iCIMS Hire Expectations™

According to a Generation Y and Facebook study done by Millennial Branding and Identified, “Owner” is the fifth most popular job title for Gen-Y on their Facebook profiles. Setting aside this subset of individuals who own their own business and focusing on those who enter the broader workforce, this study also showed that Generation Y spends an average of just over 2 years at their first job and job hops multiple times over the course of their career.

For organizations that focus recruitment efforts on the 18-29’ers of Gen Y, this can be a rough stat to digest. Given the translated cost of effort, time, and money that’s put into ramping up new hires, a continuously revolving door can result in a rough ROI and wreak havoc on employee morale.

Interesting enough, the Wynhurst Group stated that 22% of staff turnover is going to happen during the first forty-five days of employment. Fortunately, there is something that can be done to help improve those stats and simultaneously boost future performance of your employee base – implement a formal onboarding process.

When employees are processed through a formal onboarding process, they are more likely to stay with an organization for a longer period of time. Just like anything that’s new, it’s best to ensure that new hires are comfortable and understand their role in the organization and how they can make an impact. While providing the opportunity to deeply understand the bigger picture is important, we all know that there are a ton of tactical tasks and paperwork that go into onboarding a new hire that can make or break their experience with your company.

So, how do you manage all of those tasks?

The good news is that you have plenty of options. There are plenty of tools available to HR organizations that are looking for ways to smooth out the process of executing an onboarding program. Onboarding technology can assist in ensuring processes are followed and provide additional insight into where bottlenecks may consistently be occurring. With a solid onboarding process plan in place, onboarding software can take your results to the next level by formalizing your process and providing the team with a consistent set of steps that can be used to provide new hires with what they need to succeed. It’s consistency that’s going to drive your results.

By 2025, Generation Y will make up 75% of the workforce. Engage these potential job hoppers at the beginning of their journey with you, and convert them for the long haul. The returns will come in time, and your options for driving these results are endless – providing you with an opportunity to have some fun and showcase what’s so great about your company. A little creativity mixed with a formal process can go a long way, leaving your job hoppers with lots of reasons why they should stay, instead of go. 

Many will say that there is nothing more important to an organization’s success than a unified mission and a strong corporate cuture. It is what drives an organization to reach for common goals, and helps individuals to understand how they fit and contribute in the grand scheme of things. While this is of course true, the same rule applies for companies that look to partner with one another. It is essential that partnering companies not only have complimentary products, but also a mission and culture that are in tune with one another. Knowing this, iCIMS and NetSuite recently identified the opportunity to team-up with one another to deliver increased value to their clients and prospects.

With this partnership, NetSuite will be able to refer their clients to iCIMS so NetSuite can drive further “stickiness” with its client base and have a more competitive offering to prospects.  As part of the partnership, iCIMS will integrate to NetSuite’s ERP so that NetSuite customers will be able to transition their candidate and new hire data from iCIMS directly.

Both are organizations driven by their dedication to customer service and ease of use. Coming from these similar roots, they know how to deliver results expected by experienced SaaS users. On top of that, they have been focused on the SMB market and view SaaS and IT architecture in similar vanes – both offer Java based software in a true cloud environment, leveraging configuration, rather than customization, to tailor solutions for customers.  They are also growing incredibly fast as the need for both ERP and Talent Acqustion Software is becoming an accepted fact among businesses today.

The recently released announcement of the partnership speaks to the commonalities between them, as well as the excitement on both sides about what this new partnership will mean for clients and prospects alike. Guido Haarmans, Vice President Developer Programs at NetSuite said; “I am excited to announce this new partnership with iCIMS. They have proved themselves to be a superior player in the talent acquisition field, recognized for having a robust, scalable, and easy to use platform that provides a candidate and user experience that is second to none. It was the combination of these features, and their reputation for renowned customer service and support that made iCIMS the obvious choice to be NetSuite’s first commercial partner in its space.” While Ron Kasner, Chief Corporate Development Officer at iCIMS said; “We are both aggressively growing SaaS solution providers, committed to providing leading edge technology that can easily and affordably scale to meet the needs of any sized organization. Given these synergies, along with a similar company culture built around customer orientation, the alliance between iCIMS and NetSuite is a natural fit.” With the two organizations already on the same page in terms of culture and vision, one can only imagine what lies ahead for the increased functionality for their users.

To read the full press release, go to new section on iCIMS website or click here.

I’m afraid to say that the rising internet technology has spoiled us into thinking all we have to do is ‘Google it’ to get the answer to our questions. While this may be true for finding out where to get the best cheesecake or how to lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks, there are still some answers that cannot be found so simply. Every day, HR professionals are trying to learn more about HR software, but unfortunately, they just don’t know where to look. And, while many of these people are aware of what HR software is, there are still too many other questions left unanswered.

‘Why should I implement HR technology when I haven’t in the past?’
‘Which features are most important in an applicant tracking system?’
‘What is a reasonable price for my size company to spend on HR software?’ and most importantly…
‘Which vendor is right for me?’

These are a just a few of the many questions that come to mind when inquiring about HR technology, but where do you go to find these answers? Sure, you can call different vendors and inquire about each one separately, but how do you know you are getting bias-free answers with your company’s best interest in mind?

Many HR Professionals are taking this matter into their own hands and using various social media websites to find their answers. Websites such as LinkedIn and Recruiter.com that have boards for questions and answers are great for neutral answers. Most people are leveraging the answer boards to receive feedback and suggestions from other users who have HR needs similar to your own. Most people who have had either an excellent or horrific experience using HR technology are eager to share their opinions and advice with others. By doing this, recruiters and hiring managers are gaining bias-free answers and also networking and contacting these people for any other HR software questions.

