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Empowering HR: New tools
for overworked recruiters

They know the company. They know the people. And they know what it takes to recruit and retain the talent that organizations need to compete. But too many human resource executives are not getting the resources they need to fill their talent pipelines, according to CPGjobs President Michael Carrillo and other HR experts.

Suzanne Baugher, former recruiting manager for ACNielsen Spectra, now working for Nova Recruiting, says the field's emphasis has shifted away from talent acquisition and development. She says companies need to take "the focus off the transactional side of HR" and focus on "building strategic relationships. It has to go beyond the immediate requisition need -- you have to build a referral process."

HR executives labor hard against low expectations and thin resources. "Many departments are understaffed and just don't have the people and budgets they used to," Carrillo says. This lack of resources comes just as companies need HR expertise most. According to a survey by NCR's Teradata, "the average employee tenure is at an all-time low of 3.6 years." That not only means high turnover but also lost knowledge base, increased competition for scarce skills, higher recruitment and salary costs, and skill gaps leading to lost productivity.

Leader says "benchmarking is important to understand strengths and weaknesses in the recruiting effort -- that said, recruiters have interviewed millions of people while technology hasn't interviewed one. Technology should enhance the recruiting process and that is all. If technology is the main focus of recruiting rather than the recruiters, then I think this is a problem."

Baugher says "the basic problem is lack of time and pressure to make things cost-effective. HR managers need strategic time to learn more about their organization and its talent needs. And recruiters need to spend more time with candidates. "You need more than a 10-minutes phone screen," Baugher says. "Too many candidates know how to answer the questions because they have read a book," she says. "You need to probe their critical thinking skills, and that takes more than a phone call."

Carrillo says human resource pros need the resources to build networks -- all kinds of networks: "Employees who have left and want to come back, older workers, senior executives, MBAs out of school. Recruiters need to work [the talent market] with different pipelines instead of just processing what shows up. These pipelines need to be nurtured and built over the long-term to truly work."

Beyond transactions

"There are solutions," says Carrillo. "Increased authority and access can give recruiters better insights into current and future hiring needs. Increased pay can reduce HR turnover. Better tools and training can increase HR's productivity. Outsourcing and technology can free HR departments from the burdens of bureaucracy. What HR managers need most are the resources to build candidate networks for the long term."

Recruiters should emphasize the human in human resources, says Jane Leader, a former senior recruiter for Georgia Pacific and a client partner at Staff Financial Group. "Take every call. Ask everyone you talk with, 'Who do you know?' That is the best way. And don't be afraid of intimacy in your conversations, within professional boundaries, of course. That's where life is, and that's what makes professional networking enjoyable."

Baugher agrees. "HR has traditionally been measured by transactional metrics, and while the two eventually go hand-in-hand, [the job is] more than just filling requisitions. HR needs to get the bigger picture to come up with something creative and think outside the box. How do you spend that time unless you have [networking] built into your strategy?" she asks. "You need to get five or ten other referrals" from every lead, Baugher says.

Carrillo is also passionate about "the referral ripple effect." He notes that "every application is the beginning of a network. They should never be thrown away. That's why CPGjobs believes in full candidate ownership, which means companies can use any candidate referred by us as long as they want. This brings more candidates back to you in turn, filling your talent pipeline through the power of networking."

The long term

Recruiters need time and resources to build long-term referral networks instead of darting from requisition to requisition. Old-fashioned job boards are little help, Carrillo says. "They produce unqualified applicants and more inside work."

"People are still the best technology, especially when you are targeting those passive executives," Baugher says. "I think there's going to be an evolution in job boards -- they're going to relationship-based versus electronic-based."

Carrillo says CPGjobs is already there. "We expand your networking by combining our own candidate networks with time-saving technology and personal support. We data mine submissions so you don't have to. Bottom line, we offer strategic tools that allows hard-pressed HR departments to extend their candidate networking -- and when it comes to recruiting, networking is the name of the game." He notes that more than a hundred leading industry companies use CPGjobs to "fill immediate candidate requisitions and build their candidate networks for the future."

Diversity key

Diversity in the talent pipeline is critical, according to Leader. "Train all employees on strategic diversity management and behavioral diversity. In doing so, companies will broaden the inventory of candidates and ensure retention of hard to find candidates. And, companies will be better prepared to address future candidate shortages as we move to attract and retain Gen X and Gen Y," she advises.

Diversity is a top priority among CPGjobs clients, Carrillo says. "Diverse teams produce diverse thinking, and that makes them better adapted to reach today's multicultural markets and lead your increasingly diverse workforce. We understand how important it is to the hiring process. Which is why we provide clients with a diverse pool of talent, reach out to traditionally under-represented communities, support diversity efforts in our industry, and offer direct diversity support to our clients."

Other solutions

"Using value-added networking tools is one way to ease the HR squeeze," Carrillo says, "but other HR functions can be outsourced too." Last year DuPont signed a $1.1 billion, 13-year HR outsourcing deal with Convergys, transferring all of the chemical firm's transitional and administrative functions for 60,000 active and 102,000 retired employees. The deal frees DuPont's HR managers to do the real work of finding and managing talent, according to SHRMonline.org.

In addition, don't forget to give your HR people the pay and respect they deserve. "Pay your 'people people' what your money people make," Carrillo says, "and make sure the head of HR is a vice president or above, reporting directly to the CEO. This will not only ensure that you recruit and retain the best human resource executives, but it will send a powerful signal to the entire company that your HR department is trusted and valued."

Concludes Carrillo: "Strategic access and outside resources can transform human resources from transaction factories to networking machines, giving your organization the talent it needs to compete now and in the future."

For more information on how CPGjobs can help your company fill its talent pipelines, contact Tami Page at (626) 535-0143.

Michael Carrillo is president of CPGjobs, the CPG industry�s leading candidate recruiting service for employers and recruiting agencies. You may contact him at Michael@CPGjobs.com or call (626) 535-0143.

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