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1. Pipelining Success Against All Odds
Wendy Whittaker
Recruiting Specialist
ZS Associates
@Recruiter_Wendy
Troy Grabel
Manager, Talent Acquisition
LeanLogistics
@JobsatLean

2. Pipelining Success Against All Odds
ZS Associates
TalentConnect 2013

3. ZS Associates – who we are and what we do
 ZS is a niche market sales & marketing consulting firm founded by two
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Northwestern University professors, with its headquarters in Evanston, Illinois
ZS is made up of 2,500 employees across 20 offices around the world
(including 1500 employees based in our Capability Expertise Center in India)
We provide consulting services to our clients in three areas: Business
Consulting, Business Operations and Business Technology. We recruit into
the same three channels
87% of our clients are in pharmaceuticals, 8% medical devices, 5% (hightech, financial services and transportation)
In addition to consulting work, ZS also has a software development group
based in Evanston, Illinois and India
© 2013 ZS Associates
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#intalent

4. Our primary recruiting channels include University and Experienced
University recruiting
Experienced recruiting
 We have a strong campus brand
 We have core schools that we return to
 Experienced recruiting covers all roles
with 12+ months of experience,
including executive level
 Just in the past 2 years that we have
shifted to a 50/50 model
 In addition to our client facing roles, we
also recruit for all support positions
every year
 Recruit at all levels (BS, MS, PhD,
MBA)
 Full time employees are recruited in the
fall/interns in the spring
Most of our recruiters work on both University and Experienced
recruiting
© 2013 ZS Associates
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#intalent

5. We are faced with external challenges to recruit top talent
• ZS is still a relatively unknown player in the market, especially in new
markets/spaces, which makes it difficult to attract talent
 For senior level positions, we are often recruiting for expertise in a new
practice area to ZS and candidates view the career move as a risk
 While most of our offices are located in attractive cities, the talent is not
always in the same location as our business need and we don’t offer virtual
positions
– Our software development team is based in Evanston, IL (strongest
candidates are based on the West Coast)
– Market access and pricing need is based in LA (candidate pool for this
role is small; but centered on the East Coast and Europe)
© 2013 ZS Associates
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#intalent

6. We also had challenges internally when building candidate pipelines
 ZS’ stakeholders and interview teams were not used to Experienced
recruiting
– Hiring managers expect to have a large pool of candidates to choose from for
each position
– Interviewers were not used to incorporating a “selling” component during the
process; in the past, they often interviewed active candidates
– For new positions, our teams were not always aligned with what the expectations
were of the role
– Our recruiters were hired to focus on the University channel and therefore have
limited experience with sourcing passive candidates
 Our internal policy prevents our recruiters from recruiting candidates from our
clients, but our senior roles often require specific industry experience
 We have a defined and rigorous interview process
Glassdoor ranks ZS as the #7 most difficult interview
process
© 2013 ZS Associates
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#intalent

7. Prior to beginning a search, we meet with our hiring managers to create
a recruiting strategy and develop a consistent message
 We spend time upfront with our hiring managers and interview team to
understand our value proposition and ensure that our interview team has a
consistent message about the role and opportunities at ZS
 We work with our teams to determine where these candidates live
– ZS has multiple competitors across our work
– Companies and profiles that we target vary by position
– Often, our hiring teams will have target sources in mind before we begin a search
 We build targeted campaigns to network with our internal employees to
identify potential referrals
© 2013 ZS Associates
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#intalent

8. Selling ZS is the most important part of our process
 Outside of the university channel, our target candidates may not even know
who we are – the first contact with a recruiter may be the first time they have
ever heard of us
 Once we are able to connect with potential candidates and share more about
ZS, we have a good story to tell
 While we are smaller than the big name consulting firms; the message is
positive for the right candidate (quicker path to partner, roles very visible to
leadership)
© 2013 ZS Associates
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#intalent

9. It is important to use a number of different sources to create a
talent pipeline
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ATS
Job boards
University channels
University Alumni networks
Referrals
Professional organizations
LinkedIn (career page, groups, postings, sourcing)
Other Social media (Facebook, Glassdoor, Twitter, etc)
ZS has a team of sourcers that assist our recruiters in creating
a talent pipeline
© 2013 ZS Associates
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#intalent

10. We have an existing talent pipeline of people that already know
ZS and we leverage it
 Our applicant tracking system does not have a good way for tracking leads,
but it does provide us with historic information
 By tracking our extended offers, we often re-visit candidates that declined our
offers for both internships and full time roles
 Maintaining connections and strong relationships with ZS alumni (we love to
rehire former-ZSers)
© 2013 ZS Associates
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#intalent

11. We track our sourcing efforts while developing a talent pipeline
for each position
 LinkedIn Recruiter has been a helpful tool for our pipelining efforts
– We create Projects for each position or specific skill that we are actively or
passively recruiting
– When a similar search opens in the future, we have a strong starting point
– We track the activity for every candidate, which allows recruiters can see each
other’s activities
 Capture as much information as possible that will be helpful in identifying
matches in the future for those candidates who are not the right fit for a
specific role
– Tag profiles with keywords
– Create follow up reminders
 Excel Spreadsheets are a great tool to use for organizational mapping and
creating pipelines to be reviewed by hiring managers
© 2013 ZS Associates
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#intalent

