Category Archives: Candidate Experience

What if you let your TA Interns run your campus Career Fairs? #TC18Live

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I’ve noticed something when I go onto campus for career fairs. The TA Pros that are there representing your company, don’t really want to be there. They don’t really want to be talking to students. They find this beneath them in many aspects.

That is if you’re over one year out of college! It seems like the only people who want to go on campus are your new hire recruiters. They’re super excited to go on campus! Then they get a year out and the culture beats them down and they become too ‘professional’ to talk to lame students who only want an internship, or they just want some of your swag!

Here’s what I know, when your TA interns go back to school for the year, they would love to represent you on campus to students at the fall and spring career fair! LOVE!  They would advocate for you, like your own people ever could!

What would it cost you? Like a few hours of $15/hr wage or something like that!

What would you get in return?

– “Recruiters” who love being at that career fair!

– “Recruiters” who love being at that school!

– “Recruiters” that candidates at that school would listen to!

– “Recruiters” that would do a better job than your current team!

What could go wrong?

I mean really, what would really go wrong if the interns took over a career fair? I’m guessing absolutely nothing! Oh, they might not spin bull shit as good as your internal team could spin bull shit, but on the positive side, Gen Z doesn’t really react to that style anyway!

The reality is Interns will take career fairs more seriously than your normal team. They are trying to impress you. They are trying to impress their classmates. They’ll give it their all. When was the last time you looked at your internal team and thought, “Oh boy, the team really gave it 110% on campus this season!” Never! You never thought this!

This isn’t about your team not doing well. They do fine! They’re representing you just fine. Fine. No, really, fine! The question is, do you want ‘fine’?

Sometimes the craziest ideas are the best ideas! I mean, if you have a campus that you’re just not making it happen, what do you really have to lose? Let the interns take over and they might just surprise you on how great they do. If they fail, oh well, you were sucking on that campus anyway!

Your EEOC Job Posting Statements are Hurting Your Diversity Hiring!

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Employers discriminate in hiring. This is a fact. It’s been a fact for generations. It’s the main reason anti-discrimination statements show up on job postings. That and it’s the law for Public employers and Government contractors who are required to have these statements. Many private employers use these as well to show they don’t discriminate in hiring.

For fifty years we’ve seen these statements on job descriptions and job advertisements. Recently, two Economists from the University of Chicago did a study looking at the impact of candidate behavior when these statements are added to a job posting and their findings were shocking!

In their study, the two economists posted advertisements for an administrative assistant job in ten large American cities. Of the 2,300 applicants who expressed interest, half were given a standard job description and the other half were given a description with an equal-opportunity statement promising that “all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, colour, age or any other protected characteristics”.

 

For racial minorities, those who received the pro-diversity statement were 30% less likely to apply for the job—and the effect appeared to be worse in cities with white majorities (see chart). In a follow-up survey, the prospective applicants said the statement prompted worries that they would be token diversity hires.

30% Less Likely To Apply!!! 

What the what?!?!

This isn’t a study that was done decades ago. This was done in the past twelve months!

So, what should we do? 

One thing the study found that had a positive impact on increasing diversity application is to show your senior executives, including your CEO, talk in a ‘real’ transparent way on the impact that diversity has on your organization.

No, not some overly-produced puff piece about how we are all part of the same rainbow. Include video on your career site with your CEO telling stories about how D&I isn’t just a marketing tactic, but how it’s really impacted the organization in a positive way.

Have diverse employees ask the CEO question that gets to the heart of where D&I is in your organization. Don’t be afraid about keeping this conversation open and maybe a bit uncomfortable. The more real, the more candidates will understand that you’re really trying to make a difference.

If you really want to make sure you’re not missing great minority applicants who are skipping even applying to you, embed these videos right into your job postings!

Don’t think that when you put an “EEOC” statement at the end of your job posting is letting a diverse candidate pool know you’re a great place for them to work. They don’t buy it! You have to be better than that!

Everyone Wants a Talent Brand That Candidates Love, But…

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Everyone wants a talent brand that candidates will love, but almost no Talent Acquisition function is actually willing to love those same candidates back!

You get this, right!?

Do you know why you love certain brands? It’s usually a combination of an experience you had with that brand. You loved their product or service, how they/it made you feel, how you were treated, etc. The brand made you feel like you were apart of it. That it ‘loved’ you, just even a little.

We all want to have these amazing talent brands (employment brands), but part of having that amazing brand is you have to actually truly like the candidates who are reaching out to you. This is the single biggest struggle most organizations have with establishing a real Talent Brand. We want candidates to love us, but we don’t want to love them in return!

