Wentworth On Recruiting

Quantitatively Speaking, Why Should Recruiters Provide Hiring Managers With Adequate Information About Available Talent In the Labor Market?

2012-01-12T13:57:00.000-08:00

Why do we ask? Because, in our Satisfaction with Recruiting Survey , hiring managers said that recruiters conveying the talent that was available (and not available) was very important (4.6 out of 5.0), but that the information they actually received fell 26% short of their needs (3.4 out of 5.0).

If you bought steel cable that held 26% less weight than advertised, you would be outraged.

For more, follow this link to the full article....

Why Should Recruiters Provide Hiring Managers Adequate Information About Candidates?

2011-12-15T14:40:00.000-08:00

We’ve said it before: one of the key reasons recruiting does not work very well is that few people expect it to.

Without deep and precise agreement between hiring manager and recruiter as to what skills, experiences and characteristics a successful candidate should have, the candidate evaluations provided by the recruiter can only miss the mark…and probably the candidates, too….

For the answers, follow this link to the full article...

Why Should Recruiters Understand the Jobs They Attempt to Fill?

2011-11-08T15:04:00.000-08:00

One reason is that you get efficient recruiting, appropriate cost per hire, qualified candidates and good hires, filled jobs and work that gets done...and more.

Why is this done wrong? How can this be done right? What is the role of quantitative data?

For the answers, follow this link to the full article...

Re-engineering the Process: How To Fix Recruiting...Hiring Managers Say We Need To

2011-08-21T16:49:00.000-07:00

25 years ago or so, we ran a survey of hiring managers, candidates and recruiters, seeking to understand what each wanted from the other. We were a new recruiting company at the time and our focus was to understand how we could better serve our clients (the folks who pay us. Sorry, candidates!)

A little while ago, we ran almost the same survey again. To our amazement, and sadness, not much had changed. Hiring managers' dark and dissatisfied view of the service they got from their recruiters had not gotten better.

We created some static and video pieces about the results of the more recent survey, done in collaboration with IC Potential.

Click here to go to a menu of viewing options.

What's the short version? Hiring managers are dissatisfied with the recruiting services they receive across 30 factors. What's worse is that hiring managers' dissatisfaction is greatest regarding the services the think are most important. So not only are recruiters missing the mark, they are not hearing hiring managers' priorities...or at least not responding to them.

Attracting Candidates: Why Would Anyone Leave His/Her Perfectly Good for Yours?

2011-08-19T16:47:00.000-07:00

We have had more than one experience with a client who just forgot to tell their candidates are great they were to work for and how wonderful their jobs were. They struggled as if there was no one in the world available to recruit.

It wasn't so. They just didn't explain what was great about working for them.

I got a little obsessed about this subject and created a set of videos about it. They include

The three videos are short and to the point, and are integrated, so you can start with any of the three and easily move to the others.

Enjoy.

Recruiting Quantitative Measurement: Are You Getting Your Money's Worth from Your Recruiting?

2011-08-19T15:35:00.000-07:00

Is it better to pay $55,000 or $125,000/year for a recruiter? Is it better to pay $55/hr vs. $125/hr for a rent-a-recruiter? Is there "good" recruiting vs. "bad" recruiting? Do they have different impacts on your company's performance?

How do you know? You will surprised by the answsers. Watch this short video to learn how.

Cost of Filling Jobs vs. Cost of Turnover: Recruiting Costs Too Much!

2011-08-19T10:29:00.000-07:00

“Costs too much!” the CFO growled.

“How much should recruiting cost?” Jim asked.

“Less.”

“Oh, you are a bunch of help,” Jim said cheerfully.

“You need to take this seriously,” the CFO threatened.

Jim pulled out a piece of paper and read:

The overall Recruiting Cost Ratio for employers has fallen to 9.5%, with a range of 7.8% to 11.2%. The average for recruiting vendors remains at 14.2%, close to last year’s overall measurement.

“We average just under 10%,” Jim said.

“That’s above average,” the CFO barked, as only CFOs can bark when complaining about cost.

“And we have the highest productivity we’ve ever had and no turnover. Not a little. Not less than average. NO turnover.”

“No turnover. So what?”

Jim sighed. . .Read the rest of the story.

How To Find Good Candidates: Where Are The Princes? Some Are Outside Eating Stupid Cake

2011-08-19T10:14:00.000-07:00

“Well, here’s a new and different problem,” Jim thought to himself. Jim was the Director of Recruiting for Acceleration Service.

The recession was raging and there were plenty of people looking for work. One of Jim’s divisional recruiting managers, Sarah Plentic, had a conversation with Jim the day before in which she expressed her glee about the number of candidates she had for a job.

“I KNOW we can find enough good employees in such a big group,” she nearly sang.

“Whew. A recruiting manager who is not complaining about a shortage of candidates. That’s refreshing.”

