In HRchat 290, we look at recruiting and onboarding in SMBs. Our guest this time is Pete Lamson, CEO at JazzHR – the recruiting software built to help growing companies exceed their recruiting goals.

Listen as Pete explains the impact of the crisis on employees, leaders, and HR pros within SMBs. As some of us slowly start crawling out the other side, hear Pete’s predictions for what a stronger future workplace and labor market will look like.

Listen to HRchat Episode 290 and Get Pete Lamson’s Answers to These Questions:

• The pandemic hit small and mid-sized businesses harder than any other segment of the economy. How did JazzHR continue to help these teams to hire amid such a volatile labor market?
• While the labor market appears to be on the mend, many North Americans haven’t kept their confidence. A recent Pew Research Center study found that around half of unemployed, furloughed or temporarily laid off U.S. adults who are actively searching for jobs are pessimistic about their employment prospects. Some 66% have seriously considered changing fields or occupations. What would you say to those struggling to get seen through the masses of applicants?
• The pandemic sparked a massive shift in the HR business function as teams took on new responsibilities in response to changing workforce and organizational needs. Going forward, how can CEOs and business leaders ensure HR has a seat at the table in regard to business planning and change management?
• What’s next for SMB hiring?

About Pete Lamson

Pete has been CEO of JazzHR since 2015 where he’s led the company through a strategic turnaround to become the category-leader in SMB hiring technology and successful exit.  As part of a new merger,  Pete recently took over the overall leadership of Jobvite, JazzHR, and NXTThing RPO.

Pete has 30+ years of experience in leadership roles with high-growth companies, spending most of his career with B2B technology solutions. Prior to JazzHR, Pete was Senior Vice President of Global Sales at Carbonite where he was responsible for all revenue and industry-leading expansion into the B2B market, which grew to exceed 100,000 customers.

Enjoyed the Interview with Pete? You May Also Like This HRchat Episode

The post HRchat Interview with Pete Lamson: What’s Next For SMB Hiring? appeared first on The HR Gazette.

Every organization out there has a unique recruitment strategy. Organizations are bound by geographical locations, industry, company culture, and recruitment teams. It is also important to consider factors like availability of open positions, urgency, and hiring time.

The recruitment process can be broken down into several steps –posting the specific job requirements, looking for the best candidate, and starting the onboarding process. There are some important questions that you need to answer:

• Why did the candidate choose this position?
• How did the candidate become aware of the position?
• Why should the candidate take up the given job opportunity?

Boosting the Recruitment Process

A job seeker can come across a myriad of job opportunities circulating across the social media. To boost the recruitment process, it is recommended to sit down with the recruitment and human resource team for evaluating the current recruitment process. Once you are aware of the shortcomings, you can strategize moving forward with the help of top recruitment techniques.

Some of the best techniques include posting about new open positions on different employment platforms, allowing candidates from all around to apply, and hosting recruitment events. If required, you can encourage the employees to refer the right candidates while offering a referral bonus.

Here are some additional ways to boost the hiring process for your organization:

• Make Use of the Right Recruitment Tools: As you invest in lucrative recruitment tools for the hiring process, you can easily save the overall time, money, and resources. The tool that you use can be a video interviewing platform or an application tracking platform. The given tools are responsible for automating and streamlining mechanical tasks such that the team is capable of working on real-time issues.
• Mention Details in the Job Posting: When organizations advertise the respective open positions for recruitment, they often end up with a long list of requirements of the suitable candidates. As a hiring manager, you should take into consideration the following factors related to a job posting:
• Paid leaves
• Job title and position
• Working hours
• Benefits
• Team lead
• Starting date
• Consider Offline Employee Testimonials: You can easily come across testimonials of employees on career pages. However, it is not common to observe the same on a billboard or in a podcast. Recently, the concept of podcasts is gaining huge impetus amongst Millennials. However, it is important to note that the listeners look forward to experiencing emotions and voices in the respective expressions that get lost in a typical web page. A podcast, therefore, can serve to be a great way to incorporate the current job position, background, and personality of your team.
• Include a Proper FAQ Section: Most companies tend to receive the same set of questions from the respective candidates. This is wherein the role of a FAQ section comes in. A dedicated FAQ section helps in segmenting answers to all common questions before the candidates even apply. Every organization features a separate recruitment process. Therefore, candidates will find it useful to know about the recruitment process, the qualification required for different job posts, and the overall time taken for the process.

You would not like the potential candidates to waste their respective time searching around for your company’s email address. You would want them to know all about your company. Therefore, the presence of a dedicated career page is an important recruitment tip that helps in clearing up all questions related to the organization, responsibilities, leadership, values, and salary benefits.

• Advertise the Organization on Social Media: A number of the new-generation companies have a dedicated social media page. However, it would be great if you would design a social media page dedicated to your recruitments. Here, you can post information about the employee spotlights, recruitment events, company culture, and open job positions.

You can ask the company’s employees to share the given profiles within the respective networks. It would help the organization bring in fresh minds into different projects. Ensure that you are networking effectively with prospective candidates on social media. This will offer you the opportunity to attract passive candidates as well. These candidates will trust your job advertisement because of some familiar individual in the company.

While it might appear like an unnecessary investment, it can help in saving abundant time, resources, and money. It also helps in improving retention, speeding up the hiring process, reducing the overall hiring costs, and engaging the current staff in the hiring process.

• Develop Your Employer Brand: While companies might launch open positions, still candidates might not be aware of what the positions are. Employers are required to promote the brand everywhere. As an organization, you can start with designing well-organized social media profiles, quotes, interviews, and content. When the brand is not on the top list, you can aim for promoting a vibrant and progressive organization that cares for the respective employees.

For the recruitment consultants, it is recommended to start with featured articles that depict profiles of star employees, company culture, work culture videos, and unique career journeys of employees.

