SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting has a robust Employee Referral program which is easy to implement by your business partner. Current employees can quickly make referrals through the SF career site and also track the referrals and their progress. A good employee referral program helps keep employees engaged and offers a chance to make all your employees cheerleaders for the company and bring in candidates to your job openings.
With the ER program in place, employees can keep track of their referrals and the progress. If you implement monetary prizes for hires of referrals, that is also tracked. Talk about having incentive for employees to RAH RAH the company!
Work with your Business Partner to set up the appropriate settings on how you want to use ER. You can control ownership by requisition or by entire candidate and by number of days. If you use money as the incentive, you can also choose to show/hide how much money the employee is eligible to receive.
Employees can easily refer a friend through two options from the career page:
Within the search, SELECT ACTION will have REFER FRIEND TO JOB option.Within the job detail, the REFER FRIEND TO JOB option is available on top.The employee will enter the candidate’s email address to send the referral link to apply.
When a candidate goes through the Employee Referral link sent from the program, they will automatically come into SuccessFactors Recruiting as a referral in the FORWARD status and the referring employee’s name will be captured.
Candidate in Forward status and the Candidate Source will state EMPLOYEE REFERRALAn employee referral will have a small picture of two people by the name – if you hover over the name, the referring employee information will appear.
Since the candidate is in the Forwarded status, the recruiter can advance the candidate to INVITE TO APPLY and send a reminder email to please apply to the position. Or the recruiter can ADD TO REQUISITION and the candidate can be moved through the requisition without formally applying, if necessary.
ACTION to Invite to Apply or to Add to Requisition
And the referring employee can go to their SuccessFactors Career page and track their referrals!
But what about casual acquaintances who your employees mention openings available at your company? It would be nice to capture the referral information even if the employee and the candidate don’t go through the proper employee referral procedures. This may take a little work but it is worth it if it helps recruiting efforts and keeps employees active in the referral process. Your Business Partner can make the changes necessary to capture the data and make it reportable.
In the candidate application, most companies ask for SOURCE or how the candidate found out about the job. Usually it is a pick-list drop down list of career sites or job boards – Indeed, LinkedIn, etc. Add “Employee Referral” to the list, then add a text field following stating “If Employee Referral, put in name of employee” and you now have another way of capturing the information. If you already have “Other” as a source with a field asking for information on “Other” source, you can update it to also ask for the referring employee’s name: “If Other or Employee Referral, please state source or referring employee.” Use whatever works best to capture the information.
Candidate Application with source field
This information will not show up on the referring employee’s career page so it will be up to the recruiting team or administration to keep track of this information. But that can easily be done through Ad-hoc reporting. You may already have a report to capture candidate source. If that is the case, just add the field that contains the referring employee’s name to the report.
Note: Using SAP Employee Referral adds new fields to reporting to capture the information from the ER program if the candidate applies with an ER link. But for candidates who apply through normal channels and answer the “How did you learn about…” questions, you want to just use the source fields from the candidate application for reporting. Do not combine into one report or you will get duplicates and inaccurate data. Create two different reports.
Employee Referral Reporting Fields for Candidates Using the ER Link to ApplySource Fields for Candidates who choose “Employee Referral” as the Source on their Application
You can even add a filter to the report field to only pull applications that have “Employee Referral” as the source:
Having employees actively engaged in a robust Employee Referral program is a great way to bring in candidates and provide a way for employees to “sell” the company.
SAP SuccessFactors has a Question Library feature which can be useful for recruiting.
SuccessFactors has a section on requisitions to add screening questions. This is separate from the questions or fields the candidates complete on the application. The application fields are purely informational and do not automatically cause an action on the candidate. But screening questions can be used to perform actions on candidates or provide information to help the recruiter quickly assess and/or eliminate candidates. Screening questions are added by the recruiter on each requisition and can be used as “knock out” questions to automatically disqualify candidates, score candidates, and weight answers. If you use screening questions on requisitions, consider having a requisition Question Library.
