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Employee Spotlight: Alison Worth

Meet Alison Worth, one of our Senior Recruitment Consultants at DoubleStar. 

For the past 11 years, she has met the challenges of many of our clients, including those in healthcare. According to Alison, “Healthcare has always been a challenge but over the last two years candidate recruitment has been the hardest thing that any recruiter has faced. Not only are there increased needs but people are leaving the industry at an unprecedented rate.” View her video to learn more about Alison and what it’s like to work at DoubleStar.

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How To Hire Someone You’ve Never Met

DoubleStar’s Managing Director, Christine Treski shares her comments regarding this insightful remote hiring article:

The shift to remote hiring, whether voluntary or not, has brought with it new opportunities but also new challenges. To improve your chances of finding the right person (even if you’ve never met them) and give them the best chance of success as a new teammate, read this article which offers a few helpful adjustments to consider.

Themes From the 2021 HR Tech Conference

DoubleStar’s Managing Director, Christine Treski shares her insights on a recap of the 2021 HR Tech conference:

There’s no shortage of urgent topics that HR leaders need to address in the coming year including the ongoing discussion about AI in the hiring process, women’s return to the workplace and ‘The Great Resignation’. This article hits on all of these topics as discussed at the recent HR Tech Conference.

U.S. Jobless Claims at Lowest Level Since Mid-March 2020

With headlines like these, how can hiring managers, HR departments, and recruiters manage? There’s no question that we in the talent acquisition profession are struggling to find and hire good candidates, at all levels. We initially thought this was occurring mostly in high volume roles, such as in healthcare where we have a lot of clients (because of the expanded unemployment benefits, stimulus checks, and pending childcare credits); however, currently not even the most well-known healthcare providers can fill say a home healthcare job, period. While this is somewhat attributable to COVID discouraging workers from entering or returning to that type of role, that is certainly not the entire picture.

Other factors squeezing employers include uncertainty in the job market and in the economy at large. In times like these, people remain hesitant to make any move away from their current employer. Even though the market can be in the candidate’s favor, our view is that people are holding onto their current jobs. Another sign of this is that our own Research Specialists at DoubleStar have been struggling with response rates. Typically, our outreach produces a 10% response rate—and up to a 30% response rate in hot fields. While building a customized candidate pipeline is still important and recommended, an employer should not expect a tremendous response from a passive pool of candidates. Nurses, salespeople, software developers, lending specialists, and laboratory scientists are all in demand, yet many of those same people are staying put. Employers cannot rely on the ‘post and pray’ model.

In a candidate-driven market, you need to have experienced recruiters that know how to take care of candidates and how to advise hiring managers to keep the process moving. This is not the time to have an extended hiring process. Candidates are getting offers within days. You need to keep the communication flowing and the process moving. In fact, our team is excellent at that.

As the market remains challenging for employers looking to hire, they need to take a close look at their interview processes to retain the candidates they have in play.

Top 10 Communications Tips

Here are some recommendations to keep the communication process going when engaging with candidates:

1. Let them know you received their resume and that someone will be reaching out to them soon.

2. Go into your video interviews knowing and communicating the next steps and set expectations regarding when a candidate will hear back from you.

3. Life happens, so if something changes, communicate immediately if you can’t honor your schedule.

4. Find a reason to reach out, if you have a week or more between interviews.

5. You never want candidates to feel that they’re in a black hole. It’s always my goal to reach out first, before they ask me for an update.

6. Don’t bother with multiple rounds of interviews. The more you can condense your process into a few interviews, the better.

7. Whoever is making the hiring decision should be empowered to control and speed the hiring process.

8. A lot of interviews occur over video, but people are still human. Don’t keep someone on a Zoom call for long hours interviewing with your entire team without breaks. Take care of your candidates.

9. Communicate right from the start regarding work from home, hybrid, or office requirements—let the candidate decide whether to opt in our out.

10. COVID has opened up opportunities to reach new people beyond your traditional local pool of candidates—be prepared to take advantage of this.

Even after an offer is made and accepted, it’s important to stay in contact for those two weeks between acceptance and start date to make sure no counteroffers or competitive offers hinder your plans. Keep the lines of communication open and your potential hires engaged throughout the interview process and you are more likely to have the hiring outcome that you desire!

IF YOU ARE STRUGGLING TO FIND QUALIFIED CANDIDATES DURING THESE CHALLENGING TIMES, REACH OUT TO THE TALENT EXPERTS AT DOUBLESTAR. WE BRING DEEP INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE, OUR PROVEN PROJECT MANAGEMENT METHODOLOGY, TALENT MARKET INSIGHTS, AND EXPERT TA PROCESS TO EVERY PROJECT WE UNDERTAKE.

Reshaping Your Career in the Wake of the Pandemic

DoubleStar Managing Director Christine Treski recently shared some insights on reshaping your career in the wake of the pandemic:

This topic is on the minds of most candidates we interview. As we move into hybrid offices and hybrid professional identities, we’re entering what social scientists call a “liminal” moment—when you’re exiting a previous way of being and entering another. Many professionals consider this to be an opportunity to craft work and careers they truly enjoy. Candidates are considering these questions about their future employers: Did they treat their employees fairly and with respect? How did they navigate uncertainty? Did they prioritize the short-term or the long-term? In addition, employees are looking for new ways to connect—physically and virtually—as a way to not only build their networks, but also gain access to those who are influential and may have previously been hard to reach. While the future workplace is still evolving, we feel that it’s important for employers to create strategies to address what’s on the minds of their future employees.

Reengineering the Recruitment Process

DoubleStar Managing Director Tony Trasatti recently shared some insights on reengineering the recruitment process:

A recent Gartner study cites three workforce trends: skills needed in certain roles have an increasingly short shelf life; highly gifted candidates can be found outside traditional talent clusters; and candidates are increasingly selective about whom they work for, so firms need a compelling employment value proposition. Factors, such as meaningful work and proximity to family, that have taken on added importance during the pandemic are likely to continue. At DoubleStar, we saw that the recruiting landscape was already going through a transformation (pre-COVID); however, these trends have accelerated and require more thought and planning than ever before.