Which bears the question: how do businesses recognize Juneteenth in a way that shows substantive support both now and in the future? And more importantly – it’s not just for the actual holiday itelf. Consider this a primer on how to ensure a truly inclusive working environment throughout the year and to recognize the day going forward.

Let’s start from the beginning:

What is Juneteenth?

A portmanteau of the words “June” and “Nineteenth”, Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas to announce the abolishment of slavery in the state under President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

Also called Jubilee Day, Black Independence Day and Emancipation Day, Juneteenth is regularly celebrated across the United States but until Biden’s announcement was only a paid holiday in eight states including Massachusetts, New York, and Washington.

Five ways for employers to offer substantive support

While it’s important for employers to recognize this federal holiday, it’s also critical to strike the right tone considering the day’s historical significance and gravitas. Striking the right balance between celebratory and serious is essential.

With that in mind, here are five ways for employers to effectively show their support:

1. Offer paid time off

While employers aren’t obligated to offer time off — or holiday premium pay if staff work on federal holidays — this is the gold standard of support. If this isn’t logistically possible given the short time between the presidential announcement and the holiday itself, consider adding an extra day’s paid leave to staff accounts for them to use later this year, and subsequently recognizing Juneteenth as a paid holiday every year thereafter.

This is the approach taken by Workable. According to a recent email from CEO Nikos Moraitakis to US-based employees, “Workable will honor Juneteenth in 2021 by adding 1 bonus day to employee time-off balances. Going forward, Juneteenth will be observed following the federal holiday calendar.”

2. Create corporate events

Another way to show support for Juneteenth is by creating corporate events. These could include in-person information sessions or digital webcasts featuring guest speakers and experts who can help explain the history of Juneteenth, why it matters and how it relates to other U.S. holidays such as the Fourth of July. Here, your best bet is creating a healthy mix of fun events that celebrate the impact of Juneteenth while also paying respect to its more painful legacy.

3. Invest in worthy causes

Investment in causes such as fundraisers, charity drives or memorial races can also highlight the impact of Juneteenth and help corporate team-building efforts. If your company takes this approach, two components are critical: Finding the right cause and ensuring staff buy-in.

Before spending on any support effort, do your research so you understand the backstory of the event, are confident in where donations are going, and are clear about the expectations. Once you find the right cause, encourage staff participation by making it a full-day event during the regular work week that’s focused on both social recognition and socializing, rather than asking staff to show up on their own time.

4. Connect with black-owned businesses

Money talks. And with a host of black-owned businesses operating in every state and city across the United States, companies can show their support for Juneteenth by supporting black businesses owners that are instrumental in their communities.

While it doesn’t matter what product or service your company chooses to support, it does matter that this is an ongoing relationship — if you’re only supporting these businesses in June, expect some backlash.

5. Share staff stories

You can also recognize the federal holiday by highlighting the stories of your own employees and what Juneteenth means to them. Sharing these stories (with permission) across both internal networks and external social media accounts can serve to showcase your support — but must be done with caution. While posting on social media is quick, easy and offers substantive reach, this approach will appear self-serving unless it’s paired with more substantive support efforts.

Ready to show your support for Juneteenth? Just remember the three Rs — relevant, responsible and respectful — and you’re on the right track to highlight this federal holiday.

The post Juneteenth: 5 ways employers can recognize the holiday appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

1. You’re understaffed

Word on the street (and on places like Glassdoor) is that you’re understaffed, and in some cases, this is intentional. You expect employees to give you their heart and soul and to be at your beck and call 24/7. In return, you’re willing to issue them a paycheck for 40 hours of work.

This approach may have worked during the last recession but won’t pass muster in a highly competitive labor market. Today, employees have choices and are choosing to work for companies where work/life balance is obtainable.

Look at the culture you’ve built with an eye towards becoming a more people-friendly company. Train your managers to set boundaries for accessing employees and establishing reasonable work expectations.

2. Your pay isn’t competitive

The people who say money doesn’t matter are the people with money. For the rest of us, money matters.

When was the last time you moved your salary ranges? If it’s been longer than a year, get moving! Have you benchmarked your pay? Do this now.

Salaries have skyrocketed over the past several years and are continuing to rise. If you want to stand a chance of hiring the best, you must be willing and able to pay for talent.

3. You’re taking way too long to hire

Your current hiring process may be why you can’t fill jobs. By the time you get a candidate through your process, this person is already off the market. Today, more than ever, speed matters.

Try this. Make a list of everyone currently involved in hiring for a particular position, with the key decision-makers at the top. Draw a line through the middle of this list.

Thank those below the line for their willingness to participate and inform them their services for evaluating candidates will no longer be needed.

4. Your job requirements are inflated

You’ve loaded up the job requirements for a particular job with the hopes that your boss will approve a great compensation package. Now, try finding someone who meets all these requirements! If this feels like an impossible task, that’s because it probably is.

Does a receptionist really need a college degree to greet clients? Must a production manager with 13 years of experience genuinely need the 15 years of experience you’ve listed in your posting to succeed in your organization?

Take a closer look at your job requirements and ask yourself if everything listed is a “must have” or if some items are “nice to have.” Then adjust your job descriptions and postings accordingly.

5. You’ve got lousy managers

People don’t work for companies. They work for people. All the money in the world won’t help you attract and keep talent if your managers chase these people away.

More than 4 million Americans voluntarily left their jobs in each of the past 18 months. Meanwhile, employers, especially in low-wage sectors, are still struggling to fill open positions.

A recent report from employment and background screening services company GoodHire points to managers as a critical factor. In the survey of 3,000 workers, 82% told GoodHire they would consider quitting their job because of a bad manager.

Be careful whom you let into management; only some are cut out for this job. Provide managers with the coaching they need to be talent magnets – the type of managers that easily attract and retain talent, and you won’t have to worry about constantly having to fill jobs. People will gladly remain in your employ for years to come.

The post The real reasons your employees don’t want to work for you appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In other words – what do candidates want in a job?

With employers struggling to attract and retain candidates (in some sectors, at least), the natural move would be to enhance their employer value proposition (EVP).

So let’s look at what employers find is most appealing to candidates in today’s job market:

Total rewards are totally rewarding

Perks, benefits, time off, etc., is seen to be becoming far more important now than they were perceived to be in 2020. In other words, that package is called “total rewards”. The more an employer can offer in total rewards, the more alluring a job can be for a prospective hire.

Check the data: 56.9% of employers find that overall compensation is now becoming more important in the eyes of candidates compared with 36% two years ago.

That number has gone down from half of all employers in 2020 to just one quarter in 2022 (49.9% to 25.3%) for those who say it’s relatively unchanged in terms of importance.

Show me the money – yes, again

One part of total rewards is, of course, compensation. How much actual money will be paid in terms of salary and bonuses and so on?

As it happens, this is also becoming more important for candidates according to employers in 2022 (56.2%) compared with 2020 (33.3%).

And again as above, the percentage of employers who say the importance of compensation for candidates is relatively unchanged has dropped from 51.9% in 2020 to 29.5% now.

One respondent did say that the expansion of companies to international talent markets has created a new challenge:

“For me the most difficult part is employee engagement and compensation. It’s a big challenge to keep a big company engaged (many people miss the ‘family’ feeling, while other people don’t know what it means as they joined remotely). Regarding compensation, many international companies are now offering US salaries in Spain, which makes it difficult to reach for Spanish companies.”

“For me the most difficult part is employee engagement and compensation. It’s a big challenge to keep a big company engaged (many people miss the ‘family’ feeling, while other people don’t know what it means as they joined remotely). Regarding compensation, many international companies are now offering US salaries in Spain, which makes it difficult to reach for Spanish companies.”

Upward trajectory a necessity

Career paths and growth are also in the minds of candidates. This year’s employers say that career opportunities are becoming more important for candidates (49.6%) than in 2020 (34.6%).

The percentage of employers who say the importance of this is unchanged has dropped from 56.3% in 2020 to 40.2% now.

No need for security now

Job security – at one time quite an important value proposition – became less important for candidates in 2022 than it was two years ago.

Only half (50.9%) of this year’s employers say it’s becoming more important now, drastically down from four out of five (79.8%) two years ago.

With recent economic instability and increase in layoffs, however, this number may change again going into 2023.

What does all this tell us?

Candidates and jobseekers have the upper hand now when evaluating job opportunities. They don’t worry about job security as much because they know employers need them more than they need employers.

So, they’re more interested in what they can get out of a specific job opportunity – i.e. the compensation, the benefits, the career growth – than they are interested in simply getting a job.

We mentioned this above – this may look slightly different in 2023, but only in some industries. Companies are still struggling to fill roles in some sectors, whereas other sectors are seeing a nearly unmanageable influx of talented candidates every time they open up a new job.

The post Employer value proposition: how has it changed since 2020? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

• Fill your pipeline faster by proactively contacting passive candidates
• Scroll more – AI Recruiter will continue suggesting candidates
• Get improved results through our updated candidate matching algorithm

As soon as you activate a job, start finding candidates. No need to wait for your job to appear on boards, you can begin filling your pipeline right away. Add passive candidates and reach out personally or in bulk to introduce them to the job and your company. Take your candidate sourcing to the next level and expand your talent pool with AI-recommended passive candidates.

When you generate passive candidates for a job, AI Recruiter uses the title, job description and other post settings to find relevant candidate profiles. Profiles appear in a list for you to review. Add the best candidates to the Sourced stage of the job pipeline with a click. Plus, remove candidates who aren’t relevant to help train the AI.

We’ve also made improvements to how auto-sourced candidates are matched to your jobs. AI Recruiter has been updated to better understand your jobs’ requirements and extract matching skills from passive candidate profiles. Auto-sourcing continues to get smarter, with more and better data.

AI Recruiter is just one of the ways to source. Use People Search to manually look for potential candidates, post to 200+ job boards, get referrals from your team, advertise on social channels and more. No matter how you find candidates, Workable has you covered.

The post AI-driven candidate sourcing: AI Recruiter just got even better appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Taking advantage of a larger talent pool

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a new era in terms of workplace norms. The pandemic proved, for the most part, that geography is irrelevant when it comes to hiring. The technology developed and deployed to allow employees to work from home during COVID now allows tech professionals to do their work from any location.

In short: Thanks to COVID and the changes it inspired, it doesn’t matter if your programmer lives in California, Cambodia, Chicago, the Cayman Islands, or Cameroon.

In addition to having more options available when it comes to prospective employees, the new landscape also allows employers to use labor arbitrage to build a more cost-efficient workforce. Hiring an engineer in the US may cost a company $200,000 a year, whereas an equally skilled engineer based in India can do the same work for $56,000 a year.

When adjusted for the cost of living in each engineer’s location, the compensation is equivalent and the company receives the same volume and quality of work. This represents an opportunity for significant savings for tech companies.

Salary based on location vs. salary based on value is a topic of debate. Read the Evil HR Lady’s take on this.

Identifying top talent released in layoffs

Layoffs are another development adding opportunities to the talent pool. Typically, big technology companies stack rank their employees on an annual basis, which involves rating employees based on their performance. When layoffs happen, it is most often those perceived to be the lowest performers or contributors who are let go. In recent years, however, tech companies have both overhired and held on to weaker talent due to labor shortages and lower employee productivity.

As 2022 came to a close, shifts in the US economy created an environment with high levels of inflation, high levels of interest rates, and a softening housing market. There has also been an inverted yield curve in the 10 year-3 month Treasury Yield Spread, which has historically signaled an impending recession. These developments have triggered major tech players like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google to launch layoffs.

While some of the technology professionals now available for hire were let go due to low performance in their past roles, others are out of work as a result of overhiring in the tech field in recent years. In some cases, tech companies closed entire divisions to trim their staff size, sending many seasons and highly capable professionals into the talent pool. This means companies have a phenomenal opportunity to hire top performers in 2023, provided they choose carefully.

Boosting productivity with new technology

Artificial intelligence (AI) is causing a huge stir in the tech space as we move into 2023. Microsoft, which laid off 10,000 workers to start the year, also invested $10 million in the ChatGPT AI platform in early 2023.

Why? Because the AI-based language model chatbot, which is still in its infancy in terms of development, can code, automate, configure tech, and find problems with software, among other things.

In some cases, AI-driven tools like ChatGPT can take the place of hands-on tech workers. In others, technology professionals equipped with AI-driven tools can deliver as much as 10 times the output of those working without AI. Employers who commit to leveraging AI tools stand to gain considerably in terms of increased productivity.

Targeting talent with business savvy

There was a time when those who could support technology were in high demand. That time has passed. Not only is today’s tech more reliable, but AI-driven solutions promise to provide the support that tech workers once delivered. As a result, the most valuable tech workers will be those like cloud architects and enterprise architects who understand how technology can be used to solve business problems.

Tech companies hiring in 2023 should be looking for employees who can provide more than technical expertise. Professionals who bring business acumen, leadership skills, sales skills, executive presence, and emotional intelligence will prove to be those who can thrive in their positions and add value to the company.

They have what it takes to go beyond working with technology to design solutions that can improve business performance and transform organizations.

The post Tech hiring: how it’s different now for employers in 2023 appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

What does employee compensation really mean?

When people think of employee compensation, it’s usually the base salary of a position that initially comes to mind. However, total compensation includes employee benefits and perks.

Health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, 401k matching, stock options, employee assistance programs, profit sharing, paid time off, sick days and additional incentives could all potentially be included in an employee benefits package and would count as compensation.

Read more: Money for nothing: are we ready for universal basic income?

Direct and indirect compensation

There are generally two different types of compensation: direct and indirect. A generous mix of both helps create an attractive compensation package for employees and organizations alike.

Direct compensation

Direct compensation is monetary and usually the most appealing aspect of employee compensation. Direct compensation options include:

• Salary/base pay
• Hourly pay
• Commission
• Bonuses

Indirect compensation

Indirect compensation may have a financial benefit, but doesn’t involve an exchange of money. Indirect compensation usually includes benefits and perks that improve an employee’s quality of life, such as:

• Healthcare
• Life Insurance
• Paid time off
• Family leave
• Sick leave
• Retirement plan contributions
• Company car
• Technology allowance
• Remote or hybrid work environment
• Four-day work week or flex days
• Tuition reimbursement
• Physical or financial wellness program
• Team outings or retreats
• Childcare
• Other perks

Indirect compensation options offer the additional advantage of increasing engagement, improving employee satisfaction, and demonstrating company culture.

Although a mountain of money always holds great appeal, a fair balance of cash plus life-improving benefits is a sustainable way for organizations to stay competitive when it comes to recruiting and retention.

Read more: New overtime law: How it works and what changes for employers

The importance of competitive employee compensation

The vast majority of employees work as a way to secure financial stability. So although your product could be amazing, your mission statement inspiring, and your corporate culture the coolest, it’s your ability to positively impact someone’s bottom line that’s going to make or break your staffing efforts.

Securing a highly skilled and/or productive workforce is one of the best investments an organization can make, and recruiting can be a challenge in a competitive job market. A generous compensation package can help attract talent, but maybe even more importantly, it can also help you keep valuable employees.

We learned this ourselves. According to our Great Discontent survey of over 500 full-time workers in the UK, 70.1% of respondents listed compensation as the leading motivator that could lure them from their current job. In the US, that number is 62.2%, but still the top choice for workers.

Employee turnover is costly and disruptive — the act of seeking out applicants, interviewing candidates, onboarding, equipping, training, and developing employees requires time, money, and expertise. An attractive employee compensation package builds loyalty and makes employees less vulnerable to competitor offers or recruiters.

As stated by a US-based respondent from the survey, “Employees will go where the money is. And where they’re treated respectfully and valued. But, mostly, it’s the money”.

This does raise a question around when in the hiring process you can start discussing salary. There’s a growing consensus on including salaries in job descriptions from the get-go – here’s why you can and should consider this in your own recruitment process.

How to build a competitive employee compensation plan

As you develop your employee compensation strategy, the first step is to decide how you’ll determine compensation for individual employees or positions. Options include:

1. Pay structures

Also known as salary or compensation structures, pay structures clarify an employee’s path to career growth and higher pay. This process for determining salaries is more transparent, predictable, and equitable than other options, particularly for companies with more than 250 employees. This compensation and development template can also be useful for your own work.

2. Salary history

Offering compensation based on prior salary history is tempting to many employees, however, it may perpetuate systemic pay disparities and could leave your organization vulnerable to discrimination lawsuits. Also, a growing number of US states prohibit employers from inquiring about salary history.

3. Arbitrary figures

A position that’s urgent or difficult to fill, or a particularly qualified candidate, may cause employers to offer whatever salary might persuade a candidate to accept their offer. A potential adverse effect is that direct reports could end up earning more than their managers or more than already-established employees with more seniority or experience.

Structure and strategy are key

To establish a pay structure, you need to first perform a job analysis to better define each position, and its duties, requirements, and qualifications. Then you need to determine the relative value of positions within your company.

You can determine base salary through benchmarking, where market trends would influence salary ranges or pay grades, where jobs are grouped and ranges are applied to each group. Some organizations use a combination of benchmarking and pay grades to establish compensation structures.

Enhance your compensation strategy by deciding on indirect compensation offerings to include in your employee benefits package. Consider not only benefit costs, but also what aligns with your company culture.

A competitive employee compensation package paired with being the type of organization talent wants to work for can pay off far beyond the costs.

The post Employee compensation – what you need to know and why appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Here’s a list with five thoughtful presents that can be ideal resources for recruiters and talent professionals:

1. A library of templates

Anyone involved in the hiring process knows how much time is spent on writing job descriptions, composing emails to candidates or crafting lists of interview questions. So, for this holiday season, give a recruiter a library of templates for every purpose, from job ads and offer letters to interview questions and Boolean searches.

How do you present this gift? If you want to add a touch of holiday spirit, you could send it as a card. Use a relevant service or create your own card using a tool like Adobe Express Card Maker. Here’s one I created with Spark within 10 minutes:

2. A book on modern recruiting

Recruiting has grown exponentially from the time of newspaper job ads, and it’ll keep evolving and changing. Forward-thinking talent professionals who stay updated on new techniques and technologies will be the big winners in the recruiting game.

So why not give a new, exciting book to a recruiting professional? Here are a few great options:

• Culture-Driven Recruiting by Lee-Anne Edwards (the first-ever book on the topic)
• Smart and Gets Things Done by Avram Joel Spolsky (an oldie-but-goody “concise guide to finding the best technical talent”)
• Exceptional Talent: How to Attract, Acquire and Retain the Very Best Employees by Mervyn Dinnen and Matt Alder (a guide on using modern technology, methods and media to hire and retain great employees).
• Writing Without Bullshit by Josh Bernoff (an easy-to-read, comprehensive guide to better written communications including emails, announcements, and reports)

As for presentation, nothing too fancy is required. Get some festive wrapping paper and you’re all set!

3. A cool subscription

For recruiters, receiving new knowledge frequently is important – you can grasp new techniques, find hiring methods that work and discover new recruiting strategies, just by keeping abreast of the buzz in the market. But how would a recruiter do that easily, when they’re already so busy with everyday tasks?

One thing you can do is to choose a fun, interesting and reliable newsletter/podcast they don’t already subscribe to, and sign them up or send them a link (you can include a card to make it more of a gift). Here are a few ideas:

4. A new Applicant Tracking System

Yeah, I know, shameless plug of our own product. But the truth is, we wouldn’t be making recruiting software if we didn’t think of it as a definite game-changer. If a recruiter doesn’t have an ATS, or uses an ATS that’s clunky and inadequate, you could address this in the new year. That’s especially so if you’re part of the recruiting team or one of the decision-makers at your company.

What you can do is conduct some research on ATS vendors and sign up for a demo or free trial. Then, invite the recruiter to sit in demos or explore the different software solutions along with you. You can also share an RFP template with them to help in their hunt for the perfect ATS.

5. Recruiting swag

Swag is less useful than the other options on this list, but things that cheer us up and boost our morale are always welcome. For recruiters, you could choose a funny slogan (for example: “Keep calm and call that candidate,” “Trust me, I’m a recruiter,” “Talent superstar”) and print it on a mug or a T-shirt.

You could also go straight to websites that sell swag for recruiters, like Etsy, Cafe Press or Zazzle:

You might even look for a stuffed purple squirrel or a mug or T-shirt that has one on it. Recruiters will probably get the reference!

The holiday season and New Year go hand-in-hand for many people. If that’s the case for you, too, then check out our list of 5 New Year’s resolutions for recruiters.

The post Resources for recruiters: 5 fun and useful presents appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Assuming you’re able to attract a decent number of candidates per role, you still have to balance this quantity with identifying and shortlisting the most talented engineers. Otherwise, you’re likely sacrificing an average of $30,000 (not including compensation) for each bad engineering hire.

In this article, we’ll talk about screening and interviewing the software engineering candidates that you do get – quickly and at scale. By the end of it, you’ll be in a better position to build or improve your technical hiring process. This means:

• Clarity – everyone is aligned on the way you screen and hire engineers.
• Speed – faster time to hire so you avoid losing strong applicants during the hiring journey.
• Retention – hiring the right person in the first place can improve employee retention.

To achieve these goals, we’re going to suggest a standard hiring process for you to use and tweak for your organization. We’re also going to present the dos and don’ts for screening and interviewing developers based on CodeInterview’s first-hand expertise based on more than 100,000 engineering interviews per year.

But first, why should you have a separate hiring journey just for engineers?

What’s different about hiring tech talent?

Hiring technical talent is, in many ways, similar to hiring other types of professionals.

You define a role, advertise the job post, evaluate candidates, negotiate an offer and onboard the new employee.

However, there are details in this process that need special attention.

For example, the sourcing channels you use may be developer-focused or you may have to rely on headhunting more than usual due to high demand for talent.

When it comes to screening and interviewing, you will need to take into account criteria such as the specific technologies the role requires. And then, test for them.

You will also need different evaluation tools beyond questionnaires and meetings.

With that in mind, let’s take a detailed look at the key changes you need to introduce when designing and improving your technical hiring process.

1. Prioritize skills over experience and education

Few disciplines move as quickly as software engineering.

New technologies and frameworks emerge all the time and candidates that become complacent may fall behind, despite having many years of experience.

Moreover, the best developers are often self-taught tinkerers with little or no formal education in computer science.

So while a candidate’s professional and academic background is important, you should pay more attention to their skills and thought process demonstrated throughout the hiring journey.

2. Rely on coding tests and portfolios more than CVs

Don’t get me wrong – your screening process is still likely to start with a CV.

However, this is more of a tripwire to make sure irrelevant candidates are filtered out. For example, if you’re hiring for a Senior Ruby on Rails engineer, you should not waste time on candidates that are unfamiliar with this technology.

So in contrast to most other roles, the CV will not be an anchor point for you during further stages like an interview. Rather, it’s going to be projects the candidate has worked on and how they approached them.

Nowadays, you will typically have access to the candidate’s GitHub as a reference to previous projects. You can also send automated coding tests and discuss these during an initial interview.

While some candidates may be better at selling themselves on paper, hard coding skills can’t be faked or exaggerated. For these reasons, you should prioritize objective evaluation methods rather than resumes.

3. Send take-home projects instead of competency interviews

Take-home projects are typically longer (2-4 hour) assignments that dive deeper into a specific skill or technology required for the role.

These assignments are often paid and serve to narrow down your shortlist to just two or three candidates who make it to the final cut. As such, they are well suited as a follow-up to the initial interview.

While you can still have a competency interview, the take-home project can serve as the anchor point for this, discussing their thought process during a solution presentation.

4. Implement a solution presentation

While coding tests and take-home projects are relatively objective measurements of skill, some candidates may be able to bypass the rules by re-taking the test multiple times or getting help from a friend.

This is where a solution presentation is handy – think of it as a chance for the candidate to justify their approach. It’s also a good way to evaluate the candidate’s communication skills.

5. Hold virtual or in-person whiteboard interviews

For senior-level positions that require extensive knowledge of software architecture and design, you will often need to conduct a classic whiteboard interview.

6. Equip yourself with new tools

Hiring developers requires tools beyond online conferencing and email – particularly when hiring tech workers remotely. For example, you’ll need a coding interview tool, technical assessment software and a virtual whiteboard.

7. Adopt a new perspective for technical hires

As you can see, hiring technical talent requires changes to your hiring process and tools.

But there’s one more thing to keep in mind – the competitive landscape, especially if you’re not on the tech workers’ A-list. Because engineers are in such high demand, you need to adopt a perspective around speed and candidate experience to avoid losing candidates to competitors.

In addition, good developers are hard to find so make sure you optimize your sourcing channels and make the most of the applications that you do get from your efforts.

Standard technical hiring process to use

To present the best practices when screening and interviewing developers, we’ll suggest a sample framework you can use directly or tweak for your organization. Here’s the process:

1. Pre-screen

CV upload and a brief questionnaire to filter out candidates that don’t meet your minimum criteria. Your ATS should have the ability to filter applications based on self-selected skills.

Here’s the rationale: The CV and questionnaire are low barriers for getting candidates through the door. Engineers, probably more than anyone, don’t like lengthy hiring processes. When you reduce the barrier to apply, you create the initial commitment to complete the application.

At this stage, it’s important to develop a simple checklist to help you filter candidates faster. For example:

• Years of experience
• Programming languages & frameworks
• Any big achievements
• Salary expectations

2. Screen

Send an automated coding test to all candidates so you can objectively rank them based on skills and speed. Review the top candidates’ GitHub accounts to get a better understanding of their experience. Optional: request a short video introduction, especially for engineering management roles.

Note: Coding tests are prone to cheating (despite plagiarism detection). So don’t skip step 3 below:

3. Initial coding interview

Here’s what you should do here: prepare! Candidates are not the only ones that get assessed at this stage. You will also represent your company and creating a bad impression by not being organized or having the right questions prepared in advance can ruin the experience and compromise your hiring.

Now, on to other practical considerations:

Schedule the initial interview to talk about the candidate’s approach during the coding test as well as specific points of interest on their resume. Prepare a set of questions depending on the role so you can see the candidate code in real time.

To help you, here are some proven interview questions to ask:

• How would you solve problem X?
• Why did you select this specific technology/approach?
• What kind of resources can you recommend for someone earlier in their career?

In addition to critical thought, you should notice how many clarification questions they ask (the more, the better!); are they enthusiastic when talking about a solution? Are they able to present compelling arguments?

These types of questions will typically go a longer way than theoretical questions from CS 101.

Optional: for senior roles, you can include an additional whiteboard interview.

4. Take-home project

Narrow down your candidates to the top two or three using a paid take-home project. Allow at least a week to complete so the candidate can work around their schedule.

Here are some checkpoints to help you evaluate take-home projects:

• Does it run?
• Can the candidate write good test cases?
• Does the candidate clearly log changes?
• Did the candidate use a technology/approach they know well?

5. Solution presentation

Schedule a presentation to discuss the take-home project. The idea is to get a better understanding of the candidate’s decision making and communication skills. It’s also a good idea to invite the candidate’s potential co-workers so they can meet (online or in person) before step 6 below.

6. Trial day

Invite the best candidate to work with your team for a few hours or a full day. This is the best way to see how they would fit in and gain input from their potential team. The session can be in-person or remote, depending on the role requirements. Revert to the second-best candidate if you notice any red flags during the trial.

While this may sound like a lot, it’s nothing compared to the costs of hiring a bad engineer. As long as you approach the journey with respect for their time and effort, candidates will remain engaged throughout.

Once you go through the process several times, you will streamline the steps and achieve greater speed. You can also modify the process by removing or automating certain parts so it fits your own needs.

Needless to say, junior-level hires will not have to go through as rigorous an assessment as a senior engineer or manager.

What to avoid

Now you have a starting process for hiring technical talent. But what are some things to avoid at all costs to preserve your employer brand and the candidate experience?

Little or unclear information

Overcommunication is the way to go here. There’s nothing more frustrating for a candidate than a set of unclear instructions before meeting a hiring manager that’s waiting to be impressed.

Theoretical “trick” questions

Many candidates will have years or decades of experience so introductory CS problems are likely a distant blur.

Good developers are able to find the information they need quickly and have the necessary experience and intuition for effective problem-solving. Avoid theoretical questions designed to trip candidates unless it’s crucial to the role.

Lengthy evaluation periods

Good engineers will likely get several offers when looking for a job.

This is why you need to prioritize speed and avoid lengthy hiring procedures – or risk getting outpaced by competitors.

Make sure your process is streamlined and everything is ready for new hires to begin – from standard questions to onboarding documentation and legal contracts.

Conclusion

After years of recruiting engineers and seeing how the best companies do it, this is clear:

Developers are hard to get and harder to keep.

If you want to attract the right talent and increase your chances of retaining them, I hope the advice above will prove valuable in your technical hiring process.

To summarize:

• Create a parallel hiring process for engineers to accommodate adequate skills assessment.
• Utilize a standard procedure that’s understood by recruiters, hiring managers, candidates and other stakeholders alike.
• Tweak the procedure we have suggested to fit your own needs.
• Avoid the common pitfalls when hiring engineers such as long evaluation periods and irrelevant questions.

And if there is one thing to take away from this whole article, it’s this: hiring a bad engineer is worse than not hiring at all. So make the most of your incoming applications by rigorously selecting the best and most relevant talent for your organization without compromise.

Munir Usman is the founder and CEO of CodeInterview – a technical assessment platform for software engineers. Previously, he founded and later sold development agency Pi Labs where he personally recruited 100+ software engineers to work on high-stakes projects for companies like Microsoft, P&G and Nokia.

The post How to screen and interview software engineers at speed and scale appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

What is an alternating four-day workweek?

The idea of a four-day workweek is nothing new, and it’s something some companies have been offering as an option – or even a required schedule – for years. In most cases, this means that the employee works 10-hour days instead of eight, so the standard 40-hour workweek is completed in just four days. That way, instead of two days off per week, the employee gets three.

An alternating four-day workweek is a little different. With this plan, the employee works five days one week, and four the next. The day off could be Friday to allow for a three-day weekend every other week, but that is up to the individual employee and employer. Those additional days off provide the employee with tremendous flexibility to take extra trips, engage in their favorite hobbies, or whatever else they’d like to do with their spare time.

Why an alternating four-day workweek?

When the pandemic hit, we had to transition our team from being in-office to being a fully remote workforce. It was really all hands on deck to help the company come through the pandemic unscathed, and our team hunkered down and helped us figure out how to make our day to day operations more effective as a remote workforce. This meant lots of retooling and new process development … and long hours.

Working remotely can make work-life balance challenging and increase risk of burnout. A recent survey discovered that 69% of remote workers are experiencing burnout symptoms and 59% of remote workers are taking less time off than normal. Another survey stated that burnout at work doubled from March 2020 to April 2020.

Our hypothesis was that implementing this new perk would help prevent burnout, increase employee job satisfaction, and make our team feel more rested and ultimately, more productive, at work.

Our main concerns

My primary concern was ensuring that our clients and customers still had the level of support that they have come to expect from us. At the same time, I didn’t want this effort to make it harder on our support team as a result of any client frustrations or support ticket backlog. It was important to me that we still had adequate coverage for all teams and for all departmental responsibilities.

My secondary concern was making sure that this new schedule wouldn’t prevent anyone from being able to do their job. I didn’t want this alternating schedule to create any unnecessary stress for employees that couldn’t get something done because a key stakeholder was out of the office. But, all of these concerns can be prevented with proper planning.

How it’s been going so far

We piloted this new program from April to June 2021, a full quarter. We then said we would ressas with leadership, and see if this is something we would want to implement for the long term. Once the pilot was nearing the end, we sent a survey around to our team to get their feedback on this new work schedule.

Here are a few key takeaways:

• 100% of employees said that they wanted us to continue offering this benefit
• 93% of employees have said their productivity has improved, while the other 7% said their productivity has been the same
• 85% of employees said they feel more rested and happier at work

Anecdotally speaking, we also had a few key learnings, including;

• It really enabled better habits when it came to time management and meeting scheduling. For example, everyone seems to be more thoughtful about scheduling meetings in general, so as to not waste time.
• Many of the team members use Fridays for “deep work” days, with no meetings or interruptions.
• This has been a great perk to mention to job candidates during the hiring process, and has been a deal breaker for some of our recent hires.

Four-day workweek tips for you

If this is a concept that you are considering for your team, here are a few things to consider and tips for implementation.

1. Try it as a pilot program first

I highly recommend you “try it on” by first implementing it as a pilot or trial program, with a specific start date and end date, to see how your team and customers adapt to this change. This gives you the flexibility of trying it out before having to fully commit. You may learn that it’s great and everything is fine to move forward with it long-term, or you may learn that you need to tweak a few things.

2. Make any special conditions very clear

Ensure everyone is aware of any special conditions or restrictions to this process to set the right expectations. For us, we didn’t require longer hours during the week of their Friday off, but other companies do. So, if there are special conditions, make them very clear from the start.

3. Make the schedule transparent and visible

Meet with your team leads and schedule out everyone’s Friday off in advance. Make sure it’s clear and visible in a shared calendar so everyone is aware of who is and who isn’t “in the office” on a given Friday. This also helps the team think in advance about any vacation days that may overlap or big events or meetings that need planning around.

4. Ensure your leaders lead by example

Leading by example is essential not only because leadership also needs time to recharge, but also because failing to follow through with the process can send mixed messages to employees and could cause anxiety on whether or not they should take the time off.

Matt Buchanan is the Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer at Service Direct, a technology company that offers local lead generation solutions for service businesses. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University. He has 15+ years of expertise in local lead generation, sales, search engine marketing, and building and executing growth strategies.

The post Implementing an alternating four-day workweek: how & why appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In fact, some surveys tell us that as many as 54% of all members of Gen Z want to become freelancers or start their own business. The number of self-employed people in 2021 was up 34% from 2020 to a staggering 51 million people in the United States. That’s roughly 15% of the entire population in the country working for themselves.

Cultural factors such as the rise of side hustles and part-time employment opportunities available through the Internet and social media are contributing to these numbers. More than two-thirds (68%) of those who began freelancing in 2021 were either millennials or Gen Z. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that self-employment is due to rise quicker than average employment growth over the next 10 years.

Employers need to catch up

During the pandemic and this challenging employment market, employers must reckon with these trends and consider how to incorporate this cultural shift into their recruitment policy.

During the pandemic and this challenging employment market, employers must reckon with these trends and consider how to incorporate this cultural shift into their recruitment policy.

While some effects of these trends can certainly be traced back to timing and the pandemic, the broader move towards virtual work and self-employment is a permanent one.

Those who choose the freelance and self-employed route are doing so for a variety of reasons. Employers need to understand what those are, and think about how to replicate them in their own workplaces if they want to remain competitive in the talent market.

There are, of course, benefits and drawbacks to self-employment and business ownership. Let’s first look at the main benefits:

What are the advantages of being self-employed?

1. Flexible schedule

Our collective understanding of work-life balance is changing to prioritize more time with family and better mental health. One of the themes we saw over and over again in the research we shared in our Great Discontent report was that candidates increasingly value a flexible work schedule.

This trend is reflected in candidates’ preferences – and often, their need – for jobs that allow them to work when it’s most convenient for them.

Flexible work, of course, is one of the hallmarks of self-employment. By definition, the contractor/client relationship prohibits clients from dictating how and when the contractor does their work, as they do for their employees.

2. Remote work

Despite some predicting that remote work would end en masse as soon as the pandemic did, we haven’t seen that occur. Instead remote work, like COVID-19, appears here to stay.

Candidates in our recent survey responded that, like flexible work, remote work options were very important when making the decision on where to work. Many are flat-out turning down jobs that are requiring employees to return to work in-person. And as is also the case with flexible work, countless self-employed people choose to work remotely.

Remote work also reduces or eliminates time spent commuting – we found that to be a perk in the Great Discontent survey as well. It’s also a benefit in other areas, as commuting is bad for our mental health, our finances, and the environment.

3. Better balance of caretaking/parenting challenges

Self-employed people can choose to work when and where they please. This is a bonus when it comes to caring for other family members – especially parents of young children.

They can take time off to take children to doctor’s appointments, or for a leisurely lunch with a friend, without needing to justify their actions.

4. 100% ownership of your business

Freelancing allows individuals the chance to create and retain their business’ value. This compared to a full-time employment scenario, in which a person rents out their labor to build value for a company, but retains no ownership stake or long-term financial investment in the company’s success.

The self-employment model potentially offers more financial stability and opportunities for wealth generation in the long term than traditional full-time employment. In fact, in a recent Upwork-commissioned study from September 2020, 60% of freelancers said they make more than they would in a traditional full-time job – and that percentage is up seven points from 2019.

5. No red tape or corporate politics

Excluding the red tape associated with handling your own business affairs like taxes, self-employment is refreshingly free of the red tape and politics associated with the corporate world.

When you’re outside of the corporate hierarchy, the contortions that full-time corporate employees must go through to manage social expectations, coworker relationships, and bosses are none of your concern.

This can be remarkably freeing, especially for introverts or others who are averse to the petty politics that often govern an office’s social structure.

6. Uncapped earning potential

Very few traditional full-time professions offer the benefit of uncapped earning potential, though this is one of the coolest and most convenient benefits of freelancing.

Freelance work, and therefore one’s income, can be scaled up or down depending on a person’s income targets for a given month. Your nanny is on vacation so you need to focus on taking care of your three children this month? Scale down for less responsibility and more free time. Looking to save for a down payment on a home? Scale up by looking for more, or higher paying, clients.

7. Ability to do work you’re passionate about

For many, self-employment represents the opportunity to do work they’re deeply passionate about. Often we are skilled in areas that we’d enjoy working in but in which there are no real full-time jobs available. Freelancing can give individuals the opportunity to combine their unique skill sets and pursue work they’re uniquely qualified for.

We see this play out in the arts industry specifically, where rates of self-employment are significantly higher than of all other professions – with 30% of artists working in freelance, according to a report from the National Endowment for the Arts. Full-time, profitable jobs in the arts are few and far between, but working as a freelancer can offer a better income and more job opportunities.

8. Freedom and control over one’s own career

A freelance career offers complete freedom. Lost interest in accounting and instead prefer to start a business doing wedding floral arrangements? Go for it! Want to cancel all your Friday meetings and go to a spa? No one’s stopping you!

It’s never been easier to start freelancing with zero startup capital, making this an open-source opportunity available to anyone with a solid internet connection and a willingness to work hard.

9. Pride in a job well done

Freelance work offers rewards based on a job well done, rather than simply showing up to work every day. Because it’s so results-focused, freelancers feel a sense of pride and ownership when they complete a project.

Got all that? Good. Now, let’s look at the main disadvantages of running one’s own operation.

What are the disadvantages of being self-employed?

1. Lack of insurance/benefits

One of the most difficult (and expensive) issues to navigate as a freelancer is finding benefits. With the widespread prevalence of employer-offered healthcare in the United States, leaving one’s job and finding healthcare on the open market can feel scary and risky. Self-employed people often end up paying more for healthcare.

Self-employed people also miss out on other financial benefits offered by employers, like 401K matching, stock options, temporary disability insurance, and vision/dental care.

2. Fluctuating income and work load

This one is a double-edged sword. While a variable work schedule can be harnessed for benefits like scalable workload and uncapped earning potential, it can also be difficult to cope without financial literacy, a healthy emergency fund, and the tenacity to get through some lean months.

3. Risk and stress

Likewise, some find that the risk inherent to business ownership, innovation, and self-employment is simply too stressful to cope with. That’s okay! What works for one person doesn’t work for everyone, and we all have different levels of risk tolerance depending on our financial situation.

While risk is to some degree a key component of any business venture, many self-employed people testify that they actually feel freelancing gives them financial security they never had while working a traditional full-time job. No one client makes up the entirety of a freelancer’s income, and should one client go under, they are easily replaced.

4. Loneliness and isolation

Psychologically, working for yourself is quite challenging. To use a common phrase, the buck stops with you. If something needs doing, you’re probably the one who does it.

While you can pick up many unique and helpful skills in this situation, it can also be lonely and isolating to deal with everything about your business on your own. There’s no one to hand the reins to when you want a break.

5. Tax disadvantages

There are financial advantages to traditional employment that employees take for granted. For example, employers pay half of the payroll tax due for their employees. The other half is generally automatically withheld from an employee’s paycheck. But self-employed people pay both parts themselves in the form of self-employment tax. The difference? Freelancers pay an additional seven percent of gross revenue to taxes, or 15.3% in total. That’s a major financial disadvantage.

Self-employed people also have to manually withhold their own taxes and pay them quarterly throughout the year to the IRS and their state’s department of revenue.

6. Added burden of business development

Freelancers must regularly spend time marketing their services to other businesses. This can add to your workload, but without it, it may be difficult to find new clients. Some find this cycle exhausting.

Use this to your advantage

As mentioned above, a key talent attraction opportunity for employers here is to incorporate the benefits of self-employment, and emphasize the things they can offer in a job that self-employment does not.

Employers suffer when they struggle to hire or retain great people, and employees suffer when their employers don’t respect their full lives and personal responsibilities. Creating a more balanced working relationship benefits everyone involved.

Employers suffer when they struggle to hire or retain great people, and employees suffer when their employers don’t respect their full lives and personal responsibilities. Creating a more balanced working relationship benefits everyone involved.

How employers can attract candidates with the benefits of self-employment

1. Fast-track the hiring process

Getting rid of unnecessary red tape is an easy way to emulate the freedom self-employed people enjoy. And furthermore, everyone hates it when the hiring process takes too long.

2. Support a collaborative culture

The managerial hierarchy of large corporations can be exhausting, confusing, and demoralizing. Creating a more collaborative culture, where employees of all ranks feel listened to, can give a taste of the creative freedom self-employed people enjoy.

3. Offer ownership stake in the company

Partial or full ownership of the fruits of your labor is a key element of financial freedom, and while small business ownership offers this in spades, traditional employers typically do not. But they can. This desire for ownership stake is a significant reason people work at startups – because they offer the chance at partial ownership which can become extremely profitable down the line.

There are also other methods of sharing ownership for companies that aren’t public, like tying bonuses to company performance.

4. Compensate fairly and competitively

With record inflation this past year, employees across the country are hurting financially. Finances are one of the most commonly cited reasons employees give to explain why they’re switching jobs. Reevaluate your compensation structure to make sure it truly is fair and generous in today’s environment.

Unpredictable finances are a major factor that drives people to leave freelancing and seek traditional employment. You can take advantage of this angle by offering a generous, regular paycheck.

5. Give flexible work and remote options

Flexible and remote work are now the norm for most white-collar workers, and if you don’t offer these perks, you’re falling behind. Keep in mind, too, that many people become freelancers because they can’t cope with the rigid work schedule most employers require.

Whether because they deal with a chronic illness or because they have young children to care for, flexible work is the answer for many who struggle to balance personal and work responsibilities. If you already offer flexible or remote work options, sweeten the deal with a home office stipend or student debt repayment assistance.

6. Encourage creativity and independence

Creative or entrepreneurial employees often leave to start their own businesses in part because their unique contributions go unappreciated or ignored within the narrow-minded managerial structure.

If you can show employees that those qualities add value to the company and are appreciated, you’re more likely to keep them. Everyone likes to have autonomy and agency at work.

7. Create purpose and engagement

What does your company serve? Whose lives do you benefit? Do you manufacture products that destroy the environment or rely on inhumane, cheap labor?

People are highly motivated to give their time and energy to causes they believe in. Emulate the feeling of purpose and pride a person feels when they do work they know will make a positive impact.

8. Foster community and team building

Many self-employed people struggle with feeling isolated. There is nothing quite like working on a team of intelligent, hard-working people to collaborate on a common goal. Present your company culture as a real employment benefit – because it should be.

9. Give praise where it’s due

Self-employment is often thankless. Retain your employees by showing them that you support them, financially and personally. Spotlight employees who are doing great work and offer opportunities for growth and higher education for everyone.

If your organization is struggling to find candidates right now, as so many are, take note of the trend towards self-employment. There are real cultural and economical factors driving many highly qualified candidates to choose self-employment right now. If you want to work with them but aren’t willing or able to do so on a contract basis, you can use this insight about advantages of self-employment to tailor your recruiting messaging for today’s labor market.

The post Starved for talent? Support the freelance lifestyle at your work appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

The pandemic walloped just about everyone, but women were impacted most. According to research from the McKinsey Global Institute, female job losses due to COVID-19 are 1.8 times higher than men’s. As of February 2021, women lost 5.4 million jobs during the pandemic compared with 4.4 million lost by men.

Related: Gender and COVID-19: 7 stats on women at work in 2021

You might be thinking, “This is old news.” It’s not.

According to a recent report from the National Women’s Law Center, only 39,000 women entered the labor force in January of 2022, while at the same time, 1 million men entered the labor force.

At the same time, U.S. employers in need of talent are faced with extremely low unemployment rates of 3.6%. Many are singing the candidate shortage blues, which isn’t going away anytime soon.

How to solve two problems with one solution

Here’s one strategy that can help solve two problems – returnship programs, or Return to Work Programs.

A returnship is basically a full-time paid internship for people who have been out of the workforce for several years. The idea is that technologies and best practices may have changed while the person has stepped out. These programs help experienced workers quickly come up to speed.

This trend appears to be slowly gaining traction.

Some of the more high-profile companies offering returnships include Disney, Amazon Web Services, PayPal, and Microsoft.

Now is the perfect time to incorporate a returnship program into your talent strategy.

Some business owners are skeptical when hiring people who’ve been out of the workforce for a while. That’s unfortunate, as this means they’re missing out on a large pool of well-qualified candidates.

These programs can help you strengthen your company culture, and who couldn’t benefit from that these days? It won’t take long for word to get out about your family-friendly work policies, which will help you recruit and retain talent. This approach could be an excellent solution for staffing some of the harder-to-fill positions in your organization.

How to start a returnship program

Now that you’re aware of the various benefits of having a returnship program, here’s how you can go about starting one in your company.

1. Establish the guidelines

How long will someone need to be out of the workforce, to be eligible for your program? How long will your program run for? Will participants be paid or not? Will members remain in one position or rotate through several departments?

Will everyone be paid the same, or will pay rates vary depending on experience? Is the program solely for women, or will men be permitted to apply too? Can participants work from home, or will they be required to come to the office?

2. Assemble the job description

Check with your department heads to see if they’re interested in participating in the program. If so, have them write a job description that outlines the role, expectations, and requirements.

Be sure to state “returnship” or “return-to-work” in the job description so that everyone understands this is a temporary position.

3. Get the word out about your program

Create a separate page on your career website to showcase this forward-thinking program. Post the job descriptions on job sites to help increase your reach. Don’t forget to let your employees know about this new offering, as many may have friends or family members who may be interested in participating.

4. Assess candidates

When evaluating candidates, remember to focus on the person’s potential and current skills rather than experience. Consider the skills gained while stepping out of the workforce.

5. Launch your program

The most effective returnship program includes onboarding, opportunities to meet senior executives, and skills training. It’s also a best practice to assign a mentor to each participant.

6. Adjust your program as you go

It’s unlikely that everything will be perfect right out of the gate. Gather ongoing feedback from participants and adjust your program accordingly.

Returnships are like internships – but for skilled workers. Establishing such a program can help soothe some of your hiring blues.

Roberta Matuson, The Talent Maximizer® and President of Matuson Consulting, helps world-class organizations like General Motors, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and Microsoft hire and retain world-class talent. Roberta is the author of six books on talent and leadership, including the newly released, Can We Talk? Seven Principles for Managing Difficult Conversations at Work, and Evergreen Talent. Sign up to receive her free newsletter, The Talent Maximizer®. Follow her on Twitter.

The post Why a returnship program can soothe your hiring blues appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

We at Workable and Bryq have the data to help you build your talent attraction package so you can attract – and keep – those star employees. Let’s dive in!

Want to see all the data in one place? Jump to the full infographic below or download it for your own files.