“Questions” section on requisition
Recruiters can add questions to requisitions manually by creating questions within the requisition ad hoc.
The recruiters can also create the questions in Preferences => My Saved Questions to have access to use as needed. This is by recruiter and the questions cannot be shared with other recruiters. Each recruiter creates their own saved set of questions.
Recruiter saved questions – only accessible by the recruiterQuestions from “My Saved Questions”
Question Library – Why bother?
The Question Library is a shared library and contains questions which recruiters can choose to add to requisitions. Questions from the Question Library can also be used to disqualify, score and weight candidates. But why bother setting up a Questions Library when recruiters can create their own personal set of questions?
A few reasons for setting up a Question Library for recruiting:
Company policy on questions
Consistency
Category grouping
Cascading questions
Turnover
Maintenance
COMPANY POLICY ON QUESTIONS
Make sure the questions do not put the company at a risk. Having recruiters only use questions from a Question Library gives control to the administrator as to the content of the questions. The questions can be reviewed by the company’s legal team before being added to the library to ensure the company is comfortable with what is being asked of a candidate.
CONSISTENCY
The same style of phrasing and wording leads to consistency. Some items to consider include:
How the company name is worded – is a shortened version/nickname allowed?
The way the questions are asked – length, wording, style, etc.
Answers to questions – do they all need to be multiple choice, is free text allowed?
Abbreviations – make sure they are meaningful and not confusing to the candidates.
The candidate experience when answering questions
CATEGORY GROUPING
This is a good feature that breaks down the questions by type of role, especially if you use only one requisition template but have a variety of roles within the company. Categorize the questions by type of role to easily add specific questions to the requisition depending on what is needed for the position.
For example, having separate categories for sales positions, accounting, driver, warehouse, manufacturing, finance, etc. Whatever the role, a category can be created. A “General” category can be used across roles.
The Question Library “Requisition” is located after “My Saved Questions” in the requisition’s Question section
The Question Library “Requisition” has numerous categories under it
CASCADING QUESTIONS
Cascading Questions are questions that can lead to other questions depending on the answer to the original question. Cascading questions help eliminate the number of questions that are seen by every candidate. The cascaded question(s) only appear depending on the candidate’s answer to the original question.
Original question:
“Do you have a Pilot’s license?” Answers available: Yes/No
Only if the candidate answers “Yes”, will a new question will appear:
“How many hours have you flown?”
Opening the Category “Delivery Driver Helper”, the question “Have you previously been in a role where you were required to lift up to 50 lbs on a repetitive basis?” has the icon indicating it is a Cascading Question
When added to the requisition, the cascade icon is to the right of the question. Clicking the arrow to the left of the question reveals the cascaded questions:
The cascaded question(s) appear below the main question.
Cascading questions need to be added through a question library file and imported to the question library by the business partner or support team. Recruiters cannot create ad-hoc cascading questions.
TURNOVER OF RECRUITERS
If a recruiter leaves the role and a new recruiter takes over any outstanding requisitions, the new recruiter will have access to the Question Library. If the questions were stored in the personal preferences of the original recruiter, then the new recruiter would not have access to the questions in order to update the req or add the same questions to new requisitions for similar roles. The new recruiter would have to create their own My Saved Questions library and add the questions. This can lead to the similar questions being worded differently or not being created and added to the requisition. See “Consistency” above.
MAINTENANCE
If a new question is needed, add it once to the Question Library and all recruiters have access. If a question needs to be updated, update it in the Question Library. Any requisitions currently using the question will not automatically get updated, saving the integrity of the question the candidate originally answered. But recruiters adding the question going forward will have the updated version.
If you decide to start using the Question Library, work with your business partner or support team to create the Question Library.
Question Library for Requisitions – Take Note:
The questions will appear in alphabetical order by Category then alphabetically under each Category no matter how they are input to the Question Library.
