recruitment
Author: Future Manager Research Center Passive recruitment is one of the strategies for reaching potential talents in a specific sector or field, even when they are not actively looking for a new job position. Due to its invasive nature, it must be planned in such a way that it is not overly aggressive. First, a good way to attract candidates with specific skills is trying to establish an engagement relationship with these potential resources, through networking, sharing values and maintaining an excellent corporate reputation. Visibility on social networks and on the web is certainly a fundamental aspect to strengthen your brand and convey your vision quickly and immediately. Consequently, through a good marketing campaign it is also possible to leverage the human resources that could become part of your team in the future. Engagement can also be encouraged by the willingness on the part of human resources managers to organize informative interviews, webinars or meetings. Through them, they can provide all the details relating to a specific role or a specific department and illustrate the actual benefits offered from your company. Furthermore, recruiters must also be able to keep the relationship with passive talents constantly alive by planning communication moments, or rather by periodically taking an interest in their current career path and providing any company updates. When it comes to passive recruitment, a targeted approach is the winning strategy: it is necessary to know how to identify the ideal resources for a specific job position, based on specific characteristics and skills. Therefore, social networks can be effective and easy-to-use tools to search for and monitor passive candidates and to carefully study their profile using both objective and subjective criteria. These platforms offer the opportunity to actively get in touch with professionals from different backgrounds and to capture their interests and aspirations, including through their registration and interaction within certain groups and thematic pages. Clearly, a good recruiter must build a network of acquaintances that ensures the availability of the right talent at the right time. Finally, having a database full of information relating to potential candidates can also be extremely helpful.
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Author: Future Manager Research Center Nowadays who is not subscribed to at least one social network? Although in the first decade of the 21st century the generations of the so-called boomers had been reticent towards social networks, now things have definitely changed. In fact, they too have learned to familiarize themselves with these new technological tools and, we can certainly say, that the use they make of them is almost comparable to that of younger millennials. Recruiters are particularly aware of this, as they consult and study the candidates’ profiles on a daily basis in the personnel research and selection, also through these powerful means of communication and information sharing. This phenomenon is defined as “Social Media Profiling” or also “Social Screening”. On the one hand, it can be extremely helpful in selecting the most suitable talent for business needs, on the other, sometimes the abuse of social media by HR managers can lead to real cases of stalking that often escalate into discrimination of various kinds. In fact, by having access to the candidates’ contents and information on their social networks’ profile, recruiters can decide to exclude them from the selection processes on the basis of real prejudices. The problem arises when the limit is crossed: while selecting a talent, some recruiters make their choice, by carefully analyzing the candidate’s personal profile instead of his professional curriculum. Clearly, not all social platforms facilitate these abuses. For example, social screening proves to be a precious source for the acquisition of talents on LinkedIn, a social network that contains professional pages and profiles. In these cases, privacy is absolutely protected. The case of digital platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram is different: most of the users registered on these social networks use them for personal purposes, to maintain contacts with friends and relatives. Many of these share posts with a deeply private and emotional connotation, thus far from being useful for completing their candidate profile for a position. Furthermore, it is not possible to define the ideology or the real temper of a candidate from a post on social networks and, therefore, only on assumptions. In addition, it is potentially illegal for recruiters to base their own evaluation criteria on private life’s aspects. It is understandable that an HR manager will try by all means to steal the personality of a candidate in a well-rounded way. However, given that there is the possibility of limiting the visibility of a social account only to selected people, be careful and protect your privacy. A Talent Acquisition project is the result of a fair and impartial evaluation by the HR staff, who should focus on the actual skills and abilities of the candidates and not on their “cultural” suitability. The only real way to understand if they are talented resources is not to spy on their social profile, but rather to test them, perhaps through a targeted interview.
