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Photo: John Schnobrich

Soft Skills Aren’t Optional: How to Teach Them Well

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When you hire employees, especially Generation Z and the youngest millennials, you’re investing in the future of your organization. Contributing to their development is one of the smartest investments you can make. But too many companies overlook the basics when it comes to learning and development. 

If you only focus on training to meet the specific tasks and requirements of a given job, you may be developing your employees as much as you think you are. Particularly when it comes to new employees switching to an unfamiliar role, or just-hired younger employees new to the workplace, they may lack foundational abilities you now take for granted. A study by the CollegeBoard found that employers find 26.2% of college students lack sufficient writing skills — and one fourth are generally poor communicators. 

So before you train for job-related tasks, make sure your employees have these essential skills. Call them soft skills, call them life skills, or call them basic work skills, but these four are not only critical for success in your organization, but throughout a career. And whether the training is up to managers, team leaders or anyone else there are a number of tools to help get your employees up to speed:

1. Time Management

Of all the skills employees can and should have, time management is one of the most vital, no matter what the position or task. This is really a group of skills, including knowing how to prioritize, create a list of must-dos, create a workable schedule, delegate tasks, and know how to create downtime. All of these add up to employees being able to work efficiently and manage their time productively.

The best time managers are those who are never fazed by deadlines: give them a deadline and they’ll meet it, no matter what. They know how to focus on the most important tasks and limit the amount of time they spend on the less important ones. They can create and keep to a schedule because they know how much each task will take them. 

Teaching It

Given that how to manage time varies greatly depending on teams and roles, team leaders and direct managers should be involved in teaching this particular skill. Young hires fresh out of college may have mastered the ability to keep up with classwork but will need to learn how to transfer the skill into the context of work. One effective approach: implement routines and incremental goals throughout tasks. These make it easier to segment the day into manageable chunks.

Team leaders and managers may find scheduling software helps: there are a number of different applications, such as When I Work, or a task management software like Asana or Centrallo. But don’t just leave it up to tech. Make sure to clearly communicate the priorities to employees at the start of each new task — and then help them figure out how to allocate their time more effectively.

2. Interpersonal Communication

Some employees will see more direct and immediate benefits from strong interpersonal skills, particularly if they’re in people-facing and communication-heavy roles. But whether employees are going to be giving a major sales presentation or relaying information to a coworker, interpersonal communication is always essential to get the point across. 

The skill includes verbal, nonverbal and listening skills, as in being able to recognize emotions and see someone else’s side. Non-verbal communication involves being able to recognize the subtleties of body language, eye contact, and gestures, and look beyond traditional assumptions to understand what’s really going on. For instance, lack of eye contact is often misinterpreted as dishonesty when it’s actually shyness or nervousness.  

Teaching It

Learning interpersonal skills is a personal process for most employees, and can be tricky with a brand-new hire or a person who’s naturally shy. As such, it’s best taught by mentors or team leaders with small, close-knit teams — provided that your team has the right dynamic to keep everyone comfortable.

You could start by teaching employees how to listen effectively, and recognize the different types of communicators — such as controllers, analyzers, supporters, and promoters. Each enters a conversation differently, and responds to a different listening and speaking style. 

Gather the team and have each person take a personality test to find out what kind of communicator they are and what they value in communication. From there, compare notes: see how each team member tends to communicate, note the similarities and differences — and work on ways to better communicate with each other based on this new data.

If you need more avenues to foster stronger interpersonal communication among your workers, consider heading online. There are a number of classes for improving personal skills, including those recently listed on The Muse. 

3. Written Communication

Writing is often just presented as one of the communication skills, but it’s likely better to set it apart and give it the focus it needs. This is a skill that’s undoubtedly critical in the workplace — the most valued, but perhaps the least utilized. Most of us can read and most of us can write in terms of knowing how to form sentences. But there’s an enormous gap between people who can write and people who are good at it.  

