…HR ideas from Jeffery Giesener – SourceMob.com – CEO
Have you thought about treating your candidates like your customers?
- High performing, world class organizations focus on their candidates providing them with a top hiring experience regardless of how they apply whether on a computer, laptop, mobile or Tablet. These organizations treat candidates by sharing What’s In For The Candidate (WIFM) to join your organization. Why is that critical? Candidates are the lifeblood of any organization.
Consider this, as there is much to be learned from all the behavior research from the e-commerce world and relate it to our Talent Acquisition Industry:
- 90% of dissatisfied customers will not come back or buy again. (Research Institute of America)
- However, only 4% of dissatisfied customers will bother to complain (so for every one complaint you hear, 24 others go unheard). (ibid)
- But dissatisfied customers tell an average of nine others about their dissatisfaction. (ibid)
- 68% of dissatisfied customers who quit doing business with an organization do so because of company indifference. Essentially, the company didn’t take the time to listen and hear the customer’s need or complaint. (ibid)
- Engaged customers are 68% more likely to increase purchases, than neutral or disengaged customers. (Forrester)
From the statistics above it should come as no surprise that satisfied, engaged customers (in our case candidates) positively impact the bottom line and promote organizational success, sustainability and profitability. They also provide a better qualified candidate and a longer sustainable employee.
So what are some of the best talent acquisition practices to ensure a focus on candidate experience? Consider these (and reflect on whether your organization is doing them):
- Listen to your candidates! Build mechanisms that systematically capture the voice of your candidates – methods like social media, focus groups, surveys, one-on-one interviews and complaint data. And then act upon that data to provide hiring/onboarding experiences that satisfy (or exceed) candidate expectations.
- Design your candidate listening posts that capture information how they feel about their relationship with your company and your recruiters. If you don’t have the ability to listen, that is a big weakness in your recruiting systems.
- Listen to your current employee hiring experiences, also your potential candidates, and candidates you didn’t hire. They all represent potential measurement tools and triggers for performance improvement.
- Measure candidate acceptance AND engagement levels – how committed are your hires to your organization. Measure your churn and retention rates these are key metrics to track over time.
- Anticipate key candidate requirements and changing expectations – it’s not only about satisfying today’s requirements, but also staying one step ahead of competitors in identifying and responding to emerging candidates and market needs – mobile recruiting is one of these.
- Read your analytic campaign results. Do it frequently and don’t let another department like marketing or IT control your On-demand metric reporting.
- Build an organizational culture that ensures a consistently positive candidate experience. Think Ritz Carlton, Disney. Everything about their system (recruiting, training, employee rewards, etc.) centers on a top-drawer employee experience.
Now in today’s recruiting market place it seems every company we speak with is looking to find and source that elusive passive candidate. The competition for that tough-to-find niche candidate is becoming fiercer than ever. Again high performing, world-class organizations focus on their workforce. Why is that critical?
Engaged employees are assets; disengaged employees are liabilities:
- Highly satisfied groups of employees often exhibit above-average levels of customer loyalty (56%), productivity (50%), employee retention (50%), safety performance (50%), and profitability (33%). (Gallup)
- Companies with engaged employees have 19% higher operating income, 17% higher operating margin, and 28% higher earnings per share. (Towers Perrin)
- Over the last 10 years, Fortune’s “Best Companies to Work For” average annual stock return was 18% versus 12% for the S&P 500 – that’s 50% better than the market. (Fortune)
There is a direct link between engaged employees and organizational results.
A concern, US workers are not happy:
- Of surveyed executives, 47% believed that employee trust has declined as a result of the way their company has managed the cost reductions the last two years. And while 42% believe their companies are not fully effective at measuring the impact of cost reduction efforts on employee morale, fully 37% – more than a third of US businesses – believe that their organization’s handling of the economic downtown will make talented employees more likely to leave. (Hewitt & Associates)
- Only 45% of US workers are satisfied with their jobs (so 55% are NOT). Only 51% find their jobs interesting, 43% feel secure in their jobs, and 51% are satisfied with their boss. The result: between 50-70% of US workers are – or will – seek a new job. (Conference Board)
- Only 17% of US workers highly engaged. (Towers Perrin)
Mine your own data for passive niche candidates…
So do you see opportunity in these stats? The time is ripe to mine the “big data” for passive candidates but you must have the right tools at your disposal to do so. Mining for candidates using the “old school’ recruiting methods like internet advertising, job boards posts, LinkedIn search and email just won’t get you in front of those passive candidates in today’s job search environment. However there are new innovative web, social and mobile sourcing solutions you should be considering.
When was the last time you connected with qualified candidates in your ATS or your Level-1 candidate contacts from LinkedIn?
- Why not engage with them using a drip email campaign sent every over a frequency of emailing that is right for your business objectives.
- Why not engage in direct chat conversations with candidates on your career pages (this is what ecommerce merchants do to close sales in their shopping carts).
Let SourceMob show you how you can deploy these and many more innovative “new generation” passive recruiting tools that capture “off your radar” hard-to-find candidates. To find out how just ring me up at 952-807-8364 or email me at jeff@sourcemob.com
SourceMob is also helping to educate our industry and it one of the many factors why we are growing. Catch one of the many SourceMob Webinar each as most of these webinars are FREE.
To check out our latest Webinar Education schedule go to SourceMob.com and look for the Events link off the navigational bar http://sourcemob.com/events/
Next Webinar – August 25th – 12 PM CST
Where Are My Candidates? – The Necessity of Talent Acquisition Analytics
Presented by Jeffery Giesener – CEO – SourceMob & Jared Law – VP of IT – SourceMob
It’s Free!
ABOUT SOURCEMOB: SourceMob integrates Internet, social, talent community. analytics, HR Marketing Services and mobile recruiting solutions to help talent acquisition professionals recruit the very best candidates for tough-to-fill positions. SourceMob’s solutions seamlessly distribute conversations, engagement and job content all done on autopilot providing a job posting springboard to over 3.5 million candidate profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ and all of the major search engines. We help you engage with your candidates and capture niche Passive candidates. Our solutions also enable Mobile Quick Apply and candidate application management services to create more efficiencies and lower recruiting costs.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Best,
Jeffery
Jeffery Giesener
CEO/Founder
SourceMob.com
612-349-2740
Twitter: @sourcemob
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jefferyjeffgiesener