Remote work by gender

Employees who work remotely in their current role:

• 51% men
• 54% women
• 52% overall

Employees who want to work remotely in their next role:

• 65% men
• 75% women
• 69% overall

Nearly 70% of candidates are looking for remote roles, while female candidates are 15% more likely than male candidates to be looking for remote work.

Breakdown of what workers most often cited as what’s most important to them in their next role:

Both men and women prioritized the same things when looking for their next role but at different rates. Men looked for better advancement opportunities 16% more often than women and looked for more meaningful work 20% more often than women.

Women, however, looked for a higher salary 12% more often than men and looked for better work-life integration 30% more often than men.

62.2% of US respondents and  70.1% 0f UK respondents cite compensation as a top factor in deciding to move to a new company.

Support your employees’ home lives as well as their work lives

Females in the US are more than twice as likely as males to cite family priorities as the reason why they’re not working, with a difference of 39.4% vs. 19.3%.

In the UK, the difference is much more pronounced, with 41.7% of UK women and 6.7% of UK men citing family priorities as the reason why they’re not working.

Lack of advancement opportunities for minority workers

The percentage of each group in terms of how likely they’d leave their current job for another one with better advanced opportunities:

• 27% American Indian- Alaskan Native
• 31% Asian
• 43% African-American
• 34% Hispanic/Latino
• 27% Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander
• 25% Caucasian

Black workers are 70% more likely than white workers to leave their jobs for better advancement opportunities. In fact, white
workers were the least likely of all ethnicity groups to leave their roles for better advancement opportunities.

Workers with disabilities want remote work

Of the population of workers with a disability in the workforce, over 60% of them were already working from home. Going into 2022, a staggering 76% of workers with disabilities are looking to work remotely in their next role.

Younger workers are the future of our workforce

More than two out of five (42.8%) of those aged 21-29 say they’re actively looking for a new job, compared with just one quarter (24.7%) of those aged 50-59.

We live in a diverse society. A one-size-fits-all strategy can only get you so far. With flexibility in your benefits package and working environment, you’re providing an environment in which your employees can thrive.

Workable is where the world hires. Find and hire the right person for every job. See how we’ve enabled over 20,000 companies to make over 1.3 million hires – sign up for a demo or 15-day free trial. And learn more about candidate attraction in our Great Discontent report. 

Bryq is an award-winning talent intelligence solution that will transform the way you recruit and manage talent. Use Workable and Bryq together to eliminate bias within the hiring process, promote internal mobility through career pathing, and grow and cultivate your company culture. Download Bryq’s full hiring report here and book your free demo today.

The post INFOGRAPHIC: Want to keep your employees? Give them what they need appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Here’s how to get both elements right.

1. Recruitment

A personal anecdote: I remember searching for jobs about five years ago. While passing through the railway station in Leeds, UK, a gigantic advert caught my eye, sprawling across the platform wall in the eyeline of thousands of travelers and commuters.

It was a recruitment advertisement for a healthcare software company, with a fantastic starting salary figure and ‘no experience required’. I made a mental note, checked their website for a suitable role, found a marketing and communications position I liked the look of, and sent off my CV later that day.

A couple of days later, my phone rang. A recruiter from the software business liked the look of my application and wanted to invite me for an interview. Great!

“Just one question first, Alex. Where do you live right now?”

I told her: about 30 miles away, just less than an hour’s drive and within an acceptable commute radius for me.

“Ahh… would you consider moving for this position?”

I was taken aback and paused for a moment. “No, I’ve just moved house actually. As I say, I’m happy to drive that dista…”

“No, it’s just that we have a policy. All of our workers have to live within a 20-minute walk of the office.”

“… Right. Okay. Why?”

I can’t remember the reason she gave, so it can’t have been a good one. And that was the end of that.

In all honesty, I felt I was a great fit for the position I’d seen and could have offered something to the business. But a ridiculously small catchment net had filtered me out, and no doubt many other more skilled and experienced candidates.

Mind your candidate filters

This extreme case of ‘candidate filter’ is the perfect example of the opposite of what a remote recruitment strategy can do for your business.

Jettisoning the physical considerations of commuting can offer your business access to a talent pool many times larger than if you were in an office.

Depending on the products and services you offer, you may require your staff to be situated in the same country or time zone. Or, like the company I work for, it may not matter – allowing you to target the best talent across countries and continents.

Ultimately, the long-term strength of your business depends on the quality of the new talent you can onboard and integrate. The power to take your pick is the primary benefit of a remote-friendly recruitment strategy – so give some thought to how wide your recruitment net can reasonably be!

Once you’ve settled on that, ensure that:

• Job advertisements are properly categorized as remote and contain remote-related keywords for SEO
• The hiring process uses the same tools and approaches as your day-to-day remote work to familiarize candidates early on
• Candidates are adequately screened and prepared for a remote culture before hiring completion

This final point is a crucial one. During the hiring process for my current position, I passed through multiple Zoom interviews where I discussed the role and my suitability, followed by a final interview with a member of the people team. This focused entirely on values and culture rather than the actual role, and involved a discussion about remote working. Had I worked remotely before? Did I have any reservations about remote work which could be cleared up? Did I have any questions about what the working day would look like?

This final discussion allowed me to make my decision to accept the position with complete preparedness and with both parties confident I’d fit in.

2. Retention

The best retention strategy is to not have one.

In other words, fostering a genuinely attractive and empowering culture without consciously worrying about retention will take care of employee attrition itself.

Here, too, building with remote work in mind is crucial. People are embracing remote work for three primary reasons:

• Work-life balance
• Flexibility
• Clearing out commutes and distractions

Crafting your culture to maximize these benefits will ensure employee retention is maximized with them.

The company I work for, Qualio, is a good example of how this works.

Alongside our core activity of making, marketing and providing eQMS software, our people team are hard at work continuously shaping, evolving and cascading a remote culture.

Key ingredients include:

• Emphasis on asynchronous and flexible work, allowing people to work around personal commitments and schedules
• Employee resource groups (ERGs)
• Slack channels for work and non-work communication. Alongside team-specific groups like sales, marketing and customer success sit groups for gardening, football, cooking, pets and more
• A ‘local everywhere’ focus, including expensing books from local independent bookstores during the holiday season
• Celebration of remote work through a dedicated #culture-remote Slack channel, with shared images of where people are working from
• Focus Fridays without scheduled meetings

Getting elements like this in place will help a remote culture coalesce and, in turn, help retain the same employees who were drawn to your business with your remote-focused recruitment.

Remote work has huge value

Modern workers are clamoring for remote opportunities. Making the conscious effort now to build a remote culture, then using it to attract new talent, is an unskippable step for organizations who want to maximize recruitment and retention efficiency in the post-COVID world.

There are no shortcuts to a genuinely empowering and flexible remote culture – but get it right, and your recruitment and retention efforts will take care of themselves.

Alex Pavlović has worked in the quality and compliance space for 5 years, producing a range of industry content to help Qualio blog visitors understand the complex and highly regulated environments of modern life science.

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U.S. President Joe Biden recently announced that the United States would accept up to 100,000 more refugees from Ukraine, though some fear that this will put an additional strain on the system. Still, in reality, it is a tremendous opportunity for both American citizens and Ukrainian refugees to help each other out.

When those refugees arrive in the country, these refugees will need jobs, and American businesses need people to fill open positions. If a mutually beneficial solution can be reached, everyone can thrive and prosper.

Related: What companies are doing to support Ukrainians and Russians

Qualifications of Ukrainian refugees

Ukraine is one of the most-educated societies globally, with an 83% tertiary gross enrollment ratio. That means most people from Ukraine have received some level of higher education, many of whom were driven out of their country. There is a phenomenon known as Brain Drain that occurs in times of significant conflict, and it results in high-talent individuals leaving their home countries to pursue opportunities elsewhere.

Nevertheless, some American businesses have failed to recognize credentials and experience gained in other countries. Admittedly, the education system in every country is different, and the education system in Ukraine is likewise different from that in the United States. Some critics argue that the quality of the training and education received by these immigrants is unverifiable.

Still, in a country where literacy and education are as valued as it is in Ukraine, you may expect Ukrainian workers to be exceptionally qualified.

Even though only 11% of the Ukrainian population speaks English, the English literacy in the country is dependent on their occupation and what region of Ukraine they come from. Their age is a factor as well – younger Ukrainians are more likely to have learned English than their older counterparts. Also, people working in professional sectors in the country’s urban centers will be more likely to speak English than people who work blue-collar jobs in rural areas.

But beyond that, there are several tools that refugees have at their disposal to help them learn English so that they can successfully find a job.

The United States is particularly suited to bring these Ukrainian refugees into the workforce because of the shift towards remote work. The humanitarian parole provided to Ukrainian refugees provides them with temporary work authorization, although it does not offer the same path to citizenship that comes with traditional refugee status.

It’s a handoff – these emergency solutions are a quick way for these refugees to reach safety, but they are only temporary solutions.

How Ukrainian workers can help fulfill the need for staff

However, given the labor shortage that the United States is facing right now, qualified refugees from Ukraine could be a source of relief for American businesses. The current job market is seeing more vacancies than there are job-seekers, and these 100,000 new workers that are going to be entering the country may be able to fulfill this need while providing for themselves and their families.

It is the business’s responsibility to ensure that they comply with all tax and immigration laws when they are employing refugees. Companies cannot favor hiring Ukrainian refugees, but they can make the process much easier for them to be considered. Legal guidance is an absolute necessity in situations like this, especially in such volatile times.

Regardless, the most important thing that employers should do when hiring refugees is to treat the situation with empathy and care. Just because they are coming to you when they are in need does not mean that they are worth any less to your business. You must treat them like you would any other worker. In fact, with the level of need that the job market has right now, it is a mutually beneficial setup.

Many Americans may not realize the skills and talents that Ukrainian refugees have because they only see them as immigrants who are now struggling to assimilate into a new society. But refugees have left an entirely different life behind, many of them with education and experience that rivals or exceeds that of American candidates.

Recognizing their potential is the first step in supporting refugees and fulfilling the needs of your business.

Ms. Winans is the Chief Executive Officer and Principal HR Consultant for Next Level Benefits.

The post What Ukrainian workers can bring to the American workplace appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

With tech being the backbone of all workplace changes, it also opened the door for job migration – from the comfort of your home. Job seekers suddenly found themselves with a plethora of options on a global market, and recruiters gained access to a global talent market. All of a sudden, there were new considerations to take into account. Let’s take a look at the workforce trends you need to keep in mind going forward.

Educational diversity

The path to employment is different for every employee. This has been true for quite some time, and this workforce trend is getting more spotlight time as jobs across industries overlap with one another. The skillset needed to get a certain job done has expanded, meaning that a job can be done by people with diverse educational backgrounds.

Not only that, but the question of experience vs. education has never been as prominent as now and will continue as a workforce trend – previous work experience creates habits that might be more valuable than education with no actual workdays logged.

This educational diversity is an asset for businesses. Different educational backgrounds can take various forms: your candidate might be jumping into your industry with a totally different skillset; or you might get candidates with appropriate education but from a different part of the world. Both scenarios have the potential to broaden your team’s capabilities.

However, educational diversity can also be a source of conflict – be it cultural or operational – due to the increased likelihood that different backgrounds bring different approaches to workflows and processes. This can easily be mitigated through custom onboarding procedures: take your time when shortlisting candidates, and create a custom learning and onboarding journey for each of them. That way you’ll address their starting point, and also be able to lead all candidates to the same endpoint.

Generational differences

Today’s workforce is generationally very diverse, possibly more than ever. The workforce includes Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Y, and Gen Z – and all their individual peculiarities contribute to diversity further than mere age differences.

Different generations want different things and value different perks. Gone are the days when financial stimulus was the sole driver of employee satisfaction; workers nowadays have a much deeper pool of benefits they like to see at their job of choice. One major consideration is work/life balance, which stems from hybrid and remote work models, as well as different approaches to work schedules.

Naturally, this means recruiters need to take all of these into account if they want to attract and retain multi-generational talent in the future of hiring. Remote work, flexible shifts and hours – there is still considerable disparity between employees and employers on the importance of each, but this gap needs to go away since mutual benefit is at stake.

And speaking of gaps: companies with low scores for gender and ethnic/cultural diversity are 29% less likely to drive their profit margins above the overall average. This is another major issue to address.

Cultural considerations

This workforce trend was already in motion before the pandemic hit, but lockdowns forced us to open up to the global market much faster. The job market suddenly went global, with tools developed to circumvent stay-at-home orders now being the facilitators for quick and efficient online communication.

As recruiters find themselves doing recruitment with candidates from abroad – and from other parts of the world as well – cultural differences and sensitivity come into play. A simple talk can get more complicated moving from someone from your vicinity to someone from a different continent; a job interview just multiplies the considerations to bear in mind.

Recruiting for an abroad branch poses a very similar adaptation problem, although a bit different than drawing talent to your HQ. While you might funnel differences towards yourself when recruiting for your HQ, setting up a branch in an entirely different culture poses a new set of challenges.

In any case, it’s wise to keep in mind that companies with top performance in ethnic/cultural diversity on executive teams are one-third more likely to reach profits that are industry-leading.

Fighting bias

With all of the above being very tangible and legitimate processes that were already happening before COVID (up to a point), it’s now time to accept that things have irreversibly changed. This might have a grim ring to it, but things have also irreversibly changed for the better in many other ways.

What this all means is that recruitment specialists need to have their priorities straight, and on top of the list is fighting bias on all levels. Bias is the final instance that we can efficiently eliminate from our workflows, and doing so will not only positions your organization as inclusive and diverse, but might end up being a driver for bottom lines as well.

Unconscious bias may lead us to project character traits onto people based solely on some superficial characteristics, such as attire, accent, personality, physical appearance, etc. This can lead us to think well of undeserving individuals; if the projected traits are negative, the bias might end up being unfairly discriminatory. Eliminating the bias variable at each step in the recruitment process – whether conscious or not – will broaden your reach in the search for talent.

It’s all for the better – time to roll with it

The working environment has irrevocably changed. Generally speaking, it changed for the better. New generations have been brought up with a much wider scope of available information, and it has formed them into much more aware, conscious, and inclusive individuals.

Much like these workers prefer brands who do their part for the community, they are also likely to search for workplaces that align with their values and their preferred way of work. All of this is a gateway leading to better matches in recruiting, as well as getting talent with a border worldview and better capabilities.

The one thing standing in the way of these workforce trends is identifying the changes in motion, and putting them into the recruiting equation. From there, your work is cut out for you.

Derek Jones spearheads key initiatives at Deputy, a global workforce management platform for employee scheduling, timesheets and communication. With a focus on workforce, Derek helps business owners and workforce leaders simplify employment law compliance, keep labor cost in line and build award-winning workplaces. 

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But their job didn’t change, and the pandemic continued for too long, and now, no one wants to come back to the office. Just what do you do about salaries now that the employee can choose their own cost of living?

Since salary is top of mind for many active and potential jobseekers, it’s an important discussion.

So, let’s look at the options you have as an employer when considering salary structure:

Option 1: Ignore location when considering salaries

Historically, all salaries were local because everything was local. Your clients lived next door, and you couldn’t charge more than they could pay. Today, whether you are in manufacturing or app building, your clients could be anywhere across the globe.

So, it makes little sense to determine a salary based on where someone lives when their labor brings revenue from elsewhere. (There are, of course, strictly location-based jobs: plumbers, retail workers, dentists, etc.) But even a manufacturing plant could be supplying products for New York City just as easily as it supplies products for Nebraska.

With these thoughts in mind, you calculate salaries based on the value the person brings to the company – regardless of where they sit. Whether in an office or from home, it’s all about value.

This can be difficult to calculate – with a salesperson, it’s easy: it’s a percentage of how much they sell. It can also be easy for a manufacturing plant – how much product do they produce? But what about your HR person? Your IT person?

While good people in these positions bring value to the company, that value can be hard to calculate. Just how much money does your HR person save you by ensuring your company complies with employment laws? The answer could literally be millions. But, no one calculates it that way.

Fortunately, you don’t have to do too much fancy math to figure this out. Take your current salaries and advertise new positions based on those salaries. If qualified people apply, great! You’ve found the right compensation. If only unqualified people apply, bump it up. If you get 100 overqualified people applying, you’re probably offering too much.

Option 2: Location is everything

Google said they would vary salaries based on location as part of their return-to-work program. If you stay in California, you’ll make more money than if you relocate to Texas.

You can buy a much bigger house in Texas for a lot less money than your tiny San Francisco apartment, so people are pretty okay with that.

But, what if you currently operate out of Texas and say, “Everyone who wants to can work from home!” and then someone moves to San Francisco? Most companies will balk at increasing a salary when someone moves. It’s worth noting that Google’s headquarters are in a costly location (San Francisco) so they save money by following this plan.

Towns that have been inundated with big-city refugees are tired of watching their housing prices soar as big-salaried Californians snap up properties. It can be devastating for local groups.

Option 3: Think hybrid

The best solution is a hybrid one: you need to consider both location and national salaries for jobs – especially those in high demand that can be done remotely. While it may not seem fiscally responsible to pay more than you absolutely have to, the Great Resignation means that you may have a hard time keeping people if you’re not willing to be on the high end of compensation market rates.

People who need to be onsite – either full time or a couple of days a week – will need to live close by and you can look towards more localized salaries. People who can literally live anywhere won’t want to take a lower salary just because they’ve moved away.

Be very clear about your salaries when hiring. And be honest about remote working opportunities. Candidates don’t like the bait-and-switch technique where you advertise the position as “remote” but then switch that to in-office or even hybrid.

And, as far as keeping costs down, remember, if an employee is working 100% remotely, you don’t need to pay for space for that employee. You’re saving money on office costs – pay that forward in the form of higher salaries.

Shifting salaries, shifting locations

This may all become a moot point as local market rates start to disappear – at least for jobs that can be done remotely. Even if you require your accountant to work onsite, you may find that you’ll have to pay the same amount as someone in a wealthier area would. Right now, salaries are changing, and we’ll see how it plays out.

And while people clamor loudly for remote work opportunities, there is no guarantee that those preferences are fixed. When it’s just you and your spouse working from home, it can be pleasant. Add three kids and a dog, and you just might look forward to the office every day.

Related: What about salary transparency? See Suzanne’s take on that as well.

And people are moving – from California, Illinois, and New York (among others) to Idaho, Florida and Texas. As things shift around, the most important thing is for you to pay attention. If you struggle to hire or retain staff, you’ll need to change how you do things. If you’re open with your salary ranges and working conditions and get plenty of applicants, you’re doing it right.

Remember, if you wait to adjust until some expert tells you what you should do, you’re too late. And that may mean paying based on location and it may mean paying on skills only. You’ll have to pay attention and get ahead accordingly.

The post Salary based on location versus pay for value: which is better? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Resurface Candidates compliments these sourcing features by looking to another source – your talent pool. Resurface Candidates uses Workable’s AI Recruiter technology to read your job description, identify what you’re looking for, and then find the best matches in your account before you even publish your job.

So, how does it work? It matches the candidates based on keywords, prior evaluations, as well as the sentiment of your team’s comments.

Expect to cut down your time to hire and improve your quality of hire with Resurface Candidates.

It’s easier than ever to re-engage and hire candidates that you already know. Start using it.

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It was a tough decision in the end, of course, but that now means you have four high-quality candidates that you could consider for another, similar role in your organization.

The benefits of resurfacing past candidates

The value of resurfacing past candidates may be already clear, but let’s quickly walk through those tangible benefits one by one:

1. Candidates are already pre-vetted

The candidates in your system have already been evaluated – especially the finalists – even if it was for another, different job. Your hiring team is already familiar with them – and notes can be shared with new hiring team members. In short, these candidates are already pre-vetted, enabling you and your team to get a head start on evaluating them for a new role.

2. Your time to hire is quicker

Because candidates come pre-vetted, the time it takes from that first application to the first day of the new job will be markedly shorter. You may not even have to post the job ad again – just start reaching out to those past candidates and close the loop on the whole process.

3. It can be a better candidate experience

It’s a great experience for candidates, too. Jobseekers who are contacted for new opportunities with you will be encouraged to know that they won’t have to go through the whole evaluation period again from scratch. That’s very attractive to candidates exploring multiple opportunities or are weary of the job search.

Plus, it’s always nice to know you’re wanted. That’s a powerful message to a candidate.

4. It saves time and money

The recruitment process can be time-consuming and expensive. All the costs associated with posting a job ad and other tangible expenses, combined with the number of hours invested in the process by members of the hiring team, can add up.

You’ve seen our tutorial on how to calculate the ROI of an ATS. Some of those expenses can apply here as well to show the ROI of resurfacing past candidates. There’s a huge amount of time and resources saved by recontacting candidates you’re already familiar with.

5. You know they’re interested

These are candidates who have already gone through the process with you. They’re already more familiar with your company now, and if you’ve communicated your side well, they clearly want to work for you. Otherwise, they wouldn’t apply, right?

The risks of resurfacing past candidates

With every new solution, new challenges arise. There can be risks in reconnecting with past candidates. Let’s go through those risks one by one.

1. Reconnecting can be awkward

It’s just like when you break up with someone – and then you text them later to check in on them and see about going on another date. Awkward, right?

The same applies here. The ego of a rejected candidate may be bruised and they may feel put off by the fact that you’ve just contacted them again for another role.

Fair enough. Put yourself in their shoes. You’d feel like you were the “second choice’ because the other person didn’t work out or something like that. Not good for a candidate experience, and doesn’t bode well for your employer brand.

2. The new job is ‘less’ than the old one

It’s possible that the new opening you’re reaching out to candidates about is at a lower pay grade or requires less experience than the original job they applied for. That’s not a great message to send to a candidate: “You’re not good enough for that role, but perhaps this lower-paid, less interesting job in the same company will be a better fit for you.”

Would you go for an opportunity like that? Probably not.

3. There are data privacy issues

Thanks to social media, outbound marketing efforts, and other developments, data privacy legislation – and awareness – is popping up everywhere. At best, people can be wary and feel invaded when contacted out of the blue. At worst, they may be suspicious as to how you got their contact information and challenge you on that point even publicly. Again, not a good look for your brand.

The best practices of resurfacing past candidates

OK, now that we’ve been through the good and the bad – let’s go to the best practices. How can you do it in a way that wins the best candidates to your team? Let’s start:

1. Preempt the potential awkwardness

Every interaction with a candidate – even though they’re not yet an employee – impacts their impression of you and your employer brand. Everything counts – your timely messaging, your friendly, engaging manner, the time in between stages, setting expectations, the whole bit.

Making a strong positive impression on the candidate may actually increase their willingness to work for you. If you end up selecting someone else for the job, the candidate may be disappointed but responsive when you tell them you’d love to keep their resume on file for potential future openings with the company.

2. Clarify that it’s not a “rejection”

No one likes to feel rejected – whether you’re turning down an expression of affection, a project proposal or, of course, a job application. It may be a candidate market right now, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting when you tell a candidate, “Sorry – you were great, but we went with this other person instead.”

It does matter how you do it. You can outright reject the candidate, and they’ll walk away in a huff, and you’ll never hear from them again. Or you can turn it around and explain that they aren’t actually being rejected – it’s just that they weren’t the right fit for this specific role that you’re hiring for. But you would love to keep their application on file because your company will be opening up more roles very soon (see above).

Related: Learn how to reject candidates without burning bridges

3. Allow candidates to self-select in

When you’re hiring at scale or turning away dozens of candidates in the screening/first interview stage, you may not have the time or opportunity to engage each and every one of them using the above two tips.

That’s where you can include an option in the application form giving candidates the opportunity to self-select in for future opportunities with you. This can be a checkbox, a verbal agreement, or something else. Note that this may be a requirement in some jurisdictions due to privacy laws.

4. Look at notes about candidates

A good practice for members of the hiring team is to keep clear and consistent notes on candidates after an interaction with a candidate be it an email, interview, screening call, or another form of communication. If those notes are comprehensive, that’s where you should look to get a good understanding of whether candidates are interested in a specific role with your company or in being part of your team overall.

Read more: How to document interview feedback for your hiring team

Maybe you’re looking to fill a similar role (i.e. another opening in sales) or you’re hiring in another area altogether – one way or another, these notes will help you hugely in predicting their interest in pursuing a new opportunity with you.

5. Engage only the top-shelf candidates

Finally, you don’t want to give false hope to those middle-of-the-road candidates who probably wouldn’t have gotten the job anyway. If you do that, you’re wasting their time – and yours as well. That leads to a poor experience and could reflect badly on your brand as an employer.

It’s better to only reach out to those star candidates who you sincerely think will be great fits for the new role. When you’re looking at those resurfaced candidates, ask yourself if you’d hire them on the spot. If the answer is yes, reach out to them. If it’s no, then move on.

6. Set clear messaging and expectations

This best practice is probably the most important. You don’t ever want to send a clumsy message to a jilted candidate and leave them with even more questions than answers. It’s worse if you skip over the reality that you rejected them the first time around.

Instead, be clear in your language so the candidate has all the information they want and need. In a friendly email, you can cover the following points, for instance:

• Your previous relationship – include quick details about the previous job, who they communicated with, and the conclusion of that process
• Why you’re reaching out to them now – include information about how they opted in for future opportunities and that you have a new role they might be interested in
• Details about the new job – include job description, who the position reports to/works with, salary (if applicable), and other related details
• Why they’re a great fit for the new role – this one is especially important. This is also your opportunity to address issues around lower pay grades, different responsibilities, and other question marks the candidate might have.
• A timeline – ideally with preset dates for interviews and a decision.

Here’s an example of how all of that can be addressed in a short, punchy email:

“Hi [candidate], I hope this email finds you well. We talked with you previously about job X, and you expressed your interest in staying in touch.

While we ended up going with another candidate for job X, we’d love to meet with you again about job Y in our company. I’ll be honest – it’s at a lower pay grade/has different responsibilities than job X, but there are elements of this new job that we think you’d be very excited about.

The job description is attached, and the role will report directly to our CMO. We’re looking to make a hiring decision by Thursday, January 10.

If you’re interested – and we hope you are – please book a time with me at [calendar link].”

Remember, you’re both professionals talking about a business arrangement in the end. You’re both mutually interested parties; if you go about it right, you’ll attract those candidates and hopefully win them over in quick time.

Getting candidates for a job is no longer as simple as posting a job ad. You can now market your company and role to them, you can source new candidates, and you can get back in touch with candidates who are already back in your system.

The post Starved for workers? Resurface your top candidates from past job openings appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

And there’s a lot of work to be done yet. One of Amy’s core objectives going into 2022 is to maintain employee retention and engagement while at the same time tripling the size of the business throughout the year.

In her words: “We’re going to have some enormous growth.”

In the midst of all of that is keeping her team members – both current and future – motivated.

This means, she says, “investing in all of our people to ensure that our culture is one that everybody’s super excited to be a part of and where they can grow their careers and do some of the best work of their lives, and have a lot of fun in the process.”

Doing that in a high-volume tech hiring space is a big undertaking – but she’s succeeding in the venture with a combination of expertise and street smarts.

On surviving the Big Quit

One of the significant developments of 2021 is, of course, the Great Resignation in the United States. Quit rates in the country are at an unprecedented high – reaching as high as 3% of the total working population with upwards of four million workers handing in their notice every month from July 2021 to November 2021.

Add to that an increasingly loud voice among younger workers about their disillusion with current work culture – so succinctly and blatantly on display in Reddit’s Antiwork community (which employers do need to pay attention to).

While obvious, this does signal a clear shift in the talent market. The onus is no longer on candidates to prove their worth to an employer; it’s now on the employer to position themselves as a place where people want to work. So, the question bears asking: what’s the employee value proposition that you can offer to make your job opportunity more attractive to a prospective employee?

For Amy, that value prop includes the working environment that you’re creating for them.

“I think the trend in 2022 is that people are going to look for companies that want to invest in them,” Amy says. “They’re going to look for companies that are flexible and aren’t going to require that they go into an office that they don’t want to go into, that will continue to afford them the flexibility that they’ve all grown to appreciate.”

And this isn’t going to end anytime soon. In fact, it marks a paradigm shift that employers need to adapt to. The Great Discontent report released in mid-2021 shows that flexible work options is high up the list of things that candidates value in a job, with 37.5% of US workers saying it’s one value proposition that would attract them to a new opportunity.

And SMBs that think about their employees first are the ones that’ll get ahead in the new talent game, says Amy.

“Companies are starting to realize how important engagement and investment is in their people,” she explains. “And those are the companies that are winning. And so if you were to talk to those companies, they would probably report lower than market averages in terms of loss. And the reason is because they have the formula. They understand what they need to do.”

Amy does offer a caveat – this needs to be done in a way that supports both ends of the equation.

“[Employers] have to create a trusting environment and a supportive environment and still be able to drive productivity and all the things that are core and critical to the business in an effective way. So I realize that there’s a balancing act here. Employers want to be able to maximize the return from the people.”

There’s tangible proof of the ROI in all this. A 2017 Gallup study finds that highly engaged employees lead to a 17% increase in company productivity, and 24% less turnover in companies in high-turnover sectors.

Amy doubles down on that message – because of that clear ROI, companies need to put in the work to meet those new expectations in the talent market.

“[That’s the] balancing act for 2022 that people really have to figure out.”

On investing in your workers

So how exactly do you ‘invest’ in your people? One area surging in popularity in 2022 is learning and development. In a survey commissioned by Workable and TalentLMS, 91% of tech workers want more learning opportunities from their current employers and 58% cited “skills development” as one criteria in choosing who they want to work for. It’s also a top motivator for tech employees.

And there are other ways to attract and engage employees – Amy shares a few more with us.

The value of connection

Amy stressed several times the importance of ensuring that workers feel connected to the company, whether that’s in a remote environment or otherwise.

“First of all, you have a full-time person dedicated to building the community, whether it’s different activities, whether it’s different communication strategies; there’s a number of different things that have to happen in order for that to be done effectively.”

We’re humans after all – the sense of community in the workplace can be a powerful thing.

The value of compensation

In the above-mentioned Great Discontent worker survey, 63% of workers cited salary as the reason why they’re looking elsewhere for a new job – and 62% say it’s the top factor in their decision to move to a new job.

It’s clear: companies must think about compensation in their value proposition.

“I do think you have to pay people competitively for the market, for their job. And so if you’re underpaying people and you’ve gotten away with it so far, you probably won’t continue to get away with it because people are starting to realize what they’re worth because of how hot the market is.”

This doesn’t mean giving raises across the board, she cautions. It’s more about fair market value.

“You have to pay people what the market suggests they’re worth or they’ll find a company that will.”

The value of people

Ultimately, whether it’s salary, learning & development, or connectivity, what people officers need to be thinking about is the ‘people’ factor. Employees are people too.

“If you’re treating people the way they want to be treated and they feel connected to your mission and connected to the business, they aren’t leaving. People that are leaving because they don’t feel connected. They don’t feel appreciated and they feel like there’s better opportunities for them.”

When your employees take pride in what they do and feel part of a larger mission, that can be even more motivating than a straight-up higher salary – if you’re one SMB that may be challenged in your ability to offer higher wages, this can be a good workaround.

On proactively sourcing candidates

Now, let’s get to the other challenge of the Great Resignation – the dwindling number of candidates that we’re seeing in our Hiring Pulse data and elsewhere. When you take a month’s candidates per hire and compare it with the average CPH of the previous three months, there was a negative trend in that data every single month in 2021:

It’s doubly a challenge for companies like the one Amy works at when high-volume hiring is part of the overall company strategy.

“We don’t have much of an employer brand [because] the company’s only three years old. And so our lower candidate pipeline, I would attribute to not having a strong employer brand because we’re a new company.”

But that means the work is cut out for Relay Payment’s recruitment team, which has resorted to fresh strategies to bring new candidates into the hiring process under Amy’s leadership – at high volume too.

“We get a lot of hires from referrals. I would say 30% of our hires in 2021 were referral-based,” Amy says, adding that they offer bonuses to team members who have successfully referred a candidate who ultimately gets hired.

The lack of a strong, recognizable employer brand is a challenge facing many SMBs, and Amy is well aware of that. She has ways to get around that.

“Our recruiters have had to work really hard to source candidates proactively because people don’t know us well enough to have a big application pipeline.”

So how do you do that? A ton of stuff, says Amy, who cites LinkedIn Recruiter – which she admits is expensive – as a tool to get the word out about a job, and external recruiters when they need to make a niche hire or when time is of the essence. Searching for candidates in Google using related keywords is also an effective strategy.

On growing the team that grows teams

But that’s a lot of work, of course. Amy has a solution for that: Hire more recruiters.

“I actually just doubled the size of my recruiting team in the last week,” she says. “I hired my first dedicated recruiter last summer. I hired a second recruiter in October [2021] and I just hired two [in early January 2022] that will start [in February]. So I’ve gone from one recruiter to four in like eight months.”

The reason being – if you have more team members dedicated to the specific goals in recruitment, you’ll draw more applicants for your open roles.

“The volume of people that you’ve got building your brand and sourcing and building pipelines will also help generate an enormous amount of activity as compared to having fewer people.”

“The volume of people that you’ve got building your brand and sourcing and building pipelines will also help generate an enormous amount of activity as compared to having fewer people.”

Anyone in sales and marketing will understand Amy’s thinking process here. If you want to see increased conversions (i.e. hires), you not only have to bring in the right kind of candidate via referrals and online search – you also have to bring in more candidates.

“For us, it’s about bigger pipelines. We want bigger top of funnel. So how do you invest to get your top of funnel big enough, such that if you have 90 of a specific type of role that you want to hire in a year? [This] is what we’re doing with our AE team. We’re going to add 90 AEs [in 2022].”

And even with the candidates-per-hire metric steadily dropping month over month in 2021 and 2022, any SMB worth their salt – including Relay Payments – will want to have a healthy selection of candidates for any given role. Amy is vividly aware of that.

“If you do the math to back into 90 hires, what do you need your funnel to be? It’s gotta be enormous.”

That’s hiring and retention at scale in Amy’s world. What’s yours? Share your workplace story with us and you may see it get published!

The post Hiring at scale in tech for 2022: A top CPO shares her tips appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

1. Employees have options

Take this story: CEO said, “If you want to work from home, go work somewhere else,” so most of my team and I did just that.

The writer details how even people hired to work remotely were told they had one year to move their families to a town with an office. The employees responded by quitting in great numbers.

Is this a true story? Maybe. The number of people who quit may be an exaggeration, but it may not be. With more than 60,000 upvotes, though, it’s clear that this resonates with people.

This is a case where the CEO thought that the employees would fold and do whatever the company said. It turns out your power over your employees is limited. With lots of people hiring (the writer says he found a new job with a 50 percent pay bump), you have even less power than you did a few years ago. Don’t make an ultimatum thinking your employees will back down. They have options they didn’t use to have and a whole lot more guts.

If in-office work is important to your business, ask your employees how to go about it. Would quarterly all-hands meetings work? Monthly regional get-togethers? If it won’t, accept the turnover.

2. Insults are not the way to go

There’s this sign, for instance.

Whether this was put up by an out-of-touch owner or an angry employee, who knows? But, combined with the glut of “no one wants to work” signs and people struggling to fill positions, it’s not a smart thing to insult employees.

Or this handout from McDonald’s that reminded employees that “tax returns don’t last forever.” Yes, this is a true principle, but it’s insulting to your employees. The last thing you want to do is insult the very people you want to work for you.

You may think your employees just need to know that it will be harder to find a job again if they quit, but it comes off as condescending.

3. Don’t keep secrets

Not explaining things can also cause problems. “In the absence of information, people make stuff up,” says HR consultant Brenda Neckvatal. So, assume that when someone has a ridiculous complaint, it’s not that they are stupid or whiny, it’s that they don’t know what is going on.

Take this tweet from Jon C. Stone.

One reason people insist that you use the proper channels to change things is because they have control of the proper channels and they’re confident it won’t work

— Jon Stone (@joncstone) June 8, 2020

It’s now circulating on /r/antiwork and drawing considerable attention.

First, we need to acknowledge that in bad businesses this is absolutely true. But, in good ones, systems exist to make things better, but your employees may not understand why.

For instance, if Jon comes to his manager and says, “Look, I’ve done the research, and the market rate for this position is 10% higher,” he may feel like his manager is putting him off by saying, “I need to talk to HR.”

But, here’s what the employee doesn’t understand and you can explain to him that the manager doesn’t control the budget, jobs vary greatly even within the same title, and the company can’t adjust Jon’s salary without adjusting a bunch of other people’s as well.

Plus, it may be time to pull out the books and show that there just isn’t money left. Not all companies have fatcat CEOs that can give up a million without blinking. For companies with under $10 million in revenue, the CEO earns under $200,000. He may still be angry after you explain, but at least he’ll know.

Another place where behind the scenes processes can make things look insensitive or downright mean is with layoffs. This person said he was laid off because he didn’t meet his boss’s vision.

This is a clear case where there could be explanations, suggestions for improvement, and perhaps some coaching. But, the manager chose to use a vague term like “vision.”

4. Listen to your employees

One very important note about listening to employees: Don’t do employee engagement surveys if you are planning to ignore the feedback you receive. This person posted an obscene rant on an employee survey (click at your own risk), and again and it demonstrates the frustrated feeling employees have.

If you’re not planning to make any changes based on the results from an employee survey, do not do the survey. It’s bad to ignore your employees’ feelings, but it’s even worse to ask them about their feelings and then ignore them.

You likely won’t be able to resolve the above employee’s concerns – because the damage appears to be done. But, for every employee that spews vitriol, there are undoubtedly others who feel neglected and abused. Listen to them.

At a bare minimum, tell your employees what you learned and what things you will address. No company can solve all employee complaints (nor should they – sometime employees are unreasonable), but you can let people know that you hear them.

Don’t spend your life at /r/antiwork. But keep in mind that there are humans here who are hurting. And even if you run the best company ever, they influence your employees. So, keep an eye out, make changes, and communicate with your employees. Honesty truly is the best policy.

In short: people – including disgruntled employees – will be more likely to accommodate imperfections if they understand that you are trying.

The post 4 lessons for employers from Reddit’s Antiwork community appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

It’s not just that flexible work has benefits – it’s a highly desired, and in many cases, much-needed component of work. If you, as an employer, can realistically offer this option – especially flexible schedules – your value proposition can only grow in the eyes of candidates who have a wealth of choices at their disposal. You may even find that the Great Resignation and the much-bewailed candidate shortage are things that don’t even apply to you.

If you don’t offer flexible work, especially if you could, the consequences could be considerable. Consider the backlash against Apple in their initial drive to move back to an in-person working environment. Employees left in droves for other options, and the media coverage was fierce and uncompromising.

This can’t reflect well on their reputation as an employer. A return to office has its merits – and in some cases, requirements – but in many cases, businesses have the technology and wherewithal to make it work. Employees themselves have shown that it can work as well.

The second lesson is that for workers, an outstanding brand reputation such as Apple’s doesn’t even matter that much (more on that below). Rather, people simply want the option to work flexibly.

We’re going to see more of this misalignment of priorities between employees and their employers – going forward. When we asked respondents about the current situation in regards to remote/hybrid work at their place of employment, more than half (52.8%) say their employer introduced it during the pandemic and will (or probably will) return to on-location work once things stabilize.

The same disconnect applies to flexible work schedules as well, with 43.8% saying flexible work schedules were introduced during the pandemic and will (or probably will) go back to set schedules when things return to ‘normal’ – whenever that may be, or whatever that may be.

There’s a clear divide between employees and employers in work setups. Many employees like remote work and especially love flexible schedules. Many even need one or both. And a good portion of employers aren’t adapting to that new reality – the stigma against flexible work doesn’t help much, either.

With such a resounding voice in our dataset valuing flexible work, consider establishing it as a permanent strategy where possible if you want to attract new talent and retain your existing employee base. Your success as a company may depend on it.

The post 37.5% of US workers value flexwork – but companies aren’t on board appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

It’s not just that flexible work has benefits – it’s a highly desired, and in many cases, much-needed component of work. If you, as an employer, can realistically offer this option – especially flexible schedules – your profile as a desired place to work will grow in the eyes of people looking for new work. In short, it’s a significant value prop in your arsenal.

And if you don’t offer flexible work, especially if you could, the consequences could be considerable. Consider the backlash against Apple in their initial drive to move back to an in-person working environment. Employees left in droves for other options, and the media coverage was fierce and uncompromising. This can’t reflect well on Apple’s reputation as an employer.

Sure, a return to office has its merits – and in some cases, requirements – but in many cases, businesses have the technology and wherewithal to make it work. What’s more, the many employees who kept working in a remote fashion from the onset of the pandemic to today have proven that they know how to do it.

The second lesson is that for workers, an outstanding brand reputation such as Apple’s doesn’t even matter that much (more on that below). Rather, people simply want the option to work flexibly.

“My company is unlikely to allow any home workers when restrictions end and it gives me great concern. I want to be able to work flexibly and from home at least occasionally.”

We’re going to see more of this kind of situation – a misalignment of priorities between employees and their employers – going forward. When we asked respondents about the current situation in regards to remote/hybrid work at their place of employment, 44.7% say their employer introduced remote or hybrid work during the pandemic and will (or probably will) return to on-location work once things stabilize.

The same discrepancy in expectations goes for flexible work schedules as well, with 46.8% saying flexible work schedules were introduced during the pandemic and will (or probably will) go back to set schedules when things return to ‘normal’. (Side note: ‘normal’ may not even be a reality anymore.)

This marks a vast chasm between employees and employers. Many employees like remote work and especially love flexible schedules. Many even need one or both. And a good portion of employers aren’t adapting to that new reality – the stigma against flexible work doesn’t help much, either.

“I think most office workers are able to work as productively, if not more so, than in an office environment. Bosses, who usually aren’t very good, don’t think that’s possible.”

With such a resounding voice in our dataset valuing flexible work, consider establishing it as a permanent strategy where possible if you want to attract new talent and retain your existing employee base. Your success as a company may depend on it.

The post Flexwork a must for 43.5% of UK workers – but are employers listening? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

However, just knowing this is not helpful. You need to solve this. Simply put, you need qualified candidates now to fill up those positions – and fast.

But first, let’s look at a few possible reasons behind the shrinking CPH metric in these times.

Why are good candidates so few and far between?

According to seasoned recruiters, here are the major reasons why you are not getting suitable candidates, or why they are dropping out:

• The job post fails to deliver the intended message to the candidates
• The job posts are not posted on the right channels
• You are not leveraging new and emerging talent sourcing trends, like social media campaigns and passive candidate outreach
• Your search team is struggling with a lack of tools and resources
• You are not utilizing the innovative new strategies of talent search
• Candidates are more selective in applying for openings
• Lack of sync between what the employer is looking for and what the candidate wants in a job
• Other factors, like weak culture, benefits, and employer brand

Logically, we can say that if we can eliminate these reasons behind the scarcity of candidates, we will see improvements in our hiring results.

So, how can we rise above the roadblocks and get an abundance of great candidates?

5 ways to find good candidates

Follow these tried and tested strategies to get a flood of qualified candidates:

1. Create clear and high-intent job descriptions

Create your job descriptions and job announcements with as much precision as possible. It’s more about adding the “right” information, not the “most” information.

Workable has job description templates on almost every job that you might need to fill out. These templates are organized according to industries and job types.

A way of showing empathy directly in the job description is to address the major concerns about work-life balance and company culture that many candidates have today. On top of that, show that you have a development plan for the newly hired employees – tech workers, for instance, highly value this.

It should be apparent from the job posting that they can gain something from working with you. If they just want to be paid well, they have that opportunity in many places. But what gets you ahead is if you value them as a person and you’re interested in helping them in their career arc.

2. Pursue passive candidates

You need an active recruitment team that vigorously searches out passive candidates.

Passive candidates are candidates who are not actively looking for a new job but would consider switching given the right offer. In fact, 37% of US workers are passive candidates.

You never know the opportunity you have to offer might make a lot of the talent rethink their career trajectory.

If you come up with an inclusive package and reach the right candidates, hiring can be made easier.

You just need the right strategy and tools.

Here’s an email template that you can customize for reaching out to passive candidates:

Subject: Open [Position Title] role at [Company Name]

Hi [Candidate Name],

I am [Your Name], [Your Job Title], at [Company Name]. I saw your profile on [LinkedIn, Github, Behance, etc.] while searching for candidates for the open role of [Position Title]. (**Link to job posting here.)

Based on your extensive expertise on [key skill/s], I believe you would be an excellent fit for the job, and I would love to know more about your interests and career goals.

Would you be available for a quick chat anytime this week or the next? Just let me know your availability, and we can set up a call.

Looking forward to meeting you soon.

Thank you,

[Your Name]

[Signature]

3. Got LinkedIn? Fine! But where else?

Okay, so you are posting your JD on LinkedIn, Indeed, and other places, and you are also getting quite a few applications. But guess what? None of them is quite the match you are looking for.

What more can you do? Diversify your options.

Consider the following:

• Industry-specific job boards
• Exploring remote job boards
• Leveraging the freelance workforce

You can also try reaching out to recruiters outside of your current network to share and collaborate on talent database enrichment – that’s one way of thinking outside of the box.

Here’s a template email for reaching out to recruiters that you can customize as per your needs:

Subject: Potential collaboration for an expanded candidate pool

Hi [Name],

I am [Your Name], [Your Job Title], at [Company Name]. I found you on LinkedIn while searching for fellow recruiters working in the [industry/sector name]. Given the talent crunch we are experiencing, I thought of reaching out to you in the hopes of forging a mutually beneficial collaboration.

I would love to talk with you about the possibility of sharing our talent pools so that we can hire faster and more effectively.

Would you be available for a quick chat anytime this week or next? Just let me know your availability, and we can set up a call.

Looking forward to meeting you soon.

Thank you,

[Your Name]

[Signature]

On the other hand, the job market has sprouted up a different sort of recruiter – the reverse recruiter. They work directly for jobseekers and help them find their dream roles. They network and find open positions on behalf of jobseekers and help them apply for the position.

Creating and building connections with these professionals can be mutually beneficial. They can help you if they have a jobseeker with the skills you need.

4. Build savvy and empathetic recruitment processes

The whole recruitment process needs to show a certain savvy and empathy.

Today’s candidates have seen workplaces and will know what kind of environment it is. So it’s important to put your best foot forward and ensure a great candidate experience.

From the way you message to how the information is being disseminated to the candidates will show them that you care for the professional partnership that you are about to embark on.

More importantly, emotional empathy should always remain as a guiding light. Even sharing an interview preparation guidebook – such as this video interview guide – as a gesture of care after setting up the interview date can show that you support their growth.

5. Take advantage of recruiter tools and resources

Acquiring knowledge and information can be tricky. Sometimes, we simply don’t know what we don’t know and what we are missing out for not having that piece of knowledge or information.

Take, for example, the Boolean search strings while searching for candidates. This simple piece of knowledge can be so powerful.

Yet another point in case would be technologies like the mobile hiring app and recruitment email automation that can immensely help with productivity and time management.

New tools, strategies, and resources continue to emerge, and when you’re in the hiring business, you need to be on the lookout for new developments. Be agile. Be nimble. Don’t hesitate to introduce new things in your work processes.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way

Yes, finding and retaining the right candidates might have become more challenging than ever before. However, the new avenues of talent sourcing are also emerging rapidly.

All you have to do is keep an open mind to the new and emerging tools and techniques, try out different things, and above all, know where and how to get in front of your potential candidates.

We hope the above tips, ideas, and suggestions will help you get through this talent crunch gracefully.

Liz Hogan is the Content Outreach Manager and a CPRW at Find My Profession. She regularly shares her advice on job search strategies. She is also passionate about volunteering and learning new languages.

The post Can’t find good candidates? Here are 5 ways to get on top of that appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Embrace transparency

For those of us who started our careers twenty or more years ago, we remember when you couldn’t simply go to a search engine and type in ‘recruiter jobs London’ and see 29.6 million results. You couldn’t find and track salary information or read reviews that showed life behind closed doors. The world of work was fairly opaque.

