Menu
Log in
Log in

Staffing News Online

  • Home
  • Staffing News Online

NJSA's Staffing News Online is a monthly e-newsletter that is available to the staffing industry.  The content for Staffing News Online comes directly from our industry partners.  If you are an NJSA industry partner and would like to submit content for Staffing News Online, please email office@njsa.com with your article.

  • Friday, March 29, 2019 10:08 AM | Denise Downing (Administrator)

    Written by Staffing Industry Analysts

    Companies are willing to hire applicants who don’t meet skills requirements and then train them to fill the roles, according to research released today by Robert Half International Inc. (NYSE: RHI).

    A survey of HR managers found 42% of résumés they receive, on average, are from candidates who don’t meet the job requirements. And 84% of HR managers reported their company is open to hiring an employee whose skills can be developed through training.

    HR managers were asked, “How open is your company to hiring and training an employee who doesn’t meet the skills requirements for a position?” Fourteen percent said their company was “very open”; 70% said “somewhat open”; and 17% were not open at all.

    “When it’s challenging to find candidates who check off all the boxes, companies may need to re-evaluate their job requirements to hire the right talent,” said Paul McDonald, senior executive director for Robert Half. “Workers can be trained on duties for a role, but individuals with the right soft skills and fit with the corporate culture are often harder to come by.”

    More than half of staffing firms offer training options to temporary workers, according to Staffing Industry Analysts’ report, “North America Staffing Company Survey 2018: Training options offered to temporary workers.” The most common type is free online training, offered by 40% of staffing firms. Active training is less common; 13% use paid vendors to actively train, test and/or certify workers, while 12% use on-staff trainers.

    In a separate survey of workers, 78% admitted they would submit for a role when they don’t match all the qualifications, and 62% have been offered a job when they didn’t match the exact qualifications.

    Among the 28 US cities in the survey, Charlotte, NC, had the most professionals who have landed a position without meeting the requirements at 74%, followed by San Diego at 72%; Washington and Austin, Texas, both came in at 71%.

    Workers in Salt Lake City are most likely to apply for a role if underqualified at 89%, followed by Atlanta at 83%, and Austin and Charlotte at 82% each.

    The online surveys were developed by Robert Half and conducted by independent research firms. They include responses from more than 300 HR managers at US companies with 20 or more employees and more than 2,800 workers employed in office environments in 28 major US cities.


  • Friday, March 29, 2019 10:06 AM | Denise Downing (Administrator)

    Written by Maria Tanski , Recruiter Training

    According to one source, more than one in three workers (35%) are millennials. And according to another source, millennials will make up 75% of the workforce by the year 2030. As the number of millennials in the workforce grows, you must adapt your strategies for recruiting millennials.

    5 Tips for recruiting millennials - To attract a new generation of top talent, you must learn how to recruit millennials. Use the five tips below to boost your recruitment strategies for millennials.

    1. Emphasize employer brand

    Your client’s employer brand can make or break its workplace reputation. Creating a positive employer brand can help recruit and retain more millennials.

    An employer brand shows candidates what it’s like to work for your client’s company. Give millennials a snapshot of the business during the recruiting process.

    While recruiting and hiring millennials, include what makes your client stand out from competitors. And, be sure to outline your client’s values. What is the work culture like? How does your client’s workplace compare to others?

    Use an authentic workplace culture to attract top candidates. Millennials appreciate transparency and want an employer who shares similar values.

    Consider posting pictures of current employees to showcase your client’s employer brand. For example, while posting a job description, you might include a photo from an office event that shows employee engagement.

    2. Promote a fun work environment

    This tip goes hand-in-hand with emphasizing your client’s employer brand. Along with seeing a strong employer brand, millennials want a workplace where they can have a little fun.

    One reason why millennials job-hop is due to an unenjoyable workplace. You may think that companies who have more fun are less productive. However, one source states that happy employees are 12% more productive.

    Promote a fun work environment to candidates. If your client has office events, parties, or special treats for employees, promote those activities. Let millennial applicants know that a job doesn’t have to be all work and no play.

