Exceptionally well said!

Dr. Sullivan,

Fantastic article. Probably the most accurate and well articulated state-of-the-HR-Technology-state I?ve seen. As the author of the claim that ?our solutions create heroes in the organization? (it?s nice to know that message cut through the clutter), I couldn?t agree more with your assessment of our space.

Implementing HR or HR Staffing software generally doesn?t make someone a hero, and likewise it shouldn?t take a heroic effort to pull it off. However, as senior leaders do expect more from HR in supporting the strategic objectives of the organization, many na?vely look to technology and system integration as the cure-all. ?If we can just get the data from our performance management system to flow into our ATS, Onboarding and compensation systems, and link that to our training catalog via competency library we can create an enterprise-wide, integrated talent strategy, complete with pre/post employment assessments, behavioral-based interview questions, SMART goals, pay-for-performance (take a breath), incentive management, succession planning, career pathing, Offboarding, contingent worker programs, alumni portals, CRM, passive candidate tools, and workforce planning.?

Pick any two of those functions, go to senior management with a cogent business case to integrate them, develop some key metrics to support business decisions and organizational objectives and your CEO or CFO may actually hug you. Then they?ll give you all the money you need.

Now go to the head of Compensation and the head of OD, you?ll need to bring in IT of course, and don?t forget to bring the head of Corporate Recruiting in (you?ll just be asking for a few changes to the way they do business) and you might want to get some line managers involved so they don?t feel ?left out? of the purchase decision. Anyone we missed? Well probably, but you won?t know until the passive-aggressive stuff really starts to undermine your efforts.

Now, convince all these folks that the way they?ve been doing business in their silos is about to change. Exactly.

Without question the technology has stalled in delivering diminishing returns on process efficiency and cost reduction, in many cases. Moving data, integrating systems, developing metrics and improving processes across functions is at the heart of every technology solution and easy by comparison with changing the organization?s behavior.

Innovation isn?t dead inside the vendor walls, it simply has little application in a world so desiring of integrated ?value?, yet so resistant to change.

On the front lines of HCM, where real people try to bring real change, we are absolutely witnessing heroes at work. Not because they implement an application or two, of find a nice fit for technology, but because they brake down the walls and crush the silos and focus on the people, NOT the technology. The implementation alone didn?t make them a hero, the fact that they were able to get people, teams, departments, and locations excited about the possibilities of sharing, collaborating and winning together did. And finally, they aren?t being heralded as heroes by us ? the vendor, but by their own people in their own words, who roar about their amazing ability to get folks working together.

Thanks for the great discussion.

? The ‘Big Picture

Premise #1- The recruiting applicant tracking and ‘job search board’ field is highly fragmented and is ‘ripe’ for consolidation for the purpose of better standardized tools. The confusion and lack of credibility of ‘closed’ systems that do not provide value, lend to this proposition that Client Companies would benefit by having 5-10 major vendors that provide much better solutions based on the type of problem a company wants to ’solve’ and the solution that can be provided in each category.

Out Bound Recruiting Processes

#1- Applicant tracking systems that are integrated with resume search tools (Like Infogist/TalentHook) for an ‘Out Bound’ Recruiting process.

In-Bound Recruiting Processes

#2- Job boards that are better integrated with ‘matching’ services that do not only allow candidates to match their resume to jobs posted and ‘push out’ a typically not very accurate response profile of jobs listed, but an introverted ‘push’ that matches the clients job orders to match the candidates skills posted on the career boards (as well as candidate resumes that they have accumulated on their own hosted web sites) and providing a list of ‘matches’ so that instead of wading through 1,000’s of resumes with hundreds of staff, their recruiting staff could be 4-5 times more productive (looking at a summary list of the top candidates in the particular ‘bandwidth’ 90-100% ‘fit’, 80-89% ‘fit’ etc. ) so that one recruiter could work on 3-5 job postings per day/week based on the amount of candidates the ‘match’ produced (instead of wading through 1,000’s like they do now to try to manually/mentally make a ‘match’ based on their experience or knowledge of the title/role which may or may not ‘match’ the picture the hiring manager has for the same role (So communication can be administered more quickly and a new ‘understanding’ profile/criteria can be put in to more quickly ‘drill down’ the requirements and improve process (from 45 days beta efforts to >30 days (27-29 average) times as well).

