#69: Recruitment Is Marketing: The Evolution of Talent Acquisition

1 00:00:00,620 --> 00:00:02,528 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Changing State of Talent 2 00:00:02,608 --> 00:00:06,381 Acquisition, where your hosts, graham Thornton and Martin Cred, 3 00:00:06,381 --> 00:00:09,388 share their unfiltered takes on what's happening in the world 4 00:00:09,429 --> 00:00:10,811 of talent acquisition today. 5 00:00:10,811 --> 00:00:14,371 Each week brings new guests who share their stories on the 6 00:00:14,432 --> 00:00:17,966 tools, trends and technologies currently impacting the changing 7 00:00:17,966 --> 00:00:19,429 state of talent acquisition. 8 00:00:19,429 --> 00:00:21,306 Have feedback or want to join the show? 9 00:00:21,306 --> 00:00:23,286 Head on over to changestateio. 10 00:00:23,286 --> 00:00:26,621 And now on to this week's episode. 11 00:00:27,303 --> 00:00:29,490 Speaker 2: All right and we're back with another episode of the 12 00:00:29,490 --> 00:00:31,940 Changing State of Town Acquisition Podcast. 13 00:00:31,940 --> 00:00:34,365 Super excited for our next guest, maria 14 00:00:34,466 --> 00:00:38,274 Christopoulos-Katras, founder and CEO of BuiltIn. 15 00:00:38,274 --> 00:00:40,164 Maria, welcome to the show. 16 00:00:40,386 --> 00:00:41,529 Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having me. 17 00:00:41,899 --> 00:00:43,585 Speaker 2: Yeah, super excited to have BuiltIn. 18 00:00:43,585 --> 00:00:48,740 So you don't know this, but in 2011, when you started Built In, 19 00:00:48,740 --> 00:00:53,430 we started a company called Seatsync in Chicago and we went 20 00:00:53,451 --> 00:00:56,783 to pretty much every monthly meetup that Built In started 21 00:00:56,844 --> 00:01:01,360 hosting when you were growing, and so we've been big fans of 22 00:01:01,381 --> 00:01:04,265 Built In since, quite literally, your inception. 23 00:01:04,265 --> 00:01:08,031 One of my big gripes starting ChangeState is boy, I really 24 00:01:08,090 --> 00:01:13,546 wish in Seattle we had a tech ecosystem or a startup ecosystem 25 00:01:13,546 --> 00:01:15,272 that built-in helped create in Chicago. 26 00:01:15,272 --> 00:01:17,186 So big fan of built-in. 27 00:01:17,186 --> 00:01:20,028 But that said, why don't you tell us a little bit more about 28 00:01:20,227 --> 00:01:21,611 starting built-in from your lens ? 29 00:01:21,611 --> 00:01:24,429 Tell us a little bit more about your career journey first, 30 00:01:24,468 --> 00:01:24,730 maria. 31 00:01:25,640 --> 00:01:28,186 Speaker 3: Oh, I appreciate that and that brings back some fond 32 00:01:28,225 --> 00:01:30,391 memories, for sure, for sure. 33 00:01:30,391 --> 00:01:33,144 I think you know it's just unfortunate. 34 00:01:33,144 --> 00:01:35,811 You know the world's evolving and we've had to evolve with it. 35 00:01:35,811 --> 00:01:41,170 But thinking back to those days when events were really big and 36 00:01:41,170 --> 00:01:45,275 in-person meetups were big and right, all the incubators, you 37 00:01:45,296 --> 00:01:48,147 know, everyone would huddle every day at the incubators and 38 00:01:48,688 --> 00:01:52,501 it was so special and it was so hopeful for companies at that 39 00:01:52,641 --> 00:01:54,745 earliest stage in their journey. 40 00:01:54,745 --> 00:01:59,141 Now it's just a lot of the events like outside of I 41 00:01:59,361 --> 00:02:03,474 jokingly say outside of people in sales who are really leaning 42 00:02:03,515 --> 00:02:05,781 into events right now and in-person meetings, and it's 43 00:02:05,822 --> 00:02:06,724 working really well. 44 00:02:06,724 --> 00:02:10,132 I'm finding that most people outside of the nine to five 45 00:02:10,861 --> 00:02:15,235 don't want to, you know, network and go to events and things of 46 00:02:15,254 --> 00:02:15,756 that nature. 47 00:02:15,756 --> 00:02:16,960 So it is interesting. 48 00:02:16,960 --> 00:02:18,586 It brings back so many fond memories. 49 00:02:18,586 --> 00:02:21,896 So, yeah, that was built in in the early days. 50 00:02:21,896 --> 00:02:23,401 Fast forward to today. 51 00:02:23,401 --> 00:02:26,788 We are now a global recruitment platform that helps companies, 52 00:02:26,867 --> 00:02:29,920 from the smallest startups to the Fortune 500, hire the 53 00:02:30,001 --> 00:02:32,612 hardest to find tech professionals, and we do this by 54 00:02:32,612 --> 00:02:35,402 branding companies so they can attract, convert and ultimately 55 00:02:35,483 --> 00:02:38,290 get candidates to apply to their hardest to fill roles. 56 00:02:38,290 --> 00:02:41,872 Why that matters today is recruitment is marketing. 57 00:02:41,872 --> 00:02:44,562 Recruitment was not marketing when built in first started. 58 00:02:44,562 --> 00:02:49,615 We really set out to promote local technology companies and 59 00:02:49,716 --> 00:02:52,823 in doing so, found that we were driving really high quality 60 00:02:53,123 --> 00:02:54,387 applicants into their funnel. 61 00:02:54,387 --> 00:02:56,681 And that was before employer branding was a term. 62 00:02:56,681 --> 00:02:57,782 It wasn't even a term. 63 00:02:57,782 --> 00:03:01,913 It was definitely not a role inside a company, and so it's 64 00:03:01,953 --> 00:03:06,469 been crazy to see how the industry has evolved and how now 65 00:03:06,469 --> 00:03:11,793 , for 75% of our buyers I would say, recruitment, marketing and 66 00:03:11,832 --> 00:03:14,543 employer branding sit under talent acquisition as a core 67 00:03:14,582 --> 00:03:15,567 pillar of the function. 68 00:03:15,567 --> 00:03:18,599 So it's been fun to watch, it's been a labor of love indeed. 69 00:03:19,039 --> 00:03:21,663 As far as my career, I started my career in consulting. 70 00:03:21,663 --> 00:03:24,746 I come from immigrant entrepreneur parents who 71 00:03:24,885 --> 00:03:26,167 identified as being pharmacists. 72 00:03:26,167 --> 00:03:28,088 My parents and I are Greek. 73 00:03:28,088 --> 00:03:30,570 We were either a doctor or a lawyer. 74 00:03:30,570 --> 00:03:35,455 As a first generation kid of immigrant parents, they didn't 75 00:03:35,495 --> 00:03:36,376 know what to think of me. 76 00:03:36,376 --> 00:03:37,417 They thought I was going to be a lawyer. 77 00:03:37,417 --> 00:03:46,905 Year of college switched my major to business Glad I did 78 00:03:46,944 --> 00:03:48,590 that and just had some critical pieces of my journey along the 79 00:03:48,610 --> 00:03:50,477 way that led me to realizing I'm an entrepreneur and it was sort 80 00:03:50,477 --> 00:03:53,106 of like I've had these three light bulb moments I like to 81 00:03:53,167 --> 00:03:55,391 call them throughout my career journey. 82 00:03:55,391 --> 00:03:58,891 The first is when a friend took me to an entrepreneur's 83 00:03:58,931 --> 00:04:03,326 organization event right after I had left consulting and I was 84 00:04:03,347 --> 00:04:05,921 in a room full of entrepreneurs and I was like, oh, this is me, 85 00:04:06,081 --> 00:04:08,990 this is who I am, and I had never really identified that way 86 00:04:08,990 --> 00:04:08,990 . 87 00:04:08,990 --> 00:04:10,865 I'm aging myself right now. 88 00:04:10,905 --> 00:04:14,318 But startups weren't really a thing when I was graduating from 89 00:04:14,318 --> 00:04:15,923 college as a finance undergrad. 90 00:04:15,923 --> 00:04:19,572 You either went to work for a bank or consulting firm, and so 91 00:04:20,480 --> 00:04:23,586 it wasn't something that was top of mind, to be honest, and my 92 00:04:23,625 --> 00:04:24,987 parents identified as pharmacists. 93 00:04:24,987 --> 00:04:28,091 It wasn't something that was top of mind, to be honest, and 94 00:04:28,112 --> 00:04:29,915 my parents identified as pharmacists, not entrepreneurs, 95 00:04:29,935 --> 00:04:31,997 but they were both, and so that was step one was just this light 96 00:04:31,997 --> 00:04:36,367 bulb of like ooh, these are my people, they think like me, they 97 00:04:36,367 --> 00:04:38,273 act like me, this is the world I want to be in, and that led me 98 00:04:38,273 --> 00:04:38,975 to start my first business. 99 00:04:38,975 --> 00:04:40,901 And then the second light bulb moment was when I ran a 100 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:44,449 nonprofit for a short period of time for tech entrepreneurs, 101 00:04:44,509 --> 00:04:48,024 between selling my first company and then starting at Built In 102 00:04:49,107 --> 00:04:53,680 and realizing that everyone was complaining what the tech 103 00:04:53,740 --> 00:04:58,230 ecosystem in Chicago at the time didn't have and really felt 104 00:04:58,331 --> 00:04:59,713 like we had so much. 105 00:04:59,713 --> 00:05:01,744 No one was talking about it At that point. 