Category Archives: Hiring

The 1 Thing You Need to Do to Get the Job You Always Wanted!

Posted on by
3

Last week I got a call from an old work friend. He wanted to have lunch.  He just left a position and was in transition.  Not a bad or negative job loss, just parted ways.  When you get to a certain executive point in your career, it’s rare that bad terminations take place. It’s usually, “hey, we like you, but we really want to go another direction, and we know you don’t want to go that direction, so let’s just shake hands and call it a day, here’s a big fat check.”

Executives get this.  For the most part, there aren’t hard feelings, like when you were young and lost a job. I usually find that the organization the person is leaving from are super complimentary, and usually takes the blame for the change.  Executives in corporate America are like NFL coaches. You get hired with the understanding that one day you’ll be fired.  It’s not that you know less, or aren’t going to be successful in your career, it’s just that the organization needs change, and you’re part of that change.

Welcome to the show, kid.

My friend decided that he was going to find his next position not through posting for positions online, or trolling corporate career pages, he was going to have lunches.  About two per week, with past work friends. Let’s connect, no pressure, we already know each other and I want to catch up.

You see, in 2019 you don’t find great jobs by filling out applications in ATSs and uploading your resume to Indeed. You get great jobs because of the relationships and personal capital you’ve built up over your career.  Having lunch and reconnecting turn on a relationship machine. I believe that people, innately, want to help other people. When a friend comes to you with a situation, and you have something to offer or help, you will do that.

The problem is most people who are looking for great jobs don’t do this. They lock themselves in their home office and apply to a thousand jobs online and get upset when nothing happens. Great jobs aren’t filled by ATSs and corporate recruiters.  Great jobs are filled through relationships. Every single one of them.

Want to find a great job in 2019?

Go out to lunch.

@SHRM Making a Stand for Hiring Candidates with Criminal Record!

Posted on by
4

When it comes to hiring bias in America we HATE hiring 3 types of candidates:

  • Old People
  • Fat People
  • People with a Criminal Record

SHRM decided to try and make an impact and help those with past criminal records get hired with their new initiative called: Getting Talent Back to Work. 

GTBW is an initiative launched by SHRM to get employers to join in and take a pledge that their organizations will work to put people with criminal records back into their hiring pools. Koch Industries, a multi-billion dollar corporations with over 120,000 employees was SHRM’s launch partner, which drew some eyre from some of the HR blogging community.

When I first heard of the program, and HR blogging blow back, the first thing came to mind was the quote:

“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows” by William Shakespeare from the Tempest

There are millions of American workers right now who are miserable because they have a record and we will not allow them to pay their debt to society.

This was the same language used by Torin Ellis and Julie Sowash on their entertaining podcast Crazy and The King. Where Julie was really upset by the Koch relationship because of their conservative political stance, and Torin saw it a little less so, which I thought brought great balance to this discussion. Not blind at all to what is going on, but also hopeful and realistic to how difficult this issue really is to change.

So, what do I think about all this?

Making change is messy business. Getting people with criminal records real jobs isn’t something we’ve done really well in our society. 1/3 of Americans have some sort of criminal record and we can’t just throw all of these people away. We have to start truly believing that a debt paid, is actually paid.

Johnny Taylor has a giant association to lead. Some of those SHRM members are ultra liberal. Some are ultra conservative. Some are socialist. Some are religious zealots. Some are atheist. While some HR bloggers hate him for allowing Koch Industries to be apart of this program, I find this view to be exclusive and not inclusive of all.

Odds are there are as many people who love that SHRM has Koch Industry as a partner, as there are people who hate that SHRM has Koch Industries as a partner (with 300,000+ members the stats will play out like America in general). By the way, SHRM also has over 500 other organizations that have stepped up and taken the Pledge! Which is what this is really all about!

Like the ex-criminals we are trying to help get them back to work, why is it we believe that Koch Industries can’t help in this situation? We all have things in our life, in our past, that some wouldn’t agree with, and things that people would love, no matter our political persuasion.

Our reality is almost every organization is or has probably done some crap we all can’t agree on, but they probably are smaller, or keep a lower profile, or believe in what you believe in, so we give them a pass.

