Recruiting and Retention Archives

Recruiters: Do You Know the Quality of Your Web Traffic?

June 25, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

One of the most interesting conversations that took place during this year’s TAtech Spring Congress was about web traffic. According to a report by software company DeviceAtlas, almost half of all web traffic (48 percent) is now generated by bots (aka web robots) and crawlers.

Bots and crawlers are software that’s designed to visit your site and perform a function. For example, there are Google bots that crawl HR Bartender. The bot is helpful because it indexes information. That way, when someone does a search on Google for the “difference between knowledge, skills, and abilities”, HR Bartender shows up in the search.

Unfortunately, there are also not-so-good bots. And this is where recruiters and human resources professionals need to pay attention.

Many organizations use pay-per-click (PPC) or pay-per-applicant (PPA) recruitment advertising. It totally makes sense, right? Organizations only pay for a recruiting source when it delivers results. In this case, when a job seeker clicks through to see the job posting or actually applies.

Here’s the problem. While today’s technology has become very sophisticated, it’s not good enough to distinguish humans from bots. Meaning, when a click happens on your recruitment ad, the computer that’s counting those clicks (the ones that you have to pay for) doesn’t know if a person or bot did it. This impacts you two ways:

You could be paying for clicks made by bots.
You could have more bots than humans applying for jobs.

Either way, it’s not good. And it keeps you from meeting your recruiting goals. But the answer isn’t to eliminate recruitment advertising.

Let’s face it. We need it.

In 2016, TAtech put together a work group to address this issue. During the Congress, they shared their “Declaration on Traffic Quality”. The document is designed to protect advertisers from fake applicants and help organizations better understand web traffic. The document is available FREE of charge in the TAtech bookstore.

The TAtech community has taken this one step further. Recruitment advertising publishers that are committed to bringing accuracy and transparency to this issue are being recognized for their efforts. Think of it like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

Recruiting advertising is a serious business. I think it’s awesome that the community is creating higher standards for itself. As human resources professionals, we need to stay current with what’s happening in this area. It can impact the success of our recruiting results and our budgets.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby after speaking at the Learning and Development League 2016 Annual Conference in Delhi, India

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All Freelancers Are Not the Same [infographic] – Friday Distraction

June 23, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby 2 Comments

We’ve talked often on this blog about the need for organizations to consider contingent workers in their staffing strategy. The contingent workforce includes on-call, temporary, freelancers, consultants, and contractors (just to name a few). But even within these titles, there are differences.

Take freelancers for example. If you Google the definition of freelancer, it says “working for different companies at different times rather than being permanently employed by one company.” By this definition, I’m a freelancer. A full-time freelancer.

But I believe many people would say that a person with a full-time job and a side-hustle does freelancing. Our friends at LinkedIn recently shared this infographic on the five different types of freelancers in today’s workplace.

Organizations are not only going to want to make decisions about hiring freelancers for their business, but they are going to have to decide what kind of freelancer will fit with their operation. I’m not just talking about culture fit – although that is important. Freelancers have to be able to work within the structure of the organization. So, if the company needs their freelancer to stop by occasionally for meeting, can a “side gigger” make themselves available? Or if the organization would like to engage a freelancer for a year, is the “substitute” going to bail on them once they find a job? These are things organizations need to consider. Here are a couple of tips to consider when hiring freelancers:

Think about the type of work that needs to be done. When considering a freelancer for an assignment, think about more than just the task. Will phone calls or meetings be required? Is there the possibility you will want to engage the freelancer again? It might help you decide the best type of freelancer to consider.

Consider short-term and long-term arrangements. Build a relationship with freelancers. It’s a win for everyone. The freelancer gets some semi-steady income. The company gets a person who knows them. That’s beneficial when it comes to getting the work done.

Once organizations understand the type of freelancer they’re looking for, it will make it easier to find the right person. Hiring the wrong freelancer is like hiring the wrong employee. The company will constantly be in hiring mode and training people to do the work.

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Everything #HR Needs to Know About Boolean Search

June 22, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, I attended the SHRM Talent Management Conference and TAtech Spring Congress. Both events are very heavily focused on talent acquisition, which isn’t a surprise given all of the media attention on “full employment”.

But it made me realize that there are some fundamental tools human resources professionals might not have focused on over the past few years. Like Boolean search.

You know, when organizations were getting hundreds of applications, I can see how refining Boolean search skills wouldn’t be tops on my to-do list. But now, being able to find qualified candidates fast is a priority. So, I wanted to share some information.

To help us know more about Boolean Search, I reached out to Jim Durbin, social media headhunter and founder of Sourcing Worklab. Over the last decade, he’s trained over 9,000 recruiters on the effective use of digital recruiting tools. In addition to his role at Sourcing Worklab, he manages a B2B marketing firm, develops startups in the artificial intelligence (AI) and recruiting space, and takes as many full desk searches as he can get his hands on. I’m thrilled he agreed to share his expertise.

