In today's hiring market, what are the top candidate concerns that you face?
Is it job content? Upward mobility ?Salary? Relocation/Housing related? Others? In your experiences, what are the top 3-5 concerns that you have to overcome when talking to prospective candidates and how do they compare to the top concerns that candidates shared 12 months ago? Thoughts?
Good Answers (17)
Kristin K
Sourcing Strategist at Waggener Edstrom Worldwide
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (2), Career Management (1)
Not in any particular order:
Relocation is a bigger issue than it was last year due to the real estate market. Companies that are willing to hire remote employees will definitely have an advantage in attracting talent, but I wonder if retaining employees will become more difficult when more people are managed remotely?
Flexibility is also a bigger one than it used to be -- people want to feel that they are trusted and valued. If you get your best work done from 5-8pm, you should have the flexibility to come in at 10am. That said, since many companies are global, this can affect communication/meetings with international colleagues. In this case, the employee should be willing to accommodate those situations as needed. Face time is a thing of the past. People should be evaluated on what they accomplish, not how many hours they spend working in the office. Most of us spend quite a bit of time working from home regardless of how much time we spend in the office.
Salary is a big one too, especially for experts in niche areas. If you can't pay what the market warrants, someone else will.
Job content is also hugely important. People want to work on things they are passionate about. More and more, employees are seeking out the jobs that speak to their interests rather than just scouting job boards for a possible fit. They are researching and networking to find the perfect fit.
Opportunity for mentorship and learning seems to be more important than advancement/upward mobility. People do want to know they have a clear path for career growth and that their hard work will be rewarded, but I am not seeing as many "climbers" as I used to...maybe it's just the PR world though...that's my primary focus.
Candidates that I speak to are concerned about job stability, pay and upward mobility. They also ask about training and opportunities for professional development. In the past 12 months I have heard more concern about stability than anything else.
Here are the top 5 things we find most people are interested in:
1. Does the business have a cultural and commercial vision that is exciting and that I can be aligned with.
2. What skills training and personal development including leadership training is available,
3. Are there any carrer enhancement opportunities
4. What are the financial rewards
5. Are there opportunities for early responsibility
A lot of Gen Y candidates are looking for a community and flexbility as they don't want to be tied down which means that the culture and values are important including what behaviours are expected and what activities the company undertakes to bring that culture alive and whether the leaders in the business are examples of these values.
Another factor that might come up on the radar in the next few years is the question in regards to the company's environmental policy.
I'd agree with most of the above, the main concern being stability.
12-18 months ago candidates were happy to take a gamble on a job move, safe in the knowledge if it didn't work out they could move again.
We're also seeing some of the mid level candidates willing to move for similar or less money if they new company will offer the security, benefits, training.
Last but not least, there are a lot of candidates looking to dramatically reduce travel times, there seems to be more and more Home Counties' candidates looking to swap their London job for one closer to home (partly driven by the time of year).
I agree with all of the answers to date - yes salary etc is important and obviously there are variances dependent on sector and job title e.g. Sales people are more likely to be motivated by money owing to being target driven etc.
At Honeywell, we are finding that work/life balance and flexibility are having increasing importance. Training also factors highly with people being more focused on how they can be developed.
We sat. survey all candidates on their experience and as part of that we also record why they joined Honeywell. Interestingly, if you split by band, you would see different factors affecting their reasons. With base salary being important in the lower bands and flexibility/training being key in the higher bands. My team now uses these points as a way to target candidates and understand their motivations.
When I interview candidates the top concerns are:
- job stability
- work-life balance
- new challenges (not upward mobility)
According to 12 months ago the job stability concern is increased.
I deal primarily with Senior Level Managers and Executives. The number one issue I deal with is COMPENSATION... Base Salary, bonuses and incentives are key. No one wants to take a cut in pay... They want to know if it will even be worth their time to come in for an interview.
My top concerns are;
1- Compensation
2- Location
3- Project details
In my experience, it has not changed in the last 10 years. In the DC metro area, this is and will always be the top issues for Senior level candidates.
