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Friday, October 02, 2009
You can imagine what a daunting task it is to write a blog on a topic that has generated enough books to pave the way from St. Louis to San Diego. However since this blog is another in the series of high level blogs on Recruitment Strategy Development, it must be done.
Is interviewing taken seriously in corporate America? If it were, hiring managers would be trained to be more effective in the interviewing process. As a matter of fact, trained and “certified” hiring managers from every company function would be involved. For instance, there would a certified interviewing manager in accounting, another in marketing, another in sales, etc.
If Executives truly understood the cost of hiring the wrong person for a job, they would require the same or greater due diligence on the selection of a new employee as they require on the selection of a new corporate acquisition. This due diligence would include a meaningful job description, a meaningful interviewing process, and meaningful due diligence on the selected candidate after the interview (the subject of my next blog).
Let’s examine the cost of hiring the wrong person. The first assumption is that they are in the position for 2 years before they make the grievous mistake that gets them fired (after being put on plan). Let’s say that person is earning $60,000 per year plus full benefits (that they take Full advantage of! – especially the medical/dental insurance). They are in a decision making position, possibly team leader. Let’s also say they have some client contact (customer service is full time client contact). Does this begin to sound like someone your company has hired?
What are your “hard costs” of this hire? Did you pay a recruiting fee, relocation, advertising for the position (Internet postings, newspaper, other), attend Career Fairs, etc? Did you need to pay their expenses to interview in person? Did you need to call in an employment attorney prior to letting them go? If not, how about your own corporate counsel’s time? Were you sued by the candidate for wrongful termination when they were let go?
Many companies will glance at their “hard costs” of letting someone go but never even consider their potentially catastrophic “soft costs”.
Let’s examine the “soft costs” of someone who has been in a position for 2 years but is only doing part of their job – and not doing that well. What is the cost of the work that is either not done – or done by another member of the team? What is the cost of their disruption to the team? What is the cost of the credibility of the manager for hiring someone like them? Have they driven away a customer (There are certain companies with whom I will not do business any longer because they have poor customer service.)? What is the cost of managing, coaching, correcting them? What was the cost of the time spent interviewing them? Certainly potential candidates have heard rumors about their lack of work ethic. Has their employment affected your brand as an employer? How has that affected recruitment? I could go on and on – and so could you.
On one occasional I conducted an interview training session with a small consulting firm. The attendees included the CEO and CFO. At the beginning of the session, I asked the previous questions. The table with the CEO and CFO estimated that the potential damage to the company could reach to $1 Million over 2 years. Imagine hiring just 4 people like that over a couple of years. Potentially that could make the difference between profit and loss – or even between staying in business or going out of business. That is how important interviewing and selection skills are.
How does this impact your recruitment strategy? Would it be wise for your Executive leadership to back an interviewing training budget for your hiring managers this year? Once an Executive understands the potential negative impact of a poor selection, they may be willing to put more money in the due diligence part of the process. More importantly, once they understand the positive impact of the perfect hire, they may be even more willing to fund interviewing improvements.
Let’s assume that your Human Resource department has used their sources to develop a couple of candidates for a mid-level position. What is your process to determine if they are truly qualified for the position? Have you created a Visio diagram of the process so it can be easily examined and explained to a new employee responsible for the interviewing process? To complicate things, it is important to remember that “Recruiting IS Sales”. In any sales process, time works against you. The good news and the bad news is that in the United States, people may choose to work for someone or not if they are selected. Therefore it is important to move the recruiting/interviewing process along. Like managers, few candidates have been trained in the interviewing process. Therefore, if they don’t hear from you, they simply assume there is no interest and psychologically move on. Now you have lost that initial enthusiasm for your company and position.
When you create an interviewing process, it is a good idea for someone to do a phone screen on the candidate to determine if their skills and personality are a close enough match for your company. Why go through the time and expense of a personal interview if they clearly do not fit? If potentially they are a fit, then you create an interviewing team that will interview the candidate and then meet to discuss the person and give the thumbs up or down on them.
In the process, the hiring manager should be responsible for determining who should interview the candidate(s). Once the interviewing team is established, the hiring manager should ask the team members to focus on the aspects of the interview that are their strengths. It is a good idea for everyone to ask some set of the same questions, just to create a benchmark.
Let’s take a few minutes to discuss the interview and the questions asked. In over 28 years of recruitment, my experience has shown that when you give a manager a list of questions without training them to listen to the response, they will focus on the next question instead of listening to the response of the candidate. That’s not good. Train them to be active listeners. The response of the candidate will give them far more material to probe and it will be more on target than any list of questions the managers can start with.
Technical skill interviews whether they are IT, medical, financial, accounting, etc. can be easier to measure than a person’s motivation or cultural fit. You develop a “Test” with either right or wrong answers. Then you grade the responses. Set a level the person must pass in order to receive an offer.
