Each term, I survey the new students in my Human Resources Technology class about their experience with, and attitudes toward, many of the commonly found workplace tools and technologies that we cover in the course, and that they are likely to encounter in their professional HR lives. With each class, the survey results are reasonably consistent – one or two students have some corporate experience with an ‘Enterprise grade’ technology like PeopleSoft or SAP, someone in the class with a recruiting background may know how to poke their way around Taleo, and the majority of the students have no real exposure to workplace technologies save for one notable exception.
Almost all of the students report fairly recent experience dealing with the corporate online application process, from the perspective as a candidate. And when asked for details about their perceptions of these various online application processes across a wide range of companies, local and national, large and small, the same kinds of responses get reported semester after semester:
- Too long
- Too confusing
- Why does the process ask me a bunch of questions that can be easily found in my resume?
- Once I hit ‘apply’ I never hear anything back from the company
- Once I start the application process, I can’t look at the job description unless I cancel and start over
No big deal you say – these are the kinds of complaints that job seekers have been making for ages about online application processes. Certainly the designs and architectures of the largest Applicant Tracking Systems vendors in use by almost all large companies these days have not done much to address these concerns. ATS systems, especially larger ones, have definitely fallen into the trap of piling on more features, capability, and complex process support often at the expense of the candidate experience.
If you are really a savvy organization or recruiter though, you are not worried all that much about the online application experience, since the world of recruiting is undergoing a major shift. In 2010, and in the future, recruiting is turning ‘social’ and stalking sourcing candidates on Facebook and Twitter are the order of the day. The online application to the company is really only a final step in this new social, interactive, and enlightened process. Candidates are not just candidates, they are now part of your talent community, some kind of new and exciting construct consisting of you, what your organization may be able to offer, and an increasing (and increasingly desperate) collection of job seekers hoping that somehow they can arise from the ‘talent community’ and enter the ‘employed community’.
Forgive me for thinking at first glance the ‘talent community’ concept seems a little feudal, maybe one or two of the ‘community’ of loyal subjects will actually make it into the castle one day, and the rest can hang around the fringes until and unless they are ever needed.
Getting back to the students, one additional and open-ended question I always ask them is this: ‘What is your preferred method to seek out opportunities and apply for positions?’. Every semester and for three years running now, the most common answer is ‘The big job boards like Monster or CareerBuilder’. When pressed for details, ‘Ease of use’, ‘one click to send a resume and apply’, ‘no need to re-enter the same information over and over’, and ‘lots of jobs all in one place and not just for one company’ are the most frequently mentioned. When asked about learning about organizations and engaging with company recruiters on social networks like Facebook or Twitter, almost all of them recoil. No way they say, Facebook is for me and my friends only.
These students are generally a pretty attractive set of candidates, most are already working HR or business professionals, all are pursuing their Master’s degree, and many bring a wide range of experiences and diversity to the table. In short, they are a strong talent pool – but they just don’t seem to want to be a part of your talent community. Would you have ever figured that?
Where was that ‘Apply now’ button again?
Great insights Steve! I’m hearing similar comments from more and more corporate recruiters regarding how candidates in their early to mid 20′s feel about engaging in “relationships” with companies or recruiters on social networks. Since your class is a graduate level course, is it fair to say that most/all of your students fall into that age range (Gen Y for lack of a better way to categorize)?
While I assume that all candidates would prefer the simplest route to applying for/getting a job, I wonder if older candidates who are already working prefer the Talent Community/engagement approach, since they may be lurking in the job search or considering making a move for a company culture that is a better match for their work style/interests? Any thoughts on that?
This is one of the most accurate blogs I’ve seen in quite a while. Great job Steve!
All this talk of community has been giving me laughs for months now. Candidates are not interested in becoming a fan of your company.
They want a relevant career position. Now. Any one of us thinking they want to build some sort of fan/employment brand relationship for the longer term is either buying the snake oil – or selling it.
I’m mystified by 2 things in this blog entry:
1. the regard these students have for job boards, which are just as much of a black hole as ATS.
2. although you address the black hole nature of ATS and its challenges, I perceive a huge opportunity to address where ATS providers fail massively: the absence of a single standard for applicant data submission. If ATS providers could develop such a standard, it would shatter the hegemony job boards hold over the talent acquisition process.
Nice write up – and I couldn’t agree more in regards to making the application process easy. So often this is something that is missed when career portals are constructed or an ATS is implemented.
But with regards to candidates not wanting to be recruited via social…
I’m hearing this more and more – that “students” don’t want to be part of talent communities or that they’re not looking to engage recruiters or hiring managers via social networks. And I get it… But I’m also seeing live interactions and increasing opt-in numbers for communications via social channels in real life.
I helped to create a talent network at my previous employer that reached over 300,000 job seekers in just over a year – all asking to be notified via email and/or mobile messaging about job opportunities (as well as get a monthly newsletter.)
