#hiring2020

Resumes are your 10-second window to make an impression - But to create an impact on the recruiter in those 10 seconds they spend on your resume, there are several painstaking hours that you would have to invest.

I would break down resume writing into 3 parts - Content aggregation, Framing & Structuring and Formatting.

Targeted approach: Always create a resume with a recruiter in mind - Your sections and points should be tweaked to emphasize your skills in that sector.

Bucketing: To improve readability and signal competence in a specific area, create buckets within sections. For e.g., a bucket called ‘National-level debate tournaments’ in your extra-curricular section will make clear that you’re a good public speaker.

Front-load and top-load: Lead your resume with your most impactful section, and lead a section with your best resume points.

Numbers are your friend: Data-backed details make a simple point seem more effective.

One-page resume: Recruiters rarely flip to the second page unless there is a technical requirement that needs elaboration

Minimize white space: Format sentences to utilize most of the area of the page, and play around with the font size to achieve the desired effect.

Proofread: A single typo can make your resume look shabby, so double-check everything - You can also use tools like Grammarly, or simply get a friend to check it out.

Consistency: Start all sentences in the same bucket with the same part of speech in the same tense to add a high-quality touch to your resume. (e.g start with Created/Completed/Won or Editor/Leader/Winner or Creating/Visualizing/Learning).

Additionally, always ensure your resume has your current contact info - There’s a tendency for resumes to circulate beyond your intended recipient, and current information helps guide headhunters your way! Resume building is a complex process, and I would encourage you to utilize any mentors you might have to help polish your resume.

The pandemic has compelled many businesses to opt for a remote workforce. However, as the organizations make the shift to remote work, they are facing many challenges in communication and trust-building leading to employee turnover.

Employee turnover is indeed costly and reports suggest that 20% of employees leave within the first 45 days of employment. Given the pandemic situation and evolving expectations of employees, a robust onboarding program for the remote workforce would be a worthwhile investment.

When new employees are physically distant, it is crucial to make them feel included and empowered. Though it is a herculean task, having a sound strategy in place would work wonders. Let’s understand some of the key strategies to keep the remote work smooth here.

Want to make the onboarding process smoother? Here is a to-do list

Here is a simple checklist that you need to tick-off as you onboard remote employees.

Facilitate paperwork remotely

There are several services like DocuSign, HelloSign, and many more that are legitimate and legally binding. You can help the remote workforce join your organization easily by allowing them to complete their paperwork using these user-friendly services.

Send IT supplies on time

It is essential to equip your new hires with all office accessories before time. It may include a laptop, phone, charger, keyboard, desk, and many more. Take advantage of premium shipping services for guaranteed delivery. Also, alternatively, you may ask them to order themselves through your office account, as convenient. All these should be done before the official start date to make them feel enthusiastic to work for your organization.

Gift organization’s swag

Send new hires a welcome package and make them feel included in your organization. It could be an office mug, T-shirt, gift cards, welcome note, or any other gifts. You may also organize a team meeting to introduce the team. It acts as an ice-breaker for the new hires. Also, you can share a digital employee handbook, share presentations, pictures, or videos on company values.  

Introduce office communication tools

It is crucial to introduce them to the communication technology used in the office and help them get familiar with the office tools. It could be a company email, video conferencing software, project management tools, group messaging tool, and others.

Share tasks and goals

Ensure that the new hires’ immediate supervisors are online to share tasks, define short-term and long-term goals with them. The managers should encourage the new hires to get accustomed to the new environment, work tasks, help them speed up tasks, communicate with other team members and leads, and so forth. A weekly one-on-one meeting would help to understand the organization better, know the progress, and resolve potential issues.  

Arrange role-specific training

It is essential to train new employees. To make it more effective, sharing product demo recordings, interactive training courses, quizzes, questions and answers, online team meetings, are best recommended. The managers must have a close follow-up and ensure positive vibes among the new team members. Of course, this does not suggest micromanagement.

Conduct in-person meeting

An in-person meeting is not possible when the remote hires are far-off from the office location. However, in any case, the employee is based near the office, consider calling them to the office depending on the situation (considering the ongoing pandemic). If your organization has distributed employees, it is recommended to schedule a quarterly or annual retreat and meet the entire team.

Allow employees to speak

Remote onboarding could be a passive experience. So, it is recommended to create opportunities to let employees express their personality, demonstrate skills, or share what and how they like to work. Understand their background, interests, and humor.

Stay connected

With remote work, the biggest threat to employees’ success is disconnect and isolation. It may forge weaker relationships among the teammates. Annual conferences, get-togethers, and other small efforts are necessary to make them feel connected. Virtual meetings, hangouts, or celebrations would boost employee morale to a greater extent.

