Episode 71 : Building a Recruitment Process from Scratch

Dear Corner Office

I'm really excited to introduce you to he comes from another country not too far away. His name is Gil Cohen. And he will be joining us. And I want to tell you a bit about Gil and his experience. And background is he's not HR, but he definitely definitely has rich experience working with other HR professionals and getting them up and ready to go. So when Gil is ready, he'll come off of mute but in camera, and there he is. And outside tell you a bit about Gil, he has been helping organizations with talent management and employee experience for over 20 years, he has a passion for helping companies designed employee experiences that improve both the outcomes of the organization and the lives of the employees. Gil, combined the background in psychology and business helps him understand both the individual and organizational aspects of the workplace. Gil, thank you so much for joining us from Canada.
Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.
You know, I see people with sweaters on I like where are you because I'm still wearing shorts.
It's actually gotten pretty cold here recently. It's actually gotten pretty cold and we hit like the last week of September, and now we're in colder temperatures. But that's okay. I like it. I like sweater temps.
I love it. I love it. I'm glad you could be here today sweater I'm not and because I might have on flippers. So if you out it's Oh, we take we all endure in different ways. So how did you get started in employee experience? Because you said your background cycle you blend psychology and business. But how did you get into employee experience.
So I got into employee experience around 2016 2017. I first heard the term because I've been in talent management and supporting HR teams for about 1516 years at that point. But when I learned about employee experience I learned about essentially it's understanding the employee's perspective of what happens at work. Because traditionally we think about leadership, we think about HR, we think about what they're trying to accomplish. They make a decision, and then they implement it. And then there's a reason why so many change management projects fail. They fail, because people are involved in we're not as simple as just telling us what to do. And or like one executive I once worked with who thought change management was I sent them an email and I thought they were supposed to change, which is all too common. But learning about employee experience really excited me because it was what I had been missing from talent management of understanding empathizing with how things actually work, how the business actually works, not just because I've implemented something, I expect that to actually happen. But how people internalize things, the ways that leaders make decisions that damage them, and they don't even realize it. So I spent a lot of time learning about design thinking, I believe there's the area of behavioral economics is another one that is extremely helpful to understand not just how we want people to work, but how people actually think and actually work. So it was a relatively new idea at the time, a lot of different companies came into it in different ways. I know a lot of organizations that the way they came to employees experiences recognizing, we put so much time and effort into customer experience. But we don't think about employee experience the same way. So let's apply some of the same principles internally. And we can learn how we can better organize better, motivate better serve people better ensure that people are well at the end of the day. And we're not just taking out of them as much as we can.
I love it. I love how you put all of that in. But I want to take you back to a time before you move over fully to employee experience, because this still ties into the employee experience before they're even the employee, right. So you have the customers that we have the employees, but also people in their call candidates. And so we're talking today specifically about building a recruitment process from scratch. And in when we were talking initially we're going to talk about employee experience in that as well. But I want to first ask you, where do you start in order to build a new recruitment process?
