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Executive Recruitments
Job Fairs
Employment Advertising
Internships
Workshops
Community Outreach and Diversity
Best practice industry trends and initiatives
Strategic Recruiter Meetings and other initiatives
Temporary Services
Tuition Reimbursement
HRD STAFFING & RECRUITMENT
As part of the ADOA Employment Section, the Staffing and Recruitment team (S/RT) provides both strategic and tactical services directly to ADOA departments as well as to all State agencies. Some of the tasks and projects for which the S/RT is responsible include:
- Executive Recruitments
- Strategic Recruiter Meetings
- Job Fairs
- Statewide Job Fair
- Third-Party Sponsored Job Fairs
- Commercial Job Fairs
- Employment Advertising
- Hiring Gateway – www.azstatejobs-gov
- Print Advertising
- Commercial Job Posting Boards
- Internships
- Recruiting Workshops
- Current Curriculum
- Schedule for Open Sessions
- Community Outreach and Diversity
- Mission-Critical Recruiting Initiatives
- Recruiting Industry Best Practices
- Industry Trends in Recruitment
- Tuition Reimbursement and Public Service Loan Forgiveness – Benefits to Attract!!
When a state agency, board or commission incurs a vacancy of its executive director position, that entity can request that the S/RT assist with recruiting efforts to fill the vacancy.
The following is an overview of the Executive Recruiting process:
- Review appropriate statutes to determine requirements for recruitment and selection of candidates
- Develop a recruitment schedule based on when the candidate must be in position
- Conduct Recruitment
- Determine specific qualifications for the position
- Advertising options/requirements
- Resume collection
- Resume screening for appropriate experience
- Conduct the selection process
- Resume screening
- Develop questions
- Reference checks
- Conduct interviews
- If the position is appointed by the Governor
- Selection Committee recommendation of top candidates
- Refer top candidates to the Governor's Office
- Chief of Staff review
- Direct appointment by the Governor
- If the position is filled by the action of the Board of Directors
- Selection Committee recommends candidate to the Board
- Board approves offer to candidate
- Offer letter is sent to Governor’s office via ADOA Director's office for approval
- Offer letter is presented to candidate
Back to the top The S/RT coordinates and conducts periodic meetings of the most senior recruiting staff from each state agency. These Strategic Recruiter Meetings were established to provide challenging and stimulating discussions with the state’s most senior recruiters. Some of the areas of focus include:
- Cutting edge technology
- Recruiting processes and improvements
- Presentation of guest lecturers
- Best practices
- Coordinated outreach programs
Back to the top State of Arizona Job Fair
In addition, the ADOA S/RT organizes and facilitates a state-wide job fair in which all agencies, boards, and commissions may participate. This job fair has proven to be a strong recruiting resource, often for some of the more difficult-to-fill positions. This event focuses on hundreds of open positions in the areas of finance, information technology, legal, healthcare, engineering, maintenance, science, teaching, administrative, law enforcement, and more.
1 out of 10 of Fair Arizona State Job Attendees offered Work
The Arizona State Job Fair has been held annually from 2001 through 2007 with a steady growth in both agency participation and public attendance. In 2007, nearly 4000 people attended the fair looking for employment opportunities with 29 State agencies, and approximately 400 of the job seekers were offered positions as State employees.
Due to the current State of Arizona hiring freeze, the ADOA Staffing & Recruitment Team (S/RT) will have very limited participation in commercial and third-party sponsored job fairs in 2008 and 2009.
Similarly, the state sponsored job fair that is held annually for all state agencies has been cancelled in 2008 and 2009 and will resume after the end of the current hiring freeze.
The ADOA S/RT uses job fairs as an effective resource to promote the state’s official website for announcing open positions throughout all Arizona government agencies - www.azstatejobs.gov.
Third-Party Sponsored Job Fair
The ADOA S/RT participates in numerous job fairs throughout the year. Many of these are campus-based in association with the state universities and local community colleges. Other job fairs that the H/R team may attend include diversity oriented fairs, the Maricopa Workforce Connection, military-oriented fairs, and so forth.
