Employer Considerations for Posting and Managing Evergreen Jobs

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When you think about where you spend the bulk of your time in the employee recruiting process, is a big chunk reserved for a certain type of position? If so, this role is probably an evergreen job.

Just as an evergreen tree appears green and alive all year long, evergreen positions require a constant flow of candidates because they experience high turnover and/or are positions that a large percentage of employees occupy. As a result, many companies keep these requisitions perpetually open on their job listings page in order to populate the candidate pipeline.

Evergreen jobs and turnover

Sourcing a steady flow of candidates to fill evergreen roles is essential–they are the positions critical to business success. Industries such as restaurant, healthcare, retail, call center and non-profit regularly source applicants for evergreen jobs such as server, home health aid, cashier, customer service representative and direct support professional.

Organizations often struggle with high turnover in these positions due to factors such as

  • the role being available on a part-time basis more frequently than full-time,
  • job seasonality (or seasonal availability of candidates),
  • low barriers to entry that make it easy for candidates to get a similar job elsewhere, and
  • low unemployment leading to more accessible wage increases at competitive employers.

Evergreen job hiring challenges

Hiring employees to fill evergreen positions can be tricky for a variety of reasons.

Misleading reporting

If you tend to keep the same job listings open all the time while regularly hiring candidates, it’s easy to unintentionally skew reporting in the name of ease. While the same job listing ID may remain open for a year (which can save time on reposting the job every few months), it will be harder to report on which referral sources, job description text (if you tweak it frequently with overwrites) and other factors lead to the successful hiring of multiple individuals because they are all tied to the same requisition. A good rule of thumb is to close out an existing evergreen requisition when a candidate is hired for that role, and then use the previous requisition as a template for easily creating a new one.

Job boards vs. organic search

While external job boards such as Glassdoor and Indeed favor fresh job listing IDs that aren’t reposted too frequently, search engines like Google spotlight tenured job description pages that have evergreen content (e.g. new imagery, comments, video, and other structured data). So what’s the right answer? Temporary job listing ID pages or persistent job description overviews?

You can benefit from both. Use your applicant tracking system to refresh a job listing for an evergreen role by closing old job listing IDs and using them as a template to create a duplicate job listing (with a new ID) every 60-90 days. Then, consider adding evergreen content pages within your ATS portal or on your corporate website that

  • list details about what to expect in the role,
  • answer frequently asked questions about the job,
  • highlight video testimonials from other employees in that position, and
  • link to a list of the job listing(s) currently open for that role.

With the dual approach, job seekers stand to find your recently posted job listing on external job boards, as well as via keyword-specific search queries on search engines.

Hiring compliance can be impacted

Care should be taken with determining how the frequency of evergreen requisition posting may impact an employer’s Affirmative Action Plan (AAP) compliance efforts. If the same job listing ID is kept open for an entire year–and we assume at least one candidate is hired from that requisition–then the entire year’s worth of internet applicants must be included in the applicant pool considered for adverse impact. In contrast, if a single requisition is kept open for only one quarter, and only one person is hired during that time, then the pool for adverse impact analysis is smaller which is generally preferable.

By periodically opening new requisitions–even when a hire does not take place in a period of 60 or 90 days–employers put themselves in a better position for compliance and limit their exposure. NOTE: If no applicants from a quarter’s requisition are hired, then the job ID can be closed and none of the applicants must be reported in the AAP data.

Managers at different locations

In the world of evergreen hiring, the location at which a future employee may work when he first applies to an evergreen position isn’t always apparent. And, depending on the industry and size of organization, different hiring managers likely manage candidate screening and/or interviewing at various locations.

Unless internal expectations are clearly set about how managers access a candidate pool that may be shared by different branches, the candidate experience could be hampered by poor communication from a variety of different locations vying for the same candidate. This can be exacerbated in a tight labor market with low unemployment as general managers compete for workers in high turnover, hourly, part-time positions.

Within the retail and restaurant industries, in which some brands have both corporate and franchise-owned stores, careful attention must be paid to limiting franchisor access to job applicants for franchisee-owned locations in order to avoid vicarious liability. When implementing hiring technology in this situation, it’s critical to understand how different applicant pools will be separated for administrators. At the same time, it’s important to avoid a confusing application process for job seekers who perceive all locations to be one brand.