106 00:05:01,744 --> 00:05:04,812 A number of founders and venture capitalists in Chicago 107 00:05:04,891 --> 00:05:08,528 had met and together came up with a name built in Chicago, 108 00:05:08,889 --> 00:05:11,502 and Matt Moog, who was one of them, launched Built in Chicago 109 00:05:11,543 --> 00:05:12,343 on a Ning site. 110 00:05:12,343 --> 00:05:16,721 And when I got invited to join that site, it was like that was 111 00:05:16,800 --> 00:05:20,565 my second light bulb moment of my career, where it just was 112 00:05:20,605 --> 00:05:24,732 like, oh, this is what I've been talking about. 113 00:05:24,732 --> 00:05:29,564 And so here we are 15 years later, and I would say the third 114 00:05:29,564 --> 00:05:35,038 was likely when I realized fairly early on with Built In 115 00:05:35,139 --> 00:05:36,423 that we needed to be global. 116 00:05:37,266 --> 00:05:40,358 Obviously, being globally minded myself, having been raised by 117 00:05:40,418 --> 00:05:46,071 immigrant parents, I really saw very early how flat the world 118 00:05:46,110 --> 00:05:49,507 was becoming and how flat it would become in the future, and 119 00:05:49,608 --> 00:05:53,579 so had bought essentially hundreds of domains globally 120 00:05:54,341 --> 00:05:57,490 very early on in built-in days, and my co-founder, adam, always 121 00:05:57,529 --> 00:06:00,925 laughs about it because he's had to strip me away from a bunch 122 00:06:00,944 --> 00:06:01,747 of them over time. 123 00:06:01,747 --> 00:06:05,593 But what's funny is like it's coming full circle, back to 124 00:06:05,839 --> 00:06:09,267 location-based hiring, onsite hiring, locals coming back, and 125 00:06:09,307 --> 00:06:14,584 so it's really fascinating to see how we've gone from local to 126 00:06:14,584 --> 00:06:21,194 remote globally now back to local, national and global, both 127 00:06:21,194 --> 00:06:26,088 onsite, hybrid and remote and so yeah. 128 00:06:26,088 --> 00:06:29,482 So I would say those were probably like the three, you 129 00:06:29,502 --> 00:06:32,809 know, really critical pieces of the journey. 130 00:06:33,370 --> 00:06:34,952 Speaker 4: Wow, quite the backstory. 131 00:06:34,952 --> 00:06:36,204 Thanks for joining us, maria. 132 00:06:36,204 --> 00:06:38,276 You know there's a lot of things that I think we want to 133 00:06:38,297 --> 00:06:41,028 talk about today, but maybe we could start with something you 134 00:06:41,048 --> 00:06:42,254 said a few minutes ago. 135 00:06:42,254 --> 00:06:44,723 That feels a little bit provocative, but maybe you could 136 00:06:44,723 --> 00:06:45,665 just unpack it for us. 137 00:06:45,665 --> 00:06:48,312 You said, when you first started built in and correct me 138 00:06:48,351 --> 00:06:52,329 if I'm misunderstanding here but recruitment was not marketing. 139 00:06:52,329 --> 00:06:55,425 And during the time since where was that 2011,? 140 00:06:55,425 --> 00:06:58,978 You've seen a major shift to, I assume, a time now where maybe 141 00:06:59,019 --> 00:07:00,423 recruitment is more like marketing. 142 00:07:00,423 --> 00:07:02,168 Could you just tell us what you ? 143 00:07:02,168 --> 00:07:03,512 Well, first of all, did I get that right? 144 00:07:03,512 --> 00:07:08,961 And secondly, in what? 145 00:07:08,982 --> 00:07:09,062 Speaker 3: ways. 146 00:07:09,081 --> 00:07:10,267 Is recruitment like marketing and not like marketing in the 147 00:07:10,288 --> 00:07:10,569 current moment? 148 00:07:10,569 --> 00:07:10,850 Yeah for sure. 149 00:07:10,850 --> 00:07:11,514 No, you absolutely got that right. 150 00:07:11,514 --> 00:07:14,363 So the way I like to explain it is like recruitment 1.0, right 151 00:07:14,403 --> 00:07:15,726 Was the job board era. 152 00:07:15,726 --> 00:07:19,603 I mean, if you go past where it went off newspapers, like, if 153 00:07:19,624 --> 00:07:22,230 you really want to go back, you know it used to be the newspaper 154 00:07:22,230 --> 00:07:22,512 ad. 155 00:07:22,512 --> 00:07:30,764 Then it became online job boards and it was very simple, 156 00:07:30,785 --> 00:07:32,310 like you posted a job ad and someone would find it and apply 157 00:07:32,331 --> 00:07:33,855 to your job directly and it would come through your African 158 00:07:33,875 --> 00:07:34,216 tracking system. 159 00:07:34,216 --> 00:07:36,504 Then it became, then LinkedIn introduced the world to sourcing 160 00:07:36,504 --> 00:07:39,692 , like oh wow, like you don't have to just sit and wait for 161 00:07:39,759 --> 00:07:43,187 candidates to apply, you actually can go outbound and you 162 00:07:43,187 --> 00:07:46,113 know, ping people and send them in mails, et cetera. 163 00:07:46,660 --> 00:07:50,348 And then we walked into the era of recruitment as marketing. 164 00:07:50,348 --> 00:07:51,651 And what does that mean? 165 00:07:51,651 --> 00:07:56,427 Effectively, it means the way you and I book our hotel 166 00:07:56,509 --> 00:07:59,281 reservations, look for hotels and book hotels and or 167 00:07:59,322 --> 00:08:01,528 restaurants is the same way candidates look for jobs. 168 00:08:01,528 --> 00:08:02,831 And what that means and why that happened is, if you think 169 00:08:02,851 --> 00:08:03,353 about it, it was like. 170 00:08:03,353 --> 00:08:05,961 What that means and why that happened right is, if you think 171 00:08:06,002 --> 00:08:08,428 about it, it was like the whole proliferation of social media, 172 00:08:08,509 --> 00:08:12,767 right, like influencer marketing , the rise of Instagram and Snap 173 00:08:12,767 --> 00:08:14,290 and now TikTok, right. 174 00:08:14,290 --> 00:08:17,725 And when you think about it, like I always use the analogy of 175 00:08:17,725 --> 00:08:19,490 like how I booked my trip to Italy. 176 00:08:19,490 --> 00:08:23,346 It's, you know, when we went to Italy last year, that was 177 00:08:23,408 --> 00:08:27,264 informed by like a couple of years probably at least, of me 178 00:08:27,345 --> 00:08:29,831 seeing people in my Instagram feed, hearing my friends' 179 00:08:29,891 --> 00:08:32,245 journeys, seeing where they were going on trips, like 180 00:08:32,304 --> 00:08:33,488 screenshotting images. 181 00:08:33,488 --> 00:08:38,749 You know that I kept in a folder and then getting research 182 00:08:38,749 --> 00:08:41,744 across the internet where I'm like, ooh, cool places to stay 183 00:08:41,803 --> 00:08:43,528 in Italy, and starting my search with Google. 184 00:08:43,528 --> 00:08:44,191 Well, guess what? 185 00:08:44,191 --> 00:08:47,753 Candidates 55% of candidates start their search on Google 186 00:08:47,773 --> 00:08:50,942 still to this day when they're looking for things and that's 187 00:08:50,982 --> 00:08:52,066 when they're active. 188 00:08:52,066 --> 00:08:54,192 Just like, I started that when I was active. 189 00:08:54,961 --> 00:08:58,168 But, like all those brand moments, like the two years 190 00:08:58,288 --> 00:09:02,384 prior to me going on, that trip super influenced my short list 191 00:09:02,465 --> 00:09:05,231 of where I wanted to go and like which hotels I wanted to stay 192 00:09:05,251 --> 00:09:07,504 at, which restaurants I wanted to eat at right, and then, 193 00:09:07,605 --> 00:09:11,764 ultimately, for my husband and I , when we book a trip, we book 194 00:09:11,823 --> 00:09:15,091 it using American Express, right , and that's because it gives us 195 00:09:15,091 --> 00:09:16,283 insurance and it's our credit card. 196 00:09:16,283 --> 00:09:20,900 My co-founder uses bookingscom right and he likes it for the UI 197 00:09:20,900 --> 00:09:22,903 and they save his information and he has his reasons. 198 00:09:22,903 --> 00:09:26,089 Our CTO uses a totally different platform to book his 199 00:09:26,208 --> 00:09:31,961 hotels, and so I always use this story to say this is what 200 00:09:32,023 --> 00:09:33,265 candidates are doing today. 201 00:09:33,265 --> 00:09:37,102 They are seeing things about your company you know on 202 00:09:37,163 --> 00:09:38,490 third-party platforms. 203 00:09:38,490 --> 00:09:40,299 They're researching you on third-party platforms. 204 00:09:40,299 --> 00:09:43,407 They're hearing their friends' experiences and who they're 205 00:09:43,447 --> 00:09:45,730 interviewing with and what it was like and what it was like to 206 00:09:45,730 --> 00:09:46,793 work at said company. 