? 12,500 resumes received on their web site
? 2,500 candidates (80% Reduction – 20% ‘top performers)
? 73 candidates identified (3% top performers ‘fit’)
? 15 second round interviews (.0012 % ‘fit’)
? 2 Hired so far in week 3
? ========================================================
? 45 day + recruiting/interviewing/hiring cycle reduced to >30 days (27-29) average
? Reduced recruiter head count by 1/3
? Made current recruiters 4-5 times more productive
? How long do you think it takes 3, 5,?? Recruiters to get through this many resumes before they identify a ?candidate?, contact them, and BEGIN a 45 day PLUS Interviewing/Hiring process?
The ‘inverted pyramid’ of sales
Premise #2- There is still a lot of potential for a ‘push’ (DCOM) Model for candidates. If the client is not ’spammed’ with resumes (or even if they are) and they received all candidates from the ‘Top 3′ career boards (Careerbuilder, Monster & DICE as examples), now the value proposition becomes:
#1- Companies do not have to pay the outlandish cost of the job boards, top 50 recruiting firms will subscribe to them, ‘Harvest resumes with tools like Infogist & TalentHook (as well as public information from Broadlook.com/Profiler & Eclipse) and be able to submit RSS like ‘FEEDS’ directly to the clients (Business model below) who can afford them. The eliminates recruiters as the ‘middle men’ to all but the 3rd tier firms who cannot afford the price of the ticket to get ‘first swing’ at the best candidates and they are continually left to the 3rd tier ?pick of the litter? type candidates and that drives the Forbes Platinum 400 list to newer highs and the bottom feeders to new lows or non -existence. This paradigm and shift causes the automation of the slowest part of the recruiting process (on the Client Interface side for Recruiting/Interviewing/Hiring process) to become more efficient for the Big F500/1000 to compete against smaller/more nimble competitors who smaller size may give them a hiring advantage, but a less competitive financial advantage in acquiring people.
#2- The built in ‘Screening’ and ‘matching capability eliminates the ‘time overhead’ experience by most large organizations who do not have an ‘out bound’ recruiting methodology’ (Searching for candidates actively or using supplemental firms to provide them with candidates but for very exclusive or sensitive searches (Retained & Contingency) or contractors. The ‘One Stop Shopping’ Aspect could consolidate the ‘Direct Hire’ and Contractor chasm that currently exists and marry the capabilities to provide for both in one place as a result of the separation of the types of worker/resource vs. the type of interface needed to hire/recruit/retain these resources. Large ORGS sifting of inbound web site traffic is reduced so that ‘outbound’ efforts can be accomplished as well. College recruiting and other functions can be integrated into this picture in a fairly seamless manner as well. The ‘first impression’ factor of meeting ‘face-to-face’ on the college campuses and making an impression can be supplemented by fast turn around response to impress the candidates that the recruiting company is not only interested, but efficient and organized in their efforts to succeed.

#3- AJAX technology that enables better ‘real time’ results instead of dated (7,14,30 or Greater) Candidates lists. Daily, Hourly candidate submission to Job Board sites that allow the Client to ’station’ recruiters’ on the boards so that like a ’stock market’ exchange, a candidate can expect a response. One of the biggest fallacies and disappointments of the Internet is a ‘lack of response when applying for a job. What if putting your job on a job board was like ‘blasting’ your resume to 8,000 recruiters and 10M companies at once. Once you were available, you post your resume, it gets screened by the system for employers/recruiters that are looking for a ’skills match’ or DNA of the resume and within minutes an RSS ‘feed’ gives back a 95% accurate match to the candidate and the client on the paid subscription model and like a posting on E-Bay for an auction, a ‘Bid’ is produced (By artificial Intelligence algorithm or neural language matching system) from the inquiring company either via technology or a in-house person auditing a ‘resource board’ who bids for the resource (by $ amount to secure a place in line to call or contact the candidate/resource so they are not overwhelmed with phone calls or emails. The candidate see’s the ‘top 10′ and can view investigate the company online (Hot Gigs Views capability’) and respond to the opportunity that they like the best, and the Platinum/Gold/Silver/Bronze companies get exclusive access to make a call/email based on
The subscription model they have established (See Business Model below). The Client Companies are the first to monitor the page as they see as opportunities and get the first contact ‘privilege’ and opportunity to present their career opening/opportunity, The candidate gets some ‘choice’, that only after clicking on the first 10 opportunities do they get the next 10 and so on.

