Category Archives: strategy

In Recruiting, Content Is NOT King!

Posted on by
8

Something happened over the past five years. Content marketing, which is a brilliant way to connect with a customer base and build sales, became very fashionable in the recruiting space.  So much so, that I constantly read vendors telling in the trenches Talent Acquisition pros and leaders:

“In Recruiting, content is king!”

No. No, it is not! In recruiting, activity is king.  I think the confusion comes into play with people treating employment branding and recruiting as the same thing. They’re not the same thing. One build’s awareness of who you are and what kind of employer you might be, possibly you can stretch employment branding into awareness of your job openings as well.

Content in employment branding is important if you’re doing content recruitment marketing. Again, you don’t have to do this to do employment branding. Many organizations build their brand without content. If you have a great consumer brand, you are less likely to need content to build your employment brand.

I’m not against producing great content to build your brand, believe me! It can be super helpful, especially if you don’t have a larger consumer brand behind you.

The point is you can be awesome in recruiting and never produce a single piece of content. I see so many TA shops missing this right now. The question is why? Why are TA shops believing that the only way to recruit is to build content and build an audience?

Employer Branding is a huge business right now! Organizations are spending millions of dollars per year to build, maintain and grow their employment brand. For huge organizations, or organizations in highly competitive environments, this is very important. For many organizations, this is a complete waste of time and resources!

The noise in the employment branding space is so loud right now, most organizations are not going to be heard. In that case, why are you spending the resources? You’re doing this because it’s easier than picking up a phone and calling a candidate! That’s recruiting.

Recruiting are the activities you do to hire people for the jobs you have open. Included in those activities are not only candidate attraction but candidate interaction. Candidate interaction, the function of a recruiter interacting with a candidate, might be the most forgotten skill in all of Talent Acquisition.

The skill of interacting with a live person is lost on most talent acquisition shops. Sure you can connect with candidates via email, messaging, text, twitter, Snapchat, etc. Eventually, though, someone has to speak to a live person. Someone has to close this person on coming to work for you. We, the talent acquisition industry, continue to spend less and less time on this side of our business, and it’s showing.

Great recruiting organizations are activity focused and activity driven. Sales funnel. Candidates come in the top, and hires come out the bottom. It’s not difficult. It’s not art. It’s a process. It’s metrics. Teach your recruiters to be able to engage live people on the front side, and you will see a great return on that investment in more hires. No content needed.

 

 

Candidates Actually Want Human Interaction!

Posted on by
1

TA Leaders and Executives, this is the dirty little secret that your Recruiters and the Talent Acquisition Technology industry does not want you to know!  Candidates actually prefer to have human interaction when searching and applying for a job. From a study done by ASA:

“Three of the top five ways job seekers land a job are “high touch,” according to the survey findings. Word of mouth is the most popular means (43%)—followed by job board websites and employer websites (both at 30%). Contacts or acquaintances with prospective employers (30%) and staffing and recruiting companies (25%) also rank high as resources that led to job offers.

Three in four (77%) actually prefer human interaction when searching for a job, according to the ASA Workforce Monitor.“

Recruiters and TA Tech are in bed together to pull the wool over your eyes!  TA Tech wants to sell you automation! Recruiters don’t want to pick up the phone! Put those two groups together and it’s one big circle jerk about to use only technology solutions to recruit and never pick up another phone as long they live!

Seriously! 3 out 4 candidates prefer to have a human contact them and tell them about the job you have open. I bet if you sent out an informal survey to your recruiting team, right now – today, the response from your recruiters would be that they believe only 25% or less actually would prefer a call!

That’s a huge disconnect, and should be very telling about the talent on your team!

So, how do you get your recruiters back on the phone?

1. Measure the amount of outgoing calls by person and post it publicly for all to see. You don’t even have to say one thing about it, the calls will automatically increase! True recruiters hate being on the bottom of any scoreboard!

2. Have fun with it! Run contest and provide incentives for more outgoing calls by your recruiters. For recruiters who grew up in a world where they thought they could just email and message their way to success, the phone is scary! Some will need a kind push!

3. Group call parties. Take one hour of the day and plan for every single recruiter to be on the phones at the same time. Make sure they prepare by sourcing ahead of time and have a number of candidates to reach out to. They should have at least 25-40 to call. Most calls will go to voicemail, if they’re lucky they’ll actually talk to a few people. It will be the fastest hour of their day or week! When everyone is doing this at the same time, you get great energy from the group and it seems less scary!

