The Next Wave of Interactive

Sourcing - Are You Ready?

HCI White Paper

By HCI Analyst
June 25, 2008
INTRODUCTION
With technology constantly evolving, top
recruiters will need to be on top of new trends in
order to stay competitive in the modern
marketplace. In this executive summary Doug
Berg, founder and chief innovation officer of
jobs2web, takes us on a tour of what's new in
recruiting technology and how to develop an up-
to-date strategy that will move your company to
the forefront of candidate recruitment using
interactive sourcing.
Jobs2web works with companies to help leverage
the internet for their recruiting strategies. With
more than 20 years experience, Berg works to
educate the marketplace about new trends coming
online. "No question it's getting dizzying out there
in terms of trying to understand what's happening
in the world of interactive recruiting," he said.
This executive summary will include a look at:
- The talent shift: What's happening in the
candidate marketplace? How are
candidates looking for jobs?
- An evolution of the recruiting strategy:
How are companies accommodating the
shift of where the candidates are going?
And what challenges does that pose?
- An overview of new technology: A look at
scalable interactive recruiting technologies,
including how to optimize your web
presence.
THE TALENT SHIFT
In the 1990s, newspaper print ads were the
primary place to advertise jobs. By 2000, however,
most candidates "had abandoned their local
classifieds section and moved online," said Berg.
They used job boards like Monster and
CareerBuilder. "It was an easy transition," he said.
Today, as we approach 2010, "the candidates have
shifted to a whole new mix of online strategies for
looking for job and career related information,"
said Berg. He sites online classifieds, like
Craigslist, and social networking sites like
Facebook, as well as use of search engines like
Google and Yahoo. "It represents a very significant
change in the recruiting strategy," he said, because
you can't just post jobs on these sites. The
question becomes, "How do you bring your
recruiting strategy into these arenas?"
JOB BOARDS
Berg noted a significant decline in the quantity
and quality available on job board sites. He also
said that many people who placed their resumes
online received a slew of spam and false
recruitment calls, but very few were ever contacted
by real recruiters. Additionally, many companies
say they prefer to work only with active candidates
who submitted their resumes directly for a specific
job.
The job boards often worked counter to the ideal
recruiting strategy, forcing a "shared candidate"
environment where each candidate's resume was
available to everyone on the site. And finally, the
rules of the sites often limited the ways in which
jobs were featured and their costly banner
advertising was too expensive for many
companies.
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Figure 1
RECRUITING STRATEGY
As the trends in job advertising have changed,
Berg looked at how the recruiting strategy evolved
with the times.
The traditional non-strategic staffing trajectory
involves paying to advertise a new job on a job
board and wait for candidate response. Once the
process is over, recruiters just start it all over again
with a new position. "It's not a great way to do
strategic recruiting on an enterprise level," said
Berg.
EVOLUTION
In just the last decade overall trends in recruiting
strategy have changed. Jobs now need to be filled
in days rather than months. With a more specific
focus, recruiters now want to find the right
candidates sooner, rather than casting a wide net
on a job board. The focus is on quality of
candidates, not volume. And recruiters now
develop career-long relationships with candidates,
rather than a one-time connection over a certain
job.
Berg offers some things to consider while
transitioning into modern recruiting:
- Recruiting is no longer "job-centric" but is
now "candidate-centric."
- Recruiting is now multi-channel and
multi-dimensional.
- It's more like marketing than just
recruiting.
- Modern recruiting promotes both early
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 and long-term communication.
- It still brings applicants through a single
process.
- A strategy must be measurable to be
successfully deployed.
CAREER SITES
More and more, companies are turning their
resources towards their career sites and drawing
traffic to them by posting announcements on
social networking sites or search engines. But,
according to Berg, "most HR execs feel stuck with
their current career site."
communities and what it's like to work there.
Career sites are a valuable resource, where
recruiters can be at work even without specific job
availabilities.
INTERACTIVE RECRUITING SOLUTIONS
Berg is a big proponent for developing a wed 2.0
recruiting strategy, as demonstrated in Figure 2.
Companies need to think about how they can
integrate new technology into their recruiting
strategy, he said he recommends looking into
streamlining the application process, creating
talent communities, and source tracking.

