Myriad Technologies: Getting a New Recruiter Up to Speed

A new recruiter

Maxine Perales has just been engaged by Cerina Flagstein, the Myriad's VP of HR, as a recruiter / HR generalist. The Company is now at a size where it can keep a recruiter busy full time during Myriad's periodic "hiring" bursts. Cerina also needs a person who understands Gen X and Gen Y technical professionals for HR generalist work.

Cerina posted the job on Myriad's internal Intranet at the same time that she posted it on the Internet job boards that Myriad uses. Cerina was surprised when Maxine applied for the recruiter/HR generalist position. Maxine has been a project coordinator for one of Myriad's software development teams. In the past two years, she has been consistently recognized as an outstanding performer. She has also spent time upgrading her skills at a local community college and through Internet based technical training.

I want a change

In their first conversation, Maxine was open about her reasons. After two years working with software professionals, and after taking a number of programming courses, she realized that she did not want to be a software developer. The people side of what she is doing is far more intriguing to her. She is thinking about enrolling in a Human Resource Practitioner certificate program offered by the Continuing Education department in a local community college. Her undergraduate degree was in psychology.

Let's invest in one of our existing people

Cerina likes having people who continue to grow professionally working for her. As well, she believes that it is important for HR to model Myriad's business values. "Invest in and grow our people" is right after "Service and satisfy our customers". Cerina could hire off the street, and get someone with recruiting and HR experience. Such a person might be productive sooner than Maxine. However, given Maxine's energy and outstanding performance record, Cerina thinks that Maxine will soon be as productive. Maxine also has the advantage of knowing Myriad. She is highly regarded by the technical group that make up the largest part of Myriad's work force. They believe that Maxine understands them and their unique needs. She does not have to "prove" this to them.

A recruiting coach

Cerina has used 21st Century Staffing Innovators (21CSI) for professional development assignments in the past. She is aware that they will do one-on-one coaching. She decides to jump start Maxine's recruiting career development by getting her a 21CSI recruiting coach. The timing is perfect. A number of recruitments need to be done in the next weeks and months.

Cerina calls Nanita Jofe at 21st Century. Nanita tells Cerina that she herself does not do coaching work. 21CSI insists that staff members who do coaching are themselves "coached in coaching" first. However, she will ask Peter Wilhelmson to call Cerina. He is one of a 21CSI's staff individuals who does one-on-one coaching. As always with 21CSI work for clients, one of the components of the assignment will be the development of metrics by which to measure the success of 21CSI's work.

Coaching objectives: Cerina's metrics for success

Peter meets with Cerina. Cerina goes through Maxine's background. Peter guides Cerina into a discussion about to measure the success of the coaching. At the end of their discussion, Peter summarizes Cerina's objectives as follows.

Ensure that the recruitments that Maxine must handle in the next 3 months - 9 positions, ranging from Team Lead for an agile software development group to a project coordinator to replace Maxine - are all "successful".

Cerina will use the following metrics to assess this "success".

The hiring managers are all satisfied with Maxine's recruiting work. They are positive about Maxine when Cerina contacts them and asks them. They don't complain about recruiting to Cerina as they progress.

Any "less than good" hires are identified earlier rather than later in the probation period. Corrective action is taken.

All of the remaining new hires get through their 3 month probation reviews with "good" or better ratings.

Maxine will acquire the skills that she need to be able to handle future recruitments, without needing a coach. Cerina will ask her if this is the case. Cerina will have a "end of coaching" meeting with Peter. She will take her own perceptions of Maxine's progress in this area into account.

The range of Maxine's responsibilities as a recruiter

As the recruiter at Myriad, Maxine is responsible for the following, in addition to actually doing the recruiting.

She must follow up with hiring managers to track new candidate on-boarding progress during the probation period. She must identify any "less than good hires". She must work with the hiring manager to initiate the appropriate corrective action - from coaching / special training to termination.

Maxine must schedule and coordinate the formal "end of probation" performance reviews. Each one must be completed 2 weeks before the end of the 3 month probation period.

A coaching approach

Peter tells Cerina that he thinks that the best approach to achieving these metrics blends E-Learning and One-on-One Coaching. There are a number of E-Learning programs offered by 21CSI that will give Maxine basic "know that" information that she will need. As well, she should take the basic Face-to-Face program on core interviewing skills for recruiters.

In addition, he suggests that he condud 2 1-hour sessions a week with Maxine in Month One. They will meet face-to-face at Myriad. He will work with her to plan her work on her first recruitments in considerable detail. He coach her through them, in effect shadowing her on these first assignments. She will be able to transfer much of that learning to her future recruiting assignments.

He suggests that they shift the format in Month Two. Instead of two scheduled face-to-face sessions each week, Maxine will have much more control over how she uses her coaching time. She can either arrange to meet him face to face. Or she can to call him as she needs or e-mail him with issues. The exact timing of the format shift will be decided jointly by Maxine and himself. They will also work through the Competency Styles® Work Book on "Making Decisions" together.

At the end of Month Two, Cerina and Maxine can decide how much more coaching is needed. Although it will depend on a great number of factors - Maxine's ability to learn, the complexity of the recruitments she must handle, the time she gets to do the professional development programs - experience indicates that Month Three will be much less intense. It may not be needed at all.

The estimated bill

Based on this, Peter summarizes the anticipated budget. Using 9 weeks for the first two month window, this will mean 18 to 20 hours of his time at his coaching rate. He estimates another 4 hours for Month Three, although this may not happen. In addition, Myriad will have to purchase "attendance tokens" for the 21CSI professonal development programs that Maxine will either download or attend. Cerina is looking at a budget in the $10,000 to $12,000 range.

Cerina is a bit taken aback at first. Then she realizes that this amount is offset by a number of things. If she had asked 21CSI to handle the 9 recruitments, she would have spent considerably more with them. In effect, Peter will shadow Maxine on the first 2 to 3 of these, meaning that he will make sure that they go well. If she had hired a new recruiter from the outside, the person would have gone through a "understand Myriad" learning curve before being fully productive. Maxine will not incur this indirect cost. Taking these factors into account, Maxine thinks that this is a reasonable amount to invest in getting a proven performer up to speed as a recruiter.

Let's get going

Peter concludes by reminding her that as an established 21st Century client, any actual billings will receive the 15% "established client" discount. He will be submitting time sheets covering his actual hours biweekly. The actual invoiced amount will reflect this discount. Cerina authorizes the coaching. She will make the connection between Peter and Maxine. She will arrange a three way meeting in which they will go through her objectives for the coaching, as well as the metrics that Peter for the coaching assignment.