In a commencement speech at Harvard, Oprah Winfrey stated, “The most important lesson I learned in 25 years talking every single day to people, was that there’s a common denominator in our human experience. It is what we want to be validated. We want to be understood.”

The word you’re looking for is appreciation. If Oprah said it, we have to take it seriously!

Creating a culture of recognition builds a thriving workplace. It is a way to acknowledge and motivate employees for their work contribution and commitment to bring value to the table. It is considered to be a cornerstone of effective employee management. 

Many organizations have the best employee recognition programs, which aim to reward and recognize the efforts of dedicated individuals. Think about it. If you had some employees who bring meaningful contributions to their projects, wouldn’t you want to cherish them? 

Periodic recognition drives better employee engagement, reduces attrition rates and creates a high-performance culture. In fact, positive feedback has a 12.5% increase in productivity among employees compared to neutral or negative feedback. 

Impact of rewards & recognition on employees

According to Statista, 45% of employees chose impactful work as one of the most important attributes of an organization. In another workplace survey by Gallup, there is a 56% attrition rate in organizations that prioritize employee rewards and recognition. Let’s be honest now, there are significant numbers that we cannot overlook. 

Building desired organizational culture

At the core, recognition should be authentic, personalized, and candid. Good workplaces have some of the best employee recognition platforms to appreciate honest and hardworking human resources. It helps streamline the recognition process and set clear directives. 

On the other hand, rewards are tangible and are distributed to the best-performing employees for their exceptional performance. These are ceremonial occasions conducted at a specific time of the year to acknowledge the star performers. Also, it sets company standards in terms of goal orientation and benchmark performance. This is the opportunity to send a clear message about the desired behavior from the workforce. 

So, the best employee rewards programs are created with clear eligibility criteria, transparent nomination, and proper guidelines. 

How useful is employee recognition software?

We all seek validation in our formative years. This behavioral pattern continues throughout our life. The desire to get positive affirmations gets stronger in every stage of life. 

Hiring managers and companies have figured out the importance of building a motivated and loyal workforce. This aids in employee retention, increased engagement, and elevated performance. It explains why organizations are investing in employee recognition software. It is best to encourage people for the work they have put in and allow them to flex their discretionary muscles, which can only be done by building a robust muscle. 

Best employee recognition programs for a high-performing workplace

• Employee of the month

It is one of the best employee rewards and recognition programs to acknowledge the best-performing individual in different teams. “Employee of the Month” recognition is a great way to highlight the extraordinary work of the star performer. It is a structured recognition that gives a boost and positive reinforcement to the workforce. Many organizations have a formal ceremony once a month to distribute tokens of appreciation, certificates, and awards.

• Performance-based incentives

This employee appreciation program is to incentivize the best employees who have achieved performance-based goals. It can include a bonus, a variable component in the salary, or an additional payout. 

• Innovation awards

Innovation awards are highly encouraged in modern-day workplaces. It is part of the best employee recognition program and concedes the innovative ideas of talented employees. The nomination is based on how impactful the idea is for the overall welfare of the organization. It gives a pedestal to budding minds exploring new processes for better organizational outcomes.

• Milestone/service recognition

The best human resource management practices include rewards for loyal and committed work personnel. Those employees who have achieved certain milestones in their careers or have served a certain number of years are rewarded. The best employee recognition platform has this award to express appreciation towards the long-associated employees. 

• Social recognition platforms

Social media is integral to every individual’s life, right? It has also become a part of every organization’s online presence. Utilizing platforms like LinkedIn to recognize employee efforts is a great way to validate their performance. Additionally, it helps build a fostering community. 

The best employee recognition software provides the right solution and policy to acknowledge the hardworking people of the organization. It helps management, hiring managers, and line managers to identify the right people making the extra effort from their office desks. Based on the research of Great Place to Work, there is a 69% increase in efforts by employees when their work is recognized. 

Check out our free Employee recognition programs policy template! 

The post Best employee recognition programs for a robust workplace appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Jobserve guarantee a range of services to help employers find the right talent for an open position, including:

• Job distribution through their network of relevant partner sites (a mix of job boards, affiliates and aggregators)
• Emailing jobs to subscribers matching your target audience
• Providing a CV database containing thousands of active job seekers
• Promoting your brand within the Jobserve website via banners, features, and Smart Ads
• Using ‘smart match technology’ to notify candidates ideally suited to your role

Jobserve will also verify every job you post, optimizing it for maximum reach. Find out more about the services Jobserve provide in their product portfolio.

Job posting options on Jobserve

Depending on the number of hires you need to make, and the frequency with with which you need to hire, Jobserve have a range of options to suit:

• Post an individual job:
  Buy either a 7 or 30 day posting
• Purchase job credits:
  Buy a batch of credits to get a bulk discount, and use them whenever you’re next hiring
• Purchase reusable job slots:
  Each job slot can be changed up to 8 times a month. Payment is monthly and the slots expire at the end of each month. Get bulk discounts the more job slots you buy.

How to post a job to Jobserve

It’s easy to post a job to Jobserve, whether you have an existing account or you’re a new user. As you’ll need to provide payment details, setting up an account is required, but this only takes a few moments. To post a job:

• Select ‘Sign In/Register’ from the top right of Jobserve’s homepage, then ‘Advertisers’ from the dropdown menu.

• Select ‘My Jobs’ from the top of the following page, and then ‘Post a Job’ from the dropdown menu.

• Next you’ll come to the page that forms the content of your job post. It’s easy to add your details step-by-step, from the job description to location, industry and salary. If you need help writing the job post, try the Workable Job Description Library. It contains templates for a broad range of industries, ready to copy and paste.

• Next you’ll see the ‘Application Information’ section. This is where you can enter your contact details and the email address candidates should use to apply. If you’re using an online application form you’ll also see the option to enter the web address.

• When you’re ready, select ‘Next’ at the bottom of the page.

• Now you’ll see the job post as it would appear on Jobserve. You can review the details you’ve entered and click ‘edit’ to adjust anything that needs it.

• You’ll then have the opportunity to review the plan you’re about to purchase; every option is presented here. You can select ‘Previous’ from the bottom left of the page to change your posting options, or if everything’s ok, select ‘Purchase’ from the bottom right of the page.

• Finally, enter your billing information and select ‘Pay now’ to post your job to Jobserve.

Managing applications from Jobserve

When you post a job on Jobserve, applications will arrive via your given email address. Even if you provide an address created purely to gather applications, you’ll still need to keep on top of that email inbox over the following weeks.

Many companies use an applicant tracking system to help manage the flow of candidates. Instead of individual Jobserve applications arriving by email, an applicant tracking system will automatically gather applications into a searchable candidate database. A profile is created for every candidate which can be shared with your co-workers or hiring team. The system will also keep track of feedback and evaluations, streamlining your communications and ultimately, your recruiting process.

More resources for posting jobs:

• How to post jobs on Craigslist
• How to post jobs on Dribbble
• How to post jobs on Facebook
• How to post jobs on Glassdoor
• How to post jobs on Google for Jobs
• How to post jobs on Indeed
• How to post jobs on LinkedIn
• How to post jobs on Monster
• How to post jobs on Prospects.ac.uk
• How to post jobs on Seek
• How to post jobs on Snagajob
• How to post jobs on Stack Overflow

The post How to post jobs on Jobserve appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Here’s a primer on how to recruit on LinkedIn, starting with posting jobs:

How to post jobs on LinkedIn

There are two ways to post jobs on LinkedIn: through paid job postings that reach passive and active candidates, or for free through your company page, personal profile or LinkedIn groups.

How to post paid job ads

Paid job postings reach the LinkedIn members who have the skills your job requires. When you pay to advertise your job, LinkedIn:

• Shares your job across its network of 500+ million professionals, making it visible to anyone on LinkedIn.
• Emails and displays the ad to potential candidates whose skills and location match the job posting (using the “Jobs you may be interested in” feature.)
• Posts your job description to your LinkedIn company page.
• Curates a list of 50 members you can view who suit your role.
• Gives you 5 free InMail messages to contact members outside your network.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to post a job to LinkedIn:

1. Create a LinkedIn profile

If you already have a LinkedIn account, skip ahead to Step 2. If not, create a LinkedIn profile. This is easy to do. Go to the LinkedIn home page and follow the prompts to set up a new account. LinkedIn will ask you to enter your professional and personal details and add a photo.

2. Create a LinkedIn company page

You’re ready to create your company page on LinkedIn. Click the “Work” drop-down menu on the top right of your page, next to your avatar. The drop down will include an option: “+Create company page.” Click this to start. You will need to select a unique URL for your company page and a company description (250 – 2000 characters including spaces.)

Think of your company page as a virtual storefront for prospective candidates (and customers). This will be where your job postings live – and where candidates will form their first impressions of your company. So sell your story. Describe your products, mission and values, along with anything that distinguishes you from other employers (like perks and benefits.) Avoid using jargon – you will attract more qualified candidates without it.

Once you’re done with this step, you’re ready to start the LinkedIn job posting process.

3. Click on the ‘Jobs’ icon

Click the jobs icon (which looks like a briefcase) at the top of your homepage, and then click ‘Post a job’ on the right.

You will be redirected to another page to re-enter your LinkedIn account information through the LinkedIn Recruiter login page. Enter your LinkedIn account information.

Then you will be prompted to enter your job listing’s company, job title and location. LinkedIn will tell you how many of its members (potential passive candidates) have the same job title you’re recruiting for. In this example, 730,014 LinkedIn members have the job title “Editor.”

4. Describe your job

Enter job details
LinkedIn will prompt you to write a job description. It will also populate your company description from your company page.

Select skills you need
LinkedIn will populate skills from the job description you have entered. You will also be asked to select the required skills for your role. Entering a relevant list of skills gets your job in front of the right candidates for the position. LinkedIn recommends entering at least 10 skills to help attract a targeted group of candidates.

Choose how you want candidates to apply
LinkedIn gives you two options: let candidates apply with their LinkedIn profiles and get notified by email when they do, or direct them to an external site to apply.

You can also use an Applicant Tracking System to gather your applications from LinkedIn and other job boards all in one place.

5. Set your budget

LinkedIn uses a pay-per-click model for job ads. This means that you will be charged based on how many applicants click on your listing.

LinkedIn recommends how much your daily budget should be. This is an estimate. Actual costs could fluctuate.

6. Proceed to checkout

You’re ready to check out your job. Enter your payment information. Note: with LinkedIn’s pay-per-click model, you will be billed every month, but you can close your job whenever your want.

Here are some actions to take after you post a paid job on LinkedIn:

• Monitor the job posting, using LinkedIn’s “Who viewed your job” feature.
• Use the Job Posting Inbox to communicate with applicants.
• Edit, renew or manually close your job posting.
• Pay to sponsor your job to get it in front of relevant candidates.

How to share a job on LinkedIn

Here are some ways to share your jobs on the platform to maximize visibility:

Use your company page to post jobs

This works well if your LinkedIn company page has a dedicated following of people who could be potential candidates. Post an update to your page, with a link to your job. Anytime you post a new update on your page, it will appear in the newsfeeds of the people who have liked your company page. Candidates can like, respond to or refer people they know to your job posting – further increasing its reach.

Post jobs in LinkedIn groups

LinkedIn groups are places where professionals within the same industry gather to share content, develop business contacts and post and view targeted jobs. Many groups have specific ‘Jobs’ sections, where you can advertise your jobs. For example, here’s a job listing within the Big Data & Analytics group:

Note: Group administrators may review your request to join a group or ask you for more information before granting you access.

Share a job on your LinkedIn profile

Share a listing on your own profile by simply posting an update with news about the job ad. Your professional connections will be able to see and share your update. Here’s an example:

Post jobs to LinkedIn and other premium job boards seamlessly with a free trial to Workable, an all-in-one recruiting software.

LinkedIn ATS Integrations help your team work efficiently through every stage of the hiring process. Connect Workable to LinkedIn Recruiter to access information when and where you need it, without having to switch between platforms. Start here.

How to recruit passive candidates on LinkedIn

Build your employer brand on the platform

Good recruiting isn’t just about posting jobs. It’s also important to build your brand to connect with passive candidates. Building a strong company brand opens the door to better hires, shorter time to fills and better retention rates.

Here’s how to use LinkedIn to build your brand:

Write compelling company and job descriptions on your company page

Know your audience. Keep your job descriptions clear, don’t ask for too much and sell your job and company. Make sure your descriptions address what LinkedIn identifies as the top three things candidates want to know about your company:

Spotlight employees in status updates

Highlighting new hires and employees on your company page humanizes your company. It will also show some of the best potential candidates that you care about how you treat your employees, and that you’re proud of their accomplishments.

Personalize your InMails

The way you write InMails says a lot about your company. Be courteous, spell your recipients’ names correctly and personalize your messages. Template emails can save time, but it’s best to personalize your messages to speak directly to the passive candidate you’re attempting to recruit. Read up on their work, mention one of their accomplishment – double check their name – and keep your message brief – no more than 100 words.

Share content relevant to you

Product updates, accomplishments, business news, events – if you have written about them on your website, promote them on your LinkedIn company page or your own profile. Your followers will appreciate these updates. Also, consider publishing your own articles on LinkedIn with LinkedIn’s publishing platform. The benefit of publishing on LinkedIn is threefold: You will share your knowledge and expertise, cultivate a following and develop and strengthen your own professional identity.

Related: Innovative recruiting tools and techniques for modern HR teams

Consider a LinkedIn Recruiter subscription

LinkedIn Recruiter and LinkedIn Recruiter Lite are subscription services that offer more InMails, and greater access to candidates – beyond what you get from posting paid jobs.

Here’s a brief overview of the differences between the two:

LinkedIn Recruiter Lite gives you greater visibility and access to candidates beyond the profiles and InMails you receive with a paid job post. LinkedIn Recruiter Lite lets you:

• View profiles in your extended network (up to 3rd degree connections.)
• Contact members with 30 InMail messages per month
• Place candidates into ‘Projects,’ and set reminders to follow up with them
• View a full list of everyone who has viewed your profile in the last 90 days

LinkedIn Recruiter is more robust that Recruiter Lite. LinkedIn Recruiter lets you:

• View anyone on LinkedIn regardless of their degree of connection to you
• Collaborate with multiple users within the same account
• Send 150 InMails for each seat on the account and send mass InMails (up to 25) at once
• Save more searches and search for more specific details (e.g. candidate’s field of study, years at current company and years in their current position)

Find and qualify candidates anywhere online, and reach out with a truly personalized email with People Search. People Search is available as a Chrome extension. Try it free.

The post Recruiting on LinkedIn: a step-by-step guide appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

To get a better perspective on how to recruit on Reddit, we turned to Conor Duffy, VP of Business Development/Recruitment at Strike IT US. Duffy and his team hire for engineering and tech roles. His firm placed 111 hires from Reddit last year. (Full disclosure, my husband was one of them.)

Here’s a guide on how to recruit on Reddit:

Know the Reddit landscape

Get to know the popular news aggregator and online forum, which boasts hundreds of millions of unique visitors every month. The site is divided into thousands of mini-communities called “subreddits” where people congregate in forums dedicated to specific topics. These people may be potential candidates for your open roles, but you need to prove yourself before trying to woo them.

Recruiting on social media? Workable is the industry leader with recruitment features to find and hire the best candidates. Sign up for our 15-day free trial.

Here’s a brief glossary of terms to familiarize yourself with on Reddit (For more on how to use Reddit, turn to Reddit’s own FAQ):

• Upvote/Downvote: A tool that allows a Reddit user to like or dislike a post, ultimately determining the post’s position on the site. They are up and down arrows on the left of a post, like so:

• Karma: A number on your profile that represents how much “good” you’ve done for the Reddit community. This includes submitting links and comments. Here’s an example of a Reddit karma score:

• OP: Short for “Original Poster.” Used in comment threads to reference the individual who created the original post.

• AMA: Short for “Ask Me Anything.” A Q&A subreddit with an individual who entertains questions about a topic specific to them. Sometimes, the subject of an AMA is a prominent person (e.g. celebrities, politicians, renowned industry professionals.)

• Cakeday: The day you signed up on Reddit (your Reddit birthday.) In recruitment, it may be used to gauge your authenticity in the Reddit community.

It’s important to note that some subreddits have their own sets of rules. Abide by these guidelines when connecting with these communities.

Here are some subreddits that may be useful to recruiters:

• r/Jobs
• r/Recruitment
• r/ForHire
• r/Resumes
• Career-specific subreddits
• Job listing subreddits

Build trust with your Reddit communities

Redditors detest spam and can spot fakers. Duffy takes this to heart. He instructs his recruiters to sign up for Reddit accounts to learn how to be active on the site. He advises them to subscribe to at least two subreddits:

• One on a topic they’re passionate about, unrelated to recruiting;
• Another subreddit about jobs to learn about recruiting (e.g. r/BostonJobs.)

The goal is to get them involved in the Reddit recruiting community in an authentic way.

“One of the issues and problems that can arise [in recruiting on Reddit] is faking it,” Duffy said. “Don’t go into a development community and pass yourself off as a developer. That’s the fastest way to alienate good, potential talent.”

His team establishes Reddit recruiting cred with potential hires by being involved in a jobs subreddit. They build Reddit karma: his recruiters will answer questions about how to search for jobs and provide users with resume and interview advice, free of charge.

“Set up the fact that you’re real, that you’re good at what you do and you can be trusted enough to at least have a phone call.”

Mind your Reddit job post language

The way you post a job on Reddit matters. Duffy says he sees many Reddit job postings list the job description verbatim. That approach may not pitch the open role in the best way. A long laundry list of qualifications can be visually displeasing and may repel skilled candidates who feel like they don’t fulfill every single requirement:

When posting a job on Reddit, be honest and be detailed. If you’re wooing developer candidates at a startup, sell the culture. Language like “Maybe you’re stuck in a large company” ; “join a small but rapidly growing business” and “get a chance to see your code in action” will entice and engage potential developer candidates.

Job posts that are stripped of identifying information (e.g. by intentionally leaving out location and salary information) will raise suspicion about you and your post, and may discourage qualified candidates from applying.

Here’s an example of a job post from Duffy looking to recruit a developer:

Be available

Successful social recruiting with Reddit is an investment in the community. The “spray and pray” method won’t get you far, but caring about your potential candidates will. Make yourself easily accessible once you post a job. And interact with candidates before directing them to fill out a lengthy job application.

Duffy believes in being a consultant not just for his clients, but for his candidates. This approach goes a long way with Reddit recruiting in particular and recruiting in general. Valuing your clients and your candidates equally will lead to better retention rates, happier employees and a stronger recruiting reputation.

Using Workable to post on Reddit

Managing job postings across multiple platforms can be daunting for recruiters and HR professionals. Workable simplifies this process with a direct integration to Reddit, powered by VONQ’s HAPI.

Through our integration, you can seamlessly post jobs from within Workable directly to Reddit. Candidates who apply through Reddit will automatically flow into your Workable hiring pipeline, streamlining your recruitment workflow.

Reddit offers a unique platform for engaging with a diverse and engaged audience. Whether you’re posting in specific subreddits or targeting broader communities, Workable ensures your job postings on Reddit are effective and efficient.

Now equipped with this integration, you can post your jobs on Reddit using Workable and manage candidates effortlessly. To learn more about how Workable can enhance your hiring process, click here.

The post How to recruit on Reddit appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

• What is Juju.com?
• How much does it cost to post a job on Juju.com?
• Juju.com job posting reviews
• How to post your job on Juju.com
• Frequently asked questions about Juju.com

What is Juju.com?

Juju.com is a job aggregator that collects job postings from many other job sites and presents them to site visitors as an easy, searchable database. Unlike some other job posting aggregators, the main source of Juju’s web traffic comes by referral rather than direct search. Juju receives traffic from thousands of job candidates each month.

How much does it cost to post a job on Juju.com?

You don’t have to pay to post your job on Juju. Juju jobs are job listings which are automatically pulled from other job boards like Monster and Indeed. As long as you list your job on another common job board, free or paid, your job posting should appear in searches on Juju.com

That being said, if you want to be certain that your job will show up to candidates searching on Juju, you have the option of paying to advertise your job to job seekers.

Juju.com job posting reviews

Because Juju is a less popular job board, there aren’t too many reviews. Instead, here are some pros and cons of using the site.

On a positive note, Juju receives a good amount of web traffic. It allows users to search through jobs from many different job boards at once, rather than just one. That improves the chances of the right candidate coming across your job.

As for downsides, Juju is still far less popular than large job boards and even some other job post aggregators. Its web interface is dated, and just like any job post aggregator, a certain portion of the jobs listed there may be stale or expired.

How to post your job on Juju.com

As was previously mentioned, it isn’t possible to post your job directly on Juju. If you want your job listing to display there, you have two options.

List your job on another job board

While it’s not completely foolproof, listing your job on another job board is the best way to get your job listed on Juju for free.

Pay to advertise your job on Juju

The more reliable way to get your jobs to appear on relevant searches is to advertise your job on Juju. Sponsored posts on Juju send candidates directly to your company’s career site, and they offer advertisements on a pay-per-click basis, making this a highly scalable option for companies of any size.

Frequently asked questions about Juju.com

Can I post my job on Juju.com?

You can’t post your job directly on Juju.com. The best way to get your job posting to appear on Juju is to post it across the web simultaneously with using Workable.

Is Juju.com a scam?

No, Juju.com is not a scam.

How can I find a job on Juju.com?

Juju.com’s homepage hosts a simple search, where candidates can search by title and location, or filter by more advanced criteria. If you find a job that interests you, click on the relevant search result, and you’ll be directed to the website that hosts that listing, where you can apply.

Why should I promote my job on Juju.com?

As one of the oldest job boards on the internet, Juju has credibility with search engines, and around 800K site visits to date. It remains one of the smaller players in the job aggregator space, but the site does receive regular traffic and click-throughs on job postings and links.

By posting your job to Juju.com using Workable, you access a market of potential candidates that may not be looking elsewhere. With the simplicity of posting your job synchronously across many platforms using Workable, there’s no reason not to put it out there and see how it goes.

Want to know more about posting jobs? Take a deep dive with our Ultimate Guide to Job Posting.

The post How to post jobs on Juju.com appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

We’ll take a look at how to post a job on LinkedIn using different methods and explain how to increase your chances of finding the right candidate by posting to multiple job boards with one submission.

How to post a job on LinkedIn

First, create a LinkedIn page

To get the best value for money from posting a job on LinkedIn, you’ll need a LinkedIn page for your company. These pages offer public information about your business within the LinkedIn platform. They’re free, easy to keep updated with news and events, and a great first step in strengthening your employer brand.

If you’re an existing LinkedIn user, setting up a company page is simple. If you’re new to LinkedIn, then you’ll need to wait until your profile is a few days old to create a page and be able to post a job.

Make sure that your profile strength is ‘Intermediate’ or ‘All star’, and you have a minimum of five connections to other LinkedIn members. You’ll also need to check that your own profile lists you as a company employee, and that you have a confirmed company email address connected to your LinkedIn account.

Once you have a company page on LinkedIn, you’ll see it has a newsfeed for sharing updates and events and a careers panel, to highlight paid job postings.

Now, how do you advertise on LinkedIn?

On LinkedIn, you can create job postings to advertise open roles. Candidates can discover these postings via the LinkedIn network or see them as recommended as “Jobs You May Be Interested In”.

You can post jobs on LinkedIn by using job slots and PPC (pay-per-click).

Job slots

A company can purchase a number of LinkedIn Job Slots to use for posting jobs. When you use a job slot to post a job, that job is live for 30 days – once it expires, you can repost it in an available job slot. Or, you can take the job down to make the job slot available for your other open roles.

For example, one job slot can be used to post 20 or more jobs, and you have the flexibility to modify, renew or close each job posting at any time.

PPC

With this function, you can post a job and set an average daily budget that will be spent based on the number of views your job posting receives. If you don’t want to spend more than a certain amount, you can set up a maximum budget and your job posting will get paused once that budget is spent.

Here’s how billing for PPC postings works.

How do I share a job on LinkedIn?

Use your company newsfeed

Sometimes, you’ll find that your best candidates are already your biggest fans. Similar to the Facebook Jobs tab, you can use your company newsfeed to share your open jobs from your careers page.

Every time you post a new update it will appear in the newsfeeds of anyone who has ‘liked’ the page. This could be past and present employees or those with a special interest in your business and the work that you do. Posting details of a job on the LinkedIn newsfeed opens the path to communication with your most engaged followers and their networks.

News updates can also be ‘liked’ by anyone who views them. Readers can add a comment and tag names of other LinkedIn users who could be the perfect match for the job. Any such activity around this job post will also show up on the newsfeeds of connected LinkedIn members, further increasing your exposure.

Other ways to share posts on LinkedIn

LinkedIn relies on the power of networks— so don’t forget the value of your own. In addition to posting on your company page you can also:

• Share jobs to LinkedIn Groups: Share your job in groups you follow to attract people with the right mix of skills and interests, or ask your network to share the job to their network.
• Share a job on your LinkedIn profile: Your own posts will be seen by your own professional connections further spreading the word for your company’s open roles.

Job Wrapping

LinkedIn also has a service called “Job Wrapping” for those who have LinkedIn Recruiter. Via Job Wrapping, LinkedIn pulls your open roles from your recruitment software or careers page and automatically posts them into available job slots you have purchased. This way, it helps you save time and make good use of your job slots.

Limited Listings on LinkedIn

Limited Listings are job postings gathered by LinkedIn from job boards and job aggregators across the web. They are visible to candidates actively conducting a job search or viewing a company’s LinkedIn page.

Unlike paid jobs, Limited Listings are not actively promoted to LinkedIn members in search results or through targeted recommendations; a job posting utilizing a Job Slot achieves an average of nine times more views than a Limited Listing. Limited Listings are not guaranteed listings.

Workable provides a feed of Limited Listing jobs to LinkedIn.

Post on multiple job boards

To make the best hire, you’ll need to post jobs on multiple job boards—LinkedIn included. But logging in and out of every board is a time-consuming task, as is tracking the source of each candidate to see which job boards are providing the best value for money.

Effective recruitment software (an applicant tracking system or ‘ATS’) will automate these tasks, providing a way to post to multiple job boards with one submission. Once the job is posted in multiple locations, the software will gather all the applicants into a single recruiting pipeline. You’ll be able to browse candidate profiles alone or with a team, adding comments and notes as you go.

Instead of multiple spreadsheets and countless emails, recruiting software creates a personal, centralized hiring database automatically. The time saved can then be put to better use ensuring an excellent candidate experience and choosing the best person for the job.

LinkedIn ATS Integrations help your team work efficiently through every stage of the hiring process. Connect Workable to LinkedIn Recruiter to access information when and where you need it, without having to switch between platforms. Start here.

More resources for posting jobs:

• How to post jobs on Craigslist
• How to post jobs on Dribbble
• How to post jobs on Facebook
• How to post jobs on Glassdoor
• How to post jobs on Google for Jobs
• How to post jobs on Indeed
• How to post jobs on Jobserve
• How to post jobs on Monster
• How to post jobs on Prospects.ac.uk
• How to post jobs on Seek
• How to post jobs on Snagajob
• How to post jobs on Stack Overflow

The post How to post jobs on LinkedIn appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Building an employment brand also involves scoping out your competitors: finding out how their brands are performing and where they’re investing their recruitment efforts. In the end, you’ll take all this feedback, develop a brand that resonates with the people you want to attract, and roll it out through your recruitment materials, like your career page, your job descriptions and everything else you use to attract prospective hires. Do it right and you’ll see more awareness and positive sentiment about your company and more applicants for your jobs.

Glassdoor, the fastest growing career community online, started as a place for employees to share feedback about employers. Glassdoor has since surpassed employers as the most trustworthy place to get information about what it’s really like to work for a certain company. Now, it boasts 24m members and 300,000 companies in 190 countries. It’s a smart place for employers to build their brands, gather competitive intelligence and source more candidates.

Building your employment brand on Glassdoor

The most driven candidates (your “purple squirrels”, likely) are motivated by more than just a paycheck. They’ll do their homework to get a glimpse of your workplace culture, work-life balance and career development opportunities. More than half of all candidates look at word-of-mouth reviews before making the decision to apply for a job. And, half of all jobseekers use Glassdoor to research reviews, salary information, benefits and interview questions.

To attract these candidates when you recruit on Glassdoor, you’ll need a few things:

• An employee value proposition (EVP). In other words, what employees get out of working at your company. Start collecting feedback from your team. What makes people want to work at your company? What motivates them to do well? How would they describe your company to a friend?
• An employer profile. They’re free and easy to set up. Use your EVP to figure out which content will resonate most with your candidates. Add status updates, benefits and images.
• Reviews. Request reviews from your employees, and when they come in, respond promptly. Be sure to address specific comments and amplify positive sentiments.

Related: Innovative recruiting tools and techniques for modern HR teams

Benchmarking against competitors

How are your competitors’ talent brands performing and how does your company measure up? What does their hiring process look like? What does your talent pool look like? Before you recruit on Glassdoor, use their data to gather “competitive intelligence.” Here are some tips for getting started.

Try a talent brand audit. Even if you haven’t amassed a stockpile of data about your own company, you can learn a lot about the respective reputations of other employers. Helpful metrics include CEO approval ratings, employees’ perspectives on the business outlook and whether or not employees would recommend this company to a friend.

Compare your hiring process. Where are your competitors investing their recruiting efforts? Campus recruiting? Staffing agency? Referrals? How long does the process take? Who is involved in job interviews? This information can be accessed for free, by clicking on the “Interviews” tab on Glassdoor’s employer profiles.

Dig into demographics. As you recruit on Glassdoor, you can take a look at the demographics of the people visiting your page, and compare them to the visitors of your competitors for free. Use this data to identify your target audience and adjust your recruitment strategy accordingly.

Promoting your jobs

With this legwork done you should now have a lively and up-to-date employer profile. You have glowing employee reviews, an equally sunny reputation word cloud and are ready to recruit on Glassdoor. Sounds like a good time to advertise. Here are Glassdoor’s paid advertising options.

Job advertising. Use these to promote your jobs on Glassdoor’s Job Search page, both web and mobile versions. Your jobs will also be promoted in weekly job alert emails and on partner sites such as CNN Money and Fortune.

Display ads. Catch the candidates you’re looking for while they’re checking out your competitors. These ads will promote your company on your competitors’ employer profiles.

Enhanced company profile. Get more ownership of your talent brand by adding jobs, photos, videos and social feeds (Twitter and Facebook) to your employer profile. Your enhanced profile also comes with a “Why Work For Us” section, where you can highlight specific teams, projects and HR initiatives such as a diversity and inclusion program.

Related: How to post a job on Glassdoor

Job ads on Glassdoor, based on their data, deliver higher quality applicants at a lower cost-per-hire than traditional job boards. Glassdoor also integrates with your hiring software of choice, making it easier to track where candidates come from and streamline communication throughout the hiring process.

Using Workable to post on Glassdoor

Indeed and Glassdoor are part of the same parent company. As a result when you post a job to Indeed via Workable, we automatically send the job to Glassdoor too. This works for both free and premium post options. Just hit “Publish”!

Glassdoor offers both free and paid postings.

To learn more about how Workable can streamline your hiring process, click here.

The post How to recruit on Glassdoor appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

To give job seekers a better sense of the culture and unique selling points of every employer, Seek provide a review board for companies. This is a place for candidates to read testimonials from employees past and present and get a sense of whether they’re the right fit for the company. All this makes for better researched applications, and hopefully, candidates who are fully engaged with your mission and culture.

Candidates can also create their own profiles to be included in the Seek talent database. Registration and creation of a profile means that jobseekers will receive email alerts when the right kind of jobs are posted. As a registered employer, you’ll receive access to the database to search for candidates that could be a great fit.

Advertise a job on Seek

Like many modern job boards, Seek provide a range of different ways to spread the word that you’re hiring. A ‘Classic job ad’ will be advertised on the job site for 30 days, and sent via email to potential candidates in the Seek talent database who match your criteria. To attract today’s job seekers all ads are optimized for desktop, mobile and tablet. You’ll also receive access to the Seek talent database to begin a proactive search.

A ‘Standout ad’ gives you the option to make your ad stand out visually. With a bold, eye catching border, these ads also feature your own company logo and give you the option to add three additional bullet points to really sell the job.

The most expensive job posting option on Seek is the ‘Premium ad’. This includes the visual enhancements on the Standout ad, but also features a color background to make it stand out even further. In addition, this Seek job post receives priority listing at the top of job searches for seven days.

If you’re hiring for a number of different jobs, then you’ll save money when you purchase Seek job ads in bulk. With discounts available from 3-30 positions, ads are valid from 6 months of the purchase date. Should you be hiring for even more than 30 positions, Seek offer additional discounts for custom plans.

For companies looking to build up their employer brand, Seek’s job board also offer a banner advertising options.

How to post a job on Seek

With Seek, you can set up an account and post a job in one simple process:

• Select ‘Register for FREE’ to the left of Seek’s employers homepage.

• Enter your account details and select ‘Send activation email’.

• Check your email for the Seek confirmation message, and click the confirmation link. This will direct you back to the website. Click ‘Create a job’ to get started.

• Review each plan and choose the one that’s best for your company’s hiring needs.

• Enter your job details and select ‘Continue’.

• Add selling points, salary information and a logo. Next, enter the job summary, and the job details. This job description library has an extensive list of descriptions and requirements to copy and paste.

• Next, review your job post, make any edits as necessary, or if you’re good to go, select ‘Continue’.

• Enter your business address and select ‘Continue to payment options’.

• Finally, enter in your billing information and select ‘Pay by credit card’. Congratulations! You’ve now posted your job to Seek.

Managing your Seek applications

Like many large job boards, Seek offers a simple tool to track and manage applications as they arrive. You’ll be able to evaluate candidates and move them through a basic recruiting pipeline. Seek also offers the option to bulk reject candidates by email when they’re found to be unsuitable for the position.

If you’re increasing your chance of reaching more candidates by posting to multiple job boards, then a single method of tracking candidates will become problematic. You’ll need to log in and out of different job boards, track some applications via email and others with external systems.

To solve this problem, many companies centralize their hiring with an applicant tracking system.

Essentially, an applicant tracking system (ATS) is recruiting software, independent of any job board. You’ll be able to connect it to multiple job boards, making it easier to post jobs everywhere with one submission, and gather the candidates in a customizable recruiting pipeline. When you need feedback from your hiring team, you can share candidate profiles and their comments can be added directly to the candidate timeline.

Related: What’s the best day to advertise job openings?

Using Workable to post on Seek

For recruiters or HR professionals managing job postings across multiple platforms, handling each individually can be overwhelming. Workable offers a seamless integration with Seek to simplify this process.

As a partner platform, Workable allows you to post your job on up to 200 major job boards simultaneously, including Seek, with ease. Seek’s platform offers both Free & Paid postings, giving you flexibility in how you attract candidates.

Workable’s integration with Seek enhances your recruitment efforts by optimizing visibility and accessibility for your job postings. Seek’s platform is designed to attract quality candidates, leveraging data-driven technology to match your job listings with the most suitable candidates.

Now equipped with this information, you can confidently post your job on Seek using Workable and start attracting top talent. To learn more about how Workable can streamline your hiring process, click here.

More resources for posting jobs:

• How to post jobs on Craigslist
• How to post jobs on Dribbble
• How to post jobs on Facebook
• How to post jobs on Glassdoor
• How to post jobs on Google for Jobs
• How to post jobs on Indeed
• How to post jobs on Jobserve
• How to post jobs on LinkedIn
• How to post jobs on Monster
• How to post jobs on Prospects.ac.uk
• How to post jobs on Snagajob
• How to post jobs on Stack Overflow

The post How to post job ads on Seek appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Posting a job to Craigslist is free for most employers; selected areas charge a fee between $7-75. With a paid posting account you also get the benefit of:

• Tools for managing your post
• Multi-user access for a single account
• Pre-purchased Craigslist job postings
• Invoicing and online payment

Get in touch with Craigslist to find out if you’ll need to pay to post a job ad in your area.

