Category Archives: SHRM

LinkedIn and Microsoft launch “Resume Assistant” and it’s a big deal!

Posted on by
2

Big announcement today coming out Microsoft/LinkedIn. The two companies are figuring out more and more how to integrate LinkedIn into the Microsoft office ecosystem and their new Resume Assistant is the first major feature announcement.

What’s Resume Assistant?

Microsoft’s Resume Assistant is a Word product integration that brings the power of LinkedIn directly into Word when you’re crafting or updating your resume.

How does Resume Assistant work?

It’s pretty easy. You upload or open an existing resume, made an old resume you have, and Word will automatically recognize that document is a resume and open up the LinkedIn integration. The integration pops up as a right-side window in Word so that your resume is on one side of Word and the LinkedIn Resume Assitant is on the other.

From here, Resume Assistant will do a lot of things but mostly use artificial intelligence to help you craft a better resume that will more likely be selected for jobs by recruiters. Resume Assistant does this through analyzing LinkedIn data of those profiles, work experiences, titles, etc. that are getting hired and moving into new roles via profile changes.

Don’t know how to phrase your work experience? The Resume Assistant will pull in specific examples, similar to you, of people who got hired and show you phrases, skills, and words that will help you get hired. RA will also easily allow you to go directly to other profiles on LinkedIn from Word to see how others have structured their profile.

Why is this a big deal? 

So, Microsoft and LinkedIn shared a bunch of data that led to this product creation:

  • LinkedIn data shows ‘job hopping’ has doubled in the past twenty years
  • LinkedIn is seeing 40% growth in job applies through LI
  • On average 100 candidates are applying for each position on LinkedIn
  • 80% of resume updates in the U.S. happen in Microsoft Word

Okay, and, so?!

Connect the dots! One part of the Resume Assistant is to also show each Word user updating their resume the jobs that most match the resume being created. So, 80% of job seekers will have LinkedIn’s 11 million jobs showing up in Word, right next to their resume while they’re updating and thinking about looking for a new job!!!

I would not want to be a job board today and be reading this. In fact, for how much Google has been swinging its weight around recently, this is also a pretty big punch back from LinkedIn and Microsoft to let them know they are not giving job search away!

Game changer!

Think about how many people use Microsoft Word. 100% of those people will now have a direct link to LinkedIn and the LI jobs when they are doing anything with their resume – Resume Assistant opens automatically when a resume is detected. It’s really a genius move by LI and MS.

If this is the first integration that the two sides have figured out, I can’t wait to see future integrations as well, and from the sound of things, both sides are moving quickly to make these a realities.

One note of importance. Resume Assistant will launch today for Microsoft 365 Insiders, at the beginning of 2018 for all Microsoft 365 users, and soon after for all other Word platforms.

At 4% Unemployment, 2nd Chance Hires are Looking Very Attractive!

Posted on by
1

I’m a big fan of 2nd chance candidates. Candidates who were fired, terminated, let go, etc. for many various reasons, most of which come down to wrong job fit, the wrong personality fit with their boss, wrong skill fit, etc.

I don’t have actual numbers, and I wouldn’t believe any study who told me a number because here’s what really happens. An employee gets fired for ‘performance’ because the manager thought the person could do the job, even though the person had never done the job, and both continued to get frustrated. HR puts that down as termination for performance, not poor job fit, or lack of skills, or something else.

Is this person a bad employee? No. Did this person not try hard? No. Did the organization look to move this person into a role they were better suited for? No. It’s just easier to cut bait and move on to another hiring mistake.

The problem most employers are facing right now is at 4.1% national unemployment, almost any candidate that you find out of work is going to have a ‘hickey’. Maybe they require too much money, maybe they don’t have the education you require, maybe they won’t move, etc., etc., etc. We all know the deal. It’s tough sledding finding talent right now, it’s even tougher if you’re looking for someone out of work to fill your job!

That’s why 2nd Chance Candidates can be some of the best hires you’ll ever make, but you need to pick the right ones. Here’s what I look for in 2nd Chance Candidates:

1. A chip on their shoulder. I don’t want them to talk bad about their last employer, but I want to know they feel like they were unfairly evaluated and have something to prove!

2. Job history before the last job. Say what you want, but when taking a flyer on a 2nd chance candidate I find those will more solid work history tend to be the right ones to pick.

3. Willingness to do anything. When you get fired some weird shit happens to you. You get angry. You get sad. You get frustrated. Eventually, you get to a point where you go “I don’t care what it takes, I’m getting back into the game!” Those are my 2nd chancers.

