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improve recruiting Archives - SourceMatch

Mar 26
1
stand out with candidates

How can your Organization and Recruiters Stand out with Candidates?

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We present 4 key points about how your organization and recruiters can stand out with candidates:

1. Feedback. Offering constant feedback.
Once you have received an application, as a recruiter there is only one thing candidates expect, and sometimes keeps them waiting forever. There are at least two scenarios:
When candidates are not a good fit and recruiters forget about their resumes. From thousands of applications on the table or desktop software, the recruiter’s job is to find the perfect match for the position. But what about all the other candidates? Those who don’t make the cut and thus don’t move forward, also deserve an answer.
When you’ve already had an interview with a candidate, they will be waiting for an answer. If you tell them that they should hear from you, and to wait for your call or email, but won’t give them a specific date but rather a vague timeframe (i.e. “in the next few weeks”). When nothing happens weeks later and the position might have been filled, the other candidate’s know nothing. They might be in the process for more than the job with your company, so that leaves them with uncertainty, especially when they have hopes! In both situations, the recruiter’s feedback and response are what shows your candidates that you treat them as people, and not as pieces of paper.

We encourage candidates to pay attention to those hiring companies that keep them posted even when they have to give bad news. That is a result of a good culture that focuses on people and the importance of long-term impact within and outside the organization.

2. Being a good listener.
It will bring many benefits both to the job seeker and the client. When a recruiter listens to what the other parties have to say, he will understand what their needs are. It is said that good communication starts with listening. Communication is not just about how much we talk and what we say. When a recruiter starts working with a new hiring manager, she must not advise, diagnose, or assume anything before having understood their context, plans, and expectations. Use probing questions, quantify expectations as much as possible, verbalize objectives and ask for confirmation of the same understanding. A good listener will be able to reflect on what is being said and restate the message using the same or very similar words. For instance, this is especially useful to discuss the meaning of terms that might have slightly different definition in a client’s organization (i.e. sourced candidate as in prospective – “we have their resumes and they contain the basic qualifications”, or as in “we have their resumes, they qualify on paper, and we’ve talked to the candidates and they’ve already confirmed interest”).
Be ready to invite the hiring manager to speak as much as they can about the position beyond the words of the job description by asking open-ended questions, listening, and asking additional probing questions when needed.

3. Marketing and sales skills.
A professional recruiter will always know how to market and promote the services, knowledge, job opportunities and expertise in an effective way so that both clients and candidates are entirely satisfied with the process and outcome. Hence why understanding the key mechanism of marketing and sales is important: match a need with a solution where everyone has something to win. Recruiters must sharpen their selling skills if they hope to have any relevant results. A recruiter will stand out if she manages to develop a partnership with the client rather than just being a simple vendor.

Most recruiters will approach the recruiting process as merely transactional. They are provided with a job requisition, they post the job ad on known job boards, they search the database for matches and so on and so forth. In other words a simple equation with a few variables and a result. Instead of this shallow approach, recruiters can first start by asking one simple question: “what makes an employee successful in the client’s organization?” In other words: what are those traits that helped new hires to be productive, to grow int he role, to be fully committed and engaged? Same goes for vetting candidates. Recruiters should never settle for a resume or vague interview questions and answer. Validate their skills and experience through probing questions, assessments and add the depth of information that hiring managers need for sounds hiring decisions.

This is why whether talking about the client organization or candidates, there’s no one size fits all. Rather, recruiters need to craft their recruiting strategy and approach to candidates in a way that validates and compares both a role’s requirements and candidates’ complex profiles. Give context to each role by emphasizing the story that goes with it, including aspects such as vision, culture, challenges, opportunities, professional and personal development, etc.. Inspire people and bring emotion. That will help candidates you are interacting with, to think about all the facets of the position you are presenting to them, so the can decide whether they are a fit or not.

