Candidate Experience is Evermore Important!

Let‘s Talk HR - Humanizing the Conversation

This brilliant guest has been recognized as top 30 under 30 and is a linked in top marketing, career management and HR voice with 12,000 plus followers reaching 2 million across 70 countries. Join this amazing conversation about, about a what candidates want and how we can improve candidate experience.

Contact – Matt

LinkedIN - linkedin.com/in/matt-parkin

Leighann Lovely 00:20

HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann lovely. Let's get this conversation started. My guest today, Matt Parkins, has been recognized as a top 30 under 30 and is a linked in top marketing, career management and HR voice with 12,000 plus followers reaching 2 million across 70 countries. He helps entrepreneurs and executives tell their story to grow their personal brands on LinkedIn and coaches ambitious professionals to reach their full potential. Matt is actively involved in the community as an entrepreneur mentor for the City of Toronto Small Business Center, and several university entrepreneur programs. His HR thought leadership has been featured in publications such as LinkedIn news and HR dot coms, talent acquisition, talent management and human experience excellence publications. Matt, thank you so much for joining me this morning. I am excited to talk with you.

Matt Parkin 02:08

Thanks. Hi, Leighann.

Leighann Lovely 02:09

So why don't you start off by telling the audience a little bit about yourself?

Matt Parkin 02:14

Yeah, so I broke into the HR space a few years ago, working in the HR consulting space, got to work on a lot of cool projects related to learning and development and equity, diversity and inclusion, as well as org design. But while I was there, I came across a cool HR technology startup, and thought it'd be cool to break into the HR technology space to continue helping HR leaders fall from the biggest challenges of today, specifically related to talent acquisition and recruiting. I know when I was a job seeker, I got very frustrated by the job application process. And having been a hiring manager and gone through hundreds and hundreds of resumes, I know how painful it is to go through that process. And so coming to work at a startup that is adjusting and changing the talent acquisition process to improve the candidate experience for candidates and make it more efficient for employers. Something that was really exciting for me, over the last couple of years, I've had thought leadership featured in hr.com. And been contributing and advising several different companies as well as industry association. So super passionate about the space and happy to connect today to share some learnings and research findings on how folks can improve the candidate experience and employer branding.

Leighann Lovely 03:32

That's awesome. And I love that you just mentioned that as the hiring manager. And as candidates, you know, we're frustrated with that. So pulling those two things together. You know, really, you're coming from, you know, point of view where you've had hands on experience with that. So you're able to now, you know, be an aside of really being a consultant to say, Okay, well, I experienced this and if I experienced this, that means that hundreds of 1000s of other people have to have experienced this and it is frustrating. It is frustrating, not only for the hiring managers, I'm sure. Well, I know. But also the candidates who, you know, want to find a job hiring managers, companies want to hire the people, right? And how do we easily put those two together in order to just make that process easier so that people aren't being lost? Resumes aren't being lost in the shuffle. And candidates aren't being turned off simply by the process of accompany without having a company spend hundreds of 1000s of dollars to overall you know overhaul their systems right so But it needs to be done. But how do you do it in a reasonably in a cost effective manner to you know, to improve these, you know, processes. So you you've been at, you know, helping an organization find it's called find work for what what about a year and a half, which is an awesome start up web based app that allows for easy matching of skill based, my understanding is that you're not showing hiring managers resumes, which I feel are kind of an antiquated way to match skills, let's let's talk about how that app actually works.

Matt Parkin 05:49

Yeah, so we find that typically, job seekers are used to going and going on to online job boards, and essentially spraying and praying right sending out hundreds of applications. And a lot of them are hearing back from employers on the employer side of things having to go and post a job and wait for people to apply go through hundreds, often unqualified resumes. And then when you finally go through all of them and reach out to qualified candidates, you've likely already missed them. And they're already on to new opportunities. And so you get caught in that middle where job seekers are complaining about not being able to find jobs. And then employers also can't find the talent. And so it's a bit of a disconnect there. And to your point about the resume piece, a lot of a lot of biases are presented in terms of resume writing and reviewing, right, you have folks who are able to afford talk to your resume writers, you have people that maybe don't have great written skills, or English skills, and so maybe their resume isn't written or conveying their skills in the best possible way. And then on the employer side of things, it's pretty time consuming when you open up a resume document, because a lot of times, they're not all formatted in the same way, though, it takes a couple seconds to actually get your bearings in the document and figure out, okay, where do I need to look to find the skills that I'm looking for. And that's at the end of the day, that's what you're looking for, you're looking for someone that has the skills you need to succeed in the role. And so what we did with the fine work platform is that we moved away from resumes to focus on skill based hiring, candidates can add the skills to their profile, and employers can quickly filter for profiles with those skills. And so it's a much easier way to skim profiles without having to read through resumes, of people saying, Hey, I'm a great communicator or work well in a team. It's like, okay, great, show me how you've done that. And so by being able to condense that screening process and that application process, we find that you're able to more efficiently create that human connection, because it's a more enjoyable process for the job seeker and the employer.