Commercial Job Fairs
Several of the commercial job posting boards have included job fair pricing as part of their bids to the State Procurement Office. You may contact the ADOA S/RT or refer to the ADOA Spirit system and review the proposals by Jobing.com, Monster.com, and CareerBuilder.com to determine their pricing for various events.
Back to the top There are 3 primary tools that are used to advertise open positions throughout the State of Arizona. These include:
- www.azstatejobs.gov (via Hiring Gateway)
- Print advertising
- Commercial Job Posting Boards
Hiring Gateway - www.azstatejobs.gov
All Arizona state agencies, boards, and commissions directly post requisitions for open positions on the state job board – www.azstatejobs.gov. Larger agencies have full access to the Hiring Gateway system and their Human Resource Sections are responsible for posting and maintaining open positions on the web site.
ADOA and the smaller agencies, boards and commissions use the S/RT to post open requisitions to the state’s job board. This is done by submitting a Personnel Requisition to the general mailbox, staffing@azdoa.gov. The S/RT team assists in writing a thorough job announcement and screens applicant resumes, referring candidate lists to the hiring supervisor
Print Advertising
The state has contractual relationships with a number of print publications to publish open positions in the employment/classified advertising sections of the publications.
A complete list of approved vendors can be found by searching the State Procurement’s Office SPIRIT system.
Arizona Republic
The vendor most commonly used to publish employment advertising in print media is the Arizona Republic. In 2005, the Office of Efficiency Review published guidelines that specify that ADOA coordinate a weekly consolidated ad for agencies choosing to publish their open positions for a specific week. The strategy is to use one larger, higher visibility ad to create a consistent presence in the newspaper’s classified section with easier recognition by the readers.
This strategy specifies that the ad is run only in the “Administrative” category of the Classifieds, and if an agency wishes their positions be run under a different category (e.g. clerical), then they will be allowed to published a brief referral ad in the selected category.
Charges for the ad will be allocated by dividing the ad’s total cost by the number of positions advertised. Based on the annual rate schedule published by the Arizona Republic, the maximum cost for each position published will not exceed a pre-determined amount. Agencies will be billed directly by the Arizona Republic.
Participation in the consolidated advertisement requires the following:
- Submittal of the completed ADOA Display Ad Request form to displayads@azdoa.gov.
- Submittal deadline is Thursday at noon; agencies should call S/RT at 602-542-3409 prior to weeks when holidays occur to determine if there is a deadline change.
- Each participating agency is required to pay their allocated charges on a timely basis.
In order to justify the publication of the consolidated ad, a minimum of four positions must be advertised preferably by two or more agencies.
Independent Ads
If an ADOA consolidated ad is not scheduled due to lack of sufficient participation, agencies are permitted to use their own discretion to run an independent print advertisement in the Arizona Republic. Publication rates are available on the ADOA SPIRIT System.
Agencies may choose to publish print ads in other publications based on their own internal approval process. In these instances, they should reference the ADOA SPIRIT System to identify approved vendors and to determine the rates to be charged.
Commercial Job Posting Boards
Commercial job posting boards can be an effective resource to supplement the Hiring Gateway posting of open requisitions. As the usage of the internet by the general public continues to grow at such a rapid space, recruiting industry best practices tell us that these resources are considered to be more effective than print advertising.
Agencies using these resources should be certain that all interested candidates be still directed to apply for a position through www.azstatejobs.gov . Each job board has a unique way to accomplish this, and if you require assistance, you may call the assigned support specialist assigned to the State’s account, or the ADOA S/RT (S/RT at ADOA - 602-542-3409 or S/RT at ADOA – 602-542-4757).
The State Procurement Office negotiates contracts on a regular with commercial job posting boards. These currently include Jobing.com, Monster.com, and CareerBuilder.com. Agencies may choose to post open requisitions on any of the resources. Refer to the ADOA Spirit System for current rates and available options or contact the ADOA S/RT for more information (S/RT – 602-542-3409).
Back to the top The State of Arizona Internship Program will offer benefits to the participating state agencies and college students of Arizona. Students will experience opportunities that will stimulate them, as well as obtain real world experience to complement their current studies. Employers will benefit from enthusiastic and useful assistance coupled with current industry knowledge.
