Paige Tamlyn joins the podcast to discuss the report from Glassdoor “50 HR and Recruiting Stats for 2019.” Paige and Brandon discuss candidate experience, inclusivity, interviewing, and much more!
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Brandon Laws: Hey, welcome to Transform Your Workplace. I’m your host Brandon Laws and I’ve got Xenium’s returning guest Paige Tamlyn.
Paige Tamlyn: Woo-hoo!
Brandon Laws: Yeah. Paige, we are going to talk about Glassdoor’s annual report they call the “50 HR and Recruiting Stats for 2019”. I think I did one with Lacey last year if I remember right, on the 2018 report.
Paige Tamlyn: It wouldn’t surprise me.
Brandon Laws: Yeah. So we’re going to do 2019 report and they have a lot of – I mean there’s a lot of similar stats that they had last year. But there’s a lot of different ones and I want to cover a lot of that stuff.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: I’m going to kick it off with a couple of stats that I thought were interesting and then I want you to dive in, because I know you highlighted a bunch of stuff that I probably can’t speak to as well. So they have a section called “Inside the Mind of Job Seekers” and they said that the top two pieces of information workers and job seekers look for when researching the company are salaries and benefits. They had – it must have been whatever survey population they have. Sixty-seven percent said salaries. Sixty-three percent said benefits. So those are the top two reasons. Is that surprising to you?
Paige Tamlyn: No, because it is and it isn’t. I always tell my clients – when you’re posting jobs, that’s what people want to know. Is it – at least are they in the ballpark of what your salary range is and what your benefits are? Because in the market that we’re in now, people are not going to jump from one job to another for lesser salary and lesser benefits. Like it needs to at least be equivalent, if not better. So if you’re not posting that stuff out, you’re kind of wasting your time. You’re wasting their time.
Brandon Laws: But what’s interesting is I see a lot of job postings out there, whether it’s on LinkedIn or Glassdoor or other job sites, and they don’t have those things listed.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah, yeah.
Brandon Laws: You almost have to go either deep into the application process or they don’t even disclose it probably until the interview.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: I don’t know this first thing because I haven’t interviewed in like 10 years.
Paige Tamlyn: Right. You’ve been here for a bit. So …
Brandon Laws: A million years, lifer.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. I mean I haven’t either. I’ve been here for almost six years. So I’m pretty out of touch as well. But my clients are dealing with this and it’s – like I said, the market is so interesting right now that I feel like the less information that you put out in front of job candidates, the less likely they are to like want to proceed with even exploring that at all because it’s just – it’s not going to work out with what they’re in line with and what they’re looking for. So otherwise, they’re in interviews and then you say, “Oh, well, here’s the salary,” and they say, “Wow, that’s ten grand less than I make now. I’m not interested anymore.”
Brandon Laws: Without knowing that information, it kind of feels like bait and switch if you get it later on in the process and that information is not disclosed whatsoever.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: I would be pretty frustrated as a candidate. So I get why – you know, if their basic needs are not going to be met with salary and benefits.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: And you don’t disclose that early on. Then it’s …
Paige Tamlyn: Right. I feel like the benefits piece, as important as that is for people, there’s a little bit of give and take with that, right? Like switching to a different carrier might not be a huge issue. If you’re a 401(k) match, it’s somewhat equivalent. That’s stuff that you can deal with. But the salary piece, people are very, very sensitive to the amount of money that they make and if you are messing with that, it’s less likely that they’re going to jump ship from one place to another.
Brandon Laws: What do you think about posting the ranges or even just vague benefits? Like a list of stuff that …
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. If you’re in a really competitive space and you don’t want your competitors knowing what you’re offering because you’re trying to keep that competitive edge, I totally get not releasing 100 percent of everything you’re offering. But I think at least a range for your salary is helpful. So they can at least say, “OK, I am right in the middle of that. That’s great and there’s some room for me to grow,” or “I’m right at the top of that. Is that really something that I want to pursue knowing that there’s no real room for growth and improvement for that?”
So I think the range is helpful. At least some idea, just a bulleted list of all the benefits you offer.
