Hiring Funnel - Candidate Pipeline

Applying the principles of sales funnel to recruitment process can not only bring more accountability to HR, but also help HR to monitor how well they stay on track to deliver results.

With help of historical values and input recruiting metrics, a hiring funnel can be designed in order to understand candidate pipeline anytime.

It all starts with the target hires per month (i.e. hires needed to execute the business plan). Then, a conversion rate hire-to-interview is reviewed to find out, how many interviews must be conducted in order to hire one person. Next, conversion rate interview-to-candidates is examined to learn, how many candidates must apply in order to select one for an interview.

Let’s look at an example. Say, 3 sales persons need to be hired at the beginning of the month. With the hires-to-interview ratio of 1/6, HR must interview 18 candidates in order to hire 3 of them. With the interview-to-candidates ratio of 1/8, HR needs to receive a total of 144 applications, or an average of 4.8 applications per day.

The figure below showcases the number of applications received in a given month against the daily target of 4.8.



As long as HR receives at least the specified number of applications per day, they know they stay on track. If the number is lower then the target, HR should take additional actions to fill the top of the hiring funnel, e.g. arrange new posting and/or refresh of job ads, wider candidates mining, new programs to encourage employee referrals, etc.

English Human Resources terms in Germany

English Human Resources terms in Germany

As many would advocate German job titles only, more and more English terms related to workplace, recruitment and HR are in everyday use in Germany. Here are some examples, with their German counterparts.

Assessment Center - betriebliches Auswahlverfahren, Personalauswahlverfahren

Burnout - Erschöpfung, Ausgebranntsein, ausbrennen

Casting - Darstellerauswahl, or generally Mitarbeiterauswahl

Director (English phonetics) - Leiter (director human resources - Personalchef, Leiter (des) Personalwesen(s))

Employer Brand - Arbeitgebermarke

Feedback-Gespräch - Mitarbeitergespräch

Generation @ - (Internet-)Generation

Hiring Freeze - Einstellungsstopp, Einstellen aller Einstellungen
Home-Office - Büro zuhause (BZH), Heimbüro

Incentive Bonus - Leistungszulage

Job - Arbeit, Arbeitsplatz, Beruf, Posten, Stelle
Job-Hopper - Springer, Wechselarbeiter (jemand, der durch häufigen Arbeitsplatzwechsel Karriere machen will)
Job-Hopping – häufige Abreitgeberwechsel
Job-sharing - Arbeitsplatzteilung

Keypeople - Personen in Schlüsselpositionen, Schlüsselfiguren
Know-how - Fachwissen, Sachverstand

learning-by-doing - Einarbeitung, Lernen in der Praxis

Mystery Jobber - Testkandidat

Newbie - Anfänger, Grünschnabel, Neuling

Onboarding - Mitarbeiterintegration, das Einstellen und Integrieren von neuen Mitarbeitern

Powerfrau - Kraftfrau, starke Frau
Patchwork-Lebenslauf - Lebenslauf mit vielen Berufswechseln und Unterbrechungen

Recruiting - Anwerbung, Personalbeschaffung, -einstellung, -suche

Shared-Service Center - unternehmensinterner Dienstleistungsbereich
Start-up - (Firmen-)Neugründung

Team - Mannschaft, Arbeitsgruppe, Gruppe
Team Player - Mannschaftsspieler
Top Management - Führungsspitze, oberste Führungsebene eines Unternehmens

Work-Life Balance - Arbeit und Freizeit im Einklang

Source for German counterparts is the website: http://www.vds-ev.de/aindex-thema

English Job Titles

Job ads are the most classical example for the intersection of human resources and marketing disciplines. Every day, human resource professionals are challenged with the task to phrase job titles in such a way that they catch job seekers attention and push the job ad to the top of search results in the job boards.

In non-English speaking countries like e.g. China, Germany and Poland, using English job titles is a common strategy to overcome this challenge. This recent practice goes however beyond the linguistic borrowings known in the past due to industrial developments. Consider for example the job title stewardess. As the passenger air traffic emerged, human resource professionals in different countries opted for the loanword to lessen pressure to come up with a suitable name in their local language quickly. In Polish, we adapted the word to Polish rules of job titles and still call a woman working in this profession a "stewardessa". In German, after years of using the English title, the new German title of "Flugbegleiterin" is now widely used, especially to underline the safety aspect of the role. Interestingly, the original English word has been replaced by newer job titles such as “flight attendant” or “cabin crew”.

But, how is then the today’s use of English job titles different?
Well, first, English job titles are being used for established professions for which local language equivalents exist. This has been often done by multinational companies implementing global HR agendas with standardized positions and hence position names. Secondly, by using English job titles companies hope to increase the value of jobs and thereby attract talent more effectively. This is especially true for less attractive positions accordingly to the job board Talent Frogs. Their research found out that 34 per cent of 865 job ads analyzed referred to jobs in lower salary range or primarily on a commission basis. Third, on the opposite, English job titles and for that matter the entire job ads phrased in English aim for discouraging applicants unable to understand them, provided high command of English is essential to the job duties. In similar fashion, German companies occasionally post job ads in German in China or Poland.

