Talent Acquisition in the Experience Economy

Talent Acquisition in the Experience EconomyTalent Acquisition in the Experience EconomyTalent Acquisition in the Experience EconomyTalent Acquisition in the Experience Economy PDFleidlagelagee Youll need Adobe Reader to view the PDF file above. Download Adobe Reader.Wednesday, June 4, 2014Customers want experiences. So do yur candidates.According to Gilbert and Pine, the authors of The Experience Economy, geschftlicher umganges that relegate themselves to the diminishing world of goods and tafelgeschirrs will be rendered irrelevant. To avoid this fate, we must learn to stage a rich, compelling experience.This webinar will offer an escape from the all-too-easy practice of competing for talent on the basis of brand recognition, industry hype or even the x factor of your product or tafelgeschirr. Those approaches may have worked in the past, but those systems for talent competition are no longer sustainable. What do we do about it?In this webinar we present this information in order to identify new ways to add value to your candidate experiences. Experiences are how we can operate on a different level, and we stage an experience every time we engage candidatesconnecting with them in a rolleal, memorable way.Presented byJill Evans Silman, SPHRSenior Performance ConsultantInsperity Recruiting ServicesJill Evans Silman, SPHR, has nearly 30 years of talent acquisition and management experience. She has developed a variety of geschftliches miteinander ventures in the workforce industry, partnering with clients to recruit and train staff with an emphasis on productivity and performance. As a Sr. Performance Consultant with Insperity Recruiting Services, Jill helps businessesparticularly small and medium-sized firms, find the best talent with the latest in recruitment strategy, talent attraction methods and technology. Jill is committed to changing lives by connecting the right talent to the right companies so that everyone succeeds. Hiring is one of the very most impor tant decisions a business owner makes and Jill is passionate about how companies can address growing recruiting and zurckhalten issues within their organizations.Sponsored byInsperitys mission says it all Insperity is committed to helping businesses succeed so communities prosper. For mora than 27 years, Insperity has been revolutionizing the way businesses operate with their array of HR and business solutions konzeptioned to help businesses run better, grow faster and make more money.Webinar Transcript Talent Acquisition in the Experience Economy (04 June 14)Good afternoon, everyone. Im John V. Tremblay, a Senior Writer of Monster. Thanks for joining us today for this exclusive webinar. Hosted by Intelligence. Todays webinar is, Talent Acquisition in the Experience Economy, presented by Jill Silman. This webinar offers an escape from the all-too-easy practice of competing for talent on the basis of brand recognition or industry hype. And our webinar today is sponsored by Insperity. Insperity is committed to helping businesses succeed, so communities prosper. For more than 27 years, Insperity has been revolutionizing the way businesses operate with HR and business solutions, designed to help businesses run better, grow faster and earn more revenue. And now just before we get started, just a few housekeeping items.Todays presentation and a copy of the recording will be posted on hiring.monster.com within two to three business days. If you like a copy, please click in the resources tab and navigate to HR fests. Also, all ready to participants who are receiving email with the direct link to todays materials. The host of the webinar, intelligence, helps HR professionals improve worker performance, retain top talent, and enhance recruiting strategies. In Intelligence, we analyze and collect data from millions of unique job searches performed on each day. To review our in-depth reports, please visit hiring.monster.com and click on the Resource Center tab. And now af ter Jills presentation, we have time for questions. During the webinar, you can type your questions into the available space and we will make every effort to include them in todays QA. Our Meeting Manager will help facilitate the QA, and if you are listening to todays presentation via phone, you will be placed on mute you until the QA begins. Heres some background on todays speaker, Jill Silman. Jills a senior performance consultant for Insperity Recruiting Services. Jills nearly 30 years of talent acquisition and management experience. Jill helps businesses, especially small and medium sized firms. She helps them find top talent with the best in recruitment strategies, talent attraction methods, and technology. Jills committed to connecting the right talent to the right companies, so that everyone succeeds. Shes developed a variety of business ventures in the workforce industry, partnering with clients to recruit and train staff, emphasizing productivity and performance. Hiring is one of the vital decisions a business owner makes, and Jills passion helps companies address growing recruitment or retention issues within their organizations. Now without further delay, lets welcome Jill Silman. Hi Jill.Good morning or good afternoon, I should say. Thank you so much, John. Thank you for that introduction, and I just want to say thank you to for allowing us to have this afternoon together. And those of you that are listening in, I really appreciate your attendance. I actually recognize a few of these names. So Im going to expect you to participate, because I would hate to call you out on national internet. But I hope that this can become very interactive, and we can share a lot of ideas together today. As we mentioned, were talking about how an acquisition in the experience economy. I came up with this topic years and years ago. I came about a book by Gilmore and Pine, which Marriott Corporation welches using as the backbone for their customer care and their custom er service practice. I welches consulting with Marriott, so I had to read the book. I had to learn a little bit more about what they were doing. And I begin to think, Oh my gosh, this has application for everyone. And as a third party recruiter all my career, we began to use that material internally in my own organization and to be able to talk to our customer. elend only did we talk internally, but we began to