ERE.net » Scott Weston

Quality of Hire: The Holy Grail of Recruiting

Scott Weston — Wed, 03 Dec 2003 19:00:00 +0000

Because quality issues are a focus of mine in the recruiting industry, I have a lot of people coming to me and asking me to weigh in on quality of hire. How do we measure it? What does it really mean? I’ve started referring to quality of hire as the Holy Grail of Recruiting, because many of us are searching for it ó although our visions often differ in what it’s supposed to look like and how we go about finding it. I have some thoughts here that might help shorten your quest. What Is Quality? As we talk about quality of hire, it is important to understand the term quality in a standardized business context. The American Society for Quality provides this definition: Quality: A subjective term for which each person has his or her own definition. In technical usage, quality can have two meanings: 1) the characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs, and 2) a product or service free of deficiencies. So let’s shelve definition number two for the moment (a product or service free of deficiencies) ó though that could be used to apply to candidates who make it through background screenings, skills testing, or other things that could be used to identify deficiencies. Since most usage is in the context of quality of hire, we are assuming that the candidate has been hired and we are looking at their ability to “satisfy stated or implied needs.” In other words, once you hire a candidate, do they do the job that you hired them for? Because of the subjective nature of the term, I recommend you avoid using the word quality in your manager surveys, performance evaluations, or other follow-ups that you use to gather your quality-of-hire metric. Don’t ask managers to “rate the overall quality of the new hire.” Instead, be specific about requirements to keep your measures as objective as possible. The Bigger Question: What are You Going To Do With It? Moving forward with a framework of quality of hire that means to satisfy required needs, you need to stop and ask some more basic questions:

Why are you measuring quality of hire?

What are you going to do with this metric?

Before you can come up with effective ways to measure quality of hire, you must at least answer those two questions. If, at the end of the day, the results of your measurement are that everyone can sleep better because, “Yup, we’re hiring good people,” then you need to take a closer look at your efforts. Consider these questions:

Is your quality-of-hire metric being used simply as a re-recording of initial performance measures, or is it also being used as a rich feedback loop to improve your recruiting efforts?
What about improving your on-boarding, development, and employee retention efforts?

If you’re not making improvements with quality of hire, it is not as effective a metric as it could be. Make a key purpose of measuring the qualitative results of your work to be to improve the quality of your work. Making the Connection While measuring the performance of the new hire will tell us something about whether he or she is meeting requirements, you need to then make the connection back to the recruiting process. You need to establish what can be learned to improve the recruiting process on an ongoing basis and to ensure continuous quality. For example:

Did you go through a particular selection process that helped get you a superior candidate? How can you validate this result?
Are there contextual things to be included in the recruiting process such as selecting, not only for the job requirements, but also to get a good match of personality types with the manager and peers?
If you got a superior candidate, how can you get that caliber of candidate on an ongoing basis?

Again, the key here is to figure out how to improve your recruiting process and achieve consistent results. Conclusion Quality is a subjective term and concept, and how it is measured will vary from organization to organization. No matter where you are though, you will never be able to demonstrate quality of hire if you don’t start with clear requirements. One step in doing this will be to stop asking managers and other evaluators about the quality of the hire and be more specific about requirements. This will help you identify objective measures. Beyond gauging performance against requirements, you must make a careful effort to be attuned to the qualitative results of your recruiting efforts so that you can improve the quality of your future results. This means that not only should you measure quality of hire, but you should also use it as an active feedback loop to constantly improve how you recruit. As we get better at understanding and defining what quality of hire is and what it means to us, we will be that much closer to achieving it.

Show Me The Money! Demonstrating the ROI of Recruiting Efforts

Scott Weston — Wed, 29 Oct 2003 19:00:00 +0000

A colleague of mine recently pointed out that his organization’s executive management does not count savings in time created through process improvement unless it can be shown as a reduction in headcount. That is to say, saving a recruiter an hour a day through some kind of process improvement is not assumed to mean that the recruiter is putting that time savings into other value-added activities and doing a better job recruiting. Unless it’s quite obvious that labor costs are going down or recruiter efficiency ratios are going up, the savings is hypothetical in the eyes of senior management ó that is, the savings doesn’t exist. This is the hard-line business approach that most C-level executives take in viewing the return on investment (ROI) of their recruiting department’s operations. ROI impacts their profit and loss statements, and, though the qualitative aspects of recruiting are something that smart executives are mindful of, your efforts are often considered administrative rather than strategic. If recruiting is to become a strategic player (otherwise known as “having a chair at the big table”), it is necessary to make the case with both hard- and soft-dollar savings and a clear demonstration of ever-increasing ROI. Hard Dollars In defining what hard dollars are, the element of being tangible is the key. Savings have to be measurable and quantifiable. What some consider to be hard-dollar savings depends on whom you talk to. As stated earlier, some organizations do not consider time unless it is further converted into tangible labor costs. Clearly, dollar savings that directly reflect in recruiting budgets are considered hard-dollar savings. For example, money that was budgeted for relocation that was not used through improved measures is considered a hard-dollar savings. Soft Dollars When service levels are improved or when additional expenses are not accrued (not having to pay overtime, for example), these are considered soft costs. These are the intangible elements that comprise a great deal of most process-improvement efforts: improved customer service, reduced stress from work, fewer mistakes that have to be corrected, and all of the other benefits that cascade outward into every area of an organization. While the qualitative aspect of recruiting is very important, the challenge for recruiters is to try to translate soft-dollar savings into hard-dollar savings. For example, speeding up the time to hire of a salesperson can be translated into revenue from the quota that salesperson will generate. Those are hard dollars and what your CEO will take note of and see the value in. The Past, Present, and Future Just like the three ghosts of Past, Present, and Future in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, think about where you have been, where you are at, and where you are going. To demonstrate your case to senior management, you may need to walk them through how things have been done in the past and how you do them now. While none of us want to point out how much time and money we have wasted in the past, looking at it to build a case for change can be very evocative. Once you have shown what has happened in the past and brought things to the present, you can use this to build a case for change. Like the Ghost of Christmas Future, project what your recruiting department will look like if you don’t make certain changes now. What will the costs be in one year? Two years? Five years? This is the case that must be made to justify improvements and investment in things like improved technology. For example, how much time will be saved through a better applicant tracking system? Do you know? Can you estimate this? Can you articulate the savings? Can you show how much time was wasted using the existing methods and how that will be improved? While predicting savings in the future is guesswork to a certain degree, your predictions can be taken more seriously the better you support them with historical and current data. In addition, being fluid about time savings in the future can demonstrate your understanding of the unknown elements that can impact projected efficiency. With that in mind, future savings can be given as a range, with a conservative to optimistic scope. Conclusion Much has been said about the dangers of assumptions. Assuming that senior management clearly understands the value of the work you do is a dangerous endeavor. It is the job of your department to really sell the value that you are bringing to the organization and to demonstrate the ROI that you are creating. To demonstrate the ROI of your efforts, it is necessary to effectively collect your data, analyze it, and then prove your case. This should include involving your CFO or controller to have them help you define the scorecard they will use to judge your efforts. They can tell you what they will view as hard and soft costs and give you baselines of improvements that they will take note of or even be impressed by. Whether you are proving the quality of your current work or making a pitch for investment in the future, it is important to build a solid case with clear data that speaks to the hard-dollar needs of senior management.