The ability to write is among the top three most valuable skills to employers: 82% of employers want to bring in new hires with strong written communication skills, according to recent research by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. The cost of hiring poor writers can translate into as much as $2.9 billion each year spent providing remedial writing training for current employees. Add in new hires as well, and that sum rises to $3.1 billion. And no matter the promises of AI to help assist with writing, technology can’t fill the gap in terms of bad writing. 

Teaching It

For employees in marketing departments and HR, for instance, written communication is usually a key part of the role. But the goal here is to enable all of your employees to build at least foundational writing skills — so emails are readable and a small brief or abstract is coherent. If you have employees with more potential, you’ll want to focus on helping them harness that with specific tools. 

Writing skills training may entail mentors — who can help with overall polishing and tone. But managers and team leaders are often the last stage of screening before a product reaches a client — and will know what will or won’t pass muster. But when a team leader has bad habits, those will carry through onto the team. Teaching writing should be done by those who are skilled in it and by the tools that are specific to it. 

Make sure the organization implements a clear and comprehensive style guide and provides it to all employees — sometimes poor writing is simply a matter of not knowing the rules. Set up periodic trainings on the standards of communication, presenting not only what’s expected of employees in terms of writing, but clear samples to model correct usage and style. Consider bringing in a writing coach to “workshop” pieces of writing with new employees: a hands-on, small-group setting is a great place to show what works and why. Reward good writing and share it so employees know what it looks like. But don’t punish mistakes: you don’t want employees who dread the process. 

4. Organization

In the workplace, we often sense who is organized and who isn’t by the state of their desk: some keep their workspace tidy and with everything in its place; others keep it in a state of perpetual disarray. But organizational skills are far more than what meets the eye. They usually go hand in hand with strong time management skills (reserving time to straighten the desk is a simple example). 

But organizational skill is also a matter of knowing all the steps to a task, being able to envision them and know how to complete them, who to bring in for different phases, and when to bring in a senior coworker for help over a hurdle. Organization is vital for any employee whose job includes overseeing, managing, project completion, or team leading. Likely, that’s nearly everyone — in some form. And it’s hard for employees to see — or convey — the big picture in terms of purpose and objectives if they don’t have the energy or ability to look away from the small stuff. But aligning with a greater sense of mission is a key part of employee engagement, particularly among younger employees. And it doesn’t mean anything if you can’t see the forest for the trees.

Teaching It

Organizational training is usually team-specific, sometimes department-specific. For example, the organizational process that works for marketing workflows isn’t necessarily well-suited to engineering; bringing in an outside expert on calendar and schedule management won’t necessarily work for employees whose tasks have to be completed within a single day.

Direct supervisors are often the ideal choice for organizational training, with backup support from experienced team members. They know the strengths and weaknesses of their team — and are typically the ones who need to connect the dots or undo a snafu. 

The trend to remote working may call into question the need for a tidy desk for some — but it’s the mentality that needs to be emphasized here, and remote teams certainly need to learn how to be organized. Starting by training how to create a routine and a schedule — and stick to it — creates a framework for other facets. Employees need to know where they need to be, what they need to be doing, and when they need to get it done.  Begin with a daily schedule of the top three or four tasks for a given day, then increase with more tasks, over time, as the team masters what needs to be completed.  

This is where you may see a spark of recognition from new employees, particularly those just out of school — who suddenly see the similarities between meeting deadlines for schoolwork, which is mostly done individually, and completing tasks with coworkers as a team. Each has a part to play; each can contribute to the overall completion. Then, start tailoring the organizational methods to best meet the specific nature of a particular team or department. Just make sure skills are taught consistently, regardless of personal management styles or functions. As teams become more cross-functional, it’s key your employees have a shared language and skillset to draw from.  

Work and Life Skills, Integrated

The World Health Organization notes that we spend one-third of our adult lives at work.  That means what we do and know how to do at work inevitably has a huge impact on the way we live our lives. Employers have a responsibility to invest in their people for countless reasons, but this is key. Essential skills don’t stop at the office. We want and need to develop employees who can rise to challenges, as they have the skills to draw from, whether in life or at work. 

