All Hands, Abandoning Ship?

A 2009 Management Recruiter International (MRI) survey claims that 49.5% of employed respondents were looking to change jobs within the next six months, and 80% within a year.

Yahoo HotJobs 2009 annual survey states that “only” 38% of US workers were satisfied with their current position and “not” looking to change jobs.

A January, 2010 independent survey of 5000 US households conducted by TNS, a global market and insight group, claims that only 45% of the survey group are satisfied with their job, a downward trend from previous years that crosses four distinct drivers of employee engagement: job design, organizational health, managerial quality, and extrinsic rewards. In fact, 22% of respondents didn’t expect to be in their current job in a year.

Employer wars for top talent, the best of the best, will never end. Growing employee dissatisfaction pose new threats to employers in productivity, employee engagements, and strategic business plans. As the economy improves, chances are those unsatisfied and often key personnel might very well jump ship. Gerlinde Herrmann, member of SHRM’s Corporate Social Responsibility Special Expertise Panel, cautions: “Even if you can artificially retain folks through job security, as soon as the economy turns (and it always does), we will be facing the ever-looming prospect of talent shortages.” In addition to aggressive retention initiatives, HR departments need to benchmark and set the standards for succession planning at all levels.

Key personal losses can have a disastrous effect on the strategic vision and objectives of any organization.  Replacement searches can be a long and seemingly impossible task. Developing candidates from the employee pool may not be up to the challenges. Many companies partner with specialized industry recruiters to develop and orchestrate strategic successions plans. Short term planning includes emergency replacements. Longer term plans include changing assignments, new markets initiatives, and planned attrition. Experienced recruiters understand employer’s needs and develop replacement pipelines from targeted business segments, including prospects that employers can not ethically or legally contact.

Is your organization ready to continue business without interruption during an economic recovery and/or loss of strategic personnel?

There’s a lot riding on the Interview!

Today’s uncertain economy makes it more critical than ever to have the right employees in place, doing the job they were hired to do. Eighty percent of all turnovers usually results from bad hiring decisions that might not be the fault of either the employer or employee. Many times, there was not enough information gleaned from the interview process to insure an employee was the right candidate for the job.

Candidate interviews are the accepted, and traditionally, the most powerful tool in the employee selection process. Every position has unique needs. There are no definitive formats to obtain critical decision making information. Armed with a thorough understanding of the company’s hiring objectives, it is the interviewer’s responsibility to plan and create specific frameworks to assess a candidate’s professional motivations, skills, technical knowledge, performance, and, to determine how they will fit into the company culture.

 A candidate’s industry skills and technical knowledge are typically the easiest to evaluate and usually obtained with series of direct or open ended questions.  A lab technician could be asked what test instruments he or she is certified to operate. A tougher general question for a candidate might be an explanation of the most significant contribution he or she has made to their company or industry.  Soft skills like motivation, cultural fit, or performance are best discovered by combinations of behavioral, situational, and analytical questions: 1) Behavior questions determine how a candidate performed in the past, i.e., “How did you?”, and follow the reasoning that the best predictor of future success is past performance. 2) Situational questions follow a similar format, but are aimed at evaluating judgment or decision making skills, i.e., “What would you do?”.  Analytical questions engage various forms of reasoning or problem solving.

A sampling of general soft skill questions might include:

• Have you looked at our website? What changes would you make?
• What is the most significant presentation you have made to your company, or clients? How did you prepare?
• How have you handled the last couple of angry customers you faced?
• Imagine we’ve just hired you. What’s the most important thing on your to-do list on the first day of work?
• Can you give me an example of how you managed multiple projects all due at the same time?
• What is the last thing that you and your boss disagreed about? How did you resolve it?
• Based on your performance and value to your last company, why were you laid off?
• Why are you the best candidate for this position?

Prepared interviewers should not be afraid to use stress techniques, ask tough questions (within the law), or challenge candidate responses to measure a candidate’s composure under stress. Three of the most common stress techniques include: 1) A 5 to 10 second period silence following a candidate response. 2) Not making eye contact. 3) A series of questions specifically designed to throw the candidate off guard. Keep in mind when altering interview tones or challenging responses, that your manner not be perceived as a personal affront, and that you maintain an attitude of cordiality and openness.

