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Your Weekly Dose of HR Tech: @SparcStart launches Amplify Video Management System

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Today on the Weekly Dose I take a look at SparcStart‘s newest product, Amplify. Amplify is a video management system/platform where you can store all of your employment branding and recruiting-related content no matter where it was produced. So, you can bring videos in from professional third parties, YouTube, employee-generated videos from their phones, videos generated on other video-enabled apps, etc., and have all of that content in one place.

Why is this a big deal? Video has increasingly become the go-to content for talent acquisition, and the growth of video being used is off the charts when it comes to employment branding and recruiting. The problem is we don’t have one place to catalog all of this content. We don’t have one place to share this content and measure the views. We don’t have one place to approve and ensure the right video content is being used by our teams.

Well, until Amplify.

What do I like about SparcStart’s Amplify VMS (Video Management System)? 

– Super simple and easy to use dashboard to upload all of your EB & recruiting videos so you have them all in one system. Plus, from the dashboard, you can share them on social, get a URL to share with candidates that will bring them to your company branded micro-site to view (less noise then sending them to YouTube).

– Create videos as well, without the need for your employees to download an app. Basically, through the dashboard, invite them, tell them what it’s about, they get an email to click through on their phone, record, and upload all in two clicks total! You then have the ability to view and approve to be added to the content library on the dashboard. (click the pic below to see me use Amplify in action)

– Having a video management system allows you to have one spot for quality control across your entire environment. The one problem with quick-video is that we lose control of our brand when all of this is being generated and no one seems to be in charge. Amplify is a great tool to have for any organization that potentially has many locations, divisions, regions, and countries using corporate branded video.

– Early users are already figuring out how to use this system in ways it wasn’t even designed for! Some early adopters are increasing their offer acceptance rate by having hiring managers send a quick offer video link, along with the offer letter, to make the offer super personalized for each candidate. Organizations can send out personal interview videos within seconds.

SparcStart was started as a video job description tool, which is how most of us will know them. The addition of Amplify, which is a stand-alone product, really is something that is needed in the industry and most people are just figuring out they need as video content has exploded. The pricing model is very affordable (like $1K/month for 50 vids!), especially when you figure out all the ways you can use it. The video below literally took me under thirty seconds to click on the email link, record, and upload, with the ability to use! The simplicity of Amplify is why I really think it will take off! Well worth a demo!

The Weekly Dose – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on The Weekly Dose – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net

Want help with your HR & TA Tech company – send me a message about my HR Tech Advisory Board experience.

Top ATSs used by the Fortune 500!

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One of my favorite reports of the year, from one of the guys I really respect in the industry, Rob Kelly at Ongig, the Top ATS Systems Used by the Fortune 500 was released last week. Now, Rob has been releasing ATS use data for a few years across all segments, SMB, Large, Enterprise. This time around he stuck with just the Fortune 500, because, quick frankly, it’s fairly easy to know, exactly, what every one of the Fortune 500 is using.

Here’s what he found in 476 (Yes, they couldn’t determine 24):

Big takeaways:

– The growth of Workday, in the talent acquisition space, isn’t shocking, but it is concerning. It speaks to HR’s, and more specifically Talent Acquisitions, lack of voice in picking their own technology. It’s very rare, even amongst the Fortune 500 clients using Workday Recruit to find a TA leader who would tell you they actually had a say in choosing the technology they are being forced to use. Not a criticism of Workday, just a fact of the reality of what is happening.

– Workday Recruit and getting it to not just work, but thrive, should be something TA tech vendors are trying to figure out, and it would help if Workday would welcome in the industry on this work. Too many TA leaders and their organizations need this help, desperately. I’m not a Workday hater. I hear from my Finance friends, my Payroll friends, and my HR friends that Workday is great, solid tech. I truly want them, and anyone in our space supporting TA, to get Great!

