Top 10 Sources of Online Hires

Posted on May 21, 2015 by Tim Sackett

Silkroad recently released some results from it’s annual client survey (also released by Indeed as you can imagine from the results!), which is a rather large sample. The chart that caught my eye was this one:

Keep in mind these are external online sources only. These don’t include an companies own career site, employee referrals, etc. Still the information is intriguing, and almost matches my own internal numbers for my company, which means I tend to believe the data!

Indeed being number one as a source for corporate hires isn’t not surprising. If a candidate is looking for a job today, they go to Indeed to start looking. What is surprising is the LinkedIn number!

6% of external online hires are coming from LinkedIn!

So, you need to ask yourself: How much money are you spending on LinkedIn as compared to the other sources that are getting greater results? Indeed, CareerBuilder, other various specialized job boards, etc.

Would have ever thought that LinkedIn would have been the exact same percentage as Craigslist!?!

Obviously, the candidates you are getting on LinkedIn are different than the candidates you’re getting on Craigslist. Not many professionals are looking for jobs on Craigslist, but you will find a ton looking for lower skilled, service level jobs.

Based on the data above here’s what you need to do:

1. Are your jobs being scraped by Indeed? Have you checked? If not, you better make this happen! (Same for SimplyHired)

2. Are you using CareerBuilder? Postings? Resume database? Might want to check into what they’ve got going on!

3. If you have a LinkedIn Recruiter seat, are you getting a good ROI for your investment? Would you get a better ROI is that same amount of money was spent for things like sponsored jobs on Indeed, or most job posts on CareerBuilder? Maybe you need to do some testing.

4. Are you using Craigslist to help fill your lower level positions? You know it’s free, right?

5. What the hell is Seek? Oh, it’s a job board in Australia, you can forget about that.

6. Don’t forget about your other non-online sources: Referrals, your own career site, local state employment offices, alumni, your own internal database (this is the most under utilized source of most companies!), etc. These probably fill more than all your online sources. How much money are you investing in them? (it’s usually a lot less than online sources and a huge miss for ROI)

T3 – Greenhouse.io @Greenhouse

Posted on May 19, 2015 by Tim Sackett

This week on T3 I review recruiting and applicant tracking software Greenhouse. Greenhouse is one of the newer players in the ATS space having only been in the market about three years, but they’re making a ton of noise. Primarily designed to be used in the mid-sized and under market, 1000 employees and under is their prime user base. Heavily used in the startup and tech space (Pinterest, Uber, Twilio, Zenefits, etc.).

Greenhouse take a best in breed approach, partnering with some of the best talent acquisition tech vendors to deliver the best to their users. Companies like Entelo, HireVue, RolePoint, RecruiterFi, etc., all integrate seamlessly with Greenhouse. I actually prefer this approach (for SMB HR & TA shops), because I like the best technology available, versus an enterprise ATS level system which is usually solid, but not fantastic.

As you can expect Greenhouse isn’t your Mom and Dad’s ATS. Older designed ATS systems are designed around one core process and most fail because you don’t like that one process. Greenhouse is designed around the core principles of talent acquisition and all you need to do within that function, and you do it the way you want. Greenhouse isn’t a talent acquisition software, it’s an organizational software, because everyone in your company as access, specific to their role.

5 Things I really like about Greenhouse:

1. The Interview Plan. One of the coolest things in Greenhouse is how they handle interviews. It’s a structured process that drives consistency, delivers interview kits to each interviewee, and describes their role and what they need to get out of the interview. This eliminates an interviewee interviewing with 5 different people and having them all ask virtually the same questions.

2. The Sourcing Plan. Again, Greenhouse structures the sourcing plan in a way that everyone knows their role and what they are responsible for. They also have full integration with LinkedIn, if you have a LI recruiter license, to allow you to do all of that sourcing from one system.

3. Candidate Scorecard. Greenhouse has designed a candidate scorecard that easily lets you compare candidates by more than just a rollup number, but by specific skills, cultural fit, qualifications and other details. This lets the organization make a more informed decision on who and why you should select one candidate over another.