Leighann Lovely 07:53

That's amazing. Well, and here's so well, I guess before I asked that question, what what type of employment what type of candidates are? Or is this you know, app or this web based system geared towards?

Matt Parkin 08:12

So it's mainly been geared towards folks that are looking for hourly type of roles, so restaurants, retail stores, warehouses, event venues, hospitality companies, anyone that are looking for hourly employees, we've seen a lot of great success with because I think skill based hiring still has a little bit of a ways to go with more tenured complex roles. And you know, the engineering phase, for example, right, where you might actually need to know a little bit more than just someone's previous job title to see what they've been working on. Whereas for a lot of hourly roles, some employers are just struggling with people that are showing up, right to being able to find people that will actually show up and that have done the job before somewhere else or have transferable skills flip easier for those levels of roles for employers to be able to gauge the transferable skills.

Leighann Lovely 09:01

So my guess is that the majority of these individuals are not brilliant writer. And again, please don't take this as I'm not picking on anybody. But these, these individuals are not designed or they're, they're not brilliant resume writers. Most people are not brilliant resume writers, you typically do it every week. I'm hoping like every couple of years or every 10 Depending on how many you know, depending on how often you look for job and hopefully it's not extremely often you're not looking for a job so often, we hope, but you're not writing a resume constantly, which means that majority of these people don't write resumes on a regular basis. Which means that let's let's take out the stress of oh my gosh, I have to write this resume and Even me being a seasoned HR professional when I sit down and I have to update my resume, I'm like, Oh, my God, this is this is tedious. This is how do I describe what I was doing? And so eliminating that, I would assume is taking out so much of the stress from both sides. I mean, it just, it just makes so much sense. So let's talk about candidate experience. I mean, I can understand from the manager's point of view, and again, there's, before I get into that, I still run across hiring managers who insist on seeing a resume. And because they want to see gaps, they want to see if this individual has gaps in their employment, which I think in today's age, is becoming a little unfair because of the whole COVID. But let's talk about candidate experience. How is this improving? And how has it improved time to hire the way that candidates are being found and seen?

Matt Parkin 11:12

Yeah, so I've seen employers doing entire hiring cycles in three to four days, I've seen employers that are getting responses from candidates on the platform, within minutes. I actually use the platform once on behalf of one of our clients. And I set up a campaign I went away and had breakfast and came back and already had qualified candidates texted them to set up interviews that afternoon, and they were hired at the end of the week. And so think from a speed perspective, that's something that can really help reduce the ghosting in the candidate experience. And platform aside, when you're building out your talent acquisition process, I really encourage everyone to go and apply to your own job postings, as well as those of your competitors. Right, put yourself in the shoes of job seekers, and see how many steps they're going through. Right? Are there any questions that you're asking that, you know, maybe are more nice to haves, rather than need to knows that you can potentially save for the interview process? Right? I was applying to one job. And one of the checkboxes was can you confirm you're able to do the requirements of this job? Who's gonna say no, right? Nobody's gonna say no. And so that screening question adds no value for a hiring manager, because you can't filter anyone with the hat, because no one's gonna say no. And on the candidate side of things, that seems like a very frustrating question for them to spend the time reading and agreeing to. And so it's those kinds of things that you can pick up when you go through your own candidate experience. And I went through a random cashier job on a job posting platform one day, and I applied to the role. And I got a message of, you know, saying, Hey, thanks for your application. And they had me do a skill assessment, which I thought was kind of cool, because it was for a customer service facing role. And it gave me as a candidate the opportunity to try and showcase some of my knowledge and skills to get ahead of the competition. Right. And that's something that, you know, just answering some screening questions and sending in a resume doesn't always allow your skills to shine. So I was really impressed by that, by that skill base assessment. Now, after I completed that, I got an invitation to make an account in the employers applicant tracking system to submit my application. And I was confused, because I had already hit the Apply button on the job board, I had already completed the skills assessment. And now I needed to come and create another account and submit my application. And so I didn't do that, because I thought that was irritating. And I proceeded to get daily emails for the next three days, telling me how great this employer was to work for and reminding me to finish my application. I thought in that moment, you see a lot of drop off during the application process. If that employer instead of sending those reminder emails, if they had sent one email saying, Hey, we noticed you didn't finish your application. We must have dropped the ball on our candidate experience, do you mind sharing some feedback for us on where we went wrong and how we can improve? I've never seen an employer do that. I think as a candidate that would a either be like, Wow, I want to work for this person. They're very receptive to feedback. And I would have to go and finish my application. Or I would provide some candid feedback and they'd be able to to improve their process. I find that a lot of employers ask their current employees and successful hires for feedback. Oh, no, I was the hiring process. And a lot of times current employees aren't going to give that same level of color that you would get from candidates, right. So that's just something to think about in terms of an exercise for you to do with your team would be to go through and apply to your own jobs and those of your competitors to see if there's any ways to improve the efficiency and experience of the process.