Brandon Laws: Yeah, I like that.
Paige Tamlyn: It’s not going to take you more than a couple of minutes to put in your job posting. I feel like it would make a huge impact.
Brandon Laws: Yeah. So similarly on this section of Inside the Mind of Job Seekers, they had the factors that contribute to workers’ and job seekers’ perception of long term potential and they had four different stats here.
So they said 44 percent said transparency about paying benefits. Thirty-nine percent said information about growth opportunities. Thirty-seven percent said knowledge of company, promoting from within. Thirty-five percent positive sentiments and employee reviews.
So these are pretty interesting stats here. These are public-facing data points or language that people would look for in determining whether it’s a long term fit or potential. What do you think about any of these? Anything stick out to you?
Paige Tamlyn: The positive sentiments and employee reviews is interesting because it’s one thing for your managers and stuff to be posting reviews about your company on Glassdoor. It’s another thing to see current employees giving reviews or departing employees giving reviews. I think that that’s really telling and not to say that if your company has gone through a period of growth, there’s something – not to say that things don’t change but I think that’s really interesting. I think it’s also interesting the fact about the information about growth opportunities, that 39 percent.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: You know, succession planning and career pathing are all things that millennials and the next gen are really looking for.
Brandon Laws: One hundred percent agree. In fact when I interviewed the authors of Generation Z: A Century in the Making, they had described how the Gen Zers, they are looking for growth opportunities and they all learn so differently too.
So I think the more clear employers can be about that early on in the process of recruiting and hiring, I think the more likely you’re going to get that.
Paige Tamlyn: Right.
Brandon Laws: It depends on what skill set you’re looking for. Obviously if you’re going for that generation where it’s a newer technical position or something like that, then I think being very clear about growth opportunities is important.
The point about the employer reviews is funny because I look at it – you know, my vantage point as a marketer, there’s a way to manipulate using certain language.
So what I would encourage people to look for there or for employers who are listening to this, it has got to be real. I would look for storytelling, like very specific, because if it’s just a bunch of really positive reviews that are really generic, again you can manipulate that all day long.
As a marketer, you can have a language all day about how awesome your company is. But if you don’t have true storytelling from a variety of people, it’s easy to look past that.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: I would actually look for a mixture of bad reviews too. Like …
Paige Tamlyn: I always read the bad reviews, right?
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: And that’s where the truth is, right? It’s always in the bad stuff.
Brandon Laws: Not always, not always.
Paige Tamlyn: So I feel like most often.
Brandon Laws: If you have balance – now, well, because people could vent about their situation.
Paige Tamlyn: Sure, sure. You’re always going to have the one really super disgruntled employee that leaves. But you also have people that leave for good reasons, right? Like oh, I grew – they grew me into and so I left into a new position. So I think that there’s a lot of truth to people departing from positive or neutral or negative.
Brandon Laws: Yeah. OK. What have you got? I know you have some stats that you want to talk about. So skip around to wherever you want to go to.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. I wanted to talk about – so they had another section. It was called the “Candidate Experience” and it was all kind of talking about stats of what people are looking for when they’re experiencing interviewing with you and recruiting from your company.
So I thought it was interesting. They said aspects on the job application process that job seekers or workers find most important to a positive experience were clear and regular communication, 58 percent; clear expectations, 53 percent and feedback regarding rejection, 51 percent. I can tell you more – and I’ve been in a recruiting role and the hardest part is rejecting people because it feels so personal.
Brandon Laws: OK. So you think about it from that vantage point. Are you responding to them? Are you saying hey, we went in a different direction or thanks for your application? If it’s early, early on in the process.
Paige Tamlyn: It depends on how your process works and if you have an applicant tracking system, it’s probably going to respond to everybody’s resumes that come in and if they weren’t selected for interview, it’s going to auto respond to them.
But I always tell my clients if you have interviewed with them, they deserve an actual phone call. Not an email, not a letter. They deserve a phone call that says hey, we’re going in a different direction. We found somebody that has a skill set or that aligns with their culture better. But it feels really hard because it feels like you’re personally rejecting this person. You weren’t good enough and it’s true. But I feel like the more that you let your applicants just kind of go into their own head about why they were rejecting you, you’re going to make assumptions.