4. Agency Portal. We all use staffing agencies. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to manage all that you use within your ATS? Greenhouse does this, and actually will show you agency performance metrics to boot!

5. Data analytics are very robust. I really liked their pipeline stats feature which you can set up by individual or team. If a candidate is stuck at one spot in process, the system alert you that you need to go kick a hiring manager in the butt and tell them to get going on a certain candidate, etc.

It’s easy to see why Greenhouse has the buzz in the industry right now from an ATS perspective. If I was running a corporate talent acquisition shop right now, they would get high consideration from me as the tool we would be using. An ATS is an ATS, but I love how Greenhouse has taken the traditional model of an ATS and made what an ATS designed in 2015 should be. Easy to use, intuitive, great tech and works the way we need to work in today’s tight labor market.

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – 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 space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find. If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.

What ATS Should You Select For Your Company?

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Tim Sackett

If you read Monday’s post on Crappy Employment Brands, I told you I would answer the most asked question in HR and Talent Acquisition of all time. It’s goes with the title to this post, and almost anytime I speak I get at least one person who will ask me this question during the Q&A:

What ATS (Applicant Tracking System) do you use?

The question is basically irrelevant unless the person asking me works in the exact same industry and business that I work in (IT and Technical contract staffing). Which they usually don’t. Usually, it’s a corporate HR or Talent Pro. My ATS software is designed for something completely different for what they want.

But, more importantly, the question is asked because so many people believe that the ATS is the secret sauce to successful recruiting in corporate talent acquisition. It’s not. The secret sauce to great hiring is only expedited by your recruitment technology. If you suck at hiring, the best ATS on the market will only make you suck at hiring much faster!

The best ATS systems will give you great functionality that includes CRM, recruitment marketing, recruitment automation, talent communities, great sourcing tools, assessment/screening technology and interview technology baked into the product, onboarding, etc. The worse ATS systems give you a basic product that will allow you to accept applicants online and process them through some sort of hiring process.

There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of ATS systems on the market. Most people will demo three or less. There is an ATS that is right for you, but you have to be willing to look at a lot of them.

So, what ATS should you select for you company? I’ll give you some tips:

1. Select an ATS you can afford. That sounds obvious, but most HR and Talent pros over-buy on their ATS, for the amount of hiring they do. If you only hire a hundred people a year, you don’t need an ATS that costs $100K per year to own/rent. You can great ATS software for a few thousand dollars per year.

2. Select an ATS that has the functionality your business needs. Again, obvious, but missed by most new buyers. If you don’t need talent communities, paying for talent communities is a waste. If you organization won’t use video interviewing, why are you buying it baked into your ATS. If you definitely need a pre-employment assessments baked in, you can find a system that will meet your needs. Don’t settle.

3. Select an ATS that most closely fits your hiring process. This sounds stupid, but the majority of ATS failures have nothing to do with the ATS and everything to do with you not willing to change your process. You take the ATS and force them to do all sorts of changes to fit your broken process, and in turn break their proven best practice process. In the end, you fail and blame the ATS. Save yourself the headache and find an ATS that does the flow exactly how you want it. Some are very configurable and will allow you to change and keep changing your process. Some aren’t configurable at all.

4. Select an ATS that you feel you could start using immediately after the demo. ATS systems should be very easy to use. If you feel overwhelmed by the demo, it’s not the right system for you.

5. Select an ATS you can grow into. If you aren’t going to grow, you don’t need to worry about this, so don’t get talked into it. Most ATS systems are designed for a certain level of hiring. The best vendors will be honest and tell you, the worst will tell you what you want to hear. Find out who their clients are that are your same size and demand to talk to them. If they don’t give you that access, run. The good vendors will bend over backwards to get you to talk to their current clients.

If you don’t have an ATS, you should be fired. There are literally four or five major players in ATS technology that will give you a one user system for FREE (and only a few hundred dollars to add other users)! Of course, you get what you pay for, but you need to start somewhere! No company that is hiring should not have an ATS. The prices range from Free to millions of dollars.