Leighann Lovely 14:58

I'm having flashbacks. I recently as a, as a recent small business owner, I recently thought I'm gonna go and get a part time job, you know, startup? Oh, my God, am I gonna make it? And so I just recently had this experience and you're bringing, you know, horror flashbacks because you're so right. Like, there were so many times where I'm like I, you know, I just want to apply to this job. And it was one step after another after another after another for a very simple job like just an admin position where I'm like, you know, you're having me send my resume, like my resume is, I'm a tenured, you know, customer, I've got so much customer service, I've been in sales I've been in HR I've been in, if you're going to have me send my resume, within two seconds, you're going to see that I'm qualified for well, way overqualified to be a customer service person. But now you're going to have me fill out this application, you're going to have me answer 20 questions, you're going to have me do a skill assessment, then you're going to, and it was like, I'm not doing this, I'm this is like a half an hour process. Now think about that, in terms of somebody who's looking for a job who doesn't have a job, they do that 10 times 15 times a day, that is a full time job. full time job, and half the time 90% of the time, they never get a response ever. Nothing. Crickets, why would I choose? As a candidate? I'm thinking, why am I going out and filling out this crap? Online? repeatedly to get no response? No, buddy, you know, calling me back to positions that for me, I obviously I was in over that I feel that I'm qualified for I have no idea why they're passing on me. No response as to. And if I do get a response to say, no, it's sorry, we've decided to move forward with somebody else. But I'm getting no response as to why I'm not qualified, or why they passed on me. I mean, think about if you're a company, and your manager keeps coming to you and saying, You're not doing very good, you're not doing very good, you're not doing very good, you're not doing good. But they never tell you why you're not doing very good. You can't fix it, you can't make it better. Which means that you're stuck in that cycle of like, well, I'm just going to keep doing the same thing I've done over and over every single I mean, that's the definition of insanity. Literally, the definition of insanity, I'm gonna continue to apply to these jobs, get no response. And every day, I'm going to do it over and over and over and over again. So basically, these poor candidates are out there, going insane, looking for jobs and getting no response, which is the rise of recruiters. However, even recruiters have gotten a bad rap of never getting back to their candidates, because there's so many candidates, that they fall through the cracks. So having something that they could literally go on, put their skills be matched up, be easily searchable. And then once they have a job, go on there and say, yep, I've got a job. No longer search me and it's only one platform that they have to manage. I mean, I mean, I'm speechless at that point, I kind of went off on a little bit of a tangent, but if I, you know, if I could wave my magic wand, it would be, you know, every time you and again, I'm not saying you know, some of these jobs, you have 400 applicants. So it wouldn't be feasible for a company to go in and say, here's why I'm passing on you for every one of those candidates, so I get it. But we do need to have something like this and something like this for every industry would be absolutely, like amazing.

