it's ALL about the experience

Employee engagement, or something even bigger?

Eddie LeMoine is talking this week about the role of employee engagement in the attraction and retention of great talent.  Here's a snippet of my thoughts on the subject:

...By looking at engagement as increased and continuing commitment in the whole talent supply chain, the business is encouraged to synchronize its efforts of talent management. This touches employer brand (which helps well matched talent identify and self-select to the business), recruitment (which funnels that talent to the right place at the right time in the business), AND retention (which increases business ROI). In this manner the business totally wins: more engagement, higher productivity, and less turnover from day one.

To read the whole exchange, check out his blog here.

tags: employee_engagement, recruiting, retention, employer_brand, candidate_experience

Keeping Passive Candidates in Orbit -- a webcast

Hi there!  Claudia and I will be conducting a national webcast on Tuesday, November 13th.  This Human Capital Institute program is being sponsored by PeopleClick, which means that it is complementary for you to attend.  If you'd like to join us, please sign up today via either of the links below:

http://www.humancapitalinstitute.org/hci/tracks_creating_talent_pipeline.guid

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=6958589803&ref=mf

See you there!

Alise

Shift Happens

Some very interesting conversations have been taking place here, here and here recently about technology, globalization, and their forecasted impact on companies and job seekers around the world.  But I stumbled across this tonight, and began to grasp the gravity of the situation from a big-picture view.  My grandchildren truly will join the workforce on a much different playing field.

Produced by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, this video takes about 8 minutes to watch -- and is definitely worth the time.  Put nicely, recruiters should expect to be working hard for decades to come, and companies might consider adding "virtual office" to the list of reasons why qualified candidates find them more attractive than the competition.

Tags: Recruiting, Hiring, Technology, Globalization

A Perfect Hiring Storm: Scarce talent and Bad Press

If the lack of skilled workers is creating a hiring void in your neck of the woods, brace yourself as poor employer brand begins to create the Perfect Storm. 

I read a great article today by career and business coach Debbie Benami-Rahm, who has lots to say about employee engagement -- and the earlier, the better.  Check this out:

The way your organization handles the interview and hiring process either brings you the talent you want or scares your talent away.

Bingo. And when it comes to onboarding new employees, Debbie adds:

Research shows it takes nearly 90 days of employment for new employees to really evaluate the information they receive during the recruiting and onboarding process. After 90 days, they step back and look at their experiences with the culture of the company, their peers and managers, and their training. Those experiences tell them whether they and their jobs are a good fit and whether they see themselves building a career within the organization. Those experiences dictate whether they stay with the company. This is one of the first solution keys to your employee retention challenge.

Debbie, I couldn't agree with you more that workforce engagement begins from the moment of initial contact with potential employees. Ten years ago recruiting leaders thought in terms of an "employer driven" or "candidate driven" marketplace, but no longer; in today's increasingly global and competitive landscape for talent, the rules change while we sleep.  Employers that are slow to incorporate critical elements of early candidate engagement are already beginning to discover that retention is only the tip of the iceberg: the challenge of competing for a scarce, electronically connected talent pool has the potential to devastate a bottom line with longterm vacancies.

Something to think about while global internet usage grows annually in triple digits, US jobs continue to move overseas by the millions, baby boomers slip off into the sunset wearing Hawaiian shirts and flip flops, and slumbering economies in other parts of the world wake up with a vengeance.

War for talent, anyone?

Technorati tags: Recruiting, Hiring, Employer Brand, Employee Engagement

Do You Trust Me? Yeah, Right.

Depending on your perspective of the political scene, this has either been a very bad week or a very entertaining one in Washington DC.  What is it about election season that consistently brings out the dirty laundry?  I'm bracing for a long, strange road to the White House next year.

All of this moral high ground really highlights for me one of the biggest differences between mediocrity and  excellence in business: the subtle art of credibility.  It's the great equalizer in the talent game, this balance between what you say and what you do: companies struggle with it in the never ending competition for that next great hire...and so do job seekers, in the never ending quest to find the perfect job.

It turns out that the more things change, the more they stay the same:

1. Deliver results.
2. Speak the truth.
3. Be consistent.

Oh yeah, and when all else fails, it doesn't hurt to take a breath and look around.  There's bound to be somebody else nearby on their own quest to build credibility.  Celebrate the moment before you go back to yours.

Technorati tags: Politics, Credibility, Recruiting, Hiring, Retention

Checkout Austin jobs at itzbig.

