The only absolute certainty is that there is no going back to the way things were pre-pandemic. The old normal is gone, even if there are no definitive indications yet of what the new normal will be. 

Not an easy time, you might think, to be making predictions for the next 12 months. But there is sense to be made in all this uncertainty. Armed with our hard-won talent market intel and on-the-ground observations from our seasoned consultants, we have some valuable insights to share.

Here’s the EWS view on where the talent market is heading in 2024… and what smart recruiters need to do to be prepared.

The global economy in 2024

Macroeconomic forecasting has become something of a fool’s errand in recent years. The world economy has been disrupted by an unprecedented sequence of black swan events, all while the climate emergency makes ever-more-urgent demands for new economic thinking. However, optimism is now coalescing around core factors like growth, inflation and employment. 

Goldman Sachs Research, which predicted the global economy’s outperformance against expectations in 2023, is even more positive about the prospects for 2024. Income growth, cooling inflation, a robust job market, room for Central Banks to reduce interest rates – it’s not for nothing that their report is titled The Hard Part Is Over. 

The OECD predicts more uneven growth but a similar picture around interest rates and continuing low unemployment rates. 

Specifically in the talent space, Recruitics forecasts cooling labour markets, although cautions of a persisting gap between supply and demand. 

So where does this leave recruiters? We’re viewing the answer as a shift from wait-and-see mode to planning mode. Irrespective of the precise trajectory of the market in 2024, it’s highly likely that growth is stabilising and an uptick in investment is on the horizon. 

That gap between supply and demand won’t be closing any time soon. So when the time does come to start hiring again, the successful recruiters will be the best prepared. 

“This isn’t the time to be reactive. We know a fundamental change is coming and there will be a point relatively soon when you will be hiring more than you have been. The best way to be ahead of that is to start early. Invest in talent pipelining, invest in talent mapping. Ultimately, the busier you are now, the better positioned you’ll be when the boom does come.”

Darren Hornigold, EWS Director

Emerging talent trends for 2024

We’re seeing some significant new trends emerging, with other recent trends solidifying, falling back or balancing out. These are converging to reshape the talent landscape for 2024 – and every one of them should be on your strategic radar right now.

1. The end of The Great Resignation? 

As our Global Delivery Leader Ken Craig notes, all signs are that The Great Resignation is itself quietly quitting. 

“Workers quitting or job-hopping spiked in 2021-22 but post-pandemic, this looks to have peaked. Through 2023, we’ve seen ever-stronger emphasis on candidates who haven’t jumped from job to job. And this dampening in demand has also seen wages start to balance out after a period of inflated growth. Things are looking a lot more sustainable on that front now.”

This is one big relief for talent teams, but no reason yet to take your eye off the retention ball. 

Ken cautions that “employees want evidence they’re in a company that wants them long term. Many of our clients are investing heavily in learning & development – both upskilling and reskilling – to design career progression paths to retain top talent. This is a key employer brand pillar and one that vastly improves employee engagement.”

2. The Great Retirement gathers pace

As Strategic Dimensions puts it, “the 2020s is the decade during which the challenge of an ageing population shifts from being tomorrow’s problem to today’s.” Almost half-way through, with the Covid-accelerated rise in workers retiring early, this is a workforce trend that cannot be ignored.

There is vast intellectual capital locked up in all those Baby Boomers, and increasingly Gen X executives, on the verge of retirement. Without a clear view of where to find the next generation of exec-level talent, The Great Retirement will be anything but great for organisational futures.

EWS Director Darren Hornigold proposes a clear strategic solution. “The more people analytics you use, the more you understand the ebb and flow of your workforce and the wider talent market. So you know you’re going to have a 10% loss of ‘grey’ intellectual capital over the next five years. How are you going to manage that effectively without a talent pipeline?” 

3. The Great Reprioritisation: Rise of the selective candidate

We are seeing an intrinsic shift in what candidates are prioritising in their career decision-making. So fundamental is this shift, we’ve coined an entirely new category of candidates. Where we previously demarcated active and passive candidates, we now speak more and more of selective candidates.

These are candidates who are only open to exploring new opportunities if they fit certain criteria, typically around working pattern, culture and non-compensatory benefits. Crucially, even for roles where there’s a good competency fit, if these criteria aren’t met, selective candidates are saying ‘no’ far sooner.

Darren explains: “Traditionally, our model was to target passive candidates. But now we’re having a completely different type of engagement. Candidates can be active for two or three conversations, and then very quickly they’re turned off because it doesn’t quite fit with what they want in their life. For selective candidates, what matters to you is a holistic thing rather than a job title”.

This poses a major new challenge for recruiters, one that will only grow with the rise of the selective candidate. It’s no longer enough to have a big name, an attractive role and a great compensation package. 

As Darren puts it, “now you need to factor in all kinds of intangible variables. Can they work from home? What are their long-term incentives? What are you doing about wellbeing? What’s in the office fridge? Do you have a ping pong table? It’s a different landscape with a far greater need for more nuanced qualification.”

Navigating that landscape, then, requires an equally nuanced mindset. This is partly an employer branding challenge. Ken is finding that “an organisation’s perception in the market is becoming increasingly important, with green and sustainable practices particularly high on candidate agendas. You can no longer rely on the company name. It’s about changing the go-to-market narrative.”

Another crucial mindset shift for talent acquisition teams is from prioritising identification to focusing resources on candidate engagement. Which leads us neatly on to our final trend…

4. The sweet spot between AI and HI

The exponential growth of AI recruitment tools continues apace, particularly in managing job applicants. We’re going to see more and more ChatGPT-written job descriptions, chatbot-answered application questions and interview questions generated by AI tech analysing job descriptions and applications.

