SAP Recruiter Podcast | ASAP Talent Services

There are 10 steps that I believe will improve the hiring process and simultaneously give you a competitive edge in our competitive marketplace. Subscribe to my Video Updates Request a Free Consultation There are 10 steps you can take to improve the hiring process and get a competitive advantage for landing talent in such a competitive market like we're currently in today. Don't overlook making the interview a positive experience for the candidate. Have a defined process in place: It's better to have a precise, streamlined process so that you get to the offer stage faster.Use a recruiter who is an industry expert: They can not only go after the non-active job seekers in the marketplace, they can help you get to the top talent a lot faster and save your team both time and energy.Concisely define the skills that are necessary for the job: If you can keep it to three to five must-have things for someone to be successful in the role, you qualify everything else as 'nice to have.'Don't make a lowball offer: For one, the candidate won't take it and it will leave a bad taste in their mouth. Also remember that it will impact your brand negatively in the candidate marketplace, and you can't afford that.Give quick and detailed feedback to your recruiters, both internal and external: They need to quickly know that someone wasn't the right fit so they can make adjustments accordingly.Don't forget to sell your company when interviewing: This includes the product, the culture, the vision, the work-life balance--sell the opportunity, not just what you're looking for. Make interviewing a positive experience for the candidate. Review how to onboard people better: This means from the moment of extending the offer all the way to the start date. Communicate with them more often and make sure they feel welcome and prepared for their first day. Have a complete onboarding process that goes way beyond day one: It should go into the first 90 to 120 days and be clearly defined on paper.Have cohesive message about the opportunity: The written job description on your website and every person on the interview panel need to be on the same page in the messaging and how critical it is, and exactly what you're looking for. All parties should also be selling what's so great about the culture and the long-term opportunity. I hope this is helpful to you in your efforts to improve your hiring process. I'd love to hear your ideas on how to improve this process as well. If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to speaking with you!

Exit interviews are a useful tool. They will be especially useful in the coming years as talent will be harder to come by. Subscribe to my Video Updates Request a Free Consultation Exit interviews can help you improve your company culture, learn from your mistakes, and even help you retain your best people. As we get into 2017 and beyond, there will be a real war on talent, especially in vertical industries like IT, healthcare, and engineering. We know there will be a huge shortfall of talent in these areas based on studies that are coming out. The baby boomers are retiring and leaving the workforce and there aren’t enough talented people in the next generation to take their places. Experts believe India and China could give us all the outsourcing help we could possibly handle and there would still be a talent shortfall in the U.S. in the next 10 years. Companies will make some pretty aggressive counteroffers in exit interviews. When companies, hiring managers, and HR departments start to understand this, exit interviews become very important. They allow you to ask questions about why people are leaving, what’s going on with company culture, and whether you failed to engage the employee in their role or not. It’s important to not only sincerely ask these questions, but it might give you the opportunity to retain an “A” player in the process. Companies will make some pretty aggressive counteroffers in exit interviews because they know how difficult it will be to replace that person.  Hopefully this has awoken you as to the importance of exit interviews. Use them to learn, be honest, and leave the door open to have that person come back down the road. Some of the best companies are even building alumni networks to supplement this idea. If you have any questions for me, don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you.

If you really want to know whether a job applicant is worth your time to meet in person, there are eight key points you should focus on in their resume. Subscribe to my Video Updates Request a Free Consultation Most hiring authorities take between 60 and 90 seconds to make a decision as to whether they want to see that applicant in person. Here are eight things you should key in on when it comes to reviewing resumes: 1. The look and feel: By this, I mean how professional the format of the resume looks.2. The objective statement: Reading this lets you get a sense of the applicant’s career and what they’re really looking for. Sometimes it’s not always the same as what they’re currently doing or what they used to do.3. Dates of previous positions: Their timeline will give you an idea of their longevity in the roles they’ve previously held and how much career experience they have.4.Their career path: What were they doing 10 or 15 years ago? How about five years ago? What were their titles? Were they promoted every two to three years? Are they on an upward career path and gaining more responsibility regularly or have they plateaued and taken a step back? 5. The companies they’ve previously been at: Are they companies you know well and have a good brand or a good reputation for hiring talented people? How long did they stay at their companies? If the applicant stayed at their previous companies for three to five years or more in the IT market, that’s a good sign. The past is a great predictor of the future, and if someone has to have a new job every 18 to 24 months, there’s a high probability they’ll only stay that long with you. The past is a great predictor of the future. 6. Education: It’s always a good idea to look over this section thoroughly.7. Skills and experience: Do they have the right skills and experience to match up with the job in question?8. Numbers: By this I mean the quantitative numbers around the people they managed, the budgets they managed, or the money saved and/or brought in. If you have any questions about this topic, please feel free to give me a call or shoot me an email. I’d be glad to help

