May 2013

NetHire News is published monthly and emailed to Recruiters, HR professionals and Managers with hiring responsibilities. It contains information on the latest hiring trends and best practices - particularly in the areas of online and social media recruiting.

Want to Hire for Cultural Fit? Stop Using Your ATS!

There are some great reasons why a company would want to start using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS): the need to streamline the recruitment process; the ability to organise candidates; the desire to gain more information about a candidate than what's solely in their resume or cover letter. Many ATS's can do these things, but unfortunately only these things, and in a very limited way. ATS's are not good at thinking outside the box. You can search for specific keywords in applications, but all you will achieve is ranking applications based on those keywords alone, without context. It is difficult to use an ATS to determine whether a candidate is engaged in your brand, how much they love your company, or how well a person reflects your core values and beliefs. That is, it's hard to evaluate candidates based on cultural fit using an ATS. And if you're a smart recruiter you should be paying attention to a candidate's relationship to your company.

Competency and efficiency are important qualities to look for in candidates. Hiring for cultural fit, however, is equally, if not more, important as making sure a candidate is capable. Generally speaking, you can teach someone how to do a job, but you can't teach someone to share your company's values and norms. It has been shown in numerous studies that when your company has a positive and cohesive culture employees are more engaged with their work. If people are engaged at work then you get happier, more efficient employees who stay longer with your firm.

Making cultural fit a priority in your hiring process doesn't have to be complicated, but trying to determine how a candidate matches your culture can be made more difficult if you use an ATS. ATSs work on the assumption that all candidates are using a standard format of application: they will all be formatted in a similar way, will reference their skills in a way that matches your wording, and will be easily searchable. So what ATS's miss in terms of cultural fit of applicants are small details in a candidate's application. If a candidate uses a different format, or different wording their application gets sorted to the bottom of the pile, even if they would be a great match for your open position.

Enthusiasm, love for your company and brand engagement can be shown in small details that ATSs typically miss unless you're specifically looking for them. If you are only sorting for skills keywords your system will overlook the care and effort a candidate has made to tailor their application to demonstrate how much they want to work for you. For example, if a candidate has taken the time to search for the right person to address their cover letter to, it will be missed unless you're searching for that name. Same goes for if they reference a connection to a current employee. And ATS's only let you review submitted applications. They have no way of determining a candidate's engagement with your various social media accounts, so if he or she is posting or retweeting your content it will definitely be missed. Unfortunately, these details are all traits of people who want to work for you, and who would work hard to be a great match for your company.

ATS's give you the ability to sort candidates based on keywords, but are not able to take intangibles into account. ATS's can't sort based on enthusiasm, love of your company, or desire to work for you. And if you want engaged, long-term employees, you should be paying attention to how candidates interact with your brand. Reading cover letters and actually talking to people are still the best way to determine who wants to work for you, and to give you an idea of who would be a fit for your company.

Rules for Temporary Skilled Foreign Workers Program to Change

The federal government is proposing new rules to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program to address recent examples of companies taking advantage of the program.

Changes to the program introduced by Minister Jason Kenney in 2012 made it easier to fast track foreign workers for available positions. The changes also made it easier for employers to pay foreign workers less than the going rate in their industry. Recent evidence suggests some companies are hiring foreign workers when there are qualified Canadians in their area and paying these workers on average 15 per cent less than their Canadian counterparts. In light of these developments, Minister Kenney will introduce new rules designed to deter abuses by companies hiring foreign workers.

The new changes are designed to counterbalance the savings a company might attain through abusing the system. The point of the program is to give companies a way to find and hire they need, not to provide a way to get cheap labour quickly. As such, the changes will focus on the cost and time it takes to hire a foreign candidate, ensuring that the program will be used only by companies who are truly in need of skilled labour and who have no other options available to them.

If your company uses or is considering using the Temporary Foreign Skilled Workers program, your human resources or recruiting team should pay close attention to these changes. Under the new changes, the fee for bringing in foreign workers will now be charged to the employer, rather than to the government, making it more expensive for employers to hire foreign talent. There will be new questions in the employer application, to ensure that no Canadian workers are being displaced. The only allowable language requirements for hiring will be the official language. This means that employers can not claim an alternative language as a required skill that forces them to look outside of Canada for an employee. Because the program is designed to be a short-term solution for a skills gap, employers will now have to create a plan to hire and train Canadian workers who will eventually replace the temporary foreign workers they've hired. Wages paid to foreign workers will also be forced to align with wages paid their Canadian counterparts. The new rules will also give a greater ability to the government to suspend permits and labour market opinions if they suspect misuse by a company.

The changes basically make a company think twice about hiring a temporary foreign worker. It ensures that you are in serious need of skilled labour, rather than an easy solution to finding talent.

If you are looking for an easy and cost-efficient way to find top talent in your industry, NetHire has a solution to fit your specific needs. Contact one of our Account Managers today to find out how we can find you qualified candidates for any position.

The New Temporary Workforce

The economy is slowly, but steadily, recovering from the recession. One of the emerging trends of the newly recovered economy is a growing temporary workforce.

New studies have recently come out that point to the growing reliance on temporary workers in today's economy. The recent Palmer Forecast found that demand for temporary workers is increasing almost 6 per cent faster than the same time last year. The same study also showed that there has been year-over-year growth in hiring temporary workers for fourteen consecutive quarters. Recent Statistics Canada data shows a similar trend amongst Canadian employers. Last year saw a record number of temporary workers in Canada, primarily in the education, culture, and food industries in Ontario and BC. Statistics Canada found that the temporary workforce had triple the rate of growth as the permanent workforce since the recession.

