Category Archives: Recruitment Marketing

7+ High Volume, Low Unemployment Recruitment Strategies!

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Gather ‘round talent buffs and let me tell you a story – of a time not so long ago in a land not so far away. A little agency called The Bureau of Labor Statistics (you may have heard of them) released a report claiming that the unemployment rate dropped below 4% for the first time in 15 years. Did I mention that this is a true story?

That’s right, in April 2018 the unemployment numbers dropped to 3.9% in the good ol‘ US of A. This information is great for the domestic economy, but not so great for employers who are using outdated tactics to build their teams.

But have no fear – Fistful of Talent and Canvas have put me on the case to help organizations refresh their TA approaches during our WEBINAR, Help! We Can’t Hire Anyone! How to Hire When Unemployment is at Historic Lows (Click to register), on October 9th at 12 PM ET.

I’ll be dropping the following silver bullets of recruiting wisdom. When used together these bullets can help you hit the hiring bullseye every time:

* Not one, not two, but SEVEN new strategies to attract the best of the best during this low-unemployment era, from hourly workers to C-suite-grade talent

* The top talent attraction technology working for high-volume recruiting teams RIGHT NOW to level the playing field in this hot job market

* Three moves you are currently making that are putting a damper on your hiring efforts, and how you can make your recruiting dollars really count

It’s all going down on October 9th at 12 PM ET – register to save your spot for our WEBINAR, Help! We Can’t Hire Anyone! How to Hire When Unemployment is at Historic Lows (Click to register), TODAY to make your TA shop full-employment environment proof)

Register Here! 

I won’t be handing out one silver bullet in this webinar, I’ll be handing out handfuls! There isn’t a single silver bullet that will fix the problems we have, but a bunch that when used together, will help your organization succeed in hiring…even when unemployment drops below 4%.

About Canvas:
Canvas is the first text-based intelligent interviewing system that empowers organizations and recruiters to screen more job candidates and market employment brands. For more information, visit www.gocanvas.io and follow Canvas on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

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.

What Makes a Great Talent Acquisition Conference? #SourceCon

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Hey gang! I’m back from attending and speaking at my first ever SourceCon conference. Can I be real for a second? I never attended SourceCon in the past because I was intimidated. For real!

Let me explain. I’m not a Sourcing Nerd! I’m not going to sit down on my laptop and go deep diving into the national archives to find names of whatever or build search strings that are 5,000 characters long, so I thought, yeah, this just isn’t for me. I was wrong! It is for me! Okay, not the super sourcing nerd stuff, but I even like watching that!

SourceCon was filled with passionate Talent Acquisition pros and leaders, not just Sourcing Pros. Like I’m just going to come up and introduce myself and start asking questions about how I can better and share with you on how you can get better. The interactions at all levels at the conference is off the charts, and unlike I’ve seen at other recruiting conferences, especially around how to make you as a professional better!

So, what do I think makes a great Recruiting conference like SourceCon?

– Leadership to break away from the normal content stream and put different stuff on stage. Shannon Pritchett and the ERE leadership are always willing to push the envelop and try stuff!

– A culture of sharing! Everyone at SourceCon seems to be there to share openly with everyone else, and it makes for interactions and conversations happening everywhere!

– Feeling like you’re being welcomed into the trust circle! That was my initial fear. I’m not really one of them, they won’t want me, what do I have to give them!? It’s the opposite, truly. Steve Levy, an industry veteran is just one of a bunch of actual “Welcome Wagon” pros who volunteer to introduce you into the inner circle and make instantly feel like part of a movement.

– Content where you can’t write fast enough! The content at SourceCon is packed with “oh, crap, I’m stealing that idea and taking that back to my own shop and we’re doing that tomorrow!” Like every session!

– Content that forces you to think differently about what you and your organization are doing. That challenges you, and might even make you feel a bit uncomfortable. Not every session, that would be exhausting, but you need a little bit to force you to think differently about the profession.

SourceCon 2019 is in Seattle, and Shannon and the team just keep finding ways to make it better. Definitely check it out as a great development option for you and your team next year.

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.

Your Weekly Dose of HR Tech: @LinkedIn Talent Insights – LI’s newest product!

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Today on the Weekly Dose I take a look at LinkedIn’s newest product, LinkedIn Talent Insights, which is getting released today for public consumption. Talent Insights is LinkedIn’s first self-serve data and analytics product. Talent Insights provides companies with access to LinkedIn’s global database of 575M+ professionals, 20M+ companies and 15M+ active job listings, to help talent professionals and business leaders develop a winning workforce strategy and make smarter talent decisions more quickly.

