Posts

Nontraditional Career Paths Could Be Your Next Talent Goldmine. Here’s Why

/, , , , , /by

For decades, higher education has been considered the best way to gain the knowledge and experience employees need for a successful career. (At least, that’s what many people assumed.) For hiring managers, a college degree has long been a baseline for candidate qualifications. But what about people who pursue nontraditional career paths? If you overlook these candidates, are you missing out on a talent goldmine?

The Truth About Nontraditional Qualifications

All too often, resumes from people without a traditional education are immediately dismissed. This practice is so prevalent that applicants with any bachelor’s degree are more likely to get an interview, even if they didn’t study relevant subjects. In other words, you may have related skills and experience, but if you don’t have some kind of college education, you probably won’t be considered.

These hiring habits are antiquated and harmful. Exclusionary practices limit the candidate pool to a select group of people who can afford the financial burden of higher education. And those who can’t afford a degree but pursue one anyway will accrue a massive debt burden just to be competitive.

Frankly, focusing solely on people with a college education is not only bad for candidates — it’s also bad for business. Here’s why. When you reject nontraditional applicants up front, you’re arbitrarily excluding qualified candidates from interviews. As a result, you’re likely to miss perfectly qualified, eager candidates with the right skills and experience. It also means your recruiting process may be longer and more costly. What’s more, it can lead to weaker hiring decisions.

Fortunately, employers are starting to soften their stance on higher education. Large companies such as Google, Bank of America, and General Motors have been removing college degree requirements from certain jobs. Not surprisingly, younger workers are welcoming these changes. For example, 75% of Gen Z workers already believe college isn’t the only way to get a good education. And as more younger workers enter the workforce, their influence on hiring practices will increase, as well.

Bur hiring managers who want to hire the best candidates don’t need to wait for prevailing trends to change. There are concrete steps that can open your organization to more qualified applicants, regardless of their educational background. So, what exactly can you do to destigmatize nontraditional education in hiring decisions, and strengthen your businesses in the process?

4 Ways to Support Nontraditional Career Paths

1. Make Sure Change Starts at the Top

To transform a hiring culture that’s deeply ingrained in your organization, everyone needs to get involved. Start by ensuring that leaders accept new hiring standards and consistently champion these changes.

Get senior executives and middle managers to buy-off on talent acquisition methods that attract candidates from alternative sources. This is especially true for leaders in charge of hiring decisions. Broadly communicate your commitment by advertising new methods internally and externally. And prepare to prove the impact of this approach by ensuring that nontraditional hires have sufficient resources and support to succeed in their role.

2. Follow Other Employers’ Lead

An increasing number of companies across a broad spectrum of industries are already letting go of four-year degree requirements. When this occurs, skills and experience requirements also tend to expand. One useful tip is to research businesses with similar talent needs so you can learn from them.

For example, analyze how organizations like yours have adjusted their job requirements and evaluate the impact of these changes. For example, if you’re in the tech industry, Dell is an excellent example. Dell actually abandoned its university recruiting program. Now, the company offers apprenticeships and certificate programs to help develop talent with a wide range of desired qualifications.

3. Build Your Own Nontraditional Education Opportunities

One of the best ways to find top job candidates is to train them in-house. There are many ways to foster nontraditional talent from within, including career development opportunities, apprenticeships, upskilling, and reskilling programs. In fact, upskilling alone can improve a company’s culture and boost CEO confidence in measurable business results.

Many companies are already using these strategies to move their hiring practices away from a traditional focus on college degrees. For instance, Accenture launched an apprenticeship program in 2016. This program has helped the company hire hundreds of productive, qualified candidates from nontraditional education paths.

4. Get Involved in Your Local Community — And Stay Involved

Have you tapped into your local community as a sourcing channel? Many organizations have discovered that hiring locally removes relocation obstacles and makes it easier to verify candidate references. By sourcing local candidates, you can also increase the likelihood that new talent will fit well into your company culture.

