Job ads: Choose your words wisely

Back in 2007 I began a project through this website to collect survey data from passers-by on words found in job ads. You may have seen a link to the survey on this blog's home page--or even taken the survey itself.

I was motivated to undertake this project because at the time (and this may still be the case) there was very little research on how attractive/effective certain words are in job advertisements. Seems like a simple question, and I was curious.

After 3.5 years I've decided to share what the data shows. My hope was to get a large sample, and I'm settling for just under 150, so take that into account. And of course the generalizability of the results is questionable, although the fact that it was gathered over such a long period of time and the sample group is fairly diverse may help us feel a little more comfortable.

Method

SurveyMonkey. Four questions. Began collecting data in June of 2007, last data point was November of 2010. Questions were followed by a series of fifteen words or phrases generated pretty much off the top of my head with an "Other" option. Unfortunately I didn't think to randomize the presentation of options, so keep that in mind. I had to use two different collectors in SurveyMonkey since I have a free account and they max at 100 responses. When graphics are presented below they are for the first collector only (couldn't download/combine the data sets because of free account), which has more responses but is older data. You can see/take the survey here.

Participants

One hundred and forty-seven blog visitors. I expected most to primarily identify as HR professionals or academics, but most (43%) chose job seeker. The respondents generally fell evenly into the other categories, including just being interested in the subject matter.

Results

Word Frequency


The first question asked participants what words they see most often in job ads.

The #1 answer? By far....."Motivated" Selected by 70-80%, depending on the collector, also the first choice presented.

Other frequent answers (in the 50% vicinity):

- Professional
- Organized
- Works Well Under Pressure

Interestingly, "Motivated" seems to have become more frequent over time, as has "Works Well Under Pressure" and "Flexible". "Independent", "High Energy", and "Friendly" were among the words becoming less frequent.

How about least frequent?

- Conscientious
- Smart
- Friendly

Both "Conscientious" and "Smart" became less frequent over time.

Emotional Response


The second question asked participants to rate their emotional response to the same words or phrases presented in the first question on a seven-point rating scale from "Very Negative" to "Very Positive". Generally most words/phrases received positive responses, and the difference in means between the best-liked ones and least-liked ones was less than one point.

So which received the most positive ratings?

- Motivated
- Reliable
- Professional
- Independent

How about least positive?

- Works Well Under Pressure
- High Energy
- Detail Oriented

I'm guessing that to the extent that there is a difference here, the most popular words seem to describe jobs that would allow applicants a fair amount of flexibility over their work and involve a stimulating work environment. The least positive words are likely associated with fast-paced (hey that would have been a good option) jobs, such as customer service, that may not be particularly stimulating.

Application Intentions


The last question asked respondents to select how likely they would be to apply for a job that contained the same list of words/phrases (knowing no other details). As with emotional response, most responses were associated with high intentions to apply, and the difference between most likely and least likely means was less than one point.

So which led to the highest application intentions? "Professional" and "Reliable" were consistent across the two collectors. "Motivated" became more positive over time, as did "Independent". This is consistent with emotional response.

How about the ones least likely to lead to application intentions? Matching the emotional responses, "High Energy" and "Detail Oriented" were bottom on the list. "Smart" has become less associated with application intentions, as has "Works Well Under Pressure".

Discussion

Judging by this data, it appears that organizations wishing to distinguish themselves using job advertisements should feel comfortable using words that directly speak to applicant personality, such as "conscientious" and "friendly"--these were less frequently found and not associated with particularly negative responses. Organizations should try to use words that imply an environment that allows applicants to use their own judgment when making decisions and stay away from words that imply a hectic, always-on work environment.

Of course all this depends on the particular job being advertised. As we know, presenting candidates with a realistic job preview is immensely helpful (for them as well as the organization), and if the job is heavy customer service, well, it just is. In addition, this data says nothing about the quality of applicants--it may be that higher performing employees prefer different words than lower-performing ones.


I hope at the very least you found these results interesting. It's something to think about when crafting your job ads, and of course one could run a much more sophisticated study by including things like occupation and demographics.

