Sprint Recruiting

To be successful, a recruiter needs to have morning routine

Every morning can either set you up for success or chaos. Most of us in talent acquisition tend to have a touch of ADD which means we rarely like the word routine. Like it or not, to be successful, a recruiter needs to have a morning routine.

The Inevitable Cluster @#$

Let’s first talk about what happens when you don’t have a morning routine.

You will most likely check your emails which always creates a bit of panic for you as you realize that star candidate you sourced is going dark on you or backing out of an offer.
In the email barrage, you have at least one disgruntled hiring manager you have to calm down first thing in the morning… as if that’s how you want to start your day.
Perhaps you read about a new assignment for a project to hire x number of candidates in x days that is not only overwhelming but unrealistic.
You forget that one of your team members is on vacation and you promised to cover for them. So now you have not only your cluster @#$ of a morning to deal with but the deluge of issues they left behind for you to deal with.

All of this can derail your goal to find candidates and make deals happen before the clock strikes 8am.

My ideas for your morning routine

If you find yourself chasing your tail day in and day out, you definitely need to create a plan to start your day focused on success. To be a successful, a recruiter needs a morning routine that works for them. It doesn’t have to be a cookie cutter routine that someone else suggests to them but one they feel will be beneficial for them.

If you are a recruiting manager, understand everyone works differently and has a different “prime time” (the part of the day they are most successful). Help your team find what works best for them and just hold them accountable.

If you are a recruiter, take thirty minutes to look back over the last month to find the days you were most successful. What defined that success? What could you replicate? What should you be doing every morning before you make that first phone call or drink that second cup of coffee?

Once you have that list, find the five critical tasks or activities you need to accomplish every morning to make your day successful.

If you need some help, let me share some of my morning rituals. But before we get into that, let’s talk about the most crucial step in the process….

Commitment

The first step in creating your morning routine is to determine those activities that make you most successful. While the most common tasks would include sourcing new talent, booking appointments etc, the first step for a recruiter to have a successful morning routine is to make the commitment.

Too many times, my colleagues talk about how they’re going to start their day off right only to fail before 8:15am. Why? They don’t have or make the commitment to their routine. They allow distractions to run their morning which results in a day of chasing fires. This is the worst feeling, especially when all of us want to make our clients happy with the perfect candidate.

In case you missed it: STEP 1: MAKE THE DAMN COMMITMENT!

My Morning Routine

My morning routine has evolved over the last couple of years to the list below. When we began using Sprint Recruiting, the routine became almost like clockwork and streamlined because my focus activities were driven by the priorities set in the Sprint Recruiting process. So keep in mind my routine will reference some of the points within the Sprint Recruiting Methodology.

Exercise

I know, I know! Every morning routine blog out there promotes a morning exercise routine but hear me out.

I cannot tell you how many times I have charted my entire day while in the gym. It’s as if while my body is cursing me for the torture I’m enduring, my brain is in warp drive. It is always my most focused and creative time of the day.

If you are not currently exceeding in the morning, try doing a 10 minute yoga session or a 20 minute HIIT routine in your home before you get your day going. It’ll wake your body and brain up the right way and will get the blood pumping in a good way. I’ve also found it helps me reduce stress and anxiety going into the next steps of my morning routine!

Review the data

While most people are checking their emails for the latest crisis, I am neck deep in the data. I review the progress my team and I are making in our sprint leveraging a recruiting dashboard I created with Google Data Studio.

This dashboard tells me how many points we’ve earned so far in the sprint and which jobs have been identified as the top priority by our clients. If I see any gaps or blips in the data, I take the time to zero in on them.

I also leverage the Sprint Recruiting process to chart my day for sourcing. The points associated with each role I am responsible for allows me to quickly identify those roles I lack the needed activity to close out by the end of the sprint. Once identified, I block off time in my day or in the near future for only sourcing for those key roles.

Instead of starting your day out with chaos, let the data tell you the real story! Use it to determine the critical activities you need to accomplish the rest of the day.

Brain Dump

We all have mornings when our brains are in hyperactive. I’ve found that doing a brain dump in the morning has helped me clear the noise so I can begin my day with a clear brain and focus.

