Category: Recruiting Strategy

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CEO:  “I want to make sure we have the right priorities.  I don’t think we have time to rewrite our job postings and I’m not sure that’s going to help attract people.” ME:  “We can’t afford NOT to rewrite these postings.  The descriptions now are all “HR” talk and doesn’t reflect what we need someone to do, your brand or your culture.  The time we put into rewriting them will pay off.  Trust me.”     Challenge accepted. I left the CEO’s office energized and focused to prove my point.  I selected the most difficult position the organization was looking to fill.  It was a leadership position that had been open for over six months.  That’s not a typo.  Six months.  Two different internal recruiters worked on the role.  Several search firms had the position in their queue and still no results.  Unacceptable. After just two hours, a new job ad […]

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“Trust the process.”  That was music to my ears when the CEO said that on our interview prep call last week. It’s been months in the making, but this is one client who gets it. But, their initial story is one that is all too familiar. My client struggled for years to recruit and retain someone in a leadership role for a business unit that is the backbone of their entire operation. As a result of the turnover in this role, they had a poor reputation as an employer which was impacting hiring across the entire enterprise. Further, their interview process wasn’t well designed or managed, candidates often didn’t know where they stood in the process, urgency forced bad hiring decisions, and there was an overall lack of authenticity throughout which caused candidates to feel…..well……tricked (note: none of this was intentional, but when you don’t have the right resource to […]

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“If you were a candy bar what kind would you be and why?” Years ago, someone told me they were asked that question in an interview.  I laughed and said that I would have told them I’m a plain Hershey bar.  What you see is what you get. But then I took a step back and thought about it a little more.  This might be the dumbest question I’ve ever heard!  What does that have to do with someone’s ability to do a job?  I no longer thought it was cute or clever. I forgot about this until just a few days ago. I’m currently in the middle of a big transformation project where I’m working with a client rebuild their entire leadership team.  We’ve spent weeks getting back to basics by developing success profiles, creating marketing collateral and campaigns, and designing a high touch recruiting process that is both […]

Posted on in Recruiting Strategy

Jim Collins said, “the most important decisions that businesspeople make are not “what” decisions, but “who” decisions.”  We couldn’t agree more. Your business strategy might not be all that different from your competitors, but you can differentiate your company through execution which lies in the hands of your people. So, how do you ensure you make the right “who” decisions?  We have found that companies that have a well-defined talent strategy that is linked to their business strategy are much better equipped to identify and assess talent. When you have a business plan that articulates the expected outcomes of each role, it demystifies what success looks like so you can align your team at each stage of the interview process. We also know that a simple, focused, and intentionally-designed three step interview process allows you to dig far beyond the resume and uncover the information you need to make the right hiring […]

Posted on in Recruiting Strategy

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Yet, when a company has a mishire, rather than examining each step in the interview process to identify failure points and improve, hiring managers plow ahead and look for talent in the exact same way. We see it time and time again. While there are likely several contributing factors of a failed interview process, one of the most common things we see is a lack of alignment. The misalignment extends from not being clear on “who” should be hired into the role all the way to “how” interviews are conducted to ensure you are gathering the right data points to make an informed decision. Here are three quick tips you can use to avoid this insanity in your own organization. Create Success Profiles. Success profiles include the baseline knowledge, skills, abilities, and attributes […]

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When consulting with clients to build effective and scalable interview processes, one of the most common questions we hear is “How many interviews are enough?” Well. That depends. Dr. John Sullivan, a well-respected HR thought leader, coined the phrase “death by interview” several years ago to describe the pain that is caused when companies put candidates through too many interviews. It would be funny if it weren’t so true. So what’s the magic number? First, it goes without saying, that your main objective is to focus on quality of interviews, not quantity. Each step in your process must be intentionally designed so your interview teams understand their roles, the goals of each step, and are trained on how to uncover the critical data necessary to make an informed decision. From our experience working with companies across multiple industries and of various sizes, three interviews, which may each include conversations with […]

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“Walk me through your resume.” This is a terrible interview question. For one, the next five people your candidate meets with will likely ask the same question. While there is value in listening to a 60 second overview of a candidate’s background, investing 30-60 minutes in someone walking you through their resume, line by line, is a poor use of everyone’s time. This question alone is all too common and demonstrates that today’s approach to interviewing is broken. Why? Because no one asks the questions that require a candidate to go deep within their experience, to provide specific examples that are measurable, indicative of their skill set, and provide insight into their work style, purpose, critical thinking, and communication skills. So, how do you efficiently and effectively make sure you confirm specific details about candidates that demonstrate they can meet the expectations of the job and perform successfully within your […]

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Over the last few years we’ve heard about the customer experience, the patient experience, and more recently, the candidate experience.  This term developed in the talent community over the last several years and is gaining speed as a business imperative.  In fact, the candidate experience made Fast Company’s list of top 3 factors that will make or break your recruiting in 2017. Simply put, creating a great candidate experience is just good business.  In our post “Creating a Great Candidate Experience is Good Business” we discussed some staggering facts and figures that demonstrate how a candidate’s experience impacts their view of a company as well as their buying behaviors. We dug further into research from the Talent Board where several themes were identified by gathering direct feedback from candidates that were summarized in the post “5 Things You Are Doing to Kill Your Candidate Experience.”  This post pointed to the top areas […]

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Treating people the way you wish to be treated. It’s such a simple concept, yet it seems to fall by the wayside when companies are working with prospective employees. When candidates rate their experience as poor, it generally points to challenges in the interview process as opposed to clunky technology or the resume black hole (although those are offenders too!). Here are three simple changes you can make immediately that will improve your candidate experience…and that will cost you absolutely nothing! Create an interview process. It’s all about the process. Candidates want to understand your interview process and what they can expect at each stage throughout it. Create an interview process that outlines the goals of each step, the expectations of each individual, and realistic timelines. Train your interviewers on the process and reinforce the importance of follow through. This buy-in will create efficiencies which will improve your time-to-fill, and provide […]

Posted on in Recruiting Strategy

The candidate experience might be dubbed the next “big thing” you’ll hear the talent community talking about. While there are some organizations that are ahead of the curve on this topic, the way candidates are treated throughout the recruitment phase of the talent continuum is something that shouldn’t be overlooked. Focusing on creating or enhancing your candidate experience has a much wider impact than it may appear on the surface. Any negative experience a candidate has with your company will likely have a ripple effect and impact your bottom line. Not sure you agree with that? In research performed by the Talent Board, data shows that on average 41% of candidates who feel they have had a negative experience will take their alliance, product purchases, and relationship elsewhere. That’s a staggering number. Here are the 5 leading indicators of a bad candidate experience: Your application process is cumbersome. Candidates have […]