All this changed with the explosion of the Internet and the 2008 global financial crisis. People flooded online, using sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to share, connect and look for work. With the Internet came transparency, and the shift from the company being in charge to the employee being in control of their destiny.

And now? In 2022, companies can no longer arrogantly think, ‘be grateful to work for us’. Instead, leaders should be grateful that people choose to work for them.

This employee power has led to many initiatives that have been the focus of HR in recent years in the hope of retaining talent. These include employee engagement, DEIB, mental health, flexible and hybrid working, and more.

The companies who have not become people-first are the ones that fear The Great Resignation or, more aptly, The Great Reassessment. They cannot throw open the door, because people wouldn’t choose them.

Get radically transparent

No company is perfect, and it’s not realistic for people to even expect that. But people do look for leaders who are honest, approachable, confident, reflective, open to learning, caring and trusting of their people.

Future employees also look for the impact the company is making, and if this is something they want to be part of. Look around at the companies that have thrived through the pandemic, and you’ll find great leadership qualities to emulate and missions that are clearly defined.

Plus, ​​according to research from Gartner, organizations that deliver on their employee value proposition can decrease annual employee turnover by nearly 70% and increase the commitment from new starters by up to 30%, so it makes business sense.

Moreover, Gartner’s research finds a well-thought-out EVP can reap dividends in the candidate attraction process – when candidates view an EVP as attractive, companies can reduce their compensation premium by half, and reach 50% deeper into the talent market.

So take your great EVP and share it online, far and wide. How do you do that? Try these three strategies for starters:

1. Compelling human stories

In my book The Robot-Proof Recruiter, marketer Bennet Sung explained the value of using human stories like this.

“Persuading candidates to come and work for you is one of the most complex story tells that anyone has to engage with. Unlike products, which have a tangible list of features, selling your values, mission, culture, team and manager (employment brand) is much more experiential and personally different for each candidate. This storytelling requires finding a way for a candidate to virtually experience the employment brand and that could be via a wide range of channels including hiring manager videos, employee videos, reputation sites, and so on.”

“Unlike products, which have a tangible list of features, selling your values, mission, culture, team and manager (employment brand) is much more experiential and personally different for each candidate.”

Over the course of 2021, you may have noticed that hiring recruiters became incredibly difficult, and not every company or agency can compete on price. Take not-for-profit recruitment agency, Radical Recruit, as an example; they exist to bridge the gap between disadvantaged job seekers and the world of work.

Radical Recruit cannot compete on salary and yet amazing recruiters choose to join them. Why? Because they share their human stories on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. You will see videos and posts from their leader, Emma Freivogel, from the team who genuinely love the impact they are making, and from the people they support. They are not perfect, but they are an open book for people to opt into.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Radical Recruit CIC (@radicalrecruit)

 2. Non-monetary incentives

Consider what you can offer that doesn’t involve reaching into your pocket. Can you offer equity or true flexibility, for example? Or offer bikes, electric cars and other incentives via a salary sacrifice scheme?

Chatting with fellow Workable contributor, Suzanne Lucas, about this dilemma, she proffered the 4-day working week. Not revolutionary – there’s even a how-to implement post here – but it is effectively a 20% pay increase. Just by changing your hours, you could attract new people on the same salary rather than having to offer an increase.

Plus, by getting into the trend early, your current employees will not only love it, they’ll struggle to find another employer doing the same so you’ll increase retention.

But Suzanne also warns that you must not offer a 4-day working week and still expect people to respond or even attend meetings on their day off. In my work, I have seen these kinds of leaky boundaries lead to all sorts of problems, including reduced employee engagement and bad reviews impending future hiring. Be sure to agree to and stick to a set of parameters with your employees and new joiners, so it is easy to manage and morale stays high.

3. Ask your people for ideas

You are not alone. You already have a team of people working for you who would be happy to get involved. Often though, they don’t understand how challenging the finances are or that, perhaps, you have barely paid yourself during the pandemic, until you tell them.

Sometimes the simplest things are the most effective. A great example is seen in the Ministry of Defence in the UK. By encouraging employees to share new job vacancies with the women they knew, they saw an increase in the number of applications, job offers and accepted offers by women, even in traditionally male-dominated roles.

So even though asking for help can raise all manner of feelings from fear to shame – especially as the company leader – your people will love your vulnerability and appreciate your trust. They will also have plenty of suggestions. After all, they choose to work with you; maximize it!

In summary, while it’s high up the list for many, money isn’t the only reason people will choose your company. Take advantage of the free tools available that let you open the door to your business.

Let people see it, warts and all. Share your employees’ stories, your mission, and your successes – and even your failures and lessons learned. Get creative, get everyone involved, and watch the difference it will make to your recruitment, even in this market!

The post Can’t afford to pay more? Be radically transparent with candidates appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

This isn’t an exaggeration either. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported record-high quit rates in four of five consecutive months from June to November 2021. What we thought was just a talent “reshuffle” to accommodate long-term remote work has spiraled into a full-blown economic crisis.

So where do we go from here?

While we could spend time hashing out the same recruiting tips that you might turn to anytime your team is experiencing turnover or needs to do a big hiring push, the talent market conditions we’re in now are unprecedented. This means old tricks aren’t going to cut it.

So, instead of basic recruiting tactics, let’s have some honest conversation about what recruiting tactics will actually work in this labor market, what tactics won’t, and why.

3 recruiting tactics that don’t work

1. Sign-on bonuses

You’ve probably seen that a signing bonus could be a good way to attract candidates, but here are a couple of reasons why it’s not a good idea.

For one, there’s the big possibility of candidates “cashing in and running”. Many candidates in today’s tight labor market know they’re in high demand and are often juggling multiple opportunities. So even if they take the bait of your tempting sign-on bonus, if your role doesn’t fit what they’re looking for on a more holistic level, they could easily leave for another opportunity.

Another reason sign-on bonuses may be a waste of your time is the fact that it’s actually not that impressive to candidates when looking at their compensation as a whole. For example, if the role offers a $150,000 yearly salary and the sign-on bonus is $5,000, some might see it as barely a drop in the bucket. It’s not the most effective of recruitment tactics.

2. Asking “why do you want to work for us?”

Somehow, over recent years, this question has become the ubiquitous interview talking point amongst hiring managers. It has prompted more than 200,000 advice articles on the internet guiding job seekers on “how to answer ‘why do you want to work for us?’”

The problem with this recruitment tactic? Well, for one, this question rose in popularity before the pandemic when there were fewer jobs to go around and employers had the clear upper hand in the talent market. Given that employers had a position of power, this question turned into hiring managers’ way to freely test interviewees on their undying love for the company.

That’s simply not going to have the same effect in today’s candidate-driven talent market. In fact, asking this question to candidates in this market – who likely have other opportunities lined up for them – might even turn them off from you for good. If you insist on covering how your company is great during the interview process, try making “why our employees enjoy working for us” part of the conversation as more of a discussion rather than a spitfire question.

3. Adding personality to the job description

Let’s get one thing straight, many job descriptions leave much to be desired. That includes especially those that get copy-pasted from old internal team documents, or worse, from competitors’ job ads.

https://youtu.be/m8Ip3mLOjOs

But aside from making your job listing slightly easier to read and possibly more entertaining and honest, adding some personality to your job description – without fundamentally changing what the role is about, the pay and benefits, and the impact the role will make in your company – isn’t going to help all that much with your recruiting efforts.

Go ahead and make some updates if it’s to be more honest and or to sweeten the job description. But, if it’s just a ploy to make your company sound cooler, just know that that may annoy candidates enough to make them click next.

7 recruiting tactics that can make a difference

1. Assess your needs before you post the job

Whether you realize it or not, you may be putting too much emphasis on just the recruitment process itself. Sure, losing a team member or noticing a department is stretched for bandwidth are classic signs that you need to hire. But if that’s all you look out for before rushing to hit “Publish” on a new job listing, you might be jumping the gun.

Before you post the job ad, be sure to do your due diligence as a team:

• Meet with hiring team (hiring manager, interviewers)
• Align on current needs vs. long-term needs
• Identify skills gaps within the larger team that may impact new hire
• Put together team-building strategies
• Carefully craft what you need in the new role
• Build a long-term development plan for that new hire

Doing these exercises before every new recruiting process will ensure a great job description and a well-oiled process that’ll make for a great candidate experience AND help you decide on the right hire.

2. Shorten your job descriptions

This one is an easy tactic that so many hiring teams could benefit from, especially those having trouble getting enough applicants and in need of some quick wins.

With today’s job market in candidates’ favor, job seekers are weary of lengthy lists of requirements and duties and they’ll swipe right pretty quickly without even a second look. It would be good to pare down the list to a few must-haves so that you bring in a healthy number of candidates who also appreciate that you’re showing some flexibility in the process.

3. Design jobs that people want

We’ve talked a lot about how to improve your job descriptions. But it’s worth mentioning that no matter how much you rewrite, promote, and incentivize an undesirable job with subpar pay, it’s still undesirable to candidates.

In pre-pandemic days, finding people to accept these types of jobs wasn’t actually all that hard to do. But since we are now experiencing a very real surplus of jobs and a more emboldened talent market, companies have but one choice of action if they want to attract candidates: design better jobs that pay more.

That means not lumping three different jobs into one person’s role. That means matching the role with market-rate (or higher) pay. That means not using arbitrary or inaccurate job titles to be clear or whatever other reason. Those are just a few examples, but the point is, be more than fair when designing your new job roles.

4. Revamp your compensation package

The last two years have challenged every workplace tradition that we all used to expect as standard aspects of employment, such as draining daily commutes (a major gripe resolved by flexible work in the UK), synchronous-only team communication, micromanagement, unfair pay, being measured by hours worked vs. outcomes, and so on.

Not only are employees finally able to take a stand against these unappealing (and unacceptable) work standards, they’re also not going to budge unless companies start paying up.

Here are some examples of how to revamp your compensation package to not only attract more candidates to individual job listings, but also upgrade your entire organization’s employee value proposition:

• 3+ weeks of PTO to start
• Upgraded parental leave for all parents
• Better insurance plans
• Stipends (for remote work, wellness, learning, etc.)
• Stock options
• Ability to work remotely
• Schedule flexibility

5. Tap into a broader talent pool

As they say… if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. This applies perfectly when it comes to the hiring process.

• Do you base all of your new job postings on old or pre-existing template job posts that you haven’t updated in years?
• Do you just post your jobs on your careers page and LinkedIn, sit back and hope for the best (a.k.a. the “spray and pray” method)?
• Do you automatically set all of your job listings in your region only, with no option for (or mention of) remote work?

These aren’t bad things to do, per se, but they’re severely limiting your reach and talent pool size. As one-time Workable SVP Rachel Bates says about how this limits the diversity of your available talent: “If you put on your job description that you need two to three years of sales experience and you’re hiring in Boston, guess who you’re going to get?”

“If you put on your job description that you need two to three years of sales experience and you’re hiring in Boston, guess who you’re going to get?”

To ensure your recruitment efforts reach more candidates, avoid “going through the motions” of an outdated recruitment process. Think about who your ideal candidate is, where they’re looking today, and what you’re up against in this job market.

Use that knowledge as you write up your job description and start promoting it, with the assumption that if what you’re offering isn’t interesting, inspiring, and generous, candidates aren’t going to give you the time of day.

6. Start hiring earlier than you need to

Hiring has always taken longer than most company leaders would like. Whether it’s hiring managers being over-selective, unique job requirements, or a complex application process that includes extra hurdles like drug tests, background checks, personality tests, and skills assessments, it would seem that time isn’t in anyone’s favor when it comes to recruitment.

Knowing this is true, start the hiring process well before the need becomes urgent. This might involve:

• Having regular and early conversations with hiring managers and department heads about future headcount needs
• Drafting job descriptions even before they get through the approval process
• Treating your talent pipeline like a supply chain by sourcing talent proactively, monitoring your team’s networks for potential good future fits, and also keeping an eye on internal candidates and training them as needed

7. Follow up on what you’ve promised after the hire

Recruiting today means pulling out all of the stops and, in many cases, giving up way more than you’re used to. For example, you’re likely offering higher pay and better benefits, putting tons of effort into making job descriptions compelling, and promising candidates tons of learning and development opportunities.

If this sounds like you, you better be following up on everything you’ve promised. That’s not only the right thing to do for integrity’s sake, but also, in delivering what you’ve promised you will be nurturing that new hire to be an awesome long-term employee and establishing a career arc for them so that they can thrive (and so can those around them).

This builds more employee loyalty and a stronger organization, which makes recruiting easier in the long-term.

It’s time to step up as an employer

The working world we live in today is light years away from how things were two years ago when it comes to candidate expectations, habits, and desires. And as the job market itself continues to lean heavily in candidates’ favor, the companies that will stand any chance of attracting and retaining great talent today are the ones who throw out the old recruiting strategies they used to hold dear and deeply reexamine and reinvigorate their recruiting approach going forward.

Taking heed of these seven recruiting tactics (and skipping the three we told you to avoid) is a great first step. Applying these tactics with a genuine effort and an open mind will ensure the next time you put recruiting activities in motion, they’ll actually bear some fruit.

Linda is a Boston-based content writer who crafts content for human-centric B2B brands. With nearly 10 years writing for tech and HR startups, she covers topics ranging from remote work and productivity, to recruitment and employer branding, to mental health and the future of work. Her goal is to promote transparency, empathy, and honest introspection within companies and their leaders. Find her on LinkedIn.

The post 7 recruiting tactics that work for this talent market – and 3 that won’t appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

We agree. Employers need to start figuring out their game plan right now.

The challenge of the vax mandate

Every employer who must comply with the mandate will face some sort of difficulty in execution – where testing will be performed, for example, and how to craft the vaccination and testing policies, as well as the downstream impact on productivity.

Some employers will be able to pull it off, but many will struggle to create yet another new process that takes away from revenue-generating activity.

In addition, employers must know:

• if they are going to require vaccinations as an employment contingency or offer weekly testing
• how they will track vaccinations/testing results
• what repercussions will occur when a violation occurs
• how to handle positive testing results
• whether or not to pay for weekly testing
• where and when to perform testing
• and, ultimately, who within their organization will be responsible for administering the tracking and testing within the organization.

The vaccine mandate will, in one way or another, add expense to every organization and very likely to all of us as consumers.

With millions of Americans having dropped out of the workforce since April – the so-called Great Resignation – beleaguered employers are wondering how this mandate will affect their ability to recruit – and keep – talent.

The bad news is that the tight labor market will probably continue for at least the next few years as the major catalysts that led people to leave the workforce – e.g. retirement, early retirement, health concerns, lack of child care – have not and will not change soon.

In other words, the labor market remains an employee’s market and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

Agility and attentiveness will win out

More than ever, HR professionals will need to be agile and creative, both in their thought processes and in execution. They must immediately focus on mandatory practices, while over the long-term, they need to be prepared to support employees and the business which will require versatility that may not have been required in the past.

As an executive of a large multinational recently told The Wall Street Journal: “We couldn’t keep employees very long if we weren’t attentive to their personal lives and professional aspirations.”

Welcome to the new deal, or what we’re calling, The Great Reassessment.

The good news is that the vax/testing mandate provides clarity and deflects a major onus from employers. But it requires them to be the enforcers, tracking vaccinations and testing results, fielding complaints from employees, then managing the fallout that comes from a positive test result.

Large employers will feel the pain at scale; smaller ones will struggle to operationalize these new practices in an efficient way. No employer will be immune from the complexities.

The game is on

In other words, the Biden vaccine mandate is a “game on!” moment. The winners will be those employers who create more efficient processes and/or more flexible policies.

For example, if an employee is already on the fence about changing jobs and does not want to follow their current employer’s mandatory vaccination policy, they may opt to leave for a company that offers testing in lieu of vaccination. (Job switchers are reportedly the vast majority of job quitters.)

The reverse could happen too; there are many employees who want to work in the safest environment possible; they will seek out an employer who requires vaccination.

In either case, employers cannot afford to lose employees at a time when there are millions more job openings than workers to fill them.

What can employers do?

So what can the employer do, right now? Ensure that pay is equitable and competitive, for a start. They should also double-check that their benefits are comprehensive and meaningful, and that employees feel a sense of inclusivity and belonging.

In addition to these “big three” initiatives, companies will need to benchmark their offerings and regularly survey their employees in order to know what areas require focus.

Don’t fall behind

This is the most dynamic job market we’ve seen in our lifetimes. Americans are reassessing their priorities on a regular basis. Many want to slow down and be more present in daily life. They’re looking for a way to earn a living while enjoying free time, family, friends, and hobbies. Employees who sense a lack of flexibility or are unable to dedicate time to what matters to them suddenly have a lot of options. To keep them from dropping out, their employers must figure out how to offer flexibility in all types of jobs, even hourly shift positions – and fast!

While we await a final court decision regarding Biden’s vaccine mandate, employers are adding these pending requirements to the long list of people policy, process, and practice changes they have been buried in since March 2020.

Ms. Winans is the Chief Executive Officer and Principal HR Consultant for Next Level Benefits.

The post What the Biden vaccine mandate means for employers – and how to manage it appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Note: Workable’s Hiring Pulse also identifies a drop in candidates per hire:

Some companies and industries are certainly faring better than others, but the hundreds of customers and HR leaders I’ve talked to throughout this year all agree – this job market is unlike anything they’ve seen before.

Fortunately, after a year of this upturned hiring market, there may finally be some glimmers of hope. No, it’s not that employees aren’t going to stop quitting. The latest quit numbers are still at record highs and those types of numbers don’t just fall off overnight.

An opportunity for employers

There might just be something like a “Great Return” in our future. Meaning, the tide will turn – at least somewhat – back to employers’ favor and a portion of those millions of workers who quit are going to come back to their old jobs, industries, and careers.

That’s what I and other company leaders are thinking – and hoping for – right now. And while it’s too early to know for sure how it’ll happen, lots of employees who quit this year will return (or be willing to return) under the right conditions. Most of those conditions have to do with aspects of the employee experience that were already outdated or broken.

So, based on what I know about the employee experience and how it’s played a role this past year, these are the three conditions I can see bringing talent back after the Great Resignation:

1) Company culture issues are being addressed

First off, the company culture issues that drove employees away in the first place have been addressed.

Health concerns, toxic team members, poor management, low pay, employee burnout, lack of career growth, lack of diversity and inclusion – these are all top reasons workers have been quitting their jobs during the pandemic. Notice that these are all factors that companies can change and improve as long as they make a real effort.

Whether that means creating new systems and policies, investing in management and skills training, and/or letting go of toxic team members, now’s the time to face these issues head on or else continue to experience talent struggles.

For employees who were otherwise satisfied with their role but “rage-quit” due to one of these culture issues, you can likely lure them back by focusing on fixing what was broken and creating a positive culture where they can thrive. Employees who haven’t completely abandoned their careers might find their way back.

2) Work-life flexibility is now supported

Secondly, employees are getting the work-life flexibility they need in their lives, in location and schedule.

The shift to remote work last year turned out to be a really great setup for many workers and just as productive as in-office work. Employees got so accustomed to it that many decided to quit instead of give up working from home.

It’s important to note though, that it’s not that people wanted to trade in office life with working at home in their pajamas. What they really wanted was the flexibility and freedom that remote work affords them. No more long daily commutes, more opportunity to be with and care for loved ones, choice in where, when and how they work, all while saving money and escaping from office distractions and micromanagement.

Companies that give employees this freedom and flexibility (and set employees up for success through things like remote-friendly internal processes and a remote stipend) will definitely see more workers returning and staying than those that don’t. You can already see companies recognizing this by the uptick in remote jobs and companies going fully remote or hybrid.

3) Comp is now more attractive

And finally – compensation packages and perks are actually competitive and enticing for employees, as well as meaningful and inclusive.

Being underpaid and given odd random perks like ping pong tables and gift cards (or nothing at all) were sadly the norm before the pandemic. And since employers have long held bargaining power in the job market, workers had no choice but to accept it.

Well, the tables have completely turned and candidates now have the upperhand. Demand is so high for workers nowadays that there’s a growing trend of candidates ghosting companies because what companies are offering – in pay, benefits, hours, or other conditions of the job – simply isn’t competitive.

To get workers to return, it’s time to offer pay that actually goes above and beyond market rates and give personalized perks that employees would actually enjoy.

How to offer competitive pay doesn’t need explaining, but perks are more complicated since every employee has unique needs and preferences. A great solution is to offer one or more flexible stipends to help set your company’s compensation package apart.

For example, you can offer a monthly health & wellness stipend that employees can use however they want to support their own wellness journey from emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, etc. This variety of health support is crucial in times like these and leading companies like Microsoft, Webflow, EventBrite, and Investopedia all offer wellness stipends to their employees.

Another idea is to offer a remote stipend that covers employee costs for everything employees would get in an office such as food, internet, technology, productivity, and learning, where they get to choose everything themselves. With more employees working remotely and expecting the company they work for to be fair and inclusive, this would both surprise and entice workers who are searching for greener pastures.

Conclusion

There’s no denying that we’re in an era where employees are seeking change in their work lives and are more than willing to pursue it. For many employees who have decided to leave their jobs for different career paths or for early retirement, that’s exactly the right move for them.

However, I’m willing to bet that for the large number of workers who quit that don’t fall under those two categories, many will make a return to what they left behind under the right conditions.

If your company addresses these three conditions above, you’ll be a top contender in recruiting the talent that’s so difficult to hire these days and also be more successful at keeping the talent you already have.

Amy Spurling is the CEO of Compt.io, an employee stipends platform that offers flexibility in perks and benefits for employees.

The post A ‘Great Return’? 3 conditions that may bring talent back appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

The real question is, if you want to attract top talent with high potential, should salaries be included in the job description?

As an embedded recruitment firm, the ACELR8 team works with a wide range of clients from a variety of industries. Despite this variety, there are many common themes that play a big part in creating a solid hiring strategy. One of the most well-worn paths is the discussion on salaries.

Should salaries be mentioned in job descriptions? Should it come up only in the interview stage?

Or, should they be not mentioned at all until the job offer stage?

It’s a hot-button topic right now and you’re looking for answers. To learn more, ACELR8 polled its talented team of recruiters to find those answers for you:

A third of our recruiters maintain that salaries should be shared only later in the hiring process, while twice as many believed the opposite.

To learn more, ACELR8’s Head of Marketing, Milda Skladaityte, posted the same question on LinkedIn. Here, things were a little different.

Out of 582 votes, an overwhelming majority of 91% wanted to see the salary in the job description.

This is an interesting finding, because it shows that there are completely opposing views on the market. At first, this may seem off the mark, but when you look at the reasons why, the issue becomes a lot clearer.

So, we spoke with Sara Bent, the recruitment lead at Hotjar, to learn more about Hotjar’s opinion on disclosing salaries.

“When I first started with Hotjar, I set us up with a Glassdoor account. The interview reviews that came through on it quickly highlighted one main area causing a negative candidate experience,” Sara explained.

“With candidates who we wanted to move forward with beyond the initial application stage, we’d email them to ask about their minimum compensation expectations. Our intention with this was to be sure that we would only move forward with candidates who fit within our compensation banding; we wouldn’t want to waste a candidate’s time if we knew we couldn’t match their expectations.

The Glassdoor reviews, though, made it clear that a lot of candidates felt we were doing this to ‘lowball’ them – plus these extra emails could add days to a candidate’s recruitment journey.”

That conclusion motivated Sara to be more open about salaries in job ads. And the response was quick and favorable.

“So, based on candidate feedback and guided by our own core value of building trust with transparency, we made the decision to immediately start posting all compensation ranges onto job descriptions. If we use the Glassdoor reviews as a measure of success, this change did seem to immediately make a positive difference to our candidates’ experience.”

Salaries are a tough topic to negotiate and discuss, and it’s often easy to scare away or disincline candidates. What Sara found, though, was that asking for feedback and adjusting processes to suit the candidate’s expectations was a quick, insightful, and easy step to take.

To learn more about people’s reasonings behind salaries and job descriptions, we asked our recruiters more questions. Let’s start with why many recruiters believe salaries should be disclosed in job descriptions.

Salaries in job ads: the argument for

Another recruiter made it clear – it’s about being transparent.

“I believe that transparency in hiring is the most important value. I believe that if we are hiding the salary, we know we pay less than we should or we are not transparent internally. Also, it may be that people in the company earn less than we are now offering to the new candidates.”

Transparency is a vital aspect of a well-run business. If everyone is on the same page and respects each other, the culture of the company will undoubtedly improve.

By disclosing the salary at the very beginning of the process, you start off on the right track – by creating trust. As said above, this not only allows the potential hire to understand their financial position, it can also give current employees an insight into the salary structure of the company.

This, in turn, mitigates any risk for attrition.

Moving with the times

Another important factor to take into consideration is that approaches and attitudes to disclosing salaries have changed considerably in recent years.

Another recruiter, Jonathan, explains:

“It’s something of an archaic taboo in my view,” Jonathan says. “Pay is often tied in with feelings of self-worth, so to openly discuss it manifests as either an ego boost or feeling undervalued.”

Candidates are also at a major disadvantage when it comes to salary disclosure, he adds.

“What has happened is people no longer have any real grasp of salary banding from industry to industry or role to role. The only people who know what the correct salary expectations broadly are, are recruiters. People generally have no idea whether they are under or overpaid…who can they compare to?”

And opening up that discussion from the get-go can make significant positive differences – not just for the individual candidate but overall benefits as well.

“If salaries, stock options, etc. were openly disclosed, people would then have a critical piece of intelligence required to make important career decisions. We would all be able to clearly see what is happening in the marketplace. It would also oust any disparities on account of gender, age, race or religion.”

These are some excellent points that lead to a much larger issue of diversity, equity, and inclusion. By creating a more transparent salary structure, everyone, including outside candidates, gets a better understanding of their financial self-worth.

In all, disclosing salary expectations allows for a level playing field and a transparent hiring process that ensures that time is not wasted and equal opportunities, both internally and externally, can be achieved.

Let’s look at the counter-argument. While disclosing salary does save time at the outset, but there are many eye-opening implications from our recruiters.

Salaries in job ads: the argument against

“I think companies have much more than a salary to offer … a remote-work policy, stock option, different benefits,” says another recruiter in the network. “It’s a complicated topic because I also see a potential benefit in having the salary on the job description.”

The modern company has to offer more than just a good salary. Remote-first working, equity options, and a whole host of other benefits can be just as important to potential hires.

For example, an early-stage startup will often not be able to compete with an established company for talent due to its lack of resources. However, incentives such as equity, bonuses, and remote work can level the playing field. Disclosing the salary may skew the candidate’s impression of the full value of the position.

Another recruiter shared three reasons why disclosing the salary may be problematic:

1. The salary can put people off of applying if it is too low or below current salaries. Then, the company also gets a reputation in the market for underpaying.
2. It can encourage juniors or unqualified people to apply to more senior roles if they are attracted just by salary and the bands are too high.
3. It can run into situations at the end of a process if you offer 80k but the candidate sees the band pays up to 90k.

Overall, disclosing the salary puts the ball in the court of the candidate. It can lead to a glut of unsuitable candidates applying for the role, can affect the reputation of the company, and can also make closing the deal significantly more difficult.

Competitive issues

Another issue that may arise is that competing companies will see your offered salary and now know the benchmark for out-offering you.

Yet, while disclosing all your cards early in the game certainly gives the other players an advantage, it also avoids spending time on candidates who are unsuitable for the role.

There is also the issue of under-offering. If a company discloses their salary offer in the job description and it is much lower than the expected amount desired by the client, they won’t bother applying for the job.

In all of these situations, it’s important to remember to take things on a case-by-case basis. Every employer is different, and one rule does not apply to all. Take the time to understand what your company really needs, and approach the salary dilemma from there.

The issue of salary trends

The other aspect of the salary issue comes into what we’ve discussed previously: salary trends are changing fast.

2020 and 2021 have been two of the most paradigm-shifting years in hiring trends, communication methods, and work environments. A large population of the world had to change their work habits, and so they have become used to a certain style of employment.

Now, many people are leaving old jobs which do not adhere to their desired lifestyle, creating a boom in candidates and employers vying for position. This has led to a wide series of changes, including in the world of salaries and salary estimates. Again, we asked recruiters what they thought.

To the future: salary trends in 2022

“Aside from a competitive salary, companies need to offer competitive benefits to stay ahead,” says one recruiter. “These can include remote work, hybrid, flexi-work, company equity, family days/additional sick days, mental health days, remote office set-up allowance, learning and development budget and room for career growth.”

As above, salary is not the one carrot which you can use to lure a great candidate into your company. After COVID, people have higher expectations for work-life balance and the availability of remote work – this is documented along with the importance of compensation in the Great Discontent study released in September 2021.

By creating a progressive offering and work environment, you can attract exceptional talent that is looking for those freedoms and benefits.

Another issue in regards to the shift of work to remote is the issue of salaries. Hiring has gone global – EU-based candidates that would recently have had no chance of getting a role with a German company, for instance, can now count on being considered.

One recruiter explains:

“A thing I have noticed is that as remote work soars, candidates who are working remotely for San Francisco/Silicon Valley start-ups are getting paid San Francisco salaries and they then will expect this level of compensation in Europe.”

Now, when you’re hiring, you have the entire globe as a talent pool. This issue is only going to become more widespread as time goes on. The world is more interconnected than ever before, and it is up to you to learn how to adjust your hiring strategy to counteract this.

Learn more about the global talent market in our podcast or read about it here.

Choose wisely

In the end, the choice of whether to disclose the salary or not is up to you and your hiring team. But, hopefully, this article has helped to shed some light on the pros and cons of each situation.

A high salary posting can certainly attract excellent candidates, but it’s important to ensure you can foot the bill when it comes to the offer stage. Additionally, the only way of maintaining this appraisal is to create a transparent salary structure throughout your company. This avoids issues of unfair pay, employee morale problems, and general miscommunication.

When it comes to keeping your cards close and not mentioning the salary, make sure that you are supplementing that with another attractor important to candidates. Excellent candidates will only respond to well-thought-out and attractive job descriptions. Promote your company values and ambitions to entice top talent into the application process before they even think of the salary.

Again, in the modern world of recruitment, salary is not everything; other benefits can become even more important to candidates – especially issues such as remote working or flexible hours.

Take the time to really understand the job position – who is the ideal candidate? Will they respond better to a high salary or company equity? Are there other benefits which haven’t been considered yet?

The world of recruitment is dynamically changing, and it’s important for each company to take a deep, introspective look at how they want to hire. Jobs descriptions need to be more than just salary postings now. Although, statistically, it may seem as though the public wants to make sure salaries stay present.

Above all: stay transparent, don’t overpromise, and remember to keep an open mind.

Lewis Mc Cahill is the Content Marketing Manager for ACELR8. With over half a decade of experience, he has worked with a range of major brands and upcoming startups alike. With ACELR8, he is helping push the Embedded Recruitment Model forward with the help of the rest of the marketing team.

The post Should you include salary in a job description? Let’s talk! appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

But how do you get them to apply to your open roles? As anyone in sales knows, getting someone’s attention is easy enough. But getting them actively interested is another thing altogether.

Once you have an interaction with a passive candidate lined up, you need to first understand what would excite them about a job in your company. We’ve already done that research for you. Let’s dive in!

Want to see all the data in one place? Check out the full infographic below or download it for your own files.

The law of attraction

Think about passive candidate attraction in terms of magnets. For them to move to you, your company’s “magnet” needs to be stronger than their existing company’s magnet.

So, what are the primary properties of a company magnet that would pull a passive candidate into a new direction? Let’s take a look.

Job attractors

Passive candidates in the UK would be very attracted to jobs that offer work flexibility and competitive compensation. If they care about training, they’re likely already actively looking.

Employer attractors

And what about companies themselves? Passive candidates are interested in companies that have a strong moral and social foundation – company mission / vision / values and social / environmental / DEI engagement and action rank very high among passive candidates. Company culture is big as well.

The law of retention

Now, let’s look at their existing company’s magnetic qualities. Not everyone wants to move to a new job. They’re fine with where they are, but there are some “nice to haves” that would boost their loyalty to a company.

Here’s your opportunity: when talking with passive candidates, highlight those “nice to haves” and promote them as already existing in your own company, and you might attract them to your open roles.

So what are those “nice to haves”? Let’s have a look:

Job retainers

If your company promotes the potential for advancement within its ranks, that’s a huge attractor for both passive and active candidates – but the biggest difference is seen in those who cited compensation as something that could be better in their existing job.

Employer retainers

Passive candidates aren’t loving their current company’s level of transparency or responsiveness to individual worker concerns. The same holds true for overall company culture, executive leadership and social / environmental / DEI engagement and action, all of which could play a role in attracting them to your own company.

We hope these insights are helpful to you. You can also read more about passive candidates and how to source them. Personalizing your outreach is very important as well.

Also consider updating your careers page and fine-tuning your job descriptions so they engage a potential candidate’s best interests.

Check out our other infographic to understand who these candidates are and where they’re actually working. And what about passive candidate attraction in the UK? We have that covered too.

In the meantime, you can save time and resources using powerful AI-driven tools to source the best candidates for your company. For instance, Workable’s AI Recruiter automatically sources the best 50 candidates for every job from a diverse pool of 400 million-plus potential jobseekers worldwide.

The post INFOGRAPHIC: How do you pull passive candidates in the UK? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Want to see all the data in one place? Check out the full infographic below or download it for your own files.

And there’s a lot of them out there. Our recent Great Discontent survey of UK workers found that 45.1% are passively open to new opportunities.

But, before reaching out to passive candidates, let’s first understand who they are so you know who you’re dealing with.

So who are these passive candidates?

Passive candidates by sector

Let’s start with where they’re working. If you’re hiring in tech, logistics / supply chain, education, or healthcare, passive candidates are your opportunity to get ahead.

Interestingly, no sectors showed more active than passive jobseekers in the UK.

Passive candidates by company size

The larger the company, the more likely they’ll have far more passive than active candidates. Although all company sizes showed more passive than active candidates, those in the 500-999 FTE range showed the most even balance between both.

Now, let’s look at their actual jobs:

Passive candidates by function

Those working in product, service / customer support, and operations are more set in their roles but they’re open to talking about a new job.

Those working in recruitment are the polar opposite – they’re very much actively looking!

Passive candidates by job level

If you’re hiring for senior positions – especially VP level – the majority of those are actively looking, as well as those at the entry level. Managers, directors, individual contributors, and executives are much more passive.

That last group also includes owners – perhaps they’re happy to take on a job rather than deal with all the hassle of running a company, but not actively looking (yet)?

Passive candidates by job status

Full-time workers and those working for themselves are the most passive of all job statuses – likely because they’re in a good situation at the moment.

But to the previous point about owners, perhaps those working for themselves are likewise open to taking on a full-time paid position so they don’t have to run their own operation.

And finally, their demographics:

Passive candidates by age

The most passive age group in the UK job market is in the 50-59 year range – in other words, those likely to be already established in career and life and nearing retirement, but perhaps still open to one more job jump.

Meanwhile, the youngest adult cohort is more actively hunting for new work opportunities.

Passive candidates by minority status

One of the demographic questions we asked in the survey was; “Do you identify as a member of a minority group (be it race, ethnicity, language, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation, gender, or another characteristic)?”.

We found that those identifying as a non-minority are more likely to be simply curious about other jobs but not outright applying. And those identifying as a minority are more actively looking and far less settled in their existing roles – perhaps because they’ve decided their current situation is no longer acceptable or tenable.

Passive candidates by gender

Those identifying as male are far more likely to be passive than active candidates than their female counterparts. Females are either more actively looking or not looking at all.

And importantly, the reason why they might be open to new work:

Workers who are looking for a better balance between their work and home lives are far more likely to be passive candidates. The same rings true for those interested in career progression and those who see more work opportunities out there than in hte past.

The opposite is true for those who need more support in their work – those candidates are much more likely to be actively looking.

We hope you found these insights helpful. You can also read more about passive candidates and how to source them. Personalizing your outreach is very important as well.

Check out our other infographic to understand what would attract these candidates to a job with you. And what about passive candidate identities in the US? We have that covered too.

In the meantime, you can save time and resources when utilizing powerful AI-driven tools to source the best candidates for your company.

The post INFOGRAPHIC: 45% of UK workers are passive candidates. Who are they? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

But how do you get them to apply to your open roles? As anyone in sales knows, getting someone’s attention is easy enough. But getting them actively interested is another thing altogether.

Before interacting with them, you need to understand what would excite them about a job in your company. We’ve already done that research for you. Let’s dive in!

Want to see all the data in one place? Check out the full infographic below or download it for your own files.

The law of attraction

Think about passive candidate attraction in terms of magnets. For them to move to you, your company’s “magnet” needs to be stronger than their existing company’s magnet.

So, what are the primary properties of a company magnet that would pull a passive candidate into a new direction? Let’s take a look.

Job attractors

Passive candidates would be very attracted to jobs that offer work flexibility and have plenty of day-to-day logistical support. Oh, and compensation is big as well. They don’t care as much about training – if they do, they’re likely already actively looking.

Employer attractors

And what about companies themselves? Passive candidates can be attracted if your company is transparent with employees, possesses a healthy company culture, and has great leadership.

The law of retention

Now, let’s look at their existing company’s magnetic qualities. Not everyone wants to move to a new job. They’re fine with where they are, but there are some “nice to haves” that would make a difference in their loyalty to a company.

You do have an opportunity here: when talking with passive candidates, target those “nice to haves” and promote them as already existing in your own company, and you might attract them to your open roles.

So what are those “nice to haves”? Let’s have a look:

Job retainers

If your company actively supports its employees at work and offers job security and advancement potential, that’s a positive attractor as many passive candidates wish they had those in their existing role. Salary, perks and benefits are of course big as well.

Employer retainers

Passive candidates aren’t loving their current company’s social and environmental positioning, or even reputation. They’d also like to see better leadership, transparency and overall company culture where they currently work.

We hope these insights are helpful to you. You can also read more about passive candidates and how to source them. Personalizing your outreach is very important as well.

Also consider updating your careers page and fine-tuning your job descriptions so they engage a potential candidate’s best interests.

Check out our other infographic to understand who these candidates are and where they’re actually working. And what about passive candidate attraction in the UK? We have that covered too.

In the meantime, you can save time and resources using powerful AI-driven tools to source the best candidates for your company. For instance, Workable’s AI Recruiter automatically sources the best 50 candidates for every job from a diverse pool of 400 million-plus potential jobseekers worldwide.

The post INFOGRAPHIC: How do you lure passive candidates in the US? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

But there’s one potential solution. Have you considered reaching out to passive candidates? They may not be actively looking, but they’re open to a conversation. More so, they may not even know they want to work for you until you talk with them first.

Want to see all the data in one place? Check out the full infographic below or download it for your own files.

And there’s a lot of them out there. Our recent Great Discontent survey of US workers found that 37.3% are passively open to new opportunities.

But, before reaching out to passive candidates, let’s first understand who they are so you know who you’re dealing with.

So who are these passive candidates?

Passive candidates by sector

Let’s start with where they’re working. If you’re hiring in accounting, education, retail, or healthcare, passive candidates are your opportunity to get ahead. Supply chain, tech and design have the most active jobseekers.

Passive candidates by company size

The larger the company, the more likely they’ll have far more passive than active candidates. But the sweet spot for candidates in general are in the 100-999 FTE range.

Now, let’s look at their actual jobs:

Passive candidates by function

Passive candidates by job level

If you’re hiring for senior positions – especially VP level – the majority of those are actively looking. Managers, directors, and individual contributors are less active.

Passive candidates by job status

Unsurprisingly, full-time workers are the most passive of all job statuses – likely because they’re in a good situation at the moment. That doesn’t mean they’re not open to a new opportunity though.

And finally, their demographics:

Passive candidates by age

The most passive age groups in the job market are in the 40-59 year range – in other words, those likely to be already established in career and life – whereas the youngest adult cohort is very actively hunting for new work opportunities.

Passive candidates by minority status

One of the demographic questions we asked in the survey was; “Do you identify as a member of a minority group (be it race, ethnicity, language, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation, gender, or another characteristic)?”.

We found that those identifying as a non-minority are more likely to be fine where they are, but open to conversations about other jobs. And those identifying as a minority are more actively looking and far less settled in their existing roles – perhaps because they’ve decided their current situation is no longer acceptable or tenable.

Passive candidates by gender

Among those who consider themselves available for new jobs, those identifying as female are more likely to be passive than active candidates. There are studies finding women to be less aggressive in applying for new opportunities, which may be a factor.

And importantly, the reason why they might be open to new work:

Interestingly, those who see more work opportunities out there than in the past are also more likely to be passive candidates. That’s also the case for workers who need more balance between their home and work lives.

We hope you found these insights helpful. You can also read more about passive candidates and how to source them. Personalizing your outreach is very important as well.

Check out our other infographic to understand what would attract these candidates to a job with you. And what about passive candidate identities in the UK? We have that covered too.

Most of all: you can save time and resources when utilizing powerful AI-driven tools to source the best candidates for your company.

The post INFOGRAPHIC: 37% of US workers are passive candidates. Who are they? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Since diversity in the workplace continues to be held back due to recruitment biases, positive discrimination is even more important to further the cause. Let’s get to it then, shall we? #DEI 101!

What is positive discrimination?

The first thing that comes to mind when I hear the term “positive discrimination” is the lack of awareness around this subject. What does it mean, where does it stem from, why is it needed, and is it even OK to add this to your company’s DEI policies?

By definition, positive discrimination refers to preferential treatment demonstrated with the intent of bringing an underrepresented group (who possess one or more protected characteristics) to a level of equity in the workplace.

Whether positive or negative, it still is discrimination of some kind. Why should we do it then?

To understand why positive discrimination is required, we need to educate ourselves about equity, equality, and how they differ from each other. Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities, which takes into account an ideal situation where all people are equal.

Addressing the imbalance of marginalized groups in our workplaces is only possible through equity. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the necessary resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.

For a better understanding of these terms, let’s look at two examples:

1. A community meeting, where all members of the community are invited, about a local environmental health concern is held in English although 30% of the residents do not speak English.
2. At another community meeting, the community leaders hire translators to attend the meeting or offer an additional meeting held in another language.

The first case treats everyone the same (equally), which does not guarantee a positive outcome for all the members. The second instance recognizes the individual needs of the members and takes proactive steps to meet those needs equitably.

My first-hand experience with the above:

Over a period of time, I’ve personally experienced situations at work where I’ve had to learn, and then unlearn to strongly move away from the word ‘equality’ and associate the word ‘equity’ with inclusion and diversity instead. Coming from this place, I believe in positively discriminating for ‘equity’.

More about protected characteristics

Positive discrimination can apply to any person who has at least one of the protected characteristics. The policy was put into place in the 1960s to level the playing field for historically discriminated/overlooked groups. There are nine protected characteristics that fall under this policy:

1. Age
2. Disability
3. Gender reassignment
4. Marriage or civil partnership
5. Pregnancy and maternity
6. Race
7. Sex
8. Religion or belief
9. Sexual orientation

Examples of positive discrimination in the workplace

Positively discriminating for equity can lead to dramatically good outcomes for marginalized communities. The practices a company implements to foster inclusion in the workplace directly help in fostering positive discrimination in the workplace. Examples of positive discrimination that I’ve personally seen are:

• Hiring drive specifically for women candidates to increase the pool of candidates at the source and further gender (women) diversity
• Specific career development program for women, to increase the pipeline and gender ratio of women senior leaders at the top

Such practices help you understand the gaps in your workforce and improve workforce equity so you will be better equipped to make strategic hiring decisions.

What we do at HackerEarth

At HackerEarth, our intent and approach focus on inclusion with the end goal of achieving equity in the workplace. Keeping this at the heart of whatever we do, here are some policies we enforce at work:

• Under our leave policy, we include period leaves for women and paternity leaves for one month
• Employee insurance coverage offers same-sex partner inclusion as part of the policy

We hold awareness sessions specifically to talk about how to use the correct gender pronouns, spread awareness about gender stereotypes and the need to accept non-binary employees into the workforce, and touch upon inclusive behaviors in the workplace, among other topics

My first-hand experience with the above:

Ironically enough, when we first started discussing including period leave in our leave policy, I was hesitant. There were two reasons for this – one was that periods don’t give me acute pain/cramps or discomfort so I can handle it pretty well. The other was we would be showing preference to one gender by giving time off so should we also do something for men, just to keep it even?

I had to think, assess, and justly accept that we have our differences and similarities, despite being of the same gender. While all women have periods, not all react in the same way, which is exactly why we need to provide individual resources based on need. And the same can be said for men. As genders, we are biologically different and will require a separate set of resources to attain the end goal of equality and foster an inclusive workplace.

This was my first brush with the equity vs. equality conflict and needless to say, I’ve been on the side of equitable policies ever since.

Ways to positively discriminate

1. Do your DEI research

Before you blindly start on your DEI journey, you should do your research. Companies must educate themselves on where they currently stand in their diversity hiring, the industry research of past and present companies, and sociological studies. This helps identify gaps in the existing workforce and a better understanding of the strategy you should devise. Go back to the basics of what diversity and inclusion mean for your company and take it from there.

2. Implement a shared vocabulary

Creating a shared lexicon around the correct pronouns to use, and important DEI concepts they should know in your organization – and explaining meanings – is the first way to establish equity. By incorporating shared vocabulary into the workplace, both employees and employers are more likely to identify what is acceptable and what is not.

3. Select leaders who believe in the cause for equity

Identify champions for DEI and positive discrimination at senior leadership and top management levels. They are the ones that can communicate policies and values top-down, ensure that it is a priority, and be role models for the employees to emulate in their behaviors. Also, the higher levels of a company should reflect the diversity of their employees to be a truly inclusive workplace. The data is clear: DEI leadership is crucial for success.

4. Integrate positive discrimination into your strategy

At HackerEarth, inclusion is at the heart of whatever we do. We believe attaining equity in the workplace does not happen overnight. It has to be woven into the threads of the entire organization to successfully build an inclusive culture. Use a combination of leadership training, behavioral coaching, and planning to integrate positive discrimination for equity into your strategy. Give people the correct language to use, ask them to call out behaviors that are not accepted, and sensitize others towards these behaviors. Don’t restrict spreading awareness to only on the marginalized groups – include concepts like ‘allyship’ and positive discrimination.

5. Keep an ongoing dialogue on positive discrimination

Use research and learnings from other companies to start the conversation with your employees who are invested in this cause. Creating an inclusive workplace is creating an organizational culture of belonging that invites and values the contribution and participation of all their people.

At HackerEarth, this is one of the reasons why I decided to keep an open dialogue going to exchange thoughts, opinions, and ideas from different perspectives on my LinkedIn channel.

A word of caution

Practicing positive discrimination to simply fill a company quota is as harmful as taking up diversity hiring just to meet some numbers. It inadvertently perpetuates bias and affects the morale of a company.

Personally, the trick here is to keep equity at front of mind and not lose sight of that. And then use positive discrimination to create better opportunities and visibility for underrepresented groups.

The main word to place the spotlight on here would be “to be given equal opportunity / visibility.” Use the lens of merit, accordingly for all the candidates in consideration. Practice with intent and not just for the sake of it.

Swetha’s bio in her own words: As an HR professional, I’m fiercely passionate about the value I add to the individuals and teams that I associate myself with. Absolutely enjoy working on organizational development, change and transformation management. ‘Cultural transformation’ and ‘Inclusion’ are a few of my favorite topics to talk about. My personal style and approach come from the interest and passion that I share for art and various forms of mind-body expression. I strongly believe in challenging the status quo, whether it is by standing on my head once every day (read yoga), or by standing up and voicing my opinion on diversity and inclusion in our workplaces.

The post Positive discrimination: What it is and how you can implement it appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Also, when recruiting, you’re not only competing with other companies for candidates. You’re also competing with candidates’ life priorities. People now want work that aligns better with their personal lives – whether that’s family, passion projects, personal plans and ambitions, or something else outside of the daily grind.