Best practices for managing evergreen positions

Now that we’ve reviewed considerations for posting and managing evergreen positions, let’s cover best practices to improve the chances of your success in hiring individuals for these roles.

Understand what causes turnover

Only by analyzing factors that cause your employees to leave, will you be able to adjust their experience to prolong tenure and benchmark success. Consider the impact of job factors such as your organization’s

  • work schedule flexibility
  • pay rate relative to competitors
  • ability to communicate the proximity of public transportation, and
  • opportunities for continuous learning and advancement.

With an understanding of the primary drivers of turnover, you can re-imagine the employment experience to mitigate these factors. Proactively communicate how you address these items with job seekers in your career content and utilize an applicant tracking system that makes it easy for job candidates to search positions near their bus route. For example, the new hiring software platform that ExactHire is building allows candidates to optionally enter their address to see nearby locations with open job suggestions.

Geo-fenced Job Listing Search | ExactHire

Set internal expectations about hiring efficiency

Recruiters will have a greater impact on organizational success when they rally hiring managers around what to expect from the hiring process. These conversations include topics such as

  • what the hiring market looks like and which factors impact organizational turnover (e.g. what it’s going to take to keep employees),
  • the current velocity of hire and a reasonable expectation for number of hiring processes that can be managed successfully at once (e.g. should we hire more recruiters or consider Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO)?),
  • how promptly assigning statuses to candidates and entering hire dates in an ATS is critical to calculating time to hire and team efficiency,
  • the ideal dollar amount to plan for employee attrition in the operating budget, and
  • how to manage headcount appropriately–is it a set number of positions per job opening or can it flexibly fluctuate depending on need?

Consider job listing duration

Close out aging job listing IDs at least every three months or whenever you make a hire for the position–whichever is sooner. The impact of this practice is two-fold:

  1. By separating batches of applicants for an evergreen job into 90-day chunks–each with its own separate requisition–you limit the likelihood that the OFCCP will take a closer look at your data in an AAP audit because your data pool is smaller (i.e. a separate pool for each job listing ID) and therefore not likely to be statistically significant.
  2. By reposting evergreen jobs periodically with new job IDs, you’re ensuring that the posting date appears relatively recent to potential job applicants. However, even a 30-day old position may deter eager job seekers. Consider including text that describes the role as an evergreen position within the body of your job description. By letting candidates know that you’re always sourcing for this position, they will be less likely to overlook a couple-month-old job listing.

Create a landing page for evergreen jobs

To balance the effects of reposting job listing IDs on a quarterly basis, give your evergreen roles a surge of search engine optimization (SEO) by creating permanent job overview pages (on either your ATS or your corporate website) for the positions that are always (or soon to be) in supply. Include page elements such as

  • relevant keyword-rich content in headers and body text
  • video testimonials from employees in the same role
  • a frequently asked question section to answer common job-related inquiries
  • an overview of the steps involved in the hiring process
  • the unique benefits of the position, and
  • call-to-action buttons directing page visitors to a filtered list of the specific requisitions currently available for this type of role.

Reduce hiring funnel friction

Put yourself in the shoes of a job seeker and assess whether it is easy to find your jobs, easy to apply and easy to communicate with recruiters and hiring managers. While making the selection process efficient is a priority for any kind of job, it is mission critical for evergreen positions since a large volume of candidates must be sourced to meet the company’s hiring needs.

  • Easy to find – Easily share your job listings to external job boards and social media streams within a modern applicant tracking system, but also consider paid recruitment marketing avenues such as retargeting display ads that show content to job seekers who previously interacted with your employment brand.
  • Easy to apply – Utilize two-step applications to allow candidates to provide the basics in the first half of the application process. Shortening an application’s first phase will drive better applicant conversion. Also, select pre-employment assessments that don’t require too much time for an applicant to complete when presented at the point of application. Longer assessments can be utilized later in the selection process.
  • Easy to communicate – Meet job seekers where they are…which often is on their phone rather than a laptop. Incorporate text messaging into the candidate communication process as many individuals interested in evergreen jobs may be screening their calls and failing to set up their voicemail inboxes.

