Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

7 Ways AI is Simplifying Recruiting

This week, from my friends at DeVryWORKS: The world of talent acquisition has never been so challenging. In most of the developed world, the pace and volume of hiring has picked up significantly, yet most recruiting teams have not adequately staffed up to cope with the demand. At the same time, manual processes are still king, with resume screening and interview selection and scheduling among the most labor intensive.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform recruitment operations, but it must be used strategically, since most agree that talent acquisition should be a highly personalized, human to human engagement. The sweet spot of AI here is the lower level, repetitive tasks that eat up the time of the recruiter, who should instead be using his or her interpersonal power to draw talented individuals into the organization. Here are a few promising AI-related technologies that both simplify and streamline recruitment operations.

ClearFit

 The “Smooth Hiring” sourcing program automatically broadcasts a job description to the top job boards and identifies applicants that match your needs through a ranking process based on previously identified attributes. Candidates with a Strong Fit score meet or exceed at least 18/20 traits (including 5 Critical Traits), and all minimum skill and experience requirements. Recruiters receive an email every time there is a new Strong Fit, and once every 24 hours notifying them of all new candidates from that day. 

GapJumpers

One of the most challenging hurdles recruiters face is unconscious bias, which is triggered by our brain making quick judgments and assessments of people and situations based on our background, cultural environment and personal experiences. GapJumpers combats this by offering a blind-audition process in which candidates are given a job-related assignment and hiring managers assess the completed task without seeing any personal identifiers, including name, gender, work experience or education.

Harver

This all-purpose assessment engine allows TA professionals to measure everything from personality across six different dimensions and cognitive and problem-solving capabilities to language proficiency and situational judgment specific to the role in question. It can even measure a candidate’s work environment preferences and compare them to your organization’s to better ensure a match for cultural fit.

Ideal

This software automates resume screening by applying machine learning on an existing resume database. According to Ideal, the program determines which candidates went on to become successful and unsuccessful based on their performance, tenure, and turnover rates. It learns about existing employees’ experience, skills, and other attributes, and applies this knowledge to new applicants in order to rank, grade, and shortlist the strongest candidates. For the applicants themselves, the software uses publicly available data to offer recruiters a more complete profile of previous employment and social media engagement.

JobPal

Custom-build recruitment chatbots like JobPal allow TA professionals to respond to candidates in real-time and guide them, step-by-step, through the application process. Many candidates fatigue before they can finish an often lengthy form, but chatbots can prompt them for the same information in a more user-friendly format. And, if candidates don’t provide everything required, chatbots can check in to remind them.  Bots can also maintain an active relationship with a candidate, providing status updates on an application, scheduling interviews, and letting them know that a job has been filled and they are no longer being considered.

Textio

Many recruiters have trouble attracting diverse candidates based purely on the language in their job descriptions. This AI program examines 40 million job listings and considers the outcomes: how many people applied, how long the job stayed open, and the demographic groups the description did or didn't attract. Based on the data, a predictive engine provides feedback on how likely a job description is to draw diverse candidates along with suggestions for how to phrase descriptions using more neutral language.

X.ai

Featuring scheduling assistants “Amy” and “Andrew,” this software allows recruiters to connect their calendars, update their preferences, and schedule phone screens or in-person interviews with candidates. Allegedly, Amy and Andrew were created based on a comprehensive analysis of human meeting habits and terminology, and their communication appears so natural people often believe they are working with humans.

 

Is Buying Followers a Good Idea?

Regardless of your industry or size, building a strong social media presence for your business is essential. Social media activity can generate the perception that your brand is worthy of attention. It can also help improve customer loyalty and patronage. But are social media marketing costs worth it?

To examine this question, let's consider the strategy of buying followers. The more haphazard your approach here, the less likely it is to pay off. Social media marketing costs are often best spent by implementing a highly targeted follower strategy.

Know What You're Really Buying...

The simplest and least expensive method to buying followers is to use a basic service that automatically adds a certain number of followers or likes to your social media account. While you may only pay a few dollars for 100 additions, you might be disappointed to learn that these new friends are bots and inactive accounts.

Many business owners try this approach hoping that an initial surge and/or having a high volume of followers will encourage interest from customers and other stakeholders. The hope is that those large likes or followers will lead to business expansion and growth.

