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

According to a survey conducted by Corporate Responsibility magazine, 75% of Americans wouldn't take a job with a company that had a bad reputation, even if they were unemployed. With the top candidates getting a choice in where they work, your employment brand makes a huge difference in whether top candidates flock to your company, or whether you continue to attract more mediocre and under qualified candidates. Take Google as an example. They have a great employment brand, which helps them receive millions of applications every year, so they have their choice of the best talent in the world. According to a Webrecruit survey, 32% of employers say quality is their biggest recruitment challenge, and Google doesn’t really have that problem. That’s the power of employer branding. So, how do you get started with Employer Branding?

See Where you Stand

The first thing you should do is see where you stand. Start with your employees, and find out what they think about your company. The Saratoga Institute found that 88% of employees leave their organization for reasons other than money – so make sure you know what they like and dislike about working at your company, what keeps them there, and what might make them want to leave. Make sure you know where you stand on employee recognition, opportunities for advancement, training, management, etc. Next, survey candidates to find out about their experience with your company. Find out if they would apply again, and if they would recommend that their friends and family apply. If you made an offer which was rejected, ask why. Finally, check your company reviews on Glassdoor and CareerBliss to see what people are saying. These may be a little more honest because of the anonymity factor, so see if it matches up with what you've already heard from employees and candidates. You should also be monitoring your employment brand online – try setting up some Google Alerts, following your @ mentions on Twitter, and staying on top of articles which mention your company. There are so many opportunities that can either make or break your employment brand, and you need to be aware of them. More important than being reactive, though, is being proactive. So make a plan of action.

Make a Plan of Action

Take what you learned from employees and candidates and make a plan to get from where you are now, to where to want to be. 84% of companies believe a clearly defined strategy is the key to achieving employer branding objectives. Start by taking a look at your Employee Value Proposition – that is, the characteristics and appeal of working for your organization. This goes beyond salaries and benefits - take a look at your culture, career development opportunities, employee recognition and rewards programs, overall work experience, management practices, etc. Take what you see here and combine it with what you've learned from your employees and candidates. Then determine your objectives and come up with strategies to accomplish them. Make sure they’re realistic. Bring in somebody from each department to brainstorm and provide feedback. This shouldn't just be managers, but can be people from all organizational levels. In fact, it’s probably better if managers aren't there so that everyone can speak freely. Once you've come up with an actionable plan, create goals for implementation and continually collect feedback from employees and candidates to make sure you’re measuring progress. It can take years to build a strong brand, but only seconds to destroy it. So this cycle of collecting feedback, implementing changes and collecting more feedback will ensure that you’re improving your employer brand and attracting and retaining the best talent. Read on for a few ways to improve your employee and candidate experience.

Employee Experience

According to a Manpower survey of over 20,000 job quitters, money is only the third most common reason people quit. Ranking before it is limited career opportunities and lack of respect and support from a supervisor. What I find particularly interesting about this is that most people cite their supervisor as the reason they quit: either from lack of respect or support, lack of leadership, bad relations with supervisor, favoritism by supervisor and lack of recognition. These are all things you should ask about during your survey, and address in your strategy. Put this feedback into your culture and vision, and make sure change starts at the top. The senior executives, especially your CEO, must be on board with this effort and your employees need to buy in to it. Not only will this help you retain them, it will help you recruit new top talent into your organization. This brings us to discuss your candidate experience.

Candidate Experience

The candidate experience often has multiple touch points, and many opportunities to make a wrong move. Here are some general guidelines:

1. Be clear in your initial communications about what you’re looking for. This includes responsibilities, location, salary, required skills, desired skills, benefits and hours. They'll find out sooner or later, so just be transparent upfront.
2. Make it easy to apply. Take yourself through your application process to make sure that it's quick and easy to apply, and make sure that passive candidates can apply without a resume.
3. Acknowledge receipt of all applications you receive, and communicate about next steps.
4. Follow up when you say you will, letting each candidate know whether they will go on to the next step of the process, or not.
5. Try to be flexible with interviews – some people will be employed and don’t want to jeopardize their current position. This can help you reach those top candidates, or at least not deter them and allow your competitor to scoop them up. Be open to video interviews, or interviewing after business hours.
6. Be open and honest during interviews, let the candidates know about next steps, and follow up when you say you will (even if just to say that you're still making the decision).