In order not to intimidate the job seekers, human resource professionals may be using following advice to guide their approach to using English in the job ads in non-English countries:
* Find a real good reason why to use a foreign language in your job ad,
* Prioritize understandability over commercialization,
* Do not assign job titles based on the fact that they sound nice,
* Phrase the job title in the way that it reflects key duties,
* Do not confuse the applicants, if the role does not foresee any direct contact with the customers do not call the position customer representative,
* Accurately describe the job itself,
* Avoid unnecessary sales talk,
* Invite job seekers to contact human resource department to inquire about the specifics of the position to alleviate their lack of understanding,
* Measure the performance of your job ad.

Last but not least, keep in mind that the most applicants do not appreciate English job titles accordingly to recent research by monster.de. Some 42 per cent of 2394 candidates interviewed in Germany consider using Anglicism as annoying and unnecessary. Only 10 per cent believe that they ease the communication.

Social Interview

The following case study shows how to recruit social media savvy minds.

The Social Interview is a new kind of job interview. Questions posted e.g. on the Facebook wall are not for candidates to answer, but for their friends to answer.

Recruiting metrics

Some recruiting metrics include: “Response time”, “Time to fill”, “Cost per hire”, “Offer acceptance rate”, “Quality of hire” and “Satisfaction index”. Emre Kavukcuoglu contributed one of the best post on that matter, with clear formulas and examples. However, as Marie Larsen rightly points out, recruiting metrics can be costly, inaccurate, and not actionable.

Does it then make any sense to suggest a few more such as input recruiting metrics?

Capturing these metrics can be helpful for many reasons. With these metrics, HR can better:
* evaluate the effectiveness of the job advertisements,
* assess the effectiveness of recruitment channels,
* understand the candidate pipeline, as well as quality and quantity of candidates,
* explore strength of the employer brand,
* estimate the resources needed to process applications received.

Some input recruiting metrics may include:
* Apply-to-view ratio – Number of job seekers who applied for the position/Number of job seekers who viewed the job ad on a job board
* “A” Player-to-candidate ratio - Number of job seekers who applied for the position with an “A” Player potential/ Number of job seekers who applied for the position
* Interview-to-apply ratio - Number of candidates who were interviewed/Number of job seekers who applied for the position
* Hire-to-interview ratio - Number of candidates who were hired/Number of job seekers who were interviewed
* Hire-to-apply ratio - Number of candidates who were hired/Number of job seekers who applied for the position
* Withdraw-to-interview ratio - Number of candidates who withdrew their application/Number of candidates who were interviewed

Companies may also consider capturing candidates’ reasons for withdrawal of their applications.

Trendy German neologisms and concepts

Recrutainment stands for experience-oriented recruiting. It is an example of an English sounding word that does not exist in English. It was created by the Cyquest GmbH, a German company specializing in e-Assessment tools and Human Resources Advertising and Marketing solutions.

Casting originates in performing arts and refers to a process for selecting a cast of actors, dancers and other talent for a live or recorded performance. As neologism in German language, casting stands for selection of employees independent of an industry (Auswahlverfahren von Mitarbeitern) and is used internally to probably pay justice to one’s need of being cool and trendy. Fortunately, recruiters are still called Recruiters and not Casting Directors.

Customers’ Feedback as a Component of Performance Appraisal

Feedback is an important component of performance appraisal. Involving customers in performance appraisals remains however a rarity in Germany. Generally, customers are also not involved into performance management.

Scouting China or Poland for that matter shows however a handful of examples how a feedback on customers representative performance can be an integral part of any interaction with the client. Banks clientele can assess tellers on a three point scale using a feedback devise right at the counter. Similar machines are placed next to immigration officers at Hong Kong borders. Next, some restaurants are fitted with communication devises with the staff including commands such as “We’d like to order”, “Please bring me some water”, “We’d like to pay” and “I enjoyed eating here today”. Furthermore, a feedback on a five point scale via text message is sought by travel sites after every call with the hotline representative. In Poland, the largest polish job board is bringing direct customer feedback into B2B world.



After posting an ad, one is asked to provide an assessment of cooperation with the sales representative.

The rating system has a high relevance to all client facing roles. As any other performance appraisal system, customer feedback must be linked to rewards. Otherwise, the process lacks impact. However, multiple advantages of customers’ ratings exist:
* Applying customers’ ratings at the point of contact produce reliable and consistent measurement of performance.
* The customers’ rating system is especially valuable to the employees’ development and satisfaction as it allows setting up objective goals more easily.
* It provides a simple format, it is brief (not time-consuming), easy to understand, and elicit useful information (customers’ satisfaction level with the service).
* It is designed to provide timely, impersonal and regular feedback, so that the employees can immediately know how their work is perceived by the customers.
* Employees can directly adjust their behavior to costumers’ expectations, thereby influencing the ratings.

As more and more, human resource professionals consider themselves in service to the internal clients, I wonder either they would welcome such feedback loop every time they deliver the service to company’s employees and managers.