Let us make you omnipresent to GOVT buyers.....

Omnipresence is a divine thing. We can't make you divine, but we can make you "seem" ever-present to GOVT buyers by enabling you to show up so often to sources sought, RFPs, and RFQs that you begin to get noticed.

We enable you (we do the heavy lifting) to chronically respond to every SS, RFP, and RFQ in your niche with a complete slate of qualified candidates. In the words of a "deep work expert," Cal Newport, we create a situation in which you "become so good they can't ignore you."

When you are that good and a buyer gets in a bind, guess who they call? Omnipresence is the yellow brick road to sole source awards. Sales is all about solving problems and being there at the right time when the need is critical. How do you know when to be there? Well, if you are always there - you'll be there at the right time.

How do you know when to be there? Well, If you are always there, you will be there at the right time.

Last fall, we started working with a firm with no track record in healthcare staffing (read "zero past performance"). Between 01 September and 31 December, we provided them with candidates, enabling them to respond to nearly every RFP that came out during that period, with a few exceptions—twenty in total—five RFPs every single month.

What Happened?

During the first 30 days, they won their first award ever - a contract for a radiologist. Ninety days later, they were awarded a respiratory therapy contract. Not bad for the first 120 days! But here's the kicker...Last week, one of these buyers, to whom they have been omnipresent, called them directly.

"We have an urgent need for a child psychiatrist to care for children in northern Arizona, near the Utah border. Can you help us?"

Think About This for a Moment.

The buyer is calling a staffing firm with no track record. Their past performance consists of two brand-new awards. Why would anyone call them with an urgent niche need in a highly remote area? Omnipresence is the reason. If you are always there, you will be there at the right time.

The call came to our client on Friday afternoon. They turned around and called their secret weapon KurzSolutions. The following Tuesday morning (less than 48 business hours later,) we presented the client with a board-certified child psychiatrist willing to serve children in Red Mesa, AZ. All of a sudden, they are not only omnipresent but omnipotent!

Side Note

Miracles are not always possible, and we have learned an important lesson in twenty years in the GOVT staffing arena. Once you perform a miracle - clients and buyers tend to expect them : )

An Open Letter to Federal Contract Officers

In the highly-regulated Federal Acquisition space Contracting Officers are perched between the three chasms of requirements and definitions, competition and pricing, and contractor oversite; all of which can be counterproductive to actually purchasing services or hiring contract personnel. In some markets such as the procurement of defense and space systems the government is virtually the only buyer. However, in the services economy the government is but one of many players.

"In the service sector the Government will have to become a smarter, more commercial-oriented buyer." Butch Hinton (Assistant Comptroller General)

In his GAO Report Hinton goes on to say that "The labyrinth of regulations and requirements, all intended to make the acquisition process both fair and honest have created a situation that leaves little room for the exercise of sound business judgment, initiative, and creativity for satisfying the needs of their agency customers."

As a result, the staffing perspectives of Acquisition Specialists can easily stray far from reality and the difference between internal acquisition strategies and real-world staffing realities can become stark.

Take this recent actual staffing proposal floated by Acquisition Specialists for staffing Military Treatment Facilities:

Priorities

Staffing contractors should place a priority on recruiting active duty providers coming off terminal leave on the assumption that they are (1) military environment savvy, (2) Security-cleared, and (3) Privileged thus making for a smooth transition from active duty to become a civilian provider.

Alternatively, staffing contractors should target civilian providers whose contracts are coming to an end, on the assumption again that they are military-experienced, security-cleared, and already privileged.

Let me pause to say that any staffing contractor worth his or her salt is already practicing these obvious priorities in selection and recruitment. The priorities are not at issue, being able to execute them is....

Process

Here is where the proposal enters Alice's proverbial Wonderland. It is suggested that contractors maintain an "inventory" of such folks, on hand so that the contracting officer can issue a Task Order at any time and the contractor can simply respond with a list of the available providers who are already security-cleared and privileged. You should be able to hear the audience laughing about now.

Problems

Stated simply, healthcare providers are not like military supplies sitting in a warehouse awaiting requisition. Not only do they have their own priorities, but like everyone else, they have to earn a steady income. Healthcare recruiting is a dynamic, competitive environment and the government is not able to compete for the following reasons:

• Privileges and security clearance are not easily transferred from active duty to civilian status. In most cases, the active-duty provider has to start from scratch on both counts resulting in an unsurvivable hiring timeline.
• Privileges and security clearance are likewise not easily transferred for civilian providers from one MTF to another even if they are in the same branch of the military. One Department of Clinical Services is typically unable to meet the sister MTF's DCS deadline for avoiding the necessity of re-credentialing.
• Providers are unable to wait, unemployed while these often-protracted processes take place. A psychiatrist leaving active duty needs to start work within a month of terminal leave. The MTF process is so slow and bureaucratic and the compensation rates so uncompetitive that a provider leaving active duty will receive many better, faster offers before the MTF can file paperwork.

