Category Archives: Recruitment Marketing

Should Your Employer Brand State its Political Beliefs?

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Oh, no, Tim’s losing his mind! He’s going to talk about politics!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I am a Raging Moderate! I will fight until my last breath to keep myself firming on the fence in the middle, open to actually having an opinion that might fall on either side depending on the subject!

Here’s the thing, though, 63% of people are more likely to “buy” from a brand that speaks out about politics!

If that’s the case, and the main goal of great employment branding is to clearly let potential employees know who you are, so they can self-select in, or self-select out, it would seem like we should be stating our political leanings in our employment branding and recruitment marketing!? Right?!

It’s a tricky question!

Most organizations would claim they do not have a political identity. They would claim they are a-political accepting candidates and employees who believe all kinds of politics across a vast spectrum. That is actually the reality for many large employers. And, it’s not the reality.

When you dig into exit interview data, and reasons why folks do well in some organizations and struggle in others, many times you find that “fit” was all about either the political leanings of the micro-culture they worked in or the political leanings of the macro-culture they worked in.

It then truly comes down to the goals of your leadership team. What is it they want to portray to the world? Your customers. Your stakeholders. Your employees, and your future employees, candidates.

The reality is, if you are a small to a mid-sized organization (0-500 employees), you probably lean one way or another on the political spectrum, many times you are leaning really far to one side! Your senior-most leader probably has stated publicly what they are politically, and/or who they will vote for. Most likely, the folks they hire will be similar in their political beliefs, and it all rolls downhill.

The farther away from senior leadership the more likely you will have hires make into the organization they see the world completely different, politically, as you will get left or right leaders who hire folks who don’t carry the same strong leanings one way or another.

BUT – if the true goal is to get people who “fit” your culture, shouldn’t we tell them who we are?

Can you imagine applying for a job at a 1,000 person organization and on their career site they have something like this listed:

After the Most Recent Political Election, our employees took an anonymous survey of where the fell politically. Here are the results:

  • Democrat – 52%
  • Republican – 35%
  • Libertarian – 3%
  • We hate politics – 10%

Automatically, you get a feeling if you want to work at this company or not, just by looking at the breakdown! If you are a major conservative, you probably will question whether you want to join, or even apply, to this company. Or, if you are liberal, this data might truly push you to want to join this organization!

“But Tim! We want to be ‘Inclusive’!”

Really? Are you sure? Have you asked your CEO that question and then asked them why they’ve made it public where they stand, politically?

If the best employer brand helps you attract the talent the best fits your organization, then you probably aren’t being fully inclusive. That’s a hard pill to swallow, but it’s true. Great employer brands are exclusive. This is exactly who we are, and this is exactly who we want to work here. That might mean we are a diverse set of men and women of all colors who like old school hip-hop and Minecraft, who are also mostly Catholic. Cool. I either want that, or I won’t, but now it’s my decision.

Bad employer branding is to say we are everything to everyone, come join us, when you actually aren’t, and you actually don’t want to be that. It’s not popular to say out loud. We are supposed to be fully inclusive. I want the Trump hat-wearing dude and the rainbow flag wearing lesbian and that one girl with black lipstick that doesn’t talk much, but damn can she code! Unfortunately, that isn’t the normal reality.

I’m going to say that 99.9% of TA and HR leaders would say, “NO!” when asked if they would want their employer brand to state their political beliefs. The reality is, it does, and you’re just ignoring it.

3 Secrets Talent Acquisition Leaders Do Not Want You to Know #TheProjectTakeover

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I’m on vacation this week so my friends are taking over the Project! Enjoy their content, connect with them, and share the content with new people! Some amazing voices coming to you this week! 

Enjoy this post by Jackye Clayton! 

I love technology. I order my groceries online. I am on a first-name basis with my mailman, FedEx, and UPS driver. I have a Google home, a ‘Smart’ TV, and a scale that is connected via Bluetooth. And most of us these days are pretty well connected. I love it so much that rather than just write about it, I changed careers to help others in HR and Recruiting find the best combination of technology to hire better candidates faster in a more efficient way. After dedicating my life to the benefits of using technology I found something I was not expecting. It isn’t just the technology that makes us better. It is the data we get from the technology and how we use it that is the difference between good recruiters and great ones. I have worked now with literally hundreds of recruiting leaders – and there is some stuff they won’t tell you. Here are 3 secrets TA Leaders do NOT want you to know!  (Spoiler alert – these aren’t silver bullets; it is simple math.)