Catbert tackles HR initiatives

In honor of Labor Day in the U.S., let's take a humor break from research and high-tech developments. In case you're not a regular Dilbert reader, Catbert (Evil Director of Human Resources) has recently gotten involved in three popular HR initiatives, with varying levels of success:

Workforce skill assessment ("strengths" fans take note)

Internal promotions

Employee surveys

December '07 IJSA, Part 2

In a previous post I described one of the most interesting articles in the December '07 issue of IJSA (the International Journal of Selection and Assessment (IJSA)). In this post I'll go over the rest of the issue.

First up, Carless & Imber with a study of interviewer characteristics. Using a sample of 450 graduate students, they found that personal aspects of the interviewer, such as warmth, friendliness, and humor, as well as job-related aspects such as job knowledge and general competence, had effects on how attracted the person was to the job as well as their likely job choice intentions. Not only that, aspects of the interviewer impacted how anxious the interviewee was. Lesson: Much like recruiters, make sure people doing the interviewing are trained and the type of people you'd like representing your organization!

Next, LaHuis, MacLane, and Schlessman with a study of reapplication among 542 applicants to a U.S. government position. Focusing on the 9% that didn't get the job but reapplied the following year, the authors found that "opportunity to perform" played a significant role in reapplication behavior. Lesson: If you want people to reapply, give them the chance to show their strengths.

Third, Carless and Wintle with a study of what attracts applicants to particular job opportunities--specifically looking at flexible career paths and who's doing the recruiting. Participants were 201 "young, inexperienced job seekers" who completed a questionnaire. Results? Flexible career paths were a big attraction (compared to traditional career paths) but recruiter background (HR or external agency) made no difference, in line with previous research that's found that recruiter personality is the key rather than things like background or demographics.

Next, Hermelin, Lievens, and Robertson conducted a meta-analysis of assessment center scores. Based on 26 studies (N=5,850) the authors found a corrected correlation of .28 between AC scores and subsequent supervisory ratings, which they hypothesize is lower than the true value due to range restriction of assessment center scores (and lower than the corrected value of .37 that Schmidt & Hunter reported). Alternate version (if the link gets fixed) here.

Heinsman, et al. provide the next study, which looks at how psychologists view the makeup and measure of competencies, still a hot topic in HR circles. Using data from over 900 applicants who participated in a 1-day selection process, they examined the relationship between competencies including Thinking, Feeling, and Power with traditional measures of cognitive ability, personality, and assessment center performance. Results? To assess Thinking, psychologists in this study relied upon measures of cognitive ability (makes sense!). To assess Feeling, they used interview simulation scores as well as personality tests scores. Finally, when analyzing Power, they relied mostly on personality scores.

Last but not least, Lievens and Anseel with a fascinating study of creating alternate versions of computerized in-baskets. The alternate version used a very similar situation that people had to respond to, but altered the context for 10 of the 20 items. Results? No significant difference in overall in-basket score between the two forms. So if you're looking to duplicate your in-baskets, check this out! Oh, and there's an alternate version of the article here.

Okay, I might as well tell you about the other two articles, because you might be interested. One is on self and peer ratings and one is on survey non-respondents (hint: it's not the star performers that aren't responding). Both have interesting results, so check 'em out!

Increasing response rates to web surveys

I'm guessing I'm not the only one that has been using web surveys more and more (I'm a big fan of SurveyMonkey), and we'll probably all do more in the future. That's why this recent bit of research by Dr. Thomas Archer is so valuable. It's titled, "Characteristics associated with increasing the response rates of web-based surveys" and it's based on results from 99 various web-based surveys over a more than two-and-a-half year period using Zoomerang.

The results were somewhat surprising (to me at least). The length of the questionnaire wasn't particularly important in terms of response rate. This included both the number of open-ended questions and the length of rating scales. Instead the challenge is getting people to the survey in the first place.

How do we do that? The author recommends several strategies:

1 - Leave the questionnaire open for a while (say, three weeks), and send out a couple reminders along the way.

2 - Pay attention to how you write your survey invitations. They should be written at a low grade level in terms of readability.

3 - Make it clear to survey participants "what's in it for them" (e.g., you'll get a copy of the results).

If you haven't played around with web-based surveys, I'd encourage you to. They're very easy to learn and typically inexpensive.

I'd be interested in seeing if anyone out there is using web-based surveys as part of their recruitment/assessment process? Seems like a natural fit.

