SmashFly Transform: Fusing Technology & Strategy for Recruitment Marketing Success
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So John Cotton, CH2M, schooled us on SEO, strategy and technology at SmashFly Transform. John deep dives into search, career site optimization, job descriptions and more to prove that strategy needs to be backed by technology for recruitment marketing success.
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SmashFly Transform: Fusing Technology & Strategy for Recruitment Marketing Success
- 1. INFUSING YOUR RECRUITING STRATEGY WITH TECHNOLOGY
- 2. J ohn C otton Recruitment Technology and User Experience Strategist, CH2M
- 5. Why should you pay attention to which technology is infused into every part of your recruiting strategy?
- 9. Who is making it through our tough application processes?
- 10. It has never been about the candidate! • Compliance • Data Integration • Exclusion
- 11. ATSes use older technology. It’s challenging to keep up with modern expectations.
- 12. Candidate Expectations: • Amazon-like experience – Easy search – Progressive information – Personalization • Apply with social • Mobile friendly • Communication • Put their best foot forward • Chance to tell their story
- 13. Cobbled together solutions create a messy path for candidates.
- 14. How do you fix this mess? Think like a marketer and become candidate obsessed.
- 15. The biggest gains are at the top of the funnel. A w a r e n e s s C o n s i d e r a t i o n I n t e r e s t A p p l i c a t i o n S e l e c t H i r e R e c r u i t m e n t M a r k e t i n g R e c r u i t i n g F o c u s
- 16. AWARENESS
- 17. How are candidates finding your brand? • Your candidates don’t start at your careers site – neither should you! • 73% of candidates start their job search in Google.
- 18. Remember, the world isn’t all about desktops. • 52% from bed • 37% from work • 15% in the bathroom
- 19. Awareness: What should you consider? Optimize your career site: • Priority #1 – add all jobs and job content to career site. • Optimize job descriptions and ensure they have SEO-friendly URLs, including job title and location. • Create job category and job location sub-section pages. • Check your site speed.
- 20. How CH2M infused technology • +354% in organic traffic • $754 thousand in savings
- 21. Use Google to help you. • Google Analytics – Cross-domain tracking – Custom variables • Google Tag Manager – Build and maintain code
- 22. CONSIDERATION
- 23. What is your employer brand doing for you? • 84% would consider leaving their current jobs if offered another role with a company that had an excellent corporate reputation.
- 24. Content Marketing Consideration Interest Application 1. Values 2. What you do/sell 3. Employee testimonials 4. Why work/stay here • News • Opportunity • Benefits • Employee growth • Mission • Fit • Process
- 26. Focused on Enhancing Each Aspect of the Journey Job Search • Added faceted and radius-based searching • Enhanced browse functionality • Revised search algorithm Navigation • Revamped job descriptions • Added “check status” buttons in main navigation • Find something else if this wasn’t a match Connection • Ensured every page has a way to connect with us • Included “Join talent network” • Encouraged interaction on social media Reduced clicks from 4 down to 1 or 2
- 30. Research content results Ratings from CH2M candidates for research content 2016 vs. 2015, CandE survey
- 31. INTEREST
- 32. You only have seconds… • 49.7 seconds: time to dismiss for poor fit • 76.7 seconds: time to read full description if they think it’s a fit
- 35. Build and nurture your candidate pools • Use the talent network and job alerts to grow your pool • Use workflows to enhance what you know about the candidate • Add a newsletter opt–in and send out monthly newsletter • Segment into pools, develop specific content and schedule to send to leads
- 36. E-NEWSLETTER TO CONSISTENTLY NURTURE 0 50000 100000 150000 200000 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 E-Newsletter Subscribers
- 37. APPLICATION
- 38. 60% of candidates feel that job applications are more challenging to fill out than other common types of applications: • Mortgage (48%) • Health insurance (46%) • Student loan (32%)
- 39. Mystery Shopper Figure out what is happening today!
- 40. Look to remove the challenges in the candidate’s way. Force login first thing Too many steps Too many questions Too hard to fill out form Submit
- 42. You are never done.
- 43. • Think like a marketer • Understand the candidate experience • Add your brand • Enhance with technology
- 45. B O S T O N | 2 0 1 6
Editor's Notes
- Hello, I’m extremely honored to be here today to talk to you about infusing your recruiting strategy with technology.
