Our client Wowzer posted an article in “Dear, Abbey Form”. They showcased what it might feel like taking a video interview for the first time.

Reader Letter: How Do I Ace My Video Interviews?

Dear Wowzer,

I’ve been interviewing for retail store manager positions lately and I feel pretty confident with my interview skills. I was recently asked to do a video interview using your software. While I have the traditional interviews down, I’m worried about how I will translate via video.

I’m used to the face-to-face interaction, and quite frankly I don’t even know what to expect or how the software works. I’ve never done a video interview before and I guess I’m looking for pointers. All-in-all, what makes a great video interview?

Wondering in Wisconsin,

Christy Parker

Dear Christy,

I’m glad you asked us for advice and even more glad to hear that you will be using our product. While Wowzer is insanely user-friendly, you’ve got the right idea about doing your research before you interview. Using a new tool during an interview can be nerve-wracking, so being prepared is key. Continue reading…

Recruiterbox wrote an article about the importance of bringing candidates on board quickly, without sacrificing their experience.

Why Hiring Fast is Good Candidate Experience

Hiring is pretty much at the center at everything we do here at Recruiterbox. Since we work with startups and small businesses, we put a great deal of emphasis on hiring FAST. Now, when you say “hiring fast” sometimes people assume that things like quality of hire and candidate experience go out the window but that is the farthest thing from the truth.

In fact, let’s be real. Candidate experience could do with a shot of expediency! After all, even passive candidates want to know whether they’ve got the job or not! So here are some ways you can hire fast and how it can increase candidate experience.

Get Organized

You can’t hire fast if you aren’t pulled together. A system like Recruiterbox helps keep applications, resumes and actions in one place and allows you to search in a way that feels natural to you. Being able to quickly access your files, email candidates and figure out who on your team is tasked with the next step in the process will allow you to hire faster. Read more tips…

Visibility Software announced a partnership with Netsuite this week.

Visibility Software announces Cyber Recruiter SuiteApp for NetSuite’s SuiteCloud Computing Platform

NETSUITE SUITEWORLD 2013, SAN JOSE, Calif. and NEWBERRY, SC – May 15, 2013 – Visibility Software, a leading provider of applicant tracking and training management software solutions, today announced the new Cyber Recruiter SuiteApp, built using NetSuite’s SuiteCloud Computing Platform. The new SuiteApp manages the entire recruiting process, providing customers with simplified, yet advanced employee recruitment and on-boarding. The Cyber Recruiter SuiteApp enables recruiters and hiring managers to focus on core recruiting activities by automating administrative tasks and streamlining communication. Continue reading the press release here…

Careerminds posted an article on how you can prepare for a reduction in force, the correct steps, and who to keep informed.

Conducting a RIF with a Smile?

A reduction in force is no easy task and unfortunately, no matter how well prepared you and your employees are, it’s something that does eventually happen to many of us in HR. And it’s not just the event itself, it’s the build up, the explosion, and the aftermath. Conducting a reduction in force can be dirty, scary business if you don’t have a plan. So let’s talk you through it.

The Build Up

When considering a RIF, first clearly define your goals as a company. Whether that’s a numbers issue, an expansion thing, or simply keeping your ship afloat, ask yourself, “Will this help me get there?” This is crucial step that many leaders overlook. When times are difficult or there is change in the air, some companies may have a knee-jerk reaction and immediately think layoffs. Continue reading…

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Ignite your Employer Brand

Employer brand: bring this topic up at any gathering of recruiting and HR professionals and you’ll either get a lot of nodding heads or someone rolling their eyes. But as recruiting and marketing come closer and closer together, more professionals are flexing their branding muscles.

Employment branding has been lauded by several organizations, including CareerBuilder, as an almost foolproof way to lower both recruiting costs and employee turnover. Even if employment branding doesn’t come naturally to your organization, there are a slew of companies, consultants and HR bloggers who will at least tell you how to get started. RecruitingChicks blogger Teela Jackson states:

It is also important for your Recruiting team to provide a consistent message to candidates in the sourcing and interviewing process.  Your employment brand is an integral part of your company’s talent attraction and retention strategies.

