hiring

Redefining Applicant Red Flags

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By Stephanie Hammerwold

Early in my HR career, I was trained on recognizing a long list of so-called red flags on job applications. These are the kind of thing that could land someone in the reject pile and included things like gaps in employment, criminal record, spending only a year or two in each job (a.k.a. job hopping), certain reasons for leaving a past job and more. The list of red flags was long, and sometimes I could go through a pile of applications and find a reason to rule out everyone.

The reality is that no one’s employment history is perfect. Perhaps it is time that we reevaluate the traditional HR red flags and look more at who a person is now.

How Red Flags Can Become Barriers for Some Applicants

The reality is that there are many reasons someone may have had a bad experience at an employer or a gap in employment—reasons that may have little bearing on their likelihood of success at a new job. Yet so many HR decisions are based on scrutinizing someone’s past to the point where we are going on a fault-finding mission.

Some red flags can become huge barriers. Take criminal record, for example. There are many job seekers with criminal records who struggle to find work because that record follows them around even though they have paid their debt to society. The first HR director I worked for told me that anyone who checks the application box indicating a criminal record should be tossed in the reject pile without being given consideration. The reality of this blanket action was that we were tossing out plenty of good candidates. Since my early days in HR, I have volunteered in a women’s jail and have also started a nonprofit dedicated to working with formerly incarcerated people. In that time, California has become a state where employers cannot ask about criminal background until a conditional offer has been made. But employers can still make a decision to not hire at that point, so it still could be viewed as a red flag.

A recent episode of Invisibilia tackled the issue of whether we end up repeating patterns. The episode focuses on the story of a woman who had a rough childhood that included being in and out of jail. She ultimately ended up turning her life around, went to school and eventually earned a law degree. When she applied to take the Bar, she was denied based on her past. The panel was concerned that because of her past issues, she could relapse in the future even though she had demonstrated stability in the years since she went to school. What the episode found was that humans are complex, and our behavior often cannot be reliably predicted based on past behavior. Yet this idea that we need to scrutinize someone’s past to predict whether they will be a good employee persists in HR and hiring.

When a Red Flag Isn’t a Red Flag

Barriers can also include lengthy gaps in employment or the decision to leave a job because a person was miserable there. Think back on your own work history. Are there times you left a job because you had a horrible boss? Or maybe you decided to take an extended amount of time off work for personal reasons. Are those things that make you a bad employee in your current job? Probably not. So why do we use them as criteria to determine if a candidate would be a good fit?

As I have refined my interview style over the years, I have started to ask less about the traditional red flags (e.g. gaps in employment, reasons for leaving a job) and started focusing my questions more on how candidates worked in their previous jobs.

Let’s look at the example of someone with a gap in employment. There are all kinds of reasons someone may take time off work, and most of those have nothing to do with what kind of employee that person will be. Whether it was taking time off to raise a family, travel the world, care for a sick family member, serve time, sleep in, write a novel, look for a new job, go to school or simply to take a few months to relax between jobs, most reasons for a gap have little bearing on what an employee will do when working for you.

New Ways to Read a Job Application

As I mentioned, I have updated my interview style to focus more on culture fit. Of course I am checking to make sure someone has the required technical skills, but many of my questions ask candidates to provide an example from their work history.

For example, I have been interviewing a lot of senior software engineers lately. I work at an organization with a flat structure. Rather than having middle managers, we expect our seniors to take on an informal leadership roles. This means I want to look for candidates who are more interested in mentoring junior-level employees than they are in taking on a fancy manager title.  So I ask questions that require candidates to give examples of how they did this in the past. I also want to see if their goal is to take on a management role or if it is to contribute to an overall team effort. At my current company, we are looking for people who want the latter.

Rather than seeing work history as a place where we can find fault with a candidate, it is time that we see it  as a vast array of experiences. Whether experiences at a past employer were good or bad or if decisions made were good or bad, these are all things that contribute to who a person is now. What matters more is how a person grew and changed from that experience rather than a mistake made in the past.

How to Get Started With Recruitment Marketing

By Oscar Waterworth

It was not so long ago when talented people went out to find suitable employment by proving to employers just how great their potential is. Nowadays, employers have to compete in order to attract the attention of talented people and give compelling offers that will interest the best candidates enough to work for an organization.