I have many friends who lean very heavily liberal. Also, some ultra-conservative. Also, some socialist, and Libetarian, and who knows what else! I don’t agree with their politics and they don’t agree with my moderate politics, yet we can work together to help others and solve problems. It’s not all or nothing. That’s not how our country works. If my neighbor views the world differently than I, I don’t watch his home burn down with him in it, I run in and save him.

We are intelligent beasts that have the ability to separate one ideology from another, and while we won’t always agree it doesn’t mean we can’t find value in one another. We are HR! We own D&I. We need to stop making Inclusion, exclusive to one belief and not all beliefs.

So, kudos for SHRM in launching this initiative in getting organizations to really dig into this issue of hiring people with previous criminal records who have paid their debt to society. Kudos to each and every company that has taken the pledge to help these people who desperately need it.

I encourage you to go take a look at the site and decide if taking this pledge is right for your organization!

Career Confessions of Gen Z – The Holy Grail of Benefits

Posted on by
Reply

Welcome to the reboot of Career Confessions of Gen Z! I started this in 2018 with my Gen Z son, Cameron, and the response was off the charts. So, in 2019 I found 8 great Gen Z HR, TA, and Marketing pros to continue the Gen Z content. Enjoy! 

The early members of Generation Z have entered the workforce and the rest of the 61 million Gen Z’s are on their way. A big question that employers have been asking regarding this generation is, “What do we offer to attract them to our company?”.

To attract and retain this generation, many companies have been altering their benefits and internal culture to be more appealing. More and more companies are now offering things like a flexible work-life balance schedule, remote work days, casual dress codes, a 401k match, advancement and rotational opportunities, and etc.

While those benefits are appealing, only 4% of companies are offering the most attractive benefit that will not only attract Gen Z candidates, but will generate major employee loyalty. That benefit is Loan Forgiveness Assistance.

CNBC reported that eight in 10 workers with student loans say they would value in working for a firm that provides extra dollars for student debt repayment.  I find it hard to believe that number isn’t 10 out of 10!

In the U.S, people collectively owe $1.5 trillion in student debt. Most of that student debt belongs to Millennials and early Gen Z’s. An additional $1.27 trillion in new federal student loans is estimated to be added between now and 2028 by Gen Z. This generation is going to find themselves in the same debt situation as Millennials as tuition rates continue to rise.

Student debt is a real, growing problem that employers can help reduce and that we want them to help us reduce.

Not only is contributing toward student loan debt a major perk for employees, but it also ensures employee loyalty and retention. By offering this benefit, employers are giving their employees an awesome reason to never leave their company and to want to work their asses off for them.

I have a few Gen Z friends that are in companies that have some sort of student loan repayment assistance in place and I can tell you that they never plan on leaving those companies. The fact that the companies make contributions towards their student loans was also one of the major reasons they chose to work at their companies. They scored the holy grail of benefits when they accepted their jobs!

There are a few different ways in which employers can offer loan forgiveness assistance. To learn more about what other companies are doing and how student loan repayment assistance programs have been mutually beneficial for employers and employees, consider reading the following links:

A 401(k) Twist on Student-Loan Aid

Student Loan Repayment Is The Hottest Employee Benefit Of 2018

How Student Loan Debt Impacts Your Employees

Student Loan Repayment: The Job Perk Of The Future

Hallie Priest is a digital marketer for HRU Technical Resources, a leading engineering, and IT staffing firm based in Lansing, MI, using her skills to create content to serve all involved in the job seeking/hiring process. When she is not strategizing campaigns, going over analytics, or talking about her dog you can find her at the nearest coffee shop fueling her creativity. Connect with her on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/halliepriest


Transform Recruitment Marketing Conference is Back for June 2019!!! @Smashfly

Posted on by
Reply

Transform is Back!!!

Smashfly Transform is the bold community that’s impressively grown from 200 at the first-ever Recruitment Marketing Conference in Boston in 2016 to more than 10,000 strong across the globe today. Transform is the place for this community to come together. I was the Emcee for the very first Transform in Boston, and I’ll be the Emcee once again for this event!

Attendees are the rebels, the early adopters who want to transform the Talent Acquisition industry.

