One sentence that really stuck out was, “You need to sell them on your company before you ever start running ads.” Being able to stand out from the crowd is just as important to your job postings as it is your brand.

Job hunters are still carefully weighing where they want to work. Yes, unemployment is still high, but along with that, employers are actually finding it more diffulcult to recruit certain positions. A report from SHRM outlines those details.

How your company is perceived by customers is important, but so is that perception by potential hires. Give them a taste of your company culture in your job postings. Draw back the curtain a bit and allow a candidate to see your company before they walk in the doors; it could save you both a lot of time.

For fun, we’ve found some creative postings that have caught our attention. Which one is your favorite?

Part 2 – Picking the Right Job Candidate

3. Applicant Screening

Past Experience

Both newspapers and paid Job Boards produced lots of applicants with lengthy resumes.  Many of these applicants did not meet the requirements specified in the job posting but this was not discovered without spending large amounts of time reviewing resumes and conducting telephone interviews. I never felt 100% confident we were bringing the right people in for interviews.

Using a recruiter eliminates this step in the hiring process and saves countless hours; however I generally found that although the applicants sent to us by the recruiter were technically qualified, they were rarely exceptional and did not bring a new dimension to the position.

Prevue APS Experience

This is where I noticed the largest time savings. Instead of reviewing each individual who applied, the APS Dashboard showed us every candidate, along with their screening question scores and Prevue Assessment scores, all grouped together on one screen. I had an instant snapshot of the candidates who had the best employee job fit for the position.

This time savings not only freed up my schedule, but allowed me to quickly respond to a candidate right from the Dashboard, before they were snapped up by another employer. I simply created an email template that I could send to each candidate I wanted to interview, further saving me time. I was also able to have an email template for candidates who did not qualify for the position, so I could thank them for applying and wish them the best.

The best part is every bit of data is saved, so when we look to expand this position, we already have a foundation of screening questions, job profiles and response emails ready to go.

4. Testing/Assessment

Past Experience

In the past with Newspaper, Recruiter or Job Board postings, the use of Prevue Assessments was generally limited to testing those who qualified for an interview. It simply was not practical to physically send individual invitations to all applicants and wait for them to complete the Assessments. This meant we could miss applicants whose credentials were less than perfect but who were a great match to the Prevue benchmark for the position – and I don’t know about you, but for most jobs I’ll take talent over credentials any day.

Prevue APS Experience

With the advent of automatic online test administration through PrevueOnline.com and the availability of unlimited use testing with the Prevue Assessments, more employers are utilizing Prevue Assessments for screening as well as supporting interviews and the final selection decision.

Each applicant had a full report linked to their account on the APS Dashboard, which provided a full job fit profile, based on their Assessment answers. I could then forward their profile to everyone involved in the hiring process, right from the Dashboard.

5. The Interview

Past Experience

With Newspaper, Job Board and even Recruiter postings we were still really making screening decisions in the course of the interview. The interview conversation and questions were pretty generic, giving the candidates the opportunity to avoid areas of their experience that they didn’t want to focus on. Most candidates have a wealth of resources to pick from to help them prepare for the ‘tough generic interview questions’, which can prevent you as an employer from getting in-depth insights.

Prevue APS Experience

We had a much better understanding of those applicants who were invited for an interview due to the thoroughness of the screening process. Our questions in the interview were therefore customized to each applicant and driven from the interview questions that were prompted by each candidate’s job suitability scores on the Prevue Assessments. With the Prevue APS having truly screened in the best applicants we were really able to focus on determining job fit and company fit during the interviews.

6. and 7. Application Verification and Job Application Decision

Past Experience

Even after reading through resumes, conducting multiple interviews and contacting references, there would still be many times where I’d feel unsure about bringing a candidate on board. This is usually where the ‘probationary period’ comes into an employment contract. We’d offer the candidate the job, negotiate the contract and hope for the best. As I’m sure you’ve experienced, sometimes the person was a great fit and other times hiring them was a big mistake that cost us time and money.

