Employer Branding Ideas Worth Talking About -- Thought Leadership from Justin Vajko & Dialog Employer Branding

Skills over degrees ft Liz Gelb-O'Connor of ADP

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 19:45:00 GMT

In this episode, Justin welcomes Liz Gelb-O'Connor , the global head of employer brand and marketing for ADP. Liz and her team have been instrumental in creating an EVP and establishing ADP's employer brand presence in over 17 countries, earning them several marketing awards for their outstanding branding, social media, and marketing campaigns.

Before joining ADP, Liz held various executive roles in business intelligence, implementation sales, strategy, and marketing, bringing a diverse skill set to her current position. With a team of 10 talented individuals, Liz oversees the in-house employer brand group at ADP, working to attract top talent and convey the unique career opportunities ADP offers.

During the interview, Liz discusses the size of ADP, which boasts a global workforce of approximately 60,000 associates. She highlights the skills and roles within her team, including designers, a video specialist, social media managers, and sector-specific experts. As ADP expands its presence in Canada, they are adding a dedicated team member to focus on the Canadian market.

Liz shares her journey into the world of employer brand, which began when she transitioned from her previous role in sales to take on the challenge of employer branding. She talks about the importance of redefining her professional identity during the hiring process and leveraging her marketing and social skills to excel in her new role.

They discuss how her background in writing and technology has greatly influenced her work, particularly in project management, storytelling, and the operational aspects of employer branding.

As they delve further into the topic, Liz emphasizes the long-term value of branding and dispels the notion that immediate conversions are the sole measure of branding success. She explains how ADP's carefully crafted brand narrative has played a crucial role in attracting and retaining top talent, highlighting the impact of podcasts, campaigns, and social media engagement in driving candidate interest.

Liz reveals a successful strategy employed by ADP, known as the engagement wheel, which involves harnessing the power of internal advocacy and sharing compelling employee stories aligned with the company's EVP messaging. This approach has enabled them to generate a steady stream of engaging content and attract more candidates to join the organization.

When discussing overrated and underrated aspects of the talent space, Liz expresses her belief that focusing solely on undergraduate degrees can limit inclusiveness and overlook valuable skills possessed by individuals without formal education. She emphasizes the importance of considering transferable skills and giving qualified candidates the opportunity to showcase their abilities, even if their previous experience does not perfectly align with the job requirements.

Liz sheds light on ADP's efforts to shift the focus from college degrees to skills by rewriting job descriptions to be more inclusive. By removing degree requirements and emphasizing relevant experience, ADP has observed a measurable increase in the number of female and underrepresented applicants, demonstrating the positive impact of this approach on diversity and talent acquisition.

In closing, Liz imparts valuable advice to her younger self, emphasizing the significance of building and nurturing relationships throughout one's career. She believes that relationships play a pivotal role in personal and professional growth, aligning with the adage, "It's not just what you know, but who you know."

Getting started in recruiting ft Lauren Surman

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 18:00:00 GMT

Many individuals embark on unique paths that lead them to unexpected destinations--this is true in business as well. In this episode, Justin meets with Lauren Surman , who owns her own recruiting agency specializing in SaaS, executive search, sales, and tech recruiting. From her transition from sales to entrepreneurship, to her passion for creating meaningful connections, Lauren shares her insights and experiences on how she built a successful recruitment agency from the ground up.

Lauren, a talented sales professional, found herself yearning for a change after working under a toxic boss. Seeking a fresh start, she stumbled upon the field of recruiting through a chance encounter with a recruiter. Intrigued by the sales aspect within agency recruiting, Lauren decided to take a leap of faith and transition into this new domain. With an inner conviction that she could excel in this field, Lauren swiftly made the decision to start her own recruitment agency, Lessons with Lauren.

To kickstart her entrepreneurial journey, Lauren turned to LinkedIn, recognizing its immense potential for building connections and reaching out to potential clients. She began actively posting content, engaging with her network, and fostering meaningful relationships. Her genuine approach and dedication to making others feel valued resonated with many professionals, opening doors to new opportunities. One of her earliest clients stemmed from a connection she made on LinkedIn, which reinforced her belief in the platform's transformative power.

In her pursuit of business development, Lauren discovered the effectiveness of video outreach. Embracing this strategy, she found that personalized videos sent to hiring managers not only captured their attention but also created a human connection that sparked interest and engagement. Lauren emphasizes that videos don't need to be polished or scripted, but rather showcase authenticity and a genuine interest in the person on the receiving end. By leveraging video outreach, she was able to forge strong connections and secure valuable partnerships.

Lauren's journey has not been without its share of failures, but she firmly believes that failures are essential stepping stones on the path to success. Drawing from her previous experiences in starting companies, she acknowledges that failure is a natural part of the learning process. Instead of viewing failure as a setback, she reframes it as an opportunity for growth, emphasizing the importance of reflecting on one's failures, learning from them, and applying newfound knowledge to future endeavors.

Having come from a background in hospitality, Lauren attributes her success to her innate empathy and understanding of people's needs. By being attentive and responsive to those around her, she creates an environment that fosters happiness and fulfillment. Lauren firmly believes in the power of making others feel good without expecting anything in return, fostering genuine connections and leaving a lasting impression on everyone she encounters.

Lauren's journey from sales to entrepreneurship is a testament to the power of following one's passions, embracing failure as a stepping stone to success, and cultivating genuine connections. Her story serves as an inspiration to aspiring entrepreneurs and professionals alike, highlighting the transformative impact of leveraging social platforms like LinkedIn, incorporating personalized video outreach, and nurturing relationships built on empathy and understanding. By embracing the journey and pursuing your dreams with determination and authenticity, you too can carve your own path to success.

Building a Niche Headhunting Business with Ted Keyport

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Mon, 03 Jul 2023 18:35:48 GMT

In this episode of "The Talent Journey," Justin Vajko talks with Ted Keyport , the principal at Keyport Technical Search, an Engineering/Guilds Trade headhunting firm based out of the Twin Cities. Ted is an expert in machining and metal forming businesses but recruits actively across manufacturing. He shares his unique approach to recruiting and building a strong network in the machining industry. Ted has built a network that he can draw candidate profiles from, and he spends a lot of time talking to people in that world to position himself as having those relationships. He also works with community colleges to place every single kid that graduates from these tech school programs every year. This episode is full of insights and nuggets of wisdom that you can use in your own journey to become a better recruiter, employer brander, and talent leader.

5 types of hiring videos to try when you're on a budget

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 13:00:01 GMT

Finding and hiring great people isn’t as easy as just posting on a job board anymore. That’s because we’re in the beginning stages of a new era of baby boomer retirements. And that matters because with every new retiree, we’re seeing a decline of the available labor force.

With less and less people working, hiring great candidates becomes a bigger challenge for employers. And just like selling your products or services, you need to start thinking about ways to stand out in the crowd of employers.

That’s where video can come in. But just saying “I’m going to create a video” isn’t enough. In fact, most people when they think about creating a hiring video think of the cheesy corporate voiceover videos with stock footage of skyscrapers and smiling people shaking hands. That’s definitely not what I recommend unless you like wasting time and money on a project that will get your zero results.

That’s why I’ve put together a list of the best types of videos you can create to improve your chances of hiring the next great employee. These videos are organized by ease of creation and expected ROI. That means that if you start from the top type of video, you'll get the most bang for your buck in terms time/money spent versus the result you get.

Here are five kinds of hiring videos that I recommend for talent acquisition teams who want to try video but don't have the biggest budget:

1) Hiring Manager Videos

Hiring manager videos provide candidates with a personalized glimpse into the person who will be managing them. This human connection can foster trust and prevent candidates from dropping out later in the hiring process. These videos should be concise, aiming for under a minute in length. Placing these videos alongside job postings, if the software allows, and sharing them on social media platforms with a link to the job posting can maximize their impact as they will enhance your job posting. H iring manager videos yield the highest ROI in terms of impact versus the time invested .

So what goes into it? Ask your hiring manager to highlight the top three things about the role that would be important for the candidate. Or let your hiring manager explain what a typical day looks like for the person in this role.

How long does it take? A session with your hiring manager should take no more than 15 minutes. And editing the video shouldn't take more than that as well. Remember, the end result should be as short as possible. That means you're not going to need to make dozens or hundreds of cuts.

2) Employee Interviews

Employee interviews are a classic form of video content that still works.

I recommend open ended questions that you share ahead of time with your employee. Avoid scripted answers – candidates will see right through this. Instead, encourage employees to answer candidly. I recommend turning these 20 minute interviews into just a minute or two of completed footage. Don’t forget to edit an even shorter version in a vertical format, which is ideal for sharing on social media. Employee interviews can be also showcased on the company's website and alongside job postings, if the software allows, to give candidates a deeper understanding of the organization and its culture. If you work with recruiters, have them include links to these videos when emailing candidates.

3) Role-Based Videos

Day-in-the-life or "behind the scenes" videos offer candidates a unique opportunity to see firsthand what a particular job entails. These videos are especially valuable for roles or industries that may be unfamiliar to many individuals or that we often assume we know about (I'm looking at you, manufacturing).

By showcasing the work environment, challenges, and rewards associated with specific positions, employers can reduce candidate turnover during the initial stages of employment because they’re more likely to understand what they’re getting into.

And don’t forget to reuse them for your branded/sales content as well. People want to buy from people. What better way to build your brand than by showing your people enjoying their work and what goes into the product or service you sell? Creating this type of video will make it a real neat asset for your sales and marketing teams.

4) Onboarding Videos

Onboarding videos play a vital role in high-volume recruitment. They can help your candidates feel more at-ease with what to expect. Studies show that a well-designed employee onboarding experience can significantly improve retention rates. In fact, research indicates that 69% of employees stayed with their employer for more than three years after going through a comprehensive onboarding process .

To create your onboarding video, think: what would really help my new folks? Perhaps it’s a quick welcome message from the CEO, some essential info about how you do things around here, and an outline of what new employees can expect during their first few days. These videos instill confidence in candidates by helping alleviate the jitters that we all feel when changing jobs.

5) FAQ Videos

You ever have that question you want to ask in an interview but don’t want to hurt your chances of getting the job? This is where FAQ videos can really shine. By creating videos around these questions, e.g. “What’s the schedule like?” or “How much would I get paid?”, you’ll be able to stand out from the other employers who hide this info until late in the interview process – which tends to waste time for their hiring teams.

Put these videos into your social media feed. And don't forget to create a page on your website filled with them. This will make the job of your recruiters much easier when they can send curious candidates here to learn all they need about the details of the role.

Summary

Adding video to your hiring process isn't a secret weapon. But let's you get just a 10% improvement in time to hire or candidate quality, how much time does that save you? How much money are you saving your company every year by preventing poor-fit candidates from applying?

By creating video content about yourself as an employer, you’ll leave less up to the imagination of your candidates and improve candidate quality, improve time to hire, and make the job of your TA team easier.

Looking for help with your hiring video? Take a look at examples and pricing here .

Transparency in the Job Hunt ft Nate Guggia

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 18:39:36 GMT

In this episode, Justin sits down with Nate Guggia, the co-founder and head of brand at Before You Apply , a content platform and creative studio that specializes in providing companies with an inside look at their teams and cultures. Nate shares his accidental journey into the recruiting world, the lessons he learned from a failed business venture, the importance of doing hard things, his unshakable belief in transparency, and the underrated value of a candidate FAQ. Don't miss this insightful conversation that offers valuable insights for recruiters, employers, brands, and aspiring talent leaders.

The Talent Journey: From Recruiter to Resource for Recruiters ft. Hung Lee

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 18:12:16 GMT

Welcome to "The Talent Journey", a video podcast where the host, Justin Vajko, asks dumb questions so you don't have to. In this episode, Justin talks with Hung Lee, the creator of the Recruiting Brainfood newsletter who tries to create opportunities for people to have conversations in the recruitment and HR community. Hung Lee has been doing this for over 20 years and started his career as a recruiter. During this episode, they discuss his journey into the world of recruitment and how he became a resource for recruiters instead of just being a recruiter. Join Justin and Hung as they share their stories and nuggets of wisdom from their experience that you can use in your own journey to become a better recruiter, employer brand or a talent leader.

5 outdated practices that are hurting your hiring (esp. with Gen Z)

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 19:33:11 GMT

These mistakes are losing you money and putting more pressure on your burned-out HR team.

The single most important asset for every company is its people. Without your people, your customers aren’t served. Your sales won’t happen. Your widgets won’t get made. Yet for the longest time, many employers have treated their employees as commodities: something that will always be available at an affordable price. But those times have changed.

For a couple of decades now, the birth rate has been below 2.1 kids per household here in the US. The US grew at 0.4% population last year only because 75% of that was due to immigration.

A large percentage of baby boomers have been retiring in the last three years and will continue to retire for the next decade. This, combined with other workforce issues (such as women exiting the workforce due to childcare issues) are all leading up to a grim reality: there simply aren’t enough people who are available to work.

This is why it’s time for employers to take a good, hard look at their outdated hiring practices. Here are 5 outdated hiring trends in hiring that can and should be fixed if you want to stop losing money and burning out your team:

Not talking about what you stand for

Everyone business is led by a set of values. Few business leaders will be aware of what they are. But even fewer will communicate them to their candidates. This is dangerous for retention. Why? A study by Qualtrics in 2022 found that 46% of employees whose values didn’t align with their employers said they’re thinking about leaving. But why did those employees sign up for the job in the first place if their values weren’t aligned with their employer? Because the employers weren’t communicating what they care about most. Think about it: if you’re good at communicating your values to candidates, wouldn’t that mean more of the right-fit candidates apply and poor-fit candidates don’t apply? This type of work is the most difficult to implement, but it’s the most impactful long term as it will improve retention and avoid employee churn.

What to do instead

Hire a consultant who will be objective about what they discover when it comes to what you and your team stands for.
Hold your teams accountable to these values in your day to day.
Communicate your values internally and externally via training moments and social media.
More doesn’t mean better when it comes to listing your values. Keep your values list to 3 so that your leaders and your team will better remember them – and live by them.

Expecting HR to solve all of your hiring problems

HR teams are overworked more than ever. The rate of burnout for these often small teams has grown astronomically since the pandemic. Workivo’s study of HR professionals in 2022 revealed that 98% of them were feeling burned out. Burned out individuals don’t think strategically. They don’t put in the effort to solve big problems. This alone should cause leaders to pause and rethink their hiring practices. Beyond burnout, HR teams are expected to solve what is now a marketing problem, where every employer out there is trying to attract great people from a limited pool of candidates. No HR professionals were trained in this type of talent attraction strategy. This is what marketing professionals are for.

What to do instead

Hire a recruitment marketing agency to help with your candidate attraction.
Hiring is now a situation of “all hands on deck, “ aka a team effort. Ask your HR team: how can our whole team support our hiring efforts? Leaders: keep your team accountable to their commitments.

