iCIMS Hire Expectations™

Having only joined the iCIMS family in the past two months, my job quest and candidate experience is still fresh in my mind. Applying for jobs can be a tedious project with complicated twists and turns, but as I applied for numerous positions, I was very impressed by iCIMS’ approach to recruiting talent. The application process was simple to follow from the career site, my recruiter kept me informed all throughout the pre-hire process spanning from my phone interview to my job offer. Most significantly I felt engaged from the start with my recruiter seeming excited to share new updates about my progress in the application process. With this level of engagement early on I couldn’t wait to get further into pre-hiring procedures and it made my desire for the position even stronger. The employee engagement process had begun even before I was an employee. This showed me that the  journey to achieving a job plays a large role in setting the tone for how a new hire perceives their position as well as the company they are entering into.

While I had a fantastic experience in landing my job; this is often not the norm for job seekers worldwide. Many applicants face confusing web-based application processes, large gaps of time between hearing from the hiring company during the recruiting process, and overall confusion as to how the candidate time period is structured by the organization. One of the biggest problems that organizations face in the war for talent is creating an engaging employee environment, and beginning an employee’s career with a less than satisfying candidate experience is not helping. According to a recent global survey conducted by Mercer, the number of workers contemplating leaving their current jobs has significantly increased across the world. The problem here is that employees are not feeling valued and are discontent with their overall work environment, but this can be avoided from the very beginning of the employee lifecycle. Rather than playing catch-up when the employee-employer relationship turns ugly, organizations can build a positive relationship in the earliest phases of introduction.

Far before a position turns completely lack luster for an employee, they must go through this initial candidate experience when applying for a position. While most people see the application process as a way for a candidate to make a first impression, this is also a prime opportunity for companies to begin making candidates feel engaged, because some of these applicants will inevitably become new talent. Creating an engaging environment for potential new hires earlier than ever before, as iCIMS did with me, gives the organization a head start on creating a happy staff member. By nurturing the employee relationship from before day one, the chances of a candidate becoming a more motivated, engaged, and satisfied employee are far more likely; and with employees being more engaged everyone wins.

Here are a few tips on how to create the best possible candidate experience:

·         Make it simple: by implementing a best–in-breed applicant tracking system the online application process will be easy and painless. Applicants that get frustrated with faulty online hiring processes are more likely to give up and not complete the required forms and applications.

·         Keep your candidate informed: applying for a job is always nerve racking, by providing the candidate with brief updates during the application process they will feel valued and appreciate your consideration.

·         Be engaging yourself: positivity goes a long way. If a recruiter seems excited about the company the applicant will want to be excited about it as well.

·         Maintain the momentum: don’t stop going the extra mile after the candidate has accepted the job, find creative ways to keep employees engaged during onboarding and throughout their professional career with your organization.

·         Form a lasting relationship: even if the candidate does not receive the position, make sure to contact them and let them know why. Offer them the option to have their resume remain in the system in case another job opportunity arises. By showing the applicant consideration and providing potential to become part of the organization in the future you are giving them the most positive experience possible without receiving a job offer. This is valuable to the recruiter as well because you never know when their qualifications may become most useful.

By incorporating these tips into recruiting procedures your employees will inevitably be more pleased with their pre-hire process, setting the precedent for their long-term image of the organization and raising the bar on their level of engagement. And not only will your workers be smiling each day, but the company will receive fantastic benefits as well, because happier employees mean better business results!

It’s Fall, which means pumpkin spice lattes and TV show premieres.

Many of you probably tuned in to see the premiere of Two and a Half Men. Now I love you, Ashton Kutcher. I believe you were a Calvin Klein underwear model, but you are not believable as a 20-something year old entrepreneur.

This season also includes two new period dramas that feature women in the workplace. Pan Am focuses on pilots and stewardesses working for Pan American World Airways during the 1960s. The Playboy Club is another period drama that centers around the employees (known as Bunnies) of the first Playboy Club in Chicago in 1963.
 
Things have certainly changed. Women today have plenty of options available, and today run some of the world’s best companies, such as PepsiCo, Archer Daniels Midland and W.L. Gore. Women are also entering the workforce in record numbers, and today make up more than half of US professionals. What does this mean for HR? It means that they need to focus on recruiting and retaining female talent.

