Posted by Cabot Jaffee on Tue, Jan 24, 2012 @ 02:55 PM
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1) Social Hiring is fast becoming the leading source for talent, supplanting “headhunters”, consultants and job boards. In the near future, most leads for talent will come from “Extended Referrals” as employee referrals will extend beyond employees to include company’s alumnus, employees’ alumnus’s, creating an “extended social network” expanding the reach of a company by 100 times.
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2) The majority of passive job seekers are finding jobs through the Social Hiring route vs. job boards and consultants combined.
3) Social Hiring applications will become the platform of choice for candidates as they provide higher privacy to candidates vs. posting resumes on job boards. Candidates will become more empowered “customers”. Job prospects will have increased access to jobs and more information on those jobs, salary and benefits, and the companies they’re evaluating.
4) Facebook will become the dominant talent sourcing social media platform, followed by LinkedIn and perhaps Google Plus thus replacing job boards.
5) Social Hiring Applications (SHAs) (built on social media platforms) are the most efficient (submission per fill) and cost effective channel for generating talent leads, seeking and engaging with your talent community in a private and secure fashion.
6) Job boards will have to reinvent themselves to define value for their customers, both in terms of quality and financial cost. Recruitment companies will have to become more quality focused versus throwing resumes at clients hoping some will stick.
7) Companies that empower their employees (through Social Hiring Technology and exciting referral marketing programs and rewards) will win the war for talent.
8) Talent Acquisition Managers will talk about recruitment becoming a profit center vs. cost center as Social Hiring Technology will generate significant savings in hiring costs.
9) Companies will start getting rated by their candidate community about their hiring process and culture, and this information will be made available to future candidates through the same application.
10) Smaller companies will have the same access to referrals because of extended referral networks.
For more information on social hiring, please download our latest whitepaper, The Role of Social Media in Finding and Hiring the Right Talent, or contact us to discuss this topic . In addition, check out AlignMark’s newest product in the social hiring space—leveraging the employee referral networks and Facebook.
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Posted by Cabot Jaffee on Wed, Nov 09, 2011 @ 01:26 PM
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Social media marketing isn't the only thing on the rise these days--so is social media recruiting. It's not surprising considering how successful social media marketing can be for businesses with a few well-planned strategies in mind. Why not apply that same social technology towards recruiting new Gen Web talent?
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There are a plethora of strategies for social media recruiting, but let's focus on the five that will have the greatest ROI for a company in terms of Gen Web recruitment:
- Support existing traditional strategies--don't replace them!
It's not cost-effective to completely overhaul an existing hiring system that has working components. Job boards aren't obsolete--they're another piece of the puzzle. Recognize the differences between traditional and social media recruiting and the advantages to each. Job boards give a broad spectrum of talent--social media hones that selection.
- Branding is key.
A brand matters just as much for sales as it does for finding fresh talent. Having a positive brand in social media circles attracts driven employees. How many top programmers are looking at smaller, unknown tech firms when Google or Facebook are offering cutting-edge jobs on the same boards? Social media can allow companies to see trends in targeted workforce interests to brand themselves as an enticing counter-offer to the recruiting competition.
- Social Media Recruiting is more than micro-blogging.
Gen Web's: viewing photos and videos, reading blogs, listening to music, and much, much more--but it's sharing all of this through integrated social media networks. A multi-platform strategy is needed to access these channels and navigate the wealth of candidate data. Company blogging alone won't bring successful, long-term employees that drive sales for a business.
- You might not be hiring--but social media is!
Traditional recruitment campaigns are a lot of work and investment that take serious time to find the right candidates--and then they end. The advantage of maintaining a strong social media presence is passive recruitment. A company may not be hiring, but social media allows recruiters to keep a working organic database of Gen Web candidates for when it's ready.
- Current employees are integral to a campaign.