Ignoring online reviews

Many organizations are still unaware or turning a blind eye to their Indeed.com and Glassdoor.com reviews. These are two platforms where your company’s inner workings are on full display at all times to job searchers. All the good, bad, and often the ugly. But ignoring this employee feedback is a huge no-no if you’re trying to improve retention and attract candidates. Just like our buying decisions on Amazon are based on star ratings, candidates are doing the same with your online reviews. And many are choosing not to apply to your jobs because of what they’re seeing. The unfair problem here is that many great employers are suffering from low star ratings on these platforms even though they should be higher. That’s because the incentive to leave a good review isn’t worth the hassle for most employees.

What to do instead

Capture employee feedback on a regular basis, before people leave your organization and leave a rating online. This will help you determine if you’re running the organization that you want or whether you need to invest in more team development.
Periodically ask your people to leave a review for you on Indeed or Glassdoor. Afraid what will happen if you do? Then work on improving your culture.

Making it difficult for candidates to learn about your workplace

What if you were looking to buy a car but the only information about it you could find was a one-page document with the specs? No pictures, no videos, no other information. Job seekers are doing something much more important than buying a car: they’re potentially going to invest thousands of hours of their life in this job. Yet most employers still expect candidates to have all the info they need about the job by reading a job posting.

What to do instead

Indeed and other job boards now offer the ability to embed photos and videos of the job.
Invest in telling your employee stories on social media so that candidates can learn more about the workplaces they’d be joining.

Not realizing the importance of candidate communications

When a company emails you about the status of your job application, it shows they value you being in the loop. It can make you feel like you're not just a number. Yet this is not being done by most employers, who are missing out on a golden opportunity to make a great first impression. And this is just during the application phase. Adding email and text communications touchpoints from this stage all the way to the onboarding stage doesn't have to be a pain for your teams thanks to software that can be set up ahead of time.

What to do instead

Invest in an Applicant Tracking System that can automatically send emails and text messages when candidates reach various stages of the hiring process, including rejection emails, phone interview requests, and much more. This will relieve your HR team of much of the time sucks in the hiring process.
After someone applies, automatically route them to a thank you page with a short video about what to expect next in the process.
Send a welcome video with some basic onboarding info to new team members who have accepted the job but haven't started. This will relieve the stress of the unknown when they're between jobs.

If you want to avoid getting stuck with hiring the wrong people, put these practices in place sooner rather than later. You’ll be ahead of the coming “people-pocalypse” and positioned to grow.

Four reasons to consider remote work

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Mon, 16 Jan 2023 16:24:39 GMT

Justin was quoted by NXTThing about his reason for bringing on remote team members. So we decided to write an entire article about the value of remote team members here at Dialog.

Remote work has been on the rise, and for good reason (not just because it was forced on many of us thanks to the pandemic). Here are three reasons why I believe more employers need to stop thinking that remote work is a bad idea.

Remote work improves employee productivity

Creating remote teams leads to better productivity and improved employee happiness, which in turn leads to a decrease in turnover. Don't believe me?

A study conducted by Stanford University found that remote workers were 13% more productive than their in-office counterparts. They also reported that remote workers took shorter breaks, had fewer sick days, and reported higher job satisfaction. This increased productivity and job satisfaction can lead to a decrease in turnover, saving companies the cost and time associated with hiring and training new employees. This is backed up by the Stanford study, which found that "resignations at the company dropped by 50% when employees were allowed to work from home."

Remote work gives you healthier hiring options

If improved productivity and employee happiness aren't good enough reasons to make you consider offering remote work, keep in mind that remote work also allows companies to attract more talented employees. By only hiring locally, companies are limiting their candidate pool to a fraction of the total market. But by opening up positions to remote employees, companies can hire from a national or even international pool of candidates. This can give companies an unfair advantage over their competition by allowing them to hire top talent that would otherwise be unavailable.

Remote work makes hiring easier

A survey conducted by Buffer found that 99% of employees would like to work remotely at least some of the time. Additionally, a study by FlexJobs found that 77% of surveyed workers said they would be more likely to accept a job offer if it included the option to work remotely. This indicates that offering remote work options can be an effective way for companies to attract and retain talented employees -- especially as the talent pools start getting smaller and smaller as our working age population shrinks.

Remote work saves companies money

Furthermore, remote work allows companies to save on overhead costs, such as office space and utilities. Global Workplace Analytics found that companies can save an average of $11,000 per year per employee who works remotely half of the time. This can add up to significant savings for companies, especially for those with large numbers of employees.

Obviously, remote work is not suitable for all industries. But for companies looking to attract good people with skills, it's going to become more a necessity than a perk. Smart companies that invest in remote work now can achieve an unfair advantage over their competition. In an increasingly competitive job market, it's important for companies to be open to this new way of working.

Why a recession won’t solve your hiring problems

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Mon, 26 Dec 2022 21:30:52 GMT

Falling birth rates are the biggest threat to business growth both now and generations to come.

Contrary to common belief, the United States and the entire Western world aren’t growing by any significant amount. Overpopulation isn’t something we need to worry about, because we’re actually going into population decline. That’s because in the United States, each household needs to produce 2.1 children in order for us to remain at an even population. Yet we haven’t consistently hit these numbers in decades. The biggest reason the US population grew by 0.4% last year? Immigration.

The hiring and retention pinch every employer is feeling isn’t going away, probably ever. It’s created by a multitude of factors all happening at the same time. The pandemic was just a catalyst, speeding up the rate at which these factors occurred. These include an accelerated rate of retirements and women exiting the workforce to be home with the kids because of the cost of daycare. But the biggest reason? We literally aren’t making enough babies to replace everyone.

This is the main reason we’re in the predicament we’re in. And it’s why I want you to understand that just because a recession is coming doesn’t mean hiring woes are going anywhere anytime soon. Yes, you may snatch up a few folks who were laid off by a competitor in the recession. But this will only be a temporary fix. If you were to create a SWOT matrix for your business (which I hope you’re doing at least once per year), I would hope you realize that under the “Threat” box, your biggest issue for the next 50 years is going to be population decline, aka a lack of people to do your jobs.

Instead of hoping someone else will solve this problem for us, here are systems you can set up in 2023 that will make hiring easier, improve candidate quality, and put you ahead in the race for talent even as fewer and fewer folks are available in the talent pool.

Invest in your culture

There are so many benefits to investing in culture: lower employee burnout, better employee retention, higher employee productivity, etc. This is why I believe building your culture the single most important step you can take on this list. Every company’s culture is different and not every employee will be a good fit for that culture. But by taking charge of your culture, your leaders can determine how it gets shaped, which makes attracting new candidates easier and keeping employees simpler. Work with a culture-building agency to determine where you currently are, where you want to be, and how to close the gaps.

Invest in internal training, mentors, & internships

Many progressive employers are solving their need for skilled employees by creating internal training tracks that are enabled through mentorships or partnerships with local tech schools. In addition to this, consider whether creating an apprenticeship and internship program is right for you. Many apprenticeships are even sponsored by state governments . Studies show that when you bring in young employees and train them up, they will stay with you longer than if you were to hire someone who already has the skills.

Invest in your candidate experience

Look at candidate experience like you do your sales process. If you’re not making it streamlined, it will leave a bad taste in your candidates’ mouths. This means making it easy for candidates to learn the details of the job such as pay or schedule; setting expectations with candidates about when they should hear back from your recruiting team; or giving candidates an amazing onboarding experience ( which improves loyalty by significant margins ). One easy trick to test your candidate experience at the application stage is to try going through the application process for yourself. How easy was it? How long did it take? Doing this exercise once per year will help you avoid losing great candidates who are irritated by a poor experience and never apply to your jobs.

Build a talent pipeline

A talent pipeline is a way to keep a group of candidates interested in your jobs, even if you’re not hiring for that role yet. Why is that valuable? You waste less time and money once it’s time to hire. Plus, you’ll improve your chances of finding those high-value candidates who want to work for you but haven’t had a chance to apply to a job that was a good fit yet. A talent pipeline is a proactive approach to hiring where you use a combination of ongoing communication with candidates via social media, email, and even the occasional in-person or online event. Talk with an employer branding agency to get guidance on best practices.

Create better job ads

Want some reading material to fall asleep to? Just pull up Indeed and start reading all of the job ads on there. You’ll be amazed at how very little effort goes into improving these. But don’t blame your HR team: they weren’t trained as copy writers. Instead, bring in a copywriter and give them access to ask your hiring manager questions about the role. You’ll find that the end result will work wonders at attracting candidates. The goal isn’t a completely thorough document about your workplace requirements. The goal is to stop the right candidates in their tracks and get them to apply.

Use video to stand out

If you’re in B2B sales, you know that relationships are everything to getting a buyer to pull the trigger. The same principle applies now in this new era of hiring. But your hiring manager can’t possibly talk to everyone in your candidate pool. That’s where video can help. For example, you can shoot a video on your phone of your hiring manager introducing themself, their leadership philosophies, and describing the top details of who they’re looking for in the role. Then send that video to candidates in an email or text message after they apply. You’ll find that by humanizing the job application process this way, you’ll stand head and shoulders above other employers who simply aren’t doing this and make the right candidates more likely to stick with you through the hiring process.

Invest in Automation

Whether it’s new workflow automation software or robots, automation can be expensive to set up. The good news is that as it becomes more ubiquitous, it will become more affordable. And for those afraid of losing their jobs to robots: your employer is hurting for people and isn’t going to want to let you go so easily, especially if you’re a faithful employee. Look for ways to get involved in managing the robots or training in other valuable roles (see point #2 above).

Conclusion

The fruit is hanging so low in this space that picking just one of these disciplines will give you a competitive advantage.

But before you hand this off to your HR team for them to implement, know that they weren’t trained for any of these initiatives. So don’t put this kind of work on them. Additionally, over 90% of HR folks are reportedly burned out. You need to create a whole new role within your company or hire outside agencies to start solving these problems now before it’s too late. “But that’s the way we’ve always done it” will kill your ability to attract and retain talent, and ultimately kill your business growth.

Don’t waste the recession by sitting back and gloating over picking up the talent your competitors let go. Instead, use your growth to invest in a position where you can become an employer of choice, moving your hiring woes from the “Threat” quadrant of your SWOT matrix to the “Strength” quadrant.

How to build a healthy pipeline of talent using internships.

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 20:10:32 GMT

Learn how companies can build a more loyal talent pipeline for less time using a customized pre-internship program from Internship on Demand.

Keegan Moldenhauer leads Internship on Demand, a service that connects employers to more qualified interns for way less time. Learn more about Keegan and his business at www.internshipondemand.com .

Tips for manufacturers to improve recruitment | An informal conversation with Nic Gianino

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 19:12:23 GMT

Nic's background in manufacturing operations means he looks at recruiting and retention through the lens of a better process. If you look at your recruiting like you look at your business operations processes, you'll find all sorts of gaps that can be fixed. Listen in on our conversation to pick up some tips on recruiting in the new era we live in.

Nic Gianino runs Metals Navigation, a consulting firm for metals-based manufacturers who want to improve efficiencies.

Media Mention: 15 Ways to Simplify Your Job Applications

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 18:41:15 GMT

Justin was quoted by vCandidates.com on the topic of simplifying the job application.

Job applications should be tailored to the exact necessary details you need in order to make a decision about contacting the candidate. You'll often need to dig to discover what these are so that ultimately you can ask the right questions and cut down on application drop off rates.

Media Mention: Develop Candidate Personas with 8 Tips from Recruiters

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 17:52:57 GMT

Justin was quoted by NXTThing on the topic of creating candidate personas for the purpose of recruiting. He shares his trick of using a before/after grid to come up with great messaging points that recruiters can use when reaching out to candidates.

How to prevent ghosting by improving your recruiting process

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Mon, 05 Sep 2022 18:47:32 GMT

By taking a a hard look at their application and onboarding process, employers can attract the right candidates and cut down on ghosting.

Most employers would solve many of their hiring headaches – especially ghosting from candidates – if they would prevent their job applicants from having to jump through so many hoops. What do I mean by that?

I was enjoying coffee with an old friend a few weeks ago and the topic of side jobs came up. He mentioned how he’d been applying to different jobs that he could do in his spare time. He shared how incredibly tedious it was to apply to some of these jobs, which caused him to abandon his application. Plus, each time he did this it left a bad taste in his mouth about that employer. These employers weren’t making friends by causing candidates to jump through hoops that weren’t needed.

Think about that. A perfectly qualified candidate wasn’t applying to jobs because the process was too involved. The application took so much effort that he didn’t consider it worth his time to apply when so many other opportunities existed. All because the employer was stuck with a hiring process that they hadn’t revisited in 20 years.

Unfortunately this is a common pitfall that many employers suffer from, all the while complaining that “no-one wants to work anymore.” Employers still haven’t learned that in this day and age that applicants don’t have to put up with crappy application processes anymore.

This goes beyond making the job easy to apply to. You can certainly create a job application that only asks for basic contact info and a resume and be done. Just look at how easy Indeed has made it to apply to jobs.

But if you’re looking for the right people to apply so you don’t have to sift through hundreds of unqualified applicants, here are my tips for creating an intentional job application process that will make your life easier, prevent candidate ghosting, and attract the candidates you actually want.

1) Build better job descriptions.

A good chunk of job descriptions are simply copy-paste jobs. However, this is the first impression you’re giving candidates of your workplace. Would you show up to a date where someone you’ve never met picked out your clothes? Then why are you using someone else’s job ad to make a good first impression?

Writing good job ads takes effort to do well because it uses a marketing mindset, i.e. putting yourself in the shoes of the other person. I always recommend hiring a recruitment marketing agency to do this. But for those without a hiring budget, here are some simple tips:

Use plain language. Skip the fanciful wording that sounds like you’re trying to impress a bunch of lawyers. Only use jargon if you’re actually trying to attract experienced candidates who know those terms.
Ask yourself (or the hiring manager): what does success look like in this position? What does the typical day look like? Bonus tip: if you can record the hiring manager answering these questions, you have yourself 80% of the words you need to use for your new job post.
Start job ads with a candidate-centered question or statement. Paint a picture of what the job is buying them in life. That first paragraph is critical for making a good impression. Don’t waste it on talking about your history as a company.
Don’t include all the details of your company. Save those for follow up communications (See point 5 below).

2) Include pay in the job ad.

61% of candidates expect to see pay in the job ads . But only 12.6% of global companies actually include this . Before you think that you can squeeze a few more years out of not sharing pay ranges with candidates, consider that Indeed.com has already implemented a system where they estimate the pay range and publicly advertise it to candidates. Plus, candidates can share their pay on Glassdoor.com for anyone to see. As an employer, wouldn’t you rather own the conversation around pay rather than letting Indeed or past employees inform your candidates? Besides, including pay means you won’t waste time on candidates who wouldn’t be a good fit and had unreasonable expectations for what you could pay them. Including pay in job postings is in our opinion the single fastest way to start making things easier for your HR team by preventing ghosting, as candidates don’t have to jump through the job application hoops before they find out what wages they can expect.