Jackson then goes on to outline ten steps that companies can take to begin identifying their “special sauce”. More than a quick fix, employment branding is meant to directly impact an organization’s ability to recruit, which is why recruiters and even sourcers should take branding initiatives seriously and contribute to their success. In the past, HR Professionals have been urged to request help from marketing and communications departments in their company’s, in an effort to form branding “best practices”. But as budgets stretch ever tighter and unemployment numbers begin (knock on wood) to plummet, it’s possible that the talent acquisition team will have to begin spearheading these all important campaigns. Analysts have been quick to point out that perhaps talent management positions may be the most equipped to handle the crafting of this part consumer/part business message. One thing nearly everyone can agree on, the message must match the culture. Industry pundit John Sumser distills the process down to this:

Employment Branding is the craft of being so completely organized that you are ready with the right message for the right person when she comes along.

In recent news regarding troubled Research In Motion, employment branding has nearly been hailed as the company’s last stand. Kat Drum, head of Talent Acquistion for the Waterloo, Canada company insists that despite a troubled consumer brand and rapidly decreasing faith in the electronic maker’s executive presence, now is the time for an aggressive employment branding play. If correct, Drum’s faith in supporting the employment brand as a separate entity could drive a strong trend in the HR industry and remove the “rolled eyes” from the conversations everywhere. However, when even HR Professionals can’t see past the consumer letdowns to the broader workforce plan, it may be too soon for a wobbly employer brand to leave its product marketing origins behind.

The truth is, while initiatives are important, many of the more ubiquitous employer brands around us, workplaces of choice, as it were, are not reputations that were created over night. They depend on a range of factors, including but not limited to locality, company size, organizational values, and much more. As with any panacea that offers such benefits, the work required to roll out a true employment branding strategy may take months or even years to fully reap the benefits touted in so many blogs, articles and webinars.

Blogger Gautam Ghosh focuses on the beginning of a solid strategy. Authenticity:

If you are authentic about the kind of culture your organization has – conservative, experimental, edgy or whatever it is – you will attract people who would be comfortable with that culture.

Sure culture is a messy thing. Not usually articulated easily. It is not the “values espoused” but demonstrated by the “values in action” and hence open to perception and biases.

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From $20,000 to $65,000 a year – that’s the tuition cost for one year of college, says John McDonough, a money expert who helps retirees and parents plan for their families’ futures.

“For the 2012–2013 academic year, the average cost for an in-state public college is $22,261. A moderate budget for a private college averaged $43,289,” says McDonough, CEO of Studemont Group College Funding Solutions, www.studemontgroup.com. “But for elite schools, we’re talking about three times the cost of your local state school. Either way, your kid’s higher education can easily shoot into six figures after four years.”

Along with worrying about rising tuition prices, parents also fear for their own futures if their retirement savings are drained by children’s college costs, McDonough says. Only 14 percent, for example, are very confident they’ll have the money to live comfortably in retirement, he says, citing a 2012 survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

“Families feel they’re faced with conflicting goals, but there are numerous ways to pay for college while investing in your future retirement,” says McDonough, who offers insights for parents to keep in mind while planning for their child’s education:

• The ROI of a college education: At a time when so many American families are financially strapped, college is an especially stressful topic because parents know higher learning will help their kids succeed. College graduates earn 84 percent than those with only a high school diploma, according to Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce. Here is how earning breaks down over one’s life time, based on education: a doctoral degree-holder will earn $3.3 million over a lifetime; $2.3 million is estimated for a college graduate; those with only a high school diploma can expect $1.3 million.

• Move retirement assets to qualify for grants: Most parents know about the 529 savings account, but that’s not necessarily the best or only option. Reallocating your retirement assets, such as 401(k)s, can better position a child to qualify for grants and scholarships. This legal and ethical maneuvering may be the single most important factor when considering how to pay for college.

• Know your student’s strengths and weaknesses: Consider independent and objective analysis of your future college student. Assessment might include a personality profile and a detailed search for a future career. Also think about a more nuts-and-bolts approach, including scholarship eligibility, SAT and ACT prep courses, review of admissions essays and an in-depth analysis of chances for enrollment in a student’s top four choices of colleges.

