How to Make Social Media Work for Your Recruiting Process

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These days, social media is about the best way for job seekers to see what’s out there and for hiring managers to find job seekers. Leveraging the community that social media sites provide can be an extremely effective way to source talent.

However, there are some things to remember. You have to understand the site is merely a platform. Simply being on the site will not generate results. You’ll have to make full use of the tools, network, and in some cases, paid features to be successful.

What works well?

  • First, complete all registration steps and requested information.
  • Note that full profiles with content, posts and updates will land at the top of search results.
  • Everyday interaction on social media will be required to stay “current” as well.
  • Don’t make your social media presence all about you.
  • Engage with others in non-job seeking or non-recruiting ways, too.

What doesn’t work?

  • Hiring managers can’t just post jobs and wait for the applicants to come to them. The “post and pray” method doesn’t work on even the best social media sites. You’ll have to identify keywords and run searches that target your ideal candidate. Leverage the communication features of the site to reach out and follow-up.
  • Job seekers have to go a step further and interact with and reach out to potential hiring managers. Merely setting up a profile, uploading a resume and sitting back hoping recruiters will come to them will get them nowhere.

Take a personal approach, after all we are talking about social networking.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is by far the best place for prospective white collar job seekers and recruiters. With some basic search knowledge, job seekers can identify individuals who may be the decision makers for hiring at desired locations. This allows them the ability to better customize their outreach to employers during the job application process, as well as use their network to ask for introductions to a specific individual in a position to influence the hiring decision.

They can also get the scoop on what’s available by following individuals, companies and groups. Savvy job seekers will look beyond the job postings and pay attention to what companies are posting. They shouldn’t request to connect with someone only to turn around and ask that person about a job. This tactic can be very annoying to anyone who has been on the receiving end of those connection requests before. If job seekers want to cold contact, they are better off calling the hiring manager as long as the job postings don’t advise against this approach.

As a hiring manager, you can attract individuals by leveraging your own social media profile, connections and company pages to promote openings. The same aforementioned basic search knowledge can be used to identify potential candidates. Pay attention to profile updates, promotions and those who are publishing to give you an indication of top performers.

Facebook

Although not known to be a professional networking and social media venue, Facebook does have its own advantages. Job seekers can follow their favorite companies and brands, all of whom are posting not only consumer content, but company updates and job listings. Job seekers who want to work for their favorite brands pay attention to them on Facebook.

Hiring managers, you can hire your biggest company fans by paying attention to who interacts with your company’s page. If you hire people who are already fans of your products or services they are more likely to be valuable brand ambassadors and have a passion for what they are doing within your business.

The Muse

Relatively new to the social media career site beat, The Muse is a neat site with many tools for job seekers including career advice and career development tips. Companies who are active on The Muse will have direct access to job seekers, especially those with a focus on professional and career development. You can even leverage your hiring and recruiting expertise and apply to be a career counselor.

Job seekers will enjoy themed content relating to professional development and career growth. Astute hiring managers can look to provide content and coaching while interacting with job seekers.

Business Journals

Local business journals are always on the pulse of the local marketplace. They also frequently announce promotions, “people on the move,” new businesses, new offices and many other pieces of job seeking intelligence. If you’re sourcing applicants, following the social media profiles of business journals (as well as their actual online publications) is an excellent way to identify key players and top performers…not to mention keep an eye on the latest news about the labor market.

Job seekers who follow business journals will gain insight on companies that are actively growing, hiring and promoting. They can put these companies on their short list, then flip over to LinkedIn and try to identify the decision makers.

Write [on Social Media]

This works equally well for job seekers and hiring managers. Hiring managers want to hire smart people and job seekers want to work for smart people. Make your own social media content plan and calendar. Utilize Twitter and LinkedIn to promote your recruitment brand, your company and your knowledge and expertise. Don’t forget to regularly share your job listings on social media with relevant hashtags, too. You can streamline this process using an applicant tracking system with social recruiting features. As you build a following, you will begin to attract candidates because you’ll bring positive, relevant attention to you and your company.

For job seekers, staying current on social media will help them maintain a digital portfolio and resume. For best results, they should keep it focused to their specialty and post frequently–it’s free advertising. Hiring managers are sure to be looking at job candidates’ social media profiles, so it is in the best of interest of job seekers to make sure it is not only professional but full of quality content.

 

There are many other social media platforms out there to investigate. Ultimately you’ll want to find a platform that aligns with your industry and the applicants with which you want to associate. You need to go to where your candidates are and that may even include following your competitors’ social media pages, too.

Photo Credit: Maialisa

Think Before You Hire! 10 Common Mistakes Made in Rushing the Recruitment Process

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Hiring is one of the most critical tasks and challenges an organization faces. Yet, unfortunately, too many approach it as transactional or don’t allocate the proper attention, priority and resources towards it. Even with a gainfully employed talent acquisition staff, the struggle to keep up with today’s hiring needs promotes a rushed approach to the recruitment process.

When you rush through the hiring process, you make mistakes and miss critical steps. You may be in such a hurry, you hire “good enough.” This will ultimately become a problem. If you want a top performing team you can’t settle for good enough. Fortunately there are some common mistakes you can avoid if you are aware of them and slow down enough to address them.

