Archive for the ‘Advertising’ Category
Sarah Palin vs. CareerBuilder on Facebook
Posted by JasonWith hundreds of investments you can make with online advertising, the CareerBuilder ad deal with Facebook, hasn’t proven to be one on the top of my list. What was touted earlier this year as an innovative way to break into the social media and networking space hiring - and the next big thing for CareerBuilder clients - is proving otherwise on the surface.
From Super Bowl ads to the iPhone application, they deserve some credit for trying. But better placed ads on Facebook haven’t induced a high level of attention from job seekers on this popular social networking site.
When you break down the results, here are 5 reasons this might not make the top of your list:
- 8,613 fans to date. Given the amount of advertising, ads and visibility this was going to bring - 8,613 fans doesn’t cut it. Consider that in a few months, the “I have more Foreign Policy Experience than Sarah Palin” group grew to over 250,000. Even “My Pet Rock is more Qualified than Sarah Palin to be Vice President” has almost twice as many fans.
- According to recent hitwise data for CareerBuilder, Facebook is #14 on the list, accounting for 0.66% of upstream traffic.
- Why would you compete with other employers on the CareerBuilder page - and not just create your own page? This will allow you to engage with job seekers directly, via your own site, vs. sending candidates to CareerBuilder for a broader job search. Check out companies that have done this on their own including E&Y, Microsoft, and Best Buy.
- The average employer viewed today on the CareerBuilder-Facebook page today has 330 fans.
- You just need to check out the posts on the wall of the fan page… The wall, 53 posts in total, say it all.
If you are looking for ways to breaking into cost effective ways to attract and engage with talent online, there are alternatives. Check back next week to explore some other ideas. In the meantime, here are a few resources to jump-start your own career site:
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It’s a bad day (and week) for newspapers.
Will Craigslist begin charging for job postings in more cities?
Congratulations to iCIMS’ CEO, Colin Day, for being named a “Forty Under 40” Award Winner.
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Web 2.0 is about enhancing creativity, information sharing, and collaboration. The definition must have been written with the intent to exclude job postings and job boards as part of the world wide web.
With all of the talk about attracting passive talent, the war for talent and focusing on hiring quality, I was surprised to see little has changed - when taking a look at things from a candidate’s point of view.
I started with a simple search on a job board. After closing 2 pop up windows, here’s what the candidate would see with this example:
A page filled with paid ads:
- 1 on the page header
- 8 vertically on the right side of the page
- 1 on the footer
- 2 pop-ups
Within the job posting:
- Grammatical errors
- 40 different daily, monthly, quarterly, and annual responsibilities / tasks
- 9 requirements
Thinking this must be a fluke, I ran another quick search on another board. The first posting I clicked on was from 1 of Fortune’s Best Companies To Work For. Surely, this will be better…
This posting was much shorter, and contained:
- 9 responsibilities
- 8 requirements
- 3 portfolio examples
Since the organization requests you apply online through their site, I clicked the link, and found the following:
We’re kidding right? The candidate has to complete another search to find the position, which ironically isn’t even listed on the corporate career site. If it would have been and they would have applied, the candidate of course would have had to sign up for another profile too.
If you use the big boards for postings, consider the following 5 quick fixes you can control and implement:
- Utilize a branding template with all of the boards. Templates pushes the ads off the page, so the candidate is looking at your posting, in your brand. They’re not forced to look at the online degree programs, or the amazing work from home opportunity ads. All the major boards offer branding as a service and is easily negotiated as part of a package.
- If you believe recruiting is sales and marketing, then sell and market both your organization and opportunity. Don’t utilize a bureaucratic, and time consuming process to accept Resume’s.
- Link your posting directly into your A.T.S., so the potential lead doesn’t have to search again once coming into your site.
- Do not copy and paste you’re job description into your online posting. It doesn’t always format properly, and your main goal should be driving talent to your community or site. You can engage them further if they get there, so focus on selling in your posting.
- Use titles and keywords candidates search for, and limit internal acronyms.
When relying on a poorly written job description or web posting, there should be no surprise less than 10% of corporate career site traffic converts into a completed application.
While most of this seems fairly basic it appears there is still a tremendous amount of opportunity - and we have a long way to go in recruiting - in Web 2.0 standards.
This is a 3 part series, focused on deploying and managing effective corporate career sites. The 3 posts will include:
- Part 1: Effective Corporate Career Sites & Measuring Results
- Part 2: Top 5 List for Deploying an Effective Online Career Center
- Part 3: Results unveiled: Integrating SEO and PPC Tools
Part 3: Results unveiled: Integrating SEO and PPC Tools
After seeing the results of the latest recruiting blog poll - with 81% of respondents stating they do not have an overall online recruiting strategy or they need help - the timing is perfect to wrap up this series. In the first two parts I highlighted several high value metrics on measuring your overall investment with an effective corporate career site, as well as 5 ideas to integrate social media into your online recruiting strategy and candidate experience.
For this post, let’s begin with some basic grounding on job board traffic over the past 3 years - as the picture tells the story.
If you’re still relying on the big boards (which can still play a role in your overall strategy), a good place to start is taking 30-50% of your annual spend and trying something different. Sounds aggressive and possibly harsh depending on your overall reliance on the big job boards, but the results are very telling. After implementing a site overhaul in addition to a 6 month pilot with SEO career site leader jobs2web and job aggregator site leader indeed, here are the results:
- Visitor to candidate conversion ratio doubled - from 9 to 18%.
