How Corporate Recruiters’ Performance is Measured – and Why the Metrics Matter to Job Seekers

Come performance appraisal time, you get evaluated on your productivity. How many widgets did you process? Did you meet your goals?

Corporate recruiters are no different. They have goals, too. And if you know the standards they are held to, you may be able to better position yourself as a successful candidate. Here are some sample metrics toward which recruiters must work:

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Metric: Cycle time, as measured by the number of days it takes to fill a job.

What it means, and Why it matters:  While a company will usually wait to identify the best fit for a job, the faster a job is filled, the better. The longer a position stays open, the more pain it causes for a hiring manager and his or her team who are covering the work. As a candidate, if you can help bring the process to a prompt closure by not only demonstrating that you have the right skills but can also provide prompt closure (prompt start date, ready references, etc.), you may be able to tilt the process in your favor.

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Metric: Cost per hire, as measured by the actual dollars spent to fill a job.

What it means, and Why it matters: Recruiters may have several resources to fill jobs at their disposal, including job boards, job advertising, dollars to relocate a candidate, and the use of staffing firms. All of these cost money. A cost-effective hire is defined as one who brings the most value for the least cost. So, if you’re a candidate who lives near the office, and your recruiter didn’t need to advertise to get your resume, and you meet the criteria of the position, you may be able to position yourself as a cost-effective hire for the company.

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Metric: Quality of hire, or how good a fit the person is for the job in terms of performance.

What it means, and Why it matters: This metric is a bit more difficult to gauge, because the results often lag behind the hire. It could be measured by ratings on the next performance cycle, or through a post-hire manager survey, or through the percentage of terminated employees hired during a period of time. Either way, these results show up long after the hire has been made. As a candidate, you can put a recruiter at ease by demonstrating a strong history of past performance – strong references and performance appraisals are a great place to start.

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Metric: Offer accept rate, or what percentage of job offers are accepted by candidates.

What it means, and Why it matters: A job offer declined by a job candidate is a wasted offer in many ways – the copious amounts of time spent interviewing, the potential mismatch in terms of salary and other expectations between the company and the candidate, and the opportunity cost of having spent time on a single candidate rather than on having hedged bets with other candidates. The more you and the company can agree on terms up front, the less time either of you will waste on a doomed interview process.

By no means are recruiters evaluated on just these metrics. There are countless other ways companies may opt to measure their recruiting function. But the more you know, the more you can streamline your own interview process.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. He is a Human Resources professional and staffing expert with almost two decades of in-house corporate HR and staffing firm experience, and is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC).

Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

What Does It Mean When a Company Says I'm "Not a Cultural Fit?"

This should fit, right?

This has happened to many of us: You've interviewed for a job. You know you can do the job - well. Damn well, as a matter of fact. You know the duties of the job inside and out.

Then the recruiter calls you to tell you didn't get the job.  The reason? You're "not a fit for the job."

What does that mean?

It means that something you said or did gave the interviewers pause. True, your technical background and work history contain everything they asked for.

But there's more to being a fit for a job than just having the right skill set. It's often a matter of whether the company feels you're going to fit their idea of the kind of person who can not only get along, but thrive, in their environment.

"Applicants can come to the table with a record of past successes but the company culture needs to be compatible with what the candidate values as the way they are comfortable getting things done in an organization," says an SVP of HR I spoke with on the topic.

Translation? It's just as often not about what you get done, but how you get it done.

Imagine you are selecting a new employee to join your highly productive team. Let's compare the profiles of two potential employees:

Employee 1: Meets most of his/her productivity goals. Is described by his/her peers in references as, "a team player, a pleasure to work with. Understands what it means to work well with others."

Employee 2: Exceeds all of his/her productivity goals - in fact, was a top producer for their company last year. In reference checks, is described as, "a real Machiavelli type. Will step on anybody to get what they need. Two team members cited this employee in their exit interviews as a major reason they left the company."

Who would you choose as the newest member of your team?

Granted, Employee 2 could make a tremendous financial impact for your team this year. But is he/she worth the amount of time it would take to referee disputes on the team, or replacing the people who leave because of this single hire?

Cultural fit comes in many different forms, this is but one example. Employers can evaluate people for cultural fit based on their energy level, teamwork abilities, work ethic or a variety of other factors.

A more realistic example might be one of the work environment itself. A certain employee might fit better into a slower-paced, more established company, while others may have the skill set to adapt on an ongoing basis to faster-paced, constantly changing environment.

"I evaluate fit by understanding when a candidate has been happy and most engaged in a past job/company and when a candidate has been most frustrated or felt least successful," says the SVP. "Identifying the environment of both scenarios will help both parties realize best culture fit."

It's also incumbent upon job seekers to find the best fit for themselves. Not every company is a fit for their own personality and values. The SVP quoted here recommends that job seekers askinterviewers how they would describe the culture in their organization.  The more people the ask, the more they will find the commonalities that define the culture within that organization.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. He is a Human Resources professional and staffing expert with almost two decades of in-house corporate HR and staffing firm experience, and is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC).

Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.

7 Highly Effective Questions to Ask During Your Job Interview

You know how at the end of a job interview they ask you if have any questions?

That's not the time to get all quiet. Employers don't want to hear that they've answered all your questions. They want you to engage them in brilliant repartee. 

You need to be prepared with some outstanding questions for them, queries that show you have not only been paying attention to what they've been saying, but also are thinking about the company and the job deeper than you've pondered anything else to date.

All right, that's an exaggeration. But you don't want to come across like a moron, either.

The question portion of your interview is an easy way to score points. Here are some great questions for you to ask your potential new employer!

1. What would the first 90 days in the position look like? This shows that you are not only taking the position and its strategic role in the organization seriously, it demonstrates that you are visualizing yourself in the position. You're already planning ahead in terms of what would be expected, and what to expect.
2. What does the successful candidate for this role look like? Not every job seeker is a fit for every position, or every company. By asking this question, it shows that you are actively working to determine if you are a skill and culture fit for the position. And, the interviewers' responses may provide you an indication of the metrics and milestones you'd be expected to meet.
3. How does this role fit within the department / team / organization? Companies want to see that you're doing more than just your job. They want to know that you understand that you play a larger role in the success of the company, andhow you will partner with coworkers and internal (and external) customers to meet organizational goals.
4. What challenges would I face in this role? No job is all ducks and bunnies and rainbows (in other words, there's not-so-fun parts of the job). By finding out the problems you may have to deal with, you have an opportunity to explain how you will overcome adversity, while getting the skinny on some of the negative attributes of the job.
5. What does the career path for this role look like? You're thinking about growth opportunity within the company. This is a nicer way of addressing this than asking, "When can I expect to be promoted?"
6. What other questions may I answer for you? Demonstrates that you invite the opportunity for your interviewers to truly evaluate your fit for the role, and that you don't squirm under scrutiny.
7. What are the next steps in the interview process? This is a polite way of indicating that you are very interested in the role, and would love the consideration. I've seen interview processes accelerated after a candidate asks this.

Incidentally, it is very okay for you to bring notes to an interview. When there's a lull in the process, and there's a moment, feel free to say, "Thank you for the consideration! I have a few questions of my own." Then refer to your prepared list of questions. This demonstrates that you've prepared for this interview.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. He is a Human Resources professional and staffing expert with almost two decades of in-house corporate HR and staffing firm experience, and is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC).

Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.