207 00:09:46,793 --> 00:09:50,902 They're seeing articles they're reading and then, when they're 208 00:09:51,464 --> 00:09:54,871 active like a true passive candidate that's hard to find 209 00:09:54,980 --> 00:09:57,008 when they're active, they're active for like 10 days. 210 00:09:57,120 --> 00:10:01,770 At that point, their decision has narrowed down to a specific 211 00:10:01,811 --> 00:10:05,119 set of companies they want to target right and then ultimately 212 00:10:05,119 --> 00:10:07,764 , where they apply well in this market. 213 00:10:07,764 --> 00:10:10,532 Research will tell us, like in our data that we've just 214 00:10:10,591 --> 00:10:15,712 released, referrals is coming in one behind job board platforms. 215 00:10:15,712 --> 00:10:17,597 However, why is that? 216 00:10:17,597 --> 00:10:21,346 It's because the market is more flooded than normal and 217 00:10:21,466 --> 00:10:25,211 candidates are not all getting responses to their applications, 218 00:10:25,211 --> 00:10:27,202 and so they're leaning in on their network. 219 00:10:27,202 --> 00:10:30,028 So they may go to LinkedIn see who's connected. 220 00:10:30,028 --> 00:10:33,746 They may send a note to all their friends come in through a 221 00:10:33,788 --> 00:10:34,149 referral. 222 00:10:34,149 --> 00:10:36,961 That way they may apply directly through your careers 223 00:10:37,001 --> 00:10:37,364 website. 224 00:10:37,403 --> 00:10:40,177 Because now the job seekers are being told apply through the 225 00:10:40,216 --> 00:10:42,903 career site, you'll have a higher likelihood of being seen. 226 00:10:42,903 --> 00:10:44,065 Is that necessarily true? 227 00:10:44,065 --> 00:10:48,692 No, but so ultimately, where candidates apply isn't 228 00:10:48,751 --> 00:10:51,519 necessarily what informed their decision at all, right. 229 00:10:51,519 --> 00:10:56,510 And so we now are in a world where recruitment is marketing, 230 00:10:56,650 --> 00:11:01,807 where we have less visibility into why candidates discovered 231 00:11:01,868 --> 00:11:05,275 us, how they discovered us, what informed their opinion right. 232 00:11:05,275 --> 00:11:09,750 And so there is this multi-touch sort of attribution 233 00:11:09,811 --> 00:11:12,980 needed to really understand the story of like how a company 234 00:11:13,159 --> 00:11:16,967 truly finds value in their recruitment channels and their 235 00:11:16,989 --> 00:11:17,909 recruitment partners. 236 00:11:17,909 --> 00:11:21,383 And unfortunately, just the recruitment systems haven't 237 00:11:21,423 --> 00:11:22,083 caught up to that. 238 00:11:22,083 --> 00:11:24,107 But that is recruitment today. 239 00:11:24,107 --> 00:11:28,315 Recruitment is marketing, and it just wasn't like that 15 240 00:11:28,355 --> 00:11:28,796 years ago. 241 00:11:28,796 --> 00:11:31,640 So that in and of itself is causing a whole host of 242 00:11:31,681 --> 00:11:32,923 challenges that we can get into. 243 00:11:33,004 --> 00:11:37,423 But generally speaking, the more recruiters can think like 244 00:11:37,464 --> 00:11:40,897 marketers, bring marketers onto their talent acquisition teams, 245 00:11:41,116 --> 00:11:42,181 the farther they're getting. 246 00:11:42,260 --> 00:11:44,965 And so now we're seeing some customers at one end of the 247 00:11:45,004 --> 00:11:48,991 spectrum who their entire recruitment strategy is employer 248 00:11:48,991 --> 00:11:49,351 branding. 249 00:11:49,351 --> 00:11:53,610 First, they spend all their money branding, they've cut any 250 00:11:53,649 --> 00:11:57,283 kind of sourcing team, they pipe in candidates into their CRM 251 00:11:57,924 --> 00:12:01,815 and they're nurturing their CRM, running campaigns in their CRM. 252 00:12:01,815 --> 00:12:05,508 They're sourcing inside their CRM, not cold sourcing, because 253 00:12:05,567 --> 00:12:08,365 now these are hand raisers, these are people who have some 254 00:12:08,547 --> 00:12:11,844 familiarity with their brand, and so we have that at one end 255 00:12:11,884 --> 00:12:14,895 with customers all the way down to customers who still believe 256 00:12:15,015 --> 00:12:17,563 ATS source of higher data is accurate, which it's not. 257 00:12:17,563 --> 00:12:22,022 It's wildly inaccurate Because it's essentially saying where 258 00:12:22,062 --> 00:12:22,604 they apply. 259 00:12:22,604 --> 00:12:25,270 That doesn't tell you what influenced them along their 260 00:12:25,331 --> 00:12:25,652 journey. 261 00:12:25,652 --> 00:12:29,589 And so the more we get more and more customers and more and 262 00:12:29,609 --> 00:12:32,946 more TA teams to embrace this recruitment as marketing, the 263 00:12:33,005 --> 00:12:33,267 better. 264 00:12:33,267 --> 00:12:36,687 But, as you know, it's going to be a long road in education 265 00:12:36,727 --> 00:12:40,494 because the industry, you know, we're not marketers by trade in 266 00:12:40,514 --> 00:12:45,293 TA, right, and so it is a fascinating challenge and one 267 00:12:45,374 --> 00:12:47,941 that we feel very passionately about at Built-In. 268 00:12:49,104 --> 00:12:52,110 Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like this is a walk down memory lane. 269 00:12:52,110 --> 00:12:56,586 So you know, 15 years ago which you know, time flies. 270 00:12:56,586 --> 00:13:00,019 First of all, talking about the early days of Built-In that you 271 00:13:00,019 --> 00:13:02,865 know, I was working on SeedSync , but I was still over at 272 00:13:02,904 --> 00:13:06,351 CareerBuilder back in the day, spending my decade there cutting 273 00:13:06,351 --> 00:13:09,985 my teeth in the job board space and everything you just walk 274 00:13:10,004 --> 00:13:12,892 through, maria, is spot on and quite the journey. 275 00:13:12,892 --> 00:13:17,610 What's interesting is we just did our trend study and we'll 276 00:13:17,629 --> 00:13:21,809 get into built-ins in a bit and there are some ironic pieces in 277 00:13:21,850 --> 00:13:22,049 there. 278 00:13:22,049 --> 00:13:25,629 And I think what you just mentioned kind of reinforces 279 00:13:25,730 --> 00:13:27,965 some of the challenges that TA folks are seeing. 280 00:13:27,965 --> 00:13:31,441 And that's like, hey, what's the hardest thing for us to 281 00:13:31,480 --> 00:13:32,423 measure? 282 00:13:32,423 --> 00:13:35,591 Return on employer brand messaging or employer brand 283 00:13:35,630 --> 00:13:36,111 investments? 284 00:13:36,111 --> 00:13:39,426 But if, hey, if you had 25% more budget, where would you put 285 00:13:39,426 --> 00:13:39,525 it? 286 00:13:39,525 --> 00:13:40,828 Employer brand. 287 00:13:41,129 --> 00:13:45,488 And so I think what you're saying, maria, is, is reinforced 288 00:13:45,488 --> 00:13:46,270 by some of this data. 289 00:13:46,270 --> 00:13:50,533 And that's boy, the smartest recruiting teams recognize that 290 00:13:50,875 --> 00:13:53,985 you know what we really should be investing more in our brand. 291 00:13:53,985 --> 00:13:56,631 But they also are having that same challenge that you just 292 00:13:56,672 --> 00:13:56,951 mentioned. 293 00:13:56,951 --> 00:14:00,509 And that's boy, we know this is where money should go, but, boy 294 00:14:00,509 --> 00:14:02,421 , we just don't know how to measure it. 295 00:14:02,421 --> 00:14:06,105 And then the other challenge is hey, we don't know how to get 296 00:14:06,186 --> 00:14:10,192 budget from our executive team either to invest in. 297 00:14:10,192 --> 00:14:13,265 We'll call it marketing right and make it easy. 298 00:14:14,061 --> 00:14:18,086 So I'm curious, where are you seeing brands, recruitment 299 00:14:18,105 --> 00:14:21,049 marketers, sort of turn the page ? 300 00:14:21,049 --> 00:14:24,835 You know in that conversation and you know, is this just a 301 00:14:24,875 --> 00:14:29,447 matter of hey, education of executives and you know, and 302 00:14:29,488 --> 00:14:31,941 talent leaders that you know what we're just going to have to 303 00:14:31,941 --> 00:14:35,629 understand and recognize that ATS data isn't accurate. 304 00:14:35,629 --> 00:14:39,250 You know people are coming in through other channels and you 305 00:14:39,272 --> 00:14:41,522 know, accept that it's not going to be a perfect measurement. 