28% of employees check their smartphones during downtime.

For recruiters, this means that the pool of passive candidates is increasingly on-demand.  Leveraging text messages, email, and mobile-accessible websites can be a powerful way to engage these passive candidates who are consistently accessing their smartphones and tablets.

Just One Problem…

Until very recently, there has not been an easy way for candidates to apply to jobs on their smartphone or tablet.

Imagine filling out an online application via your touch-screen keyboard.  It’s frustrating enough to fill out online applications on your desktop computer, much less on a palm-size screen, one letter at a time.

Likely, if you came across a job you wanted to apply to while browsing on your smartphone, this is going to be your drop-off point.  Maybe you’ll forward yourself the link to apply at a later date.  If you are browsing on a job search app, you might be able to save the job to your favorites list, and access it from your desktop or laptop later.  But both of these scenarios leave a big chasm between the interested candidate and the actual applicant.

Closing the Gap

The LinkedIn Apply button lets candidates apply with the information that is already available in their LinkedIn profile.  This means that with one click – or one touch – a passive candidate can become an applicant.

Adding the LinkedIn Apply button to your job postings connects mobile with the job search process.  Now, passive candidates can scroll through their Twitter feed or Facebook news feed, see a job you posted, click on the link, and apply with one click using the LinkedIn Apply button.  They never need to leave their smartphone.  The loop is complete.

The Downside?

In his article, Linked in profile vs The CV: Face off…  Gareth Jones used a CV rating service to rate his CV against his LinkedIn profile.  The results were in favor of the CV.

Resumes are a bit cumbersome when it comes to the application process.  However, in terms of content, the Resume is much more flexible.  The #1 rule of the job search process is to tailor your resume to the job description.  And this is where LinkedIn falls short, because the job search process is not conducive to a one-profile-fits-all solution…

A Good Start

As Jones points out, LinkedIn will most likely adapt as their “Apply” button picks up steam.  Perhaps LinkedIn will allow their users to easily maintain multiple profiles, each tailored to a specific purpose.

LinkedIn Apply is not the perfect solution to linking mobile with recruiting, but it’s a good start. It creates a jumping point for recruiters to capture a passive candidate’s information, reach out to them and ignite their interest enough to move forward with the process. Whether the applicant’s next step is sending a resume, replying to an email, accepting a phone call, or coming in for an interview, will be up to the recruiter.

p.s.  “Apply with LinkedIn” is now available through the Sendouts website integration!

You don't have to hire Clydesdales to get a return on your advertising investment.

Every year we can expect to see Budweiser fill several spots during the Super Bowl. But an ad engagement survey shows that Budweiser is the brand least likely to see a return on its investment in Super Bowl ads this year.

Maybe you throw money at the same ad spots every year – in trade publications, on job boards, or in newspapers. While you may gain brand awareness in these spots, are you getting a return on your investment?

Ads are More than Skin Deep

A Budweiser Super Bowl ad certainly has high production value, and (depending on your tastes) entertainment value, but buyers aren’t engaged, and aren’t buying more Buds.

You can put together a great looking ad, but it’s not going to automatically bring you more applicants or clients.

Go Beyond Awareness to Engage Your Audience

Instead of letting ads stand alone, execute integrated campaigns. Engage your audience by tying an ad together with a whitepaper, a webinar, a job fair, or even something as simple as an informative blog post. Give prospects a good sense of what you’re about by reinforcing your message in every facet of your campaign.

Measure

Not only do integrated campaigns engage your audience, they also give you opportunities to measure a return on your investment.

If you have static ads in a print publication, offering a whitepaper download or job fair sign-up online can give you insight into who your message is reaching.

You can measure clicks through online ads, but giving away content is an excellent way to gather more information.  You can ask for information like name, email, and job title in exchange for a download.  Then, you are poised to follow-up with more targeted messaging down the road, driving further returns on your initial advertising investment.
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image from here

Obama on Instagram

A recent article from Forbes delineates a few ways the Obama campaign has been using social media in its political outreach efforts:

• -Fielding questions and speaking with ordinary citizens in a Google+ hangout after last night’s State of the Union address.
• -Holding a Twitter townhall meeting to get a greater sense of voter concerns.
• -Using Instagram to document the campaign trail.

Recruiters have integrated social media into their day-to-day business activities, posting jobs on their networks and sharing content with their followers.  But President Obama’s campaign demonstrates how you can take social media to the next level, using it as a vehicle to drive events and connect with people outside of your network.

Whether you’re attending a job fair or tradeshow, hosting a webinar, or conducting interviews on a college campus, don’t leave your twitter handle behind.  Social media is as big an aspect of the event as renting a booth or booking your flight.

Executing Social Media Events

Unlike holding spontaneous day-to-day conversations with your networks, holding a social media event takes some planning.

The Focus.  What do you want to get out of the event?  Are you curious what technologies your candidates find most effective in their job search?  Or maybe you want to pick the brains of a few thought leaders in your industry.

The Medium.  Choose a platform that will best suit your focus.  If you want to hear from a large pool of candidates, Twitter.  If you want to have a deeper discussion, video chat may be the way to go.

The Moderator.  Choose a moderator who can keep the virtual conversation on-topic.

The Marketing.  Get the word out with other pre-event marketing through press-releases, emails, articles, and print materials.  Let people know why they will benefit from participating, & how they can get involved.