4. Relationship building.
We must not forget that recruiting at its foundation is about being able to connect with others. Recruiters should be natural connectors of people. That is why a recruiter must be active on social media and in real life. They interact with many people and should easily connect with everyone. The easiest way to connect with people is by building trust, which only comes with speaking the truth and being straight forward, and non-confrontational. Don’t oversell your ability to recruit to your clients, and don’t oversell a job to your candidate’s. Keeping that balance helps to develop the right relationship on both ends of an outstanding recruitment process: a consultant for both clients and candidates.

In the end, it comes down to an organization’s not-so-hidden agenda when hiring people: “How do we develop the right recruiting strategy so that both candidates and ourselves win?”
At SourceMatch, we take joy and satisfaction in assisting our clients with this process that creates value long term, not just short term!

Mar 22
1

Measuring Recruiting Performance

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Our new Infographic reveals recruiting performance statistics based on a 2018 report by Zogby Analytics (commissioned by Jobvite) in which over 850 hiring professionals were surveyed.
What are the most important success metrics for recruiters, or the biggest bottlenecks in the recruitment processes? How about the biggest challenges they face, or the top investments recruiters believe are essential for growing an employer brand?

Top success metrics
31% of the recruiters surveyed argued that the quality of hire is the most important metric for success to be achieved, while retention rate has a 23% rate, time-to-hire – 21% and cost per hire – 7%.
The quality of hire (candidates are a great match for the role they are recommended for) remains the most important, and that is why at SourceMatch, we have the right processes and work with the most effective solution for every situation to make sure we deliver an added value to your company, which is greater than the cost of recruiting.

Biggest bottleneck to recruiting
The relationship between recruiters and hiring managers can still be improved, as recruiters (50%) admit that working with hiring managers – waiting for them to move candidates through the hiring process or (44%) to review resumes, is the biggest obstacle when it comes to a smooth and sailing recruiting process. Candidates don’t know what’s going on and will many times consider responsiveness through the hiring process as an indication of how they will be treated as employees.

Biggest challenges in hiring
Again, the most important factor in hiring is the quality of new hires. And the biggest challenges recruiters face is the lack of skilled and candidates, voted by 67% of surveyed recruiters, followed by 52% that claim it’s the intense competition, and 36% believe it’s the lack of budget. It’s crucial to understand the market before assuming that the requirements of positions are realistic. When talent is scarce, either you pay the price for that or factor that in and adjust requirements and build in the rest of the requirements into training and development.

Top investments for growing an employer brand
What are the areas that you need to refocus your attention on in order to grow your employer brand? 47% of votes highlighted Social Media, followed by Company Career Website and only 12% – Advertising. When it comes to Social Media, the most-used channel for recruitment efforts is LinkedIn when trying to reach candidates, with 77%, followed by Facebook – with 63%.

Eventually, no one single measure will have a dramatic immediate effect. However, if you choose a few of them and consistently focus on doing what your brand says you do, then the market will see you walk the talk!

What are the most important success metrics for you? Let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

Feb 13
1
recruiters and hiring managers

Recruiters and Hiring Managers. Connection and Disruption in the Recruiting Process

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Recruitment: a plus or a minus
One of the important functions of a solid business is the Human Resources department. It deals with aspects such as compensation, benefits, new employees, recruiting, training, organizational development, and culture. It is also meant to act as an adviser to senior staff, providing clarity regarding the impact of their operational, financial and performance planning on people. However, the topic of recruitment attracts considerable attention in most organizations. It is estimated that U.S employers spent in recent years no less than an average of $140 billion annually on recruitment activities. The recruiting process has a direct impact on an organization’s bottom line. Those organizations that excel at it, experience 3.5 times more revenue growth and twice the profit margin as opposed to all other employers who will rather see recruitment as an expense due to the lack of return on investment.

