A Recruiter’s Boolean Search Nightmare!

Posted on August 19, 2016 by Tim Sackett

One of my favorite recruiting thought leaders (I hate that phrase ‘thought leader’, it sounds so pompous! What are they actually leading anyway? Okay, you had a thought, who decided it was a ‘leading’ thought? I’d much rather say ‘Super Smart Chick’ or ‘Brilliant Dude’) is Glen Cathey. He’s a 1%er when it comes to recruiting industry knowledge and he’s willing to share it freely.

He’s a 1%er when it comes to recruiting industry knowledge and he’s willing to share it freely. That makes him a really awesome person in my book. If he wants me to call him a ‘thought leader’ I will, heck, I’d call him ‘The Almighty Recruiting G*d of Love’ as long as he keeps sharing his super smart takes on how to make recruiting better!

Anyway, he put me on to this video. It’s super funny when you think of it in the context of how Recruiters are constantly searching all day long through databases. We feel this guy’s pain! Check it out, it’s like 90 seconds:

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Inbound Recruiting Is Killing Your Talent

Posted on August 18, 2016 by Tim Sackett

Most recruiting done today is inbound recruiting. This is organizations posting jobs everywhere, people seeing these jobs and then applying. These candidates are coming ‘inbound’ to you in some form or fashion – into your ATS, into your email, showing up at your front door, whatever it takes for them to find you.

Outbound, then, is the opposite. It’s you finding them.

Too much inbound recruiting kills your overall talent.

Why?

Inbound recruiting relies on active applicants. There are hundreds of studies about who is actually active, but most fall around the 20-25% of the total workforce are actively looking for a new job (this includes those unemployed looking and employed). So, you’re filling most of your jobs with 20-25% of the overall talent that is available.

You aren’t even touching 75-80% of the total workforce by using inbound recruiting. But, Inbound Recruiting is great because that 25% is still a huge number and boy can we still get a bunch of applicants and, well, it’s easier.

I don’t have stats on this (if you find them please share!) but I would guess 90% of organizations only use Inbound Recruiting!

Now, a bunch of people will tell you that ‘active’ applicants aren’t the only thing. CareerBuilder’s Talent Behavior study recently found that if you combine Active and Those Open to Hearing About Openings that number climbs from 25% to 75%! Okay, now we’re talking! The problem is that extra 50% isn’t responding to your Inbound Strategy!

To get the full 75% of the workforce who might be interested in your job you must have outbound recruiting strategies. These include getting your butt on the phone and talking people into why you’re the best damn place on the planet to work! These people might actually love you as much as those people who are freely sending you their resume, but they’re waiting for you to contact them!

This is confusing to many people in Talent Acquisition.

If you only post jobs and wait to see who applies to your posts, no matter how many places you post, you’re only possibly getting 1 out of 4 possible candidates. In a perfect scenario of using both inbound and outbound, you could get 3 out of 4. No one gets 4 out of 4 because about a quarter of the workforce is considered truly passive, meaning you and G*d couldn’t talk them into leaving their current job.

Also, you calling a candidate who has applied to your job is not considered outbound recruiting! You need to go out and find talent that doesn’t even know you have a job opening and entice them to apply, to fall in love with you, to show interest! This is ‘real’ recruiting. This is the recruiting most organizations have lost, or never had, to begin with.

This is why sourcing became a thing. Sourcing, in its best form in a corporate structure, is only about outbound recruiting. About uncovering that talent that most organizations aren’t even going after and getting them interested in your organization.

The interesting piece to all of this is annual TA spend. Take a look at your own inbound vs. outbound spend. What I find is most organizations tell me they want the best talent but they are spending the majority of their budget going after the minority of the talent. Shouldn’t it be the other way around, the majority of your budget going after the majority of talent?

Quality of Hire is Meaningless!

Posted on August 17, 2016 by Tim Sackett

Okay, before you go off on me in the comments, let me explain. This is a reaction post to my friend, and really smart digital PR strategist, Maren Hogan, who wrote “Quality of Hire Means Something. Here’s Why.” If you don’t know Maren, go check her out, she runs Red Branch Media one of the best B2B marketing agencies in the business supporting talent acquisition and HR from a vendor and organizational standpoint.

Here’s some of the article Maren wrote:

Quality of Hire didn’t use to be a recruiting measurement. Far from it! Even just ten years ago, the goal for recruiters and even their emerging brethren was to make sure that people met the job requirements. Terms like “cultural fit” were on the fringe and those who wanted recruiters to answer for retention, may potentially get an earful. Back then, we all decided collectively, that recruiting was responsible for bringing the people to the party but it was up to hiring managers, HR professionals and line managers to keep people dancing.

