Talent Leaders Say Quality of Hire is What Matters Most

When asked what single metric is most valuable in tracking their recruiting team’s performance, talent leaders say that quality of hire is what matters most. This is according to LinkedIn’s Global Recruiting Trends 2016 report.

The top three methods companies are using to measure “quality of hire” are 1) new hire performance evaluations, 2) turnover or retention statistics, and 3) hiring manager satisfaction.

While performance evaluations and retention statistics were nearly tied—at 50% and 49% respectively—as the most commonly used methods for measuring quality of hire, the majority of respondents in the LinkedIn study said they feel there is definitely room for improvement in the way quality is currently being measured. 

When you consider that some estimates put almost half of all new hires in the category of “failures” within 18 months, the “quality of hire metric” seems to be a pretty important one.

Some suggestions for better measurement strategies when it comes to quality of hire include replacing standard job descriptions with performance objectives. The majority of job descriptions tend to emphasize skills and experience, or talk about competencies in broad behavioral terms. Concentrating instead on ramp-up time, specific end results and definable accomplishments provides a way to actually measure and track success.

Since quality of hire denotes the value a new employee brings to an organization, companies also need to be clear about what “value” means to them. Things like employee engagement and cultural fit have become extremely important when it comes to employee retention. And since retention is one way employers measure new hire quality, recruiters who really understand the culture and corporate brand of the companies they work with, will be the most effective at providing high quality new hires.

Speaking of corporate branding, another one of the trends the LinkedIn study reported is that 59% of respondents said they will be investing more in their corporate branding strategy than they did last year. Social media has made corporate branding more important than ever. This is actually good news when it comes to the “quality of hire” issue. A company’s brand is all about its core values, beliefs and purpose. When a company’s branding is really clear, it helps lay the groundwork for ensuring the candidate and company are a good match for each other.

Accurately capturing and tracking performance data not only gives you a clear picture of how you’re currently doing on the talent management front, it will also help you continually improve future recruiting strategies.

If you have questions about tracking performance data or how to recruit the highest quality new hires, we can help. Call us at 415-835-0202 or email us at sales@talentcircles.com.

Want to Improve Your Campus Recruiting Process? It’s All About Relationships

While the need for instant access and automated everything is standing strong, the ability to balance the speed and ease of technology with the power to build and maintain solid relationships is what will set you apart from the competition. Start incorporating these strategies into your new college recruitment plan and you can look forward to a highly successful campus recruiting season this fall.

Strengthen your relationships with Career Services – Beef up your alliances in the Career Services departments of the universities that interest you. Making them your key point of contact gives you a central, reliable location for information and introductions. They can get you opportunities with student organizations, suggest the right department heads to contact and help you build solid partnerships within the university.

Get personal – Start getting to know the talent you want to recruit before you even step foot (whether virtually or in-person) at the campus job fair. Using social media, you can track candidates based on their interests, groups and activities and continue to follow those that show potential. Shortly before the job fair, make contact to introduce yourself and encourage them to meet with you during the event for a quick chat. Associating a real and amiable person with your company can go a long way in encouraging top talent to apply and/or join your talent network.

Offer internships and create ambassadors – One of the best ways to create a strong talent pool is to provide internship opportunities for college students. They get experience and exposure to your company, and you get to test drive a potential future hire. The relationship you build with interns can be far reaching. Whether they continue to work for you or not, they can make your company name recognized among peers and faculty. They can help market your brand, share information and become some of the strongest ambassadors for your organization. Additionally, if you have alumni working for your company, include them in your campus recruiting activities as presenters, interviewers or just as a friendly face who has something in common.

Keep Everyone Well-Informed – Honesty and integrity are key when it comes to building relationships. This is no different in the recruitment process. Let people know right away what you’re offering and what you’re expecting. If you don’t have any immediate job openings during the career fair, be honest about that, but also explain how they could benefit in the future from being part of your talent network now. When you are actively trying to fill jobs, stay in contact with students who have interviewed so they know where they stand in the process while decisions are still being made. Any feedback you can give on their resumes and interview skills will be greatly appreciated as well. It’s also a great idea to keep career services informed about how many students you interviewed, extended offers to, and hired. Let them know how their students’ work performance compares to that of students at other universities you’ve worked with and offer to be part of a regular follow-up program. The university, the students and your organization will all benefit.

Remember, it’s all about building and nurturing the relationship so that everybody wins. Here at TalentCircles^TM we can help you do that as efficiently as possible by using technology and tools like TalentCatch^TM to capture and organize all the information you gather. Contact us at 415-835-0202 or sales@TalentCircles.com to make following up and engaging with your university contacts and the students you want to keep in your talent network a cinch.

Integrate a Talent Network into Your Recruiting Process

Recruiters with large numbers of people in their talent networks are always in high demand. The more people there are to choose from, the more options for high quality talent employers have. Not only that, but a strong talent network also helps companies save on time and hiring costs and lowers turnover. So, if you haven’t already done so, it’s time to plug a good talent network into your existing system.

A complete talent acquisition and recruiting solution, like what we offer here at TalentCircles, will help you successfully integrate a talent network that works with your needs. Ultimately, the goal is to bring supply and demand together so you always have the talent you want whenever you need it. Here are some of the features and benefits you should expect from a quality talent network solution.

Mimic real-life interactions – Uses a virtual setting to enable you to screen, interview and interact with candidates so you optimally execute on your staffing plan: hire fast, hire well, and hire cost-effectively.

