Why You Should be Building a Candidate Pipeline of Your Contingent Workforce

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

The job economy is different now than it has been for the past several years. We’ve seen unemployment drop and jobs grow, which has led to a newly competitive and fluid marketplace for job seekers. Workers are freer to go from job to job and expect a great deal from employers looking to woo them. These changes have also brought about a change in the way companies are staffing as they rely more and more on project-based contract workers.

Why a contingent workforce makes sense

These temporary, specialized workers fill knowledge gaps and meet an immediate need. This is a huge consideration as the struggle to find an employee who is a perfect match is one that’s all too familiar and the average time to hire in currently at almost 60 days! For all these reasons, a contingent workforce has become a valuable part of keeping the business going.

Contract workers also offer companies the flexibility to seek out specific skills they need to solve a problem or complete a project. The workers offer experience and expertise that current employees may not possess and limit the time required to onboard, train and get them started on their job responsibilities. Contract workers may also be a great option for companies that have a temporary employee gap to fill, such as when a worker is out on maternity or paternity leave. Overall, the freedom and expertise that comes with utilizing a contingent workforce just makes sense.

Maintaining a contingent workforce

The same things we consider advantages of utilizing a contingent workforce can also be drawbacks. For instance, the freedom goes both ways. You are free to hire and dismiss based on your needs, and a contract worker is free to come and go as their needs dictate. This can create a challenge for hiring managers and business leaders who need to maintain a productive workforce. However, one way to meet this challenge is to develop a candidate pipeline of contingent workers.

Building a pipeline

Building a candidate pipeline of contract workers not only makes it easier to find the types of workers you need down the road, but it also takes away the element of mystery when you and the temporary worker don’t know, or necessarily trust, each other. Another major advantage is that the workers in your pipeline will already know your business. Though there’s usually a much smaller learning curve for a contract worker than a permanent one, there will always be one to some degree. A pipeline of people who know your company eliminates that.

One of the biggest obstacles to creating a pipeline of contract workers is the fact that their short stay in your company makes it hard to develop relationships and engage these subject-matter experts. This challenge is the reason that many companies work with outsourcing, staffing and consulting firms or technology platforms that specialize in these particular areas, such as oDesk.

While these resources can be effective, companies relying solely on these channels to engage, recruit and hire project-based workers are missing a huge opportunity to engage personally. By getting to know your contingent workforce in the same way you would your full-time, permanent team members, you’ll see greater success both now and in the future.


TalentCircles is the most comprehensive candidate engagement platform on the market. Take a product tour or request a live demo today. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology anthropologist specializing in HR and recruiting. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs and author of The HR Technology Field Guide. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.

Five Things I Want From My Hiring Manager

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

The relationship between recruiters and hiring managers is one that should be sacred, but tends to be less than fulfilling the majority of the time. Both parties not only rely on each other heavily to get a job done but also must see eye to eye and have a thorough understanding of the role each person plays. But while that may be how it should work in a perfect world, the reality is that recruiters and hiring managers often times lament about what they wish the other would do that they aren’t and have a laundry list of things they would do differently if they could.

Speaking from the recruiter’s side of the situation, it can be hard to get what you need from your hiring managers, much less develop a relationship. But as the recruiter, you are the project leader and must push past busy schedules, misunderstandings and unrealistic expectations – on both sides – and get the job done. Another important aspect of acting as the project leader is actually managing the hiring manager. You’ll guide them to provide you with what you need and want to do the best job you can and find the best candidates for the position.

So what is it that you need from them in order to do this? Here are the top five things I’d want from my hiring manager:

Communication

It seems basic, but most recruiters have seen firsthand how difficult it can be to maintain consistent communication throughout the recruiting and hiring process. Hiring managers also have full-time jobs that typically have nothing to do with hiring a new employee, so it’s understandable that this is one area where things could slip through the cracks. One of my favorite ways to combat this is to establish checkpoints and schedule debriefings ahead of time.

Accurate job qualifications, information and responsibility description

When it comes to providing accurate job qualifications, information and responsibilities, hiring managers may not have a full grasp on what they need or want, which makes it difficult for you to hire the right candidate for the job. Inaccurate info can lead to wasted time, future job acceptance regret and frustration from all parties. Help your hiring manager think through all aspects of the job and ask them to solicit input from employees in roles similar to the one you’re hiring for if necessary.