Recruitment is about one common objective
We know that hiring the right employee for the right job isn’t easy and hiring them at the right time can be even more challenging. Employers have the power to decide which type of people they want to hire and what strategic message they’re sending to reach the targeted professionals. Done poorly, an organization’s recruitment efforts will generate job applicants that are unqualified and will miss the highly qualified ones because they were unaware of a job opening. Whether we talk about an organization’s senior management, hiring managers, or recruiters, they all have different expectations when they think about recruiting. Senior management thinks in terms of strategy, growth, and bottom line. Hiring managers will focus on tactics and short to mid-term projects goals. Recruiters will think in terms of identifying possible candidates, assessing their skills, behavioral and cultural fit, as well as making the tight deadlines that come with growth. Despite their apparently different expectations, all stakeholders active in their organization’s recruitment process have one objective: getting the right people on board.

Do your homework
Among the most important factors influencing the recruiting process is the hiring manager’s perception of the candidates that are being presented by the recruiter. Even within the same organization, the hiring managers are the recruiter’s clients. This is why an evaluation of how well recruiters serve the hiring managers’ interests and needs is required.

Here are a few reasons that will lead to the failure of the recruiting process:
a) Recruiters don’t have a good understanding of the type of candidate that hiring managers require;
b) The recruitment process takes too long;
c) Recruiters forget to keep hiring managers updated on the status of the recruitment process;
d) The intense use of the e-mail by the recruiter;
e) No interaction with the hiring manager and lack of proactivity.

Some of these might be the result of poor communications between hiring managers and recruiters. Others may be caused by the fact that hiring managers are unclear about what they need in a new hire. A slow process can be caused by not acting quickly when it comes to reviewing job applications and scheduling interviews. To avoid all these obstacles, recruiters must work directly and closely with the hiring managers to develop a list with realistic expectations for each job opening. The recruiter should take time to understand what the hiring manager appreciates most about the people who are currently doing well in their team. Looking at the current team members and what made them a good fit is useful to determine both tangible and intangible factors influencing the recruitment and hiring processes.

Communication is key
It’s estimated that 80% of recruiters think they understand the requirements of the jobs for which they recruit, and only 39% of hiring managers agree with it. Such a disconnect is detrimental to all parties involved in the recruitment process and can lead to a loss of time and money.
Recruiters are responsible to educate the hiring managers on whether expectations are realistic when correlated with the labor market.
Recruiters should always keep the hiring manager updated about how things are progressing throughout the process and ask for information rather than wait for the hiring manager to contact them. On the contrary, recruiters ought to focus on creating a collaborative process in which all parties are aware of the hiring status, and can at any time connect to the company’s applicant tracking system for most recent updates. Technology has made communication much more accessible and streamlined through smart recruiting software applications that are synchronized across all available platforms.

Recruitment strategies and processes
By communicating the right values ​​in your job advertisements to properly on-board candidates, the recruitment strategies you use can make or break the hiring process. Here are some that you should try.

Your brand is important
Probably the most important element in attracting, hiring and retaining talent is Branding, and it’s the most difficult. In fact, 72% of recruiting leaders around the world agree that branding has a significant impact on employment.
Having a strong employer brand is a great way to attract great applicants. However, it is not easy, it requires a significant investment of time and money.

Introducing an employee recommendation system
Unlike employer branding, starting a program that helps identify potential new hires does not cost you much and can get you results pretty quickly. Here are some benefits that come with this kind of initiative: lower recruitment costs, reach professionals that otherwise might not have applied for your openings, shorter timeframes to fill positions, and in essence less money spent on hiring.

Don’t neglect the passive candidates
Passive candidates can be a real treasure if you take the right approach to reach out to them. Note that most of them don’t have an updated resume or aren’t motivated to apply. The good news is that an estimated 85% of the workforce would gladly change their job for better opportunities. It’s all about portraying them in a way that’s transparent and detailed enough to determine a response.

Focus on publishing an accurate job description
Make sure your job ads are proofread, double-checked and accurate. If you are trying to find the right candidates for your job offer, It’s important that their first impression of your organization and digital presence is a good one.

