Finding and hiring the best talent is a key aspect of talent management for every company, large or small. Everyone should be working to improve the process. It is not just a matter of making the hiring function faster, easier and cheaper, it’s also about delivering the best-quality candidates to fill various jobs. The emergence of automated recruitment technology has helped large organizations who have both the money and resources to make huge strides in the war for talent but what about the little guy? Small to mid-size companies often can’t afford the technology to move toward this goal. Yet they are losing ground to their larger rivals.

According to a recent report from research house Aberdeen, based on more than 400 survey respondents to the firm’s talent acquisition strategies study; automation is having an impact on both the quality of hires and the quality of the hiring process. According to Aberdeen, quality of hire was rated the most valuable overall metric when assessing the effectiveness of talent acquisition. Since quality can be an ambiguous concept, Aberdeen says, respondents were also asked which elements define quality of hire.  The findings reveal that hiring manager satisfaction and efficient use of time are the top of the list.Those organizations that either fully or partially automated their recruitment process had more new hires reach their first productivity milestones than did organizations using only manual processes.

The need for a recruitment system focused on the smaller employer, that is most companies with up to 3000 employees, to automate recruitment, is acute. This will allow them to compete effectively and efficiently for talent on an equal footing to larger organisations. MyPeopleBiz aims to be the champion of the smaller-mid sizers by providing intuitive, easy to use interactive functionality to help companies forge better relationships with agencies and candidates, enhancing their employer brand and enabling them to become an employer of choice in the market for talent. In addition, there is no need to fret about cost asthe return on investment is recouped within year one.

Europe’s largest annual online recruitment conference returns to central London on 26th January 2012. We have an exclusive discount for MyPeopleBiz readers!

The 10th anniversary conference – “Online Recruitment 2012: The Year Ahead” will focus on  online recruitment strategy, candidate attraction, mobile, online law and global social media, You’ll hear from other industry leading speakers as well as network with 500 professionals at the industry’s largest event.

1.  Google are presenting on Google+ and mobile within recruitment.
2. ITV are talking about how they have successfully implemented a new careers website and social media strategy.
3. The FIRM are talking about 3,000 FIRM employer recruitment strategies.
4.  Boots are back talking about the market a year on and how they successfully used Facebook for social hiring.
5. There’s a social media recruitment legal and compliance masterclass which should be really interesting.
6. Monster are talking about how BeKnown could change the recruitment world forever via Facebook.
7. LinkedIn are discussing their vision of the future of online recruitment in 2012.
8. Plus Enhance Media – the conference organisers – giving insight from the world’s largest piece of online recruitment research.

We’ll be there (obviously) and MyPeopleBiz readers can get a 10% discount on tickets! To find out more about the conference click here and when booking use the promotion code MPB10 to secure your discount.

See you on the 26^th Jan!

Hosking’s feature has a slightly different angle, more to do with the frustration of people trying to find a job:

But there is one modest, virtually costless, way that employers could soften the misery and frustration of unemployment. They could trouble to reply to all job applicants

I could not agree more, what’s the point of spending all that effort on nurturing an employer brand and then not bothering to communicate with jobseekers?

We all know the answer and so does Hosking:

Over the past few years it seems to have become acceptable for employers to solicit for potential employees but then not bother replying to them if they don’t like the look of their cv’s…

This practice seems to have become the norm. The CBI acknowledges the problem but excuses it on the grounds of the sheer volume of applications.

Clearly the CBI have never heard of applicant tracking systems, recruitment portals that can at a low cost, solve the problem of volume, where every applicant will receive a response to their application. It’s quite staggering that employers are happy to spend money driving the applications but are then prepared to throw them away, if they do not at that stage meet the exact requirement. Hosking goes on to say that:

Today’s CV toting teenager is tomorrow’s customer, supplier or shareholder

He could have added that the CV toting candidate could also be someone that with 2 years more experience, could turn into a star candidate who will no doubt recall their earlier treatment or that the CV toting candidate could be best friends with a star candidate who may be appalled at the treatment that his/her friend suffered at the hands of the “lazy approach” to dealing with applications.

For larger employers, if cost is not an excuse, then perhaps ease of use of the systems that they employ could be a factor and that is why we focus on the simplicity of our recruitment portal because if it’s easy to use, administrators will get more value and get through more volume in less time. For smaller employers where cost is an issue, our aim is to provide a scalable and affordable platform for them to ensure that as they grow, their employer brand grows with them and does not suffer from its treatment of applicants.