Conclusion

To enhance the recruitment process, you can implement the right strategies in your company culture. For the best outcomes, you can hire services from professional recruitment consultants to hire the best available talent in the industry. Look for the best site to hire reliable services.

Authored by Dario Herrera, Great Ponton Limited

The post Top Recruitment Tips to Boost the Hiring Process appeared first on The HR Gazette.

How to Attract Talent During a Tsunami of Labor Movement

In HRchat episode 314, we consider adapting to the new norms of post-covid talent attraction and retention.

My guest is Mervyn Dinnen a talent analyst, advising recruitment and HR technology businesses on the emerging trends impacting hiring, retention, and engagement. He is a writer and international speaker on recruitment and HR trends and an award-winning recruitment blogger. Prior to that, he spent 20 years as a recruitment and HR practitioner.

Mervyn is also a top HR influencer and the author of Exceptional Talent: How to Attract, Acquire and Retain the Very Best Employees and the upcoming book, Digital Talent.

Listen to get Mervyn’s answers to questions such as:

• How and why should talent be entering the onboarding process well before their first day; even as early as the first time they’re interviewed?
• You say the (candidate) journey should never stop. What’s changed since Q1 of 2020 when it comes to the wants/needs of employees and what employers need to deliver on an ongoing basis?
• Let’s talk about hiring based on skills rather than past performance. Why do you suggest firms should move away from hiring checklists and stop hiring people based on their historical performance and, instead, start looking at ways to identify candidate competencies and behaviors, and what they will be able to do within your organization.
• The war for talent has perhaps never been as fierce as it has been since Spring 2021. How does skills-based hiring offer companies an opportunity to find ‘diamonds in the rough’?
• Many companies have used the pandemic as a wake-up call and an opportunity to future-proof against new and unforeseen crises that could again keep people from doing their jobs. This has involved augmenting (and often replacing) traditional roles performed by humans. Why do you teach that organizations need to better appreciate that people don’t all adapt at the same pace and acknowledge that implementing new technologies is an organizational change that may cause disaffection?

Enjoyed the interview with Mervyn? You may also like this related episode

The post HRchat Interview with Mervyn Dinnen: Competing For Top Talent in 2021-22 appeared first on The HR Gazette.

Jesse Ryan Reflects on Recruiting and Jobs in Canada

A recent report by Health Canada shows that nearly 70 percent of Canadians have had at least one dose of the vaccine, bringing the country very close to the 75-80 percent mark that some public health authorities claim is required to get to herd immunity.

Canada has also reached a major milestone by fully vaccinating 50 percent of its population and overtaking the U.S. COVID-19 vaccination rate. This means businesses are opening back up without the previous fears of having to shut down again when new waves of virus variants hit. It also means huge potential for job seekers to find that next role as firms try to outcompete their rivals in a very fierce new war for employee talent and skills of all types.

In HRchat episode 318, High Road Human Capital’s Jesse Ryan returns to share what he’s seeing and experiencing in the thick of Canadian recruitment right now. Jesse and Bill reflect on some latest labor market trends and talk about how recruiters and hiring managers can stand above the crowd during this new and super-fierce war for talent.

Questions Include: 

• Paint a picture of the Canadian labor market as we come out of the worst of Covid
• What does the surge in hiring mean for recruiters? How can TA pros jump on this in profitable and sustainable ways?
• Are those with more technical skills better placed to quickly re-enter the workplace?
• What are the challenges for Canada-based HR departments right now when it comes to attraction and onboarding?
• Once enough Canadians feel comfortable that the economy is back up and running in a safe way, what will be the recruitment and employee retention challenges for HR in three to six months?
• Given the huge amounts of layoffs as a result of Coronavirus, did we see many companies successfully adopt new automated alternatives to duties previously performed by humans?

Found the Interview Helpful? Check out Jesse’s Last Appearance on the HRchat Podcast

The post HRchat Interview with Jesse Ryan: Recruitment Trends and Job Hunting in Canada appeared first on The HR Gazette.

In HRchat episode 319, we talk about how to make attracting and retaining hourly workers easier and more effective. My guest this time is Rich Crawford, President and Chief Executive Officer at TalentReef, a cloud provider to recruit and retain the Service Industry’s hourly workforce.

HRchat Episode 319 Questions Include:

• Recruiting, hiring, and retaining hourly workers is very different from salaried employees. Can you paint a picture of why that’s the case?
• There’s currently an hourly worker shortage. Can you share why you think that’s happened and what businesses that employ hourly workers can do to increase applicant flow?
• There are some new recruiting and hiring obstacles as we come back from the pandemic – namely, applicant flow. What talent management tools or features can best help franchises struggling to boost applicant flow?
• How to handle the oncoming tsunami of applicants as states start to drop unemployment benefits: Talk about just how big the surge of employees returning to the hourly pay workforce will be and what are the opportunities for hiring managers and HR.
• How does automated interview scheduling create a faster time-to-hire, and reduce no-shows?
• When it comes to communications with candidates, why is two-way communication better than something like a bot that collects information and sends it to the hiring manager?

About Rich Crawford

Rich holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Management degree from Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia. Prior to joining TalentReef, he has excelled in executive leadership roles at market-leading companies. Most recently, Crawford was the CEO at SambaSafety where he led the SaaS company from a small regional driver risk solution provider to the leading national supplier of driver risk management solutions to enterprise customers as well as trucking, transportation, and middle-market companies.

About TalentReef

Check Out This Related Episode

The post HRchat Interview with Rich Crawford: Hiring Hourly Workers appeared first on The HR Gazette.

Why People are Inherently Bad at Evaluating Capabilities of Job Seekers

In HRchat episode 328 we delve into the psychology of hiring and the tools available to potentially remove bias from the recruitment and onboarding stages of the employee life cycle.