What ATS systems do I like? There are bunch: Workable, Jobvite, Bullhorn, Greenhouse, Taleo, Newton, The Resumator, Silkroad, iCims, SuccessFactors and Gr8People, in no specific order.

Here’s the funny thing. Some of you use one of these from above and hate them! That’s ATS technology. Most people think everyone elses ATS is better than what they’re using. The reality is, most do about the same thing – post jobs, accept resumes, some stuff in between, BAM you’re hired.

3 Ways Contract Staffing Fails

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Tim Sackett

Contract technical staffing is what I do for a living – so I know exactly where it falls down. I spend every day trying to talk people into why they should use contract staffing and why it makes sense. In 13 years of being in this business, I’ve never had anyone ask me why it doesn’t work. That might be kind of odd. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve talked to hundreds of corporate HR and Recruiting Pros who HATE contract staffing, but 99% don’t know why they hate it.

Most believe they hate contract staffing because it’s taking their job away. Nothing makes me smile more than to hear a really good HR Pro say “if I hire your company ‘they’ll’ have no reason to keep me around”. I always find this a little sad, because that’s not at all true. Contract staffing isn’t in competition with corporate staffing. Contract staffing fills temporary voids of talent and project work. Corporate staffing is looking for permanent, long term hires.

But, to be perfectly honest, there are some reasons when contract staffing fails. If you deal with contract staffing firms, you might find that shocking to hear, because we are trained from birth not to ever say anything negative about our service. ‘Everyone’ can use us for any recruiting need you might have! Well, no not really. Let me give you 3 Ways Contract Staffing Fails:

1. To Attract your competitions talent when you are equal or trailing in market compensation. I always like to say there is no one I can’t recruit. Given enough time and money. I could get President Obama to quit the Presidency. But if you think a contract staffing firm is going to get your competitions best developer to leave their direct job for a contract job, for the same money or less, you’re crazy and I don’t want to work with you company.

2. When you fall in love with the talent. Every once in a while I a client who gets upset. They bring on a high priced contractor, that person does great work, and the client falls in love and wants to hire them. The problem is many contractors are contractors because they like moving from project to project. They like you, they just don’t like-like you. Contract staffing works really well when it’s a win-win. We have a project, you nail project, and we both got what we wanted. It fails when one party falls in love, and the other doesn’t feel the same!

3. When You Think I’m Magical. Recruiting is recruiting. I don’t have a magical stable of candidates waiting to come to work for you. Well, I might have one or two, but not a stable. When you tell me you need something I, usually, have to go out and find the right talent, fit, etc. Just like you would, if you were looking to hire a direct position. I’m not magic, I’m just good at finding technical talent. There’s a difference.

I get why some new clients get put off by contract staffing. I call you, tell you how amazing we are and how good we are at what we do and then you expect I’m going to have 5 perfectly screened ready to work Controls Engineers in your inbox the next morning, when you’ve been searching for 6 months and don’t have one.

Expectations are a huge issue we all face in recruiting, no matter what kind of recruiting we do. I have to manage my clients expectations, just like you have to manage your hiring managers expectations. Contract staffing works really well when you find a client partner that makes sure your expectations and their deliverables all line up.

Want to discuss? Contact me: sackett.tim@HRU-TECH.com, 517-908-3156 or send me a tweet @TimSackett. I promise to under promise and over deliver.

HR Manager Position that Pays $364,000! Want it?

Posted on April 10, 2015 by Tim Sackett

I ran into an age old issue last week, which for some reason hadn’t come up for a very long time, but there he was staring me right in the face, and I still don’t get it! Here’s the issue, should you post the salary (or your desired salary range based on experience, yadda, yadda…) for the position you are hiring, or not?

My guess is you clicked on this post because you wanted to find out which kind of HR Manager position pays $374K! Well, none, but you clicked, I win! But, while you’re here let’s take a look at the issue at play because it’s a polarizing issue amongst HR Pros.