• Make a checklist of financial aid forms: In order to maximize a fair price of higher education, remember there is plenty of data to review. McDonough recommends a checklist with a timeline and notable deadlines. Be ready to troubleshoot the “alphabet soup” of data forms: FAFSA – Free Application For Federal Student Aid; CSS profile – College Scholarship Service; SAR – Student Aid Report; and more. Think about this process as a second job, or find professional help you can trust. 

About John McDonough

John McDonough is the managing member at Studemont Group, which is primarily focused on helping retirees gain peace of mind with unique market rescue and recovery programs. He is also founder, president and CEO of Studemont Group College Funding Solutions. His experience in the financial services industry includes managing partner at Granite Harbor Advisors in Houston and divisional vice president of AXA Equitable/AXA Advisors, the third largest insurance company in the world. McDonough is a member of the prestigious Forum 400, a qualifier at the Court of the Table qualifier for Million Dollar Round Table, an active member in National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors and Society of Financial Service Professionals, as well as American Association of Life Underwriters. He has completed the course work to sit for the Certified Financial Planner® professional designation exam from Rice University.

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From Jobs to Roles: Who We are at Work is Changing

It hasn’t happened yet, but folks are talking about it. Which means that it eventually WILL happen and some will be prepared and some won’t. What I’m referring to is, of course, the natural evolution towards role-based careers from the more traditional long-term J-O-B.

Sure go ahead, screech and moan, and when you’re done, take a look around at your friends. Not your parent’s friends but the people you know. Chances are most of them haven’t been at the same job for more than 5 years. People, even intelligent and career-minded folks are doing, what a mere ten years ago would have been labeled “job hopping”. And they’re darn good at it. CareerBuilder’s blog The Work Buzz writes:

The attitude toward changing jobs has shifted. Once upon a time, job hopping was considered a career killer. The conventional wisdom of the day was, “Who wants to hire someone who can’t commit?” If you took a job, you were expected to stay with it for several years and in some cases for the duration of your professional life. Read more…

SPRING-CLEANING YOUR VIRTUAL-COMMUNICATION HABITS

Some of Gerber’s “spring cleaning” tips are:

• Advertise accessibility. Let people who work from other locations know when you’re available and how to best access you. You can also let key team members know when you won’t be available due to meetings, travel, holiday, or because you plan to be in a creative workflow.
• Be proactive to build rapport. Initiate informal check-in calls with your boss and colleagues on a daily basis. The key word is “routine.” If you make this a habit, you increase your top-of-mind awareness, and people will come to expect and look forward to informal chats with you.
• Understand differing styles. Pay attention to people’s communication trends and you will see basic patterns emerge. Some people are directive. (They might seem a little bossy and always have a sense of urgency.) Others are informing. (You might think they spend too much time in the details of the story.) However people present themselves to you, expect and respect that we each have a style that directs us to certain behaviors.  When working with someone whose style you don’t understand or find unproductive, ask for what you need.
• Take advantage of company resources. Your manager, peers, administrative supporters and the company help desk are excellent resources to help you better learn how to master and leverage technology. In-person and online classes can help for some software. If e-mail and voicemail overload are your weaknesses, check in with an efficiency expert who can help you establish mailbox rules and guidelines to reduce time spent on communications.
• Apply the “one touch” rule to your e-mail. As often as possible, deal with e-mail messages at the time you read them so that you can delete or file them accordingly. The fewer times we have to revisit each message, the more time we create in the day to focus on other work and activities.

This week on Recruiterbox: Maren contributed a fantastic article explaining the importance of building a relationship as an HR or Recruiter with the Marketing department.

Making Friends With Marketing: Why, When and How

If you’re new to hiring, it may come as a shock that one of your biggest advocates might be in another department entirely. That’s right, it’s time to make friends with Marketing!

Why (you ask with that perplexed look on your face) Maren, WHY would I need to make friends with the marketing pros at my company?

 They get attraction in a big way

Half of recruiting and hiring people is attraction. And shockingly, folks in HR or even recruiting, don’t always see it this way to begin with. You need someone in marketing to explain how your message will look to your “target market” (which is really your candidate pipeline) and what sort of “buying behavior” (job history and online activities) you should be looking for. Attracting people is something marketing does every day and they can help you get better at it in your recruiting efforts. Read more…

We wrote an article for Wowzer about how the time of day or week can affect the success of your interview.