4. The story seems to make sense. I don’t hire a 2nd chancer where the story doesn’t add up. So, you were the employee of the year, last year, then out of nowhere, with no reason, you got fired? Yeah, no thanks.

5. They want to work. You’ve been out of a job for 7 months, and I offer you a job, I only want to hear one thing. “I can start tomorrow!” If you tell me I can start in two weeks, or next Friday, or anything besides “I’ll start working right now if you let me” I’ve got a concern!

People get fired for awful things, but they also get fired over petty things. Being in HR, I’ve been apart of both kinds of firing, and I’m not proud of that fact. It’s super hard to support a hiring manager who wants to fire an employee because basically, the employee cares more than the hiring manager about the work, but I’ve seen it happen!

It’s our job in TA and HR to find out if we’re going to give someone a second chance. It’s not an easy decision. It seems like there’s always a red flag, and it seems that way because there is! The person was let go! It’s now our job to determine was that person being let go going to be a positive for our company, or a negative. I like to think, many of second chancers can be a positive!

But, don’t get me started on 3rd and 4th chancers!

What Does Talent Taste Like? When Recruitment Marketing Keeps it Real…

Posted on by
2

So, have a Coke and a Smile wasn’t good enough, the college recruiting folks in Coca-Cola’s Italian team had to get ‘creative’ and go off script. Here’s how that ended up (hat tip to Jim D’Amico for finding this pic!):

So, I’m not exactly sure from this ad who is tasting the talent. Maybe this is meant to get creepy hiring managers to the university, or maybe it just doesn’t translate to English. But whatever it means the Italian Coca-Cola team doubled down and also dropped in a landing page and hashtag for the event #TasteYourTalent or visit – www.tasteyourtalent.it.   

The site opens up with:

“Allenati per diventare un Champion di Coca-Cola HBC Italia”

Which, when translated means:

“Train to become a Champion of Coca-Cola HBC Italia”

I’m not sure if that is training to be a champion of sexual harassment, but whatever it is I’m interested in seeing how it all turns out!

I can picture this entire creative process playing out in the TA department at Coke Italy. “Hey, we need a great theme for our next university recruitment event! What do you guys have?”

“The Real Thing!” – did it. 

“Coke is it!” – did it.

“The Coke Side of Life!” – did it. 

“Taste the Feeling!” – did it. 

“Taste the Talent!” – Wait! What!? What did you just say!? That is f’ing brilliant. We’re recruiting talent. Coke tastes great! Taste the Talent! Go spend $3 million Euros and make that happen!  

Do you want to know what’s great about blogging? You just can’t make this stuff up! The bar for entry into Recruitment Marketing is apparently very low. Stay thirsty my friends.

Do you LOVE someone you work with?

Posted on by
1

Almost two decades ago Gallup research came up with the Q12 of employee engagement. Basically, twelve questions you could give your employees to measure their level of engagement. Soon after, a multi-billion dollar industry was born and everyone in leadership and HR started to worry about how we could get and keep our employees engaged.

I thought most of it was crap and still do. Engagement for me is like watching a puppy chase it’s tail. They will never catch it, and if they do, it’s pretty unsatisfying after a while! Employee engagement is the same thing. I’m not saying you want disengaged employees, but where does it end, or does it ever end?

Once you go down this path of ‘training’ your employees you will do stuff to keep them engaged, they will continue to need stuff just to stay at that same level of engagement. Offer a kid a cookie and he’ll do what you say. Give a kid a million cookies and he loses interest in cookies.

The one piece of the Q12 I like is the question:

“I have a best friend at work.”

It’s pretty simple and straightforward. If you have a best friend at work, you’re more likely to want to stay at that job. I mean, heck, you’re best friend is there! What’s better than going to work each day with your best friend!? Not much!

Now, take that concept one step further. Instead of a best friend, do you ‘love’ someone at work? Imagine how you would support a coworker that you love!? It would be off the charts!

That’s what I love about the photo above from the World Series with Justin Verlander and Jose Altuve. For those who don’t know, Justin Verlander is a pitcher who came to Houston from Detroit this year at the trade deadline. So, Justin was very new to the team, but much needed if they want to win the world series.

There’s a long history of superstars coming together on a team and it not working out because egos get involved.

Jose Altuve is the best and most popular player in Houston. He’s a superstar. Justin Verlander is one of the top pitchers in baseball, in history. He’s a superstar. Want to know how one ultra-high-performing player welcomes another ultra-high-performing player and makes sure ‘culture’ and ‘ego’ will not be an issue?

Just look at the photo!