Six Sigma, Part 5: The Voice of the Customer

Scott Weston — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 19:00:00 +0000

Quality can be such an elusive term, particularly in recruiting and hiring. It is inherently subjective, and its definition varies depending on whom you talk to and what’s at stake. But when we talk about Six Sigma and process improvement, quality is best defined as meeting the customer’s requirements. In other words, the customer determines what quality means through their expectations. If your organization meets these expectations, you have achieved quality in their eyes. That sounds pretty simple, but it brings up the more difficult question: What does the customer really want? One of the most critical aspects of Six Sigma is the focus on the voice of the customer. This is not just a trite nod to the customer ó it is a concept that comprises a set of tools that are meant to capture and understand what it is that the customer wants. Once you have this baseline information, it helps you translate those wants into measurable requirements that will allow you to gauge whether or not you are meeting your customer’s expectations. Determining Your Customers When you think about who your customer is, it is critical to think in terms of the various internal and external customers that you serve. Who do you interact with on a daily or weekly basis? Who do you supply a service to? Who is impacted by what you do at your organization? These are all your customers on some level. In prioritizing your customer interactions, there are three key voices (customer groups) that recruiting professionals need to focus on:

Hiring managers, departments, groups or teams

Candidates, applicants, and prospects
Senior management (CEO, CFO, board of directors, department heads)

These are by no means the only customers you work with regularly. There are a multitude of other internal and external customers, including other departments like finance and payroll, as well as college placement offices, third-party recruiting firms, and other vendors. Because recruiting professionals serve several different customers, it is necessary to balance and prioritize their sometimes conflicting needs. For example, you must balance the requirements of senior management, which wants to manage the bottom line, with the hiring manager, who wants the highest-level candidate, and then finally with the candidates themselves, who desire the highest-level salary. Navigating these issues on a daily basis while trying to meet the needs of each customer can be quite a challenge. Gathering Customer Information Identifying exactly what your customers want is something that is often best determined through a variety of methods, including:

Surveys
Focus groups
Interviews
Market research

Obviously, you cannot ask every applicant in detail what they want. But you can get a good feel through continuous feedback loops from new hires or interviews with candidates who rejected offer letters from you. There are also other indicators that can help you understand what it is that candidates want. Careful analysis of your career website visits through page hits and usage times can help you understand what information is most interesting to candidates, which can lead you to some hypotheses to explore further. With any type of research, it is important to get an understanding of broader issues and then to go through stages of refining and expanding on information to understand the specific issues. For example, you should conduct focus groups and market research to craft a survey that covers the key customer issues in your organization. You can then follow those up with individual interviews to gather more specific information based on your findings from the survey. While this may only serve to validate the beliefs you have about what your customers want, clearly knowing this information and double-checking it is critical to achieve excellence in your operations. Translating and Prioritizing I expect you might be saying to yourself, “I know what my customers want!” Do you really? Could you sit down and list out what all of their requirements are and then prioritize them in order of importance? There are several tools in Six Sigma, such as affinity diagrams and tree charts, which will help you take the guesswork out of translating these wants into clear requirements. This will help you determine what the customer considers critical to quality. By taking a more systematic approach, you can then translate your customers’ needs into specific requirements that can be prioritized and measured against. Be prepared to find that a great deal more might be important to your customer than you originally thought. What will probably be more enlightening is identifying a prioritization of what they want. This might surprise you. Remember that your customers are the only ones who can determine value-adds for your organization. If a customer doesn’t see something as valuable, then you should focus your improvement initiatives elsewhere. Too much effort is wasted on things that customers never really cared about. While each candidate and hiring manager might have a little bit different view of what they think is critical to quality, understanding the broader issues will allow you to allocate scarce recruiting resources effectively. The Focus on the Customer To achieve quality in what you do, it is critical to be clear about what it is your customers really want and expect from you. While this may seem like something you think you already know, taking the time to carefully determine this can be a critical step in ensuring you deliver. Once you understand this, you can effectively translate the customer’s needs into measurable requirements that can be prioritized and used to allocate your own time and resources. If you want to utilize the tools in Six Sigma to drive your metrics and to move towards excellence in your operations, you must systematically understand the needs of your customers. Quality is conformance to the customer’s requirements. If you don’t clearly understand what these are, you cannot and will not ever meet them. As a recruiting professional, you probably work extremely hard?but even when you think you went the extra mile, you might just be going a mile in the wrong direction. Only your customers can say for certain. Take the time to find out what they want.

Six Sigma In Recruiting, Part 4: Lean Hiring

Scott Weston — Mon, 25 Aug 2003 19:00:00 +0000

After covering some of the main tenets of Six Sigma in previous articles in this series, I am going to throw another term at you: Lean. You might be thinking to yourself, “Lean? My budget and headcount have been cut so lean that I’m amazed we can still get anything done!” While the term Lean might seem rudimentary at first glance, it isn’t. This is a concept that, like Six Sigma, was originally developed in a manufacturing environment and can be successfully applied to other service functions like recruiting and hiring. Rather than just trying to get by with less, Lean offers an organized and sophisticated approach to speeding up operations and improving metrics like time-to-fill. What is Lean? While Six Sigma translates into reduced errors, less variation, and increased customer satisfaction, Lean translates primarily into speed. Lean seeks to reduce the cycle time of a business process by eliminating things that do not add value and reducing the costs associated with these (e.g., eliminating unnecessary steps in a requisition approval process, or eliminating the costs of re-sourcing for candidates who were lost because they were left hanging too long). To clarify, Lean is a whole methodology unto itself, and some organizations take this approach without ever utilizing Six Sigma. The combination of these two approaches though (referred to as Lean Six Sigma) is a perfect blending of quality and speed. Value Mapping A key tenet of Lean is to map out processes and figure out where efficiencies can be created. This means literally drawing out a flow chart of your recruiting and hiring process and associating time with each step. While this might seem a bit literal, taking the time to do this can be helpful in visualizing how your organization’s work really gets done. While recruiting is not as systematic as manufacturing, the process is often less structured than it could be. Taking into account the fluid nature of the business, a more efficient method can normally be created. After a complete process map is created, some key questions are asked at every step:

How can we do this quicker?

