Website and its Influence on Process
November 14th, 2008 by khartOne of the most important areas to look at in the process continuum is your website and the impact it has on how a candidate applies online. You would be surprised at the difficulties awaiting the job seeker when he attempts to submit a resume or application online to many organizations.
From the placement of the ‘careers’ or ‘jobs’ button on your main page to the process of hitting the ‘send’ button when submitting a resume, there are countless ways to ‘lose’ a good candidate.
It is always good to remember that not all candidates are comfortable with technology and creating barriers to submitting a resume online may result in the non-tech savvy candidates simply giving up. We had a forty-something, highly experienced RN tell us on one consulting project that she attempted multiple times to submit a resume online to a prestigious academic medical center and became so frustrated, she turned the computer off, grabbed a paper resume, drove to the facility and dropped off the paper resume. She got the job, but in many organizations, dropping off a paper resume is simply not an option anymore. Therefore, it behooves us to create a process that is easily understood and makes submitting online a pleasure, not a chore.
A good idea is to shop your site as though you were an actual candidate attempting to apply online. Because it is difficult to view your site with fresh eyes when you are used to seeing it every day, another option is to engage an outside firm to conduct a Mystery Shop of your site and resume submission process (Hodes Health Care Division has done over 150 of these candidate experience Mystery Shops).
Some things to consider when you are looking at this piece of the process include but are not limited to:
• Does your facility’s site URL appear when your facility or system is “Googled”? If it does, how far down the list is it?
• Is the careers or jobs button clearly and instantly visible on your home page?
• How many clicks does it take to get to the careers or jobs page?
• Are you able to easily (and efficiently) search for a specific position by location, department, professional classification?
• Can candidates attach a resume to your application or can they cut and paste elements of their resume to your application?
• How long is your application? (We have seen the gamut- from a few questions to several pages in our projects).
• What kinds of sensitive information (social security number, professional and driver’s license) do you require?
• How long does the application process take? Our experience has ranged from 15 minutes to over an hour and we are quite experienced at submitting resumes.
• Are there any potential technical glitches (error messages, being timed out) that crop up during resume submission?
This kind of diagnostic can enable you to correct flaws in the online application process, create a better website experience for interested candidates and create a better online candidate flow. Ultimately, the online application process can be a help rather than a hindrance.
For further reading, click here to read my Nursing Economics article, “Evaluating Recruitment Process through ‘Mystery Shops.’”
Next week we will look at your ATS, technology and mining your own database.
Requisition and Posting Process
November 7th, 2008 by khartAnother frequent area of concern is the requisition process, which often is convoluted and difficult to manage. From who initiates, how many signatures and how many pieces of paperwork are required (and this can change frequently in organizations depending on financial performance), the requisition trail is often a long and winding road.
Many organizations have electronic signatures and requisitions are generated from their HRIS systems. Copies of the ‘signed’ requisitions are delivered electronically to recruitment so that the posting and recruitment process can begin.
More often, paper requisitions are sent via interoffice mail or hand delivered by hiring managers to HR/recruitment. In some organizations the amount of justification/writing, etc. that has to be done for each position is beyond tedious. And this is for every position, whether it be a new or replacement position. In some hospital systems, the CEO has to approve each and every requisition before the position can be filled.
It has always struck me as incomprehensible that a manager who is charged with running a unit or units, handling the unit budgets and all they entail, and taking responsibility for staff and patient care has to go through these hoops in getting a requisition initiated.
Just keeping physical track of these paper requisitions is a challenge and they frequently fall into the famous ‘black hole’. I am sure there is a special purgatory somewhere with tons of lost HR paperwork.
What can an organization do to make this process flow more smoothly? First investigate to see whether you have a requisition component in your HRIS system. Some automatically post the position after the requisition is approved. Often these modules are available for no additional cost, but just aren’t being used. If there is an additional cost, it would be well worth it to invest in this tool.
If your HRIS system doesn’t have this module or application, investigate other automated options.