Matt Parkin 19:45

Yeah, and I think the big the big thing to keep in mind with that ghosting piece is like you said it's a time consuming process to give feedback to candidates. But what you can do instead of just sending a message saying thanks for Applying, we'll be in touch, right being very explicit about the next steps in the process to help reduce stress and set expectations with the job seekers. This is the second most requested thing that we found in our research when we were asking candidates, how employers can improve their candidate experience. And that was an automated receipt with explicit next steps. So if you don't, if you apply to a job on a Monday, you know, getting an automated or automated reply, saying, hey, we'll be reviewing applications on Wednesday and Thursday, interview invites will go out on Friday, first round will be Monday, next week, second round Wednesday, next week, if you don't hear from us, by the end of this week, you can assume that we've gone a different direction really appreciate your application that can be automated with your applicant tracking system, right? It takes very little effort to do and give so much power to the job seeker so that they're not constantly refreshing their email inbox, sending follow up messages to recruiters wondering what's happening, right. And that allows for teams that are busy and maybe don't have the time to review the applications right away to level set up front and say, hey, you know, we're getting a lot of applications, it's gonna take a few days for us to go over things. Don't be surprised you don't hear from us right away. I level setting on those expectations is so key and leaving with transparency is the way that you can build that relationship, even if there isn't a good fit at the end of the process.

Leighann Lovely 21:21

Right. Wow, that right? Because all all I think all people want to know is what is the next step. And for me, I I stopped applying to accept applying to positions unless they were the quick apply, which on LinkedIn, you have quick apply positions where you literally just get apply. And you because it was too because I'm lazy. And I didn't really need. You know, again, I didn't really need the job. I had the luxury of being like, Oh, I'm just gonna apply to the quick apply one, and I'm just not everybody has that luxury, you know, people. But yes, if I would have gotten responses of work, you're going to hear from us on this day, if we are interested in moving forward, then I would have been marked my calendar. If I don't hear from them. I can check this one off my spreadsheet of I applied to this and and I have talked to people and they're like, oh, I have I have three spreadsheets, of the different stages of where I am in the process of the positions that I have applied for. And I'm like, wait, spreadsheets, what are you talking about? They're like, it's the only way that I can keep track of all of the jobs that I've applied for. And the ones I've gotten feedback for. We get all of this, you know, feedback, we get this bad rap the world gets this bad rap of the world candidates get this bad rap of ghosting recruiters and companies. What we don't understand is that candidates get ghosted tenfold every day. So why are we bashing them? They're they're ghosted 100 and a million times more every day. It's just that they're not ghosted by a specific person. They're ghosted by the company, just simply not responding to them in any way to let them know that they are not moving forward. Or they filled the position or whatever it might be. And then we turn around and we're like, oh, how dare they go stressed? Well, that person's been, you know, through the wringer on trying to find a job, and you're gonna sit there and bash them. Not that I'm condoning it. I'm not saying that it's okay. You know, in any means, and it's even worse, if they're, you know, hey, out, you've been offered the job, and then you don't show up. That's totally not not. That's another level of not cool. But anyways, I digress. So let's, you know, let's talk about, you know, what, what other studies, what was the number one, you said number two, what was the number one way or feedback that you got that we could improve on candidate experience?

Matt Parkin 24:27

So this is a hotly debated topic, but including wages in compensation in the job posting was the top request from candidates. And we're seeing some states in the US start to mandate this. And I'm hoping that folks who haven't been mandated yet will hop on board and continue doing it because it just saves so much time for both parties, right? It's not a big secrecy. You have a budget for your business that makes sense financially with your money. margins for how much money you want to allocate to the roll. There's always room for negotiation later in the process, but setting an expectation so that candidates know, hey, that's actually under my, what I'm looking for, I'm not even gonna bother applying, right, when we talked about having hundreds and 1000s of applicants to go through, including that compensation data is likely to reduce those applicants that are not going to be a fit for that comp range anyways. And so you're gonna save more time, on your end reviewing applicants, you're going to save time of your hiring managers and interviewers getting to, you know, a third or fourth round interview, and realizing that you're $30,000 apart in terms of expected compensation, and you're just going to create a more memorable experience. Because if you're leading with transparency, with your compensation, that says a lot about your culture. And that can help with retention as well. Because if you're being transparent about wages, you're probably also being transparent with your employer branding, with the rest of your communications to employees. And that's probably a place where people are going to want to work. So that was the top requested change to the candidate experience that we found in our study.