They feel like they get little or no support from IT SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
and marketing departments to update or make
changes, he said. And he often hears complaints Search engines, mainly Google and Yahoo, are
that managers are constantly waiting for site increasingly used by candidates searching for jobs.
redesign or updates. In fact, said Berg, most job board traffic comes
from search engines. In order to make your career
This trend is changing,
Figure 2
however, said Berg.
Company career sites are
emerging as a strong
recruiting tool and as
such, businesses are
investing in them. They
eliminate a step-the job
board or other site-and
give you exclusive access
to each candidate. Berg
anticipates that in the
next few years career
sites will me much more
comprehensive, offering
information about each
organization's different

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site come up in the top suggestions in a search,
Berg recommends having its code written in such
a way that it doesn't keep jobs hidden within the
ATS and job postings hidden behind a keyword
search engine or pop-up window.
When working with clients, jobs2web helps clients
take their employer brand and rebuild their career
site into a series of "chase-able talent landing page
links" so that when a search engine comes to the
homepage it can index all of its content.
The factors that drive traffic to a site include:
- Correct word optimization
- Site submission and updates
- Bank linking strategies
Finally, "you need a page that can be online for
months at a time, whether jobs are open or not, in
order for Google to really move you up that search
engine optimize position," said Berg.
HOW CANDIDATES SEARCH
More than 85 percents of candidates start their
search engine job hunts with a location, followed
by location and than skills or a generic keyword,
like jobs, said Berg.
"If you're going to do recruiting on line you need
to be able to relate to people based on what they're
searching for," he said. "And that can represent an
interesting challenge.
NEW TECHNOLOGY
With a strong web presence, you can easily
integrate new technology, said Berg. One popular
addition he recommends is live support, where
candidates can instantly chat with someone within
the company or vice versa. This helps recruiters
know what candidates are visiting them, what
companies they're visiting from and also allows
recruiters to initiate a chat with site visitors.
Berg also encourages including in career sites the
option to insert job openings into personal blogs
or homepages.
"This is really powerful stuff," he said. "And
companies need to start taking it seriously."
PAY-PER-CLICK
Berg describes pay-per-click ads as "the new print
ad." This other option, seen at the top and
boarders of search engine results pages "gets your
job advertisement out on Google or Yahoo
whether you're ranked organically or not," he said.
Possibly most importantly, pay-per-click ads can
virtually get inside candidates e-mail in-boxes
because the content that's in the e-mail is what's
driving the boarder advertising.
In some cases, pay-per-click advertising can
decrease your cost per applicant, because those
ads are less expensive than listing on job sites and
often come up with similar searches.
"It's something worth looking at," said Berg. But
these campaigns must be set up correctly, or they
will lose candidates in the process. Make sure to
minimize clicks to get to the necessary page. "With
every click you're seeing at least a 50 percent or
more drop-off rate," he said.
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The right way to manage pay-per-click is to ensure Social networking sites, he said:
candidates will be taken directly to a landing page - Are the highest trafficked and fastest
that correctly corresponds with the jobs they growing sites on the internet
entered into the search engine. - Offer rich profiles and information on
users that can be linked with and
By placing one pay-per-click campaign you can communicated with over time
reach 75 percent of internet users, said Berg. - Instantly link users based on several
targetable criteria such as colleges, skills,
TALENT COMMUNITY industries, locations, hobbies and
employers.
A talent community allows candidates to subscribe
to a company's career site or to get signed up by a CONCLUSION
recruiter. Potential career openings that match
their skills will be automatically sent to them The key to successful interactive recruiting is the
when they appear. easy to navigate, informative career site. Berg
stresses that optimized sites will:
"They put in their business card and it allows us to - Be indexed y search engines
instantly capture those people who don't apply," - Allow talent to easily subscribe
said Berg. This type of recruiting can drive - Make job content potable
prospective talent, current employees, past - Provide job and talent level profiles
applicants and past employees. When a recruiter - Drive repeat visitors and viral activity
leaves the company, this "Rolodex" doesn't go with - Support multiple apply scenarios
them. - Allow you to measure 100 percent of your
results
SOCIAL NETWORKS
Finally, said Berg, once you've attracted people to
In order to get inside social networking sites-like your career site, it's necessary to make the last step
Facebook or MySpace-recruiters have been setting one of the easiest. Complicated or messy apply
up profiles and "going out and getting lost online processes set companies up to loose quality
for days" finding contacts and making candidates. The average fall-off rate of candidates
connections, said Berg. who begin the application process by quit before it
is complete is 60 percent.
In order to save time and streamline the process,
jobs2web offers a social networking application
that makes it easy for people to add your jobs to
their profile pages.

