Wendy Whittaker  Recruiting Specialist  ZS Associates  @Recruiter_Wendy

Pipelining Success Against All Odds

  Troy Grabel  Manager, Talent Acquisition  LeanLogistics  @JobsatLean

Pipelining Success Against All Odds

ZS Associates

TalentConnect 2013

© 2013 ZS Associates 3 #intalent

ZS Associates – who we are and what we do

ZS is a niche market sales & marketing consulting firm founded by two Northwestern University professors, with its headquarters in Evanston, Illinois

ZS is made up of 2,500 employees across 20 offices around the world (including 1500 employees based in our Capability Expertise Center in India)

We provide consulting services to our clients in three areas: Business Consulting, Business Operations and Business Technology. We recruit into the same three channels

87% of our clients are in pharmaceuticals, 8% medical devices, 5% (high-tech, financial services and transportation)

In addition to consulting work, ZS also has a software development group based in Evanston, Illinois and India

© 2013 ZS Associates 4 #intalent

University recruiting

We have a strong campus brand We have core schools that we return to

every year Recruit at all levels (BS, MS, PhD,

MBA) Full time employees are recruited in the

fall/interns in the spring

Experienced recruiting

Experienced recruiting covers all roles with 12+ months of experience, including executive level

Just in the past 2 years that we have shifted to a 50/50 model

In addition to our client facing roles, we also recruit for all support positions

Our primary recruiting channels include University and Experienced

Most of our recruiters work on both University and Experienced recruiting

© 2013 ZS Associates 5 #intalent

We are faced with external challenges to recruit top talent

• ZS is still a relatively unknown player in the market, especially in new markets/spaces, which makes it difficult to attract talent

For senior level positions, we are often recruiting for expertise in a new practice area to ZS and candidates view the career move as a risk

While most of our offices are located in attractive cities, the talent is not always in the same location as our business need and we don’t offer virtual positions

– Our software development team is based in Evanston, IL (strongest candidates are based on the West Coast)

– Market access and pricing need is based in LA (candidate pool for this role is small; but centered on the East Coast and Europe)

© 2013 ZS Associates 6 #intalent

We also had challenges internally when building candidate pipelines

ZS’ stakeholders and interview teams were not used to Experienced recruiting– Hiring managers expect to have a large pool of candidates to choose from for

each position – Interviewers were not used to incorporating a “selling” component during the

process; in the past, they often interviewed active candidates– For new positions, our teams were not always aligned with what the expectations

were of the role– Our recruiters were hired to focus on the University channel and therefore have

limited experience with sourcing passive candidates Our internal policy prevents our recruiters from recruiting candidates from our

clients, but our senior roles often require specific industry experience We have a defined and rigorous interview process

Glassdoor ranks ZS as the #7 most difficult interview process

© 2013 ZS Associates 7 #intalent

Prior to beginning a search, we meet with our hiring managers to create a recruiting strategy and develop a consistent message

We spend time upfront with our hiring managers and interview team to understand our value proposition and ensure that our interview team has a consistent message about the role and opportunities at ZS

We work with our teams to determine where these candidates live– ZS has multiple competitors across our work– Companies and profiles that we target vary by position – Often, our hiring teams will have target sources in mind before we begin a search

We build targeted campaigns to network with our internal employees to identify potential referrals

© 2013 ZS Associates 8 #intalent

Selling ZS is the most important part of our process

Outside of the university channel, our target candidates may not even know who we are – the first contact with a recruiter may be the first time they have ever heard of us

Once we are able to connect with potential candidates and share more about ZS, we have a good story to tell

While we are smaller than the big name consulting firms; the message is positive for the right candidate (quicker path to partner, roles very visible to leadership)

© 2013 ZS Associates 9 #intalent

It is important to use a number of different sources to create a talent pipeline

ATS Job boards University channels University Alumni networks Referrals Professional organizations LinkedIn (career page, groups, postings, sourcing) Other Social media (Facebook, Glassdoor, Twitter, etc)

ZS has a team of sourcers that assist our recruiters in creating a talent pipeline

© 2013 ZS Associates 10 #intalent

We have an existing talent pipeline of people that already know ZS and we leverage it

Our applicant tracking system does not have a good way for tracking leads, but it does provide us with historic information

By tracking our extended offers, we often re-visit candidates that declined our offers for both internships and full time roles

Maintaining connections and strong relationships with ZS alumni (we love to rehire former-ZSers)

© 2013 ZS Associates 11 #intalent

We track our sourcing efforts while developing a talent pipeline for each position

LinkedIn Recruiter has been a helpful tool for our pipelining efforts– We create Projects for each position or specific skill that we are actively or

passively recruiting– When a similar search opens in the future, we have a strong starting point– We track the activity for every candidate, which allows recruiters can see each

other’s activities Capture as much information as possible that will be helpful in identifying

matches in the future for those candidates who are not the right fit for a specific role