This year, the Wall Street Journal’s Women in the Economy Conference split off into six career-stage sessions, and came up with four priorities each for dealing with each phase of the career life cycle.

I would like to highlight the four priorities for recruiting:

1. 360 MENTORING: Establish 360-degree mentoring, from the most senior-level executives to entry-level employees. Equip middle management to mentor and coach. Use data to measure mentoring.
2. 21ST-CENTURY WORKPLACE PRACTICES: Highlight the 21st-century workplace to potential hires - meaningful work opportunities, flex time, telecommuting, technology, and work environment. Establish formal policies and responsibilities for innovative practices.
3. FULLY ENGAGE NEW EMPLOYEES: Institute robust, long-term onboarding and engagement. Establish metrics on employee engagement. Recognize new employees as experts of their generation and build business opportunities for their ideas.
4. ACTIVELY RECRUIT WOMEN: Recruit women via social media, on campuses and traditional arenas. Highlight a company's women in its recruiting efforts. Partner with influential stakeholder and educational institutions (as early as elementary school). Communicate with young people about opportunities and options. Offer internships and scholarships.

When I was applying to jobs, I considered whether or not the job was at a workplace that developed female leadership. I looked for an employment brand that showed an appreciation for diversity and a spirit of collaboration.

Women, what drew you to your current place of employment? How much do you let work/life balance influence your career decisions? Should companies offer flex time, telecommuting, or childcare options?

Women bring a complementary skill set to the workplace, and can thus contribute to goal achievement. Recruiters should leverage technology to build a welcoming employment brand, engage female candidates, and connect them with professional mentors. The result will be a pipeline of talented females that can improve ROI.

While I graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology and thoroughly appreciate everything from Calvin to Alexander McQueen, by no means do I consider myself a fashion expert. However, there are some things that I believe should never be worn, especially when we’re talking about the workplace. For instance, a woman should never attend a work related event wearing a scantily clad velvet santa suit. Unfortunately, it’s been done. I saw it in a previous life, prior to joining iCIMS.

Maybe Human Resources forgot to include her on the new hire training schedule or she never got the memo on the corporate dress code. I’d like to give her the benefit of the doubt, but something tells me she would have donned the santa suit either way.

In any case, employee training is essential in workforce and succession planning. While it’s important to train new hires on company policies and procedures (to help avoid the onslaught of inappropriate santa suits), it’s just as important to prepare employees to fill future roles by equipping them with the right tools to successfully grow within the company. With long term planning, organizations can view their workforce holistically and plan for future opportunities.

An article recently featured in People Management, covered a study that was produced by Randstad, a recruitment solutions provider based in the UK. According to the study, employees credited the level of salary, training and development, a good career path and flexible work conditions as the most significant factors when choosing an employer. So, what did employers think would attract talent to stay with a company? Brand, culture and benefits. Looks like there’s quite a disconnect there.

Brian Wilkinson, head of Randstad UK cited, “There is a gap between what organisations think will motivate their key talent to stay with them and what their employees actually say will retain them. The research also showed that a quarter of workers, who are not actively looking, would consider changing employer if something attractive came up.”

With that said, I think it’s safe to say that Training Management and Succession Planning are vital to developing an overall strategy to retain top talent and plan for the future. By creating an organized process, employees can document and build new skill sets to prepare for challenging roles, in turn allowing the organization to proactively prepare for the long term. By building out this process, organizations can help close the gap between what an employee seeks and what they may think is helping to retain and attract top talent.

Whether someone is just beginning a new job or they have been in the same job for an extended period of time, the person's work drive is usually the same (or at least should be): to excel in that position in order to gain positive experience for a future job or promotion. While I do not pretend to be an expert on the subject by any means, I do think that succeeding in a position can boil down to a couple different variables that an employee can control.

1. Work Behavior (attitude)
2. Interest in Work
   
3. Knowledge on the Position

While the first two remain a bit more difficult to alter depending on the work environment as well as the person's willingness to adapt to that company culture, the bottom line is if the person is professional enough then they should be able to work in any environment. (Every company defines professionalism differently; here is a really interesting definition from TechRepublic.com) If the work environment is too negative, well there is little the employee can do to change that and should probably just consider looking for a new job. As for the second variable, the employee must also be flexible enough to learn more about their position so that they can develop an interest if one is not immediately there. If they truly cannot, then once again, they might want to speak to HR about a departmental transfer.