Prevue APS Experience

Because of the time and energy saved right from the start of the process, I was able to think through the hiring decision with many resources to reference for each candidate, without feeling rushed. When calling references, I had the Personality Assessment beside me to look for similar descriptions from the candidate’s past employers about their work habits and almost always found a correlation.

In addition to cutting our time to hire virtually in half and making a more informed decision, we also incurred virtually no out-of-pocket costs for posting the position (a savings of something between $1500 and $5000 or more dollars). It truly was an exceptional experience.

How does this experience compare to yours? Share your stories in the comments below.

By Ken Danderfer

Last month’s newsletter article contributed by Ira Wolfe talked to the advantage to be gained from the use of Applicant Tracking Systems (“APS”). His article got me thinking about how I used to go through the hiring process; whether using recruiters, job boards or newspaper ads compared to using the Prevue APS Pro system for a recent hire.

We recently had a vacancy open that gave me my first opportunity to use Prevue APS in a real hiring situation. I decided to document my experience using the APS Pro and compare it to how we used to go through the 7 step in the Prevue Hiring Process.

I’m sure most of you will relate to many, if not all of my past hiring experiences and appreciate the newfound ease I experienced using Prevue APS Pro.

The experience has been broken up into 3 parts. Each step of the hiring process will be looked at by comparing the old way I used to hire, with my experience using the APS Pro.

PART 1: CRAFTING THE POSITION

Tell us about your experiences trying to figure out how to best post a job opening.

Confirming the Value of Assessments

• Aberdeen research into the use of talent assessments over the last four years has shown that assessments are an incredibly valuable tool in the hiring, development and future planning processes in an organization. Organizations using assessments saw on average 18% more of their organizational goals achieved and 15% more of their new hires achieving their first performance milestone on time. (Aberdeen)
• The data gathered demonstrates again and again that as powerful a tool as assessments are in improving hiring decisions, when combined with a process for ongoing assessments throughout the talent lifecycle, they become even more valuable. (Aberdeen)
• Despite a still-tepid hiring climate, spending on assessments rose about 20 % in the US last year to between 1.5 and $2 billion annually (Workforce)
• The biggest reason organizations use a personality assessment comes down to job fit. Skill is important but skill is something you can teach.(Aberdeen Group)

Current Goals for the Use of Assessments

• Organizations are looking to assessments to help them make better selection and development decisions. When an organization invests in hiring it is not only looking for the skills required today, but to also meet the challenges of the future. (Aberdeen)
• Top performing organizations place more value on assessment data for more decisions than average or poor performing organizations. The major area of difference is that top performing organizations use their assessments to help them understand the future potential of their workforce. (Aberdeen)
• There is continued but slow movement in thinking that assessments should be an engaging experience for the applicant (Dr. Handler) – but that appears to be more talk than action. Although 80% of organizations say they are conscious and concerned about the candidate’s experience in applying for a job with their organization, less than half that number are taking steps to monitor applicant reactions (SHL)

Ideas on How to Make Better Use of Assessments

• The use of assessments for pre-hire boosts performance on several key metrics, but using them for post-hire boosts performance even further. The primary post-hire areas where top performing organizations commonly use assessments are: (1) Onboarding; and (2) Career and Succession planning.(Aberdeen)
• Top performing organizations use multiple assessment tools for specific employee groups and decision points but the top three are (1) behavioral based personality assessments, (2) skill-based assessments, (3) cognitive ability assessments. (Aberdeen, Workforce & SHL)
• A large majority of best-in-class organizations have automated assessments into their recruitment process, integrating them with their career portal and applicant tracking or processing system. This automation is yielding impressive performance improvements in key hiring metrics including improved hiring manager satisfaction and greater reduction in both time and cost to hire. (Aberdeen)