Does this add value for the customer?
Does this add value for the business?

For example, if a requisition process involves going to someone for a signature and the signature is rarely, if ever, not given, then that step might be a good candidate to be eliminated. Why must that person sign it? Why isn’t the responsibility delegated? This might be the way you have always done something, but creating efficiency means rethinking the status quo and asking tough questions. Identifying the time traps and steps that are not adding value in the process will help to streamline operations. Often, these non-value-added activities might account for 20% or more of the process time. How would your upper management respond to a 20% or better increase in time-to-hire? Time Is Money In recruiting, like most things in business, time is money. For example, putting a salesperson into an empty territory 20% faster can translate into significant shareholder value. We know this, but we also know that slapping bodies into chairs too quickly can be counterproductive for the organization. There must be a balance. As you look at metrics, such as time to fill and time to start, you must dig deeper to understand the details of the process that can lead to improvements. This can be as specific as understanding the variations in efficiency between individual recruiters. What makes Recruiter A faster than Recruiter B? Is it because one is more experienced? Or is it because one is just a better recruiter? While skill and experience weigh into productivity, there are probably process-related activities that differentiate them. Cost Versus Time Lean methods carefully orchestrate activities in the most efficient way possible, but the focus is always on making the overall outcome more efficient ó not just on cutting corners. For example, an investment in better screening tools earlier in the process may save wasted effort and costs later. What is the average daily cost of an open seat at your organization? As you try to keep costs down, this must also be weighed against the cost to the organization of each day that position is not filled (e.g., additional overtime pay, temporary labor costs, and lost revenue in our salesperson example earlier). To make your efforts truly Lean, the big picture must always be considered. Conclusion Even if you feel like your department has already cinched its belt and is as efficient, or Lean, as you can make it, there may still be opportunities for improvement. Taking the time to map out your processes and looking for additional ways to save time and resources can create sustainable improvements. Recruiting and hiring often aim first and foremost at getting the best candidate (quality), but time is still a factor. The good news is that you can have both. By taking an organized approach and using Lean methodology, you can improve the velocity of your recruiting and hiring processes. At a staffing firm, this might translate directly into additional revenue ó and in a corporate environment it can result in substantial bottom-line savings. In either case, you will be freeing up resources and improving the value of your operations.

Six Sigma in Recruiting, Part 3: Moving Beyond Metrics

Scott Weston — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 19:00:00 +0000

You’ve done it. You and your team have established a dashboard of metrics for your recruiting department or staffing firm. You are carefully tracking and reporting on your activities with metrics that are representative of your efforts. Now what? As metrics become more of an entrenched part of recruiting management, there is a need to move beyond just tracking what your metrics are and to actively try to manipulate and improve them. Six Sigma and other quality methodologies focus on not just the measurement of activities, but also understanding the variables that affect those metrics and then systematically attempting to control those variables. These problem-solving tools can be applied to recruiting and hiring by taking the guesswork out of optimizing your efforts. Improving Results Please note that Six Sigma is an ideal ó especially in a service environment such as recruiting and hiring. It is something to be strived for. The term Six Sigma literally means 3.4 or fewer errors per million opportunities ó that’s 99.9997% accurate. You probably just said to yourself, “That’s not achievable or even applicable to recruiting!” Don’t get caught up in that number or that aspect of Six Sigma; it is not representative of the complete methodology of Six Sigma. Think about Six Sigma as a problem-solving toolset and as a systematic method for improving your business results. At the end of the day, just making a hire is no longer good enough. No rejected offer letter, unhappy hiring manager, or candidate that fails to make it through their first 90 days can be ignored. Limited resources, coupled with competitive market conditions, demand that you understand and strive for constant improvement of the individual components behind your metrics. The Vital Few Traditional wisdom to focus on the big and important things first is advice well taken in improving your processes. The Law of the Vital Few (also known as Pareto’s Rule of 80/20) is a statistical model that says that a small number of variables will cause the majority of effects (e.g., 20% of the salespeople bring in 80% of the revenue). In understanding your metrics, there may be many things that can influence them. But out of 50 or more possible variables, probably 5 to 10 will have the most effect on your outcomes. Within this smaller group of variables, these can be ranked to figure out which ones to work on first and then they can be addressed in priority. While many recruiting professionals feel they are doing all they can, a more systematic approach may help them more effectively reach their goals. A disconnect for many about Six Sigma is the belief that there are too many variables in recruiting and hiring ó with many outside of your control. The focus is not on controlling everything; it is on understanding what you can control and where you should prioritize and concentrate your efforts to achieve the most optimal results. Business Process Management A fundamental concept of Six Sigma is Business Process Management (BPM), which is the focus on improving and controlling overall processes to achieve business objectives. But rather than just focusing on trimming individual elements of your processes, the system as a whole is considered, taking into account that traditional trimming and streamlining may create short-term efficiencies at the expense of the overall business goals. For example, to address a reduced budget, an increase in spending on selection tools such as psychometric instruments may help to weed out candidates and result in lowered interviewing and travel expenses. The net impact on the budget may be neutral (or better), and will also result in improved hiring quality, increased productivity, and retention. This is the kind of net gain to strive for with BPM. There are three key ways to measure the quality of your processes:

Effectiveness: How well the process meets customer needs. Are the hiring managers getting the caliber of candidates to choose from that meet their needs? Is the recruiting experience acceptable to the candidate?

Efficiency: The ability to be effective with the least amount of resources. This might be measured through cost-per-hire or recruiting efficiency metrics. The critical factor in this is the ability to be effective and to still meet customer needs.
Adaptability: The ability to be both effective and efficient in the face of change. This will determine the sustainability of your results over time, which will be where the true return on investment will come.