The point is, at each step of the recruitment process, you need to tell every single candidate whether they’re moving on to the next step of the process or not. Technology can really help you here.

Where to share your employment brand

• Career Site
• Career Blog
• Job Postings
• Social Media: Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, Pinteret, Google Plus, etc
• Talent Newsletter

In the recruitment space, we're constantly hearing about active versus passive candidates and, to complicate things further, we’re also starting to hear about semi-active candidates, tiptoers, and more. The fact of the matter is that you’re really just trying to find the best candidate, and that candidate may be unemployed, employed but looking, employed by not looking, or employed and not open to a new opportunity. You won’t know until you find, and speak with, them.  But the different types of candidates have different motives and levels of interest, so your recruitment strategy must appeal to each group so you can effectively find, recruit and hire the best candidates.

Active Candidates

An active candidate is actively looking for work. This does not necessarily mean unemployed, but it can. This group is looking for a new opportunity for a variety of reasons:

• they’re concerned about their current employer’s stability
• they would like to take on more responsibility
• their job was outsourced
• their employer went out of business
• etc

About 23% of the American workforce falls into this category, and it is from here that 80% of open positions are filled. That's because these are the people that are open to a new opportunity, and are proactively trying to find their next position.

Job postings are the most common way employers reach active job seekers, and the average response is around 200 applications. By optimizing your job postings with keywords and sharing them on social media, you make your jobs easier to find. But, a common complaint we hear from recruiters is the number of unqualified candidates they receive from job postings, which is perhaps why many have moved toward proactive candidate sourcing.

Sourcing active candidates can be an alternative to job postings, or supplement that approach to bring you even more qualified candidates. Since active candidates are working on their personal brand and submitting their resume, they can be fairly easy to find. You can search for them on social media, or through search engines.

To make it even easier to find these candidates, Bright offers an automated sourcing solution which takes your job description and matches it with active candidates in our database. All of our candidates have actively searched for a job in the past 30 days, so they are more receptive to your message.

Since 2/3 of active candidates are currently employed, it is important to make it easy to apply. While some argue that a tedious application process will weed out candidates, what they don’t realize is that it’s the best candidates they lose. Take yourself through the application process to make sure it’s quick and easy to apply.

Also make sure you’re including information in your job postings, and other places online, about why your company is a great place to work. Encourage employed candidates to apply by offering flexible interviewing options, such as video interviews or off-hour interview times.

And, although you may receive a high volume of applications from your job postings and through sourcing active candidates, make sure you have an effective follow up program in place. A poor candidate experience can damage your employment brand and negatively affect your ability to recruit top talent in the future.

Semi-active candidates

A subset of active candidates is the semi-active candidate. They have also been called tiptoers, networkers, etc because they aren't actually applying for jobs but are preparing to move, actively looking and asking their networks about opportunities. This group makes up about 14% of the workforce at any given time.

According to a recent CareerBuilder survey, 66% of respondents said they thought about looking for a new job within six months before actively searching. During this time, they’re reaching out to friends – so it’s important that you have an employee referral program to reach these people. It is a huge advantage to get to this group as soon as they start looking, so make sure that your employees are aware of your open positions and what a qualified candidate looks like.

Keep in mind that a semi-active candidate may not have a resume ready, so allow them to apply through an online profile, such as on Bright.com, Linkedin or Facebook. You don’t want to miss out on a great candidate because they don’t have a resume, and making them submit one may mean you lose them to a competitor.

The CareerBuilder survey also found that, on average, job candidates consult nearly 15 resources per job search – before they even decide to apply to a job. This includes career sites, social media channels,  job boards, employer review sites, personal networks and staffing firms. So, as we discussed with active candidates, it’s important to have a solid web presence and employment brand.

Passive Candidates

A passive candidate is employed, but not currently looking for a new opportunity. This group accounts for 63% of the workforce, although only slightly more than half of them would consider a new opportunity.

The benefit to a passive candidate is that, since they are not looking for a new opportunity, they probably won’t be interviewing with anyone else. With 37% of the workforce not looking for a new job, but willing to discuss a new opportunity, proactive sourcing (Boolean searches, social media, etc) is going to be your best bet for finding this group. Since it can be difficult to distinguish a passive candidate who is interested in speaking to you from one that’s not, you should be careful how you reach out people you find through proactive sourcing.