These are the people who keep your organization going at crunch time: they know how to schedule, how to communicate, how to write, and how to stay on top of the workflow. And they become comfortable enough in their abilities to help coach others on these vital skills as well. It’s an investment that pays off for generations.

The Practicality of Purchasing an ATS Part 2

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Cost, true value and company culture

(Part two of a three-part series)

In part one of this series, I discussed how to go about conducting a gap analysis to fully understand the current state of your ATS and if shopping around for a new vendor is really what’s needed. Having a good grasp on your current business needs in addition to future needs is one of the first considerations.

Further, I shared some pitfalls to avoid when conducting your business analysis and described some areas where people can misinterpret what resources are needed, and why considering the functionality and options of a new ATS must align with your unique business plans.

How do You Determine True Value?

Current and future value for your business, value for the money paid and value for the end-users should be paramount in the decision-making process.

What to consider as the value will vary from organization to organization. It’s important to ask lots of good questions to understand how the software will mesh with your unique business demands. Ask questions specific to your company’s needs, but general questions about the cost, frequency of software updates, extent of resources needed by your organization to maintain a fully functioning application, how data storage is handled and protected, along with length and terms of the contract should, also, be asked. Additionally, you should know what training is included for the initial rollout, as well as for future updates, product refreshers, new features and training for new users, as well as software changes that address future business objectives. It’s, also, important to understand any configuration or customization you may require, to meet your initial and ongoing business processes, and their associated costs.

No software is of value if the end-users cannot use it in meaningful and productive ways. Technology should enhance the user experience not be an encumbrance, so the human engineering must be in-line with how you need the software to perform. Don’t let the vendor define your needs; it’s okay to compare product feature sets to each other, but it’s most important to compare the product functionality to your requirements to ensure you’re getting the best value for the money. If you analyzed your business at the beginning of the process, you know best as to what your business needs are.

People often over-focus on the appearance of the software. Beneficial functionality and speed are not easy to design but are the backbones of what makes for good, reliable systems. What appears flashy and sparkly in a demo doesn’t always translate into a productive real-world experience for the end-user. Flashy should not be the focus, but consider availability, functionality, and responsiveness as being what’s vital. It’s important that the end-users can use the software, sometimes all day long, without fatigue.

If, at all, possible implement the software you’re considering into production. If you have more than one location, install and use it at one of the sites. If not possible, at least take the time to talk to references – both power users and the managers who do the software purchasing for their business. Questions may vary, but ask the managers if they conducted a business needs analysis at the onset of the process. Ask to know if there were any hidden costs. Knowing how satisfied the end-users are with the software is valuable information. Software review sites such as TrustRadius and Capterra are also great sources of getting crowd-sourced opinions about a product, company, and its people.

It’s, also, important to ask for references from customers that are achieving success. These may be power users who will give you a fair representation of how they use the product, and with that may be able to answer questions relative to your organization.

Company Culture Matters

When evaluating vendors, assess how closely they listen, understand and respond to information about your unique business demands. If the vendor always answers, “yes,” to your questions about functionality, you should be suspicious… no off-the-shelf software will do all you want.

If the vendor is listening and advising on what’s in your company’s best interest, they are taking a customer-centric approach and not just working to meet their own sales goals. Further, ask the vendor to whom they report, is the company privately held or owned and financed by outside investors? Who does management serve, customers or shareholders/investors? What drives their innovation? Customer-driven innovation is, generally, the best because it’s like crowdsourcing. Their responses will alert you to their company structure and indicate where customers fall on the list of priorities and importance. Also, find out what the turnover is on their client roster, as well as turnover with the software vendor’s employees. See what employees are writing about them on sites like Glassdoor.

It goes without saying but understanding how the vendor defines on-going service and support is important. This will help you understand both the advantages, as well as the limitations of their solution – and their customer focus speaks volumes about their own company culture and how well they work with clients.

