Recruiter Chicks

Please note:  This is a re-post of an article, “Hiring For Keeps – What Does Recruiting Have to Do With Retention?”, that I originally wrote for the Jobsite.com blog , where I am honored to be a regular contributor!

Recruiting is a Business Function

I don’t think anyone who knows me, sees me speak, or reads anything I write would argue the fact that I love the Recruiting Profession. In business, Recruiting is one of the most important functions that ANY of us do — it is the building of our teams, it is how we achieve our goals, our success.  Unless in your work, you only need to count on yourself, a business cannot be successful without doing Recruiting well.  But what does Recruiting have to do with Retention?  I say it has a lot to do with it.

Why Discuss Retention?

Maybe retention is not one of your MBO’s or tied to your fee, but if you want to be the best, if you want to be different from the rest, if you want to last in this industry as the world changes, you should recruit with retention in mind!

What is On the Line? Having “Skin in the Game”

I remember the first time I introduced retention – keeping employees employed with your company – as a performance goal to one of my recruiting teams and they looked at me like I was crazy. I understood their questions — they had no control, they weren’t making hiring decisions, they weren’t managing them or their environment, etc.  The fact is – no one has total control — or as my friend Ed Newman says, hiring is always a crap shoot. But I wanted them to go beyond what other recruiters did – I wanted them to have skin in the game – and that was exactly my purpose.

Recruiters Need to Own their Work.

I talk a lot about how we elevate the Recruiting Profession to match the importance of the function itself. I believe we do that by truly owning it — and by becoming as much a part of the business as the people we are helping to build their teams.  To do that, we have to know the industry, the business, and even the teams — maybe even better than they know (or want to know) themselves. It is not enough to understand the required and desired skills of the job specs and expect to find the right candidate/fit for the role. You also have to go beyond the resume — get to know your applicants and candidates, beyond the check-boxed skill sets. If you take the time, they will often share more with you, the recruiter, than they will with the hiring manager/team, whom they know are the ultimate decision makers.

So, What Does This Have to Do with Retention?

People don’t leave jobs; they leave bosses or companies that don’t fit. There is so much that has to be uncovered to find a fit. You can take an A-player in one company and put them in a similar position in another company and it could be a disaster. Different environment, culture, players, organizational structure, challenges, objectives, performance measures — shall I go on? As a Recruiter, you should know these things about your organization/teams. Do these things align with what the candidate needs or what motivates him? To know all this, one must take the time, be curious, pay attention, listen, ask questions — as well as having the confidence and credibility to advise and consult those who depend upon your expertise.

What Really Matters -

The simple fact is it does not matter if the company thinks the candidate is a perfect fit for them, if the company is not a fit for the candidate — and vice versa. Unfortunately, neither side (jobseeker nor recruiter) usually takes the time to make sure it is a fit on both sides. The Recruiter can play that devil’s advocate or objective party — that person who is not too emotionally (or conveniently) invested in filling the seat or getting the job. I am by no means saying that this is how it happens — I am simply saying that in order to elevate this profession – that is how it should happen. Where there is fit, there is retention – so I ask, why wouldn’t recruiting be relative to retention?

I am starting a new series of posts that I will write on from time to time, that will focus on skills and concepts that I think are the difference makers that define great recruiters.  Sourcing, how we discover and identify potential candidates, is one of those difference makers.  While a whole profession of specialists were born to tackle the challenge of and mystery surrounding the art of data and deep candidate research and identification — the ability to learn these skills as a Recruiter, on any level, is a differentiator for those of us dedicated to finding talent for our companies or clients.

Pic via SourceCon.com and Lance Haun

I find it interesting how many Recruiters and Recruiting Leaders misunderstand, discount, or just plain avoid developing or adding these skills/tools to their “toolboxes” or their teams.  It is tough to write a post on what level of sourcing any Recruiter can and should be doing – or how a Recruiting Leader, should incorporate this function — or this skillset — into their teams.  So much depends on time, budgets, structure, workloads, resources, talent pool, process, etc.  What you can do is educate yourself and then make that determination of what and how to incorporate sourcing into your own process or teams.  You can start by reading (SourceCon – the site or one of the several outstanding sourcing related blogs, such as my personal favorite Boolean Black Belt by Glen Cathey), hiring a Consultant (*smile*), or attending SourceCon – the conference.

The sourcing talent community comes together once again next week in Atlanta, where it all began — for the conference that has come to represent this incredible community of talent — SourceCon Atlanta February 7-8, 2013.  To understand more, I strongly encourage you to read my post, Examining Talent Communities…SourceCon, as well as SourceCon: The Ultimate Talent Community, by my amazing friend and Recruiting Toolbox colleague, Carmen Hudson.  SourceCon, brought to life by the brilliant Leslie O’Connor in 2007, purchased by ERE Media in 2009, is the premier, must-go-to event dedicated to the art and science of recruitment sourcing.

