Six Predictions in HR, Recruiting & Your Workplace in 2013

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

2013 HR and Recruiting Predictions 

Over the past few years Human Resources, particularly recruiting has slowly become socialized and professionals are reaching out to contacts in ways never even thought of 10-15 years ago. As I spend time working with vendors who develop provide the technologies for HR and recruiting while also working directly with practitioners every day, I see some exciting shifts emerge. These 6 trends in 2013 that operational managers and HR professionals must look out for in the coming year.

• Telecommuting will continue to grow. The lucrative idea of working from home will become an even bigger reality for the workforce in 2013. Employers continue to look for ways to not only cut cost, but also improve employee health and retention. Allowing for flexible work schedules and telecommuting has shown to increase employee moral. This trend will be on the forefront in order to source the best talent. 

• Video interviewing will increase. In order to find the perfect source of talent, HR professionals will begin recruiting and scouring the entire country looking for the perfect fit. In most cases it won’t be feasible both financially and realistically for a candidate half way across the country to come in for a formal interview, so most HR departments will be doing video interviewing. With this becoming a more popular trend, compliance issues are sure to rise. 

• Recruiting talent will be more local.  Meaning that as the economy improves, companies will and should begin evaluating individual local employment markets to draft hiring strategies that are specific to the local economy of the city you are hiring for.  Post and pray recruiting is no more as companies focus more on long term recruitment strategies and building talent networks.  

• HR will become more data centric. The trend in tracking, compiling, and analyzing data will be overrun in the Human Resources department in 2013. Metrics and measurement for HR will be more important than ever before.  In order to become a successful HR department you must learn to benchmark and hire the right candidate the first time around. It’ll be crucial for HR managers to sync employee data across multiple systems. This trend will be one of the bigger focuses on HR as companies get bigger and rely more on third-party systems for compliance, analytics, and hiring automation.

• HR will become more social. This is almost a “Duh?” type statement. Human Resources will no longer put all their weight in a resume submitted to them, but will scour the Internet to find anything and everything about potential employees. Checking everything from your tweets to what shows up on your LinkedIn profile. As privacy changes are being eliminated from the most popular networks, no one is safe. With everyone online is it safe to say the resume is almost dead? We’ll let you answer that question.

• Beginning of the Crowdsourced Review: As the workplace becomes more social it’s only natural that the employee review does as well. Managers spend one hour a year out of the 2,040 hours employees work to give them feedback that is suppose to last the entire year. As GenY enters the workforce in full swing that amount of time isn’t going to be enough. Crowdsourcing the employee review will create a more dynamic workplace that encourages open feedback and better employee engagement. 

Talent Retention and Sourcing Most Important 

As 2013 is already up in full swing there are trends and new technologies already coming out that HR and recruiting practitioners must stay on top of in order to create an environment that pleases great talent. In order to source the best talent you must be able to make sacrifices in areas that you would never have imagined. What are some trends you see in 2013? Do you agree with the above? Why or Why not?

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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5 Tips to Creating Employment Branding Videos for Your Careers Page

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

Videos Drives Employment Branding 

Employment branding videos are essential to the conversation and developing relationships with job seekers. Video is especially powerful for search engine optimization but to also give the viewer a more personal and visual feel into the culture and brand of the organization they are considering applying to work. 

Job postings with video icons are viewed 12% more than postings without video.  On average, employer customers receive a 34% greater candidate application rate when they add video to their job postings.  Keep in mind the average YouTube viewer spends 15 minutes a day checking out videos.

Recruitment Video Tips 

As someone who has hosted their own internet television show for job seekers for several years, I know first hand videos can create a powerful message.  Creating and crafting a message takes time and strategy especially when it comes to an employment branding video.  These recruitment videos provide candidates an opportunity to passively research your company’s culture and organization. 

• ·      Employee Testimonials Are Powerful. Employees relate to employees who are genuine and share their message.  Let an employee share their personal story and what resonates with them.  Chances are it speaks to prospective candidates too. 