You need to develop a business partnership with your ATS provider, and any vendor for that matter. A compatible relationship must be built on trust, honest communication, and mutual respect.

Understanding the overall performance and service factors of the potential software system, and its compatibility with your company needs and culture are the keys to successful product selection. Ultimately, the functionality of the vendor’s software should be in-line with your expectations of success for the present and future of your business.

This article is part two in a three-part series. In the next article, I’ll address best practices for implementing your ATS and what’s needed for the care and maintenance of the new software.

The Practicality of Purchasing an ATS

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How do you know you need a new ATS?

(Part one of a three-part series)

When looking for an applicant tracking system (ATS) your first job is to critically evaluate your motivations as to why you need one, and if you currently have one, why you need to change vendors. Analyzing where and why the current ATS is not performing and why a new ATS is needed should be bona fide business reasons, not driven by subjectivity. Looking objectively and pragmatically at your business and motivation to switch providers or when making an initial purchase are the biggest factors to consider when shopping for a new ATS.

Mind the Gap

Start by conducting a gap analysis of your recruitment business and looking objectively at what you are lacking. Consider your company’s present requirements as well as anticipated future needs. For example, if your business is growing, your software needs to be scalable to suit your anticipated plans, if not, you may face having to re-evaluate ATS systems down the road. Further, prioritizing your needs is critically important to evaluate competing systems, since no off-the-shelf software will likely satisfy all of your requirements.

Before you begin the product evaluation process, look objectively at your talent acquisition processes, your current ATS’s performance for reliability and support along with your future goals. Without this in-depth knowledge, it will be difficult for you to adequately compare ATS products to determine which is best suited for your business goals and talent acquisition practices. I recommend having end-users’ input when determining where your current software is falling short. These individuals can provide the feedback you need to know as part of the due diligence in your analysis.

Also, part of the due diligence in understanding what you need for your business will help you avoid over-purchasing or under-purchasing what is actually needed to sustain your talent acquisition workflow and pressing business needs.

Where it Goes Sideways

Over the past 30 years, I have heard many subjective reasons as to why a company wants to leave their current applicant tracking software provider or make an initial ATS purchase… this case rarely ends well. Reasons that aren’t supported by a solid business case generally means the decision makers bypassed a needs analysis, and what ultimately results are one or more of the following mistakes: Buyers creating a broad list of overly general questions, using a templated RFP, not applicable to the buyer’s organization and sent to a long list of (mostly) unqualified vendors, preemptively choosing a vendor used in the past at a previous employer, or selecting a vendor exclusively on cost versus knowing the true value to the buyer’s organization.

I’ve also experienced interactions with organizations that have assigned the task of evaluating potential ATS providers to a third-party consultant or departments outside of the area where the end-users sit. This can spell disaster for the end-users and job candidates because the decision usually doesn’t serve the end-users and support the business needs of the company. We recommend designating one or more “power users” or internal subject matter experts who can help with the product evaluation process, and later serve as key points of contact to support user adoption and maximize the ongoing cost-effectiveness of the system.

Further, fostering good communications with your current provider and understanding the full complement of what your system has to offer is important for understanding what you really have at your fingertips, and I’ll address more about this is part three.

Keeping in line with good communications, the first place you should take your completed gap analysis is to your existing vendor and discuss the results. Often times your current software provider has the functions you need, but you simply aren’t aware. You should be satisfied that you have reason to explore other options and not just assume the grass is always greener based on the latest marketing hype of a potentially new vendor.

In part two of this series, I’ll discuss how cost versus the true value and why a vendor’s company culture matters in helping you make the right decision for your ATS purchase. In part three of the series, I’ll discuss the implementation and care and feeding of your ATS.

