Recruitment has changed a lot over the decades. What used to be done via print classified ads and fax machines is now, for many businesses, almost entirely digital—with even job interviews sometimes taking place over Skype. In some ways, recruiters’ jobs have become more difficult as a result of these technological shifts: it’s now imperative that businesses develop and track their employer brands across numerous online channels, meaning that recruitment is no longer a matter of crafting a succinct job ad and sifting through a stack of resumes.

• Oct 18
• 4 min read

Facebook is gigantic. To paraphrase Douglas Adams (albeit he was talking about space), you won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. It boasts a total user base over 2 billion, and monthly active user over 1 billion, which represents a huge percentage of both passive and active job users all across the world—which means that the questions isn’t whether to use Facebook in recruitment efforts, but how best to take advantage of what the global social media giant offers. If you’re reading this article, it’s probably safe to assume that you already have a corporate Facebook page you use to share news and updates about your company. But do you also have a separate careers page for posting employer brand-related content? If not, you really should. 

• Oct 16
• 4 min read

In 1982, a few years before the creation of the World Wide Web, computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania decided that enough was enough. The lone soda vending machine in their workspace was down a long hallway, and because it was restocked by grad student volunteers there was an ever-present danger that the machine would be empty or, even worse, the soda in the machine would be warm. Rather than trudging from their offices to the machine simply to discover that the machine was empty or wasting their money on warm cola, they decided to install counters in the machine that could track how much soda was inside and how long each of the bottles had been there (it took about 3 hours for the soda to get sufficiently cold). From there, they connected it to Arpanet (the early instantiation of the modern internet) so that they could check on the status of the soda machines from their desks instead of taking the long trek to the machine itself.

• Oct 11
• 3 min read

The title of this post may be a little misleading, because we’re actually going to start with the “why” and move on to the “how” as we go. But it is an important question: given all of the possible venues for sourcing candidates in modern recruitment, why use Facebook? Of course, there’s the elephant in the room. Or, rather, the billion monthly active elephants. Not only does Facebook boast more than a quarter of the entire world’s population as registered users, it lays claim to a shocking amount of our collective time. In the United States, the average person spends 40 minutes a day on Facebook. Around the world, Facebook processes more than 4 million status updates, images, and comments every minute.

• Oct 09
• 4 min read

Of the seven billion people on this planet, two billion use Facebook at least once a month. Each day, Facebook has more than a billion unique visitors. Its groups functionality attracts users with all sorts of niche interests and talents, and its ads platform has some of the most comprehensive targeting options among social media sites. What better place to spread your employer brand and try to source qualified job candidates for your company?

• Oct 04
• 4 min read

Employer branding isn’t something you have, it’s something you do. This is the reason that so many businesses struggle when trying to measure the effectiveness of their employer brand: they believe that they are trying to measure the effects of a thing, an abstract concept, when in reality they need to measure the effects that their employer branding actions have on their recruitment efforts. This means that things like social posts and everything that makes up the applicant and employee experience at your company all count towards the overall impact of your employer brand, and can be used to measure its efficacy. 

• Oct 02
• 4 min read

As of a few years ago, there were five job openings for every job-seeking developer in the United States. The unemployment rate for developers continues to be well below the national average, and there are more than a few behemoth tech companies who have the time and the inclination to scoop up as much of the field’s top talent as possible. On top of this high level of competition, recruiting developers can often be a slow process, involving multiple technical and behavioral interview stages and a lengthy informational process after a job offer has been handed down. During this stretch of time, smaller companies often have to worry about their top hires being enticed away by larger corporations who can offer more money and faster turnaround times. Luckily, there are a number of strategies that businesses can use to speed up and improve their hiring of developers. 

• Sep 27
• 4 min read

In today’s red-hot market for top talent, it can be difficult for companies to stand out from the crowd. According to a recent poll, 57% of recruiters say their top challenge is differentiating their company from the competition, and with new businesses getting into the game all the time that task is only getting harder. What can businesses do to make an impression on potential candidates and outpace their competitors when it comes to talent acquisition? A well defined employee value proposition (EVP) is an important first step. 

• Sep 20
• 4 min read

Marketing automation is all the rage, and recruitment marketing is sure to follow the same trend into the world of automated workflows. But will it be worth the hype? Will automation in recruitment marketing tasks enable recruiters and HR professionals to improve on the metrics that they really care about? Let’s find out! 

