I believe that the standard candidate experience is not just stale, but broken. We ask candidates to sum up their experience on a piece of paper, sit through a nerve-wracking interview, and then wait weeks as we deliberate on a yes or no. This sequence of events is tedious for the applicant and unproductive for the employer.

There’s a better way. Consider these three steps to rethink your hiring process.

#1: Reconsider the resume

Here is a hot take more and more business leaders share: Resumes are worthless.

I know this idea challenges the recruiting status quo, but hear me out. Resumes aren’t the most reliable sources of information. In a 2020 report from ResumeLab, 36% of Americans admitted to lying on their resumes. The fibbing stemmed from insecurity; most of those who fessed up said they lied because they lacked the required experience.

Despite this, the vast majority of employers require resumes, posing them as the first step in selecting a new worker. Even so, research shows that recruiters look at a resume for only a few seconds. A quick glance isn’t enough time for talent professionals to understand whether an applicant can do the job they’re looking to fill.

This information should cause us to question the current process. Instead of relying on a resume to kick off your recruiting process, consider identifying the most important aspects of the role you’re looking to fill and screening candidates based on how their strengths match up.

#2: Think beyond the interview

I’m frustrated with our reliance on the resume. But I’m simply over our insistence on the interview. Job interviews aren’t inherently bad, of course. But when waste time, money, and energy with a process that requires weeks of scheduling, slotting, and conferencing.

As one lecturer wrote in the Harvard Business Review, interviews cause many employers to pass over great candidates. And not because the candidates underperform, but because employers ask the wrong questions. “If you are working on innovation, you need someone who can think with you,” Nilofer Merchant wrote in the article. “And by focusing on capability over experience, you increase the chances you find that person.”

I believe the problem with interviews runs even deeper bad questions: Interviews can’t produce completely unbiased assessments of a candidate’s strengths. So what can?

Standardize your process with assessments

Companies can measure the strengths and opportunities each candidate presents with standardized assessments. Equipped with that information, they can select the person who best fits the needs of the job — not the person with the nicest resume or the sharpest interviewing skills.

PeopleBest “Profiles” are customized to the exact job you need done. They find the unique ‘code of success’ inside of people, offering insights and identifying missing areas that may frustrate an employer — or drive an employee to quit. By discovering how workers score in the skills most important to an opportunity, companies can better understand what workers want, how they stay motivated, and where they can grow to better contribute to their teams.

We go beyond having killer Profiles — we use analytics to uncover why certain people outperform others, adding to an even faster, impartial, and unbiased way of learning through every person inside your company.

To find out how PeopleBest can serve your team, book a demo and set up a time to chat with one of our specialists. PeopleBest will provide you a no-cost opportunity to hire your next person to experience a better way to hire!

PeopleBest is a revolutionary, simple and powerful way to capture the exact ‘DNA of success’ inside people, teams and companies.

This tired recruiting flow causes both candidates and employers too much grief. It’s exhausting for job seekers, who are crafting, tweaking and submitting resumes and cover letters for every opportunity they’re even slightly interested in. The process is just as miserable for the people on the other side. Recruiters and hiring managers are besieged by documents, scheduling and meetings — and that’s before they have to approach the decision-making process.

Here’s the good news: There’s no law that says employers have to require resumes, cover letters or interviews. You’re free to design a recruiting process that works for you and your candidates. In today’s blog, I’m going to discuss the shortcomings of the status quo and the opportunity of a reimagined recruiting.

Rethink the Resume — Look Harder, Faster

Did you know 40% of hiring managers spend less than one minute looking at a resume? Resumes communicate a list of accomplishments that help hiring managers quickly decide whether to grant a candidate any more attention.

But the data resumes provide for this incredibly important decision is inherently flawed. It’s a widely known fact that many applicants lie on their resumes. Even when resumes are 100% honest, they don’t do a good job feeding hiring managers valuable information. They may sum up a candidate’s experience, but they can’t provide a deep knowledge of someone’s skills, talents and potential. It’s just a piece of paper.

The Cover Letter Doesn’t Have You Covered

A cover letter communicates more about a candidate’s capabilities than a resume, and hiring managers’ reliance on them backs up that fact. 83% of HR pros say cover letters are important for their hiring decisions.