Yet with the rise of the selective candidate, the demand for human intelligence at the front end of the recruitment process will become greater than ever. AI tech undoubtedly has the potential to 10x our work in candidate identification. But in the increasingly critical engagement phase, it’s another story altogether, as Darren explains.

“With selective candidates, it’s no longer binary qualification. Say you’re looking for a Marketing Director on the U.S. West Coast with a B2B background, some B2C and 8+ years’ experience. You have three key essentials and there’s a good chance AI will improve our ability to map out that market. What it can’t do is ask the question about the grey areas, the intangibles. It can’t engage on a human level. And unless you’re willing to risk the quality of your candidate experience, that person-to-person element is essential.”

How talent acquisition teams are preparing for 2024

Hiring is going to be back on the agenda in 2024, even if our crystal ball doesn’t allow us to put an exact timeline on it. But when investment starts flowing again and the new war for talent does break out, you’ll win by having put in the groundwork early.  

We know that in-demand skills are already scarce and competition for that talent is only set to rise more sharply. Factor in the advent of the selective candidate and the pressures of the Great Retirement, and the smart money is on the horizon-scanners, not the shoegazers.

As ever, EWS is here to help you take a more strategic view of talent acquisition. We’re experts in talent mapping, so we can apply a laser focus to the talent markets you want to understand. And our pipelining prowess will help you build proactive talent pools, ready to be dipped into when the time is right. 

When that moment comes, you can rely on us to seamlessly search for and engage the best candidates, attending to their deeper priorities as well as their career aspirations and salary expectations. 

With that in mind, perhaps we have one final recommendation for the year ahead. In 2024, choose a talent partner that’s in it for the long term.

“The talent landscape is changing and hiring priorities are in flux. In this market, a true partner is one that can adapt easily to map out the road ahead. They will know your business, your competitors and your market. They’ll understand your culture and the types of people you want to attract. And crucially, they can give you the insights and intel to shape your hiring around your strategy.”

Emma Watson, EWS Managing Director

The post The EWS View: Top Talent Trends For 2024 appeared first on EWS.

Machine learning and AI have been hot topics across various industries lately, and recruitment is no exception. More and more companies are using this technology to support their HR team and streamline the hiring process. 

According to 2023 statistics from Business Solution, 65% of recruiters are already using AI in their hiring process. Plus, 89% of HR professionals believe that AI will improve their day-to-day operations. A different study, however, found that 87% of those surveyed felt there were risks related to using AI in recruitment processes. 

There’s been a lot of hype and speculation about this technology and it’s hard to know what the future will hold. What does using AI really mean for recruiters? What are the pros and cons of using it to support our recruitment processes? Have we taken enough time to consider the dangers involved in relying too much on AI? 

In this article, we’ll take a closer look into what the future of AI for recruiters might bring when it comes to incorporating this technology into their workflow. Let’s take a look at a few of the most common recruitment-related use cases for AI, and their pros and cons. 

Example Use Case #1: AI Generated Job Posts

Job posts, careers pages and blogs about company values are important recruitment tools. However, writing these materials takes time and effort. In some cases, AI can be used in the writing process to create this content faster. This is especially true if the material is somewhat generic and can be based on an easily-replicated template. 

However, the quality of the content ChatGPT and other AI tools produces is still not very high. It requires skillful prompting and a lot of tweaking to get what you want and sometimes, writing these materials yourself is more effective. This is especially true if there are unique values and a distinctive culture to your organisation that may be difficult to describe.

(Plus, AI-powered generative text tools are prone to making up facts and citations that don’t exist. So, anything you publish should be carefully proofread and fact-checked before it goes live.)

Example Use Case #2: Interview Chatbots

Another interesting use-case of AI for recruiters is AI-powered Chatbots. These are bots that use natural language processing to have initial conversations with candidates.

The bots can be programmed to respond to questions, as well as ask the candidate pre-determined questions to figure out their suitability for the role. Some studies have shown that AI-powered chatbots can eliminate some of the bias that can often show up in human hiring. 

But of course, the software will only ever be as good as the data we feed it. How has this chatbot been built and what is it based on? If there are biases inherent in the dataset the AI is trained on, we shouldn’t be surprised when those biases show up in the results. 

Also, while an interview robot can mimic a simple conversation, it doesn’t have the ability to evaluate human qualities in a subjective and nuanced way. As a result, it might overlook someone who is a great culture fit, simply because they don’t have the exact experience specified in the job posting. 

Additionally, what happens when candidates learn to simply say what the chatbots want to hear, rather than being honest?  According to this study, over 90% of people think that artificial intelligence can be manipulated in this way. The widely accepted belief is that whenever an automated tool is used, there will always be people who learn how to game the system to jump to the next stage in the hiring process.

Example Use Case #3: AI Video Interviewing

Another potential application of AI in the recruiting process? Video interviews. 

AI-powered video recruiting software programs, such as Interviewer.ai, are designed to pre-screen and shortlist candidates. This technology can save you time by performing pre-interviews, and it uses AI to identify desirable traits such as the candidates’ speech cadence, body language, dressing, eye contact, and facial motion. 

This can be interesting and helpful data and tools like this may help to streamline your process. However, they should be used with extreme caution. Using this technology to make hiring decisions could result in some serious pitfalls. 