For the best results when hiring locally, it’s important to conduct ongoing community outreach. By building your local networks and expanding awareness and knowledge of local sources, you can more easily build a more reliable, qualified talent pool.

Final Notes on Elevating Nontraditional Career Paths

The days of hiring managers demanding degrees are numbered. Candidates don’t always have equal access to higher education — or the money and time to complete a college education. Degrees still have their place in the talent acquisition process. But increasingly, employers are seeing better results by adjusting their sourcing and hiring methods — starting with degree requirements. By leading the charge, HR and business managers can reduce skills shortages, overcome talent obstacles, and improve organizational performance.

8 Ideas for Talent Acquisition Success in 2023

/, , , /by

Every employer’s definition of talent acquisition success is different. But many employers have learned valuable lessons over the years. Recently, we decided to capture some of those lessons so other hiring organizations could benefit. That’s why we asked business and recruiting leaders to share tips for talent acquisition success in the year ahead.

Tips for Talent Acquisition Success

From using predictive analytics to cultivating a sense of community among team members, we received a collection of answers that reads like a practical “how to” playbook. Below, we share the top answers to our question, “What’s your best strategy to gain a competitive advantage in talent acquisition this year?”

  •   Re-Engineer Your Brand as a Recruiting Tool
  •   Share Engaging Video Content
  •   Be Flexible
  •   Use Predictive Analytics
  •   Deepen Your Diversity Initiatives
  •   Assess the Market and Develop Appropriate Goals
  •   Audit Your EVP and Culture from a Prospect’s Perspective
  •   Create a Sense of Community

To learn more about how you can make these ideas work for your organization, read the full responses below…

8 Ways to Achieve Talent Acquisition Success in 2023

1. Re-Engineer Your Brand as a Recruiting Tool

We all know how important employer branding has become in the age of social media. But we sometimes overlook it as a true recruiting channel in the overall talent acquisition strategy.

Often it’s used as a marketing tool for selling a company brand. But my best tip is to re-engineer your employer brand so it acts as a recruiting tool. For example:

  • Develop lead magnets that link to employee stories.
  • Conduct career-building webinars for industry newbies and collect emails or resumes from interested registrants.
  • Create quizzes or surveys targeting people who are open to job opportunities, and use these teasers outside your career page to gather more leads.

If you’re an HR or recruiting professional, employer branding challenges you to put on your marketing hat. This year, add a sales hat to that mix so you can attract more qualified candidate leads and close more job offers.

Kelly Loudermilk, Talent Innovator, BuildHR, Inc.

2. Share Engaging Video Content

How many of us would decide to buy a house or a car without knowing vital details? Yet most employers still expect candidates to settle for this kind of hiring experience.

The problem is that smart people don’t have the time or desire to jump through all the traditional job application hoops to find out what’s on the other side. That’s why savvy employers are including more detailed information about jobs on the front end of the recruiting process, so they can attract better talent.

But what about nuanced questions where the answers won’t fit into a tidy bullet point on a job description? Questions like, “What types of challenges does your team solve regularly?” or “What is it like to work with the manager?” This is where video can help.

By recording video answers to these critical questions, recruiters have an indispensable new set of assets that can make candidate outreach more effective. Video also helps employers seem more transparent, which helps them stand out in competitive hiring situations.

Justin Vajko, Principal & Chief Strategy Guy, Dialog

3. Be Flexible

If your company expects to attract and retain talent, you must offer employee experiences that support real flexibility and build your culture around this way of working.

Our new “Work Now” research report found that leaders view the workplace as flexible because of the freedom associated with their role and stature. However, employees don’t experience the same level of flexibility.

Leaders who expect to attract and retain great employees need to listen carefully, move past assumptions based on their personal experience with the organization, and design more connected, flexible experiences for other members of the workforce.

Also, if you’re tempted to rely on pulse surveys for feedback, here’s another tip. While these tools may be helpful, remember you may be viewing results through a biased lens that doesn’t tell a true story.

Instead, move beyond pulse surveys. Engage with employees, listen to their stories, invite them to the table, and co-create the future together. That’s how you can fundamentally improve the way you work.