That’s not so true anymore. About four in 10 of nearly 4,000 corporate talent acquisition managers from 40 countries agreed that quality of hire is the most valuable metric for performance, although that is a dip from the 44% who said so in 2014. With the emergence of employer branding, recruitment marketing, personality and skills assessments and cultural fit, the zeitgeist has decided that yes, recruiters must answer for quality of hire. But instead of being upset, here’s why recruiters should embrace quality of hire and retention KPIs (Hint: it only makes recruiters more valuable).

I get why Maren writes this. It’s good for business. Knowing Maren, I highly doubt she actually believes it, because she’s wicked smart.

Here’s what’s wrong with thinking Quality of Hire means something:

– 99.9% of organizations have no idea how to measure Quality of Hire. If you don’t know how to measure it, it doesn’t mean anything.

– 99.9% of organizations measure Quality of Hire differently. Without a consistent industry measure, Quality of Hire doesn’t mean anything.

– True Quality of Hire measures takes time. Like a year. You have to actually measure the performance of the hire to know if they’re quality or not. This long time makes it almost impossible to have this as a Recruiting KPI. Since performance over a year has way too many variables at play to connect the dots back to a recruiter!

– Trying to tie quality of hire to sources is also an exercise in futility of your understand basic statistics. Sure you might have actually gotten your three best developers off of Craigslist. Do you truly believe Craigslist is your best source? There are so many variables at play to why a person comes from an individual source, it makes little sense to try and tie Quality of Hire back to a source as well.

– 4 out of 10 corporate talent acquisition managers mostly have no idea what the hell they’re doing. So, why would I ever listen to this study? The same 40% also believe there are purple squirrels running around! These are also the same people who believe QofH is about retaining new hires! “Oh, look! Our new hire who has yet to find the bathroom is still here! What a great ‘quality’ hire!”

Maren is smart, she’s trying to help recruiters, I like that. This post isn’t busting Maren, it’s busting our industry! I wish we all could instead sit down and come up with one common Quality of Hire metric to compare across industries, organizations, countries, etc.

Of all the TA analytics we have out there Quality of Hire might be the most mis-understood one of them all. Do I have the answer? Nope. Would love to hear your thoughts, though, in the comments of how you measure Quality of Hire, then maybe we could begin some solid conversation about getting this standardized!

Hit me with your QofH metric below!

T3- @WeVue – Where Culture Comes to Life

Posted on August 16, 2016 by Tim Sackett

This week on T3 I review the employment branding/culture mobile app WeVue. WeVue is a mobile app that enhances the experience of being on a team by bringing company culture to life through the power of photo and video sharing. It’s a mobile platform that turns your entire employee base into one big social network of sharing and communication.

It has a little Snapchat/Instagram Stories feel to it, but with a lot more functionality to communicate amongst teams. An employee gets started on WeVue by downloading the app and using their work email address as their way into company side of WeVue. From there the first thing they are taught to do is a step-by-step process of making a video of themselves for everyone in the organization to view, share and comment (think great first-day orientation exercises!).

WeVue allows your employees to share their stories and experiences with your organization simply and effectively. The platform also allows the team, or an individual, to celebrate accomplishments, start events, give positive feedback, etc. They can push these notifications to individuals, teams or the entire organization.

5 Things I really like about WeVue:

1. WeVue is a mobile platform that has a very familiar UI/UX for most employees who are familiar with using social apps on mobile. This makes it user adoption much easier because almost everyone will download and immediately be able to begin using the app and setting up their profile.

2. I love that WeVue starts out by having each employee making an introduction video. This has so many applications to begin great orientations and make people feel instantly welcome in your environment. The profile can also be easily changed and added to as an employee sees fit.

3. Ask questions/Get Feedback. WeVue’s platform allows users to ask questions and gather feedback quickly and easily. App admins at your organization can control access and whether you want this to be anonymous or open, also who can ask questions can also be controlled by company admins.

4. Culture Feed. WeVue has a timeline type function where most of your employees will spend time on the app, this is your ‘Cultural Feed’. As people share items, give shout-outs to each other, etc., all will be seen by the entire company here (similar to a FB timeline). Also, you can Broadcast announcements on the app, one-way communication by leadership, HR, marketing, etc.

5. Social share to a custom landing page. The app allows users to share information and you can have it go to a custom landing page, like maybe your career site! This easily allows you to share your culture with perspective candidates and drive additional traffic to where you want it.