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Author: Future Manager Research Center The spread of the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital tools in the candidates’ selection. However, even before this critical moment in history, it was already widely digitized. It cannot be excluded that the selection methods of the future will also follow the trail of digital innovation and change. Among the tools largely adopted in this period, the Virtual Job Fairs, also known as Virtual Hiring Events, emerge. They have been implemented for years in company strategies aimed at recruitment. These new generation events have actually been on the rise for years thanks to their ease of access and because they avoid any loss of time and money for all those participants who, to conduct the interview, have to pay high transport costs and undergo many hours of travel. By not having to follow a rigid scheme at a space-time level, they allow multiple talents from different regions or nations to connect to the event and take part in it. The convenience of these events also concerns the available tools: depending on the needs of the company and the candidates, they can connect to virtual fairs via any type of mobile device provided. This allows an agile participation in the selections, as well as a high economic saving for both human resources managers and candidates. Even for companies that need to fill available job vacancies, Virtual Hiring Events represent an effective and convenient instrument. They allow businesses to relate in a short time with a large number of talents and, clearly, getting in touch with a larger pool of candidates automatically translates into a higher probability of finding the right resource for the team. Thanks to this type of events, the company also has the opportunity to sponsor and promote its brand, creating a considerable competitive advantage. In fact, the organisation of trade shows and virtual events involves a careful and well-designed advertising and marketing campaign, which aims to attract as many candidates as possible, make an “audience” and strengthen the so-called corporate brand awareness.
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Author: Future Manager Research Center Passive recruitment is one of the strategies for reaching potential talents in a specific sector or field, even when they are not actively looking for a new job position. Due to its invasive nature, it must be planned in such a way that it is not overly aggressive. First, a good way to attract candidates with specific skills is trying to establish an engagement relationship with these potential resources, through networking, sharing values and maintaining an excellent corporate reputation. Visibility on social networks and on the web is certainly a fundamental aspect to strengthen your brand and convey your vision quickly and immediately. Consequently, through a good marketing campaign it is also possible to leverage the human resources that could become part of your team in the future. Engagement can also be encouraged by the willingness on the part of human resources managers to organize informative interviews, webinars or meetings. Through them, they can provide all the details relating to a specific role or a specific department and illustrate the actual benefits offered from your company. Furthermore, recruiters must also be able to keep the relationship with passive talents constantly alive by planning communication moments, or rather by periodically taking an interest in their current career path and providing any company updates. When it comes to passive recruitment, a targeted approach is the winning strategy: it is necessary to know how to identify the ideal resources for a specific job position, based on specific characteristics and skills. Therefore, social networks can be effective and easy-to-use tools to search for and monitor passive candidates and to carefully study their profile using both objective and subjective criteria. These platforms offer the opportunity to actively get in touch with professionals from different backgrounds and to capture their interests and aspirations, including through their registration and interaction within certain groups and thematic pages. Clearly, a good recruiter must build a network of acquaintances that ensures the availability of the right talent at the right time. Finally, having a database full of information relating to potential candidates can also be extremely helpful.
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Author: Future Manager Research Center Not every hiring process is successful. I discussed the most common and the most costly recruitment mistakes in the previous article: “Recruitment mistakes: 6 costly shortcomings“ As a reminder, the six most common and costly recruitment errors: Hiring mistakes appear at various stages of the process and may have multiple consequences. The first three of the errors mentioned above carry a particular risk of hiring the wrong candidate. Such bad hiring may be costly for the employer. Bad hire results in the employment of an employee who does not meet the job position’s requirements. Bad hire may, therefore, generate the following costs: The cost of the first and subsequent hiring process The hiring process requires an investment of work and money. An employer needs time to prepare and conduct the recruitment process, a budget to source candidates through job advertisements, direct search, or use the services of a recruitment company. If the above investment results in the employment of the wrong candidate, the return on the investment will be negative. Bad investments bring losses, and it is no different in the case of hiring processes. The size of possible losses of bad hiring depends primarily on whether: Regardless of the above circumstances, if it is necessary to conduct the recruitment process again, the employer shall bear the cost of this process at least twice. Firstly, the cost of the first bad hire, secondly, the cost of the second hiring process necessary to find an appropriate candidate. The