Douglas Ferguson, President, Voltage Control

4. Use Predictive Analytics

I believe predictive analytics is key to talent acquisition success this year. Predictive analytics is the practice of using data to make predictions about future events. With these tools, you can identify potential candidates for open positions, before jobs are even posted. That means you can get a jump on the competition and hire the most qualified candidates before other organizations can snap them up.

In addition, you can use predictive analytics to assess an individual’s probability of success in a particular role. This means your recruiters can focus on candidates who are most likely to succeed. Ultimately, advanced analytics can help you hire the right people for the right roles, and that can lead to a significant advantage in the war for talent.

Antreas Koutis, Administrative Manager, Financer

5. Deepen Your Diversity Initiatives

The emphasis on workplace diversity has continued to gain momentum. It’s now essential to consider candidates you might otherwise overlook because of their race, gender, or other factors. This isn’t about fulfilling quotas. It’s about expanding recruiting reach by tapping into a more diverse talent pool. Ultimately, this adds depth and dimension to your culture.

Try reaching out proactively to attract candidates from diverse communities. Get out of the office and connect with groups that are underrepresented in the workforce. For example, you can host recruitment events in locations that are convenient for people in these groups.

Partnering with schools in these areas is another way to introduce students to your industry and educate them about related career paths. Internships can also help you connect with young people from diverse backgrounds and help them prepare for future roles in your organization.

Matthew Ramirez, CEO, Rephrasely

6. Assess the Market and Develop Appropriate Goals

Establishing a competitive advantage for talent acquisition success requires a laser focus on both short-term and long-term hiring needs.

Be prepared to investigate the current labor market and integrate leading-edge technologies into your recruitment processes. By investing in data-driven insights, you can develop innovative strategies that differentiate your company from the competition. For example, you can:

  • Evaluate the job market in real-time,
  • Leverage AI and machine learning to source talent more efficiently and proactively,
  • Create proactive employer branding campaigns to showcase your company culture
  • Engage with passive candidates through targeted outreach strategies.

In addition, focus on developing a comprehensive remote hiring strategy, because more companies are moving or expanding their operations away from traditional office locations.

Linda Shaffer, Chief People Operations Officer, Checkr

7. Audit Your EVP and Culture from a Prospect’s Perspective

In a highly competitive job market, standing out and showcasing your culture is the biggest competitive advantage you have in attracting new talent.

Now is a great time to be sure your EVP shows prospective employees why they should work for you, what you offer, and how they can contribute. An EVP is simply your shop window for people you want to attract, retain, and help you grow your business.

I recommend auditing your EVP to put fresh eyes on all your candidate touch points. Review your culture, identify your strengths, and analyze your exit survey data. What can you improve? Does your “careers” website accurately reflect your desired EVP?

Get your whole team involved in this assessment process – HR, Talent Acquisition, and Marketing should work together to showcase your organization in the right light across multiple channels.

Charlie Southwell, Marketing Director, Let’s Talk Talent

8. Create a Sense of Community for Talent Acquisition Success

If your company offers remote work, you have a substantial competitive advantage.

Research indicates that remote work opportunities influence candidates’ salary requirements. But remote work structure isn’t the whole package. Candidates are also interested in knowing how employers create an environment that fosters connection among team members who may not work onsite. For instance, it’s critical to create a sense of community in a remote-based organization with practices like these:

  • Quarterly strategic team meetings
  • In-person team training
  • Regular video lunch and learns
  • Video town halls
  • Hackathons
  • Employee resource groups (ERGs)

Research indicates that people with at least 7 work friends are 35% more likely to stay with their employer. In recent interviews with employees who’ve been at our company for more than 2 years, most told us that interacting with their team is a key reason they enjoy coming to work.

Remote is a terrific way to attract new employees, but creating a sense of community is what keeps employees engaged.

Pat Mulvey, Director of Talent Acquisition, Saatva

 

EDITOR’S NOTE:  These talent acquisition success ideas were submitted via Terkel, a knowledge platform that shares community-driven content based on expert insights. To see questions and get published, sign up at terkel.io.