roll this out and take it across the country at industry association meetings and that sort of thing. Not necessarily across the country, I seem to remember that we went to Columbus, Ohio and New Orleans. But nevertheless, we were talking about it though from a position of a recruiter particularly a third party recruiter and the experience that client, that paying customer, had with the recruiter. And then all of a sudden, the whole idea of the candidate experience became something really cool to talk about. So we began to explore these ideas and do a little bit more resear ch and twist the idea a little bit, to think about the candidate and their experience.In doing the research, we stumbled on a lot of work that was done by Gerry Crispin on CareerXroads, and then the talent board and their whole candidate experience .org organization. So hats off to them, because we owe a lot of todays content to them and some of the work that theyve done before. Just before we get into the meat of the presentation, Ill tell you that today were going to talk about the ideas put forth in Gilmore and Pines book, The Experienced Economy Work is Theater and Every Business is a Stage. Well use those ideas to frame a discussion on the candidate experience. Were going to explore the candidate experience today, and kind of challenge ourselves to improve upon the state of that experience, as its been reported by candidates. Well end our discussion by underscoring just how very important this idea is to our businesses. Candidate experience has huge impact, not only on our abil ity to acquire the right talent when we need them, but it also has further reaching impact on the success and the health of our businesses. So let me just save you a little bit of effort and from having to delve further into the details of the book, because I have to say this the book is awesome. I firmly believe in every idea that they put forward. But to be a book about how experiences are important, it was a very, very droll experience to read the book. Not very exciting reading, lets just set it that way. But in the book, Pine and Gilmore, they described the experience economy as the next economy that follows the service economy. First, we had the agrarian economy and then the industrial economy, then the service economy. And now what they have named the experience economy. Theyre arguing that businesses need to orchestrate memorable moments, memorable events for their customers and that memory itself that becomes the product. Its the experience. This is perhaps why we just don t eat in a restaurant anymore. We have to go sit in a Rainforest or in a Hard Rock museum. We dont just shop for sporting goods in the local store, we go to Gander Mountain, we go to Bass Pro Shops, and we go to REI and actually climb a mountain. We dont just like to go sit in a movie theater anymore, we demand that we go to an IMAX or a 3DX theater. This is also why church doesnt look like what church looked like when I was growing up. Now churches are like a concert with a light show and just a full theater production. So just to take a minute and delve into the book. Were going to talk a little bit about that progression of economic value, and what it means to businesses in each stage of that progression.Agricultural commodities, those form the basis of that agrarian economy, which really just provided us assistance level of existence. The zenith of the agrarian economy was about the 18th century in the United States. And at that time, more than about 80% of the workforce was emp loyed on farm. Today, less than 3% of the population works on farms. And what happened? Well the tremendous productivity improvements that became known as the Industrial Revolution, drastically altered this way of life. As manufacturers automated, millions of craft jobs the foundation for all the advanced economies shifted to goods. As continued improvements and process innovation have reduced the number of workers required to produce a given output, the need for manufacturing workers leveled off and even in some areas declined. Simultaneously, the vast wealth thats been generated by that manufacturing sector, as well as just the sheer number of goods that are accumulating that drove a greatly increased demand for services. And as a result, those service workers. It was in the 1950s when services first employed about or actually more that 50% of the U.S. population. Thats when the service economy overtook the industrial economy. Today, manufacturing jobs employ just a mere 17% of the population, while economists today categorize the services that make up the remaining 80%. With this shift comes another dynamic. In a service economy, individuals desire service. They scrimp and save on goods. Maybe we shop at Walmart or Target, so that we can purchase services like eating out, fine dining, traveling. Those are the things that we tend to value more highly. In a service economy, the lack of differentiation in customers minds causes those goods to face the constant price pressures that are associated with commodities. And as a result, customers more and more purchase goods solely on price and availability.So whats somebody to do about this? Well, manufacturers now often wrap services around core goods. So auto makers increase the range and the length of their warranties, consumer goods manufacturers manage inventories for the stores so forth and so on. Eventually, really astute manufactures shift away from a good mentality overall, to become predominately servi ce providers. For example, who buys cellphones anymore? Unless youre just a techno-junkie who has to have the latest and greatest, that new introduction of the iPhone 5 that looks remarkably like the iPhone 4, only its skinnier. Unless youre that guy, lets just wait until our agreement expires and we get the free phone, or we look for some sort of incentive to sign up with a cell provider. That commoditization trap has forced manufacturers to add services. It now attacks services with the exact saatkorn vengeance. So airplanes resemble cattle cars with significant number of people that are flying on free rewards, fast food restaurants, or all stressing their value meal. And theres a price more looming in financial services industry, is first discount now internet based ?, constantly are driving down the commissions. Whats the antidote to this? Its customization. Its now