All this to say that Acquisition Officers are too often not only out of touch with staffing in the real world, but are also not cognizant of the internal obstacles to their idyllic staffing strategies. Open dialogue with staffing vendors would go a long way to alleviating frustration on both sides of the equation. Just saying.

KurzSolutions has experience staffing in the GOVT space at more than 100 MTFs, more than a dozen GOVT Agencies, in more than sixty-five major labor categories. Call us to discuss your staffing needs today.

If you need a home run and have only one "up-to-bat" left, do you want to put Barry Bonds at the plate or an unknown, untested rookie? It seems obvious, doesn't it?

We chronically encounter GOVT contractors with mission-critical staffing vacancies who fall into faulty thinking when choosing a strategy. The most common is what I refer to as "The Leaky Bucket Strategy."

The Leaky Bucket Strategy

Many Federal Contractors have a strategy based on hoping that putting enough leaky buckets together will lead to a successful fill of the holey bucket. So they engage an ever-increasing number of usually smaller, less-experienced GOVT staffing firms to do what they have been unable to do. Let me just say that "hope is not a strategy" and having a dozen firms "trying" to fill your positions in JV or contingency role is not a winning strategy.

Contingency vs. Retained Search

Recruiting industry guru and thought leader, Jonathan Bartos, shares enlightening statistics regarding the relative success of different types of relationships with recruiting or staffing firms:

Non-exclusive contingency recruiting relationships

where you work with several or more firms to fill a position result in success in one of eight searches - 12.5% Success Rate

Exclusive contingency relationships

where you contract with only one firm yield a better success rate of one in two searches - 50% Success Rate

Engaged or Retained relationships

have the best result - 90% Success Rate

Limited Candidate Pool and Elite Candidate Market

Furthermore, when the mission-critical vacancy has to do with the physician market - a market in which less than 4% of the talent pool is EVER open to new opportunities - retained or engaged search is the silver bullet. Let me explain...

Physicians belong to an elite talent market and want to feel targeted and special. Getting calls from several different companies for the same role gives them the impression that you are desperate and that you must be hawking a less-than-ideal position (this is the feedback we get from physicians).

Given the limited available pool we have learned that if you don't land an available candidate on the first attempt, subsequent attempts have a poor conversion rate. In this context, you usually only get one chance to hit the ball. In this elite sales environment, you don't want an inexperienced recruiter making such an important pitch to possibly the only candidate available for your location within your target salary parameters in a given window of time.

"Some companies have learned that one strategy to combat the low fill rates of most contingency firms is to simply hire more of them for the same search. This is the kiss of death when there is a limited talent pool" ("Sales Talent," - Chris Carlson)

Market Depth

Most JV partners and most recruiting firms will indeed accept your mission-critical assignments on a contingency basis. Most would not engage in a retained agreement with you because they are not confident they can fill your vacancy. They simply do not have the market depth and expertise to ensure success.

KurzSolutions has more than a decade of experience in the GOVT staffing space. Most of the candidates we provide our clients are providers we have known for years and who have worked for us at another MTF. We are not hoping for success, we guarantee it. Fills at more than 90 Military Treatment Facilities in all branches of the military substantiate our expertise.

Barry Bonds or an untried rookie? You make the choice

Call me today at 505-379-3306

Be wary of geeks bearing high-tech gifts….

We live in an age when the lure of technology is intoxicating. New recruiting tools arrive daily. Some are from new startups still in "stealth mode" which means so secret they can't tell you the company name. Others promise to transform your sourcing process while you sleep. And ALL are essential lest you be left behind in the dust like a proverbial Luddite.

The promise of these new recruiting tools is outsized and, in most cases, severely exaggerated.

ZipRecruiter is my favorite. Using their "secret matching technology" you can get qualified candidates for your job within the first day. Just "click and post." After all, how can a million customers be wrong?

According to HRExaminer, an online newsletter that focuses on HR technology, companies get five to seven pitches every day about new technology, most from vendors using data science to address recruiting issues.

