The slogan of my community, AristocracyHR,  is, “HR Otherwise Would Be Uncivilized.”  That is to say that practices that are anything other than smart, common sense, innovative, and humane in application would be uncivilized and therefore lacking the value that an effective HR function should provide.

Anyone who is hired at a company is usually brought in through the recruitment group or the group eloquently called Talent Acquisition. Talent Acquisition from my perspective is the alpha and omega of HR and the entire organization. Any misstep by them and it is a grave reflection on the rest of the bunch.

The interesting thing is Talent Acquisition is only as good as the resources put into the function by decision makers. If poor practices are handed down from the top; it will be passed on to jobseekers and later to new hires. We can get into the conversation about who should nudge who when it comes to shaping the organization so that it exudes culture and value at a later date. However, there are a few things that have occurred to me in my travels around HR; some best practices that that can make every company’s hiring strategy civilized.

Here are five tips for deploying a successful hiring strategy in 2013:

1)     Pay particular attention to the “human” aspect of human resources and make sure that every process, policy, practice, initiative, and experience takes on a “human” perspective. All too often, organizations get wrapped up in a law, a piece of compliance, policy, and let’s not forget their bottom-line. I’m not saying look at every situation with rose colored glasses. I’m simply saying to stop and think about how this new initiative or way of doing things will affect the human that will ultimately live through it. Heck, ask an employee or two before you roll out one of your masterful plans- you may be surprised at their answer.

2)     Embrace technology, but do not overcomplicate it. Whether it is your applicant tracking system or your new employee self service rollout. By all means spring into the 21^st century, but be mindful that everyone is pressed for time and attention span. Make anything you do with your technology for hiring is intuitive and simple. It should not require a 2,000 page manual and a Computer Science degree.

3)     Stop wasting jobseekers time. Yes, I said it. Stop showing up to job fairs with no jobs or jobs no one there could qualify for. If no one out there is good enough to do your job openings, pull the posting and wait for the backlash of the employees that are now overburdened with the extra work. My point is stop the cheap tricks. People talk and they aren’t as dumb as you think. Actually they aren’t dumb at all. They can see the trick coming before you say, Ta-da! This right here will kill your brand and any chances you have of attracting top talent.

4)     Put the dollars and cents behind the strategy. The companies whose hiring strategies have impact are the ones who are putting dollars and cents behind the strategy. That doesn’t mean be foolish in spending your money – it simply means money well spent within the hiring function can do wonders for your recruitment and employer branding efforts. Like most budgets, there is almost always an area where money is wasted either on a worthless initiative or just because the money has to be spent before the end of your fiscal year. Putting money behind the strategy can be as simple as springing for a continental breakfast at a local venue for new hire orientation or advertising the opening on a new niche website. It sure beats the humdrum, transactional orientation you hold in a conference room where the highlight of the new hire’s day is signing up for benefits and boring presentations.

5)     Check in with your employees (whether new or tenured) before they check out. People get hired, they get an offer letter, they arrive for orientation, they report to their departments and then they disappear into the deep, dark crevices of the organization. Things for that new employee usually goes well and they thrive. Yet other times they ask themselves one month into the job, what the heck am I doing here? It is an internal conversation that gets more infuriating with time, because no one has the courtesy to do a customer satisfaction check in. Without periodic interviews, an exit interview of tenured employee simply doesn’t tell the whole story. Do spot checks even if things look good from where you sit. You don’t want any Op-Ed’s floating around the internet airing out your dirty laundry or better yet you actually want to retain your employees.

Deploying a hiring strategy for 2013 without taking these five tips into consideration would truly make for uncivilized hiring and poor outcomes. If you can incorporate 50% of these suggestions, you will see a remarkable change in your employees and how job seekers see you. It’s all about making  many small strides for big results. Baby steps people, baby steps.

Janine N. Truitt (@CzarinaofHR) is an HR Professional based in Long Island, NY. Learn more of her expertise in Recruitment, HR Technology, Talent Management, Employee Relations, and HR Policy/Compliance on her blog, The Aristocracy of HR.

Early in my career, I sat through a terrible diversity training session mandated by my employer at the time. It focused on stereotypes and unsubstantiated reasons why affirmative action was the right thing to do. Since then, I have worked for two more employers that were federal contractors and have heard the gamut of ways to work around the system. The most prevalent work around in my experience has been the quota proposition.

When federal contractors create an affirmative action plan it is comprised of two primary pieces of data. The first piece of data is the availability of females and minorities in the region of the business. This data tells you what percentage of each group you should be able to recruit given the availability of each. The second piece of data is more specific to the current workforce makeup at your company. That is, it tells you where you have an underutilization in either of the groups or both and it is also expressed in a percentage. It is never ideal to have an underutilization in either of your groups, but there may be significant reasons why there is (e.g. lack of minorities and females in that industry or profession). The goal of the federal contractor is to bring underutilization numbers to zero-where possible. However, significant decreases to the numbers are just as well.

The way that a recruiter aids the company in getting these numbers down is by making regular, concerted efforts to recruit a diverse candidate pool. This means researching diverse associations, job boards, reaching out to diverse contacts and networks to make sure your jobs are getting out to the masses. There is usually some representation of females and/or minorities in an applicant pool, but you want to increase the numbers. If you know anything about probability, you know that increased numbers of qualified minority candidates in your applicant pool make it more likely that you could hire a minority or female.

