See here: Talent Culture
It seems nearly everyday we’re hearing about the latest National – “fill in the blank” Day. For example, for those that were not aware, just the other day it was National Cheese Lovers Day. There are practically national days of recognition every day of the year. (For the historians in the crowd – In the USA, we can track the tradition of creating national days of recognition all the way back to July 4, 1777 – to the first organized celebration of Independence Day.) While not all days of recognition have equal significance or are tied to such an historic event, the fact remains that these days of recognition give us a chance to pause and reflect. And – in many cases, these days create the opportunity for us to both elevate the purpose for the day as well as to make further commitments to support the ideals and objectives that the day represents.
Back in 2020, The Talent Board initiated the first Candidate Experience Day. It was a brilliant idea to tie the kick-off of the 2020 CandE Benchmark Research program to this special day. Each year since, The Talent Board has been “hosting” the Candidate Experience Day as a cornerstone event that both announces the findings from the previous year’s research as well as serving as the opening of the present year’s research program. While the exact day for this has slightly varied over the years, the intent of the day has remained consistent – i.e. for Recruiting Teams to come together to honor the candidates that take the time to opt-in to participate in their recruitment cycles and to recommit to doing everything they can to create a positive experience for those candidates.
More often than not, discussions about the “Candidate Experience” center around the negative – i.e. all the reasons for rising Candidate Resentment. Candidate Experience Day 2023, however, is an opportunity to celebrate – Celebrate the candidates, and celebrate all the techniques being deployed that are having a positive impact,
3 Reasons Why You Should Plan to Celebrate Candidate Experience Day
While there are a myriad number of reasons why celebrating Candidate Experience Day should be high priority, those reasons really all boil down to 3 core topics.
1 – Mindset Matters!
Would anyone argue that we should NOT think about the candidate experience? Do you know that purposely plans and designs a poor candidate experience into their process? Of course, the answer to these questions is, “No.” And yet, despite all the long standing evidence and the clear convergence that an improved candidate experience is important, creating a meaningful, consistent, and lasting candidate experience continues to be aspirational.
As with anything worth achieving, the journey always begins with deciding that the pursuit is worth dedicating yourself to. Mindset is critical. There will definitely be times during the journey when you will question whether the commitment is worth the continuous effort. Candidate Experience Day 2023 is an opportunity to surround yourself with others who are traveling a similar trail as you. It will be a day of positive storytelling from others who have found success. What better way is there to stay motivated and committed that to surround yourself with others who have a similar mindset. Their stories and specific suggestions will serve as great inspiration to stay motivated to keep to the plan.
2 – Recruiting Outcomes Matter!
Improving Candidate Experience is not a fluffy, nice to think about business issue. Not being able to achieve hiring goals and overspend on recruitment marketing are just two examples of what happens when your employer brand has a poor candidate experience reputation.
As noted above, though, no one means to purposely create a poor candidate experience. The primary root cause of this is that too often recruiting teams are overwhelmed and overburdened. They are expected to be experts on a large number of skills – i.e. Employer Branding, Recruitment Marketing, Copywriting, Sourcing, Labor Market Intelligence, Sales and Negotiation just to name a few. They are expected to navigate and use a large number of systems and tools – many of which are not integrated. And, of course, the biggest challenge of all – is that recruiters are expected to carry an inordinate number of requisitions. As Josh Bersin famously said, “Recruiting is much harder than it looks” – which is why the vast majority of recruiting teams under-perform.
I’m not saying that participating in the Candidate Experience events will cure all your issues. What I am saying though, is that collaborating with other employers who have the same mindset as you and learning from them as to what has been successful should be a strong element to your strategy. This is a great way to learn the skill sets and toolsets that others are leveraging to get to the ROI from investing in improving the Candidate Experience
3 – Your Job Satisfaction Matters!
