Looking for Innovation in Recruiting Technology

Tomorrow and Friday I will be attending the Recruiting Innovation Summit, an ERE Media event, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. I will also have the great pleasure and honor to serve as one of the members of the judging panel for the event's startup competition, where six companies, selected from almost 50 initial submissions, will vie for a $10K grand prize, and get the chance to demonstrate their innovative solutions to a gathering of industry experts and leaders.

Innovation in any market often comes from the startup space, where experimentation is encouraged, barriers to change are less, and ideas often have more of a chance to find their way to the market. Having a chance to demonsrate their solutions, and to network and engage with so many industry experts in one setting makes for what should be a really fantastic experience. 

In addition to the startup compentition, the Recruiting Innovation Summit will have presentations led by lumiaries like Steve Cadigan from LinkedIn, Lars Schmidt from NPR, Mike Junge from Google, and more.

Additionally, the Recruiting Innovation Summit will stream live over the next two days, you can sign up to be notified when the stream commences where to watch from here.

It should be a fantastic event and I hope to see and meet up with anyone in attendance, and if you can't make it out to Mountain View then be sure to check out the live stream, it will definitely be worth your time.

Disconnect: When what you offer is not what they want

(Editor’s Note: Today’s post is brought to you by Allied Van Lines, proud sponsor of the “2012 Workforce Mobility Survey”, designed to capture the voice of HR on topics related to workforce mobility. Allied has more than 75 years of experience in corporate, household and international relocation.)

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It's kind of interesting, surprising, and often enlightening when instead of simply continuing to roll out the same workforce programs and practices year after year that organizations stop and actually ASK the constituencies that they are trying to serve and support what is important to them.

Whether it is an internal training program, the roll out of a new IT solution designed to help make their jobs easier, or even a more outwardly-facing recruiting program or campaign, often it can be very hard for organizations to one, accurately understand the needs and goals of their audiences, and two, take the time to inquire, survey, and assess these needs and goals in a thorough enough manner such that any corrective actions can be justified and taken. Often, we roll out programs and judge them by their outcomes only, and at times not at all aware or capable of understanding the real causes driving those outcomes. All which makes taking the time and putting in the up front effort to understand the market's needs more important.

I'll highlight one interesting example of this kind of disconnect, this one pulled from the data in the recently released Allied Workforce Mobility Survey 2012, namely the disconnect between what potential candidates looking at a relocation to take a new job opportunity say is important to them, and what organizations typically focus on in their development of relocation packages. I'll share two charts from the survey and then offer my take.

Figure 1 - Candidates Top Obstacles to Relocation

Figure 2 - Benefits Offered in Relocation Packages

Did the disconnect stand out to you as it did to me when I initially saw these results?

The number one obstacle to a potential job candidate's relocation and their ability to successfully join your organization is their spouse's job situation, yet surveyed organizations almost never directly address this obstacle in their current set of relocation package components. Seems crazy right? And while spousal relocation support is not an easy benefit to provide, since it is so important it seems to me that organizations, (as is typical in Higher Education environments), that can and do offer this service are likely to have much better long-term outcomes.

But it also illustrates a more broad set of issues and considerations with recruiting new staff, whether they need to be relocated or not. And that is that very often the decision to accept a new job, to make a career turn, and at times, to uproot a family from one place to another, is a group decision. Spouses, children, extended family, maybe even colleagues and friends all play a role in these big decisions, but typically an organization doesn't or simply can't address them. I don't have a magic secret or simple list of tips that can help organizations and leaders in this, except to say just as you have problems, issues, concerns outside of work, with your family and friends, so does everyone you recruit, hire, and employ.

People are complicated. And one thing is for sure, ignoring all these complications, and thinking about 'work' and career decisions like they exist in a separate box or compartment from the rest of life is a sure way to miss out on great candidates, and to fail in some respects in becoming a place where great, (and complicated), people will gravitate toward.

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If you would like to learn more about Allied Van Lines, please check out their website or blog. And if you would like to get more information from the Workforce Mobility Survey, you can click here. It’s definitely worth checking out

Three stories you should be able to tell candidates

One more take based on the recently concluded NFL Draft, that annual and remarkable spectacle of talent assessment, evaluation, and management that plays out live, and on TV each spring.

This year, my alma mater, the University of South Carolina was represented exceedingly well at the draft, with 2 players selected in the draft's first round, and a total of 6 players selected overall. For South Carolina, this was by far the most players it has ever had selected in a single year at the draft, and also serves as a kind of reward and validation of the last college football season that saw the Gamecocks finish with a school-best 11 victories, punctuated with a fantastic win over Nebraska in the Capital One Bowl.