    For example, say your client surprised employees with an ice cream truck. Create a social media post with a company photo from the event to emphasize your client’s fun work environment.

    Candidates need to be able to see the fun side of the company. But, they also need to see a serious side, too. Don’t over-promote a fun work environment.

    3. Be present on social media

    More than ever, recruiters need to utilize mobile recruiting to attract top candidates, especially millennials.

    Use a variety of social recruiting websites and applications to post job openings to larger audiences. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are some accounts you can use to promote positions and recruit candidates.

    Research what platforms millennials use most. And, remember that platforms that work well for one client may not work for another. Experiment with platforms to see which attract the most millennials.

    Consider asking candidates which site they found the job posting on. You can use candidate feedback to learn which platforms are best for millennial recruitment.

    4. Clarify career paths and opportunities

    Another reason why millennials leave positions is to advance their careers elsewhere. If a millennial doesn’t see a future with your client ’s company, they likely won’t stick around.

    You and your client must discuss career paths for candidates. And, mention advancement opportunities to candidates throughout the recruiting process.

    Take time to look at different positions within the client’s company to see what options candidates have for the future. For example, say a candidate is applying to a sales position. You could let them know they might be able to advance to the marketing department later in their career.

    Be straightforward about career advancement opportunities. If a millennial asks a question about career paths during the interview process, be honest and open about the possibilities.

    5. Stay up-to-date with technology

    In an age of ever-changing technology, 85% of millennials access the internet from their phones. And after growing up with it, millennials have also turned to technology for job searching, too.

    Because millennials typically utilize their smartphones, laptops, or other devices to search for positions, shouldn’t you use that to your recruiting advantage?

    Stay up-to-date with all types of platforms. Use mobile applications, social media, job boards, and recruiting software to tap into the pool of millennial candidates.

    Make sure applications and job posts are accessible through all types of devices. That way, no matter what device an applicant is using, candidates can still view and apply for positions.


  • Friday, March 29, 2019 10:01 AM | Denise Downing (Administrator)

    As the on-demand workforce balloons in size, it is changing the way organizations staff their companies and get critical tasks done. While there is much to be excited about — unparalleled flexibility, increased agility, lowered costs — the on-demand workforce can also induce a little anxiety in business leaders and HR pros, as any disruptive force naturally would.

    To get to the heart of the concerns surrounding the on-demand workforce, Waggl and Next Concept HR teamed up to survey thousands of HR professionals from organizations of all sizes, including attendees of HR West 2019. The results of the survey highlight both excitement and some serious worries about the upward trend of on-demand workers.

    In aggregate, 67 percent of respondents said their organizations currently hire independent contractors or freelancers to perform work on an on-demand basis, and 64 percent claimed their organizations clearly articulate their values and mission to on-demand employees. A full 74 percent of respondents agreed with the following statement: “My organization listens to the voice of its workers, including on-demand employees, and takes action in response to their concerns and requests.”

    However, in government and military organizations, only 33 percent of respondents felt their organizations did a good job of clearly articulating values and mission. In mid-size corporations with 5,000-20,000 employees, only 33 percent of participants agreed their organizations listen to the voices of all workers and take action in response to their concerns, compared to 81 percent of participants at startups and small corporations with fewer than 5,000 employees.

    “The gig economy is not just about Uber drivers, artists, and bartenders anymore. Many of these workers have highly specialized skills and an impressive breadth and depth of knowledge,” said Greg Morton, CEO of Next Concept HR Association, in a press release. “Rather than marginalizing on-demand workers, perhaps it is time to embrace this trend for what it actually represents: an opportunity to infuse corporate culture with new learning and ideas, higher engagement, and fresh energy.”


  • Friday, March 29, 2019 9:53 AM | Denise Downing (Administrator)

    Submitted by Access Capital 

    Our world is increasingly influenced by our digital culture. Whether you need to restock household groceries or arrange a driver for your next flight you are most likely using an app on your phone. While convenient and efficient, the increased use of technology to run our day-to-day lives seems to have created gaps in communication and social interactions. A culture of people swiping left to find their dates has led to changes to certain social mores.

