Futurecasting How the rise of Big Social Data is set to transform the business of recruiting.

Dave Mendoza Global Talent Strategies & Innovation Consultant April 2013

Talent with impact

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Contents
Foreword by Gerry Crispin Introduction by Neil Griffiths The future of candidate insight Converging trends, emerging capabilities Big Datas impact on talent acquisition The strengths and weaknesses of CRM today Futurecasting what might it look like in practice? First things first: building a fit-for-purpose CRM Toward Futurecasting at Informatica Creating the Talent Knowledge Library Drilling down at Informatica and democratizing talent acquisition Big Social Data: the engine of Futurecasting methodology Trust in Registry: the implications of Futurecasting for the employer brand Seven things organizations should do right now to implement a Futurecasting methodology About the author References 3 4 5 6 7 9 12 14 15 16 17 18 19 21 22 23

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Foreword
There was a time, not so long ago, when recruiting was very much simpler. You had an approved opening and you filled it. The technology tools at your disposal included a phone, a rolodex, a notebook and a paper spreadsheet. Every recruiting office had a secretary to help arrange the interview schedule. And quality candidates were plentiful. Sourcing meant calling people on that rolodex, plus searching through other key sources the resumes of applicants whod previously made it to the finalist stage, your own private library of Whos Who directories, as well as professional journals whose authors could be targets. Getting the word out meant calling an advertising agency before Thursday, the deadline for most Sunday classified section display ads. The biggest choke point was getting the envelopes opened and the resumes sorted by job. A recruiting strategy meant knowing how long you would try to do all this on your own before calling in the third-party cavalry. Data conversations in those days were limited to selection and assessment decisions. The rest was simple arithmetic related to scale, relevant costs and little else. How many openings did we have? How many candidates? How many were qualified? How many hires were made in how much time? Where did we spend money? What was the most efficient use of our time in the assembly line, one-sizefits-all world we lived in? Cost per hire was about the only thing possible to manipulate any other data collection would have simply taken up more time and money than could be justified. Times have certainly changed. Today, there are multiple layers of technologies, tools, partners and services embedded in our recruiting processes many of them automated, operating in real time and, unfortunately, lacking any human oversight to ensure they continue to work in alignment with the businesses they serve. At the same time, the universe of potential applicants is increasingly knowable. In fact, billions of people are instantly identifiable globally years in advance of the moment we might need them. We may soon be able to access enough information to predict with high confidence how successful theyd be in our workforce, without ever having spoken to them. Some claim this is already a possibility. There are other factors at play. One of the most important is the fact that the pool of candidates capable of driving business performance forward has diminished. In the US, for example, for every 100,000 students entering the 9th grade in 2013, only 68,000 will graduate from high school in 2016. Only 40,000 of them will enter college that same year and in 2021 five years later fewer than 17,000 will graduate with a college degree. 800 of these college graduates will be engineers, but in that group only 125 will be mechanical engineers. 15 of the mechanical engineers will be women and fewer than five of those women will remain working in the profession by 2026. Even today, if you have an opening for a mechanical engineer with three to five years of experience in high-speed packaging design (and an SLA to ensure the slate is diverse), you know the competition is fierce and getting more so. Someday soon your companys survival may very well depend on being able to compete by a) getting to know those five women even before they have three to five years experience or b) changing the conversion rates noted above to produce more high school graduates, college graduates and engineers. So the future we are facing is very different to the past I described earlier. While recruiting as a profession is becoming ever-more complex and sophisticated, there is growing intensity of competition for quality candidates to fill pivotal positions. The real challenge and indeed the real opportunity is learning how to unlock the huge potential of the unprecedented levels of data we have access to today. This whitepaper is a step in that direction. Gerry Crispin CareerXroads

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Introduction
Nobody knows for certain what the future holds. But to me, it seems a sure thing that the coming years will see the rise of what we call Futurecasting: the ability to interrogate big data generated by the increasingly social digital world, and to begin basing hiring strategies and tactics on the new insights that are created. The potential, especially for the biggest global brands, is truly immense. There are literally billions of future applicants who could be identified, targeted and engaged years before their talents are even needed. In fact, the data already exists to do this. However, few organizations have dedicated the time and resource to intelligently and effectively mine that data, because it is not yet considered an essential agenda item for senior professionals in talent acquisition. But when the industry wakes up to the untapped potential, that situation is sure to change. And once it does, the key to using data to identify trends and patterns will be ensuring that the sources are reliable, and the techniques used are first-class. Suddenly, by viewing the data in the Foresight dashboard, HR professionals can see key decision metrics emerging and they can use that to determine how their organization and investments in talent acquisition are performing. Of course, HR professionals are not data scientists, and theres no reason to imagine they will be in the years to come either. Thats why the expertise of thought leaders like Dave Mendoza will prove to be vital for the talent industry. Here at Futurestep, weve been working with Dave to scope out the possibilities and practicalities of using multiple technologies to predict where to focus talent acquisition activities. Whether through defined and future-proofed Customer Relationship Management platforms (CRMs for short), social media data, or Applicant Tracking Systems, the holy grail is to be able to use these technologies to predict where the best and most relevant talent will be found. A key part of that is ensuring that data is high-quality and sustainable. The Futurecasting concept is the result of exploratory work seeking to define the best ways of applying big data principles to the talent acquisition process. Were excited to be working with thought leaders like Dave Mendoza to help shape and define what comes next.