Incorporate pre-employment testing

Know what employee success in your evergreen roles looks like by assessing your current superstars and distilling their results down to the key traits that most heavily predict performance. Then, benchmark for these traits by creating a model profile within your employee assessment tool and use the assessment at the point of application or before a formal interview. To determine placement within the hiring process, consider the impact of a cognitive or behavioral testing tool vs. a job skills testing resource on your candidate funnel–which type(s) would produce the most compelling outcomes?

Nurture your evergreen pipeline

Since employers are always sourcing candidates for evergreen jobs, they must experiment with innovative approaches to engaging past applicants and attracting new job seekers. Create a special experience for people who are interested in being a part of your organization by inviting them to your talent community. These are the individuals who keep raising their hand with continued interest, like your recruiting content on social media and respond to your recruitment marketing efforts.

Here are some ideas for engaging them as applicant VIPs:

  • Use tags within your applicant tracking system to highlight their interest so that you may invite them to apply to specific job listing IDs as roles in their evergreen area of interest open at locations near them.
  • Invite them to opt in to an applicant insider newsletter with articles about new roles, culture and organizational goals.
  • Invite them to join a social media group focused on careers at your organization.
  • Create targeted recruitment marketing campaigns that reinvigorate their interest in your organization.

 

Although your organization has roles which will always be evergreen, your approach to sourcing candidates for these jobs will be ever changing.

Want to learn more? Download our guide!

 

Managing Evergreen Jobs | ExactHire Guide

Hiring in Healthcare: Does a Nursing Shortage Exist?

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There’s a nursing shortage! I don’t know when I started hearing about it, but it was probably in the early 2000’s right before I set off for college. I distinctly remember hearing that nursing was a great career choice. And I once considered pursuing it–even after the movie, Meet the Parents, played up the stigma around male nurses. There was a shortage of nurses, I was told. There was good pay and job security, and it was a respectable vocation.

I didn’t go into nursing, but I continued to hear about the shortage of nurses, and I believed the stories. In fact, I still hear about it today. So I thought I’d take a closer look at what’s driving the shortage , since employment trends and hiring challenges are kinda my thing.

The Nursing Shortage is Complex

I had no reason to doubt the nursing shortage. I expected to find clear reasons behind it, and I was hoping to come up with a few solutions to address the challenges. Most articles made a simple, straightforward (and quite urgent) case that there is and/or will be a shortage of nurses. It’s an easy story to tell that gets people’s attention–the type of story that when told frequently will eventually evolve into common knowledge.

However, I quickly discovered that the nursing shortage is not straightforward. It’s a multifaceted issue with many viewpoints and considerations that don’t make it into our newspapers or favorite news sites. Trying to make sense out of the disparate views was challenging. Researching this topic was confusing to say the least.

Past studies predicted a shortage that never came. There are stories of nurses who left the profession because they could not secure a position. Some studies are conducted by organizations that likely have a conflict of interest. And in 2017, the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) predicted a surplus of nurses for 2025! And yet, the prevailing coverage is: “it’s a well-known fact that the U.S. suffers from a nursing shortage.”

To be fair, predicting the future is not easy. You use the information you have at hand, and your predictions can only be as accurate as that information. However, it seems that too many stories on the nursing shortage are either omitting crucial information, or worse, misrepresenting the facts.  To better understand the nursing shortage (or lack thereof) it’s helpful to consider the following perspectives:

Delayed Retirement of Baby Boomers

“The nursing shortage is real…or at least it will be.”

Proponents of this perspective believe that all the talk in the early 2000’s and today about a looming nursing shortage was accurate; however, a generational change in views on retirement combined with the economic realities of a post-recession world caused many veteran nurses to delay retirement or rejoin the workforce.

It is true that the baby-boomer generation is retiring later in life than predicted. This is the case for the majority of occupations, not just nursing. However, they will retire at some point (and eventually require more healthcare). According to a National Nursing Workforce Study, 50% of nurses are age 50 or older, which means a significantly larger portion of nurses are closer to retirement than are not. So it makes sense that a shortage could occur when a large increase in healthcare demand coincides with a large decrease in nurses.

Underserved Areas

“The nursing shortage is real…but it depends on location.”