Leverage the clout of current employees in the social media realm. Convince them to support their company in their own social networks and actively participate in their company's own social media interactions. Public employee opinions resonate with Gen Web as a trustworthy company assessment when looking for employment opportunities.
Posted by Cabot Jaffee on Mon, Oct 24, 2011 @ 10:14 AM
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Five Steps to Hiring Better Salespeople
Traditional hiring methods aren’t enough anymore. Especially when it comes to recruitment and selection of salespeople, you need to find the right overall match for your company. Ability and past experience are good, but equally important is the potential to thrive in your business environment.
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A holistic approach is essential in today’s complex and rapidly-changing business environment. And a more fully integrated process will enable you to achieve profitable, long-term results.
1. Use all the tools available
Hiring is essentially marketing. You want to attract the most promising prospects, but to close the sale you have to sell your company as a desirable workplace. Limiting your search or failing to promote your company as a great place to work could cause you to miss out on someone truly special.
Use every avenue to find prospects. Savvy professionals are online, and social media can be an effective means of inbound recruiting. Even your own employees can be valuable recruiters.
You can’t “just tell” if someone is the right choice. Well-planned recruitment, selection and sales assessment strategies create a comprehensive process that will assure a higher success rate. Incorporating technology and online tools into your application procedures refines the winnowing process, assessing knowledge and competency but also key personal traits and values that best fit your company.
2. You need a plan and specific processes
In effect, recruitment and selection are a matter of data management. Using all available tools to optimize that process and streamline your procedures will give you the most compelling results. Since you’re hiring a “whole person,” base your plan on company goals and culture as well as job-specific requirements.
Pre-screening tools and skills testing, especially things like specialized sales assessment, can provide the greatest insight regarding each applicant’s relevant abilities and likely success. Assessments generate factual data and ameliorate the inherent subjectivity of the hiring process, and even many “fit” characteristics can actually be measured. Using predictive analysis to evaluate information enables you to see more clearly which individuals will probably succeed in your organization. Personal interviews allow you to drill down even more.
A strategic recruitment and selection plan can save time for recruiters and avoid inadvertently overlooking great candidates.
3. Create a talent plan
Think of it as “asset management.” A targeted employee development program supports corporate as well as hiring success by identifying specific talent needs, including key sales-related competencies. High-performing salespeople have several common characteristics you’ll want to look for in new people, because hiring the right salesperson can give your company strategic and tactical advantages in addition to generating revenue and profit.
Inventory talents available within your current staff, identify gaps that should be filled as well as future needs, and create a dashboard to track assessment and performance.
4. Build on what you have
Keep the good ones, and work to make them better. People-centric companies generally perform better, so include staff in thinking and planning.
Treat prospective employees well, too. Failure to appropriately communicate with applicants can damage your reputation and brand, your workplace allure.
5. Measure success
Every company defines “success” differently. Knowing which skills and personalities blend best within your company will help uncover top quality applicants. Systematically gather and analyze data, using key performance indicators.
Hiring mistakes are extremely costly. Relevant data and effective analysis help manage risk and significantly reduce these avoidable costs by more accurately predicting good choices.
You’re sifting for gold, and you have to work within an HR budget that may be constrained. Focusing on recruitment and selection of the best salespeople with the best company fit will greatly improve retention and build long-term success.
Posted by Cabot Jaffee on Mon, Oct 10, 2011 @ 10:19 AM
Validity is the indication of how much of a relationship there is between an assessment and on-the-job performance. Obviously the greater the relationship the more
return a company will see by using the assessment. I realize practical considerations have to be taken into account. A 3 day assessment to hire bank tellers or front-line sales people will not allow the company to fill its positions in a timely and cost-effective manner. However with the implementation of technology there is no reason a company cannot have both a highly predictive (valid) assessment and an assessment that can be delivered within the existing processes and time constraints set by the organization. So why don’t all HR professionals ask for validity evidence or if they do ask, why don’t they put the highest priority on the validity coefficient when recruiting and selecting?