For example, the idea that an AI can identify a suitable hire from a candidates’ body language, eye contact and facial motion quickly becomes problematic. It could result in discrimination against neurodivergent people, since it’s harder for them to make eye contact or sit still when speaking. This could lead to a candidate being unfairly disqualified, although they may do an excellent job in the role.

How to Avoid Potential Pitfalls When Using AI

Yes, AI can be a helpful tool. It is, however, far from being able to take over the role of a recruiter. We have to be careful not to get caught up in the hype or overestimate its abilities.  AI does not have a sentient mind and it is not capable of thought, or of making conscious decisions. 

Some of the major concerns about using AI include:

• We should not eliminate human judgement completely when screening recruits. Sophisticated contextual knowledge and human awareness is absolutely necessary. 
• AI interaction can feel impersonal. This can be very off-putting, especially for high-level candidates. 
• AI doesn’t always eliminate bias. It sometimes perpetuates the existing bias in the data it’s trained on. 
• There are legitimate concerns about data privacy and sensitive candidate information when using AI tools. 

While AI can be used for the things that humans do poorly, such as repetitive tasks like scheduling, it should not be used for everything. There must always be a human monitoring and measuring the process to make sure the AI is adding value. 

Here are some important tips to keep in mind for best results when working with AI:

• Make sure the data you use for training the AI is as diverse and unbiased as possible. 

• Test and validate the model to make sure it is making accurate predictions, so you can adjust as needed. 
• Make a habit of continuously monitoring and assessing the output, so you can make necessary adjustments to refine predictions.
• Chatbots can’t evaluate human qualities, so it’s still important to keep a human touch on all steps in the process. 

Conclusion: Striking a Balance in the AI Era

While AI can be helpful, it is far from being able to take over the role of the recruiter. 

AI is best used as a tool to enable and enhance human activities, but when it becomes too involved in the selection process you end up losing nuance, experience and knowledge.  

In light of this, the role of an experienced human recruiter has arguably never been more important. The nuanced level of expertise that a professional brings is crucial for assessing the skills of each candidate and hiring in a fair and equitable way. Therefore, this is an opportunity for professional recruiters to really stand out and deliver quality, rather than quantity.

The future of AI for recruiters lies in striking a balance between harnessing the capabilities of this technology and preserving the human touch that is essential for meaningful connections.

What’s Your Experience with AI?

We’d love to hear your thoughts! Have you encountered AI in the recruiting process, either as a recruiter or a candidate? 

The post AI for Recruiters – A Clever Tool or a Risky Shortcut? appeared first on EWS.

Why?

The better your job description, the higher quality of candidates you’ll reach. When you hire superb senior level talent, they become catalysts for company-wide growth. The work they do generates positive ripples for years to come.

Plus, it helps you avoid candidates that are the wrong fit, which saves a lot of time. (And it also helps keep your employer brand consistent with your company culture!)

So, how do you get started? Here are our actionable tips on how to write engaging and effective job descriptions, so you can bring the best possible senior level talent to your organisation.

The Key? Avoid Discouraging A Potential Amazing Fit

Many companies don’t realise that their job descriptions discourage potential great candidates.

The way to avoid this? Qualify people based on positive traits rather than disqualifying them based on requirements. You’ll have a much better chance of attracting diverse and excellent senior level talent.

Here are some things to keep an eye on when writing your job descriptions:

Go Easy on Superlatives

It might be tempting to describe your ideal candidate as “world-class,” a “rockstar,” or the “best of the best.” But, there’s a hidden drawback to this, according to Research by the National Center for Women & Information Technology. The study shows that superlatives can actually discourage qualified people from applying.

This is because many people, especially women and minorities, are socialised not to “toot their own horn.” They don’t feel comfortable claiming they are the “best of the best,” but they may actually be ideal for the role.

Use Gender Neutral Language

The language you use matters! Anyone reading your job description should be able to see themselves reflected in it. Always use gender-neutral job titles and examples. If you use pictures and graphics, make sure they reflect a diverse range of people.

There’s even a free app you can use to help you gauge the gender balance in the language of your job description. (It’s based on a study about how certain words discourage women from applying.)

Focus on What Their Skills Will Achieve

When you’re looking for the right candidate, it’s about what they can do. So, focus on the results you’d like to see rather than degrees, experience or credentials. (Unless of course, you’re hiring for a role where a degree is a requirement.)

By focusing on skills rather than requirements, you also attract senior level candidates who are are more diverse. Women are unlikely to apply for a position unless they meet 100 percent of the requirements. Meanwhile, men will apply if they meet only 60 percent of the requirements. (Read about the research study here.)

Why You Should Write Success Profiles, Not Job Descriptions

In a previous blog post, we suggested writing a “Success Profile” rather than a job description. It includes 6-8 core performance objectives a person needs to achieve in the role to be successful.

This defines the job through outputs and achievements, rather than qualifications and experiences. A Success Profile attracts better, more diverse candidates because it focuses on the value delivered to your company.

When you define results rather than duties, there’s no need to list an arbitrary set of requirements. The right candidate doesn’t need 10 years of experience, or a degree. They simply need to be able to complete the goals you’ve laid out. This, of course, opens up the potential candidate pool. You’re selecting in qualified candidates rather than filtering them out. Plus, it begins the conversation on a positive, inclusive note.

For an example of a traditional-style Job Description re-written as a Success Profile, take a look at this blog post. This shift in perspective applies to any role, in any industry. (In fact, if you can’t define 6-8 core performance results, you might ask yourself why you’re hiring for the role in the first place.)