Quality of Hire > Time to Hire = Take Your Time to Find the Best

Recruiters have ZERO control over how fast a hire is made and yet for some reason, we evaluate recruiters based on how fast a hire is made. That is crap and they know it. Of course, they want to get someone in the role quickly. But if they knew that if they waited an extra week, there would be a better candidate in the aisles, they will wait. A majority of companies are looking now for diverse candidates unless you use HiringSolved (#shamelessplug) it will take you extra time to find that ideal candidate. And all will sacrifice speed for a candidate that fits the requirements, the culture, and can solve the problem they are trying to solve. Do not be afraid to ask for more time.

Data > Instinct = Show Your Work

TA leaders want to give their sourcers and recruiters the world. If they had millions of dollars available to spend on whatever they wanted, after a new laptop, they would want to spend it entirely on tools that would help their team hire faster and better. Because they want you to be successful. (I promise.) However, there are so many tools they have no time to research them all and so, they buy the ones either their top recruiter asks for, the one from the salesperson who called at the same time they realized they needed something, or the one an influencer recommends. Until now – Because you can help.

We already established that you know more about what it takes to find the best candidates. That also means you know what tools will give you access to those candidates. Don’t tell your manager that you want what everyone else has. Use the data you have to tell them where the candidates are and why what you are requesting would be a good investment. Don’t have a tool to communicate regularly? Get a CRM. Have too many candidates applying and not enough time? Explain why you need a matching tool. Don’t tell them what you want – tell them what you NEED – then tell them why. Use data to support your instinct. Not the other way around.

Recruiters’ Talent Knowledge > Hiring Managers’ Talent Knowledge = It is Your Job to Educate

The majority of hiring managers have no idea what is going on in the world of hiring. They don’t know what an appropriate job title is. They don’t know what a good salary is. They don’t know what will make or break an offer. But you do. Let your hiring managers know the trends in hiring and how things have changed since the last time they hired. This goes with job descriptions as well. The same old job descriptions from 2018 will not work in this post-COVID, social justice focused world. When they know better, they will do better.

This is especially true when reviewing the job requirements. Is a bachelor’s degree really necessary? Sometimes removing that barrier will give your company access to hundreds of additional candidates. If you think they are making a mistake, use the data to let them know what you think could help them gain better candidates faster.

In conclusion, it is time for recruiters, sourcers, and other talent acquisition professionals to take their power back. The world of technology has some hiring managers thinking that recruiting is a simple job. Go out there with the knowledge and skills you have and go wow your hiring managers! (And your boss!)

Jackye Clayton is recognized as a people expert who puts the Human in Human Resources. An international trainer, she has traveled worldwide sharing her unique gifts in sourcing, recruiting, and coaching. 

Do Recruiters Still Need to Make Phone Calls?

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Recently, I was on a webinar, and in my presentation, I harped on the talent acquisition pros and leaders on the webcast on why 100% of us are not using texting as a primary first form of contact with candidates. The data is in. Texting works! It works better than email by a mile, but still, less than 50% in the room are texting candidates.

After I was done a great TA pro contacted me and said, “Tim, shouldn’t recruiters being calling candidates!” I feel in love! Why, yes, fine, sir they should always be calling candidates! But, let’s not forsake other tools that are working at a high level. We know people, in general, respond to texts at a much higher rate than email and phone calls.

You see a text and within seconds you read it, and you respond to it at more than double the rate of email or voicemail. In talent acquisition, we are in LOVE with email, even when it doesn’t work.

In 2011, I wrote this post below – funny enough, it’s still relevant today (except now I think we need to add in more texting with those phone calls!)

Do we (recruiters) still need to make telephone calls?

I mean really it’s 2011 – we have text messaging, emails, Facebook, Twitter, etc. – hasn’t the telephone just become obsolete?  Does anyone actually use their cell phones to make actual phone calls anymore?