If you don’t have an automated way to deal with requisitions and postings, then streamline what you are dealing with so that the chances of paper being lost or communication being an issue are lessened.
When you streamline the requisition process, include the posting process so that you have a seamless method of approving and posting requisitions. Fixing just this part of the process will dramatically shorten your days to fill, as this is one part of the process that really prolongs the entire process.
Next week we will look at your website and how it impacts recruitment process.
Position Control
October 31st, 2008 by khartAt the risk of seriously dating myself, I am going to describe the position control process as it existed in the ‘old days’ before extensive use of computers in recruitment and HR. In my last position as Director of Nurse Recruitment for a large Midwest hospital, each nursing manager had a position control book, I had the master book sheets for all units, and we collaboratively reviewed open positions, pending transfers, new hires, etc. on an every two-week basis.
The book was developed from budgeted positions by unit. Each position had a space on the sheet and the position number was indicated. The sheet was divided by shift, so that at a glance, you could see openings by unit and shift, whether they were full time, part time or per diem, and notes in pencil indicated transfers in and out, pending hires, etc.
This handy little tool was my ‘Bible’ as it could be used to run open position lists, and showed clearly what was happening with each position.
Division directors and their managers could tweak their positions if these tweaks maintained adequate staffing. For example, in the ED, we had a variety of 12-hour shifts designed to meet the needs of the busiest times in that unit. We had 10 am to 10 pm, 11 am to 11 pm and other similar positions. Similarly, we were able to develop job-share positions. However, these decisions were made collaboratively, not in a vacuum and careful study was made as to what the impact would have on staffing the unit.
Contrast those halcyon days with the situation in many organizations now.
What we find as we consult with many of our clients is that position control as a tool to assist with staffing and recruitment doesn’t really exist anymore. Hiring managers have a budgeted amount of positions and in many cases, they play with their number to meet the needs of those they want to hire, instead of what they need to staff their units. Sometimes recruitment doesn’t even have access to this information. All recruitment may know is that 6 east has an allotment of 36.5 positions, not which positions are on what shift and what the full time/part time breakout looks like. To say nothing of which positions are open, which filled, where transfers are in process, who are potentially leaving positions, etc.
Kind of like the proverbial blind men trying to identify an elephant. Everyone touches a different part, and thus, their descriptions are totally different. The manager has one view, the recruiter quite another.
Often the recruiter must rely on just the requisitions to fill positions. With no overview of all the positions (filled, open, soon to be open, etc.), no planning can be done and recruitment becomes reactive.
A resume that may be a perfect fit for a position languishes because the recruiter has no idea that particular position is opening.
This situation is a gap crying for a solution and solutions do exist! There are commercial software and web-based applications that will provide position control, and many HRIS systems have a position control component.
The first recommendation is to find common ground. Decide who ‘owns’ position control, then, work together to make sure everyone is on the same page. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Recruitment absolutely needs to know where openings are, where folks are transferring to and from, and what will be needed in the near and distant future.
We may not be able to go back to the ‘old days’, but surely we can make our technology work with us rather than against us.
Next week we look at the requisition process.
Recruitment Process Assessment
October 24th, 2008 by khartOne of the most common projects we undertake in the Health Care Division is called a Process Diagnostic, where we assess clients’ recruitment processes and deliver gap analysis and recommendations for improvement. Recruitment has evolved in the last ten to twenty years, and the technology we now have at our disposal, new roles in recruitment, more complex and larger health care systems, and the increasing lack of face-to-face communication with candidates, have all coalesced to create a perfect storm.
This perfect storm has led to a lack of customer care (both external customers and internal customers), recruiter frustration (after all, recruiters want to recruit and that means human contact), increased length of time to recruit, and constant churning.
Marketing dollars are being spent to attract candidates and in many cases the volume of resumes resulting from these efforts is crippling recruiters’ ability to sift through the resumes and deliver viable candidates to hiring managers.
