Talent Acquisition – Page 20

May 31, 2022

Ensure Your Recruitment Tech Isn’t Costing You Quality Candidates

?Recruitment technology is designed to make your job easier. But what if the technology you’re counting on to streamline the process overlooks solid candidates?

Attracting a qualified talent pool and moving people through to interviews is challenging enough. It’s imperative to evaluate the technology you’re using and create checks and balances to keep a good candidate from slipping through the cracks.

Kelly DuFord Williams, founder and managing partner of Slate Law Group in San Diego, points to government agencies as example of the challenges of using an applicant tracking system (ATS). The recruitment technology some agencies used scored individuals strictly on specific criteria, which undercut its recruitment strategies by culling strong candidates out of the process.

“If you did not score high enough in particular areas, you weren’t even qualified for an interview with certain cities and counties,” she said.

This created situations where individuals with previous experience as a U.S. city or county employee ranked higher on the candidacy list than an individual who had attended law school or had an international college experience.

“As tech begins to ‘phase people out’ based on what they perceive as a shortcoming on a resume, [employers] could miss out on potential employees who could lack traditional backgrounds but possess a lot of grit,” Williams said.

Small companies with fewer than 100 employees share similar struggles, even though they likely aren’t using an ATS. Sharon DeLay, SHRM-SCP, president of GO-HR in Columbus, Ohio, said ATSs are just too costly for these employers. Instead, they rely on platforms like Indeed, ZipRecruiter and others. The cost savings comes with tradeoffs.

These platforms can restrict applicant responses by character or word count. Some of them limit what types of files can be uploaded. Closed-ended questions and a focus on years of experience make it easy to miss qualified candidates.

“It’s very one-dimensional. When I post a job on Indeed, the prescreening can require five years’ experience. That cuts anyone out who has four and wants to be honest on the application,” DeLay said. “But four years in one business can be a tremendous advantage over five years in another.”

However, even with all of its flaws, recruitment technology is here to stay. Experts offer three ways you can embrace the benefits and avoid pitfalls.

Make it easy. Every barrier that makes it more difficult for a candidate to apply increases the likelihood of losing the candidate. DeLay suggests simplifying the process by adding a form to your website’s careers page that can take the place of ATS or job board screening. Limit the form to five or six “make or break” questions that would invite or disqualify a candidate for a screen call. For example:

Ask how many years of experience candidates have performing specific skills, rather than asking them to state a specific number of years of general experience.
Ask for an example of how the applicant handled a situation related to the open role. For instance, in a customer service role, say: “Give me an example of how you handle customer complaints.”
Ask: “Are you eligible to work in the U.S.?”
Let candidates know if the job requires a drug test and ask if they understand that.

“We are losing candidates so fast because there are so many opportunities,” DeLay said. “When we ask them to go through long, cumbersome applications with repetitive information, they will go elsewhere.”

Use tech to eliminate obvious mismatches. Williams has found HR pros struggle with what tech to use, how they use it and how to ensure their technology is getting candidates who are right for the position rather than just generating an arbitrary score.

She encourages HR teams to use tech more to weed out the “absolutely not” candidates rather than using it to identify “the one.”

“Think of it as more of a way to get rid of the high school graduate who is applying for a graduate degree-required position than a way to get the best person for the job,” she said.

DeLay added that smaller businesses that cannot afford high-end ATS solutions may be able to leverage services from a provider—like the payroll company—they already work with, especially if they are only hiring one or two people each year.

“Find a solution based on what you already have in place,” she said.

Understand how job boards work. DeLay recently helped a client post a job to ZipRecruiter. She and the client were shocked to find one of the client’s old job posting on the site still taking applications and considered “active” despite being more than a year old.

“The system accepted the application but took me to other jobs available at the same company,” she said. “It’s how these platforms tell you how many people they’ve linked and attracted people in, and it’s creating confusion. It’s just another way tech causes candidates to get lost and even a little bad attitude toward the process.”

Katie Navarra is a freelance writer based in New York state.

May 27, 2022

AI Adoption Will Cause Workforce Reorganization

?Human resource executives at companies that are investing in artificial intelligence (AI) technology can expect to scout for higher-skilled IT workers as demand for their skills rises. They will also be faced with managing labor composition disruptions and workforce reorganizations as more companies use AI’s predictive technology capabilities to solve business problems.

