TalentSpring Blog

Recruiting = Marketing + Sales

Amybeth Hale, our industry's Research Goddess, has a great post on:

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PR, MARKETING, AND ADVERTISING, AND WHY RECRUITERS SHOULD CARE

I am very passionate on this subject so I added some of my thoughts to this blog post.

RECRUITING = MARKETING + SALES

I strongly believe RECRUITING = MARKETING + SALES.

Most of recruiting is the SALES side which is directly working with candidates: Resume databases, ATS resumes, networking, referrals, career fairs, etc.

The marketing side can be incredibly wasteful and a poor use of time, except in rare cases that have a high ROI. (Just like marketing a product) My view is that recruiters often shift into marketing, especially social media marketing, when they want to use their creativity and mix up their work. I think there are a few tasks that create an easy ROI (mainly ATS published job postings and SEO). Much of the other marketing is often hard to have a better ROI than working with resumes directly.

ASPECTS OF MARKETING WITHIN RECRUITING

I believe the the marketing side of recruiting falls into goals within recruiting:

Marketing = Education + Free Demand Generation + Paid Demand Generation + Branding

Branding:

The goal here is to attract more appropriate candidates, than would otherwise would come to the company.

More appropriate candidates can be defined by: a) Higher quality, b) better match to the company culture, c) people that respect the work environment or organization's goal.

Education:

The goal here is to education possible applicants so they select a company over a competitor -- or they understand important aspects of unique job types.

Free Demand Generation:

This is the most obvious part of marketing that should always be applied since it has a very high ROI and has low risk.

This includes:

1. Job Openings in ATS published on the company's career portal
2. Job Search engines picking up ATS job postings
3. SEO traffic
4. Email Nurture Campaign to previously applied candidates
5. Articles (content)

Paid Demand Generation:

These are often used most cautiously because of the expenses involved.

This includes:

1. Paid Job Postings
2. Brand and pure Advertising (RAAs)
3. Paid Leads for CRM campaigns
4. Social Media

I put social media marketing in this category because from what I have seen, to scale the results from this method, it requires equally scaling labor -- which is important to fully factor into recruiting plans.

I'm a big believer in measuring marketing efforts against ROI metrics. Paid demand generation is often used when Time-to-Fill is too long or not enough resumes are causing a problem in the recruiting pipeline.

The best ROI here is often when a recruiting department finds a specific category of positions are stalling to fill because of a lack of quality or quantity of resumes.

SALES via Semantic Search for Recruiting:

FULL DISCLOSURE: I'm the CEO of TalentSpring, which I consider a leader in semantic search for recruiting. We aggregate resumes and candidates on the open web and use our matching technology to take employers to the best candidates.

Semantic Search for recruiting doesn't require any marketing. Employers go directly to the best resumes without labor or costs. This is my best of all worlds. It includes resume database for active candidates. It includes leads to candidates on the open web for high quality passive candidates.

This can often be the lowest labor and cheapest because resume databases are low cost when they can work for a range of job positions.

PR:

I'll define PR as media outlets that could cover a company. From my experiences with my company, I have found that a company will get media coverage from time to time. However, it isn't something that a company can scale when they want. Once in a while, a company like Google or Zappos will have the ability to have a big impact with PR. However, unless the company can create that kind of attention, then this can't be a big part of a recruiting strategy to scale to deliver wide coverage of results.

Metrics:

Metrics are a great way to track a recruiting departments to make decisions. Specifically:

1. Quality
2. Costs
3. Time-to-Fill
4. Quantity of Fills (for the Head of Staffing)

When it comes to planning strategies for recruiting, it is important to calculate metrics.  Implementing Free Demand Generation is a no-lose situation and should almost always be performed.

Here are example scenarios:

Semantic Search ROI:

• Labor: High Number of positions able to be filled per recruiter per year
• Costs: Low costs per fill. (Resume databases, free internet, semantic search product)

Organic (No costs):

• Labor: Number of positions able to be filled per recruiter per year. (Maybe lower fills-per-year than other methods)
• Costs: Zero

Paid Demand Generation:

• Labor: Number of positions able to be filled per recruiter per year
• Costs: Hard costs per fill. (Job postings, etc.)

This Semantic Search on Recruiting whitepaper gives details on improving metrics (Quality, Time-to-Fill, Costs) with that method.

New on TalentSpring: Testimonials and More...

TalentSpring gets better every week.   Today's newest improvement is our new landing page.

What we do is new and unique so we have always had a challenge explaining it.  This landing page does a great job covering what we do.

• We are a resume aggregator across resume databases (like Monster, CareerBuilder, HotJobs, niche job boards, etc.)
• We include passive candidates from the open web, including social networks
• We are a semantic search engine for resumes because we rank resumes based on how well resumes match the needs in the job description
• We allow employers to go directly to the top candidates based on a deep and exacting match to their job opening -- without having to use keyword search like boolean search. 