Recruitment marketing is a way to promote a company's culture and story in order to let talent know that working there has many perks and benefits. It involves creative and innovative ideas for winning over talent and qualified employees. Here are a few tips on how to get started with recruitment marketing.

Tell Your Story

Talented recruits need to know why they should they join your organization and what kind of benefits will they have if they work for your company. They need a compelling reason to share their talent with your company and kick off their career with you. That is why it is important to tell your company's story the best way possible and convince potential employees that they have a bright future waiting for them in your organization.

Your company needs to formulate a strong message that will capture the attention of those who are actively searching for employment and those who are still passive and indecisive. It is a good idea to closely work with your HR department on creating a campaign and choosing effective strategies that will provide the best results when it comes to recruitment marketing. Together with your HR, you can create a recruitment persona that will reflect on what kind of people and skills your organization needs in order to target specific audience.

Involve Other Members of Your Team

 In order to create an awesome recruitment marketing strategy you should enlist the aid of your existing members of the team. For instance, HR is already helping you to create a message and a recruitment persona, now ask the marketing team to come up strategies that will help you deliver the message to recruits and interest them as much as they would interest customers into buying something.

Do not hesitate to involve your team into helping you out. After all, they are good at what they do and they can also shift their skills to create recruitment marketing strategy that is just effective as a product marketing strategy.

Leverage Content Marketing for Recruitment

Content marketing has always been an effective way to attract customers and capture the interest of viewers. Content is also a good way to reach out to recruits and spark their interest as well. Promoting content for recruits is pretty much the same as promoting to customers, with few adjustments of course.

You can use your company's website to promote recruitment content or manage a different website or a blog with a specific purpose of attracting recruits. It is important to remember that your blog has to have good performance, otherwise viewers will leave. You can host your recruitment blog separately or use shared hosting with other blogs, which is more economical. Regardless, a website or a blog will be the hub for your recruitment content and it must serve a purpose of promoting your company's story and culture that will hold the interest of recruits.

When it comes to recruitment content, you should make sure it contains in-depth information about your organization such as working benefits, career opportunities, career advancement etc. You should also involve your employee's personal experiences and reviews to help you boost the impact on viewers. Transparency and creativity will speak for your company's legitimacy and potential employees will have a detailed view into your company's culture - which in turn, will make them feel closer to your organization and hopefully help them decide to join you.

Recruitment marketing is very similar to product marketing. The only difference is that you are not trying to convince people to buy something, but rather join your company. Recruitment marketing involves leveraging content, social media marketing and other strategies, with a slightly different approach.

Oscar Waterworth is a writer and a senior editor at Bizzmarkblog. He frequently blogs about the latest developments in the tech, marketing, and business industries. To stay updated with Oscar’s latest posts, you can follow him on Twitter.

What is Fair Chance Hiring?

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This post comes from the Pacific Reentry Career Services blog. Pacific Reentry Career Services is my nonprofit, which helps formerly incarcerated women find meaningful employment. We will be holding Fair Chance Hiring Summits this year to provide a forum for discussing the benefits and challenges of working with the formerly incarcerated, so please sign up for our newsletter to get more information about when the summits are scheduled.

Simply having a criminal record should not be enough to keep someone from being hired. Fair chance hiring refers to policies that help those with a criminal record find jobs they are qualified for. This can include removing the question about criminal convictions from job applications (also called “Ban the Box”), moving questions about criminal record to later in the hiring process and only asking about criminal record when it is relevant to the job.

Pacific Reentry Career is committed to educating employers on the benefits of hiring the reentry population. With that in mind, here are some of the most common questions about fair chance hiring. There are links to useful fair chance hiring resources throughout this article.

How does fair chance hiring benefit employers?
One in three Americans has a criminal record. If employers automatically reject these job seekers, they are missing out on a large number of qualified applicants. Many people with criminal records are qualified and ready to work.

How does fair chance hiring benefit formerly incarcerated job seekers?
Getting a good job with a steady income is a huge step in rebuilding a life following incarceration. It can help reduce recidivism, secure housing and help to reunite families. Often checking yes to the job application question about criminal record can automatically land someone in the reject pile. By moving the question about criminal background to later in the process (or not asking it at all if it is not relevant to the job), formerly incarcerated job seekers can be evaluated based on work history, education and other job qualifications, which gives them a fair shot at landing a good job. Their criminal record no longer becomes an automatic rejection.