In a recently published research paper titled Firm Investments in Artificial Intelligence Technologies and Changes in Workforce Composition, professors from Columbia University; the University of California, Berkeley; and the University of Maryland pored over almost a decade’s worth of data and found that AI adoption will change the employment landscape as well as HR managers’ priorities.

Researchers examined changes in labor outcomes from 2010 to 2018 using several datasets, sourced from Cognism Inc., a London-based sales intelligence firm.

Researchers also used 180 million job postings provided by Boston-based Burning Glass Technologies, an analytics software company that conducts research on labor market trends. The data details job descriptions and specific requirements such as years of education and experience.

Additional data sources were wage and education data grouped by commuting zone from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and wage and employment data grouped by industry from the U.S. Census Quarterly Workforce Indicators. From Compustat, researchers obtained firm-level data on operational variables such as sales, cash and assets.

The research shows that when companies invested in AI, there was a corresponding demand for workers who possess undergraduate and graduate degrees in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.

“As firms invest in AI, they tend to transition to more educated workforces, with higher shares of workers with undergraduate and graduate degrees and more specialization in STEM fields and IT and analysis skills,” the report stated. “Furthermore, AI investments are associated with a flattening of the firms’ hierarchical structure, with significant increases in the share of workers at the junior level and decreases in shares of workers in middle-management and senior roles.”

Junior level workers are those with less than two years of experience, or have two to five years of experience but do not manage anyone directly.

A junior-level worker entering the workforce will know more about how to use AI data to make predictions, said Alex He, co-author of the report and assistant professor of finance at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. This is a shift from the days when managers were the ones who analyzed AI data, gained insights and made decisions accordingly.

In short, AI empowers junior-level workers—a shift that has implications for the worker and manager relationship.

“We found that AI is making the firm less top-heavy and flatter. It’s not surprising, because AI has the ability to make predictions, and that makes the entry-level workers more capable to make decisions. They can do more, and there is less need for middle managers,” He said.

As companies that invest in AI operate with more employees in entry-level or single contributor roles and fewer workers in either middle management or senior positions, He predicted that several issues will arise that HR executives will be forced to manage in a restructured workforce.

“For example, right now, entry-level employees are paid less and managers are paid more, but if there are fewer managers, you can afford to pay the entry-level workers more to attract the required skills,” He said.

Another significant finding is that there are some jobs that can’t be replaced no matter how much investment is made in AI technology.

“Interestingly, firms that invest more heavily in AI do not reduce their demand for some of the skill groups that are most often predicted to be replaced by AI, such as customer service, HR, and legal,” the report stated.

James Hodson is a co-author of the report. He is the chief science officer at Cognism and chief executive officer at the AI for Good Foundation, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Berkeley, Calif. Hodson said HR managers have an opportunity to use AI to hire highly skilled people, to reskill and train people faster, and to build more productive teams. AI also allows HR managers to track data on employees, which can help HR managers understand workers better.

However, the report’s findings present both difficulties and opportunities for HR managers who will be asked to oversee an AI-induced workforce reorganization while maintaining or even advancing the competitive advantage of their companies.

“In general, HR executives need to be aware of managing organizational change, especially when it relates to the adoption of AI technology. Essentially, AI is bringing the HR function to the forefront of the business,” Hodson said.

Nicole Lewis is a freelance journalist based in Miami.

May 27, 2022

AI Adoption Will Cause Workforce Reorganization

Researchers examined changes in labor outcomes from 2010 to 2018 using several datasets, sourced from Cognism Inc., a London-based sales intelligence firm.

Junior level workers are those with less than two years of experience, or have two to five years of experience but do not manage anyone directly.

In short, AI empowers junior-level workers—a shift that has implications for the worker and manager relationship.

Another significant finding is that there are some jobs that can’t be replaced no matter how much investment is made in AI technology.

Nicole Lewis is a freelance journalist based in Miami.