    What was once a term applied only to modern dating, “ghosting” can now be used to describe other areas of social interaction. When you get ghosted, the person with whom you’ve been dating cuts off all communication with you with no warning. You don’t even get the benefit of the “it’s not you, it’s me” speech when someone ghosts you. There’s just radio silence and perhaps a feeling of rejection on the side of the “ghostee.” Not a great way to end a relationship is it? Ghosting has become so prevalent that even the New York Times explored the phenomenon earlier this year. And now, we are seeing that ghosting has found its way into the workplace with regards to candidate behavior. More and more recruiters and employers are being ghosted by candidates. Sometimes for interviews and even for the first day of an assignment!

    With an unemployment rate of 3.8% and job openings at 7.6 million (as of January 31, 2019) , there are more open jobs than employees to fill them. Nowadays, candidates are empowered and can afford to be finicky about their next project and their behavior is showing that. Some are simply blowing off interviews or becoming no-show employees when day one of a new assignment arrives. For recruiters, this poses a major disruption to fulfilling client needs and has the potential to negatively affect your relationships with your clients.

    If a behavior like ghosting manifests en masse, how can we combat it? The key seems to be to ensure you take good care of your candidates - be sure to keep the lines of communication open and touch base often.

    Address the Elephant (Ghost) in the Room: Communicate clearly about ghosting. If you broach the topic upfront with candidates, you may help mitigate the likelihood of being ghosted. Create a safe space for communication and encourage your candidate to let you know if they’ve decided to take another offer. Take the perceived stigma out of telling a recruiter no. In other words, make it okay for a candidate to refuse an offer or change his or her mind with you and chances are, they will be forthcoming with you.

    Engage and Inform: Just as it’s frustrating for a recruiter to suddenly lose communication with a candidate, potential employees appreciate ongoing communication at each stage of the recruiting process. When working with a candidate, be sure to provide status updates and a timeline for the process so there is no uncertainty. If a candidate feels informed by a recruiter, they will feel valued and may be less likely to disappoint you when it’s time to meet with your client. Also consider working to have less lead up time until the start date. In the days leading up to the start date, send info about the new company to your candidate and see if you can connect your candidate to someone at the new employer sooner to help establish a connection before your candidate’s first day. This will lessen the threat of your candidate going elsewhere or abandoning the assignment altogether.

    An informed and well-tended to candidate will be less likely to stray than one who hasn’t heard from a recruiter in weeks. Providing a positive experience for your candidate will help ensure they follow through with you and show up for your clients. It will take some extra care but you will appreciate the benefit of a forthcoming candidate. While we may not be able to halt the social phenomenon of ghosting, we can at least work with it and try our best to not fall victim to it.

    About Access Capital:

    Access Capital is a privately held non-bank lender that has been supporting the growth of staffing companies and other entrepreneurial enterprises for over thirty years. Headquartered in New York, Access Capital offers asset based lending and acquisition financing services to staffing companies nationwide.

    Learn more about how we can work together to support your success by calling us at (212) 644-9300


  • Thursday, March 21, 2019 10:19 AM | Denise Downing (Administrator)

    Submitted by Avionte

    The business of recruiting employees, both temporary and full-time has rarely been this competitive and opportunistic. Between the record low unemployment rate and the exponential growth of the staffing industry (increase by .08% year-over-year), there’s room to flourish but you’ll have to stand out from the 20,000 staffing and recruiting companies currently operating around 39,000 offices in the nation.

    While there’s no exact formula on how to be a good staffing recruiter, there’s a lot of tips and tricks to help stand out from the competition.

    Listed below is a handpicked collection of some of the best recruiting tips gathered from all corners of the industry. Here you’ll find tactics as well as unique strategies used by recruiting veterans and novices alike.