In 1992, I was asked by MCI to develop a recruiting strategy to transition an IT group from Virginia to Iowa. We needed to recruit a minimum of 120 IT professionals to Cedar Rapids in 12 months. One of the Senior Managers suggested that we create a set of technical questions that we ask each programmer or programmer/analyst. We had a senior technical professional create the interview so that the answer was either right or wrong. Therefore we could grade them on technical knowledge. No matter how much we liked someone (the gut); if they did not score at least a 76, we would not extend an offer to them. As a result of our strategy and interviews we were able to recruit 133 professionals to Cedar Rapids in 12 months – and the technical team was able to get two new releases out on time. We may have been able to attract that number of people without the “test”, but they may not have been able to get the releases out on time if their skills were not up to par.
That metric is much easier to measure than the one for cultural fit. Interviewing for cultural fit generally requires an in depth behavioral interview with good follow on questions. Again, the temptation is to focus on the next question without hearing the response of the candidate. See the next example for the reason to listen.
In 1997, I was asked to begin to train a junior Human Resource Rep on interviewing. We decided to use an Executive Administrative Assistant position that we were recruiting for as the first step. She went through the resumes and forced ranked all of the resumes by how she felt they stacked up against the requirement. When I went through the stack, I ranked them roughly the same. Then I asked her to invite the top 3 candidates in for an interview. When the candidates came in, she introduced them to me. I thanked them for coming for the interview, explained that I was training the Rep to interview; and that if we went through the entire interview without me ever asking a question, that’s fine. It just meant that I followed what they said. However if I should ask a quick question, it only meant that I was a little confused about something. The first two candidates probably did not even realize I was in the room. They were fine.
The third candidate proved that active listening is important. The interview was going fine until the Rep asked the candidate what weakness she had (not my preference of words but it was on the table). The candidate said that her weakness was that she liked people too much. Well that was the first time I had heard that weakness so it really caught my attention. She went on to say that it probably really was a strength because it made her more effective. I thought, “Hmm, she has been coached.” The Rep was going to let it go at that and began to ask the next question. I excused my interruption and asked if I could ask a question. The Rep said “Sure!” I looked at the candidate and said, “When you were asked about a weakness, you responded and turned it into a strength. That was fine and I know that technique of coaching. However what we really were looking for was what areas as an Executive Assistant could you improve?” She proceeded with, “Well another weakness is that I am…”and turned that into a strength. So I said, “Let’s move away from weakness. If you were to come to work here, what kind of training could my client offer you to improve your skills?” Her response? “I Am Not a WEAK Person!!!” Wow! Probably not weak but she doesn’t listen and certainly was not a match for that VP. I apologized profusely. While the questions from the Rep continued politely, the interview was over – and she didn’t realize it.
Humans are wonderful beings. Like it or not, we are also somewhat predictable. Generally if we have found a way to succeed, we continue to use that same behavior time and again. That is the basis of behavioral interviewing. We may stop if we were a total failure using that method once but push come to shove, we will usually revert back to the original behavior while under stress.
Develop situations in your company that this person may face and ask them how they responded to a similar situation in a previous company. Those answers will help you determine if they are a good fit. Ask them about previous successes and failures and what they learned from each. After you ask a few additional questions, circle back and create a situation in your company that is similar to one of their failures; and ask them how they would handle it.
Making notes during an interview is fine if it doesn’t distract you too much (Never, never make notes on a resume and then save it!! When? Never!). The interview should be a conversation where you learn about each other and determine if the position is a good mutual fit.
When the interview is done, the last person with the candidate should thank them for their time. Then ask them if they have any further questions or concerns. Do your best to be sincere and truthful. Remember, they may be a current or potential future customer. Once their questions are asked and answered, manage their expectations for the next steps of the process. If your company is very interested in them, be sure to let them know that also. Remember this is the needs analysis step of the sales process for both the candidate and the company.
Within 24 hours the team needs to discuss the candidate(s) and determine if there is further interest in them. If there is interest, it is best to begin the post interview due diligence – and possibly generate a contingent offer based on the outcome of the due diligence.
The RecruiterGuy summary: document your interview process. Train your managers to become effective interviewers. Develop interviewing teams for each open position. Develop “technical tests” that must be passed. Develop a good behavioral interview for the cultural and motivation parts of the interview. Make the initial hire/no hire decision after the interviewing team meeting. Extend a contingent offer if this is the right person. Begin the post interview due diligence – drug test, background investigation, reference check by the hiring manager, and psychological assessment, if required.
Post interview due diligence is my next blog in the Recruitment Strategy Development blog series. Labels: contract recruiter consulting, Contract Recruitment consultant, Interview Training, RecruiterGuy.com, RecruiterGuy.info, Recruitment Process Improvement, Recruitment Strategy Development
Sunday, September 13, 2009
In our last blog, “Recruitment Strategy Development – The Best Qualified Candidate Rarely Gets Hired”, we discussed if a Hiring Manager has not been taught how to interview, they certainly have not been taught how to select a qualified candidate.
For the purposes of Recruitment Strategy Development, RecruiterGuy ties the job description and the interviewing process together. Why? The job description should be specific enough that the skills required to be successful are crystal clear – and at the same time give a company the latitude to change duties as the business requires.