Because qualitative aspects of recruiting were often not tracked in the past, different cost and time measures were often manipulated at the expense of meeting customer needs. Accomplishing a certain number of hires with a reduced budget does not translate into being more efficient if it was at the expense of service levels or candidate quality. True business process management will balance qualitative measures with quantitative ones ó as well as the resilience of the process to adapt to change and sustain these measures on an ongoing basis. Sustaining Results Moving towards Six Sigma and true improvement in your business process management comes from not just achieving short-term improvements, but also from truly improving what you do on an ongoing basis. Anyone can work harder to accomplish more in a short period of time, but only by truly becoming more effective, efficient, and adaptable can you sustain consistent, long-term improvement. I have compared this in the past to the difference between doing a crash diet and consistently making healthy changes in your lifestyle. While reacting to budget cuts and resource limitations is a reality, recruiting management needs to have the vision to take steps to impact the long-term health of your organization. This can only come about by fundamentally improving how you do business. Conclusion As an industry, there has been considerable discussion about the importance of metrics in HR and recruiting. It is critical for you to get into a better habit of meticulously tracking the work that you do ó not just to demonstrate your successes, but also to build cases for change and to manage more strategically. After you have gathered this data though, the next step looms. You must systematically drive these metrics in accordance with your business goals by understanding, improving, and controlling the underlying variables. Whether you are a major corporation with thousands of recruiting transactions or a small staffing firm that is trying to squeeze every bit of results out of your efforts, there are management tools available to you like Six Sigma that can help you improve your operations. Don’t be afraid if these tools seem complicated or even confusing. The Internet was a foreign tool to recruiters at one time and now it is an integral part of how you do business.

Is Your Recruiting Process Like the Typewriter?

Scott Weston — Mon, 16 Jun 2003 19:00:00 +0000

Over the past decade, the process of recruiting has gone through a dramatic evolution through the use of database technology and the Internet. Though most organizations have by now adopted new technology to replace labor-intensive methods, many have still fallen short at truly innovating how they operate. Like many things in business and life, we often continue to do things out of habit, or by simply failing to ask the question, why? To illustrate this point, here’s an interesting piece of history for you. Look Down at Your Keyboard The standard computer keyboard uses the same layout from the original typewriter design that has been around for about 130 years. Some of you probably were taught this famous QWERTY design in high school typing class (or “keyboarding” class, as a 16-year-old recently corrected me). If this was how you were taught, you would assume that the keyboard layout was designed for maximum efficiency. This design probably came from extensive engineering, testing, and refinement, right? Actually, no. Historical accounts tell us that the current design was not the result of it being the most efficient layout. Some say it was an intentional scrambling of the keyboard to slow down the typist, because the mechanical parts could not keep up and would jam otherwise. Other accounts put the design as a clever marketing ploy by Remington so that their salesmen could quickly punch out the letters “type write” in demonstrations (which all appear in the top row of the QWERTY design). The point is that the keyboard design we still use today is not necessarily the most efficient, yet it has survived through generations of technical evolutions, including electronic typewriters and modern computer keyboards. The Resume Is Our Typewriter Keyboard The resume has been the standard form of presenting work history for decades and has stayed virtually unchanged. This is our typewriter keyboard in recruiting. At one time, it was a nice method of handling information. But that was before the level of database technology we currently utilize improved exponentially. Now it represents an outdated tool. Despite this, many companies are still trying to wrap their recruiting processes around it. So what is the alternative? Stop accepting resumes? Actually, many companies have stopped accepting paper resumes and are now requiring everyone to apply online. The scanning, the coding, and the paper handling were just too much of a hassle. Some candidates may be lost, but moving applicants completely online just makes sense. The resume is symbolic of how we have evolved yet stayed the same. At some point, you must question things like the resume and ask how much sense they still make. What else in your recruiting process are you dragging forward like the resume or the QWERTY keyboard? Change and Innovation No matter how attractive innovation can be, many people still opt for what is standard. After all, it’s comfortable. How many of you cringe at the thought of learning a new applicant tracking system, much less a new keyboard? Wouldn’t you rather churn through stacks of resumes rather than figure out a new system? Let’s face it, most people don’t want to change the way they work. We are creatures of habit. Back in our typewriter example, though, the U.S. Navy did studies in the 1940s and found better layouts that could be learned quicker and increased typing speeds 20% to 30%. Sadly, this information was never implemented. The cost to retrain the existing staff and change equipment seemed too daunting. And generations later, with all new workers and all new equipment, millions of people are still typing slower than they could. Regardless of how your organization feels about change, now may be a good time to take a long, hard look at your recruiting process as a whole and think about ways to improve it in order to remain competitive while optimizing your resources. As you look at your recruiting process, there are three things you need to initially do:

Map out your entire recruiting process. This may seem like an arduous process, but sitting down with the team and getting a clear picture of your recruiting process from end to end may help make some possible improvements more obvious. Management and frontline employees need to be included, and you need to compare the model to how things are actually done.

Identify value-added steps. Ask some tough questions about your various steps. Is this something that is needed or valued by the hiring manager, the candidate, or the CEO?
Question everything. Why do we still do this? What would happen if we stopped? How can we do this faster or better?

Conclusion Your organization must strike a balance between innovation and standardization, but too often we don’t question existing processes enough. As your recruiting process continues to evolve to meet new business challenges, it is important to periodically take a look at what you do, make a map of your activities, identify where you are adding value or not, and ask yourself some tough questions. Take a look at your keyboard again and think about your recruiting process. Is it really the best way for you to do business, or is it just the way you are used to doing it?