An average recruiter with 25 openings on their desk should be talking live to around 75-100 people each week on the phone. What I find when I first go into a new shop and measure this, the real number is more like 15-25!  It’s shockingly low! How are you going to fill 25 openings by talking to 25 people per week!? You won’t. That’s why your TA shop is failing.

I love TA Tech! I love TA Tech more than almost anyone I know. What I also know is that all great recruiters spend more time on the phone on average than weaker recruiters. It’s so simple, yet most of us fail as TA leaders not recognizing this.

 

Tech Companies Should Move To Detroit!

Posted on by
3

You might have seen this chart recently over at Business Insider:

Screen Shot 2016-06-06 at 11.10.07 AMWe all probably got this. It costs a TON to live in San Fransico! Way too much. You’re crazy if you want to start a tech company in San Fran.  So, what do all those super smart folks do? Yeah, stay west coast and just go a bit more north to Seattle, still expensive, but seemingly cheap in comparison to San Fransico!

It’s one of the main reasons Austin, TX became a hotbed of tech startups and headquarters about a decade ago. Relatively cheap to place to live. Access to a major university (Univ. of Texas), which gives you young, talented, tech savvy folks. Nice weather.

Here’s the magical formula to picking a place to house your tech company:

  1. Access to talent.
  2. Place people want to live.
    1. Good weather.
    2. Hip vibe.
    3. Affordable. (not necessarily an important factor – but increasing in importance!)

Give this magical formula, I’ll give you the number 1 destination of new tech startups!

DETROIT!!!!

Well, actually it’s Ann Arbor, which is about a 15-minute drive from Detroit’s International Airport, a Delta hub and one of the nicest airports around. Which means direct flights to almost everywhere. Home to the University of Michigan and great talent pipeline (Michigan State is also 50 minutes away). So, you have two Giant universities and roughly 80,000 students within easy driving distance.  A ton of other smaller universities within a 50-mile radius as well (Eastern Michigan, Wayne State, Oakland Univ., Univ. of Toledo, etc.).

It’s super cheap to live. Ann Arbor is a great college city, with access to the bigger Metro Detroit area within a thirty-minute drive. Access to someone of the world’s largest freshwater lakes. Toronto is an easy, cheap flight, or 4-hour drive away.

Okay, you won’t get super nice weather. You’ll get four seasons, midwestern work ethic and so much more for your money you won’t understand why anyone ever went west to begin with!

Oh, I hear you. What about the talent?  The Detroit Metro Area is one of the world’s largest engineering centers in the world! You know about all the auto companies, but what you don’t know is that Google has been growing an empire in Ann Arbor for years, and doing it quietly because they don’t want others hoarding in on the secret!

So, yeah, Seattle is way cheaper than San Fransico. You only have to pay 35% of pay towards rent. In Detroit, you only have to pay about 15% of your pay towards rent!

Detroit! The new San Fransico! We even have a bridge!

Building HR Service Delivery on a Global Scale – AMEX Edition!

Posted on by
Reply

Hey, gang – I have American Express’s VP of HRIS, Adam Krahling, for a cool one-on-one SHRM exclusive where he shares how AMEX built their entire global HR Shared Service delivery model from design through production! This is a free SHRM Webcast with HRCI credits. It’s coming up next week June 8th, Wednesday, at noon EST.

Adam is an awesome speaker, and I’ll be doing my best Oprah impression to interview him and dig out all those hidden secrets!

Every major HR project has its challenges but, when you add in the global perspective, those HR projects just got exponentially more challenging! For large organizations in the banking and insurance industries, these projects also have the added complexity of major regulations and laws that change from country to country. This webinar will assist you in understanding where most organizations fail from a global perspective, how to launch and get a project like this off the ground, and how to ensure your organization is successful in the long run.

The global transformation of HR is upon us, and American Express is leading the charge. Come learn how AMEX’s HRIS team helped lead the company into this new frontier and what strategies and design it incorporated from country to country.

Adam Krahling, vice president of Global HRIS for American Express, and I will dig into the American Express case study on how the company expanded HR service delivery globally. Learn how a large organization like AMEX moved its HR operations forward on a global scale, the impact it had and the step-by-step process they used to ensure success.

You’ll be able to post your questions and thoughts on bringing your HR service delivery project into the modern era. –

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER! 

Would You Be Willing To Pay For Interview Feedback?

Posted on by
1

I get my ideas in the shower. I have a busy life, so it seems like my down time is that solid 5 to 10 minutes I get in the shower. I usually shower twice a day—once first thing in the morning, then before I go to bed. That’s 10 to 20 minutes daily to think and clean. I like going to bed clean. I like waking up with a shower. You’re welcome. You now know my daily cleaning habits. Thanks for stopping by today!