May 27, 2022

Unemployment Claims Reach Historic Low

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May 25, 2022

Court Rules Job Applicants Don’t Have Right to Explain Accurate Background Checks Under FCRA

?Employers covered under the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are not necessarily required under federal law to provide job applicants with criminal convictions a chance to explain a negative background check report before rescinding a job offer.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the court ruled May 3 that while the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) does give job applicants the right to dispute the accuracy of background checks, it does not confer a right to argue accurately reported convictions before losing a job offer.

The court tossed out a lawsuit from an applicant who sued data-processing firm SC Data Center, based in Hannibal, Mo. The plaintiff alleged the data center violated the FCRA by rescinding her job offer before she had a chance to view her background check report and discuss it with the company.

“The job applicant didn’t claim the background report was wrong. Instead, she argued that she should have been given a chance to explain the conviction before the offer was withdrawn,” said Richard Millisor, a partner in the Cleveland office of Fisher Phillips. Millisor explained that the court ruled in favor of the employer even though it technically violated the FCRA for failing to provide the claimant with a copy of the background check report to review for accuracy before rescinding her offer.

That’s because “the act doesn’t give applicants the right to explain negative but accurate information in a consumer report before the employer can make an adverse employment decision,” he said.

The plaintiff stated on the job application that she had never been convicted of a felony but added that she “was once arrested in 1996 at age 17 and then found not guilty.”

A background investigation revealed that the plaintiff was convicted of murder and armed robbery in 1996, was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and released after serving 12 years. Based on this information, her job offer was rescinded before she had a chance to explain the results.

A federal judge in Missouri in 2019 denied SC Data’s motion to dismiss the claim, stating that the FCRA’s requirement that employers provide job candidates with copies of background checks would be meaningless if they did not have a right to discuss the results.

But the 8th Circuit said nothing in the text of the FCRA grants workers the right to provide context to employers about their criminal histories.

Complying with Notice Requirements

Millisor noted that while the court sided with the employer in this case, the outcome hinged on the accuracy of the felony conviction. “In this case, the job applicant did not dispute the accuracy of the report,” he said. And “SC Data Center clearly wrote on the report that the offer was rescinded due to undisclosed felony convictions. But when a discrepancy arises in a situation involving your company, you shouldn’t automatically assume that the results of the background investigation are correct or that the job candidate lied on the application. It’s important not to jump to conclusions but instead follow the proper process outlined by the federal statute.”

That includes complying with the FCRA’s notice requirements. “You should create and follow a process to ensure employees receive required disclosures, provide appropriate authorization and receive all necessary notices from start to finish during the background investigation,” Millisor said. “Because lawmakers didn’t want employers making hiring decisions based on inaccurate information, FCRA requires employers to provide job applicants and employees with notice that they intend to make a decision based on a background report before making the decision, a copy of the report, a description of their FCRA rights, and a reasonable opportunity to respond to any information that may be incorrect.”

Lack of Standing

Another issue in this case has to do with legal standing, or the right to bring a lawsuit to court in the first place.

The 8th Circuit has reiterated that only FCRA plaintiffs who have suffered concrete harm and not plaintiffs who merely claim procedural violations have standing to assert FCRA claims.

But while the 8th Circuit—which hears cases in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota—ruled that an employer’s lack of notice failed to show concrete injury, other federal circuit courts have reached different results.

Additionally, not all state courts, which may also exercise jurisdiction over FCRA actions, require a concrete injury standing requirement, Millisor said.

And state laws on background checks vary and may involve more steps than what is required under the FCRA. “Claims for technical violations can turn into costly class-action lawsuits against employers,” he said. “You should carefully review the rules in the locations where your employees are located and coordinate with your workplace law counsel to make sure you have appropriate steps in place to comply.”

May 25, 2022

Extra H-2B Visas Now Available for Summer Employment

?Employers in the U.S. may now apply for the recently released 35,000 H-2B visas made available for seasonal foreign guest workers this summer. The additional visas are for those starting work through Sept. 30.

Of the 35,000 visas, 23,500 will be available to returning H-2B workers and 11,500 will be reserved for nationals of El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti and Honduras, regardless of whether they are H-2B returning workers. Returning workers are those who received an H-2B visa, or were otherwise granted H-2B status, during one of the last three fiscal years.

