Steven J. Smith, SHRM-CP, PHR

Steven J. Smith, SHRM-CP, PHR Speaking Topics

• The Hiring Tree: Laws of Applicant Attraction

  How many companies have struggled with hiring in the last few years? With 2x less applicants in the marketplace, the ability to attract candidates is more important than ever before.

  In The Hiring Tree analogy, too many employers rely heavily on one core channel for hiring. The challenge with this is like a tree with one single branch, the tree branch will topple over as it begins to bear fruit due to the weight of the fruit. It creates an awful experience for applicants. 20th century recruiting methodologies are slowly being replaced by new technologies, which means employers need to stay on top of what is happening in the market more than ever before.

  The biggest mistake 80% of employers make is the use of a job description as their job ad. New job board rules are being enforced due to Search Engine Optimization practices (SEO), Artificial Intelligence technology, legal changes, and an influx of scam artists during the pandemic. This is forcing many employers to make changes they are not familiar with.

  In this session we will cover the analogy of the Hiring Tree and discuss one specific branch of the hiring process that will provide immediate results to attracting top talent, regardless of a recession on the loom.

  A truly balanced tree has multiple branches, a solid trunk (application process) and firm roots to produce award-winning fruit, which means any hiring strategy must include multiple channels and have the right foundation. From the roots to the trunk, extending out the branches, this presentation will help attendees understand how to develop a sound “Hiring Tree” that will produce fruit (applicant flow) in ANY market, regardless of unemployment rates, recessions, layoffs, pandemics, ghosting, & quiet quitting, which all plague employers today.

  Three Core Learning Objectives

  1. Understand and define key differences between job boards, search engines, aggregators, and social media channels plus how algorithm changes and AI technology have impacted hiring strategies. You will be armed with ideas on how to strategically approach these channels when marketing roles for your organization in an effective way.

  2. Gain a sound understanding of the core elements of a job ad to gain more visibility and attract more qualified job seekers to your roles for active job seekers. Learn the strategic elements of a job ad that need to exist to give applicants a higher chance of finding your jobs.

  3. Know how to effectively develop the 3 core elements of the application process that leads to higher conversions, providing more applications and mitigate drop off rates. Learn the differences between resume parsing and profile parsing, and whether or not resumes will be part of the future of hiring

• You’ve Been Ghosted: 3 Steps to Becoming an HR Ghostbuster

  Ghosting is an issue that has plagued employers for years, but recently, this phenomenon has seen the disapparation of more applicants than ever before, almost reaching a new high of 28% in some industries. While many employers are blaming the rising generation, laziness, lack of respect or professionalism, etc., what if part of the problem was the employer’s fault?

  In this session we will cover how to become an HR ghostbuster by looking at three specific areas where ghosting occurs the most. Understanding why it occurs is the only way to potentially mitigate the issue and give your organization the opportunity to attract applicants, while keeping them interested and engaged to avoid losing them along the way.

  Finally, you will learn a bit more about quiet quitting, and how ghosting is related to this underlying issue.

  What would you do if you learned that quiet quitting is sometimes a call for help?

  Come learn to be an HR Ghostbuster, and you will have applicants and employees alike answering the question:

  Who you gonna call?

  Why, HR of course! Core Learning Objectives

  1. Understand how the application process can cause ghosting and three immediate practices that can be implemented to mitigate ghosting at this stage of the process.

  2. Define the job seeker persona to help avoid the common mistakes that lead to ghosting and understand how the job ad has a direct impact on the likelihood of ghosting from the application stage to the interview process.

  3. Gain a sound understanding of how manager engagement during the interview process can help stop ghosting and learn the three core elements needed to help managers better prepare for the interview.

  4. Learn the six core principles for practicing an engaged focus mentality versus the traditional focus mentality to help counter the effects of quiet quitting, leading to greater retention

Employee Referral Program: The Leader Branch of an Organization’s Hiring Tree

In his book, The Hiring Tree: Laws of Applicant Attraction, Steve uses the analogy of growing an apple tree and describes a fundamental part of the tree: the leader branch. This branch, when taken care of properly, eventually becomes the core branch from which all other branches will rely. This dependence on the leader branch is the only way the other branches can receive the right nutrients to produce quality fruit (hires).

The leader branch is your organization’s Employee Referral Program, commonly known as an ERP.

Without an effective program in place, other branches of your organization will suffer, producing poor quality fruit, less fruit, or no fruit at all. In our analogy, the fruit represents qualified job applicants for your open positions!

In this presentation you will learn the six core concepts that are the foundational principles for an effective Employee Referral Program. You will learn how this ERP can have a direct impact on all other branches of your organization’s Hiring Tree. Communication, social sharing features, your rewards program, and the metrics you track, all are important elements of your program. This session will empower you to make some fundamental changes that will produce increased employee participation and better quality job referrals, creating the most cost-effective employee referral program you’ve ever had!

Core Learning Objectives

1. Develop, implement, and manage an effective employee referral program using new rewards programs and effective sharing options to better utilize social media, email, text, QR codes and other formats to help increase employee participation

2. Discuss the six steps for success in creating an effective ERP and better understand the role of executives, managers, and employees in the process

3. Understand how often communication of a program should occur, and effectively create metrics by knowing what to measure and why

Job Ad Writing Workshop using AI

Did you know for every 1 applicant you see in your inbox, there are 100+ potentially interested and qualified candidates who didn't make it through the application process?

The challenge is that over 80% of companies admit to using a job description as their job ad, which limits their online visibility and searchability. In some cases, descriptions are also scaring applicants away. It is true that job descriptions can help identify particular skills or abilities that are necessary for a position or describe the environmental pressures that apply to the position. The job description can also help an organization stay compliant based on certain legal standards.

However, a job description was never meant to be an actual job ad.

The primary goal of your job ad is to create a consistent flow of applicants. It should be written as a means to better explain why a job seeker should want to apply to your job versus what they are doing currently.

In a hyper-competitive talent market, you want to stand out from the crowd rather than blend in. This workshop is designed to educate attendees on the history of recruitment marketing from the newspaper days to the evolution of smart technology, which was designed to simplify the hiring process. Understanding this technology and the role everyone in the organization plays in this process is crucial to success.

In this presentation/workshop, those attending will have the opportunity to follow 6 fundamental steps, better understand search engine optimization principles and practices, and be armed with the right questions to help gather details from hiring managers to build a solid foundation for the job ad itself. Finally, they will learn how AI technologies like ChatGPT can help facilitate this process, making it that much easier to follow the right steps for success!

A job ad template guide is provided to easily follow as well as sample prompts to facilitate the use of generative AI programs

Core Learning Objectives

1. Gain a sound understanding of the role of Search Engine Optimization, Artificial Intelligence, and other marketing principles in the hiring process

2. Learn the 6 fundamental steps to a job ad and how the order of your ad can produce 30-300% more applicants

3. Understand the basic concept of generative AI, which is only one of 6 AI concepts, and use the IDEA acronym to facilitate what is learned in this session, avoid the legal implications, and focus on what can be done in an ethical way.