Recruiting Trends Survey from DirectEmployers Association

The results from the 2007 Recruiting Trends survey sponsored by the DirectEmployers Association are out.

Data gathered from 47 companies indicated:

- 55% of hires were made from online sources (+8% from last year).

- Employee referrals were the largest single source (21% of hires), followed closely by the organization's website and general job boards.

- Employee referrals also generated the highest quality candidates (82% rated favorable), but niche job boards and search firms tied for second, with campus recruiting a very close third. General job boards were rated favorable by only 22% of respondents.

- The largest percentage, by far, of recruitment/advertising budget went to general job boards (34%). Referrals, the source of the highest quality candidates, received 6% of the budget.

- Putting these numbers together, the source value (cost/hire) was highest, by a large margin, for referrals, followed by the organization's web site and, perhaps surprisingly, social networking technology.

Comments and follow-up conversations indicated a growing frustration with general job boards (especially for IT jobs) as well as a growing reliance on sources of passive candidates, such as social networks, blogs, and search engine optimization.

Read the full report for a much more detailed analysis and insights. Thanks to Rocket-Hire for making this available.

New MSPB Report Released

The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board has released a new report entitled, "Accomplishing Our Mission: Results of the Merit Principles Survey 2005."

The report results are based on responses of nearly 37,000 federal employees who responded to an online survey. There's a lot of goodness in here, not just for federal employers. Like what, you ask? Let's take a look...

Recruiting/Selection

- 76% of respondents recommended the Government as a place to work. This seems like a pretty good number, and it's a huge leap from 2000 when it was 52%.

- Specific organization recommendations varied depending on where folks were in the chain of command--higher ups were much more likely to recommend working for their agency. For example, around 84% at the Executive level recommended it, while about 64% of nonsupervisors did.

- The agency percentage also varied widely by organization. NASA was at the top with a 83% recommendation rate while Education was at the bottom with only 50%.

- By a wide margin, the #1 obstacle faced by supervisors and managers when hiring was a shortage of qualified applicants (38%). The report authors wisely point out that this could be an actual talent shortage but could also point to problems with the speed of the hiring process and/or the quality of selection tools used.

- Of the six areas asked about (including appraisals, discipline, etc.) "advancement" received the lowest marks for "extent to which you believe you have been treated fairly" (37%). This dubious distinction is identical to previous surveys and does not bode well for either recruitment or retention.

Retention

- About 25% of respondents indicated they were likely to leave their agency in the next year. This isn't surprising given the feds are anticipating 60% of their workforce will be eligible to retire over the next 10 years.

- Why are people leaving? The top reason was a virtual tie between "Opportunity to earn more money" and "Increased opportunities for advancement." This is the same result as previous years (although a bit more pronounced this time around).

- In terms of getting people to stay, there were big differences between retirement eligible and non-retirement eligible respondents. The latter were much more likely to stay for "Opportunity to better use skills and abilities", "Opportunity to earn more money", "Desire to make more of a difference", and "Increased opportunities for advancement."

Final thoughts

There's a lot more in this report, including some great data on training methods, discrimination, recognition, and motivation, the last of which you have to see (check out page 48; hint: money ain't everything).

On a side note, I was saddened to see that OPM, which does such good work, had some of the lowest ratings--again--on questions like "My agency produces high quality products and services" (granted there were a lot of low scores on that one), "The workforce has job-relevant knowledge and skills necessary to accomplish organizational goals" and "I would recommend my agency as a place to work." Job security at OPM was the second-lowest among all agencies surveyed and the percent that will likely leave the agency in the next 12 months was tied for second-highest.

Anybody from OPM care to comment? I bet I could increase your applicant pool if you'd open a West coast office...

DDI/Monster Selection Forecast 2006-2007

DDI and Monster recently released the results of their 2006-2007 "Selection Forecast", which consists of survey results from staffing directors (628), hiring managers (1,250) and job seekers (3,725) in five global regions. They also conducted 31 one-on-one interviews with job seekers to "flesh out the results."

This report has been discussed elsewhere, but what interests me isn't so much the forecast for "competition for talent", which we seem to get conflicting reports about on a daily basis, but some other nuggets in the report...