How to post free or paid job listings on Craigslist:

Setting up an account with Craigslist

If you’re posting a free job on Craigslist, you can jump right in; there’s no need to set up an account. If you’d like the option to save your drafts, edit, delete or re-advertise a free job post, then an account will be useful. Setting up your free account is easy, simply enter your email address and a password, and verify your email address.

Read why savvy recruiters use free job posting sites.

To apply for a paid posting account with Craigslist, you’ll need a basic free account first. Complete the online application form and once your account has been approved, a member of the Craigslist accounting staff will take payment for paid postings within 1-7 business days. You can pay for posts with a credit card, by post or with a check.

How to post a job on Craigslist for free:

1. Choose the right location

Craigslist is a global network. Before you begin, make sure your location is correct; you’ll find it at the top right of the page. To change it, choose a new location from the directory of Craigslist sites.

Once your location is correct, select ‘post to classifieds’ in the top left corner of the home page.

2. Select the job’s category

On the following screen, pick ‘job offered’. Then choose the job’s category from the list e.g. ‘accounting/finance’.

3. Start building your job ad

Next, enter the job title, specific location and job description. Need some help with the descriptions? Try the job description library for a comprehensive list of job description templates.

Related: How to write the best job description ever

4. Add contact details for applicants

Next—assuming you’re not using recruiting software to track applicants (see below)—enter your email address. You’ll see the option to show your real address, or to use the Craigslist mail relay. Mail relay will protect your email address from spam by creating an intermediate email address based on random numbers and letters. Any candidate responses are then delivered to that address and forwarded on to your own email account. It’s recommended to protect your email address on heavily trafficked sites such as this, and so mail relay is an easy, safe option.

5. Complete your ad with useful information

Tick any relevant details regarding telecommuting or contract type and select ‘continue’ at the bottom of the screen. Add any images you need to your Craigslist job posting and select ‘done with images’ or move straight on to review and publish your job listing on Craigslist.

Note: your ad may take approximately half an hour to appear on Craigslist.

Managing applications from Craigslist

When you post a job for free on Craigslist, you’ll usually receive applications via email, potentially using the Craigslist mail relay to protect your account from spam. This means that you’ll need to keep on top of your inbox over the following weeks. Your email will be used to manage day to day communications along with reviewing and replying to candidates, forwarding applications to members of your team and keeping tracking of feedback… And that’s before you’ve started to schedule calls or interviews.

An Applicant Tracking System like Workable will help. Workable is recruiting software, used by teams to help streamline their recruiting; instead of individual applications arriving from Craigslist by email, Workable automatically gathers applications into a searchable candidate database. Every candidate can be screened via a candidate profile and other members of your team can add comments.

Recruiting software will help to centralize your hiring activity. In brief, it’s used to:

• Get increased exposure for every job by posting to multiple free and premium sites with one submission
• Gather candidates into a searchable, trackable candidate browser
• Collect and share team feedback as candidates move through the pipeline
• Schedule interviews and evaluate candidates
• Gain greater insight into your hiring activity with reports that assemble and analyze your data

Related: What’s the best day to post jobs?

More resources for posting jobs:

• How to post jobs on Facebook
• How to post jobs on Glassdoor
• How to post jobs on Google for Jobs
• How to post jobs on Indeed
• How to post jobs on Jobserve
• How to post jobs on LinkedIn
• How to post jobs on Monster
• How to post jobs on Prospects.ac.uk
• How to post jobs on Seek
• How to post jobs on Snagajob
• How to post jobs on Stack Overflow
• How to post jobs on Dribbble

The post How to post jobs on Craigslist: A step-by-step guide for employers appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Snagajob makes it easy for companies to source and attract candidates. It uses personality tests to identify each candidate’s own strengths and weaknesses, and multiple ways for applicants to search by job type and location. Catering to the millennial market, the Snagajob site and application process is entirely mobile friendly.

When you post a job on Snagajob

The word gets out immediately:

• active job seekers in your zip code will receive an alert
• the job will appear in relevant search results on Snagajob.com and the Snagajob mobile app
• the job will be emailed to local job seekers in the Daily Job Alert email
• you’ll receive a short url to share on social media

Snagajob also gives you the option to perform a more proactive candidate search. Based on the job title, Snagajob will match you with local job seekers qualified for your position. You can view the profiles and approach potential candidates to invite them to apply.

How much does it cost to post a job on Snagajob?

Snagajob offer three plans from $89-$249 a month:

Starter: the starter plan offers a job posting on Snagajob for one month. The job will also be sent directly to potential candidates in a targeted email blast. Also included are the option for candidates to ‘1-click apply’ (pulling in their Snagajob profile details into their application) and tools to sort and filter the applications you receive.

Starter Plus: the plus plan offers all the benefits of the starter plan, but includes visual personality assessment tools—which Snagajob claim to be more reliable than the Myers Briggs test.

Growing plan: the premium plan, this offers three active job postings for one month. You’ll also be featured in the targeted email blast, get the visual personality assessments and some basic applicant tracking tools to help manage the applications as they arrive.

How to post a job on Snagajob

Posting on Snagajob is simple:

• Select ‘Post a job’ from the top right of Snagajob’s homepage.

• Review the available plans and choose the one that best matches your needs.

• Enter your personal details to open your account.

• The page that follows forms the bulk of the job post. Include the job title, salary and location and a description of the job itself. As you enter the information on this page, you’ll see the live preview update in the right hand column. For help with writing job descriptions, try the Job Description Library, a collection of job description templates ready to copy and paste.

• When the job description and details are complete, enter your billing information and select ‘Checkout’ at the bottom of the page to post your job to Snagajob.

Related: What’s the best day to advertise job openings?

Managing applications from Snagajob

As part of the job posting package, Snagajob provides basic tools to help manage candidate applications. You’ll be able to sort, filter and review candidates to create a list of prospects for interview. This is available via the desktop or mobile application.

In order to maximise your reach for every job, you might consider advertising your job in multiple locations. To do this, you’ll need to keep on top of applications arriving in multiple different places; from your own email inbox to the tools provided by additional job boards.

It’s at times like this that an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) can help. This is recruiting software, used by teams to help streamline and centralize their recruiting; instead of individual applications arriving from in multiple places, recruiting software automatically gathers applications into a searchable candidate database. Every candidate can be screened via a candidate profile and other members of your team can collaborate in the process, adding comments and feedback.

In short, recruiting software is used to:

• Get increased exposure for every job by posting to multiple free and premium sites with one submission
• Gather candidates into a searchable, trackable candidate browser
• Collect and share team feedback as candidates move through the pipeline
• Schedule interviews and evaluate candidates
• Gain greater insight into your hiring activity with reports that assemble and analyze your data

More resources for posting jobs:

• How to post jobs on Craigslist
• How to post jobs on Dribbble
• How to post jobs on Facebook
• How to post jobs on Glassdoor
• How to post jobs on Google for Jobs
• How to post jobs on Indeed
• How to post jobs on Jobserve
• How to post jobs on LinkedIn
• How to post jobs on Monster
• How to post jobs on Prospects.ac.uk
• How to post jobs on Seek
• How to post jobs on Stack Overflow

The post How to post a job on Snagajob appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

How does Indeed work?

You can have your job ad appear on Indeed in four ways:

Sponsored job ads are prominently displayed in Indeed’s search results. They have better visibility, as they don’t get buried under newer ads. According to Indeed, sponsored job postings get 3.5X more views than free postings.

What does an Indeed job posting cost?

Indeed uses a pay-per-click model. With this model, you only pay for your ad when someone clicks on your job. Indeed cost per click charges vary. The higher the cost per click, the more visible your job ad will be.

So, if you set your average daily budget to $40 at a maximum $1 cost per click, you can get at least 40 clicks per day. When you reach your budget maximum, Indeed stops displaying your ad.

Post a job on Indeed directly from your account

If you already have an Indeed account, just log in and click the “post a job” button in the top left corner. To post a job on Indeed for the first time, go to Indeed’s page for employers, and click the “post a job” button. You’ll be directed to a page where you can create your free Indeed account:

Start filling out your job ad’s details in the provided fields. Spend some extra time on job descriptions, since they play a big part in Indeed’s quality control process. Good job descriptions include a comprehensive list of job duties and requirements, as well as benefits and perks.

When your job ad is ready, you can choose between posting with budget, or click the “Post without budget” button. Posting your job for free doesn’t preclude you from sponsoring it later. Indeed gives you an estimate of how many applications to expect by using their free or paid options:

Simple Indeed pricing vs. advanced pricing

Here’s a breakdown on the differences between simple and advanced pricing for Indeed’s sponsored job ads:

You can set an expiration date for your job ad. Indeed doesn’t charge any fees for posting or taking down a job ad, and you can stop sponsoring or adjust your budget any time.

Indeed automatically generates a company page for you if your jobs appear on Indeed. When you create an employer account, claim your company page by clicking “Claim Your Page” on Indeed’s company pages site:

Post a job on Indeed indirectly

You can have your job ad appear on Indeed indirectly, without using your own Indeed account:

Indeed job posting aggregation

Indeed scans the web for high-quality job listings and includes them in its search results for free. When posting jobs on your careers page, ensure you provide each job posting with:

• A clear job title
• A job description
• A location
• A unique URL that Indeed can link to

You can also contact Indeed to ask them to index your careers site and submit an XML feed, which is a piece of code that provides Indeed’s search engine with information about your job site.

Sponsor Indeed jobs through your ATS

Your ATS likely integrates with Indeed, along with other job boards. Using an ATS simplifies the job application process and helps attract more quality candidates. Posting a job through an ATS saves time too, and helps you track your sponsored ads more effectively.

Indeed’s quality standards

Indeed places a high value on candidate experience and aims to host job listings that are informative, respectful and reflect real job openings. If a job ad doesn’t meet Indeed’s standards, it may be removed.

Before confirming an ad, check that it follows Indeed’s job posting guidelines. Here are a few important ones:

Job titles

• Add job titles that reflect each position’s title as it would appear on a business card. Avoid jargon and words like “ninja” or “rockstar.”

• Keep the job title clean and relevant. Don’t include symbols or other information in the title, like salary or job type.

Job descriptions

• Provide as much information as possible. Add all principal requirements, duties and benefits, as well as a description of your company. As a general rule, keep your job description around 700 words.

• Don’t use inappropriate language. Avoid “he/she,” or words that indicate candidates’ age, gender identity or nationality. For example, instead of “native English speaker” use “English proficiency.” Also, don’t use profanity.

Candidate experience

• Simplify your application process. Avoid asking candidates to fill out lengthy forms or navigate through different sites to apply to your job.

• Ensure candidate information confidentiality. Make sure your application and record-keeping processes are secure.

Generally, Indeed doesn’t allow postings that advertise:

• Career fairs
• Franchise or training opportunities
• Multi-level marketing positions

Indeed has other requirements too. For example, employers can’t re-post the same job ad within a short time, or post the same position in multiple locations without Indeed’s Multi-Location Tool. Also, Indeed will only display each job ad once, from the source closest to the employer. So, if you post your job both through your careers page and through recruiting agencies, Indeed will scrap the duplicates (unless they’re sponsored).

Indeed’s popularity and commitment to high quality job postings can help both candidates and employers find the best matches for their skills and needs. If you encounter any kind of quality issues, contact the support team at Indeed or your ATS to help you.

Using Workable to post on Indeed

For recruiters or HR team members tasked with posting jobs on multiple job boards, handling each one individually can be overwhelming. Workable is a platinum partner of Indeed, simplifies this task through seamless integration.

This integration boosts your applications by up to 4 times thanks to the candidate-friendly Indeed Apply experience. It also reduces costs by 20% per apply for sponsored jobs and makes your postings stand out in search results.

Workable’s Sponsored Jobs integration further optimizes your advertisements on Indeed, increasing the likelihood of hire by 4.5 times. Utilizing 17+ years of hiring data and job seeker insights, Sponsored Jobs display your listings to candidates who are most likely to apply, helping you attract quality applicants. Sponsoring a job on Indeed expands your pool of high-intent and diverse candidates.

Now that you have all the necessary information, you’re ready to post your job on Indeed and start hiring! If you want to discover more about how Workable can simplify your hiring process, click here.

More resources for posting jobs:

• How to post jobs on Craigslist
• How to post jobs on Dribbble
• How to post jobs on Facebook
• How to post jobs on Glassdoor
• How to post jobs on Google for Jobs
• How to post jobs on Jobserve
• How to post jobs on LinkedIn
• How to post jobs on Monster
• How to post jobs on Prospects.ac.uk
• How to post jobs on Seek
• How to post jobs on Snagajob
• How to post jobs on Stack Overflow

The post How to post a job on Indeed appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

1. Create an account

Before you buy a job, Monster will ask you to sign into your account. If you’re new to the site, you can do this by filling out a short form that asks for information about you, your industry and your company.

2. Choose how many job ads you want and their duration

Decide whether you will be posting one job or multiple jobs, and whether you will post for 30 or 60 days. You can make these choices by visiting Monster’s employers’ home page, which, once logged in, will look like this:

Click on the “Jobs” tab from your home page and select “Post a Job.”

You will then land on a page that prompts you to fill out details for posting a Standard Job Ad.

Choose the number of Monster ads you would like to purchase. Click “buy now” to purchase a single ad or buy multiple listings. Monster will offer you job enhancements (at an extra cost) to get your ad more visibility. Here’s a look at some of these add-ons:

Standard Job Ads are just one type of job ad product Monster offers. To reach even more niche audiences, Monster offers other job ad types. Choose which job ad product works best for your needs.

Monster job ad types:

• Premium Job Ad: This job is the default option on the Monster employer homepage. It reaches candidates on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and on more than 900 job sites.
• Standard Job Ad: This ad reaches candidates on the Monster job network and more than 1,000 newspaper sites, through email distribution and on mobile. It also includes up to 20 recommended resumes from Monster’s resume database.
• Skilled and Hourly Job Ad: This ad is limited to a set of 300+ job titles (e.g. delivery driver, bookkeeper, cashier, medical assistant). Monster provides pre-written job description templates for these jobs, which you can modify according to your specific needs. You can post this job ad type for 14 days.
• Veteran Job Ad: This ad will be posted on Military.com, a Monster company that caters to veterans, transitioning military members and their spouses. Monster touts 7 million unique visitors to Military.com a month.
• Diversity & Veteran Job Ad: This ad helps you access diverse, disabled and military job seekers by distributing throughout the Monster Diversity Network (which includes Military.com, AfricanAmericanCareers.com, Asian MBA International, Hire Disability Solutions and other partner websites.)
• Newspaper Job Ad: This ad allows you to post your job in one of these four newspapers’ Sunday classifieds listings:
  • The Boston Globe
  • Dallas Morning News
  • Atlanta Journal Constitution
  • St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Related: What’s the best day to advertise job openings?

3. Proceed to checkout

Once you’re satisfied with your jobs, their duration and any enhancements, go ahead and check-out your cart.

How much does posting a job on Monster cost?

Prices for job ads on Monster vary, depending on several factors. Here are some:

• Duration: Will your job ad be live for 30 or 60 days?
• Purchase size: Will you buy just one ad, or several?
• Enhancements: Will you enhance your ad with Job Bolding (which increases your job ad’s visibility by making it appear bold in search results), or Diversity & Veteran Reach?

Here’s a chart that breaks down the Monster job pricing of single and bulk job ads for 30 and 60 days:

Using Workable to post on Monster

For recruiters or HR team members who need to post jobs on multiple job boards, doing it individually for each one can be overwhelming. Workable provides a seamless integration with Monster to simplify this process.

Workable allows you to post your job on up to 200 major job boards at once, without any hassle. As responses to your job listing come in, Workable helps you sort and prioritize candidates, saving you valuable time for more important tasks.

Now that you have all the necessary information, you’re ready to post your job on Monster and start hiring! If you want to learn more about how Workable can streamline your hiring process, click here.

More resources for posting jobs:

• How to post jobs on Craigslist
• How to post jobs on Dribbble
• How to post jobs on Facebook
• How to post jobs on Glassdoor
• How to post jobs on Google for Jobs
• How to post jobs on Indeed
• How to post jobs on Jobserve
• How to post jobs on LinkedIn
• How to post jobs on Prospects.ac.uk
• How to post jobs on Seek
• How to post jobs on Snagajob
• How to post jobs on Stack Overflow

The post How to post a job on Monster appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In this post, we guide you on how to purchase recruiting plans, manage your account and post a job on Nexxt (formerly Beyond.) Here are the contents of our guide so you can click on sections you are most interested in:

• What Nexxt offers
• Nexxt’s pricing overview
• Explore Nexxt’s Subscription Plans
• Get a free quote for Nexxt’s FlexxPlan
• Navigate your account
• Post your jobs
• Posting to Nexxt using Workable

What Nexxt offers

Nexxt is a premium job board and recruitment platform that boasts a huge network of niche job posting sites. Employers can advertise jobs on career sites like SalesHeads and HealthcareJobsite, diversity sites like DiversityWorkers and local job boards like PhillyJobs. Plus, Nexxt helps you reach global candidates through international partner sites (e.g. IrishJobs.ie and Jobs.bg.)

Nexxt’s searchable candidate database has more than 40 million candidate portfolios. This database supports Boolean search so you can find candidates who meet your requirements more easily.

And, Nexxt offers recruitment marketing solutions to help you reach candidates who are a good match for each of your jobs. These features include promoting your jobs and brand through candidate retargeting and text & email campaigns.

Nexxt’s pricing overview

Nexxt’s pricing is mainly based on how many jobs you plan to post. This table shows the current prices and features of Nexxt’s job posting plans:

Single job posting	Subscription Plans	FlexxPlan
Post only one job, one time.Purchase a single job posting by paying a one-time fee of $299.	Post as many jobs as you want by using job slots in the following plans: Talent Pro: One job slot at $199/month. Recruiter: Five job slots at $299/month. Recruiter Premium: 10 job slots at $499/month. Nexxt’s Recruiter and Recruiter Premium plans also provide access to Nexxt’s candidate database.	Advertise all your jobs for one flat price.A three-month-trial is available for companies that want to post more than 11 jobs.

Explore Nexxt’s Subscription Plans

Nexxt’s subscription plans each offer a certain number of job slots per month. For example, if you have five job slots available, you can post any number of jobs as long as you always have five or fewer jobs posted at the same time. On this Subscription Plans page, you can see the pricing of each plan.

There will also be a breakdown of what each plan includes underneath the pricing boxes. Identify the most appropriate plan and click “Buy Now.” If you’re not sure which plan is best for you, choose one that most closely matches your needs. You won’t need to provide your billing information just yet, so you can create your account and pick a plan later.

In the next screen, add your work email and a password and click “Continue.”

Nexxt will ask you for some basic information about you and your company:

After you complete this form, you will be asked to confirm your subscription plan (monthly or annual) and provide billing information. In our screenshot, you can see a summary of what Nexxt’s Recruiter plan offers including:

• Five job slots per month to post your jobs.
• Ability to search and view up to 150 candidates in Nexxt’s database, the “Talent Network.”
• Promoting your jobs via SmartMatch alerts, which show your job ads to candidates who have searched or applied to similar jobs.

If you are sure that this plan meets your needs, fill out all required fields and click on “Complete Purchase” at the bottom of that page. When you purchase your plan, you will be able to post your first job as we describe in our “Create new job posting” section.

If you need some more time to select a plan, you can skip this step for now and navigate your account.

Get a free quote for Nexxt’s FlexxPlan

If you would like to know more about the FlexxPlan, go to Nexxt’s 3-month trial page. This trial is available for companies that plan to post more than 11 jobs. Fill out this contact form, so Nexxt’s representatives can contact you with pricing information and help you set up your trial:

If you have other questions about Nexxt’s services, go to this page to fill out Nexxt’s contact form. Answer Nexxt’s question about your recruiting needs by selecting your option from the dropdown menu. Click “Get Started” and complete the contact form that appears.

Nexxt’s recruitment experts will get in touch with you within one business day.

Navigate your account

If you already have an account by following our previous steps, log in. Your home page gives you a recap of your posted jobs and applicants. You can also explore various tabs at the top of this page.

You can click on:

• “Manage Account.” Go to this option if you want to purchase, upgrade or downgrade your pricing plans.
• Your username. Hover over the arrow next to your name at the top right of this page. You can do various tasks like update your contact or company information, change your login credentials or add team members to your company’s account.
• “Resources.” This tab directs you to Nexxt’s customer training center, FAQs and other content.
• “Candidate Search.” Go to this tab to access Nexxt’s candidate database which includes millions of active and passive candidate profiles. You need to purchase a subscription plan before you can use this service.
• “Jobs.” Click this tab to post and manage your jobs. Before you post a job, Nexxt requires you to choose your subscription plan.

Post a job on Nexxt

Sign in to your Nexxt account and hover over the “Jobs” tab at the top. You will see a menu with various options:

Select:

• “Create New Posting” to post your job.
• “My job postings” to view, edit and deactivate your active jobs.
• “Team job postings” to view and edit job postings your team has posted.
• “My Applicants” to see who has applied to each of your job postings.
• “Reporting” to view analytics on your job postings.

Click on “Create New Posting” and you will be directed to Nexxt’s job posting page:

Add job descriptions, locations and requirements (e.g. minimum education level.) Keep in mind that your job ad goes through automated quality control. To ensure your job ad will be approved, you should:

• Have not included any contact information in your job description.
• Have entered a valid U.S. city, state and zip code or valid international location in all appropriate fields.

At the bottom of this page, choose whether you want to direct applicants to your careers page or let them apply directly via Nexxt:

You can also set up Job Match Alerts, which notify you via email when candidates who may fit this role join Nexxt’s network.

After you have completed all fields, click on “Create Job.” Review your job ad to see how it will appear to candidates.

Click “Confirm New Job Post.” If you haven’t already purchased a subscription plan, you will see this screen:

Select a subscription plan or a single job posting to post your job for 30 days. Click submit and confirm your purchase on the next page, where you can also choose an annual plan instead of monthly:

Provide your billing information and you are ready to post your job ad. If you want to maximize your job ad’s exposure and discover great candidates, ask Nexxt’s recruitment media experts at (866) 694-5627 to help you build your own advertising and targeting campaigns.

Posting to Nexxt using Workable

For recruiters or HR team members who need to post jobs on multiple job boards, the task of doing it individually for each one can be daunting. Workable offers a seamless integration with Nexxt, making this process much easier.

With Workable, you can post your job on up to 200 major job boards simultaneously without any hassle. As responses to your job listing come in, Workable helps you sort and prioritize candidates, saving you valuable time for more important tasks.

Now that you have all the necessary information, you’re ready to post your job on Nexxt and start hiring! If you want to learn more about how Workable can simplify your hiring process click here.

More resources for posting jobs:

• How to post jobs on Craigslist
• How to post jobs on Facebook
• How to post jobs on Google for Jobs
• How to post jobs on Indeed
• How to post jobs on LinkedIn
• How to post jobs on Monster
• How to post jobs on Prospects.ac.uk

The post How to post a job on Nexxt (formerly Beyond) appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

But, what is the time tracking software? It is a digital solution designed to streamline the capturing and recording of employees’ work hours. With the time tracking software, employees can effortlessly clock in and out of work via desktop, mobile apps, or even advanced biometric technologies like facial recognition.

In fact, time tracking software offers more than just recording start and end times. The robust tools come with features that significantly enhance HR efficiency. Before exploring these features, let’s review some of the best time tracking software available in the market.

Related: The three do’s and don’ts of remote time tracking

Find out the best time tracking software 

According to Market Research Future, the time tracking software market is set to grow at a CAGR of 16.5% between 2024-2032. Every organization is part of the bandwagon. What’s holding you back? If you’re not sure which solution to go for, here is our list of the best timekeeping and billing software you can consider for your organization: – 

Workable

Workable is a comprehensive hiring and employee management software designed to simplify and streamline HR processes for companies of all sizes. Complementing its existing suite of impressive features, it is now set to launch the best time tracking software for small businesses, medium-sized firms, and multinational companies. 

ProWorkflow

A time tracking software known for its user-friendly interface and features like timesheets, project tracking, and reporting. It also allows employees to track their time across multiple devices. It is one of the accessible time tracking solutions for firms with limited budgets.

Wrike

Guaranteeing seamless time tracking, Wrike is popular for its customizable dashboards and advanced reporting tools. It is preferred by organizations due to its intuitive interface and third-party app integration, which makes the life of the workforce pretty easy. 

Mavenlink

It is a unified platform with resource planning, time tracking, and project management. Mavenlink is a favorite among HRs due to its optimization of operational efficiency. 

Zoho Projects

One of the trendy time tracking software, Zoho Projects tracks billable and non-billable hours, monitors employee performance, and assists in resource management. Its seamless ecosystem with Zoho applications makes it the perfect time tracking tool for medium and large businesses. 

Basecamp

Small businesses who’d like to play the field of time tracking should give Basecamp a go. It has a simple interface that ensures inter-team collaborations, time tracking of employees through third-party integration, and enhanced project visibility. 

ClickTime

The best utilization of time is possible with ClickTime, time tracking software with detailed timesheets, project allocations and resource planning. 

Time Doctor

Remote time management is the need of the hour. Time Doctor gets it and provides in-depth reports on time usage and productivity with tools like screenshot recording, activity levels, and time logging. 

With so many options available, you can choose the best employee time tracking software for your organization based on your business needs.  

How does effective time tracking enhance HR processes?

Google, Apple, Microsoft, and all the big players use time tracking tools. Here’s how employing the best time tracking program in your organization can help enhance HR processes and improve your efficiency: 

1. Improved payroll accuracy 

Unlike manual timesheets, which are more prone to errors and inaccuracies, automated time tracking software can eliminate human error, ensuring accurate records of worked hours. This precision reduces discrepancies in payroll processing, leading to timely and accurate paychecks.

2. Better project management and resource allocation

With time tracking software, you can analyze the time logs of any specific project to gain valuable insight into project dynamics, learn potential roadblocks within the projects, and access resource allocation. This empowers you to proactively intervene and address any delay, ensuring the employees meet the deadlines.

Additionally, timesheets can show potential resource imbalances within the department. By understanding teams that have extra resources and those that are understaffed, you can ensure all departments have the necessary manpower.

3. Reduced administrative burden 

By reducing inaccuracies in payrolls, streamlining workflows, and automating data entry, the time tracking software reduces administrative burden. This frees up your valuable time, allowing you to focus on more productive tasks such as talent management, developing workforce plans, and more.

4. Data-driven decision-making 

Besides keeping track of employees’ work hours, candidate tracking software provides information on employee work patterns, overall team productivity, and departmental performance. As an HR, you can use this data to make more informed decisions about resource allocation, staffing needs, and workflow optimization.

For instance, you observe that a team spends more time than regular working hours. This could be due to understaffing or workload imbalance. Based on this information, you can understand the areas requiring support and help them accordingly.

5. Enhanced employee accountability and transparency

Knowing work hours are being tracked can motivate employees to become more accountable and mindful of how they spend their time. What’s more? The data on how employees allocate their time can help managers understand areas where an employee might need support or offer guidance on effective time management. 

Having a platform where everyone’s time allocation is visible, enables a deeper understanding of each other’s workloads. This transparency can help create a more cohesive work environment. It’s a win-win for everyone! 

The post Best time tracking software solutions for HR efficiency  appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

What is employee onboarding?

Onboarding new hires is the process companies go through to welcome and integrate employees into the workplace. This very definition suggests that the employee onboarding process extends far beyond the first day of a new hire – it continues until they’ve fully adjusted to their role and team.

And this is the main difference between onboarding and orientation. The employee onboarding definition refers to any action that helps new hires understand how things work in their new work environment, get acquainted with the company culture, and feel welcomed and valued in their team.

Employee orientation, on the other hand, is the first step of onboarding. It’s when new hires learn the basics of their environment: for example, they might familiarize themselves with the office building and company policies, understand their new job duties and get introduced to their colleagues.

Why is onboarding important?

Think back to your first day in any job – chances are you were excited but nervous. If you don’t receive enough attention and instruction, that may not bode well for your mood or your motivation to get up to speed in your new capacity.

This may be one of the reasons that more than 25% of new hires quit their jobs after their first three months. And this is a huge loss for a company that must repeat a costly hiring process to find a replacement so soon – not counting the resources spent to train or compensate that new employee during their time with your company.

So onboarding new employees effectively can improve your company’s employee retention.

Another benefit of a good onboarding policy is that new hires reach full productivity faster. If they don’t receive adequate help from HR or their manager, and they’re just trying to make sense of everything on their own, your company loses potential revenue this employee would otherwise bring. If new hires go through a well-developed onboarding process, they’ll be quicker to settle in their role and start producing value for their team.

And an effective process is even more imperative when you’re onboarding remote employees (who have extra difficulties in connecting with their colleagues due to distance) or interns and graduates (who are new to your company and also to the world of employment).

Why it’s crucial to welcome new hires

Employee onboarding shouldn’t stop at company policy, benefit enrollment, job training, and tech logins — the way your company makes employees feel is a significant part of company culture, which is an essential ingredient of attracting and retaining top talent in today’s job market. It also goes a long way in building lasting employee engagement.

There should be two main components involved with a successful onboarding strategy: making sure new hires are prepared with all of the necessary information to work within your organization and creating a positive, comfortable environment where everyone feels supported and included. A fully optimized onboarding experience should welcome a new hire in a way that leaves them feeling prepared to perform their role and excited to be part of your team.

Additional resources for welcoming a new hire:

• How to Welcome a New Hire

Onboarding process steps

When designing the onboarding process, there are many things you can do to help new hires, like sending them a welcome package with company swag, arranging a team lunch or dinner with colleagues, or preparing a presentation. Whatever you include in your own process, there are several onboarding best practices that you could follow:

1. Communicate with new hires regularly

If your new hire’s start date is more than two weeks away, make sure to keep communicating with them and show that you’re looking forward to having them on board. You can prepare a welcome package with company swag or send them your employee handbook in advance. You could also ask the new hire’s prospective manager to send an email welcoming their new team member.

2. Plan the new hire’s first week

When the new employee first arrives for work, they will be uncertain about what their day will be like. It’s up to you to show them that you’re fully prepared to welcome them properly. So, prepare a plan for their first few days on the job and check all the important boxes (like setting up their workstation or informing the front desk employees about the new hire’s arrival).

3. Welcome them with open arms

Be enthusiastic, friendly, and positive from day one. Give the new hire a company walkthrough and introduce them to their co-workers at nearby desks first. Schedule a team lunch for them to get acquainted with others on their team and make sure their manager meets with them regularly throughout this crucial first week. It’d be useful to provide the new employee with a checklist or schedule with all the onboarding activities you have planned.

4. Keep it up

The onboarding process doesn’t end after the first week is over. You need to ensure your new hire has enough basic yet meaningful work to do almost from the beginning to help build confidence. Their manager should have a plan to assign that work and also support their smooth integration into the team. Check in with both the new hire and their manager after two weeks and at the end of the new hire’s first month and give them any support they might need.

A well-thought-out employee onboarding program – taking into account these four steps – could make all the difference in successful employee retention and engagement. It’s imperative both to employee retention and engagement that new hires know that your company values them right from the start.

Additional resources for creating an onboarding process:

• Onboarding Process Survey Questions Template
• How to Build a New Employee Onboarding Process

Why an onboarding checklist is important

There are a lot of moving pieces to a comprehensive employee onboarding strategy and starting a new job is already a situation that can inspire feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, or information overload. Remember the first day of school? It’s like that, but with even more at stake.

An onboarding checklist provides a loosely-structured schedule that prioritizes the most important aspects of welcoming a new hire while also helping them gain confidence about their new role and environment. Onboarding is your best chance to make a strong first impression as an efficient, organized, and thoughtful place to work and a new hire checklist is the ideal tool to help you do it.

Improve the initial employee experience by providing them with a copy of the list so that they know what to expect.

Additional resources for creating an onboarding checklist:

• Onboarding New Hire Checklist
• Remote Employee Onboarding Checklist
• IT Onboarding Checklist
• Onboarding Checklists Templates
• Onboarding New Managers Checklist

Remote onboarding

The rise of remote work has added new obstacles for HR professionals to consider. It’s even easier to feel lost, overwhelmed, or confused if you can’t check in with a friendly face nearby. How do you make a new hire feel welcome and supported from a distance?

It’s extremely important to streamline the formal onboarding workflow and communicate the process and all information involved as clearly as possible for remote workers. Help them get comfortable with company communication tools as quickly as possible, set up some video calls or virtual meetings with relevant managers and team members, and consider assigning them an “onboarding buddy” to reach out to with any questions.

Onboarding software is an ideal tool for organizing the process and a friendly colleague can help personalize and support the experience.

Additional resources for remote onboarding:

• Remote Employees Onboarding Checklist
• Working, Hiring, and Onboarding in the New Normal
• Remote Onboarding FAQs

Employee onboarding tools and software

Hiring a new employee involves a significant investment of time, money, and resources. From interviewing to onboarding, it’s important to be thorough and organized each step of the way — not only for logistical reasons, but also because making a positive impression is a key component of acquiring highly-qualified talent in a competitive job market.

Using employee onboarding tools and software can help streamline communication, facilitate training, ensure compliance, and manage necessary paperwork, among other things. It can also make the entire process easier for human resources professionalwhat is s by incorporating automation and notifications into the workflow to ensure all tasks are completed in a timely manner.

Creating and implementing a consistent and comprehensive onboarding strategy improves the efficiency and productivity of your organization as you empower new hires to step into their new position with comfort and confidence.

The post What is employee onboarding and how to get it right appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Here’s a guide to recruiting on YouTube:

How to get started with YouTube recruitment

First, create an account. Here’s how:

1. Sign into YouTube.com. You’ll be asked to provide your Google account or create a new one.
2. Verify your account by submitting your phone number.

With your account, you can watch and like YouTube videos and subscribe to members’ channels. To upload your own videos and make playlists, you need to create a YouTube channel.

Here’s how to create a YouTube channel for your business:

1. Go to your Channel Switcher and click “Create a new channel”

   

2. You’ll be prompted to create a Brand Account. Brand Accounts, unlike personal accounts, can have multiple managers. Fill out the name of your channel (e.g. CompanyName or CompanyName_ Careers) and verify your account. You’ll be asked to provide a phone number.
3. You can then add or change your channel managers.

You are now ready to start creating content to attract potential candidates on YouTube.

How to build your employer brand on YouTube

Showcase your work life

Capture a day in the life of employees to help candidates picture themselves on your team. Offer an inside look: produce a video office tour, show viewers what kind of technology your teams use and mention the perks you offer.

Dropbox illustrates its company culture and employee benefits through this puppet-themed video:

Use employee testimonials

Give employees a voice in your YouTube videos. Candidates want to hear from them first hand about what working at your company is like.

Starbucks asked employees who work in various positions to share what they like about their jobs:

Be imaginative

Your employer brand is your company’s reputation. Use YouTube to create recruitment videos to show off your company’s personality.

Shopify does this well. It aims to entertain viewers in this video about unusual hiring criteria:

How to improve candidate experience with YouTube

Describe your recruiting process

YouTube videos can help you explain your recruiting process step-by-step. Let candidates know what to expect when they apply for open roles at your company.

Deloitte created a video that describes its application process. It also offers candidates resume and interview tips:

Promote one or more job openings

Complement job descriptions with videos that explain what each role entails. You can add YouTube links or embed videos in your job ads.