The New York Times had an article: Don’t Call Me, I Won’t Call You, in which they delve into this concept of whether the act of making a phone call has jumped the shark or not.  From the article:

“I remember when I was growing up, the rule was, ‘Don’t call anyone after 10 p.m.,’ ” Mr. Adler said. “Now the rule is, ‘Don’t call anyone. Ever.’ ”

Phone calls are rude. Intrusive. Awkward. “Thank you for noticing something that millions of people have failed to notice since the invention of the telephone until just now,” Judith Martin, a k a Miss Manners, said by way of opening our phone conversation. “I’ve been hammering away at this for decades. The telephone has a very rude propensity to interrupt people…

Even at work, where people once managed to look busy by wearing a headset or constantly parrying calls back and forth via a harried assistant, the offices are silent. The reasons are multifold. Nobody has assistants anymore to handle telecommunications. And in today’s nearly door-free workplaces, unless everyone is on the phone, calls are disruptive and, in a tight warren of cubicles, distressingly public. Does anyone want to hear me detail to the dentist the havoc six-year molars have wreaked on my daughter?

“When I walk around the office, nobody is on the phone,” said Jonathan Burnham, senior vice president, and publisher at HarperCollins. The nature of the rare business call has also changed. “Phone calls used to be everything: serious, light, heavy, funny,” Mr. Burnham said. “But now they tend to be things that are very focused. And almost everyone e-mails first and asks, ‘Is it O.K. if I call?’ ”

Sound Familiar?

Now I could easily turn this into a generational issue because for one it’s easy to do, but this isn’t a GenX vs. GenY issue.  This is a basic communication issue.  An understanding of what we do in our industry issue.  Whether your third party or corporate recruitment, we do the same thing, we search and find talent.  There are two basic ways to screen potential talent for fit for your organization: 1. Meet them in Person (no one would argue that this is the best way, but boy it’s expensive if you are using it as your first-line screen); 2. Meet them over the phone (done in some form or another by 99.9% of recruiters).

There really isn’t any way around this issue, we recruit, we make telephone calls.  If you don’t like to make telephone calls, if you believe what the New York Times article believes, you shouldn’t recruit.  It’s not an indictment on you, this just isn’t your gig.

Recruiters like to talk to people, to question people, to find out more about people, not a career, best done by email and text messaging. We need to talk live to others. That’s how we go to work. Doesn’t matter if you’re 21 or 6. It’s how to deliver great talent to our hiring managers.

So, here’s a tip, if you’re in recruitment and you don’t like making phone calls get, out of recruitment, you will not be successful.  If your first choice of contacting someone isn’t picking up the phone and calling them, instead of sending them an email, when you have their phone number, get out of recruitment. If you’re thinking you want to recruit, and you don’t like making phone calls take another path.

Recruiters make phone calls, that’s what we do.

Do you pay a larger employee referral bonus for Black Engineers?

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I know a ton of HR Pros right now who have been charged by their organizations to go out and “Diversify” their workforce.  By “Diversify”, I’m not talking about diversity of thought, but to recruit a more diverse workforce in terms of ethnic, gender, and racial diversity.

Clearly, by bringing in more individuals from underrepresented groups in your workforce, you’ll expand the “thought diversification”, but for those HR Pros in the trenches and sitting in conference rooms with executives behind closed doors, diversification of thought isn’t the issue being discussed.

So, I have some assumptions I want to put forth before I go any further:

1. Referred employees make the best hires. (Workforce studies frequently list employee referrals as the highest quality hires across all industries and positions)

2. ERPs (Employee Referral Programs) are the major tool used to get employee referrals by HR Pros.

3. A diverse workforce will perform better in most circumstances, then I homogeneous workforce will.

4. Diversity departments, if you’re lucky enough, or big enough, to have one in your organization, traditionally tend to do a weak job at “recruiting” diversity candidates (there more concerned about getting the Cinco De Mayo Taco Bar scheduled, etc.)

Now, keeping in mind the above assumptions, what do you think is the best way to recruit diverse candidates to your organization?

I’ve yet to find a company willing to go as far as to “Pay More” for a black engineer referral vs. a white engineer referral. Can you imagine how that would play out in your organization!?  But behind the scenes in the HR Departments across the world, this exact thing is happening in a number of ways.

