The Hiring Site » Jason Ferrara

When Creating Your 2009 Recruitment Plan, Think Broad

2008-11-19T09:23:43Z

Like most business professionals in Q4, I’m in the throes of finalizing my Marketing budget for 2009. The trick in figuring out how to spend the money I do have is creating the right marketing mix. Some things are easy – we should continue and increase programs that make us money. Some things are more challenging – figuring out the right branding vehicles which are notoriously difficult to measure. Each line item is an important part of my marketing mix.

Believe it or not, I have this conversation all the time with corporate recruiters, CPOs, CMOs, CEOs and line managers. But, we don’t talk in terms of how to best market the company and its products. We speak about the recruiting mix – what is the best way to express the company’s brand and what are the best vehicles to capture the most qualified job seekers. The concept of marketing mix and the concept of recruiting mix are basically the same things.

The first question I ask when discussing the recruiting mix is if the company has an employee referral program. For the money, this is absolutely the first place you should begin the search for new employees. Assuming you have engaged employees, you should put recruiting into their hands. Their friends and acquaintances are most likely as engaged as they are. I’m sure there are exceptions to this, but as a general rule, I think it is a good one to follow. Also, remember that if monetary compensation is the carrot, make sure the stick is sufficiently long for payout, for example don’t payout until the referred employee has been with your firm for at least three months.

Once we have discussed that, we usually turn to other ways to express the employment brand of the company. A plain job description posted in five different places online is not likely to deliver the highest number of applicants. But, postings that express your company’s personality and brand will do much better. Using the internet to target job seekers is another excellent way to fill out your recruiting mix from banner ads to e-mail. Each of these tactics can easily be targeted and then measured for effectiveness.

Events should also be part of the mix. For example, a job fair or career fair in your major market cities may be a great way to create a larger brand presence – especially as we see more and more job seekers turning out for career fairs across the country. What about college? Some of your excellent future employees are hitting the books or cheering on the football team at homecoming right now.

So, as you think through your planning for 2009, think a bit about your recruiting mix. Did last year’s plan work for you? If so, keep some of the most effective pieces and try some new things. Were you unhappy with last year’s recruiting efforts and communication? If so, rip up last year’s plan and start fresh. Regardless you’ll need a mix of activity to truly maximize your efforts and satisfy your company’s hiring needs.

Making Social Networking Part of Your Recruiting Mix

2008-11-25T19:44:45Z

Most of the marketing conferences I attend these days are heavily focused on social and/or professional networks. These online communities are places where you can do any number of things from share pictures and reminisce about college days to “meet” and interview potential employees. The two big sites out there in this space are Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook prides itself on being a “social” network and LinkedIn is a “professional” network (don’t call it “social” when talking to their team).

And, at most of these conferences, someone on a panel or on the stage says this, “The lines have blurred between your social life and your work life.” In fact, I just said that on a panel a few weeks ago… Anyhow, it is true. If you are out there, you are out there. And, ultimately you control your destiny – as do those folks you are thinking about hiring.

You should absolutely be using FaceBook, MySpace and LinkedIn to gather information on those people you are thinking about hiring. These sites are a window into the personality of your prospective employees. And, it is all public based upon the individual’s security setting of choice. You may feel like you are snooping, but you aren’t. The fact is, the info is out there and you should use every bit you can find.

Social and professional networking has blossomed as part of the recruiting mix. To this end, we at CareerBuilder.com wanted to understand more clearly the power of the network. We currently have a great partnership with Facebook that enables us to help you target the right type of employee. In turn, we have learned much about the demographics of the Facebook user and what may appeal to them. CareerBuilder.com also built BrightFuse, a professional networking site for the masses. BrightFuse is a labor of love that turned into a great place to not only meet people and share interests but also network about job opportunities. Its relaxed atmosphere is more focused on the organic networking experience and not the high-powered, network-at-all-costs mentality.

Social and professional networking is not a fad. Whether it is BrightFuse, LinkedIn, Facebook, or any of the other networks that seem to pop up every day, you should be embracing social and professional networking in your recruiting mix. Generation Y has and if you are specifically looking for that generation, they live online. Give it a try. It is fun to reconnect with old friends, make new ones and find that next top [enter your desired job title] person.

And just to prove the point that this new form of networking is extremely easy, check out the sites where I currently house profiles (you may need to have an existing account to access info):

· Jason Ferrara on Facebook

· Jason Ferrara on LinkedIn

· Jason Ferrara on Brightfuse

Intrigued? Want to learn if we have any shared acquaintances? Join my network or “friend me” as they say. You never know, we may have more in common than you think.

Need some extra help in regards to exactly what this whole social networking thing is? Check out this common craft video; Social Networking in Plain English.