To do a brain dump, you can use any white space you prefer. Some people like a pen and paper while others leverage various to do apps. Whatever works for you, commit to it and get all of those whirling thoughts out of your brain and into a space to store it.

I am an avid ToDoist user-it’s my lifeline for staying on top of things. As those random thoughts come to me, I’ll simply go to my app, dump the information, assign it a priority and timeline. This allows me to not miss critical items I need to accomplish but also frees my brain to refocus on my task at hand:creating a successful day.

If you’d like to try Todoist on me, click this link. If you like to do lists, this will totally rock your world.

Block out time

Although I tend to do my time blocking on Sunday evenings for the week, I revisit my calendar every morning to find open time gaps I can use to accomplish needed tasks. I typically try to block off time for one or all of the following activities:

Sourcing new candidates
Candidate or manager follow up
Strategic planning sessions
Meeting preparation
Data analysis

I’ve found if I don’t block out the time on my calendar, my day will get away from me. I’m neurotic when it comes to my calendar so creating the appointment reinforces my commitment to the task or activity.

If you are not starting you day out by looking ahead to what you want to accomplish, you’ll spend your day chasing the pipe dream of being successful.

Once you determine what your morning routine should look like, create some definition of a successful day and track your results. This is where the gold is. You may find that part of your new morning routine is not as fruitful as you need it to be. Make adjustments and find your mojo.

Once you automate your mornings, you’ll find yourself experiencing not only more success but also more clarity and purpose. It’s always a great day for me when I can evaluate my day against what I committed to in the morning.

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Here’s how to get a Recruiter’s Attention on LinkedIn

So you’re looking for your next great adventure right? Your plan to get a recruiter’s attention might consist of some bold moves that might include:

Applying for positions that you’re not necessarily qualified for to get your name out there
Stalk recruiters for companies that you really want to work for
Create the most awesome resume that has everything you’ve done since being conceived on one sheet of paper

If this is your plan, you’re planning to fail. Let me pull back the curtain for you. Here are my thoughts on how to get a recruiter’s attention.

Applying for positions you are not qualified for-

You’re thinking this is the way to go, it’ll get your name out there and land you that next big career move. What it’s really doing is nullifying chances that a recruiter will look at your resume again. It tells us that you cannot read the list of qualifications. Using straight-line logic, It also tells us you most likely won’t follow directions very well.

What you should do:

Find a mentor in the field or better yet, work toward getting training in that field. Use the job description and qualifications to have a candid conversation with your manager about the steps you need to take to get yourself aligned to take on such a role.

Stalk Recruiters

Two words for you: NOT COOL! This gives us that “icky” feeling that something is just night right with you. It’s kind of like that person in high school that had a crush on you but you weren’t really into them but somehow they “ironically” show up at the same places. There is a fine line between trying to remain in touch and pushing your luck.

What you should do:

Most of us love networking with potential candidates-it’s what makes us tick. The most effective recruiters will take some time to help guide you to the right steps to take to get to your dream role. Think of this approach as you would trying to date the popular person in school. Show some interest, communicate without being a stalker, and see where the relationship goes. Don’t push yourself on the recruiter. If they’re good, they’ll tell you that they just don’t have anything for you at the time. Then you should move on to someone who does.

Create the Most AWESOME Resume:

Resumes are an effective tool, but don’t go overboard. Having every single solitary thing you’ve done since high school on your resume, leaving only centimeters of white space does nothing for you. Most recruiters are bottom line oriented people. We don’t want to have to search through a magna carta to determine if you’re qualified or not. Call us lazy or call us efficient, but regardless it’s the truth.

What you should do:

Create different versions of your resume to highlight different targeted jobs you’re interested in. For example, I have a resume that highlights my recruiting experience and another that highlights my project management experience. There’s some overlap between the two, but the core of the resume is directed at the type of job I might be applying for.

Leave some white space on the resume. For most of us, looking at a bunch of words shuts down our brains so we move on. Your resume’s cleanliness speaks to your ability to present yourself in a logical, professional manner. Remember, to get a recruiter’s attention, keep it clean and simple.

Many who read this will scoff and suggest that I’m being arrogant and may not understand what it’s like to be jobless. Just to clarify, since 2008, my job has been eliminated three times from three different companies so that pain and frustration is still fresh for me. The advice I’m providing is not out of my desire to make my life easier but to make you more successful in finding the right fit for your next move. So remember these key points if your goal is to get a recruiter’s attention.