In fact, we don’t even really want to be friends with them! Or at least that’s how we act! Most TA shops treat candidates like they’re the enemy. Very similar to how celebrities treat the media. Love us! But, we’re going to act as you annoy us! Um, what!? This is about 90% of TA shops, and they’re completely flabbergasted when the data says candidates think they’re crap!

So, you want a Talent Brand candidates will love? Try doing some of this:

1. Change your internal TA culture to start believing candidates are our friend, not the enemy! Without these wonderful candidates, we don’t have jobs! We need you!

2. Do not allow your recruiters to talk negatively about candidates. This is really hard. It’s the teacher’s lounge mentality. Well, we’re behind locked doors they don’t know what we say. It’s not about what you say, it’s about the mentality of us vs. them you’re allowing in your shop!

3. Treat your candidates like you treat your hiring managers. Unless you also treat your hiring managers like crap, then don’t do that.

4. Invite random candidates in to talk to your team about their experience, especially those who didn’t get hired. This will really open eyes.

5. Don’t allow your team to use the excuse “we don’t have time”. Nothing is more important than communicating with candidates. Nothing. It’s really your only job. Stop doing everything else, except this. Then you’ll have time.

The reality is, it’s much easier to love a brand when you believe they love you back.

Could We Use Congestion Pricing Theory in Recruiting? #SourceCon

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Oh, lord, what the heck is Sackett talking about now!?

Congestion Pricing Theory (CPT) is basically paying more for convenience. We see it used on things like tollways, where if you want to ride on this road you pay a premium, or if you want to use this certain lane on a tollway you pay more for the access to a less congested lane of traffic.

You also see it at places like the movies. You pay $12 per ticket to go to a movie on a Saturday night at 8 pm, but if you go at 10 am on a Tuesday morning, you might get that same ticket for $8. It costs more to go during the busy time.

Airlines fully embrace CPT when you pay a little more to get on the plane first so you don’t have to deal with full overhead bins, etc. Theme parks now have tickets you can buy that lets you bypass the long lanes. Congestion Pricing Theory allows consumers to pay more for what they believe is important to them.

So, could we use this model in recruiting?

Let’s say you’re Google and you have thousands of people apply to your jobs that will never get seen. Could Google use CPT to allow applicants to pay an upcharge if they were certain to have their application examined and given feedback? Maybe it’s $25.

For $25 you can be assured your application will have a real human look at it. Would you pay to ensure that would happen? Depends on the company, the job, the competition, your income level, etc. But, the reality is, if someone turns CPT on in their hiring process, and their brand is very attractive, people would pay the fee!

Now, ethically, is this right?

Ethically is it right to have roads paid for by tax dollars, then to drive on those roads in a less congested way, you still have to pay more money? Is it right to charge one person a different, higher, price for the same service that another person paid less for?

One of the main complaints that candidates have about applying for jobs is the lack of information. The reason they don’t get the information they want is it costs too much money for organizations to properly staff TA shops in a way that would allow them to give this high level of feedback.

Congestion Pricing models would definitely give candidates and organizations an option to offer this service for those candidates who truly wanted the feedback they desired or at least more feedback then they’ve historically been given.

So, we don’t do this because we’ll say it impacts the poor and those out of work the most. They can’t afford the price to ensure they will be seen, so the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

I think it’s interesting that this is the main argument of doing something like this, but we don’t argue this type of pricing when it comes to other parts of our life where these things used to be free, and now they are not.

I’m not saying that we limit those who apply. All are still open to apply and all will have the same experience as they had before. Some, who choose to have an elevated candidate experience, will choose to pay for that experience.

I’m not saying this will ever happen, but if it does, I’m not going to be shocked because we’ve seen so many successes using CPT in other areas of our lives.

What do you think? Hit me in the comments.

“Overqualified” is Just another word for Age Discrimination

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Had a really talented lady reach out to me the other day. 49 years old, college grad, great portfolio of work. She has been interviewing and is being told she is “Overqualified”.

There is some truth about her being called this. She does have more qualifications than the position requires, but she fully understands what the job is and she wants to do that job, with no notion of wanting to do more than that job, unless her performance shows she’s capable of moving up and the company needs her to move up.

“Overqualified” is just another way to say “Hey, I think you’re too old to work for me!”

Tell me I’m wrong! Give me all the reasons someone is “Overqualified” for a job they want to work at and understand what the job specs are?

I’m a Heart Surgeon but it’s a stressful job, so I decided to take a step back and just do some Cardiac Rehab work. Still get to work with heart patients, but it’s a less stressful workload and pays a heck of lot less, you need less education to do that job.

