Chris Russell (12)
Recruiting Trends
Defining Talent Intelligence
There’s been a lot of talk among HR technology vendors when it comes to the phrase ‘talent intelligence‘. Many platforms now incorporate that term as part of their feature set but what does it actually mean? Especially to the average Human Resources person who might be using it. A recent thread on LinkedIn suggest the following as a definition; “Talent Intelligence is the application of external data relating to people, skills, jobs, functions, competitors, and geographies to drive business decisions.” But in a poll on that same thread there’s a slightly broader phrase that people seemed to gravitate towards; “Talent Intelligence is the augmentation of internal and external people data with the application of technology, science, insights and intelligence relating to people, skills, jobs, functions, competitors, and geographies to drive business decisions.” I think the phrase mainly evolves from the growing field of people analytics. Former ERE editor Todd Raphael said this recently about TI…”I think people analytics generally show what happened. For example diversity analytics showing where people dropped off at each part of the hiring process and where it was worse under which manager. On the other hand talent intelligence would be forward thinking forecasts. The middle school teacher could make a great product trainer. The restaurant general manager can make a great customer service department leader or logistics manager or something else. Forecasting to make decisions for the future.” In their rush to differentiate themselves a few vendors started redefining the term and now it’s being used more and more by others in the space. A growing number of player now identify their products as talent intelligence tools. Here’s a look at some of those tools who promise to deliver data about talent; retrain.ai – claims to be the first AI platform that breaks the data silos in your organization and synthesizes internal data with thousands of external data sources. By connecting three robust datasets about people, jobs and training programs, we generate useful, validated, unbiased and actionable workforce intelligence. Censia – The Censia Talent Intelligence Platform applies AI and machine learning to talent data enabling Talent Acquisition and HR professionals with continuous, extensive and actionable insights delivered as a headless solution via API. ENGAGE Talent – a talent intelligence platform that uses artificial intelligence to score the employment volatility within a company, in order to address retention, recruitment, and skill supply and demand gaps. LinkedIn – the use of data and insights to make people your competitive advantage. Includes data about skillsets, talent demand and supply. It’s clear that today’s employers need to stay up to date on what’s happening inside and outside their own talent datasets. Doing so allows you to make better decisions and forecasting future hiring needs. Understanding this data will help you; Keep your salary and benefits on par with competitors to attract top talent. Keep your recruiting and HR teams focused on the bigger picture like the candidate experience. Getting and keeping the right candidates to help reduce turnover and increase retention. Spot problem talent areas before they arise. However it is defined the talent intelligence sector is only going to grow in importance as HR becomes more data oriented. Michelle Saunders a global recruiting executive says talent intelligence should be viewed holistically—internal and external, just as the full talent life-cycle. “In order to drive informed decisions we need to leverage external benchmarking, business use case, skills/adjacent skills, competencies, capability building etc..It is also the reason why a company’s most potent indicator for retention is their competition.”
