As a college professor and someone that advises firms on the design of college recruiting programs, I have come up with a long list of the advantages of hiring recent graduates.

If you’re not seeing these attributes in your recent college hires, interns, or those you are courting, the problem is most likely a result of major weaknesses in your recruiting process and not with “this latest generation” of college students.

The Business Benefits of Hiring Recent College Grads

The benefits are split into two categories 1) benefits to individual hiring managers and 2) benefits that may accrue to the entire firm over time. Note that the possible outcomes listed here are based partially on generalizations that cover many but not all top college hires.

Shorter-term Benefits of Hiring College Students

1. Lower salary costs – most are willing to work for significantly less salary than “experienced hires.”
2. Continuous learners — because they have a recent history of learning, they are self-motivated “continuous learners.” This may actually be the most important competency.
3. Comfortable with technology — New grads expect to use technology and have no fear of it. They learn new technologies rapidly, and this, combined with their extensive knowledge of the latest hardware and software, automatically makes them a high-value hire both for current and future needs.
4. Comfortable with the Internet and social media – college students are much more likely to be familiar with and skilled in all aspects of the Internet, and in particular the emerging area of social media and mobile applications.
5. High levels of innovation – there is a great deal of academic research indicating that many great innovators do their best and most groundbreaking work in their youth. Midcareer hires may bring continuous improvement but lower levels of radical inflection-point innovation.
6. Fast change and agility — nothing more accurately describes the business world these days than intense competition and rapid change. If you’re going to be successful, you’re going to need agile individuals who are not just capable of fast change but also those who literally look forward to it. Fortunately college grads have a combination of youth and an excitement for trying new things that makes them more willing to accept and adapt to rapid change. They’re also agile and as a result they are able to shift rapidly and frequently between unrelated tasks.
7. Team players — very few major projects can be accomplished these days without teamwork. Fortunately, college hires these days are thoroughly experienced in teamwork and cross-functional teams. Rather than being forced to participate, it comes natural to them.
8. Superior communicators — college hires are accomplished communicators. They know how to communicate with teammates, vendors, regulators, and customers in many diverse and economical non-face-to-face ways. This includes the use of social networks and web 2.0 tools that experienced hires might be unfamiliar with.
9. The “why” question — a willingness to repeatedly ask the “why question” of others (Why do we do it this way? Why not that way?) helps to force you to re-examine your approaches.
10. Better performance on the job — we know from professional sports that the performance of college grads can meet and sometimes exceed that of experienced players (i.e. Kobe and LeBron). If you use a “surgical” data-driven college-hiring process, a majority of your hires will be above-average performers almost immediately. If the same process surgically targets grads with high levels of loyalty, your retention rates will also be exceptional.
11. New ideas — they bring numerous new ideas that they’ve acquired from leading-edge thinkers and professors that continually challenge them to think differently.
12. No need to unlearn — because they have little work experience or corporate cultural history, they don’t have to unlearn old ways or bad habits that experienced hires might carry with them.
13. Multitasking ability — they grew up in a multitasking world, so they look forward to being assigned to simultaneous tasks. Experienced hires might consider it overloading when you expect multiple tasks to be done simultaneously.
14. Energy and enthusiasm — their youth and relative health will likely give them what some describe as unbounded energy during the day, requiring fewer breaks and with no lapses in work quality due to fatigue.
15. Willing to take high-risk assignments — their relative youth and inexperience may lower their level of fear, making them more willing to take on risky tasks and assignments. With fewer outside-of-work commitments, many may be willing to take career risks that experienced professionals would not.
16. They understand metrics — because they’re fresh out of school, recent grads are likely to remember how to use numbers, statistics, and metrics. Although they might not have any practical knowledge, their lack of fear related to numbers and metrics is a positive factor.
17. Willingness to do grunt work — because of their eagerness to learn, even top students may be willing to do thankless assignments and even grunt work that others consider beneath them. This may speed up projects that are often delayed because no one on the team is willing to volunteer for the unglamorous tasks.
18. Willingness to travel — fewer outside-of-work commitments and a high level of excitement regarding exploring and travel means that they are more willing to take assignments that require a significant amount of travel.
19. Diverse ideas — each year, the diversity levels of graduating classes increase making them more diverse than the available experienced hire pool. If your college recruiting program has an effective diversity component, the diverse thinking of these college hires will add richness to your teams and decision-making because diverse individuals see things differently.
20. Professor contacts also — if you hire the very best graduate students, you will likely also get with them their academic contacts and access to the best research professors.
21. Access to research — once again if you hire the very best graduate students, you will also do research. You may also gain access to the research of their professors, thus aiding in product development.
22. Faster time to productivity — because they learn quickly, have high energy levels, have few family commitments and they have no professional biases to unlearn, new college hires may actually reach the minimum required level of productivity faster than experienced hires.
23. Easier to manage — although they may ask lots of questions initially, they may actually be easier to manage. This is because they seldom have the level of entitlement, professional biases, and political awareness that experienced hires usually have. Because they are new, they are less likely to argue, play politics, or complain.
24. An opportunity for a tryout — hiring experienced professionals can be a hit-or-miss proposition because you don’t get a chance to actually see them work. Fortunately, with college hires you can preview their work by hiring them as interns. If designed correctly, this internship opportunity can dramatically reduce the number of hiring errors.

Long-Term Benefits to the Firm for Hiring College Grads

Some firms have found that college hires bring many benefits that accrue to hiring managers, but in addition, also help the company over the long term. Some of the benefits that may extend to the entire company include:

1. A global perspective — many U.S.-based schools have a high percentage of international students. The curriculum in nearly every discipline these days focuses on global issues. As a result, you can be sure that new college hires will think globally, as well as feel comfortable working with internationally located individuals.
2. Essential for filling future management positions — it is difficult to hire first-level managers externally because no matter how strong their management skills, they are unfamiliar with the team and the corporate culture. Consistently hiring entry-level college hires allows you to promote the best into supervisory and management positions within five years. Without this college hire strata of employees, it will be much more difficult to fill these critical management positions.
3. Long-term assets — if you do hire college grads, they are yours to lose. So with great retention and career development, they will continue to be an asset to your firm for up to 40 years. Midcareer hires can’t possibly return value for the same number of years.
4. You might only get one shot at them — whichever firm hires a new grad, it literally has a chance to keep them forever. Meaning that if this firm treats them well, they may remain at this firm throughout their entire career. However, if you only hire experienced hires, you may have missed your one and only chance to monopolize this particular individual.
5. Competitive advantage — if your firm gets this talent, your competitors cannot.
6. Youth market benefits — if your firm happens to target many of its products and services toward younger people, having a large number on your staff will likely result in better products and increase sales to this population.
7. An opportunity to influence curriculum — even the process of college recruiting allows you to build relationships with faculty. Over time this many help you in steering the curriculum so that graduates more closely fit your future needs.
8. Now is the perfect time — in the past, a weak employer brand image or a poorly designed college recruiting program may have resulted in your firm hiring lower performing college hires. However, because almost no one is actively hiring large numbers on campuses these days, you could cherry-pick the very best if you are willing to act quickly.

In other words, Dodd-Frank is mandating that more women and minorities must occupy lucrative Wall Street jobs that heretofore have been dominated by white men who, in gender and ethnicity, resemble Gordon Gekko, the anti-hero of the movie Wall Street and of its sequel.The Dodd-Frank provision is buried within some 850 pages of legislative text designed to strengthen the financial sector, promote economic recovery and job growth, protect consumers, and permanently end taxpayer bailouts of private institutions. Section 342 of Dodd-Frank embeds 20 Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion at virtually every major financial regulatory agency of the federal government: Treasury, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the 12 Federal Reserve banks, and the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The offices are designed to serve as watchdogs, monitoring the diversity of the agencies and the government contractors and subcontractors with which they do business. The list includes “financial institutions, investment banking firms, mortgage banking firms, asset management firms, brokers, dealers, financial services entities, underwriters, accountants, investment consultants and providers of legal services.”Wall Street’s issues with gender diversity date back to the now infamous “Boom-Boom Room,” Smith Barney’s basement party room where lap dances took place in the 1990s. Since then, females across the industry have shared similar tales about how they were sexually harassed with vulgar talk; excluded from business lunches, meetings and golf outings; and how their careers were hindered or damaged.

While consciousness has been raised and while the numbers of female and minority executives have improved, the vast majority of Wall Street firms lack diversity in the upper ranks. And that disparity could be a big problem in the eyes of Dodd-Frank regulators. Wall Street does billions of dollars in business with the federal government for services that include debt issuances, sales of government assets, as well as more general advisory services.

That business now may hinge on a Wall Street firm’s ability to correct racial and gender imbalances. According to Dodd-Frank language, if a federal agency’s compliance director concludes that a contractor has not made “a good faith effort to include minorities and women in its work force,” the agency head is authorized to cancel the contract. In other words, contracts worth billions are at stake — a dollar amount designed to be so significant even the wealthiest 1% would take notice.How can you determine whether Dodd-Frank diversity mandate applies to your firm? Chances are Dodd-Frank does apply if the following describes your current firm:

• Your company is an investment banking firm, mortgage banking firm, asset management firm, broker, dealer, financial services entity, underwriting, accounting, investment consulting, or law firm.
• Your company does business with the federal government’s financial agencies: Treasury, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the 12 Federal Reserve banks, and the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

What should you do if you determine that Dodd-Frank diversity mandate applies to your firm? Your company must demonstrate that it has made a “good faith” effort to employ women and minorities. Clearly, “good faith” is subject to regulatory interpretation. However, Wall Street firms that demonstrate incremental improvement year over year in the diversity of their workforce may be better positioned for compliance than those that do not.

Employers also need to make sure that rounds of recent layoffs have not had a disparate impact on protected classes: workforce reductions and reorganizations have a way of eroding diversity ratios. Still, steady improvement may not be enough if regulators determine an organization could and should be doing more. To prepare for impending diversity regulations, potential next steps include the following:

• Define the baseline. Quantify the percentage of qualified women and minorities in the labor markets from which you recruit.
• Quantify the percentage of women and minorities in your current workforce, broken out by level, function, and geography.
• Compare your company’s diversity to the diversity of the labor market and identify opportunities for improvement.
• Focus the diversity talent pool and pipeline initiatives on the levels, functions, and geographies where they’re needed the most.
• Identify, map, and cultivate relationships of diverse talent at all of your favorite target companies.