306 00:14:41,522 --> 00:14:44,292 Or what are those conversations , like you know, with the TA 307 00:14:44,331 --> 00:14:46,460 leaders and folks that you know you're engaging with? 308 00:14:46,740 --> 00:14:49,024 Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, I love this topic so much. 309 00:14:49,024 --> 00:14:53,371 So how do we talk about ROI? 310 00:14:53,371 --> 00:14:58,072 When I speak about this to room full of heads of TA, especially 311 00:14:58,072 --> 00:15:00,360 throughout the last three years , as so many tech companies went 312 00:15:00,360 --> 00:15:03,567 through downturns, and they're like help me tell the story. 313 00:15:03,567 --> 00:15:08,361 My number one piece of advice is stop, when someone tells you 314 00:15:08,543 --> 00:15:12,169 what is your ROI on your employer brand spend, stop 315 00:15:12,490 --> 00:15:16,609 saying and looking at your ATS as your source of hire. 316 00:15:16,609 --> 00:15:19,229 So when people say, oh, what was the investment in this tool? 317 00:15:19,229 --> 00:15:21,447 Everyone's going, tool by tool, to see who they're going to cut 318 00:15:21,447 --> 00:15:22,269 , who they're going to keep. 319 00:15:22,269 --> 00:15:28,105 The worst thing TA teams can do is cite their ATS as their 320 00:15:28,145 --> 00:15:30,772 source of truth for data, because that would be the 321 00:15:30,831 --> 00:15:34,485 equivalent of my head of marketing coming to me as the 322 00:15:34,546 --> 00:15:38,840 CRO of built-in and saying, hey, we're getting all of our 323 00:15:38,899 --> 00:15:41,326 inbound leads, for the sales team is coming directly to our 324 00:15:41,366 --> 00:15:42,769 B2B website. 325 00:15:42,769 --> 00:15:45,360 Well, I would say well then, great, so you don't need any 326 00:15:45,421 --> 00:15:48,649 budget because everyone's just miraculously coming to our B2B 327 00:15:48,668 --> 00:15:48,889 site. 328 00:15:48,889 --> 00:15:51,261 And they would say you're kidding, right? 329 00:15:51,261 --> 00:15:55,451 So why are talent acquisition teams citing their ATS source of 330 00:15:55,451 --> 00:15:56,162 higher data? 331 00:15:56,162 --> 00:16:00,596 It will always, right now, say your career site and LinkedIn 332 00:16:00,635 --> 00:16:03,702 are one in two effectively in some way, shape or form, whether 333 00:16:03,702 --> 00:16:05,807 it's the volume from LinkedIn or, if you're still outbound 334 00:16:05,826 --> 00:16:06,908 sourcing, et cetera. 335 00:16:06,908 --> 00:16:10,533 So that's not the story, right? 336 00:16:10,533 --> 00:16:11,500 That's not the story. 337 00:16:11,520 --> 00:16:15,951 I was on the phone with a head of global TA for a 20,000 person 338 00:16:15,951 --> 00:16:19,890 company last week and he said, for all intents and purposes, we 339 00:16:19,890 --> 00:16:22,600 look at ATS, source of higher data is about 20% accurate. 340 00:16:22,600 --> 00:16:26,866 And now this is a company who has the means to fully embrace 341 00:16:27,288 --> 00:16:31,453 the CRM pixel tracking, multi-touch attribution. 342 00:16:31,453 --> 00:16:34,703 So they see the whole journey and they get it and they 343 00:16:34,744 --> 00:16:35,424 understand it. 344 00:16:35,424 --> 00:16:40,182 Our goal is to get everyone thinking like this, because if 345 00:16:40,241 --> 00:16:42,989 we keep citing ATS, source of higher data, ta teams will never 346 00:16:42,989 --> 00:16:46,197 get the dollars they need to invest in the tools and 347 00:16:46,458 --> 00:16:49,919 infrastructure they need to measure ROI, and that's the 348 00:16:49,980 --> 00:16:51,942 second part of this conversation that's super critical. 349 00:16:51,942 --> 00:16:57,672 If we have the right conversations, educate the exec 350 00:16:57,732 --> 00:17:00,278 teams on recruitment is now marketing. 351 00:17:00,278 --> 00:17:02,692 So the same way we allocate budget to marketing is how you 352 00:17:02,711 --> 00:17:04,076 should think about us in recruitment. 353 00:17:04,076 --> 00:17:08,512 We then will get the budget to invest in CRMs. 354 00:17:08,512 --> 00:17:11,526 We will get the budgets to invest in things like pixel 355 00:17:11,566 --> 00:17:15,778 tracking right, because that really our buyers who can enable 356 00:17:15,778 --> 00:17:20,439 a pixel on our platform, for instance, see the highest 357 00:17:20,519 --> 00:17:23,348 attribution because now they can follow a candidate who 358 00:17:23,849 --> 00:17:27,018 discovers them on built-in or uses built-in and leverages them 359 00:17:27,018 --> 00:17:29,853 , but then they can see if they ultimately ended up applying 360 00:17:29,873 --> 00:17:30,674 through their career site. 361 00:17:30,674 --> 00:17:33,596 They know that we helped influence that decision and 362 00:17:33,696 --> 00:17:36,125 that's critical to this attribution piece, just like any 363 00:17:36,125 --> 00:17:38,491 other vendor you invest in, but so? 364 00:17:38,632 --> 00:17:42,560 But the challenge is is the pixels and the CRMs. 365 00:17:42,661 --> 00:17:45,847 They're really expensive investments, and so this is why 366 00:17:45,888 --> 00:17:49,777 we're seeing a lot of our largest enterprise clients doing 367 00:17:49,777 --> 00:17:52,934 great and have moved in this direction, but the smaller and 368 00:17:52,954 --> 00:17:56,366 mid-sized customers are just stuck, because they're stuck 369 00:17:56,448 --> 00:18:00,105 with one investment, which is their ATS, and ATSs do not do 370 00:18:00,286 --> 00:18:04,259 multi-touch attribution, and so we are, at the enterprise level, 371 00:18:04,259 --> 00:18:07,528 seeing companies jump around their ATSs and start going 372 00:18:07,567 --> 00:18:11,336 directly to CRMs, which I'm finding really interesting and 373 00:18:11,376 --> 00:18:13,929 wouldn't be shocked if that is our future. 374 00:18:14,489 --> 00:18:18,896 We're seeing people separate out their CRMs from their HRIS, 375 00:18:18,997 --> 00:18:21,730 even because their HRIS is too complicated to work within. 376 00:18:21,730 --> 00:18:26,036 But I do think this how do we talk about ROI? 377 00:18:26,036 --> 00:18:28,250 How do we measure it? 378 00:18:28,250 --> 00:18:32,393 And then those two will lead to investments and tools to 379 00:18:32,452 --> 00:18:35,519 support measurement on the back end. 380 00:18:35,519 --> 00:18:39,996 So really passionate again, and really try to help our buyers 381 00:18:40,036 --> 00:18:42,192 at least and educate them on like, what can you do? 382 00:18:42,192 --> 00:18:45,425 And even if you have access to Google analytics, like, work 383 00:18:45,445 --> 00:18:46,449 with your marketing team. 384 00:18:46,449 --> 00:18:49,766 If your marketing team uses pixels, like, ask them to help 385 00:18:49,865 --> 00:18:50,467 you, right. 386 00:18:50,467 --> 00:18:56,417 And so we're really trying to help TA teams think and act like 387 00:18:56,417 --> 00:18:58,666 marketers so they can get the budgets and the funding they 388 00:18:58,686 --> 00:18:59,067 deserve. 389 00:18:59,488 --> 00:19:01,530 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is great and, like you know, you 390 00:19:01,750 --> 00:19:03,653 mentioned that I'll work backwards. 391 00:19:03,653 --> 00:19:05,095 Hey, work with your marketing team. 392 00:19:05,095 --> 00:19:06,217 You have Google Analytics. 393 00:19:06,217 --> 00:19:15,646 You know, speaking from experience, I think you know 394 00:19:15,666 --> 00:19:17,115 we're continually shocked how far of a disconnect there often 395 00:19:17,134 --> 00:19:18,602 is between, you know, marketing teams and recruiting and TA 396 00:19:18,622 --> 00:19:20,106 teams, just in general and what's possible. 397 00:19:20,106 --> 00:19:23,896 But I do love this idea of hey, we've been saying for a while 398 00:19:24,885 --> 00:19:27,752 we do a lot of ATS selection projects. 399 00:19:27,873 --> 00:19:31,028 The headline is no one loves their ATS, whether you buy a new 400 00:19:31,028 --> 00:19:35,436 one or have an existing one, and I think part of the reason 401 00:19:35,477 --> 00:19:38,430 people don't love their ATS is because that lack of flexibility 402 00:19:38,430 --> 00:19:38,430 . 403 00:19:38,430 --> 00:19:41,074 It can't do some of the things that you'd like to do. 404 00:19:41,074 --> 00:19:45,907 If you're thinking like a consumer marketing team, and so 405 00:19:45,948 --> 00:19:49,915 we've always said for a lot of solutions, you look towards 406 00:19:49,976 --> 00:19:52,441 consumer marketing to see what they're doing first. 407 00:19:52,441 --> 00:19:58,136 And the other thing is arguably consumer marketing tools cost a 408 00:19:58,136 --> 00:20:00,020 lot less than recruitment marketing. 