Leighann Lovely 26:07

And, and I understand. So as everybody knows, is that the the world and I'm not, I'm just playing devil's advocate here for a second I, I agree in in one way, I disagree in another way. And here's why. Here's my argument towards this. The world is in a state of flux, there are hundreds of 1000s of people working at companies that have been there for, you know, 10 plus years, whatever that that number might be. And here's, here's the the thing that some employers are struggling with, they have employees at their company that are working in X job, and that employee is making say, we're just going to use a sample number, let's say this employee, and this is going to be a low number, let's say, employee a is making $20 an hour, then we go through this massive and this, employee a is making 20. And he's been at the company 10 years, and he's happy $20 is he's been happy, he's not disgruntled with that, blah, blah, blah. But now we have a younger, we have a new generation of people coming in, we have a world that's been flipped on its head. And that $20 is now $25. And in order to get somebody into that same job, you have to pay $25. Now, I'm not saying this is right. Don't get me wrong, okay. I'm not saying it's right. But if company goes in then says, Here's my job a, and we are starting people at 25. What is employee? A gonna say when he sees the job posting for his job starting at $25 an hour. And he's never been unhappy at the 20 at the 20, but now people are starting with less experience than him at 25. Now, that company, they're not doing anything wrong. They're trying to bring in new people. If they were to have to shift every single person at their company and do a wage adjustment, that they may go under, they may not be able to afford that. But in order to bring in new people, they may have to pay that or go under. Does that make sense?

Matt Parkin 28:57

Yeah, you bring up a good point. And I think that's where the piece about aligning wages with expectations when you're screening candidates is really important. I've talked with some employers that, you know, for example, someone's paying $19 An hour mandating three years of experience, right, and then you have someone down the street who's paying $20 an hour for one year of experience, right. And that gap in the experience that they're looking for is why that one employer paying the lower wage cannot find the candidates that they're looking for. So when you do get into situations where you maybe don't have the financial resources to pay competitively, that's when you kind of need to adjust your expectations and either raise the wage or reduce the expectations in terms of skills that you're looking for and be more willing to train.

Leighann Lovely 29:46

Right. And I completely agree. Unfortunately, it's we just what happened in the world happened so fast that these companies didn't have a chance to You like it? Because the normal progression is that over time, people make more money. You have, you know, generations come in, and they're like, Well, I demand, you know, 22 To start, and you're like, okay, because all my employees now are at 22. Whereas, you know, three years ago, they were at 20, or whatever they might 19. We just had so much happen in such a short period of time, that, like we had, we had 10 years of change happen in three years, probably more like 15 years, change happened in three years. And so all of the sudden for these companies to be like, yeah, here's, here's all my wage information, and still try to bring in people who are now demanding $3 More than they were three years ago, which is insane. But it's the reality we live in. So again, I'm not saying this is right. I'm not saying it's wrong, but it is the reality that we live in, like we saw wages increase in some jobs, $4 an hour to get people in the door. An increase in in jobs that I have never seen in my life, where all of a sudden accompanies like, yeah, the only way we can get them in the door is like paying them $3 More an hour. And I'm like, What's that? You're going like, that takes years. Normally, you know, a company that was paying this much all of a sudden is going to pay three, like, Yep, the only way. And you have when other employees find out, they're like, how did this person started more than I make? And you're like, I don't know, well, I'm you know, and obviously, when that stuff comes out, you've got disgruntled employees, which is not good for a business to begin with, and yada, yada, yada. And I've, I've worked at a company early on in my career that went through a complete overhaul in their, in their wages. So they, they were in that situation where they had people who had 10 years of experience making less than people with five years of experience. So what they did was actually did a complete wage adjustment, some people were increased, some people were, well, no, nobody was decreased. But they did a complete wage adjustment based on everybody's tenured, you know, experience. And they they balanced everybody out to make sure that when they were hiring in, they were hiring at the right wages, that everybody was being treated properly. But right now, that's, the companies are going to have to eventually catch up to that, and then they will be able to be, you know, transparent with their wages, but it's just a weird world.

Matt Parkin 32:57

Ya know, that's why managing that compensation and benchmarking is so important. I came across a company barley.io, they're doing some cool work in the compensation management space to help organizations be equitable, and look at all those pay bands, and they're doing restructuring. So the big, cool resource to check out for folks that are interested?

Leighann Lovely 33:16

Yeah, no, I completely agree. And once you know, once a company gets there, I'm sure that they would be a lot more open to saying yeah, here's the here's the pay structure, who does it right is union companies. I mean, they they negotiate this is their, this is their rates, like, there is no negotiation either to take it or leave it, though, you know, union, you sign a union contract. That is the way that's the way it is it's, you pay your union dues, you get paid this much after you've been at the company, this long, you get this much of an increase, yada, yada, yada. Anyways, I digress. So, you know, what, where's the future lie with? Where do you see, you know, things going? I mean, do you do you see that things, you think that things are going to continue to to get better?

