The Uncertainty Factor November 6, 2019

Even top performers are worried these days. Thanks to the drumbeat of news stories about business miscalculations, facility relocations, and corporate mergers and acquisitions - all of which produce layoffs - they too fear they will end up out on the bricks. As a result, uncertainty has now become as important a recruiting factor as a job's salary level and an organization's employment brand. According to Wikipedia, uncertainty "is a term used in subtly different ways in a number of fields." Those multiple definitions can be arranged on a continuum that stretches from the benign - as in situations where a person simply lacks information - to the hostile - as in those cases where the lack of information leads to harmful outcomes. Uncertainty is now important in recruiting because the business environment has moved top performers' perception of the term from one end of the continuum to the other. While they have traditionally been able to view uncertainty as a benign or at least neutral condition, they now see it as full of risk. And, that shift in perception provides a wedge for recruiting them. The key, of course, is to provide a contrast between a top performer's current situation and one which your organization can provide. Since its crystal ball is no clearer than anyone else's, however, there's no way your employer can accurately predict its future workforce needs. It is as afflicted with uncertainty as any other employer. So, how can you give candidates the confidence that they will not be harmed..

Red Shirt Relationships November 6, 2019

The art of social recruiting involves the development of two kinds of candidate relationships. The first - blink relationships - establish trust and familiarity in the blink of an eye. They are the foundation for success in filling current openings. (They were discussed in an earlier column.) The second - red shirt relationships - build trust and familiarity more slowly. They are the key to establishing an effective pipeline of talent for an organization's future openings. We typically source dozens and sometimes hundreds of prospects to fill a single job. Many of those who aren't selected for the position would be excellent candidates for later openings. For others, the timing or opportunity wasn't right, but at some point, it could conceivably be. Rather than sever these connections and waste the effort that was invested in creating them, a growing number of employers are now leveraging them into enduring relationships. The term of art for this activity, of course, is the formation of a talent pipeline. There is, however, considerable misunderstanding about just what that phrase means. A pipeline is not a warmed over resume database. It is also not the archive of candidate communications in an applicant tracking system. A talent pipeline is a network of prequalified candidates who feel an affinity for a specific employer. Such pipelines are notoriously hard to sustain. Estimates of candidate attrition from pipelines range from 25 to more than 50 percent annually. When that kind of seepage happens, what you have isn't a pipeline at all. It's a talent..

What is Talent Anyway? November 6, 2019

Every recruiter on the planet knows that we're waging a War for Talent. We use the term so frequently, it's become a part of our professional jargon. But what is talent? We all probably have at least a subliminal definition of the word, but more often than not, those definitions vary widely even within the same organization. And, when they do, our recruiting results suffer.   The prevailing definition of talent, at least for the moment, seems to be that it denotes a rare skill. We use the word as a catchphrase for those hard-to-find Python programmers, clinical scientists and mechanical engineers whom hiring managers seem most to crave. Winning the War for Talent, therefore, is simply a matter of filling open positions with those who have such skills. The faster and cheaper that's done, the greater our victory. Or is it? What happens when we fill an opening with a mediocre programmer, scientist or engineer? Or worse, a substandard one? Have we won the war or simply filled a req? If the goal of our recruiting is to position our employer or client to achieve its mission, then we have won a battle, but lost the War. We have, in effect, done only half our job. We may have completed an assignment, but we have not contributed as we must. We have acquired skills, but not the talent that is essential to an organization's success. Talent, you see, is much more than even the hardest to find skill. Talent is the capacity for excellence...

Job Postings That Seduce… November 6, 2019

Why are these rules so important? Because passive, high caliber candidates are different from everyone else in the workforce. They are almost always employed. In order to recruit them, therefore, you have to convince them to do the one thing we humans most hate to do: change. Your ad has to convince them to go from the devil they know – their current employer, boss and commute – to the devil they don’t know – a new employer, a different boss and an unfamiliar commute. Rule #1: Turn Titles into Magnets Job postings are not position descriptions; they are electronic sales brochures. Their purpose is to sell top candidates on the opportunity inherent in an opening. That can’t happen, however, unless they are attracted to an opening and intrigued enough to pause and read it. So, give your job posting titles a magnetic pull by using the three most important triggers to action among passive prospects, separating each with a dash: • Location – top talent want to work where they live so begin the title with the postal code abbreviation (e.g., CT) for the state in which the opening is located: • Skill – top talent want to see themselves in the job, not some HR job title (e.g., Programmer III) so next add the skill (e.g., C++ Programmer) they use to describe the work they do; • Sizzle – top talent are herd animals so ask the top performers in your organization why they came to work there and use that factor as..

Truth, Lies and Resumes November 6, 2019

Companies are screening more closely than ever before. Getting caught in a lie could raise enough questions about your character to cost you the job. When searching for a job, there are a lot of things that can go wrong. You can stutter during a cold call, get lost on the way to the interview or even forget the name of the hiring manager. These are all honest mistakes and likely can be overcome with hard work and perseverance. Lying, though, can be irredeemable. “The worst thing you can do in an interview process is to lie,” said Lorne Epstein, author of You’re Hired. “All you have at work is trust, but once you lose it that way, it’s over.” Scott Thompson, the former CEO of Yahoo, learned that lesson the hard way. He resigned in 2012 when it was revealed that he forged an entry on his resume, claiming he had a computer science degree from Stonehill College when, in fact, that degree wasn’t even given out there until two years later. Thompson later said that his cancer diagnosis was part of his reason for leaving Yahoo, but the damage had already been done to his reputation and to the integrity of the company — not to mention all its shareholders. "I don’t know who would hire this guy again,” Epstein said. “It’s a horrible reason to get fired. … When people do things that are egregious, criminal acts and lying scare people the most.”Epstein works with college students and speaks to groups about..