#1: Recruiting methods: Staffing directors reported relying heavily on the organization's career website and large online job boards. Yes, lots of folks get jobs this way. But is this the most effective source? And how's that career website, anyway?

#2: What job seekers want: There were some serious mismatches between what job seekers reported wanting (beyond salary/benefits) and what hiring managers and staffing directors think they want:

A good manager/boss: 75% of job seekers want this, and 69% of hiring managers thought they did--but only 57% of staffing directors did. Could this hint at HR placing insufficient importance on selection for line supervisors?

An organization you can be proud to work for: 74% of job seekers want this, but only 58% of hiring managers and 55% of staffing directors thought they did.

A creative/fun workplace culture: 67% of job seekers want this, but only 50% of hiring managers and 43% of staffing directors thought they did.

A compatible work group/team: Desired by 67% of job seekers but identified by only 50% of hiring managers and 37% of staffing directors.

Looking at these responses, it appears (at least in this sample) that management and HR are seriously underestimating the importance of organizational factors to job seekers. This of course will vary by organization, by job type, and by other factors such as demographics. Speaking of demographics...

#3: Age and job search: Younger job seekers placed increased importance on a fun culture and work friends, whereas older job seekers placed more value on advancement and developing organizational pride. This is consistent with other surveys.

#4: Satisfaction with selection practices: Fewer than 50% of staffing directors and hiring managers were highly satisfied with their hiring practices. "Efficiency" was rated particularly low. I'm guessing these are pretty typical results, but good benchmarks nonetheless.

#5: HR is lacking creativity--or resources: Fewer than half of all staffing directors had used each form of assessment listed in the survey. Resumes? Check. Interviews? Check. Other types? Not so much.

#6: Think carefully about interviewers: Two-thirds of job seekers said the interviewer influences their acceptance intentions. Are you just pulling in whoever is available?

#7: Do it again: Candidates pick up on interviewer behavior--intentional or not. A particularly offensive interviewer behavior was "Acting like has no time to talk to me" (70% of respondents). Don't forget how important perceptions of the selection process are.

#8: The grass is always greener: Nearly a third of job seekers had been in their jobs less than six months but were prowling for a new one. So no, your organization isn't alone. But what are you doing to retain people? Which brings us to...

#9: The reason they left may not be what you think: Honest exit interview feedback can be hard to get, but chew on this:

Did not feel efforts were appreciated: Ranked #3 in reason for turnover by job seekers--but #7 and #6 by staffing directors and hiring managers, respectively.

Treated unfairly: Ranked #4 by job seekers--unfortunately ranked #14 and #10.5 by staffing directors and hiring managers, respectively.

What about errors the other way? Managers and HR thought "external factors" (a spouse moving, going back to school, etc.) were pretty darn important--ranking them #1 and #2, respectively. But job seekers didn't, ranking it #10.5.

This is low hanging fruit. Recognition doesn't have to cost a thing; neither does taking steps to treat people fairly. A few minutes of your time, maybe, but how does that compare to the time, money, and effort involved in replacing someone?

Watson Wyatt: Attending to Hiring Makes a Difference

In a review of HR practices at 50 large U.S. companies, Watson Wyatt found that paying attention to the details of the hiring and orientation process is correlated with financial performance and employee engagement.

For example:

- 65% of companies with a highly engaged workforce provide interview training for their managers compared to 33% for companies with a less engaged workforce

- Companies with highly engaged workers spend 35 weeks on new hire orientation versus 15 for companies with less engaged employees

- 52% of high financial performers explained to new employees why they were hired vs. 29% of low financial performers

Very low hanging fruit with big potential payoffs.

Survey reveals hiring ramp-up for public sector agencies

According to the IPMA-HR HR Bulletin, their 2007 Hiring Outlook Survey revealed that public sector agencies plan on doing a substantial amount of hiring this year.

The survey of 656 IPMA-HR members was conducted from 1/10-1/17/07.

Highlights:

• 75% of respondents plan on hiring this year, up from 68% in 2006
• Employers are planning on hiring in larger numbers
• As with previous years, most new positions will be in public safety
• Need will also be strong in public works and finance & management
• Only 12% of respondents plan on conducting layoffs this year, down from 16% in 2006 and 18% in 2005
• 89% of respondents indicated they currently have vacancies
• Fewer organizations are purposely leaving positions unfilled for budgetary reasons

I'll put up a link to survey results once (if) they're posted.