Interesting Trends

• The use of remote testing (on home computers) continues to increase with over83% of professionals indicating they allow candidates to test remotely (SHL)
• Testing via mobile devices (smart phones and other handheld computers) is emerging slowly but is expected to increase significantly in coming years.
• Social media is being used to advertise job openings and source candidates by an ever growing number of organizations. Of those organizations who are using social media in the recruitment process over 1/3 use social media to contact prospective candidates through networking sites such as Linked In and 30% use social media to source or locate candidates, essentially using social media as an advertising medium. (SHL)

If you would like more information on these studies or if you have questions on how the use of Prevue Assessments products relate to these study findings please contact your Prevue Assessments representative or support@prevueassessments.com.

Article contributed by: Kenneth J. Danderfer, Prevue Assessments. July 2011

References:

• Assessments 2011, Mollie Lombardie, Aberdeen Group, May 2011.
• Trends in the World of Pre-Employment Testing for 2011, Dr. Charles Handler, February 3, 2011.
• 2011 Global Assessment Trends Report, Sarah S. Fallaw Ph.D. & Tracy M. Kantrowitz Ph.D. SHL Previsor (Link to Report)
• More Companies Go With Online Tests to Fill in the Blanks, Ed Frauenheim, Workforce Technology

Book review  contributed by Dona Plewis of Grasslands Group

The inside cover of this book aptly summarizes why the topic of staffing assessments is important, what the reader can achieve from the book, and how the book is organized. This book review will provide a narrative of the key points I gleaned from reading the book.  As the book is written so clearly, many of the statements or paragraphs below are direct quotes, starting with:

“People are not your most important asset.  The right people are.” Jim Collins, Good to Great¹

This premise begins the introduction to Hiring Success and is supported throughout the entirety of the book.  With the multiple types of staffing assessments on the market, finding a book that clearly, decisively, and extensively discusses every aspect of staffing assessments in a non-technical manner is refreshing.

Why do we use assessments?  Ultimately, the reason is to improve performance outcomes which are measured through improved employee retention, increased productivity, better customer service, and the chance to achieve higher sales revenue.  For an organization to be effective, they require people with diverse attributes and skills.  If an assessment is used that places all candidates into one mold, that will negatively affect operations.  Hiring departments need a tool which allows them to focus on hiring candidates whose mix of skills complement each other.

One phrase that struck me was “the choice to give or deny someone a job is not a trivial decision”.    Every hiring manager is looking for the answer to “if I hire this person is he/she going to do what I want him/her to do?” and “will they remain on the job long enough to justify the costs related to recruitment and training”?  They seek a way to answer these questions and look to assessments to provide the answer.

The author very concisely covers many of the common criticisms of staffing assessments.  He also discusses the various (13) assessment methods and gives recommendations on what assessment methods to use.  One comment he made about Method 9: Localized Scoring – is that assessment results are only meaningful if they provide information that allows us to accurately predict whether some candidates are likely to be more or less effective than other candidates who might be hired.  This method (9) involves norming and criteria validation and optimization – this is one of the key areas where Prevue Assessments are aligned with the recommendations set out in the book.

We all know that assessments should be used whenever the value they provide by increasing the accuracy of the hiring decisions outweighs the costs associated with using them.  As the final hiring decision is made by people, assessments only work if they are being used appropriately and consistently.  There is a chance that, once implemented, the turnover rate of the company may increase in the short term as new employees are assimilated into the organization.  As the company fills vacancies with the new employees, the work environment will shift and the high-turnover rate will become the retention rate.

In organizations of all sizes, the difference in value of a great hire and the cost of a bad hire is apparent.   The financial value of this high- versus low-performing employee is referred to in the book, as “the performance variance”.  Assessments prove to be most valuable when they are used to select candidates for positions that have high levels of performance variance.  That said, if companies have a high turnover rate for jobs with low performance variances, assessments can provide substantial value.

The final chapter discusses the principles of implementing staffing assessments into a Company’s hiring process with examples listed on processes for entry-level and professional level positions.