What we know is if LinkedIn has anything, it has data! I first got to see this product at the 2017 LinkedIn Talent Connect conference when it was still in beta and they weren’t even quite sure what they had yet, and I was like, “Oh, boy! this is crazy cool!”

Here’s how it’s crazy cool. Talent Insights provides access to LinkedIn’s global, accurate and up-to-date data through two reports:

  • With the Talent Pool report, companies will be able to precisely define and understand specific populations of talent with global insights including skills the talent has, what industries and locations they’re in are, how in demand they are, what schools and degrees they have and what companies are hiring them.
  • Using the Company report, companies will be able to understand their own talent at the company level and see how well they are doing in attracting and retaining talent, and develop branding and recruiting strategies to get even better.

Here’s what companies can expect.

  • On-demand data: Talent Insights users will have the ability to access LinkedIn insights, in real-time, to quickly answer complex talent questions. As members update their profiles, the aggregated data within LTI also updates, providing real-time updates to help companies keep up with the market.
  • Actionable insights: The tool is simple and easy to use making it possible for recruiters, HR, and talent leaders to understand the most accurate view of labor market trends at any given moment, without relying on a team of data scientists.

So, why is this something HR, Talent Acquisition, Marketing/PR, Sales, and a lot of other functions in your company will want to get their hands on it? 

Talent Insights provides some super cool competitor data you can’t get anywhere else!

Need to know what kinds of people your competition is hiring and where? Talent Insights can show you that! In fact, it can give you insight to stuff your competitors are working on that isn’t even public if you can just connect a few dots!

“Hey, why is ABC, Inc. hiring a ton of autonomous developers in Omaha!? Oh, no they aren’t, are they!? Yes, they are!”

Talent Insights also gives HR leaders insight to your current workforce, like who’s coming after your talent, where are your employees going, where are the best coming from, where should you be looking to build your next headquarters (I bet Amazon is looking at this!), etc.

This is definitely a product that TA Leaders will want to leverage, and I’m in love with it’s ability to pull competitor data. Just know, as you’re pulling your competition’s data, so might they be pulling yours, and there’s nothing you can do about it. LinkedIn Talent Insights is available to anyone who wants to pay for a subscription, and you don’t have to be a customer of other LI products to get it.

LinkedIn Talent Insights is definitely worth a demo. You might find it’s just not data that your organization needs, but I think the more competitive you are within your marketplace, executitves are always willing to listen to you a little longer when your wrap your needs and wants around competitive data, so take a look!

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.

“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”?

The Real Problem In Talent Attraction #HRTechConf

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Well, clearly, Tim, it’s our process sucks! We need to fix our process! Once we fix our process everything will be fine!

Well, clearly, Tim, it’s our technology! Our ATS sucks! SUCKS, I say! Once we get our new ATS everything will be fine!

Well, clearly, Tim, it’s our career site! Have you seen our site, it sucks!? Once we get our new career site everything will be fine!

It’s our recruiters. It’s our brand. It’s our…

It actually might be all of this but the real problem you have with attracting talent is friction.

Friction is every step we put in place between a candidate and that candidate getting hired. Fill out an application – friction point. Answer these screening questions – friction point. Go through five in-person interviews – friction points.

The only thing a TA Leader should be doing is working to eliminate candidate friction. How can I get a candidate to connect with a hiring manager with the least amount of friction?

The best talent will come to work for you, but the better talent the less open they are to adding friction into their life. “Well, if you just let me talk to Mary the manager of that group, I’ll take that call. But if you make me click 8 times to find your job, then make me register to apply, then make me take three calls from your TA team, then make me take a pre-employment assessment, etc. I have no interest in going through that amount of friction!”

I’m out at The HR Technology Conference this week and I’m doing a presentation today with a great friend and super smart lady, Shaunda Zilich. Our talk will be about Real-Life Recruitment Marketing, and one of the big topics we talk about is the concept of friction elimination. How do I connect a candidate with the hiring manager in as few steps as possible?

Shaunda and I share a belief that getting candidates and hiring managers to have conversations is a big key to being great at hiring! See, real high-level stuff, right!? I joke, but think about your own process and how many steps does it take to get a candidate and a hiring manager together?

I put this tweet up a while back:

In a nutshell, this is all bad talent acquisition. We add friction. We make candidates search to find our jobs. Jump through hoops to apply to our jobs. Then jump through more hoops to ‘show’ us they want to come work for us.

Then we tell our CEO we need to spend a million dollars a year on third-party search because “there’s just not any talent available”.

The real problem with talent attraction has everything to do with the amount of friction you add to your recruiting process. In the end, are you making it difficult for candidates to tell you they love you or are you making it really easy?

Talent acquisition is super hard if you don’t make it easy.

Recruiters – How are you celebrating #GlobalTADay?