First, what is your cost of hire for diverse candidates versus non-diverse candidates? Do you even measure that? Why not?  I’ll tell you why, is very hard to justify why you are paying two, three, and even four times more for a diversity candidate, with the same skill sets, versus a non-diverse candidate in most technical and medical recruiting environments.  Second, how many diversity recruitment events do you go to versus non-specific diversity recruitment events?  In organizations that are really pushing diversification of the workforce, I find that this figure is usually 2 to 1.

So, you will easily spend more resources of your organization to become more diversified, but you won’t reward your employees for helping you to reach your goals?  I find this somewhat ironic. You will pay Joe, one of your best engineers, $2000 for any referral, but you are unwilling to pay him $4000 for referring his black engineer friends from his former company.

Yet, you’ll go out and spend $50,000 attending diversity recruiting job fairs and events all over the country trying to get the same person.  When you know the best investment of your resources would be to put up a poster in your hallways saying “Wanted Black Engineers $4000 Reward!”.

Here’s why you don’t do this.

Most organizations do a terrible job at communicating the importance of having a diverse workforce, and that to get to an ideal state, sometimes it means the organization might have to hire a female, or an Asian, or an African American, or a Hispanic, over a similarly qualified white male to ensure the organization is reaching their highest potential.

Workgroup performance by diversity is easily measured and reported to employees, to demonstrate diversity successes, but we rarely do it, to help us explain why we do what we are doing in talent selection.  What do we need to do? Stop treating our employees like they won’t get it, start educating them beyond the politically correct version of Diversity and start educating them on the performance increases we get with diversity.  Then it might not seem so unheard of to pay more to an employee for referring a diverse candidate!

So, you take pride in your diversity hiring efforts, but you’re just unwilling to properly reward for it…

The Fight Club Recruiting Rules!

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Great talent and great hiring are about getting the best candidates to respond to your messaging. It’s our reality as talent acquisition professionals that we have candidates who apply to our jobs, some of whom might be great. We also have to go out and find great talent and find ways to get them to respond to our overtures.

It’s the number one job of every talent acquisition professional. I would argue it might be the only job of talent acquisition. Get great talent to interact with you!

The first rule of Fight Recruiting Club is you need to get candidates to respond!

The second rule of Recruiting Club is you need to keep trying to get talent to respond to you until they actually respond. Wait a second, Tim! You mean we have to reach out to a candidate more than once!? I mean, if they don’t respond to me after my first outreach, that’s their loss! No, it’s your loss! You need that talent!

The third rule of Recruiting Club is you need to interact with candidates in themedium they are most comfortable with. I like it when you text me, most people do. It gets a high response rate. Some folks like email, phone calls, Facebook messenger, handwritten notes, etc. Find all the mediums the candidate likes, not your favorite!

The fourth rule of Recruiting Club is it’s not about you. It’s about them! “I’ve got a great career opportunity for you!” How do you know what I want? Stop assuming you know what I want when you don’t. How about you first to get to know me a little. I mean, you don’t ask someone to marry you on the first date!

The fifth rule of Recruiting Club is….(there are ten in total, click through to the rest of my post over on Saba’s Blog)

The Weekly Dose: @Fountain_Inc – Hourly Recruiting Reimagined

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Today on The Weekly Dose I take a look at the hourly recruiting technology, Fountain. Fountain is a technology designed to make high volume hourly hiring more efficient, easier, with higher quality.

The reality is most HCM-based Applicant Tracking Systems are not designed for high volume hourly. They are designed mostly to process requisitions for a salaried workforce. Candidates who will sit at a desktop and be willing to jump through hoops and take a bunch of time following each step.

Hourly workers, the vast majority who will only access the internet via their mobile device, will not jump through a bunch of hoops and have the patients to follow a long process. Thus, most organizations that have a high volume hourly hiring component tend to find a workaround to their ATS or go out and find technology, like Fountain, that can fix their hourly hiring inefficiencies while still getting the data they need into their HCM for onboarding and payroll.