– Taleo market share is shrinking and Oracle has been slow to market with a Taleo replacement. I expect we’ll see start to see a push from them in 2020, but it might be too late. BUT, like Workday, Oracle, SAP, etc. will have the advantage of shoving down their recruiting tech in suite form onto unsuspecting TA leaders, who aren’t in the know about what’s going on with technology in their organizations.

– There are better ATSs on the market than Workday, Taleo, and Successfactors by giant margins. Yet, they take up most of the enterprise market share. My Enterprise HR and TA friends will tell me that the enterprise ‘suite’ is a necessary evil they can’t get away from. I will continue to argue there is no real reason to have your employee data (HRIS) and your candidate data (ATS) in the same database. Any basic Business Intelligence tool can pull the data you need from either one of these systems to give you anything you might need in combining those two data sets. Which, in reality, is rare.

– The evolution of the Talent Acquisition/Recruiting Platforms/Marketplaces being built out by many high performing ATSs (Greenhouse, SmartRecruiters, Jobvite, iCIMS, etc.) will be a competitive advantage for organizations that use it, over the enterprise HRIS recruiting modules, and it won’t even be close. But, the reality is, F500 organizations have brands that probably make this somewhat negligible in the short-term.

– Wait, people are still using Brassring?

 

Do you have an expiration date on your offer letters? #ghOPEN

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I was out at Greenhouse OPEN this week and got into a conversation with a group of TA leaders about whether or not you should have expiration dates on offers. Which brings up a couple of things we need to discuss:

  1. Do you have candidates first verbally approve an offer before you send them the ‘official’ offer in writing?
  2. If you have expiration dates on an offer, how long do you give someone?

It was about 50/50 with the TA leaders on obtaining verbal approval first on offers. Basically, there seem to be two types of philosophies around this. Either you train your recruiters to pre-close and get them to verbally accept hoping that there will be limited negotiation once the final offer goes out. Or you just send, either believing you are offering what they want or hoping you are, and there won’t be much negotiation that takes place.

I’m fully in support of the pre-close and getting a verbal acceptance before sending out a final offer. I think it’s a massive misuse of resources to send out an offer, formally, then begin negotiations and continue to send out more offers. But, I also get that in many industries, still today, sending out a formal offer is needed because candidates have multiples coming in all at the same time.

In terms of expiration dates on offer letters, I think giving a candidate five working days is more than enough, especially if you’ve pre-closed. The leaders I was speaking to were between 48 hours and two-weeks.

I did bring up the concept of what if you explicitly made the offer letter have a much longer expiration like six months or one year? Could you potentially pick up some great talent that chooses to take another offer, for whatever reason, but got into that job or company and felt like they made a mistake and wanted a second chance with you?

We tend to never go back to candidates who turn us down, but in reality, they are all talent worth continuing to pursue. A certain number of candidates who turn you down will regret it soon after, and if you make them feel like they are welcome to come back and accept a later time, it might have a very happy ending.

Of course, extended expirations would only work in organizations and positions where you are continually going out and recruiting for those spots on an ongoing basis. Also, you could always rescind an offer at any point if you feel you no longer needed that talent in the organization.

It’s an interesting conversation to have with your hiring managers. Even if you’re not the “prettiest girl on the block” in terms of the offer, you still want to put some pressure on the candidate to make up their mind. Having an expiration time on the offer letter does put some pressure on them to make up their mind and move forward.

What do you think? Do you put expiration dates on offer letters? If so, how long?

Career Confessions of Gen Z – Every Day Is the Weekend

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Over the past couple of years, I’ve observed a number of situations where past generations viewed the working habits of current generations (Gen Y and Z) with a level of angst, dare I say spite, specifically when considering “hours spent in the office”. This isn’t new, in fact there is almost a comedic undertone to the inherent daily misunderstandings resulting from the coexistence of Baby Boomers, Gen X, Y, and Z all working together in the same place.

I feel this specific case boils down to a noticeable disconnect in how Gen Z and many millennial’s “work for the weekend” compared to the generations that have preceded them.