Pic via booleanblackbelt.com

One little gem I will share with all of you is that usually late in the evening after the first day of the conference has ended, there is a bit of a source-a-thon, a show-and-tell if you please, of tactical, hands-on, let’s-get-real exchange of ideas, tips, and sharing that happens called SourceCon After Dark.  This brain child of my dear friend (and genius) Eric Jaquith was meant to be a time to extend the learning beyond the conference and actually put each others ideas, experiences, and things learned into practice — on actual searches people had or brought to the event.  #SourceConAD is free and open to attendees or any Recruiters/Sourcers that are local and just want to participate.  Bringing your laptops and challenging searches makes the event PRICELESS!  Even if you are just open for some great networking, food and bar specials — consider registering for the event in Atlanta ASAP that I, in conjunction with Eric Jaquith and Ronnie Bratcher, will be hosting the evening of Thursday, Febuary 7th at Park Bar, in downtown Atlanta from 9pm =>

While I am giving props and shout outs, let me just take a moment to talk about Park Bar Atlanta…many of you already know that Park Bar and their sister facility, Sidebar, are my go to venues for any after-parties I host after events going on downtown.  Park Bar has great food, craft beers, and an awesome collection of fine bourbons (even Pappy Van Winkle’s *smile*).  We will have appetizers, but go early and have your dinner there too!!  You will not be sorry!

Bottom line if you want to master Recruiting – if you really want to be the best, different from the rest, and really last in this industry as the world changes, you should learn more about the art and science behind Sourcing.  Talent communities, like Sourcing, are nothing without the contributions of the people who make up that community.  You may know of some of this profession’s visionaries, but there are countless others who also contribute.  As I said before, educate yourself…attend events like these to help you learn and incorporate what you can.  Think about contributing the things you find and how you apply them.  And to that end, if you don’t know SourceCon’s wonderful Editor, Lance Haun, make sure he is at the top of your list to meet if you do attend one or both events next week!

Side note:  For those of you looking for a breakfast or brunch option during your Atlanta stay, hit up Babs in Midtown for the best coffee and food EVAH — tell Randy, Havrilla sent you

From time to time, I get the honor and privilege to contribute to one of my personal favorite blogs, HR Bartender – authored by the incomparable and brilliant Sharlyn Lauby.  Sharlyn was one of the first bloggers I ever read and followed — and who I first turned to for advice before I started my own blog.  I love when she publicly answers her readers questions — especially around Recruiting and Job Search — and especially when she reaches out to me to help contribute!!

I recently had the opportunity to do just that -  and as a bonus, collaborating with my friend, Kevin Grossman, an executive at BraveNewTalent, a leading social learning career platform and author of the book, “Tech Job Hunt Handbook”.  For some great advice on the art of the post interview(s) follow up, please check out our contribution, How To: Follow Up After a Job Interview, on the HR Bartender blog — and be sure to add HR Bartender to your Reader if you haven’t already!  You will be better for it

Thanks Sharlyn — as always it was an honor and a privilege to be included in your post — especially with such esteemed company!!

Please feel free to share any advice you have as well – it takes a village

When you look back on your professional, even your personal, life and accomplishments…what was it that you attribute to that success?

Is it actually some kind of skill(s) — or is it how or why you used that skill(s)?  One of my favorite SuperHeroes growing up was Wonder Woman.  She had superhuman strength and combat skills, but what made her different was her compassion and pursuit of justice — and of course, the awesome Golden Lasso of Truth she used so that true justice would be served.

I have an unusual background — people look at my profile or resume and wonder how/why I got from point A (Software Engineer) to point B (Recruiter Chick).  Some think my techy/geeky roots are what give me an edge at what I do.  However, as different as my current and past roles may look, the truth is, there is very little difference in the successes I have achieved.  Simply put, I solve problems.  I have a relentless curiosity about how people and things work — what they are all about, why, and what could/should be different or better.  To me, it’s like a puzzle to put together or solve.  I don’t look at myself as a jack of all trades and a master of none — I see myself as resourceful — able to to find and tap into numerous areas of experience, resources, contacts, network, etc. to get problems solved.

Why is this useful?  These are the things that go beyond the tools or skills you are utilizing, to how you actually perform — how you get results.  As a recruiter, I’m amazed at how much I have had to push people, all the different questions I have to ask, to try and figure this out.  This is where you as a Recruiter should gain — or you as a Candidate should provide — insights into ability to perform and at what level.  Or if this is a career change, how transferable the skills and abilities really are.  As a Recruiter or Interviewer, are you asking the right questions to find this out?  As a Candidate, are you making sure a company knows what makes what you do and how you work special?  This is also a great way to identify/determine if an environment fits how a Candidate works and is motivated.

What is your SuperPower(s)?  I want to hear from you – please share!!

Part 1:  Using Data to Drive Decisions
Part 2: Data vs. Knowledge

As promised, for the final part of this series on elevating or Supersizing your recruiting function, I will step through a past hiring project as a case study on how data and knowledge were used to fund and drive a successful recruiting project.