In an interview, Jose Altuve was asked about Justin Verlander and he said, “I literally love Justin Verlander”. Verlander was told what Jose said and had these shirts made up. These are two dudes who get it!

T3 – The Reputation of Your Company As An Employer Actually Might Matter!

Posted on by
1

Okay, I know Glassdoor has worked for a decade to make you believe that your employer reputation matters. Their own data says that 70% of candidates will check a companies reputation before making a career decision, and they have 40+ million candidates going to their site on a monthly basis.

The problem is, I don’t think most employers really thought that much about it, honestly.

Quick question: Have you gone out and claimed your company’s Glassdoor profile? 

I always like to ask that question when speaking to HR and TA leaders and it’s not too surprising to find most of the leaders in the room, over 50%, have not, or did, but have no real interaction with the site. If your employer reputation was that critical of a decision point for candidates, 99% of leaders would be on top of this and active in protecting their employer reputation online.

Glassdoor, like most great HR and TA technology platforms, does some things really well. The first thing they had to do was create a problem we didn’t know we had! Welcome to your employer reputation! OMG! I didn’t even know that was a thing until someone made it my thing! It’s actually great marketing!

Want to sell more airline flight insurance? Share a ton of stories about people dying in plane crashes! Sure you have a better chance of dying from a shark attack while simultaneously being hit by lightning, but hey, you never know when it’s going to your turn!

I think that is until recently. With the launch of Google for Jobs, your employer reputation might actually begin to matter for real this time! 73% of all job searches in the world, start on Google. The majority of the other searches probably go directly to Indeed or directly to your corporate career site, because we’ve trained people that “Indeed” is where they’ll find all jobs.

Google for Jobs is changing how job seekers are searching for jobs by basically keeping them on Google and not sending them to other sites. The other piece that Google for Jobs is doing is looking at the job search behavior, not from an employer perspective, which was done by every other company before it (because as it turns out employers pay money for this kind of stuff), but from the candidate perspective.

Google doesn’t really care how you want to make candidates jump through hoops and give them half-information about your jobs and company. Google is on the candidate side of the equation trying to disrupt. One way Google will disrupt the job search is by placing importance on your company’s reputation when it comes to job search results.

If your company’s reputation sucks, your jobs will show up lower in the Google for Jobs search results. This will be a killer to many organizations who haven’t managed their company’s reputation at sites like Glassdoor, Indeed, Google itself has tons of employer reviews (and will be getting a lot more!), plus at least a dozen other sites that track employee and past employee reviews as well.

So, what should you do?

  1. At a minimum claim your Glassdoor profile (the free version) and respond to every single review that’s given in a position way. You might have a poor reputation, but candidates will see that you’re working on making it better.
  2. Glassdoor is just one site, there are over a dozen you probably should be tracking. No one has time for that, but there is a technology already created to help do this on one platform called Ratedly. I actually wrote about this a while back on T3.  Created by Joel Cheesman who is a really smart thought leader in the HR and TA space, and the idea is so simple and effective, and inexpensive, you should really take a look.
  3. Get your executives to understand why this is important. Of course, you don’t want a bad reputation, but also you have this extra issue of having it affect your applicant traffic which just made this reputation thing begin to have real pain!

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 tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net Also, I advise HR and TA tech companies. Interested? Let’s talk. 

Mailbag Question: Should Our Receptionist Hug Clients?

Posted on by
6

So, yes, I’m the “World’s Foremost Expert on Workplace Hugging” so it seems appropriate that this week I would get the following question from a reader:

Dear World’s Foremost Expert on Workplace Hugging, 

My boss asked me to do something this week and before I did it I wanted to ask an expert, like yourself, and get some other opinions. The situation is our CEO has asked me to ‘tell’ our front desk receptionist that she will now be required to hug each client that comes into our office. Our CEO feels this will create a more welcoming and friendly environment for our clients. What are your thoughts on doing this?

Thinking this doesn’t right in Middle America! 

Yes, this was an actual exchange that I had this week! I made up the name, but everything else is as accurate as I can make and still protect the innocent!

So, in 2017, a CEO of an actual, successful company, wants “Mary” the Receptionist to start hugging every client that comes to the office. Wow. Right? Just, Wow!

Here’s my response:

Middle America,

First, being a hugger, I actually understand where your CEO is coming from. When I go into a business and I’m met with a friendly (natural, unforced) hug. I feel very welcome! When I’m down south, I seem to get more hugs than if I’m on either coast or in a big city. So, part of me actually understands the psychology behind this request.

