Aug 16

The pond is only so big…….

By Wendy Linden Contingent Workforce Management, Managed Service Programs, Recruitment No Comments »

As we compiled this past month’s ugliest and hottest jobs data, from across our clients’ market experiences, a theme began to repeat itself. In multiple places, supply could not meet demand but in very different types of locations. As dissimilar as the customers were in these various locations, and the talent needed, (for example, one being high level IT in Silicon Valley and one being short term call center talent in rural North Carolina), the question was the same, ……

……..What can be done to find more talent in a challenged, talent marketplace?

The first call to action/reaction in these situations is to bring in more suppliers to deliver the sort-after talent. Its not a bad strategy, but it is a short sighted one. Additional, new suppliers will in assence drive their recruiting engines at the same talent pool that existing suppliers are already focused on.  A few more fishing poles in the pond doesn’t necessarily guarantee a bigger catch of the day.

So what’s the answer?

You have the have the best fishing lure in the pond, and the ability and willingness to cast far and wide to other types of pools of talent in the locale.

The client examples mentioned above couldn’t be more different. The high cost of living in Silicon Valley coupled with a long recession saw local talent forced to relocate to more affordable areas of the state and country. As the demand of Silicon Valley companies for IT and Engineering talent started to uptick, the required talent supply to draw upon wasn’t available locally in the same numbers.  In North Carolina, locale played a part; so did the prospect of the call center moving from the area. Low pay wage and stringent background and credit checks were also responsible for shrinking the available talent pool greatly.

Talent challenges like these need to have companies and the staffing program partners employ creative strategies of attracting contingent talent in the same manner they would go to employ their full time staff. Flex time, virtual opportunities (technology enables us to grab some levels of talent from anywhere); drawing upon resources that have left the work force (retirees, full time mothers) or those looking for a way to enter it (college student interns, change of career professionals) and offering them even part time opportunities as a way to cast the lure into these new ponds of talent opportunity.

Developing a joint training program with a staffing partner, especially in the technical arena, can entice professionals looking to learn a newer, hot technology, while developing the resources needed by the client.

But sometimes the best lure is the green one with Benjamin Franklin’s face right in the middle. Occasionally pay rate increases are necessary in drawing talent; but other valuable enticements can be part of any program. Signing bonuses, completion bonuses, performance and attendance rewards in monetary or goods add to levels of attracting and retaining talent. Sometimes it’s just the question of how above and beyond a company will go in creative solutions that have you catching fish out of the pond all day long.

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Aug 05

Variance Is Sometimes Necessary in Quality Recruiting

By Chase Wilson Global Talent Acquisition, Recruitment, Recruitment Process Outsourcing No Comments »

For those that know me and my penchant for process mapping, quality control, and all things compliance, the following blog may seem out of character. This all started after perusing an article from the Harvard Business Review, March 2009 titled, “When Should a Process Be Art, Not Science”.

Any Six Sigma professional likely knows that the enemy of process quality is variation and the push in any quality initiative is to work to identify variation in a process that results in waste, errors, or bottlenecks. However, the aforementioned article highlights another perspective in that there are many processes—namely recruiting and sales—that have an inherent element of “art” that cannot be ignored. Executors of the recruiting process wrestle with an effort to maintain consistency while at the same time addressing the nuances that come with the art of recruiting.

In a previous blog posting (http://www.sourceright.com/blog/?p=71 ), I espoused the advantages of a truly experienced recruiter in the recruiting process. Lately, I’ve been questioning the efforts of so much of the recruiting industry to standardize, standardize, standardize. More and more RPO providers are working towards a shared services center model with a strong push towards a standardized, commoditized approach to recruiting. The has been done to, ensure compliance, improve economies of scale, implement repeatable best practices, with the end goal guaranteeing process consistency. For some RPO solutions, this approach may suit the client’s specific talent acquisition needs very well. Analyzing the recruiting process and the many components that directly impact it, there are two key areas that should work towards standardization:

• ATS – Commonality of technology ensures a one-stop shop for compliance auditing and requisition tracking

• Measurements – While the individual targets may vary based on position complexity, the metrics themselves (e.g. time-to-fill, diversity of candidate pool, recruiting cost efficiency, etc.) should be the same

But should the methods and tools utilized for the Vice President of Product Development requisition differ from that of the next Customer Service call center class? Naturally, the techniques and avenues a recruiter exploits recruiting for these two categories drastically diverge. Even the people (i.e. recruiters, candidates, and hiring managers) involved in each example likely differ greatly in expectations, experience, and earnestness. Furthermore, the current job environment might impact each hiring category in very different ways, in turn, transforming the way a recruiter might approach each hiring challenge.