With approximately 25% of the world’s six billion people being employed, the author contends that if they end up working in the right job, it will have a profound effect on every aspect of their life.  Unfortunately, suboptimal staffing decisions create job failures.  With the correct use of a staffing assessment and the Internet access, companies have a variety of choices to improve their odds of making good hires.  The question isn’t whether staffing assessments work but how do we get more companies to take advantage of the value?  This book stated its goal to be to ‘help companies hire people who are more likely to succeed in their jobs’.  If more companies read this book and take greater advantage of the benefits of staffing assessment tools, the author states that the results will be a happier workforce  – resulting in more production, satisfied customers, increased profitability, a stronger economy and, ultimately, a more stable world.

^1. Collins., J (2001). Good to great: Why some companies make the leap…and others don’t. New York:HarperCollins.

Article Contributed By: Alissa Henriksen & Mary Nutting of CorTalent.

So you have used Prevue assessments to assist you in making the ‘right’ hire but did you realize that most of your new hires  decide whether your firm is the ‘right fit for them’ within the first 18 months of their start date?  An effective on-boarding process will encourage your new hire to conclude they have made the right career decision in accepting your job offer. Most new employees are yearning for feedback and training and the opportunity to discuss their ramp up goals on an on-going basis. If your organization does not have an effective on-boarding process in place, read on to help you jump start a new program.

What is on-boarding?

On-boarding is the last stage of the recruitment process and the first steps toward retention.  It should be a key part of an organization’s talent management plan and the process for integrating new employees into their new work environment. A good on-boarding process provides:

• A strong employer welcome to the new hire
• A structured process that provides new employees with complete and accurate information about the culture, mission and goals of the organization.
• Assignment of a mentor plus interviews with co-workers, managers, and executives during the employee’s first few months to strengthen the employee’s bond to the organization and its people.

What is the difference between orientation and on-boarding?

New employee orientation generally involves a first-day session or a first week of activities that familiarizes the employee with the organization’s structure, mission, and policies.  It typically includes a review of the employee handbook and the completion of necessary payroll and benefits paperwork.  On-boarding is a much more comprehensive approach that starts before orientation and extends anywhere from three months to two years, depending on the position.   It provides a more strategic plan for employee success than orientation.

Why is on-boarding important?

Statistics show that employees are most vulnerable to leaving an organization in the first 18 months after they are hired. In most cases they have simply not found their way within your organization. Making a good first impression on the new hire is therefore critical.  Effective employee on-boarding serves three interrelated purposes.

• First, it ensures the employee feels welcome, comfortable, prepared and supported. These feelings increase the new hire’s desire to make an impact (i.e become productive).
• Second the feedback from a new hire allows you to consider changes that will promote employee job satisfaction and long term effectiveness.
• Third a well-designed on-boarding program reduces training costs, hastens time to productivity and improves retention.

What makes on-boarding work?

On-boarding is successful only when Human Resources and hiring managers are both actively involved.  The goal of this partnership is to establish a long-term relationship with the employee that starts before the employee is hired and endures the everyday trials of the workplace. While HR plays a key role in the early recruitment and orientation phase and in guiding the on-boarding process, the hiring manager must be engaged in the employee’s successful integration into the organization over the longer term.

Prevue in the on-boarding process.

You used the Prevue Selection report to support the hiring decision; however we all know that almost no one is a perfect match. Virtually every new hire has a few areas where they didn’t quite match the Prevue benchmark for the position. These are the areas where the new hire may find some challenges in meeting the demands of the job. The hiring manager can get a jump on understanding and addressing these challenges by reviewing a Prevue Personal Development report for the new hire. It will provide the manager with:

• An overall personal profile of the new hire.
• A job fit benchmark that highlights the new hire’s strengths (where the new hire’s scores match the benchmark for the position) and the areas where the new hire may be challenged (scores off the benchmark).
• Suggestions on how the manager can assist the new hire to address the challenges the new hire may encounter in the new position.

