Prepared for Change

By Mark Newman, HireVue Co-Founder and CEO

2009 was a year full of enormous positive changes here at HireVue with the addition of a new team, new platform, new investors and many new customers. 2010 seems primed for major changes not only at  HireVue but across the entire HR community.

A New Newsletter in 2010

I’m pleased to announce one of our first changes of 2010, THE VUE, a new monthly newsletter from HireVue. You can look to THE VUE each month for news, updates on changes happening at  HireVue and valuable information on video interviewing and recruiting in general. In every issue you’ll hear from me or one of the HireVue staff. We’ll make sure you know what’s going on at HireVue and perhaps share a thought or two related to current events. Sometimes we’ll focus on video interviewing and sometimes we won’t but I’ll make you this promise – whatever we have to say, it will always be relevant and may even be insightful and entertaining.

We’ve also asked a number of writers in the HR community to contribute one article each newsletter with helpful tips and best practices in all areas of HR, not just video interviewing. For example, in this month’s issue, NAS’ Caroline Slomski opens our eyes to the promise of mobile recruiting and gives some tips on what can be done to get on board.

For those of you still wondering how video interviewing fits into your talent acquisition strategy or for those of you who’ve implemented it but want to find other ways to use it, we’ll include a customer success story each month to help you see how others are using HireVue. Also, whenever possible we’ll include special content such as  white papers, webinar recordings, articles and other things you need to get and stay fully informed.

To subscribe to the newsletter, go to the HireVue home page and scroll down to the newsletter sign up in the right column.

Planning for Change

If you’re not following John Sumser’s series of articles on preparing for the future of recruiting on ERE.net, you should. In the second article of the series, he recalls that old Eisenhower quote attributed to him during his days as the Commanding General of European and African Allied forces where he was tasked with ending World War II. “The plan is nothing. The plan is everything.” As the quote implies, change is inevitable but that’s not why we plan. Planning simply helps us to survey the field and do our best to consider our options. It might even give us a pretty good map of the battlefield but as Eisenhower well knew, things can get disorienting in the heat of battle and relying on the map alone can get you killed.

The war for talent has been on hiatus but if the economy turns around any time soon it could heat up quick. According to the Washington Post, economists typically look to six elements of the economy when judging its health. When three of the six show significant improvements over a two to three month period, they say recovery is on the way. I took a look at the indicators they suggest and here’s what I found.

1. Jobless Claims - Jobless claims have dropped every week but 1 over the past 20 weeks, reducing weekly claims by nearly 100,000 over that same period. That’s 1 out of 6. (Source – U.S. Dept. of Labor)
2. Durable Goods – New orders for durable goods excluding transportation increased 0.9 percent last month. This is a good sign, but we need to see this positive trend over two or three months and this is the first increase since September. So the score’s still 1 out of 6. (Source – U.S. Dept of Commerce)
3. Existing Home Sales – After a rising surge from September through November, existing-home sales fell as expected in December after first-time buyers rushed to complete sales before the original November deadline for the tax credit. However, prices rose from December 2008 and annual sales improved in 2009. While it’s tough to know for sure if this trend’s for real due to the tax credits, this looks to be a good sign that investors and would-be homeowners are back in the market. I’ll buck my usually skeptical ways and give this a thumbs up – 2 out of 6. (Source National Association of Realtors)
4. Consumer Confidence – The Consumer Confidence Index has risen steadily since October 2009 (about 6%). Economists say that’s enough to expect things to continue trending upward so who am I not to agree. That makes it 3 out of 6. (Source – The Conference Board)
5. Retail Sales – retail sales have improved 1.8% over the past three months adjusted for Holiday sales. I think you get the idea – 4 out of 6. (Source – U.S. Dept. of Commerce)
6. Interest Rate Spread – The Wall Street Journal says that the difference between the yield on risk-free, three-month Treasury bills and the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, a rate at which banks lend to each other is a pretty good indicator of economic health as long as the gap is 1/2 percentage point or less. As of today, it’s 2/10 of a percent. 5 out of 6. (Source Wall Street Journal)

Prepared for Change

From what I can tell, it’s time to start sharpening your swords, the battle looks to be back on! From NPR to your brother-in-law you’ll get no shortage of advice for how to prepare so I’ll make mine short and sweet. Of course it’s related to video interviewing. Don’t panic. “How is that video interviewing related?” You ask. One thing video interviewing does extremely well is support the demands of the current recruiting environment – the one built on the old economy, the one that has you doing more with less – while setting you up for the new paradigms of a recovering economy. So with HireVue you can sit tight and see which way the tide rolls because you’re prepared no matter what happens or how fast it unfolds. Below is a comparison I often share to explain how we do this.

Today: Bear Market

In a Bear Market, HireVue helps you:

• Do more with less since interviews can be conducted and reviewed anywhere, anytime.
• Live with reduced staff.
• Interview anyone even with travel restrictions.
• Improve the quality of your hires since you get a clearer view into your candidate pool.
• Manage high candidate volume.
• Give candidates an opportunity to interview without feeling like they’re jeopardizing their current job.
• Reduce the risk of a bad hire.
• Access passive talent and keep all talent invested in the process.
• Gain greater efficiency from a much simplified process.
• Learn more about the benefits of video job interviewing.

Tomorrow: Bull Market

In a Bull Market HireVue helps you:

• Be more efficient as you scale for growth.
• Push your brand message further.
• Manage high requisition volume.
• Make it easier on high value candidates to pay attention to you.
• Increase your speed-to-hire & improve your workflow.
• Give you a competitive advantage due to ease-of-use and “wow” factor.
• Help you access and find the best candidates in a highly competitive situation.

The future of our space is exciting to think about. Not just the 5-year future but what will transpire in the next twelve months. I’m optimistic about it; even more so after looking under the hood a little at the economic trends, and though, as Eisenhower eluded to, nothing is certain. I think the change we’ll experience between now and this time next year will be positive. Still, you’ll have a lot to think about regardless so if we can help reduce the stress a little with HireVue we’d love to help.

I hope you found this article and, if you received it, the newsletter beneficial. Don’t forget to read Caroline’s article on mobile recruiting, I think you’ll find it incredibly helpful. I’d love to get your feedback on anything so don’t hesitate to drop me an e-mail at mnewman@hirevue.com, and if you’d like to sign up for our newsletter, go to our homepage and scroll down to see the newsletter sign up in the right column.

Sincerely,

Mark

This article also appeared in this month’s issue of THE VUE, HireVue’s monthly newsletter. To sign up, go to the HireVue home page and scroll down to the newsletter sign up on the right.