Going even more granular, every requisition has inherent nuances that an experienced recruiter will recognize and adjust to accordingly. I’m not suggesting that the process should evolve with each requisition nuance, but the critical to quality goal in most requisitions, is a quality hire in the shortest amount of time possible. An experienced recruiter knows where the process boundaries truly exist to maintain consistency, compliance, and client satisfaction while at the same time achieving that end goal.

Dartmouth Tuck School of Business professors’ Joseph M. Hall and M. Eric Johnson, who authored the article mentioned above, recommend some practical approaches to this Art versus Science dilemma in a business process. They conclude that each has important value development roles in many business processes. They specifically describe the role of art as “allowing for flexibility, creativity, and dynamism that a purely scientific approach cannot replicate.”

Future leading edge RPO best practices and processes will incorporate the strengths of both recruiting art and science and be measured by the appropriate customer (art) and process (science) focused metrics to determine future solution quality levels and success.

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Jul 23

That will be 25 cents please….

By Wendy Linden Contingent Workforce Management, Global Talent Acquisition, Managed Service Programs, Recruitment No Comments »

In early June, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) propose a fee, tariff and/or tax on every 800 number call place in the United States that is routed to a foreign country/off shored call center. Furthermore, his proposed law would require companies to alert the consumer that the call they have placed is being routed to another country and identify the country in which the call is being transferred.

“If we want to put a stop to the outsourcing of American jobs, then we need to provide incentives for American Companies to keep American jobs here,” Schumer was recently quoted in a recent AP article about the proposed transaction tax.

A lot of the buzz on this law is whether it is logical or not; how comprehensively it would be implemented; whether the intended effect of offshore call centers coming back onshore will actually occur or if the “fee” will just be passed on to consumers in the form of price increases. It seems opinion is divided across the political spectrum.

Regardless of one’s “red” or “blue” beliefs, this law may pass, or one similar down the road. Proactive planning needs to be considered with customers who offshore call/contact center/help desk business as to what action to take if/when a statute like this passes.

Clearly, there will be some increased level of staffing needed in the United States should this law pass; the labor arbitrage advantages and cost savings of off shoring will be diminished by the level of fee imposed and how companies have decided how to counter it. The effect may truly be the movement of offshore to onshore and recruitment and staffing efforts have to be prepare for that as quickly as a customer may want to flip that switch. Others have mentioned the use of a level 1 type contact center in the US, (live agent, internet chat or automation have all been mentioned) to resolve the call here first before they would move overseas to more skilled resources.

Dialogue is already happening within organizations that may be facing this call transaction fee. We have to make sure as a staffing provider and Managed Service Provider partner; we are part of those conversations and have solutions at the ready to what could be a fast changing landscape.

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Jul 23

SourceRight Solutions in the News…with SourcingEdge and SourceRight Advisor

By Rebecca Callahan Contingent Workforce Management, Global Talent Acquisition, Managed Service Programs, Recruitment, Recruitment Process Outsourcing No Comments »

As organizations are becoming more sophisticated in sourcing talent and demanding better results from their sourcing strategies, SourceRight Solutions is reinforcing their commitment to providing workforce management innovations by offering greater transparency on contingent workforce trends and providing an exclusive edge in a highly competitive environment. 

SourceRight, recently announced the launch of SourcingEdge, a proprietary candidate sourcing methodology that is designed to help talent acquisition outsourcing clients gain a competitive edge in identifying the best and brightest talent from active and passive candidate pools. The SourcingEdge Career Networking Hub provides clients with rich talent pools; gives candidate access to thousands of job opportunities; provides career resources to aid in career searches; among other advantages.