Because Dodd-Frank diversity regulations are still being written, few Wall Street employers are fully conscious of its impending diversity mandate. One head of diversity for a global investment bank told me he fears that by the time those regulations are announced next year, there simply will not be enough time for Wall Street firms to come into compliance. Consequently, my colleague maintains that the time to act is now.

Dodd-Frank is the law. Wall Street companies can either ignore its diversity mandate at their peril or they can invite a growing occupation of corner offices and trading desks by female and minority employees. Interestingly, the latter choice also stands to make the workforce more economically diverse, which, in turn, may put Wall Street back in touch with Main Street. In fact, what may be most intriguing about the Dodd-Frank is the transformative potential of its diversity mandate. It holds the promise of reforming Wall Street from within.

A little harder to see is that they are better educated than most of the population, and far better off financially.

Catbert notwithstanding, human resources is a pink-collar profession that looks very different from the rest of the corporate workforce, let alone the U.S. as a whole.

More than a few surveys have noted the gender imbalance in human resources. A dozen years ago the federal Office of Personnel Management reported the dramatic change in its own workforce. In 1969, 30 percent of the HR jobs were held by women. By 1998, the percentages were reversed, with men holding 29 percent of the jobs. A SHRM survey from 2007 came up with similar numbers.

Now, one of the most extensive profiles of HR professionals ever conducted not only confirms that what the OPM found in the federal workforce applies to the private sector, but the diversity there is just what you would expect from eyeballing conference attendees.

What HR Thinks and Feels: The 2011 HRxAnalysts Psychographic Survey of HR Professionals is a collaborative effort between The Starr Conspiracy (formerly, Starr Tincup) and John Sumser’s HRExaminer. The report is available for sale at HRxAnalysts. Primarily a tool for vendors, the report offers a view of the denizens of the HR world right down to their political leanings (evenly split between liberal and conservative) and their leisure time activities.

The psychographic makeup of the profession is gold to marketers and salespeople, helping them understand their potential customers and how to better talk to them. (“Given that HR professionals are generally older than other departments, your sales folks should be experienced in the market,” is one of the many vendor tips in the report.)

For those working in the field, however, the report exposes the uncomfortable homogeneity of a profession charged with promoting diversity in the workforce, even as it celebrates the strides that women have made.  (“HR is a paragon of success for women who dominate the ranks at every level,” Sumser writes.)

The survey is not a statistically perfect profile of the profession. Survey participants tended to be from mid-sized employers, leaving the smallest and the largest companies under-represented. And some industries are either over-represented or under-represented. Yet as a look at the kind of people who populate the profession, the report manages to confirm some of the conventional wisdom, while contradicting other.

For instance, two-thirds of the profession is female; 92 percent is white; the average age is 47. On the other hand, the survey found, “While the stereotype is that only generalist experience is foundational in HR, the data suggests that a large majority of HR workers have spent time in recruiting and staffing.” The survey found 88 percent of HR professionals worked in recruiting and staffing early in their career, compared to 68 percent who spent time as generalists.

Rarest are those with experience in diversity (34 percent), executive education and development (27 percent), and labor negotiations (17 percent). Notes the report,

Diversity, for example, is a controversial practice area often seen as offering more obstacles than solutions. Given the overwhelming lack of diversity within the HR department, diversity professionals (who, as a group, are more ethnically and racially diverse than their colleagues) have a difficult trajectory in internal career paths. Given the specificity of their role, diversity experts are more likely to find career mobility by staying in the practice area and moving between companies.

One of the other unexpected findings of the survey is that 82 percent of HR workers have experience in other areas. On average, they spent eight years working in departments other than HR, with the top three being customer service (38 percent), sales (35 percent), and general management (31 percent).

“It’s worth noting,” says the report, “That these are people-oriented and extroverted practice areas. Given the amount and type of cross-functional experience, it is clear that the predominant HR personality suggests a high level of emotional intelligence.”

These details are just a sampling of what’s in the report. There are specifics about the professional certifications (48 percent have at least one), education (46 percent have at least some post grad; 16 percent hold and MBA), affluence (72 percent have a household income greater than $90,000), and longevity (15 years HR experience, on average).

Its 96 pages go well beyond the demographics of the profession, not only providing vendors a clearer picture of who will be buying and using their products, but describing the lifestyle, professional competencies, and more of a profession that touches every worker from entry-level clerk to CEO in every industry and in nearly every business.

She struggled to earn a living, for a time clerking at Wal-Mart. But her goal was to find work as a professional in a career that could allow her to be independent. With the assistance of Virginia’s Department of Rehabilitative Service, Chitalia received job counseling and speech therapy.

Today, she is a project manager with Anthem Wellpoint and was recently lauded in the company newsletter.

Her story is but one of dozens being cited as examples of the success disabled workers can have when, with a little assistance from the government, employers reach out to the disability community.

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month. The U.S. Department of Labor is taking the lead in promoting the month around the theme of “Profit by Investing in Workers with Disabilities.” Managed by the DOL’s Office of Disability Employment Policy, the month-long campaign to build awareness of the contributions of the disabled includes the posting of stories like Chitalia’s, as well as lending support to state and local efforts to increase the hiring of disabled workers.

Despite laws prohibiting discrimination in hiring against people with disabilities, the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the unemployment rate for disabled persons at 16.1 percent, compared to 8.5 percent for persons with no disability. While the unemployment for the bulk of the population declined from 9 percent in September 2010, it increased from 14.8 percent for the disabled.

An even more telling statistic is the percentage of the disabled who are in the workforce, whether working or looking for a job. Only 21.1 percent of disabled persons are considered in the workforce, compared to 69.7 percent of the population without a disability.

When you look at unemployment rates and workforce participation for other protected worker classes — by sex, age, ethnicity — there are disparities, but few as wide as for the disabled. (Young workers and black males are the leading exceptions in the unemployment rate spread. But even among the youngest workers, their participation in the workforce is higher.)

Why the gulf when it comes to the disabled? In a study of the issues affecting the hiring of the disabled, a group of scholars found employer attitudes had much to do with the low employment rate. “While employers tended to espouse positive global attitudes toward workers with disabilities, when specific attitudes related to the hiring of this group were assessed, views were more negative,” the researchers wrote.

“It is apparent that an overarching concern among employers has been that the costs associated with hiring people with disabilities will outweigh the benefits,” they said.

The evidence suggests that the cost issue is largely a red herring. Studies going back several years show the cost of making accommodations for disabled workers was almost insignificant. The most current data — from the Job Accommodation Network — says 56 percent of the employers participating in the survey reported no cost to accommodate a disabled employee; 38 percent reported a one-time cost they estimated at $500.

Other studies have found that the benefits of hiring disabled workers outweigh the costs, even when they are at the top end.

At an April conference organized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, its president and CEO said, “Individuals with disabilities make great employees. In fact, employers report that the work ethic of disabled employees has a positive effect on the morale and production of other employees.”

(The Chamber has a free, best practices booklet –  Leading Practices on Disability Inclusion –  that highlights the inclusion programs of several companies.)

Besides the cultural effects and the productivity gains, there are also tax benefits to hiring disabled workers. Small businesses can take up to $5,000 off their tax bill for costs related to providing accessibility for their disabled workers. Hiring certain qualified disabled persons may be able to claim a $2,400 credit; double that if the disabled person is a veteran.

Many states offer their own incentives as well as providing vocational and rehabilitative services for disabled workers. Last month the Department of Labor awarded seven states a total of $21 million in grants under the Disability Employment Initiative.

If the carrots don’t work, there’s one other reason to seek out and hire the disabled: enforcement by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Disability claims at the EEOC have been rising steadily since 2004, when the number hit a low of 15,376. Last year there were 25,165, the EEOC reports.

Today, disability charges account for a quarter of the individual charge filings. Additionally, in 2010, the EEOC collected $76 million on behalf of aggrieved individuals.

However, the point of National Disability Employment Awareness Month is not to emphasize the legal obligations, but to encourage employers to consider the benefits and dispel the concerns, legitimate or otherwise, of employers about hiring the disabled.

The authors of the study mentioned earlier note in their research report that, “though benefits are considerable, the employment rate for people with disabilities remains low. This gap suggests the pressing need to educate the business community about the benefits of having a disabled workforce, and how these benefits may outweigh perceived costs.”

Or, as Jennifer Woodside, president of  The Disability Training Alliance, says, “Because of the looming labor shortage which will happen in the next decade, companies must be visionary, prepared to recruit a native talent pool and welcome an under-served demographic in their communities: qualified, highly educated candidates, including STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) grads and combat injured veterans who just happen to have a disability.”

OK, so Yukon would like you to know that there’s more to its territory than a six- to eight-month long winter.

In 2008, it began looking at a new strategy for recruiting, retention, branding, and marketing the new brand. It wanted to better attract youth, Yukon First Nation (aboriginal) candidates, people with disabilities, and others, and do a better job at staffing hard-to-fill jobs.

By the way, if you don’t know where Yukon is — it’s next to Alaska. It’s about the size of Texas, but with only 30-35,000 people (less windy than, say, more southern Canadian areas like Winnipeg, notes Renee Paquin, an HR director in Yukon’s territorial government). Yukon hires social workers, healthcare professionals, environmental professionals, library employees, and others; in all, about 5,000 employees and about 650 jobs posted annually. Some communities can only be reached by airplane.

Paquin says that to arrive at a new employment brand, the Western Canada recruiting ad agency Midlyn Day held focus groups with employees, Yukon residents, and with residents from outside of Yukon. It also conducted telephone interviews with leaders in the organization, senior managers, and HR directors.

The Yukon HR team also looked at existing information it had, such as its annual employee engagement survey, exit surveys, and surveys of people who were hired from outside of the territory.

The result was a “comes with a territory” tagline – but, as ERE junkies know, a recruiting tagline is not a recruiting brand. The brand, the value proposition, the desired reputation, is really, in this case, about what comes with the territory: career opportunities and mobility, the lifestyle and environment, work/life balance, and the ability to make a difference in the world.

Along with the new brand came new materials, which were rolled out this spring and are still being created for various jobs. There are posters. Redone job listings. A new website, again with help from Day Advertising.

“The brand resonated,” says Paquin. “People are really behind it.”

Metrics and results and ROI are still in the works, as the marketing strategy is still being implemented. The posters that targeted First Nation job candidates resulted in a Creative Excellence Award, as did other branding materials created for the campaign.