3) Simplify the job application process.

Ask yourself: “What info is absolutely necessary for us to collect in this job application form to get the candidate to the next step?” A job application shouldn’t be a catch-all of information for your recruiting team to follow up with. By asking only the most important questions of your candidates, you can then determine if you should follow up with them in the next step of your hiring process. Many teams haven’t looked at their job application in years. If that’s you, I recommend “fake applying” to your jobs. How easy was it to do? Did it take less than 5 minutes (the gold standard in job application lengths)? Were you asked only relevant questions, or could some of them be saved for a qualifying interview?

4) Invest in a good Applicant Tracking System (ATS).

Applicant Tracking Systems aren’t all made equal. Many of them are simply tacked on to an HRIS program almost as a side note. They’re mostly designed for the needs of HR. Very few do a good job of making sure candidates have a good experience – e.g. not making candidates register an account before they can apply. That being said, there are a few good options out there that give you some abilities to create a decent candidate experience. For example, JazzHR is a great choice as an affordable ATS that offers the ability to follow up with candidates via email or texting (Note: Dialog is a partner of JazzHR and will receive compensation should you make a purchase in the link).

5) Build in as many communication touchpoints as possible.

This keeps candidates in the loop about their application and your workplace. I was talking with one employer a while back and they shared how they went so far as to include communication touchpoints even after a candidate accepted an offer, which resulted in a measurable drop in ghosting. People are stressed when they’re between jobs. Staying in touch with them about the hiring process through automated communication is a way to make candidates appreciate you, even if they don’t end up getting the job. Plus, candidates are getting multiple offers at the same time as yours. If you can build in automated candidate communication with your ATS where you can show videos and testimonials about your workplace, you’ll set yourself apart. When you communicate your employee stories with candidates, it improves your recruiting results.

If we take a page from the e-commerce playbook, we know that the more steps you need to take to make a purchase results in fewer purchases overall. In e-commerce, every time you ask your user for another bit of info you see a drop in sales. Buying something online is completely different from applying to jobs. The end result is a relationship with people in a job – not a thing you buy and then use. So aren’t the stakes here even higher? Shouldn’t you try to avoid frustrating candidates right from the start of your relationship?

Try applying to your jobs to learn where the gaps are. Then get work on fixing your company’s recruiting process.

Podcast Episode: Strategies for Talent Attract and Recruitment

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Thu, 26 May 2022 14:51:56 GMT

Dialog founder Justin Vajko was featured in the Workforce Waves podcast.

In this episode, you'll discover digital strategies that employers can utilize to attract and retain talent. Discover the importance of onboarding in retaining talent, and why employers need to list pay ranges when posting available jobs. You'll also hear about how having a positive organizational culture and an effective digital presence are crucial factors in talent attraction and retention.

Length: 27 minutes

Are you waiting on a miracle?

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Mon, 16 May 2022 17:34:18 GMT

Many employers are waiting for something to magically happen to improve the labor market. However, some are ahead of the curve, taking the challenge into their own hands--and winning the race for talent. Learn how you can solve your skills gaps and talent gaps in this quick read.

No, there aren't people hiding out in the woods, waiting on unemployment checks to expire before looking for a job.

A lot of people still believe this is the case. But the data shows otherwise.

In fact, this problem will continue indefinitely because there simply aren't enough people to cover all the retiring baby boomers or folks who have permanently left the workforce for multiple reasons.

It's time to start doing things differently that you have before.

And that involves thinking proactively about talent attraction. Here are three strategic moves you can make as an employer to grow your workforce. Just picking one of these will put you miles ahead of your competitors, simply because so few employers are doing this.

1) Invest in your culture.

Your culture can make or break your retention numbers. One study showed that almost one in three people (32%) quit their job in the first three months because they weren't fans of the culture. And having a good culture is proven to lower talent acquisition costs by 50% . So the ROI for culture-building projects will show up across multiple areas of your business.

For many employers, improving culture can often be as simple as promoting better internal communication. However, many leadership teams struggle to understand where they can reasonably make changes in their organizations to improve work culture. A great solution to this is to survey your people. You can do this with survey software such as Survey Monkey or simply make a point as a leader to meet with your team one-on-one to ask where the company stands in the eyes of your employees. Explain why you're doing it and ask open-ended questions such as "What's one thing we could do better?" or "What's something you wish leadership knew more about?". The results will often surprise you but give you the knowledge you need to be able to adjust the direction of your company's culture.

Once you find out the opportunities to improve your workplace, communicate the things you've discovered to your team and how you're tackling the issues in a regular team meeting, video, or email. You'll find that transparency around the issue is the first step to building trust with your employees, especially if they're disenfranchised by years of a lack of communication or change. You may not be able to make all of the changes people are asking for, but the important thing is to show how you're taking bites out the problem while inviting continual feedback. When your employees see you're taking steps to improve based on their feedback (and not getting ignored), your efforts to build a positive workplace culture will start to bear fruit.

If your culture is really struggling or you just want a guide to help you on your way to improve your company, there are great people who can help with this such as Steve Utech and his team at Illumyx . You can learn more about their innovative approach to culture measurement in our interview with Steve here .

2) Invest in your internal training.

Not finding great candidates? You can train them internally. Yes, even hard-to-fill positions can be trained in with help from local tech schools or consultants such as Double E Workplace Solutions , who specialize in training the production teams of blue collar workforces.

Plus, having training programs for your people is something they want! Offering employee training programs has been proven to improve employee satisfaction . And when you have happy employees, you have less retention headaches.

Studies show that when you invest in your people, they're less likely to leave for another employer. Playablo says it this way: "Retention rates rise 30-50% for companies with strong learning cultures." So make it hard for your people to leave by creating a training program around a hard-to-fill position. And watch your retention rates increase over time.

This type of move obviously requires an investment of time and effort to build up your training force. But since your job situation isn't going away anytime soon AND the cost to find new people is so expensive compared to keeping them , why not invest in this strategy?

3) Invest in promoting your employee stories.

So many employers forget that most of the world doesn't know about them. There, I said it. Yet many employers forget that even though they operate in rural areas, most people will have never heard of them.

I was talking with a manufacturer in rural Minnesota recently and was surprised at how even in a county of just 65,000 people many people hadn't heard of their massive 500+ operation.

That's what agencies like Dialog Employer Branding are for. We specialize in promoting employers who are doing a good job of caring for their people. Can't afford an employer branding agency? We recommend working on the following strategy to get started with your own employer reputation:

Claim on your online review pages such as Indeed or Glassdoor and respond to all reviews, good and bad. Post regular photo and video updates. Make sure you're active on these profiles as 67% of people consider online reviews a significant factor as to whether they'll apply. What are your Indeed page visitors seeing?
Build a habit of posting on social media. What do you post? Some social media post ideas include photos and videos of:
Employee Engagement Activities
Employee before/after stories
Employee development stories
Thought leadership
Workplace walk throughs
Fun facts
Benefit highlights
Create shorter, simpler job ads that connect with your candidates. You don't need a list of bullet points. You want to aim for a few paragraphs about the job using language that speaks to the situation your candidates are in currently.
Build your website so that it has answers about your company and your jobs from a candidate's perspective. They'll want to know things such as pay, hours, what the work environment is like, what their boss is like, and what kinds of benefits to expect. Updated career websites are often one of the lowest hanging fruit I see in terms of improving candidate expectations.
Make your jobs easier to apply to. According to a study cited by SHRM , "60 percent of job seekers quit in the middle of filling out online job applications because of their length or complexity." Now I've heard some folks claim that doing this increases the amount of junk applications. But think about it: if you're not making it easier for great candidates to apply, you're never going to get their applications with your existing process. You're just getting candidates who don't mind filling out an application for 30 minutes.

Stop waiting on a miraculous end to the labor shortage. It's now an employee market and will be for 10, 20, or even 30 years. Candidates have the pick of the litter when it comes to finding their next job. And they will indeed be picky based on what they see on social media and online reviews.

Changing the way you've always done things takes courage. But many employers are already doing it successfully and solving the talent shortage by embracing the paradigm shift: simple talent sourcing is gone. The new way may be more complex, costly, and take more time, but it does work.

How to improve recruiting and retention by improving your culture

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 21:15:05 GMT

In this session, learn how culture impacts recruitment and retention and a simple tip you can use to get insight into your own company's culture.

About our speakers

Stephen Utech runs Illumyx , a consulting firm that allows leadership teams to get a pulse on their culture and improve business results as an outcome of this insight. Learn more about Illumyx at www.illumyx.com .
Justin Vajko runs Dialog, a recruitment marketing agency for blue collar employers in Wisconsin and Minnesota. We use social media, videos, and online reviews to help great employers attract great talent. Learn more about us at www.recruitwithdialog.com .

Justin Vajko: Hey, everyone. I want to introduce Steve Utech here. Steve runs a company called Illumyx and he specializes in, if I understand this right, Steve, helping organizations understand their culture and how to use that to achieve bottom line business results. Did I get that right?

Stephen Utech: That's a great summary. Yeah, probably better than I could summarize it.

Justin: Okay, good. Well, I am in marketing. So Steve, I have a question for you. You know, we talk about culture a lot at Dialog. We talk about it a lot, all the time. We're not the culture experts. I think you guys are. So I want to ask the first question. What is culture?

Stephen: Someone shared with me a simple definition that I've been using for a while, that culture is how you get work done. So that might involve behaviors or attitudes, beliefs you have about work philosophies, but it's the collective way that people get work done.

Justin: I like that definition.

Stephen: And that allows for some variation, because accountants are going to approach work slightly different than someone in a sales team. But within that variation, there's usually some core binding principles that keep people together.

Justin: OK. I was looking at your website a little bit. One of the challenges it sounds like a lot of companies have is, when they've got these obstacles and they've got these complex challenges of doing this, but we're still getting this result and we think it's a culture problem. What are some symptoms that can often come up? You talked about what different groups have for culture. What are some symptoms that you see as a common theme, where somebody would need your help to work on culture?

Stephen: Okay. Yeah. That's a great question. First off, I don't necessarily view them as problems, because what happens is, companies grow or they develop and essentially they go through different stages like puberty and they don't realize that they're going through puberty, and some of these growing pains are normal. So I think one of the downfalls that some organizations have is they're like, "Oh, we're having these problems that let's not look at them or let's try to work harder to overcome them somehow." Instead of just slowing down and going, "Hey, what's going on here? How can we learn from this? And maybe we need to change how we operate." So culture's not a static thing. So it's got to evolve as you grow, because what worked when you're five people, is not going to work when you're 150 or a thousand. So one of the common symptoms I see is, a lot of siloing, organizational siloing. So people get stressed out, how things worked at one point when you're small, doesn't work as well for collaboration. So you have people that stop working together, workflows break down across departments and functions.

Stephen: And then when that happens, then you start seeing trust issues develop, you get conflict where people throw things over the wall, they don't really get resolved. And then, perceptions of accountability and fairness get all skewed, because you get focused on your department or your area or your role. And it's like, "Well, I'm doing my job, but they're not doing their job." And organizational fairness tends to be a really big deal for people when they feel like they're getting a bum wrap, even if it's not really based in reality. So usually, I find people are working hard regardless. It's just that you get these misperceptions that develop over time, because you're stressed and overworked. And it's natural to feel sorry for yourself.

Justin: Right. Misperception is so interesting to me that a culture can come out of misperceptions. You said, as companies grow, often one of the things that can happen is, they ignore certain parts that need to be addressed. What are some of those things that need to be addressed? If a company could look at one, two or three things on a regular basis, what would those things be that you'd recommend, in order to avoid coming into a situation where years down the road, now you've got this culture of silos and misperceptions and things like that?

Stephen: Ooh, I'll do my best to answer that question. There's a lot there, but I would say, when you're small, just being okay with not being super structured. Too much structure is going to slow you down. But realizing that, as you get bigger or busier, you need that structure to help scale. And I think, when companies go through that transition, a lot of times employees will view it, "Oh, we're getting corporate or we're losing our way or losing our path." No, you just gotta grow up. And some employees might be... Maybe they're just great at that early stage stuff, where it's a little bit structured, very nimble, kind of fun and exciting, flying by the seat of your pants. And maybe they never want to grow up, and that's okay. Actually, crap. What was your question again, Justin?

Justin: Yeah, that's fine. What are some of the things that you see those growth pains that get ignored, I guess, to use the analogy of growing. Things that, if entrepreneurs and CEOs and executive teams, managing teams could have an eye on that and not ignore it, would prevent some of these things down the road.

Stephen: Oh, one of the common things that forms in a growing company is this thing called... Well, clicks where one function of a business is dominant. So you might be in a manufacturing setting and you say production or manufacturing or operations is king. Other groups might be like sales is king, but usually, one function tends to dominate. And what's really important at that stage, is for the executive team or that CEO to set a real clear vision and say, essentially, one function is not going to dominate. This is about how we are together and take some ownership, that things are going to get inefficient for a while, because if you're going to scale and figure out how to unite people.

Stephen: It's going to be an inefficient process in the companies that have been successful, they've taken the time to build infrastructure around culture or infrastructure around metrics and process, but they're really trying to build a strong business and it just takes some time and being okay with that. So, sometimes those functions that were dominant, that helped get you to where you are, they got to take a little bit of a backseat to help the organization get reorganized.

Justin: I could see two reasons why an entrepreneur would ignore certain things like you just said. The first that comes to mind is time. Well, I don't have time to fix this problem we're trying to grow. And the second thing I can think of is, I don't know how to address this problem. If they're aware of it even, I would say, maybe a lot of entrepreneurs aren't aware of the problems in their business, because from what my experience is, a business grows around the strengths and weaknesses of an entrepreneur. But let's say, there's an executive team of some kind and they see this. What is some advice you'd give to a team like that, an executive team, managing team that sees, yeah, we've got this problem. We just don't know what to do about it. Is it as simple as hiring you? What are some resources or ideas you have for addressing some of these really complicated, messy human problems?

Stephen: Yeah. They could always hire me, but that's a really simplistic answer. Simple thing to do is just to talk to people. We don't have to come up with any crazy solutions. The employees actually have insight and perspective. And maybe some of the magic that we do is just weaving those stories together into a coherent message, so people understand. Because, when you're leading a company, you're getting a lot of BS piled on your lap. You don't know what's real, what's not. So it can be really hard to sort it all through, but I've seen some CEOs just literally, just go onto a production line and pull people off and start asking them, "Hey, what's going on? What's your experience? How do things work? What's your pain points?" And it can be a bit time consuming, but that can be pretty powerful when the leader of the company, asking you questions about how things are going for you.