cost of the first and second employee onboarding The onboarding process follows the hiring process. Depending on the job position, the onboarding process may take various forms. It can be a 30 minutes long welcome meeting with the team or a several-month-long transition process of a complex project. The onboarding process uses the employer’s resources. Specifically, other employees invest their time to help a new employee get started and feel comfortable with his responsibilities—the more time needed to onboard a new employee, the higher employer’s investment. To sum it up, a bad hire results in onboarding an unfit employee and dismissing him/her later. In such a case, an employer is forced to run a hiring process again and onboard a new employee. The employer will therefore carry out the onboarding process twice, and therefore will incur double the cost. The cost of firing an employee Firing an employee may also be costly. Parting with an employee may – but does not have to – lower team morale and undermine confidence in the decisions made by the employer. It is difficult to estimate the financial cost of a team’s motivation swings, but such swings are undoubtedly undesirable. The cost of delays or failure to complete tasks Depending on the type of job, a bad hire may lead to delays in projects and tasks. Missing hands to work, whether at a sawmill cutting machine or at a corporation desk, can cause delays, the scale and consequences of which will vary from job to job. It is not difficult to imagine a situation in which the timely delivery of the service is secured with financial penalties. The shortage of staff may lead to delays in the provision of this service and specific financial consequences. The cost of losing know-how and customers In rare cases, it may also happen that the fired employee uses confidential data obtained from the employer. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to use the customer database or leave the company with other employees to start a competitive activity. Are there other costs? The above list certainly does not include all possible costs that may arise due to a bad hire. However, these are the most common costs, in my opinion. It is worth noting that some of the costs presented may also appear when the hiring was carried out in an exemplary manner, and the employer parted ways with an excellent employee with many years of service. Certainly, however, in the case of a bad hire, the risks are much higher. How to avoid costly mistakes? Once again, I encourage you to read the article: Costly recruitment mistakes What tools help hire effectively? Meet Element, a user-friendly and efficient applicant tracking system (ATS) that will save the time necessary to plan and carry out the recruitment process properly.
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Author: Future Manager Research Center In a race and overload of duties, it is easier to take shortcuts. However, recruitment errors can be very costly. How to avoid them? Missing or incorrectly prepared a job description Correct preparation of the job description for which we are looking for candidates is crucial. If we do not know what specific tasks an employee is to perform, we will not know what competencies or qualifications we should require from candidates. It is worth writing down all the critical functions in detail and considering what skills they need. In this way, we will create two fundamental elements of the job description: responsibilities and requirements. Next, you need to verify what financial and non-financial expectations the relevant candidates may have. We can do it by analyzing publicly available payroll reports and job ads. Key takeaway: the lack of a properly prepared job description is a high risk of failure in the recruitment process. It may result in hiring a person who will not perform the tasks needed by the employer. An incorrectly prepared recruitment advertisement As mentioned above, the fundamental elements of the job description are the scope of duties, required competencies or qualifications, and the offer. These elements also constitute the essential content of the recruitment advertisement. So, since we have prepared a job description, the recruitment advertisement is almost ready. Here, however, you can also make recruitment mistakes. We mentioned that the job ad is almost ready. Almost, because before publishing a job ad, it is necessary to verify whether we want to make public all the job description details. The job ad’s detail level should not be too high as it may unnecessarily overwhelm candidates. In the first contact with the candidate, the published job advertisement, there is no need to inform who exactly the employee will reports to, how often, and in what form, or the rules for paying the commission. Such information helps create a job description. However, it is too detailed and sometimes sensitive to constitute the content of a public job advertisement. Key takeaway: include all the most essential duties and requirements in the recruitment advertisement. The lack of this information increases the risk of unsuccessful recruitment as the recruitment process will consist of candidates who do not match the job description. Asking inappropriate questions during the interview Interview with the candidate is a crucial stage in the recruitment process. The incorrectly conducted interview will not verify whether the candidate meets the requirements specified in the job description. How to prepare for a job interview? A simple recipe for preparing the right application questions is to go through the entire job description and create questions for each item in that job description. If the position requires the supervisor’s calendar to be kept ongoing, let us ask if the candidate uses the calendar and how. Let us also present a hypothetical list of tasks that the candidate should arrange in the calendar according to the priorities proposed by himself. If we expect the candidate to have sales experience and achieve sales results, then let’s ask about what he sold, how he sold, with what results, and