 

Unfortunately, when it comes to social media marketing costs, you often get what you pay for. The added bot accounts often won't like or comment on your posts the way humans would. So while you are increasing your follower count, your engagement will likely stagnate. And, if your stakeholders decide to take a closer look at your account, a high number of followers combined with low engagement may negatively impact your reputation more than a low number of followers.

A better technique involves purchasing high-quality, targeted followers or likes, which typically cost from $.50 to $5 per follower, according to Chad Keller, a partner at Pittsburgh-based agency Eyeflow Internet Marketing.

“The followers that result are great for social proof and credibility," Keller says, "and also offer the potential of each person turning into a client or customer in the future."

 

To read more, check out the American Express OPENForum.

How Connectional Intelligence Drives Innovation

The brainchild of leading business strategists and researchers Erica Dhawan and Saj-Nicole Joni, Connectional Intelligence (CxQ) was coined in 2015 in their book: Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence.

CxQ is a concept that combines traditional and emotional intelligence with the power of connection (via social media, mobile devices and networks). With it people can “quickly, efficiently and creatively enlist supporters, drive innovation, develop strategies and implement solutions to big problems”.  

One example of CxQ in action can be found at the American Transplant Foundation (ATF). It uses an ecosystem of business-built web-based applications to coordinate programs and quickly launch initiatives that bring different communities together—from donors and patients to service providers and community partners. The ATF’s growing Mentorship Program is one such initiative. It matches those in need with past recipients who help them navigate the legal, medical, and emotional complexities of receiving a transplant.  

“It’s wonderful when we can connect the dots and give people a second chance at life,” says Anastasia Darwish, the Executive Director of the American Transplant Foundation.

How You Can Boost Your CxQ to Help You and Your Company Thrive

Find yourself among the different types of individuals highlighted below and learn how you can your raise you CxQ quotient to drive greater success for yourself and your organization.

Dreamers—Dreamers are the heart center of the connectional intelligence universe. They are always engaging with the future, and imagining the possibilities and what might be next. If you’re a Dreamer, increase your CxQ by sharing your ideas with different communities and networks. Keep putting yourself in places where you can see life through their eyes.

Adventurers—Adventurers are people who seek new experiences, uncharted territory and novel undertakings. They reject labels, boxes or constraints of any kind, and accept risk as part of the adventure. Use your mastered skills to get out of the box and up your CxQ. Start with what you know well and think about how you can use it to build and test new ideas.

Seekers—Seekers are people who ask the big questions that move thoughts to action. Considering all options before acting, they pursue knowledge and cultivate the insight to improve life for themselves and others. If you are seeker striving for greater CxQ, keep asking the question: “what if the accepted wisdom/same old assumptions are not true?

Inspired Leaders—Inspired leaders help team members build an architecture to achieve ambitious goals and use their influence to make a difference in people’s lives. They take risks and assume responsibility for the group’s risks. Raise your CxQ by breaking or reversing rules or processes that hold progress back. Encourage collaboration between teams and communities. Promote an environment that fails forward and fast, knowing that taking chances and learning lessons is the path to agility, innovation, and success.

Advocates—Advocates are motivated to act on behalf of others. Advocates are automatically engaged when they see a way to make a difference and bring about change. As an advocate, what issue would you like to see resolved? Elevate your CxQ by picking a cause that matters to you and focus on what it means to the people you want to serve.

For more from Erica and Saj-nicole, head over to the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

Microfeedback: The Future of Management

A few months ago, I attended an employee engagement workshop. The facilitator suggested that millennials require performance feedback more than once a year. “Maybe once a quarter,” she said.

More like once a day!” I couldn’t resist calling out.

I wasn’t kidding. For the 80 million millennials who now make up a majority of the workforce, no news is bad news. If they don’t hear from their managers frequently, they think they’re doing something wrong and quickly grow disillusioned.

Nevertheless, an open door policy in which employees are invited to stop by a manager’s office for extended feedback sessions multiple times a day simply isn’t practical. So what’s the solution?

The innovative concept of microfeedback originated in the consumer space and consisted of collecting a small amount of information from customers at key moments in their shopping experience. The goal was to gather relevant customer feedback for a more accurate assessment of their satisfaction.