Since whole books have been written on successful interviewing, it is best to separate the Job Description blog from the Interviewing blog. In practice, they are tightly tied together in successful organizations. In many of RecruiterGuy’s clients since 1981, the hiring managers do not take the time to examine exactly what skills are necessary to improve their team at this current point in time. When asked to discuss the opening in their organization, they tell the recruiter to go to Human Resources to get the Job Description. In my experience, Human Resources should be the last stop for a job description to ensure the position responsibilities described is the position level the manager has budgeted.
“Just get it from HR” is exactly the wrong response from the manager. Remember my last post – “The Best Qualified Candidate Rarely Gets Hired”? Another reason for the poor selection of employees is that the manager and interviewing team are not looking for the correct candidate skills to be successful.
Think of your work team as a sports team. What do Championship Teams do well? The fundamentals. They recruit players who fit their strategies. Another analogy is building a house. If your footings are not square, your walls will not be square.
A good job description is the foundation of every point of the recruiting process. Therefore beginning the recruitment process by doing the proper due diligence on the job description is absolutely required in order to attract the Impact Performers.
It is always a good idea to list all of the day to day functions of the position. This part of the process helps the manager decide if the position should evolve into a higher or lower position than what their manager originally had budgeted. If someone leaves their group or is promoted, this provides the manager with the opportunity to upgrade their staff and find someone who can bring new skills to the function.
They may decide that the position no longer requires certain skills because of automation. On the other hand, automation of duties may actually give the manager an opportunity to hire a more strategic individual. Until they take the time to truly understand where that position is evolving, it is difficult at best to determine the skills necessary to be successful.
Once they list the day to day (tactical) functions, list the skills necessary to perform those skills. Now decide which skills are critical to the successful completion of those functions. Some skills are “nice to have”. Can you see how this process helps the Interviewing process evolve more towards metrics and further away from “My gut tells me…”?
Now list the strategic functions of the job. They could include special projects that you may want that person to complete in the year. List the skills necessary to be successful in the completion of the strategic functions. Again, which skills are critical and which are “nice to have”. Obviously some skills may overlap depending on the position.
Is this a people management position? If so, what management duties are tactical and what duties are strategic? What Management skills are critical and what are nice to have?
Can you see how all of this information can help you grade the position and better determine whether someone is a good fit?
Of course some Managers are already doing these types of due diligence but would like something to help tie everything together.
Here is a suggestion that I have been making to Hiring Managers for quite a few years now. Determine and list the 3 month, 6 month, 9 month, and 12 month goals for the position. Now the skills required to be successful in the first year should become crystal clear for everyone on the interviewing team. This gives them something that may be better measured than a gut check.
The added advantage is that these goals give the manager and the new employee discussion points to discuss every time they meet during the critical first year. On the first day, the manager should sit down with the new employee and ask, “Do you remember our conversation on the goals for this position? Let’s review our expectations for you for the first year.” Later when the manager meets on the Friday of the new employee’s first week, it is good to ask how the week went and what the new employee experienced their first week. “What happened that you expected? What was a surprise for you? As the manager meets with the new employee over the first year, they may use these goals as talking points. For instance, “How are you doing on your 3 month goals? Do you need any assistance from me?” At the end of the year, there will not be any surprises on either side during the annual review.
When a manager makes a great hire, they develop a nice bounce to their step. Things move smoothly and they will be promoted. If they make a poor hire, what does it cost them and the company? Does it cost the manager credibility? Possibly more than you ever dreamed.
Which manager do you want to be? Isn’t developing a solid job description worth it? In RecruiterGuy’s next Recruitment Strategy Development blog, we will discuss the next steps of the Interview Process. Labels: contract recruiter consulting, Contract Recruitment consultant, Interview Training, Job Description Development, RecruiterGuy.com, RecruiterGuy.info, Recruitment Strategy Development
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
That may get your attention. Generally when RecruiterGuy presents to groups on the topic of interviewing, people ask about the interviewing process.
How many times have you sat in an interview and wondered, “How will this person (the Hiring Manager) be able to determine if I am the best qualified candidate? Instead of probing my experience, capabilities, and motivations, he/she just asked me what kind of tree I would choose to be.” Obviously the person advocating that type of questioning would say words like “thought process”, “insight to the type of person”, “motivations”. Do you really believe that a whiner would say “Weeping willow”?
Let’s examine the process in most companies. A person excels in their current position and gets management’s attention. They are promoted. What happens next? They need to learn their new position and fill the position in their organization that they just vacated. A replacement employee requisition is requested and now the Human Resource Department and Recruiters are sourcing candidates. Candidates are produced and given to the new Hiring Manager to interview.
Where in this process is this new Hiring Manager taught how to interview? If they have not been trained how to interview, they certainly have not been trained how to select the best qualified candidate. How does that lack of training impact most companies?
1) The Hiring Manager may not hire the person who will make the key contribution that will propel a company forward;
2) The candidate they do hire may be a good tactical hire but not a good strategic hire – and will leave when they no longer are able to make tactical impacts;
3) Worse yet, they may stay and no longer make significant contributions;
4) Employee retention will become an increasing problem. The wrong person is hired and that impacts the performance of the entire team.