Here’s how P&G employees describe the role of the Assistant Brand Manager:

Explain your company values

Improve candidate experience and reduce time-to-fill by being transparent about what you value in employees. Emphasize the qualities that make your company and its employees unique.

Pinterest uses this video to explain its mission and describe its diverse groups of employees:

How to find potential hires using YouTube

Source candidates on YouTube

In addition to uploading your own recruitment videos, you can use YouTube to source candidates for creative roles. Designers, photographers and videographers use YouTube to upload portfolios and video tutorials. These work samples can help you screen passive candidates.

Your filtering options may be limited (e.g. you can’t search by location with YouTube’s search function), but most professionals include their contact details and links to social media pages in their YouTube accounts.

Also, look for relevant YouTube channels to watch potential candidates’ full video libraries. Here are the first results that show up when searching for Logo Designer channels:

Invite applicants to submit videos

When you’re hiring for creative or sales roles, prompt candidates to submit video applications using YouTube. By doing so, you’ll be able to:

• Test their presentation skills.
• Learn more about their qualifications and background.
• Understand why they’d like to work with your company.

Busabout, a travel company, invited candidates who wanted to work as Video Producers to pitch their skills through a short video. Here’s an application they received:

Attract your audience

Create videos that speak to specific candidate groups. For example, a video that describes how your engineering team works or what you’re looking for in salespeople will resonate with potential applicants. Upload each video to your careers page and relevant online communities (e.g. Facebook groups for engineers.) Also, a YouTube live streaming session will help you promote your recruitment events in real time.

Slack aims to attract future interns with this video:

YouTube recruitment do’s and don’ts

Here are a few suggestions to build an effective recruiting strategy on YouTube:

✗ Don’t force content

Your videos and your employee testimonials should be as genuine as possible. Candidates want to get a realistic view of your company and can sense a staged performance.

✗ Don’t create long videos

To hold your audience’s attention, keep your videos short and sweet. One to four minutes is plenty of time to get your message across effectively.

 Do include links to your websites

At the end of your video, provide links to your careers page where potential candidates can apply for your open roles. Also, include links to your social media pages in the video’s description.

 Do ask for professional help

If video-editing is not your expertise, consult professionals who can create engaging videos for your company. Alternatively, use YouTube Video Editor or editing software like VSDC and Lightworks to achieve better results.

The post How to recruit on YouTube appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Here’s how to start recruiting on Pinterest:

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a digital pinboarding tool that lets you bookmark content that interests you. For some businesses, Pinterest also serves as a digital storefront to display products, increase website traffic and boost customer engagement.

Here’s an overview of some basic Pinterest terminology to help you get started:

Pins

Pins are your virtual bookmarks. They include images or videos, with descriptions and links to the original source online. You can save pins you like from your favorite websites or other Pinterest accounts. You can also pin your own pictures or videos by uploading them from your your computer or phone.

Here are some pins related to “hiring employees”:

Boards

Boards are where you save your pins. Create boards by topic. You can keep your boards secret – visible only to you, or you can share them with the public, or people you choose. You can invite people to group boards to share ideas and pins.

Here are boards related to “hiring” that anyone can follow:

Promoted pins

Promoted pins are pins that you can pay to promote to desired audiences. The amount you pay depends on your targeting and bid options. Keep in mind that promoted pins are currently available only to businesses in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

Here’s an example of pin promoted by MOO:

Repins

Repins numbers (small grey numbers that appear under the left-hand side of pins) represent how many times other Pinterest members saved your pins to one of their boards. Measure your repin stats, along with more metrics in your company’s Pinterest Profile Analytics page.

Pinners

Pinners are Pinterest members. Use “People you reach” analytics to understand your audience’s demographics and interests.

Why recruit on Pinterest?

Pinterest is a multimedia platform that hosts images, videos and infographics. And this type of content catches people’s attention. With few words, Pinterest helps you describe your company culture and attract candidates who want to work with you.

Types of candidates on Pinterest

Pinterest’s 175 million monthly users are a diverse audience. Consider recruiting on Pinterest if you’re hiring:

• Women: Most Pinterest users are women, making it a good place to source more female candidates.
• Millennials: Like most social networks, Pinterest is popular with millennials. Half of U.S. millennials use Pinterest, according to the site.
• Parents: If you offer parental leave or child-care facilities, Pinterest is a good place to promote them. According to Pinterest, seven out of 10 U.S. mothers and 1 in 3 U.S. fathers use the platform.
• Creatives: Pinterest is uniquely visual, so it’s a great place to look for portfolios of photographers, architects, designers and travel and fashion professionals.

How to set up your Pinterest account

Setting up a business profile on Pinterest is easy and free. Here’s a step-by-step overview:

1. Visit Pinterest for Business and click “Join as a business.”
2. Fill out your company’s details, including your company name, email and business type.
3. Click “Create account” after you read the Business Terms of Service, and you’re all set.
4. Edit your profile when you’re logged in:

• Upload a picture: Use your company’s logo to make your business easily recognizable.
• Choose a username: Make sure it’s “www.pinterest.com/company_name” to make it easy for candidates and customers to find you. Otherwise, the default username might be something like “www.pinterest.com/company_name1234.”
• Add your ‘about you’ details: Add a description of your company using a maximum of 160 characters.
• Add your location: Identify your office location(s).
• Add a link to your website: Enter and confirm the URL of your corporate website, where people can learn more about your company.

Note that if you’re already using Pinterest with your personal account, you will need to log out before creating a Business profile. Or, you can convert your personal account to a business profile to maintain your pins, boards and followers.

How to recruit on Pinterest

Introduce your teams

Candidates want to learn about your position through potential colleagues. Share pictures of employees at work or ask employees to describe their job in short videos. You can also create one board for each department to give more specifics about how different teams work.

• Sodexo, a French food services and facilities management company, has designated boards for various departments.

• Cosmetics company L’Oréal presents its offices in different locations.

Promote your perks and benefits

Create boards that showcase benefits you offer or ask your employees to describe their jobs in their own words.

• Salesforce, CRM software company, has an “I love working at Salesforce” board, where employees display what they like about their jobs.

• Marketing software company HubSpot uses a Pinterest board to show how employees benefit from their unlimited vacation policy.

Post your job openings

Advertise your job openings on Pinterest and provide links to your careers page. Use images and videos to describe what skills you’re looking for in candidates.

• Carousel Consultancy, a London-based recruiting firm, created a board for its Social Media Community Manager & Blogger position. In this board, candidates get an overview of the role and learn how to apply.

Boost your employer brand

Beyond displaying your products and services, Pinterest can help you show potential candidates what working at your company looks like. Use Pinterest to share company events and moments of your daily work life.

• Petplan Pet Insurance shows off its pet-friendly workspaces along with some office celebrations.

• Nestlé uses employee testimonials to explain how it invests in training:

Describe your company values

Use visual aids, like videos, images and infographics on Pinterest to illustrate your company values. This will help you attract candidates who are a culture fit.

• Patagonia, a clothing and sports gear company, supports parents and explains how employees benefit from its on-site child care center.

• EY, a global consulting and accounting firm, has created a board about its inclusive workplace and initiatives that promote diversity.

Share career advice

On your Pinterest business account, share content that’s relevant to your candidates, like career tips. Here are some examples:

• Allianz, an international insurance company, explains its application process to potential candidates.

• Asana, a software company that creates a team productivity tool, shares career-related articles that are likely to appeal to potential candidates and also help new hires onboard.

When building your Pinterest recruiting strategy, keep in mind that Pinterest’s strengths lie in its content-sharing features. Focus on creating a business page that reflects your company culture. A mix of appealing, genuine and useful pictures and videos will help attract candidates you want to hire.

The post How to recruit on Pinterest appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Why recruit on Facebook?

• Social media isn’t just for young people anymore. In fact, Facebook has the most evenly distributed gender and age demographics of any social network. Facebook isn’t just a place to attract millennials. Its popularity among older users is growing; 56% of people over 65 are active users.

• Facebook users don’t only outnumber other social media users, they’re also more active. Every 60 seconds, Facebook users update 293,000 statuses and upload 136,000 photos. Facebook also has an increasing number of users, with five new profiles created every second. It’s too big to ignore.

• Facebook can save you time and effort during your hiring process. The new Jobs tab feature (available in the US and Canada, for now) allows you to create your job post within Facebook by simply using the status updater tool on your company page. Facebook users who are interested in your open roles can click the “Apply now” button and send their personal information directly to you via Messenger.

• For users of recruiting platforms like Workable, this option has been available (worldwide) for some time. A simple integration between Workable and your Facebook company page powers the jobs tab automatically. This means that every time you create a new job in Workable, the jobs tab is updated. There’s no need to log out of one system into another, all your recruiting can be managed from one central source.

• Studies have shown that people trust brands more when they’re active on Facebook and other social media platforms. Having a strong web presence on the most popular social media site gives you a competitive advantage and improves your employer brand.

• Think of Facebook as a recruitment tool for diverse hires. Since it’s so popular, you have the opportunity to reach candidates from all over the world, from various professional backgrounds and different educational levels. Anyone could be part of your diverse pipeline, so long as they’re talented.

• It’s okay if you’re not familiar with social media or even if you’re a bit skeptical about how effective it can be. There are various metrics to help you monitor your Facebook page’s performance, which makes recruiting through Facebook more measurable and effective. You can easily access your page’s data and see the most important stats: organic traffic, number of likes and unlikes and engagement rate percentage (people who read a post, liked, clicked, shared or commented on it).

How to recruit employees on Facebook

1. Be direct

Add Facebook job postings directly on your company’s Facebook page and then route candidates to your Careers page to provide further information and an application form.

Facebook has a lot of customization options for your company profile. For example, Unilever’s Facebook careers page has two separate tabs, for ‘Early careers’ and ‘Professional careers’, making it easier for their 1.2 million followers to find the most relevant job openings.

Related: 17 effective candidate sourcing tools

2. Use indirect methods

In addition to posting current openings, you can use Facebook to promote your company’s image and improve your employer brand.

I like to promote information that helps potential applicants learn more about our culture and mission as an organization. I use sponsored ads and boosts to help generate this “buzz” in targeted markets where we are lacking or plan to recruit in the future. – Gail Atlas, Social Talent Acquisition Strategist at Novo Nordisk

Your employees are also your best advocates. Let them express themselves through Facebook and share their biggest achievements. You can post videos to give a sneak peek of a day at work in your office, or have an employee share their experience working with you. Next time you organize an after-work Friday meet up, consider posting some pictures to showcase your teamwork spirit. Applicants will be genuinely interested in working for you if they get an idea of what it’s going to be like.

Taco Bell is a good example. They are using Facebook to recruit employees with posts to shine a spotlight on their company culture and celebrate their employees’ achievements.

3. Socialize

Recruiting using Facebook includes networking with candidates and building relationships with potential future hires. After you create your profile, you should have at least one page manager who responds to people’s questions and engages with them on a regular basis.

Marriott has stepped up their candidate engagement game by running ‘Career Chats.’ Four to five Marriott employees answer candidates’ questions in real time and offer helpful advice on applying for jobs.

Dell also initiates frequent interactive sessions for Facebook recruitment with its followers and provides job search tips:

It’s also a good idea (and free) to join relevant Facebook groups to engage with your ideal applicants. Specific Facebook groups for recruiters, like Recruiters online and The Facebook Corporate Recruiters Network, are places where you can get recruiting tips and share best practices.

Related: Innovative recruiting tools and techniques for modern HR teams

4. Source candidates

Along with posting your current openings, you can use using Facebook for recruiting passive candidates. With Facebook Graph Search you can identify candidates using specific criteria (e.g. by location, profession or the university they attended). Sample queries include:

• [Job title] who live near [Location]
• [Job title] who speak [Language]
• People who work at [Competitor]

Once you find interesting candidates, you can send them a message on Facebook (if you’re connected to them) or reach them through their LinkedIn account. The best way, though, is to discover any mutual connections you may have, and ask them to make a warm introduction.

For more advice on social sourcing, download our complete sourcing guide for free.

5. Increase employee referral activity

Referrals work great when recruiting through Facebook. First, it’s easy for employees to share job ads and attract candidates. And second, you’ll probably hire the best matches for your culture, if your applicants know who their potential coworkers are and have an idea of what working at your company looks like. You’ve probably heard the ‘six-degrees of separation’ theory; everyone on the planet is separated by only six other people. Well, as far as Facebook is concerned, each user is connected to any other user in the world by an average of three and a half other people. So, go ahead, make the most of Facebook in your recruiting efforts. After all, your ideal candidate is only 3.5 people away.

More resources for social recruiting:

• Recruiting on Twitter
• Recruiting on Snapchat
• Recruiting on Instagram
• Recruiting on Google+
• Recruiting with SMS

The post How to recruit on Facebook appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

What is idea theft in the workplace?

A team can come up with ideas–and, in fact, a team working together can often come up with better ideas than a single person working alone. 

The classic example is the manager who presents the team’s work as their own. Is that idea theft? People know that the manager didn’t do all the work, right?

Perhaps they do know that when a manager says “I,” they mean “my team,” but if that’s what they mean, then they should say that. A simple change of “the team created this” can bring a world of difference to team morale.

Managers must remember that their job is to manage. You actually look like a better manager when you can explain how your employees did the work under your leadership. That’s the goal. 

Idea theft also comes from people just taking ideas without credit. Sometimes, you’ll see it in meetings. 

Idea theft is common

According to an OfficeTeam survey, 44 percent of employees had their ideas stolen. But that means some of you are also stealing ideas. You may not even realize that you are stealing ideas. Or you may think that yes, Jane had this idea, but I’ve added to it and it’s now mine.

Add to this the proliferation of large language models like ChatGPT where you put in a question and it pulls other people’s ideas for you to use. You may not have directly stolen it from another human, but the AI did it for you.

But why steal? There are plenty of reasons people do, and some of them are solvable. Some are not.

Some people steal ideas because they are self-centered jerks who will stomp anyone who gets in their way. But not all people who steal ideas are that way. Consider the person who brings something up, gets credit for it, and fails to say “well, it wasn’t my idea.” There is a real fear that sharing other’s ideas will make the person seem less valuable.

You also have managers who were trained by managers who stole ideas and think this is just the way to go about it.

And you have people who hear something or read something, but don’t register it and genuinely think they thought it up themselves. Frankly, we all are in that category as we have a ton of input in what we do each day. (Did I read some of these ideas elsewhere? Probably. They aren’t terribly unique or exciting!)

Ignoring or participating in workplace idea theft will be demoralizing. Why would an employee work hard to create something new and have someone else claim credit? Why speak up in a meeting if you know that the person next to you will claim credit for your ideas? 

Ultimately, it has a chilling effect on your employees and their creativity. Remember, managers who support employees get engaged employees. Engaged employees are more productive. More productive employees is a benefit to the manager. Stealing their ideas may make you look cool for a minute but is ultimately destructive.

How to handle workplace idea theft

The most important thing is for managers to set an example. If a manager consistently gives credit where credit is due, others will pick up on it. Managers must provide credit – even when the employee is not in the room. It’s a powerful thing for a manager to say, “Hey, my employee Jane had this great idea and here’s how we’re implementing it…” It allows senior leaders to learn about employees and encourages a culture of collaboration.

If someone steals your ideas you have two options: Stay quiet or speak up.

Most people would probably like to think that they would stand up for themselves and say something witty and pointed that would stop the idea thief in their tracks, but that is not what happens. The first time it happens you may be too shocked to say anything, but if it happens once, it’s likely to happen again and you can prepare. Practice some of these phrases, 

“Yes, that’s a great idea. I presented it last week and…”

“If you’ll remember, I suggested that to you twenty minutes ago…”

“Yes, the project did turn out great. I did X, Juan did Y, Stephanie did Z, and you managed the process.”

Practicing phrases can help you speak up even when it’s hard.

If you’re not the type to speak up in public, you can meet with the thief after and say, “Hey, I worked very hard on that, and you neglected to give me credit. Can you please note that I initiated that project in the follow up e-mail?”

Being outspoken will likely stop the problem, but an inveterate thief will continue, at which point you can either decide to live with it or decide to get out. You’re not a bad person if you quit a job because of this level of disrespect. 

Ultimately, idea theft will affect your business and your brand. The people who come up with the ideas won’t stay if they don’t get credit! So, eventually, you’re left with just the people whose only skill is stealing other’s ideas. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.

The post Idea theft and how it impacts employee morale appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

This immediate boost in productivity can be attributed to clear guidance, structured training, and the provision of necessary resources from the outset. 

Additionally, research by BambooHR indicates that employees who feel they had an effective onboarding experience are 18 times more likely to feel committed to their organization. 

This heightened sense of commitment is crucial for fostering long-term loyalty and reducing turnover rates.

How can you make the onboarding process smoother and more efficient? Explore our six core onboarding checklists and experience the positive impact in your company.

1. New employee checklist

The New Employee Checklist is designed to ensure that all essential tasks are completed before the new hire’s first day. 

This checklist covers everything from sending the offer letter to preparing the workspace, ensuring a smooth transition into the company. 

By following this checklist, you can create a welcoming environment and provide new employees with the resources they need to start their new role confidently.

Here’s what you need to do:

2. New hire checklist: before the first day

While the above provides a comprehensive checklist for new hires, the following one delves deeper into what you should do before the first day of work.

Preparing for a new hire’s arrival involves several critical steps to ensure they feel welcomed and ready to start their new role. 

This proactive approach helps to streamline the onboarding process and ensures all administrative tasks are handled efficiently before the new employee’s first day.

3. New hire first day checklist

The first day of a new hire sets the tone for their future with the company. The New Hire First Day Checklist focuses on making the first day as smooth and welcoming as possible.

This checklist includes greeting the new hire, giving an office tour, helping with initial HR paperwork, and providing an overview of company policies. By carefully planning the first day, you help new employees feel comfortable and ready to begin their journey with your organization.

HR team tasks

Hiring manager tasks

4. New hire paperwork checklist

Completing all necessary paperwork is a crucial part of the onboarding process. The New Hire Paperwork Checklist ensures that all required documents, both legal and internal, are prepared and signed. This includes employment contracts, tax forms, and benefit documents.

Properly managing paperwork helps in maintaining compliance and sets clear expectations between the employer and the new hire.

5. New employee orientation program checklist

Orientation is a key component of the onboarding process, helping new hires acclimate to their new work environment and understand company policies.

The New Employee Orientation Program Checklist guides you through the tasks needed to support new employees during their first few days.

This includes administrative support, an overview of company policies, office tours, and introductions to team members. A comprehensive orientation program helps new hires integrate smoothly and quickly into their new roles.

6. IT onboarding checklist

A seamless IT setup is essential for new hires to start their roles without technical hitches. The IT Onboarding Checklist details the steps required to prepare all necessary technology and accounts before the new hire’s arrival.

It also includes instructions for the first day and ongoing support to ensure new employees have everything they need from a technical perspective.

Efficient IT onboarding helps new hires be productive from day one and reduces the likelihood of technical issues disrupting their workflow.

Before the first day

On the first day

First week or month

Implementing comprehensive onboarding checklists is a vital step toward fostering a productive and committed workforce. By systematically addressing each aspect of the onboarding process—from pre-arrival preparations to first-day introductions, ongoing support, and technical setup—organizations can ensure that new hires feel welcomed, informed, and equipped to succeed in their roles.

As evidenced by research, investing in effective onboarding is not merely a procedural necessity but a strategic imperative that drives organizational success and growth.

By following these checklists, companies can create a positive and lasting impact on their new employees, setting the stage for a mutually rewarding professional journey.

The post Six core onboarding checklists you need for your HR toolkit appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

The majority of employees (67% of them in a survey conducted by MIT Sloan) are eager to advance their careers. Yet, research from Gartner shows that only 46% feel supported in honing their skills and forging their path up the ladder at their current organization.

Here’s where employee development plans hold a lot of power. These seemingly humble documents get you and your workers on the same page about professional goals and progress, while providing much-needed visibility into how employees can advance their careers within the company. 

What is an employee development plan?

An employee development plan is a document created collaboratively by a manager and an employee that spells out a single worker’s professional goals and a detailed action plan for achieving them. 

While the employee development plan is largely focused on the desires and ambitions of the employee, it should balance individual goals with the needs of your organization and the “expected objectives for the employee to contribute to the company,” explains Sarah Morgan, a senior recruiter. 

Put simply, a solid employee development plan won’t just fuel the growth of a single employee — it’ll fuel the growth of your entire organization.

What should you include in an employee development plan? 

Despite the fact “employee development plan” sounds rigid and formal, these documents are surprisingly flexible. You have the freedom to adapt them to the needs of your employee, team, or entire organization.

Some companies create highly detailed development plans that are several pages long, while others opt for quick bullet points that fit in a chart on a single page. 

Additionally, your plan is largely dictated by the employee’s specific circumstances. For example, are you documenting a plan to support them in:

• Building a specific skill?
• Moving to the next level of their existing career?
• Switching to an entirely different function or career path?

Those unique situations might require different sections within your plan. But, speaking generally, an employee development plan will include:

• Skills assessment: Whether the employee completes a formal skills assessment or not, the document should list their existing strengths and any skill gaps or development areas to focus on. In our recent upskilling report completed with TalentLMS, 71% of employees said they’d like to update their skills more often. This level of clarity about where they excel and where they can improve refines their focus.
  
  
• Career goals: What are the objectives the employee wants to achieve? The plan can include both short- and long-term goals, ideally with specific milestones or metrics that indicate success. Aim to stick with five or fewer goals so the plan doesn’t become overwhelming and remember to confirm that the employee’s vision is aligned with the company’s needs.
  
  
• Action plan: Goal-setting is nice, but without action, it’s nothing more than an idea. The action plan section of the employee development plan is where you get into the weeds about the exact steps the employee will take to work toward their goal. The more specific you can be here, the better.
  
  
• Resources and support: The entire point of this plan is to confirm the employee not only has room to grow but also support from the organization to do so. In this section, detail the opportunities and resources your organization will provide to the employee to help them pursue their professional goals. This could be anything from mentorship to courses to special projects.
  
  
• Timelines: It’s not a plan without a timeline. Each plan should include dates — whether they’re attached to goals or specific action steps — so that the manager and employee are aligned on when things will be accomplished.

Eager to jump in and get started? Here’s a simple employee development plan template you can use:

Who creates an employee development plan?

The employee and the manager work together to create an employee development plan. But when you boil it all down, who’s ultimately responsible?

“This is a question for the ages and may garner a few perspectives,” Sarah says. “I do believe it should be a joint effort by employee and manager to create as well as maintain. That said, managers should be aware that there are some areas where they need to take initiative with the employee.”

However, the reverse can also be true — employees might need to advocate for themselves and their goals, especially if they feel they aren’t getting the support or investment they believe they deserve.

Regardless of who’s doing the actual documenting, the most important thing is that the process is collaborative so that both the manager and the direct report feel bought-in and committed. When the plan is ready to go, it’s also smart to share a copy with the HR team so they’re in the loop.

Why are employee development plans important?

Employee development plans are way more than a formality or unnecessary recordkeeping. When they’re done well, these plans offer several benefits for employees and their companies.

Employee development plan benefits for employees

• Career growth and advancement: A whopping 91% of employees say it’s somewhat or very important to have a job where they consistently have opportunities to learn. A documented development plan refines their vision for their future and gives them actionable steps and resources to make it a reality.
  
  
• Increased motivation: Goals are inspiring and an employee development plan can fuel an employee’s intrinsic motivation (which comes from within) and extrinsic motivation (which comes from a desire to achieve external rewards, like a promotion or recognition).
  
  
• Better job satisfaction: When employees know where they want to go and what they need to do to get there, they’re more invested in their jobs and benefit from higher fulfillment and satisfaction.
  
  
• Improved clarity: According to Gartner, only 25% of employees are confident about their career path with their current organization. An employee development plan aligns employees and their managers on next steps and objectives, and provides more clarity about what an employee is working toward.

Employee development plan benefits for employers

• Improved employee performance: An employee development plan calls attention to an employee’s strengths and their development areas. Improving on those weaknesses and addressing skill gaps enhances their performance.
  
  
• Higher employee retention: Considering career advancement remains one of the top reasons people leave jobs, it makes sense that it has a direct impact on employee retention. When employees see a clear path to advancement within their organization, they’re less likely to look elsewhere for opportunities.
  
  
• Easier talent attraction: Your current employees care about career growth—and prospective employees do too. 92% of job candidates consider learning and development opportunities as a factor when choosing between two job offers. Employee development plans contribute to a culture of growth and learning in your organization, which is compelling for both present and potential workers.
  
  
• Better strategic alignment: Your ultimate goal in improving employee performance is to improve company performance, but that doesn’t happen if there’s a mismatch between individual and organizational goals. Employee development plans give managers and employees an opportunity to confirm their goals align, as well as to revisit them at regular intervals.

3 tips to make the most of employee development plans

Employee development plans themselves are a learning process—the more of them you do, the more you’ll learn about what works best for your team and organization. However, there are a few best practices that can help you right out of the gate.

1. Personalize the process

One employee might want to take the lead in ironing out their development plan while another might need some more prompting and encouragement. One person might be hungry for feedback while another is resistant to too much constructive criticism.

The development planning process will be most helpful when it’s personalized to each employee. While your plan template itself can stay largely the same, tailor your approach and related conversations to the preferences and unique qualities of your employees.

2. Set specific goals

One of the mistakes Sarah frequently sees organizations make with development plans is relying on vague or unclear goals. She recommends opting for the SMART goal framework, where goals are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

Here’s a quick comparison to show how much clarity this framework adds to development goals: 

• Before: Get better at public speaking.
  
  
• After: Improve public speaking skills by volunteering as a speaker for at least three company events by the end of 2024. 

Plus, the SMART goal framework touches on a lot of other important aspects of an employee’s development plan, such as a timeline and success metrics. 

3. Continue to check in

“I think my biggest frustration as both an employee myself and someone in HR is that it’s not visited throughout the quarter or year,” Sarah says about most development plans. “They’re often created as a ‘box to check’ and then go back into the file to die.”

That not only wastes time but can also breed frustration in employees who will take it as evidence that you’re not truly invested in their development. You can combat this by

• Setting frequent and regular intervals to connect with employees about their development goals and progress, such as during one-on-one meetings
  
  
• Storing the plan somewhere it can be easily accessed by the manager and employee, so they can check progress and make changes when necessary
  
  
• Scheduling a designated meeting to talk about updates to development goals when there’s a larger shift, such as a company strategy change or a team restructuring

When you involve employees in creating their development plans, listen thoughtfully to their goals, questions, and feedback, and commit to ongoing conversations about their progress, you’ll show them that their growth and advancement is an ongoing priority — not a one-time event.

The post Your guide to creating effective employee development plans appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

You are the HR manager at a mid-stage tech startup. You need to grow and expand your team quickly, and you need to do it fast. You’re hiring in every department – marketing, development, project management – and the inundation of resumes comes pouring in.

You have your next roundtable meeting at 10 o’clock and you’re supposed to have the best candidates picked out. You have no idea who the candidates are, and why or even if they’re qualified. You don’t have time to sort through your learning tower of resumes to learn about them.

It’s a tough situation. What do you do? Good news: Using ChatGPT for resume screening can swiftly navigate through the flood of applications, and identify the top candidates.

Situations like this are exactly the kind of thing that ChatGPT can do very well – sorting through and processing a lot of information very quickly. AI-powered resume screening can help you dig through that mountain of information and quickly pick out the best resumes with the most qualified candidates.

Many HR leaders are already implementing AI-powered resume screening, using tools like ChatGPT, to enhance their recruitment processes. A study by Gartner showed 38% of HR leaders have already implemented or explored AI tools to make their HR processes more efficient.

Hold on though, you’ve never used ChatGPT before. You’ve heard people talk about it, you’ve seen it on the news, but you haven’t had the need to use it before now and you’re not sure that you trust it. You still rely on your grandson to teach you how to use your smartphone. You don’t know the first thing about machine learning or data science.

Good news again: you don’t need to. ChatGPT is a general all-purpose tool that anyone can use regardless of how tech-savvy they are. 

This comprehensive guide will show you how to use ChatGPT to screen resumes and evaluate candidates in record time

Note: This tutorial will make use of ChatGPT-3.5, which is a free tool that’s accessible to anyone on the internet, rather than ChatGPT-4 which comes with a paid ChatGPT Plus subscription.

How to set up ChatGPT-3.5

First things first. You need to set up an OpenAI account before you can use ChatGPT for the recruitment process. It’s a straightforward process that should take no longer than 5-10 minutes.

Step 1: Create an OpenAI account

Go to the OpenAI homepage (https://chat.openai.com/) and click “Sign Up” to create an account.

Sign in with your email address, or with your Google, Apple, or Microsoft account.

Step 2: Verify your account

OpenAI will ask you to verify your email for security purposes. Go through the prompts to complete the verification process.

Step 3: Start a conversation

Once you go through the verification process, you’re on your way. 

You should see a window with a chat interface at the bottom. You can now begin using ChatGPT.

The chat interface at the bottom is where you give ChatGPT instructions, called prompts. ChatGPT responds to the prompts you give it – questions, instructions, and conversational text – and gives you human-like responses as output. 

Think of it like talking to an enthusiastic intern or virtual assistant with the brain of a supercomputer. Take some time to play around with it. Ask it to tell you a joke, plan a trip itinerary, or make a recipe. 

As you get more used to it, try experimenting with having it do things you do in your day-to-day as an HR manager, like write an email invite to an interview. The more detail and context you give it, the better the output will be.

ChatGPT Prompt: I’m an HR manager at a tech startup and I’m hiring for a content manager. The role requires 5+ years of experience, familiarity with SEO best practices, and proficiency with GA4. Write me an email template following up with a candidate who made it to the first round of interviews.

The output it gives you may seem generic, but with just a little fine-tuning you can build ChatGPT in your HR processes and save you hours of work.

Step 4: Provide feedback (optional)

One of the best things about ChatGPT is how it continually improves its output based on the feedback you give it.

For example, if you need something more specific in the interview invitation email, you can tell ChatGPT to change it accordingly.

You can make it shorter.

ChatGPT Prompt: Condense to half the length.

Or give it different tones of voice.

ChatGPT Prompt: Rewrite the email to sound more friendly and engaging.

Or even have ChatGPT adopt different roles and personas to whatever you need it to be – a marketer, a CEO, a researcher, or a sales associate, etc.

ChatGPT Prompt: Write the email as the CMO at my company.

How to use ChatGPT for resume screening: a step-by-step guide

Now that you have an OpenAI account and have some practice with ChatGPT, it’s time to get to the good part: making an AI-powered resume screening process to choose the best candidates and save your bacon in time for the meeting.

In this hypothetical example, you have five resumes to choose from. You need to scan and sort through all of them in a hurry, and pick out the candidates that are the best fit for the role. 

ChatGPT can automate the candidate shortlisting faster than you could on your own. The process is simple, and can all be done on the same screen.

Step 1: Provide the job description

First, copy and paste the full job description into ChatGPT. This will give ChatGPT the criteria it needs for candidate evaluation.

This tutorial will use Workable’s content manager job description as an example. Or, you can create your own job description using the Workable job description generator.

ChatGPT Prompt: I’m hiring for a content manager, and I need your help ranking and analyzing the resumes. Here is the job description for the role I’m hiring for, please read and save it and say “Done.”, nothing else.

{{Insert job description}}

Step 2: Upload or copy resumes

Next, upload and paste the resumes you want to screen in the same conversation. 

Keep in mind that ChatGPT can only process so much information at a time. If you overload it, it’ll get confused or spit out inaccurate information. If you need to screen more than a handful of resumes, consider uploading them in batches, five at a time.

ChatGPT Prompt: Here are the resumes I want to screen. When you’ve read and saved all of them, say “Done.”, nothing else.

{{Insert resume #1}}

{{Insert resume #2}}

{{Insert resume #3}}

{{Insert resume #4}}

{{Insert resume #5, 6, 7…}}

Step 3: Ask ChatGPT to rank resumes

When all the resumes are loaded up, the next step is to use ChatGPT for candidate evaluation. Ask ChatGPT to rank the resumes in order from least to most qualified. ChatGPT will then sort, analyze, and rank the resumes against the job description you gave it earlier.

Note: You can get a more reliable response if you ask ChatGPT to explain its reasoning when using ChatGPT AI for resume screening.

ChatGPT Prompt: Rank the following resumes from most qualified (1) to least qualified (5) based on the requirements stated in the job description. For each resume, provide a brief explanation justifying the ranking.

Step 4: Get a detailed analysis (optional)

From here, you can do a deeper dive into each candidate’s profile using ChatGPT automated candidate evaluation. ChatGPT will highlight any qualifications or experiences that make them a good fit for the role.

That can give you something to go on when you have to explain to your leadership team who you think should be selected for the next stage of interviews, and why.

ChatGPT Prompt: Based on the job description, identify the relevant experience from [candidate name]’s resume that makes them qualified or unqualified for this role. Provide specific examples from their work history.

Step 5: Evaluate skills match

 If you want to, you can take things a step further and analyze their technical skills. A content manager might need a working knowledge of technical SEO, or how to use your CMS, or understand the lingo and jargon if the content is about technical subjects.

ChatGPT Prompt: Based on the skills and qualifications listed in the job description, evaluate whether [candidate name]’s technical skills listed on their resume are a good fit for this role. Provide a rating from 1-10.

Tips for AI skeptics

These AI tools are new, and people are still figuring out how they work. Human resources is a people-oriented field. It’s completely understandable if you’re not convinced how artificial intelligence for resume screening can help you recruit and source the best candidates.

If you’re hesitant or skeptical about whether candidate shortlisting with ChatGPT is the way to go, here are some tips to get you started.

• Start small

Begin with small batches of resumes. Test them out at a small scale to see how ChatGPT-3.5 can streamline the recruitment process for you. Then try it with more resumes at a time, with different job descriptions, and with different roles. 

• Compare results

Compare the results of ChatGPT’s AI-based resume screening recommendations with how you screen resumes manually. See for yourself how it helps you and whether or not it saves you time for more important, high-level work.

• Emphasize time-saving

Think of any low-effort, menial tasks you might have to do as an HR manager, and have ChatGPT do them for you instead. Candidate shortlisting with AI can be a saving grace if you’re short on time and resources. 64% of HR professionals say AI tools help them filter out unqualified candidates.

Limitations of using ChatGPT-3.5 for resume screening

AI can be a wonderful asset to you if you know how to use it, but there are limits to what it can and can’t do. Making the most out of the technology involves understanding its limitations, and how to surpass or work around them. Some limitations you might face when first using artificial intelligence for resume screening are:

• Lack of industry-specific knowledge: May lack the expertise required for certain job roles or industries
• Potential bases: Can inherent biases from training data, leading to unfair evaluations
• Inability to fully understand context: May struggle to comprehend the full context and implied meanings
• Limited evaluation of soft skills: Difficulty accurately assessing soft skills like communication

HR consultant Bryan J. Driscoll advises that before using ChatGPT in your resume screening process, you should carefully align it with current employment laws related to data privacy, data protection, and equal employment.

“There’s also a substantial risk of unintentional bias,” Driscoll says. “ AI systems learn from vast datasets that often contain historical biases. If not carefully managed, these biases can be perpetuated in the screening process, leading to discriminatory outcomes against certain groups of candidates. This not only violates principles of fairness and equality but can also lead to legal repercussions for companies.”

Any output you use from ChatGPT must have human oversight. If you build ChatGPT into your HR processes, make sure that you or another human on your team is checking what it does for accuracy. ChatGPT is there to enhance your candidate screening process, not replace it.