My guest is Dr. Charles Handler, a thought leader, analyst, and practitioner in the talent assessment and human capital space. Throughout his career, Dr. Handler has specialized in developing effective, legally defensible employee selection systems.

Questions include:

• What is the most common mistake when it comes to talent assessment?
• Doesn’t talent assessment promote biased decision-making? Where does skills-based hiring fit in?
• Why are humans inherently flawed in evaluating candidate capabilities and is AI finally ready to step up and remove inherent biases?
• How has the global remote work experiment of 2020-21 influenced what companies think about how they can manage employees?

About Charles Handler

Since 2001 Dr. Handler has served as the president and founder of Rocket-Hire, a vendor-neutral consultancy dedicated to creating and driving innovation in talent assessment. Dr. Handler has helped companies such as Intuit, Wells Fargo, KPMG, Scotia Bank, Hilton Worldwide, and Humana to design, implement, and measure impactful employee selection processes.

Through his podcast Science 4-Hire, his prolific writing for media outlets such as ERE.net, his work as a pre-hire assessment analyst for Bersin by Deloitte, and worldwide public speaking, Dr. Handler is a highly visible futurist and evangelist for the talent assessment space.

Throughout his career, Dr. Handler has been at the forefront of innovation in the talent assessment space, applying his sound foundation in psychometrics to helping drive innovation in assessments through the use of gaming, social media, big data, and other advanced technologies.

Check Out This Related Episode of the HRchat Show

The post HRchat Interview with Dr. Charles Handler: Psychology of Hiring appeared first on The HR Gazette.

How to Hire CNC Programmers: Tips for Making the Right Choice

If you are searching for CNC programmers, you are likely looking for someone who is skilled in the programming of computerized milling or lathing machines.

CNC programmers use CAD software to program CNC machines, but the best CNC programmers go above and beyond the basics to explore other areas of computer programming.

They are often skilled in areas such as electrical engineering, machine design, and mechanics. To find the right programmer for your project, it is essential to make a list of what you need him or her to do. Here are some further tips on how to find an excellent CNC programmer for your needs.

1. How to Find the Right Programmer for You

When hiring a CNC programmer, you need to ensure he or she has the necessary qualifications, skills, and experience. To find the right programmer, you also need to know which machines the programmer will be programming.

While CNC programmers should be able to program a variety of CNC machinery, it could be helpful to employ someone who has experience programming the specific equipment your company uses. However, you also have the option to train new employees on CNC machinery that has already been in use.

You need your new employee to fit in with your company too, so make a list of attributes that your desired candidate should possess. A good CNC programmer generally needs to be resourceful, be a good communicator and listener, and have excellent attention to detail.

2. What should you look for in a CNC programmer?

In addition to possessing the right attributes, the CNC programmer you hire must have expertise in computer science, especially coding, and an excellent understanding of mechanical and systems engineering.

The person you hire must have superb technical skills for using CAD programs. He or she also needs to have an excellent knowledge of G-Code, M-Code, and CAM software, be able to read blueprints and plans and possess strong mathematical abilities, including geometry and trigonometry.

Ensure the candidate has the right qualifications, too; such as a degree in computer science or engineering.

3. What are the pros and cons of hiring an individual directly versus hiring from an agency?

You need to carefully consider the pros and cons of hiring a CNC programmer directly or from an agency. If you hire an employee through an agency, the hiring process can be a lot simpler and less time-consuming; especially if you go with an agency that specializes in the engineering and computer science sectors.

The agency will be able to vet which candidates are the best for the position. You will have to pay agency fees, though. However, by not employing CNC programmers directly, you could cut costs, such as employee benefits.

On the other hand, if you want to secure an expert CNC programmer who will stay with your company for years to come, it can be better to hire a person directly and provide them with job security and benefits.

4. When should you hire a freelance or part-time programmer?

If you are manufacturing items using CNC machines on a daily basis, you need to have full-time CNC programmers on board. But there are times when it helps to have access to freelance or part-time programmers.

For instance, if you only hire one or two full-time programmers, you will need another to act as a backup during vacation periods and times of illness.

Conclusion

Making the right choice in the CNC programmer you hire comes down to the skills, experience, qualifications, and attributes the individual possesses and your company’s specific requirements. Spend time considering who your ideal candidate is to find the right CNC programmer for you.

Authored by Sari Cada, Paradigm Digital Ltd

The post How to Hire Programmers appeared first on The HR Gazette and HRchat Podcast.

Why Recruiting is Harder Than Ever and Ways to Stay Ahead of the TA Pack

If you’re looking to understand the recruitment landscape during the 2022 installment of The Great Resignation or if you want to up the level of diversity in your organization, this podcast episode is for you!

Listen and learn practical techniques and strategies you can use to attract, source, and hire diverse candidates during this unprecedented time of talent mobility.

My guest this time is Keirsten Greggs, founder and CEO of TRAP Recruiter LLC, a recruiting consulting and career coaching firm. With over 20 years of experience in talent acquisition, she’s passionate about helping organizations attract, select and retain the best people, including underrepresented candidates, as well as helping job seekers find their voice in the hiring process.

Questions For Keirsten Include:

* Can you explain your passion for recruiting?
* How has The Great Resignation made the job of recruiters and TA pros more difficult?
* How are recruitment and talent acquisition different?
* How important is the role of sourcing to finding top candidates?
* What are your top diversity recruiting strategies to achieve true DEI in the workplace?

More About Keirsten Greggs

With over 20 years of experience in Talent Acquisition, she’s known around the industry. Add that to being featured as an expert by ERE, InHerSight, Diversity Jobs, Hiretual, Talview, TechTarget, BBC World Service Radio, MadameNoire, Fast Company, and SiriusXM Urban View.