Lack of effective processes extends from position control to requisition management, to open position report generation/availability, to redundancies and lack of integration in technology. Recruiters often have to duplicate work because the applicant tracking system doesn’t interface with the HRIS system or they have to develop tracking and sourcing documents in Excel or other applications.
Communication both to candidates and with hiring managers is an issue. In many cases automated communication is fraught with problems.
Recruitment roles and responsibilities are also a huge factor. As systems have grown and expanded, little emphasis has been placed on taking a real look at who is doing what, volume and candidate flow, where recruitment ‘sits’ (centralized or decentralized), duplication of responsibilities, and consistency in sourcing, interviewing and reporting.
Competition is fiercer than ever for health care professionals and the race will go to the swift. Now more than ever, it is vital that all recruitment departments tighten up their processes so that they can stay ahead in this ever-competitive environment and win the war for talent.
In the next few posts, we will examine the process piece from beginning to end and provide some tips for improving your process.
Next week, we take a look at position control.
Podcasting
October 17th, 2008 by jrussellPodcasting is very unique and with the advent of the iPod, it has enjoyed tremendous popularity and growth. ITG Group says almost 60 million people will listen to podcasts by 2010. Three out of every four college students own an iPod. With the evolution of iPhones and other smartphones the use of this media will only become more popular. As you can see from the graph below Podcasting had an audience of over 18 million in 2007 and is projected to have 28 million this year.
You would expect that the demographic reach of people downloading podcasts would tend to be teenagers but as you can see from the information below, the 35-44 year old group is not far behind.
A podcast is a series of audio or video digital-media files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds, to portable media players and personal computers. (Wikipedia) How can this media benefit you in your health care talent needs?
Since this is a relatively new space, there are limited uses at the present time. One site that has been around over a year now is “Jobs in Pods”. This site will help you in the production of any podcasts and also allows you to place the podcast on your career site as well as their site.
One of our clients – Exempla (see screen shot below), has received over 16,000 downloads in less than thirty days. With a cost of less than $1000, their three podcasts resulted in a ROI of 0.16 cents per download.
Mobile advertising is just starting to take off, so we all expect to see an increased use of podcasts via mobile marketing. Oh my goodness, do we really want our phones receiving ads, podcasts and video clips??
As you can see, traditional advertising of print ads has certainly taken a dramatic turn. Today’s media is more interactive with the audience and therefore more engaging to the passive candidate. Best of all, methods such as Podcasting are much less expensive than a traditional print ad.
We’re on the Road!
September 30th, 2008 by khart
Hodes Health Care Division will be on the road at two national conferences in October. We hope to see many of you at these important industry conferences.
ASHHRA Conference
October 11-14
Austin, TX
We’ll see you at the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration annual conference. Stop by our booth (805) to talk with us about all the ways you can strengthen and shape your Health Care Employer Brand.
Learn about our innovative products and services including RRx, Mystery Shops, Customer Service Shops, Process Improvement consulting and Hodes iQ, our award-winning ATS system. And have a bit of fun at the booth!
Judith Russell, BSN, RN, VP, Hodes Health Care Division, will be presenting a session on October 13, Employer Branding: Does Your Web Site Measure Up? This session is vital for any organization concerned about its image and the impact of its web site on the candidate experience.
American Nurses Credentialing Centers’ (ANCC) National Magnet Conference™
October 15-17
Salt Lake City, UT
Join us in Salt Lake City and stop by our booths (139 & 141) to chat with our nurse team members about your challenges and opportunities as a Magnet facility or on your Magnet journey. We can help you with employer branding, employee engagement and retention, recruitment process, and customer experience, to name just a few services.
Learn about our primary research projects, including our second survey of critical care nurses’ environments recently concluded in partnership with AACN and Gannett. Results will be published soon in Critical Care Nurse.