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3 Top Reasons WHY Relying on your Applicant Tracking System to Develop a Hiring Plan is a Mistake

Talent Acquisition is still trying to catch up with the rest of the world when it comes to leveraging Data Analytics to make better decisions. Unfortunately, most Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) platforms lack the analytic build outs to help recruiters make smarter decisions quicker and more efficiently. Here some reasons why relying on your applicant tracking system to develop a long-term hiring plan is a mistake.

The Importance of Getting Recruiting Right

According to a recent study conducted by Visier, an HR Data Analytics platform, the highest impact on revenue growth in HR is delivering on recruiting. The best recruiters know this and have become obsessed with data analytics to help analyze their efforts to scale maximum results. Companies who have acknowledged talent as a key driver for bottom line revenue continue to invest not only in their internal talent acquisition teams but in tools to analyze ways to hack or maximize recruiting results.

Unfortunately, most ATS companies are not keep up with this trend. They tend to focus on candidate experience and ease of use more than the analytics of the candidate funnel and recruiting efforts. Most of the analysis I do for our team is the result of exporting information out of the ATS and into an excel worksheet or Google Data Studio dashboard. Even then, I challenge the data integrity of the information coming from the ATS. I have found the information to be more binary than intuitive.

Applicant Tracking Systems cannot tell you where your best hires come from

This is perhaps the bane of my existence as a recruiting manager. Why can the central system I use to process candidates not provide me analytics to help me know where my hires are sourced?

Not one of the three major ATS platforms I’ve used in the last ten years have included a feature to allow me to analyze candidate sources. If I don’t know where my hires are finding my roles, how can I maximize that channel to find more great candidates? Leaders should be able to leverage their ATS to understand where to spend their budget dollars each year.

Many of the HR analytic firms like Visier have recognized this gap and built talent acquisition platforms to plug into your ATS to help analyze your hiring sources. The Visier Talent Acquisition Model helps me learn more about where our talent acquisition team finds the best talent so we can scale the efforts on that channel and stop wasting time on the others that provide little to no value.

Recruiting managers who want to understand where their best hires are being sourced will fail if they only rely on what the ATS platforms out there can provide.

Your ATS cannot track the Employee Life

Most ATS platforms track the employee life cycle until they say “I do”. Sure, the ATS is most likely plugged into your HRIS and payroll system to onboard but we should see more.

Only tracking the candidate life cycle is a pitfall of many talent acquisition strategies. Without tracking the vital information following the “I do” can create an endless cycle of recruiting for the same position multiple times a year. Not only is this a waste of recruiting resources but also a waste of company investment.

If ATS platforms tracked the entire employee life cycle, recruiters could learn which employees stay and are successful so they can replicate the success.

ATS Platforms cannot tell you where your bottlenecks are

The recruiting process has bottlenecks just like any normal business process. The key to running a lean and efficient talent acquisition strategy is to know where those bottlenecks are and eliminate them.

Last year, I spent a weekend downloading raw data out of our ATS to chart the candidate journey. We had received feedback from managers that the process was taking too long and had candidates who complained about the lag in the process as well. Rather than being able to go to my ATS and clicking on a menu to find the number of days a candidate spent in each part of the journey, I had to download the raw data in excel and write complicated formulas to provide me the answer I needed.

I’m obsessed with the experience our hiring managers and candidates have but unfortunately, I do not know of an ATS that shares this obsession. After spending hours getting the data in a format I could use and creating a dashboard, the bottlenecks jumped right off the dashboard. I learned the feedback loop from managers was one huge bottleneck (average time for feedback was roughly 20 days) and the period of time from when a candidate interviewed with the hiring team to receiving an offer (another 20 days).

This information helped spark the idea for some of the basic tenets of Sprint Recruiting. When we implemented the beta versions of this methodology, I had to continuously go in, download the raw data, and analyze it to see if the Sprint Recruiting process was helping or hurting our efforts to enhance the manager and candidate experience.

It would have been amazing to have an ATS do this for me.