Recently I was pitched by an online video interview company promising to delight my clients and candidates and make video interview simple resulting in:

• 60% higher interview completion rates
• 55% faster client response time
• 33% faster placement times

Those of us who jumped on the "first wave" of the video interview concept soon discovered that there is nothing simple about video interviews and most of us do not want to allow our candidates to create their own video interview to be sent directly to the client!

Here Are Some Reasons for Embracing the New Tools With a Bit of Caution:

1. Lack of Science

For all their boasts about using data analytics, most of the tools have not been adequately evaluated with reference to improving recruiting workflow and success as a function of the learning curve and cost.

"They bring a fresh approach to the hiring process—but often with little understanding of how hiring actually works." (Peter Cappelli, HBR)

2. Lack of Integration

The number one challenge for a recruiting professional is a fully integrated workflow. Nearly every new tool is essentially a new ATS or CRM that requires management. In spite of APIs and Zapier, unless you have the acquisition budget of Salesforce or a full-time API integration team to run Lightning Platform, every new tool is another plate to keep spinning.

3. Lack of Accuracy

Matching technology (algorithms) including semantic search is only as accurate as the skill of the creator. If it is not you, the person trying to fill the requisition, it will be off the mark. Machine learning has a long way to go. Linkedin and Glassdoor have both matched me for aerospace engineering jobs, in spite of my complete lack of experience or education in the field. Indeed.com candidate matches are laughable. Our experience after more than 3,000 hires is that it is only about once in a literal "blue moon" that an actual candidate is discovered by an "algorithm."

All this to say that the shiny promise of technology has not yet been realized. But, more importantly, discovering a qualified, available candidate is only 10% of what is required to get the job done.

Talent Acquisition Is Sales and Neither an Algorithm Nor AI Can Sell!

I am fond of telling the story of an Anesthesiologist Recruited for Anchorage.

Our client asked:

"So, what are his reasons for wanting to move to Alaska?"

Our response:

"He wasn't at all interested in moving to Alaska. In fact, he was happy where he was at in Little Rock, Arkansas. If he were to consider a move, he wanted to move to Arizona! Our team sold him on relocating to Anchorage and your substandard salary."

Put that in your algorithm!

The One Thing

Gaining a competitive edge in GOVT Staffing is not about having the right certifications, the perfect RFP response, or even a crack business development team. There is only ONE THING that makes a difference – PAST PERFORMANCE. Or, to put it simply, your ability to deliver.

"beneath intensely complex things such as loyalty, success, or marriage there is a core concept…The One Thing…a controlling insight that can make the difference between average and excellent. " - Marcus Buckingham

That is interesting because many of the companies we have worked with are intensely focused on RFP production while their recruiting engine is barely running. If your product is results, filled positions, that's a problem.

I want to propose an alternative strategy – Focus on staffing fills rather than winning awards. Past Performance trumps everything else.

So, let's dream for a moment….

What would it take to create a competitive staffing edge – your own special sauce?

Key Components of Your Special Sauce

1. Understand That Recruiting Is Marketing, NOT HR

Most of the firms we work with have recruiting embedded in HR, which means it is compliance-oriented, not sales-oriented. This is very much like sending a potential car buyer to the finance department to fill out loan forms before they actually look at a car. Any good auto dealership wants you to smell, touch, and drive the car of your dreams first.

2. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

If "fills" is the result you are selling then you have to invest in your recruiting engine including hiring the best people and providing them with both the best tools and training. In other words, train the talent acquisition team.

3. Invest in the Best Tools

Not the legacy products you are currently using. You are not merely competing for talent with other GOVT staffing agencies, but also top-notch commercial companies on the bleeding edge (see below for an overview)

Are you aware that a recent study revealed that the most-successful staffing firms in the U.S. respond to candidate inquiries within 3-5 minutes?

Essential Tools for Developing Your Competitive Edge

• AI – Artificial Intelligence. AI is transforming the staffing industry by creating never before seen speed and efficiencies. Staffing is all about speed. Are you aware that a recent study revealed that the most-successful staffing firms in the U.S. respond to candidate inquiries within 3-5 minutes?!
• Advanced CRM – that automates and integrates candidate management by importing and parsing resumes, matches candidates with opportunities using semantic search, and allows for email, text, and social media contact through a single platform
• Social Media Marketing – You have read that "email is dead" and you know resume databases represent a "burned-over" district of recycled candidates that are being contacted by literally everyone. A robust SM marketing platform is essential to a competitive edge.
• Optimized Mobile Experience – In 2017, mobile job applications outpaced desktop for the first time (63% versus 37% desktop), which means that if you do not have a mobile-optimized job search process you are missing 63 percent of the potential candidates.

if you do not have a mobile-optimized job search process you are missing 63 percent of the potential candidates.