The Road to Providing Quality Candidate Experience Leads to Seattle

     We are happy to have been contacted by Samantha Barth, Board Member and Program Manager for Northwest Recruiters Association.  She has invited us to join a panel discussion about the importance of providing a quality candidate experience in today's competitive marketplace.  The event takes place Thursday September 20th.  We'll be in good company, among the likes of Judy Wright, Employee Engagement Director at Safeco and Matt Youngquist, Founder of Career Horizons.   

     The Northwest Recruiters Association has been conducting a series of lunch panel discussions, each focusing on a distinct perspective in the recruiting process.  So far, the group has held a panel discussion to explore the perspectives of the hiring manager and the recruiter.  Next to be ventured in our September session is the view of the candidate.  Later in the year, the final view to be explored will be that of the recruiting leader.  So far, each of the sessions has been sold out.  Apparently, they take this whole recruiting thing pretty seriously in Seattle.... (grin).  Thanks to you Samantha for reaching out to us!  We'll look forward to frequenting our old stomping grounds and meeting some incredible professionals.

Technorati tags:  Northwest Recruiters Association, candidate experience, selection and hiring

The Road to Sourcing Leads to Atlanta

     Unless you work somewhere in the recruiting field, you probably don't think much about the profession of sourcing.  A topic on which we wrote several weeks ago, sourcing has a direct relationship to business intelligence and strategic recruiting and is a necessary and important function to secure talent in today's global marketplace.  Sourcing professionals spend their days hunting for specific passive talent (those people not actively in job search mode) and then partner with recruiters to begin conversations which ultimately lead to new employees being hired into the desiring company.  You might say sourcers are quite literally "head hunters" or "talent scouts" but who don't perform the assessment and interview tasks normally associated with recruiting.

     Along the blogging path, I have had occasion to meet a "Sourcer Extraordinaire," as I like to call him.  Moises Lopez is the National Sourcing Manager for PDS Technical Services and has his own blog called The Sourcing Corner.  He is probably one of the most humble people I've met, quietly insisting that he's only good at his job because he loves it so much.  So, it came as quite a surprise to him when after tracking his blog, SourceCon 2007 asked Moises to come and join the global sourcing conference as a subject matter expert.  Moises will find himself in good company this September in Atlanta, among other such notables as Jim Stroud, Krista Bradford, Rob McIntosh, Amy Beth Hale,  Shally Steckerl, Russ Moon, Tim O'Connor, and Glenn Gutmacher.    Moises shakes his head in disbelief and smiles as he runs his fingers over the conference itinerary where he is listed as a speaker.  Sure he blogs and writes about his perspective on sourcing, but doesn't everyone have an opinion and ideas, he asks outloud.  He's surprised and excited at his good fortune.

     For my part, I am not the least bit surprised -- but I am very glad for my friend.  My take is that Moises IS exceptionally good at his job, and he is engaged in his work such that he spends countless personal hours pouring over sourcing materials so he can learn more and provide even more added value to his employer.  Moises is an example for all of us:  he's found work for which he is passionate, happily throws himself into his job, and is precious to his employer.  And, bonus!  He is being recognized by his peers as a result.  For anyone wishing to develop or improve career success, this is a sage road to follow.  Moreoever, he has shown us all how to become more visible to opportunity:  speak up and be heard!  Let that be a lesson -- and you don't even have to go to Atlanta to learn it!

Technorati tags:  SourceCon 2007, sourcing, recruiting and hiring

    

“You Had Me at Hello”: Employee Engagement Begins Long Before Hire

This editorial written for the September 2007 edition of HR Management is reprinted here, with the magazine's permission.

Introduction – Employee Engagement Translates to Productivity and Retention

In today’s competitive, global marketplace Recruiting and HR professionals assume the daunting task of delivering and maintaining a productive workforce.  It is no small order to attract, engage, develop and retain employees, and few HR professionals or business executives argue the role of employee engagement as a catalyst or propellant of business success. Though the specifics of engagement may vary according to each company’s philosophy or mission, the term can be generally defined as the degree to which employees emotionally and intellectually occupy themselves in their work, and the strength of their commitment to the employer and role (Vance, 2006).   The vast majority of discussion about engagement is concentrated on the importance and methodology of actively engaging employees, which results in a long list of benefits. For the employee these benefits include higher job satisfaction and better job performance; for the company the benefits include lower attrition, higher productivity and business profitability.  The question of employee engagement is therefore not about its importance to the business, but about the earliest point at which it can be escalated, measured and managed. 