Smaller towns and rural areas often struggle to find workers when compared with larger, metropolitan areas. Many nursing graduates or re-locating nurses may find it difficult to secure a job in a particular metropolitan area. This does not mean that a shortage of nurses doesn’t exist, it simply means that to find job opportunities, job seekers must be willing to commute or relocate–many are not.

Unfortunately, this fact is seldom disclaimed alongside proclamations of a nursing shortage, and nursing graduates are often blindsided when local demand for nursing is non-existent. According to the HRSA, only seven states are predicted to carry a nursing shortage through 2030: California, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.

Artificial Shortage

“The nursing shortage is FAKE NEWS…hospitals want to ensure a surplus of nurses.”

Some of the more cynical may posit that the nursing shortage is part of a conspiracy led by hospitals. The thinking goes that if a hospital can ensure a surplus of nurses (its largest employment cost), then it can better control overall operating costs. Without a single, unified nurses union in the United States, a labor surplus provides hospitals with leverage in establishing wages, hours, benefits, and working conditions.

Would hospitals prefer to have too many nurses rather than too few? The answer is most certainly, yes. Are hospitals overselling or even lying about a shortage? With changes in healthcare legislation, an economic recession, and a generational movement away from previous notions of retirement, it is more likely that the complexity of the issue has caused the disconnect between studies, predictions, and reality.

So…does a real nursing shortage exist? Is it looming?

The above perspectives are just a few examples that add color to stories around the nursing shortage. While claims of a nursing shortage may sound like “crying wolf” to some, healthcare continues to grow faster than any other industry, and any change in the supply of nurses (entry of new graduates or the exit of retiring nurses) could quickly make a nursing shortage a reality.

So I predict that we will continue to see news stories and press releases that announce an emerging nursing shortage. I also suspect that the reasons for the shortage will begin to vary–a lack of nursing faculty and lower acceptances/enrollments at nursing schools seems to be the popular cause for concern today. However, regardless of how the story trends, there are a few key takeaways for employees and employers.

What you need to know about the nursing shortage:

  • For aspiring nurses: Understand how the demand for nurses will vary by region. Finding the right job may require moving to the right region. Additionally, depending on the area, available nursing positions may vary by specialty; it may be necessary to target more niche areas of nursing and to look beyond hospitals, especially for those who are just starting their careers.
  • For employers: Invest more resources in recruiting qualified applicants to “shortage areas.” This could include partnering with local governments and educational institutions to develop strategies for attracting talent. Of course,  more attractive and competitive compensation packages will also be necessary to retain talent. This is especially true if nursing shortages begin to develop in more attractive areas.

Both employers and employees alike must understand the reality as it relates to their particular set of circumstances. When employers, employees, job seekers, and students can separate crisis from “crying wolf”, everyone is in a better position to make employment decisions that advance their respective goals.

 

ExactHire provides hiring technology for the healthcare industry to help streamline the hiring and onboarding of new employees. To learn how our solutions can help your organization, contact us today.

Trending: Reverse Job Fairs

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Money makes the world go ‘round. And time is money.  So it is no wonder that companies and job seekers alike look for ways to save time and money in finding the right employer-employee match. A newer fad that seems to be catching on in the recruiting world is a trend referred to as Reverse Job Fairs, or RJF.

What Is A Reverse Job Fair?

Job seekers set up booths with science-fair like flair. Stacks of printed resumes, posters of accomplishments, degrees, pictures, recommendations, achievements, and samples of individual works can be displayed around the main attraction, the job seeker. All the while, hiring managers and recruiters can walk around and see what type of talent is available.

  • Employers Come to Candidates

    A divergence from the normal job fair, where HR professionals display information about their company and wait for candidates to act interested and approach their booth, this approach offers a different perspective. RJFs display the job-seeker’s assets and allow the HR/ recruiting role to peruse the stock of potential candidates.

  • Spotlight On The Candidate

    The time is now. As the job markets continue to become more competitive and companies are fighting over qualified candidates, this approach allows you (the job seeker) to present yourself in a way that highlights all your best assets and abilities.

  • Where Are RJFs?