What is Transform…

  1. Brings together this unique segment of thinking in TA to create better, smarter experiences through recruitment marketing, technology, and innovation
  2. Is a place to find and connect with the people who get it, the people who want to change the industry through new tech, strategies, data, Marketing techniques and more
  3. Introduces these leaders to each other for support, for ideas, for inspirations, for community, for validation
  4. Gives the recruiting revels a path forward through dialogue, interactive brainstorms, tactical sessions, and strategic keynotes.

Transform is NOT a user conference… We’re still working on the agenda, but we’re planning two days of content including keynotes, super inspiring speakers, break-out sessions and workshops. Transform is one of the only events that takes peer-to-peer learning to the next level.

Each speaker is vetted, coached and their content is completely unique to Transform. No out of the box presentations that you will hear at any other event. We will have some more user-focused content to help with product adoption, but those will be breakouts/opt-in.

Sponsors are invite-only, the leading vendors in the space who get it. This is a unique chance to meet with these technology providers face-to-face and demo their products.

Overall, Transform is an experience. A place to grow in your job, your careers, and as a person. Our speakers challenge more than just the status quo of recruiting, they push you outside your personal comfort zone so you leave the conference with tools the work-belt and the personal-belt.

We don’t skimp on experience, and the food is incredible. The welcome party will be on the rooftop of the Revere Hotel overlooking the Boston Skyline and (fun fact) when you check-in there is a pillow menu in your room to select the type of pillow you want to sleep on.

Sounds like the one conference you can’t miss if you are in Recruitment Marketing, Employment Branding, or have responsibility over those strategies in your organization.

Click Here to Get More Information on Attending Transform on June 19-21 2019! 

Gen Z HR Pros!! Are you ready to blog or vlog? I want you to join me!

Posted on by
4

So, this summer my son, Cameron, and I started up this series on my blog called, “Career Confessions of Gen Z”. He did an awesome job finding his voice and creating compelling content that was coming straight from the mouth of Gen Z, and not some old washed up blogger, like me, who claimed to know what Gen Z was all about.

I loved it! The audience loved it!

He went back to school, got busy doing school stuff and Career Confessions just sat there.

Another crazy thing happens in HR blogging. If you look at most HR Bloggers, the vast majority are Gen X, older Millennials, some Baby Boomers. So very few are actual Millennials and almost zero are Gen Z. While our executives still like to believe all young employees are still Millennials, we know in HR that Gen Z is the newest generation we need to pay attention to entering our workforces.

So, Gen Z HR and Talent Pros – I need you! 

What’s the gig?

HR and/or Talent Blogger for The Project – specifically under the “Career Confessions of Gen Z” series.

How much do you have to write?

Once per month, every 4-5 weeks. Each post would be anywhere from 400-800-ish words, or a video-blog (vlog) 3-5 minutes. The initial project is for 12 months, so if you get invited to join the team, you’ll be asked to write 12 posts in 12 months.

What can you write or speak about?

Anything work or career-related, as long as it’s interesting or entertaining or educational, and hopefully a combination of all three!

Can I do this anonymously? 

Hell no! Why would you?! This is your big break and a big platform – let yourself shine!

What do I get for doing this?

Fame mostly. I mean micro-fame, but it’s still fame. You might get invited to attend some HR or Recruiting conferences for free. We can be friends if you’re not super annoying. I’ll tell people you’re awesome. If I find a sponsor for the series I’ll split the cash with you.

How can I apply? 

Simple. Send me a writing sample of what you would do on the blog. Don’t suck. Have an opinion. Don’t tell me you first have to run it by legal for approval. Send that sample to: timsackett@comcast.net or just Venmo me $1000 and consider yourself 100% on the team! (jk – don’t do that) Deadline for submissions is December 19th – that’s 2 weeks! So, get going! Invitations will go out on or before January 3rd for those selected to join the team!

HR and TA Leaders – Recruitment Marketing and Employment Branding leaders – this is a great stretch assignment for the Gen Zers on your team for 2019! Send this to them and get them to submit!

I’m looking forward to reading your work!

Your Weekly Dose of HR Tech: @Indeed takes Away Free Traffic to Staffing firms!