Want to see all the data in one place? Check out the full infographic below or download it for your own files.

Yet, many employers don’t seem to be especially attuned to this. A Future Forum Pulse survey in Oct. 2021 finds a major disconnect between decision makers and employees when it comes to return-to-office plans.

This is especially true for those identifying as a woman:

Or as a minority:

But it’s not as simple as offering flexible work arrangements as a company policy. Well – it is that simple, but the idea of flexible working itself is a little more nuanced. Flexible work is actually comprised of two very different things under one umbrella: flexible work schedules and flexible working by location.

And one can exist without the other. As it happens, both are valued – but one much more than the other:

Now here’s where it gets interesting. A significant chunk of respondents in the US think their employer will return to the way things were before the pandemic.

Are you one of them? Perhaps there’s a need for on-location work or on-time work in your industry or sector – which is fully understandable. But perhaps there isn’t – and the only thing holding you to the traditional on-location, 9-to-5 grind is because you’ve always done it that way.

When you have workers who do think they can do their jobs remotely or on their own schedule, perhaps it’s time to evolve your value proposition as an employer.

So, is there a candidate shortage? Maybe not. There’s potentially an employer shortage – in that not enough employers are offering flexibility in the workplace.

This is your opportunity. Adapt and update your policies to support your employees to bring their full selves both to home and the workplace, and you’ll find more candidates knocking at your door.

We hope these insights are helpful to you. You can also learn how to implement flexible work schedules into your workplace and use our flexible working hours policy template to get started.

Also consider updating your careers page and fine-tuning your job descriptions so they engage a potential candidate’s best interests. 

The post INFOGRAPHIC: Flexible work arrangements and US priorities appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Also, when recruiting, you’re not only competing with other companies for candidates. You’re also competing with candidates’ life priorities. People now want work that aligns better with their personal lives – whether that’s family, passion projects, personal plans and ambitions, or something else outside of the daily grind.

Want to see all the data in one place? Check out the full infographic below or download it for your own files.

Yet, many employers don’t seem to be especially attuned to this. A Future Forum Pulse survey in Oct. 2021 finds a major disconnect between decision makers and employees when it comes to return-to-office plans.

In all of this is an emphasis on flexible working in the UK. UK workers want it, according to Workable’s Great Discontent survey:

This is especially true for those identifying as a woman:

But it’s not as simple as offering flexible work as policy. Well – it is that simple, but the idea of flexible work itself is a little more nuanced. Flexible work is actually comprised of two very different things under one umbrella: flexibility in schedule (working hours) and flexibility in location (remote work).

And one can exist without the other. As it happens, both are valued – but one much more than the other:

Now here’s where it gets interesting. A significant chunk of respondents in the UK think their employer will return to the way things were before the pandemic.

Are you one of them? Perhaps there’s a need for on-location work or on-time work in your industry or sector – which is fully understandable. But perhaps there isn’t – and the only thing holding you to the traditional on-location, 9-to-5 grind is because you’ve always done it that way.

When you have workers who do think they can do their jobs remotely or on their own schedule, perhaps it’s time to evolve your value proposition as an employer.

So, is there a candidate shortage? Maybe not. There’s potentially an employer shortage – in that not enough employers are offering flexibility in the workplace.

This is your opportunity. Adapt and update your policies to support your employees to bring their full selves both to home and the workplace, and you’ll find more candidates knocking at your door.

We hope these insights are helpful to you. You can also learn how to implement flexible working hours into your workplace and use our flexible working hours policy template to get started.

Also consider updating your careers page and fine-tuning your job descriptions so they engage a potential candidate’s best interests. 

The post INFOGRAPHIC: Flexible working and talent priorities in the UK appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Hiring managers need to get creative to solve this staffing problem. By doing so, they can solve today’s crisis and address lingering, systemic inequalities in our employment system.

• Look to women to solve the hiring crisis
  • Women are an undertapped resource for hiring teams
  • The unique social and economic burdens on women
• The economic impact of the pandemic
• Women as an undertapped resource
  • 1. Part-time work
  • 2. Flexible and/or remote work
  • 3. Salary
  • 4. Child-care benefits
  • 5. Parental leave programs
• Case study: Working mothers in education
• Why are so many teachers women?
  • 1. School schedules
  • 2. Parental leave policies
  • 3. Benefits

Look to women to solve the hiring crisis

Women are an undertapped resource for hiring teams

Women have overwhelmingly borne the worst of the economic and occupational impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has only worsened existing structural inequalities. Hiring teams have a unique opportunity to tap into this group, which has been largely overlooked as a potential solution to ongoing staffing difficulties. Companies that address barriers to female success at work can take advantage of all they have to offer.

The unique social and economic burdens on women

Women have been economically oppressed for centuries. Only in the last hundred years have women’s rights truly begun to expand: to education and literacy, work, and voting rights. Even when women’s rights began to expand, women of color faced barriers to equality. The effects of these historical inequalities are, in many ways, still felt today:

• Women earn less than men in every professional category tracked by the Department of Labor, including in education, an industry in which women are more than twice as likely than men to work.
• And while women as a whole earn about 82% of men annually, that number is even lower for women of color. Black women with a bachelor’s degree only earn about 65% of what white men with the same education earn.

Under U.S. federal law, women have the right to 12 unpaid weeks of maternity leave, but paid maternity leave varies drastically by employer. Poor labor provisions for new mothers as well as the exorbitant cost of daycare for young children lead many new mothers to exit the workforce completely, often for years at a time.

Working mothers must balance their full- or part-time work with taking care of children and the unpaid labor involved in running a household. Women spend between two and ten times more time on unpaid labor than men.

The economic impact of the pandemic

These were the factors at play when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States in March of 2020. The effects the pandemic has had on gender equality at work are downright chilling. Women’s labor force participation rate, meaning the percentage of adult women who choose to work, fell to an astonishing 55.8%. The last time the number was this low? 1987.

As school went virtual for much of the country, working mothers were put in an impossible bind: find a way to guide their children through virtual school while somehow still working full-time, or quit their jobs. Many chose to leave work, finding maintaining the balance impossible.

Our research found that American women are more than twice as likely than men to cite family duties as the reason they’re not working. In the U.K., women are more than six times (41.7%) as likely as men (6.7%) to say that family priorities keep them from working.

Women lost 5.4 million jobs during the pandemic, compared to 4.4 million for men. This is largely due to so-called ‘pink-collar jobs’; women hold many of the low-wage positions in the United States. In fact, in 2018, 46% of working women were employed in low-wage jobs. A quarter (25%) of working women are mothers of a child under the age of 14, but many of those women struggle to find affordable childcare, with childcare for toddlers averaging $900 per child per month. To learn more about the ways the pandemic is affecting working women, check out our article and infographic.

Jump to the full infographic – or download it for yourself here.

Women as an undertapped resource

This much is certain: our economy is not making use of women’s labor the way it could, and when it does, women are not fairly compensated for their work, experience, and education. The pandemic has worsened existing disparities along racial and gender lines, and hiring professionals in general seem to be overlooking the under- and unemployment of women as an opportunity for recruitment.

But simply recognizing the way that women have been unfairly impacted by the tumultuous work conditions of the pandemic is not enough to execute a solution to ongoing staffing issues. The largest barrier, perhaps, is the fact that for many of the nearly three million women who have left the workforce over the last year, they have no intention to return to the workforce anytime soon.

Even among women who are still employed, a survey from Deloitte found that 60% are planning to leave their jobs in the next two years.

Why? Lack of work-life balance was the number one cited reason that women are planning to leave their jobs.

In order to hire women, companies are going to have to incentivize them to return to work. What will it take to get women to consider rejoining the workforce? Let’s discuss some of the benefits you can offer women to encourage them to join your organization.

1. Part-time work

Many new moms would like to continue working after they have their child, but are faced with an impossible choice: stay home and quit altogether, or return full-time and find a way to afford full-time childcare. Part-time work continues to carry a stigma in the corporate world – and without good reason, because it is actually a potential solution to staffing problems and gendered workplace inequality.

Our survey found that women are more than twice as likely to say they’re currently working part-time than men. If you can’t find candidates to fill your full-time position, consider switching it to a part-time position instead.

2. Flexible and/or remote work

Allowing your employees to work on a flexible schedule can make work far more accessible for working mothers. Consider, for example, the typical 9-5 work day. For parents with children in school, their workday ends after school (with school days typically ending between 2 and 4:30). This can put parents, especially single parents, in a bind. In fact, 44% of women we surveyed said that work flexibility would attract them to a new opportunity, as opposed to just 31.6% of men.

Similarly, 39.7% said they like remote work because it makes it easier to integrate personal and professional priorities. Remote work can be a better option for women who have long been excluded from the workforce due to competing priorities.

3. Salary

Women are motivated by salary and benefits just as men are. In our survey, men were slightly more likely (67.3%) to say that salary attracts them to a new opportunity than women (61.8%).

That being said, consider the cost of child care and the gender wage gap when thinking about salary in the context of employing women and working mothers.

4. Child-care benefits

How can your organization support working parents? Work-life integration is one of the top priorities for working mothers, so to hire women, you’re going to have to show concrete proof that your culture is supportive.

One way to do this could be through offering child-care benefits, such as company or subsidized child-care, or credits for employees with children in child care.

5. Parental leave programs

Do you offer parental leave? How generous is your parental leave program? Generous parental leave shows your employees that you support gender equality.

Why? Because having a child is physically taxing, and inadequate parental leave dismisses the physical and emotional recovery that parents go through following the birth of a child.

With childbirth, household duties, and childcare falling unequally on women, parental leave is one way to balance the scales.

Case study: Working mothers in education

To explore other ways your organization can hire and retain women and working mothers, let’s look at a sector that employs women at one of the highest rates: education.

Nearly nine out of 10 (87%) of primary school teachers in the U.S. are women, according to the World Bank. Teaching is the second-most common profession for American women, after nursing. Women are twice as likely as men to be teachers.

We also know that, overall, one-third of full-time workers care for a child under the age of 18. Compare this to the fact that 48% of teachers have at least one child to care for, and we see that there are more working mothers in education than other professions.

Why are so many teachers women?

There are many factors to consider here. The history of women as teachers may play a role, as might be the fact that women hold more jobs in less traditionally prestigious professions like education.

Some would point to the caregiving and nurturing aspects of teaching as reasons that the profession attracts a high number of female employees.

But perhaps the most compelling theory is that the profession simply fits better structurally with the life of the working mother. Here are a few ways that education sector policy lines up with working parents’ priorities.

1. School schedules

For working parents, corporate schedules that demand presence in an office from 9-5 make it challenging to care for children. Even if the children are school-aged, most school days end between 2 and 4:30 p.m. This leaves working parents scrambling to coordinate expensive daycare or babysitters.

For mothers who work as teachers, their schedules align far more closely with children who are school-aged. In addition to making pick-up and drop-off easier, if a parent works in the same school district where their child goes to school, they share the same school holidays and break schedules. Working mothers are able to care for their children full-time at home during the summer holiday.

2. Parental leave policies

School district policy on parental leave varies dramatically by geographical location. In North Carolina, for example, new parents are entitled to up to a year of unpaid leave following the birth or adoption of a child. This is far more generous than the 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave guaranteed by federal law.

This is just one example, though, and certainly many parents can’t afford to take an unpaid year off of work following the birth of a child.

Some teachers use school schedules to time their pregnancies with summer break to get the most possible time with new children under a system that doesn’t meet their needs.

3. Benefits

Public school teachers, as government employees, generally have access to decent benefits, a must for any working parent. While teachers are underpaid, most school districts offer robust healthcare options and even pensions.

With education offering little prestige and no promise of wealth, the number of educated women choosing to pursue this career path speaks to the other advantages it offers. Organizations looking to bring working mothers back into the workforce can learn from the opportunities and pitfalls of one of the most common professions for women.

Educate your business – in more ways than one

Your company can contribute to ending decades of gendered economic inequality by making your organization a haven for working moms. But in order to get women to return to the workforce, you have to fix what’s broken and address their needs. Shift to align your priorities with working women and you’ll gain the benefit of them as an untapped staffing resource.

The post The education solution: Address gender barriers as an employer appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Jobs in retail and healthcare are most at risk for high turnover due to the high demands and stress of working throughout the pandemic that caused irrevocable damage to employee loyalty. The tech industry also saw high turnover rates due to burnout, but they also had more competitive remote work options to turn to.

While it is typical for younger employees to have a higher rate of job turnover, that has recently shifted to employees aged 30-45 years old with an increase in resignations in this group by over 20% between 2020 and 2021. The US Great Discontent survey report also finds that employees in this group are more likely to be passively open to new opportunities than other age groups.

Younger employees are less mobile due to lack of job security while Boomers and Gen Xers are more content with their current employment.

Employers should perform their own self-audit to determine what is causing employees to resign if it does not fall under these more obvious categories.

Certain benefits such as working from home have become a premium in the job market due to the pandemic. As the appeal of juggling two workspaces fades, hybrid jobs do not inspire as much employee loyalty as fully remote jobs – 58% versus 73% employee loyalty. Considering desirable benefits that will inspire loyalty will be necessary to avoid costly high-turnover rates.

The cost of high employee turnover

The cost to replace an employee in terms of marketing the position, paying recruiters, interviewing, relocation costs, signing bonuses, and training the replacement comes to about 33% of an employee’s annual salary according to a retention report by the Work Institute.

It will also take time before the new hire is productive – in other words, the time to ramp, as Workable CFO Craig DiForte describes it – and this factors in lost revenue. These hiring costs can add up when one in three hires leave a company in their first two years and is why it is most beneficial to emphasize best practices for employee retention.

An unfortunate hidden cost of high turnover is that the workload falls on the remaining employees who must pick up the slack until the new hire is up to speed. This can be damaging to staff morale which makes it important to add incentives for those loyal workers who remain before they become resentful.

How to improve employee loyalty and retention

For the employees who remain loyal it is important to recognize when they go above and beyond their job description, especially for those who are responsible for training new hires and picking up the slack. Workers who feel appreciated by their supervisors – and are well-compensated – are more likely to stay. This, again, is confirmed in the Great Discontent survey, with two-thirds of US workers saying they need to make more money as a reason why they’re looking elsewhere.

One proactive solution is to incorporate team-building exercises because keeping employees happy translates to higher productivity which is the ultimate goal. Employers will need to make time in their schedule to be accessible and communicate with their team either at work or at more relaxed employee excursions like going to a sporting event, playing mini-golf, or participating in an escape room experience.

There are other ways to make employees happy that do not cost anything. Some workers simply desire career mobility and transparency about how they can grow in their roles at work. Providing job training and a clear path to career advancement are important to keeping loyal employees – 47% of survey respondents reported that feeling stagnant in their roles was the main reason for looking for a new job that had more opportunities for growth and fulfilment.

Hiring and recruiting strategies

Hiring a new employee is an investment and it is important to establish honest job expectations from the start to guarantee that you do not end up wasting each other’s time – not to mention the money involved in training a new hire.

Employers should carefully craft their job description to reflect their company values and should not shy away from explaining the job role in detail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8Ip3mLOjOs&ab_channel=Workable

Future interviews and training should reinforce these ideas so there is no confusion regarding expectations.

It can also be helpful to advertise the fun company culture in job advertisements since workers who are leaving due to burnout may be seeking a better work environment.

It is not enough just to be fun right now because the pandemic is still a serious issue affecting job searches. Offering healthcare benefits is more important to employees than ever due to the pandemic and putting onerous restrictions on when benefits go into effect can deter applications.

Advertising initiatives for mental health resources can be a useful selling point as well and should not be overlooked. Social isolation from remote work is one of the downsides despite its popularity and proactively addressing it instead of ignoring the problem that so many are now facing can be a marketable feature for your employer brand.

Visibility is the key to future-proofing your business

The first step to creating a targeted retention program is to establish greater visibility into the root causes of turnover. This may also involve having uncomfortable conversations with employees that have chosen to resign by performing exit interviews. Ultimately, this data will empower your business to attract leading industry talent, retain loyal employees, and reduce turnover costs.

The post How do you overcome the Big Quit as an employer? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In the midst of the remote work phenomenon, a return to office actually has significant benefits according to Chris Bodensieck, HqO’s talent acquisition director. In this podcast, he discusses why remote work is overrated, how there can be room for both remote and in-office workforce strategies, and most of all, what makes RTO a potential attraction advantage for talent-starved employers.

The post Podcast episode #16: Why returning to the office could be your hiring differentiator appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

As industrial/organizational psychologists with years of experience in the military and in corporate hiring and co-editors of the recent book, Military Veteran Employment: A Guide to the Data-Driven Leader, we are here to offer new ideas and suggestions to take your veteran hiring and recruiting to the next level.

First, some good news: research shows that many companies talk about hiring veterans. However, not many companies are putting their words into action when it comes to a research-informed approach to hiring veterans. Even fewer companies are executing programs targeted at veterans – the smaller the company, the less that they are doing.

For example, in a survey of employers by the Edelman global communications firm, only 23% of employers said that they saw veterans as strategic assets for their companies and only a little more than two out of five (43%) said that they are receiving enough veteran applications.

Here are some suggestions to improve your veteran hiring efforts, whether you are just getting started or already have a robust dedicated effort in place.

1. Update your job descriptions
2. Look at vets’ transferable skills
3. Track your hiring pipeline data
4. Learn about the military’s culture, values, and language
5. Capitalize on veterans’ networks
6. Utilize your customer support team
7. Don’t overlook military spouses
8. Focus on retention as well

1. Update your job descriptions

Focus on experiences and competences and avoid listing years in a position or certificates or diplomas as requirements or qualifications for the role. Many veterans may lack academic degrees or formal certificates but have nevertheless gained the relevant experience and skills that you need.

For instance, ask yourself why your job descriptions dictate a master’s degree or six years of experience? Are these critical to the position or do they merely serve as a signal of what you want to see in candidates?

Take the time to re-think who can do the job and break the job down into the absolutely required critical constituent knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies, and then list these in your ads.

Not only will this help with your veteran hiring efforts, but it will benefit your hiring members of other populations that may not have the formal education but do have the right skills.

2. Look at vets’ transferable skills

About half of military members want to leave their military occupation and do something different in the civilian world. The RAND Corporation has conducted extensive research on the transferability of military skills and new ways to connect military occupations with civilian ones.

RAND’s work highlights that employers should not assume that an infantryman is only qualified to be a cop because the prior service member carried guns. Many infantrymen have become successful computer technicians, salespeople, managers, and even comedy writers.

Learn to see past an applicant’s military occupation to their skills and experiences and learn how your company can utilize these in different occupations.

3. Track your hiring pipeline data

Monitor your candidates at every stage to identify where you lose or gain veterans throughout your talent pipeline. Look at the demographic make-up (including veteran status) at each stage of hiring to see if there is a fall-off at a certain stage.

For instance, do you get enough veterans applying? Are your recruiters sourcing veterans? Do you have a sufficient percentage at each step but then their percentage decreases because of the interview?

Find out what your numbers look like so that you can address the area where the shortfall begins.

4. Learn about the military’s culture, values, and language

If you understand the culture, values, and language of the military – and share that knowledge with your business leaders and hiring managers – you’ll more effectively engage your military veterans. Research from the Center for a New American Security shows companies that make the effort to understand and honor the military culture and military family experiences do a better job of recruiting and retaining their veteran employees.

Make sure your recruiters who work with veterans understand the military – and if you have veterans in your company, see if they want to serve as recruiters, brand champions, or want to advise your company on its efforts.

5. Capitalize on veterans’ networks

Word of mouth will be your most effective tool for recruiting and retaining veterans. Veterans have learned to trust comments from other veterans and military members.

A pro-veteran web page or brochure – with flags and pictures of soldiers – will mean nothing to a veteran if they have heard negative comments about your company from current veteran employees. Make sure you deal honestly with veterans, respect the military and its culture, take care of military families, and utilize their skills well.

Also, encourage your current veteran employees to share their experiences with other veterans who might be interested in working for your company. For example, JPMorgan Chase & Co. created a series of videos where existing employees explain how they use their military skills in their jobs. Here’s one of those videos.

https://youtu.be/FEEH9nM65uA

6. Utilize your customer support team

Your reputation as a company can influence your brand as an employer. Create a military-focused customer support team (made up of veterans or military spouses) and train other agents to recognize nuanced military terms and offer extensions on payment or other special treatment for military family customers.

If a military spouse mentions that they may have difficulty paying a bill because of a PCS (in military terms, a permanent change of station or relocation) or because the spouse has been deployed overseas, have the call transferred to your military team. These agents will be able to speak to them in the right ‘language’ with proper contextual understanding and offer extensions or other special handling.

When the military member starts looking for employment, the spouse that received payment extensions or other special handling will have a positive feeling about the company and will recommend them as a good place to work.

Building a positive brand and employee value proposition is important for all companies and even more important when working within the military and veteran communities.

7. Don’t overlook military spouses

Veterans will understand that companies that take care of military families will be good places to consider for their own employment. We also suggest being inclusive of spouses of currently serving members of the military and veterans – often termed “military spouses”.

Military spouses are a well-educated and often under-utilized talent population that frequently relies on tight military community networks to find employment and support due to the demands of a military lifestyle.

Make an effort to hire and retain military spouses by understanding that the gaps in their resumes may be caused by frequent moves for their spouse’s career and that their experience may not be reflected in a traditional resume or standard metrics. And, to help spouses who move frequently with their families, offer remote or distributed work options where possible.

8. Focus on retention as well

Many companies have learned how to hire veterans, but few can successfully retain veterans in their companies. Data from LinkedIn demonstrates that while veterans may have higher turnover than non-veterans during their first year of employment, the rate drops to less than that of non-veterans once they stay for more than a year. In fact, overall, they stay 8.3% longer in their initial place of employment than non-veterans do.

Here are some suggestions to improve retention:

Provide a sense of purpose or mission.

Many veterans self-select into the military because they want to serve something greater than themselves. The need to support a mission doesn’t end when they take the uniform off.

Provide your veteran employees with a new mission or purpose and fulfill this innate need for them. Communicate your company’s mission to your employees so each employee can see their direct “line of sight” to fulfilling that mission. Leadership should not only communicate this vision but help each employee see how they personally drive it as leaders.

Understand that veterans have finely honed “BS” detectors

Be open and transparent with your veteran employees. Don’t try to couch the truth or avoid difficult conversations – especially since veterans are skillful at identifying lack of transparency after their time in the military and will be carrying that over into the civilian world.

Being accustomed to a strong culture of leadership and development, veterans are used to direct feedback, to hearing bad news directly, and adapting quickly to fix the situation.

Provide frequent and regular feedback

Military members do not wait around for an annual performance review. Service members are used to having formal “After Action Reviews” after every operation and informal check-ins or “azimuth checks” regularly. Take care with your veteran employees to provide informal feedback regularly.

A rich well of talent

Veterans are a vastly undertapped resource in our society – and a rich well of skill to fill those important roles in your organization. These ideas will help you ensure your veteran hiring and retention programs will be highly successful. Good luck!

Kristin N. Saboe, Ph.D. is an Army veteran, nationally recognized leader, award-winning psychologist, public speaker, and strategist. While an officer and Research Psychologist in the Army, she deployed to Afghanistan and served as a staff officer at the Pentagon. Her writing, research, and community involvement focuses on veteran and military spouse employment, human performance optimization, leadership, and well-being in both military and civilian settings.

Nathan D. Ainspan, Ph.D., has researched, written, and spoken extensively about military-civilian transitions and veterans’ civilian employment. He is currently the Senior Research Psychologist with the Military-Civilian Transition Office (MCTO) at the Department of Defense. His work focuses on improving civilian employment opportunities for returning service members and the psychosocial benefits that employment provides to wounded warriors and injured veterans.

More reading: How to hire veterans

The post 8 new techniques to hire and retain military veterans appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

• 73% of candidates are passively looking
• Recruitment emails have an open rate of 21.14%
• 33% of recipients open emails based on the subject line

Based on these numbers, we can see that passive job seekers need more than uninspiring cold emails to make them check out a new job profile and ultimately, apply for that job.

We’ll go through an eight-step process to give you enough ammunition to turn run-of-the-mill emails into high-converting ones.

1. Create an email copy outline
2. Write compelling subject lines
3. Find the candidate’s info & research their background
4. Personalize your outreach
5. Keep your email brief and on point
6. Include a clear CTA
7. Utilize the power of email signature
8. Establish a follow-up strategy

1. Create an email copy outline

To start off, you need to get your email outline right. Cold emails are by design, notorious for cookie-cutter outlines. And this is where most companies fail to attract the right talent. Your cold emails need to be precise, relevant, and unique. One way to write a good email is to know how not to write it. Take this email for example:

Stack Overflow unearthed this cold email that’s about everything a recruiter shouldn’t send to a cold candidate. It’s not addressed to anyone in particular, it doesn’t show the value the roles provide, it uses a long list of skills as the body, and it ends with a weak CTA. It’s hard to impress job seekers with emails crafted as poorly as this one.

While creating an outline for email, it is important to have fleshed-out answers to these questions:

• Who is this email for?
• What is the purpose/goal of sending the email?
• Do the emails need attachments?
• What writing tone should be used?
• What is the best CTA and where should it be placed?
• How to start/end the emails?

The purpose of the outline is to allow companies to automate and scale recruitment strategies. But it should still leave enough room to improvise the copy depending on context and the information available.

A good example should look like this:

The email quickly hooks the candidate with a relatable experience and goes on to explain all the information relevant to the job. The email body is laser-sharp and ends with a good CTA.

2. Write compelling subject lines

Most people only look at the subject lines of the emails to decide whether to delete or open them. Job seekers are no different.
It’s not uncommon for active and passive job seekers to receive hundreds of recruitment emails each day. The only way they can keep the inbox tidy is by deleting the emails that don’t add value to their lives.

When you’re writing a subject line, put yourself in the recipient’s shoes and see what lines you wouldn’t click at all. Take this line for example:

A surprise career opportunity that’ll change your life. Check right now!

Bombastic, misleading, and long sentences are precisely the things you need to avoid when it comes to writing cold emails. It’s important to spend a good bit of time and effort ironing out the subject line. In general, it has to be short, ideally 4-6 words, punchy, and loaded with value.

Great recruitment subject lines should look more like these:

• UX Writer position open at [company name]
• [Company name] is looking for Product Managers
• Data Engineer position available in Vancouver, CA

Along with perfecting the subject line, you should also write a preheader text that provides more information about the email. A lot of recruiters miss the free space so this should be your opportunity to stand out.

3. Find the candidate’s info & research their background

Research plays a key part in practically every aspect of marketing. Recruitment in 2021 can be made better by infusing marketing elements to cater to the right talent pool.

It’s not just the job seekers who have to find the hiring manager’s email address. Recruiters must also deeply research the candidates and go over the information that might be useful for the job. This can be previous roles and companies, qualifications, and career goals. LinkedIn is where talented professionals discuss jobs, careers, and personal lives. You can make connections and even join LinkedIn groups to see what your ideal candidates are up to. LinkedIn InMails are a great way to warm up cold candidates but the sheer volume of undercooked and spam messages by recruiters often drive professionals off the platform.

LinkedIn, however, is not the only option. Techies are available in GitHub and Stack Overflow, writers are sharing ideas in Medium, designers are using Pinterest and Instagram to showcase their art. Social media channels and even portfolio websites are goldmines of information that you can use in your outreach campaign.

Apart from social media and portfolio websites, there’s another channel for effective communication – emails. But it’s not always easy to find the correct email addresses of candidates. With a tool like Hunter’s Email Finder, recruiters find the right people faster.

But people often change jobs and forget to update their email addresses. They might even stop checking their old inbox. That’s why you also need to verify email addresses to make sure you’re not emailing inactive addresses. An email list full of irrelevant addresses will increase your bounce rate, and drag down your deliverability and reputation score.

4. Personalize your outreach

Now that you have enough information about your targeted candidates, it’s time to put the knowledge into action. Approach your recruitment emails the way you write a cold pitch.

Candidates (and humans in general) love to be seen. Always address them by their name at the start of the email and immediately establish a personal connection to show what’s in it for them.

Email personalization is critical in outreach campaigns. A personalized email template should look like this example from Stack Overflow:

It’s a detailed cold email that gives all the information the recipient needs to make a decision. The friendly tone also goes perfectly with the context and the job profile in the discussion.

There’s proof in the pudding too – Boston-based full stack developer Mark Bates talked about the importance of personal connection when reaching out to tech candidates:

“I want to be talked to directly as a person,” Mark said. “Show me that you know who I am and you know the things that I do. And you can tell me in that initial contact why I would make a huge difference at your company.”

5. Keep your email brief and on point

The previous email is a good example of a personalized copy. Coupled with a solid subject line, it should clock good responses from job seekers. But it’s not just the personal connection that sealed the deal. The email is easy to read, offers only the relevant information, and more importantly, tells the candidate what to do after reading the email.

Depending on their career trajectory and position, job seekers either want enriching opportunities, financial benefits, or both. The email offers all these details.

Workload: I’m hiring another mobile engineer to join us here at PuppyHomeTech.

Salary: We offer better pay than any startup in NY.

Process: Our interview only takes one day. We move quickly and if we decide to make an offer, you’ll receive it in 24 hours.

The sender shouldn’t also drag recruitment emails too long with unrelated information. Job applications are often lengthy. As a result, 60% of job seekers give up filling up applications midway. This pattern is true for cold emails as well. Excess information in recruitment emails makes it hard to find the important parts for busy professionals.

That’s why recruiters should distill it down to a few key points and drive home the importance of the email. You can embed graphics or a video on email banners to showcase company culture and provide a bit more details about the role without cluttering the email body.

6. Include a clear CTA

Take a look at this email:

Dear candidate,

We are [company name], a fast-paced company with global footprints. We’re looking for data analysts and you fit our description. Please click on the link below to fill the form.

About us: We’re [ a bit more details about the company]

If you’re interested in the opportunity, please reply to this email so that we can schedule a call.
Thanks!

[Email Signature]

Apart from being vague, the email also confuses the recipient. When you’re cold-emailing candidates, you must remember that the person doesn’t know you, the company, or the role yet. The email will give all the necessary information for the first time, and the information must flow naturally.

This email has two calls to action. One asking to fill up an online form, the other asking to schedule a call. Contradictory or multiple CTAs are confusing and it shows that you haven’t done your homework. Candidates are less likely to go ahead when the lack of effort is clearly visible from the recruiter’s end.

That’s why it’s important to stick to a single CTA. If you have a separate job board that you want them to apply for, only add that link. If you want them to directly reply to your email, mention only that.

One CTA shows your clarity of thought and helps candidates navigate through the next process.

Especially, look at those last two questions – straight and to the point in a way that makes it easy for the candidate to respond. This recruiting email not only sticks to a clear CTA but also goes ahead a step further to offer more information about the call.

7. Utilize the power of email signature

Email signature in a recruitment email tells a lot in a short space. Including an official signature is important because:

• Email signature offers a name that can be searched online by the candidate to verify legitimacy. It instantly creates reliability and is far better than using an unidentifiable sales rep persona.
• An email signature can be used to link company vision and other details. Candidates can check the links to know more about the role, and company culture.
• A huge number of emails go to the spam folder every day and recruitment emails are also part of it. Including an official email signature is one way to avoid getting flagged for spam by the recipient

A good email signature should look like this:

8. Establish a follow-up strategy

Far too many recruiters miss out on talent after not getting a reply the first time. Professionals are busy and it’s easy to miss an email. Cold emails are not expected to generate a 100% response rate but they can be seen as a part of the warm-up process to fetch a response from the candidate later. Ideally, you’ll want to follow up with 3-4 emails before accepting the fact that the candidate is not interested in the opportunity.

To write compelling follow-up emails, you need to add value, lead with the previous email and keep the copy short.

• A follow-up email that leads with the previous email:

• A follow-up email that’s short:

• And one last follow-up email:

Wrapping up

Most recruitment cold emails are uninspiring and impersonal, which actually gives you the opportunity to stand out and attract ideal candidates with a well-thought-out cold email strategy. By following the 8-step process, you’ll be able to craft cold emails that job seekers love to read and respond to.

Irina Maltseva is Head of Marketing at Hunter. She enjoys working on inbound and product marketing strategies. In her spare time, she entertains her cat Persie and collects airline miles.

The post 8 tips for writing outstanding cold recruitment emails that convert – with templates appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

The employer posts the job, you apply, beg for a job, and then, if lucky, the employer will offer you the job. If you’re brave, you can negotiate the salary up a bit, but it’s pretty much a take-it-or-leave-it situation.

Job interviews were like dog-and-pony shows where candidates tried to impress judges, and the judges didn’t feel obligated to try to impress the candidate.

During this time, you saw a lot of ghosting – on the employer’s part. Come in for two, three, five interviews… and then silence. And that was just how it was. It was wrong then, but everyone knew to expect it.

The booming economy in the pre-pandemic days and then the pandemic itself turned all these rules on their heads. Here is how it is now.

The new rules of talent engagement

If you are hiring or looking for a job, you need to know how to play the game. Here are the new rules.

1. Job descriptions are marketing documents
2. Salary comes first
3. Candidates are interviewing you
4. Lack of flexibility makes it harder to hire
5. Everyone is ghosting
6. Candidates won’t play the long interview game

1. Job descriptions are marketing documents

The labor shortage means companies compete for the best candidate. Your job descriptions need to be well written and focus on the critical aspects of the job. Just as recruiters can reject an applicant in seven seconds or less, job candidates can breeze through job postings.

Make sure your job postings:

• Use good formatting to draw eyes to key points
• Stay away from jargon (fast-paced, exciting environment is a red flag to today’s candidates)
• List the top responsibilities only. Long lists get you rejected as nit-picky.

Related: Why Maslow thinks your job ads suck

2. Salary comes first

Several states banned recruiters and hiring managers from asking about previous salaries, which means you can’t get an advantage by asking for a current and past paycheck size.

But that doesn’t mean money is taboo – in fact, candidates want to know the salary budget for the job. Colorado even requires companies to post their salary and benefit information in the job posting.

Candidates don’t like wasting their time interviewing or even applying for jobs where the salary is unknown. Plus, salary is still king when it comes to job decisions, according to September’s Great Discontent survey.

Putting a salary in your job description, or discuss it on the initial phone screen, and you’ll get a lot further. Some candidates will refuse to go on without this knowledge.

3. Candidates are interviewing you

It’s no longer a beauty pageant but a date. The candidate wants to know about your business, management style, and benefits. Candidates expect to have conversations rather than have you interrogate them.

This is a benefit to all parties – after all, you want to hire someone who wants to be into the job, not just a warm bod.

And keep in mind, candidates feel like they have more options, so they will carefully consider your answers as much as you consider theirs.

4. Hiring now requires flexibility

Seventy-two percent of people prefer a hybrid situation, where they can come into the office sometimes and work from home occasionally. While there are plenty of jobs that must be done onsite (dentist, grocery store clerk, janitor, etc.), there are plenty of jobs that can offer options.

Not offering a work-from-home or hybrid option for most white-collar jobs will reduce the number of people interested in your position. People worked from home during the pandemic, liked it or hated it, and now want to control that aspect of their lives.

Including flexibility information in the job posting can help you attract candidates.

Related: One in three US workers value remote work – and three in five value flexible hours. Learn more in our Great Discontent survey report.

5. Everyone is ghosting

It used to be just recruiters and hiring managers that ghosted candidates; now, it’s candidates ghosting interviewers. While this is terrible manners regardless of who does it, you can hardly blame candidates who now feel they have the upper hand. Recruiters treated them poorly for years, and now it’s payback time.

However, the ghosting doesn’t end at the interview stage. Candidates can accept job offers and yet not show up on the first scheduled day or leave after a couple of weeks without saying a word. You may not feel secure in your new hire until several months have passed.

6. Candidates won’t play the long interview game

Many candidates are no longer willing to go through six rounds of interviews plus a presentation when pursuing a job. They will jump to a company that can decide after one or two rounds of interviews. Some companies are even doing on-the-spot job offers.

Adjusting to the new reality

Change is hard for everyone, but candidates jumped at the opportunity to have more power in the hiring relationship. You need to train your recruiters and hiring managers in this new reality.

Shorten your time to hire

It may be a struggle for a company that traditionally has long interview processes or hides salary information until the offer stage. Still, if you continue on this path, you risk losing out on the best (or any) candidates.

Stay on top of salary trends

You also need to keep an eye on market-rate salaries. Things change rapidly. You may think that the fast-food restaurant’s increasing pay doesn’t affect your business, but when unskilled labor jobs start increasing their pay, you’ll find people expect more money for more skilled jobs. No company operates in a vacuum. Salaries can change rapidly across the system.

Don’t hold out for the unicorn

You also cannot afford the perfect candidate to drop out of the applicant tracking system. The labor shortage is a real thing, and you may need to settle.

But, don’t worry – hiring someone who isn’t perfectly equipped to carry out the job means you have the opportunity to train the new employee according to your desires. In other words, you can create your own unicorn – you don’t need to find one.

It’s not a revolution – it’s an evolution

You don’t have to start completely over with your hiring processes. Many things remain the same – you’ll still screen resumes, interview candidates, and make job offers. You’ll just need to do it all a bit faster and a bit more openly.

Be upfront about salary and benefits and keep to a tight timeline. Otherwise, your competitors will race ahead of you in the war for talent.

The post The rules of talent engagement are changing: What’s new now? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

That’s something you should be concerned about as an employer, so let’s look at why they’re thinking of leaving and what would compel them to stick around. It turns out that skills development, training and overall growth are high up the list of priorities for tech workers.

For instance, in the same survey, 91% want more training opportunities from their current employers.

And it’s not just training. When tech employees are making a career choice, salary and benefits are by and far the most important criteria when deciding who to work for, with 76% picking that as their top decider.

Workable’s Great Discontent survey echoes this sentiment as well, with 63.4% of US workers saying the top reason they’re open to new jobs is because of compensation.

As a tech employer looking to retain your staff, you also want to focus on a career path structure in your company. That’s because two out of five tech workers say the lack of career progression is the main reason they’re leaving their current job.

Three out of five (58%) also tagged skills development as their number-one motivator in choosing a new company. Likewise, three out of five (62%) say that more training and learning as a part of their job will make them more motivated at work.

To quote from the report: “Combined with L&D opportunities being one of the top criteria for selecting a job, the message is clear: training can help slow down the wave of resignations.”

When we’re seeing four million American workers quitting their jobs every month – including in August alone – it’s time for action. Employers need to step up their game with new recruitment strategies to compel their workers to stick around.

But there’s a bright side to all this

Texas A&M professor Dr. Anthony Klotz, who coined the now-famous term “The Great Resignation”, says these insights actually provide an opportunity for employers to get ahead of the problem of turnover.

“While the percentage of individuals thinking about resigning may be high, the good news for organizational leaders is that many of the top reasons that employees provided for wanting to leave are readily addressable,” says Anthony.

He emphasizes that investing in more opportunities for development and career advancement, greater flexibility, and boosting compensation and benefits are all things that can be quickly implemented in one’s own company as significant talent attractors.

And, he adds, keep that two-way street open with your workforce. For example, you can and should use employee surveys to better understand what’s expected of you as an employer.

“There is an opportunity here for companies to talk to their employees about these issues in the wake of the pandemic, and then trial or implement potential solutions.”

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Females want more flexibility

First, we found differences by gender identity when asking about top attractors for a new opportunity. Those identifying as male are attracted to more job-specific factors including compensation of course (67.3% vs. 61.8%), clarity of job role (23.3% vs. 19.1%) and especially job security (39.4% vs. 25.5%).

Those identifying as female pointed to factors not necessarily about the actual day-to-day job itself, but rather about the supportive aspects of working life. For instance, if a mother is able to leave work early to pick up her kids or meet other home life obligations – all with the express support and encouragement of their employer – that’s hugely valuable for them.

The data shows this: work flexibility (44% vs. 31.6%) and moral / emotional support from the company (13.6% vs. 9.4%) are more important for females than males.

This is not to suggest that job-specific factors are not important to those identifying as female – rather, these responses indicate that there are other needs that have to be met in order to make their working arrangement feasible and better aligned with their personal needs and priorities.

“With more moms in the workforce than ever, there is flexibility lacking in schedules to accommodate children related needs. Child care is astronomical and salaries are not reflecting that.”

Minorities want more support

One of the demographic questions we asked in the survey was; “Do you identify as a member of a minority group (be it race, ethnicity, language, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation, gender, or another characteristic)?”. A full third (33%) say they do, compared with 61.6% who say they don’t, and 5.3% prefer not to say. So we also looked at responses based on those answers.

We found significant differences in minority status here as well, particularly that compensation is more important for non-minorities than it is for minorities (67.9% vs. 55.1%).

So, what’s more important in a new job opportunity for someone who identifies as a minority? Training & development (18.9% vs. 13.5%) and moral / emotional support from their company (11.4% vs. 6.1%) top the list in terms of how much they differ from non-minority answers.

Likewise, when asked about what their current employer could do to improve employee experience, minorities pointed to career growth (38.7% vs. 28.5%), work flexibility (32.3% vs. 23.5%) and day-to-day work support (21.5% vs. 14.9%) as areas in need of improvement.

Of those who are open to other opportunities, those identifying as a minority are much more likely to pick “I need more meaning in my work” (23.8% vs. 16%) as a reason for doing so.

This isn’t to suggest that compensation isn’t important for someone who identifies as a minority – it, as said above, remains the top factor across all groups. It’s also important to note that the question of “Why are you looking for – or open to – new opportunities?” asked respondents to pick just one reason from a list, whereas for the other questions, they could choose up to three items. So if they must choose one priority and disregard all others, compensation will generally top the list.

Compensation aside, these results indicate that minorities are more likely to want support from their employer in other areas than non-minorities. Plus, there’s a clear need to feel more engaged in their work – likewise something that can be delivered by a thoughtful and empathetic employer as much as the role itself. The overall amplification of voices highlighting DEI in society may be a factor in all that.

Compensation grows with age

Likewise, we found differences across ages. Salary is more valued in older generations, whereas career growth opportunities tend to be more valued by younger generations. Those in the 21-29 age bracket ranked salary significantly less than those in the 40-49 and 50-59 age brackets (51% vs. 67.9% and 69.9% respectively).

Career growth opportunities trends the opposite direction, with those in the 21-29 and 30-39 age brackets valuing that higher than those in the 50-59 age bracket (40.7% vs. 33.1%).

This makes sense, as those in older generations will tend to be past the peak of their career development and starting to migrate out of the workforce, while those in younger generations may see the opportunity to grow in a career as having much stronger long-term benefit than straight-up compensation.

Plus, younger generations tend to have fewer financial obligations than their older, more settled counterparts – and therefore can be more flexible in what they need in a job.

Why is all this stuff important?

Let’s face facts. Money makes the world go around. It’s also a powerful measuring stick when showing the value you place on what someone brings to your company. Also, the correlation between money and happiness has been established in studies, including a widely cited one by Matthew Killingsworth of Penn’s Wharton School in Philadelphia.

And the reason why, says Killingsworth:

“When you have more money, you have more choices about how to live your life. You can likely see this in the pandemic. People living paycheck to paycheck who lose their job might need to take the first available job to stay afloat, even if it’s one they dislike. People with a financial cushion can wait for one that’s a better fit. Across decisions big and small, having more money gives a person more choices and a greater sense of autonomy.”

More choices, more autonomy, more command over all aspects of life. Keep that thought in mind as you proceed in your talent attraction game.

This is an excerpt from our Great Discontent survey report – want to read the whole thing? Check it out here.

The post Not everyone in the US values the same things in a job appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Females want more flexibility

First, we found differences by gender identity. Those identifying as male lean to factors around longevity and ascension, such as job security (43.7% vs. 36.1%) and career growth opportunities (30.8% vs. 26.1%), when thinking about what would lure them to a new opportunity.

Those identifying as female pointed to factors not necessarily about the actual day-to-day job itself, but rather about the supportive aspects of working life. For instance, if a mother is able to leave work early to pick up her kids or meet other home life obligations – all with the express support and encouragement of their employer – that’s hugely valuable for them.

The data shows this: work flexibility (47% vs. 39.3%) and moral / emotional support from the company (13.7% vs. 9.3%) are more important for females in the UK than for males. Day-to-day work support also is preferred more by females – 11.2% choose this attractor compared with 8.1% of males.

The priority of compensation doesn’t differ all that much – both genders ranked it equally high (71.7% for males, 69.5% for females).

This is not to suggest that career growth and job security aren’t important to those identifying as female – rather, these responses indicate that there are other needs that have to be met in order to make their working arrangement feasible and better aligned with their personal needs and priorities.

Minorities want more support

One of the demographic questions we asked in the survey was; “Do you identify as a member of a minority group (be it race, ethnicity, language, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation, gender, or another characteristic)?”. Three out of 10 (30.9%) say they do, compared with 66.1% who say they don’t, and 3% prefer not to say. So we also looked at responses based on those answers.

We found significant differences in minority status when asking about top attractors to a new job. Those identifying as a minority placed less priority on the most popular items than their non-minority peers, particularly compensation (58.7%% vs. 75.2%). We also found significant differences in work flexibility (36.8% vs, 46.8%) and job security (35.5% vs. 41.7%).

So, what’s more important in a new job opportunity for someone who identifies as a minority? Career growth opportunities (35.5% vs. 25.7%) is a big one, followed by training & development (25.2% vs. 21.1%).

Although not a popular overall item, moral / emotional support from their company (14.8% vs. 6.9%) is still a much higher priority for minority respondents than for non-minority respondents.

Likewise, when asked about what their current employer could do to improve employee experience, minorities are twice as likely to want more clarity of job role and responsibilities (28% vs. 13.3%), and more likely to want better career growth opportunities (39.2% vs. 27.6%).

Again, this doesn’t mean that salary isn’t important for those identifying as minorities. In fact, it’s actually more so. When asked to choose just one reason why they’re looking for – or open to – new opportunities, three out of five (59.5%) picked compensation, compared with half (50.6%) of non-minorities.

“I need more meaning in my work” is also a more popular reason for minorities than non-minorities (26% vs. 20%), and “I need more support in my work” is likewise a higher priority (13.7% vs. 6.4%).

On the flip side, non-minorities are more likely to say they don’t feel valued in their present capacity (15.3% vs. 10.7%).

This suggests that minorities in the UK are more likely to want support from their employer in other areas in addition to compensation. There’s also a need to find more meaning in work, something that can also be delivered by a thoughtful and supportive employer who values its people.

Compensation grows with age

Likewise, we found differences across ages among UK workers. Salary is more valued in older generations, whereas career growth opportunities are more valued by younger generations. Those in the combined 21-39 age bracket ranked salary less than those in the 40-59 age brackets did (66.9%-67.9% vs. 71.5%-77.6%).

Career growth opportunities trends sharply in the opposite direction, with those in the 21-29 age bracket valuing that significantly higher than those in the combined 40-59 age bracket (39.3% vs. 24.3%-24.7%).

Younger generations also lean to training and development whereas their older peers are more aligned with the need for job security.

This makes sense, as those in older generations will tend to be past the peak of their career development and starting to migrate out of the workforce – perhaps increasing the need to build up their financial support base as they prepare for retirement.

Younger generations, on the other hand, are heavily inclined towards progressing in their career with training & development being a logical ingredient in that.

Why is all this stuff important?

Let’s face facts. Money makes the world go around. It’s also a powerful measuring stick when showing the value you place on what someone brings to your company. Also, the correlation between money and happiness has been strongly established, including in a comprehensive survey carried out in 2016.

And the reason why, says study author Matthew Killingsworth of Penn’s Wharton School, who carried out a similar study in the US:

“When you have more money, you have more choices about how to live your life. You can likely see this in the pandemic. People living paycheque to paycheque who lose their job might need to take the first available job to stay afloat, even if it’s one they dislike. People with a financial cushion can wait for one that’s a better fit. Across decisions big and small, having more money gives a person more choices and a greater sense of autonomy.”