For schools that play at the highest levels of college football, the number of their players that are selected in the NFL draft has several implications. At the surface, it is a measurement of the quality of last season's squad, the more players selected by NFL talent evaluators, the better. But second, and for the colleges perhaps more important for the long term, having players selected for the NFL draft serves as a powerful recruiting tool. For many of the very best and in demand high school players that have plenty of options in where to play their college ball, the track record and history of a school for preparing and placing players in the NFL is an important and powerful factor in the decision process. Put simply, if a school has a history of success in preparing players for the NFL, (Alabama, Ohio State, Miami, LSU, etc.), the more likely it is that top high school talent that sees the NFL as their goal will choose those schools. And a virtuous circle is formed - the school sends players to the NFL, more top prospects that have the NFL as a career aspiration take notice and attend the school, they in turn progress to the NFL, they help the school have success on the field, and on and on. 

In college football recruiting the 'stories' are easy to see. Players move from the school to the NFL in a highly public manner. But inside organizations, these kind of success stories are often harder to envision and describe to candidates and prospects. While in the recruiting process, the organization typically talks to the fantastic opportunities that await candidates should they choose to join, it can be difficult for the candidate to appreciate or even accept these stories as more than another part of a recruiter's sales pitch. In that light, I think there are three kinds of success stories that HR or Recruiting ought to be able to articulate to these top players, the ones that have lots of other options for their next career move.

One - Come here, and here's what incredible opportunities are possible if you decide to make a long-term career here. Take a look at Joe Bloggs, he came in at about your same age, at a similar job, and now he is the head dude in charge of XYZ Division.  In fact, I'd like you to meet Joe, let's set up a lunch for you two to talk.

Two - Come here, and build the skills that you can take anywhere you'd like to go in your career. Do you know, (insert name of the most famous company alumni you have), he/she spent three years here back in the 90s and now they run their own company. In fact, we still work with him/her from time to time and I am sure we can arrange a call if you'd like to learn more about how working here really set them up for their future success.

Three - Come here, and build the skills that you can take anywhere you'd like to go in your career, leave if you think you need to, but come know that we will welcome you back somewhere down the line. Here's where you tell the story of a high-profile re-bound hire that illustrates the possibility and flexibility that makes choosing your company more attractive to the candidate. The sports world is certainly full of these kinds of tales, of players that left a team only to return later in their careers.

Bottom line, when selling your opportunity, whether it is to a top athlete deciding on a college, or a top technical developer, both who have plenty of options, being able to paint a compelling and realistic picture of all the possible career scenarios, and how your organization can best help the candidate make the most of them, offers your side the best opportunity to land the talent you need.

And don't forget, being open and accepting of what the candidate might want to do after he or she leaves your organization might be just as important as what they can or want to do inside your organization.

Should you give the assessment if you don't care about the results?

Last week America's second most popular sporting spectacle took place. No, not the beginning of the NBA playoffs, but rather the annual National Football League player draft, an incredible three days of televised talent assessment, evaluation, and selection. The NFL draft, once a largely behind the scenes administrative event, has grown over the years into a multi-day, multi-media extravaganza, with an entite cottage industry of draft 'experts' and advisors seemingly making a really good living not actually evaluating players for the actual teams, but rather appearing on TV to inform and share with fans and viewers their opinions of draft-eligible players, offer their speculation on which players will be selected by which teams, and comment more generally on how well or poorly each team's talent evaluators did in making their player selections.

Making the 'right' selections from among the large pool of eligible talent, (almost all American college football players that have graduated from school, exhausted all of their college eligibility, or have declared themselves 'eligible' to be selected), like talent selection in any business, is challenging, complex, and incredibly important. On a good year, anywhere from 10-15% of a team's total active roster can be supplied via that year's draft. 'Hitting' or making the right picks, like finding a rare or overlooked talented player in later draft rounds, or avoiding 'missing', by bypassing players that later turn out to have unsuccessful playing careers often eventually means the difference in overall organizational success or failure.

All the teams know how important the draft process is, and thus, over the years more and more steps and components have been introduced to the pre-draft player evaluation process. From intense study of college game video, to a battery of physical tests and measurements, and more recently, even formalized tests of a potential player's cognitive and reasoning capability, in the form of what is called the Wonderlic test. The Wonderlic consists of 50 questions to be answered in 12 minutes, and is meant to give teams a general feeling for the overall thinking and reasoning capability of a player, as well as provide a means of comparison with all the other potential players who also take the test.

Most years the draft process ensues without much mention of the Wonderlic test as a part of the player evaluations, except only, and as happened this year, when a particularly high-profile and anticipated top draft choice caliber player gets a really low Wonderlic score. This year Morris Claiborne from LSU, regarded as one of the Top 10 available players in the draft reportedly scored a 4 (out of a possible 50) on the Wonderlic. A score of 4 is really, really bad, according to ESPN it was the lowest reported score in more that 10 years, (for comparison, an average score is about 21).