1 – Failure to Clearly Define the Role

Rushing a hiring decision and overlooking a few critical steps can lead to a host of problems. One of the most critical steps is ensuring a clearly defined role description that contains essential functions, skills required to do the job, competencies required to be successful, and in some cases the environmental factors. Namely, the hiring decision is not based on the use of objective data such as a clearly defined role description. In the absence of clearly defined roles and responsibilities, candidate selection is left up to opinion and extremely subjective decision making.

2 – No Interviewing Plan

Failing to plan for making any business decision is not good. Failing to plan your interviews and questions will almost guarantee an ultimately adverse outcome to your hiring decisions. When you fail to plan your interview, you end up just having a conversation. Then your decision is based on whether or not you enjoyed the conversation.

3 – Asking “Yes” and “No” Questions

Typically this is a result of not having an interviewing plan as well as an untrained interviewer. Avoid, at all costs, asking questions that elicit a yes or no answer. It doesn’t tell you anything about the candidate and he/she will almost always give you the answer you want to hear. This is where a planned process will call for behavioral based interview questions.

4 – Asking Leading Questions

In an interview, you will naturally draw a 50% conclusion by the time your first handshake is over. Right, wrong or indifferent, it happens. If that initial conclusion is positive, you will want to see one succeed in the interview. Without knowing it you will actually help the candidate answer the questions correctly. In doing so, your subconscious will take over and you’ll begin to lead him/her to the answer you’re seeking. A savvy candidate will pick up on it and give you the answer you want. Thus, you completely missed an opportunity to objectively assess the candidate.

5 – Not Involving Others

Hiring is a team sport. As such, you’re bound to make mistakes if you go at it alone. You will miss things others will see. Not engaging a candidate’s potential peers in the interview could be costly. Not only do you want to verify the candidate has the right skill set, but also will fit with the rest of the team.

6 – Falling Victim to Interview Fatigue

Interview fatigue can easily take its toll if you cram too many interview sessions into a short span of time. This can cause you to only vividly remember the first and last candidates you interview. In fact, when coaching job seekers, most are told to seek the first or last interviews of the day.

7 – Ignoring Red Flags

This is one of the most common hiring errors out there. You’ll hear and see little things during the process of interviews that will make you take pause. They will stick in your head and you’ll try to push them to the back. They concern you, but you rationalize it and figure it won’t be a problem. Then the day comes and you say, “Well…I knew that when I hired him.” These are the red flags you noticed in the process.

Always remember this. A candidate is on his BEST behavior during the hiring process. If you notice red flags then, multiply it by 10 and that’s what you’ll eventually get. Don’t rationalize red flags. They will inevitably become a problem.

8 – Avoiding an Analysis of Facts

Similar to ignoring red flags, this hiring foul will cause you a headache later. Remember, interviewees are (should) be on their best behavior in an interview. They should be prepared and ready for what you may ask them. They will seem like a rock star during that hour conversation. However, don’t forget the facts. Does their past performance align with your needs? After all, it is the best predictor of future behavior.

9 – “I Can Teach Them That”

Although this may be true, you must understand what you are signing yourself up for. Do you really have time to teach them the basic skills they need to qualify for the job? If your company does not have a great training and development program to support this, odds are it won’t happen. You can probably get away with teaching them the nice-to-have skills, but don’t think you’ll be able to teach them the core critical skills. Note, this is different than teaching them the job or teaching them how to use the resources and tools to do the job. You’ll have to teach anyone you hire how the job is performed at your company. You just want to avoid having to teach them the core skills needed to perform the job.

10 – “Maybe They Will Change”

In a rushed hiring situation, you will tend to overlook potential issues that you’ve identified in the hiring process. Due to time constraints, desperation, or whatever else the scenario may be, you may be tempted to assume they will change a behavior or environmental clash. If you’re concerned about it, and think they will change it, think again.

 

Staying disciplined to a sound recruitment process, avoiding too much subjectivity and focusing on a candidate’s verifiable qualifications will help you avoid these common mistakes and attain better ratios of hiring success.

 

For some advanced tools to help you avoid hiring mistakes during the recruitment process, check out ExactHire’s employee assessments.

Contact ExactHire

Recruiting Ninjas: 5 Ways to Build a Niche Network

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Sales and recruiting have a lot in common and I think just about any recruiter out there would agree with that. Given this similarity in function, you can imagine the path to success for both is likely similar. All good salespeople and recruiters know that networking is the key to any long term success.

Successful networking involves repetitive and constant effort. All plants will eventually die if you don’t water them. Just like sales, all recruiting networks will eventually dry up if you don’t nurture them. As a recruiter you most likely already have a technology solution to let you manage job openings and applicants. If not, you need to get one! An applicant tracking system like HireCentric ATS from ExactHire is what you need to track and manage all your leads and applicants resulting from your networking efforts.

Recruiting is a “results-based” endeavor. Meaning, placements and hires are what matter. However, all recruiters know there is a significant amount of activity that goes into it. Since you don’t have unlimited time, you need to make sure your activities are focused on what will get you results and what will help you build your network.

Building a successful network requires focusing and fine tuning your efforts. In order to focus your network efforts you need to pick a niche. If you are hiring software developers, your networking efforts need to focus on those groups, activities and associations. Focus on the following five activities to build your niche network, be more efficient, and reduce your time-to-hire.

