Talent Filter

The Art Of Wooing New Employees

The following is a guest post by Jim Stroud.

How do you feel about love? I don't mean the flowers, candy and rapid heartbeat kind-of-love, but rather those warm-and-fuzzy emotions that accompany Recruiting. 

What's that you say? Human Resources and "love" do not exist in the same sentence? Really? Why is that?  (Go ahead and answer, I'll wait…)

Perhaps a better question is, "What prevents love from co-existing in your staffing department, especially as it relates to hiring?"

Right away I sense that you find this ideal to be ludicrous and without merit or professional bearing, but I would argue the contrary. For the purposes of this article, love is defined as a potential hire possessing a zealous desire to work for your company rather than your competitors' group.

X, Why Are You Hatin? Sincerely, Y

For the past few weeks it would seem that most people are having issues with Generation Y.  And yes I am happy to be apart of this generation and I do indeed have to ask “Y” so much discrimination? We are faced with higher education standards then previous generations. We come in large number in example we populate over 80% of colleges & universities. Generation Y is faster, efficient, more willing to learn, and detailed while at work. However, we are more fragile, worried about failure, and distracted.

 

As I started my career search into the corporate world around 19 years-old, I was eager to learn as much as I can about how a company operates.  I currently have three mentors who coach me now on how to make my work more efficient, to pay attention to detail, and to constantly research new ideas. The amazing thing about these mentors is they are all Generation X. 

 

The best thing about Generation X is their patience.  They constantly take time out of each day to train, inform, and praise Generation Y.  Pretty soon another generation will come along and show Generation Y up and history will repeat itself once again.

Give HR More Respect?

Human Resources is often the punching for columnists looking for a way to connect with their readers.  Human Resources for better or worse is in charge of hiring, and considering the number of hires versus applications in any company, they're are always cheap shots that can be taken that people in a crowd will cheer.

In many organizations, sales and marketing professionals are even taught to use Human Resource as an excuse for not meeting quotas.  Everyone knows that hiring is the basis of success (remember the "get the right people on the bus" mantra?), and Human Resources is in charge of hiring.

David, Mezzapelle, a member over at the job boarders network, has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on why Human Resources professionals should be treated with respect, and how they can be a competitive advantage when they're used as a strategic resource rather than a convenient excuse.

In a company built to leverage human capital, the HR staff would spend less time processing benefits requests and more time being the expert resource on the state of the organization's work force and its ability to perform.

That has been difficult in the past, because many of the administrative duties assigned to human resources involve a lot of detail and complexity that make them labor intensive.

But now, Web-based applications, many of which lend themselves to self-service, offer a solution. Employees can visit a Web site to sign up for benefits, change their addresses, enroll in training programs, search for jobs, assess their knowledge and set goals and objectives for the year. Managers can use them to give out bonuses and raises, appraise performance, transfer employees and find internal candidates to fill open positions.

What's more, many companies offer HR outsourcing services, and a number of large companies have entered into long-term contracts to outsource multiple HR processes to a single vendor. I believe that for most companies, outsourcing is the right way to handle HR administration. Not only does it release HR professionals from a set of no-win activities, it frees them up for work that is of greater benefit to the organization.

We get this.  The explosion of tools that can automate HR processes is something we follow closely, and it's the basis of our TalentFilter product.  Our goal was to find something that recruiters do and make it easier.  Human Resources in general has a lot of paperwork, but although the benefits side of the house is working on less admin work, the recruiting side should be focused on talent acquisition, and that means more time building relationships with a workforce and less time chasing paper.

And in the process, we think that CEO's will start to see HR as a partner, and not just the place that keeps birthdays straight and passes out paychecks.

 

The Curse Of The Electronic Resume

It was over 15 years ago, but there was a time not long ago when electronic resumes seemed like a great idea.  Companies were really excited about the idea of creating digital databases of resumes that would store the collective talent of a marketplace, allowing the companies to create pools of interested workers that would quickly and efficiently move through the employment process from selection to hire.

How naive we were.

E-mailed resumes have been a great boon for workforce liquidity.  The pace of hiring has indeed quickened, and our ability to reach more people grew exponentially with digital resumes. The wonders of ATS, candidate databases, and job boards (and wonder they are), all came about when we put out career histories into pixels on the screen.  But like the paperless office, the idea of lessening our workload flew out the window.

In establishing the idea of the paperless resume that could easily be forwarded and stored, we assumed candidates would not change their behaviors in applying for jobs.  As the volume increased, we first saw it as a good thing.  More resumes = more choice.  But like the Sorcerer's Apprentice, the trickle of resumes became a rush, and the rush a flood, and today, we struggle to keep our heads above water, as the electronic resumes pour in from all corners of the globe.

It's enough to make you want to take an ax to the whole project. 

Except it works, and with the flood of resumes comes new software to help us manage.  Search technology is changing the way we look at resumes, and what was once unwelcome, is now understood as a great thing.  Job boards give us an instant look at the marketplace in a manner far superior to our old paper files.  We may moan about the resumes that come in, but it doesn't stop us from searching for more.

It's not the quantity coming in - it's the ability to search on our own terms that keeps us adding new passwords.  What we need is a new way to search resumes.

talentfilter.  coming soon.