• An Avalanche of Advanced Tools – Google, Apple, and Facebook acquire their nascent competitors. At a minimum, we have to be aware of advanced apps and software that give us an edge: Flow tools, micro-blogging, chat-bots. On and on it goes….

But how do you "stick to your knitting" and build a kickass recruiting function when you are responding to nineteen LOIA's per day? How can you become an expert in Talent Acquisition, stay on top of industry trends and innovation and run a GOVT-contracting operation with all that entails?

The Solution

There are only two answers:

1. Hire a whole bunch of top-notch experts
2. Partner with a company whose sole expertise and focus is talent acquisition

That's where KurzSolutions comes in – Talent Acquisition is our sole specialty. We have the cutting-edge tools, stay on top of industry trends, and provide the special sauce necessary to give you a competitive edge. And, we are a whole lot less expensive than option #1.

Call me directly – Rob Kurz - 505-379-3306

Or schedule time with me here https://go.oncehub.com/RobKurz

Growing a business can be a lonely proposition, but doing it alone is a foolish one. Smart leaders harness the strengths and abilities of others from different corners of their ecosystem to scale growth, innovation, and to solve complex challenges. All with this in mind, deliver faster and better what their customers need. Strategic business partnerships are key to any successful business.

Here are some ways a Strategic Partnership with KurzSolutions can make a difference in your business success.

Stick to Your Knitting

JIm Collins (Good to Great) identified this as a key secret to great companies. They focus time, attention, and resources on what they do best. Often, in the Federal Contracting Environment, talent acquisition is a sideline or necessary evil of engaging in staffing contracts. KurzSolutions does only one thing - Talent Acquisition. We are the only Recruitment Process Outsourcing Company in the U.S. with long-term expertise in staffing in the GOVT space. We have placed hundreds of health providers, IT professionals, facility managers, instructional designers, etc, in more than 100 locations with the Federal Government. Our expertise in staffing Federal Contracts is unsurpassed as is our proprietary database (1.3m strong), and cutting edge technology.. Partnering with Kurz allows you to focus on business development with impunity; without concern about fulfillment. We have helped many 8(a), VOSB, WOSB, DVOSB companies scale their growth and improve their capacity.

Upgrade Your Internal Team

We also provide top talent for your internal needs including Capture Managers, Proposal Writers, Program Managers, Human Resources Professionals, Site Managers, and C-Level team members. For Example - We are currently representing one of the top Proposal Managers in the U.S. with $150b in wins on record and an average of 7:10. Just last month we placed one of the best Capture Managers in the U.S. with one of our top clients.

Partnerships as a way to speed up a business growth already seem to be working for thousands of ventures. According to PwC's annual CEO survey, 49% of the corporate leaders are planning to get their businesses involved in some type of business collaboration this year.

Improve Your RFP Responses

An RPO Partnership with Kurz means that we provide pricing support, market intel, and pro forma recruiting for your RFPs. Kurz assists with as many as 39 (average) RFPs per quarter including qualified candidate resumes and qualifying documents when necessary. Kurz then supports your response when the award is made. As you know, seldom are the original candidates still available at the time of award, so Kurz practices a continuous recruitment strategy to ensure customer satisfaction.

Handle Difficult or Esoteric PWS Requirements

Kurz has responded to requests for Maximo Engineers, Sodium Scientists, Cryocooler PhDs, you name it. The more difficult the search, the better we are. We like to say, "the difficult will be done at once, the impossible will take a bit longer." When we perform miracles, you get the credit and your customer will never forget! Two things create raving business fans: (1) Real honesty, and (2) Remarkable delivery and follow-through.

The key to forging great partnerships is identifying the GAP or challenge you need to solve and then finding the right partner to meet the need. "I've seen the greatest success when opportunity drives collaboration. Partners – whether internal or external – need to first identify the specific challenge they can solve. Look at your customers and consider what their pain points are, what worries them or what would help accelerate their growth." - Paul Parisi, Paypal President, Canada.

KurzSolutions stands in the GAP for many of your competitors, why not you? Feel free to call me directly at 505-379-3306

I recently ran across a Harvard Business Review (HBR) article that made me chuckle. It was entitled "How to make sure a new hire feels included from day one." Our experience in the GOVT space could be better described as Off-Boarding new employees because the common practice is certainly nothing less than off-putting.

