AI in Hiring, Artificial Intelligence, ATS, Candidate Experience, Candidate Qualification Screening, Change Management, Company Updates, Data Analytics & Reporting, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DE&I), Hiring Assessments, Hiring Manager Engagement, Job Descriptions, Leadership, Managing Costs, Resumes, Talent Acquisition Problems
Talent acquisition teams have many priorities, and it’s hard to balance them all. What’s interesting is that many of the same priorities show up on the top initiatives list year-after-year.
If you are looking to make significant progress in any or all of these areas, then you need a solution that can PROVE they address all of these initiatives with practical examples.
With SmartRank:
Productivity – you could give your recruiters back 30% – 70% of their time back in their day
DE&I – you could have zero unconscious bias in your screening process
Hiring Manager Engagement – simply give them applicants that are EXACTLY what they want
Compliance & Legal – no bias data + 100% inclusive and objective screening = no calls from the EEOC and/or OFCCP
Data Analytics – remove assumption and opinion driven anecdotal conversations with data driven conversations
Applicant Experience – something actually new, different, better, and ultimately benefits the applicant
We can show how we specifically address each of these initiatives in less than 5 minutes each. If you are curious, schedule time with us to learn more (https://lnkd.in/gpyUcDF2)!
AI in Hiring, Artificial Intelligence, ATS, Candidate Qualification Screening, Change Management, Data Analytics & Reporting, Job Descriptions, Managing Costs, Resumes, Talent Acquisition Problems
Research and survey data consistently tell us that “reviewing & screening” applicants is the most time consuming task a recruiter has. The time spent on this task ranges anywhere between 30% – 70% per day. This is staggering and highly inefficient.
One has to immediately ask, what process on earth could create this level of inefficiency? The answer is easy when you look at how most recruiters review and screen applicants, manually and tediously. Opening each applicant in a traditional ATS one-by-one, matching keywords on a résumé to keywords on a job description is going to take a long time. What’s worse…it’s not very effective. It is definitely what most recruiters do, but it is definitely not efficient or effective.
What other manual and tedious tasks do recruiters have?
* Sending applicants to hiring managers and following up for feedback
* Following up on feedback after an interview
* Working through the rest of the applicants one-by-one, either inviting them to interviews, dispositioning, etc.
So the big question is really WHY do we do this? Short answer…because this is how we’ve always done it. These problems with recruiters never having enough time, which ultimately leads to burnout, are not going away until we stop doing it the same way we’ve always done it.
One last thing to consider. If your risk tolerance only allows you to try a “slight evolution” then it will likely produce a “slight improvement.” Maybe you go from 50% to 48.5% time spent on screening. Or you can look at a “revolution” which could take you from 50% to 5% of your time being spent on screening/reviewing applicants. It’s all about how motivated you are to solve that problem.
ATS, Change Management, Data Analytics & Reporting, Hiring Manager Engagement, Job Descriptions, Leadership, Resumes, Talent Acquisition Problems
If you are a recruiter that feels burned out, you should check out this article that my good friend Anna Peters sent me AND seriously consider what you want the next 10 years of your career to look like.
4 things this article mentioned as burnout symptoms that SmartRank addresses in one way or another:
Exhaustion – we minimize so many of the manual tasks (e.g., reviewing résumés) associated with recruiting which enables recruiters to accomplish more in an 8 hour day than they would in a 14 hour day
Cynicism and Pessimism – this talks about conflict at work. HMs and recruiters ALWAYS have conflict, even if it’s not overt. SmartRank helps to bridge this gap that that exists at most companies because our solution pulls both parties on the same page and accountability is shared amongst all parties involved in the hiring process
Reduced productivity – reviewing resumes and all the other tasks a recruiter must do are SO manual in nature and therefore their productivity plummets. Automate the tasks that can be automated and you increase productivity, which is exactly what SmartRank does
Feeling of stagnation – of course…the basic recruiting process hasn’t changed in 25-years, and industry experts talk about this ALL the time. SmartRank fundamentally approaches recruiting in a better and different way
The only part of the article where they lost me is when they talk about solutions for overcoming burnout. “Setting goals” “maintaining work-life balance” and “getting adequate sleep” are nice, but those solutions alone are not going to massively reduce burnout because they are not tangible enough.
If you want to reduce burnout, then you need to:
1. Objectively look at your TA tools and processes (hint: if you are still manually looking and managing every applicant one-by-one, and you’re still sending résumés to hiring managers, then you need to ask yourself why)
2. Make some fundamental changes in the technology you’re using (hint: if you’re not reducing your manual tasks by 30% – 50%, then you’re not even trying)
3. Introduce technology and processes that are actually NEW (hint: updating job descriptions and trying to have better intake meetings are not even scratching the surface)
If you are a TA and/or HR leader that truly wants to reduce burnout on your team, then it’s time for less talk and more action with SmartRank!!
