March round up - what’s happening in candidate experience and equality
The Inside Job - 27
For our March round up I have different articles in different formats.
So hopefully there’s something in here for everybody 😉
- Rob
P.S. Help the Inside Job to grow by spreading the word! Recommend it to a friend in an email or on LinkedIn - they can sign up at: https://www.idealrole.com/newsletter
📼 Convincing the right applicants to apply [video]
The best people need convincing to apply for a job. But is it worth the extra effort?
This helpful 5 minute video looks at how improving your employer branding to convince the right people to apply can really pay off.
But it’s important to note that this strategy won’t result in a large number of additional applications. Instead, you’ll probably only get a small increase in applications - but those applications will more likely be from someone you want to interview.
And with fewer applications to manage, you’ll have more time to give them a great candidate experience.
😳 What to do when you get backlash on your hiring process? [twitter thread]
When the Product team at Monzo decided to share how they hire product designers, they had good intentions. They wanted to help other teams hiring product designers learn from their past mistakes. And help product designers wanting to work for Monzo to know what to expect.
But it did not go down well with designers.
Most of the criticism was around how long and involved the process was - and the amount of time they were expecting people to commit. In particular, the design challenge, which is not unique to Monzo, came in for some scathing criticism.
Interestingly, people also shared their own recruitment process.
Like Michael Bierut, a partner at design firm Pentagram. Who has hired designers for the past 29+ years based on their portfolio and between one and three interviews.
While some of the comments are specific to design and other fields where everyone has a portfolio of their work, the sentiment is clear - people want a short, relevant recruitment process that respects their time.
Although the response is not what Monzo would have wanted, at least by being open about their process they’ve got good feedback - and plenty of suggestions on how to improve it 🙂
📬 Cold Email Benchmarks: What Makes Cold Emails Effective in 2020?
These days it’s hard to get a response to your email.
But how hard? And is there anything you can do to get more responses?
This article is the result of analysing 26,000 email campaigns and provides many insights and benchmarks. The key findings are that:
- Personalised emails get almost twice as many replies as generic emails.
- 2 or 3 follow up emails is optimal for getting a response.
- Smaller, more targeted campaigns had the best results.
Clearly a tailored message is worth the extra time it takes to write.
A practical way to write a lot of personalised emails is to group people into segments based on the types of jobs they’d be suitable for. The smaller the segment the better - as they will have more specific wants or needs in common. Then create a relevant, personalised message for each segment.
🧮 How To Calculate Time-to-Hire and Ramp Up Costs
Not having a sales person can be costly. The lost sales compound each week and month the position remains unfilled.
For example, an Account Executive with a $1 million annual quota can cost your company $4,150 a day.
When you put a figure like that next to your problem, it makes it easier to justify the resources you need to get a good sales professional in quickly.
This guide provides two useful formulas to show how much revenue you’re losing for:
- A sales position not being filled
- The time it takes for a new sales person to get up to speed and start hitting their quota.
🎧 Creating a gender balanced workplace [podcast]
In this interview, Anne Francke, CEO of the Chartered Management Institute talks about:
- The commercial benefits of gender diverse workplaces
- Where issues arise in our organisations.
This podcast is full of great insights and takeaways. And might be a good one to share with your colleagues outside of recruitment, especially hiring managers. Because if companies don’t get recognition and promotion right, all your good work in attracting a diverse group of people can be undone.
Read a good article you’d like to share? I’d love to hear about it! You can get in touch by replying to this email.
And if you have a question you can get in touch here.