– Tag profiles with keywords– Create follow up reminders

Excel Spreadsheets are a great tool to use for organizational mapping and creating pipelines to be reviewed by hiring managers

© 2013 ZS Associates 12 #intalent

It is important to maintain a talent pipeline for current and future searches

Leveraging our University relationships – current students and alumni Working with previous interns to build relationships on campus and in the

future (if they don’t join as a full-time employee) For our executive level searches, this is the first year that we had several

repeat searches – we have been able to begin a search the relationships that we created building pipelines in the past

Keeping potential candidates updated through a variety of social channels– Facebook– Glassdoor– LinkedIn– Twitter

Maintaining relationships with good prospects provides our hiring managers with a strong network

© 2013 ZS Associates 13 #intalent

Key takeaways

Know your employee value proposition Have a consistent message throughout the interview process Leverage the people that already know you – they are your best

ambassadors

Pipelining Against All Odds

15

IntroductionTroy R GrabelManager of Global Talent Acquisition

LeanLogistics is a Cloud base Supply Chain Software Provider, Located in Holland, MI

We have global operations with over 80,000 users in 28 countries.

Market Demographics• Metro area is less than 200,000

people• Heavy PHP / .NET market• Limited Software product

development firms

3 hours to Detroit

2.5 hours to Chicago

3 hour boat Ride to Wisconsin

Holland

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Gaining Momentum – Accelerating our Business:

Small Talent team (1 recruiter, 1 HR manager) Sourcing Strategy consisted of reinvented the wheel for every search ATS consisted of outlook and excel spreadsheets and PeopleFluent No pipeline management strategy No digital media presence No metrics Geographical challenges We have very strict selection criteria.

Talent Challenges

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Current–State Talent Acquisition

Small team (1 player-coach, 1 coordinator) Developed a Sourcing Strategy around a proactive message campaign Deployed pipeline management strategy using LinkedIn Recruiter Pipeline as

our ATS Implemented a digital media presence Established metrics Our geography still represents challenges but we know which battles to fight We still have very strict selection criteria

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How did you get there?

We focused on three main areas1. Building our Pipeline2. Managing our Pipeline3. Measuring our Pipeline

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Building a Pipeline

Invest time in developing a Workforce Strategy and define your firms Strategic Capabilities

Align your Sourcing Strategy to Win Build a Cost-of-Vacancy model to help prioritize your recruitment efforts Develop a compelling Branding Message Figure out where your prospects are

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Building a Pipeline

BE CREATIVE - Develop a long-term Sustainability Sourcing Strategy

Source for prospects that are familiar with your area (graduates, previous work history)

Use your team member networks more than usual; they are connected (reward them)

Be active and consistent with a focused digital media strategy Keep in mind that a sourcing strategy identifies “prospects of interest” and

when the time is right those prospects will become candidates

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Building a Pipeline

Leverage the Technology Skills & Expertise Endorsements who has endorsed the prospects Leverage LinkedIn Recruiter Alerts; they will automatically build your pipelines

and notify you of fresh prospects to contact.

Keep the Momentum – Don’t ever Stop SOURCING

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Pipeline Management

Create Tags, Sources and Statuses to help organize your Pipeline Pipeline of your “Silver & Bronze Medalist” Keep naming schemes simple. You can always use filters to narrow down

your pools of candidates

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Pipeline Management

Think-outside-of-the-Box Start pipelining prospects that went to college around your market or lived

near your market. They might have interested in moving back at some point.

Share BIG DATA that separates your market from a tier 1 market (i.e. cost-of-living, quality-of-life, national rankings: Best places-to-live, raise-a-family, etc…)

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Pipeline Management

Be creative with your messaging Social media campaigns were a start, great candidates hang-out in other

digital media outlets an (i.e. gaming sites, college forums, local networking sites! (i.e. ) and be present

Respect your Pipeline Remember “Your worth to your network will be determined by how much

you GIVE in value than you take in payment” (i.e. referrals/ or solicitation of interest)

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Measure Efficiency

2626

LeanLogistics ROILEANLOGISTICS

Reducing Agency cost from $115,000 in FY11 to $0 in FY13 Digital Media Campaign represents 34% of Hires Increased Team Member Referral program to 48.5% of our hires

Source FY2011 FY2012 FY2013Team Referral

Program20 28 19

Digital MediaCampaign

6 18 14

College/ University

5 6 4

Corp. Website Job Boards

18 2 2

Agency hires 5 1 0Contractor 5 2 1

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Thoughts to Take Home

Pick your Battles Don’t waste your time trying to be a superstar; think Long-term and be creative on where &

who you recruit Align your critical positions to a Cost-of-Vacancy model Develop and deploy a digital brand management campaign that attracts passive

candidates Drive towards an ROI Treat your pipeline with respect; provide useful and meaningful content and

DON’T become noise