WINNING STRATEGIES
for 2012
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Table of Contents
Introduction 2
Chapter 1: Social Recruiting for 2012 2
Chapter 2: Applicant Tracking Software 6
Chapter 3: Effective Hiring Collaboration 8
Chapter 4: Increase Employee Referrals 10
Chapter 5: A Career Site that Sells 13
Chapter 6: Recruitment Marketing 16
Chapter 7: Facebook Recruiting Apps 18
Chapter 8: Recruiter Candidate Relationship Management 20
Chapter 9: Fast Sourcing with Candidate Search 22
Chapter 10: Benchmark Success with Recruiting Analytics 24
Conclusion 27
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Introduction
The beginning of each year marks an influx of hiring among companies as budgets are approved and company growth has been forecasted. Recruiters must plan
for the upcoming year to help ensure each team within the company has the necessary manpower to meet their objectives. This playbook provides you with tools
you need to build your 2012 recruiting strategy.
Instead of sourcing, hiring and moving on, make 2012 the year where you innovate and make your company’s hiring even more effective. Whether it’s
streamlining processes, buying a new, integrated Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or taking your social recruiting efforts off the back burner, make this year
count.
1. Social Recruiting for 2012
What is it?
Social recruiting is more than just a buzzword.
As recruiters, we are in the business of finding the right people. We’re matchmakers between job seeker and enterprise.
To recruit is to build relationships and connections; and social recruiting is about finding those people and interacting with them. Social networks have made that
easier – and more personal, if you do it right. Using the social web, we can now engage and communicate on a mass scale, while still developing a one-to-one
connection.
Benefits?
1. Broad capabilities – connect to the largest pool of candidates
2. Easy to deputize employees for referrals
3. Low-cost
4. Authentic and multimedia messaging
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Where to begin?
Finding the best way to recruit socially can
be like finding a needle in a haystack. Start
by defining your voice and understanding
Job seekers are beginning to change
how the people in your company interact online visibility with work in mind
with each other.
Job seekers who modified privacy settings in the last year with work in mind.
Make no mistake; social recruiting is not
about posting jobs.
All Job
19%
Your messaging matters, whether it’s Seekers
broadcasted or targeted. Think about how
7%
you want to structure your voice and engage
job seekers and candidates.
9%
What to look for in an
application
There are many applications to automate
and streamline your social recruiting efforts. SUPER
32% 18%
However, automation can be bland and SOCIALS
computerized, and often will only publish 26%
jobs to social networks – which isn’t a bad
thing, but it can be repetitive. Frequency
is important. Remember, you are talking to
Jobvite Social Job Seeker Survey 2011
people not other machines.
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When looking at applications to help you recruit socially, think about ease of use and your return on investment. How will this tool benefit your long-term and
short-term recruiting efforts? What reporting does it offer?
If you do not have a social recruiting strategy in place that captures important data, then you are leaking revenue. Look for tools that help you understand and
measure how your top candidates find you, which channels they use and which posts or jobs that interested them most.
The most important question to ask:
Is it easy for employees to use?
That’s right. Social media is only second to employee referrals, which we will discuss in more detail in Chapter 8. One of the best aspects about social recruiting
is that everyone can be involved.
A great social recruiting strategy includes every single employee. When planning your social recruiting strategy for 2012, consider your employees and whether
or not it is easy for them to publish to their networks about jobs, company culture and other points of interests for job seekers.
Who’s doing it well?
Total Attorneys has expanded its social recruiting efforts and has dramatically grown
the number of referral and social network hires, with a referral rate of 50%1.
“Social recruiting has enabled us to hire strong new employees who we would never
have connected with via traditional recruiting channels – and we are now leveraging
social channels at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods,” said Sarah Widner,
talent manager at Total Attorneys.
At Kosmix, the majority of employees send open jobs through Facebook, LinkedIn,
Twitter and email. The new recruiting strategy has allowed the company to proactively
find talent.
1
Total Attorneys. 2009. Jobvite enables innovative technology-enabled law services firm to leverage social
networking and referrals to find new hires.
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“Our employees unlock their professional
and social networks to help Kosmix make
hires in a way that we haven’t been able to
do before,” James Hunt, managing director
of BINC Onsite.
Groupon has dedicated social network
channels specifically for recruiting. You can
subscribe to Groupon Jobs on Facebook,
Twitter and LinkedIn. In 2011 Groupon built
a candidate pipeline to more than double its
size with nearly 94,000 applicants that lead
to hundreds of new hires2.
2
Jessup, Dan. Groupon presentation at HR Tech. Oct. 2011. Raw data.