In all my years of working in the talent acquisition industry, I’ve never met a single recruiter who stayed in the business who wasn’t passionate about the work they were doing. The satisfaction that a person can get from being knowing they are the engine that enabled individuals to get jobs that fulfill their career aspirations is indescribable. Couple that with knowing that your efforts play a role in the productivity and profitability of the business, and you have a killer combination of reasons to want to improve the Candidate Experience.
As noted above – no one purposely works to design a poor candidate experience into the process. At a minimum, it is frustrating to every day feel like it is all you can do to keep up with the candidates that are moving forward. At worst, it is demoralizing and contributes to job burnout. The largest population in any recruiting cycle are the candidates that do not get hired. All too often, this is the group of candidates that do not hear back – which is one of the key reasons for the growing levels of candidate resentment.
Participating in Candidate Experience Day – and for that matter, Candidate Experience improvement activities and events throughout the year, is truly a way that you can take control of your own work experience. Not only will your efforts make life better for the candidates and improve the business results of your organization, but you will also be improving your job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is the feeling of fulfillment you receive from the work that you perform. Zeroing in on the meaningful aspects of your work is critical to job satisfaction. Identifying areas of the process that you can improve upon to produce better and more valuable outcomes for your candidates and hiring managers will not only add to your job satisfaction – but will also ultimately improve your work-life balance and reduce your work-related stress levels.
Wednesday, January 25th, 2023 is Candidate Experience Day. While it is a specific day being set aside to share stories, posts, quotes, pictures, memes, videos, etc. It is important to remember though that, Every Day Should Be Candidate Experience Day! And, while the title of the day only refers to the Candidate, the reality is that making improvements in the experience will actually create amazing outcomes for both the business your recruit for and for yourself. Improving the Candidate Experience is a journey – not a destination. Embarking on this journey means that you are adopting this as a mindset and that you are continually striving to learn new skills and tools to further this pursuit. Surround yourself with others who have also adopted this mindset plays an important role in that continuous learning. Just remember – your candidates will appreciate it, your business will gain value from it, and your job satisfaction will increase.
Wishing you a productive Candidate Experience Day and a full year of related activities to come!
Since the pandemic, employees have been given the choice of working in the office or from home at PivotCX. The Indianapolis Star interviewed CTO Mike Seidle, Software Developer Ana SerVaas and Client Success leader J’Nay Wiley and visited Pivot to see just what a hybrid workplace is like in this front page Sunday feature and video. Find out how Indianapolis based Pivot is leveraging flexible working arrangements to be a better place to work and get a competitive recruiting advantage against Silicon Valley rivals.
Watch the Full Video on the IndyStar: https://www.indystar.com/videos/news/local/2023/01/17/hybrid-workspaces-help-employees-company/11058879002/
For IndyStar subscribers: https://www.indystar.com/story/money/2023/01/17/indiana-companies-salesforce-push-back-remote-work/69799323007/
View Pictures here: https://www.indystar.com/picture-gallery/news/local/2023/01/17/work-home-office-choice-local-firm/11041322002/
Chances are that you are spending most of your recruitment advertising budget with Indeed.
Indeed is a wonderful platform but … It is very easy to get lost in the sauce. From getting your job ad seen, to managing the best way to reach out to candidates. In this blog we will go over some indeed best practices to help you understand Indeed a little better.
Job descriptions are not job ads and job ads are not job descriptions. Descriptions are straight forward. They show the functions of the job, the requirements, and the benefits. On the other hand, a job ad sells candidates to the job. Job ads have 2 audiences: The job seeker ( we’re trying to get them to click on the job post and complete the application ) and the job board search engine ( we want the search engine to index the ad and show it to as many job applicants as possible ).
In the hyper-competitive candidate market, job ads are more important than ever. If your ad fails to sell the candidate on the opportunity, get them to click and apply, it doesn’t matter where you place the ad or how much money you spend, you’ll lose the vast majority of great candidates.
Start from the end; keep the goal in mind. Too many recruiters think they have a gut feeling about what a budget should be. Take a look at your recruiting funnel and analyze it, from hire to apply.
