By Michelle Silverstein, Director of Corporate Marketing at Criteria
Looking back on 2020, the year was challenging in so many ways. Yet challenges present an optimal time to learn from experience and improve for the future.
In the middle of 2020, Criteria, surveyed over 400 hiring professionals to learn about how their hiring processes had adapted to COVID-19. We published the results in our annual Hiring Benchmark Report, and the responses were illuminating. From that data, we uncovered some interesting takeaways about hiring that can be used to improve and grow as we cruise into the new year.
1. Remote Work Is Here To Stay
According to our survey, 69% of organizations transitioned to remote work at some point last year. As a result, organizations had to establish remote hiring processes that were just as effective as in-person processes.
For those who were fortunate enough to be able to work from home, we were curious how they felt about remote work. In our survey, we asked: “Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, how has your opinion of remote work changed?”
What we found is that the majority of respondents, 54% said that their opinion of remote work has become more positive. Meanwhile, 42% said their opinion had stayed the same, and a paltry 4% said their opinion had become more negative.
On the whole, remote work has left a remarkably positive impression on those who had the opportunity to try it. From that same survey, respondents said that the key benefits of working from home were:
Less commuting (95%)
Flexible schedule (76%)
Better work-life balance (75%)
Fewer office distractions (72%)
More time with family (68%)
More productivity (64%)
What’s clear is that employees like and appreciate working from home, and that it can actually be more productive than working in an office. This suggests that even after the world returns to a “new normal” and offices begin to open back up, we don’t expect to see everyone go right back into the office. Instead, we expect to see a hybrid workforce model that combines a blend of remote and in-person work.
With remote work likely to play a major role in daily life moving forward, organizations need a way to optimize their remote hiring processes. Remote hiring has the same goal as in-person hiring: to find the best person for the job. Ultimately this means that organizations need a way to accurately and efficiently identify top talent without meeting them face-to-face.
2. The More Candidates, (Not Necessarily) the Better
2020 saw a sudden and massive rise in unemployment early in the year. The result was an influx of candidates flooding the job market. This represented a significant shift in the hiring landscape. Before, the hiring landscape was characterized as a candidate-driven market where qualified candidates were scarce and employers had to put forth greater effort to attract and retain top talent. But with more job seekers looking for opportunities, employers were faced with a welcome challenge: too many candidates.
The result? Hiring professionals started to perceive hiring as “easier” in 2020 than it was in 2019. In our survey, we found the following:
Across nearly every dimension, hiring professionals were having an easier time in 2020 than 2019. This may stem from the feeling of greater choice among a bigger candidate pool.
Nevertheless, the biggest challenge that hiring professionals face continues to be finding high quality job candidates. While more candidates may seem like a blessing, it doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to find that one person who is right for the job. On the contrary, a high volume of candidates can create problems of its own, with the need to efficiently and accurately identifying the candidates who demonstrate the highest potential to succeed.
3. Diversity Is a Priority Now More Than Ever
In our 2020 Hiring Benchmark Report, we also asked hiring professionals if increasing diversity in the workplace was a priority for their organization. What we found was that, for the majority of organizations, it was.
32% said increasing diversity in the workplace was a top priority at their organizations. 46% said it was somewhat of a priority, and just 22% said it’s not a priority. What’s clear is that most organizations are invested in hiring and retaining diverse teams. The question is, how are they going to achieve that goal?
Unconscious bias is pervasive in the hiring process. One way to combat it is by incorporating more data-driven elements that are tied to job success. The goal is to identify the right person for the job based on their abilities, not based on their connections or background.
4. There’s Reason for Optimism About the Future
There’s no denying that 2020 brought with it a lot of reasons to be pessimistic. However, when it comes to the future, hiring professionals are largely optimistic. In our Hiring Benchmark Report, we asked hiring professionals how they felt about the future for their organization, and the results were surprising:
The data painted an extremely optimistic picture. 66% of respondents were positive about the outlook, while 20% were neutral. Just 6% were negative and 9% were unsure. Despite the setbacks of 2020, hiring professionals are seeing the opportunity for growth in the future.
Ultimately this is a lesson in resilience and adaptability. Setbacks don’t have to debilitate any forward-moving progress. Even in times of strain, organizations can keep making plans for the future and building towards those goals, even if the vision has to be altered due to changing circumstances.
How Criteria Can Help
Criteria’s assessment platform is designed to help teams hire and grow. If an organization is the sum of its people, then each new employee has an important role to play. When assessments are incorporated into a long-term hiring strategy, organizations can start to see incremental improvements in everything from performance and productivity to employee retention and engagement.
By administering assessments early in the hiring process, organizations can quickly identify which candidates are most likely to succeed in the role. This can save invaluable time in screening and interviewing candidates, making it easier for the hiring team to maximize their time and efforts towards finding that right person for the role.