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2. Applicant Tracking Software
What is it?
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is a recruiter’s database that enables better management of resume and applicant information, helping to automate the
recruiting process and manage workflow. A good ATS helps recruiters automate every stage of the hiring process from posting to hire, tracking every requisition
along the way. It is also highly intuitive, easy to use and easily accessible online.
Benefits?
1. Streamline workflow between recruiters and hiring managers
2. Increases collaboration efforts while reducing administrative time
3. Improves reporting time efficiencies
4. Provides great candidate experiences with timely emails and organization
Where to begin?
Defining your workflow is of utmost importance, especially when
dealing with busy hiring managers. The more granulated you can
get; the easier it will be for everyone involved. This will help you
visualize which parts of the workflow can be automated and where
you can close any existing gaps. The goal is to start where it makes
the most sense, using a platform that can scale to the needs of your
organization.
What to look for in an application
When dealing with a large number of candidates and requisitions,
automating your workflow becomes of essence. The last thing you
want is for valuable candidates to slip through the cracks or to have
scheduling errors or lost feedback from interviewers.
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A good ATS will help grease the wheels of your hiring efforts, making sure that everything runs smoothly with the level of professionalism that you want your
company to convey. Look for systems that are scalable, increase collaborative efforts and organize all information and activity in one space.
Who’s doing it well?
“With our ATS, hiring managers can view all feedback without waiting and without superfluous emails. We can also track source and pull metrics on almost
everything. The stats on active employees are amazing, and it really helps with rewards and motivation,” said Andrew Cerda, recruiting specialist at Yelp.
“We refined our whole staffing process and built a strong model that scales as we grow. We don’t throw a lot of money at recruiting by having a large staff or big
agency expenditures. We have control over our process and our candidate pipeline. I’m really proud of what we have accomplished,” said Wendy Fitzloff, director
of human resources at Support.com.
“Jobvite is an applicant tracking system designed from a user standpoint and it mirrors the workflow and the activity of a recruiter. It’s so much easier for a
recruiter to use than any other system out there,” said Paul Whitney, vice president of human resources at Infinera.
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3. Effective Hiring Collaboration
What is it?
Everyone in your company is involved in hiring in some way, whether an employee is interviewing, hiring, referring or will be working with the new hire. Hiring
collaboration is a process where everyone works together on hiring the right candidates.
Benefits?
1. Employees feel a part of the hiring process for new team members
2. Information is easily distributed across all parties
3. Recruiters spend less time organizing and scheduling
Where to begin?
Hiring collaboration begins with a plan of action to get every employee
involved. Keeping employees engaged and productive in the hiring process
can certainly be a challenge. Start by looking at your workflow process and
checking to see if you have any existing silos or points of contention. The
goal is to make it easy for everyone involved to respond or to access the
necessary information to make a decision on a candidate.
What to look for in an application
The best way to maintain productivity is to streamline your process and
find applications that are robust, scalable, secure and accessible from
anywhere. With the influx of smartphones and mobile devices in the
workforce, the need for easily accessible information is key, especially with
busy hiring managers.
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Another feature to consider is how hiring managers and recruiters view candidate information and activity. Keeping all information in one view and in an intuitive
format can really make a difference in how each participant in the hiring process reacts to the workflow.
Who’s doing it well?
Yelp has a unique workflow process that helps keep their hiring efforts on the go. The company’s recruiting strategy is forward-focused in that everyone at the
company is always recruiting.
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4. Increase Employee Referrals
What is it?
Employee referrals are commonly noted to be the highest quality, lowest cost of hires at any company. Referral candidates also are known to perform better,
have shorter time-to-fill periods and have greater job satisfaction. A strong employee referral program is an absolute must-have for 2012.
Benefits?
1. Shorter time-to-fill periods and greater job satisfaction
2. Fit better with corporate culture
3. Require less resources to hire
4. Promote solidarity among employees
Where to begin?
Building an employee referral process is not rocket science, but it does take time and effort. The first step is to develop a referral culture. Employees refer
because they are happy with their company and want to help it succeed. Also, a referral bonus certainly helps move things along.
Once you understand why your employees refer, you can reach out to them through employee marketing campaigns that inform them about open jobs and ways
to refer. For more information on how to increase your company’s employee referral rate, download Jobvite’s free eBook: Increase Employee Referrals in 5 Easy
Steps.
What to look for in an application
When looking at applications to assist your employee referral program or to create one from scratch, you must first think about ease of use. The easier it is for an
employee to refer, the higher adoption rate and more chances you have of engaging them in a referral program.