Here are 10 questions you should consider adding to your interview process if you want to improve it. Subscribe to my Video Updates Request a Free Consultation There are 10 questions you could ask to improve your interview process. You’ll find that some of them are open-ended and designed to get people talking and some are short, sweet, and simple. These 10 questions also give you the interviewer value information as you work toward getting someone interested in the job you’re offering and qualifying and vetting them to know if they’re someone you want to extend an offer to:  1. What do you love about your current role?2. What do you not love about your current role?3. Can you describe your dream job and career path?4. What three things are a must in your next job opportunity?5. What questions do you have for me? Consider adding these 10 questions to your interview process 6. Relevant to this opportunity, can you describe three things you’re the most proud of in your career in the last three years?7. How does this role rank or compare to other opportunities you’re currently evaluating or interviewing for?8. Have you ever been placed by a search firm?9. Have you taken a counteroffer in the past? If so, can you explain?10. If we offered you a job and you accepted it, how would you handle a counteroffer from your current employer? Hopefully these questions are among your current interview questions. If they’re not, I encourage you to try them out and see if it improves your interview process.  If you have any questions about this topic, feel free to contact me here on our blog page. I look forward to working with you in the near future. 

Here are some specific areas you can focus on and tips you can follow to have a successful SAP implementation and/or project. Subscribe to my Video Updates Request a Free Consultation To ensure that you have a successful SAP project and/or implementation, here are eight tips you can follow and areas you can focus on: 1. Develop internal stakeholders within your business, such as a CFO or a COO.  2. Have strong organizational change management. Organization is important to a great SAP project. It helps facilitate communication and keeps the project on its defined timeline so you understand where the milestones are in the project, who’s doing what, what the deliverables are, etc. It also helps ensure that all those components are communicated across the organization. 3. Business process re-engineering. This helps you understand your business processes and allows you to make a blueprint for things like your as-is and to-be processes. It also helps you understand your gap analysis.  4. Master data migration effort. It’s very important that you don’t skip out on this. Make sure you have the proper resources to get your legacy data cleaned up and verify that your master data migration effort is successful.  5. Document all phases of the project. Documentation is something I emphasize for all my clients and customers.  Don’t implement a software that your users don’t know how to use. 6. Evaluate your resources at the beginning of the project. What resources do you have within your company that can help with the project? What resources do you need to rehire around? You want to get as far as 90 to 180 days ahead of the curve in this regard.  7. Evaluate what needs are specifically project-based so you can leverage independent consultants or your systems implementation partner in those areas.  8. Train internal users how to properly use SAP. Don’t implement a software that your users don’t know how to use and don’t understand how they can benefit from. Your software must demonstrate how it makes their job better and allows them to do what they do easier,  better, and faster.  These tips will help you leverage your internal business knowledge and determine who within your organization really understands the business processes that you can bring into your project to interface with your IT staff.  If you have any questions about how to implement a great SAP project, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d be happy to help you. 

Having a CISO in your organization is essential. I’ll go over why today. Subscribe to my Video Updates Request a Free Consultation Today I want to talk about how important it is to have a Chief Information Security Officer, or CISO in your organization and potentially add a CISO to your board of directors. 20 years ago, organizations typically had a director of IT security, which was believed to be the highest level needed for cyber security. However, in 2017 and beyond there will be a greater need for a CISO. Studies are showing that cyber security is actually the No. 1 board member concern.  That being said, unlike 20 years ago when companies only had a director of IT security, today we see the majority of organizations have a CISO. The CISO is usually at a peer level and reports to the chief risk officer or to the CFO. You should consider adding a CISO to your board of directors. CISOs not only protect a company from a breach, but are very active in risk management and setting up a disaster strategy. They handle the question, “If something bad happens to our company, how are we going to respond in a public setting?” There are actually two examples of how this impacted our market recently. First, Target had a massive data breach within the last two years of consumer financial information, or debit and credit card information. Second, many people believe Sony was hacked by North Korea which resulted in their systems being down for 24 hours. A breach in cyber security could cause millions of dollars in damage to an organization so it’s incredibly important to have a CISO. If you have any further questions on this topic or if you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out to me. I look forward to hearing from you!