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Recruiting Trends
The Rise of Digital Nomads
There’s a new class of workers who travel the world while working remotely. They are the digital nomads who discovered during the Covid shutdown they could just as easily work from a hostel, a campground or an RV as from an office. What makes these digital nomads different is that they are full-time employees with traditional jobs. Once mostly composed of freelancers, contract workers, and the self-employed, the nearly 11 million digital nomads now include millions of traditional job holders. Doubling in just one year, there’s now more than 6 million of them working almost anywhere they please. As a study by MBO Partners explains, “The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in major changes in the make-up of digital nomads. The biggest shift is that traditional job holders have been unleashed from their offices and many, instead of staying in one place, are taking to the road. In 2020, the number of traditional workers working as digital nomads grew 96 percent, from 3.2 million to 6.3 million.” The pandemic also increased the number of independent workers opting for the digital nomad lifestyle, but by a much smaller 12%, to 4.6 million. The pandemic prompted other changes in the ranks of digital nomads. Boomers, who previously accounted for 27% of the cohort, now make up 17%. GenXers declined by 3 points to 22%. The researchers say the decline in these two groups is due largely to Covid’s health risks “making them temporarily less interested in a nomadic lifestyle and more comfortable staying at home.” On the other hand younger workers jumped at the chance to work and travel domestically and abroad. Their share grew from 48% to 62%. By far more men than women are digital nomads. The split is 59% to 41%. The racial makeup, however, mirrors the U.S. population: 70% white, 14% African American, 7% Hispanic, 7% Asian, and 2% other. The study also found these workers to be far more technically savvy, better educated and they participate much more in work-related skills training than their stay at home counterparts. They’re also very satisfied (81%) or satisfied (9%) with their lifestyle. The same can’t be said for their employers, most of whom have no policies or programs and may not even know just how remote their remote workers are. When the pandemic forced companies to go virtual, like most other employers Morgan Stanley was expecting its employees to work from home. Most did. But a small, yet significant number discovered that remote could be anywhere in the world there’s internet access and cell service. So many became digital nomads that in June CEO James Gorman bluntly declared the company office was the place to be. “If you want to get paid New York rates, you work in New York. None of this ‘I’m in Colorado and working in New York and getting paid like I’m in New York.’ Sorry, that doesn’t work.” This geoarbitrage – workers from high-wage areas traveling to low-cost areas – isn’t the only issue rankling employers. There are legal concerns over labor laws and tax rules that vary from state to state and, even more significantly from country to country. Littler, the global employment law firm, saw the trend toward cross-border telecommuting as important enough to publish a special report. What to do about “Global COVID Nomads discusses the legal issues and compliance risks employers face when their employee travel outside the area. Covid Nomads “Domestic covid nomads cause compliance issues when they get away and start working in some new state, province or municipality,” notes the report. “But a global covid nomad, by definition, triggers international legal challenges. These challenges can be particularly tough to rectify, even hard to spot.” Individual workers too have to be aware of differing tax laws, not to mention visa and residency requirements. Global nomads may be on the hook for paying income tax in both the US and the country where they work. The situation is less complicated for domestic nomads, but they still need to understand multi-state tax rules. Travel websites and remote work job boards have sprung, if not to the rescue, at least to offer help. TravelingLifestyle, for example, has an entire section focused just on digital nomading, listing countries with tax incentives and other programs to lure digital nomads. Other sites have lists of jobs especially suited to the digital nomad lifestyle. Will the digital nomad trend survive the end of the pandemic and employers’ return to the office hopes? Without question agree employment professionals. Writes Dan Schawbel, author and managing partner of Workplace Intelligence, “Digital nomads will continue to roam the world post-Covid and companies that want to attract and retain them will enable their lifestyle in exchange for their highly-skilled talent, productivity.” Coincidentally enough, among the tech and creative jobs FlexJobs lists for digital nomads, one type in particular stands out – recruiter. John Zappe Contributed
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Recruiting Technology
How to do Video Job Interviews