More choices, more autonomy, more command over all aspects of life. Keep that thought in mind as you proceed in your talent attraction game.

This is an excerpt from our Great Discontent survey report – want to read the whole thing? Check it out here.

The post Different UK workers appreciate different things in a job appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

We all wear rose-colored glasses at times, and when we’re looking for a new job we want to believe everything we’re hearing and seeing: opportunities for promotion, professional development, and work/life balance are often embellished in the recruitment cycle. And we eagerly accept this on face value – we want to believe we’re test-driving a Mercedes.

Read more on the importance of authentic recruitment marketing.

What’s wrong with corporate values?

Almost every company has a set of values that adorn its office walls. There’s much talk of the culture these values underpin, and their virtues are extolled in annual reports and investor briefings. There’s just one problem: it’s rare that these aspirational values actually align with the reality of the company’s culture.

Most often, corporate values are developed to describe the way an organization would like its employees to behave, not how they actually behave. They describe a desirable future state that we should aspire to, yet the leaders of the organization pay little attention to the values day-to-day, and certainly make no attempt to build the culture that they imply.

There’s nothing wrong with having a set of corporate values that describe a desired future state. But to implement a constructive culture that embodies that state, the company’s leaders would have to agree, communicate, and enforce a minimum acceptable standard of behavior and performance.

It’s common for leaders to lose sight of the values when the pressing issues of the day dominate their attention. But, unfortunately, it’s also common for them to speak about the company as if the values are representative of reality – they overstate the role that corporate values play in the running of the business.

Overselling the opportunity

When you’re hiring someone new, you want to showcase your organization in the best possible light, and it’s easy to oversell the opportunity to a prospective employee. You have to remember that your potential hires are quite vulnerable and impressionable during this process. They wouldn’t have applied for the job unless they wanted it, and they’re looking for positive validation: You want the job? Well we want you for the job!

You’ll often find plenty of evidence to support your claims of grandeur, because the board and the CEO create brand collateral to showcase the company in its best light. Many companies produce brochureware to extoll the virtues of their corporate values, the strategic plan, and the positive culture that the leadership has created (oh, and our people are our greatest asset, right!?)

But it doesn’t serve anyone’s interests to bring people into the organization, only for them to become disgruntled and disillusioned when the stark reality sets in.

The Employee Value Proposition (EVP)

As CEO of a major energy business Australia, competition for high quality people was sometimes fierce: but we weren’t in a sexy industry where the best and brightest young graduates lined up each day to fight their way through the crowd and hand us their résumés.

So we decided to take a more methodical approach, and put some serious effort into understanding how to sell the benefits of the organization, without overselling them. This became known as our employee value proposition (EVP).

We started with two key questions:

1. What’s the difference in perception between someone with little knowledge of the company, and someone who has worked here for some time?; and
2. How can we best convey that to prospective employees so that we showcase the organization’s benefits accurately, and enable them to make an informed decision about joining?

In this research, we took time to capture people’s perceptions at different stages of the recruitment process. We surveyed those who had just applied for the job to capture their impressions of the company based on the scant information in the public domain. We surveyed them again at the end of the interview process, whether they were offered the role or not. And for those who chose to join the company, we surveyed them again at various stages during their first six months.

From this, we managed to identify how people’s perceptions changed from the relative ignorance of a first-time applicant to the experience of a person who had ‘lived the dream’ for long enough to form a sensible opinion.

Once armed with this knowledge, we were able to develop our EVP. The main objective was to increase our chances of attracting the best candidates for any role, while at the same time avoiding costly hiring mistakes. But the EVP also became a reminder for everyone in the business about the positive aspects of working for the company, in a way that was both positive and authentic.

Developing an employee value proposition will allow you to accurately and honestly communicate your company’s values and culture to internal and external stakeholders alike.

Where should you start?

Not every company is able to invest the necessary time and effort into developing an EVP. But there are some simple steps you can take to ensure your company’s benefits are represented accurately to anyone who happens to ask.

Start by identifying the gaps. It’s important to understand and articulate the reality of the company culture, as opposed to the aspirational corporate values. People need to know where the company is now, where it’s heading, and what you’re doing to take it there.

Words are cheap, and if leaders don’t focus on driving change every day, the company becomes stagnant. So don’t fret about the gap in the corporate values – just take whatever steps you need to ensure that gap is being reduced every day, as you lead your team to a higher standard of behavior and performance.

Martin G. Moore is the founder of Your CEO Mentor and author of No Bullsh!t Leadership and host of the No Bullsh!t Leadership podcast. His purpose is to improve the quality of leaders globally through practical, real world leadership content. For more information, please visit www.martingmoore.com.

The post Do your corporate values reflect reality? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Our dataset, however, clearly indicates that compensation remains the number-one driver in career opportunities across the board. As one respondent succinctly put it:

“Employees will go where the money is. And where they’re treated respectfully and valued. But, mostly, it’s the money.”

Take a look at the dataset and see for yourself.

Money above all

As stated above, a full seven out of 10 respondents are open to new opportunities, whether they’re passively open or actively looking.

When we asked those respondents to choose from a list of top reasons why they’re open to new opportunities, nearly two-thirds (63.4%) selected “I need to make more money”.

That’s more than double the next-most popular reason, which is “I need a fresh challenge” (24.6%).

Work flexibility (20.8%), meaningfulness in work (19.3%) and career advancement (also 19.3%) are other leading factors prompting the drive to explore new job opportunities. Still, those numbers pale in comparison to compensation.

We also asked respondents what would lure them from their present job to a new one, again choosing from a list of popular attractors. Again, compensation remains the top attractor, with 62.2% of respondents in the US citing that as a top factor in deciding to move to a new company.

Again, other major attractors here are similar to the previous question, with career opportunities (38.1%), work flexibility (37.5%) and job security (32.1%) being reasons why someone would jump to a new job.

Another respondent was frank about their emphasis on salary as the dealmaker:

“If someone pays me more than I make running my own company, I’ll do it!”

We know there are nuanced differences between what an individual might want in terms of a new job at a different company and what they might want to see improved in their current capacity. It’s the difference between being ready to leave and being satisfied, but not 100%, with one’s current workplace.

So we asked that question separately: what could be improved in your current job for a better employee experience?

The answers are still very much the same. Compensation, again, is the number-one area where their current employer can improve, with 57.4% picking that as a top area for improvement.

A third respondent noted the importance of keeping salaries proportionally balanced throughout a company – especially when a company is growing and accumulating wealth:

“As a business owner, I understand that you can not cave to every whim your employees have, but instead of prioritizing balloon money bombs for executive persons, make the wealth of the company available to the people that make it happen. Smaller executive bonuses in favor of increased bonuses / benefits / perks for the workers/moving parts of a successful company.”

Is salary important? Yes, it is, but there are other forms of compensation worth noting.

The different types of compensation

Now, compensation doesn’t necessarily mean only a base salary. It can also mean paid time off, paid vacations, bonuses, incentives, extra perks and benefits, company lunches, team outings, tuition or mortgage reimbursements, pre-tax benefits, and many other things.

Intangibles can include company-wide recognition, advancement potential, the ability to work remotely and on flexible schedules, mentorship, network building, and so on.

Even then, support from their employer – whether it’s in the actual day-to-day work or moral/emotional support – are at the bottom of both lists. The traditional core elements of having a job (compensation, career opportunities, job security) continue to be top of mind.

The motivators are clear – workers in the United States want and need to make more money. Salary is important. Full stop.

There is just one area of the intangibles that deserves a deeper dive: work flexibility, which ranks highly across all these lists. We’ll go deep into that area in the next chapter.

The post Is salary important to workers? Bet your bottom dollar it is appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Our own dataset, however, finds that compensation remains a leading motivator when looking at career opportunities. A US-based respondent from our other survey report on the same topic puts it perfectly:

“Employees will go where the money is. And where they’re treated respectfully and valued. But, mostly, it’s the money.”

Money above all

As stated above, a vast majority of respondents are open to new opportunities, whether they’re passively open or actively looking. When we asked those respondents to choose from a list of top reasons why they’re open to new opportunities, more than half (53.5%) selected “I need to make more money” as a major reason.

Closely following in second place is “I need a fresh challenge”, with 43.9% citing that as a reason.

The need for more meaning in work is a distant third, at 21.9%.

We also asked respondents what would lure them from their present job to a new one, again choosing from a list of popular attractors. Again, compensation tops the list, with 70.1% of UK respondents citing that as a leading motivator when deciding to move to a new company.

Work flexibility (43.5%) and job security (39.5%) are the second and third-most popular attractors in a new opportunity.

One UK respondent noted their disappointment at their current employer cutting corners on compensation:

“The company pays less as we are touted as ‘independent contractors’, they can seemingly bend the rules.”

We know there are nuanced differences between what someone might be hoping to get in terms of a new job at a different company, and what they might want to see improved in their current capacity. It’s the difference between being ready to leave and being satisfied – albeit not 100% with one’s current working situation.

So we asked that question separately: what could be improved in your current job for a better employee experience?

Again, compensation is the number-one area where their current employer can improve, with 60.7% picking that as a top area in need of improvement.

It’s worth noting another comment from the US, on the importance of keeping salaries proportionally balanced throughout a company – especially when a company is growing and accumulating wealth:

“As a business owner, I understand that you can not cave to every whim your employees have, but instead of prioritizing balloon money bombs for executive persons, make the wealth of the company available to the people that make it happen. Smaller executive bonuses in favor of increased bonuses / benefits / perks for the workers/moving parts of a successful company.”

The different types of compensation

Now, compensation doesn’t necessarily mean only a base salary. It can also mean paid time off, paid vacations, bonuses, incentives, extra perks and benefits, company lunches, team outings, tuition or mortgage reimbursements, pre-tax benefits, and many other things.

Intangibles can include company-wide recognition, advancement potential, the ability to work remotely and on flexible schedules, mentorship, network building, and so on.

Even those intangibles – while still valued – aren’t worth as much as raw compensation. Support from their employer, whether it’s in the actual day-to-day work or moral/emotional support are at the bottom of both lists. This suggests that the traditional core elements of having a job (i.e. compensation, career opportunities, job security) remain paramount for workers.

The motivators are clear – the working population in the UK want and need to make more money. Full stop.

There’s just one little intangible that deserves a much deeper dive: work flexibility, which ranks highly across all these lists. We’ll take a deep dive into that in the next chapter.

The post How valued is salary in the UK? Quite a bit, actually appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

But, in today’s workforce, is it possible for any employer to get all the things they want?

Let’s look at the employment landscape: In the United States, 1 in 4 people has been unemployed for over a year. The UK saw 1.55 million people unemployed in the three months up to July 2021. And the worldwide unemployment number increased to a documented 220.5 million people – although in reality, it’s likely much higher than that.

So, with an abundance of employers who want to hire combined with a record number of unemployed people, why can’t companies find workers? What do these job seekers want? And what benefits do they value most?

To help answer these questions, let’s look at the top three workforce trends to be cognizant of so you can fine-tune your hiring strategy into the last quarter of 2021 and beyond.

Workforce trends to watch in Q4 of 2021

The pandemic accelerated several trends and changed the future of work. But as a recruiter, what are the three most important things you should watch out for? Read on to find out.

1. The Great Resignation

Although new job openings are through the roof, workers are leaving companies in droves. In August 2021, 4.3 million workers quit their jobs. That’s the third consecutive month where the number was higher than the previous month.

In the UK and Ireland, a study from Personio of workers revealed that 38% of people surveyed intend to change roles in the next 6 to 12 months. The same study showed that 45% of HR decision-makers are worried about employees leaving their positions when the job market improves.

“COVID brought the great awakening which is leading to the great resignation. It helped us align what is really important and highlighted what brings us happiness and fulfillment,” says Rachel Halsey Bullard, Senior Recruiter at Emeritus.

“If the workforce does not provide the same fulfillment we experienced during the shutdown, then employees will go somewhere else to get it. ”

So, who exactly is resigning from their jobs? Let’s take a look.

Quit rates are highest among mid-career employees

Younger people in the workforce have high expectations from their employers. They’re done with the current system and refuse to go back to “business as usual.”

We recently surveyed 750 people – some employed, some self-employed, and some unemployed – in the United States to find out how content they were with their current jobs. The study revealed that 80% of those aged 21-29, 74.9% of those aged 31-39, and 75% of those aged 40-49 are either open to work right now or actively looking for a new opportunity.

We also surveyed 500 people in the UK and found that 79.8% of those aged 21-29 and 85.1% of those aged 31-39 are either actively looking for or passively open to new work right now. This means just one in five of those aged 21 to 29 and less than 15% of those aged 30 to 39 can be seen as quite settled in their current roles.

Tech and health care have the highest quit rates

The manufacturing and finance industries saw a slight decrease in resignation rates but the healthcare industry saw a 3.6% increase over the previous year. The tech industry also had a rise in resignations of 4.5% more than last year.

Related: Learn from Boston tech leaders on what attracts tech workers to your company.

These resignations were largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many workers – because of the extreme stress and increase in job demand – felt overwhelmed and burned out. It inevitably follows that they should drop out of the workforce as a result. It’s not a sustainable situation for them.

2. Increased competition for top talent

In March and April of 2020, millions of people also lost their jobs. Now, not only are employers looking to refill those positions back to pre-pandemic levels, but they’re also adding more jobs to their existing payroll in Q4 of 2021.

Because so many people now have the ability to work from home, the competition for top talent is continuing to increase. Candidates today have many more choices – not only are they applying to local jobs but they’re also considering opportunities nationally and internationally.

Employees with the most desirable skills and experience are most in demand.

Another thing about these job seekers is they’re more informed. They prefer to actively research companies themselves rather than relying on the word of a recruiter.

3. Labor shortages

In the United States, the unemployment rate in August was 5.2%. July’s number was slightly higher at 5.4%.

The average monthly job growth this year has been 586,000 – although that number has dropped in recent months. And while employment rates declined in the retail industry, other industries – like professional services, transportation, warehousing, manufacturing, and private education – saw job gains.

Related: Check out our Hiring Pulse for the latest in recruitment data, including job openings, candidates per hire and time to fill metrics.

In August, the number of unemployed people decreased to 8.4 million, which is lower than previous months but still much higher than the pre-pandemic level of 5.7 million.

In the UK, however, the numbers show more signs of promise. The unemployment rate fell to 4.6% in the three months ending July 2021, which was the lowest it had been since June-August 2020.

So what’s going on with this labor shortage? Let’s look at that.

What contributed to the current labor shortage?

One factor many believe played a major role in the labor shortage was extended unemployment benefits. To assist workers laid off due to the pandemic, US Congress passed several relief bills. One in particular gave people receiving unemployment benefits an extra $600 per week in addition to what they were already receiving from their state.

After a few months, the $600 amount decreased to $300 per week. But, this additional assistance expired on September 6, 2021. Consequently, it makes sense that this should increase the number of active candidates in the job market.

But, in spite of the end of extended unemployment benefits, many companies aren’t confident that factor alone will be enough to entice workers to rejoin the workforce.

What will continue to impact the labor market in Q4?

As we progress through Q4, some impending challenges still remain that may continue to impact the current labor market. These include a lack of child-care options, the surgence of the Delta variant, and the continuing threat of COVID-19.

Hiring tips moving forward

So, as a recruiter, what should you do moving forward? Here are a few tips to help you find, hire and onboard great candidates in Q4 and beyond.

1. Directly engage your dream candidates

Showcase and highlight the most important employee benefits to attract qualified candidates. Show job seekers – and passive candidates – why they should choose your company over all the others who also want to employ them.

2. Diversify your candidate sourcing methods

Are you only getting a few inquiries for your job posts – like 20 potential candidates showing interest instead of well over 200 applicants? If so, you’re not drawing enough attention. Spread the word by using a combination of methods: a wide range of job boards, social media, your company careers page, employee referrals, advanced sourcing tools, and other strategies to get the word out and draw qualified candidates.

3. Focus on the candidate experience

One in two job seekers admits to having a negative experience in the recruitment process. How you communicate with candidates, conduct interviews, and follow up with them all impact the candidate experience – and can encourage qualified candidates to either accept or decline your offer of employment.

4. Prioritize diversity and inclusion

Make your company’s environment appealing to the people you want to attract. Highlight your unique workers and show accessibility options throughout the office. Put policies and procedures in place ahead of time to show you’re an inclusive employer.

5. Offer a desirable perk or incentive

The benefits package you offer could be the reason that a candidate decides to choose your company over another. Offer the best benefits you can and make the offer as compelling as possible. In short, make it worthwhile for someone to spend their time and energy working for you.

6. Create a positive onboarding experience

Your onboarding process introduces the new hires to your company, your culture, and shows them their roles. Make new hires feel welcome and comfortable by providing continued training and consistent feedback.

Now, once you get their attention, it’s time to think about how you might attract them to your company.

Consider flexible working arrangements

Flexible work is one of the most coveted employee benefits an employer can offer. It allows workers to better integrate their home and work lives, and gives them the opportunity to meet their personal needs, family obligations, and other responsibilities.

According to our New World of Work survey, flexible work is one of the biggest and most important workplace changes derived from the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey revealed that 71.1% cited remote work and 35.7% cited flexible/staggered schedules as paradigm shifts going forward.

Our UK Great Discontent study also found that 57.7% of UK workers also crave flexible schedules and say it’s quite important to them.

Now, flexibility is a part of the compensation package many employers are offering. For jobseekers, it’s a must. Some won’t even consider an offer unless it includes some level of flexibility – like the option to work from home a few days per week.

FlexJobs surveyed 4,612 people between July and August of 2021 about their job-seeking plans. Three out of five said they want a fully remote position while 39% surveyed wanted a hybrid working arrangement. Only 3% said they wanted to forego flexible arrangements and return to fully in-person work.

The same survey found that 21% of people desire flex work so much they were willing to make significant sacrifices for it – like giving up some of their vacation time in exchange for working remotely. In addition to that, a quarter said they would even consider taking a pay cut of 10% to 20% if they could work from home.

Some of the fastest-growing career opportunities offering flexible work are computer and IT, medical and health, sales, project management, customer service, marketing, accounting and finance.

It’s not just a fad

The rate of remote work is also expected to nearly double what it was prior to the pre-pandemic number of 16.8 million. By 2025, it’s expected that 36.2 million Americans will be working remotely.

This arrangement is beneficial for both workers and employers. Some benefits for workers include no commute time, reduced stress and fewer distractions. Employers, on the other hand, get to enjoy their own benefits like increased employee engagement and more productivity.

When 20.8% of US workers and 16.6% of UK workers say the main reason they’re open to other opportunities is the need for better work flexibility, pay attention. So, plan accordingly in your talent attraction strategy.

What should you do if flex work is not an option?

We’re not naive – we know flex work isn’t always an option. To counter that, consider the different types of flexible work. It’s about more than giving people the opportunity to work from home. It includes the option to adjust the days and hours when you’re working and to modify your schedule.

If your industry can’t accommodate work-from-home arrangements, try offering flexible schedules at the employee’s discretion. And if you can’t give full flexibility, you can offer staggered schedules, especially for service and other customer-facing roles. Here’s an example: Schedule one employee to work 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. and have another come in from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Here are a few more things you can do to make your company more attractive to job seekers:

1. Pay a competitive wage

Many employees are at increased risk because of the pandemic, especially essential workers. Adjust your salary to reflect the current financial realities of your employees. This was a resounding conclusion from our Great Discontent surveys – compensation is still a top factor in jobseekers’ minds.

2. Invest in health precautions

Show your employees the health precautions you’re taking and how far you’re going to keep them safe. Include this information in your job advertisements – including details on vaccination mandates and other areas of concern – to show candidates how committed you are to their well-being.

3. Improve your company culture

A positive company culture – such as Proxyclick’s – will help to increase employee retention in your organization. It can also help you attract the best candidates – who share your company’s beliefs, goals, and values.

Workforce trends post-COVID

So, what’s the new future of work? Here’s what it boils down to: job seekers want change and evolution in their work setup. They have a new set of expectations for companies and they aren’t willing to settle. And most of all, they want to be happy and engaged.

After enduring the past year, they rearranged their priorities – and got to see the important things that matter most to them, and for many, this was a baptism by fire. Now they’re taking that attitude and those expectations into the workforce.

The things employees want aren’t groundbreaking discoveries. They want to work for companies that are sensitive to their needs. Companies that value what they do. And companies that acknowledge and appreciate their efforts.

They care about work-life balance, meeting family obligations and maintaining health and wellness. They also covet flexibility, because it allows them to do these things with simplicity and convenience. Consider these trends in your workforce planning strategy and you may find yourself ahead of the pack for the new year.

The post 3 workforce trends to prepare for in the last quarter of 2021 appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Job openings are through the roof – but where are the candidates? As the important candidates-per-hire metric continues to plummet month over month, employers need to start thinking about other strategies in talent attraction. This means looking at skills and culture fit rather than background and qualifications – the latter of which are ineffective and subject to bias.

In this episode, learn from Certn CEO Andrew McLeod about his company’s unique – and very successful – approach to hiring during these new times.

The post Podcast episode #15: The ‘Great Talent Shortage’: Hiring beyond work experience appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

But there’s a middle ground. The largest companies in the world use both outsourcing and directly managed offshore teams to support multiple parts of their business to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

For example, major industry players like JP Morgan, Amazon, Microsoft, Google and more have a significant amount of their workforce overseas.

Why? The global talent pool is remarkable and is fortuitously available to the United States businesses who, with more than 10 million open jobs across the United States, are currently facing a detrimental workforce shortage.

However, for many small and mid-sized business owners, building an offshore team has its own challenges. It’s not as simple as setting up their own offshore subsidiary or submitting a bid to Accenture to help them build an offshore team. The scale is just too small. Enter the virtual captive model, which allows small and medium size enterprises to build, train, and manage remote staff.

What is the Virtual Captive Model?

In the virtual captive outsourcing model, companies are given the opportunity to build their own team of offshore professionals of any size through a business process outsourcing vendor. The vendor handles the recruiting, HR, facilities, IT, and equipment while the organization controls the processes, metrics, and output.

Contrary to conventional thoughts, it’s a win-win. Companies are afforded the same control and visibility they have with a local employee when accessing the global talent pool.

Now that we’ve dispelled the bad outsourcing rumors, let’s define talent; specifically, as it applies to remote staff, introduce different opportunities for outsourcing, discuss training and managing an outsourced team, review the pros and cons, and determine if outsourcing is right for your organization.

How do you define talent?

As an HR professional, you’re well-versed in numerous ways to define talent, but for the sake of this article, let’s define it from the perspective of a company who successfully recruits and hires remote staff.

For instance, let’s define talent based on aptitude, attitude, and experience regardless of where they live.

There’s no need to discriminate between local and global talent. If you interview someone in the U.S. who is detail oriented, kind, intelligent, a critical thinker, and has slightly less experience than another candidate who is lazy and arrogant, who are you going to hire?

Probably the former.

The same applies when evaluating remote staff. A common scenario involves looking for specific experience levels rather than examining high-quality attributes that make a great employee. To take full advantage of remote staff, you must determine how you define talent locally and apply that same judgment to the global talent pool.

Now that we have defined talent, let’s dive into how you are deploying talent across the organization. In the Philippines, where Connext operates, we consistently find that it is straightforward to build a team that performs process-driven tasks such as accounting, medical billing, title and escrow, mortgage processing, underwriting, estimation, and so on.

How do you get started with outsourcing?

Our own experience with outsourcing shows that companies need to think differently about training and ramp up for a remote staff.

The first step should be to have well-defined and thought-out processes and to start with something simple and at a manageable scale. Over time, the company can then add complexities as the offshore team becomes more proficient and consider bringing on more advanced or complicated roles.

At the end of the day, companies that outsource want to see productivity growth across their organization, both offshore and local. To accomplish this, it needs to be done right and with the right partner. If outsourcing is something on your radar, start thinking about which roles and tasks could be potential candidates for an offshore team.

How do you overcome outsourcing challenges?

Accessing the global talent pool not only saves on staffing cost, but it also allows you to fill roles quickly and efficiently because of the expanded market.

More important than hiring an offshore employee, it’s critical to be able to manage and train them. Managing and training employees is hard enough locally and is even more challenging when done remotely. A trusted outsourcing partner can help with this but there is work to be done on both sides to ensure success.

When training a new employee, we usually suggest screen share training, or a manual walk through. For this to be successful it requires well-defined codified processes that can be easily taught. That’s a client responsibility.

On our end, we make sure the employee takes notes and creates a manual of their own to ensure maximum knowledge, retention, and learning.

We suggest 100% quality control on trained tasks in the beginning, and then ramp down as the employee becomes more confident and proficient. The cool part is that as clients expand their teams, oftentimes the first employee brought on becomes the trainer, and the team builds its own infrastructure for onboarding new talent.

How do you manage outsourced talent?

Now that your team is trained, let’s talk about managing a remote team because that has its own challenges. You can’t simply walk into an employee’s office to check in on what they’re doing or see them at their desk working until 5 p.m. So how do you know they are performing, and how do you fix performance issues? You measure, analyze, and measure once again.

Several examples of this are employee feedback surveys, key performance indicators, and specific performance metrics to help measure employee performance and provide feedback through employee incentives or performance improvement plans.

Three metrics that are great to start with are productivity, utilization, and quality. Productivity measures the number of widgets completed over a certain duration, utilization measures time spent on each task, and quality measures precision and accuracy for each task.

These three metrics provide great insight into the performance and behavior of remote employees. They allow managers to adjust work schedules, identify potential instances of overwork, re-adjust or balance tasks within the team, and examine other potential issues that could negatively impact the employee or the task.

How do you decide when to outsource?

Outsourcing can be an excellent way to fill open positions quickly, reduce cost structure, and create opportunities for productivity growth, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. Remote staff is significantly more cost-efficient than local talent (50-60% savings) but needs to fit into your business.

Excellent tasks or roles to start with include those in accounting, medical billing, customer service, payroll and HR support, underwriting, estimating, engineering, title and escrow or mortgage processing, architecture, and more. Virtually anything can be outsourced, from accounting and medical billing to systems engineering and virtual optometry. Yep, that’s right offshore virtual optometry.

So how do you decide if outsourcing is right for you? Outsourcing is used by some of the largest companies in the world to be more efficient and cost-effective, but it must be a good fit for your organization, and there must be a proper amount of buy-in for it to be successful.

(At Connext, we advise our clients to treat their offshore teams the same way they treat their local teams. People in different countries working hand in hand to achieve a common goal works very well.)

Additionally, if you are having issues hiring or retaining local staff to perform mundane, back-office processes, your business is a strong candidate for outsourcing, especially if you are looking for ways to reduce costs while building capacity for growth. If your employees are overworked and are having trouble keeping up with the day-to-day tasks, you may consider building an offshore team to support them.

Which type of outsourcing is right for you?

If you want control over your people and processes, visibility of metrics, and a customized solution that is tailored to your needs, select a vendor with a virtual captive model. If you’re not concerned as much about those things and would prefer your outsourced team be out of sight and out of mind, a traditional outsourcing approach may be right for you.

Taylor Goucher is CMO of Connext Global Solutions, which powers small and medium enterprises by helping build, train, and manage excellent remote teams.

The post Outsourcing your talent: when, how, and especially, why appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Here’s what we learned:

Most of our respondents say they’re working full-time (60.1%), and another fifth (22.2%) working part time. Just one in 10 (10.4%) say they’re not working right now.

Another 7.4% of respondents say they’re working for themselves, whether that means they’re a contractor, freelancing, or running their own business.

One in 10 respondents (10.4%) say they’re not working right now.

But when we looked at the responses by gender, the numbers were more striking. Those identifying as females are far more likely to be not working (14.5% vs. 6.1%) or working part-time (31.3% vs. 13%) than males.

Females working for themselves also represented a much higher percentage than their male counterparts (10.8% vs. 4%).

On the flip side, more than three quarters of males (76.9%) are working full-time, compared with just 43.4% of females, a significant difference of 33.5 percentage points.

Of those not working, nearly two out of five (38.5%) have not worked in more than five years.

Three out of 10 (30.7%) say they last worked within the last year, with 19.2% saying they have not been working for less than six months.

And now, the important part for you, the employer: a vast majority (74.6%) say they are either actively (29.6%) or passively (45.1%) looking at new opportunities.

That’s three quarters of all respondents who might leave you at any time – meaning when you look at your current workforce, just one in four are pretty settled in their current working capacity.

And many are actually just starting to look for other opportunities right now. Of those actively looking or passively open to new work, 56.6% started looking within the last half year (26.7% just started now, 29.9% in the last half year).

Employers take note: this means a majority of your people are looking to leave or they’re open to that possibility. On the flip side, if you’re looking to hire or build teams, you have a wealth of available talent to tap into here.

This requires a deeper understanding of who these people are and why they’re looking so you can evolve your recruitment and people strategy, as Personio’s CEO recommends. Let’s dig in.

Minorities are looking

One of the demographic questions we asked in the survey was; “Do you identify as a member of a minority group (be it race, ethnicity, language, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation, gender, or another characteristic)?”. Three out of 10 (30.9%) say they do, compared with 66.1% who say they don’t, and 3% prefer not to say.

So we looked at responses based on those answers. Those identifying as minorities are also much more likely to be actively looking (41.3% vs. 24.2%) than those not identifying as minorities. And nearly twice as many non-minorities say they’re not looking for new opportunities when compared with minorities (29% vs. 15.5%).

Younger people are looking

Those in the “actively looking” category are more significantly represented by younger cohorts. More than two out of five (41.7%) of those aged 21-29 say they’re outright looking for new opportunities, with that number skewing sharply downwards when looking at higher age groups.

When combined, the numbers are striking: a staggering 79.8% of those aged 21-29 and a significantly higher 85.1% of those aged 31-39 are either actively looking for or passively open to new work right now. This means just one in five of those aged 21 to 29 and less than 15% of those aged 30 to 39 can be seen as quite settled in their current roles.

Interestingly, the top age group passively open to new opportunities is 50-59 (54.1%).

We know that tenures are usually shorter for younger people. Also younger people tend to be more in rank-and-file positions than managerial/upper-crust positions, and those roles tend to see higher turnover.

But it also indicates younger generations in the UK expect more from their employers and are less willing to put up with the current reality in the workplace.

All in all, people are looking

Again, the message is clear: three quarters of your employees at your company have one foot out of the door at any given time. Your talent is ready to jump ship as soon as they find something better. That’s particularly if they’re younger or if they identify as a minority.

But looking at it from another perspective, this also means a huge talent market that you can tap into when hiring. That raises a new question – how do you attract them to your company?

We’ll cover this in detail in the next few articles, but if you want to read more right now, jump right into our comprehensive Great Discontent worker survey report right here.

The post 74.6% of UK workers open to new work, survey finds appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Here’s what we learned:

Most of our US respondents say they’re working full-time (55.3%), with an additional 13.5% working part-time.

One in 10 respondents (10.4%) say they’re working for themselves, whether that means they’re a contractor, freelancing, or running their own business.

One fifth of respondents (20.8%) say they’re not working right now.

Those identifying as females are far more likely to be not working (26% vs. 15.3%) or working part-time (17.7% vs. 8.6%) than males.

We also found an equally striking gender imbalance in those who are working. Those identifying as male are resoundingly more likely to be working full-time (68.4% vs. 46.3%, a difference of 22.1 in percentage points).

And for part-time workers, the opposite is true – 17.7% of those identifying as female are working part-time compared with 8.6% of males.

Of those not working, more than a third (34.4%) have not worked in more than five years.

More than a fifth (21.9%) say their current status not working began just in the last six months, with an additional 13.8% saying it’s been half a year to one year since they had been working.

And now, the important part for you, the employer: seven out of 10 (70.7%) say they are either actively (33.4%) or passively (37.3%) looking for work.

This means that when you look at your existing workforce, just three out of every 10 aren’t potentially looking for work at this time.

And many are actually just starting to look at other opportunities. Of those either actively looking or passively open to other work, 54% started within the last half year (28.1% just started now, 25.7% in the last half year).

Employers take note: this means a majority of your people are looking to leave or they’re open to that possibility. On the flip side, if you’re looking to hire or build teams, you have a wealth of available talent to tap into here.

This merits a deeper understanding of who these people are and why they’re looking, so you can evolve your recruitment and people strategy. Let’s dig in.

Minorities are looking

One of the demographic questions we asked in the survey was; “Do you identify as a member of a minority group (be it race, ethnicity, language, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation, gender, or another characteristic)?”. A full third (33%) say they do, compared with 61.6% who say they don’t, and 5.3% prefer not to say.

So we looked at responses based on those answers. Those identifying as minorities are much more likely to be actively looking (42.9% vs. 29.3%) than those not identifying as minorities.

Younger people are looking

While the “passively looking” category is equally represented across age groups from 21 to 49 years of age, it’s the “actively looking” category that is significantly represented by younger cohorts, with 42.8% of those aged 21-29 saying they’re outright looking for new opportunities.

And when combined, the numbers are striking: a staggering 80% of those aged 21-29, 74.9% of those aged 31-39, and 75% of those aged 40-49 are either actively looking for or passively open to work right now.

We know that tenures are usually shorter for younger people. Also younger people tend to be more in rank-and-file positions than managerial/upper-crust positions, and those tend to see higher turnover.

But it also means younger generations in the United States expect more from their employers and are less willing to put up with the current reality in the workplace.

All in all, people are looking

Again, this points to a clear message: seven out of 10 employees at your company have one foot out of the door at any given time. Your talent is ready to leave as soon as they find something better. That’s particularly if they’re younger or if they identify as a minority.

But again, this is a huge talent market right here that you can tap into when hiring. Which raises a new question – how do you attract them to your company?

We’ll cover this in detail in the next few articles, but if you want to read more right now, jump right into our comprehensive Great Discontent US worker survey report right here.

The post 70.7% of US workers have one foot out the door: Great Discontent survey appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

We’ve seen a volatile transition from one presidential administration to another. We’ve seen the increased awareness of issues in the form of Black Lives Matter, Stop Asian Hate, and other socially dynamic movements. We’re still navigating a terrifying virus.

And what’s happening among all this is that we’re experiencing an upheaval of the way we operate as a society – both at home and in the workplace.

What’s also happening – and something you’re likely noticing as an employer – is unprecedentedly high levels in job quit rates in the United States, coupled with equally striking levels in job openings. This graph from the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) speaks volumes:

People in the United States aren’t merely changing jobs. They’re bowing out of the traditional workforce altogether. It signals a discontent unseen in our history.

“The Great Resignation” is no longer a prediction; it’s a current reality, and it’s evolved to a Great Discontent. It’s becoming more challenging to motivate people to stay in their jobs, and harder to attract candidates to new roles. Data from the Workable network confirms this as well.

We see this, and we want to help you – the employer – overcome this challenge. After all, you need your people.

So we surveyed 750 people in the US – some employed, some self-employed, some unemployed, all more or less employable – to understand the most important factors influencing their career priorities. And now, we have results.

We identified four major themes in the dataset:

Money still talks

Despite all the new workplace developments, salary, perks and benefits are still top of mind. People want – and need – more of it when working.

Flexy is sexy

Flexible work arrangements are important to many workers – and much more for women than men – but it’s not as high of a priority for their employers.

The power of connectivity

No matter the kind of work involved, people are at the heart of it all. When people feel connected to their colleagues and leadership, they’ll stay and they’ll thrive.

There’s no place like home

Integrating personal and professional lives is very important for people – it’s the top reason why those not working aren’t working and the top benefit of flexible work.

Major takeaways include the following:

• Want to attract people? Increase the salary, and build up the perks and benefits. 63.4% say it’s the reason why they’re looking for other opportunities, and 62.2% say salary, perks and benefits represent the top factor influencing their decision whether to accept a new job.
• Build strong teams with people who work well together. Relationships with colleagues is the number-one most attractive factor about a potential new employer (37.1%), and a major area for improvement at their current employer (31.3%).
• Make it worthwhile for your workers to stay. Seven out of 10 (70.7%) respondents say they are either actively or passively looking for work, and 54% started looking just in the last half year.
• Pay attention to your younger workers. More than two out of five (42.8%) of those aged 21-29 say they’re actively looking for a new job, compared with just one quarter (24.7%) of those aged 50-59.
• Establish remote work and especially flexible schedules as a permanent policy. Both are highly valued by workers, with 58.2% saying flexible schedules are important to them – particularly because it’s easier to integrate personal and professional lives.
• Keep an eye on the potential disconnect between you and your employees in the importance of flexible work. Nearly half think their employer will ultimately return to in-office (44.7%) and set schedules (46.8%).
• Support your employees’ home lives as well as their work lives – especially if they’re women. Females are more than twice as likely as males to cite family priorities as the reason why they’re not working (39.4% vs. 19.3%).

Read more: check out our in-depth analysis of what matters most to workers in the United States in a job. Or stay tuned for the next excerpt from our Great Discontent survey report for the US.

Interested in seeing what’s going on at the other side of the pond? Check out our UK version of the Great Discontent report in its entirety.

The post Great Discontent: It’s time to evolve your US talent attraction appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

We’ve seen a volatile exit of the UK from the European Union in the form of Brexit, combined with a terrifying virus, both of which have shaken our society at the foundation – leading to economic and social upheaval at home and in the workplace.

What’s also happening – and something you’re likely noticing as an employer – is a mass talent exodus in the country, with one study by Workable partner Personio finding that four out of 10 UK employees will leave their job in the next six to 12 months.

This puts the onus on you, the employer, to take action, and quickly, says Personio CEO Hanno Renner:

“As businesses look to emerge from the crisis in a position of strength and turn the tide on the costs of a potential talent exodus, they now need to come up with a long-term people strategy. By prioritising their people and taking a more strategic approach to people management, employers can prevent an impending talent drain and drive their business performance as well as the wider economy.”

“The Great Resignation” is no longer a prediction. it’s a current reality, and it’s evolved to a Great Discontent. It’s becoming more challenging to motivate people to stay in their jobs, and harder to attract candidates to new roles. Data from the Workable network confirms this as well.

We see this, and we want to help you – the employer – overcome this challenge. After all, you need your people.

So we surveyed 500 people in the UK – some employed, some self-employed, some unemployed, all generally employable – to understand the most important factors influencing their career priorities. And now, we have results.

We identified four major themes in the dataset:

Money still talks

Despite all the new workplace developments, salary, perks and benefits are still top of mind in a job. People want – and need – more of it when working.

Flexy is sexy

Flexible work arrangements are important to many workers – and especially more so for women – but it’s not as high of a priority for their employers.

The power of connectivity

No matter the kind of work involved, people are at the heart of it all. When people feel connected to their colleagues and leadership, they’ll stay and they’ll thrive.

There’s no place like home

Integrating personal and professional lives is very important for people – it’s the top reason why those not working aren’t working and the top benefit of flexible work.

Major takeaways include the following:

• Want to attract people? Increase the salary, and build up the perks and benefits. 70.1% of workers say that’s one of the top reasons why they’ll bolt to a new job.
• Build strong teams with people who work well together. Relationships with colleagues is the number-one most attractive factor about a potential new employer (47.3%), and also the top area in need of improvement at their current employer (31.8%).
• Make it worthwhile for your workers to stay. Three quarters of respondents (74.6%) say they are either actively or passively looking for work right now – and 56.6% started looking within the last half year.
• Pay attention to your younger working population. More than two out of five (41.7%) of those aged 21-29 are actively looking, compared with just 12.9% of those aged 50-59.
• Establish remote work and especially flexible schedules as a permanent policy. Both are highly valued by workers, with 53.8% saying flexible schedules are important to them – particularly because it’s easier to integrate personal and professional lives.
• Mind that disconnect between you and your employees in the importance of flexible work. Nearly half think their employer will ultimately return to in-office (44.7%) and fixed schedules (46.8%).
• Support your employees’ home lives as well as their work lives – especially if they’re women. Females are more than six times as likely as males to cite family priorities as the reason why they’re not working (41.7% vs. 6.7%).

Read more – check out our in-depth analysis of what matters most to workers in the UK in a job. Or stay tuned until next week for the next excerpt from our Great Discontent survey report for the UK.

Interested in seeing what’s going on at the other side of the pond? Check out our US version of the Great Discontent report in its entirety.

The post Evolve your UK talent attraction and survive the Great Discontent appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

HR audits are a critical part of ensuring an organization’s employees are productive, satisfied and constantly improving. Audits are kind of like checklists for HR managers. According to SHRM, audits are most commonly used to go over current HR policies, systems, documentations and other various aspects within an organization.

After working in human resources for various corporate organizations over the last 20 years, I know firsthand how important auditing is to both HR professionals and to the overall health of an organization. Audits and productivity go hand in hand.

Here are a few auditing tips for HR professionals to facilitate an organization’s workflow.

1. Focus on the employee experience
2. Fine-tune your candidate experience
3. Conduct ROI analyses
4. Create consistent audit schedules
5. Survey your employees

1. Focus on the employee experience

When auditing an organization’s workflow, the best place to start is by focusing on the organization’s employee experiences. Look at the recruiting, onboarding, service/performance milestones, and administrative processes you have in place. Ask yourself, are they intuitive? Are they simple? Are they effective?

If not, identify areas of improvement within the organization so employees will want to brag about where they work. If employees have positive experiences, they’re more likely to be more productive.

Factors that may contribute to a positive employee experience include:

• Meaningful work
• Growth and promotion opportunities
• Healthy/positive work environment
• Trust in leaders and supervisors
• Supportive management

Additionally, employees with a more positive experience are more likely to produce higher rates of employee retention, customer satisfaction, profitability and work performance.

Read more: Josh Bersin also has a lot to say on the subject of employee experience. Check out our top 10 insights from a recent webinar.

Because of the abundance of hiring laws involved in nearly each step of the employment process, it is also critical for HR professionals to constantly conduct audits to ensure their organization’s workflow is in compliance with all applicable policies and laws in their jurisdiction.

2. Fine-tune your candidate sourcing

Whether or not your candidate sourcing process is effective can also have a massive outcome on the number of new hires your organization receives, as well as the types of hires your organization receives.

How often an organization audits its candidate sourcing practice will vary from business to business. An easy rule of thumb to remember is, if your hiring successes are low, then your audit has been delayed for too long.

Start out by determining how candidates are entering your hiring pipeline, from what sources, and whether or not you’re finding the right kind of talent. Are you using hiring boards? Social media? Have you noticed a pattern since using these sources?

Experience the process as a candidate

This step is more focused on mapping out a potential candidate’s journey. By doing this, HR professionals can clearly see an overview of what an organization’s application process looks like, and whether or not it is effective.

It is important to constantly adjust these processes to ensure your organization is focusing on hiring relevant talent that will only contribute to the growth of an organization.

Define your candidate persona

Additionally, in order to effectively recruit potential employees with relevant work experience for your organization, you must determine more than just where and how candidates are applying in the first place. Start by creating a candidate persona and aligning that persona to the employer’s or organization’s brand.

Next, check the engagement numbers on each of your recruiting platforms. Is posting on Instagram more effective than posting on LinkedIn? Is that technique bringing in large amounts of potential candidates with relevant work experience?

Auditing the hiring process goes beyond avoiding candidates with little to no relevant experience. Ultimately, it saves an organization time, money, energy and resources.

3. Conduct ROI analyses

Return On Investment (ROI) is a term used when measuring the financial return on an investment made. This concept can be applied in HR when conducting audits to analyze employee productivity, budgets, future initiatives, and of course, an ATS.

If you’re looking to build a case for a new ATS, we’ve got an ATS ROI Calculator to get you started. You can tell your decision makers that a good ATS can save your business $127,875 annually – no exaggeration!

When auditing an organization, you should also analyze your budget forecast and scrutinize your spend. This can be achieved by determining which items make sense to continue to invest in and which areas are no longer needed.

This ultimately frees up dollars to improve the HR workflow. Organizations can gauge whether or not they need to reinvest in employees, or save for a future initiative. ROI analyses help HR professionals clearly see what is worth spending on, rather than continuing to spend company dollars on expenses that have a low ROI.

4. Create consistent audit schedules

Most HR processes are heavily dependent upon employee data. Keeping the data clean and updated is imperative in order to create analytics dashboards that help your organization make important people and business decisions. Audits are a reflection of the data at your organization. If your audits are consistent and accurate, then it will reflect in the data you collect.

Regular process audits keep data clean and serve to identify breaks in the process before those breaks become a huge problem. Process audits examine a set of results and then determine whether the activities, resources and behaviors that caused those results are being managed effectively and efficiently.

HR professionals will most likely create a schedule for their process audits, either annually, monthly or quarterly. Each organization’s auditing needs will vary based on many different factors such as the employee workforce population size, the company’s size as well as the company’s overall goals.

Process audits can also help HR teams better assign roles and responsibilities within the team, identify administrative burdens and ways to resolve them, and whether or not the process is worth continuing altogether. In turn, process audits boost the overall productivity of an organization.

5. Survey your employees

Surveys are an important tool, often overlooked by many organizations and HR professionals. The best and most effective way to know what your HR team should be focused on, is by simply asking your employees.

Begin outlining your survey by deciding what type of survey you would like to conduct in order to answer your question. Different types of surveys produce different outcomes. Do you want to conduct a qualitative survey, focused on written feedback? Or would you like to gather data by using a quantitative survey instead?

Planning these surveys out can be easy and quick, depending on the content and length of each survey question.

Surveys, while sometimes cumbersome, provide the insight you want and the opinions you need to hear to overhaul processes and develop a meaningful people strategy. They blatantly show us what we should be focusing on, as well as how employees feel toward certain elements of your organization.

Employees are willing to tell you where you are falling short, what things they love about the company, and what things need more attention. Asking for employee feedback also establishes a level of trust between supervisors and employees; if employees feel safe enough to give quality, in-depth feedback, most HR professionals can assume they have a high level of trust with them.

Auditing is worth the time

While auditing may seem like an unnecessary or time consuming process to many people, HR professionals know how important auditing is. Auditing an organization’s processes, employees, investment returns and hiring practices ultimately give HR professionals a clear picture of what’s working and what isn’t.

They save organizations time, money and resources while continuously striving for improvement and improving workflow. That’s exactly why audits should be included in every organization’s HR toolbelt moving forward.

The post Auditing to improve the HR workflow appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

But we’re also seeing many companies planning to return to an in-office setup – in that same survey, 52.8% of US and 44.7% of UK workers say their companies probably will return to the office when things return to “normal”. And HqO has already done that, back in the spring of 2021.

We joined Chris for a chat about HqO’s own RTO strategy, and we’ve pulled together the main takeaways from that conversation.

Remote work is not be-all and end-all

Despite remote work being one of the top-touted paradigm shifts for 71% of businesses in our 2020 New World of Work report, Chris says that isn’t a universal sentiment among companies or even workers. He suggests that the work-from-home phenomenon may just be an experiment that ultimately proved the value of in-office work in the end.

“There’s a lot of evidence behind work from home being increasingly challenging and not sustainable,” says Chris. He shares two statistics to back this up:

In Oct. 2020, Google found that their engineers produced 30% less code during the pandemic.

Colliers International released a survey of office professionals in early 2020 stating that 23% of respondents say their productivity had declined when working remotely.

He calls those numbers “mind boggling”.

The impact of remote work on trust

“I think most people are productive, don’t get me wrong,” Chris says. But, he does see the need – and appetite – for a shift back to in-office work.

For example, trust in the employee base took a big hit in the remote-work world.

“I’d love for someone to defend the idea that trust and empathy have not been shattered [when] working remote,” Chris says, “especially when all your interactions are either over Google Meet or Zoom or Microsoft Teams.”

And while trusting your employees is essential to success in a remote-work environment, Chris does take a pragmatic approach about the realities of remote work for a business that needs its employees to be available when needed.

“I’ve heard of stories … for some hybrid or remote employees where they’re talking about their colleagues on social media, going to the beach in the summertime, taking half of the workday to golf, heading to bars and restaurants in the early afternoon, all this happening before the workday ends.”