Photo Credit: alberthobbs Flickr via Compfight cc

Caveat Emptor

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When it comes to the world of business, there is much that goes on behind the scenes that would scare consumers. As someone who has seen firsthand what goes on in a restaurant’s kitchen, I can tell you, it’s not a place people would find particularly appetizing. This is an example of how sometimes keeping the buying public in the dark is in the best interest of everyone. By contrast, this doesn’t work for all buying decisions, and it’s not uncommon for people to be victims of backroom deals that often turn into situations where consumers are convinced to buy products that benefit the vendor more than the consumer. For example, when you bring your car in for a simple fix, but are, instead, sold a new transmission.

When it comes to HR Technology, especially considering current market conditions, every potential customer should vet service providers thoroughly.  Asking, “Can I trust you to do what is in the best interest of my company?” is a start, but you need to dig deeper. It’s important to understand what business model the prospective service provider follows and whether this model serves customers and users or investors and shareholders.

The best companies integrate with other brands to form partnerships which provide a fuller array of products and services to their customers that make the purchased product more comprehensive and of greater benefit. In an ideal world, product manufacturers should select product integrations or alliances based on functionality, price and service… the things that benefit their consumer directly. It’s important to note, there’s a distinguishable difference between companies that offer integrations with third-party products without a financial relationship versus those companies that benefit financially from their recommendations.  Unfortunately, there’ll be always be vendors that succumb to the pressure of predatory venture capitalists and/or shareholders to maximize short-term cashflow as their number one priority. This can result in the organization only referring vendors that pay them the highest referral fees versus vendors that serve the best needs of the customer with functional products that are backed with good service and fair pricing. Given this, it’s always fair to ask these two questions, “Do you have outside financiers or shareholders?” and “Do you benefit financially by referring third-party products to me?” The best vendors will always consider the customer their primary business partner and work exclusively on their behalf. For consumers, understanding what is and is not good, honest customer service can be a tough thing to decipher at times, but you should have peace of mind in knowing you can trust your supplier to serve your best interests.

And You Need This, Too

As an example, imagine purchasing a large ticket item such as a company-wide HR technology upgrade. After purchase, you’re presented with an array of complementary third-party solutions that are integrated with your supplier’s product.  Once presented, the benefit is obvious, such as job postings or background checking… but do you know why your vendor is recommending this product? If you find that your vendor is pushing a lot of third-party products, and you later discover they’re getting paid to refer these third-party vendors, this should raise an eyebrow and a doubt about whether this vendor’s business model can deliver good customer service.

When It Goes Sideways

As an example, Facebook started as an innovative social media product designed to bring people together into communities of friends, relatives and like-minded enthusiasts. Unfortunately, due to pressure from predatory shareholders demanding more immediate cashflow, Facebook changed their business model from providing a valuable social product into a marketing platform where they make money by selling your information, browsing proclivities and preferences off to the highest bidder, and diverged from the original business model which indelibly changed the customer experience for the worse.

Summary

Keep in mind, there are legitimate and valuable reasons why someone should purchase products from a supplier’s list of vendor integrations. Understanding the motivation and underlying relationship between the supplier/company and its vendors is important, as this may give you valuable clues you can expect to experience over the years.

Photo Credit: anneperry855 Flickr via Compfight cc

As Long As We’re Still Hiring

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“Ain’t that the way that it’s always been?
Standing at the water’s edge waiting for the fog to clear
Tackle or touch, you sink or you swim
And hoping that he’s really got the power to save us from these sins
Everybody sitting around waiting for the sun to come again
They’re waiting for the sun to come again…”

—Brandon Flowers, “The Way It’s Always Been”

 

Mom DispatchThe shift in public safety best practice was dramatic. Prior to early 1983, the Visalia, CA police and fire dispatchers managed a manual process consisting of writing addresses on slips of paper when taking 911 calls. Plus, tracking police officers whereabouts manually via radio communication was tedious work.

My mother, the dispatch supervisor at the time, came home stressed night after night because of the new computer-aided dispatch system being implemented and all the bugs that entailed, especially way back then. Not only that, her stress became compounded and complicated by end-user indifference and resistance – some of the other dispatchers and officers. Every single time there was a glitch; an “I told you so” response was what she usually heard.