If you hear a Hiring Manager say that an offer should be made to Mr./Ms. Candidate because it feels good in their gut, remember that guts are really good for storing and processing food, not selecting candidates.
And what about reference checks? Has your company resigned itself to the “fact” that meaningful reference checks cannot be done any longer? The reference checks that I do for my clients generally last close to an hour. One reference recently said, “Wow that was like an interview!” I responded that in order to determine if the candidate is the right candidate for a position; shouldn’t we spend the time asking the right questions? It is best for both the candidate and the company.
This will take it one more step, if you trust Managers to make critical legal decisions for your company; shouldn’t they be the ones conducting the reference checks? After all, a Recruiter or Human Resource Manager may know a little about a lot of positions. If this position does not report to them, they may not pick up on the nuances that the references can give.
Additionally there is an interesting psychological phenomenon that occurs when a Recruiter calls a reference versus when a peer (Hiring Manager) calls a reference. When we have a conversation with another person, subconsciously we quickly discern if they are a peer or below our perception of where we are. These interactions are sometimes classed as Adult/Adult or Adult/Child interactions. When a recruiter calls a reference, generally the reference (if they do not know the recruiter), will give information as if they were speaking with someone who is a lower level. Therefore the reference may be a little vague. That creates the perception that reference checks are “worthless”. However, if someone who is perceived to be a peer calls and asks for a reference on a person that will report to them (and formerly reported to the reference), the information given will be on target. Now it is an Adult/Adult interaction and is certainly worthwhile.
One time when I encouraged a Hiring Manager to conduct reference checks on an auditor, she consented with some reservations. She had just completed her third and last reference check. When she was thanking the reference for their time, another question literally popped into her head. The response was such that she changed her mind and did not extend an offer to the candidate. That reference check truly made the difference in the hiring process.
Recently when I asked “What areas does John (not the candidate’s real name) need to improve?” all three references pointed out the same area. It was enough of a concern that I sat down with the Vice President (Hiring Manager) and CEO and we discussed it. In this case, we extended the offer. The Vice President knows to be aware of the situation if it should occur and how to coach the new employee.
If companies expect to hire better performers without training the decision makers on the selection process, it sounds suspiciously like doing the same things and expecting different results, doesn’t it?
To tie this back to Recruitment Strategy Development, is the attraction and retention of Impact Performers important to your company? If so, shouldn’t your recruitment strategy include Interview training for your Managers?
In RecruiterGuy’s next Recruitment Strategy Development blog, we will discuss the Interview process. Labels: contract recruiter consulting, Contract Recruitment consultant, Interview Training, RecruiterGuy.com, RecruiterGuy.info, Recruitment Strategy Development, Reference Checking Training
Monday, August 31, 2009
So far we have discussed why you should develop a recruitment strategy, corporate and third party sourcing and recruiting. Now that you know how you will source candidates, how will you store their resumes? In this blog RecruiterGuy discusses Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).
To define applicant tracking systems in their simplest terms, they are an automated system that allows you to store resumes and candidate information, retrieve resumes, candidate process tracking, and develop reports. To be fair, many ATS also enable you to post positions to your website and job boards, helping you save time in the posting process.
When I first started recruiting in the dark ages (Lancelot was still a youth), all resumes were either mailed or hand carried to us. Faxes came later – and were still paper – just worse quality paper that sometimes even smeared. Then came the wonder called the Internet. The good news was that resumes came faster (sometimes). The bad news was that more of them were not qualified for the positions we advertised. Plus legislation required that we keep them for at least a year and develop applicant flow charts for EOE purposes.
Finding paper resumes in file cabinets was laboriously slow, if you could even find the candidate that you were looking for. Therefore, we typically looked for awhile and then gave up. It seemed easier to find new candidates.
Today, more and more companies are using Applicant Tracking Systems that automate the search process. Remember Recruiting Is Sales. Therefore if someone tells you their ATS will recruit for you, they are playing into your fears. An ATS cannot recruit for you. Run as fast as you can from them. They are selling a bill of goods. Obviously they may understand software but they do not understand the recruiting process.
Applicant Tracking Systems automate recruiting processes: particularly the search of resumes that you have received; candidate tracking through the interviewing process; and developing reports based on your data. If your process is horrible, automated systems just make horrible happen more quickly. On the other hand, if your process is good, it helps you succeed more quickly.
Therefore, before automating your recruiting system, examine your current recruitment processes and eliminate waste from each of the processes. Remember, the recruitment process is a series of processes – opening the employee requisition for a new or replacement position, the job description process, the sourcing process, the interviewing process, the offer process, the reference checking/psychological assessment/background investigation/drug test process, and finally the on boarding process. While you are examining your recruitment processes, take the time to document your processes using Visio or some other software product. Be sure to ask “Why do we do it this way? Is there a better way to do this; or do we even need to do this step?” By documenting your processes it is easier to review your processes again later (continuous process improvement). Your documented processes become more sustainable and it is easier to bring new recruiters on board.