Criteria’s assessments are designed to help organizations hire diverse, high performing teams. Through a rigorous validation process, Criteria’s team of industrial and organizational psychologists ensures that the tests are non-discriminatory and accurate. And when assessments are administered early in the hiring process, they help to highlight candidates who may have been overlooked based on resume alone.
About Michelle Silverstein
Michelle Silverstein is the Director of Corporate Marketing at Criteria, a leading provider of pre-employment assessments. With a background in B2B, SaaS and HR Technology, Michelle is a passionate advocate for helping companies make more informed talent decisions through evidence-based hiring practices.
Turning your consultancy on a dime hasn’t been easy, but some of the challenges are thankfully diminishing. In fact, the nuances of converting to a virtual workforce and a mostly or completely offsite project work are now last on the list of Top 10 Challenges Facing Professional Services Leaders, according to respondents in a recent SPI Professional Services Talent Benchmark.
However, there are plenty of challenges still remaining including around many around hiring and retaining the right talent. Here are some tips taken from the recent Technology Advice Paper: Top 10 Critical Consulting Moves for 2021.
Don’t Neglect the “Soft Skills”
When it comes to talent, consulting staff (and clients alike) must punch up their skills as online communicators and collaborators – to best engage without in-person lunch meetings or stand-up presentations. Those soft skills are now critical to your firm’s success.
In stressful working environments, clients seeking consulting support appreciate meaningful interactions with a more balanced professional staff, skilled at effective collaboration, with a bit of compassion.
Hire for the Long Term
Many businesses are trying to make short-term adjustments today so they can more easily adapt as needed tomorrow. But when it comes to hiring talent today, leadership must invest for the long term. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) reported that on average it costs a company 6 to 9 months of an employee’s salary to replace him or her.
Make your firm attractive to the top talent that’s available by offering opportunities for learning, growth, wellness, personal connections, and family flexibility. Your firm will find that the opportunities you offer to your talent today will pay off in retention, employee satisfaction and even client satisfaction down the road.
Welcome back to Week 2 of our Halloween Monster Mash Blog Series! This week we are talking about the Ghost, and Frankenstein! Spoooookyyyy!
The Ghost – A person involved in the recruitment process who ghosts a candidate after he or she has advanced to the interview process.
What is ghosting? It is the practice of suddenly withdrawing from all communication without explanation.
Anyone who has tried to find a job in a fast-paced market has likely been ghosted at some point. An astounding 65% of job seekers say they never (or rarely) receive a rejection notice from employers.
On the flip side, anyone involved in the recruitment process knows it can feel overwhelming to personally respond to everyone who expresses interest in being hired to your company. Even more so if you are processing hundreds or even thousands of applicants.
In today’s tech savvy world, we have applicant tracking systems that can send an instant, automated response stating only candidates being considered for the role will be contacted. This is a great way to level-set on the front end.
But what about the candidate who spends hours of their time, often juggling a busy schedule for phone screens, video interviews, face-to-face, and even call back interviews, only to then be ghosted if not moving forward? Not only is it a terrible feeling, but it’s a drain on the time and energy they could be putting into other areas of their job search.
You might be thinking, if the company doesn’t plan on moving forward with a candidate, why should it be concerned with their candidate experience?
Today more and more job seekers are leaving negative feedback regarding their candidate experience on job search sites such as Glassdoor, social media and social networking sites, or sharing by word of mouth, making company brands more public than ever.
According to Glassdoor, 58% of job seekers consider a positive experience to include clear and regular communication, 53% clear expectations, and 51% feedback regarding rejection.
Additionally, 40% of applicants state they would pull out of the recruitment process due to a poor first interaction with the Recruiter or Hiring manager, this is only 4% less than the number one reason given, which is the announcement of a recent layoff.
This means it is important that some type of response be given to all that have taken the time to apply and interview. While automated responses are a useful tool for candidates not being recommended for interview, anyone who advances to the interview stage should receive timely follow up on the status of their candidacy. It may not be a comfortable conversation, but by creating a personalized interaction, it’s sure to help you stand out as a true professional and be a good reflection on your employee brand.
The Frankenstein – a group of HR systems that have been ineffectively pieced together resulting in inefficient business processes or data integrity issues.
Typically, when deciding on HR software the choices are between a best-of-breed approach or a comprehensive package. Either can be successful if approached with a strategic plan.
Best of breed typically offers custom solutions that can cater to complex program designs and provide a more granular level of function reporting, but little in the way of HR Analytics or cross functional dashboards. Additionally, systems can get bogged down due to multiple integration points.
Purchasing a comprehensive package is generally considered to be very user-friendly, with features like single sign on, and the benefit of robust reporting capabilities. Older versions offered little in the way of granular level customization, but rapid advances are being made in this area.
