Episode 164: Recruiting Best Practices for a Post-COVID-19 Job Landscape

Welcome to the Workplace, a podcast by Cal Chamber. I'm Matthew Roberts, the Labor Law Helpline Manager and Employment Law Council with the California Chamber of Commerce. Hello listeners. With the days getting darker much earlier, it finally has that feel that we are marching towards the end of the year and that time when all organizations start winding up 2022 and to begin making those preparations for 2023. For many of us, part of those preparations include planning our workforces and how we will fill any open positions in the new year and beyond as they come open to discuss where organizations may have the best chance of success finding and retaining those top candidates. I am very excited to welcome Ricka Brandon to the show. Ricka has been a professional recruiter since 2001 and a business owner since 2003. She's the award winning and best selling author of the book Higher Power Everything Entrepreneurs need to Know to Hire Better in Any Market. She's a nationally recognized hiring expert and has been featured in Fast Company, CBS and NBC. You can definitely learn more about Ricka after the show at rickabrandon.com or buildinggurus.com welcome to the workplace, Ricka.

Hey, thanks so much for having me.

So I'm very excited about this episode. I recently had the opportunity to watch you speak at a conference that you and I both spoke at and I really think our members can learn a lot from you as we navigate what seems to be this new normal in recruiting. And that leads me really into my first questions. Ricka, what's happened over the last couple of years? I've. I've been an employee for half my life and never have I seen the job landscape look quite like this.

Yeah, it's crazy. I think anybody who has been in it, I say I've been doing this, this has been my whole life for 20 years and I've never seen it like this. So it definitely is a, you know, I don't think it's going to be a once in a lifetime. I think we'll continue to see some pretty rapid changes in different things. So yeah, a lot of things happened obviously the pandemic and then we had where, you know, people were able to make way more money for jobs than before and so the great resignation. A lot of changes, a lot of things happened and it happened really fast and so companies in many ways were caught flat footed and didn't see it coming and didn't know how to react. And it's been a wild ride working with clients as they're recognizing like okay, we, we need to make you know, it's always been important, but it hasn't been urgent. So the people part of the business can get put on the back burner. And I think what happened in the last two years really changed that for a lot of companies where they recognize like this is now urgent and important and it's challenging. Right. There's a lot of stuff going on in the market that that's different for companies. And you know, the reality is like, you have to try harder, that that is the end of the day.

Yeah. And so I was wondering if there's any kind of statistics, other background to kind of explain the phenomenon we're seeing. You know, the number of open jobs, people changing industries, what are the things that you're seeing out there?

RICKA yeah, so the big, the one that is kind of the mountain out there is that our birth rate has been dropping for years since like 1958. So it was about 25 births per year. It's now down to 12. So that of course, is feeding into our workforce. So our workforce is much smaller. There's not as many people entering it. Meanwhile, the youngest baby boomer is now 58 and they are leaving. And you're in that seven years where you're kind of in that danger zone of unexpected or early retirements. Like, yep, they might be planning to work to 65, but when we get there, suddenly grandchildren are in a different state. Maybe we have a health scare, maybe a loved one has a health scare. Maybe we decide we're sick of the weather, you know, maybe we're sick of the taxes, whatever, and people decide to move. So I always talk to my clients about, you got to be aware of that danger zone where you may think you have them for five years, but you really only have them for two. And the pandemic brought that home for so many leaders and managers and owners. They thought they had three more years with somebody and they decided, you know what, I have enough in the account, I'm sick of this, I'm going to retire. And they gave a 30 day notice, or in one case, you know, a guy gave a two day notice and he thought he had three more years. So really the biggest thing is that lowering number of birth rates, boomers leaving, and then the job rate growth has just exploded. And so we are already 5 million more jobs than people available to work. So that's why it's so competitive to find, hire and keep people, is there's just so many jobs out there you're competing with for the people available to work. And that unfortunately doesn't look good for the future because for the next 10 years, we're going to see another 10 million in jobs created. So unless something drastically different happens with immigration or something, we're going to be very short of people to work in the jobs. So the same time, in that 10 years that jobs are going to grow by 10 million, our population is going to grow on an average rate of 0.03%, according to Pew Research, which is essentially flat. So we're not going to have a bigger workforce, but we're going to have much more demand. And so those are some of the things that are really happening right now on a macroeconomic scale that are impacting how hard it is to find and keep great people.