I’m not sure why ideas come to me. My wife says I’m not completely “right.” I get weird things that come into my head, at weird times. This morning I decided to stop fighting the candidate experience freaks (those people that think candidate experience actually matters, which it doesn’t) and finally help them solve their problem. You won, freaks. But I damn well better get a lifetime achievement award at the next Candidate Experience Awards!

Here’s your solution: Charge candidates a fee to get feedback on their interviews.

<Drops mic, walks off stage, give me my award.>

Yeah, that’s what I just said. Let me give you the details; apparently, a couple of you just spit out your coffee.

Candidates want great feedback on their interviews, desperately. When someone really wants something, that certain thing becomes very valuable. HR shops in organizations have the ability to deliver this very valuable thing, but they don’t have the resources to do it well. By well, I mean really well: making that feedback personable, meaningful, and developmental.

Are you willing to spend 15 minutes debriefing a candidate after an interview… a candidate you don’t want? Of course not. What if that candidate paid you $10 for that feedback? That’s $40 per hour you could make just debriefing candidates. Couldn’t you go out and hire a sharp HR pro for like $30 per hour to do this job?

Yeah, that’s why I deserve awards. My ideas are groundbreaking. It’s a big burden to carry around.

Think of this like an airline. Airlines figured out that certain people are willing to pay an extra $25 to get on the plane first, or to be first in line. This is all you’re doing. You’re not taking advantage of anyone; you’re just offering a first-class candidate experience for those willing to pay for it. For those unwilling to pay for first class, they’ll get your coach experience. They’ll get a form letter that says thanks, no thanks, here’s a 10% off coupon on your next use of our service, or whatever you do to make that candidate experience seem special.

A first-class candidate experience for $10. Do you think candidates would pay for that? You’re damn straight they would! Big companies would actually have to establish departments for this! Goldman Sachs, give me a call, I’ll come set this up for you! GM, Ford and Chrysler, I’m like an hour away, let’s talk, I can come down any day next week.

It’s easy to dismiss a crazy idea that some guy came up with in the shower—until your competition starts doing it, it becomes the industry norm, or Jobvite orHireVue or Chequed builds the app and starts selling this a service. My Poppi (that’s what I called my Grandfather) always use to say, “Tim, it only costs a little more to go first class.” People like first-class treatment. People want first-class treatment. People will pay for first class treatment.

Would you pay for great interview feedback, so great it could be considered personal development? How much?

4 Tips for Hiring Candidates Who Have True Grit!

Posted on by
1

In our ever constant struggle to find the secret sauce of finding the best talent, many organizations are looking to hire candidates who have grit. What the heck is grit? Candidates who have grit tend to have better resolve, tenacity, and endurance.

Ultimately, executives are looking for employees who will get after it and get stuff done. Employees who aren’t waiting around to be told what to do, but those who will find out what it is we should be doing and go make it happen. Grit.

It seems so easy until you sit down in front of a candidate and try and figure out if the person actually has grit or not! You take a look at that guy from 127 Hours, the one who cut his own arm off to save his . That’s easy, he has grit! Susy, the gal sitting across from you, who went to a great state school, and worked at a Fortune 500 company for five years, it’s hard to tell if she has grit or not!

I haven’t found a grit test on the market, so we get back to being really good at questioning and interviewing to raise our odds we’ll make the right choices of those with grit over those who tell us they have grit but really don’t!

When questioning candidates about their grit, focus on these four things:

  1. Passion. People with grit are passionate about something. I always feel that if someone has passion it’s way easier to get them to be passionate about my business and my industry. If they don’t have true passion about anything, it’s hard to get them passionate about my organization.
  1. Doer. When they tell you what they’re passionate about, are they backing it up by actually doing something with it? I can’t tell you how many times I’ll ask someone what their passion is and then ask them how they’re pursuing their passion and they’ve done nothing!
  1. What matters to them. Different from passion in that you need to find out what matters to these people in a work setting. Candidates with grit will answer this precisely and quickly. Others will search for an answer and feel you out for what you’re looking for. I want a workplace that allows me to… the rest doesn’t matter, they know, many have no idea.
  1. Hope. To have grit, to be able to keep going when the going gets tough, you must have hope that things will work out. The glass might be half full or half empty, it doesn’t matter, because if I have a glass, I’ll find something to put in it!

I’ve said this often, but I believe individuals can acquire grit by going through bad work situations. We tend to want to hire perfect unscarred candidates from the best brands who haven’t had to show if they have grit or not.

I love those candidates with battle wounds and scars from companies that were falling apart, but didn’t. I know those people had to have grit to make it out alive!  I want those employees by my side when we go to battle.