The H-2B guest-worker program, capped annually at 66,000 visas split evenly between the fall/winter and spring/summer seasons, is relied upon by the landscaping, hospitality and construction industries, among others. The H-2B cap for the second half of fiscal year 2022 was reached on Feb. 25.

“These additional H-2B visas will help employers meet the demand for seasonal workers at this most critical time, when there is a serious labor shortage,” said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Jessica Feinstein, an attorney in the Omaha, Neb., office of Jackson Lewis, said the additional visas “should please some businesses, such as hotels, restaurants and other service providers in summer tourist areas. However, last year, despite the additional allocation, all the extra visas were snatched up quickly, except for a few left over from the Northern Triangle [El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras] allocation.”

Tim Hygh, executive director for the Mackinac Island Tourism Bureau in Michigan, said the businesses of Mackinac Island are grateful for the release of the additional visas to boost the regional economy.

Hygh said he still expects disappointed employers and challenges to visa distribution. “There are approximately 100,000 [Department of Labor]-certified requests fighting over these additional 35,000 supplemental visas, so while this is a much-needed step forward, there are still over 60,000 proven requests that will go unanswered,” he said.

How to File

Employers seeking H-2B workers must test the U.S. labor market and certify in their petitions that there are not enough U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified and available for the offered positions, and that employing H-2B workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.

Businesses seeking new H-2B workers will need to engage in additional recruitment efforts, said Loan Huynh, an immigration attorney in the Minneapolis office of Fredrikson and Byron. Some of these actions include placing a new job order with the relevant State Workforce Agency for at least 15 calendar days; contacting the nearest American Job Center; and contacting former U.S. workers to solicit their interest in the jobs.

As with prior supplemental visa increases, employers will be required to attest and document that their business is at risk of irreparable harm without the additional workers.

“Recognizing the importance of strong worker protections, we will apply greater scrutiny to those employers who have a record of violating obligations to their workers and the H-2B program,” Mayorkas said.

Huynh added that employers will be able to hire workers who are already present in the United States in H-2B status without waiting for approval of the new petition, subject to certain conditions.

May 25, 2022

Skills-Based Hiring Guidance Issued for Federal Jobs

?The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has issued guidance on adopting skills-based hiring practices to fill federal government jobs. Historically, the government has based a candidate’s hiring eligibility on formal education or candidates’ assessments of how their skills related to educational requirements.

Skills-based hiring broadens the labor pool, according to Kiran Ahuja, OPM director.

“By focusing on what an applicant can do—and not where they learned to do it—skills-based hiring will expand talent pools by making it easier for applicants without a bachelor’s degree to demonstrate their skills,” Ahuja said in a news release, “and will help remove barriers to employment for historically under-represented groups.”

The OPM noted that presently, “most agencies use federal resumes and an occupational questionnaire to screen applicants for minimum qualifications. A ‘deeper dive’ needs to be taken in order to address the actual competencies needed to perform work successfully.”

[SHRM members-only resource: How to Address the Skills Gap]

Skills-based hiring and the value of alternative credentials have been receiving increasing interest in recent years as organizations struggle to fill positions in the midst of the Great Resignation.

SHRM Online compiled the following news stories and resources about the use of skills-based hiring approaches.

Skills-Based Hiring Is on the Rise

Early in the 2000s, a significant number of employers began adding degree requirements to job descriptions for positions that hadn’t previously required degrees, even though the jobs themselves hadn’t changed. The trend became particularly pronounced after the Great Recession of 2008-2009, at which point leaders in government, business, and community-based organizations recognized that a reset was in order. Many large corporations soon announced that they would eliminate degree requirements in much of their hiring.
(Harvard Business Review)

In Search for Qualified Workers, Maryland Drops Requirement for 4-Year Degree

Maryland’s recent elimination of a four-year college degree as a job requirement for thousands of the state’s jobs is shining a spotlight on the value of alternative credentials and experience.
The aim of the state initiative—which the governor’s office says is the first of its kind in the U.S.—is to ensure that “qualified, non-degree candidates are regularly being considered for these career-changing opportunities,” Gov. Larry Hogan said in a news release.
(SHRM Online)

Next Steps for HR Professionals, Hiring Managers

Nationally, nearly half of all U.S. workers possess some form of an alternative credential, according to a new report, Making Alternative Credentials Work: A New Strategy for HR Professionals.