12. It is important to maintain a talent pipeline for current and future
searches
 Leveraging our University relationships – current students and alumni
 Working with previous interns to build relationships on campus and in the
future (if they don’t join as a full-time employee)
 For our executive level searches, this is the first year that we had several
repeat searches – we have been able to begin a search the relationships that
we created building pipelines in the past
 Keeping potential candidates updated through a variety of social channels
– Facebook
– Glassdoor
– LinkedIn
– Twitter
 Maintaining relationships with good prospects provides our hiring managers
with a strong network
© 2013 ZS Associates
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#intalent

13. Key takeaways
 Know your employee value proposition
 Have a consistent message throughout the interview process
 Leverage the people that already know you – they are your best
ambassadors
© 2013 ZS Associates
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#intalent

14. Pipelining Against All Odds

15. Introduction
Troy R Grabel
Manager of Global Talent Acquisition
LeanLogistics is a Cloud base
Supply Chain Software Provider,
Located in Holland, MI
We have global operations with over
80,000 users in 28 countries.
Market Demographics
• Metro area is less than 200,000
people
• Heavy PHP / .NET market
• Limited Software product
development firms
3 hour boat Ride to
Wisconsin
Holland
2.5 hours to
Chicago
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3 hours to Detroit

16. Gaining Momentum – Accelerating our
Talent Challenges
Business:
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Small Talent team (1 recruiter, 1 HR manager)
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Sourcing Strategy consisted of reinvented the wheel for every search
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ATS consisted of outlook and excel spreadsheets and PeopleFluent
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No pipeline management strategy
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No digital media presence
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No metrics
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Geographical challenges
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We have very strict selection criteria.
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17. Current–State Talent Acquisition
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Small team (1 player-coach, 1 coordinator)
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Developed a Sourcing Strategy around a proactive message campaign
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Deployed pipeline management strategy using LinkedIn Recruiter Pipeline as
our ATS
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Implemented a digital media presence
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Established metrics
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Our geography still represents challenges but we know which battles to fight
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We still have very strict selection criteria
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18. How did you get there?
We focused on three main areas
1.
Building our Pipeline
2.
Managing our Pipeline
3.
Measuring our Pipeline
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19. Building a Pipeline
Invest time in developing a Workforce Strategy and define your
firms Strategic Capabilities
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Align your Sourcing Strategy to Win
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Build a Cost-of-Vacancy model to help prioritize your recruitment efforts
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Develop a compelling Branding Message
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Figure out where your prospects are
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20. Building a Pipeline
BE CREATIVE - Develop a long-term Sustainability Sourcing
Strategy
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Source for prospects that are familiar with your area (graduates, previous work
history)
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Use your team member networks more than usual; they are connected (reward
them)
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Be active and consistent with a focused digital media strategy
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Keep in mind that a sourcing strategy identifies “prospects of interest” and
when the time is right those prospects will become candidates
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21. Building a Pipeline
Leverage the Technology
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Skills & Expertise Endorsements who has endorsed the prospects
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Leverage LinkedIn Recruiter Alerts; they will automatically build your pipelines
and notify you of fresh prospects to contact.
Keep the Momentum – Don’t ever Stop SOURCING
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22. Pipeline Management
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Create Tags, Sources and Statuses to help organize your
Pipeline
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Pipeline of your “Silver & Bronze Medalist”
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Keep naming schemes simple. You can always use filters to narrow down
your pools of candidates
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23. Pipeline Management
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Think-outside-of-the-Box
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Start pipelining prospects that went to college around your market or lived
near your market. They might have interested in moving back at some
point.
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Share BIG DATA that separates your market from a tier 1 market (i.e. costof-living, quality-of-life, national rankings: Best places-to-live, raise-a-family,
etc…)
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24. Pipeline Management
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Be creative with your messaging
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Social media campaigns were a start, great candidates hang-out in other
digital media outlets an (i.e. gaming sites, college forums, local networking
sites! (i.e.
) and be present
Respect your Pipeline
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Remember “Your worth to your network will be determined by how much
you GIVE in value than you take in payment” (i.e. referrals/ or solicitation of
interest)
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25. Measure Efficiency
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26. LeanLogistics ROI
LEANLOGISTICS
Source
Team Referral
Program
Digital Media
Campaign
College/
University
Corp. Website
Job Boards
Agency hires
Contractor
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FY2011
20
FY2012
28
FY2013
19
6
18
14
5
6
4
18
2
2
5
5
1
2
0
1
Reducing Agency cost from $115,000 in FY11 to $0 in FY13
Digital Media Campaign represents 34% of Hires
Increased Team Member Referral program to 48.5% of our hires
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27. Thoughts to Take Home
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Pick your Battles
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Don’t waste your time trying to be a superstar; think Long-term and be creative on where &
who you recruit
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Align your critical positions to a Cost-of-Vacancy model
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Develop and deploy a digital brand management campaign that attracts passive
candidates
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Drive towards an ROI
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Treat your pipeline with respect; provide useful and meaningful content and
DON’T become noise
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