To the Students
If you are a student enrolled in a college or university within the State, maintaining an average of 2.75 or better, taking a course of study relevant to our openings, and proficient in Microsoft Office software such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access, you may be eligible for an available internship position. For current openings on our State employment website at www.azstatejobs.gov, click on the link to Arizona Interns-in-Action.
Agency Issues to Consider
Interns can meet short-term needs for extra assistance and bring enthusiasm and current industry knowledge to your team.
Agencies must consider workload, availability of intern projects, staff support, office space, and financial resources. How often can we support interns?
Back to the top The S/RT has developed a series of recruiting workshops that are available to all state employees. The workshops can be presented onsite for a specific agency if there is a sufficient number of participants, or interested employees may enroll for any of the open session workshops.
New workshops are constantly being added to the curriculum, and starting in January, 2009, the newest workshop will be available for scheduling - A Spoonful of Empathy: Generational Differences in the Workplace.
An agency can request a customized staffing and recruiting workshop based on the needs of its staff by contacting S/RT at 602-542-4757.
Current Curriculum
Job Ads That Rock: Covers writing more effective job ads; the posting process; job description vs. job advertisement; and branding your posting.
Panning for Gold: Covers hiring lists; working with the hiring team to understand the “real job”; identifying the best candidates in a pool of resumes.
Recruiting in a Down Economy: The hiring freeze; doing more with less; passive candidates; campus recruiting; and building your own brand.
General Guidelines for Interviewing: Preparing for the interview; types of interviews; questions; taking notes; and what every recruiter should know about every candidate they interview
Back to the top COMMUNITY OUTREACH AND DIVERSITY
The S/RT is committed to reaching out to our community. In order to achieve this important goal, the team continues to connect with various diversity organizations to develop an awareness of cultural values and employment opportunities within the State.
Initiatives have included active partnerships with state colleges and universities to include such activities as workshops and judging senior projects. The team has fostered strategic employment relationships with such organizations as The Greater Phoenix Urban League, Chicanos Por La Causa, the Phoenix Indian Center and Chamber of Commerce, Arizona Boomerz, and Arizona Women’s Education and Employment.
Identifying community needs has been forefront in establishing strategic recruiting goals for 2008 and 2009. The S/RT continues to partner with Jobing.com as active members of the Government Professional Advisory Team (PAC), in addition to assisting job seekers with resume review at all Jobing.com Career Expos. The team is an active member of NETPA (Network, Employment and Training Professional Association), Staffing Management Association, Quad A (Arizona Affirmative Action Association), Phoenix Work-Life Networking and the Personnel Testing Council of Arizona. In addition, the Recruitment Team has provided interviewing workshops to assist students with learning disabilities at the Life Development Institute.
Back to the top MISSION-CRITICAL RECRUITING INITIATIVES
In the area of human resources staffing and recruiting, there are typically a number of professions for which it is more difficult to recruit than others.
There are two ways in which the S/RT can assist agencies with these hard-to-fill positions.
First, if an individual agency identifies on-going difficulties filling positions, the S/RT team can be requested to provide assistance. There is no simple solution to this problem, but the experienced recruiters of the S/RT can review the processes currently being utilized by the agency. The types of suggestions that can be made include:
- Alternative advertising methods
- Improving job posting copy
- Target job fairs
- Improved marketing collateral
- Community and college/university partnerships
- Target networking
- Suggestions to improve retention of existing employees.
Second, if the hard-to-fill positions affect multiple agencies, S/RT can organize an initiative that brings agency representatives together to discuss areas of success – and improvement –and share ideas to enhance our recruiting efforts.