At Futurestep, weve spent the past fourteen months building a decision support tool known as Foresight to tackle the convergence of big data and operational efficiencies. Foresight takes data from multiple systems being used across the talent acquisition lifecycle and presents information in a clear, By working with industry specialists and our concise display engine. From a single system, colleagues across Korn/Ferry International clients can now aggregate data into a logical and the Korn/Ferry Institute, our intent is to format for easy decision-making. ensure we continue to stay ahead of the curve, embrace the most relevant trends and help clients to use technology and innovation to their best advantage. Neil Griffiths Global Practice Leader, Talent Communications & Employer Brand Futurestep

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The future of candidate insight

Todays business world faces more data points than even before. But these have no value unless we can use them to make better decisions. Just imagine if we could transform all the cluttered, valueless data that exists and use it to make sourcing functions more effective, to dramatically improve workforce planning, and to increase the strategic value of competitive intelligence. That is what the idea of Futurecasting, as a methodology, offers organizations. A number of recent trends have converged to reveal Futurecasting as a high-potential concept. On one hand, in an increasingly knowledge-based economy, the globalization of corporations yields an urgent need for ever-better talent acquisition; CEOs leading some of the worlds largest companies often speak of this need. On the other hand, powerful new tools are at our disposal most notably social media platforms, integrated systems, and cloud storage of information. These enhance our ability to make use of ubiquitous Big Data. For instance, having longitudinal data (an always-on dynamic record) is now possible thanks to these tools. In fact, a large majority of people in the developed world cannot escape their own longitudinal data. After all, who among us has not left some digital record of our interests and achievements on sites such as LinkedIn or Facebook? Recruiters are now theoretically able not only to tap into these data streams, but also to manipulate the data to meet specific needs. It simply comes down to process, albeit a process that needs to tackle the complexities inherent in any Big Data initiative.

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Converging trends, emerging capabilities

Futurecasting is a concept thats built on a number of key trends and developments of recent years. Understanding Futurecastings potential and application is impossible without first understanding the trajectories of each of these trends. Big Data: a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using hands-on database management tools. Unlocking Big Data can bring huge benefits, as has been shown in a number of other fields. Today, for instance, techniques to interpret Big Data help us to spot business trends, measure the quality of research and combat crime. Social: for billions of people, the rise of social networking has transformed the way they conduct their personal and professional lives. LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Viadeo, Xing and Twitter are among the best known channels, but far from the only ones. And the sector is moving at a phenomenal pace. Only 10 years ago, Facebook was a site called Facemash with just 450 visitors. Put Big Data and Social together, and you get Big Social Data: every interaction with social media creates data points and these, over time, offer the potential to know individuals and groups within society in far greater detail than is currently possible. The marketing and research opportunities of Big Social Data have only just begun to be explored. But the impact on talent acquisition looks certain to be just as dramatic as the impact on the wider world of sales and marketing. The following glossary of terms will help readers further understand the remaining contents of this whitepaper: CRM I: Customer Relationship Management As a way of gaining insight into customer behaviors and buying patterns, sales and marketing departments used CRM platforms first. Data generated could provide valuable guidance on how warm or cold a sales lead was. These platforms are now adapting to Big Data and Big Social Data, providing new opportunities for marketers and salespeople. CRM II: Candidate Relationship Management The first CRM tools used in recruitment were simply repurposed Customer Relationship Management platforms. But soon, Candidate Relationship Management systems were developed not only capturing information, but also enabling regular communication with the right individuals. Note: through the rest of this paper, the acronym of CRM refers, in most instances, to CRM II. Advanced Programming Interface (API) This is a tool which allows different digital platforms to share dynamic data. For example, an API would be needed to extract information from a site like Facebook and then feed it into other applications, such as a companys own database. Social network aggregation platforms These enable users to share their activities from destinations such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms. Users can also integrate their blog posts and comments in the aggregation platform. Everything is shown in real time to other members who subscribe to a particular community, which eliminates the need to jump from one social media network to another. Futurecasting A next-generation approach to Candidate Relationship Management that harnesses Big Social Data to create a level of insight never before possible.

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Big Datas impact on talent acquisition