Check out Angela Duckworth’s book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance for more on this subject!

 

 

Death of the Millennials

Posted on by
3

I was at a conference recently and one of the keynotes actually gave a presentation on how to work with millennials. I thought to myself, “how 2009 of this person to do this!” I’ve vowed at this point to never sit through another presentation on millennials in the workplace. Millennials are now dead to me.

Just as Baby Boomers, GenXer’s, GenZs, The Founders, etc., are all dead to me. All of us are people. All of us are in the workplace. All of us have to work together and get along. Focusing so much on one group over another just perpetuates dysfunction and confusion. I actually heard executives talking about kids graduating high school and believing they also are ‘millennials’. Just stop!

That all being said, IBM came out with an infographic about the myths, exaggerations and uncomfortable truths of millennials, last week, which sparked my little rant. I wanted to share these five myths and add some commentary:

1.Millennials’ career goals and expectations are different from those of older generations.

Turns out we all still, for the most part, want the same thing. Good job. Good pay. Stability. Don’t buy into the hype that any of your workers want to jump around from company to company. They don’t.

2.Millennials want constant acclaim and think everyone on the team should get a trophy.

Again, every generation wants feedback and told they’re a rock star, even when they’re not. As we age, we start to gain a little better self-insight that we might suck. When we’re young we think we’re awesome, even when we’re not.

3.Millennials are digital addicts who want to do everything online.

I have 8 aunts who are all in their 60’s, pushing their 70’s, all of whom spend most of their day on digital devices gaming and on social sites. This is the world we live in. My Mom would rather order a pizza online then pick up a phone. Welcome to modern day life.

4.Millennials, unlike their older colleagues, can’t make a decision without first inviting everyone to weigh in.

No one wants to be the one who made a decision that went wrong. In most corporate settings all workers play the CYA game by sharing decision-making responsibility. We all say we want to make decisions until we’re actually given that responsibility, then we turn into bowls of jello on the floor hoping we didn’t ruin our careers!

5.Millennials are more likely than others to jump ship if a job doesn’t fulfill their passions.

Guess what? Young people today have a ton of debt. That means you have to work and make money to pay down that debt. Then you decide to buy a house, get married, have a litter of puppies, etc. Passion is awesome. If you get a job you’re super passionate about, good for you, you’re winning at life. 99% of people will work in a job they like, make decent money, pay their bills, and probably will be passionate about other parts of  their life. I think they’re winning as well.

For the record, the last Millennials entered the workforce two years ago. Can we start talking about these snotty-nosed, spoiled brats who are beginning to enter the workforce right now with their Snapchatting and their video and their ability to brand themselves and never-ending gaze to the glow of their smartphone!? They’re calling themselves “The Founders”.

Go have fun with that. They named themselves…

The Most Powerful Talent Attractor

Posted on by
3

We make talent acquisition much harder than it needs to be.  We focus on things like employment branding, candidate experience, recruitment analytics, etc. All important stuff, but a lot of this focus takes away from what’s really basic and critical to being great at acquiring talent.

At its core, the most powerful talent attractor is simply just being desired.

This might seem ultra-simplified to you, but it’s not. Think about yourself for just a moment.

When you get a call from a recruiter, yourself, about going to work someone place else, doesn’t that feel really good?  No, I mean, REALLY, good! “Oh my gosh, you guys, I got this call today, from ABC Company, and they tried to recruit me! I was like, heck no, I’m great here, but I thought it was funny, they wanted me!”

We Love to be wanted! It’s a basic natural feeling and emotion.

The key to great talent acquisition is getting your team and your organization to understand this. If TA would act more like the nerdy guy trying to get a date, and less like the super pretty girl acting like being interested is the farthest thing from her desire, we would be so much more successful!

But, we don’t. We act like candidates should want us. Not we should want them.

Now, imagine that same recruiting call to yourself. This time instead of the company wanting to recruit you, they actually say, “well, we’re not interested in you, but wanted to see if you could refer someone else at your company.”

How would that fell!? It would feel awful and you would be pissed!

We want to be wanted. We wanted to be desired.

If you can get your recruiters to have that mindset, you’ll be amazed at how much easier it is to pick up the phone and talk to candidates.  If we all just truly understood that the candidate on the other end of the phone was just like us, they just want to be wanted, recruiting them seems like a breeze.

“So, you mean I don’t treat them like I’m doing them a favor by talking to them?”

Now you’re getting it! Treat them like you really hope they’ll go on a date with you! Just don’t actually ask them for a date! Just think about your own personality in these terms of how you’re communicating to the candidate.

