Implementing Innovation and Trends When Building Your Team
Technology now moves at lightning speed, which and impacts how we interact with each other in business and in our personal lives. Seems just about everything is about bringing innovation and making everything around us faster, more efficient, and measuring the data from the automation. Catching the eye of applicants is seriously competitive and businesses and organizations are getting more creative to recruit top talent and engage them in the application process through their use of social channels.
Technology
According to Talent Economy (April 2017) “fast food giant McDonald’s announced this month it is requesting applications to their Australian restaurants via the disappearing photo and video sharing platform Snapchat. Through the app, a filter creates the appearance that an applicant is wearing a McDonald’s uniform. They then record a 10-second video, submit it and wait for the next step in the application process, according to a recent Inc. article.” Snapchat appeals to a younger demographic that will embrace this method of recruiting. In today’s war for talent, this unconventional recruiting approach is innovative and will make McDonald’s stand out to the target demographic they traditionally employ.
Elaine Orler, CEO & co-founder of Talent Function, a talent acquisition consulting service based in San Diego shared her insight on three emerging recruiting technologies to look out for.
Snapchat: Snapchat advertisements are becoming popular and can help an organization compete with other companies for candidate attention.
Artificial Intelligence: Search and matching is one area in which AI excels, aiding in identifying the candidates best fit for a role based on their résumés, Orler said. Limitations abound, though, including access to data and integrating the search tool into legacy data systems and recruiters’ daily work. This technology is expected to grow in the future. Orler said AI could soon include social listening tools, in which software can follow potential candidates on social media and alert recruiters when candidate sentiment seems to change.
Virtual Reality: One German firm, Deutsche Bahn, uses VR to showcase jobs that are hard to fill, giving viewers a taste of some roles before they apply. The British Army also uses this technology, providing a VR obstacle course, parachute jump and more.
As VR becomes more accessible in the future, it could also be a standard part of skills testing for some roles, said James Hawley, executive vice president of Veredus, a Hays Company, a specialized recruitment and staffing agency headquartered in Tampa, Florida.
Trends
Traditional methods of applying for jobs include submission of a resume and interview. That method doesn’t actually demonstrate a candidate’s skills that align with an employer’s needs. Our culture is about results that demonstrate scaling, measurement, and efficiency. Regardless if you are a new candidate to the workforce fresh out of school or a seasoned executive, you might be surprised to find out you will be asked to demonstrate your skills.
Marcel Schwantes (Inc., March 6, 2017) interviewed Ron Friedman (award-winning social psychologist and the author of The Best Place to Work) shared “81 percent of people lie during the interview. No joke, 81 freaking percent! Friedman says we are creating a condition where people are being dishonest because, well, plain and simple, it's the only way for them to get a job.”
Employers aren’t off the hook either though. Friedman says “We have unconscious biases when we look at other people and evaluate their skill set. Chances are you've probably interviewed an attractive female, a tall person, or someone who speaks with a deep voice. Here's what science is saying on each, according to Friedman:
People who are good looking tend to be evaluated as being more competent, intelligent, and qualified than their less attractive colleagues, despite not being objectively better at any of these things.
People who are taller tend to be evaluated as having more leadership skills than their shorter counterparts. The same results also held for women, though the effect was not as large. Also, decades of data have revealed a clear relationship between height and salary at every age.
People who speak with a deeper or lower-pitched voice are viewed as possessing greater strength, integrity, and trustworthiness.”
Friedman says that if you, as the interviewer, assume that a job candidate is extroverted, you're going to ask you a question like, "Tell me your experience leading groups."But if you assume that a job candidate is introverted, you might ask a slightly different question, like, "Are you comfortable leading groups?" Realistically, research suggests we can't help being swayed by these factors, and they affect the way we conduct the interview. This seems like common sense, right? However people do so many functions on auto pilot we are oblivious to what we are doing despite our best efforts to stay neutral.
So if this is taking place, what is the solution? Innovate, with the purpose to provide a better picture of a prospect’s skills that limits biases.
As an adjunct instructor, whenever I was asked to interview with a higher ed institution I was asked to do a teaching demonstration on a topic related to that course. The audience was made up of admin and staff members with the intent to see my personality style and how I delivered the information.
The entertainment industry does the same with actors, musicians, TV personalities, news, weather, etc audition for positions. Those doing the evaluations want to see them in action either singing, performing, how they read from the teleprompter, you get the idea.
I agree with Friedman's research and believe that assessments create a far better approach to hiring people, and a better workplace that has the right people you want for your jobs and your culture. The traditional interview is one directional and doesn’t allow for engagement and interaction with each other as as assessment.
As an organizational development consultant I look at the organization to discern what they do awesomely well and where they need to bring innovation into the picture to grow and improve.
One area is with talent management and performance. I help entrepreneurs, leaders, and HR managers assess talent to bridge company performance gaps, project
needs and build their talent pool. Many of my clients ask for intern programs, I design assessments that match company needs with intern talent and design a plan that is a win/win for the business and intern.
Part of the process includes designing an assessment to address the intern’s experience, knowledge and skills in research, writing, problem solving/creativity, time management and verbal communication. This gives us all a way to see the applicant’s ability to understand the industry, company services, and an idea what they will do in their position. I no longer am looking at a resume that may have been prepared by someone else that won’t demonstrate the student’s actual writing skills, can see how they explain how they created the deliverable, understand how they communicate on multiple levels and most importantly see their passion.
Call Pivot Business Consulting for a 30 minute consultation at 321-422-2166, email: info@pivotbusinessconsulting.com or visit our website at www.pivotbusinessconsulting.com and learn more about organizational process. Happy to discuss your burning talent questions and enjoy a cup of tea (on site or virtual) and discuss where you might ‘pivot.’
