Can BI provide data that proves Recruiting Strategy ROI ??

Business Intelligence (often referred simply as “BI”) encompasses all of the computer applications, tools, and systems that provide data used in the strategic planning process of any company or corporation. These tools gather and store data used in company decision making. Business intelligence areas can focus on customer profiling, customer support, market research, market segmentation, product profitability, statistical analysis, inventory and distribution analysis just to name a few (Webopedia, 2010.) Can business intelligence provide the data necessary to truly prove the return-on-investment (ROI) on recruiting strategies and workforce management efforts?


The purpose of ERP implementations was to give business decision makers one place – one application – to organize data and manage a business… but companies need information and data that is created outside the organization as well as what is generated by the ERP applications. Sales and marketing departments depend on analytical data that comes from paid resources, social media, and free internet communities. Recruiters and internal staffing professionals work similar paid resources and free sources as well. Paid resources like employment websites and resume spiders generate resumes and candidate leads – but do not provide information on the number of candidates that abandon the resume submittal process, or the opinion of people who viewed the job description. Social media sites like LinkedIn and Google provide analytical data, but these are often not imported into an applicant tracking system (ATS) or reviewed when making decision on recruiting strategies. Most HR and recruiting decision makers only ask for data regarding recruiting strategy when it comes to renewing a website contract or making budget decision. True data analysis and data integration is lacking in ATS and related CRM applications specific to recruiting and staffing strategies. Employers find it difficult to find true data that justifies recruiters being on FaceBook or LinkedIn groups during business hours.

The only Key Performance Indicator (KPI) associated with recruiting strategy has always been the number of job requirements filled through the company’s recruiting efforts. These job requirement “fills” (or placements) are considered the most important – if not the only purpose of recruiting. With social media and networking becoming a significant part of doing business these days, it is important to align and measure hiring deliverables with established business goals. Recruiting efforts should also be aligned with sales and marketing strategies the company is planning for new product release, conventions, and coverage in industry related media. Business intelligence applications can track staffing KPIs, create hiring metrics and reporting tools, and can be used to develop executive dashboards that provide decision makers with adhoc and real-time information on hiring goals and how successful recruiting strategies can affect other business aspects, deadlines, release dates, and sales quotas.

Business intelligence provides business decision makers with organized data and metrics accuracy that can be used to create business goals and realistic business targets. Business intelligence is not about “what data you need – but what decisions you need to make.” A recruiting being aware of business intelligence requires more attention to data accuracy (including data entry in ATS); making sense of the data collected; and getting decision makers’ approval on possible opportunities and recruiting venues that otherwise might not have been recognized without having that BI data. Business intelligence can provide opportunities for cost saving, time savings, provide a competitive advantage, as well as possibly justify a specific recruiting strategy and prove a tangible and concrete ROI.



References:

Business Intelligence. 2010. Webopedia. Viewed via: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/B/Business_Intelligence.html

Baruffaldi, A., Vesset, D., Pizano, G., et al., LinkedIn Business Intelligence Group. “BI evolution in the next 2-3 years” online discussion. Viewed on December 23, 2010 via http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=29182661&gid=23006&commentID=28342172&trk=view_disc Read More!

Webinar Invite: Your Employer Brand Influences Candidate Applications

Since my topics of blog discussion have been covering employer branding - thought I'd cross-post this information on a webinar covering this topic. Hope the group will find this webinar of interest.

Danny! (aka Daniel Parrillo)
=======================================

Talent Technology Recruiter Webinar series with Liz Ryan.

The upcoming webinar will focus on developing and leveraging your employer brand to attract and engage top candidates.

Today’s online job search has changed the way candidates select and engage with companies. Their impression of your organization’s culture and values is being shaped by the image reflected in your employer brand, and ultimately drives candidates’ decisions to apply.

Register Now: Complimentary Webinar

Join Liz Ryan (AskLizRyan) for a free webinar to understand how Your Employer Brand Influences Candidate Applications to learn how savvy employers are attracting very smart, talented, motivated employees with their employer brands.

When: Wednesday, December 8th - 10:00 AM (Pacific Time)/1:00 PM (Eastern) Register Now!

Liz will cover:
• How the employer brand influences candidate recruiting
• Elements of the employer brand
• Developing and talking about your employer brand strategy
• Aligning your employer brand strategy with your website and job search process
• Case Study: Employer branding strategy for ACME Dynamite
Attendees will receive an eBook on how to influence the development of their employer brand strategy.
Who should attend: This is a non-sales webinar for recruitment and HR professionals seeking to understand how to build a good employer brand strategy, and to align it to the recruiting and hiring process.
This non-sales webinar is sponsored by Talent Technology's Recruiter Webinar Series. If you would like to learn more about Talent Technology's new talent generation solutions, visit www.talenttech.com or call 866.747.3375.
I hope to see you at the webinar!
Stephanie Weirich
Hiring Success Team
Talent Technology
sweirich@talenttech.com

P.S. Please join Liz Ryan's informative free webinar to see how Your Employer Brand Influences Candidate Applications Wednesday, December 8th at 10:00 AM (Pacific)/1:00 PM (Eastern).
In an age where books such as No Logo and Fast Food Nation are international bestsellers, companies need to wise up and realize that they can no longer tempt jobseekers using financial incentives alone. Read More!