I say, post the salary right out in front for God and everyone to see. It will create most interest, which gives you a larger pool of candidates, which gives you better odds at filling your position with the type of talent that fits your organization. It allows you to eliminate many candidates who won’t accept your job, because you’re too cheap. Sure you’ll get some people who see $98K, and they are making $45K, but they want to make $98K, so they send their resume, hoping. But we’re smarter than that, plus, maybe Mr. $45K would be a great fit for me for another position, or in 3 more years when I have the same position open.

Posting the salary on a job post creates 137% more candidate traffic, than those posts which don’t list salary, or at least it feels that way to me when I do it that way! I’m sure my friends at CareerBuilder can probably come up with some more precise figures on this exactly, but I’ll bet my made up math isn’t too far from correct. It’s common sense. You walk by a store and see “help wanted”, and no one goes in. You walk by the store and you see “Help Wanted $12/hr”, and they have a line out the door asking for applications.

There are only 3 reasons you wouldn’t list the target salary for the position you are hiring for:

1. You know you’re paying below market, and you don’t want to the competition to know, because they’ll cherry pick your best people

2. You can’t find the talent you want, so you’ve increased the salary target, but you aren’t going to increase the salary of the poor suckers already working for you at the lower amount.

3. You don’t know what you’re doing!

Look, I get it, I’ve been there. You don’t want to list salary because your current employees don’t understand that while the position title is the same, you are “really” looking for someone with more experience. Or, we just don’t have the budget to raise up everyone already working for us, but we really need some additional talent. Or, we’ve always did it this way, and we want people who are “interested in us” and not money.

Well, let me break it to you gently, you’re an idiot. People are interested in you because the value equation of what you are offering fits into their current lifestyle! Otherwise, you could just move forward as a volunteer organization now couldn’t you?!

Do yourself a favor and don’t make recruiting harder than it has to be. Just tell people what you have to offer. “We’re a great place to work, we have these benefits, they’ll cost you about this much, and we are willing to pay “$X” for this position”, if this is you, we want to speak to you. If it’s not, that’s great to, but check back because we might have something for you in the future.

Also, let me know if you find an HR Manager job that pays $374K. I know the perfect candidate!

T3 – GlideHR

Posted on March 31, 2015 by Tim Sackett

This week on T3 I take a look at a niche piece of HR and Talent Acquisition software from GlideHR. GlideHR helps you do the one thing that 99% of us suck at really bad, make better Job Descriptions! You and I both know this is such a huge weakness in our HR and TA shops. Glide’s program makes this process really easy, and really fast.

What usually happens is a hiring manager comes to you and says they need to add someone to their team, or they are losing someone. If you haven’t hired for that position in a while, let’s say even a year, you pull out the last job description. Chances are ‘that’ job description you pull out was probably written ten years prior or just stolen from some other company that had a similar posting. Welcome to real HR kids.

You want your hiring manager to ‘revamp’ the JD. They start to work on it, don’t have the time or the patience, and tell you, “what you send me is great”. A week or so later you start filling their inbox with candidates and they say, “these all suck, none of them fit the job I have”, to which you say, “they all fit the JD!”

Sound familiar? Don’t get depressed, almost everyone does it the same way, or they use some dated program that spits out the most boring, worthless JD known to mankind. Take your pick.

GlideHR is an online system that let’s your hiring managers give the information that is needed in about 20 minutes of answering a series of questions, which is then sent to the Glide team who puts together awesome JDs based on your brand, the department, etc. All in about 48 hours. I can’t tell you how many weeks I’ve waited, sometimes, to get a JD back from a manager so we could start sourcing!

5 Things I really like about GlideHR

1. They solve a real problem that the majority of working HR and TA pros actually have. Bad Job Descriptions and almost no creative ability to make the sound like jobs people would actually want.

2. A mechanism and process that helps hiring managers provide the information that is needed, quickly, and doesn’t force them to write the entire thing.

3. Cultural focused job descriptions. You generic JDs aren’t getting anyone to apply. Also, your generic employment brand is getting anyone excited, either. But, what about the culture for that department? That leader? Glide helps align the JD to that level of your culture specifically.