But she embraced the changes that did eventually improve public safety delivery. In fact everything she learned about computers, databases and related technology systems were on the job at the police department. This experience led to other technology jobs including Motorola.

While this disruptive technology didn’t displace many if any city employees during my mother’s tenure, and in fact headcount actually grew due to the need to maintain the new technology system, technological advancements today do displace workers. Think of it as the John Henry syndrome, an Industrial Revolution folklore about a steel-driving man who had to compete against a steam-powered hammer in blasting holes in a mountain for a railroad tunnel. He won, but then he died, not the most uplifting tale about progress. This economic metaphor was covered in detail by one of my favorite business podcasts called NPR Planet Money with a “man vs. robot” series.

Good for those who are in-demand and have the skills and experience not yet undermined by a disruptive technology. Or those who have the means to retool and learn marketable tech skills like the trend of liberal arts or social science college graduates going to coding boot camps and spending thousands of dollars for a few months of tech development.

In fact, one of the NPR Planet Money episodes pitted a business news writer against a software algorithm to write a Denny’s restaurant earnings update, and the algorithm won. As a writer, this makes me worry about my own longevity, and according to an Economist article titled “Rise of the machines,” Kensho’s [quant] system is designed to interpret natural-language search queries such as, “What happens to car firms’ share prices if oil drops by $5 a barrel?” It will then scour financial reports, company filings, historical market data and the like, and return replies, also in natural language, in seconds. The firm plans to offer the software to big banks and sophisticated traders. Yseop, a French firm, uses its natural-language software to interpret queries, chug through data looking for answers, and then write them up in English, Spanish, French or German at 3,000 pages a second. Firms such as L’Oréal and VetOnline.com already use it for customer support on their websites.

Unfortunately, we are losing more and more jobs to the “machines” – how many in the near future is debatable – although the Economist article references a paper from the Oxford Martin School, published in 2013, that concludes up to half of the job categories tracked by American statisticians might be vulnerable.

Because of all this is why we have disruptive HR technology empowering the adaptive ways we have to recruit and hire. Today’s hiring economy is highly complex, confusing and competitive. It’s like a classic high-performance engine we keep tinkering with, tuning up, swapping out old parts for new, with a lot of sweat and tears, even trying to converting it into a hybrid or an electric-powered vehicle, through every boom and bust cycle, especially the latest.

When I first entered the HR and recruiting technology market over 16 years ago, I went to work for a company called Tapestry.net. Our pitch was this:

Tapestry.net sources Interested, Qualified Applicants for software developer, IT, and Asian-language bilingual positions. You pay only for those candidates who you decide meet your specifications and who have agreed to an interview. You’re in control. Sophisticated artificial intelligence quickly predicts the likelihood of a match between interested applicants and a particular position.

It was cool. It was ahead of its time. It was disruptive. And unfortunately it became a dot.com demise before it really took off. Time and again we pushed our artificial intelligence proprietary matching system. I’ve seen hundreds companies of the past 16 years who claim their technology will help companies identify and screen the right applicant for the right position quickly and effectively, if not automatically. And there’s truth to that; there are many quality products and services that accelerate sourcing, recruiting and hiring.

Ah, but the humans in HR and recruiting strike back. In most of my previous jobs, I’ve hired dozens and dozens of employees – from higher education to high-tech to HR tech to marketing and PR. I’ve played recruiter, hiring manager and human resources, and it’s always been clear to me that the heart of hiring is a human one, and no amount of technology will permanently displace those involved in HR and recruiting.

It’s true that the next 5-10 years will bring unprecedented change to the workplace and the role of Human Resources. According to Alexandra Levit, a Future of Work speaker, New York Times writer, author of They Don’t Teach Corporate in College, and a recent guest on the TalentCulture #TChat Show, there will be those disruptive HR technologies that will influence the form and function of HR in a myriad of ways including how and where we work today, how we recruit and hire, and how we train and develop the workforce.