- Unique background – that blends hands-on marketing with hands-on technology 14 years in the trenches hands on marketing in successful startups including coding, technology management, campaign management, and events. 7 years at CH in recruiting operations and technology Ryan Cook’s Man behind the curtain – share with you the levers of running the recruitment marketing “OZ” head.
- Who is CH2M and What do we do? You probably don’t know because we don’t have large marketing budgets – we’re never going to be Coke or Pepsi. We’re one of the world’s largest Engineering, Procurement and Construction firm delivering the world’s largest projects. 1-2 degrees of separation between your daily life and CH2M – wherever you are in the world Your Water – safety, delivery, storage How you get around – highways, bridges, tunnels, rail, airports Your sports facilities or those you see on television The energy and power that lights your life and keeps things running Cleaning contaminated facilities Helping local and national governments plan for the future and implement it So what have we worked on that you might know? We project managed the last 6 Olympics (prior to Rio) We expanded the Panama canal We cleaned up the River Thames in central London We help build and maintain the ice road in Alaska for - just a few.
- So what does all of that really mean? We’re engineers and yes, likely we’re nerds, but luckily we don’t all look like this. Recruiting Perspective: Hire some of the most difficult to fill due to shortage/war on talent - Global and disparate roles So we have to make the most of our technology and our resources to recruit in the battlefield of talent.
- So, let’s talk about why should you pay attention to the technology at the heart of recruiting?
- How many have been to DMV? – How many regard that as a positive experience? What does this have to do with recruiting? Survey in 2014 that asked “what candidates would rather do than fill out an online Job App” – 20% said Day at the DMV Birthday renewal story + kids = bad experience – may exclude for time….
- Same Survey Another 12% would rather get a root canal OR
- Go sky diving without training. Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a root canal and I don’t want to repeat that experience, and good luck convincing me to jump out of a perfectly good airplane without training. So our candidates have a pre-conceived perception about our technology and process likely before they even get to our process.
- So who is making through these difficult application process? Truly best candidates = not based on the previous sentiment Passive candidates are long gone So why is our recruiting experience so bad that over 1/3 of candidates want to leap from perfectly good airplanes or get a root canal instead of applying?
- The truth is, it’s not really our fault, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try and solve the problem. The technology we’ve built our candidate experiences on has never been about the candidate. Our ATS’s are there for: Compliance integrating to our corporate systems making recruiters lives easier by weeding out candidates - not including them Candidate experience is the LAST thing most ATS’s focus on. Want proof – look at how bad most ATS’s are on a smart phone – a technology that’s been mainstream in the last 5 years.
- To make matters worse, the ATS is usually a technology dinosaur, you need the millennium falcon – weave through asteroid field of changing candidate expectations and when you do make a wrong decision and go down a deep hole, you can fire up the after burners and escape the cave monster like Han Solo. But, instead you’ve been given a boat, one of the oldest transportation technologies out there. And if your and enterprise customer, those boats are built by huge behemoths that are like trying to turn the titanic to follow the trends.
- Consequently there is this huge disconnect between what candidates want and what most of us are giving them. Candidates Expectations have been built up by their experience as consumers by sites like Amazon, Facebook and more – sites that are very intuitive and easy to use. Great and intuitive search Progressive information with personalization Apply of whatever device is closest Use their social profile of choice Personal communication and transparency that allows them to tell their story and put their best foot forward
- So as talent acquisition leaders – try to bridge gap with tech = not easy challenge Technology is always changing candidate’s expectations keep getting bigger while at the same time, do more with less – limiting our budget and resources Piece together solutions without the big picture Mess for candidates and for you
- How do you go about fixing these cobbled together messes? You need to: think like a marketer Constantly Put your self into your candidates shoes - becoming candidate obsessed Stay attuned to how technology can support these two objectives.
- Let’s look at how we do this. Focus on the BIGGEST GAINS at the top end of the funnel – where recruitment marketing & application happens Set in place technologies and strategies that improve and enhance your candidate experience through their journey
- Let’s take a look at each of these areas and talk about ways you can optimize them. Let’s start at the top with awareness where you’re trying to bring in those candidates and get them to look at you as an employer of choice.