To Baby Boomers and Gen X (probably some of you in Gen Y too) — there was a time when 9am – 5pm mattered. Coming in early and working late certainly got you further ahead than punching a time clock piously, but a standardization of the work day mattered. There was a time when clocking out at 5pm meant that you were unplugged. Each day was one day closer to Friday night and a few days of mostly uninterrupted freedom.

Then email arrived and cell phones became more prominent… you can see where this is going.

It’s not that a standardized work day doesn’t matter now, it just matters less. It matters less because the weekend matters less. It matters less because time has changed. Information is processed and transmitted quicker, tasks get accomplished quicker, conversations are completed through different mediums, and being present can get you further.

Check this out:

I can wake up and have a quick discussion at 7am with a colleague via text, phone, slack, or a number of other platforms. Then, I can work out, take some spiritual time, eat breakfast, and be ready to go for my 9am (did I mention that I used a 7 minute workout app?).

I can be present in meetings and play catch up all morning while also quickly staying on top of my social feeds. I go out for lunch around noon simply because I have the time to do so. I jump back in around 1pm, catch up on more tasks and handle my meetings until around 4pm.

Feeling tired, I swing through a coffee shop. I decide to read a few books for the next hour or so.

I swing home to take care of my dog and while he’s eating I realize it’s probably a good time to eat my dinner too. I’m done with dinner around 7pm. For the next hour or so I catch up on a few outstanding work items, of which I’m not the least bit concerned on timeline because I forgot to mention, I was keeping tabs and taking care of “quick hit” items from my phone while reading at the coffee shop.

From 8pm – 10pm I exclusively work on my stuff. I’ve been getting into real estate investment on the side, so I need to plan out some next steps. I lazily watch TV until around 11pm and go to sleep. I wake up around 6:30am the next day to do something similar. I get 7 hours of sleep (variably), and I am getting just as much, arguably more, completed as the 9-5er.

This is a huge reality now.

Obviously not everyone’s day is like this. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that many of my current teammates, all of us which are in a rather progressive company, don’t necessarily have the freedom to be remote. It’s all in perspective, but adjustments can be made.

I feel that days like this are perpetuated by my generation’s ability to multitask and briskly cross back and forth on the line of personal and work time, not only as a result of technology, but an increased exposure and utilization of that technology.

I’m not damning the office environment and saying a total remote workforce is the future, but flexibility is, and it’s destroying 9am – 5pm.

It also isn’t completely accurate to say that the concept of the 9-5 work week and the weekend doesn’t matter at all. But now, there are so many ways to productively enjoy each day as much as professionals enjoy the weekend. Ultimately, we can plug in and answer a few emails on the weekend, but we can also take a few extra hours here and there during the 9-5 while also remaining plugged in.

Monday, Tuesday, Saturday… they’re all just another day.

Quintin Meek a talent consultant at Pillar Technology (part of Accenture Industry X.0). Also an active member of Detroit’s startup and tech community. Every day is something new and challenging, and I am learning more than ever before. I’m finding that I’ve become a lifelong student, and I’m excited to see how that continues to shape the road ahead.

 

 

 

Career Confessions of Gen Z: Are We Too Busy For Fun?

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A few weeks back I came across a video of a guy that put a giant ball pit downtown New York City to see if people were too busy to have fun. On that same day, I had a conversation with my fiance about how I always have a million things on my mind at once. None of which are ever fun things. It’s more like a chore list that constantly runs through my mind.

To say the least, I am constantly stressed and feel like I am moving a million miles an hour without time to breathe. What stresses me out the most, is that I don’t have time for me. I don’t have time for fun. And I’m only 22! Is this how the rest of my adult life is supposed be?

My fiance asked me what things I want to do aside from completing things on my chore list. What do I want to do for me?

It made me think. There are a lot of things that I would love to do. I can’t remember the last time I did something for myself or even spent decent quality time with my family.