At the same company we launched Facebook efforts that resulted in not only hires, but a continually increasing use of social tools that could be attributed to pulling in applications as well as hires. Some of these VERY specific to college recruits AND college hires into leadership programs.
I’m not saying your survey is invalid, Steve. But I do think there may be some consistency in data when reported like this from bloggers or when samples are very small or targeted. (That, or our job seekers are saying one thing and doing another, eh?)
Chris Hoyt
http://www.RecruiterGuy.net
Very interesting to get that kind of feedback from the talent pool. Regarding the duplicate information complaint – obviously that is done to save the recruiter/ hr admin time and to make sure consistant information is provided by candidates. Isn’t it a better use of someone’s time to fill out a structured application (i.e. prescreening questions), and therefore not have to waste time on a phone interview or face to face interview that isn’t a good fit? Seems like it saves the candidate more time to enter the information up front, online.
I think that there are two reasons why ATS’ sometimes get it wrong. Litigation and Hubris.
Corp HR has been scared by their compliance departments and TA teams are thinking “Hey, if you want to work for us, you’ll fill this out.”
The comments of the students should be an “Ah Ha” moment for Compliance and Talent Acquisition. Shame we don’t listen to that community at times.
Great post, Steve. I agree, and would recommend every company to take a look at visitor patterns on their career site, by getting actual user sessions recorded (several providers do this). Most will find less than 5% of users (potential candidates) spend much time at all on all the fluffy stuff we talk about, and go right for the “search” and “apply” functionality.
Jason
http://TheTalentBuzz.com
Hi Steve -
Great post! I think you are right on and I am seeing this real-time. I think we as an industry are ahead of the curve and where most candidates are at. They want the process to be simple, not dragged out and easy to understand and execute. I think they are afraid to interact with companies on line vs over the phone or more traditional means. I think they are nervous what their current employer might say or do id they see someone interacting online with a recruiter.
That being said I have seen more candidates interact online over the last 6 months than I have before. So it will be interesting to see what the survey says 3 years from now.
Best-
Chernee
I’m also interested in seeing how the trends shift. We too have seen a huge shift of talent coming from social media outlets in the past 6 months.
By pointing, clicking and submitting a resume (and without interaction) and actually getting a response back? Sounds like these students are living in the .com era. Things just don’t work like that anymore. Just ask anyone who is unemployed.
Interacting and working with:
1) at least 3 agencies in your chosen field
2) networking
3) utilizing social media
Are the first things I would do, should I be looking for a new job.
What a great post, Steve. Your conclusions completely match our findings at Jobsite.co.uk – less than 20% of candidates are happy to fill out a rigid and long application form. Recruiters talk about candidates being most important, now it’s time to really put that at the heart of the organisation and to change the processes to be life enhancing and life simplying. Take jobboards, but also the likes of Amazon, Ebay, Facebook as an example – what can you learn and how can integrate their ease of use and convenience. This needs be the first step before anybody talks about talent pools, etc.
Felix
a) What is the risk to the candidate?
b) How much does the candidate trust me?
Trust is a problem.
Forgive me for thinking at first glance the ‘talent community’ concept seems a little feudal, maybe one or two of the ‘community’ of loyal subjects will actually make it into the castle one day, and the rest can hang around the fringes until and unless they are ever needed.I like your blog…Keep on..good post.
For starters- loved the post.
Social Media:
I was surprised that LinkedIn wasn’t mentioned as a way to contact potential employers. If a candidate goes through the trouble to find an HR person at my company and emails me (my email address is visible to all on my profile), their name shoots to the top of the list, especially if they are a sales/marketing candidate. Speaking of sales, I expect them to treat the interview process as a sales call, which networking to get to a decision maker is a must have.
ATS:
- Great insight on candidates wanting to review the job ad during the application process. I’ve already sent a link to the article, plus suggestion to my vendor.
- I’ve interviewed enough candidates who chose not to complete the online application. NONE of them go the job. Why? They exhibited no ambition and little interest for my company/opening. People who want the job advertised and want to work for your company will thoroughly complete the online application.
That said, I agree that the ATS questions must be as brief as possible. I configured ours to tell candidates that simply organized resumes in a .doc or .pdf format will give them the greatest success when our system parses the information into the online application for them. This candidate benefit should be taken into account when organizations select their ATS vendor. I also tell them that the online application takes the place of the paper forms that many companies still use at interview. I’m still surprised that the paper application (usually given at interview and used for background checking) hasn’t gone the way of the dodo bird in the ATS age.
In a time when HR departments are running with a skeleton crew (like most other non-income generating departments), HR must do a better job educating non-HR folk on the following:
1. Most ATS platforms use their information to sort applicants by qualifications for the job they applied for.
2. Expediting the recruitment, resume storage and HR reporting process is the whole reason for the ATS industry’s existence. Who wants to/has the time to file paper resumes and manually report on all of that in the computer age?
@Jennifer – Thanks very much – yes the majority of my students are GenY and for whatever reason much of the accepted wisdom as to typical GenY attitudes towards tech and networking have not held true.