Manpower and the changing temp landscape

Good article in the latest Economist about employment-services giant Manpower.

The article covers a lot of ground, including company history, acquisitions, and changes in strategic focus.

Highlights:

- Only 13% of Manpower's revenue comes from America. France is the company's biggest market and source of about 1/3 of its revenues.

- Traditional temp work now accounts for 70% of its profits, down from 96% in 1999. CEO Jeff Joerres expects this to drop to 50% within five years.

- As providing temps has become a low-margin business, Manpower has expanded into placing permanent employees and training/coaching (dovetailing with its purchase of Right Management in 2004). A newer development is training employed individuals who are hoping for a promotion.

- The article references a 2006 survey of 32,000 employers in 26 countries Manpower conducted where it found 29% of respondents said they would have hired more professional staff if candidates had had the necessary skills. That figure was 45% for U.S. employers.

- Finally, this juicy and spot-on quote:

"...once people have been hired, the attrition rate can be expensively high--particularly for the most talented. This owes as much to the lack of training and career development opportunities as to salaries...the leading Indian firms, such as Infosys, have been addressing the skills gap and high turnover rates by establishing in-house universities."

p.s.: Just a thought: I wonder if they've ever considered changing their name. Manpower reminds me of the old Ace Hardware tune ("Ace is the place with the helpful hardware man") or the Culligan motto ("Hey! Culligan man!"). Mmm....discrimination...

Seeking grads with "leadership experience"

According to a new report by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), employers are greatly influenced by whether a college grad candidate has held a "leadership position."

In this survey of 267 of its members, NACE found this factor was rated highest, along with college major. Nearly three-fourths of respondents also stated they preferred candidates with relevant work experience.

My guess is few grads have held "leadership positions", which presumably adds to its cachet. But what exactly does this mean? What is a leadership position? Presumably we're talking about more than just being in a club; we're talking about being club President.

I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say that employers associate these positions with intelligence, drive, knowledge, and ability to lead groups of people. In most cases all you really can be assured of is that the person had sufficient motivation to throw their name in the hat.

Let's say I told you I was president of the Psychology Club at my university for two years. The club had over 200 members and I was responsible for leading monthly meetings and took the lead on all club-sponsored activities over that time, including publishing the club's newsletter, Psyched. (By the way, this is a total fabrication)

What do you really know about me? What if you found out that I was president for two years because no one else wanted it? That while there were 200 members, an average of 5 showed up for the monthly meetings? That our "activities" included going to the movies, and that the newsletter was published twice and was simply a brief e-mail to all members? Would that change how you thought about me?

As with any measure of training and experience, to get real validity out of this type of screening you need more information:

- What were the duties of the position?
- Did they compete for the position; if so, how were they selected?
- How long did they have the post, and what did they accomplish?
- Did they seek "re-election", and if so, what happened?

In their defense, employers of college grads don't have a whole lot to go off of. Grads typically don't have much job experience to draw from. So you're usually looking at coursework and GPA. On the plus side, we know GPA actually does a passable job of predicting job performance (probably because it's largely a proxy for cognitive ability). Sadly GPA was ranked third in this survey by employers.

So how could employers do a better job of screening college grads? The same way they screen everybody else! By relying on job-related, high quality assessment methods, such as situational interviews, work samples, and personality tests.

Here's another question for ya: do all jobs for college grads require leadership skill? Or is teamwork ability more important? How about customer service skill? Conscientiousness? I'm just sayin'...

Gallup poll yields lessons for employers

Results of a new Gallup poll illustrate strongly the disconnect between the perceptions of working for the federal government and what many candidates are looking for. And although the report focuses on implications for the federal government, there are lessons here for any organization.

The report, titled "Within Reach But Out of Synch" is based on data gathered online in September/October of 2006 and includes responses from 2,596 individuals.