Posted on by
6

Today on The Weekly Dose I dig into Indeed’s recent announcement to stop scraping the jobs from staffing companies. If you didn’t hear Indeed announced as the Staffing World conference that beginning January 7, 2019, they would no longer include “recruitment-based” jobs in their organic search results due to ongoing search quality issues (link to the official Indeed Policy on Recruitment-based companies).

I was able to talk directly to Paul D’Arcy, the SVP of Marketing for Indeed, about this decision. Paul was refreshingly frank about the announcement. Here are some of the things that came out of that conversation:

Think of the jobs Indeed posts on its site in four type of buckets:

#1 – Organic Jobs listed on Corporate websites scraped by Indeed

#2 – Promoted Jobs listed by corporate TA teams willing to pay to get those jobs to show up higher in the search results

#3 – Organic Jobs listed on Staffing Industry websites scraped by Indeed

#4 – Promoted Jobs listed by staffing firms (recruitment-based organizations – in Indeed’s wording) willing to pay to those jobs to show up higher in the search results

Of those 4 kinds of jobs, three out of the four have very similar rates of candidates getting hired. One of those types doesn’t do well at all because of a number of factors. Basically, Organic staffing jobs that Indeed has been scraping do very poorly. “Analysis shows that impacted jobs represent approximately 5% of applies but just 2% of hires on Indeed.”

So, the decision is made, by Indeed’s Search Quality team, to no longer scrape staffing jobs.

THIS IS SUPER UNFAIR TO STAFFING FIRMS!!! (I hear a collective 3 trillion dollar industry shout!)

Is it?

No one on the planet has lit up Indeed worse than me over some of their practices! (Hi, Todd!) I’ve been in Indeed Jail since early 2018 when they first shut off my free organic traffic. But, let’s be real, Indeed isn’t saying they won’t work with staffing firms or kicking staffing firms out. In fact, every single product Indeed sells is still available for staffing firms to use. They just aren’t giving you anything for free anymore, and that stings a bunch.

It’s like that first time the crack dealer tells you that you have to pay for the next hit! It sucks, and then you hand over some money.

Indeed understands the optics of this, according to D’Arcy, and they also know this will take some work to repair some relationships within the staffing industry. The fact is, staffing companies have been making millions of dollars off of free traffic from Indeed and it hurts to lose that!

The reality is, we (staffing) basically did this to ourselves. No not you! It was always the other guy! There was location spamming, posting ‘evergreen’ jobs that you would never fill, etc. Like most good things in recruiting, the staffing world found ways to exploit it and Indeed is shutting that down.

It’s D’Arcy’s hope that Indeed will find a way to begin bringing back some of the ‘real’ staffing jobs that out there. Think of contract and temporary jobs. Indeed corporate clients will be impacted if those jobs aren’t filled, as many now rely a great deal on their contingent workforce for large parts of what they do. Those are real jobs, that real candidates, will want to apply for and Indeed just took those away from candidates. They do realize this and they are trying to come up with a way to bring the real jobs back, without opening up the bad jobs again.

This is just Indeed making a move into the staffing world!

Wouldn’t be a bad business move, let’s be honest! I would do it, so would you, but Indeed is telling me this isn’t part of the strategy behind making this decision. Take it at face value, some will believe it, some won’t. The reality is Indeed is making hundreds of millions of dollars off staffing firms as clients right now, and for years have also been working in the staffing industry simultaneously, so I’m not sure it really makes that big of a difference, short term.

What does this mean for staffing firms!?!?! 

If you want to keep making hires on Indeed, you’re going to have to start paying up! Indeed’s short-term revenue will increase because of this decision because most staffing firms will initially just fork over some money to keep the faucet on. Eventually, they’ll find our avenues to find candidates. Optimize their postings for Google Jobs and the traffic and hires will come from others sites and sources.

You might decide to start testing other tools like LinkedIn Recruiter, CareerBuilder, Monster, Dice, ZipRecruiter, Programmatic job postings, maybe even pick up the phone, build a recruitment marketing machine, grab some sourcing technology, etc. Staffing firms don’t know this yet, but the reality is not relying on one tool so heavily is a blessing in disguise for your longterm success.

