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Hey! It’s coming close to the end of January already! Wow! Well don’t worry, I’m here with some great updates to get you prepared for the month ahead. Good luck!
[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][vc_separator][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_single_image image=”166″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row el_id=”firstpost”][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”45px”][vc_custom_heading text=”Gaming the System to Boost Recruiting ” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left|color:%23055091″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”1344914″ img_size=”600×360″ alignment=”center” css=”.vc_custom_1485427737856{margin-bottom: 30px !important;}”][vc_column_text]Unilever has recently announced the launch of a new digital recruitment program that will use gamification to eliminate unconscious bias from its hiring process. The technology mixes gaming elements with video interviews in order to identify the best candidates for the job among its 250,000 annual graduate applicants.
The Chief HR Officer at Unilever said it’s hoped that the innovative approach will help them attract new talent to the company. The trend promises to make every aspect of the recruitment process “fun and engaging” and it has in turn led to a surge of new social features, vendor platforms and tools across the HR tech platform. We should remember that gamification isn’t the same as turning something into a game, but more just adopting the best elements of gaming to make the experience better and free from unconscious bias.
For example the status bar lets candidates know where they are in the process and is considered to be a gaming mechanic, as well as giving employees points or badges for submitting good referrals. We aren’t talking Pacman! Kyle Lagunas, an analyst for IDC said “The end goal is to incentivize a certain behavior through these technologies.”
Unilever isn’t the only brand doing this. Uber, Google, Deloitte and Marriott are among other global brands to jump on board with gamification in their recruitment strategy not only to eliminate bias but to build brand awareness and shorten screening time. Gamification can also be used to challenge decisions made by hiring managers and recruiters with a five-star tool that requires them to provide justification for low ratings, and they aren’t allowed to dismiss this with a simple “poor culture fit”.
While technology advances the hiring process, it doesn’t matter how engaging and fun it is – it will not solve the entire problem of the bias. The biggest hurdle is “admitting we all have them. You have to embrace your bias before you can find a solution.” Wise words from Lagunas.
Source[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row el_id=”secondpost”][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”45px”][vc_custom_heading text=”Employers Reworking Recruitment Process to Hire Top Talent” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left|color:%23055091″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”1344908″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css=”.vc_custom_1485426089008{margin-bottom: 30px !important;}”][vc_column_text]New research released by totaljobs has found that almost half of employers are having to reduce the length of their hiring process in order to hire new staff more quickly. The survey of over 3,000 job seekers and 100 employers found that 46% of employers are reducing the length of time it takes to hire candidates as it becomes harder to compete for the top talent.
59% of employers claim they take less than 2 weeks between initial advertising of the role and the first round of interviews with 92% making an offer in less than a week after this. Furthermore, 28% of employers have reduced the duration of the recruitment process because the time it was taking them to decide was putting candidates off and in turn was precluding them from recruiting the best talent for their company.
Luckily technology has helped speed up the hiring process considerably and 10% of employers now conduct their interviews over Skype with 25% of them using psychometric testing – defined as a fast way to determine the cultural fit of workers for the company and the role. While this is positive, only 47% of employers agree that their application processes are optimised for mobile and this is a concern since 70% of job seekers claim they use their smartphone to look for work.
The differences in how companies recruit compared with how talents find work extends beyond simple mobile optimisation. 84% of employers use their company website to advertise a role but just 15% of job seekers say they hunt for jobs using them. Just over half (53%) of recruiters use professional networking sites but this is only used by 24% of candidates.
The Director at totaljobs John Salt said “Whilst tech is playing an increasingly vital role in talent attraction and recruitment, it’s surprising to note that less than half of employers have mobile optimised sites.
“With employers cutting the length of their attraction and recruitment process to draw in the best talent, the role that technology plays in delivering a more agile experience will continue to grow in significance. At totaljobs its core to our approach to invest in our tech and products, and deliver on job seeker and employer demands. Helping candidates find the jobs they love and employers hire the talent they need – fast – is essential, especially as the candidate market continues to tighten.” Interesting!
Source[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][vc_separator][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row el_id=”thirdpost”][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”45px”][vc_custom_heading text=”Tech Hires More Sought After than Bankers in Asia This Year” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left|color:%23055091″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”1342763″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css=”.vc_custom_1460995305033{margin-bottom: 30px !important;}”][vc_column_text]A survey by Options Group Inc has found that financial institutions in Asia will be more inclined to hire tech specialists over investment bankers this year as they upgrade their systems and enhance product offerings.
Among financial-services managers, 40% say they expect to increase the amount of information technology-related roles this year. Only 18% of 380 managers surveyed intended to add jobs in investment banking by comparison while 30% might do so in fixed income and equities trading and sales. Russell Kopp, a partner at Options Group in Hong Kong said “The face of banking is changing. We’re at a juncture where increasingly it’ll be about technology, automation and big data rather than about the rock-star investment bankers.”
In order to improve returns and cut costs, banks such as Standard Chartered Plc and HSBC Holdings Plc are increasingly using new tech to upgrade their compliance and regulatory systems and offer more digital banking services. Barclays Plc and Goldman Sachs Group Inc are among the banks that are cutting investment banking jobs in Asia last year due to a slump in deals.
Kopp says “The reality is the future of where the highly paid people will be is not going to be your salesperson, it’s not going to be your bankers…It’s going to be your tech people, it’s going to be quantitative professionals that can meaningfully develop or enhance top-line revenues.”