Improve your job interview
According to LinkedIn research, 83% of candidates had a negative experience during an interview and most wouldn’t have applied for the job had they known. To avoid bad interview experiences ensure that your candidates receive all the information they need about the role, that they’re asked meaningful questions, and that interviewers show genuine interest in understanding their career.

Conclusion
We all are aware of the fact that the world of recruiting is growing rapidly, and while these strategies are helpful this year, it’s very probable that in the years to come these might not be trending anymore. Keep learning, researching and adopting new ways to attract the best talent in the market, since people are key to a company’s ability to thrive among competitors! At the same time, not all these recruitment strategies will work the same for all companies. Our advice, in order to advance your hiring process, try, improve and customize them, and adjust them to your organization’s needs.

May 08
2

How CATS Improves the SourceMatch Recruiting Experience

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Technology plays a crucial role in advancing efficiency and financial results. According to the 2017 North American Staffing & Recruiting Trends Report, technology adoption is unsurprisingly high: 64% of North American staffing firms use an applicant tracking system (ATS) to track candidate activity and 60% use a customer relationship management (CRM) system for business development. Recruiters want to work smart, not harder. At SourceMatch, it’s this philosophy why we use CATS as our applicant tracking system for all of our recruiting processes.

CATS helps us save time, organize better and structure our recruitment operations in little time. When one of our clients needs 5 new hires in the management department within a short time frame, we trust the automation CATS provides to hire the right people in an efficient manner.

The recruitment workflow in CATS is streamlined and helps us shorten the time it takes from receiving an order to presenting the hiring manager with the best candidates – a huge benefit in the recruiting industry. It’s easy to track and manage candidates through the recruiting process so that team members can see the most up-to-date statuses and quickly move forward with the next interview, the offer, or whatever the next step in the process is.

Thanks to its user-friendly interface, custom dashboards, and numerous integration options, CATS quickly becomes something that just makes sense to us (including our new hires). When we do have a question, we can rely on CATS’ support team for the assistance we need, when we need it.

Many recruiters work on a regular basis with Excel or Google Sheets. Though these do work for simplistic tasks (detailing project status, defining task types, etc.), they lack the intuition of software built for recruiters. CATS is customizable through workflow optimization, job orders dashboard and many more productivity and analytics features. CATS also post your jobs on several job boards (free and some paid) which helps with attracting talent. It is a software built by recruiters, for recruiters, and it shows.

Recruiting has its challenges, but the fact that each experience is different in and of itself helps us improve and become better at what we do. Our experience taught us that regardless of the type of work we are doing, we must always use the right tools in order to succeed. For SourceMatch, CATS is not only the right tool, but it’s also the applicant tracking system we recommend to anyone for their hiring needs.

Nov 09
0
outsourcing can be a good thing

Outsourcing and its Alter ego (hint: Frugal Innovation)

By | Blog, Future of work, Recruiting | No Comments

Perhaps one of the leading misconceptions about outsourcing is that a company that outsources needs to cut the jobs of current employees. For sure, there are instances where we see that happening. But that is a result of a flawed mindset deriving from an early stage of outsourcing history where increasing the margins (for the sake of profit) was the only purpose. It works, but it’s short-sighted.

Outsourcing done right has a lot to do with frugal innovation. Navi Radjou coined the term and defined it as a mindset exhibited by individuals and organizations that strive to do more and better, with less. Most managers will translate this: “Ah, I need to cut costs while keeping the same revenues level.” Contrary to this understanding, frugal innovation rather translates to “How can I maintain my current level of expenditure while increasing the efficiency of output and revenues?” In other words, how can I increase value to my customers, while at the same time not spending more towards that purpose?