For the better part of two decades, recruiters have used video interviewing to accommodate working or distant candidates, hiring teams with busy schedules and save on travel costs. It was a modestly growing trend among large and some mid-sized employers until the covid pandemic ended face-to-face meetings. In just a few months, 89% of all companies were conducting virtual interviews. Suddenly recruiters and hiring managers accustomed to face-to-face interviews had to cope with a whole new way of conducting an interview. Few knew how to do video job interviews, so most just plunged ahead and interviewed candidates as they always had. Yet video interviewing is different from in-person interviews in ways that are both obvious and subtle. Each has unique advantages — convenience and speed for virtual interviewing and engagement and personal connection for in-person interviews. With 81% of talent professionals expecting video interviewing to continue post-Covid, knowing how to do video job interviews is essential. The new norm will be a hybrid model combining video and in-person interviews, according to 41% of recruiting leaders. In this primer we’ll discuss how to do video job interviews and describe differences and some of the best practices. When to use video interviews Video interviews are most often used in situations where the candidate is remote and so is the job, or when a highly desired candidate is hesitant to take time off from work to travel. Video interviews are also a convenient way to avoid scheduling challenges, especially when the candidate is to meet with more than one person. In high volume hiring, one-way video interviews, where candidates respond on camera to a pre-recorded set of questions, are often used because they make it possible for a recruiter to review dozens of candidates in the time it would take to do just a few phone screens. Virtual job fairs serve the same end enabling two-way conversations that can lead to immediate job offers. Best practices How to do video job interviews effectively takes more than good lighting and a solid internet connection. It’s not just conducting an interview the same way you would if the person was sitting in front of you. Just as for an in-person interview, candidates need to be told the when and who and what to expect. Beyond that, they need instructions on how the technology works, especially if you’re using one of the many video interviewing platforms instead of the more familiar Zoom, Skype or Google Meet. Communicate technical details Give your candidates tips about lighting and the proper setting. Remind them the video will be recorded. To avoid the potential for interviewers being biased by what they see behind the candidate, suggest the candidate use a neutral, virtual background or, better yet, provide each candidate one. Encourage candidates to do a test run before the actual interview. And be sure everyone knows what to do in case of a loss of access. Be professional – and forgiving Log on early. No one likes to be kept waiting, but online there’s no one to reassure the candidate that the interviewer will be right with them or is running a few minutes late. If that is the case, let them know by text or email. During the interview, be professional. Without the clear cues from having a live person in front of you, there’s a tendency to be more casual. Turn off your phone and messaging apps on the computer. Focus on the candidate and don’t multitask. If you’re taking notes, let the candidate know. Otherwise it can appear you’re not paying attention. Adjust the camera position so you’re looking straight ahead at the candidate. Look directly into the camera and not down at the screen when speaking, as that’s how you make eye contact. Be forgiving of the unexpected. Latency in the connection can cause slow responses and image freezing. If your candidate is interviewing from home there may be interruptions: a barking dog, FedEx at the door, or children talking. Show the company culture One of the less obvious differences with a virtual interview is that candidates don’t get to see anything of the company culture and the environment. LinkedIn says 51% of candidates want an office tour. As a substitute, offer a virtual one. Bigger companies bring in a production team to create a highly polished tour, like this one. You can also create a compelling tour by doing what Datadog did and pull together a collection of individual pictures. Standardize the interview Whether virtual or in-person, the most effective interviews are structured. Because virtual interviews can be recorded, asking a standard list of questions of each candidate allows for easy comparison and reduces the potential for bias. At the conclusion, inform the candidate of the next steps. The video job interview advantage For companies that know how to do video job interviews effectively, they can be an advantage over competitors that don’t offer them or don’t do them well. A survey by the hiring technology provider iCIMS found 83% of candidates see employers that use them as more innovative. Virtual recruiting is not just here to stay; 7-in-10 talent acquisition professionals expect it to become the new standard in recruiting. In fact, 23% expect to rely exclusively on video. In this tight hiring environment to be competitive and attract the best people wherever you find them, it’s more important than ever that every member of the recruiting team knows how to do video job interviews well. John Zappe Contributed
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Human Resources
The Importance of Employee Benefits