Too many organizations task management of the program to a loosely organized committee that rarely invests the time required to build anything more than a conservative, basic program. Despite the conservative approach taken, ERPs continue to outproduce every other external recruiting source (volume and quality of hire). In world class firms, the performance of ERPs is often double that of the average, but they often have dedicated management and a host of features few firms invest the time and resources to support.

If your firm is in the process of developing a new program or redesigning your old one and you are looking to move beyond the mediocre, this checklist should give a number of ideas for building a program that will give you a competitive advantage.

Each of these advanced features has already been proven to be effective, and they can work for you provided that you have the courage to implement them.

70 Advanced Employee Referral Program Features

This list of exceptional program features has been broken into nine different categories, including:

1. Strategic features
2. Features that improve referral program quality
3. Features that help sell the organization
4. Features that improve the effectiveness of rewards
5. Features that drive program responsiveness
6. Program communication features
7. Features that extend the reach of the ERP — i.e. special programs
8. Technology features
9. Process management features

Firms that have done pioneering work with regards to each feature are cited in parenthesis.

I. Strategic ERP features

There are several strategic actions which serve as the foundation for any effective ERP.

1. Prioritize your jobs — referral programs that focus their resources on attracting top talent, game-changers, and innovators produce the highest ROI. The best programs do not cover all jobs and instead prioritize high-impact and hard-to-fill jobs. Don’t waste employee time and burden your program’s administration with “junk referrals” and referrals for jobs that can be adequately filled through normal sources (Aricent).
2. Link social media & mobile efforts with the ERP — since the explosion of social media, you cannot have a well-performing referral program without also having a strong social media effort. This close link is required because most of the connections and the relationships that your employees now build with other professionals occur via social platforms. Employees who spend dozens of hours building these relationships must be able to easily convert them into referrals and those referrals must of course be handled with a high level of customer service. Close coordination and smooth handoffs between the programs are essential (Sodexo Star Finder).
3. Link employer branding with the ERP – having a strong employer brand makes it easier for your employees to approach and build relationships with other professionals. Having a strong employer brand and external image are also essential for convincing prospects to accept a referral. As a result, the two functions must work closely together to ensure that it is easy for prospects to find compelling stories and to locate information about the firm’s best practices and any best-place-to-work awards that the firm has won (Google & Sodexo).
4. Prioritize your employee’s referrals based on their past success – the most effective programs identify employees with a successful track record of previous referrals. Referrals from those employees are prioritized and given expedited treatment. Employees with bad referral track records -or rule violators need to have their participation restricted (Accolo)
5. Global referral capability is now essential – as a result of social media, it is now easy for employees to make contacts everywhere, and since there is talent around the world, referral programs must now operate globally. In addition, remote work options now make it much easier for international talent to work anywhere. The very best programs allow for some level of regional customization (Accenture).

II. Increasing the Quality and Volume of Referrals

These advanced practices can make a significant impact on referral quality and volume.

1. Create a targeted pool of likely connected referrers — do not spam all employees with referral requests. Instead, develop a targeted pool of referrers (a referral database) that can be proactively searched in order to identify and approach the small number of individual employees who have a high likelihood of knowing individuals with the required skills and experience for a particular job. This group should include the externally “well-connected” and “super knowers” that know about the established relationships of your employees (Accolo).
2. Diversity must be emphasized – despite some frequent misconceptions, referral programs do not usually have a negative diversity impact. However if you desire to have an even higher percentage of diversity referrals, you need to focus your program and make it clear to your employees that diversity candidates are a high priority. Consider increasing the bonus for successful diversity hires (Sodexo).
3. Provide referral cards – providing your most visible employees with a paper or electronic referral cards can be powerful. The card should praise the type of person receiving the card and note that you have decided that they would be an exceptional fit at your firm. Electronic referral cards can include a tracking code to ensure that the employee gets credit for the referral. Encouraging your employees to wear “ask me about xyz” buttons (e.g. ask me about working at Cisco) at major industry events can also be effective in beginning relationships (Accenture & Southwest).
4. Proactively approach employees formerly employed at “target firms” — if your hiring managers are specifically seeking employees from desirable target firms, proactively approach your employees that used to work there.
5. Referral events – periodic open houses, ice cream socials, videoconferences, or lunchtime events can aid in highlighting your program and its current needs. Recruiters can be present to provide training, accept spot referrals, to do instant assessments, and even to offer rewards for exceptional names (Agilent, Monster, & Aricent).
6. Allow managers and HR to refer – because managers and HR individuals are also well-connected, it’s a mistake to prohibit them from making referrals. In cases where there is a perception of a conflict of interest, allow them to opt out of the bonus or to donate the bonus to charity (Accenture).
7. Expand eligibility to include non-employees – non-employees who know your firm well are often willing to provide referrals. Consider including corporate alumni, retirees, vendors, spouses, references, strategic partners, and even customers. Work with finance to find the easiest administrative ways to reward non-employees (Internosis).
8. Hold smart phone/social media/rolodex events – periodically hold short fun “contact gathering events” for small employee teams. During these events team members are encouraged to review their contacts and networks in order to identify potential referral prospects (Booz Allen Hamilton).
9. Search the “visible” competition — in industries where potential targets can be approached in person (i.e. the retail and hospitality industries), hold periodic internal competitions among your employees. Challenge them to visit competitor locations during a particular month and to interact with employees and managers in order to identify the very best working at competitor firms.

III. Features That Sell the Organization

You must provide your employees with “sales tools” to help them to convince prospects to become a referral.

1. Educate employees on how/where to find prospects — many employees simply don’t know where to look for prospects and how to convince them to accept becoming a referral. Educate your employees by providing them with a simple toolkit that directs them toward the best approaches and helps them to avoid learning by trial and error (Whirlpool, Aricent, & Acumen Solutions).
2. Provide a story inventory – the most powerful tool for selling referral prospects are authentic compelling stories about the firm. The first step is to develop an electronic story inventory so that employees can easily access your compelling stories. You should also develop a process that allows employees to contribute new stories by creating a spread-the-love website or wiki. The goal is to provide employees with access to an abundant number of stories, best practices, and examples for use in selling prospects. (Zappos & Microsoft)
3. Provide videos of the team – if a picture is worth 1,000 words, then a video can be priceless. Short informal videos can be a powerful supplement to stories. These videos can be put together by the hiring manager or employees and highlight key employees, the current work of the group, and the exciting aspects of the new opportunity. By providing this video, you increase the chances that the prospect will fully understand the opportunity and thus agree to become a referral (Deloitte & Microsoft).
4. Guarantee an interview to top prospects – by providing top performers and top referrers with the opportunity to guarantee an interview for anyone who they refer, you dramatically reduce their fear that their candidate won’t even qualify for an interview. Removing this fear of rejection by both the referring employee and the potential candidate you can dramatically increase the number and the quality of your referrals.
5. Develop a powerful slogan – although most referral programs have a slogan, very few of them are compelling, memorable, and drive action. The best program slogans are pretested to ensure that they provide the maximum impact. Examples include “A players know other A players,” “Help us catch a rising star,” “You recommend … we hire,” or “Help us build a great team… so we can all win.” (Microsoft – “Do you see yourself in others?”; “Google — Good people know other good people”).
6. Offer a friends program — employees in the same job family can be great salespeople. Solicit employees to become referral volunteers who agreed to briefly talk to “A level” referrals. This practice can decrease dropouts and increase offer acceptance rates (Cisco).
7. Improve your job descriptions – at some point in every referral relationship, the prospect will want to see the actual job description. Work with Compensation to ensure that the position descriptions are written in such a way that they actually excite potential referrals. Also compare your job descriptions for an open position to the competitors’ in order to ensure that yours are more compelling (Cisco).

IV. Reward and Bonus Related ERP Features

World-class programs never pay “equal” bonuses for all jobs, and some extremely effective programs offer no significant cash bonuses at all.

1. Do-it-for-the-team should be the primary motivator - instill in your employees that the primary reason that they should refer people is because the team wins “when it has the best players.” It is a superior motivator over monetary rewards, because it turns referrals into an opportunity to provide their teammates and themselves with the very best coworkers. By emphasizing the superior capability of employees to make contacts, to build relationships, and to assess potential candidates, you can educate your employees about the critical role that only they can play in filling the team with top performers and innovators (Accenture, Google, & Cisco).
2. Offer a charity donation option – some employees are concerned about the appearance of making referrals for self-enrichment. It is wise to offer the option of donating part ($175 – $900) or all of the reward to charity, as this can excite employees who are more concerned about helping others and being altruistic (DaVita & Accenture).
3. Offer prize drawings and non-cash rewards – a cheaper but almost-as-effective alternative to offering cash rewards for every referral is to hold a quarterly prize drawing where every employee who has made a successful referral during the period is eligible. Automobiles or car leases make great prizes because they get everyone’s attention. Unusual vacation trips are also powerful but if you have no money, consider making the prize a ticket to a once- or twice-a-year dinner with the CEO to celebrate all employees who made successful referrals. If you can’t afford or don’t want to offer large prizes or pay cash rewards, also consider providing a product sample, a handful of free movie tickets for the whole family, a plaque, or an award pin or T-shirt. Other no-cost prize options include a reserved parking spot, lunch with the CEO, or first-choice of vacation or shift schedules. Also consider placing their picture in the lobby or work with advertising to allow individuals who successfully refer an opportunity to appear in regular company product advertising (Tenet Health).
4. Settle for names only — often top employees do not have the time to thoroughly research and to capture a resume from a hot prospect. Consider offering a small reward (up to $100) for simply providing the names of obviously qualified candidates. In some cases, top employees are willing to provide names only without any bonus. In these cases, regular recruiters can pick up the follow-up and the prospect selling (Children’s Hospital & Google).
5. Periodically adjust your bonus amounts – consider varying the bonus based on the salary of the position. Offering the same rewards without variation almost always gets stale. Periodically experimenting with different approaches can allow organizations to accurately scale their incentives and to modify eligible position openings on a continuous basis. The best practice is to adjust your rewards periodically based on economic conditions, the current response rate and relative to what the competition is offering (CACI International)
6. Offer a “hard to hire” bonus supplement – for “hard-to-fill” key or hot jobs, offer a higher kick-up bonus or contest prize for a brief period of time. In some cases, hiring managers are willing to pay this bump up bonus (Aricent).
7. Gross up your bonuses – grossed up bonuses (where the tax on the reward is prepaid) can be stunning because they allow employees to receive and keep all of the reward (Agilent).
8. Supplement the bonus based on performance – offer supplemental award for referring those who after hiring turn out to be top performers (based on an above average performance appraisal score at the six-month assessment). Also consider increasing bonuses for longer-than-expected retention or if the hire happens to be a key employee from your competitor’s firm (Amazon).
9. Reward employees for referring top prospects who are not hired – offer a small reward to employees (up to $140) for all of their referral candidates who are good enough to be invited in for an interview. Also consider a small reward for employees who provide referrals who make it to the finalist list (even though they are not hired). This can further excite employees who “come close” but don’t actually have their candidate hired (Accenture).
10. A handwritten thank-you note — a personalized note or call from a senior executive thanking the employee who made a high-impact referral is cheap but powerful (Amazon).
11. Consider a “prize patrol” approach to celebrate referrals – consider making a public display and celebration out of awarding an individual referral prize both to excite and to increase competition (Quicken & Amazon).
12. Offer small rewards for “first-time” referrals – consider a small reward for employees who participate in the referral program for the first time. Potential small rewards might include a $25 gift or Starbucks card.
13. Offer small rewards to your applicants – consider small rewards or product samples for all referral interviewees who are not hired, to thank them for their time (FirstMerit).
14. Stunning bonuses can get everyone’s attention — in order to garner everyone’s attention, consider periodically offering an exceptional bonus amount ($20,000) for extremely hard-to-fill positions (DNAnexus).

