Brand identity and recognition are a must for companies to successfully offer goods and services to savvy consumers. This concept is just as applicable to organizations as employers. A great employer brand should be captivating and express the values of your organization and the benefit of being a member of the team. Are you sharing your brand story and cultural advantages with candidates?

As an employer, do you understand what differentiates your company from your competitors? Can you articulate that vision when interacting with job candidates? A great employer brand should be captivating, express the values of your organization and the benefit of being a member of the team. Presenter Rob O’Keefe, VP of Brand Strategy at TMP Worldwide, covered the steps to positioning your company as an “employer of choice” in this webcast.

As I listened to Rob, I was thinking of the following questions- I’d love to hear what questions you thought of and/or what other questions you’d like answered.

• What role should hiring managers take in these initiatives?
• What is the difference between employer brand and an employee value proposition?
• In what ways can employers use social networking in these efforts?

If it sounds counter-intuitive, it is! Gender biases and stereotypes can be unconsciously embedded into the very talent management systems created to develop and promote the best and brightest. Even organizations with the most sophisticated TM systems are vulnerable to gender bias.

And when leadership characteristics reflect traits exhibited by a company’s top, predominately male executives, the results may have profound impact on a company’s long-term success in developing and promoting the best talent and disadvantage talented women, according to Catalyst’s latest report, which you can download, Cascading Gender Biases, Compounding Effects: An Assessment of Talent Management Systems. We heard from the author of the report, Dr. Anika Warren, in this webcast.

A few of Anika’s points really resonated with me today:

• Bring more people into talent management conversations.  Going back to the same well over and over not only ensures stale practices, but can lead to gender bias.
• Perceptions carry weight.  Even when they aren’t true.  They should be addressed not ignored.

What were yours?

When an organization has a need for many hires for a single type of position, the demands of quantity often override the need for quality. A sound argument can be made, however, that in this particular instance one should be more concerned with excellence, since usually this type of hiring is for customer-facing jobs. Recruitment professionals, then, must be prepared to make a solid business case for focusing on hiring the right person, every time.

This objective is often just as difficult for the recruiter to execute as for the hiring decision makers to endorse: sure, we all “know” we want the right people, but when lines are forming- in person, on the phone, or online, doesn’t having somebody rather than no one feel better? To be true advocates for hiring transformation, talent acquisition professionals need to be prepared and actively work for change in streamlining and improving volume hiring.

Today’s webcast featured Neal Hardin, VP of Global Agent Staffing at Convergys, speaking on this very subject.

What were the key points today? I was very intrigued by the structure, hiring, training and performance reviewing Neal has implemented among the recruiting team itself. 

Here’s a question we touched on briefly: who out there is tracking how much time a recruiter spends on every actual requisition (similar to time and billing)?

Energized, enthusiastic and talented people want to join your federal agency or department. They are passionate philanthropists. And they have friends and colleagues to refer for other job opportunities. To attract top talent to your organization and move toward President Obama’s stated goal of the government becoming a ‘preferred employer’ you need a talent brand.

Communicating an employment image not only serves to describe the who, what and why to job seekers, but to the general public as well. This brand should be integrated into your overall agency/department’s image. Presenters Mark Stelzner, Inflexion Advisors, and Brenna Garratt, The Delve Group, discussed the process for designing and implementing a talent brand into a federal agency in this webcast.

(Amy’s note: this was one of the funniest webcasts I’ve moderated in a while- all are great, some are funnier than others. Did you miss it?  Watch the recast here.)

Stelzner and Garratt said it best: Thanks to the election of President Obama, federal government has brand equity like never before.  How will your agency spend it?

Much discussion in strategic recruitment has centered around “Web 2.0″ and employers’ main candidate interface: the career website. Many recruiting experts have also become internet strategists, and in the process, learned valuable lessons both about how job seekers want to interact with employers, and successful online tactics.

Best Buy is one of those organizations that wanted to have their career site become “Web 2.0 compatible”, and recently launched their new web 2.0 career site. Today we learned about what this means, along with the benefits that Best Buy has gained by upgrading their career site.

Our trio of presenters, Timothy Kutzer, Manager of Talent Acquisition at Best Buy, Joshua Kahn, Senior Pipeline Generation Expert at Accenture BPO, and Doug Berg, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Jobs2Web, will answer questions from the webcast here.

Now is the time to be actively working to increase talent flow- this is the undercurrent theme of every webcast I’ve hosted in the last 2 months.  What are you doing to prepare for the next workforce cycle?

Looking for opportunities to cut back your recruitment budget? Have you considered conducting your interviews on the web? Video interviewing, taking place over the internet with a webcam, is not only growing in popularity amongst organizations looking to save on candidate travel expenses, it is also very popular with Millennial candidates.