WeVue is an organizational culture app. Designed for organizations who want to share and drive a strong sense of what and who they are as an organization. As companies grow quickly this is one of the first things that gets lost, and once it’s gone, it’s almost impossible to get back. This helps companies stay small, as they get big, and let’s big companies seem a bit smaller. WeVue is like having your own private social media site for your employees.

Check out WeVue. Easy quick demo. Fairly inexpensive for what you get and can build in terms of culture. I’m a huge believer in letting your employees be your brand advocates through sharing their stories at work, and WeVue makes this very easy.

How WeVue changed Logan’s career? from NiceGuy with a HeadFull of Ideas on Vimeo.

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 HR, 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 – send me a note.

Recruiting Secret #36

Posted on August 15, 2016 by Tim Sackett

Everyone wants to know the secret to great recruiting. Candidates want to know how to get into companies. Recruiters want to know each other’s secrets to finding great talent. No one seems to be sharing their secrets, but I will!

Recruiting Secret #36 –

Most hires you will make as a recruiter will find you. You don’t find them.

The secret is to make it easy for them to find you!

There is still a prevailing idea in recruiting, especially on the corporate side, you should make it difficult for candidates to be able to get in touch with and find you. Great recruiters. The best recruiters in any industry, are easy to find.

Are you?

Should CEOs make 276 Times More Than You?

Posted on August 15, 2016 by Tim Sackett

Check out this chart from Business Insider:

Basically, this chart is showing you how much more your CEO makes than the average worker at your company, assuming you work for one of the 350 largest companies in the United States.

So, let’s put this into real numbers:

The average worker makes around: $45,000.

That means the CEO makes: $12,420,000.

I think most people feel that disparity is too much. I put it in the context of professional athletes. Should LeBron James get $33,000,000 per year to play basketball for the Cleveland Cavaliers?

We tend to think LeBron shouldn’t get paid $33 Million per year, but at the same time were alright with it because well he wins games. But somehow we don’t believe Indra Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo, should earn $22,000,000 per year like she did last year. Why is that?

Oh wait, would you feel better if I put one of those old white guy CEOs compensation number up? Would that make it easier for you to hate?

I find it interesting that for most of the modern era (prior to 1980) CEOs made roughly 25 times more than the average worker. In our example above that would then look like this:

Average worker: $45,000

CEO: $1,125,000

Yeah, this still sucks, right?

So, what should the figure be? How much more should a CEO make than the average worker? Does 10 times seem right ($450,000)?

I’m a Moneyball guy. I have a hard time believing any CEO is truly worth 276 times more than an average worker, but if that’s what the market bears, more power to them! I’m also a Capitalist!

I do believe, though, that all of these organizations could fire their CEOs at 276 times pay, hire someone else at half that pay and they would have the same or better results across the board. 50% pay cut, same performance. So, why wouldn’t they do this?

Organizational dynamics are built to continue this behavior of over-paying. At some point around 1980, someone let the cat out of the bag and leaders have been pushing the envelope ever since! Think about how this all goes down. A leader goes to the board of directors and says, “Look we need better talent at the C-level to support me.” The board supports, raises get put in, this pushes up against the CEO.

Well, now we have compression, time to move the CEO up. The cycle continues, again, and again…. It becomes a leadership arms race! The board feels like they are in no win situation. If the company is doing well, of course, they vote yes. If the company is doing bad, well, we need better, so you get another yes vote.

No one is willing to just stop it. To say, you know what, ten times or twenty-five times, is plenty. We’ll find great talent at that amount. I’ve met great CEOs and awful CEOs of very large companies. All made outrageous money and their performance had very little to do with their compensation.

What do you think? How much more should a CEO get paid over the average worker?

Should Employers Be Looking for Lifetime Employees?

Posted on August 12, 2016 by Tim Sackett

I think we all are being sold a big fat bag of lies!

Okay, not lies, but definitely a very narrow skewed view of the truth. Case in point, you are now supposed to believe that you don’t want to work for one employer for your entire career.

Do you know why you’re supposed to believe this? Because idiots like me, and the media, keep spoon feeding you study after study that shows younger generations don’t want to work at the same employer for their entire career.

Okay, I get that. When I was 23 I didn’t know what I wanted to do next weekend, let alone 40 years from now! But, because younger generations want this, now we all want this, apparently.

