Hiring

What’s Your #1 Hiring Blindspot?

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What's Your #1 Hiring Blindspot Blog
What's Your #1 Hiring Blindspot Blog
Written by Heather L. Cole, August 11th 2022

Are you looking to hire IT or Finance talent and struggling to find good applicants?  You might be feeling frustrated with your HR team or recruiters and wondering, “why can’t they do their job?”  But I must say, it’s not their fault.  The world has changed, and many organizations have failed to adjust their hiring strategy.  As a result, they have a hiring blindspot.  Are you curious to learn what’s your #1 hiring blindspot? 

TAKE THIS QUIZ TO FIND YOUR #1 HIRING BLINDSPOT

The World has Changed

I think we can all agree, the world has change.  There has been a seismic shift in what employees are looking for, and what they want out of their careers.  I believe this shift has been caused by two forces.  The pandemic has caused us all to reflect on what’s really important to us, and the younger generations have a different mindset regarding careers.

The Result

A younger generational shift has been moving slowly for years.  See my earlier blogs on Millennials.  But then we add the pandemic which caused employees to take inventory of their lives and BAAM the seismic shift in the recruiting and hiring world occurred.  Employees started singing the 80’s Twisted Sister Song, “Were Not Going to Take It,” and decided they would rather be unemployed chasing their dream career than keep doing what they were doing. 

The Facts

In December 2021 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs.  There were 10.9 million job openings posted on the last day of December, far more than the roughly 6.3 million people counted as unemployed. See SHRM’s blog, Year- End Employee Quits Remained Record High.

The Problem

The problem is that most hiring managers and executives didn’t shift! 

Over the last year as an executive high-performance coach, I have met with many executives and managers to discuss their biggest challenges.  Hiring Talent was number 1.  As we explored what was causing the challenge to attract, hire and retain talent it became obvious to me that executives were suffering from one of 3 common hiring blindspots.  The most common was that they were still using the old school ways to hire people.  They would dust off an old job post and have HR post it on the web and hope qualified applicants would see the post or their recruiters would find them.  (See our blog Why You Aren’t Attracting Analytic Talent)

You might be thinking, what’s wrong with that…?

The Challenge

Have you read your job postings lately?  Clients send me postings to review and I am shocked that they are very company focused.  They don’t communicate what’s in it for the applicant.  They don’t communicate the growth opportunities.  When I point this out to my clients they usually laugh and say, “yeah we need to work on that.”  See our blog, Job Posting Tips to Attract Analytic Talent.

The Urgency

Your hiring blindspot is a big issue for a number of reasons.  

1. Risk of More Team Members Leaving

If you have already experienced team members leaving, you may be short staffed and feeling overworked to cover for the missing team member.  But worse, your team could be feeling stressed and overworked which puts them at risk of leaving too.

2. Risk of Not Meeting Strategic Goals

When you are short staffed it becomes even more challenging for your team to complete the strategic goals or initiatives you set for the year.  Maybe your goal is to upgrade your analytics solution or implement a new planning solution.  It will become significantly harder with less staff, but that’s magnified if the team member that left had 10 years of knowledge of the corporation.

3. Top Talent Could Go to Competitors

The biggest issue is that if you don’t identify you hiring blindspot and address it, the top talent you seek could go to your competitor!

The Solution

The first step to solving a problem is to identify you have one!  So, can we admit, we all probably have at least one hiring blindspot?  Okay, now that we identified the problem let’s go deeper. 

Through my research I have identified 3 most common hiring blindspots that hiring managers suffer from, but most have a predominate one that should be addressed first.  To make this easy I have developed a little quiz that takes a couple minutes to complete that will help you identify your #1 hiring blindspot. 

TAKE THIS QUIZ TO FIND YOUR #1 HIRING BLINDSPOT

Identifying your blindspot is not enough!  I feel so strongly about the negative affects that the hiring blindspots are having on our clients that I decided to create a 3-hour virtual Overcoming Your Hiring Blindspot Workshop to help you take action to address the problem.  In this workshop you will discover:

  •  The 3 Common Hiring Blindspots
  • The Secret to Writing Compelling Job Descriptions
  • How to Leverage Social Networking and Media to Find Talent Not Looking for A Job
  • Why Core Values and a Vision are Key to Attracting Talent

This is a “get shit done” (GSD) workshop where you actually take action to shift your mindset and approach to hiring.

To learn more about this workshop click this button.

Overcoming Your Hiring Blindspot Workshop

I am excited to work with you to solve your hiring challenge! 

I promise to bring tons of value during this workshop, but I have one favor to ask of you!  Can you please share this with your colleagues, Linkedin connections, etc…

TAKE THIS QUIZ TO FIND YOUR #1 HIRING BLINDSPOT

Why You Aren’t Attracting Analytics Talent!

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Why You Aren't Attracting Analytics Talent
Why You Aren't Attracting Analytics Talent
Written by Heather L. Cole, May 12th 2022

Are you looking to hire analytics talent but struggling to find people to even apply for your open positions?  Are you blaming the Great Resignation?  STOP!  The people are getting hired by someone… So, today I’ll share what I have been coaching our Lodestar Solutions clients on hiring talent and Why You Aren’t Attracting Analytic Talent.

Your Job Posting Sucks.

