The Staffing Strategy Connection
CareerXroads®Update & Bellwether A combined Edition -
September 2012
By Gerry Crispin, SPHR and Mark Mehler
mmc@careerxroads.com
Are You a Mobile Enabler or a Mobile Laggard?
September marks the start of the 2012 fall frenzy of conferences, niche conferences, un-conferences, expos, seminars, webinars, (and yes, a Colloquium or two). Not every session at every event offers deep dives but the mobile discussion has been noted everywhere this year. One conference, held in mid-September, the second mRecruitingCamp, was totally devoted to the subject. (Michael Marlatt did an excellent job on this one-day niche event.)
Practitioners offering solid case study insights on mobile technology and recruiting included Matt Lavery [UPS], Chris Hoyt [PepsiCo] and Heather Tinguely [Microsoft]. We encourage you to look for their videos. Bottom line, a rapidly increasing percentage of prospects in their pipelines (prospects who are eventually hired) are engaged and in more and more cases applying through mobile devices.
At the same time the number of companies lagging behind is mindboggling. Several months ago we examined the Fortune 500 list just to see who had mobile-enabled career pages - just 47 by our count. Ed Newman, formerly the head of FutureStep and currently with iMomentous, took the approach a step further and rated each company on the Fortune 500 list on a scale (-2 to +6) based on whether the firm had: a Native Consumer App; a Mobile Optimized Corporate Site; a Careers Link; a Mobile Optimized Career Section; a Mobile Optimized Apply Process; and a Native Careers App.
Just one firm was rated a '6' *pause for drum roll* - - - McDonalds. If you are on the Fortune 500 list (and even if you are not), download Ed's free Corporate Mobile Readiness Report and check your own scores.
Factoid: Choices [1]
What % of 18-24 year olds would rather have access to the Internet than access to a car, given the choice could only be one? Is it
- a) 6%
- b) 26%
- c) 46% or
- d) 66%?
Factoid: Choices [2]
What % of recent college graduates would rather turn down an offer rather than accept one to a firm where they couldn't make or receive personal calls? Is it
- a) 3%
- b) 23%
- c) 43% or
- d) 63%?
The 2012 Candidate Experience Awards by the Numbers
- 91 - The number of companies completing an application this year. (20 additional applications for the UK ).
- 48 - The number of firms that said they would 'go forward' by asking their 'candidates' to complete a survey. (Many firms simply wanted to get a benchmark on where they stood compared to the firms that won the award.)
- 45 - The ~ number of firms who were actually able to get past legal, etc. and contact their candidates
- 18,000 - The ~ number of candidates that completed this year's survey (during August) detailing how they were treated in each phase of the recruiting process. (We expect the whitepaper to be completed by the end of the year. It will be free to download.)
- 37 - The ~ number of companies whose claims were supported by candidates and who will win the 2012 CandE Awards- to be presented mid-October at this year's HRTechnology Conference in Chicago.
- 5,000 - The largest number of candidates from just one firm that detailed how they were treated and 85% did not get hired.
Shout Out: Tony Blake
For the last several years Tony Blake, DaVita's staffing/HR leader, has joined his company's cool charity, TourDavita.org, to ride a bicycle nearly 300 miles over several days and help raise millions for kidney disease research.
Tony just completed his ride and we've enjoyed his vivid, daily descriptions. (He sent out daily blogs to his sponsors, colleagues and friends - not an easy task after 100 miles on a bike.) If you know Tony from the many conferences where he's spoken or from a CareerXroads Colloquium meeting, we would encourage you to get on his list.
(Let us know about other staffing leaders who are "walking - or pedaling - the talk")
Pipelining College Prospects
A recent InternMatch event entitled The Early Bird Gets the Internship is worth a much closer look (thanks for the info Jessica Miller-Merrell).
First, it is a collaboration between Google, Twitter and Facebook (think about it). Second, the event targets freshmen as they enter college with advice on succeeding in college (and beyond) by getting a leg up on how to compete more effectively for internship opportunities. Third, this trio of high-brand firms using the latest in cool communication technology (Google hangouts) will certainly have an early edge in mindshare for students with a longer career horizon than the first rush party. (ERE also posted a well written article, written by John Zappe, on the subject.)
We'll be interested in following the results to see how well they capitalize on it. Our thinking is that the best timing is yet to be determined. Even better results might surface around the time students choose a major. There we can see an added value of industry leaders in Finance, Pharma, Construction, Retail etc. each collaborating and bringing content relevant to the importance of having an internship - or multiple internships - to establishing their career. We would hope the firms who participate in events like that share critical [transparent] company data such as: "We typically have 50% more interns than F/T openings and so only make two offers for every three interns." Then again, "Only 37% of the Interns with an offer accept a job with the firm at which they interned." Or, "Fewer than 10% of graduating students w/o an internship will get an entry job with an industry leader." What are your numbers? Would you be willing to share them?