Top Tier Passive Talent Can Afford to Be Choosy

High quality senior level talent is always in demand. Those with valuable skills know they’ll always have opportunities available to them. To attract them you’ll need to highlight how the role will serve them as well as the other way around.

This starts with being clear about the salary, perks and benefits you are offering, of course. This saves time for everyone, because it filters out anyone who’s not a good fit. In a 2018 Glassdoor study, salary was the top factor in what candidates looked for in job ads.

But these are not the only important factors. Experienced talent also wants to join a strong, established work culture. They want to work with a company whose values align with theirs. So, make sure you’ve highlighted those values in the job description.

Also, these individuals know the value of mentorship and lifelong learning. They are looking for somewhere they can develop their skills, progress and grow. So, be sure to mention any opportunities you offer for professional development.

The Power of a Well-Written Job Description

A quality job description is a powerful magnet to attract senior level candidates who share your company values.

Think about how you can align with their goals and skills and draw people who really care about the work – and have the know-how to make it happen.

It’s a fundamental shift in mindset for your hiring process. But, it will make a huge difference in the quality of talent you attract to your organisation. These individuals have the potential to deliver value for years to come, so it’s worth getting it right!

If you’ve enjoyed this, please pass it along to someone else who might find it valuable.

The post Will Your Job Descriptions Attract In-Demand Senior Level Candidates? appeared first on EWS.

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of Americans who primarily work from home increased from roughly 9 million to 27.6 million between 2019 and 2021.

That’s an increase of 206%! 

This huge surge in remote work was, of course, in reaction to the pandemic. But our team at EWS has already been working like this since 2010 – for many reasons. 

Our remote work model offers a number of benefits for both team members and clients and suits our values as a company. Since we weren’t forced into a remote-working set-up via a reactive pandemic pivot, when the entire world switched to working online we already had all the systems and supports in place to make it work. 

In this article, we’ll share some of the reasons why we designed our work this way, as well as the insights we’ve gathered from working remotely for over a decade. Also, we’ll cover how we’ve been able to address some of the trickiest remote working challenges and empower our team members to do their best possible work – no matter where they are.

Why Remote Work?

Remote working has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years, and for good reason. The advantages this work model offers have had a significant impact on our company’s success and the quality of life of our team. 

Of course, working remotely doesn’t suit every team. Some companies and individuals may thrive better with an in-person set-up. We’re firm believers in taking the time to figure out the work-style that meets your needs, rather than following trends. 

With that said, some of the reasons why we’ve chosen to work remotely include:

It’s Better For Our Clients

Our remote team allows us to cover multiple time zones and offer our services around the clock, which is a huge benefit for our clients who operate globally. 

Also, thanks to a core team and flexible workforce spanning 11 countries across all continents, it means we are able to scale up easily whenever our clients need more support anywhere in the world.

It Allows Our Team to Thrive

By allowing our team to work whenever and wherever they want, we step away from the old-fashioned 9-5 office model that tries to impose productivity from the top down and instead place trust in our team members to do their tasks in a way that works for them. 

Many of our team members have busy lives outside of work. They are responsible for childcare, caring for sick partners and more. Being able to work remotely gives them the flexibility to work and manage their personal lives. 

As long as the work gets done, we allow the team to set up their workspaces and schedules in a way that suits their personal preferences. For many of them, this approach is energising and inspiring.

“Working remotely gives me the autonomy to decide where and when I work, allowing me to better balance my personal and professional life.  For example, I am currently writing this in a coffee shop in Transylvania!” – EWS Team Member

It Gives Us a Competitive Advantage

When you’re able to hire the person with the right skills for the job -regardless of location – you gain a competitive advantage over companies whose hiring pool is limited to their own postcode area. 

We’ve been able to build an agile and flexible workforce that consists of a mix of in-house talent and freelancers, and we’ve developed a pool for specialists over the years for specific markets or niche requests. 

Plus, when employees feel cared for and respected, they often have a stronger connection with the organisation and its goals and they do better work. We improve retention and allow for more diversity and inclusion, which ultimately allows us to perform better as a whole. 

Overcoming Remote Work Challenges

But of course, remote work is not without its own challenges. We’ve tackled these issues head on with clarity, honesty and communication, with the goal of finding solutions that work for the unique needs of our team. 

Here are a few examples of the challenges of remote working we’ve faced, and the strategies we’ve put in place to mitigate against them. 

Remote Work Challenge: Feeling Isolated From Coworkers

There’s no getting around it. It’s easy to feel disconnected from the very real people you work with when your only image of them is a few pixels on a tiny Zoom screen square. Loneliness and disconnection can wear down even introverted remote workers and leave them feeling uninspired and discouraged. 

Our Strategies

The key to combating this issue? Making each member of the team feel seen and making sure they know that their contributions are valued. We do this via regular online and video communication, as well as by establishing a supportive “open door” team culture. 

Also, we make sure our remote workers know that they are free to work from a coworking space or a social environment on those days when they are craving a bit more company than just their cat. 

“Without in-person communication, a feeling of isolation can occur from time to time.  Personally, I can offset this by visiting a coworking space.” – EWS Team Member

Remote Work Challenge: Maintaining A Healthy Work-Life Balance

When the distance between “office life” and “home life” is only mere metres, it can be difficult to switch off at the end of the day. One of the biggest challenges of remote work is the risk of burnout, especially when boundaries between work time and recreation time become blurred and team members are expected to be responsive at all hours. 

This is something we are always conscious of and we encourage our team members to unplug and spend time with their loved ones. 