If we compared recruiting to flying a plane, our ATS would be our navigation panel. Could you imagine flying with only the limited information your ATS provides you? Or better yet, could you imagine downloading raw data from your navigation system and manually creating a dashboard to make sure you are going the right way?

The ATS platform company that creates an ATS to provide easy analysis of every major aspect of the recruiting process and employee life cycle would have a command on the market. The Talent Acquisition function is loaded with data that should be readily available to recruiters to help maximize recruiting efforts and shareholder value.

Unfortunately, it may take a while for the ATS industry to catch up! If you find yourself in need of a great analytical platform, you should definitely look into firms like Visier that specialize in making HR data easy.

Importance of Focus-Today’s most valuable resource

I’ve always been told that time is the most valuable resource but I’ve learned the true invaluable resource is FOCUS.

Just as an example-I’ve attempted to write this article at least seven times today but have stopped to take a call, answer an “urgent” email or handle some other form of focus-sucking action item. Many of us are constantly bombarded with interruptions that drain our focus and we relinquish our ability to be truly effective in our job.

Dr. Jim Taylor, Sports Psychologist and contributor for the HuffPost, suggests focus is is the gateway to business success:

Focus is so important because it is the gateway to all thinking: perception, memory, learning, reasoning, problem solving, and decision making. Without good focus, all aspects of your ability to think will suffer. Without focus, you won’t be as effective in your work because if you’re not concentrating on the right things or are distracted, you won’t be capable of getting your work done.

When working through the Sprint Recruiting methodology, the one benefit I kept noticing was the added focus the team and I had on key roles. Rather than simply chasing fires, we began evolving to become more deliberate and tactical in our recruiting efforts. Our time to fill decreased as we began focusing on a limited number of key roles to “move the needle”.

I began taking this notion of focus into my personal life as well. I have been using the time blocking method discussed in numerous books to chart my week. I’ve reintroduced ToDoist in my routine to help dump those pesky items that come to mind so I can keep my focus and still remain productive. At the end of the week, I’ve begun leveraging a weekly review to help me do a brain dump of everything that went well that week so I can find ways to scale these practices going forward. I also spend some time identifying what didn’t work so I can create a plan to avoid these pitfalls the following week.

With only a minor tweak or two, I have been able to cut down on the noise of life and focus. Not only have I seen an increase in productivity but I have also experienced a decline in mental exhaustion at the end of the day.

So if you feel a little overwhelmed with life, try working on your focus. Start small and maybe work in bursts during the day, only an hour or two to ease into the practice. You may become addicted to the progress you make!

Recruiting Lessons from the Game of Thrones

I am a total geek when it comes to Game of Thrones. The characters, the intertwined plot, the twists I never see coming and the dragons…. yeah, I’m all in when it comes to the series. To celebrate one of my favorite obsessions, I’d like to share recruiting lessons from the Game of Thrones.

Recruit for skill, not pedigree

The Game of Thrones series is wrought with heroes who have humble beginnings. One of my favorite character developments, Jon Snow, was known as the bastard of the Stark family but has become the hero we all knew he could be. Davos was born of the slums but is a brilliant tactician and political advisor.

Some hiring managers spend so much effort recruiting for pedigree they overlook the amazing potential candidates possess with more humble education or experience. I worked with an IT client who only wanted to interview developers who had graduated from MIT or another Ivy League school. Unfortunately, they missed out on some great candidates I found who had been through a two year degree program or a local developer training firm. In my opinion, these candidates were hungrier and more agile than those the firm decided to hire.

Candidates are drawn to a great brand story

The Dragon Queen is perhaps one of the most influential characters in Game of Thrones. There are so many recruiting lessons from the Game of Thrones involving this dynamic leader, but let’s focus on how she’s able to recruit so many to her cause.

Daenerys‘s personal brand draws countless followers. She empowers everyone, regardless of birthright or rank to her cause and her reputation spreads through the land.

The brand that tells an authentic, empowering story will draw the right candidates. Think of the Googles, Zappos and other notable firms whose brands attract more candidates than they can hire. Leveraging recruiting focused content marketing can help tell your company’s story and draw fans, not just candidates who need a job.

