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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

The Nature vs. Nurture of Sourcing

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Sourcers are always finding new ways to effectively use technology, street smarts and process of elimination to find quality candidates. With the deep analytical skills that sourcers possess, we know they are driven to organize and look at each potential lead to find the perfect candidate for their organization. But what about how the candidate is researching you?

Sourcers: It’s In Their Nature

Sourcers have a very specific set of skills―this was evident in attending SourceCon this year. The two most important skills are critical thinking and intuition. It’s in their nature to dig, to optimize, to question. They have to be inherently analytical, extremely organized, self-sufficient and resourceful. If you find yourself a great sourcer, you hold on and never let go.

In the SourceCon keynote, Glen Cathey of Kforce validated the nature of sourcers by speaking to their inquisitive and problem-solving DNA. Cathey challenged every attendee to start with the “why” behind their search for talent, following up with a quote by W. Edwards Deming, Engineer, and statistician: “If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.”

Sourcers must be intuitive by nature and always ask the right questions to get to the right candidates. Every job req is a problem that needs to be solved, and sourcers are the people who build the equation that leads to the solution: the right candidate. It’s critical thinking at its finest.

So of course, being resourceful and masters of critical thinking, with access to unlimited data, plus more and more job reqs to fill, sourcers are expected to find more of the better candidates, faster.

More, better and faster isn’t easy. In another SourceCon keynote, Jonathan Campbell of Social Talent had attendees literally jumping out of their seats as he shared the construct of a 3,000 character search string. He had people live tweeting (and live gasping) over talent mining hacks and Boolean tricks. It blew my mind! Sourcers want to find the candidates no one else can, and it’s these types of insider secrets that can help.

But it got me thinking: With all of this upfront research finding the right candidates, what is the path that candidates are taking to find you?

The Nurture Part of the Sourcing Equation

Just as sourcers have become more sophisticated in their research of candidates, candidates also are becoming more sophisticated in researching prospective employers.

Even the best sourcers can’t make a candidate respond. The candidate likely receives several creative email messages from a sourcer, and before she considers responding, she:

  • Googles your career site
  • Looks up the sourcer on LinkedIn
  • Searches your company on Glassdoor
  • Finds your social accounts

And probably even more touchpoints! If the candidate isn’t impressed, why would she reply? Your candidate experience and employer brand needs to be working for you to nurture these candidates in their research phase. Your recruitment marketing should be communicating a similar message, tone and value across all of the touchpoints between you and a candidate.

I read a great post from Kelly Dingee on Fistful of Talent that proves this nurture point: “I find people, sure. But like all good consumers, they want a comparison, and easily with the change in the job market, they find one. So why will they choose your company? What will make it stand out? It’s all about the wooing. The engagement. The experience. That is the most important part of recruiting right now.”

Nature has become a science, but it’s the nurture that is more art. What good is a perfect 3,000 character search string that yields 1,000 results if candidates just aren’t interested in choosing your company? Recruitment marketing tactics are vital in nurturing candidates once sourcers make that connection and, even before they make that connection, help your sourcers out with a strong and engaging employer brand and candidate experience!

The Insight

Sourcers need to be asking (and answering):

  • Once I find the talent, how can I continue to nurture them through the candidate journey?
  • How can I “sell” my brand to candidates more effectively?
  • How do I forge a relationship with them over time?
  • How do I get my organization to be a top contender if they’re not ready to apply today?
  • How do I engage with silver medalists differently?
  • How do I find and engage the candidates I’ve already sourced for new or better positions?
  • How can I learn more about them over time?

The insight here: You learn if you’re providing an optimal experience for your sourced candidates to choose you. Did they go to my career site? What actions did they take? Did they read employee testimonials or Glassdoor reviews? Did they go to Facebook to check out our culture? Your recruitment marketing tactics, plus sourcers’ one-to-one communication, are necessary to nurture quality candidates.