SourceRight has also launched SourceRight Advisor for talent acquisition programs, a workforce analytics and thought leadership solution that draws on the company’s experience, aggregate business information, knowledge and scale to help businesses develop better-informed strategies to optimize their services and workforce management spend.  SourceRight advisor will deliver specialized expertise and guidance including policy, compliance, change management, market intelligence and supplier relations.

The launch of SourcingEdge and SourceRight Advisor is the next phase of the company’s commitment to continuously revolutionizing recruitment strategies and services for today’s emerging workforce population.

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Jul 22

Think Big Picture….

By Mary Anderson Contingent Workforce Management, Managed Service Programs, Recruitment No Comments »

When looking at a Managed Service Program and its supplier base, the high importance level of a strong partnership between these two entities, as they support a common client, is both logical and critical.  So it is really critical to “Think Big Picture” beyond who is your MSP solution provider….you also have to understand the caliber of suppliers and the state of the actual supplier partnerships the MSP provider brings with them.

Many times, a supplier in one common client may be found in multiple client accounts of MSP providers. Occasionally, a top performing supplier with the ability to provide the quality talent a customer needs may only be found in one client.  MSP Supplier participation lists at customer locations typically have been “built” by absorbing the current supplier base already on the ground at a client. Unfortunately though, you can get some great suppliers included in a new MSP solution, you can also get some not so good. You can, and often do, get the good, the bad and the ugly.

But what if a MSP provider already knows all about the bad and the ugly supplier characters out there in the marketplace?  Giving a new client the ability to avoid bad and ugly choices or changing those choices in a new MSP engagement? What if, through a stringent screening and qualification process, the supplier with the most competitive rates, the strongest ability in staffing capabilities and the best reach for a particular client geographic coverage areas walk in with the MSP provider?

A triangular benefit occurs: The MSP provider smoothly implementing a supplier program with companies familiar with its processes; suppliers gaining a new client to their portfolio they know they have the ability to support; and, a client that gets a seamless transition in supporting their contingent hiring!

Furthermore, a stronger and longer lasting partnership between MSP supplier and its supplier partners develops outside of just an individual client, with acknowledgement and reward tied together by a long-term partnership focused on the clients’ needs and requirements.  Leading Japanese business organizations have, for decades, managed successful long-term, high quality partnerships thru what is know as “keiretsu”.  Maybe a little of this long-term partnership philosophy needs to be the standard operating practice delivered by solutions in the MSP industry today.  And clients need to more deeply evaluate the “keiretsu” depth of the MSP’s supplier partnerships.

Think Big Picture…..The MSP solution is only as good as the partnership management capability of your MSP provider and the caliber of suppliers willing to do business with them, long-term.

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Jun 24

Don’t Forget the Importance of Supplier Satisfaction in a Successful MSP Engagement…

By Wendy Linden Contingent Workforce Management, Managed Service Programs, Recruitment No Comments »

Recently, Staffing Industry Analysts rolled out its 2010 VMS/MSP Buyer and Supplier Satisfaction Survey, seeking a brief “Net Promoter Score (NPS)” opinion and rating of VMS/MSP solution providers like SourceRight Solutions and its competitors. Now, many will automatically focus on what the buyers thought; who had the most customer responses; and, were buyer satisfaction levels a high or low rating on the quality of services provided. After all, the customer is the most critical satisfaction perspective in any business transaction, right?

What may be a more telling result from this industry satisfaction research however is the NPS satisfaction opinion of the staffing suppliers who participate and support MSP engagements. For any participating supplier, there is certainly an advantage of having access to a known volume of customer spend with managed competition. This is true regardless of the MSP models/engagements, though admittedly, some models can provided more attractive returns than others for a supplier.

For sure, the surveyed buyers will definitely be focusing on the overall quality of their MSP program/engagement, which would include supplier delivery performance to predefined service level agreements and other metrics. But when a supplier is rating the quality of a MSP engagement, what might be the business perspective of their opinion?

Opportunity. Fair Access. Participation Levels. Efficient, Managable Process. Profitability. And, equally important, a Collaborative Partnership.  An MSP program cannot succeed without the strength of some “highly satisfied” supplier partnerships that support a mutual MSP customer. Suppliers may be similar in staffing service offerings, but every organization is unique in its history, experience, capability, business operations and point of view. MSPs need to engage their staffing supplier community beyond the required SLAs and KPIs. Ideas for process and program refinement, improvement and optimization come from open lines of communication and a shared, common interest to provide the highest levels of quality services to exceed a client’s staffing needs and requirements.