Related HRchat Podcast Content

The post HRchat Interview with Keirsten Greggs: How The Great Resignation Changed Recruitment Forever appeared first on The HR Gazette and HRchat Podcast.

In this HRchat episode, we ask what happens if you hire people who do not align with your values? Listen too, as we delve into better ways to implement and validate candidate assessments.

My returning guest is Margarida Rafael, Head of Psychological Sciences at Workzinga, a job search and hiring platform emphasizing company culture fit. Margarida works as a researcher and assessment content creator.

Questions For Margarida Include:

• How do leaders decide what type of company they want to be / the values they stand for?
• Where does the culture of an org really come from? Is it top-down? How do employees contribute?
• How can HR be relentless with the mission to hire folks who really fit with the company culture?
• Can you now talk about the process of validating assessments (or lack thereof)? What are the processes and checks needed?
• How is Workzinga’s proprietary Culture Fit Assessment validated and why would you say Workzinga’s Culture Fit Assessment is better than other options in the market?
• What are some mistakes made in the interview when assessing culture fit?
• How can candidates learn what the culture is like at a prospective employer?
• Follow up: How can recruiters help with ensuring a culture fit?
• What happens if you hire people who do not align with your values?

More About Margarida

Her clinical experience in the administration and the development of a variety of psychological tests culminated in a full-time dedication to research in the industrial and organizational field.

Margarida continues to see patients in her own private practice for therapy and psychological assessments.

She previously appeared on the podcast in episode 417 and will be part of the Workzinga team exhibiting at the SHRM Conference and Expo (booth 3449) in New Orleans between June 12 and 15.

Related HRchat Content

The post HRchat Interview with Margarida Rafael: Consequences of Hiring the Wrong Candidates appeared first on The HR Gazette and HRchat Podcast.

In HRchat episode 457, we focus on what’s working in the world of talent sourcing and candidate attraction.

My guest is Karen Azulai, a self-described “multi-disciplinarian and forward-thinking professional who operates at the intersection of talent sourcing and recruitment technologies“.

Questions For Karen Include:

• What makes a person good at sourcing talent?
• What about a good recruiter? What are those intrinsic qualities/skills?
• What advice would you have for folks thinking of moving into sourcing?
• How has the Great Resignation placed extra emphasis/stress on getting sourcing right en mass?
• You speak/attend a large number of conferences on sourcing/recruiting. What are the top sourcing conferences worldwide in your opinion? How pleased are you that in-person events are back?
• As a sourcing expert, can you share 3-5 of your top sourcing tools?

More About Karen Azulai

Karen is a leading voice in the international sourcing and HR Tech community. She has been a Fortunate to have keynoted in conferences around Europe and Asia.

She believes in raising awareness as to how advanced technology is here to help us and advocates for ways to maximize its use.

Karen delivers global talent sourcing workshops to organizations that want to upgrade their recruiting and sourcing teams and for them to source more effectively.

Related HRchat Content

The post HRchat with Karen Azulai: Talent Sourcing Tips appeared first on The HR Gazette and HRchat Podcast.

Case Study: How PitchMe’s integration with Bullhorn enriched Allen Recruitment’s database and increased the placement rate

Allen Recruitment, an international recruitment consultancy firm, shares its one-year success after implementing PitchMe’s Bullhorn integration. Allen Recruitment has used the software to manage the database and keep it up-to-date, resulting in improved candidate marketing and higher placement rates.

“Before PitchMe’s Bullhorn integration, we would reach out to five or six candidates to get one who was interested. Now it’s three or four candidates interested because the data is relevant,” said Brian Cunningham, managing director of the Allen Recruitment.

Allen Recruitment’s Challenge

Allen recruitment has quite an impressive candidate database of several hundred thousand resumes and when the database of candidates is not up to date, it can lead to lost opportunities. Brian needed up to ten soursers and researchers to manage the database and keep it updated, which was not cost-effective and didn’t deliver the expected results. They encountered many cases when they had the relevant people but never reached out to them as their information was not updated in the database.

“There’s nothing worse than the fact that we had the candidate but we didn’t put them forward quick enough, or we didn’t put them forward at all. This was the problem we were looking to solve,” added Brian Cunningham.

For Brian, it has always been important to stay on top of the most innovative recruitment technologies to find top talent. He wanted Allen’s recruiters to be able to get more relevant information on candidates, have a more engaged and up to date database, not lose . people out of the process and be the first one to get to the right candidate.

“We want to be the reason they move job. Imagine if we presented our job to them when they were about to leave. And we were the reason they moved. Nobody else has that candidate and that’s gold,” added Brian Cunningham, managing director of the Allen Recruitment.

PitchMe Solution

PitchMe realized that the newly launched Bullhorn integrated solution was the solution Allen recruitment needed to revive its database, update the records, and add all the recent employment, skills, and contact information to outdated resumes. It took PitchMe team only 7 days to set everything up before Brian’s team saw the first results and had started benefiting from PitchMe integration.

“PitchMe worked closely with us, listened to us and has brought us an amazing solution that has a huge impact on our recruiters and getting in front of the right candidate at the right time. The ability to match now where they are today, with our current requirements, allows us to get to them before the other agencies do,” said Brian Cunningham.

Not only has the process of finding candidates become much faster, but they’ve also experienced an increase in placements and better candidate engagement. Additionally, using PitchMe’s platform has allowed them to keep their database up to date with minimal effort.

“So what PitchMe does is keeps the people in our database up to date. When we hit the match, we’re considering the best people. So speed was one of the matrices that we were looking to do. It means we’re able to react quicker, we’re able to get to the candidate first,” said Brian Cunningham.