Finally, the best planned interview frameworks don’t always produce conclusive decision making information. Follow-on interviews with top-tiered candidates allow interviewers to weed out professional candidates, further explore specific candidate skills, confirm information from previous interviews, and open new discussions. It’s important for interviewers to avoid comparing candidates, gravitating towards mediocrity, and succumbing to premature decisions.

 

Illegal Interview Questions

Candidate interviews are the accepted and traditionally the most powerful tool in the employee selection process.  Interviewers attempt to assess a candidate’s: 1) professional motivations, 2) skills and technical knowledge, 3) performance under stress or company dynamics, and 4) fit with team members and company culture.

 Questions asked during the interview process must be related to the specific job a candidate is applying for. Local, state, and federal laws address equal opportunity, discriminatory practices, and questions that can be asked during an interview process. Specifically, job discrimination is prohibited by the following federal laws:

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), which prohibits employment Discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; 

Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA), which protects men and women who perform substantially equal work in the same establishment from sex-based wage discrimination;

Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), which protects individuals who are 40 years of age or older;

Title I and Title V of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), which prohibit employment discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities in the private sector, and in state and local governments;

Sections 501 and 505 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibit discrimination against qualified individuals with disabilities who work in the federal government; and

Civil Rights Act of 1991, which, among other things, provides monetary damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination.

 In addition to enforcing these laws, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is the central agency responsible for oversight of all equal opportunity practices, policies, and regulations.

In short, questions concerning age, gender, sex, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, marital status, family status, etc. cannot be asked during an interview. A sample of illegal questions might include:

• When did you graduate from High School or College?  How old are you?
• Where were your parents born? Are you a US Citizen?
• What are your childcare arrangements while you work?
• Have you ever been arrested?
• In what branch of the Armed Forces did you serve? Where you honorably discharged?
• What does your spouse do for a living?

However, in the quest to obtain important candidate information as it applies to job or definitive position requirements, illegal questions can be unobjectionably restructured. Asked a different way:

• Are you over the age of 18?  What are your long term career plans?
• Are you authorized to work in the US?  What languages do you read, speak, and write fluently?
• This position requires travel or overtime on short notice, Can you travel?
• Have you ever been convicted of “X”? (The crime should be related to job performance).
• How will your experience in the Armed forces benefit the company?
• Can you relocate?

Outside the workplace, or possibly first meeting icebreakers, most illegal interview questions might seem like conversational chat. However, given today’s prevailing economic climate, it’s imperative that interviewers know governing laws and accepted interview practices to avoid professional embarrassment, candidate claims, or EEOC actions.

Your Business Might Need a Recruiter

Given today’s lean economic times, businesses large and small are left with a vacuum when a good or key employee jumps ship. Good employees are the most strategic component of every successful business plan. Despite current unemployment statistics, finding that qualified replacement or filling a new position can be a long and seemingly impossible task.

Many Hiring Managers are swamped with the business of doing business. In the heat of battle, it may seem easier to backfill an open position from the employee pool rather than expend the resources to recruit the perfect candidate. Sourcing candidates, qualifying resumes, and conducting interviews is more than a full time job. When it’s all said and done, top candidates don’t necessarily turn out to be the best employees. After evaluating position requirements, cost, and the risk associated with the hiring process, many companies rely on third party recruiters to help make better hiring decisions.

Hiring a recruiter may appear expensive.  Typical fees ranges anywhere from 20% to 35% of a candidate’s first year salary. But if you quantify your company’s actual recruiting cost, add in the production losses from the open position coupled in with your company’s recruiting diversion cost from core business activities, you might be surprised by the best value.

Once you have compared the cost, evaluate the hiring process risk. A recruiter is a fixed cost with a performance guarantee that can be managed. A good recruiter usually fills open positions faster. Compare your company’s internal hiring track record in terms of employee bottom line quality, offer rejections, percentage that have been eventually fired, and how many have left in a short time, (replacement cost).

One final consideration in using recruiting services is the type of candidate required. Specialized skills and high level positions are typically best serviced by industry recruiters. Good recruiters have ready access to people your company can not legally or ethically contact. Recruiters are expected to disseminate information concerning new industry opportunities.

Recession, recovery, or growth markets alike, competition is and will continue to be fierce for the “best of the best” performers across all industries. A strong recruiting partner can help you plan for diverse economies, attract the best talent, hire the best fit, and build long term loyalty within your organization.