So jumping to that economic scale that you just talked about, the economy is in this weird place we've identified. There's a lot of job growth. You hear tech companies are going through some restructuring. You hear crazy inflation is ongoing, and that's kind of squeezing businesses here in California and elsewhere. How's the economy kind of impacting the salaries and benefit offerings that employers are needing to consider to provide now?

Yeah, I mean, universally, my clients and the companies I consult with have had to increase. You know, probably on the low end, it's 5%. Some of them are more like 25%. And I don't have the exact stat here, but I read an interesting article that said, you know, we kind of delayed wage gain. So the national wage gain was actually pretty far behind. And that sort of snapped into attention around the same time of the pandemic, where what we were doing was making up for wage gains that had been sort of delayed or put off. So we got to get hit with a double whammy on it of that change and also just getting sort of caught up to the current market. Now, of course, the challenge with inflation is, is that the companies care about their employees. But also it's not really the company's responsibility to fix inflation and address inflation. Right. That's something on a bigger scale. So it gets. It's going to be really challenging for companies and owners to recognize we have to redo. We have to do this. We have to get great people. We have to have them comfortable and feel secure. And yet this is unsustainable from a business model to do so. It is. It's a tricky situation for a lot of owners and managers.

Yeah. And I think this was all vital background. As we move then into, you know, from a general perspective, what works well to find candidates in this New environment, what doesn't work well in terms of what you're seeing, in terms of attracting the most qualified candidates or the best candidates for the positions we have open.

So, you know, I talked about this in the talk and I think there's really two ways we can get great candidates. One is attraction and one is recruiting. And so attraction is posting a job ad, asking for referrals, maybe creating a relationship with a local school. But basically it's like marketing, right? We're putting a message out there and we're hoping the right people see it and respond to it and take the action we want them to. So that is what the vast majority of small to mid sized businesses do. It's the majority of what most businesses do. Right. And then we have the recruiting side where that is more like sales. And when I'm talking about recruiting, I'm talking about true recruiting, like headhunters, like what I do, where we identify people with the skills you want and we actively seek them out and make them aware of your opportunity and get their interest. It's a very different approach. And for most businesses, they just need to do the attraction piece really well and it will solve their problems. So I'm not going to dive into how you can get all crazy and wizardy like, you know, like an executive recruiter would. So when we're focusing on that attraction piece, you need to make sure your employer brand is good. So when people check you out because we, I mean Yelp everything, people are checking reviews, they're looking at everything. So one, making sure your website is tight to making sure that if you have stuff on Indeed or Glassdoor or LinkedIn, it talks to the candidate and it talks about why it's a great place to work. You know, and in a nutshell, I really think the ticket that is going to change your results is you have to start selling your opportunity and your organization. And I think for years people have just been telling and there is a huge difference between telling somebody and then selling it and now to stand out and to get that action and get them to take action and consider you and actually accept your offer. You have to focus on selling your organization and your opportunity. And that's probably the biggest game changer that I can advise for anyone.

So as you assist businesses in developing some of this sales pitch and attracting employees, what are you seeing that employees want the most when they're applying, applying for these organizations? What are things that you're hearing?

So this is such a great question. You know, I always say hiring is one by one, right? Not all millennials are lazy or entitled. Not all Gen Z are responsible. Not all boomers are, you know, tech illiterate and stuck in their ways. Like all the stereotypes that we hear all the time, it's not true. We all know people that break that mold. So I think that's the first thing is hiring is best done one on one because some people are very money motivated and some people are very focused on altruistic things. And like, the work I do has mean.

So I just, that's my first caveat is what matters to that candidate and what you can offer them. And that's the, that's the superpower of small businesses. We have the opportunity to adapt things and tweak it to meet that candidate's needs and make it work. Right? And, you know, we don't want to bend over backwards, but that is the superpower of being nimble and flexible that small businesses have over giant businesses. Because we can really create opportunities because we're not stuck. Here's the exact job description. Here's the exact, you know, we can customize it and get creative. And so with that, I think it's important that we recognize that money always matters. Like, I get it. Like, people want to do money. That works. Money matters. Like, they are not going to take a pay cut for the exciting opportunity to work for you unless you are unbelievably tied to their passion project. The second thing is benefits matter to people. If you don't have health insurance and they have somebody in their family that has a chronic illness, it is almost impossible for them to make that choice. So these are things that, although they're kind of standard, they are important. Where we have opportunities that don't crush us on the bank side of it is how can we be flexible? How can we be creative about how we're going to get this work done? Right. You know, can we focus on results only versus you have to be here eight to five, but it is, it matters, right? So at the end of the day, the core pieces that have always been there are still really important for people to be able to say yes and feel good about it. And then we've got kind of the icing on the cake, which is the things that are a little bit more trendy, like, oh, there's, you know, foosball in the game room or whatever. It's, you know, I think that's the part where at the end of the day and I talk to candidates all day long, it is. Money isn't the only Thing, but it is a huge part of it. So that probably wasn't the answer people wanted, but it is the reality.