Beyond Hiring Algorithms: How to Up-level Your Recruiting Process

/ /by

For the first time since the onset of the pandemic, the United States experienced a significant uptick in job availability. This resulted in a lot of new talent looking for their next opportunity. Employers across the country added a combined 943,000 jobs to the market in July 2021–the most significant gain in 11 months. This is a relief to the millions of unemployed people still reeling from the pandemic’s impact. However, that doesn’t mean it’s been an easy journey for job seekers. Competition is now greater, and candidates face new challenges and expectations as they submit their resumes.

So what is the leading source of the disconnect between the number of available jobs and the lack of hires? The answer: technology that does not align with an ultra-competitive environment.

It’s a virtual race to the bottom.

Job boards and automation have made it easier than ever to apply for a job. Recruiters have resorted to automation to weed out the noise, leading savvy candidates to keyword their resumes in a never-ending cycle. Something’s got to give. Speed is crucial to success for recruiting agencies. But to quote a high school driving tutorial, “speed kills” too.

For example, most staffing and recruitment agencies utilize software that relies predominantly on incomplete hiring algorithms. These can exclude candidates through assumptions and past “learnings” that may or may not apply to today’s job market. The main issue in using these matching tools is that they are removing many qualified candidates because of the keywords identified–or not identified–on their resumes. Nontraditional candidates then have no opportunity to advance through the process. They are unable to showcase their skillsets because an incomplete algorithm weeded them out as “a bad fit.” This is why many forward-thinking recruiters and hiring managers are reevaluating their recruitment systems so they can look beyond the resume.

The way we work is evolving.

Staffing agencies must adapt recruiting protocols to pandemic market conditions. They should remember that the nature of work continues to evolve with the pandemic. People want to leave current companies or pursue a different career path. Candidates want more flexibility in their work schedules, greater job fulfillment, or a role where they feel safer or more appreciated (financially and otherwise). Those considerations need to be considered, especially in the screening process.

While technology is part of the problem in hiring, it can also be a solution. Staffing agencies can lessen their dependence on automated scoring and outdated matching techniques present at the core of the technology. Or, they can move to scoring that gives insight behind the numbers so recruiters can make their own informed decisions. Agencies can reclaim control over the initial selection of their talent pool.

First, they must determine what kinds of biases are being created by incomplete hiring algorithms. And, also, how these restrictions are limiting opportunities for companies to hire valuable talent. Below are some examples of these restrictions.

  • Education: Companies pass on candidates because of their degree types and from where they were earned. Rather, they should have their experience reviewed to see if it is comparable to the level of education required.
  • Number of years in the industry: This comes into play when someone is changing careers. Some workers might not have direct experience in a role, but do have experience in the industry.
  • Candidate background: Past work experience, titles, and the specific duties they performed should be considered.
  • Employment gaps: There are times when a parent may have taken a few years off to raise a child. Or perhaps someone went back to school to learn a new trade. Uncover these details through nonbiased screening processes and interviews.

The solution beyond technology…

Recruiters can look further than a candidate’s resume to help eliminate these biases. The most valuable concept to incorporate into hiring efforts is “transferable velocity.” This is the probability of a candidate’s continued upward trajectory from one position or career to another. You can evaluate this by looking at the obvious and not-so-obvious benefits and value a person brings to the table. Look at a candidate’s whole story, including where they come from and where they can go next. These are the qualities that keywords and descriptions on a resume can’t showcase, and hiring algorithms can’t grasp.

The next step is to look at activities and initiatives the candidate pursues outside of work. This technique provides insight into a person’s level of transferable velocity. Interviewers will likely uncover what’s important to a candidate. They can also determine where they are willing to invest their time and money. Also, interviewers can learn how these passions may relate to the job the candidate is applying for. This is a good indication of what type of extra work a person is willing to put in to enhance their personal and career goals.