• ·      Quirky is Good.  If you have a fun and creative culture, video is a great way to showcase that.  Sometimes that’s through music, song, or just a walk through of your workplace on camera. 

• ·      What’s Important.  When it’s important to the workplace for Millenials, Pew Research’s 2010 study tells us that 88 percent of college graduates would prefer to work with an employer who share the same social values as them and 86 percent would leave a job if they discovered the company’s social values differed from their own.  What’s important to your target job seeker audience, should be included in the recruitment video.  More importantly, employers should create a number of employment videos targeting difference audiences for employment branding and relationship recruiting. Doing this help you reach a targeted audience driving specific candidates to your company careers page or talent network.  

• ·      Message Trumps Quality.   While I’m a fan of using professional photography and videography, professional quality isn’t always the most important when it comes to creating your recruitment video.  It’s the message that matters.  Great employment videos combine a great story along with information to help sell the job opportunity to your prospective candidates. 

• ·      Lighting & Microphones Matter.  While I think the message is more important than a professionally shot video, video basics like lighting and microphones should be used to help decrease background noise and make the video more viewable and shareable.  The key is to create a compelling message that also generates enough interest that the candidate wants to share with their friends. 

Employer Branding Starts with Creating Consistent Message 

Recruitiment videos are just one piece of building your company’s employment brand.  The key for a company is to create a consistent message one that celebrates your company’s unique qualities that also drives quality candidates to join your talent network or apply for current open positions.  

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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The War for Talent is Local

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

A lot of discussion has emerged concerned the skills gaps and impending labor shortage, but nothing resonated with me until now.  A couple weeks ago, I was sitting at a local HR and recruiting board meeting for the OKC Metro Employer Council when the idea hit me like a brick wall.   I had the equivalent of a recruiting epiphany as I listened in on other board members conversations and challenges.  I realized the war for talent is local. 

OKC vs. Yuma:  A Tale of Two Different Candidate Marketplaces  

Listed as the third strongest metro economy in the US by Bloomberg in 2012, Oklahoma City has been insulated from most of the country’s economic downturn.  This city and community is currently the place I call home.  The local economy is going strong, and our metro area’s unemployment rate is ridiculously low at 4.9%.   It’s hard as heck to recruit here which is something I heard over and over again at our board meeting.  Quality job seekers have their pick often from multiple offers making your job as a recruiter extremely competitive.  That’s in stark contrast to Yuma, Arizona’s, unemployment rate, which stands at 29.8%. 

The markets are completely different; yet I can almost guarantee your company’s recruitment strategy in these two different cities is exactly the same.  Imagine courting a candidate in Oklahoma City versus Yuma and presenting them with what is your best offer.  In Yuma, that candidate accepts your offer immediately while the Oklahoma City candidate stalls not even returning your call. That’s because recruiting and the war for talent is local. 

Recruiting Gets Specific.  The War for Talent is Local

As recruiters, business leaders, and HR professionals we are faced with a challenge especially when managing multiple position requisitions and competing for talent in Oklahoma City versus Yuma.  Our hiring and recruitment strategies should differ because the local market and the candidates in which you pull from are very, very unique.  As a recruiter you have an obligation to research your local candidate marketplace to get a sense of what recruitment strategy would work for you. You are spending your precious time in Oklahoma City posting and praying to a candidate ecosystem and economy that dictates a different recruitment strategy altogether.

In these uber competitive local marketplaces like Oklahoma City, Omaha, and the Dallas Metroplex, building a talent pipeline is the best way to help elevate the stresses of a competitive candidate marketplace due to a robust economy. 

How to Build a Talent Pipeline

Recruiting is local and building a relationship matters.  When it comes to building a recruitment strategy even to fill a single position in a metropolitan area like Oklahoma City, the devil is in the details. And those details in extremely competitive markets in Oklahoma City require you to build and develop a talent pipeline 6 months, 12 months, and 3 months before you even begin looking to fill an open position there. 

This starts with creating a conversation and an opportunity starting with a talent network of eligible, qualified, and interested candidates before the need for a specific position arises.  Because a relationship is built on time, reputation, and trust and a talent network affords you these things.     

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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