The Case for Centralized
Recruiting
Rick Plotkin
Senior Account Manager
Inside Higher Ed
Introduction
Rick Plotkin
z Senior Account Manager – Inside Higher Ed
z Six years’ experience as recruitment advertising account manager at The Chronicle of Higher
Education
z 12 years of experience in college admissions (George Washington University and Vanderbilt University)
z M.A. '95, human resource development - GWU
z B.A. '86, economics – Vanderbilt U
The recruiting challenge
z
Growing enrollments
z
Wave of retirements
z
Upheaval in the talent market
z
Commitment to diversity
z
Complex compliance rules
Is your recruiting strategy in line with
your mission statement?
How does your institution recruit?
Each department does its own thing
No coherent branding
Unknown expense
Little accountability
Not just costly and inefficient, decentralized recruiting targets
great candidates
Great candidates
z
Have a great resume – it gets updated
often!
z
Really know how to wring information out
of Web sites
z
Enter lots of data (have time, after all)
z
View a job as the END of a long search
A great hire
z
Is NOT job hunting – even today
z
Comes to explore, not to apply
z
Must be persuaded, not processed
z
Views a job as the START of a great
new opportunity
Mixed messages!
Really? Huh? Yawn Nice intro! Clear title!Rethinking recruiting
Strategic investment vs. administrative chore
z Competitive hiringz Providing a great candidate experience z Dual career advantage
z Diversity
z Breaking departmental habits z Accountability
z Economy
z Volume advertising options z Savings on IT
HR can’t do it alone!
z
Executive leadership
z
Human Resources
z
Academic Affairs
z
Diversity/Equity
z
IT
z
Marketing
z
Individual departments
How you recruit impacts who
you recruit
z
Student recruiting vs. employment
recruiting – why the difference in tone?
z
Employment advertising – what are you
communicating (and does your
marketing department know)?
z
Employment brand impacts ALL
stakeholders
Your Web site is your
employment brand
z Overwhelming % of job applicants via the Web
z 93% of online job seekers use Web to research potential employers*
z 1/4 to 1/2 of the traffic on your site is on employment pages
Does your Web site erode your investment in marketing by failing to understand potential employees as a constituency? * Wet Feet
Qualities that attract students attract
employees
z
Culture
z
Community
The 3 reasons departments don’t want to
centralize (and how to respond
z “One system won’t work because each job is different”
z Involve all stakeholders before decisions are made
z Make some practices universal without eliminating department
specific activities
z Tradition (or bad habits)
z Diversity goals are well served by changing old practices z The best candidates expect a better search experience
z We can’t expect search committees to learn new methods – how can we train them all?!
z Candidates prefer online applications
z New process makes life easier in the long run
Your applicant tracking system –
the best case for collaboration
z
Candidate experience
z Growing intolerance for paper applications z Consistent messages
z Communication during the process z Self-creating credentials bank
z
Compliance
z
Efficiency and cost savings
z Volume purchasing z Automated job posting
Save money
zInformed budgeting
zMarketing
zTechnology
zHR
zDepartmental
z
High volume or unlimited advertising contracts
z
Leveraging marketing strategies for
admissions/external relations
Save time
z
Well crafted “boiler plate” improves
advertising effectiveness
z
Templates appropriate to different
advertising outlets
z
Automating job postings to external sites
z
Controlling the application process
UST by the numbers
z
10,851 Students
z 6,146 Undergraduate Students z 96 Majors, 58 Minors z 4,705 Graduate Students z 48 Degree programsz
2,066 Employees
z 457 Full Time Faculty
z 473 Part Time Faculty (Adjunct) z 1,136 Staff
Multiple recruiting efforts
z
Staff
z
Administrative Support, Professional,
Manager and Executive
z
Temporary
z
Faculty
z
Full Time – Tenure Track and
non-Tenure Track
UST’s path to centralization
z “Sell” the applicant tracking system (“What’s in it for them?”)
z Online application (preferred by candidates) z Paperless workflow – with ready access to
information for multiple stakeholders
z Ease of use
z Define expected ROI
z Find a champion (provost in UST’s case)
z Be flexible
Outcome? Coherent, lower cost
recruiting
z
Overarching plan
z Employment brand
z Unified advertising strategy for all jobs z Immigration compliance
z Diversity efforts
z
Discipline specific activities
z Lowered department spending via institution-wide ad contracts z Retained discipline-specific advertising and outreach within
department budget
“A new business model”
From the 43 recommendations to reduce costs presented by the University of Illinois administrative review panel:
z “A new business model of shared or consolidated services is crucial. HR
management at the unit level can be inefficient and costly. One subcommittee member described the HR services provided at the unit level as the
“conglomeration of mom and pop organizations…”
z “This fragmentation results in highly variable practices. Shared or consolidated provision of services would allow the best practices to be generalized,
standardized and shared…”
z “The structure of the organization must be flexible enough to meet the needs of the customer and not create additional bureaucracy…”
z “Shared expertise would improve services to the customer and allow the re-deployment of staff to other mission critical areas."
Contact
Rick Plotkin
Senior Account Manager
INSIDE HIGHER ED 202-659-9208, x 112 [email protected] 1320 18th Street, NW Fifth Floor Washington, DC 20036