Let me set the stage.  In consulting, people are your product – so your target headcount number is extremely important to achieve your revenue numbers.  As such, we knew from a recruiting perspective what we needed to hire above our current headcount number to achieve our planned book of business.  However, we also had a group of third party consultants that were being subbed on projects to cover increased demand for services – which offered us an opportunity save $2M YOY in costs that affected our margins – direct $’s to the bottom line — if we replaced them with full time employees.  And of course we still had to cover attrition that had occurred or would likely occur during this process.  Lastly, we didn’t have a lot of time to do it.  Shocker, I know.

Our Exec came fully prepared, and even expecting, to have to pay costly third party fees to achieve this goal – especially a very hard to find skill set — in a very tight time frame.  My job at this point is to tell them if this “project” was doable, what it would take, and what it would cost.  Guessing should not be an option – and it doesn’t need to be.  The data doesn’t lie – and I needed it to not only give me these answers, but to help me tell the story.  This is business – I can’t rely on guesses, my credibility, my charm, or even my good looks (*smile*).

Armed with my “story”, I demonstrated what we needed to invest and where – and where/how our recruiters time should be spent.  I also looked at all types of data, metrics, and measures and derived knowledge around how to make the process better and faster, more effective and efficient, and provide on target, higher quality candidates.  Things like:

• Job profiling workshops with hiring teams to create an agreed upon profile (by all involved) for recruiting as well as the assessment criteria, for which all parties would be held accountable.  No finding out at interview debriefs what they were really seeking (and increasing time to fill)…
• Baseline interview training for all interviewers  (understanding assessment criteria and how to use interview process to make informed decisions)
• Pre-screening questions (knockout, rankings)
• Behavioral assessment testing to gain predictive data and insights into candidates behavioral tendencies and motivations to be used with our profile
• Pre-scheduled and staffed interview dates and debriefs
• Predefined offer approval and delivery process (if certain candidate process scores and salary ranges were met – boom)
• I looked at source data for “quality” candidates (Tech-screened – meaning a manager reviewed/selected –to hired; Performance)

And not just how the “Sources” (Boards, Referrals, Direct Sourcing, Agencies, internals, candidate pools, pipelines, etc.) performed, but what their capabilities were — and what opportunities there were to make them perform better too.

This is business intelligence 101 – its not just a history lesson – it is decision support.  This is how the plan was formulated and sold.  I admit, they were skeptical – our leadership, and frankly, I think even the recruiters — but I had the data to help me tell my story.  I am not going to show you the data as it is lengthy — and proprietary — but the story it told me was:

1. Search our database and push a personalized email out to selected candidates telling them a little bit about our opportunity and why it might be of interest to them – inviting them to read more via a link to the job on our website.
2. Purchase a “national” job posting on our highest performing job board.  We used carefully crafted verbiage based on messaging geared to the profile of people we were seeking and utilizing high performing keywords we extracted from job board vendor data – also based on the “ideal candidate profile”.  The national scope of the posting – while very costly – allowed for our job to appear where appropriate — regardless of location searched by prospective candidates.  It was still about the same, maybe even a touch less, as one agency fee.
3. Hold a special “hot skill” referral contest for this profile/role only

These three things were geared to drive candidates from our top sources for this role – Employee Referrals and yes, Job Boards (or really just one particular job board in this case).  But most importantly, our own database — which represented no one particular source, but was obviously a huge pool of previously identified talent that already had knowledge of or interest in our organization.

To cover ourselves with any particular doubters, we did also open the search with two of our valued vendor partners.  I was fully comfortable that in this case, based on the data we had (historical, market, capabilities, etc.), that it would not make much of an impact on our recruiters, for redundant efforts or candidate duplication.  We had a vendor portal that they could submit their candidates through, which did a dupe check of our database immediately.  If a candidate was already in there, it would not allow the candidate to be submitted – and we would be none the wiser – eliminating any potential conflict over how a candidate was surfaced.  As it turned out, they were not even a factor.

In each of these cases the candidates were directed to our website to apply – which also had brief screening questions – to help aid the recruiters prioritize the candidates to be reviewed and ultimately screened as appropriate…

As active or “motivated” candidates came in from these marketing efforts, our recruiters could focus on screening them.  Then use the searches they set up initially for the ATS  marketing effort, to focus on direct calls to the hottest candidates surfaced.  This process can also be repeated within Linkedin, referrals, and other sourced candidates.  Using the process we outlined above to get the candidates through the process, we knocked this project out of the park — on time and under budget.  We were able to do what we set out to do, achieving the results we predicted the way we predicted being able to do it.  We met our book of business and saved the company $2M YOY direct to the bottom line.

The success of that project, along with many others, demonstrated our ability to go beyond being order-takers, facilitating butts in seats — such as

Hiring projects and programs
Workforce planning
Succession planning and executive hiring
Talent management/career development
Due diligence during M&A projects and merger integration projects
Scouting new office locations – domestic and global (talent market conditions, availability, trends)

…even determining product lines to offshore.  How can Recruiting know what product could be done in a particular location(s)?  By knowing how many we could realistically hire based on our bandwidth, budget — and the availability of talent, at what we were willing to pay, and other outside factors such as brand awareness in the marketplace.  If you want to elevate –  collect the dots, connect the dots — tell stories with your data, your knowledge — and help drive the business forward.