With Jobvite’s automatic publishing tool, Chiquita employees and website visitors can post jobs to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn or send an email.
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Social networks are key for referrals. According to Facebook, the average user has 130 contacts. Assuming all your employees are on Facebook, the widespread
reach of a company’s network, including employees, is exponential. Look for software that allows employees to post to their networks and tracks referrals so that
you can reward accordingly.
Who’s doing it well?
Yelp has a fun tool on their career site that allows visitors to see which of their LinkedIn connections are Yelp employees so that job seekers can proactively ask
for a referral. Over 50% of Yelp hires are from referrals.
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Total Attorneys increased its referral
rate to 67% in six months.
“When you give people tools to be
transparent about the company,
they can contribute to the
conversation about your brand. It’s
great when your employees think
highly enough of the company that
they want to talk about it and want
to invite people to work here,” says
Ed Scanlan, CEO of Total Attorneys
Coupons.com has an employee
referral rate of 52%.
“It’s really wise to use the entire
company and its network so that
you can spread the word and get
the net out that much farther. It is
the most effective way to recruit,
and as a result, Coupons.com has
had better quality candidates in the
pipeline sooner, leading to more
qualified hires,” said Ken Perluss,
director of staffing at Coupons.com.
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5. A Career Site That Sells
What is it?
Career page is one of the most highly trafficked pages on a corporate website. Visitors arrive due to interest in the company or via job advertising, Internet
searches, word of mouth, referrals, recruiters and any other recruiting channels. Some arrive with a purposeful goal (applying for a new job), while others are just
window-shopping for a better opportunity.
Benefits?
1. Displays company culture
2. Provides job seekers with sought after information
3. A space for people to find and apply to open jobs or learn more
Where to begin?
Your company’s career site should have a roadmap for conversions (when a visitor turns into an applicant). Once you’ve decided on the type of candidates you
want, plan on how to attract them to apply with your career site. The number one rule is to make it easy for candidates to find what they need and to apply.
For a closer look on how to build a winning career site, download our free eBook: 21 Career Sites that Sell.
What to look for in an application?
There are plenty of applications that can help you design a career site, but the most important aspect of this avenue is the “behind-the-scenes” data. Your career
site should be in close communication with your ATS. Ideally, you can have a custom career site associated with your ATS for all applicant tracking and career
site needs.
A good goal to have in mind when looking at software platforms is to make sure the entire process for both applicant and recruiter is seamless and simple. If your
current system is not up to par, perhaps 2012 is the year to revamp your career site.
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Who’s doing it well?
Zynga’s career site perfectly
transitions its corporate brand
with its talent brand, showcasing
the playful atmosphere of the
company as well as the hard work
and creativity of employees. The
structure and theme of the website
is consistent and easy to use.
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Yammer does a fantastic job of displaying company
culture, including pictures of employees, and the
opportunities offered. Candidates often want to
know how they would fit in the bigger picture of the
company and how they can further develop their
career path.
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6. Recruitment Marketing
What is it?
Whether you attract applicants through job boards, referrals, social media, advertising or any other form of recruiting outreach, you are marketing your company
and what it can offer job seekers. Recruitment marketing is unique in that a company has the opportunity to develop a sub-brand that encompasses employee
lifestyle – what we call a talent brand.
With recruitment marketing, recruiters can build a talent network and market to candidates and interested subscribers. Promoting jobs, corporate culture and
career opportunities.
Benefits?
1. Organically attract more applicants using a variety of channels
2. Build a subscriber base of interested job seekers
3. Track and measure recruiting efforts
Where to begin?
Recruitment marketing, like any other marketing program, begins with a clear understanding of your talent brand and what type of candidates you would like to
attract. Especially since, not everyone who is qualified for a position would be a good fit for your company
Once you know whom you want to attract, you can start building out email campaigns, social job promotions and a well-rounded career site that is geared
toward the type of applicants desired.
What to look for in an application
There are several elements to considering when managing your recruitment marketing. The key points are how do you build your talent network and how do
measure the results of your efforts.
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Who’s doing it well?
TiVo sends a separate
recruiting email twice a
month to all employees,
providing hiring updates,
interesting articles and referral
incentives. Each email includes
a specific, personalized
message, usually a story or
anecdote about a referral. The
company understands that
recruitment marketing is more
than attracting candidates;
it’s involving everyone in the
company to find the best talent
for the available jobs.
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7. Facebook Recruiting Apps
What is it?