What I like about Fountain:

  • A mobile-based hiring process that makes it super easy and quick for an hourly candidate to apply and show interest. We don’t want a system that eliminates or discourages candidates to apply, we want them all to apply, and then let the technology screen and sort the best ones for us, which is what Fountain does.
  • Built-in programmatic like functionality that allows you the TA team to boost specific jobs that aren’t having the candidate flow they need to meet your recruiting plan goals.
  • Candidate communication via email and SMS, ability to communicate with groups of candidates at once through the entire process right from the platform.
  • Fountain can automatically begin video screening candidates as they match certain criteria you need for each position, reducing time to fill dramatically.
  • Simple Collaboration between applicant and hiring managers as many organizations with multi-locations have on-the-ground managers who do their own hourly hiring. So, great for franchise-type environments as well.
  • Fully integrates with your HRIS and Payroll for easy onboarding of hourly hires all within the same recruiting process flow.

Why do I need a system just for hiring hourly workers? 

That’s the big question, right? Quite frankly, you wouldn’t if the ATS you had was designed to actually be a benefit to you for high volume hourly hiring, but most are not. While they will say they are mobile-optimized, they are not built mobile-first. They were not built to have someone apply in a minute or less, verse twenty to thirty minutes.

Hourly workers have shown they are unwilling to “register” with your ATS before applying, and then click from screen to screen in what seems to be an endless maze of a process. They want to pick up their phone, show you they are interested, and almost instantly see if you have an interest or not. If you don’t have that, they’ll go apply to someone else that will. Speed, in mass-volume hourly hiring, is critical!

I recently witnessed an hourly worker apply, get screened, and have an offer of employment in 18 minutes! This hourly candidate had a job in 18 minutes! Why do you need a stand-alone hourly hiring platform? Because your competition is getting the best talent before you even see them.

Fountain is definitely worth a demo. It’s amazing to see how fast a recruiting process can work when you have the right technology in place. It’s all about getting high quality, fast, and Fountain delivers.

The New Normal for Hiring Hourly Employees!

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Not many of us are actually doing a ton of hiring right now. How do I know? There are 25 million people who applied for unemployment! That means there’s probably another 75 million that are currently under-employed or utilized.

This means that when we all get back to the ‘new normal’ of working, a bunch of stuff is going to change! How we attract, select, onboard, etc. can not be the same as what we did only sixty to ninety days ago.

Hourly hiring has always been a very “hands-on” endeavor and we must change that! My good friend and Recruiting Expert, Madeline Laurano has done a major research project looking specifically at hourly hiring. I’ve been spending time interviewing TA and HR leaders on the changes they are planning moving forward, and we are going to share with you all of those ideas and strategies!

Join us for a free Webinar on Tuesday, May 12th at 1pm EST: The New Normal for Hourly Hiring: 5 Strategies TA Leaders Must Consider Moving Forward! 

I’m so excited to have this conversation and share the information that Madeline and I have found! It’s always a great time just talking shop with her, and this is a topic we are both passionate about.

Thank you to the great folks over at Get.Fountain.com for sponsoring this and allowing us to present this information. Fountain is an easy to use Hiring Software trusted by the world’s leading companies. Source, screen, and onboard your hourly workers, giving them a great experience without all of the physical high-touch!

Your Hosts with the Most!

The First Rule of Recruiting!

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Sometimes we go so far into the weeds in recruiting we forget what is really important.

We have to have a brand!

We have to have an ATS! Or a new ATS!

We have to have a CRM! What the hell is a CRM!?

Our job descriptions need to be better!

Our career site sucks! Don’t they all!?

We need to relaunch our employee referral program!

There are literally a million things you could focus on in recruiting and you still would have a list of crap you never even got to.

You know recruiting isn’t difficult. It’s not like we’re trying to launch the space shuttle. Recruiting is finding people for your organization. People are everywhere. We just need to talk them into coming to work for our organizations.

It’s the first rule of recruiting – Just let people know you’re hiring.

We make it so difficult when all we have to truly do is let people know we actually want to hire them. Do you have any idea how many people would really want to work for your organization, but they never know you are hiring or were hiring?

Recruiting is really only that. Just letting enough people know that you want them to work for you until you’ve reached the right people. It’s okay that you will reach some you don’t want. That’s part of the game.

To reach the people who you want, and who want you, you have to let a lot of people know you’re hiring.