For much of 2012 there was talk of just what Big Data is, how it would affect talent acquisition and talent management, and how to work with the constant and much larger flow of data that will soon have an impact on this industry. Big Data, according to most major analysts, may change everything about what we do and why we do it. Juxtapose these attempts to make sense of Big Data with the actions of more and more companies, who today are looking to replace legacy systems, often a first step in capturing the insights of Big Data in their talent acquisition processes. As Josh Bersin noted in a recent report, every evolution leading to this point started with reporting and a core understanding, then moved on to predictive analysis. Thats how it happened in consumer marketings now prolific use of Big Data, and that is very likely how it will happen in HR. Simultaneously, the ongoing discussion about Candidate Relationship Management and Applicant Tracking Systems began to merge with a concurrent conversation around social recruiting. And against this backdrop, many talent acquisition professionals have questioned the value of adding extra social data to the disorganized and often redundant data already in our cluttered databases; the effect could be overwhelming, after all. Rarely, however, do companies refuse to tap into the deep well of candidate data (or consumer data, for that matter). The benefits of having all this candidate data are abundantly clear, yet the data itself has little value unless something can be achieved with it. The question is whether or not talent acquisition professionals can glean insight from their data in a way that turns the recruiting function around for their organizations. As things stand, most companies are only clear about how to accumulate data, not how to keep it, use it and interpret it. Despite increasing functionality within CRM suites and plugins within ATSs, the talent acquisition function still struggles to keep candidate data dynamic and current in a constantly changing workscape, even with the promise of social to do just that. Talent acquisition has certainly made recent strides in the reporting part of the data equation, but there is not yet a real understanding of how to prepare for Big Data particularly the protocols that should surround the accumulation of data and the storage and use of data, as well as the relational nature of social data and the interpretation and predictive analysis of you guessed it, data.

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The good news is that CRM suites are primed to manage the onslaught of data and make sense of it with enhancements and modifications, of course. An effective CRM can aggregate and sort through data to tell an organization where its talent audience spends time and in what ways and not just the hires that lasted and became internal stars, but the ones who resigned after three months as well. Done correctly, there is the potential for:

With todays social records, the data is there to keep track of the next job in the line. That kind of information, along with companyspecific job titles, can assist workforce planning in a big way. Big Data analyses hold great potential to answer critical questions whose answers have practical applications for talent acquisition specialists:

forecasting to become Futurecasting reporting to become auto-analysis useless information to become essential information time-consuming activity to become efficient jumbled data to become decisionsupporting analysis

Consider the alternative. If a companys talent management team isnt keeping track of where the organizations employees and applicants come from, and if it isnt keeping that record alive with information about how they fared, its doing the organization a disservice and at some point, catching up will become nearly impossible because the hurdles are too great to surmount practically.

What universities and trade schools do competitors invest resources in? What are the most common, identifiable patterns that reflect sources of hire among key competitors? Who do they hire from, and are there commonalities in job title descriptions? What product verticals align most appropriately to corporate offerings, and are the skillsets involved consistent? How do competitors establish quotas to measure performance? What are key indicators of recognition and awards among key business functions such as R&D and sales? What is the average length of time identified to progress from a graduate intern to a software architect or management role? How do all the above questions factor into internal organizational best practices, and has the organization created a platform as a depository to archive these critical data inputs? Is the Talent Knowledge Library available at an enterprise level, and is the data accessible in real-time? How do all the above compare to the organizations own, internal talent acquisition functions in determining source of hire, and how can that knowledge translate into actionable improvements in time-to-fill and cost-per-hire?

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The strengths and weaknesses of CRM today

How people use CRM in their sourcing and recruiting is a crucial part of the process. In fact, many of the potential cons can be eliminated or exacerbated based on the way a person interacts with the software itself. Big Data is often misunderstood, especially by those within talent acquisition. While gradually influencing discussions within the talent acquisition industry, the common agreement is that it will affect us, but many are not sure how. Used to wrangling large and unwieldy spreadsheets and juggling SQL databases that would make other departments cringe, talent acquisition professionals think they can handle Big Data when and as it comes. But there is a reason that there has been a massive uptick in calls for data scientists and a spike in requisitions for psychologists to interpret this data. With Big Data, the influx of data is fierce and only will become more so. Organizations need and many currently lack an adequately evolved system, comprising technology and human skillsets and processes, to make sense of all the data and develop wisdom from the interpretation of it. BIG DATA, BY DEFINITION Big Data is a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand database management tools. Big Data allows correlations to be found to make all sorts of reliable, important, actionable judgments about different things. If Big Data can be used to do all that, then workforce planning, recruiting and sourcing should be a cinch. In fact, Big Data is already being touted as a real weapon in the war for talent, ostensibly able to: identify business trends determine quality of research (or sourcing) develop competitive intelligence discover or determine real-time career progression illuminate hiring trends target geographic shifts of a talent audience (local, regional, national, global) But the definition remains and haunts us: a collection of data sets so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process using on-hand database management tools.

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Database tools such as the beloved CRM system are effective in fields identifying what exists, but fail miserably in reverse-engineering the process by incorporating fields that search for what does not exist within records. For instance records that do not have:

Key variables are significant and worth addressing in the talent mapping process coinciding with key business intelligence being factored into a robust CRM:

mobile or work or home phone numbers a social media specific URL (linkedinID, Linkedin Recruiter, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) an attachment pdf or Word doc resume an employer listing a job title a city or state or country a linked job/pipeline ID notations a source ID

The limitations of todays out-of-the-box CRM Therein resides the inability to deal with the Big Data wave using existing, off-the-shelf CRM systems. If only fields that have text entry are searchable, then that renders incomplete records unsearchable. For each of the lines listed above, data that is not there will limit the searchable capability inherent within records. And what about the revolution that is currently underway within talent acquisition? As has been noted for the last five years by social recruiting vendor Jobvite, more companies are jumping onto the social recruiting bandwagon, with as many as 92% of companies using social recruiting as part of their talent acquisition process. So how do CRMs (both process and software) deal with this advent? Not well many company records have lagged in the default inclusion of critical competitive intelligence fields. Source of Hire, for example, is a category of form fields, not simply a single transaction as generally considered.