But yeah, it's just difficult for most executives, because it's lonely at the top and it's hard to get a really good view of how the inner workings of your company are, what they actually are when you're that far removed from it.

Justin: Yeah. Right. It makes sense. What you're talking about reminds me, just that simple going to the production floor and pulling people aside and asking them questions and open ended questions, maybe. And it reminds me of the show Undercover Boss a little bit. Have you ever seen that show?

Stephen: Totally. It's a great show.

Justin: Yeah. Just that idea that there are things that are going on that, if you just open up that line of communication, you might get insights that answer your problems for you. Maybe there's a lack of what we often see, because we work with companies all the time on communication problems. What we often see is, there's an internal communication issue, sometimes. It's like, well, this person has this complaint, but clearly this is being addressed by the company. They just don't see it yet. So like you said, maybe it's a silo issue. Maybe it's a miscommunication issue.

Stephen: Actually that's a really good point, Justin, because half the time like things are being done.

And employees don't see it and then, they keep complaining or... Not complaining, but they keep on voicing their concerns and then you see leaders going, "Well, dang it. What the heck?" And they start feeling resentful. And then, you see this rift occur between people. Oh man. I was working with an HR leader who is a former, I think DuPont person. And they had a really cool thing they shared with me, where they would do these, I think monthly presentations, the CEO would do. And they would have these simple slides that said, "This is what you said, this is what we did.” And they would just try to make it as explicit as possible. "You said this, we addressed it this way." And I was like, this is simplistic and beautiful, because it's so easy to just assume that like, "Oh yeah, we addressed your concern", but then never say anything about it.

Justin: I've learned a lot about interpersonal communication recently and one of the best ways you can help with communication is, making sure the other person feels heard. And the best way for someone to feel heard is literally, just repeating back to them what they said in your own words. And it's amazing how people feel like, "Okay, yeah, you get what I'm saying." And then, you can talk about the next step, but that part alone is just huge for that empathy. And it sounds like that step of just, this is what you said, that alone would be impactful.

And just even addressing it partially, would be good because guess what, you've done the bulk of the work and sounds like of just being empathetic with your employees complaints and putting it out there in the open and not making it feel like, "Well, I threw my complaint out there into these surveys, but nothing ever seems to be done." We've seen that in some of these internal surveys. We do a lot of surveys, nothing... Well, things are probably getting done. Just maybe not those specific complaints aren't being overtly brought up and then addressed what's being done about it. That's a really great tip, Steve. That's a really great tip.

Stephen: Yeah. And change takes time too. And you'd be surprised at how, not obvious certain things are. So something can be implemented. People have just no idea. You just don't know.

Justin: Right. They don't. Yeah, that's very true. What seems simple to one person, is often a complete mystery to someone else. So can you tell us any good stories, maybe one good story of a before and after situation. You've touched on a couple. What's one that comes to mind when I say, tell me a good culture change story that Illumyx was a part of.

Stephen: Oh yeah. This is a communications company in the South. I think it was in Arkansas. And it was interesting, because they were a family run business. I think they had been around for multiple generations and they had just some professional managers that came in to run it. And while they were still making money, morale was in the tank, really, really bad.

I think to the point where maybe they did some leadership change or turnover, so brought a new leader in and he wanted some help diagnosing the culture and figuring out, "Okay, how do I steer this ship and take it from this status quo family business and start reimagining it and growing it significantly?" And when I say communications companies, it was telecom.

Stephen: So, cable TV, internet, things like that, but more of a rural provider. So I remember when he first came in, they got their results back from their survey and it was just abysmal, just brutal. We used this color coded heat map to illustrate things. And it was just all red. It was like a deer that just got shot and that was just laying on the side of the road, but I was so impressed with the CEO, because he would go around to all their locations and do these town hall meetings. And he would say, "It was just a bloodbath." Either it was dead silence and no one would say anything and just an awkward hour or people would just be getting up and yelling. But he said the fear and anger were just palpable.

Stephen: There were two things, it was either anger or people were afraid and wouldn't talk. To the point where, I think their first survey, they were like, "We couldn't even have any demographic questions to slice and dice the data, because people were so paranoid about the survey or just being honest that they were going to get fired." So I would just say, this leader was just extremely transparent. And he was able to take a lot of bullets and a lot of heat and not be defensive about it. And just try to understand it, as you were saying before, and work it through like, "Okay, how do we take your concerns and do something about it?"

Stephen: And then with that, he ended up forming this culture team, which is becoming more common to have a change management strategy, where you have a group of employee stakeholders that are influencing the change. And I really liked this team, this culture team, I think it was 20 people at first who were tasked with helping to change the culture. They kept on going to him for feedback and going, "Well, tell us what to do, tell us what to do." And he was very adamant and he's like, "This is your initiative. I'm here to give you some guidance.

Stephen: I'll make sure you're not veering too far to the left or the right or going off course, but you guys got to own this." And they started freaking out at first and we helped guide them and make sure they had some things to take care of, but they would start meeting with employees and uncovering some of these issues and addressing them, and became this really cool self-sustaining group, where employees started viewing them like, "Oh, okay. We do have a voice. We can go to this culture team to help us work through any challenges we have. And they're hearing us, they're listening to us. They're moving forward."

Stephen: So long story short, five years of this. And now, they're at an employer of choice status.

Justin: Wow.

Stephen: The culture team initially, their mantra, their vision was to build pride in the company again, because an employee said they would go to their grocery store and if they had their company logo or apparel on, they said they would hide it because they would be embarrassed.

Justin: Wow.

Stephen: And now they're like, it's actually fun to recruit people to the company, because of how much they've transformed it.

Justin: Wow. That is a really cool transformation story. Thank you. Yeah. That's a rare thing. I think a lot of companies don't realize the impact of culture and things can be done about it. I think a lot of us have worked in companies where it just feels inevitable, that culture should be that way. But that story shows and proves. Boy, if you've got the courage with a capital C, to withstand some of that initial pushback and you have an open mind and you want to get to the bottom of it, there is a way to turn a company around. But boy, that sounds like a really powerful leading from the front, really courage leading to get to that point in that kind of situation.

Stephen: And it was top down leadership, but then also, bottom up engagement.

Justin: Yeah.

Stephen: Which takes time and then measurement and then, "Okay, let's try to make improvements on what's not working the best."

Justin: So that's where you guys will get a little techy about what you guys offer with Illumyx. You measure, what is it, eight different areas of culture?

Stephen: Yep. So generally we measure eight dimensions of culture, but then beyond that, most companies will help them measure their organizational values, and then any other principles they might have. So it gets really tailored into who they are, what they're all about. And we find that that actually helps engage people into the project. So it's not just a typical engagement survey, there's some meaning and meat behind it. And that allows them to just get better at themselves. But we also look at, where they're at developmentally, as an organization. Are they really young and at the infancy stage? Are they going through puberty and are a little bit chaotic and all over the place? Or are they really mature and just have a well oiled machine that is churning out money? So that's really helpful, because we could provide some guidance on what they need to do to continue to mature, or even to get younger. Maybe they're too old and stodgy and they need to have a little bit more nimbleness in their approach.

Justin: Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. And you give these reports, you've got visual ways to look at them and you're actually measuring culture.

Stephen: Yep.

Justin: At Illumyx. Okay. Which is a very interesting process. I think a lot of people probably would not expect that you could measure your culture, but you guys have found a way to do that and it sounds like, get some really nice results out of it, just by measuring it.

Stephen: Yep. Most definitely are.

Justin: What's something that surprises you, or still surprises you after all these years of being in this world of culture building. Is there anything that still surprises you? Or have you seen it all and you're like, "Yeah, that doesn't surprise me."

Stephen: That's a great question. Oh, this doesn't happen as often, but when a group, usually it's not a CEO, but usually it's a department leader, when they have information and they don't want to do anything with it or they try to find excuses. It's really difficult to watch, because then it's like, "Oh, you're just missing out on a golden opportunity here." And things almost always get worse, when you solicit input and you, and you don't take action with it. And usually, it's rooted out of fear, but it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's this hidden fear of, "I don't want to look at it, because I don't want to know. And maybe it'll just go away." But it almost invariably gets worse. And it's like watching a car accident that you can see coming from a while away.

Justin: Oh yeah.

Stephen: So that shouldn't be surprising, but I guess it is surprising and it's more of like, "I wish people would have a little bit more courage at times to look at themselves and not be so afraid of learning."

Justin: Yeah. That makes sense. Well, this whole series we do is about recruitment and retention. Let's get to that topic and then we'll wrap it up. But what are some of the expectations somebody can have? What is maybe a good case study or a good example of recruitment improving, when you work on your culture? Obviously, I like to say all the time, "If you work on your culture, recruitment will improve, retention will improve." Do you guys have the data to back that up?

Stephen: Yeah, we do. With certain organizations, and although caveat right now is such a weird time in the labor market, where I've never seen employees so empowered, or just people on the job hunt. In a lot of ways, it's becoming more money centric. So that probably isn't good for us long term. But we can help with helping to figure out proper pay vans to make sure people stay. But it just takes time. I think the big thing is making sure what you're communicating, what you're pitching, what you're selling and your recruitment messaging, is matching the experience that employees have. And when companies can walk the walk, talk, talk, and their recruitment message matches the culture they have, that creates a really, really fantastic onboarding experience. And that, I don't know... Synchronicity? We'll just say, just jives pretty well.

Justin: So there's no shock when they get in and think, "Oh, well I've been sold bowl of crap here."

Stephen: I've had a couple of companies I wanted to toss your way, but they're like, "Oh, not yet, man, because we got some work to do. Because any marketing message we come up with is going to be disingenuous." Unless we want to say, "Hey, come work for a really disorganized, chaotic hell hole."

Justin: Yeah. That's right. Put all your dirty laundry out there. Yeah.

Stephen: Exactly. They're like, "We're trying to make it better. Just give it some time."

Justin: Yeah. Okay. Well, cool. Well thanks, Steve, for this time. I always like to have three takeaways. I got... Well, I do have three takeaways. So first one is, if somebody wants to work on their culture, improve some things in their company, improve efficiencies, improve recruitment retention. One of the first things they can do is, not ignore the problems and they can talk to their people. So talk to their people out on the floor, CEO, manager, just go down to the floor, get that firsthand information. That alone might yield some beautiful fruit that they can use and run with, and make adjustments.

Justin: And then when you do make adjustments, communicate what people have said and tie it back to what you've already done. Even if it's a little nibble at that problem, empathize with what someone said. And then tie back. And then the third thing is, what we just talked about, communicating, having a good culture, and then communicating that clearly, doing those well is really going to help with the recruitment and the retention. There's no unmet expectations, no shock there. Anything else I missed, that you would add to that list that someone should have as a takeaway?

Stephen: Nothing to add. But I would say, if you're a work in progress as a company, just own that. And even just, if you're interviewing some folks and just say, "Hey, we're trying to go from here to here. We need you to help us get there." And that might be, "Hey, we're trying to get more planful or more disciplined. And we need you as a potential prospect to help us get there, knowing that it's going to be challenging and we might throw some wrenches in your game and you might get frustrated with us." I think that kind of honesty could be really refreshing.

Justin: I totally agree.

Stephen: You don't need to have it all together, but be honest.

Justin: I like that. I like that a lot. And you don't have to have it all together. Let's add that as a fourth item, and be real about it. You don't have to have it all together, as long as you're real about it. Well, Steve, thanks for your time. And it was good chatting with you and we'll talk to you later.

Stephen: All right. Thanks Justin. Have a good one.

How to create an amazing candidate onboarding experience

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 15:59:08 GMT

It's so difficult to attract talent these days. So why shoot yourself in the foot when it comes to retaining them? Yet that's what most employers do by forgetting about emphasizing the onboarding experience. Get some tips about how you can improve this critical step in your hiring process that, done well, will improve retention at your company.

About our Speakers

Shelly Dretzka, owner at aHRrow Consulting , a human resource outsourcing company in Wisconsin. Learn more at www.hrwisconsin.com
Justin Vajko, owner at Dialog Employer Branding, a marketing agency that promotes your jobs beyond the job boards. Learn more at www.recruitwithdialog.com .

Justin Vajko: Hey everybody. I'm Justin and I have Shelly Dretzka from aHRrow HR Consulting here with me, and we're going to be talking about what is candidate experience and why it matters and how to improve it. Because apparently, Shelly is the person you want to talk to about candidate experience. And we'll talk about why that is in a little bit. But before we get started, Shelly, for those who aren't really familiar with candidate experience, what it is, we're talking about entrepreneurs. They're starting to grow their businesses. We're talking about companies. Maybe they have one or two HR folks, but they've never really had that deep level of training. What is candidate experience in your eyes? And why does it matter?

Shelly Dretzka: Well, thanks for having me, Justin. So what it is, is the experience the candidate has. That was really mind blowing, wasn't it? But the importance of that is, the journey that a candidate takes as they're out there and they are looking to find that next great opportunity in their professional lives and what are they experiencing? What is happening to them during that entire process? And that starts from when they're interacting with job boards, or on LinkedIn, and then all of a sudden, they're getting communications from those companies, from the recruiters, from the hiring managers to the messaging, the phone calls, the interviews. What is that all feeling like along the way? Because really, great candidates are taking that all into consideration when hopefully, they get that offer, that doesn't all go away. So if something went wrong early in it and then the company falls in love with them and they're ready to make the offer, there's going to be that little thing in the back of their head about something that went wrong during that experience that could make a difference when it comes to offer time.

Justin Vajko: Well, that makes a lot of sense. So there's a hidden cost here that a lot of employers aren't aware of that if you're not owning your candidate experience and something like you just said, a negative something or other, communication was dropped and the candidate had to follow up, maybe follow up again, because there's a busy HR team. They can't keep up with everything. Maybe that leaves a bad taste in their mouth that'll make them reconsider when the time comes, they get a job offer.

Shelly Dretzka: Exactly, exactly.

Justin Vajko: So we talked a little bit before this call about candidate experience and things like that. I want to know, so you have an interesting take on this that I've never heard anyone else take. And we deal with candidate experience here at Dialog with our clients. We want to make sure that from the moment they hear about the job to apply, everything's pretty smooth. And even after that, we don't control that outcome, but we do coach our clients for how to make sure their candidates can have a good experience after they apply. Are they being communicated with in a timely manner, blah, blah, blah? But you've got a different take on this. So I want to know, what is the difference between what you do and your approach to this, your philosophy and what a lot of people take towards candidate experience?

Shelly Dretzka: Sure. So I think a lot of people, the first thing they think about and good company cultures really talk about, the employee experience. So already, I'm taking that to the pre-hire. So we're going back in the timeline and saying, "Okay, I know you're all concerned about when the employee is on and their life cycle with you as an employee, but we're going to go backwards and we're going to start that relationship in the pre-hire." So in the applicant in candidate experience. We won't talk about it today, but I also say it goes in the other direction and it goes post retire, post fire, whatever rhyme you want to come up with. But again, that whole life cycle. And my theory around all of that is, treat people with kindness no matter where they are in the process, no matter where they come in and no matter where they fall out. I always think about how would you like your family member or a friend to be treated?