Not every technological disruption will be adopted nor will it transform business for the better, but the fact remains that empowering a better workplace and workforce is continuous. And in the midst of all this disruption, there’s been an online dialogue of late about what we call recruiting and HR and how the various iterations are deemed too pretentious, clinical, or even distasteful and aren’t reflective of how the “heart of hiring is human.”

But after all of the above, who cares what we call it as long as we’re still hiring.

High Tech or High Touch? #TChat Recap

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Epic Times in HR Innovation

For geeks in the TalentCulture community, this was a red-letter week. We saw an impressive spectrum of innovative technology solutions roll through the HRO Today Forum in Philadelphia.

As planned, TalentCulture founders, Meghan Biro and Kevin Grossman were on-hand each day — sharing photos, updates and color commentary, live on the #TChat stream. It was like opening a virtual window into the state of HR innovation — and along with it, a perfect springboard to discuss promising “world of work” technologies and best practices.

I dialed-in from a distance, and couldn’t help feeling drawn to the energy of the iTalent innovation showdown (which Connect6° won, by the way), as well as the enthusiasm of #TChat-ters who openly exchanged ideas about HR tech at our Wednesday Twitter discussion. (See complete highlights in the Storify slideshow near the end of this post.)

Key Takeaway: Seek Balance

So, did we reach consensus about technology’s role in acquiring and nurturing talent? Did we agree on what matters most — high tech or high touch?

Wait. That’s not the right question. This isn’t a zero-sum game. Instead, shouldn’t we ask something more useful? Try this:

How well are we balancing the natural tension between “high tech” and “high touch,” for best results in our organization?

Truth is, there will never be a “final answer.” In an ever-changing business environment, we’ll always be seeking true north. A commitment to continuous improvement can help. But even with constant recalibration, it’s easy to miss the mark. So, for future reference, maybe we should tuck this tiny nugget of #TChat advice into the back of our minds:

Whatever helps us go THERE should be good. Thanks for the reminder, Zachary!

#TChat Week-in-Review

SUN 4/28

Forbes.com: TalentCulture CEO, Meghan M. Biro, set the stage for the week in her post: “HR Technology: A Revolution for the World of Work.”

MON 4/29

Publication1

Watch Tim’s G+ Hangout videos in his #TChat Preview

Meghan on Monday: To start the week, Meghan expanded on her Forbes commentary in a message to the TalentCulture community: “HR Tech as High Art and Deep Science.”

#TChat Preview: Our community manager, Tim McDonald, outlined the theme and key questions in a preview post: “Live From the Edge of HR Innovation,” featuring brief video interviews with four of the five finalists in this year’s HRO Today Forum iTalent Competition.

WED 5/1

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Listen to the radio show recording now

#TChat Radio: In a special 1-hour “open mic” roundtable live from the HRO Today Forum social media lounge, Jessica Miller-Merrell (Blogging4Jobs), Matt Charney (Talemetry), and a variety of other conference attendees talked with Meghan and Kevin about the changing role of HR, and technology’s role in supporting that shift.

Partner News: Speaking of innovative HR technology, we announced a partnership with Achievers this week — our first formal business alliance in TalentCulture’s 3-year history. Exciting stuff. Learn more in “TalentCulture + Achievers: Better Together!”

#TChat Twitter: Our expanding community gathered around the #TChat Twitter stream, as Achievers Community Manager, Katie Paterson, led us in a real-time exchange of ideas about innovation in HR practices and technology. The feed lit-up with great ideas and interaction throughout the hour. Watch highlights below:

#TChat Twitter Highlights Slideshow: “Live From the Edge of HR Innovation”

[javascript src=”//storify.com/TalentCulture/tchat-insights-live-from-the-edge-of-hr-innovatio.js?template=slideshow”]

Closing Notes & What’s Ahead

SPECIAL THANKS: Again, thanks to the HROToday Forum social media team for sharing their perspectives live from the conference, and thanks to Achievers Social Community Manager, Katie Paterson, for spearheading this week’s #TChat Twitter conversation. You brought insight, humor and energy that everyone could feel.