Jim’s reverie did not last long. The next day Sarah called again. “They all flunked the test,” she groaned.

“All of them?”

“Every last one,” she said.

“But why?”

“How do I know? Maybe they all ate stupid cake before they walked in.”...Read the rest of this article.

Candidate Management: It Seemed Like a Beautiful Day

2011-08-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

“It’s a beautiful day,” Jim, the Recruiting Director of Acceleration Service, said to himself as he walked from one building to the next. It was. The sun was shining, the temperature mild and the day was bathed in a gentle breeze.

“And it seems like a fine work day,” he said to himself next. He knew of nothing wrong. All the divisions were on plan with their recruiting. His teams were happy and engaged and their hiring managers were content.

“So why am I trying to talk myself into this?” he wondered.

The answer came when his cell phone rang.

When the call was over, he just sat down on a bench, looked to the sky and muttered, “I am such a dumb piece of dirt.” The sky seemed as if it had clouded over and the air gotten 15 degrees colder. All his earlier contentment was gone...Read the rest of this story.

Data Driven Recruiting: Facts? I Don't Need No Stinkin' Facts!

2011-08-18T16:53:00.000-07:00

"Data are bunk when it comes to picking employees. I know! I can tell who to hire in five seconds by just listening to them."

Jim, the recruiting director of Acceleration Service, sat at lunch with Fredrico, one of Acceleration Service's divisional general managers. Jim really liked him. Fred was frighteningly bright, equally perceptive, but haunted by high achiever demons.

The demons included hubris. Fred was sure that he was right. About everything. The problem was that he usually was, even when everyone around him disagreed with him. His pattern recognition skills were superb, able to understand the essence of a situation from just shreds of facts.

But he overestimated his ability to pick new employees. He ran a sales call center and kept one out of every ten employees hired. As he and Jim sat there at lunch, Fred refused to use any data-driven selection tools . . .Read the rest of the story...

Stakeholder Consensus About Requirements: Find Me What I Want...But What Do I Want?

2011-08-18T13:27:00.000-07:00

Each of the three decision makers had a significantly different idea of what he or she thought the optimum person for this job was. They negotiated. They got stuck.

They did not get stuck quickly, either. The talks extended over weeks, so when they finally succumbed to their being stuck, they were late.

When Jim first heard of the opening, his recruiter was expected to go like the wind. In addition, the decision makers had resolved their disagreements about qualifications by writing a very general, and from a recruiting point of view useless, job description. They had essentially handed this useless document to a junior recruiter and told him to have the job filled by yesterday.

Jim had seen this movie before. It ended with the wrong person getting hired, and then fired. Or it ended with on one getting hired. Jim did not like the ending...Read the rest of the story...

Improving Selection: the Parable of the Coffee Stain

2011-08-18T13:02:00.000-07:00

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Jim had his head in his hands as he groaned. He felt as if he were gong to be sick. Plus, in his anguish, he had knocked over his coffee. It missed his keyboard, but scored a direct hit on his white shirt. And he had a meeting with the CEO in an hour. Not enough time to go home and change.

Jim was the corporate recruiting director for Acceleration Services. A high-performance organization needs the right people even more than other organizations do. Acceleration’s experience had been that their unit HR managers brought in good but not great people. This gap had been identified by senior management as one of the key barriers to hitting their performance goals. The senior managers were also the owners. They took these barriers personally.

So they hired Jim and told him to figure out what was going on and fix it...Read the rest of this story.

Filling Jobs Quickly: It Doesn't Matter!

2011-08-18T12:53:00.001-07:00

PROBLEM: Jobs need to be filled on a specific date. Early and late are both bad.

SOLUTION: Know how long each type of search takes for each organization in your company. Back time from the target fill date to when you should start. Start on time. Manage each search to the timetable so each ends when it's supposed to end....Read the rest of the story...

Job Descriptions: They Shouldn't Be About the Job

2011-08-18T12:53:00.000-07:00

Well, Not Just Abourt The Job. They Need To Reflect The Company’s Objectives, Mission and Culture, Too.

PROBLEM: Incomplete job descriptions allow the wrong people to be picked for jobs…and then they underperform, hurting themselves and the company.

SOLUTION: Abandon job descriptions...Read the rest of the story...

Managing Every Aspect of Recruiting: My Job Is to Put Butts in the Seats!

2011-08-18T12:52:00.000-07:00

“My job is to fill jobs!” roared Sandy, Acceleration Service Logistics Division’s recruiter.

“How can I do that if Corporate keeps putting walls in my way? My managers want butts in the seats, not a lot of psychobabble excuses why we can’t do it!”

Jim, the Acceleration Service recruiting director, took a long breath. “Does it matter if they are the right butts?”

“Yes and no,”

“Whaddya mean yes and no?” Jim growled....Read the rest of the story...