The week of The Talent Fix, Volume 2! And SHRM Talent!
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The week of The Talent Fix, Volume 2!
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Category Archives: Staffing
What is a Passive Candidate anyway?
Every hiring manager wants passive candidates – to stumble on those hidden talents just waiting to be discovered. But what exactly defines a passive candidate today? Let’s break it down without the frilly stuff.
Traditionally, passive candidates were those who were not actively seeking jobs. But what does “actively searching” really mean? It used to include only the unemployed, those in irrelevant jobs, or on the verge of being fired. But that’s too narrow in today’s reality.
Recruiters often boast about finding “passive” candidates like they’ve hit the jackpot. But let’s be real. Take Timmy, for example. He seems passive, but he’s quietly applying for jobs while stuck in a dead-end job. Anyone with an online profile is fair game – they may not hunt for jobs daily, but they’re definitely open to offers.
So, here’s an updated definition:
“A Passive Candidate is someone found through various channels, not actively seeking your job.”
A passive candidate isn’t someone you found who hasn’t happened to think about applying to your job, yet. They actually might be the most active candidate on the planet, who you just happen to run into. Think of candidates buried in your database or referrals from employees.
We know a truly passive candidate when we speak to one. They’re a bit nervous. A bit surprised. A bit flattered. You can tell they’re not used to talking to recruiters and feel guilty talking to you. This is the person you’re hiring managers are asking for when they say they want a passive candidate.
This isn’t to say passive candidates are better. That’s an entire other post, but let’s not act like we are providing passive candidates when we aren’t.
Online Ghosts or Privacy Hosts
Ever come across a candidate who seems to have almost no online presence? No LinkedIn profile, no Facebook or Instagram account, not even a trace on Google? It’s like they’re a digital ghost, right there in front of you with a resume in hand, but little else to go on.
Let’s say you meet someone like this – let’s call her Karen (not her real name, of course, I’m in HR – her name is Jill). She shows up for the interview with a solid resume, work history, and references, but beyond that, she’s pretty much a mystery online.
In today’s world, where social media is everywhere, this kind of absence can be scary. Usually they’re an Instagram story away and I know what you had for breakfast, how you like your steak, your husband’s name, cat’s name, the whole damn thing.
It raises questions. Why the secrecy? Is it a deliberate choice for privacy reasons, or could there be something more to it?
During the interview, ask about it. Karen might mumble something about valuing her privacy – a word that still holds a lot of weight to some. As an employer, it’s tricky. Privacy matters, but so does transparency. Trying to balance these can be tough.
In the end, you might not get clear answers. But it’s a reminder that in today’s world, having no online presence can be a red flag when hiring. Or not. What do you think?
Ditching the Generics
You might say you’re only hiring ‘top talent’, but you’re probably settling for generics. It’s like choosing between store-brand and name-brand meds – sure, generics might seem like a good deal, but do they really measure up?
Here’s how you can tell. Ask yourself why you hired one of your recent hires. If it was because they had the skills to do the job, a nice personality, and didn’t smell funny, you hired a generic. If you hired them because they can do the job and you can specifically say why they fit your culture, you hired a brand name!
There lies the problem, you have a generic employment brand. It doesn’t have to be generic. You made it generic because it sounded safe and professional. Because it sounded like every other boring brand you have heard or seen. “Timmy, you don’t get it, we aren’t Google or McDonalds”. Thank God. No one likes that crappy food and Google probably hires worse than you.
At my company, we keep it real. We’re all about being down-to-earth, welcoming families and pets into the office, and valuing hard work over clock-watching. Yeah, we swear in meetings. We’re not afraid to take risks, and we value building strong client relationships. And yes, we’re pretty loyal to our alma mater, but that’s just part of what makes us unique.
We don’t settle for generics; we look for people who fit our brand. Those who don’t, well, they don’t stick around for long. Because generics and brands just don’t mix. Brands build strong cultures; generics leave people feeling disconnected.
So, it’s time to ditch the generics and start building a team that’s as unique as your brand. Because when it comes to talent, being generic just won’t cut it.
The Real Game-Changers
I can’t stand hiring managers who don’t want to hire moms because they might need to stay home with a sick kid or take an early lunch to catch their fourth-graders play. Both men and women managers have told me they’re not into hiring moms. It doesn’t sit right with me.