Don’t always depend on your “Dragons” in recruiting

Game of Thrones would be just another fantasy series if it were not for the dragons. As every episode draws closer to the finale, fans have become more in love with the three dragons. If you’re like me, you felt sure the dragons would promise a crushing defeat to any rival on the battlefield.

SPOILER ALERT

During this season, we’ve watched painfully as two of the three dragons have been murdered by the enemy. These scary, yet inspiring, beings were not as powerful as we may have thought. Now, with only one dragon left, many of us are wondering how Daenerys and her army will defeat King’s Landing.

The recruiting lesson from Game of Thrones? Don’t depend on the size of your company, your massive recruiting budget or any other dragon you have in your arsenal. Companies that depend on such will ultimately be taken down by a competitor.

Instead, you should leverage your grassroots efforts including content marketing, employee referrals, employee testimonials and other such tools.

Let your employees be your ultimate recruiters

Another lesson from Daenerys’s rise to power is the relentless recruiting machine she creates-well not her directly. When Jon Snow was leery of joining forces with the Dragon Queen, it was her people who convinced him. Her trusted advisor tells Jon, “She is the Queen we chose.”

The most authentic stories are the ones people are drawn to and who better to tell this story than the people already working for you? Employees should not only be encouraged to share their experience in their networks but should also be part of the interview process. Allow them to help sell the opportunity and judge candidates for cultural fit.

There are so many recruiting lessons from the Game of Thrones. I could write about ten more lessons but unfortunately, I’m writing this blog right before tonight’s episode airs so….. I’ll be signing off now.

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The Importance of Hiring Manager Feedback

Managers love to call me and complain about their open roles not being filled quick enough by recruiters. Of course, my job is to ensure all of my clients are happy but about 80% of the time, the obstacle to filling the job is not the shortage of talent or the lack of talent but rather, the length of time it takes for managers to provide feedback on the talent. I find a lot of managers don’t understand why it’s important to provide quick feedback on candidates.

Some of the common complaints I hear are from managers include:

“My positions aren’t being filled quick enough.”
“You guys take so long to get a new hire on board.”
“Why does recruiting take so long?”

As a recruiter, I am always more apt to work harder and quicker for the managers who have a quick turnaround time for feedback. Usually, these managers are not the culprit of complaints because we’re in constant contact throughout the process. For those managers who don’t understand why it’s important to provide quick feedback on candidates, let me share some recruiting secrets for you.

It’s all about partnership

As recruiters, we see ourselves as your partners in the search. Our job is to find the best candidate for your role in the shortest amount of time. Those of us who have been “on the line” before going into recruiting understand every day you do not have your candidate is a loss in productivity and profit. True partnerships have to have communication to be effective. When you don’t provide feedback in a timely manner, we will tend to move on to jobs with managers who are willing to truly be a partner. So if you want our job filled, honor the partnership and give feedback quickly.

Helps the recruiter look for the right candidates

The first stage of my recruiting process includes what I call a “fly-by” list of candidates to ensure I’m on the right track. It’s a great way for me to zero in on the right candidate profile and not spend time trying to develop a candidate who the manager feels is not a fit. Sure, I can read a job description but all of us know there are things not listed in a job description critical to a candidate’s success in a role.

For this, the quicker the feedback from the manager the sooner I can start finding that rockstar.

It’s a Candidate’s market

Perhaps one of the most frustrating scenarios is when I spend time developing a candidate’s interest in a role, only to have the manager delay providing feedback. It’s a candidate’s market so if you want your role filled with the most qualified candidate, you have to act while they are interested. Passive candidates, those who are not actively looking for job, will view the lack of manager response as no interest and begin looking at other companies. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had the perfect candidate for a role, only to have a manager drag their feet and the candidate decide to take another position with a competitor.

The best way to get your job filled by the best candidate in the shortest period of time, provide quick feedback on candidates! Work with your recruiter to establish communication guidelines and agreements.

Start by agreeing on a weekly update at the same time every week until the role is filled. It could be a 15 minute standing call to keep everyone communicating. If the role is critical, you might want to consider having a touch point call twice a week to shorten the feedback loop.

In Sprint Recruiting, feedback is the module that keeps candidate flow moving. If we reach our WIP limit in recruiting, we stop and determine where feedback is needed to keep the process moving. It’s a joint effort between the hiring manager and the recruiter. (If you want to learn more about WIP limits in recruiting, check out this post.)

