iCIMS Hire Expectations™

The first impression a new hire has of a company is based on their experiences from the date they accept an offer to the first couple weeks of employment.  New employment is a HUGE deal and often becomes the conversation starter for most individuals.  How many times after you inform a close friend or family member about your new position did you hear, “How is your new job?”  Most often, the answer to this question is formulated based a person’s experiences during the first few weeks of training (also known as onboarding). The answer might not be so positive if a person spends the first week with no computer and fills out paperwork. However, a much different impression can be made if they are able to get right down to business and learn their new role with other employee and manager engagement.

Engagement begins the moment the new hire accepts a position with an organization.  Seamless integration with the recruitment process should allow the organization to create the employee profile, assign tasks, and send a personalized welcome e-mail that introduces the new hire to the company and lets them feel engaged prior to their first day of employment.  Ideally, new hires should be organized and segmented based on new hire characteristics.  A centralized theme for their onboarding process can be based on their location, job type, or department just to name a few.  Each theme should create a personalized experience that can include department videos, informational documents or introductions to management or other employees.

The ability to completely personalize the new hire experience is the key to success for the retention of each new hire.  Each new hire should be treated like a top level executive that the organization could not continue without.  Personalized messaging, images, and videos centralized to the theme of their department, location, job type etc. can help create this positive perception.  In addition, tasks required to complete the process should be targeted to the new hire and ONLY what that specific new hire is required to complete.

A task can be anything from an online W4 Form to instructions for the IT department as to what equipment is needed for the new hire.  Keep in mind that new hires are not the only ones required to complete paperwork and tasks before starting, there are internal stakeholders involved in the onboarding process as well.  Allowing these stakeholders to access the information they need to complete their required task as well as creating a simple way for them to communicate back to the process owner that it is complete is extremely important. Task progress by the new hire and internal stakeholders should drive the process from one step to the next. Transparency and consistency in communication between all parties gets the onboarding process done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

I strongly believe that decreasing the new hire time to productivity while providing them with a great first impression to the organization is an easy way to ensure strong employee engagement and retention.  A great onboarding experience not only provides efficiency gain, but will also create positive word of mouth and perception for any organization. Who knows, maybe even employee referrals will go up!

When you think of recruiting in retail, you need to think about customer experience first. The entire success of a well-oiled retail machine comes down to the shopping experience. Of course, price, product and store location are parts of the equation, but nothing beats a great customer experience. Unfortunately, for brick and mortar business, recruiting is extremely challenging. High employee turnover, which means that many employees leave voluntarily, can reach 100% is some cases. In fact, the department of labor reported that 570,000 separations took place in the retail sector during September 2010; which is insane! As you can imagine, there are many reasons for such turn: pay, management, job duties, etc.  So right now you may be saying “Poor HR;" not so fast! The real pain is felt with the VP of Store Operations.

The VP of Store Operations wears many hats. Ultimately, their job is to carry out the strategies formulated by the CEO to meet corporate goals. There are many KPI’s that help determine whether or not a store is passing or failing, which falls directly on the VP of Store Operations. The largest metric is Same Store Sales. Same-store sales is a business term which refers to the difference of revenue generated by a retail chain's existing stores over a certain period (often a fiscal quarter or a particular shopping season), compared to an identical period in the past (usually in the previous year). Most of the positive or negative impact of this metric relies on the staff at the store level. For instance, higher average purchases and/or more frequent customer visits; cross selling into a broader product range or upselling to more expensive ones cannot happen without a great team. Now you know why staffing keeps the VP of Operations up at night more than anyone else.

So the next question is what can be done? The good news is that Talent Leaders within this sector are forward thinking and constantly preparing for this scenario.  Obviously, the most common strategy is to have evergreen positions posted everywhere your budget allows. I know the argument here is quality vs. quantity. I’m a big believer in this case, the more candidates, the better. We have also seen in-store kiosks work and now the emergence of social media will certainly help get the word out. In my humble opinion, I firmly believe a strong employer brand is the most important component when it comes to store recruiting. Most people may not view retail as a career path, so to be able to communicate the company’s image as seen through the eyes of its associates to potential hires will ultimately determine success. Since many customers can qualify as potential employees, I think a task force comprised of Internal Marketing (those chasing customers) and Talent Acquisition (those chasing candidates) is the perfect combination to deliver the perfect message. After all, no customers, no sales….no staff, no store experience.