Am I overqualified to do Cardiac Rehab if I have experience as a heart surgeon? Only if you tell me I am! It’s a job I want, and I have the skills and desire to do that job, so I would say I’m quite qualified to do that job, not overqualified.

TA pros and hiring managers say someone is overqualified when they’re too stupid to come up with another reason about why they don’t want to hire someone who has great experience and more years of experience.

“Oh, Tammy, yeah, she’s overqualified to work in that job. I mean she wouldn’t be happy long-term reporting to me, and I mean she has more experience than I have!” Oh, she told you that? “Um, no.”

I constantly run into retired people who aren’t ready to retire and want to keep doing valuable work. They have great skills and knowledge, but 32-year-old Steve won’t hire them because Steve believes they won’t take his direction. That’s a Steve-issue, not the candidate’s issue!

By the way, this isn’t a young-to-middle-aged guy problem, women are just as bad! Turns out we all love to discriminate against old people, equally!

Tech companies are the worse. Creative companies are the second worse.

Tech companies believe only young people know technology. Creative companies think the only people who buy products and services are 26-year-olds on Instagram and Snap.

“Tim, you just don’t get it. I don’t want to hire someone who is going to retire in 5 years!” What’s your average tenure at your company? “4.2 years” Yeah, having someone for 5 years would really suck for you!

I had a hiring manager tell me this once when he interviewed a person who was 52! “I need someone who is going to stay long term!” Um, 13-15 years isn’t long term?! You’re an idiot!

I find telling hiring managers “You’re an idiot!” is super effective in getting through to them, and cutting straight through to their bias. It has worked 100% of the time in my career. It really works across all biases.

So, now tell me, why don’t you hire someone who is ‘overqualified”?

Your Weekly Dose of HR Tech: @CandidateReward – The final piece of your Candidate Experience! #CoffeeIsForClosers

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Today on The Weekly Dose I review the candidate experience technology Candidate Rewards. Candidate Rewards is a new solution from the folks at Total Rewards. Candidate Rewards is basically a platform that allows you to build personalized micro-sites for each candidate to present them their offer.

The offer letter virtually hasn’t changed in years. You have a template. You plug in the salary offer. You might attach a ‘one-pager’ of your benefits that you offer, but for 90%+ of organizations that is the process for decades! Oh wait, some of us use really nice quality paper and send some swag as well…

Quick Question – Is closing candidates important to your organization?

The reality is Generation Z by 2019 will actually make up 32% of the eligible workforce, Millennials will make up 31.5%. So over 63%+ of those, you’ll be making offers to will expect a digital experience, not an email with attachments. Candidate Rewards built a platform that easily allows Talent Acquisition or HR to plus in a few details and a full-blown personalized experience is sent to each candidate.

Candidates are no different than you or I, we all want to feel special. What would make you feel more special, an offer letter template, attached to an email, or an invitation to a full website that is tailored right to each candidate’s specific needs?

What I like about Candidate Rewards: 

– The average offer letter probably takes 2-3 minutes for a candidate to consume. The data shows that a candidate on average will spend about 15 minutes on a Candidate Rewards personalized offer site, checking out the total compensation, figuring out what benefits make the most sense and value to them, watching video content, checking out the culture, etc.

– One thing I know is that candidates who have significant others love to know ‘exactly’ what benefits you’ll be having. It’s rare that an offer letter ever really digs into that level of information. Candidates Rewards works with you benefit’s providers to upload each plan and allow candidates to select what they want, while the site will automatically adjust the Total Rewards statement to reflect those choices.

– The ability to tailor video content to each candidate is super powerful! It can immediately connect the candidate with your company, with their co-workers, with their new boss, etc. The options are endless.

– I love that this is one of those technologies that you will know precisely the impact it’s having. Currently, you are at “X”% candidate acceptance of offers. Once you implement Candidate Rewards you’ll be at “X”%+/-. Simple and straightforward to determine ROI.

I think some people will look at this and see it as an extravagance they don’t need. We are already at 90% acceptance rate. We’re fine. This technology is for those organization where unaccepted offers are really painful, and closing offers are critical! Think CPA firms, Nursing, Law firms, Technology – both IT and Engineering, MBAs, etc. Where every single offer being accepted is a huge deal to your organization and your TA team!

So often, we lose out on candidates because you make a salary offer of like $85K with some PTO, etc. The candidate’s own company will come back and show how the total compensation for what they’re making is way more. Or if you’re heavy into making campus offers this kind of technology is even more persuasive because now you’re just going against traditional offers and your total comp offers with the site looks way more enticing.