Another advantage of using social media outlets to ask questions is that they generally provide quick turnaround. With LinkedIn having over 100 million members, Facebook having over 150 million active members and Twitter having about 2.5 million members, there is a good chance that your question will get noticed by someone who has the experience to give you a valuable answer.  Here’s an example of someone on LinkedIn who was looking for feedback on the iCIMS Talent platform and received 8 responses from iCIMS clients who had experience implementing and using the system.

Joining recruiting websites is another way to get your HR answers. Recruiters and hiring managers alike are joining websites such as ERE.net in order to stay informed on top HR technology news and join community groups with topics that interest you. For example, one informative community group on ERE.net is ‘ATS Implementation’. In this group, contributors “discuss all aspects [of ATS implementation] from vendor selection to ‘Going Live,’ best practices, and all the issues associated with adding an ATS to recruiting function.” Even without writing questions or posts of your own, simply reading through other questions can give you insight and answer questions you hadn’t thought of.
    
Although these social media sites can facilitate the evaluation process, it is also essential to identify your own specific needs. What sort of processes do you need to incorporate into your ATS? Make sure the vendor you choose is configurable enough to meet those needs. Need more help? Check out this ATS Handbook Whitepaper that can help you find the perfect HR solution for your company!

Today's guest blog post comes to you from Ron Kasner, iCIMS' Chief Corporate Development Officer. Ron has leadership responsibility for corporate strategy and development, business process improvement, and legal affairs.

A little over one month ago, I attended the 13th Annual HR Technology Conference & Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. As the Chief Corporate Development Officer here at iCIMS, it was an excellent opportunity to hear directly from hundreds of HR professionals (mostly high-level), technology vendors, and analysts.

What I immediately noticed is that it seemed every other booth was somehow involved in one way or another in Talent Management. Either they engaged in talent management directly or were an ancillary product. In fact, many of the companies that were not in the space before, now are – well, at least from a marketing perspective. Unfortunately, that means a very crowded, convoluted market for those truly interested in and in need of a talent management solution. As a result, I personally found the need to truly dig into the “real” capabilities of various talent management vendors.

Luckily, I found many visitors to iCIMS’ booth doing the same. The people visiting our booth generally already knew about the functionality iCIMS and other technology vendors are offering, and subsequently knew what features they need out of a system. What was made clear to me is that ATS functionality alone isn’t enough; these professionals are interested in the total package – not only the complete HR system, but the entire customer experience.

HR professionals, especially those working for small and mid-sized companies, wanted talent management software beyond the traditional ATS. They wanted a solution that would drive their entire HR program from recruitment and onboarding to performance and training management. Finding one system that can support those needs is no longer a bonus, but a requirement.

Many people appeared to truly recognize that the right functionality is pointless without the right people to implement it, support it, maintain it, and enhance it. They asked many probing questions about our company history, growth, and future, as well as, how we service and benefit clients, and what we do to ensure a great transition to and experience with iCIMS. A handful of people shared some poor past experiences with other vendors, including long, costly implementations, confusing product navigation, limited configurability, inadequate training, and slow responsiveness to issues.

Candidly, this put me in a very good position to respond. iCIMS has over a decade of experience in delivering talent management Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). We have over 850 customers, the 2nd largest number of customers in the talent acquisition market, with one of the highest customer retention rates in the industry. Not only have we been recognized by Inc. Magazine and Deloitte for our growth in the industry, but we’re also one of the most profitable vendors in the market. We have the only “pure” SaaS offering, with the most vast configuration capabilities. We also provide free, unlimited storage of candidate, employee, hiring manager, and job profiles. In addition, we offer free, unlimited email and toll-free support, training webinars, and learning materials.

From a customer’s perspective, this means we can provide one of the quickest implementation times, at one of the lowest implementation costs. This not only translates into a lower overall investment, but a faster return on investment as well. This also means superior usability and greater flexibility, driving more user adoption. This translates into a greater return on investment.

While I admit these conferences are good for seeing what competitors are doing or what technology partnerships can be made, I think the most important takeaway is the information and feedback received from the HR professionals, themselves. This may just be my two cents, but in order to be the best in the business, it is essential to provide what your clients need and not just what competitors are doing. These conferences give vendors the opportunity to hear what prospects want and what trends seem to be steering the HR industry. It will be interesting to see which technology vendors were listening…

Lately I’ve been speaking with a lot of industry experts, partners and clients regarding integrated recruitment and performance management; specifically on which data points are most beneficial to bring together to get the most value out of the combined areas of talent management.

Because of these recent conversations, I was interested to read Jayson Saba from Aberdeen’s latest research: Talent Management in Healthcare. While talent management means many different things to different people, much of this report touched upon bringing together recruitment, onboarding, succession, performance and competency management.

Aberdeen highlighted how top performing organizations execute talent management strategies to improve employee engagement. The criteria Aberdeen used to determine best in class vs industry average vs laggard organizations include:

·          Hiring the top choice candidate – as a result of engaging talent during sourcing & clearly communicating the brand of the organization

·          Time to fill: linking hiring manager satisfaction and recruitment efficiency

·          Employee performance: how well the organization links individual performance to organizational objectives

I was interested to see how much emphasis was placed on recruitment in this study. I think part of this is due to setting appropriate expectations during the recruiting process, as well as the tools an integrated talent management platform offers to bring a lot of these metrics together. Outside of the technology there are of course other ways that organizations can consistently engage candidates, new hires and employees about their expected results and how those contributions roll up to higher level organizational objectives. One of our clients has even suggested using a performance evaluation as the primary guide during the selection process; essentially providing a crystal clear look at what an employee will be measured upon as opposed to simply reading a job description and a few bullet points.

I won’t spoil the results for you, but do encourage you to take a look at the research and share your thoughts on this blog. You can access a complimentary copy of the report here.