Questions will appear on the application for both internal and external candidates.
For the applicant, screening questions appear at the very end of the application and cannot be moved from that position.
For the recruiter view of the candidate application, the questions will appear in SCREENING DETAILS section after the application information and before the candidate profile information.
Recruiter view of Screening Details section on the candidate’s application
Any questions in this section are not reportable.
The Screening Details does not move with the candidate application if the application is forwarded to another requisition, even if the same questions are on the other requisition. The candidate will need to be invited to apply to answer the questions on the forwarded to requisition. The same is true for Late Stage Application candidates.
Same questions added to two requisitionsCandidate applies to one requisition and answers the questions Candidate Forwarded to another requisition to New Application (Default) statusCandidate has been forwarded but not applied to the requisition. The application data is intact but not the Screening Details questions
In recruiting, finding ways to quickly scan through qualified candidates is always a plus. From using requisition knock out questions as the candidate applies to virtual screening, eliminating non-qualified applicants up front helps in narrowing the field of candidates.
And for the candidates who answer knockout questions correctly and make it to the applicant pool in a requisition – is there a way to distinguish between them or at least review in an order that works for the recruiter?
Here’s where the Candidate Display Options can be used to quickly scan through candidates. The recruiter can easily choose available display fields to sort by what is most meaningful for the position. And when dealing with high volume openings, every little thing helps. Work with your implementation partner or support team to take full advantage of the Candidate Display Options.
When viewing candidates in the requisition, the Display Options is next to Action. Click on Display Options and the pop-up shows the available fields to display on the screen.
In the requisition candidate view, DISPLAY OPTIONS is next to ACTION.The recruiter checks which fields to display – with the options checked above, the original display changes to show only the checked fields: The fields are sortable – just click on the title of the field.
Fields in the Candidate Display Options
SuccessFactors Recruiting has the ability to add fields to the Candidate Display Options. This can be through a change in the Candidate Profile and Application XML or through the Management Template Feature in Recruit Management. Work with your partner to update the Candidate Display Options to meet your needs.
Please note per SAP: “the Management Template Feature is extremely powerful and should only be done by qualified individuals familiar with your configuration.” Further information can be found at: https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2644550
“Considerations When Choosing Candidate Display Fields” listed below will help in deciding the fields you should consider.
First, some examples of different Candidate Display Options. In the Candidate Display Options screen, the first column is always the Standard Fields column which contains information such as Rating, Source, Last Updated. But what about the application fields the recruiter checks before deciding who to contact, the order to contact, or not at all?
In the example below, the Display Options contains the basic candidate information in the second column. But this is not very useful when trying choose which candidates to pursue.
Candidate Summary Display Options – 1st column is Standard Fields – this does not change. The recruiter checks which fields to show on the screen – the order in the columns is the order fields appear on the screen
Did the candidate answer questions on the application, fill out past employment information, education? Did the candidate take surveys or tests when they applied? If they are part of the application, then the results can be displayed. You don’t have to open each application to see the fields. They can be part of the Candidate Display Options.
Candidate Display with 3 Columns
Candidate Display with 4 Columns
With the Candidate Display Options fields checked and then sorting on the header of the column, a recruiter can view the candidates in the way that works best to determine which candidates to contact, wait to contact or to eliminate.
Recruiter has chosen the source, city and grade of pre-test.Recruiter has sorted on Grade to see the top scoring candidates.
Considerations When Choosing Candidate Display Fields
Below are a few considerations when deciding on the Candidate Display Options application fields:
Which application fields do recruiters review first – which are the most useful
How many columns
Order of the columns
Order of the items within the columns
Length of field name
Required application field or optional field
External vs Internal application questions
When the candidates are required to answer the question
Which fields do recruiters review first?
Recruiters will know which application fields they look at first to find the most qualified candidates. Compile a list and narrow down to the top 5 or 10. These fields should be on the Candidate Display Options list to quickly identify which candidates to advance.