Niche Job Boards

Focusing your efforts is critical to getting the best return on your [time] investment. Job boards can take some getting used to and none of them are real easy to post openings on or search for candidates. So how do you make your use of job boards effective? There are a few steps you can take.

First, find a job board that is very specific to the target market for which you are hiring. Do your research on the volume of jobs posted.  If it has a resume database, evaluate the number of resumes it contains. Do some searches for your target candidates. How many are in the system, when were their resumes last updated? These are questions to ask when evaluating the system.

Hint, hint! If you’re an agency recruiter or independent recruiter, look at the companies that are posting jobs on these boards. These are potential leads and you can clearly identify their needs. Use it to your advantage.

Attend Niche Professional Organizations

Building a network must involve–you guessed it–networking. Forget about recruiter networking groups. After all, you aren’t hiring recruiters. Identify networking groups that are associated with your target market. If you are seeking candidates, focus on groups and associations in which they would be involved and attend those events. If you are seeking clients, focus on groups and associations to which those hiring managers [decision makers] would belong.

Hint: Most of those groups will have both potential candidates and clients as members.

Speak at Niche Events

Speaking is always a great way to network with many people at once. It’s also one of the toughest areas to break into and you usually need a network to get started in speaking. That being said, many professional organizations are always looking for speakers at events. As long as you’re competent and you know the material you are presenting, speaking is the best way to get branded an “expert.”

Tailor your message to your audience. You have a captive audience for networking so take advantage of it. This is more than an elevator pitch, it’s a full commercial. Continue the conversation with those who come up to speak with you afterwards. If you’re speaking to potential clients, this is great exposure to your services.

Give Career Advice

Since you are a recruiter you should, by default, be an expert in career advice. Since you live and breathe job placement everyday, you have unique insight into what employers seek, how they make decisions, what candidates want, etc. Share this knowledge and information with both potential clients and candidates.

You should use a variety of mediums to share your knowledge such as blogging, writing articles and short books, speaking (as mentioned above) and volunteering at career centers and workshops. These are all fantastic ways to build your network. Focus your advice on interviewing, resume writing and job searching. You’ll also have the side benefit of getting first glance at potential candidates before they even apply to other jobs.

Know Your Stuff

A recruiter who is competent and credible in the industry in which they recruit will achieve greater levels of success than his peers. Some of the most successful recruiters have actually practiced the trade for which they source candidates. Being able to talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk will not only help you win instant respect from clients, but also from candidates.

Now demonstrate your expertise and knowledge. Seek out any opportunity to write for blogs, submit articles, etc. Sign up for opportunities to be an expert source or reference for different publications at the site Help A Reporter Out (HARO). Brand yourself and your social media presence as an expert in the fields for which you recruit. Actually take the time to learn the jobs of those you are recruiting. Know what goes into their daily activities. Know the good and the bad. Understand the typical struggles. Most importantly know why your candidates typically look for new opportunities.

 

Building a niche network will not only help focus your precious time and efforts on the activities that will actually generate better results for your recruiting efforts, but it will also brand you as a career expert in your area. When you are a defined expert, people will seek you out. In recruiting this means not only will candidates seek you out, but clients will as well.

Want to leverage your recruiting network? See how ExactHire’s Applicant Tracking System can quickly get your postings to the niche job boards you need.

Contact ExactHire

 

Photo Credit: OpenClipart-Vectors

5 Recruitment Tools That Give You the Advantage

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The competition for talent requires organizations and their armies of recruiters to maintain a competitive advantage and a sharp edge when it comes to their recruiting and hiring practices. The modern day recruiter must be proactive, responsive, open-minded, and a little bit competitive. An applicant in your pipeline has also applied to other places so it’s imperative you’re on your game.

There are a number of things that can give an organization and its recruiters a competitive advantage in the gladiatorial arena of today’s hiring environment. Whether you face lack of applicants or lack of qualified applicants makes no difference. The fact is, the best applicants aren’t just dropping on your door-step.

An ace recruiter realizes that speed to hire without jeopardizing the process or quality is critical to winning the recruiting war. You have to be able to attract the best active job seekers to apply and make it as easy as possible for them to do so. Likewise, as a recruiter, you need to be able to sort through those applicants efficiently and recognize the best fit quickly.

Fundamentals of an Advantageous Process

There are some basic considerations when establishing a process aimed at giving you the upper-hand in hiring active candidates. The combination of speed, information requirements, accessibility and recruiter decision making all come into play.

Reducing the complexity of applications is probably one of the most critical aspects of the process. Allowing for a “quick app” collecting the minimum information needed for you as a recruiter to make a “call / no-call” decision is about all you need initially. Making your application mobile friendly is a good first step in this process as it forces you to abbreviate the information you are requesting.

Many times an application process is bogged down with irrelevant and excessive information. This can be a turnoff for some candidates and they may leave the process. There’s nothing more frustrating for an applicant than spending a lot of time on a resume, uploading it to your ATS, only to find out you want them to fill out a digital application as well. Limit the information you need to collect from them to the essential information you need for a “call / no-call.” decision. You will get more applicants!