Results

• Allen Recruitment cut the time and costs recruiters spend on database management.With PitchMe, they keep their database up to date with one click.
• Enrichment of the database increased the placement rate. In the past, the companywould have only had one candidate interested out of six, with a success rate of 16%. After using PitchMe’s integration with Bullhorn, the interest rate jumped to 66%, with four people interested out of six.
• PitchMe’s integration with Bullhorn keeps Allen’s team away from manual work thatusually took hours. Now, all they have to do is run automatch and pull out all the relevant candidates and then use automation to reach out to them.
• Due to PitchMe’s integration with Bullhorn, Allen’s team improved candidate marketing.They can now engage with candidates continually and when it’s time for them to find a new position, Allen Recruitment is the first thing that comes to their mind.

About PitchMe

PitchMe, established in 2017, is a leading skills-based hiring solution that matches companies with talent based on the most comprehensive picture of a candidate’s skills. PitchMe helps companies find talent they would have missed by extracting hundreds of data points from digital sources about a candidate’s validated, real-time skills.

About Allen Recruitment

Allen Recruitment Consulting is an international recruitment consultancy firm trusted by many companies across the globe since 1998, supporting their recruitment programs across multiple countries from their offices in Ireland, the UK, Poland, and the Netherlands. Learn more at pitchme.co

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The post Improved Candidate Marketing and Higher Placement Rates appeared first on The HR Gazette and HRchat Podcast.

My guest in HRchat episode 465 is Tara Favors, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Mutual of America Financial Group.

Tara is responsible for HR strategy, including talent acquisition, development, and retention; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); organizational learning; compensation programs; all aspects of employee benefits; and the development of a hybrid employee work policy.

She works closely with the Executive Committee as they implement their transformational business initiatives and update their long-term strategic plan.

Questions For Tara include:

• How can HR leaders make processes more equitable?
• What do you hope to accomplish in the year ahead?
• What are your thoughts on the Great Resignation?
• What should companies be doing to improve retention rates? 
• What’s working at the Mutual of America Financial Group?

More About Tara

Tara has more than 20 years of experience in human resources leadership roles in financial services and other sectors. Prior to joining Mutual of America, she was Vice President of Human Resources for the Global Merchant and Network Services business of American Express, where she led aglobal team that provided a strategic human resources partnership to approximately 4,000 employees. Previously, she also worked at Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank where she held a wide range of leadership roles across HumanResources.

About Mutual of America Financial Group

Mutual of America Financial Group is a leading provider of retirement services and investments to employers, employees and individuals. We provide high-quality, innovative products and services at a competitive price, along with outstanding personalized service, to help our customers build and preserve assets for a financially secure future. Their mission is built upon their values—integrity, prudence, reliability, excellence, and social responsibility—which have guided them since 1945 and continue to serve them and their customers well. For more information, visit mutualofamerica.com.

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The post HRchat Interview with Tara Favors: Mutual of America Financial Group HR Case Study appeared first on The HR Gazette and HRchat Podcast.

My guest in HRchat episode 370 is Rob Friday, HBA, Managing Principal at Predictive Success. Rob is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, international keynote speaker and Talent Optimization advisor based in Toronto Canada.

As a Managing Principle with Predictive Success, Rob works with organizations to optimize hiring and team performance with the Predictive Index.

Rob has published a book entitled, Talent Optimizer: Why some companies always get great people.

Rob will also be speaking at the AGILITY REIMAGED summit in Toronto on Sept 14th.

Questions Include:

• Tell us about Predictive Index and the problems it tries to solve for HR pros and leaders
• What’s needed from leadership to offer an environment that encourages and nurtures high-performing teams?
• What are you seeing your clients do differently to attract and hire quality talent in this era of low employment? How will this change if we enter an anticipated recession?
• How can companies use HR analytics to more effectively onboard talent?
• Talk about the role of AI and the potential for misuse of assessments in the hiring process, potentially introducing bias. How do you address this for your clients?
• Tell us about your book, Talent Optimizer: Why some companies always get great people, and some of the lessons in it for HR pros and leaders
• Tell us about your session at the AGILITY REIMAGED summit on Sept 14th called Insights on hiring and inspiring talent in a competitive landscape
• What are some new innovations in the HR tech space to watch out for in 2023?

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The post HRchat Interview with Rob Friday: Why Some Companies Always Attract Great People appeared first on The HR Gazette and HRchat Podcast.

In HRchat episode 486, we consider how we can assess the mindset and potential culture fit of candidates.

My guest today is Tom Cornell, Senior Organisational Psychology Consultant at HireVue. Tom specializes in the design, development, and delivery of HireVue’s interview and game-based assessments.

Questions For Tom Include:

• Talk about HireVue – the mission and how it helps HR pros, Talent pros and leaders
• Why is an ‘agile mindset’ particularly important in the modern workplace?
• Where does this fit in with the rest of the employee/candidate profile?
• Should we be focusing on this over technical skills?
• How does HireVue approach assessing for an agile mindset?
• What can organizations be doing to promote a more agile workforce?

More About Tom Cornell

Tom completed his postgraduate degree in Occupational Psychology in London, and spent 3 years in Australia driving assessment growth across the region, partnering with strategic accounts and partner channels. He currently lives in Copenhagen where he continues to bring an International focus to HireVue’s assessment offering.

More About HireVue

HireVue is where hiring happens – transforming the way organisations discover, engage, and hire the best talent. Connecting companies and candidates anytime, anywhere, HireVue’s industry-leading end-to-end hiring platform features video interviewing, assessments and conversational AI. HireVue has hosted more than 26 million video interviews and 150 million chat-based candidate engagements for over 800 pioneering customers around the globe, including over 30% of the Fortune 100. Learn more HireVue.com

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The post HRchat Interview with Tom Cornell: How to Assess the Mindset of Job Candidates appeared first on The HR Gazette and HRchat Podcast.