Top schools: are there specific universities generating certain types of candidates? Prior employers: are there attributable patterns of both immediate and former competitor companies feeding your talent pipelines and hires? Post employers: which competitors, within an industry niche or skill set category, do employees likely migrate to and why? Online social real estate of a competitors ecosystem: is it varied and are there established best practices inherently observable within any given competitors online presence (corporate blogs, online developer communities, careers page, LinkedIn corporate careers page, Facebook careers, career-oriented Twitter accounts, webinars/podcasts, newsletter email updates?)

While the list may seem long, consider this. If 92% of companies are using social to recruit, many of them already have access to that information, and instead of being able to create a rich and dynamic database within their CRM (one that would be eminently searchable), in many cases, these companies are shoving those URLs wherever they can find them, in a neglected notes section or using tags as a way to search for records. Often, this process results in duplicates, multiple spellings and acronyms and general search confusion; a muddying of the data waters. Again, this shows that in our most-used systems (CRM is arguably second only to the ATS in the talent acquisition function), talent acquisition professionals have yet to adapt to the influx of social data, much less prepare for the Big Data that is coming.

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The mobile factor Mobile is also a concern for many employers. While social recruiting is de rigueur in North America, in Europe, the UK and APAC there is a bigger explosion in the area of mobile recruiting. And global recruiting requires access to candidates data which includes mobile phone data. But again, the way we use CRM is not optimized for that. For any global enterprise that has a centered sourcing function, the ability to automatically generate a country code for SMS text messaging campaigns doesnt currently exist. Therefore, training for users must be mandatory so they know the limitations of CRM when it comes to mobile. Limitations in the CRM are a long-term fix to be sure, but there are ways that recruiters, sourcers and administrators themselves can edit the internal data. Two things make this more difficult to do, than to say. The first is, as discussed, the lack of default fields within the system and second, the inability to mass edit within a system. In simpler terms, until the proper tools are built to handle the new data being used as part of the talent acquisition process, we need to dramatically change the processes we use on a regular basis, for everyone on the sourcing and recruiting teams. This is called standardization of process. Before we move on, lets talk a little bit about why fresh, dynamic data is important, aside from the obvious search benefits. To do so, we need to look back at the original CRM systems, as sales and marketing departments used them. The key here is the relationship part. In recruiting as in sales, were in a costly and inefficient cycle; whenever there is turnover in either contract or full-time recruiting, there is a relearning of skills and processes. It is crucial to recognize that at this point the data stays the absolute same, but the ways the data was inputted, sorted and used were as myriad as the people within the company with access to the data. The process was variable.

During the turnover process, relationships must be rebuilt from scratch and the facts relearned by the newest workers, which risks alienating candidates and prospects in multiple ways: Repeated and/or redundant communications Additional contact requests for old information Undermining the brand of the company with different or conflicting messaging

There is a high cost as well in obtaining data that the organization may already have, whether stored improperly or unsearchable. When data is entered improperly or exists as duplicate data, it ultimately costs the organization. When the data changes outside the CRM, but not within it, the data stored there (your organizations rightful intellectual property) becomes irrelevant and the cost obtaining it, wasted. For all of these reasons and more, clean and dynamic data from all sources should be the aim of every person on the talent acquisition team.

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Futurecasting what might it look like in practice?

Building a CRM as a solution for talent acquisition is about having access to key talent data that can transform the record into a profile that has an extended period of shelf life and can be measured. Companies adept at data mining will use a knowledge-discovery framework to predict whats next and increase the viability of their competitive intelligence and talent acquisition functions. Across the enterprise, organizations that recognize and capitalize on the opportunity Futurecasting offers experience several benefits: more detailed demographic models, product aligned to new hires skillsets, shorter time-to-fill at a lower cost. The resulting, greater in-house reliability of new hires to carry out the needs of the organization inevitably speeds the product development and sales cycles, which then enjoy greater profit margins. The old ways Lets look at the old way of doing things. This would get in the way of building an agile CRM to get at and make sense of the real-time data that would enable organizations themselves to become equally agile in their acquisition of talent. Imagine, for instance, a report consisting of over 250 companies to demonstrate a clients competitive landscape for talent. Ten different sources are reviewed to calibrate for accuracy. All the aforementioned is conducted manually in a spreadsheet. Given factors of time, mergers and acquisitions, and the business cycle itself, the business intelligence report becomes dated material upon submission. Access to the document limits the ability to distribute its data to provoke discussion and unearth best practices. Above all other considerations, the product is static. Any revisions to update critical information are based on initiative and conducted manually, by hand. The future is now: off-the-shelf technologies can create a new paradigm today The future will not be like this. Aided by Futurecasting, the next generation of talent acquisition solutions will give social aggregators center stage. Developers APIs will make manual row-by-column edits a thing of the past and transform data into a dynamic, evolving stream of information always in real-time and providing the basis upon which to make sensible, objective decisions drawing on data immediately at the disposal of recruiters and sourcers. SaaS and mixed-and-matched real-time data making it possible Some readers might recognize that this is a description of the practical progression of Software as a Service (SaaS) to achieve its promise on behalf of talent acquisition. Consensus is now building behind cloudbased, distributable platforms that are accessible across multiple corporate functions, to meet the demands of a globally oriented talent acquisition organization. What is missing among todays vendors offerings of SaaS platforms is the convergence of off-the-shelf technology to include an all of the above capability within one platform. Emancipating data-sharing with open source In keeping with an open-source philosophy, if the talent acquisition industry communicates a demand for all its vendors to establish relations to collaborate on the notion of data-as-a-service, the potential is limitless where data warehousing across industries develops proprietary relationships with social platforms. Automated convergence is the principle outcome of harvesting once disparate and multiple developer APIs form a common platform from which to exchange and communicate information.

