iCIMS Hire Expectations™

The year 2011 has been quite an adventure for me. To date, I graduated college in May, landed my first professional job in August, and coincidentally, found two new passions of mine in September. I’m sure if you read the title of my post, you were already able to figure out that my passions landed in recruiting and fantasy football. I spend every Monday-Friday at my office, but on Sundays, I am glued to about 10 different TV screens routing on my fantasy football players. Now, you ask, what can HR recruiting teach us about fantasy football? The answers are endless.

1. The Draft: If you are a fantasy football guru, you were probably planning for the 2011 Fantasy Draft since you were born, and your knowledge well encompasses the past 10+ NFL seasons. Yes, I am being a little over the top, but still, somewhat serious so that you see my point. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for me. My NFL knowledge was slim to none until about 9 weeks ago. Instead, what I had to do was try to cram as much information about the players and teams on a shortlist as possible. I searched numerous websites, blogs, and magazines. All while thinking, wouldn’t it be nice if there was one system that could give me all of the best information I needed? This made me think of an applicant tracking system.  For recruiters, those who have an ATS find it much easier to look for the best talent. They can post to social media sites, track which candidates meet the job profile with screening questions, and so much more. If fantasy football had an ATS, I could easily track my offensive players, kickers, team defenses, and ultimately, where the best talent can be found. Bottom Line: use the best resources to find the most qualified talent.


2. Players on a Bye:  Isn’t it awesome when a running back (or any player for that matter) consistently puts up 20+ points every week?  You find yourself extremely happy until his bye week comes, and then, you scramble to find someone on your bench or the waiver wire that can help you match up. Same idea occurs when you are trying to find the right candidate to fill a key leadership position in your company. Recruiters can use succession planning to ensure their team or company still performs. After all, you can’t put in Shonn Greene (NYJ), and expect him to perform anywhere near the level that Fred Jackson (BUF) has been performing this season. Bottom Line: be prepared for the future.


3. Trade Time: If you have Aaron Rodgers (GB) as your starting quarterback, it’s safe to say you won’t be getting rid of him anytime soon (and I won’t lie, I envy you). However, if you have an above average QB on your bench such as Cam Newton (CAR), he will serve up a large amount of trade bait. What does this mean? Put Newton up on the trade block and see what you can get to improve the rest of your starting offense! Managing the players you have is so important, and recruiters know that for sure! They can use an employee data management solution to manage their entire workforce effectively. Time and money is precious, don’t you agree? That following Sunday will come before you know, and the best thing you can do is know what you need, and what measures you can take to get there. Bottom line: manage effectively.

Well there you have it! Men, I hate to break it to you, but if a woman can have a 6-2 record and be in the top 2 spots every week, it’s probably not because she’s the most sports-knowledgeable one in the league. I may have the luck factor on my side, but what really worked for me is that I found the best talent, planned ahead, and managed my team effectively. I took the strategies that recruiters should use every day, and it’s paying off for me.  Now, if only I could have that Talent Platform to keep track of my players, I could rest easy until the end of the season!

If 2009 was the year of doom and gloom, it looks like 2010 might just be the year of cheer and sunshine. OK, maybe that’s a bit overboard - but some good news does seem to be on the horizon. Take this article from inc.com for example, which looked at the hiring and salary numbers for small businesses in December of 2009 and came back with some pretty encouraging news.

“According to the SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard, hiring is up 0.8 percent month over month -- that's the greatest month-over-month hiring increase we've seen since February '08. That brings us to a year-to-date increase of 3.4 percent...and more of the month-over-month hiring increase is made up of employees and not contractors.”

So what does this mean for 2010? Optimism. 

“In a late December survey, two-thirds of SurePayroll customers indicated that they predict their revenues will be up in 2010, and the same number feel good enough to say they believe the economy will get better in the New Year. Now that we're seeing more hiring, we should see more spending, and so an upward cycle can begin.” 

This is obviously great news. We rely on the vitality of small businesses.  As the United States Department of Labor points out, “The nation’s 17 million small, non-farm businesses constituted 99.7 percent of all employers, employed 52 percent of private workforce and accounted for 51 percent of the nation’s sales.”

So what are these small businesses doing to prepare for an uptick in hiring? Good question. Hopefully they have begun to consider talent acquisition systems – which would help in the sourcing and recruiting of new hires. And taking it a step further, hopefully some of these small businesses have begun to think of their talent management processes holistically, and so will look for a talent management system that can automate and streamline their processes from start to finish – managing candidates to managing employees. Viewing the entire talent management process in such a holistic sense would mean greater efficiencies and cost-savings, with such processes as applicant tracking, performance management and employee data management all housed within one, cohesive system. With any luck, that will equate into even more hiring and that much more success for said small businesses.

So what are we waiting for? Bring on the optimism!