What we find is that there is always someone in the organization concerned with validity and/or the legality of the assessment but that doesn't always get communicated to all other HR personnel involved in the decision and implementation of an assessment. Often times individuals don’t really understand how an increase in the validity translates to a geometric increase in the ROI a company will realize. I’ve heard numerous times that “our 60% turnover rate is just our cost of doing business.” There is a lack of understanding that even a 10% decrease in that turnover rate will far outweigh the costs associated with a valid assessment.
Even high level HR professionals in the organization don't always treat validity as important once a minimum level of "soundness" in the instrument is met. It's clearly not the primary factor that drives buying decisions. With all that said, HR professionals should be concerned with validity since that's what drives making the best decisions and produces the greatest ROI.
You may also find the following blogs informative:
Using Predictive Analysis in Recruiting and Selection
Excellence in Recruiting and Selection through Six Sigma (Part 1)
Talent Acquisition: Measuring Quality of Hires Versus Quantity
Posted by Cabot Jaffee on Mon, Sep 26, 2011 @ 09:43 AM
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Most companies want a sales assessment that takes only 5 minutes and provides perfect prediction. But that’s not realistic, and not valid. In fact, there is no single magic wand that lets you predict who’s going to be a good salesperson. To accurately predict who will be a successful salesperson requires time and more than one kind of assessment—resulting in a significant payoff.
Research has examined the relationship between a variety of assessments used to hire salespeople and future earnings. Starting with NASA, the concept of job simulation has always proven to be one of the most effective tools used in the selection process.
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In the 1960’s, corporations starting introducing the same concept to employees. And when job simulation was combined with other assessments the accuracy was even further enhanced. Take a look:
The concept of using simulation to predict performance became simple. You can easily see the parallel in terms of a flight simulator. If you look at a cognitive test, a personality test, and even a typical interview they tell you very little about how a person is likely to behave in a particular situation. A cognitive test may tell you whether the person is smart enough to get through training, or if they have the minimal level of intelligence to interact in certain situations. A personality test may tell you what kinds of situations the person “prefers” to work in but it tells you nothing about how a person can adapt their preferred style and still be effective. The only real way to determine how someone will behave on the job is to hire them and see if they will work out or not. Obviously that is way too expensive a method for hiring and it sure doesn’t work well with a rocket.
So the most effective way to see how someone is likely to behave on the job is to put them in situations similar to the actual job. Pro sports teams have tryouts that simulate the conditions of the real game against real competition before deciding who makes the roster. Airlines use flight simulators that simulate the real conditions of the job. So why shouldn’t a company use a sales simulator to accomplish the same results. A sales simulator can utilize video to simulate the conditions of the job in many different ways. Various stages of the sales cycle can be simulated, different objections by customers can be simulated, along with many other sales activities. How applicants respond to video situations is very informative about how they will respond in actual sales situations. Look for our next blog when I discuss validity…how do you know the assessment will work?
View an example of a sales simulator now.
Posted by Cabot Jaffee on Fri, Sep 09, 2011 @ 10:27 AM
Everyone knows that having effective sales people is critical to business success. There’s no doubt high performing salespeople are more likely to help you make quantum leaps in your business.
So the question is “what does an effective salesperson look like?” What are the characteristics of a high performing salesperson? And once you determine what those characteristics are for your company, how do you find them? Let me share some information with you.
High performing sales people:
1. Have an affinity for people – they connect with people quickly and positively
2. Have an action orientation– they have an assertive, get it done mentality
3. Are results oriented – they make and take no excuses
4. Are goal oriented – they focus on specific outcomes
5. Take pride in their work – they care about the quality of what they deliver
6. Are organized – they have a system of order in everything they do
7. Pay attention to detail – they see the benefit in getting the details right the first time
8. Have a high degree of integrity – they have a strong base of values such as honesty and sincerity
9. Are tenacious – they overcome obstacles with perseverance
10. Are willing and able to learn – they have a general interest in always getting better
So now that we’ve identified some needed characteristics for effective sales people, how do we acquire them? No competitor can hurt you more than you selecting the wrong people. What does selecting the right people really do for you? Selecting the right people will:
- Increase your market visibility
- Strengthen your company
- Assist in the retention of existing salespeople
- Increase your bottom line
- Increase your competitive advantage
- Put more dollars in your pocket
- Drive new growth and capture market share
How do you make better “hiring” decisions?