AI in Hiring, Artificial Intelligence, ATS, Candidate Qualification Screening, Change Management, Data Analytics & Reporting, Hiring Manager Engagement, Job Descriptions, Leadership, Managing Costs, Resumes, Talent Acquisition Problems
I was reading through a recent study named “Recruitment & Retention: Two Sides of the Same Coin” conducted by Aptitude Research which had some great data.
One data point in particular jumped out at me, “84% of recruiters…stated they do not have the tools they need to do their job well.” This statistic makes perfect sense. While the business world continues to change exponentially, HR and Talent Acquisition (TA) teams struggle to make the necessary changes to evolve at the same pace. Unfortunately these decisions impact everyone, not just the HR or TA teams.
This point above is specifically called out in the study and is probably the biggest challenge of all for HR and TA teams to overcome. The study states, “One reason that recruiters have not embraced this modern role is that they do not understand what it is or what they need to do. Most companies do not train, incentivize, or motivate recruiters to manage modern tasks. Yet, recruiters and recruiting departments tend to fall into the same patterns and routines, even when those routines are not bringing results.”
Sales doesn’t sell, marketing doesn’t market, and product development doesn’t develop the exact same way they did 25 years ago. If they did, their competition would crush them. I would even argue that business functions don’t do things the same way they did 5 years ago. And AI is changing the way we’ll be doing business 1-2 years from now.
If HR and TA leaders don’t immediately start breaking these patterns and routines in very significant and impactful ways (e.g., NOT introducing some new way of writing job descriptions), they will likely find themselves being replaced by people or technology that will.
As Leon C. Megginson once wrote in reference to Darwin’s Origin of Species, “It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.” In maybe no other function of business is this quote more relevant right now than HR and TA.
AI in Hiring, Artificial Intelligence, ATS, Change Management, Data Analytics & Reporting, Hiring Manager Engagement, Leadership, Talent Acquisition Problems
Software should make our lives easier, not harder.
There is a concept called “opinionated” vs. “unopinionated” software. Here’s the very high-level definitions for both:
Unopinionated software – highly configurable but generally more manual task management because you make the decision for every single last thing that needs to happen within the system. In other words, there is not really any automation happening, you’re the one that has to do everything.
Example: Old email systems without spam filters. They are not going to filter anything because you have to make the decision on every single email as to whether it’s spam or not.
Opinionated software – less configurable but essentially involves more automation with tasks because it can assume the next logical step based on some assumptions. In other words, it automates much of the work for you, but you have to be comfortable with the assumptions it makes.
Example: Gmail spam filters. They make logical assumptions about what email is spam and what is not. They are not 100% correct all the time, but they’re pretty darn close.
Both types of software naturally have pros and cons. Which one is right for you really depends on preference. In the email spam filter examples above, you have to ask yourself whether it’s worth it to you to save the time with Gmail filtering out spam emails for you under some assumptions, realizing they won’t get it perfect 100% of the time. Or, maybe you are okay with your inbox being bombarded with every single email because you want to decide which emails are spam and which are not, but you’re going to waste a lot of your time filtering emails.
ATSs work in the same way. Generally speaking, unopinionated ATSs (which are most of them) create a lot of manual tasks and clicks for every single thing you want to happen. If you don’t take action, it won’t happen, and that can waste A LOT of your time. In other words, you end up working for your ATS.
SmartRank is more opinionated which creates automation. This saves time and reduces frustration. Your ATS ends up working for you.
If you want to see opinionated and therefore massive time-saving software in action, send us a note!
AI in Hiring, Artificial Intelligence, Candidate Qualification Screening, Data Analytics & Reporting, Hiring Manager Engagement, Talent Acquisition Problems
We’ve posted about this subject before…but why not do it again!!
Most recruiters and hiring managers know there is a disconnect when it comes to communicating job role qualifications. But do those two groups actually know how wide the separation really is?
Let’s look at an example. Let’s say we’re hiring for a Full-Stack Rails Developer. A typical job description would say things like:
– Proficiency in Ruby on Rails
– Ability to write clean ruby code
– Good understanding of front-end technologies like Javascript
– Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, OR RELATED FIELD (this last part is always hilarious)
These ambiguous and undefined terms will not qualify any applicants in or out, and the role of screening the applicants will rest solely on the hiring manager.
Below are just 3 simple examples (which would probably be just 3 out of 12 total) of how SmartRank would screen and qualify these applicants:
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
______________________________________________________
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?