One piece of good news from Indeed is they’ll still allow staffing firms to use their paid resume database product.

What does this mean if you’re in Corporate TA? 

The hope will be you’ll actually see more traffic to your jobs, but understand that Google is no longer indexing Indeed’s job pages, so traffic has been going down and will continue to go down unless Indeed buys that traffic through marketing efforts. What does that mean? You’re probably going to be paying a lot more for the same or less traffic.

Now, with less staffing firm jobs clogging up the search results the hope is that you’ll see more candidates, faster to your jobs that are scrapped as part of your organic Indeed feed, and potentially even better results using Indeed’s job promotion products.

What do I think?

From someone who has been living in Indeed Jail for almost a year, you’ll survive. It’s not fun losing your free organic traffic, but you’ll figure it out and you’ll be a stronger recruiting shop in the end.

I think Indeed really screwed up by announcing this without first figuring out the contract/temp/consultant jobs. The contingent workforce is the fastest growing segment of the labor market, and someone at Indeed completely dropped the ball. I’ll blame Matthew in search quality because that’s kind of the inside joke at Indeed, if a client is pissed, blame search quality. But, my hope is Paul and the team will stick by their word and figure out a way to get those jobs back on Indeed for candidates.

I’m not sure this was a wise business move, really by Indeed. You never want to wake a sleeping giant. The staffing industry has been a sleeping giant over the past decade ($3 Trillion). Fat on Indeed free traffic and LinkedIn Recruiter licenses, the normal staffing recruiter today is not the staffing recruiter of a decade ago. Indeed just kicked them awake to see if they wanted to pay the check or go find somewhere else to spend their money. Some will go elsewhere.

I also know that Indeed produces results, so many of us, myself included, will continue to use them and pay for the products that work, but it won’t stop me from continuing to test everything and figure out how to lessen my team’s reliance on any one product. That’s just good recruiting strategy for both corporate and staffing leaders.

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 Technology: @HiredOnLinkedIn Launches New Company Pages!

Posted on by
Reply

Today on The Weekly Dose I take a look at LinkedIn’s new company page design and break down what you need to know and change to take advantage of the new design.

Besides your company career site, your LinkedIn Company page might be most organization’s TA Teams next biggest asset when it comes to attracting talent. Much more hires are made from your LI company page than your Facebook page, twitter or IG profile, etc. LinkedIn for years has had the same basic design of its company pages, and most organizations set it up, left it, and forgot about it.

You might have noticed LinkedIn’s new company page design has been rolling out and is now public for all.

What you notice right away, as compared to your old LI page, is the navigation on the lefthand side. Visitors to your page used to see your profile front and center, and the new page is much more visual and visitors will have to click “About” to read your company description.

Of course, like most of LinkedIn you have the free version of your company page, and then you can do a paid version which really turns your LI company page into a full-blown career site for your company, with direct link button to your career site, ability to list jobs, employment branding tools, Life at “your company” section, etc.

So, what are the major changes you need to know about? 

1. Candidates can now easily set up a job alert on your jobs section of your LI company page that will notify them when a job is posted that matches their qualifications.

2. When potential candidates visit your company page on LI they will be shown recommended jobs, at your company, that fit their background, plus other employees at your company that are similar to them, in case they want to network with those individuals. LI data shows candidates are more likely to apply to jobs when they’ve networked with others at your company in similar roles.

3. The new “Life” page on the paid version of LinkedIn Company pages makes it super easy for you to find and share posts by your current employees. This gives you a simple way to show candidates who are visiting your LI company page an inside view to what it’s like to work at your organization. Also, for those TA teams who are struggling to understand what kind of content they should create, their new Life page will give them suggestions based on all searches and activity on LI.

The full blown new LinkedIn company pages are a big step forward from the old pages. Definitely, something to demo and check out based on how much you recruit on LinkedIn and how big of a source LinkedIn is for your organization.

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.

Why Did Amazon Decide on Having 3 Corporate Headquarters?

Posted on by
Reply

So, the biggest news of the week is Amazon finally made a decision on where they were going to build HQ2 and come to find out instead of just one location, Amazon is splitting the job lottery into two prizes and both Washington D.C. and New York will get an Amazon Headquarters. Okay, it’s probably really about 4 Headquarters since they’re really focusing a ton of the supply chain talent in Nashville, but who’s counting!?