How do you choose the best applicant tracking system for your company? Sylvia Dahlby of SmartSearch (http://www.aps2k.com/) recommends that “companies use a requirements based approach. Create three columns – must have, nice to have, and exciting but we really don’t need those bells and whistles.” Make a list of questions to ask each ATS company. Know how many people will be accessing the ATS at one time, how many people do you plan to hire in the next year – and coming years (important that the system can scale up and down with you), a budget, and the types of reports that you will need to create (i.e. OFCCP, weekly reports to executives?). Ask for a demonstration of the system. How long has the ATS business continuously been in business? These software companies can come and go. My suggestion is to choose from established companies. It can be painful enough to go through the selection and installation processes once, but to have to go through them again if your ATS company goes out of business can be really painful. Does the system reside on your computers or can you access the files through the Internet? Who backs up the files – you or the ATS company? Do they have a disaster recovery site? How difficult is it to get copies of your files if you decide to change ATS in the future as a result of growth or downsizing. How long will it take to install their system? Will they import resumes in your Outlook folders or do you have to import them? Is there a way to direct resumes right from your Outlook email to your ATS? Ask for 5 corporate references that you may call and ask them the questions above. It is also wise to ask them for watch outs.
What ATS companies should you call? My business utilizes SmartSearch. It is designed for small to medium sized companies and scales up nicely. They are very customer focused and very good solving your problems. Large corporations many times are locked into enterprise solutions like Taleo or Oracle. Both solutions are very effective. The important consideration is whether the applicant tracking system does what you need efficiently.
This next point is very important. Once you have your ATS up and working, work it. You would think that is a no brainer. I can’t tell you how many times the candidate that a company is looking for is languishing in that company’s applicant tracking system. As a recruiting consultant, I can tell immediately which clients use their applicant tracking system and which ones do not. How? The ones who are not working their applicant tracking systems are afraid if they give me access, I will find people they missed. They will hide behind confidentiality excuses without realizing that I personally have much more to lose if I do not maintain confidentiality than they do. One of those companies actually had me take a HIPPA course before granting me access to their system – and then never did.
In order to be successful, everyone has to work together as a team. The recruiting consultant or contract recruiter needs access to the client’s applicant tracking system to help them be more successful. Experienced recruiting consultants can show members of the staff the tricks they have learned over the years to coax resumes of qualified candidates out of the system. Titles of positions are different at most every company and the skills required to be successful can be different. Companies may use different words to describe the same jobs; or the title can be the same but the skills required to be successful can be different.
For instance, once I suggested to a CFO candidate that I was career counseling that they should ask what skills were required in a company’s CFO position. He was aghast that I would counsel him to ask such a question; and told me he would chase any CFO who asked that question out of his office. My response? “So I can assume that the CFO of a company that was going into bankruptcy would need the exact same skills as those of a CFO of a small start-up; and both of them would need the same skills as the CFO of General Electric.” He saw my point. Experienced recruiting consultants have seen many positions in many companies and know what potential key words to use. Generally if there is going to be a weak link in the recruiting process, it will be in the job description process or the candidate interviewing process. Most corporate recruiters use the words in the job description to match with candidate skills. Both the company and the candidate may be describing the same job – with different words. By the way, my intention is not to denigrate the skills of excellent, experienced corporate recruiters. I count some of them as close friends. It’s just that seasoning helps anyone be more successful, and there are many good more junior corporate recruiters out there.
Bottom line? If you do a good job with your recruitment process improvement, if you do a good job in your applicant tracking system due diligence, and you use your applicant tracking system, your recruitment of talented people will go well.
The next blog is one that RecruiterGuy wrote last year – “The Best Qualified Candidate Rarely Gets Hired”. It fits very well into the Recruitment Strategy Development series of blogs. Labels: Applicant Tracking Systems, contract recruiter consulting, Contract Recruitment consultant, RecruiterGuy, RecruiterGuy.com, RecruiterGuy.info, Recruiterguy.jobs, Recruitment Strategy Development
Monday, August 24, 2009
RecruiterGuy has been on all three sides of the recruiting process. Three sides? Sure, I’ve been a third party recruiter, a corporate recruiting manager, and a candidate.
Today we are discussing the use of third party recruiters as a sourcing and recruiting partner. Wait! Stop rolling your eyes! Remember I’ve been on both sides of the desk. Currently as a contract recruitment consultant often I am on both sides in the same company.
Why would you want to include contingent, retained, and contract recruitment in your recruitment strategy? Generally it is pretty simple. Do you have one or more skilled recruiters on staff? Is your philosophy to make recruitment the entry level position into Human Resources? Do you understand that Recruiting is Sales? If your answers were no, yes, and no, you really need to utilize the services of a third party recruiter. Why? Third party recruiters spend their entire day recruiting and should be experts – and the good ones are. The experts are very creative in their sourcing, have successfully built candidate relationships in the past and understand how to build new relationships quickly.
So how do you effectively work with a contingent or retained recruiter? Remember a very important concept. Time is money. If you are going to use a recruiter because their fees are the lowest you can find, there is probably a reason for that.