B-School Applicants Decline: Damn Shame or About Time?
The B-school numbers are in and they aren't pretty according to this recent WSJ article by Melissa Korn. 69% of the F/T, two-year MBA degree programs in the US experienced significant declines in 2012 while 79-80% of the schools in Asia (Pacific Rim and Central Asia respectively) experienced gains. Globally the drop-off is 22% after a decline of 10% last year.
While some of this can be attributed to a return to normalcy after significant gains by B-schools during the financial crisis, you also have to wonder about the continuing value of the product exiting the many hundreds of schools granting these degrees.
Most of these newly minted graduates are hired on their potential. (Some were sent to these schools in the first place because of their performance in the firms that sent them, but we're not talking about these folks - they had jobs all along.)
This idea of potential unrealized (and unnecessary) was first described by Peter Cappelli at Wharton a few years ago in this article, High-Potential Dilemma. Perhaps more firms are recognizing that their business is driven by performers and rewarding potential over performance has downsides with lots of unintended consequences.
Factoid: Gender Differences
What % of Women MBA graduates are working full-time 10 years after graduation? Is it
- a) 25%
- b) 50%
- c) 75% or, the same as men
- d) 95%?
Drop Out, Dive In, Start Up: Are Journalists Missing The Main Point?
A few recruiters, thinking out of the box, might benefit by looking for prospects who delayed traditional education for learning of a different kind.
Peter H. Thiel, the PayPal billionaire has garnered some serious ink for his initiative in offering some of the best and brightest young minds $100k and a mentor for a two year stint at a start-up. All the recipients of Thiel's largesse are 20 and under and so missing what would ordinarily be viewed as the ideal time to attend MIT, Harvard, IIT Bombay etc. His plan has come under serious criticism and a bit of fanfare. The latest testament to this controversial initiative was recently featured in the NY Times.
Thiel's first 'class' of 20 teenagers is now completing their second year and we have no doubt the media will shortly descend on them to see how successful they've been - and, we predict, the measure of their success will be tied to the fate of their start-up. Or should it be learning about the process of innovation etc?
And why is it important that college immediately follow high-school anyway? More than a third of students who finish high school don't start college. Some never go, many simply delay it for lots of reasons.
We predict that a majority of these budding entrepreneurs will more likely go on and get degrees than look for a VC. And, they are likely to study with a focus they wouldn't have brought to campus a few short years ago.
If our firm was among those considering scholarship programs as a means to impact the skills gap, we might want to search for students who delayed college as potential scholars with interests we already have in common. Or, better yet, offer post HS internships to the very best and brightest. Or offer graduate prospects with non-traditional backgrounds i.e. peace corps, military service, etc. a better way to enter our firm by removing some of the obstacles that stack rank applications on traditional experiences.
We wonder what an audit of the first and second level leaders at your firm would show. Did they delay college or the start of their work career with a non-traditional alternative? Did a previous generation's drop-outs drop back in and rise through the ranks?
Factoid: Student Study Habits
How many hours do US Students spend studying in college today compared to 50 years ago? Is it
- a) 59% less than 1962
- b) 19% less
- c) the same
- d) 19% more or
- e) 59% more?
Factoid: Student Work Habits
How many hours do US Students spend working while at college today compared to 50 years ago? Is it
- a) 44% less than 1962
- b) 24% less
- c) the same
- d) 24% more or
- e) 44% more?
Candidate Experience: Mystery Applicants & Charlie Brown
At last month's ERE Innovation Summit, the grand prize winner was a UK start-up (in Bath, England) that specialized in Mystery Applicant services and research. We enjoyed some of their findings i.e. "37% of candidates surveyed were less likely to buy the products and services of the last firm they interviewed with."
Despite the limitations of studies like this (data collection methodology and details surrounding respondents) we should all pause and reflect on the impact that our recruiting process can have on a critical stakeholder - candidates. It can have far reaching consequences for your firm's performance.
Our own Mystery Applicant initiatives since 2001, while anecdotal, are a little more fun and designed to generate critical thinking about the candidate experience. We recently published a whitepaper about this year's CareerXroads Mystery Job Seeker: Charlie Brown.
Charlie did find some improvement in the 10 years since we subjected ourselves to applying to each of the Fortune Magazine's list of the 100 Best Companies in America to Work For. He also discovered that too many organizations:
- Provide insufficient information about jobs and their corporate cultures.
- Fail to make the application process user-friendly by not allowing job seekers to upload information in an easy, logical manner.
- Besiege candidates with irrelevant questions.
- Require candidates to take 10 minutes or more to apply for an opening.
John Zappe, writing for ERE, has one of several takes on this work.