Why? I grew up with a single mom. I remember her choosing where to shop based on how many times she’d bounced a check there. I’d hand back stuff at the checkout ’cause they wouldn’t take her check, and we only had enough cash for a few items.
My mom started her own business, paid her 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 became 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.
The moms I bring in are some of the toughest workers on my team. 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 at putting issues into perspective and not freak out.
When I have a rough day, I try to remember that most of my day is done, but theirs won’t be until they hit the pillow. Old people and moms are the most disrespected of the working class. I swear by that. 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 used to doing.
The real recruiting secret? Moms. They’re the main ingredient that makes it work.
It Takes a Village
In the hiring game, going solo just doesn’t cut it. It’s like raising a kid – you need a village. This village isn’t just HR and TA; it’s the whole organization.
Dealing with clients who think we can do it all on our own is a challenge. Even if we’re an outsider, we still need input from TA, HR, and the hiring manager to know what makes their company tick and why a candidate would want to join.
And guess what? The same goes for in-house hiring.
For me, it starts with the hiring manager and the team needing a new member. Sure, TA does a lot, but the big cheese in hiring is the one making the final call.
Some top-notch hiring managers stand out by doing a few basic things:
- Making it crystal clear what they need in a candidate.
- Getting all the info out there pronto, even redoing job descriptions on the spot.
- Jumping into the candidate search, getting the team involved until the job is filled.
- Making hiring a top priority in their schedule.
- Setting up a simple communication plan to stay in the loop without the drama.
If more leaders did these simple things, hiring would be a breeze. Too often, though, we’re told to hire alone – just fill the position and stop complaining. Usually, it’s from leaders who are as clueless as us about how to make it work, so they vent their frustration this way.
Give them these steps, and suddenly, they become team players. Define the roles, and things start moving smoother for everyone.
Don’t let yourself get stuck hiring solo. Your gig is to lead a team effort. TA’s main job? Keep things on track and make sure everyone knows their part.
The Power of Words in a Job Description
Once upon a time (it was a decade ago, but I don’t want to feel old) I wrote about a cool study where Wired teamed up with OkCupid and Match.com. They crunched tons of data from popular dating profiles and found the top 1000 words that got the most clicks. Now, I’m thinking if these words can get people together in dating, maybe they can also get folks interested in jobs.
I’m not just revisiting the topic; I’m going a bit further and tweaking these words to fit the changes in the past 10 years. I get it; words that work for dating might sound weird for jobs, but hear me out. It’s time to rewrite job descriptions to ditch the boring HR talk and be more real and appealing.
Here are the seven sets of words that data says work for getting more dates hires:
- Active Life Words: Throw in words like yoga, surfing, pilates, cross fit, hiking, hot girl walk – things that show your company’s active side.
- Pop Culture Vibes: Toss in references to things like Ted Lasso, Stranger Things, or Michael Scott. It gives your company a personality. Go ahead and mention Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce while you’re at it. Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.
- Music Words: Check out the top trending artists on Spotify or Apple Music. Add them in. A couple of lines of lyrics work, too. It adds a bit of musical flair to your job descriptions. Taylor Swift works in this category too.
- Chill Words: Use words like ocean, meditation, trust, therapeutic, and balanced – things that make your job sound calm and secure, which is a big deal nowadays.
- Foodie Feel: Words like chocolate, appetizers, sushi, happy hour, or Starbucks bring people together. Everyone eats. Share your company’s food scene.
- Power Words: Drop in terms like creative, motivated, ambitious, innovative, and passionate. Make your job descriptions more interesting than just the legal stuff.
- Spontaneity: Tattoos, f*ck, wasted, kissing, puppies, sucking, lucky, these words haven’t changed in 10 years. Stuff you wouldn’t normally find in a job ad – we threw it in just because. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it could catch the eye of the newer generation.
Here’s an idea, just do the job you were hired for
Every day, people get worked up over stuff they can’t control. Everyone’s telling you to be this or that, depending on the latest trend or generation.
I’ve stopped listening to people who don’t know my job or haven’t been in the field for ages. Instead, I talk to my employees – the young, the old, and everyone in between. They all matter because they all contribute to moving the organization forward.
I don’t care about what others think; I focus on what my employees are telling me. Their problems are personal, from daycare and student loans to health scares. Forget the big world issues; help them with the close ones first.