ChatGPT Can be the best thing to happen to your resume screening process

After just a few test runs, you’ll start to see what a ChatGPT recruitment process can do to make life easier as an HR manager. Now you can go into that meeting, plop those resumes down on the table, and say confidently and with conviction that you the right guy to interview next.

Time is a luxury you seldom have as an HR manager. Using ChatGPT-3.5 to rank and evaluate your candidate resumes can make your recruitment process more efficient and free up time for what really matters – connecting with your potential candidates.

If you’re curious about what else AI can do to cut down your workload as a hiring manager, have a look at Workable’s AI-powered HR and recruitment features that can help you with job descriptions, candidate sourcing, and interview questions.

The post Screening resumes with ChatGPT: a step-by-step guide appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

A growing company is good news but it comes with added responsibility. When your staff grows beyond a certain number of employees, the US government starts to require more information about your company as an equal opportunity employer. One of the new things you have to do is file an EEO-1 report.

So what is the EEO-1 report or employer information report? It is a compliance survey mandated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and it’s obligatory for employers who meet certain criteria. EEO-1 reporting is done through the completion of Standard Form 100. To complete this EEO-1 form you store employment data categorized by ethnicity, race, gender and job category.

Complying with EEOC guidelines can be time consuming and EEO mistakes can get you in trouble. It’s a headache but it’s worth remembering that the EEO-1 report is a means of tracking compliance for any equal opportunity employer.

If you are about to file an EEO-1 report for the first time, use these simple steps to get the job done.

Step 1: Determine whether you need to file an EEO-1 report

All employers with 15 or more employees have to comply with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to be considered an equal opportunity employer and avoid discrimination according to protected characteristics. However, you only have to file an actual EEO-1 report if:

• You have 100 or more employees
• You have less than 100 employees but you are owned, affiliated with or controlled by a company with more than 100 employees overall
• You have 50 or more employees AND you have a federal contract/subcontract worth more than $50,000
• You have 50 or more employees AND you act as an issuing and paying agent for US Savings Bonds OR serve as a depository of government funds

The Standard form 100 can be completed by all types of employers. Keep in mind that if you have 50 or more employees but you are exempt under regulation 41 CFR 60-1.5, you don’t have to file an EEO-1 report. You are also excluded if you’re located in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands or other US Protectorates.

Step 2: Learn the basics of the EEO statement

The annual deadline for submission of an EEO-1 report is September 30. Sometimes an extension may be given officially by the EEOC or you can request a one time 30-day extension.

The EEOC states that online submission of EEO-1 data is preferable in an effort to reduce paperwork (Government paperwork elimination act of 1998). Paper reports will be accepted only upon request and approval. You can check the annual survey mailout memorandum for the website, telephone number or address from which you can get a copy of the prescribed EEO-1 data file.

Employers who operate in one location, as one establishment, are referred to as “single-establishment” employers and are obliged to file a single EEO-1 report.

Employers who operate as more than one establishment are referred to as “multi-establishment” employers. They must file the following reports:

• One report for the company’s headquarters (Type 3)
• One report for each establishment with 50 or more employees (Type 4)
• One list of establishments with less than 50 employees including a data grid on their employees by race, gender and job category (Type 6) OR a separate report for each of these establishments (Type 8 as per Type 4)
• One consolidated report (Type 2)

Be sure to check the EEOC Factsheet for more detailed information.

If you have questions pertaining to a specific situation, you may find help in the FAQ section. A checklist for the whole process can be extremely helpful.

Step 3: Register as a first-time filer

In order to file the report you need a Login ID and password. To receive these, the EEOC requires you to register for a first time submission. Completing this form serves as an application for credentials. It will also help you determine whether you are obliged to register as a first time filer.

Make sure you do this well in advance as it will take you some time to establish a procedure for recording data and completing the standard form 100.

Step 4: Collect the data for your EEO-1 report

Employment data can refer to any pay period from July to September. Generally, self-identification by employees is preferable to ensure the accuracy of data. A procedure to conduct this employee survey, allowing for ample time for everyone to respond, is essential. Make sure you provide self-identification forms to the employees and that they are collected in time. The headquarters or parent company must collect all forms from the establishments. In cases where employees refuse to identify themselves, the employer is allowed to complete the data on their behalf by records or visual observation (in the case of race).

All employees regardless of their status (e.g. part-time vs full-time) must be included in the report. The job classification is as follows:

• Executive/Senior Level Officials and Managers
• First/Mid Level Officials and Managers
• Professionals
• Technicians
• Sales Workers
• Administrative Support Workers
• Craft Workers
• Operatives
• Laborers and Helpers
• Service Workers

Make sure that you have a clear understanding of these EEO-1 categories to avoid misclassifying an employee.

For race categories you can consult the appendix of the official EEOC instruction booklet where there are instructions for classifying employees according to race. The categories used are:

• Hispanic or Latino
• White (Not Hispanic or Latino)
• Black or African American (Not Hispanic or Latino)
• Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (Not Hispanic or Latino)
• Asian (Not Hispanic or Latino)
• American Indian or Alaska Native (Not Hispanic or Latino)
• Two or More Races (Not Hispanic or Latino)

Generally, the instruction booklet can help you gain a better understanding of the different EEO-1 reporting requirements.

Note that you need to record employment data only. The EEO-1 report doesn’t require you to submit any data regarding candidates from your hiring process. See step 7 if you are wondering about the usefulness of applicant data.

Step 5: Prepare and submit the EEO-1 report

You can find a full sample of the report here. Note that the job and race classifications appear by default in the report. Your preparation must be done according to those guidelines. After you have collected self-identification data by employees, you can begin to list them by establishment, race/ethnicity, gender and job category (every employee should appear only once in the EEO-1 report). Double-check your data. If you are a multi-establishment company, remember that the number of employees in the consolidated report must equal the sum of employees in the Type 3, 4 and 6 or 8 reports.

You can submit your completed report through the EEO-1 Online Filing System or through other methods approved by the EEOC.

The EEOC guidelines make a special mention of the “certify report” button. Do not forget to press it, otherwise your report will not be submitted.

Step 6: Track changes in EEO-1 reporting requirements

Recently, the EEOC proposed changes that expand the EEO-1 categories that employers must report. From 2017, the EEOC may require EEO-1 filers to submit compensation data (W-2 earnings and hours worked) as part of their EEO-1 report. You can find more information, as well as a comment section that is in effect until April 1, here.

Make sure you keep abreast of the EEOC decisions. Filing an incomplete or inaccurate report may have serious consequences such as fines or the termination of federal contracts for contractors and the banning of future agreements.

Step 7: Expand your data for complete EEO compliance

Overall EEO compliance should not be left to chance. Being compliant as an equal opportunity employer largely depends on the systematic recording and storage of data.  Especially if you are a federal contractor, the recording of applicant data is typically part of a mandatory internal audit and reporting system for your affirmative action plan.

For any equal opportunity employer, it can be useful to have a detailed view of the hiring process. For example, if an employer realizes that a recent job opening has attracted only male white candidates under 40 years old, this might mean there is a problem with the content of the job ad. This can mean the employer is unwittingly breaking the law. Analyzing applicant data can help you quickly correct mistakes that could otherwise land you in court. Spreadsheets may serve this purpose. However, if you want to save time and avoid mistakes you can use an Applicant Tracking Systems like Workable, where EEO reporting features are fully integrated and can be easily activated.

Further Reading

• What is EEO?

The post How to file an EEO-1 report appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

While the core of those challenges may be recognizable – even common – how they happen in the first place is usually not. Being stuck between a rock and a hard place is never somewhere you want to find yourself, but contrary to popular belief, it’s a privilege to be there. 

It’s an invaluable lesson that puts us at the crossroads of what is right and what is easy. 

And that’s where FishingBooker found itself in July of 2023.

As the biggest online travel company that specializes in organizing fishing trips worldwide, our goal is to make it possible for everyone to access enjoyable fishing experiences, anywhere. 

We’ve been on that mission for over a decade with successes and failures always coming hand in hand. 

But the summer of 2023 brought about a ship-horn-sounding wake-up call that FishingBookers now known as “The Reset.”

The path that led to reset

Every business in the world felt the chaotic effect of the COVID pandemic, and FishingBooker was no exception. We grew substantially over those couple of years, and as a result, our ideas and our staff were also getting bigger. 

Success comes with incredible perks, but it’s easy to forget its challenges. 

We still talked about the importance of improving our path, processes, and decisions, but we missed the changes in the bigger picture because we followed a charted road. 

In other words, we became comfortable in our success without really questioning everything it brought.

As we entered 2023, the landscape started shifting. FishingBooker’s mission and vision became blurry to the people of FishingBooker, which had a ripple effect through every aspect of our work. 

This lack of a clear understanding of the company’s direction was the foundation for all other challenges.

Insufficient open communication between different teams led to the creation of silos, in which everyone was doing their job, but there was rarely much contact, let alone cross-team cooperation.

These changes saw the growth of our ideas and personnel start to outweigh the growth of the company as a whole, directly endangering our future. 

It was time for hard questions, candid feedback, and shifting our focus to what mattered, not what we were used to. This is where the idea of the Reset came in.

The first steps – the good, the bad, and the ugly: feedback

The core of the Reset was to go back to the drawing board to rediscover our mission and values, and to reexamine what worked and what didn’t in our business approach. 

This was no easy feat, and it started as so many great discussions do – with candid feedback and uncomfortable conversations.

FishingBooker’s leadership came together for the first Team Lead Summer Retreat in July 2023. 

In the days that followed, we shared our experiences and ideas on how to develop a growth mindset within each team, what was holding them back from doing their best work, and what steps needed to be taken to overcome the autopilot mode we were struggling with.

Getting on the same page is no small feat, but the first step was identifying the stumbling blocks – the unquestioned and ultimately unsustainable growth that the company experienced in the previous years, as well as the lack of clear mission and communication around it. 

The comfort zone we sailed in was cushioning us for too long and, if we didn’t change course, we were set for a brutal wake-up call. 

Developing a growth mindset

It all came down to needing to reframe what truly mattered – our mission and our goals. Our mission – Fishing trips made easy – remained our guide. 

And to achieve this, the priorities were to make our platform lightning-fast and ensure a seamless user experience for both our captains and customers. 

Achieving these goals required fully focusing on impactful actions and execution with the highest quality standards. 

The recipe for making this happen included:

• Focusing on impact, not ego – replacing the “this is how we always do things” approach with initiatives that would drive the growth of the platform.
• Breaking the team silos – understanding the power of bringing together teams with different perspectives and specialties to usher in a more holistic approach to our initiatives. 
• Over-communication – learning from previous communication failures and applying those lessons to over-communicate the company’s direction, mission, and goals, giving a clearer picture of how every employee can impact them in a meaningful way.
• Continual improvement of FishingBooker’s culture is essential – ensuring that employees’ needs are taken care of is the only way to ensure sustainable growth and success. In turn, growing and being profitable are the only ways to keep offering career development opportunities to FishingBookers.

And thus, the balancing act began. Everyone in the company faced fundamental questions about their team’s work and opportunities to elevate it. 

This led to big changes in how we developed processes and workflows at FishingBooker, as well as the establishment of numerous cross-team initiatives that broke the silos barriers. 

The Reset mentality was gaining momentum by the day.

Coming Together

Not to much surprise, the first months of the Reset were scary and uncertain. 

This was expected as it’s a part of every in-between period – when everything old is falling away, and new ideas have not yet taken shape. 

It was becoming clear that if we weren’t aligned, it would be hard to stay sustainable for years to come. 

We focused on continuous direct and open communication between the leadership and teams, ensuring that we had a clear and shared understanding of our vision and goals.

One of the ways we achieved this is by organizing a Winter Leadership Retreat in December 2023. During those two days, we reiterated the importance of the Reset’s lessons and how they affected our goals for 2024. 

Developing a growth mindset takes time and dedication, and the retreat was a big step in that direction. 

Developing a growth mindset takes time and dedication, and the retreat was a big step in that direction. 

Team leads had the opportunity to be in the same room, share their teams’ ideas and achievements, and voice concerns about the path ahead. 

The retreat proved the significance of over-communication among teams, while breaking the silos brought about promising initiatives that had never been tried before. 

It was in this mindset of focus and innovation we moved into 2024.

Post-reset FishingBooker – prioritizing impact, focus, and constant improvement

Change is always hard, but staying stuck between a rock and a hard place is infinitely harder. At FishingBooker, the Reset isn’t an event anymore, but a mindset. 

It’s a shift that more than ever makes us examine our projects in the “effort vs. impact” frame and one that insists on a blend of innovation and analytical, data-driven thinking. 

The post-Reset period made it clear that it was vital to develop a growth mindset on an individual level, learn about how teams in the company operate, and find ways to work together toward achieving set goals. 

Prioritizing impact, relentless focus, and constant improvement were the main takeaways from the Reset period – the biggest lesson learned in the past year. 

Prioritizing impact, relentless focus, and constant improvement were the main takeaways from the Reset period – the biggest lesson learned in the past year.

Developing a growth mindset takes time, energy, and perseverance because falling back into old habits is an easy slope to slide down. 

Introducing the Reset at FishingBooker was much more than a business decision, it affected every single person working in the company because it challenged them not to think outside of the box, but to break it altogether.

There are many external factors that we have no control over, but what we do control is our approach to our successes and failures, and how much we learn from them. 

It’s possible that, in the future, we’ll have many more mini-Resets that will equip us for whatever challenges we face next. 

But for now, we focus on impact not ego, and carve our path one decision at a time.

Andrijana has been in love with nature since before she could walk, and she lives to explore the great outdoors whenever she has the chance. Be it traveling to far-off lands, hiking, or mountain climbing, Andrijana loves discovering new places and writing about them. The first time she went fishing with her dad she insisted on returning all the catch into the water. Dad was not pleased. 

Her curiosity about fishing only grew from there, and that’s what brought her to the FishingBooker’s Content Team. For the past 6 years, she’s had the opportunity to learn and write about all things fishing and pair that knowledge with her passion for digital marketing.

The post Resetting for growth: FishingBooker’s approach appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

So the question is, how do you balance the efficiency of AI in talent acquisition with genuine human interaction as a recruiter?

It’s a delicate balance, but achieving that balance between recruitment process automation with human oversight can help you find talent faster and better than ever.

This post will offer actionable insights on how to balance AI in talent acquisition with your human oversight – identify where in the recruitment process AI can be most helpful, and how to get started using it.

Benefits of AI in hiring

AI recruitment tools make life easier for you as a recruiter by automating time-consuming tasks – they take care of the work that takes the most time but produces the least results.

Integrating AI in recruitment allows you to focus on more strategic tasks, and gives you more time to connect with the candidates you shortlist, interview, and hire.

This is a key point: AI should be used to enhance the recruitment process, not replace it.

If you’re new to generative AI tools, there are a few benefits of AI in the hiring process worth considering:

• Efficiency: AI recruitment tools can speed up your initial candidate screenings
• Improved candidate matching: AI tools can analyze large amounts of data and format it in a way that’s easy to use and understand, so you can match candidates to roles more accurately
• Reduced bias: Using AI in your hiring process can help mitigate unconscious biases you might not be fully aware of and focus purely on qualifications and skills-based hiring

Getting started with AI in recruitment

If you haven’t used AI tools before, integrating them into your existing hiring process can seem a little daunting.

Not to worry though. AI recruitment tools aren’t hard to learn – you just need to spend a little time with them. Here’s how you can get started:

Identify your needs

Start by assessing your current recruitment processes. Are there any repetitive administrative tasks that can be easily automated? If you could snap your fingers or wave a wand, what tasks would you train a robot to do for you if you could?

Clearly define your goals. Do you want to improve efficiency in your hiring process? Reduce your time-to-hire?

Knowing what you want to achieve will help you make the most out of these tools. Look at things like sorting resumes, scheduling interviews, and sending follow-up emails.

Choose the right tools

You can train AI recruiting tools to shortlist candidates based on a set of predefined criteria you set. That right there can free up more time for you to engage with the candidates and do your final decision-making.

Implement gradually

Start small. Begin by automating one or two tasks you identified. This way, you can test the tools out for yourself without overwhelming yourself or your team. Measure the results and make any necessary tweaks.

The key to the successful use of AI in talent acquisition is continual testing and improvement. It’s an iterative process.

Train your team

Proper AI onboarding for your recruitment team will help them make the most out of these tools. Organize training sessions to help mitigate any resistance to adoption. Open the floor to getting feedback from your team and find any parts of your AI recruitment workflows that need improvement.

Tasks AI can handle without human intervention

Using AI for automating hiring processes can save you a lot of time and administrative burden when it’s used for repetitive or data-intensive tasks. That allows you more time to build genuine relationships with your candidates.

There are a few places where you can start.

1. Initial resume screening

AI is very good for resume screening and can filter resumes for keywords and qualifications very quickly. That speeds up the initial screening process so that only the most qualified candidates move forward to the next stages.

2. Writing interview questions

Using ChatGPT and Workable AI together can help you make personalized interview questions and even evaluate the best answers. Try out the Workable interview question generator and then edit and fine-tune its output to make the questions more specific to the role.

3. Candidate sourcing

Why reinvent the wheel and start from scratch every time you hire for a new role if you don’t have to?

Integrating AI in recruitment can help you source candidates easily find past applicants, add them to your recruitment pipeline, and improve its decisions based on which candidates did or didn’t make it.

Maintaining human interaction in an AI-driven recruitment process

While AI can be a huge time-saving tool in recruitment, it can’t do your job for you. It’s there to help you and your team, not replace you.

Striking a balance between AI with human interaction is key to building strong relationships with your candidates and ensuring they have a positive experience.

Human-led follow-ups

AI in talent acquisition can handle the initial candidate sourcing and resume screening. You or someone on your team should take over from that point and handle the follow-ups.

Reach out to the shortlisted candidates personally. Having an AI chatbot do that part of the process is a bad idea. People can generally catch onto when they’re talking to an AI chatbot and it rubs them the wrong way.

Follow-up with a personalized email addressing specific points from the candidate’s resume or application. This way, your candidates feel valued and not like a faceless number in an automated system.

Assess culture fit

There are certain things that language learning models (LLMs) can’t evaluate, no matter how sophisticated they are. Soft skills like leadership, initiative, and communication are some of them.

AI can speed up the process of candidate shortlisting, but the final decision should involve the judgment of a human recruitment expert. That can only come from you or someone on your team.

During the interview process, assess the candidates’ communication skills, problem-solving abilities, and alignment with your organization’s culture.

Empathetic feedback

AI tools are designed to be friendly and helpful and to be aligned with human values, but they’re not capable of true empathy. Not yet, anyhow.

Refine the candidate evaluations you get from AI with your own personal insights and constructive criticism. Encourage an open, two-way dialogue where candidates can ask questions and be assured of getting an answer from a person.

Enhancing the candidate experience with AI

Combining both AI efficiency with human oversight can elevate your candidate experience to a new level. Here’s how to make the best out of both.

1. Timely communication

Your AI chatbots can provide instant answers to any common candidate questions. For anything more complicated, specific, or involved, you can delegate to a human recruiter.

Regular updates on the candidate’s application status should be automated if possible. Use AI tools to let your candidates know what’s going on.

2. Personalized feedback

AI can generate personalized feedback to help you prepare assessments. However, that feedback should be supplemented with your own insights and personal notes on the candidates’ performance.

3. Efficient scheduling

Candidates can use AI self-scheduling tools to choose interview times that best fit their schedules. That cuts out a lot of the unnecessary back-and-forth communication, so you can spend more time preparing for the interview itself.

Use AI to make recruiting easier, so you can focus on what’s important

AI hiring tools can handle the drudgery and repetitive tasks, so you and your recruitment team can step in and make the candidate experience more personal and empathetic.

Are you curious about how you can use AI to improve your hiring strategy? Check out Workable’s AI features and start planning on using these tools to set your organization apart.

The post How to use AI for human touch in recruitment appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

GPT-4o democratizes advanced AI by making powerful features accessible to all users, including those using the free version.

Key enhancements include improved language capabilities, faster performance, and the integration of multimodal abilities, allowing the AI to see, hear, and speak.

It also introduces custom GPTs and the Code Interpreter, enhancing practical applications in education, work, and global entrepreneurship.

AI now sees, hears and speak

It’s like your personal assistant for growth, valuable for work and education tasks. 

ChatGPT now can have spatial understanding, reviewing given information in live time and interacting with you during the whole process. It can also watch your screen and provide answers to your queries. 

Here is one of the many examples you can find on the web about its efficiency, and guess what? It’s about job interviews:

5. Interview prep pic.twitter.com/xTYUYe1ezy

— Angry Tom (@AngryTomtweets) May 13, 2024

1. A powerful tool for the hiring process

The integration of GPT-4o can enhance practical aspects of recruiting and hiring processes through several advanced implementations. 

AI in HR helps streamline proactive candidate sourcing. GPT-4o can integrate with hiring platforms and scour social media profiles, professional networks, and other online platforms to identify and engage potential candidates. 

This proactive approach not only widens the talent pool but also ensures that recruiters can reach out to highly suitable candidates even before they apply. 

Furthermore, GPT-4o facilitates real-time collaboration between hiring managers and recruiters by integrating with collaborative tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Trello, ensuring seamless communication and coordination throughout the hiring process.

Additionally, virtual job fairs and career events powered by GPT-4o offer interactive experiences where candidates can engage with AI representatives, attend webinars, and participate in Q&A sessions, making the recruitment process more dynamic and accessible. 

GPT-4o can also provide candidates with detailed feedback reports on their interviews and assessments, helping them understand their strengths and areas for improvement. 

These capabilities make the recruitment process more efficient, personalized, and candidate-centric.

2. Decision making made easier

Automating data analysis with GPT-4o significantly enhances the evaluation of employee performance by efficiently processing large datasets. 

This technology can identify trends and generate detailed reports, providing HR teams with accurate and comprehensive data. By pinpointing areas of strength and opportunities for improvement, GPT-4o ensures that performance management is both objective and data-driven. 

This allows HR teams to make informed decisions that can positively impact overall productivity and employee development.

In addition, the analysis of employee satisfaction surveys is greatly improved with GPT-4o, offering real-time insights into employee morale and engagement. 

By quickly detecting patterns and sentiments within survey responses, HR teams can promptly address any issues that arise. 

With GPT-4o, the decision-making process becomes more efficient and effective, ultimately benefiting the entire organization.

3. Your assistant in meetings

Imagine being in a meeting where discussions are flowing rapidly, ideas are being exchanged, and decisions are being made. In such a scenario, ChatGPT 4o acts as your ever-attentive assistant. 

It listens keenly to the discussions, comprehends the context, and stands ready to provide relevant information at your command.

For instance, if a topic arises that requires data or statistics to support a point, ChatGPT 4o swiftly retrieves the necessary information from internal databases or the web, presenting it to you in a concise and digestible format. 

This capability saves valuable time that would otherwise be spent on manual research, allowing you to stay informed and make well-informed contributions to the conversation along with your HR team.

Moreover, as the meeting progresses, ChatGPT 4o diligently summarizes key points, decisions, and action items, ensuring that nothing gets lost in the midst of complex discussions.

4. Your translator to your discussions

In a globalized world where businesses interact with partners, clients, and colleagues from diverse cultural backgrounds, effective communication can sometimes be hindered by language barriers. 

ChatGPT 4o bridges this gap by serving as your real-time translator during discussions involving multinational participants.

Consider a scenario where you’re leading a virtual meeting with participants from various countries, each speaking different languages. 

With ChatGPT 4o language ceases to be a barrier. As participants speak, ChatGPT 4.0 simultaneously translates their words into the language of your preference, ensuring that everyone in the meeting can understand and contribute effectively.

Moreover, ChatGPT 4o doesn’t just translate words; it captures nuances and cultural sensitivities, ensuring that the essence of the message is preserved across languages. 

Imagine how this technology can help you access new talent pools and collaborate with external resources.

ChatGPT is a seamless technology that can help you work better; it’s your assistant in both personal and professional development. AI integrations in your HR toolkit can maximize the benefits of the technology you use and offer you a significant competitive advantage in your work.

The post Four ways that ChatGPT 4o will improve your HR work appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

By presenting a comprehensive comparison of the best solutions available, our goal is to empower decision-makers to make informed choices that will benefit their organizations in the long run.

Let’s not waste any more time.

Key features to look for in HR payroll software:

When evaluating HR payroll software, consider the following essential features:

• Payroll processing and accuracy: The software should automate payroll calculations, ensuring timely and accurate payments while minimizing errors.
• Employee self-service portal: A user-friendly portal allows employees to access pay stubs, update personal information, and request time off, reducing administrative burden on HR staff.
• Tax compliance and reporting: Look for software that stays up-to-date with federal, state, and local tax regulations, automatically calculating withholdings and generating required reports.
• Integration with other HR systems: Seamless integration with other HR tools, such as time and attendance tracking and benefits administration, enhances efficiency and data consistency.
• Data security and privacy: Ensure the software employs robust security measures to protect sensitive employee and financial data from unauthorized access or breaches.

Payroll software in numbers

Automation in payroll processing has changed the HR landscape, offering substantial cost reductions and error minimization. 

Companies leveraging automated payroll systems report up to an 80% decrease in processing costs, alongside significantly lower error rates, which translates to increased efficiency and accuracy in payroll management​​. 

This shift towards automation is part of a broader trend where 62% of companies now use cloud-based payroll systems, a notable increase from 34.8% in 2019​, according to the Global Payroll Complexity Index​. 

These cloud-based solutions facilitate the seamless management of remote teams and streamline payroll processes across diverse locations, enhancing operational efficiency. 

This strategy allows businesses to navigate the complexities of payroll management while focusing on their core activities, driving overall productivity and compliance.

Top HR payroll software solutions

Let’s explore and compare some of the most prominent payroll software solutions. We will discuss their pros and cons, as well as pricing models.

1. ADP

ADP is a comprehensive HR payroll solution that offers a wide range of features, making it an ideal choice for enterprises. 

With robust functionality, scalability, and excellent customer support, ADP can handle the complex needs of large organizations. 

Pros: Robust functionality, scalability, and excellent customer support.

Cons: Higher cost compared to some competitors

Pricing: Starts at $79 per month plus $4/employee

2. Xero

Xero UK provides intuitive cloud-based accounting solutions tailored for small businesses, streamlining tasks like invoicing, expense monitoring, and payroll management. With a strong reputation among businesses and accountants alike, Xero UK revolutionizes financial management through its cutting-edge offerings.

Pros: User-friendly interface, affordable pricing, and strong integration with other Xero accounting features.

Cons: Limited customization options and fewer advanced features compared to some competitors.

Pricing: Starts at $39 per month for payroll, with additional costs for accounting features.

You can easily integrate ADP and Xero with Workable to manage your payrolls and workforce along with our exceptional recruiting and HR services.

3. Paylocity

Paylocity is a cloud-based HR & payroll software that offers a user-friendly interface, strong customer support, and a robust mobile app. 

It is suitable for mid-sized businesses looking for a comprehensive solution. 

Pros: User-friendly interface, strong customer support, and robust mobile app.

Cons: Higher cost and limited integration options with third-party systems.

Pricing: Customized based on company size and specific needs.

4. Gusto

Gusto is an all-in-one HR & payroll software designed specifically for small businesses. 

It offers easy setup, affordable pricing, and excellent customer support, making it an ideal choice for small business owners. 

Nonetheless, it may have limited scalability for larger enterprises and fewer integrations compared to some competitors.

Pros: Easy to set up and use, affordable pricing, and excellent customer support.

Cons: Limited scalability for larger enterprises and fewer integrations compared to some competitors.

Pricing: Starts at $40 per month plus $6 per employee.

5. Paychex Flex

Paychex Flex is a comprehensive HR & payroll solution that offers a robust feature set, scalability, and strong customer support. 

It is an excellent choice for growing businesses that need a solution that can adapt to their changing needs. 

However, it may come with a higher cost compared to some alternatives and may require a longer setup process.

Pros: Robust feature set, scalability for growing businesses, and strong customer support.

Cons: Higher cost compared to some competitors and a longer setup process.

Pricing: Customized based on company size and specific needs.

6. Rippling

Rippling is an all-in-one HR & payroll software that offers easy-to-use HR and IT tools, strong integration, and good customer support. 

It is suitable for businesses of all sizes looking for a comprehensive solution. 

As a relatively newer player in the market, it may have a smaller customer base compared to more established competitors.

Pros: Easy to use, strong integration with other HR and IT systems, and good customer support.

Cons: Relatively newer player in the market with a smaller customer base compared to established competitors.

Pricing: Custom

7. QuickBooks Payroll

QuickBooks Payroll is a payroll software that integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks accounting, making it an ideal choice for businesses already using QuickBooks. 

It offers a user-friendly interface, affordable pricing, and strong QuickBooks integration. 

However, it may have limited advanced features compared to some competitors and is primarily designed for QuickBooks users.

Pros: User-friendly interface, affordable pricing, and strong integration with QuickBooks accounting.

Cons: Limited advanced features compared to some competitors and primarily designed for small businesses using QuickBooks.

Pricing: Starts at $75 per month plus $6 per employee. 

*Additional discounts may be available periodically for all the aforementioned HR payroll solutions.

Let’s compare the top HR payroll software solutions

Here’s a side-by-side comparison table of the seven HR payroll software solutions, considering factors such as key features, pricing, and customer support.

Factors to consider when choosing an HR payroll software

When selecting an HR payroll software, consider the following factors:

Company size and growth potential: Choose a solution that can scale with your business as it grows.

Industry-specific requirements: Some industries have unique payroll and compliance needs, so look for software that accommodates these requirements.

Budget and ROI: Evaluate the cost of the software against the potential time and cost savings it can provide.

User-friendliness and employee adoption: Select a solution with an intuitive interface to encourage employee adoption and minimize training needs.

Customer support and training resources: Look for software providers that offer robust customer support and training resources to ensure smooth implementation and ongoing success.

The seven software options presented in this article offer a range of capabilities and price points to suit various business requirements. 

Take the time to assess your needs and evaluate your options to find the best fit for your organization.

The post Top HR Payroll software solutions for your company appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

You’ve found your ideal candidate and can’t wait for them to accept your job offer. It’d be great if everyone agreed to join your team, but that doesn’t always happen.

Keeping track of your offers accepted is simple and can help companies assess their ability to entice the best candidates. It shows how effective a company’s talent acquisition strategy is.

What is the definition of offer acceptance rate?

DEFINITION
An offer acceptance rate shows the percentage of candidates who accepted a formal job offer.

Here’s the formula to calculate offer acceptance rate:

In this formula, you should only include final official offers to external candidates. Offers made informally or in different stages of the process don’t usually count towards this metric.

This metric has some flexibility. It’s usually calculated annually but you can also calculate it more frequently if, for example, you’ve had a busy recruiting month. Also, you could calculate job acceptance rate per recruiter, hiring manager or department.

As with every recruiting metric, numbers can be suspect. A 40 percent average offer acceptance rate shows that something is definitely wrong with your talent acquisition strategies. Hopefully, not many companies suffer from this affliction. Even an acceptance rate close to 100 percent could look odd, unless you’re Google or another prestigious company.

Generally, companies aim high with this recruiting metric. An offer acceptance rate above 90 percent can indicate that there’s a good match between a company’s requirements and selected candidates’ expectations. This high offer to acceptance ratio could be the result of good communication, reasonable and competitive offers and good candidate experience.

How to achieve high offer acceptance rates

A good way to tackle low acceptance rates (or preserve high ones) is to understand why candidates turned you down. Here are a few examples:

• They were dissatisfied with the salary or benefits you offered
• They received a better offer elsewhere
• They weren’t sure about leaving their current job
• They were just looking for leverage to negotiate a pay raise in their current job
• They have personal restrictions that prevent them from accepting your offer (e.g. new job’s working hours would get in the way of their family responsibilities)
• They’d have a longer commute
• They didn’t like your company culture or senior leadership
• They didn’t see any real challenge or opportunity in the role
• They had a bad candidate experience

Some reasons, like personal restrictions, are outside your control. Other reasons, like company culture and leadership, aren’t just one person’s responsibility and can be difficult to fix. But, for other reasons, there are remedies.

Generally, you need to answer four questions:

1. Are my job offers competitive?

Benchmarking can help with this. By knowing your competition and their job offer acceptance rates, you can draw conclusions about whether they make better offers than you (and what these offers are). Alongside competitive analysis, aggregated salary data from sources such as Workable’s Salary Estimator AI model, Glassdoor, and Payscale can provide valuable insights.

2. Do I screen candidates correctly?

To answer this question, you may have to rethink your entire screening process. It’s important not to spend time interviewing or extending offers to candidates who aren’t really interested or available. Adding effective screening calls to your process can help. Also, it’d be a good idea to ask interview questions about how much candidates know about your company and the position they’re interviewing for. Their answers can tell you whether they’re serious about your job. You can also encourage candidates to share any concerns or questions during interviews. What they share can indicate what matters to them and whether they’re really considering working at your company.

3. Am I communicating with candidates?

Honesty will go a long way. Candidates want to know the good elements of a job offer. This makes sense; especially if candidates are looking for reasons to leave their current jobs. But, a job offer letter is often not enough to communicate important details. Recruiters and hiring managers can tell candidates what they need to know during interviews, when they’ll explain company culture, career opportunities and their company’s expectations. Communicating any negative points is also important. Candidates need to know any drawbacks to make an informed choice. If, for example, you expect people to work extensive overtime, it’s best to tell them ahead of time. If you accidentally misrepresent things, or are unclear, candidates will be less inclined to accept your job offer.

4. Do I treat candidates well?

Treating candidates well is very important. It’s key to building your employer brand. Positive candidate experience is also the first step towards persuading the best candidates to accept your job offer. If there are unnecessary delays during the process or if interviewers make mistakes, candidates will be less likely to accept an offer. Or worse, they might accept an offer because they need the job, and then they’ll likely turn into disgruntled employees.

Use complementary recruiting metrics

Here are some metrics that can be used alongside offer acceptance rates:

• Days-to-accept: this metric indicates the average number of days it takes for candidates to accept a job offer. Usually, you could wait a couple of days for an acceptance to come. But, if a week goes by before you hear from a candidate, then you might need to rethink how clear or attractive your offer is. A possible solution: ask candidates to send their reply within a specific timeframe (four or five days is usually appropriate).

• No-show rate: this metric indicates the percentage of candidates who accepted a job offer but didn’t show up on their first day (excluding emergency reasons). Some candidates might accept your offer before they have finished interviewing with other companies. Then, they might come across a better offer. It’s not ideal, but it happens. If your no-show rate is high, it might mean your hiring team has a problem evaluating candidates’ motivation for the job. In that case, it’d be a good idea to rethink your interview questions (Check out our latest list with the best interview questions to ask).

The post How to measure (and improve) your offer acceptance rate appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

• What is the offer acceptance rate metric?
• How do you measure an offer acceptance rate?
• What’s a good benchmark for offer acceptance rate?
• How do you improve your offer acceptance rate?
• What is the “Reasons Offers are Being Accepted” metric?
• Why should we measure “Reasons Offers are Being Accepted”?
• What is the “Reasons Offers are Being Rejected” metric?

What is the offer acceptance rate metric?

Offer acceptance rate (OAR) shows what percentage of candidates accepted your job offer. This metric indicates how attractive and competitive your job offers are. If your OAR starts declining, then your team won’t hire the candidates they want. A low OAR could lead you to rethink your jobs salary ranges or try new ways of communicating with candidates.

How do you measure an offer acceptance rate?

Here’s the formula to measure your offer acceptance rate (OAR):

What’s a good benchmark for offer acceptance rate?