LinkedIn has been a huge resource for recruiters and will continue to be a great source. However, employers and job seekers are commonly on different social
networks. According to Job Seeker Nation 20103, 64 percent of companies use two or more social networks to recruit. As a result, job seekers and social job
sharing has emerged on Facebook and maintains a steady growth.
Benefits
1. Reach job seekers where they network
2. Target individual candidates or broadcast jobs
3. Easy for employees to share jobs on Facebook
Where to begin?
Recruiting on Facebook should be a section in your overall social recruiting strategy. Think about what type of candidates are on Facebook and how to target
them.
Remember, you must treat Facebook and LinkedIn differently. Users on LinkedIn may be more accepting of recruiting requests, whereas Facebook users might
not be. Develop a plan of action, benchmark goals and message voice, then execute accordingly.
You may want to consider Facebook as more of a referral network and LinkedIn as a sourcing network. Still, this is dependent on your overarching social
recruiting strategy.
What to look for in an application
There are several Facebook applications that you can use in order to rev up your recruiting efforts. Look for applications that attune to your strategy and goals.
For example, if your goal were to capture more applicants through your corporate Facebook page, perhaps you’d want to consider an app that allows visitors to
apply directly from your fan page.
3
Job Seeker Nation 2010. Burlingame: Jobvite, 2010. PDF.
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Or if you want to encourage
employee referrals, consider
a Facebook app that allows
employees to easily share
jobs with their friends and
connections.
Who’s doing it well?
Whole Foods Market Austin
has integrated the Jobvite Work
With Us Facebook app that
allows visitors to browse jobs,
sign up for job alerts or visit the
career site or share the position
with a friend.
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8. Recruiter Candidate Relationship Management
What is it?
Recruiter Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) platforms provide recruiters with an easy and efficient way to communicate with their talent pool,
applicants and existing candidates. They ideally organize prospects and sourcing results so that every promotion and activity is categorized and logged for all
members involved to view and track accordingly.
Benefits?
1. Build and communicate with your talent pool easily.
2. Organize and streamline job promotions
3. Host better candidate experiences
Where to begin?
In lieu of your recruitment marketing program, a recruiter CRM should be an accent to the plans that you have designed for your talent acquisition campaigns.
When beginning with a CRM, you can determine which types of email threads, or tracks, you want to send to prospects, candidates, hires and others. Then your
CRM should help you organize and market to your candidate pool.
What to look for in an application
Once you’ve spent the time and energy to build your talent pool through sourcing or other marketing efforts, you will need to communicate with them in an
efficient and organized manner, making sure to track all responses and organize your database along the way.
A good CRM allows you to import, store, organize and score prospect data, making sure all profiles are updated. You can also find programs that will allow you
to view only the candidate information that is most useful to you, meaning that hiring managers don’t have to filter through emails and other notes that are meant
for recruiters only.
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Who’s doing it well?
“I didn’t want job seekers to look at
us like any other major brand. Our
goal is to leave the candidate with
a better appreciation of TiVo,” said
William Uranga, Senior Director of
Staffing at TiVo. “The differentiation
of our candidate experience is
very important to us in the war
for talent. With Jobvite, we can
create a candidate experience that
incorporates our corporate identity
and provides a positive experience
for the jobseeker.”
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9. Fast Sourcing with Candidate Search
What is it?
Sourcing candidates is the bulk of a recruiter’s job. There are many ways that recruiters source and compare candidates. Many search their existing databases,
LinkedIn, resume sites or social networks. Others use Boolean search or use a variety of sourcing software platforms.
Benefits?
1. Find candidates that match requisitions and keywords
2. Scans the open web for candidates
Where to begin?
With hundreds of resume databases, social networks and existing contacts, finding the right fit can be a long and tedious process. In any case, sourcing
candidates is all about the keywords that you use.
When looking at your job descriptions try to think of the bigger picture of the role. Which skills are essential and which ones are nice-to-haves? Then refine your
searches based on the specific criteria of your requisitions. If the right candidates aren’t showing up, then you may want to rework your job descriptions.
What to look for in an application
As hiring kicks up in the beginning of each year, filtering through candidates and reaching the right ones at the right time is of utmost importance. Consider tools
that have aggregation platforms that can be scheduled for automatic searches so that you don’t have to redo searches every day or week.
Put together a plan of action for duplicate resumes and searches, as job seekers post their profiles on multiple job boards. Look for tools that can combine
results of several databases so that you can save time filtering through duplicates more easily.
You may want to develop a ranking system so that you can easily score prospects and add the best ones directly into your candidate relationship management
system (CRM, discussed in Chapter 8).
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Who’s doing it well?