The answers stem from a recruitment marketing strategy enhancing every touchpoint in their journey to research your employer brand. Sourcers thrive on data and information on candidates, but they also need to be tracking and analyzing behavior of candidates. Technology like a Recruitment Marketing Platform can provide a holistic view of the candidate journey from the first point of attraction all the way through hire.

A New Goal

Our goal as sourcers is ultimate conversion, which as we know is unlikely with the first shot. So we need to have an interim goal of nurture: keeping them engaged until they’re hooked. Finding people is the science, and great sourcers know that―maintaining and nurturing relationships is the art that will make them choose you.

You have the nature. How will you improve the nurture?

This post is sponsored by SmashFly and was previously published on the Smashfly blog. For more content like this, follow SmashFly on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and SlideShare.

This post was first published on smashfly.com on 3/25/16

 

Photo Credit: centre-technorama via Compfight cc

 

Smashfly is a client of TalentCulture and sponsored this post. 

This Workplace Merry-Go-Round Never Slows

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“Midway hawkers calling
‘Try your luck with me’
Merry-go-round wheezing
The same old melody…”

—Neil Peart (Lakeside Park)

We became carnies for a day – midway hawkers calling out from our very own front yard. The main reason was to make some quick cash since my sister and I had already blown through our weekly allowance. It was summertime, decades ago, when I was 12 and she was 10.

School was out so we had to promote our little Saturday carnival via the neighborhood kids and the viral word of mouth. At 10 the morning of, after our mom had left to run errands, we taped the big poster to the garage door that read:

Carnival Today – 10:30-12:30. All games 25 cents. Everybody Wins!

We hung colorful balloons from the mailbox and set up chairs, TV trays and a folding table in the front yard. We used an old cigar box for our cash register. We then pulled out beaten up boxes we had dragged out from the garage full of old games and toys and set them up on the table as prizes. A few of the toys were in good shape, but most had broken or missing parts, especially the games.

My sister was the mastermind of the operation. She created a series of actual carnival games from everyday items around the house, some of which included a ring toss with our mom’s wooden and metal bracelets and Pepsi bottles; a lawn dart toss with real metal darts; and a baseball throw using my old little league baseballs and some of our expendable stuffed animals to knock down. To keep the littler kids occupied during carnival, we turned on our Slip-N-Slide at the other end of the front yard.

At first I felt a little guilty that we gave away our old toys and games to the kids as prizes. That lasted until noon after we had raked in the dough, about $10 in total. We couldn’t have been happier with our entrepreneurial endeavor and were already planning how we’d spend the loot at the mall that afternoon.

Never mind the part about some of the parents coming to our house that night asking for refunds and returning our broken toys and games. That’s not the point.

No, the point is that my sister’s been hawking herself and her skills her entire life. I’ve been a exuberant hawker myself; adapt or perish, as I found out quite readily during the past five years alone. Most of us have learned to do the same.

For as long as we’re trying to earn a buck and turn it into two, we have to shape and hawk our wares. On a merry-go-round wheezing the same old melody. That’s the perpetual carnie candidate experience – from individual contributor to captain of industry.

“Try your luck with me!”

Where lady luck is nothing but a game of chance weighted in your favor with sought-after skills and circumstance. And a better marketplace as well. Hey, hiring plans across the board are favorable:

  • According to the recent Vistage CEO confidence index survey, 62 percent of respondents plan to expand their workforce in the year ahead, up from 56 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 and the highest since the first quarter of 2006.
  • CareerBuilder’s annual job survey found that 36 percent of employers expect to add permanent, full-time staff this year. That’s a 50 percent increase over what employers said at the beginning of 2014.
  • Released in early December, Manpower’s Employment Outlook Survey of 18,000+ employers found a seasonally adjusted 19 percent of them plan to add staff in the first quarter alone.