Outsourcing is undergoing a shift in mindset

This switches the angle from which managers look at outsourcing: it becomes a strategic decision (i.e. from cost-cutting to cost saving). The outsourcing partner comes in to complement an existing organization, and act as an extension of its teams in order to tackle larger projects or peaks in demand. Besides bringing in raw capacity, the outsourcing partner will contribute (if selected well) with a strong focus on end results, since their business with that organization depends on it.

stark-lightbulb

But let’s take a step back and think through the model of frugal innovation. Without any doubt, it’s quite easy to find a solution by spending a lot of capital (especially if it’s available and this seems like a good cause, right?!). However easy that may be, it actually drives down innovation and creativity (since most likely an existing solution will be chosen, one that can be bought off the shelf). While taking the decision to outsource is a step forward, it’s hardly the only one you need to take. The other critical step in reaching higher levels of value is the innovation process through which old practices and processes are entirely re-thought or upgraded. That puts the outsourcing partner (and whether they like it or not, the organization as well) in a tight spot that doesn’t allow for any status quo such as using piles of cash as a safety net. As Renault-Nissan Group CEO Carlos Ghosn once said “In the West, when we face huge problems and we lack resources, we tend to give up (too) easily. Frugal Innovation is about never giving up!”

The lesson from emerging markets

Although frugal innovation has been associated more than often with emerging markets (and for good reasons), more and more organizations in developed economies are considering this mindset because of the rising consciousness that resources are limited (i.e. see the Skills Gap for human resources or fossil fuels). The last economic crisis that swept many western markets off their feet has contributed towards that same consciousness.

stark-grinder

Outsourcing based on that mindset is probably one of the soundest decisions that an organization can make (where applicable, see the organization’s core or niche specialty capabilities that represent its trade secret), especially because of its sometimes harsh but healthy side effect: it enables that same organization to innovate faster, better, and cheaper (without giving up on any of the three). All of which are quintessential to success in the New Economy where capital takes the back seat, while talent drives.

Here’s a challenge that takes you out of the comfort zone, out of a profit-only or damage control mindset. What will you do?

Oct 05
0

Why Should any Service Provider care About your Business?

By | Blog, Future of work, Leadership, Recruiting | No Comments

1. You don’t like outsourcing providers, here’s why

In today’s marketplace outsourcing has lost its attractiveness and benefits as a strategic decision. That is mainly due to a lack of business fit between the client and the provider of services. Not only those expectations are rarely met, but apathy becomes the status quo throughout the delivery of each process. Providers are merely fulfilling a job description which significantly shakes the client’s interest in a long terms relationship.

2. They’re missing the point

The key to this uncomfortable and unfortunately costly situation is neither a tighter legal framework, tighter control, more experts on the provider’s side, or revamped performance metrics. It all comes down to the provider’s understanding of the client’s vision, mission, objectives, values, and organizational culture. This can only occur when both the client and provider invest effort into more than a buy-sell relationship: a partnership.

3. Walking the extra mile is not old-fashioned

In such a context, the provider steps into a role of responsibility focused on acting as an extension of the client’s team. This role requires to care for more than what’s agreed within the service level agreement: walking the extra mile. That means taking initiative in building the success of the client’s activities, collaborating with genuine interest, and consistently delivering quality and performance despite business complexities.

4. Seeing the big picture without leaving the premises

At the same time, the provider ought to carefully and objectively analyze the client’s processes, as a result of their constant focus on added value. Within the lifetime of such a partnership, changes will occur in the client’s processes and tools with results such as increased standardization, automation of certain service stages, higher autonomy on non-recurrent projects, and deeper knowledge of products/services.

5. Start with the right tactical steps

Either you are already scaling up or just beginning to think about growth, outsourcing is a strategic decision that can give you the required boost, and doesn’t need to be a nightmare. Clear cut expectations, strategies, and degree of communication will help you lay out the essential platform to a successful outsourcing partnership.

What are your thoughts about outsourcing? What has been your experience? What was it that made your outsourcing relationship work?