Experienced, competent recruiters generally command higher fees. Why? They understand the value of their time and your time. Generally they don’t empty their databases in order to earn a fee. The excellent recruiters take the time to understand the position, its role in your company, the reporting relationships; and if they have worked with you for a long time they understand your culture. These people are professionals and will save your company time and money over the long haul.
Wait a minute! Save us money? How? Remember my last blog when I suggested asking the hiring manager what it will cost the company if the person isn’t hired by the budget date? That is the money I am referring to. If your company spends six months to a year looking for the right fit for a key position, it probably is costing the company a lot of money. Rhetorical question – if the position would not cost your company money by being open, are you sure you need the position?
How do you determine if contingent or retained is the best route? Generally speaking, the retained recruiters search for the higher level positions and generally at the higher fee levels. Typically your company would pay them one third of the anticipated fee at the signing of the contract with them. Then they will receive the next third when they deliver candidates and the final fee when the person starts. Contingent recruiters receive their entire fee when the person starts. I’d suggest using the person that has given you the best service if they feel they can be successful at that level. In my experience since 1981, sometimes the senior positions are easier to recruit for than the junior positions (retained recruiters are about to attack me for that statement!).
Some recruiters only work specific jobs within an industry and can be very effective in that industry. The potential conflict only occurs if your company is also in that industry. If they are recruiting in that industry, sooner or later in order to attract the best qualified candidate to you they will have to recruit from a client. Sooner or later, you will also be that client, unless you have a clause in your contract with penalties for recruiting out of your company. For instance, my contract states that for a period of five years after my contract ends, I may not recruit nor aid another recruiter to recruit from my client.
Here is a simple test to see if you can trust a contingent or retained recruiter to send qualified candidates. Spend a half hour on the phone describing the job, the manager and the company culture. Tell the recruiter that you would like to see a copy of their phone screen when they present the candidate to you. Additionally tell the recruiter that you want only a few, qualified resumes. Require that they also send the resume and phone screen to you at the same time they forward it to the manager. If the first resume they send you is off the mark, chat with them again to sharpen their focus. If the second person is also off the mark, you should nicely express your concern and suggest that this is not going well. After all, you do not want to waste your hiring manager’s time nor your time.
Once they pass the simple test, the professional recruiter will need access to your hiring managers in order to get quick feedback on both the candidate and the job as it evolves – and most jobs evolve as hiring managers meet candidates. It is the best way for them to be effective for you. Remember the communications exercise where you line people up and whisper in the first one’s ear? By the time it gets to the last person, the message is almost always changed. That is the reason the recruiter needs the feedback directly from the hiring manager (possibly with you on the call). Quick feedback helps move the process along and improves your chances of recruiting an individual. Time works against you in the recruiting process.
Once you have successfully worked with a professional recruiter and develop a mutual trust, you will like going that route when you need outside resources.
In our next Recruitment Strategy Development blog we will discuss applicant tracking systems. Labels: contract recruiter consulting, Contract Recruitment consultant, RecruiterGuy., RecruiterGuy.com, RecruiterGuy.info, Recruiterguy.jobs, Recruitment Strategy Development
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Some of you may be wondering what happened to RecruiterGuy’s series on Recruitment Strategy Development. It was put on hiatus while I demonstrated to myself and others that you can do what you put your mind to. Never underestimate the power of determination!
I completed RAGBRAI successfully – www.ragbrai.org . It was truly an endurance ride for me and approximately 10,000 other bicycle riders of 442 hilly Iowa miles with four 12 hour days (for me) and three shorter days, mostly on the bike. The only hill I walked was the one in Corning, IA (birthplace of Johnny Carson) where there must have been 200 bicycle riders trying to go up the hill at the same time. Below is my tongue in cheek blog of the ride.
The Road Hogs is my bicycle club.
Prior to Day 1 in Council Bluffs -
Learned to disengage my clips before falling in the grass - after I fell -
if no one saw it, does it mean it didn't happen? On the way back from
dipping my rear wheel - and almost me - in the Missouri, Dr. Jen and I saw
Bambi cross our path on the way back to camp. How many trains pass through
Council Bluffs at night? And does every one of them have to repeatedly blow
their horns - or was that a tribute to us?
Day 1 -
Learned with the first 2 mile hill that I would need to be determined to
complete this RAGBRAI. So I kicked determination in. Proud that I never
walked a hill - just rode so slowly ants were beating me up the hills -
quite a sight! Oh yeah, as promised to my wife, I took my blood pressure
medicine prior to riding that day. Only problem was that the doctor had
recently cut my dosage in half and I took the old prescription (Dummy!).
Kathy was nice enough to accompany me to the EMT in Red Oak where they took my blood pressure and it was 98/55 - no wonder I wanted to pass out while setting up my tent -may explain my slow speed up hills. Larry and Robin and Michael introduced me to Mama Rafael's (sp?). Great breakfasts! Did away with the tortilla charade after the first day - just loaded up with egg and sausage.