Mobile friendly application processes will place your opportunities in the hands of more people, literally. If they they can apply with a few taps of the screen and a little bit of initial information (e.g. via Indeed or LinkedIn), you are sure to gain the attention of more people. This also means you can’t purely rely on the artificial intelligence of most applicant tracking systems. AI features are great at flagging applicants, but a human decision is still required.

Gain a Competitive Advantage with These Five Functions

Be sure that the applicant tracking system you select provides for these five key functions, which when leveraged properly, will grant you an extreme competitive advantage.  A system like ExactHire’s HireCentric ATS will provide all these features and more giving you a robust platform with the functionality you need to compete in the recruiting space.

User Interface

As mentioned earlier, the less painful you can make an application process the better. A mobile application is a must and an abbreviated process is critical. You don’t want to lose applicants before they’ve even completed the application. Take a hard look at your ATS of choice. Is it just an infinite amount of text fields requiring manual data entry?

A fast application should provide for the critical information necessary for you to make a “call / no-call” decision. This may include name, phone number, email, current position and brief summary, and any “knock-out” questions you may have. Caveat – make sure knock-out questions are actually relevant and matter.

Social Recruiting

It goes without saying that integration with social media sites is a must for every recruiter. A modern and effective ATS needs to interact and leverage social media. You should be able to push jobs to and share jobs on social media sites. As well as allow current employees to do the same. This allows a more active approach to recruiting rather than relying on the “post-and-pray” method.

Applicant Management

Your applicant tracking system is the heart and sole of your hiring process. If you’re fortunate enough to get high double-digit or even triple-digit applicant counts, you will need an efficient method for keeping them organized.  Top line features allow for the integration of applicant assessments and questionnaires. Your information gathering process should rely on who the applicant is and what they are capable of more so than a labored list of previous jobs, duties and functions. Assessments and questionnaires will provide you with an interactive look at who you’re considering for employment.

Paperless Onboarding

The hiring process doesn’t stop once an offer is made. Your onboarding process is the first impression your new employee will receive from your company. Remember, they have nothing invested yet, so a bad first impression could be the difference between a fully accepted offer and a rejected offer. Allowing for e-forms, digital signatures, video tutorials, etc.; will set you apart from the labored and antiquated new hire paperwork.

Analytics and Sourcing

What good is an ATS without the ability to leverage and mine the data that exists? Continuously improving on your process is sure to improve your speed to hire and attract more of the right applicants. Basic information such as time-to-hire, workflow, interviews, hiring yields among others, should be expected. Advanced information that gives you the ability to more precisely target your most successful applicants is what makes a significant difference.

 

The application process is the first impression an applicant gets of your company. Make it a good one. If you keep these fundamentals in mind and choose an applicant tracking system with some key competitive features, you will surely be on your way for winning the war on applicants. Remember, in today’s labor market, you typically need them more than they need you!

 

Want an advantage? Contact ExactHire to learn how our Applicant Tracking System can give you the edge you need.

Contact ExactHire

 

Photo Credit: trainer24

New Hire Onboarding Success with a SWOT Analysis

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The purpose of a SWOT analysis in the business planning process is to make sure you’ve identified all the possible strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to your business.  Only then can you create a business plan taking into consideration all these aspects and setting your business up for it’s best chance at success.  The new hire onboarding process should be no different.

Some aspects of the SWOT analysis are designed to act upon.  For example, you want to make sure you capitalize on and take advantage of your strengths and seize your opportunities.  Other aspects are for you to be aware of.  You must be aware of your weaknesses and competitors in the market place.

If you really think about it, doing the same type of analysis for a new hire should be no different. To a new employee, changing jobs is a “new business” operating in a new environment with different conditions. Extremely savvy job seekers will do their own SWOT analysis on the company before joining.  Why?  They want to make sure they are setting themselves up for the best chance at success.

Your analysis of your new employee should occur over the course of his/her onboarding and should be a critical part of the employee onboarding process.  Ideally you would have done most of this during the hiring process.  However, it’s not an exact science and you may have missed some items. Hopefully, at a minimum, you determined the new hire should have a seat on the bus.  Now you just need to figure out what that correct seat is.

It’s not uncommon for individuals to be hired for a certain position then find themselves in another. This happens quite frequently in organizations that focus their hiring efforts on the type of person and their strengths and abilities, more so than technical knowledge and experience.  You can only gain this much clearer understanding of the best fit for the individual once she is on board and you have had a chance to analyze her capabilities against various positions.

 

Strengths

 

This is the single most important aspect of an individual’s SWOT.  If you do nothing else, make sure you thoroughly assess strengths and figure out how to apply them appropriately. Getting a new hire aligned with his strengths is the best way to set him up for success in his new role.  

To properly identify strengths, you must allocate the proper time and training.  Just immersing someone in a new role will not yield the results you need to identify his core strengths.  Step one would be to have a simple conversation with the individual and see what he thinks his strengths are.  Consider a tool such as the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment to assist in this endeavor. Then have him work through various aspects of his role (and other roles if possible) to see where he naturally excels with the least amount of direction.  By doing this, you can identify where his best opportunity for success may be.