The findings are from research the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the SHRM Foundation conducted with executives, supervisors, HR professionals and employees. It includes recommendations for better identifying job candidates who have the skills that organizations seek.
(SHRM Online)

No College Degree? No Problem. More Companies Are Eliminating Requirements to Attract the Workers They Need

The tech industry has been plagued by chronic talent shortages for years. Now many companies are trying something new: eliminating degree requirements for jobs. A growing number of companies, including many in tech, are dropping the requirement for a bachelor’s degree for many middle-skill and even higher-skill roles, according to a recent study from Harvard Business Review and Emsi Burning Glass, a leading labor market data company. More than 51 million jobs posted between 2017 and 2020 were analyzed for the study.
(CNBC)

Skills-Based Hiring and Older Workers

In response to a perceived skills gap, employers are increasingly hiring workers based on their specific skills and competencies. Skills-based hiring could disadvantage older workers, particularly those with low wages, if their skills are no longer relevant, or it could benefit them if they have the desired skills but not college degrees.

Our review of research studies and the semi-structured interviews with stakeholders suggest that skills-based hiring could help reduce age-related bias in hiring and in the workplace and help low-wage older workers overcome challenges stemming from the lack of a traditional degree or the inability to change careers. To do this, however, the skills-based hiring paradigm must undergo changes.
(Urban Institute)

The Shift to Skill-Based Hiring Instead of Degree-Based Hiring is Finally Happening! Here’s Why

The pandemic upended some long-held beliefs while hastening others. One thing that has come out of the pandemic is that acquiring industry-oriented skills has become the new degree equivalent. It might be safe to say that the pandemic may have cracked degree inflation and caused prominent hiring managers to become more careful about recognizing critical job skills and “vetting in” talent by validating skills.

Skill-based hiring that accelerated during the pandemic has now become a trend and is here to stay.
(India Today)

Tips for Finding Skilled, Non-Degreed Workers

Businesses across the U.S. need to adapt their hiring practices so they don’t miss out on the more than 70 million workers who are skilled through alternative routes (STARs), according to Bridgette Gray, chief customer officer at Opportunity@Work, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that promotes STARs.

Gray advises hiring managers on strategies for recruiting skilled workers who don’t hold college degrees. Making STARs an intentional part of talent strategy, she said, involves:

Incentivizing managers to hire and promote people who are STARs.

“Recognize they may perceive risks in hiring STARs and counter their concerns by letting them know this is an intentional strategy,” Gray said.

Look at the workers you employ. There may be employees with the skills to move up within your organization.

“The way to create those opportunities—and open opportunities to STARs outside of your company—is to remove unnecessary degree requirements from job descriptions. This is the biggest blocker for STARs and the primary reason employers don’t see STARs across their companies,” Gray said.

Encourage hiring managers to target STARs for specific roles, then partner with talent developers to create new pathways into the organization.

May 18, 2022

Colorado to Restrict Noncompete Agreements for Lower-Wage Workers

?Colorado lawmakers passed legislation May 10 that will significantly limit the practice of using noncompete agreements for lower-wage workers in the state.

Gov. Jared Polis is expected to sign the bill into law, which will become effective August 10.

Noncompete clauses in employment contracts place limits on where employees can work after they leave a job. These agreements prohibit an employee from working for a competitor or from starting a competing business within a geographical area for a certain period after leaving a job.

Tens of millions of U.S. workers have signed noncompete agreements with their employers. However, many employment experts believe that noncompete agreements should not be applied to low-wage workers, such as those in retail, health care, and leisure and hospitality jobs.

The Colorado law would limit noncompetes to people making more than $101,250 per year. “Noncompetes stifle innovation,” said Rep. Kerry Tipper, D-Jefferson, the bill’s prime sponsor. “They make it difficult for employers to recruit talent, and they make it difficult for talent to go places and move up the ladder. What the bill did was to try and put some more safeguards on those noncompete provisions.”

The law will virtually end the practice of most noncompetes in the state, said Michael Greco, an attorney in the Denver office of Fisher Phillips. “It will also empower workers and the [state] attorney general to punish violations through lawsuits for damages, statutory penalties and attorneys’ fees,” he said.