How Lunch Affects Your Hiring Judgment

We’ve warned candidates about the challenges of interviewing with tired or hungry recruiters, but ultimately we’d like to remove all bias from hiring decisions.  This will require the leadership of talent acquisition teams to change recruitment processes that are vulnerable to bias.  Here are a few interviewing pitfalls to be aware of and our recommendations for removing bias:

Your first interview, every day

The very first interview of the day is bound to be the one in which you are just getting into your groove (or maybe haven’t had enough coffee). You don’t want some poor candidate walking into a situation they are bound to mess up because of your bad mood or unpreparedness.

Even if you’re a morning person or one of those great recruiters who sets everything up perfectly for the following day before leaving the office, unpredictable commuter traffic can trip up candidates who are on their way to early-morning interviews. Read more tips…

Our friends over at Careerminds announced a promotion this week. Sabrina Basht will now be Careerminds CEO.

Careerminds, a leading virtual outplacement firm, has announced a new leadership structure to oversee the company’s growth.  Sabrina Basht, who has been with the company since 2011, has been appointed CEO, effective immediately. The current CEO and founder, Raymond Lee, will serve as Chief Product Officer and expand his focus on ensuring that Careerminds continues to provide a superior virtual product and service.

“Raymond and Sabrina have added tremendous value to the business.  Now is the right time to align their positions to support the growth of the company.” said Jack Gavin, Chairman of their Board and former President of Right Management.” Read the rest of the press release..

Maren spent the week in New York City at the 3rd Annual Employer Branding Conference, put on by Universum Global, a research firm dedicated to brand insights for employers. Here’s just a taste of what she learned #ebc13

We send out these digests every week so stay tuned for an email invitation! Until then…like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and check out our Pinterest page, for the daily deluge.

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What can business leaders and managers learn from watching the earnings of publicly traded companies?

“Plenty,” says Kathleen Brush, a 25-year veteran of international business and author of “The Power of One: You’re the Boss,” (www.kathleenbrush.com), a guide to developing the skills necessary to become an effective, respected leader.

“When looking at the corporations reporting lower-than-expected earnings, you need to read between the lines. They are not going to admit that the reason is a failure of leadership, but 99 times out of 100 that’s what it is.”

She cites Oracle, the business hardware and software giant, which recently reported a quarterly revenue shortfall based on a decline in new software licenses and cloud subscriptions.

The company is “not at all pleased with our revenue growth this quarter,” Oracle co-president Safra Catz told analysts. “What we really saw was a lack of urgency that we sometimes see in the sales force …”

They are pointing the finger at the employees, but they are really admitting a failure of  leadership, Brush says.

“Do you know how simple it is for managers to motivate sales people? If indeed the lack of sales urgency is the problem. There are dozens of bad leader behaviors that can cause sales to decline,” she explains.

In her work for companies around the country, from restructuring operations to improving profitability, Brush says she sees an epidemic of bad leader behaviors.

“When I point them out, most leaders downplay, or refuse to acknowledge, the impact their behaviors are having on their bottom line. But, in companies where leaders change these behaviors, employees become engaged and motivated. It is really that simple to increase productivity, innovation, and the bottom line,” she says.

“If you’re a boss examining your own lower-than-expected performance, instead of wasting time searching for scapegoats, look in the mirror. Most bosses unwittingly exhibit bad leader behaviors daily that cause their businesses to suffer.”

Here are four increasingly prevalent and damaging behaviors:

• The unethical boss: This is a category that doesn’t just annoy employees, it appalls them. As such, it’s a powerful demotivater. When a boss breaks or fudges the rules, cheats, lies or indulges in behaviors that reveal a lack of moral principles, he or she loses employees’ respect. Without their respect, a boss cannot lead. In addition, when a leader indulges in unethical practices, he gives his employees permission to do the same. Padding mileage reports, splurging on business travel expenses, failing to take responsibility for mistakes – they all become endorsed activities by the boss – the role model.