Either way, the best chance for success in your search is to work with your recruiter and commit to provide quick feedback on candidates.

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Is Talent Acquisition Ready for Influencer Marketing? A lesson from Adidas

My sixteen year old daughter taught me a lot about influencers three years ago when she became obsessed with certain YouTubers and Instagram celebrities. Her free time revolved around when these influencers would post new content. At the time, I thought it was just a fad but have also become intrigued lately with a question. Is talent acquisition ready for Influencer Marketing?

Is this just a fad?

Last year, Adidas began a new program for shoe enthusiast to have early access to products, exclusive drops and special events according to Fast Company’s article on the subject. Adidas hopes to strengthen the relationship with these influential fans by allowing them to open a store in only three clicks on the Storr app. Sellers are to receive a 6% commission from every sale. The firm hopes to have a bullish launch by inviting roughly 10,000 members to participate.

Adidas’s senior director of digital activation acknowledged the success the company has experienced leveraging social media but hints at a “new revolution” in the influencer space. Here’s his quote from the article:

“We do interesting stuff through Instagram, or through our affiliate marketing where we’re utilizing sneakerheads, influencers, and even our athletes to sell our products, because they’re influential and consumers are spending time with them. The next evolution of that is the democratization of social selling, allowing our consumers to act as wholesalers or retailers on our behalf.”

Honestly, I love this concept!

This is a genius way to make your consumers salespeople. Who better to sell than those who already love your product? And a 6% commission for such sales is a low price to pay to your loyal fans who sell your product. It’s much more efficient and cost-effective than opening a new site and paying a sales staff.

Kudos to Adidas for figuring this out!

What does this mean for Recruiting?

Employee referrals are always a great source for candidates. Unfortunately, I don’t think many companies have the perfect way to capitalize on the leads generated.

Most companies tout an employee referral program but the system or process for entering and paying out on these referrals is botched. It’s either manual or too dependent on recruiters’ memories. Most employees I speak to note the pain involved with trying to get a high quality candidate through the process.

You would think that Applicant Tracking Systems would have some incredibly easy interface to help accommodate the process but let’s face it, most of them barely get candidates through the process correctly. You could rely on a work around like an online form for internals to enter their recommendations but who has the time for updating yet another spreadsheet?

If we could find a way to follow Adidas’s lead and leverage a platform like Storr to easily track and pay for quality referrals, it would be a true game changer.

Future of Recruiting-Inflencers Welcomed!

Imagine identifying a select group of truly engaged employees to be your influencers for recruiting. They would be your brand ambassadors to help share viable and engaging content to their groups, identify pools of candidates for recruiting groups to target and help further sell opportunities with your firm.

This is the future of the old Employee Referral program. Rather than simply begging for referrals and paying a nominal fee for a placement, you will now empower and compensate your most engaged employees to help become an extension of your Talent Acquisition strategy!

Although the recruiting industry is severely behind brands like Nike and Adidas, we can learn from their efforts to capitalize on influencers. Rather than increasing sales, our goal would be to increase quality hires.

Increased Efficiency

This approach is not only the wave of the future but also more cost effective.

Rather than begging for addtional headcount within your recruiting group, your focus would then become how to increase the number of influencers within your organization. It’s like leveraging a resource that another group is already paying for!

More importantly, potential candidates are more likely to believe employees within your organization over some random recruiter calling them about an opportunity. Creating recruiting influencers is the no-nonsense approach to expanding your reach without increasing your budget.

If you’re not exploring how influencers can help your organization and your recruiting function, you’re missing out on a fantastic opportunity.

Remember to start with a small group and test a couple of methods before going all out. It’s better to make a few small mistakes and learn versus unleashing a half-concocted plan that will cause more harm than good.

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Data Analytics And Recruiting

Most people are freaked out when they are surfing Facebook or another site and find targeted ads related to a product they were researching earlier in the day. Ok, I’m a little freaked out but I am also amazed at how companies know to bring content to me based on data. I guess that’s why I love the topic of data analytics & recruiting.

Information exists in unimaginable amounts, telling various stories, supported by statistical data. Any business desiring to gain a competitive edge have begun using this influx of data to their advantage, alongside technology organizations who are creating the power to analyze and interpret this data. I’ve become obsessed with how we can use data analytics in recruiting.