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Based on the Human Capital Institute webcast,
The Next Wave of Interactive Sourcing-Are You
Ready?, June 25, 2008.
PRESENTERS
Doug Berg
Founder and Chief Innovation Officer
Jobs2Web
Doug Berg is founder and chief innovation officer
of Minneapolis-based Jobs2Web Inc. and is an
expert in interactive recruiting strategies. Doug
has worked with hundreds of companies to
leverage the internet for recruiting on the web,
and is a pioneer in the interactive recruiting
industry. Prior to Jobs2Web, Doug founded
techies.com which was a leading technology career
site which had nearly 1 million IT professional
members nationally, and won PC Weeks #1 career
website in 1999. Doug was also founder and CEO
of Quantum Consulting & Placement a
Minneapolis based IT consulting and placement
services company. Doug is frequently quoted in
the press on workforce and career related trends
including major publications such as the Wall
Street Journal, Fast Company, Business 2.0 and is a
featured speaker/presenter at HR and technology
conferences.
MODERATOR
Amy Lewis
Director, Talent Acquisition Community
HCI
Amy Lewis is the Director of the Talent
Acquisition Community at the Human Capital
Institute. Amy's work and passion involves
researching and facilitating topics of the greatest
interest to specialists and leaders devoted to hiring
top talent at their organizations. Prior to joining
the Human Capital Institute, Amy served in
corporate recruiting roles at several large financial
services companies, and had the opportunity to
focus on recruitment-related technology, processes
and best practices. She is also an articulate
advocate for talent acquisition as an indispensable
tool for competitive advantage in the global
marketplace, and currently holds the AIRS
designation of Advanced Certified Internet
Recruiter.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This White Paper is made possible by Jobs2Web,
sponsor of HCI's Strategic Sourcing and
Recruitment Track.
ABOUT JOBS2WEB
JWT INSIDE helps organizations advance
employee engagement through comprehensive
advertising, marketing and employee
communications services. Measurement tools,
consulting resources and strategic approaches are
employed to put the right people in the right jobs
and keep the workforce engaged. The agency has
24 offices across North America and
internationally. It is a subsidiary of JWT, the
largest advertising agency in the United States and
the third full-service network in the world. Its
parent company is WPP (NASDAQ:WPPGY). For
more information, go to www.jwtinside.com.
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ABOUT THE HUMAN CAPITAL INSTITUTE

The Human Capital Institute is a catalyst for

innovative new thinking in talent acquisition,
development and deployment. Through research
and collaboration, our programs collect original,
creative ideas from a field of top executives and
the brightest thought leaders in strategic HR and
talent management. Those ideas are then
transformed into measurable, real-world strategies
that help our members attract and retain the best
talent, build a diverse, inclusive workplace, and
leverage individual and team performance
throughout the enterprise.