409 00:20:00,020 --> 00:20:03,808 You know systems and tools anyway, and so I think of when 410 00:20:03,848 --> 00:20:06,615 we're turning on some you know employer brand, you know 411 00:20:06,675 --> 00:20:11,490 testimonial videos and you know you go to an employer brand, you 412 00:20:11,490 --> 00:20:14,916 know video site or platform and it's hey, we're going to charge 413 00:20:14,916 --> 00:20:17,871 you 60 grand a year and you know you can put out a video 414 00:20:17,931 --> 00:20:20,828 every month and you know, go to a consumer video tool and it's 415 00:20:20,848 --> 00:20:21,833 hey, we're going to charge you 60 grand a year. 416 00:20:21,853 --> 00:20:23,116 And you can put out a video every month and go to a consumer 417 00:20:23,116 --> 00:20:24,663 video tool and it's hey, 1500 bucks for the year, as many 418 00:20:24,682 --> 00:20:26,366 videos as you want to create, and it's like there's no 419 00:20:26,426 --> 00:20:29,053 difference outside of one market towards recruiting. 420 00:20:29,053 --> 00:20:33,069 And I do think that people see it's kind of like I'm getting 421 00:20:33,090 --> 00:20:33,972 married in three weeks. 422 00:20:33,972 --> 00:20:36,946 You want to get someone to come take photos of you for a 423 00:20:36,988 --> 00:20:38,550 weekend, it's a, it's a hundred bucks. 424 00:20:38,550 --> 00:20:40,977 So you want to go get someone to take those same photos at a 425 00:20:41,045 --> 00:20:41,910 wedding, it's a thousand. 426 00:20:41,910 --> 00:20:44,703 And I think that you know many, many times you know, just 427 00:20:44,723 --> 00:20:47,471 standing recruiting in front of, on the front end of it, you 428 00:20:47,491 --> 00:20:49,596 know people charge 10, x and that's just. 429 00:20:49,596 --> 00:20:53,567 You know the unfortunate nature of how recruiting maybe works. 430 00:20:53,987 --> 00:20:56,288 Speaker 3: That's such an interesting, it's such a valid 431 00:20:56,308 --> 00:20:56,729 point. 432 00:20:56,729 --> 00:20:58,809 I don't think in all the times I've been talking about this, no 433 00:20:58,809 --> 00:21:01,432 one has really highlighted that it's so true. 434 00:21:01,432 --> 00:21:02,592 It's so true. 435 00:21:02,592 --> 00:21:05,933 It's like sell something to parents or dog owners. 436 00:21:05,933 --> 00:21:09,296 You know, I would like to think the more necessary it becomes. 437 00:21:09,296 --> 00:21:12,038 I'd like to think costs will come down. 438 00:21:12,038 --> 00:21:13,578 But who knows, who knows? 439 00:21:14,098 --> 00:21:16,861 Speaker 4: Well, maria, I love the analogies to consumer 440 00:21:16,901 --> 00:21:19,122 marketing because that's what my back owners, folks who listen 441 00:21:19,142 --> 00:21:26,526 to the show for a while know that, and I've always I mean 442 00:21:26,547 --> 00:21:27,809 honestly we've been thinking about this question of how to 443 00:21:27,829 --> 00:21:29,073 measure ROI of quote unquote employer brand investments 444 00:21:29,093 --> 00:21:31,086 probably as long as change date's been around, and it's a 445 00:21:31,166 --> 00:21:34,429 tough problem, and part of it, I think, is this isn't even the 446 00:21:34,489 --> 00:21:35,790 right question to be asking. 447 00:21:35,790 --> 00:21:40,767 If you went to a consumer brand , a reputable brand, and you 448 00:21:40,787 --> 00:21:44,636 would go, I can't imagine asking , in a consumer brand setting, 449 00:21:45,346 --> 00:21:47,391 is it a good idea to invest in our brand? 450 00:21:47,391 --> 00:21:49,717 And expecting some immediate payoff? 451 00:21:49,717 --> 00:21:52,832 And yet it's so obvious when you look at TV and the amount of 452 00:21:52,832 --> 00:21:55,165 money that major brands that are already well established 453 00:21:55,185 --> 00:21:56,248 spend on advertising. 454 00:21:56,248 --> 00:22:01,487 Clearly this has value, but I guess do you think so, point 455 00:22:01,507 --> 00:22:01,848 taken? 456 00:22:01,990 --> 00:22:04,150 On the one hand, there's source attribution issues. 457 00:22:04,150 --> 00:22:05,494 It is a journey. 458 00:22:05,494 --> 00:22:08,634 There's a lot of channels that have influence on a purchase, 459 00:22:08,744 --> 00:22:11,413 not just the one that just happens to be the final one 460 00:22:11,464 --> 00:22:13,373 before the application gets submitted. 461 00:22:13,373 --> 00:22:17,648 But more generally, how do you think about ROI as it relates to 462 00:22:17,648 --> 00:22:20,971 employer brand Things that we're not even necessarily 463 00:22:21,011 --> 00:22:22,296 looking at source attribution? 464 00:22:22,296 --> 00:22:23,851 There's just bigger investments . 465 00:22:23,851 --> 00:22:27,291 Is it a fair question to even ask you know what's the ROI of 466 00:22:27,332 --> 00:22:30,288 this in a dollar and cents kind of way, or should it just be 467 00:22:30,327 --> 00:22:31,811 understood as of course? 468 00:22:31,811 --> 00:22:34,669 You should do this because you know the employer brand is sort 469 00:22:34,689 --> 00:22:37,146 of the container for all recruitment marketing and of 470 00:22:37,166 --> 00:22:38,291 course you need to invest in that. 471 00:22:38,291 --> 00:22:42,326 That was a lot. 472 00:22:42,326 --> 00:22:43,550 I don't know if any of that made sense or resonated, but I 473 00:22:43,570 --> 00:22:45,175 was curious how you think about ROI with relation to employer 474 00:22:45,195 --> 00:22:45,336 brand. 475 00:22:45,356 --> 00:22:45,959 Speaker 3: No, a hundred percent . 476 00:22:45,959 --> 00:22:48,670 You know, I was meeting with a customer this was a couple of 477 00:22:48,690 --> 00:22:52,144 years back and this customer was one of the more forward 478 00:22:52,285 --> 00:22:55,192 thinking in embracing this whole recruitment as marketing 479 00:22:55,232 --> 00:22:55,634 concept. 480 00:22:55,634 --> 00:23:07,067 And when I said to him, how do you get investment for employer 481 00:23:07,086 --> 00:23:07,708 brand, he said well, easy. 482 00:23:07,708 --> 00:23:08,851 I basically tell my CFO, recruitment is three pronged 483 00:23:08,871 --> 00:23:10,576 it's referrals, it's sourcing and it's recruitment marketing 484 00:23:10,736 --> 00:23:11,397 employer brand. 485 00:23:11,397 --> 00:23:14,951 And he goes the first two I can tell you specifically their ROI 486 00:23:14,951 --> 00:23:16,976 I'm going to get based on our investment. 487 00:23:16,976 --> 00:23:20,766 The last one, employer brand, I'm not going to, and it is what 488 00:23:20,766 --> 00:23:21,007 it is. 489 00:23:21,007 --> 00:23:24,035 You're just going to have to trust me that I need to spend a 490 00:23:24,095 --> 00:23:28,132 certain amount on brand to get the job done and it is what it 491 00:23:28,251 --> 00:23:28,353 is. 492 00:23:28,353 --> 00:23:33,191 And so I would say that is very similar to how CMOs talk to 493 00:23:33,230 --> 00:23:34,013 their CFOs. 494 00:23:34,013 --> 00:23:37,589 Right, they're always getting a certain level of investment for 495 00:23:37,589 --> 00:23:41,710 specific demand gen activities where they could point a direct 496 00:23:41,769 --> 00:23:44,656 line to Like we're going to do an event or we're going to do 497 00:23:45,606 --> 00:23:48,433 something else, where they have full tracking and visibility. 498 00:23:48,433 --> 00:23:52,394 And then they have brand spend, and CFOs know that they're not 499 00:23:52,433 --> 00:23:54,743 always going to be able to track specific ROI against brand 500 00:23:54,763 --> 00:23:54,924 spend. 501 00:23:55,065 --> 00:23:57,228 It's just a known thing in the marketing world, right. 502 00:23:57,228 --> 00:23:59,551 That has not translated yet to recruitment. 503 00:23:59,551 --> 00:24:03,999 And what I would tell you is part of this right is you have 504 00:24:04,179 --> 00:24:05,161 the majority. 505 00:24:05,161 --> 00:24:10,135 Almost nearly every global head of TA doesn't come from 506 00:24:10,175 --> 00:24:10,656 marketing. 507 00:24:10,656 --> 00:24:14,646 It's very rare and, if not, existent at best. 508 00:24:14,646 --> 00:24:19,394 And so until we get to the point where all heads of global 509 00:24:19,454 --> 00:24:23,951 TA look at their orgs and operate their orgs like chief 510 00:24:24,010 --> 00:24:27,321 marketing officers do, we're not going to get there. 