Brandon Laws: What if you don’t hear anything at all?
Paige Tamlyn: That’s the worst.
Brandon Laws: That’s even worse.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: It’s funny. I was scrolling through Twitter the other day. I think it was over the weekend and I follow a lot of HR people – rightly so – and I was looking for ideas and content and …
Paige Tamlyn: He just likes HR people. It’s OK. You can just tell us.
Brandon Laws: I love HR people. But it was funny how so many people were describing how shitty the candidate experience is where people won’t even hear back from the employer at all about like what the status of their application is.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: We’re in the day and age now where there’s automated tools where you could easily kick out a response. If you selected somebody else to move along in the process and others are left behind, well, I would think a status change would allow an email to be kicked out to say hey, sorry you didn’t meet our requirements. We went in a different direction. Thank you so much for applying.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. It’s not that hard.
Brandon Laws: It seems like it would be so easy to do that.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. And I think that if you have like I said an ATS system set up, it’s probably going to do those things for you. But it’s really that in-person interview when you’ve made a connection with that person and you’re going in a different direction. It’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with that. That’s what’s best for your company and eventually the applicant will understand that. But like you said, hearing nothing is just the worst.
They’ve put themselves out there. It’s like going on a date, right? And then not hearing back from somebody. They think what was wrong with me? Why wasn’t I –?
Brandon Laws: You don’t know what that’s like, do you?
Paige Tamlyn: I don’t know what that’s like at all. I’m like one of the only single people here at Xenium.
Brandon Laws: The last time I dated was like a million years ago, like 15 years ago I think.
Paige Tamlyn: So I can tell you from the dating perspective, right – I always let people know if it’s not going to work out and I would hope that an employer that I was interviewing with would do the same thing, right? It’s just common courtesy.
Brandon Laws: OK. So question on that. Not necessarily the dating part. But on just rejection in general. How specific do you get? For example, let’s say I had three candidates who all made it – two interviews in, maybe three interviews in. I’m about to make my decision.
Paige Tamlyn: Please don’t make them do more than three interviews.
Brandon Laws: OK. So let’s say two interviews and I’m making the decision now.
Paige Tamlyn: It’s too long.
Brandon Laws: One interview and I made my decision. I’m going with one candidate and two are not going to get it.
Paige Tamlyn: Sure.
Brandon Laws: How specific do you get with them if they asked about why you didn’t go with them?
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah, and it depends on how open you’ve been with them through the interview process. So I kind of tell my clients hey, we’re interviewing a couple of people this week. So they should expect to hear back from us next week. Keep them up to date on what is going on and also kind of let them know. There are other people that need to be interviewed.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: And then at that point, you can just say, you know, we were looking for somebody with this particular skill set, this particular quality, especially if –
Brandon Laws: So not like – you can’t say oh, we didn’t choose you because –
Paige Tamlyn: You had a bad attitude.
Brandon Laws: Protected class or something like you’re pregnant or you’re –
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. No, please don’t do that.
Brandon Laws: Yeah. So don’t do that.
Paige Tamlyn: No, I think it’s based on skill set and sometimes it truly is based on – especially if you do team interviews, especially if it’s a really small team and then you want the whole team to interview with them. The team just kind of like bonded and had a better kind of working chemistry with somebody else and I think that that’s then – it’s nothing against them. It’s just like – they probably felt it too, right?
Brandon Laws: It’s kind of hard to be specific about that. It’s just a feeling.
Paige Tamlyn: It’s a feeling and sometimes it is how it is, right? Not often, in this day and age, are there people who have such a vast different skill set.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: Especially if you’re in a particularly refined industry.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: So a lot of them all have the same credentials, the same experience, the same education level. So sometimes it is feeling.
Brandon Laws: OK. They have a section on diversity, inclusion and belonging. I know you had some thoughts about some of these stats. Go for it.
Paige Tamlyn: I thought it was really interesting. This one is in bold, obviously. They were really interested by this as well. So it’s 40 percent of workers across generations and genders feel socially excluded or ignored at work.