Think about this, though. Why can’t the idea of microfeedback be extended to performance management? We certainly have the technology. Intra-company messaging systems like Yammer, Skype for business, and Slack are growing exponentially and with some groups (like millennials), are even  more popular than email.

Imagine that your direct report gives a status update in the departmental meeting for the first time. You think she did an exceptional job, but instead of noting it in her file to be reviewed in six months (or worse, forgetting about it completely), you send her a “thumbs up” emoticon via Slack. The action takes you less than 30 seconds, and yet your employee has a piece of encouraging feedback that will make her day.

For more where this came from, head over to the SilkRoad blog.

How to Recruit For A Small Business

In a recent Monster survey, 46 percent of respondents "indicated they would actually prefer to work at a business with between six and 100 employees." But despite the desirability, small businesses are at a disadvantage, as many may not have HR departments. They may have a harder time at each stage of the hiring process and have to be creative when it comes to recruiting new employees in particular.

I sought insight from three successful small-business owners who have mastered the recruiting process: Derek Capo, CEO of Next Step China, a study abroad program in Beijing; Erica Douglass, co-CEO of computer repair shop 1Up Repairs in Austin, Texas; and Phillip Oakley, founder and CEO of branding agency Common Giant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

What Business Owners Consider When Recruiting New Employees

Do you have a recruitment strategy? How did you come up with it?

Derek Capo: Our recruitment strategy consists of reaching out to people who are the most passionate about our industry and mission. We reach out to our community, LinkedIn, current employees or online networks on financial websites.

Erica Douglass: We've hired seven people now, all through word of mouth. Some are college graduates, some aren't. Only one of our previous employees was in a technical position before we hired him. We prefer to hire people who are trustworthy and loyal—our two key values—and train them technically. Our employees have diverse experiences and backgrounds, from a restaurant manager to a veteran to a former security guard.

Phillip Oakley: Common Giant's recruitment strategy is almost completely a byproduct of our brand and culture. The agency world can become a revolving door of talent, which we try to avoid. At Common Giant, we care less about agency pedigree and more about your life experiences and how you learn and adapt from them. I personally decided on this strategy years ago after being in the agency world and seeing incredible talent and humans overlooked. We have found the best employees to be ones that reach out to me personally and are direct with their intentions to work with us.

Where have you found your best employees?

Oakley: Most of our employees have come from internal referrals, but some have reached out without job postings to share interest in our culture. We build relationships through our social media, partners, vendors and networking. Our talent pool has spanned from Chicago to as far as the Philippines.

Douglass: We look for people who are willing to learn and will stick with us for the long term. We've found employees from playing video games and belonging to a car club. It's pretty diverse, but the key for us has been getting out of industry meetups and being willing to train people who want to learn what we do.

Capo: We have found the best employees to be ones that reach out to me personally and are direct with their intentions to work with us. This may seem aggressive, but I think it shows motivation and passion.

For the rest of the interview, check out the AMEX Open Forum.

Brian Solis on the Customer Experience

To business futurist Brian Solis, capturing an audience’s heart, mind, and spirit is mandatory.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Brian Solis, principal analyst at Altimeter, a Prophet company, who has written a book that’s not really a book. X: Where Business Meets Design looks more like a sexy app than a business how-do, but it still does a great job explaining why customer experience, more than any other business priority, defines a company’s brand and determines its outlook for the future. Here’s what Brian had to say during our recent phone conversation:

Your definition of customer experience is a little different, and how does X provide a new experience from what business book readers may be used to?

Brian: Depending on who you talk to, you’ll get a different interpretation of what customer experience means. It is sometimes thought of transactionally, and related to CRM, support, or journey mapping. In general, customer experience is misunderstood and underappreciated. My feeling is that customer experience is the sum of all engagements. It’s not about customer experience, but all experience. In this business world, we need to think more holistically because everything is connected.

Of course, it would be ironic to tell people this in a traditional book format, and I think that authors who write about disruption should disrupt themselves. For X, I considered what a high school student would take delight in learning from. I wrote tweetable sentences with lots of visuals and white space, and the result was a cross between an app and a beautiful coffee table book.

You say that having a great product is no longer enough. What happens to great products (and their companies) that don’t have creative marketing and stellar customer service behind them?