Moving forward, let’s understand what is more needed than this checklist. This checklist is simple comprising of paperwork and technology accessories. More than this, inculcating a sense of belonging and company culture is extremely important when there is no physical office space. The talent manager's role is of prime importance here.

Talent managers role in engaging the remote workforce

Remote jobs are increasing today at a steady rate owing to the pandemic. Many companies may resort to remote work partially or completely post-pandemic owing to its convenience and other advantages.

Strong connections take time. Pay special attention when it comes to remote jobs. Give space and time for new hires. Give an onboarding partner for every new remote hire. Introduce new hires to people across the departments which will lead to cross-functional collaboration. Customize activities as per the learning and social needs of the employee. Give personalized and individual time for a new hire.

Managing talent is a talent indeed. Lead by example by redefining your talent through talent management research and studies. Upgrade yourself, keep your learning curve unceasing to meet the evolving needs of employees and employee culture.

If you're preparing for a career in information technology, you'll eventually have to choose a specific path and build specialized skills. The IT field is a broad one, so there are several good options out there. Here are four different routes you may want to consider taking with your future IT career.

Health IT

Sitting at the intersection of two of the hottest fields in today's job marketplace, health IT specialists provide the technological know-how that keeps modern medical facilities working smoothly. Like all large organizations, hospitals and clinical facilities require IT professionals to maintain and update their computer systems. Health IT can also be a great jumping off point for various tech careers in the medical field.

IT Management

While it will likely take you some time and extra education to achieve, a career as an IT manager can be both fulfilling and lucrative. As an IT manager, you'll be responsible for overseeing other IT specialists, managing projects and seeing to the technological needs of the organization in which you work. You'll need to build up both technical and managerial skills to break into this field, but the payoff can be well worth the effort.

Cybersecurity

As digital threats and cybercrime become larger problems for businesses, people with cybersecurity skills are in increasingly high demand. Although many IT professionals worry that they're not qualified for a career in cybersecurity, there are many training resources that can help to prepare you. One of the best ways to launch your career is to participate in an online cybersecurity program. These programs offer flexible education that will give you the skills you need to succeed as a cybersecurity professional.

Manufacturing IT

Like healthcare, the manufacturing field has a need for IT professionals to support large, complex facilities. Information technology in the manufacturing industry is getting increasingly intense, as modern industrial facilities rely as much on software as they do on hardware. This area of the IT field is quite specialized, but it can offer strong earnings and good job security. If you're thinking about a career that allows you to work in IT but still supports the making of physical materials and goods, becoming a manufacturing IT specialist is likely the best fit for you.

Needless to say, any IT career path can be the right one. Choose a route that interests you and fits your career goals, and you'll soon be able to make a good living as a technology specialist.

Every Senior Recruiter will face this obstacle through their career. How can you advance your talent sourcing abilities when you are in the game for awhile? How can a seasoned Recruiter excel and advanced in the craft of talent sourcing and research?

You are taught to be agile and learn on the fly while managing a full-desk as a beginner. A close friend told me that the best Recruiters always acted and like it was day one for them. They we’re always in a beginner mindset.

Rookie Smarts was booked that coined the phrase this beginner mindset term. Basically, within the sales and recruiting fields you had a sink or swim mentality. An agency that I once worked at would hire entry level Recruiters and have them work for 1-3 months. Within that span if they weren’t getting hires then they we’re let go. The strong will excel and thrive. You need to have this mentality throughout your career. You will need to continuously learn and improve on talent sourcing to make placements.

This was a great question to ask. It made me truly think about this question and reflect on my own background. How have I excelled and advanced my talent sourcing and searching abilities? What has made me eager to grow within the search space? Well, I have a lot of thoughts on this topic and will highlight them below:

1. Find a Mentor

What I mean by this is connect with other seasoned level recruiters within your niche. I love connecting with other Sourcers on Facebook Groups. They might pose a question or answer a post with a well thought out response. Take the chance to reach out to that Recruiter and start a conversation. You won’t need to set up a call or invest too much time from these conversations. It’s just a great way to leverage and learn from others. A Recruiter knows how to connect – why not use these skills in practice?

I’ve at other Recruiter suggest search strings or give additional ways to find and source candidates. I would have never discovered how to source Reviews on Amazon without first connecting with Brian Fink. A random conversation sparked a creative thought that turned into a sourcing hack. Why not search for specific books in an industry and cross reference those reviews with LinkedIn profiles?