Your organization doesn’t have to be bleeding-edge technology innovators to conduct interviews over the web- in fact, the process is easy and efficient. Presenters Mark Newman, CEO, and Chip Luman, COO of HireVue brought a case study from Dan Hanyzewski, Staffing Director at NIKE, and led a discussion around right tech, culture, spend, and potential pitfalls  to start conducting video interviews on the web.

Our presenters today did a terrific job taking us through the usage, pros and cons of video interviewing- I’m going to share the pros that stuck in my mind.

• Video interviewing is better for the environment.  Think of it- the carbon load is dramatically reduced to the power necessary for a computer versus driving to the airport, flying in a commercial jet, driving to the interview, and all the way home again.  If your company is committed to social responsibility- this should be at the top of your list.
• Photographic memory not required.  True, most recruiters have excellent memories and can recall even the most minute details about an interview with great detail.  Can hiring managers?  Because the interviews are recorded, super-memory-strength is no longer required.
• It’s a training tool!  I have “observed” more interviews in my life than I care to remember with the aim of improving techniques.  It’s never real.  You never get the real experience.   Not the case here- recorded interviews are a great platform to coach and guide interviewers (including recruiters.)
• Want to “record” your interview at 3am?  Want to view your interviews at 8pm?  You can!  Video interviewing is convenient for both candidates AND employers.  How often does that synergy happen?

Resources referenced in the webcast:

EEOC Informal Discussion Letter

Recruiting 2.0- Hope you own a webcam

How to interview over the internet- Forbes

HireVue Blog

Talent acquisition has been a challenge for most organizations since the good ol’ days of “personnel.” Yet how many companies have actually improved the ways in which they attract, identify and select the best candidate for the job? Despite tremendous advancements in both the technology and philosophy of recruitment, many of us seem to be stuck in first gear.

Improving quality of hire take radical interventions, and the solutions are never easy or one-size fits all. In today’s webcast we examined the process you can use to overhaul your organization’s selection process, starting with a very thorough inspection of the value and necessity of your legacy processes and systems.

I found it striking that each step in the recruitment process at CH2M Hill was measured, and evaluated, under the leadership of presenter Tim Keefe, Director of Enterprise Talent Acquisition and Development.  These metrics have truly enabled his organization to identify weaknesses in the system based on empirical data, not anecdotes or assumptions.  As you can imagine, it has also had a significant impact on their quality of hire (which yes, they measure and report, too.)

So how has the recession impacted talent acquisition activities at CH2M Hill?  Tim reports that they have redeployed recruiting staff to learning and development, workforce planning and compensation departments where appropriate.  Under President Obama’s massive infrastructure invigoration plan, engineering firms like CH2M Hill will play a critical role, and as such, they are also working diligently on their talent pipelining activities to have a ready workforce.

If hiring has slowed at your organization, how is the recruiting staff being utilized?

The beauty of a connected, networked world is the ability to form relationships around the world at internet-speed. The global corporation wants to embrace social networks: the investment, both in money and time is small, and the potential rewards are high and quick. But organizations that do successfully implement a global candidate network strategy understand one crucial element- that it’s not about them.

More specifically, the best global recruitment plan is built around the candidate. This is commonly understood in any domestic talent acquisition goals, but somehow forgotten when applied beyond your home country’s borders. Understanding culture, language, laws, and practices are important, but just a start. Beginning a (work)life long relationship is the goal, and using social networks can help get you there.

Today’s webcast featured a terrific trio of presenters:  Alan Whitford from Abtech Parternship and Recruiter Community Europe, and Jason Ugland and Helene Agerstig from Sun Microsystems.  Jason shared how he has sourced global candidates at Sun and Alan talked about the strategy behind finding candidates globally on social networks.

A highlight for me from the webcast was the Q&A- we had an outstanding number of questions from the audience that we didn’t have time to address, so I’ll attempt to do so here.  (Forgive me if I paraphrase the question and don’t use a direct quote- I can’t resist my editorial voice and think I am using it judiciously to get to the heart of the question.)

Question from Andrew: What are your thoughts on personal vs. professional profiles on social sites?  Answer from Amy:I used Twitter to gather responses to this question, and it varied.  Some people suggested that your employer should dictate to you whether to use professional or personal.  Others recommended that you use professional to avoid possibly giving offense through your own voice.  The truth is that if you use your name in any context, you’re probably going to be visible to any one curious enough to search for you.

