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Thursday, May 17, 2012
Feature: April 2008
Typing in Wait
How are employers and headhunters luring job candidates?
Story by Elspeth Cisneros
With bad lighting and big grins, the typical Facebook photo is hardly professional; it’s often not even flattering.
But to worldwide accounting firm Ernst & Young, the student-geared social networking site is a gold mine of potential hires. The firm is one of the few major companies to have its own profile. Its online recruiters fit right in with pictures of them playing poker or showing their heads Photoshopped in kaleidoscopic designs.
Ernst & Young has caught on to the crux of modern hiring: The decision-makers of tomorrow expect employers to speak to them in the language of today. And whether it’s through podcasts, Internet or video conferencing, virtual recruiting is often the format of choice.
“It’s very effective because virtually every college student out there is on Facebook,” says Catherine Banks, Ernst & Young Pacific Northwest campus recruiting leader. “It’s really our target audience.”
Because of a shrinking baby boomer work force, that target audience — the so-called millennial generation — can set the tone in a way their parents couldn’t. “What I keep hearing from Chevron, [Pacific Gas & Electric Co.] and even state agencies is that not 1,000 or 2,000, but 20,000 or 30,000 employees will be leaving in the next five to seven years,” says Eva Gabbe, recruiting programs manager for Sacramento State. “That’s a knowledge base you can’t replace overnight.”
That shift is the bread and butter — yet poses a challenge — for recruiters. Companies concerned about their future work force have to find ways to differentiate themselves, using technology to bring in more candidates and narrow them down more quickly. And those methods don’t just mean trolling through résumés on Monster.com.
Intel sets up virtual chats and job fairs with candidates. Recruiters and other company employees give presentations on the Intel website, answering questions from online attendees.
“We’re always researching Internet tools, any type of electronic media that’s out there,” says Khen Russell, a campus recruiter who works from Intel’s Folsom location. “We’re also trying to understand what the students are using now.”
Text messaging is a big one, he says. “We’ve looked at possibly setting some things in place where they can get text messages about certain things that we’re doing at Intel.”
Still, nothing can replace getting out to schools and meeting with students, according to Russell. “Being on campus and getting face time are the most important tools we can use.”
Key to finding the best employee is knowing how to stand out in the crowd. It’s a skill that’s as coveted by recruiters working college campuses as it is for those searching at the executive level. But in the quest for finding top talent, high-tech tools are fair game — even tools that were once associated more with MTV than board meetings.
Podcasts used to be known for the iPod ad campaign of silhouetted bodies grooving against colorful backgrounds. Now recruiters use them to pitch job positions to experienced executives. Diane Miller, president of the Sacramento executive search firm Wilcox, Miller & Nelson, is looking into setting them up at her firm within the next few months.
“I think it brings a little more attention to the search,” she says. Wilcox, Miller & Nelson recruits for high-level positions for nonprofits and the private sector. “Just doing things a little bit differently can be extremely helpful in reaching people.”
Unlike the social networking sites used to bring in recent college grads, a podcast has the appeal of efficiency. Instead of sifting through responses from variously qualified applicants, the recruiter can focus on those they’ve already identified as potential candidates. “We can control more of who’s seeing the information,” says Miller, adding that she is still deciding whether to email them to potential hires or post them on the company site to attract candidates. “I would assume we’ll start using that in the next three or four months.”
The catch is, any innovation that works through email runs the risk of getting lost in the throng of junk mail that fills inboxes. With 120 billion junk mails sent worldwide each day, according to Internet security company IronPort Systems Inc., creating credibility can be difficult. “Can we get past all the spam and antiviruses? That’s an issue,” Miller says.
Reaching out in untraditional ways can also blur the line between professional and social networking. Most people identify their iPods and MySpace sites as parts of their personal lives, not a place for job leads. “A downside would be that students can make any kind of commentary they like, and we just have to choose what to respond to” on the Ernst & Young Facebook profile, says Banks. “I think that’s something that has still been a little bit of a concern, both by students and members of our firm.”