Six Sigma in Recruiting, Part Two

Scott Weston — Mon, 28 Apr 2003 19:00:00 +0000

In my previous article on Six Sigma, I gave a brief overview of the term, hoping to demystify it, and discussed its application to the staffing function. There continues to be more buzz in our industry about this process-improvement methodology, and senior recruiting management may be wondering if they should jump on the Six Sigma bandwagon or not. Or it might be something that is already prevalent at their organization and is knocking on their door. In a recent meeting with Microsoft Corporation, I spoke with them about the Six Sigma initiative they are embarking on for their staffing organization. They are in the process of aligning their recruiting efforts with the rest of their company’s implementation of Six Sigma. Microsoft has even created a Senior Manager of Quality Improvement position to oversee process improvement for their Technical Staffing Group. This is a trend that will most likely take hold in some fashion at many large organizations, as the prevalence of Six Sigma grows. In addition, many medium-sized and even smaller organizations will move to embrace it on some scale. But as companies prepare to apply Six Sigma to their staffing function, there are still some important questions to ask. Why Should You Implement Six Sigma? This is the most fundamental question that must be answered, and it may be the most pressing in the minds of many people in staffing. You keep hearing about Six Sigma. Should you be doing it? Has management in other departments/areas of your organization already embraced Six Sigma? Is your CEO going to be asking you why you haven’t started yet? The answer to the why question is simple: to improve how you run your business. While Six Sigma is looked at as a process-improvement methodology, it is much more than that. It is a management philosophy and a strategy. The strategy of Six Sigma is business process management ó or measuring and controlling your business processes. Metrics are something that most recruiting professionals are used to dealing with, but most organizations manipulate these standard measures of cost and time through budgeting ó or worse, at the expense of business objectives. Six Sigma will actually help you improve and control your metrics in a systematic way that will align your efforts with your organization’s business goals. And it doesn’t just mean reducing costs and speeding up hiring-cycle times; it means making the overall processes in recruiting more effective by also improving the quality of hires and the experience of all your customers. Once you are sold on the concept of Six Sigma, it is important to understand whether you can or should do it. This presents some harder questions, but they are questions you must answer. Are You Just Looking for a Short-Term Fix? Again, Six Sigma is a process-improvement methodology, but it is more importantly a management philosophy. You need to ask yourself if you are just seeking a short-term fix, or if you are prepared to commit yourself to excellence in how you do business. This would be akin to the difference between starting a crash diet along with going to the gym because your class reunion is next month, or committing yourself to a healthy lifestyle of good nutrition and regular exercise. Ultimately, you can probably get some initial results, but maintaining and controlling them in the long term is what is important ó and where the true ROI will come from in your efforts. Is Management Committed Enough? TQM (total quality management) often failed at companies, not because it was a bad process-improvement methodology, but because management merely signed off on the program and passed it to the front line to be carried out. Management was often not committed enough to the program. One of the reasons Six Sigma has proven to be successful is that it starts at the top. Senior management owns it first, makes sure it is aligned with the business goals, and then it trickles down to successive layers in the organization until all members own it. Besides selecting people to work on the project (Black Belts and Green Belts who run the project on a day-to-day basis), there must be a Champion. This may need to be the VP of HR or some other member of senior management who is the process owner and is in a position of high enough power to effectively clear away roadblocks to the project’s success and to make sure proper resources are committed and available. Do You Have the Resources? Six Sigma is something that will take up a great deal of time and energy, but the benefits can be profound. For example, in one year alone, General Electric added more than $2 billion to their bottom line through the use of Six Sigma. The necessary resources include both financial and manpower commitments, and will often entail an additional budget investment to reap the rewards in the future. This is a clear investment in changing the way you do business and not committing the necessary resources can doom the project. This is especially dangerous because the initial successes in Six Sigma are critical for cultural embracement by the organization. Is Now the Right Time? Though I believe now is always the right time to start making improvements to how you do business, this can be very situational to each company. I have heard it said that fixing a recruiting process is like repairing your car while driving a hundred miles an hour. The good news is that many recruiting departments are running a lot slower than they were a few years ago. Unfortunately, most are also operating now with significantly fewer resources and manpower. In addition, your tenured people, who understand your processes best, are the ones who will need to be involved first in Six Sigma. You cannot just hire consultants to do all the work or expect to throw new employees at the job. How quickly hiring will ramp up and what resources you will have available at that time are anybody’s guess. What I can say with certainty is that waiting until your hiring is ramped up again to start improving your recruiting processes is probably not the best time. Getting the budget and manpower to commence Six Sigma will take building a business case and some vision to get it started now rather than later.

Six Sigma in Recruiting

Scott Weston — Thu, 26 Sep 2002 19:00:00 +0000

From recent boom to ongoing bust, many recruiters and staffing departments are using the current time to adopt and implement some form of internal process improvement. Six Sigma is definitely the most talked about process-improvement methodologies used in business today, but it raises several questions among recruiting professionals: What is Six Sigma exactly? And how it can be applied to the recruiting function? I recently wrote a white paper on process-improvement issues in recruiting, and out of that I developed some answers to common questions about Six Sigma. Before we get to these, though, we will first take a step back and look at an overview of what Six Sigma is, clarifying some of the issues that commonly confuse people about it. Then we will cover some points to consider when applying it to recruiting. Six Sigma: What Is It? Whether or not you’ve had exposure to the Six Sigma concept, understanding exactly what it is isn’t always easy?? though you may already know it has to do with quality or process improvement. To put it simply, Six Sigma is a process-improvement methodology?? or a plan for analyzing and improving a business function. It involves a specific framework and accompanying tools that walk an organization through the steps of identifying, measuring, and diagnosing a problem?? and then creating a specific solution and managing the results. In essence, it is a system to manage a process-improvement project from start to finish. Six Sigma can be summed up as being:

A robust methodology

Customer-focused
Data-driven

Six Sigma is normally associated with Motorola, who named one of its key-operational initiatives Six Sigma Quality. Though the name sounds technical or even cryptic to some, it could also be called “almost zero errors.” A “sigma” is the mathematical symbol for what many know as a standard deviation. In this case, it’s used as a statistical term that measures how much a process varies from perfection (requirements) based on the number of defects per million units. Without getting too caught up in the math and statistics, Six Sigma simply strives for very little deviation from requirements. Six Sigma would literally mean 3.4 or fewer defects per million units (while, for example, one sigma would be 690,000 defects per million units, and four sigma would be 6,210). Six Sigma relies on significant training of its participants. These participants are commonly referred to as Green Belt, Black Belt, and Master Black Belt to indicate a level of training, capability, and their respective roles in implementing the Six Sigma methodology:

Green Belts lead and execute process-level improvement projects.
Black Belts are technical leaders who implement the principles, practices, and techniques of Six Sigma for maximum cost reductions.
Master Black Belts function as Black Belts and guide Black and Green Belts. Though the methodology is very structured, and many organizations swear by its merits, Six Sigma is just one approach that strives for many of the same goals as TQM (Total Quality Management) and other process-improvement methods. It was created from many existing tools in the field of quality assurance, and the basic concepts it incorporates are not proprietary to or owned by Motorola, GE, or any of the other organizations that facilitated its refinement, widespread use, and success. Six Sigma: Can You Use It in Recruiting? The manufacturing roots of Six Sigma raise concerns as to whether it can effectively be applied to the human aspect of the employee sourcing and selection process. Staffing professionals also pit Six Sigma against other process-improvement methodologies, asking whether Six Sigma is really the best hammer for the job. Everything in business?? including sourcing and selection?? is a process. If you can break down the process, identify customer requirements, and understand what causes deviations from those requirements, you can work towards improving the process. By measuring each step of the process, you can analyze and make decisions based on data (facts) and effectively evaluate the outcome of your efforts to determine success or not (metrics). All of this is at the heart of Six Sigma, so?? yes, you can definitely apply it to recruiting. Six Sigma: Should You Use it? Whether or not you should actually use Six Sigma in your recruiting organization is another issue entirely. Several factors, including company culture and potential return on investment, determine whether Six Sigma is the best methodology for your organization:

Company culture. The cultural acceptance or rejection of Six Sigma is arguably one of the most critical factors to consider. The staffing department is not the most likely part of an organization to pilot a Six Sigma program and the attitude of upper management may dictate whether it should be adopted or not. For example, even if a director of staffing is a trained Black Belt and has successfully implemented Six Sigma at another organization, upper management may not be receptive to Six Sigma (or worse, may have had poor experiences with it in the past). Implementing it may prove to be an arduous battle. On the other hand, if your organization is already using Six Sigma, then by all means fold the sourcing and selection functions into the existing culture. Upper management will already have an understanding of the methodology, and resources will most likely be available in the organization.
Return on investment (ROI). Having a thoroughly trained team?? consisting of Black Belts, Green Belts, and (ideally) a Six Sigma Master Black Belt?? to guide the effort is key. If these resources are feasible and the economics of the investment are sound, then a well-trained team would clearly be an asset to your success. For this to be a sound decision, the training and time investment would need to yield a substantial return based on the savings/improvements that the project(s) could yield. In short, heed the words of Confucius: “Do not use a cannon to kill a mosquito.”