Recruit the Right Blend… November 6, 2019

Victory in the War for Talent is generally defined as the recruitment of more "A" level performers than the competition. Organizations that employ the lion's share of such individuals have higher levels of productivity and innovation and greater sales and profits than do other organizations. Or, do they?   Research suggests that there are actually two kinds of superior performers: The "A" level person is the best he or she can be in their profession, craft or trade. They are motivated by the external recognition and rewards that come from their outsized contribution to an organization. The "B" level person is every bit as good a performer as the "A' level person, but he or she is motivated by what one writer called "mental chocolate" - the intrinsic satisfaction that comes from doing a job well. Historically, organizations have chased the "A" level performer and put up with their sometimes less than collegial behavior because they were thought to be the sole key to organizational success. Today, however, employers are finding that a blend of "A" and "B" level performers provides the best (and most durable) results. How do you recruit such a blend? Focus on what they have in common. As different as they are, both "A" and "B" level performers have one very important similarity. Neither thinks of him or herself as a job seeker. Ever. Even when they are actively in transition, they see themselves engaged in a search for something other than a job. What they want - what is most..

The Right Kind of… November 6, 2019

The journalist David Brooks once famously opined that "Human beings are over-confidence machines." We aren't as smart as we think we are, nor are we as smart as we need to be. That's especially true when it comes to networking in a job search. Brooks bases his assertion on a survey done among executives in the advertising and computer industries. They were each given a quiz on their industry knowledge and then asked to rate how confident they were of their answers. The advertising pooh bahs thought they were right 90 percent of the time, when in actuality, 61 percent of their answers were wrong. And, the computer hotshots were even more off the mark. They estimated their answers to be right 95 percent of the time, when in fact, 80 percent were wrong. Now, some may say that such over-confidence is endemic among managers and executives, but not among the rest of the workforce. Regular people are much more self-aware. Or, are they? These days, an awful lot of regular people are 100 percent confident that social media is the answer to executing a successful job search. They are absolutely certain that the path to re-employment runs through Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. So, what do they do? They devote countless hours to meeting virtual strangers on the Web and ignore the many connections and friends they have right in their own backyard. They rely on contacts when relationships will serve them better. Network With the People You Know Networking on social media sites is..

How to Avoid Part… November 6, 2019

Survey after survey now confirms that a growing number of job openings are structured as part time employment. While some of this shift away from the traditional 40 workweek might be due to the debut of the new healthcare law, there's another factor that's largely unrecognized and just as important. The constant change going on in today's global marketplace has put a premium on flexibility. The global marketplace is being buffeted by a range of forces that affect large and small employers alike. These forces include the rapid introduction of new and often disruptive technology; the growth of new and hyper aggressive competitors, the development of new and potentially revolutionary business strategies, practices, and procedures; and the imposition of new and often costly laws and government policies. The resulting instability caused by all this change has undercut employers' ability to determine their workforce needs. Historically, they could project the number of workers and the kinds of skills they would need at least one or two years down the road. Today, they can't tell who they will need six months in the future. In effect, their workforce of tomorrow (and the day after that) has become an enigma. Faced with such uncertainty, many if not most employers become risk averse. Instead of hiring someone for a full time job, with all of its attendant costs and legal obligations, they hire people on a part time basis. And they do so even if it means they must employ two or more people to get the work done...

The Employment Brand That's… November 6, 2019

Employment branding gets a lot of coverage both at recruiting conferences and in recruiting publications. Despite the interest, however, most employers don't have an employment brand. They either can't be bothered or the brand they do create doesn't say anything memorable. As a result, they are a faceless organization, and that vacant expression becomes their image in the job market. A strong employment brand is essential to success in the War for the Best Talent. Top performers have choices. They are almost always employed so they can stay with their current employer or they can consider a new one from among the numerous inquiries they receive on a regular basis. And, the single most important input to their assessment of the alternatives is each organization's employment brand. Why, then, do so many organizations either lack an employment brand altogether or develop one that makes them invisible to top talent? Not surprisingly, each situation has a different cause. The Case of the Missing Brand Despite the constant battle for top performers in recruiting today, many employers never get around to developing a brand that will attract and engage these individuals. And yet, many of those that lack such a brand actually think they have one. They believe their organization's consumer brand is their employment brand. Consumer brands, however, only work because buyers already know something about a product. They have experience with cars or computers or television sets, so the brand can leverage that knowledge and take shortcuts - in the form of a short phrase..

The Recruiting Aesthetic October 30, 2019

Recruiting is an art, so it's not only appropriate but essential that it be conducted in accordance with an aesthetic. Unlike a strategy or tactic, an aesthetic is neither a game plan nor a set of actions. It is, instead, a guiding principle that shapes the formation and implementation of strategies and tactics with a core value. While much is said and written about strategy in today's War for Talent, only one game plan can actually yield true victory. If talent is the key to success in the global economy, then "capturing an unfair share of the best talent" must be every enterprise's goal. And if that's the objective of recruiting, then the choice of tactics must be based on a single, complementary criterion: which actions provide the best assurance of achieving that goal. An aesthetic, in contrast, must provide an ethos to which both the strategy and tactics adhere. If a brand differentiates an employer by characterizing its culture, an aesthetic does so by extolling its character - its dominant organizational value. If brand describes the "what" of its employment experience, its aesthetic describes the "why." And, why has never been more important. One of the most famous maxims in employment states that "Talent joins an organization, but leaves managers." It is usually cited to underscore the importance of leadership. However, if the first part of the maxim - joining the organization - isn't achieved, the quality of leadership is moot. And for top talent, the decision to accept an offer is based first..