Does fair chance hiring mean I should never ask about criminal background?
You can still ask about criminal background if you practice fair chance hiring, but you should evaluate when in the process you look at criminal background. The simplest thing is to remove the question about criminal background from your job application and to ask about it once a conditional offer has been made if it is relevant to the job. This gives job seekers a chance to be evaluated on qualifications without having a criminal record unfairly bias a hiring manager against them. For some jobs, you may want to do away with the question all together.

What is the EEOC guidance on the use of criminal background checks in hiring?
In 2012, the EEOC issued guidance on the use of criminal background checks in hiring. The EEOC’s guidance comes from the fact that certain racial and ethnic groups experience higher rates of incarceration and may therefore face barriers to employment. This may lead to discriminatory hiring practices. The EEOC’s guidance encourages employers to only look into an applicant’s criminal background if it is relevant to the job. This is not law, but it is a good place for employers to start when figuring out how to change their hiring process so it does not create unfair biases against people with records. Click on the link at the beginning of this answer or visit the EEOC’s information page for more information on the guidance.

What if I want to use a background company to review criminal records of potential hires?
There are federal and state laws that govern the use of background check companies. Root & Rebound’s “California Employers’ Fair Chance Hiring Toolkit” offers detailed information on the requirements for California employers. If you are thinking about employing a background check company, it is best to consult with an employment attorney to make sure your process fits within the legal requirements.

Are there ways I can protect my business if I do end up making a bad hire?
Many people with criminal records go on to live productive lives following release from jail or prison. The U.S. Department of Labor established the Federal Bonding program in 1966 to provide fidelity bonds to cover at-risk, hard-to-place job seekers. This includes formerly incarcerated individuals. This program is free for employers and employees and covers the first six months of employment. For more information, visitthe Federal Bonding Program website or contact your local EDD office in California. Keep in mind that only about 1% of these bonds are ever claimed, so those covered by bonds have had a high success rate with employers.

Are there any tax benefits for hiring formerly incarcerated people?
The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) is a federal program that provides a tax incentive to employers who hire people from difficult-to-employ groups, which includes the formerly incarcerated. You can learn more about WOTC on the Department of Labor’s website. California offers additional incentives to employers in designated geographical areas. For more information on the California incentive, visit the Franchise Tax Board’s site.

What can I do to show that my business supports fair chance hiring?
Visit the Dave's Killer Bread website to take the Second Chance Pledge to show that you are committed to removing barriers to employment for the formerly incarcerated. Train hiring managers to make fair decisions regarding candidates with criminal records, support community programs that help the formerly incarcerated find employment and spread the word about the benefits of hiring the reentry population.

This article is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. It is always a good idea to check with an employment attorney before making changes to your hiring process and to ensure that your hiring practices are legal and fit within the requirements of the law for your location.

The HR Hammer’s Christmas List

By Stephanie Hammerwold

I like to think I’ve been pretty good this year and that I ended up on Santa’s nice list. So, in the midst of wrapping presents and snacking on one too many holiday cookies, I wanted to take some time to share my Christmas list for the workplace:

  1. Paid leave for parents—The U.S. lags behind many other countries when it comes to paid leave for those who recently had a baby, adopted a child or took in a foster child. Some companies have jumped on board and implemented their own paid leave options, and some states have paid leave programs, but we need to have a nationwide law that reflects the realities of working parents.
  2. Easier access to employment for the formerly incarcerated—One of the keys to lowering recidivism is helping the formerly incarcerated find jobs with a decent income. Unfortunately, having a criminal record can be a huge strike against someone in their quest to find employment. Once released, people have paid their debt to society and should be given the opportunity to rebuild their lives. Opening up access to employment is a huge step toward that.
  3. No more performance reviews—If you are a regular reader, you know my feelings on this topic. It’s time to ditch the traditional review and to go with a system of ongoing feedback.
  4. And speaking of things to get rid of…let’s think about doing away with salary negotiation. I am not a big fan of the game playing that goes on in the negotiation process. I think it immediately sets up a relationship of employer vs. employee. I prefer a straightforward offer and a process that does not solely favor those who happen to be good at negotiation.
  5. Benefits that extend to all employees—Too often when we hear about a company offering excellent benefits, they only extend to office staff. Those who work in low-wage jobs, such as in distribution centers, are often excluded from generous paid family leave and other perks. Some of the hardest working people I know work in low-wage jobs, and we should not forget the value they add to a company when designing benefits programs.
  6. Productive conversations about finding ways to raise the minimum wage—The minimum wage is not livable for employees, and employers worry that raising wages will be unaffordable. We need to have conversations around this issue and find solutions to the huge wage gap we are currently experiencing in the U.S.
  7. A move toward kindness—I recently wrote about this, and I think it is an important reminder as we get further into the presidential election cycle where mud slinging and hate speech are commonplace. There is power in being nice.
  8. Workplaces free from discrimination and harassment—No one should go to work and worry about being harassed or discriminated against because of who they are. We live in a time where same-sex marriage is legal, yet sexual orientation is not a protected class in every state. We have also seen local laws in some place that are aimed at restricting bathroom access for transgender people, and we have heard horrible anti-Muslim rhetoric from some high profile figures. These forms of discrimination are not acceptable, and we owe it to our employees to create workplaces that are accepting and welcoming to everyone.
  9. A focus on finding ways to improve the workplace for employees—Employees are a big part of what can make a company successful, so it is important that we find ways to support them through good wages, excellent benefits, employee appreciation and more.
  10. More books—OK, this one is for me more than the workplace, but I want to encourage everyone to take some time to read in the coming year. It is an excellent escape from all the stresses of work.

Have a wonderful holiday season!

 

Easy Ways to Improve the Hiring Process

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By Stephanie Hammerwold

The new year will be upon us in a few weeks, so it is time to start thinking about resolutions. With job openings increasing and unemployment dropping, it is a good time to start thinking about your hiring process and resolving to improve it in 2016. Here are a few easy ways to take the HR Hammer to your hiring process and setting up a system that helps find the best candidates to fill your openings in the upcoming year.

Job Descriptions & Ads

While it is not a legal requirement to have a job description, it is an HR best practice to do so. A good job description clearly communicates expectations to an employee, but even before someone becomes an employee, it is a tool to ensure that a candidate understands the requirements of the position. Creating or updating a job description also ensures that everyone at the company is on the same page about what the position will do.

Prior to posting an ad, review the existing job description for accuracy. Jobs evolve and change with each new person who takes on a position, so make necessary adjustments to the old description. If you are starting from scratch, get input from people already doing the job so that what you have on paper accurately reflects the day-to-day work of the position.

&&&Use your job description to create your job posting ad. Gone are the days of having to string together cryptic abbreviations to minimize the cost of a classified ad in a newspaper. Most job posting sites give you plenty of space to describe the position; however, this does not mean that you have to create the War and Peace of job postings. Remember that job seekers will be scanning many job sites, so keep your posting brief. Focus on the key responsibilities and qualifications for the position, and include something about your company culture and benefits. You can include a link to the job description on your own site for interested job seekers who want more information, but the goal of the ad is to spark someone’s attention enough to learn more about your company and to visit your career site.

Winging It

Sometimes we get so busy that preparation for an interview is little more than a quick scan of a resume while a candidate waits in the lobby several minutes before the interview starts. Unfortunately, such an approach is little more effective than trying to read and memorize a semester’s worth of material in the hours before a final exam. There is a strong possibility that you will miss out on important details and will forget to ask good questions.

To help avoid having to wing it for interviews, take some time to develop interview questions while you are creating or updating the job description. If the candidate is going through multiple interviews, this is a good way to prevent making the candidate answer the same questions over and over. It also gives you a chance to review questions for suitability and to get rid of any questions that might be inappropriate or touch on protected classes. Focus on asking about work experience, relevant training and education and questions that require the candidate to demonstrate their knowledge.

Do not forget to schedule some time to review the candidate’s resume and application prior to the interview. Get to know their experience and history so that you do not have to waste interview time on questions that the candidate already answered on paper.

Too Many Cooks in the Interview Kitchen

Now that you have a polished job description, beautifully written ad and flawless questions, it is time to take a look at who will be a part of the interview process and just how many interviews a candidate has to go through. Keep things simple, and avoid unnecessary interviews.