This isn’t just an employee issue either. Organizations are now supposed to believe they no longer want lifetime employees. You, as an employer, should just sit back and watch employee after employee walk out your door to do the exact same thing at your competitor. This is the world we live in, Tim. Why would I want an employee to stay with us for 40 years. I need to get fresh eyes and new experiences into our organization.

I recently met with a very successful employer in southern Indiana. A tech company that most people will never know, even though they have stuff in your computer you use every single day. They’re basically a ‘guts’ company. They put high tech stuff into stuff you use but never see. They want lifetime employees.

They take an extremely long time to hire. Fit to them is paramount. If one thing doesn’t ‘feel’ right with a candidate, they’ll wait to find one that does ‘feel’ right. It’s a strong culture organization. Proud people, almost zero turnover and they are highly profitable. They walk away from talented candidates all the time. Skill is important, but it’s not as important as fit.

There are not enough of these organizations left. Too many organizations today are only hiring for skill. When you only hire for skill, you get the work environment younger generations are telling you they want. One where they don’t want to stay forever!

When you hire for fit as your primary focus of selection. Meaning, skills are important, we want smart people, but all things being close to equal, fit will determine the hire. Fit is so important that if we can’t find the ‘right’ fit, we’ll leave the position open until we can, regardless of skill.

Here’s my deal, I think employees do want to work for one company for a lifetime. I think the reason you see anyone leave your organization has very little to do with them not wanting lifetime employment and a ton to do with how they fit in an organization. Sure, you’ll always have talent that is capped out and needs to move to grow, but even then I think those people would prefer to stay and grow.

Hire for fit. Teach the skill. Enjoy high tenure, high performance, and better profits. So, yeah, start looking for lifetime employees!

Student Loan Debt will end up being an Employer Problem

Posted on August 11, 2016 by Tim Sackett

Take a look at this chart:

Basically, what this chart is showing you is that America has a massive student loan debt problem. Want to know what the next ‘housing crisis’ will be? It’s right here in this chart!

The average student is now leaving college with over $35,000 in debt. This has a trickle down effect that college and universities could care less about, the government could care less about, and every Presidential candidate could truly care less about.

I have friends in High Education who will be pissed I say that colleges don’t care about this problem, but they don’t. They’re in the business of empire building. Listen to Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast “Revisionist History“. He does a three-part series on how broken higher education is, and there is no easy way out!

Don’t kid yourself, Hill or Trump, isn’t going to help those in debt. They might try to solve this issue for future students, but those poor saps who already signed loan agreements will be on their own! You can take that to the bank.

So, this becomes your problem, the organizations, and companies that hire all these graduates with all this debt.

How is it your problem?

1. Debt causes stress.

2. Stress causes problems – lack of productivity is just one that will directly impact all organizations.

3. You have to solve the biggest problems in your organization.

4. This will soon become your biggest issue.

5. Financial wellness programs aren’t equipped to handle a problem of this magnitude!

What should you do?

Do you really want to know? This might not be very popular!

– Stop requiring a college degree for employment in your organization. Companies and organizations have actually contributed to this problem. It’s the college or prison mentality we’ve forced upon kids. “You must go to college or you’ll have no options!” Well, except for almost any position we hire for, but we’re lazy and like to use an arbitrary piece of paper as a screening tool.

– Develop ‘Apprentice’ programs for a modern age. Why don’t we have Sales Apprentice Programs? Bright-eyed-bushy-tailed kids right out of high school who still believe they can be anybody. Why aren’t we teaching them ourselves? No, let’s send them to college to learn how to drink beer first, then we’ll teach them on our own. You could do the same thing for almost any role you have – many engineering/technical roles included!

– Develop programs that assist your employees in paying down this debt faster and with less interest than they currently have. Yes, there is a retention aspect to this. Yes, this will require some service as a payback. Yes, this will help your employees be less stressed!

All of these cost money to organizations and companies, but you need to make a choice. Do you want to control that cost yourself, or do you want to deal with in the future for everyone you hire? It used to be that companies invested into their workforce. Then we got lazy and tried to throw this onto high ed. Turns out that doesn’t work too well.

Get ready kids! Employees with big giant monthly debt payments are coming your way and they won’t be very happy when the reality of what they did comes crashing down upon them. Have fun with that!

How did Monster Lose Out in the Job Board Wars?

Posted on August 10, 2016 by Tim Sackett

I’ve been a Monster customer for at least fifteen years. I’ve used Monster in four different companies that I’ve worked for. I also use (or have used) CareerBuilder, LinkedIn, Indeed, and Dice. So, I’ve got experience dealing with large spends on the Job Board side.