4. Glide virtually eliminates your need for ‘launch meetings’ with hiring managers every time they have an opening. So, your efficiency as a department increases and you move faster.

5. In the grand scheme of things, it’s really inexpensive! Also, this is a tool that can be used by any sized shop. Small, Medium and Enterprise all get the same value. That’s rare in a technology.

GlideHR won’t change your HR or TA life, but it will definitely make it easier. Also, the perception from the organization and hiring managers will be that HR is finally doing something, because this is something everyone sees and reads. Don’t underestimate this. Small changes can make a huge difference in how the organization views your function and better, faster, more creative JDs can do this.

You Wouldn’t Even Hire Your Own Mom

Posted on March 27, 2015 by Tim Sackett

I had a conversation recently with a friend about how hard it is to work and be a Mom. Just to be a clear, I’m not a Mom. I hire Moms. In fact I love hiring Moms, they work their asses off.

I know this because I was raised by a single mother.

I remember my Mom having to pick where we would go buy our groceries based on how long it had been since she bounced a check at that store. I remember her handing me items off the belt to return because they wouldn’t take her check and we only had enough cash for a few items. I remember pouring water into my bowl of generic Fruit Loops because we didn’t have enough money to buy milk that week.

My Mom started her own business, paid her own mortgage and raised two kids. It wasn’t perfect, but we made it. Those experiences shape a kid for life. It makes you appreciate what you have, when you know you can live with much less. My Mom got hugely successful after I got out of college and my kids only know her as the grandma that has so much. I can’t even describe to them the struggle, they have no concept.

I have zero tolerance for hiring managers who don’t want to hire moms because they might have to stay home with a sick kid, or they might want to take an early lunch to catch fifteen minutes of fourth grade play at school during the day. Both men and women, hiring managers, have told me they don’t like to hire moms. This doesn’t sit well with me.

The Moms I hire are some of the strongest employees I have. They come to work, which for many is a refuge of quiet and clean, and do work that is usually less hard than the other jobs they still have to perform that day and night. They rarely complain, and usually are much better to put issues into perspective and not freak out.

When I look at my own ‘tough’ days I try and remember that most of my day is done, while theres won’t be until their head hits the pillow. Old people and Moms are the most disrespected of the working class. They are the most underutilized workers of our generation. A woman takes a few years off to raise a kid and somehow she’s now worthless and has no skills.

I don’t even want to write this post because I feel like I’m giving away a recipe to a secret sauce. All these national recruiting companies are hiring the youngest, prettiest college grads they can find to work for them, and they mostly fail in the recruiting industry. Moms find this industry rather easy as comparable to what they are use to doing.

The recruiting secret sauce, main ingredient = moms.

Better Employee Relocation Design in 4 Easy Steps!

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Tim Sackett

I have to admit I’ve been one of those HR Pros who has had to design and develop relocation policies a few times in my career. My philosophy on relocation has changed somewhat over the years. In my career, I’ve accepted positions 4 times in which I went through “professional” relocation for various HR positions in my career. That fact has more impact on my philosophy of relocation than all other issues combined.

So, Fact #1 on getting a better relocation policy for your company: force those designing the policy to relocate, at least once. If you haven’t relocated, you can’t design the policy, it’s that simple.

People who haven’t relocated to another state for a job have no idea what impact it has on your life. It’s not the same as moving to a new house in another part of the city you live in. For the most part, if you have a significant other and some kids thrown into the mix, it’s probably one of the most stressful events you’ll go through in life. You get hired, Yeah! You now have to go show up at the new job, without family, belongings, etc. You’re trying out the new position, culture, etc., all the while your spouse is home trying to run life, now without 50% of her support resources. That person, you, is now living in a hotel or furnished the apartment, eating out each meal, sitting around doing nothing, etc. You’ll only understand if you’ve been through this!