with the use of what tools. Let’s go into details and ask how many meetings he had daily or weekly, what sales channels were most effective, the biggest challenges in closing the sales, and what the candidate did to deal with this challenge. Key takeaway: good preparation for the interview will allow you to verify the candidate’s suitability better. It will also enable the candidate to understand better what we expect from him at work. Selling of a job offer With the high demand for talents, acquiring the best candidates is a challenge. Getting a perfect candidate is particularly difficult. It is worth remembering when starting the recruitment process and making it attractive for candidates. How to make a recruitment process attractive for candidates? First of all – try to make your job offer attractive. Make a list of advantages of working in your company and put that list in the job offer. Secondly – when talking to a candidate, remember to use the language of benefits when introducing yourself and your own company. It is not only the candidate who should make a good impression. If we do not make a good impression on the candidate ourselves, we risk not accepting our offer. Let’s emphasize the strengths of our organization and our job offer. Key takeaway: if we don’t sell our job well, the candidate will choose another one. The too-long recruitment process The long duration of the recruitment process is one of the key factors contributing to the loss of candidates. Remember that the candidate usually takes part in several recruitment processes at the same time. The employer who submits an attractive job offer faster significantly increases the probability that the candidate will choose his offer without waiting for another. Naturally, the recruitment process is not a race for a job offer submitted as soon as possible. Even if the process consists of many stages, we should plan the process so that the individual stages are not separated by more than a few or a dozen days. It helps a lot if the candidate receives an accurate schedule for this process. In such a case, even a more extended break between the stages will not be a disappointing surprise for the candidate. Key takeaway: plan the recruitment process. Do it so that it takes the shortest possible time and inform candidates about the schedule for this process. Lack of contact with candidates One of the most common problems in recruitment processes reported by candidates is the lack of contact after applying. This problem has several negative consequences for the employer. Lack of ongoing contact with the candidate may result in the candidate’s conclusion that his application has not been accepted. Thus, without waiting for this contact, he can take another job offer. Lack of contact with the candidate also negatively affects the…
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Author: Future Manager Research Center For a company that has the prerogative of being or becoming global, knowing the distinction between the different recruiting methodologies that are implemented in different countries is a fundamental notion. Practices vary from one country to another and, for this very reason, HR consulting agencies operating internationally must keep up to date, as must a candidate hoping to get a job in a foreign country . So what are the favorite tools of recruiters operating in different countries of the world? Social networks, Job boards, external recruiting companies or word of mouth are, in general, some of the main roads taken by recruiters, but you know, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”, so the ability to adapt is essential. Starting from European habits, it is possible to highlight how, according to a study conducted by Stepstone, out of six countries examined (Germany, France, Denmark, Austria, Sweden and Belgium) only 2% of recruitments were made on social networks. This figure might seem a contradiction if we consider the fact that the new generations of graduates are much more inclined to recruit via social media, however this does not mean that these countries detached from the use of digital platforms. On the contrary, European companies know very well how to exploit their networks, but they simply do it differently from other countries. Demonstration of this fact is that 24% of such hiring takes place through digital channels within companies, such as applications received on company websites or from the activation of internal recruitment networks. Diametrically opposite is the situation in the United States, where searching for and offering jobs on LinkedIn and Facebook are on the agenda. However, the incidence of recommendations is even more relevant: in fact, the recommendations are the basis of 20-30% of recruitments in the USA. A candidate advocated by a staff member or a trusted person is fourteen times more likely than another to be chosen. Furthermore, compared to Europe, it is much more difficult to suggest someone who is part of your family unit; the odds increase, on the other hand, for a candidate known during college or previous work experience. Following the considerations examined it is clear that, despite the recommendation component, there is no real “hidden market” in the recruitment field. The majority of the available jobs are advertised through the job boards to which anyone has access: in India, the hires made following online contact make up 60% of those taken into consideration, in the same way in China, where Viadeo is a social network that has revolutionized the way of recruiting. Despite this, the interviews are still of vital importance in the analysis of a candidate’s professional career (think for example of a country like Italy which is closely linked to the most relational form of recruitment). Young graduates are therefore ready to cross the borders for a job search abroad, which requires knowledge of some subtleties and habits of companies and of the candidate-employer relationship. Always remember that a useful solution to find support and advice in these situations is to rely on Cross Culture services.