Candidate Rewards is well worth a demo. It super simple to use to implementation and adoption are a non-issue. Go check them out!

The Weekly Dose – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on The Weekly Dose – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net

Want help with your HR & TA Tech company – send me a message about my HR Tech Advisory Board experience.

Your Weekly Dose of HR Tech: @Kununu_Us – Workplace Insights That Matter!

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Today on The Weekly Dose I take a look at the employer review technology Kununu. Kununu is a technology that allows employees of a company to share their insights with potential applicants of what it’s like to work at that company. It also allows the company to mine that information to have a better understanding of how they can impact this experience in a more meaningful way.

So, they’re Glassdoor?

No, not exactly, Kununu goes much deeper in gathering those insights than a simple verbatim review from a past employee who hates your company!

Each person who gives a review of an employer on Kununu is asked a series of 18 different insights in which they rank the employer. This level of insight allows both applicants and employers to really dig into what the real issues are when it comes to both the candidate experience and the employee experience.

To leave a review of an employer, the person must also have an actual company email address, so you aren’t getting jaded ex-employees, but actual employees who are living in that work world right now. In this type of framework, you’re probably going to get a better balance from both sides.

What I like about Kununu:

– To consume their content you don’t need to log in and create a profile. Just go on there and start reading reviews of potential employers.

– Q&A Tab which allows users to ask a question and those employers who have claimed their Kununu profile will get an alert to go out and answer the question. This is public for all to see. If it’s inappropriate it’s immediately flagged and taken down.

– Kununu doesn’t make most of their revenue as a job board, all job ads are free to employers, which gives them a higher level of transparency when it comes to who their ultimate customer really is. Candidates coming to your profile won’t see your competition’s job ads like you see on that other review site!

– The review profiles created by Kununu reviewers are very robust and have a ton of detail. So, as a potential applicant, I get a much truer sense of what it’s actually like to work at each location.

– Offer both employee reviews and applicant reviews so you get to see what’s it’s like to work at an employer, but also what’s it’s like to go through the applicant experience. This also gives you competitive benchmarks so you can see how your experience is compared to others in your market.

The entire world of employer reviews become much more important with Google for Jobs using this type of data within their algorithm to determine how high your job postings should show up in Google’s search results. Organizations are now tasked with ensuring they pay attention to their online reputation as an employer.

Kununu is definitely a more robust alternative to the one main employer reputation site that most will believe they have. It’s also a great technology to give you real insights to not only your employee experience but also to your candidate experience. Kununu is definitely something employers should be checking out!

The Weekly Dose – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on The Weekly Dose – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net

Want help with your HR & TA Tech company – send me a message about my HR Tech Advisory Board experience.

Career Confessions from Gen Z: The 4 Essentials Every Office Should Have!

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Ever since I was little, I’ve been pretty particular about the spaces that I live in. For my 12th birthday, my parents took me to Ikea and Target and let me “re-do my room” with a New York theme. I can also vividly remember the time when my Mom and I went to tour a college in Upstate New York and we almost left the hotel because we were worried about bed bugs. This particularness caused a lot of stress before going off to college about having to share a room with another teenage boy (a personal nightmare for me).

As I am entering the workforce, I know that this will carry over into the office that I work in. On average, a person will spend about ⅓ of their life at work. That’s longer than most of us will spend at any house we will ever live in! Since I’ve started interning, I’ve noticed some things that have made a big impact on my happiness and productivity at work:

1. Drink Machines: I am drinking water CONSTANTLY and I know that almost everyone sitting around me has a water bottle or cup at their desk. Having a water machine, like a Brita filter attachment or a Bevi machine, is more important to me than having elaborate coffee makers or nice vending machines. (editor’s note – the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree – I’m a life-long advocate for a Diet Mt. Dew soda fountain in the office!) 

2. No Cubicles: I didn’t anticipate this making such a difference, but I now do not want to work in a cubicle. At Quicken Loans (where I’m interning!), we have little half walls that make rows and columns, but they are short enough to see and talk to the people around you. This creates a much more open environment so I can ask questions without getting up or I can eavesdrop on other people’s conversations!

3. Bathrooms: Read my last post for more of my feelings about bathrooms at work but basically, just make them nice.

4. Updated Decor: I get that office decor is difficult. You’re never going to please everyone’s tastes, it’s expensive etc. BUT you could at least put in a little bit of effort to put some decor on your walls that is from this century. A good rule of thumb: if your decor is older than some of your employees, you probably should get rid of it! There’s nothing sadder to me than being surrounded by gray all the time. Liven it up a little!