Engaging the Prospective Employee in the Pre-Hire Stage

Many HR professionals begin the process of measuring employee satisfaction and engagement levels post-hire, during performance management or employee development initiatives, by administering attitude or opinion surveys.  Some common themes explored in these polls include pride in the employer, satisfaction with the employer, opportunity to perform well at challenging work, recognition and support for one’s contributions, personal support by one’s manager, understanding the link between one’s job and the organization’s mission, prospects for future growth with the employer, and the intention to stay with the employer (Vance, 2006).  Sample questions include “Do you know what is expected of you at work?”; “Is there someone at work who encourages your development?”; “Does the mission or purpose of your company make you feel that your job is important?” (Bates, 2004).  The aggregated responses to such questions are then correlated to business outcomes such as sales volume, profitability, customer loyalty, attendance, and retention. 

Such efforts to improve employee engagement can be strengthened, since engagement begins and can be managed far earlier than previously accepted.  Consider this:  Engagement is a gauge of involvement and commitment based on a person’s attitudes toward and dedication to the work required and people involved.  This commitment does not magically manifest the moment an employee starts the job.  Rather, the seeds are planted and nurtured in each contact leading up to the hire: when a prospective employee applies for work on a company website or through an external recruiter, she registers early perceptions that affect her level of interest and subsequent engagement in the job.  When a job seeker receives communication from the company about the status of his job search, or meets with interviewers in person, he builds on earlier perceptions that support or refine his perception and level of engagement.  Regardless of the reason for initial attraction to a job or employer, it is clear that candidate engagement deepens or weakens at each successive point of contact in the selection and hiring process, and sets the tone for retention and productivity measures to come.  As gatekeepers of talent flowing into the business, Recruiting is well-positioned to measure and improve engagement at the earliest moments of connection, resulting in new hires with consistently high engagement levels day one on the job.

The quality of pre-hire experience becomes even more important when considering the impact of technology on communication today; Web 2.0 has created a fully-interactive and viral environment where one person’s perception can be viewed, absorbed, and discussed by a wide audience immediately -- and saved in digital format forever.  Consumer research shows that people are likely to tell at least 10 others about a bad experience; unfortunately, it is impossible to foresee if the recipients of these messages are potential employees, or even customers who begin to disengage from your company as a result (Edgley, 2006).  A prospective employee may be excited about the opportunity at the application stage and then progressively lose interest –– so that if she does proceed to the offer stage she’ll likely reject the offer.  Or worse still, if she begrudgingly accepts the offer, despite her internal inclinations to the contrary, she may well start the job but with a sour attitude, low engagement, and a high proclivity to immediately begin searching for her next job.  In fact, this latter scenario which contributes to attrition happens a full 15 percent of the time because of negative experiences in the hiring process (Staffing.org).

Objective:  “You Had Me at Hello”

Imagine yourself casually perusing the Internet when you land on a company website, the name of which you had not heard before.  Compelled by the mission-oriented communication, you wonder about the jobs they are trying to fill and easily find your way to the Jobs section. There, you discover (to your complete and utter surprise) your dream job, which you previously had thought might only exist as a figment of your over-active imagination.  Though you are content with your current job, the opportunity is everything you’ve always hoped for: the right blend of people and technology, authority and responsibility, a high standard bar for excellence, and professional growth that will take your career to a new level.  You research further and uncover a long list of others who speak highly of the company: customers, employees, and vendors.  Intrigued, you return to the job posting; you hesitate to apply, imagining a convoluted process that is painful and time consuming -- but find that it is simple and easy to express an interest in the job.  Then, miraculously, a company recruiter contacts you the next day; you have an interesting conversation that felt nothing at all like a phone screen, and you are invited to interview with the hiring manager and members of the team.  You are more than intrigued at this point; you are impressed. The interview has been managed professionally: in preparation for the conversations you’ve been given good information about the job’s responsibilities, an interview schedule, information about your interviewers’ roles, and are ready to start the day.  The hiring manager arrives promptly and seems genuinely excited to discuss the opportunity with you.  He has completely read your resume and even checked into some of your online editorial work; the two of you discuss how your perspective in one article aligns with the company approach on the next critical project.  As the day progresses and you meet the rest of the interviewers, each conversation is stimulating and you feel a sense of connection to the team.  You leave the company offices genuinely excited: this job was made for you, and the prospect of developing your skills and creating positive impact is irresistible. 