- Percentage of traffic generated from search engines from 2.2% to 11.3%
- Career site ROI tripled
- Visitor time on the site skyrocketed from 3 minutes to over 8 minutes
- Site traffic and candidate contacts increased by over 300%.
While it is to early to measure overall the impact on new hire quality, several of the metrics outlined point to an increased number and more targeted audience visiting the site, a higher conversion rate, increased time on the site, search engine traffic doubling (with no change in job board referrals to the top 5 referring URL’s), and the ROI of the site tripling.
Based on the initial success of this initiative the overall online recruiting costs were cut in half, with stronger results. If you’re still not convinced, I know the names of a few job board reps that are trying to recoup lost revenues and are playing let’s make a deal.
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The weekly recruiting blog poll results are in from last week.
The question: How would you rate your organization’s current approach and strategy for online recruitment?
The results:
- What strategy? (49%)
- We need help! (32%)
- About average. (19%)
- Award winning! (0%)
81% have no strategy, or need help. We’ll provide additional information and resources in an upcoming post. In the meantime, here is an article from 5 YEARS AGO on why you should stop using job boards. While job boards are just one component, it’s a good place to start when revisiting or developing an overall strategy as this is an area where many organizations are throwing valuable recruiting dollars away.
We know what Homer would say!
Vote for the new poll for this week (right hand column): What is your satisfaction level with your current A.T.S.?
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Corporate Career Site Series - Part 1: Measuring Results
Posted by JasonThis is a 3 part series, focused on deploying and managing effective corporate career sites. The 3 posts will include:
- Part 1: Effective Corporate Career Sites & Measuring Results
- Part 2: Top 5 List for Deploying an Effective Online Career Center
- Part 3: Results unveiled: Integrating SEO and PPC Tools
Part 1: Effective Corporate Career Sites & Measuring Results
About ten years ago, corporate career sites started to become more and more popular, and the emphasis on content began. Since then, hundreds of articles and white papers have been written and you wouldn’t need to look very hard to find information on the importance of a having a strong corporate career site integrated into an overall online and talent brand strategy. We know nearly 100% of all candidates visit corporate career sites at some point during the application or research process. With a strong brand and an engaging experience, it could be an organization’s top source of hire. Yet, what’s missing in many of the articles is how to measure the overall impact and business results from career sites, and what to do with the information once you have it.
For recruiting leaders it is a fairly simple process to build a business case for an online career center “makeover”. After that, a project plan is put together, internal and/or external resources are secured, the work takes place, and the new site is launched. Sounds easy!
OK, now what? It’s time to measure the impact and results. After talking with several recruiting professionals, consultants, and IT professionals, most hinted towards tracking the following metrics for their site:
- Overall traffic, and unique visitors
- Referring sites, to track where candidates are coming from
- Session length, looking at how long each visitor was on the site
There are many flaws with this basic approach to assess and measure the effectiveness of your site. For starters, these or other fundamental metrics may be impacted depending on your ATS and CRM provider(s), the integration, and where your career pages are hosted. In addition, while still important to understand, these only give you a small piece of the puzzle in looking at an overall online strategy. Did I forget to mention we’re recruiters, not web experts?
The good news is you don’t have to be a web expert, data junkie, or analyst to dive into the mountains of information that is likely already available. Here are 4 critical measures to get you started:
- Visitor-to-Candidate-to-Applicant conversion rates. If the number of applicants you receive divided by the total career site visitors is 10% or less, start working on a plan. There is a high chance your site is not attracting the right audience, or is not engaging candidates. It’s also important to understand the path of candidates that did not convert to an applicant. Where did they go, what pages did they visit, and was the exit point on the site.
- Percentage of traffic generated from search engines. With job board traffic consistently declining, and an estimated over 35+ million active and passive job related searches being conducted every month on the search engines, it is vital to understand what searches are being conducted by candidates that are directed into your site.
- Candidate quality by online source. Don’t listen to any job board vendor when they tell you “Great news, we’re averaging 22.8 quality applicants per posting”.
- Integrated path and the conversion funnel. Understanding the funnel for your career site is critical. Start with visitors, and move through the various cycles including candidates, drop offs, leads, applicants, pre-screens, interviews, and hires.
- Career Site ROI. Run your site like an e-business. You should be in a position to understand and measure the overall impact, return, and quality your site is producing.
While this is not a complete list of areas to focus on, it is a great starting point in understanding the effectiveness of your site, and visitor behaviors. When analyzed properly, it provides great information and will help build a stronger business need to make changes over time. Unless you are making a major overhaul of your career site, it is typically recommended to make changes over a period of time so you can measure patterns and modify content.
Partner with your internal IT or web strategy group to get started, and don’t underestimate the impact of your corporate career site has on candidates.
The Talent Buzz Recruiting Blog Launch
Posted by JasonWelcome to the The Talent Buzz, a premier blog for the HR and Recruiting community. The Buzz provides trends, news, and information you can use. While you’re here:
• Sign up for The Talent Buzz RSS Feed
• Join The Talent Buzz LinkedIn Network
• Follow the Buzz author, @jjbuss, on twitter
If you are looking for a new opportunity, check out the recruiting jobs area.
A special thanks to our blog sponsors including jobs2web, Orange Tree Employment Screening, Kennedy Information, and Prime Advertising. Interested in sponsorship or advertising on The Buzz? If so, check out several options available.
