In a recent article, Jason Warner, a principal at Recruiting Toolbox, wrote a commentary regarding how social media hurts recruiting. In his article he stated:

 “If you work for a small company, rejoice! Because of reduced scale and volumetric simplicities, smaller companies actually are handed an advantage over larger companies. It is much easier for a smaller company to use social tools and meet or exceed the relationship expectations across the candidate pools they draw from. Take advantage of the nimbleness of your smaller organization to leverage the social graph that extends from your company, and build your recruiting process in ways that will scale.”

 The Sourcerer agrees that this is very good advice.  If you want to incorporate social media as part of your recruiting strategy you need to concentrate on the experience of the candidate during the entire process.  If the candidate has formed a positive opinion about your company based on input he/she has received from social contacts through your company, what’s going to happen to that opinion if the candidate is thrust into an unfriendly, impersonal interview process?

 My guess would be to agree with Jason Warner, it’s not going to help your recruiting efforts!

You need to extend the personal touch that social media engenders throughout the interviewing process. For example, you can increase communications between the people inside your company and the candidates you recruited using social media who you are interviewing.  Personalize the experience more by recognizing the interests, goals, and attitudes of those candidates and responding appropriately to their input.

You can easily customize the candidate’s experience by adapting a portion of your interviewing process to discussing the candidate’s desires and requirements. Consider inviting the employees who referred the candidate to an informal get together over coffee. When you expand the social experience further you keep the candidate interested and more psychologically comfortable. In other words as Warner says: “Leverage the social graph to improve the experience”.

Keep in mind that high unemployment does not necessarily translate to increasing your ability to hire top talent. If social media recruiting is going to work for your company, establish a program that covers all your sourcing and hiring procedures and don’t let your efforts backfire with an out-of-date interviewing and hiring process that can turn off quality applicants.

Talmax Recruiting Solutions is pleased to announce the addition of Jim Allen as its Vice President of Development. This announcement coincides with the company’s national roll out of its recently developed, next-generation job-candidate sourcing and screening software.

Reporting to CEO Rick Searns, Allen will take on the leadership role of managing the Talmax Washington, DC-based sales and marketing operations. “I am very excited to have the opportunity to introduce our software suite to the DC market and beyond. Talmax saw the need to develop software tools to help small and mid-size businesses raise their company profiles and effectively compete with larger companies to attract the best candidates. I immediately recognized the value proposition of Talmax® and believe others will too,” said Allen.

  Searns indicated that “We used the same Talmax® software that we provide to our clients to find the just-right person to lead this DC initiative and we are very pleased that Jim is onboard. He brings a unique combination of skills and experience, and has the drive and qualities that we believe will make him successful in this important role and help us stay on course to set a new industry benchmark,”

Before joining Talmax, Allen served as Director of Media Relations and as a business-development strategist at Energy Now (formerly Clean Skies News). Previously, he served as Director of Media Relations and Special Reports Editor for The Hill newspaper. He also has a solid business-development background in financial services, association membership development, fundraising and recruitment advertising sales. His human resources background also includes stints as an HR contractor for National Public Radio and Quintiles and as a business-development contractor for the Society for Human Resources Management.

Allen is a native of Norfolk, Virginia and holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English/Mass Communications from Virginia State University, attended Delaware State University with music scholarship assistance and studied Law at Concord University School of Law. He also enjoyed a career in DC radio as a talk show host, news anchor and executive; currently writes a column on DC politics for Examiner.com; and since 1995, is a regular panelist on NBC4 (DC) WRC-TV’s “Reporter’s Notebook” roundtable program. Jim can be reached at jimallen@talmax.com.

If you find searching Job Boards and reviewing candidates one by one a tiresome, time consuming and painful process, The Sourcerer has a solution.  If you’re not getting the results you want using social media as a way to network your company to the talent you require…there is another solution.  Let the candidate come to you and in doing so tell you how interested and qualified he/she is for your position, before you generate your first phone contact.

Interested in knowing more?

After years spent in recruiting for every type of  job from tax accountant to EVP of Manufacturing, The Sourcerer created a software product that allows the user to save all the time previously spent wading through resumes submitted by unqualified candidates.