It seems obvious to make a great product backed by great marketing and service, but without a conducive culture, it doesn’t always happen. Many incumbent businesses are built on 60-year-old models and are slow to change and in danger of being left behind. Startups are taking over because they get to reimagine everything. When culture, product, and service are aligned, the result is immersive and empowering. You’ll create a living community around your brand that becomes bigger than any one product.

For the rest of Brian's interview, visit Intuit's Fast Track blog.

HR Needs to Look in the Mirror

Last year, a colleague emailed me a report by McKinsey and the Conference Board. Called False Summit: Why the Human Capital Function Still Has Far To Go, the paper eschewed the notion that companies and their leadership teams have achieved the holistic and systematic view of human capital strategy that is required in today’s business world.

Using research conducted across three methods: a global survey, a literature review, and domestic and international focus groups, McKinsey and the Conference Board identified a few specific challenges that have held HR back in its effort to make more important contributions to the organization and its operations.

The Challenges

Basic capability was cited as the first problem. HR leaders, said the researchers, aren’t able to confidently and assertively solve business issues with line leaders and define the subsequent human capital implications.

The second issue? Mindset. HR professionals view themselves as responsible for a support function. They have a low tolerance for risk and a limited sense of strategic authorship.

Finally, HR is unable to communicate the ROI or business impact of the function. HR professionals have a reputation for being somewhat illiterate when it comes to general business acumen, and even if an organization is typically supportive of innovation, the most intriguing propositions and initiatives aren’t coming from the HR camp.

The Opportunities

This research was published almost three years ago, but I still hear from a lot of frustrated HR practitioners who feel that their organizations don’t take them seriously. They complain that they can’t get budget for their projects and they live in constant fear that half the department will be laid off next week.

The strategic imperative of effective policies involving recruitment, retention, succession and workforce planning, employee engagement, and skill acquisition has never been more significant, and HR-related technology and social media developments have never been more exciting. Yet HR itself struggles to change.

It’s time for HR to look in the mirror and stop blaming the executive team, the Board, other departments, or the field’s negative perception (or all of the above) for the c-suite’s closed door policy. Perhaps, if HR professionals were more willing to expand outside their comfort zones, take risks, and consider long-term gains over short-term expenses, they could inch closer to that golden chair at the CEO’s table. Maybe if they took the extra step of educating themselves about the business beyond their immediate roles and responsibilities, they would open minds about the value of a true partnership.

For more content like this, check out the SilkRoad blog.

3 Steps to Effective Social Media Recruitment

Social media can be a terrific recruiting tool, but only if you understand your audience and the laws that formally and informally govern networks. Most organizations have figured out by now that blasting generic job postings over Twitter doesn’t generate much targeted interest. The better approach requires a bit more legwork but is certainly worth it in the end.

Locate where your targets already hang out

Most organizations go directly to LinkedIn because that’s what everyone else is doing. But depending on the segment you’re trying to attract, LinkedIn may or may not be the best option. There’s also Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram, as well as hundreds of industry-specific social networks. In an article for the Cornerstone on Demand blog, Andy Headworth suggested employing Google X-ray searches to find potential candidates across networks by using relevant keywords with job titles, skills and interests. Here’s the command:

• Site: linkedIn.com inurl:pub <“insert job title”>
• Site: twitter.com <“insert job title”> OR <“insert job title synonym”>
• Site: plus.google.com inurl: about “lives in <insert location>” <“insert job title”>

As you do more searches, you’ll notice a pattern of certain types of candidates appearing in specific places on specific networks. That’s how you’ll know where to focus your recruiting efforts.

Create audience-specific content

When using social media, it’s a best practice to engage substantially with each community before posting too much of your own content. This means commenting on others’ posts and offering feedback and ideas 5-10 times for every 1 time you submit an article or link from your company.

Your own content should present a strong and consistent employer brand. It should also be novel and relevant to the topic and/or audience. Curating interesting content from other expert sources is a smart way to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry, and using different types of content – from quotes and questions to videos and Slideshares – will prevent things from getting stale.

Here’s another important piece of advice: don’t just set and forget. Even if you have an automated system (Hootsuite, etc.) that allows you to send social media posts live at a particular time, it’s your responsibility to monitor comments and likes and engage frequently with feedback. Only then can you accurately assess if the content is fulfilling recruitment objectives.

