PODCAST: #HRHappyHour 343 - Taking on Today's Talent Acquisition Challenges

HR Happy Hour 343 - Taking on Today's Talent Acquisition Challenges

Host: Steve Boese

Guest: Susan Vitale, CMO, iCIMS

Sponsored by Virgin Pulse - www.virginpulse.com

Listen HERE

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve recorded live from the iCIMS Influence event in the iconic Bell Works building in New Jersey, the new home for the talent acquisition technology provider iCIMS to talk with iCIMS Chief Marketing Officer Susan Vitale about how organizations are tackling today's talent acquisition challenges.

On the day this show was recorded, the BLS released their monthly JOLTS report which showed that open jobs in the USA hit 7.1 million, an all-time high for this data series. Simply put, more organizations have more job opening than ever before in the US. iCIMS sits at the center of this challenge, helping their customers to find, attract, engage, recruit, and onboard talent in this incredibly tight labor market.

Susan shared how some of iCIMS customers are attacking their unique talent acquisition challenges with a combination of strategy, process improvement, and innovative applications of new technologies. From global process improvement and efficiencies at a large company like Hertz, to high-touch, high impact recruiting of highly sought after researchers at St Jude's Research Hospital, to engaging with thousands of front-line candidates at scale using texting as a primary communication medium at Advantage Solutions - every company's recruiting challenge is unique and iCIMS is helping thousands of companies in these efforts. 

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, using your favorite podcast app, or on the widget player below:

Thanks to Susan and iCIMS for joining us and for hosting the HR Happy Hour Show.

Subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show wherever you get your podcasts.

You had me at "Almost no email"

I had come across a few pieces about the tech company Glitch, (formerly Fog Creek Software, one of the most innovative tech companies of the last two decades), but until recently had never actually explored around their site to try and see what was so unusual and refreshing about their approach to openness and transparency.

While their Employee Handbook has been the usual focus of articles that talk about just how different Glitch is, I found myself absolutely stunned into silence (and admiration) for this the paragraph below, buried as bullet point number three in a section called 'Working at Glitch'. And here is it: 

• Almost no email. Most people at Glitch get fewer than a dozen email messages in a week from their coworkers. We use email for especially urgent company-wide alerts, and to work with people at other companies. For ordinary chat, we prefer to use Slack, and for lengthier conversations, we write out our ideas in full and share them for feedback and comment. It's common for people to come to work in the morning at Glitch and have no new emails in their inbox, and Inbox Zero is common enough that nobody even talks about it

I know, I know what you are saying - our company isn't a small, tech company and we can't operate on just a handful of emails per day. We have too many things going on, too many moving parts, too many people we have to deal with on a regular basis to ever function in the way Glitch seems to function. Besides, if 273 emails not sent just turn into the same number, if not more, pings on Slack, then what is the difference. Fair point.

But the other fair point I think, and one that is doubled-down on in the next 'Working at Glitch' bullet point titled 'We Respect Working Hours', is that Glitch has seemed to recognize that a barrage or onslaught of electronic messaging that you are expected to remain on top of all day long (and all night and weekend long too), is probably not the best way to create an inspired, engaged, and productive workforce.

It's so easy to default back to the way we have always done things, the way we are conditioned to do things. I would guess that at least some portion of the team over at Glitch arrived there from some other workplace where 24/7 connection and hundreds of emails per day were the norms. But I would also guess that many of these same people now can't imagine going back to that kind of an environment. Good luck, by the way, cold-calling someone like that and luring them back to the dark side.

Over time, and especially when things get really busy, I more and more send an email or a text almost begging that we stop emailing each other and just get on the phone. I am not sure all this email is doing us and our workforces the service it once did, back when we really thought for moment or too about sending the email in the first place.

There are lots of other interesting ideas over at the Glitch careers site. I recommend checking it out. If only to dream 'What if?' for a few moments.

Have a great day!

PODCAST: #HRHappyHour 341 - The Evolution of Talent Branding and Candidate Experience

HR Happy Hour 341 - The Evolution of Talent Branding and Candidate Experience

Sponsored by Virgin Pulse - www.virginpulse.com

Host: Steve Boese

Guest: Kathryn Minshew, The Muse

Listen HERE

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve was joined by Kathryn Minshew, CEO and Founder of The Muse, a career platform used by over 50 million people to navigate their careers and by hundreds of companies looking to attract, hire and retain great talent. She’s also the author of "The New Rules of Work," a Wall Street Journal national bestseller.

