Talent Sourcing is easy but getting the desired Talent and even more important ensuring that they join the organisation isn’t as easy as people make it out to be. Most Talent Acquisitionists can relate to the scenario and thus are constantly seeking out for new resources and techniques or strategies to boost the joining ratio.

Having, said that we’ve spoken a great deal about how to improve the offer to joining ratio or  handle infant mortality in the organisation. Along similar lines we’ve now covered just what Recruiters can do to achieve the joining ratio they are expected to meet at our popular WhatsApp Wednesday discussion.  The discussion covered the topic, “What Questions can be asked to help Recruiter’s identify whether or make sure that the candidate will certainly join? It was suggested by our Pune Group Member Prateek and after the WhatsApp Chat we’ll be highlighting the take a ways so in the meantime here’s what we came across…

If you’re having trouble with the joining ratio at your company then these simple questions within the conversation above can make all the difference. So let’s get right down to the key take a ways that will assist you when you find yourself in the same situation.

How to identify if a Candidate will surely join?

• What inclined you to consider this opportunity? (Based on the answer/s you get, you can then evaluate the Candidate accordingly)
• If a candidate is ready to compromise on their current notice period, the probability of them joining is much higher.
• Check the response rate pre offer and post offer and the relieving confirmation date
• Meeting Candidates in person gives you an opportunity to identify the joining probability through body language and through observing indicators.
• How is your Manager reacting to your Career move?
• Ask for an immediate Resignation email post sending the offer letter but with the HR head in CC; this can be a deciding factor.
• Post the offer after asking for the immediate resignation email if a Candidate does not send it within 2-3 days then the probability of joining is low.
• Before a 2 or 1 week joining ask for travel tickets especially if the candidate is relocating
• Check the Candidate’s résumé on the portal and check when it was last updated, if it is frequent then make a dummy call to the candidate to check if they are considering your company as an option or not.
• Ask the candidate how they are taking the opportunity i.e. is it just another job move? (The reason would prove whether or not the Applicant is really interested in the opportunity and if they’ll join or not.
• Check the response rate pre and post offer and use the “Fear of Loss” technique/s (if the response is a hesitant reply or least concerned reply then the chances that candidate may not join are high)
• Just asking question/s won’t give you the exact picture of what’s going on in a candidates mind and there’s no science for that.
• Use the concept called “Occam’s Razor” to decide the risk level and whether a backup is needed
• Pre Offer and Post Offer behaviour, Pro-active communication and co – operation during different stages of hiring would indicate how keen the Candidate is to join.
• To get an assurance from the applicant of joining you need to check their past tenure background and the reason/s for leaving.
• If the candidate give you a copy of the salary slips after verifying them with the original then that improves the joining ratio and states that they are trustworthy.
• When dicey about the candidate joining, it is imperative that active communication is maintained religiously.

How to boost the joining ratio?

• Keep the Candidates engaged by inviting them over for lunch or coffee as you’ll get a sense of whether they’ll join or not; it is preferable to encourage the line managers to do so due to a better impact.
• Share company achievement updates or a monthly company magazine with candidates to maintain their interest.
• You can invite the applicants to events such as a company Annual party, Achievement party etc.
• It’s vital to keep the candidate happy and engaged right from the offer stage to the point at which they start and become a fully-fledged employee and the whole process counts.
• Employer branding can impact their decision especially if it is strong and genuinely reflects the reasons that someone would want to join in the first place.
• The entire hiring process must be easy for the candidate to go through and is essential for them to feel that the company is well organised and efficient.
• Any other approach will sow seeds of doubt and the candidate will be easily swayed into looking elsewhere.
• Realise that the new hire wants to start building the relationship with the new boss.
• A letter from the CEO welcoming them to your company
• Send them their business cards, create their corporate emailing signature and identity cards with their name and new job title next to the company logo create a really powerful image.
• Invite them out to lunch or drinks with the team.
• Distribute ‘Joining Goodies’ such as a t – shirt, notebooks, even those strange squeezable stress balls are a good idea especially if they have young children which can get the family excited about the new job.
• Once the Candidate accepts the offer it’s essential for the TA team to be in touch with them for any reason.
• Try and understand the personal ambitions, situations, family etc. if they open up immediately after the interview or outside the office premises.

Well the points mentioned above portray a fair, clear and chirp picture about what Talent Acquisitionist’s like yourselves can do to ensure that a selected candidate joins. We’ve even given ideas on how to boost the joining ratio and solutions to help you achieve your KRA’s.

