5 Recruiting and Human Resources Words I Loathe

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

The role of human resources and recruiting are the two most misunderstood jobs in companies and among today’s workforce. Most employees think we are simply responsible for hiring and firing, managers believe we are the workplace police, executives think we are only there for compliance purposes and candidates see us as phone screeners. There’s so much more to what we do than people see and the truth is that our jobs are critical to the company.

Our industry has come a long way to prove that we are much more than, if not at all like, those stereotypes, but even we are to blame for perpetuating some of these ideas. One way we do this is by using terminology that others don’t understand or see negatively.

These terms, or HR speak as I like to call it, add to the assumption that we are just recruiting order takers or HR folks who serve as the workplace hand-washing referee. This year, I’ll be working on wiping these five terms from my vocabulary and replacing them with more user-friendly phrasing. Care to join?

Talent management

Talent management is really a fancy way of saying we’re maintaining the hierarchy that’s been in place for years and choosing who will be next to climb that ladder. It perpetuates an old-school idea that someone needs to be groomed and that without our constant evaluation and recommendations, people would never develop into leaders and receive promotions. It’s stuck up and outdated.

Human capital

We use this word to talk about the value a person brings to the organization but it winds up sounding like we view people as assets rather than human beings. An individual employee’s influence or impact is hard to measure, but we should speak about them as people, not objects.

Employee or human relations

Employees often believe that HR departments only advocate for the organization’s agendas, and it’s sad but these terms conjure up that image. The truth is, HR professionals support the business and serve as a mediator between employer and employee, so perhaps new phrasing will reflect that.

Talent acquisition

The word acquisition sounds like you’re purchasing office equipment. Attach it to “talent” and you’ve created an image of buying and trading people. The hiring process is so much softer and more complex than the word “acquisition” implies.

High Potential

Often times, our criteria of labeling employees as high potential is no different than providing one test to hundreds of people and expecting it to analyze the many nuanced strengths and weaknesses. It’s not possible because everyone has their own talents and skills. It might help you with “talent management” (see above) but the reward of someone receiving this label isn’t worth the dip in morale you’ll experience from everyone around them.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.

Why HR & Information Technology Departments Should Play Nice

By Jessica Miller-Merrell  

In our day and age, it’s nearly impossible to be a part of society without embracing technology. Everywhere we go, there’s a smart phone firmly planted in our hands and at usually at least one other, maybe more, electronic devices within arm’s reach. And if you aren’t someone who treats their devices like a close member of the family, you no doubt know a handful of people who do. We have become one with the technology around us, and that’s not changing anytime soon.

This same technology that has changed the way we communicate and even function has also been making its way to our professional lives over the last several years and has become almost as essential to HR as the iPad we don’t dare leave home without. Aside from what this means for the way we do business, it has an overreaching implication that has been a long time coming: HR and IT, it’s time to become best buds.

The move towards a tech-centered workplace

Long gone are the days of HR and IT functioning exclusively from each other, speaking different languages and steering clear of one another because they’re not necessary to the other’s role. We’ve entered a whole new world where HR won’t be able to function without the support of their IT department. Going a step further, it won’t just be necessary for HR to look to IT for support, it’ll be in their best interest to lean on them at other times as well.

Filling the need for analytics and reporting

One of the most basic ways HR and IT can work together is to develop analytics for your career site and any other recruiting-related technologies. If you’re currently functioning without analytics, you’re on a journey without a map. Analytics can help you shape your strategy and gain insights about potential candidates. It’s an invaluable tool that your IT department should be able to implement fairly easily if you’re using a tool like Google Analytics. Trust me when I say that you’ll wonder how you managed without analytics once you have it.

The other main advantage of analytics is the ability to access reporting. It’s not only useful for you but also your managers and executives as you explain how your online recruiting works and the value it provides. Implementing analytics and accessing reports isn’t overly complicated but for most of us in HR, it’s not on our radar. That’s where your IT team comes in. It likely is on their radar and their expertise will be more than welcome here.

The potential for collaboration

HR and IT aren’t exactly known as the dream team at most companies, but there’s no reason that can’t be the case! Both parties bring major assets to the table and have the ability to combine an understanding of the needs of candidates and employees with the expertise to develop tools that meet those needs. It’s a win for both and an opportunity for HR and IT to make a real impact on the company.

Collaboration also gives HR the advantage of anticipating needs and developing proactive strategies for recruiting and building a candidate pipeline. In fact, there is a place for IT expertise and product development in nearly every aspect of HR.

Technology isn’t something fear in HR but instead is something we should embrace as it can only make our work stronger, sharper and faster. We are moving towards a more tech-centered workplace and recruiting space, so now is the time to play off each other’s strengths.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s is the Chief Blogger & Founder of Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell.  

Why Resume Sorting Software is the Root of All Things Evil

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

When a job opens up and resumes start to arrive, human resources professionals have a huge task on their hands. In fact, nearly one-in-four human resources managers said they receive, on average, more than 75 resumes for each open position; 42 percent receive more than 50 resumes. That same survey also revealed that the vast majority of human resources managers (78 percent) reported at least half of the resumes they receive are from unqualified candidates.