time to customize service offering. Its time to move to a new level of economic value. Its time to go beyond busin ess services. What happens when you customize the service? When you design a service so appropriate for a person at this place and time, a service that makes them go, Wow. Well, you turn that service into an experience. An experience as theyre becoming the predominant economic offering. I just mentioned several experiences, but its like this we dont want to just go look at the dolphins, we want to swim with dolphins. We just dont want just sit on the 49th row of the balcony at a concert, we want to go backstage. Heres another way to look at the desires and the expectations of consumers over the years. Really watching how commoditization took hold and customization became the differentiator.Lets think about that common event, the birthday party. Hopefully, weve all had one of those. So if some of us can remember thinking back to our childhood, when Mom would actually bake a cake from scratch. What does that mean exactly? She actually touched those commodities the butter, the eggs, t he sugar, the flour, and the milk. And how much did those ingredients cost back then? Maybe a dime, maybe two, maybe three. But then such commodities became less and less relevant to the needs of consumers, when people like Betty Crocker which I dont think is really a person but companies like Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines, packaged most of those necessary ingredients into cake mixes and canned frosting. How much did those goods cost as they flew off supermarket shelves for birthday parties in the 60s and 70s? Not much. Maybe a dollar, maybe two. But thats still more than the cost of the basic commodities, right? And in the 80s most parents stopped baking cakes at all. Mom simply called the store and ordered a cake. So a $10 to $20 custom service cost ten times the goods that were needed to make the cake at home, still involved less than a dollars worth of ingredients. Many parents began to think, This is a great bargain. because they could focus their time and their energy on pl anning and throwing the actual party. What do families do now? Well, they outsource the entire party to companies like Main Events, or Chuck E. Cheese or Laser Rage, or Libby Lus and these companies stage a birthday experience for the family and friends. For a cost of 100, $250, each successive offering, from the pure ingredients as commodities, to the package mixes which were goods, to the finished cakes which was a service. And now these parties which are the experiences greatly increase in value because the buyer finds each one more relevant to what he truly wants right now. Its now what makes him go, Wow.What does the consumer really want right now, what is going to make them go out, what do they expect? Well, according to Joseph Pine, when he was talking about this very thing in a TED Talk entitled What Customers Want, he shared the conclusion that the co-driver of an experienced economy is to render authenticity. Experience is our reaction to event staged in front of us and we desire authenticity. Authenticity is becoming the new consumer sensibility. Its becoming the buying criteria, by which we choose who were going to buy from and what were going to buy. We need to be able to provide places for people to experience who we really are. Do you know Starbucks does this? What does Starbucks sell? It starts with a true commodity, the coffee bean. Some companies harvests that coffee and trade it on the futures market, and those people receive little more than about a dollar a pound, which translates into one or two sets of cups of coffee. That when a manufacturer grinds and packages and sells those same beans in a grocery store, that turns them into a good and the price to a consumer jumps between 5-25 cents a cup, depending on the brand and the package size. If you brew those ground beans in a run of the mill diner or a donut shop, that service now sells for 50 cents to a dollar per cup, maybe even a little bit more. So depending on what a business does with that coffee bean, coffee can be one of any three economic offerings commodity, good, or service. With very distinct ranges of values that the customers attach to each one of those levels, each one of those offers. But wait. You serve that same cup of coffee at your corner Starbucks where the ordering, the creation, the consumption of the cup embodies the heightened ambiance, a real experience and consumer would gladly pay anywhere from $2 to $5 for each cup. Businesses that ascend to this fourth level of value, they establish a distinctive experience that envelops that purchase of coffee. Increasing its value therefore, its price by two orders of magnitude over the original commodity. Increasingly, what will make us happy? Depending on our time and money, satisfying that desire for authenticity. In terms of the candidate as the consumer, there are two elements to a dimension of authenticity. And that is the intensity employer actually believes what they say is real, and wheth er the candidates believe that claim. When hes talking about this in the TED video, he talks about, are you real, are you fake? Or are you real fake? And Id love to spend some more time talking about their clients being real or real real or fake or fake fake or real fake, but Id suggest that you check out the Ted Talk for that because its fascinating.So in moving forward, I think that as recruiters, we really need to understand who our consumer is, who our customer is from the part of the candidate. So we have to kind of rely then on Gerry Gerry Crispin uses this slide all the time. Im to talk about who is really the candidate. So lets take this little quiz. Whos the candidate? Is it everyone who can possibly do the job? Is it everyone who expresses interest in this specific opportunity? Is it every qualified applicant? Or just the finalist that we bring in to interview and that we actually select. Or is it all of the above? Id love to be able to have a little polling here, but I wa snt smart enough to think to put that in before we started this webinar. But our candidates are everyone who expresses an interest in a specific opportunity. So what is the candidate experience now? And why is it so important now when in the past, we could generally just ignore that well. I think that its more closely aligned with