Let’s revisit my initial story about the quota proposition. My travels in the federal contractor space have taught me that this process of hiring diverse candidates is not a quota system. There is a sentiment that once you hire one female and one minority that your job is done. If you look at what the affirmative action plan is trying to accomplish you would never come to this conclusion. Unfortunately, there are businesses that submit to this sentiment. As I explained, the goal is to get all job classifications down to zero. That said when you are finally at zero your job as a recruiter or company does not stop there. The key is to continue your good faith efforts. Continue your outreach and involvement in diverse organizations. Don’t see this as a quota system. If your availability numbers suggest that there are more females and minorities than what you are currently hiring that means you need to do more to attract a diverse talent pool.

The word quota suggests a scenario like this: you must hire four minorities and five females for the year. Quotas work such that you would be free and clear of having to hire anymore females or minorities, once you meet that number. That is a sales move. Quotas are for retail numbers and sales; they are not to be mistaken for a concerted effort towards having a more diverse workforce. Diversity is about making good faith efforts and taking calculated actions to hire, attract, select and ultimately retain diverse candidates. Be clear, the diverse candidate does not get by on gender, race or ethnicity alone; they must be qualified for the positions they are applying for.

Diversity recruitment and hiring compliance does not have to be a difficult process. Make sure you know what is possible, where you can find qualified diverse candidates and then make sure you have a presence wherever they are. Diverse workforces are brilliant workforces that are infused with different perspectives that are representative of more than one group of people.  The question companies have to ask themselves is, “would you rather capitalize on the business of one group, or the business of many groups?”

Janine N. Truitt (@CzarinaofHR) is an HR Professional based in Long Island, NY. Learn more of her expertise in Recruitment, HR Technology, Talent Management, Employee Relations, and HR Policy/Compliance on her blog, The Aristocracy of HR.SmartRecruiters is the free social hiring platform.

Recruitment in the federal contractor space is tricky. There are so many nuances and regulations that you need to abide by before you even get down to the actual recruitment. The government sees the federal contractor arrangement as a “privilege.” The privilege is that you – meaning the business – is privileged to do business with the government. In return for this great “privilege” there are expectations. The overarching expectation is that you will make every effort to hire women, minorities, veterans, and the differently-abled wherever possible. This doesn’t mean that for every position you must hire a woman, minority, veteran or differently-able person. It means you will make a good faith effort to make sure your hires are representative of the available pool. This means you need to make sure your applicant pool is diverse.

Please be clear this is not a quota system. It’s not about hiring one Asian, one African-American and one woman and patting yourself on the back. Your job isn’t done. In fact it is never done. The point of the OFCCP regulations as it pertains to federal contractors is it is a day-to-day guidance on hiring and recruitment efforts not a one-time effort. In this way, making sure your applicant pool is consistently diverse becomes a habit and not a numbers game. The guidance of the OFCCP is in place to eliminate inequity in hiring practices. While I’m no stranger to days of pulling my hair out trying to navigate this federal contractor space; I find the cause noble and quite simply the right thing to do.

Working in the federal contractor space doesn’t have to be grueling. If you look at it from an altruistic perspective, you will see benefits to the regulations. To ease the pain of your recruitment efforts, below are five tips on effective recruitment in the federal contractor space no matter what industry you are in:

 

1) Make sure your job description doesn’t overshoot requirements. This is important because you want to make sure that you are always hiring for the minimum knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to adequately perform the duties of the job. The duties of the position should have reasonable requirements attached to it. Asking for higher qualifications than the duties of the job requires could pose adverse impact.

2) Research and Post Job Openings Wisely. Do your due diligence by researching websites, associations, journals and other publications that cater to a diverse pool when looking for venues to post your positions (e.g. Society of Women Engineers). The more diverse the readership or subscribers are the more likely you are to attract diverse candidates. [Editor’s Note: SmartRecruiters is partnered with 100+ job boards and publications, and has aggregated data across 120,000+ jobs posted to predict the best performing job board for you.]

3) Get Up and Get Out There. Recruitment is more fun and best done out there in the world. Get out of the office and participate in diverse job fairs, university career center activities, join an association or local chapter of a national group. OFCCP is no longer interested in federal contractors posting to hundreds of diverse websites and calling this a good faith effort. They want recruiters and hiring professionals out there engaging with the industry professionals they seek. Involvement in these groups brings attention to your company and is yet another way of procuring a diverse applicant pool.

4) To the extent that it is possible – try to have a consistent hiring process. The OFCCP knows that the show must go on i.e.  your business must run. Every business is not made equal and has its own policies and procedures. However, they do take exception to inconsistent processes and procedures. Try to minimize the variability in your process to prevent unnecessary questions when audited.

5) Document Your Hiring. It is imperative that you document any and all good faith efforts made. It is equally important to document any deviations from your usual process so the what, when, who and why is answered when you are audited.

 

Janine N. Truitt (@CzarinaofHR) is an HR Professional based in Long Island, NY. Learn more of her expertise in Recruitment, HR Technology, Talent Management, Employee Relations, and HR Policy/Compliance on her blog, The Aristocracy of HR.