 

Weaknesses

 

Awareness of weaknesses will avoid early failure and miss-steps for a new employee.  It is critical that he be given every opportunity to succeed, build confidence in his new role and gain confidence of his coworkers.  This doesn’t mean you don’t want to challenge him, but you want to make sure you are challenging him utilizing his strengths.

Once you’ve identified potential weak points, note them and work to avoid them.  The last thing you want to do is try to change someone or improve his weaknesses.  It’s much easier to focus on the strengths.  There’s also a tough leadership decision in this step of the process.  If it so happens that his weaknesses actually need to be his core strengths for the position, you will have to find this employee another seat on the bus — or another bus.

 

Opportunities

 

This is the fun step.  After your analysis of strengths and weaknesses you should have a pretty good idea of the direction(s) the individual can go within the organization after his onboarding.  These are his opportunities.  By the time you get to this step, the individual has probably started to see his opportunities as well and may have expressed some desire towards those.  

Don’t forget to have this important employee development conversation.  This will likely be the difference maker between an engaged long-term employee or a short-term employee.  Most employees will look for their next opportunity within the organization fairly quickly and if they don’t see one they’ll plan their next move — out of the company.  Your job as a leader is to make sure the opportunities they are seeking within the organization align with their strengths and avoid as many of their weaknesses as possible.

 

Threats

 

Typically addressing threats in a SWOT analysis takes into account competition.  We don’t want to think of competition in terms of an individual’s employment SWOT.  Rather, you want to look at what potential roadblocks stand in the way of his success.  The roadblocks you should try to identify are resource issues, process and procedural issues and potentially other individuals.

Ever wonder why they sweep the ice in front of the stone in Olympic curling?  They are grooming the ice and creating the best possible conditions for the stone to travel further and straighter.  As a leader you must continue to sweep the ice in front of an employee to ensure his optimal onboarding experience and continued success.  What you are doing is eliminating or mitigating the threats you know will stand in the employee’s way.   

 

If you’ve properly integrated a SWOT analysis into the new hire onboarding process you will be setting the stage for initial and continued success for the employee and your team/company.  It takes a little bit of discipline and practice to master, but really isn’t that difficult.  The most difficult part is evolving to the point where you only focus on aligning his strengths within the role, or a different role, and completely avoid any assignments that will draw on his weaknesses.

Done correctly, and applied correctly, a SWOT analysis will ensure a business stays on course, remains competitive in the market and services customers profitably.  This directly correlates with the same success of a new employee, his level of engagement, productivity and length of retention.

Looking for tools to improve your employee onboarding process? Contact ExactHire to learn how our employee onboarding software can automate your new hire paperwork and workflow.

Contact ExactHire

 

4 Guidelines for Optimal Job Application Conversion Rates

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We live in an age of distraction and it’s wreaking havoc on your talent applicant sourcing process. Despite your efforts to write engaging job descriptions, post them far and wide and publicize your amazing corporate culture, your click-to-apply ratio is dismal. So what gives?

While the aforementioned items are undoubtedly important factors in the talent acquisition game, another critical component is the length of your job application. The likelihood that you’ll make your very next priority about researching your ideal application length will depend on the supply and demand for job categories in your local market. However, know that the very best candidates always have options, so even in a seller’s…ahem…employer’s market, top talent still won’t fill out your 50-question job application.

The proof is in the numbers, and it’s pretty staggering on both desktop and mobile devices. Check out this statistic from a study referenced in an ERE post:

“For every 100 candidates who click through from a job advertisement to a recruitment portal on a desktop device, an average of 8 will complete a job application. For mobile click-throughs, the completion figure is just 1.5 percent.”

I was curious about how the same numbers would stack up across all of our own HireCentric applicant tracking software client job portals. During the last six months, our own click-to-apply ratios for site visitors who make up the referral traffic category* are listed below.

  • desktop – 9.23%
  • mobile – 4.96%
  • tablet – 3.34%

*Referral traffic category visitor = visitor referred to a client’s HireCentric ATS portal from a link on another site like a client’s corporate website or an external job board.

While our ratios come out slightly more favorable than those referenced in the study, it’s still pretty disheartening to think about the fact that out of 100 job seekers referred to your careers portal, only three to nine of them will actually finish the application process, depending on their device. So how can you improve your own job site’s click-through numbers?

Ditch Traditional Job Application Length Thinking

Start to ask yourself the tough questions about what you really need to know from applicants at the onset of the hiring process. Then, dump traditional thoughts like these:

Employer thinks: “I want my application to be long enough that I won’t get overwhelmed with unqualified applicants.”

High potential job seeker thinks: “This is taking too long…I won’t be applying here now…or ever.”

While there is some logic to making your process long enough to be a speed bump to candidates that are just looking to claim their next unemployment check, if it’s too lengthy you run the risk of disengaging the best potential applicants from finishing your application now…or anytime in the future.

Employer thinks: If someone wants to work here badly enough, they’ll jump through whatever question “hoops” we present.

High potential job seeker thinks: If the employer cared enough about its employment brand, they’d only ask the deal-breaker questions early, and save the other stuff until later.

Evaluate your own application process to determine what works best for your organization and job market. And, remember to consider how the applicant might feel while completing your employment application. Use the following sections as a checklist to help make adjustments…and know that what works for one job category may not be ideal for another.

