Although millennials and social media have altered how companies attract new employees, recruiters also have become savvier about the “how” of recruiting. Personal references, for example, don’t count as much as they once did.

“We do ‘indirect references,’ where we find out more about candidates than we would from the references they provide,” says Charles Shanley, executive vice president at John M. Floyd & Associates, a financial industry recruitment services firm and a CUNA Strategic Services alliance provider.

Indirect references can include talking to the people who work around a recruit but haven’t provided a reference.

“When candidates list references, we know they’re all going to be good because the candidate has made sure those references will say only good things,” Shanley says.

A decade of change

Another dramatic change has occurred in the past decade: Credit unions no longer conduct continuous searches for candidates who meet minimum requirements for a position.

“Today, companies focus intensely on exactly what they expect and what competencies they seek,” says Janice Shisler, founder/principal at JSpire Recruiting. “At the C-level, those competencies include business execution, strategy, collaboration, and leadership.”

She adds that credit unions seeking alternative points of view increasingly are willing to recruit from other industries. 

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Shanley’s list of C-level competencies includes vision, cultural fit, strategic direction, previous tenure, progressive career advancement, and leadership. “That latter quality is especially important with community chartered credit unions that do close work with select employee groups [SEGs],” he says.

“We offer what some might even call a brutally thorough process that focuses on every detail, large and small,” he adds, “so clients know we have vetted as thoroughly as possible the candidates we recommend for a position.”

That assessment includes:

• DiSC Assessment, which demonstrate how an employee likes to be managed.
• An assessment tool from the Omnia Group, a company JSpire Recruiting works with closely that can tease out accurate takes about prospects’ qualifications even if they’re very personable or good at lying.

Shisler customizes clients’ searches. “Each has different needs, which can range from a simple ‘send us the resumes of what you have determined are the most qualified candidates’ to a full-on background vetting and profiling of candidates,” she says. “For example, if a large credit union has a vice president who will retire midyear, we’ll start the recruitment process in January and expect to make recommendations in March.

“Typically, we’ll recruit from larger credit unions,” Shisler continues. “If a $500 million asset credit union is looking for a C-level recruit, I’ll look for candidates among credit unions with $1 billion or more in assets. You can entice recruits at larger credit unions with the prospect of working in a place
where they can stand out more and advance more quickly.”

Shanley says he’ll sometimes recruit from within banks, which are sales-driven. “But we insist that candidates must understand credit union culture before we can recommend them,” he says.

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