How many columns?
The Candidate Display Option columns should have grouped fields. For example, a column each for:
Contact information
Application answers
Test scores
Screening data
How many columns depends on how you want to see and sort the information.
Order of the columns
Order the columns in a way the recruiters use it. The Standard Fields column is always first but then you can order the following columns the way it makes sense to the recruiters. The order they are placed in the xml is how they will appear to the recruiter.
Order of the items within each column
You can also choose the order the items are listed under each column. The order in the list is the order the items will appear in the display. Top to bottom in the list – left to right in the display screen.
Length of the Field Name Label
The length of the field name is very important. There is no way to shorten the name of the label to appear differently in the column. So if you want to show the answer to the question on the application that has the label “Have you ever applied to our company or any subsidiaries within the last two years?”, the entire wording will appear as the column name and it does not wrap. To solve this, you can have the question on the application, and then a different field for the answer be with shorter verbiage: “Company answer y/n”. But please note this will add more information for the candidate to read and respond.
Another way to handle the length of the name is to have the lengthy questions in one column. Since the Candidate Display Option fields are chosen by the recruiters, they can easily choose the fields they want to see at the time they want to use them. Therefore, if they want to see all New Applications that answered NO to the question “Have you ever applied to our company or any subsidiaries within the last two years?” before reviewing any other applications, they can click on that display field, work with those candidates, then un-click the display field.
Required application field or optional field.
Is the application field Required or Optional? If it is optional and the candidate has not answered, then it will be blank for that candidate. If it is required and shows blank, the candidate is a forwarded candidate who has not yet applied.
External vs Internal application questions
If the field is specific to only internal candidates, then only internal applications will have data in the field. Same for external.
When are the candidates required to answer the question?
If it is a multi-stage application and candidates are not required to answer certain questions or enter certain fields until a few steps into the Talent Pipeline, then the information will not appear in the Candidate Display Options column until the candidate enters the information on the application.
Conclusion
The Candidate Display Options can easily be a forgotten asset – set it up once to see what you want and forget about it. But taking a little time up front to configure the display fields to help sort through candidates quickly can save a lot of time and effort in the long run. And it is easy to use, quickly checking and un-checking the fields to display.
Work with your implementation or support team to take full advantage of the Candidate Display Options.
You may wonder if these are just different terms for the same thing. But these features on the SuccessFactors Performance form serve different purposes and impact the form in different ways.
So what’s the difference?
“Get Feedback” is a feature allows the manager to send the performance form to someone that is not part of the performance process. This enables the manager to route the form to a specific user to get edits and/or comments directly on the form.
“Ask for Feedback” is a feature that enables the manager to send an email to solicit feedback. The performance form is not sent to the feedback provider, they will just reply to the email with their comments.
How do they work?
Both required permissions based on role and route step. A later blog post will detail the configuration needed for both.
Both require permissions based on role and route step.
How does the manager “Get Feedback”? There are two ways for the manager to “Get Feedback”:
Click on the “Get Feedback” button on the bottom of the performance form as shown below to initiate the request.
Click on Actions for the current step on the Route Map on the performance form to see the options. Select “Get Feedback” as shown below.
In either case, a popup like the one below will display and the manager may search for a user.
Once the designated feedback provider is selected, the manager may decide to request edits or comments. Additionally, the manager may opt to add comments to the email that is sent with the request as shown below.
How does the “Get Feedback” provider get notified? As long as the routing document email notification is enabled, the feedback provider will receive an email similar to the email shown below.
If the email notification is not enabled, the feedback provider will still see at To Do item in their performance tile on their Home page. Based on the configuration decisions made, once the form is in their inbox, the feedback provider may add ratings and comments to the goals, competency and overall performance sections of the form. Upon completion, the feedback provider submits the form and it goes back into the manager’s inbox to complete the step.
