“We shouldn’t need to sell our company, they should want to work for us!”

Prospective Candidates are your customers and your success in attracting high calibre candidates will depend on the talent markets perception of what it is like to work for you. We explore some things to consider in this post.

I should frame this post by saying, ‘the short supply of talent is a long term demographics based problem and it’s not going away anytime soon.’ There is no doubt that we will see corrections in the supply and demand equation (i.e. GFC) and it’s obvious that during these corrections talent will be in greater supply, but it’s during these times that the highest quality people are harder to find; because the probability of them moving employers in uncertain economic times is very low.

Our view at Peerlo is that a major part of what we are responsible for is educating our clients about the talent market’s perception of their  Employer Brand & Employer Value Proposition (EVP) (Basically, both of these combined answers the question: why a candidate would want to work for your company over another company).

3 Things to consider when looking at your employer brand:

1. How do your customers (talent) see your brand?

I have purposely used the word customers NOT candidates: candidates are people who apply for jobs, and given the supply and demand equation your company will more than likely be trying to attract people to your brand. You must therefore create communication strategies to enter into a conversation with your customers and seduce them.

2. Eat your own dog food.

Do your employees actually believe, live and deliver upon your employee value proposition? Essentially, are you executing internally what your are communicating externally? There’s no point marketing the image of a great company to prospects you want to work for your company… and have it result in people starting work and leaving after a week because you didn’t deliver what you promised.

3. Make every experience a memorable one.

How many touch points does a prospective candidate have with your company? Let’s explore a few:

• Careers site - ensure your careers site interacts with the prospect - they must have come to the site for a reason. That reason initially may be to search for a job, but they will be assessing other important factors (such as the culture). Maybe an interactive video of some of your employees talking naturally about what’s it’s like to work at your company would help the person coming to your site to get a glimpse into the culture?
• Referrals &  Alumni networks - what do previous employees and contacts say about your company and your Employer Brand? How can you harness these important channels to source and influence your future workforce?
• Agency - Do your agency suppliers really understand what’s it’s like to work for you? Have you taken the time to explain your company in detail to ensure they communicate a consistence message to the market?
• Advertised Sourcing - is your branding consistent across online and print? Are the job ads creative, and do they tell the story why it would be great to work with your company?
• Hiring Managers/HR/Internal Recruiters - Do your managers, HR and Internal recruiters have the knowledge and training to assess and qualify prospects and, more importantly, sell prospects on why joining your company is the right career move for them?

Kelly joins us from Futurestep, when she was instrumental in leading their sourcing capability in her role as Strategic Sourcing Specialist. She has worked both on and offsite with clients across many industry verticals, including financial services, telecommunications, FMCG, utility and logistics. She has designed corporate alumni, employee referrals and web 2.0 talent attraction strategies for many of her previous clients. Kelly’s expertise and reputation in this field, especially around social media and the creation and execution of multi-channel sourcing strategies, is something we are looking forward to integrating into our expanding business.

Welcome to Peerlo Kelly! Your MacBook is awaiting your love!

This increased focus has given me a renewed passion for how effective a simulation is as part of the screening process. Let us revert to the oracle ‘wikipedia‘ for the definition: ‘Simulation is the imitation of some real thing, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system.’

Now, before asking a prospective candidate  in your pipeline to participate in a exercise like this, it’s important to think about the characteristics, experience and behaviours you want to evaluate.

Let me demonstrate how we use it when recruiting an Account Director for our business. An Account Director in our business would typically need to do following things;

• managing existing relationships
• identifying new business opportunities
• executing recruiting projects
• online research & sourcing candidates
• writing client proposals & formal candidate presentations for clients.
• Interviewing candidates

In order to test these skills we give the prospective candidate the following tasks;

Test 1: New business development, Verbal Communication & Commercial Acumen.

Tasks

• Call a hiring a manager in the industry that they came from (which is typically not recruitment ) to identify if they had a need for a senior solutions sales person.
• Market a candidate that they had met with recently ( We ask the candidate to use their own profile as the candidate they would be marketing into the client)
• Understand the clients requirements by asking the right questions about the business and the position.
• Market the candidate to the hiring manager and generate their interest so they want to interview the candidate.

Test 2: Online research skills & Understanding of requirements.

Tasks

• Take the job brief and go to Linkedin
• Supply the public profile URL’s or the PDF downloads of the profiles of 4 potential candidates that match from Linkedin.

Test 3: Written Communication skills

Tasks

• We ask the prospect to write a business case on each member of the shortlist articulating the reasons why they feel they are a match for the job and the hiring managers requirements.

I recommend that when creating a simulation think ‘personalised’ and customise the simulation so that you can test the skills that are vital for that individual being successful in the position you are hiring them for.

note: this simulation is typically conducted after numerous numerous phone calls and two face to face meetings.

Every year recruitment industry expert Kevin Wheeler attempts to predict the upcoming trends of the year, and more often that not - he’s on the money!