Day 2 -
Learned that I should have bought a long sleeved jersey at the Expo in
Council Bluffs. It lightly rained my last 30 miles. It was fun to watch
the more experienced riders like Dorie, Jen, Kirk, etc. begin riding and
then see the flash of light when they hit warp speed! No wonder they were
always clean and relaxed after my 12 hours on the road - yeah that's right -
on the 70+ mile days I was out there for 12 hours - poor Larry accompanied
me most of the days until we were separated - usually my fault - no one else
could ride that slowly. No solar heating for the camp showers that day!
Coldest shower for me since camping along the Colorado River in the Grand
Canyon while white water rafting - BRRRR! Discovered that the blood
pressure medicine had nothing to do with my slow speed on hills...How about
that walk up the hill in Corning? Wow, the rush hour in DC was better than
10,000 bicycle riders hitting Corning over several or so hours. What a
sight! Jen suggested Pastafari for lunch.
Day 3 -
The fog was interesting. Couldn't believe we would have a 2nd 70 mile day
and then realized it was not the last time that would happen! Come back
determination! Pastafari was yummy! I was really looking forward to a good
shower after that ride!! I figured a community the size of Indianola was my
ticket. By the time I went for my shower, they were out of water - no joy!
How about that hill coming into Indianola? I could imagine the City Fathers
laughing when they designed the route just for us - "Wait 'til they see that
hill at the end of 77 miles!" Of course my chain came off at the bottom of
the hill. As I started up, I saw a sign that said a 9 yr. old girl rode up
the hill so there I was at 2.9 mph...
Day 4 -
I told Larry that I never believed that I would tell someone that I was
happy to ride only 44 miles in one day. We got into Chariton around 2 PM
that day. It was unusual to be in a camp that early and see how the warp
speed riders live - of course they had been there since 8 AM or so...How
about the shuttle bus control guy in downtown? Wonder if he had a nervous
breakdown by the end of the evening - not pretty!
Day 5 -
Began with a bang! Lightning striking nearby was enough to roust me from
the tent around 4:30 AM. Just imagined how lightning may enjoy the aluminum poles on my tent, my Bike proudly standing nearby, and a big tree not far away - others seemed to sleep through the storm. Well now the trip is downhill, figuratively speaking. While others were doing the century loop, I was enjoying Mr. Pork Chop and watching those that had completed the loop stream by - I had the better deal from my perspective!! Later I stopped at Beekman's for ice cream. What a way to ride! As I was approaching Ottumwa, I was watching a nasty storm cloud. We appeared to be on a collision course. On one hill just outside of Ottumwa, I had just waved to a family when the big drops started. I hollered to the family to ask if we could use their garage. They said sure and 20 cyclists followed me into their garage. Very nice! Gave them bragging rights too! The next morning after visiting the port a potty and cleaning my hands, I chose to eat a clif bar while heading back to the camp site. You should have seen the expressions of the people approaching me as I was eating that brown clif bar.
Day 6 -
Yay! My last 75 mile day! Brighton did a great job with their welcome.
Larry and I probably spent an hour or so there. I ran into a guy in the
port a potty line who was from Baltimore and born at the same hospital in DC
as me - amazing! Has anyone heard how the guy who ran into the road grader
outside of Brighton did? Couldn't believe he was going down the oncoming
lane of a hill with his head down. Well the Air Force cycling team went
past me 2 or 3 more times, riding 4 inches apart and looked like 20 mph up
the hills. I gave them a real run for their money when we were walking
through towns!!! Showed them!! Mt. Pleasant wasn't so but treated us to an
amazing natural light show - I napped in the rental truck until it ended.
Robin, Michael, Larry, and I ate at the stand at Thresher's. The lady
behind me got the last meal. Thank goodness a couple of people bailed out
of line!!!! Since I was getting up early and my sleeping bag was still my
duffle, I never unrolled it and slept on my un-inflated air mattress. I
dreamed of rolling hills and riding with the Air Force cyclists. Then the
alarm went off.
Day 7 -
Rolling, rolling, rolling! Finally I am beginning to figure out these
hills!! I am up to 3.3 mph now - just rocketing up the hills! Actually I
did greatly improve once the grade was less and began riding in the 15 - 18
mph range. Must have blown past Larry when he was waiting for me at the top
of a hill - never saw him again until he finished in Burlington. Coming up
a hill in Burlington with the theme from Rocky playing on the corner brought
tears to my eyes as I was completing my goal - then I saw the Snake Alley
challenge! I took a picture of it and then mounted my bike in its lowest
gear. Two riders fell over in front of me by the time I hit the 3rd curve.
As I was approaching the last two curves the person behind me went down
(probably couldn't go 2.9 mph like me!!). One side of my mind was asking me
if I was crazy!?!?! The other side said, "If you stop for even one instant
you will also fall over. Keep pedaling!!" I made it. What an appropriate
finish for my trip. Never underestimate the power of determination! I
dipped my front wheel into the Mississippi. What a grueling and fun trip!
Next time I will use a road bike instead of a hybrid - but my bike served me
well. Thanks Road Hogs! Labels: RAGBRAI Blog, RecruiterGuy, RecruiterGuy.com, RecruiterGuy.info
Monday, July 06, 2009
RecruiterGuy has noticed over the years that the words “recruit” and” source” are sometimes used interchangeably. Sourcing is certainly part of the recruiting process, and you may be communicating with candidates during the sourcing process, but it is not “recruiting”. It is the candidate introduction step of the process.