How Recommendations Change Our Lives

2008-11-25T19:45:59Z

I just finished a book titled Super Crunchers, written by Ian Ayres. The theory of the book is that large-dataset analysis is fast becoming the way to make decisions in a variety of fields, from Web analysis to purchasing to criminal justice. Call it the end of human intuition, but the notion is not as overwheming as you might think. The concept of data mining is not new and over the past ten years several major breakthroughs make it possible for real people (like me) to engage in number crunching on the piles of data we keep. All done through smaller, faster computers, more access to data than ever before and easy-to-use analytical software that doesn’t compromise rigor for speed.

An everyday example of this type of data analysis is the kind of recommendations each of us is likely to see each day. Consider some of the following:

If you are a Netflix user you are given recommendations every time you add a movie to your queue. And, you help their recommendation engine each time you rate your recent selections.
If you are an Amazon user, you receive recommendations based on your past purchases. And, while this started with books and was relatively predictable, Amazon continued to perfect their recommendations. Simply because I bought The Elements of Style ten years ago, I today get more than just suggestions for that latest text on English grammar and usage.
If you are a ebags.com user you are asked to rate your purchases. These ratings are fed back to the buyers and product developers at bags.com so they can continue to buy and deliver the high-quality products their customers want.

Everywhere you look recommendations are at work, and job searching is no exception. The CareerBuilder.com recommendation engine is at work in two very specific and powerful ways:

The first is when a person looks for a job on CareerBuilder.com. Using our exclusive SmartMatch technology, we define a user profile from the activity and serve recommendations of alternate jobs to that job seeker, aiding and expanding his or her job search.
Secondly, the same engine, when paired with the Resume Database, is used to assist employers identify like candidates. R2 or Recommended Resume is a patent-pending matching technology that enables employers to save time finding the right candidate for any given job. Once a job is given certain criteria, the context-sensitive engine finds candidates and sorts applicants based on the desired requirements to find the 50 closest-matching resumes that match a Job Posting or match another resume.

Both techniques streamline the job search or hiring process – and, unlike our competition, we’ve been recommending jobs and potential employees for the past five years. This is exactly what we are supposed to use all this technology for, isn’t it? To make our lives a bit easier and more streamlined so that we can focus on other stuff – like filling those open positions.

If you haven’t spent much time thinking about the application of data-mining at your company or industry, you might want to pick up Super Crunchers or watch the video below. I guarantee there are loads of smart folks waiting to help you unlock the potential in your data.

Difficult Times Ahead Bring Opportunities to Embrace Change

2008-11-07T04:23:54Z

I had an interesting conversation today with a VP of Global Recruiting for an international financial services firm, which inevitably turned to the current state of the American economy. To paraphrase his comments he said, “…yes, the economy is bad, but I still have commitments I need to deliver on for next year. I can’t have open sales positions. I have to complete our PeopleClick implementation. I have to make sure that my offices overseas are staffed. I have to advertise our company and the employment brand.” While acknowledging that the economy isn’t good, he also acknowledged that his business still needs to run – the world still turns.

This is an important lesson. We need to continue pushing forward. The environment will be more difficult, but it is in these difficult times that we will focus on the actions that really matter. And through those actions we will create success.

We also spoke about technology and Generation Y. The lines have blurred for that generation between work and social life as evidenced by the popularity of Facebook as both a social and business application, a topic Mary Lorenz touched on in a recent post. It is time to embrace this change, which may end up being an even more important driver of the economy in the future.

Knowing that the months ahead could be more difficult than the months past, are there new opportunities you are embracing to drive the future success of your business?

Making Your Company a Best Place to Work

2008-10-27T19:54:03Z

I recently attended the Pittsburgh Business Times Best Places to Work in Western Pennsylvania event. If you haven’t been to Pittsburgh in some time, if at all, I highly urge you to go. The city and the scenery are great – it is an accessible city nestled in rolling hills of low lying fog at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. I was there however not as a professional travel guide (although I can recommend restaurants and places to stay) but to celebrate some of the best places to work in the area.

The luncheon was attended by approximately 500 attendees – all finalists in the overall Best Places to Work contest. That list was then narrowed down to three finalists in a small business, medium business and large business category. And then the Pittsburgh Business Times crowned one area company as the overall champion. I was so impressed with the energy of the finalists and their dedication not only to their businesses but to their employees.

Clearly, those businesses that won top honors are dedicated to their business and their customers. But, what impressed me the most was how the managers of those businesses spoke about their employees. The employees of these winning companies are family. That is not intended to be a cliché. It is a fact. The managers realize that the success of their businesses relies solely on the customer experience and in every case the customer experience is carried not by the owner or “boss” but by the employees who talk to customers every day. And, these stories are focused on more than simply good benefits (although these businesses have those). The focus is on doing the “right” thing, treating people how you would want to be treated and appreciating the employees who deliver on those beliefs every day.