Question from Ruth:  What advice can you give an American using social networks?  I am worried that what passes for friendliness in the US might look presumptuous or “overly familiar”- but I don’t want to come across like I’m from the 19th Century, either! Answer from Alan: Advice for Americans (being one) is actually the same as elsewhere. Be polite and civil.  Ask permission to engage in the conversation.  Be sure that your request has enough information for the invitee to make a reasonably informed decision.  Look at how other in the group or in that person’s profile are engaging with them.  And, offer something in return – how you might help them in future.  Ask people to archive your request (a specific method on LinkedIn) rather than ignore or reject it if they are into interested – and explain that this helps you maintain your LinkedIn relevancy profile.  Too many rejections and you have to go back to Customer Service to request your Invitation block to be removed (I noticed this was one of the other questions)

Question from Too Many to List: What is the best site to use in <insert any country here>?  Answer from Amy: I like this resource, although if you use your favorite search engine you’ll probably come up with a lot of results.  Social Networking Websites And Who Uses Them

Question from Sean: When a recruiter uses social sites to build a network, who “owns” the network if they leave their position?  Employer or recruiter?  How would candidates respond to being “owned?” Answer from Amy: This is a very hot topic right now, one that I haven’t heard fully addressed.  What do you think the answer should be?

Question from Tajuanna:  Will social sites continue to dominate the recruitment process?  Or will more traditional methods of sourcing- like job boards- make a play back into the limelight?  Answer from Alan: Social networks are not dominating the recruitment process – media coverage of SN is :-).   The old adage, ‘horses for courses’ still applies.  You should take a blended approach to sourcing, using CV databases, job boards, internal referral programmes, external sourcers, your personal network, even print for some types of localised jobs, as well as the social and business networks.  Think of SN as just another tool in your kit box.

P.S.  I hope you appreciate how many social sites I linked to in this post along. 

The role of the corporate executive entails significant risk and responsibility, and as such, organizations must appropriately align their compensation practices to attract, retain and reward the best players. In even the most robust and healthy economic scenario, this process is work intensive and must be creative. These pay practices are even more complicated in tough financial times, when every line item on a budget is scrutinized internally and is subject to shareholder, committee or board review and recommendations.

Yet, if a business is to continue, it must hire and retain leadership. What strategies are innovative employers using to lure top leaders to their executive ranks? In this webcast we’ll discuss creative offerings to the executive suite like flexible work schedules, individual and team incentives, pay-for-performance models, short- and long-term approaches, and executive value propositions.

In a webcast today, we heard from Paul Hebert, Ann Bares and Frank Roche- each respectively on non-cash, cash, and equity strategies.  Links to each of their blogs are below.

The main takeaways?

Cash:  There probably isn’t much room for creativity in salaries, since many are frozen.  But is there opportunity to create short-term incentive plans tied to time in position and performance?  Definitely.

Equity:  Recruiters should take this opportunity to learn as much as possible about equity.  Basic lesson to teach both your company and your candidate?  Focus on value.

Non-cash: Rather than directly selling your non-cash programs, discover your candidate’s motivations, alignments, or discomforts with current/past employer.  Do your non-cash plans add or overcome these?  Use them to seal the deal.

Anne Bares:  http://compforce.typepad.com

Frank Roche: www.knowhr.com/blog

Paul Hebert: www.incentive-intelligence.typepad.com

More than 30 years of scientific research produced Gallup’s selection philosophy: a person’s greatest talents - the ways in which he or she most naturally thinks, feels, and behaves as a unique individual - are strongly predictive of future performance. An organization that selects and develops people on the basis of their talents is likely to gain a strong competitive advantage.

Think of your rock star employees. What if your organization could duplicate the selection process that hired those high-performing contributors with every single position? What would that process look like? In the final webcast of 2008 in this learning track, we heard from one of Gallup Organization’s leaders- and someone who has helped Gallup clients increase the effectiveness of their selection and onboarding processes with the goal of helping executives and managers develop engaged, productive employees who in turn develop highly engaged customer relationships that ultimately drive the company’s vitality and financial health.

Brian Brim is a Principal of Global Client Education with Gallup. Since 1989, Brim has played a major role in leading Gallup’s growth by creating and implementing integrated education platforms for Gallup’s clients. These offerings have served employees at all organizational levels, including top leadership, management, and employees. Brim received his bachelor’s degree in speech communication and master’s degree in educational psychology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in organizational leadership through Nova Southern University in Florida. He regularly contributes articles about using a strengths-based management approach to drive engagement and improve performance to the Gallup Management Journal. Two of his articles were published in the The Best of the Gallup Management Journal 2001-2007 (Gallup Press, 2007).   PS you can check out more about Gallup’s Talent-Based Hiring.

Interesting questions that were surfaced during the webcast:

• What is “fit” in a job selection process? 
• How do employers appropriately assess for fit? 
• How do you prevent the accidental deselection of an “outlier?”