotion, you’re not someone who should be promoted. Own your own development, with their guidance.

Understand that three years in an average. You will be promoted sometimes in six months and sometimes in six years. In some career paths you’ll be promoted three times in three years, but then not again for nine. The right amount of patience is critical in getting promoted. One of the biggest mistakes I made in my career was jumping companies for a title because I thought my current boss wasn’t going anywhere and three months after I left he was promoted and told me I was in line to take his spot. I loved that job! I had no patience.

Being promoted has nothing to do with time and everything to do with you putting yourself in a position to be promoted.

 

 

 

Transform Recruitment Marketing Live Stream Registration is Now Open! (Free!)

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June 20-21st I’ll be in Boston as the Emcee at Transform Recruitment Marketing conference. This is the 5th year of Transform and I’m super excited to be attending, but also super excited that Transform has opened up this conference to a virtual audience for those who can’t attend in person, for free!

I’m constantly speaking and writing about all kinds of Recruitment Marketing tactics, ideas, and strategies. It’s still a very new and fast evolving function within talent acquisition. What I love about Transform is they’ve gone out and really worked to bring in actual corporate TA pros who are recruitment marketing practitioners to share what they are doing and what’s working for them!

The 2019 Transform conference will have speakers from: Delta Airlines (“The Kid” – Holland Dombeck), Intel, CVS, Washington Post, IBM, Sprint, Fiserv, Cox, etc. It’s loaded with practitioners sharing all of their secrets and best practices around recruitment marketing and talent attraction.

So, what do I expect to learn at this year’s Transform?

– Connecting Employee Experience and Candidate Experience

– Next generation Talent Analytics

– Increasing Conversion Ratios of Career site Visitors

– How do we recruit Gen Z vs. all the rest

– Enabling and Sustaining Your RM Strategy

– Activating Talent Communities at Scale

Plus so much more!

I love that Transform is opening up the content to a virtual audience. Let’s be honest, so many of us just can’t afford to attend a live event each year, or you already have planned a different event. Is it the same as being there in person, no, but in TA we make do with the resources we have! If you get the chance to come next year, the real miss of not being there in person is building the connections and community of other like-minded folks that you can share and build ideas from. It’s really the reason we all go to live events!

Register for the Free Virtual Transform Recruitment Marketing Conference (who won’t get all of the content, let’s be fair some great folks paid a ton of money to be with me in Boston at the Live event, but you’ll get a lot!) Already thousands have registered, so I know this content is needed by so many!