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To illustrate, a next-generation SaaS based, open-source platform could easily be configured to key data outlets: Dow Jones & NASDAQ: real-time market data triggering RSS feeds to alert competitors to likely layoffs Hoovers: contact information, competitive reports, and the ability to develop targeted executive listings LinkedIn: identifying competitors products and services to add relevance to search keywords, to the more critical business intelligence aspects (where employees came from, as well as top skills and expertise by function)

Why is all this important? Automation and convergence of data offer the following capabilities accurately forecast which candidate will stay and for how long determine real-time career progression create talent pipelines that assess cultural fit long before the application process nurture candidates and students years before they apply identify business market trends, mergers and acquisitions and align product with them bolster the candidate experience by automating relationship-building communications and establishing alerts to ensure prospects are notified of developments regularly, in a timely fashion

The net result is compelling. Talent acquisition professionals will find themselves able to finely tune and refresh data to more efficiently target candidates and build high-functioning talent pipelines. In this scenario, the only limitation is imagination, really. Above all the talent acquisition industry should demand ease of use, free from premium costs, in the ability to customize data fields to configure key data. Smart vendors will embrace these demands. Their obligation is to offer their clientele in HR and talent acquisition tools that are easily configured and customized to specific needs; these tools must be usable and searchable. Talent leaders should feel free to suggest any data categories that would enhance a platforms capabilities, because too often a few simple tweaks are all that is necessary to find the right talent.

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First things first: building a fit-for-purpose CRM

Process issues are often caused by a lack of training or a disorganized approach to using the CRM. Best practice involves first setting the protocols and then providing education to ensure everyone is following the correct process. An example of this is segmenting lists when the profile is initially placed so that the system doesnt become cluttered and frustrating to navigate. Building an audience filter at the source is much simpler than trying to segment later. A CRM implementation must be operated from a talent perspective. Workflow issues generally stem from a Its crucial to have criteria to determine lack of specific plans for what each user of whether a source of information is CRMthe CRM creates, when they create it and how eligible and aligned to a particular pipeline. it gets stored in the system. Protocol issues In any inventory system, you have to prioritize can often be fixed by creating a standard and establish the source channel to fully use plan and procedure that each member of the each source to its true potential. In the building global talent acquisition team must follow. of a CRM, to ensure a fail-safe process, you For example, forward-thinking clients are must cross-reference various data sources proactively preparing for an API that makes as inventories for reference. Then, to expand it simple to integrate social data into their the CRMs capabilities and navigation, CRM systems. Because those fields are already you identify additional channels you wish filled with data from Twitter, LinkedIn and later to integrate. Facebook, they can be hooked up when the technology is available. This is a much better Administrative issues feed into both of protocol than wasting hours going back these. When you lack a dedicated quality through every record to find potential social assurance process or administrative function data for that profile. (even on a consultative or contract basis), you lose quality and freshness of data. You should also establish a universal template system as part of the administrative function; this must be suitable across geographic regions and business organizations. As well as standardizing the nomenclature, this also prescribes a minimum viable data format for each record. Lack of customizable data fields and, worse still, the existence of empty ones they all obstruct the capabilities of filters and search results; they limit the modern CRMs potential to produce actionable information. Common missing fields include those for mobile phone numbers, social media-specific URLs and job titles. Limiting the parameters for how both to filter and segment data inevitably leads to false exclusions or inclusions in a CRMs search results. CRMs have a pivotal role in making Futurecasting a reality for organizations. Yet any CRM system is only as good as the data it includes. The most common problems with the data are caused by human factors. While these are certainly frustrating to encounter, they are usually the easiest to fix. Human factors as defined here are usually workflow-related, process-related or administrative in nature.