Aim high when it comes to offer acceptance rate (OAR.) An offer acceptance rate above 90 percent indicates that there’s a good match between a company’s requirements and candidates’ expectations.

To get valuable insight, calculate your OAR correctly. For example, imagine you want to include formal offers in your calculations. Yet, hiring managers usually extend verbal, informal offers first. Candidates who reject these verbal offers (which should still be counted against your OAR) don’t reach the point of receiving formal offers at all, thus skewing your results. Be consistent in how you measure your OAR and communicate your methodology to hiring teams.

How do you improve your offer acceptance rate?

To improve your offer acceptance rate, ask candidates why they rejected your job offers through a candidate experience survey. Their feedback will help you reshape your job offers and improve your OAR. Here are a few ways to address common issues:

• Ensure your job offers are competitive. Research benefits and salaries through tools like Workable’s Salary Estimator AI model, Glassdoor, and PayScale.com to ensure your offers are on par with industry standards.
• Communicate with candidates effectively. Your OAR could be low because you aren’t attracting the most relevant candidates. Ask candidates about their salary expectations and motivation in applying for the job early on over a screening call.
• Discuss any issues during the interview. Candidates may face various issues that prevent them from accepting a job (e.g. long commute, inflexible hours.) Address those issues during the interview, by communicating any policies on flexible hours, remote work or relocation opportunities.
• Be clear and consistent about the job. For example, if you mention the job is at the company’s headquarters in the job ad, the final offer shouldn’t be for a position at a company branch.
• Mind your candidate experience. Positive candidate experience is the first step towards persuading the best candidates to accept your job offer. It shows you are a respectful employer that values employees.
• Introduce your team to candidates. Potential coworkers matter when considering a job offer, as everyone wants to work with people who will make them feel challenged and comfortable. Talk about your team or take your finalist to meet your team members in person.

What is the “Reasons Offers are Being Accepted” metric?

This metric tracks the primary reasons candidates give for accepting your job offers. To measure the “Reasons Offers are Being Accepted” metric, ask your new hires why they accepted your job through your candidate experience survey. It’s best to use an open-ended question to gain more personalized insight. When you have enough data, group answers under a few useful categories (e.g. competitive salary, challenging job.)

Why should we measure “Reasons Offers are Being Accepted”?

The “Reasons Offers are Being Accepted” metric indicates what areas your candidates find most important when they consider accepting a job offer at your company. Here are two examples of ways to use this knowledge:

• Prioritize elements that matter. For example, if your new hires’ top reason for accepting your job offer is your benefits package, you can use that to enhance your employer brand (e.g. by displaying your benefits prominently on your careers page) or attract more qualified candidates (e.g. by mentioning benefits in your job ads.)
• Inform your team’s strategy for closing candidates. Your hiring team sells job openings to the best candidates. Knowing what most candidates value can help them deliver a more effective pitch.

What is the “Reasons Offers are Being Rejected” metric?

The “Reasons Offers are Being Accepted” metric tracks the primary reasons candidates give for rejecting your job offers. This metric offers insight into what you can do to ensure your best candidates accept your offers.

You could measure the reasons offers are being rejected in various ways:

• Check your candidates’ communication with your hiring team. Some candidates may state a reason for rejecting your job offer in their rejection email or mention a concern during offer negotiations.
• Ask candidates to complete an anonymous candidate experience survey. Use open-ended questions to get the most descriptive responses (e.g. What are the two most important reasons for you rejecting our job offer?)
• Track feedback on social media. Candidates may indicate why they rejected your job offer online. Compile comments to gain actionable insight.

More Recruiting Metrics FAQs:

• Intro to Recruiting Metrics
• Recruiting costs FAQ: Budget and cost per hire
• Time to fill and time to hire metrics FAQ
• Recruitment process effectiveness metrics
• Candidate experience metrics FAQ

The post Job offer acceptance rate metrics FAQ appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

You’re right that Heidi absolutely has the right to tell all her coworkers her salary. And it’s good that you know this because a shocking number of companies make rules forbidding employees from sharing their salaries and then end up in hot water.

But she doesn’t have the right to demand that other employees share their salaries with her. She can ask, but they don’t have to say. And if she badgers them, as you say, it makes for a very unpleasant workplace.

So, how to handle it without stepping over the line? Here are some suggestions.

1. Have a meeting with her and a witness

Sit down with Heidi and make it very clear that she is allowed to discuss her salary but that she’s annoying her coworkers. While she can talk about her pay to her heart’s content, she cannot annoy her coworkers into talking and you consider that behavior bullying.

The reason for the witness is you don’t want her to turn around and claim that you forbade her from talking about her salary. Tell her that some people (most people) are uncomfortable talking about their salaries. Perhaps inform her that about 40% of people don’t even share their salary with their live-in partner or spouse! They of course aren’t going to share that information with a coworker.

She may likely argue that’s all the more reason to encourage her coworkers to talk about salaries. That culture of lips being sealed around salaries does need to change. That may be true, depending on who you talk to. But it’s not appropriate to run that campaign in the office because it’s making people uncomfortable.

Note: Learn more about salary transparency and why it matters.

2. Remind everyone of their rights

Depending on your working environment, you may wish to send out an email to everyone or post a reminder in the break room that states, “Under the National Labor Relations Act, employees are free to discuss their working conditions, including salary. However, you are under no obligation to discuss your salary with anyone and the company will not reveal that information for you. We value your privacy.”

Of course, you can run that by your local attorney to make sure there aren’t any laws you are violating. Technically, you can reveal everyone’s salary, but most businesses don’t want to do that, and most people don’t want their salaries revealed.

3. Follow up consistently

If this doesn’t resolve your issue, you’ll need to readdress the issue with Heidi, but this time around you are not going to talk about salary; you are only going to talk about annoying and bullying behavior. Why? Because salary is simply a red herring. It’s her inability to take no for an answer that causes the problem.

If she constantly asked people about their diets, their personal lives, or where they buy their shoes, it would be equally annoying. Use phrases like, “The other employees don’t appreciate it when you pressure them to reveal private information,” and “Jane said no to your request to discuss salary, so you need to accept that.”

If this doesn’t solve the problem, you’ll need to place her on a performance improvement plan (PIP). Yes, it seems a bit formal, but you’d do the same if it were a different topic. However, because working conditions (and specifically salary) are protected topics of discussion, please consult with your local employment attorney as you write the PIP. You do want to make sure that you are not punishing her for the topic of her annoying questions, but instead, being disruptive to her coworkers and not respecting their wishes to be left alone.

4. Ensure you treat all annoying employees equally

This is a critical step when dealing with situations such as this. If you allow other employees to badger each other or allow general bullying but crack down on Heidi’s request for salary information, she’s going to say her punishment is because it’s about a protected topic (i.e. working conditions) and not because she’s annoying or disruptive.

So keep your eyes and ears open to what else goes on in the breakroom or on Slack or wherever your employees congregate. Make sure you don’t let others get away with bad behavior while you correct Heidi.

And of course, keep good documentation of all this! You’ll need it.

Have an HR or workplace-related question for the Evil HR Lady? Email contact@workable.com with “Evil HR Lady” in the subject heading and it may be featured in an upcoming article!

The post Ask the Evil HR Lady: How do I prevent salary harassment? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Sharing their insights and expertise in the webinar were:

• Max Wesman, VP of Product, Checkr
• TJ Davis, Head of People Operations, BambooHR
• Rob Long, CHRO, Workable
• Trevor Schueren, Product Partner Manager, Workable

The focus of the hour-long webinar was to share insights and expertise on how to build the perfect tech stack to meet the needs of HR teams.

Strapped for time? We’ve pulled together the top seven takeaways for you:

1. Know your needs before buying

Understand your processes first before procuring new technology for your HR tech stack. Map out your current workflows to identify pain points and areas for improvement. Then look for solutions that can address those needs.

“Really take the time. If we’re talking about onboarding, map out your onboarding process. And when I say map out, [I mean] what’s every single touch point that’s going on in your onboarding process? Is it manual? Is it automated? Is it one of those critical touch points that’s really about the employee experience that you need to nail?” – TJ Davis, Head of People Operations, BambooHR

“When you think about optimization, one of the key points I would say is don’t confuse your technology solution for your process.” – TJ Davis, Head of People Operations, BambooHR

2. Prioritize ease of adoption

Ease of use and user adoption are key. Look for tools that are intuitive and easy to implement so that hiring managers and others will actually use them.

“If adoption across your company of your recruitment technology is important, if getting hiring managers involved in hiring, [and] if getting interviewers involved with the tool is important, then work will tend to be a very strong option there.” – Rob Long, CHRO, Workable

“I think of that very much from our user’s point of view, which is HR people, hiring managers. But I think then [about] the ease of use on the candidate side, which we often call candidate experience; it’s so important as well.” – TJ Davis, Head of People Operations, BambooHR

3. Understand your compliance needs

Compliance and regulation requirements may determine some of your tech needs. Industries like healthcare, for example, require background checks, so that would need to be part of your stack.

“We work with certain customers that are in very compliance-heavy industries like healthcare, and so they don’t have a choice when they’re hiring someone new. They have to run a background check, and that has to be part of getting off the ground.” – Max Wesman, VP of Product, Checkr

4. Nail down what you need right now

Core HR tools like an ATS, HCM, background check, and payroll system will meet most companies’ basic needs as they scale to 100-200 employees. After that, you can consider more targeted solutions.

“I think when we think about the core, what do most companies have by the time they’re a hundred employees? Typically most of them are gonna have an HRIS. They’re gonna have an an ATS. They’ll have their background check provider. They’ve got their payroll set up, they’ve got a benefits provider maybe on a platform or a broker.”

“It depends on different things that different people need.” – TJ Davis, Head of People Operations, Bamboo HR

5. Integrations are uber-important

Integrations between tools in your HR tech stack are important, especially if you have a small team. Look for turnkey integrations that transfer data automatically without requiring technical resources to build and maintain them.

“If it’s not an out-of-the-box integration like the one between Workable, Checkr and Bamboo, do you really have the resources internally or the time yourself to try and go and connect an API with a third-party tool? Or will you get support if you have a tech team internally or an IT team to go and build that out?” – Rob Long, CHRO, Workable

6. Look at scaling capabilities

Consider both your current and future needs. Choose tools that can scale with your business but also meet your most pressing needs today. Don’t buy for what you might need in five years at the expense of solving today’s problems.

“Early on in the life cycle of a business, it’s important to find the right partners and ones that can grow with you that have flexibility.” – Max Wesman, VP of Product, Checkr

7. Get recommendations

Get recommendations from peers but evaluate tools for your own needs. While peer advice is helpful, make sure any solutions align with your company’s specific goals, priorities, and pain points.

“Those referrals are a great, great way of creating that initial list of what we want to look at, but do really make sure that they’re a good fit for your business and what you are trying to do right now as well.” – Rob Long, CHRO, Workable

The post The perfect HR tech stack: seven takeaways from a webinar appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

That’s why a structured employee onboarding framework is so critical – it’s more important than onboarding itself.

That’s the 30-60-90 day onboarding framework for you – it’s to provide a consistent, uniform and thorough onboarding experience. It clearly outlines the activities, resources, and expectations for those first three months of an employee’s journey, setting them up for success in their role.

The benefits for the employee are clear – they reach higher productivity in a shorter time (in other words, their ‘time to ramp’ is shorter).

They’re more vividly engaged, they understand what’s expected of them, and they know how to do the work.

For the organization, this results in greater average revenue per employee, lower turnover, and a stronger reputation as an employer that believes in developing their people.

This 30-60-90 day onboarding blueprint is structured in three phases with end goals for each: at the 30-day mark, you’ve set a foundation for that employee.

By the 60-day mark, you’re establishing a clear momentum for the employee to thrive.

And, finally, at the 90-day mark, you’re ensuring that this fully onboarded employee is ready to work autonomously and independently because they’ve learned what they need to know to succeed in their role.

Let’s go into these three stages in depth.

30-day plan: the foundation

We’ll start the 30-60-90 onboarding plan with this famous adage: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

It’s a given that you’ll be spending a fair bit of time during the first 30 days giving job-specific training to your new starters. But equally, a key focus should be on embedding them into the company culture and helping them build connections.

Here are some ideas to get started:

1. Designate a work ‘buddy’

This should be someone from the team who isn’t their manager. They can be the go-to person who shows them the ropes and gives advice. As this person will be a peer, rather than a manager, they’ll probably have gone through the same experience themselves so can empathize.

Link up new starters who are in a similar boat to each other. For example, you could set up a dedicated Slack or Teams channel which joiners are part of for their first few weeks.

2. Organize a team lunch

Ideally this can be done together in the same place, but if it’s not possible, you can still do it virtually. Why not send the new starter a voucher for them to order the meal of their choice?

Regardless, you should send them a small reward and note of appreciation after their first week – it’s a nice gesture which will put a smile on their face!

3. Set up casual meetings

Arrange “get to know” meetings with people the new starter will be working closely with. This is not a work-related induction, but more of a social meeting to break the ice and find out about each other. These meetings should be quite casual and don’t need any sort of agenda beforehand.

You can group people together – for example, instead of meeting all the web developers individually, they can be part of the same meeting. At the same time, try to keep the number of people in these chats quite small, perhaps to a maximum of four or five. Any more can make them feel daunting, which is the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve!

Basically, it should feel more like a coffee date, and less like you’re being grilled on a reality show!

4. Set up daily syncs

At this stage, managers should have a quick 10-minute catch-up with the employee at the end of each day, just to see how they’re getting on. Meeting lots of different people can be a little overwhelming, so having a regular chat with the same person each day adds a sense of routine.

5. Keep a finger on their pulse

One constant throughout the 30-60-90 day onboarding plan (and beyond) is wellbeing, so ensure managers are still checking in regularly. Pay particular attention to signs of burnout – it’s not uncommon for employees to push themselves extra hard during these opening few weeks.

6. Ensure a solid training plan

As mentioned earlier, training is very important during this stage of the 90 days plan. If you aren’t giving people the tools they need to be successful, it won’t work out for you or them. Things which should be included within the training plan are:

• Company strategy
• Sales positioning
• Department objectives
• Individual KPIs
• Best practice methods
• Systems and ways of working

7. … and be clear about those KPIs

A quick word on those individual KPIs: ensure you are completely clear on what these are – the employee needs to know three things, exactly:

• what’s expected of them
• how that links into the wider organization goals
• what metrics you’ll be using for their work

Setting expectations properly reduces the chances of confusion later on down the line.

8. Make it a two-way street

When it comes to training, try to make this as interactive as possible. People should be able to ask questions and even make suggestions. When training them for the tasks they’ll be doing, incorporate a mix of different learning methods. There may be some things which they can study and practice in their own time, whereas others may require them to learn on the job or be shown step by step.

If you have an online L&D program in place, select the courses which you think will be most relevant to their job. This tailors their training and saves them from having to scroll through lots of different ones.

9. Keep it fun and engaging!

As for the actual work your new starter will be doing, this can vary based on the role and level of seniority. Try to make it engaging though – enthusiasm levels are normally super high at this stage, so you want to tap into this as much as possible. Perhaps you could set them a list of things to do each week and turn it into a fun challenge with points and prizes?

60-day plan: the momentum

Now you’re at one month in the onboarding plan. Your employee should be mostly familiarized with their work and the company’s processes, but that’s just the first step to success. Here’s what you need to think about in the second month of the 30-60-90 day onboarding plan.

1. Maintain a feedback loop

Feedback is crucial, and it’s a very important way to keep the new starter engaged and focused. Managers should give this on each piece of work. Remember it’s still early days, so don’t expect perfection.

At the same time, employees appreciate honesty so give them constructive feedback, and ask for theirs as well. Is there anything they think should have been done differently in the opening weeks?

2. Check on goal progression

It’s also a good time for managers and employees to have an honest discussion about the goals that were set early on. Does anything need to change? Does the employee feel like there are more things they could take on? Either way, do what you did the first time and communicate clearly.

3. Celebrate the small ‘wins’

It’s also important that people feel appreciated. Make sure you celebrate the small successes. If they work in Customer Service, make a big deal of the first ticket they resolve. If they’re in Marketing, recognise them for that first blog they wrote.

This could be a formal shoutout on the recognition platform you use, or even just a round of applause during your end of week wrap-up.

Try and link these recognitions to your company values – this is a great way to remind the employee what you stand for. Try to back the recognitions up with a reward as well. By getting a reward for displaying the right behaviors or for good work, it gives them a morale boost and a sense of gratitude.

You’re now building on the learning

Remember, learning doesn’t just stop after day 30 – but now it continues with the act of building. This is where you trust them to do more independent work and go deeper into their responsibilities. Normally, there are two routes you can take.

If there’s a specific project that was earmarked for them before they joined, allow them to run with this.

If the type of work they do is naturally quite repetitive – perhaps they work on the tills at a shop – ask them to come up with ideas to improve some aspect of what you do. This is a great way to keep them engaged and shows that you see them as a valuable part of the business. It also usually involves them needing to collaborate with other departments, which brings its own benefits in terms of relationship building.

Whichever one of the two routes you choose, ask them to follow the Plan, Develop, Implement model. Here’s a quick breakdown.

Plan

This is where the employee does their research, asks the questions they think are relevant, and puts together a strategy for what they think needs to be done. Give them the time, space and tools to do this.

Develop

Once the plan has been put together, the employee uses it to develop a solution. For example, if they’re in Business Development, maybe they have a better way to reach out to prospects. They can get these new ideas together and test them internally.

Implement

Now the employee takes the results from their tests and puts them into practice. This is where they’ll feel like they’re doing what they were brought in to do, and managers will be able to judge how far along they are.

At all times, managers should ensure help is available if needed – but allow the employee to take control.

Now, we mentioned how this type of task allows employees to build relationships with others in the company. But there’s other ways to do this as well, for example organizing social events. For example, Perkbox has monthly ‘Meet ‘n’ Greet’ events which are an opportunity for new starters to meet with people in social settings.

90-day plan: the independence

This last phase of the 30-60-90 day onboarding plan should help employees feel like they’re a fully-fledged part of the business. All being well, by the end of this period, they should have less of a ‘new starter’ feeling.

The employee should by now be nicely bedded in from a cultural point of view. This doesn’t necessarily mean they run to the karaoke machine on nights out – but they should feel comfortable with their colleagues. If they still seem a little uncomfortable, it’s the manager’s job to get to the bottom of this.

1. Assign full ownership and independence

A core measure of success at the 90-day stage is whether or not you’re able to grant full ownership to the employee. You should be able to confidently assign them projects without walking them through the steps of how to see it through to completion.

At the 90-day mark, that employee is equipped with the knowledge – and experience – to independently make decisions to move the project forward. They no longer will need to ‘check in’ with their manager or seek approval or validation before moving forward.

Of course, there’s always that question of making a mistake – can you trust your employee to do the right thing to ensure success? Well, that’s what onboarding is for in the first place – when you can trust your employees, you’ve onboarded them successfully.

2. Conduct a performance review

What else? Performance reviews. While you no longer require the employee to be checking in with you or other colleagues to get a job done, you do check in with them at the end in the performance review.

This is your opportunity to go through their performance, both in the first 90 days and in the long-term, and identify areas where they can do better and shine a light on areas where they’ve done well. In fact, it’s not simply a review – think of it as a refinement.

3. Ask them about their onboarding experience

A little different from the performance review is a simple check-in with HR. Ask the employee how they’ve found the onboarding process to date. Is there anything they feel should’ve been done differently?

Not only does this help you improve the process for the future, but it shows the employee you take their opinions seriously.

4. Identify their passions – and support them

Hopefully by now they can also let some of their other passions shine through. For example, do you have any Employee Resource Groups or social clubs that appeal to them? Send a reminder of these and encourage them to put themselves forward if they want.

Often, people who join up with these things early on in their time at a company, develop really strong connections with colleagues. This can only be a good thing from a retention point of view!

Those first three months are key for success

Those first 90 days of an employee’s journey within an organization, a new strategy, a different process, etc., sets the tone for their entire tenure going forward. A bad onboarding plan has obvious adverse effects – someone who isn’t properly familiarized with their roles won’t be able to rise to expectations. They get frustrated, demoralized, and worst of all, toxic. Cue ‘quiet quitting’, costly turnovers, and overall disenchantment.

Think of it as keeping a car properly maintained. When every part of the car is well-maintained, the engine is tuned regularly, the tires are leveled, the exterior is washed, the interior deep-cleaned, then the car lasts longer and performs better.

Your organization is your ‘car’ – keep it attuned, updated and optimized with a well-structured, 30-60-90 day onboarding plan for every step of the way, and it’ll pay dividends for you in the long run.

The post Your 30-60-90 day onboarding plan: set your people for success appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

It’s not just the cost. Organizational knowledge and familiarity take a hit. Employee morale takes a downturn, as remaining colleagues pick up the leftover pieces left behind. Overall productivity is affected in all this.

A Work Institute report finds that 78% of the reasons employees quit are preventable. What if you could use AI to help in all this? Yes – there are perpetually evolving digital solutions that can predict, analyze and influence employee retention rates.

Read more about AI at work:

Exploring the future of jobs and the positive impact of AI

Are you part of the never-ending debates on AI job replacement at your workplace...

AI in finance could free up at least four hours per week

Finance teams in SMBs often spend significant hours each week chasing down docum...

The role of AI in talent acquisition: a study for recruiters

Artificial intelligence is taking the recruitment world by storm. Yet, many peop...

Understanding employee attrition retention

Why do people leave their jobs? First, they may have found a better-paying position elsewhere. Work-life balance is a factor as well; perhaps an employee wants more flexibility in their work. In another opportunity, they can be better parents, or are able to focus on non-work things like training for a marathon or volunteering in their local community.

Or, perhaps, their career trajectory hasn’t gone the way they hoped – and they see better paths elsewhere. Finally, the company’s culture may not be the right fit.

Normally, you would find out all this information via exit interviews, employee surveys, and periodic reviews.

However, AI can enhance this process by continuously analyzing a broader spectrum of employee data points. This includes performance reviews and engagement surveys to social media behavior and communication patterns.

Your AI bot can comb through all this on a regular basis and not only identify what influences employee attrition and also how these factors interact in complex ways..

Applications of AI in employee retention

Let’s look at the different ways in which you can use AI in employee retention.

1. Predictive analytics

Predictive analytics is one of AI’s most powerful contributions to HR, enabling proactive talent management by forecasting employee behavior. Through sophisticated machine learning models, organizations can analyze historical and real-time data, such as:

• employee demographics
• performance metrics
• engagement survey results

These data points help identify early warning signs that signal an employee might be considering leaving.

By understanding these patterns, HR teams can implement targeted interventions to address potential issues before they escalate.

Real-world application

IBM’s AI-powered predictive attrition model is a notable example of how predictive analytics can revolutionize retention strategies.

With a reported accuracy of 95% in identifying employees at risk of leaving, this tool helps HR departments design personalized retention plans tailored to individual employee needs. This can ultimately reduce turnover rates and boosting engagement.

Extended insight

Predictive analytics shifts HR from a reactive approach to a proactive one that prioritizes employee well-being.

This capability enables organizations to cultivate a healthier work culture by addressing employee concerns and aligning them with strategic business goals.

2. Sentiment analysis

Sentiment analysis, powered by natural language processing (NLP), provides organizations with a deeper understanding of employee morale and satisfaction.

By processing and interpreting unstructured data, such as feedback from internal communications, emails, social media posts, and review sites, sentiment analysis can pinpoint recurrent themes that affect employee engagement.

Real-world application

Amazon utilizes AI-based sentiment analysis tools to monitor employee satisfaction across its workforce.

By analyzing comments from internal communication channels and employee surveys, Amazon can quickly identify areas of concern and implement targeted solutions. Through this, Amazon ensures that employee feedback is integrated into strategic decision-making.

Extended insight

Sentiment analysis empowers HR departments to address the nuanced factors that contribute to employee satisfaction.

By continually monitoring sentiment trends, organizations can foster a transparent environment where employee voices are not only heard but also acted upon.

This proactive approach not only helps in mitigating discontent but also strengthens trust and alignment between employees and management.

3. Personalized employee experiences

The customization of employee experiences through AI is not just a tech upgrade but transforms how human resources nurture talent. Companies can use AI to analyze each employee’s performance data, preferences, and feedback to offer tailored career development paths.

This targeted approach can include recommending specific training programs that align with their skills gap, suggesting career advancements based on their success patterns, or even proposing suitable mentors within the organization who match their career aspirations and style.

There’s value in building career paths for your employees – Workable’s Great Discontent survey in 2023 found that 22% of workers say career opportunities are a factor in choosing to move jobs, and that’s up from 15.8% two years earlier. Meanwhile, when asked what could be better about their current job, 23.3% pointed to training and development – up from 20.9% in 2021.

Real-world application

Cigna is one example of AI use in career pathing and internal talent mobility. Faced with hiring for three to five thousand positions on a daily basis, the company realized its own employees were not properly informed of these opportunities within their teams.

To solve this problem, Cigna picked an AI-supported HR platform to surface open roles with its own employees in a setup described by its director of product marketing as a Netflix-style recommendation system based on user data.

Extended insight

Utilizing AI for career pathing allows HR departments to act more like career coaches than administrative bodies, providing employees with a more engaging and supportive work environment. This not only enhances the employee experience but also promotes a culture of continuous improvement and personal development.

You can also use ChatGPT to build a career development plan for your employees – complete with ready-to-use prompts.

4. Automation and employee support

AI-powered tools such as chatbots and virtual assistants represent a significant leap in providing real-time support to employees. These AI solutions can handle a wide range of inquiries related to HR policies, benefits, payroll queries, and job responsibilities efficiently, allowing HR professionals to focus on more complex issues.

This immediate assistance helps in reducing the turnaround time for query resolution, thereby enhancing employee satisfaction and operational efficiency.

Real-world example

As a 300-person company across three different major hubs (Boston, London, Athens) and sales and support on the ground in multiple other locations and time zones around the world, Workable’s HR team addresses numerous needs and questions on a regular basis.

To step up on its communications via an email, Slack, or even Confluence pages, the HR team built an “HR Workabot” trained on all the data, information, and content in its human resources.

This enables employees to immediately get answers to any question, including when the next holiday is, what benefits they have, how to get their tax documents, and more. The result is a speedier and more engaged workforce that knows it can get an answer to anything it needs.

Extended insight

By automating routine inquiries, AI not only streamlines operations but also collects valuable data on the types of queries being raised.

This data can be analyzed to further refine HR policies and procedures, ensuring they are clearly communicated and effectively meet employee needs.

Moreover, the constant interaction with a responsive AI tool fosters a tech-friendly atmosphere that can accelerate digital transformation across the organization.

Implementing an AI-powered retention framework

There are four fundamental steps when introducing AI into your employee retention strategy.

1. Data collection and integration

The success of any AI system heavily relies on the quality and quantity of the data fed into it.

For HR, this means integrating data across various systems – payroll, performance management, employee engagement, etc. – to create a comprehensive view of each employee.

2. Choosing the right AI tools

The market is replete with AI solutions, each offering different capabilities. Selecting the right tool involves understanding the specific needs of the organization and the problem it aims to solve.

It also requires considering the scalability, integration capabilities, and support offered by the vendor.

3. Ethical considerations

As AI systems are fundamentally driven by data, they are susceptible to the same biases present in their training data.

It’s essential for HR professionals to ensure that the AI tools they use are not only transparent but also regularly audited for bias and fairness.

4. Change management and employee buy-in

Implementing AI in HR processes can evoke concerns about surveillance and job displacement among employees.

Addressing these concerns transparently and highlighting the benefits of AI for employees is crucial for gaining their buy-in and ensuring the successful adoption of AI technologies.

Future trends in AI and employee retention

The future of AI in HR looks promising, with ongoing advancements in machine learning, predictive analytics, and natural language processing.

As these technologies become more sophisticated, they will provide even deeper insights into employee behavior and more refined tools for enhancing employee retention.

The post The role of AI in talent acquisition: a study for recruiters appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Understanding the Pregnant Workers Act

The Pregnant Workers Act addresses issues surrounding pregnancy discrimination and accommodation in the workplace. It mandates that pregnant employees receive fair treatment and reasonable accommodations.

It also emphasizes that discrimination against pregnant employees based on pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions is unlawful sex discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

More on compliance best practices:

Top HR terms any HR professional should know today

Having you here reading this article can mean two things: either you're a new HR...

Upgrade FLSA: legislation vs free market in employment

The Evil HR Lady provides insights on the recent update of the minimum salary fo...

New US overtime regulations set to increase salary thresholds

New US Department of Labor regulations will raise the salary threshold for overt...

Fundamental changes and implications

1. Explicit accommodation requirement

Old PWA: Before the amendments, employers had no explicit federal requirement to provide accommodations for pregnant workers.

New PWA: The amended PWA now explicitly mandates that employers provide reasonable accommodations for pregnant employees, similar to those required for individuals with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

More on compliance best practices:

Top HR terms any HR professional should know today

Having you here reading this article can mean two things: either you're a new HR...

Upgrade FLSA: legislation vs free market in employment

The Evil HR Lady provides insights on the recent update of the minimum salary fo...

Learn the new EEOC changes in the Pregnant Workers Act

The recent Pregnant Workers Act amendments mandate explicit accommodation for pr...

2. Interactive process and reasonable accommodations

Old PWA: While the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) prohibited discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, it did not specify a formal interactive process for determining reasonable accommodations.

New PWA: The amended PWA emphasizes the importance of engaging in an interactive process between employers and pregnant employees to determine suitable accommodations. This collaborative approach ensures that the needs of pregnant workers are adequately addressed.

3. Anti-retaliation

Old PWA: The PDA prohibited discrimination against pregnant employees but did not explicitly address retaliation against employees who requested accommodations.

New PWA: The amended PWA reinforces the prohibition of retaliation against employees who request accommodations or assert their rights under the Act, providing additional protection for pregnant workers.

4. Notice requirements

Old PWA: Before the amendments, employers had no specific federal requirements to inform employees about their rights regarding accommodations for pregnancy-related conditions.

New PWA: The amended PWA requires employers to notify employees about their rights under the Act, including information about the process for requesting accommodations and the protections against retaliation.

5. Clarity and consistency

Old PWA: The lack of clear federal guidance on accommodations for pregnant workers led to inconsistencies in treatment and uncertainty for both employers and employees.

New PWA: The amendments provide clear guidelines and requirements for employers regarding accommodations for pregnant employees, promoting consistency and fairness in the workplace.

Benefits for employers and employees

The Pregnant Workers Act benefits both employers and employees. Employers who comply with the PWA avoid legal repercussions and demonstrate their commitment to workplace equality and fairness.

Pregnant employees receive the necessary accommodations and fair treatment they deserve, improving their health, safety, and productivity.

Enhanced workplace culture: Employers can cultivate a positive workplace culture that prioritizes inclusivity and accommodation, fostering an environment that values the well-being of all employees.

Retention and productivity: Accommodating pregnant workers can lead to higher retention rates and increased productivity as employees feel supported and valued, resulting in improved morale and engagement.

Legal compliance: Adhering to the provisions of the PWA ensures that employers remain compliant with federal anti-discrimination laws, mitigating the risk of costly litigation and reputational damage.

The risks of non-compliance

Non-compliance with the new Pregnant Workers Act (PWA) can result in various penalties and consequences for employers.

Here are some potential repercussions for failing to adhere to the requirements of the new PWA.

1. Legal action and lawsuits

Employees who believe their rights under the PWA have been violated may file complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or pursue legal action against their employer. This can lead to costly litigation, damages, and legal fees for the employer.

2. Monetary damages

If a court finds that an employer has violated the provisions of the PWA, they may be required to pay monetary damages to the affected employee(s). Damages may include back pay, front pay, compensatory damages for emotional distress, and punitive damages in cases of egregious violations.

3. Civil penalties

Employers who violate the PWA may also be subject to civil penalties imposed by the EEOC or other relevant enforcement agencies. These penalties can vary depending on the severity of the violation and may include fines or other sanctions.

4. Injunctive relief

In addition to monetary damages, courts may also issue injunctive relief requiring the employer to take specific actions to come into compliance with the PWA. This could include implementing policies and procedures to prevent future violations and training employees and managers on their obligations under the law.

5. Reputational damage

Non-compliance with the PWA can also result in reputational damage for the employer. Negative publicity surrounding discrimination lawsuits or findings of non-compliance can harm the employer’s brand image and impact its ability to attract and retain customers, clients, and talented employees.

6. Loss of government contracts and benefits

Some employers, particularly those who contract with the government or receive government funding, may risk losing contracts or eligibility for certain benefits if found to violate anti-discrimination laws like the PWA.

7. Monitoring and oversight

Employers who violate the PWA may be subject to increased monitoring and oversight by regulatory agencies, leading to additional scrutiny and potential repercussions for future compliance failures.

Overall, the penalties for non-compliance with the new PWA can be significant in terms of financial costs and reputational harm. Employers must understand their legal obligations and proactively ensure compliance to avoid these consequences.

The post Learn the new EEOC changes in the Pregnant Workers Act appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

These changes were introduced to address concerns about fair compensation for overtime work and to ensure that the law keeps pace with the changing nature of work and employment practices.

The US Department of Labor recently announced changes to the minimum annual salary threshold for overtime pay eligibility. These changes will be implemented in two stages. The first stage will take effect on July 1, 2024, when the threshold will increase from $35,568 to $43,888 per year. The second stage will begin on Jan. 1, 2025, and the threshold will rise to $58,656 annually.

More on compliance best practices:

Top HR terms any HR professional should know today

Having you here reading this article can mean two things: either you're a new HR...

Upgrade FLSA: legislation vs free market in employment

The Evil HR Lady provides insights on the recent update of the minimum salary fo...

Learn the new EEOC changes in the Pregnant Workers Act

The recent Pregnant Workers Act amendments mandate explicit accommodation for pr...

This means that from July 1, 2024, to December 31, 2024, the threshold will be $ 43,888, and from January 1, 2025, onwards, it will be $58,656.

As a result of these changes, many workers and employers across the country will be impacted in significant ways. Let’s take a look at these changes:

1. More people are now eligible for overtime pay

This is because the eligibility threshold has been raised to include more workers. Previously, only workers who earned less than a certain salary threshold were eligible for overtime pay.

This threshold has been raised, which means that more workers, including salaried employees, will now be eligible for overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours per week.

2. The way overtime pay is calculated has changed

Previously, overtime pay was calculated based on a worker’s salary alone. Under the new regulations, overtime pay will be calculated based on a worker’s regular pay rate, which includes bonuses or commissions.

This means that workers who earn more than just a salary will now receive fair compensation for their extra work.

3. Employers are required to follow the new rules

This is not just a bureaucratic change, but a step towards a fairer work environment. It means they will need to update their payroll systems or adjust their contracts to comply with the latest regulations.

Employers who fail to comply could face penalties or legal action. The new rules are designed to ensure that all workers are treated fairly and that the law is being followed.

4. Workers stand to gain financially

The new regulations ensure that workers eligible for overtime pay will receive more money for their extra work, which can significantly boost their income.

This is a positive development for those who put in long hours and deserve fair compensation. It could also prompt employers to foster a healthier work-life balance, reducing the need for excessive overtime and improving employee well-being and productivity.

An opportunity for employers

The new regulations may require companies to make operational changes. However, this presents an excellent opportunity to improve work processes.

Companies may need to hire additional staff or adjust work schedules to avoid excessive overtime. Prioritizing employee satisfaction and engagement may also be necessary to retain their workforce, leading to significant shifts in work organization and management across various companies.

In summary, the changes to the overtime pay law will significantly affect both workers and employers. The new regulations aim to ensure that all workers are treated fairly and receive fair compensation for their extra work.