Matt Parkin 34:12

I think that companies that are attracting talent, are going to see a heavier emphasis placed on other things they may not have previously considered. So when we're talking to job seekers about why why they look for jobs and which they choose over another scheduling flexibility and growth opportunities emerged alongside compensation as the top three things that job seekers are looking for. And so I think from an employer branding perspective, and not just employees, resharing company blogs on LinkedIn, people that are actively building a presence and building trust in the community with potential customers and potential job seekers using LinkedIn and other tools as a channel for that. You're going to be able to talk identically share stories related to those perks of scheduling flexibility, and learning and growth opportunities. So that even if you do get in a situation where compensation is misaligned, there's a lever that you can pull, right because some job seekers might be willing to take, you know that $2 per hour pay cut to then have first dibs on shifts, or to get a fast track promotion to management, or, you know, I've seen restaurants that have their employees create tick tock videos, right, and they, they get to have that marketing outlet in a role that might not typically be a marketing role. So thinking through creatively how you can engage your employees and tap into skill sets that might be outside of their job description, is something that I think will really help companies get ahead as we move forward, especially in this competitive market for talent, and will really allow employee employers, employees and job seekers to connect authentically because a lot of job posts, a lot of job roles are not even posted. But a lot of jobs are filled through networking and personal connections. So the more that employers can empower their employees to be brand champions, and create that good candidate experience and employer brand, the more you're going to attract people to your company, both as job seekers and potential customers, right, if someone has a good experience going through your hiring process, I still tell people I interviewed at Capital One A couple years ago, and I never went to work for them. But anyone who asked me about the company, I always raved about their candidate experience, because it was such a great experience. And that that will resonate with job seekers and keep you having lifelong champions to bring in potential customers, partners, job seekers in the future. And so that's just something to really consider and think through that. Just because you're not hiring someone in that moment doesn't mean you're not hiring someone, you know, down the road, or doesn't mean that they're not going to tell their uncle and their brother and their sister and their neighbor that you and you know, maybe they become lifelong customers. So that's some food for thought,

Leighann Lovely 36:57

well, and you just hit a chord with me, like a massive, and I'm going to try to rein my, my myself in here, because, you know, as a sales professional, I constantly am thinking of, you know, all of the different ways that an organization, you know, people think sales is the person that goes out and sells their product. And that's just not the case. Every single person at an organization has whether or not they like it, whether or not they know it has the potential to sell something, and is on a regular basis, whether that be a good candidate experience, a bad candidate experience, or, or something else. And you just you just nailed it, you had a great experience, and you literally have become now a an ambassador for for Capital One, how many people are going to hear that, what you just said, and be like, Oh, okay, maybe that's a great place to work. Because if they set up the expectations, so Well, in the in that, think about how it must be to work for them. So you were sold on the process. And if somebody gets a bad taste in their mouth, from the candidate experience, they'll go out and be like, Oh, don't even bother, don't even bother, you know, applying, you're in here's something else. That what is what is the first thing that a lot of candidates do, when they apply somewhere, they go in they they Google the company? Well, they should anyways, I recommend that, you know, they should Google the company, right then in there, you will see reviews. I mean, now nowadays, you go on, you know any, any online, you know, job seeking thing, and you can see candidate reviews from some people who worked there. And if somebody worked there, and they put, you know, hey, and I was just actually reading on a company yesterday, I won't list the company, but there were reviews, like five of them right at the top find company to work for as long as you have no career aspirations. Another one was, hey, you know, not a bad not a bad organization to work for as long as you have, you know, no desire to ever move up in the organization. It's like, wow, okay, you know, management is is is fine, but at times, you know, has you punch out for lunch and then go back and work. Oh, okay. Wow, this sounds like a place that I really want to work. It's like, if you're not constantly making sure that you're, you're creating, you know, or selling the idea of wanting to work here wanting to and creating a great environment. You are creating an army of people who's going to sink your company. You're never going To be able to hire more people, or you could treat them great. So when they go and review your company, other people are going to read it and go, Oh, this sounds like a really great place to work. Look, they've got 30 reviews of awesome place to work treated me great. You just create an army of people who are selling your company. Every, every person at your company has the ability to sell something, whether it's your product, whether it's your culture, whether it's a great place to work, everybody does. And one bad review, let alone five that I read. And then I stopped reading because I went you know, those have the ability to sink you and you know how much harder it's going to be to recruit. And fill those spots when you have multiple. And again, if you're a college student, not a bad place to work, as long as you have no career aspirations will great, go work there for the summer. But if I'm looking for a career, or a skill, I'm sure as hell not going to go and work at that company. I mean, so as again, as a salesperson, you have to brand yourself, and then hold to it. And then have all your managers hold to it. And have your managers treating your people great, and have your processes down and have your recruiters making sure that they're representing your company properly. You have to treat each person at your organization as a salesperson who has the potential to damage your organization. And that starts with the hiring process. I mean, I, I, again, I'm an HR professional and a salesperson for me, I'm like da, other people are like, Well, what do you mean, I'm a sales? Well, yeah, you represent the company. I remember years ago, when somebody was on Facebook while they were at work, this is when Facebook wasn't that popular at work. Talking on Facebook posting out there, gotta hate my job. This sucks. I hate being here. And I happened to look on Facebook really quick. And I was like, Oh my God, this person's gonna get fired. It didn't occur to them. And I'm like you are on Facebook, at work, talking about how you hate your job. What do you think is going to happen? Like? And it still happens over and over now. It's not very hard to figure out where she works, right? I mean, especially if you're friends with her, and you work with her. This stuff happens every day. And I've gone on and on and on. Any thoughts on that?