    1. Chase the Non-Expecting Candidates –There are generally two types of candidates, those who are looking for a new job and those who are not. While the actively looking types are great, the non-looking candidates are your ticket to a larger candidate pool. Roughly 70 percent of American workers don’t feel engaged in their jobs, meaning there’s likely a huge chunk of the workforce who are at least open to a conversation about new opportunities. There’s no harm in reaching out to these individuals, nothing bad rarely comes out of a conversation from one professional to another.

    2. Use Modern Tools– 76% of staffing clients and candidates think a staffing firm using the most up-to-date technology differentiates them from the competition. Whether it’s video/mobile interviewing, chatbot integration, artificial intelligence, or simply replacing paper processes with digital ones, technology can have a profound positive impact on the candidate experience. At the end of the day, using modern technology may even save you money.

    Discover how one staffing and recruiting firm saved $160K a year by simply eliminating manual paper-heavy processes in this blog.

    3. Be the recruiter you wish you had– This might seem self-explanatory, but it’s never been more true. Make the candidate experience amazing at every touch point. Be helpful, encouraging and non-pushy. Invest time in developing relationships and frequently ask yourself, “would I find this experience pleasant if I was the candidate?

    If you need some ideas on how to provide the ultimate customer experience, this blog gives you some practical tips.

    4. Optimize your website– First impressions are important, especially when it comes time to recruiting talent. Your website is often the first interaction a candidate will have with your firm, which is why it’s critical to optimize it as best as you can. Make it effortless for talent to easily find and apply for jobs they’re interested in. If you have some form of website analytics like Google Analytics, test certain elements on your website and see what performs the best.

    This blog is chalked full of conversion rate optimization tips to help give you some immediate ideas.

    5. Social media is your best friend– 92 percent of recruiters use social media to evaluate and engage talent…why? Because it’s generally effective, especially when you consider that 74 percent of 18 to 34-year-olds say they found their last job via social media. The tough part is getting good at social media.

    If you’re looking for some ideas around the do’s and don’ts of social media, this tip sheet will help.

    6. Mobile engagement –Candidates expect convenience at every touch point, especially on mobile. When talent is on the go, you’re recruiting efforts should be there to meet them or else you’re rolling the dice on application abandonment. Mobile technology continues to play a bigger role in the recruiting industry, especially with around 70 percent of Americans using a mobile device to find jobs.

    Learning how to be a good recruiter or any staffing professional takes hard work, practice and the ability to try new strategies/ideas. Hopefully this blog post sparks some new recruiting tips to try out in 2019.

    Avionté is a leader in enterprise staffing and recruiting software solutions, offering innovative end-to-end technology solutions to over 900 customers and 25,000 users throughout the U.S. and Canada. Avionté delivers a robust platform for clerical, light industrial, IT and professional staffing firms to maximize profits and boost productivity.

    Click here to view the article online.


  • Thursday, March 14, 2019 9:36 AM | Denise Downing (Administrator)

    Submitted by Haley Marketing

    Ever spend time with a sick toddler?

    When they don’t feel good, they may ask for candy, soda or ice cream – but all the sugar in the world won’t cure a cold. As an adult, you know what they ask for isn’t necessarily what they really need.

    The same logic applies to staffing and recruiting customers:

    Shareworthy Service isn’t always giving a client or candidate what they want.

    Yep, I said it.

    As you know, the staffing and recruiting solutions you provide have evolved to become incredibly powerful business and career-growth tools. But you shouldn’t assume your clients and candidates understand that! In reality, your customers may not truly know what you do for them – or what they need from you.

    Your job?

    Give your customers what they really need.