It’s called an “Inbox Reader” and it lets the user go to a job board, conduct a search using fairly broad criteria and export the candidates that are found.  Once exported, this software can automatically send each person identified, an e-mail invitation to view the details of the available position as well as the reasons why a qualified person would want to consider this opening.

If the candidate is interested, he/she can immediately apply to the company by completing an on-line questionnaire that contains all the criteria the user wants and needs to identify the “right” person for their job.  The user can ask questions about education, work experience, skills and background. In addition the user can ask “Yes”/”No” questions and questions which require text answers that provide additional insight to the candidate’s qualifications and attitudes. (You know, the kinds of questions that you ask during  phone pre-screening calls, which are a pain to make!)

Once the candidate has completed the questionnaire, he/she simply submits their responses.  The software then ranks each candidate’s answers based on the required/desired criteria that the user initially set up.

The “Inbox Reader” is a snap to set up, easy to use and the results will save the user a huge chunk of time with no need to review unqualified applicants.

When a candidate is referred through any of the social media sites, the referral can be sent a URL that will take them to the complete description of the position and give the referral the ability to apply on-line if he/she is interested and qualified.

Using the inbox reader and on-line questionnaire can save a user 60% or more of the cost and time spent using traditional recruiting methods. Just ask The Sourcerer!

Got the Holiday blues?  Too busy at this time of year to even think straight? Aggravated because you’re at work and you have so much to do at home at this time of year?

These are among the problems so many of us have to deal with at this Holiday Season…it can be frustrating and sometimes becomes downright depressing; however, there is a solution the Sourcerer witnessed that will lift the spirits of your employees and help them smile while at work during the Holidays. 

Have a contest…and not just any contest.  Have a contest among your employees to determine who can decorate their workspace the best to express his/her feelings about this time of year.  Limit the amount that can be spent to something reasonable and let your employees vote anonymously on who they think the winner should be.  Or you may want the winner selected by management or a committee of unbiased  support personnel.

Reward the winner with a prize, substantial enough that everyone who decorates will want to win!  Conduct the contest early enough in the Holiday Season so people can enjoy the “temporary” office decor for a number of weeks before  the Holidays are over.

The Sourcerer has observed this contest being conducted and can vouch for the fun it generated and the smiles and good cheer the employees exhibited during and after the contest itself.

If you want to lower the anxiety and stress that can infect your emplopyees at this time of year, initiate a Holiday Decorating Contest and everybody benefits!

There have recently been several key factors that people responsible for recruiting and hiring should consider. Among these is the increasing reluctance of candidates to relocate due to the problems of selling existing properties and buying a new home. To overcome this difficulty, there is an increasing trend toward a “Go Local” strategy when seeking new personnel.  For this strategy to be successful however, the author of a recent article, Jason Warner, says you need to consider the following:

1. Eliminate Past Biases: Many companies will not consider candidates who they have interviewed but declined previously. There is often a strong bias against these candidates, as in, “We interviewed that guy in January, and he wasn’t any good …” Given that most companies don’t have highly refined selection processes; this can be a serious error in strategy. For companies to win, they will need to revisit local talent who they may have interviewed previously for other roles.
2. Don’t Overweight Experience and Technical Skills: It has been proven that experience and technical skills are relatively poor as predictors of success in candidate assessment. Yet most companies routinely overweight years of experience and technical skills through the interview process. Simply review a typical job description and it is clear this is a common selection and assessment error at many companies. A thoughtful question recruiters or recruiting leaders might ask their hiring managers is, “Is it possible for someone with five years of experience to outperform someone with ten years of experience? How is that possible?” Smart recruiting organizations will help their companies select on the portfolio of attributes that drive success in a job, being careful to not overweight less-predictive candidate attributes such as years of experience. Doing so will increase the candidate pool that is available locally.
3. Refine the Strategy by Job Type: Map your talent strategy to the “go local” requirement. Now more than ever, developing internal talent is a smart strategy, as it also correlates to reduced attrition. So for those jobs that can be sourced internally, organizations will be well served by doing so, provided it supports the local search strategy. For example, perhaps some jobs are easily filled with local talent, while others are nearly impossible. Consider combinations of rotation programs and internal development strategies to mitigate the risk of not being able to find the talent that you need in the local market.
4. Measure the Opportunity Cost of Key Vacancies: Although it may seem crazy to pay an extra $100,000 to help a candidate sell their home and relocate, for some jobs the ROI on doing so is well worth it. Understanding the business argument for what jobs might warrant a rich pot of relocation dollars will put you ahead of the game.
5. Adjust Your Marketing Channels to Focus on Local: Now would be a good time to evaluate recruitment marketing spending by media type and channel, keeping in mind that many candidates will have difficulty relocating.
6. Outsmart Your Competitors: Smart companies will quickly recognize that improving the value package offered to employees to attract more local talent carries far greater ROI than buying someone out of their underwater mortgage, or letting a key role in the organization sit vacant. Most companies only respond to post data to improve salaries, bonuses, and related components of the employee value proposition – waiting until attrition spikes to take action, or completing a compensation survey which typically shows data that is 8-12 months old and then taking action. In essence, waiting until the economy is in full swing before increasing salaries or benefits to compete – but that’s too late! Smart companies are responding now to improve their positions in the marketplace before things get hyper-competitive.
7. Keep Your Best: As always, the best local talent often are the strong performers who are already working for your company. But most companies have cut bonuses, reduced merit increases, and kept job promotions to a minimum in order to control costs during recent challenging economic times. According to a recent study, only 25% of high potential employees say they are likely to stay at their current employer. Now is a good time to rethink strategy, and if you haven’t, identify the talent you can’t afford to lose, and make sure they are happy and engaged.

Seattle-based Jason Warner, a principal at Recruiting Toolbox, draws from over 15 years of recruiting and executive leadership experience to help clients improve recruitment strategies, processes, and team capabilities.

The Sourcerer recently saw this story and thought our readers might enjoy it:

It’s a recruiting story about Heartland Payment Systems, a company that has decide to double  the size of its sales force and that’s no small task!    This Princeton, New Jersey-based payments processor has announced that it will hire over 1000 new sales professionals by the end of 2011. 

To fill the jobs, Heartland is relying on an approach to recruiting, assessment and incentives that it has refined over the past decade. That formula has helped Heartland capture the No. 1 spot the past two years on Selling Power magazine’s “50 Best Companies To Sell For Now” list for sales professionals. 

While many employers are meeting new demands with temporary workers or independent contractors, Heartland’s belief is to hire full-time employees.

“It would be less expensive for us to use independent contractors, and that’s certainly common in our industry, but we don’t believe in that and never have,” says Sanford Brown, Heartland’s chief sales officer. “We have a brand to protect.”

Heartland, the fifth largest payments processor in the United States, delivers credit, debit and prepaid card processing and payment services to more than 250,000 business locations nationwide. 

Recruiting more than 1,000 employees for specialized selling positions requires a mix of strategies that fit with the philosophy of hiring full-time workers. Heartland relies on an in-house recruiting team supported by several recruitment process outsourcing, or RPO, providers. The internal recruiting team works across most geographies and job titles.

“We run a grass-roots recruiting organization consisting of sales professionals and managers,” Brown says. “But as we grow, we know we need to remove some of the administrative functions from the sales managers, so we are using a variety of methods for sourcing, including social media and job boards, and we outsource some portions of recruiting. But at the end of the day, it always comes down to the sales managers.”

The sales jobs that the company is attempting to fill do not require a college degree, but candidates must have prior success in selling business products or services.

All candidates take an assessment test. “We looked at standard tests but couldn’t find one that fit,” Brown says. To develop a customized test, the company studied its top 100 and bottom 100 sales professionals and isolated the traits for both.

“We found that sales skills are the least important characteristic for success,” Brown says. “The most important are behavioral traits related to values and motivation.”

The company bases about one-third of the hiring decisions on the assessment test score; one-third on the candidate’s work history, the interview and references; and one-third on the intuition of the sales manager. Brown believes this mix produces solid hiring decisions.