Lady luck indeed. Every startup founder to CEO to CHRO to board member knows (or better know) the right people can mean the difference between boom or bust (including themselves), which is why organizations are moving away from how they source and categorize their people and toward a unified workforce that’s managed for results regardless of employment status. We’re talking full-time folks and freelancers.

According to Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA), temporary workers currently make up 15 percent of the workforce and are predicted to climb to 20 percent by 2016. In fact, contingent workers can make up more than 50% of the workforce, especially at tech companies, where contractors or freelancers are hired for their expertise. It’s called the “blended workforce,” although more accurately should be called the “fluid workforce” since 40% of contingent workers convert eventually to permanent roles.

Plus, a recent study by the Freelancers Union suggests that one in three members of the American workforce do some freelance work, which does include a higher proportion of younger people. The on-demand economy is crazy hot!

But even with all this exciting and disruptive workplace economic change not seen since the early part of the 20th century, the new how and why of work, the “sourcing the right” skills race continues to heighten dramatically. In fact, according to a soon-to-be-released PeopleFluent talent strategy survey, over 50% of respondent companies said recruiting hard-to-find skills in both leaders and employees is one of main issues keeping them up at night.

That mantra continues with the same Vistage CEO confidence index survey referenced above revealing that the high demand for skilled labor, specifically finding, hiring and training staff, was mentioned about three times as frequently as financial issues or economic uncertainty.

“Try your luck with me – if you can find me!”

The 2014 Candidate Experience Awards report will be released soon (also known as the CandEs), and part of the latest data from nearly 150 companies and 95,000 candidates includes the fact that 30 percent of candidates actively researched and applied for jobs for more than 16 weeks before landing one (or giving up).

Plus, the vast majority of these candidates, the ones that either weren’t selected or simply gave up trying, were never asked for further feedback on the recruiting process, whether they were notified by the company the process was ending or they withdrew on their own. This continues to be a big missed opportunity to better understand what may have been “missed” on both sides during any part of the recruiting process, including the “why” of skills disparity and what both sides should do about it.

The complexity of this situation is compounded by the fact that more and more of the work that “knowledge professionals” deliver will be automated by magic algorithms and software, and skill flexibility and fluidity will be the new currency – constantly being assessed by magic algorithms and software.

“Try your luck with me – please?!?”

So let me wrap it all up now with this idea, one shared with us in full by Brian Carter and Garrison Wynn on the TalentCulture #TChat Show, co-authors of The Cowbell Principle. Yes, a metaphor based on the SNL skit of the cowbell namesake. For individuals, a cowbell is a talent or gift. For businesses, it’s a durable competitive advantage.

The key to happiness and success is knowing who you are and how to succeed with hawking your best stuff. Your cowbell gives your value to people and they (hopefully) love you (and invest in you) for it. But do make sure you target those “investors” that align with your best stuff.

Today more companies are asking candidates to show more of their skills and talents up front in the form of virtual job tryouts, and 25 percent of candidates who responded to the CandEs solved a puzzle, problem or case situation relevant for the job they applied to.

We’re all in this never-ending game of workplace chance and we’ve got to practice, practice, practice our ring tossing to get a ringer. It’s not impossible to win once in a while either – if we continuously develop the skills that are deemed relevant, in demand and economically valuable, and learn how to continuously hawk the hell out of them to maximize our unique differentiating strengths.

Because this workplace merry-go-round ain’t ever slowing down for us carnies.

“Try your luck with us – a winner every time!”

About the Author: Kevin W. Grossman co-founded and co-hosts the highly popular weekly TalentCulture #TChat Show with Meghan M. Biro. He’s also currently the Product Marketing Director for Total Talent Acquisition products at PeopleFluent.

photo credit: mbtrama via photopin cc

Mobile Hiring: A Smarter Way to Seal the Deal

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Written by Todd Owens, President and COO, TalentWise

(Editor’s Note: Learn more about issues and opportunities in mobile hiring from Todd and Brandon Hall talent acquisition analyst, Kyle Lagunas. Listen to the #TChat Radio show now.)