Letting people know you’re hiring goes beyond your career site. It goes beyond job boards. It goes beyond employee referral programs. It’s a philosophy throughout your organization. It’s about an understanding that you want everyone to know that you’re hiring.

Most organizations don’t do this. It’s a combination of issues, but mostly it’s a conceited belief that letting people know you’re hiring seems desperate. That we are too good of an organization to let everyone know we are hiring, because we don’t want everyone, we only want a few.

This is why most talent acquisition departments fail. Simple conceit.

Great recruiting isn’t conceited, great recruiting is about being humble enough to let people know you want them, that you really want them. At the end of the day, that’s what we all want. To be wanted.

Transform Recruitment Marketing Conference – June in Boston!

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June 2-4, 2020 the Transform Recruitment Marketing conference will be back in Boston, and I will again be the Emcee for this event! You can use the code “TIMROCKS” for a 10% discount to the conference!

I’ve been a part of Transform from the beginning, I believe this is the fifth Transform. All I know is we started on the Recruitment Marketing bandwagon super early! In those early days, it was all about branding and CRM technology. Since then, we’ve seen the growth of an entire Talent Attraction industry, that includes programmatic job advertising, hyper-personalization for candidates, the rise of video, the evolution of content marketing in candidate attraction and nurturing, and so many other marketing concepts that have found their way into recruiting!

The reality is we went from Employment Branding to Recruitment Marketing in a blink of an eye, and it just keeps growing. Most Fortune 500 organizations now either have a team of Recruitment Marketing pros on staff or use an outside vendor to help them support their recruitment marketing efforts.

Why I love Transform Recruitment Marketing Conference? 

  • It’s not just high-level strategy, but in the weeds, tactics being taught by other corporate recruitment marketing pros who are doing what you’re trying to do!
  • Keynotes that are different. We’re used to a certain type of keynote at HR and Recruiting conferences. Transform always brings in folks I have never heard of that blow me away. In fact, we had Mel Robbins before Mel Robbins was Mel Robbins! Hell, I take credit for Mel Robbins becoming Mel Robbins! (not really, but a little!)
  • We’ve developed a community of corporate Recruitment Marketing Pros and Leaders. This alone, the ability to build your network of like-minded folks, is worth the price of admission!
  • No pitches, just ideas. The conference was built around this idea of how do we raise the game of recruitment marketing, regardless of your tech stack. If we all get smarter, the decision of tech to use will play itself out in the appropriate way.

So, put it on your calendar now and sign up to send your recruitment marketing pro and/or team to Transform!

Click Here to Register and See More Information! 

Would You Be Willing to Guarantee a New Hire One Year’s Worth of Pay and Benefits?

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“People don’t want more choices. They want to be more confident in the choices they make.”

– Scott Galloway

It’s hard to hire not because there isn’t enough talent. There are all kinds of talent. In fact, there has never been a time in our lives where it’s been easier to actually find that talent and connect with that talent!

The technology and access we have to candidates have never been better. So, why is it so damn hard to hire!?

Candidates are fearful of making a bad decision. I might not love my current job, but at least I know what I have. I know the good and the bad. If I move and make a change, I’m not 100% sure of what I’m getting myself into.

So, would your organization be willing to take that fear away from me? 

Just take it clean off the table. If you take our job, we know it’s a stressful decision, we’ll sign a contract where we will play you a guarantee one year’s salary and benefits, no-fault. Meaning, at any time in the first year, if you, or we, decide this just isn’t working out, we’ll pay you the balance of that first year’s salary. It’s a no-risk offer to come to work here!

Would you do that? Why or why not?

If we do our jobs really well, in terms of sourcing, screening, assessing, vetting, and selection, this is really a low-risk proposition for the company, and it might actually help us land some of the best talent that is just a bit more conservative in their decision making. Think about who is naturally conservative in their thinking? Engineers, highly intelligent, logical people like scientists of all types, medical professionals, accounting types, legal types, etc.

You know those hard to land hires!

The dirty little secret of doing something like this is it’s basically almost no risk because most professional hires, given a proper courting process, don’t leave within twelve months. You wouldn’t do this with high volume hiring, but you could do it with your hard to find, low volume hiring.

What do you think? What am I missing? Why would our executives support this or hate this? Hit me in the comments.