But do cover letters offer insight in a way that’s fair and illuminating? I say no. A candidate with decent writing chops may be able to tell a convincing story about their professional abilities. Meanwhile, a job seeker with less prowess for the written word might come off as inexperienced or dispassionate. Ultimately, cover letter-writing skills may not say much about a candidate. If the workers are applying to positions that have little to do with writing, their ability to showcase their experience in a short essay shouldn’t matter to you.

Reimagine recruiting

Imagine recruiting without the resume and cover letter. There’s less work for recruiters and candidates alike. There’s fewer formalities, headaches and papers. But what’s left?

If you take resumes and cover letters out of the recruiting equation, you have to find something to take its place. Are you recruiting 24/7?  Are you announcing your open positions to everyone in the company, so THEY are your hidden recruiters? Remember the great person at Starbuck’s who always seems to know what you order and has it ready?  Don’t laugh — one of our clients found their best reps this way.

A reimagined recruiting process should eliminate the frustrations once caused by the recruiting tactics of old. Instead, it should provide data-driven insights into candidates’ skill, potential, and passion. It should help you see where job seekers belong in your organization, streamlining and fireproofing the talent decisions that were once messy and haphazard.

PB takes the guesswork out of the candidate search. No bias, no discrimination, no opinions, no agendas… just looking at who can or can’t do a specific job. To find out how PeopleBest can make this dream a reality at your organization, book a demo and set up a time to chat with one of our specialists.

PeopleBest is a revolutionary, simple and powerful way to capture the exact ‘DNA of success’ inside people, teams and companies

More than 4.3 million workers quit their jobs in January, and that was a slight improvement from the record-high 4.5 million who quit in November. The Great Resignation is affecting employers in virtually every industry, leaving recruiters and hiring managers in the lurch as they attempt to maintain even operational staffing levels.

But there’s a silver lining. As employers combat the Great Resignation, many have pushed themselves to offer better experiences to workers in an effort to quell quit rates. Today, I want to review three industries’ approach to the Great Resignation and the innovative solutions they’ve created in the process.

Long-term care: Combating burnout with benefits

According to a Duke University Medical Center analysis of U.S. nursing home data, employers can improve retention by offering benefits like health insurance and retirement. The analysis showed that nursing home employees were happy with their work but unhappy with their workplace. Of the 1,174 participating nursing homes, those with higher retention rates more commonly implemented programs like tuition fee payment and career growth opportunities.

Healthcare: Curing culture

The healthcare industry is experiencing the effects of the Great Resignation in a particularly acute way. A recent McKinsey survey, for example, revealed that more than 30 percent of nurses have contemplated leaving direct patient care. The stat raises an obvious question: How can employers convince them to stay?

In a February Harvard Business Review article, several experts discussed this very question. One solution they proposed: Culture. The authors referenced the Mayo Clinic, who asks all staff to assess the institution’s leaders in an annual survey by five kindness-building criteria. “Published research from Mayo Clinic shows that leading with these five acts of kindness was associated with greater employee satisfaction and fulfillment and lower levels of burnout among staff at all levels,” the authors remarked.

Sales: Coaching

LinkedIn Learning identified coaching as a key aspect of retention in a recent report. “According to LinkedIn data, employees at companies with high internal mobility stay almost two times longer than those who don’t,” the report said. “That’s extraordinary considering the impact of losing an employee in terms of both productivity and expense.”

This lesson isn’t lost on employers working in sales-facing industries. Salesforce recommends employers keep coaching consistent, focused and, most importantly, frequent. While coaching sessions are a great opportunity for feedback, they’re also an important moment for highlighting upcoming opportunities for growth and development. As Salesforce put it: “Reskilling, upskilling, and training your team is never a wasted investment.”

Conclusion

We’ve discussed three broad strategies employers in three unique industries have used to combat the Great Resignation. In reality, your business will need to pick up a combination of strategies to create the approach that best suits your goals and your talent.

No matter how your approach to retention breaks down, it must be personal and adaptable. To find out how PeopleBest can serve your team, book a demo and set up a time to chat with one of our specialists.

PeopleBest is a revolutionary, simple and powerful way to capture the exact ‘DNA of success’ inside people, teams and companies