For the purpose of Recruitment Strategy Development we will separate corporate sourcing from third party sourcing. This blog covers corporate sourcing. Depending on the company, its size and resources, corporate sourcing may consist of attacking the sourcing challenge from many sources: a company’s own website, internal referrals, posting positions on the Internet job boards/resources (including Craig’s list, Facebook, and Twitter), radio/cable/TV advertising, association booths/advertising, even advertising in airline magazines and Arts programs. For the sake of your strategy development and budget, please understand that every sourcing method costs something – money or time. This understanding will help you prepare your recruitment budget and tweak it as you add or subtract methods of sourcing for a position. You also need to understand the cost of a position going vacant for a long time, i.e. the revenues lost from a major account sales representative opening that is not filled for a long time. It is wise to ask the hiring manager “What is the cost to the company if this position is not filled near the time it was budgeted?” Asking that question and others like it will also help the recruitment function identify priorities and focus.
What areas of sourcing may be fairly uniform through the sourcing process? Probably any position that the company is willing to post on its website. Therefore, other than executive positions, a company’s website may be a source of candidate referrals and sourcing. It is wise for companies to purchase a .jobs URL that point directly to their job openings. The .jobs websites are scraped by Internet aggregators such as Indeed.com so your new or refreshed job openings are posted on their site and spread to the Internet. It’s a very cost effective way to get your job postings out to the public. Some applicant tracking systems also push your posted positions out to the Internet. It would be wise to create a list of Internet job boards where you have had success and then pick the ones that you will use on each project (a la “Mission Impossible”!). This process will help you develop your recruitment budget for each position. By the way, developing a budget for each position helps executives focus on your recruitment effort and enables them to make educated financial decisions on the viability of recruiting for each position.
From the perspective of strategy development let’s first discuss the highest level positions. Where are these executives hiding? Generally executives are fairly easy to identify, possibly much more so than people who report to them. You may find them on their corporate websites, stories written about them in Zoominfo.com, and simply by Googling their names or their industries or using Broadlook.com and doing an email search on corporate email addresses. Books such as the “Manufacturer’s Register” will generally list the CEO and senior staff. Also go to the Associations where they may belong, possibly to see what presentations they have given. Generally your executives know people they would like to work with and others whom they would never work with (both are important information). This type of sourcing is time consuming but doesn’t cost the company posting or retained fee money. Obviously a senior member of your recruitment team should be focused on executive positions.
Let’s say you decide to source using postings. If you are either willing or able to post your executive opening, where will you post? One option at this level for nationwide searches is The Wall Street Journal. When you post in their paper, you receive an online posting. Other online options include Netshare.com and 6figurejobs.com. Obviously there are a myriad of job boards out there. Netshare.com is free for the companies posting the position; so that is good for your budget and RecruiterGuy has a fair amount of success using Netshare.com.
Sourcing for lower level positions presents numerous opportunities. The mantra during sourcing is to be creative. Think of yourself as a detective hunting down qualified candidates. That attitude makes the process more fun, especially rewarding when you do “recruit” them!
Sourcing doors open and close. For a long time, newspapers were almost the only place to post positions (called “placing ads”) outside of using third party sources. Then in the early to mid-1990’s, the Internet job sites began to form. Initially the Online Career Center (OCC) was formed by a joint venture of technology firms and was quickly followed by Monster.com (who later bought OCC). CareerBuilder was formed by the newspaper companies Knight Ridder and the Chicago Tribune when they saw both the loss of revenues due to Internet postings and the opportunity to create more revenues in this popular space. Many times these job boards will offer companies packages for posting multiple positions online with them. Today companies are establishing a presence on Facebook.com, secondlife.com, and tweeting on Twitter.com in order to capitalize on their popularity among the younger generation.
Where can companies source candidates? Remember that potential candidates are everywhere. They may be your customer. They may be a vendor. They may be the person sitting behind or next to you at a restaurant (I’ve successfully recruited a number of candidates there). They may be the person walking past you at a Career Fair and were too shy to stop and talk (but wanted you to ask them a question – many successful candidates there!). They may be a presenter at a conference or simply the person next to you at that conference (recruited both!). Are you looking for good customer service representatives? Who has given you great service in a store or restaurant? Outside of the Career Fairs, these types of sourcing do not cost money. Honestly they are also more fun because they give you great success stories to tell!
While you are deciding where you will source for this position, remember to add these sources to your recruitment budget spreadsheet. Multiply those posting costs by the number of positions that you intend to post at each board/newspaper/association.
While developing a recruitment strategy sourcing plan, many of your costs for your budget will come from your corporate sourcing.
Next week, we will discuss third party sourcing – contingent, retained or contract recruiters. Labels: candidate sourcing, contract recruiter consulting, Contract Recruitment consultant, RecruiterGuy, RecruiterGuy.com, RecruiterGuy.info, Recruiterguy.jobs, Recruitment Strategy Development
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