Do men and women have different motivators???

Milana Nair’s poll on LinkedIn is making me ponder again, on whether men and women have different motivators. Though it’s a very small sample, and can’t be the basis of any argument it is significant enough to make on think.

Do females have a higher craving for innovation than the male population?
Does the male population more conscious about financials (Compensation, Benefits and rewards) than their female counterpart?

Think about it and implications of the same in managing your teams.

Linkedin Employee Referral engine- an ethical issue?

An employee referral engine from a big social network has finally landed.

Why a referral engine?

The most prominent challenge in employee referral is that mostly it will happen through chance encounters. Not many or in most case not any employee will proactively find friends or associates who fit the job opening. For an employee referral to happen following have to prudentially happen together

1) Know someone who is looking for a job
2) The job seeker says that he is looking out
3) The referee remembers that a matching job exists

Thence I call employee referrals as a result of chance encounters.
If something could eliminate the chance aspect of the encounter, the referral volume will multiply exponentially and as the LinkedIn tool puts it “turn all of your employees into powerful sourcing agents.”

Ethical challenge

No doubt it will be a big boost to sourcing, but there is a challenge, can call it a moral, or ethical challenge.

Employee Referrals are people referred and is it right to refer someone you don’t know well enough? Would you recommend someone for a job if you can’t vouch for him? Have we taken the willingness of the employee for granted? Is referral about getting more reliable and productive candidates, aloowing the employee to select his colleagues and other jazz about traditional referrals or is it just another sourcing channel.

One argument is that we are just tapping into the first level network of the candidate, but in today’s world of online networking, how well do we know our first level connections?

Would love to see how Linkedin deals with this issue and how the ground rules of employee referrals change

Related posts
Social Media Optimisation in recruitment- Employee referrals

Review your Candidate database

Having a massive pool of relevant candidates at hand is becoming critical and all recruiters/sourcers ideally work towards building this goldmine. I am sure you will agree

Lets look at this database as a system which has negative inertia and will have the tendency to deteriorate over time. what use is a candidate, who has not been contacted for more than 6 months?

To ensure that the database is healthy and appropriate and relevant continual and systemic interventions are required. The following model gives a perspective on how to look at your datbase and determine how your networks/companies candiate pool stands

Database system can be reviewed along the following parameters

Availability: Access to the relevant people
Searchability: Ease of retrieval by the relevant people
Relevance: value of the record to the relevant people.
Completeness: the amount of relevant information available
Credibility: The accuracy of info available. It will erode over time

The following illustration depicts how the candidate pool will get slotted in different stages depending on availability and searchability.





The candidate pool can be segregated in 4 parts depending on Availability and Searchability
1) Open: this part of the database is the most active and productive. It constitutes of candidate records that are publicly available to all relevant parties and easily searchable against a given requirement.
2) Hidden: This part is most of the time outside a Common database and limited to excel sheets, emails, notepads and social networks and accessible to an individual as his personal network. Nobody else is either aware or has access to this pool. There is a greater likelihood of these candidates to slip into the Black hole depending on how structured, searchable and relevant the record is to ongoing needs.
3) Blind: This part of the system is similar to the hidden part with the only exception that this is somebody else’s personal network and not accessible to the user. If the candidate record is not searchable for a relevant requirement due to incomplete or inaccurate data or lack of search capability, the record will fall under this category.
4) Blackhole: It is the natural tendency of a record to slip into the Black hole. A proactive process and approach needs to be in place to prevent this from happening. The Blackhole can’t be measured, but is essentially an inverse reflection of our ability to close candidates with respect to time.

Points to remember
A database should be continually tracked for candidates slipping away from Open stage and proactive and reactive steps taken.
You should never have all the candidates always in the Open stage. This indicates your pipeline is not healthy enough for future requirements, or the candidates are not relevant enough to be closed.
The Blind candidates are the easiest block to be moved to an Open Database. Success in moving this block will also indicate the level of user buy-in towards using the system
The Unknown candidates are your biggest risk. The fact that you don’t know them, gives your competition and advantage over you
The Hidden candidates are your treasure trove. They are candidates with whom ether is already an established relationship/contact. Mining them systematically will be the key to success.

Related Links
Candidate Database System: A perspective?
Lifecycle of a candidate record in a database

Candidate Database System: A perspective?

A candidate database system is a system that will help you manage candidates and requirements. Primarily it serves the following purpose
1) Storing candidates
2) Searching candidates
3) Tracking candidates against job
4) Tracking candidate communication and employability status
The last point is rarely the focus of attention and primarily the system is used for search, store and track.

Activities
The system primarily has two interrelated sets of activity
1) Requirement management: Involves searching, assigning, tracking, and managing the best applicants for each open requisition
2) Candidate Management: Involves methodologies, systems, and practices designed to acquire, engage track and maintain candidates in the system

These activities would include the following actions
1) Add – Candidate records, requirement and activities
2) Update – Candidates records, requirement and activities
3) Delete– Candidates records, requirement and activities
4) Assign – Candidates to Requirements
5) Track- Candidates against requirements, Candidates against activity and status

.

Objective of the system

Increase Database utilization
Reduce turnaround time in searching relevant candidates
Quick access to data on the most relevant candidate.
Structured database around skills, location, industry etc

Increase Database quality
Automatic sorting and filing of candidate information.
Churn out old and irrelevant candidates
Candidate information stored in a structured manner, easy to retrieve
Keep candidate information updated on a regular and periodic basis

Increase database volume
Identify sourcing channels that could feed candidates into the system
Integrate the sourcing channels into the system

Company branding
Quick response management
Quality emails – (informative and effective)

Improve Hiring decision
Capture information about the candidate at each stage.
Provide a complete view of the candidate by assimilating the captured information
Reduce candidate cost through candidate pool leveraging


Primary Players involved

Candidate:
Somebody who may or may not be looking for a new Job and may or may not be suitable for current or future job requirement within a company
Sourcer:
Searches for candidates from within and outside the database and is the first point of contact to the candidate. Promotes the company and job to the candidate, profiles the candidate, evaluates initial job fit and captures candidate aspirations. After ascertaining a match of interst and profile, he passes the candidate to the Recruiter
Recruiter:
Manages the selection process and coordinates with the candidate and respective parties involved in the process. Closes the deal with the candidate based on the information generated in the entire sourcing and selection process keeping in mind the candidates aspiration
Client:
Could be the practice head or the BD team or any other requirement owner.
Vendor:
External agency supplying candidates on requests provided by the sourcing team
Internal referrer Employee, who refers candidates to the company. The referral doesn’t need to be for a specific position .
All the players and their activities contribute to the level of accuracy and relevance of the database. The system has negative inertia and will have the tendency and will deterriorate over time.

Related Links
Review your candidate Database
Lifecycle of a candidate record in a database