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Cynthia Giles

Cynthia Giles

Exciting Sites: Want to Join the Circus?

cirque-3

“Your corporate website is increasingly the soul of your recruiting process. And as you know, it’s not a one-time effort but a continuous improvement process that demands a fair share of development and analyses.” That’s the opening of the descriptive blurb for a session at Kennedy Information’s upcoming Recruiting 2009 Conference and Expo.

Since I think those two points are absolutely correct—it was a surprise to find that this single session is the only mention of the corporate Careers website in the whole conferences agenda, which covers more than three days of sessions, keynotes, workshops, intensives, and summits.

That’s not to say the topic won’t come up in other discussions at the conference, but from the agenda standpoint, it certainly seems to be in an isolated position. The ERE Expo for Fall 2008 also had just one session focused on the corporate website, and the Kennedy Conference in Fall 2008 had none.

So I started to wonder why the “soul” of the recruiting process isn’t getting more attention in these venues—and I still think that’s a very good question. But before I could start looking for answers, I noticed that one of the speakers involved in the Kennedy session (which is a panel discussion) was the Employment Manager for Cirque du Soleil.

How fast do you think I got to their site?

Some of you have already been there and back between the last paragraph and this one, I’ll bet. Because we ALL want to run away and join the circus. Plus—one just has to be curious about how an over-the-top fantasy factory like Cirque would design their Careers website.

Well, I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t exactly what I found. The site is a bit more boxy than I imagined, for one thing, and although the Home page is madly visual, the secondary pages are basically text on white. There’s an image slideshow running on each page, but it’s rather small.

On the other hand, the unusual color scheme definitely sets it apart—and the functionality is top-notch. All the right information, nicely accessible.  And there is certainly enough of the unusual to convey a sense of Cirque.

So what about some other exotic employers? Of course Cirque has a huge operation, so they hire all kinds of people. Pilobolus, on the other hand, is a small organization, and it’s all about dancers. But, yes, they do have a sort of miniature Careers page (Menu, Contacts, Work with Us), tucked into their absolutely stunning website:

pilobolus-1

Then for a last stop, I thought of Las Vegas. And I learned—which I did not know–that MGM Mirage owns just about everything in Vegas. Which is convenient for job-seekers! The available positions seem to be of the ordinary sort (i.e., accountants and receptionists, not croupiers and showgirls).  But the Mirage Careers site is practically a mini-vacation, with good music and glamorous visuals. Worth a visit.

mirage-1

So what’s the takeaway from these sites, if your company doesn’t happen to walk on the wilder side? The main thing I’d note is that they deliver much more than information. They capture the feeling of the employer brand, and create excitement about the idea of working there.

That’s actually something any employer can do, by developing a site that reflects what’s special about the company. Just look at one of my favorites, Umpqua Bank, for an example that’s not exactly exotic, but still very distinctive and inviting.

Recruiting Goes Green

Green Recruiting

In honor of Earth Day, I spent some time looking for ideas and information about how the increasingly popular “green” movement can/should/will impact corporate recruiting. And I found some interesting items:

  • John Sullivan, who often leads the way on HR topics, called attention to the impact of environmentalism back in 2007. In Green Recruiting: Building Your Employer Brand, Sullivan explains persuasively that many of the best candidates (young, well-educated, responsible) will place a high value on corporate responsibility in general, and a commitment to sustainability/green values in particular. And he follows up with a detailed list of ways for companies to promote their green credentials—including (for example) providing interviewers with a fact sheet highlighting environmental values and initiatives; using recyclable paper for recruiting materials; and (very important!) showcasing green on your Careers website.
  • Sullivan’s green recruiting article sparked what could be described as a “feisty debate” among commenters. (Other descriptions might be donnybrook, free-for-all, or brouhaha.) Worth reading—not only for the entertainment value, but a a reminder that passions can run high when it comes to the topic of environmental action, even in this relatively tame context.
  • Taleo touts its greenness, focusing on “electronic recruiting saves paper.” That’s a valid point, but since erecruiting is Taleo’s business anyway, they might need to look for ways to go a little further. The article does discuss energy savings through software-as-a-service, based on the advantages of server-pooling. Interesting—but there’s a long way to go before SaaS makes a big environmental impact.
  • The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University implemented a “no goodies” policy for its campus recruiting events. Noting that “Duke MBA students accrue a significant inventory of giveaways” from the 150+ companies that visit Fuqua annually–and citing the energy costs of shipping, plus the amount of waste created by packaging and discarded items–the school no longer allows companies to bring piles of stuff to recruiting events. Again, interesting. But will other schools follow suit?
  • The February 2009 Update newsletter from CareerXRoads contains a short but very thoughtful piece called “Staffing’s Carbon Footprint=1.25 tons of CO2 emissions per hire and why you should care.” They suggest that staffing professionals honestly assess their company’s commitment to sustainability, determine the level of commitment, and analyze the environmental impact of their own departmental activities. They also offer a definition of “green recruiting” that is definitely worth reading (or possibly memorizing).