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Toward Futurecasting at Informatica

Data is at the heart of so many conversations today, but its not the data: Its the access to the right data at the right time by the right person. Its about being able to put your finger on a piece of data that helps make a business decision or to find that pink squirrel with purple polka dots in our world. The work Dave has done to embed the key nuggets of data into our CRM is the game changer for us. Previously, we had no repository that would allow for unstructured data to be housed and retrieved. With Daves practical approach to data capture and retrieval, we now have a central databank of very specific competitive intelligence that has the ability to withstand time with its social and mobile aspects built in for future proofing. Brad Cook, Global Vice President Talent Acquisition Informatica Through this implementation, Informatica was able not only to review source-of-talent channels within one platform, but also merge talent community members with existing lead generation for a more complete profile record, and all in real-time. As a result, Informatica transcended out-of-the-box CRM to configure form fields and other CRM functionalities that enhanced the recruiters experience and capabilities. In the creation of this approach, the standard for passive pipeline to yield data deliverables had to meet the following criteria:

1) Data must be usable and searchable. The data should be easy to filter by data equal to, containing, or not equal to key criteria, and custom fields specific to social platform hyperlinks to accurately identify missing data, as well as data Futurecasting is not about where candidates missing as a subcomponent. (recruiters leads) are now; it concerns a 2) Extraction and leveraging of data must system-wide, strategic effort to harvest and be easy to ensure a tool that is at once combine dynamic and static data regarding powerful, intuitive and requires minimal prospects, to enable a talent pool to be training. The solution would be used by searchable for years as it feeds off multiple a diverse community of recruiters, only a data points, ensuring its own relevance. handful of whom had an appreciation of Illustrating this is my work with Informatica, data science. drawing on the concept of passive pipelining 3) Data must be capable of being migrated which is to say, creating a pipeline that a talent from multiple lead-generation channels acquisition team can source from, at any time, spreadsheets, job boards, online resumes, to identify source-of-hire information among talent communities, social profiles, etc. immediate and prior employees. in order to optimize removal of duplicates and track metrics of source-of-hire more accurately and consistently. Overview 4) Data must be categorized, tagged and Informatica reviewed its database and mapped to talent for ease of segmentation. determined that Jobs2Web, the companys A successful configuration can allow for SEO product, would benefit from the segment creations in a matter of seconds, dynamic environment of my CRM platform. and these can be complex such as the The first step in data migration was a direct ability to splice a talent pool by profiles import of the corporate talent organizations with a LinkedIn URL. entire database originating from the talent community population. In addition, a live-feed was created to integrate the flow of new talent community registrants in real-time, within the CRM platform.

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Creating the Talent Knowledge Library

The Talent Knowledge Library (TKL) is a simple proposition: providing a secure, cloud-based depository for business intelligence that is actionable for recruitment needs, where data is fed by various online APIs to ensure real-time relevance. A TKL is accessible throughout the talent acquisition enterprise and standardized for prompt plug-and-play in order to produce automated search queries. In practice, this is a functionality that makes Futurecasting possible. Aligning social data and business intelligence provides greater context to how competitors skills, job titles, and products compare to those of your own organization. Migrating data from various databases within one platform, strengthened by a multitude of developer APIs: documents an organizational processes creates a depository of data inputs comprising the organizations competitive talent landscape, allowing for greater comparative analysis identifies critical source-of-hire information to benchmark patterns among prior employers of interviewees, offers made, and hires develops nomenclature be it key skillsets, industry terms of art, or product relevance In todays CRM, too often search strings are accessed and utilized by precisely one person, the sourcer. The sourcing strings within current platforms are often unique to the user, which makes standard protocol difficult to adopt. A TKL would dramatically enhance the ability to provide missing context. It would promote recruitment efficiency in distinguishing among applicants, and offer effective standardization to sourcing teams aspiring to develop more accurate leads with automated and standardized macros of search string, plugged and played, to be equivalent in accuracy to those created by their most advanced researchers within the organization. Via a TKL, the talent organization has a means to archive the successes of its best recruiters, at a tactical level, and the means to distribute the learning as data that can be distributed throughout its global operations, to the benefit of critical hiring verticals. A TKL would record team member usage of all vendor-supplied tools within one instance, creating real-time reports to gauge relevance and effectiveness as an investment within the hiring cycle. It would allow for successful behaviors and methods to be tracked within a source-of-hire report, and provide the means to be reproduced for each business organizations hiring vertical. A TKL is an extension of the Futurecasting methodology: it fosters the use of several data points to help talent acquisition professionals establish patterns and make objective decisions. Data becomes relevant for both immediate and long-term decisionmaking processes. The data a TKL utilizes would have longevity beyond the combined intellectual contributions of any one team member in one day, but for that day and all days thereafter. The TKL would create a searchable and usable library of talent knowledge that is virtually immune to intellectual property loss, turnover or transition slowdowns and process breakdowns, all because the data lives in the cloud and is constantly current. Accessible to all in the talent acquisition organization, the TKL must be, by definition, both distributable and searchable by standard keywords, job titles and more. A proper TKL would have a system that allows anyone to pull up folders of search strings based on common search terms.

