4 Unique Recruiting Strategies in Today’s Tight Labor Market

Due to the current job market, unfilled job orders are becoming more prominent. This is causing a lot of unfamiliar territory for a lot of Recruiters because it’s becoming more difficult to attract candidates. Today’s candidates are not actively looking for a job because our unemployment rate is at an all-time low and top talent is already gainfully employed. However, with this particular market, creating a new strategy to persuade passive candidates is key.

The candidate shortage can be extremely frustrating but remember, it is important that you think outside the box when you recruit in today’s era. Below are great tips to use to help you better your recruiting tactics.

1. Use your Website:  Your website is a great way to attract passive candidates. There are many options for job boards you can use. Many of them have automated systems that will send alerts to candidates when new jobs or postings meet their criteria.

1. Social Media: Social Media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. are great ways for you to advertise and promote job openings. Many of these sites give you an option to boost posts to certain audiences to expand your network. Working on a tight budget? Majority of these avenues allow you to customize your campaign to fit the needs of your budget; no matter how limited.

1. Referrals: This is a great way to identify candidates through people you trust and know. It encourages existing employees or candidates to identify talent through their networks and recruit a suitable individual. This avenue can be even more effective if you offer incentives to those that refer talent.

1. Recruiting Cards: Making special business cards can be a great and unique idea to gain a wider audience. The business cards can have information about your company, your unique benefits or culture or even open job positions. This allows an internal employee to expand your company’s footprint when they come across someone who made a positive impression on them.

Each if these ideas can be successful for any company looking for more candidates. By thinking outside the box and utilizing these tips, one can overcome the unique aspects of recruiting top talent in today’s job market.

Succession planning will make sure a business continues to run smoothly when any major changes occur, such as employees resigning, retiring, getting sick or termination. This kind of planning will ensure that certain employees are ready to take on key roles when certain events occur. This practice is usually overlooked by management, but it is something all companies need to consider and will benefit by creating.

Here are 4 steps to ensure you have a successful succession plan.

• Transparent

Transparency in a workplace is the key to success for a lot of companies. It allows employees to know exactly what to expect. When looking for an employee to take on certain duties of a succession plan, make sure you are considering everyone regardless of their job title. You should look at what skills are necessary to fit each role and specific duties best. Ask for feedback on your thoughts because it is beneficial to get other people’s opinions as they could see something that you did not.

• Be Proactive

Developing a succession plan can take time and a lot of work from multiple parties. However, don’t put this aside as this is an important aspect of your company. This process will create a safety net for important roles and prepare your company for any unforeseen future events.

• Training

When you identify the employees you believe will be the perfect match for the succession plan, create a development plan for them. It will be important to the employee to learn everything they can to grow their career and be even more ready to take on new roles. Offer training that will help to develop new skills and redefine old ones.

• Test it out

It doesn’t hurt to test out an employee within the process to see if they are ready for the opportunity or what you would need to establish to enhance their current skillsets. Give the person more responsibility slowly and see how they do with it. You wouldn’t buy a car without test driving it and this goes for succession planning as well. You want to make sure you have full confidence that if anything were to happen they can take on those responsibilities and they are ready and prepared for it.

For more helpful tips, click here.

A Better Candidate Experience

Unemployment rates keep decreasing, which makes for a more competitive market. It’s becoming more and more difficult to find strong candidates as candidates have a plethora of options. Candidates are interviewing companies during the interview process as well, so conversations around the candidate experience are becoming a hot topic.  It’s also important to be aware of your company’s online reputation as candidates are doing their homework and really researching companies before they interview.

Glassdoor is a great tool for candidates to check company reviews. Recently, candidates have mentioned that this is their go to tool when researching a company before their interview. It is important to be aware of your rating and reviews on Glassdoor as this is usually the candidate’s first impression of your company.

Another important step to improve the candidates experience is to review your interview process. Ask yourself, how does your company stand out compared to other companies during the interview process? What is your competition doing and what changes can you make to improve your process?