Can the form be recalled? Yes, it may. While the form is with the feedback provider, the manager may recall the form. On the Team Overview page, the manager may click on the Review button to recall the form.
A read-only version of the form will then display and at the bottom of the form, the manager will see just one button: Recall Feedback
After clicking the “Recall Feedback” button, the editable version of the form will display and the manager may send the form to someone else for feedback or complete the form and submit to the next step.
How does the manager “Ask for Feedback”? The manager asks for feedback via the Team Overview page within Performance. The manager will see all of the launched forms and may opt to ask for feedback for any or all of their team.
As shown below, the manager may request feedback for any launched forms by clicking “Ask for Feedback”.
“Ask for Feedback” is initiated within Team Overview
A popup will display and the manager may select any internal or external feedback provider as long as they have a valid email address. The manager may also modify the default email text before submitting the request as shown below.
How does the “Ask for Feedback” provider respond? The feedback provider will receive an email like the sample shown and will just need to reply back with their comments.
Which email notification is used for “Ask for Feedback”? In order to ask for feedback, the Feedback Request Notification must be enabled as shown below.
Where do the “Ask for Feedback” comments go? The “Ask for Feedback” comments are available to view in two locations.
Stored within the Supporting Information pod on the performance form.
Pod has indicator to show the number of feedback responses received This pod also may be configured to hold attachments
Clicking within the pod, the manager will be able to see feedback date, the author and the comments as shown below.
Team Overview. The manager may also track the status of the “Ask for Feedback” requests on the Team Overview page and view the responses as shown below.
The manager may track number of request sent and their status
So now what?
Now that you are familiar with the differences, which type of feedback is best for your organization?
When to use “Get Feedback”?
Use “Get Feedback” in cases where an employee transferred to a new manager but you would like the prior manager to provide input to the year-end evaluation.
When you would like someone outside of the roles on the route map to provide ratings and comments.
When you would like ratings and comments on objectives, competencies and the overall performance of an employee and not just general feedback.
Disadvantages of “Get Feedback”
When a form is sent for feedback, it is not available to the manager for edit. The manager would have to recall the form or wait for the feedback provider to complete the form.
Form can only be sent to one feedback provider at a time. Once it it out for feedback, it cannot be sent to another feedback provider until they complete the review or the manager recalls the form.
“Get Feedback” cannot be used in a collaborative step.
The feedback provider would get an email notification if the document routing notification is turned on, otherwise they would only see a To Do item on their Home page.
When the feedback provider submits the form, it goes back to the step where the request was made. The form cannot be routed on to a different step.
When to use “Ask for Feedback”
When you would like to have feedback from several individuals. Up to 30 requests are permitted.
When you would like the manager to be able to edit the form while the feedback responses are pending.
When you do not want the feedback providers to have any visibility to the performance form.
When you would like to have feedback on the employee that may not be specific to the goals and competencies found of the performance form.
When you would like to have the option for external feedback.
When you would like to allow feedback over a specific period of time which may span several steps of the review process.
Disadvantages of “Ask for Feedback”
Once the feedback email request is sent, it cannot be recalled.
Feedback provider has no visibility into what the employee is being evaluated on so the comments may not necessarily be relevant.
Once comments are provided, they cannot be deleted. The comments will appear in the Supporting Information pod as well as in Team Overview.
Can a form use both types of feedback?
Absolutely! You may decide that you like the benefits of each type of feedback and may configure the form to handle both. Either way, the manager is getting a more comprehensive view of the employee which will make the performance evaluation more meaningful.
Is “Ask for Feedback” right for your organization?
It is if you need a fast, flexible method for gathering performance feedback from those outside of the formal evaluation process. This feature enables a manager to get a more comprehensive view of their employees which adds greater perspective and objectivity into the assessments. With a click of a button, a manager may solicit feedback from anyone that has a valid email address, both within the organization and externally. As soon as the recipient replies, the feedback is available for the manager to use within the performance appraisal in the Supporting Information pod.