Yeah. And I mean, we deal in reality. And something that I hear a lot from our members is, you know, as far as attracting the candidates that they need for the jobs is knowing what the job is. Right. We talk a lot here at the Chamber about job descriptions and the reason they're so important for a lot of different legal reasons, but also know what it is that you're hiring for.

Right.

Ricka. Like, you may have three people who are managers within the same department, but those three managers do not do the same thing. Almost no one does the same thing as another person unless they're, you know, on a manufacturing line. And that's what I always found was important. I think was really cool from what you just said, Rick, is, you know, it's one on one, what is it that you're hiring for? So beyond the legal aspect, those job descriptions and things that, that you're looking for are so important so that you know what you're looking for first as well.

Yeah. And I just want to jump in on that, Matt. So, yeah, clarity is huge. Like I always say, if there's not clarity on a search, like as a headhunter, it's like, oh, I just, you know, I'll know it when I see it. I'm not working. That search is terrible. My God. Like, right. That's a terrible idea. It's a terrible idea for hiring. And what happens is we have scarcity. There's not enough good people to choose from. So people get a little desperate and they try to round it out. What I encourage you to do is really get clear. And clarity is a step probably before the job description. Like, what does the business need for this? Why is it worth my time, energy and money to pay the payroll and train them? So clarity is there. Like, why are you going to make this investment of time, energy, and money to do it? What's the business result? Right. And then we get a job description, which is so important on so many ways. And then I always say, I just, I'm so glad you brought this up. A job description is not a job admission. Like, posting your job description is not the best vehicle to get people interested. Right. We want to post a job ad. We want to sell that opportunity. We need to go through the job description. That clarity is so important because when you can have conversations in the selection process about what the job really includes, what the challenges and opportunities are, you have such a better chance of successful hires because now you're getting real and they can choose to opt in or opt out. And some people love a turnaround. Some people love like, you know, oh, it's a total mess, I'm going to fix it. Other people are like, not me and thank God, bow out in the selection process. I don't want to pay you for 90 days and train you and have you quit. I would rather just save my time and energy and onto the next one. So anyway, there's a couple of three points there in 30 seconds because you hit a lot of my hot buttons. So I apologize.

Yeah, no, no, I think this is all fantastic and I think you kind of hit on something. There is, you know, when we hire, it's a significant investment. Right. It's beyond just finding the candidate but also retaining the candidate. And something that I hear from members often is, you know, concerned about how transparent they should be in their recruiting copy. And I think you really kind of hit the nail on the head there. But in addition, California has a number of rules about post offer pre employment examinations, things like drug tests, background tests, medical exams related to the position. And they often want to know should they include that in the copy or should they just save it for the interview process so as not to scare away applicants? What do you see as a best practice there?

Yeah, and I get this question all the time, so I'm glad you asked again. To some extent, you know, the best attraction, the best recruiting is being curious, like what's working? But here's the reality. I'm not interested in wasting my time. If you aren't going to be able to pass a drug test and my insurance requires you to pass a drug test. We don't need to spend a lot of time talking. We don't need to spend time because at the end of the day that's going to be a deal breaker. And so I talk a lot about deal breakers are things where for whatever reason the candidate's not going to take your job or for whatever reason you're not going to hire them. It could be that you have to have a driver's license in good standing, whatever. There's usually some deal breakers that are like, you know, stop, don't pass go kind of thing. And so my advice on that specifically would be if it is required and it's non negotiable, like yeah, included in the job posting, save yourself the time of paying for, you know, lots of it's pay per click now paying for applicants that aren't going to be able to do it or won't aren't willing to do it. That being said, we also make sure we're selling it right. So we want to just focus on the negative. But it's like at the end of the day you don't actually want people that can't pass the drug test. So why are we trying to get them into our funnel? Let them just scroll on by to the next one that doesn't have that requirement. So it's a balance. But I want you to focus more on selling the opportunity and speaking to that person who's going to love it. And then it's at the bottom and it's like hey, you know, here's kind of the things like this is going to be required. And I do a lot of consulting for insurance companies, insurance agents and it's like, you know, should we put that they have to get licensed and it's like the reality is if they are not willing to get licensed in the ad, like if they're not into it, they hated school, they hate testing, they're probably not your person, so why are we going to spend time on them? So I think you know, if you're getting no applicants sell better in your job posting, it's probably not the drug testing or the requirements that are weeding people out. It's that you haven't done a good job selling. You've just been telling and you haven't made it compelling. And also we save time by letting people self select out in the process.