Here are a few tips on how to improve the candidate’s experience during the interview process:

1. Application Process: Job seekers are looking for convenience. Do you have an easy application process set-up, or do you require candidates to complete a lengthy online application? Candidates today are more likely to apply to positions that have a quick application process. Job seekers today are applying to jobs via their phones so having mobile capability will help increase your candidate pool.
2. Interview Structure: Is your interview process too lengthy? How many steps are there in your interview process? Trying to consolidate the process will help keep candidates engaged. It will also speed up the hiring process, which is important since there is a lot of competition out there. More and more candidates are getting multiple offers during the interview process. Don’t miss out on these candidates because your process is too slow compared to your competition.
3. Be Prepared: Make sure that your team is experienced with interviewing. It’s important that interviewers know what questions they can and cannot ask. Give them some interviewing tools that they can utilize during the interview. The interviewers are the face of your organization for the candidate so it’s important to give them the training and tools needed to make sure they are prepared and represent the company well.
4. Follow-Up: Make sure you are following up with your candidates consistently throughout the interview process. It’s important to touch base with candidates to keep them engaged in the process and to give them realistic timelines of when a decision will be made. Candidates really appreciate follow-up and will remember how they were treated after the interview. Even if a candidate does not get the position, it is good practice to notify them on the reasons why and present any other opportunities that may fit their skillset better.
5. The First Day: You went through all this work to find that perfect candidate. Make sure to put effort into making the first day a great experience. It’s important to have the employee’s desk and technology all set up. The supervisor should take the employee out to lunch or do a team lunch on the employee’s first day. Make the employee feel welcome and a part of the team.

Following these steps will help improve the candidate experience. Happy candidates will refer friends to your organization and will leave good reviews online for your company. This will help you find more talent to join your team, improve your online brand and create happy new employees!

Hiring and finding talent has become very static. With no show candidates at interviews, repetitive skills on resumes and inconsistencies, it can often be challenging to find that one special person for hire. 2018 is all about social evolvement and it’s time to change our recruiting styles and focus on the most important part…. the strategic part.

Unemployment hit a record low in 2017 which caused Recruiters to learn to think outside the box in regard to their recruiting tactics. There are currently three trends we notice that have been changing the recruiting world.

• Diversity
• Artificial Intelligence
• Engagement

Diversity

Diversity is something that makes companies stand out from their competition. Diversity is what everyone should look for when they are hiring a new person. This is a new trend that should be embraced in the workplace and is directly tied to company culture and performance. Changing demographics in a company can lead to diversifying our communities. Diversity is one of the biggest topics and it’s because many organizations are falling short of meeting their goals and public expectations. Many will say it may be hard to find diverse talent but this can be overcome by becoming more connected with the diverse community and local diverse groups. For employers, the biggest difficulty could be that many do not know the difference between cultural diversity and diversity itself.

Artificial Intelligence 

Digital dependence is evolving immensely in our talent pool. The upcoming generations are constantly checking their phones throughout the day whether it be taking or posting photos, researching current trends on social media platforms or snapping selfies. However, they never want to answer a phone call. In the latest SIA article, it surveyed more than half of the professionals and 55% said online messaging is the most common way for a millennial boss to communicate with their direct reports: 28% were email communication, 14% communication in person and 3% communication on the phone.

Does this mean we should rely on text based interviewing platforms that are coming into the market? There are some benefits to a Recruiter using automated technology to interview a candidate such as a faster interview process. This can make the interview process more efficient.

But there are also some inefficiencies such as relying on an algorithm to hire talent in a company. Some would argue that relying on technology to hire talent can’t fully fulfill what talent you are looking for. They might meet the needs of the job qualifications but what about the needs that are not necessarily measured; such as soft skills.

Engagement

Employee Engagement can be mixed up with satisfaction and happiness of an employee. In today’s market, employees are looking for a little bit more. They are looking for the emotional commitment to an organization. Instead of promotions and advancement, upcoming generations are looking to be inspired by company involvement, goals and their work has true meaning to an organization.

Employee engagement can help with employee morale. The best way to gain more engagement is sitting down with employees and talking about their career paths and professional development. A great way for professional development is giving your employees the ability to gain more knowledge, taking online classes, attending conference seminars or even having management participate in internal training.

Phishing Attacks

2018 kicked off with some of the lowest unemployment rates in years, which is why the need for Staffing and Recruiting agencies has increased.