the expectations defined by the experienced economy. Crispin in some of his research says that in the dark ages those days before the Internet, when no one had friends or followers very little effort was ever made to understand the attitude and behaviors of the candidates. Let alone consider whether those were important or relevant to the recruitment process, our candidates were just expected to line up, be screened, be selected and be ever grateful for whatever interest was extended by the employer. In all the research on this topic, I read a really cool story of how the foreman of a railway yard in Philadelphia, who would need workers every day. This i s how he recruited for his job, he would go early in the morning where a mob of candidates who would be standing right outside his fence. So there is this tall mill fence that would separate him from this big mob. He would throw oranges over the top of the fence. He would throw as many oranges as the number of men that he needed that day. When he unlocked the fence, those men holding oranges in their prankes, they came through and the candidate mob dispersed until the next day. So sourcing, selecting on boarding, time to fill about five minutes. Cost for hire the price of an orange. I doubt really seriously whether that foreman or the candidate thought very much about that experience.A little fast forward. World War II. Actually, World War II through the 1980s. When I came into the industry, we seem to recruit professionals from just an unending booming supply of quality candidates. At that stage, what we were looking for is more conformity, credentials became very, very important and we compared everybody to a normative behavior. It was almost as though we thought of people like replaceable cogs in the wheel, or wed simply say, Next, to get our future talent. But you know over time, things change and suddenly theres a very real challenge to find, attract, screen, select and on board. Skills, knowledge and experience are not the only factors in play. Do the candidates values, do their attitudes, do their expectations match with our firm? Filming a diverse flight of quality interested candidates actually takes some work. Companys stage and experience whenever they engage candidates, connecting with them in a personal memorable way. Seriously, time out. Who is this guy? I mean, they say if anyone knows the value of personal honest customer service, its this guy. But who is this guy? Is this some sort of meme that I dont know about? One of my co-workers helped me grab some graphics for this presentation and Im like, I dont know who he is. Maybe hes your candida te. He kind of looks like a guy I hired in 1993, but really honestly I dont know who he is. But Im convinced that if the experiences of that guy for being a consumer of everything else, it holds true that the same sort of market exists in talent acquisition. You know in SilkRoad State of Talent Management, they did the 2014 reports. Nearly a third of the HR professionals reported recruiting as their biggest concern. Recruitment is a top HR challenge and engagement is a concern. More than half of the professionals worried about recruiting the right candidate for the company, alongside with 53% of the professionals said creating an attractive organizational culture to engage employees, are a top source of concern. But the way candidates are treating during the recruiting process, leaves a lasting impression and their opinions resonate long after a position has been filled. This is all information found in SilkRoad State of the Talent Management 2014.Remember the time you received a pa rticularly poor service at a restaurant, an automotive shop, airline counter perhaps? For a lot of us, those ordeals create our most lasting recollections of a company. And often, our very best watercooler stories. We forget consistently dependable service while remembering those occasional mishaps. Companies that falter on the service front, discover the hard way to turn service into an experience, all you got to do is provide poor service. And thus, you create a very memorable encounter of the most unpleasant kind. That SilkRoad Talent Management report I referred to, just a minute ago, it tells us that the surest way to provide a poor hiring experience comes from the top pet peeves of todays candidates. Those pet peeves were companies unresponsive to resumes or applications, no follow-up after the interview, a difficult or lengthy application process, a poor interviewing technique or unprofessional interviewers, and disconnected sourcing and recruiting process. Hopefully, I didn t mention anything that is prevalent in your own organizations. But armed with that information, lets look a little bit closer at six lessons that were learned from the 2013 candidate experience. This was a candidate experience .org survey of 17,500 candidates, and they compiled the results of that into what candidates expect to happen when they are applying for jobs. So Id like for you to take a look at these six ideas, and then filter them through how you think your candidate experiences stack up. Lesson number one, they call this Know My Value. As employers, we really only value two things make us some money or save us some money. Isnt that true, isnt that why we hire somebody? Were either looking at them to make us some money or save us some money. So we know what we want, we know what we expect and we think we know who the people are that have what were looking for. But you know what? When it comes to organizations and people, one size doesnt fit anybody. Candidates now want us to know them relative to their ability to provide that value. You want a hiring process that has built-in flexibility, not rigid rules. Some of the best talent is idiosyncratic. Its censored, maybe even a little bit weird. The right person might not have taken that traditional path to get to you. The last thing you want is a process that eliminates some stellar talent, because of a bureaucratic reason. For example, a college degree. Its nice, but is it really the key determinant of an applicants future performance? Lesson two Walk in my Shoes. How many steps are in your application process? Remember that complaint. What was their top hat key, a difficult or lengthy application process? Weve all been job-seekers at some point in our careers. And as you design or you improve your hiring