I do not know how much money or how technically involved your client wants to get, but if they have a site or usage for ‘real time’ data being available on the internet there is a new term ‘AJAX’ that has been grouped with a technological capability (Asynchronous Java and XML) that allows the company to ‘push’ data from the server out to the web site and gives capability that is currently ‘new and exciting’ as well as offering a competitive advantage (if there is an application like ‘pushing out candidates to clients that are available that are on an ‘opt – in’ list to get the first candidates ‘preview’ available (before their competitors) and a subscription model to this ‘Hot List’ and a limited amount of clients (100 – 1000) that receive the ‘Hotlist’ in a highest bidder ‘Supply/Demand’ Relationship (Those who pay for the ‘Platinum’ access get the Candidates for 5 days FIRST before their competitor in the ‘Gold’ category gets them for 3 days SECOND then to the SILVER category for 2 DAYS THIRD to the Bronze Category who gets them for 1 Day LAST).

Clearly recruiters are more like sales professionals than HR professionals. (This is not a knock against HR, just an acknowledgment that we are different)

Is there a single ATS that allows for passive candidate management, competitive corporate intelligence, and A WAY TO MANAGE THE DAILY CALL ACTIVITIES of the recruiter?

Clearly no one at these ATS companies has ever tried to manage calling 40-50 people a day, day in and day out managing a passive candidate pipeline!!

If corporate recruiting would simply stand up and demonstrate that we are profit centers as clearly as the sales teams, we could demand the same tools and rights as the sales organization.

Who would want or suggest CRM tools that only tracked the customers that called you for a quote?

This is just the tip of the iceberg as great CRM tools cut across the organization from sales to manufacturing to receivables. What if your Recruiting CRM cut across the human capital game into employee referrals, on-boarding, compensation, development, talent management, succession planning and alumni networks allowing the recruiter to integrate to the rest of the company?

Well that is ‘too much for the recruiting role’ you might say. Well, what would sales say to being cut off from the rest of the organization?

The point is that the modern ATS does more to isolate and reinforce the notion that we are simply HR process than it does to integrate us into the business. The ‘Executive’ team now takes pride in the fact that we can effectively manage 30-60 requisitions and points to cost per hire and time to hire as the Holy Grail.

What has this done to the quality of our work?
What is going to happen to us when it is not just one or two positions for which there are no qualified applicants and stay open for 365 days?

The return to a candidate’s market will crush these recruiters when they have 30-40 open positions without a candidate/applicant in sight…but they sure can track that they don’t have a candidate.

I don’t mean to lay the blame at the recruiter’s feet, rather if me/you/we don’t start seeing the world as flat, the world as one in which candidates rule and start changing the way we add value in this world…simply put…you will be outsourced.

Regards,

Jim Poirot
ADVO http://www.advo.com
Sales Talent Acquisition Manager
860.285.6212 / jfpoirot@advo.com

We recently converted from one software provider to another, because our original vendor’s company was bought out.

Frankly, the experience was horrible. Some of the problem lay on our side (merging 3 databases into a single one is not recommended for the faint of heart!), much of it was a total lack of customer service, once the sale was made.

That aside, there are issues that Dr. Sullivan either briefly touched on, or did not chose to cover, especially relating to the 3rd party world.

A. Programs written for the convenience of programmers.

B. ‘Gee-Whiz’ features are wonderful, but can you train or convince your users to actually use them?

C. Does your staff NEED these features you are paying for? As an example, our software allows many complex search functions, including full Boolean SQL querries. Out of 16 users, possibly two, even with repeated training, know or want to know how to do that….

Just some meanderings, folks. On a final note, Dr. Sullivan’s comment on ‘increased revenue’ is dead on. I’ve never met a business owner or executive who will balk at spending money if it makes more money.

Google has delightful recruiters, by the way. When your standards are sky high, you commit the resources to meet those goals! I’ve referred people to Google recruiting contacts, knowing they don’t pay fees, just because I thought that person would love the company.

I would love to connect with my fellow ERE members on LinkedIn.

Sincerely,

Jon Williamson IT Manager, Webmaster, Candidate Recruiting

Williamson Employment Services, Inc.
213 Hilltop Rd.
St. Joseph, MI 49085

Are you LinkedIn? If so, send me a connection request!
If not, visit my profile at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonwilliamson for information.

My Main Phone: 269-353-4735
Fax: 269-983-8955
Cell Phone: 269-325-5559
Corporate Office: 269-983-0142 or 800-226-6801
Skype: williamson_jon
Gtalk: williamsonjon
email: jw@williamsonemployment.com

Other IM contact information available on request