NOTE TO BLOGGERS: Did this week’s events prompt you to write about HR Innovation or related issues? We’re happy to share your thoughts. Just post a link on Twitter (include #TChat or @TalentCulture), or insert a comment below, and we’ll pass it along.

WHAT’S AHEAD: Next week, education and social learning advocate, Angela Maiers, returns to talk about how our nation can prepare today’s students to become tomorrow’s business and technology leaders. Stay tuned for a “sneak peek” video in our preview this weekend!

Until then, as always, the World of Work conversation continues each day. So join us on the #TChat Twitter stream, or on our new LinkedIn discussion group. And feel free to explore other areas of our redesigned website. The lights are always on at TalentCulture, and your ideas and opinions are always welcome.

We’ll see you on the stream!

Image credit: Pixabay

SmartRecruiters' Idealism Pays Off

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Today, SmartRecruiters will announce a $5m Series A. Yesterday, TalentCulture  had a chance to sit down with Jerome Ternynck, founder and CEO of the Bay Area company, and talk about what this means for his team, the product and the industry moving forward.

First up, the details about the round. Started in October, the “pretty competitive” round came to a head in December with by Mayfield, a top-tier Silicon Valley VC.

“It’s a good environment for startups,” said Ternynck calmly. But, the entrepreneur explained, he thinks it’s a little more than that:

“Free as a monetization model. This is something we are seeing. Free could well be the next generation of software,” he said, echoing a trend that many analysts have been predicting since “freemium” came into play. However, Ternynck takes it a step further:

“From subscription to freemium, free is the logical next step if you can find the right business model. The way we play it is almost a platform play,” opined Ternynck. “Some clients have called us almost an iTunes for recruiting.”

It makes sense if you look at the ambitious product roadmap in place for SmartRecruiters. Essentially it’s free software to manage recruiting tools, no matter how far you look, or how deep you dig there really is no cost to the user to use SmartRecruiters. If you apply the iTunes analogy, it really doesn’t need an attached cost. SmartRecruiters is a platform through which you buy recruiting services and Ternynck is hell-bent on making sure that’s easy to do.

Of course, this isn’t the only funding or acquisition to make the news in recent weeks, but it further cements what Ternynck calls the consumerization of enterprise tech…and the fact that it’s finally hitting the HR Tech Marketplace.

“A lot of the enterprise technology is being brought in by users,” explained Ternynck. Think about the tools you use on your work PCs, iPads and smartphones. Those efficient and brilliant little apps and software platforms are being adopted by consumers, who bring them to the enterprise, which in turn rolls them out on a corporate level.

“This is really something we see happening across all markets. Big change in how you sell to enterprise,” said Ternynck. But selling isn’t really what he has in mind. SmartRecruiters has no plans to amass a huge sales force because the process is actually “frictionless”.

“In the beta phase, we removed all the friction. It’s completely automated, you don’t need to speak to anybody, you actually just need to post your job,” he said. In fact, there is no sign up process on SmartRecruiters. And that’s by design.

“Need to hire someone, come here, post your job.  If you enjoy it, chances are you are going to share it, facebook, social network, use our social referral service…recruiting is not about tracking or automation. It’s about sourcing, engaging and hiring great candidates,” insists Ternynck. “It’s a social encounter.”

No, SmartRecruiters is going to put “all of the money into product awesomeness”. Which makes sense when you have a free product. So what’s next for the product with this new round?

“We want to put jobseekers back at the center of recruiting software. It should be much more enjoyable and much more social. We’re building features around a one-click apply and allowing candidates to express interest more easily,” said Ternynck, ticking off features that the SmartRecruiters team is adding while also naming features that were soon to be gone, like the application form.

And while the Bay Area based team will not be building a huge sales army, Ternynck plans to add at least 40 jobs in the hopes of creating “tens, hundreds, even thousands more.”