process, keep that applicant experience front and center at all times. Obviously, were here to fill our organizations needs, but the more that you understand and design the process from the applicants point of view, the more successful youre going to be. Even role playing could be invaluable here. Have a team member come play through as an applicant, as you design each step of the process. Would you put up with it? If you wouldnt put up with it, come up with another idea.Lesson three Hear Me Now, is what they call this. Do you collect and listen to feedback from applicants, from the candidates, from the finalists? Do you poll your new hires? Your hiring process needs to always be evolving. Social media has handed us a really powerful tool, but that can impact every step of our process. But its a great opportunity for us too. Its a great opportunity for us to actively seek feedback from our candidates. Those we hire and even those that we dont. Listen, respond, and keep tweaking your process. Static hiring process will very soon turn stale. And think of the feedback as kind of a dialogue or a jumping-off point, an inspiration point for future development. I think it was Bill Gate s, he said something like, Youre most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. So even if you dont offer that person a position, its a great opportunity to listen to them as to what their experience was with your organization, and learn from that information. Lesson number four, this is where Joe Pines authenticity stuff that we talked about earlier. This is where it really begins to show up. Lesson four Speak Clearly. Align your communication methods to your audience. Are you able to navigate your firms career site and search for new jobs on your mobile phone? Thats what most people want to do. Are you able to text, or is the candidate able to text or call or chat with their recruiters? At this juncture, a recent survey showed that only about 36% of the recruiters out there have that capability to text, call and chat all three with their candidates. Can they apply for a job with their mobile phone? Can they check a previously saved profile before with their mobile p hone? Can they check their resume position along the way? Remember that earlier complaint, disconnected sourcing and recruiting processes? We also find another way that we disconnect for them, is perhaps we go out and try to grab them or source them or attract them through social media. And then what happens when they get to work? Oh, you know what, you need to put that Facebook away. We dont do that during hours. Thats how you got me here. I thought you were a cool company on Facebook. Making sure that were speaking clearly and that were actually aligning our communication to what they want and need, and that were keeping consistent throughout the process. Lesson number five Answer Truthfully. Answer those questions like how frequently does this position come open. What did the last person who won this job, what did they look like, and what happened to the person who was in this job before? Perhaps through these, kind of addresses that complaint from the SilkRoad survey of poor int erviewing techniques and even unprofessional recruiters. Are we just saying what we need to in order to get the candidate to take the role? Were really looking for transparency. And again, that authentic experience. Thats what the candidate is wanting.Lesson number six from thecandidateexperience.org, Deliver What You Promise. Of course, you have to make a promise before you can deliver on it. Make a promise like our online application can be completed in less than two minutes. Or all candidates will be communicated with within 20 days. I dont know, but come up with something to promise and then deliver on that promise. Thats directly in relationship to the complaints around companies who are unresponsive to resume, their applications. And there is no follow-up after the interview. Can you just imagine the black hole that most of our candidates fall into every time they spend 27 minutes filling out our online application, uploading this, cutting and pasting that, time this back, loo king for this, answering our 47 pre-screening questions. Can you imagine how frustrating that is if they get nothing? I think I would even prefer one of those automated, Hey, thank you for applying, responses to get nothing. My sons 15. Hes trying to look for a job right now and its a new experience for him. And all those jobs that we used to think about that were pretty routine for kids to get even the kids have to go online to do these things now. My own little survey here, I have so many places where he has posted an online job application, and has not heard anything from any of these people. Not even a, Thank you, we got your application. And I can watch the frustration through my son. I can only imagine. Were lucky he doesnt have to have a job this summer. He wants a job this summer, but he doesnt have to have one. But what if you had to have a job or your car was going to be repossessed, or your family was going to have to move or I dont know. Can you imagine the frustration t hat those candidates feel? Theres a very good disgraceful statistics that Ive stumbled upon, that over 70% of online applicants never even get a formal reply.To me, that really just violates every rule of common courtesy and smart communication. You need to keep them aware throughout the hiring process. Explain every step, and always meet the deadlines and the markers that you establish. If for some unforeseeable reason youre unable to, then communicate that very swiftly and directly to the applicant. Stay transparent, stay honest all the way through. Why is this so important? Why do we care so much now? Well, remember what we said earlier about candidate experience? And really what the candidate experience is, is the attitudes and behaviors of the individuals who aspire to work for our firm. And its their attitudes about the recruiting process, the stakeholders in the process, the work and the company itself as a place to work. Its also the subsequent actions of the candidates and their impact on the performance of your company. The candidate experience has a tremendous impact on subsequent actions of the candidates, and their impact on the performance of the company. The way theyre treated during the recruitment process leaves a lasting