In April, the Education Committee held its Spring Workshop with keynote speaker, Abby Engers, J.D., SHRM-CP. Abby is a Human Resources (HR) Manager at Boly:Welch, one of Portland’s leading recruiting agencies. She works internally on HR processes and externally with a large variety of local businesses and nonprofits to solve their HR, hiring, and retention pain points. With the overarching theme of navigating the great resignation, Abby identified creative ways that Marketing and HR can work together to help attract and retain top talent. Abby framed the workshop with three major pain points and their solutions.

Pain Point 1: Not Enough Qualified Applicants

Several factors contribute to the decrease in qualified candidates, including historically low unemployment rates, the creation of hundreds of thousands of new jobs each month, and increases in the supply chain due to online purchasing during covid. Abby’s advice for combating this was centered around making your firm stand out by clearly articulating your Employer Value Proposition (EVP), creating compelling job ads, and considering the candidate’s experience during the application process.

Solutions

Clearly Articulate Your EVP

EVP is the compensation, benefits, and rewards given to employees for their contribution to the company. Even if you haven’t defined your EVP, you have one. As yourself, what are you selling to candidates? Your EVP should be an equal balance of employee rewards and benefits. Be sure to include intangibles (e.g., great boss, flexible schedules, work-from-home opportunities, student loan repayment, autonomy, support for working parents, dog-friendly office). Remember that your messaging will inform the type of applicants you attract.

Create Compelling Job Ads

Abby suggested crafting specific ads for each position will garner you better applicants than a generic ad will. 

Other items you can include in your job ad are:

• Make sure your job ad and job description align.
• Avoid an exhaustive list of bullets in a passive voice.
• Include your EVP and company culture.
• Consider including an overview paragraph that explains a day in the life.
• Avoid buzz words and cliches.
• Include a salary range. Abby recognized that upper management usually pushes back on this. She reminded us that the range can be large and including one can help set expectations and weed out candidates before the interviews even start.
• Check for gendered language, so as not to offend potential candidates. Online text decoders will screen your ad to see if it reads more masculine or feminine.
• Share your equity, diversity, and inclusion values.
• Share the challenges of the role.

• End your ad with a call to action (e.g., apply now, email your resume to…)

Consider the Candidate’s Experience

Abby's final piece of advice was to consider the candidate’s experience during the application and interview 

process. Ways to accomplish this include:

• Have someone test your job application. Ask them how their experience was. The more friction a candidate experiences, the less likely they are to complete the application process.
• Keep the application brief. You will get 160% more applicants if your application is five minutes or less.
• Include the salary range in your ad. You will receive 30% more applicants by including the salary range in your job posting.
• The screening process should be concise so you can make decisions quickly.
• Consider your communication style when conversing with applications. This includes cadence of emails, brand voice, etc.

• Follow up, even if it’s a no. Candidates appreciate it when you close the loop.

Pain Point 2: Candidates aren’t the right fit

Surprisingly this happens 50% of the time. Abby’s suggestions for helping identify a candidate that is the right fit include creating cultural clarity, adding structure to your hiring process, and creating personas for the positions you want to fill.

Solutions

Create Culture Clarity

After you’ve defined your EVP, figuring out the cultural clarity is much easier. Consider the following to 

help define your culture.

• Survey your employees to identify themes. What do they like/dislike? Include parameters and avoid open-ended questions. For example: What do you like about our performance reviews? How can we improve our onboarding process for new employees?
• Define your brand company culture.
• Define ideal qualities for every role. Remember, not every type of person is right for every role.
• Create employee profiles.
• Identify behaviors that are rewarded.

Example culture statement: We are a dog-friendly office, with not a lot of structure, and a lot of autonomy and growth opportunities.

Create a Structured Hiring Process

Remember that hiring is an inherently unbalanced process with the power in the company’s hands. 

Abby’s suggestions for helping level the playing field include:

• Provide candidates with the interview questions in advance.
• Screen based on minimum qualifications and personas.

• Set expectations up front to help weed out candidates early. Example: We are hiring in a month, we have three candidates, we will have x amount of interviews, and need someone to start x date. Explain the role and the team they will work with.

• Make sure your internal team is prepared. Have HR remind anyone involved in the interview of the appropriate legal questions and review the resume before the interview.
• Compare candidates to the job, not to the other candidates. Abby suggests creating a rubric to help eliminate bias.
• Make the offer enthusiastically. Be the first and best offer. Candidates are getting several offers these days.

• Track your sources to figure out the best return on investment (ROI).

Develop a Personal for Each Position

Create a persona that identifies your ideal hire's 5-10 character traits. During the interview, ask behavior questions to help judge if the candidate fits the persona you created. Example: Tell me about a time you dealt with x? Figuring out why the candidate is moving jobs can also be telling. In Abby’s experience, the biggest motivators are challenge, location, advancement, money, people, and stability.

Pain Point #3: Retaining New Hires

You’ve landed a great hire. Now what? Abby reminded us that first impressions matter. She suggested creating an onboarding experience that feels personal, tailored, and welcoming. You can accomplish this by introducing the new hire to employees on their first day to make them feel included right away, providing information about unwritten expectations (way work gets done, communication styles, how to ask for time off, sharing company values and mission, etc.), scheduling a headshot, ordering business cards, taking them to lunch, and more. Marketing can help by providing swag, creating visuals, and being part of the welcome committee.

With a rise in remote employment, it is important to consider your onboarding process for remote employees. It can be tough to make a new remote employee feel connected and part of the team. Abby shared a creative idea for welcoming them by sending a care package with their favorite snacks and branded swag and populating their calendar with meetings during their first couple of weeks. She also recommends researching companies with remote employees pre-pandemic and borrowing their best practices.

You’ve hired a new employee and successfully onboarded them, but your work doesn’t stop there. Abby equated the current job market to a game of musical chairs. Due to a lack of qualified candidates in the job market, your staff is likely being contacted by other companies. Abby concluded the workshop by discussing employee retention. She does this by what she calls delighting employees-keeping them happy and engaged. Abby does this by encouraging employees to work together in teams, build relationships, create employee engagement opportunities, and allow for personal and professional growth. It may sound simple, but clearly communicated expectations can reduce confusion and uncomfortable interactions, leading to higher retention.

Overall, this was an informative workshop that showcased creative ways Marketing and HR can work in unison to help your firm hire and retain qualified candidates during this unprecedented time of historically low unemployment. On behalf of SMPS Oregon, we would like to thank Abby Engers for her incredible presentation.

This event recap was provided by SMPS Oregon Education Committee.