Our Strategies

A recent study carried out on behalf of Stanford University found that global workers saved an average of 54 minutes per day by not having to commute to work. Rather than trying to recoup that time, we encourage our team to use the time they save for activities that benefit their mental health. 

We take downtime seriously and we strive to give our team autonomy and respect their privacy. They are trusted to finish assignments and accomplish tasks without a team leader or superior constantly looking over their shoulder, and free to work during the hours when they are most productive. 

“Having a flexible work schedule allows me time to go for walks and take some positive steps towards exercise and wellbeing. When I historically worked in an office environment, I felt I should be working and would not take that time to leave and get out of the office. I would end up being indoors all day and sometimes not move from my desk.” – EWS Team Member

Remote Work Challenge: Work Always Brings Challenges

No matter what work model you choose, working together successfully is never easy. Many companies make the mistake of thinking that switching work models is the one-time fix that will make everything suddenly run smoothly once and for all. But of course, there’s no such thing. 

Whether your team is office-based, remote or a hybrid of the two, maintaining productivity and harmony and getting the best performance from your talent requires constant creativity, adaptability and compassion. 

Our Strategies

The most important thing we’ve learned? Hiring correctly is one of the best ways you can set your team up for success.

Not everyone is suited to remote work, so we aim to hire people who thrive in a remote set-up and who are independent and self-motivated. We also seek out people who have strong resilience and awareness. The ability to form and nurture relationships easily via phone or video is also a highly important skill. 

Also, once you build your team of talented remote workers, it’s essential to listen to them and take action on their feedback. After all, your team members know what they need in order to do their best work! 

Share Your Stories With Us!

Does your team work remotely? How do you deal with the challenges inherent in this type of work model? We’d love to hear about the creative strategies, policies and ideas you’ve come up with. Please feel free to share them in the comments below!

P.S. If you know anyone who would find this article helpful, please feel free to pass it along to them! 

Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

The post How We’ve Worked As a Remote Team for Over a Decade appeared first on EWS.

By Darren Hornigold, Director, EWS Global Talent Sourcing

A US-based client recently asked me to build a talent pipeline for business development leaders. Specifically, they said they wanted to add experience and gravitas, and to “improve the balance of gray matter and gray hair” in their organization.

Focusing on age diversity is a relatively new trend in the talent solutions market, but this client is not alone. In the United States, over 1,000 companies have joined the AARP Pledge Program to recruit across diverse age groups and “consider all applications equally, regardless of age”. These companies are themselves a diverse group and include the likes of McDonald’s, Marriott, and Microsoft.

In the UK several high-profile employers have also committed to employing older workers, including Aviva, Boots, and Next. Indeed, before the pandemic, research from Glassdoor suggested that baby boomers would be the fastest growing generation in the US and UK workforce in 2020.

Benefits of hiring older workers

These companies have cottoned on to the benefits of hiring older workers, and there are plenty of them:

• Older workers are more loyal. A study by the CIPD found that over 55s are three times less likely to want to change jobs than 18-24-year-olds.
• Older works are more motivated. A majority of retired US workers would consider returning to the workplace, according to this 2022 CNBC survey. Meanwhile, a Pew study found that older workers are most likely to be “extremely” or “very” satisfied with their job.
• Older workers are tech savvy. As far back as 2016, studies showed that older workers were just as tech savvy as younger generations in the workplace, while research published by the Pew Center in 2022 showed that older people in general are becoming more tech savvy.
• Older workers have a better work ethic. In a Pew study of inter-generational attitudes, 75% of respondents said that older people have a better work ethic.
• Retaining older workers cuts recruitment costs. According to this website, the UK utilities company Centrica saved c. $2.5 million in annual recruitment costs by retaining more older workers.

On top of these benefits, ageing populations around the world mean that the average age of people in work is rising. Even in the United States, which has one of the healthiest demographics among developed nations, one third of the workforce is aged 50 or above.

US population pyramid, 2023. Source: Populationpyramid.net

Older generations are also becoming the dominant market for a majority of goods and services. The baby boomers – those born between 1946 and 1964 – have the highest net worth of any generation. Any company that wants to sell to this generation would benefit from having workers from that generation in prominent strategic and customer-facing positions.

Five tactics to tap an older talent pool

With all this in mind, let’s look at some effective tactics companies can use to tap into older talent pools:

1. Ensure your HR team is age diverse

According to 55Redefined, “only 24% of HR leaders aged 25-30 were ‘very’ willing or motivated to recruit workers aged 55–75, a stark contrast to the 63% of older HR leaders aged 46-50.” Younger HR leaders may be biased against hiring older workers, so you must ensure you have an age diverse HR team.

2. Address age bias in job ads and on your website

We know how important it is to weed out unconscious bias when it comes to gender, race, and ethnicity. It’s the same for older workers. Use neutral language and appropriate imagery that isn’t all young, fresh-faced graduates. Here are some practical examples to use as a guide.

3. Consider offering more flexible working as part of the job description

In the CNBC survey of older workers mentioned above, many respondents cited pay, flexible hours, and work-life balance as “the top criteria for the right job”. If you’re serious about attracting older workers, consider which roles you can make flexible, both in terms of hours and home working. The more flexibility you can offer, the broader a cross-section of older people will apply.

4. Actively target older talent pools

Not only do you need to use age-appropriate language and imagery on your website and in job ads to attract older workers. You also need to access older talent pools, map out older talent, and appeal to them in the places they are most likely to look for work.

