Human Resource
November 2004

Recruiter Outlook 2003: The Times They are A'Changing!
(Originally published March 2003)

Overview

Technology has impacted how recruiters identify candidates! Both Sodexho, www.sodexhousa.com, annual global revenues of $11 billion, and Travel Centers of America, www.tatravelcenters.com, yearly sales of $2 billion, are leaders in their markets. In separate interviews, their recruiters made it clear: "The times they are a'changing!"

Sodexho: High Tech Inside and Out!

John Lee, director of staffing for foodservice giant, Sodexho, is savvy. Working to staff a $6 billion business (North America), you get "binary" in a hurry. With 600-700 regular job openings, and a new contract to handle foodservice for the U.S. Marine Corps, your challenge compounds! What do you do?

John said: "We do it all!" Two tools he finds particularly effective are Hcareers and Career Builder. "When we built our web site to list job openings and started using job boards, we increased our candidate flow from 2,500 to 11,000 per month. The bad news was we had thousands of irrelevant resumes! By modifying the way in which we segmented jobs on job boards we were able to attract candidates more relevant to our industry. Partnering with organizations such as Hcareers helped us target highly qualified candidates who fit our position needs."

"Another organization which has been helpful is Spherion, a full-service recruiting and resource firm. When we were ramping up the Marine Corps business, Spherion was a valuable partner, bringing qualified candidates to the table in a hurry. "

Global also Goes Internal!

Sodexho's web site, which attracts outside candidates, is valuable internally as well. "We invite our associates to review job listings on our site and apply for positions for which they have the qualifications and interest." Sodexho hired a high-tech company, www.kenexa.com, to host and manage this aspect of recruiting. "We're developing additional tools and systems to enable our internal employees to access training and grow their careers utilizing web-based technology," Lee said.

Overview: Travel Centers of America

Cleveland, Ohio-based Travel Centers of America, the leading U.S. "Truck Stop" company, has locations in nearly every State. You'll see billboards along the major highways in the U.S., promoting TA and their restaurant brands: Country Pride, Popeyes, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Taco Bell, Starbucks, Subway and more. The huge real estate requirements for travel centers mean they generally are located where land is plentiful and relatively inexpensive, some distance from metropolitan areas and large pools of labor. I wanted to know: How do you staff such remote locations? What are you doing different today from two years ago?

Re-allocating the Sourcing Budget

Tom Maren, TA's recruiting manager, indicated a paradigm shift in the last few years as he's made a transition from traditional sourcing to his contemporary style, an interesting combination of high tech and high feel. Compared to 2001, TA increased its 2003 budget for job boards from 17 percent to 23 percent, an increase of 35 percent, and reduced its retained and contingency search budget from 37 percent to 12 percent, a 67 percent reduction.

Tom's Explanation

In order to staff remote locations, you have to find people who live within a reasonable driving distance, thus TA dedicates a significant portion of the budget to develop a pool of candidates in the vicinity of our travel centers. According to Tom, " Job listings on Internet job boards generate local candidates."

"Our biggest change is the reduction in use of retained and contingency search firms. We felt we weren't getting an adequate flow of quality candidates from search firms. We weren't really controlling the process, but delegating an awful lot to outside recruiters. We've gotten more effective using technology, and reduced our overall sourcing budget by 35 percent."

"We took control by shifting to technology, and by stepping up our visits to local schools where we meet entry level management candidates. That's high touch. We invite qualified local candidates to our sites where they meet our managers, tour the facilities and have lunch. On a recent Friday afternoon, for example, I picked up five students from a local college and brought them over to our local travel center. By the end of day, four were interested in coming to work for TA!"

More Techno-Tom

Maren also feels strongly that speedy qualifying and/or disqualifying, and getting offers made, particularly to entry-level candidates, is a huge key to staffing. Though only one percent of the sourcing budget is dedicated to web site maintenance, Travel Centers utilizes its site as a screening device, requiring every candidate to take a test on the TA Travel Centers web site: 60 percent pass, while 40 percent are knocked out in a matter of hours!

Tech, tech, tech, tech. That's not a watch ticking, that's technology "teching!" "The times they are a'changing!"

Hospitably yours,

Peter Langlois

Bio - John Lee, Director of Staffing Services, Sodexho

John Lee has been with Sodexho for over thirty two years. During that time, he has spent several years as a Human Resources Director for the Health Care Services and the Facilities Management Divisions. He has also served as a Manager of Training and Development and has over ten year’s operational experience, up to and including District Manager.

John is presently responsible for the Branding and Sourcing Team in Sodexho’s Talent Acquisition organization. The branding and sourcing team supports the Talent Acquisition Group through targeted sourcing of candidates by way of internet research, networking and direct recruitment techniques. John’s team is also responsible for development and placement of the company’s recruitment advertising, job board posting sites, college and national association relationships and the development of programs focused on the sourcing of excellent candidates inside and outside of Sodexho. The Talent Acquisition Team employs state of the art recruitment technology including web based tools and competency based interviewing. As a company we fill approximately 5000 management positions per year.

John just completed a term as the Director of Industry Relations on the board of International CHRIE (Council of Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education). He is a graduate from the University of Maryland with a B.S. in Economics, and holds a Masters of Science in Human Resources from Widener University.

Bio - Tom Maren, Manager of Recruiting, TravelCenters of America

Tom Maren is the Manager of Recruiting with TravelCenters of America. Their mission is "Having the finest people taking care of highway travelers in the finest full-service travelcenters."

For 25 years Tom has served in numerous field and corporate positions. Tom began his career as a Restaurant Profit Center Manager, and, was soon promoted to Travelcenter General Manager. In 1991 he started his corporate career as a Master Restaurant Trainer; then moved up as the Manager of Restaurant Training. He continued his career with stints as a Marketing Specialist in both the restaurant and retail store disciplines before landing in his current role as Manager of Recruiting.

Tom has an Associates degree in Food Service Management from Harrisburg Area Community College in Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Hotel Administration from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Tom is involved in his community as a scoutmaster with Boy Scouts of America, baseball coach, and numerous church and school activities supporting his children. His interests are outdoor sports, music, history and reading.