impression, and their opinions resonate long after that positions been filled. Poor practices can damage your brand. Not just your employment brand but your brand brand, your marketing brand. If for no other reason although I hope that Ive established a few other compelling reasons today but if for no other reason than this slide right here, we need to understand the value of the candidate experience. Another way to put it a good candidate experience is a brilliant marketing for an organization. A bad one is an ongoing black eye for people interested in your brand. Candidates do indeed remember how they were treated, both well and poorly. Candidates indicate that negative experiences do influence their brand perception and the likelihood of referring others to the organization. Positive experiences can be delivered to all applicants. Those successful obviously in getting a job offer, typically walk away with the best memory, but thats not universal. Candidates can still feel negative about the process, in spite of getting the job, and they can still feel positive in spite of not being the chosen one. You have an opportunity to influence everyone, even those that you dont hire.So thats it, more or less, in a nutshell. We offered a very brief introduction into Gilmore and Pines book, but I think we boiled it down to the most compelling parts of that book. We discussed the candidate experience as it is today, and studied some of the challenges of those candidate expectations. And hopefully, we made a case for why its also very important. And lastly, I hope it was a good experience that you sat through this webinar today. And I know its time for questions from the group or its about time for questions fr om the group, but if I can ask you to indulge me just for a few minutes, Id really like to know what some of your organizations are doing around the idea of CX. You know thats what all the cool kids call it, CX, Candidate Experience. But perhaps you could even share with me through the chat box or heres my contact information if you wouldnt mind connecting with me after the webinar. I would really like to hear some of the ideas that your organizations are doing, and like to be able to broadcast that as best practices as we continue this conversation around in the coming months. And of course, if you have other questions, you have other comments please feel free to submit them now. So thank you very much for your time and your attention today.Jill, thank you so much for sharing you knowledge today. We really appreciate it, and now its time for some QA. And at this point, Id like to turn the webinar over to our Meeting Manager, who will help support with our questions and answers.Tha nk you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to register your question, please press the one followed by the four on your telephone. You will hear a three toned prompt to acknowledge your request. Your line will then be accessed from the conference to obtain some information. If your question has been answered and you would like to withdraw your registration, please press the one followed by the three. If you are using a speaker phone, please lift your handset before entering your request. Again, to register for a question, please press the one followed by the four on your telephone. One moment please for the first telephone question.Thank you. And while were waiting for the questions, a question actually came in here. A question for you, Jill. Can you give some tangible examples of ways to enhance the candidate experience during the recruitment process? Maybe something youve used in the past.I definitely think the opportunity to communicate with the talent along the way, and per haps to change that up a little bit delivering it through a different format. But definitely, we need to be able to communicate to tell them that we received their application, heres the next step. When the next step is complete, whats the next step and to give some expectations along the way. Some of this can be mass customized, if you will. I know thats kind of an odd term, but some of these things can be automated. We just them to be enacted in a way that the individual fields is very, very specific to themselves. Im kind of likening it to I dont know how many of you have ever bought vitamins at GNC. But GNC has depending on who you are older, female, male, runner, a workout person, couch potato, whatever you can buy your vitamins packaged specifically for you. But nobody thinks that Im just the only one getting this one pack of vitamins. Theyre just customized in a mass way for a group of people. So some of your communication can be mass customized, if you will. And I think th ats one way to be able to bring this home to the candidate experience. I also think very much just in the process itself is it necessary that we ask for all of this information upfront? I think that thats been part of the whole idea behind this idea, the talent networks that were all creating for our candidates a shortened version of an application, just because it can be so daunting and we ask for so much in advance. And do we really need that much right then? Maybe they could just answer three quick questions and well just figure out if theyre in the game or out, and be able to move on from there. So I think taking a look at our processes and then beginning to whittle those down to whats really relevant to this particular role. I think another place that we can customize some of this, is even in how we post our positions. Im being creative and trying to reach those people who we really do want engaged in this particular search. And I think if we could be a little bit more creati ve in even how we post on Monster, for example, I think that we can do a lot to customize, to make somebody feel like, Youre speaking right to me.Great, Jo. Thank you. Your topic resonated with a lot of people. We have some questions coming in, and another ones from Cory. Cory asks, How do you keep candidates warm, while waiting for a final hiring decision?Great question. Because as much as wed like to drive that process from the final interview to make an offer that afternoon, sometimes things get in the way. And I think again, just a clear communication, keeping them abreast. Whether its setting up some social media contacts way to keep in touch with that person, maybe through their Twitter or maybe through their