One example of this approach has been to join eight agencies in a Health Care Initiative to discuss the challenges of recruiting nurses. These partners have been meeting every 1 – 2 months to discuss various ideas and approaches to improving the combined success of recruiting nurses. To date, the Health Care Initiative has accomplished the following:
- Organized and distributed gift bags to more than 900 state-employed Nurses for Nurse Appreciation Week
- As an additional effort of Nurse Appreciation Week, worked with an industry partner to develop a video of Agency Directors thanking nurses for their state service
- Discussed one agency’s success doing a direct mail campaign to licensed nurses for an onsite job fair
- Organized 2 out-placement job events for private sector medical facilities that were closing
- Coordinated relationships with nursing schools that led to onsite job fairs and possibly providing student clinical partnerships
- Worked with ADOA marketing to develop new marketing materials targeting nurses
- Coordinated the production of a new nurse recruiting video.
Additional initiatives will be formed as part of the S/RT’s strategic plan. Areas of focus may include information technology, accounting/finance, AND other medical specialties.
Back to the top RECRUITING INDUSTRY BEST PRACTICES
The S/RT is composed of progressive human resources professionals with specific knowledge and interest in the recruiting industry. Based on their experience, professional associations, research, and continuing education, these individuals maintain their awareness of most of the industry’s best practices techniques in recruiting.
Many “best practices” are discussed throughout the HRD Staffing & Recruiting sections of this website. Additional best practices that this group has implemented include:
- Developed and implemented a Staffing Scorecard to track progress and report accomplishments to management;
- Use of branding techniques to improve agency recognition and marketability in print and online advertising;
- Promote the awareness of generational differences and how that affects recruiting.
Participation in a number of professional organizations and networking groups is key to the S/RT acquiring knowledge of best practices successfully used by other organizations. Team members currently are involved in the following groups and associations:
- Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)
- International Public Management Association for Human Resources (IPMA)
- Jobing.com Government Professional Advisory Council
- Personnel Testing Council/Arizona (PTC/A)
- Staffing Management Association – Greater Phoenix (SMA)
- Arizona Affirmative Action Association (Quad A)
- Networking Employment and Training Association (NETPA).
Back to the topINDUSTRY TRENDS IN RECRUITMENT
The Recruitment Unit has partnered with all the state agencies to improve the hiring processes. The team has developed and facilitated such workshops as “Panning for Gold”, “Recruiting in a Down Economy”, “Job Ads that Rock”, and “Guidelines for Interviewing”. In addition, the team has partnered with the Career Center to offer workshops on understanding and recruiting for the generations. Training on communication via a recruitment “blog” was offered to all human resources staff in early September.
Strategic recruiter and healthcare meetings are focused on social networking, defining processes, and using video to communicate recruitment strategy and branding. In partnership with Jobing.com, two video’s focused on state nursing opportunities have been produced to enhance recruiting these “hard to fill” jobs. Linking video, blogs and special events are gaining traction with the emergence of generation Y.
Back to the top In order to meet state agencies’ needs for temporary assistance, the Temporary Services Unit administers temporary employee requests for the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas. A state agency may request a temporary employee by completing the Temporary Services Requisition form and forwarding to: temporary.services@azdoa.gov. Assignments may vary from one day to six months in duration. Every effort is made to create a good match between the agency’s job requirements and the employee’s skill set. The Temporary Services unit conducts orientation for temporary employees and monitors performance evaluations after each assignment to ensure quality appointments.
Back to the top TUITION REIMBURSEMENT AND PUBLIC SERVICE LOAN FORGIVENESS – BENEFITS TO ATTRACT!!
Subject to available funding, tuition reimbursement may be available through your agency. Tuition reimbursement allows the state to reimburse employees for tuition expenses at an accredited educational institution that will help them perform their jobs better or qualify for the next step in their career paths within the State of Arizona. This is an excellent benefit to attract new employees to the State. This benefit has special appeal to Generation X and Y.
The College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 established a new public service loan forgiveness program. The program discharges any remaining debt after 10 years of full-time employment in public service. The borrower must have made 120 payments as part of the Direct Loan program in order to obtain this benefit. Only payments made on or after October 1, 2007 fulfill the requirement of 120 monthly payments. (Borrowers may consolidate into Direct Lending in order to qualify for this loan forgiveness program starting July 1, 2008)
This contrasts with the loan forgiveness of the remaining balance after 25 years of repayment under the income-contingent and income-based repayment plans for borrowers who are not employed full time in public service jobs.
Back to the top