And why?

Because I am always to “busy”. Busy prioritizing the needs of everyone and everything except for myself. It brought me to question why we as humans get so caught up in all of these other things and forget about ourselves. Do we really not have five minutes out of our day for ourselves? Five minutes for fun?

I’m sure that I am not the first person to ever get caught up trying to keep up with the speed of life and as a result let my own enjoyment fall off the wagon.

The question is, how can we bring that enjoyment, the fun, back into our lives?

It’s really up to us to prioritize it. We are responsible for our lives and how we run them. For people like myself, we need to start saying no to things that can wait and start putting fun first. We need to say, “yes,” to that vacation we so badly need. “Yes” to drinks after work. “Yes” to catching up with friends. Work and house chores will still be there tomorrow.

I am not saying throw all of our responsibilities out the window and run wild. I just mean we need to do something for our own enjoyment every once and a while.

It’s also up to employers to encourage their employees to unplug and have a healthy life outside of work. Below 10 things that employers can do to help employees prioritize themselves without feeling major guilt.

  1. Don’t allow employees to have their work email on their phones.
  2. Don’t call employees or expect them to respond to emails after hours or on their days off.
  3. Require that employees leave the office for at least half of their lunch hour.
  4. Offer work from home days.
  5. Offer flexible work hours.
  6. Make the workday shorter by a half an hour.
  7. Don’t require employees to take PTO for appointments.
  8. Have fun at work. Throw office potlucks, cookouts, or go for a group walk.
  9. Have team outings.
  10. Don’t let that ping pong table in the office get dusty. Encourage employees to take at least 10 minutes out of their day to play a game and give their brain a break to recharge.

Ask yourself, are you too busy to have fun? If the answer is yes, it may be time to re-think your priorities.

Hallie Priest is a digital marketer for HRU Technical Resources, a leading engineering and IT staffing firm based in Lansing, MI, using her skills to create content to serve all involved in the job seeking/hiring process. When she is not strategizing campaigns, going over analytics, or talking about her dog you can find her at the nearest coffee shop fueling her creativity. Connect with her on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/halliepriest

Career Confessions of Gen Z: 3 Tips for Starting a New Job — The Intern Addition

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STOP, COLLABORATE, AND LISTEN.

While these may be the words to an iconic and catchy song — you’re welcome if it’s now stuck in your head — they are also words of wisdom for a college student or new grad about to start an internship or entry-level job. So, let’s take a piece out of Vanilla Ice’s lyrical genius and apply it to some real life advice.

Stop:

If you’re anything like me, starting anything new can be extremely overwhelming. Be sure to stop, take a breath, and know that it will take time to adjust. Don’t try to rush yourself. Allow yourself some grace and your transition will be much smoother than if you put ten tons of unneeded pressure on yourself.

Collaborate:

You’re in your new job and you want to impress the big cheeses. What’s a great way to do this?

By demonstrating all you learned from those college group projects.

Show that you know how to be a productive team player, that you’re willing to share your ideas, and that you’ll make the effort to work well with your new co-workers. Your ability to collaborate successfully will stand out more than a 4.0 GPA, I promise.

Listen:

I have saved the best for last. This tip is the most important:

If you cannot listen actively, you will not advance nor impress. Just like your mom used to say, “There is a reason you have two ears and one mouth”. When you start your new job you will have to take in a great deal of information.

It’s important that you be an active listener. Take notes, ask for clarification, and don’t be too prideful to ask for help. Active listeners are some of the most valuable employees. While I am no expert — or famous rapper — by any means, I do work on these things each and every day that I come into work.

These tips will help you transition smoothly, impress the big cheeses, and demonstrate your value as the incredible employee you are!

*Though I don’t know if Vanilla Ice took these tips, he is worth $18 million, so he’s doing something right.