During the past few years, innovative technologies have revolutionized HR business processes. The first wave focused on talent acquisition — with the advent of applicant tracking systems, and the recent surge in mobile recruiting. Now, mobile hiring is emerging as the next wave in this era of HR transformation. Why is mobile hiring important? Let’s take a closer look.

The Mobile Workplace Imperative

No one doubts that mobile connectivity is changing the world. 91% of Americans currently own a cell phone, and globally more than 6.8 billion mobile phones are in use. Now, tablets are making tremendous inroads, with sales that outpace mobile phones by a wide margin.

As these next-generation digital devices become central to our personal and professional lives, organizations are recognizing the value of integrating mobile capabilities into every facet of business operations. In fact, mobile technology is just one dimension of the SoMoClo (Social, Mobile, Cloud) revolution that is reinventing the workplace. HR has leveraged the power of SoMoClo for recruiting. The next logical step is hiring.

Mobile Hiring: Building Stronger Candidate Connections

First let’s look at mobile recruiting trends. Each month, one billion job searches are conducted via mobile devices. When properly executed, mobile-friendly recruitment leads to conversion rates that are 5-10 times higher than traditional PC-based recruitment, but at lower cost. A key benefit of going mobile is immediacy. While 70% of mobile searchers act within the hour, only 30% of PC searchers do. It’s no wonder why recruiters are scrambling to source talent through mobile channels.

However, even the best recruiting efforts can be undone when the candidate experience is disrupted by a cumbersome, outdated hiring process. What does it say to the candidate you’ve spent valuable resources recruiting — the one you’ve sourced and attracted through mobile channels — when you send a paper offer letter via snail mail and ask for a reply via fax?

Too often, there is a disconnect between the satisfying high-tech, high-touch experience of mobile recruiting, and old-school hiring methods. Unfortunately, it occurs at the most critical moment — in that stage between the job offer and onboarding. Why take that risk? It’s time for hiring to step up.

The Business Case For Mobile Hiring Now

Early adopters are seeing dramatic results, as the demand for mobile hiring support soars. For example, consider metrics from the TalentWise platform. Our customers send job candidates directly to our mobile-optimized portal to expedite the hiring process. In less than a year, we’ve seen a stunning 5-fold increase in mobile traffic — from only 8% of candidates last year to 43% today. Employers can’t afford to ignore that kind of exponential growth.

Mobile isn’t about devices. It’s about immediacy and “always on” access — and hiring should be, too. A weak hiring process is bound to affect your retention rate. In fact, studies estimate that, without solid on-boarding, 22% of new hires leave within the first 45 days.

Your organization only gets one chance to make a lasting first impression with today’s on-the-go talent pool. A mobile-friendly hiring process can give you a clear competitive edge. Is your offer letter truly digital? Can candidates sign it through a smartphone or tablet? Or must they print an email attachment, sign it, scan it and send it back? That model is just an email twist on a paper-based process, and it comes with all the old compliance risks and security issues of hardcopy workflows.

How To Catch The Mobile Hiring Wave

So what’s the first step to making your hiring process mobile friendly? Take a hard look at your hiring process. Audit every step. Go through it yourself as if you’re a new hire. Decide what is critical, think holistically, and optimize according to your priorities. For example, offer letters and screening authorizations are essential, but 401k enrollment forms may not be as important. HR managers should be able to monitor the status of multiple candidates from their tablets, but payroll may be better managed from a desktop.

Once you have a clear view of your current process, from both a candidate and administrative perspective, you can identify a technology solution that effectively “mobilizes” these functions. The path to a streamlined solution may be easier than you think.

What opportunities and issues do you see on the horizon for mobile hiring? Share your thoughts in the comments area.