I never really thought Washington D.C. or New York City had a chance because I was thinking about stuff like the ability to actually move around! Turns out Amazon’s real decision point came around brain power. Now, I know what you’re thinking! There are absolutely no brains in Washington D.C.! Hello, is this mic on!? Also, have you been the urine-scented streets of New York!? Joking!

If you look at the U.S. and did a heat map around higher education institutions you would find a gigantic section of the Eastern seaboard is shaded a bright red! From Boston to New York to Philadelphia to Washington D.C. you can’t find a more concentrated area of higher education in the world! Amazon’s newest HQ2 and HQ3 will be strategically located right amongst those areas!

The largest employers in the U.S. look like this:

Walmart is stupid big, but almost all of their employees are onsite at stores.  Accenture is huge, but again their employees work in every medium to large city in the country, not a one big headquarters. FedEx is basically the US mail service. Go down the list and you’ll most of the largest employers are not headquartered centric, but location-centric.

Amazon is the lone giant employer who has most of its employees in office buildings. Knowing they were going to have to hire 50,000+ employees, there was really no one location in the U.S. that could have handled that need for talent in such a short time. Washington D.C. and New York are probably two of the places that can handle 25,000 new jobs, each, without crippling every other employer in the market. And, this will still cause a giant disruption in those cities as people will be moving around like crazy.

An additional 5,000 white collar jobs in Nashville will be an incredible amount for that market, especially in the key skills they’re looking for which are desperately needed everywhere in the U.S. right now. Better dust off your employee engagement strategies and update your compensation models, Nashville employers! 2020 is going to be a tough year!

This decision signals one other potential massive shift for IT. Washington D.C. was already a pretty big IT hub with all the government work, but now moving this many IT related jobs to the East Coast could begin a big shift away from organizations believing you have to be in Silicon Valley to hire IT talent. Amazon will bring and grow IT talent for the entire east coast and strengthen those cities as large IT hubs worldwide.

Amazon definitely didn’t help workers out from a quality of life standpoint. Both D.C. and NYC are awful in terms of cost and commute, at least in California you get sunshine in your closet of an apartment!

The decision for me showed that Amazon truly looked at labor markets and demographics (and some giant tax breaks – which, let’s be honest, everyone was willing to give) as the major decision points in the location of the new headquarters. The U.S. demographics over the next decade should be a major concern for large employers. More workers will leave the workforce than are coming into the workforce, so you better be close to where we tend to grow white collar, educated workers.

This is a win for higher education as much as it is for Washington D.C. and New York City.

Stop Saying “We Love Vets!” You don’t, or You would actually Hire them for real jobs! #VeteransDay

Posted on by
6

Veteran’s Day was yesterday! I’m sure your social media team made a big deal out it. Send around a lot of American Flag IG and Twitter posts. Even put up a blog post on your site about how much you just love Vets! The problem is, it’s all a big fat lie!

You don’t love Vets! You love the concept of being politically correct and wrapping your company and brand around the American flag! It’s basically Stolen Valor what you’re doing on your career site, acting like you love to hire Vets!

If you really loved Vets you wouldn’t be trying to hire someone who led a platoon of a hundred soldiers into battle for a $12/hr job with no career progression! You wouldn’t be trying to hire someone who was responsible for hundred’s of millions of dollars of machinery and resources into a $17/hr warehouse job. But, that’s how ‘you’ love Vets, right? Give them a shitty job!

I’m not a Vet. Never served. Really never even thought about serving. My grandfather fought in WWII and he gave me his medals when I was a young boy. Told me stories. I have uncles and cousins who are Vets.

I’ve hired countless Vets in my career. I find that Vets, compared to normal civilian hires, perform better on average. I hired a Vet to come work as a Recruiter for me, when he had no recruiter training (his name is Brian McIntosh – go connect with him, he’s awesome!) He was a tanker by Army trade. Not really something that correlates into great recruiting skills normally, but here are the skills he brought to us:

  • Dedication
  • Works his ass off
  • Team player
  • Motivated
  • Desire to learn
  • Exceptional at networking with other Vets
  • Colorful language! (Okay, I made that one up! But, hey, you spend some time in a hot tank and you’ll learn some colorful language as well!)

