If you’ve ever been in the job market, you know about recruiters. And if you know about recruiters, chances are you probably don’t like them.

As a new graduate of Software Engineering from the University of California Berkeley, the #2 ranked school in computer science in the United States, I probably received every kind of recruiter email and phone call trying to get me to use their services or interview at their company.

To give you an idea of what I mean, while I was still in college and had zero work experience I was receiving several inquiries per day from recruiters.

Yes, you read that right, zero work experience.

I just had classes posted on my LinkedIn profile. While this may seem wonderful, it eventually drove me crazy because I realized the majority of recruiters didn’t know one thing about me other than my ‘soon-to-be’ job title. I was a commodity. They were the consumer and I was going to be used up until the job market didn’t need me anymore.

Many of my colleagues complained of similar experiences with recruiters. However, as I continued into my career working at various startups, large corporations, and later on my own company, I began to see recruiters in a different light. I began to know them on a more personal level, which is where I found out that they are some of the nicest, most caring and considerate people I have ever met.

So how did this message get confused? Why aren’t recruiters seen as nice, caring and considerate people?

I pondered over this question for quite some time. Eventually the question led me to talk to hundreds of recruiters and engage in hours of study in the field of psychology. I eventually arrived at a concept I thought was worth sharing in this article.

This concept is called the Humanification of Companies.

What is the Humanification of Companies?

It’s an idea that in today’s world we expect a more humane approach from companies. Corporations are known for their faceless, money-driven facades that have no consideration for the individual other than as a resource; a revenue producing product.

However, more people implicitly desire companies that are relatable, friendly, and inevitably – real. In other words: humane. We may have seen this with marketing where 62 % of millennials are more loyal if the company engages with them.

This difference can be boiled down to the way people in those companies address the world through the concept of ‘I-You’ vs. ‘I-It’. Many recruiters relate to candidates as ‘I-It’, making the candidates resent recruiters instead of being grateful that someone is in their corner trying to help them find their dream job.

These two terms were originally popularized by Daniel Goleman in his New York Times bestselling book Social Intelligence. In his book, Goleman reveals the term ‘I-It’ is the way people relate to one another via the other’s social role. On the other hand, ‘I-You’ relations have complete regard to the individual’s reality.

Essentially, ‘I-You’ is having empathy for the other person’s reality while ‘I-It’ is addressing someone in the role that they play in the market.

For me, I was the financial commodity for the recruiter instead of a young professional trying to make it in the world.

The humanification of companies covers many verticals such as marketing, recruiting and branding, but here I’ll address recruiting.

While this may seem a plain and simple concept, it is actually very often misunderstood. I’ll break the recruiting pipeline down into two aspects and indicate where sprinkling a bit of ‘I-You’ could make a huge difference. Those parts are the:

• Initial Outreach
• Value Proposition

And my suggestions are:

• Using the power of video
• Using copy that reflects how you talk in person

1. Initial Outreach

Here is a LinkedIn email I received several months ago.

This is a typical message that I receive from recruiters. Essentially it follows the format ‘who am I?’, ‘why am I reaching out?’ and ‘why you should care.’ While it’s written in a professional way and the copy is on point, it lacks the recruiter’s humane vibe. If I were a recruiter I would attach either a video or a GIF saying hi while the candidates name is on a board.

In this case you may be wondering, ‘Why go that far?’ Well, you are going for a more personal experience. If you think that this approach may take too much time, you may want to check out useloom.com or giphy.com. You can put together videos and GIFs in a matter of seconds. Remember, candidates receive several messages each day from recruiters, so you need to stand out. SmallBizTrends states that 80% of user internet traffic will be through video by 2019, so why don’t you communicate in a method that people prefer to consume?

2. Value Proposition:

Below is another email I received on LinkedIn:

It’s always tricky for non-technical recruiters to write technical value propositions. Usually when someone creates a value proposition who is non-technical, they will search on a few blogs, choose a few buzzwords, put them in an email/inmail and hope it resonates. Very often the recruiter copies and pastes parts of the LinkedIn profile into the value proposition to build rapport.

I doubled-checked to see whether anything about building ‘non-technical user-friendly products’ was in my LinkedIn profile, and it wasn’t. The unfortunate thing is that ‘non-technical’ in this sentence is actually insulting. It is technical because it was code so you lost me there. Plus, the use of ‘javascript fatigue’ here is just silly. It’s more of a Medium.com buzzword at this point which I assume is where the recruiter found this word.