- Awareness, when it is done right eventually lands the candidate on your careers pages, but it’s not where your candidates are likely find you when they start their search. 73% of candidates start their search in Google – so you should start your search for your jobs in Google as well. See how likely you are to find your jobs in Google. What job board or boards show up when you search in Google for your specific job? Check your Google Analytics data - likely the top producing job boards will be different for each company depending on their job niche. Look at social media as well to see how your ads/experiences work off those. If you are doing paid advertising on a board, ensure that it is working as you planned – otherwise, you are wasting your marketing dollars. Can you track all the activity you have just done and relate those applicants and clicks back to their originating source? You should be able to.
- Landscape is changing rapidly How and where candidates are searching is different Whatever device is closest At most convenient time Be sure to search off multiple devices Search off desktop != search off mobile/tablet Make sure you are mobile responsive
- All of this effort for awareness should eventually land them on your careers site, which is the #1 source of information for candidates. Jobs are your GOLDEN SEO NUGGETS – optimize them SEO friendly job titles and URL structures including location Add the ability to browse by job category and location Finally, optimize your site for speed. Google Page Insights = great tool and free – valuable information on ways to speed your sight. Spend time analyzing your strengths and weaknesses and optimizing your experience. https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
- Just because enterprise company != big budgets or resources – employee owned = cost effective SEO often doesn’t cost a penny. If it does it’s optimizing URLs with your vendor. CH2M – first thing focus on SEO – reason I have this job. Got jobs onto careers site Optimized Job Titles URL structure added meta data built targeted SEO pages for job categories and locations Results 354% more traffic from Google in just the first year (other engines were similarly up) savings of over $750 M in job board spending. Once we improved the site, we then used Google Analytics and Tag Manager to simplify our life. Once again, it’s a free tool – the only spend was partnering with a vendor to implement custom variables. We use Google Tag Manager to handle managing a complex set of cross-domain tags – allowing us to deploy a single set of Javascript code across all of our web properties, but maintain and update the complexities in GTM without touching all of those sites. We setup all our sites to have cross domain tracking all the way from our corporate site through our careers site and on into ATS. Finally with all of that setup, we had a vendor setup custom variables that allowed us to track deep into the funnel and allow us to see the source of influence (every touch in the candidates journey) right up until they apply. That allows us to get full ROI on our efforts on the front end of the funnel.
- Google great tools to help you and they are FREE! Google analytics – setup across all domains, our corporate site, careers site, and ATS Worked with a vendor to add custom variables to track deep into the sources Use Google Tag Manager to help manage and maintain the code – outside of other systems/vendors.
- Now let’s look at consideration – get them on the hook and move them forward to getting that all important apply click
- At this point, the candidate is interacting with your brand – are you engaging them– or are you turning them off? You message and brand are important! According to a Glassdoor survey: 84% would leave their current job for a role at a company with an excellent reputation = that’s all branding https://www.glassdoor.com/employers/popular-topics/hr-stats.htm
- Your content is the key at this point. The candidate is likely to fluctuate between interest and consideration – and back- quickly at this point. Content and cadence = apply click. All content marketing CandE Awards survey in 2015 - these are the candidate’s top priorities: Your company values Understanding who you are and what you do Employee testimonials Why do people come to work for you and why do they stay Opportunity to present candidates with your unique value proposition in the marketplace – utilize it.
- So, let’s talk about what CH2M has done. Participate in CandE Survey – every year since inception. We’d been a previous winner 3 years in a row. Not always perfect – timing = CandE Award survey in 2015 – caught with pants down = ATS from Kenexa to Taleo + brand refresh and new website Deadlines for both not in our control Desired functionality left out to meet deadlines Hit at same time as survey and it showed – we didn’t win Fast forward a year and we’ve closed many of these holes: Starting with #1 compliant – communication – ensured our triggers were set gave recruiters a set of templated messages to send out at various stages
- What we couldn’t do at launch – we fixed a few weeks later: enhanced our job search - with faceted search and radius search Added browse jobs We streamlined our navigation by revamping our job description pages – Ensuring that apply now, job alerts, and share were sticky at the top and bottom of the page Added a check your application status button to the main navigation and to every job description Gave them a clear way to look for something else if the job didn’t match We ensured that every page had ways to connect with us – Join our talent network | Get job alerts | Interact with us on Social Media Results FROM 4 clicks to jobs to 1 to 2 clicks to find a job
- From a careers perspective, people are front and center – they are what we sell after all. But for candidates we added candidate support help: FAQs, how to apply, blog content to help them get a job
- Clearly marked and Sign-posted the typical types of candidates we look for allowing candidates to quickly self-select into the right journey Added the crucial content around culture and why work/stay here
- We revamped our job description pages ensuring that we had prominent and sticky apply button share button job alerts button We also added multiple navigation pieces to check your application status.