It’s almost impossible to overstate the importance of employee benefits. Especially in today’s recruiting conditions. Target and Walmart recently announced 100% paid tuition programs in an effort to attract (and retain) more frontline workers. Surveys find employees consistently say benefits not just important, but often a deciding factor in whether to look for a new job or accept one. The Society for Human Resource Management found 92% of employees rank the importance of employee benefits as key to their overall job satisfaction. A survey last summer by Prudential Financial found the importance of employee benefits so significant that 73% of workers report they are a big reason for staying at their job. The importance of employee benefits to workers is so great they overestimate their economic value by almost 30% according to the American Institute of CPAs. Benefits also play a key role in recruiting talent. Job candidates have turned down offers that pay more, but don’t offer the benefits they want. Glassdoor says 57% of adults report benefits and perks are among their top considerations before accepting a job. In industries desperate for workers, especially those in retail and hospitality, employers are extending at least some benefits to their part-time workers. Amazon, for example, now gives 20 hour a week workers partially paid health insurance, fully paid vision and dental insurance and life and disability insurance. Chipotle has long provided basic benefits to all its workers and this year began offering to cover college tuition costs. Many other companies, Starbucks among them, are doing the same or, more commonly, are offering to help pay off student loans. Why are companies doing this? They recognize the importance of employee benefits in recruiting top talent and retaining workers. Because hiring demand is high and the supply of skilled workers so short, retention has become a top priority for most organizations. The technology sector long ago led the way, providing free food, unlimited time off, paid parental leave, child care and time off for volunteer work as a way of attracting and keeping their workers. The importance of employee benefits varies by generation. Older workers with grown children would rather have higher contributions to 401(k) than child care. Millennials place a premium on student loan repayment assistance. Medical, dental, vision and life insurance and some form of a retirement plan are must haves regardless of age. No company that doesn’t offer these basic benefits can hope to successfully compete for the best talent or retain workers for long. Without these, even a 30% pay premium isn’t enough to attract workers, according to the American Institute of CPAs. These are also the most expensive of benefits for an employer to provide, a primary reason why most companies today have shifted some of the cost to the employee. Not all benefits, however, have an out of pocket cost. Surveys just in the last year by Unum, Staples and SHRM found workers most want flexible schedules and the ability to work remotely most or at least part of the time. The 1,549 participants in the Staples survey declared them to be “must have” benefits. Paid time off and paid family leave were listed as top benefits by 35% and 24% respectively of the workers in the Unum survey. Some of these valued benefits don’t have a direct cost, though there can be some effect on overall productivity. However, as companies discovered during the forced pandemic shutdowns, productivity increased among employees able to work from home. Another type of benefit, so-called voluntary benefits, cost employers nothing, but add to the overall importance of employee benefits a company offers. Included among these are buying program discounts, hospital indemnity coverage that pays cash for each day of a hospital stay, long term care insurance and education savings plans. While some companies will pay the cost of one or more of these benefits, usually it’s the worker choosing the benefit who pays the full cost through payroll deduction. The advantage is that the price of the coverage or the benefit is much lower than if the worker were to buy it privately. The Covid pandemic has had a profound impact on the importance of employee benefits. It accelerated trends toward remote work and flexible schedules and has put a sharper focus on mental health benefits and wellness programs. Melanie Tinto, CHRO of the payment processing and information management services firm WEX, could have been speaking for all HR professionals when she told HRExecutive, “The pandemic has shown me that flexibility is impacting every part of the way we work, and our benefits packages are going to need to be just as flexible going forward.” ### John Zappe Contributed
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Recruiting Technology
How to Make Google For Jobs Work For You
With the majority of job seekers beginning their search on Google, no employer can afford to ignore the opportunity to post their openings to Google For Jobs. Its been said that up to 80% of all job searches start on the search engine. This free job listing tool gets as many as 150 million searches each month. And that’s just in the U.S. Indeed, which is the most heavily trafficked job board in the world, counts about 250 million monthly job searchers worldwide. The numbers alone are a reason for employers to submit their jobs to Google. Casting a wide net in this competitive hiring environment only increases the chances of attracting candidates. The phrase ‘jobs near me’ is actually of the most popular searches on Google. But more than just numbers, Google’s emphasis on user experience and its search prowess make it simple for job seekers to zero in on exactly the jobs they want. That benefits companies because the candidates that apply have targeted the job and the company with a precision few other job boards can match. When Google For Jobs was launched in 2017, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai said the goal was to “better connect employers and job seekers.” To that end, Google added search filters to so finely tune a search that job seekers can narrow down openings by the length of the commute. A search that might start as generically as “retail jobs near me” can be filtered for only certain companies, location, title, skills, date of the posting, and whether the job is 2 miles, 15 miles or anywhere. That level of filtering and search matching, unrivaled by most commercial job sites, makes Google