"How employers can become better recruiters"/ Partnership specialist

Jun. 7, 2019 "How employers can become better recruiters": Today I found this article by Harvey Schachter in the Globe and Mail:

The bold rhetoric about talent wars in recruiting and retention has faded with time, satisfying as it was for our combative instincts. The real war companies face has actually always been against the inadequacies of our recruiting systems and judgmental blind spots, which prevent us from finding the best people, not poachers or other workplaces.

Let’s look at some new ideas that might spruce up those recruiting processes. I’ll start with John Sullivan, a professor and consultant who has been called “the Michael Jordan of hiring.” He says the five most effective recruiting tools are simple, logical, and intuitive. They also require no cash outlay, take little time, and work at a range of firms from large to small. Sounds irresistible, right?

He opens with boomerangs – previous employees who were top performers and might return to your grasp. They are not unfamiliar strangers, hard to evaluate; you understand their value. The key is to identify the best ones – those who have continued to excel since leaving your employ – and assign one of your top employees in their field to rebuild the relationship and capture the boomerang return.

Employee referrals are increasingly common but he goes a step further: Hire a recruiter to interview your own top employees in the target job field, and rather than just asking “do you know anyone we might hire?” pose a series of questions that might prompt deeper recall. 

For example: Please name the most innovative idea-person that you know in this job area; name the best team player; name the best at working under pressure?

Try calling executives with sound judgment who were references in the past for candidates you hired. Thank them for the past reference and ask, “Who else do you know that is equally as good?” 

Another helpful technique often overlooked is to revisit past finalists for jobs who may now be more qualified. 

And his fifth simple, low-cost technique: When onboarding new hires, ask who else at their previous firm in the industry is worth hiring.

“The secret to successfully finding top candidates is not to use the most common tools like job boards, internet searches, and career fairs. 

These sources can be expensive. And in addition, they also often result in weak hires because the applicants from these sources are almost always complete strangers to you (who might easily fool you).

 If you can’t afford a single mis-hire, the key to assuring quality hires is to first rely primarily on referrals from people who have a track record of identifying top talent that fit your firm. 

And then revisit former top employees and top candidates who you already know a great deal about,” he concludes.

Goldman Sachs used to have its pick of the student intern crop, the most successful of whom became full-time employees. But after the 2008 financial crisis, investment banking was no longer as hot, and the recruits it prized switched to Silicon Valley, private equity, or start-ups. So Goldman re-evaluated its recruiting methods, Dane Holmes, global head of human capital management, reported in Harvard Business Review.

One twist was at the very start of the intern interviewing process. Traditionally, like many top companies, Goldman had flown recruiters and business professionals to universities for first-round interviews. But even though they hit a surprising number of campuses, essentially it was a limited search in terms of universities and number of students who could be seen in a visit. That has now been replaced with asynchronous video interviews: 

Recruiters record standardized questions and send them to interested students at any university, who have three days to return videos with their answers. To ensure a level playing field, the company created tip sheets and instructions on preparing for a video interview. Then top applicants are invited to a Goldman Sachs office for structured, final-round, in-person interviews.

“This approach has had a meaningful impact in two ways. First, with limited effort, we can now spend more time getting to know the people who apply for jobs at Goldman Sachs. In 2015, the year before we rolled out this platform, we interviewed fewer than 20 per cent of all our campus applicants; in 2018 almost 40 per cent of the students who applied to the firm participated in a first-round interview. 

Second, we now encounter talent from places we previously didn’t get to. In 2015 we interviewed students from 798 schools around the world, compared with 1,268 for our most recent incoming class,” he writes.

So review your processes, looking for new methods that can make your own recruiting more effective.