WPFl8ZJCTbSWd3aW36zfeEA69ZEo44fOfHHdTeu8j9Q(About the Author: Todd Owens is President and COO at TalentWise and has been with the company since 2006. Previously he held senior Product Management and Business Development roles at Wind River Systems and Siebel Systems. A former United States Navy submarine officer, Todd has twice been recognized as a “Superstar for outsourcing innovation in support of HR organizations” by HRO Today magazine. Todd holds a BS degree from the United States Naval Academy and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.)

Image Credit: Carnegie Library

Recruiting + Mobility = Perfect Match? #TChat Preview

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(Editor’s Note: Looking for a full collection of highlights and resources from this week’s events? Read the #TChat Recap: “Recruiting: Going Mobile by Demand?“)

Are you reading this post on a smartphone or tablet? If so, you’re among 35% of TalentCulture visitors who interact with us via mobile devices. And those numbers are growing fast — in only the past 6 months, the rate of mobile TalentCulture visitors has increased by more than 100%.

But this big mobile shift makes us wonder what the impact is on “people-oriented” business processes like recruiting.

Just how rapidly are employers integrating new communication channels into the hiring process? And what issues and opportunities are arising from all of this innovation?

Mobile Recruiting Trend Snapshot

Participants at the recent Mobile Recruiting Conference (MREC) confirmed that job candidates are increasingly connected while “on the move,” and recruiters recognize the implications. For example, according to Talent HQ Mobile Recruiting Insights:

•  62% of passive job seekers use a mobile device to research potential employers
•  61% have a better impression of a brand after a favorable mobile experience.
•  62% of recruiters say that mobile recruiting is the top trend for 2014

According to industry analyst Josh Bersin, companies like LinkedIn and Prudential already attract more than 50% of their candidates through mobile channels. Yet, other organizations seem to be lagging behind. Talent HQ reports that only 16% of U.S. talent acquisition “leaders” have optimized their career sites for a mobile audience — including only 26 of the Fortune 500 companies.

So, what does this mean for today’s changing world of work? That’s what we’ll explore this week at #TChat Events, with two well-known talent acquisition experts:

•  Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR, Founder and Chief Blogger at Blogging4Jobs and
•  Rayanne Thorn, VP of Product Marketing and Strategy at Technomedia, global talent management solutions provider.

Recently, Jessica framed the topic in a brief “sneak peek” Hangout with me. Watch now:

What are your thoughts about the emerging role of mobile technology in finding and hiring top talent? Join us this week to share your ideas and opinions!

#TChat Events: Mobile Devices + Recruiting = Good Match?

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Tune-in to #TChat Radio

#TChat Radio — Wed, Oct 30 — 6:30pmET / 3:30pmPT

Our hosts, Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman talk with Jessica Miller-Merrell and Rayanne Thorn about the changing dynamics of recruitment. Tune-in LIVE online this Tuesday afternoon!

#TChat Twitter — Wed, Oct 30 — 7pmET / 4pmPT

Immediately following the radio show, we’ll move this discussion to the #TChat Twitter stream, where Dr. Nancy Rubin will moderate an open chat with the entire TalentCulture community. Everyone with a Twitter account is invited to participate, as we address these questions:

Q1: Does mobile recruiting enhance an employer’s value proposition?
Q2: What is keeping some employers from adopting mobile recruiting?
Q3: For candidates, has mobile job search reached critical mass?
Q4: Is mobile recruiting mostly about hiring young candidates?
Q5: Look ahead 10 yrs. What tools will drive recruiting?

Throughout the week, we’ll keep the discussion going on the #TChat Twitter feed and on our LinkedIn Discussion Group. So please join us share your questions, ideas and opinions.
We’ll see you on the stream!

Image Credit: Stock.xchng

Join #TChat at Recruiting Trends Social Summit

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(Editorial Note: Want to read the RECAP of the week’s events from April 11, 2013? See The Best-of-All-Ages Workplace #TChat Recap)

Exciting news for social recruiting and HR professionals everywhere!