Next week, Part II of “The Complete List of Employee Referral Program Best Practices.”

For more podcasts, webinars, and articles on recruiting be sure to check out ERE.net!

So far, neither of the proposals seems to have caused much of a stir, despite nearly unanimous mentions in the various analyses of the additional paperwork and increased obligations on federal contractors.

Littler Mendelson, one of the largest employment law firms in the country, says the OFFCCP focus on veterans “significantly expands the obligations of federal contractors and subcontractors.”

Another firm, McGuireWoods, referred to the proposal for additional data as both “burdensome” and “stealthy.” The firm notes in its analysis, “The agency (OFCCP) does not understand the private sector or have any apparent concern about the burdens and confidentiality issues these proposals place on contractors.”

The OFCCP itself estimated it would take 103.2 hours and cost $135,000 to collect and provide all the data that could be requested in the so-called “Scheduling Letter” — the notice of compliance audit — should the changes it wants be adopted. (The OFCCP has to get permission from the Office of Management and Budget for changes to the document and data provisions.)

Complying with the veterans rules is estimated to cost each contractor $396 a year and take 10.7 hours a year.

The paperwork proposals apply to employers with contracts of $100,000 or more and 50 employees. They expand the specific information the OFCCP wants in a compliance audit from 11 to 13 different items and also specifies how the data is to be presented. For instance, application, hire, promotion, and termination data will have to be organized by racial/ethnic group, and not simply by the broader minority/non-minority designation.

With the initial response to the audit notice, the employer must submit all company personnel documents. This would include such things as employee manuals and leave policies. Promotions and terminations (layoffs) will have to include the actual candidate pools for each.

McGuireWoods, a 900-attorney firm based in Richmond, Virginia, calls the proposed changes to the paperwork provisioning proposal “significant and problematic.” Its analysis includes links to the relevant documents from the OFCCP, which detail the specifics.

The veterans proposal is more far-reaching in that it requires contractors to more aggressively pursue the hiring of ex-military workers. Some of the provisions apply to most federal contractors, while some of the paperwork retention requirements have thresholds of 150 employees and $150,000.

Charu Avasthy, a consultant with Berkshire Associates, says the proposals will require contractors to affirmatively pursue the recruitment of veterans, and to have the records to demonstrate their efforts.

“It is an additional burden,” she said, but it’s not a whole new set of regulations. “I see these more as the means of getting the contractor community to increase the outreach and recruitment of the veterans.”

She is one of the authors of a Berkshire Associates whitepaper on the subject: “Effective Veteran Outreach — Understanding the Compliance Requirements.”

Besides broadening some of the recordkeeping, the proposal does require contractors to set annual hiring goals — benchmarks — that are derived from a consideration of such things as the percentage of veterans in a state’s labor force, the number of vets participating in the employment service delivery system in the contractor’s home state, and the contractor’s own assessment of the effectiveness of their recruitment and outreach.

To improve veteran hiring, one of the changes requires contractors to commit to “linkage agreements” with recruitment and/or training organizations, including with veterans’ employment representatives at local employment service offices.

The linkage agreements must be part of an expanded outreach and recruitment effort; the proposal requires a minimum of three specific types of efforts. In addition, contractors must provide notice of job vacancies for most types of positions to state employment services and in the format the state requires.

Candidates, who previously were asked to self-identify as veterans after receiving an offer, now must be invited to self-identify upfront. The proposal also more specifically defines which veterans are covered by the provisions: those recently separated; service medal veterans; disabled vets; and, active duty wartime or campaign veterans.

Berkshire’s Avasthy suggests contractors review the proposals (which are extensive and in legalese) and submit comments before the June 27th deadline. The OFCCP, she says, may modify some of the proposals or even eliminate some provisions after reviewing the comments. In any case, Avasthy suspects any changes that are made won’t go into effect until mid-2012 at the earliest.

The comment period for the expansion of the data and paperwork provisioning requirements for contractors being audited closes July 11. Information on how to submit comments is here.

For the provisions regarding veterans, the comment period closes June 27. The OFCCP details how to submit those comments here.

Miko Covin, who manages the employment marketing group, is one of the key players. She and others in that group — people like Alison Foy — came up from recruitment ad agencies like Bernard Hodes, TMP, and JWT Inside.

Covin arrived in 2008 from JWT, wanting to use the basic marketing and advertising skills she’d learned at agencies and apply them to social media and recruiting. In early 2010 (late in the game, she admits) she opened up a personal Facebook page after a friend invited her to be a Facebook member. She also saw the agency world struggling, social media increasing its role in recruiting, and wanted to move Home Depot in the social media direction.

She spent 2010 on education. There were HR people in Home Depot who didn’t get social media; in fact, some even used the now-awkward word “The” preceding “Facebook.” “I don’t know about The Facebook,” one person said.

Covin kept talking up the importance of social media in recruiting. By the spring of 2010 Home Depot began testing two things on Facebook, targeting people based on the information in their profiles. First, it tried advertising store jobs to females, part of an effort to reverse the perception as a company for male jobs. It casted a “huge net first,” Covin says.

It narrowed after that, targeting people — now both male and female — whose profiles indicated they were in HR, and were based in areas where an HR district manager was needed.

It brought on JWT, the recruitment marketing agency, to help with the Facebook project.

By August, satisfied with the approximately 100 resumes it had received over the summer from these efforts, the recruitment marketing team was feeling that Facebook was a success in recruiting, and it should be expanded.

By October 2010, it launched its Facebook careers page.

Building it Out

What’s happened since and what is happening now is taking a lot of forms.

There is, for example, the work Maya Garner is doing. She joined the team 3-4 months ago and is rolling out a series of five games “designed to add a little fun to the community,” she says. One, “Cart Hustle,” involves assisting customers with carts, showing the job’s not just mundane but can actually be fun. Another game is a do-it-yourself quiz. Another is “Paint Misbehavin,’” involving helping customers at the paint counter. Another is a “Helpful Homer” game about customer service.

While Home Depot wasn’t the first company to get a careers page up and running on Facebook (Deloitte New Zealand was among the early movers), it believes its games section is well ahead of what most U.S. companies are doing. (Reckitt, a UK company, was out of the gaming gate early.)

“The main purpose is to add a little fun,” Garner says. “Facebook has become such a big part of the online social media lexicon, if you will — people join to have fun catch up with old friends. It has provided an avenue for brands to have a little fun as well.”

Alison Foy, who I mentioned at the outset, is a project leader in the employment marketing group. She has run Facebook ads aimed at people who are bilingual, by targeting people who choose to view Facebook in Spanish. She also works on recruiting for job functions like supply chain employees. She’s upgrading the company’s LinkedIn pages, segmenting them by supply chain, IT, retail management, and merchandising. If you’re in IT, you’ll see the IT page. If you’re in, say, communications, you’ll see none of the pages I just listed. Expect this to happen in about a month.

Foy and others on the team also help out in keeping up the day-to-day goings-on with the site. JWT is helping with creative, analyzing results and metrics, and is helping to manage the Facebook posts.

Lifting an Orange Veil

Few companies’ hiring and interview processes are totally clear to job candidates, of course. Where one stands in the process, or even how to figure out where one stands, are ongoing mysteries to many candidates. But, Home Depot’s using Facebook to at least shed a little light on the process. As you’ll see in the conversations I’ve captured in the (click to enlarge) graphics, job candidates who’ve been left wondering what ever happened to their applications are asking the company, and getting some answers. Those answers are sometimes coming from Home Depot, and other times coming from others posting responses on Facebook.

It’s a valuable and candid look at what job seekers and current employees experience at any company. In one back-and-forth, a job seeker wrote, “I applied online quite a few months ago, got the email, the phone interview, and that was it. i don’t mind not getting the job, but a simple form email saying thanks but no thanks would be appreciated. besides you guys lost out in not hiring me!”

A Home Depot representative (Jacquese Brown) wrote back with an 866-number to call to check on her status.

In another post, shown here, a current employee complains about the company’s promotion policy.

Brown, a branding specialist, spends about a third of time reading posts, responding to them, and thinking of related site enhancements or other site issues. She says the company’s open-book policy is not just about helping people get their questions answered, but about Home Depot improving. “It shows us where we can better our process,” she says. “It shows us opportunites where we can help the user experience be very transparent.”

Brown says the heavy communication has another benefits — big benefits. It’s a way of taking a briefly-established relationship between a Home Depot recruiter or another employee and keeping it up. Let’s say a Home Depot rep meets someone at a Hispanic MBA event. They can have the candidate “friend” them on Facebook and begin receiving information about upcoming events, jobs, and so on. Home Depot, for example, will send out communications to fans in a specific zip code or area. If a contact — a candidate — asks a question to Brown, or a Home Depot recruiter, through Facebook, Home Depot’s policy is to respond within 24 hours.

Brown and colleagues laugh when I ask if they get questions or comments that don’t meet the guidelines. “We get comments that are more interesting than others,” Brown says. “Day to day you really don’t really know what’s going to be posted.”

More Work

Facebook’s expansion as a recruiting tool has led to quite a few new things that must change.

A perfect example is the corporate career site. Covin says Home Depot needed to ensure consistency between the Facebook experience and the career site experience, the latter being the place where candidates end up applying. You can “have the flashiest site and flashiest advertising, but the corporate career site,” she says, “well, let’s just say it had great opportunities (for improvement).”