If you’ve found this enlightening and have added to your knowledge you might want to follow us @SourcingAdda and no doubt would like to join in these discussions. If yes, then do leave us your views and request’s to be added in to our WhatsApp groups in the comments section. We’ll be really glad to add you since we’re in constant search for new perspectives and would like to hear yours as well.

Talent Acquisitionists are constantly required to Source Talent to fill vacancies and there are various tools and methods to achieve this. Several organisations are slowly incorporating these new methods and techniques to evaluate and shortlist candidates to capture the right fit.

In an attempt to understand what these tools are and the hiring trends followed @SourcingAdda we conducted our popular WhatsApp Group chat discussion on, “Hiring timelines / TAT and its implications on the quality of hires.” Upon the request of our Bangalore group member Shankar and here’s what we discussed but we’ll be highlighting the key take away pointers thereafter…

Well this brings us to the end of an interesting conversation with lots of take a ways as always so let’s continue to the key pointers to keep in mind. Therefore here goes…

Hiring Timelines, its importance and Implications

• Hiring timelines is an important part in the hiring process
• With stringent timelines we overlook some qualities in the candidate
• When timelines are too long the candidate loses interest in the position altogether
• It is important for organisations to hire the right Talent for the right profile and within the given time frame.
• Hiring should be time bound but proactive; unless one is hiring readily available candidates instead of the most suitable candidates.
• The quality of hire will increase only if the organisation is ready to invest in the process in a timely manner.

Importance of maintaining relations with rejected candidates

• Stay invested in passive candidates for future roles else you’ll have a Hire Fire type of engagement that can affect them as being possible candidates in the future.

Implications and utility of TAT before and after on – boarding

• Many organisations utilise the TAT for candidate selection although it helps to shortlist candidates it rules out the ones that don’t meet the criteria.
• In the process it filters candidates that might be a good fit for the position even if they don’t meet the TAT criteria.
• Depending on the organisation’s hiring process followed one can also conduct an offer and joining TAT to filter the Candidates further if required.
• TAT should be applicable to all stakeholders involved in the hiring journey not only recruiters
• In today’s hiring scenario we need to remove the filter barrier and capture the right fit Talent with the calibre and capability to perform the tasks well.

Well there you have it all the aspects that play an important role in the growth of the organisation and the implications of having unreasonable Hiring Timelines and TAT selection of candidates. Whether you’re new to these techniques and selection tools and / or are looking to formulate your own selection processes then these inputs will be helpful nonetheless.

Having said that; if you’d like to be an active participant instead of a passive one then ensure that you leave us your views and or requests to join these WhatsApp groups in our comments section. In the meantime make sure you follow us @SourcingAdda to get real time updates to our upcoming events and activities.

Talent Acquisitionists look forward to the performance of a new joinee and have a certain level of performance expectation from the individual on-board. That said it’s obvious why they are constantly looking for a way to measure the Employees performance from an individual and an organisational level.

In view of that, our Pune group member Karnika suggested to have a discussion on, “Bell Curve Performance Management System a boon or bane?” with an attempt to find out how we can tackle the situation. Thus, @SourcingAdda we conducted our popular Wednesday discussion on the same and these are the insights we received…

Based on the discussion above, I’m sure you’d agree with us when we state that this was quite a discussion with many perspectives and aspects to look at. How great is that? If you’ve come this far, then you’ve certainly added to your knowledge. That being said, I’m certain that you’d like to grab the takeaways as a refresher to what you’ve learnt. So let’s not disappoint you anymore, hence here goes…

Bell Curve Performance Management

Bell Curve Performance Management as a Boon

• But real-time performance is better for companies
• From the POV of a Manager the bell curve system can help identify low performance Employees
• Managers can help low performance Employees with training to improve their performance