- Improve your processes
- Streamline your systems
- Utilize technology
- Utilize “good information” regarding all aspects of an individual
Proven, time tested, scientific, validated assessments are a critical factor to making sure you hire the right people. While many interviewers think they know within the first 5 minutes whether a candidate will be successful or not, they are wrong. Both scientific research and the legal system have proven over the years that most interviews are relatively ineffective at predicting performance on the job. In our next blog, I will discuss the different types of assessments that have proven to be successful for predicting the future performance of sales people. In the meantime see our previous blog on 8 Key Criteria for a Successful Sales Assessment.
Posted by Cabot Jaffee on Tue, Jul 19, 2011 @ 02:02 PM
Reliable assessments are central to recruiting and selection of frontline workforce today. One of the primary purposes of assessments in hiring talent is to validate candidate knowledge (and by extension, verify the innate value of past knowledge as well as present skills and abilities). In a fast-paced world where the demand for the right talent often exceeds supply, organizations rely on assessments to systematically screen, qualify and identify the ”best-fit” talent for the job role and the organization.
Companies today demand faster turnaround and greater control over their hiring processes. Traditional pen-and-paper assessments demand people, facilities, equipment, time and money. Online and non-proctored assessments in recent years have begun to replace traditional proctored assessments. While much has been argued about proctored and un-proctored web-based forms of assessment, the verdict is still out.
Organizations typically hope to achieve as many of the following benefits as possible by updating their human resources hiring tools:
- Reducing Employee Turnover
- Reducing Liability Related to Skill Deficiencies
- Improving Employee Satisfaction
- Saving Time Spent on Hiring Activities
AlignMark works with some of the country’s leading companies to support their recruiting and hiring processes, supplying technology and assessments for improved predictability and control over their talent supply chain. Over the last 3 decades, we have seen the use of Un-proctored Online Testing (UOT) increase significantly. This uptick, though, has been met with equal concern from our clients over the validity of such practices. Our ongoing research on the predictive validity of several non-cognitive assessments (that is, personality and behavioral tests) with respect to a number of subjective and objective job performance metrics indicates that assessments administered in proctored and un-proctored settings have comparable validity. In addition, “Assessment Fingerprinting” can be implemented to help ensure cheating does not occur, or to catch “cheaters” before they are hired, should an assessment be considered susceptible to cheating.
If your current hiring process needs improvement in any of the following areas then Un-proctored Online Testing may be right for you.
- Increased Efficiency in Recruiting Process
- Decreased Cost
- Reduced Cycle Time to Hire Candidates
- Optimized and Reduced allocation of Recruiters
- Policy and Recruiting vs. Processing and Review
- High Value vs. Lower Value Activities
- Focused Efforts on High-Potential Candidates
Posted by Glen Jaffee on Wed, Jul 06, 2011 @ 08:48 AM
Wet Lands...that’s what this past Sunday was like while I was fishing. It was beautiful out; the seas were flat; I had a few close friends on board; we were catching fish, and I was dreaming about a name for the next boat . . . life was good!!! On the ride back to the marina, I began thinking about what I needed to do next week at the office; conversations I was going to have, meetings scheduled, etc., and the parallels between my fishing trip and recruiting dawned on me.
I realized our clients actually go fishing every day, and their hope is to have a great day like I had. So let me share my 6 simple steps to a “great day.”