Nigel D
European Market Entry and Business Development for North American and European High Tech companies
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Kevin - most of the candidates who ask me to represent them have the same concern long before they get to the point of considering a position with any firm.
If they have talent, how on earth do they get noticed by hiring managers when the hiring managers' respective companies treat recruitment like a mincing machine?
Your company is a case in point. If a superb candidate asks for my help in joining a company they admire, I can strike Microsoft off the list.
Why? You simply are not interested in talking to any Talent Acquisition Company that represents the interests of candidates because you have outsourced the whole shebang and a protective wall has ringed your company.
If a Microsoft manager approaches me at a networking event and asks me to find a special candidate, I politely refuse because I cannot get airtime with Microsoft outsourced recruiters.
You are not alone - Cisco, Wipro, TCS, Google etc
Why do candidates come to me and not direct to you? Because they see value in my work and I get them superb jobs in superb companies. Sadly, several companies are not on my list.
The companies I work with value my input not becasue I'm a recruiter but because I have been in their shoes as a business manager and when I required talent I found it hard to find and acquire and certainly not without eating into my daily focus. Real talent acquisition saves their time and managers need to be constantly appraised of talent availability even if they don't have open positions because REAL talent is actually in short supply.
Anyone can fill a gap - just stick an advert on here. But adding long term sustainable incremental value to a company - that's what Talent Acquisition is all about and it isn't a commodity.
If you actually approach the issue with that in mind, your questions above become less of a concern because you get access to people who want to join your company as a primary motivation not people who are playing you off against Google or Cisco.
Case in point - I have a Unified Communications New Business Salesperson seeking a career change - Microsoft aren't even interested in talking to me. Microsoft did not even talk about the above questions, because I simply did not get a call back. The person is second interviewing at your main competitor.
Then you pop a question up like that.
It's a mad world.....
Links:
Although each and every person has their own motivational factors, I would have to say that in today's job market two things lead the list:
Flexibility- whether it is job sharing; flex time; working from home; or four 10 days- candidates, especially the younger generations, are demanding more options.
Continued Learning Opportunities a work- the old career model of moving "up the ladder" is disappearing so candidates know that they need to keep learning and moving laterally in a company is the way to assure your own marketability. I have found some of our clients are afraid that their investment in learning for employees might be lost if they change jobs, however, it is more likely that employers will loose them anyway if they don't invest in continued learning. The Xer's and Net Gens are demanding continual learning opportunities within organizations are they do leave. We have to keep our focus on productivity and retention and be able to try new methods of working relationships with employees.
Kristen F
Author; Sourcing U WA Medical Centers; Independent resume and HR consultant, via Conquent.
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Relocation and salary, which complement all the previous comments regarding stability and economic growth. As you know, Seattle is still lucky enough to be a relatively strong economic market, but people are very nervous about the economy in general. There have been a few layoffs around town the last few months, although mostly smaller companies in very niche markets.
There is also name recognition for me. I work for a small company, and quite honestly our major competitor for talent is Microsoft ;) But, the upside is that we can offer an opportunity to make a huge difference and a cultural value of work-life balance. Small cog in a big wheel (MS) big cog in a small wheel (us.)
Phillip R
Freelance developer / IT consultant specializing in helping growing SMBs leverage technology for success
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Well I can answer this from the perspective of a "candidate" as my employer purged about half their staff last Wednesday. :-)
When I'm looking for a new position a few factors make up probably 80% of my concerns:
1. compensation. Let's not kid ourselves... we work to make money and pay the bills, and the bottom line is still the bottom line. And enough money can lead one to put up with a number of things he might not tolerate otherwise.
2. physical environment. I may be a little odd in this regard, but I put a lot of stock in this. Ask me to work in an open-plan environment, or in those low-walled cubicles, and you might not be able to pay me enough to take the job. Offer me a real office with a door, and I'll probably accept slightly less compensation than I might otherwise hold out for.