And that can actually hurt the overall morale in a company’s workforce.

“You’re seeing all that empathy and trust just be completely ripped apart. And I think you’ll hear more of those scenarios entering 2022.”

And even a hybrid solution isn’t the perfect solution.

“What’s going to happen when your boss wants to be in the office three to four times a week. Your team is on board with that, but maybe you’ve moved or maybe you’re just not comfortable. And you want to go in one to two days a week. What happens there? I think that’s going to be something that a lot of companies need to think about.”

The impact of remote work on mental health

The trend towards remote work has made it difficult for some companies who want or need their employees to return to on-site work.

Consider the worker backlash Apple experienced when shifting operations back to the office – although the Delta variant meant a delay in their RTO strategy, Apple still plans to return in January 2022.

And there are legit arguments for a return to office. Remote work can lead to burnout, if a June 2020 survey from Monster.com is any indication. That survey found that 69% of workers who were working from home during the pandemic experienced burnout, up 35% from early May 2020.

Of course, there are different factors at play here – the struggle to separate work responsibilities from home responsibilities and working at home with children, for instance. Plus, throughout 2020, there was a lack of options for personal leisure such as attending sporting events, going on trips or eating out, and other pursuits as societies locked down; which of course made life difficult for millions.

The power of camaraderie

While Chris acknowledges that remote and hybrid work are here to stay and there’s always going to be a place for it, there’s one significant common denominator that he’s learned from his role at HqO: the power of connectivity and teamwork between workers when they’re in the same physical space.

“These employees thrive in an office culture,” he explains. “It’s a no-brainer. The energy is so contagious. That’s fueled by probably our let’s-go rallying cry and our values as well. It’s something that we hit on just about every single day here. So that stands for learning excellence, truth, speed, goodness, and ownership.

“You get to be part of that office banter. And I think you saw that a little bit coming in and our employees and being loud a little bit. I think that’s more effective, face-to-face if that’s your manager or somebody that’s underneath you, one of your team, and just be part of that experience.”

Again, the Great Discontent worker survey backs this up – 37.1% of US workers and 47.3% of UK workers both pointed to relationships with colleagues as one of the most important factors that would attract them to a new role.

There’s room for both

HqO isn’t alone in that thinking, Chris adds. There are other companies moving back to the office as well. Unlike Apple’s experience, Chris emphasizes that there’s a lot of support for HqO’s own RTO strategy, as they added two floors to their office space during a time of aggressive growth.

“I’ve actually been really pleasantly surprised with the number of people [interested]. My team engages with that and are desperate to be back in office. … I think that the thing that people miss the most are the people in the office themselves. Bottom line, that’s never going to change.”

While the priority placed on remote work options continues to be high for many potential candidates, Chris finds that there’s no shortage of applicants who specifically want to return to the way things were.

In fact, Chris says that when the expectation was set in March of this year that HqO was going to have an office-first culture, people didn’t leave. In fact, they stayed engaged. If pandemic safety was a concern for an employee, Chris emphasizes that the doors are open for a conversation about that.

Flex work is the way to go

Plus, he adds, office-first doesn’t mean being in the office five days a week. Rather, it’s about worker flexibility – which needs to be given no matter what.

“There’s going to be some things that come up. If it’s a doctor’s appointment or the unplanned parts of life – stay home, do your work. I’d probably take it a step further and say, ‘Hey, if you know, you’re super busy and you just have that heads down work to do,’ you can take that day to stay home and actually do it. Cut back that commute time, whatever it is, and go back into the office the next day.”

There’s also flexibility in terms of work schedules – again highlighted in our Great Discontent worker survey as a significantly higher priority than remote work. That’s the reality at HqO as well.

“There’s some days that, maybe you want to come in a little bit early, so you can take off at four or maybe you’re coming in at 9:30, 10 o’clock depending on what you do and you’re leaving the office at 6, 6:30 at night.

“So there’s that degree of flexibility, but I’d say the core hours, where it’s just what everybody’s here, is that nine to five block.”

The Great Resignation and its impact

Chris is pragmatic about the reality that remote work certainly has its appeal and that the great talent shuffle is very real. He acknowledges Texas A&M professor Anthony Klotz’ prediction of the Great Resignation and that the transition to a post-pandemic workplace means many workers will prefer to leave their jobs than go back to the way things were.

However, he adds, there’s a new problem for companies who want to remain remote. He shares a story about one HqO partner in Boston about how that company’s employees are regularly being poached by companies in San Francisco, New York, Austin and Seattle.

“So now,” Chris says, “you have Boston companies that have shifted to remote that are now competing with other cities, which is just like, ‘Man, how much more complicated can this get’?”

RTO is a big differentiator

So, for in-office companies like HqO, there’s an opportunity in the unique employee value proposition of in-office work. The in-office strategy is actually a specific attractor for some talent, says Chris. He adds that HqO’s hiring teams are actively looking to recruit people who do want to work in the office.

“I’m listening for people that want to be challenged and make that significant connection there,” Chris explains about HqO’s own hiring strategy, emphasizing the importance of being proactive and innovative in recruitment marketing.

“I think, if we’re going to go out there and we’re going to attract some of these folks that want to be an office, we have to direct message folks,” Chris says.

“Again, so many people are hiring right now. You need to give your company a chance to stand out, really spark that curiosity from somebody.”

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Quit rates are through the roof, and weirdly enough, it’s not translating into a larger and more active candidate pool for employers – rather, it’s the opposite. Workers appear to be dropping out of the system, and they’re not all ready to move to a new job. Data from the Workable network confirms this as well.

Employers are taking a hit from all this. At best, they’re making do with leaner teams; at worst, they’re shutting down entirely because of this unique talent shortage.

It’s becoming more challenging to retain talent, and harder to attract candidates to new roles. As leaders in the hiring space, we’re very cognizant of this, and we want to help you overcome these challenges. So, instead of theorizing and speculating and predicting and analyzing, we decided to ask 1,250 workers in the US and UK to find out what they want and value in a job.

Out of the many insights in the Great Discontent survey, we have four main takeaways for you:

Money still talks

Despite all the new workplace developments, salary, perks and benefits are still top of mind. People want – and need – more of it when working.

Flexy is sexy

Flexible work arrangements are important to many workers – and much more for women than men – but it’s not as high of a priority for their employers.

The power of connectivity

No matter the kind of work involved, people are at the heart of it all. When people feel connected to their colleagues and leadership, they’ll stay and they’ll thrive.

There’s no place like home

Integrating personal and professional lives is very important for people – it’s the top reason why those not working aren’t working and the top benefit of flexible work. Again, this is especially so for women.

Our survey also finds that three quarters of workers may be ready to bolt at any given time. This signals a potential disconnect in the system. It’s a tough situation for employers, and this may require a fresh look at your talent attraction and retention strategy.

These are strange, historic, exciting times, and it’s clear the rules of the game are changing for employers. We don’t have all the answers – those will come later in hindsight. But the conversation is always worth adding to. We think you’ll find useful insights here as we venture into the new world of work and post-pandemic environment.

Without further ado, check out our reports:

• The Great Discontent: 2021 Worker Survey (US)
• The Great Discontent: 2021 Worker Survey (UK)

Have insights, concerns, criticisms, swear words, accolades, or anything else? We’d love to hear them. Please send them to our content team at content@workable.com and we’ll be sure to address each and every one of them.

Yours in sustainability,

Nikos Moraitakis
CEO, Workable

The post Announcing the Great Discontent: 2021 Worker Survey appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

But hiring managers across all industries are losing time and money in the struggle to fill their (often urgent) tech-related positions.

The talent battle and the mounting skills gap

When researchers at McKinsey & Co. sought to understand the apparent skills gap, they separated relevant technology skills into seven separate ‘battlegrounds.’ Offering CIOs across the globe their choice from the seven, they asked survey respondents what will matter most to their organization in the next three to five years.

The largest percentage of CIOs ranked data analytics, IT, mobile, and web design as the fields with the most talent mismatch – the highest amount of need and the lowest amount of supply.

Quantified, McKinsey’s experts are predicting a global deficit of 3.5 million cybersecurity positions by the end of this year. They expect that demand for agile skills in tech-related roles will outnumber supply by four to one, and the need for big data talent will be roughly 60% greater than the available labor. For a sector that’s shaping our post-COVID future, it’s not the demand-supply curve that one would expect.

Real continuous learning: evolution as we speak

The numbers paint an alarming image, but they don’t say much in the way of why. A crucial consideration is the rapid mental upkeep that the ongoing modernization of technology requires. A candidate today is required not only to have in-depth knowledge of existing systems, but also to understand how to transition from one system to another. Outdated programming languages, shifting organizational needs, and new-to-market vendors make intensive continuous learning a part of every tech-adjacent role.

Hiring managers and employers might ask themselves, then: are we supporting that learning? Generally, most leaders understand that training, re-skilling, and upskilling are all lifeboats in choppy COVID-19 waters. Turning to existing team members for new needs is not only cost-efficient, it’s necessary for a healthy corporate culture. 82% of global executives seem to understand that, but only 27% of McKinsey’s respondents said they’ve seen their employers pursue a talent transformation within the last two years.

Filling those seven areas of tech-related needs will require an artful combination of re-skilling, up-skilling, and open-minded recruitment methods that draw on alternate sources of talent. For post-COVID tech talent recruiters and hiring managers, below are a few promising ways to extend a talent search.

The post-COVID tech talent search: talent comes from anywhere

New candidates could determine the course of a company’s recovery; it’s crucial that employers remain open to talent in all of its many forms, shapes, sizes, and funnels. Beginning on a local level, accredited educational institutions should be a feature of every recruitment scheme. Developing relationships with nearby colleges and universities can help hiring teams engage early candidates and better understand the candidate’s skill set based on curricular offerings.

The pandemic has also shifted the educational landscape, bringing with it long-awaited changes. A number of options now exist on the market for certification and needs-aware training, helping candidates at any stage of the career train move toward the specific needs of their local job markets.

Partnering with training institutions, employers can not only engage with a self-motivated pool of applicants, they can help training professionals understand the nuances of what their local business ecosystem is seeking.

From soft skills training to advanced coding languages, local and virtual training courses are alternative talent pools, and recruitment teams should make every effort to be involved at the early stages.

The new professional ecosystem: a holistic approach

The current shortage landscape calls for non-traditional solutions. At the talent sourcing phase of the recruitment process, hiring managers can capitalize on educational settings, training platforms, and online certification offerings to find incredible talent that will be perfectly positioned to make an early contribution.

The vetting phase, too, requires new techniques. The number of self-taught IT professionals is higher than ever and continues to rise. Many candidates go through short skill acquisition programs that don’t hold the same weight as a formal degree on a resume.

Read more: Tech recruitment in London: Luring and sourcing top tech talent

But one look at their portfolio might make it clear that this is a candidate the company can’t afford to lose. Opening up the recruitment process not only to different sources of talent, but also different forms of credentials, is a crucial part of post-COVID tech talent hiring. Portfolios and skills tests should be as important, if not more important, to the hiring team.

To better understand the performance of the candidate outside of their credentials, hiring managers can involve senior IT executives within the company in the recruitment process. Roles are growing more sophisticated and malleable; it’s likely that the current employees know best the kind of competence and skills that would make the most beneficial addition to the team.

Tech-focused candidates want to speak the language of tech with other tech professionals. Rather than trying to get a full recruitment team up to speed, involving senior tech executives, and maybe those anchor hires, is the superior strategy.

Read more: Wooing top tech talent: Recruiting in the Boston tech scene

Technology is driving business success and post-COVID enterprise relevance. But it won’t be a linear path to securing a well-staffed and well-supported team. Non-traditional strategies, from talent sourcing to skills assessment, will be needed to build a robust, diverse and competent team.

By partnering with education institutions and local training programs, giving due weight to a candidate’s portfolio, and involving tech professionals throughout the recruitment process, hiring managers and employers will have what they need to appeal to top talent and compete in the post-COVID hiring arena.

Pablo Listingart is the Founder and Executive Director of ComIT, a non-profit organization designed to help people overcome employment barriers and re-introduce themselves to the local market. With an extensive network, ComIT builds ever-changing courses tailored to industry needs, connecting promising graduates with companies in need of local talent.

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While no sector has been spared the impact of this rapidly evolving resignation trend, a new survey from HR technology disruptor Hibob makes it clear that one market segment is bearing the weight more than others: that of mid-sized companies. The survey of 1,000 full-time US workers working remotely since the onset of the pandemic has insights that mid-sized businesses must pay attention to.

With 71% of mid-size company staff now open to the prospect of freelancing and prioritizing flexibility as a critical benefit, how can mid-sized companies manage employee expectations, reduce the risk of resignation and evolve their recruiting strategies to compensate?

Let’s dive in.

By the numbers: what’s the problem?

According to the survey, 44% of mid-sized company employees either quit or were laid off by their employers over the last 12 months. What’s more, 65% of those still employed at mid-sized businesses thought about leaving their jobs — compared to only 59% of those at smaller firms.

Even more telling? While between 36%-40% of employees at smaller and larger firms said they were likely to quit their jobs in the next year, a much-higher 56% of mid-sized workers said they are “likely or very likely” to make the move. That’s a warning bell, if any, for mid-sized businesses who need to stay competitive.

When it comes to what’s making them so willing to move on, 45% said they wanted better benefits and 55% pointed to a better work/life balance. In fact, 56% of survey respondents said they would quit if their employer didn’t offer flexible hours and location options, and 66% felt that going back to the office would negatively impact their success — compared to both smaller and larger firms, mid-sized employees said they were the most productive when working from home.

Put simply? Resignations are on the rise, and mid-sized businesses are disproportionally feeling the burden.

Why the numbers: where’s the disconnect?

The Great Resignation is a catchy term, but it describes the outcome rather than the root cause. Advisory firm Gallup offers another option: “The Great Discontent”, suggesting that lack of employee engagement is driving them away from current companies and into the arms of their competitors.

We’ve got another perspective: The Great Disconnect. While discontent with current teams, management structures or existing benefit packages provides some of the impetus for this rapid resignation trend, there’s a bigger problem — disconnect between what companies are willing to offer and what staff really want.

The biggest issue is a flip-flop on flexibility: 71% of staff at mid-sized companies say their HR teams have backpedaled on flexible work policies, while the numbers drop to 60% for enterprises and just over 50% for smaller firms. What’s more, a full third of mid-sized workers are worried that leveraging flexible work options will be frowned upon and ultimately hurt their career progression.

Compensation challenges are also emerging. As noted above, 71% of mid-sized employees are open to the idea of freelancing – a side gig, if you will – and 28% have already taken a second job, while just 11% of their large enterprise counterparts have done the same.

Hibob CEO Ronni Zehavi makes it clear: “As resignation rates remain high, recruiters, company leaders, and HR decision-makers must re-evaluate and understand what employees are really looking for today.”

What to do now — and what to do next

So what does all this mean for mid-sized companies? It’s time for new recruitment and retention strategies.

Let’s start with what to do right now: If you’ve walked back any flexible work policies, turn around and walk the other way. As noted by NPR, skilled workers are in demand: If they’re being pushed back into long commutes and overtime at the office, they have no trouble getting multiple offers that offer better work-life balance.

Next, consider current benefit structures and their impact on staff satisfaction. Salary plays a role here but it’s not the only component: Employees are also looking for financial wellness programs to help them better manage money, more paid time off to spend with friends and family, and improved mental and physical health supports.

Moving forward, mid-sized companies must also recognize the reality of resignations: despite best efforts, some staff will move on to new opportunities. To reduce the impact of these resignations, companies need a new approach to recruiting that leverages technology to identify, evaluate and hire candidates ASAP.

With talented employees now in demand across industries and market verticals, there’s no time for traditional hiring processes that take weeks or months: companies need to position themselves as the right choice for prospective staff that feel disconnected at their current jobs and are looking for a better fit.

Act now to stay relevant

Bottom line? The Great Resignation has arrived, and it’s disproportionately impacting mid-sized businesses. The numbers make it clear: Discontent and disconnect are driving staff separations. Managing this new reality means fostering flexibility, bolstering benefits and integrating technology to reduce total turnover, boost satisfaction and offer a new home for workers making the switch.

Workers are clearly not afraid to make a move – you, as an employer, must take the necessary steps outlined above so you can reap the benefits of increased applications to your job openings rather than higher numbers of emails giving you a two-week notice.

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That means you need to focus on recruitment and retention strategies that actually work. Flip that and focus first on retention and then on recruitment. If you can retain your employees, that reduces the work you have to do to recruit new ones.

And remember that good recruitment also means fewer problems with retention. Getting the right people into the right jobs impacts your retention in a way that a specialized program never can.

Here are five ideas that will work.

1. Hire for potential, not experience

“You must have a college degree and five years of experience in X.” These types of requirements are standard in job postings, but researchers found that for many jobs, employees will still need to learn 10 additional skills within the next 18 months.

In other words, even if your new hire meets all the job requirements today, that means 10 new skills needed as they settle into their new role.

If you are insistent that every candidate has every skill, you may end up with a very short list of candidates – and hiring someone whose skills may be obsolete in a month anyway. You should look for people who have a solid – and versatile – foundation and the ability and desire to learn new things.

Keep this in mind for a recruitment and retention strategy as well. Often, companies don’t want to promote from within because they want someone in the position that can ‘hit the ground running’.

This strategy denies reality because the position will change anyway. Retain your best employees by promoting them into stretch roles.

2. Stop outsourcing your recruiting

Peter Capelli, a professor of Management at the Wharton School of Business, reports that up to 40% of companies use outsourced recruiters. While that sometimes makes sense, he points out that these companies often outsource themselves – to the Philippines or India, for instance. These contract recruiters scour LinkedIn and focus on using keywords.

Companies often reward these recruiters with higher bonuses if they can get a candidate to take a lower salary. That sounds cost-effective, but in today’s high-turnover environment, saving your business $5,000 today may result in an additional $50,000 in turnover costs next year, if not more. As far as recruitment and retention strategies go, this one isn’t very effective in the long term.

Keep your recruiting close to your company, and you’ll be more likely to find candidates that are fit for the long term in your company and not just those with the matching keywords.

3. Study your results – and act on them

While this may not seem like a recruiting or retention technique, it will lead you to correct your processes. Capelli, again, points out that very few companies do detailed tracking on recruiting and retention.

“Imagine,” Capelli says, “if the CEO asked how an advertising campaign had gone, and the response was ‘We have a good idea how long it took to roll out and what it cost, but we haven’t looked to see whether we’re selling more.’”

You won’t improve your retention or recruiting if you don’t know what works and what fails. You need to keep data on these things.

4. Keep an eye on your competitors

The Fight for $15 campaign has been very successful, and many people refuse to work for less, even though the federal minimum wage remains at less than half of that. You may think that your salaries are at the proper market rate because they were last year and you could hire just fine. But, it’s 2021, there’s a labor shortage all around, and your candidates can walk across the street and get a job at a fast-food restaurant for $12 or more per hour.

Remember, your hiring and retention competitors are not only the people who make and sell similar products and services. They are also anyone who hires people similar to your employees. Every business needs an accountant and a customer service person. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you don’t need to pay attention.

In addition to salary, people are looking for flexibility. Whether it’s working from home, a hybrid situation, or shifts that fit their lives, other businesses offer those. If you want to keep your employees and hire new ones, you need to keep up.

5. Start asking your employees questions

Do you know what makes your current employees happy? Do you know what makes them miserable? If you can’t, you may find your retention numbers struggling.

Margaret Rogers, vice president at Pariveda Solutions, says that while companies invest in training and development, they often do so without consulting the employees.

You need to know what your employees want and need before you develop your programs. A few questions she recommends when conducting employee surveys are:

• What parts of your job are most interesting and rewarding?
• What areas are you finding most challenging right now?
• What are you doing to reach short- and long-term career goals?
• Are there any other projects, committees, or additional responsibilities you would like to be a part of?
• Is there anything else you’re curious about that you haven’t been able to explore yet?

Knowing the answers to these questions helps you to tailor your training and development opportunities to not only what will benefit the company but what will benefit your employees. You won’t retain people who don’t see growth potential, so make sure you know what they want and figure out how to help them get it.

If you aren’t thinking about recruiting and retention strategies now, you need to be. Otherwise, the great resignation will hit your business, and other companies will snatch up your best people. Don’t let that happen to you.

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Let’s start with why: The workforce was not immune to the migration patterns of the pandemic. Affording everyone the time to re-examine anything, from a life’s purpose to a day-to-day routine, the lockdown was a time of mass decision-making.

The ‘Great Resignation’ then earned its name as professionals across all industries shed their pre-pandemic roles. Increased turnover became one of an employer’s many costs. But in a normal economy, one worker’s loss would be another worker’s gain – roles would fill about as quickly as they’re given up. Now, employers have made it clear: there’s a disconnect between the post-COVID candidate and the roles at hand.

A look at the numbers

Talent and employers are passing each other like two ships in the night. This past March, US employers added a seasonally adjusted 916,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate reached a new pandemic low of 6%. Still, recruitment campaigns are flopping, candidates are in short supply, and professionals continue to change paths across virtually all sectors.

Conversely, LinkedIn data shows that professionals in the United States added over 110,000 volunteer activities to their profiles monthly since the inception of the pandemic. That’s a near 250% increase since 2017.

And the boom of ESG-focused investing has come from retail investors as much as it’s come from institutional activity; new investors are showing a large interest in green bonds, and 56% of households with more than $100,000 to invest are showing an overwhelming preference for impact investments.

These numbers quantify an important COVID change: purpose-driven living has become a full-time occupation. Professionals want ESG values represented and upheld across all segments of their life, including and especially the team with whom they focus their working talent.

A tight ESG labor market

Before the pandemic, BlackRock reported that many of their high-profile investors planned to double their allocations into sustainable products over the next five years. A subsequent report announced that one-fifth of those investors felt the pandemic had accelerated their plans to do so.

That early influx of capital led to a job boom in the ESG space, attracting the market’s best talent.

Already, the wave of behavioral change is evident across industries. Companies are under pressure to adopt new standards and regulations for ESG operations and sustainable investing in order to source investment capital and satisfy stakeholders. ESG is the new workplace normal, and will soon be a standard workforce strategy rather than basic value proposition.

Re-imagining the post-COVID EVP

Employers need new tactics to differentiate their employee value proposition (or EVP for short). Introducing tangible ESG as a workforce strategy is an important place to begin. The large-scale purpose and impact of the company is important. But the day-to-day initiatives, policies, and campaigns are important places in which employees feel those social values reflected.

Consider the actions of industry giants throughout the pandemic:

• Apple increased their matching gift donations to a 2:1 ratio, surpassing $15 million in the early months to support COVID-response efforts on a local and global scale
• Facebook committed to matching $10 million in charitable gifts by the public, in addition to their existing policy for employees and retirees
• Google upped their match cap to a significant $20,000 per employee.

The scale of these actions reflects the size of these corporations, but small and mid-sized businesses can instill the same corporate practices with the same effect. Regardless of magnitude, these decisions made by industry giants reflect what they’ve noticed among their employee culture: social involvement and purpose-driven impact is an important part of employee satisfaction, competitive recruitment, and top talent retention.

Hilton: A case study in workplace happiness

At the end of 2020, Fortune released its list of the 100 best companies to work for based on self-reported workplace happiness of employees. The top 25 companies are similar to 2019, with a few exceptions, including Hilton. A newcomer to the top 25, Hilton climbed all the way to #1. Let’s consider their pandemic response.

Notably, Hilton partnered with American Express to donate one million hotel room nights across the U.S. for frontline workers. In addition, the company made a $1 million contribution to the World Central Kitchen, providing healthy, fresh meals for healthcare providers.

Their Hilton Effect Foundation Grants provided an additional $1 million in community response efforts. Meanwhile, their success in cutting their environmental footprint in half and doubling their social impact investments worldwide led them to be named the global industry leader in sustainability for the second year in a row.

It is the case that the Hilton team was able to impart a significantly positive impact on many communities throughout COVID-19. But it’s also the case that those social initiatives occupied a large part of the company mission, meaning that those goals were a constant part of an employee’s day-to-day responsibilities.

The sequential earning of both titles, ’global leader in sustainability’ and ‘best place to work,’ is no coincidence. But it is perhaps the day-to-day experience of striving for environmental and social impact, rather than the final culmination of the effort, that makes the Hilton work experience so fulfilling. In terms of ESG as a workforce strategy, it’s a model to look up to.

It’s about good intentions

Again, it’s not the scale of the initiative, but the intention behind it: purposeful ESG as a workforce strategy needs to be top of mind to attract and keep the best performing talent in the industry. Offering the time or financial resources that allow employees to volunteer in their own communities is another way for small or medium size businesses to achieve the same effect.

Similarly, smaller sized corporations can create social-oriented projects that allow each team member to contribute their expertise toward community impact. For example:

• Pay a web designer to create an order platform for a local food bank
• Offer senior executives days off to mentor younger professionals in the field
• Work in a standard donation amount into an employee’s salary to go toward the organization of their choosing

These are other ways to bring ESG aims closer to the day-to-day operations.

Post-COVID recruitment needs to center on similar questions. What opportunities are we providing for employees to bring their social awareness, environmental commitment, and global concerns into the workplace? The lines between home and work have blurred. With them, the demarcation between work purpose and life purpose has faded.

Employers that can offer a work culture that’s fulfilling, purpose-driven, and ESG-oriented will see their efforts rewarded in the prospective candidates and existing employees alike, and the post-COVID workplace will change for the better the way all real change takes place – from the ground up.

Tara Milburn is the Founder and CEO of Ethical Swag, a sustainable branding company that makes it easy for HR professionals to offer personalized promotional products that they can stand behind. Certified as a B-Corporation, Ethical Swag has been audited to the highest global standard for sustainability.

The post ESG as a workforce strategy: post-COVID attraction and retention appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

The number of workers who quit their jobs in the month of April alone was the highest it’s ever been since this metric started being recorded about 20 years ago; nearly 4 million people quit, pushing the quits rate to 2.7% of those employed.

Hence the terminology: The Great Resignation, coined and foretold by a Texas A&M professor in May 2021.

So what can employers do, now that this massive talent migration is fully underway?

The first step is to change old ways of thinking: your biggest obstacle is not a shortage of talent, but a widespread shift in job candidates’ motivations. You need to evolve your employer brand using new employee value proposition examples.

Talent shortage vs. evolving candidate motivations

Even before the pandemic, the concept of a “talent shortage” has largely gotten the blame for why it’s so difficult to hire skilled workers. This is still true; a recent global study showed that nearly seven in 10 (69%) of companies have reported talent shortages and difficulty hiring.

But that’s not the full picture.

Yes, there is some level of talent shortage, but candidates have also evolved in what they expect from a job. Many don’t want to simply “go back to normal” and have decided they’d rather pursue something else. So, companies hiring in this labor market aren’t just competing against each other, they’re also competing against:

• early retirement
• the gig economy
• self-run businesses
• unemployment benefits
• a search for a new environment
• prioritization of a flexible schedule to be with loved ones

How should companies use this information?

Well, if your company wants to attract candidates in this labor market, you should be thinking about how you can directly address these new candidate motivations. Although salary, perks and benefits understandably are top of mind for candidates, there are many ways where you can further evolve your employer brand.

That’s especially when your budget doesn’t allow for higher salaries or you have difficulty competing with Amazon, Google, or any other competitive employer for talent.

What that all boils down to is evolving your employee value proposition (EVP) so that working at your company actually contributes to – rather than competes with – the life they’re trying to make for themselves.

These four employee value proposition examples can help you evolve your employer brand so that working at your company is attractive to today’s talent:

1. Offer true work flexibility – in location and schedule

The ultimate dream for most employees is to work anywhere they want and whenever they want, doing work that offers fulfillment and growth. What’s ideal about this type of setup is it gives employees the autonomy and freedom they want and need in their day-to-day lives, while also being able to do work that feels purposeful. This is part of the employee value proposition at companies who are already or have shifted to remote-first.

However, for a great number of employers, this isn’t a desirable or feasible option. They’re not willing to let go of the very real benefits that regular in-person, in-office work brings to culture, collaboration, and unity around a common purpose for the whole organization.

If your company is decidedly not going to go fully remote, here are some ways to get as close to that level of flexibility as possible. This will make a world of difference in helping you attract (and keep) the talent you need.

• Offer employees the option to work from home at least a few days of the week
• Let employees choose what days of the week they’d work remotely vs. in the office
• Allow employees to shift their daily work hours around to when they prefer (e.g. starting and ending early)

2. Have a mission that goes beyond ‘the work’

Younger workers have always paid attention to what a company stands for as they look for a job and that interest has become even more pronounced, especially in these recent years of social and political unrest.

What these candidates are really striving for is to find work that means something and stands for something. This means company values that go beyond making a profit. These could include:

• backing BLM/LGBTQ movements
• establishing environmental equity
• building up societies
• supporting mental health and wellness

The list goes on. Candidates today are driven towards employers who have a clearly defined vision and values that are actually lived and felt among current team members.

Remember, though, that you can’t just pick a popular cause and slap that on all of your recruiting materials as your new mission. That isn’t genuine and candidates will see right through that. What you can and should do is talk to your current employees and do some internal introspection and brainstorming as a team as to how the work that you do helps make the world better.

Aside from your actual day-to-day work, you could also introduce:

• paid volunteer days
• charitable donations and company matching
• team fundraising events.

Workable’s mission and vision are a great example of an employee value proposition: the entire organization is driven toward helping great companies and great talent find each other. It’s a very people-driven concept and it attracts candidates who love the idea of supporting it.

3. Foster genuine employee connections

While talent today overwhelmingly prefers remote work over going back to the office five days a week – and many big-name companies feel the same – there’s one aspect about office life that’s still important to them: connecting with other members of their team in a meaningful way.

Just think of all of the different ways employees connect with each other organically throughout a work day when in the same physical workspace:

• seeing each other daily face-to-face
• catching up over a snack or drink break
• real-time in-person meetings
• lunch-time banter
• mini-celebrations in the desk aisles

And so many other impromptu moments. In this shift to remote work, that’s what employees today are missing.

Even though “employee events” isn’t on their job search list, companies who prioritize employee connection in their company culture (especially while remote) will attract more talent than those who don’t.

For example, some companies fly everyone together into a really cool location once a year and call it their annual kickoff or team retreat – including Workable. Many also hold regular all-day events for things like team bonding, new hire orientation, and strategy sessions.

Making time for employee connection in these ways is huge for building morale, and people have something exciting to look forward to doing together. It’s one of the most powerful employee value proposition examples you can implement at your company.

4. Offer programs to support work-life integration

If your company is letting go of some or all of your office spaces in favor of remote or hybrid work, you haven’t actually eliminated the office – you’ve simply shifted “the office” into employees’ homes. The name of the game is then no longer about employees’ work-life balance, but work-life integration.

Learn how SmartBug CEO Ryan Malone manages work-life integration at his company – which has been fully remote since its inception in the late 2000s.

Knowing that this is the new way, supporting your employees’ work-life integration will be a huge differentiator for retaining and attracting talent today. To do that, it’s all about helping employees create a fluid and healthy environment where both their personal life and work life can co-exist and not constantly compete for their attention.

It also means addressing the additional financial burden many employees are taking on due to working from their own homes, such as caregiving costs, internet bills, and paying for technology to help their time management.

Here are some programs you’ll see most commonly these days among companies who prioritize healthy work-life integration:

• one-time or recurring home office stipends to cover all equipment needs
• subsidized food delivery or monthly flexible meal stipends
• monthly cellphone and technology reimbursement for ongoing tech needs
• wellness apps or a monthly flexible wellness stipend
• backup childcare, caregiving support, and general family stipends that support all types of families

Get ready: evolve your EVP

Even though signs of the Great Resignation, or the “turnover tsunami”, was identified way back in February, none of us could have known how massive the impact would actually be.

These four employee value proposition examples are just to get you started. It’s ultimately up to you as an employer to show how quickly you can move and how nimble you can be in addressing this evolving talent market – by also evolving yourself and what you’re really offering your people.

The post 4 employee value proposition examples to survive the Great Resignation appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

What is recruitment outsourcing?

Outsourcing is hiring someone outside of the company to do a task. This can be a consultant or a contractor, or a company. It can be someone who lives and works in the same town or lives in another country.

When you outsource a task, you give it to an outside person or organization. When you outsource recruitment, you can use several different types of outsourced recruiting.

• Headhunters. This is the colloquial term for recruiters that recruit for specialized positions. They often work on a commission basis. While they can technically recruit for any role, they often have specialized areas. Headhunters increase their value by building relationships in their chosen industries. Companies, not candidates, pay headhunter fees (usually a percentage of the salary if they place a candidate). Some executive or highly specialized headhunter contractors are retainer-based. In this case, the recruiter receives pay for providing candidates and sourcing, and is not contingent on job acceptance.
• General recruiting. You can hire an outsourced recruiter or recruiting firm to handle all your recruiting needs, regardless of specialization. Again, the company, not the candidates, pays the recruiters.
• Staffing companies. These companies not only find people to work for you, but they hire them and pay them as well. Consequently, the employees work for the staffing company and not for you. This model is popular in industries with high turnover and low-skilled labor. It’s also popular for some IT roles, and larger companies, including Google, use this model.

When outsourced recruitment is good

Suppose you are a startup looking to hire your first of everything. In that case, it’s far better to hire a professional recruiter to help you find a CFO than to appoint your college roommate who majored in musical theater but never managed to get their big Broadway break.

For senior roles, the headhunter option generally remains a good idea, as these positions are highly specialized and critical to company success. If you get a mediocre junior analyst, it can get expensive (as bad hires tend to be), but if your newly recruited Chief Marketing Officer is a failure, it can tank your entire company.

You may also want to consider outsourcing recruiting during intense hiring phases, as your in-house HR may not have the bandwidth to take it on. For instance, if you are launching a new product and you need to hire 100 new salespeople across the entire country in a short time, your lone in-house recruiter may not be able to handle that added workload (although a great ATS can help alleviate that stress!).

You can, of course, use a contracted recruiter for all your positions, and some companies do this. Smaller companies can’t afford a dedicated recruiter or don’t hire enough people on a regular basis to warrant an extra employee for that task.

When outsourced recruitment is bad

Relying on someone outside the company to market your jobs, source candidates, and screen them, can be problematic in many situations.

If you want to build a specific company culture, you probably want to bring your recruiting in-house. An external recruiter generally has multiple clients at a time and won’t be able to dedicate themselves to the unique needs of your company as well as an in-house recruiter can do.

Because external recruiters typically get paid upon placement, there can be a bigger push to fill the role than to focus on finding the right person for the position.

If your turnover – whether voluntary and involuntary – is higher than the industry average, you may wish to take a look at in-house recruiting. People do leave when they feel that the company is a bad fit for them. You also need to fire people who turn out to be not a good fit for you.

If your turnover in either of these categories is too high, it could be due to wrongly or poorly targeted recruiting. There are times where assigning the recruiting to someone who knows the employees personally, who walks your warehouse floor every day, or sits in on exit interviews and sees the problems firsthand can result in a better candidate fit.

If you have the proper HR systems in place – a good applicant tracking system and a compatible HRIS – running the recruiting in-house can save you time and make your reporting more straightforward and more accurate.

If you choose outsourced recruitment

This is a path that fits some companies, and if you go in this direction, there are a few things you need to remember when you search for your recruiter.

• If employees work in the office, ensure the recruiter has visited and understands the working environment firsthand. There are different challenges in different businesses, and seeing the physical facilities can help the recruiter’s understanding.
• Go over the job descriptions with the recruiter in depth so that the recruiter understands the key points to look for. You can’t assume an external recruiter understands the unwritten rules of your business because she doesn’t work there.
• Consider the costs. If you hire more than one or two professional people per year with a headhunter, the associated costs can become higher than an in-house, salaried recruiter.
• Keep communication channels open. Hiring managers often change criteria during the recruitment process. If you aren’t communicating clearly, your recruiter will waste valuable time looking for the wrong candidates.
• Figure out how you will coordinate your onboarding process. Frequently, in-house recruiters handle that part of the process. If you outsource recruitment, someone in-house will need to process the paperwork and new-hire orientation.

In-house recruitment benefits

Whether you’re growing or in a high-turnover industry, you might consider bringing the whole thing in-house – the technology is there to help even the leanest hiring teams manage the recruitment process, and at cost. And the benefits of doing it internally can far outweigh the conveniences of outsourced recruitment.

Consider the following:

• Your recruiter can help identify internal candidates that may or may not apply for an open position. Someone with an intimate knowledge of the business will have powerful insight into people who can fill gaps when an external recruiter cannot.
• You can control costs. Many employers outsource recruitment to reduce costs, but filling two senior positions in a year with an external recruiter can cost more than a full-time salary for an experienced in-house recruiter.
• You have more flexibility. If you think you need to do a job fair, you can organize one. If you’re working with an outside firm, you may have to renegotiate the entire contract.
• An internal recruiter can help anticipate business needs. They can spot things before requisitions appear and plan ahead.
• Internal recruiters have a better understanding of company culture because they work there every day. They have a vested interest in getting the right people in roles because they have to work together.

Whatever you decide for your business, remember that good quality recruitment needs to be a high priority. Your business needs people to succeed, and that can’t happen without quality sourcing, recruiting, and hiring.

The post Why companies outsource recruitment (and why you shouldn’t) appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Jump straight into the podcast or check out the transcription here.

As a practiced expert in global talent management, Tony had a lot to say. Here are the top takeaways from our conversation:

Make the commitment, then make it work

Virgin mogul Richard Branson once said: ”If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!”

Tony would agree when it applies to the global talent market.

“My first tip here is to really focus on what’s really important, which is finding the best talent no matter where they are,” he says. “And worry later about these obstacles or these barriers that prevent you from hiring that talent.

Why? Because it makes sense

And forget whether your services are global or local. It makes a lot of sense to hire globally, because your talent market is much broader.

“If you were to say a startup in San Francisco or a startup in London, and you want to hire locally, what are the chances [that] the best talent will be in a 20-mile radius from your office? It’s like 0.1%,” Tony says.

“So how can you explain statistically that this is a good strategy for talent acquisition, where over 99% of the great talent is elsewhere?”

He points to hubs of engineering in areas such as Eastern Europe and Latin America that have a much higher representation of highly talented developers who specialize in specific coding languages – all of which presents an opportunity for smart companies who tap into the global hiring market.

Talent distribution aside, Tony points to other benefits:

1) Local connectivity makes better EX

There are huge benefits in the new reality of living where we work and working where we live – especially for the employee.

Tony shares his own example.

“Now my identity is work but it’s also family. I spend more time with my children, with my partner,” he says of his work-life integration. “It’s my community as well.”

He talks about an elderly neighbor in the small French village where he lives and works. “He can’t walk very well. And his chimney broke in the middle of the winter and he needed somebody to take him to the store, buy something to come and fix the chimney. So he called me at 2 in the afternoon, and I had a 45-minute gap in my schedule.

“So I was able to go and bring him to the store and build it. And I felt more connected to him.”

And what does that mean for the new working environment?

“If I was in the office,” Tony explains, ”I would have missed that opportunity to help him out. And so I feel much more connected to my local community. So that’s good news for the world. And that’s good news for people.”

And when employees feel more connected to their families and communities even when on the job, they’ll be happier. That speaks volumes for overall employee engagement (EX) and experience.

2) Remote can outperform office

Tony says that, if executed properly, a remote-work environment can actually be more productive and engaged than the alternative.

“For instance, a virtual environment requires you to share leadership more, so essentially because everybody is in different locations and the leader cannot do everything like they used to do in the office, then suddenly you have an opportunity for other leaders to come in and fill that gap. So it becomes a great place to grow leaders faster in the business.”

It’s not just about collective leadership. Remote also fosters a more equitable and democratic working environment that brings the best out of people.

“The best ideas win,” Tony says. ”[W]hen you used to work in an office and you go to a meeting room and usually the loudest person in the room monopolizes the discussion, but you have maybe this introverted, brilliant person on the side [and] they’re not sharing their ideas.”

And now, working online across locations, there’s a more collaborative spirit via a shared document where everyone is able to bring something to the proverbial table, and have a conversation, Tony says.

“The role of the leader is really to be aware of these superpowers and create an environment that actually facilitates and fosters these benefits.”

3) There are social and environmental benefits

There’s an added intangible that can speak volumes for your employer brand: the social impact that your organization has as a remote-first organization.

“If you remove the barriers to cross-border employment and enable companies to really tap into the global talent pool, you can reduce brain drain, which is really one of the major impacts of wealth distribution issues in the world.”

There’s also an environmental impact as well.

“Think about it; every year, we’re pouring the equivalent of four New York Cities in terms of concrete on planet Earth. And in many cities, it’s not a more livable condition.”

He notes the example of Delhi, where workers lose an average of seven hours of life expectancy due to the air pollution.

“I think the pandemic enabled us to realize that actually we are past that tipping point of sustainability of cities. And, I hope that the world will reverse that trend now that actually it’s not a necessity to be in the office to get the job done, at least for knowledge workers.”

Global talent market best practices

Convinced? Tony now has some best practices for you when executing on a global talent market strategy.

1) Ensure equal opportunity and experience

When you have a distributed team, you need to align your company success with your employee success, Tony says. This ties into employee experience, which can differ across locations.

Tony shares the example of a contact center in India that worked night shifts to accommodate the US market.

“There’s something we don’t really talk about … this lifestyle disparity when it comes to working from anywhere. [A]s a leader of an organization, my recommendation is to create an environment and a culture that gives everybody an equal opportunity, no matter where they are.”

Balance out the opportunities

Also, when hiring for more senior positions in tech, you’ll also find that talent is more concentrated to specific locations. For example, Tony says, senior talent has been focused in the Western world in the last 30 years.

And that can lead to further imbalances when it comes to opportunity within a company.

“[It’s important] that you think about how you develop the younger talent that come from emerging economies and giving them the opportunity to grow with your company and with the opportunity,” Tony says, “so we can start building the next generation of tech leaders from all over the world and not necessarily focused or centered around certain technology hubs in the world, such as the Silicon Valley, or London, or China.”

This also applies to the overall nature of remote work, where it comes naturally to some and more of a challenge to others – again a recipe for imbalance and unequal experiences across teams.

“There are certain trainings [where] you can upskill your talent force on remote work. You can teach your team how to behave, how to be productive, how to take care of themselves so that they don’t burn out.”

Focus on the results

To ensure equal opportunity and growth across locations, Tony also recommends shifting to a results-driven model.

“We’ve seen companies that have this obsession with output rather than input. Essentially we don’t care how [many] hours you put in to get the job done, as long as you have clear goals and you’re delivering on your goals,” he says.

“That goes a long way to create a culture where there’s a high degree of trust in order for anybody, anywhere they are, to grow in and develop in your company.”

2) Establish a strong company culture

The reality of working across locations – and especially, across cultures – is that there will be some inconsistencies as colleagues of different backgrounds collaborate on projects. There are ways around that, however – and the first big takeaway from Tony is that a strong company culture is essential if you want to overcome these challenges.

In short – the collective vision can be very powerful. But, Tony says, it doesn’t happen on its own.

“My experience having led two companies in the last 10, 12 years is that [there] are people from all over the world. Company culture definitely trumps country culture. … But you have to manage it. It’s not like by default this is going to happen.

“So you need to really be clear about how you create a strong company culture that actually is stronger than in local cultural specificities.”

Learn how Belgium-based startup ProxyClick built a great company culture that unifies and inspires its employees.

3) Standardize and prescribe a virtual working system

Working in a remote working environment means you need to actively build trust among colleagues. In a physical workplace, Tony says, trust grows naturally, but in a virtual environment, you have to work at it.

He shares the example of working with his product team. Syncing in real time is needed to align on ideas around product development, but an equally strong element of building a strong virtual work culture is in carrying out the actual work as a team.

“[At Oyster], we call them ‘tools and the rules’,” says Tony, adding that while you can get away with lack of clarity if you’re working together in the same office, that’s not the case when working across time zones, cultures and backgrounds.

“You have to be very prescriptive of how you work together. What tools do you use? When do you use them? What different meetings do you have?” Tony says.

And this system can’t be dictated top-down. It needs to be mutually built across the team.

“And you, as a team manager, have to be the best remote worker in your team to show the example for your team that this is something that everybody needs to buy into, and it gets reinforced.”

4) Know how job attractors differ across cultures

Building a strong employer brand is essential to candidate attraction, of course. But that becomes a unique challenge when sourcing and attracting talent in different locations.

Tony agrees, sharing a hypothetical example of a person named Mary in Nigeria, who has the option to work at a local bank for a contract and the best benefits in the area.

“You want to be able to match that, you want to be able to understand what ‘good’ looks like in country X, and then extend a generous offer to that employee,” Tony says.

He adds the value of job security for someone like Mary.

“That goes to first hiring them as a full-time employee rather than a contractor, so that you can reduce their anxiety and provide them with the ability of having a stable job and a stable income. And then supplement that with whatever local benefits Mary expects to see from a top employer in that country.”

Benefits will be different as well

Tony then talks about other countries that put more weight on certain benefits, such as the United States where health insurance is an absolute must-have. In France, on the other hand, the expectation is more about restaurant vouchers, with health insurance more complementary rather than a core benefit.

In other countries still, health benefits are a non-issue because of a universal health care system.

There are also other elements at play in a global talent market, Tony says.

“[Maybe] there is a fear of cultural differences. Maybe people in that country think differently than people in that country. There are administrative and legal and tax challenges that companies have to go through. […] So every country is different and you have to navigate that.”

Adapt and thrive in the global talent market

“The war on talent is going distributed,” Tony says. “The companies that have thought about how to enable a strong culture, how to enable a distributed workforce to grow and develop – they are the ones that are going to attract the best and the brightest talents in the world. And there’s no going back on this.”

Employees have that expectation as well, and Tony says employers need to pay close attention to that.

“Employees are asking for an extra degree of freedom, which is location. [They] want to be able to live wherever they want to live,” he says.

“That’s hard for companies to manage if they want to go back to an office-only culture, because talent will go to wherever they have more freedom and that’s assuming equal pay and equal benefits.”

Tony adds that 1.5 billion knowledge workers will be entering the workforce in the next 10 years. He says this is the biggest labor democratic shift since the Industrial Revolution.

“We have that opportunity now as a world to rethink what work is and make it more sustainable and more focused on bringing that opportunity to people no matter where they are.”

Ultimately, the global talent market is about people and quality of life.

“We want to have a future where people have a choice in where they want to live. And they don’t necessarily have to live in the city. It becomes a choice if they decide to want to live in a city, but if they decide not to, they shouldn’t be forced to be living in a crowded space. And that’s the world that we want to portray [at Oyster].”

The post The global talent market: the new land of opportunity is anywhere appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

That’s not all. There’s the extra burden placed on your day-to-day with legal and moral expectations to meet diversity, equity and inclusion metrics, increased compliance obligations including data privacy, employee vs. contractor classifications, and wage regulations.

And all of that while working on the same hiring budget you’ve had on your desk since before the pandemic – but with one or two less people in your team. That’s a lot to ask of a hiring team – especially in terms of time.

So, to help you out, here are 11 recruitment time-saving tips to help you optimize your hiring process while working with a lean budget and lean team. Spoiler: Workable’s recruitment solution can help you with pretty much all of them.

11 recruitment time-saving tips to speed up hiring

1. Automate the process
2. Offer self-scheduling options for candidates
3. Take advantage of templates
4. Enable mobile-friendly recruitment
5. Introduce e-signatures
6. Utilize a user-friendly career page builder
7. Take advantage of AI
8. Clone the process
9. Post to multiple job boards with one click
10. Automate your reporting
11. Remote interviewing

1. Automate the process

When handling large numbers of applicants, it becomes nearly impossible to engage each and every one of them personally, even when shortlisted.