You need to find a new house, but not until the old house is sold, find the right schools, etc., etc. Oh, and, by the way, you probably have some HR administrator going over your relocation expense reports like they’re a Zapruder Film. Oh, I’m sorry Mr. Sackett, you seem to have spent $1.32 too much on parking at the airport last week. Really!? I haven’t seen my wife and kids for two straight weeks, and we’re talking about $1.32? DON’T UNDERESTIMATE FACT #1.

I know the talk, lately, about relocation, has been about how difficult it is to get people to relocate because of falling housing values. Workforce Management’s article Recruiters Get Creative with Relocation in Sluggish Housing Market by Leah Shepherd speaks specifically to this dilemma. Clearly, it’s more expensive to get people to relocate, but I will argue that it isn’t more difficult. HR folks are classic in confusing expensive and more difficult – finance people don’t have this same issue. It’s not more difficult to get some to relocate, it’s just more expensive.

Here is where Fact #2 comes in: Never allow your Hiring Managers to get involved with Relocation.

Believe me, they will want to. It’s interesting how people who already work for a company tend to view relocation dollars spent, like the person receiving the relocation is getting a huge bonus! All of sudden your hiring manager believes they are personally responsible for every penny that is spent. They aren’t, and you the HR Pro understand this, and that’s why we keep our hiring managers out of the picture. We need them to have a great first impression of the new person, so take the money out of the picture so they can focus on the fit and skills.

HR/Recruiting Pros are in the business of increasing talent of their organizations, and this fact has to be paramount when discussing the finances of corporate relocation. This brings us to Fact #3 on how to make your relocation policy better: don’t budget relocation as a single annual amount, budget relocation by the percent of hires you anticipate in having to relocate.

Look, it’s way too easy for finance and executives to look at the HR budget and say, “Wow, $1.5M in relocation budgeted for 2010? You need to cut that by $500K.” Great, I’ll do that, but tell me which people we won’t be hiring?

Recruiting Pros need to come to the table with market data supporting why relocation is necessary and at which roles and levels. Cutting relocation isn’t a question about saving money; it’s a question about which talent is less important to the company, because that’s the real cost. Also, budgeting by hires forces departments and divisions to answer to their talent management strategies, instead of throwing it on HR’s back. Hey, it’s August, and we’ve already spent our Relocation budget for the whole company! No, Mr. Hiring Manager, it’s August, and we’ve spent your department’s relocation budget. You better talk to Mrs. CEO and tell her why you couldn’t manage your budget.

And lastly, Fact #4 – Don’t come to a Relocation Gunfight with a knife. Know what the person brings to the table and be able to show the alternatives to hiring that person, but either way show what the impact will be to the organization no matter what decision is made.

T3 – HarQen

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Tim Sackett

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – 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 space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find. If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.

This week on T3 I had the chance to demo two recruiting efficiency tools by Harqen. Harqen has both their flagship product, Voice Advantage, which is a digital interview platform for both voice and video (Yes, I asked them to change the name!), and their newest product called Hot Sheet that I’m really excited about.

First, Harqen does things a bit differently than most Recruiting technology companies. They have a great leadership team that has been in the talent acquisition game for a long time, so before you can demo, you have to have some business outcomes conversations. The last thing they want to do is waste your time, and their time, if their products aren’t really what you need. This is a must, because while we all want the new, cool tech to help us out, so many of us are just not ready for this change from a business processing state.

Harqen’s Voice Advantage is like many of the digital interview platforms that are out there, with the advantage that they don’t just assume you only want video. They also offer a voice/phone screen option, which is still the standard in many industries and professions. The platform is also mobile optimized and allows you do taped live interviews as well. Clean dashboard and UI, it’s simple and easy to use.

Harqen’s Hot Sheet is a real game changer. The one thing none of us in Recruiting and Talent Acquisition do well, is mine our own internal databases. You put a candidate in there two years ago and haven’t touched them since. You interviewed a gal last year, she was second choice by a hair, but you’ve never reached back out. Hot Sheet is a process that Harqen takes your internal candidate data and reaches back out to your database. These potential candidates then can respond via the interview platform and your recruiters have interested potential candidates ready to go when they come in the next day. One of the best parts of Hot Sheet, is you only pay for the candidates that actually show interest!