3. work/life balance: what I mean here is simple things... if I need to come in late one day because I need to get my car's oil changed, I don't expect that to be a problem. If I'm not feeling well and ask to work from home one day instead of driving in to the office, I don't expect that to be a problem. Working hours / location should be as flexible as possible. Don't ask me to work 8-5 exactly, just "because;" if it doesn't have any significant impact on me getting my job done. In fact, as long as I get my job done, I'd prefer that it not matter whether I come in to the office at all or not. I'll work from the coffee shop today, whatever.
4. dress code. I'm a software engineer, not a sales rep, don't ask me to dress up for no reason. Jeans and a t-shirt work just fine for writing code, thanks.
Outside of that, pretty much everything else falls into the "20%" category.
Training, frilly stuff like free food, exercise rooms, etc. aren't terribly important to me. I don't mind taking care of my own education, I need to lose weight anyway, and I have my own gym membership.
Opportunities for advancement aren't particularly important either: if I get the itch to advance I'll jump straight to CEO by starting my own company.
Relocation isn't a concern, as I currently have no intention of leaving the Chapel Hill area.
Stability isn't even all that big a concern, even after getting laid off. We all know there's no such thing as a "permanent job" anymore anyway, and there's no real difference between working somewhere 6 months and getting laid-off, versus taking a 6 month contract. In either case, in 6 months you're back on the market again.
Looking at things from India perspective where the market is full of opportunities for technical folks & is competitive due to shortage of talent the top 4 reasons are the following if I need to stack rank them:-
1. Job content: Mid to senior folks are concerned about the kind of work they work be working on. Is it maintenance or core product dev work ?
2. Job Stability: Candidates are concerned about their long term stability in a company. Here brand equity of a company really makes a difference so Product companies like Adobe, Microsoft, Cadence, Google, SAP etc really give the stability factor to a potential employee..People want to be with long term stable companies who have created a niche for themselves..
3. Relocation: It’s interesting to note that now in India people are really concerned about relocating which was not the case few years back.. There is no dearth of opportunities for candidates due to presence of all major Product/services companies in major metro cities like Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai etc. Hence convincing a candidate to move from his current location to other metro is becoming a Big challenge and you need to create a differentiating factor to move.
4. Compensation: This is one of the concerns candidates have although not the prime one since due to severe shortage of talent and influx of all major companies in India salaries have gone up in most of the companies be it product or services..
Betsy C
Graduate Student at Graduate Student--Notre Dame College of Ohio
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (1), Using LinkedIn (1)
Kevin~
A study by a company focused on work-life balance was done on this exact topic a couple of years ago. I have had the results on my desk for about a year.
When candidates are asked why they would consider a new position, there are really only 5 answers that hit the radar (in this order)...
1. Opportunity
2. Management Resonability
3. Flexibility (either in environment or schedule)
4. Family Friendly
5. Money
Those same candidates, when asked, said the reasons they would ACCEPT a new position fell in this order...
1. Money
2. Family Friendly
3. Flexibilty
4. Management Reasonability
5. Opportunity
The reasons to accept a position were exactly prioritized in reverse order of why someone would consider making a move in the first place.
As a recruiter, I have found this to be true also. Most people go looking for a new position because they aren't happy with the organization for a number of reasons (overlooked for a promotion, don't get along with the manager, feel they are being ignored, abusive environment, etc.), but when it comes time to make the offer, 90% of the time if the money isn't there, the company can have the greatest perks in the world and the candidate will turn it down. This is true, I think, because people will accept the "evil they know" unless they can improve their financial situation most of the time.
Maybe things are different in other parts of the country, or in specific industries, but the experience is the same for most of the other recruiters in my area.
Hope that helps a little....
Betsy
Michael P
Recruitment Supervisor at Sharp HealthCare
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Hi Kevin,
Here are the top applicant concerns that are passed along to me by my team (not necessarily in order):
1. Flexibility/work-life balance
2. Cost of living/relocation including quality education for the kids and spousal employment issues
3. Work environment
4. Mobility/advancement
5. Pay
This has not changed significantly since last year, so it seems fairly stable. Compared to 5 years ago, I think that Flexibility/work-life balance have moved up significantly.