    Many colleges are already setting these RJFs up for seniors and recent graduates to help them land the proper job that can launch their careers. Most colleges host industry-specific RJFs or organize them with a common theme in order attract many employers. Having a focused theme also yields a pool of qualified candidates with desirable traits.

  • How Much Does it Cost to Attend?

    Time is the biggest investment here. Not only in the time a job seeker stands at a booth, but in the time invested before the RJF. Like most things, you get back what you put into a RJF. Spending time to prep the booth, materials, and presentation are worthwhile for the job seeker.

  • Results

    Hiring managers and recruiters agree that RJFs offer them a good bang for the buck, so to speak. Being able to scan over 100 potential candidates in a few hours and dig in deeper to the most qualified candidates saves a lot of time.


ExactHire offers small- to medium-sized businesses the opportunity to save time and money with hiring technology. Applicant Tracking, Reference Checking, and Onboarding can all be automated and streamlined with the use of our cloud-based solutions. To learn more visit our exacthire.com or contact us today!

Image credit: DAY 255 (TEXT ADDED) by WEST MIDLANDS POLICE (contact)

Which Recruitment Metrics Are Right For You – Time to Fill?

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Would you say that you are proud of the efficiency with which your company approaches the hiring process? Do you get excited about the opportunity to welcome new teammates onboard; or…you can admit it…does it make you cringe just a little bit thinking about how long it will take to get everything ready, round up all the interviewers to be involved and pore through all the applications? It all comes down to Time to Fill. In this second installment of my series about determining which HR KPIs work for your company, we’ll examine this telling metric.

In my previous blog about Cost per Hire, I indicated that there is generally a direct relationship between CPH and Time to Fill…in particular, as it relates to the cost of your staff members’ time to be involved in a drawn out hiring process. Take too much time to hire and the business could suffer due to lower productivity, and rush through the process and risk hiring the wrong candidate which will just negatively impact your turnover metric down the road.

How critical time to fill is relative to other HR metrics for your organization only you can determine, but consider this: just because you are a small or medium-sized organization doesn’t mean that you should get by with fewer steps in a shorter hiring process. Small companies can’t afford to “wing it” as it really can take the whole village to hire and onboard a new employee. Any size company can be diligent in making the many steps involved in the recruiting process turnkey; however.

Where Do You Spend Your Time to Hire?

If you’re like me, you manage by what you measure. And when I’m trying to lose a few pounds you can bet I’m recording my calories on my FitBit app…or if our household wants to save up for the next remodeling project, we’re entering our daily expenses into a spreadsheet. Even if I choose to indulge myself every once in awhile, overall by watching my behavior I change it for the better. Having the data in front of me helps me more intimately consider cause and effect. The same is true for the hiring process. Its easy to let a day turn into days and days into weeks when you are progressing through various milestones such as applicant review and interview scheduling without really monitoring your timeframe closely. That can easily translate into disengaged applicants that pursue other companies…and its a vicious cycle, your process then becomes even longer.

A Well-Oiled Time to Fill Machine

So, in the spirit of hiring introspection, let’s look at some basic hiring process stages and ideas for making them thorough, yet as time sensitive as possible.

Job description development

    • Have up to date job templates for frequently hired positions in place and then use them as a base from which to create more specific job listings
    • Use the job listing as an opportunity to set clear expectations about role requirements so that certain candidates self-select out of the process if its clear it won’t be the right fit
    • Create a Job Success Factors page to accompany the job description to paint a more vivid picture about a day in the life of this position

Post jobs to external boards & social media

Review applications and resumes

  • Set aside blocks of time throughout your week dedicated to application review so it doesn’t fall by the wayside
  • Use filters attached to job-specific screening questions to quickly view only applicants that meet basic qualifications
  • Have a comprehensive list of applicant status codes or dispositions already in place so that its easy to assign and continuously update applicants’ place in the hiring process

Conduct pre-screens

Applicant correspondence

Prepare notes & feedback

  • Use a form or otherwise standardize the manner in which you present candidate information to others – people will get used to quickly looking in certain places for certain information
  • Highlight applicants who are the best prospects to hiring managers by sharing their electronic records – keep it timely by requesting others’ response by a certain date/time in your notes or subject line