Elena Moeller is currently junior at the St. Edward’s University and Intern of all trades for Proactive Talent in Austin, Texas. Being born and raised in Minnesota I grew up playing hockey, riding snowmobiles, and fishing. One thing you should know about me is that I have never been labeled as shy — I live for getting to know new people and learning new things. This has enabled me to travel the world, become fluent in Spanish, and live in Milan, Italy where I learned a bit of Italian! I find I am happiest at work when I am able to spark my creativity and create something that is useful for our company but is also an entertaining read.

Career Confessions of Gen Z | The Power of Seeing – B-roll!

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http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POGt4ZSiKMM&w=560&h=315

Hello everyone!

Thank you for joining me on this Gen Z journey. In the last episode, I talked about what verbal and spoken content can do for your recruiting methods, but I think it’s just one side of things to simply hear what a job is like. It takes it to a whole other level when you can visually capture what the processes of a job are like. So follow me into the world of b-roll!

(Don’t worry, I’ll explain it all in the video) 😉

Skyler Baty is a Videographer and Video Editor for SkillScout and lives in the Detroit Metro Area in Michigan. Skyler loves doing video work and helping organizations with their video projects. Connect with him, he’s a genius with this stuff!

 

 

 

 

Career Confessions of Gen Z: HR without a Degree

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It was exam season of my 2nd year at UC Berkeley, the “#1 Public University in the World”. Per the typical college student in the midst winter, I thought, “What am I going to do this summer?”. Little did I know, this single thought would change my life forever…

To paint this picture a little better, I am currently writing this blog from my desk at work in Detroit, MI. If I didn’t have that little thought, I would currently be finishing my final semester of college in a couple short months.

What did I do exactly?

I accepted a job as a sourcer at a company that I knew I loved despite being less than a year away from completing school.

How did I do it?

I internalized what I really wanted and compared the pros with the cons.

Cons of leaving school to work

  1. I won’t have a college degree if I drop out — at least not yet
  2. I have to leave a good amount of friends that I’ve built great relationships with
  3. All of my family is back in California

Pros of leaving school to work

  1. I was going to school to do what I am doing now
  2. I have spent 3 internship seasons building relationships and finding mentors (something I lacked in the past)
  3. I was DROWNING in debt – loans, friends, etc. — I could pay this off if I take this job!!

 

Honestly, it was one of the easier decisions I’ve had to make because it made perfect sense for ME. After 8 months in my current role, I couldn’t be happier with my decision.

What I did not know would be an added benefit for me was empathy – more specifically, I am more motivated than ever to seek to understand. I think this is a benefit in all aspects of life; seeking to understand something before you seek to be understood. Now that I’m much more open with my experiences and invite the same from others, seeking to understand has become second nature to me and I can’t imagine a close-minded life.

So, I guess the point of my story wasn’t to tell you all that I dropped out of school – it’s to let you know that people have got a lot of junk sometimes. It may take a little digging to come out with that nugget of gold I like to call understanding.

Hunter Casperson — self-proclaimed “Sourcing Nerd”, is currently an Associate Talent Strategist at Quicken Loans out of Detroit, MI. Originally from Southern California, he spent lots of time outdoors and in turn, loves nature. Hunter attended UC Berkeley where he studied Math & Psychology for three years before joining Quicken. His all-time favorite thing to do is beat-box, where he has consecutively ranked amongst the Top 10 in the United States over the past 3 years (under the name Huntybeats)!

Management 2.0 #WorkHuman

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I was at the WorkHuman conference this week in Nashville and came across some great content I wanted to share. One of my favorites was from Professor Gary Hamel who has a very real, no-nonsense approach that you probably either love or hate, he’s not your normal HR conference speaker.

He shared his theory on Management 2.0:

 

So, I really like this, but also know how hard, in reality, it is for most of this to happen in an actual company! Let’s break them down.

1. Of course, you want everyone to act like an owner. It’s just really difficult to pay and give flexibility to everyone like they are an owner.

2. Operating units are small. Makes sense because the smaller the unit the easier it is to know who actually owns getting stuff done!