    Here’s how to do just that, in a way that builds loyalty (and doesn’t make them feel like you’re forcing a

    dose of medicine on them):

    • Get to know them better. Deepen your understanding by approaching the staffing experience from their point of view. Consider their full range of choices when it comes to managing a workforce or finding a job. And if you can’t get the information you need firsthand, do your homework. Rely on market and industry insights and develop buyer personas to “get inside customers’ heads.”
    • Use your ears. Take clients out to lunch. Survey employers and job seekers. Bring customers together for roundtable discussions. Use your active listening skills to learn what they want – and determine how much it coincides with what they need.
    • Balance listening and empathizing with your own expertise. Once you’re sure you understand your customers’ primary pain points, start building a case for your recommendations. Use data, case studies and even your own experience to explain your “prescription” for overcoming their challenges. And don’t be afraid to show a little passion! Expressing strong opinions (when they’re backed by facts) about what your customers really need increases their confidence in you as the expert – building trust and loyalty.
    • Respectfully challenge their thinking. For example, a prospect may think they “need” a temp, when in fact a temp will not resolve a larger underlying business problem. Patiently educate them about the myriad ways you could be more than a staffing vendor and serve as a true workforce and talent acquisition partner. Once you broaden their perspective, use scenario planning to illustrate the ways you could help them solve real business problems.

    Sound like common sense?

    Most of these tips are. Still, when new members join your team or things get really busy, it’s helpful to revisit – and practice – the shareworthy service basics that fuel success for you and customers alike. If you’d like some assistance determining what you really need to generate world-class marketing results, our marketing educators are ready to help!

    Click here to download the article in PDF format.


  • Thursday, February 28, 2019 11:40 AM | Denise Downing (Administrator)

    On 2/19/19 Governor Murphy signed S-2528 into law the changes for TDB and FLI .

    The legislation makes the following important changes, among others, that help to ensure that more workers in New Jersey can access paid family leave and temporary disability so they can afford to take time off when needed:

    • Increases the weekly wage replacement provided to beneficiaries of both programs to 85% of a worker’s average weekly wage, and capped at 70% of the state’s average weekly wage (making the cap $859/week for 2019).
    • Increases the 2019 Taxable Wage Base maximum under UI, TDI and FLI from the current $34,400 to $131,450 - This will happen January 1, 2020. The rates and who is charged( employer or employee) will be decided by the commissioner in September 2019. This may cause all customers in New Jersey to pay a higher cost based on their employer portion charged by NJ State. It does not affect the unemployment Taxable wage base.
    • The minimum wage increase in July 2018 and January 1, 2019 will increase the taxable wage base for all employees affected by minimum wage and other employees looking for higher wages based on the minimum going up. Again costing employers more on their portion of the employer cost.
    • The increase in benefits from 66 2/3% to $650 up to 85% to $859/week will cause an increase in the employer cost- not sure how much at this point.
    • Expands paid time available from 6 to 12 weeks under the FLI program.
    • Expands the definition of a family for which a person can use the FLI program to care for a seriously ill loved one. The expansion would cover grandparents and grandkids, siblings, adult children, parents-in-law, and chosen family.
    • Provides benefits for survivors of domestic violence or sexual assault and for caring for family members who are dealing with issues of domestic or sexual assault.
    • Increases public awareness by requiring additional funding for outreach and education ($1.2 million annually), improves program efficiency by requiring shorter claims processing times, and requires the Department of Labor and Workforce Development (DOLWD) provide relevant additional reporting of program data.
    • Protects workers so that employers may not retaliate against those who request TDI or FLI benefits. Employers who fail to provide the DOLWD with necessary information to process a claim (as required under law), causing a delay in benefits, may be required by the DOLWD to pay an added amount equal to the amount of delayed benefits.
    • Expands job protection for an estimated 200,000 workers employed at companies with 30 to 50 workers while taking FLI leave under the state law, the Family Leave Act (FLA). Under the FLA currently, only workers at companies with 50 or more employees (with other additional qualifications) enjoy job protection when using the FLI program.

    If you have any questions or concerns, Please call our office at 732-842-6200 and speak to myself or Gordon Frederick, Our EVP.

    David Koch, CEO

    Two River Benefits Cell- 848-218-1947

    Click here to download the article as a PDF.