Luckily, there are tools available that allow you to automate different steps in the process. Steps that can be automated include:

• An initial thank-you email in response to an application
• A rejection message for those who are not the right fit
• Moving candidates through the pipeline based on assessment scores
• A calendar self-schedule link sent out to someone who’s been moved to the next stage (more on that later)

Remember, you’re still dealing with human beings in the process. An automated, impersonal, careless rejection email can be off-putting for the candidate and may even impact impressions of your company in their network. Ensure that the tone and style of the email is appropriate, and always prioritize that candidate experience!

Workable’s automated actions tool can help you preset emails and processes while providing the templates (more on that below) to help you get started on recruitment time-saving.

2. Offer self-scheduling options for candidates

Whether you’re a recruiter or hiring manager, you know how much time can be spent communicating back and forth when planning for a phone screen, a video interview, or an in-person interview at any stage in the process. Factor in the number of candidates involved, and you can see how you might be wasting time that’s better spent on other, more applicable tasks.

All of that can be eliminated, however, by giving the candidate the opportunity to reserve an available time slot right through a link to your calendar. Workable’s self-scheduling tool enables easy scheduling from start to finish – and is one of the leading recruitment time-saving tips in this list.

3. Take advantage of templates

Writing a job description or a series of interview questions from scratch for every job opening can be a time-consuming task, especially when you’re hiring en masse after a new funding round or expansion to a new market. It’s also potentially susceptible to bias in terms of the language used, job requirements listed, and questions asked.

Save your time by utilizing templates. Templates, of course, don’t need to be posted as is – rather, they provide a great foundation for you to start to customize to each job. Plus, they save you a lot of time in the workflow.

Workable has more than 700 job description templates, 390 interview question templates, dozens of company policy templates, checklists, emails and much more that can be imported right into your applicant tracking system.

4. Enable mobile-friendly recruitment

Recruiting is a full-time job for recruiters, but is an added workload for hiring managers and executives whose decisions are needed to move candidates through the pipeline. Bottlenecks will happen as a result.

You can alleviate those breakdowns by giving busy hiring managers and executives the option to sift through candidates on their smartphone. Think about it – they’ll be able to check in during their commute, while taking a break in their day, or when (ahem) taking care of other business. That’ll speed things along.

Workable’s mobile-friendly app enables all of that, and more. Ben O’Mahony, from Cytora, commented on why the mobile app is awesome for busy hiring managers:

“They don’t need to see the entire recruiting pipeline at all times. They just need to see who they’re interviewing. And this is quickly done through the Workable app.”

5. Introduce e-signatures

Getting candidates to sign that job offer so you can close the books on the process is easier said than done, especially when it’s a remote hire or a new employee from another location. Having contracts delivered to and from the new hire is a time-consuming process, and that piles up when you’re handling multiple hires at once.

E-signing can solve all of that hassle. Everything’s going digital now – especially as the work world becomes increasingly remote. That includes all the legal stuff, like contracts, in a fully secure online environment to boot.

Workable’s ATS comes ready-made with its own e-signature tool to meet those important signature needs and is a small but important recruitment time-saver.

6. Use a user-friendly career page builder

Careers pages, like anything else in your website, can involve a lot of design work involving a team that’s already busy working on marketing and sales materials day in and day out. Plus, there’s a lot of back-and-forth involved where you have a ‘perfect’ careers page in mind and you’re working with design to make that happen.

You can skip all of that by bringing in a feature that enables even the least tech-savvy HR manager to build an impressive careers page using click-and-drag options.

Workable has its own advanced careers page builder built into its software. And this tutorial can help you whip together an amazing careers page in a short time, putting your employer brand on a pedestal and attracting the very best candidates to your company.

7. Take advantage of AI

We’re now in a strange time where many companies are experiencing difficulty finding the right candidates – or even a satisfactory number of candidates – for specific job postings. This especially applies when you’re hiring in a hyper-competitive space, such as developers or software engineers, or when looking to fill a niche role – both situations that often result in a shortage of candidates. This can put the onus on the recruiter to seek out potential applicants – including passive candidates – which involves a lot of legwork and time invested.

But there are ways around that. Artificial intelligence, when used in the right way, can seek out and find great candidates for you based on your job description and other parameters that you set – including specific keywords, qualifications, and other directives.

Workable’s AI Recruiter was introduced specifically for this purpose. And it can come in especially useful for you right now.

8. Clone the process

When someone – especially one of your top employees – puts in their notice, it feels like you have to start all over again. Not only is it like capturing lightning in a bottle, it also takes time to set up a new job ad, put together a new series of interview questions, create a new assessment, etc., etc., etc.

What if you just went back to that original process that led to the hire of this amazing employee, and simply cloned it? Not only can you replicate what was successful before, you can skip those steps doing this for high-turnover roles such as in sales and hospitality.

9. Post to multiple job boards with one click

Your job description is approved and you’re ready to distribute. Next steps:

• Step 1: Post job ad to LinkedIn.
• Step 2: Post job ad to Facebook Jobs.
• Step 3: Post job to Indeed.
• Step 4: Post job ad to Glassdoor.
• Step 5: Post job ad to Monster.
• Step 6: ….

You get the point. Doing that over and over and over again can eat up all the hours in a day, and that’s just for a single job opportunity. Although it’s standard to expect an ATS to deliver job ads to numerous job sites automatically, you want to be sure you have the right ATS to post to not just the most job sites, but the right ones.

Check out the list of Workable’s existing job site integrations to get an idea of how many job sites you can post to with one click using our recruitment software.

10. Automate your reporting

Reporting on recruitment metrics is crucial to successful hiring, but it can take quite a bit of time to analyze data and then break it down into reports for the C-suite who are most interested in how your hiring process impacts the bottom line.

There are many different reasons you need reports in hiring, such as:

• Identifying breakdowns and bottlenecks in the process that can prolong time to hire and time to fill
• Understanding where your best candidates are coming from
• Tracking diversity metrics in your candidate pool
• Staying compliant with government-mandated requirements, including EEOC, CCPA, and GDPR protocols

All that data in your recruitment process can be automatically turned into reports to benefit all of the above, including having reports sent directly from your software. Workable’s software has reporting functions to meet each of the above needs.

11. Remote interviewing

While it’s not necessarily time taken out of your own work day, you’re asking a lot of a candidate when you schedule an in-person interview. Assuming the commute takes an hour each way door-to-door, you’re making the candidate spend three full hours – or more – for a one-hour interview. Not only that, it doesn’t bode well for candidate experience, especially in an increasingly digital work world. A recruitment time-saving tip here will be invaluable.

With a few exceptions – such as the more intensive later-stage interviews – do your candidates a favor and carry out your interviews via phone or, ideally, video. There’s a multitude of tools out there that can help you – including Workable’s one-way video interviewing tool which can take care of the screening stage and even that first “interview” stage in one step.

Optimize and grow

Of course, these time-saving recruitment tips won’t free up your entire day – but they can free up a good number of hours in your workflow that can be better spent on the more in-depth work.

You can now invest time and energy into branding yourself as an employer, meeting with hiring managers to best understand what they want and need in a new hire, and overseeing new employee onboarding.

Not only do these increase your profile within the company as someone who can do the job without fail, you can better participate in more high-level discussions around workforce planning. It’s a win-win all around – for yourself, for candidates, and the company as a whole.

The post 11 recruitment time-saving tips for the overburdened recruiter appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

• What is Upwork?
• How much does it cost to post a job on Upwork?
• Upwork job posting reviews
• How to post your job on Upwork
• Posting to Upwork using Workable
• Frequently asked questions about Upwork

What is Upwork?

Upwork is a platform that pairs freelancers with employers searching for assistance on projects that vary by time commitment, industry, and skill level. Employers post job listings with an in-depth description of their project and the type of freelancer they’re looking for. Upwork provides a matching service that automatically suggests qualified freelancers for your project.

Freelancers can also send bids or proposals for your project. Either way, you end up with a selection of qualified freelancers who are interested in working with you.

How much does it cost to post a job on Upwork?

Upwork has both free and paid plans for employers, depending on your needs. The ‘free’ plan still involves small fees to Upwork for administration, but it won’t cost you anything to list your jobs. Their paid plan, starting at $49.99/month, gives you all the benefits of the free plan but with advanced Upwork support, and more opportunities to connect directly with freelancers. If you’re a larger company looking for a bulk posting plan, you can contact Upwork for a custom pricing plan.

Upwork job posting reviews

Upwork reviews are generally positive. Because Upwork connects freelancers with companies, reviews come from both freelancers and their clients. Each of these groups has a different perspective on the pros and cons of Upwork.

Positive reviews say that Upwork helped them find great freelancers to help them complete their projects. Freelancers say that Upwork connects them with clients and helps them make a living. For freelancers just starting out, Upwork offers the advantage of holding payment in escrow, so that they don’t fall victim to scammers or phony clients. The sheer number of companies looking for freelancers on Upwork is also an advantage.

Negative reviews say that Upwork customer service can be poor. For freelancers, Upwork generally offers bottom-of-the-barrel pay and for that reason, many highly qualified freelancers choose not to work on the site. This means that quality of work may be lacking for companies hiring on Upwork— as the saying goes, you get what you pay for. Upwork also charges fees, and many freelancers are turned off by having to share a cut of their revenue.

How to post your job on Upwork

Join Upwork as an employer

To post a job on Upwork, you first need to create an employer profile. Use your professional email address to create an account and fill out relevant information about your organization.

Share details about your job or project

Click ‘create a new job listing’ and fill out the form with information about the job you’re hiring for. Keep in mind that these details will be shared publicly, so be honest about your project and share any relevant information that your future freelancer should know.

Once you’ve filled out the basics of the job listing, you’ll want to select a category and set requirements for experience, resume, and other criteria.

Post or save your job

Review the information for accuracy and style. When you’re satisfied with your job listing, you can post it or save the draft for later.

Posting to Upwork using Workable

To save the hassle of posting to Upwork manually using the steps above, we recommend that you use Workable for your recruiting needs. Workable integrates seamlessly with job boards across the web to make posting as simple as the click of a button. After Workable posts your listing across a number of job boards of your choice, it aggregates candidate responses to your posts and presents them to you in an easy, searchable database that helps you instantly find the most qualified candidates. You can post a job to Upwork using an assigned job shortlink which allows you to track the numbers from Workable.

Don’t bother with posting on job boards one at a time. Try Workable today and see how our software can save your recruitment team time and money.

Frequently asked questions about Upwork

I’m looking for a full-time employee. Can I hire candidates on Upwork?

Unless you’re looking for a full-time contract employee for only a short, predetermined period of time or to complete a specific project with clear milestones, Upwork is not a good fit. It is a job board for freelancers, which means that candidates on Upwork will be looking for short-term or part-time projects. If you are looking for a full-time, permanent employee, try checking out a different job board like Indeed or ZipRecruiter.

Is Upwork legitimate?

Yes, Upwork is a legitimate site for freelancers and companies looking to work with contractors. They take steps to vet freelancers and companies, and can hold payment in escrow until the project is completed. That being said, as we discussed, some users do have complaints about Upwork customer service and how those complaints are resolved.

Is Upwork free?

Yes, you can post jobs or look for work on Upwork for free. Upwork does charge fees, which some users are opposed to.

Is Upwork international or limited to U.S. freelancers only?

Upwork is an international site, so freelancers from around the world are permitted to search for and accept work through the portal. If you prefer domestic freelancers only for language or time zone reasons, Upwork does offer you the option to specify U.S.- only candidates in your job listing.

Now you’re all set to post your job on Upwork! If you are overwhelmed by your options, contact us today to learn more about how Workable can streamline your recruiting process with Upwork and many other job boards.

Want to know more about posting jobs? Take a deep dive with our Ultimate Guide to Job Posting.

The post How to post a job on Upwork appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

• What is Trovit?
• How much does it cost to post a job on Trovit?
• Trovit job posting reviews
• How to post your job on Trovit
• Posting to Trovit using Workable
• Frequently asked questions about Trovit

What is Trovit?

Trovit is a job board aggregator, which means that instead of hosting original job listings, it collects job listings from many other websites and presents them together in a large, international database. Because of the sheer number of job boards Trovit pulls from, Trovit jobs can number more than 200 million at any given time. Job seekers can use Trovit to search across a number of job boards simultaneously.

How much does it cost to post a job on Trovit?

Because it is a job aggregator rather than a job board, employers cannot post jobs directly on Trovit. If you want your ad to appear in a Trovit job search, make sure you post it on a compatible job board or manually connect your company’s job board to Trovit’s database.

Trovit job posting reviews

Unlike some other job boards, Trovit is best suited for job seekers rather than recruiters or other HR staff. For this reason, reviews tend to focus on the user experience for job candidates.

On the positive side, Trovit has the advantage of size, housing millions of jobs for candidates to search through. It’s also an international site, so users can sort jobs by their country of origin or where they’d like to work. Positive reviews say Trovit helped them find a job.

On the negative side, many users report spam listings and scammers on Trovit. Because of Trovit’s sheer size and the fact that listings are hosted on other job boards, it can be a challenge for it to verify every single job listing that appears on its site. If you’re a job seeker using Trovit, it’s a good idea to use internet safety best practices and stay skeptical of any job that seems too good to be true.

How to post your job on Trovit

As we’ve discussed, there is no way to post a job directly on Trovit. However, there are still a few steps you can take if you want your job listing to appear in Trovit job searches.

Post your job on a compatible job board

Jobs listed on Trovit are pulled from many different job boards. If you’d like your listing to appear on Trovit, you can post it on an eligible job board such as ZipRecruiter or Jobleads. Trovit recommends searching on their website to see which job boards promote jobs in your area of interest, so that you can get a better idea of where exactly to post your listing.

Sync your native job portal with Trovit

If your organization has its own feed of job listings, you can arrange for your feed to sync with Trovit and automatically post new jobs to their site. Just follow the instructions on their Partners page. You can also use this option to promote certain jobs.

Posting to Trovit using Workable

The easiest and most effective way to make sure your job posting appears on Trovit is to use Workable. Workable allows your organization to post the same job across multiple free and paid job boards simultaneously. Posting your job with Workable saves time and maximizes candidate exposure, increasing the chances that the best candidate will come across your job listing.

Even better, Workable collects and sorts candidate responses from many websites and presents them to you in one user-friendly, searchable database. There’s no easier way to find the most qualified candidates.

If you’d like to learn more about how Workable can simplify your recruitment process, click here.

Frequently asked questions about Trovit

Is Trovit free to use?

Trovit is free for anyone searching for jobs. For organizations looking to post jobs on Trovit, costs may be incurred from posting on a compatible job board or while advertising, but you don’t technically have to pay in order for your job to appear on Trovit.

Is Trovit legitimate?

Yes, Trovit is a legitimate website and not a scam. That being said, watch out for fishy job listings or anyone looking for your personal information. Trovit monitors jobs posted on its site and you can report any ad or posting that looks suspicious.

I live outside the U.S. Can I find a job on Trovit?

Yes. Trovit is an international job board aggregator. On Trovit’s home page, you can refine your search to your country.

How do I find a job on Trovit?

Use Trovit’s search features to look for job titles you think you’d be qualified for, or browse by category or region.

Now you’ve got everything you need to post your job on Trovit! If you prefer a simpler way of sharing your job to job boards across the internet, contact us for a Workable demo.

Want to know more about posting jobs? Take a deep dive with our Ultimate Guide to Job Posting.

The post How to post jobs on Trovit appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

• What is CareerBuilder?
• How much does it cost to post a job on CareerBuilder?
• CareerBuilder job posting reviews
• How to post your job on CareerBuilder
• Posting to CareerBuilder using Workable
• Frequently asked questions about CareerBuilder

What is CareerBuilder?

CareerBuilder is a website devoted to connecting candidates with their perfect job. For job seekers, CareerBuilder offers access to one of the largest job boards online, as well as visibility to recruiters looking for new talent. The site is also home to a number of useful resources for job applicants, such as a salary comparison tool and other reference materials. For recruiters and companies, CareerBuilder is a source of millions of qualified candidates actively seeking employment.

How much does it cost to post a job on CareerBuilder?

CareerBuilders job posting pricing is available on a number of different payment plans. You can pay per job, which is the priciest option. Your first job will cost you $375; each additional job will be $250. If you’re posting more jobs or want a more affordable plan, CareerBuilders also offers monthly and annual plans that are more cost effective.

CareerBuilder job posting reviews

As is true with any large job board, candidates and recruiters have mixed opinions. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using CareerBuilders to post a job or find a job.

On the positive side, reviewers say that CareerBuilders has lots of active jobs posted on the site. Some share that they’ve successfully found a job on the site, or that it is useful for helping them find qualified candidates.

On the flip side, some reviewers take issue with the way their personal contact information and data is treated once they share it with the site. Some candidates received spam emails or phone calls. As is the case with many other job boards, reviewers say that a portion of the jobs on the website are fake.

How to post your job on CareerBuilder

Navigate to their For Employers section

Once you click on For Employers in the upper right, go to Post a Job. This will take you to a page that lays out the details of their pricing and terms.

Choose a pricing plan

Though they do offer a free demo, CareerBuilder does not have a free trial for employers. In order to post your job, you’ll have to choose a pricing plan. Prices range from cost per job listing to a monthly or annual fee. Once you pay, you’ll have access to empty job listings for you to fill out and post.

Post your job

Fill out all the applicable information and submit your job. Now you’re ready to receive applications from qualified candidates!

Posting to CareerBuilder using Workable

If you are a recruiter or HR team member looking to post jobs across many different job boards, the prospect of going through and posting on each one individually is overwhelming. With Workable, you can save your time and energy by using our seamless CareerBuilders integration.

Workable can post your job simultaneously across up to 200 of the major job boards with no hassle. Once you start receiving responses to your job listing, Workable can sort and prioritize your candidates, freeing up valuable time for what really matters.

Frequently asked questions about CareerBuilder

Can I post my job on CareerBuilder?

Yes. CareerBuilder is not a job board aggregator, but a unique job board where employers pay to post their jobs listings.

How do I find a job on CareerBuilder?

There are multiple ways to find a job on CareerBuilder! You can search by job title and location. You can also upload your resume and allow recruiters to connect with you or contact you directly.

Is CareerBuilder a scam?

No, CareerBuilder is not a scam, although some reviewers have noted that they have received unwanted emails and phone calls after posting their information publicly on CareerBuilder. This is a risk with any job site where you make that contact information public. You can protect yourself by using a Google Voice phone number and/or a dedicated email address.

Now that you have the information you need, you’re ready to post your job on CareerBuilder and get hiring! If you’d like to learn more about how you can simplify your hiring process with Workable, click here.

Want to know more about posting jobs? Take a deep dive with our Ultimate Guide to Job Posting.

The post How to post a job on CareerBuilder appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

• What is Dice.com?
• How much does it cost to post a job on Dice.com?
• Dice.com job posting reviews
• How to post your job on Dice.com
• Posting to Dice.com using Workable
• Frequently asked questions about Dice.com

What is Dice.com?

Dice.com is a job board and networking site for professionals in the tech industry. It hosts over nine million active profiles for tech professionals in the United States. For tech workers, Dice provides networking opportunities and a rich, up-to-date job board. For recruiters and companies, Dice offers access to a searchable database of tech talent.

How much does it cost to post a job on Dice.com?

Dice.com has a tiered pricing structure for employers looking to post jobs on its site. The more jobs you post, the less you pay per post. One job will cost you $395, two jobs $325 each, three jobs $305 each, and so on. They also offer special pricing for those looking to post in high volumes.

Dice.com job posting reviews

Dice.com has a reputation for being one of the best tech-specific job board and recruitment sites out there.

Positive reviews say that Dice job postings attract qualified candidates and simplify the recruiting process. Reviewers like how customizable the search features are on Dice.

Negative reviews say that the site can be buggy and difficult to use. Some find that Dice contains fake candidate listings, or incorrect candidate contact information. There’s also the price point, which makes Dice cost prohibitive for some employers.

How to post your job on Dice.com

Dice job postings can be a bit tricky to get uploaded to the site. Here’s what you need to do to list your job there.

Navigate to the employer portal

You’ll need to log in with your employer information; if you don’t have this info yet, you’ll need to sign up. Once you’re logged in, click Jobs and then Post a Job.

Fill out job posting information

Fill out the Dice job posting form with specific information about the position, such as title, salary, education experience, and so on. After you fill out this information, you can also link your recruiter profile to the job posting so candidates can contact you.

Post your job listing

Once you’ve shared information about the job and specified how candidates can apply, you’ll want to make your listing public. You can click Post as Active or save the listing as a draft to come back to later. If you haven’t pre-purchased any job credits, you’ll have to do so before posting your job.

Posting to Dice.com using Workable

Posting your job listing directly to Dice.com can be time-consuming and complicated! Workable makes things simple with an easy-to-use Dice integration. Workable works seamlessly with over 200 job boards, including Dice, to push your job listing out to all the relevant boards. Once you start receiving responses, Workable collects and organizes candidate profiles from many sources into one searchable database, even pulling out the top candidates for you.

If you’d like to learn more about how Workable can simplify your hiring process, click here.

Frequently asked questions about Dice.com

How can I find a job on Dice.com?

If you’re a job seeker, you can look at open positions on the Job Search tab. Be sure to check out their career development resources as well.

I’m not in tech. Can I still find a job on Dice.com?

Dice job postings are specific to folks in the technology industry. If you’re looking for a job in a field other than tech, you’ll want to check out a general job board like Indeed.

I’m a recruiter. Can I find tech talent on Dice.com?

Yes! You can search the Dice database for relevant individuals, but in order to do so you’ll need an official employer account.

Do Dice job postings come from other job boards?

Only if they are cross-posted by the employer. Dice is not a job board aggregator.

Now you’re all set to post your job or find suitable candidates on Dice.com. If you want to learn more about how Workable can improve your recruitment process, click here.

Want to know more about posting jobs? Take a deep dive with our Ultimate Guide to Job Posting.

The post How to create a job posting on Dice.com appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

• What is Juju.com?
• How much does it cost to post a job on Juju.com?
• Juju.com job posting reviews
• How to post your job on Juju.com
• Posting to Juju.com using Workable
• Frequently asked questions about Juju.com

What is Juju.com?

Juju.com is a job aggregator that collects job postings from many other job sites and presents them to site visitors as an easy, searchable database. Unlike some other job posting aggregators, the main source of Juju’s web traffic comes by referral rather than direct search. Juju receives traffic from thousands of job candidates each month.

How much does it cost to post a job on Juju.com?

You don’t have to pay to post your job on Juju. Juju jobs are job listings which are automatically pulled from other job boards like Monster and Indeed. As long as you list your job on another common job board, free or paid, your job posting should appear in searches on Juju.com

That being said, if you want to be certain that your job will show up to candidates searching on Juju, you have the option of paying to advertise your job to job seekers.

Juju.com job posting reviews

Because Juju is a less popular job board, there aren’t too many reviews. Instead, here are some pros and cons of using the site.

On a positive note, Juju receives a good amount of web traffic. It allows users to search through jobs from many different job boards at once, rather than just one. That improves the chances of the right candidate coming across your job.

As for downsides, Juju is still far less popular than large job boards and even some other job post aggregators. Its web interface is dated, and just like any job post aggregator, a certain portion of the jobs listed there may be stale or expired.

How to post your job on Juju.com

As was previously mentioned, it isn’t possible to post your job directly on Juju. If you want your job listing to display there, you have two options.

List your job on another job board

While it’s not completely foolproof, listing your job on another job board is the best way to get your job listed on Juju for free.

Pay to advertise your job on Juju

The more reliable way to get your jobs to appear on relevant searches is to advertise your job on Juju. Sponsored posts on Juju send candidates directly to your company’s career site, and they offer advertisements on a pay-per-click basis, making this a highly scalable option for companies of any size.

Posting to Juju.com using Workable

The best and most efficient way to post your job on Juju is to list it using Workable. The Workable ATS enables you to simultaneously post your job across many different job boards and job aggregators, saving you time and money. When your candidates submit their resumes, our program stores them for you in a searchable smart database that can help you prioritize the most qualified candidates.

Don’t feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of job boards out there, or drown in thousands of resumes for a single position. Contact us today to learn more about how Workable can automate and simplify your hiring process.

Frequently asked questions about Juju.com

Can I post my job on Juju.com?

You can’t post your job directly on Juju.com. The best way to get your job posting to appear on Juju is to post it across the web simultaneously with using Workable.

Is Juju.com a scam?

No, Juju.com is not a scam.

How can I find a job on Juju.com?

Juju.com’s homepage hosts a simple search, where candidates can search by title and location, or filter by more advanced criteria. If you find a job that interests you, click on the relevant search result, and you’ll be directed to the website that hosts that listing, where you can apply.

Why should I promote my job on Juju.com?

As one of the oldest job boards on the internet, Juju has credibility with search engines, and around 800K site visits to date. It remains one of the smaller players in the job aggregator space, but the site does receive regular traffic and click-throughs on job postings and links.

By posting your job to Juju.com using Workable, you access a market of potential candidates that may not be looking elsewhere. With the simplicity of posting your job synchronously across many platforms using Workable, there’s no reason not to put it out there and see how it goes.

Want to know more about posting jobs? Take a deep dive with our Ultimate Guide to Job Posting.

The post How to post jobs on Juju.com appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

• What is Jooble?
• How much does it cost to post a job on Jooble?
• Jooble job posting reviews
• How to post your job on Jooble
• Posting to Jooble using Workable
• Frequently asked questions about Jooble

What is Jooble?

Jooble is a job-post aggregator that collects job postings from many websites across the web and presents them to you in one searchable web database. For companies that hire primarily international candidates, Jooble’s large percentage of international web visitors is a plus.

How much does it cost to post a job on Jooble?

Because Jooble is primarily a job vacancy aggregator, nearly all of the jobs visible to candidates on the site are taken from other job boards. There is no free option to post jobs directly on Jooble. If you want to be sure your job posting appears on Jooble, you’ll want to manually post the position on another job board, and then pay Jooble to promote your posting in response to certain search keywords.

Jooble doesn’t share information publicly about how much they charge for sponsored search results and email placements, but they do operate on a PPC, or pay-per-click model, similar to much other internet advertising.

Jooble job posting reviews

Reviews of Jooble seem to be mixed. On Trustpilot, where users can submit reviews of websites, Jooble has an average of 3.3 stars, with 51% of respondents rating the site as ‘excellent’ and 44% rating it as ‘bad’.

Positive respondents say that Jooble helps them find qualified job candidates. There don’t seem to be many positive reviews from job seekers themselves, and since they’re the primary users of Jooble, this could be a red flag.

Negative reviewers say that Jooble overwhelms your email inbox with spam, that Jooble allows fraudulent job postings to be listed in its database, and that many of the job listings on the site are old or expired.

How to post your job on Jooble

As we discussed, there is no way to post a job directly on Jooble for free. Here are two other ways you can post your job on Jooble.

Post to another job board

One way to post your job on Jooble is to post it on another common job board like LinkedIn, Indeed, or ZipRecruiter. Jooble should update and start showing your job posting in response to relevant searches on its site.

Sponsor your job post on Jooble

The other way to post on Jooble is to pay to advertise your job on the site or to their newsletter subscribers.

Posting to Jooble using Workable

Instead of hassling with posting to job boards one by one and wondering whether your postings are reaching qualified candidates, simplify your hiring process with Workable. Workable is seamlessly integrated with more than 200 job boards, including Jooble. Workable lets you simultaneously post to multiple job boards so that you can save your time for what matters: quality face time with candidates.

Contact us today to learn more about how Workable can make your hiring process easier and more efficient.

Frequently asked questions about Jooble

Can I post my job directly to Jooble?

No.

How much does it cost to post my job on Jooble?

If you post your job on a free job board that syncs with Jooble, it doesn’t cost anything to list your job posting. Otherwise, you can pay to sponsor your job listing on Jooble on a pay-per-click basis.

Is Jooble a scam?

No, Jooble appears to be legitimate and has significant traffic from job seekers. However, keep in mind that some users have concerns about email spam and stale job listings.

Is there an easier way to post my job on Jooble?

Yes! Workable is an ATS that makes it easy to post your job listing to many job boards simultaneously. Workable also lets you sort resumes from job applicants so that you can quickly find the best person to fill your role.

Now you’ve got everything you need to post your job on Jooble’s job aggregator. If you’d like to simplify your recruiting process and easily find the best candidates, contact our team today to learn more about what Workable has to offer.

Want to know more about posting jobs? Take a deep dive with our Ultimate Guide to Job Posting.

The post How to post jobs on Jooble appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

With automated actions, our newest efficiency-boosting tool, make recruiters’ jobs easier and speed up time to hire by automating repetitive tasks and emails. Automate and personalize bulk candidate communication to increase productivity, allow candidates to self-schedule meeting times to streamline interview scheduling, and ensure every applicant gets a customized and personalized response to improve both the candidate experience and your employer brand.

Workable helps companies in 100+ countries efficiently scale up their hiring processes with tools like hiring plan, interview self-scheduling, native video interviews, and top-notch customer support.

The post Introducing automated actions: Increase productivity and hire more efficiently appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Dragging applicants over the coals

The post tells the story of one jobseeker who graduated into the workforce in 2001 into a standard recruitment process – you apply, you go through a few interviews, you talk awkwardly about salary, and then finally, you get the job offer, all within a few weeks.

But now? In that jobseeker’s own words:

“Interviews upon interviews, frivolous personality quizzes, unscheduled hour-long calls to discuss said quizzes, team/roundtable interviews with a half a dozen people grilling you and throwing you curveballs, creative submissions galore (requiring substantial unpaid work or ‘spec’ work), additional references from each company, drug tests, background checks, etc.”

While they understand that the point is to eliminate risk in taking on a new employee, they add:

“Some sort of risk is involved. You simply have to take a chance on the potential employee. You have to be able to determine if someone is a fit without building a comprehensive profile fit for the CIA.”

Plus, that burden of risk is being shifted to the candidate.

“It seems like it’s getting to the point where companies are seeking to eliminate all risk on their end while dragging applicants over the coals, subjecting them to endless hoops to be jumped through.”

In short: overanalyzing your job applicants will ultimately lead to a poorer candidate experience.

It’s not just one candidate complaint

There were more than 3,500 comments in response to this post. We’ve broken them down into five major candidate complaints, direct from the source:

1. Long game for the short job
2. Poor communications across the board
3. Duplicated efforts when applying
4. Making it unnecessarily weird
5. The job bait and switch

1. Long game for the short job

The gripe: The recruitment process takes much longer than what feels necessary. This is understandable if you’re evaluating candidates for a higher-lever position (director, VP, C-suite), but when you’re hiring for entry-level or relatively rudimentary roles, it can feel excessive, especially when there’s little payoff at the end.

Bkiersta: “My 19yo daughter had 3 interviews over several weeks to be a clerk at a local smoke shop. 3 interviews. 3 weeks to hire. For a $9.75 cashier job. It’s ridiculous!”

NimbyNuke: “I had to interview 3 times for a job [at] Subway like 6 years ago. Gave me immense pleasure to tell them on the last callback that I had already been hired somewhere else that didn’t need 3+ weeks to decide.”

MicrowaveEye: “Yes. Yes. Yes. Some of the things these employers do should be illegal. I recently had an interview process roll on for 8 weeks. They had me do countless long Zoom calls and create difficult portfolios I would normally do for big bucks. I interviewed with people that didn’t know about my job, people who were emailing the entire time I talked, and entry-level people that didn’t even understand my work. In the end, they said I was their top choice but they were going to create two new positions instead of one and wait for a few months because of covid. The nerve of these places.”

Guideinfo: “I recently spent 6. SIX. Siiiiix hours interviewing for a level entry hr position. Three separate interviews. Met the owner. Toured the grounds. Saw the cafeteria options. Was introduced to several different people and departments. I didn’t get the job.”

The lesson to be learned:

Your time to fill metric isn’t just for your own benefit. It also helps you see how much time candidates spend in your pipeline. What you don’t want is for your most prized candidates to self-select out of the process, get hired elsewhere, or complain publicly because you took too long for a decision on their status.

What you can do:

Do a deep audit of your recruitment funnel, using your applicant tracking system’s reporting tools. Look for the bottlenecks in the process where candidates spend most of their time. Identify the  causes for the delays, and correct them.

Try these solutions:

• Improve communications with hiring team members when their input or action is needed to move candidates through the funnel.
• Introduce tools to speed up the process, such as self-scheduling options and email triggers.
• Reassess whether you really need that additional interview or evaluation stage for certain roles.
• Spend more time developing your new employees and less time on hiring the “best” one. Having a great employee isn’t just about finding them; it’s also about developing them.

2. Poor communications across the board

The gripe: Candidates are often left in the dark in the process. While updating every single candidate is a lot to ask, jobseekers still need to decide whether to pursue another opportunity or just to know where they stand. Internal communications within your team are also a common candidate complaint.

ZipZopZoopittyBop: “The thing that blows my mind is that almost zero companies call you back to tell you that you didn’t get the job, even after you’ve interviewed one or multiple times. They seriously don’t give a single [expletive] about you as a person.”

ChairmanJawa: “Also add, not informing the applicant that they weren’t chosen. So you’ve just been waiting for months to hear something only to realize you’ve been ghosted.”

SeaKingDragon: “I had an interview booked for this week, it was a telephone interview but I took the day off work so I could focus on it. The designated time came and went without a word from them, I tried contacting them but have been ignored. I waited all afternoon for nothing and wasted a holiday day but get no apology or even an explanation as to why they stood me up. I’m expected to want to give my all to your company solely out of my own drive to see it succeed (because God forbid I want to work to earn money), yet they can have me chasing my tail and treat me as if my time is meaningless.”

Cjandstuff: “My now ex-wife actually got a job at Best Buy. Goes in for training. No one knew she was supposed to be there. After spending about an hour trying to find out what’s going on, she leaves. A month later the store manager calls her and asks how she likes the job.”

The lesson to be learned:

If you ‘ghost’ candidates when you’re no longer interested in them, if you don’t respond to requests for an update, or if your hiring team doesn’t seem aligned, it sends a message that you’re poorly organized and you don’t treat your people well. Candidates will call that out in their various networks – including Reddit and LinkedIn. This hurts your employer brand, and can lead to other jobseekers deciding not to apply for other roles with your organization.

What you can do:

While personal emails and phone calls for shortlisted candidates is ideal, that’s obviously not feasible for every situation. But ensure that every candidate gets notified whenever an action has been taken on their application.

Try these solutions:

• Set up an automated email system with trigger points.
• Keep your hiring team communications transparent and in a single place.

3. Duplicated efforts when applying

The gripe: Candidates spend hours crafting a solid resume and cover letter, only to have to reenter all their information again via the online application process.

Jim_from_snowy_river: “Do you also forgot the whole input your resume and cover letter and then spend the next hour answering the questions that are already answered on your resume and cover letter.”

Mycatiswatchingyou: “Don’t forget how they ask you for a resume with recommendations and a cover letter, only to have you type ALL of that information into their poorly-crafted online application. And no, don’t type ‘see resume’ because they explicitly say that typing that will get your application thrown out.”

The lesson to be learned:

One of the key aspects of entering candidate information into your ATS is so you have a standardized and scalable system making it easy to compare applications. Fair enough. But when your process requires reentering information that candidates have already shared with you, all you’re doing is handing off the hard work to them. That sets a poor candidate experience from the get-go.

What you can do:

Remember the candidate experience. Their resume has all the needed information already, and they’ve already shared that. Find a way that works for both of you.

Try these solutions:

• Invest in a “smarter” application system that allows resumes to be properly parsed with minimal additional maintenance.
• Add an “Apply with LinkedIn” button so that people can submit their LinkedIn profile as part of their application.
• Introduce a seamless application process that values the candidate’s time as well as the recruiter’s.

4. Making it unnecessarily weird

The gripe: Some parts of the hiring process are uncomfortable for some people, for example, an introvert who’s required to face three interviewers in a single setting.

BenAdaephonDelat: “As an autistic person, I hate the hiring process in IT. I hate the need to bull[expletive] about myself. I hate having to mask in an interview to seem like a ‘team player’. I hate getting asked questions that they don’t want honest answers to. … And even after all that, 9/10 you’re looking at a contract-to-hire position for a company that probably wants you to do 5 jobs for the price of 1, has no flexibility, and no respect for the fact that programmers need different office environments than most other people (especially when 90% of your employees are extroverts and you hire largely introverted developers).”

The lesson to be learned:

Not all jobs require all of the traits or skills that you’d love to see in a candidate. Some jobs, such as the above-mentioned developer roles, may have some collaborative element to them but that’s not the core criteria for success in a position. When you push a candidate through these seemingly unnecessary steps, you’re hurting the candidate experience again.

What you can do:

Go through the job opportunity with a fine-toothed comb. Look at each of the requirements and determine whether they’re really needed or just “nice to have”. And even for the “nice to haves”, think about how much you really need them for the role.

Try these solutions:

• Put your candidate at ease by telling them exactly what they can expect at each stage.
• Communicate openly about the purpose of each stage of the process as it pertains to the job itself.
• Don’t forget that you’re ultimately hiring for a job, not for a personality trait.
• Train your hiring managers on proper evaluation techniques so they’re not focused on areas not necessarily tied to job success.

5. The job bait and switch

The gripe: Candidates go through a lengthy process only to find out at the end that the job isn’t what they applied for, or it was changed at some point.

Belatorius: “It’s the same even for a technical degree. I just graduated for automation technician and I’ve had interviewers lie saying they were looking for maintenance only to turn around and state it was for a operator position. I’m still looking and the amount of experience asked for entry level is insane and often the titles are misleading. Came across several ‘automation technician’ job postings only to have the description describe it as a production gig. It’s a [expletive] storm. Companies bitch about not having enough skilled workers but they don’t want to take the time to train fresh grads for 6 months – 1 year.”

CatelynsCorpse: “My husband was laid off from his job of 14 years (20 years experience total as a graphics designer). Most of the local places that are hiring graphic designers want to pay $12/hr. AND they want you to have a bachelor’s degree. They all use the same personality tests and basic graphic design tests, and they all want you to do work for them (for free) to ‘see what you can do’. Half the time when he does get an interview, he arrives only to find out that WELL… ’I know that the job posting was for a Graphics Design job, but it’s not really a Graphics Design job, per se, it’s more of a Receptionist/Assistant/Salesperson/Assistant Manager job where you’ll have to do Graphics Design stuff from time to time.’”

Deepestbluest: “holy [expletive], I’m experiencing nearly the same thing right now. One particular position I’ve been in the interview process for (going on about a month now) has had me do multiple creative submissions to prove my ‘chops’ and now they’re asking me for something that would require a literal CREW of people and equipment I don’t have. I told them this and they’re like ‘well we’re looking for someone who can do it all’.”

And take another look at MicrowaveEye’s complaint in the first subsection above.

The lesson to be learned:

As above, your candidates are your customers. If you market a job falsely, it’ll antagonize them and hurt your employer brand. Just don’t do it.

What you can do:

Any reasonable candidate will understand that the role may not be the ideal fit for them, but will go ahead anyway because it’s mostly a good fit. They can also work with adjustments in the role based on their own qualifications. That’s fine, but stop the changes there. Also, candidates will respect you more if you set expectations from the get-go even if the job isn’t that clear.

Try these solutions:

• Meet with the hiring team and make sure you’re all aligned on the job description before posting, and stick to it.
• If something has to change, communicate that earnestly with the candidate as early as possible to respect their time and commitment.
• If you’re indeed looking to fill a utility, lower-paid position in your team because you’re a fast-evolving startup, be honest about that in the job ad and even the careers page. Candidates who opt to keep going are the ones you want.

And now, candidate attitudes are changing evolving

These candidate complaints make it clear: jobseekers are fed up. They’re deciding it’s just not worth going through a toxic evaluation process just to get a job.

For instance:

Katieleehaw: “Something has switched in my brain in the past few years, I think from a combination of the changing landscape of our world and also from, for the first time in my almost-40 years, I have been working for an employer that treats me with respect and is the opposite of a toxic environment. If I went to a job interview now, my attitude would be very different than it once was. I used to go in, like most of us, and basically try to politely beg/simper/people-please my way into the job, not because I particularly wanted it, but because I was desperate and they were the gatekeepers. Now I just don’t have time or energy for this [expletive]. I am an extremely capable person who can be a huge asset to any employer – I want to know what they can do FOR ME in exchange for that. Considering starting to interview just to practice this.”

You know what you have to do

We’ll let another Reddit commenter take it home:

WorkingContext: “It’s a good point that you bring up the risk, because it is a risk to hire someone, but if it doesn’t work out you let them go and hire someone new, if they’re worried about how hard it is to hire someone new, maybe rework your hiring process so it’s not that hard haha”.

Let’s repeat that: “Rework your hiring process so it’s not that hard.”

So, how does reworking that process look? Well, shorten that time to fill, for starters. Optimize the process. Keep communications alive and engaged. Make it an inclusive, fair experience for all applicants. And survey your candidates regularly – they are, after all, your target audience. Be sure to establish a baseline by tracking key metrics so you know where to improve.

The end result? Fewer candidate complaints. Impressed candidates who will apply again and tell their friends about it on Reddit and LinkedIn. That’s what it’s all about in the end, isn’t it?

The post 5 candidate complaints on Reddit and what to do about them appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Some companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Slack, Ford, Target, and Citigroup have already planned out and gone full steam ahead on their own version of a hybrid work model that includes both remote and in-office work, but that return-to-work plan is not going to work for every company.

Your return-to-work plan: What’s best?

To even begin to decide on what will work best for your team, you’ll need to ask yourself:

• Has the remote setup been working well for my company?
• Do my employees even want to go back to the office?
• If some do, how do we decide when, how and who goes back?
• And if opinions are split, how do we balance each side and make sure all employees’ preferences are heard and accounted for?

Those are the types of questions we’ll help you sort through.

Here are 6 tips to help you decide whether you should return to the office (if at all), so you can put together the best return-to-work plan for your company:

1. Listen to employee feedback

As challenging as this past year has been for businesses, it has arguably been far more challenging for individual employees since they’ve had to continue being productive despite what’s going on in their new working environment (their home), or how much child and family care coverage they have, and to what level their home office is equipped for remote work. Employees also have no choice but to look to their company leaders for guidance on what to do and how to move forward.

For that reason, you should take your employee feedback into consideration when deciding whether to go fully remote, go back to the office, or start a hybrid work model in your return-to-work strategy.

You can unlock your employee feedback in a few different ways:

• Sending an employee survey
• Having an open forum at an all-hands meeting
• Incorporating feedback exchange during individual 1v1 discussions

A perfect example of a company who has relied on employee feedback for their approach to returning to the office is IBM.

Earlier in 2021, IBM held a “global brainstorm” with the entire company to get real-time feedback about whether employees want to return to work, and how often. In that session that they call a “Jam” – 60% of employees said they wanted to go into the office one to three days a week and 72% said they saw the office as having a vital role for employees to come together and collaborate on projects in the future.

That exact employee feedback helped shape how IBM is approaching its future hybrid work model, which they admit isn’t set in stone and will need to adapt as the global pandemic situation develops differently around the world where their employees are.

An example of what not to do in a return-to-work plan comes from none other than Google.

Before vaccines were even available to most of their employees (CEO Sundar Pichai voiced intentions in early April 2021 about bringing employees back to the office; in L.A., vaccines were only made available to individuals 16 and older in mid-April), Google leadership decisively shared their commitment to return to the office, even while many of their employees don’t want to go back.

Google subsequently publicly backtracked their initial return to work plans in favor of a much more remote-friendly stance after finally listening to their employees’ feedback.

2. Refer to the data

Like with any major business decision, data is your friend. It helps give you an objective perspective of how others are approaching the same decision you’re about to make. Pair that current, relevant data with the employee feedback you’ve been gathering from inside your organization, and you’ll be in a much better position to design a path forward that works for you.

Some key questions to gather data around:

• Which working setup do employees typically prefer: remote, in office, or hybrid?
• How many days a week in the office vs. remote is most desirable?
• How are other company leaders thinking about returning to work?

In a PwC study, more than half (55%) of 1,200 workers surveyed said they prefer working remotely three days a week. Meanwhile, 68% of 133 U.S. executives said workers should be in the office at least three days a week, citing concerns that company culture will not survive a purely remote work model. Likewise, in an Envoy return to the workplace survey, nearly half of respondents (48%) say they’d like to work some days remotely and some days from the office.

Using data can also steer you towards something you hadn’t even thought about, such as the idea of negotiating a compromise with employees who feel strongly one way or another.

In that same Envoy study, 41% of workers said they would be willing to take a job with a lower salary if their company offered a hybrid work model. And a WeWork study revealed that 75% of employees are willing to give up at least one benefit or perk for the freedom to choose their work environment, while 64% would pay up to $300 for access to an office space.

If the operational costs of managing a hybrid work model is something that is holding you back from making a decision on a return-to-work plan, referring to data about different angles of this back-to-the-office challenge can offer alternative solutions to make everyone happy.

3. Assess the impact on your tools & processes

Whatever decision you make regarding going remote, back to the office, or hybrid, remember that your decision doesn’t just impact where your employees work but how they work – by themselves, with each other and with everyone else in their professional lives.

This means you’ll need to think about how your tools and processes would need to adapt to suit your future setup. These are some areas of your return-to-work plan where your tools and processes may change:

• Hiring. Your stance on remote, hybrid or in-office will impact your future recruiting efforts and who you’ll be able to attract. At the very least, your HR team will likely need to rework job descriptions and contracts, not only for new hires but for all your existing employees and contractors.
• Communication. Your employees have already done a lot of adapting to make employee communication work while remote, whether that means setting standard working hours, defining when to use Slack vs. email, or communicating more asynchronously. Whatever your future setup is, this is an area that you’ll need to continue to refine and create norms and standards around.
• Onboarding. Your onboarding process is designed to set your new team members up with everything they need to succeed, so you don’t want to drop the ball on that. Going forward, you’ll need to be clear on: how will employees be onboarded if they are working from home? How much in-person onboarding, if any, is required or expected? What does a remote employee onboarding process look like?
• Technology. Your company may have already provided a work-from-home stipend to employees to ensure they could continue to be productive while working from their homes. Will that be enough support in the long term? If not, what other technology needs will you need to address? Are there equity issues at play? What will these technologies cost?
• Performance evaluations. If employees and their managers rarely or never interact in person, what does that mean for your evaluation, promotion and compensation processes?

4. Consider your goals and vision as a company

How does a decision to go fully remote, hybrid, or back to the office align with your vision and goals as an organization?

This question is a crucial one to think through carefully, because you need to balance your company’s driving beliefs with the practical impact of those decisions on your business and HR processes.

A great example of a company who has managed this well is social media software company Buffer, who ditched their office way back in 2015 and have been a distributed company for years even before the pandemic. Their leadership’s perspective on remote work is well documented, and they were able to align on a remote work model as the right solution for their employees, for reasons including freedom, time zone coverage, productivity and lots more.

Does your team have to reach the same level of consensus as Buffer’s leadership team? Not necessarily. But you’ll always be better off using your company goals as a guide to your decision making than to neglect them.

Also, keep in mind that this step will be easier for some companies than others. Different people in your organization might view your company goals differently, which may prolong your ability to reach an agreement on a return-to-work plan. And if your business’ product or service requires regular, real-time face-to-face interaction with customers and clients, it might mean you can’t get rid of your office altogether even if you’re strongly considering it.

5. Be transparent

If you’re holding off any sort of employee communications about your decision until after that decision has been made, you’re communicating too late. What you’ll essentially be doing is fostering uncertainty among your employees and within your organizational culture, where rumors, gossip and assumptions will thrive.

What will typically follow closely after that is a wide sense of employee unrest and insecurity about your company’s (and their) future, and then a trend of team members starting to look for a job elsewhere where the remote vs. in-office stance is clear.