My suggestion is either run a value proposition by the technical team before you send it out, or just talk about how you would like the other person to be more humane. Here is my rewrite of the few sentences.

I’m on the hunt for just one amazing Javascript developer, and out of the hundreds of LinkedIn profiles I have read, yours stood out to me. This is why I’m reaching out to you. As I scrolled down your LinkedIn profile I noticed you also worked quite a bit with Javascript at Lithium and Sindeo as a Software Engineer II, which means you are probably ready to make the exciting jump to becoming a Senior Developer.

I hope you can see the difference here. The sentences make the recruiter seem more real and help the individual to relate as though as they were talking in person. Plus, they are staying in their technical lane.

So how does this relate to my industry?

Every industry has a selling aspect that involves convincing a candidate to join their company. Whether you are in import-export, finance, logistics, marketing or other industries, the process is the same.

By becoming more humane and relating to the candidate’s reality rather than putting on a professional corporate facade, you will find it’s much easier to sell the position you are trying to fill as a recruiter.

My end goal is to help you realize that using your innate humane qualities  is one of the greatest recruiting tools to build amazing teams in the workplace. I hope you catch on to the trend of the humanification of companies. Being human has so much potential for finding great candidates by leveraging the power of ‘I-You’ in the technology-filled world of today.

The post Find the best recruits for your business with the power of ‘I-you’ appeared first on Trade Ready.

In a previous article, we discussed hiring practices for your team and focused on employees who were out of your current area, perhaps even in an emerging market.

Now that you’ve made a superstar hire, what’s next? Acquiring top talent certainly has its challenges, but now that they are part of your team it’s well worth it to ensure that you have a strong onboarding and training program in place. You are making a large investment – not only in money, but time and resources as well.

You may be surprised to know how expensive it is to find, hire and bring on new employees.  Even more shocking is how much it costs to lose and then replace one. What we will focus on now is reducing turnover and keeping that talented person who just joined your team.

Training your new employees for long-term success starts on day one

Starting at the beginning, let’s look at your employee’s first day. This first day is as important for a top executive as it is for an hourly employee because it sets the tone for the rest of their employment.

If the employee’s first day is chaotic and unorganized, then you are sending the message that it’s okay if they work in a crazy and hectic way. It will also imply that your entire company culture is that way as well.

The employee has no other focus than to watch and observe everything going on in your business, and how people interact with you as well as with each other. They are listening intently and trying their best to fit in as quickly as possible.

The first day should be organized and well-planned. The space and tools which will be needed for the job should be available, ready and established. Give the new person some time to meet the team. Organizing a welcome breakfast or a team lunch is a great way to do this. Establish a well-organized place where employees have access to all the information they will need to be successful in their new position.

Think about what it would be like to be a new employee starting at your company.

• Do they know your dress code ahead of time?
• If they drive to work, do they know where to park?
• How do they get in the building?
• Do they need a key, a passcode, or an escort?

Imagine the employee arriving, and realizing that they have no place to park without a pass! And then they can’t get in to the building, which causes them to be late on the first morning. Stressful! It’s only day one and you already have a frustrated employee who isn’t off to a great start.

More importantly, they feel that you didn’t care enough to address these issues beforehand. All the while, you are feeling that they didn’t care enough to show up on time.

This is an elementary example, which I hope proves that it is easy to eliminate these problems if you take a minute and, with the help of your team, establish that all important issues are addressed so that their first day is smooth sailing.

Offer continued guidance, open communication and a roadmap for future advancement

Now that your new employee has their first day under their belt, it is time to deliver a very clear directive as to the job they will be doing, the resources and people to look to for guidance and a plan to move forward from that point.

I have found that progressive companies are, at this very early stage, addressing future roles and career advancement potential. If you do a great job in your current role, this is what you can expect down the road. This goes a long way to ensure that your new employees stay and turnover is kept at a minimum.

Everyone wants to know that they can grow within the company if they do their job well.

Part of any good employment relationship is solid and open communication. This may entail formal performance reviews at certain times of the year.  More importantly, it’s essential that for the first 30 to 120 days you check in with one another on a regular, informal basis. These brief, regular meetings ensure that things are going according to the plan you established on day one and, if necessary, changes are made, issues addressed and information exchanged.

Train, promote and then bring in the next generation of talent

Ongoing learning and training is an easy but crucial component to your development process. If you do not currently have a program which enables your employees to develop their skills, implementing one will go a long way towards building a strong and tenured team.