Greco explained that all restrictive covenants presented to or signed by workers after the effective date—including noncompete and nonsolicitation agreements—will be void. The sole exceptions that will be permitted include:

Noncompete agreements accompanying a sale of business.
Noncompete agreements signed by “highly compensated employees,” defined as those making more than $101,250 per year.
Nonsolicitation agreements signed by workers earning 60 percent or more of the highly compensated employee threshold, or $60,750 per year.

Some confidentiality agreements will be permitted. “We expect confidentiality agreements to become much more important in Colorado workplaces given the impending limitations on noncompetes,” Greco said.

Training cost recovery agreements will also be permitted, provided that the amount sought to be recovered is reasonable, he said.

“The law places Colorado among several other states with the strictest bans on restrictive covenant agreements for low-wage workers,” said Eric Barton, an attorney in the Atlanta office of Seyfarth. “In the past six years, at least 10 states, as well as the District of Columbia, have passed legislation to limit and/or eliminate the use of noncompetes and other restrictive covenants for low-wage workers. All employers with workers in Colorado should take immediate steps to review their agreements to ensure they comply with the new law.”

One of those new requirements is that employers must notify applicants about noncompete agreements and have them review the clauses before they accept a position with the company. “In order for any restrictive covenant to be enforceable under the new law, the employer must provide sufficient notice of the restrictions,” Barton said. “In cases of a prospective worker, notice must be provided before they accept the offer of employment. In cases of a current worker, notice must be provided at least 14 days before the earlier of the effective date of either the covenant or the additional consideration to be provided to the worker.”

Greco said that the notice must be in writing, signed by the worker, in a separate document with clear language and presented alongside the agreement containing the noncompete clause. “Failure to comply not only renders the covenants void, but it subjects employers to statutory penalties, compensatory damages and attorneys’ fees,” he said.

Employers will be subject to significant damages for noncompliance, Greco said, including a $5,000 penalty per employee “if they enter into, attempt to enforce, or present to current or prospective workers any noncompete that is void under the new statute.”

There is a sliver of good news for employers though, he said. “Courts will have discretion not to award a penalty, or to award less than the full amount of a penalty, if the employer shows that it acted in good faith and had reasonable grounds for believing it was not acting in violation of the statute.”

May 18, 2022

Want Happier Recruiters? Tech Can Help

?The candidate experience is one of the most discussed recruitment measures in talent acquisition, and the employee experience has become a hallmark of talent management. But what about the recruiter experience?

Successful recruitment depends on a positive experience for recruiters, which includes solid collaboration with hiring managers and other stakeholders, optimized work processes, and investments in technology to elevate recruiters from “order takers” to talent advisors.

Finding and keeping recruiters is critical as organizations navigate one of the tightest labor markets in decades.

Reports have shown that companies have increased their recruiting budgets to meet these challenges, but the most critical role in talent acquisition (TA) success is too often overlooked, said Madeline Laurano, founder and chief analyst of Aptitude Research, a recruiting technology advisory firm based in Boston. “As organizations rush to transform talent acquisition, many have lost sight of their recruiters, the people doing the actual work. Companies will not be able to build strong recruiting teams if they do not understand and validate the recruiter experience.”

According to a recent study conducted by Aptitude Research, 58 percent of recruiters do not believe that leadership understands their role in the organization. As a result, recruiters are feeling overworked, burned out and unappreciated, Laurano said. One-third of recruiters surveyed are looking for new jobs.

The most damaging ramifications of a poor recruiter experience is the loss of qualified talent, said Elaine Orler, managing director, consulting, at Cielo Talent, a recruitment process outsourcing firm based in Brookfield, Wis. “The business sometimes forgets that their recruiters are marketing and sales agents. They are thought of as being in HR, but their target market is external. Recruiters who are not supported to recruit won’t recruit well,” she said.

The candidate experience will also suffer, Laurano said. “Recruiters are often the first point of contact with candidates, and if they are unhappy or don’t feel appreciated, that will be picked up by the candidate.”

If you listen to your recruiters, you’ll learn quickly where the bottlenecks are in the recruitment process, Orler added. “And recognize that recruiters are professionals that have the same accountability and value proposition to the organization as the sales function.”