“When we’ve failed, it’s because there was an emotional factor—a marriage breakup or a personal problem, for example—that we didn’t uncover and that created an obstacle to the person’s success,” he says.

 Several identifiable groups account for most of the company’s new hires. Twenty percent are first-generation immigrants. “They are attracted by the huge upside potential and by the fact that this job is more than just a job,” Brown says.

Another key group is former small-business owners. “If you run a small business, you have to be proficient in selling yourself to some extent,” he notes.

Other new hires have been sourced from industries that laid off large numbers of employees during the recession.

“We recruit a lot of business-to-business sales professionals from the insurance and mortgage industries,” Brown says. “And recently we’ve hired salespeople from the pharmaceutical industry, which is in a very sharp downturn. These are highly trained people who simply need a product to sell.”

 The new hires span several age groups: “The first consists of young people with two to four years in the workforce who have seen the good and the bad of sales work and want something better,” Brown says.

The second group consists of people with substantial work experience who want to take a new direction in a second or third career. “A candidate may be someone who has owned their own business for 10 to 15 years and wants to break from those demands,” Brown says.

In addition to meeting the hiring goals for new growth, Heartland must engage in heavy ongoing recruiting to cope with high turnover. Among the company’s sales professionals, turnover is 50 percent in the first year.

“This is higher than we would like to see,” Brown says. “Our goal is to reach a retention rate of two out of three in the first year.” After the first year, turnover drops to 12 percent, and after the third year it falls to 5 percent.  “In other words, if they stay for three years, we have them for life,” Brown says.

The company offers new hires a choice of two compensation plans. One pays employees on a commission-only basis from the first day on the job. “This is our most aggressive compensation structure, and 75 percent of new hires choose it because of the high potential upside,” Brown notes.

The other is a hybrid that pays employees for completing each of four levels in the sales process regardless of whether a sale is made. Employees who select this plan typically migrate to the more aggressive commission-only plan after three to six months on the job, Brown says.

“Sales is all about confidence, and once they gain some confidence, they want to change to the more aggressive plan,” Brown says.

The company’s pay target for new hires at the end of their first year is $70,000 to $75,000 in cash compensation. By the third year, successful sales professionals earn $110,000 to $120,000, Brown says.  Heartland’s sales professionals earn a signing bonus and commission on every sale they make, plus a monthly residual percentage as long as they retain the customer. When sales professionals reach a pre-defined level of success, they can earn stock options through promotions and incentive programs.

 ”Historically, every year we have more than a dozen sales professionals who out-earn the CEO,” Brown says.

If you reflect on the last interview you had with a job candidate, there probably are a few things you heard that you wish you hadn’t. And there probably also are a few things you didn’t say that you wish you might have.

Why is it that attacks of foot-in-mouth disease always seem to occur so often in the midst of candidate interviews? I’m sure applicants’ nerves and interviewing anxiety have a lot to do with it. I also have a feeling that being interviewed makes anyone overly sensitive to any minor errors they may make.

Just picture the candidate who unintentionally answers a question with information that differs slightly from his/her printed resume. As the interviewer, you might never even notice a subtle difference. Meanwhile, the candidate feels himself getting flushed and starting to fumble because he is imagining that the interviewer thinks he’s a deceptive moron. (Note to job candidates: The next time you have an interview, use whatever works for you – thorough preparation, visualization, role-playing, deep breathing, yoga – use that method to get and keep yourself calm.)

Given this potentially “uncomfortable” possibility, a job candidate to feel better, might want to reflect upon the following tales of interview “miss-steps”.  A national staffing service, with offices throughout the United States, regularly gathers gaffes made by job candidates. The company says all the following took place over the last year and all are true.