511 00:24:27,321 --> 00:24:31,972 So this question of cost per hire, cost per applicant, cost 512 00:24:32,032 --> 00:24:34,578 for employer brandsmen, this is not going to stop. 513 00:24:35,305 --> 00:24:38,575 Now we do have ways to measure it. 514 00:24:38,575 --> 00:24:42,385 They just aren't wildly adopted , right, and they're not 515 00:24:42,566 --> 00:24:45,713 foolproof, but they can at least give you directional 516 00:24:45,874 --> 00:24:48,086 attribution, and that's what I always say is pixel tracking, 517 00:24:48,126 --> 00:24:51,675 like when we see we have a couple of customers who go we 518 00:24:51,715 --> 00:24:55,108 could see their ATS source of higher data for an investment 519 00:24:55,128 --> 00:24:55,650 like built-in. 520 00:24:55,650 --> 00:24:58,454 We then do something called higher comparison reports where 521 00:24:59,056 --> 00:25:04,243 again flawed at best, but we can see if people did update their 522 00:25:04,284 --> 00:25:06,328 LinkedIn profile and they hired them. 523 00:25:06,328 --> 00:25:08,576 We can bump it up against our own internal data. 524 00:25:08,576 --> 00:25:13,570 It is not a light effort and it is not full, because a lot of 525 00:25:13,631 --> 00:25:15,817 technical candidates don't update their LinkedIn profiles 526 00:25:16,345 --> 00:25:18,692 and so we can give you some attribution. 527 00:25:18,692 --> 00:25:22,093 That way, our customers who have enabled pixel tracking in 528 00:25:22,232 --> 00:25:27,288 concert with a CRM tend to get the highest attribution because 529 00:25:27,368 --> 00:25:31,241 they can follow people around over a period of time. 530 00:25:31,241 --> 00:25:33,670 It doesn't matter where they ultimately apply from or how 531 00:25:33,690 --> 00:25:34,634 they ultimately get them. 532 00:25:34,996 --> 00:25:37,285 But again, this is a multi-year journey. 533 00:25:37,445 --> 00:25:40,546 At times, right, people aren't always active today when you're 534 00:25:40,605 --> 00:25:44,094 marketing to them, but could come in a year from now, and so, 535 00:25:44,094 --> 00:25:47,607 again, there is a long way to get sort of what I call 536 00:25:47,748 --> 00:25:48,931 full-blown attribution. 537 00:25:49,531 --> 00:25:52,625 But now, when you're talking about companies who are doing 538 00:25:52,665 --> 00:25:57,016 employer brand investments on billboards or commercials or 539 00:25:57,096 --> 00:25:59,951 things of that nature, no, like it's going to be straight up 540 00:26:00,031 --> 00:26:01,569 like consumer brand marketing. 541 00:26:01,569 --> 00:26:05,262 Right, you're not going to be able to see direct attribution 542 00:26:05,323 --> 00:26:09,432 and grab direct ROI, but it is just part of the game now and 543 00:26:09,472 --> 00:26:10,335 you have no choice. 544 00:26:10,335 --> 00:26:14,368 And what we're seeing is it's going to be even harder and more 545 00:26:14,368 --> 00:26:17,054 important, because now companies are hiring globally 546 00:26:17,815 --> 00:26:22,709 and in an increasing volume, and the global markets are becoming 547 00:26:22,709 --> 00:26:23,510 more competitive. 548 00:26:23,510 --> 00:26:26,125 Now, whereas people used to focus on the US for employer 549 00:26:26,146 --> 00:26:29,875 branding, now the need to brand in international markets is 550 00:26:29,935 --> 00:26:33,917 becoming even more important because of the fact that no 551 00:26:33,998 --> 00:26:37,106 international market is the best kept secret anymore and a lot 552 00:26:37,146 --> 00:26:40,432 of Western brands are going into small international markets 553 00:26:40,493 --> 00:26:43,459 competing for the same talent, so the problem is only getting 554 00:26:43,499 --> 00:26:44,446 worse, which is great. 555 00:26:44,446 --> 00:26:45,670 It's a huge opportunity. 556 00:26:45,670 --> 00:26:51,105 I think we're a ways away from re-educating CFOs and heads of 557 00:26:51,164 --> 00:26:52,327 TA on the concept. 558 00:26:52,709 --> 00:26:55,654 Speaker 2: Yeah Well, I want to, you know, kind of click into, 559 00:26:55,674 --> 00:26:59,511 you know this idea of people investing more in their employer 560 00:26:59,511 --> 00:27:03,330 brand, maria, because in your trends report, I think one of 561 00:27:03,351 --> 00:27:08,009 the takeaways and keep me honest , if we got this wrong is more 562 00:27:08,028 --> 00:27:10,634 than half of your respondents are now saying they plan to 563 00:27:10,694 --> 00:27:14,108 either start or increase their employer brand investments in 564 00:27:14,128 --> 00:27:15,873 the next year. 565 00:27:16,634 --> 00:27:19,078 It sounds like the winds might be changing a little bit. 566 00:27:19,078 --> 00:27:23,132 You know what's your sense of, maybe, why employers are 567 00:27:23,173 --> 00:27:23,834 deciding that. 568 00:27:23,834 --> 00:27:28,530 You know what it's time right, like, is this just a overall hey 569 00:27:28,530 --> 00:27:29,994 , the market's getting a little bit more educated. 570 00:27:29,994 --> 00:27:31,105 Is it a, hey? 571 00:27:31,105 --> 00:27:34,313 Is it a competition, you know piece where people are just a 572 00:27:34,374 --> 00:27:35,476 little bit more fearful? 573 00:27:35,476 --> 00:27:37,847 Or, you know, is this something that we're not thinking about? 574 00:27:37,847 --> 00:27:41,094 Like, hey, like a lot more entry level AI? 575 00:27:41,094 --> 00:27:42,778 You know tech roles, you know with. 576 00:27:42,778 --> 00:27:45,836 You know with the increase in AI, you know skills requirements 577 00:27:45,836 --> 00:27:48,467 , like what, you know, what do you think is driving, maybe the 578 00:27:48,507 --> 00:27:52,855 moment of now where people are saying you know what it's time 579 00:27:52,895 --> 00:27:53,637 for us to start. 580 00:27:53,637 --> 00:27:56,273 You know ponying up and you know investing in our actual 581 00:27:56,294 --> 00:27:56,575 brand? 582 00:28:00,425 --> 00:28:01,409 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great question. 583 00:28:01,409 --> 00:28:02,993 I think there's a couple of components. 584 00:28:02,993 --> 00:28:05,520 One is the shortage of highly skilled tech talent, right, so 585 00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:07,445 that's just increasing right now . 586 00:28:07,445 --> 00:28:11,596 And while sort of general volume of software engineering 587 00:28:11,635 --> 00:28:14,926 roles is going down, there are all these critical roles of the 588 00:28:14,987 --> 00:28:18,471 future popping up that people haven't recruited for or are 589 00:28:18,491 --> 00:28:24,317 going to need to recruit for, and the roles like security with 590 00:28:24,317 --> 00:28:27,987 cyber, sre roles, et cetera, are in such high demand right 591 00:28:28,027 --> 00:28:30,653 now that they are still really hard to find. 592 00:28:30,653 --> 00:28:33,159 So that's one is critical. 593 00:28:33,159 --> 00:28:37,913 Highly skilled tech roles are still super hard to find, and 594 00:28:37,973 --> 00:28:41,165 especially in this market where more and more companies are 595 00:28:41,205 --> 00:28:45,635 going to three to five days on site, back to office mandates 596 00:28:45,695 --> 00:28:49,150 are coming through and there's global hiring needs. 597 00:28:49,891 --> 00:28:52,676 All of that feeds into kind of the first reason. 598 00:28:52,676 --> 00:28:55,207 I would say the second reason. 599 00:28:55,207 --> 00:28:57,891 What's really interesting it doesn't get as much attention, 600 00:28:57,931 --> 00:29:02,678 but we're seeing it a lot right now is just the workforce we're 601 00:29:02,798 --> 00:29:04,461 in today is exhausted. 602 00:29:04,461 --> 00:29:06,151 People are unhappy. 603 00:29:06,151 --> 00:29:09,519 The Wall Street Journal article earlier this year cited that 604 00:29:09,619 --> 00:29:12,089 the number of Americans wanting to switch their jobs has hit a 605 00:29:12,170 --> 00:29:16,730 10-year high and the reason is especially in tech. 606 00:29:16,791 --> 00:29:20,598 We've been through a rough three years since 2022. 607 00:29:20,598 --> 00:29:23,713 And starting this year, I think people thought it would be a 608 00:29:23,773 --> 00:29:24,455 little bit better. 609 00:29:24,455 --> 00:29:29,892 It's now volatile again in the macro, and so people are tired 610 00:29:30,313 --> 00:29:35,973 and people are unhappy, and so we are seeing more often than 611 00:29:36,094 --> 00:29:39,923 not I would say in the last three to four months I've heard 612 00:29:39,983 --> 00:29:43,692 more frequently than I've heard in 15 years how many employer 613 00:29:43,732 --> 00:29:47,106 brand leaders are starting to think about employer branding 614 00:29:47,288 --> 00:29:52,221 for internal retention reasons as well, and so, while it used 615 00:29:52,260 --> 00:29:56,814 to be really thinking of brand for acquiring net new candidates 616 00:29:56,814 --> 00:30:00,825 , it's now almost like hey, we don't really have the highest 617 00:30:01,006 --> 00:30:02,631 volume of roles anymore. 