Honesty and transparency

These qualities aren’t just nice to have; they’re actually vital to meeting the hiring manager’s needs. In a perfect world, every hiring manager would be open and honest about everything from what they think you’re missing to what they’re really looking for to why they’re having trouble getting back to you to answer your questions. In the real world, we know that they may not always know what’s missing but just that something is, they may want to avoid confrontation and they may be afraid to admit that they’ve dropped the ball. Hiring managers are only human. Help them out by doing some investigative work and asking them questions that will help them provide honest, transparent responses.

An accurate timeline to fill the position

“ASAP” is not a timeline, but that doesn’t stop hiring managers from using it as an answer to the timeline question. If hiring managers would consider when they’d like to have the position filled and when they can realistically devote time to the process, recruiters would be able to schedule deadlines accordingly, not leave candidates hanging for long periods of time and help manage expectations on both sides.

Time commitment

I’ve touched on this under other items on this wish list, but it deserves its own place because getting hiring managers to commit their time to interview and follow through is one of the biggest challenges in the process. Time is the most precious thing any of us have to give during a workday, and if the hiring manager you’re working with doesn’t have the time to devote to the process, it’s better to hold off until they can. If they’ve already committed and are having trouble following through, step into the project manager role and work with them to find time if possible.

TalentCircles is the most comprehensive candidate engagement platform on the market. Take a product tour or request a live demo today.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology anthropologist specializing in HR and recruiting. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs and author of The HR Technology Field Guide. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.

Adding Depth and Scope to the Candidate Experience

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

The focus on candidate experience in the last several years has moved our industry forward leaps and bounds, but it turns out there’s still a lot of ground to cover. When the idea of candidate experience arrived on the scene, the view of the prospective employees wasn’t often considered, and in fact in many cases was completely disregarded. It was a different time in hiring. Job seekers had very low expectations of the hiring process and employers fulfilled those expectations. Through the years, recruiting and HR teams came to realize the value of a positive candidate experience and in many ways have changed the face of the process completely.

Today, however, we are met with new challenges in recruiting that the traditional candidate experience, however positive, doesn’t completely solve. It’s time to give more texture to the idea of candidate experience and understand that today it means candidate empowerment.

There are two main areas where we have an opportunity to enrich the candidate experience – before a candidate ever applies and after the interview process. These are areas that are largely untouched in recruiting, which makes them the perfect opportunities.

Before the buying decision

The way recruiters work is so similar to the way sales people woo customers that it’s just logical to make comparisons between the two. Most sales people hoping to close a deal don’t just forward a generic company ad to prospects but instead work to foster relationships that often lead to contracts being signed. However, all too often recruiters rely on one-off outreach tactics that are completely separate from the candidate experience strategy.

We’ve got to quit viewing the starting point of the candidate experience as the moment they apply and start seeing it as beginning long before. If we look at it this way, we’ll have candidates with positive views of the company before they even know what the open position entails. Recruiters can do this by utilizing a pre-candidate strategy that involves engagement, relationship building and making resources available. While you are making an investment in candidates who may or may not apply for a position with your company, the benefits of the extended pre-candidate experience make it worthwhile.

After the interview is over

For candidates who make it through the hiring process and land an interview, the phase following the interview is essentially a dead zone. It’s the time when they’re unsure of their possible future with your company and simply have to wait until your team is ready to make the call. Not only is this a stressful time for the candidate but it’s also a dangerous time for employers to be leaving their future employees vulnerable and ripe for the picking. Most of the time, candidates will continue to interview and explore opportunities since they don’t have an offer in hand. If one does come along before you make your decision and offer, they’ll likely accept it. Recruiters should do their best to not make candidates feel neglected during this phase of the hiring process because it’s risky and can actually erase all the great candidate experience work you’ve put in.

  

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology anthropologist specializing in HR and recruiting. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs and author of The HR Technology Field Guide. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.

The Future of Recruiting and Employment Branding is Video

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

Earlier this month we talked about how video broadcasting is key for your employment branding. We’d like to expand on the topic today and show why it’s the future.

As recruiters, we are constantly looking at ways to reach and engage potential candidates. From Twitter chats to Instagram to Pinterest, we’ll try the strange, the out of the box and the things no one else is doing. However, sometimes the best thing we can do is jump on the bandwagon. If our goal is to reach candidates where they live, work and play, then we should look to what media they’re using on a regular basis and how they’re using it. Increasingly, the answer is video.