Save the date – April 11, 2013. That’s when TalentCulture Community co-founders, Meghan and Kevin will be  live at the Recruiting Trends Sourcing and Recruiting Social Summit 2013, where they’ll share insights from the event’s speakers throughout the day via #TChat and #rtrends Twitter channels.

Experts from across the industry are coming together for this very special one-day event in Washington D.C. to showcase innovative tools, techniques, and strategies necessary to strengthen and expand your organization’s talent pool in today’s social business world. You’ll also learn how to optimize sourcing and recruiting channels, and attract the right candidates through social media, mobile outreach, employment branding, screening, and much more.

Social media is still relatively new to many companies, so this event couldn’t be more timely.

#TChat Event Connects Attendees with Digital Community

The day’s activities culminate with a very special live #TChat forum, where Meghan and Kevin will moderate and review the day’s tips and takeaways with onsite speakers and attendees – as well as the online TalentCulture community.

If you’re in the Washington D.C. area, please join us live at the event — or stream with us online via #TChat and #rtrends channels. Either way, this should be an interesting and informative day.

Let’s see what it means to bring face-to-face interaction together with the virtual community. It could be the start of a very big trend! “See” you in April!

 

 

Whether the Why Not of Social HR Leadership: #TChat Recap

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We’d thought we’d cause a rift in the space time continuum. Fortunately we didn’t.

That’s because the amazing SocialHRCamp attendees in Vancouver BC and the fantastical #TChat contributors collaborated together during the #TChat hour on the topic of Social HR: Engage the Humans for Social HR Leadership.

No rifts, but we most certainly did riff and make sweet rock and roll insight together. The folks who gathered on site of our generous hosts Talent Technology were made up of progressive HR and recruiting professionals ready to learn, share and take the lead in all things social and the world of work.

Many still struggled with convincing their leadership the value of social recruiting and social marketing and blogging and even using LinkedIn to source from, for goodness sake (which is the most embraced mainstream professional social network these days, although there were those of us who argued if it was truly social or not, but I digress).

Yes, the collective did indeed riff in one session after the other, and it all crescendoed during #TChat. Although at first there was hesitation, a groupthink holding of breath, the very fabric of time stretching at the seams, we all watched the livestream of the online #TChat stream away.

I then broke free and moderated away, and what ensued was a delightfully smart, provocative at times and sometimes heated exchange about how much of the personal and professional should we combine in our personal and professional lives. Should there be boundaries?

What we discovered is that we do all have our own boundaries of varying degrees, but when we get together live at events like this, ad hoc communities within communities form, and we do combine our personal and professional lives, solving our world of work ills from the inside out.

We’ve been spending so much arguing inside our companies of whether or not business leadership, including HR and recruiting, and including everyone down to the front line employees, should be using social media to do anything, when all along the argument should be whether the why not.

Am I right?

Click here if you missed this week’s preview, and check out the slide show below of prime-cut tweets from Wednesday’s chat. We can’t wait for next week’s conversation. Stay tuned for the preview.

Image Credit: Pixabay

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Engage The Humans for Social HR Leadership: #TChat Preview

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There’s a fun event today, Wed May 16th – A Live Social HR Camp being hosted from Vancouver, BC Canada and six other locales spread across four countries. It’s the first-ever SocialHRCamp, an un-conference aimed at  helping HR professionals collaborate to determine what it takes to leverage and integrate social media within the workplace. Pretty cool stuff. Also, check out Hashcaster for the live tweets and of course your favorite Twitter client.

I’m also excited to play hostess, speaker for our Boston, MA event that will take place the first week of December here at Google Cambridge — Please stay tuned for more information on this event. This will be big fun and a hands-on social learning experience for all.

You can imagine, given my heart for social workplace and all things Canada (No, I’m not Canadian but sometimes I’m mistaken for – cue laughter), how much I’m looking forward to the event. Many of our community players will be here live. So many friends in fact that we’re integrating it into this week’s World of Work #TChat. As we Chat, we will be pulling in attendees from #SocialHRCamp from the cozy confines of Cambridge and around the globe.