Employers who encourage their employees to learn and develop are well-rewarded. Employees stay because they are being encouraged to grow and develop WITHOUT having to make a career or company change.

Another very easy way to ensure a strong team is cross-training. This is an incredibly quick way to advance collaboration and good will. At its core is learning new skills, but an added benefit is the opportunity to walk in someone else’s shoes and the understanding that comes with seeing things from a different perspective.

Supply chain tools and technologies are changing rapidly, and allowing employees to experience and learn from others within the company helps to keep everyone up to date and engaged in how your business is advancing.

Once a well-defined onboarding and development program is in place, it becomes easy to advance your employees throughout your organization.

Promoting from within helps keep everyone motivated and leaves you with the ability to change directions quickly and efficiently.

If your business is still growing and you need to hire regularly, then I suggest starting an internship program. Partner with colleges in your area and engage their graduating supply chain students. Offer jobs, pending graduation, to the students who best fit your company’s needs. Now they are ready for your well-developed onboarding and training program, which will drive their career with the hopes that they stay at your company for years and years to come. It sure beats the revolving door employment model we currently use.

Ultimately, you are making a talent investment which will pay you back year after year.

The post Give your new employees every chance to succeed by following these simple steps appeared first on Trade Ready.

“Well,” I told him, “I could do it but I don’t think it is really necessary.” I reminded him that I just hired a Supply Chain Analyst for him in San Francisco without setting a foot in San Fran.

The recruiting and hiring process is the same for each and every role, and for each and every location. You just have to follow the right steps.

The most important thing to remember during international hiring

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of steps when you are hiring internationally. However, the most important thing to remember is that it is essential that you follow the labor and employment laws in that area. It’s also crucial that you have a good understanding of visa sponsorships and regulations, should you be hiring someone to work in a country where they are not a resident.

As an example, should you transfer a current employee who is a U.S. citizen to live and work in this position in China, it is necessary to ensure that the Chinese employment rules are followed, or both you and your employee could find yourself in a very bad position.

If you are a large corporation, chances are that you have an HR representative in each of your major markets who handles your international hiring process from that market.

But, what if you are a startup or a mid-market player finding yourself in growth mode? Increasing your business brings the potential for expansion into new market territory domestically or internationally. What then?

Smaller companies can hire global employees too

Let’s break down the process so you can see that it’s not really that complicated.  You want to make an out-of-the-area hire, so what do you do first?

First, the most important step in any hiring process is establishing a solid idea of what you need this person to do; tasks, skills, responsibilities, etc.

Then, you need to decide who else will be involved. Who will they report to, and who else needs to be involved in the hiring process?

If there is more than one person involved in the hiring decision, it’s important to establish that you are all on the same page as to what you are looking for in a candidate.

Sometimes this is an easy task, and sometimes it is necessary to enter in to a mediation-type process like job benchmarking. This is an even more worthwhile exercise if you are hiring outside of your typical market reach, or for a role that is new to your organization.

If you aren’t familiar with job benchmarking, it is a process where the company decision makers agree, in advance, what the job will be, what skills are needed to perform the job, the experience needed to be successful in the role and lastly, an idea of what the perfect person for the job might look like on paper. Then, when everyone is in agreement, you hire to that benchmark.

We help clients hire the correct person using scientific assessments to ensure that we are hiring within the target benchmark. You can find more information on the products and tools available here.

You will also need to do some research to assess salaries for the employment market you plan to target, and decide on an appropriate pay for your new employee. Doing market research on the country where you are planning to hire is the best plan to find a competitive salary range. Searching for similar jobs online should give you an idea of what the job is currently paying. An additional step is to visit the Economic Research Institute where they have a calculator for international salaries.

You want your offer to be on the higher side of the scale and perhaps above the scale for an excellent candidate. Remember that you are depending on this person to be an independent self-starter, and now is not the time to save money which may result in hiring a person who cannot do the job.

Once you have decided on the role, you need to come up with a timeline to search, interview and hire the right person so that they are on board right when you need them to start. If you have an HR team, they need to know what your target hiring schedule looks like.

If you are partnering with an outside, independent recruiter, this is a very important part of the process as they are also working on other positions with other clients. Having a schedule established ahead of time makes for a better experience for everyone, especially if you will be dealing with long distance and multiple times zones.

The most effective way to interview candidates remotely

Now that your schedule is established and you have carved out a target hiring date, you need to determine how you will review and interview this person from across the world.