One point that occurred to me often while exploring resources for this topic: How much of the greenness claimed by companies (whether for recruiting, for public relations, for advertising, or otherwise) reflects real commitment, and how much is mere expediency? Another post, perhaps . . .

Thanks to Luz A. Villa for the image “Living Earth.”

A Macy’s Mystery

When it comes to the “why” of a perplexing matter . . . I’ll keep working on the mystery long after I should have stopped. In this case, I started out with one perplexity and ended up with another–but overall, the quest produced some interesting results. So let’s retrace:

7 AM. A post on ere.net asks: It’s Web 2.009. Is your company’s career portal keeping up? Naturally, I’m hooked! But it turns out the discussion is mostly concerned with usability. (Some good tips on UI testing, by the way, so worth a read.) Very important of course, because really bad functionality will be a deal breaker for most visitors. But “keeping up” today means much more than decent (or even flawless) functionality–and there’s nothing very new in the post. Except . . .

7:15 AM. I notice this sentence: “Congrats to my buds at Yahoo for winning ERE’s prestigious 2009 award for best corporate careers website last week.” Rush to award site to find out the award criteria, rush to Yahoo! Careers to see what the judges liked.

7:30 AM. Disappointed. (a) No criteria. (b) Yahoo very nice but not fabulous. Attractive, upbeat, easy to navigate, and plenty of amenities—but no surprises. And certainly not at the leading edge.

7:45 AM. Since there the website provides no stated criteria for the award (well, not really—just some general questions the nominees must respond to), I looked for previous winners to see if there would be a theme. Hmmmm. For the record, the 2008 award went to KPMG, with Johnson & Johnson and The Warehouse as finalists.

8 AM. Fly-by of cited sites reveals the 2008 crop to be nice (KPMG), nice (J&J), and . . . were they talking about the New Zealand-based retailer? If so, it’s nice. Looks like the common theme in all three sites might be gee-whiz graphic effects on the landing pages.

8:15 AM. Make more coffee.

8:30 AM. Return to original post, then follow another lead, from mention of 2008 Forrester Research study entitled “Best and Worst of Career Web Sites.” Track down press coverage and learn that Forrester reviewed twelve sites for the study:

American International Group (AIG), Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and The Goldman Sachs Group in the financial services industry; JCPenney, Kroger, Macy’s and Rite Aid in retail; and job boards CareerBuilder.com, Dice, Monster and Yahoo! Hotjobs.

8:45 AM: All the reviewed sites failed the test—and apparently, they failed abysmally. According to this summary in The Industry Standard:

“Ten of the 12 sites reviewed scored below zero,” the [Forrester] report reads. A passing score on all 25 criteria Forrester examines would be a +25 or higher, with a score range of between -50 and +50. “Yahoo! Hotjobs fared the best at +10, which is 15 points shy of a passing score; Merrill Lynch fared the worst at -18. The average score across all of the sites evaluated was -8.8,” Forrester reports.