At times, companies will start with one “base” system and as the business grows, systems will be added based on individual department needs in an ad hoc way with no real strategic design. This is what we call the Frankenstein.
The Frankenstein will drain your team of valuable time and resources and increase the potential for error. It often involves pulling multiple reports to get all the data needed for comprehensive analytics.
Automation and streamlining processes mean more than simply adding technology to a current process. It’s important to understand what problems you want the system to solve, what is working with the current process, and what is not.
You’ll want to consider what you need for customizations and at what level, create a list of required features, narrow the list of solution providers, maybe ask a few trusted resources for recommendations. Consider scheduling demos for the top 3, discuss the system pros and cons and then select the one that meets the majority of your needs and provides the best overall price.
Implementing the right system can redesign how your HR department does business, streamline interdepartmental processes, and potentially provide a high return on your investment. You may even be able to accomplish more with a smaller team! Take that, Frankenstein!
Thanks for reading this week’s installment, we hope you enjoyed it! Be sure to check back next week for more of our twists on HR processes.
You might read dozens of resumes and find only a few possible gems. What are you doing with the resumes for the other handful of great candidates that you don’t hire for a particular role? Hopefully you’re saving them to build a great source of candidates for your next search! There are so many tools that can help you search through those resumes for the skillset and experience you need. Applicant tracking systems are no longer a “nice-to-have.” They are absolutely essential for the modern recruiter. Your job has changed and you cannot be as effective without the right tools. Here’s five ways Deltek Talent Management helps you be a more effective recruiter so you can better organize, find and interact with your applicants.
1. Resume Search
The resume search within Deltek Talent Acquisition enables you to search your entire database of resumes using different parameters. These parameters can vary widely from a basic keyword search, to a location search radius, to specific skill certifications, licenses or security clearances. To determine the correct filters for your search, start with the following questions:
If you have a lot of old resumes in your database, are you able to search based on recently modified resumes?
Is your search saved for OFCCP reporting if this is a requirement for your company?
If you have modified your application form to add custom fields for your company, can those be added to the search form?
Once you find resumes that match your criteria, can you take action on those resumes by sending emails, inviting applicants to apply to new postings, or forwarding them to another user for review?
Did you know that all of these options are available to you in Deltek Talent Acquisition?
2. Search Resumes Dashboard
At times, getting access to resumes quickly is a priority. When an applicant calls in wanting to know the status of their application, or a hiring manager wants to update you after an interview, being able to quickly find an applicant’s resume is important. Our Main Dashboard for the application is configurable to include a Search Resumes widget, so you can come in and quickly find their resume.
3. Resume Search Agents
Sometimes you don’t find the right candidate right away in your existing database, and being able to be notified when someone applies who meets your criteria would be very helpful. That’s where Resume Search Agents come into play – you can save your searches as a Resume Search Agent, and then choose how frequently you want emails to come in when applicants matching your criteria apply. This is very helpful when you post a hard to fill position and want to be notified when resumes come in that meet your needs.
4. Resume Pools
When you find highly qualified applicants in your database, being able to quickly find them when openings are available is helpful. Resume Pools make it easy to tag these resumes and view a listing of resumes with that tag. For example, if you had two great candidates for a job and hired one of them, tagging that “second choice” resume by adding them to a Resume Pool for easy access in the future if a new opening comes up is beneficial. You can also have your Resume Search Agents automatically populate Resume Pools for you, maintaining a list of candidates who have some of those skills you are on the lookout for. And keeping in touch with these candidates you’ve tagged is simple with Talent Relationship Management available within Deltek Talent Acquisition.
5. Monster and CareerBuilder Resume Search Integration
What happens if you don’t find the talent you need within your resume database? There are other tools and databases you can use to search for resumes – we work with both Monster and CareerBuilder to provide these services from directly within Deltek Talent Acquisition. For example, if you enable the Monster search integration, you have the option to search the Monster resume database directly and then import the resumes you find into your resume database. These resumes can then be reviewed, included in Talent Relationship Management campaigns, or invited to apply to job openings.
With more competition for qualified candidates, a proactive recruiting strategy is more critical than ever. Brilliant HR Talent Management can help your company build a stronger talent pipeline, populate talent pools, and reach the key talent you need to staff your next big project. And, did you know that we recently added a candidate relationship management feature to our Talent Acquisition solution?
Let’s take a closer look at this latest enhancement to Brilliant HR Talent Acquisition: Talent Relationship Management. This new candidate relationship management feature works well in conjunction with Talent Pools and provides the foundation project-focused companies need to deepen talent pipelines and prepare for future workforce requirements.