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Author: Future Manager Research Center How many times has it happened to you, not only in the workplace, to make an appointment and then, at the established time, those you were waiting for do not show up. It is always a very unpleasant and irritating situation, considered one of the most common lack of respect in everyday life and which is simplified with an Anglicism known as “ghosting“. The concept of ghosting is unfortunately well known by those who work in the recruiting field and its origin is much less recent than you think: there are reports written by HR managers dating back to the so-called “Y2K Boom”. Most of complaints came from technology companies in the United States, which denounced some situations that that occurred during the interview and that seem quite bizarre to us. In fact, it happened that candidates in the middle of the interview answered calls from other recruiters, without worrying in the least about the context in which they found themselves. The reaction of a recruiter today would be immediate and the candidate would be dismissed with a resounding “thank you and goodbye”; however, the dynamics that have contributed to the occurrence of episodes such as the one just mentioned are not so obvious and banal. This represents an extreme case instead ghosting in its most common form manifests itself, for example, through the behavior of a potential candidate who suddenly disappears after being chosen and does not participate in the final stages of the recruitment process, exiting, as is the saying goes, from the recruiter’s radar. It has been observed that the phenomenon of “ghost candidates” becomes frequent in the labor market when the threat of unemployment is low and this partly explains (but does not justify) the rude behavior of American candidates at the beginning of this century. While for a long time, companies have been accused of not always responding to candidates, current data show that the situation has reversed. In fact, ghosting is particularly frequent in the modern technological recruitment sector where the supply of work is greater than the demand and above all, since there is not always a face-to-face approach, many candidates feel free to lose their tracks. The negative implications for the Human Resources sector exist and must be contained. For his part, a recruiter should aim to be as transparent as possible during the cognitive process with the candidate and constantly document the stages of this process that will lead to the hypothetical hiring to lower the possibility of sudden abandonment. Good communication is always a great strength, especially since one of the things that terrifies the candidate the most is waiting, which is a source of great anxiety. Finally, an additional tool to avoid ghosting is to improve, and to do so, a satisfaction questionnaire can be submitted to the attention of young talents. Remember that, to optimize the acquisition of talents, it is crucial to focus on employer branding, since when a company proposes an image of itself that conveys seriousness, authority and efficiency, the candidate will understand that he is dealing with professionals to whom he does not it will waste time. This last point is the keystone of a valid and engaging brand for the best candidates.
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Author: Future Manager Research Center Nobody likes to carry out the most boring and repetitive tasks in the workplace, in fact everyone hopes to be able to cleverly avoid them or to be able to delegate to some other colleague. A chatbot can prove to be a trusted helper for carrying out tedious tasks. Also known as “conversational agents”, chatbots employed in the HR field encourage and facilitate the application processes while, at the same time, they perform a sort of pre-qualification of aspiring recruits. Recruiting companies know very well how expensive it is in terms of time and resources to constantly succeed in attracting new candidates. The analysis of the behavior of users who visit the recruiting web pages show that, very often, they wander briefly on HR sites without completing the compilation of the spontaneous application. Very often, it is not due to lack of interest in the proposal, rather it is a matter of laziness caused by the length of the format (especially when is requested a short motivational letter). The perfect tool to make up for this inconvenience is the chatbot which helps to improve the candidates’ experience by providing various kinds of information about the company, giving life to a completely personalized experience. It can provide instant information on company policies and various types of issues, reducing the waiting time given that the service is available 24/7. Using a chatbot does not only mean improving the company Customer Care but, at the same time, it also grants the HR department to find out which topics are of greatest interest to candidates and what their attitudes are. This is because the robotic chats are able to carry out a sort of preliminary interview, allowing the recruiter to have information even before the actual physical or telephone meeting with the candidate. The intervention of Human Resources staff is obviously not optional, it is in fact necessary for the recruiter to calibrate and update the chatbot (most of the time with the support of the company’s Digital HR manager), in order to obtain more and more performance optimized. To conclude, an advantageous aspect that was found is that this tool puts the candidate at ease: although often equipped with a fictitious face and name, the chatbot is still a machine, so no one feels intimidated or in awe either in asking questions, and in providing with answers.
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Author: Future Manager Research Center “Standing out from the crowd in your job search: how can you differentiate yourself from other applicants in times of crises?” Chaos, fear and uncertainty may act as a barrier between you and your dream job. We cannot look the other way: the Coronavirus pandemic has had and is still having heavy economic consequences on companies and is influencing their recruitment processes. However, while for some companies hiring may slow down, this is not true for all businesses. On the other hand, while the number of companies that are still hiring decreases, the competition intensifies and becomes fierce. Standing out from the crowd and showing up as the person companies are looking for at this very moment is crucial. Here are some steps to help you catching the best opportunities on the labor market: We are proud to be there!We are sure we will!
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