• Sep 18
• 3 min read

There are too many definitions of marketing to count, but one of our favorites comes from Dr. Philip Kotler, who says, “Marketing identifies unfulfilled needs and desires." 86% of HR professionals think that recruitment is becoming more like marketing, and given Dr. Kotler’s definition, it’s easy to see why. While in earlier eras recruiters might have gotten away with targeting only the 20% of candidates who are actively job-seeking at any given time, it’s become crucial in the modern era of recruitment to go after the other 80%, many of whom would gladly switch jobs if the right offer came around. For those people, the first thing you need to do as a recruitment marketer is to help them see a need that they don’t realize they have: the need to change jobs. 

• Sep 13
• 4 min read

Not many people think of them in these terms, but job listings are actually important pieces of employer branding. Yes, they often (though not always) reach candidates who have already moved passed the awareness stage of the candidate journey, but they also represent an important crossroads at which potential candidates decide whether or not to apply, largely based on their perception of your business and the value they would derive from working there. For this reason, crafting your job postings shouldn’t just be a matter of parroting out an internal job requisition. Rather, it should be a carefully constructed piece of branding. 

• Sep 11
• 3 min read

It’s hardly a secret that the Japanese recruitment market is one of the toughest in the world. In Tokyo right now there are two job openings for every candidate, and cultural differences in thinking about work and career decisions can create a disconnect between foreign employers and top quality Japanese talent. That said, just because a task is daunting doesn’t mean that it can’t be accomplished.

Promoting your employer brand through social media channels remains an important keystone for any online recruitment strategy regardless of location. In fact, in a country where many members of the workforce only work for one or two companies throughout their entire careers, employer branding is arguably even more important.

The question is, which channels will give you the best chance of reaching your target audience? 

• Sep 06
• 5 min read

Okay, okay. We realize that it’s the opposite of what we promised in the title, but we’re going to talk about the importance of applicant experience upfront. Why? Because it is an unbelievably important part of the recruitment process. In a recent study, Gartner found that a best-in-class applicant experience not only improved a company’s talent pool (with 95% of applicants saying that they would reapply, and 97% saying that they would refer friends and coworkers), it even improved customer loyalty, with more than 80% of respondents saying that they would purchase more from the company as a result of their positive applicant experience. 

• Sep 04
• 4 min read

Let’s say you’re in the HR department at a promising new startup. One day, one of your most talented developers abruptly quits, giving no notice and taking no steps to ease the transition of her responsibilities to another worker. No one wants to be put in a situation like this one, but what will it take to keep this unexpected snafu from transforming into a full blown crisis?

• Aug 30
• 3 min read

Somewhere out there, right now, is the developer, or marketer, or manager who’s going to make a huge impact on your business. Let’s be optimists for a few minutes and say that there may even be several someones out there who would be ideal fits for your company culture, and who have the skills, experience, and drive to make a difference. How do you make sure that one of those ideal candidates comes to your organization instead of one of your competitors?

• Aug 28
• 4 min read

There’s no denying that in the last few years employer branding has become a much more central piece of the talent acquisition puzzle. Talk to any recruiter or recruitment marketer for more than a few minutes and employer branding is sure to come up—and with good reason. Employer brand can play a starring role in building your company’s reputation, and a good or bad reputation can actually save or cost you money in the hiring process. And this is after only a relatively short period of prominence for employer branding as a concept. What about five, ten, or twenty years from now, when employer branding has developed a long history of driving recruitment efforts? 

• Aug 23
• 3 min read

Anyone who works in recruiting can tell you that competition for talent is the most intense it’s been in years. As a result, most applicants can afford to be choosier about who they will even consider working for, leading to an across the board decrease in apply rates. These two circumstances combined may be pushing some recruiters and hiring managers to the brink of panic, but all is not lost! There are, in fact, a number of steps that businesses can take to combat low apply rates and strengthen their talent pipelines in the process.

• Aug 21
• 3 min read

Recruiting a developer can be extremely time and resource intensive, often taking over a month and costing upwards of $30,000. Given this fact, and given the high level of competition for top talent in the tech world, it’s hard to overstate the importance of finding and hiring the right people for your team. After all, the cost of each new hire is an investment in your company’s future success, and if you invest in the wrong people you’re potentially endangering the continued health of your business. This is why crafting a robust online recruitment strategy to attract top developers has never been more imperative.

• Aug 14
• 3 min read

They say you shouldn’t judge someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. Good advice for anyone, but especially potent when it comes to recruitment marketing. Gaining a better understanding of what your applicants are thinking and feeling when they encounter and engage with your company and its branding can go a long way towards informing smoother, more efficient recruiting processes. The best way to do this? By mastering the candidate journey. 

• Aug 09
• 4 min read