Recruiting Leader of the Year, Best Use of Metrics, and Best Recruiting Process: Dan Hilbert, Valero Energy

What Dan Hilbert and his team at Valero Energy have accomplished will forever change the strategic options that recruiting directors must consider. They have developed what may be the world's most strategic staffing approach, one that emphasizes using metrics to refine "talent pipelines" to produce a talent supply chain.

Leveraging technology, advanced analytics, and process design/integration, Valero has built a talent supply chain that is virtually automated and proactive. It is clearly the most business-like recruiting approach anywhere and Hilbert is a courageous leader to even attempt it.

Best practices include:

  • Predictive labor needs system. Algorithms analyze historical data that is combined with data on planned capital projects to predict future talent needs as far as three years' out.
  • Automated sourcing. Labor needs are automatically communicated to defined sources (both internal and external) based on each individual source's efficiency (cost, time) and effectiveness (quality of hire, reliability).
  • Candidate mining. Rather than have recruiters crawling through job boards and posting job advertisements, web spiders are programmed to crawl, retrieve, and upload candidates into the applicant tracking system based on both current and projected needs. Advertisements are automatically broadcast as part of the automated sourcing approach.
  • Multi-dimensional performance monitoring. The system relies on metrics at four defined levels to monitor system health and performance, as well as to diagnose problems or issues that arise. Levels include forecasts, macro-level (sourcing channel effectiveness, costs, etc.), micro-level (efficiency, cost, speed, quality, retention, customer service, and dependability per transaction), and human capital metrics (impacts of staffing best practices on the bottom line).
  • Integrated processes to create a talent supply chain.
  • Predictive modeling functionality enables the effective use of both short/long term sources.
  • University recruiting that leverages teaching assistants as talent scouts on targeted campuses, allowing Valero to secure interns and new grads prior to on-campus career events.