Facebook or something like that. So that they know youre still interested, so that they know that theyre still being considered. But that is not too big of a burden on you to have to pick up a phone call and have a 30 minute conversation, once a day, every day, for two we eks. But I think we can make social media our friend in that instance, and some line of communication thats not too draining on us, that keeps them warm throughout that process.Great. Thanks, Jill. We have another question from Kesha. She asks, If your company hasnt been looking at candidate experience in the past, where and/or how is a good place to actually get started? How do you start all this, if people arent focused on it?Exactly. So whats the most important piece to do first, and I think that goes back to communication. Because to change your process, thats a big deal, right? That takes a lot of people, a lot of movement, a lot of thought, but you can start communicating today. You can figure out ways to answer their questions, let them know that you recognize this particular candidate. So I think communication is the first and foremost most important thing to do. And the easiest probably too, to implement. Because as long as you got a phone, as long as you got a computer, yo u got a smartphone, you got something you can communicate. I think that thats an absolute must we have to get better at that. As again, watching my kid go through this process, and the few times that anybody has ever told him anything thats going on with his application, its got be so frustrating to be on the other side of that. So just put yourself in their shoes, and communicate with them like youd want to be communicated to.Thanks, Jill. That makes great sense. We have another question from Jessie. Jessie says, What is a good time frame to communicate rejections, after a different candidate is selected for position for an entry-level job?Well, I guess only on things that especially if you have a front runner candidate or a second front runner, I would not let that person go necessarily until I have the selected candidate in the feed, just to keep them kind of and communicate with them that things or processes are moving along. But then when that decision has been made and that p erson has accepted the position, and has started in the role to let them go gracefully and in a way that we would want to be turned down for our own selves, I guess. If we were in that situation. But for those positions, I think that you just again, communicate with them, Hey were still ironing out a few things, were still doing a little bit more due diligence on this particular role. Just so that they know that somethings going on, and you havent forgotten about them completely. I was lucky enough, I guess, to have attended a college recruiting event. And we had access to some of the best and the brightest of a particular school, and we were given the opportunity to just ask some questions. From the audience came a question to these college grads, How often do you want to be communicated with? Whats not enough, whats too much? When would you say no to an organization, because they didnt communicate frequently enough? From their very first connection with the organization, they wan ted to hear something within the first 48 hours, something it didnt have to be that they were getting an interview, but just something within the first 48 hours. If between interviews, you spent longer than about nine days, it appears that nine days was their tolerance point. Now remember, this wasnt a scientific survey, this was just a few kids sitting in a room. But about nine days is when they would give up on the organization, and you want to know what they said, why? Because they said, If it takes you that long to figure out what youre doing and to be able to get an answer back to me, what if I needed something? What if I worked there and I needed something? It would take two weeks to get an answer on one of my questions when I work there. So it was beginning to already set up the expectation for these potentially future employees that, Hey, we dont do anything fast around this organization. So if you have a question and need to go to the president, you can expect to wait a cou ple of weeks before you get an answer. And that just didnt resonate with this particular group.Right, excellent. Thanks again, Jill. At this point, I want to check in with Melody, our operator. Melody, do we have any phone questions yet?We do not. But ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, to register for a question via the phone, please just press the one followed by the four.Okay, Melody, thank you. We have some more questions here online. ? Jill for your expertise, Rochelle asks, Can you share how recruiters can manage all of the various ways to communicate? Theres chat, text, email. It seems overwhelming, especially if you have to manage a large candidate pipeline.Right, and I sympathize. If I had the real answer to this question, I could probably make a fortune. But I think that there are some preferred channels. And I think that to be able to know what you can manage, what you can automate. There are some tremendous tools out there that could allow you to automate some of your i nteractions, whether its working through ? hub or its working with ? or some sort of aggregator like that, where you can reach out to people through different platforms. I would investigate, possibly some of those tools that attach themselves to the different platforms, to see if theres some way that you can figure out a help-mate for your time management issues. Because I know it can be daunting. I think perhaps if in processes, as you say, At this point in the process, we do it via email. At this point in the process, we do it via text. And at this point in the process, we do it this way. Maybe if you get a rhythm or a plan, any available communication goes back to the candidate, because there are some people who dont check email anymore. I think colleges dont even hand out email addresses, because it seems so 2013, I guess. But also, being able to communicate with the candidates adds to either what youre going to do or what they want, to make sure that theyre getting our messagin g.Great. Excellent, Joe. Thank you. We have another question thats here online, Jill, I dont have a position for the candidate thats a fit, as of right now. How often is