Interview with Elaine Orler - Chairman of the Talent Board! Co-Founder of the Candes' award

Once a year, the Recruiting world has a great award ceremony for the best Candidate experience called the "CanDes!" This award has the truly amazing facet of requiring that the candidates of the companies have to complete surveys as to what they thought of their experience.

Elaine Orler, is the Chairman of the Talent Board, which is the organization that runs the awards process. She was truly kind enough to participate in an interview for this Blog.

For background, how long have you been in HR, and what has made you so passionate about this field? 

I started my career in Recruiting in 1993 purely by accident or fate. My degree is in elementary education, and I taught kindergarten and first grade for a few years and realized that I just didn’t have what it took to be a teacher. I worked part time in a Personnel department for a department store while in college, so when I relocated to San Diego, I found myself with a temporary job working for Recruiting at Qualcomm. I was hired to assist two recruiters in coordinating interviews, scheduling and offers. After two months, I was promoted to recruiter focused on all non-exempt recruiting. That lasted almost four months, when I was promoted to senior recruiter focused on Operations. My responsibilities included managing the recruiting technology and process model for the entire organization. I was promoted again three more times in the five years I worked for Qualcomm and fell passionately head over heels in love with the importance of recruiting, human resources and their implications on the business. It was a time of pure growth, take no prisoners, ask forgiveness not permission, and amazing times. When I started at Qualcomm, they were hiring employee number 800 or so. When I left for another opportunity, they were hiring employee number 12,000. I have been focused on the enablement and performance of human resources for 20 years now, and am still just as passionate.

Can you bring us up to speed on the history of the Talent Board and the CandEs? 

The Talent Board is a non-profit organization focused on the elevation of a positive candidate experience. It was founded in 2011, after a few likeminded industry veterans had a frank conversation about the constant attention on the negative implications of the black-hole for candidates, and the bad rap that recruiting, recruiting systems, recruiting processes were getting across the board. The intent was to   shine a light on the positive efforts because it would eventually shine brighter than the light on the negative and, with any luck, it turn the employment market around. We wanted to ensure it was a collaborative effort, so we founded the non-profit to guarantee it. The non-profit was and still is fully funded by annual sponsors,  board members and many others volunteers dedicating hours of time and service  to produce the Candidate Experience Awards (known as “the CandEs”). The CandEs’ first award process was created and delivered in 2011. The efforts of the board members focused on the importance of providing a free survey model to companies wishing to participate with a guarantee of anonymity for companies taking the survey for benchmark purposes only.  No company’s name will ever be released if they don’t win an award. The process is a three step process for the award model. 

1.  The employer completes a self-assessment comprised of around 50 questions.. Their responses are reviewed against the baseline and those that wish to compete for the award are then required to survey their candidates. 

2. The candidates are invited to take the survey by the employers themselves, and results are monitored and calibrated by Talent Board volunteers. The candidate data is evaluated to ensure it matches what the company reports it is accomplishing, and key ‘worth nothing’ experiences are discovered.  Those companies who meet the criteria are noted as CandE Award winners.

3. This takes the process to round three, where companies that have a unique or best practice candidate experience are evaluated and then recognized as a ‘with distinction’ winner. 

Awards are presented in October, during the HR Technology Conference and Expo. In 2012 we also launched the UK CandE awards and recently recognized the winners at an event in London. In 2013 we plan to expand our efforts to Australia while continuing to search for other countries and regions eager to promote the positive efforts organizations are making to treat their candidates with respect.

What are some of the "Big Ideas" that the survey has uncovered over the history of the awards? 

In 2011, a few of our big ideas focused on the messages organizations were sending to their candidates. The CandEs validated that the infamous “black hole” existed, and that there was a disconnect between candidates’ expectations and how employers communicated status and other important information with those individuals. There was a lack of communication between the companies and candidates about the process and current standings.  We also uncovered that recruiters were overwhelmed: at the time 38 percent of the responding companies indicated that more than 100 candidates express interest for each job opening at their company (not a single surveyed company had fewer than 11 candidates per job opening).  On the other hand, innovative employers were aggressively creating two way channels for their candidates to connect through social media and online chat sessions. In several cases, we saw the early adoption of a candidate bill of rights which focused on educating the candidates on what to expect in the process.