You know one more thing I want to ask on drug testing because it's come up often here in California and we just had a new law that was passed related around drug testing takes effect in 2024. But have you seen a shift in how drug testing impacts recruiting especially in light of more and more states like California legalizing marijuana?

Yeah, it's been interesting. I really was like oh my gosh, it's recreational, we're good. It's going to like it's going to open doors, you know, nothing. The fact is like the state law around it has nothing to do with most of my clients insurance responsibilities and regulations. So no, you know that is, it has, it's been a weird thing that I thought would maybe change but for most of them it's still like it's a non starter. It might be legal but because of our insurance requirements and usually it is related to insurance for my clients that is something we're going to have to do. And so it has not been as big of an opener As I thought it would be, you know, and there's, you know, there's people that you can find a study that says almost anything. Right. But in my experience, and I do a lot with manufacturers and distributors, it's just been like it. All it does is sort of confuse the issue because now we still are having to drug test and it's probably adversely affected the talent pool because now it's legal and yet it's still not okay. So it's probably been a little bit of a bummer actually for a lot of. Yeah.

So if you could give employers kind of a starter kit out of this program on evaluating their recruitment practices and moving forward into the new year, what two or three things would you recommend employers go do immediately?

Now? Yeah. So I think the first thing is take some time, get away from your desk your day to day and really look at what did you do in the last year and did it work? Right? Because at the end of the day there's. Hiring is unbelievably complicated. Right. Managing is a whole other animal. Hiring itself is complicated. And there's a lot of ways you can go wrong. Did you not get very many applications for your job posting? Did you lose people in the interview process? Maybe you were a little slower than you should have been. Were you not clear so you couldn't tell them what the job was? And job seekers are very, I want to say discerning, but picky might be a better word right now where they, you know, there's a lot of opportunities. So they have a lot of opportunities to pick and choose. And so if they don't think you're clear or they don't think they know, like they'll step out. So I would really encourage kind of a self assessment of what did we do, how did it work and where was the breakdown? Because there's a breakdown. And the reality is most people don't realize that there's about nine decisions that a job seeker has to make to choose to apply to your job posting like that. The reality is there's all these little whim stackings that are going in to get them to hit apply. They're just thinking there's nobody good out there. And so I encourage you to stop thinking that way and think, okay, what am I doing? Because obviously good people are out there. You know them, their neighbors, your friends, your family, they're out there. How do we get it to show up? So that would be kind of the first thing is to really do an audit of what did I do? What Worked. What didn't? Number two, I almost can guarantee that you are not selling it enough that, like, sell better. Like, you know, think about what that person wants. If you happen to be a boomer and you're like, I've worked 75 hours a week and I do three jobs and that is what you do. And I don't get these millennials, well, put on the millennial shoes and think what is going to attract that person. Because the reality is we're losing boomers 10,000 a day practically, right? We are getting millennials and Gen Z. We have to adapt. So selling it by putting yourself in that ideal, higher shoes. And I think the last thing is recognize that you are not going to get a different result if you don't educate yourself, right? So, you know, they say, like the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If it's not working, fix it. And so if you don't know how to fix it, you've got options, right? Educate yourself. There's a million blogs, there's a million resources. Obviously you guys are doing a bunch of great stuff. I share a lot of content on how we can do it differently. Find a consultant. Get somebody who can empower you or your team members to do it. Or sometimes we have more money than time, pay an expert to do it for you. But really understand that the game is changing. It's harder and you're going to have to try harder. And you need to know how to get a different result to actually get one. So that was kind of a long winded three things, but I think they're all really important.

No, I. Rick, I think this was such a wonderful discussion and I really appreciate you taking time away from your busy schedule to be here. So thank you.

Yeah, thanks for having me. I hope it helped. We covered a lot of ground, so I hope people get value and can put it into play and get different results.

And thank you listeners for joining this discussion on the workplace. Please comment, share and subscribe to Cal Chambers podcast by visiting calchamber.com.