So where I haven't done it before I can tell you where I did start. So where I started it is around research. And I mentioned design thinking before. So for me, it all starts with empathy. Now that begins in a few different ways. First of all, it's about empathizing with the organization and understanding the organization as a whole. It starts with the foundation, when you're going to create a recruiting process, it needs to be geared to something and for you, it needs to be geared to what is leadership trying to achieve. So ultimately, what is their people strategy, because in different industries, different organizations that are going to have different strategies about how and why they want to bring on people, for example, the company that I was working with their strategy, their goal was to have people employed with them for as long as possible. They were a 15 year old company, and they had numerous people who had worked there 10 years already. So for them, they were trying to build and have employees who can grow with them, as opposed to I know a lot of retail companies are lucky if they can keep people around a year. So it's about understanding, how does leadership view the recruiting process? What are their goals, with the recruiting process, I will say as a caveat in this research, one, you may find that they don't have that information. So you'll need to pry into it in to you still need to be critical in thinking about it when they give you their answers. Because you have to be aware of the potential biases in their thinking in the potential impact on your employee population. For example, if they're all looking for our number one thing is we want referrals, referrals, referrals, that is a tremendous risk to creating a homogenous environment. I was lucky, that wasn't what I was facing. But I'm just saying that that is a tremendous risk. So it's important to understand that you coming in as a professional, have your own ideas, goals, objectives that you need to also interject. But it's important to understand starting with the leadership of what's their foundation of what's the purpose of this recruiting process, how are you going to ultimately be measured on it? Another area of research is then in within the employees, empathizing and understanding what our employee, what are these employees, like every cohort of employees is different, based on the values of how they were brought on based on the industry based on the specific role. So understanding them and doing interviews, focus groups, etc. To understand what are these people looking for in an interview process? And ultimately, how do we entice ourselves to the type of person that's successful here? How do we make ourselves look good? And then the third piece that I did was I created journey map, I created a journey map of what was the existing process because I didn't want to throw everything out, because I'm sure there were good areas in it. So I wanted to understand what is the process look like now? Where are the friction points then for candidates? And how can I ultimately smooth those over time? Because one of the things that a lot of us get overwhelmed with, especially when starting something new, like a recruiting process, is looking at the whole picture instead of finding somewhere to start, because it can be overwhelming to find somewhere to start. So an employee journey map a candidate journey map of understanding, how did they internalize each step? What does it feel like for them when they're hitting that apply button? What is it like when they're getting whatever contact from the hiring manager from the recruiter? What are interviews like all of these play a role ultimately, in employee experience, because you're creating the foundation of expectations, but also, you're setting up your odds of whether or not you're going to land the candidate, because a bad employee candidate experience will make it less likely that the candidate at the end of the day will sign assuming you really, that's the candidate you want.
I love how you bought in how to candidates feel as they're going through that process. i The biggest feedback, and probably everybody who's done recruiting, or you've applied for a job has been, oh, upload your resume now put everything that's in your resume and all of these, and everybody's like, What is this madness? And so that is one one part I think, where everybody's applying for jobs at some point in life, like watching my resume if you're going to ask for my resume information, and so, it nobody should solve that problem. So it is I could definitely understand because at whether you are the employer or the employee, usually at some point in time you've applied for a job so I love that part. I love how you said having a Starting Point and not getting into overwhelm. We see that so often when we're trying to create a process. I'm a process person. And I still go into overwhelm, and having also some sounding board. So did you find having other people, or at least a small team helpful in creating this new recruiting process?
Oh, absolutely. I mean, ultimately, that's who really had the data for me about the employee journey map, I had to pull in other people, because I was only one person who had my own sort of different hiring process than the typical one. So I had to understand what other people were doing. So this was about bringing people into design initiatives, bringing into workshops, having them talk, because that also, for me, what was great is they each shared ideas, but then they built off of each other's ideas, they reminded each other of experiences, it's strengthened things in terms of my understanding, but absolutely, having a sounding board is vital, because otherwise, you're just your own echo chamber. And I think that's one of the keys around building experience, candidate experience, employee experience, etc, is understanding that the other people aren't you. So you can't create things because you like them, or because they feel good for you. It's about creating them because they achieve a goal. And they make the candidate have a smoother, easier process. You know, you mentioned the uploading the resume and then filling out the resume. And companies have also recently added a step to that where they have to, you have to create a login for their website with a name and a password, then upload the resume, then have it all D formatted and redone. And I mean, this is a data conference. After all, I would say that if you have the sophistication, find that information of how many people start your application process. And don't finish it. Because I speak to people all the time. I've done it myself, where you start applying for a job. And it's just they expect too much of you. And you just stop. So every person that left left because of the candidate experience that you create it, which means you're you're losing good talent in the best talent. They don't have time for that. They want they they know they're good. They want to be treated well. So having that kind of information is very helpful if you have an overly convoluted process.
I love it. Yes. Who fought? Well, definitely that data, those data points and throughout the process. Okay. So as you're developing this, this process, how did you determine what data you want it to collect? And how is it going to be helpful?