Gallup broke out the respondents into three groups:

Generation Y : currently 18-29 year olds (born 1977-1988)

"Government-Go-Gets" (G3) : "scientists, engineers and computer science professionals and individuals who work in law, public policy and the social services", sectors considered by Gallup to be key prospects for the future federal workforce

Managers : individuals who currently hold managerial or supervisory positions in the private or nonprofit sector and could potentially transfer to the federal sector

Results

There's quite a bit to chew on in the report, but I think this quote sums up the overall picture nicely: "the federal government must sharpen its competitive edge in terms of marketing and branding, and even more challenging, by offering high performing work environments that value innovation and creativity, and provide opportunities for growth and advancement."

I don't think this is a conclusion that is limited to the feds--this is a lesson for every organization hoping to lure high potential applicants.

Among Gen Y'ers, the workplace value ranked highest was growth potential, followed by intellectual stretch. For both managers and G3, compensation/benefits was ranked highest, followed by intellectual stretch. However, within G3 the results were more nuanced--for example, mission match was the most important for those in the social services. This speaks to the value of parsing out your target group(s).

Chart 3a (page 6) is probably the most eye opening. It illustrates dramatically how the private sector blows the feds away when it comes to perceptions of innovation and creativity, attracting the best and brightest, and providing a competitive environment. Where does the government win? In perceptions of benefits and job security. Surprisingly perceptions of pay were not overly one-sided, with 59% giving the nod to the private sector.

When it comes to job search, the vast majority of responders reported if they were going to look for a job with the feds they would turn to the agency's website. Job searching websites were also a popular choice.

Lessons

Take-aways from the poll:

1. Organizations need to take their workforce planning data (you do have the data, right?) and figure out what aspects of their workplace they need to showcase and what they need to shore up in order to attract candidates for their target jobs.

2. Intellectual stretch was rated highly by all three candidate categories. This means things like being intellectually stimulated, being able to use your education, and allowing you to be innovative and creative. What is your organization doing to allow your employees opportunities to do these things?

3. For the feds (and government in general, I would bet), this is a wake-up call to think seriously about how they are perceived. Is there some truth to these perceptions? If not, put some serious effort into marketing (and, if needed, brand identification). If there is, focus on how workplaces can be more supportive of creativity and innovation, and how you can spread the word about merit-based hiring practices and the wonderful folk you have on staff.

4. For the love of Pete, make sure your careers website makes for a good candidate experience. The Army's webpage is frequently cited as being one of the best.

Poor OPM

Ya gotta feel for OPM after looking at this report. Of all the federal agencies polled about, OPM scored lowest on both "awareness of agency mission" (24%) and "interesting place to work" (1.92%). Undoubtedly this is due in part to its relatively small size and somewhat nebulous mission. If it's any consolation, OPMers, I think you do great work !

Background checks lead to...hiring more African Americans?

From the "that's counter-intuitive" file comes a study in the October issue of the Journal of Law and Economics.

The researchers crunched survey data from over 3,000 establishments in four U.S. metropolitan areas -- Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, and Los Angeles. There are quite a few interesting results in this paper, but perhaps the most eye-popping one is that employers that did a criminal background check for the most recently filled position were MORE likely to hire an African American applicant. Specifically, 8.5% more likely (statistically significant at the .01 level for you stat geeks).

"Well, okay, sure, but that's because of the position being filled. The jobs that require criminal background checks are more likely to have African American applicants," you say. (Or at least, that's what I said) And that's true. But here's the thing: the result sticks even after controlling for proportion of black applicants.

So what's going on? The researchers conclude that this is evidence that in the absence of cold, hard, data folks fall back on discriminatory decision making styles.

What do I think? I think I'm going to spend the $6 to buy the article. And I think this could provide additional support for doing background checks. Just make sure you know what you're doing.

Rocket-Hire annual survey results

Rocket-Hire conducts an annual survey on the usage of web-based screening and assessment tools. We get a preview of this year's results in an article Dr. Charles Handler wrote for ERE.

Respondents:
136 "people professionals" who read ERE--a mixture of recruiters, HR execs, and hiring managers from a variety of companies.

Some interesting results:
1. There was a direct relationship between size of company and usage of applicant tracking systems with 56% of smaller companies using them but 100% of companies with more than 5,000 employees using them.

2. Compared with 2005, there was a drastic increase in the use of personality measures (65% usage) and a sizable jump for "measures of fit" (53%). I would be curious to see which instruments are being used.