There is no better way for the hiring manager to get an inside look at the new hire. And the best thing is that if you used Prevue in the hiring process, the Prevue Personal Development is absolutely free of charge.

With so much work today being done by fewer people, it is essential that you not only hire the right people, but that you continue to invest in their development.  Managers today need to know how to get the best out of their people, which means that they need to know how to coach.

Within the framework of ‘business’, coaching simply describes a directive process, or set of skills, used to achieve optimum work performance.  As a manager we want and need results from our people.  Coaching helps to eliminate any barriers our people may experience in achieving them.

We often receive push-back, typically from time-stressed managers, on the idea of coaching.  Generally, their argument is that their people receive skills development through training programs.  Their people therefore do not require ‘coaching’ support.  As both a Trainer and a Coach, I certainly don’t want to downplay the potential benefits from a targeted Training Program.  However, it is important that we not only recognize the purpose of Training versus Coaching, but the applicability of each at the various stages of skill development.

The Training classroom model makes a great deal of sense when someone is learning a new skill.  As their proficiency level increases though, so too does their need for more specialized and individualized attention and direction.  Consider the educational model used by most colleges and universities.  As an undergrad, you are just one of many students within the program and the classroom setting.  However, you are simply there learning the basics and foundations of your subject matter.  This can therefore be taught by one person, to many.  This also then supports the economic reality of having ‘many’ to teach at this level.  The developmental model for formalized education therefore looks something like…

• Undergraduate level class           200 students : 1 professor
• Senior level class                             50 students : 1 professor
• Early graduate level class             25 students : 1 professor
• Doctorate level class                      5 students : 1 professor
• Dissertation level                            1 student : 3 professors

There is a strong recognition of the need to provide more personal direction, attention and support as the individual’s skill and proficiency increase.  This is the same need that exists within business.   Sports experts have known this for thousands of years;  that individualized attention from an expert is needed in order to aid people in unlocking their full potential.  As a Manager… that expert is you.

A training program may introduce your employees to new concepts and information.  Solid coaching from a manager will help them apply and utilize those skills.  People, fundamentally, want to contribute and do a good job.  Sometimes, simply helping them to know just what that looks like is all it takes for them to ‘do’ more of it.  The challenge, of course, is that each of your employees is different, with their own unique set of skills, attributes and approaches, which may differ significantly from your own.  Expecting that one Coaching approach or solution would work equally well with each is like expecting the one-size-fits-all shirt to truly fit everyone equally!

Instead, you need to target your coaching efforts to each employee’s specific needs.  Not only might your approach need to shift for each, but sometimes even the type, quantity and order of the information needs to be tailored.  This need not be as confusing or daunting as it sounds though.  The use of a quality tool, such as the Prevue Assessment, can provide you with a tremendous advantage, both in terms of the insights it provides and the time it saves, helping you to readily customize your approach to fit the unique needs of each employee.   Consider for a moment how advantageous it would be to your coaching efforts if you knew…

• When your preferred style is likely to work with an employee, and when it will fall short
• Each employee’s basic, underlying motivations
• Their degree of comfort with change
• The amount of detail they like (and need) to receive in your directions
• Their degree of sensitivity to your feedback
• How dependent they are upon the opinions of others in forming their decisions
• How they prefer to be rewarded
• How task versus people focused they are
• The number of balls they are capable of juggling before beginning to drop them
• The best way to capture their input and ideas
• How much they want and need to be liked by others

This is just a small indication of the wealth of information available to you through the insights that Prevue provides.  Armed with this, it is a much simpler process to tailor your coaching efforts to each employee, ensuring that your coaching is targeted, specific and truly drives results.  Frankly, we don’t enter any coaching process without a Prevue Assessment.  Why would you?

Prevue APS PRO is a complete applicant processing system that gives a customer an online career center that is attached to their corporate site. It not only advertises and processes job applicants but administers Prevue Job Fit testing.