The intent of the HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) initiative is to provide a standardized survey instrument and data collection methodology for measuring patients' perspectives on hospital care. This initiative in healthcare recruiting has become an essential part of our hiring practice. If ever there was a time to hardwire a culture of excellent patient care—to ensure that your organization is meeting its mission, protecting its bottom line, and enhancing its reputation—that time has clearly arrived.

Identifying the right skill set is not always the most important factor in hiring the right candidate. What is important is asking if this candidate will fit into one’s culture. Will they change the way a patient receives care?  Identifying the right behaviors that attribute to higher HCAHPS scores become the challenge today. Competences like ‘compassion, adaptability, multi-tasking, and flexibility’ are important behaviors to evaluate for HCAHPS, especially when it comes to nursing candidates.

The Studer Group released an article on “Four Reasons Why Those 27 Survey Questions Will Change Healthcare Forever.”

• HCAHPS provides accurate “apples to apples” metrics.

• Results are tied to quality and clinical outcomes.

• It gives consumers an easy way to compare hospitals.

• HCAHPS pay-for-performance is coming

Identifying these competencies allow a recruiter to screen candidates in a way that hiring managers will understand the true value you deliver to them during an interview process. Hospitals need employees who understand the importance of patient centric care.

To be at your best as a top Healthcare recruiter, you must understand how to impact the HCAHPs scores indirectly. Here are a few bullets to help link these together.

•  Take the time to learn what is measured. 

•  Know your organizations scores and where you are falling short. 

•    During your candidate screening, ensure you are asking questions that revolve around specific survey questions. For example: How do you treat patients with courtesy and respect? Give me examples of how you’ve changed your communication style depending on the patient/situation? How do you explain medications and treatment to patients and their families?

•  Communicate your strategy to peers, hiring managers, and executives

•  Always share your success

The question now lies, how will HCAHPS scores transform the way you select top talent? 

I was recently chatting with some HR professionals regarding the age-old question over whether active or passive candidates are better recruits. In my opinion, the recruiters preferring passive won the debate. Their argument was simply a matter of control. Sourcing for passive candidates puts the recruiter in the driver’s seat as they look for candidates with specific experience and/or skill sets.

Obviously there were other reasons why recruiters prefer passive candidates, but this was the most compelling (and the idea that prompted this post). When one realizes the value of recruiting passive candidates, the question becomes how to find the best passive candidates with the least time investment. Applying most sourcing methods, recruiters are rummaging through resumes on major job boards or spending hours searching LinkedIn.  These methods are great, but not necessarily efficient when resumes are old or potential candidates do not reply.

What’s the best way to find the strongest passive candidates, you ask? That is a great question with a very simple answer… compile and then source from your own talent pool of ‘warm’ candidates.

So, how does one compile and source their ‘own’ pool of warm candidates beyond searching LinkedIn contacts?

To answer this, let’s start by defining warm candidates. A warm candidate is, at the very least, aware of your company’s employment brand.  It is pretty obvious that the most efficient use of your time will be to focus on the warm candidates rather than pursuing those who are just not interested. You must keep in mind, LinkedIn contacts are not necessarily warm passive candidates by this definition. 

Keeping your talent pool warm is a little like dating. Your talent pool is your ‘little black book’. But, just because a person is in the little black book, it is not a guarantee that they will remember you. To keep candidates warm, you must stay in contact with them. Drop them a line every once in a while and show them the best of your employment brand through some old fashion marketing nurture campaigns. Basically, ‘date’ them.

The next step is to compile a talent pool full of warm candidates. How does one accomplish that? First, consider all the candidates that are already in your ATS. Perhaps, they were not a good match in the past, but maybe as time has gone by their skills or education have advanced. These candidates have expressed interest in the past and therefore they are warm candidates.