We’ll also be discussing the concept of Employer Branding and how it relates to Health Care at both of these meetings. The Employer Brand is what employees inside – and candidates outside – think about your company. It’s what draws professionals in, and keeps them once they’re there. If you want improve upon the results seen in many of our research studies, understanding your Employer Brand is the first step.
Blogging
September 19th, 2008 by jrussellA Web Log, or Blog, is an interactive web site created with easy-to-publish software that contains posts written in a conversational but authoritative tone. According to Wikipedia, the short form, “blog,” was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May of 1999. The modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people would keep a running account of their personal lives.
“Early blogs were simply manually-updated components of common Web sites. However, the evolution of tools to facilitate the production and maintenance of Web articles posted in reverse chronological order made the publishing process feasible to a much larger, less technical, population. Ultimately, this resulted in the distinct class of online publishing that produces blogs we recognize today. For instance, the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of “blogging”. Blogs can be hosted by dedicated blog hosting services, or they can be run using blog software, such as WordPress, Movable Type, Blogger or LiveJournal, or on regular web hosting services.” (Wikipedia)
How many blogs are there today?? According to an article in the Blog Herald, February of 2008, there were over 112.8 million blogs being tracked, which does not include the 72.82 million Chinese blogs as counted by the China Internet Network Information Center. In health care recruitment we are concerned with how many nursing, allied health and physician blogs there are. At last count there were over 2800 nursing blogs, over 250 pharmacist blogs, over 170 occupational therapy blogs and almost 1000 physician-related blogs.
Some ambitious recruiters are reaching out to these passive job candidates by monitoring some of these health care blogs and posting comments and/or inquires related to job opportunities. This definitely can be time consuming.
However, developing a corporate blog to attract and drive candidates to your career website has proven to be more effective. Keep in mind that keeping your blog fresh and protected takes manpower. You will need someone to monitor and approve comments prior to posting on the Internet (an administrator). Plus, securing a team of individuals who will write posts is essential. To achieve optimum Search Engine optimization, we recommend that you set up a schedule/calendar so all parties will know their responsibility to this project. Fresh relevant content results in higher rankings on Search Engines such as Google and Yahoo. Hence, passive job seekers will more easily find your blog and career website.
Get as many employees as possible involved in promoting the blog. They can add the blog link under each of their email signatures. Place links on any of their LinkedIn profiles, MySpace and/or Facebook profile pages (as long as these are professional). Link to other bloggers and provide “swaps” of content or offer to author posts to other blogs.
The war for health care talent is only going to get more intense with the aging population, the aging health care workforce and the aging of our nursing and other faculty. We all need to get creative and utilize these new forms of Social Media, such as blogs, to help us capture the “A” job candidates.
Social Networking Sites
September 4th, 2008 by jrussellThe first social networking site, Classmates.com, formed in 1995. However, websites that actually began using the “circle of friends” form of social networking began in 2001 and became really popular in 2002 through a website called Friendster. Today we have over 850 social networking sites.
Social networking sites are websites used to connect or collaborate with other site community members and form online communities. People share photos, videos and chat with each other. The three most popular social networking sites are MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn.
As you can see by the table below by Compete.com, LinkedIn has experienced a very accelerated growth and now has over 22 million users/profiles.