The increase after the recession is due in part to the flexibility of temporary workers. Employers can determine when and for how long they need to hire someone, rather than taking on a full time, permanent employee. As such, the use of temporary workers increased during the recession, when the amount of work was uncertain and constantly changing. Hiring temporary workers also lets employers transition to having a full time staff when the economy improves; when business picks up they can offer temporary staff, whom they've worked with and know fit within the company, permanent positions. The downside to temporary employment is that it isn't always stable for the individual worker. People can bounce between employers if they only ever get short term positions, and run the risk of work drying up all together.

While temporary workers are one solution to constantly changing levels of work, employers also have to deal with the potential lack of loyalty. Knowing that your position at a company is temporary can affect your dedication to the job. This can result in a lower quality of work, but also potentially increase turnover. Because they're not employees, temporary workers have more flexibility to leave if they find a more stable position or if the environment or work they're performing is not of interest to them. And although temporary work can be a great point of entry into the labour force for new workers, not everyone wants to take a job that has a definite end date. As such, finding candidates for temporary work can be harder than for permanent positions.

So if you hire temporary workers, you need to consider how to attract and retain qualified and enthusiastic candidates. You can, of course, use the same methods of recruiting that you currently use. If you post jobs online, you can easily incorporate details of the duration of the position in your advertisements. If you use social media to recruit, you can reach your audience by promoting the job as an opportunity to see what it's like to work for you.

The interview process plays a key role in establishing candidates' interest in the position, which will ensure that whoever you offer the position to accepts, and that they stay for the full commitment. Workers are, in essence, taking a risk by accepting a temporary position since there is a finite limit to their employment, no security and no benefits. This means that you, as an employer, need to convince them why they should accept your offer and work for you. The interview process is your opportunity to draw them in, to show them what they will they get out of working for you, even if for only a specific amount of time. Will professional development be available to them while working for you? Is there the possibility of permanent work when the contract is complete? Or, if not, is there the possibility of a contract renewal? Will they make great industry connections working for you? What sort of company culture is there, and what's their role in it? Because much of the risk of temporary work is placed on the worker, employers need to sell the position.

Temporary workers are becoming a greater part of the workforce. They offer a flexible solution to an ever changing economy. Temporary workers, however, can also be more difficult to hire, depending on your industry and the position you're offering. Having a clear understanding of what you can give back to temporary workers will help you be a more desirable employer, and will make you more competitive in the employment market.

Proposed Expansion of Canada / Quebec Pension Plan

The federal government is proposing an expansion to the current Canada and Quebec Pension Plans (C/QPP) which would increase benefits to 40 per cent of an individual's wages. The current pay out for C/QPP is 25 per cent of a worker's average wages.

The expansion was originally proposed in 2010, but is now being revisited to address concerns over the quickly increasing number of individuals retiring over the next few years.

Under the expansion contributions by employees and employers would increase by up to $1,100 each, or up to $2,200 for the self-employed.

There has been a lot of debate over the proposed changes. Advocates point to the need to support Canadians who are not able to make enough over their working careers to earn enough pension to survive in retirement. They point to polls which suggest that three quarters of Canadians support the C/QPP expansion. Supporters also state that as it stands, C/QPP is structured so that it can easily be expanded with little cost to the public.

Detractors, however, argue that if the expansion is implemented too quickly, contributions will have to be much higher than proposed to cover the costs of the new plan. Many also suggest that the retirement crisis cited by supporters is over-exaggerated, and that the poverty rate among seniors is actually half the rate for 18-64 year olds.

Whether for or against the changes, the proposed expansion will have an effect on employers. If passed, companies can expect to pay up to an additional $1,100 in CPP contributions for each employee. There is a trend among older workers right now which sees many employees working past average retirement age, to ensure they make enough to support themselves in retirement. While it's difficult to know how the changes in C/QPP will affect trends in the workforce, if employees are earning more for their retirement they may feel less pressure to work past the age of 64. If such a switch in trends occurs, employers will need to focus on recruitment. Employers will need to find, or even train, talent to replace the experience and knowledge of older workers.

Employment Numbers

Canada

Canada saw more moderate growth last month. April saw the addition of 12,500 new jobs, which kept the unemployment rate stable at 7.2 per cent. Full time jobs were the big gain in April, with 36,000 added. Another strong point of the job market was the manufacturing sector, which is starting to show growth. The 21,000 added jobs were the first in almost a year.

US

This month's unemployment numbers show a rebounding economy. April saw 165,000 jobs added, much more than anticipated by economists. It was enough to drop the unemployment rate to a 4-year low of 7.5 per cent. The unemployment rate declined despite a larger workforce than the previous month, government spending cuts, tax hikes, and continued uncertainty in the European markets.

May Specials

NetHire is a hiring process. It includes profiling and benchmarking to create a job description that targets the ideal candidate and then uses the entire Internet including social media, search engines and

hundreds of job boards to reach out to those qualified people. In turn, you get the best candidates

in the right area, even for the hardest to fill positions in Canada or the US. NetHire puts your open job postings in front of more of the right people than any single job board or newspaper in Canada or the US.

If you have suggestions for content or inquires regarding this newsletter please email editor@nethireinc.com.

If you would like to post a job immediately or speak with an account manager regarding your hiring and recruiting needs please contact us.

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