Jim, let’s start with a definition. What is Boolean search and why should HR departments have an interest in it?

[Durbin] Boolean search is a method for searching websites to limit your results. The method uses Boolean “operators” which are simple words to define relationships between keywords, resulting in a more focused search result.

Boolean operators are useful in sorting through the large number of profiles, resumes, and pages available online. These operators are used on websites, in our databases, and in much of our software. HR departments should be aware of Boolean because it gives the control of a search to the human being, and not the developers who created the search function.

Just so everyone is on the same page, what are the 4-5 classic Boolean operators that everyone should know?

[Durbin] SITE, INURL, INTITLE, AND, OR and NOT. I had to go with 6. Here are examples of each:

SITE – The SITE command restricts the search to results within just one website. [site:linkedin.com]

INURL – The INURL command restricts the search to characters in a specific website address. [site:behance.net inurl:resume returns only resumes]

AND – The AND command restricts the search to all of your conditions. [“business development representative” AND “medical sales”]

OR – The OR command broadens the search for multiple terms [“sales representative” OR “account manager”]

NOT – The NOT command narrows your search by deleting unwanted terms [Java Developer NOT:recruiter]

Another thing to note: Quotation marks count too. You can use them to limit multiple terms. [“Sales representative” (in quotes) brings less results, but better ones, than sales representative (not in quotes).

For readers looking for more Boolean operators, Dean Da Costa has shared an extensive roundup of resources on RecruitingBlogs.

I’ve been in HR a lot of years. Now that we have more advanced technologies and social media, do people still need to be skilled in Boolean search? Why or why not?

[Durbin] Boolean is a method. Even within most social media platforms, Boolean search is the method we use to search social media. Recruiters still need to be able to control their searches, so yes, they must be skilled at Boolean.

I’ve read a few articles recently about “long” Boolean being outdated and “short” Boolean being better. First of all, what’s long and short Boolean? And in your expertise, does it matter?

[Durbin] Long Boolean are just long sentences. When you searched through the internet, long searches helped you quickly find the few resumes you were looking for.

Short Boolean is a method that is closer to active search. Short Boolean gets you close to your final results, allowing you to make changes. Think of short Boolean as a way to point a ship in the right direction, and long Boolean as the full map of your journey. If you know where you’re going, long Boolean is useful.

Today, you have to be very good to use Long Boolean correctly. The reward is not always worth that effort. I do think the days of long Boolean are over, but short Boolean will continue to be needed to help us guide our steps.

Last question. We’ve talked before on this blog about search engine optimization (SEO) and how a Google algorithm change impacts career site marketing. Do activities like Google changing their algorithm change Boolean search? Are there things that HR pros should watch for?

[Durbin] Absolutely. The Google search algorithms updates like Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird have completely changed career site marketing, and HR has to be aware of this when building career portals, posting jobs, or purchasing software.

Those changes have one major effect: Google specifically is now focused on recent results. This makes research very difficult without using Boolean. This is a general problem, not a specific thing to look out for. What HR pros need is to be able to quickly access information from any database or software as quickly as their competitors. This means becoming expert at searching the internet – and Boolean is still the dominant form of that kind of search.

I want to thank Jim again for sharing his expertise with us. If you want to learn more, be sure to check out Jim’s blog – Digital Marketing Headhunter. Also, you can check out Sourcing Worklab, they are providing live action sourcing, where you learn how to use these kinds of searches on real jobs.

To find the best talent for the organization, HR professionals will need to step up their game. That means trying new things and brushing off some skills we haven’t used in a while.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby after attending the 2017 BetterWorks Goal Summit in San Francisco, CA

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How Your Small Business Can Attract and Retain Top Talent

June 19, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

(Editor’s Note: Today’s post is sponsored by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual), a leading provider of insurance, annuities, retirement plans, and other employee benefits. They were recently recognized by the Ethisphere Institute as a 2017 World’s Most Ethical Company. Many congratulations to them. Enjoy the post!)

All businesses face the same challenges. From an operational perspective, every business deals with maintaining product quality, customer service, marketing, technology, and cash flow. Plus, a whole lot more. It’s the same with people issues. Every business is faced with recruiting challenges, employee morale and engagement, retention, training, etc.

As someone who has worked for big businesses and now owns a small one, I feel like we do everything large companies do. We budget, plan, and strategize like any business. However, I know that sometimes it feels like big corporations can fix challenges by throwing money at their problems. Big companies can have more resources at their disposal. It’s true. Some big companies have more resources and they choose to spend those resources to address issues. That doesn’t change the difficulty of the issue. But it can often mean the solution is more readily available.