Things to consider before enabling “Ask for Feedback”
Does your route map have “Start of Review” enabled on the first step? This checkbox makes Team Overview available for managers and is where “Ask for Feedback” is initiated.
Ask for Feedback on Team Overview
Team Overview is also where the manager tracks the feedback requests: the number of requests sent, the request recipients and the status of each request.
Do the majority of the organization’s employees have email addresses? Email is the vehicle used to request and provide feedback so only those with a valid email address may participate.
View of “Ask for Feedback” email to be sent
The feedback provider will not have access to the performance form. Without visibility to the objectives and competencies that an employee is being evaluated on, the feedback provider may be providing comments that are not relevant to the evaluation.
“Asking for Feedback” is not limited to the manager role. Any role contained in the route map with access to Team Overview may be request feedback. Matrix managers, HR managers, and next level managers that are part of the review process may request feedback from others as well.
“Asking for Feedback” does not slow down the review process. When configuring the form, the feedback period is set to determine the timeframe for sending and receiving feedback requests. This means feedback may be requested in steps before the form lands in the manager’s inbox. In addition, the manager may make multiple requests and the form does not get “stuck” in a step until the feedback is received.
Up to 30 internal and/or external feedback requests may be initiated. Each non-employee role from the route map may send out 30 requests. In addition, feedback may be requested from the same user multiple times as long as it occurs on separate days. This is helpful later in the year if the manager would like additional comments from someone that replied earlier in the process.
Once the feedback request is sent, if cannot be recalled. The email goes out instantly, so exercise caution when selecting feedback providers. If the email request is sent to someone in error, it can’t be retrieved.
It is not possible to delete any feedback that has been received. Upon submission, all comments are immediately available on the Team Overview page and within the Supporting Information pod within the performance form.
View of feedback within Supporting Information pod on performance form
If feedback is not received, it will not stop the performance form from moving forward. There simply won’t be any feedback in the Supporting Info pod.
You may decide to allow employees to view the feedback. Based on your organization, transparency to the feedback may be encouraged. Typically if employees have access to the feedback, it is during the one-on-one meeting and signature steps.
Feedback is not anonymous. All feedback includes a date stamp and the feedback provider’s name. If you enable employees to view the feedback on their form, be aware that they will know who provided the comments.
As you can see, there are not a lot of downsides to configuring this option. “Ask for Feedback” provides a manager with an additional avenue to gather information in order to conduct a more thorough performance review without adding complexity to the process.
At a later date, I will illustrate how to configure this feature, so please check back.
Are you having trouble achieving your recruiting metrics? Specifically – are you having a hard time
getting enough candidates to fill out a full application on your recruiting
site? Are candidates dropping mid
application or just not bothering at all?
Do you feel like people are interested in applying to jobs at your
company but just don’t see the positions they want so they don’t bother? Are you looking to keep a growing number of
potential candidates warm for when those positions are available? If you answered yes to any of these, you
might try taking a look at SAP SuccessFactors’ new Recruiting Candidate Relationship
Management (CRM) features!
The best news is that these features have been delivered free
to all existing SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting Customers as of the Q2 2018 release.
What’s included?
SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting Candidate Relationship Management
consist of these primary features:
Data Capture Forms
Talent Pools
Email Campaigns
Data Capture Forms
The idea behind data capture forms is to gather information
about prospective candidates without them actually applying for a specific
position. It is a great way to see who
is out there that may be interested in your company and positions you typically
hire (but may not have available now).
It could also be used for events like college recruiting or career fairs
where prospective candidates are met that sound promising but aren’t quite a
fit for a specific position or may not be able to fill out a full application
at the moment. Directing them to a landing
page on your recruiting website later, or even having them fill out the form on
a table or mobile phone at the event would be a great way to capture their
information for later follow-up.
To create a data capture form, you will need access to the Career Site Builder (the “Manage Career Site Builder” permission). Once the feature is active it will appear in the “Global” menu of the Career Site Builder as shown in the screenshot below.