Thanks!
Mike
Andrew B
Accomplished IT Leader: IT Operations, Compliance, Information Security, Technology Integration, Network Architecture
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Kevin,
In general I appreciated the vast majority of answers you received so far, and consider them all very relevant. Speaking from the employee side, I also echo what John Moore wrote.
My personal priorities in no particular order are:
- Work/Life balance
- Appropriate compensation (which is not just about salary or bonus)
- An environment that facilitates success
While I am totally dedicated to my profession, I also have lots of responsibilities outside of my employer, and employment represents only a percentage of who I am.
Additionally, the work/life balance is directly connected to the compensation goal, even though most organizations don't seem to recognize that. To the extent that an organization has a flexible working environment, good benefits, and doesn't "create a constant state of emergency" as John indicated, the salary their employees will be willing to accept will necessarily be somewhat less than environments whose culture is one of poor planning, bad politics, terrible communication, and underwhelming benefits. In short, these are not unrelated items.
At the end of the day, what most people want for themselves, their teams, and their organizations is success, and this needs to be something that is made a part of the company's DNA. It doesn't just happen.
When professionalism, good communication, good planning and support for success are all in place, the other concerns like stability and challenging work and upward mobility all fall into place as well.
Otherwise, expect to pay top dollar to get good employees -- and still have trouble keeping them...
--
-ASB
FAST, CHEAP, SECURE: Pick Any TWO
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http://Home.ASBzone.com/ASB/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/AndrewBaker
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Another great question Kevin,
I find that the main concerns of my candidates are:
Company Culture - does the company share their goal?
Work-Life Balance - this is increasingly important to where candidates have become flexible on their salary to gain more free time to enjoy life outside of the office
Telecommuting - this is another increasingly important desire for many candidates
Work/life balance is the general concern for most candidates I encounter. This means different things to different people, of course, but some of the 'buckets' that make up this preference are:
* time to attend children's events (sporting, school)
* flexible work schedule (working 9-6 as an example)
* wanting the company to offer 'family friendly' benefits such as flex spending accounts and affordable health benefits
* for single/childless candidates, they want time for their hobbies and support in professional development. Do you encourage their side projects? Ask their input on various Sr. level projects? Show an interest in their goal to bike across county and provide a schedule that enables that?
More Answers (34)
The main thing that has changed is the concern over relocation. Even with home buyout options offered, candidates are very hesitant. People are afraid of not being able to sell their homes, or get their investment in thier homes back.
Sharon T
HR Consultant | Career Coach | Author | Professional Speaker
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Kevin:
When I work with clients, the concerns I hear are stability, respect and flexibility.
Kunal G
Senior Engagement Manager at Accord Group India - Alto Partners
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In a crazy market such as India with sectors simultaneously going through boom or bust, candidates are concerned about job content & growth, team (both upwards and downwards) and the skills that they bring to the table, long term wealth creation (especially at senior levels). There is also the huge inflow of talent both returning indians and expats which has stirred up a very interesting pot of senior and middle level talent
Tim C
Professional Layabout
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Happyness.
Its a good thing when I think about it. But I have to admit companies are actually doing a much better job at retaining the top talent by treating them the way they deserve to be treated. When someone is happy with their work/home life balance even a 10k payrise will not make them move jobs...
main concern:
getting the sourcers & recruiters to ask this Q properly:
("borrowed" from Morgan Method)
"How will you know you have ultimately found the right job?" (the answer will be in "SEE","HEAR" or "FEEL" terms. Use that theme throughout your relationship with that candidate.)
Jeremy L also suggests this expert on this topic:
Interesting responses to this question so far: It is not my experience nor my colleagues experience that candidates are looking for Job Stability but rather mobility in the job, challenge and opportunities for learning. One of the major concerns that I hear all the time is the job application process is too long, client organisations putting candidates through mulitiple interviews and testing, the lack of respect received from Consultants and the current recruitment application process that drives a faceless service , with no opportunity on many occasions to expand on the experience and what they might bring to a job. I will generalise for a moment Gen Y often find themselves in organisations that do not have policies and procedures that support their hunger for upward mobility within a short space of time - there is still much of the attitude in large organisations that support the old premise that you must be in a role for years before you are eligible for promotion. THis not only frustrates this pool of talent but disengages them from the organisation and they move on.