In 2012, we focused more efforts on the candidates’ disposition. We added questions to the survey about their overall impressions and probability of re-applying and referring a friend. The overall scores for winning employers were stronger and lead in these areas, representing the candidates’ general disposition as positive. We also stumbled on a new baseline of understanding that, to our knowledge, has never been studied or measured at an industry level. When surveying the candidates, 51 percent (NAM results) and 49 percent (UK results) of surveyed candidates felt they already had a relationship with the company. That relationship was through friends and family, as a customer, follower of the brand or other means. What this means to the recruiting industry is that almost every other candidate assumes a relationship with the company. How we treat or don’t treat them from that point forward has more to do with engaging at a level of communication and response that matches that assumption of relationship. 

Did anything unique happen in the most recent results that show changes are occurring in the Recruiting world? 

What we found from the winner data is not surprising but validating and encouraging. Their candidates’ overall satisfaction was much higher than the general baseline. While there is no market study that has the volume of candidate surveys, we’ve conducted to date (11,500 responses in 2011 and 17,500 responses in 2012) some studies imply that candidate dis-satisfaction is still the market norm. The organizations that have won the CandE awards demonstrate strong candidate satisfaction, and the efforts of these employers to build communication channels and extend their brands create a promise of respect.  They continuously find ways to improve on their efforts which are changing the recruiting world. For every company that did participate, we had two to three others that would not apply because they said they had work to do before they felt they would be able to compete. This tells us that they see the candidate experience as something that needs to be improved on in order to compete for talent in the market.

What are some mistakes that you have learned that are common and should be avoided? 

One lesson that is still being managed is the balance of power within organizations, the importance of recruiting and the ability to communicate with candidates. In several cases every year, some amazing organizations that went through round one of the survey were blocked from participating in round two because their legal teams would not allow candidates to participate in the survey process. These same organizations will likely face the same uphill battles to improve their social recruiting efforts, their overall candidate touch points and messaging. It can sometimes be challenging for all the necessary internal resources to align their objectives and level of comfort. With something as critical as a customer experience, we still see organizations adopting “no communication” rules to ensure compliance. 

I am sure you get to some amazing submissions - what some of the coolest things some companies are doing - even if others couldn't replicate it. 

I’ve listed some of these above, but some of my personal favorites follow:

1. Recruitment branding within mass market efforts. An example of this is With Distinction winner Risk Management Solutions (RMS) and their brand recognition efforts.  The company is included as a character, within one of the most played iPhone and iPod games, Plague Inc. Given that their entire business is centered on disaster recovery models, access (creating awareness, and brand recognition) to disaster gamers has value to the employer. I am not sure other companies will go to this level, but it does press upon how fast we will start seeing career ads and reference to specific jobs as ‘product’ placement in other media models. Virtual job previews, social meetings and video presence are all being leverage by some of the best organizations out there.
2. Mobile technology is creating a big shift in how we interact with candidates and the information necessary for candidates to engage in the recruiting process. We see many organizations recreating a stronger presence with mobile applications and mobile optimized career experiences.

What are your future plans, visions or hopes for the Survey and the CandEs? 

One of our annual goals as a non-profit is to make the data available to the industry.  In 2013, we plan to have the infrastructure and delivery models in place to make the data accessible. Top organizations need data in order to justify the dollars they need to spend to achieve their recruiting and candidate experience objectives. If the data from the survey can help even one company gain the internal approvals to focus a positive light on their candidate experience, then we have achieved our goal. 

The data is very rich, a true fire hose. We are very prescriptive about how we create access to the core information, ensuring that no one company can be extrapolated and exposed. We always want the award process to be free to corporations of any size and continue to work on ways that as a non-profit, the funding from donations, sponsors and partners receive recognition for their contributions. 

Lastly, if someone wanted to get historical results, and/or compete in future awards - how do they get involved? 

We keep the website up to date. Those interested in the 2012 report can download it for free at http://www.thecandidateexperienceawards.org/download-the-2012-report/. 

The 2013 Awards are expected to open mid-April for the North American region; details will be announced for our global programs later this spring. Companies can register on the website for updates on the survey dates. Awards will be announced again this year at the HR Technology Conference in Las Vegas in October. 

Any companies that are interested in participating though sponsorship can learn more at http://www.thecandidateexperienceawards.org/become-a-sponsor/.