For Jobs as useful for employers with only a few jobs as for large enterprises with thousands of openings a month. So valuable is Google for Jobs that with the exception of Indeed, job boards and staffing companies send their listings to Google. To make searching even more job seeker friendly, Google For Jobs is prioritizing listings where job seekers go directly to an application without an intermediate step to register. In announcing its “directApply” feature, Google also said it won’t allow content from career sites that spam their pages with obstructive text and images, excessive and distracting ads, or content that doesn’t add any value to the job posting or is grammatically incorrect. ATS vendors should take note because Google may penalize you after October 1st 2021 for not letting candidates apply immediately rather than forcing them to login or go through other hoops before they can submit a resume. Participating in Google For Jobs requires an employer or other contributor to code their job postings according to Google’s specific formatting requirements before uploading them. Complying with this schema can be complicated. However, most of the leading applicant tracking systems now do this automatically. Job boards also do the same, hoping to benefit from the additional job seeker traffic Google For Jobs sends. As attractive as Google For Jobs is, the tricky part is getting a job to place high up in the search results. That’s where search engine optimization is important and Google’s famed algorithms come in. They take into account a number of factors including how many of the schema’s properties are included and how specific the posting is. The ability for a candidate to directly apply for the job will rank a job much higher than a similar one without that capability. Even with a high ranking in the search results, there’s no guarantee an employer’s career site will be listed among the places a candidate can chose to go to apply. Since it’s common for a job posting to be distributed to several sites all of which may send it to Google, those from sites that best comply with the editorial content guidance are most likely to be listed as an application destination. That means Google won’t just look at the job posting, but will also weigh the value of each site submitting a job. Employers who want to benefit from the job seeker traffic and the visibility Google For Jobs can provide should do whatever housecleaning is needed to comply with the editorial guidance. Improving the candidate experience on your site not only will aid your chances of ranking high up on Google For Jobs, but it will make you a more attractive employer to candidates no matter how they get to you. ### John Zappe Contributed
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Recruiting Tactics
How to Host a Virtual Career Fair?
Well before the Covid pandemic, virtual job fairs were gaining on their live counterparts. Since Covid, these events have surged in popularity, so much so that Brazen, a leading provider of virtual recruiting events, says there are now five times as many virtual job fairs each week. And why not? The only difference between a live hiring event and a virtual career fair is the buzz from other interviews and the handshake and eye contact between recruiter and job seeker. More than making up for that is the convenience and cost effectiveness. No traffic and parking hassles for candidates who can “drop in” when they want and interview from home. For employers, the advantages are even greater. Virtual hiring events are far less expensive to host. They can run over multiple days and many more candidates can be accommodated. When you have multiple jobs, a virtual hiring event helps fill them fast. So how do you host a virtual career fair? It’s never been easier. Dozens of companies offer career fair platforms that range from the simple to highly sophisticated ones that let you customize interview “booths,” post videos, schedule and pre-screen candidates and deliver resumes and candidate leads to your ATS and CRM. Step one is to have a hiring plan. That will help you narrow down your choice of platform. You need to set goals and know how many different jobs you’ll be hiring for. How many recruiters and hiring managers will participate? This will let you know how many booths or chat rooms you’ll need. Will candidates be pre-screened? Most career fair software enable pre-screening questions with the successful candidates scheduling an interview slot or going immediately into an interview. Do you want to include videos? They’re a good way to give candidates a preview of the work place and introduce them to the company culture. A career fair is a branding opportunity. You also need to consider candidate registration. Some platforms provide a registration landing page. You can also use an event registration platform like Eventbrite or incorporate a registration form on your career page. Step two: Become comfortable with the technology you’ll be using. Practice as if you’re conducting a live event. Have employees act as job seekers interacting with your recruiting team. Be sure to get their feedback. You want the candidate experience to be positive, which means having everything run smoothly. As Brazen’s VP of Marketing said, “The last thing you want to do is invite a candidate to chat with you in a virtual event and then not have anyone available to chat.” Step three: With your goals spelled out, your plan in place, your platform selected and your dates set, promote your event widely. Choose your media based on the audience you want to reach – entry-level, blue-collar, specific job types, etc. If you have a talent community, email them and post to your group on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Niche