Brandon Laws: Wow.
Paige Tamlyn: Forty percent. That is just like mind-boggling to me.
Brandon Laws: I guess when you add to those the generations and then genders, when you add those two – maybe that’s why it’s so high. But it’s still concerning. So as an employer, looking at that stat, I would think – or especially if you’re a managing a team, how do we build inclusivity? Is that a word?
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: Whatever.
Paige Tamlyn: You got it.
Brandon Laws: I got it, OK. English is hard.
Paige Tamlyn: It’s so hard. It’s really early guys.
Brandon Laws: It’s so – why am I a podcaster? So building inclusivity between the teams or the organization across gender, race. All that is so important and …
Paige Tamlyn: Well I think a lot of times, we so heavily focus on generation right now because it’s what’s kind of prominent in the workplace. There’s lots of different generations in the workplace or entering the workplace. But we forget about things like gender. We forget about other things other than just generation. So it was interesting they lumped these into – you know, these two things into one. So I would be curious about what the generational stat was and what the gender stat was. It came actually from an outside source. I’m looking at it down below there.
So I would be interested to see what they actually each were individually but I think it’s still shocking that 40 percent of people, because everybody can be lumped into one generation.
Brandon Laws: Absolutely.
Paige Tamlyn: So …
Brandon Laws: Yeah, and that’s a good point you made about like the references to some of the stats. So we’re just the same percentages and it’s like as a – like in a podcast, it’s kind of hard to listen and say, “Oh, 40 percent of what?”
Paige Tamlyn: Right.
Brandon Laws: So in this report, obviously very extensive. They have all the cited stats and sources on where they have the survey data. Some of it came just from their website. Some of it came from outside of research. So just wanted to point that out.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: What else from this section?
Paige Tamlyn: I thought it was interesting. They said companies and top tier for racially and culturally diverse executive teams were 33 percent more likely to experience above average profitability than companies in the bottom tier.
Brandon Laws: Wow. That seems like a hard research project to figure that out. So you would have to almost like analyze …
Paige Tamlyn: Analyze profitability, analyze what diversity their executive team was.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: And then compare those who had a less diverse executive team to their – and their profitability to ones that were more and it just goes back to the diversifying your workplace. It’s going to bring more ideas and more …
Brandon Laws: That’s what I would think.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah, more openness to different viewpoints. So a 33 percent profitability guys. There you go.
Brandon Laws: That’s a striking stat. Yeah, I love that stat.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: So there you go. Bring more racially diverse, culturally diverse, different genders into the executive team.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: I think that’s only going to benefit you.
Paige Tamlyn: And don’t make them feel ignored.
Brandon Laws: Yeah, exactly. Did you highlight anything else from that section?
Paige Tamlyn: Oh, I had this one. This was so interesting because I am of this generation. I love millennial stuff.
Brandon Laws: So …
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: What’s the – yeah, I’m in it.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. So when we talk about millennials, it’s 18 to 34 ages. So they’re saying 20 percent of millenials identify as LGBTQ.
Brandon Laws: Mind blown.
Paige Tamlyn: Twenty percent.
Brandon Laws: I never would have thought that.
Paige Tamlyn: And that’s those that identify as that. So there’s probably still a good portion of people that just are – you know, maybe don’t quite identify as that yet. But just don’t necessarily fit into the norm of male-female gender.
So I think that that’s a huge amount of people that probably feel misunderstood and probably don’t feel heard and it’s just interesting. It says it’s a notable increase from 12 percent of Gen Xers. Those are ages 35 to 53 and only 7 percent of baby boomers identified as LGBTQ, which is ages 52 to 71. So it’s only going to keep increasing.
Brandon Laws: Yeah, yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: So …
Brandon Laws: Incredible.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: It’s nice that people – I think people are talking about it more. So maybe they’re more comfortable identifying within that group whereas before not so comfortable because it was a very taboo subject. Now it’s so nice that people are talking about it. Employers are allowing people to talk about it. I have a feeling that number is going to rise.
Paige Tamlyn: Yes, I do too. Yeah.