Now let’s pause for a moment.  Even if the offer and onboarding experiences are factored out, you already see in these earliest stages of application and interview the growth of candidate engagement.  The scenario described is reminiscent of a scene from the 1996 movie “Jerry Maguire,” starring Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger.  Toward the end of the movie, Cruise tries to woo back Zellweger after a period of separation.  He finds her at home among friends, and awkwardly says “Hello.” In front of this room full of people, he opens his heart, telling her all of the reasons why he needs and wants her in his life.  At the end of his monologue, in a line that captures the message of the entire film, Renee quietly replies, “Stop. You had me at hello.”  We aim for a similar response when it comes to candidate engagement; the energy required to enhance positive perception from the earliest point of contact is infinitely less than that required to overcome negative perception.

Find Out:  Measure Candidate Engagement

Clearly written job advertisements with compelling challenges for learning and growth help companies to attract suitable talent for the position; they can also encourage candidates who are not interested in those attributes to opt-out of the application and subsequent hiring process.  Respectful, productive interactions between the candidate, recruiters and interviewers can also entice engagement early in the hiring process.  But how can a company know if it is building or deteriorating employee engagement levels in the pre-hire and onboarding stages?  The solution lies in capturing and measuring feedback.  Feedback closes the gap between intention and delivery in all areas of candidate outreach, and provides an external point of reference to determine if results are meeting expectations. 

Solicit feedback from job seekers about both experience and perception as they navigate your selection and hiring process.  Gather quantitative and qualitative data from internal and external candidates at critical points such as application, interview, offer, and onboarding.  By tracking the resulting scores over time, you can view satisfaction scores increase or decrease as an indicator of early engagement.  Tracking these metrics can also help you monitor and improve the recruiting and onboarding processes, and gauge the job seeker response to newly implemented program improvements (such as applicant tracking systems, career websites, or hiring manager interview training).  For example, if you measure the degree of agreement to the statement, “This job opportunity is more attractive to me than others I could have in other companies” at the apply, interview, offer and onboarding stages, and agreement increases as the job seeker moves through the hiring process, then you know that the experience is consistently building candidate engagement.  Conversely, if the scoring trend is reversed for the question, or drops at an interim point, you’ve got work to do to correct the situation.

In addition to process improvement, candidate engagement is a strong indicator of your company’s ability to compete for talent in the marketplace.  Since the triggers that foster engagement vary across age, gender, ethnicity, industry, and education levels (to name only a few factors), it is important to collect and apply demographic filters to the resulting data to segment and isolate aggregate preferences and trends when creating or improving targeted outreach programs.  This demographic information and accompanying feedback also help you understand the gap between your intended employer brand and how it is actually received, and allows you an early prism to view the patterns of attrition as employees voluntarily or involuntarily exit your company.

The Improved Experience Solution:  Get Better Hires

As an independent research firm for HR and Recruiting, Improved Experience offers solutions to measure real-time candidate experience, job seeker demographics, and employer brand.  Get Better Hires is an automated, online feedback portal that captures and benchmarks candidate feedback at four critical stages:  application, interview, offer, onboarding.  The subscription service offers a library of more than 400 standard questions across 15 feedback categories, such as:  job opportunities, business reputation, company culture, pay and benefits, experiences with interviewers, experiences with company and third party recruiters, internet presence, facilities, and the recruiting process.  As a third-party service provider, Improved Experience invites your job seekers to take a survey that is designed for maximum feedback in the shortest amount of time, and quickly identifies actionable feedback from the survey taker.  The patent-pending system then analyzes, aggregates, benchmarks, and reports the feedback to you in a secure, real-time dashboard.  For a deeper, more granular look at the results, your dashboard also includes a robust data-mining function so you can analyze feedback at the question level and apply demographic filters.  For more information, contact us today at 877.344.4300, or visit our website at www.improvedexperience.com.

References

Bates, S. (2004).  Getting Engaged.  HR Magazine, Vol 49, No. 2, http://www.shrm.org/hrmagazine/articles/0204/0204covstory_factors.asp 

Edgley, J. (2006).  Six Degrees of Candidate Care.  HR Management, Vol 1, No. 3, 60-61. 

Staffing.org website: www.staffing.org

Vance, R (2006).  Employee Engagement and Commitment:  A Guide to Understanding, Measuring, and Increasing Employee Engagement in Your Organization.  Alexandria, VA:  SHRM Foundation, http://www.shrm.org/foundation/1006EmployeeEngagementOnlineReport.pdf

Technorati tags:  employee engagement, candidate experience, employer brand, retention, recruiting and hiring, recruiting intelligence. 

Low Expectations, Vastly Surpassed

     Did you catch Mike Taylor's post on his Online Recruitment blog about Paul Potts' appearance on American Idol?  Now, I'll be honest... I don't watch the show myself.  But Mike's post is alluring precisely because of the You-Tube video he planted in its center.  Wow, Paul Potts really can sing!!!