Copyright2013. Korn/Ferry International/Futurestep, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Drilling down at Informatica and Democratizing Talent Acquisition

At Informatica, I established CRM template forms outlining competitor nomenclature; top producers awards and recognitions, natural language terminologies, alignment by product, and pre-set sourcing strings. By developing a process that resulted in archiving the history of Informaticas talent organizations knowledge base, team members elevated their understanding of nuances between terms. By inputting product relevance, matching competitive titles, skill keywords and identified competitors, Informaticas talent acquisition specialists increased the data relevance of search results to import into the CRM in the first place. Exemplifying the by-product of a TKL in practice, Informaticas team addressed natural language as an indicator of performance and reviewed data patterns in both curricula vitae and social profiles that would correctly identify a talent prospect being recognized for one or more of the several awards and recognitions provided by their employers. For example: (Competitor X OR Competitor XY) Product + Performance Indicator + Skill/Expertise = Hire Over *% of quota in * Achieved *% of FY* plan *+ Quota of $.*.million (percent | %) exceed Quota FY Achieved *% of Annual Quota (Top 10% | Top ten percent | top 10 percent) year over year sales quota attainment By elevating their level of fluency in terminologies relevant to targeted leads among the competitor pool, Informaticas recruiters and sourcers were able to equip themselves with a formula-driven aptitude for more precise hires. The impact of this was immediately seen in standard success benchmarks within talent acquisition such as time-to-fill and cost-per-hire, because recruiting was just plain easier. By having clear and standardized data fields, the new approach made recruiters work quicker and less prone to error. During the course of the implementation, specifically in configuring customized fields to cleanly inputted data and emphasizing social data as a module for each work record, we came to a critical realization: conventional, traditional work contact information, previously the holy grail of a CRM record, is no longer a sufficient or viable option to ensure longitudinal history for a candidate. Instead, by ensuring that each record has a complete record of hyperlinked LinkedIn ID, Twitter URL and other social links all updated in near real-time Informatica now creates dynamic profiles out of stagnant profiles to ensure that relevant, accurate contact data is available and record maintenance performed at each phase of sourcing, through recruitment. In other words, the CRM has a new lifespan that underscores the concept of Futurecasting, an industry game-changer. Record maintenance, or data quality process, is one of the most important parts of the Futurecasting methodology. The maintenance of records, alongside the customization of a CRM, is the cornerstone of new projects Im working on. Viable data with a dramatically extended shelf life is no longer as easily susceptible to drastic market shifts and attrition that could negatively impact the searchability of passive candidates.

Copyright2013. Korn/Ferry International/Futurestep, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Big Social Data: the engine of Futurecasting methodology

Simply stated, Futurecasting is about managing the life span of your talent audience as a proactive pipeline tomorrow and thereafter. Building CRM as a solution is about gaining access to key talent data that transforms the record into a profile and ensures relevance over an extended period of shelf life, something that can be measured. In developing its methodology and full lifecycle of implementation, one can clearly see that it provides incredible value. Companies end up investing in data that is strategic and durable. Corporate talent organizations prosper not simply by comparing the quantity of data records, but by nurturing data to become composite profiles and by creating access to data across social platforms through a detailed methodology, which underpins relevance. Today the technologies for all of this are readily available, if not yet fully converged, and companies who have access to their data and identify practices and learn from it are investing in their own enduring intellectual property to hire the best in a more proactive manner than ever deemed possible. Big Social Data is the fuel. With it, a Futurecasting methodology has: One lead and one record within one place and linked to all pipeline and job ID reqs, resulting in massive cost savings by ending sourcingrelated multi-billing for duplicate lead records. All leads vetted already by the recruiters and sourcers who generated the data over several years all records merged and updated for shelf-life extension through nowperfunctory social media fields. Recruiters and sourcers can come and go, because of forever data. This essentially secures the intellectual property of the data without the need to rely on individuals and their consistency to track it. Whenever feasible, automation as the common denominator. Organizations can now see to it that candidates are re-engaged at appropriate time periods. RSS feeds now alert team members globally of sudden market developments adversely affecting key competitors. Macro functionality standardizes the expertise level of search strings applied in identifying and creating pipelines.

Copyright2013. Korn/Ferry International/Futurestep, Inc. All rights reserved.

Talent with impact

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Trust in Registry: the implications of Futurecasting for the employer brand

Notably and naturally, Futurecasting has implications for the talent acquisition professionals relationship with the targeted talent. Organizations that establish a Trust in Registry help themselves in navigating through the coming changes. A term coined by Gerry Crispin, author of this whitepapers foreword, a Trust in Registry presents a mutual advantage for talent acquisition specialists and candidates. Candidates today are records, but with the philosophy of Futurecasting and progression of technology, records are becoming profiles: the sum of many records, all consolidated. We are moving to a stage when anyone active in social networks will have what amounts to a digital wallet comprising their social data links, etc. Knowing that companies store this data, candidates can gain access to it for ease of mobility. As we approach ubiquity in the availability of Big Social Data, a Trust in Registry will equal the sum of social data and the mutual trust in the transactions between job seekers and career providers or potential employers. Cloud-based, it will be a service utility. By designing and sharing a disclosure with their targeted talent, organizations assure these populations that theyre not building merely a database (a sterile, faceless talent pool), but instead trust management relationships. These trust management relationships speed communication and enable talent acquisition organizations to track longitudinal data successfully. At its core, this is a transformation of dynamics surrounding the employer brand.