Networking and Communication – Regular, ongoing texts and emails keep you in constant communication with your candidates so you don’t have to start over at square one, waiting for new applicants, each time you have a job opening. Maintaining regular communication lets you identify bottlenecks and minimize problems. Ongoing engagement with candidates is essential.

Create relationships with your future hires – Helps you build, brand and manage your live talent network. Let’s you interact with active and passive candidates. Enables you to screen them efficiently as well as manage your attraction and selection process

Create Profiles – Candidates have a live account in your network they can update and enrich, including adding availability schedules. Profiles can be used for searching, matching, and business intelligence purposes.

Cloud-based and mobile-ready – Be accessible anywhere at any time on tablets and smartphones. Capture candidates during job and career fairs. Scan paper and electronic resumes and automatically transform them into profiles.

Social – Candidates join your talent community using their preferred social login. They can share information about jobs and your company with others in their social networks.

Content Marketing – Offer videos, documents, blogs, webinars that interest your candidates.

Jobs – Post jobs on your network or import a job feed. Let candidates share jobs with their own social networks.

Searching and Semantic Job Matching – Find the best candidates—those whose skills and attitudes fit your company's needs and culture—in your talent pool. Automatically.

Notifications – Send notifications when new jobs or new content are posted in your talent network.

Sharing – Easily—and electronically—share candidate information, test results, ratings, portfolios, video interviews and more with all stakeholders.

Email Campaigns and Messaging – Send branded emails with customizable templates to candidates and track effectiveness. Send private messages to your candidates synced with your desktop messaging application.

Integrated Calendar – Send invites for virtual and in-person meetings - synced with your desktop calendar application.

Questionnaires – Attach pre-recorded questionnaires to your job postings and sort candidates by scores.

Video Interviews & Webinars – Screen candidates, discuss documents and conduct job reviews or information sessions.

Circles and Categorization – Segment your community into branded groups of interest like "Sales", "Veterans" or "Students". Support a variety of tools which can be used to screen and help categorize candidates according to things like experience, skills and behavioral qualities.

Import Résumés – Import old candidate data from spreadsheets or other systems easily.

Analyze & Report – Track performance on a huge variety of data points, and report on your activity to fine-tune your attraction methods.

Stop letting good candidates slip through the cracks and take control of the recruitment process. Take a Quick Tour of what we offer, then call us today to get started on integrating a talent network into your hiring and recruiting strategy. 415-835-0202 or sales@TalentCircles.com 

Good CEOs Get Why Diversity and Inclusion Matters

Focusing on talent diversity is no longer optional. It’s a requirement for optimum business performance—and the mandate needs to come from the very top. A true diversity and inclusion initiative is about more than ensuring that rules are followed and the requisite diversity programs and regulations are in place. It needs to be part of a company’s core values, not an add-on that looks good on paper. More and more CEOs are recognizing the benefits of true talent diversity for not only their companies bottom lines, but also for their employees’ personal growth and the growth of the economy as a whole.

Diverse companies outperform non-diverse companies

Research continues to show that companies with a diverse workforce perform better financially. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’18^th Annual Global CEO Survey, 85% of the CEOs surveyed said their formal diversity and inclusiveness strategy has improved their bottom line. And recent research from McKinsey shows that out of 366 public companies examined, ethnically diverse companies are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. Furthermore, a new Credit Suisse report explains that companies with women as board directors, as well as those with lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender employees in senior roles, outperform the companies that lack that diversity.

Focusing on Diversity helps bridge the talent gap

The wider the net that businesses cast to find talent, the more options they’ll have. When those options open up to include multiple channels and as many varieties of people as possible, the talent gap gets smaller. Not only do companies up the sheer numbers of people to add to their talent networks, they also generate more interest from the talent they want to recruit when they can show their commitment to talent diversity. Research from PricewaterhouseCoopers shows that 86% of female and 74% of male millennials take a company’s policies on diversity, equality and inclusion into consideration when deciding whether or not they want to work for them.

Helping the economy

When it comes to gender diversity and inclusion, people are seeing a very positive “ripple effect” on families, communities and overall economies when companies provide women with more opportunities to advance in business. In fact, according to the nonprofit diversity organization, Catalyst, “The economic empowerment of women can improve a country’s growth and stability, combat shrinking labor forces and raise the gross domestic product.”

Opening opportunities to learn and grow

People of differing backgrounds bring wide-ranging experiences and varied viewpoints to the table in companies that embrace diversity. This variety of ideas and opinions often leads to much better decision-making than in companies with too many likeminded people. Some research also suggests that it’s not just the variety of ideas that lead to improved decisions, it’s also the increase in processing time. Diverse groups take more time to process all the information at hand in order to thoroughly understand different viewpoints and therefore they make better informed decisions that drive high-performance cultures. Additionally, a great by-product of diverse cultures in the workplace is an increase in knowledge, understanding and acceptance that can translate to communities outside of work. For people who normally might not get the opportunity to interact with and really get to know people from different ethnic groups, or with a different sexual orientation or global outlook, talent-diverse companies provide a chance to challenge preconceived ideas and prejudices, and help stop discrimination.

A truly diverse organization goes beyond investing in blanket diversity initiatives and instead works to foster lasting cultural change in talent networks.  

If you have questions about talent diversity or would like to learn more about the best hiring and recruiting practices, call us at 415-835-0202 or email us at sales@talentcircles.com.