Monthly Archives: June 2018

Education Is Key: Modern Day Job Application Statistics

You want to hire the best, brightest talent available, which is why Ninja Gig has compiled some interesting statistics to help you find the best applicants for your organization.

  • 79% of job seekers are using social media to conduct a job search. For Millennials, this number increases to 86%.
  • Nearly 75% of people say their employer does not use social media to promote their brand or job openings.
  • 45% of job seekers use mobile devices to search for employment once daily.
  • Job seekers generally look at these five things when applying for a position: salary and compensation, career growth opportunities, work-life balance offerings, location and commute and company culture and values.
  • When advertising sales positions, 94% of sales professionals say that the offered base salary is more important than the commission structure.
  • Millennials cite these three important factors when applying for jobs: growth opportunities, retirement benefits and work culture.
  • 46% of Millennials left their last job because they felt there was no potential for career growth. This means that Millennials are more skeptical about employers’ claims about supporting advancement.
  • 64% of Millennials would be comfortable making $40,000 a year at a job they love than making upwards of $100,000 a year at a job they don’t find challenging. This means that 80% of Millennials look at a company’s culture fit and the people first, with career potential coming in second.
  • 69% of job seekers say that they would rather be unemployed than accept employment with a company that has a bad reputation. On the flip side, 84% of Millennials would leave their current job if a company with an excellent reputation offered them a position.
  • Companies that increase their employee engagement investments by as little as 10% can increase employee productivity by $2,400. Additionally, 70% of employees that do not have faith or confidence in their senior management do not fully engage at work.

Ninja Gig makes it easy for employers’ online job applications to get noticed on social media. Fully customizable, these job applications are a great way to comply with today’s necessary electronic recordkeeping requirements while making it quick and simple for applicants to apply for open positions.  Sign up for your 30-day free trial and see what our amazing software can do to help improve your hiring processes!

Screen Candidates Social Media May Lead to Discrimination Claims

It’s tempting and easy to take a job applicant’s data and quickly type in a search in social media programs, such as Facebook and Instagram. Employers can quickly get inside applicant’s uncensored heads and learn more about potential applicants. But is this type of screening legal?

There are two sides to this controversial topic.

Pros

Social media searches can be valuable due-diligence tools for pre-employment background screenings. Employers can verify if candidates deliver the same information online about previous employment, degrees, schools attended, etc. Candidates can also expose potential criminal activities, hate speech or derogatory comments about current or past employers. However, basing employment on social media that may not even be accurate has legal risks.

Cons

There is a lot of information available on social media, including a candidate’s race, color, national origin, religion, gender, disability, age and citizenship status. If you don’t hire a candidate and have knowledge of information that relates to one of these protected statuses, your company could find itself in very hot water.

Screening candidates based on these attributes is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and carries substantial penalties for employers.

Recommendations

If your company wants to use social media to help prescreen potential applicants, there are some general rules to follow. As always, before instituting any policies or changes regarding checking social media sites, it is best to speak with an attorney or in-house legal counsel.

  • Get consent from job applicants before searching or viewing any social media sites. This should be done only after a job offer is extended to avoid any potential issues that may arise under Title VII. Extend the offer and say it is contingent upon completion of a social media check.
  • Consider establishing standard screening practices to highlight and give a paper trail how hiring decisions are made objectively based only on job qualifications and the job descriptions. If the applicant does not meet the necessary criteria for the position, document this information about why the candidate did not move forward in the interview process.
  • Consider using a third party to perform social media checks. This is someone who does not make any hiring decisions and only makes job-related inquiries on sites after an offer has been extended.

Ninja Gig does not provide legal advice, which is why it is important to consult legal professionals about how to efficiently and legally conduct social media searches for potential employees during the pre-screening phase.

Ninja Gig offers online job applications, which are easy to customize, making them ideal for a wide range of industries, including restaurant, housekeeping, healthcare, technology, administration and much more.  Sign up today!

Double Check Yourself: Do your words detour female candidate?

Research shows that if companies use the wrong words in a job description, it may detour highly qualified female candidates from applying.

It’s important that companies write job descriptions and applications in a gender-neutral tone. For example, remove all feminine or masculine vocabulary to help increase the likelihood of qualified men and women applying for positions.

For example, studies show that male applicants prefer applications that use the word “exhaustive,” while female applicants respond better to the phrase “loves learning.” Additionally, men are more likely to apply with stereotypical phrases such as “competitive salary” or “best of the best.”

Additional words that may turn off female applicants include:

  • Ambitious
  • Analytical
  • Assertive
  • Autonomous
  • Boastful
  • Chairman
  • Dominate
  • Foosball
  • Ninja
  • Hierarchical
  • Rigid
  • Stock options
  • Strong
  • Takes risks
  • Workforce

While it’s acceptable to use some masculine-skewed terms in a job description, it’s important that companies balance these out with gender-neutral or feminine terms.

It’s not that one term can necessarily turn women off from applying to jobs. It’s when companies scatter several of these hot-button words and terms into a description that it may raise subconscious red flags to women not to apply.

On the flip side, these are words that may help attract more female applicants.

  • Adaptable
  • Choose
  • Collaborate
  • Creative
  • Curious
  • Excellent
  • Flexible schedule
  • Multitaking
  • Health
  • Imaginative
  • Intuitive
  • Plans for the future
  • Resilient
  • Self-aware
  • Socially responsible
  • Thoughtful
  • Trustworthy
  • Up-to-date
  • Wellness program

It’s important that companies use gender-neutral words when creating job descriptions. While solving the gender diversity puzzle is not straightforward or simple, this small step can help companies potentially attract better-qualified candidates.

Ninja Gig offers online job applications that are easy to customize so your organization can focus on gender-neutral wording.  Ready to start?  Sign up for your free trial now and see how easy our software is to use!

Is your job application process turning away qualified candidates?

If job applicants face the challenge of using out-of-date online job application interfaces that are difficult to navigate and require a lot of information, they may forgo applying and move onto the next opportunity. This means that you could be missing out on qualified candidates for your organization.

To ensure that you’re not turning off potential applicants, you need to have an efficient online job application process that is mobile friendly.

If you don’t know if your website has a friendly job application process, check out your site analytics to see the percentage of applicants abandon the application process before reaching the “apply” point. This is the same concept that retailers use when reviewing “abandoned shopping cart” statistics.

Other issues can also turn off applicants, which we highlight below.

  • A lengthy pre-interview process is a turn off for job seekers. If applicants have already undergone a detailed, time-consuming application process, they are less likely to want to go through documentation requests, personality tests or cultural-fit assessments, prescreening interviews with external recruiters and phone interviews with internal recruiters.
  • Unprofessional behavior during interviews, including unfriendly staff are turn offs to potential applicants. While it’s important for companies to balance their negotiator face during interviews, appearing less than friendly will steer qualified applicants away from companies.
  • Post interviews also give employers the opportunity to make a lasting negative impression. If companies fail to follow up, applicants will remember this in the future, avoid applying and also spread the word amongst their friends.
  • Discrepancies among interviewers about the job’s duties are also cause for alarm with potential candidates. This raises red flags that perhaps the company doesn’t operate as well – and as seamlessly – as they should.
  • A long hiring process that is too drawn out is also a turn-off, as strong candidates will probably have other opportunities arise, which they will pursue.

Ninja Gig offers online job applications that are quick and – which means that qualified applicants won’t abandon your site frustrated and not applying for open positions. Because open position translates to higher overhead costs, it’s important to use a job application provider that has experience understanding the importance of keeping applications simple and easy to use.  Sign up today for a 30-day free trial and start accepting employment applications immediately!