The HBR article talks about the importance of "meeting" the new employee on the first day so they "feel" welcome and goes on to describe a complex series of things that must be in place for a good onboarding experience.

Sadly, in the GOVT staffing space employees are all-too-often viewed as commodities and their onboarding experience is at best, self-service. Things considered standard best practice in the industry are simply not happening in our industry.

"Poor onboarding can lead to unnecessary and costly turnover, the cost of which can be as much as two times the annual salary of the employee." (HBR)

Examples of Common Onboarding Mishaps

Consider these common "onboarding" experiences of civilian government employees:

• Provider shows up the first day at Camp Lejeune and not only does the POC not show up, no one knows they are expected.
• Physician shows up to work at JB Lewis-McChord. Not only does he not have an office, but they have not even considered providing him a desk!
• Employee receives pre-employment paperwork three weeks after starting employment
• Employee receives notice that they will not be paid (first paycheck) since they failed to submit a timeslip. However, no one bothered to provide them with one.
• The frequency of first paycheck "snafus" is inexcusable.

Forget that "in-take" at most government facilities is an espionage-like, mission-impossible – proper onboarding by us, as employers, is a matter of simple common courtesy. After all, none of these new employees were in need of a job when we recruited them. We got them into this!

Excuses can and often are made based on the unfriendly, bureaucratic nature of government employment. But much of the fault is ours for not making basic onboarding arrangements and not showing basic appreciation for the people who make our business possible. Most of things mentioned by HBR are laughable in our context, but there are strategies we can employ that will make a difference.

"From the survey, we learned that the little things matter most to new hires — like having a working computer and immediate access to the building, email, and the intranet on day one." (HBR - June 2018)

Key Elements of an Adequate GOVT Staffing Onboarding Strategy

Here are some Key Elements of a good onboarding strategy in the GOVT contracting context:

Welcome Packet

This should be delivered by snail mail a full two weeks before the employee's start date and should redundantly include all the related employment brochures, handbooks and documents related to working for your company. It should also include a warm welcome letter from the company CEO and direct contact information for the HR representative.

Confirmed POC and Start Date

This should be confirmed and reconfirmed including the name, title, and cell phone number of the party responsible for meeting and directing the new employee at the GOVT facility. In addition, the employee should have the cell phone number and an available contact (at any hour of the morning) for someone from your company in case there is a first-day problem.

Smooth Benefit Enrollment Process

HR should take responsibility for making sure this transition is smooth and that all enrollments are completed and questions answered. Often it is weeks before employees are even enrolled in basic benefits.

First Day Call

Make sure someone checks in without fail with the employee on the first day to make sure everything is OK and to troubleshoot any problems.

An Inexpensive Gift

To welcome them the first week (by mail). Promotional gift companies have ideas in spades (www.promodirect.com).

After this it is good to check in by phone at regular intervals (3 weeks, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days).

And remember there is a workforce shortage in America (read about it here) so, "If you are not recruiting your own employees, you are the only one who isn't."

Rob Kurz is a Certified Employee Retention Specialist (CERS). Feel free to contact him for consulting on comprehensive retention strategies for your employees – 505-379-3306

Government bureaucracy is an easy target. It has been described as "the noble but hard job of trying to get anything done under a permanent condition of Murphy's Law." But GOVT inefficiency is often simply used as a scape goat for our own internal inefficiencies…

David Allen is famous for the GTD (getting things done) Methodology, which is a remarkable system improving personal productivity. But what happens when your main responsibility is to GTD through someone else or, worse yet, through a Contract Officer or Credentialing Manager?

We have found that companies often use the government as an excuse for protracted timelines that could be dramatically improved through some simple management. Here are some tried and true practices that dramatically improve government (and our) efficiency.

Blaming the Government is often an excuse for internal inefficiencies...

1. Always Choose ACTIVE Communication Forms Over PASSIVE Ones

The customary method of communication with the government is email, a very passive form of communication. Not only are you dealing with an organization infamous for being passive-aggressive (simply ignoring or procrastinating), but much of the time you will not even know if (a) the person you emailed is even still in the duty seat, or on leave, (b) whether the email is even seen, opened, or read. Email is a very inefficient and unreliable tool for GTD.