Due to the high demand for employment, staffing agencies are particularly vulnerable to email based phishing attacks attempting to gain sensitive employee data. A lot of staffing companies are being targeted for confidential information or money transfers and with tax season, these attacks have peaked in the last few months.

Here are the top email “Subject Line” phishing scams:

• Security Alert
• Update on Employee Paperwork
• Change Password
• Urgent Action Required
• Link for you to click
• Wire Money

 *These are just a select few examples of email subject lines that scammers have been using.

The call to action here is that scammers are doing just about anything to get your confidential information. Their goal is to get access to your computer to gain more information in order to steal your identity. Companies and employees are especially at risk this time of year with tax season just around the corner. Scammers will act as employees or staff members requesting copies of sensitive data including W2s, social security numbers, bank information, etc.

Lately, scammers are taking it a step further and pretending to act as a Staffing agency. They will post job postings online and ask candidates to fill out all of the onboarding paperwork which includes background checks, social security numbers, bank information and more; all before an interview or initial communication has taken place.

Here are some quick tips to ensure the Staffing company you are working with is legit:

• Research: It is important to research the company you are working with. Make sure they are credible. Look at their website, case studies, team members, etc.
• Company Reviews: A great way to see if a company is legit, is to look at their reviews. Check out their Glassdoor, Yelp, Facebook, etc. These are great platforms to see what other people are saying about the company.
• Give them a call: Pick up the phone and call someone at the staffing firm. Talk to someone and ask them questions about their process, job openings or where to apply to positions. A big red flag is if the ask for personal information early on in the process.

 Be diligent with your email and if you have any doubt or suspicion of information, always err on the side of caution.

Ian Wagemann, Founder at Veteran Enhanced Technology Solutions (Veteran ETS), a security and data protection company, states “There are many IT Security Solutions that are available that can help with warding off the intrusions that protecting yourself from these malicious attacks”. When we do a security assessment we utilize tools that will identify these threats and make sure that your firm has a combination of the following

• Intrusion monitoring and detection provides complete visibility over a business network to help you detect and quickly react to unauthorized access.
• Endpoint security is a product-based solution that detects security vulnerabilities directly on mobile or desktop endpoint devices.
• Mobile security offers special tools that protect your network against unauthorized mobile devices, as well as protect your devices form malicious email and web sites.
• Encryption solutions for policy based encryption and email-specific encryption can enable secure private email communications and establishes a secure, private network.
• Secure file sharing connects people, devices and their data in ways that controllable and protected.
• Cloud-based, always-on security that is automatically updated into a single cloud based-solution for endpoint protection, management, mobility and encryption.
• Web security to secure web traffic in the cloud before it even gets to you by filtering malware threats, blocking URLs with inappropriate content, preventing data loss over web protocols and enforcing acceptable use policies.
• Email security utilizing anti-virus, anti-spam, phishing, zero-day exploits and analysis for harmful content in the title, body, image or attachment of an email.
• Gateway security-firewalls that include authentication, intrusion detection and firewalls to provide centralized control and administration for your server environment.

Veteran ETS always recommends company possess a Security Awareness policy. Training your staff is invaluable as hackers develop new techniques to maneuver around your security tools. “First identify the confidential information within your firm and train your staff on who should have access to that data set. If you are asked for that information take the next step and verify who is asking,” says Ian Wagemann

A strategic partnership can be an ideal way for progressive organizations to work collaboratively and leverage individual strengths, while remaining independent and focused on core competencies.  These Partnerships can result in expanding your customer base by creating access to new markets and providing new solutions to existing clients. Strategic partnerships strengthen each business and achieve mutual aspirations faster by leaning on one another’s experience, network and resources.

A strategic partnership will give you a competitive advantage and allow you to extend a broader range of opportunities. Your partner can offer skillsets and services that differentiate you from your competitors.

However, new business opportunities aren’t the only reason why you should use a strategic partnership. It can give you another perspective on your company and streamline processes to help augment your resources. You will be working closely together with your new business partner, so it’s important to have a good connection with them.

Here are tips to finding the right strategic partner.