618 00:30:02,631 --> 00:30:06,084 It's not only for net new, but we really want to focus on 619 00:30:06,124 --> 00:30:09,873 retaining the team we have and making sure our team feels good 620 00:30:09,932 --> 00:30:10,554 internally. 621 00:30:10,554 --> 00:30:16,372 And so we are seeing so I think both are driving this increased 622 00:30:16,372 --> 00:30:19,617 investment or same investment as last year movement. 623 00:30:19,617 --> 00:30:26,195 So, anyways, that is my theory on and what I get from my six to 624 00:30:26,195 --> 00:30:28,324 eight customer calls a week, frankly, is where the 625 00:30:28,384 --> 00:30:29,428 investments are coming from. 626 00:30:29,890 --> 00:30:32,500 Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I'd love to talk a little bit about 627 00:30:32,540 --> 00:30:32,981 referrals. 628 00:30:32,981 --> 00:30:35,749 I know you brought it up earlier and we've so far been 629 00:30:36,250 --> 00:30:40,338 focused on these questions from the advertiser, the employer, 630 00:30:40,505 --> 00:30:42,713 the people spending the money. 631 00:30:42,713 --> 00:30:46,926 But I think another lens obviously is the candidate, and 632 00:30:47,609 --> 00:30:48,854 candidate experience is horrible . 633 00:30:48,854 --> 00:30:51,231 Of course, I think that's been true for a long time. 634 00:30:51,231 --> 00:30:54,734 Maybe there's some outliers out there, but if you think about 635 00:30:54,775 --> 00:30:58,109 this from the lens of the candidate and, like you said, 636 00:30:58,411 --> 00:31:00,646 these are often multi-year journeys you know it's not like 637 00:31:00,666 --> 00:31:03,234 you just sat down and said, hey, I'm going to go buy a job on 638 00:31:03,404 --> 00:31:05,768 LinkedIn and click something and you know it's not. 639 00:31:05,768 --> 00:31:08,234 It's not a really a straight line kind of thing. 640 00:31:08,925 --> 00:31:12,137 And most experiences that people have with applying for jobs is 641 00:31:12,157 --> 00:31:15,867 you maybe you Googled a job and then you clicked an apply link 642 00:31:15,887 --> 00:31:18,852 and you got redirected 17 times and then you ended up on 643 00:31:18,932 --> 00:31:21,555 somebody's career page and you clicked apply. 644 00:31:22,016 --> 00:31:25,965 And if you were to tell the candidate that the last place 645 00:31:26,006 --> 00:31:28,412 they ended up after those 17 directs had the biggest 646 00:31:28,492 --> 00:31:30,846 influence on why they applied for that job, I mean they would 647 00:31:30,886 --> 00:31:31,568 laugh at you, right? 648 00:31:31,568 --> 00:31:34,727 It's kind of absurd at face value, I think, just thinking of 649 00:31:34,727 --> 00:31:37,253 it through the lens of the candidate experience which 650 00:31:37,314 --> 00:31:38,317 brings us to referrals. 651 00:31:38,317 --> 00:31:44,994 Referrals have been used for a long time and the value of it 652 00:31:44,932 --> 00:31:46,035 through the lens of the candidate experience which 653 00:31:45,971 --> 00:31:46,765 brings us to referrals. 654 00:31:46,765 --> 00:31:48,276 You know, referrals have been used for a long time for, and 655 00:31:48,213 --> 00:31:48,949 the value of it for employees or employers is pretty obvious. 656 00:31:48,949 --> 00:31:49,521 But you're seeing also that referrals seem to work a lot 657 00:31:49,459 --> 00:31:49,968 better for tech talent in particular. 658 00:31:49,968 --> 00:31:52,053 I think I could guess why, but I'd love to hear it from you. 659 00:31:52,053 --> 00:31:55,353 You know, what do you think is behind the popularity of 660 00:31:55,393 --> 00:31:57,538 referrals from the candidates point of view? 661 00:31:58,599 --> 00:32:00,902 Speaker 3: Yeah, and to clarify, I don't think we're seeing it 662 00:32:00,961 --> 00:32:01,842 work better. 663 00:32:01,842 --> 00:32:05,865 I think we're just seeing referrals jump from number four 664 00:32:06,025 --> 00:32:10,307 last year in terms of how are people recruiting tech talent to 665 00:32:10,307 --> 00:32:13,730 number one, and I think it's a combination. 666 00:32:13,730 --> 00:32:19,733 It's one to your point earlier candidates are not thrilled with 667 00:32:19,733 --> 00:32:23,915 a candidate experience today, and so they don't want to apply 668 00:32:23,955 --> 00:32:26,721 to jobs that they're not getting any responses to, and so 669 00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:28,957 they're becoming disenchanted with the whole job seeking 670 00:32:29,017 --> 00:32:33,750 process, and so it feels easier and faster to come in through 671 00:32:33,789 --> 00:32:34,290 referrals. 672 00:32:34,290 --> 00:32:34,992 So that's one. 673 00:32:34,992 --> 00:32:38,569 Two, I've also seen it from the customer side of things. 674 00:32:38,940 --> 00:32:41,386 They've had to cut a lot of their investments of how they 675 00:32:41,446 --> 00:32:45,585 attract talent, and now they're trying to get their employees to 676 00:32:45,585 --> 00:32:49,662 refer right, and so I think it's happening both directions, 677 00:32:50,262 --> 00:32:54,392 and what I always like to say is but it's not necessarily 678 00:32:54,511 --> 00:32:56,563 getting them to where they need to be either. 679 00:32:57,084 --> 00:33:00,673 They still need more talent and they're still not satisfied with 680 00:33:00,673 --> 00:33:04,482 their time to fill, even with referrals jumping to number one 681 00:33:04,563 --> 00:33:04,824 right. 682 00:33:04,824 --> 00:33:08,958 So it's not the end game, but we do need to make the job 683 00:33:08,998 --> 00:33:10,422 seeking process better for candidates. 684 00:33:10,422 --> 00:33:13,569 That's something we internally at Built-In are working really 685 00:33:13,631 --> 00:33:18,932 hard on, to really make the job seeking process so much better 686 00:33:19,173 --> 00:33:23,366 than what it is today, because candidates deserve that, and I 687 00:33:23,426 --> 00:33:26,467 think we need to eliminate some of the barriers that are causing 688 00:33:26,467 --> 00:33:30,084 candidates to feel like they either have to just jump hoops 689 00:33:30,203 --> 00:33:34,392 to apply to not get any responses, to connecting them 690 00:33:34,451 --> 00:33:38,644 directly with hiring teams and actually getting a response to 691 00:33:38,664 --> 00:33:39,707 their application right. 692 00:33:39,707 --> 00:33:45,861 So it'll be interesting to see what happens as AI continues to 693 00:33:46,021 --> 00:33:46,583 escalate. 694 00:33:46,583 --> 00:33:50,631 Right Customers are also seeing fake profiles coming through 695 00:33:50,671 --> 00:33:52,294 from certain platforms. 696 00:33:52,294 --> 00:33:57,113 We're really keeping a close watch on how will the candidate 697 00:33:57,133 --> 00:34:03,609 journey change and how quickly will talent platforms adjust, 698 00:34:03,810 --> 00:34:06,527 adapt and help hiring teams do their jobs better? 699 00:34:06,848 --> 00:34:09,565 Speaker 4: Yeah, well, you know, I think referrals are 700 00:34:09,585 --> 00:34:10,088 interesting. 701 00:34:10,248 --> 00:34:13,527 You know if you think of I forget what guest has this 702 00:34:13,586 --> 00:34:15,902 statement, so I don't want to misattribute it, but one of our 703 00:34:15,961 --> 00:34:19,228 previous guests in the employer brand space says that you know, 704 00:34:19,349 --> 00:34:23,306 brands are like a relationship that a company has with an 705 00:34:23,427 --> 00:34:26,005 audience you know and to treat. 706 00:34:26,608 --> 00:34:29,318 And so in the case of employer brand, the disappointment with 707 00:34:29,338 --> 00:34:31,724 these candidate experiences and I think it's related to this 708 00:34:31,764 --> 00:34:36,304 question of trying to do a cause and effect linear connection 709 00:34:36,364 --> 00:34:39,150 between an investment and a return on that investment is 710 00:34:39,170 --> 00:34:41,684 that it's very transactional, which is not really much of a 711 00:34:41,744 --> 00:34:42,405 relationship. 712 00:34:42,405 --> 00:34:45,652 And I think referrals are probably one of the few places, 713 00:34:45,672 --> 00:34:48,282 at least historically in recruiting, where it does 714 00:34:48,342 --> 00:34:49,706 actually begin with a relationship. 