How placement firms can work better with corporate recruiters and how corporate recruiters need to step up.

How placement firms can work better with corporate recruiters and how corporate recruiters need to step up.

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: Your Organizations Ability to Source Candidates

Hardly a day goes by without receiving some sort of pitch from a placement firm.  I think this isn’t a big difference from anyone else in a leadership role within a Recruiting department, but I think what would surprise some people is what I hear from corporate recruiters that makes me want to slam my head into my desk.

So this month I thought I would give my unscientific top five things that each side needs to do better list.

Top five things that placement firms can do to work with corporate recruiters

1. Know yourself and/or your organization
   If your firm specializes in helping organizations that have little to no corporate recruiting capability, or does especially well helping organizations in regions that people don’t want to move to or a certain size of organization, etc. learn that, know that and own that.  I can’t tell you how many times I talk to firms that in the course of our review I determine do a good job placing people, but only because the companies they work with have no recruiting team to speak of.
2. Figure me out before calling
   I don’t expect you, as someone that is cold calling me, to know all about me (although it’s pretty easy to find out a lot about people nowadays), but at least know what industry I am in, what openings I have and a little about my teams capability.  For example, on a regular basis I get calls and emails from companies that want to place people with me for Software Engineering or Electrical Engineering… well since I work for a hospital system it’s a waste of my time to even return your call now isn’t it?
3. Just because I have an opening doesn’t mean I need help
   I can’t stand it when I open a position and an hour later I get a call from someone saying “…I see that you just posted xyz position open, do you need help?”  Or I see you have (fill in the blank for an entry level position) open, can we work on that?  In the first case, it would be rare that I would feel that we needed outside help and that I would post the position without already talking to someone, in the second case, I honestly should be fired it I can’t find an entry level person.
4. Don’t be clueless
   If I am going to go to a hiring manager and recommend that we use you, do you really think if you call me and you know nothing about my company, the role, the industry, the profession and already have presented a plan to fill the role that goes beyond posting something on a bunch of job boards (guess what- I know how to do that too) that you are going to be the one I recommend?  Don’t waste my time, but if you want to waste yours more power to you and call someone else…
5. Work within my process (if there is one)
   I know you hate this, but we do need to have some kind of process in place.  Most of the time, this shouldn’t get in the way and sometimes it ends up benefiting all involved.  You will also appreciate the next section though, because this is one of the things I address on the corporate side as well.

Top five things that corporate recruiters can do to work with headhunters (surprise- some of this is similar to what is above!)

1. Know yourself and/or your organization
   For the corporate side of things, we need to know our organizations, the openings, the managers, the requirements (tangible and intangible).  We also need to know what we are good at as a recruiting team and plan and react accordingly when positions are open.  So if we aren’t strong recruiting certain specialties, we need to still put our best effort in and get better at it, but also need to come up with plans that probably include placement firms to meet the objective of finding the talent we need, regardless of where it comes from.  Many organizations know when they have a tough position to work on, but they fail to do anything about it.
2. Let go of “us vs. them”
   I sort of understand where this comes from… the adversarial relationship that some corporate recruiters hold on to.  This is a classic example of you get what you incent.  In the past, many corporate recruiting departments looked at needing a placement firm as a sign that they failed because many times that is indeed how it was viewed by leadership and internal clients.  I think this has largely changed because of the complexity of the workforce and the acknowledgement that everyone cannot be good at everything.  Placement firms do need to be used diligently (I would not be employed if suddenly 80% of the placements came from outside firms), but the adversarial view needs to go and good placement firms need to viewed as partners and an extension of the internal teams capability.  I can’t stand it when a corporate recruiter will keep doing things they know have very little chance of working just to keep from using an outside firm.
3. Get out of the way
   Corporate Recruiters also need to know when to get out of the way.  We have a role in helping with the selection of the placement firm, negotiating the contracts, setting up reasonable processes, etc., but beyond that the gate keeper mentality needs to go.  Once the contract is in place, let the placement firm talk to the hiring manager directly, there is no value in the corporate recruiter relaying this level of information.  Have the placement firm submit directly to the hiring manager and have them cc: you so the candidate can be checked out internally (did they recently apply, are they a former employee?) and set up regular short status meetings so all those involved can stay on top of issues.  Beyond that step aside!
4. Don’t be clueless
   Nothing drives me nuts like when I ask a Recruiter to tell me about the role they have been working on for 2 months and all they can do is stumble around while they read me the posting… really?  Well since we’ve submitted 20 people that meet those requirements, perhaps it’s time to actually pin the manager down on what they really want!  We need to know the department, the manager, the role, the skills needed, etc.  If we don’t then we have failed and certainly if the placement firm is not able to find this out, they will also fail.
5. Create a reasonable process
   I touched on this a bit in number 3, but it’s worth emphasizing.  Make sure the process you have is reasonable.  This starts with a reasonable contract and as little intervention as possible by you.  Good people can only do good work when they are allowed to by not having others get in the way.  I think it’s reasonable to sit in on the meeting or conference call as the placement firm talks to the hiring manager (you will probably learn some things), but it’s not reasonable to be the gate keeper and not allow the placement firm to speak to the manager at all.  It is reasonable to ask to be copied on submissions so you can check on past interactions with the candidate (if any), but I would be cautious in requiring that resumes be submitted to you and then you in turn send them on to the manager.