Bell Curve Performance Management as a Bane

• The bell curve model may be considered a rigid approach for rating employees
• Managers sometimes need to put employees in specific gradients due to the bell curve requirements; especially with small teams
• It creates doubts in the mind of both managers and employees such as the possibility of an exit during tough job market conditions
• Doubts lead to loss of morale and further deterioration of job performance
• It’s not suitable for small companies with less than 300 employees, the categorization isn’t done properly with mostly erroneous results
• Indian companies have either given up completely or increasingly moved away from the ‘Bell Curve System of Appraisal Model’
• The Bell Curve segregates all Employees into distinct baskets i.e. top, average (comprising of the vast majority) and bottom performers
• Compensation or hikes are also based on the rating given for any financial year
• The Categorization of the performance is done on annual basis
• Digitalised evaluations give better results in comparison to the Bell Curve System
• Most IT companies have several Projects & deliveries to cater to and it need not be that each project will have people to fit in the bell curve.
• A small project with 10 people where the Manager had a team with all top performers is forced to push people to the bottom during the appraisal process
• It’s neither a boon nor a bane; as it’s an old method that is specific for large organisations where every performance appraisal is an increasing CTC
• For the overall performance of the company and to balance the CTC the Employees are bucketed into various buckets called low performers, average performers and super performers
• A specific appraisal % is pre-defined for all buckets
• Bell curve forces someone to be put in a lower rating through laddering
• The operating costs increase for the company and many super performers leave during this period due to lack of recognition
• To prevent the loss of talent; organisations are doing away with this model thus the trend inclines towards doing away with this system altogether
• Research shows that this statistical model, while easy to understand, doesn’t accurately reflect performance

Bell Curve VS Real Time Feedbacks

• Both Bell Curve and Real – Time feedbacks have pitfalls highlighted below

Bell Curve Feedbacks

• Bell curve can be applied only once
• One may not perform at the same consistency throughout  the year
• You only see the average work done

Real Time Feedbacks

• If you are inconsistent then it gives an immediate reason to put a person in pip and it’s therefore a question of POV thus given below are the 2 types of POV expressed –

Company’s POV

• Real-Time is a better system

Employee’s POV

• Bell Curve is ideally better
• Bell Curves give more freedom
• It’s harder for Supervisors to punish someone in the bell curve system for small indifferences that are usual in a work-life scenario

Bell Curve Performance Management a General perspective

• The Bell Curve Model has a vital element to it – called relative ranking where the onus is on the People Managers and the HRs to drive it positively
• These individuals are responsible to draw as much objectivity as possible
• To gain objectivity; evaluating people in context to the market dynamics, organisation stage, capability built up over the year etc. is important
• The most important goal is to increase the overall performance of the company and Teamwork plays a vital role in achieving it
• Calibration plays a role in order to mitigate and evaluate people fairly
• It’s important to have good relation with Managers, if that’s established then which system a company follows doesn’t matter

Bell Curve Performance Management Possible Solutions / Improvements

• A simplistic approach by giving the manager more power and authority
• An old method which must be tweaked to accommodate new age demands
• Tools to judge the performance of individuals as well as the team as a whole is essential
• A holistic appraisal process based on individual performances is necessary
• Feedback should be systematic and periodic while considering individual contributions towards the team’s success is required
• A 360 degree feedback survey with monthly feedback sessions to be considered while evaluating Associates is essential
• More emphasis to be given to the sense of belongingness, loyalty, collaboration and teamwork
• Companies now follow monthly & quarterly evaluations as a precaution to avoid shocking situations with the individual and organization at the end of the year
• Technology has effectively improved ones performance
• A rise in the use of technology can be seen hence digitalizing the evaluations is required
• Digitalized evaluations help align the individual and organizational performance in real time
• Evaluations that are digitalized create a win-win situation where both sides are happy; yet  clear about the expectations
• Employees should be evaluated on the basis of achievements / benchmarks and without the threat of forced ranking i.e. doesn’t have transparency
• Top Management is required to think beyond bias and emotions which are rare instances in the industry
• Any rating system should emphasize on the scope for building capabilities that are built over a specified period of time, goals that are set vs achievement/s, reach the next level as a professional and on a key team player
• Post rating is discussed with the resource
• People don’t wanna change when they are used to a system
• Decision makers should depend on a candidate’s performance and then decide if the Employee deserves the appraisal
• Appropriate feedback is definitely needed to improve the employee performance
• A generalised approach that conveys the message that they are doing better than what we expect from them might send a wrong message to the Employees

Well this brings us to the end of an insightful and enlightening experience that we’re constantly on the look – out for, isn’t this great? You can gain different perspectives, add to your learning while staying updated with the current trends followed; live at our popular Wednesday discussions.

Want to get these perspectives and more in real – time then you absolutely need to join these insightful conversations. You can do this by following us @SourcingAdda; hence, leave your views or requests to be added to the various WhatsApp groups in our comments section.

The Talent Acquisition profession is evolving rapidly due to the Digital Marketing Age.  We are slowly moving from performing full cycle Recruitment processes alone to Employee & Employer Branding as well. Given this scenario it’s obvious to question what aspects are involved in a Recruitment Professionals Role.