Prevue APS PRO includes complete back end management system which allows the customer to create unlimited job postings, add up to 25 unique screening questions to each job, assign a Prevue benchmark for the position, post job openings to over 1000+ Job boards and manage all applications through an easy online dashboard.

• 2. How does The Prevue APS PRO fit into Prevue’s overall product strategy?

Prevue’s direction for 2011 and 2012 is to provide HR Tools that support a company’s hiring efforts. Prevue Assessments provide the pre-employment testing portion of the hiring process but there are many steps to the process that occur before a company tests job applicants. A company must create and post a job advertisement on multiple job boards, and or social media sites as well as their own company website. Once a job is advertised applicants must go through a process of providing specific information that a company requires such as demographic details and work and education history. Many companies want applicants to answer screening questions such as whether the applicant has a valid driver’s license, will travel 50% of the time, enjoys cold calling etc.

The Prevue APS PRO provides companies with an easy to use system that supports job postings and data collection surrounding a recruiting campaign. The system also sync’s with Prevuonline which allows a company to integrate Prevue testing at the time of application. Essentially companies can now have a hands free career center that manages all aspects of the job application process.

Prevue APS PRO is the first and most obvious HR Tool that will anchor the development of the Prevue Hiring System over the next two years.

• 3. What are the key features of the Prevue APS PRO?

Prevue APS PRO provides the following key features:

A branded Career Website

• Your Logo and corporate colors

• Integrated with your corporate site or can be available as stand-alone site.

Centralized Job Posting

• Unlimited posting of job openings

• Capable of auto-posting to 1000+ job boards

Automated Online Applications

• Easy to use and friendly process for applicants

• Customized candidate data collection- what do you want

Candidate Screening

• Job Specific Screening Questions selected by you

• Prevue Job Fit Testing Technology – Applicants take Prevue Assessments and are matched against your customized Job Fit Benchmarks.

Easy Candidate Management

• Prioritizes candidates based on corporate screening and Job Fit testing

• Provides candidate tracking and organization

Building a high performance workforce these days requires a fresh approach. That is especially clear when you consider the daily news in the USA and Europe is filled with paradox: stories of layoffs, hiring freezes and reduced hours are almost as common as the need to find and retain highly skilled talent. Other jurisdictions like Canada and Australia are well ahead on the economic recovery curve and are already feeling the pinch of a limited labor pool in many areas, both by job type and by geography.

The ability to stay competitive as the economy improves is forcing businesses to look at recruitment differently. But businesses need a workforce that is more qualified, more efficient and more skilled than ever before. Companies will not be able to fill new jobs they create or the jobs they have eliminated over the last few years using old strategies and technology.

The recently published CareerXroads Source of Hire Report¹ provides cues for employers who are ready to consider change.

One of the most powerful findings revealed is that it takes 826 visitors to a company career site to obtain one hire. This excellent Jobs2web slide helps to illustrate that an effective recruitment strategy attracts candidates from a variety of sources including job boards, social media, and search engines.

To compete for talent, employers must now add search engine optimizer to the list of responsibilities for recruiters and human resources professionals. Just last month there were 101,000,000 global searches on Google for ‘jobs’². For employers, recruitment is no longer just a human resources function.  Getting candidates to find you requires a well-executed internet marketing strategy when writing ads, using social media, and designing a career site.

The report also reported that 57.1 percent of the respondents believed that social media played an important part in their direct sourcing program. Asked to rank the impact of social media on various parts of their recruiting program, respondents said its influence was greatest on direct sourcing, college hiring, and on hiring from job boards.

The most important finding might be that internal movement is the #1 Source of Hire. Yes, that’s right – career sites, job boards, and ads on social networking sites may help increase the flow through the talent pipeline but more than half of ALL hires were filled from internal movement. It is the second year in a row that internal movement was attributed to at least 50% of the positions filled.