That being said, I have one question for your CEO (and I encourage to ask this question): “If Mary leaves as your receptionist, and you hire “Mark” to replace her, will your CEO still want “Mark” to go and hug every client?” I’ll take make a ‘big’ assumption here and say, no, probably not!

This is a very quick and simple way to point out how harassing this action would be viewed by normal people. If you decide to go down this path of making hugging an actual work requirement, you will end up in a lawsuit at some point!

Okay, I’m a hugger, so let me tell you how you get most of what you want, without the lawsuit! Go hire a natural hugger to man your front desk and never discourage this behavior! You’ll get most of what you want, especially if your CEO and others mirror this hugging behavior to every client they meet in front of this person.

Good Luck,

Tim The World’s Foremost Expert in Workplace Hugging!

I love HR because of this very real, innocent question. You never actually know what the heck you’ll walk into each day, and there is no way of planning for the insane things that happen!

Have a great Friday HR Pros! You deserve it!

Are Recruiting Layoffs a Sign of an Economic Downturn?

Posted on by
2

Have you been watching the recruiting news lately?

My good friend Stacy Zapar (who runs The Talent Agency focused on recruiting recruiters!) and I send notes back and forth on stuff we hear in the industry. She’s in California, I’m in Michigan, we swap all the rumors and verified stuff we are hearing to get a better understanding of what’s going on. In the past few weeks – it’s been a bloodbath on the corporate recruiting front!

Snap, Blue Apron, CareerBuilder, Facebook, etc. and those are just the ones that have gone public!

So, the big question is “Are layoffs of recruiters a ‘canary in the coal mine’ indicator of an economic downturn?”

My first reaction is “Oh, hell yes!” Recruiter layoffs happen when you know you won’t be hiring! So, it has to be some kind of indicator about your business. The broader question would be are those layoffs an indicator of overall economic health across the board? I’m not quite as sure of.

There are a number of factors at play here:

  1. Too many organizations across too many geographic areas have announced recruiter layoffs for this too coincidental. So, something is happening. So…
  2. Could it be just another tech bubble bursting, or is it wider than that?
  3. Is this just a normal 4th quarter correction after TA Leaders see their budgets for next year?
  4. Has TA technology, A.I., and Intelligent Automation, finally started making some impact on how we staff our recruiting teams?
  5. Did TA Leaders over hire over the past few years because we came out of the great recession with almost no TA staff, went right-ditch-left-ditch in our correction, and now we are correcting back to the proper staffing levels are teams should be?

I think it’s all of these things.

I don’t see any economist calling for a major downturn. I do see economist calling for things to slow down, but all of that has been expected for a while. Since the Great Recession, almost ten years ago, we’ve been on a cycle of really good growth, almost historic in nature. What we know is that can’t continue. So, there is some slow down happening, and it will hit certain segments harder than others, like every downturn.

I do think TA Tech automation, A.I., etc. has to have an impact on TA Team size moving forward. As TA Leaders, much of the ROI built into your TA Tech purchase is headcount. It’s the only way it works out. Either you’ll lose some of your team, or you’ll be in a position not to add team members, that’s how ROI works!

So, what do you think Recruiters? Are you feeling anything? Hit me in the comments!

T3 – @Breezy_HR, err ATS!

Posted on by
2

This week on T3 we get back to the business to talking technology with the recruiting software platform Breezy HR. First off, Breezy HR has nothing to do with HR, and everything to do with Recruiting.

About 2 1/2 years ago, a lifetime in the technology world, I highlighted Breezy right here on T3! I liked them then, and I like them even more now. Back then I called them recruiting technology ‘light’, kind of like BambooHR for HRIS. And, that was probably fairly accurate. At that time they were an entry-level ATS for SMB.

In the last 2 1/2 years (or 30 months if it’s your baby) Breezy has built a full-blown, full functioning end-to-end recruitment platform for the SMB to Mid-size ATS market, that still has a great price point for those just wanting to start out.

Things I like about Breezy HR:

– Breezy just launched a built-in A.I.-assisted messenger, called “Hello” for recruiters. The bot will engage candidates right away on your site, and let recruiters take over at any point to have real-life conversations with candidates. Great functionality for an ATS at any level.

– Intuitive U.I. that uses a very familiar drag and drop functionality to allow recruiters to easy move candidates through the pipeline.

– The candidate ‘profile’ is one of the better-designed profiles among ATS vendors incorporating social profiles, resume, notes, etc. With the ability to one-click action almost anything you would ever do with a candidate from the profile.

– Built-in video assessments and on-demand interview guides let hiring managers easily become a part of the process in a way that makes sense to them.