Cannonballs

• Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s retreats on policies over his first year offer lessons to other leaders. Don’t delude yourself into thinking being bold, brash, and different means you’re right and everyone else is wrong. Double-check your ideas before launch, to make sure they will fly. But when you have a clunker, retreat.
• INSEAD Professor Michael Witt says we are likely entering a new Cold War between China and the United States. Managers have two choices for their companies: Withdraw to one sphere of influence or develop high levels of decentralization so as to operate in both spheres.
• As we near midyear performance reviews, consultants Karin Hurt and David Dye say these meetings should summarize, celebrate, challenge and inspire.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/management/article-how-employers-can-become-better-recruiters/


Jun. 15, 2019 Partnership specialist: Today I found this article by Jared Lindzon in the Globe and Mail:

Job: Partnership specialist

The Role: While some companies sell products or services, others seek to offer experiences that include a range of products and services that can be accessed with a paid membership. 

For example, credit card providers like American Express, online retailers like Amazon, entertainment companies like Virgin and even universities and colleges offer their “members” additional benefits with their paid subscriptions, ranging from discounts on relevant products to access to content streaming platforms to early access to concert tickets.

“The partnership specialist is making all this happen; they're managing the operations and pricing strategy across all marketplaces by leveraging engaging content and exclusive offers,” explains Desiree Emery, a senior talent manager for Toronto-based health and wellness benefits platform League. “They're responsible for forecasting trends to ensure they're always staying on top of demand, and hitting the correct member base that they're trying to engage.”

Ms. Emery explains that partnership specialists are responsible for collecting and analyzing data related to their membership bases, as well as forecasts to help predict their future needs and interests.

“Once they comb through that, they have the tedious task of looking through thousands of providers and thousands of vendors that would accurately represent their member base,” she said. “They need to comb through all of that, and select the ones that will drive the best adoption rate and ultimately increase user adoption of the marketplace tool.”

While the role was once limited to large corporations and institutions, Ms. Emery explains that it is becoming increasingly common among small to mid-sized firms as well, particularly within the technology industry.

Salary: The average salary of a partnership specialist in Canada, which is also referred to as a strategic partnership manager, will range depending on their experience, employer and geographical location.

“We’ve done quite a bit of research to figure out what the market does look like, and it typically ranges from about $60,000 to $90,000 [per year],” Ms. Emery said.

Education: While there are no mandatory educational requirements for partnership specialists, Ms. Emery says most employers expect candidates to have a bachelor’s degree or higher in marketing, business, e-commerce or a related field. “That’s a widely held expectation in the field, given comparable roles,” she said.

Job prospects: Ms. Emery says the role is increasing in popularity as companies seek to evolve from providers of single products and services to providers of a lifestyle or experience. Furthermore, the success of large brands has proven the model’s success, and is now growing in popularity among smaller and medium-sized providers.

“I believe the demand is going to increase as we become more of a digital experience based-market,” she said. “This is something that is going to be sustainable in the future, especially in tech hubs like Toronto.”

Challenges: Partnership opportunities are so vast that they can be overwhelming, and partnership specialists are challenged to find the needle in the haystack that best aligns with their brand.

“Because there is so much opportunity to partner with so many different vendors, it could be difficult to align with what our business outcomes need to look like,” Ms. Emery said. “It’s so vast, the challenge for this specific role is reviewing the data and picking the right partnerships to accurately reflect our member base.”

Why they do it: Though the choices they make can be difficult, they ultimately serve to improve the lives of members, and sometimes in profound and meaningful ways.

“These programs touch a vast user base with the goal of positively influencing our members,” Ms. Emery said. “They’re driving adoption to services that may not have been available to people in the past, and have the opportunity to impact our entire member base.”

Misconceptions: Many assume partnership specialists are primarily employed for marketing purposes, offering an additional perk alongside more core products. Ms. Emery, however, believes that those companies that offer membership benefits see it as being a central feature of their offering, rather than an add-on.

“People believe it fits within a marketing umbrella, and not specific to what the marketplace is trying to do,” Ms. Emery said, adding that it’s viewed internally as a centrepiece of what the company offers its customers.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/career-advice/article-i-want-to-be-a-partnership-specialist-what-will-my-salary-be/