• The unfair boss: Our current societal efforts to treat people equally – think gay marriage, health care reform, the children of undocumented immigrants – have led to confusion among some leaders about “equality” versus “fairness” in the workplace. “I talked to a manager who gave all his employees the same pay raise because ‘he wanted to be fair,’ ” Brush recalls. He then seemed mystified that the productivity of his best employees declined to that of an average worker. “Rewards can be powerful tools of motivation, but they must be administered fairly.”

• The buddy boss: Bosses can never be buddies with their employees. Ever. Friendships neutralize the boss’s authority and power. They can also cloud a leader’s objectivity and hinder her ability to correct behaviors, to delegate, and to hold employees accountable. When friendships compromise output, it’s the boss who will be accountable. “Be friendly to employees, but do not cross the line that muddies the relationship between boss and friend. It could cost you your job.” Brush says.

• The disorganized boss:  Workplaces are filled with employees who lack direction because disorganized leaders don’t deliver and manage plans and strategies to guide their teams. What’s the chance of an unguided team maximizing its productivity to create competitively superior innovative widgets? “What’s the chance of employees being inspired by a leader who leads like a doormat or by random thoughts?” says Brush.

“As a manager, you wield a tremendous amount of power,” she says. “You can be an incredibly negative power or a positive one who’s looked up to by both peers and employees.”

“For the latter, bosses have to purge the bad behaviors.”

About Kathleen Brush

• Kathleen Brush has more than two decades of experience as a senior executive with global business responsibilities. She has a Ph.D. in management and international studies. Brush has been teaching, writing and consulting on international business and leadership for companies of all sizes, public and private, foreign and domestic.

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Candidates are People too

It’s been a tough year for job seekers. Which means, in turn, it’s been a tough year for the recruiters that help them. As unemployment numbers finally rebound, and attitudes from employees seemingly long trapped in companies or positions wherein they don’t engage, are um…evolving, employees/candidates/applicants are starting to realize that they’re people too. And survey says? They’d like to be treated as such!

Part of the issue that’s stumped candidate experience experts for so long is how much to engage with a candidate and for how long? And what differentiates an applicant from a candidate? At what point does the candidate experience cycle actually begin? Improved Experience points out that while there’s no definitive answer for this, there are obvious points where HR Professionals SHOULD be measuring outcomes:

Solicit feedback from job seekers about both experience and perception as they navigate your selection and hiring process. Gather quantitative and qualitative data from internal and external candidates at critical points such as application, interview, offer, and onboarding. Read more…

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Source of Hire Matters

Source of hire matters. It matters to you, it matters to your candidates and it matters to whomever in your company is the boss of ad spend. But for all the reasons it matters, it’s remarkably hard to pin it down. Some would argue that source of hire is an intrinsically flawed metric because of our hyper-connected world and the constant influx of employee referral programs that have entered the market (Employee referrals are often cited as the top source of hire.) However, if you want to know how and more importantly where you are being assessed and “seen” online, source of hire is still the big 500 pound gorilla of metrics.

Because employee referrals often top the source of hire lists for organizations, it’s easy to see why the venture capitalists and multiple established ERPs began investing in technology to supplement that, automate that, create that out of thin air. However, as we saw with top player Top Prospect last year, headlines and revenue do not always go hand in hand. While the concept is deeply rooted in fact and backed up by at least five years of survey data, the automation of employee referrals has proved to once again, dilute the effort itself. Read the rest…

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Marketing is a massive part of any company’s efforts. More now than ever, marketing is supporting not just Sales but departments like Recruiting, Human Resources and Business Development. In order to “back into” the costs associated with marketing and determine whether or not the efforts are worth…well, the effort. The below infographic was sent to us on behalf of ResponseTap and we liked it so much we decided to put it up. Check it out.

The marketing funnel is something long since used by marketing and sales departments to ensure that they are maximizing every opportunity to promote their products and services, generate leads and convert any leads to sales.  In this digital age, a large amount of marketing is carried out online and is ‘fed’ into the funnel alongside offline advertising, and it is then the job of the sales team to nurture leads created by this marketing, and convert them into sales.

Rashed Kahn helped design this Infographic on behalf of ResponseTap who specialise in call tracking software. Take a look at the original version here.