5. Work with experienced talent consultants who can help

Most HR teams are too busy to make significant changes to their hiring processes. With that in mind, it may be most cost effective and faster to invest in experienced talent consultants with expertise in handling recruitment or researching and mapping older talent. When partnering with a talent consultancy, ask how many of their consultants are aged 50 and above. How much experience have they had with targeting older, more experienced workers? Ask for testimonials and references.

Five tactics to retain older talent

Once you start attracting older workers to your organization, the next step is to keep hold of them. As we saw in the Centrica example, the annual recruitment savings from retaining older workers can be huge. At the same time, their higher motivation, loyalty, and work ethic is likely to have a direct positive impact on your productivity and the bottom line. Here are five ways to retain older workers:

1. Offer training in new skills

According to this CBI article, most over-50s leave their jobs due to boredom, so offer training in new skills. This is a huge motivating factor and will keep older employees working for you for longer.

2. Develop mentoring programs

Older employees have a lot to teach junior colleagues about the company, the industry, and even the wider world of work. Many are also keen to learn about the perspectives and new ideas of younger generations.

3. Offer flexibility around family commitments and common health issues

Health issues and family commitments are statistically more likely to be an issue for older workers. You can offer a range of flexible work options to accommodate them, from job-sharing and compressed work weeks to remote work, hybrid work and project-based work. The more understanding and flexible you can be, the more your older workers are likely to appreciate it.

4. Listen to your older workers

Encourage older employees to join existing employee resource groups or create one of their own, to have a forum where they can network and share issues in a safe space.

5. Allow your older workers to shine

The more you highlight the achievements of your older workers in your PR, your social media channels, or on your website, the more your older workforce will feel represented and respected. Give older workers management responsibilities and make sure they are part of your brand image. Not only will this help to retain existing workers. It will also make you more attractive to older talent when you’re recruiting.

Tap into a silver mine of valuable talent – before your competitors beat you to it

The over-50s talent market is one of the most valuable but least tapped in the world today. With so many jobs remaining unfilled and many older workers keen to return to the workplace, this won’t remain the case much longer. Do you know how your competitors are attracting and retaining older talent?

At EWS, competitor intelligence is just one of the services we offer. Whatever workforce diversity needs you have, our two decades-plus of outsourced talent acquisition and research experience means we’ll help you find the perfect solution.

Every project we undertake is bespoke and aligned to each client’s specific business needs, market challenges, and workplace culture.

Get in touch for an initial, no-obligation conversation to see how we could help. 

The post How to Attract and Keep Older Employees appeared first on EWS.

Have you got the tenacity, charisma and research prowess to connect leading global employers to top global talent?

Finding, understanding and engaging quality senior candidates worldwide is an intricate and involving task. And it’s one that falls to our growing virtual team of motivated, resourceful Talent Sourcing Consultants. Join the team and become a vital link between our clients and the potential hires they want to talk to.

About the role

You’ll bring your research expertise to an eclectic range of talent mapping and sourcing projects. Working from home, often across time zones and territories, you’ll use various online and phone-based resources to research organisations, generate candidate lists and discreetly gather market intelligence. From there, you’ll contact senior passive candidates to discuss opportunities, before writing candidate profiles and reporting your findings in detail.

Who we’re looking for

You’ll be a true self-starter, comfortable with autonomy, proactive in exploring research channels and keen to delve deep into talent markets. Confidence and credibility are vital: you’re the one making the approach to senior passive candidates, so you must be able to spark, kindle and fire their interest in a role.

You need organizing skills as strong as your research abilities, since you’ll be managing multiple cross-border projects and compiling detailed reports under deadline pressure. If you have a recruitment, research or sourcing background, even better.

Why choose EWS?

Our consultants are the heartbeat of our bespoke talent sourcing solutions, so we’ve worked hard to create a supportive, collaborative culture for our virtual teams. You’ll find the work fast-paced and varied, with the buzz of tackling international assignments for high-profile clients. Finally, you’ll be well rewarded and have the flexibility that fits comfortably into your lifestyle.

To apply, send your CV with a covering email to careers@ews-o.com.

The post Be a Vital Link in the Global Talent Chain appeared first on EWS.

We recently came across an interesting take on the topic of goal setting, from an entrepreneur and keen student of human behaviour and motivations named James Clear. This wasn’t the typical list of 10 ways to achieve every goal you set, or 6 ways, or 5, 4 or even 2. Rather, it was one solitary tip, a simple if counter-intuitive shift in mindset that can be adopted by just about anyone to reach almost any goal.

The basic idea is that once you’ve come up with your goal, you should more or less put it from your mind and pour all of your energies into the system or process that will get you there.

In other words: Set goal. Jettison goal. Achieve goal.

That might sound <insert your own dismissive adjective here> but the closer you look, the more sense this makes.

Motivationally, goals are tricky things. They can overwhelm as much as they inspire; their massive presence on the horizon casting a long shadow over the path to achieving them.

Very often, fixating on the goal itself makes it seem even further away, even more unattainable. Likewise, it’s all too easy to get stuck in a confidence-sapping loop of comparing our current situation to the dazzling dream on top of our far-off golden pedestal.

As James puts it:

“When you’re working toward a goal, you’re essentially saying, ‘I’m not good enough yet… but I will be when I reach my goal.’ ”

So, James’s argument goes, what if you completely ignored your goals and the creeping doubts and insecurities surrounding their attainment?

What if you instead focused only on your systems – the processes, practices and routines that actually get you to where you want to be?