Orbitz has developed a unique social recruiting strategy based on targeting passive candidates. The company cultivates a number of leads through social media,
newsletters, user groups, sourcing and on-campus events at high schools and universities worldwide.
“Maintaining ongoing relationships with passive candidates is key. We send talent newsletters, which help us to lock down quality passive candidates well in
advance. Creating these kinds of relationships early has been extremely helpful in acquiring quality new hires,” said Becky Wilcox, Director of Global Talent
Acquisition at Orbitz Worldwide.
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10. Benchmarking Success with Recruiting Analytics
What is it?
Analytics is a term for measuring data captured from marketing campaigns, websites or recruiting efforts. Tracking and measuring the results of your recruiting
efforts, job promotions or employee marketing greatly helps recruiters understand what is working and what isn’t so you can hire smarter (top talent at a lower
cost). Knowing why job seekers apply and from where they found the job, is also vital in preparing for any recruiting strategy.
Benefits?
1. See which tactics are working and where to allocate spend
2. Develop goals for continual improvement
3. Get results from different campaigns and test theories
Where to begin?
The first step when planning your 2012 recruitment analytics strategy is to decide on which metrics are best for you and for your team members. Not every
metric matters to everyone. Some key metrics to start with are how are your most qualified candidates finding your jobs and what’s your career site visitor to
conversion rate.
For more information about metrics and recruiting benchmarks, download our free eBook: Recruiting Analytics: 5 Ways to Benchmark Success.
What to look for in an application
For your career site, you can always use Google Analytics to filter the traffic and understand points of entry and which visitors apply for which jobs. However, the
granular data required to fully understand the metrics that are most important to recruiters will not be easily found through Google Analytics.
Ideally, your ATS will have captured all the necessary data from applications to email opens to social job shares. Then it should also have an organized layout
that will easily allow you to build out reports that attune to specific company hiring needs. For example, if you are spending money on your social recruiting
campaign, you will want to know how well it is working or what you can do to optimize it.
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Who’s doing it well?
Companies who are actively working to increase their referral rates and the number of applicants captured from social media and the career site are guaranteed
to be using an analytics platform. It is essential to have a frame of reference as to what works best or what needs to be fixed.
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“We have hiring visibility and knowledge of where
candidates were coming from without a whole lot
of effort and anxiety. It was really hard for us to
understand that, unless we did some meticulous
excel spreadsheet tracking, sorting and
managing, which nobody really likes to do. That
is the biggest value that Jobvite has provided us,
and it helps drive a whole lot of decisions, making
the hiring process run as efficient as possible,”
said Steve Leech, Vice President of Human
Resources at Shutterfly.
“It only takes three minutes to run a Jobvite
report, and we can see which social sites are
working without having to check the individual
channel. It’s so cost effective, considering the
amount of work we get out of it. We can track
source, evaluate time-to-fill and track recruiters’
work, spending less time on administrative
tasks and more with talent. We’ve seen such a
great return on investment,” said Andrew Cerda
recruiting specialist at Yelp.
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11. Conclusion
Combining a series of well organized recruiting tactics and the necessary tools can really make or break your recruiting strategy. Still the single most important
takeaway from this playbook should be strategy. Tools and technology can only go so far, whereas a well-defined recruiting strategy can really set in motion a
full-swing hiring effort that can maximize every inch of your platform’s capabilities.
If you’re in the market to upgrade your recruiting software, think about your hiring process and what tools can help easily and quickly facilitate your recruiting
workflow and engage all employees.
About Jobvite
Jobvite is the only recruiting platform that that delivers real-time recruiting intelligence with innovative technology for the evolving social web. Leading, fast-growing companies today use Jobvite’s social
recruiting, sourcing and talent acquisition solutions to target the right talent and build the best teams.
Jobvite is a complete, modular Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform which can optimize the speed, cost-effectiveness and ease of recruiting for any company. To find out more, take a product tour.
Jobvite Hire is a practical, intuitive web-based platform that helps you effectively manage every stage of hiring. It’s the only social recruiting and
applicant tracking solution that makes it easy for everyone to work together on hiring. With Jobvite Hire, you can improve the speed and quality of talent acquisition, create a great candidate experience,
increase referral and social network hires – all while using fewer resources.
Jobvite Source, is an easy-to-use web-based application that can help you achieve your recruitment sourcing goals today. It’s the only social sourcing and candidate relationship management application that
helps you target relevant talent through employee referrals, social networks and the web – then build and engage your talent pool. Jobvite Source is one intuitive platform to manage all sourcing programs
and see the results.
Ready to learn more? Check out our free product tours >