• After arriving for an early morning interview, a job seeker asked to use the hiring manager’s phone. She then faked a coughing fit as she called in sick to her boss.
• When the hiring manager called the candidate, she asked him to bring several copies of his resume and three references. He called back an hour before the interview and asked to reschedule, saying his references couldn’t come with him to the interview.
• The interviewer asked the candidate to describe his ideal job. His response: “I don’t know…I haven’t had it yet.”
• The job seeker halted the conversation about work hours and the office environment, saying she didn’t like being confined to a building. She said she would consider taking the job if she could move her desk to the courtyard outside.
• When asked about her greatest job skill, the candidate said she was most proud of her computer illiteracy.
• In response to a hiring manager’s offer to answer questions about the position, the job seeker replied, “What happens if I wake up in the morning and don’t feel like coming to work?”
• When asked what motivated him, the job seeker replied, “I’ve got a big house, a big car and a big credit card balance. Pay me a lot and I’ll be happy.”
• When asked what he wanted to be doing in his next position, the job seeker said, “I’ll tell you what I don’t want to be doing – sitting in boring meetings, doing grunt work and having to be nice to people all day long.”

PS: We don’t know for certain, but we believe all the candidates mentioned above did NOT get the positions for which they interviewed!

Asked by a recently promoted department manager to comment on the best way to supervise people reporting to him who are the same age as his parents, The Sourcerer referred to the following article written by a Father-Daughter training team:

Larry Johnson and Meagan Johnson presented a few tips for managers who find themselves in this somewhat daunting position:

Solicit input: This shows that you respect their experience and don’t think you’re better than them. When former CEO Robert Townsend started his remarkable turnaround of Avis Corporation, he conducted a series of morning sessions called “Breakfast with Bob,” where he did nothing but listen to ideas from employee at all levels. Great leaders understand that their strength lies in the wisdom of those who work for them, so they actively tap that wisdom. When managing older employees, trying to be the one who has all the answers is sure to offend them and leave you with a meager source of ideas.

Give credit where credit is due: Late, great Alabama football coach Paul William “Bear” Bryant was once asked to identify the secret to his success. He replied, “If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, then we did it. If anything goes real good, then you did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games.” Like any generation, Gen Xers and baby boomers like to be recognized for their achievements. To the degree you can make that happen, you will reap the rewards of their loyalty and their energies.

Give up your ego: Accept the reality that, for a while, you will be perceived as “just a kid.” You will gain respect by your performance alone.

Find your veteran sergeants: Great leaders surround themselves with advisers who may have wisdom in areas they lack. Making an ally of a baby boomer who holds the respect of the team will do the same for you. It will enhance your credibility with the entire team and give you support when things get rough. Best of all, the baby boomer with whom you build this adviser-advisee relationship will tend to feel more vested in your success and in the success of the group.

Show them what they’re missing out on: Like the WWI song “How You Gonna Keep ‘em Down on the Farm, After They’ve Seen Paree,” this principle is based on the notion that when you’ve experienced the benefits of something new, it’s hard to go back to the old way of doing things. For instance, in an effort to convince employees older than he was to be more customer-oriented, a Gen X car dealership owner contracted to send everyone through the Ritz Carlton new employee orientation, so they could learn how to live the Ritz Carlton mission: Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen. He reported that the biggest changes came from some of the most hard-bitten, baby boomer salesmen who returned to work with a new attitude about serving customers and a willingness to try new approaches that the owner had never seen before.    
    
Taking these steps can help to maximize the productivity and contributions of older employees while they continue to work for you. They are more likely to do so when they see that you’re willing to contribute to their success and give them credit for their work.
 Larry Johnson and Meagan Johnson, a father-daughter team, are the Johnson Training Group and coauthors of Generations Inc. — From Boomers to Linksters, Managing the Conflict between Generations at Work. They are public speakers on the subjects of generations in the workplace, building productive corporate cultures, and other management challenges

A reader recently wrote to The Sourcerer saying “I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of hearing how tough times are and how we should be happy if we’re still gainfully employed.  Well I’m employed, I haven’t had a raise in nearly two years and I’m working like a dog in the hopes that I will keep my job…right now I’m so unhappy that I’m thinking it’s time to look for a new place to work.”

The reader went on to ask what she should do to locate new employment in this time of high unemployment.

Rather than address that reader’s question here, I’d like to address a bigger issue for EVERY employer.  If you think your best people won’t “bail out” during a tough economy, you could be very, VERY wrong! There are always jobs for those who excel at what they do and it’s the responsibility of a smart employer to show those employees that are valued that they are appreciated.