Applying Basic Six Sigma If extensive resources are not available, or the scope of the project does not warrant the substantial training investment, Six Sigma can still be utilized as a rough framework to guide your efforts. The DMAIC process of Six Sigma (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control) can be applied to existing internal processes, and the DMADV method (Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, and Verify) can be effectively used in creating new processes. Let’s define these two processes more clearly: DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control):

Define project goals and customer deliverables
Measure the process to determine current performance
Analyze and determine the root cause(s) of the defects
Improve the process by eliminating defects
Control future process performance

DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, and Verify):

Define project goals and customer deliverables
Measure and determine customer needs and specifications
Analyze the process options to meet the customer needs
Design the process to meet the customer needs
Verify the design performance and ability to meet customer needs

At a basic level, DMAIC can be utilized as an excellent framework for process improvement without commencing upon a full-blown Six Sigma corporate initiative. This is not to encourage sloppy or incomplete process-improvement efforts through half-baked Six Sigma implementation, but rather to encourage you to leverage the many tools of Six Sigma without getting so lost in rigid methodology that it damages your momentum. If you just adhere to the basics of DMAIC and DMADV, you can think of the rest of Six Sigma as a robust set of tools you can access as needed?? and not as an all-or-nothing endeavor. Conclusion Six Sigma is a process-improvement methodology that is robust, customer focused, and data driven. It provides a clear framework to help an organization complete a process improvement effort from start to finish. While some areas of recruiting are more art than science, Six Sigma can definitely be applied to the sourcing and selection processes in recruiting. If these areas can be measured, so can improvements to them. Whether it is the best choice of a methodology depends on cultural and other factors, and the resources available. At a basic level, the Six Sigma methodology can be beneficial to any organization embarking on a process-improvement endeavor in sourcing and selection.

What Is Your Recruiting Technology Capable Of?

Scott Weston — Wed, 19 Jun 2002 19:00:00 +0000

With budgets still tight at many organizations, a new applicant tracking system may be a pipe dream for your department. Though you may view your current technology as a museum piece, and probably long for the latest and greatest, your organization may not truly lack effective tools. Maybe you’re just not effectively leveraging what you already have. This is a common problem in the use of any kind of automation. For example, if you use Microsoft Word or Outlook, you probably have a sense that you are not fully utilizing many aspects of them. Even if you are a “power user” who knows all the ins and outs of the software you use, you probably know many people in your organization who are not. It’s likely that this is also the case with your recruiting automation. Why Aren’t You Using What You Have? Recruiting technology is often more robust than users realize. Often, they just never take the time to set up the features that can benefit them the most. I have spoken with several ATS sales reps who tell stories of customers already in the process of shopping for new technology, claiming that their system “isn’t suiting their needs” ó without having a true understanding of its capabilities. This is often the result of the system never being properly set up or fully utilized from the start. It also often happens when there is a changing of the guard and the incoming users end up learning just enough of the system to get by, but never enough to really become versed in the system’s true capabilities. The following tips can help you more effectively utilize the technology you already have to achieve better efficiency. 1. Don’t just read the directions. Depending on the documentation that you have available, reading the directions may appear daunting and a waste of time. Despite this, the user’s manual is often one of the best places to start if you want to get a good overview of your system’s capabilities. Instead of sitting down and reading the manual from cover to cover, skim for concepts and identify areas that you may want to explore and apply. Then you can drill down for more detailed instructions. 2. Elect a power user. Instead of having everyone go through training again or sit down and read the directions, elect a “power user” first. This person is in charge of doing some research on behalf of the team and distilling the information into tips and suggestions for training. This power user may be the department manager, or else one of your more technical users who has a comfort with technology and a willingness to share what they know. Chances are you have someone who is more adept at the system and people already gravitate to them for help. Make this person your team’s official power user. Ask your power user to spend one to two hours and come up with the five best tips for the team to improve their use of the system. Your ATS and Microsoft Outlook are ideal initial candidates for this type of program, but you can try it with any piece of technology that you think is being underutilized. 3. Tap other resources in your organization. Check with your training and IT departments for assistance. You may be surprised at what a wealth of knowledge they can offer in areas such as creating reports and other common database issues. In addition, they are also normally power users in common office applications such as Microsoft Word and Outlook and may be able to help you with some tips and suggestions once they understand your workflow. 4. Join user groups. Many major software packages have user forums and user groups that you can join where you can find answers to frequently asked questions and workarounds that other organizations have come up with to common problems. This is also a great place to find information on interfacing with other applications ó such as your email program, contact manager, or other technology ó that may not be supported by your vendor as part of their “official” technical support. User groups may be hosted by your vendor directly and operate through a client section of their website or they may be private groups accessible through portals like Yahoo! Groups. Check with your vendor or do a search on the web to find these groups. 5. Break it down into smaller bites. One of the main problems with training is information overload. To combat this, identify the highest leverage activities first instead of trying to learn or relearn the whole system. By tackling things in smaller sections, or breaking the information down into a series of tips and learning these over time, there is more chance that the information will be adopted into use. Here’s a suggestion. Each week assign a section of the manual or part of the system to a different member of your team and ask them to master it and present a ten or fifteen minute summary at your weekly meeting or come up with a tip for the week. This will encourage proficiency across your team and lighten the load on one user having to act as the help desk for your entire department. 6. Talk to your vendors. Look to your vendors as partners and don’t be afraid to ask them for help. I have found many vendors saddened and often shaking their heads at how underutilized their products normally are. If you have a good relationship with your sales representative, start there and ask if they can give you suggestions. Most vendors offer retraining or advanced training. This may be at a price, though ó so make it clear that you want to exhaust other options before you go that route. Also consider putting in a call to the implementation consultant who set up your system or the trainer you originally worked with. Let them know you feel you may not be making full use of the system and ask if they can offer some suggestions. Most vendors are happy to do a certain amount of this without a charge as a service to their customers ó and because it also often identifies issues and opens the door to customization, add-on projects, or additional training revenues. Be clear about your intentions, though, and respectful of your vendor’s time when asking for help. This includes making an effort on your own to read the manuals first and using the other information already available to you. Conclusion If you are considering investing in new technology or just wish you had something better, first examine what you already have. Optimizing your current technology can save you a great deal of time through improved efficiency ó and help your organization achieve the best return on investment from your current systems.