Perhaps you can start with a phone interview to get a general sense of the person. We use Spark Hire, a video interviewing tool. Our clients choose the interview questions and the candidate tapes themselves answering those questions. Once a candidate sends their videos, we’ll share the video link with the client’s hiring team. This is a useful tool for this process, as it gives you a strong idea of how the candidate presents themselves, and how comfortable they are with technology. Surprisingly, you can also usually tell who prepared their answers and who was comfortable answering from the cuff.

As a next step, Spark Hire has a live interview mode, or you can conduct an online interview via Skype or any other video call service. At this point, you may have an employee in the area who you can task with conducting a face-to-face interview and report back their findings.

Your HR team or your recruiter will also check the candidate’s references, and there are numerous assessments that you can easily administer online which will further indicate their abilities, aptitudes, skills and talents.

Making the final (and best) decision

By now you’ve narrowed the pool of candidates down to those that will be a great fit. If there is one stand-out candidate, fly them in to meet with your core team and use that time to introduce them to your company culture and philosophies.

If there are still two or more candidates, it makes sense for you to travel to meet them in person. Once you’ve made the hire, you may want your new employee to come to visit you after the start in their new role.

Having your new employee visit your established operations is a good way to impart in them your company culture, philosophy and mission. It will also open the doors for communication between the new employee and your established team, which should help with the immediate onboarding. It will help the employee navigate through the new role, office, location, plan, etc.

Depending on your situation, you may still have a lot of questions once you’ve made your hire:

• How do I provide them with benefits?
• What payroll and tax issues do I need to navigate with international employees?
• How do I train employees in other countries?
• What’s the best way to manage employees who are working abroad?

Stay tuned for a future article, where we’ll cover those questions and more, to help you get your new international employees up to speed as quickly as possible.

The post Find the superstar candidates for your global business without leaving your office appeared first on Trade Ready.

The first involved the Bank of New York Mellon (BNY) in July 2015, and the second was in February 2016, involving Qualcomm Inc. Taken together, there are several important lessons to be learned for the compliance practitioner.

Nepotism is another form of bribery

In the BNY case, there were several red flags throughout the hiring process. First, the family members hired were sons and a nephew of foreign governmental officials who held control of business relations between Sovereign Wealth Funds and the bank.

The requests that close family relations be hired by BNY Mellon went contrary to the bank’s own process of selecting candidates for its internship program from an exclusive group of universities and colleges in the U.S. and UK.

There was no evidence the candidates met any of BNY Mellon’s own internal criteria for consideration to the internship program.

Indeed, as the SEC Order stated, “as recent graduates not enrolled in any degree program, the interns did not meet the basic entrance standard for a BNY Mellon postgraduate internship.”

Finally, to top it off, all three were hired sight unseen, and “BNY Mellon decided to hire the interns before even meeting or interviewing them.”

Hiring rules exist for a reason: to limit corruption

The Qualcomm case involved hiring the son of a Chinese official who issued a license to Qualcomm with even more flagrant abuse of the company’s hiring policy than in the BNY case.

The official’s son was hired after he had already been rated as a “No Hire” from his initial interview. This rating was assigned not only because he was not a “skill match” for the company, but also because he did not even “meet the minimum requirements for moving forward with an offer”.

Furthermore, among the Qualcomm team involved in the interview process, “there was an agreement that he would be a drain (not even neutral) on teams he would join.” Yet he was offered a job as a “special favor”. [Emphasis supplied].

If someone is so unqualified that employing them will negatively impact the company, there must be another very good reason to hire them, such as providing a benefit to their father who is an official under the FCPA.

Keep a close eye on the rules and use of your hiring process

Both of these instances demonstrate clear violations of internal controls around the company’s hiring process.

If a candidate does not make it out of the initial interview with anything more than a “No Hire” rating, that should be the end of the decision making process around compliance, full stop.

Do not pass Go, do not Collect $200.

While money may not directly pass hands from one party to another in the same way as a direct bribe, nepotism hiring is nonetheless another way of circumventing compliance regulations to accomplish the same objective.

As the Order succinctly noted, “FCPA compliance, however, was not considered in Qualcomm’s hiring process.” A fine and penalty for this transgression was obviously warranted, as it was a clear violation of internal controls around the company’s hiring process.

The BNY and Qualcomm FCPA enforcement actions reinforce the need for robust internal controls around the hiring process.

It should be studied by both the compliance function and your company’s Human Resources (HR) function. The lessons you can learn from this enforcement action can help you to forestall a similar fate for your company.

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