These types of situations, which occur every day in thousands of offices across the world, is partially responsible for hiring managers turning to an outside source to help them wade through resumes. I’m not talking about a recruiter or an assistant. I’m talking about what has led the way in coining the term “resume black hole:” resume sorting software.

There are various opinions on the talent management software. On one hand, the software is a huge timesaver because it could be nearly impossible to view every resume that passes your desk if you work for a large company. On the other hand, though, you could be missing out on great employees because you’re weeding out candidates based on what keywords they did or didn’t use or because they didn’t rank high enough compared to other candidates.

It’s generally viewed as a necessary evil. The kicker with any automated system is that it can also automate mistakes. You have hundreds of resumes running through the system and rather than looking at the resume on an evaluation grid where multiple points of interest are evaluated, it’s sorting through them based on a combination of keywords. Some systems are better than others and some systems are set up better than others, with the right types of keywords and reasonable criteria.

Candidates are getting crafty, though. Considering that these systems have been around for years, people are catching on. The automated rejection email also may have tipped them off. Some are finding ways around the software using a few different methods.

National Public Radio tells the story of an IT professional who used keyword-identifying software to generate his resume. (Spoiler alert: it still didn’t land him the job.) There are also a slew of candidates who are creating their own personal marketing campaigns to get them noticed. It sounds a bit over the top, but when your resume is continually falling in that “black hole” and is never seen again, you have to get creative. Just for kicks, there’s this email from a brutally honest student seeking an internship on Wall Street.

The fact is, there are thousands of hiring managers who simply couldn’t do their job without talent management software that weeds out candidates, but there are also millions of qualified candidates receiving rejection emails on a daily basis. There’s got to be a happy medium between requiring that a candidate have 35 keywords on their resume to pass through the first round and hiring managers manually reading through stacks and stacks of resumes.

On some level, I suppose you could say it’s a form of survival of the fittest. Those who make their resumes stand out get noticed. Those whose resumes don’t stand out will continue the “apply and deny” cycle.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 


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4 Ways to Keep Candidate Data Fresh

Join us for a HCI webinar sponsored by Talent Circles on 3/6 at 12 PM EST "How to Build a Strategic Candidate Pipeline." Register here.
 
By Jessica Miller-Merrell
 
In order to keep up with the job seeker you must make sure the information you have is always up to date and fresh. Outdated information can easily have a significant effect on your decision to hire a certain prospect. Working together and in a talent community will allow recruiters and job seekers to keep a tight reign on the amount of information that is outdated. Here are a few tips for companies that are looking to sharpen their skills in pulling newer, fresh content to make the best hire.

By-Directional Engagement. If you’ve done a good job at building your community and the interactions between recruiters and candidates just talk to them! The easiest way to update outdated and stale information is to ask a candidate to update their profile. If a job seeker is active they will always make sure that all their information in your ATS or CRM is 100% up to date and accurate. Asking for this information shouldn’t be done on a monthly basis, but quarterly would be more appropriate as job skills & experience are updated every so often.

Recruiter Engagement. In a successful Talent Network recruiters will be engagement with suspects and prospects throughout the entire process. Asking how they’re doing at home, updating them on career opportunities, and even discussing sports or current events. When recruiters become personal with candidates it allows them to garner information that the candidate might not put out there on their resume or in their profile. This allows the recruiter to tag certain candidates and categorize them that fits their needs.

If a candidate expresses that they are looking for a 50/50 work/home situation, recruiters are able to put them in a specific category that alerts them when a job to their liking becomes available. Interacting with those in a talent community allow recruiters to build a better culture fit for candidates interested in applying with their company. In doing so, a candidate’s wants and needs are always kept up to date and the data in your system keeps fresh.

Data Aggregation. Compiling several hundreds of GBs worth of data is important to find the best fit for a specific job. Using different social technologies to pull data from LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are essential practices for keeping your data fresh. A candidate is more likely to update their LinkedIn when they add new certifications or specific accolades before they would re-upload their resume into a talent community. Being able to pull data when it becomes relevant will keep everything up to date. A candidate that wasn’t hirable 3 months ago based on a resume they uploaded, but not they are because of new certifications is important. Being able to pull this data from other sources is critical to keep fresh.

Analytics. The last piece of information to keep things fresh is marketing analytics. Have you sent them emails that they have responded to better than others? Do they click on certain things in blogs or on your website? Pulling analytics on a candidate’s history will allow some deeper insight into where they go and why they go there. This will help you gain a deeper level of understand into what your candidate is doing online and their purpose for being in your community.

More employers are actively recruiting employees from other companies. Almost 20 percent of employees in the survey reported having been approached by a potential employer in 2012 even though they hadn’t applied for a job at that company.

Enacting different practices to keep information fresh can be time consuming, but the downfall of outdated information is recruiting less strategically. Each company wants the brightest talent for their organization and those who get to them early might have a better shot at having them sign on the dotted line. Don’t take shortcuts when finding perfect talent because they will save you in the long run.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 

Join us for a HCI webinar sponsored by Talent Circles on 3/6 at 12 PM EST "How to Build a Strategic Candidate Pipeline." Register here. 

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