I won’t have to bring a sleeping bag or worry about spiders or outside showers, but I will be a happy camper, chatting about our philosophy:  Leaders need to be more active and hands-on in social media engagement and strategies.

Regardless of your industries, roles, or belief systems, it’s critical, as leaders and HR professionals to be active in social media. Building trust with employees, customers and prospects through your brand, using social tools, is now a core competency. Together, we’ll also explore how (or maybe when) to combine personal and professional social as it relates to workplace and career to strike a fine balance, based on common sense and your own beliefs regarding brand humanization.

The theme for this week’s #TChat World of Work will be ‘Social HR: Engage the Humans for Social HR Leadership’

We’ll ask, and debate, the following questions:

Q1:  How should HR play authenticity and transparency when stepping into social for the first time? What tools should we use?

Q2:  How does social recruiting differ with Gen Y than other generations? Why or why not?

Q3:  Is LinkedIn just a job board pretending to be a social network? Why or why not? And should HR care?

Q4:  Should business leadership be blogging, tweeting and sharing on social? Why or why not?

Q5:  Should we combine the personal and professional in social? Should there be boundaries? Why or why not?

So grab your canteen and join us Wednesday on Twitter for #TChat. This is happening May 16th on Twitter from 7-8 pm ET (4-5 pm PT).  Please tune in from wherever you may be. I’ll be your moderator on Twitter @MeghanMBiro along with @socialmediasean and @brentskinner – We will be aided by our live Vancouver panel moderators @KevinWGrossman @SocialSalima and other community friends.

Think it’s almost summertime. Think camp. Think about how to use social media to engage as a leader or employee in your workplace or career role. Talk to you Wednesday!

Image Credit: Pixabay

Collaborative Community Results for NPR & HRevolution

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“So, I really liked Kevin’s definition of talent communities from last week’s #TChat Radio Show. Kevin, why don’t you share that?”

Stammer. Stutter. I have no idea.

Here we were yesterday in our packed HRevolution session on building and maintaining talent communities, me in one of three groups we had broken up in to, and after all the research, writing and talking about it to date, I couldn’t define it on the spot if my life depended on it.

Thankfully it didn’t, but still.

My point being it continues to be a much larger multifaceted conversation with a moving-target definition depending on context — and for us yesterday the context was social recruiting and employment branding.

You can review the premise of our HRevolution Talent Communities & Company Culture session, but simply put it included some of the best and brightest minds in talent acquisition and social media (and I’m not talking about mine) and our case study partner, Lars Schmidt, director of talent acquisition at National Public Radio (NPR).

The idea was to break up our session into three consulting groups vying for NPR’s business, and for each group to come up with and present a business case – and strategy – for developing and sustaining talent communities for sourcing, recruiting and employment branding.

But right from the beginning, the consensus question was, what’s a talent community?

So hey, I wasn’t the only one.

And then there was, why does it have to be called that anyway and why do we insist on the continued use of gobbledygook like engagement, transactional, pipelines, empowerment and the like?

Alas, supposedly smart spin-speak can force all the breathable atmosphere from a room (and we’re going to see a lot more of that this week at the HR Technology Conference & Exposition too).

That said, Lars from NPR found our session to be a very smart success, although he didn’t pick my group as a winner. That’s all right, as long as I get to meet the Planet Money news team someday.

Again, there are two things that differentiate true talent communities from talent pipelines and resume databases of old. The quality of interactions, not the quantity, make the community. And members are members, from outside the organization and from within as current employees — not applicants — at least until they apply for a new job. These were universally agreed on in all three groups.

But the collaborative results from each of our “community” neighborhoods were as diverse as the neighborhoods themselves.

Funny how that works. Here were all our brief ideas in schematic as written on our paper “white board” pages that forced the air back in our room. My brain doesn’t have a recordable microchip, so use your professional imaginations to fill in between the answers.