Clear Goals: You must establish clear objectives and goals. You want to make sure all parties know exactly what you do, what you are looking for and what you want out of the partnership. Don’t be vague or you won’t get what you want. This allows you to benchmark project success and make sure there will be no surprises on outcomes and needs. This will also make sure everyone is aligned and on the same page with what each of you are looking for.

Research the Partner: You want to determine if the services or products your partner possess, align with your business. It is important to make sure both parties will benefit going into business together. By researching your partner, you can identify where your individual services will complement one another and be mutually beneficial. The most promising tool is using your network and recommendations to find the right partner you will feel more confident with.

Honesty: Being honest and transparent is the easiest way to gain trust with someone. By being honest with this potential partner, you can make sure both parties have a clear concept of what to expect in the potential partnership. Be forthright about your strengths and weaknesses in your business and mention where you can leverage your potential partners services. Your businesses strengths may be your potential partners weakness and vice versa. By divulging both, you can demonstrate the value both parties will bring to the partnership.

Communication: Keeping in contact with your partner is a great way to establish a good relationship and figure out objectives along the way. Maintain weekly/biweekly check-ins to talk through concerns or just to see how things are going. This will build trust on both ends and will ensure you deal successfully with issues or changes in processes.

Understand your Business: Don’t be afraid to be honest about your lack of understanding of some business concepts. Otherwise, trying to do something you are not familiar with could lead to costly mistakes. Finding a partner that is knowledgeable about the functions you are struggling with can help enhance your expertise.

Hackers, Oh My!

With the ever increasing digitally connected world in which we live today, where technology is constantly changing and extremely difficult to keep up with, it’s only a matter of time before you can expect to be significantly and negatively impacted by some sort of computer system compromise.

At an individual level, there are a number of things you can and should do to protect yourself.  Determine if you’ve already been hacked and change passwords on any compromised accounts. This information on hacked accounts is not comprehensive, but that does not undermine its value.  Learn how to properly manage all of your numerous passwords. A password manager makes it easy to implement unique, complex passwords without needing to remember them. Assume your personal information is already compromised because likely it is. What are you doing about it?

The bad guys want to monetize your personal information which often involves opening a new line of credit in some form or another. Start by making it difficult for hackers accomplish this. You can do that when you place a freeze on all of your credit reports.  These are some quick, high level tips that you can employ in your personal life to immediately and significantly raises your defense levels against hackers.

But my main purpose in writing this article is to approach this topic from a business perspective. What should businesses be doing to protect themselves from hackers and the many threats they represent? First, let’s take a step back and consider how hackers could negatively impact a business.

Hackers these days love to use compromised computer systems to mine for crypto-currency like bitcoins. It provides them with an easy, fast way to monetize their hacked computers and impacts businesses by using up significant levels of computer processor (CPU) resources to the point where those computers can become unusable. What if critical computers within your organization become unavailable, not only because their CPU’s are being overwhelmed, but because once you figure out what is happening you then need to investigate what happened and clean the systems affected by the malware.

What about ransomware? This is another common way in which hackers compromise computer systems. How many hospitals, transit systems and other organizations have you heard about in the news that were crippled by ransomware?

Perhaps the worst type of attack a business might face would be one where confidential, proprietary and/or sensitive information is compromised. After all, you can’t get the information back once it’s been copied into the nebulous cloud known as the “Internet” and it is very difficult to reverse the bad publicity from such an event and negative reactions from customers. Not only that, but it can be very expensive to complete an investigation, implement changes to prevent future compromises, notify individuals that their data has been compromised, provide credit monitor services for those effected, engage with lawyers, etc.

The old adage about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure is very applicable when it comes to computer security. Every situation is different, every company is different and every company has different levels of risk based on the type of business they are involved in, the type of data they work with, etc., but it should be safe to assume that in general, implementing a baseline level of security and being proactive is going to be less expensive in the long wrong than being reactive and having to work through all of the negative issues mentioned above.

I’m not going to go into all the in-depth technical details that companies should take to increase their computer security posture and protection themselves. Suffice it to say that you should be implementing a multi-layered approach to security. Every company is different, but typically email is far and away the highest point of risk for a company being compromised in some fashion or another. What have you done to recognize and mitigate this risk? Not sure? Get engaged with your teams on the topic of computer security. Not only may the success of your company rely upon this, but your job too.

