Interviewing and attracting passive talent...

This is a subject I’ve been meaning to write about for a while, but I’ve been prompted in to action after seeing the following Tweet last week:

If you're asking passive talent "So tell me why you want to work here..." You're Doing It Wrong. #facepalm #talent42
— Amybeth Hale (@researchgoddess) June 27, 2013

‘Passive talent’ is a phrase I’m sure anyone involved in recruitment & hiring will be very familiar with, but for the benefit of those new to hiring, it’s a catch-all phrase to describe high calibre potential employees who are not actively looking for a career move, but who might move if the right opportunity were to find them.

It’s widely accepted that around 80% of the workforce in the UK (or 79% worldwide according to those in the know at LinkedIn) fall in to the category of being ‘passive’, whilst the remainder are those who are proactively searching for a move.

When searching for the best available talent for a vacancy, it therefore makes sense to be fishing from both ponds, rather than just posting an advert online and hoping that the best candidate will fall within the 20%. Another widely held view is that the 80% contains a higher proportion of quality candidates – those who are most effective in their given role, and are therefore well rewarded and happier in their existing employment.

All common sense so far, but when it comes to actually engaging with ‘passive talent’ many employers fail to adapt their communications and interview questions accordingly to reflect the fact that they are the pursuers and not vice versa - as highlighted so well in the Tweet above. Incidentally, accordingly to her Twitter bio, Amybeth is a 'Senior Talent Sourcer' for Microsoft in the US - a business and brand which I'm sure doesn't exactly struggle to attract potential hires.

These candidates do not expect to answer why they want to work for your organisation or why they want to leave their current employer (certainly at first stage interview). They might not want to do either…  yet!

They must have some level of interest to have made it through to interview, but there is still work to be done to move them from being merely interested on an exploratory level to being prepared to leave a job they were otherwise happy in to join your firm.

If the individual has been introduced via a recruiter/head-hunter you have an advantage. The recruiter should be able to provide more information on what makes the applicant tick – what would appeal to them, and what their current position might lack.

Things to consider:

·   

    Standard interview questions: do these need adapting? Instead of ‘Why do you want to work for us?’, how about: ‘What would you be looking for from an organisation if you were to move from your current employer?’

·   The interview process: does the direct line manager typically get involved at first stage interview? If not, this needs to change. The candidate will want to see who they would be working for if they’re to take the process any further. Could you also bring in someone who would work in the team alongside the individual, who can champion the business to them on  a peer-to-peer level?

·   Selling the opportunity: have the interviewers been briefed on how to sell the company and the opportunity they can offer? Do they all know there is more of a need to do so?

In summary, I’m not suggesting you should have to jump through hoops to entice someone to your organisation, but by recognising an individual is already content in their current position and making a few tweaks accordingly to the interview process, you are more likely to secure the best available talent for your business when the opportunity arises.

Do you have any tips/advice for employers looking to attract passive talent? Or any related experience you’d like to share. If so, please add to the comments below…

#AskBalance - Career Advice for accountancy and finance

Back in April, we started a new 'ask the expert'-style feature at Balance Recruitment - #AskBalance

First up as our resident expert was Tony Vickers. Tony heads up our accounting division recruiting in to Commerce & Industry. He has this year been crowned 'Best Permanent Consultant' at the Global Recruiters Awards, and 'Recruiter of the Year' in the Recruiter Awards for Excellence.

See below one of the questions answered by Tony, and click here to see the full feature. 


I'm a qualified accountant looking for my first role in industry.  What are my options?

Completing your accountancy training in practice is a solid grounding for a move into industry.  Whether you qualify as an ACCA or ACA or in a small, mid tier or top 4 practice; there are plenty of options for you.  The most common move for someone at a newly qualified level would be to take a role either in internal audit, group finance or financial accounting.  It is less common for newly qualified accountants to take a first step into a commercial/analytical role which tend come once you have cut your teeth in industry in a more traditional accounting role.  Generally those FTSE 250 businesses tend to favor people with a ‘top 4’ background however this is not always the case with those training in a smaller firm tending to gain a greater breadth of experience which is valued.

Salary Expectations - how do you know what to aim for?

Having recently compiled data from across the UK for a salary survey we conducted in our Legal Accounts division (results to be published on our website in July if you’re interested!), it got me thinking about how it will affect people’s expectations of their worth. And by “worth”, I’m talking specifically about the basic salary they are paid by their employer to do the job they do.

A common mistake I see people making is relying purely on one source of information and believing that to be sufficient evidence. I do hope that our salary survey will prove to be a useful, accurate measure for employers and employees alike, but it should only be viewed as guidance. For example: the level of responsibility and day to day duties of a Management Accountant can differ widely from one firm to another, so going by a job title on a salary survey alone is not sufficient.

Another source of information that often misleads us is job vacancies. An individual might read through a job advert, mentally tick off all the duties and reach the conclusion they should therefore expect to be paid the top end of the salary bracket. Securing interviews for these positions will provide even stronger evidence that this is achievable. Of course, on some occasions this will indeed be the case, but if you’re only reaching interview stages and not securing offers, it may suggest otherwise.  

As a recruiter working in a very niche market for many years, I like to think I have a pretty accurate view of what is an achievable salary expectation from those I meet with, and when conducting interviews with jobseekers, it’s an important part of the registration process to ensure that expectations are realistic, which from time to time does involve bursting a few balloons.