2. Build Connections

Always value others’ input and ask for advice. Go to the most seasoned Recruiter on your team and get their input on your phone screens, ask how they find and source leads, ask for their favorite Boolean search strings, just keep asking questions. Build on your connections and grow your network. The more connections and Recruiters that you meet the better you will grow and excel in sourcing.

3. Take Good Notes

Take the time to write well written screening notes. After you have an intake call with the hiring manager and understand the requirements. Every applicant that you screen type out your notes. Use tools like (GlossaryTech) to define and understand each term. Take a course on udemy or coursera to understand a job’s role. Become an expert in the field you are recruiting in. The more you understand the complete job function the better you will become at outreach, Boolean strings, and sourcing in general.

A major part of my day involves assessing an applicants background and skills. You are the gatekeeper at your company. You don’t want to waste your time or the applicants’ time by bringing them through the process if they are not a good fit. You need to really understand the preferred and required skills sets of your requisition. It takes years of practice to understand and screen for specific niches. I like to record my phone screens to help me remember certain questions that I have asked and to understand responses better.

4. Setting Attainable Goals

Everyday starts with setting a goal. My goal was to become widely known as a Talent Sourcing expert. I started this blog in 2015 and made it a goal to write at least one post a week. I have kept this goal going for over 5 years. I’ve had the opportunity to present at conferences across the globe and have gained a ton of exposure. Overall, set a goal and stick with it. Becoming an expert at Sourcing has taken me years to accomplish. It takes a lot of time – reading about new tools and new recruitment trends. Here’s how to create attainable SMART goals in sourcing.

5. Track Recruiting Metrics

What do you want to accomplish during your sourcing day? Set a daily, weekly, and monthly goals that you want to hit. How many do you need to screen, submit for a final round before you get a hire? Seasoned Recruiters track every single phase of the recruiting process. You can use this data to improve on your sourcing, and present reports to your manager or hiring manager. Data is key to building ROI and helps showcase your value. I wrote a post about Recruiting Metrics worth reviewing further here.

6. Continuously Learning

I read all the time. Blogs, websites, social media sites,& forums groups. Any topic that I am sourcing on. I like to research and fully understand the niche skill before I start searching for the role. In order to advance your Recruiting career I recommend taking training courses, finding a mentor, reading recruiting blogs (like mine) and reading posts in Facebook Groups. Invest time to continuously learn about recruitment technology trends. Our industry is constantly changing and you will need to be a student through your entire career.

7. Advanced Searching

Understand all search modifiers and operators for each search engine. Understand the reason why you use different search engines. Build on a custom search engine. Know how to peel back a website page. Understand how to find pages outside of a search engine. Know all the ways to find an email address and cell number. There’s millions of ways to find and source candidates. Get creative and think outside the box to find a lead.

At the stage of interview scheduling, you are close to one of the most important steps during the hiring procedure. However, your interview scheduling email is always the first impression on candidates, so neglecting meticulousness when scheduling interviews via emails never sounds like a great idea. Inevitably, mistakes will easily slip in at some point and mess up the whole effort you have put into your work as recruiters. In this blog, We will share with you the top common mistakes that you can steer clear of them and leverage your interview process.

Why is an Interview Scheduling Email Important in a Hiring Process?

In general, an interview scheduling email serves to provide candidates with relevant information so that they can be well-prepared for the interview process. It is a helpful tool for recruiters as well to improve candidate experience as a sign of respecting boundaries and avoiding bothering candidates with untimely interruptions. When writing an interview scheduling email, you can also support candidates by sparing them some time to deal with their business in general and their current jobs in particular. All in all, you are able to keep everyone on the same page with formal writing communication.

What Should be Included in an Interview Scheduling Email?

A standard interview scheduling email normally includes the following points:

The title position

The name of your company

Interview format: in-person, on phone calls or through video - conference, and individual or group interview

Options of time periods and days to choose or a certain time and date

Location of the interview site: address, building, floor and room number; and even a map to guide them towards the right place

The name and position of interviewers

Items candidates need to bring

The approximate duration of the interview

Other notes/ guidelines You can make your preferred adjustments until you see fit. 

What Mistakes May You Make When Writing an Interview Scheduling Email and How to Avoid Them?

Lack of Opening:

Jumping straight into the topic will catch applicants off guard as to where this email is heading towards and divert them from the important information. Sensibly, you can get started by appreciating their efforts to apply for the job opening in your company. Then, you inform them of the interview stage by either stating that you have reviewed their materials you ran into or congratulating them on passing previous application rounds and would like to invite them to a meeting. One example would be “Congratulations on passing “The previous round name!” We would like to invite you to an interview with us!”