Brandon Laws: Oh, interesting stat. OK. So let’s end – they have a section on marketplace dynamics. This is really talking about the movement just based on developments and technology, the business climate and just the way people are – employers are hiring. So they had a research team at Glassdoor, investigated different areas and I highlighted a few things that were really interesting to me. So they said more than 70 percent of job applications are to jobs in the same metro area while 28.5 of job applications are to a new metro area. So 28.5 are willing to move whereas most people are just applying in the same metro area. What do you attribute that to? The 28.5 seems actually like a high number to me.
Paige Tamlyn: See, to me it doesn’t.
Brandon Laws: Yeah. So you’re more likely to move.
Paige Tamlyn: I think it depends on your industry, right? Portland has been experiencing this huge tech boom. So I’ve seen a lot of applicants come in and out of Portland. But I think it’s worth it for me to say because I say this all the time when I’m looking at resumes.
When I see somebody that has applied from out of state, I wonder why they’re applying. So it’s helpful to kind of know why you’re looking to relocate because otherwise, I think that you’ve just applied for it just to apply for something or you might – you know what I mean? Especially depending on the job.
If it’s an entry level position and you’ve applied from like Midwest somewhere and it’s here in Portland, I’m curious as to why. So for applicants out there, if you are looking for jobs in other cities, other states, other countries, wherever, please note why you’re looking to move because otherwise it’s just super confusing to me. Looking to relocate because my family is in the state or looking to relocate to this area. It’s just something because otherwise, I don’t know why you’re applying. So helping recruiters out.
Brandon Laws: There’s another stat that was so bizarre to me. It says having – and this may be a little self-serving on Glassdoor’s part.
Paige Tamlyn: I think it’s a little bit self-serving but it’s OK.
Brandon Laws: I will say it anyways because they provided some good value here so I will give them some love.
It says having a one-star higher overall rating on Glassdoor attracts talent to a company in a new metro area at about six times the rate of paying a $10,000 per year higher salary. So the way I read that, it’s kind of a confusing stat. But the way I read it is if you have a higher rating on average on Glassdoor, you’re more likely to attract somebody into a new metro area than just throwing money at them.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: Is that how you read that?
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah, I did too and I think the reason is, is that sometimes if you’re just throwing money at a situation and it’s a bad environment, people can sense that, right? If you have horrible reviews from people, all over your Glassdoor page, but you’re willing to pay a really high salary, it’s pretty telling. I can kind of figure out what you’re doing. But if you have some really good reviews, you have some neutral reviews but it’s kind of mixed but you have a better rating let’s say than your competitor, you’re probably going to have some sort of an edge than the other person that might be looking at a job.
Brandon Laws: OK. So give me your parting thoughts on this report and just the overall world of HR recruiting in 2019. What would you say …?
Paige Tamlyn: It’s a big question.
Brandon Laws: It’s a huge question. But I think if there’s a big trend that kind of sticks out to you just in your experience or something you read from this, what do you think?
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. I think it was an interesting report. If you guys haven’t checked it out, we will put the link in here for you to take a look at it. I thought it was an interesting report. It had some good data points in there, especially for those out there who know that they’re going to be recruiting quite a bit this year. But I would say transparency and making sure your employer brand is out there because that’s still what people are looking for and making sure you’re just true to who you are.
Brandon Laws: Let me take it one step further. So I love that because I think attracting those people through the employer brand is really important. But I think the second phase of that is the candidate experience and they did talk about that in here just from what I know and …
Paige Tamlyn: We could do a whole other podcast on …
Brandon Laws: Seriously. In fact …
Paige Tamlyn: We should actually. Let’s do that. We will book that after. Don’t worry guys.
Brandon Laws: We will. It’s coming. This is phase one here. So I agree. I think those are good points.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah, yeah.
Brandon Laws: OK. Well, Paige thanks for joining the podcast.
Paige Tamlyn: Thanks for having me.
Brandon Laws: This was a lot of fun and we will have you back soon.
Paige Tamlyn: Thank you.
Brandon Laws: All right. See you.
Get the Glassdoor report HERE.