  • Wednesday, February 27, 2019 2:37 PM | Denise Downing (Administrator)

    Good news for partnerships and S corporations (pass-throughs) which can deduct up to 20% of their Qualified Business Income (QBI) under new IRS Section 199(A).

    What is Qualified Business Income?  Qualified Business Income is net income that is received from a Qualified Trade or Business. Capital gains, and dividend and interest income are not considered business income. Guaranteed payments or wages paid to owners are excluded.

    What is a Qualified Trade or Business? A Qualified Trade or Business is any business that is not a Specified Service Business which is defined as a business in the fields of health, law, accounting, financial services and other consulting services.

    Income Limitation for Specified Service Trade or Businesses Owners of a Specified Service Trade or Business may take the QBI Deduction if their taxable income is below $157,500 for single filers ($315,000 for Married Filing Joint) to be eligible for the full deduction.

    How is the QBI Deduction Calculated? The QBI Deduction usually is the smaller of 20% of Qualified Business Income or 20% of taxable income. For example, a staffing owner of an S-corporation has $400,000 of QBI. His taxable income is $300,000, (below the income limitation). Therefore, his QBI deduction is $60,000, which is 20% of his taxable income.

    Good news for staffing firms and real estate investors! The IRS clarified that staffing firms and the rental of property to a related business are Qualified Businesses for the QBI deduction with no income limitation. Other rental real estate properties may also qualify if the activity rises to the level of a business.

    Limitations for Qualified Businesses – Staffing firms and rental businesses have no income limitations but may be limited based on the business’s W-2 wages and unadjusted basis in qualified property. The amount of the tax deduction will vary depending on the specific taxpayer circumstances.

    Want to maximize your deduction? Regardless of your income level, there are numerous tax moves staffing owners can do to maximize this new Sec 199(A) deduction- even for 2018!

    BY: Pamela Avraham, CPA, Partner, Urbach & Avraham, CPAs which provides accounting and tax services to staffing agencies. Pamela may be reached at 732-777-1158 or pma@ua-cpas.com Firm website is www.ua-cpas.com

    Click here to download the article as a PDF.

  • Wednesday, February 27, 2019 2:35 PM | Denise Downing (Administrator)

    By Terri Herrmann

    Recruiters who think like marketers have the edge in today’s candidate-driven talent market.

    That’s the belief at the core of recruitment marketing, the practice of developing and communicating a value proposition to job candidates in the same way marketers do to customers. Customer-journey mapping is a proven practice in the marketing field, and recruiters can adopt the same approach to map their candidate experiences.

    The candidate journey is well worth charting, especially now that there are more open jobs than available workers. This imbalance creates a decisively candidate-driven market, so much so that hiring managers and recruiters are getting ghosted with alarming frequency.

    From a recruitment standpoint, the challenge is to provide a truly differentiating experience for candidates. Nobody is debating that point: In a 2018 Montage survey of talent acquisition leaders, 99 percent of respondents rated the candidate experience as their top priority. However, far fewer talent acquisition leaders have successful strategies for delivering the modern hiring experience today’s candidates prefer. That’s where recruitment marketing comes into play.

    Why Recruitment Marketing?

    It is important to draw a distinction between recruiting basics and recruitment marketing.

    Recruitment marketing doesn’t involve putting a job ad up on the usual job boards; that is simply a baseline expectation of recruiting. Instead, recruitment marketing — like external marketing — is about taking a programmatic approach. In the same way that enterprise marketers use the attention, interest, desire, and action (AIDA) model to trace audience engagement across specific stages of the marketing process, recruiters can adopt a phase-driven approach to attracting talent.

    There are several key advantages to making recruitment marketing a priority. First, recruitment marketing helps you attract more qualified candidates. By marketing to prospective employees in a more personalized and specific way, recruiters are more likely to attract candidates whose values align with the organizations.

    Another key benefit of effective recruitment marketing is reducing time to hire. The hiring cycle — from job posting to accepted job offer and onboarding — is costly from a budget and resource perspective. By supporting the creation of a pipeline of more qualified candidates, recruitment marketing reduces the time spent on unqualified candidates and enables recruiters to get the right candidates in front of hiring managers more quickly.