On the show, Kathryn discussed how candidates have become increasingly discerning in their careers, how they expect more and more authentic information from prospective employers, and how organizations can leverage new technology and media to deliver these talent brand messages and create better candidate experiences.

Kathryn feels we are in the 3rd phase of the talent branding and candidate experience journey - where employers have to be specific, accurate, and use their 'real' people to tell the organization's stories and deliver an authentic message about how they experience their work environment. She also shared how some of the more effective employer attraction strategies have parallels to marketing - by sourcing great stories to share with prospective candidates, inserting more information and authenticity when interacting with candidates on sites like LinkedIn and email, and by making job descriptions more thoughtful and interesting to candidates. 

Listen to the show on the show page HERE, on your favorite podcast app, or by using the widget player below:

This was a great conversation, thanks to Kathryn for coming back on the show!

Subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show wherever you get your podcasts.

One way legacy companies can change the recruiting and retention equation

One challenge most older, 'legacy' companies can face when recruiting and attempting to retain their most desired people and keep them from flocking to the newer, more exciting, and often more lucrative startups in their industries is their very own legacies and brands.

One could argue that 25 year old hotshot developers are not that interested in joining say an IBM, when they could jump on a new AI or blockchain startup. Or in finance, the allure of say a JP Morgan Chase might not hold all that much resonance when that same 25 year old has been immersed in crypto currency exchange technology for the last few years. Or in retailing, what would draw someone who has many options to a company like Walmart or Target, when modern, fast-moving, and tech-driven startups like Stitchfix seem to be much more exciting?

Well, one 'legacy' company is trying a really clever strategy for to address this challenge - the legendary auto manufacturer GM is looking to improve its success in recruiting and retaining talent for its new self-driving unit named Cruise, by offering new employees equity directly in the Cruise unit, and not in legacy GM. From a recent piece in TechCrunch describing the plan:

In what will be seen as a big recruiting and retention win for Cruise, employees will be offered equity in GM’s self-driving technology subsidiary rather than shares of GM. The securities offering was disclosed in a recent SEC filing for GM Cruise Holdings LLC.

The equity structure gives all Cruise employees the chance to own actual shares of Cruise, not in GM. It’s a critical development for a company, even one flush with new capital like Cruise, that is working to deploy autonomous vehicles on a commercial scale.

“The goal was primarily to create a new equity structure so that we could recruit and retain the best talent by giving them direct participation in potential upside in Cruise through owning actual shares in Cruise, which we didn’t have before,” Cruise CEO and co-founder Vogt told TechCrunch.

So how does a company like GM better compete for in-demand talent, that may be drawn to their smaller, upstart competitors? By making it seem for the most part that this talent doesn't really work for GM, they work for a self-driving car startup called Cruise that just so happens to be subsidiary of GM. And this allows GM not only to get a lift from not being wed to 100+ years of GM history from a branding perspective, it allows loosens up the compensation purse strings for these Cruise employees, as large, legacy companies like GM have much more rigid and formal methods of allocating compensation - ones that their startup competition usually are not encumbered by.

And if things work out for Cruise, the prospect for employees of really cashing in with a spinoff and an IPO add the carrot of potential future millions that 'legacy' GM would never be able to match. It's a clever way to combine the strengths of GM's legacy and history with some new ideas that shore up some of the weaknesses in that legacy.

And yes, I am a GM owner. But I am still driving my own car. For now anyway.

Have a great day!

PODCAST: #HRHappyHour 336 - Hiring Success with Recruitment Automation

HR Happy Hour 336 - Hiring Success with Recruitment Automation

Sponsored by Virgin Pulse - www.virginpulse.com

Host: Steve Boese

Guest: Madeline Laurano, Aptitude Research Partners

Listen HERE

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve Boese is joined by Madeline Laurano of Aptitude Research Partners to discuss some new research they've recently published on Recruitment Automation. More than just a method to make recruiting processes more efficient, modern recruitment automation technologies are focused on candidates - helping to create trust, improve the method and frequency of communication throughout the hiring process, and to create more personalized recruitment experiences. 

Additionally, Madeline shared specific examples of how and where recruitment automation technologies can be leveraged throughout the hiring process, and offered some advice for organizations looking to get started with these modern, innovative technologies and approaches to recruiting automation.

You can find the full report we talked about on the show at www.aptituderp.com.

Listen to the show on the show page HERE, on your favorite podcast app, or by using the widget player below:

Thanks to Madeline for joining us, it was a fun and interesting show!

Remember to subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts - just search for 'HR Happy Hour.'