Some years ago we were completing the security process for a provider at Elgin AFB and received no response from the Security Officer after repeated attempts. In calling around the security office we discovered that the person in question had been TDY for three months and the person replacing them had been waiting for an email account for 30 days.

The telephone is much warmer, personable, more urgent, and less avoidable. Not to mention that fact that, in most cases, it is quicker than writing an email. If no one answers there are two solutions: (1) put them on speed dial (you will need to do this anyway, see below), and (2) change the last digit in the phone number one up or one down – you will likely get their deskmate or officemate and you can then ask them "where is so and so?"

2. Request, Suggest, and Expect Deadlines

Like good goals, all good delegation (that is a collaborative phrase for our "partnership" with MTF employees) includes specific actions and a deadline. Work expands to fill the time allotted to it. We have discovered that things that are not done in 24-48 hours are seldom accomplished in 30 days. Phrases such as, "when do you expect to be able to get to that?" and "will you have the file ready for the next credentials committee meeting?" Better yet, ask "When should I get back to you on this?"

Such seemingly intrusive behavior done with a friendly, "how can I help?" attitude communicates worth, value, and appreciation for the government employee's efforts. Sending a bouquet when they act above and beyond doesn't hurt either? Imagine the impact in the credentialing office when a credentialing specialist receives flowers from a contractor! You might get reprimanded as "not appropriate" (we have), but it will not be forgotten.

3. Practice Persistent Follow-Up

This is in contrast to the all-too-common practice of sending an email and waiting two weeks to see what happens. The first call will be "I wanted to make sure you received my email," the second, "Just wanted to make sure you have everything you need," the third, "What is the anticipated timeline for completing the work?" Now you have surfaced a deadline, which will be the reason for the fourth call….and so on. As they say, "what gets measured, improves" and it is true even in a bureaucracy when it is measured in days, not weeks.

While this may seem like a lot of work, just remember as a Program Manager that every day a provider is not working represents lost revenue. Following these simple practices will not only make you indispensable to your company but also means that you cost the company nothing. This might just be a platform for discussing that raise you have been wanting.

4. Create a Sense of Urgency

John Kotter wrote an entire book on this subject as it relates to change, but the ability to create urgency is an art of universal business application.

These follow-ups often result in multiple conversations during which you can remind an employee who is by nature primarily focused on process and not results, that there is an important mission to achieve.

I will never forget such a conversation with a Credentialing Specialist with the Army. She was manufacturing complications and delays that had nothing to do with AR 40-68. I simply reminded her that we are on the same team and that "our mission is to provide excellent care for our soldiers, so let's just get this done." She did.

Urgency is a set of thoughts and feelings, as well as a compulsive determination to move and win now. Aim for the heart, not just the mind. Look for the element of every story that will compel employees into action. Make employees feel empowered, not stressed, to buy into the need for urgency. -Martin Zwilling

5. Pay Attention to Optimum Windows for GOVT Contracting Officers

Suffice it to say that your optimum windows may not coincide with theirs. We had a client in California with chronic client (GOVT) management issues. We had to help them to understand that when they arrived at the office in the morning it is lunch time on the east coast. Contract officers are best contacted at 7 AM in the morning when they arrive at the office (4 AM PST). It may be necessary to make early calls once a week if you are working from Hawaii or the west coast. However, it is also useful to use a smart email client that will allow you to schedule emails during the ideal communication window so they are not buried in yesterday's emails. Recommended - (www.cloze.com).

The Government is a client and, like any client, must be managed.

And what about those ubiquitous emails? Without question, follow each telephone conversation with an email summarizing the conversation and use https://www.cloze.com/ as your email client since they provide "open" tracking!

KurzSolutions is the only RPO in the U.S. with extensive experience providing support in the Government Contracting space

The recruiting landscape has changed. The online social networking boom, burgeoning job boards, and the proliferation of mobile apps have leveled the playing field for job seekers reducing the value of the once "proprietary" knowledge and access to both job information and that employers and recruiting departments once enjoyed. Currently seventy-five percent of job-seekers are finding their next job through their social networks - not through want-ads, job postings, or recruiting departments – which is to say that they are brokering their own careers and don't need us. In the current environment recruiting expertise is essential to any company that wants to maintain a competitive edge.

Understanding Recruitment Process Outsourcing…

The basic premise behind RPO is that recruiting is not in the wheelhouse of most companies. One of the many lessons learned from the Search for Excellence research conducted by Peters and Waterman is to "stick to the knitting, " i.e. organizations that stick to their primary business will be more successful. Healthcare organizations exist to provide quality patient care, not staffing solutions. Home builders exist to provide high quality homes at premium market value, not executive search services.