Hires needed → Qualified Candidates to Interview → Applies → Cost per Apply
How many hires do you want to make? Think about how many people you need to interview to make those hires. How many people should apply to get the number of qualified candidates you need to interview? Finally, Indeed doesn’t sell you applications, they sell you clicks. How many clicks do you need to get a certain number of people to apply?
Get in touch with your Indeed account manager, and see who is spending what across all your accounts. Go over the past 3-6 months: see how much you’ve spent and how many candidates you’ve received.
Organic is free traffic, so always make sure you have an organic job post going. They can be very effective.
Don’t duplicate jobs or you will lose organic traffic; there can only be one source of truth on Indeed, but duplicating an organic job post will always take your money for sponsored ads.
Don’t do that if you’re sponsoring positions. It takes time for jobs to find their CPC bid ( cost per click ) and budgets to work themselves out. If you refresh jobs, you’re losing data that the job has been working to build up. Leave sponsored jobs alone but refresh organic jobs about once a month. If you refresh too often, Indeed’s quality team will flag those jobs and they might not get as much traffic.
“If I don’t put a salary on a job, the candidate won’t have expectations and it’ll be easier on recruiting.”
The truth is that Indeed has an incentive to put a salary because it increases the click-through rate. If you don’t provide a salary, they’ll provide an estimate since job posts with salaries get 22-28% more clicks.
There’ll always be employers that pay more and those that pay less than the competition, you can always use a pay range even though it might be skewed to one end or the other.
The company’s timing to make a hire is not the same as a candidate’s timing.
Whereas a candidate might be looking to get a job within a week or a month, according to a new Talroo report, the average time to fill an entry level position is around 44 days. Candidates, however, are not waiting 44 days to get hired.
Want to hear more best practices for Indeeds? Check out the is episode of Pivot 2 First
Dominic is PivotCX’s Recruiting Marketing Manager. He has been a core part of the team for 6 years.
He’s skilled in digital ad buys, technical recruiting, content marketing, email marketing, website management, CRM management, social media, ad copy writing.
Favorite Business book: Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Favorite Fiction book: John Steinbeck’s East of Eden
Favorite Movie: Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Final Thoughts: Good recruiting is relational, not transactional; it’s a conversation.
Mike’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/indymike/
Pivot2First Podcast: https://pivot2first.com/
PivotCX: https://pivotcx.io
There is much low-hanging fruit in the world of recruitment advertising that every recruiter can adopt to improve their hiring practices.
Job descriptions are not job ads and job ads are not job descriptions. Descriptions are straightforward. They show the functions of the job, requirements and what the “perfect” candidate looks like. However, it doesn’t do anything to attract candidates. On the other hand, a job ad sells candidates. In a way, you have to have a marketing mentality in recruiting. In this hyper-competitive, candidate-market, job ads are more important than ever. If your ad fails to sell the candidate on the opportunity, get them to click it and apply, it doesn’t matter where you place the ad or how much money you spend, you’ll lose the vast majority of great candidates
Job ads have 2 audiences: The job seeker (we’re trying to get them to click on the job post and apply) and the job board search engine (we want the search engine to index the ad and show it to as many job applicants as possible).
Start from the end; keep the goal in mind. Too many recruiters think they have a gut feeling about what a budget should be. Take a look at your recruiting funnel and analyze it, from hire to applies.
Hires needed → Qualified Candidates to Interview → Applies → Cost per Apply
How many hires do you want to make? Think about how many people you need to interview to make those hires. How many people should apply to get the number of qualified candidates you need to interview? Finally, Indeed doesn’t sell you applies, they sell you clicks. How many clicks do you need to get a certain number of people to apply?
Get in touch with Indeed, whoever is your account manager, and see who is spending what across all your accounts. Go over the past 3-6 months: see how much you’ve spent and how many candidates you’ve received.
The problem with posting jobs on your own, is the lack of accountability for budgets and candidates. We’ve seen clients where different locations use separate credit cards and accounts. It’s easy to lose track of how many candidates they’re receiving and the amount of money they’re spending.