    Finally, recruitment marketing helps drive retention. When candidates have a consistent, personalized experience starting from their very first point of interaction with a prospective employer, it helps create goodwill that candidates carry with them into their new roles.

    Recruitment Marketing Through the Hiring Cycle

    Recruitment marketing starts with candidate engagement, but it certainly doesn’t end there. Here’s how recruiters can strategically harness recruitment marketing at every stage of hiring:

    1. Engagement

    Marketing-focused recruiters should focus on delivering engagement beyond what is expected to drive increased candidate awareness and interest. This begins with refreshing your company’s careers site. If it only features job postings, you are missing a huge opportunity. From a recruitment marketing perspective, your careers site should play a critical role in delivering and defining the candidate experience.

    A well-marketed careers site is less a listing of open roles than a portal into the employee experience. This portal should include an accurate description of your recruitment process, as well as an engaging look at a day in the life of your organization and the culture the company cultivates. Don’t make candidates mine for this gold; give it to them right out of the gate. Your careers site should be a total recruitment marketing package that features employee testimonials, messages from company leaders, and illustrations of team-building and employee camaraderie. Take every opportunity to tell these stories via video.

    2. Interview

    This is arguably the most important phase in the recruitment journey. For employers, it is about finding the right fit and making smarter hiring decisions. However, in today’s candidate-driven market, interviews are also about selling your organization and role to your candidates. A big part of making that appeal involves engaging with candidates on their terms.

    Consider, for instance, the communication preferences of the modern candidate. Generally speaking, today’s candidates are big on communication flexibility and prefer texting to phone calls. You can modernize the interview phase to suit these preferences by integrating on-demand text and video interviewing into your process.

    3. Hire

    Recruitment marketing doesn’t end when a candidate accepts your offer. Instead, it evolves. If the first two phases of the process are about marketing the job, this final phase is about marketing the long-term employment experience.

    Transparency is the most important marketing strategy during the hire phase. It is important to approach onboarding as a time to communicate clearly and transparently what it’s like to work with management and the team.

    Still on the fence about recruitment marketing? Imagine if a chief marketing officer suddenly decided to stop prioritizing external marketing strategies and instead focused exclusively on internal efforts. Objectively, they would only be doing half of their job. Recruiters should think about recruitment marketing in the same way: If they approach their roles with the traditional mindset, they’re not doing their jobs the way today’s market demands.

    In 2019, you can’t just post a job — you have to sell it, too. Just as marketers guide customers through the buyer’s journey, recruiters should take candidates on journeys of their own to sell the job and lay the foundation for long-term satisfaction and retention


  • Wednesday, February 27, 2019 2:30 PM | Denise Downing (Administrator)

    The era of the specialized Rolodex as the main way to differentiate recruiters is over. LinkedIn killed it. This is not to say that talent-acquisition professionals can no longer add value, however. On the contrary, technological change has made it possible for recruiters to make themselves more critical to organizations than ever before. Recruiters, however, need to adapt and focus their value proposition on five main areas to remain relevant in the new digital era of talent acquisition. They can do this by following these steps:

    Step 1: Help hiring managers define the correct search strategy

    Asking insightful questions is essential to defining the correct search strategy. Strong recruiters will play a crucial role as thought partners in conversations with hiring managers, even if that means breaking the traditional transactional recruiter relationship. At a recent conference, Nellie Peshkov, Netflix’s Vice President of Talent Acquisition, and one of the leading thinkers in the field, explained, “Our value in talent acquisition is really about coaching, guiding, providing creative thinking and strategies for that hiring manager.” Michael Orozco, one of Netflix’s recruiters, added that while some recruiters ask their hiring manager, ‘What do you want?,’ Netflix recruiters ask questions such as, ‘Why are you looking for them?’ and ‘How will they make an impact?’

