The Key to a Stellar Candidate Experience: Transparency

Johnson & Johnson Global Vice President of Talent Acquisition and Employee Experience, Sjoerd Gehring, joins the Hiring on All Cylinders podcast to discuss his role leading worldwide recruiting and hiring at the world’s largest independent biotechnology company. Sjoerd also directs the company’s employee experience programs and led the recent launch of Shine, J&J’s brand new candidate experience platform.

Sjoerd spoke with co-hosts Britt Ryan and Sean Simerly about his work trying to bring a consumer-level experience to employees and candidates, why he thinks transparency is a key ingredient in successful talent acquisition strategies, and explained what he’s learned while leading J&J’s millennial employee resource group.

Recruiters as Business Partners with Hot Topic, Rubicon, Factual and The Wonderful Company

On a beautiful June evening in LA, over 30 recruiting and talent acquisition leaders came together for a night of networking and candid conversations about the challenges hiring the local talent market.

I moderated a discussion led by Brian Breth, Director of Talent Acquisition at the Rubicon Project, Nancy Martinez, a recruiter at Factual, and Shelley Radford, Talent Acquisition Manager at The Wonderful Company, who each contributed their smarts, experience and sense of humor to a conversation about the many obstacles and pushback facing today’s recruiters.

Last Week in Talent - May 30, 2017

Happy post-Memorial Day short work week everyone!

I hope my American readers enjoyed a long weekend of resplendent weather, not too competitive wiffle ball and ample barbecued foodstuffs. This is Last Week in Talent, the we're-so-close-to-summer-I-can-smell-the-suncreen-and-taste-the-rosé edition.  

So let's get cracking. On the macro side, unemployment crept up for the first time in three weeks but the overall labor market remains robust as the four week average of unemployment claims sunk to their lowest level since 1974. Welp, let the great talent hunt of 2017 continue and maybe tell your cousin Kevin to put down the controller and go find a job, for the good of everyone. 

In other news, Apple hired a new diversity chief who will report directly to CEO Tim Cook, veteran tech reporter Walt Mossberg wrote his final column at Recode before he retires (fare the well, Walt), Amazon is recruiting healthcare experts to help break into pharmaceuticals, Google heads to China for talent and...attention and, alongside Facebook, empties the data science talent pool like there’s no tomorrow, which could be one reason Airbnb created their own internal university to train more data scientists.

Last Week in Talent - May 15, 2017

Welcome to Last Week in Talent,

Last week the jobless rate hit a 10 year low while hiring and wages grew. In possibly related news, USA Today reported that job-hopping is on the rise: “63% of workers are open to making a switch, according to a separate national survey of 2,156 employees that ADP conducted. Seventeen percent are looking while 46% are receptive to an overture from a recruiter.”

What The Music You Listen to While Sourcing Says About You

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but true multitasking is a myth. Really, study after study confirms this. Trying to multitask can reduce your productivity by 40 percent.

Last Week in Talent - May 1, 2017

Greetings friends and welcome to May,

This week we’ve got a truckful of interesting data points and trend analysis from across the technology, recruiting and human capital spectrums. This is Last Week in Talent. This week we’ve got a real humdinger, with all the recruiting news, industry analysis, and data points you need to be the smartest person in your Monday morning meeting.

Last Week in Talent - Monday, April 17th

Happy last day to do your taxes, one and all! If you’re one of the estimated 1 in 7 people who wait until the last minute, good luck and get moving! If you’re not, congrats. You have fulfilled your civic duty this year! 

In the meantime, we’ve got the brand new second edition of Last Week in Talent coming in hot with all the talent-related headlines, insights, data points and long reads to help make you the smartest and best-informed talent pro at your Monday staff meeting each and every week.

And if you're headed to San Diego for ERE this week, be sure to check out our handy dandy guide. 

Last Week in Talent - Monday, April 4th, 2017

Greetings readers and happy Monday! 

Must Haves vs. Positive Indicators with Mode’s Director of Talent Acquisition

Longtime listener Bailey Douglass, Director of Talent Acquisition at data analytics platform Mode, joins Hiring on All Cylinders to discuss recruiting recruiters, training interviewers, and how less is more when it comes to job ads. She also shares her method for demonstrating to hiring managers the difference between must-haves and positive indicators.

Attracting, Hiring and Retaining Talent for the Long Term

This is the third in a series of ten posts on hiring candidates for characteristics linked to high performance. Each post focuses on a key candidate trait, why it matters and how recruiters can develop processes to correctly and fairly evaluate for it.

Every time an experienced employee walks out the door they take a boatload of experience with them. That experience is valuable and losing it hurts. Whether a manager or individual contributor, the longer good employees stay, the better it is for your organization, which is why hiring for longevity should always be near the top of a recruiter’s list of priorities.  

“Recruiting is a Compromise”: Accel Partners Cortlin Handly

Cortlin Handly, Director of Talent Strategy at Accel Partners, dropped by the Hiring On All Cylinders studio to chat with the team. Cortlin, who started out as a recruiter at a staffing agency before managing the Talent Engineering team at BrightRoll, has done it all within the talent function and now bridges the talent acquisition gap between Accel and many of their growing and expanding portfolio companies.

Recruiting Venture Capitalists and Coaching Entrepreneurs with DFJ Venture’s Talent Partner

With investments in organizations like Tesla, Twilio, Twitter, and Baidu, DFJ Venture has an unimpeachable track record of identifying and funding good founders with innovative ideas. Katie Hughes, talent partner at the Menlo Park-based VC firm, popped by the Hiring On All Cylinders studio to chat with Rob and crew. She shares her know-how on stepping up to the plate to help portfolio companies navigate the always complex world of recruiting and hiring.

The Evolution of Talent Acquisition with GitHub's Maisha Cannon

How many recruiters can say they’ve recruited everyone from rocket scientists to retail store managers and was one of the top contenders in the World’s Greatest Sourcer competition? Not many, that’s for sure, which is why it was such a thrill to have Maisha join this week’s Hiring On All Cylinders.

Hosts Rob Stevenson and Vivek Reddy chatted with Maisha about how much talent acquisition has changed since she first got her start over 15 years ago, which means far less cold calling and sorting paper resumes, and far more digital sourcing wizardry. Maisha also took time so share why her new gig in Strategic Talent Sourcing and Engagement at GitHub has been such a nice change of pace. But that’s not all.

In Defense of Recruiting the Job Hopper

Ask anyone in the workforce about their ideal career timeline and you’ll find the concept of the strong, linear job path no longer exists. The times they are a-changin’, and if there’s one group of candidates potentially getting the short end of the stick, it’s the talent pool you’ve neglected and rejected – the job hoppers and the resumes you’ve dumped straight to the can.

6 End-of-Year Techniques to Build Your Talent Funnel

Know who you’re hiring in 2015?

Even if you just filled the last open req for the year or if the team’s activated a hiring freeze, stocking up your company’s funnel with qualified candidates is one of the smartest ways to get ahead of competitors. Having a talent pool prepped and at your disposal before the new year kicks in takes some weight off your sourcing team and can give you the extra support to hit the ground running as soon as the open reqs start coming in.

Before turning on vacation mode for the holiday season, run through this checklist to help your team meet their hiring goals for the upcoming year.