Once your click the menu item and create a new data capture
form you will come to the below screen that allows you to choose what fields to
capture. As users enter information they
are really creating a recruiting candidate profile. At a minimum you will need first and last
name as well as email to create a profile.
You can add other fields by clicking the “+ Add” button as shown below.
Clicking “+ Add” will bring up a popup like the one below
with just a few more fields out-of-the-boz.
Most likely you will need to add more fields than what is available in
this popup (for example, a drop down that asks what types of positions interest
you, or another that asks how you heard about the company).
To add more fields to this popup so you can add them to the
data capture form, you will need to have access to manage object
definitions. If you are not familiar
with the Metadata Framework (MDF) you might want someone familiar with this
technology perform this part (I plan on writing another blog post on this, so
check back soon!). In a nutshell, you
will want to add whatever fields you need to the “Candidate Profile Extension”
object definition. They will then show
up in the popup above for you to add to your data capture form. As fields are added to the object definition
and filled out by your candidates, they will show up on the candidate profile as
shown in the screenshot below:
Clicking the “+” button will show all the fields you have
added to the “Candidate Profile Extension” object definition (and any values
your candidates have filled in) as shown below:
Once you have finished editing your “Candidate Profile
Extension” object definition and have added any needed fields to your data
capture form, you can design a landing page that includes your form. To create a landing page, click on the “Landing”
menu item under “Pages” in the Career Site Builder.
You can create a landing page and add components to determine
the page’s layout. Unlike other pages,
you can add a special “Date Capture Form” component to the page and select the
data capture form you have created. By
adding the data capture form to a landing page you can now create a visually
pleasing page that includes any branding, images, text, etc. you desire!
Once you have finished your page layout you can preview
and/or publish your new page using the links at the top of the screen as shown below:
Talent Pools
The Talent Pools feature allows you to organize any
candidates in your recruiting database such as those who have applied to
positions or those who have filled out a data capture form. This can be a very powerful tool to help you
strategize how to use the pool of people in.
For example, you could create a pool of people you met at a particular
event, or a group of alumni of a certain University, or people you think all
have similar traits that make them qualified for a particular type of position.
Once the Talent Pools functionality is activated and
permissions have been granted to use it, a “Talent Pools” menu item shows up in
the navigation hierarchy under Recruiting -> Candidates -> Talent Pools
as shown below:
You can create a new talent pool by clicking the “Create
Talent Pool” link on the right-hand side of the screen. You will get a popup like the one below:
Here you can see many of the features of the Talent Pools
functionality. For example, you can
create a Talent Pipeline status and set a default candidate status. These statuses can allow you to track where
you are in the process of attracting each of the candidates within the pool. You can also set the pool to be private only
for your eyes or for a select group of people you choose, or make it visible to
anyone with the Talent Pools permission.
Finally, you can also set the talent pool to auto-populate overnight
based on saved searches you have already created (note that you will need to
have created the saved search prior to creating / editing the talent pool). To create a saved search, navigate to “Keyword
and Item Search”, construct a search, and then click the “Save Search” button
as shown below. For example, in the
below search we are gathering all candidates who listed French as a language
skill.
If you don’t want the system to auto-populate the talent
pool for you overnight, you can also directly edit the pool and add candidates
as you see fit in the candidate search area as shown below.
Email Campaigns
Now that you’ve captured a good collection of potential
candidates and have them organized into pools of candidates, it is time to
engage them! Email campaigns enable you
to send mass emails out to select candidates from your candidate database.
You will need to start with creating an email layout. The layouts screen is found within the Career
Site Builder as shown in the screenshot below:
The layout consists of a header, footer, and the main
content area where you will compose your email.