Now, I could go on for a while about what else I look for in an office, but these are just the basics. Just put a little effort to meet your employee’s requests, and you’ll probably be on the right track!

Another Editor’s Note (because apparently, I don’t have my own platform to say anything I want): I’ve been telling HR leaders this for a couple of years now. With Gen Z – Design matters! It matters in your employment brand, it matters in your personal workspaces, it matters for younger generations. Perception of working in a great place is influenced by design. Don’t discount it! 

 

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Career Confessions from Gen Z: Bathrooms matter to a great Employee Experience!

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In my opinion, there are few places that are worse than a public restroom. There have been very few times in my life where I’ve been happy to use a restroom in a public area. I strongly dislike any bathroom that is not a private restroom or one that is in my home.

I have 2 main reasons for my strong distaste for public bathrooms: cleanliness and privacy. I can thank my Mom for my concerns about germs, and 9 times out of 10 a public restroom will be dirtier than my nice and tidy bathroom at home. My main problem with using public bathrooms is privacy. Even if I just went in to fix my hair, I don’t want anyone looking and judging me for doing it!

Although I really would prefer if I could just use my bathroom at home 24/7, that is not realistic especially when I’m working every day. I’m going to at least have to pee a few times. So, if I have to use a different bathroom than my own, I want it to be as nice as possible.

The bathrooms at Quicken Loans(where I’m doing my summer internship! Hey, guys!) check almost all of my boxes. They are extremely cleanly and I see cleaning staff work on the bathrooms a few times a day. But, the best part is the almost completely private stalls that they have! The walls in between the stalls and the doors go all the way from the ceiling to the floor. It’s my dream honestly.

No one wants to poop at work, and if they have to, it might as well be in almost complete privacy.

In addition to the cleanliness and the private stalls, the restrooms on my floor have baskets of toiletries; toothbrushes, stain sticks, lotion, hairspray, basically anything you could need to make you comfortable and fix any problems you may have. It’s so comforting to know that if I ever spill something on my clothes or have bad breath, I have a quick fix just a few steps away.

If you want to make sure your employees are comfortable and doing their best work, the bathroom is a good place to put some luxury into. Most people don’t enjoy using the restroom but we all have to do it. So why not make it a more enjoyable experience for your employees!

 

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

The Candidate Bill of Rights (revisited)

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In November 2010 Monster.com asked me to write a post on a hot topic at that time a “Candidate Bill of Rights“.  Needless to say, I’m not a huge fan of a Candidate Bill of Rights – I’m a Capitalist and believe in a free-market system of HR and Recruiting.  Here was my main point then, and what they are still today:

Candidates –

You Don’t Have To Apply:

  • If we have a crappy working environment – you don’t have to apply
  • If we don’t pay appropriately for the market – you don’t have to apply
  • If we don’t give my employees opportunities for growth – you don’t have to apply
  • If we don’t treat you like a human – you don’t have to apply
  • If we don’t give you a full job description – you don’t have to apply
  • If we don’t tell you every step of the process – you don’t have to apply

You Don’t Have To Work Here:

  • If we make you wait endlessly without any feedback – you don’t have to work here
  • If we make you an offer that you don’t like – you don’t have to work here
  • If we don’t offer the right work-life balance – you don’t have to work here
  • If we give you a bad Candidate Experience – you don’t have to work here

Candidates – if any of the above is true – you have some decisions to make:

1. Can I live with what I know about the company and the experience they put me through to get this offer?

2. IF SO, do I want to come and work for the company?

3. IF YES – welcome aboard, you’re coming on ‘Eyes Wide Open’

4. IF NO – thanks, and good luck, we’ll keep trying to get better in case you want to apply again some other time.

You see we all have choices. If you don’t like the way I’m treating you as a candidate, don’t come and work at my company.  I would hope that most HR Pros are smart enough to get this fact. Treat candidates like garbage and they’ll stop applying for your jobs, thus making your job all the more difficult to fill.  That might be a bit pie-in-the-sky thinking because I also know way too many HR/Talent Pros that don’t get this!

They have a little bit of power and have decided to torture candidates with painfully long and arduous application and selection processes that aren’t helpful to their own companies, statistically, and definitely aren’t helpful to the candidates.  During a recession, they don’t see much impact from these horrible processes, but eventually, the tide turns and face the results of their actions.  Karma is a bitch!

So, do we need a candidate bill of rights? No!  Do you need to spend a ton of time, effort, and resources on candidate experience? No, as well!  Don’t go right ditch-left ditch and start over correcting.  Treat candidates like you would want to be treated.  Or don’t, and pay the price! Have a few standards and etiquette, and some manners.  It’s not hard and it’s not expensive.