Consuming video on a daily basis became a part of our lives long ago, but a few recent developments have made it even more present and even more likely to be used in our industry. From Meerkat to Periscope, live video broadcasting is the wave of the future for individuals, retailers and believe it or not, our industry too. While the buzz of these two video broadcasting apps has surely been impressive, it’s LinkedIn’s recent acquisition of Lynda.com that has me saying now more than ever that video is not only the next big thing in recruiting and hiring but is also here to stay.

It’s a digital world we are living in, and right now video storytelling is the best way to share resources, engage with your audiences and take advantage of a new opportunity. Your candidates, who are consumers, are in the middle of a mobile revolution and they expect you to be a part of it as well.

Simply put, it’s video, video, video for everything. Take a look at these four ways you can introduce video into your recruiting and employment branding.

Video job announcements

Technology like TalentCircles allows recruiters to seamlessly upload video and share with their circles. Talent community members who view video are encouraged to learn more about the organization by joining its talent community, which can be accomplished with a simple social sign in through LinkedIn, Facebook or Google+. Video job announcements also offer added value by increasing your ROI on employment branding efforts.

Day-in-the-life videos

Give candidates a peek inside your company with videos that show a condensed version of a day in the life of an employee or team. These video serve as great candidate resources, providing insights into the company culture and allowing them to learn more about the organization and positions before they apply.

Become human again

Technology has done great things for recruiting, but it has also made recruiters seem anonymous and the talent acquisition process hidden. Get out from behind the technology by stepping in front of the camera. Video reminds candidates - and recruiters - of the people behind the HR technology.

Video “interviews”

In our day and age, time is precious and geographic boundaries mean nothing. Use live video chats to engage with candidates without them having to come to you, whether as a pre-interview screening, an informal chat or a formal interview, and allow them to use the opportunity to find out more about the organization as well. Asking questions and building relationships long before the job seeker actually applies can only mean better quality hires.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology anthropologist specializing in HR and recruiting. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs and author of The HR Technology Field Guide. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.

Your CEO Is More Likely to See Social Media as a Tool in Hiring Than Marketing

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

Your company’s CEO may not spend her day Tweeting or check Instagram during her daily commute, but chances are, she sees it as a highly valuable tool in hiring at your company. In fact, it’s likely that she even places it above marketing materials and your company’s website. That’s what a recent study by Universum revealed after they talked with CEOs, HR and recruitment managers and marketing managers and directors. When asked how important social media was in employment branding, thirty-eight percent of recruiters and HR professionals said that social media was extremely important, followed by 35 percent of CEOs and surprisingly, only 31 percent of marketing managers.

What the numbers mean

As a social recruiting advocate, I find the numbers both encouraging and somewhat lacking. The fact that more than one-third of CEOs see social media as the most important channel for employment branding is huge! I can remember the days of fighting an uphill battle many years ago as I tried to incorporate social into my hiring strategy. Today, many recognize its value. While we obviously have a long way to go, I revel in the fact that we’ve come a long way.

On the other hand, it’s discouraging to see that less than half of recruitment and HR managers don’t see it as the most important channel. Social is where the most innovative, and arguably successful, recruiting has occurred in the last several years and it’s here to stay. Recruiters must realize that this is where candidates are engaging, so we’ve got to meet them there. However disappointing this number might be, it is understandable. Recruiters are not spending their time focusing on employment branding but instead on simply finding qualified candidates. Building your employment brand on social is a worthwhile investment, but an investment many don’t feel they have the time, resources or skill for.

In the case of less than a third of marketing managers and directors seeing social media as the most important channel for employment branding, I think there’s a disconnect occurring. In the same way that many recruiters aren’t equipped to develop a robust employment brand, many marketers don’t know why a robust employment brand is important. They can market products and services, but they’ve never been recruiters. So while they may see social as a vital part of their overall marketing strategy, they may not understand how an employment branding campaign can fit in that strategy.

Moving forward

There are a few ongoing struggles that occur between recruiting teams, executives and marketing professionals that contribute to the confusion of what works, what’s worth the time and what’s a passing fad. However, I think the strongest position for all to take is to become collaborative, each party learning from the others. We as recruiters need to understand marketing strategy and social tactics better, CEOs need to understand the value of today’s tools and marketers need a glimpse into the recruiting world. I believe that with a better understanding of all these concepts, recruiters will have the room to work creatively and be supported by their organization, both in spirit a

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.