Better Email Correspondence With Candidates

Scott Weston — Wed, 15 May 2002 19:00:00 +0000

Which one of these examples most resembles the email you send to confirm an interview with a candidate? Example A: Steve, You are set for your interview with Brian Bannister at 2:00 on Friday. We look forward to seeing you then. Example B: Steve, You are set for your interview with Brian Bannister at 2:00 on Friday. The following information will help answer some initial questions you may have and help you prepare for this meeting:

A brief bio of Brian (attached)

A white paper that Brian presented at an industry conference this year (attached)
An article in Fast Company Magazine about our recent growth (link)
Our 2001 Annual Report (link)

We look forward to seeing you Friday. Please let me know if you need anything else to properly prepare. If your emails look more like Example A than Example B, you’re not making the most of your correspondence with candidates. Phone and in-person contact will always be critical in maintaining strong recruiter/candidate relationships, but if used effectively, email can better help you build your case with candidates and move them smoothly through the hiring process. Email lets you share more consistent and richer information while affording a candidate more time to digest and absorb it. Here are some tips to help you make your candidate emails more powerful and productive. Add Value With Every Email Besides giving some good information, Example B raises the bar by asking the candidate to actually prepare for the interview ó instead of just showing up at the assigned time. And once you gather the information, the difference in the time needed to create the two different emails is minimal. This “selling and prepping” of a candidate is a critical part of the value that a recruiter adds to the hiring process. If you consistently increase the depth of the information you share, you can do some of this selling and prepping work quickly via email ó without letting the relationships with your candidates suffer. You’ll also free up your time for higher leverage activities and ones that can only be accomplished in person or on the phone (e.g., interviews, salary negotiations, etc.). Create a Library of Information To make it easy to add value to each email you send, create a folder of documents and hyperlinks that will educate candidates and help them throughout the hiring process. Some examples are:

Brief bios of people a candidate will be interviewing with
Company’s annual report (if public)
Recent articles mentioning your company in a positive light
“Day in the life” scenarios of the jobs candidates are applying for
Quotes from or interviews with current employees
Summary of your company perks and benefits
Relocation policies and information about the area, schools, home prices, standard of living, etc.
Directions to your offices
A short bio of you, the recruiter. This can help humanize applicants’ experience with you and build their confidence in you as an experienced professional.

It’s easy to begin building a library of information like this with just a few key items, and then add to it and update it over time. Remember to periodically check your links and update the information you’ve collected. Don’t Hit Them With a Ton of Bricks Any good salesperson will tell you that building a good sale is a piece-by-piece process: lay a strong foundation and then solidly add brick by brick until you are finished. The hiring process is no different. Each interaction you have with a candidate should be adding “bricks” and building your case. The key here is to share information methodically, one step at a time ó not all at once. By doing this, you allow the candidates to actually absorb the information you send them, and you run less of a risk of “information overload.” If possible, use links instead of attachments to make information available to the candidate. Many candidates are still operating with dial-up connections, and large attachments can seem like you are burying a candidate with excessive “homework.” Save Time by Using Signatures Email signatures can be one of the most helpful tools for increasing your email productivity while making your correspondence still appear personal. If you have your email program set up to automatically put your name and contact information at the bottom of outgoing messages, you have just scratched the service of the value of the “signatures” function. The signature library can be used to quickly insert information, such as hyperlinks or even large blocks of text, into the body of emails. This tool allows you to grab one or multiple different text blocks from a menu and insert them wherever you wish in an email, instead of cutting and pasting text from another document. Check the Help section of your email program to get directions on how to create a signature. There is normally no limit to the number of signatures you can have or the amount of text allowed in them. Make sure you designate the signature with your name and contact information as your “default” signature. Conclusion To move candidates smoothly through the hiring process, you need to work smarter while keeping candidate customer service levels high. With a little effort upfront, you can save time and avoid sending impersonal “form letter” type correspondence ó while maximizing your interaction with candidates and using every opportunity to build upon the recruiter/candidate relationship.

Developing Recruitment Content for Permission Marketing

Scott Weston — Mon, 25 Mar 2002 19:00:00 +0000

My last article (Permission Marketing For Recruiters: Building a Targeted List) spoke about the concept of permission marketing and gave some specifics about building a list of potential candidates through networking and other means. Today, I’ll offer some content guidelines to help you use email to build a relationship with these candidates over time. As I mentioned before, permission marketing must be anticipated, personal, and relevant. Now that a growing group of potential candidates have given you permission to interact with them in this fashion, you have accomplished the first of the three tenets ó your interaction is anticipated. This does not mean the candidate is waiting for your email. But it does mean that when it comes, they are less likely to have a “who is this and why the heck are they emailing me?” response. What To Send There are basically two types of content that you should send to your permission marketing list: “actionable” and “informational.” Actionable content includes what marketers refer to as a “call to action.” It encourages potential candidates to do something, such as:

Apply for a position

Refer a job to someone they know
Attend a career open house

Informational content will encompass all other purely informative subject matter that aims at building your brand and a relationship with the potential candidates. For example:

Current news about funding, product releases, and financial information such as a rising stock price or profits
“Day in the life” pieces about current employees at your company, or other stories that relate to the candidate’s job interests
Information that establishes your firm as an employer of choice and demonstrates innovation, best practices, and employee-centric programs or philosophies.

The optimal message blends both actionable and informational content. Obviously, if you are doing college recruiting, you may not want to send open positions to freshmen or sophomores. But for most of your candidates, job listings will be among the most valuable content in their eyes and can be bolstered with current information that strengthens your company brand. Reintroduce Yourself For at least the first email or two, remind the candidate of who you are with a short, personalized introduction. This will gently jog the potential candidate’s memory and reinforce that you have their permission to contact them. These subtle reminders of who you are can be automated with mail-merge fields that reference the candidate’s name and other items, like the date you spoke to them or added them to your list. For example: “, we spoke on regarding positions at XYZ Corp…” Personalize with Relevance Inserting the candidate’s name in a salutation is a nice touch, but the most important aspect of making the information personal and relevant is to make the content personally relevant to the candidate. This means sending them only the jobs and information that are relevant to their interests ó or, as many marketers call it, addressing the “what’s in it for them” question. For example, if stock options are part of your benefits package, then sharing a trend of rising stock prices addresses a personal value to the candidate. This tailored content can be created quickly if you use mail merging and other technology to streamline the process. If you leverage templates in this manner, creating something personalized need not be difficult or time consuming. If it still seems like a lot of work, ask yourself how much extra effort some of these prized passive candidates are worth. Make Them Feel Special It is human nature to gravitate towards relationships where we are made to feel special and valued. By offering membership perks to those on your list, you may increase their interest. This extra layer of service and information may draw out the passive candidates who are hesitant about exploring other opportunities. Here are some ideas:

Supply information, like salary ranges, that normally isn’t published on your website.
Allow candidates to “come to the front of the line” for a personalized interaction with you and skip the standard online application process.
Offer to answer some of their initial questions before they actually apply.