In HR circles there is much talk about best practice, but talking doesn’t get things done.

A great deal of harm is being done by the approach and its quite scary that excuses are being allowed to kill off the employer brand or reputation which in some cases has been nurtured carefully over many years and destroyed at a furious pace.

Less ford thinking CEO’s, simply don’t care or don’t understand this issue. The average stay of a CEO is under 3 years and this can lead to there being more interest in maintaining the status quo rather than changing anything, too much focus on improving the margin by 0.01% before the next job comes along, gets in the way of making real change. The sad thing is that this kind of “lazy” approach is stopping any real innovation, any real improvement in the people aspects of the business. Snap decisions such as to “go direct” to save costs or cut PSL’s or whatever else is flavour of the month are harming the employer brand as well as making it difficult in many cases for the internal recruiters or HR to actually deal with the applications issue properly.

Hosking’s assertion that “there is one modest, virtually costless, way that employers could soften the misery and frustration of unemployment – They could trouble to reply to all job applicants”, would be a good start in saving your employer brand from ruin.

MyPeopleBiz create Recruitment Portals, yes I am biased……

A leading recruitment commentator said that 2010 was going to be the year of the referrer, so we recently conducted a round up of the various research available in the market place with regard to referrals schemes, networking and the impact that this is making on the recruitment market:

1. 88% of employers rated referrals above all other sources for generated quality of new hires

2. 78% of companies are now using social networking and social media to find and attract candidates.

3. 50% of companies were spending more on business networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and employee-referral programs and less on print and traditional job boards.

4. 50% plus of companies surveyed by the CIPD admitted that so far they had not utilised an employee referral scheme at all.

Clearly the figures suggest that whilst employers who are utilising referral schemes are seeing an increasing percentage of hires initiated through their employees’ social networks, there is still a long way to go if more than 50% of employers surveyed have not utilised a referral scheme at all.

If your company already has an employee referral program, or is at the initial stages of putting this in place its worth looking at how and why they can work so well and also, how expanding them into open referral networks through sites like mypeoplebiz.com can take your recruitment to the next level with significant savings and a great calibre candidate otherwise difficult to find.

Traditionally employee referral programs act as internal recruitment method, encouraging staff to source new hires for your organisation from their social and professional networks through a monetary incentive. This allows for an efficient recruitment process reducing cost and time to hire thanks to improved relevance of referred candidates and the trustworthy relationship between the referrer, candidate and the organisation itself.

· A recent study showed that 88% of employers rated referrals above all other sources for generated quality of new hires

Referrals generate a higher quality candidate as they are likely know the job and candidate far better and are not prepared to waste their or their contacts time on something they don’t think is right. This cuts down recruitment time for you as candidates have essentially already been well sourced and screened for you. Furthermore, referrals build on themselves, not only are you likely to be building a better talent pool, hired referrals are likely to encourage further referrals and are more likely to refer new talent themselves, expanding your ‘talent network’.

By setting worthy rewards for successful hires you’re also creating ‘brand campaigners’ for your company as they promote your organisation to the friends and contacts in their networks. What’s more, 78% of your staff are spending up to half an hour of the working day on social networking sites, creating a even larger range of connections to source candidates from, capitalise on this rather than thinking of it as wasted time.

The impact Personal recommendations via current employees’ social networks can be very valuable in other ways too, as they can efficiently lead to candidates with the right cultural ‘fit’ for a company in addition to saving employers considerable amounts of money, reducing the amount spent on agencies and external advertising.

Why create an open your referral system? Internal referral schemes can work fantastically, but why stop there; all your competitor’s employees also know great people in the industry, and are just as willing to participate in the action. People are more connected than ever before with new technologies, and since 78% of staff are spending up to half an hour of the working day on social networking sites too, recommending a contact for a job is easy – just a simple message is required, and then they can chose to take it forward. Put simply, If your company rewards and encourages this behaviour, your company is going to be rewarded with better talent from the people who know what is needed.

CIPD surveys indicate that 64% of respondents agreed that referral reward incentives for staff have a positive impact – not just on the caliber of job applicants, but on the budget too. A large insurance company which participated in the study’s focus group reported a huge saving of £250,000 in recruitment costs as a result of their ‘refer a friend’ scheme.

Clearly, such schemes can be highly successful.

So what is Company Follow?

Ryan Roslansky, explains on the LinkedIn Blog it “…helps you be among the first to learn about developments at companies… find job openings… or stumble upon business development opportunities… The new feature lets you tap into key goings-on at nearly a million companies that already have their company profiles on LinkedIn and more that are being created every day.” and it’s simple to use. To see how easy it is to use click here for LinkedIn’s explanation (they do it so well).