So look for SIA’s announcement of their 2010 VMS MSP Buyer Satisfaction Survey results in the next month or so, but carefully review the accompanying Staffing Supplier satisfaction results to get the complete picture of industry leading MSP program/engagement performance.

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Jun 10

SourceRight Advisor MarketTrends Bulletin: Shorter Term Contracts Leveraged for Cost Control & Savings

By Wendy Linden Contingent Workforce Management, Managed Service Programs, Recruitment, SourceRight Advisor Bulletins No Comments »

Our top trend this month: Shorter term contracts, specifically in the Professional and IT space.

This trend has emerged because of clients’ cost control needs and requirements; which allows access to higher dollar talent over a shorter period of time, primarily focusing on critical projects with priority budget allocations. Since most contingent talent is still presently in great supply, it’s working. This short term contract engagement strategy provides important financial management flexibility to support any uneven economic business cycles in the near-term.

But as the market continues to turn and more budgets constraints are relaxed, demand will start to dictate whether this strategy remains a viable option. When the business environment turns more active/competitive, those organizations with longer term projects will always be able to capture more of the supply of available, high quality, talent.

Other important emerging trends:

  • Social Media boom in the workplace, driven primarily by business organizations, is producing lots of project work for content and design development.
  • Small/local staffing companies are aggressively vying to partner with big MSP players, who are becoming strategic “Channel Masters” of significant volumes of spend in the staffing industry
  • Increases in industrial spend (SFN Group has seen a 26% increase recently in this space)
  • H1-B restriction for companies who received TARP funds spurring growth in outsourcing suppliers
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Jun 09

SourceRight Advisor MSP Bulletin: Ugliest & Hottest Jobs in America

By Wendy Linden Contingent Workforce Management, Managed Service Programs, Recruitment, SourceRight Advisor Bulletins, Ugliest & Hottest Jobs No Comments »

Ugliest Job in America, June 2010

Application Developers in the state of California.

California employers are being forced to confront an interesting workforce anomaly when trying to hire application development talent contingently:  Unemployment pay is a better deal.  Pay rates have dropped everywhere in response to the recent recession. They have not yet trended upwards; Hence, unemployed application development talent in the state are not being lured back to work. The current contingent pay is lower, the contract lengths are shorter, and they would have to give up their unemployment pay and benefits….not an attractive deal for application development talent.

Runner-ups this month:

  • Welders
  • Material handlers
  • Producers/Animation Motion Graphic Artists
  • Websphere Portal Architects

Hottest Jobs in America, June 2010

Contingent worker titles with the highest demand, based on employer feedback.

  • Engineering Designer and Drafters
  • Buyers in Procurement departments
  • Credit and Collections talent
  • Recruiters
  • Senior JAVA Developers

Full time worker titles, based on job postings from Wanted.com

  • RNs
  • Retail Sales Managers/Supervisors
  • Retail Salespersons
  • Systems Analyst (IT)
  • Customer Service Representative

 

Data Source: An aggregation of SourceRight Solutions MSP client engagement activity

Definition: “Ugliest Job” category is defined as the most difficult to fill position with the “Hottest Jobs” category being positions with the highest demand.  A job position can be defined as both simultaneously.

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Apr 14

The Science of Recruiting Doesn’t Sell

By Chase Wilson Recruitment No Comments »

Recruiting is not transactional, cold, or scientific.  Technology, behavioral interviewing, and social networking have haphazardly advanced the concept that recruiting is more about garnering as many resumes as possible and just asking a bunch of questions; demoting a hiring decision to a level akin to deciding what type of paper clips the office should be using.   It’s not.

Recruiting is not solely scientific.  For successful practitioners, it is also an art form, with selling at its core.  The recruiter adept at this certainty knows how to convert a qualified candidate, whether active or passive, into an interested and enthusiastic applicant.  The unspoken reality point here is that there is a vast difference between a candidate and a truly interested applicant.