Sweeten the Pot Getting your emails opened and read is one of the great challenges of reaching out to truly passive candidates. Valuable content is critical, but taking even more aggressive steps may increase your success. One idea, which may dramatically increase readership of your information, is to simply make it worth the candidate’s while financially. Consider extending your employee referral fee (or at least a partial amount) to these “friends” of your company. By offering them a referral fee, you may tap into their personal networks and encourage them to at least scan your information, even if they personally have no current interest in other opportunities. Besides creating “viral marketing” exposure, putting a check in a candidate’s hand for a referral fee can only help in galvanizing a relationship with them. Don’t Speak Without Something Interesting To Say As a rule, err on sending fresh, high-quality content less frequently instead of mediocre or repetitive content on a regular basis. Depending on the candidate’s situation, once a month to once a quarter may be plenty for most passive candidates ó anything more may be considered intrusive or, even worse, badgering. You must be the judge of striking this critical balance between the timing and quality of information. Look at what you are sending and ask yourself if it is something you would be willing to put in an envelope and mail to a candidate, or would even be comfortable calling them out of the blue to discuss. Do not permit the ease of sending email to loosen your commitment to sending only valuable information. Your objective is to cultivate an interest on the part of the candidate so that you’re on their radar when they choose to consider other opportunities. By providing actionable and informational content that is personally relevant to a candidate, you multiply your chances of being a candidate’s top choice and making them your next great hire.

Permission Marketing For Recruiters: Building a Targeted List

Scott Weston — Mon, 25 Feb 2002 19:00:00 +0000

If you’re interested in taking a more strategic approach to your sourcing efforts, the most important area to start focusing on is long-term relationships. You’ll also need to focus on the process of constantly identifying potential candidates who are “above the funnel”?? that is, individuals who are not candidates today, but are potential candidates in the future. Either way, one of the best methods of building these kinds of relationships is through permission marketing. Seth Godin coined the term “permission marketing” in his book, Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends, and Friends Into Customers, which is still viewed by many as the bible of permission marketing. The fundamental definition of permission marketing Godin develops in this book is that permission marketing messages are anticipated, personal, and relevant. Permission marketing has been successfully used in e-commerce for years, and it is fast becoming an important technique for building better relationships in recruiting. In this article, we’ll explore some techniques and ideas for building a targeted list of candidates, which is the important first step in fully utilizing permission marketing in recruiting. Create a Targeted List The first step in establishing a candidate relationship campaign based on permission marketing principles is to create a targeted list. This can consist of as little as:

an email address, and

identification of the type of jobs the candidate may be a fit for.

A good example of this would be the “job agents” available on job boards and at corporate sites, which allow candidates to request that information regarding openings for specific types of positions be emailed to them as the positions become available. Though you may already have the candidate’s name, this is not critical in the first phase of permission marketing. Following the above example, many job agents do not require the candidate to provide a name?? allowing the candidate increased privacy while making the process simpler and easier for them. An email address serves as a better unique identifier during this phase, since the candidate’s name can be obtained through increased permission in the future or if they apply for a position. In addition to these automatic “opt-in” targeted lists, higher quality, more selective lists of candidates should be created through networking and other means. These lists can then be gathered on spreadsheets, in databases available on applicant tracking systems, or by use of “opt-in” software. Ask For Permission Though it is common to hear about hundreds or even thousands of applicants pouring in from a single job posting, many of the best candidates must be sought out through networking, cold calling, and other means. Even if a candidate is not interested at the time of this initial contact, it is important to ask for permission to continue a relationship as follows, for example: Candidate: I’m pretty happy with my current position. Thanks anyway. Recruiter: I understand completely. I’m sure you get calls from recruiters all the time, so I don’t want to add any more to that. If I have other senior positions in Engineering available here in the future, could I shoot you a quick email about them on occasion? We might have something that interests you down the road. Would that be okay? If a candidate is not interested in the current opportunity and not willing to release their resume, the recruiter can try to keep the door open and hopefully stay on the candidate’s radar. The candidate may permit a recruiter to contact them via email, since it is often viewed as less intrusive than a telephone call. This simple step of literally just “asking for permission” can set a recruiter apart from others, and might help start a future relationship. Keep Track of Finalists Who Did Not Become Hires If a candidate turns down a position, or is a finalist but doesn’t get the job, they should not be forgotten. Instead, they should get pushed back “above the funnel,” in hopes that they may be a candidate in the future. Rather than being lost in the database, these finalists should be put on a targeted list so that if an appropriate position becomes available, they can easily be tapped. For example: “Mary, I am sorry but we filled the position with another candidate that we felt was a better fit. But Steve, the manager, was very impressed with you. Would it be okay to send you a quick email in the future if we have other marketing positions that we think you might be a fit for?” Look Beyond the “Right Here and Now” at Job Fairs At job fairs, the primary focus is on the open requisitions and trying to match them with those candidates who are looking right now. However, it is important to also:

Consider strong candidates with future potential more closely even if there aren’t presently any requisitions that they fit. Example: “We have a great marketing manager, but do we really think he will be here forever?”
Consider candidates who may need another step or two on their career path before they will be ready for hire. Perhaps they will be hired by a competitor today, get the skills they need, and can be then recruited away in a year or two!

Freshmen Will Be Seniors One Day College recruiting is similar to that of job fairs, in that some students are a few years from being potential hires. Instead of encouraging freshmen and sophomores to come back in a year or two, capture basic information from them to begin warming them up for internships and future employment opportunities early in their college career. You can share information with college students through “soft sell” permission marketing to build a friendly familiarity with your organization and let them know what majors and specializations are either currently or expected to be in demand over the next few years. By sharing this vision with students at this formative stage, they may be able to bring their college plans into better focus and, perhaps, become better aligned with your organization’s future needs. Conclusion However you accomplish your list-building efforts, just remember the old adage: “garbage in, garbage out.” Always strive to build a quality list. By starting with a solid base, capturing some basic information about potential candidates, and maintaining relationships with them, you can build long-term relationships that will allow you to more easily turn strangers into candidates, and candidates into hires.