Conclusion

I certainly understand where a lot of the problems with the corporate recruiter placement firm relationship come from.  Past measures of success (or failure) are among them, but there is an unfortunate number of placement firms that are not interested in being anyone’s partner and are only interested in fees and still more that are not malicious, but are either poorly run or are trying too hard to be what they are not.

On the corporate side, the problems also abound, with Recruiters that are nothing more than administrators that process paper to those that have no clue what their internal clients need to those that simply insecure.

Successful organizations realize that there are plenty of problems on both sides and work toward resolving them by having a strong review process in place for placement firms and in coaching and sometimes removing recruiters when they do not align themselves with the greater needs of the organization.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!

© 2011 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

What if this is the new normal?

What if this is the new normal?

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: Nearly all

One thing that I wondered when watching the weather here in Southern California was, if were always below “normal” or average rainfall, shouldn’t the average (or “normal”) start to move down until it reaches some sort of equilibrium, where recent “normal” is roughly equal to reported or referenced “normal?”

As I thought about this, I began thinking about the employment market and how long this recession has been and how much longer it seems like it might be, when a similar thought hit me… what if this is the “new normal?”

So if  the new normal is 9.0%+ long term unemployment, wild swings in the market, complete lack of consumer confidence and next to nothing housing market what does that mean to us in talent acquisition?  Do we throw out all the old strategies because all our positions are filled?  Do we shift to becoming gatekeepers again?  Do we do something entirely different?  The answers could be different than what you expect.

Top three impacts

Impact number one- working longer whether they want to or not
We need to be prepared for people to work with our organizations not only longer, but we need to be ready for them to work with us when they really didn’t want to.  This is not just about people working past retirement, although that is part of this, its people that are working with you because they have few other options.  This can be someone that was highly competent and motivated 6 years ago, but now they are ready for a change but cannot find that opportunity because of the market.  What does all this mean?  We need to have strong performance management systems in place, proactive practices that identify when someone is struggling and/or dissatisfied and good tools for assessing what the true root cause of the problem is.  Companies need to look at themselves from a cultural perspective and decide exactly how much they are going to be willing to work with people to resolve these issues and be consistent as litigation will likely increase as frustrations among workers continue to build.

We also need to have strong succession plans in place for when people do leave as it may be a sudden move… whether it be the person that gets fed up with waiting and just leaves one day or someone that moves quickly out of fear of losing a new opportunity, we need to be ready to turn around much more quickly than we have before with much more purpose.

Impact number two- smart screening
Screening technologies and techniques could become more critical than any of us thought if unemployment continues to remain high.  We will need to build competency assessment systems that not only give us basic information about what someone knows, but will need to be strong enough and reliable enough for us to be able to convince doubting managers that even though someone has been out of the workforce for 5 years, the tool indicates that they have remained competent and that this is the individual we should hire.  Sadly in a market with prolonged unemployment, the best person for the position may be the person that does not have a job right now.

The system also needs to be reliable for another reason; it needs to be able to withstand close scrutiny in a court and by government agencies like EEOC, OFCCP and state agencies like DFEH.  Complaints, charges and lawsuits go hand in hand with frustrated people and we’ve seen this already for some time.

Impact number three- social media and CRM become more important
Being able to fill positions quickly from a group of potential candidates that are already engaged, interested and perhaps somewhat pre-qualified may become a critical firewall for companies that are trying to shield themselves from mass numbers of candidates and the potential liability that could come along with them.

Companies could build relationships with people on social media sites, eventually move them into a talent community and start marketing new positions to them first.  Of course you could not exclusively market to them, you do need to make your positions publically available, but you can significantly shorten the time your position is open to the public by having people ready and engaged for opportunities with your company.

Conclusion
While I hope this is not the “new normal” I think it is prudent for all of us to think about what that could mean for our respective organizations.  Obviously my top impacts may be very different than an organization with a strong international presence or that works with a different segment of the market than I do.

In either case, we may need to be prepared to both screen and engage people at the same time, which is a challenge for many of us.

In reality, whether this is the “new normal” or not, these practices are sound ones that would be good to pursue in any economic environment.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!