3. 42% of respondents used some measure of cognitive ability--this seems very high to me and I'd be curious to see which organizations were more likely to use these.

4. Only 21% reported using simulations and 16% reported using biodata.

5. The job level least likely to involve on-line assessment was Executive/Vice President. (Just interviews, I'm assuming?)

6. The type of job most likely to involve on-line assessment was Managerial/Supervisory; Professional and Customer Service jobs were also frequently mentioned.

7. The types of job least likely to involve on-line asessment included Retail, Manufacturing/Labor, and Consulting/Advising. Seems like there's a lot of opportunity there.

8. Only 30% of assessment users collect metrics regarding the quality of these tools but those that do are MUCH more likely to see them as having a positive impact on their organization (89% vs. 50%).

9. "Qualifications" (experience, education, etc.) are by far the most popular screening/assessment tool under consideration for future use. Another reason why having good information out there about the use of T&E measures is so important.

10. The most common obstacles mentioned to the adoption of on-line screening and assessment had to do with lack of faith in ROI. Lots of opportunity here for assessment professionals to clearly articulate the value of valid selection tools and tie their usage to business goals.

Full results will be available mid-November and can be obtained by e-mailing Rocket-Hire at info@rocket-hire.com.

IPMA-HR Recruitment and Selection Benchmarking Survey

IPMA-HR has released the results of its 2006 Recruitment and Selection Benchmarking Survey. Results are available here for a small fee. The report includes an analysis of responses from 236 individuals representing all levels of government.

Highlights:
- 58.4% of respondents report accepting applications via the Internet, which seems low, but I'm guessing it's been more difficult for smaller organizations, and there's probably folks in the process of developing this capability.

- The agency/jurisdiction's website generated the most applicants, followed by newspaper ads and internet job boards. The same pattern held for where the most diverse hires came from.

- Mean number of days to hire for all jobs (from vacancy posting to start date) was 49 days. Shortest was labor/maintenance positions, slowest (not surprisingly) was public safety positions.

- The top three testing methods were (in order): Criminal record checks, pre-employment drug testing, and written job knowledge tests. Use of these tests varied by type of position (e.g., written tests most common for public safety, T&E most common for professional positions).

- Compared to 2000, the use of criminal record checks and drug testing has gone up dramatically.

- Applicants had the easiest time passing MQs for office/clerical jobs and the most difficult time for IT positions.

Lots of good stuff in here. I was alarmed that more organizations aren't doing more to prepare for the upcoming retirement boom and that more aren't using computerized skills testing, but heartened that written tests are still widely used.

Accountemps survey

Okay, I wasn't going to post about this, but since it seems to have created quite the flutter, let's talk for a minute about a recent survey that Accountemps did.

The survey asked 150 senior executive from the nation's 1,000 largest companies about the most common mistake people make during an interview (most common, mind you, not most important). By far, the most common response (47%) was that interviewees didn't know enough about the company.

Now some folks out there in the HR community have argued that this is a reminder that the job seekers have a responsibility to do some leg work before an interview. No argument here. But I do think we need to take a look in the mirror.

In general, organizations do a TERRIBLE job of providing sufficient information to candidates about the job they're applying for. It's particularly bad in the public sector, where you're lucky if you see a good job description before you interview.

Providing applicants with detailed information about (1) the most frequent and essential duties of the job, (2) the most important KSAs/competencies needed day one, (3) culture of the organization, and (4) day-in-the-life information (e.g., cubicle or office?) is probably the most effective (and certainly one of the cheapest) ways of ensuring a good person-job fit. To rhap Rumsfeldian for a moment, Will unqualified applicants still apply? Sure. Will this solve all your problems? No. Will qualified applicants appreciate it? You bet.

And let's think about going a step further. How about a very clean, easy to read description of the job with a variety of links taking people to details--"For more about where you would be working, CLICK HERE", "For more about who you would be working with, CLICK HERE." That way people can read what's important to them and we don't have to balance information overload with platitudes like "Works as part of an innovative, diverse work team."

Should people find out as much as possible about the job and the organization before applying? Yes. Should we do as much as we can to make this job easy for them? I think we owe it to them.