Particularly in the current milieu, it makes perfect sense to have a professional search organization provide your recruiting services.

"Recruitment Process Outs

Free Recruiting Services?

The recruiting landscape has changed. The online social networking boom, burgeoning job boards, and the proliferation of mobile apps have leveled the playing field for job seekers reducing the value of the once "proprietary" knowledge and access to both job information and that employers and recruiting departments once enjoyed. Currently seventy-five percent of job-seekers are finding their next job through their social networks - not through want-ads, job postings, or recruiting departments – which is to say that they are brokering their own careers and don't need us. In the current environment recruiting expertise is essential to any company that wants to maintain a competitive edge.

Understanding Recruitment Process Outsourcing…

The basic premise behind RPO is that recruiting is not in the wheelhouse of most companies. One of the many lessons learned from the Search for Excellence research conducted by Peters and Waterman is to "stick to the knitting, " i.e. organizations that stick to their primary business will be more successful. Healthcare organizations exist to provide quality patient care, not staffing solutions. Home builders exist to provide high quality homes at premium market value, not executive search services.

Particularly in the current milieu, it makes perfect sense to have a professional search organization provide your recruiting services.

"Recruitment Process Outsourcing" – is a form of business process outsourcing (BPO) where an employer outsources or transfers all or part of its recruitment activities to an external service provider.

Benefits of RPO

Economies of scale enable us to offer recruitment processes at lower cost while economies of scope allow us to operate as high-quality specialists. An RPO has a larger staff of recruiters, databases of candidate resumes, and investment in recruiting tools and networks. An RPO can expand services as necessary and retract when they are not needed obviating the high cost of full-time internal staff and the need to lay-off internal recruiting staff when activity is low. Unlike the internal human resources department with its many competing agendas, an RPO provides expertise and complete focus on talent acquisition.

Imagine a Staffing Firm with a Staffing Function that Costs Less Than 3% of Revenue...

Key Components of a Competitive Edge

While shape of this new recruiting paradigm is not completely clear, a few non-negotiables are obvious…

• SPEED – technology has both accelerated everything and made acceleration possible. Firms that use technology to their advantage to accelerate the recruiting process with have a significant competitive edge.
• QUALITY – is the province of a master whether it is a professional violinist, a pastry chef, or a search firm. Mastery requires complete focus on the requisite skills every day without the distraction of competing business priorities.
• TECHNOLOGY – Savvy use of social media, automation, patented algorithms, 2.0 marketing tools, proprietary research tools provide firms that use us with the ability to win the war for talent.
• BANDWIDTH – The ability to reach every potential candidate in a market (particularly passive candidates) in a matter of days, not weeks requires a level of bandwidth that no internal recruiting or HR department can provide.
• INFORMATION MANAGEMENT – Firms with the ability to quickly and efficiently access and manage the infinite and accessible data represented by the web will win. Put another way, research is KING.

KurzSolutions on the Cutting Edge

At KurzSolutions we have taken these challenges seriously. Our recruiting portal uses the most advanced (patented) technology available to source, match, track, and seamlessly communicate with both potential and active candidates. Sophisticated web spiders scour the internet 24/7 for qualified candidates and harvest 2,500 – 3,000 matching resumes daily. Our active candidate database includes over 900,000 active candidates that can be instantly matched to job orders with the click of a mouse. Currently 85% of our placements come from candidates already in our database and this capacity allows us to present qualified candidates in hours or days rather than weeks.

Sophisticated proprietary email marketing tools allow us to contact passive candidates by the thousands and to track opens, clicks, and click-throughs to create screened lists of interested passive candidates for any open job order in any niche. KurzSolutions recruiting consultants can send personalized emails to pre-screened candidate lists without ever leaving our single comprehensive recruiting portal simply by selecting a template from a drop-down menu and clicking "send." The open rate of our email marketing is three times the national average.

A dedicated research division using cutting edge research tools ensures that no candidate is missed by sourcing passive candidate lists from association sites, licensure databases, social media, and other online databases of all sorts. Our sourcing team makes over 1,500 outbound phone calls per day along with automated email and text messaging then forwarding interested candidates to recruiters for closing. This combined group of techies and phone gurus does the heavy lifting so our recruiting team can focus on closing the best talent for your company.

