Build your recruiting timeline

Transcription

1 Cost of talent toolkit PART 1: PLAN Build your recruiting timeline A practical roadmap for HR professionals aimed at reducing time to hire Cost of talent toolkit PART 1: PLAN Build your recruiting timeline A timeline PART 2: MANAGE How to avoid the hidden costs of recruitment A guide PART 3: BUDGET Save money with a recruiting budget A budget workbook

2 2 How to use this guide WHAT S INCLUDED: What follows is an eight-week plan for your next hire from early salary research and process planning to final job offer. Use this program as a template. You may need to add steps (e.g. if you re a smaller company, your CFO may need to sign off on a new hire budget), or even 2. Adapting weekly schedules Realistically, your search will not progress in an automated, perfectly linear fashion. Some actions from Week 4 may take place in Week 3, etc. Overlapping weeks are to be expected. That said, you should be roughly Week 1: Design Conduct salary research and develop your search strategy. Week 4: Interview want to work for your organization. condense the timeline for an urgent hire. Making modifications to this template is expected. Consider this your starting point. KEEP IN MIND: 1. Adjusting total time following the progression of events, being mindful when individual actions are lagging by more than one week. 3. Customizing your checklist Use your first week to closely study this eight-week plan and modify it to your own needs. The more detailed you are in planning ahead each step in the process, the more likely you will be to keep your team on task and meeting Week 2: Advertise Put your prep work from Week 1 into action speed is of the essence. Week 5: Select Select a finalist and begin the due diligence process. According to Glassdoor, the average interview cycle takes 23 days, which roughly matches what you ll find in Weeks 3, 4 and 5 in this template. The process, however, can expectations. 4. Taking time to look back Week 3: Refine Week 8: Review take longer if the position is very senior and requires extensive interviews; if the hiring company is larger, and Once you have completed your search, review how well you stuck to your pre-planned schedule. To what extent Move the recruitment process forward as Onboard your new candidate and evaluate the recruitment process. thus more likely to use a painstaking process; or if the job is based in a city with a talent shortage. Keep these issues in mind when setting your timeline goals and make any did your time to hire differ from the plan? (i.e. actual days to hire / expected days to hire.) Try to keep your ratio at or below 1.0, and track how well you re doing over time, adjustments needed. aiming to be on a downward trajectory.

3 3 Design The efficiency of this first step depends in part on how well you ve documented past searches. Consider setting up an internal guide of recruiting resources noting, for example, salary research sources and niche resources for regional or industry information so that the process runs more smoothly for each future hire. 2. Conduct salary research Produce your salary analysis, showing salary expectations by region, industry, role, and years of experience. Also factor in soft costs such as commute time, employer attractiveness, etc. 3. Develop your search strategy What is presented in this guide is a timeline. You ll also need a search strategy plan, which will include details such as: Advertising plan Where will you advertise the opening and what is the cost of each advertisement? Research all your options and costs in Social media distribution: Where will you promote this job? What niche sites are attractive for this particular role? How will you continue to amplify the message over the next two to three weeks? Influencer outreach: Spread the word via to people who are most likely to introduce you to great candidates and spread the word of the opening. Employee outreach: Which of your employees are best positioned to promote the position? Find out what they can do to help you promote the role. Ideally, your company will have an employee referral 1. Review the plan Take time to review this eight-week timeline, adding any steps unique to your organization and adjusting intervals as you see fit. While this is a flexible document, you should ultimately hold yourself and your team accountable to the plan you develop at the outset of your search. Week 1. Outreach Recruiter outreach: Document what s expected from your team (internal or external). Will they be responsible for promoting the role, or simply identifying individuals who may be a good fit? program to compensate them for any hires that are the result of their help. Stakeholder sign-offs: Who will need to sign off at what stages of the process? Ensure you ve thought of who will be on your distribution list for certain key information and decisions. DESIGN Conduct salary research & develop search strategy. ADVERTISE REFINE INTERVIEW SELECT