Subject Line Mistakes:

No subject lines: The absence of a subject line outright asks applicants to “ignore this email”. They will deem your invitation to the interview as trivial and move past it.

Vague phrases: An email with a subject line full of ambiguity will confuse job seekers and distract them from the main topics.

Excess of punctuation: Your email will most likely get filtered as spam contents if there are too many marks and symbols in its subject line. In lieu, write a direct subject line to expressly mention that this email is an interview invitation to capture their attentions and prevent it from being inadvertently missed and increase open rate. For example, “Invitation to Interview at “Your company’s name” will suffice.

Get Facts Wrong:

Sending candidates an email containing false information can confuse them as they will get unsure whether or not they are the right receivers. This is an indication that recruiters have not thoroughly kept track of their candidates’ data, which speaks evidently of unprofessionalism. You will not only waste time on back-and-forth correction emails but also discourage candidates from opening mails or leave them with an impression of a chaotic and ill-prepared company. It is advisable to use either a spell checker program like Grammarly or a second party go through the draft before you send it. They will pick up what you might have left behind like misspellings in the candidate’s name and incomplete sentences in your draft and point them out for you before you can deliver your final email to its destination.

Tone Problems:

As regards your tone in an interview scheduling email, you should be neither overly formal nor too familiar when addressing your candidates. General sounding greetings such as “Dear Candidate” and “To whom it may concern” may sound impersonal and detached from candidates’ viewpoints. On the other hand, too personal phrases, namely nicknames and confidential information you may have accidentally come across, give off a feeling that you are intruding in their privacy. Though the recommended tone represents your corporate culture, it also sounds friendly but polite and professional. Whether you want to write something casual or formal, do not ever overlook the need to personalize your emails. Refer to “Hi / Hello, Title + Candidate’s Last name” or “Dear, Title + Candidate’s Full name” when formal and “Hi / Hello, Candidate’s name” or “Dear, Candidate’s name” as you are being informal.

Lack of Closing:

Similarly to lack of opening, the lack of farewell is comparable to abruptly shutting the door to the face of your visitors after going into details with them. They stand no chance of reaching out if they have anything to ask. In fact, you do not have to necessarily lengthen a sentence of goodbye as phrases like “We look / are looking forward to hearing from / seeing you” would be courteous enough.

Forget Your Email Signature:

Remember to identify yourself with potential talents by giving at least your full name and job title in the signature section. Compared to an email from a nameless source, hearing from a specified sender increases both credibility and engagement. You can include other relevant information like links to social media pages, and online profiles as official sources they can refer to if need be. To look more impressive, you can highlight a short summary of the company or quote a value that your company strives towards. Likewise, never make it too long with excessive information. Keep it short and concise to allow applicants to have a brief idea of who you stand for and do their research.

We make countless decisions every day without even realizing it. Even as you sit here reading this, you’re making decisions. Decisions about the content, the questions being asked of you. And the answers to these are influenced heavily by something researchers refer to as “unconscious bias.”

What is “unconscious bias”?

Bias is an inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group. So, unconscious biases are unconscious feelings we have towards other people – instinctive feelings that play a strong part in influencing our judgements away from being balanced or even-handed.

One of the most prominent areas of life where bias can play out is the workplace. For example, one of the strongest biases we have in the workplace is gender bias. Why? Well, our feelings about gender and the stereotypes we’ve all associated with gender are something we’ve developed throughout our whole lives. Things like how or where we’ve been brought up, how we’ve been socialised, our exposure to other social identities and social groups, who our friends are/were, as well as media influences, all affect how we think and feel about certain types of people.

It’s important to mention, however, that most bias stereotypes do not come from a place of bad intent. It’s just a deep seated, unconscious stereotype that’s been formed in our brains through years of different influences we often had no control over.

How does bias affect our actions?

“Most of us believe that we are ethical and unbiased. We imagine we’re good decision makers, able to objectively size up a job candidate or a venture deal and reach a fair and rational conclusion that’s in our, and our organisation’s, best interests,” writes Harvard University researcher Mahzarin Banaji in the Harvard Business Review. “But more than two decades of research confirms that, in reality, most of us fall woefully short of our inflated self-perception.”

Biases affects us and our decision-making processes in a number of different ways:

Our Perception – how we see people and perceive reality.

Our Attitude – how we react towards certain people.

Our Behaviours – how receptive/friendly we are towards certain people.

Our Attention – which aspects of a person we pay most attention to.

Our Listening Skills – how much we actively listen to what certain people say.

Our Micro-affirmations – how much or how little we comfort certain people in certain situations.