Despite the alleged poor score, Claiborne was indeed selected by the Dallas Cowboys with the 6th overall selection. So apparently the disastrous Wonderlic score did not impact Claiborne's standing and attractiveness as a candidate for the NFL. In fact, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones stated the test score was 'not an issue at all', and Cowboys coach Jason Garrett remarked, 'We talk about the test scores, but we also talk about 'What's his football IQ', also seemingly dismissing the value of the Wonderlic as a means to predict future performance as an actual football player.

Now of course the Cowboys reps might be trying to defend their selection of Claiborne and downplaying the significance of the Wonderlic score is certainly in the team's self-interest, but the ESPN story linked above also refers to Claiborne's view that the test was essentially meaningless and not at all important in determining his ability to actually play football at the highest level. He is quoted as saying -  "I mean, I looked on the test and wasn't nothing on the test that came with football, so I pretty much blew the test off."

Sort of an odd situation, the player, (candidate), and the team, (employer), both essentially admitting that one of the common if not primary assessment tools given to all players doesn't have anything to do with the actual job, and as soon as the assessment results don't fit with what our more traditional and time-tested evaluations tell us, (like actually watching the candidate play football), they will essentially be discarded from consideration. Seems like a big waste of eveyone's time.

Now sure, you can argue with me that Caliborne, as a top player in this year's draft was not ever going to be impacted by his score, (good or bad), on the Wonderlic, and that the test is really meant for use as a supplementary measure or data point for players whose football talents are more questionable, and that it can be used to help make decisions between closely related prospects.

But the league made Caliborne, and other 'top talent' take the test. And I bet, if you look closely at your organization's recruiting practices as well, you might find similar examples of making 'top talent' run through hoops or perform silly, eventually meaningless, exercises because 'that's just our process.'

Claiborne didn't really have an option to decline the test, the NFL has an effective monopoly on professional football in America. But any 'top talent' you might be recruiting? Well they likely have plenty of options. You probably want to make sure your process understands that.

Your latest new hire: Are you paying more for less?

A quick post today, and in a similar vein to yesterday's post on value pricing of jobs as evidenced by an NFL player's decision to retire fairly young, and the overall maturity in how NFL teams evaluate, compensate, and differentiate talent.  The net-net: in the NFL for some positions, (like running back), it is really easy to cut experienced talent loose as their skills begin to diminish and the compensation they demand rises. There is always another running back available, either one of the reserve players on the team, or a new hire that can be drafted or signed that can offer almost as good, (and sometimes better), production, usually at a significantly lower cost.

However, for other positions on the team, the differentiation in performance is more significant, and often teams find that bringing in a new Quarterback, (the most important spot on the team), or even a new offensive lineman, doesn't result in a similar blend of performance gain and cost reduction. Often, teams seem to pay more to lure veteran free agents to the team, only to see their performance decline, at least in the short term, as the new player has to assimilate, learn new schemes, adapt to and partner with a new set of coaches and teammates. 

But as always that might be the case in football, but none of us has the job of managing the talent for an NFL team, (yet). What about in the real world - do 'regular' organizations see this same phenomenon when bringing in higher priced talent from outside the organization?

Turns out it happens in the real world too, at least according to the results of a recent study by Wharton School Professor Matthew Bidwell titled, "Paying More to Get Less: The Effects of External Hiring versus Internal Mobility."

The net-net of this study's findings?

According Bidwell, "external hires" get significantly lower performance evaluations for their first two years on the job than do internal workers who are promoted into similar jobs. They also have higher exit rates, and they are paid "substantially more." About 18% to 20% more. On the plus side for these external hires, if they stay beyond two years, they get promoted faster than do those who are promoted internally.

The study looked at a data set of external hiring and internal promotions and transfers over a several year period in one large financial services firm, so it's conclusions might not be able to be applied with confidence too broadly, and as we have seen in the NFL examples, even within a company or industry the 'switching costs' vary widely across jobs and job families.  But taken more generally, the study documents "some quite substantial costs to external hires and some substantial benefits to internal mobility."

The study is fascinating, and I'd encourage you to take a few minutes to dig through it in more detail, there is even some interesting data in their about the effectiveness and performance of new hires based on source of hire that I will have to post about another time, but even if you can't spare the time to read the paper you can at least take a few minutes to think about the implications of the findings.

Unlike NFL running backs, most of the high-tech, high-touch, high-interaction types of jobs that we need to fill in our organizations carry with them some pretty significant transfer costs. It can often take more than a year, even two in large organizations for external hires to sort out the politics, build the relationships, and simply 'learn' how to succeed in the new gig. And all that time an energy comes with a price, and that isn't even the 'extra' salary costs that you had to pay to lure the new talent out of their old jobs.

What do you think - what has been your experience when faced with the 'Hire from outside vs. Promote from within' choice?