Candidate Qualification Screening
When you look at your hiring process, are there any elements that are there “because that’s just how we’ve always done it”?
That’s not a great reason…
Thomas Midgley Jr. invented leaded gasoline (he also invented chlorofluorocarbons or “CFCs”) in 1921. We added lead to gasoline because it was an “antiknock agent” which improved the efficiency of vehicles and the performance of the engine. In short, it turned clunky engines into smoothly running engines. Hoorah, right?
Well it turns out lead is a toxic pollutant, particularly for children, and it was polluting the air in towns and cities across the world. Even with concerns about its use, we continued using leaded gasoline for decades. The first clinical studies proved it had toxic impacts on humans in 1969, but it wasn’t until 1986 when the first country, Japan, banned it completely. Then the U.S. banned it ten years later in 1996, and Algeria became the last country to ban leaded gasoline in 2021.
Résumés were in full swing in the 1970s as well, just as they are today. Studies have been out for decades about how biased names and résumés are in the screening process, and yet we still use them. You simply need to do a quick Google search to find that screening applicants by reviewing résumés one-by-one is usually the biggest consumer of time for a recruiter. I would argue that reviewing résumés is also the most ineffective way to screen applicants. And just check out social media if you want to see what applicants think about submitting résumés into an ATS in 2023. So the data is there…using résumés to screen applicants is a 50-year old (actually even older than that) process that arguably sucks worse today than it did 50 years ago.
I think we can all agree that getting rid of leaded gasoline was a good idea, and certainly should have been done much earlier in most countries. I also hope we can all agree that getting rid of résumés in the screening process is a FANTASTIC idea. The question is, when it comes to résumés, are you going to be Japan or Algeria?
Leadership
This is one of the greatest leadership quotes of all time. It’s so important because it gets at the very core of which type of leader a person really is.
We count on leaders to take care of their teams and put themselves last. As leaders it’s our job to remove obstacles, problem solve, and above all…take action.
If leaders allow their self interests or even self preservation (e.g., not getting fired) to rise above their responsibilities, then they need to be an individual contributor, and NOT a leader.
There are a lot of words people would use to describe a good leader such as; brave, strong, selfless, smart, creative, etc. Those are all accurate descriptions and there are plenty more. Leaders come in all different shapes and sizes with different strengths and weaknesses. But at the end of the day, real leaders need to take action. Being complacent, existing in the status quo when they know there are problems that need to be solved, following what everyone else does (or has done in the past), and choosing inaction as their default decision-making mechanism makes them a sheep, not a lion.
By the way, there is NOTHING wrong with being a sheep…they just shouldn’t be in a leadership role!
Managing Costs
No one wants to make a bad hire.
But nearly 3 out of 4 employers say they’ve hired the wrong person. Yikes.
It is no secret that bad hires are expensive. So… why is it so pervasive? Why is everyone still making bad hires?
Just hire better people, simple right?
Not so simple, it turns out. While it is a complicated issue, the answer likely lies in your hiring process. Putting in the work to improve here will benefit your culture and your bottomline. People are your most important asset.
The goal should be to be super selective and quickly identify the best candidates.
Your recruiters are not mind readers. Hiring managers need to know exactly what they’re looking for instead of relying on a job description that is likely outdated or just not specific enough.
Solution?
Try using SmartRank.
✅ 100% of applicants are screened
✅ Applicants are stack-ranked to show you top talent for your specific hiring manager and role
✅ No resumes = no subjective interpretation of skills or qualifications
Data Analytics & Reporting
Relationships with hiring managers can be… tricky.
Recruiters- Do you ever feel like a scapegoat?
Salary requirement conversations are a great example of where the dynamic breaks down.
This first example is probably familiar to every single one of you. It’s called an anecdotal conversation and it goes like this:
Recruiter: We’re finding it hard to find people for that $60k – $70k range you gave me
Hiring Manager: Well that’s the salary we have to work with because that’s what I was given (but what they might be thinking is “maybe you’re not looking in the right places”…”maybe you’re not talking to the right people”…”how many people have you actually verified this with?”…etc.)
Recruiter: Okay well I’ll keep looking
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What if you introduced technology so you knew the exact salary requirements of every single applicant for that specific role?
That’s called a data-driven conversation and it goes like this:
Recruiter: Okay hiring manager, we’ve had 142 applicants apply for this role, we’ve asked 100% of those applicants what their salary expectations are for this role and here’s what the data tells us…only 6% of applicants are willing to accept $60k – $70k. And by the way, would you like to know how many of those 8 applicants are even 50% qualified per your exact qualifications….zero. So, that leaves us with a few options:
1. You can hire one of the 8 applicants knowing they are less than 50% qualified, but at least your expectations will be lower going in
2. We can hold on this salary and wait until we get an applicant that is both willing to accept this salary and has the qualifications you’re looking for, but again with setting expectations you might want to buckle in because it could be a while
3. We can take this data to both of our bosses, show them the data, and explain that if we at least increase the salary range by $10k that triples our applicants pool, but frankly the majority of the applicants are clearly saying they need $91k – $100k
Any of these options are fine with me, but just know this has nothing to do with me and everything to do with what the applicants are telling us. So which option do you want to go with?
Hiring Manager: Let’s go with option 3
In summary:
Anecdotal conversation – revolving door, doesn’t get anywhere, takes longer, no hard decisions can be made, and opinions and blame run rampant
Data-driven conversation – drives a productive conversation, creates accountability for all stakeholders involved, facilitates faster and more educated decisions, and everyone is moving forward as opposed to in a circle
Which conversation are you having today?
Which conversation would you rather have?
Talent Acquisition Problems
The definition for “root-cause” is “the fundamental reason for the occurrence of a problem.”
So, 3 questions:
1. Do you have any of the problems ChatGPT mentions?
2. Have you identified what the root-cause (as opposed to symptoms) of those problems actually are?
3. Have you evaluated solutions that fundamentally solve the root-cause instead of symptoms?
When is the last time you have OBJECTIVELY looked at your entire systems and processes?