4 4 Design 4. Develop a candidate profile A candidate profile (also known as talent persona) is a tool to identify candidates who will best fit into your organization. Essentially, you will describe a fictitious person in great detail who is the ideal candidate for 6. Set search metrics It s critical to set your metrics early. The most common are time to hire and cost per hire. Also consider: Sourcing channel: Track where your leads are coming 7. Write a recruiter guide Is your recruiting team internal or external? If you work for a small organization, this step may not be necessary; but for larger organizations, or organizations that hire third-party recruiters, a your job. The exercise helps your team understand the right message to attract your ideal candidate, as well as which channels you should prioritize to find them. from especially your worthwhile leads. This will help you adjust future efforts, emphasizing the most fruitful channels and changing tactics for less fruitful recruiting guide helps to summarize the type of information that won t be found in the job description, e.g. CREATE YOUR CANDIDATE PROFILE Find more detailed information in the Future Leaders toolkit: Your candidate profile workbook. 5. Write a job description Using what you ve learned from the persona exercise, write the job description for the role in question. Try to capture not only the technical requirements of the role, but also the type of person (e.g. personality, habits, channels. Acceptance ratio: For each position, track how many offers you make until you fill the position. For those who don t take the offer, document why they ve rejected the offer (e.g. salary, other offers, etc). Gender mix of applicants: For some organizations, tracking applicant gender is important. Finding women to fill technology roles, for example, can be a challenge. Keep track of how well you re doing identifying and attracting more women (or men) to specialized roles. What are the day-to-day responsibilities? Who else is on the team? Who s the manager? How long did the last person stay? Why did they leave? What s the turnover level on the team? Are there benefits unique to this role (e.g. budget for training)? What s a typical travel schedule? passions) you re looking for. WRITING THE JOB DESCRIPTION Find more detailed information in the Future Leaders toolkit: How to write a Millennial job description. Remember: In addition to choosing which metrics you will track, also decide who will see performance at the end of the hiring process. Best to decide this before you know how well or poorly the process will unfold. DESIGN Conduct salary research & develop search strategy. ADVERTISE REFINE INTERVIEW SELECT

5 5 Advertise Now it s time to put some of the preparatory work from week 1 into practice. Remember: speed is of the essence in Weeks 1 and 2 because you still have control over timing. In later weeks, other stakeholders may delay the process but in these early weeks you re in charge. 1. Post to primary channels and niche channels According to your search strategy. 2. Use sourcing technology Larger organizations have access to sophisticated sourcing tools like Entelo, Gild and TalentBin platforms that not only recommend ideal candidates but also help attract them. For those that don t, LinkedIn can also offer access to the right candidates particularly passive candidates who may not be actively looking but are willing to consider a change. If at all possible, try to reach candidates via a warm relationship (e.g. an employee connection). 3. Organize applicants As applications begin to trickle in, track each application through whatever management system you use. Some organizations use a CRM, others use spreadsheets. We highly recommend a CRM (i.e. customer relationship management software) because it will allow you to retrieve names for future searches. 4. Contact top matches as they are identified Don't wait to amass a pile. If a candidate is attractive, make contact right away. You could consider using video interviewing for the first round of vetting. New technologies make it possible for companies to ask candidates to pre-record answers to a pre-arranged set of questions. The process is highly convenient (no need to schedule first-round interviews), efficient (if an applicant is obviously not a match, no need to watch the entire video) and consistent (same questions asked of each person). Examples of this technology include HireVue, Take the Interview and WePow. 4. Begin checking references You may conduct basic reference checks on attractive candidates, but be sure to secure permission. Many applicants will not want a current employer contacted unless they are at the finalist stage. DESIGN Conduct salary research & develop search strategy. ADVERTISE REFINE INTERVIEW SELECT

6 6 Refine This week is all about moving the process forward as efficiently as possible. Ensure you have an organized project manager on board to manage all the details. 1. Document, contact, reference As with Week 2, keep tracking new applicants through the management system of your choice. Contact top matches as they are identified. If possible, lead them through a video interview process. Conduct basic reference checks on attractive candidates. 2. Evaluate If an applicant pool is looking skinny, ramp up social media efforts aggressively. Revisit your distribution and promotion plan and double down on any areas you think will generate more leads. Develop a more aggressive stance in Week 3 if you do not yet have a list of at least six attractive candidates. Remember, a longer process is a more expensive process. Early diagnosis of problems is key. 3. Communicate Remember to stay in close contact with attractive candidates, even if you aren t ready to move them forward. Don t let them dangle. 4. Show grace As you reject candidates, immediately send them a note to tell them you ve done so. These people may become applicants for jobs in the future. Leave a positive impression. DESIGN Conduct salary research & develop search strategy. ADVERTISE REFINE INTERVIEW SELECT

