Bright Recruiter: Articles

By the time you've created a compelling job description, posted said job description, proactively sourced candidates, screened candidates, assessed each candidate's skills and qualifications and/or checked references, you've invested too much time and energy creating a shortlist to lose them now. But it happens all the time - you lose your best candidates to another company, the candidate realizes that your opportunity isn't the best fit for them, or the candidate simply gives up because your process it too tedious. Now you've wasted your time, and theirs.

Here are some quick tips to prevent this from happening:

1. Understand what your candidate is looking for

During your initial meeting (usually a phone screen), or before, make sure you understand what your candidate is looking for in their next opportunity. Much of the time, the first conversation revolves around what the job entails, what the employer is looking for, and whether the candidate is a good fit - which is important, but the recruitment process can't be treated like a one-way street. The candidate must also feel that your company and opportunity are the right fit for them. Ask what their pain points are in their current, or last, position so you can really get a feel for what they're looking for. Use open-ended questions, such as, "If you could change a few things about your current position, what would they be?" and, "What are your career goals?" Make sure you come up with interview questions that dig into your candidate's passion and drive to ensure a mutual connection.

2. Explain your interview process upfront

Also during your initial meeting, or before, let the candidate know what your entire interview process usually looks like. It can be frustrating for the candidate to go through a 30 minute phone screen with the recruiter, another 30 minute phone screen with the hiring manager, and an hour and a half long in-person interview with the hiring manager - only to find out later that they also need to do an hour long presentation, and then spend another 2 hours meeting with the head of the department and other key players. The candidate knows that they will not necessarily make it through every stage in your interview process, and all they really want is to be informed of what to expect, and when, so that they can allow time for it in their schedule. This leaves fewer surprises for people that move on, so they don't drop out later in the process because of scheduling conflicts or burnout.

3. Be flexible with scheduling

Once you let the candidate know about your interview process, make sure your candidate is comfortable with the scheduling of the interviews. Ask them what is the best way for them to interview with you. Candidates may have other job interviews scheduled, possibly on top of their current job - which they don't want to put in jeopardy. You should be flexible to allow for both larger blocks of time where they can complete the entire interview process at one time (or over fewer days than usual), or smaller blocks of time spread out over a week or two. You should also provide afterhours times that you are available – perhaps staying late once per week or offering a weekend time to meet. This prevents you from scaring off your employed candidates, as well as those with other obligations. You may also want to consider a more casual environment to meet your team, such as a lunch or happy hour – where everyone can make sure the candidate is a good cultural fit.

4. Ask where they are in their job search

At each point in the interview process, ask I where each candidate is in their job search. Some may only be considering your company (score!), but others could be close to closing an offer, so you’ll want to move more quickly for those. Also ask that they keep you informed on any changes, and stay flexible on moving interviews around to accommodate your more active job seekers (as well as your passive candidates that may have schedule changes due to their current job!).

With all of the candidates you’ve likely found through your job postings, referrals and proactive sourcing methods, it may be a daunting task to try to communicate with all of them. But effective communication is key to keeping your top talent interested, while not hurting your employer brand by ignoring the unqualified candidates. Anyone that applies for a job at your company, or speaks to you regarding a new opportunity, wants to know what to expect next. And, with all the technology available today, it’s simply unacceptable not to communicate. The good news is, technology has made it really easy to communicate next steps to each and every one of your candidates.

While larger companies generally have an ATS to send automated messages, smaller companies also have some great, free or low cost options, such as SmartRecruiters. These tools are great because they allow you to keep all of your candidates in one place (versus some in CareerBuilder, others on Linkedin, and even more still in your email inbox), and message all of them from one place. From each stage in your recruitment process, you'll need to use these tools to communicate what the candidate should expect next. So quickly take note of each step in your process, figure out how long you spend in each step, and decide what comes next. Most processes look something like this:

Step 1: Post job and collect applications. Proactively source candidates. Ask for employee referrals.

Best practice: Upon resume submission, send an email to let the candidate know that it was received and that you will be reviewing resumes until [date]. This time period should be under 1 week, or you will risk losing your top candidates. Since passive candidates that come from proactive sourcing or referrals likely won't submit a resume, communicate the next steps during your initial phone call. Make sure you follow up with everyone on, or before, that date to let them know whether they are moving on to the next step.

At the very least, make sure the job description says that you will be reviewing resumes until [date] and only candidates that are under consideration will be contacted. However, you should still personally follow up with candidates that were found by you or your employees.

Step 2: Phone Screen(s).

Best practice: As mentioned above, try to pick your shortlist of candidates and get to the next phase of the recruiting process within a week (shorter time period is better). You should call or send an email to your shortlist to schedule a time to speak, while also sending emails to all other candidates to let them know they are no longer under consideration.