The first place to start is sit down and read your job posting!  Most suck.  When you read it, think I was of the experience level I am looking for, would I respond to the post?  Most job posts are written in the old school way when employers have tons of candidates to choose from.  The world has changed and so should how you write your job posts.  It’s not so much what you are looking for but what you offer the candidates with analytics talent!  See our earlier blog, Job Posting Tips to Attract Analytics Talent.

Do You Allow Remote or Hybrid Work?

If the pandemic taught us anything it’s that major corporations can survive and thrive even when employees work from home.  As someone who used to deal with Chicago’s commute, I can tell you when I started working remote over 20 years ago, I vowed I would never work for someone that made me go to an office every day.  Talented people know they can demand a remote or hybrid work environment and if you don’t put it on your post that you offer it, top analytics talent are doing the proverbial swiping left and rejecting you.  

Executive Team Needs to Face Reality

I appreciate that there are many executive teams that want to require people to come back into the office, but the data is showing us that hybrid work and remote work is here to stay.  Even one of my favorite authors, Bernard Marr discusses this in his book,  Business Trends in Practice: The 25+ Trends That Are Redefining Organizations. A quick way to validate this is to ask your team.  Create an anonymous survey and see what your people are saying.  You do realize that if your people want to keep working at least some days remotely and you want them in the office you risk losing them, right?

Evaluate your Pay!

Inflation is real.  The market is benefiting the job seekers, so they are demanding more pay.  But many companies are failing to look at market conditions and adjusting pay.  I had one client post a job and when a friend saw the posting, he said Heather they are extremely low paying for the title they are posting.  This discussion led them to do their research and sure enough they weren’t even close.  It’s easy today to find market rates.  There are many sites like www.glassdoor.com or www.indeed.com where you can put in search parameters and see what the market is paying. 

Unfortunately, for some of you, your prior behavior has given you a bad reputation.  If your online reviews in the job boards is not so stellar you will need to face it head on!  Would you apply for a job with a company that had a 2.8 rating out of 5?  You might want to consider writing in your job post how the environment is changing if you are in this situation.

Learn How to Manage Hybrid Workers

After you check your job posting to attract talent, and you know you are paying a fair wage, you should start to see applicants apply.  Now the hard work comes!  You must learn not only how to manage hybrid workers and remote teams but also how to hire people that would thrive in the new world. 

Ask the Right Questions –

You will want to review your departmental and corporate core values and ask questions to flesh out if applicants have your core values.  I don’t believe this is something we can teach; I believe core values was something our parents taught us when we were children or it’s part of our DNA.  For example, do you really think integrity is taught later in life?  To get yourself started read the book Hiring for Attitude: A Revolutionary Approach to Recruiting and Selecting People with Both Tremendous Skills and Superb Attitude! by Mark Murphy.

Display How You Manage Your Team Hybrid Workers –

During the interview process you want to share what you do that is unique to help them grow and thrive as a manager.  The younger generation want constant feedback and to be part of something important.  As a manager you want to create ways to help meet their needs so you can inspire them.  More on this in future blogs.

Show them the Path.

Finally, you want to make sure you are mapping out a growth plan for any new hires.  With the speed of technology and the rapid changing world, you MUST hire growth minded people.  But as a manager you also must help them define that path for the future and provide feedback.  If your company is willing to invest in their learning and “upskills” make sure you communicate that.  Soft Skill training programs are always a great growth path for analytic professionals.   Another idea is to offer group coaching to your team members.  If you want to learn more about group coaching and professional development programs, email us at Services@lodestarsolutions.com.

Analytic Talent Resources

Here’s another resource you might want to check out if you are seeking talent.

Gartner’s article on How to Attract and Retain Talent for Your Data And Analytics Team.

Summary of Attracting Talent

Hopefully you had a couple ahh moments while reading our thoughts on why you aren’t attracting Analytic Talent.  Hybrid work and remote teams are here to stay.  We would love to hear about your struggles and creative ideas you have had to address them.  Please email us at Services@lodestarsolutions.com to set up a chat.

Finding and Keeping BI Talent

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Gartner estimates that 4.4 million new jobs will be created around data in the next two years.  Why is that important?  It depends on your point of view.  If you are a Business Analytics professional, this may mean a lot of great opportunities.  If you are an executive, this should freak you out!  So here are some tips to finding and keeping BI talent

FINDING TALENT

  • Look within your organization, find the highly analytic people.  You know, the people who love excel files and data.  You may be surprised to find them in HR, Finance, Marketing; they can be anywhere.
  • Determine if they are highly inquisitive.  Why?  Because sharp, inquisitive people can learn anything and they usually love to learn.
  • Once you find them, you need to plead your case to executives as to why it’s imperative that you build a team of top talent, as it will impact the innovation and economic growth of the company.  (I will provide ideas on this in another blog)

KEEPING TALENT

Once you have the talent, you need to create a culture and environment that will keep them.

  • Bright talent will need to know the whole organization supports the analytics and data initiatives.  This comes from the top.
  • They need to know there’s a roadmap to bring data and analytics to all areas of the organization.
  • They need to be empowered to make change.
  • But, most of all, the organization needs to invest in continuous education and programs for growth.  This is where a lot of companies fail.  I have heard of organizations that wouldn’t let their people go to user groups for fear their people would get job offers.  Are you kidding me!  That’s a sure fire way to drive talent away!

So remember, the best place to start looking is from within!

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