Sharing the stories from the event would make this post too long – it already may be that. But, I’m always interested in hearing your stories about employees. What are the stories you tell which make your employees famous? What are stories you have heard about other company’s employees that you wish happened at your company? Feel free to share. Sharing those stories is the way we all build our own “best place to work.”

The importance of a recruiting plan: does your company have one?

2008-06-26T18:41:45Z

In my role at CareerBuilder.com I wear two hats. The first hat is focused on how we market to our customers and prospects. The second hat is focused on creating relevant content for hiring managers and HR professionals. Often times I feel like I have one of those Sherlock Holmes hats on and I turn it around and around…

Anyway, I was wearing the first hat Wednesday and Thursday of last week when I attended the BMA annual conference in Las Vegas. Overall, it was a good conference. I came home with several specific action items to apply to our business – my main takeaway is to get closer to our customers. I spend time every week calling our clients to learn more about their business and their needs. But, I’m motivated to push for more. This blog is one way to engage, but there are lots of others that we need to employ. There were also great takeaways about working with agencies and dealing with the explosion of social media.

Rotating my hat 180 degrees, I’ve been thinking about how what I just experienced connects to recruiting “A” players to your companies. One thing was clear in all the presentations – it is important to have a plan. No marketing happens without a plan. And, it strikes me that the exact same claim can be made about recruiting the right employees – no recruiting can be done without a plan.

Sure, I can send e-mail which technically is marketing. And, sure you can hire a person or two on an ad hoc basis. But, without a plan both our efforts aren’t scalable or repeatable. The danger of not having a plan is that we spin our wheels and never achieve the greatness we were meant to achieve in our roles.

I met with one client last week (before Vegas) and watched some focus groups we conducted. In all cases none of the companies we spoke with had a formal recruiting plan. When we asked them about their use of new media for recruiting, such as Facebook, YouTube, etc. all companies shrugged their collective shoulders. Since there is no plan in place, none of these new forms of media have even been considered as a recruiting vehicle.

So, before we get into an in-depth conversation about the benefits of social media for recruiting, let’s first explore our recruiting plans. Do you have a recruiting plan? Is it a shared conversation between front-line managers and HR? Is your plan documented in some way? Is the plan measurable?

I know recruitment plans are out there. And, I know that some of you might like to share. If you are so inclined, I also know there are some clients and others out there who would welcome some ideas not only on best practices but also on how you got started with your plan. Please share.

Can the Public Sector Learn Some Hiring Tricks from the Private Sector?

2008-06-26T18:42:19Z

I spent yesterday with a group of 25 public sector hiring managers and HR directors at the Central Region IPMA-HR Conference in Kansas City. The topic was how the public sector can learn some of the recruiting tricks of the private sector to compete for talent. My expectation was that I would give a 35-40 minute lecture on this subject (much to the chagrin of Bill Lane! Read his book, Jacked Up, it is fantastic.), take a few questions and head back to Chicago. My experience couldn’t have been different.

We did use all the time – 75 minutes! But, we had one of the most interactive discussion sessions of any presentation I have given. The room was full of passionate, curious and knowledgeable HR professionals – they spoke more than I did, thankfully!

It became clear that the conventional thinking around how different the public sector is may be incorrect. Yes, the public sector must conform to specific legislation that the private sector does not. Yes, public sector budgets are tied directly to a fixed pot of tax revenues unlike the private sector. Yes, the public sector doesn’t use terms such a profit, while the private sector bathes in the concept. But, I was shocked at how similar the recruiting process, time to fill and “red tape” were.

Here are some of our action items which clearly cross the lines between public and private sector:

Open up your networks: Lobby your IT department to open up your Internet access to Google, Facebook, YouTube and any other site where your prospective employees are gathering and sharing information. Without this access anyone responsible for recruiting is missing an opportunity to learn about job seekers and engage them in a conversation.

Start the conversation: If your HR team and your hiring managers aren’t actively talking about recruiting, the Internet, your company’s brand and how best to express that brand, you are behind. Start the conversation. It may not be easy at first, but everyone in an organization is ultimately selling for the organization. Why not do it together?

Take baby steps: If your organization isn’t ready for video, that’s fine. How about changing the way your job ads are written. Ever think of having an employee write a job ad? Or, simply reorder the information with the juicy job details up front and the standard company boilerplate at the end. In some organizations, this may be revolutionary.

Talk about your brand: Your organization has a brand. If you don’t think so, just ask a handful of employees what they tell their friends about the company – that’s your brand. If you like what they say, get them to go on record. Publish those comments in your employment advertising. Better yet, film a few employees talking about your company and post that online – what better way to illustrate the face of your company.

While many more ideas and suggestions came from the session, these were the most immediately actionable and fundamental – the ones that had the potential to move the needle the fastest. But, I certainly don’t have all the answers. I’d be interested to hear what you did in your organization to remove red-tape and positively change the recruiting cycle – public sector or private sector.