Look at recent events like the Equifax breach. There were many things that happened because of the Equifax breach, but did you know that Equifax’s CIO and CSO soon “retired” after this event occurred? Even Equifax’s CEO eventually succumbed to the significant backlash from the Equifax breach. The CEO of Target eventually “resigned” as well for the major breach that happened in 2014 and ultimately cost Target hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up and in lost revenue from upset shoppers who would not return to the retail store chain.  Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo had her compensation reduced by more than $12 million due to her lack of attention and response given to a big hack affecting Yahoo. This revelation ultimately led to $350 million discount in the sale price of Yahoo to Verizon. Ouch!

Every company should have someone that they trust to offer them good advice on computer security, whether this is an internal employee or an outside resource.  Companies should be actively involved in understanding their risks related to computer security and what they are doing to mitigate those risks. What are the computer security best practices and standards for your company’s industry? Are you ahead of the game or behind the curve? Don’t know? Find out before it’s too late.

All that is well and good, but I have a cyber security insurance policy. That’s my “get out of jail free” card. I don’t need to worry about this stuff because if I’m ever affected by an event like this my insurance policy will pay for everything. Cyber insurance policies typically require a standard of care be maintained meaning that you must be meeting and following basic good computer security principals. In the Equifax breach it was determined that hackers gained access because a computer system was not kept up to date with the latest security patches. A standard level of care was not being met in this situation.

Your cyber insurance policy may not cover a cyber security event if your company is found to be negligent in preventing it because a standard level of care was not being maintained. So read your policy carefully, understand the pitfalls of cyber insurance and understand that this doesn’t get you off the hook for implementing good computer security at your company. In fact, most insurance companies, when it comes time to pay out, will look for any opportunity to not pay out on a claim so it is very important that you not provide reasons which might allow that to occur.

There is no silver bullet to protect yourself against cyber-attacks. Look to implement a multi-faceted approach using some of the ideas mentioned above. Surround yourself with trusted advisors on this topic and don’t let it become something that you lose track of and don’t give attention to. By actively involved in maintaining and monitoring your company’s computer security. By doing this you will enable your company to avoid the serious pitfalls surrounding cyber-attacks and dramatically reduce their impact should they occur.

Andy Thoren, Director of Information Technology

When you are looking to hire Independent Contractors, you want to make sure you are avoiding misclassification. A business that classifies its employee as an Independent Contractor but fails to meet all the regulatory requirements can be subject to a government tax audit or lawsuits.

The growth of Independent Contractors has increased by 40% in the last decade according to the Harvard Business Review. The Labor Department believes the reason so many employees are misclassified is the labor and workplace laws and companies are not knowledgeable about how to classify their employees. The issue of misclassification of Independent Contractors has been around for a while. According to the IRS, they view workers as follows: W-2 Employee, Independent Contractor, Statutory Employee (certain drivers such as dry-cleaning services) or Statutory Non-Employee (real estate agents).

In every business, you have your regular W-2 employees and standard procedure is for every paycheck, the company will take out payroll taxes and pays that amount to the IRS. At the end of the year, the employee will receive their W-2 and will then pay additional taxes to the government. However, when a business classifies an employee as an Independent Contractor (IC) It is a little different process with payroll taxes. These payroll taxes are paid on a gross amount and then the IC is responsible for making their own tax deposits to the IRS. The company is responsible for reporting the earnings to the worker and government. In turn, form 1099 will be sent at the end of the year.

The IRS has categorized three groups that will help determine if an employee is a W-2 or an Independent Contractor.

• Behavioral Control: Does a company control what the worker does and how they do their job?
• Financial Control: How is the worker paid? Do they do expense reimbursement?
• Type of Relationship: Are there written contracts or employee type benefits?

The IRS also created a 20 point checklist to help make it easier for people to determine.  If you are involved with Independent Contractors and want to make sure they are meeting all IRS Guidelines, check out their website.

Western Region Director at Travis Manion Foundation (TMF), Derek Abbey fills us in on the Travis Manion Foundation and what it does for our community.