See more here.

See more about our resume aggregator and resume semantic search engine.

Semantic Search for Resumes & Recruiters

The following video shows how TalentSpring uses semantic search on resumes.   It includes how recruiters and sourcers find the best matching resumes across job boards, passive candidate sources, and ATSes.

Precision Questioning Technique for Recruiters

My recent guest post on Cheezhead is about using the precision questioning technique in phone screens with candidates that look great on paper.

The goal is to enable recruiters to add strategic value by being able to filter and have higher quality candidates enter the interview.

This precision questioning technique has long been used by executives in business analsys.  This talk gives a template for recruiters to apply this to their organizations.

Joel used the title "the future of recruiting" for the post, which I thought was interesting.  As powerful tools enable sourcing candidates to require less labor (such as our product, TalentSpring), recruiters will be freed up from transactional work and can shift to add value in a more strategic way.

Slide Presentation:

Slide Presentation

Video:

Precision Questioning for Recruiters -- Cheezhead post from Bryan Starbuck on Vimeo.

TalentSpring is a Resume Aggregator

The following is a good overview of our newest product:

• Matching technology that uses semantic search to find the best resumes that match a job requisition
• Resume aggregator across job boards.  (This part is similar to Infogist or TalentHook)
• Passive candidates are included from social networks and other passive sources 

Is Sourcing Dead?

Is Candidate Sourcing Dead?  is a great blog post that is a forward looking view into how recruiting is evolving.

The answer is "no", of course.  However, sourcing is changing as the internet is allowing a wide range of passive candidates (without resumes) to be "almost" accessible.

This blog post is a good read for any recruiter or sourcer.

It was written by Glen at Boolean Black Belt.

Cheezhead's review of TalentSpring

Cheezhead has a review of our new Product launch.

The review: TalentSpring on Cheezhead

TalentSpring's new Release

We have a great video including all of the new support in our newest release:

RecruiterGuy video on Twitter for Recruiting

A while ago I wrote a blog post on using Twitter in recruiting (see here).

Chris at the RecruiterGuy.net wrote a great blog post and video going into more ways Twitter can be useful for Recruiting.

The blog post is worth checking out: The Blog Post

Is twitter a wastes of time?

Several discussions in this year's ERE Conference in Florida were about Twitter. Most of it was fragmented about what it means in the recruiting industry.

I wrote a guest blog post on Cheezhead on Twiitter in the recruiting industry: Is twitter a waste of time?

Here are the video and slide deck:

Twitter for Recruiting (Hiring) from Bryan Starbuck on Vimeo.

TheRecruiterGuy interviews us at ERE 2008 Conference

I had a chance to finally meet Chris Hoyt at ERE this year. Chris runs the popular recruiting blog TheRecruiterGuy (see here)

He did a quick interview of me in the RecruitingBlogs lounge:

Takes 10% as much effort to hire someone in the bottom 90% of the class

Seth Godin had a great quote that

"It only takes 10% as much effort to hire someone in the bottom 90% of the class."

The point is that all companies need to hire exceptional talent in order to be competitive and deliver exceptional results.

See full blog post.

ERE Conference 2008

Alex Greene and I just came back from the ERE Conference in Hollywood Beach Florida.

Two of the high lights were meeting

Carmen Hudson (People Shark)

...and Michael Marlatt of Cloud Recruiting.

Sourcing Beyond Recruiting 2.0 {updated on 9.14.08}

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: trends emerging)

Video Interviewing at the '08 Kennedy Recruiting Conference

TalentSpring recently attended the Kennedy Recruiting Conference in Las Vegas and had a chance to video blog many of the technology companies there.  We focused the videos on the core way the companies help agency recruiters, corporate recruiters, and sourcers.

These videos are from those interviews.

Kennedy Conference Video 1 of 3 from Ryan Myers on Vimeo.

Kennedy Recruiting Conference Video 2 of 3 from Ryan Myers on Vimeo.

Kennedy Recruiting Conference video 3 of 3 from Ryan Myers on Vimeo.

39% want to Quit if their company BLOCKED access to Facebook

This Telindus report shows that 39% of young workers (19-24) would consider quitting their job if their employer blocked access to Facebook at work.  Another 21% would be "annoyed".

Ann All's reaction is "Grow up, Punks".   I completely disagree.  I'm 35, not a millennial, however, I think that that attitude is just fine in today's work environment.

Employees would want to flee an employer if they wouldn't let them go to the bathroom whenever they wanted, or carry a cell phone and answer the phone.  An employer such as this would be considered a control freak and employees would definitely be seeking out other employment options.