CareerBeacon, the leading online recruitment and talent acquisition site in Atlantic Canada, announced yesterday its acquisition of the employer branding platform, Ruutly.

Ruutly powers 13,000+ job postings and 4000+ social share images and is currently active in 35+ countries and 12+ languages. Ruutly’s visual job posting transformations have improved its clients’ quarterly job posting view rates by up to 54% and apply click rates by as much as 152%.

CareerBeacon’s acquisition of Ruutly will enable more companies to highlight their employer brand with ease and where it matters most: the job posting

Yves Boudreau, CareerBeacon founder and CEO says the acquisition of Ruutly’s technology and hire of the company’s Founder and CEO, Ryan Porter, is a core part of its investment in continuing to push the need forward in recruitment with visual, contextualized job postings that are proven to make better connections with job seekers.

Listen to this conversation I had with Ryan and Yves a few days before the big announcement. Hear firsthand what they have to say about the acquisition and what it means for today’s HR and recruitment space.

About CareerBeacon

CareerBeacon is one of Canada’s leading recruitment and talent acquisition sites dedicated to supporting employers in finding and managing fresh new talent and helping job seekers find great career opportunities. For more information, please visit careerbeacon.com.

About Ruutly

Ruutly is an employer branding platform for talent acquisition and recruitment teams looking to align their job postings with the consumer expectations of candidates. Ruutly empowers employers to create meaningful candidate experiences in every one of their job postings. For more information, please visit ruutly.com.

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Helpful Calculator For Hiring Offshore Software Developers

Outsourcing software development is no longer an unknown way to structure a business model, but it has also become widely accepted and helpful. It is very impressive to discover how offshore developer rates differ in various parts of the world. Did you know that the average development rate in Ukraine is about 30-50 dollars, while in the USA, the same service can go as high as 100-150 dollars? So what are the best offshore software development rates by country? Read on to find out.

Overview of Offshore Developer Rates

There are hundreds of outsourcing development hubs all over the world. This has made the offshore software development cost vary from one country to the other. The rates in these countries vary, but they also differ in development quality, culture, and expertise. So, to hire a development team, it is vital for you to consider the scope of these various differences. You also need to analyze the differences and choose the country that has the best cost for offshore developers.

When we are talking about rates, there are two significant pools of outsourcing destinations. First, we have regions that have a high life standard and a stable economy. Examples of such countries are the USA, Australia, Israel, UAE, and Western Europe. The offshore software development rates comparison vary from 50 to 300 dollars in the mentioned countries.

Secondly, regions that have a lesser developed market are also considered when we are looking at offshore development rates. Countries and regions such as Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe are often characterized by low rates and a high number of specialists. Recently, less economically developed regions have emerged as significant players in the global IT outsourcing market. They have developed into effective IT centers that contribute significantly to the production of mobile and web applications.

The Cost Of Offshore Development in Eastern Europe

In the past few years, Eastern Europe has become a big offshore outsourcing center in the world. Eastern Europe boasts of hosting more than one million qualified professionals that are offering affordable web development services. The main outsourcing hubs in Eastern Europe include Ukraine, Poland, and Romania. The average outsourcing development rate in Europe is between 22 to 55 dollars.

While Eastern Europe’s development expenses are reasonable, the quality is also offering promise. Eastern Europe provides excellent expertise backed by years of experience. High language proficiency is a benefit of IT outsourcing in Eastern Europe, as the majority of providers know English.

Let us take Ukraine, for example. Ukraine has a prominent position in IT outsourcing development in Eastern Europe right now. They also rank as one of the best offshore development countries in the world. The software developers of the country offer high quality for a very reasonable price. The average rate that can be found in Ukraine is 30-55 dollars. Junior developers can charge as low as 20 dollars.

The Cost Of Offshore Development in Latin America

If you are looking for a place to hire a remote development team, Latin America should not be overlooked. Latin America offers great talent at very competitive prices. If you decide to outsource to this part of the world, be ready to pay around 30 dollars for a junior specialist. A senior developer can charge as much as 55 dollars per hour.

The potential of Latin America to become a powerful country in terms of Offshore software development has only recently been recognized. This is because of the local government’s actions. Countries like Argentina, Colombia, and Brazil decided that they needed fresh sources of funding due to the ongoing economic unpredictability and political unrest. When the governments saw the need to invest in their IT sector, governments began making investments in IT infrastructure and tech education to grow the sector. The outcomes are quite positive. Today, these nations have a large pool of highly skilled workers who primarily work with US businesses.

Let us take Argentina, for example. Argentina has become of the advanced offshore outsourcing markets in Latin America. The pool of technical talents in Argentina is impressive, and it promises to grow continuously. Argentina has continued to grow culturally and economically, similar to European nations, and they have made a strong mark in the global IT arena. The rate of an offshore developer in Argentina is between 30 to 55 dollars, depending on the position of the developer.

Final Thoughts

This guide has presented a detailed overview of offshore developer rates in Latin America and parts of Europe. Some countries offer lower rates than others. So, depending on your budget, you can choose a country that offers you a lower rate.

Authored by Daniel Davis, Mellow Promo OÜ

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In recent years, there has been a surge of movements urging businesses to do more to help the environment. Many businesses are taking a variety of actions to reduce their carbon footprints and transition to using more renewable energy. 

The automobile industry is joining the recent push to develop electric vehicles. However, finding people with the right expertise to support their expansion is now the biggest issue automakers who want to go green are facing.

Employers in the auto industry must come up with innovative ways to attract the right workforce, which will effectively help fulfill the company’s objectives.

Here are five factors to take into consideration when recruiting top tech talent:

Develop a culture that is appealing

In today’s market, engineers may be more inclined to join already-established car companies, but the world of electric cars requires a different set of skills that revolve around software. Companies need to work on answering the question of how they will attract a software engineer to join them rather than a traditional IT company. 