Shelly Dretzka: We've all heard the bad stories. You don't want to be on the other end of that, where someone's talking about the bad experience they have with you as a hiring manager or with a company. What I see as difference too, is a lot of companies, they talk about their onboarding process, right? They talk about this process that people go through and we get all this stuff done and to them, the process starts on day one. And sometimes on day one, they've done all their HR paperwork. They've handed them off. We've all had those days where you come in and maybe there's a desk waiting for you, maybe there's not. Maybe there's not a computer. Maybe your new boss isn't even there to greet you. So those type of things, just thinking about that day one, and you get handed all of the paperwork and they put you in an office and you fill out paperwork until your hand cramps up.

Justin Vajko: Yeah.

Shelly Dretzka: And you're calling your spouse to find out what their social security number is and the kid's date of birth and you're doing all that. Which to me, that doesn't sound like a really good experience.

Justin Vajko: Sure.

Shelly Dretzka: Because it's a process. They're fulfilling exactly what they said it was. We're going to put you through an onboarding process. So what I like to do is, take the process piece of it, which is really this much of the entire experience, and I actually like to try to do that before they even come onboard.

Justin Vajko: Okay.

Shelly Dretzka: Is their technology they can use? Is there something within your HRIS or your HCM system that is allowing you to give them access to it and they're data filling that all? First of all, it's efficient. There's going to be less error. So I like that part of it, using the technology. And it's all done ahead of time. Now, maybe when they show up, you're going through a couple other things just to clarify everything's right. But I like getting that process done, out of the way, and possibly, even before they step foot in the building for the first time. But we're doing other things along the way, too, in that experience. We're staying in touch with them for those two weeks between the offer and their first day.

Justin Vajko: Okay.

Shelly Dretzka: If anyone has been hiring nowadays, a lot happens in that two week gap. I have individuals falling off after they've accepted an offer, because another offer came through. Those things are happening, but if you stay engaged with them and you're giving them a good experience, it's a little harder for them to make that phone call or shoot you that midnight email the first day they're supposed to show up and say, "Yeah, nevermind, I'm really not coming in on my first day." Good luck. You get to start the process all over again. So to avoid that, we're staying in contact with them for those two weeks. It's cards from the department. It's phone calls from the CEO. It's sending flowers, or whatever that package is if you've got a lot of cool swag, right. The mugs and all that great stuff. I mean, to get that in a package at home before you've even started it on day one, first of all, I'm going to be like, Ooh, I got to remember, I've got to do that process piece. I'm going to go do that.

Shelly Dretzka: And they're really excited for me to be joining them. I mean, that is really the difference that I see is, we make that process very tiny. We expand what that experience looks like, pre-hire to post retire, and we just do those things right, and we keep them really engaged from before day one. And then day one is the fun stuff. We're welcoming them. There's somebody there. Maybe it's a side kick or a buddy or whatever the language is in the company, who's meeting them at the front door. You're telling them where to park. You're telling them they don't have to bring a lunch that day because our team's going to take you out to lunch. They're all excited to see you. We've put out a great announcement with your picture and fun comments about you. And really, they're getting that experience from day one. We all remember that day in high school, when you're like, "Oh, who has lunch with me? Who am I having lunch with?"

Justin Vajko: Oh, yeah.

Shelly Dretzka: "I don't know anybody." Let's take that all off the table for the new hire and when they come in, I'm going to tell you that night they're going home to their family, or they're texting their friends, or maybe they're putting something out on Twitter that man, that was the best first day I've ever had and I can't wait to go back tomorrow.

Justin Vajko:

Well, have you seen this work for other employers when you've done this? I was just curious, what are some of the effects of this happening?

Shelly Dretzka:

Yeah. So you're definitely going to reduce that fall off in those two weeks with that experience. And I'm doing, I'm talking now post offer.

Justin Vajko:

Yeah.

Shelly Dretzka:

What you're controlling with that. You're going to have a lot of great feedback about the onboarding experience. Also, you're going to ask them for feedback of what worked, what didn't work. So you're even engaging them like, "Hey, you're our newest new hire. What did you like about that? What didn't you?" And there's just, there's different energy. How do you put an ROI on that, right, Justin? But there's just a different energy of a new hire when they are excited and they're welcome and they know you are waiting for them and you're just as excited as they are. So there's definitely that. So you're going to have faster engagement. You're going to have way less turnover.

Shelly Dretzka:

So actually, I actually have some stats here. So employees are actually 18 times more committed to their employer if you give them a good candidate, or now it's a new hire, experience.

Justin Vajko:

Wow. That's huge.

Shelly Dretzka:

So, Bamboo HR put that out there for us.

Justin Vajko:

Wow. Okay.

Shelly Dretzka:

Yeah. You're going to, retention right? Now, we've spent all this time and if there's hiring managers out there, recruiting managers out there, they know how painful this market is right now. It's very, very hard. We got to move quick. We got to hire quickly. We got to get our people in the door because there's a lot of other offers out there.

Justin Vajko:

Right.

Shelly Dretzka:

So then we get them in the door and then some people are like, "Whew, we got them in the door. I'm going to go work on my other two openings I've got, or ten openings, or twenty openings." Okay, but now, we need to retain this person, because we don't want to start that process all over. So according to Glassdoor, the most recent is, a good onboarding experience is going to increase new hire retention by 82%.

Justin Vajko:

Oh wow.

Shelly Dretzka:

Okay. Putting in a little extra time, sending a card, making a phone call. And once you create all that, what matches your culture? You turn the experience a little bit into a process, right? There's a checklist and you tell people here's your responsibilities and then everybody controls what they control. And then the only other, the other stat I had actually from SHRM, which is the HR organization, is a good onboarding experience is actually going to ensure that 69% of your employees stay with you for three years.

Justin Vajko:

Okay. That's huge. Two out of three employees. Over two out of three.

Shelly Dretzka: Just because you gave them an amazing experience at that beginning of their employment.

Justin Vajko: That's amazing. And the first objection I think of when you tell me all this is, well, who's got time to do all that? And when you think about it, and I like what you said, you turn your experience into a process. I want to talk about that here in a second, like putting that checklist together. But that little bit of time, when you think about how many years, what is your target? Two, three years if you want someone to be with you. What is that? 6,000, 7,000 hours of time they're going to be with you. If you can trade, what is that total? Maybe two hours, five hours, maybe ten hours, if you go all out. I don't know. You tell me. But if you just trade that for all those years, man, it makes sense to do something like that.

Shelly Dretzka: Yeah. So you're systemizing it and it's a team approach. This isn't HR. People are like, "Oh my God, I don't have time to do that. I got to go recruit for the other 20 people on my desk." But you're sharing that. You're tasking it, but others are accountable and responsible for it. So sending, even just having a stack of congratulations cards and you shoot it off to the department, it's already addressed, already has a stamp on it. Can you guys all sign this, seal it, drop it in the mail?

Justin Vajko: Yeah.

Shelly Dretzka: What did that just take for the department to do that? The phone call for the CEO, the CFO, to pick up the phone and make a two minute call. I'm going to tell you eight out of ten times, they're leaving a voice message.

Justin Vajko: Yeah.

Shelly Dretzka: So it's not turning into this big, long conversation. They're just saying, "Hey, saw you're coming up Monday. We're excited to be here." So you're putting it so the HR person is taking 30 seconds to put it on the CEO's calendar to say, make this call.

Justin Vajko: Make this call, right.

Shelly Dretzka: Make this call. Here's the person, here's their title, here's when they're joining us, here's maybe something kind of fun about them that you want to mention in the conversation.

Justin Vajko: Shelly, do you have any kind of, we don't obviously want to turn something that needs to be, it sounds like this needs to be really custom to the culture of a company. Some companies will do more, some less. Some will do the lunch things. Some, they won't. Where's a good place for somebody to start putting together their candidate experience after somebody is hired in that two week period and how do they wrap their heads around that? Maybe, they'll have a couple ideas. Certainly, I think if we hired somebody here and we wanted to implement this, I have a couple ideas for how we could do that. We're a fully remote team, so I'd have to think creatively. But I'm curious, is there a checklist? How does someone start?

Shelly Dretzka: As an HR consultant, like lawyers and doctors do, I'm usually like, please don't Google. It's going to get you in trouble. That's with compliance things. With these type of cultural things, let's look out there and let's look at best practice. Let's talk to other people. Are there other organizations that you think, Hey, I really think they do that right. Ask the people at your round tables. Ask your peers, what are you doing in the onboarding experience that is really cool? And then like you said, then it gets tweaked. Plus, then you're going to maybe talk to some of your current employees. They're like, "What do you wish we would've done different when you started with us?" Because I will tell you that's one thing that I would hear too, is when we implemented this really cool thing at one of my clients, employees who didn't get that experience were like, "What the heck? Where were my stickers on my desk when I got here?"

Shelly Dretzka: And where was my... And it was like, ooh, this is a little bit of jealousy that they didn't get that experience. So, there's that. It's go after the good practice, see what's out there, tweak it, make sure it fits your because your culture, I mean, I love the whole remote thing. I mean, I'm seeing people, you can send lunch to people. You can Door Dash somebody on their first day. You can still send them the card, still send them the phone message. So all that can really be done. It's just how you revise it. And then I'd say, keep having the conversations with your hiring managers and with those employees so that as we go forward, like a little fast forward, I'm making sure we're having some real deliberate and intentional meetings with those employees at 30, 60, and 90 days.

Justin Vajko: Okay.

Shelly Dretzka: The 30 days with the manager, how are things going? And offsite, if possible. Go have coffee. At 60 days, I always liked when I was in house and I do it with some of my clients, offsite, I go and have coffee with them. That's that fun time where you're like, "Okay, so we went through the HR stuff. I didn't get to ask you all these personal things. Now, you're here. I want to know about you. What do you do for fun? Tell me about the family." You can't ask all that stuff in the interview, but now they're there and if that's your culture that you want to care and have that family feel. That's when you open up the door and then ask them, "How did it go? What would you do different? What have you seen at other companies? What are your friends talking about?" And then take it back to the drawing board and go, okay, does that make sense to me? Does it make sense to the culture and you keep evolving it to make it cool and fresh?

Justin Vajko: Yeah. Have you found, I'm thinking of this role, Shelly, is there a role for those follow ups or somebody to own this whole process? Or did you say it's between the HR team and the supervisor? What do those roles usually look like? And then, who should own that follow up process? The HR person? What do you see as some best practices there?

Shelly Dretzka: Yeah. So I think, again, if you can use the technology and you can put an onboarding experience into a process and use those modules within your HRIS system, that all can be done. It can be tasked and things that are automatically handed out at hire, when you accept the package, you say, go, and then everything's date driven and sent off. So that's the coolest way to make it very efficient. It's going to be the HR person, but in all... Like you could have an HR intern that owns that and make sure the things that are going off and being taken care of. I mean, it doesn't have to be high level, but you need to involve everybody because it's the culture. So it's going to involve your HR team. It's involving your hiring managers, your leaders. There could be training involved too.

Shelly Dretzka: Maybe it involves your IT guy, or maybe you have the person meeting with all the managers of every department within the first week, just to learn about the company and who they are. So getting that feel of, Hey, I really feel like I'm part of this. I'm not in the silo over here in my department. Again, I also like the, I call them sidekicks. I wasn't a fan of the buddy word, but I liked sidekick. I was going through a superhero thing when I came up with that. But they have that go-to person that they can always go back to and be like, where's this, where's this?

Justin Vajko: Yeah.

Shelly Dretzka: You know what people forget to tell people on the first day? Where the bathroom is.

Justin Vajko: Oh, that's funny.

Shelly Dretzka: Oh my gosh, add a tour on your list. Give them a tour of the building, because this poor person on their first day is going to be wandering around possibly without a key to get to where they need to go. Add that to your list.

Justin Vajko: Add it to the list. Well, that being said, what are some really cool things you've seen? Bathroom tour, critical. You need to make sure you get that in there. What are some of other 2, 3, 4 things you are like, oh, don't forget to do this. You mentioned maybe a postcard, a call. Are there any other steps in there that we could add to that list for those who are looking to build their own list now?

Shelly Dretzka: Yeah. I think another, a technical thing, because I think where frustration really comes in those first couple days is technology. So getting them some one-on-one time with the IT person or whoever that is, that they know everything they need to do their job is there for them on their computer or their laptop. Their logins, their access. How to scan. How to make a photocopy. All of those things, because nowadays, we want people coming in hot and they're ready to work. I mean, it's not like, hey, three months from now, we want you to start sending emails. It's like, so here's the pile of stuff. If you can get through that by tomorrow, that would be great. So technology is a barrier and a frustration. So I like to have that in there that they're spending time with that IT person probably on day one or day two.

Shelly Dretzka: And then there's those nice to have. So yeah, I mentioned the card, sometimes it's flowers. Maybe it's a basket. What I like about that, is sending things to the home. And again, this goes through the entire employee experience. When you send things to the home, you're now involving the family. You're involving the spouse and the children, because when someone's had a bad day, Justin, what do you do?

Justin Vajko: You tell your family or your spouse and the family finds out you had a bad day.

Shelly Dretzka: Yes and they all hear about it. And then, now your wife is going to say, "Really? That company that sent us that really nice birthday basket for you? They seem really nice. I don't know why you're complaining about them." Now, they're on team company. They're on team HR. So I think that's a cool way too, because we all have bad days. We all go home. We all complain about it.

Justin Vajko: Yep, it does happen.

Shelly Dretzka: Sometimes then, you need those reminders of, Hey, they sent us that card. They did this for, hey, when you went above and beyond, they gave us a gift card to go out to dinner and celebrate or going to Dells as a family, or whatever that case is. So those are things along the way, too, in the experience. I'm not a fan of cash bonuses. I mean, they're spent like that. They're in your gas tank. You put it in a paycheck, it's gone. It's going to the bill. It's all about experiences. What are your employees going to remember? Are they going to remember you gave that $500 Christmas cash bonus and you had no idea what you did with it, or are you going to remember that they got you a gift card for you and your family to go spend a weekend at the Dells?

Justin Vajko: Right. Definitely going to remember the second, because it's actually a twofer. The first one is, cash gets spent like any other cash. You don't remember the spending experience typically. But the other one, you just pointed out like that gift card, I got this tip a long time ago for giving gifts. If you want to make a really good impression on someone, tell them beforehand what you're going to do it and then do it. And it's a twofer. You get both the beforehand and the after and stuff. Surprising them, you just get the one experience. So a gift card similar to that, where you give them, wow, we got the gift card and then you spend it and then they remember. Yeah, definitely more memorable.