© 2011 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved

 

 

Let’s make employee opinion surveys meaningful…

Let’s make employee opinion surveys meaningful…

Segment(s) of the TSC Impacted: Your organizations ability to source candidates and Your organizations ability to sell open positions

At most organizations employee opinion surveys (EOS) are viewed skeptically.  Employees roll their eyes, thinking that once again they are asking for my opinion and it will lead to nothing.   The managers, namely the ones that need the feedback most, hate this exercise because it only confirms what they don’t want to admit.  Human Resources beats their head against the wall because they have to administer this ritual only to be frustrated by the combination of suspected poor managers being confirmed as such with actual data and the lack of willingness by leadership to do anything about it.

I could point out the obvious things that we should be doing, anchoring portions of the manager’s annual bonus to their EOS score, recognizing those that are doing a great job or, the most obvious, simply doing something about those that perform poorly.

But I am not here to point out the obvious… I am here to share something different.

What if, we borrowed some concepts from the familiar practice of peer reviews on product and retail sites like Amazon.com?  What if we put the overall EOS score for each department on their job postings?

Resistance
I’ll be the first to admit that my own organization probably wouldn’t go as far as putting every departments overall score on the departments postings, but I think this is something to move toward.

Certainly the knee-jerk reaction would be “are you crazy?” from both leadership and Human Resources.  VPs and Directors would immediately know and be concerned about the impact on recruiting for poor performing departments… after all, who in their right mind would apply for a position where the department’s score is 1 out of 5 or even 2 out of 5?

The real problem
What is more disappointing is that we allow unsuspecting candidates to apply for those positions out of ignorance…  How upset would you be if you found out that a retail website was actually withholding or manipulating peer review scores on their products?  I suspect you would be pretty pissed.  If pervasive enough, there would likely be investigations and inquiries from the authorities and tremendous brand damage…  But here we are, essentially doing the same thing!

But once again, since we all live in the Information Age, anyone that thinks they control information simply by suppressing it is delusional at best and is doing more harm than good.

As we all should have learned by now from social media, just because we aren’t talking doesn’t mean that no one is talking.

The problem is the person doing the talking is generally a disgruntled employee that is really “motivated” and they are going to any number of sites to let everyone know what they think about your poor performing department.

Don’t believe me?  Go to Glassdoor.com and see what is listed about your company.  This is in addition to anything people are saying on social media and to their friends.

So once again, we have turned the conversation over to a wacko and we’re hoping that no one listens…

What’s worse is that you can’t win either way on these sites… any positive reviews are a best viewed with suspicion that the post was from someone who has other motivations (i.e. HR).

A better way
Now let’s imagine an alternative where your company takes the bold step of posting all their EOS scores.

Managers would suddenly pay attention to the scores, for different reasons, but they will be focused them.  They could be concerned about being able to recruit staff (and funny the bad ones probably need to recruit the most), they may be concerned about how their director of VP would react, but I suspect for most it will be that they simply don’t want to look bad in front of everyone.   What is nice is that the ones that need help will be more motivated to seek it.

Some employees that weren’t being honest before will be honest now.  Why?  Because even the semi-smart ones will realize that if I am slamming the boss just to slam them, they will have a hard time hiring new people to replace those that left, leaving more people for the remaining staff.

Employees will also see that the survey has value.  Instead of just being an exercise of checking off the EOS box for the next “Best Placeto Work” survey there is useful, actionable data and rewards and consequences for managers.

Human Resources will finally see that something constructive is being done with the survey information and perhaps this will be just the beginning of things that make EOS worth it.

Candidates will obviously gravitate to higher rated departments and will likely respect the organization for putting the scores on postings.  The company would also get a great boost in word of mouth type recognition among prospective candidates for being open and honest.

Retention would also improve because candidates will make more informed decisions.  Your company would also decrease the brand damage from good talent coming into bad departments and leaving to tell anyone that may consider your company how bad it is.

Information on sites like Glassdoor would still be posted and reviewed, but if your site has EOS data on it, many prospective candidates would not feel the need to check the site.  Those that do go to Glassdoor will realize that they can check the comments posted there against the EOS information to see if it matches or if there is inconsistency between the two, allowing them to make a more informed decision.

Ways to implement
I would be surprised if most companies posted EOS scores for all their departments, but there is a less threatening way to at least start adding some of the information.

I suggest that you start with posting EOS information about the best performing departments only.  You could work with Marketing or your Advertising Agency to create a special logo that indicates if a department is a “Top 10” department as rated by its employees, or the top department at a particular site, etc.

This allows the concept to get started as a recognition program.  Which will encounter significantly less resistance after all, how could leadership not support both lending credibility to the EOS and having a cheap (nearly free) way to recognize high performing departments?

This could set the stage to later expand the program in the future to include more and more scores until they become more widely used.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!

© 2011 Michael K. Peterson, All Rights Reserved