The key lies in developing a new culture with deeply engrained values that is able to convey the right message and persuade talent that they are just as innovative as high-tech companies in the Bay Area, which have emerged as their rivals in the race for expertise. 

Newer electrical vehicle companies have an advantage in the sense that they are less restricted by the ingrained philosophy that is present in a legacy company and thus are able to easily build an attractive work environment.

Recognize that you’re a tech company

Experts claim that in order to penetrate the competitive job market, leaders of EV companies need to shift their point of view and realize that they’re in charge of a tech firm that produces cars rather than a traditional car company. 

This type of mindset allows them to create an organizational structure that is tech-friendly and also allows them to respond quickly to changing market forces. Lack of proper structure in the company has increased fluctuations among the staff as a consequence. In order to keep the engineers from leaving, there needs to be a structure that offers employees the opportunity to grow and develop their software skills further. When hiring talent, you can always consult with specialists in the field, like this company that offers exceptional battery recruitment.

Provide opportunities for long-term career development 

The EV market is still growing each year. Mainly fueled by the new initiatives taken by governments around the world, it’s expected that by 2030, almost half of the cars sold in the US will be electric. 

This pressure for companies to comply with new government regulations is a great opportunity for EV firm recruiters to bring in talent. These companies can now offer a great deal in a long-term environment, giving the employees a chance to develop professionally in a field that’s expected to be on the rise in the coming years. 

Offer different types of compensation 

In the post-pandemic world, people are starting to realize the importance of a better work-life balance, and as a consequence, simply offering a big pay check is no longer sufficient when it comes to hiring employees.

One of the problems that EV companies are struggling with is how to effectively balance the pay scale between senior engineers and recently hired software engineers, whose paychecks typically run higher. 

There are numerous ways to tackle this issue—offering flexible hours or four-day workweeks can be a big incentive for professionals looking to avoid burnout and develop at the same time. Another option is offering equity-based compensation, especially for newer firms trying to get into the market.

Create a clear mission and convey it properly

We’re seeing a rise in young people driven by their commitment to social issues. With the recent surge of environmental movements, companies that are devoted to transitioning to green energy offer a greater incentive for young people to join their workforce. 

Companies whose values focus on social responsibility align with those of young people who want to leave a positive impact on the world. Employers should focus on creating a clear and concise message that shows their commitment to greener practices, integrity, and sustainability, and such an environment will drive young people toward their company.

Authored by Nemanja Marinkov, PR White Tulip

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How to Hire The Best Call Center Agents

If you have a business with a call center, you likely already know it’s one of the vital parts of your customer service department. The call center’s role is to solve problems, address questions, provide help, and make customers satisfied and happy. If your agents aren’t doing their job properly (or well enough), it’s going to have a negative impact on your company. Customers may grow frustrated, go elsewhere, even leave you bad reviews and spread negative word of mouth.

That’s why it’s vital to recruit talented call center agents and train them properly. A good call center agent can make a huge difference in your customer satisfaction metrics. Here are a few ways you can make sure you’ve got the right people for the job.

Draft a Comprehensive Job Profile

In this day and age, your typical call center agent is likely doing more than just fielding calls. They’re much more likely to handle transactions, make outbound sales calls, and be using the latest customer service technology. An ideal candidate should be highly educated, positive, motivated, professional, and career-oriented. Your job profile should reflect this, so you start with a pool of high-quality candidates to begin with.

Offer Benefits

A surefire way to attract more candidates is to offer a perks and benefits package. Traditional benefits are a great start, but perks that add well-being to your employees can make a big difference. Workplace amenities such as company transportation, on-site food service, coffee shops, health clinics, and other facilities can make your call center a huge draw for candidates.

These can have added benefits for your company, as well — on-site medical care means employees may not have to leave the office and wait at a clinic somewhere, or even take the day off work (depending on the issue, obviously). Coffee shops, ATMs, and cafeterias can encourage employees to remain at the office during breaks and lunches, removing the need to deal with traffic or dealing with long lines during lunch rush. And an ATM means that when employees get paid, they can access their money right away, before they’re even out of the building.

Another thing that might not count as a traditional “perk,” but will still help attract some of the best candidates — have room for career advancement. Today’s call center employees hope and expect for more, including rich possibilities for moving up the ladder when their skills and experience warrants it. Few employees relish the thought of being in the same position forever, so it helps to make those opportunities known to prospective agents while recruiting.

Conduct Pre-Employment Tests

Having a large pool of prospective employees is a great start, but it’s far from the end. To make sure you have the best possible shortlist of candidates, do some pre-screening. Conduct pre-employment tests for things like multitasking, problem-solving, active listening, fluency in English (or relevant language), and more. It’s also useful to screen for attitude and make sure your candidates are positive, energetic, open to criticism and a good fit for the company culture.

Another way to screen ahead of time for candidates is to shortlist candidates with the relevant educational requirements and experience. This may seem pretty basic, but it’s an important part of the process and will cut down dramatically on the number of interviews you’ll have to conduct.

Develop an Onboarding Process

A particularly effective way to onboard an agent is to let them work alongside another agent. Call center training that includes a shadowing program lets agents pair up with other, more experienced call center agents so they can see first-hand how an established employee handles a call. This is a fantastic way for agents to both listen in on live calls and see how software and tools are used to make the customer service experience better. In general, this is much more effective than any presentation or binder of training materials.

Assess Soft Skills

When it comes to being part of customer service, a candidate’s soft skills are just as important as education and technical training. A good call service agent must be able to empathize with a customer’s frustrations, work well under pressure, and show enthusiasm and professionalism when it comes to their work. They must be able to listen actively and effectively, communicate clearly with customers and fellow employees, and possess good emotional intelligence.