Source[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”45px”][vc_custom_heading text=”Majority of Workers Seeking New Role this January ” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left|color:%23055091″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”1344909″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css=”.vc_custom_1485426511714{margin-bottom: 30px !important;}”][vc_column_text]If you’re feeling less than fantastic about the current job you’re in, new research suggests you’re definitely not alone. The CV library has explored the attitudes of 1,500 UK workers and has found that an overwhelming 84.4% of UK workers are currently seeking a new role. Their research also indicated that 35.8% of workers dislike their current job.
35.1% of workers even admit to thinking about quitting their job often or frequently! When asked why they’d consider leaving, the following were the responses:
Bad management (47.3%)
Being underpaid (33%)
No development opportunities (31.2%)
Being undervalued (30.5%)
It’s boring (24.1%)
Poor work/life balance (21.3%)
Being too stressed (20.3%)
The workload is too high (17%)
Not liking their boss (11.3%)
The Managing Director of CV Library Lee Biggins released in a statement “The months following Christmas are always hard, so it’s not surprising to hear that the vast majority of the nations’ workers will be looking for a new role this January. With a New Year ahead of us, the job market is set for a boom, as many candidates look for roles which will better fulfil their careers, and enable them to escape some of the areas that make them dislike their current job so much.”
69.3% of workers think that their boss has an impact on how they view their job and perhaps one of the most interesting parts of the report is what respondents said when they were asked what they’d say to their boss if there were no repercussions for it:
“Stop being so grumpy and rude!”
“Please can I have a pay rise?”
“Can I have your job?”
“Appreciate your staff more and treat them how you would like to be treated”
“Stop getting so involved in my work. Take a back seat and trust me to do my job”
“Be more open and honest with me about what’s really going on with the business”
“Treat your staff like humans, not another cog in a wheel!”
“Employ more staff. We are very overworked”
“Man up and take some responsibility”
I think here we can see the importance of better management and a good attitude towards employees from a higher perspective.
Source[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”45px”][vc_custom_heading text=”Political Parties: Increase Female Representation to 45% or Face Fines” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left|color:%23055091″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”1344906″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css=”.vc_custom_1485427008504{margin-bottom: 30px !important;}”][vc_column_text]According to the Women and Equalities Committee, UK political parties that fail to take steps to work towards at least 45% of all Parliament representatives being female should be forced to do so or face a fine. The report concluded that legislation should be introduced to increase the number of women who hold a seat in parliament, after it turned out that the UK has dropped into 48th place in global rankings of representation of women in a country’s single or lower legislative chamber. Currently, 30% of seats are held by women.
The enquiry that was launched in the summer of 2016 concluded that all parties need to take action and set out plans to increase the number of women in Parliament by 2020 and that by 2030 the figure should increase to 45%. They believe that failure to do this should result in sanctions or fines.
The report stated “While the goal is equality, we recognise the difficulty inherent in setting this statutory minimum at 50 per cent; such a precise target would be difficult to meet while also ensuring that men did not become under-represented. A minimum of 45 per cent would therefore be acceptable.” It continues, “Since 1918, there have been only 455 women elected to the Commons. Putting these numbers into perspective, the number of men in the Commons today is the same as the total number of women ever elected to the House.”
Maria Miller, the Committee’s leader said that parties must be held to account, and “Political parties bear the lion’s share of the responsibility for improvement. Trusting in long-term trends is not enough: we need intervention to accelerate their pace. We look to the leaders of those parties to give these efforts the urgency and priority they require.” She notes that less than a third of parliamentary seats are taken by women and this needs to change. We agree.
Source[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”45px”][vc_custom_heading text=”2016 Was the Year of Global Connectivity” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left|color:%23055091″ use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_single_image image=”1344911″ img_size=”600×360″ alignment=”center” css=”.vc_custom_1485427143847{margin-bottom: 30px !important;}”][vc_column_text]We all remember the days of dial-up but a lot has changed since then. Today we live in a world of hyper-connectivity and we’re able to reach every corner of the globe (almost!). Here’s just a few ways 2016 worked towards connected the world:
1. Google’s 5G Solar Drones Internet Service – Project Skybender is Google’s 5G Internet drone initiative. Word got out last year that they’d been testing these amazing solar-powered drones at Spaceport America in New Mexico in order to explore ways that internet can be delivered at high-speed from the air. The millimetre wave technology could potentially deliver data from drones up to 40 times faster than 4G.
2. ViaSat’s 1 Terabit Internet Service – The US based satellite company has teamed up with Boeing to launch three satellites to provide a 1 terabit-per-second Internet connection to maritime vehicles, aircrafts and remote areas. They’re scheduled to launch their satellite ViaSat2 very soon.
3. OneWeb Raised $1.2B for 900 Satellite Constellation – This incredible orbit satellite system proposed by Paul Jacobs, Greg Wyler and Richard Branson and has just recently closed the deal on $1.2 billion in financing. The 900-satellite system will offer far reaching, global internet services as soon as 2019.
4. Musk’s 4,425 Internet Satellite system – This is an ambitious plan for complete global internet domination! It was proposed this year by SpaceX founder Elon Musk, and they would like to deploy 4,425 low-earth satellites to cover the entire planet in broadband. Imagine!
Here at ABL we’d love nothing more than the whole world to be connected at the click of a button.
Source[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Did you know?
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About the author…
Nicole Debson
Director & Founder
With 30 years in recruitment, a genuine interest in people and a desire to help forge careers, Nicole has built ABL on the principle of making businesses better and that little bit more international. Seeking to help candidates navigate their career path; to help clients find the ideal employee, her hands on approach is what has moulded our company. Fluent in French, with good Spanish, and a Masters in Industrial Relations & Personnel Management, you’ll find Nicole thumbing through her well-worn copy of Jack London’s White Fang, her all-time favourite book.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