LinkedIn: King of the Hill & What That Implies
The 800 pound gorilla in the room is, without a doubt, LinkedIn. We expect their TalentConnect Conference to be as good if not better than last year - which was amazing! (We'll be facilitating a conversation there about Candidate Experience.)
In this Business Insider article, LinkedIn's CEO, Jeff Weiner offers several insights about the firm's growth including that its "flagship product, Recruiter, sells for $8,000/year per seat (per recruiter using it). That price was raised from $6,000 per seat and he's not thinking of raising it again anytime soon (though he left the door open)"
We also keep our ears to the ground and know that many firms have maxed out on their Recruiter 'seats' and are seriously looking for opportunities to consolidate costs in 2013. LinkedIn might take a lesson from a former King of the Hill: Monster.com less than a decade ago. Or from the not so subtle message of Jim Collins' latest book Great by Choice, where he notes that the winners who peak and then head into a downward spiral are most often recognized by the emergence of an attitude of arrogance.
Our observation is that while some societies revere the #1 leader in recruiting, we (recruiters and job seekers) are always looking for an edge and tend to begin looking for it the moment we recognize who 'everyone else' is using. #wordtothewise
Extreme Company Career Sites: You May Get What You Wish For
First, go to gaming developer Kixeye's career site and click on their short culture fit quiz (only a few questions but you'll get the point). Then if you are willing to challenge your notion of what is appropriate in employment branding, you can read Todd Raphael's article and *caution* watch one of the most outrageous recruiting videos we've seen. (If you start it and can stand to watch it - we turned it off too soon the first time - we recommend you watch it to the end to see the head of Kixeye position his company's value proposition.)
Now assume Kixeye hires folks attracted to this environment and, considering yourself as a potential customer, would you buy their products? If you answer "yes," you are probably an 18-28 year old male. Would you buy their products for your children?
Supreme Irony
Where do you advertise to convince people that online advertising is the best use of their $$s? Print!!!
At least that's what Google seems to think in this ad they placed in Canada's Globe and Mail. Will we someday see the return of print for classified help-wanted? Nah!
Is Staffing the 'Point' of HR? We Think So
Data collected from regrettable losses [retention] as well as turndowns of top quality candidates are valuable insights that staffing functions should leverage to ensure their HR partners (the ones responsible for change) can align/move the employment brand dial a notch or two. Given that 40% of a firm's hires may be Gen Y by 2020, we think there ought to be some sense of urgency on this front.
This WSJ article, More Firms Bow To GenY's Demands, isn't really about throwing in the towel to put a body in a seat. It is however, about understanding an audience that performs and draws examples from typical, but less well-known, companies like Chegg, Schneider Electric, and Ocean Cranberry. #Foodforthought
When Pipelines Don't Work
Goldman Sachs is dumping its 25 year commitment to its junior analyst development program. New grads who accepted this elite opportunity in order to get on a fast track chance at a wealthy outcome would typically and willingly work back-breaking 17 hour days six and seven days a week for two years - and then maybe get accepted by the suits.
Apparently, according to this WSJ article, A Bump in the Path to Wall Street, GS was disappointed, and perhaps dismayed (or surprised?!) that so many of the top performers would then jump ship to competitors or go back to school for their MBAs. #duh
In the end YOU - not your RPO, not Your 3rd Party Placement Agency - are responsible
Today, you have independent contractors, RPO firms, 3rd party placement agencies, master contracts with temporary placement firms, PEOs and more (in addition to your own staff) hiring, putting people into seats representing your firm. Their mistakes are your mistakes.
We've known this for a decade but the OFCCP has recently clarified their position on the responsibility of external partnerships. ERE has done a good job interpreting the info. Pay attention because they can walk in any time and ask you to recreate the pool and the selection for any job. If you are doing the right thing, make sure you are working with your partners to ensure they collect the data you will need.
Public Sector Career Opportunities
If you have friends, children or are yourself considering government service, this document, Bracing for Change, is a must read about the challenges and opportunities. If you think you have it bad building your private firm's employment brand, consider some of the government's challenges.
Recruitment Fraud in India
There is a level of desperation for jobs in some parts of the world that is hard to understand unless you've stepped out of the North American box yourself.
Many firms have partnerships with recruiting organizations that represent them in various parts of the world. This blog post about a recruiter scam in India by Gautam Ghosh should highlight the importance of NOT partnering with the lowest cost provider and auditing even the most reputable partners to ensure your employment brand is not sullied.
Factoid: RPO
What was the increase in multi-country RPO contracts by US Multi-nationals in 2011 (versus 2010)? Was it
- a) 0%
- b) 27%
- c) 54% or
- d) 81%?
Factoid Answers:
- Choices [1] - (c. 46%)
- Choices [2] - (b. 23%)
- Gender Differences - (b. 50%)
- Student Study Habits - (a. 59% less)
- Student Work Habits - (d. 44% more)
- RPO - (c. 54% increase)