In addition to what you already have in your ATS, you absolutely must open the door wide to new talent.  To do this, your company’s career page should encourage potential candidates to submit their information even when jobs matching the candidate’s skills are not currently available.  Next, consider all those people you meet at job fairs, networking, and career development events. Even if you don’t have openings that match their skills right now, you will eventually. Any time you meet someone that seems to possess talents, skills, or experience that may eventually be useful to you, take the opportunity to talk up your employment brand (without being too much like an overly aggressive recruiter) and ask to exchange contact information, just in case.

To further develop your talent pool, encourage current employees to recommend friends or former colleagues based on talents. Make sure that current employees understand that you are interested in more than just who is currently looking for a job – you want traits, talent, and passion vs. simple availability. For example, ask employees, “who do you know that that has great project management or communication skills?” That will get the employee thinking more broadly. 
 
In short, there is a lot you can do to compile and source from your own pool of warm talent. The most important factors are simply this:  First, allow interested parties to send their resume or contact information to you – even when you are not actively recruiting their particular skill/experience. Finally, when the warm candidates start coming in – keep them warm by recommending opportunities or simply showcasing your brand. The biggest mistake a sourcing pro can make is to let talent slip through their fingers because they are not thinking in terms of future recruiting needs.

It’s that season again when the fall colors are on display. In addition to the typical autumnal oranges and yellows, this year – being an election year – also offers plenty of red, white, and blue. At the end of the season, we are left with both raking up the leaves and removing our political opinions from our front yards.

As the news media and other organizations vet the candidates’ history and experience, we are left to decide what is important and what can be ignored. Although the type of information and the origin is different for political candidates than it is for employee candidates, what is similar is the challenge of effectively processing what you hear, see and believe. Unlike the political process, in the world of human resources HR professionals have to deal with the employment law, EEOC guidance, I-9 verification, etc. Employers should first consider the EEOC guidance when reviewing background check information that could be used to make a negative hiring decision. Here are a few things employers should keep in mind when analyzing a candidate’s background check:

1.The facts or circumstances surrounding the offense or conduct.
2.The number of offenses for which the individual was convicted.
3.Older age at the time of conviction, or release from prison.
4.Evidence that the individual performed the same type of work, post-conviction with the same or a different employer, with no known incidents of criminal conduct.
5.The length and consistency of employment history before and after the offense or conduct. 
6.Rehabilitation efforts, e.g., education/training. 
7.Employment or character references and any other information regarding fitness for the particular position
8.Whether the individual is bonded under a federal, state, or local bonding program

Although the EEOC guidelines can be viewed as another hurdle for the HR professional it does not need to suspend pragmatic thinking. As a matter of fact, adjudication tools to assist a company with these steps are now standard in the industry.

Now back to the political season. Wouldn’t it be great if our political polls used the same red, yellow and green process we typically see in the workplace?

Well maybe extravaganza is the wrong word, but perhaps it isn’t too far off.  On 27 September, UK Recruiter is hosting a Recruitment Software and Innovative Technologies Showcase event for HR in-house and agency recruiters to help them find the best tool to bring their recruitment to the next level. Well, the timing couldn’t be better!

According to Financial Times, UK employment is the strongest it has been in nearly four years. The article states that employment showed strong growth, with the level up 236,000 on the quarter to 29.56m, which is the largest quarterly rise seen in the past two years. While the Olympics did contribute to that increase, some economists feel that the growth was still an improvement in the long run.

As we all know, positive employment rates often translate into more vacancies! If the number of vacancies increases – it’s time for recruiters to get to work. In order to recruit effectively and efficiently, recruiters need to ensure that their processes are in tip-top shape so time-to-fill and quality-of-hire can be optimized when positions need to be filled. Without proper procedures in place, these two metrics will suffer tremendously. The best way to do this is to automate the manual processes that contribute to inefficiencies within the department.

Now, let’s get back to information about the event on 27 September. If you are a recruiter looking to optimize processes by automating time-consuming tasks, you should definitely attend this event. As an attendee, you will learn about products from many technology companies in order to find the solution that fits your needs. And, don’t forget to check out iCIMS. Search for the banner full of birds!