Another necessary element to consider is the need to invest in reskilling and upskilling. Make an effort to appeal to nontraditional candidates. Teach them new skills and techniques vital to the position they’re filling. This investment helps attract valuable talent and retain current team members. Reskilling/upskilling provides them with the tools and resources necessary to move up in the company or to another department. A person’s intrinsic motivation coupled with a robust training program can create the ideal situation for talent to thrive in a new work environment.

The future of work is here.

As businesses wade through hundreds to thousands of applicants during this hiring surge, they must look beyond the resume and move away from algorithms that are inherently regression-based models. Updating hiring and recruitment protocols is a great way to evolve and adapt to the challenges of the pandemic.

Teach Your Hiring Manager to Sell

/ /by

Sometimes good candidates are won or lost in the interview.  I started wondering why good candidates sometimes ran for the hills after an interview.  And then I had my answer- it was a poor experience with a hiring manager.  These days, recruiting is a group effort.  A hiring manager can’t simply opt out of the process anymore and stumble blindly into a meeting only to completely muck it all up.  Candidates today aren’t hungry enough to jump at any old position that comes along.  They now demand transparency and communication.  Candidates today are scouring the internet for information about your company, they’re looking at your team photos on social media, and they’re definitely reading reviews on sites like Glassdoor.  In this time of scrutiny, it’s going to be difficult to compete if your hiring manager isn’t on board with the message.  You’re going to have to teach your hiring manager to sell the company and sell the position.

Ditch the Inquisition and Sell, Hiring Manager, Sell!

In the old days, a hiring manager could largely opt out of the recruiting process.  He or she could come in at the end, meet the top candidates and pick the one they wanted.  Now, they also have to be on brand, on message.  They have to worry about whether a candidate will post the questions they asked in the interview on Glassdoor.  They have to worry if their position will sit empty because they weren’t as forthcoming about the company culture.  Today, the hiring manager has to be involved in the recruiting process as much as the Talent Acquisition team.  So what do you teach them and how?

  • Talent Acquisition must sit hiring managers down and go over the message. Whether a hiring manager knows it or not, every employer has a brand and a message that they want candidates to hear.  This message should be authentic and in line with their talent brand.  Ideally, a strong employer brand is supported by a strong talent brand.  If the two are out of sync, your hiring manager may be driving candidates away.  Teach your hiring managers the official messaging to connect recruiting efforts with a candidate’s experience interviewing. Do they know what differentiates your company from its competitors, what makes them unique in the market?  They should be able to articulate all of this to a candidate as an extension of your employer branding efforts.

recruiting

  • Teach your hiring managers how to interview.  Frequently, the number one complaint we hear from candidates is that their interview was not good.  Many hiring managers just don’t know how to interview.  Beyond the top 6 questions your team wants to know about, your hiring manager should be able to make the experience great for candidates.  Offer them training in interviewing techniques and teach them how Talent Acquisition is able to get the answers they want without the inquisition. Offer role playing scenarios to hiring managers seeking to apply these tools.  Practice, practice, practice.  With a little training and development, a hiring manager can become a very effective interviewer.
  • Review your company culture with a hiring manager. Many hiring managers are great employees, but they don’t quite know what the company culture is, let alone how to articulate it.  By going over the intricacies of your company culture, you can position your hiring manager as an authority on the company.  This information is critical to the candidate experience and can be the differentiator that causes a candidate to choose your company over a competitor.  Teach your hiring manager how to discuss company culture in a positive and realistic way.  If they’re trying to sell the company, they should be able to do so without faking it or making false claims.  No new employee wants to start a position finding out that the laid back team they thought they were joining is really a high pressure high stress environment.  Give your hiring manager the tools to discuss the company culture with candidates to set them up for success.

The old models for hiring are broken.  Today’s candidates seek transparency, communication, and interaction with team members.  An effective hiring manager can bridge the gap between Talent Acquisition and the company, offering candidates the insight they crave.  Using these techniques, your company can sell the position and acquire the talent it desires.

Photo Credit: Rodrigo Misat via Compfight cc