We use it on a regular basis, it has revolutionised the Talent Acquisition Industry as we know it, it’s at the tip of our fingers, we spend a great deal of our time on it and it keeps us updated with the current trends. Any guesses?

Yes, you’re right. We’re talking about Social Media and its impact in Candidate Selection. This topic of discussion was brought forward by one of the Hike Group Chat members Prateek from West. We had amazing insights and here’s what came up…

From this discussion you can conclude that you can’t rely completely on the information you get about a Candidate and nor can you base your Candidate Selection decision solely on Social Media. In fact you can use it to get more information about the candidate to get a clear picture about the Candidates personality. This brings a great end to and interesting conversation and I’m sure you’ve learnt a thing or two from this discussion that helped you add to your learning. To get updates to our other activities follow @SourcingAdda.

Here we go again another successful #SourcingChat for Sourcing Adda (@SourcingAdda). We @SourcingAdda are glad to have so many Talent Acquisitionists expressing their views which have enlightened us as well as our fellow participants. The participation that we’ve had has certainly assisted us in achieving our objective. We are consciously trying our level best to make this experience a memorable one that will not only enlighten you but others as well simultaneous with fun as a finishing touch.

I bet you’re wondering which are going to be the Top Tweets of the #SourcingChat on “Recruiter Skills and Competency Development.” So without further ado; I present the Top Tweets with reference to the questions…

• Sourcing Adda @SourcingAdda

• What is a Skill and Competency? #SourcingChat

• Jombay @Jombaydotcom

• #Skill is what you improve on and #Competency is what you leverage on #sourcingchat

• Sourcing Adda @SourcingAdda

• Is there any difference between a Skill and Competency? #SourcingChat

• Shaila Gupta @shaila_gupta

• A2 “Skills” are learned activities to do a task, while “competency” is a mix up of skills+behavior+knowledge

• #SourcingChat @sourcingadda
• Sourcing Adda @SourcingAdda

• What are the skills recruiters need to develop? #SourcingChat

• Sanjay Singh Negi @hrsanjaynegi

• @SourcingAdda A3) Listening Skills #SourcingChat

• D Prasanth Nair @DPrasanthNair

• @SourcingAdda #sourcingchat A3 proactive anticipation

• Poulomi Bhaduri @PoulomiBhaduri1

• A3) Marketing,networking and rapport building #SourcingChat

• Hitesh Kalsi @hitesh_kalsi

• A3:- Judging the candidates in a short time. Spending time may effect in your peroformance. #SourcingChat

• Sourcing Adda @SourcingAdda

• Do you think Marketing and Sales skills can be a part of Recruiting skills?#SourcingChat

• Himanshu Kapadia @HimanshuKapadia

• @SourcingAdda A 4) IMHO Recruitment is the toughest form of sales. You’re seeing an intangible product – ‘Career’ #SourcingChat

• Sourcing Adda @SourcingAdda

• What are the competencies needed for a Recruiter? #SourcingChat

• RippleHire @RippleHire

• @SourcingAdda Highly versatile. People keep changing and they need to generate newer ways to recruit to keep up the pace. #SourcingChat

• NoJargon @No_Jargon

• A5) Recruiter needs to sell his performance better than others during appraisals. Focus on Source Mix and Cost Saved. #SourcingChat

• Sourcing Adda @SourcingAdda

• Do you think Companies are Competency based?

• Applicant Tracking @atrackingsystem

• To some extent. Competency based HR management is the utmost requirement for companies to be successful. @SourcingAdda #SourcingChat

• Sourcing Adda @SourcingAdda

• How can Companies become Competency based? #SourcingChat

• Shrutica Thakur @iShrutica

• A7) By Establishing a core competence hiring agenda! @SourcingAdda #SourcingChat

• Masood Sayed @TalentPundit

• A7) Begin with a competency mapping exercise i.e. understand what competencies are required for which roles within the org #SourcingChat

There we have it our Top Tweets of the #SourcingChat, now your Tweets too can be listed out provided you participate in our next #SourcingChat by following @SourcingAdda. Here you will have access to all the #SourcingChats we’ve had so far and upcoming ones.

As Talent Acquisitionist Professionals we are all aware of the various issues faced and we’re constantly looking for solutions and sometimes the advice we get from professionals within the Recruitment Industry tend to be most effective.