 

Mobilization

Make it easy to apply from a mobile device

The statistics don’t lie–the conversion rate for job seekers viewing your site from a mobile device are even worse than from a desktop. Smaller screens make lengthier applications appear even more intimidating and stop potential applicants in their tracks. Implement these enhancements to improve your odds for success.

  • Mobile-friendly jobs site – make sure your careers portal is developed with responsive web design so that your employment application automatically adjusts to the size of the screen on which it is viewed.
  • Mobile apply integrations – Look for an applicant tracking system that integrates with well-established sites from which candidates may pull application information.
    • Apply with LinkedIn – can your candidates authorize their own LinkedIn profile to populate some of the fields of your application?
    • Indeed Apply – Is your application set up in such a way (including responsive web design) that Indeed can empower job seekers to use their Indeed profile to push application info to your ATS? The key to making this setup work is collecting only basic information in the first step of the application process (e.g. applicant source, resume and job screening questions, for example).
  • Dropbox/Google Drive – Candidates can’t necessarily upload a resume file to your jobs site from their phone/tablet. Mobile job seekers will count on your system to allow them to pull their resume files from a cloud-based file storage site like Dropbox or Google Drive.

 

Segmentation

Do not put the cart before the horse

Do you really need to have a candidate’s references in the first step of the hiring process? After all, only a tiny percentage of all of your candidates will have those come into play at the end of the selection process. And, you don’t really need the full employment and/or education histories right away if you get a resume up front.

Look for an ATS provider that offers employment application options such as the two-step application. This feature allows you to ask only the absolute need-to-know-now questions of applicants in the very beginning of the recruiting process. Then, once applicants are pre-screened and a few top candidates are identified, you can always ask those top candidates (who are now more motivated to respond having been identified) for more robust applicant information in the second step of the application.

Additionally, limit the number of essay questions in your application, and instead opt for multiple choice questions to facilitate informative, quick answers that don’t lengthen the time it takes to complete an application, but at the same time, do allow your staff to use answers to automatically score and/or disqualify applicants. In fact, the aforementioned study found that the length of time it takes one to complete an application is an even bigger driver of applicant drop-off than the number of questions asked.

 

Customization

Identify the information you need in each job category

Help job candidates help you. That is, customize their application experience to be hyper-specific to the information you need early on to assess their potential qualifications for a position. For example, if you are sourcing applicants for an exempt position, then don’t make them answer an application question that asks whether they are willing to work overtime…as that would only be applicable to non-exempt job candidates. This can be accommodated either through job screening question groups customized for each of your job categories; or, via multiple application layouts for different hiring needs (e.g. executive-level, different geographic locations, etc.) that are set up by a trusted applicant tracking software provider.

Think about other potential considerations to ease the candidate experience. Do your graphic designer job applicants have a designated place on the application to reference their online portfolio? Does the application associated with the recent college graduates’ hiring track allow candidates to link to a copy of their student transcript?

 

Communication

Paint a clear picture of the path to employment

Many effective writing styles preview a piece of content’s focus before getting into meaty topics. In a sense, you’ve got to tell readers what you’re going to tell them before you tell it. Redundant or not, a lot of people like to know what they are getting themselves into to determine if it’s worth their time in the first place. Job seekers are no different.

Create content that illustrates not just your employer’s application process, but the entire hiring process including interviews, background/reference checks, the offer letter and employee onboarding activities. Here are some communication strategies:

  • Job description length – If you want more qualified candidates to apply, then you generally need to describe the position in more words than found in one short paragraph. However, your job listing should not be a novel either. Look to recruiting metrics available in an in-app ATS dashboard to help you start to diagnose which of your job listings are performing best when it comes to organic search results…this could be a partial clue into which of these descriptions have a more optimal, keyword-savvy, length.
  • Career-focused content – Include pages within your jobs site that share Q&A narratives about what candidates can expect from the hiring process. Incorporate video and images as often as possible as it makes it easier and more entertaining for job seekers to process the information presented.
  • Clear application instructions – Take another look at the actual directions listed at the start and end of your application process. Do they set expectations that additional information may be collected later, if applicable? Could they be lengthened (or shortened) to be more effective?

By heeding these guidelines for converting more job applications, your organization can make strides toward improving your hiring efficiency.

6 Skills to Master in Your First Year Out of College

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1. How to Write a Resume

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Resumes are like the windows into your job seeking souls, or a window into what you did before this job. Either way, they’re important. Whether or not you think you are a resume “expert,” every position requires a little tweaking of the resume. So, it doesn’t matter how good or bad you think your resume is, there are hundreds of ways to create or improve one that looks totally professional. Here are some previous blogs about how to do just that:

2. How to Budget

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I’m still working on this one myself, but learning how to budget your money is crucial in the year after you graduate. Through college, you were generally guaranteed a place to live and could beg your friends into giving you their leftovers, but now you might be out on your own. If you are (or if you’re trying to be) it could be time to actually log your spending/savings so that you’re not left out in the cold. If you don’t want to take my word on it, maybe read the Forbes take on it.

3. Taking Care of Yourself

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And that means getting in and out of bed at a reasonable hour. This is probably the easiest and hardest part of graduating college. Sure, you had to learn how to “cook” and maintain decently healthy living habits, but now it’s the time where you actually have to pretend to know how to be an adult. This means exercising, knowing where the produce section of the grocery store is, and hopefully having more than just alcohol and ketchup packets in your fridge at any given time.