1. Don’t fish without lines in the water
2. Don’t fish with old lines
3. If you fish with one line in the water…you might catch a fish
4. If you fish with 10 lines in the water… your odds get better
5. Always use fresh bait
6. And always use the right bait
Every day, my company speaks with organizations around the world who would like to catch fish, but is using broken lines, bad bait, and no poles…and don’t understand why they can’t have great days.
My family said if I keep leaving them at home to fish with my buddies, the boat name is…A Loan Again.
(See our other publications and posts for ideas on using “new bait”)
Posted by Cabot Jaffee on Wed, May 18, 2011 @ 01:03 PM
Twitter. It’s becoming more and more popular with each passing day and it’s not just another useless social networking site. It has the potential to reach millions of diverse individuals that can make business as usual a little smoother for your organization. What can you do to take advantage of Twitter’s rather simplistic mini-blogging service? First, make sure you’re on it. Then, figure out what your purpose is on it. Next, become acquainted with the tools necessary to establish yourself on the site in line with what you want your company’s online identity to be. With a little bit of effort and the help of myriad Twitter applications that can help you target a following based on interests that coincide with your company; give you insight on the currently popular topics; and provide information on when/how to most effectively target your audience, you can establish a successful, and in this age and time, very necessary presence on Twitter.
For more detailed information on Capitalizing on Twitter For Your organization, click on this link to download the white paper.
Posted by Cabot Jaffee on Tue, Feb 08, 2011 @ 09:43 AM
We all know recruiting is a numbers game, but at the end of the day—you are looking to hire a person; someone with a personality, skills, and traits, unique to themselves. Ideally, you are looking for candidates that have experience and skills sets that assimilate well with your company’s values and culture.
So using just one recruiting strategy and message to all recruits will not work. Just like school children who are all so unique and need different learning styles—people need different recruiting touches (in terms of both content and process). And ultimately the personal touch is needed—you need to talk to a live body—to engage and to show you care enough to spend the time.
Recruiting is a process—and the successful companies—uses many approaches and processes to move candidates through the funnel—which ultimately yields the goal—bringing on new employees into your organization.
Today Social Media is clearly at the forefront of everyone’s mind—how to use it, to be unique and to make it work for your company. While Social Media is essential to the process, it’s only part of a process vs. the entire process. It is a tool to get people in your funnel—your database—ultimately that is the pot of gold—that is what will yield the “numbers” in your recruiting goals but not necessarily the right people. Don’t worry if you aren’t exploring every social media tool—play with them all and tweak them and find what works for you. Facebook, twitter, linked-in and blogs—all are useful tools to ultimately connect with individuals. But in that connection—you need to provide some value—information, ideas, results—this is ultimately what will create a following. You need a game plan—to ultimately move people from your social media to your database of real prospects.
From there—other tools come into play (while still working the social media assets.). Email drips and follow-up and touches—still are useful. Some people may say email is not effective anymore—again that’s like saying the old way of teaching doesn’t work—it does for some people, but in moderation. As we all know—too much of anything isn’t good for us—finding the balance is a key to being successful in meeting your recruiting goals. Email still is effective—with the right message, the right time and the right sharing of information. Constant advertising campaigns may prove to become ineffective—but sending information and sharing of thoughts and ideas—that likely will work well with a combined advertising approach. The goal is to be a valuable resource—to last over time—this ultimately can help position your company as the “place to work.”
After you have followed up and emailed folks that are interested with information that you can share—now it may be time for the personal touch -- phone calls. Pick up the phone, call the person, engage in conversations and move them further down your recruiting pipeline.
If you don’t have the quantity you’ll have a much harder time finding the quality you’re looking for. So once you fill the funnel that’s where other steps are needed if you are interested in picking the best matches—those folks that will provide a significant return on investment. Assessments are essential for this—this takes out the subjective part of the process and makes it completely objective-that way you are dwindling down your pipeline to talk to only those folks that will be successful in your firm. Then it’s a matter of fit and chemistry which will most often be determined during the live interview.