In creating the layout, you would not add any content to the “Configurable
Text Area” – this is simply a placeholder for the content you will create later
for a specific campaign. Typically, you
would just create the header and footer content within the layout. You can add rich text and images from your
Career Site Builder image library within the header and footer. Brands and multi-language are also supported.
Once you have your layout complete, you can begin to create
your first email campaign! The email
campaign screen can be found by navigating to Recruiting -> Marketing ->
Email Campaigns. Just click on the “New
Email Campaign” link in the upper right to get started.
The “Create Email Campaign” screen is shown below. From here you can choose basic info like the name
of the campaign and a description as well as the brand and language. You can alo fill in the details of what the
email will look like to individuals receiving it including the title, “Reply-To”
the layout, and the content of the email.
There are also a limited number of tokens you can use by clicking on the
“Recipient Field” link. You can pick and
choose individual candidates to send the email to or send to entire talent pools. You can combine multiple talent pools and individual
picks all in one campaign as well.
Congratulations! You
have now captured new talent, organized them, and engaged them for new
opportunities! J
How Do I Activate These Features?
SAP SuccessFactors customer administrators can easily turn
on the Talent Pools and Email Campaigns via the Upgrade Center. You will find the Upgrade Center in your “Admin
Center” as show in the screenshot below:
You can filter by “Recruiting” and see the items show up in
the options below. Click the “Learn More
& Upgrade Now” link and follow the instructions to turn these on.
Please note that once you activate each of these options,
you will receive a screen indicating next steps to take such as assigning
specific role-based permissions. Please
make sure you follow these instructions or you will not be able to get to the
needed screens.
To activate Data Capture forms and email campaigns, you need
to make sure you are using the Career Site Builder (CSB) first. As shown in the preceding instructions, all
of the forms you will create have to be designed in the CSB and surfaced
through landing pages in the CSB. You can
either request a partner turn on the data capture forms feature for you in Command
Center, or open a support ticket with SAP to have them turn it on for you.
Where Can I Find Out More?
To find out more, visit the SuccessFactors Community Quarterly Release Page for Q2 2018 here (SAP login required):
If you are a SuccessFactors customer (or soon to be one), here are our top five healthy behaviors to maximize the use of your SAP SuccessFactors system:
Use the community site, which is located here: SuccessFactors Community Site You’ll need an S-User ID to log in (If you don’t have an S-User ID, you’ll want to contact your SAP and/or SuccessFactors administrator at your company). You’ll want to make yourself comfortable with this site, especially the sites available under “Quick Links” on the lower left of the screen. From here, you can create a support ticket, review product documentation, and participate in SAP’s customer influence program where you can create and vote on ideas for future product enhancements.
Work in partnership with your SAP team. SAP assigns an AE (Account Executive), a CEE (Customer Engagement Executive), and a CSM (Customer Success Manager) to each customer. Some customers have additional resources depending on their support level. It’s important to establish the right relationship with these folks as they are your main communication back to SAP.
Find the right implementation partner. Most partners are not good at all things. You may want to search for partners here (Partner Certification Search, which is part of the Community Site above, rather than the Partner Finder on the SAP site. For example, Worklogix is a Recognized Expertise Partner in Onboarding/Recruiting as well as Talent Solutions (Performance/Goals, Compensation, Succession/Development), but we are not yet listed on that site.
Be realistic with software expectations. No software will be everything to everyone. Not SuccessFactors, not Workday, and not the point solutions that some business folks are scheming to buy.
Don’t forget the training. Yes, these cloud solutions are (in general) more intuitive to use, but don’t underestimate the need for training. Visit the SAP SuccessFactors HCM Global Training site in the Community site, under Resources. All too often, we see failed rollouts (or deployments that need to be reset) due to lack of training with the tool. Like all software, it’s got its quirky parts.
Worklogix partners with clients to plan, configure, develop and integrate HR products and custom applications. We have assembled a global team with years of experience implementing HCM solutions. Our team is dedicated to understanding your business challenges, helping you leverage your technology and implement solutions that deliver results.