job boards are a way to reach specific types of job seekers. Step four: As the date approaches, be sure to send reminders. You want to make sure your registered job seekers show up, so remind them. The more sophisticated career fair platforms will automate these reminders, sending them out as email or text messages. Augment these reminders with tips on how to prepare and what to expect. A day or two before, send registrants details on how to navigate the virtual career fair. Have them upload their resume before the event. Your team also needs to have their interview questions in mind and have created and customized their individual booths. Review the criteria for sending candidates to hiring managers and how the team is to rate candidates and leave notes. You’ll also want to decide what metrics to collect and how you’ll follow-up with participants. At a minimum, you’ll want to know how many job seekers registered, how many showed, how many interviews were conducted and how many offers or hiring manager referrals were made or how many candidates will go on in the hiring process. Step five: On career fair day, launch early to test all systems are working and that your team is in place. Have one person assigned as a troubleshooter. Make that their only job for the day. They can also fill in should someone need to step away from their booth for a while. Step six: Follow-up with all the candidates. Separate the no-shows sending them an email encouraging them to directly apply or to become part of your talent community. Thank all those who did interview and invite them to stay in touch. Virtual Career Fair Followup Debrief with your staff and get feedback from the candidates. A survey to all participants will help you improve your next virtual career fair. Include open-ended questions in your survey so they can offer suggestions and let you know what they enjoyed and what needs work. How many jobs were filled and candidates in the hiring pipeline may be the most important measures of a successful virtual career fair. But don’t overlook the importance of the candidate experience. A net promoter question will tell you what they thought of the overall event. A candidate who may not have gotten an offer this time, but who had a good experience is more likely to refer others and return again when a job that’s a better fit may be available. John Zappe contributed.
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Recruiting Technology
What is Resume Parsing?
Resume parsing is one of those behind the scenes technology most recruiters never see in action. The job of a parser is to analyze a resume, then extract the candidate’s information into a database using the proper fields for each piece of data such as job title, past employers and contact data. Once completed the recruiter can then search that data via keywords and filters within the ATS. Some resume parsing tools even include semantic search which adds content to search terms with the goal of understanding user intent to provide more relevant results. Without resume parsers all of the resume data ever collected would not be organized. Resume parsing software provides employers an effective tool to identify skills and keywords in order to sort through large amounts of applications to identify the best applicants. It’s also a time save for recruiters since it removes the burden of hand reviewing each application. Parsing Isn’t Perfect According to Wikipedia, Resume parsers have “achieved up to 87% accuracy, which refers to the accuracy of data entry and categorizing the data correctly.” But challenges still remain since not all resumes are created equal. Interpreting what a candidate says on their resume can be problematic. So resumes are bound to fall through the cracks when it comes to being found in an applicant tracking system. Language is ambiguous, and some words can have multiple meaning. The key to a good resume parser is being smart enough to interpret the language properly. Optimizing for Resume Parsers Job seekers are often faced with the complications of resume parsers. Who among us hasn’t encountered a job application form that did not properly import our resume data, thus forcing us to go in and re-type our entire employment history? A frustrating experience that happens too often. But there are things you can do to optimize your resume for this experience. Candidates need to design their resumes with parsers in mind if they want to be more discoverable inside that vast resume databases that employers guard so closely. First piece of advice, use simple fonts and text. Don’t get fancy. Fancy means un-parsable in many cases. Write your name in the filename of your resume Save resumes in .docx format for best parsing compatibility Use the same font throughout the entire document, don’t mix them Avoid tables and columns at all cost Avoid using images in your resume Resume Parsing Vendors Only a handful of resume parsing tools actually exist today. They are Rchilli, Sovren, Daxtra, Hireability and TextKernel. These platforms are typically built into job boards and applicant tracking systems as a feature but you can also use them individually though an integration. Future of Parsing We can expect parsers to extract more structured data from around the web including things like LinkedIn profiles and other unstructured data graphs. As the internet explodes with more and more information about people, parsers should be at the forefront of capturing this data and putting it into readable context for searchers. You can also expect more features like OCR or Optical Character Recognition to be more widely used. Rchilli is using OCR currently and says the benefit is that any formatted resume can be scanned, eliminating missed candidates.
