Agile recruitment - an unfair advantage for your organization!

Welcome to Agile Talent Leaders and thanks for subscribing. This is a bi-weekly newsletter focused on leveraging agile methodologies to gain an unfair advantage in talent!

What is agile?

Ok, a brief note on the agile model for those less familiar with the concept.

The agile model originated in the 1930s at Bell Labs with the advent of the PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) framework. Later Edward Demming's "lean" methodologies led Toyota to dominate the automobile market for decades. In the early 2000s, information technology teams began to adopt a similar approach in response to the rapid acceleration of technology development. All too often software development teams were producing applications that were outdated by the time they went to market! They needed a new approach, and agile was born.

By the mid-2010s the agile methodology had expanded beyond the IT department as organizations learned that it could deliver rapid process, product, and service improvements at scale. There are several "versions" of the agile model in play, but some basic principles are still evident in them all including:

• A core focus is on staying close to your customer and maintaining a deep understanding of their needs, problems, and desires. Agile teams make the "voice" of the customer present in all they do.
• An almost religious focus on a data-driven approach to decision-making and problem-solving. The scientific method is alive and thriving in agile organizations. They test and learn; they DO NOT rely solely on experience and intuition.
• A rigorous alignment of projects and initiatives to the overall strategy and high-level business goals. No pet projects in an agile model, you must move the needle!
• An understanding that competitive advantages may look like sudden breakthroughs from the outside, but that it is really driven by the cumulative impact of hundreds of small, incremental improvements (tests) across the organization over time!

Why do I keep hearing about agile?

Because it works! And it works especially well in dynamic situations. By dynamic, I mean when predicting what is going to happen next is difficult... Which, let's face it, is all the time!

What does agile have to do with recruiting?

Everything! Almost all organizations have some value statement espousing their firm's belief in "talent" as a fundamental organizational value driver, yet so few take this seriously. Gartner found dramatic benefits for recruiting teams that adopted an agile approach. They found on average a 32% reduction in cost-per-hire, a 22% reduction in time-to-hire, and a 31% increase in recruiter productivity.

In my role, I have the privilege of meeting with 2-3 leaders of corporate recruiting teams every day. They all have some form of the same problem, a serious lack of qualified applicants for mission-critical roles! For example:

• The leader of major logistics and transportation company has over 10% of their trucks parked due to a lack of drivers
• A major consumer retailer is having to materially delay the launch of newly constructed retail locations due to an inability to staff them
• A major US airline's CEO recently publicly apologized to his customers for the impact of massive flight delays and cancellations caused by a serious shortfall in the pilot staffing plan

The negative financial impact and brand damage being absorbed by these organizations are almost incalculable. The good news, there is a better way forward!

How do I get started?

To start, I'd suggest auditing your current state of affairs. Below is a checklist of questions to ask yourself. Be honest!!!

Staying close to our customer

1. When was the last time you spoke with a candidate about their experience going through your recruiting process, and how many times have you done it in the past year?
2. When was the last time you applied to one of your organization's job postings? How long did it take? Did you try to complete the process on a mobile device?
3. Do you measure NPS or CSAT metrics for all applicants that reach a defined stage of your selection systems? Are applicants more or less likely to tell a friend good things about your company today than last year?
4. Have you A/B tested different forms of job advertisements (language/tone/length) and incorporated the learnings to make your ads more appealing and improve application rates?

Rigorous data-driven approach

1. Do you know how many people have applied for each of your open roles? Do you know this number by media/job board source? (note: if you're relying on candidate-disclosed data from drop-down menus on your application, you don't have good data!)
2. Do you know what your application rate is (number of views/number of apply clicks)?
3. Do you know how many people abandon your application process, and at what step they abandon the process?
4. Do you know the source of your hires by media source? Have you recently optimized your media spend based on this data?
5. What is your CPC (cost-per-click), CPA (cost-per-apply), and CHP (cost-per-hire) now, and is it up or down in the last year? What were the primary drivers of the change?

Alignment of projects to strategy

1. What are the organization's top 3 initiatives for this year and can you tie your top 3 recruitment projects/spend directly to them and measure the discrete impact?

Incremental/continuous improvement

1. What was the last material process/technology/media change you made for your recruiting team and did you A/B test the change or just assume it would add value?
2. Did the process actually add value, and can you measure it discretely? In other words, do things "seem" better, or are they actually better?

If you answered yes to many of the questions above, you're ahead of the game and already have an unfair advantage. If not, it is imperative that you start your journey now! Don't feel too far behind? Read this article on how Amazon is offering jobs to warehouse staff with no human interaction, in some cases in under 15 minutes from application...