That being said our popular Wednesday discussions addressed the query, “Are Recruiter’s going above their role when they counsel ideal or not ideal candidates on how to improve their job hunt strategy?” As suggested by our Mumbai group member Joel and here’s what we uncovered…

Well based on the discussion above we can conclude that Counselling Candidates about better ways of Job hunting and giving career advice is partially part and parcel of a Recruiters role as that indirectly improved their network. But don’t go just yet; we’ll be giving you the key take a ways of this discussion below…

• Good Recruiters always guide and have a consultative approach towards Candidates
• Networking is another name of Recruiting and while networking we also advice our network for the different opportunities, process, career growth etc.
• Recruiters now step into an advocacy role but after gather information about industries and trends, challenges, road blocks, job specifications etc.
• Talent Acquisitionist’s have always been at some level Counsellors and Career Advisors and it’s more evident due to digitalisation and personal interaction with Candidates

If you’ve enjoyed this and found it enlightening then you’d enjoy it more once you’re a part of such discussions by joining in. If you’d wish to join the Talent Acquisition community of Sourcing ADDA (@SourcingAdda) and its WhatsApp groups be sure to leave your views or request’s in the comments section.

Appraisals are common knowledge to Talent Acquisitionists and the similar fields in the Recruitment Sphere. We’ve all had our appraisals for the present year. Ever wondered what happens during the appraisals and when the performers are rewarded for their hard work via promotions and what processes are followed by organisations?

This seems a lot to take in at the beginning, well don’t get overwhelmed just yet, as our popular Wednesday discussions just got better. The discussion topic was on, “What are the Employee Promotion Processes Organisations follow based on the pointers i.e. timeframes, eligibility frequency and performance management?” and was suggested by our Pune group member Karnika. If you’ve been wondering the same things as us then you’ve come to the right place and here’s what we’ve come across…

If you’re looking for guidelines as to how does one go about promoting an Employee then you’re in luck as we’ll be highlighting just that based on the discussion above. So be sure to have a pen and paper handy, therefore here we go…

Definition and Meaning of Promotion Plan

Promotion plan is also called succession plan, meaning to recruit, train and up skill existing employees. Promotions take place for 2 reasons; one is to encourage talent and the other is to retain talent. Promotions are a combination of performance, potential and attitude. E.g. A person might have had a great year in terms of performance, but may not have the potential to take up a larger role thus he will not get a promotion. But we need to ensure that we don’t lose out on Talent with the right calibre.

Points to keep in mind when deciding to promote an Employee

Performance has various parameters, employee contribution to the target, SLA adherence, value add inputs by the employee, team attributes. After considering multiple factors an employee should be given an appraisal, sometimes in a growing organisation it’s about the potential of the individual, their hunger appetite to achieve targets, overall does that person add to the average of the company. Hence, first…

• Identify the purpose of a promotion
• What is the long term business goal of the company?
• Current skills and profiles of employees
• New skills required and trends outside
• Impact of not promoting capable employees
• Overhead of training and hiring new skills from outside the company
• Performance, seniority or merit
• Focus on what the individual contributes to the overall team’s success is very important than just individual growth.
• A time bound promotion with preference given to performance management or appraisal process application.

Criteria by which to promote an Employee

Promoting by giving more opportunities to use individual skills like on-site opportunity technical knowledge expansion is preferred. Most company’s focus is behind cost reduction, so there can be different criteria’s set at different levels, namely 3 levels…

Lower Level

If it’s a lower level profile it should be based on the value-add brought in but at an organisation level

Middle Level

If at a middle level it should be more in line with the roles performed and challenges met in the respective roles which can lead to organisational change.

Higher Level

At a higher level it should focus more on succession planning.

The common criteria for a promotion can be based on –

1. Performance
2. Length of service
3. Merit & Ability
4. Educational & Technical Qualifications
5. Assessment of Potential
6. Spacing of the Promotion & the Career
7. Span of the individual and training
8. Based on the Employees Talent and their Achievement they should be promoted via internal and external sources

Well there you have it all the information you’ll need to help you make an informed decision. Use this information to streamline the procedure while formulating a promotion plan that your organisation will benefit from by promoting the deserved candidate.

If you’ve found this information helpful then you’ll probably find our other Wednesday discussions and events quite enlightening and informative. So why wait to read when you can join in and get first – hand information by being a part of these discussions and get your queries resolved instantly? Be sure to follow us @SourcingAdda to get updates to our upcoming events and activities and don’t forget to leave your views in the comments section.