Referrals contributed the most new candidates when evaluating external sources of hire, followed by job boards³. Of the responding companies, 88.9 percent reported making at least one hire from Monster; 85.7 percent hired at least one candidate from CareerBuilder. Although statistics on these trends are not readily available for jurisdictions outside the USA the increased importance of both internal recruiting through social media and the use of job boards is certainly evident in Canada and Australia and will, in my opinion, develop quickly in most of the G7 countries.

Based on these results, I offer four recommendations if employers will be successful in their pursuit of skilled workers:

1. Candidates must be recruited from multiple sources including internal candidates, referrals, job boards, and social media.
2. A company career site is more important as a central point of application than a direct source of candidates.
3. An applicant processing system must be considered to facilitate the rapid and accurate screening of applications.
4. Referrals and word of mouth remain the number one source of external hires. Consequently, social networks cannot be ignored; they are viable and important sources of candidates.

1. http://www.careerxroads.com/news/SourcesOfHire11.pdf
2. Source: Google Keyword Tool. From Davis Advertising, 2011 Second Annual Survey of Job Posting Sites, Chris Taylor
3. http://www.ere.net/2011/03/17/referrals-lead-social-media-thrives-job-boards-survive-as-hiring-source/

Dr. Ira S. Wolfe c.v. http://www.super-solutions.com/our-founder.asp#axzz1IwzOJTGV

• Employment prospects are improving and hiring activity is increasing in almost all jurisdictions. The pace is faster in Canada, Australia and New Zealand but all of the G7 countries are trending in this direction.  If you are not hiring right now you will probably need to do so within the next few months.
• As employment and hiring activity pick up, competition for the best candidates will increase which in turn will drive a need to reduce the time to hire. This is already the case for those seeking IT and Software Development personnel.
• Businesses are still licking their wounds and rebuilding balance sheets from the 2009 recession so they need to do everything more quickly, more simply and at a lower cost, while still being effective – a very tall order to fill.
• In comparison to 20 or even 10 years ago businesses are employing fewer people while expecting them to assume greater responsibility and to be more productive than their predecessors. To accomplish this end businesses have to continuously seek to improve the quality of their hires.

How can you clear all of these hurdles? The following three initiatives will make your business more competitive and effective in finding top performers for your positions:

1. Know What You Are Looking For: You can’t possibly hire the best if you haven’t defined what characteristics differentiate top performers from the rest of the persons you employ in any position. Job analysis will enable you to identify the key characteristics for job success to provide better job descriptions, job ads and behavioral interview questions.
2. Move to Online Recruiting: Start with a career web site for a central source of job posting and candidate information. Couple your career web site with an online Applicant Processing System (“APS”) that enables applicants to apply for jobs posted on your career web site and enables you to identify the best candidates. These two steps will reduce your time and/or increase your quality of hire – guaranteed. Your APS will enable you to collect resumes and required applicant information, administer screening questions, administer your Prevue Assessments and receive all of this information instantaneously. In a tight labor market you can respond immediately to the best prospects. If there are too many applicants for your job openings your APS can automatically filter out the best candidates with screening questions and Prevue job fit scores. You focus your attention on selecting the best instead of sifting through a pile of resumes.
3. Source Smarter: You have to fill your recruiting funnel with good prospects if you want to make good hires. Give some thought to where the best applicants for your types of job postings will likely seek employment and make sure you are positioned to get in front of those applicants. This could be a paid job board like Monster or an industry specific job board. Expand your search to social networks and the hundreds of free job boards that should be accessible through your APS. You should be able to automate the posting process through your APS to source the most qualified candidates faster. Also consider going beyond the job boards to sourcing passive job seekers who are not actively seeking a position through postings on major social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

If you think these three steps sound too time consuming or expensive, you are wrong. Your Prevue Distributor can show you how to implement all of these steps efficiently and economically.

Written by: Ken Danderfer

March, 2011