#SHRMtalent – Is This a Recruiting Conference?

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been pretty outspoken throughout the years about the lack of great Talent Acquisition conferences on the national stage.  There are some great local and regional recruiting conferences, like Recruit DC, Talent 42, Minnesota Recruiters and, of course, the Michigan Recruiters Conference.

I really love the folks at SourceCon, and they do a great job, but for many corporate talent acquisition pros, SourceCon can get really way too far into the weeds, and most will feel intimidated by what’s being discussed. ERE continues to trip over themselves and hasn’t never fully turned itself into that national TA conference.

This is my first time to SHRM Talent and I have to say SHRM is well positioned to create something really big for corporate Talent Acquisition leaders and pros!

Much of the content was on the same par you would find at any of the top recruiting conferences around the world. Of course, I’m doing a couple of sessions and people were highly engaged, asking great questions. Some of the others here include:

Johnny Campbell from Social Talent who had another super engaged session!

Chris Hoyt, the Recruiter Guy, sharing great information on Candidate Experience!

Dee Ann Turner, head of talent for Chick fil a, one of my favs, and say what you want about them, they hire super nice and friendly people, consistently, at every location I’ve ever been in.

Great Keynotes by Jim Knight and Kat Cole – again solid, solid, speakers and talent pros.

Chloe Rada, Recruitment marketing at Sodexo, talking employer branding.

And just a ton more talent practitioners sharing really solid information.

These are people you would expect to see at the top TA conferences in the world, challenging people with some really innovative ideas and best practices.

Of course, in a large national conference, you need content at all levels, so all of it won’t be for everyone. I’ve come to grips with that. I sat in a session and found myself wondering ‘how the heck did this person ever get picked to come to a TA conference?’ When you have 50 plus speakers, not everyone is going to be for every attendee.

But, for the most part, I’m thoroughly impressed with what SHRM put on, and you all know I don’t normally say that! There were around 1400 attendees at SHRM Talent, and I really thing SHRM can position themselves as the premier TA conference in the world, just as they’ve positioned SHRM National as the premier HR conference in the world.

What are the next steps for SHRM Talent, in my opinion?

  • They need a technology track – TA corporate pros are hungry to learn more about what technology can do for them.
  • They need a few more hardcore recruiting, sourcing speakers.  Some folks who will get into the weeds for those who desire that.
  • I would love SHRM play around with session times. An hour and 15 minutes is your parents conference presentation. Most attendees, now, would prefer TEDx style presentations. This becomes a logistical issue, but I think if you move speakers and not attendees, they could test some of these things. No one wants to sit for 75 minutes and hear speakers drone on.

I’m leaving Orlando encouraged about SHRM and the direction of SHRM Talent. Corporate Talent Acquisition is in desperate need of a great conference and SHRM might actually be able to fill this need for the future!

Rerun – Your Going Away Party

Posted on by
Reply

It’s Spring Break in Michigan, so I’m going to step away from the daily grind and throw some Reruns at you! You guys remember Rerun, from What’s Happening? (look it up, kids!) So, enjoy the Reruns, they’re some of my favorites!

Originally ran January 2011 – I like to use a lot – of – dashes – in my writing in – early – 2011!

I think like everyone, I want to be a good leader.  I think like any leader, the definition of good is dependent on who is listening to your message, and what they take away from that message.  Leaders are constantly asked to walk a fine line – do what is right for the business and do what is right for our employees.

Most of you know, these two things don’t go in opposite directions but run parallel in the same direction (although many times, our employees don’t feel they are traveling in the same direction).  It’s not one or the other – business vs. employees – it’s both.  You need the health of both groups, one can’t live without the other – although – sometimes both sides think that one can live without the other.

In my 20 years of professional background, I think what I’ve learned from watching both good and bad leaders is that your ability to walk that fine line successfully – determines your fate.

It’s a very small margin for error.   You must be fair, consistent and above all communicate in an upfront, transparent way when you can.   Before I was put into a leader position – I didn’t get this fine line.  I would be frustrated with my leaders – why didn’t they support us more, why did they seemingly always support the business?  I vowed, when I was a leader, I’d be that person they didn’t have the courage to be.

It’s funny how careers have a way of giving you what you ask for!

The best HR leader I ever worked for gave me some advice, and frequently I reach back for it.  He said,

“Tim, employees will never throw you a party when you take something away.  But if it is the right thing to do, then you have to do it.  Because they will throw you a going away party when you get fired for not doing the right thing.” 

He wanted to know if I wanted to be the kind of leader that employees wanted to throw a party for or a kind of leader that didn’t want employees to throw a party for.

I think, I can do without the party.