The Advantages of Being a Small Business

However, when I start thinking about the advantages big businesses have, I’m also reminded of the reasons that we chose to keep our company small. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, there are 28 million small businesses in America, and they account for 54 percent of all U.S. sales. Small businesses provide 55 percent of all jobs and 66 percent of all net new jobs since the 1970s. And small businesses are growing. Since 1982, the number of small businesses in the U.S. has grown 49 percent.

There are plenty of reasons to start a small business and keep it that way.

Small Business Concerns about Employee Loyalty

I recently got my hands on the MassMutual Business Owner Perspectives Study. It’s a very interesting read worth checking out. While the study covers issues like business valuation and transitioning ownership, I immediately homed in on the section about employee loyalty. Because even though business valuation and transitioning ownership are important, employee loyalty was ranked the number one issue facing small businesses (81 percent).

Interesting, eh? The very same thing that’s keeping the Fortune 100 up at night is disrupting the sleep of small business owners. The question becomes, how can a small company retain employees? In my experience, employees leave for two reasons.

Reason #1 – Their manager.

Employees want to feel that their manager is there to support them. That means managers should set expectations, teach employees what they need to be successful, offer regular coaching and feedback, and give recognition for excellent work.

Small businesses have an advantage in this area because it’s easy for employees to get noticed in the organization. There are fewer organizational layers and employees can build stronger relationships with people at every level of the company. Also, employees can potentially learn more because they are exposed to all aspects of the business, not simply the department they work in.

Reason #2 – Their job.

Employees want to do interesting work. I’ve often heard employees at small companies say they feel more connected to the mission of the organization because they can directly see how their role impacts the bottom-line.

Employees also want to be paid fairly and competitively. This includes their benefits and perks package.

Small businesses can have an advantage here because they don’t typically have all the policies and procedures that larger companies do. So, things that employees like such as casual dress codes, flexible schedules, and working from home could be possible. And many of these things have a low cost attached to them. That’s not to say that big companies aren’t adopting them too – they are. But small businesses often have the agility to quickly expand upon them. They can identify employee wants and needs and adapt their offerings accordingly.

The key for small business owners is understanding what their employees want and developing a plan of action to make it happen. Just because Google employees have a foosball table doesn’t mean your employees want one.

Get Some Creative Inspiration from Others

When faced with a challenge, I’ve always thought one of the best places to start is by getting some creative inspiration from others. Think of it as benchmarking or best practices.

MassMutual is hosting a realBUSINESS™ webinar focused on “How to Overcome the Top Challenges Small Business Owners Face” on Tuesday, June 20, 2017 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. The highlight of the webinar will be a live question and answer period with small business owners. It’s the perfect opportunity to find out what others are doing. I do understand you might already have plans for Tuesday. If that’s the case, sign up anyway and get the recording.

The webinar is one in a series of realBUSINESS™ webinars for small business owners. You can find more on the MassMutual YouTube channel.

Small businesses can attract and retain top talentClick To Tweet

Small business owners have real advantages that they need to leverage when it comes to attracting and retaining the best talent. There are lots of people who would prefer to work for a small company. Take advantage of the opportunity! Your employees (and future employees) will thank you for it.

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Onboarding: Your Connection Between Recruiting and Learning

June 18, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

We’ve all seen the headlines lately about the U.S. being at “full employment”. On the surface, full employment might sound like a good thing, right?

Well, not so fast. Full employment can create a couple of challenges.

Over inflated compensation and benefits. I’m all for a competitive job market. Top talent should be able to get what they deserve for their skills and experience. However, too much competition can cause employers to throw money at their recruiting problems. I know what you’re thinking, “Is that a bad thing?” I hate to say it, but it can be. Employees don’t want to be underpaid. They also don’t want to be overpaid.

Less turnover. I’m not advocating for high turnover. But some turnover is good for business. It brings in fresh perspectives. In my experience, when recruiting gets tough, organizations might be reluctant to terminate employees for fear that they won’t be able to find a replacement for months. It’s the philosophy that it’s better to work with the devil you know than someone new.

As a result of these “full employment” recruiting challenges, the recruiting and training functions must work together to fill the talent pipeline. Recruiters must be able to tell the organization what roles are better to develop in-house (versus recruit from the outside). Trainers have to do the same thing. Let the organization know what jobs would be better to hire from the outside (instead of developing from within).

In addition, training and recruiting also have to work together to ensure that new hires are set up for success. The way to do that is with onboarding. It’s the intersection between recruiting and training that creates employee success. According to TLNT.com, one third of new hires quit their job in the first six months. And we all know turnover is costly.

When it comes to onboarding, I’m starting to hear more about a format called talent center. The idea is that talent centers are dashboards where employees, managers, recruiting, and training can monitor and measure onboarding progress. Within the talent center are resources and checklists that new hires and managers can use during the onboarding process.