Shelly Dretzka: Yep. So that's part of the employee experience too, that's a total reward. It's a whole nother conversation as well when you're talking compensation stuff. But yeah, so those are all the things. And really at the end of the day, if you don't know what your employees want, ask them. Just ask them. Have a conversation. Sometimes do a survey. Sometimes their employee's like, yuck, another survey. But really, walk around and say, "Hey, what's of value to you? What are we doing right? What do you need from us to be successful?" All those great things and have those conversations. I just did a post today on that. Have the conversation, be open, be honest. Is it a yes or no or a not now? And take action where you can. That will build that trust. Again, that's helping with all of that experience, which is helping you in your retention. And then if you have employee referral programs, whole nother side topic, they're going to go tell great people that they should come work for you.

Justin Vajko: Yeah. Didn't I hear a stat somewhere that someone's more likely to refer you in the first X amount of time working for you than, than later? So I think there's something out there like that, which makes sense. When the experience is fresh and overwhelmingly good, you're more likely to refer someone than five years, six years, ten years into the job.

Shelly Dretzka: When you start getting into the weeds of it. It's actually called the honeymoon period. So honeymoon period of the job, everything's great. I'm so excited. I'm not at that hell hole I just left. So those type of things, but if we can expand and lengthen out that honeymoon period, even a honeymoon period into a good marriage, we'll use that.

Justin Vajko: There you go. Go from dating to honeymoon to marriage.

Shelly Dretzka: Exactly. That's really what the whole process is. I can always make analogies. I can make really great sports analogies, family analogies, raising kids analogies. I've got them all. But you can, I mean, we've gone off on so many different tangents, but really that points to the fact of how interwoven the employee experience is and all the effects that it has on your employees and the bottom line of your business.

Justin Vajko: Right. Well, thank you so much, Shelly, for talking with us about employee experience, not the process and how to break that apart, and make it more about an experience that someone will remember. It sounds like it helps improve retention, employee happiness, and maybe get that family on board being on the same page as the HR team, in terms of wanting to stay there, which is pretty cool. Some cool ideas today. Thank you so much, Shelly.

Shelly Dretzka: Of course.

Justin Vajko: Where can someone learn about more about this? Is it your website? Do you have a page? Tell us more, if someone's interested in getting your help with something like this.

Shelly Dretzka: Yeah. So if they want to find me, my website is just www.HRWisconsin.com . Most of my business, it comes from referrals and people who know and like me and have done business with me. They trust what I do. So check out my LinkedIn as well . Take a look at my post. Get a feel of who I am. Sometimes I like say I'm not that typical HR person. I like to have fun with what I do. I love working with small businesses. So yeah, schedule some time with me to have a chat and pick my brain on stuff. I always love to give at least a little bit of free time upfront and so hopefully, I gave some good things today. But right, if you want to now make this really into your experience and how to process it, yeah, that's something I love. I love doing that with my clients.

Justin Vajko: Well, we can tell. I think there's energy you have around this topic, Shelly, that's gotten me real interested in it. Never really considered the whole experience side of things, but boy, it sure sounds like it pays dividends. So it's a win-win for the company putting together a plan and for the employees experiencing it.

Shelly Dretzka: Yeah, its fun stuff. Especially in the HR world, we do lot of not so fun stuff. Hey, let's spend some time on some fun stuff.

Justin Vajko: That's right. Great, great point. Well, thanks again, Shelly.

Shelly Dretzka: Awesome. Thank you.

How to improve your hiring by improving your reviews

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 17:35:04 GMT

In this session, learn how review platforms are impacting your hiring and what you can do to fix that.

About our speakers

Chelsea Craig runs Rhino Reviews , a reputation management company. Learn more about Rhino at www.rhino-reviews.com .
Justin Vajko runs Dialog, a recruitment marketing agency for blue collar employers in Wisconsin and Minnesota. We use social media, videos, and online reviews to help great employers attract great talent. Learn more about us at www.recruitwithdialog.com .

Justin Vajko: Chelsea, thanks for meeting with me to talk about online reviews and employer branding, how those coalesce. So I've got a few questions here for you because I think a lot of people aren't aware of just how important online reviews are for employer branding. Can you tell me a little bit about what you guys do at Rhino Reviews and we'll just start there.

Chelsea Craig: Yeah, it sounds great. Thanks for having me, Justin, excited to talk about this. I'm very passionate about this subject. Online reviews are, especially in the past two to three years since COVID, has really kind of changed the game, only growing in importance. The biggest shift that we're seeing, though, is beforehand, when you thought about online reviews and online reputations, we thought so much about the company from a customer standpoint, and what we've really seen is the shift to the importance of these reviews and your reputation from an employee branding perspective. Employers are turning online to shop for new jobs, the same way that they're going to Amazon to try and find the latest toy or toilet paper back in the day. So when you talk about what your employee reputation looks like, it can be a huge factor into why you're not getting those applicants, and why people aren't taking that next step and going to your page.

Chelsea: And when hiring is at one of the most competitive times it's been, it can really either be incremental and help you achieve those hiring goals or be what's really preventing you and keeping you from getting those great candidates. Just as customer reviews go, unfortunately, it's normally the disgruntled and upset employees that are the ones that take the initiative to actually go leave and post those reviews. So if you're not actively managing, watching and you don't have a strategy to grow your positive reviews, you could really... You're only getting one side out there about your brand and it's not typically one that you're going to be very proud of.

Justin: Yeah, absolutely. I see that. I mean, we had a conversation a couple weeks ago with somebody, and they're not actively managing their online reviews. It's the client of ours. And they did say candidates are bringing it up in interviews, their online reputation on Indeed and Glassdoor, they're bringing it up. So this is becoming... I think a lot more people are becoming aware of how this is affecting them. You guys help with improving reviews, that's what Rhino Reviews is all about, not just for products and widgets and selling of things, but also for helping online reviews like on Indeed and Glassdoor. Tell me about, what does that usually look like? What does a particular campaign look like? And then what are some expectations in terms of time?

Chelsea: Absolutely. I played sports growing up, so one of the analogies that we always use is you don't win games by playing defense. Yes, that's important, but you've got to play offense. You've got to score to win. And we use that analogy a lot when we talk with clients about the importance of proactively asking for reviews. Most people become aware of their reputation in one of two situations, the one that you just referenced, someone brings it up to them. And if they're bringing it up to you, again, it's not normally, "Wow, you have this great reputation," it's like, "Can you explain to me why the last five employees all referenced your lack of benefits or something like that?" Now you're on your heels as the interviewer, and it can be an uncomfortable position to be in.

Chelsea: The other situation that most clients bring up when they think about their reputation is if they are monitoring those platforms, they get the ping alert that a negative one just came through, and all of a sudden, now it's a fire. You're scrambling, you have no strategy, you're going, "We need five new reviews to make this one go away," but that doesn't work, you can't... Employees and customers are smart, if someone goes on your platform and they see you have three bad reviews in a row, and then all of a sudden on the same date, you get five 5-star reviews that say only rainbows and butterflies about your business, that's red flags. So those are the situations the most customers come to us in. What we do is we really help clients come up with proactive strategies so that they're never in those situations.

Chelsea: Yes, negative reviews are going to come. It's the world that we live in nowadays, but we'll handle, we'll manage those when those happen. But the important thing is you beat that by getting the consistent positive reviews. Studies have actually shown that if you have one or two negative reviews, that only validates that those positive ones that you have are actually real. So a negative review isn't the end of the world as long as it's handled, managed correctly, and you have the positive ones to outnumber it. One of our biggest advantages is a lot of these businesses, again, they have a million things on their plate, which is why they're not monitoring and managing this so we like to take that off their plate. We work with them as if we're an employee or a department of that business, and handle 100% of not only creating and coming up with a strategy, but the full execution of it.

Chelsea: The typical processes that we put in play are getting an understanding of what's going on in their business in the first place, kind of like a pulse on their teams. Are there things that went on that maybe your team really isn't in a great position right now? Did you have to let a department go? All those changes that might cause unrest and unsettlement amongst the teams. Get an understanding of that, but really help come up with the strategy where we're proactively asking for these reviews, asking for this feedback, both from a public standpoint. So let's get them on Indeed and Glassdoor if they're happy. But what also ends up happening is this becomes an opportunity for your employees to express if there is something going on in the workplace that they're not pleased with, and get you that valuable feedback that you as an employer want to know and need to know to really improve that overall culture.

Justin: So you have the system for capturing negative feedback. Tell me about that.

Chelsea: Yeah, so we work to, again, facilitate getting those positive reviews on Indeed and Glassdoor and those are the two ones for employers. Sometimes people ask for Google, that's for customers, you can't actually send employer reviews there. But to get those positive ones onto Indeed and Glassdoor, but again, so we do ask all... We send this to all employees. You can't screen employees because employees talk, and if you ask five people for a review and three people not, that's going to create issues and concern amongst the teams. So you do need to ask all employees. As the employer, that might be a little bit daunting because you might know this department or these individuals aren't happy, I don't want to send them to those platforms.

Chelsea: We still need to ask them for these reviews, so we have a process that is able to kind of sort those situations out and gather that private feedback from that employee where they're able... It's a win-win across the board. They're able to vent, they're able to say what's going on, provide you that feedback as a business. You're able to get that feedback and no one's blasting that on your Glassdoor and indeed. We at least view it as a win-win across the board.

Justin: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, what are some expectations? Let's say somebody decides to work with you, and viewers should know we work together, you and I, in the business and you're one of our amazing contractors and help us fulfill these online review requests from clients. But what are some expectations someone should have if they hire us or they hire you directly on the timing of a campaign and then the results from the campaign? What do you typically there?

Chelsea: Yeah, we expect to deliver you 500 five star reviews in a week. The reason I want to mention that is because it is very important to stress that if anyone ever guarantees you they can do something like that, you need to go the other way, because you're going to put your profile at risk. There's a lot of articles that have recently come out about companies getting in some serious trouble, not only losing their profiles online, but actually getting fined because it's incredibly illegal to post fake reviews up there. So everything we are doing is real, authentic, genuine reviews from your employees. So with that, I can never guarantee you're going to get this amount of reviews per week. We do have strategies, we have tactics, we've obviously had proven success and things that we recommend. But our typical kind of campaign timeline, it is a multi-week, multi-month process. The first month, we're typically working with you to just clean up your platforms.

Chelsea: A lot of the times going through claiming and I know you and I have really battled with that, but claiming and just getting access to some of the listings, making sure that we, when these new reviews are posted, have access to them so that we can respond to the reviews, both the positive and the negative. That's a huge piece of it. Claiming the profiles, updating them. These profiles online, it's a digital conversation nowadays, it's how people talk. One of the other things that these profiles are doing is they're building trust between you and that prospective employee. When things aren't... We have all these subconscious cues when we look online about trust with businesses, so we're going through and we're making sure, is your logo the same? Is your website updated? Is your About Us filled out? Do you have photos on your profile showing your culture events? Do you have your awards there? So really just kind of fully building out your online profiles there, because again, a lot of these get neglected.

Chelsea: The other thing we do is we go in and respond to all previously written reviews. Yes, the response is not going to be for that employee. Most of the time that employee is a former employee, so it doesn't even matter. Where it does matter is for those prospective employees who are looking at your profile and they're seeing, "Okay, they actually pay attention to what their teams are saying. They're actually reading this feedback. They actually care." So we're going through and putting those responses in there, basically just making sure that your profile and everything online is presented in the best light for things that we can control. While we're doing that, we're also working with you to build out these campaigns, figuring out the best time to distribute them.

Chelsea: How are we communicating these to your teams? Do you have a message board that we can let them know something like this is happening on? Maybe you do quarterly meetings where we can make these announcements. Understanding what is the division of your a company look like, do you have different departments? Are we going to segment them by department? Or maybe we're segmenting them on "you've been with us for 90 days, you've been with us for six months, you've been with us for a year plus." Just trying to understand what's unique about your business and how are we going to do this in the most effective way possible?

Justin: Yeah, that makes sense.

Chelsea: So our favorite part, because it's unique for every different client, customized solution. It's always a little challenging, there's different nuances, but it's fun.

Justin: You mentioned updating the profiles on these places and adding photos and things like that, why would that matter to the average person who says, "Well, I don't have time for that"? Why should that be something they reconsider?

Chelsea: Yeah, your online profile is your new business card, it's a reputation, it's people essentially walking into your business. If you have an employee coming in for an interview and they walk into your business lobby, I doubt you have an empty lobby with no chairs, no photos, no you know? You wouldn't have that. And your online profile these days, that's how we view these things. That's how we're judging businesses. It's no different than a website. You know, you want to make sure your website looks good because that's someone's first impression of you.

Chelsea: If you're posting job applications and job postings on these sites, the first thing someone does is they go to your page. If your page isn't updated, if your page isn't there, I'm not taking that next step. The other reason that it's even more heightened is COVID, once again. The past three years have been very wild from a business perspective. If you haven't put up updates within the past three years, I'm sitting wondering, are they even in business? Are they even still alive and around? But yeah, I mean, it's incredibly important, it's that first impression. And whether you want to accept that or not, it is what it is now.

Justin: It is. Right. Yeah, I make a really good point about COVID changing everything; how we interact with businesses. It's going to become more of the norm, especially with every younger generation that appears that online is the first and only maybe impression somebody will have until they show up, maybe even to their first day of work. I mean, with everything happening online, even online interviews. There's a very good chance their first day of work could be the first day they show up for you, so it's important. I like the analogy you used just, like it's a lobby for your business. That's really good. I might use that. I might use that.

Chelsea: Go for it.

Justin: What are some really good stories you could tell us about how this works? How this helps employers? Any wins you've seen in the past.

Chelsea: Yeah, I think that it's always... The ones that stand out to me are always the unexpected wins. Where obviously we're going into this with a reason of why we're doing it as well as the business, and when you reveal something or discover something that you weren't really expecting to be there. There's two kinds of case studies that jump with that and the first is obviously the positive one; working with clients that are very hesitant to ask for reviews. As the business owners, it's a vulnerable state to be in, especially when it's an owner operator business, because you put your heart and soul in this and employees are tough. Receiving critical feedback as a business owner is scary and that's hard to swallow, so a lot of the times we find that businesses don't ask for reviews because they're just scared of getting negative, because that's all they've seen. Well, of course that's all you've seen because the only people that go write reviews are the upset employees. You know, organically written reviews are never someone going, "Wow, I love my job. Let me take 10 minutes to do this."

Justin: Wouldn't that be nice if more people did.

Chelsea: Right? Oh, if only. Actually it wouldn't be nice, my job wouldn't exist.

Justin: You wouldn't have a job.