What if you stopped worrying about being on the Board in five years and put all your energies into achieving more this month, learning new skills this quarter, managing more effectively this year?

What if you stopped focusing on the marathon you’re running in six months’ time and concentrated purely on this week’s training schedule, then next week’s and so on?

Would you still get the results you desire? For James, you get them and plenty more besides e.g.:

• The pleasure of enjoying the present moment of your process as well as improving towards your end goal.
• Freedom from being enslaved by a distant and unknowable future.
• Absence of guilt at ‘failing’ to reach arbitrary milestone steps along the way.

Here’s the full story in James’s original article. In the well-ploughed furrow of motivational thinking, we see his ideas as fertile ground for inspiration. (It certainly beats reading the latest thought piece on the enduring merits of SMART goals.)

Undoubtedly, this isn’t the approach for everyone or every goal. But we’re very much taken by the idea that goals are about the journey as much as the destination. With so much uncertainty and turmoil in modern lives, trusting your process seems a good place to start.

Those in the know, share. If you think your network would find inspiration in this post, we’ve made it really easy for you to tell them using the LinkedIn Share button below.

The post Is the Way You Set Your Goals Stopping You from Achieving Them? appeared first on EWS.

1-click applications are a godsend for recruiters and candidates, right?

They give top talent a fast-forward button to your vacancy, meaning you don’t miss out on those stellar candidates too busy being brilliant to complete an entire application form from scratch. Convenience for candidates and a steady flow of engaged applicants into your ATS (not to mention greater resource efficiency) for you.

Another win-win layer of hiring automation. Trebles all round!

Except it isn’t so straightforward. Like so many steps in the march to automated recruiting, 1-click applications present a precarious trade-off between efficiency, employer branding and candidate experience.

It’s a basic tenet of motivation: the easier something becomes, the less commitment it requires and the lower its perceived value.

If you see a job you really want, you’re willing to run through walls to get it. When you’re offered a one-step, no-hassle way to apply, it suddenly feels cheaper, less worthwhile. “Who’s to say,” thinks the applicant, “that an army of unqualified candidates isn’t right now blindly clicking in their application, swamping the process in mediocrity?”

As a qualified candidate, maybe that will work in your favour, maybe not. The one thing you do know is that you’re in an unedifying numbers game for an employer you now respect slightly less.

Even worse, automated hiring turns all of those unqualified 1-click chancers into potential critics. An unsatisfactory response, whether it’s a terse and cursory automated email or their application ending up in the notorious ATS black hole, casts a long shadow over your employer brand.

In other words, you’ve ended up making naysayers of people who should never have been anywhere near your employer brand in the first place. On the bright side, at least you’ve inflated your ATS with the details of a few more irrelevant applicants you’ll never so much as glance at again.

Sarcasm aside, we have genuine concerns about the payoff between process efficiency and reputation management of automated hiring systems like 1-click application. Likewise automated ATS email responses and artificial intelligence in online video interviewing.

Recruitment is an innately human business, probably more so than any other. A candidate’s suitability for a role is ultimately determined by a nuanced set of intangibles: ambition, worldview, accomplishments, confidence, rapport, cultural fit and so on.

Humans simply do not miss these critical factors in the way that automated processes (what Liz Ryan dubbed “inhuman systems of recruitment” in her epic Forbes takedown of recruiting technology) all too easily can. Meanwhile your goodwill as an employer is being eroded every time a candidate rubs up against the blank void in the automated process where human interaction would otherwise be.

This is a long way from saying that technology plays no role in enhancing recruitment. It’s simply to caution that every automated step added to a hiring process diminishes its humanity and increases its fallibility.

Most jobs are worth more than a single click.

Those in the know, share. If you think your network would find inspiration in this post, we’ve made it really easy for you to tell them using the LinkedIn Share button below. (And yes, we fully appreciate the irony in the context of this post.)

Image © R.E.M. Automatic For The People, Warner Bros. Records

The post Is Automated Hiring Making It Too Easy for Candidates to Dislike You? appeared first on EWS.

Job descriptions have a simple goal: to focus your talent search on qualified candidates. Traditionally, that means creating an exhaustive list of tasks performed and experience required, in the hopes that unqualified candidates will rule themselves out of contention. And therein lies the problem.

By prioritising tasks and experience over the impact a candidate will make in the role, most job descriptions drastically limit the job they describe. If the goal is to discourage the wrong people from applying, it’s natural to want to be as detailed as possible on what the job involves and who has the skills to do it. But that also increases the odds of a potential star self-deselecting because they don’t match up to every point on the profile.

To put it another way: the job description should be a tool to plan for excellence. Very often ‘hoping for competence’ is the limit of its ambition.

From job description to success profile

Fortunately, there is another way. The success profile gives you and your candidates a better lens through which to view the role in question. In place of dry lists of duties, experiences and qualifications, it defines the job through outputs, achievements and successes.

Many exponents, including recruitment and training guru Lou Adler, call this a ‘performance-based job description’. We think ‘success profile’ says more with less.

Either way, the key is to change the way you see the job you’re describing:

A job isn’t… an inflexible set of actions carried out robotically until further notice.

A job is… a dynamic performance intrinsically bound up in the results it delivers to your company. For example:

• A salesperson’s job isn’t to talk to prospective customers, but to bring more money into the business.
• An engineer’s job isn’t to create technical plans, but to solve problems.
• A recruiter’s job isn’t to sift applications, but to improve quality of hire.

