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Work from Work. Why working from home doesn’t work for me.
The pros and cons of “Working from Home” have been highly debated since this past February when Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer gave hundreds of employees a tough ultimatum — Yahoo! employees who regularly worked from home must now come into the office or quit.
At a recent conference, Mayer defended her decision saying, “…people are more productive when they’re alone, but they’re more collaborative and innovative when they’re together. Some of the best ideas come from pulling two different ideas together.”
While there was certainly some pushback from many employees, I found it interesting that an outpouring of ex-Yahoos confessed that it was the right decision. Former Yahoo! ad tech executive Michael Katz summed it up best:
“The value in human interaction is greater collective wisdom as a result of improved communication & collaboration.”
Recruitment Playbook: Hiring insights and takeaways from the “Big Game”
As this Sunday’s BIG GAME fast approaches, I recalled an insightful article by recruitment industry “Hall of Famer,” Dr. John Sullivan, titled “10 Recruiting Lessons That You Can Learn From the Super Bowl.”
While the article is a few years old, Dr. Sullivan’s lessons that recruitment teams can learn from the Super Bowl, still ring true:
1) “Minor colleges” produce some of the best players on Super Bowl teams.
2) “Experience” isn’t required to become a Super Bowl head coach.
3) “Recruiting/draft systems” still need continuous improvement.
4) It takes organization-wide excellence to make the Super Bowl.
That’s what she (or he) said! – The importance of companies taking an active role on employer review sites.
This week’s news of Glassdoor receiving $20 Million in funding to expand internationally is confirmation that workplace review sites are becoming a permanent fixture in the recruitment landscape.
When you examine the vast amounts of traffic that these portals receive (i.e., Glassdoor, CareerBliss, Indeed Forum, etc.), employers can no longer turn a blind eye on what employees (past and present) are saying about them.
Mike Larsen penned a great article on ERE,”Anonymous Employer Reviews — Opportunity or Threat?”, that identified both the pros and cons that these sites present.
At KRT, we’ve worked with our clients to embrace these portals and have developed strategies to take an active role in monitoring reviews in real-time and, as appropriate, responding to comments. We firmly believe that companies need to demonstrate to candidates that they’re listening and engaging with what’s being said about them.
Additionally, we offer services to consolidate ALL feedback/reviews into a quarterly dashboard that categorizes content and ranks each post as positive, negative, or neutral. This report becomes an invaluable deliverable to present to senior management on what’s working — and what’s not — within their company — a report that’s certainly less bias than any internal surveys.
Contact a KRT representative today to discuss how we can assistance with managing your employment brand reputation.
Everything is better with Video (and Bacon): The importance of video in a recruitment marketing strategy
During a recent recruitment marketing strategy session with one of our key clients, there was a remark made by the organization’s head of Employment Branding & Marketing that stuck with me:
“Just like everything is better with Bacon, everything is better with VIDEO.”
When a company is trying to bring their employment brand to life, video is an ideal way to showcase the company culture, values, preview a day-in-the-life of an employee, etc.
She made this point to illustrate her goal that we work to incorporate their videos assets wherever possible…on their career site, in job postings, on social media profiles, through video banners, in mobile advertising, etc.
Citing Your Sources – Source of Hire vs. Source of Influence
While attending the ERE Expo last week, I was excited to learn that The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has approved the cost-per-hire standard as the first American national HR standard:
This is a great “first” in an industry lacking in way of “standards.”
However, one of the biggest challenges we continue to face in benchmarking a client’s recruitment advertising performance in comparison to industry norms, is that there is no norm when it comes to the countless ways in which companies are tracking Source of Hire.
Every client has a different methodology for capturing source (i.e., different application processes, career site integrations, applicant tracking systems, media/source tagging conventions, etc.).
And even the exceptional clients, who have implemented the best available resources to track source, know that deep down they’re probably only capturing, at best, 50% of the true source of hires.
Worse yet, is that the Source of Hire is in most cases simply the “last source” the candidate came from prior to applying into the ATS.
So what about all of the other sources that helped “influence” that candidate’s decision to apply? Where did they first learn about the company/opportunity? Did they then go on to research the company on social media platforms (i.e., Facebook and LinkedIn) and employer review sites (i.e., Glassdoor and CareerBliss)? Did they watch a video about the company/culture/position? Did they seek out an employee referral from someone in their network?
Our more sophisticated clients are asking these questions…wanting to look at all of the “Sources of Influence” that led to a hire.
And in an industry where simply capturing the last source is difficult, trying to capture data on all of the touch points along the way is a huge challenge. But there are methods to go about collecting this information (i.e., post-impression media tagging tools, etc.) and as an Agency, this is the hot problem we’re trying to solve for our clients.
And who knows, maybe in another decade or so, ANSI will release their second American national HR standard: tracking Source of Influence.
And the Winners are…
“Best Companies to Work For” Say it Loud and Proud via Social Media
It’s “awards season” and aside from trying to pick an early favorite for Best Picture, there are a few other lists published recently that are worth checking out.
One that caught our eye was the Klout Rankings of the Top U.S. & Canadian Employers Using Social Media to Recruit. For our clients and other Talent Acquisition teams looking to develop their social media strategies, this is an extremely helpful reference list to see what other companies are doing and garner some best practices for their own programs.
Around the same time, Fortune® Magazine released their annual rankings of the 100 Best Companies to Work For.
KRT’s Social Media Team thought it would be an interesting exercise to cross-reference the two reports to come up with a short list of great companies that do an incredible job of telling candidates how wonderful it is to work at their company via social media.
Interested in seeing the list? Please send an email to krtweet@krtmarketing.com with your contact information and we’ll be sure to send the list your way.
Is Facebook poised to knock-off recruitment heavyweights?
While Facebook has not yet made its move to go head-to-head with the job board juggernauts, a couple interesting articles on Mashable this month make us wonder how long before Facebook becomes employers’ go-to recruitment resource.
Mashable covered Facebook’s announcement of its partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor, which includes “systems where new job postings can be delivered virally through the Facebook site at no charge.” Depending on how it’s implemented, a Facebook job engine could immediately rival the leading sites in the recruitment space.
In another article, Mashable cited 7 Reasons Why Recruiters Like Facebook More Than LinkedIn. Although the article focuses on recruiting students and graduates — as Facebook still needs to overcome some significant hurdles to win over recruiters who view LinkedIn as their go-to resource for sourcing seasoned professionals — the survey did make some interesting points for Facebook, including:
- It’s more engaging.
- Facebook is where the action is.
- It’s free.
- It’s a bigger network.
- It’s more open.
- The Like button.
- It’s better for branding.
Like everyone in the recruitment industry, we’re anxious to see how Facebook will make its full entry into the space.
While Recruitment Marketing Goes Social, Referrals and Job Boards Still Lead the Way.
While it seems like the focus of every client planning meeting these days is on developing an effective social media strategy, it’s imperative that we don’t dismiss the tried and true methods of recruitment marketing that still serve as the foundation of a successful program.