At the end of the phone screen, let candidates know the next step (usually an in-person interview, or a second phone screen with the hiring manager) and timing. Make sure to ask the candidate if they are currently considering any other offers, and speed up your process for that candidate, if necessary.

Step 3: In-person interview(s).

Best practice: Move to this step as quickly as possible, you don't want to lose the top candidates you've already worked so hard to attract. At the end of the interview process, let the candidate know when they should expect to hear back from you with a decision. This should be within a few days, tops - which will give you the opportunity to check references and discuss with your team.

Step 4: Offer.

This is perhaps the hardest part of the recruitment process, especially if you've done everything right and have only top candidates to consider. However, this is not the time to slow down. Top candidates may be considering other offers and you want to make sure you get the pick of the litter.

Once you make your decision, every single person you interviewed should be personally followed up with, either via phone or email - you don't want to leave anyone hanging, especially after they've invested so much of their time and energy into interviewing with your company. This is particularly important for your employment brand because anyone that's gotten this far in your recruitment process is likely very interested in working for your company.

By providing a great candidate experience, not only to these people - but also to those didn't get this far - you are able to grow a talent pool from which to recruit for future positions, as well as creating an advocate for your company.

Succeeding in today’s business climate requires companies to find and retain individuals that possess incredible talent, unrivalled passion, fierce commitment and immense brain-power. And with the competitive recruiting environment currently facing many organizations, losing time, money and resources on an inadequate hire isn’t an option.

So, as a human resources professional, what steps should you take to ensure your hiring process results in the most talented individuals?

Optimize your Process

Have you ever considered the number of potential applicants that may have lost interest in your company simply from the user-friendliness of your hiring process? Hour long assessments, faulty communication, too many decision makers and lack of a standardized process can easily push quality candidates far away from your doors.

For companies, this doesn’t mean interview everyone that applies for a position, but implement a process to filter potential hires from those that don’t fit your company goals, objectives and values.

To ensure your hiring process is optimized and that you are spending time with serious candidates, prepare assessments that truly measure value – a resume screening, quick online assessment, screening interview and reference checks before the final interview, while being prepared to make an offer within 48 hours of the final interview.

Learn To Market

Before the application process and even prior to performing due diligence, potential applicants need to know a job exists – which is easier said than done for smaller companies.

An organization needs to attract and retain skilled employees just like a marketing department does customers. Through advertising (pay-per-click, social and traditional), social media interaction, email marketing campaigns, SEO (search engine optimization) and mobile advertising, human resources departments can reach outside their prospective candidate pools and acquire talented individuals that they wouldn’t have otherwise .

Traditionally, marketing tactics like these have only been employed by large organizations that have the budget; however, with technological changes in recent years, almost any company can utilize their brand as a marketing strategy to pull in top prospects that are traditionally outside of their reach while spending little to nothing.

For example, one highly-innovative tactic that Veterans United created to enhance reach is through the use of Virtual Career Fairs. By utilizing the Hangouts feature on Google Plus, interested applicants can now see the inner workings of the company they wish to work for.

What to Look For

Unfortunately, not every applicant results in an exemplary candidate; however, many times you can catch this right away. What about the candidate that has exceptional presentation skills and the ability to flatter a human resources manager into a job they aren’t qualified for?

There are a select few qualities I look for in every job interview. First off, look for passion, personality and creative ability. Many skills can be taught, but these are developed.

Other qualities to consider involve searching out competencies, skills, experiences and education in relation to the job description; compatibility with clients, partners, co-workers, values and company culture; and the applicant’s pleasure for doing their job. 

Cultivate Company Culture

Fostering an extraordinary company culture can attract more talent than you can ever imagine – which has been the experience of Veterans United Home Loans, recently named the 21^st best place to work by Fortune Magazine.

Veterans United has built a culture surrounded by values that focus on their employees, the community and the end user. Staples of the company’s culture include a relaxed atmosphere, weekly massages, an on-staff life-balance coordinator, complimentary gym memberships and an employee supported and sponsored non-profit foundation.

Perks like this, in addition to 42 percent of jobs being filled through internal promotions, make Veterans United a beacon for recruiting and retaining employees.

What any Human Resources executive can take away from this is that a culture that places employees first, provides a bevy of accessible resources, maximizes the potential of current employees and sets expectations with unfaltering values will find a way to attract talented individuals.

This type of workforce lies in the ability of Human Resources professionals to effectively recognize and manage human capital, while enacting procedures that allow organizational teams to become more efficient and productive in the process. Step outside of the box and attract quality applicants that can be true contributors to the success of co-workers, company and the community.