Company Follow has several advantages for the Jobseeker who can be notified when employees join, are promoted or leave a company and when the company is advertising a job opportunity, though only when advertised on LinkedIn itself. They can have notifications delivered by email, which is the smartest, and can choose the frequency, e.g daily when actively looking for a new role.

So what can a Jobseeker do with this information? They can:

• Be selective of the companies they follow, choosing those that they most want to work for, have the best reputation in the industry and where their skills would be of the greatest asset to the potential employer.
• Follow all of their selected company’s news listening for what they’re not saying and trends that are emerging where hidden jobs may be found
• See who is leaving. Is their role being advertised? Were they recommended by their manager? Who do they know who knows the departing employee or their manager?
• See who has been promoted. A great opportunity to make contact with a message of congratulations and to follow up some time later to see how they’re getting on i.e. a way to ease into a potentially door-opening relationship.
• See what Executives or Senior Managers have joined. Is the company taking a new direction? Have they won a project? Will they need you in their team?

Company Follow is great for companies who want to attract talent and keep tabs on their competitors so if you’ve not even created your company profile, get cracking! If you already have one you may want to give it a once over and ensure that it will attract followers.

So what can a Company do with this information? They can:

• Build their followers and have a potential talent pool ready to be tapped in to and because, unlike groups, there is not a restriction on the number of companies a person can follow, potentially have followers who may not have been able to join their group.
• Be aware what their competitors are doing. Your competitors can follow you and this gives a company a great opportunity to know who is listening and, you never know, you may just decide to poach them yourself!
• Be aware of what is being said. The content on LinkedIn is user-generated and this may concern you but as these conversations are already taking place, it’s better to know than pretend they’re not.
• Follow their competitors and therefore proactively manage your current employees. You’ll know if your competitor is looking for someone who they could find in your team and therefore you have the opportunity to keep your staff happy and content.
• Follow without being blocked and currently, this is a great advantage over, say, Twitter. So go follow your competitors, to protect your talent pool and to find your new employees.

I wonder what LinkedIn will come up with next….

If asked anything, whether about a band, shop, company, name or place, what is the first thing you do? Google it. Even your grandma Googles it now. It officially became a verb in the Oxford English Dictionary 4 years ago. It is undeniable that information a Google search brings back can dramatically affect your opinion.

But have you thought about what happens when someone googles you? Most people probably haven’t tried (do it now, see what happens, I’ll wait!). Chances are about 6 people you share your name with pop out of their respective social networking profiles, probably one or two of the results is yours. 123people.co.uk may well be there too, this is a site designed for searching out people and will bring together any profile you have on Facebook, MySpace, etc as well as any mentions of your name in the news (even if it’s not actually you), indeed that scathing review you left on Amazon 3 years ago, and the wish list you made when you where 15… OK so that’s me but none the less, many people don’t think too much about the reputation trail there leaving online. This rings especially true when I tell you that recent research shows that 79% of surveyed hiring managers and job recruiters review online information about job applicants AND 70% had rejected candidates based on what they had found.

So is privacy dead? Not quite but, whether you’re a Facebook addict, Tweetaholic or both there are a few things you need to keep in mind whilst updating your status or tagging those photos from last night.

Whilst being everywhere on the internet maximizes your chances of being seen (which could help you get a job), you need to think about your Personal Brand, in 2010 your CV is much more than a piece of paper!

A few hints and tips…

Keep it simple – Do you really need to be everywhere on the net, having profiles on just one or two social networking sites will make it far easier to keep track of your image.

In the with the new, out with the old – Still got that MySpace profile that you haven’t used in years? Delete it, You never can be sure what will crop up on somebody’s search for you.

Check your settings – Most social network’s default settings are designed to make you as open as possible, think about what parts of your profile you want to be seen and by who.

Know who’s following you – You need to think about who you’re allowing into your network, how well do you really know that guy you met at the bus stop last week? Are you willing to have your colleagues or boss seeing what you got up to at the weekend? Either let them in and change your activity accordingly or decide to keep them out.

Be consistent – If you’re trying to build a ‘Personal Brand’ it needs to be consistent, changing your picture and what your tweeting about daily will reduce the chances of you being recognized and make you appear scatty and unsure of yourself.

You’re going to have a profile online whether you’ve made it yourself or not, so make sure your in control of it, get it to work for you rather than against you.