She said the company asked itself: “‘Are we completing the candidate experience on a high note?’ I can’t say we were.”

That site was redone, relaunching in 2011.

Meanwhile, Home Depot is researching what it will do to optimize its Facebook Careers pages for mobile phones.

Also, when you’re on the Facebook page for customers, there’s little sign of the careers page, a move that would turn a customer into an employee. That could change in the future.

I asked the Home Depot folks about metrics, and in particular, hires. They said that this is all about branding. They’re not measuring success by hires yet. The marketing group remembers, like it was yesterday, when it had 500 fans. Now, it has 16,000. The number rises about 2% weekly. Covin says that “we all knew that once we started, this would take more time. We knew it wasn’t going to be a one-hit thing where you just put it up there and you’re done.”

The spring tends to be the chain’s busy season, a little like tax season for accountants, but, says Covin, “employment marketing has never really had a downtime.”

Additionally, women account for 51 percent of all workers in high-paying management, professional, and related occupations. There are now more women in management positions than men for the first time in American history, and it isn’t stopping anytime soon. Women are projected to account for 51.2 percent of the increase in total labor force growth by 2018. And, these are not exclusively American trends — they are also trends in Europe and many Asian countries.

More women are attending and graduating from universities. Men make up only 40% of the students in American universities while women are closing in on two-thirds of the university population and receive the majority of college degrees. No one is exactly sure why this is happening but we do know that boys are diagnosed more often with learning disabilities and are more likely to be expelled or incarcerated. Or it may be that men are disengaged and uncomfortable with traditional teaching methods. They often feel able to go off on their own, start a business, or just hang out with friends.

So what does all of this mean for your organization and recruiting?

Obviously there will be a growing number of well-educated women entering the workforce. A wise strategy would be one that began to actively seek them out, engage them in learning more about your organization, and provide them with enticements that are geared to their needs.

Most of our recruiting efforts are traditional, and that generally means weighted in favor of men. We assume that most employees are willing to work a “normal” 8-hour day and a “normal” 40-hour work week. We assume they want bonuses and blocks of vacation time. And we assume they are willing to play the political games that are frequently needed to get ahead. These include those beers after work with the boss, talking sports, cars, and participating in events after work.

All of these may not be good assumptions if you want to stay competitive and get the best and most educated people available.

Here are a few things to consider: 

It’s just good business strategy to hire women. With women becoming the majority of the workforce, it is just common sense to find better ways to attract and engage them. More and more startups are now led by women and more are moving into the ranks of senior leadership.

A number of organizations including HP and IBM have designed specific strategies to attract women. One organization, Cigna, has invested 2 million dollars to recruit and develop executive-level women. Pepperdine University found that the Fortune 500 companies with the best record of promoting women outperformed their competitors by anywhere from 41 to 116 percent.

And, a recent study by Catalyst shows that companies with the highest representation of women in their senior leadership had better financial performance as a group than those with the lowest number of women. Yet, women only account for 14% of the boards of Fortune 500 in the U.S. France and other European countries have now mandated that boards will be 40% female.

Are you finding the women you already have? Many recruiters and hiring managers are not actively seeking out the women already working in their organizations. Internal hiring and development of women are cornerstones of improving your brand image. Each recruiter should focus on making sure that a diverse slate of candidates that includes current female employees whenever possible is presented to hiring managers.

By making it a policy to help women move up and across the organization you can enhance your brand image and consequently your ability to attract more women.

You need to make sure your brand is friendly to women. Very few organizations take the time to examine their brand messaging to see how it appeals or doesn’t appeal to men and women. Women often feel undervalued, unappreciated, and underserved by recruiters and organizations. There is a subtle expectation that they should react to things and have the same approaches as men do to situations and events.

It is very important to think about the overt and covert messages that come through when someone thinks about your brand. Messages that may appeal more to women than men are those offering flexible work time or that talk about a friendly and collaborative workplace. Socially responsible organizations are also important to many women. Imaging needs to show women in a variety of roles and testimonials and interviews with women showcase what you are doing. Women need to see and hear that their work will be rewarded and appreciated and that the expectations are not less for them than they are for men.

You should relook at all your HR policies and practices. Numerous surveys show that women are looking for very different benefits than men. Some of the specific things they are looking for include job sharing, part-time telecommuting, flexible business hours, and paid and unpaid work interruptions for child care and elder care.

Women are also looking for non-hierarchical organizations with a reputation for collaborative decision-making. If your organization, like so many, has a lot of men at the top this may be a problem. But often lower down there are women managers and women-led teams that offer that collaborative environment. Every recruiter should understand how women contribute to their organization and what roles may be most attractive.

Ignoring women, thinking they are the same as men, assuming we all want to same things are very dangerous practices. Beginning to tailor your strategies and tactics to the dominant workforce makes good sense to me.

(Stats are from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics unless indicated otherwise.)

You may have read about the big case against Wal-Mart, where to sum it up, the Supreme Court will decide if a gender-discrimination lawsuit can be brought as a class action, one that’d involve more than a million women.

On the podcast below, Gerald L. Maatman, Jr. of Seyfarth Shaw LLP, talks about what this case could mean to recruiting departments when the Court’s verdict arrives. Mattman works out of the firm’s Chicago and New York offices; one of his specialties is defending employers sued in employment-related class actions.

Such developments have led a growing number of experts to conclude that big government may be setting a new benchmark for big business in the United States — at least when it comes to diversity in the workplace. Consequently, now may be the right time for corporate recruiters to start removing potential barriers from the hiring process.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing either considering that the then-Nextel Communications Inc. reported a savings of nearly three times as much in turnover costs as it spent on a $1.2 million investment in diversity training back in 2003.

Largest Employer

“You can’t get around the fact that the federal government is the nation’s largest employer,” observes Eric Peterson, manager of diversity and inclusion at SHRM.

Peterson acknowledges that there is likely to be a ripple effect in corporate America from diversity activities in the federal government. “When smart organizations see this happening in the news and they see President Obama signing a lot of these policies into effect, they are going to take notice and say ‘this is the direction the country seems to be going in and we better respond to that.”

Allen B. Roberts, a member of the law offices of Epstein, Becker and Green and Managing Shareholder of the New York office, agrees the federal bureaucracy is setting the new best practices for businesses to follow with regard to diversity.

“In the instance of the (Dodd-Frank) statute and the new Executive Order, what you’ve got is not only someone out there saying ‘this is the new best practice,’ but also you’ve got some teeth with it,” according to Roberts, who co-chairs his firm’s Whistleblowing and Compliance Subpractice Group.

Interagency Council on Diversity and Inclusion

According to a draft of the President’s Executive Order obtained by The New EEO Source, the government plans to create a high-level Interagency Council on Diversity and Inclusion. Its mission would be to develop a Government-wide Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan. The Council would be co-chaired by the director of the Office of Personnel Management and the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

It would consist of the heads of 19 executive departments and agencies — including many of the government’s largest employers — and such other departments and agencies as the President or chairs may designate or invite.

“Our nation derives strength from its commitment to equal opportunity for all and from the diversity of its citizenry,” the draft states. “We are at our best when we draw on the talents of all parts of our society, and our greatest accomplishments are realized when diverse perspectives are brought to bear to overcome our greatest challenges.”

“For the federal government as an employer, a commitment to equal opportunity, diversity, and inclusion is critical. Securing and maintaining a diverse, qualified workforce is one of the cornerstones of the merit based civil service,” the draft states.

Dodd-Frank

Section 342 of Dodd-Frank is specifically aimed at financial regulatory agencies, and extends to “all business and activities of the agencies at all levels, including in procurement, insurance, and all types of contracts.”

It charges agencies to develop standards for increased participation of minority-owned and women-owned businesses in the programs and contracts of the agency, including standards for coordinating technical assistance to those businesses.

Section 342 specifically applies to agency directors of the Department of the Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, each of the Federal Reserve banks, the Federal Reserve Board, the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, according to Roberts.

E. Fredrick Preis, Jr., senior partner and head of the labor and employment section at the Lemle & Kelleher law firm, says private financial institutions are concerned by the provisions of Section 342. “Most of them already have diverse workforces to some extent. It’s certainly brought home to them that they need to continue to do so,” says Preis, whose firm represents management.

Recruiters Need Specific Goals

Organizations that follow the government’s lead on diversity will have to be very specific in defining program goals and expected outcomes — preferably up front, say experts. This should include keeping track of who is hired for a particular job and who is not hired. It should also include a method of tracking the source that was used to find each candidate and some method of measuring the effectiveness of various sources in achieving specific diversity goals.

Women reaching parity in numbers in the workplace: not as big an issue anymore.

Jennifer McClure

Women reaching parity in leadership roles: no luck.

In an upcoming Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership article, Darren Shearer, a senior research consultant at SuccessFactors, compares male-to-female ratios at the staff level to male-to-female ratios at the executive level, showing a marked difference.

In the podcast below, we discuss what’s behind this: Is it discrimination, people’s choices, or some combination? We talk about ways the workplace is still inhospitable to parents of any gender, but why there’s reason to be optimistic about the future.

Leanne Chase

On the line, in addition to Shearer and myself, are Leanne Chase, of Career Life Connection, and Jennifer McClure of Unbridled Talent.

However, over time, we’ve come to learn that these programs also represent a vital component of our company’s journey to build a diverse and inclusive workforce.

The Beginning of an Evolution at Sodexo

Like many companies, Sodexo’s diversity initiatives have evolved over time.

We created a diversity and inclusion framework that was based on measures of accountability from the CEO down, tied to incentives and performance goals. We established a consistent and transparent recruiting and selection process and provided training in compliance in such areas as EEO/Affirmative Action to ensure that all our managers understood the legal environment.

And, we built a comprehensive diversity sourcing strategy, focused on best practices, and using technology and new communications media to identify and connect with top diverse talent. We required all of our recruiters to become AIRS-certified diversity recruiters. We also focused on the importance of building relationships with top talent. From recruiting at colleges and universities that have highly diverse populations, to diversity-focused professional associations, to positioning our company as a top employer of diverse talent, we worked hard on the front end to attract and hire. But, we realized that all of these efforts would be meaningless without a work environment that let our employees thrive.