– Automated reference checking. What!? Again, another function you just don’t see built into most ATSs.

The Recruiting Platform/ATS market has really picked up its game over the past couple of years. You can find so many good options, but if you’re an SMB or Mid-sized organizations the choices are still fairly slim. Breezy is definitely a platform you need to check out, I was surprised at everything it had embedded into it, and it’s super easy to use!

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 tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net

You almost never go wrong when hiring pretty people!

Posted on by
2

What do you think of, in regards to smarts, when I say: “Sexy Blond model type”?

What about: “Strong Athletic Jock?”

What about: “Scrawny nerdy band geek?”

My guess is most people would answer: Dumb, Dumb, Smart – or something to that context.

In HR we call this profiling and make no mistake, profiling is done by almost all of our hiring managers.  The problem is everything we might have thought is probably wrong in regards to our expectations of looks and brains.  So, why are ugly people smarter?

They’re Not!

Slate published an article that contradicts all of our ugly people are more smart myths and actually shows evidence to the contrary. From the article:

Now there were two findings: First, scientists knew that it was possible to gauge someone’s intelligence just by sizing him up; second, they knew that people tend to assume that beauty and brains go together. So they asked the next question: Could it be that good-looking people really are more intelligent?

Here the data were less clear, but several reviews of the literature have concluded that there is indeed a small, positive relationship between beauty and brains. Most recently, the evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa pulled huge datasets from two sources—the National Child Development Study in the United Kingdom (including 17,000 people born in 1958), and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health in the United States (including 21,000 people born around 1980)—both of which included ratings of physical attractiveness and scores on standard intelligence tests.

When Kanazawa analyzed the numbers, he found the two were related: In the U.K., for example, attractive children have an additional 12.4 points of IQ, on average. The relationship held even when he controlled for family background, race, and body size.

That’s right HR Pros, pretty people are smarter.  I can hear hiring managers and creepy executives that only want “cute” secretaries laughing all over the world!

The premise is solid though!  If you go back in our history and culture you see how this type of things evolves:

1. Very smart guy gets a great job or starts great company and makes a ton of money

2. Because of success, “smart guy” now has many choices of very pretty females to pursue as a bride.

3. “Smart guy” and “Pretty bride” start a family which results in Pretty-Smart Children. Did you pay attention to basic genetics in biology class?

4. Pretty-Smart Children grow up with all the opportunities that come to smart beautiful families.

5. The cycle repeats.

Now, first, this is a historical thing thus my example of using a male as our “Smart guy” and not “Smart girl”. I’m sure in today’s world this premise has evolved yet again. But we are talking about how we got to this point, not where are we now.  Additionally, we are looking at how your organization can hire better.

So, how do you want to hire better employees?  That’s easy! Just hire more pretty people!

 

Recruiters Make a Difference! @Paycor

Posted on by
4

So, it’s pretty rare that we ever see anything good said about Recruiters, let alone a national ad campaign by a major HR technology company, but low and behold that’s exactly what was recently launched by Paycor – check it out:

(hat tip to Ben Gotkin, ATAP Executive Director, for finding this video.)

So, before the haters come out and rip on a payroll provider having good talent acquisition software, you should probably know that Paycor actually bought Newton Software. Newton is an ATS that is a best of breed top 10 ATS (in my opinion), which is now integrated across the Paycor suite of products.

So, they can back up a commercial that talks about a talent solution in a big way!

What I love about the ad is the choice of Carrie as the recruiter for this company. I would say “Carrie” matches what most people probably think of when they think of your prototypical HR lady at a company. Middle-aged, white woman. I think if you were to ask Recruiters to draw up a model demographic of an actual recruiter, they would not have cast “Carrie” in this roll.

This is why I actually love this commercial because we’re all idiots. “Carrie” actually is the average recruiter in the world. It’s not some twenty-something out of silicon valley carrying a MacBook Pro and Venti half calf mocha with a twist, wearing skinny jeans and an ironic t-shirt. “Carrie” is recruiting in the real world. “Carrie” is the 90%.

The TA Tech industry, for the most part, forgets about “Carrie”. The HR and TA Tech community combined forget about “Carrie”. They focus on “Jackson’s” and “Olivia’s”, and forget about the “Karen’s” and “Judy’s” and “Steve’s” of the world. The reality is HR and Talent aren’t done by twenty-somethings, it’s mostly done by forty-somethings and fifty-somethings.

So, bravo to Paycor’s marketing team to understanding their real user. In a world that always goes for younger and sexier, I love the realness of this ad, and that a recruiter is getting recognized!