Top Social Networks, February 2008
Ranked by Total Monthly Visits
| Websites | Monthly Visitors | Monthly Visits | Change in Total Visits from February 2008 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | myspace.com | 65,744,241 | 955,057,928 | -1% |
| 2 | facebook.com | 28,563,983 | 326,418,930 | 77% |
| 3 | classmates.com | 11,978,068 | 22,488,912 | 11% |
| 4 | myyearbook.com | 3,019,762 | 20,022,490 | 284% |
| 5 | bebo.com | 3,540,465 | 19,282,335 | 3% |
| 6 | blackplanet.com | 2,109,069 | 13,746,246 | 9% |
| 7 | hi5.com | 2,424,699 | 11,828,458 | 1% |
| 8 | linkedin.com | 3,828,407 | 11,155,614 | 729% |
| 9 | tagged.com | 2,376,671 | 10,599,014 | 11% |
| 10 | reunion.com | 6,741,879 | 10,109,933 | 28% |
| 11 | friendster.com | 1,867423 | 8,625,522 | 25% |
| 12 | orkut.com | 469,664 | 7,093,888 | 74% |
| 13 | flixster.com | 3,311,187 | 6,752,495 | 118% |
| 14 | fubar.com | 1,667,363 | 6,610,080 | 3272217% |
| 15 | tickle.com | 2,105,741 | 6,320,987 | 61% |
| 16 | cafemom.com | 1,572,890 | 6,009,659 | 495% |
| 17 | xanga.com | 1,897,345 | 5,939,039 | -66% |
| 18 | yuku.com | 921,186 | 5,483,587 | 1400% |
| 19 | twitter.com | 629,531 | 4,166,086 | 4368% |
| 20 | ning.com | 1,181,109 | 3,816,990 | 4803% |
As a Recruiter, How Can you Benefit from some of these sites??
A great analogy for social networking sites are the job boards over ten years ago. As you recall, many were springing up and then vying for market share. Back then I can recall only a small number of health care organizations were willing to consider banner advertising on some of these major boards as well as niche sites. But these organizations did an excellent job and were in the forefront of interactive marketing. Currently we are still in the infancy of these social networking sites. Some will survive, just as some of the major job boards (i.e. Monster, Yahoo HotJobs) and niche sites (i.e. major health care association sites) and some will go by the wayside. Because LinkedIn is currently the largest professional social networking site, it appears that it will definitely be around for some time.
These social networking sites house your passive candidates. You can search these sites for actual potential candidates, you can search your competitors for listings of some of their employees (and then reach out to them), you can post job openings via their career section and you can create company profiles on some of these sites. Keep in mind if you and your facility aren’t there, your competitor may be!! Today’s competition for the “A” candidates is especially fierce.
At the very least you should create your own profile on LinkedIn and consider a company profile on Facebook to attract candidates. Check out the Marines company profile on MySpace! They have achieved great success in their recruiting efforts via this vehicle. As you will note, this site has all the “bells and whistles.” Also recommend that you view some of the health care videos on YouTube. University of Alabama has several but their Emergency Department video is outstanding and a very hip recruiting tool. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bosehn85_0c .
As busy as all of you are, social networking sites will definitely be part of the future in recruiting. Therefore, we recommend that you “dive in” and be one of the first.
The next article will discuss blogging so stay tuned.
What is Social Media?
August 20th, 2008 by jrussellSocial Media has become the new buzzword in recruiting, along with Web 2.0. What do these terms mean, what do they incorporate, and how can any of this help you in your recruiting efforts?According to Wikipedia, social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio.
(See Attachment A: Darren Barefoot created this starfish based on a video where Robert Scoble explained it. http://conniebensen.com/blog/2007/11/03/scobles-social-media-starfish/ ).
In other words, social media incorporates social networks, blogs, podcasting, user generated videos, chats and mobile media, to name a few.
What’s the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0?
The term Web 1.0 actually came out after the introduction of Web 2.0 and includes the time span 1994-2004 which featured the development of the World Wide Web.
Information and career sites that were launched during that time all had static verbiage. There was not any interaction between individuals. (If you recall, many of us actually used dial-up during those years.)
In 2004, the term became notable after the first O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference.
According to Tim O’Reilly:
“ Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.”
Web 2.0 is sharing information and collaborating on the Net. Attachment B demonstrates different media, services and software used in order to enhance interaction between two individuals on the Internet (A Tag cloud constructed by Markus Angermeier presenting some of the themes of Web 2.0.).
In upcoming posts we will talk about some of these tools and how you can utilize them to attract your hard-to-fill health care candidates.
In the next posting, we will first look at Social Networking sites, particularly because there is so much hype over these sites and so much discussion about them these days.