Team 1:

  • Create a curated sourcing channel that includes the target audience.
  • Add in influencers to engage with the target audience (yikes, engage).
  • Develop selective engagement events.
  • Create a Twitter dedicated hashtag.
  • Develop an influencer analysis tool to understand impact on target audience.

Team 2 (The Winner!):

  • Use the NPR Facebook page as the sourcing hub — leverage the current consumer page to tap into the 2MM fans/likes.
  • Solicit content from fans to contribute to NPR.
  • Use Facebook analytics to track traffic.
  • Utilize free solutions such as BeKnown and BraveNewTalent and integrate jobs tab on NPR page.
  • Leverage Twitter and career page traffic.
  • Add a Facebook “Like” button across all properties.
  • Leverage open graph.
  • Develop hashtag to create content.
  • Include Klout scores of fans and visitors.

Team 3 (my team — thank you to Sean Sheppard from TalentCircles for being our presenter):

  • Map and analyze the 30MM unique NPR monthly visitors.
  • Develop participation strategy to motivate super fans.
  • Interact with super fans around digital content and other activities.
  • Cherry pick and career pitch the best of the super fans.

So there you have it. Hopefully the first of many interactive learning sessions about building and sustaining (talent) communities.

A special thank you to all our smart participants as well as my #TChat co-hosts Meghan M. Biro and Matt Charney, and of course of guest of honor Lars Schmidt, director of talent acquisition at National Public Radio (NPR).

And a very special thank you to the HRevolution organizers for yet another amazing event. To date I’ve never attended an event so immersed in the collaborative moment. For me, the online social chatter slows to a stop when I participate in a true community like HRevolution.

Now it’s time for HR Tech!

HOW TO: Build & Maintain A Talent Community

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What is a talent community?

According to Wikipedia:

A talent community is a collection of social cliques (or talent networks) of people that are part of the job seeking process. These people may be seeking a job themselves, offering career advice to others, recruitment professionals, college campus recruiters, sourcers, and friends seeking jobs or advice. Talent communities inherently provide 2-way interaction between the individuals.

A talent community is not a list of candidates on a web page or in a spreadsheet; it is an environment consisting of people who can share ideas for the purpose of career networking or social recruiting of candidates.

Employers can interact and communicate with prospective employees as well as inform candidates about employment opportunities, receive referrals, and handpick qualified individuals from inside the group. A talent community can include prospective candidates, past applicants, current employees, and past employees. Talent Communities are managed by recruiters and/or hiring managers.

The benefits of building a talent community

  • Qualified candidates at your fingertips
  • Less dependence on expensive, ineffective job boards
  • Less money spent on job advertisements
  • Increased interaction with potential candidates in order to help them understand what your organization does
  • Better quality of applicants to job openings
  • Creates a talent pipeline for future job openings
  • Attracts passive candidates

How to build your talent community

Turn your “careers” page into a central hub for past (“alumni”) employees, interested candidates, recruiters, hiring managers and current employees. Incorporate tools for communication and interaction to drive conversations in your talent community. Provide an exclusive look into your organization, its employees and the culture behind the company. Use video, multimedia, photos, testimonials, etc.

Create smaller talent “networks” within your talent community to target specific audiences.

Social recruiting solutions (such as Cachinko) provide separate plugins or an overall solution for managing talent.

Maintaining your talent community

When you start engaging candidates through a talent community, it’s important to continue to provide value on a regular basis. There are a variety of ways to do so, such as sending updates or an e-newsletter, providing additional information on new job openings and internship programs, creating contests, writing blog posts, or connecting via social media.

ERE.net author Kevin Wheeler said in an article about talent communities, “Communities of candidates are powerful and reduce the need for special sourcing or the use of outside recruiters. They can increase the number of positions a single recruiter can handle and provide higher quality candidates in a shorter time. They always trump databases.”

What do you think? Ready to start building your talent community today?