About the author:

August Nielsen is the human resources manager for Veterans United Home Loans, and is responsible for hiring over 1,000 employees in the past five years for a company recently named the #1 job creator nationally in the financial industry by Inc. Magazine as well as making the Great Place to Work top 25. Connect with him on LinkedIn or Google+.

The most challenging positions to recruit for are often the newest hot profession.  It must have been fun to find a silicon semiconductor specialist in 1954 -- who wanted to study sand before the transistor was invented?  An HTML expert in 1996? SGML experts all had cushy government jobs or worked for publishers.  In the last two years, a new creature known as the "data scientist" has emerged as one of the must have hires for many firms.  Here at Bright we have assembled an outstanding Data Science group that built our Bright Score, provides interesting data to the media and general public via Bright Labs, and causes endless grief for the engineering team that needs to scale our ideas to our users.

Let’s take a look at our science team on paper.  The team is an eclectic mix, consisting of one former nuclear physicist, one neuroscientist, one geophysicist, one astrophysicist, and a mechanical engineer.  At a glance, you may think we are trying to invent Warp Drive, and on top of that, not ONE of them had Data Scientist as their last job title.  However, each and every one of them have had years of extensive training from some of the brightest minds in the world, have conducted a countless number of hours researching, experimenting, analyzing, and documenting solutions to real world problems, and have had their work critiqued by their peers and published in academic publications.  As the old adage goes, “sometimes things are not always what they appear to be,” a statement very true when it comes to finding Data Scientists.

How does one go about hunting these camouflaged “purple squirrel” scientists?

To begin, what is a Data Scientist?  It depends who you ask.  Common (incorrect) definitions are:

1. A Hadoop expert.  To those hiring managers that are certain they need a Hadoop expert I submit @DevOps_Borat
2. A Machine Learning expert.  Every construction project does not need a hammer.
3. Kagglers

I define a Data Scientist as someone who knows just enough programming, system administration, and statistics to transform a large, possibly heterogeneous set of unstructured data into actionable intelligence or an actual product.  The Data Scientist must also have sufficient visualization and communication skills to be able to convince someone that they did it correctly.

We’ve found that one of the least effective methods for finding a Data Scientist is to log into LinkedIn and search for "Data Scientist."  There aren't that many, as Data Science is an emergent field.  There are little to no Data Scientists with 5 years experience, because the job simply did not exist (at least not in its current form).

Where, then, does one find the elusive Data Scientist?  As famed bank robber Willie Sutton once said, he robbed banks “because that's where the money is.”  If you want to find a Data Scientist, find yourself a disgruntled postdoc toiling away on brilliant scientific research, but failing to land a professorship because ... all the professor jobs are taken!  (For those of you not familiar with academia, after earning your Ph.D., you typically work for 2-6 years as a postdoctoral research fellow.  You are a semi-autonomous, but typically work under a professor that was fortunate enough to get their Ph.D. in the good old days when there were actually professorships to be had.)

Private companies that are detached from the world of academia sometimes give candidates, such as these postdocs, a hard time – having the perception that they must not be hard workers and won’t be able to keep up in fast-paced environments, because they haven’t had a “real” job.  The opposite is true, in many cases, people in academia often have to work twice as hard.  The grant funding they receive is insufficient to pay for tools that many take for granted ("You don't need that $1000 software license! Write that code yourself!").  Yes, like any other profession, there are a few slackers in academia.  There are some questions you can ask to identify and eliminate them early enough in your selection process:

1. "Tell me about some peer reviewed papers that you published as first author?"  I want people that can finish long, complicated tasks.  Nothing takes longer, or is more complicated than publishing a peer reviewed paper.  To give you an idea of what that entails, imagine all of the backstabbing people competing with you at work and in your profession, put them behind a wall of anonymity where they critique and criticize every little detail of the project you have been slaving over -- that is a peer reviewer.
2. "Tell me about some code you've written that other people use?" Academics tend to be "good enough" programmers.  I don't need it to be elegant, but I do need it to work.  The best test of whether code is "good enough" is whether at least two other people use it.
3. "Explain to me the statistical analysis you used in your thesis" Statistics are like music.  Some people play notes, some people make music.  People that really understand statistical concepts at a fundamental level usually make the best Data Scientists.  Anyone can run an Analysis of Variance in Excel, but is that really the best approach?  Ultimately, the worst thing your Data Scientist can do is get fooled by the data.

LinkedIn can still be helpful, and is particularly useful for finding a Data Scientist you respect.  Once you identify one, find their connections that are still toiling away in academia, look up their emails on the university web site (yes, they make it that easy for you), and send them an email.

What is true in sports is also true in hiring -- it is better to find a superstar in the draft than it is to find them as a free agent.  They are cheaper, and you get them during their most productive years.

David Hardtke, Ph.D., Chief Scientist

Josh Barger, PHR, Director of People Operations