They haven’t expressed any interest in your company so far, so you want to get them excited about speaking with you. Your initial reach out should include an introduction to you and your company, and provide some reasons why you’re reaching out and why this move would benefit the candidate. Show them why your jobs are relevant to their experience and tell them which aspects of their resume make them a fit.

An employee referral program can also be a great tool for recruiting passive candidates – turn your employees into an army of recruiters to share how great it is to work for your company. Your HR department doesn’t have to be the only part of the organization that convinces passive candidates to want to work for your company.

No matter how you find your passive candidates, keep in mind that they most likely don’t have a resume handy. You’ll definitely want to offer them an alternative way to share their background, and you probably want to do away with the application. Remember, YOU found THEM. You must have found something about them that made you want to reach out. Let them know what that is when you reach out to them. And don’t assume they’re interested in speaking with you – they could be the 26% of the workforce that is NOT open to a new opportunity. Even if they are open to speaking, remember that they are currently employed and not looking, and are probably quite content and will be extremely picky about making a move.

How to Handle Super Passives

In your search for passive candidates, you may find people that are perfectly content with their job and aren’t interested in moving, no matter how wonderful your company and opportunity are. That’s why, in your initial conversation, you should let them know you want to hear back from them even if they’re not interested. By getting them to respond, you can build a relationship to perhaps find a few networking connections, or ask if you can reach out to them at a later time. The more communication you can have with a new lead, the more likely it is that they will warm to you and remember you when they DO want a change.

Develop a Recruitment Strategy which Appeals to Each Group

So those are the four main groups of candidates. You have active candidates who are looking for a new job, semi-active candidates who are thinking about moving, passive candidates who are employed but open to new opportunities, and super passive candidates who are employed and would not consider a new opportunity. We’ve discussed some of the nuances that you need to keep in mind with each group, but there was a lot of overlap as well. So, let’s review some of the big things you should include in your recruitment strategy to make sure you’re getting the best talent possible.

• Employment Branding: Share your employment brand in your job postings, on your website, on your social channels, in your outreach messages, etc. Also be sure that your employees believe in your employment brand, so that they will be natural recruiters for your company through your employee referral program. 75% of Americans would not take a job with a company that had a bad reputation, even if they were unemployed. So make sure your reputation isn't keeping you from getting top talent.
• Killer Job Postings: Job postings will mainly be used for active candidates, but whatever you write should also be used within your employee referral program to find semi-active candidates, and may be forwarded to passive candidates – so you want to make sure they’re well done. Watch Write Job Postings that Attract Qualified Candidates for more information.
• Social Media Presence: Your social channels are a great way to share you employment brand, as well as your job postings, at scale. Both active and passive job seekers utilize social media, and many will look up your profiles before applying to a job at (or accepting your invitation to connect with) your company. Make your employee referral program social so it’s easier for your employees to find and refer great candidates to you. Social can also be used for proactive sourcing.
• Proactive Sourcing: Proactive sourcing should be used to find both active and passive candidates. While most of your active candidates come through your job postings, you may not be getting the MOST qualified of the bunch. Or, you may accidentally pass right over them and let them slip through the cracks. Passive candidates are best found through proactive sourcing methods such as Boolean searches and social media.
• Employee Referral Program: An ERP should be your primary method of recruiting semi-active candidates, because they reach out to their friends first. It’s also a great tool for getting active candidates who often ask their friends for referrals, as well as for passive candidates who may be swayed by their friends.
• Positive Candidate Experience: When putting together your recruitment strategy, you should also take your application and interview process into consideration. Many candidates won't have a resume, and those who do won't want to submit it through a tedious application process. Take yourself through your application process to see what works, and what doesn't, for all types of candidates. Try offering an alternative application process for semi-active and passive candidates, such as applying with an online profile. You may also want to take a look at your interview process to make sure it's efficient for both parties. Employed candidates may have a hard time making interviews in the middle of the day, so try to schedule them during off-hours and/or through the phone or video conferencing. Also make sure you communicate throughout the application and interview process, to make sure candidates know what the next steps are, and where they stand in the process.

With the current unemployment rate at 7.9% and 69% of employed workers willing to consider a new job, it should be a lot easier to get a conversation going with candidates. What’s keeping candidates from contacting you back, and what can you can do about it?

Why aren't candidates contacting you back?

There are a variety of reasons candidates aren’t contacting you back – and some of them are included in our webinar, 4 Reasons You’re not Getting Quality Job Applicants.