Your employees are individuals with their own problems, and millennials aren’t college kids anymore. The newbies might have different labels, but they’re still young people with their own issues.
At the end of the day, employees want to succeed. Helping them be successful is my top priority as a leader. Success is personal, so I figure out how to tie it to the organization’s goals.
We keep letting others tell us how to do our jobs. I’m sticking to doing the job I was hired for because, frankly, no one knows it better than me. Maybe we should all just focus on doing the job we were hired for.
Ping pong and Taco Tuesday won’t save you!
Check out this previous blog from 2017 – it’s like the Yoda of employee retention. You don’t need to keep everyone! Crazy, right? Does this still hit the mark? Share your quick take!
You Don’t Actually Have To Retain Everyone!
In 2017, and beyond, employee retention will become a huge focus. Some could argue that employee retention is always an important issue, but during major recessions, it becomes less of a stress for sure. With shifting employee demographics, retention will be a hot item over the next few years as we see more and more of the baby boom generation leave the workforce, and we do not have enough young skilled workers entering the workforce to replace those leaving.
Here’s a dirty little secret, though:
“You don’t actually have to work to retain every one of your employees!”
Why? Because most of your employees won’t leave. We like to tell ourselves that every employee can leave, and by the law of the land (at least for now under the Trump administration), they actually can, but statistics clearly show that most don’t leave.
The average retention rate across all industries is about 85%, year over year. That means 85 out of 100 employees will probably not leave you. You are really worrying about 10-15% of employees. Ironically, it’s about 10-15% of your top-performing employees that make the most difference in your company.
First, we have to solve one problem you have. Your ‘retention’ strategy is flawed and is pushing good employees out the door, the ones you want to keep!
Here’s why:
- You’re smart and send out a retention survey to find out from all of your employees what they want to be retained. You’re like 99% of organizations.
- The results of that survey tell you what the majority of your employees want to be retained. Things like ping pong, hot yoga, 27 smoke breaks a day, free tacos on Tuesday, etc.
- You implement a variety of the desired retention ‘fixes’! Yay!!!
- Your retention number actually stays the same, or maybe even gets worse.
WTF!?!?!?
Remember what I said above? You shouldn’t be concerned with about 85% of your employees who will never leave. They are not going anywhere! You shouldn’t be surveying all of your employees, you should be surveying only your best employees, those you are desperate to keep!
What you’ll find is that the 10-15% of highly valued employees you want to retain, what they want to be retained is very different from what the hoard wants to be retained! They’ll want a clear career path, performance-based compensation, more talented co-workers, better work tools, etc. They couldn’t give a shit about ping pong and Taco Tuesday.
Great HR isn’t working to make everyone equal. Great HR is working to make your organization better than your competition. That happens by having noticeably better talent. You get that kind of talent by listening to those employees who are noticeably better, not those who complain about the color of your new carpet.
What would this create? It creates a high performing organization that attracts high-performing employees. Most organizations won’t do this because they believe they need to work to retain all of their employees. “We’re all high performing, Tim!” No, you’re not. Once you get that idea out of your head, you can do some really cool, industry changing stuff!
Burning a Hire
If you’re a fan of baseball, you know there’s this cool thing in the game where a pitcher throws a ‘burn’ pitch to set up another one. It’s not about scoring a point but getting ready for a better play down the line.
Ever thought about doing that in HR? Ever burned a hire?
In big companies, sometimes you have to burn hires to make a point or get your hiring managers on board. I remember when we brought in this fancy pre-employment test, and the managers hated it. They didn’t trust the science behind it. Good assessments only work if everyone believes they’re worth it in the end.
I let the managers hire people they liked, even when the test said they might not work out. It was a gamble, but I wanted to show the value of the tools we were using. I wouldn’t keep doing it, but sometimes you need to prove your point for the greater good.
I’ve also burned hires with executive referrals. Top-level folks sometimes want to get jobs for their family, and most of the time, these hires don’t work out. But fighting against it isn’t smart, so you burn a hire.
Not many HR people openly admit to burning hires, but behind closed doors, we know it happens. Sometimes, the small battles aren’t as crucial as the bigger internal war, so you let certain hires go through even when you’d normally stop them.
This doesn’t make you bad at HR; it’s just being strategic. Like the pitcher, you’re setting yourself up for success by burning a hire here and there.