Okay, so for me, I will say, the data collected generally was from two sources. One was internal qualitative data. So that was around the focus groups interviews, I built into the whole candidate experience because I was their contact point, I would build relationships with people ask them questions along the way about how they were experiencing it. So it was a lot of qualitative data, especially because I was starting up from essentially nothing. So it was a lot of understanding. So I called that from a few different places, one from current employees, especially most recent employees, calling it from candidates and understand even the people who didn't make it fully through the process, understanding what they're experiencing, talking to different people in the market. But then the other area that I looked for data was in research externally, because I knew that there were certain things that I couldn't read the label from inside the bottle. And so I needed to do some research. For example, one of the things that I saw very early on as with most tech companies, the difference between the number of men versus women in the organization was significant. And I wanted to figure out why and I knew I wasn't going to find that out internally, especially not in my first couple of months working there. So I started to do more research externally to understand what can I as recruiter do differently, to attract more women? So one of the things that I found was that in writing job descriptions, there is research that found that certain words repel women. So if there's you use certain words like Rockstar and assertive and aggressive, women are just less likely to apply for the job as well. Women I found from the research are less likely or less likely to apply for the job if they only have 5060 70% of the qualifications. They feel like they need more, whereas men are like, Oh 5060, I'm good to go. So it was about designing the job descriptions to encourage that. But that was in data that I would have been able to find internally, I needed to look externally to understand what's happening here. Why am I facing this situation? And really, most importantly, what can I do about it?
Love that you bought up the words that are in the actual job description. I was on a call earlier this week on either end of last week, where there's an HR professional, who was like, I wasn't even looking for a new job. And she was like, the reason I'm at this company, and I applied was because of the job description. She said, I'd never read a job description that was so inclusive, and she was like, it made her like, Oh, my God, let me read this, what company is it? And it took, she was like, Okay, I have to apply. She's been with a company for quite a few years now. But it was the first time she read a job description that was that inclusive as an engineer, trust me, they're generally not that inclusive. And so it is very, very difficult. And because positive hire, we focus on women, I always encourage them, like, let me ask you something. If somebody had, you know, how long you know, generally ask them How long have you been in their job they use three plus years is how much more from the first six months, you've been at your job that you're doing now. And they like a lot of stuff I say. So you wrote the job description of what you do now. And he tried to hire somebody, it was like he couldn't hire one person. I was like, That's how people writing job description. They're taking a job that somebody who's been in for years, all the stuff they're doing, but it's really such a small part of what the role really initially included. And that blows their mind. I said, now go apply for the job. And so the other part of that is there are certain platforms now that and I try to do this too, with our diversity recruitment customers. What do you absolutely need? Like, if nothing else, what are the five things that that this candidate has to have? Like five, so you get five? And you're like, but why five? Is it because if you need more than five, you probably need to be hiring some more than one person. So what's, what's the core five things they really need to understand and be able to do? And then I said, let's write everything out. You have everything like, let's like, Well, no, we don't really need them to do that. And usually you can get into about seven or eight. And then I can usually negotiate the last three, two or three. But it blows people's mind because they haven't gone back and reevaluate job descriptions, and job duties over time with employees. So really understand like, they are no longer a mid level, whatever their they should be. They're really in a different role. But they haven't gotten the job title and a promotion or a job change. So it's a lot in there. And I want to go back to what you're talking about, though, before before we wrap up, which is around friction points. And I'm glad you brought that up. What did you find? I have two questions for you before we finish up at least. But what what did you find to be friction points that you encountered when creating this process?