Development of soft skills shouldn’t necessarily end with hiring, either — there’s a lot to be gained in making it part of your call center training process.

Implement a Probation Period

It would be great if every candidate turned out to be the right one for the job, but sadly that isn’t the case. One way you can make the process a little less painful is to implement a probation period for candidates. You can assess their hard and soft skills, see how they perform, and decide whether they’re the right fit for your organization.

Authored by Alexis Frasier

This post is supported by Co-Creative Marketing

The post Hiring Call Center Agents appeared first on The HR Gazette and HRchat Podcast.

Way to Streamline the Recruitment Process

Attracting the right talent for your company is both a difficult and time-consuming process. Finding candidates with suitable qualifications requires thoughtful planning and work. Too long a process and you risk the chance of losing a valuable potential employee; if a process is not structured right, you may find yourself making the wrong hires.

If you are a recruiter, you may be bogged down by inefficient pre-existing HR processes that complicate hiring, or you may be in the process of setting up a new hiring system of your own. In any case, having a streamlined recruitment process is key to building an awesome team!

Tips to Simplify Your Recruitment Process

With these tips, you can streamline your hiring process and make it a breeze to follow through. Having a simple but effective recruitment journey would ensure that both you and your applicants come out with a positive experience.

1. Keep clear job descriptions

A job announcement post, whether it is on social media or on your company website, is the main source of information a potential employee will interact with for a position. You may be tempted to include the usual buzzwords of “go-getter” and “team player” as qualities you are looking for, however, those don’t tell you much about the role and would only confuse interested applicants.

Instead, have clear and straightforward descriptions of the role in the job post you send out. People are most likely to apply if they know exactly what to expect and assess whether their skill set matches with the one stated in the description.

Most importantly, make sure the visuals in your job posting are neat, with necessary information clearly laid out, and one’s that align with your company’s aesthetic. Remember, the job post also represents you as an employer and attention to details such as these will go a long way in attracting the ideal candidates.

We recommend using free online resources like PosterMyWall where you can find high quality customizable job poster templates. This will help to free up tons of time and effort in your hiring process and publish job postings effectively.

2. Employ a tracking system

Being a recruiter means your inbox is constantly overflowing with resumes and cover letters. Keeping a track of all applicants in an organized way can get frustrating especially when you are receiving applications for several open roles. Having an Excel sheet for tracking applications is often the go-to but perhaps you may want to look into specialized Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).

This would work to keep all hiring-related documents in one place, track progress on each candidate’s application process, and save time taken up to coordinate with other members involved in hiring. Not only this, but having a tracking system in place would also form a repository of suitable candidates that you can easily reach out to for future job openings.

3. Use pre-recorded video interviews

Screening applicants is perhaps one of the most time-consuming parts of the hiring journey. There is only so much you can decipher from resumes and cover letters, and conducting interviews for all shortlisted candidates lengthens the process even more.

Try incorporating pre-recorded video interviews as part of your recruitment process. It may sound like this is adding an additional step to review, but it may end up saving you more time.  Video interviews can have a time limit where candidates answer a list of standardized questions sent beforehand.

A video interview such as this would shorten screening time and help you decide if the candidate is a good fit instantly. This way, you forgo additional time and effort in scheduling an interview and conducting it only to find they were not a suitable candidate.

Plus, video interviews are great for giving you a refresher, for example, if you are struggling to finalize between applicants, you can always go back to the video interview to remember their standout qualities.

4. Allow self-scheduling

Calling up applicants and finding a suitable interview time can be a long back and forth process and particularly tedious to follow through with several people at once. You can eliminate the time it takes to schedule interviews by giving applicants the option to self-schedule interview slots suitable for them. Just remember to send open slots well beforehand to give applicants enough time to prepare.

5. Use reference checks wisely

As useful as reference checks can be, they also take up a huge chunk of time. Understandably, reference checks are a crucial part of completing the hiring process and should not be skipped when you’re looking for the right fit for your company.

However, consider keeping reference checks just for final candidates instead of a mandatory step from the beginning. Focus more on skills, expertise and interpersonal skills relevant to the position before giving significant weightage to references.

Authored by Darsameen Khan, PosterMyWall.

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In episode 638 of the HRchat Podcast, I talk with Sam Beiler, CEO and Co-Founder at Boostpoint, a top Social Media and SMS marketing platform built for talent acquisition teams.

The Boost team is on a mission to empower users to create a workplace where everybody thrives. Combining technology, the power of social media, and innovative recruiting strategies Boostpoint, says Sam, helps folks attract more qualified employees, simplify hiring processes, and boost employer brand in new ways.

With a user base exceeding 300 million in the U.S., social media has expanded the horizons for Talent Acquisition teams. Boostpoint helps users move beyond conventional recruitment methods and significantly increase the number of top applicants by utilizing sponsored advertising on platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

Questions for Sam include:

• What are some of the challenges when launching a tech company?
• Work-Life Balance: Talk about the importance of unplugging and spending time with loved ones to recharge, even when you’re at the helm of a startup or working a very demanding job.
• Social media and SMS: What platforms work best to engage candidates? Does it depend on the audience demographics?
• Recruitment Marketing with Social Media: How is hyper-targeted advertising and fast follow-up automation changing the game in talent acquisition?

More About Boostpoint

The platform helps users focus on the ideal candidates by identifying the demographics of your desired hires and showcasing their job openings exclusively to individuals who meet specific criteria, regardless of their location.

Sam and his team say they simplify hiring campaigns and help folks save time by crafting compelling job advertisements that effectively engage both active and passive candidates, surpassing the efficiency of traditional career sites.

Recruit highly qualified employees more efficiently. Streamline the application process, enhance candidate experience, and minimize turnover rates. With their Quick Apply Experience, candidates can complete the application in just 3 minutes.

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