Here are my ideas.

Faster & More Efficient Hiring

One of the themes I touch on in Sprint Recruiting is the idea of hiring faster and more efficient. Part of the Sprint Recruiting methodology is the retrospective which allows our team to examine what worked and what didn’t during the sprint. We will often use data analytics to analyze candidate flow, bottlenecks in the process and other vital data points to help with the upcoming sprints.

To increase hires, it’s incredibly important to analyze where your hires are sourced from. Rather than spending thousands of dollars on job boards, you might find many of your hires come from internal referrals or other sourcing methods. This analysis will not only help you decrease the time a job stays open but also help you reallocate money spent on useless candidate sources to more effective sourcing strategies.

Better Hires

Leveraging data analytics in recruiting will help recruiters focus on finding the right candidate for the right role. Analyzing successful employees currently in the role being recruited can help recruiters lock in on the rock-star candidate versus merely someone who will do the job.

Using a tool like Visier or another HCM analytical tool can help you gather the needed data to beef up your sourcing strategy. It can also help you fine tune the interview process to ensure you and your hiring managers are asking the right questions to gain the right insight on candidates.

Increase Engagement

I’m a huge fan of MailChimp and other services to help with managing the content marketing process. The true value of services like these is the data analytics it provides to help you better understand your audience.

If your goal is to leverage content marketing in your recruiting strategy, it’s vital for you to know what your readers want to increase engagement. MailChimp and Hubspot offer incredible analytics to allow you to track how many clicks and shares your posts receive from those on your mailing list.

As content marketing becomes more prevalent in today’s recruiting strategy, you will want to be sure you are an Ace in how to use data analytics in recruiting.

You don’t have to be a statistic nerd to appreciate the vast number of enhancements data analytics can bring to your recruiting strategy. My advice would be to start small in an area you would like to enhance and learn your way through trial and error.

For those of us who geek out on this type of stuff, the growing influence of data analytics in recruiting is akin to a binge on the latest Netflix series…. we just can’t get enough!

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The SPRINT in Sprint Recruiting

Everyone has an obsession in life and one of mine is my health. I admit I am a vain guy. Sure I like to focus on my health to have a better life but it’s driven more by my desire to look good. Believe it or not, it’s one of the ways I got the idea for Sprint Recruiting.

I began my health journey in 2012 after realizing I had gained sixty pounds of fat and was pretty miserable. I’ve tried all kinds of fad diets, eating styles and workout styles. Part of my research led me to High Intensity Interval Training as a way to drop fat quicker. I was more interested in the quick part of the promise to lose fat than I was the workout.

One of the workouts I tried included the use of sprints during runs. The idea was to alternate sprinting and walking during a set period of time to increase the heart rate in bursts. The first time I tried it I absolutely hated it but it was better than spending forty five minutes on a treadmill going nowhere.

Doing the HIIT training for thirty days was probably the most miserable health decision I made but the results were incredible. I dropped ten pounds and experienced an increased focus and determination. Of course, the nerd in me wondered whether this was a fluke or if there was actual science behind it.

The National Council on Strength and Fitness released an article encouraging trainers to consider sprint training to help clients meet their goals. It goes on to say that studies on sprinters showed less muscle decline than those athletes who only did the traditional form of working out, resistance training.

During sprint training, the heart works very hard to meet the energy demands necessary for the success of the exercise. By utilizing short duration, sprint-type activities, the strength of the heart will improve. At the muscular level, most individuals will not experience the same adaptations normally associated with aerobic training. The studies quoted showed more calaries are burned during a sprint training than an aerobic training.

One thing I found that helped me push through HIIT was the duration. Unlike trying to convince myself to stay on a treadmill for forty five minutes or run four miles, the HIIT routines were short but intense. I could mentally break the thirty minute routine into, “OK I’m going to do this exercise for the next five minutes.” For me, it was easier to get through those sprints than it was being bored with traditional cardio.

The same lessons I learned from my experience trying HIIT are applicable to Sprint Recruiting.