3. Leaders are chosen by the led. Great theory, in practice this can go very wrong. But it’s very aspirational and feel good.

4. No internal monopolies. Yep, I’m all in, just don’t tell Mary who is the top salesperson by a mile and has other ideas.

5. Control comes from around, not from the top. And we all act like adults. Another hard one to put into practice, but with small units it could happen and it would be a super awesome work environment.

6. Tasks are chosen not assigned. This one instantly feels very Hippie, right? But, if you have great measures that are agreed upon on what success looks like, why do we care how the tasks of making success actually get done?

7. Coordination is the product of collaboration. Yes, I’m all in.

8. Decisions reflect the wisdom of the crowd. First, let’s assume the crowd is wiser than any one person. That’s a giant assumption and if you’ve worked in organizations, especially really successful organizations, what you find is there are usually a person, or small group, that is a bit wiser than the collective. Let’s be careful on always assuming more equals better. Not actually true.

9. Compensation decisions are peer-based. And welcome to Lord of the Flies.

10. Everyone reports to the customer. Yeah, another one I’m willing to buy into, but we also have found out that the customer isn’t always right and sometimes the customer is downright awful to your staff. In that case, you don’t report to the customer!

I love that Gary’s Management 2.0 really gets you to think about what leadership and management could be. He would argue all of this is 100% doable, I would argue some of it is doable, and some of it is pure fantasy. Even if you had an executive team that drank the Kool-Aid, much of this would still be next to impossible to pull off.

But, this is what is great about WorkHuman. You get content that will challenge the norm and make you truly think differently about what you believe is best.

So, what do you think, could you make Gary’s Management 2.0 work in your organization? Or what parts would you like to steal and try right now?

 

Can we blow up Demos already? #HRERecruitTalent

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Sat in on a great opening session at the Recruiting Trends & Talent Tech Conference yesterday that was called Ideas and Innovations. Quick five-minute talks. Disrupt-style, where you have five minutes and some slides moving on their own.

Looking at the TA pros and leaders around me you could easily see the engagement and interest. People like being told about cool stuff in a very quick and efficient manner. Some of the stuff might spark them to want more, some stuff might spark them to know it’s not for them. Either way, they didn’t have to invest much to get there.

I constantly hear from recruiting tech companies that they want to do more demos, because they know demos lead to organizations buying their stuff. The problem is we all feel we don’t have the time to do demos, and we don’t want high pressured sales pitch. So, we disengage all together.

It’s a problem on both sides, the vendor and the buyer. Buyers actually need to do more demos and should be looking at more options then they do, and vendors need to get in front of more buyers. I’m not sure why conferences don’t do this, but I would love to see a session that is just 6, ten minute demos of technology I might want to take a deeper dive into.

Hundreds of people in the room, watching quick demos and deciding is this something I want to go and find out more about. Seems like it makes total sense for both sides! Yet, it doesn’t happen. Why?

I think there’s two issues (both of which are basically false):

  1. Vendors don’t feel comfortable doing a demo in front of potential competition, because they feel somehow they’re giving away their secret sauce.
  2. Conference providers believe attendees don’t want to view this type of content.

The truth is, there is no secret sauce with your demo. I’ve done a thousand demos and while some are better than others, that’s mostly do to the person doing the demo, not the actual demo.

Attendees want to learn stuff they don’t know and want to be able to take back knowledge to their organizations that makes them seem smart. No, they don’t want to hear for an hour how ACME Inc. implemented Oracle. But, they would be interested in seeing what the hell this new Oracle Recruit product is, especially if I’m not being sold to.

I think the modern demo should be really broken into two parts. One of those is just show me who you are and what you do in 5-10 minutes. The second one is your dog and pony show.

I think vendors are afraid to do the short-range demo because they don’t feel buyers will truly see who they are. The reality is if you can’t tell your buyer in 5-10 minutes who you are and what you can do for them, you shouldn’t be in the space.