Chelsea: But it's always disgruntled, its own always upset former employees. They've actually had a statistic and I can't recall the exact number, I'll have to find it for you. But Glassdoor ran a statistic about, it was over 50% of the reviews written are former employees less than one year tenure. So it's all these people that were in or out, something went wrong right at the beginning and they're just pissed off so they go on. Getting that, because I'm clearly passionate about this, I'll go off on tangents all day. So you have these owner operators that all they know are these negative upset reviews so they've never asked for any. So working with them, getting them to trust our process, getting them to trust that this can and will work.

Chelsea: That they have a business because they clearly have happy employees, we just got to give them the tools to post the reviews. So when you have businesses like that, we can tell they're a little bit hesitant and coming back to them after our first month's results from the campaign and showing them this great feedback that their employees have posted. I mean, you can visibly see the stress go out of their face, they're trying to be humble but they're so... It's rewarding to read that feedback, so I love those moments. The other valuable moments might be a little harder to take. But as I mentioned, we have the tools to allow those employees to provide negative feedback without it being online. When we're working with the employers, again, it can be hard to receive that critical feedback. It can be hard to take it and sort through sometimes the exaggeration that the employees get and understand, okay, there is something critical here that we can use to improve upon our company and this is an opportunity.

Chelsea: But uncovering sometimes, and I mean, we've had a couple situations where we uncovered issues that the upper management was not aware of that were real credible issues. And they were able to go back to their teams and say, "We've heard you, we've solved this, we fixed it." And then what was even more exciting was following months, we ran the campaigns again the next quarter, and having people post positive reviews referencing that. You want to talk about as a prospective employee, reading a review saying, "Hey, I had an issue, I brought it to management, they solved this and I'm so excited." That is a killer review to receive.

Justin: Amazing, yeah.

Chelsea: And kudos to those businesses for understanding and being open to that feedback.

Justin: Right, having the courage to face it and not get offended, and then do something about it. That is a rarity I will say, but yeah, kudos to those. So thank you for sharing those stories. I'm going to ask you a couple, three more questions here. Three of these are more personal. Well, two are personal to you and your passion for the business, and then one is a quick win for viewers. So the first question is what's one thing you wished more people knew about online reviews that just nobody seems to get?

Chelsea: A lot of it comes from they think... One thing I wish that businesses knew about their online reviews and platforms is whether they want to be there or not, they are. And deciding we don't want to... You mentioned even earlier, but what about businesses that don't want to take the time to update their photos or build out their profiles because they don't think it matters? Whether you do or don't you're on those platforms. Customers and employees can create those platforms for you, so by ignoring it or saying, "We're not going to look at it," you're doing yourself an even bigger disservice. At the bare minimum, just go and claim it so you can be aware of what's happening. But a lot of businesses say, "Oh, well, we don't have a profile because we've never built it. We don't want to be there." That's not how this works.

Justin: No. Okay. What makes you just mad when it comes to online reviews?

Chelsea: What makes me very mad? There's quite a few. So that's a load.

Justin: All right, you can share a couple of few. What's one thing?

Chelsea: Yeah, I think sometimes... We work very intimately with our clients and so I know how much these affect some of the business owners. I know, I mean, they are people. At the end of the day, sometimes seeing what employees put out there, that's just clearly slander and clearly just meant to maliciously hurt this business. I mean, in a weird way, it's like the social media people that troll you and just say stuff to say stuff and forget there's a person behind there and you are hurting this business, which you're hurting the livelihood of people. That sometimes is just... I mean, you read some of this stuff, you know the people, they give you their side of the situation. I think sometimes the inability while I understand the reasoning of the platforms to not let you be able to just go in and remove a review. I think sometimes the fact that we really... There's things out there that are just blatant lies and as a business, unfortunately, you've got to just go and respond and move on.

Justin: Yeah. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Well, you bring up a memory I have of a client. We were onboarding a client a while back and I was really hesitant to talk with them because of their online reviews. You know, a promotion being a promotion company, employer branding company, we only want to work with employers who demonstrate they care for the people. Online reviews are really throwing me for a loop before I started working with them. So it's like, I don't know. And you go in, you talk with them and you realize, "Wow, they're doing things no other employer is doing."

Justin: There's evidence of how they're taking care of their people. So there's this disconnect between the online reviews and what's going on inside the business in terms of how the employees are respected and cared for. So yeah, it definitely can be even to the point of slander where it's really throwing people off and really offensive to the businesses and makes sense. So one last question for you, Chelsea. Somebody watching this, what's a quick win you can... What's a quick tip you could give them to get started with online reviews for their business?

Chelsea: Yeah. I think if they haven't yet, it's that first of all, Google yourself, see what's out there. I would go through the first three pages, and any platform or profile that's on those first three pages, make sure it's claimed, make sure you have ownership of it, go through that process. Because the first is awareness, figuring out what's even going on, what conversation is happening out there. And then from that, you can take action.

Justin: Have the courage to Google yourself and then look at the top three pages and claim the profiles you see out there. Okay, great tip. Thank you, Chelsea and thank you for meeting with me and talking about online reviews and how they relate to employer branding. Appreciate it.

Chelsea: Of course, thank you for having me. This is great.

The best candidates aren’t on the job boards, so how do you find them?

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 13:30:10 GMT

This ain't your mom's recruiting market anymore. A new era in candidate sourcing means new methods of talent acquisition are needed.

Woefully unprepared.

Those are the words countless media pundits used to describe the world's response to a global pandemic 2 years ago.

And while today we are at the tail end of its effects, most of us in charge of hiring for our companies still haven't figured out what to do there. Most of us are still woefully unprepared for the years to come.

That's because a large chunk of the workforce simply isn't working anymore. Many women and some men have exited the workforce to take care of their children due to lack of childcare available. Many baby boomers have left the workforce and don't intend to come back.

A lot of employers are stuck thinking that things are going to go back to normal soon. They bury their heads in the sand hoping that their problems will go away. Unfortunately, they will not. We know this because there are 10 million less people in generation y then there are in the baby boomer generation. That means there won't be enough people to replace all the baby boomers, not to mention all the other people who have exited the workforce, for at least a decade or more in my estimation.

Businesses who want to take their recruiting seriously need to adapt to the new market that we find ourselves in. And that market is an employee market. No longer do employers have the pick of who they want by just posting a job online. Employers now have to think creatively about how to sell the jobs, just like they have to sell their products or services.

For those companies who are willing to grab the bull by the horn and start selling their jobs, here’s a strategy we recommend.

1) Understand your employees

Before you can sell something you need to understand the problems it’s solving for your customer. This applies to jobs as well. A lot of employers like to sell their jobs based on the pay and benefits alone. But selling on pay is a race to the bottom. At some point, you hit your cap and there's nothing more you can do to attract new candidates.

That's why we recommend first trying to understand what your employees like about working there beyond just the pay. Once you have enough of this information from employee surveys or interviews, you will have the material you need to craft a really good employer value proposition.

2) Create an Employer Value Proposition

An employer value proposition is simply a pitch for why somebody should work for you. If you skip this step, your message to prospective employees will be inconsistent and will inevitably fall back into relying on just pay and benefits, which you are trying to avoid.

Using the information you got from your research in step one, your employer value proposition should have the following structure:

It should address the main problem or pain point that your employees have in their life before they come to work for you.
It should make a promise for how you solve that problem.
It should have at least three compelling reasons that make the promise believable.

An example of this is a manufacturer who does research on their employee base and discovers that a lot of them come from retail or fast food. By choosing to work for this employer, they know their employees moved from a chaotic work schedule and low wages to a job where they had a steady schedule and good wages without even having to go to college. They can then build their reputation around this problem they solve for employees.

3) Advertise your jobs beyond Indeed

Now that you understand your employees and you’ve created an employee value proposition, it's time to advertise. We're not just talking about Indeed though. So many employers don't realize that there are many tools to advertise their jobs beyond the job boards. These include social media, Google Ads, Google Jobs, and more. Although the mediums for many of these platforms will be different, such as photo, copy, or video, the message that they will all have in common is to share your employer value proposition over and over. Over time, you will find that you will start attracting employees who want what you have to offer regardless of whether you have the best wages.

By using this simple marketing strategy, your company will enjoy a more consistent stream of applications and better quality of applicants to choose from. If your HR team or marketing team don't have the capacity or expertise to launch a campaign like this, consider working with a marketing agency who specializes in recruitment marketing or employer branding. I happen to know a good one *hint hint*.

If you're just relying on job boards and advertising your pay to find candidates, you will fall behind in the race for the best employees and your struggles to keep up with customer demand will continue. Implement the basic marketing strategy I’ve shared with you to take your recruiting to the next level.

Go where the people are: using Google Jobs, Google Ads, and YouTube Ads for recruiting

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 16:28:53 GMT

Did you know that over 70% of job seekers start their search on Google?

They could be looking for new career ideas (e.g. “jobs in healthcare”) or specific jobs based on their personal experience (e.g. “retail jobs near me”). They could be looking for salary information (e.g. “machinist salaries wisconsin”) or they sometimes look up what it takes to do a job (“cna certification”).

But you know who’s often not showing up for most of these search results? Local jobs like yours.

Without billions of monthly visitors, Google is a huge missed opportunity for most employers who have no idea that there’s an entire job research process happening millions of times per day away from the job boards.

Here’s a breakdown of the top three Google products I recommend employers use to get their jobs in front of more candidates.

YouTube Ads

Passive candidates are people who aren’t on the job boards yet who are open to a new job should the right one come up. The problem is they’re not looking on Indeed. You’ll never reach them with your job ad there. But they make up the majority of the workforce in America, over 70% in fact . That’s where YouTube Ads are helpful. You’ll get your video in front of thousands of viewers at a low cost. And those who are interested in your ad will click on the videos to visit your website where they can learn more about your culture, your pay, and the details of your workplace. YouTube Ads are a great tactic for attracting passive candidates who have never heard of your company but are open to new opportunities. Be sure to mention pay and benefits, but make your company culture front and center in these types of ads to attract folks who aren’t just looking for a pay hike but want a job that aligns with their values. This emphasis on culture and your values as a company will help you attract better quality candidates.

Google Search Ads

Google Search Ads are the ads that come up at the top of the page when you search for something. And they get clicks from people. In fact, they get so many clicks that it’s how Google got to be so big. It was all thanks to their advertising revenue.

Google Search Ads are perfect for active job seekers. As opposed to passive job seekers, active job seekers are online looking for a new job. The nice thing about Google Search ads is that they show up right at the top of the page before Google Jobs or organic search results, giving your company’s job top-tier attention. When you create Google Search Ads, make sure you mention items such as pay ranges and your top benefits to get clicks from candidates. Although mentioning your culture is 100% recommended, pay and benefits are what draw most active job seekers to apply to your job.

Google Jobs

Not be confused with Google Search Ads, Google Jobs are a newer feature of Google many employers have never heard about. Essentially, Google Jobs is a job board on Google. It pulls job information from your Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or from your website, as long as your website has the correct code set up on it. To get your job descriptions on Google Jobs, check to see if your ATS integrates with it. If you’re not sure, a quick Google Search will reveal it! If you don’t have an ATS, ask your website developer to add code to your website so that your job descriptions can show up there automatically.

But don’t forget

When someone clicks on your ads, they need a place to go to learn more. So remember to have a really decent hiring page or website up and running before you ever start advertising. Make sure your jobs are easy to apply to, e.g. under 5 minutes. And make your pay public. You’ll get a bunch of clicks but very few applications if you can’t make your pay ranges available as candidates don’t want to apply to jobs anymore just to find out pay.

Also, if you’re not tracking the results of your ads, such as cost-per-click or click-through-rates or applications-to-hires, you’re never going to know how well your ads are doing. But the beauty of digital marketing is that you can track all of this. And when certain numbers start to dip, you can make adjustments to improve your results. An example of this is when your video cost-per-view goes up after a few months, you might decide it’s time for a new video ad due to ad fatigue (that’s when so many people have seen the ad, less and less people click on the ad, so your cost to deliver the ad to more people starts going up).

Embracing the new online world of recruiting is needed to even have a chance of attracting job applications. These are just a few of the tactics we use here at Dialog for our clients. If you’re ever stuck on these or have questions, reach out to me . I’d love to help.

Everything's different now: How to advertise jobs in the post-COVID era

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 22:46:59 GMT

Let’s face it: you’ve been feeling the pain of "not-enough-people" for a while. And we know it’s not going to get better anytime soon. Finding the right talent seems more difficult than ever—especially for blue collar companies.

And it's a challenge that looks like it’ll become even more difficult as more and more baby boomers retire and leave behind millions of unfilled jobs without enough people to fill them.

So why isn't hiring easier? It's simple—everyone's using outdated recruiting techniques that come from a time when recruiting was as simple as putting out a job ad and getting a number of decent applicants.

But now that we’re in an employee market (i.e. more jobs than people), employees get to pick and choose who they want to work for.

Which means that if you’re not out there selling the job, you're not getting enough applications. And certainly not qualified applicants.

When the number of applicants for any given job opening is lower than expected, there could be one (or more) common reasons you are disappointed in your candidate pool.

However, there are simple solutions if you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and put some effort into proactive recruiting.

Here are 5 mistakes I see HR teams making all the time—and how to fix them.

Mistake #1: Your job application is outdated

Does your company still use the same job application from five years ago? You could be putting your HR team at a huge disadvantage.

Each year brings new advancements that transform companies across all industries—and the way they hire.

But if you still think of your hiring process as a simple "point and click" process, you're not only behind the times—you're making it significantly harder to find quality candidates.

Check the quality of your business' job application, by asking yourself these questions:

How easy is it to navigate the form?
How long does the form typically take to complete?
Are you asking for relevant information or stuff that really doesn't matter (references, cover letter, etc.)?

A simple framework can include name, phone number, desired position, work history, and resume.

And if you’re getting too many junk applications, you can always add qualifying questions to your application later that weed these out.

By updating your HR systems, you'll get more applicants faster. And that includes blue collar workers, who can fill out applications easily and quickly.

One quick tip: try to fill out your own job application. If it takes you more than 5 minutes, you’re going to see your application rates be low no matter what else you try.

Mistake #2: You don’t have a hiring website

Trying to hire without a hiring site is like being an online business that doesn't have a website.

If your business never had a hiring site, you could be losing out on vast numbers of desirable candidates who just want to learn more about you. These are people who may have seen your ad or heard about you and want to scope out the opportunity you’re offering them.

But what exactly is a hiring site?

This is a website that contains the information people need to know about working for your company.

Pay and benefits
Your company size
Your open positions
Your company culture (e.g. picture of your team doing fun things at work)
Your values
Employee stories
Frequently asked questions
Links to social media feeds
And anything else that matters to your prospective candidates

Ultimately you want to build your whole site with your candidate in mind. Put yourself in your candidate’s shoes. What will they want to know?