This year Kevin predicts the following:

1. Rise in Non-Traditional Employment: I agree with the fact that more employers will be much more cautious when added full-time headcount and will be doing much more due diligence when making permanent hiring decisions. However, in some sectors such as Engineering, our view is that the supply and demand equation will be very much in favour of talent in 2010 and beyond. We also believe that employers will need to show flexibility in the way they can add capability to their business if they want to deliver on projects, so if candidates want to be staff then employers should be prepared to offer permanent employment to secure that resource.
2. Increase mobility in workforce: did I hear someone say iPhone? as many more smart phones & other mobile devices become more accepted and pervasive in the corporate environment we will continue to see a trend where ‘productivity’ is important, not “seeability”( we made that word up) i.e whether your face is seen in the office between 8:30am-5:30pm. At Peerlo we live by this mantra and we have already experienced the implications and benefits that Cloud Computing and Mobile Computing is having on our business.
3. Fewer Recruiters- More RPO’s: Kevin predicts that the volume of recruiters ( both in-house and 3rd party ) will decrease and that only ‘The recruiters who remain will be highly skilled in using social networks, in living and working virtually, in influencing and selling, and in learning their trade more thoroughly than ever” Well Mr Wheeler has just described the capability and competences of a team member at Peerlo.  We understand the changing nature of the recruitment industry and as such are building new business models that will adapt to the evolution of our market. We are also ensuring all of our recruiters are skilled at sourcing and using social networks to find & attract the best available people for our clients.

Thanks for your thoughts Kevin - and we’ll check back in this time next year to see if your were right! You can read Kevin’s post here

All the Best for 2010!

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of being one of the speakers at RecruitTECH, a conference focused on technology and its application to recruiting.

I presented a case study of how to implement a social recruiting strategy for a recruitment agency. As always, would welcome any feedback.

Peerlo is a proud sponsor of this survey. This is another investment our commitment to understanding how we can help high income earners elevate their careers.

Click on the image to take the survey or click here

If you just asked yourself why do I need to build a relationship with a recruiter when I’m not looking for a job, this post is written just for you.

Having a good recruiter in your network has the following benefits

1. It keeps you abreast of the current trends of the job market.
2. Recruiters can give you advice on what employers are looking for in terms of skills & experience for that next career move.
3. They should be able to benchmark your current earnings with what the current market rate is for someone of your skillset.
4. Gives you access to good jobs that can elevate your career.
5. Employers gain a competitive advantage because if you have a strong relationship with the recruiter, you should gain access to your markets high calibre candidates first.
6. Employers gain market intelligence on candidate salary levels and remuneration structures
7. They buy coffee, lunch and dinner a lot!

Here are some things employers should look for when selecting a executive search or recruitment supplier.

1. Ability to demonstrate success supplying talent for similar roles.
2. Defined sourcing and recruiting process.
3. A multi-channeled recruiting strategy.
4. Transparent and accountable service.
5. Prepared to share the risk and be paid the majority of the fee on performance.
6. Strong commitment to candidate care.
7. Positive online presence.
8. The use of technology to make the recruiting process more effective.
9. That the supplier can deliver new and unique methods of finding people.
10. Access to existing networks and talent pools of people in your industry.

We have had a single program at St.George since December 2006. At that time we consolidated numerous schemes and launched one group wide program, which is branded “Gemini”. Good people know good people, and we’re looking for ‘your twin’.

2. Are there any unique items about your ERP?

I don’t know about unique – our objectives have been to provide employees with a meaningful program that encourages and enables them to refer great talent to our organisation. We also reward our hiring managers who constantly refer us great talent – it’s outside the regular program, but we acknowledge the effort and say thanks every once in a while!

3. How do you control the quality of the referrals you receive?

Careers@StGeorge engage with all the different parts of the Bank, and we talk about what good referrals are and the many places people can come from. Some of the most important advocates we have are our leaders and managers, who educate their teams on who we want to see join our business.

4. What has been the most challenging part of running a successful ERP?

Probably the integration of our manual processes. Ideally we’ll get to the point where all our systems will talk to each other, and we can manage the program with the click of a button!

5. What is the feedback from the hiring managers relating to the success of the ERP?

Our managers tell us that the process is easy to follow, that they are seeing great people referred to them by their own staff and those across the business, and that it’s motivating for their teams to see employees recognised in front of their peers.

6. What metrics do you monitor?

We include total referrals received, referrals hired, retention stats and going forward we’ll be linking the data with performance metrics.

7. How do you track and monitor referrals?

We manage our referral program through our recruitment technology platform.

8. Can you tell me how you market the ERP program internally?

We communicate with the employees using intranet pages, group-wide email as well as segmenting for business units. We also have printed brochures and referral cards, but find online communications and time with the business most effective.

9. Do you offer rewards? If so, what kind?

It’s important to reward at all success levels to engender support for the program. We offer financial incentives for successful referrals, but also run monthly and quarterly prize draws for iPods and gift vouchers so that all employees who refer candidates can be recognised for their contribution.

10. What advice would you give to other companies about building a successful ERP?

A successful ERP is not possible without a well-defined Employment Value Proposition. Employees must be able to articulate why working for your organisation is a great thing, so it’s the essential piece of the puzzle. In addition, making the referral process as fast and easy as possible is key. Finally, it’s really important to ensure people feel empowered to help change the workforce of their employer, and the fewer restrictions you place around your program, the more successful it will be.