Copyright2013. Korn/Ferry International/Futurestep, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Seven things organizations should do right now to implement a Futurecasting methodology

Without a blueprint or initial guidance, the organization that would otherwise embark on a plan to implement Futurecasting a methodology possible to employ right now might give up altogether for want of simple first steps. This whitepaper aims to help such organizations jump-start the process. What follows, therefore, are seven steps that are recommended for any organization looking to take advantage of the Futurecasting methodology. 1) Map the organizations process Creating a fully functional CRM begins with mapping out your talent acquisition process, from first contact with a prospective candidate to when they come aboard. If this is not something that youve previously worked on within your company, now is the time to make it a priority. How can you know what you need from your system if you havent identified it within your process? 2) Standardize the organizations protocol The very first step that any organization should undertake toward a realizing more efficient CRM is to create a standard protocol. Initiate a stakeholder-driven effort to establish a workflow process that applies to the entire CRM lifecycle, with each stakeholders role clearly established and documented. For instance: What default fields do you retain vs. which customized fields need to be created to meet your organizational needs? What determines a complete record profile vs. a record that requires additional revision? What is the data quality review process by which incomplete records are reconciled? What is the standardized model for geo-locational, industry-specific, or in-house organizational data? What is the standardized model for number-based entries such as postal codes and telephone numbers (no dashes or numbers only)? What is the agreed-upon terminology for a tagging system, list titles, and job ID vs. pipeline requisitions? 3) Add social data You might claim to be operating within social recruiting. But if youre not already incorporating social data into the tools you use, youre missing half the equation. While many systems do not yet have clickable URL fields available by default (such as a link to someones LinkedIn profile), you can certainly set them up as customized portions of your candidate profiles. 4) Segment the organizations data Because its such an important part of CRM, segmenting audiences should be an ingrained process for every sourcer and recruiter. A basic user can easily create simple segmentation, and advanced users can build rules and filters robust enough to allow the CRM to recognize a Twitter URL vs. a LinkedIn URL, if these are capable of being segmented. For instance, an organization might want to, and would be able to, split lists by those with Twitter URLs and those with only LinkedIn URLs to then push these leads into groups or as followers to a corporate career site or user name. Once the data is segmented, an API facilitates the uploading. Though not all CRMs currently offer this feature as an off-the-shelf option, it soon will be standard. So start proactively adding URLs: when the CRM has that capability, the organization can be sourcing immediately. 5) Reinforce competitive intelligence as a workflow process Adding an organizations own job titles to search for people within the system doesnt always make sense. In fact, unless the organization is one of the worlds largest companies or a governmental entity, it makes no sense at all. Ideally, most of the profiles in the system are of passive candidates. Their job titles will likely look very different from those used within the company. So make sure to build in titles for competitor organizations and create a more robust search string for example, x is far more useful than y to account for these discrepancies. In the same vein, consider using notes and tags to discover marks of distinction that competitors routinely give out (e.g. Presidents Circle, Chairmans Club, Catalyst Award).

Copyright2013. Korn/Ferry International/Futurestep, Inc. All rights reserved.

Talent with impact

6) De-duplicate and enforce data quality standards to your organizations database Though not a short or easy process, it is one that every company under the age of five years should do on a regular basis, at least until the technology does it for us. By ridding the database of duplicate records, the organization accomplishes two things: It determines where its data needs to be standardized (see step 1). It saves time when looking for records. By cleaning up the database ridding it of incorrect, incomplete or old information and replacing all that with correct, complete, new information the organization accomplishes another two things: It creates URLs for profiles that didnt have them before. It fills in fields that are empty, making that profile fully searchable. 7) Recognize the value of intellectual property With recruiting turnover and contract recruiting a fact of life for many local and global organizations, companies need to realize the value of their data. Simply put, if an organization pays someone to source data on a daily basis, it must make sure that it keeps that data safe and validated by following the steps listed above.

Copyright2013. Korn/Ferry International/Futurestep, Inc. All rights reserved.

Talent with impact

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About the author

Dave Mendoza provides global talent strategies at the executive level of Fortune 500 companies and start-ups, in addition to product development and innovation consultations to vendors in the HR and talent space. Dave introduced the concept of talent mapping using business intelligence methodologies and was an early evangelist for social recruitment. His research utilizing Big Data principles has explored the broad implications of social data convergence, business intelligence as a service, and retaining organizational intellectual property through the application of a talent knowledge library. Recognized for Strategic TA Roadmap on behalf of Informatica: * Winner 2011 ONREC Recruiting Innovation Award * Winner 2011 ERE Recruiting Excellence Award Best Strategic Use of Technology * One of the first to oversee Jobs2Web Talent Community feed & ATS integration with CRM launch in collaboration with clients sourcing management * A global speaker, he has evangelized talent mapping in 10 countries within the past 12 months ldavemendoza@gmail.com SixDegreesfromdave.com www.linkedin.com/in/ldavemendoza/

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References
Good Data Wont Guarantee Good Decisions. Harvard Business Review. Shah, Shvetank; Horne, Andrew; Capell, Jaime;. HBR.org. Retrieved 8 September 2012. Big Data in HR: Why its here and what it means. Bersin, Josh: http://www.bersin.com/blog/post/BigData-in-HR--Why-its-here-and-what-it-means.aspx November 17, 2012. Does Big Data Live Up To Its Hype? Lorenz, Mary. http://thehiringsite.careerbuilder.com/2012/11/15/does-big-data-live-up-to-its-hype/ November 15, 2012.

Copyright2013. Korn/Ferry International/Futurestep, Inc. All rights reserved.

Talent with impact