If you don’t have a career site, start with a career landing page — a one-page website that gives folks a brief overview of your value as an employer. It doesn’t have to be fancy. I recommend just a few key items such as a recruiting video, employee quotes, photos of your team at work, and a link to view all of your open jobs. Here’s an example of a career landing page the Dialog team built for one of our clients.

The last thing you want to do is lose out on the best candidates because they come to your website wanting to learn more but can’t get answers they want and click away to a competitor’s site.

Mistake #3: You haven’t made your wages public yet

It's time to bring the wages conversation to the table.

Let’s face it: your wages are easy enough to find out already. Just check out Indeed or Glassdoor and their wages sections, where your employees probably already share this. So why rely on probably outdated information? Give it to them straight from the horse’s mouth.

This may seem like a controversial move, but it is one of the most important ways to attract top-quality candidates. Why?

Top-quality candidates don’t have time to run away applying to jobs where they only find out wages after they apply. That’s a waste of their precious time.

And before you think you have to have the best pay to do this, you don’t.

Plenty of great companies can’t afford the best pay for their people because they’re startups or small businesses. And that’s ok as long as you make this clear. There will be plenty of folks who will be willing to take a pay cut in exchange for being part of a fast-moving, thriving business where they have more ownership compared to the big corporate job where they’ll be stuck in a cubicle all day.

Still unconvinced to make your pay public? Let me ask you one question: how many employees have ghosted you in the last year or more after they found out about the pay? By including pay in your job ads, you’re preventing your HR team from wasting time on candidates who wouldn’t apply in the first place.

Your company gains a beneficial competitive edge because you're putting all your wage info out there for job-seekers. And there’s nothing wrong with being clear and upfront with everything you can offer candidates, including pay.

Mistake #4: You don’t have an Employer Value Proposition (EVP)

There are dozens of brands of cereal that are delicious. So why does Kellogg’s cost so much more yet still remain the market leader? Because they’ve built trust in their brand over time. People know that Kellogg’s reputation prevents them from making a bad choice in cereal.

If we rely on brands to make decisions about cereal, how much more is this important when it comes to choosing a workplace?

That’s where understanding your value as a company is so important. It’s the cornerstone of the reputation–or brand–that you want to build as an employer.

To build a brand, you first need to summarize what your value is in an Employer Value Proposition, or EVP. An Employer Value Proposition should describe why someone should work for you beyond the pay.

It can include things like:

Company culture
Benefits and perks
Company purpose (e.g. if you have a product that has an emotional tie-in, such as baby diapers)
Your “big goal” as a company (e.g. if you’re a startup)
And many, many more options.

To build your Employer Value Proposition in a way that stays true to who you are as a company while attracting top talent, you need to find what your organization's unique selling points that matter to your current employees, then summarize them in a short statement.

Mistake #5: Your job descriptions are overly complicated

If your job description is too complicated or long, you probably won't get many applicants.

The average job posting is around 400-450 words. But the average blue collar job listing is around 1,500 words.

That's way too much.

Cut, and cut again. And then get rid of any relevant jargon that would make your post confusing or hard to understand.

Any jobs over 2,000 words long simply won't be read by most applicants—so get them under control quickly.

Speak to the needs of your audience and make the job description more like a pitch for why someone should work there than a list of requirements.

Does Finding Talent Feel Harder than Ever?

You're not alone.

In the midst of a perfect storm of an aging workforce, pandemics, and technological change, we're living in a time when everybody with the right qualifications is in demand, but finding them isn't easy.

Get more job applications by showing up and showing off your company, where everybody hangs out these days: online.

Stop doing these things to get more job applications from great candidates

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 20:13:53 GMT

I come from a background in marketing and online advertising, where any gaps in the customer experience are dealt with swiftly in order to avoid missing out on a sale.

So you can imagine my surprise when I started working with blue collar HR teams who had no idea just how hard they were making it for potential candidates to apply to their jobs. We'd give our clients an advertising campaign and get them a huge amount of clicks and visitors to their hiring pages, only to see virtually no uptick in applications. So why were our efforts seemingly failing?

Turns out, there are many opportunities for a candidate to fall through the cracks between when they find out about your company and successfully apply.

Here are the top three mistakes I see employers make when it comes to getting job applications.

1. Requiring candidates to create an account to apply

When's the last time you tried applying to your own job? Odds are there's at least one thing you can improve, especially if you're gating your applications. That means you're requiring folks to create a username and password just to apply to your job. The best way for me to explain just how bad of an experience this is for your users is by likening it to online shopping. Think back to the last time you found something online you were planning on buying from a new website. Did they ask you to create an account just to purchase it? Online stores these days have gotten smarter after they realized they were losing out on so many customers by trying to make them create accounts to make a purchase. Now you can often check out as a guest, which makes the process so much faster and smoother.

But I hear what you're thinking: if we make it more difficult for someone to apply, won't that cause only the most dedicated people to apply? Unfortunately that's not true. Think about it: your best candidate, if they're good, will know they have a lot of options. Why would they pause to spend 15-30 minutes on your specific position when they can have the pick of the litter? Make it easy for everyone to apply and you'll find the rockstar candidates in the mix.

Time to apply matters too. In fact, studies have shown that shortening your job application speed to under 5 minutes can increase job applications by over 365% . By not gating your job application, you'll make it easy and fast for candidates to apply to your jobs. And you'll see your application numbers rise.

2. Not including pay in the job description

Let's keep rolling with the online store example. Have you ever found the exact item you were looking for in an online store but in order to find out how much shipping was, you had to go through the checkout process? It's frustrating, right?

Imagine how much more frustrating it is for your potential candidate to have to apply to your job, take weeks to hear from you, then meet with you only to discover in the second interview how much the pay is. You'd never purchase something if you had to go through that much hassle to find out the price. Yet we expect candidates to the same.

Hiding pay until you talk with a candidate may have worked even just a few months ago. Remember the days when you could put out a job post and get great candidates to apply? Unfortunately because it's now an employee market (aka the candidates have the choice of where they want to work), you need to take a more transparent approach to your pay if you want any chance at getting applications from decent candidates.

Don't worry about whether your competitors will match your pay. You shouldn't be advertising your pay as the only reason why people would want to work for you anyways -- culture, flexible schedules, and purpose are other major motives for choosing to work somewhere. Including pay in the job description shows you're not going to waste your candidate's time or your time when they find out it wasn't what they were looking for. Plus, candidates will know what they're getting into before they apply, making it less likely they'll ghost you down the road.

That's why we always recommend making your pay public, even if it's not the best.

3. The job description isn't interesting

Poor HR folks have so many jobs these days, so we really can't blame them for not writing job descriptions that are interesting to read. A job description should be a convincing argument about why someone should work for you -- not a list of requirements. You should be mentioning the benefits, perks, and culture within your org. You should tap into the motivations of your ideal candidate and tie those into your position. For example, if you're hiring an introverted technical worker, they'll want something different out of a job than if you're hiring an extroverted sales person.

Another problem with job descriptions that we see all the time is that they're simply too long. If your job description for a non-managerial position is more than a page long in Word, you're doing something wrong. And don't cheat by making the font really small! Take out items that are simply a given: don't tell people they have to keep their work area clean or be good at listening. Those things you can find out from them later in an interview or a work test. Keep your job description just about the unique highlights of the position.

A third mistakes we see is to make the job sound too complicated by using jargon and technical speak. This is especially true of jobs in industries where you can expect to get applications from outside your industry (I'm looking at you, manufacturing). Sometimes you do need to mention specific machines. But try to explain what someone's going to be doing as if you're explaining it to a 5th grader. This will give folks from outside your industry more confidence in saying "yes" to applying to the job.

Conclusion

To summarize, here are three steps you can take to improve your candidate experience:

Try to apply to your most in-demand job as if you were a candidate. You'll quickly discover how long it takes and how complicated it is. In fact, you might even discover parts of the application are broken and weren't reported.
Don't require candidates to create an account to apply to your company. And keep your applications short. Remember, the goal isn't to get all the info. It's to get just enough for the first interview.
Include pay or starting pay in the job description. Don't make your candidates jump through hoops to find out the pay wasn't what they needed. That will just waste their time and yours.
Make sure your job descriptions are more like a tour of the position instead of a list of requirements. That means keep them interesting and only highlight what matters. And unless you're the US government, keep them short! Try to shoot for under one page in Word.

While these changes can solve some of your problems with getting enough good applications, they're only part of the battle. Make sure you're being proactive with your recruiting by getting in front of candidates with online ads, videos, and getting your reviews in line with reality .

If you want some help with getting proactive with your recruiting (aka selling the job), we can help! Visit our Contact page to get in touch for pricing and a walk-through of how we can help.

Excuse me, your story is missing (how to write a good Employer Value Proposition)

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Wed, 08 Sep 2021 19:03:42 GMT

Just a few months ago our family was sitting around the dinner table when my wife and I started talking about the shows we used to watch as kids. I immediately thought of The Lone Ranger. Although this black and white series was from the 1950s, it had been available to me through the unlimited replay-ability of VHS as a kid. I watched the show for what felt like hundreds of times.

That evening I got the idea of introducing the Lone Ranger TV show to my own kids. I didn’t have high hopes for them to enjoy what I had grown to love as a kid. Entertainment options for kids these days are incredibly varied and with much better production quality. So imagine my surprise when my kids watched it with rapt attention and even came back to me later wanting to watch more!

This got me thinking: what was it that made this series so compelling both to me as a child as well as my own kids? It certainly wasn’t the stiff acting, borderline racism, popping audio, or lack of color. I realized that it was the story they were attracted to. In the show, a group of Texas Rangers fighting for good were betrayed by one of their members and ambushed by the notorious Cavendish gang. But one survived -- the lone ranger -- and made it his passion to fight for justice for the rest of his life, his identity hidden by a black mask.

It was a story that stuck with my kids because it hit at their sense of justice and right versus wrong. It appealed to their emotions and their human instinct to follow a good story.

So what does this have to do with recruiting?

We all know that businesses need an elevator pitch to sell their products or services. Without knowing what makes your product or service worth buying, why would anyone buy it? The same question now applies to workplaces more than ever. Yet in this day and age very few employers have a good pitch for why folks should work for them.

Too many times I read job descriptions or hiring ads that are just a list of requirements or a mention of the pay. Never are they interesting or compelling. That’s because most businesses have no idea of the power of storytelling they’re missing out on in their hiring efforts. Yet the biggest and best companies in the world have recruiting campaigns based on telling their story. And that story helps them build a reputation as an employer of choice. Unfortunately too many great employers in our state miss out on the opportunity to use such a tried and true tool in their recruitment efforts.

I’ve found that the best employer stories, also called Employer Value Propositions (EVP) have the following defining features:

They’re short.

Three to five sentences are all you should need to be able to make your case for being a great employer. In fact, a good EVP can be summed up in a tagline that’s just a few words long.

They’re positive without ignoring reality.

They’re not a made up version of what it’s like to work there. For example, employers with a rotating shift could mention that they work hard to build a fun team and offer free lunches while at the same time acknowledging that the tough shift isn't for everyone.

They’re clear.

They’re not filled with jargon. They don’t have “weasel words” that could mean multiple things. Reading them is easy and it’s easy to get the gist of what it’s like to work there after doing so.

They’re compelling.

They offer a transformation or an opportunity to dive into something bigger than the employee’s existing work experience. For a manufacturer with a solid schedule, this can mean offering consistent work for the person who’s been yanked around by a crazy hospitality or retail industry. For a non-profit, this can mean giving the candidate a chance to turn their passion for helping people into a career.

If you don’t develop your own Employer Value Proposition you’ll be letting others tell your story for you. Don’t hand the reins to someone else to build your reputation because it probably won’t reflect reality. Without a good EVP, you’ll keep struggling to attract the right people to your job applications. You’ll keep missing out on the people who might be a great fit for your workplace but who would never apply because you didn’t paint a picture for them. If you can’t afford the highest pay, latest benefits, or incredible schedule flexibility but still have a good culture and treat your employees well, tell your story. The people who connect with it will apply.

Telling the wrong story

jrvajko@gmail.com (Justin Vajko) — Thu, 24 Jun 2021 15:44:02 GMT

The tool most companies miss in the war for talent

I walked into the white-washed corporate building with some tightness in my chest. Here I was planning on helping this company with a video marketing campaign to help them get more job applications. But so far the reviews I’d seen of them online weren’t encouraging.

“Bad management”

“Negative experience”

“Treat employees like they’re disposable”

Uff-da. I wasn’t sure how my program was going to help them. After all, our mission as a company was to help companies with great culture attract the best talent. These sure didn’t look like signs of a great culture.

But as I spoke with the management and employees at the company, my eyes were opened to more of the context of what was going on: they were working with a tough rotating shift schedule, they’d had issues with managers in the past that had since been dealt with, and they had just recently put cutting-edge benefits into place. It became clear that the company wasn’t as bad as I’d initially thought. In fact, they were doing a lot of things really well.

So what was with the disproportionate amount of bad reviews online that made me think this wasn’t a good-fit client?

Turns out this company was just another example of what we see all of the time. Their online reviews were telling the wrong story about what it was like to work there.

Most employers still just focus on the traditional side of recruiting: put a job description together and throw it out on Indeed or the like and wait for applications to come in.

The truth is, however, HR tactics for finding talent haven’t kept up with the times. Yes, posting openings on job boards is still incredibly important. But many employees, especially millennials and Gen Z, care more about the places they work than previous generations. They will do the research into these companies and evaluate them based on reviews and the content they see (or don’t see) online. In fact, according to CIO magazine , “61% of job seekers will visit a company’s online properties (social media, websites, reviews sites) before they apply for a job. 55% say that if they read a negative review it would prevent them from applying.”

"The new age of recruitment is a race to show off who has the best culture through online reviews and social media content, such as video."

Employers must stop depending on reactive recruiting: putting the job up on the job board and crossing their fingers in hopes that the right people apply. Instead, the new age of recruitment is a race to show off who has the best culture through online reviews and social media content, such as video (I’ll talk about that in another article). No longer can companies treat their employees poorly and expect that they’ll continue to get more applications. They’ll get poor reviews on Indeed and other platforms. Then new waves of candidates will read those reviews and simply won’t apply.

But remember: no amount of review system will help you as an employer if your employees aren’t having a good time to begin with. There’s no use in trying to put lipstick on a pig. The best solution for poor reviews is leading your company with empathy and care for your employees. Once you’re doing this, use a system that encourages employees to review you online. You need a system to prompt these reviews because employees seldom think of reviewing you unless they’ve had a problem.

If you’re running a company with a decent culture, make sure you put effort into knowing what your reviews are. Then check them weekly or monthly to ensure you’re responding to them, even the good ones. This will give a great impression to potential candidates. In order to generate more positive reviews, work with an agency who can help you develop a system that prompts happy employees to review you. Make sure your reviews are telling the right story or you risk losing job applications from some of the best candidates.