Maybe it comes from the fear that if we don’t have a million candidates in some database then we’re somehow missing the ideal candidate, or perhaps it was the reality of the various booms and apparent labor shortages over the last 15 years.  While there’s truth to the veracity that not having an effective, efficient method for acquiring candidate flow will diminish a recruiter’s success, finding the resume is only garnering the lead, it’s not making the sale.

To convert the ideal candidate into an interested, even passionate applicant, we’ve got to consider four primary points:

  • Experience, with recognizing worthy candidates. In traditional marketing, some products can be sold through a creative marketing strategy or an army of college grads marching on the streets.  But as the sales cycle increases and the constituents move up the ladder, then experience becomes critical.  That experience helps the sales person interpret subtle cues from the sales target and recognize leads that are truly worthy of pursuit.   With recruiting the argument is similar.  Certain positions will be filled efficiently with a creative marketing approach and augmented by an inexperienced recruiting team or even the untrained hiring managers themselves.
    But most positions and especially those within the professional realm require a recruiter that can recognize a worthy candidate beyond the resume.  Beyond this, the hiring managers don’t want an order taker.  They’re looking for someone that knows more about hiring than they do.  The recruiter doesn’t need to know quantum physics to hire an advanced engineer, but they do need to know the intricacies of recruiting such a position, the pitfalls, and the keys to success.
  • Experience, with sensing the candidate’s barriers to buy. Why is your company an employer the ideal candidate should buy?   Remember, this is about differentiators, not that you have a benefits package everyone else has.  Does your location have key selling points?  Does the product or service you’re selling encourage or discourage people to apply?   Understanding all of these comes from a quality employer value proposition that should be produced and packaged through a collaborative effort of your recruiting, corporate marketing, and HR teams.  However, handing off that carefully crafted message to a junior, inexperienced recruiter will often result in a lost candidate.  Passive candidates are certainly not going to open up to a junior recruiter with their concerns.  Often times such a candidate doesn’t even know what they are.  An experienced recruiter can identify the subtle clues that can make the difference between making the sale and settling for a less than ideal candidate.   Simply from observing career patterns, locations, and understanding the industry, an experienced recruiter can identify and address early on the key concerns the ideal candidate is likely to have.
  • Experience, with understanding and adapting to the latest technology.   With one of the top recruiting technologies called Recruiter and everyone preaching about SEO and social networking as the new frontier of recruiting, it’s easy to become convinced that it has somehow replaced the art of recruiting.  Technology can be your friend, but it is not your recruiter. A recruiter still needs to make the sale.  An experienced recruiter can make the most of technology to establish and cultivate candidate relationships, but doesn’t allow the technology to become a crutch to their success.  I can often recognize a true, experienced recruiter when I start discussing a new technology.  They don’t get too excited, but they don’t roll their eyes either.  They care less about all the cool buttons, search connections or predictive algorithms, but want to know answers to one or all of the following:  “How will it help me find more candidates?  How will it help me weed out the poor ones?  How will it help me make the good ones become interested?”  The best recruiters recognize that the most effective piece of technology can often be the telephone.
  • Experience, with closing the sale.   Any salesperson will tell you that every lost sale is a lesson that helps bring the next win.    An experienced recruiter, using all of the above, has likely already established a solid strategy for making the hire.  But beyond that an experienced recruiter comes prepared to address the unexpected.  Counter-offers?  Sub-par relocation packages?  Slow hiring decisions?  The experienced recruiter has familiarity with all of these and their respective nuances.  In fact, he or she often addresses these issues early on before they become a challenge.  To put it another way, the experienced recruiter closes the sale because there often are no unexpected surprises.    He or she clears the way to make the recruiting experience as seamless and painless as possible for both the applicant and hiring manager.  Real “match-maker” art form skills are required here.

So the next time you hear of the latest whiz-bang technology that will make recruiters obsolete or a marketing approach that will cause passive candidates to trip over themselves to join your company, remember this:  selecting a future team member is not just about you finding a resume and making a decision, but it’s about the candidate choosing you.  The art of the sale is at the core of the art of recruiting.  Combined with the science, it succeeds in helping both company and applicant alike find the perfect match.

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