Having a presence on Job Boards is part of almost every recruiting strategy that’s out there, it’s one place most organizations need to be, I truly believe that. If you’re not, you’re going to miss a pool of talent.

For those who don’t know Monster was purchased this week by multi-national staffing and RPO firm Randstad. I’m not going to speculate on why Randstad would buy Monster, but there’s no doubt Monster had a ton of data and clients that a staffing firm would find desirable.

My question is why did Monster lose out in the Job Board Wars?

In the big Job Board game, there are really only three players: CareerBuilder, LinkedIn, and Monster. Dice and a bunch of niche players in that category will always be around if they can actually attract talent to their niche. Here is the reason I think Monster couldn’t keep pace with CB and LI:

The Sales Team: Flat out job boards need to sell job postings, resume database memberships, branding opportunities, etc. CB and LI are modern day sales sweatshops! Monster barely recognizes I’m a customer and a fifteen-year customer. I know three levels of CB sales people on my account. I can’t tell you the last time I even got an email or call from Monster! LI is similar to CB. They constantly hawk me to buy. In a game of three, the ones who can outsell the others will win.

At least quarterly I sit down live or on a call with my CB rep to take a look at metrics and how my team is utilizing their platform. Did I mention I never get a call from Monster? During these calls with CB I get numerous suggestions on how we can get better. Many times they’re trying to upsell me for more product, sometimes that works.

I get contacted from LI at least six times a year on various solution selling types of things for my business. I get invited to webinars constantly. The CRM machine for LI is strong. A little different than CB, which is more high touch, but LI’s selling automation is relentless. As is Indeed’s. Indeed is another player in this game that has made all the job board players up their game. Their sales team took a page right out of CB’s selling book. I get at least a call a month from CB.

I got one call from Monster last year. It was to renew my contract. The call came from a person who I didn’t know and who didn’t know who I was or my business.

You can have the best brand (and I would argue of all the job boards Monster has the best brand), the best technology and the coolest stuffed animals to give away, but if you don’t sell, you’re going to get bought by a staffing firm for pennies on the dollar of what you really could be worth.

T3 – @NamelyHR – HR software for Humans

Posted on August 9, 2016 by Tim Sackett

This week on T3 I review the SMB HRIS technology Namely. Namely is a core HRIS system for growing and midsize organizations. Along with the core HR function Namely also does Payroll, Benefits, and Performance Management. You get a lot for a system originally designed to serve the SMB market, plus with their open API model, Namely easily integrates with other Saas software you use, like your ATS, background check technology, etc.

Namely was designed to be an HRIS system that your employees will use, not just HR. You’ll notice it has a social media-esque feel to it that will put your employees at ease when logging in and using the platform. One big differentiator for Namely is their integration with benefits brokers, and their ability to act as your broker as well. About 35% of Namely clients use them for their benefits, so online Open Enrollment is a given within the platform.

5 Things I really like about Namely:

1. Performance Management is a great addition to the core HRIS. Namely was built to be your core HRIS, but their performance management is really good. Create goals, cascade those down across departments and managers, track, review, etc. Plus, the system will auto-communicated out to managers and employees when goals are reached, progress, etc.

2. Organization Chart Management. This wasn’t something I was expecting from Namely and it’s not super robust, but to have this functionality in a core HRIS system for smaller organizations is really nice, and so many want this, especially those in fast-growing organizations.

3. Benefit Integration. It’s one thing to have a system that will work with your benefit’s broker, it’s another to have one that will actually do all the benefits as well! Namely works exceptionally well at managing your benefits because it’s set up to do this on its own if you choose. If you want to maintain your current broker, the system will work with them. One of the better interfaces for a core HRIS around this function.

4. Time card functionality and electronic signature. Again, for growing organizations these are must haves and Namely delivers.

5. Robust Reporting. Namely allows you to pull anything out of their system in customizable reporting but also builds most of you what you need including ACA reporting, payroll reporting, benefit plan summaries, etc. Easy to navigate and build what you need.

Namely is designed for small to medium sized organizations that don’t have huge HR teams. The platform is easy to use and is built for your employees to be able to navigate around and get what they need without a ton of help from HR.

I hesitate to call this an entry level HRIS system because it’s not. Namely will fall into that category as an organizations ‘first’ HRIS, but they’ve definitely taken it up a notch and provide way more than most HRIS systems within this segment of the market. The benefits integration alone is far superior to most on the market, and providing performance management in a core product really sets it apart within the industry.

The Tim Sackett Project

TA & HR Expert, Dad, Backup Point Guard on my over 40 men's team