Retention and engagement are two concepts that go hand-in-hand in the workplace. It also happens to be an area with a lot of room for improvement at many companies. Subscribe to my Video Updates Request a Free Consultation Retention strategies and employee engagement are two things that go hand-in-hand. It's also an area with an opportunity for a lot of improvement for many companies. I wanted to share some strategies that can help with engagement within your team, department, and company and can also add into retention. Studies have found that compensation is not the primary motivator that keeps people happy about their company and current opportunities. It's also not the primary indicator of whether somebody will stay with the company. In fact, many studies from the last decade have shown that employee engagement is a strong indicator of retention and whether someone will be happy in their role.  So what does this mean, exactly? Engagement means that an employee is mentally there most of the day. In short, it's how happy they are in what they do. Studies show that money isn't the primary motivator in keeping an employee happy. When you have annual reviews, I encourage you to think about it in terms of career mapping. Understand what they love about their role and things about the role they don't like. Ask open-ended questions to understand what they'd like to do more of the in the next one or two years and where they see themselves in three to five years in terms of roles, responsibilities, and things they love to do within their career. Career mapping, succession planning, and really understanding what's exciting to them about the areas that they want to grow into is absolutely crucial for employee engagement. It's by far a stronger way to retain someone than just money. Of course, you want to perform a market assessment of compensation to understand where you stand in terms of what other companies pay for similar positions in your marketplace. Compensation is a factor, but it's not one of the top three factors for employees. I hope you found this information helpful. If you have any questions we can answer or you have any SAP talent acquisition needs, please feel free to reach out to us. We'd love to help you.

Why consider an SAP independent consultant as opposed to a systems implementation partner? There are a few reasons. Subscribe to my Video Updates Request a Free Consultation Today I wanted to talk about contracting and why you should consider using an SAP independent consultant as opposed to a systems implementation partner. You may want to consider using your own contractors as opposed a systems implementation partner, a big five firm, or a tier two SAP consulting firm for a couple of reasons. For one, they're very expensive in terms of hourly bill rates. They also probably have limited resources that are on the bench, and they have a vested interest to try to get the resources that they have onto a project, so you lose control over the quality of your resources. Using SAP consultants gives you more control over the quality of the hire. If you use a firm like ASAP Talent Services to help you find specific SAP talent, you get to interview lots of people and select who you want on your team. It really helps you control quality and compare different independent contractors in terms of their different rates and understanding what you get for your money. Using a firm like ASAP Talent Services not only helps you control your quality and select who you want to bring onto your project, it's also a great way to hire someone potentially full time to your team. In other words, you can try it before you buy it. You can bring on someone in a contract-to-hire scenario or use SAP consultants when someone is on maternity leave or an extended medical leave. If you have any questions about this topic or there's another topic you'd like to hear about in a future video, just give me a call or send me an email. I'd be glad to help.

How do you know when or why to use contract staffing? There are five common scenarios where it should be considered. Subscribe to my Video Updates Request a Free Consultation When is the appropriate time to use contract staffing and consultants to supplement your workforce? In the right situation, contract staffing can actually save a company a lot of money. Contract staffing is a line of business we do quite a bit to support our clients that need a consultant, and they choose them for a number of reasons. The position is a project-based need that they don't think will be a full-time need once the project is complete. Someone in the organization is leaving for maternity or medical leave, which could be for 60, 90, or even more days.It’s a great opportunity to use consultants and a great way for you to get to know someone really well before you commit to hiring them. Additionally, both sides can decide if it's a great culture fit, and you can often get them started sooner. Contract staffing can actually save a company money. SAP implementation from the 'Big Four' type of firms can be very expensive. A company like ASAP Talent can find the same platinum-level talent at $20 to $40 per hour cheaper; we just don't have as much markup. It also gives the interviewer control over quality because they can interview multiple consultants and decide who they want to select.Interim consulting at an executive level is on the rise. Interim CIOs and CFOs are positions with skill sets that can be leveraged on an interim basis, for example, because the firm might think it will take them six months or longer to find a full-time hire. They don't want to let the work stand still during the process. Private equity firms and companies growing fast through acquisition also leverage interim executives.These are just a few things to think about this year when considering contract staffing for your workforce. If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to working with you in the future!

If you really want a candidate to accept a position in your company, check out these creative ways to help seal the deal. Subscribe to my Video Updates Request a Free Consultation When interviewing the right prospective candidate, a time will come when you decide they’d be a good fit for the position. Here’s how to seal the deal. As a hiring manager or as a company, when you’ve got someone that you really want to add to your team, you might sometimes feel like it will be a difficult task getting them to come on board. So, what are some creative ways to get them to join the team? The first way is to fully understand what their motivators are aside from money. They might want a title or increased responsibility. They might want to move closer to family. You’ll also want to find out if they want to reduce travel or if they enjoy travel. Get creative with a sign-on bonus to help sweeten the deal. The second thing you can do is figure out if you can work with them on the title they want. If your company has some flexibility, that’s a great way to get them interested and excited without costing you more money. Offering a great vacation package is also a way to get them interested. Many people put a lot of weight on a company’s vacation policy, and adding a week or two of vacation will definitely make your offer look attractive. Lastly, you can get creative with a sign-on bonus. If you are $30,000 apart on salary requirements, can you consider offering $10,000 on their first paycheck, $10,000 on their one-year anniversary, and $10,000 on their three-year anniversary? That sort of plan acts as a retention bonus as well, and it’s going to get people to want to accept a position in your company. If you have any other questions, please feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I’m happy to help!