Defining the sprint helps relieve the constant pressure I once felt looking at all of the open jobs our team had to fill. It made the daunting task managing a lot of jobs easier looking at a defined scope of time. You will find that just like sprint training, your focus will begin to narrow on what can be accomplished in two weeks versus your brain being overwhelmed and shutting down.

It may sound demeaning to the jobs I’m working, but I treat the daunting nature of sourcing for a number of jobs like cardio. If I work in sprints and only focus on a select few, important jobs, I can make a lot of progress because it seems doable. I use the priority points set by my clients to determine which positions require my attention each week and allocate time to source, follow up and execute.

If you find yourself overwhelmed by your workload, try breaking it down to smaller, bite-size pieces and work in a sprint. Try limiting your sprint to one or two weeks and measure your results. That’s where Sprint Recruiting becomes your secret weapon!

I’m willing to bet you’ll find yourself twice as productive and able to source more, qualified candidates which will lead to not only raving candidates but happy clients!

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Content Marketing as a Recruiting Strategy

As I look through my emails, I notice a scary trend-email after email from some of my favorite brands. Unlike the normal “salesy” emails, most of the brands I follow capture my interests with their content. It’s made me go all in on content marketing as a recruiting strategy.

First, if you don’t know what content marketing is, it’s loosely defined as a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts). The primary goal of content marketing is not to explicitly promote a brand but to stimulate interest in its products or services.

Successful recruiters do content marketing by default. For the high valued targets on your recruiting lists, you may send industry articles or share valuable content occasionally as a way to stay on the recruit’s mind. All I am suggesting is to make content marketing a permanent, planned part of your recruiting strategy.

How to use content marketing as a recruiting strategy

The task can seem daunting at first but once you set up the framework, it can run like clockwork. A successful content marketing recruiting strategy will be engaging your high valued candidates while you focus more energy on developing new targets and adding them to the list. Influencers like Gary Vee and Arianna Huffington are masters at developing content weekly, if not daily, that informs their base while consistently driving them to buy into their brand.

So how do you do it?

Develop your list

Start first by developing your list of prospects and getting them into a marketing platform like MailChimp or HubSpot. These tools are great for not only storing your contacts but also helping to develop content in the form of template newsletters and other email templates.

Both platforms offer you the ability to develop landing pages for candidates to self-select in to your marketing program. This is a great way to help the list generate more leads for you by asking for referrals from your top prospects.

Create your content

Remember-the goal for content marketing as a recruiting strategy is not to put on the hard selling tactics normally used. If you have a list for data scientist, share articles from other companies or publications with value insight into the industry.

You can start by creating something simple like a once a month mailing showcasing the top articles of the month and build your program after you gain experience. Be sure to insert an article from your current firm if you can find one that is relevant. Essentially, you will allow candidates to see your firm’s publication alongside industry leaders. This tactic will encourage your candidates to begin thinking of your firm as those industry leaders you’ve included in the piece.

Compared to the constant phone calls from recruiters, content marketing allows candidates to engage with you and your brand on their terms at a time they choose.

Schedule ahead

Another valuable option platforms like HubSpot and MailChimp offer is the option to schedule content in advance. This helps maintain some consistency in your schedule. It also helps you dedicate one to four hours a month putting your content together to be scheduled.

Typically, I dedicate one day a month to develop content and then work on the schedule. Creating this discipline has helped me be able to spend less time developing awesome content and more time engaging awesome candidates.

If you create and maintain a schedule, you’ll also condition your candidate pool to expect content from you.

Use the metrics

You will never know if your content marketing is effective unless you utilize metrics. The two platforms mentioned previously offer such metrics as open rate, clicks, shares and many more. If you are spending the time to evaluate content marketing as a recruiting strategy, you’re measuring what works and what doesn’t.

There’s no use in doing all this work if no one is engaging in the content. Dig into the data to see what candidates like to read and produce or find more similar content to share. This is where the gold is in this strategy.

Leveraging content marketing as a recruiting strategy can be overwhelming at first but if you stick with it, you may find yourself having more fun with it than you thought you would. It’s a great way to get in the mind of your prospective candidates which can also help you with your more traditional recruiting strategies.

Brands who do content marketing well stay at the top of mind of its target clients. They engage their clients in a way to help them continually come back to them for purchases, not because they’re always selling something but because they’re always providing value.

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