Marketing Funnel X Recruitment

To what extent is our industry and the world of HR changing?

How well has it adopted latest technologies and trends in order to remain a viable option for clients to justify agency spending? Are there any emerging areas of technology, set to further change the landscape of recruitment as we know it?

According to Nathan Kitto of ‘Recruitment ADvisor’, both internal recruiters and to some extent agencies, tend to look to the bottom of the ‘marketing funnel’ to find candidates. This effectively means; place an advert and respond to applications. Kitto goes on to say that stats from Google suggest consumers (candidates) need to see 12 impressions of your adverts online before applying, compared to 5 impressions from data released in years gone by. Your job adverts need a great deal of exposure before anyone applies.

But even still, this basic level of job marketing is scratching the surface. The days of simple advertising of jobs have gone. They are a cog in the recruitment marketing wheel but by no means the main route.

Analytics are a big deal. The data captured from advertising is important, equally so is the information generated by your social media audience. Posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the rest, require a watchful eye in terms of continuing the engagement they spark, but also a deeper level of analysis.
Pulling all information together in order to better your position as a recruiter is crucial, hence the world of data science (aka ‘Big Data’) is growing so dramatically.

TwentyFour Recruitment launched a Marketing and Technology division (‘Media 24’) recently, due to the high demand from our clients to establish an internal marketing team with an ongoing strategy to harness the powers of marketing and analytics.

So, you’ve covered the bases:
Placed adverts on job sites, ‘Tweeted’, ‘Facebooked’, ‘LinkedIned’, headhunted, run social paid-for campaigns, e-shotted. The lot.
You’ve gathered data from the response – worked out the type of applicant each form of advertising has engaged, then adjusted the campaign in line with the data you’ve reaped.
Nice work, you must be getting a whole bunch of candidates. Now what?

You could use technology to assess applicants… the BBC’s Peter Day wrote an interesting report on the use of algorithms to match prospective candidates to the profiles of your current and most successful team members, crucially pointing out that by doing so, you’re searching for like-for-like staff and that diversity is ignored, which isn’t ideal.

Do you think that you want an algorithm to select candidates for you? Does skill set, and success-based algorithms tell you anything about the personality of the person? Will it identify their personalities and decide if there a cultural fit for your working environment?
According to CareerBuilder, 60% of employers are now screening candidates via social media.
When you apply for a job, its highly likely that your interviewer has stalked your profile on social media! The sectors with the highest percentage of social media ‘screenings’ prior to interviews are:
• 76% IT/tech
• 65% sales
• 61% financial services
• 59% healthcare
• 59% retail
• 56% recruiting
For me, screening on social media is not only fine, but a must. I want to know as much as possible about someone before I interview them. It’s part of my due diligence. The same source of the above stats says that social media screening uses help check:
• 60% are checking up on your qualifications
• 53% want to check out your online persona and see if it’s “professional”
• 30% want to know what your friends and colleagues think of you
• 21% are looking for dirt
For me, here is the most interesting stat: 41% (of employers) are less likely to hire if they can’t find information about the candidate (on social media).

The game has changed. You may be seeking a job, you may be looking to hire.
Either way, consider this a heads up that employers are working smart and the competition for the best candidates has heated up.
Candidates beware; a well written CV is only a part of the process, don’t let your online persona be your downfall, but make sure you have something out there. Consider it a tool to sell yourself.

For advice on how to search from the top of the funnel and get ahead of your competitors or indeed the do’s and don’ts of self-marketing, get in touch with your TwentyFour Recruitment Group consultant on 020 3326 24 24