Employers who fail to comply with the new rules may face penalties or legal action. These changes may also bring about changes to the way companies operate and manage their workforce.

The post Learn the new EEOC changes in the Pregnant Workers Act appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

As we delve into this blurry territory, it’s crucial to understand not just the act, but the implications it carries for HR practices and the overall workplace culture.

Faking leaves is a revamping trend

A post in Reddit – since deleted – by an employee fabricating a paternity leave narrative, complete with borrowed baby bump photos to secure two months off work, opens a Pandora’s box of ethical and operational dilemmas.

In a surprising turn of events, an employee at a large company has admitted to faking his paternity leave. 

Despite not having a girlfriend or any children on the way, he managed to deceive his employer by showing them pictures of a pregnant acquaintance. 

With the leave scheduled for December, the employee started feeling nervous about the consequences of his actions. Although he was prepared to face termination, he regretted the extent to which he had made this deceitful decision.

This case is far from isolated. Across forums, social media, and even whispered in office corridors, stories circulate of employees bending the truth to gain unearned leave or benefits. 

The reddit revelation is not something new. In 2022, an HR professional took to TikTok to reveal a startling revelation about their workplace. She disclosed that within their company, they had encountered not one, not two, but a staggering five incidents involving fake babies. 

@judithfiddler

Fake Baby Fraud. Beware!!! #hrprofessional #hrtrends #fakebaby #hrprofessional #hr #fyp #hrtiktok #goodhr #freemasterclass #cipd #hrinrehab

♬ original sound – HR Mindshift

This trend extends beyond paternity or maternity leave. There are tales of extended sick leaves based on non-existent medical conditions, bereavement leaves for fictional relatives, and mental health breaks leveraged without a shred of truth. 

Each case chips away at the mutual trust foundational to the employer-employee relationship, raising questions about the sustainability of current leave policies and the mechanisms in place to validate claims.

Other lies you may have encountered in the past include the following: 

1. Claiming sudden illness or flu
2. Fabricating a family emergency or crisis
3. Stating car trouble or transportation issues
4. Falsely claiming the death of a distant relative or friend
5. Exaggerating the need for medical consultations or procedures
6. Asserting sudden problems with childcare arrangements
7. Describing home emergencies like burst pipes or power outages
8. Claiming a mental health day without actual mental health concerns
9. Pretending to be summoned for jury duty
10. Using the excuse of a sick pet needing urgent care

These fabrications can be difficult to verify, posing challenges for HR professionals in distinguishing between genuine and deceitful claims.

Ethical and legal implications

The ethical quagmire presented by these deceptions is profound. On one hand, the necessity for compassion and support for employees through genuine life challenges is paramount.

On the other hand, the exploitation of these policies erodes trust, potentially disadvantageous to those with legitimate claims. 

The consequences for employees caught in the act range from termination to legal action, a stark reminder of the risks involved.

Yet, the implications extend beyond individual cases, touching on the very ethos of the workplace. 

A culture of skepticism can emerge, where employers feel compelled to scrutinize every claim, potentially invading privacy and damaging morale. 

The balance between trust and verification becomes a tightrope walk, challenging HR professionals to navigate these waters with both firmness and empathy.

Strategies for prevention and verification

Here are some strategies that you can follow and provide to your company another shield of protection to prevent these cases. Here are some strategies that you can follow and provide to your company, providing another shield of protection to prevent these cases. 

1. Employ future-proof HR policies and data analytics

As the workplace continues to evolve, so too must the policies that govern it. The rise of remote work, the increasing emphasis on mental health, and the changing dynamics of the employer-employee relationship call for a reevaluation of traditional leave policies. 

Future-proofing these policies means not only adapting to the current trends but anticipating the needs and challenges of tomorrow’s workplace.

Innovative approaches, such as flexible leave policies that accommodate the diverse needs of the workforce, can offer a solution. 

These policies, built on the principles of trust and accountability, allow for a more personalized approach to leave, reducing the temptation for deceit by addressing the genuine needs of employees.

Moreover, the integration of data analytics into HR practices can offer insights into patterns of leave requests, identifying potential areas of concern and allowing for proactive adjustments to policies and procedures.

This data-driven approach, combined with a steadfast commitment to ethical practices, can guide HR professionals in crafting policies that are both compassionate and robust, capable of withstanding the challenges of deception.

2. Do periodic check-ins

The introduction of periodic check-ins for long-term leaves, where employees are engaged in conversations about their situation and return-to-work plans, can also serve as a subtle yet effective form of verification. 

These interactions, when handled with care and empathy, can deter misuse by reinforcing the presence of an attentive and caring HR department.

3. Combine trust with verification

The heart of the matter lies in the delicate balance between trust and verification. An overzealous approach to verification can erode the foundation of trust that supports a positive workplace culture, leading to an atmosphere of suspicion and resentment. 

Conversely, a system too lenient opens the floodgates to abuse, undermining the very policies designed to support employee well-being.

HR professionals must, therefore, navigate these waters with a keen sense of fairness and a deep understanding of the human element at play. 

4. Build a culture of integrity

Building a culture of integrity starts with leading by example, where honesty and transparency in HR practices encourage similar behavior across the organization. 

Regular training sessions on the importance of work ethic, the implications of policy abuse, and the value of mutual respect can reinforce these principles.

The battle against the abuse of leave policies is not won through strict enforcement and rigid verification alone.

It is achieved by cultivating a culture of integrity, where mutual respect and understanding form the basis of every policy and interaction. 

As we move forward, let us remember that the strength of our organizations lies in the strength of our people and the values we share.

The post ‘I’m faking my paternity leave’: a Reddit post calls for HR action appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Key security features to look for

When evaluating an HRIS, several security features are paramount. These not only protect against unauthorized access but also ensure that the data remains intact and confidential throughout its lifecycle in the system.

Data encryption

• Encryption at-rest protects data stored on physical or virtual disks from unauthorized access by encrypting the data while it is not actively being used.
• Encryption in-transit safeguards data as it moves between systems, ensuring that intercepted data cannot be read without the appropriate decryption keys.
• Encryption in-use may also be provided, which encrypts data even when it is being processed, providing an additional layer of security.

Compliance with data protection regulations

An HRIS should comply with key data protection regulations relevant to the organization’s location and operations. 

This not only includes GDPR but may also involve local privacy laws and sector-specific regulations like HIPAA in healthcare.

Compliance ensures that the HRIS provider is following best practices for data privacy and security, which helps in protecting against legal and financial repercussions.

Access controls

Effective HRIS systems implement robust role-based access controls (RBAC) that restrict access based on the user’s role within the organization. This means that individuals can only access information that is pertinent to their job functions.

These controls help minimize the risk of data exposure internally and play a crucial role in preventing data leaks.

Each of these features contributes to a secure HRIS environment, ensuring that employee data is protected from both external attacks and internal misuse. As businesses increasingly rely on digital tools for human resources management, the security of these systems cannot be overstated.

This beginning sets the stage for your article by defining the importance of HRIS security, introducing essential concepts, and detailing key security features.

It will help guide your readers through the critical elements to look for when assessing the security of their HRIS provider.

Advanced security practices

While basic security measures are essential, advanced security practices provide additional layers of protection and monitoring that can significantly enhance the robustness of an HRIS. 

These include proactive monitoring and alerts, regular security audits, and enhanced user authentication and secure connections.

Proactive monitoring and alerts

Continuous monitoring involves tracking all activities within the HRIS to identify and react to abnormal behavior or potential security threats promptly. This not only helps in detecting breaches early but also in preventing them.

Security alerts are automated notifications that inform system administrators and security teams about unusual activities. These alerts enable quick response to potential threats, helping to mitigate risks before they escalate.

Regular security audits

Conducting regular technical security audits is crucial for maintaining the integrity of an HRIS. These audits assess the effectiveness of the security measures in place and identify any vulnerabilities or areas for improvement.

Audits can be performed internally by dedicated security red teams or externally by third-party security specialists. Regular reviews ensure compliance with security policies and standards, and they keep security practices up to date with the latest threats.

User authentication and secure connections

Strong user authentication methods, such as two-factor authentication (2FA), biometrics, or single sign-on (SSO), are critical for verifying the identity of users accessing the system. 

These methods help prevent unauthorized access by ensuring that only legitimate users can log in.

Secure connections, typically implemented through TLS protocols, encrypt data exchanged between users and the HRIS. This ensures that data remains private and unaltered during transmission, protecting against interception by malicious actors.

Vendor transparency and trust

Choosing an HRIS provider involves more than just evaluating their product; it also requires assessing the provider’s business practices, particularly their transparency and commitment to security.

Transparency in how an HRIS provider handles security is indicative of their reliability and trustworthiness. Providers should clearly communicate their security measures, policies, and any relevant certifications.

Building trust through open communication

Regular updates from the provider about new security measures, as well as timely disclosures about potential or actual security breaches, are crucial for maintaining trust.

Engaging with providers about their security practices and receiving satisfactory responses demonstrates their commitment to protecting client data.

Evaluating your HRIS provider

When assessing potential HRIS providers, it is essential to perform a thorough evaluation of their security features and practices. Always have in mind that prevention is always better than cure. 

This evaluation helps ensure that the provider can adequately protect sensitive employee data.

Steps to assess a provider’s security

1. Review the security features outlined earlier in this article. Ensure that the provider meets or exceeds these basic and advanced security requirements.
2. Ask specific questions about the provider’s data handling and security practices, including data storage, encryption methods, and how they manage data breaches.
3. Check for independent security certifications like ISO/IEC 27001, which indicate adherence to high security standards.

Questions to ask providers

• What encryption methods do you use for data at rest and in transit?
• How do you handle and respond to data breaches?
• What third-party security audits or certifications do you have?

Red flags in provider security

1. Lack of clear and direct responses to security inquiries.
2. Absence of regular and transparent security audits.
3. No evident compliance with international data protection regulations.

At Workable one of the most compelling testaments to our confidence in our security measures is our use of the Workable HRIS tool.

As a true example of ‘dogfooding,’ we use our platform to store sensitive information such as our employee data. 

We do this not because it’s convenient, but because we trust the controls in place that protect data confidentiality and integrity. 

Remember, the strength of your HRIS security affects not just the operational aspects of your business, but also its moral and legal standing. Choose wisely, act responsibly, and prioritize security in every decision related to your HRIS.

Additional resources

To deepen your understanding of HRIS security and stay updated on the latest trends and practices, consider the following resources:

• “Data Security Standards” by the International Association for Privacy Professionals (IAPP).
• “HR technology: closing the security gap” by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).
• Regular publications and updates from data protection agencies such as the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for HIPAA-related information.

The post Ensuring data security in your HRIS implementation appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

They run projects that require a wide range of services. They work across all sectors of the economy and public administration. Some projects are even funded by international financial groups, including the European Union and the World Bank. 

“As a professional services company – where it’s not about smart hands but smart brains – the human factor is paramount. Finding the right talent at our scale, with an internal team of more than 250 people, is challenging,” Constantinos Calogirou, Senior Director, said.

“As a professional services company – where it’s not about smart hands but smart brains – the human factor is paramount. Finding the right talent at our scale, with an internal team of more than 250 people, is challenging.”

While their internal full-time staff numbers 250 people, their network of experts is truly growing.

“Currently, we maintain an extensive network of international expert partners that exceeds 7,000 people due to the variety of specialties and geographies,” Constantinos explains.

“Thus, our main asset – our people – needs constant cultivation, evolution, and the addition of new resources at all experience levels, from junior roles to the most experienced or deep experts in specific subjects.”

The hiring challenges

Planet provides a diverse range of services, including strategic planning, financial advisory, transformation of organization and operations. That’s not all – human resources, information systems, national and economic, infrastructure development, and engineering consulting services are all included. 

Also, the company is organized into units, meaning different business leaders are involved in the hiring process for each.

“One factor contributing to our hiring challenges is the complexity and diversity of our work. The human factor is our main asset; it’s not merely about having people do something but ensuring they do what they’re meant to do.” Calogirou stated.

“Secondly, the current period presents a significant disparity between the demand for the right people and their availability. This is not exactly a shortage but rather a gap in matching qualifications. As a consulting company with a strong emphasis on soft skills, these are not qualities easily discernible from typical candidate characteristics like degrees or years of experience.”

“Curiosity is an important soft skill for every position in the company.”

As Calogirou said,”for example, curiosity is an important soft skill for every position in the company. Being interested in learning and staying informed allows us to remain at the cutting edge, providing value to our clients.”

Using Workable, they got assistance to accommodate this complexity enjoying the benefits of a “democratic” system.

“By democratic, I mean there’s no necessity to centralize all powers in a dominant HR role responsible for hiring and placement. Firstly, expecting HR to understand the diverse issues we face would be unrealistic.

“Secondly, this approach would necessitate a bloated HR department, which, for a company striving to deliver value to customers, cannot justify high overhead costs.”, he says.

 Planet is also now able to distribute the hiring and onboarding process to as many people as possible.

“You run in the cloud, you can have different and many people involved in different roles for different positions that you recruit. It has matched our business needs”.

Soft skills-first approach

While academic knowledge is essential for many of their roles, skills are the link between efficiency and revenue.

The challenge here is that the more skill-based tests a candidate takes, the easier it becomes to manipulate the results.

“With the specific tests that Workable has, such as the one with logical patterns, I found it quite innovative and in a way an offset to the trained mind.”

“With the specific tests that Workable has, such as the one with logical patterns, I found it quite innovative and in a way an offset to the trained mind of someone who has done many such tests; so it sort of balances out.”

For Calogirou, the interview is the primary process that helps them understand the candidate’s personality, followed by skill assessments.

“You can check the behavior, you see the body language, you get a lot of information. But at the same time, the combination of the legacy model interview, with the more innovative and more impersonal test, has helped us to do a fairly good screening of people.”

The engagement process

Clear communication is essential for Planet. This is a crucial part in engaging candidates and keeping them in the pipeline. However, this is a two-fold process. 

“Engagement starts in the first place from the fact that there is an immediate response when someone submits their resume, even if they didn’t submit it for the sake of a specific job ad. Certainly, there is a contact that can lead to an interview or a test. 

“In the following period, people who may not have been completely suitable for specific needs, while communication is maintained, we can always tell them that we would like to hear from them. Also, if anything changes in their status we advise them to let us know.”

Why KPIs don’t always work

Hiring for diverse roles and complex tasks can make it challenging to achieve a critical mass to meet specific KPIs. This becomes more complex when HR acts as gatekeeper and senior staff are responsible for project-based hiring.

How do they keep consistent and fair in hiring? 

They use three practices that make the hiring process easier for them. 

“The first dimension is maturity. We need people that have great experience based on really specific tasks. The second one is the diversity of skills. We have a broad portfolio of services requiring individuals capable of offering a wide range of expertise. For instance, an engineer’s skill set differs from that of a finance expert or a strategist. 

“The third dimension pertains to desire for professional development. As you may know, the career path of a business consultant begins in a more hands-on role, participating as a project team member with varying levels of responsibility. 

“They then progress to higher responsibility roles, project management, and project directorship, eventually overseeing a portfolio of contracts.”

During this process, employees can evolve on the commercial side as well, especially in winning new projects.

Hiring employees and project contractors at the same time 

With all the employees primarily based in Greece and international project needs addressed by external experts, Planet needed software to keep the hiring rolling depending on their specific needs. 

“Most of our recruitment in Greece is for permanent roles tied to the company’s growth and employee development. The remaining targets individuals on a project basis and with specific skills. 

“For instance, we are currently seeking engineers with experience in construction management in the airports sectors for a specific long term project and at the same time we are seeking for internal hires to develop our Strategy and Finance team.

“While Workable serves both purposes, geographically speaking, Greece primarily focuses on permanent hires, whereas international recruitment leans towards project-based roles.”

The hiring challenges differ when recruiting for the company versus seeking experts, especially across borders.

Key takeaways for effective hiring

Here are some key takeaways from the interview with Constantinos Calogirou focusing on their hiring strategies and challenges:

1. Human capital as core asset

Planet emphasizes the importance of human talent over just technical skills, highlighting that their consulting services depend heavily on the intellectual and interpersonal abilities of their employees.

2. Diverse and decentralized hiring process

The company has decentralized its hiring process to better manage the complexity of its diverse needs across different sectors. This approach allows for a broader participation in the recruitment process, reducing the strain on a central HR department and aligning more closely with business needs.

3. Soft skills emphasis 

Planet prioritizes soft skills such as curiosity, communication, and adaptability, recognizing that these qualities are critical in the consulting industry where needs and projects can vary significantly. They use innovative testing methods to evaluate these skills during recruitment.

4. Hiring challenges in skill and role matching: 

There is a noted gap between the availability of the right talent and the specific demands of the roles they need to fill. This discrepancy is managed by using advanced recruitment tools and maintaining a flexible engagement strategy with potential hires.

5. Engagement and communication 

Effective communication is key in keeping potential candidates engaged throughout the hiring process. Prompt responses and ongoing updates about changes in their application status help maintain a good relationship with candidates, even if they are not immediately hired.

6. Balanced assessment approach 

Combining traditional interviews with modern skill assessments helps Planet better understand a candidate’s true potential and fit for the role, balancing subjective impressions with objective test results.

7. Strategic use of technology 

The adoption of Workable has facilitated a more efficient and scalable hiring process, accommodating the needs of both local and international recruitment, and for both permanent roles and project-based contracts.

These insights from Planet’s strategic approach to deal with hiring challenges and managing talent is crucial for a company that operates across diverse fields and geographical locations.

Constantinos Calogirou is a BoD member and a Senior Director, leading the Enterprises Business Unit of PLANET. He is responsible for business development and provision of management consulting services to the private sector as well as to selected public sector entities & authorities in Greece and internationally.

He is working for PLANET since 1993 and possesses significant working experience in Strategy & Business Planning, Management Information Systems, Corporate & Project Finance, Business Process Modeling and Reengineering, Corporate Restructuring and HR Management Systems, having managed a wide range of projects in industries such as Financial Institutions, IT & Telecommunications, Energy, Transport, Trade and Tourism & Leisure.

He holds a B.Sc. in Business Administration from the American College of Greece and a MBA from Aston University in Birmingham, UK.

The post Planet shares hiring challenges for a project-based company appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Sending out a request for proposal (RFP) is an effective strategy to gather comprehensive information about different HRIS solutions and understand how they align with your HR objectives.

Short on time to manage multiple RFPs? A concise overview of top Human Resource Management Systems can guide you in making a sound choice.

What exactly is an RFP?

An RFP is a formal document produced by a company seeking new software or services. It outlines pertinent questions to vendors regarding essential criteria like features and pricing.

Distribute the HRIS RFP to several vendors and evaluate their responses. This approach not only aids in identifying the most suitable software for your organization but also provides valuable insights to present to your decision-makers, essentially helping you build a compelling business case.

Steps to write an RFP for HRIS

Here’s a 5-step process you can follow when preparing an RFP, including the possible sections of an RFP for HRIS.

1. Know what you want

To choose the right system, pinpoint why you need it. For instance, if you’re seeking an HRIS due to inefficiencies in employee data management, prioritize a system with centralized information and analytics features. If your goal is improved document management, inquire about e-signature capabilities when drafting an HRIS RFP.

Identify your priorities by consulting with regular system users and those overseeing your company’s HR strategy. Ask about the challenges faced by hiring managers and their expectations from new technology. Understand the executive vision for HR processes, such as efficiency enhancements or quicker time-off approvals.

Compile a list of frequently mentioned goals and rank them. For instance, reducing new hire onboarding time might be crucial. Differentiate between essential and optional goals.

2. Develop specific requirements

If your teams highlighted the need for improved employee management and data tracking, an HRIS can offer features like enhanced employee data management and analytics.

Conversely, if executives aim to introduce a comprehensive performance appraisal system, your HRIS should facilitate streamlined performance reviews and feedback management.

Certain universal requirements for HRIS vendors include:

• Security: Ensure compliance with data protection laws applicable to your region.
• User experience: The system should be intuitive and valuable to users.
• Scalability: Opt for a system adaptable to increasing demands.
• Support services: Choose a vendor offering reliable customer support and quick respond times.
• Existing customers: Check if companies similar to yours use the system.
• Recognition: Check for reviews and rewards included on aggregator sites.

You may also prioritize vendors with a global perspective, business sustainability, or a robust product roadmap.

3. Draft the RFP for HRIS

Instead of overwhelming vendors with numerous yes/no questions, focus on open-ended queries. This approach allows vendors to elaborate on their system’s functionalities. For specific features like ISO certification or integration capabilities, yes/no questions are acceptable.

Customize the sections based on your specific needs and include questions addressing your unique requirements.

4. Write effective questions

Inquiries should generally focus on understanding “how” a system operates. Avoid overly detailed feature-specific questions, as functionalities can vary among systems. Here are sample questions:

• How does your system facilitate employee communication?
• How do you comply with GDPR regulations?
• Do you offer system integrations?
• How does your system manage document signing?
• Can I build customized reports?

Ensure your RFP seeks essential information without being overly intricate. If a vendor meets basic criteria, request a demo or trial to evaluate specific functionalities or desirable features.

5. Write an introduction

Offer pertinent information to RFP respondents. While some companies provide extensive details like growth plans or market research, a concise introduction suffices. Include:

RFP purpose: “XYZ Inc. seeks an HRIS to enhance employee management and streamline onboarding.”

RFP timeline: “Submit responses by [date].”

Company details: “We’ve onboarded 50 new hires this year and are experiencing rapid growth.”

Requirements summary: “Our objectives include efficiency improvement, effective onboarding, and automated time-off management.”

Response instructions: “Provide comprehensive yet concise answers. Include resource links if available.”

Evaluation criteria: “We prioritize systems meeting at least 70% of our requirements and offering favorable ROI.”

Contact for clarifications: “Reach out to [Name] at [+010000000] or [email@email.com] for queries.”

Keep the introduction short. It’s important not to confuse respondents with unnecessary details.

6. Add space for a Unique Value Proposition

Include a query where vendors can present their Unique Value Proposition, highlighting their distinctive offerings and advantages.

7. Send the RFP and make your decision

Having researched available options, distribute the HRIS RFP to potential vendors.

After receiving responses, compare vendor answers (potentially using a scoring system). Shortlist promising vendors for the next step: scheduling demos with each to observe system functionalities firsthand. The RFP provides valuable insights, but witnessing system features in action is crucial for an informed decision.

The post How to write an RFP for HRIS to select the right vendor appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Are you onboarding remotely? These remote onboarding FAQs will give you a head start, and you’ll also want to read insights from real-life remote employers on standardizing the onboarding of remote employees.

Here’s a planning timeline and some checklists (plus this onboarding new hire checklist) that HR professionals and hiring managers can use to design a good employee onboarding experience:

1. During the hiring process

Hiring and onboarding are often treated as separate. But their edges blur. New hires get their first impressions of your company during your hiring process, so your candidate experience efforts should be as thoughtful and welcoming as the rest of your onboarding efforts:

• Write a clear job description that gives your new hire a concrete list of their responsibilities.
• Tell candidates how you structure your hiring process and how long each stage is likely to take.
• Follow up early and often and communicate with candidates at each stage of the hiring process.
• Give candidates your full attention at interviews and respond to any questions they may have.
• Give candidates full information about reference checks and background checks.

2. During the offer stage

• Opt for a phone offer, if possible. Phone offers are more personal than email offers and can help you better communicate your enthusiasm for a candidate. It’s best to schedule your call ahead of time, so you don’t end up catching your candidate off guard.
• Follow up with an enthusiastic offer letter. Aim for a warm tone and include all relevant benefit details and contact information, so you can easily address any remaining questions.
• Be courteous during salary negotiations. Salary negotiations, done badly, can be tense and confrontational. Done well, they can help solidify your new employee’s value on your team and build a foundation of mutual respect. So, be open and try not to penalize candidates for being their own best advocates.
• Set a start date and share it with your new hire’s team. Offer some start date flexibility, if possible. It’s best to respect your new employee’s need to finish up projects and give appropriate notice with their current employer. Once you’ve set a date, share it with your new employee’s team so they can prepare to welcome their new colleague.
• Transfer your new hire’s information from your applicant tracking system to your Human Resource Information System (HRIS) or onboarding software. To avoid asking new employees to give you all their personal information again for your HRIS records, see if you can transfer their relevant details from your ATS. This will allow you to create a seamless transition for HR, hiring managers and new employees alike.

3. 1-2 weeks before your new employee’s first day

Prepare your new hire paperwork. Consider including the following policies and forms for new employees to fill out and sign:

• An Employment Agreement.
• A Non-Disclosure Agreement.
• An Employee Invention Agreement.
• An Employee Handbook.
• IRS form W-4.
• IRS form I-9.
• A direct deposit form.

Set up your new employee’s online accounts, including:

• Company email.
• Company instant message.
• Company HRIS software.
• Company password management software (LastPass, etc.)
• Company productivity software (Asana, Jira, etc.)
• Company ATS for members of hiring teams.

Prepare your new hire’s tech, including:

• A laptop.
• A monitor.
• A phone.
• A mouse.
• A keyboard.
• A headset.

And then:

• Confirm your employee’s new office phone number.
• Order business cards and/or a desk nameplate.
• Arrange for new employee ID card/building access fob.
• Schedule introductory meetings with key colleagues for the new employee’s first few weeks.
• Encourage team members (especially those on the interview panel) to reach out to your new hire to congratulate and welcome them prior to their start date. This goes a long way in establishing relationships early in the process.
• Ask your new employee to fill out an onboarding form, including information about allergies, food preferences and T-shirt size, if you’re including a company shirt in your welcome package.
• Make a welcome lunch plan for your new hire’s first day.
• Schedule a HR onboarding meeting for your new hire’s first day.
• Arrange for parking access, if needed.
• Plan your new hire’s first assignment.
• Arrange any relevant internal (or external) trainings required for the job.
• Send your new hire a welcome email telling them what to expect. Include maps, meeting details, etc. Make sure they know when to arrive on their first day and ask if they have any more questions.

4. The day before your new hire’s first day

Clean your new employee’s desk and set up their equipment and welcome kit. Consider including the following in your welcome kit:

• A welcome letter.
• New hire paperwork and HR documents.
• Technology setup instructions.
• A company notebook.
• A company T-shirt.
• A company mug.
• Pens.
• Stickers.
• A copy of your office map.
• A copy of your company org chart.
• A copy of your new hire’s first week schedule.
• A copy of a book relevant to your team culture.

And also:

• Make sure your new hire’s company email account is set up and forward regular team meeting invites to them.
• Send a message to your new hire’s department to remind everyone of their start date.
• Add your new employee’s email to relevant distribution lists and add their new phone number to relevant phone lists.
• Add your new employee’s details to your HRIS system, if you haven’t done so already.
• Add your employee’s desk to your office’s internal desk map.

4. On your new employee’s first day

• Have someone ready to welcome your new hire when they get to the office.
• Give your new hire a detailed office tour and make them aware of their schedule for their first few days.
• Arrange for a welcome meeting with your new hire’s manager to provide an overview of their new team, their role and how their success will be measured.
• Schedule time for new hire paperwork.
• Take your new hire out for lunch with some of their key team members.
• Allow your new hire some downtime to set up their new equipment, set new passwords and log in to their new accounts.
• Conduct a formal HR onboarding meeting, including details about benefits enrollment, company holidays and policies, company structure, team culture and review your company’s vision, mission and values. (If you have formally documented them.)

5. During your new employee’s first week

• Schedule your new hire’s regular 1:1 management meetings.
• Set clear goal and performance objectives for your new hire’s first 3 months, 6 months and year.
• Go over a 3 month roadmap for key projects they will be working on.
• Schedule meaningful work tasks that get them up and running.
• Provide quick feedback on their initial work tasks and establish management expectations for their performance.
• Schedule introductory meetings with each department, not just those the employee will partner but all departments throughout the company, so that they can get a full understanding of different parts of your business.
• Check in with them on a regular basis and respond to any questions they have.

6. During your new employee’s first 3 months

• Continue to have regular 1:1 meetings.
• Hold an informal 30 day check in to address any immediate concerns followed by a 90 day check in to see how everything is going.
• Ask for feedback on your onboarding process so you can improve the process for future new hires.

The post How to build a new employee onboarding process appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

This technology not only forecasts potential employee turnover but also provides actionable insights, enabling companies to proactively address retention challenges.

After all, Eric Siegel writes in his book that predictive analytics is “technology that learns from experience (data) to predict the future behavior of individuals in order to drive better decisions.”

Through predictive analytics, HR professionals can identify patterns and predict future outcomes based on historical data, allowing for the development of more effective employee retention strategies.

More on talent retention:

Best employee recognition programs for a robust workplace

Extraordinary efforts get extraordinary results. Modern workplaces don’t let emp...

What HR hills would you die on?

Well, maybe not die, but put up a big battle. My big hill is dress codes: I thin...

Creating a better work-life balance for blue collar workers

The number of blue-collar jobs is surging in the US due in part to massive new p...

What is predictive analytics in HR?

Predictive analytics refers to the use of data, statistical algorithms, and machine learning techniques to identify the likelihood of future outcomes based on historical data.

Innovation analyst Andrey Koptelov summed it up in an interview with HR Reporter as it relates to HR:

“Predictive analytics in HR is using data mining, statistics, and machine learning to make more informed decisions about recruiting, staffing and other HR functions. Whether it’s identifying employees that are at risk of quitting or determining the best candidate for a position, by analyzing data from CVs, job descriptions, and HRIS systems, predictive analytics can significantly improve talent management.”

“Predictive analytics in HR is using data mining, statistics, and machine learning to make more informed decisions about recruiting, staffing and other HR functions.”

The role of AI in predictive analytics for employee retention

Of course, AI has a role. It significantly enhances the decision-making processes within HR, particularly in the context of employee retention. AI’s capabilities allow for a more nuanced and effective approach to managing workforce dynamics.

AI supports analytics in the following ways:

Enhanced decision-making: By employing advanced algorithms, AI can process and analyze vast amounts of data more efficiently than traditional methods – especially crucial for larger organizations with a vast volume of data.

Identifying patterns and trends: AI, when trained right, can spot complex patterns and trends in data – including predicting potential turnover by analyzing variables such as job satisfaction levels, employee engagement scores, and even subtle factors like changes in work habits.

Proactive retention strategies: With AI-driven predictive analytics, HR can develop strategies tailored to specific needs. For example, AI can help customize employee development programs that target individuals’ career aspirations, potentially increasing their loyalty.

Continuous learning and improvement: AI systems continually learn from new data, adapting and improving their predictive accuracy over time. This dynamic learning process ensures that the predictive models stay relevant and effective as the organization evolves and as new data becomes available.

5 ways to use predictive analytics in employee retention

So what specific ways can you use predictive analytics in retention? Let’s look at five for starters:

1. Employee Satisfaction Analysis

Utilize surveys to calculate the Employee Satisfaction Index (ESI), focusing on aspects such as workplace environment, managerial support, and role satisfaction. For example, using a scale from 1 to 10, employees rate their satisfaction with each element.

Aggregating these scores provides a comprehensive view of areas that are well-perceived versus those needing improvement.

Tie to retention: A company may find that departments with ESIs below 6 experience higher turnover rates, prompting targeted initiatives to address dissatisfaction.

2. Turnover Risk Modeling

Develop a predictive model using factors like job role longevity, monthly engagement scores, and recent promotion history to calculate a turnover risk score for each employee.

This model helps identify which employees are at risk based on key predictive indicators.

Tie to retention: If an analysis shows that employees with low engagement and over two years in the same role have a high turnover risk, HR can prioritize career development discussions and opportunities for these individuals.

3. Flight Risk Assessment

Implement anomaly detection algorithms on performance metrics to identify significant changes, such as a top performer’s productivity dropping by 20% over two consecutive quarters.

Such a change might indicate personal dissatisfaction or external job searching.

Tie to retention: Early detection allows managers to engage in meaningful discussions with these employees, possibly addressing their concerns and averting potential resignations.

4. Personalized Retention Strategies

Analyze feedback from exit interviews and retention programs using regression analysis to tailor future retention efforts. For instance, if exit interviews commonly cite lack of growth as a reason for leaving, HR can build personalized development plans.

This strategy uses historical data to predict what retention initiatives will be most effective for different employee segments.

Tie to retention: For employees identified as high-risk but highly valuable, customized retention plans involving mentorship, training, and clear career pathways can be introduced to increase their job satisfaction and engagement.

5. Predictive Succession Planning

Use predictive models to forecast potential leadership vacancies and identify internal candidates for these roles by evaluating performance trends and leadership competencies. For example, an employee consistently exceeding targets in a junior management role may be flagged as potential senior management material.

Proactively preparing for leadership transitions ensures continuity and reduces the disruption caused by external hiring.

Tie to retention: Demonstrating a clear succession plan and growth trajectory can significantly boost morale and retention among ambitious employees, as they see tangible future opportunities within the organization.

3 softwares to support predictive analytics in employee retention

There are softwares out there to get you started on predictive analytics in this area. Among them are:

1. Visier People

Visier People specializes in workforce analytics, providing predictive insights into employee turnover and what drives it.

Its user-friendly interface and robust analytical tools make it easy to derive actionable insights without needing a background in data science.

Suitable for mid-sized to large companies, it helps HR departments predict turnover rates and understand the underlying causes to formulate effective retention strategies.

2. SAP SuccessFactors

This cloud-based HR solution offers comprehensive analytics with predictive capabilities, focusing on various HR functions including employee retention.

It integrates seamlessly with other SAP products, offering a holistic view of employee data and predictive insights.

It’s ideal for organizations already using SAP products, looking to leverage integrated data for predictive insights on employee behavior.

3. UltiPro

UltiPro provides predictive analytics to forecast employee retention and identify potential high performers.

Features include sentiment analysis to gauge employee satisfaction and customized reporting for deeper insight into workforce dynamics.

It’s effective for companies of all sizes looking to enhance employee experience.

3 potential use cases of predictive analytics in talent retention

Predictive analytics has real-world applications across various industries, each with unique challenges and needs. Here are three use cases demonstrating how predictive analytics can address industry-specific issues by enhancing employee retention strategies:

1. Restaurants

In the restaurant industry, staff turnover can peak during high seasons such as holidays and summer months. Predictive analytics can help manage and reduce this turnover.

By analyzing historical data on employee shifts, customer volume, and staff feedback, predictive models can identify patterns that lead to high turnover.

Restaurants can use this information to improve scheduling, enhance work conditions, and provide targeted incentives during peak times.

2. Healthcare

Healthcare roles, especially in high-stress environments like emergency and intensive care units, have high rates of burnout and turnover, which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Predictive analytics can assess risk factors for burnout by monitoring work hours, patient load, and staff wellness reports.

Healthcare facilities can use these insights to implement preventative measures, such as adjusting workloads, offering more support, and creating wellness programs tailored to the needs identified through the data.

3. Software as a Service (SaaS)

In the SaaS industry, where many employees work remotely, maintaining employee engagement and satisfaction is crucial for retention.

Predictive analytics can analyze data from employee engagement surveys, performance metrics, and online interaction patterns to predict factors influencing employee satisfaction and lifecycle.

SaaS companies can leverage this information to refine remote work policies, enhance communication strategies, and provide personalized career development plans that align with individual employee aspirations and company goals.

These use cases illustrate how predictive analytics can be effectively tailored to meet the specific challenges of different industries, leading to improved employee retention and overall business efficiency.

It’s all in the numbers

Predictive analytics represents a transformative force in human resources, offering profound insights into employee behavior and retention.

By harnessing this powerful tool, HR professionals can move beyond traditional reactive approaches, adopting proactive strategies that significantly enhance workforce management and planning.

The strategic implementation of predictive analytics enables organizations to not only retain top talent but also reduce turnover, thus stabilizing their workforce in a competitive market.