Mariéme J
Social Entrepreneur- Speaker- Founder of Iconscience- Emerging Markets Strategist- CEO at Spotone Global Solutions.
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150% agree with Nigel.
Last months I was coaching 3 candidates; they gave me a list of the 3 top companies they want to work for, Microsoft was number 1 on their list, then Google UK and Oracle!
My candidates are really talented; I know 100% that they will give more to Microsoft than they will receive.
The point is in one stage it will become a Branding issue! People will work for you because you are a Brand! I have seen lots of people leaving these companies and joining the competitors, because they are respected, valued.
For your recruitment intelligence visit : www.spotoneglobalsolutions.com
Bob M
Recruiter, Consultant, Advisor, Fairly Decent Husband and Good Speller...accept no substitutes
Kevin:
No great new insights here. Relocation is a top-tier issue now. I'm finding that candidates actually read newspapers, and many have formed doom & gloom perceptions of the buying/selling prospects. A top-draw company is often not enough to persuade a candidate to enter what they perceive to be the horror show of putting their house on the market. Stability is increasingly important, as measured by the candidates' perceptions of my client's future in their industry. There's a growing sense of "better the devil you know" from recruited candidates.
Steve C
Test Project Lead
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(not in any particular order)
1. In some companies some advertised positions are not actually open but interviews are conducted anyway. This is a drain on morale for internal candidates and bad PR for external candidates.
2. In I.T. I'd say the prospect of a position being offshored.
3. Company financial performance.
Trying to hire developers for a startup has been a unique endeavor. Mostly, they are concerned about stability. Will we be around X years from now?
You can speak to them all you want about stock, salary and upward mobility, but ultimately, they have to decide if it's worth the risk.
My two cents on the Indian scenario. Largely from my experince of hiring senior talent for IT service and product shop set ups.
1:Ownership & accountability
The quality of the opportunity ceratinly matters at this level. Increasingly; at mid & senior mgt levels , candidates are looking at what is the level of empowerment & ownership , the depth and breadth of the opportunity .. for instance the opportunity to play a points person , setting up new product groups within established product shops etc matter a lot.
The kind of relationship with internal stakeholders & clients ( In India -for most of the product shops , the mother ship is in US ) also influence the candidate's decision making process.
2: Compensation :It is important..Not just top dollars but the Organization's ability to customize it to candidate's unique needs. Customised relocation support , structured retention bonus and joining bonus are all playing a role here.
3: Work life balance : Yes , we are rediscovering it in India too !! Proximity of the workplace to home , access to quality schools ( for children's education ) and the need to commute less and spend more quality time with Family is ensuring that candidates are looking at such factors now even more closely. Combine that with the fact that now in all major metros - competitive opportunities exist and it suddenly becomes very difficult to persuade candidates to relocate unless there is strong value add in the new job.
I think these answers are all great, and for the most part I agree with what everyone is saying. I strongly believe, at the end of the day, if the offer isn't attractive financially...everything else falls apart. 99% of every candidate "back-out" that we see ultimately comes down the the dollars. In addition, when our consultants have other offers, our counter-offer seems to always win if the money is competitive. We have seen folks double their daily commute and hours worked to earn another 10-15K, when you break it down from a pure time spent working + commute, they may actually be making less hourly. Relocation is a big one, and the responsibilities/environment do make a huge impact on a candidates decision, but if you can offer 8-12K more than your competition you will have more placements on your watch.
Stability is gone from the corporate world. With increasing competition, mergers and private equity buyouts, I tell all my candidates that they need to make decisions that balances professional and personal needs. The biggest concerns are related to development and progression and how they will assimilate into the culture. If they are going to relocate, they would like to make sure their family/personal life needs will be met. I do not see any difference with the concerns from today versus a year ago.