These are broad examples, but any job should be definable by a clear set of objectives, measurable over time to show when someone is succeeding in that role. (Adler’s claim is that “just about every job in the world could be defined this way with 6-8 performance objectives”.)

What job information goes in a success profile?

These performance objectives form the core of the success profile. They could include:

• Expected outcomes – What 6-8 things must a person achieve in the role to be labelled a success after e.g. 6 months or a year?
• Success measures – Quantify them clearly (e.g. ‘Increase product sales by 10% in Year 1’, ‘Improve our Net Promoter Score by +5’ or ‘Migrate us to a new ATS’).
• Growth potential – If the role comes with prospects, include them. Again, be specific. Where could a high performer end up after two years? What heights have previous postholders gone on to?

What candidate requirements go in?

Needless to say, the success profile also reinvents the person spec. It has to: If a job is defined by results not duties, it makes no sense to set out an arbitrary list of requirements for how those results must be achieved. For instance:

• Why does someone need 10+ years’ experience? What if they have four but they’re a really fast learner?
• Is a degree absolutely necessary to answer the question ‘Can I increase turnover by 20% in Year 1?’
• Can a programmer be trained up in one of the six languages you’ve speculatively listed under skills required?

The point is that results can be achieved in unexpected ways. Enlightened employers are ready to be surprised. To avoid the risk of turning away a great candidate who doesn’t tick every last box, you need to distinguish essential requirements from nice-to-haves.

Once you have your essentials, define them in a role-specific way. Don’t fall back on empty phrases like ‘excellent oral and written communication skills’. Tell people what they’ll be doing with them (e.g. emailing customers, providing product demos). Likewise, nail down soft skills such as ‘can-do attitude’. What is it about a person that makes others think they have a can-do attitude? What specific behaviours do they exhibit?

Is it worth changing the habit of a lifetime?

Making a change this fundamental in your hiring process is undeniably hard work but there are persuasive benefits for all concerned.

Candidates love the approach because…

1. It lets them imagine themselves in the job. They get to visualise themselves succeeding, progressing and having an impact in your company, not just performing an assigned set of tasks. This is a way to speak directly to their abilities AND their motivations.
2. It gives them something to get excited about. Every sales job description out there talks about ‘using your people skills and strategic sales outlook to achieve results in a high-pressure environment’. How many put a figure or a timeframe on those results?
3. It opens the job up to new audience groups. Where traditional job descriptions risk disqualifying candidates on superfluous requirements, a success profile lets people decide whether they can do what’s needed with what they have.

Smart employers love the approach because…

1. It prioritises qualified candidates over unqualified ones. Old job descriptions say ‘if this profile doesn’t look like you, this job isn’t for you’. Success profiles say ‘if you can get these results, we’re interested’. It selects in qualified candidates and launches your relationship with them on a positive footing.
2. It’s the choice of diverse employers. The success profile has the potential to widen the candidate pools you source from and the breadth of quality candidates you attract. It opens up the possibility of different paths to the same destination.
3. It’s a useful interview tool. By defining the job in a more meaningful, focused way, the success profile is a better starting point for competency and performance-based interview questioning.
4. It’s easier to update. Future-facing employers review their job descriptions at least annually. The quantifiable nature of a purpose-based role profile makes it easier to identify and change any out-of-date details.

You can probably tell we’re firm believers in the value of switching your thinking to adopt the success profile approach. Indeed, we’re planning a follow-up post contrasting a sample success profile with its job description counterpart.

You can sign up for Talent Unlimited updates to be notified when it goes live.

The post Why Your Job Descriptions Could Be Harming Your Hiring Prospects appeared first on EWS.

Here are our top five tips for getting more out of any company meeting.

1. Set a meeting-cost timer

Nothing sharpens minds like the thought of wasted money. Instead of holding meetings against the clock, try one of the ingenious meeting-cost timer apps on the market, like MeeTime. These do what you’d expect – clock up how much the meeting is costing you, based on an average cost per attendee. When the cost runs into thousands (far sooner than you’d imagine), meetings quickly become more productive.

2. Leave the meeting room behind

The meeting room is the ultimate comfort zone. Staring at the same four walls dulls creativity and engagement, while sitting in those comfy ergonomic chairs hardly encourages urgency. A different setting is a great way to keep people focused and attentive. If you’re looking to stimulate creativity one-to-one, try Steve Jobs’ preferred mode of conversation: the al fresco walk-and-talk.

3. Stick to the objective like a bloodhound

The most effective meetings begin with a watertight agenda and end with actionable outputs. The way to achieve both is to start with a clearly-articulated statement of objective (ideally shared beforehand) and don’t allow the meeting to drift from it. One leadership guru claims this can save on average 17 minutes per meeting.

4. Make it exclusive

In the film In The Loop, a hapless MP is invited to an important meeting, only to find it stuffed with needless attendees, collectively referred to as ‘room meat’. There is no room in your meeting for room meat. If someone isn’t essential to the objective, don’t invite them. Is there an absolute cap on numbers? Ten is probably a sensible limit – confirming Amazon’s celebrated two-pizza rule.

5. Banish all devices

So, you’ve got the right people in the right meeting space, keenly focused on the objective at hand and primed to respond quickly and creatively. Distractions are the last thing you need. Remove the temptation to fiddle with phones or check email on laptops by banning them altogether – and watch attentiveness surge.

Those in the know, share. If you think your network would find inspiration in this post, we’ve made it really easy for you to tell them using the LinkedIn Share button below.

The post 5 Easy Ways to Stop Meetings Being a Waste of Time appeared first on EWS.