     Paul's video is nothing if not a master show piece in what I like to call "low expectations, vastly surpassed" or LEVS.  It's a bit like when your significant other strongly coerces you to go to a movie s/he'd like to see.  You have heard nothing but horrible reviews on it -- or just plain don't like the previews you've seen -- and are firmly convinced the time spent will be dismally worthless.  But alas, you emerge from the movie theater slapping your friend on the back and proclaiming, "That really was a great movie!" (This is exactly what happened to me, incidentally, when my husband drug me to see "Brother, Where Art Thou?")

     I wonder how often this LEVS phenomenon occurs in the recruiting world.  I know in my recruiting days I would occasionally meet a candidate for whom the resume was just plain underwhelming.  But out of sheer desperation to find some talent and fill the req, I'd reach out to contact the person.... AND then proceed to be completely blown away by their impressive talent and strong interviewing skills.  It's fair to say that my expectation bar was set pretty low.  Now, to be fair to the talent pool, there are plenty of really great candidates who don't write a stellar resume.  Of course, it can be hard to get to first base without a favorable first impression of the resume, an important step if one is to pull off the LEVS move.

     But on the other side of the fence, we in the recruiting world must ask ourselves how many candidates out there can talk about how they experienced the LEVS phenomenon during their job search.  Come on!  Who's got a story to tell in this regard?  Let's hear from you. 

Technorati tags:  first impressions, You-Tube, Paul Potts, recruiting and hiring

Great San Francisco jobs are at San Fran Jobs.

Yesteryear and Today's Candidate Experience

     While reading Jason Warner's meritocracy blog this morning, I was reminded of an era seemingly long gone.  Jason described the difference between pre-internet job hunting and today's heavily digitized efforts.  Essentially, he makes a case that economics are not working well in favor of job seekers because whereas prior to the internet's ease of application, job seekers would hunt for a smaller number of jobs well-suited to their talents and interests. They would work hard to learn about the prospective company and find creative ways to start a conversation.  I personally remember landing almost every single job I found in the newspaper back in yesteryear -- and yes, I did focus hard on the search and only applied to perhaps a few or a handful at any one time.  Today, with the omnipresence of jobs across the world, all available at the touch of mouse click, those same job seekers now apply to countless more positions many of which they are not completely qualified for nor terribly interested in. Why?  Well, to increase their odds, of course!  Or, so the thinking goes.

     But as Jason points out, this newly adapted behavior to the ease of online application just clogs the corporate recruiting arteries and does not enhance the job seeker's chance of landing a quick job.  Or any job, for that matter.  Recruiters have to sift through more resumes to find those few who are really qualified and suited for the position.  But nonetheless, and this is quintessential "Jason speak," the Google recruiting guru concludes his piece by saying "companies that are able to scale while preserving an authentic connection with the talent marketplace will win."  And this is where it really gets interesting for those of us dealing in candidate experience.   Jason knows I am a fan of what I would call a core value for him--his insistence on authenticity.  I imagine he would also guess that I completely agree with him that people tend to, shall we say, unselectively overapply for positions. 

     And so the dance and charade continue with one behavior reinforcing the other.  Companies need  top talent to competitively compete today and so continue to advertise their openings across the internet.  Their resume portal size increases as more and more people stick up their hands as possible candidates.  And sometimes due to a generically written job description, many candidates really do believe themselves to be qualified for the job and thus are at least somewhat interested.  Sometimes, people become desperate to get a job in order to pay bills and feel it takes too long to navigate the bureaucratic world of hiring these days. And so, driven by sheer need, they keep applying to ever more positions trying to land their next paycheck.  And they get more frustrated because there is little or no communication that takes place once a company has acknowledged receipt of their resume. Of course, what is also happening on the other side is some poor recruiting staff is trying valiantly to get to the bottom of that stack of submitted resumes to find the few gems. And dang it, it's taking a while.  Nonetheless, from the job seeker's perspective, the "black hole" syndrome is alive and well, and so technology has not made "being authentic" very easy for a company. 

     And that gap is precisely the area we at Improved Experience are trying to fill--to get the dialogue going again between companies and job seekers. To allow each party to be more authentic by first helping companies to invite candidate feedback.  And then allowing job seekers to express themselves about their experiences of interacting with companies as they pursue their job search. We think it's a good start. And one that will benefit both parties.  Because yesteryear's lack of technology in some ways was so much more.... well, civilized. 

Technorati tags:  recruiting, authenticity, candidate experience