Young professionals with a strong worth ethic will often "glance" at Facebook 2 or 3 times a day -- taking less time out of their workday than a smoke break.  Older workers just don't understand, but Facebook is used like an email application.  It is a communication tool that you "glance" at to check for recent communication from friends. 

I didn't understand it until I noticed the following behavior:
OLDER WORKERS: If they want to coordinate with friends to meet for dinner after work, may pick 5 friends and send them email.
YOUNG WORKERS: They reduce their usage on email.  Communication occurs instead on MySpace or Facebook.  Instead of emailing 5 friends about dinner, they can communicate by posting on their social network.  Many more of their friends (50+) can see the message.  Then the friends that are interested will join for dinner.  THE ADVANTAGE is that they are not sending an INTERRUPTING email to their friends, and they may find more people to join them for dinner (people they wouldn't have sent email may end up wanting to come).

I think the "Bozo" rules apply:

• Employees should flee a bozo employer.  Such as one that restricts access to the internet.
• Employers should let bozo employees go if they have problems getting their work done.  This includes if they aren't getting their work done because of the time they spend on non-work issues (Facebook or not).

The real change is weeding out poor work ethic and not restricting access to Facebook.  Solve problems with worth ethic should happen by improving the interview process.  Employers also need to be proficient at handling employees who slip through the interview process, and deal with work ethic issues then (including letting them go if necessary).  Blocking access to Facebook isn't a way to solve problems with poor work ethic.

Ann also says, "heavy Facebook usage can slow network performance".   I have a long background in technology and I think this just isn't accurate.  This may be accurate in retails stores with very little internet access, but most jobs are in an office with real internet access.  I would estimate that "strong Facebook usage" would cost a company at most $1 per employee per year.  That is like limiting employees use of the restroom due to the cost of water.

-Bryan

Bryan Starbuck

TalentSpring to present at NWEN's Early Stage Investment Forum 2008

TalentSpring was selected as one of the six technology companies in the Puget Sound area to present at NWEN's Early Stage Investment Forum 2008.

Click here for the conference details.

TalentSpring presents at WTIA

TalentSpring will be one of the technology companies presenting at the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) conference.

The WTIA conference on April 24th includes some of the leading technology companies in Washington state.

Washington Technology Industry Association Conferance on April 24th

 

Recruiter Quote: "Someone still has to sort through the hundreds of resumes"

We at TalentSpring often hear quotes from recruiters about the challenges in sourcing.  I will start posting these as I encounter them because they identify with our passions for advancing the recruiting and source industry.

I read the quote below after reading a post on Cheezhead today.

Former Head Hunter's Perspective     19-Feb-08 02:41 pm    

"I used to work in agency recruiting and when Monster first came out, the owner of our firm was terrified that Monster was going to put us out of business. In the end, Monster probably syphoned off about 10-15% a year in revenue as companies filled positions via running ads on Monster, Career Builder, etc. So why wasn't Monster able to destroy the agency recruiting field? A couple of reasons. Someone still has to sort through the hundreds if not thousands of resumes received after an ad is run. A lot of HR departments simply threw up their hands and went back to paying 20-30% of the employees first year salary to a search firm. They did not have the time to weed out the resumes. Secondly, higher level employees never became comfortable using the boards for posting their resumes, and did not respond to job ads on the boards in any meaningful way. In the end, Monster (and others - especially Dice) have hurt agency recruitment revenue and will continue to do so, but until Monster's technology changes, agency recruiters will still be needed. Meaning - they must develop the means to narrow down the resume flow based on an employer's set of criteria and deliver the five best resumes for an opening. This could be a "premium" or "elite" service and would still be much cheaper than the thousands of dollars companies are paying head hunters. Perhaps this is where Google, as an acquirer, could develop the necessary technology. Secondly, Monster should develop an "executive" level set of services for upper management job seekers. A upper level professional expects more by way of service than an entry level sales rep. It seems to me that Monster is just scratching the surface and the next evolution of the company can really capture revenue from the recruiting firms. Keep in mind that recruiting firms generate BILLIONS in revenue every year. The key is to convince and demonstrate to internal HR recruiting departments that Monster can make their work day more efficient at a significantly lower cost. I hope that Monster is working on this as we speak, or talking to an acquirer with the technology to take the company to the next level."

Original URL: http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/...

-Bryan

TalentSpring launches a Humor Blog

We at TalentSpring launched a humor blog.  The blog is focused on humor in hiring and in the work place.

The blog is at: humor.TalentSpring.com

Feel free to email us if there is anything you would like to post.  Email us at Bryan@TalentSpring.com.  We welcome interesting stories you have when hiring, either from the recruiter or job seeker point of view. 

-Bryan