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Today is a big day in Talent Acquisition! The Association of Talent Acquisition Professionals (ATAP) is launching Global TA Day to celebrate all the talent acquisition professionals that are working hard every day to ensure their organizations have the talent they need to thrive!

ATAP launched the site ilovetalentacquisition.com, in conjunction with our founding sponsor KRT Marketing and you can follow the action that is happening across the country as events are taking place in major cities throughout the day. On the site, you’ll find some great downloads to help you and your team celebrate!

I’ll be in downtown Detroit today and on Facebook live around 1pm EST, as I’ll be celebrating #GlobalTADay with the over 100 TA Pros on the team at Quicken Loans as they are using today as their annual TA Summit where the team will have development and strategy sessions throughout the day, and some fun and celebration as well!

To check out the Facebook Live feed today just go to the Global TA Day Facebook Page!

So, I’m guessing most of you were caught off guard by this! Like, what is Global, what!?! I get it, but it’s not too late to find ways to celebrate today. Here’s how I would celebrate if I was in the office today:

  1. I would follow along on the Twitter hashtag #GlobalTADay and connect with other TA Pros from around the world!
  2. I would ask another TA Pro on my team to get lunch or go get a drink after work, or I might go buy some sweet treats to share around the office!
  3. I would watch some of the celebrations taking place around the world today on the Facebook Live feed.
  4. I would take some time to reflect on while our profession is extremely difficult, especially right now, I’m so grateful for having found a job and industry that I love working in!
  5. I would go signup to be a member of the only professional association the supports my interests ATAP Global! Today only you get an annual membership for $85! (a $10 discount). TODAY ONLY! By the way, I’m the next President of ATAP, so come help me build something great!
  6. I would go on Amazon and buy the best TA Book on the Planet and #1 Best Seller and 5 Star rated – The Talent Fix! (just kidding, no really I would!)!

So, have fun with Global TA Day! You deserve it!

Michigan Recruiter’s Conference – November 1st – Detroit, MI! Registration is Now Open!

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The 4th Annual Michigan Recruiter’s Conference will take place on November 1st, 2018 onsite at the GM Headquarters RenCen in downtown Detroit, MI. Registration is now open for this event. There is limited seating because of space constraints. Only 250 registrations will be accepted! This event will SELL OUT, don’t wait!

Okay – all that nonsense is out of the way! Why should you and your corporate recruiting team come? Yes, I specifically said “corporate” recruiting team. No staffing, RPO, or vendors will be allowed to register. Hate me if you want, but it actually works really well. Corporate TA leaders and pros can learn without being pimped constantly!

When Jim and I started this conference 4 years ago we did so that our teams would have world-class recruiting development in our own backyard. National conferences are great, but they are expensive! We couldn’t afford to send our teams, but if we had one local, we could bring our entire team!

Jim and I knew most of the great Talent Acquisition speakers personally, or we knew someone who knew them personally, and we felt pretty confident we could talk them into coming to beautiful Michigan! Okay, they all owe us favors and we just happen to be in Michigan! Either way, the Michigan Recruiter’s Conference has worked out wonderfully!

The 2018 Michigan Recruiter’s Conference lineup is Awesome!

– Torin Ellis – Diversity Strategist speaking on “Conversation to Commitment”

– Angie Verros – Sourcing/TA Expert speaking on getting more candidate replies

– Michael Arena, Ph.D. – Chief Talent Officer at GM speaking on TA Transformation

– Dawn Burke – HR and Talent Expert speaking on getting more out of your hiring managers

– Holly Fawcett – Sourcing Ninja at Social Talent sharing the latest and greatest Sourcing magic!

– Plus, additional sessions on DIversity Recruiting and Recruitment Marketing!

I want to thank this year’s sponsors: General Motors (just exceptional automobiles), Greenhouse (just an exceptional ATS) and Smashfly (just an exceptional Recruitment Marketing platform). They allow us to keep the cost of the entire conference down to just $89 per person, that includes, coffee, breakfast, drinks, lunch, snacks, oh yeah, and all that great freaking TA development and thought leadership!

Register Today! (over 100 tickets have already been sold in the 1st week!)

@SocialTalent’s Talent Talks with Tim Sackett and Johnny Campbell

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Hey gang!

When I was over in London a few weeks ago speaking at the Sourcing Summit UK, Social Talent’s CEO Johnny Campbell and I sat down to talk shop on how can organizations fix their recruiting.

We probably shot 45 minutes to an hour of footage, the team then broke it down to a really great 20 minutes!

For those who don’t know Johnny or SocialTalent you should really check them out. I’m a huge fan of their platform, so much so, my own team has been using it for 2 years!

Here’s the promo video for it – click the link below to watch the full 20 minutes!

Watch the full video! (just click the link)