The Travis Manion Foundation (TMF) is able to address multiple needs of our greater society through our straight-forward programming.  First, TMF is a veteran service organizations (VSO) that empowers veterans and families of fallen heroes to strength character in future generation.  All military members and their families are exposed to traits based leadership from their very connection to the military.  This is taught, practiced, and reinforced in every military branch.  Each one is a civic asset and an expert in the importance and value of practicing and maintaining strong character.  Because of this, TMF utilizes this populations as facilitator of a Character Does Matter (CDM) programing.

CDM is enormously valuable in three ways to our society.  First, it exposes youth to the value of character and strengthen positive messaging in our schools and communities.  This program supplements the efforts of our teachers and community leaders that are severely overtaxed.  Second, it is providing an avenue for our veterans and surviving family members to continue to serve.  It is more than just work, our programming specifically addresses the intrinsic pieces vacated through the transition out of the military, things like generativity, quality relationships, fulfilling engagements.  Lastly, this programming fortifies the foundation of our greater community through cross boundary engagements and exposure to the value of service.

TMF provides more than exposure.  We provide the knowledge, but then turn around and offer a practical outlet.  For instance: we share the value of service through teaching and providing examples, but then provide an opportunity to experience it through Operation Legacy.  Operation Legacy is our national week of service which occurs twice a year in April and November.  Individuals can be involved in these programs at any level they select.

Beyond CDM and Operation Legacy, TMF also provides Veterans Transition Workshops, Character and Leadership Courses, expeditions for veterans and surviving family members, dozens of annual Heroes Runs, and more.  All of these programs are based in the value of character and aimed at benefiting our entire society.  Donations support all of our programs and have an impact across multiple levels.  Our short-term goals include growing our members and connections across the community.  Currently, we have over 100,000 members, but that is just a start.  Our long-term goals include being recognized as a voice for character across the national community.

Our motto, “If not me, then who…,” provides clear insight into what is important to TMF.  We encourage taking action and providing for others in order to have an impact on the greater good.  Anyone can take action and have a positive impact.  All you have to do is determine what your sphere of influence is, big or small, and then take steps to make it better.  If we have the courage to take action as individuals, others will follow.  This is proven true in TMF everyday.

The Gig Economy allows temporary workers to easily find short term contracts which has assisted in keeping our unemployment rates low

Technology and apps such as Uber, Soothe and more, have created a wide variety of opportunities and one of the main reasons the gig economy has stayed so consistent.  By allowing users the freedom to choose, this provides a flexible service model full of opportunities for a wide variety of skillsets. The Gig Economy is an exceptional alternative to those who prefer to steer clear of the standard 9 am – 5pm work schedule and today’s workforce is evolving to meet this need. Many progressive employers are utilizing temporary staffing as an alternative to entice these individuals to work for their company.

The Gig Economy is changing the way businesses add headcount to their workforce and there are multiple ways to counteract the Gig Economy. Businesses are starting to offer flexible work schedules, work from home days and invest in company culture to entice those that would typically choose the Gig Economy to plant their roots in their company.

The reason the Gig economy developed was due to a lack of opportunities and jobs were sometimes scarce. It was the right answer at the time, however we need to think of the future and what we can do to change the way we think of businesses and careers. Since the Millennial Generation will take around 60% or more of the workforce by 2020 according to Forbes, there is no doubt those Millennials will plant their stamp on the economy.  The standard career life is not something that is appealing to Millennials but can we say that Generation Z feels the same way? Generation Z is right around the corner and they grew up in an era driven by technology. Companies need to overcome and provide more meaning in their corporate environment. Candidates are most attracted to passion and purpose and with the up and coming generations, money is not the only solution but finding meaning and feeling valued within an organization

The ability to have an employee work from home allows parents to work flexible hours, eliminates long commutes and reduces transportation costs which can entice typical Gig Economy employees to come to your business. The final aspect to consider when attempting to add Gig Economy individuals to your workforce is the Enforcement of IR35. The average Uber Driver and average Airbnb owner makes around $7,500 annually and are avoiding the current tax code. In addition, Gig Economy workers to not receive incredible benefits such as paid time off, health or dental benefits. Utilize your intangible benefits that those working for the Gig Economy don’t typically receive to ultimately reveal your company is the better choice.