What is the Semantic Web ? And why should recruiting or HR care ?

I have often heard the phrase: “data is money!”

The world roughly produces about 1.5 billion gigabytes of data storage each year - that roughly equates to 250 megabytes per person. With the increase popularity of social networking sites, the internet is generating even more business discussions, webinars, product demonstrations, heated debates, and elearning material that includes step-by-step training videos. All of this content is data - and very soon, that data will not be “application specific.” With common data formats and standards, the interrelationships and interdependencies of data will be analyzed, qualified, and quantified in order to help business professionals make decisions and demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) of business strategies. The new world-wide-web is being called the Semantic Web – and it will soon become a significant part of company’s business and recruiting strategies, branding, marketing, and advertising.

According to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Semantic Web provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries. It is a collaborative effort led by W3C with participation from a large number of researchers and industrial partners. It is based on the Resource Description Framework (RDF), a standard model for data interaction on the web.

Google (a company known for advertising based on contextual data) acquired Metaweb, a leader in the semantic web arena and makers of Freebase (an open, semantically marked up database of information.) Community members help collect and monitor the collection of large collaborative knowledge base. These same community members are the same volunteers monitoring online chat boards, discussion groups, opensource communities, and online collaborative projects. These technology evangelists give their time and skills in order to make the Internet a more civil and productive environment. These online neighborhood-watch volunteers make sure that people contributing to the data abide by data formatting policies and practices, but also make sure that online communication and contributions are done in a respectful and orderly manner.

Structured data is arranged in online collections from many different internet websites, resources, and individual wikis. Data will soon be harvested, organized, and be available in new and exciting ways. If it is your responsibility to establish your company’s recruiting strategy, the semantic web is going to be the new venue for finding top quality passive candidates. I also believe that the semantic web will provide recruiters and human resource professionals the analytical tools and reporting applications that will allow us to prove the productivity and ROI of the recruiting strategies, concepts, and employer branding we’re trying to deploy via the vast Internet.

References:

Cameron, C., “Google Marks Major Semantic Web Play, Acquires Freebase Operators Metaweb,” (July 16, 2010) ReadWriteWeb. Viewed via http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_buys_semantic_web_database_metaweb.php

Lyman, P., Varian, H. R., “How Much Information?” (2000), University of California at Berkely, School of Information Management and Systems. Viewed via: http://www.attitudeweb.be/doc/resources/studies/how_much_information_produced_world_year_en.pdf

The World Wide Web Consortium (2010), W3C, MIT, ERCIM, Keio. Viewed via http://www.w3.org/; http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/; http://www.w3.org/RDF/ Read More!

Sticker Shock When it Comes to Recruiting Costs (even in this economy)

About a month ago, a customer called us at SayHired, stating that he needed help with filling some of his commission-only sales positions. He wanted to find out what our recruiting services entailed and how much they cost. I explained to him that we focus solely on the sorting of resumes and phone screening of candidates, and that the prices ranged from $45 to $75 per phone screen. He let me know that he didn't need help with sorting through resumes or calling candidates, but instead needed help in sourcing (finding) new candidates.

When I let him know that the types of services he was requesting are what traditional contingency recruiting agencies charge anywhere from $10,000-$30,000 per position to fill, he couldn't believe it. "How can recruiting be so expensive?" he asked me.

This question conjured up memories of my recruiting agency days when I would get this same, astonished reaction when I would tell clients how much our full life-cycle recruiting services cost. They just couldn't believe how expensive it was to use a recruiting agency. Even companies that prefer to bring recruiting in-house by using a contract recruiter generally end up shelling out anywhere from $70-$100 per hour for a solid recruiter to work on anywhere from 8-12 positions at a time. These are the prices of hiring a high-flying IT consultant, not a recruiter, right?

Wrong. The biggest reason for the expensive costs associated with recruiting is that because the recruiting industry is very cyclical (i.e. companies are generally on either big hiring sprees or big lay-off sprees, but rarely in the middle), recruiters need to be able to make all of their money in the narrow window when companies are actually hiring. Also along these lines, you almost always see a spiked demand for recruiters by companies all at the same time (during periods of economic growth and hiring), which of course leads to an imbalance in supply and demand, and thus driving costs up.

Secondly, with specific reference to contingency staffing firms, recruiters there only get paid for positions that they actually fill. They could end up working on 10 positions and only fill 2 of them (through no fault of their own). So if they didn't charge high fees for the ones that they filled, they wouldn't make much money. In other words, there's a premium that a customer needs to pay for not having to pay unless a position actually gets filled. And given the uncertainty around the boom/bust cycles that recruiters go through, there needs to be some payoff at the end to make it worthwhile for professionals to stay in this industry.

There are of course many other reasons behind the fees charged by recruiters and recruiting agencies, but hopefully this is a good starting point for understanding what's baked into typical recruiting pricing. Read More!