Last week, iCIMS formally announced a new and exciting partnership with Workopolis, the largest online recruitment provider in Canada. Each time the company enters into a partner relationship with any outside vendor much thought and consideration is put into how clients will be impacted. With the Workopolis decision, iCIMS saw this vendor as an ideal candidate to work alongside based on the shared values that both companies are committed to delivering including ease-of-use, flexibility, and scalability. The alignment is particularly fitting as both organizations successfully serve companies of all sizes, from small businesses to enterprise clients.

Now, let’s discuss how everyone will benefit from this relationship! First, iCIMS will now be able to leverage the power of the Workopolis brand in Canada, with Workopolis becoming the exclusive Canadian distributor of the iCIMS Talent Platform and its related solutions and services. To bring this arrangement full circle for Workopolis, the iCIMS Talent Platform will replace the existing “1.0” ATS that is currently being provided to Workopolis customers. Both iCIMS and Workopolis are capitalizing on one another’s best-of-breed abilities to take their individual organizations to the next level.  iCIMS will be more visible in the Canadian marketplace and Workopolis will obtain the innovative 2.0 talent acquisition functionality that the company needs to ensure that customers can stay ahead of the competition in the war for top talent. Both organizations are receiving a boost to their credibility as leaders in the talent acquisition world.

While each company is greatly anticipating what the future will hold as the two recruitment technology experts join forces, let’s not forget about the clients. Now that iCIMS will be providing products to larger number of Canadian clients, the company is creating a Canadian data center. Additionally, iCIMS is in the process of establishing French language support. Furthermore, existing customers will be seeing tighter integrations between the iCIMS’ Talent Platform and Workopolis Jobs.

Overall, this partnership was put in place as a way for each company to utilize the other’s strengths and allow them to continue providing a best-of-breed experience to clients. For more information regarding iCIMS’ partnership with Workopolis, please click here to read the press release.

The customer is always right – especially when it comes to what they want to see in the product they use every day. In this case that product is the iCIMS Talent Platform, and iCIMS has always been committed to taking our clients ideas and feedback, and turning them into our newest features. While our annual surveys, client user groups, Product Experience Panel, and daily interactions with clients help us garner an idea of our clients are looking for, iCIMS has also created the Customer Advisory Council (CAC) – a two day conference held each year where an elite group of clients get together with the iCIMS team to discuss ideas and improvements for the system as well as upcoming trends in HR.

This Monday, September 10th marks the start of iCIMS’ 9th Annual Customer Advisory Council . The CAC gives us the ability to work face to face with both everyday users in the system and their executives to not only hear what new features they would like to see, but also things that they feel might not be working to their full potential. It’s a simple, proactive way to keep a pulse on how clients are using the system, ways that we can better the user and candidate experience, and share with our clients where iCIMS is headed as a company.

This year’s CAC is slated to allow for even more free flowing conversation between clients and iCIMS employees. With the largest CAC head count to date, new conference tracks, smaller break-out sessions, and one-on-one meetings all being hosted at iCIMS’ brand new HQ in Matawan NJ, we can’t wait to see the feedback we gain!

We may not be proud of it, but even the best of us get hooked on really bad reality TV shows. Most recently I found myself glued to Remodeled – a show that stars modeling industry veteran Paul Fisher, who’s planning to bring together hundreds of small modeling agencies around the world in a new venture called The Network.  His mission is to make sure modeling agents in small towns see success and empower models in their careers. 

In the last episode Paul ventured to Columbus, Ohio to bring an outdated family run agency into the 21st century and embrace high fashion. At the end of the episode, the agency in Ohio went from looking like a family room to a high fashion agency space with the help of a little reimaging and improved process.

You’re probably wondering where I’m going with this – but there was something distinct that caught my eye that’s translatable in so many facets of business – including HR. Being successful in carving out an image for your company involves gaining control and understanding the image you want to project to gain the talent you need. On top of your image, it’s the processes you put in place that help maintain the image. Together, this helps support the employer brand in a way that’s not just skin deep.