- I’m happy to say that all these efforts paid dividends. Received 21% more 4 and 5 star ratings for research content this year compared to last From our candidates surveyed in CandE Award Survey.
- So your content has pushed them over the brink at some point to being interested. At this point they are almost ready to apply but might need just the right things to trigger them to make that “buying decision” – clicking the apply button.
- One chance to make an impression = usually the job description Ladders did a survey of candidates and tracked their eye movement. Candidates decide within 50 seconds if your job is a fit for them or not Worse – they take only an additional 26 seconds to read if they think it is a fit. You can see where they spend their time on your job descriptions And their skimming the whole time. How much do you think actually sinks in?
- Our job descriptions (mine included) are pretty miserable – this is a Comcast job, but it could be anyone’s (mine included) This is a 10 second scroll. Do you think your candidates are reading all of that? Are they absorbing it all? Is it sending the right message and is it on brand? Likely not.
- Compare that previous example to this. It’s a job advert – just enough information to get you enticed and make you click apply. Then you can continue the conversation once you have their contact information Give them a full job description to determine a true fit and check all the boxes. Think about ways to bring that job to life for the candidate – but keep it brief and on point – your goal is generating a click through.
- Bring in candidates with your apply clicks Ask them to join your talent network Sign up for job alerts Then nurture them through workflows that automate the cadence of communication and reduce manual workload Add a newsletter to continue to nurture Segment into pools to target content and gain interest through customized messaging
- At CH2M, we’ve had a eNewsletter for several years now. Matured with regional newsletters as well Content is not new – it’s curated from existing stories or found content It’s responsively designed, so it works on whatever device they read it on. It’s growing exponentially – we have almost 150,000 subscribers – growing 7K per month We get about a 30% open rate and we average about 200 applications per email, but that’s not really the goal. The goal is to continue to keep these folks in the loop, month after month and keep bringing them back with content that engages them.
- So you finally have pushed them over into application – let’s take a closer look at this crucial part of the process.
- As we talked about at the start, it’s not good news here. 60% of candidates say it’s easier to do: Mortgage app Health Insurance Student Loan I can get pre-approved for a mortgage in under 15 minutes - oh and I can do it all off my mobile phone. You can’t say that about any application process that I’ve seen to date. Make it simple – remember that for every five questions you ask – you double your drop off rate.
- Show of hands - When was the last time you applied for your own jobs in the last month or two? How often do we actually do this? Check out your process and see how easy it really is. Compare against competitors Likely to find that it’s really not as easy as you thought.
- Remove the challenges in their way: Not making them login right away – this leads to very high drop off rates - > than 35% Not making the # of steps no more than 2-3 pages - each page you add will add to your drop off rate. Not asking too many questions up front – you aren’t asking them to marry you – heck you haven’t even met for coffee yet. Not allowing them to fill out data and/or login using social profiles If they leave – you get NOTHING! Put a talent network form between the apply click and your ATS to capture basic information, enable the ability to send notifications 24, 36 and 48 hours later to ask back candidates that drop out.
- I’ll leave you with these two closing thoughts… Application – huge opportunity to beat the competition. Paradigm shift – lead or follow it. What is it? Blow up the application process and think differently about what you really need from candidates. Treat them like leads – only ask for a little information and constantly nurture the rest out of them. How good are resumes today? Do you need them? Companies are doing it today – talk to how Mercy Health is having candidates introduce themselves.
- Second, you are never done with this process. You need to keep infusing your strategy with technology. Look at analytics again – did you increase or make it worse? Go through the new flow and re-survey your candidates. Candidate expectations will change, as will the technology, so it’s a constant cycle.
- If you consistently think like a marketer put yourself in the candidates shoes, Strive to understand their experience, Add in your branding and messaging, Sprinkle a little technology here and there to assist you you will make a huge impact on your recruiting success – EVEN with limited resources and budgets. It doesn’t have to cost lots of money to make a difference.
- I know that’s a lot of information to cover. Hopefully I’ve pulled back the curtain just a little bit And gave you some new levers or buttons to think about and implement If you have questions, please catch me at the conference or reach out to me through the contact info above. Thanks for listening and enjoy the rest of the conference!