Having a recruiting agency working with Indeed on behalf of clients allows the client to gain an inside scoop on what the going bid price is, what the competitive bids are, make accurate spending budget calculations instead of going by what is comfortable, which is usually either way too low or too high. This insight allows clients to be realistic about the real cost of advertising on a job board.
CPA vs CPC. PCA or cost per apply, and CPC, cost per click. Indeed only lets you bid on clicks but the actual apply number shows how effective your job ads are. Ads are bid on a CPC basis, but the CPA is what you, as a recruiter, should worry about because it will tell you how effective your budget is.
Sponsored ads – show higher on the feed. More budget allows for higher bids. If you’re bidding above $200-$300 then you simply don’t have a job market.
Organic is free traffic, so always make sure you have organic going.
Don’t duplicate jobs or you will lose organic traffic; there can only be one source of truth on Indeed, but they will always take your money for sponsored ads.
Don’t do that if you’re sponsoring positions. It takes time for jobs to find their CPC bid and budgets to work themselves out. If you refresh jobs, you’re losing data that the job has been working to build up. Leave sponsored jobs alone but refresh organic jobs about once a month. If you refresh too often, Indeed’s quality team will flag those jobs and they might not get as much traffic.
“If I don’t put a salary on a job, the candidate won’t have expectations and it’ll be easier on recruiting.”
The truth is that Indeed has an incentive to put a salary because it increases the click-through rate. If you don’t provide a salary, they’ll provide an estimate since job posts with salaries get 22-28% more clicks.
There’ll always be employers that pay more and those that pay less than the competition, you can always use a pay range even though it might be skewed to one end or the other.
Every instance you look at your own positions, Indeed believes you’re job seekers thinking about applying for the job. Since you’re constantly visiting the job post but not applying to it, Indeed may assume it’s a bad job and work to not show it as often in the future.
Pro-Tip: If you want to look at the jobs for a company, instead of using the normal search bar, go to Company Reviews at the top, look for your company, and go to your company page. There you can take a look at a full list of your job openings and see which ones are getting organic visibility.
You can also look for jobs in an incognito tab and type what the candidate traffic is like in a certain city or what job titles competitors are using.
Native apply will get a candidate into your funnel fastest. Job seekers don’t have to create separate accounts for each company they want to apply to, as they would if they applied from a company’s career website.
You, as the employer, have every incentive to use Indeed Native Apply because you’ll get more people. You can expect to get about 23% more candidates if you use native apply.
Another consideration is that 70-72% of applications are completed on mobile phones. Most ATS career sites are not known for being mobile-friendly and that can discourage a lot of people from completing an application. A better tactic is to use Native Apply to get them in the door, screen them and then invite them to complete the ATS application.
The company’s timing to make a hire is not the same as a candidate’s timing.
Whereas a candidate might be looking to get a job within a week or a month, according to a new Talroo report, the average time to fill an entry level position is around 44 days. Candidates, however, are not waiting 44 days to get hired.
The job market will continue to be hyper-competitive and 44 days to hire is not sustainable. While the average cost per hire is $670, that doesn’t seem to account for the opportunity cost of being short-staffed and missing orders, job advertising, or staff-hours spent interviewing. On the other hand, 90% of candidates take the first job they are offered. How do you win in recruiting? You learn to go fast, reduce friction and streamline the hiring funnel so you can pick first.
Dominic is PivotCX’s Recruiting Marketing Manager. He has been a core part of the team for 6 years.
He’s skilled in digital ad buys, technical recruiting, content marketing, email marketing, website management, CRM management, social media, ad copy writing.
Favorite Books:
Favorite Movie: Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Anything else you’d like to share with the audience? Good recruiting is relational, not transactional; it’s a conversation.
Mike’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/indymike/
Pivot2First Podcast: https://pivot2first.com/
PivotCX: https://pivotcx.io