reasonable to stay in touch with them?I think in those kinds of situations, I would encourage them to also do a little bit of the work in keeping engaged. But to be able to connect with them via some of these social media platforms, or maybe youre not talking directly to them all the time, but theyre being pinged with ideas and thoughts and maybe white-papers or tips or tricks, or something that continues to tie them back to your organization. That is something that you can very well automate, so it becomes a little less painful for you to have to do that. But you want to keep them tethered to your organization, and being mindful that youre still around. And maybe todays not the right day, but maybe a year and three days later, it will be. So just keeping them engaged sending out things, games for them to play, thi ngs that they might be able to do might tie them again back to your organization. To keep them warm.Great. Excellent. Makes sense. Thank you. We have another question, Jill, in your experience, when people are telling candidates what they want to know, what is it that they want to know exactly?People are telling candidates what they want to know. What is it that they want to know exactly? Okay, I think I understand that question. I do a whole lot of work in generational diversity, in that space. And I think that there are three things that when Im talking about generational diversity, I think theres three things that candidates regardless of which of the generations they fall into I think there are three things that cut across all five generations in todays workforce. I think the things that they really want to know about your organization are what are the growth opportunities, what kind of work-life balance do you have, and what makes your company stand out amongst your competit ors. Those are the sorts of things that really resonate with them. So when youre communicating with these people, these are the sorts of things that would be valuable for them to know. When I talk about growth, the average candidates pretty savvy about their careers anymore. They kind of understand that whole idea of making a good career move. So if we can show them how our organizations will invest in them, like what kind of training we have, what kind of continuing ed opportunities we have, what kind of employee mobility once they get with us. Being able to show that to a candidate is very, very important. I think what did I say? The work-life balance was another one. I think knowing that youre going to invest in them as people, not just workers, is very important. So when were talking to them, being able to frame our conversations around that. Lastly, with the differentiators the best talent is usually pretty competitive. I think that to be able to show top candidates that youre a top firm. I think that can be very important too, because they want to work for the best firms.Great. Thank you. Jill, bear with me here a moment. I just want to check in with Melody, our operator, to see if any questions came in over the phone. If not, we actually have time for probably one more question I have here online.We have no one queued up for questions over the phone.Okay, great. That works out great, because Cynthia put a question here online, Jill, what are some examples of rejection communication? No one likes to get rejected. But when you are rejected, when you have candidates that dont have the skill set youre looking for whats the right way to handle that communication?I think again, honesty. Weve all had those candidates that we werent honest with, who continued to call us day after day after day, to the point that when we saw their phone number on the caller ID or we saw their name in our email box, your stomach kind of tighten up because you just didnt want to have to deal with it. And the further away you got, the harder it was to actually be honest. But I think something very honest and heartfelt, the way that you would want to receive that kind of information. If it was really just a skills mismatch, people can accept that sort of thing. I genuinely believe that most people can accept bad news. You just have to give it to them. I think that they would rather hear that, then just something thats kind of non-committal, one way or another. But I think if its honestly a skills mismatch, people will understand. You may get some push-back going, I know I havent done that before, but Im trying to make a career change, and that sort of thing. And, Why doesnt my experience here translate to that? I know how to talk on the phone, or something along those lines. I think then helping them to build a bridge and maybe spend two minutes with this candidate talking a little bit about career development, could be an investment that could pay off long- term where they come back to you. I know some of the names that I see online are some of the folks that are involved in third-party recruiting. I can just give you an example of one of the candidates that did not get the job. He still, because of the way that we talked about the rejection, as he moved from place to place, he continued to call me to help recruit for other individuals within the organization. And one time, we were trying to recollect how long we had known each other, and we started to talk about it. It was when I rejected him for another job. So I never placed him once, but he continued to use me as a recruiter to help him fill other roles within his organization, since he moved around. So I think being honest has dividends in the moment and dividends for the future as well.Thats great, Jill. Thank you very much. Your presentations generate a lot of interest. We had a lot of questions. And to the audience out there, if we didnt get your question, be sure to pass them along to Jill. And Jill, we want to thank you for the presentation today and for the webinar, sharing your expertise. And also thank you to Insperity for sponsoring todays webinar. This concludes our webinar. We hope that everyone enjoyed it. I want to remind you theres recording of this event as well as presentation materials, will be available shortly on our hiring site hiring.monster.com under the Resource Center tab. And thanks for everyone for joining us. Our next Webinar is on Wednesday June 18th, Maximizing the Utility of Employee Assistance Programs. So we hope you join us for that. So thanks to everyone and have a great day.