So what was wrong? Here again, specific criteria were not revealed in the summary. But according to Forrester, common problems across all industries included: “missing content and functions, flawed navigation flows, illegible text and poor use of space, as well as poor error handling and missing privacy and security policies.” And the report concludes that “companies need to design career sites with the user in mind and begin revamping by first fixing problems that inhibit site usability.”

8:45 AM. There are now three fascinating new questions that demand following up. Question 1: Did the Forrester-reviewed sites fix their problems in the months after the report was published? Question 2: How did Forrester manage to extract what it calls “best practices” from this batch of bad sites? And Question 3: How did the Macy’s Career site go from industry-leading innovator to—

9 AM: Decide post will have to be in at least two parts. Stay tuned!

Footnotes and Follow-ups: Trends, Metrics, Talent Wars (and Jack)

jack

First, a return to the ongoing question of “what’s up” in recruiting. Standout Jobs surveyed corporate recruiters and HR professionals at 450 companies (mostly small to mid-sized) about recruiting trends for 2009:

  • Predictably, 43% of respondents will cut spending on job boards. The top three areas expected to receive greater emphasis are referrals, company Career website, and internal transfers. Respondents see social networks and candidate relationship management as the top tools to improve recruiting efforts in 2009.
  • Surprisingly, almost half the respondents expect hiring to increase sometime in 2009. Also a surprise—“lack of qualified candidates” came in first among anticipated challenges, followed by “uncertainty in our industry.”
  • Somewhere in between . . . Twitter was dead last in the tools category.
  • Download Recruiting Trends 2009.

Also relating to the “what’s up” question: A recent Business Week article asserts “Yes, There’s Still a Talent War.” Columnist Liz Ryan says “Employers are starved for solutions. Candidates who bring a world view, focusing on problems and even evaluating possible solutions on the spot—sometimes before Day One on the job—will get hired, candidate surplus be damned.” Worth pondering whether (a) that is true at your own company, and if so, (b) whether your company’s Careers site gets that message across.

Next, another tidbit on recruiting ROI: Talent management hub Taleo (which offers ROI consulting services, among many other products) has some interesting white papers on the topic.

And—found while (still) looking for recruiting metrics—this provocative self-assessment tool from Lou Adler: “’Crazy Metrics’ for Progressive Recruiters.” Although Adler’s inventive measurements (such as the Maslow vs. Money Index, Gauge of Persistence, and Unsolicited Referral Rate) are intended to evaluate personal productivity, it’s interesting to see what happens if you apply the same tests to a Careers site.

Finally, because I can’t resist, an update on Jack. As you may know, Mr. Box has recovered from his brush with death and is back at the helm. But did you know that JITB created a standalone website—HangInThereJack.com—for the campaign? In addition to a series of (hilarious) webisodes that follow the dramatic events surrounding Jack’s coma, the site offers ringtones and badges for the true Jack Fanatic, plus social media links.

And as it turns out, the whole coma campaign was designed to set up a JITB image makeover. New logo, new website design, new media-enriched office for Jack, and a (hilarious) new Twitter stream in which Jack really does answer the question “What are you doing right now?” I’ll leave off with a sample:

jack-twitter

Small Is the New Big

bonsai

A friend whose daughter is graduating soon from a very good college lamented that the young lady has not gained much practical knowledge about starting a career. He asked what advice I would give her, and—after much thought—I came up with the following: “Find something you can do without being dependent on a big company.”

I don’t think this was exactly the kind of advice he had in mind, but I’m sticking with it! Because one of the loudest, clearest messages in business news these days is that “big” is not necessarily a good thing.

In a recent Harvard Business article (“Why Small Companies Will Win in this Economy”), management consultant Peter Bregman contends: “The gap of confidence between small companies and big ones is growing. We used to rely on the security of big companies. That’s why we worked for them. And hired them. And put our money in them. “

No more, says Bregman, and he provides some interesting anecdotes about the shift of valuable contracts away from impersonal giants to the kinds of smaller companies where a buyer can get the CEO on the phone.

Job-seekers may be starting to feel the same way–and the “small is beautiful” trend has as much appeal for mid-career candidates as for new graduates. Wall Street Journal Careers columnist Sarah Needleman discusses some advantages in the article “Moving to a Small Company Can Lead to Big Rewards.”