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Recruiting Trends
Talent on Demand - Top Sites for Temporary Help
Talent on demand is the hottest, new old trend in workforce management. It’s hot because organizations and individual workers are embracing talent on demand like never before. We say it’s an old trend because freelancing and moonlighting have existed for decades. It’s new, because instead of purely being a way to supplement an income or take on odd jobs during periods of unemployment, talent on demand – more rightly called “gig” work – is becoming an accepted career choice. Well before the Covid pandemic, the gig economy was growing briskly. Between 2014 and 2019 the number of workers taking on short-term jobs at least part of the time grew almost 8% to 57 million. Covid accelerated the trend as businesses were forced to shut down or have their employees work from home. The latest survey by the gig work site Upwork says 59 million Americans now participate in the gig economy to some extent. Last year, they earned $1.2 trillion. Millennials and Gen Z workers are driving the growth, aided by an increasing number of retirees. While many turn to freelancing out of necessity, the majority of talent on demand workers adopt it for the benefits it offers. The flexibility of working where and when they want tops their list. Many also cite the variety of projects and clients; not having to answer to a boss, and the ability to earn more than they would in a traditional job. Businesses now are also more open to contracting for specific projects and tasks. Many see talent on demand as a way to supplement their workforce without adding to headcount. Others find they can get the expertise of top professionals they might not otherwise be able to hire. Behind the growth of the talent on demand economy is the internet and the gig work platforms that match freelancers to jobs. The three largest – Upwork, Fiverr and Freelancer – have millions of remote work projects, tasks and assignments among them. Other sites, like TaskRabbit and Wonolo, offer in-person gig jobs. We’ve compiled a list of 10 of the better known, general work sites. Besides these, there are dozens of others, like 99designs, that specialize in specific professional services. Upwork One of the world’s largest networks of freelancers and contractors, publicly held Upwork is global in scope. All work is virtual and goes through its proprietary platform. Businesses post their project needs and freelancers on the network bid for the work. The platform includes ratings, freelancer portfolio, contracts and billing. Fiverr Similar to Upwork and also publicly held, Fiverr’s focus is more on low-budget, short-term “gigs” with quick turnaround times. The key difference is that freelancers offer their services, rather than bid on specific jobs. Businesses select the contractor based on reviews, portfolios and service levels. All arrangements go through the Fiverr platform. Freelancer The business model is similar to Upwork. Contractors and freelancers bid on projects posted by businesses. (It also has a direct hire feature.) The service buyer selects the contractor from online ratings and portfolios. The commission charged to freelancers varies with the type of project. Amazon Mechanical Turk Part of Amazon, businesses (called requestors) post “Human Intelligence Tasks” that are typically simple, repetitive and can be performed remotely by multiple Turkers. Survey taking, processing photos, identifying images, confirming details, or cleaning or completing databases are among the typical tasks. Minimum fee is 1 cent per task. Toptal Toptal promotes itself as offering high quality, full vetted professionals in software development, design, finance and product and project management. It’s most effective in the tech sector. Businesses are matched with talent appropriate for their specific need or project. Engagements typically are for weeks or months. Toptal’s costs are among the highest. Guru This marketplace operates much like the larger Upwork and Freelancer. It has fewer jobs, with the largest number in programming and web development. Employers can post jobs free. Work is performed in Guru workroom. Guru charges freelancers a 9% commission on work. Craigslist This well-known, highly trafficked global classified’s site may be the oldest online place for hiring gig workers. Though it’s lost much of its luster in recent years, Craigslist still has a strong following. Depending on the locale, the gigs section may get dozens or hundreds of new listing daily, many of them seeking in-person immediate, temporary help. Freelancers can post their services. No commissions, but small posting fee. Taskrabbit Owned by Ikea, this labor marketplace is for small, short-term jobs that require an in-person presence. Typical jobs are help moving, house cleaning, furniture assembly, pet walking and minor home repairs. Used by small businesses and individuals. Freelancers set rates by the hour, but are highly negotiable. Only available in major urban areas. Wonolo This virtual staffing firm provides hourly workers in a limited number of job types, many of them in logistics, clerical, food handling and events. The jobs are short term. Workers are pre-screened. Wonolo will background check workers. Workers opt-in to posted jobs or are matched to employers and begin work immediately. FlexJobs Not exclusively for gig work, the site has a mix of part-time and project work. All jobs are flexible, remote or both. Employers can post a limited number of jobs free and receive applications as they would on other job boards. Contribution by author John Zappe