Matt Parkin 42:53

Yeah, we, we asked job seekers, why they leave companies and management was the top reason, right job seekers and employees, they're not leaving the name on the wall. They're leaving the people that they're working with. So that's something to keep in mind that there's only so many pizza parties to go around to help with culture and retention. And I'm a firm believer that investing time and energy into a great candidate experience and a great employer brand. It's gonna start that relationship off on the right foot is gonna lead to longer term retention, compared to having a terrible candidate experience and putting in a pool table and buying pizza for everyone wants a month.

Leighann Lovely 43:33

And I've heard reviews to that even mentioned, like buying me pizza, once a month is not going to fix the fact that you know, you're you're paying me shitty, and you tell me I have to stay late, you know, unannounced. No work life balance. That does not fix that one pizza party a month does not fix the every other day a month that I feel, you know, unappreciated, then companies think that they can you know, that food we'll fix all that a pool table or a, you know, couch in the lounge room. And I hate I hate the fact that companies think that they can buy their employees with doughnuts once a month or pizza party once a month or you know, and then treat them crappy the rest of the time. So good, very good. Very good point. So we are coming to time and I would like to ask you the question of the season. What do you think will go down in the history books from what the world has experienced over the last three years?

Matt Parkin 44:49

Thank me the way people view their relationship with work has changed a lot. You mentioned earlier people expecting higher wages people are now like Looking for more flexibility in roles? People are, you know, it was never a conversation, hey, I'm looking for a hybrid role that that was that was not a common term before the pandemic, right? So I'm employers that are proactive and thinking through how you can create opportunities for employees that align with what they're looking for. And being 100% transparent and authentic, about where you stand is super important, right? Because if you want employees in office five days a week, that that's not a wrong decision, right. That's the culture. That's something that you believe in, be authentic and transparent with that, if you want people working, fully remote, be upfront about that. It's when you get into these situations where it's a hybrid role. And then you have people that are mandated in the office five days a week, that's where a lot of issues come up in terms of transparency. And so I don't think there's one right or wrong way to do it. I've seen people take very strong opinions on either stance of the matter. But I think being transparent and authentic in terms of your communication is the key thing to to keep in mind to get ahead of that.

Leighann Lovely 46:07

Yeah, no, I that is in a very good answer. I completely agree. Completely. So if somebody wanted to reach out to you, Matt, how would they go about doing that?

Matt Parkin 46:18

You can find me on LinkedIn, Matt Parkin, I'm on there every day. So just drop me a note and I'm happy to chat further.

Leighann Lovely 46:24

Awesome. Matt, this has been an awesome conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today.

Matt Parkin 46:31

Yeah, thanks for having me, Leighann.

Leighann Lovely 46:35

Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, to follow us, like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

candidate, job, employers, resume, job seekers, company, employees, wages, hiring, experience, skills, apply, application, reviews, compensation, thought, work, hr, employer branding, person