While many employers will Google a candidate before hiring, social networking sites often provide even more insight. Ilda Salas, a team leader at medical-sales search firm System1, recruits nationally and often cannot meet candidates face to face. She has found even candidates with stellar references and impressive communication skills over the phone can end up embarrassing her company when it’s time for the interview.
“When you’re working with people, a lot of things can come into play,” she says. For example, candidates will go into an interview unprepared when they say they’re ready. That can damage the company’s reputation, as well as send recruiters like Salas back to the drawing board for the right person. That’s where the Web comes in. “We definitely use MySpace,” she says. “And we try to get as much information about our candidates to find out if they would be good fits or not.” That candidate who seemed completely professional — but has bawdy online photos — will get screened out.
Overall, merging social and work communities online creates an informality that in turn is a key part of the present-day search: speed in finding and getting to know the right candidate. Ten years ago Kelvin Thompson, a managing partner in the San Francisco office of international executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles, found that a straightforward search took about 150 days to complete. “That’s gone down to 100 [days],” he says. “For some private equity and venture capital firms, it’s down to 30 days start to finish.” In the past, he says, that would have been a sign they weren’t doing their jobs well. “Now speed is not a detractor from quality; it’s actually part of it.”
Thompson has found that using tools like text messaging and video conferencing helps clients meet that goal of finding the right candidate more quickly. “That informality speeds up the whole process of people getting to know each other,” he says.
It’s not just the pace of the search that has quickened. It’s the entire career process that affects hiring. In the past, posts were held longer, so companies were willing to put more time in combing through candidates.
Now nothing is static, even at the top level, says Miller of Wilcox, Miller & Nelson. “Senior leaders move about every three years, which is more frequent than it used to be. Just a couple of years ago, it was about every five years,” she says. Miller traces the timeline back to the ’90s when IBM started large-scale layoffs. Now, she says, the lifetime employment path is a thing of the past. “It’s moved from stability to instability to now, it’s really mobility,” she says.
It’s a pattern recruiters at the California Bureau of State Audits know well. Listed as one of the best places to launch a career by BusinessWeek magazine, the agency has honed its hiring process to a science. The agency boasts a simple one-page application over the complex multipage ones of other employers. Recruiters make sure to keep in touch with candidates, letting them know exactly where they are in the hiring process and potential salaries they would earn. On top of that, the agency maintains a network of contacts with university professors throughout the U.S., who refer students to apply.
New hires also learn skills that make them lucrative to other employers. Once an employee starts with the state auditor, they get one-on-one training with their superiors and credit toward related education, such as becoming a certified public accountant. Recent college grads often gain so much experience, they quickly find themselves wooed by higher-paying jobs in the private sector.
“It’s definitely something we’re experiencing,” says State Auditor Elaine Howle. Compared to the bigger issue of a shrinking work force, the agency is doing well to attract so many new hires in the first place.
Location is a Sacramento-specific issue for many companies. Even with the most streamlined recruiting practices, the Bureau of State Audits competes with the allure of San Francisco.
“When I first got this job, all my friends in San Francisco were like, ‘Sacramento? That’s where we drive through on our way to Reno or Tahoe,’” says Miguel Guardian, an accounting major from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Guardian started working at the agency just over six months ago. “Now I like it here. But at first the other new hires and I were like, ‘What did we get ourselves into?’”
But as far as where recruiters work, the setting is beginning to matter less and less. Thirty years ago Wilcox, Miller & Nelson was limited to the Capital Region and its particular industries. Now, Miller says, her firm can become instant specialists in finding candidates in almost any field and have widened searches to the Western U.S. “You can drill into any industry quickly and effectively,” she says. “It’s just opened everything up.”
As for the future, some have wondered if there is a chance that networking sites — especially the more professional ones like LinkedIn — have the potential to eclipse the executive search. Recruiters like Kelvin Thompson say that’s unlikely. “They don’t replace what we do at all, they just enhance it,” he says.