@Jerry – Thanks for the kind words. I am not sure in the absolute, but for my small sample size what you observe has been very true.
@Ed – Well, the students being students certainly are likely to come to faulty conclusions sometimes. Black holes in the recruiting process to me are 95% the fault of the employers, and not really unique to any tool or technology used. Check out the Resume Pal project to see what strides have been made towards a more universal application process. But honestly, if LinkedIn ever figured this out or offered it then it would become the standard.
@Chris – Thanks for sharing that data from your efforts in building a talent community. I don’t disagree that my small sample size is only that, and very unscientific. I think both our experiences make a larger point, that there have to be many ways to attract and engage the best candidates, and smart organizations will understand that.
@Jennifer – I agree the screening is made more efficient with a structured process. The main complaint was the lack of parsing technology to allow the structured data to be fed from the unstructured resume.
@Jason – What a great point.
@Kim – I don’t disagree with your advice at all.
@Felix – Thanks and I am sure you know 100% more about this than I. I appreciate the comment.
@Chris – Thanks, you are likely correct.
@usb – Thanks!
@Jcirecruiter – Great points and thanks for sharing them. I agree, a simply LinkedIn search and an email can do wonders to get a job seeker some additional attention.
“Facebook is for me and my friends only”
This phrase is key to me. Many advocates of facebook as a recruitment vehicle will tell you of its 500 million members (how many are lapsed I wonder) and how it is set to have over a billion anytime soon, but, by and large, wherever I look or ask the answer is pretty much always the same, namely “Facebook is for me and my friends”.
Who cares how many members Facebook has? It’s what they are on there for that matters. Making out that facebook is going to be great for recruitment is like saying the UK’s leading high street chemist should sell cars because they get far more visitors than the local garage. No, people go to a garage to buy cars and a pharmacy to get medication or shampoo or whatever. Never the twain shall meet!
Imagine years ago when all we had was the little old chat messenger that every few minutes you got a message from a recruiter saying “hey, you. Looking for a job?” Er, no right now I am chatting to my friend. I tell you what, of I want to look for a job I will go to one of the many tried and trusted outlets that already exist, or maybe I’ll be lazy and just do a google search by putting in a job title and location. Who knew it really is that easy? Everyone except Facebook it seems. Trust me, Facebook and recruitment should not mix. You will never get the best candidates from there, no matter if they get people from other universes hearing of how many members they have got and deciding to join the party!
Steve, interesting article. I think one thing that your post fails to recognize is the apply or die methodology that is forced by a job board or an ATS. It screams, “Either apply to our job or we want nothing to do with you!”
The point of the “talent community” is not to capture the anxious, eager, or desperate candidate who is ready to apply today. It is to allow people to raise their hand and say, “I’m interested in your company.” When properly executed, talent community engagement – on the candidates terms, allows candidates to choose how to engage before they are ready to apply. Potential future candidates can choose how to stay up to date with openings, news, major hiring efforts etc. Whether it’s a social network, email, rss, or text; the engagement is based on what the candidate desires not a forced action(the apply). Additionally, an explorer on a social network can get rudimentary questions answered like, “Is this job eligible for benefits or flex scheduling?” without going through the entire apply process only to find out it’s not. IMHO, they are not “feudal” communities put in place to ask the member to work for us – it’s us trying to provide ready access to the information candidates want on their terms.
As for the ATS apply, I agree – it needs to be simplified to reduce barriers. Walking the fine line of compliance sometimes makes it hard for companies to execute a simplified apply process. Those who do will have more interested and ready applicants actually finish the apply.
Thanks for another great post!
This is a great post. As a Millennial, and a grad student, I am an avid user of facebook, but I would never dream of using it for my job search. I just don’t perceive social networking sites to be professional. But since I’m graduating in May 2011, it looks like I should start using every method I can.
Just wait until your corporation forces you to implement Oracle iRecruitment because it is a cheap ad-on to the core HR software vs. Taleo or iCIMS, etc… It’s coming and you and your candidates will hate it.
I’m not surprised about these findings. A student also told me recently that he ‘just wanted to apply for a job’ and didn’t want to socialize, be active in communities or follow Recruiters/Companies.
But … I’m pretty sure that the person who get’s the job will be the one that’s more motivated and better informed about the job/company than other candidates. I therefore believe that such an attitude will set a candidate behind in the competition for jobs.
So many recruiting blogs are always talking solely from the perspective of the recruiter – it is always refreshing to hear the perspective of those on the other side of recruiting – job seekers and candidates. Nice post Steve.
I fear it is all too easy for those of us in the recruiting industry to never take the time and think about the process from the job seeker’s perspective, or from the passive candidate’s perspective, for that matter.
The reality is – the vast majority of people want a job that is a great fit with what they are looking for, not another “relationship.”
I’ve felt that candidate-recruiter relationships have been overrated for quite some time:
http://www.booleanblackbelt.com/2009/08/candidate-recruiter-relationships-overrated/
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