The post Creating a better work-life balance for blue collar workers appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

How do you calculate turnover rate?

To calculate the monthly employee turnover rate, all you need is three numbers: the numbers of active employees at the beginning (B) and end of the month (E) and the number of employees who left (L) during that month. You can get your average number of employees (Avg) by adding your beginning and ending workforce and dividing by two (Avg = [B+E]/2).

Now, you should divide the number of employees who left by your average number of employees. Multiply by 100 to get your final turnover percentage ([L/Avg] x 100).

However, most companies find quarterly or annual turnover rate calculations more useful, because it usually takes longer for their numbers to get large enough to show meaningful patterns.

Here’s the formula for annual turnover rate:

So, if you have 45 employees at the start of the year and 55 at the end and 5 employees left during that year, your annual turnover rate would be:

You can also calculate your employee retention rate by taking your turnover rate and subtracting it from 100 to get the result.

What’s the best turnover rate formula?

Depending on what you want to measure, you can use different numbers to calculate your employee turnover rate.

For example, if you want to illustrate competitive retention you would normally define separation as voluntary resignations since non-voluntary separations and retirements don’t necessarily mean that you’re losing employees to other employers.

However, if you simply want to illustrate overall turnover, you may want to include all separations. If you do include retirements in your turnover calculation, you should make this clear, so people understand what you’re including in your measurements.

One interesting and useful way to measure turnover is to see whether your new hire turnover rate is higher or lower than your overall turnover rate.

In this example, we define new hire turnover rate as the number of new employees who leave within a year.

Your new hire turnover formula would look like this:

A healthy turnover rate

Now that know how to calculate employee turnover rate using a basic formula, you can calculate your company’s turnover and come up with a number. But what does your number actually mean? How do you know if your turnover rate is high or low?

One way is to compare your company’s turnover rate with the average rate within your industry. Turnover rates can vary widely across industries. Usually, hospitality and healthcare have the highest turnover rates. In 2015, the US hospitality industry had a voluntary turnover rate of 17.8% and the US healthcare industry, 14.2%. Rates were a lot lower in other industries, like insurance (8.8%) and utilities (6.1%).

Nobscot offers an application that gives you instant access to current US turnover rates based on industry and location. Likewise, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the European Union’s database can provide interesting statistics. Sites like comdatasurveys.com and xperthr.co.uk also release relevant surveys.

Once you compare your rate with your industry or location average, you can reach some conclusions. If, for example, your turnover rate is higher than your industry average, it probably means your management is not as effective as it could be. So, you’ll probably want to identify and address some internal issues.

Besides external benchmarking, you can conduct your own internal turnover rate research. To get a better sense of your turnover trends, collect data from different periods of time, from different departments and from all managerial levels.

Although managers and employers dread turnover, a turnover rate of zero is unrealistic. People will inevitably leave at some point, to retire, relocate or because of changing circumstances in their lives. As strange as it may sound, you can have a ‘healthy’ turnover rate. Keep an eye on your rates, ensuring they stay within healthy industry and location ranges.

Analyze your turnover rate

To better understand your employee turnover, all you have to do is answer three questions:

• “Who are the employees who leave?”
• “When do they leave?”
• “Why they are leaving?”

Who

Even if your turnover rate is lower than your industry’s average, there’s no reason to celebrate unless you can identify who leaves you. If your top performers are leaving, then you should take immediate action, otherwise your company’s performance will flag. On the other hand, if your low performers are leaving, you could stand to gain by enjoying better employee engagement, productivity and profits.

When

Keeping track of when people leave can be very useful. For example, your new hire turnover rate can offer a lot of insight. First, it can tell you whether your recruitment methods are working. If a significant number of your new employees leave because they found their job duties different to, or more complicated than, what they were expecting, perhaps you should consider reviewing your job descriptions. Investing more time and money developing your orientation process could help too, if employees leave because of cultural mismatches. You could also consider offering other employee engagement programs like parental leave or flexible working hours, if your employees struggle with work-life balance.

Why

When you know why your employees leave, you can change your company’s management style or policies in response. Exit interviews are a useful way to see whether people give similar reasons for leaving, or whether they offer useful suggestions for how you can improve. For example, employees often say they decided to resign because their input and effort were not appreciated. If you hear these kinds of comments in your exit interviews or in performance reviews, HR should work with managers to consider changing performance appraisal processes.

Employee turnover rates can uncover hidden problems within organizations. A high turnover rate is a warning sign you shouldn’t ignore. Review your recruitment processes, change your compensation and benefits plan or incorporate a succession planning policy. Ultimately, if you respond to turnover issues proactively, you will improve your company and retain great employees.

The post How to calculate employee turnover rate appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Instead, you have to go through numerous steps to get to the final stage of the employee selection process, right from building a hiring plan, drafting a job announcement, conducting interviews, running background checks, and sending the final offer letter, among many other steps along the way.

If you’re like any employer, HR representative or recruiter, you probably don’t have the time to get into the nitty-gritty details of the selection process. Whether you want to hire an intern for your company, fill positions in your rapidly growing startup, build out your sales team, or grow your employee base by tenfold, there’s something here to meet your needs: a quick step-by-step guide to follow for your recruitment and selection process so you can get that new star candidate on your team.

Here are eight steps in the selection process for hiring employees and how to best go through each — if you’re interested in specific employee selection process steps, click on the table of contents below:

1. Application

The application phase in the selection process is sometimes seen as passive from the hiring team side – you just wait for candidates to respond to your job ad. However, applications can and should be selection tools, helping you sort candidates as qualified or unqualified.

How can you do this? There are two options to get started: qualifying questions and gamification.

Qualifying questions

If you’re using software to build your application forms, using qualifying questions at the beginning of your selection process should be easy. You can add two or three questions relevant to the position. The candidates must answer these questions in order to apply. For example:

• Briefly describe your experience with Excel.
• What’s the difference between content marketing and journalism?
• Can you legally work in the UK?

Some of these questions could require simple yes/no answers with the wrong answer automatically disqualifying a candidate – this is something that can also easily be done via recruitment software. Of course, automatic disqualification should be reserved only for absolute must-have skills. For example, if you’re looking for a senior designer, a disqualifying question could be “Do you have 5+ years of design experience?”

Help candidates complete your applications

Of course, you want candidates who start completing your forms to actually go all the way and submit their application. Yet, so many candidates abandon applications because it takes too long to complete them or they’re too complicated. To avoid this, here are a few things you can do to streamline this part of the selection process:

• Keep qualifying questions to a minimum and make sure they don’t require complex or long answers.
• Try applying to one of your open roles; that’s how you’ll be able to spot glitches, hurdles or lengthy applications.
• Test your application forms’ (and careers page’s) mobile version. Many people apply via mobile so it needs to work well.

To see whether there’s an issue with your application forms, you could also track your application abandonment rate. Ideally, you’d like it to be close to 0%, so the higher that number is, the more improvements your applications need.

Gamification

Gamifying your recruitment process isn’t a new trend, but with the progress of technology, you can now use gamification tools more effectively in the selection process. Especially in the application phase, consider asking less-experienced candidates and those transitioning from different backgrounds to play online or offline games.

The reasoning behind this is that candidates who are recent graduates, or have made a career change, won’t have much relevant experience to showcase in their resumes — despite being possibly the right fit for a job. This can be a problem when you’re trying to evaluate them based on their application. By using gamified assessment methods in the that stage, you can shortlist promising people and your hiring team will have better chances of interviewing only a few truly qualified candidates.

This also gives you an opportunity to diversify your applicant pool when you find the majority of applicants that meet your required background come from a narrow subset or demographic.

There are many options to insert gamification in your selection process; for example, an online service like benchmark.games or coding challenges, like Workable’s integrated tool HackerRank, could be useful.

Return to top

2. Resume screening

Now that you have wrapped up the application phase of the employee selection process, you have a collection of resumes or CVs to sift through and filter those deemed suitable for a screening call. What you’ll need to do now is go through resumes one by one, whether manually or software-assisted, and identify prime candidates.

This is one of the most traditional employee selection methods to move candidates to the next step by identifying and disqualifying those who don’t quite fit what you’re looking for.

There may be hundreds – in some cases, thousands – of applicants for a single job. There are numerous ways to filter resumes:

Background

This is a practical side of the selection process; you’re looking for the background that qualifies a candidate for the position you want to fill. You’ll want to know if they have the academic knowledge or professional expertise – or both – to perform a job well.

For instance:

• If you’re looking to fill an accounting position, someone with an accounting degree yet with little to no practical work experience might be suitable for a junior-level position.
• If you’re looking for a bartender, someone who has already worked at several reputable pubs or restaurants in your area may be a good fit.
• Or, if you’re looking to fill an editorial manager position, you want to know they have the academic expertise that proves their advanced ability to think, edit, and write for school assignments, coupled with a number of years in a high-intensity media environment requiring decision-making on the fly.

You want to be careful not to stick to these parameters too rigidly; many qualified candidates may not have the traditional background for this position. Learn about how non-traditional candidates can bring as much to the table as their traditional counterparts.

Resume layout

Even something as simple as the layout of a candidate’s resume can be an indicator of how qualified they are for a position. The skill of organizing and presenting information in a clear and concise way is on full display here.

Consider the following examples of how a resume’s layout can offer a quick demonstration of a candidate’s skill set:

• If you’re looking to fill a creative position – such as graphics or web design – the resume layout can be a powerful indicator of how well they can design.
• If you’re looking to fill a sales position, the manner in which they present a resume can show you how they might be able to catch your client’s eye with important, relevant information to convert them into buyers.
• If you’re looking for a marketing copywriter, the resume shows their ability to describe things in a tight, concise and engaging manner.

Here are some original ways a resume can be presented.

On the flip side, you’re also looking for resume red flags that a candidate may not be what they present themselves to be. For instance, a resume can include obvious copy-and-pasted boilerplate text, mismatched dates, typos, embellishments or even clear fiction (such as a school that doesn’t turn up in a Google search).

Cover letter

Similarly to the resume, a candidate’s cover letter gives you an idea of who they are and what they bring to the role. You’re looking for tightly and smartly written language that clearly describes what they can bring to the position. Does the candidate:

• Describe their skills and background in a relevant way to the position being applied for?
• Show their knowledge of your company and its goals, and how they can contribute?
• Write in a professional, error-free manner that reflects their ability to communicate via email and other channels?

Intangibles

It may initially seem corny to list one’s hobbies and personal interests in a resume, but even those can be great indicators of the kind of person applying for the role. For instance:

• “Running” indicates they’re a healthy person and disciplined enough to train for 10Ks or marathons on a regular basis.
• “Volunteering” shows they’re interested in the bigger picture (i.e. your company’s mission and vision) and can have the empathy that would make them a great team member.
• “Chess” indicates an ability to process complex information in a logical/logarithmic way, an invaluable skill for a developer position

Unconscious bias

As through every step of the employee selection procedures, you want to keep your unconscious bias in check. Harvard’s Project Implicit is a great tool to help you realize where your unconscious biases lie and how strong they are. Maintain that awareness as you sift through resumes.

For example, during the selection process, watch out for potential biases including someone’s name, gender, race, age, class, and even academic background – for instance, just because someone got their MBA from a local college rather than from Harvard doesn’t necessarily make them less worthy of a candidate or their MBA degree less impressive.

If you are like many employers and recruiters, you’re also actively pursuing a D&I initiative. If you’re looking to build a gender-balanced team in a sector dominated by one gender, check out these five steps in which you can do it successfully.

This stage of the employee selection process often involves multiple parties in the hiring team, including the HR representative, the hiring manager, the recruiter, and sometimes even the direct report. Learn more about how you can work together as a team within the same platform, including adding comments, scores, and other data to each application.

If this feels like a time-consuming affair, you’re probably right. There are numerous AI tools within Workable’s software that enable you to speed up this stage of the selection process.

Return to top

3. Screening call

The screening call, or phone screen, is among the initial hiring stages where recruiters shortlist applicants. The purpose of this call is to establish whether the candidate is truly interested in the job and (at least) minimally qualified to do it successfully. This way, only the best applicants will go to the next, stricter (and more expensive) hiring stages, like assessments and in-person interviews, saving your team time and money.

Schedule a phone screen

The email you’ll send to candidates to schedule a screening call is important; that’s because it may very well be your very first communication with that candidate. So this is your chance of setting the tone of your relationship with that candidate and, who knows, future employee.

In this case, you need to be straightforward and positive, giving out a professional outlook. Thank the candidate for applying to your open role and ask them if they’d like to speak with you so you can get to know them and give them details about the job. Keep it short and sweet.

Here’s our template to get you started – make sure to customize it to fit your company’s voice.

Prepare well beforehand

Without being able to see candidates face to face and connect with them or assess their body language, and with the added issues of occasional bad signal or background noise, you might find screening calls difficult to navigate. The key is to prepare thoroughly: know exactly what you’re looking for and what you want to learn about each candidate, as well as what information you’d like to convey, before you begin with the selection process.

• Write down your requirements. You probably already know the basic qualifications you’re looking for, so make a list of basic ones you’d like to check during the screening call. These might include “must be able to start work within the month” or “they should want to relocate.” It might be useful to give some thought on what you can be flexible on – for example, would you be able to convert a full-time job to part-time or agree to flexible hours?
• Read candidate resumes. This is important for two reasons: you’ll show candidates that you’re serious about their application, and you’ll be able to spot discrepancies you can ask about. For example, if candidates have a huge gap in their employment record, you might ask why that was.
• Make sure you can answer basic questions. Candidates will be evaluating your company throughout the recruitment process, just like you’ll be evaluating them. To persuade a good candidate to complete and assessment or come in for an interview, you should pitch the position and your company effectively. Do your homework about the role and refresh your knowledge of the company’s mission.

Select the right questions

The questions you’ll ask should tell you whether the candidate is suitable and interested in the role. So make sure you address both those points during the screening call (without going into too much detail in terms of skills – reserve these questions for later hiring stages.) Here are a few example questions:

• When could you start if you were offered the job?
• Would you be comfortable with 50% travel?
• How much money would you like to earn in this position?
• What did you find most interesting in the job description?
• What interests you about our company?
• Tell me about this two-year gap in your resume
• Why do you want to leave your current position?

Ask questions and listen carefully to the candidate. Determine whether their attitude suits your company and whether their answers are satisfying. Watch out for answers that may not sound genuine or contradictions with their resume or application.

Return to top

4. Assessment test

Once you’ve screened candidates and sorted them out into “promising”, “maybe”, and “disqualified” groups, you want to look at the surviving candidates and further assess their ability to do the job you’re looking to fill. These assessments can take place in a multitude of forms in the selection process:

• An in-person audition for an acting position, a sales job where you request the candidate to pitch you a product, or a kitchen position where you ask them to cook something for you on the spot.
• A written or online test to test for aptitude, personality, intelligence, etc.
• A practical skills test to determine a candidate’s typing speed, data entry capabilities, memory, etc.

It should be noted that personality- and culture-based assessment tests are often debated as to their applicability in determining the success of a candidate in a certain job – not everyone agrees that a Myers-Brigg assessment test is a good thing, for instance.

However, practical skills assessments are a powerful tool to determine whether a candidate is indeed able to do a job well as they’ve claimed in previous stages of the employee selection process.

Check out our top 10 assessment tools for different focal areas, including judgment, aptitude and coding skills. Also, learn about Workable’s own assessment tools and integrations to best optimize this stage, as well as a selection of “how-tos” for assessing a candidate’s skill sets for different common positions within a company. Assessments can also be gamified, as above.

Navigate the assessment stage effectively

Timing is a consideration. You want to give candidates enough time to complete the assessment – for instance, give them 3-5 business days to complete a short test. Stay close to realistic goals that you might expect of them if they were working in your company; don’t ask them to complete a complex project in a 24-hour span, but don’t give them 20 days either.

Communication is key. Explain clearly to candidates the scope and purpose of the assessment, so they understand fully why you’re doing it. You don’t want them thinking you’re asking free work of them.

In many cases in this phase of the selection process, you aren’t just looking at a candidate’s ability to do the task at hand; you’re also looking at the way they communicate themselves leading up to, during, and after the assessment. You’ll also want to look at the way they approach the assessment, especially when it comes to creative projects such as in development and design which often require some collaboration and planning.

A follow-up interview – separate from other interviews – dedicated to this particular assessment can shed valuable insight on how candidates worked on the project and their takeaways and learnings from it.

It’s important to note the many variables associated with an assessment. It’s not necessarily enough that a candidate is able to perform the task with flying colors or seemingly unlimited creativity. You’re looking at all the ways in which they’ve gone into it; perhaps a junior developer has not completed a technical test perfectly but demonstrated great intangibles in the “good” questions they’ve asked of you or in their receptiveness to feedback and a willingness to grow and learn.

Or, perhaps a senior designer didn’t do exactly what was asked of them, but “bent the rules” a little bit and turned out an even better product in the end; and what’s more, they talked to you about their idea before going ahead and doing it.

Return to top

5. In-person interviewing

You’re now deep in the selection process, having screened candidates, evaluated their skills, assessed their abilities, and created a shortlist of the most qualified people. It’s finally time to meet in person with those promising candidates and determine who’s going to be your next hire.

A good interview will help you make better hiring decisions, as you will objectively evaluate and compare candidates’ potential. But there’s more to do than the actual interview. You need to prepare yourself and the entire hiring team to make sure you ask all the right questions. More specifically, you should prepare:

• A list of job-related questions that assess how well candidates can manage regular job duties. You can ask a mix of:
  • Role-specific questions, to evaluate candidates’ knowledge and experience
  • Soft skills questions, to identify candidates who are good not just on paper
  • Situational questions, to learn how candidates would address different scenarios and issues that may arise on the job
  • Behavioral questions, to discover how candidates have previously handled professional challenges
• Cultural fit questions that will help you pick these candidates who are more likely to thrive in your work environment. For example, you could ask:
  • Career goals questions, to find candidates whose professional goals align with your business objectives
  • Collaboration questions, to identify team players
  • Adaptability questions, to learn which candidates are more flexible and will have a smooth transition to their new role if hired

Once you have your set of interview questions ready (and double-checked that you’re not asking anything illegal), you can invite candidates to your offices – or schedule a video call if you’re hiring remotely. Here are a few tips to help you schedule interview with candidates more effectively:

• Schedule interviews at least two or three business days in advance. Surely, if you’ve found the perfect candidate or if you’re in a rush to close an open role, you want to speed up the process. But, calling candidates to ask them to meet on the same or next day could send the wrong message and make you look desperate. Besides, candidates might be working elsewhere, so they need to adjust their schedule. They also need some time to prepare themselves for the interview (e.g. do some research on your company, take a closer look at their assignment, etc.)
• Provide candidates all necessary information. This includes:
  • the exact day and time of the interview, taking into consideration different time zones if you’re interviewing remote candidates
  • the address of your offices along with directions on how to get there (or, instructions on how to log in to a video platform, in case of a video interview)
  • the names and roles of the interviewers
  • the scope of the interview (e.g. “We’ll go over your assignment” or “You’ll meet with the CEO”)
  • the estimated duration of the interview

Add any other details that candidates might find useful, such as what they need to bring with them (e.g. their ID for security reasons or their portfolio) or where they can park their car. You can use a scheduling interview email template to save time; you will only need to adjust the names and dates every time you invite a candidate to your offices but the main information will stay the same.

• Offer candidates a few alternative days for the interview. Busy schedules and multiple interviews and interviewers can make the interview scheduling process very complicated. To save time and avoid back-and-forth emails or double-bookings, let candidates pick the most convenient day and time. You could either share via email your availability (highlighting your preferred three or four time slots) or share your entire calendar through a self-scheduling tool.

Before the day of the interview, make sure that all interviewers are well-prepared. For members of your hiring team with little or no experience in recruiting, consider running a mock interview; this way, they’ll feel more comfortable when they actually meet with the candidates.

Here’s a checklist that will help you conduct more effective interviews during the selection process:

• Stick to the interview questions you have prepared; small talk with candidates or questions that are irrelevant to the job could result in biased hiring decisions.
• Ask all candidates the same set of questions in a structured way; this way, it’ll be easier to compare their answers and select the most qualified ones.
• Be prepared to answer questions from candidates, too; they’ll probably want to learn more about the team, the company goals and the employee benefits.
• Review candidates’ profile (e.g. resume, assignment, previous communication) before you meet them; you’ll refresh your memory and won’t ask things they’ve already mentioned.
• Provide interview feedback to your hiring team as soon as the interview finishes; the best hiring decisions rely on collaboration.

Keep in mind that a good interview will not only help you spot deal breakers, it will also impact the overall candidate experience. Naturally, you won’t hire every candidate you interview. But, if you come to interviews prepared, ask job-related questions and are respectful to candidates, even the ones you reject will leave with a positive impression about your company.

Want to learn more about how to organize and improve your interview process? Read our detailed guide here.

Return to top

6. Background checks

Background checks reassure you that your finalists are reliable and don’t pose risks to your company. For example, employers may conduct pre-employment checks to make sure candidates have told the truth in their resumes or don’t currently do illicit drugs. In fact, there are several types of background checks including:

• Criminal records
• Credit reports
• Driving records
• Verification reports (e.g. identity, education, work history, social security number, national insurance number, etc.)
• Drug tests

These checks are most useful in the selection process when there’s high risk involved in employing someone unsuitable in a particular job. For example, you probably wouldn’t want a convicted sex offender working at a nursing home or someone with bad credit handling your company’s finances; current drug users would be a huge safety risk as machine operators and professional drivers with extensive drunk driving records would probably not make the best hires. And so on.

So in these cases, conducting a pre-employment test would be very important (you could do background checks in other instances too, but there might not be a necessity to do so). If you’re thinking of conducting background checks, be sure to:

a. Consider legal aspects of background checks

First, some background checks are mandated by law in certain industries or roles depending on location. For example, in some jurisdictions, working in substance abuse facilities or daycare centers requires passing a criminal record check. So make sure you know the applicable regulations to order background checks as necessary.

Also, pre-employment checks are themselves regulated by law. For example, in the U.S., you need to comply with the guidelines set by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The UK has its own set of guidelines regarding background checks. Local laws in your area may also require a candidate to have an offer in hand before you can ask permission for a background check.

b. Choose a reputable and reliable background check provider

There are generally two options for conducting background checks: the full-service provider and online DIY websites. DIY websites let you do your own investigations and are cheaper, but many may not be compliant with local laws and using them to research candidates may pose legal risks.

Full-service providers, on the other hand, are usually compliant (though you should always ask for proof that they are) and can undertake the full investigation on your behalf. Look for providers and evaluate them based on compliance, costs, turnaround time and types of checks they offer.

If you’re using recruiting software like Workable, you’ll be able to access background checks straight from the system via an integrated provider, thus saving time.

c. Navigate discussions with candidates appropriately

The law in many places mandates that you ask candidates’ permission before you conduct checks in an employee selection process. So, you need to tell them that you’re thinking of looking into their past. Afterwards, you also have to inform candidates of your intention to reject them (adverse action notification) to give them time to rebut a false report. Candidates will inevitably have their own concerns and questions on the pre-employment screening. They may distrust your intentions, see this as an invasion on their personal information or believe you’re looking for reasons to reject them.

Be honest about what background checks are for. If they’re mandated by law, say so. If it’s your company’s policy for certain roles, be sure to explain how you’ll handle results: for example, let this candidate know that they’re one of your finalists (perhaps the only finalist) and you just need to reinforce your decision to hire them.

After you’ve ordered the test, it’s good to keep in touch with candidates for as long as you’re waiting for results (which can be several weeks).

For more tips on how to handle potentially awkward conversations about background checks in the selection process, see our 8 useful tips.

d. Interpret results correctly

There are a number of background check red flags you can find after you get the results of a test. Some might justify an immediate disqualification, such as if you learn that a candidate for a role as an accountant has been convicted of fraud or embezzlement.

But other results might not be as serious. For example, one candidate might have lied about where they went to school. You might decide that lying is enough to disqualify them, but that’s not necessarily the case. In these instances, it might be useful to have an open conversation with a candidate and see if they regret lying, or if they had a reason to do so. The report might even be inaccurate, so it will be fair to hear the candidate’s side of the story.

With that in mind, it’s important to understand that employment background checks should be used as one of many employee selection tools – they alone shouldn’t make the hiring decision for you. Background screening shouldn’t be used as a way to disqualify someone or reduce the number of applicants for a position. Checks are meant to reinforce a hiring decision and ensure candidates who have been selected for a job are suitable.

Return to top

7. Reference checks

In the final stages of the selection process, you might want to get some references for your best candidates. This way, you’ll get feedback about their performance from people they’ve actually worked with in the past, such as former managers, former colleagues or business partners and clients.

You could ask candidates to provide contact details from former employers and coworkers. Or, you can reach out directly to people you know they used to work with. In any case, when requesting references for a candidate, it’s best to initially send an email to introduce yourself and explain why you want this information. This way, you can schedule a call where you’ll discuss in more detail.

During reference checks, you will:

• Confirm what candidates have already told you (e.g about time of employment and previous job responsibilities)
• Learn how candidates use their skills on the job
• Discover potential weaknesses or lack of practical experience
• Understand how candidates behave in the work environment (e.g. if they’re punctual, if they receive feedback well, etc.)

To obtain objective and relevant information, you need to ask targeted questions. Here are a few sample questions to ask when getting references for candidates:

• When did [Candidate_name] work at your company and what was their job title?
• What were [Candidate_name’s] main responsibilities?
• Could you mention one or two group projects [Candidate_name] was involved in? What was their role and how did they collaborate with their colleagues?
• Do you think [Candidate_name] could take on a more senior role? Why or why not?
• Given the opportunity, would you rehire [Candidate_name]?

While getting references, keep an eye out for red flags. For example, it’s not a good sign when you notice discrepancies between what the candidate mentioned during the interviews and what their former employer told you. You should also consider any negative feedback you get that shows that candidates aren’t as skilled or as reliable as they seem.

Once you’ve taken everything you learned in the selection process into account, from your own candidate evaluation to background and reference checks, you’re ready to make your hiring decision.

Return to top

8. Decision and job offer

Congratulations! After a series of well-organized selection processes for recruiting new employees, you’ve finally found your perfect hire. Now it’s time to let them know you’re offering them a position at your company. The job offer process is a critical one; done right, you’ll soon welcome your new employee in the office. But, if you miss something, you might lose a great candidate and have to start the hiring process all over again.

Here are some tips that will help you streamline the job offer approval process:

• Discuss employment terms early in the selection process. Salary, bonuses and working hours are all potential dealbreakers, so it’s best to learn whether you agree with candidates on those factors before you offer them a job.
• Make an informal verbal offer. It’ll cost you time if you wait to craft a formal job offer letter before you inform candidates. You can first call them to give them the good news and get a hint as to whether they’re going to accept or reject your offer. Be sure to give the candidate the opportunity to “think on it” so they don’t feel pressured to give an answer right away.
• Use a job offer letter template. Instead of writing a new job offer letter from scratch every time you’re offering a job, use an existing template and add only what’s different (e.g. candidate’s name, job title, salary, etc.)
  • Read more on our guide on how to write a standout job offer letter.
  • Consider using different templates per role or department. For example, check our sales job offer letter and our developer job offer letter.
• Keep HR, Finance and the CEO in the loop. A job offer process usually requires filling out paperwork, getting approvals and completing other prep work before you welcome a new hire in your offices.

If you’re using Workable, you can simplify the offer letter approval process by keeping all necessary data in one place and automating parts of the process.

When a candidate accepts the job offer a hiring cycle ends successfully.

Now what? It’s time to start preparing your new employee’s arrival. You can send them a welcome email to get them excited and plan their first day for a smooth onboarding. Before that, though, don’t forget to inform rejected candidates that they didn’t get the job; not only are they potential employees for another position down the road, but also a positive candidate experience will work miracles for your employer brand.

The post 8 steps of the selection process for hiring employees appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

The ability to ask the best interview questions can set you apart as a hiring professional and helps optimize the interview process. Honing this essential skill can lead to a host of advantages including a reduced time-to-hire, lower turnover rates, and the ability to make better hiring decisions with confidence.

In an effort to help you find the most effective and insightful interview questions, we asked 250 experienced recruiters for their opinions about the best interview questions and created this comprehensive guide of our findings. Here’s what you’ll learn:

Most popular interview questions and answers

Although it’s tempting to want to curate a list of unique and creative questions, popular interview questions are popular for a reason and the answers can reveal a lot about a candidate’s personality or background. We surveyed hiring professionals to find out which popular interview questions are their favorites.

1. Tell me about yourself.

Although this is a common interview question that candidates are likely to prepare for in advance, its open-ended format allows for a wide range of response types. It’s also a great way to transition from introductory small talk to official interview mode.

How a candidate approaches the answer can offer another angle of insight: Do they launch right into an elevator speech about their personal or professional life? Do they use the question as an opportunity to explain how their education or work history supports the position they’re hoping to fill? Do they have a clear career path in mind and would this role help fulfill those goals?

There’s no wrong answer but the applicant’s response and how that response is delivered can tell you a lot about a candidate.

Answer example:

“Sure! For the past three years, I’ve been working as a social media specialist for a mid-sized marketing agency, where I create, schedule, and manage content for between 5 and 10 clients at a time. I really enjoy the work — I’m creative, organized, I love meeting deadlines, and I find the analytics reports fascinating, so it’s a good fit for my personality! It’s been great but I’d prefer the opportunity to focus my efforts on building a strong brand identity and online community for one company like yours.”

2. Give an example of a time that you improved or optimized a process that was outdated.

A candidate with the ability to identify potential areas of improvement in a workflow, their role, or within the company is an invaluable asset, particularly if they’re also willing and able to offer a solution. Creative, process-focused employees are more likely to take ownership of their position and offer innovative ideas that could benefit the entire organization.
Asking for an example of a time they optimized a process doesn’t have to be limited to work experience, either. Although that may be the ideal response, any reply that demonstrates superior problem-solving skills is worth considering.

Answer example:

“At my current job, we were using Slack to communicate about upcoming and ongoing projects. Although it’s a great platform for conversation, it wasn’t the best option for project planning; messages would get buried, misplaced, or wouldn’t be seen by everyone involved. I researched project management platforms and presented the idea of using Notion — it was flexible enough to work for the different types of projects various teams worked on but created one resource that anyone could easily reference. Once we got past the learning curve, everyone agreed that project planning felt so much more efficient and organized.”

3. If you were an interviewer, what do you think the three most important criteria would be for hiring someone for this position?

Asking which qualities or skills would be most valuable for a position allows you to assess an applicant’s understanding of the role while also offering them the opportunity to explain how they fulfill those needs.

This is also the type of question that many candidates might need a moment to think about — and how they handle that can be as revealing as their answer. Do they rush right into an answer, forming their response as they reply? Do they feel comfortable taking a moment to consider their answer? Do they play it safe with surface-level answers or go more in-depth by offering some more interesting ideas?

Answer example:

“That’s a great question. What are the three most important criteria I’d be looking for in an administrative assistant? Well, I think an obvious one is being organized since there are a lot of responsibilities and different tasks involved. I’m a huge fan of productivity and calendar apps to help with that. Second, although you work directly with so many people, the ability to work independently and self-motivate is critical, so that you don’t end up creating more work for others! Good communication skills are also important — you have to be clear in explaining what you’re working on, what is needed, and follow-up persistently. I’m a people-person and won’t hesitate to pick up the phone or send a message.”

4. How would your past coworkers describe your interactions with them? Why would they describe them this way?

Understanding a candidate’s personality and work style is important to how well they’ll do in the role they’re applying for, as well as how they’ll fit into their team and into company culture. It’s easier to hire a good fit than it is to adjust someone’s general disposition.

While it’s obvious that a candidate is unlikely to reveal negative traits, what they choose to highlight can be a good indicator of their self-awareness and if they’d be a team player or not.

Answer example:

“The coworkers at my current company would describe my interactions with them as helpful and friendly. I’m a problem-solver by nature; I really enjoy the challenge of identifying an issue and brainstorming a solution. So, if someone was working on a project or had a difficult client, they’d often come to me for advice and I was always happy to throw out some ideas or ask questions that would help them land on a solution.”

5. Please give an example of a project that you owned and what the process was like from start to finish.

Asking for specific examples of projects a candidate has been responsible for offers insight into the level of responsibility an applicant has taken on in the past, experience and skills they may have learned along the way, and the executive function skills needed to accomplish the assignment.

It may be helpful to ask follow-up questions about what they found most satisfying or challenging about the work that they completed or how they overcame any obstacles that they outlined in their answer.

Answer example:

“I was responsible for revising the landing page for the website at my last job. Our objective was to streamline the information and improve the copy, functionality, and design. I came up with some rough drafts, worked closely with the writers and designers on the marketing team to improve on those ideas, and then used A/B testing to determine which was more popular based on bounce rate and sign-ups. It was a big job with a lot of moving pieces but we saw a 25% increase in sign ups once the new page went live and it was interesting to work with teams in other departments.”

6. What kind of people do you have trouble interacting with? How do you deal with them?

Asking people to discuss what kind of people they find difficult can help you gauge their personality type as well as their willingness and ability to answer honestly.

Even people who get along with everyone encounter certain personality types that are more challenging to manage, and being able to admit that demonstrates authenticity. Obviously, if their answer is applicable to the people they’d be working closely with, they may not be the best fit for the position. Most people will try to play it safe with a response to a question like this, so being able to provide a clear answer should count in their favor.

Answer example:

“I work well with a lot of different people and got a lot of experience in doing so during a prior job as a customer support representative. I’d say the biggest challenge is people who always seem adversarial — as if they’re looking for fault in you or your work. However, it’s important to remember that it’s probably not personal. It may just be their style of communication or a reflection of something they have going on in their own lives. I respond by being patient and friendly, and I accept their feedback without letting my perception of their tone interfere with their actual message.”

7. What do you do when a decision is being made that you disagree with?

It’s impossible to please everybody all of the time, at work and in life. Conflict comes in many forms, and knowing how a candidate reacts when they disagree with a decision can reveal whether or not they’d be a good culture fit for the role or team they’ll be working on.

Respectfully voicing a conflicting opinion can also demonstrate a level of interest and a sense of ownership in an outcome, which is a trait that can have many different advantages for your company.

Answer example:

“I think it’s important to try to figure out why the other side thinks the way they do. Even if I don’t agree with their perspective, trying to understand the reasoning behind it can be helpful. I also make an effort to communicate my ‘why’ calmly and clearly and, when possible, suggest alternate solutions that might meet everyone’s needs. Ultimately, I listen and respond thoughtfully, accept the prevailing outcome, and move on.”

8. How would you describe yourself in 5 words?

The words someone chooses to describe themselves can reveal a lot about their personality. Using adjectives listed in the job description would be a sharp and strategic tactic. However, whatever words they offer up as an answer are likely to provide a sneak peek into what aspects of their personality they’re most proud of, and what they think is most relevant to the available position.

Answer example:

“That’s a great question! I’d say that I’m honest, independent, curious, responsible, and competitive. I actually think those personality traits have contributed to my success in sales. It’s the perfect career path for someone who is driven and comfortable with themselves and others.”

General interview questions

These are questions that can take any form. They might be generic or clarifying questions to behavioral and situational questions, they can be role-specific or questions to determine culture fit.

They can also be icebreaker questions or closing questions. You can tailor these questions to each specific candidate if there are particular areas about their background that you’d like to explore further. For example:

Great interview questions to ask:

• Why do you want to work here?
• Why did you leave your last job?
• You have a lot of experience in the customer support industry. What do you think you’d like about moving to a sales role and what do you think would be the biggest challenge you’d face?
• What do you like about our company from what you’ve learned so far during the hiring process?
• I’ve noticed an employment gap in your resume. Can you tell me more about that period?
• Why did you pursue this career?
• How did you choose your field of study?
• What do you love about your field of expertise?
• Does this position line up with what you expected, based on the job ad?
• Now that we’ve discussed this position in-depth, would you re-apply? Why / Why not?
• Should you get hired, what do you think would be most challenging in this role?