For the last tip, check out the full post on the SilkRoad blog.

An Insider's Guide to the Hows and Whys of LinkedIn

LinkedIn has become an integral part of our professional lives. I hear a lot about the site from career advisers, but when I really want to learn what’s going on, I turn to the folks making things happen at LinkedIn’s Bay Area headquarters I chatted with Crystal Braswell, a manager of corporate communications and also a member of DeVry University’s Career Advisory Board. Here’s what she had to tell us.

What are the biggest mistakes you see people making on LinkedIn?

The biggest mistake would be not completing your profile. Simple changes like adding a profile photo or summary section can make a huge difference. We know that profiles with a photo are 14 times more likely to be viewed than those without one, and a complete summary and experience section that includes relevant keywords will make it easier for other professionals to find you.

Sometimes the best opportunities – from a dream job to speaking, mentorship and skilled volunteer positions — appear when you aren’t even looking. In fact, only 20 percent of jobs come from submitting an application for a job posting. The rest come through networking. [Read later: 5 Networking Tips You Haven't Heard]

Now, if you’ve taken the time to complete your profile, make sure you’re also giving people a sense of what you do AND who you are. What have you accomplished? Are there any hobbies that are relevant to your profession? Have you volunteered with any nonprofits in your community? Make sure it’s all on your profile. This stuff matters, and it’s what elevates your profile, transforming it into a rich portfolio that paints a complete picture of you as a professional. You never know what little tidbit might push you out in front.

Hmm, now I think I need to revise my headline. What’s yours?

I say I’m a “tech geek and PR pro leading LinkedIn’s higher education and content initiatives.” It’s more interesting than just using my job title and lets my personality show through at the start.

What’s the most interesting use of LinkedIn you’ve heard about recently?

One of my favorite recent stories came from someone who found her dream job at a media outlet. After finding and applying for the job, she took to LinkedIn to find the recruiter hiring for the role, and then used “Whose Viewed Your Profile?” to get that recruiter’s attention and land an interview. She then turned the online networking opportunity into an in-person one, connecting with a senior producer at the outlet and locking in 30 minutes to talk to her. She used LinkedIn in all the right ways, and it paid off for her!

For the rest of Crystal's great advice, have a look at the Intuit Fast Track blog.

Want to Keep Your Rep? Better Answer That Email

I’ve talked before about how responsiveness – or lack thereof – can make or break your reputation at work. Typically, I complain about people who never answer emails unless there’s something in it for them at that moment, or who take weeks to do so. However, it turns out that most people’s definition of responsiveness is even stricter than I would have thought. It turns out that your colleagues don’t want to wait for you at all.

Same Day Response is the New Normal

MailTime is an app that converts email to a text message format via the smartphone. The founders recently conducted a study of 1,500 professionals to evaluate email etiquette in 2014-15. What they discovered may surprise you.

Most people (52 percent) expect you to answer work-related emails within 24 hours, and 19 percent want that response within 12 hours. The more time that goes by, the less people tolerate. Only 3 percent think it’s appropriate to answer emails within a week. More than that? Forget about it.

Wi Fi: A Blessing or a Curse?

As technology becomes more and more instantaneous, it’s no longer acceptable to pretend you didn’t see a message right away, or even to cite the “I was traveling” excuse. Wi Fi is everywhere, so except for those precious few hours on the plane (for now, while you still have to pay extra fees), you’re on the hook to get back to co-workers within hours. Unless you’re 80, the 90s model of checking email once or twice a day is long gone.

Slow Responders Reap the Consequences

There was a time when people thought email was going away, but things have evolved quite differently. For the time being, email is still the default method of communication inside the global business world.

What happens when you take too long to respond to a message? To start, you could lose business. In my own line of work, prospective clients frequently email several speakers/writers at once and go with the person who sends back the most satisfactory response in the least amount of time. Second, you’re in danger of a misunderstanding. The sender may think the lapsed communication means you are trying to ignore him, or that you don’t think he is important.

When you get into the habit of failing to respond in a timely manner, people start to question your competence, level of organization, and work ethic. They resent having to chase you down for an answer, and they start to avoid working with you. Word gets around, and pretty soon, your overall reputation is suffering.

For more on the hazards of delayed responses, have a look at the full post on Intuit's Fast Track blog.