5 Things I really liked about Harqen:

1. One of the best management teams in the planet selling recruiting technology. These people have actually recruited and know the pain recruiters feel, which shows up in the products they’ve created. They listen to you, and even if you don’t end up working with them, they’ll give you great advice on what you should be doing.

2. The key to their Hot Sheet product is the Harqen team putting some great marketing touches and creating a campaign when reaching out to your internal database. This isn’t just a mass email campaign, this is a recruitment marketing campaign to re-engage one of the most valuable resources you have in your shop.

3. You only send the people you want Harqen to go after with Hot Sheet, so it’s not some spammy program killing your database. You use as much, or as little as you want. You can also shut it off at any point. Since you only pay for those that respond, this is one of the economical pieces of recruiting technology on the market.

4. Harqen’s VoiceAdvantage digital interview product is one of the more flexible interview tools on the market. Video, audio, screen, live, etc. But you can also use for performance management, onboarding, etc. Harqen’s team is smart enough to show you how to fully integrate and utilize the tech for other things than just interviewing.

5. I can’t say it enough, when you work with Harqen, you aren’t just buying recruitment technology, you’re buying Recruitment Consulting at no additional cost. Others will tell you they do this, but it’s only to make the sale. Harqen does this, at certain points, to talk you out of the sale, so they don’t have to work with bad companies that won’t utilize their products in a way they actually work! This is a rarity in the industry.

Check them out. The Hot Sheet is something that almost any shop should be using. It’s something my own shop will begin using soon, and I’ll update everyone on how it is working. It’s just too good of an idea not to do, and a very inexpensive cost.

Married with Children Campus Recruiting

Posted on March 6, 2015 by Tim Sackett

I wonder what would happen if we recruited married with children types, like we recruit kids on college campuses?

It’s a bit upside down, don’t you think?

We have separate recruiting teams, and strategies and little uniforms our recruiting teams wear at the booth on campus. We throw pizza and beer parties at the local campus watering holes to try and entice students to want to come to our companies.

Never once, after college, have I been asked to come have free pizza and beer by a company. I mean, I don’t know if I would take that, but I would definitely take a free babysitter and free movie with my wife. Even if it meant I would have to listen to some recruiter tell me how great ABC, Inc. was to work for and their great childcare benefits. Throw in popcorn and drinks, and I might just sign up on the spot!

But that doesn’t happen.

You see, experienced professionals don’t want or need that kind of pampering. Only college age kids want that. Why would over tired, over worked adults want something for free?

We go to campus to find kids who have extremely hard to find skills, and pay for their last two or three years of college in exchange for them coming to work for you for the same length of time. Would you ever offer to pay for a candidates kid’s college education if they came to work for you, in the same skill capacity?

This isn’t a college recruiting vs. experienced recruiting issue. This is a and-and issue. We need both college recruiting and we need better recruiting of experienced professionals. Unfortunately, while college recruiting as evolved over time, how we recruit our experienced candidates has virtually stayed the same. We post jobs. We ask for referrals. We hold job fairs, that no person currently working in their right mind would attend. We bang on resume databases.

I wonder how your recruiting, of experienced workers, would change if you spent the amount you spend on campus, on recruiting at the neighborhoods around the locations you recruit for now? Some of you will claim that you spend more money recruiting experienced workers, but most of those costs are wrapped in headhunting costs to agencies.

Imagine showing up and putting your booth outside the big Friday Night Lights local football game. I know in my community we get 5-7,000 people coming out to those games. That’s a heck of a lot more than you will see coming through a career fair. How about outside the college football stadium!? Ten times the that amount will be milling around.

Married with Children recruiting events could work. The campus isn’t as defined, but standing out front the Home Depot on a Saturday, next to girls selling cookies, might just work.

The Tim Sackett Project

TA & HR Expert, Dad, Backup Point Guard on my over 40 men's team

Category Archives: IT Staffing

T3 – GlideHR

Married with Children Campus Recruiting