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Recruiting Trends
Job Ghosting Prevention Tips
So you’ve been ghosted, but your company is not alone. There’s a lot of people just like you that have been ghosted in today’s crazy job market. Sometimes candidates complain about getting ghosted when there’s low unemployment. And there’s a lot of jobs around the corner. But this post is about recruiters and HR leaders being ghosted…and what you can do about it. We’ve definitely come full circle when it comes to job ghosting. Candidates have been complaining about it for years, hence the term ‘resume black hole’ that has persisted forever. In a world where you can apply for a hundred jobs a day using those Easy Apply buttons, it’s made it worse. Recruiters can sometimes not keep up with the amount of applications. But that’s not the case today when applications are few and far between. So let’s talk about preventive measures to avoid job ghosting. Here’s when it happens, They ghost you in the initial outreach. They ghost you when you set up a time to talk to them. They also ghost you when you set up an interview with the hiring manager. They ghost you on the first day of work. The last one is especially tough to swallow. They’re still a candidate at this point because they never became an employee and they simply don’t show up. Or worst of all they stop coming to work with no communication ever as to why.. Suffice to say there’s a lot of ghosting going on there. A better way to frame this issue however is to reverse your thinking. Instead of saying, “How can I reduce the amount of ghosting that’s going on for my recruiting team because it’s impacting us?” ask yourself this question; How do I get these people to ghost me faster? You want them to ghost you earlier in the process where the stakes and the consequences are less than when I put them in front of a hiring manager or when I’ve set up the time to do a phone screen with them, or their first day of work. Employers must do more to let candidates self-select out of your hiring process. You want them to ghost you faster. That should be every talent acquisition professionals mindset. How do you do that? First be upfront about the job and working conditions. Make sure recruiters tell candidates upfront what’s expected (this goes for the job description too). Don’t play around, tell them what it pays. Tell them what the hours are, tell them what the bad and the ugly of the job is in your first communication with them. The truth is your friend. Give them bad stuff well in advance of any interview so they ghost you right then. If you don’t give them enough detail, and downplay the role, they’re going to ghost you at some point. You want them to ghost you in stage one. Another great way to cull the ghosters in your funnel is to let them take the initiative. Don’t hold their hands. If they want to work for you, give them the ability to self schedule the phone screen. But if you make them go out and actually take an action, some people will self-select out of the proces. Then remind them like crazy about next steps and time/dates. Texting them reminders along the way is one of the most effective tools in your toolbox for that. Remember that you control the candidate experience. If you’ve reached out to somebody passively, gave them a data dump and talked about how fabulous your culture is or the work or the job. And then they go to your website and see everything you’ve said is BS, they’re going to ghost you. What did your recruiter say to the candidate during that first initial call? Were they on point? Were they on brand? Were they just reciting the same script so they could get somebody hired? Employers have to look internally at some point on what are the things they can control, what are the things we’re missing before we just say it’s simply a COVID problem. So give these ideas some thought and re-adjust. Ghosting will always happen but you can prevent a certain portion of people from doing it by being conscious of that candidate experience and letting them ghost you much earlier in that process.
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Emissary is a candidate engagement platform built to empower recruiters with efficient, modern communication tools that work in harmony with other recruiting solutions.
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