A solid Applicant Tracking System (ATS) can be a game-changer for your recruiters. If you are not currently building and maintaining Talent Pools, you may be missing a huge opportunity to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your recruiting engine. According to the Deltek Clarity Architecture & Engineering Industry Study, 51% of A&E firms report that finding and retaining talent is their top financial challenge. Talent Pools help by flagging candidates that you want to stay in touch with for future opportunities. When that next project is won and you need to quickly scale the workforce, you will have the opportunity to tap into potential candidates with whom you have already established credibility. As resumes are added to your ATS, you can review and flag those that are a good fit for future openings.
Where Have All The Candidates Gone?
Maintaining Talent Pools by continuously accepting and flagging resumes from strong applicants can help you move faster when you win a new project, or when someone leaves unexpectedly and a succession plan for that individual is not in place. In his post The Smart Move for Growing Companies Is to Always Be Recruiting Talent, David Ciccarelli further expands on how having a strong talent acquisition pipeline in place can help.
What happens when someone leaves unexpectedly? This is where having a pipeline of candidates is critical, so your company can fill the gap sooner rather than later. There is nothing worse than having to delay a project start date because you lack the appropriate talent management resources!
When you review a resume, you can add that resume to a pool so that you can easily find them in the future:
Talent Pools enable you to keep lists of candidates with specific requirements, helping you stay in touch with those job seekers with email communication. These lists can be generated manually or through the use of search agents that automatically add to the list. They can also be shared for easy access to information. Inviting job seekers in these pools to apply to job openings they are a good fit for and have the appropriate skill set:
No one wants to spend months finding, attracting and hiring candidates. The real key to successful talent acquisition is speed. The ability to easily review candidates, engage in conversations and perform the necessary interviews, convert the best candidates to new hires, and get those new hires billable faster are underlying parts of the bigger picture.
Setting Up Campaigns
Talent Relationship Management (TRM) is available as a part of the Talent Acquisition module. This new feature is disabled by default, but your system configurator can enable this functionality. Once enabled, new navigation items for Talent Relationship Management (TRM) will appear in the Recruiting section of the left navigation menu.
You can create letter templates for use within TRM campaigns. These work similarly to other letter templates, and can include merge codes to personalize the messages being delivered:
You can setup the details of the campaign, including which pools, employees or candidates the campaign will go out to. You can save and edit later at any point during campaign creation:
Campaigns can be scheduled for delivery or sent immediately. You can select how frequently to send and between which dates you would like emails sent:
A preview of the campaign is available before publishing the campaign:
Once campaigns have been created (either published, saved to send later, or saved to finish later), you can view all campaigns on one page, similar to the existing Manage Requisitions page:
The Brilliant HR team is excited about this new feature of Talent Management because we heard from so many of you that finding candidates and filling open positions is a huge challenge. We are not stopping here. Talent Relationship Management offers us plenty of opportunities to build additional functionality that will continue to support your recruiting efforts.
Let’s face it, recruiting today is tougher than ever and finding top talent is like finding a needle in a haystack. Unemployment is at an all-time low, it is a job seeker’s market and they’re going to play hard ball when you do find them. However, is it really that hard or any harder than it has been in the past? Maybe we just need to take a different approach and look for talent in another way. Maybe the talent you seek is already available and you just forgot where to look.
Statistics show that 62% of the talent you need is readily available to you and are twice as likely to accept cold emails if they have interacted with your company brand before. That’s right, 62% of the top talent you’re looking for is already in your database, just waiting for the right opportunity to join your company. That is why it is more critical than ever to create a proactive recruiting strategy and ensure Talent Pools are an integral part of that strategy.
But it doesn’t end with just creating talent pools, you also must establish a relationship with the candidates in those talent pools and build their trust. You need to stay engaged and encourage candidates to keep their resume data current and accurate. You must show YOU’RE still interested long after they’ve applied and that there is future opportunity for them.
What does ‘establishing a relationship’ mean? By definition, a relationship is the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected. The way we each view a relationship can differ broadly, but at the core it still means the same thing. To have a relationship with someone means being connected at a deeper level than a mere association. Talent Relationship Management is the engagement between recruiter and candidate; it is building trust and maintaining interest on both sides so that time to fill future awarded projects can be reduced exponentially.
Talent Pools and Talent Relationship Management (TRM) can work lockstep and create an immersive experience for your candidates. They can help you develop and maintain relationships with your candidates and stay engaged with your top talent, nurturing that talent early and often. The ultimate goal is that you are never behind the 8 ball when projects are awarded. You have the talent to fulfill any project need with the right skills, competencies, certifications, and experience level, you just need to remember where to look.
Capitalize on your existing candidates with Talent Pools and TRM campaigns! An engaged relationship = opportunity for both you and your candidates. Win/Win!
Welcome back to Week 2 of our Halloween Monster Mash Blog Series! This week we are talking about the Ghost, and Frankenstein! Spoooookyyyy!
The Frankenstein – a group of HR systems that have been ineffectively pieced together resulting in inefficient business processes or data integrity issues.