Naturally, I don’t expect everyone to take my views as gospel (I’d like it, but I don’t expect it), but you can generally rely on experienced recruiters to have a good understanding of what would constitute a reasonable expectation. It’s sensible to look out for relevant salary surveys and vacancy adverts to see what might be achievable, but be wary of placing too high an emphasis on them as you might find you’re pricing yourself out of being considered for good opportunities.

Managing salary expectations in the hiring process

In the increasingly competitive “war for talent” we are experiencing in the world of recruitment these days, you’d be forgiven for being a little surprised to hear that there are employers who will go through a lengthy application and interview process and then knowingly offer their preferred candidate a salary lower than the figure they’re looking for.

Certainly it comes as a surprise to the candidate, and not a nice one. We’ve experienced it on a couple of occasions recently despite making the individual’s salary expectations explicitly clear from the outset when making the initial introduction.

It’s understandable that the employer ultimately makes the decision on how much they feel each individual is “worth” in relation to an opportunity within their business, but if there is a difference between the salary expectation of the candidate and the employers’ valuation of their skills and experience, this really should be addressed as early as possible in the hiring process to save wasted time and to improve the chances of securing the desired individual.

If it’s not dealt with until the point of offer, the underlying message sent to the jobseeker is: “we think you’re good, but not as good as you think you are” and all the faith and buy-in that has been built up during the interview process is immediately put at risk. The jobseeker, believing they’d gone through this process with their minimum expectations established, may feel undervalued and misled. There’s a high chance they’ll decline the offer and walk away from the process with a very low impression of the firm employer brand.

Managed properly this can be avoided:

• If a candidate’s salary expectation is above the level the employer is prepared to go, they shouldn’t be entering the interview process, unless it’s made clear to them that they are asking for a salary above budget and would need to lower their expectation. They may choose to walk away, but better that happen  earlier rather than later in the process.

• If the candidate is within budget range but they are pricing themselves out of the running by asking for a higher salary level than other comparable applicants in process, this should be addressed. They may not be aware they are asking for a salary level above market rate and may just need their expectations managed before reaching the end of the process.

These conversations can easily be held by recruiters who ultimately want to assist all parties in reaching a successful conclusion to the process. They should also be able to help in identifying early on if a difference in salary expectation is likely to be a deal-breaker or something that can be managed.

“Oh and one more thing; we need CV’s by 16:00 today”

Some blogs just write themselves...

Ask Balance

Do you have any questions you'd like answered in relation to recruitment, interviews or a career in accountancy?

We've launched an 'Ask Balance' feature over on the Balance Recruitment website this week, and my colleague Tony Vickers is first up in the chair. Tony has been recruiting for finance and accountancy staff in London for over 10 years, working with some of the worlds best known brands across a variety of sectors. 

He has been shortlisted for the 'Agency Recruiter of the Year' Award at this years Recruiter Awards for Excellence, and is eager to take your questions. 

Get involved here: #AskBalance

Job Boards and the battle for quantity over quality...

With the threat of social media networks moving in on their territory, job boards have had to work a little harder recently to convince their clients (e.g. recruiters and direct employers) that their services are still as valuable as ever and that their well established business models can withstand the threat posed by LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

This is most notably evident through the significant increase on advertising spend to increase the number of job seekers registering on their sites. The campaigns seem to be working, with a number of job boards boasting record traffic statistics.

So what does this mean for the clients who advertise vacancies on their sites? Does it improve their chances of finding the best candidates? Possibly. Does it mean they will receive more applications? Certainly. Does it mean they’ll spend more time filtering out irrelevant applicants? Definitely. Quantity is assured, quality isn’t.

One job board even seems to actively promote the ‘spray and pray’ method of searching for work in their TV campaign, implying that a wholesale change in career profession is achieved as simply as sending your CV off for something that catches your interest!

Ask any recruiter what they dislike about using job boards and they’ll all tell you the same thing; too many irrelevant applications. Job board users can send their CV’s to countless vacancies in no time, regardless if they do not have the experience requested in the vacancy advert.  Very few recruiters will tell you they just want even more applications.

There is also a logical argument to say that this focus on volume has a negative impact on the job seekers who use the job boards in the manner intended. Relevant applicants will inevitably get overlooked from time to time when their CV’s are buried in amongst hundreds of irrelevant applications.

So what do I think job boards could do to improve their services? Here are a few suggestions:

·         If a job seeker is applying for a very wide range of different role types, at salary levels that indicate a reasonable level of previous experience might required, send a ‘yellow card’ email, asking them to be more realistic with their applications, or face restrictions on the number of applications they can make.

·         Limit the number of applications job seekers can make daily. This might be a bit extreme, but it would encourage job seekers to spend more time reading through adverts to see if they have a realistic chance of being considered.

·         Universal use of filtering questions. Some job boards have this feature, but couldn’t they all allow the advertisers to pose some yes/no experience questions that filter out unsuccessful applicants?

·         Require more information to be entered manually by the job seeker for each application (to reduce spamming). Adding a layer of process in to the application process will take more effort on the job seekers part. Perhaps allow the vacancy advertiser the option to add a specific question field, relating to the advert (e.g. ‘please describe your involvement in a systems upgrade project’).

So when I receive a promotional email from a job board telling me that their new TV advertising campaign is about to start, I now find my finger pressing the delete button before I’ve reached the end of the first sentence.

What do you think of the above suggestions? Would they improve service for you as a recruiter/hiring manager? Or would they be too restrictive as a job seeker? Or have you got any better suggestions? Please comment below…