    Recruiters often receive frantic calls from hiring managers looking to fill roles–convincing them to take a step back can be difficult, but valuable. For example, one of our clients recently asked us to urgently hire him a VP of New Retail to support the large number of new stores their company planned to open. “Find me someone who did this at Starbucks,” he told us. Since the coffee chain had also rapidly opened new stores, our client believed a candidate with experience there would have the right skillset to manage a large number of building contractors while recruiting and training staff for the new stores.

    Instead of leaping off into a search for executives at Starbucks or similar chains, we asked him to describe the main challenges his company’s new stores typically face. The discussion helped our client realize that contrary to his original belief, attracting sufficient foot traffic due to his company’s weak brand recognition was their primary challenge. He therefore concluded that a background at Starbucks was likely to be the absolute wrong profile he needed. A few minutes invested upfront in such discussions will allow recruiters to focus their efforts from the beginning of a search, target more ideal profiles and land candidates faster.

    Step 2: Get the best candidates to apply

    A 2016 SilkRoad study of 13 million applicants and 300,000 hires at 1,200 companies revealed that the ‘post-and-pray’ strategy still is the most popular way of hiring candidates. That is, 42% of hires came from postings roles on job boards and company websites. Recruiter sourced candidates represented only 10% of hires.

    While job postings have some benefits, hoping that star performers will fall into your lap, during the lowest period of unemployment in nearly fifty years, is not advisable. Successful recruiters help organizations by building a repeatable and a scalable formula for finding and engaging star performers. Recruiters can do this by experimenting with and increasing the efficiency of other sourcing channels.

    At our firm, we have found the following through trial and error of thousands of messages when actively sourcing candidates:

    • For some roles, emails to candidates that do not include a job description are 27% more efficient than those that do. This could be because candidates have more trust in emails without a link or attachment, or it could be that emails with job descriptions are longer.
    • Personalized emails are about 75% more effective than generic ones.
    • LinkedIn messages are about six times (!) more effective than emails for parts of the candidate pool.

    Step 3: Select the best of the best

    The next step is to help hiring managers better understand how to predict job performance. Google’s recruiting team is perhaps the best in the world at this: they help hiring managers understand what categories of questions they should ask candidates and even provides hiring managers with sample questions they can ask. In his book Work Rules! Laszlo Bock, former SVP of People Operations at Google, described how he helped reduce bias in Google’s interview process by having hiring decisions made by an independent committee and incorporating structured interview questions and job knowledge tests into their process.

    Step 4: Get candidates over the finish line

    Strong recruiters will help hiring managers get candidates over the finish line by helping their companies create a positive candidate experience as well as organizing and managing the interview and offer process. One candidate we spoke with who had recently declined an offer cited how she had originally been excited about the company’s pitch about being entrepreneurial and fast-moving, but started doubting if this was true when their interview process dragged on for three months.

    Step 5: Evaluate

    Finally, recruiters should evaluate their hiring practices on an ongoing basis and apply an iterative process to continuously improve their methods. Without establishing this critical step, it is difficult to determine what is working, and what isn’t. For instance, job knowledge tests may be predictive of job performance at Google, but have they been as successful at your organization?

    Our own testing underscores this point, as we have found that methods that were highly effective two years ago no longer work. One simple example is that by using a candidate’s first name in the email subject line, we used to get up to twice as many candidates to engage in our searches. Now, perhaps because this tactic has been over-used, we have abandoned this approach as it no longer increases candidate engagement.

    CEOs who position their talent acquisition teams to follow these five steps will gain a significant advantage in attracting the right talent in the new era of talent acquisition.

    Click here to access the article online.


Click on the dates below for Staffing Online News archives from 2017 and 2018.  

Upcoming Events

News

Contact NJSA

New Jersey Staffing Alliance
P. O. Box 518
Mount Laurel, NJ 08054
Tel: 973-283-0072
Fax: 856-727-9504

NJSA New Jersey Staffing Alliance Logo

Copyright 2018 - New Jersey Staffing Alliance (NJSA)

Powered by Wild Apricot Membership Software