Technology Is a Differentiator

One of the most important factors of the recruiter experience is facilitating efficient workflows so recruiters can focus on building relationships with candidates instead of being bogged down with administrative tasks or doing work that artificial intelligence tools can perform much more quickly.

“In a positive recruiter experience, technology is an enabler, a predictive tool that allows the recruiter to be more successful in decision-making,” Orler said. “In a negative experience, technology only serves as a transaction engine or is a set of disconnected systems that requires duplicative data entry.”

Technology should fuel efficiency and make lives simpler, said Josh Secrest, vice president of client advocacy and marketing at AI assistant software company Paradox and the former global talent leader at McDonald’s. “When it comes to recruiters specifically, technology should be taking work off their plates,” he said. “By automating tasks like screening, scheduling and responding to frequently asked questions, recruiting tech should free them up to give more value back to the business.”

Technology plays a significant role in a recruiter’s overall job satisfaction, experts agree.

Aptitude Research’s study found that 50 percent of recruiters would join another organization if it had better TA technology.

“With better tech that helps them do the mundane parts of their job,” Secrest said, “recruiters are more likely to stay and grow at the business. Recruiting technology plays a crucial part in why the best recruiters stay in their role and why they also might look elsewhere.”

The types of TA technology that drive the most value differs for various stakeholders, Laurano said. “HR and TA leaders are prioritizing candidate relationship management solutions this year, while recruiters identified sourcing, AI matching and digital interviewing tools as having the most value to their role,” she said. “Recruiters would benefit from technology across talent acquisition, from recruitment marketing to onboarding, but they really want sourcing technology. A big challenge recruiters face is identifying talent.”

Orler added that recruiters want tools that give them more intelligence to make better decisions. “They want talent intelligence platforms and decision-support technology like candidate scoring and ranking products,” she said. “They want screening tools to better filter through the noise. What they don’t want is to spend hours in the ATS [applicant tracking system] doing transactional process work. You can hire a coordinator to do that. Your best recruiters are out there building relationships and nurturing candidates.”

Adoption of automation tools has been growing, and whether it’s in job advertising, interview scheduling or candidate communications, automation “has been absolutely life-changing for recruiters,” Laurano said.

Secrest added that “an AI recruiting assistant can save recruiters up to 16 hours a week in screening and scheduling tasks, which gives them more time to create a high-touch, intentional candidate experience.”

Recruiters Not Included

Many organizations have decided to invest more in TA technology, yet they sometimes make life more difficult for recruiters by implementing solutions without first consulting them.

“As companies build more-robust TA tech stacks to support their recruitment efforts, they are looking at technology without always considering the user—the recruiter,” Laurano said. “The disconnect between the technology that companies implement and the technology that drives value stems from a flawed decision-making process. Only 32 percent of companies stated that recruiters are involved in TA technology decisions.”

Orler said the majority of technology delivered to recruiting teams is still predominantly transaction-based. “Technology is often designed on process definition,” she said. “What happens is that recruiters are not involved enough in process definition. Because of that, they are not able to help design the technology to support their role.”

Orler said this happens because recruiters are incredibly busy and leadership does not want to distract them from finding talent, and because IT staff believe they know technology better and can dictate the vendor selection process.

Integration Is Top Grievance

Integration has long been a point of frustration for many talent acquisition professionals, and 60 percent of recruiters surveyed by Aptitude Research cited poor integration as the greatest frustration with HR technology.

“Understand that integration is crucial to the recruiter experience,” Laurano said. “Integrating talent acquisition and HR systems has significant benefits in providing consistent data, enabling a better experience and eliminating manual processes. Systems that are not seamlessly integrated create more administrative work and delays for recruiting teams.”

Many companies lack the dedicated resources and underestimate the needs and expectations of IT to build integrations, Laurano said. “And IT [staff] are typically preoccupied with other priorities,” she added.

But while integration is still a point of frustration, capabilities to integrate have come a long way. More TA technology vendors are establishing partnerships with one another and supporting marketplaces full of plug-in solutions. “Even the big vendors are opening up to be able to integrate with the TA technology community,” she said.