An abandoned shopping cart is THE WORST for online retailers.  So close to making a sale, but the customer just didn’t bite.

Maybe the shopper couldn’t find the shipping costs, and decided to skip it. Maybe an item was out of stock when they went to checkout, so they left the site feeling disappointed. Perhaps they had a question, but it was too difficult to contact someone for an answer.

Getting candidates to apply to your jobs online is exactly the same. They’re shopping for an opportunity, and you want them to apply to yours. But what if the perfect candidate searched for jobs on your site, found an opening that piqued their interest, clicked to apply, and then….dropped off?

Turn strong candidates into applicants, and avoid application abandonment.

Save Every Shopping Cart. Give Candidates a Profile.
Make it easy for candidates to come back to your site and immediately know their place in the recruitment process. Do they have interviews coming up? Are there assessments they can complete online? Is it easy for them to update employment history or skills set? Who is their recruiter, and how do they contact them? Giving candidates an area to keep tabs on their job search keeps them coming back for more.

Display Product Availability. Keep Your Jobs Fresh.
How long has the job been open? In the new economy, the mindset among candidates is that there are a lot of qualified workers available, and jobs go fast. If a job has been open for three months, a candidate may assume that it has been filled by now, or in the later stages of the hiring process, and skip the time investment in filling out an application. So if a job has been hanging out there for a while, re-post it to attract new applicants.

Provide Shipping Costs Upfront. Give Salary Information.
A little transparency can go a long way. Most candidates are capable of self-screening based on salary. Providing the salary range upfront gives applicants a sense if a job is the right fit, and can motivate a passive candidate to take the time to applying, knowing the job fits their requirements.

Make it Easy / Eliminate Lengthy Applications.
It may be convenient to have every single stat on every candidate, but to a passive candidate who isn’t really looking in the first place, a lengthy application process can be an immediate turn-off. Get the basics, but avoid asking for the nitty-gritty, like the name, address, and phone number for their manager from three jobs ago. Save it for round two.

Eliminate Registration. Let Them Apply with LinkedIn.
While a LinkedIn profile may not be as fleshed out as a resume, it still captures basic information about a candidate, and gives you a starting point for building a relationship with them. Widen your applicant pool when you skip the username and password, and let them apply with just a click or two.

Build Trust.
You probably aren’t posting jobs on Craigslist to get top-tier candidates. So don’t operate like some shady Craigslist poster. Return inquiries. Avoid cryptic job descriptions. Make contacting a real person easy.

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inspired by this post.

image from here.

With Christmas knocking at our door, the holiday season always makes it excruciatingly apparent how valuable our time is.  We’ve been running around frantically all December trying to squeeze the most out of every last minute – buying gifts for friends and family, deciding how to appropriately thank clients, buzzing from holiday party to party.  We may have even reached that ugly turn the season takes when the holiday warm fuzzies turn into holiday stress as we dash from place to place, trying to give the best gift, to be the perfect hostess, and to be a good guest.

If we weren’t spending our time distracted by holiday errands, would be be making more money?  What if we had a little extra help, so we could focus our energy purely on activities that add to the bottom line?  What if we could spend all day making calls, instead of taking time out to enter data, or follow up with an account manager, or hunt down the correct phone number for a candidate?

If Santa could deliver us a personal assistant for the new year, would our time be better spent?  Would our bottom line increase?

Wondering how much your time is really worth?  Try this equation from Inc.com:

• Annual revenue: $3 million
• Gross margin: 33 percent
• Gross profit: $3 million x 33 percent = $1 million
• Annual hours worked: 50 hours per week x 50 weeks per year = 2,500
• Gross profit per hour: $400

Your time may be worth more or less than $400 per hour.  Whatever your gross profit per hour is, If you can outsource a task for less than that amount, it’s well worth it.

While hiring a personal assistant, a nanny, a personal shopper, a cook, or a housekeeper may be a bit out of our reach, there are many accessible tools available that can take unnecessary tasks off of our plate.

1.  Voice recognition software.  iPhone 4S introduced the world to Siri voice recognition.  Some have touted Siri as a personal assistant.  Sophisticated voice recognition software frees up your hands and helps you to send messages, make calls, set reminders and more.  No more looking down, trying to drive and punch in an address at the same time.

2.  A virtual assistant.  A virtual assistant can help with those time consuming activities like document preparation, ordering office supplies, or preparing your monthly marketing newsletter.  You get the benefit of having an assistant without the cost of additional office space or employee benefits.

3.  An ATS/Recruiting Software.  Sure, that excel spreadsheet paired with your Outlook folders gets the job done.  And it may seem like the economical option.  But nothing is really automated.  Recruiting software is built specifically for the recruiting process.  It can automate several steps in your work flow, connect you to job boards & social media, and integrate with your website.  While you aren’t doing mundane, redundant tasks like changing a candidate’s status, or deleting duplicate records, you can be making more calls, presenting more candidates, and making more placements.

4.  Mobile Apps.  Recruiters and account managers don’t always spend the day tied to a desk.  Mobile apps can help you make the most of time away from the office.  Access documents from your tablet or smartphone, check your email, save snapshots or ideas in a note taking app like Evernote, and scan in that client lunch receipt with an app like Expensify.  Use your recruiting software mobile app to access candidate and client records on the go.  You no longer have to be tied to your desk to be productive.

Playing to your strengths, and letting someone (or something) else handle the rest can add to your bottom line in the New Year.

image from here.