Now, before declaring checklists as evil, hear me out. On some basic level, we all work with checklists on a regular basis. We need them to remind us because we’re not perfect. Checklists can be used to:

Outline what it takes to be successful in a new role (i.e. competencies)
Document compliance requirements

The tricky thing about checklists is making sure they’re used. That’s the difference between a boring, outdated checklist and an interactive talent center. Here are a couple of things to consider:

Employees and managers must be trained on how to use the talent center. Organizations should not make the assumption that everyone knows how to effectively use a checklist. That’s probably one reason that they’re used badly – no one has ever received training. We’re not talking about hours or days of training here. But do provide managers and employees with guidance on how to make the most of the resource.

Regularly survey managers and employees. The other reason that checklists are not used effectively is because they can quickly become outdated. An outdated checklist is worthless. Managers and employees should be surveyed quickly to make sure onboarding resources are current. (And on a side note: training and recruiting should work together to put a maintenance program in place for talent center materials.)

It could make a lot of sense to transform a traditional onboarding process into a talent center, bringing together recruiting, learning, and performance. They key is getting everyone to participate at a high level. That includes HR.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby after speaking at the 2016 MBTI Users Conference in San Francisco, CA

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Quick Shots for #Recruiting and #HR Pros – Boomerang Employees Edition

June 16, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve received several notes about boomerang employees. In a nutshell, boomerang employees are basically rehires. They worked for the organization, left, and have boomeranged back.

It’s a good time to talk about boomerang employees. There’s been a bit of a rise in boomerang employment. I attribute it to the increased challenges in finding talent. The last U.S. jobs report started the conversation about “full employment”. I recently heard a senior vice president of human resources say that the “war for talent” is child’s play. Candidates were showing up for interviews with 6, 7, 8 offers. Organizations have to start thinking about how they will differentiate themselves.

One way is to consider “Adding Boomerang Employees to Your Recruiting Strategy”.

When you think about boomerangs, it might be tempting to only think about employees who leave for another job. First off, not everyone who resigns is unhappy with the company. It’s possible that employees might leave to attend school. Or maybe they’re an intern. It’s also possible that a boomerang could be an older worker returning to the industry at a later point in their career.

I know it would be awesome if employees never left in the first place. Organizations do need to have retention strategies. Turnover does happen. Sometimes though, it can be good for the employee (and the company) to let the employee leave and gain skills they would never have exposure to otherwise. Then the company can welcome the employee back.

A first step in letting boomerang employees know they’re welcome is the exit interview. Use exit interviews as a way to let employees know they can reapply for jobs.

The next step, and a really important one, is then making sure boomerangs actually feel welcome. It’s one thing to say it and another to actually do it. I had the pleasure of discussing the advantages (and cautions) of hiring boomerangs with Joyce Maroney, director of the Workforce Institute at Kronos, and John Hollon, award-winning journalist and talent management expert, during the podcast “Boomerang Employees: Can you Go Home Again?”

Boomerang employees can bring a lot of value back to the organization. They already know the company’s strengths and weaknesses. The one thing that must be resolved is the reason for the employee’s departure. Will the same annoyances happen again? The employee and company need to have their eyes wide open and discuss matters honestly.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby somewhere on the back trails of Walt Disney World, FL

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Increase Employee Engagement and Retention with Better One-on-One Meetings

June 8, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby 3 Comments

One-on-one meetings between managers and employees have always existed. However, they are getting much more attention lately. I believe a big contributor is the focus on continuous performance management. Which makes sense. Why not use regular communication as a way to strengthen performance.

Organizations need to remember that the one-on-one meeting becomes successful when managers and employees have a good meeting. I know, this sounds basic, but when we read about all of the unproductive meetings that take place, it’s doesn’t make sense to assume that managers and employees know exactly what to do in a one-on-one meeting.

If organizations want managers and employees to have productive one-on-one meetings, they should offer some training and guidance on how to conduct them. And not just for managers. Employees are 50 percent of the meeting. They need training too!

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been working with our friends at Saba Halogen to outline the elements of a successful one-on-one meeting. I hope you’ll take a moment to check these posts out. Bookmark the page. Socialize it around the office.

A Manager’s Guide to Successful 1:1 Meetings with Employees

An Employee’s Guide to Successful 1:1 Meetings with Your Manager

These two posts share a blueprint to prepare for a one-on-one meeting. You can use it as creative inspiration for a microlearning session. It can be turned into a meeting agenda. The goal is to get managers and employees to start scheduling, planning, and participating in productive meetings. Because when they do, the organization wins.

Regardless of your company’s views about the annual performance review, managers and employees need to have regular conversations. And the conversations need to be good. The result will be trusting relationships, employee engagement, and retention.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby after attending the Great Place to Work Conference in Austin, TX

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