Embedding Diversity and Inclusion Into our Corporate Culture

Encouraging all employees — from senior staff to front-line workers — to embrace diversity and inclusion values can be can be daunting for an organization our size, with more than 6,000 individual operations across the U.S. alone. Our company created this cultural shift by literally embracing the words of Mahatma Ghandi: “We must be the change we want to see in the world.” Through diversity-focused training, to the establishment of vibrant employee network groups and mentoring initiatives, over time, diversity and inclusion have become a part of our company’s DNA. This value is so deeply embedded in our culture that it is viewed as a distinct competitive advantage. In fact, we’ve even been recognized this year by DiversityInc as the #1 overall on their top 50 list of diverse and inclusive companies and #1 for Recruitment and Retention. In 2008, ERE recognized Sodexo as #1 in diversity recruiting.

Why Internal Mobility?

The short answer is that our employees are our greatest asset!

We know from our candidate surveys and our company engagement survey that our employees want to stay in a company that provides a range of professional opportunities and career paths where they can grow their career. So, if we can leverage the opportunity to promote and hire from within the company, we may be able to retain existing diverse employee populations.

The Challenge

Like any large organization, our challenge lies in the existence of multiple market segments all within our one company. It can be difficult for individuals to plan, identify, and compete for promotional opportunities — especially when those opportunities might be in a different market segment.

Meanwhile, we see an opportunity to stimulate employee creativity and innovation by introducing employees who may have different business perspectives. They bring a fresh perspective to existing work plans and can stimulate process development and productivity.

Blazing the Path for Internal Mobility

Thus we launched our internal mobility initiative with the goal of helping our employees achieve their career aspirations, and, ultimately attempting to influence the engagement and retention of our top and diverse employees..We began with “soft” internal sourcing: sharing jobs with our employee network groups and sending e-cards internally to individuals on our succession plan. As we progressed, we learned that just sharing information with our employees was not enough. We needed to help them to overcome organizational barriers that make it difficult for our employees to post and compete for positions outside of their markets.

So, we took a more consultative approach to our challenges. For example, we engaged our executives in panel discussions and held focus groups on internal job opportunities and barriers. We looked for ways to focus on competencies vs. organizational experience when looking at talent, and considered developing partnership programs to team with other company initiatives to more explicitly focus on helping our top and diverse employees achieve their career aspirations.

Team Effort: Engaging Multiple Leadership Levels to Drive Results

Buy-in from the executive level is critical for cross divisional movement to be successful. To assist in driving success, our talent acquisition group launched three vodcasts with messages from senior leaders in support of internal mobility to be used at team meetings throughout the organization and with recruiter training.

Additionally, our talent acquisition group formed and now leads a cross-divisional and cross-function team that is systematically looking at program enhancement opportunities and ensuring that proposed solutions will fit within our company framework. Early results from these efforts show that on average, 10% of our internal management hires have been cross-divisional transfers. And the information from our 2010 Employee Engagement Survey is especially encouraging in an environment where most companies have seen the engagement of their employees drop (as reported by the 2010 Hewitt Study). We have succeeded in increasing ours by a strong 7%, with 85% of our employees reporting that Sodexo is a better employer than the competition.

More Than Just Another Hire

While Sodexo has been recognized for implementing best practices in diversity and inclusion, we know that our journey is not complete. We are continually looking for new ways to take our programs to the next level.

To be a competitive employer for top diverse talent, we need to be able to do more than simply source and hire. We need a corporate culture where employees thrive and are able to achieve their career aspirations. As such, we believe that our current focus on internal mobility is an important initiative to increase retention of top diverse talent. It completes the circle: sourcing, hiring, and retaining top diverse talent.

Let’s Continue the Conversation at the ERE Expo

Will you be at the ERE Expo this fall? If so, I invite you to join my keynote session. I would love to continue the conversation, share with you some of what we at Sodexo are doing to take our diversity journey to the next level, and also learn from you the best practices at your organizations.

Here’s what’s going on in the ERE community this week:

1. Inhouse recruiters: ignore Facebook at your peril
2. Confessions of a Job Seeker: What I Learned!
3. Typers and Talkers
4. Oregon Law Bans Use of Credit Reports for Employment Screening
5. Diversity Firms — Know of any good ones?
6. Featured group of the week: Dallas/Ft. Worth Recruiters

1. Inhouse recruiters: ignore Facebook at your peril

Katrina Collier writes regarding the importance of not ignoring Facebook, “Social Networking Could Soon Pass Search, written by ReadWriteWeb‘s Marshall Kirkpatrick, summed up the importance of this beautifully: “What would it mean if social networking over-took search in terms of sheer visits online? It would mark a sea-change on the Internet. No longer would our dominant use of the web be seeking out web pages built by HTML web-masters! Now we would all be publishing tiny little updates that perhaps only our friends and family care about.” So what “tiny little updates” are being written about your company and are any of these preventing you from attracting and hiring great talent?

Is Facebook an essential part of your branding and attraction strategy? If not, would a shift in traffic numbers with Facebook in first place change your mind? Drop a line in the comments.

2. Confessions of a Job Seeker: What I Learned!

Chris Brablc blogs about his recent experience in job seeking, “By experiencing the ins and outs of the job search grind on a daily basis and more importantly actively seeking advice from job seekers and recruiters, I was able to garner some key takeaways on how the recruiting process can be better. In addition, as I talked to both sides, I came to realize the great value that came from these two sides sharing thoughts with one another.”

He takes a balanced approach talking about what each side of the candidate search function needs to do to improve the overall results. What is your take on this?

3. Typers and Talkers

A forum member asks, “Sourcing experts — looking for input: In a sourcing model that leverages technical sourcing skills and relationship-recruiting skills (“typers & talkers,” in the parlance of Eric Jaquith), what are the traits and measurable competencies of technical sourcers (“typers”)? What industries do they come from? How do you measure them? What “typer to talker” ratios work best for you, in your industry?

What is your experience with “typers and talkers” in your industry?

4. Oregon Law Bans Use of Credit Reports for Employment Screening

Doreen Koronios writes, ”During its February 2010 special session, the Oregon Legislature adopted Senate Bill 1045, prohibiting employers from using credit histories in making employment-related decisions. The law goes into effect on July 1, 2010 and makes it ‘an unlawful employment practice for an employer to obtain or use for employment purposes information contained in the credit history of an applicant for employment or an employee, or to refuse to hire, discharge, demote, suspend, retaliate or otherwise discriminate against an applicant or an employee with regard to promotion, compensation or the terms, conditions or privileges of employment based on information in the credit history.’

I wouldn’t be surprised if more states didn’t go down the same path as Oregon given how hard the recession has hit people’s credit report. What are your thoughts?

5. Diversity Firms — Know of any good ones?

Maureen Sharib asks in the SOURCING Techniques and Methodologies group, ”One of our members sent me an email asking if I knew who the contingency and retained search firms are who are specialists in diversity recruiting. I don’t really. But I thought you guys might. They’re a major financial firm here in the States and they’re looking to identify more diverse candidates for their senior level roles across all business functions to include Marketing, Legal, Operations, Risk, Investments, Finance, etc.

Do you know of any firms? Are you looking for one? Check out the comments.

6. Featured group of the week: Dallas/Ft. Worth Recruiters

I am continuing to highlight some of the groups that we are hoping to reinvigorate and one of those groups is the Dallas/Ft. Worth Recruiters group. It is “a group for recruiters in the DFW area to meet and discuss recruiting topics, network, etc.” We’ve already started discussing some of the in-person networking opportunities in the area and would love to see if there are any other DFW folks who would be interested in contributing.

To see what else you’ve been missing, check out the ERE community.

Here’s what’s going on in the ERE community this week:

1. Are you clueless about diversity recruiting?
2. Developing and nurturing candidate relationships
3. Working for a boss that doesn’t know recruiting
4. Monthly retainers for recruiters
5. How common is a draw in commission based sales positions these days?
6. Featured group of the week: Independent Recruiters

1. Are you clueless about diversity recruiting?

Sarah Welstead writes, “Age discrimination in the workforce is still prevalent, but it’s based on obsolete information.  The 50+ group is the fastest-growing demographic on the Internet; they’re more productive than younger counterparts (fewer sick days, less-frequent turnover); and our own research found that almost 85% of them had cellphones (and almost 10% of them were using Blackberrys every day)!

What is your take on diversity recruiting? Weigh in on Sarah’s post.

2. Developing and nurturing candidate relationships

Matthew Hakaim writes about the importance of candidate relationships. He states, “Building candidate relationships with each and every individual that will stand strong over the months and years translates into loyalty and referrals that will increase placements and income.  Critical to the process of building that relationship is the art of listening.  Make it a practice to be fully present during all of your conversations.  Learn what is important to each unique candidate.

Building relationships is important but does it work in an environment where more recs are being pushed to recruiters? What’s your take?

3. Working for a boss who doesn’t know recruiting

Sung Kim writes, “It’s not really a secret that I believe that “corporate HR” and “Recruiting” should be two separate departments, neither one reporting into one another but rather facilitating each others’ needs as distinctively individual units.  It’s not been the first time I’ve said it or blogged about it since it’s always been my professional stance.  Simply put, the “traditional HR” person just doesn’t get it.

Is working as a recruiter in an HR department more difficult? Let Sung know what you think.

4. Monthly retainers for recruiters

Have you ever worked as a recruiter on a monthly retainer? A commenter in the forum asks, “I have been retained before by clients, but never on a monthly basis.  Have any of you made a monthly retained agreement?  Wondering what to charge?” Can you share any tips with her?

5. How common is a draw in commission-based sales positions these days?

Have you been seeing more draw based commission-only sales positions out there? What have you seen as far as structures for these arrangements? A questioner in the Independent Recruiter group asks, “When there is a base plus commission model, how common is it to have a draw (recoverable or nonrecoverable) on commission for a few months?

A commenter threw out this warning: “I would be very leary of a recoverable draw scenario where there are no existing accounts given and no initial period of a non-recoverable draw.” What’s your take on draws?

6. Featured group of the week: Independent Recruiters

The Independent Recruiters group was founded by Craig Silverman and is all about connecting the community of independent recruiters. The statement for the group states that, “[t]his is a group for recruiters that are interested in working with independents or as an independent to share information. We will discuss topics such as: fee agreements, split placements, Applicant Tracking Systems, direct recruiting, job boards, account management, developing contract business, back office services, building your brand image, and more.

There are several discussions going on such as the best industries for independent recruiters and who’s responsibility is it to check references.

To see what else you’ve been missing, check out the ERE community.