Aggressive recruiting of both active AND passive candidates – Most internal recruiting departments are operated as part of the human resources department. The problems with this model are myriad, but to name a few: (1) human resources is a compliance/risk management function that is incompatible with a sales ethos. HR professionals, by and large, do not make good recruiters, (2) HR has many other competing priorities resulting in a focus on the use of job postings, job boards, and the applicant pool to fill open positions. This limits the recruiting scope to the 27% of American workers who, often chronically, have their resumes posted somewhere. Since this is the focus of every internal recruiting department it creates a burned-over district as the competition for these candidates is stiff. KurzSolutions focuses on all potential candidates including candidates who are not looking, are satisfied with their current position, and may be happily working for your competitor.

Enormous Talent Pool – Passive Candidates

"Only 12% of American workers are actively seeking a new job. 15% are casually looking a few times per week. 73% are satisfied with their current position and are not looking." Talent Trends

With our outsourced clients our goal is to provide rapid market mastery of their particular niche. Since our scope is comprehensive we are able, over time, to develop a database of candidates whose preferences, intentions, and career goals are known. This hard work along with our continuous recruitment model results in "luck" that is the residue of design such that we often have the candidates you need before you need them.

Partnership with the top recruiting networks creates the additional reach of the top firms in the U.S. when necessary.

All these services can normally be provided at a fraction of the "real" cost of operating your own recruiting department and can be branded such that we operate as your "off-site" recruiting division.

All this for less than 3% of your annual revenue. Honestly, engaging us is what is commonly called a "no-brainer" or virtually-free recruiting services.

Call us today for a consultation

Since the recession (2007-2009), we have experienced the longest boom in American History resulting in part from a labor surplus. But growth and expansion are hitting a wall as unemployment reaches an all-time low (3.7%) and is projected to drop even lower by Q2 2019 (3.2%). As a result U.S. job openings topped 7.136m, also a record.

"An increasing labor shortage may soon be one of the greatest risks to continued economic expansion." - Chris Rupkey, Economist, MUFG Union Bank

Q3 job openings outnumbered workers in eight out of twelve major industries. In health care there are now two openings for every available provider. Federal Government openings rose by 42k, a 61% increase.

Many in the recruiting industry will recall the "heady" days of 2006-2007, before the recession, when the talent shortage was intense and employers with money won. In the pharmacy space the winner was Walmart. At the time, Walmart was paying as much as 20-25% above market to eliminate pharmacist vacancies. It is worth noting that some of their competitors are no longer in business.

"Now corporations are diving uncharacteristically deep into the labor pool to fill vacancies." - Meagan Day, Jacobin

Recently a Minnesota non-profit that helps the formerly incarcerated re-enter the workforce is experiencing unprecedented interest – "employers are really knocking on the door in a way we haven't seen."

Right at Home, LLC, a homecare company related: "You can no longer place an ad in the newspaper and just wait. You have to look in different labor pools."

How Employers Can Prepare

1. Eliminate Unrealistic Job Requirements

Peter Cappelli highlighted absurdly high standards with this story:

One of my favorites is a job ad for a cotton candy machine operator – if you've ever seen cotton candy made, it is not rocket science – where the requirement for applicants was demonstrating prior success operating a cotton candy machine. To test whether the standards were too high, a Philadelphia area human resource executive applied anonymously for a job at his own company. "I didn't make it through the screening process," he writes

A note to the Feds – We often see unnecessary requirements in Federal Task Orders. For instance, requiring a chiropractic assistant to be certified (most are not) or requiring five years ER experience for an ER nurse in northwestern Minnesota where the nursing shortage is so severe that few nurses specialize.

When there is a severe worker shortage, requirements have to be relaxed in order to hire.

2. Speed Up the Hiring

We make a point that the victory in the talent wars go to the swift, but in this climate even more so. Right at Home, LLC (mentioned above) said it was "losing candidates to employers who could hire faster. As a result, they had to speed up hiring and training."

3. Align Yourself with a Top Recruiting Firm

In this environment job postings and job boards will be much less effective. When the shortage becomes severe, your only hope will be to recruit from competitors and to convince potential employees that you have the best opportunity. Recruiting firms are really sales organizations and that is what you need now. There will be fewer active candidates, so you will need to be contacting the people you want directly.

4. Increase Compensation

In this environment he who has the gold literally makes up the rules. During severe workforce shortages employers will either raise wages or suffer vacancies. "If employers cannot get the workers they need," wrote Dean Baker, "then they raise the wages they offer to pull workers away from other employers."

Ensure your workforce strategy is talent-war proof.