What happens if even you as a leader are uncertain about the future, and don’t have any information or decisions yet to share with employees? You can still create a communication plan in times of uncertainty, by sharing:

• What decisions you expect to make in the near future
• What your decision making process entails / who is involved
• When and how employees should expect to get updates on that decision

Covering these points of communication in periodic small meetings and one-and-ones will help you understand your individual team members’ most pressing issues. Also, ideally your organization has designated some forum or message board where employees can pose their questions, so that the communication on a return-to-work plan isn’t only flowing top-down.

6. Commit to a decision timeline

Deciding if (and then how) your employees are going back to the office isn’t something you should do lightly. And while, fortunately, nobody is forcing your company to make a decision by a certain date, it’s in your best interest to consider all of your options and pick a direction sooner than later.

Many employees already have their own expectations about what’s going to happen this year: according to a survey of 7,000 professionals on Blind, an anonymous professional network, 67% believe everyone will be back in the office by the end of next year. The other one-third of professionals believe they will be back in the office in the summer of 2021.

Rather than staying stuck in limbo, make your decision – or at least commit to when you will make your decision – to give employees peace of mind and certainty, and also give your HR and operations teams something to build upon.

A well-planned return-to-work plan can reap dividends for your organization in the form of increased employee engagement and mitigation of costly turnover. It’s worth putting some thought into it before rolling it out as a formal policy.

Linda Le Phan leads content for Compt, an employee stipends platform that’s fully customizable to your company’s needs, 100% IRS-compliant, and supports global teams.

The post Remote, hybrid or back to the office? How to decide on the right return-to-work plan for your company appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

You may even recognize that a diverse employee population where everyone feels included and their voice is heard is the simply right thing to do.

But, like me, you may not know where and how to start your DEI journey.

The challenges of diversity recruitment

This is particularly apparent in some industries including manufacturing (with which I have considerable experience), where 22.4% of respondents to Workable’s recent DEI survey indicated that they want to invest in DEI but don’t know where to start.

This challenge can be compounded where geography and demographics make it difficult to recruit diverse candidates and build diverse teams.

There may also be some discomfort that comes with pursuing a diversity strategy. After all, if you don’t already come from a diverse background or environment, engaging with others who are different from you can at first feel intimidating and uncertain.

To build and lead diverse teams, the approach I believe works best is to start by following your curiosity.

The staples of a diversity recruiting strategy

Growing up in a small town in Newfoundland, Canada, in the eighties was a very homogenous experience for me. With only one or two visible minority families in my town of 3,500, and probably less than 100 in the province at that time, diversity had yet to flourish in this flung part of the world.

But that didn’t mean that diversity didn’t exist.

For example, I remember one boy with whom I was friends being the cultural anomaly in my community as he was the only Pakistani kid in town. His name was Jesse and although we went to different schools, we played together and hung out during 5th and 6th grade.

For me, it was fascinating to be around him and his family. They spoke English with an accent, had different customs and beliefs, and ate the most amazing food. I was curious about his culture and did what any kid would do when they want to learn more: I asked a lot of questions and was continually inspired to learn more.

There are a few important lessons here that have since guided my curiosity about diversity:

• A spark is often needed to light the flame of curiosity. I love to eat so, naturally, my spark was food!
• It’s OK to ask questions about other peoples’ cultures and experiences respectfully.
• By being curious and continually learning about other people’s lives and unique experiences, you can add value to your life – and theirs.

Why is a diverse recruitment strategy important?

Apply that spark to your business: why does it matter to establish a diversity recruiting strategy in your workplace?

There are two prevailing arguments about why leaders should implement DEI policies within their organization: it’s good for business (21.7% according to the aforementioned DEI at work survey) and it’s the right thing to do (50.6%).

I’ve been fortunate in my career to be a part of many different types of teams, from homogenous teams that look and sound exactly like me, to teams with an incredible diversity of thought, opinion, and idea, with people from different cultural, disability, socioeconomic, religious, and political backgrounds.

I’m my experience building and leading diverse teams, here’s what I’ve found:

1. Diverse teams strike a good balance between speed and quality when solving problems. They develop more innovative solutions in less time, which leads to more profitable solutions.
2. Diverse teams have a functionally reserved professionalism that’s engendered through mutual trust and respect. I’ve always found this hard to put my finger on, but this fabric of professionalism keeps cliques, clubbiness, and groupthink at bay and is unique to diverse teams. When harnessed and employed toward common goals, this professionalism leads to better results.
3. Diverse teams are more resilient. Much like in nature, a disturbance to a diverse ecosystem (for example, the stress created with a new project) is hardly noticeable, while a disturbance to a homogenous ecosystem can be disastrous (think homogeneity and the end of the dinosaurs).

Now that you know the top “whys” of diversity recruiting, you must define your own purpose if diversity is to become an integral and sustainable part of your business. Once you do, here are a few steps to help you build and lead diverse teams.

How can you diversify your recruiting process?

Pursue your curiosity. The process of building a diverse team starts with you as the leader and your curiosity about diversity. It can be hard to know where to start, so here’s one option: Identify someone in your network whose background is different than yours who you’re curious about and with whom you can engage. Invite them for a coffee or a virtual get-to-know-you lunch. Let them know why you’re curious and start by sharing something about yourself. Don’t feel as though you need to pepper the conversation with diversity-based questions; just get to know them and you’ll each share your experiences naturally.

Seek new sources of talent where diverse candidates are located. This might be particularly relevant if your local talent pool is not diverse and your recruiting methods have traditionally returned a great deal of homogeneity in your candidates. Check out the diversity Working site as one potential source for your diversity recruiting strategy.

Hire ‘anonymously’. For the next position for which you hire, use anonymized screening tools when reviewing resumes and behavioral assessments to minimize ever-present unconscious biases. This means identifying the skills, knowledge, and abilities of the person you need upfront, in addition to their behavior style.

How can you lead a diverse team?

1. Know yourself. Determine your behavioral style (using a DISC method or similar) to understand better how you will lead collaboration and constructive conflict on your behaviorally diverse team.
2. Actively promote diversity with inclusivity. As gung-ho as you may be to build more diverse teams, the reality is that it’s not going to stick or be sustainable if you’re missing the inclusion piece. Take the pulse of your employees with a survey – do they feel like you’re listening to them? There’s a good chance it’s not as good as you think. For your employees, being able to voice their concerns, contribute new ideas, and provide feedback is important. To be truly inclusive as a leader, you need to start by listening.
3. Celebrate the differences of your diverse team, using this as an opportunity to add depth to the relationship between team members. Start with something casual like a culturally focused potluck where everyone on the team brings their favorite dish or a lunch and learn event where your team has the opportunity to learn and ask questions about someone else’s culture. In my experience, one of the most effective ways to break down barriers is through the shared enjoyment of eating together. Be sure to celebrate the differences equally – check out these 10 ideas to celebrate diversity.

We’re all in this together

If you’re feeling stuck in building a diversity recruitment strategy because of a lack of a diverse personal background, you’re not alone.

It can be hard to know where to start to build a diverse team, and that’s why I recommend you start with your own curiosity. Getting started in diversity recruiting can be innate and within your control, and doesn’t involve a big initial investment.

Let your diversity grow, nurture it in others, and you’ll be amazed at how exciting it can be to build diverse teams and realize the outsized results they can generate.

Luke Sheppard is an executive, manager, and engineer from the heavy equipment industry turned coach, consultant, and speaker. He’s the author of the new book Driving Great Results: Master The Tools You Need To Run A Great Business. Learn more at consultsheppard.com.

The post How to think about diversity recruiting strategies appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

So, why learn how to use video in hiring? As Elena Valentine of Skillscout.com says in a conversation with Workable at LinkedIn Live, “It’s how we learn. We are visual learners, and that’s from a biological standpoint. There really is an art and science to why video works. We retain 65% of what we see and hear versus what we read. 80% of our brains are dedicated to processing visuals.”

Not only are we visual animals – we also live in a world where video is king.

“This is a YouTube generation. And if you think that we’re going to YouTube to learn how to braid our hair and get tours of the White House and everything else, we are absolutely going to YouTube [to learn] about jobs, plain and simple.”

Elena points to the pandemic as forcing us “to start to think differently about how we’re showcasing jobs, people, environments. [We’ve] really had to flip it into high gear when it comes to the value of video.”

You can ‘see’ employee testimonial videos

Using video in your hiring process also helps candidates visualize the day-to-day of a job more than a job description ever could.

That’s especially the case with specific roles, Elena says. She recounts SAC Wireless, a client who wanted to show the day-to-day work of their cellphone tower workers – who often operate hundreds of feet up in the air. They were struggling with employees leaving soon after starting.

“[New employees] go up for the first time, realize just how frighteningly scared they were of heights and then quit,“ Elena says, adding that this would happen even after recruiters were clear about that part of the work in interviews.

This meant producing a video depicting exactly what the work would entail, involving the POV of workers from the top of towers in a series of employee testimonial videos.

“This is going to be your world,” Elena says in describing the intended message in the video. “Rest assured we keep it safe. We have a culture of safety and a team that really supports you, but this is the work.”

The result?

“They significantly reduced their turnover because of an entire brand campaign and their video went viral.”

The connectivity of video

While video can’t ever replace the full hiring process, says Elena, it can help enrich the applicant pool you have for a job opening. You’ll have a more invested group of candidates who are actively interested in the specific position and not just slinging resumes at every job opportunity.

This can lessen the time and work involved in sifting through the applications you get for a role, Elena adds.

“Rather than the 500 candidates that you got, a lot of them who may not be a good fit or on the cusp, you’re getting candidates who are saying, ‘I’ve watched this video, I see the challenge, and I’m still willing to apply.’”

How to use video in the hiring process

Great, you’re on board. You’re ready to get crackin’. But making employer branding videos can get complex at times.

So we picked up some lessons from Elena, who’s been doing this for a long time as the CEO of Skillscout. Here are six best practices on how to use video in the hiring process, from her LinkedIn Live session with Workable.

1. Don’t overthink it

First, don’t overthink it. “There’s no wrong or immediate right way to do video. … That’s the thing that people have to get over,” Elena says, quipping about the unrealistic expectations that a recruiter or hiring manager must have a Hollywood-sized budget or possess filmmaking skills to rival Martin Scorsese.

On the contrary, it’s more about finding that important balance between authenticity and brand, Elena says.

“You can actually do this in a way that still is quality, still as authentic, but also reaches a level of consistency that marketing and others would be okay with sharing publicly.”

2. Think about quality over quantity

Although it’s nice to have numerous candidates applying for a job so you have the luxury to choose, that’s the wrong approach, suggests Elena.

“The question should be, ‘Are we getting the right eyeballs on these videos?’” she says. “It has less to do with the metrics of; ‘We’ve had 50,000 people [see this video].’”

Instead, ask yourself: “Did the right 10 people in our application process who are kick-ass engineers see this video? And did they understand exactly what we could offer them?” Elena suggests. That’s where the key differentiator is.

3. Think about the ‘recruitment funnel’

A core tenet of sales and marketing strategy is the “funnel” It’s described in so many different ways. Ultimately, you can think about it in three stages. First is“top of funnel”, the moment where your audience becomes aware of you. Further down is “middle of funnel”; where your audience now knows you and wants to get a little deeper into the specifics. Finally, there’s “bottom of funnel”; in other words, the stage where your audience makes a decision based on what they’ve learned.

Workable’s EMEA VP Rob Long describes it as a “pragmatic recruitment framework”, in which he takes a page from the pragmatic marketing framework.

Elena speaks a lot about that in understanding how to use video in the hiring process. “You can build a series of videos to engage the varying levels of interests that a candidate has in the role or in your company. At the very top of the funnel is that introductory video.”

She explains: “We are just here to create a level of brand awareness and interest. Maybe this is a company that does really great stuff, but no one’s ever heard of them before.”

Once the candidate is interested, you can get right into the details of the job itself.

“When we’re on the job post, which is, ‘All right, I’m a shoe designer, and at this point I’m looking to understand, do I want to be a shoe designer at Nike or do I want to be a shoe designer at Adidas?’”

That’s where employee testimonial videos can come in incredibly useful, she adds.

“There’s some pretty specific stories of, ‘All right, now that I’m getting an understanding of the culture, what is it really like to work in these specific roles at these specific companies?’”

4. Be specific – and keep it short

No one likes a long, rambling video that doesn’t properly inform the candidate on what they want or need to know. This especially holds true when you’re looking to engage busy candidates applying for several jobs in a single day.

That’s why, when understanding how to use video in the hiring process, you must keep your videos concrete and tight.

“[You] want to think about the role itself,” says Elena. “Who are the folks that they might be working with or that department? The second is going to be show, not tell, which clearly the medium of video allows us to do that.”

Elena reminds us that it’s important to keep it contained.

“About 90 seconds is typically the sweet spot, especially given social media and the ways people are able to peruse.”

5. Be honest – warts and all

There’s a reality about work that can’t be ignored – sometimes, it does suck.

“We cannot put lipstick on a pig,” says Elena. “This has to be a balance both of what the opportunity is and also what the challenges are going to be, because candidates are going to smell a stock video, a stock photo, a stock feeling and emotion from a mile away.”

It’s tempting to gloss over the negatives, but candidates will appreciate honesty.

“They recognize that our jobs aren’t perfect, and if you could be the first one to tell that to them and they don’t have to find that out on the first day of the job or the first 90 days on the job, even better. They will respect you more for it.”

Elena explains that this is top of mind for her and Skillscout, especially when it comes to younger candidates.

“This isn’t just about showing the sunshines and rainbows of a role. We all know that there are sucky parts of all jobs and we need to be about as upfront about that as possible when it comes to this.”

There’s a practical aspect to it too – enriching the talent pool with candidates who really do want the role.

“We want to give candidates an opportunity to self-screen in or self-screen out. And it’s perfectly okay if a candidate is going to self screen out as result of this, because we’re not here to waste their time. We’re also not here to waste ours.”

Workable’s CEO Nikos Moraitakis himself follows this code on describing life at Workable: “It involves doing a lot of things that you would rather not be doing, but down the line, there may be something in it that may improve the way a lot of people work.”

Read more about why it pays to be authentic in your recruitment marketing strategy.

6. Good questions mean great answers

Your videos will ultimately feature your current employees, and you want them to share some of the more interesting aspects of their work. That means you’re interviewing them – and when you do that, don’t just ask them to describe their day at work. Throw some interesting questions at your employees that they will be excited to answer.

For instance, ask them to describe the surprises they had when they first started at the job, says Elena.

Elena suggests a few other questions you can ask:

• “What is it about your work that you’re most proud of?”
• “What is it about your work that people would be surprised to know about?”
• “What makes you stay? What makes you come back every day?”

And her personal favorite: “What makes your heart sing?”

“It really gets fascinating from a layperson’s point of view to say, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize that this much effort, et cetera, goes into creating this one piece of cereal,’” says Elena.

Video attracts the real-life stars

Video really is another tool in your recruitment marketing playbook. Learning how to use video in the hiring process – including in the careers page, the video interview, and even outright employer brand promotion – can really show off the job and the work environment in action in ways that static words on a screen or paper can never do.

And it’s about keeping up with the times, adds Elena.

“In today’s day and age, the way that we communicate our culture, our brand, the way that we get people interested in our role and the right people interested in our company is through video.”

The post How to use video in the hiring process: 6 tips from an expert appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

With those metrics on hand, you now have a baseline of concrete numbers to start from, allowing you to track your DEI progress and establish clear goals.

Table of contents:

• How to measure diversity: Best practices
• Gender, sex, and sexual orientation questions
• Race and ethnicity questions
• Religion questions
• Disability and impairment questions
• Socio-economic questions

Multiverse Senior Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Manager Siobhan Randall ties this back to crucial business elements, including candidate attraction and employer branding:

When building a sustainable DEI strategy, Siobhan asks: “Is inclusion really embedded within our employee value proposition? Are people from underrepresented backgrounds going to want to work at the company?”

“How can we make ourselves look and feel like a place that anyone would want to work at, especially individuals from underrepresented backgrounds? We’re definitely doing that reflection on our brand.”

Siobhan continues, pointing out the real value of anonymously surveying your candidates as part of your overall employee engagement metrics:

“From the point of application, each stage of the recruitment process and then, once hired, we’re looking at outcomes like progression and retention.”

How to measure diversity: Best practices

We fully understand that surveying your candidates on personal characteristics can be socially and legally sensitive. Importantly, the information you’re collecting is not related to specific jobs – nor should it be. It’s only for the purpose of furthering your DEI strategy.

There are three best practices to think about here: candidate communication, survey standardization, and the language of the survey itself.

Communicate clearly

First, it’s important to know how to measure diversity in a respectable, transparent and anonymous manner, and communicate that in such a way that puts your candidates at ease.

There are three aspects to include in your messaging to candidates:

• State the purpose: Openly communicate the purpose of the survey, so the candidate understands why you’re doing it.
• Ensure anonymity: Clarify that the survey is strictly anonymous. The data you’re collecting cannot be tied to individual candidates in any way.
• Make it optional: Make the survey strictly optional, and clearly state that this will not affect the status of their job application – or the job itself – in any way.

A paragraph to include at the start of your survey might look like:

“Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is a crucial and permanent part of our business strategy. To help us ensure a fully diverse, equitable and inclusive working environment, we invite you to fill out this voluntary survey so we can track and further our DEI efforts. The information shared here is strictly optional, and cannot and will not affect your job application in any way. It’s also 100% anonymous, and is not linked to your name, identity, or application.”

Establish standards and goals

Second, it’s crucial to establish a standard across surveys so you have a reliable dataset for your own company’s benefit.

Once you’ve established that standard on how to measure diversity in your candidates, you can now:

• Compare numbers in each pipeline stage from the top of the recruitment funnel (i.e. initial job applications) through to the bottom of funnel (final candidate pool and final hires).
• Look at advancement metrics and identify any inconsistencies in promotions and advancement based on different characteristics.
• Identify gaps in benefits, perks, policies, and other elements of employment so that every employee has fair and equal access to all of the above, ensuring that everyone feels valued and included as a member of your organization.

Be thoughtful about survey language

If you’re concerned or uncomfortable about what language you should (or shouldn’t) be using in a survey, that’s OK. You’re not alone. You’re essentially asking people about very personal elements of their identity, including and not limited to:

• Gender
• Sex
• Sexual orientation
• Race
• Ethnicity
• Religion
• Disability
• Socio-economic status

With all of this in mind, we now share tips and resources from experts on how to measure diversity with a thoughtful, inclusive and respectful survey. You can also freely copy our own candidate survey template here for your use.

How to measure diversity: Survey questions

Let’s go through five major category groups, one by one:

1. Gender, sex, and sexual orientation questions

Gender, sex, and sexual orientation are not interchangeable terms or identities. They are three separate categories, and not to be conflated one with another, even if there are potential overlaps. Ask about each separately.

Gender

Due to the complex nature of gender, it’s best to include as many terms as possible. Vanderbilt University’s example is excellent:

Vanderbilt also reminds us of the importance of asking for transgender identity as a separate question:

“Because a respondent’s gender may align with more than one of the listed identities (for example, someone may identify as a transgender woman), it is recommended that you either ask whether a respondent identifies as transgender in a separate question or include both ‘cisgender’ and ‘transgender’ in the listed gender identity options.”

Vanderbilt also shares this great list of definitions for your perusal.

Sex

When asking about someone’s sex assigned at birth, the American University’s Center for Diversity & Inclusion recommends using male, female, intersex, prefer not to say, and an option for the respondent to enter their own response:

Sexual orientation

When asking about sexual orientation, you should again offer a full list of options. The Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals has recommended best practices on what to ask in a college application that you can also use in your own survey:

The Williams Institute School of Law has a comprehensive rundown of the terms you can include as available answers when asking about gender, sex, and sexual orientation. It’s also an all-around great resource for best practices in sex and gender-related surveying.

2. Race and ethnicity questions

When thinking about how to measure diversity, you should know that race and ethnicity are also not interchangeable. According to LiveScience.com, “race is often perceived as something that’s inherent in our biology, and therefore inherited across generations. Ethnicity, on the other hand, is typically understood as something we acquire, or self-ascribe, based on factors like where we live or the culture we share with others.”

Even then, ethnicity itself can be a socially charged topic. Statistics Canada points to the ever-evolving properties of ethnicity due to immigration trends, intermarriage, and blending of origins. As a result, StatsCan recommends three new categories: origin or ancestry, race and identity. The concept of ‘identity’ is to give respondents a choice to choose the group they most identify with – for instance, whether one is Italian, Canadian, or Italian-Canadian.

The U.S. Census Bureau, on the other hand, considered removing “race” and “origin” from questions altogether, calling them ambiguous for many American respondents. Instead, they proposed simply asking people to select from categories that best described them (bearing in mind this was in 2015):

Note that these are just guidelines – not rules. You can, within reason, ask about race and ethnicity – provided you give the respondent comprehensive options to choose from.

Race

For race-related questions, consider this conversation on race options in the US Census, from research group Versta. Versta also proposed their own example:

If you’re interested in seeing what questions and answers were asked in the 2020 U.S. Census, they are outlined here.

Ethnicity

Despite the above discussion around ethnicity, it’s still widely used in surveys around the world.

For ethnicity-based questions, consult this rundown of different ethnicities in the UK government’s census style guide, which shows the different examples of survey options for different parts of the country.

The UK government also shares four examples of how respondents are asked about their ethnicity, including this sample that shows 18 different answer options across five main categories:

Diversity Australia’s own list differs slightly:

Table 1 in this report from the University of Wisconsin’s Office of International Research also offers a good breakdown of the potential answers you can include in survey questions around race and ethnicity.

Sara Clayton wrote this in-depth article on the UX design behind the race and ethnicity question in surveys – it’s worth the read to gain a better understanding of the thinking process behind how to measure diversity in a survey.

3. Religion questions

Since holidays are often linked with religious observances, knowing the faith representation of your workforce only assists diversity efforts, but also helps when planning the work holiday calendar for the upcoming year. This can ensure an equal and inclusive experience for all backgrounds in your workforce.

As with other questions, you need to take care when asking religion-related questions, according to a paper from the University of London:

“The term ‘religion’ may refer to a set of personal beliefs, an affiliation with an institution, a shared cultural identity, or participation in services or ceremonies. Survey questions about religion may tap into all of these dimensions, and if it is not clear what a particular question is asking, the interpretation of the responses becomes very difficult.”

The Pew Research Group also shared wording on religion surveys from different areas around the world – which will give you an excellent launchpoint on how to measure diversity of faith among your candidates.

Baylor University in Texas shared the complete questionnaires from all five waves of their Baylor Religion Surveys – and this is likewise an incredibly comprehensive list. Take a look at the school’s 2017 national study, which not only asks which religious family one most closely identifies with, but also:

• the level of religiosity or spirituality the respondent considers themselves to be
• the frequency in which the respondent attends services at a place of worship.

Finally, the Pew Research Group offers a comprehensive list of FAQs on its own research into religious representation in the United States, including details on:

• identity versus belief
• subgroups of religions
• race and religion
• religion and politics (i.e. “evangelical” becoming a political label as well as religious)

4. Disability and impairment questions

Allowing the respondent the option to share their impairment or disability can help you ensure the workplace is fully accessible and free of challenges, a crucial part of equality and inclusion in your DEI workplace strategy.

Again, as above, impairment and disability are not always considered to be overlapping. According to a report from the Learning and Skills Development Agency:

“Some disabled people prefer to be called ‘people with disabilities’ because they want to be regarded as people first. Others prefer the term ‘disabled people’, arguing that in the social model of disability, the experiences of impairment and disability are separate.”

Plus, according to the report:

• Impairment is the “physical, mental or sensory characteristic, feature or attribute that affects the function of an individual’s mind or body.”
• Disability is “the loss or limitation of opportunities to take part in society on an equal level due to social, attitudinal and environmental barriers”.

Disabilities and impairment can limit an applicant’s capabilities in the following three ways, according to Disabled World:

• Body structure and function (and impairment thereof)
• Activity (and activity restrictions)
• Participation (and participation restrictions)

Disabled World also notes the many different disability types that limit a person’s:

• Vision
• Hearing
• Thinking
• Learning
• Movement
• Mental health
• Remembering
• Communicating
• Social relationships

It also states that disabilities and impairments can be invisible – in other words, hidden.

The United States Census Bureau breaks down disabilities into the following six categories:

• Hearing difficulty: deaf or having serious difficulty hearing
• Vision difficulty: blind or having serious difficulty seeing, even when wearing glasses
• Cognitive difficulty: Because of a physical, mental, or emotional problem, having difficulty remembering, concentrating, or making decisions
• Ambulatory difficulty: Having serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs
• Self-care difficulty: Having difficulty bathing or dressing
• Independent living difficulty: Because of a physical, mental, or emotional problem, having difficulty doing errands alone such as visiting a doctor’s office or shopping

The LSDA also shares a few examples in its report linked above on how to ask about disabilities, for instance:

If you need to talk with a candidate or new hire about what accommodations may be needed, Mobility International USA has great resources on how to have that conversation in a respectful and inclusive manner.

5. Socio-economic questions

Biases related to socio-economic status exist as well, even to the point where a degree from one school may not be as sufficient as that same degree from another school, even if both degrees offer the same qualifications. The only difference is that one degree is cheaper or ‘less reputable’ than the other.

There are also factors in one’s upbringing that potentially affect their interactions with others even if they’re fully qualified for a position. Home-borne accents, for example, which are often unfairly associated with intelligence or social status, can play a role in one’s perceived suitability for a role.

Another limiting factor is that an applicant may not have the same access to professional and personal networks that can give them good references for a job or a referral to a position otherwise not accessible.

Yes, class bias exists widely. And you can take those biases out of the recruitment process. But rather than asking questions about someone’s social or economic backgrounds as the UK’s Civil Service has done in good faith, that information may already be readily available in an applicant’s CV or resume.

The American Psychological Association offers a standard of measurements you can use to track the socio-economic status of your applicants as they move through the funnel. Three of them are relevant here: education, income, and occupation (in other words, professional background).

Siobhan at Multiverse pointed to guidance from the Sutton Trust in tracking socio-economic status. The Sutton Trust’s employer’s guide on social mobility in the workplace has good insights on socio-economic bias and how to overcome those.

You can use surveys to measure diversity

Finally, take a few minutes and read Sarai Rosenberg’s excellent breakdown on candidate surveying best practices. From this, you’ll gain good insights on how to measure diversity in your candidates, and moreover, how to go about it respectfully. Also, check out our candidate survey template for your own use.

This is a lot, we know. But in the end, consider the intention of carrying out candidate surveys. Surveying your candidates helps you track your progress in diversity, equity and inclusion, and helps you identify gaps in your process.

For instance, if you find that the percentage of a certain characteristic in your final hires in 2021 is significantly less than in your initial talent pool, or the representation of those advancing in your company does not reflect the representation within your total workforce, you now have starting points of where you can improve.

After all, if respondents in our DEI survey overwhelmingly selected “Demographics across entire company” when asked how they measure DEI progress (53.4% of all respondents), that necessitates a tool to track those demographics. Surveying your candidates is one way to get ahead and gain ground in your DEI strategy.

The post How to measure diversity in your candidates using surveys appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Video interviews are booming

Video interviews – even pre-recorded video interviews – are now a standard element in the overall recruitment process, and will continue to be so post-pandemic. According to Workable’s New World of Work study, 56.5% of businesses plan to make remote permanent for at least some of their workforce going forward. Only 6.2% of businesses plan to do nothing in general.

This means even more digitization of the recruitment process, and one aspect of that is video interview technology.

Even before COVID-19 introduced itself to our world, video interviews were used by 70% of the employers in the list of Talent Board’s Candidate Experience award winners. Time to hire is now shorter as a result of pre-recorded video interviews, and it’s cheaper too in terms of travel and time commitments both for the candidate and the recruiter.

The benefits of pre-recorded video interviews

The benefits of pre-recorded video interviews for employers and candidates are multifold. It’s a fantastic tool for evaluating candidates at a deeper level, especially for remote jobs in roles that directly engage with customers and prospects.

Recruiters can now enjoy the following benefits of video interviews:

1. Gain better insight into soft skills and “personality” of the candidate
2. Assess ability to work remotely – as video is a core component of remote work
3. Save time by not having to coordinate interviews or screening calls – especially across different time zones
4. Establish a more uniform process – making for a more equitable experience
5. Share pre-recorded interviews with your team –  in a traditional interview, only those physically present would be able to provide feedback

There are benefits for the candidate experience as well:

1. Candidates have the opportunity to present themselves more naturally than in a stressful 30-minute live interview – depending on the role, of course
2. Candidates can prepare for and complete video interviews at their convenience
3. Candidates are no longer expected to travel or commute for that first interaction with the company
4. Candidates can pause their interviews and pick up where they left off

To convince the budget holders in your team of the value of pre-recorded video interview tech, there are significant benefits to the bottom line as well:

1. Shorten your time to hire by eliminating a step in the selection process and combining the screening and interview stages. When 66% of candidates move on after two weeks of not hearing from an employer, shortening the time to hire becomes crucial in reducing the risk of losing top candidates – especially in high-volume hiring periods.
2. Reduce the hours invested in the hiring process. The number of work hours invested in communicating, scheduling, and carrying out the screening process can be costly, so reducing that means you can do more recruiting with less resource commitment. And with self-scheduling options, you’re eliminating time-consuming back-and-forth communication to find a time that’s right for both of you.
3. Lower your cost per hire by improving the quality of your hires, saving your money in the future through lower employee turnover and higher engagement. Also, with fewer work hours invested by the hiring team, the recruitment process becomes more optimized and you’re doing more with less.

Budget holders aren’t as interested in the day-to-day process – they’re more impressed with risk reduction and lower costs. So emphasize the above when presenting your case to those stakeholders.

There’s another impact, a negative one if you don’t implement it properly: your employer brand. Candidates have often griped that pre-recorded video interviews are just further automation of the recruitment process and can hurt the candidate experience. It sends a signal to candidates that they’re no longer humans – they’re just nuts and bolts in a larger machine. Not a good look for you or your brand.

However, it doesn’t need to be this way. Here are four tried-and-true ways that you can use pre-recorded video interviews to their greatest benefit and make a strong, positive impression on candidates.

Pre-recorded video interview best practices

Simply plugging video interviews into your current workflow won’t be enough. If you do, that’s where your employer brand will take a hit, because you are automating the process in the wrong way. To get around that, you want to personalize it as much as you can while at the same time utilizing video interviews to their fullest benefit as outlined above.

Here are four ways in which you can utilize video interviews to really boost your cred as an awesome employer:

1. Add an introductory video

Include a recording of yourself at the very beginning to help the candidate understand and appreciate the context in which you’re conducting video interviews. In this recording, you can:

• Introduce yourself as the recruiter or hiring manager
• Talk about the role a little bit – and what you’re looking for
• Explain why you’re doing video interviews instead of a live phone screening
• Talk about how a candidate can best prepare for this step
• Thank the candidate for taking part in this very important part of the process
• Set expectations – for example, turnaround time, next steps, etc.
• Use a friendly tone to put the candidate at ease

2. Tutor the candidate

Some candidates will not be 100% well-versed on pre-recorded video interviews. For some, it may be their very first time doing so. You can share a tutorial – such as this one – to help candidates prepare. You can share these tips as well:

• Equipment that they’ll need, and supported browsers
• A demonstration or practice question if available
• Find a quiet place free from distractions with a professional background

3. Include video questions

Instead of simply adding boilerplate questions to the video interview in writing and sending those on to the candidate, have the hiring manager record themselves asking the questions one by one.

This more personalized approach reassures candidates when they can see who they’re responding to, and helps them prepare a solid, thoughtful answer. All the better for you to gain more insight into candidates.

4. Incorporate other elements via links

Pre-recorded video interviews do not necessarily have to be in a basic Q&A format. You can liven things up by adding elements in different formats, customizing fonts and styles, etc. Examples also include:

• Embedding a YouTube video and asking the candidate to record their honest reaction to it
• Including a PDF (i.e. a sales sheet, a product page, a piece of marketing collateral) and asking the candidate what they would do to improve on it

It’s not about what you use – it’s how you present it

When you think about Nike, it’s not about the shoes. It’s about Michael Jordan, “Just Do It”, and other powerful messaging and positioning. Red Bull’s similar – they’re not just an energy drink company. They’re about extreme sports and healthy, fun living.

If Nike just said, “Here’s a pair of shoes”, and if Red Bull said, “Folks, here’s an energy drink”, would you be so interested? Probably not.

Think about it in the same way when adding pre-recorded video interviews to your recruitment workflow. Candidates won’t respond well if you just said, “Here’s a video interview, get ‘er done and get back to me!” But they’ll respond if you add the extra stuff.

Personalize the video interview experience with introductory videos and pre-recorded questions, include tutorials to help the candidate present their best selves, and make it an all-around interesting and immersive experience for the candidate.

That’s a part of recruitment marketing, and the resulting positive candidate experience can be great for your employer brand – and help you hire the very best talent for your team.

Want to learn more? Check out our other content on video interviews:

• The video interview: top tips for employers
• Zinger Property enhances their inclusive hiring process with Workable Video Interviews
• Video Interviews: Designing for and with end users in mind

The post Pre-recorded video interviews: 4 best practices for success appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

So can you break through the screen and bring your company’s story to life? Find out in our chat with Elena Valentine, CEO & Co-Founder of Skillscout. She’ll guide us through steps you can take to level-up your employer brand strategy with video.

Subscribe to the podcast for more ways to move your hiring forward.

The post Podcast episode #8: How to attract, engage, and retain talent with video appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What is an Applicant Tracking System?
• What are the Benefits of Applicant Tracking Software?
  • Are They Worthwhile for Startups and Small Businesses?
  • How does an ATS Work?
• How We’ve Compared the Best Applicant Tracking Systems
• Top 12 Best Applicant Tracking Systems
  • Workable
  • Greenhouse
  • Lever
  • Teamtailor
  • Jobvite
  • iCIMs
  • Taleo
  • SmartRecruiters
  • JazzHR
  • Zoho Recruit
  • BreezyHR
  • Recruitee
• Time to make a decision

What is an Applicant Tracking System?

An applicant tracking system (ATS) is a software that automates administrative tasks in recruitment and hiring. For example, an ATS enables faster interview scheduling, easier job advertising, optimized referrals, automated processes, and more. Overall, a good ATS helps relieve many recruiting pains that recruiters and hiring managers often face.

Alternative names for an applicant tracking system include: ‘hiring software’, ‘talent acquisition software’, ‘hiring platform’, and ‘recruitment software’.

What are the Benefits of Applicant Tracking Software?

It’s not out of sheer luck that applicant tracking systems (or generally, recruiting software) keep gaining popularity in the business world. They take a huge burden off the shoulders of hiring teams and give them time to focus on what matters – connecting with candidates and making hiring decisions.

Some major benefits of applicant tracking systems include:

• Increase in productivity and efficiency when hiring – particularly at scale
• Better candidate experience through faster scheduling and communication – especially in remote and hybrid work environments
• Access to multiple job boards and the ability to manage all applications in a centralized location
• Improved employer brand that attracts great candidates
• Valuable metrics and reports to improve the hiring process (e.g. HR analytics)
• Easier compliance with laws related to recruitment

Are They Worthwhile for Startups and Small Businesses?

In a word, yes. Everyone involved in recruiting, such as business owners, hiring managers, and recruiters, will find an applicant tracking system or recruitment software to be incredibly useful when building teams. Whether they’re making those first few hires or growing their business by adding team members, an ATS can help optimize the hiring process both in terms of time and money.

How does an ATS work?

Simply put, an ATS is a software that helps you standardize your recruitment process for a variety of reasons, including hiring at scale, operating with leaner HR teams, making a quick hire, and more. With an ATS, you can do the following:

• Posting to multiple job boards at once, exponentially increasing your reach across popular and niche job sites
• Scheduling screening calls, one- and two-way video interviews, in-person interviews, assessments, and other key components of candidate evaluation
• Moving candidates from application to offer in the hiring pipeline
• Communication between candidates and hiring teams
• Collaboration with teammates to enable unity when it comes to making hiring decisions
• Legally compliant candidate sourcing
• Candidate evaluation with the use of assessments and scorecards
• Employer branding to convey the company culture and vision
• Measuring hiring effectiveness through recruiting reports, e.g. candidate sourcing reports

How We’ve Compared the Best Applicant Tracking Systems

Each ATS may specialize or excel in specific recruiting areas. Before purchasing an applicant tracking system, it’s useful for organizations to compare several options with each other.

To do so correctly, they may map their individual hiring methods, analyze the problems they need to resolve or identify opportunities for improvement. Then, they can evaluate available systems based on important criteria.

Top 12 Best Applicant Tracking Systems

We’ve researched the top ATSes extensively so you don’t have to. And we’ve come up with these 12 best applicant tracking systems that will help you make the best decision on what to use for your organization. Of course we’re aware that we’re in this list, but rest assured, we’ve done our best to be as impartial as we can because we want to help you make the best decision for your company’s needs.

Workable

We know we’re patting ourselves on the back here, but we really think we have good reason to do so. Workable provides best-in-class recruitment tools, processes and automation in one complete solution. Whether you’re hiring employee #2 or 200 new employees, Workable’s scalable tools, know-how and support help you make the hires that make your business great.

With clients including RyanAir, Sephora, and Soho House, Workable is the solution of choice for many reputable brands interested in boosting their employer brand, attracting the right candidates, managing high volumes of applicants, and streamlining their recruitment process.

Companies who use Workable get from requisition to offer letter faster, with automated and AI-powered tools that source and suggest candidates, simplify decision making and streamline the hiring process.

More than 20,000 companies ranging from local chains to global enterprises have used Workable to hire over one million people in 100+ countries.

Workable leads all other ATSes in G2’s Best Applicant Tracking Systems list for 2021, with a cumulative score of 4.5 out of a potential 5 stars.

Greenhouse

We won’t lie – Greenhouse is one of the world’s leading recruitment software companies. It is listed near the top alongside Workable in many lists of best applicant tracking systems. Headquartered in NYC, its software caters primarily to the mid-market and enterprise, and integrates seamlessly with many other HR tech vendors.

Greenhouse offers many of the same features as Workable, with notable differences in product implementation, integration options, sourcing capabilities, hiring team communication, and hiring manager engagement.

Compare Workable to Greenhouse

Lever

Joining Workable and Greenhouse in many best applicant tracking systems lists, Lever is a recruitment solution based out of San Francisco and Toronto. It’s tailored to tech startups as well as midsize and enterprise organizations.

Again, like Workable, Lever offers many similar features, with notable differences in native product offerings, integration options, implementation and support, candidate sourcing, and scheduling capabilities.

Teamtailor

Teamtailor is a Swedish recruitment solution operating primarily across Europe, with a heavy emphasis on its employer branding and recruitment marketing capabilities. It prides itself on its native careers page feature, capabilities for marketing to specific talent markets, and features including text recruitment, referrals, and candidate nurturing.

Jobvite

Headquartered in Indianapolis with locations in Portland, the UK, and Canada, Jobvite started out as a social media-focused approach to recruitment for enterprise-sized businesses. Its platform augments the recruitment process with AI-powered processes, including the ability to automatically screen and rank candidates based on preset parameters.

ICIMs

iCIMS, which stands for Internet Collaborative Information Management Systems, was one of the very first SaaS companies in a fledgling recruitment software market in the early 2000s. It’s a reliable legacy solution suited for enterprises, and continues to present itself as innovative and forward-thinking with a continually evolving product roadmap. It operates out of the US and UK and enjoys a worldwide market base.

Taleo

Originating in Quebec, Canada, and now headquartered in California, Taleo is more of an all-inclusive talent management software than a dedicated ATS, presenting modular offerings based on the size and complexity of customer needs. It describes itself as an easy-to-use Fortune 500 ATS interface catering to candidates and hiring teams alike, and focuses on a mobile-first and data-driven approach.

SmartRecruiters

Unlike other ATSes which focus on startups and SMBs, SmartRecruiters is tailored towards enterprise-sized organizations looking for a larger solution for their recruitment challenges. Headquartered in San Francisco, SmartRecruiters is one of the largest ATSes in the recruitment solutions market, offering numerous integrations in a number of languages.

JazzHR

This US-based recruitment SaaS presents itself as a lower-priced solution that offers users the opportunity to rank, track and collaborate in the candidate evaluation process with custom workflows for each job opening.

Zoho Recruit

Zoho Recruit pitches its ATS as being designed for both recruiters and corporate hiring teams working together to build workforces that adapt quickly to evolving talent needs. Offering solutions to both in-house recruiters and staffing agencies, Zoho Recruit is a part of Zoho’s one-stop stop of business tech solutions including email, project management, budgeting and other needs.

BreezyHR

Florida-based BreezyHR offers an affordable, pared-down solution for companies just starting out. It promotes job openings on job boards, enables its users to organize existing applicants via drag-and-drop, and pulls hiring teams together into a streamlined communications channel that also includes the candidate.

Recruitee

Founded in Amsterdam, Recruitee is one of the newer kids on the block, having launched in 2015. It’s growing rapidly as a presence in the ATS market, with a user-friendly system that enables drag-and-drop options to move candidates through a customized hiring pipeline. It’s tailored primarily to SMBs with <100 employees.

Time to make a decision

Need help making a decision on the best applicant tracking system for your business? Hop into a no-obligation call with one of our product experts for an in-depth discussion on your hiring needs and pain points, and we’ll help you decide. Alternatively, try out our recruitment software for 15 days – for free – and see how it goes from there.

The post The 12 best applicant tracking systems appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

You’re also surfing online, consuming interesting stuff, and at one point, you’re looking at a company’s website and thinking, “These folks look pretty cool. I like what they’re doing. I wonder if they’re in the market for someone like me.”

So that’s when you gravitate to their careers page. It’s one thing to want to work at a company because you like their product or service, or they specialize in your area of expertise, but it’s another thing to want to work at a company because they seem like an amazing place to work and they feel like an amazing fit for you.

Careers page best practices for your employer brand

As an HR professional and employer, that’s why you need to double down on your careers page best practices. Here are seven core elements you need to think about when building a careers page that will attract the attention of even the most seasoned (and jaded) jobseekers:

1. Add employee testimonials

When you shop online, do you look at the reviews before making a purchasing decision? Have you ever bought something or watched a movie/TV show because a friend or family recommended it? The answer to both is likely “yes”.

The same thinking applies for your careers page. Candidates often read up on company reviews on Glassdoor or Indeed when thinking about applying for a job. If you include a few friendly employee testimonials in your careers page, it’ll make an impact on their impression of you.

Workable’s own careers page has several high-quality testimonials from employees who have worked at Workable for years. They’re outlined nicely in our first example of careers page best practices.

Screenshot: https://apply.workable.com/careers/

2. Put your “About Us” at the very top

You want candidates who want to work for you. One way of motivating them is telling them up front who you are and what you’re all about. An aspiring programmer looking to play a role in disrupting the existing framework of their industry won’t necessarily apply for a developer job at a traditional financial institution, but will jump through hoops for an opportunity in a cool fintech startup.

Likewise, a seasoned programmer looking for more stability and predictability in their working environment will be more interested in a role at a legacy organization with tried-and-true workflow systems.

Don’t make your candidates look for that information. Put it right in front of them, right on the page itself, and right at the very top.

GetResponse does exactly this, with two short, punchy paragraphs above the fold detailing who they are and what they do, in just 65 words. Sixty-five words! That gives the candidate all they need to know to make a quick decision on whether to apply for a role with this marketing SaaS company.

Screenshot: https://apply.workable.com/getresponse/

3. Add your company’s mission, vision and values

A widely-publicized Glassdoor survey in 2019 found that a company’s mission and culture are valued more than compensation for many candidates. Plus, the vast majority of jobseekers take mission and culture into account when applying for a job.

As the lines between work and home continue to blur after the paradigm-shifting events of 2020, it’s become more important than ever for candidates that their prospective employer’s vision and values align with their own. So, including your company’s mission, vision and values in your careers page will not only help candidates decide if you’re the right fit for them, but also attract candidates who are personally motivated to play an active role in your overall mission.

That can be a powerful differentiator beyond the elements of candidate attraction such as salary, benefits, work flexibility, and other standard perks.

Soho House & Co.’s careers page includes their mission and values with special emphasis on what they describe as the “guiding principles” that drive them. By listing five simple, yet powerful, values – curiosity, inclusivity, connection, passion, respect – they make it clear who they are, the kind of team that they are, and what they’re committed to as an organization.

Screenshot: https://careers.sohohouse.com/

4. Include details about benefits and perks

Yes, benefits and perks are powerful attractors for candidates when applying for a job. Candidates want to know what they’re getting out of the job on top of the standard salary. There are numerous kinds of benefits, including insurance, paid time off, work flexibility and location, bonuses and awards, training programs, and even company getaways and free lunches.

Be sure to include a breakdown of the important benefits and perks your company offers that set you apart from the next employer. Again, Workable does this in its own careers page.

Screenshot: http://careers.workable.com

5. Add photo and video elements

Candidates can be skeptical about what you’re telling them – and they have every right to be. You’re marketing to them, after all. To get around that initial skepticism, add a touch of authenticity with photos and videos in your page.

These can be straight-up employee testimonials, a statement from the CEO, a day in the life of one team in your company, or a demonstration of your product or service in action. Anything that can give the candidate a visual dive into what it would be like to work for you.

Every company is comprised of individuals working together – photos, videos and any other visual element can be powerful tools to convey that personality to your candidates.

TrueLayer does this masterfully. The fintech organization balances out the very professional photos with organic images. Scrolling down, you run across themes important to candidates – in this case, how the company operates in this COVID-19 environment, and images of teams not only working, but interacting socially.

They’ve also supplemented that with links to design and engineering principles as written by their own employees – offering added insight into what kind of people work there and how they approach the work. Check out the fifth of our seven careers page best practices in action:

Screenshot: https://apply.workable.com/truelayer/

Meanwhile, investment software startup Stockbit embeds this video on their careers page near the bottom, which makes for a more immersive experience.

6. Keep a consistent brand and message

You’ve heard of marketing. How about recruitment marketing? A core element of that is maintaining a consistent brand and message anywhere your audience interacts with your company – in this case, your candidates. That includes your application setup, your interview and scheduling processes, and of course, your careers page.

In fact, your careers page is a core element of candidate attraction. It’s one of the first things a candidate looks at when they come to your site. If your careers page is clunky, has conflicting messages or is inconsistent overall, you need to fix that.

Your brand and message is not just in the language. It’s also in the visual elements – are you using brand colors in your careers page? Is your logo prominently featured? Are the headlines short and snappy and, again, in your company’s official font and colors? Is the text itself tight and concise and informative?

All of those are important. You are marketing yourself as an employer to candidates.

Again, Soho House & Co. presents a great example of a careers page that’s consistent in brand and tone throughout.

7. Ensure a high-quality, eye-catching design

Take two companies’ careers pages, both with all of the above information neatly laid out in front of you. Both companies are also exactly the same in every other way – in their product and service, their location, their benefits and perks, and so on.

The only difference? One company has listed all their information in dry sans-serif font, heavy on the text which makes candidates’ eyes dry out as they read. The other company has eye-catching design that will make an impression even on tired jobseekers, and is designed to guide attention to the important parts in a way that feels natural to the candidate.

Stockbit’s careers page is eye-catching and very scrollable. They’ve taken all of the above careers page best practices and assembled it all into an appealing layout that’s easy on the eye and gives the candidate a quick overview of the company they’re about to apply to.

Careers page best practices for the win

Having an advanced careers page with thoughtful design, digestible information, visual elements, employee testimonials and mission, vision & values is a core element of your overall recruitment marketing strategy. It’s not just about putting your best brand forward – you’re also doing your candidates a favor by making it easier for them to learn about who you are. That level of candidate attraction speaks volumes for your employer brand.

Want to see more great examples? Check out these 10 great careers page examples, and why we love them.

The post 7 careers page best practices to boost your employer brand appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Table of Contents

1. Candidate experience

• On sidestepping “Where do you see yourself in X years?”
• On recruiting passive candidates

2. Lean recruiting