So what does this mean for the Careers site? Three first thoughts:

1.  Smaller companies can start to use their size as a recruiting advantage. For example–promoting the values of an environment where workers have direct lines of communication to management.

2.  Bigger companies can work harder to provide personalization. Recruiter profiles and blogs, dedicated Career contacts, and messages from management are examples of features that create candidate trust.

3.  The value of having an alumni section is increasing. For one thing, it’s smart to keep alumni connected to the company—they represent a potentially very useful talent pool. But beyond that, with so much bad news about employment these days, candidates may be reassured by knowing former employees liked the company enough to stay connected.

One last first thought: Breaking big sites into smaller components (focusing on specific divisions, job types, career paths, or some other unifying theme) could be an effective strategy. But it’s a more radical approach, so I’ll do some research to see if the idea has merit.

Thanks to Dave Friel for the bonsai image.

Circular Motion: Two Views of Employee Referral

swa

Conventional wisdom says: Employee referral programs are an excellent source of high-quality, low-cost hires.

Leigh Buchanan says: Not so fast there, buckaroo.

Or words to that effect. The funny and insightful Buchanan, an editor-at-large for Inc., asks a good question in the March issue:  Is Your Company Inbred?

And though she acknowledges the advantages of employee referrals, she also points out that:

Biodiversity is one sign of a healthy ecosystem; mutts tend to be sturdier than purebreds. Companies that hire lots of people who know one another—because they attended the same schools or play golf together every weekend or used to work together someplace else—may reduce the diversity of their workforces’ experiences and perspectives.

This particular concern is probably more of a danger for small to mid-size companies than for giant corporations. But it might actually be most hazardous in specialized departments of large companies, where cliqueishness can take root easily.  And there are other potential issues as well, so it’s worth taking a look at both sides of the referral coin.

Employee referral programs have the power to create “virtuous circles,” where well-chosen employees provide links to other good employees, and the effect builds. Ideally, the circle develops and sustains itself because . . .

  • Employees won’t risk their own reputations by referring people who don’t fit the company or job.
  • Referred applicants already have knowledge of the company from their referring friend, so they have positive (or at least realistic) expectations.
  • People who already know and like each other have an enhanced chance of working together well.
  • Referrals often produce passive candidates who would otherwise be hard to find.
  • Referring employees have an investment in the success of their referees.

Case in point: I spent a year on contract at Southwest Airlines (and yes, it’s a ton of fun there), which is perhaps the poster company for employee referral. Indeed, getting your resume read at SWA can be about like getting your toddler into a top-tier nursery school: you just have to know somebody!

To get a feel for the virtuous circle effect at SWA, look at their Careers landing page (which is conveniently reproduced at the top of this post). The prominent visual of happy people serves the purpose of attracting applicants, but it also sends signal that Southwest is looking for people who will be happy. The happy factor is established as a key driver for hiring—and every single page on the site builds that message.

Happy people want their friends to be happy too! And companies (like SWA) that actively look for sociable employees get an automatic advantage, since sociable people tend to know lots of other sociable people, so the effect expands. Many of the companies on the Fortune list of 100 Best Companies to Work For have harnessed the power of happy to build their own ranks through employee referrals.

But the potential also exists for employee referrals to create vicious circles, in which employees manipulate harried hiring managers in order to build their own little fiefdoms, populated with people that agree with them or will at least go along with them.  (Sounds harsh, but harsh happens.)  And since happy-ness is not a key reality at every company, employee referrals may sometimes be driven more by incentives than by team spirit. In addition, employee referral programs are increasingly exploited by external systems—but that’s another post.

At the bottom line, though, employee referrals are usually very cost-effective, yielding the best cost-of-hire of any method. So check out John Sullivan’s list of reasons why referral programs fail (sort of best practices in reverse), and take a look at a few Careers sites that do a nice job of promoting employee referral programs:

For further reading, there’s an interesting white paper on employee referrals, plus a LOT of links, at The Corporate Recruiters Blog.