May 18, 2022

Discrimination Verdict Upheld Based on False Justifications for Discipline

?Takeaway: A plaintiff need only show pretext to support a discrimination verdict. The courts have rejected defense efforts to require proof of “pretext plus” discriminatory motivation on the part of the employer.

?The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a verdict finding United Airlines had willfully discriminated against two older flight attendants under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), based on evidence at trial that United’s justifications for their discipline were false.

The plaintiffs were flight attendants who had worked for United for decades. Both had rendered good service in their years of employment and had received only minor discipline. The plaintiffs were based out of Denver International Airport.

A complaint was brought against the plaintiffs by a fellow flight attendant who contacted their supervisor about their conduct on a flight that had occurred a few days before. She alleged that the plaintiffs watched a video on an iPad when they were on duty. United’s policies, procedures and service standards for all flight attendants prohibit the use of personal electronic devices by flight attendants on board the aircraft while customers are present.

The supervisor e-mailed United’s manager of in-flight services at Denver International Airport, the ultimate decision-maker as to the plaintiffs’ employment. The manager asked a California-based supervisor to anonymously observe the plaintiffs’ job performance, including whether they would again watch a video while on duty.

This observation happened while the plaintiffs were working a short flight between Denver and San Francisco. On that flight, the investigator catalogued several policy violations, including the plaintiffs sitting on carrier boxes (steel containers for stowing items in galleys) and sharing a pair of earbuds and watching a video on an iPad. He saw one of the plaintiffs smoking an e-cigarette during the flight.

He also observed less serious policy violations, such as:

A plaintiff not being properly positioned during his safety demonstration at the beginning of the flight.
The plaintiffs’ rushed and incomplete beverage service.
The plaintiffs’ failure to wear their aprons and name tags.
A plaintiff giving a free alcoholic beverage to a customer.
The plaintiffs’ failure to comply with sanitation procedures for the water service.

The supervisor met with the plaintiffs and their union representative to discuss the violations. At that meeting, he thought both plaintiffs were dishonest, and he issued disciplinary letters of charge to them. United then held disciplinary proceedings. The plaintiffs submitted evidence, their supervisor presented evidence and the manager served as the hearing officer. The manager did not find either plaintiff credible and decided to terminate their employment. Their union representative asked that they be allowed to retire, and the manager agreed. One plaintiff was 55 years old and the other was 61 years old. They had served 29 and 41 years as flight attendants, respectively.

The plaintiffs filed suit against United, alleging discriminatory discharge. Their claims were heard over a five-day trial. At trial, United focused on the plaintiffs’ lack of direct evidence of age discrimination, their failure to complain of age discrimination prior to termination, and their admission of policy violations and dishonesty during the disciplinary process.

The plaintiffs sought to convince the jury that United’s proffered rationales for their terminations were pretextual and unworthy of credence. They did so by showing alleged inconsistencies in these explanations, attacking the credibility of United’s witnesses and pointing out purported procedural irregularities. They noted that the reasons given for their terminations—alleged dishonesty and the safety-related policy violations—were not mentioned in the letters of charge. They minimized the alleged policy violations as commonplace or minor. The investigator admitted that United instructed him to observe only the plaintiffs and not other crew working on the flight—the only time he was so instructed in over 50 flights.

Testimony suggested that United’s practice was to mete out progressive discipline, which was not followed in the plaintiffs’ cases and arguably showed subjective decision-making. The plaintiffs also offered emotional distress testimony to support their claim of constructive discharge, which the district court allowed over United’s objection.

The jury found in favor of the plaintiffs on their age discrimination and willfulness claims, awarding corresponding damages. The district court entered final judgment and denied United’s motions for judgment as a matter of law and a new trial. United appealed.

The 10th Circuit agreed with the plaintiffs that they did not have to present direct evidence of age discrimination to prove an ADEA violation. The court acknowledged that the evidence did not strongly suggest willful discrimination, but nonetheless found it sufficient to support the jury verdict. The court found no error in the admission of the emotional distress testimony.

Stroup v. United Airlines Inc., 10th Cir., No. 19-1373 (Feb. 28, 2022).

Jeffrey Rhodes is an attorney with McInroy, Rigby & Rhodes LLP in Arlington, Va.