It may be obvious at this time that salary increases and bonus payments when business is depressed may not be possible; however that doesn’t mean you can’t show your appreciation.

 The Sourcerer knows of one company where managers actually hand out big gold stars each month to employees who demonstrate outstanding work habits or exceptional performance. On the final Friday of each month the company has a get together late in the afternoon to blow off steam and to award the employee with the greatest number of gold stars a certificate that lets that employee park in the boss’s space for the next month.  It doesn’t cost a thing and the competition to win that coveted parking spot can get fierce.

 In another example, The Sourcerer knows of a manufacturing company where every month each department selects a representative to attend a luncheon with the company’s President. The purpose of these luncheons is to discuss business events that may be affecting the company and to give these employee representatives a better perspective on where the company is heading for the near future.  They also talk about any specific problems that are impacting the company on a departmental level so solutions can be discussed.

While the employee reps initially displayed some reluctance to talk in front of the President, they are now seeing that their ideas are important to upper management and solutions being offered are being implemented when they make economic sense. In other words, the company is demonstrating that their employees are appreciated.

 The Sourcerer is wondering what, if anything, you have done in this slow economy to show your employees that they are appreciated?

For generations recruiting followed a process that was as much administrative as managerial. When your company had a job opening you either dug out the existing job description or created a new one using the same outline and containing the same types of information like what education, experience and skills you, the employer, required.

Then you posted the job internally, asked for referrals, ran an ad or two, called a third party recruiter if necessary, interviewed, selected the best candidate and extended an offer of employment. Your concerns centered on the elements of cost, time, quality and overall satisfaction.

The last ten years have provided a much more complex problem when it comes to recruiting.  In addition to the four basic measurements listed above, you must now be concerned with new recruiting software alternatives, new screening tools, and applicants who are looking at the job market in a much different way.

The last two decades have produced too many college grads with degrees in Liberal Arts, Political Science or Finance and too few with the credentials needed for engineering and scientific careers.  Top talent in certain key fields has become scarce and is getter scarcer. Those who have highly sought after skills are well aware of their value in today’s market. The approach to snaring top talent is facing considerable change.

Until these changes are made in a company’s approach to recruiting, jobs that require these skills are taking longer to fill. Identifying potential talent that your company needs is becoming harder and harder.

Add to this the pressure generated by corporate issues such as need for faster time-to-market, smarter workforce utilization and the desire of top management for increased company profitability.

Recruiting is facing a “C-change” and the people who work in recruiting must make that change to overcome the challenges of today’s labor market.

 What does this mean to you?

 If you want to locate, identify and attract the best possible candidates for your company you need to explore and understand the alternatives available for recruiting like social media and inbound candidate marketing.  You will need to learn to “sell” candidates on the reasons why they should consider your company.

You will need a Career Site that lays out the features and benefits of the company as well as of each specific job.  Your Career Site needs to present an appealing picture of the company, the reasons why people like working for your company, testimonials from current employees, diversity information and data on alternate career paths within your organization.

To insure that your intake funnel of potential candidates remains vital and that you don’t let a quality person slip through the cracks, you will need to use sophisticated, automated software for collecting and screening applicants This will allow you to concentrate on those who best meet your requirements and will speed your time-to-hire when a need exists.

Candidates must be encouraged to sign-up on your Career Site to receive notification of future job openings as well as news and announcements from your company.  Keeping in touch with interested parties like this can result in future hires or referrals of quality personnel from the candidates registered with you.

When you develop a Twitter and Facebook page you can engage users, easily collect demographic information about those users and ultimately turn your Facebook and Twitter pages into effective recruiting tools. You can offer the ability to click from social media to a landing page that allows an applicant to apply on-line for the position. In addition you can determine how many completed your on-line questionnaire, how many were interviewed and how many were hired.

Recruiting is changing faster than it ever has. Whether small or large, every company in competition for a quality workforce is grappling with these changes.  Those that  meet this challenge head-on will emerge the winners in the competition for the best available talent.