The third one is easy to alter and this is the one I want to focus on. Some people have photographic memories and boy, am I jealous of them. For the rest of us, being exceptionally knowledgeable on a topic requires frequent and thorough reviews of all topics related to their job. What does that mean? Well let’s take you, the HR Professional.  Accessing different educational resources frequently can help develop your professional career. Register at all of the big HR websites to learn the latest HR information. Set up Google Alerts on certain topics so that you will receive information directly into your email account rather than searching for it yourself. Participate in HR Conferences, which will foster knowledge-sharing including insight into what other companies are doing. And so on. Making sure you know what all best-practices may be and implementing them into your HR function is one result of truly having knowledge on the subject. But I have touched upon this in the past already.

Today, I want to talk about an even easier activity that HR Professionals can do to increase their job expertise. Review old, and maybe even rudimentary, HR procedures. When you first started your position however many months/years ago you were challenged with learning all the ins and outs of recruiting, hiring and managing employees quickly so that you could execute your job responsibilities ASAP. So, when was the last time you re-read old training documents or documents associated with your position. Can you explain all of the details of your employee contract? Can you explicitly talk about all compliance procedures? While, some may feel having in depth knowledge on such basic aspects of the job is unnecessary because others can read the information themselves, I disagree. I think a part of what defines an expert is one who can effectively speak on a topic without aides or assistance. What about compliance procedures? When was the last time you read about the in-depth meaning of an I-9 and how it should be stored and how long it should be stored? I’m sure many of you are already experts in your position. So re-reading won’t hurt you. It will just reinforce and help you continue to excel in your position.

So to reiterate - review the basic procedures/documents you learned in your first few weeks of training and CONTINUE to frequently review them.

There are tons of white papers out there to help you remember or reinforce the information you learned so long ago. Here’s a white paper on International Privacy if you want to review. Unless you have that perfect memory, there is no shame in reviewing old topics or learning more about your job position.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, we all want to succeed, but sometimes we don’t know how. Start with the easy variable and become a knowledge center by setting some time aside for reoccurring review sessions.

Given the current state of the economy, jobs are hard to keep and even harder to get. This is a time when a company's training department can come to the rescue. Often times, when layoffs are prevalent, there are fewer employees to do the same amount of work. When these situations occur, the training department must step up and organize frequent training seminars. This is a great way to train a large group of people in a more effective way.

However, some organizations feel that training employees during working hours isn’t always the most efficient way, as it takes away productivity from an already taxed department. But wait, let’s think outside the box! Companies can organize training sessions held before employees must “technically” be at work. With some bagels, juice and coffee, these training sessions turn into breakfast seminars, which can be fun and rewarding for all involved. OR, a company can institute "Lunch-Bag Trainings", where everyone can enjoy a packed lunch while still learning about the company.

Training doesn't always have to be used in times of crisis, either. Frequent trainings should be an important initiative during good economic times as well. Why is this? In correlation with economic improvement, hiring efforts are likely to increase. So, now you have a lot of new recruits eager to get to work, but lacking the knowledge to be efficient. So, what to do? Combining general training sessions with a mentorship program can be a wonderfully effective way to train people, as it gives the new recruit the opportunity to learn about the company as a whole while still having time for specialized departmental training with a member from their own team.

Let's look at an example. In the morning, an HR manager can train a large class on the basics of the company and teach them general tools needed for job completion. Then, in the afternoon, those employees can train with a mentor to either reinforce what was already learned in the morning session or to learn new job-related skills. This seminar and mentorship training method allows your new hire to learn and perform all in the same day. This is an effective way to enable your new recruit to feel confident in their new role, by implementing immediate hands-on learning.

After three to six months, it is important to conduct a survey to analyze the training program's success. This will enable companies to track how successful the program was; what changes need to be made; and what can be improved upon. Although it may be difficult to encompass all suggestions, as different positions call for different training needs, gathering information from your employees is still vital in developing the basics of the company's training program.

However you decide to organize training at your company, a major part of the onboarding process, always remember that this is an employee's first glimpse into working with your organization. Therefore, you should try to make this process as pleasant and rewarding as possible in order to set up your new hire for a successful, productive, and satisfying tenure at your company.