So there were a few friction points, one of the biggest friction points I found was around that gap between signing in started. And that was a very emotional experience for people and what we ended up doing in we ended up losing people early on as a result of that period. It was a very tough period in terms of recruiting tech people, it was a booming market, we were losing people. And we learned to create a higher touch experience from one moment to the next from the time they sign. It used to be Okay, see you then. And now it was we're asking them the questions the manager was calling them, we would invite them maybe to lunch or something like that, if it was easy for them, whatever it might be. But that was one point. The other one was really around communication. Just around there's a lot of uncertainty as a candidate, and anything you can do to create clarity for them. They tended to appreciate it was about even if it wasn't always news they wanted, but at least it was clarity that they were left, wondering. So those were a couple of the big friction points. But there were a lot of small ones along the way that we ended up just smoothing over which was what was great about the experiences that continuing to collect that data we could continue to improve. We there's there's never perfection. I've never seen a perfect candidate. Experience although one friction point. I will I'm proud of this one. I like this one that we corrected was that anybody who was coming to interview with us who already had a job. I made very clear to say dress as you normally would. Because normally what happens when you're added row And then you dress nicer. You can start to create alarm bells with your in your own work. And we didn't want to put anybody at risk because they were interviewing with us. So we were just like, we can accommodate whatever dress you have for your role now, so you don't alarm anybody within your current company?
Yes, I would like so. Yeah, I had jokes like that. And I was the person that was in the airport in a suit, who ran into her boss's boss fly back. So, yes, please change you might want to change before you get to the airport or at the airport, just so you don't run into your boss's boss. And they sit next to you on the flight back. Oh, what are the odds of that one? Obviously, yeah, but I wasn't at that employer long after. I guess it worked itself out. What advice would you have for professionals who are building a recruiting process from the ground up?
My advice is, first of all, take everybody's advice with a grain of salt. Because like I said, you have to start with the foundation of your organization. So how other people do it isn't necessarily right for you. So make it customized, right for your company, your leadership, understanding the having that foundation to understand how you'll be evaluated once it is up and running. We'll help you address problems you have internally. And the other piece of advice is that if you're starting from scratch, start with as low tech as possible. Because understanding of what does the process need to look like before you let technology wag the dog? Because you don't want to have get into something early on that limits what you're able to do down the road?
Oh, yeah, actually, a third piece of advice is around educating hiring managers. Educate hiring managers, because they need to understand it's their responsibility to hire people, HR, or recruiting or whomever are bringing in candidates, you're the hiring manager, you're not the rubber stamp, because HR brought them in, so bad hires are actually on them. So that's a vital thing. Don't let the hiring managers push you where they're at. Now remember, what was the question before that question? You mentioned that these were the people that had the data you need it? Who are these people and what data they initially have at the beginning of this process for you?
Okay, these are the people who particularly recently had gone through the hiring process. So the data they had was, what was the what did the experience look like, from a human perspective, from the other person's perspective? So that I can gather that from to understand what were the high points, what were the low points, what are the things we want to lean into? What are the things we need to correct, but that was the kind of data that that's how I found out the friction points from the individuals themselves.
Great, thank you so much. So everybody, you have to go talk to people. So luckily, most of you are open to communicating with others, whether it's virtually in person. So I really, really appreciate that. So Gil, before we get out of here, I want to ask the audience, before I ask you this question. If you have questions for Gil, go ahead and drop them in, we have like a minute or so. So we won't get to your question before he leaves. But where can people connect with you, Gil?
Best place to find me would probably be LinkedIn, gi l co H en that's a place you can find I have some articles on there. I used to write a lot more content. So if you're interested in anything that I've written, there's a lot on there or you can find me on my website, www dot employee experience.ca Or email me at Gil JL at employee experience.ca.
And just for you for everybody. We have Gil's information in the chat. So you can grab it from there as well click on his LinkedIn profile. Maybe you want to connect with him. Also, if you want to check out his website, remember the.ca. He's in Canada, but trust me, he does have clients and loves to work with Americans, which is why he's here. Right. So, Gil, thank you so much for joining us today. And I look forward to having more conversations with you about inclusive language. Thanks so much. Gil
Thank you appreciate it.
Bye. So everybody, be sure you go and give your feedback on Gil's session. We want to know what Your thoughts are about creating a recruitment process from scratch. Does it sound doable now, that is still found found sound a bit overwhelming. Or maybe you're like I'm inspired because I've only been at places that already have created recruitment processes, whatever that is. We want to know your feedback. In the survey. Remember, the surveys are only three questions so we made it super simple and quick for you to really dive in.