4. Creating and Maintaining Professional Relationships

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It’s easy to fall into the routine of seeing the same people everyday, and if you’ve just graduated, it’s even easier to forget the difference in experience levels. Creating professional relationships are simple; just show and give respect where deserved, but maintaining the professionalism is a little more difficult. If you already have a job or want to study how you can become a functioning member of work culture, you can check out these blogs:

5. Interviewing Well

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Lucky for you, ExactHire has multiple blogs on how to do just that! Here are a few that you should definitely check out in order to find success at every turn, or interview.

6. Having an Opinion

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This may seem like an obvious skill to have mastered, especially after you ruled the classroom with your deep and probing thoughts; but what happens when your opinion on Jane Eyre’s choice to return to blind Mr. Rochester is no longer relevant? Answer: you form new opinions. Just as you had to do your research for that research project your senior year, you have to research your new job. The more you know and understand about the company, the easier it will be to give your own input. Though it may seem scary at first to have different thoughts than those around you, stick to what you know, show that you care, but always be open to new and other opinions.

Image credit: PUSH FOR HELP by Jonahthan Nightingale (contact)

Vermont “Ban the Box” Legislation

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As the movement to eliminate potential employment barriers for individuals with a criminal record continues, Vermont is the newest state to pass legislation to “Ban the Box” in the early stages of the application process for public and private sector employment. “Ban the Box” AKA “Fair Chance Policy” aims to reduce recidivism rates and future incarcerations of prior offenders. The policy will help individuals with criminal records “have a fair chance” to be actively considered for employment opportunities despite having blemished records when they are applying for jobs in their attempt to attain employment.
Vermont Governor, Peter Shumlin, signed the legislation on May 3, 2016; however, this legislation does not become effective until July 1, 2017. The time delay will be implemented so that employers will have adequate time to adjust employment processes to comply with this law. The bill, H.261, prohibits employers from asking criminal conviction related questions initially on a job application. Employers are still allowed to ask questions about convictions later in the hiring process. Certain exemptions exist on this law, please consult your company’s legal team for more information on the exemptions and criteria to qualify.

Upcoming “Ban the Box” Legislation

Vermont “Ban the Box” legislation is only the latest to be adopted a state. Currently, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Illinois, New Jersey and Oregon all have statewide Ban the Box legislation for public and private employment. Other states, cities and municipalities have enacted localized or public employment related legislation related to the Ban the Box concept. To keep abreast of states and cities who enact “Ban the Box” legislation, the National Employment Law Project (NELP) has an interactive map that provides an overview of the current legislative status. For the actual legislation, you will need to go directly to the state or city government website to access the passed law(s) in its comprehensive language.
Employers need to be aware of the legislation that exists and what legislation is pending to be prepared for the potential impact on their organizations. If your organization currently has hiring practices in multiple states and cities, or posts job listings nationally, it is important to be cognizant of the locales’ legal expectations and determine if you need to alter verbiage on your employment application(s) and/or change specific steps in your hiring practices to be compliant with “Ban the Box” legislation.
Please note: The ExactHire team is not legal counsel, and we do not offer legal advice so any questions regarding your company’s eligibility for exemption with the “Ban the Box” legislation and/or proper verbiage for your company’s employment application(s) should be discussed with your company’s legal counsel. To learn specifically how Vermont’s H.261 affects your organization’s hiring practices, please contact your company’s legal team.

ExactHire Clients

At ExactHire, we take pride in doing our best to ensure our clients’ satisfaction is the highest possible. We do whatever we can to resolve clients’ current needs and identify potential needs. After you speak with your legal counsel, and if you and your legal team decide changes need to be made to your employment application(s) to comply with legislation, the ExactHire team can work with you to create a new application with the verbiage you specify for compliance. Also, please know that one of the benefits of using ExactHire’s HireCentric software as your applicant tracking system is that you can create multiple employment applications, each specific to your needs. If you are an existing client looking for more information about updating your current employment application(s) and/or creating additional employment applications, please email support@exacthire.com, and let us know your needs.

Learn More About ExactHire Solutions

If you are not yet an ExactHire client, for more information about HireCentric ATS, please visit our resources page or contact us today.

Thank You, But We’re Not Hiring (You)

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Thank you for your interest in our company. Though your resume was impressive, we have decided to consider other applicants further. I apologize for the disappointing news, best of luck in your job search.

After reading an email like the one above, a flurry of emotions begin to take hold. Overwhelming disappointment, crippling self-doubt, and a fear of eternal unemployment begin to manifest when reading rejection after rejection. College students and recent graduates, who were once eager to take on the business world, receive these emails and are quickly knocked down into the dark hollows of reality and exclusion.

College students spend four years participating in activities, workshops, volunteer events, and clubs among the countless hours of class and homework to simply be told that, outside of internship experiences, any extracurriculars hold little to no bearing on what the business is actually looking for in a candidate. Internship experience is often heavily tied to your major; CNN reported the following about various college majors and levels of success found through employment rates as well as wage:

Graduates who majored in agriculture, construction or nursing are dominating the job market. Their unemployment rates are 2% or lower — less than half the national average of 5%. Recent grads with nursing degrees make about $48,000 a year. Fine arts graduates struggle a lot — their starting salaries are on the lower side of the spectrum of new graduates: $29,000 a year, 7.6% are without a job and 62.3% end up taking lower paying jobs that don’t require a college degree.