He normally would have been offered one of those $15/hr jobs. “Oh, you’re a tanker and have no real-world skills, that’s great we have a dead-end warehouse job for you to work in! We love our Vets!”

Think about how many great paying, salaried jobs you have that really can be taught to anyone. How many? 60%? 80%? That’s reality, right? Most of the jobs that we have can be taught to anyone with the desire,  the motivation, dedication, and willingness to learn.

I’m not trying to dump on decent paying hourly jobs. I know we have to fill these as well with great people, and some of those jobs turn into great careers for people, but let’s be real, our Vets aren’t looking at those jobs as their first choice upon serving our country. They want career jobs that fit the skills and training they received while serving our country.

So, what can you really do? 

My friend, Torin Ellis, came to the Michigan Recruiter’s Conference a couple of weeks ago and spoke about Diversity and Inclusion and made this comment – “You need to have a diverse recruiting team if you want to recruit diverse talent.”

So, if you want to hire Vets into real jobs in your company, you need to have Vets on your recruiting team! What we have found is our Vet recruiters know the environment and skills on both sides, so they know where a Vet will be most valuable in your organization based on those skills. A recruiter without this knowledge just looks at keywords on a resume, and thinks, “No fit” or “Hourly entry-level job”, not truly who this person is or could be for your organization!

Or you could also work with a Vet to come in and train your team around what jobs you have where Vets would be a great fit, and what questions they should be asking to find out what skills they really have. We find Vets aren’t the best at talking about some of the great skills they have, they don’t see as special, coming from a military environment.

Lastly, call out your hiring managers who say they support Vets, but then never hire a Vet when you put them in front of them. They aren’t supporting Vets, they just love wrapping themselves in the flag and acting like they support Vets.

Happy Veteran’s Day! Thank you for your service! If I can help you, please let me know.

How do candidates find your company?

Posted on by
1

I have a brain crush on Smashfly’s Tracey Parsons. She’s a great Recruitment Marketer who flat out gets what you and I should be doing to get candidates to find us!

I only tell you this because Tracey shared something online this week that I had to share. I came on a LinkedIn post by Joel Cheesman (you can look him up as well, he’s way less impressive than Tracey, but he might be your flavor! JK, Joel! He’ll cry himself to sleep tonight if I don’t say that!) where Joel was stating a stat “80% of applicants start at Google“.

Cool stat. You probably didn’t know that. About a year and a half ago, Google said it was 47%, before they launched Google for Jobs, so it shows that GFJ is actually already having a big impact on candidate behavior.

Tracey’s response was this:

“And approximately 0% of those searches involve your brand name”

Bam! Mic drop! Walk off stage.

She’s dead on 100%-ish percent accurate!

No one is going to Google searching for “Jobs at Amazon” or “Jobs at ABC Manufacturing”. If they already know they want to see your jobs, they’re just going directly to your career site, or corporate site, where you’ll make them click around for five minutes to find your jobs. Oh, wait, maybe they should be Googling jobs at “X”!

I think Tracey’s point is that you shouldn’t be focused on SEO to drive people to your ‘brand’. You should be focusing on SEO to drive people to the market and the jobs you have, the brand at this initial point, doesn’t matter.

We love to think it matters, but 99.8% of us have an unrecognizable brand to the majority of candidates. That’s not a negative statement, that’s just reality. They don’t see any difference in what it’s like to work for us unless you’re a Unicorn brand.

But we aren’t all Google or Facebook or Amazon. We’re just good, solid companies to work for, that are virtually indistinguishable from every other good, solid employer who’s out there.

So, what can you do?

  • Truly understand the impact Google is making on candidate behavior.
  • Turn yourself into a Marketer. Think like a marketer. What would it take to get people to know who we are?
  • Turn your employees into Brand Advocates.
  • Stop paying Referral Bonuses, and buy Employee Referral Technology.
  • Build and turn on a Recruitment Marketing machine for your shop.

Also, go read and learn from super smart people like Tracey and Joel. That’s what I do.