715 00:34:49,706 --> 00:34:53,485 In this case it's somebody you know quite well and I think good 716 00:34:53,485 --> 00:34:56,777 employer branding builds upon this idea that what we're trying 717 00:34:56,777 --> 00:34:59,682 to do is cultivate a relationship, and this is a 718 00:34:59,744 --> 00:35:00,664 multi-year process. 719 00:35:00,664 --> 00:35:04,070 There's a lot of touch points and it's not that complicated I 720 00:35:04,110 --> 00:35:13,000 mean, it's hard to get there, given where we've come from, I 721 00:35:13,039 --> 00:35:14,327 think but we're just talking about treating people like 722 00:35:14,347 --> 00:35:15,896 people and referrals is one area where it's an easy way to start 723 00:35:15,896 --> 00:35:16,579 a relationship, at least I think. 724 00:35:17,059 --> 00:35:17,840 Speaker 3: Yeah for sure. 725 00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:20,945 But what I always say is, then we revert back to the age-old 726 00:35:21,005 --> 00:35:23,849 problem that customers used to complain about, which is, oh, we 727 00:35:23,849 --> 00:35:26,233 built ourselves through referrals and now we have no 728 00:35:26,293 --> 00:35:28,603 diversity of thought, no diversity of skills. 729 00:35:28,603 --> 00:35:31,590 You know, we have, you know, dominance from three 730 00:35:31,690 --> 00:35:35,045 universities and two fraternities, and you know and 731 00:35:35,748 --> 00:35:36,851 need to diversify. 732 00:35:36,851 --> 00:35:41,583 And so there's a lot of cons to the referral piece, right, and 733 00:35:41,702 --> 00:35:42,706 so I. 734 00:35:42,706 --> 00:35:46,282 But I think what we really need to solve for is treating 735 00:35:46,322 --> 00:35:48,268 candidates the way they should be treated. 736 00:35:48,268 --> 00:35:49,952 These people are hand raisers. 737 00:35:49,952 --> 00:35:54,548 They deserve a response, minimum, bare minimum. 738 00:35:54,548 --> 00:35:56,893 They deserve a response to their application. 739 00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:00,688 I tell all my customers this they deserve a response because, 740 00:36:00,688 --> 00:36:03,923 guess what, whether you think they're qualified or not today, 741 00:36:04,264 --> 00:36:06,731 they may be qualified for another role you may have in the 742 00:36:06,731 --> 00:36:07,012 future. 743 00:36:07,012 --> 00:36:09,108 And they've raised their hand, they're interested. 744 00:36:09,108 --> 00:36:09,943 So this goes to the whole. 745 00:36:09,943 --> 00:36:10,867 Recruitment is marketing. 746 00:36:10,867 --> 00:36:14,574 Like you know, not every lead that comes inbound to our 747 00:36:14,635 --> 00:36:18,425 marketing team at Built In is qualified, but you can. 748 00:36:18,425 --> 00:36:23,177 I'm assured that we will nurture you and we will talk to 749 00:36:23,217 --> 00:36:25,181 you if and when you do become qualified. 750 00:36:25,181 --> 00:36:29,655 Right, and so same thing with candidates, and and we actually 751 00:36:29,775 --> 00:36:34,927 heard, anecdotally, a candidate tell us that they did not take 752 00:36:35,047 --> 00:36:35,268 or no. 753 00:36:35,268 --> 00:36:36,150 A customer told us this. 754 00:36:36,150 --> 00:36:40,666 Someone declined their offer because their good friend had a 755 00:36:40,766 --> 00:36:43,293 terrible experience interviewing at the same company offer 756 00:36:43,313 --> 00:36:45,257 because their good friend had a terrible experience interviewing 757 00:36:45,257 --> 00:36:46,320 at the same company. 758 00:36:50,159 --> 00:36:51,405 And so candidates talk in this market, and so everyone has to 759 00:36:51,425 --> 00:36:52,652 assume that the way they're treating candidates is the core 760 00:36:52,672 --> 00:36:53,757 to their employer brand first and foremost. 761 00:36:53,757 --> 00:36:56,565 And so the one thing that's coming up a lot right now, a 762 00:36:56,606 --> 00:36:59,260 trending topic and I heard it this week when I was traveling 763 00:36:59,461 --> 00:37:03,710 in Boston with customers is this theory of we also need 764 00:37:04,472 --> 00:37:05,514 recruiter enablement. 765 00:37:05,514 --> 00:37:09,331 So the employer brand teams really need to be spending time 766 00:37:09,934 --> 00:37:14,548 with recruiters, enabling them on the talk tracks how to sell 767 00:37:14,588 --> 00:37:16,976 like marketers right, because they're the ones selling the 768 00:37:17,016 --> 00:37:17,320 brand. 769 00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:21,893 And so it's a really cool concept of how do you take all 770 00:37:21,914 --> 00:37:26,105 this employer brand work and materials and then enable your 771 00:37:26,144 --> 00:37:28,971 recruiters, just like marketers enable sales teams right. 772 00:37:28,971 --> 00:37:30,400 Same thing Again. 773 00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:32,226 I know the recruitment marketing thing is getting old, 774 00:37:32,286 --> 00:37:33,068 but it's just. 775 00:37:33,068 --> 00:37:34,612 The analogies are never ending. 776 00:37:34,612 --> 00:37:40,791 It's how do we ensure that employer brand starts with the 777 00:37:40,831 --> 00:37:44,221 candidate journey and goes all the way through the life cycle 778 00:37:44,240 --> 00:37:46,447 of someone staying with your company, through retention and 779 00:37:46,588 --> 00:37:47,550 you know, for years. 780 00:37:47,550 --> 00:37:50,106 And so lots to do, lots to do. 781 00:37:51,090 --> 00:37:53,797 Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think that we can go on about 782 00:37:53,838 --> 00:37:55,402 recruitment marketing as a whole . 783 00:37:55,402 --> 00:37:58,429 I think you really helped shine a light on. 784 00:37:58,429 --> 00:38:00,900 You know some different ways to think about recruitment 785 00:38:00,940 --> 00:38:01,442 marketing. 786 00:38:01,442 --> 00:38:04,007 You know marketing for some of our organizations and it's nice 787 00:38:04,027 --> 00:38:07,072 to hear someone that thinks about things in a similar light. 788 00:38:07,072 --> 00:38:13,882 Right, and like, hey, attribution's hard. 789 00:38:13,882 --> 00:38:14,646 Like hey, ats data isn't perfect. 790 00:38:14,646 --> 00:38:16,092 And hey, the best and smartest companies are investing in their 791 00:38:16,092 --> 00:38:17,336 brand because they recognize they have to. 792 00:38:17,336 --> 00:38:20,143 So I think, with all the uncertainty going around, maria, 793 00:38:20,143 --> 00:38:23,929 it's nice to have a little bit more of an exciting take on the 794 00:38:23,969 --> 00:38:25,110 future of recruitment as a whole . 795 00:38:25,110 --> 00:38:28,523 I do recognize we didn't even get to talking about the 796 00:38:28,563 --> 00:38:31,771 built-in trends report, so I will say we will certainly link 797 00:38:31,811 --> 00:38:35,367 everything in the show notes too , because built-in is more than 798 00:38:35,387 --> 00:38:37,353 just recruitment marketing as a whole. 799 00:38:37,353 --> 00:38:40,688 So I'm going to leave with the easiest question probably of all 800 00:38:40,688 --> 00:38:44,166 , maria, and that's where can people find out more about you 801 00:38:44,827 --> 00:38:46,934 find details about Built-in online. 802 00:38:47,414 --> 00:38:48,418 Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. 803 00:38:48,418 --> 00:38:52,047 So obviously you can absolutely connect with me on LinkedIn. 804 00:38:52,047 --> 00:38:53,851 You can always send me an email . 805 00:38:53,851 --> 00:38:56,465 If I can be helpful to you, it's mariabuiltincom. 806 00:38:56,465 --> 00:38:57,246 And. 807 00:38:57,246 --> 00:39:00,239 Or if you're interested in what Built-in does and how to 808 00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:03,148 leverage Built-in for recruitment, you can visit 809 00:39:03,188 --> 00:39:04,572 employerbuiltincom. 810 00:39:04,572 --> 00:39:07,748 And thanks for having me Really enjoyed the conversation and 811 00:39:07,768 --> 00:39:10,101 love talking to like-minded folks All right. 812 00:39:10,202 --> 00:39:11,425 Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in. 813 00:39:11,425 --> 00:39:16,119 As always, head on over to changestateio or shoot us a note 814 00:39:16,119 --> 00:39:17,922 on all the social media. 815 00:39:17,922 --> 00:39:21,106 We'd love to hear from you and we'll check you guys next week.