Whether we are aware of it or not, each and every one of these things will affect who we select to come in for an interview, how we interview them, who we hire and our reasons for hiring them. So, how do you stop yourself from falling prey to the dangers of unconscious bias? The first step is simple – make the unconscious, conscious. By acknowledging the different types of unconscious bias we can start to address them.

Types of bias and how they affect your recruiting process

In recruitment, the following types of bias are all very common:

1.Conformity Bias

Based on a famous study that’s been around for decades, conformity bias relates to bias caused by group peer pressure. In the study, a group of people is asked to look at the picture above and say which line in Exhibit 2 matches the line in Exhibit 1. One individual is told to say what they think. The rest of the group is told to give the wrong answer.

We can see that line A of Exhibit 2 matches the line in Exhibit 1. But, when the individual who doesn’t know this is a test gives the correct answer is informed that the rest of the group has said Line B, in 75% of cases the individual decides to scrap their own opinion in favour of the groups’ opinion. Just think how this may play out in a panel talking about a candidate. If an individual feels the majority of the group are leaning towards/away from a certain choice, they will tend to go along with the group, rather than voice their own opinions.

2.Beauty Bias

This is the view that we tend to think the most handsome individual will be the most successful. But this can also play out in terms of other physical attributes a person may have.

For example, while 60% of CEOs in the US are over 6 foot, only 15% of the total population is over 6 foot tall. And while 36% of US CEOs are over 6.2 feet, only 4% of the US population is over 6.2 feet tall. So again, this shows some bias in terms of how we perceive a CEO.

It is common that recruiters will look to fill a role with someone who shares similar physical attributes to the person who held that role before, or who they believe looks like the kind of person who should have the role based on their preconceived bias.

3.Affinity Bias

Affinity bias occurs when we see someone we feel we have an affinity with; maybe we attended the same college, we grew up in the same town, or they remind us of someone we know and like.

When we interview someone we feel we have some affinity with, our micro-affirmations play out a bit more than they usually would. For instance, if they tell us they’re a little nervous we may smile at them more or offer more words of encouragement. Whereas, if a person we shared no affinity with told us the same thing, we perhaps wouldn’t be quite as warm towards them as we had been to the candidate we felt we shared a connection with. After the interview, you’d then speak in much higher terms of the first candidate and how much you feel they’d “fit in” over and above the second candidate.

4.Halo Effect

Halo is when we see one great thing about a person and we let the halo-glow of that significant aspect affect our opinions of everything else about that person. We are in awe of them, but due entirely to one thing.

For example, when looking through someone’s CV we may see they went to a highly regarded college where they received a certain high grade, or they had undertaken some very sought after work experience program. Due to the halo effect, we may tend to see everything else about that person surrounded by the glow of that singular achievement.

5.Horns Effect

The horns effect is the direct opposite of the halo effect, in that when we see one bad thing about a person and we let it cloud our opinions of their other attributes.

For example, when interviewing someone we might be put off by the fact that they speak very slowly because our unconscious bias has caused us to assume this as a sign of unintelligence. Cast in this light, everything they say or do for the rest of the interview could be tainted by our judgement.

6.Similarity Bias

Naturally, we want to surround ourselves with people we feel are similar to us. And as a result, we tend to want to work more with people who are like us too.

In terms of recruitment that may mean that we are more open to hiring individuals we see parts of ourselves in.

7.Contrast Effect

This plays out regularly in recruitment, particularly amongst those who spend large amounts of time sifting through CVs or conducting a vast multitude of interviews.

For example, if we’re looking at a number of CVs in a row, one after the other, we tend to compare and contrast them. We judge whether or not the person in front of us did as well as the person that came before them. When really, the only thing we should be comparing are the skills and attributes each individual has, to the skills and attributes required for the job, not those of the person that came directly before them.

8.Attribution Bias

This is the most common form of bias in the recruitment process. People constantly make attributions regarding the cause of their own and others’ behaviours; however, attributions do not always accurately reflect reality.

If we do something well we tend to think it’s down to our own merit and personality. When we do something badly we tend to believe that our failing is due to external factors, like other people that adversely affected us and prevented us from doing our best.

When it comes to other people, we tend to think the opposite. If someone else has done something well, we consider them lucky, and if they’ve done something badly, we tend to think it’s due to their personality or bad behaviour.

9. Confirmation Bias

This is one that recruiters have to be extremely careful about. When we make a judgement about another person, we subconsciously look for evidence to back up our own opinions of that person. We do this because we want to believe we’re right and that we’ve made the right assessment of a person.

The danger of conformity bias in recruitment is that our own judgement could be very, very wrong and could cause us to lose a great candidate for the job.

---------------------------------------------xx----------xx----------------------------------------------