These are some of the most common questions to ask in an interview because they are general enough to be adapted to any role or candidate.

These questions are great as first-round interview questions to ask. Also, you can use some of them as phone interview questions to ask candidates before you bring them in for a technical interview.

Behavioral interview questions

Behavioral questions ask candidates to share an experience they had at a previous job and explain how they handled a situation.

This can give you insight into how people will react in similar situations at your company.

You can craft behavioral questions to assess most kinds of qualities or skills. For example:

• Tell me about a time you had to deal with a difficult colleague. (assesses communication skills, diplomacy and ability to overcome obstacles)
• Have you ever missed a deadline? What would you do differently next time? (assesses ability to learn from mistakes)
• Have you ever been assigned with a task you were not familiar with? (assesses problem-solving abilities and openness to ask for advice

Make sure you give your candidates an opportunity to reflect and ask follow-up questions if needed.

Behavioral questions, as well as the situational questions that follow, can be part of the third round of interviews where qualified candidates are compared to each other based on soft skills and culture fit.

Situational interview questions

Situational questions present candidates with hypothetical scenarios and ask them to explain how they would act.
Situational interview questions work particularly well for sales, manager, and customer service roles, since these candidates will need to think quickly on their feet.

Just like with behavioral questions, you can evaluate a variety of job-related qualities. Some examples:

• If you discovered your supervisor was breaking the company’s code of conduct, what would you do? (assesses integrity, judgment and communication skills)
• If an angry customer demanded to speak with your manager without specifying their problem, how would you handle it? (assesses ability to stay calm in trying situations, diplomacy and judgment.)
• What would you do if your manager gave you a seemingly impossible task with a tight deadline? (assesses tactfulness and confidence)

Keep in mind that how people say they would act isn’t necessarily the same as how they would act. When evaluating answers to situational questions, pay less attention to their actual answer and more to the candidate’s thought process and how well they can justify their decisions.

Skill-based interview questions

Skill-based questions are designed to gauge an applicant’s proficiency and personality. Questions about hard skills touch on a candidate’s professional background, while questions about soft skills tap into personal characteristics.

Identifying a candidate’s skills helps determine not only how they’d perform in their role, but also within the company itself.

Communication skills questions

The ability to communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing, makes it possible to convey ideas, set goals, report progress, and interact positively with clients and colleagues. Although good communication skills are essential components of certain positions, like sales, public relations, or marketing, they’re a valuable asset in every role.

Hiring a candidate with strong communication skills increases productivity, enhances collaboration, and contributes to a more pleasant work environment all around.

Top 3 communication skills interview questions

Here are the most common communication skills interview questions. Check our dedicated communication skills interview questions article to see more.

• How would you overcome communication challenges on a remote team?
• Have you ever worked with someone you struggled to communicate with? If so, what was the obstacle and how did you handle it?
• Describe a time you had to share bad news with your team or have a difficult conversation with a coworker.

Teamwork questions

Candidates with good teamwork skills are able to accept feedback, resolve issues, recognize the strengths of other individuals, and help foster a healthy work environment.

Good interpersonal skills and the ability to work as part of a team is important, even in roles where a candidate does their actual work independently. Promoting a culture of teamwork, and hiring to support that effort, improves communication and collaboration on a company-wide level.

Top 3 teamwork interview questions

Here are the most common teamwork interview questions. Check our dedicated teamwork interview questions article to see more.

• Describe a group project you worked on. What was your role and what did you achieve?
• Has your team ever failed to reach a goal? If so, what went wrong and what did you learn from that experience?
• Tell me about a time you had to work with a colleague you didn’t get along with.

Learning and adaptability questions

Change can be challenging for many different personality types, but the ability to adapt is essential to innovation and critical to succeeding in a dynamic work environment.

Learning and adaptability questions can reveal whether or not a candidate is likely to remain calm under pressure, accept new team members or tools, or if they can adjust swiftly to unpredictable circumstances. Seek out candidates who are flexible and open to new experiences.

Top 3 learning and adaptability interview questions

Here are the most common learning and adaptability interview questions. Check our dedicated adaptability interview questions article to see more.

• Imagine you have submitted a piece of work that you thought was finished, but a colleague returns it to you with multiple corrections and comments that would take you hours to address. What would you do?
• Tell me about a time you had to learn how to use a new tool at work. How long did it take you to understand its features use it daily?
• What are the biggest challenges you’re facing when starting a new job?

Creativity-focused questions

Creativity is a skill that can turn a good candidate into an amazing hire.

While it’s an obvious skill requirement for some positions, such as graphic designers, photographers, or writers, creative thinkers are more likely to offer ideas and solutions that lead to quality outcomes in any project or role.

Top 3 creativity focused interview questions

Here are the most popular creativity-focused interview questions:

• Tell me about a time you gave a creative solution to a problem.
• How do you find inspiration to produce a piece of work?
• If I asked you to tell me one new idea we can implement into our product/website/services, what would you tell me?

Problem-solving skills questions

Candidates with superior problem-solving skills are often results-oriented employees who can adapt easily and perform effectively in stressful or unexpected situations.

The ability to analyze information and identify effective solutions to complex situations indicates that an applicant can predict potential issues, overcome challenges, and improve existing processes or workflows.

Top 3 problem-solving interview questions

Here are the most common problem-solving interview questions. Check our dedicated problem-solving interview questions article to see more.

• Tell me about a time you predicted a problem with a stakeholder. How did you prevent it from escalating?
• How do you know when to solve a problem on your own or to ask for help?
• Describe a situation where you faced serious challenges in doing your job efficiently. What were the challenges, and how did you overcome them?

Culture-fit questions

Culture fit is a tricky concept. It’s not about wanting to have beers with someone, but you certainly need to be able to communicate and work well with them. Before you choose what interview questions to ask, think about what ‘culture fit’ means in your team or company.

For some teams, “working well” with someone means being able to leave all personal affairs aside and be effective at the task at hand. This can be beneficial in highly structured environments, like consultancies or auditor companies. For other teams, culture fit means being able to have fun and be open with each other (more common in startup environments). Try to formulate specific criteria that will help you determine culture fit for your own company.

Top cultural fit interview questions

Here are the most popular culture-fit interview questions to ask candidates. (Note that these questions can also help you identify common deal breakers, such as arrogance or unhealthily competitive behavior). Check our dedicated article to see more examples of culture-fit interview questions.

• Describe the type of work environment in which you are most productive.
• What’s one thing you like about your current (or prior) job and you’d want here as well?
• What do you hope to achieve during your first six months here?
• Which was your favorite team to work with in your current or previous jobs and why?

Decision-making questions

Making decisions is part of daily life, both personally and professionally. From prioritizing tasks to solving unexpected problems, good decision-makers routinely use critical thinking skills to evaluate circumstances, consider alternatives, and weigh the pros and cons of available options.

Employees with excellent decision-making skills often work well under pressure and make good leaders or team members since they’re willing to take ownership of a potential solution.

Top 3 decision-making interview questions

Here are the most common decision-making interview questions. Check our dedicated decision-making interview questions article to see more.

• Describe a time you made an unpopular decision. How did you handle the feedback? How would you have handled the situation differently?
• Do you usually make better decisions alone or with a group? Why? When do you ask for help?
• You want your manager to buy a new software that will help your work and you’re trying to choose between two options. The first is more expensive, but has better reviews and the second has fewer features, but is within budget. Which one would you recommend and how?

Critical-thinking questions

Candidates with critical thinking skills routinely employ the use of analytic reasoning and logic to make sound decisions. Critical thinkers often have an independent mindset and are likely to improve processes instead of simply performing the tasks associated with their position.

Critical thinking incorporates a broad range of valuable skills, including adaptability, creativity, objectivity, decision-making, and problem-solving abilities, which makes employees with strong critical thinking skills an asset to any team, role, or project.

Top 3 critical-thinking interview questions

Here are the most common critical-thinking interview questions. Check our dedicated critical-thinking interview questions article to see more.

• Tell me about a time you had to make a decision with incomplete information. What did you do?
• During a live presentation to key stakeholders, you spot a mistake in your manager’s report, but your manager isn’t at the presentation. How do you handle this?
• Describe a time when you had to convince your manager to try a different approach to solve a problem.

Soft-skills questions

Although work experience and history is undoubtedly important, it’s often soft skills like communication, adaptability, and collaboration that become the deciding factor between two equally proficient candidates.

Hiring candidates that are a good fit for their team, and for company culture in general, helps build lasting rapport and can reduce turnover rates. Choose soft skill questions that will help you assess aptitude in a few different areas to get a better perspective of an applicant’s personality.

Top 3 soft-skills interview questions

Here are the most common soft-skills interview questions. Check our dedicated soft-skills interview questions article to see more.

• What would you do if your team rejected all of your ideas?
• If you’re presenting ideas during a meeting and your audience seems disengaged, what would you do to get their attention?
• Describe a time you fell behind schedule. What went wrong and what would you do differently next time?

Technical interview questions

These questions are at the core of technical interviews. If you’re the hiring manager or a team member who does a similar job as the position you’re hiring for, you’ll want to ask these questions. Note that “technical” does not mean tech-related – in this case, it means specific and job-related.

Technical questions are usually part of the second interview questions to ask candidates who have been shortlisted after the initial interview or screening call. In this stage, you’re evaluating the candidate’s ability to actually do the job.

To find the best technical interview questions to ask potential employees, search for the role you’re hiring for in our vast library of 390+ interview question samples.

Here are some examples of position specific interview questions:

Interview questions for Management

If you’re hiring team leaders, you want to make sure they can answer the above types of interview questions well. But, hiring for each managerial position will entail an additional set of questions specifically to judge the candidate’s management skills (such as setting and tracking goals or training and motivating team members). Depending on the seniority of the manager’s role, there are different interview questions to ask managers.

Top 3 Management interview questions

Here are the most common interview questions for managers.

• What’s your approach to delegating work to employees? How do you ensure that tasks are completed?
• How would you describe your management style?
• Tell me about a time you had to deal with a team member who constantly opposed your ideas. How did you handle it?

Other interview questions for Management positions

Check our dedicated managers interview questions articles for more questions depending on the position you are hiring for.

• Team Leader interview questions
• Administration Manager interview questions
• Business Manager interview questions
• Operations Manager interview questions
• General Manager interview questions

Interview questions for Accounting and Finance

When interviewing for accounting and finance positions, you’re searching for a motivated, detail-oriented individual with work experience that’s relevant to your company’s specific needs. Situational and process-based questions can provide insight into the kind of work they did in prior positions.

Accounting-related tasks are often routine and repetitive. Hiring a candidate with critical thinking or problem-solving skills is more likely to lead to improved systems and an increase in productivity.

Top 3 Accounting and Finance interview questions

Here are the most common interview questions for accounting and finance positions:

• Describe an accounting process that you developed or improved.
• Describe a time you helped your company reduce costs.
• How would you set up an internal control system for processing invoices?

Other interview questions for Accounting and Finance positions

• Accountant interview questions
• Finance Analyst interview questions
• Risk Analyst interview questions
• Finance Clerk interview questions
• CFO interview questions

Interview questions for Administration

Administrative positions cover a broad range of important operational duties. Work history requirements will vary depending on the available position, but the best candidates for administration-related roles are diligent, organized, and have strong verbal and written communication skills.

Combine operational, role-specific, and behavioral questions to get a better understanding of what attributes each candidate may bring to the position.

Top 3 Administration interview questions

Here are the most common interview questions for admin positions:

• In what ways have you improved efficiency at work? (e.g. finding a cheaper vendor for office supplies that reduced costs)
• What does “managing up” mean to you? In what ways have you done that?
• How would you prioritize your work if different managers assigned you tasks due at the same time?

Other interview questions for Administration positions

• Administration Manager interview questions
• Assistant Director interview questions
• Secretary interview questions
• Administrative Assistant interview questions
• Office Administrator interview questions

Interview questions for Customer Service

The people you hire for customer service positions ultimately become the face and voice of your business, so it’s important to choose candidates with strong communication skills and a genuine desire to help others.

Operational or role-specific questions are an excellent way to evaluate a candidate’s prior experience or judgment, but keep in mind that it’s easier to train someone to do the tasks associated with the job than it is to change personality. Behavioral questions are a valuable way to gauge their potential success in interacting with customers, and it’s particularly helpful to pay close attention to non-verbal cues such as body language during the interview process.

Top 3 Customer Service interview questions

Here are the most common interview questions for customer service positions:

• Let’s say that the customer you’re talking to is complaining about a well-known problem with your product. How do you diffuse the situation?
• Describe a time you turned a negative situation with a customer into a positive one.
• Are you familiar with our products/services? What do you think are the most common issues we face with clients?

Other interview questions for Customer Service positions

• Customer Service Representative interview questions
• Customer Service Manager interview questions
• Customer Care Representative interview questions

Interview questions for IT and Tech

Hiring for IT and tech roles is unique because the roles are so reliant on hard skills and experience. Being proficient is often critical to the functionality of the business—it’s rarely a role where you can successfully “fake it ‘til you make it.”

Although a formal education is valuable, hands-on experience and a genuine interest in the field is often even more important since technology changes so rapidly. Strong candidates should have a desire to learn and an interest in acquiring new knowledge.

Top 3 IT and Tech interview questions

Here are the most common interview questions for IT and tech positions:

• How would you spend your first week on the job?
• You have an idea you want to try out quickly enough. What tools would you use to prototype it?
• Describe a commercially successful product that you like. What makes it so successful?

Other interview questions for IT and Tech positions

• Software Engineer interview questions
• Product Manager interview questions
• Front End Web Developer interview questions
• Data Scientist interview questions
• System Administrator interview questions

Interview questions for Human Resources

Hiring accomplished HR professionals has a wide-ranging ripple effect of advantages for your employees and your company. The ability to attract, identify, and retain top talent can reduce costs, increase profits, improve company culture, and optimize every aspect of your business.

Strong candidates for HR positions are organized, analytical, detail-oriented, and possess good decision-making and communication skills.

Top 3 Human Resources interview questions

Here are the most common interview questions for human resources positions. Check our dedicated HR interview questions article to see more.

• Describe a time you successfully resolved differences between an employee and upper-level management.
• Talk about a hiring process from a previous company. What worked well? What didn’t work well? What would you change?
• What benefits would you suggest offering to help improve our employees’ work/life balance, but maintain each team’s productivity?

Other interview questions for Human Resources positions

• HR Assistant interview questions
• Recruiter interview questions
• Recruitment Manager interview questions
• HR Manager interview questions
• HR Specialist interview questions

Interview questions for Marketing

Promoting your brand and engaging customers is essential to the overall success of a business. Marketing requires a mix of critical thinking, problem-solving skills, creativity, and communication.

Strong marketing candidates will be independent thinkers who have a genuine interest in your product and intended audience, along with an ability to think outside of the box.

Top 3 Marketing interview questions

Here are the most common interview questions for marketing positions:

• Who do you think is our biggest competitor? What differentiates our companies?
• What strategies would you suggest to increase our market share?
• Describe a time when you worked with a team to create a campaign on a tight budget. What did you have to prioritize?

Other interview questions for Marketing positions

• Marketing Manager interview questions
• Marketing Specialist interview questions
• Social Media Manager interview questions
• Digital Marketing Manager interview questions
• Product Marketing Manager interview questions

Interview questions for Sales

Sales professionals represent your business to the public, so it’s important to hire candidates who are interested in learning about your customers and products, enjoy working on teams, and are motivated to set and meet individual goals and sales quotas.

When interviewing applicants for sales positions, seek out candidates who take initiative, seem results-driven, and communicate clearly and with confidence.

Top 3 Sales interview questions

Here are the most common interview questions for sales positions. Check our dedicated sales interview questions article to see more.

• What’s your biggest professional success so far? What do you want to achieve next?
• Imagine I’m a prospective client. Sell me this object or close a deal with me in 3 minutes.
• Tell me about the most difficult sale you’ve ever had to make.

Other interview questions for Sales positions

• Business Development Representative interview questions
• Business Development Manager interview questions
• Sales Executive interview questions
• Sales Assistant interview questions
• Key Account Manager interview questions

Interview Questions you should not ask

There are certain interview questions that should be avoided, either because they’ve outlived their usefulness or because they’re illegal under U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) guidelines.

Cliche interview questions are unlikely to add any real value or insight—candidates expect these questions and have prepared for them in a way that makes answers inauthentic, or the questions lead to answers that simply lack substance.

Illegal questions should be avoided for obvious reasons, however, it may be easier to accidentally stray into EEO violation territory than you realize.

Cliche interview questions

Smart interview questions can help interviewers make smart hiring decisions but they have a shelf life. There’s no need to buy into the notion that interview preparation is an arms race between interviewers and candidates, but once a question is out there then the model answers will quickly follow. Too often the result is canned responses to predictable questions.

You can’t blame candidates for trying to figure out what they will be asked and what you want to hear. This is what bored Google’s Larry Page out of his mind and prompted him to ask candidates to tell him something he didn’t already know. But even this approach doesn’t always work.

Interviews have limits as a means of predicting future job performance. Asking certain questions may not give you the insight you’re looking for, and other, more direct questions, may actually be illegal. And hiring on intuition, as Nobel winner Daniel Kahneman argues, is no better. So what are you left with? The need to freshen up and give your interview questions the attention they deserve. Devising variations can take candidates out of their comfort zone and prompt a revealing conversation.

Here are our half-dozen cliched questions that need to be banished, together with some of the best interview questions employers can ask instead:

1. Why do you want this job?/ Why do you want to work at our company?

Who wants a candidate that doesn’t like the job or the company? Still, these questions are quite easy to prepare for and candidates have also been instructed to respect the “it’s not about you” approach. Answers will largely move along the same lines, which greatly diminishes their significance.

Alternative: What were two things that made you want to apply for this position? / From what you know of our company, what are the two things you like best and why?

These alternatives can be answered using what they know of the company and the job. What distinguishes them from the originals, is that they require a certain degree of thinking. Candidates must contemplate on what is important to them and instead of a lengthy abstract paragraph they must be specific and to the point.

2. Why should we hire you?

One of the most popular questions seems hard to answer at first. It requires candidates to find ways in which they are truly special. It screams for a rehearsed response and most of the time candidates will give you just that. The result, unfortunately, doesn’t really help you much. All candidates have seen your job description (which is worth writing well to help it stand out) and they will sell themselves as hard as possible. They will focus on their best assets and demonstrate they can add value to your business. Few surprises expected.

Alternative: If you were hired, how do you think you could help with this project?

Being specific can make them think on their feet. You will not hear a canned response; you will see a candidate actively trying to think. The result may not be as eloquent as the one they had prepared, but it may be a lot more meaningful.

3. What is your greatest weakness?

Candidates know this question is a great favorite with hiring managers. What you end up with is a carefully prepared and faithfully recited answer. Even if the candidate answers truthfully, they will talk about a shortcoming that’s minor and unimportant for the position. You will admire them for their forthrightness but you won’t be any closer to discovering if they are right for the job.

Alternative: Describe a time you experienced failure in your previous job.

This question might also be anticipated, but its greater advantage is that it can’t be so easily faked. Candidates have to talk about a situation that is both verifiable and requires details. Great storytellers may still get there but you will probably get more truthful answers. Anyhow, there’s more bravery involved in admitting a mistake during previous employment than a minor personality flaw.

4. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

The purpose of this question is to see if candidates have long-term ambitions or how serious they are about this job.

Unfortunately, it has the potential to kill a good interview. It’s always anticipated and the answer could easily either be a lie or elaborate and non-believable.

Alternative: What’s your biggest dream in life?/ What would be your priorities for the first 90 days?

The two alternatives can tell you different things. If you are set on finding out the person’s ambitions, you can ask “What’s your biggest dream?” like Zhang Xin, CEO and co-founder of SOHO China.

This may give you insight in the way a candidate thinks and whether they aim high or low. The other alternative question “What would be your priorities for the first 90 days?” is more down-to-earth and practical. You can see how this person prioritizes their short-term goals and builds on the future.

5. Tell me about a difficult situation you had to overcome

All companies ask behavioral questions. Although some doubt their value in predicting job performance, they are here to stay.

Despite the endless variations, they have become abstract and predictable. So much so, that candidates are advised to come prepared with a bunch of stories — whether they are true or not — that can fit any number of behavioral questions. More often than not, these stories are trotted out.

Alternative: Have you ever had to deal with a customer while having another one on the phone?

Since behavioral questions may be sometimes your best bet, why not focus on something specific? Don’t let the candidates choose their difficult situation. Find an issue that you expect to happen often and ask if they have encountered it in the past. If they haven’t, you can turn to asking a situational question instead.

6. How many golf balls can you fit in a school bus?

The brainteaser family of questions was once a big deal at companies like Microsoft and Google. Many expressed doubts as to their effectiveness until Google’s data showed they had no predictive ability for job performance. What’s more, they sometimes stressed and annoyed qualified candidates making it more likely for companies to miss out on talent. Many interviewers though, still use them since they may find it useful in assessing quick thinking and analytical ability.

Brain teaser questions are detached from reality. How much do you really want to count all the haircuts in America? To see a candidate’s analytical ability you can ask them to solve a real problem. If you are set on puzzles, there’s a long list of actually solvable problems. Better yet, it can be something directly related to the job (also known as the work sample), which requires an equal degree of thinking and background knowledge. This, in particular, is the single best predictor of job performance.

Employers should keep in mind that structured interviews are the ones that work best. Not only do you want to ask the best interview questions, but you want to ask them in a particular order and with a pre-determined system. Dedicate some time to streamline your hiring process and you can boost your chances of making a good decision.

Illegal interview questions

This goes without saying. Using one of these illegal interview questions to ask the interviewee can damage your employer brand at best and, at worst, you might actually run afoul of the law or even get sued.

The problem with illegal questions is that they often crop up in an interview without the interviewer (or even the candidate) being aware that they’re illegal. But, often, these questions are also personal and not job-related, so it’s easy to learn to steer clear of them.

Here are some examples of illegal questions:

• How old are you?
• Are you a native English speaker?
• Do you plan to have children?
• Are you married or plan to get married soon?
• Have you ever been arrested?
• Have you ever used any drugs?
• When did you graduate?

These interview questions have the potential of illegally disadvantaging a protected group. For example, in the United States, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) warns against making decisions based on arrest records because this may cause you to unwittingly discriminate against protected groups.

Similarly, in the UK, age is one of the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010. This means that a direct question about age, or even an indirect one (such as “When did you finish school?”) might get you in trouble.

As a general rule of thumb, don’t ask anything about a candidate’s past that’s not job-related and don’t ask for details about a candidate’s personal life. If you want to make sure a candidate doesn’t use illegal drugs, for instance, inform them you’re going to conduct a legal background check.

But, if a candidate is a recovering addict or is taking necessary prescription drugs because of an illness, they may be legally protected from adverse employment decisions. Make sure you learn about the applicable laws beforehand.

Tips for better interview questions

Interviewing is a skill that can (and should) be refined through planning and practice. Identifying which questions to ask requires not only an in-depth understanding of the role you’re hiring for, but also of the nuances of communication and human nature. It’s possible to ask the “right” question the wrong way; make sure your questions are open-ended enough to give candidates the opportunity to elaborate.

It’s also important to conduct the interview in a way that puts candidates at ease for a more accurate insight into their personality.

Prepare your interview questions

We can’t talk about how to conduct an interview or interview questions if we don’t know the specific skills we want to assess.

Interview questions will determine whether you’ll get enough useful insight to judge candidates’ suitability for the job. This means that your questions must be directly related to the job requirements. Otherwise, it will be challenging to compare one candidate to another on the criteria that really matter.

To do this, first determine what qualities you want to see in your new hire. Start with the job description (by the way, if you don’t know where to start writing your job ads, we have a vast library of job description templates to help you). Ask yourself:

• Which requirements do I want to assess during the interview? Make a comprehensive list and select those qualities you can assess through interview questions. Some of your requirements can be evaluated more effectively at previous stages (such as the testing phase or initial screening call).
• What requirements carry the most weight? For example, you definitely want your salespeople to have great communication skills, but they might not need to have extroverted personalities. So, your interview questions should focus on communication skills, instead of extroversion.

Example: Content Writer position

Let’s look at the complete list of requirements for the role of Content Writer.

These exclude experience and education, which can vary considerably depending on the role and are elements you can evaluate directly from the job application phase.

Must-have skills

Some companies may have other or additional requirements, but this list covers the most important qualities.

Hard skills

• Writing skills
• Editing skills
• Researching skills

Soft skills

• Communication skills (including clarity of expression and vocabulary)
• Teamwork
• Learning skills / Openness to feedback
• Creativity
• Problem-solving skills
• Culture fit

The first three skills can be classified as hard, tangible skills and they’re the absolute minimum candidates should possess to be considered qualified for the job. That’s why you can evaluate them via an assessment or a work sample (in fact, the work sample is one of the most effective methods of predicting job performance.)

You can ask content writing candidates to submit their answers to an editing exercise. For other roles, it might be a simulation or a presentation (for instance, you can ask a salesperson to prepare a short presentation for a fictional product).

Assessments will give you a strong measuring stick to evaluate candidates: you can shorten your candidate pool to ensure that only the best candidates make it to the interview phase.

There, you can start evaluating the soft skills, along with culture fit, attitude, and other intangibles that aren’t as easily measured. Some skills (such as communication skills) can also be evaluated during initial screening calls.

Nice-to-have skills

It’s important to consider nice-to-have skills. These skills are additional qualities that would help each candidate do the job at the highest level. They aren’t strictly necessary, but they can be effective tie-breakers when you have to choose between equally qualified candidates. For example, here are some nice-to-have skills for the role of Content Writer:

• Knowledge of SEO and keyword research
• Experience with WordPress
• Familiarity with the Chicago Manual of Style

When evaluating candidates, look for those nice-to-have skills, but make sure you don’t use them to decide on a candidate at the initial stages. If you find yourself with two awesome candidates at the offer stage, then you can use nice-to-have skills to choose ‘the one’.

Now that we have determined the desirable skills and requirements, we can dive into interview questions.

Structure your interviews

Structured interviews are effective methods of predicting job performance. Their three main characteristics are:

• You ask all candidates the same questions.
• You ask questions in the same order.
• You evaluate answers based on standardized rating scales.

The first two characteristics are easy, yet critical for success. If you ask different questions of each candidate, it’s impossible to objectively compare their answers. This will result in you trying to make a hiring decision on your gut feeling which potentially leads to harmful biases and discrimination.

So, when you decide which interview questions to ask, spend some time putting them in order. To do this, use the format of an interview scorecard; your applicant tracking system may have a function to help you build scorecards and share them with your team.

Rating scales mitigate bias

The third characteristic of a structured interview – the rating scales – is immensely helpful in ensuring you’ll hire objectively. You create a scale and then you evaluate candidates’ answers with that scale. To do this right, define what exactly each item on the scale means.

For example, you might choose 1 to 5 scale for organizational skills and say “1” is “poor organizational skills”, while “5” is “excellent organizational skills”. Make sure though that your hiring team is aligned for what “excellent” or “poor” or anything in-between means. One way to do that is to describe behaviors that a person with “excellent organizational skills” would show, such as “they’ll be able to know at any given time what tasks they have and when they should finish them.” If you want to give these scales a shot, download our complete structured interview guide.

Alternatively, you can use a simpler scale, such as “Yes,” “No” and “Definitely” (which is the system that the Workable platform uses in the built-in scorecards.)

Make natural transitions between questions

Having a list of interview questions to ask is good practice, but it has an inherent difficulty: it might make the interview seem more robotic and inflexible.

For example, imagine you’re listening to a candidate’s answer. When they finish talking, you may suddenly feel awkward, so you nod and say something akin to “OK, interesting” and then you move on to the next question. This isn’t how a natural conversation would flow, and it might make the experience less pleasant for the candidate (and yourself).

There are some things you can do to make the transition easier:

1. Group the questions according to topic

For example, if you want to ask about writing skills, list all these questions together. Then, if a candidate answering one question touches on another question in your list, you can easily say; “Actually, I was planning to ask you about that. Tell me more about…”. This applies to similar skills as well – for example, list organizational interview questions and leadership interview questions one after the other.

2. Ask prompting questions

Candidates will use their experiences, knowledge and thoughts to back up their answers. Most of the time, you’ll have something to ask about those that’s relevant to the role. For instance, you can say something like; “You mentioned that you did this project with a team of designers. We actually have a great team here that you’ll be working closely with should you be hired. How would you feel about this?”

3. React like you would in a social situation

If somebody told you at a party that they’re currently working on a cutting-edge face recognition program, how would you react? You might say something like “That sounds fascinating. Tell me more!” or “What’s the program like?” It’s OK to respond this way during an interview, as long as you make sure the conversation doesn’t stray from the job you’re hiring for.

For all these to work though, you need to be a good interviewer with two skills of your own: 1) active listening and 2) good preparation.

Read and learn your questions before the interview, and think about what answers you’d like to hear. Then, give the candidate your undivided attention during the interview.

How to evaluate candidates’ answers

Asking great questions is just the beginning; now you’ll have to tell whether the candidate’s answer was good or not (and how good compared to other candidates’). Before you dive into the answers, make sure you:

Remember what the candidate said

To do this, take a few notes, either during the interview or right after. This will help you recall the answer and analyze it. Inform the candidate beforehand that you’ll be doing this. Avoid writing down generic judgments, but write down something that will help you recall the candidate’s answer or behavior. For example:

• Don’t write: He’s not a good communicator (too general and abstract)
• Do write: He strayed off topic several times (very specific)

Get all the information you need with the STAR framework

For example, imagine you asked a candidate a behavioral question. Well-prepared candidates may (wittingly or unwittingly) compose their answers around the STAR framework (Situation – Task – Action – Result).

You can use this, too, to make sure you get complete information since a good answer should touch on each of the four STAR elements. Here’s an example:

• Question: “Tell me about a time you had to deal with a difficult colleague.”
• Answer: “When my team took up the launch of a marketing campaign for a new product, we had to work with a senior designer to prepare some graphics.”

This designer, because he was very talented and experienced, disagreed with a lot of our requirements and refused to make the changes we asked for. My boss said I had to find a way to work with him.

So, I arranged a 1:1 meeting with him to find out how he envisioned the graphics, why he objected to our requirements and what he would like to do instead. I also explained the reasoning behind what my team wanted, too.”

• Question: “And what happened in the end?”
• Answer: “The designer appreciated my effort and we managed to find common ground. The end result was really high quality and received the praise of our CEO.”

You can see that this candidate initially touched on situation, task, and action, but didn’t mention the end result. Knowing the STAR framework would give you a cue to ask for the missing information.

7 factors to evaluate candidates interview answers

Now, consider these factors to help you evaluate candidates:

1. Concreteness and simplicity

We all know people who can ramble on and on about something. If the candidate does this without answering your questions, that’s a potential interview red flag. This also applies if they include a lot of irrelevant information in their answer.

2. Staying on topic

It’s one thing to go off in tangents on a topic, and another thing to deliberately avoid answering a question. This might happen inadvertently, so try to bring the conversation back on topic or ask a more specific question. If the candidate still seems unwilling or unable to answer, it’s a red flag.

3. Attitude

Yes, the tone of each answer matters. If someone is condescending or arrogant when answering, consider whether they’re a good fit – even if the content of their answer is appropriate.

4. Authenticity

Answers to some questions might be similar among candidates. Look for those who stand out and have unique and honest answers.

5. Listening

Candidates who listen give the most relevant answers. If a candidate constantly interrupts you or misunderstands the meaning of your questions, that can indicate they aren’t very good listeners.

6. Using examples

Pay attention to the quality and details of examples that candidates give. The outright lack of real examples is a red flag, while vague examples might be embellished or even made up. Ask follow-up questions to get clarification.

7. Consistency

If a candidate says they have excellent communication skills and yet they struggle to complete their sentences, that’s a red flag, too.

Be prepared to answers candidates’ questions

Now that you have a complete overview of the best interview questions to ask, there’s one last thing to do: be prepared to answer common questions from candidates.

They’re interviewing you too, after all. That way, candidates can also get useful insight on whether your company is a good fit for their skill set and motivations – and hopefully, you’ll get to convince the best among them to join your team. Happy interviewing!

The post 110+ best interview questions and answers (according to 250+ recruiters) appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

What is a Job Offer?

When a hiring team finds the right candidate, it usually contacts them in order to announce its decision and make a job offer. When the job offer is verbal, the hiring manager calls the selected candidate and lets them know they are offering them the position. Depending on the company’s policy and hiring process, the candidate will also receive the offer via email or in writing. A job offer to a candidate, whether it is made via phone or email, must be followed by a formal job offer letter where the details of the offer of employment are confirmed.

What is included in a job offer?

A job offer letter from employer to employee should include:

1. Job title
2. Job description
3. Starting date
4. Work schedule
5. Reporting structure
6. Salary (Compensation Bonus or Commission)
7. Paid time off
8. Employee benefits
9. Privacy policies
10. Termination conditions

Depending on each situation, there are different job offer letters a company or a hiring manager can use. To help you send a job offer letter that will suit your needs, we collected eight sample job offer letter templates.

8 job offer letter examples for any case:

1. General job offer template

If you want a simple job offer letter sample, then this template is for you. This is a job offer email template you can use when you have found your perfect candidate and want to officially offer them a position. Feel free to customize it in order to include as many details as you think your candidate will want to know before making up their mind.

The general job offer template can be found here.

2. Formal job offer template

This formal job offer letter sample can be used when a company is offering a full-time position to the best candidate. The formal offer of employment includes a sample job offer email along with a formal job offer attachment that covers the most important terms of employment.

The formal job offer template can be found here.

3. Informal job offer template

This job offer letter example enables your candidate to acknowledge your offer via email, and is just as official, but not as comprehensive as our formal offer letter format.

An email offer letter tends to be less formal and covers the most basic aspects of the job offer before sending a full offer letter. An offer letter email can include salary, an outline of benefits, and immediate next steps. Feel free to use this template when authoring a job offer email for any position.

The informal job offer letter can be found here.

4. Part-time to Full-time job offer template

Have you decided to change a part-time employee to full-time? Use this job offer template and modify it to suit your needs. Before you send a job offer, make sure to ask employees if they’d like to take on a full-time position. Then, send them a job offer email or letter detailing the new position.

The part-time to full-time offer letter template can be found here.

5. Internal job offer template

Sometimes it is common for companies to offer a new job opening to a current employee. Although this is an existing employee, the company still has to send an internal job offer to them in order to make this internal promotion official. This email should follow a discussion and verbal agreement between the employee and their current manager to ensure the promotion aligns with the employee’s career goals.

The sample job offer letter template for internal promotion can be found here.

6. Sales job offer template

Hiring salespeople? What better than sending a sales-customized job offer. This offer letter template for sales candidates contains placeholders where you can fill in your company’s data and you can also tweak the tone and modify employment terms.

The sales job offer template can be found here.

7. Developers job offer template

If you hiring a developer, use this template that includes tips on how to optimize your developer job offer letters, a sample job offer email and a sample formal job offer letter for developers. You can also customize employment terms or include a personalized message to your potential hire.

The developers job offer template can be found here.

8. The Workable job offer template

This is our very own job offer template. We use it for every formal job offer we send to selected candidates (aka Workablers!)

The Workable job offer letter email can be found here.

Tips for making a job offer to candidate