While we may not be in the industry of finding the next Cindy Crawford, we are in the business of finding top talent and like it or not – the image your organization projects on the World Wide Web speaks volumes of what it’s like to work at your company. With mobile technology use continuing to rise, candidates can easily gather information on what it’s like to work at your company either through blogs, forums, or directly from you.

The good news is that you can leverage technology to ensure that the image and communications you want to project make their way to the right people. Using applicant tracking software supported with tools like search engine optimization and social distribution, your company can get to the right audience and increase the depth of your networks with word of mouth referrals.  As new hires are brought onboard, onboarding software can help reinforce a standard process and your message, while ensuring you remind the new recruit of why they decided to join your organization.

While Paul of Remodeled may not be scheduled to visit your headquarters in the near future, it’s always good practice to reevaluate processes and ensure you’re effective and deliberate in projecting your employer brand to both candidates and new recruits. With so many tools available to help serve as a vehicle for your message and to reinforce the bones behind it – it’s up to you to take the first steps and discover the possibilities!

Last week, I came across an article from Tech Cocktail which gave some great advice on how to hire top talent for your startup. Oftentimes, startups are overlooked in the topic of recruitment; a fact that I find to be pretty misleading when it comes to highlighting both the importance of this issue, and the reality of how invested startups tend to be in the war for talent. After all, recruiting the best possible employees is arguably one of the most important factors in determining the success or failure of a startup company. Without the talent to back it up, even the most revolutionary idea will not succeed.

So, when there are literally thousands of startups out there, how do you make sure yours stands out? How do you separate yourself from the pack and identify your company as the one worth working for, aside from offering killer incentives or building a tree house as part of your corporate office? As I read the list of tips in the article, I realized that they were not only great ideas, but every single one could be accomplished simply and efficiently using an Applicant Tracking System. Technology to the rescue!

Here’s a run-down of Tech Cocktail’s comprehensive list of pointers, infused with some of my insight on how recruitment software can optimize any startup’s strategy for undertaking each piece of advice:

Establish yourself as a great employer: The more applicant-friendly and immersive your recruitment process is, the more impressive your company will seem. Choose technology that will make your job openings easily accessible online, and then ensure candidates know that they are valued through professional, timely communications. ATS software can send automated emails at each step of the recruitment process for you, without looking like an impersonal mass-email.

Know the position: Job templates make fine-tuning your messaging for each of your open positions a breeze. Determine exactly what skills and requirements would make a candidate a great fit for each job, and then distribute the descriptions to your career site and job boards with one click. It’s also important to know what you don’t want in a candidate, making hot-matching tools and automated screening questions just as vital to your process.

Get existing employees involved: Employee referrals are an invaluable resource in the world of recruitment.  Specialized employee career sites and the ability to network through employee social networks makes it easy for employees to stay informed on what positions you’re recruiting for and how they can help.

Utilize social media: Not only can you use an ATS to post jobs to social media sites and make employee referrals a breeze, but you can also greatly simplify the application process for candidates by allowing them to pre-populate their applicant information using their social media profiles.

Get out of the office: Need access to your system while you’re networking at events and career fairs? Many recruitment software providers are answering the call for mobile-friendly technology, making use of your system on-the-go both simple and effective. 

Place value on culture: Highlight your company’s values, current employees, and a glimpse into a day in the life of your startup with media-rich career sites. The right ATS can simultaneously turn your website into a powerful recruiting tool and utilize your brand to engage applicants and immerse them in your company culture.

Understand which techniques work for you: You can’t take advantage of the recruitment strategies that provide your company with the best results without analyzing your efforts. Tracking applicant data in an automated database can put powerful, personalized reports at your fingertips so you can optimize your processes.

The moral of the story is that applicant tracking software is not just for sizeable, established companies. The key to startup recruitment success is combining these great recruitment strategies with automated, user-friendly tools that bring them to life without exhausting your resources. Incorporate recruitment software as part of your startup’s recruitment initiative, and you’ll have an influx of qualified, eager applicants in no time.