Pre-employment testing & assessment

Schedule coordination for in-house interviews

  • Request access to the calendars of others involved in the hiring process internally so that you may quickly see when they are/aren’t available
  • At the onset of the hiring process, reserve blocks of time on potential interviewers’ calendars in advance so that you know you can count on them tentatively being available during those times (even if it is a few weeks out)
  • Utilize video conferencing tools (i.e. basic ones could include Skype, Google Hangouts or GoToMeeting to name just a few) to schedule interviews earlier than they might be otherwise if the candidate were to have to travel to your office

Collect hiring manager feedback

Candidate communication – yays & nays

  • Engage applicants by proactively communicating to them about their status in your selection process
  • This can be done quickly by using email templates that include personalization strings (to populate the first name of the person and the position to which he/she applied, for example) and the ability to update applicant records in mass groupings within an ATS

Extend conditional offer of employment

  • Again, have a template for the language you typically use in offer letters/packages ready to go in an existing template
  • Give the candidate a clear deadline for responding
  • Explain the process of collecting information necessary to conduct background/reference checks, etc. in advance to the candidate should he/she accept

Conduct background and/or reference checks

  • Utilize a web-based form for collecting information necessary to run checks…embed the URL address for the secure form into a template in your ATS and quickly invite applicants right from the applicant record
  • Alternatively, check if your provider has a web services integration with your background check and/or reference check resource

Coordinate onboarding logistics with staff

  • Create an email distribution list of all the employees in your organization who should be involved in the onboarding of a new employee – that way, a quick message and/or checklist can be initiated with these people when the time is right simply by emailing one address
  • Incorporate employee onboarding software into your process so that, based on the division to which the new employee is hired, the appropriate staff members are automatically prompted of onboarding process and receive notification when new hire paperwork forms must be approved and/or electronically countersigned

Finalize start date details with new hire

  • Communicate with new hire to confirm start date and if onboarding software is in place, go ahead and explain that applicant will be receiving email prompting him/her to login and approve and sign various employment paperwork files

If you aren’t already employing many of these tips in your process, before you start consider documenting your average time to fill. Then, once some additional time-saving measures are put into place and in action over a period of a few months, measure your average time to fill metric again and see to what extent your organization’s efficiency has improved on that front. Share the success with your team and your CFO…as quantitative KPI info like this is exactly what you need to justify the cost/time involved with future process improvements. The ROI is there when you can create a turnkey process based on sound fundamentals.

ExactHire’s hiring software applications help small and medium-sized companies automate and improve the recruiting and onboarding processes. For more information on how our tools can impact your time-to-fill KPI, please visit our resources page or contact us.

Finding Your Niche… Job Board

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Each day, you’re in a fast-paced race against your competitors to try to fill vacant positions with qualified candidates who fit well within your organization. Specialty positions with sought after key skill sets can be especially hard to fill. Job seekers often use job aggregator sites (often called spider boards that pull job listings from many sites) such as Indeed and SimplyHired to search for jobs.

Aggregators are great for companies to use as a tool to find qualified candidates, but sometimes the number of candidates for a particular vacancy can be overwhelming. With this in mind, ExactHire offers a great way for companies to filter candidates leaving you with the candidates that meet the basic requirements you establish so you can move forward with interviewing a select group of qualified job seekers.

Consider Using Niche Job Boards

Aggregators are not the only route to explore when posting jobs. Another route to consider when posting your company’s vacant positions is to find your niche…that is find your niche job board. These types of boards offer a company a way to focus its efforts on finding job seekers who possess a particular type of expertise.

Finding the most qualified candidate for your company depends on a variety of strategies and techniques. Word of mouth among your networks, job aggregators, and niche job boards are starting points to completing the puzzle of hiring the best fitting candidate. Regardless of the job boards you want to use in your company’s hiring efforts, ExactHire can make things easier for you by streamlining the process of posting jobs to external boards; thus, taking the hassle out of this tedious process for your team.

Listed below are a few niche job boards for some key employment areas. As you find your niche, know that the ExactHire team is here to help you. After all, delivering exceptional customer service and support while helping companies maximize their potential is our niche.

To learn more about easily posting jobs within ExactHire applicant tracking software, please visit our resources section or contact ExactHire today.

Image credit: FINDING ONE’S NICHE by Marc Falardeau (contact)