In all my years of interviewing job candidates, I have come to realize that you can usually get a pretty good idea if someone is a top contender within the first few minutes of the interview. That does not mean you should stop the interview after only a couple minutes, but it does mean that having the candidate come back for multiple interviews or having a large team of people conducting interviews is probably a bit excessive.

With the exception of high-level positions, you probably do not need too many people involved in the interview process. It is often good to have a second opinion, and the hiring manager and someone from HR should be sufficient. If you feel the need to include others, consider conducting panel interviews to cut down on the number of interviews. Trust your managers to make good hiring decisions. Train them on interview skills so that they do not need a bunch of people involved in the interview process for openings on their team. If you find that a number of people would like to be involved, consider quick, informal introductions following an interview, so others have the chance to briefly meet a candidate before a final decision is made.

Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You

Finally, put a process in place to make sure there is adequate follow up with candidates. At the conclusion of the interview, let the candidate know how long you expect the decision process to take. If it takes more time than planned, follow up with the candidate by making a call or sending an email. Once you have made a decision, get in touch with all candidates to let them know whether or not they got the job. Waiting for a call about a job is stressful, and a quick call or email can help ease the frustration many feel during the waiting game of the hiring process.

Protected Classes and Avoiding Discrimination

By Stephanie Hammerwold

Earlier this month I turned 40, which means I joined a new protected class. In the U.S., discriminating against someone based on age is prohibited. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sets the bar at age at 40 or older. This is a way to protect older workers from companies who may give preferential treatment to younger workers. To celebrate my new membership in this protected class, I thought it was a good time to look at protected classes and some steps to avoid discrimination in the workplace.

What is a Protected Class?

Quite simply, a protected class is a characteristic that cannot be targeted for discrimination. Under federal law, protected classes include sex, age, race, color, national origin, citizenship, religion, pregnancy, familial status, disability status, veteran status and genetic information. Some states include other protected classes such as sexual orientation and gender identity. Even if your state does not include extra protected classes like sexual orientation, it is a good idea to include them in your policy against discrimination and to train managers to make decisions based on work performance and experience rather than identity categories.

Discrimination occurs when an employment decision is made based on a person’s protected class. For example, suppose a man and a woman are up for a promotion. They have similar backgrounds and work performance, but the hiring manager decides to hire the man because the woman is in her 30s and recently married, and he is worried that she will soon get pregnant and need to take time off for that. This is a pretty straightforward case of discrimination because the decision was based on sex and the thought that the female employee may get pregnant. The hiring manager also made a decision based on marital status, so there are multiple types of discrimination here.

Make Decisions Based on Performance, Experience & Skills

While the example above may seem to be so obviously discrimination, such a scenario is still a reality in the workplace. In my own HR career, I have heard managers trying to make a decision using similar criteria. In these situations, I worked with managers to further analyze candidates’ skills and work experience in order to make a decision based on criteria relevant to the job and not on a protected class.

Make a conscious effort to review work performance, experience, skills education and other job-related factors in order to make any kind of employment decision. When rejecting a candidate, you should be able to come up with reasons not related to a protected class. A good job description is an excellent tool in ensuring that your hiring decisions are not discriminatory. Use the minimum qualifications section as a way to measure whether a candidate is qualified for a job. If one of your requirements is expert level knowledge of Excel, and the candidate states that they do not know how to use Excel, this would be an acceptable reason to reject someone.

Sometimes in the hiring process, you have two equally qualified candidates. When it comes down to figuring out which candidate is your top choice, focus on skills and experience and how those things fit in with your company rather than looking at traits that may be protected.

Acknowledge Your Own Biases

None of us is without some kind of prejudice or bias. We are influenced by culture, where we grew up and our own identities. Sometimes that means we may favor people who are more like us, or we may hold certain views about a particular group of people. It is important to be up front with yourself, understand your own biases and acknowledge how they may affect hiring and employment decisions. This is especially important in the hiring process to ensure that we are picking the top candidate for the job based on qualifications and not on certain protected traits.

When making any major employment decision, review your reasons for taking action. Can you offer reasons for taking action that are job based? Ask yourself, “Would I treat other similarly situated employees this way?” If you have any doubt about answering yes, look at what is really motivating your decision. Being aware of what motivates our actions and making changes when bias creeps in can go a long way to avoiding discriminatory practices.