7 7 In-person interview As you amass your list of attractive candidates, it s now time to woo those individuals and show them why they want to work for your organization. To date you ve been in critique mode; now you ll be the one being critiqued. 1. Create a shortlist of top candidates To contact for in-person interviews. Vet the list with all the required stakeholders. 2. Create an interview guide for the hiring team Why a guide? It s important that candidates are asked similar questions so you can more effectively compare them and keep the group on track. 3. Contact and schedule interviews If your process is moving quickly enough, you can begin interviewing in Week 4. It s okay to stagger interviews. Speed is of the highest priority. 4. If possible, begin interviewing Make sure some of the time your candidate spends on site is not interview time, but informal Q&A or touring. You may want to partner them up with a new employee for a brief tour, for example, and to answer questions about day-to-day life and behind the scenes information. Ensure your candidate has time to ask questions in a conversational setting. ADVERTISE REFINE INTERVIEW SELECT REVIEW WEEK 8 Onboard & evaluate the recruitment process.

8 8 Select If your process is moving efficiently and you ve found a good pool of candidates, come Week 5 you will be ready to select a finalist and do 1. Complete in-person interviews 3. Make final selections If you haven t done so already, choose your leader as well as at least two back-up candidates, ranked. For each candidate, put together a draft offer. 4. Begin offer/negotiation process with your first-choice candidate You ll likely still be interviewing candidates in Week 5. Even if you think you ve found the one, continue to interview back-up candidates. Don't be wooed into a sense of false confidence. By this time you ve already determined the salary offer and acceptable top limit; you should also know in advance any bonus terms, non-compete details (if any), ideal start date, and any flexible work accommodations you re willing to make. 2. Conduct finalist due diligence You may think checking references is the 3. Conduct individual candidate most important aspect of due diligence, but don t overlook technology-assisted due diligence According to your company s tradition, assessments for things like skills testing or personality tests. Even small and mid-sized businesses can afford many of the conduct any required checks (e.g. background check, drug tests, academic checks etc.). solutions available on the market and these can predict whether your finalist is indeed a good fit. ADVERTISE REFINE INTERVIEW SELECT REVIEW WEEK 8 Onboard & evaluate the recruitment process.

9 9 WEEK 8 Onboard and look back The process hasn t ended yet. It s time to think about onboarding your new candidate a process that begins before he/she walks in the door. 1. Pre-day one candidate experience their workplace set up e.g. desk space, technology, amenities etc. Introductions: Introduce new employees to their team members, as well as other team leads. Organize a team lunch or other social activity to set the platform for good working relationships. Some tech should. This type of manifesto is becoming more common among fast-growing companies. Have fun: What better way to show off your culture than to have a bit of fun with onboarding rituals? Talent management company Lever creates a welcome GIF for What experience do you want to deliver to new employees before they show up on day one? Consider having a team member call them before their first day to check in and answer any questions, and tell them what they can expect including little details like whether they ll be invited to lunch or the office dress code. 2. Plan onboarding What will you offer your new employee during the onboarding process? Consider the following ideas for your new employee s first week: companies, for example, schedule meet the founder events for new employees within the first week. First-day rituals: Consider instituting rituals specific to certain high-value roles. For example, at tech company Hubspot, the company aims to get a new developer productive and shipping code to production on the first or second day, says Darmesh Shah, CTO and co-founder. Are there any rituals that will launch your new employees experience in a meaningful way? each new employee and delivers it by before their first day. Tech company Percolate sends a swag bag to new hires to induct them into the office culture. ONBOARDING TIMELINE For a guide to onboarding, plus a 3-month timeline, see the Future Leaders toolkit: Your onboarding timeline. 3. Metrics It s time to calculate all the metrics you chose to track in Week 1. Evaluate how well you tracked to each, and distribute results to all stakeholders. Settling in: Ensure you ve paired up your new employee with a partner for the morning, who will take him/her through Share your values: Do you have a document that outlines your company s specific culture and shared values? You ADVERTISE REFINE INTERVIEW SELECT REVIEW Select a finalist and begin WEEK 8 Onboard & evaluate the recruitment process.

10 10 Level the playing field The salary expectations of Millennial talent which vary greatly by region, industry and even gender highlighted by our Talent Insights Survey require hiring companies to take immediate action when it comes to the costs involved with the recruiting timeline. Managing this process well is a competitive necessity. Want to know more about how you can attract and retain the best talent? Visit our online shop for more toolkits. http: /bit.ly/1ov281c Universum clients refine their employer branding and talent attraction strategies using our research and the insights they deliver for markets stratified by region, gender and industry. This level of granularity is essential to developing employer brands that are relevant to the best Millennial talent. To discover the benefits of an enterprise membership with Universum, click here. http: /bit.ly/1l75xgg

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