But the participation of Hispanic-Americans in the federal workforce is a different story. According to the latest data (2008) from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Latinos make up barely 8% of the Federal workforce. In recent years, a number of high-visibility initiatives have been directed at the challenge of Hispanic participation, but the numbers continue to lag. Despite their seeming best efforts, Federal agencies have generally made little progress in recruiting and retaining Hispanic employees over the last decade.

At TMP Government, this situation has puzzled us as well. In the March Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership (ERE’s print publication geared at recruiting leaders), we lay out a seven-step suggested solution to the problem.

For now, though, we’ll kick it off online by suggesting a few possible causes and symptoms of the government’s apparent failure to make headway on this challenge.

Statistics Tell the Tale

Again, Hispanic-Americans are the largest and fastest-growing minority segment in the U.S. By all predictions, this trend will continue at least through the first half of this century. As of its last estimate (2007), the U.S. Census Bureau pegs the median age of U.S. Hispanics at 27.7 years, compared to 36.8 years for the rest of the population. And almost 34% of U.S. Hispanics are younger than 18; for the population as a whole, only 25% of Americans are under 18. By 2050, again according to the Census Bureau, Hispanic-Americans will make up nearly 25% of the total population.

These predictions promise significant implications for our culture and economy — not to mention the U.S. labor market. Overall employment numbers in the U.S. are already showing the impact of this accelerating demographic shift. Since 1980, the American labor force has grown by more than 41%. Fully a third of this increase is accounted for by Hispanics.

Human capital professionals in the corporate world appear to dealing effectively with this groundswell of Hispanics in the general workforce, and are diligently preparing for the new HR imperatives it will bring in its wake. But this is not the case with government human capital leaders. We have one question for them:

Why is the Federal government’s track record of recruiting and developing Hispanic employees so bad?

Across the board, the feds have managed to achieve only 7.8% participation by Hispanics in the government workforce. And the news gets worse: Hispanic men and women today represent only 3.6% of individuals at federal senior pay levels — a proportion that drops to 2.5% when you take political appointees out of the calculation.

These numbers are puzzling, to say the least. The government has traditionally been the standard-bearer for minority participation in the workforce. Consider African-Americans: they make up 13% percent of the U.S. population and — according to the latest available count (2008) — more than 18% of the Federal workforce. Certainly we should credit most of this progress to vigorous initiatives by Federal agencies, beginning in the early 1970s, to recruit and retain talented African-Americans.

But when it comes to leveling the playing field for Hispanics in government, today’s recruitment initiatives appear to be yielding only marginal gains at best, and in some cases they are barely holding the line against attrition.

We’re prepared to suggest several factors that may be diminishing the government’s success in making recruitment gains among Hispanic-Americans. At the same time, we are identifying a number of technical and strategic measures that in our view can go a long way toward helping the government succeed in this mission. Moreover, these innovations have the potential to enrich other dimensions of Federal human capital management substantially — beyond recruitment and beyond the Hispanic-American segment.

What factors influence the government’s disappointing track record in recruiting and retaining Hispanics?

Here, in brief, are a handful of factors that may be contributing to the Feds’ apparent lack of success with the Hispanic-American segment.

Competitive Barriers From Industry

The corporate community has seemingly mastered the Hispanic recruitment challenge. Indeed it may hold the trump card here, both by reason of the resources it can devote to Hispanic engagement programs and the pay premiums it can offer to talented Latino candidates. The government simply can’t keep pace on either score. The Feds aren’t empowered to offer pay incentives based on minority status, and most agencies today don’t have the budgets or staff resources to build comprehensive recruiting/retention programs targeted at the Hispanic segment.

“Geo-Demographic” Barriers

Most federal entry-level positions tend to be in the national capital region. In the District of Columbia and the two adjacent states (Maryland and Virginia), the population of Hispanics is well below that of many other regions, especially in the Southwest and California. The “hire-able” population is simply not that deep in Washington, despite some clustering of Hispanic blue-collar workers in Washington and its near suburbs. Compounding this difficulty is a disconcerting “psychographic” factor suggested anecdotally by many recruiters: young, job-seeking Hispanics in general are less inclined to relocate, because it means leaving their extended families for new positions away from home. In the absence of family ties here, a move to the Washington area for a government job may be inherently less attractive for some Hispanic-Americans.

Lack of High-level Commitment and Resources Among Individual Agencies and Departments

Let’s face it: campaigns to improve Hispanic participation in the Federal workforce simply cannot draw on the same driving momentum in society as the widespread movement for civil rights and equal opportunity for African-Americans. From the 1960s on, in fact, the federal government was the primary institutional driver behind this movement, and a natural leader in the crusade to roll back hiring barriers impeding black Americans.

But when it comes to Hispanics and other underserved minorities, there’s neither the degree of enforced commitment nor even (so far as we can tell) a deeply felt personal commitment at high levels. Without the visible presence of management champions of the cause, there’s little incentive to build real momentum for Hispanic programs within agencies. By the same token, agency funds are rarely available to mount Hispanic programming on the same scale as earlier equal opportunity initiatives centering on African-Americans (except, perhaps, where Spanish language skills are a job requirement).

Misleading Emphasis on Recruiting for Spanish-speaking Positions and Bilingual Skills

Break down the government’s current roster of Hispanic employees and you will find a disconcerting reality: they tend to cluster in public interface positions that call for fluency in Spanish, as well as in low-paying service jobs, like maintenance and food service. In the first instance — although it’s anything but pleasant to contemplate — we’re suggesting that some agencies that need to recruit aggressively for bilingual positions may unconsciously put bilingual qualifications first when they evaluate any Hispanic-American candidate. The result: they may unconsciously filter non-Spanish speaking Hispanics out of consideration for ‘mainstream’ positions that don’t require Spanish-language skills.

We realize that this element is potentially controversial, and are not suggesting that conscious prejudice plays any part in this cycle (if it exists). But we are suggesting that maybe, just maybe, unconscious habits of mind among hiring officials could be channeling Hispanic candidates into the constituent interface track and not considering them carefully enough for mainstream positions if they don’t — or even if they do — fit the bilingual mold.

Scarcity of Agency Resources to Take Comprehensive, Top-down Action

It’s the rare individual agency or department that elevates the full cycle of Hispanic recruitment, retention, and development to a top-level institutional initiative. We have encountered few agencies that have set out to elicit engaged participation from senior leadership, the agency management team, hiring managers, and their operating components, and all units in the agency HR infrastructure. An agency that adopts this kind of vertically integrated organizational strategy would have an advantage ion recruiting all diversity classes, not just Hispanic-Americans.

There’s another flavor of integration that might also help at the agency level: effectively integrating its recruitment outreach thematically by underscoring:

• the full employment life-cycle at the agency, and
• the agency’s commitment to productive inclusion of all diversity classes in the workplace community.

Agencies that approach the Hispanic/diversity recruitment challenge from all of these integrative perspectives, it seems to us, stand a much better chance of success than agencies that revert to standard “checklist” practices of minority hiring.

Lack of Concrete, Government-wide Initiatives for Meeting This Challenge

Up until now, agencies have tended to go it alone rather than teaming with other agencies in the Hispanic recruitment mission. While surely this is due to budgetary constraints (as well as something of a competitive dimension, owing to the perceived scarcity of Hispanic candidates), it’s a less-than-effective way to tackle the challenge. In the typical agency HR infrastructure, recruiting resources are limited and/or distributed across multiple initiatives. The result: Hispanic recruitment and retention (despite the current hue-and-cry) may not attract the urgent managerial, budgetary, and strategic attention they deserve. And while a given agency may have its share of individual champions for the Hispanic cause, it can find itself without the resources and allies to gain real purchase on the initiative.

The alternative is collective effort across agency boundaries. If insularity and inter-agency competitiveness can be set aside and budget barriers cleared, this approach could create empowering economies of scale, not to mention bringing individual, agency-based champions together on the same team, where their collective talent, energy, and enthusiasm can be harnessed and channeled.

Of course, government-wide taskforces to analyze the challenge are a critical (and-all-too familiar) first step, but up to now they haven’t demonstrated the power to implement collective solutions. Luckily, today’s Office of Personnel Management is a leading champion of collective government-wide common action among agencies. OPM is developing similar programs to coordinate recruiting pools of special talent, like technology and finance, for multiple agencies to draw on for new employees. A similar initiative for Hispanic recruiting could go far to address the current challenge.

We realize that many of the influential factors we suggest above will likely stir discussion and controversy. It’s important to regard them as topics for consideration, not hard formulas. We want to inspire more dialogue on this topic, and ultimately spur progress on this very serious challenge. Again, check out the March Journal for our proposed solutions.

Diversity means difference. Difference can show up a lot of different ways, but within the context of work we can probably focus primarily on identity diversity (age, race, gender, geography, etc.), cognitive diversity (different thinking styles, mental orientations, and mental tools), and behavioral and communicative diversity. Diversity and inclusion work at its core is about sustainable and profitable practices — especially the effective and efficient identification, support, and deployment of talent to achieve business objectives.

Not only is there still need for clarity on what diversity and inclusion are, we should also get clear on this business case stuff. Do not be confused by what you have heard or read claiming that there is no business case for diversity, or that the business case is somehow fuzzy. Hogwash. Again, organizational diversity and inclusion work are largely about successfully finding, keeping, and using talent, which is increasingly business critical. The business case for diversity and inclusion is alive and well.

A specific business case is dependent upon the organization and the nature of the actual investment, but a few of the sources of value (explored in more depth in the December 2009 Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership) a case can be built on include:

Competitive Advantage

For more and more organizations in more and more industries, innovation is the new opportunity for competitive advantage. This is no secret, as there has been a great deal of discussion and analysis regarding the evolving role of innovation. Innovation is about more than just bringing new products or services to market. It also includes other aspects of business, such as approaches to collaboration, talent management, and engaging new markets.

Despite our affection for the myth of the lone genius, innovation does not take place in isolation. It happens at intersections. It happens when different experiences, perspectives, professions, organizations, and cultures rub up against each other. Without an understanding of, and some appreciation for, the value of difference (in opinion, identity, culture, profession, perspective, etc.) organizations will be hard-pressed to drive sustained innovation. Frans Johansson examines several great examples of this in The Medici Effect, including the story of the great Bletchely Park collaboration, where an incredibly diverse group of characters gathered to break the German coding system during WWII.

Demographic Changes

We are approaching a point where racial and ethnic minorities and women will represent 70% or more of new entrants into the workforce. Organizations that are not good at attracting, engaging, and retaining women and people of color need to fix that quickly, or they are going to be competing for a shrinking percentage of the available talent. Companies that only fix part of this will find themselves with costly retention and engagement problems. Real commitment to workforce diversity is no longer optional.