To name a few Infant Mortality as suggested by Manav or how to Personalise Candidate Experience suggested by @SourcingAdda. In view of that the Hike Group Chat discussion topic suggested by our members Aishwarya and Manav was on, “How important is sharing role details with candidates while hiring and how transparent should you be when sharing role details with Candidates?” In this discussion we addressed another important issue that they face. And here’s what we discovered from our fellow Talent Acquisitionists…

This brings a perfect end to an enlightening conversation. I bet we’ve all picked up a thing or two from it that we can implement in our Candidate selection process. I’ve surely learnt a lot more from these Thought Leaders and I’d like to thank our members for their inputs and suggestions. If you want a recap of previous sessions then follow @SourcingAdda.

We’ve heard so much about Employer and Employee Branding and its impact but as Talent Acquisitionist’s; have you ever thought about the impact of personalising Candidate’s experience?

In view of this the Hike Group Chat discussion was on, “how to better personalise a potential Candidate’s Experience?

Here’s what was uncovered in the discussion…From this chat we can definitely conclude that Personalising a Candidate’s Experience is far more effective than bulk emailing potential Candidates. Moreover, Candidates are more likely to respond instantly if the opportunity interests them and more importantly if it is personalised. If you found this discussion insightful then the previous discussion on “Infant Mortality” might be of interest to you.

To receive real time updates about the next discussion and other activities follow Sourcing Adda. In order to participate in these activities and catch up with the latest updates in the Talent Acquisition Industry that we all share a similar interest for visit Sourcing Adda. If you have any views to add then leave your comments and we’ll be happy to address them.

A popular trend that is being followed these days is that more and more corporates are going in for employee surveys as a way to gather information about employee satisfaction. The aim is to find out whether any changes or improvements are required in the work place and to prevent losing out on talented employees to other different organisations due to similar or other reasons, or so it seems.

Therefore let’s find out whether employee surveys actually work. In order to check if that is the case let’s have a look at the statistics (Officevibe.com) of such surveys by finding out the various reasons for an employee’s limited participation…

Common myths or notions

It is a common myth that most of these surveys end up gathering dust in a Manager’s office. Well 1 in 4 employees think that managers look at these surveys, simply as a check box list. Another common notion that is circulated is that such surveys are pointless and 29% of employees thought them to be pointless and a waste of time.

Employee Views

Here’s what the employee views were for the unfavourable participation. The response rate despite all the costs and efforts involved is found to be 30%. 20% of surveys that take 7 to 8 minutes to complete are abandoned or go unnoticed with no replies due to limited participation, on the part of the employees.

Preferable Response rate

A +/- 70% of response rate is preferable anything above that means the data may not be authentic. It might not have followed a prescribe set of rules and a figure below +/- 70% means that your research wasn’t deep enough.

The concerns raised go to deaf ears

20% of employees mentioned that their boss never bothered to follow up with them about the concerns raised. 4 out of 5 employees think that their manager will not take any action towards the views expressed about the company. Are all clear examples of the concerns raised going to deaf ears, need I say more.

Management facts

Most often than not the surveys almost always went unnoticed and was conducted just for formality sake. Here’s the results of similar surveys that were conducted 27% of managers never even reviewed the survey results at all and the 52% that took out time to review them; paid no heed to the concerns raised or took no action whatsoever.

Senior Management so out of touch

Moreover 48% of the senior management reported that the surveys were highly valuable which was contradictory to 45% of employees reporting that the surveys had little value. Another aspect that came to the fore with senior management was that they found the assessment to be very accurate. On the other hand 48% of employees felt that the survey had the exact opposite results. The contradiction in the stats is a clear indicator of how out of touch the Senior Management is.

Based on the information provided so far I think it is safe to say that, employee surveys aren’t doing as great as expected. So let’s find out some tips on how to improve and generate good responses from employees…

• Keep the surveys brief as far as possible
• Ensure that there is the anonymity of the respondents
• Explain in brief what will be done with the results
• Show that the Managers are all on board and proactive about the surveys
• Explain the benefits of the results to the employees
• Make sure there is transparency about the results
• Be very careful about the incentives

Well there you have it all the information you require to conduct effective employee surveys and that too in one place. How great is that? How about implementing them when creating employee surveys? So what are your tips or views about employee surveys? Do tell we’d really like to hear you’re prospective about Employee Surveys.