1. You sent a poorly written job posting that doesn’t excite the candidate.
2. You asked a candidate to apply, but you have a tedious application process.
3. You have a bad employment brand.
4. You need to work on your candidate.
5. You sent them an irrelevant position.
6. You also may have just reached that 20-25% of the workforce that isn’t interested in a new opportunity, no matter how wonderful your company is.

So, how do you find candidates that will be interested in speaking to you, and what do you do and say to get them to contact you back?

How do you find candidates that are interested in speaking to you?

1. Post your jobs online: This is an obvious answer because it allows you to collect applications from active job seekers.
2. Use Bright.com's Automated Sourcing Tool: Our algorithm, the Bright Score, automatically finds matches for your open positions. Our clients have seen up to a 50% response rate from our candidates. There are two reasons for this:  1) Our candidates have all looked for a job within the past 30 days, so you don’t run into people that aren’t interested in a new opportunity and 2) our algorithm automatically matches job postings with the most qualified and relevant candidates, so recruiters aren’t reaching out to candidates with irrelevant positions. Start sourcing for free.
3. Use your network. Job seekers will usually tell their friends when they’re looking to make a move, so tapping into your network may uncover some candidates that nobody else is talking to.
4. Social media: Try searching for keywords that indicate someone is looking. Some will be obvious, such as someone that writes "looking for a job," and some will be more subtle, like someone that mentions a major layoff happening at work, or a high-profile departure. Also look for people that are moving to a new town.
5. Google Alerts on your competitors: Look out for things which would indicate a move, such as stock price changes, acquisitions and IPO announcements.

However, even a candidate that is interested in making a move may not contact you back if your initial communications don't appeal to them.

How do I reach out to candidates via cold call or email, and what do I say? Your initial communication, whether it be a phone call, email, or tweet, should excite the candidate and show what’s in it for them. Introduce yourself, and tell them some interesting tidbits about the company culture and the product. Then ask if they’re open to exploring a move if you’re able to find a fit and role that’s better than what they’re currently doing. Also try to do a little research on the candidate and target your message. The response rate from custom messages is significantly higher than that from mass-messaging, and you don’t risk annoying your candidates with irrelevant messages, which is one of the reasons LinkedIn’s response rate is so low – many people have stopped checking their InMails because of the amount of spammy content they receive.

The next step will be asking the candidate what it is they would want in a future opportunity, including which types of positions are most relevant and what would make them want to make a move. Everyone will have a different answer and it’s not always what you’d think. While some people will be looking for a salary increase, others may simply want flex hours and work from home options, or a dog friendly office. You never know what makes someone tick until you ask. By building this relationship with them, you are engaging in proactive recruiting. While you may not have the perfect opportunity for them now, you may have something come up in the future – and then you’ll be fully confident in them responding to your message.

What are some other factors that may affect my response rate? There are a variety of other factors that may affect your ability to get into contact with candidates, even if you’re already speaking to them – and these have more to do with the candidate experience and employer branding. As we discussed earlier, you need to ask candidates for their job acceptance criteria, and you need to meet those criteria. But don’t ever misrepresent yourself in this area, as that will only cause problems down the road. If it’s a good fit, great. If not, move on.

You also want to make it easy to show interest. Your employed, passive candidates won’t have resumes handy, so asking them to complete your already tedious application process would certainly make some top candidates not contact you back. Make your interviews more accessible: a candidate may drop out of a conversation because their current job prevents them from scheduling and attending your requested interviews. Consider dedicating at least one night or weekend day a month to allow individuals with scheduling issues to interview outside of work hours. Or use live Internet video interviews that don’t require travel. Also, consider instituting a policy where all interviews are completed during a single day.

Also be sure to keep your interview process quick. Top talent will either get swooped up by other companies, or may lose interest. One factor that’s completely out of your control, however, is timing. Some individuals will begin to look for a new job with a negative triggering event, like a fight with their boss. That’s the right time to reach out. But if you wait a few days and the conflict blows over, you may have lost your window.

If you're tired of candidates not contacting you back, and want to give Bright Recruiter a try, sign up for a free trial. Bright allows you to automatically source candidates which are the best fit for your job description, and our tool has seen a 50% response rate because all of our candidates have actively searched for a job within the past 30 days. The trial offers full functionality to view resumes and get full contact information for each candidate you’re interested in speaking to, so you really have nothing to lose. Sign up now!