This may seem daunting, but I am here to help! As an English major, I was told time and time again that I would never find a job – we all know the English major jokes, like McSweeney’s, Things to do with your English Degree, but in reality, it doesn’t matter what degree you have or even how hard you work – what matters is how smart you work or at least how smart you say you worked on your resume. The key is phrasing and confidence. So let’s start on how to even get through the countless job boards in order to gain the attention of a potential employer.

Where to Look

Indeed, Monster, CareerBuilder, and here in Indianapolis–the Charitable Advisors nonprofit job board—are just a few of the many job boards that you, a potential applicant, can look through to find a position nearly anywhere in the world. Some of my tips are to really look at the descriptions before you just click “Apply” all willy-nilly. After all, you don’t want to receive emails and phone calls from employers in which you’re not actually interested…it’s a waste of everyone’s time, yours included.

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When looking at the postings, there should be some key takeaways and red flags. With each post and potential application you should make a mental pros/cons list. As an example, let’s look at the three listings:

1st Post – Freelance Social Media Coordinator:
Pro: “Posted five hours ago” – ensures that you’ll be one of the first applicants
Con: “Dates: October 31st-January 22nd*” – no potential to work more than 3 months
2nd Post – Freelance Writer
Pro: “Sponsored by Work Market” – since the company is sponsoring their own work, it is likely that they are well known and can provide a position that is exactly what you are looking for (in the freelance world)
Con: “Sponsored by Work Market” – oftentimes when a job listing is sponsored, it either has been dormant or it is done through a recruiting agency (which isn’t always a bad thing, it’s all about your personal preference) and Work Market is a site that requires payment for specific applications
3rd Post – Sales Specialist – PT Freelance
Pro: “Part-Time Sales” – as long as you enjoy sales positions, this is guaranteed to not have a predetermined end date
Con: “Posted 30+ days ago” – this job has probably been dormant or filled for awhile now.
Generally, it is unlikely to hear back from a listing that has been posted for more than 10 days (based on personal experience)

Though I can’t guarantee you these methods will work in finding you a job, I have listed a few websites where you can find a job, potentially leading you to the pond of real-world employment (or interning).
Indeed
VelvetJobs (this one requires a membership)
Charitable Advisors (non-profit positions)
Monster
SimplyHired

Selling Yourself (and Skills)

I’ve mentioned a few times that the huge selling point is phrasing and working smarter, not harder; in a resume, cover letter, or interview you want the employer to see you as an ideal fit. As a fine arts grad myself, this should be overwhelmingly concerning, right? Well, lucky for me, I minored in business and interned solely in the marketing field throughout college (hence, I am able to phrase my experience as a strong concentration in business and marketing). My dreams of being an editor-in-chief and publishing young adult authors such as Sarah Dessen and J.K. Rowling have been put on the back burner (for now) in order to make ends meet. I’m kidding – I truly have enjoyed working in the marketing field, and anyone that enjoys reading, editing, and writing should strongly consider looking into a business-esque job because the possibilities are endless. But that doesn’t let everyone off the hook; if you didn’t minor or intern in the business field, how do you even land an interview?

First, you’ve got to believe in yourself. Sounds cheesy, I know, but if you think you’re qualified, than others are more likely to believe it too. Your resume is the primary place to present this confidence. Everyone knows how to list jobs and internships, but not everyone knows how to describe the experience. Monster, one of the job boards listed above, made a list of mistakes to avoid that you can check out here, but what I have found to be most important are tips number four and eight.

4. Highlighting duties instead of accomplishments
It’s easy to slip into a mode where you simply start listing job duties on your resume…Employers, however, don’t care so much about what you’ve done as what you’ve accomplished in your various activities. They’re looking for statements more like these:
· Used laptop computer to record weekly meeting minutes and compiled them in a Microsoft Word-based file for future organizational reference.
· Developed three daily activities for preschool-age children and prepared them for a 10-minute holiday program performance.
· Reorganized 10 years worth of unwieldy files, making them easily accessible to department members.

8. Leaving off important information
You may be tempted, for example, to eliminate mention of the jobs you’ve taken to earn extra money for school. Typically, however, the soft skills you’ve gained from these experiences (e.g., work ethic, time management) are more important to employers than you might think.

These tips lead the employer to see that you’re driven to achieve rather than someone likely to sit by and wait for direction. Success, no matter how big or small, is an important factor to exhibit on a resume. It shows the employer that you are motivated and confident in your ability to bring achievement to a team. It’s easy to become discouraged when entering the workforce, but what is important to remember is that you are capable of anything you set your mind to. Finding a job you like is hard but selling yourself on a piece of paper is even harder; you have to believe that you deserve that job then take the necessary steps to obtain it.
The hiring playing field is far from level, but by being confident in your skill set and searching in the right places, you may find just the job you’ve been looking for.

Image credit: Dealing With Rejection by Honest Blogger (contact)