Talent

Regardless of our intentions, diversity is one of the social variables that can drastically diminish our ability to actually identify talent. In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell shows us an example of this from the world of art. In the not-too-distant past, classical music was largely the domain of white men. “Women, it was believed, simply could not play like men. They didn’t have the strength, the attitude, or the resilience for certain kinds of pieces. Their lips were different. Their lungs were less powerful. Their hands were smaller. None of this seemed like prejudice at the time. It seemed like fact, because when conductors and music directors held auditions, the men always seemed to sound better than the women.”

As part of the push for legal protection, benefits, and fairness in hiring, musicians wanted the audition process to be formalized. This included erecting screens between the auditioner and those evaluating them. “In the past 30 years, since screens became commonplace, the number of women in the top U.S. orchestras has increased fivefold.”

Some of the women who stood out the most in these new auditions were the same women that had auditioned numerous times before the screens were added without making the cut.

I am not talking here about hateful people intentionally discriminating against others. That is another topic altogether. I am talking about human nature getting in the way of our identification of talent. If we want to improve our ability to really identify talent, we have to be aware of the influence of human nature and work to offset it as individuals and organizations.

People, teams, and organizations that are indeed serious about talent must also be serious about diversity and inclusion. Once, again, I am not talking about being tolerant or being sensitive. I am talking about understanding the value of difference and understanding what can easily and quietly get in the way, regardless of our intentions or our character.

The future of your organization may very well depend on it.

So much has been reported and written about the case of Ricci v. DeStafano that it’s almost impossible to have missed the story of how 20 New Haven, Conn. firefighters were denied  promotions although they came out on top in civil service tests for lieutenant and captain. Eighteen of the top scorers were white; two Latino. None were black, although the city is 37 percent black and blacks made up 30 percent of the fire department in 2003, when the test was given.

When the city’s Civil Service Board got the results, it feared certifying the test would expose the city to a Civil Rights lawsuit on the basis that the test had a disparate impact on a protected minority. But not certifying the results meant an almost certain lawsuit from the successful candidates who might claim, as they later did, that they had been discriminated against based on their race. A part of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it illegal to “alter the results of, employment related tests on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.“

The Morton’s Fork faced by the board was underscored by its 2-2 vote on certification, an outcome that meant the test results were not certified.

New Haven’s dilemma was neatly described by Justice David Souter during the Supreme Court hearing on the matter in April.

David Souter

“The problem I have with your argument,” he told the attorney for the firefighters, “is that it leaves a municipality or a governmental body like New Haven in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation… If they go forward with their hiring plan, they certify the results and go forward with it, they are inevitably facing a disparate impact lawsuit.

“If they stop and say, ‘Wait a minute, we’re starting down the road toward a disparate impact lawsuit and, indeed, there may be something wrong here,’ they are inevitably facing a disparate treatment suit. And whatever Congress wanted to attain, it couldn’t have wanted to attain that kind of a situation.”

Key questions

The key question the Supreme Court must decide is: Can a municipality — and potentially any employer — can reject the results of a test for racial reasons, even if a disparate impact is not proved? There are two other specific questions presented for the court, but they boil down to the same fundamentals.

Under court decisions and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as amended by Congress in 1991, an employer can be found to have discriminated, and thus be in violation of the law and subject to civil penalties, if a “facially neutral employment practice… has an unjustified adverse impact on members of a protected class.”

But if the employer can show the test is job-related and there is a business necessity for its administration — say, testing the ability of a firefighter candidate to hoist a ladder while dressed in full gear — then the employer may be able to escape liability. However, there is a loophole here. The group claiming discrimination may still prevail if it can show that there are other, equally valid assessment methods meeting the employer’s objectives that don’t result in a disparate impact.

Job simulations

In the only published academic research comparing the results of pencil-and-paper tests (like the one administered to the New Haven firefighters) and interactive simulation testing, Amy Mills, of Aon Consulting, and Dr. Neal Schmitt of Michigan State University found little difference in the predictive value of the two on job performance. They did find that with the simulation, the performance of minority candidates was similar to that of white candidates. On the pencil-and-paper tests, minorities scored significantly lower.

“There’s less of an adverse impact in simulations than in the pencil-and-paper tests,” Schmitt told us for an article published in the May 2009 issue of the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership.

In fact, in the New Haven test, the city weighted the written multiple-choice part, which is the subject of the lawsuit, at 60 percent of the overall score. An oral exam was weighted at 40 percent.

Though the disappointed firefighters presented evidence supporting the test, while the city offered statistical data to demonstrate a prima facie case of disparate impact, the validity of the test as a promotional tool was never actually at issue. Instead, the federal court ruled that the city had the right to throw out the results.

In ruling for the city, U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton called the city’s decision “race neutral,” since “all the test results were discarded, no one was promoted, and firefighters of every race will have to participate in another selection process.”

The Second Circuit Court of Appeal upheld the decision in a single paragraph, that has now become a central part of the national judicial debate because Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was one of the three judges to hear the firefighters appeal.

What will the court do?

Many observers think the court will rule in favor of the firefighters.

Chief Justice Roberts

Chief Justice John Roberts signaled his dissatisfaction when he asked during the oral arguments if the city was to “get do-overs until it comes out right?”

Justice Antonin Scalia challenged the idea that the city had been racially neutral in tossing the results. “It’s neutral because you throw it out for the losers as well as for the winners? That’s neutrality?”

If the court does overrule the lower courts, it could simply order the case back to the lower court to decide the city’s motives in tossing the test. The city would then be in the uncomfortable position of attacking the validity of a test it commissioned and approved, but Title VII would remain intact.

The possible, broader implications of a reversal could be the watering down of the “disparate impact” portion of the Civil Rights Act. The court could say the city had no right to refuse to certify the test simply because of the outcome.

At the extreme, the court could go so far as to rule sections of the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional, though almost no one expects that broad a decision.

I was a junior at Stanford University and the president of Stanford Women in Business, a pre-professional organization of 400 undergraduate women. I helped recruiters meet talented women in our organization, and I had recently thought of an idea for a startup to improve diversity recruiting. I named the startup Anapata, the Swahili phrase meaning to find, to obtain, to achieve.

I had come to the ERE Expo 2008 to learn about the recruiting industry’s technological advances and needs firsthand from the movers and shakers of the industry.

Arriving at the conference mid-session, I started my experience at the exhibit hall. It was here that I found the world of recruiting software. In traditional online recruiting, there were the big job sites — Monster, CareerBuilder, Simply Hired, and the like — followed by the niche job sites, such as the Ladders and AfterCollege. There was no existing company that helped employers with diversity recruiting. None.

The hot new category of companies present in the exhibition hall was social media companies, LinkedIn being featured first, immediately next to the door. In addition, social media companies were highlighted all over the conference. Clint Heiden represented VisualCV in the Startup Forum panel. A whole session was dedicated to using Diigo for social webpage marking. Penelope Trunk, founder of Brazen Careerist and a keynote speaker, shared her expertise on Gen Y and emphasized the necessity of online social media as a modern recruiting tool.

Social media marketing was a hot strategy that most companies already included in their budgets; however, social media recruiting was new and brilliant. The job search was no longer a sporadic and private chore but rather a social activity and a continual process. In other words, the norm was becoming a world in which candidates considered their careers not one path to a dream destination, but a lifelong journey comprised of many interesting stopovers that is navigated by creating and maintaining relationships with recruiters, mentors, and colleagues via online social media.

I was inspired. I was so taken away by Penelope’s grasp on social media recruiting that I waited eagerly after her talk to ask for five minutes of her time and hear her thoughts on my new idea.

The idea was to use social media to transform diversity recruiting. I would provide group management tools and professional networks for diversity organizations across the country. The majority of diversity organizations at colleges and graduate schools do not have the budget or means to create a strong website. This lack of online presence makes it unnecessarily difficult, if not impossible, for outside entities — similar groups at other schools, employers, recruiters, and non-profits — to find or collaborate with these groups. Anapata would provide a place for these groups to maintain their web presence and their national network in one place, and in doing so, groups would help their members discover more employers, mentors, and diversity-focused resources towards achieving their career goals.

Student organizations are crucial to recruiting. Active participants in these organizations are those students who take the self-initiative to learn and engage in a particular subject (be it finance, clean energy, or engineering). These students are often the visionaries in their field. And, as a bonus, their participation in these organizations teaches them the extra ingredients for success — teamwork, leadership, follow-through, and dedication. There are a few companies that focus on helping employers reach student groups — a popular one being AfterCollege, a company that provides targeted job boards for student group websites. Direct student group recruiting, building a long-term relationship with group members and hiring the right students, however, would be Anapata’s unique platform.

It was in the conference center bar with Penelope (literally on drink napkins) that the business plan for Anapata became clear. I had originally thought of Anapata as a Google-like tool for recruiters to easily search resumes and meet diverse students for particular job opportunities. However, my means and market were not well defined. Five minutes turned into two hours, and by the time Penelope left the bar, I had a smart executable business plan. Penelope encouraged the idea of using social media, namely student group management and networking, as my primary means for diversity recruiting. We also discussed a number of initial markets and decided to focus on the legal profession. Minorities are underrepresented in law more than in any other line of work in the country. What’s more, the use of web-based recruiting and online networks in legal industry is abysmal. I was ready to revolutionize. Meeting Penelope at the ERE Expo was one of the best things to happen to Anapata.

A year later, Anapata is now an online diversity recruiting platform helping employers find talented and diverse law students at law schools across the United States. Anapata provides professional diversity networks, targeted job opportunities, and sophisticated online tools (such as mentor matching and web-based job interviews) to help diverse law students find the right employment. In turn, Anapata has not only created a place for employers to meet diverse talent from across the nation, but has also designed sophisticated recruiting tools to help employers find diverse candidates based on geographic interests, work preferences, group affiliations, academic performance, and extracurricular activities.

Attending the ERE Expo was an incredible experience for me. I heard recruiters’ discussions on student outreach and diversity firsthand, learned about the new methods and resources for successful recruiting, and gained a “pick up the phone” advisor — Penelope — who made clear to me that she is the type of advisor who will always “pick up the phone.” In the coming months, I’m excited to expand Anapata not only into a larger office space but also as a service to diversity networks in other industries. I’m so grateful for the support of ERE and Penelope, and I continue learning from them both through this exhilarating journey and recruiting revolution.