The CandEs Shop Talk Podcast welcomes Sarah Wilson, Head of People at SmartRecruiters, enterprise-grade recruiting software designed for the modern workforce — and a proud Candidate Experience Awards Sponsor. Listen in on how improving candidate experience impacts recruiting and the business bottom line.

Establishing metrics that are clear, meaningful and easy to measure has always been a problem in recruiting. Cost per hire, time to hire and quality of hire all provoke much debate about their usefulness and their ability to be effectively measured.

Recruiting software provider SmartRecruiters have recently developed a methodology for hiring success metrics that are easy to measure but also robust enough to stand up to board or executive team scrutiny. To illustrate how these metrics work in practice they applied them to improve their own recruiting efforts. My guest this week is Sarah Wilson, SmartRecruiters’ Head of People, to talk us through and share learnings from that experience.

In the interview we discuss:

• The recruiting challenges at SmartRecruiters
• The importance of robust, understandable metrics
• Measuring cost
• Measuring speed
• Measuring quality

How SmartRecruiters improved their recruiting results

Sarah also shares her advice for companies getting started with hiring success metrics and tells us what she and SmartRecruiters have planned for the future.

These days everyone seems to have a view on recruiting technology. But with the proliferation of new solutions that we are currently seeing, comes an increase in marketing spin and a battle for thought leadership amongst industry commentators which makes it difficult for employers to find the signal in so much noise.

So what is actually going on and what are the real trends that people need to be aware of? Who better to guide us through than someone who is responsible for actually building some of the software itself. Hessam Lavi is both the founder of Jobspotting and the Director of Product for SmartRecruiters.

In the interview we discuss:

• What is happening in recruiting technology in 2018
• The critical talent acquisition issues that technology is attempting to address
• Recruiting automation and the emergence of automated sourcing
• The evolution of recruitment advertising
• The vital importance of data
• The potential for bias in machine learning

Hessam also gives us his take on the future of recruiting technology and explains why recruiters should be optimistic about the evolution of their role.

From changing career paths to finding jobs on the other side of the globe, connections are everything – and you already have them. Charlie Nelson and John Hooper are joined by fellow Smartian Sienna Shattuck to share personal anecdotes on what really works for marketing yourself as a candidate.

Listen to this episode on iTunes as well.

The most famous example of candidate marketing comes from Adam Pacitti in 2012 when he had the zany idea to very literally market himself by purchasing a billboard advertising himself as a candidate.  

It was £500 well spent. Within days his job search had gone viral and he was inundated with job offers.

This very loud example teaches us one thing, it’s not always a lack of skill or experience that keeps someone from finding a job, but the right packaging.

Adam had a degree in media production (with honors!) from Winchester University and experience in his field but it wasn’t until he found his hook that his job hunt went from sorting rejection letters to fielding offers.

An 8 ½” by 11” piece of paper can only capture so much of your unique sparkle so the challenge becomes making an impression, not just sending out a resume and crossing your fingers.

Perhaps you don’t want to be as extra as Adam. Your job hunt doesn’t have to be like the first episode of the ‘Bachelor’ where contestants ride in on horseback or dazzle the cameras with slight-of-hand magic just to make an impression in their allotted 10 seconds – think connections.

You are most likely already connected to the company that will eventually employ you.

Charlie tells his clients that at least 90% of their hires in any given year are somehow already related to their company. Businesses are putting more of an effort to build these referral networks but as a candidate, you can be proactive about finding and using these connections as well.

According to John an average of 270 candidates apply for every one open position a client posts but these numbers become less scary when you think of how powerful any sort of referral or recommendation in getting you an interview.

So after you’re finished putting the finishing touches on your resume spend time researching possible connections to the company.

Many people are reluctant to discuss their job hunt because they don’t want to admit they’re having a hard time finding employment but there are lots of ways to talk about your search without coming off as desperate. It’s all in the delivery.

Listen to the full podcast for strategies on launching your personal campaign for a job and look out for Episode Four.

Whether you are a recent graduate or seasoned professional, your resume can still make an important first impression when pursuing new career opportunities. We explore tactics for performing self-inventory and packaging yourself for your next move.

Hear about what professional recruiters really look for in a resume.

Thanks to the great Sarah Wilson for co-hosting this one. It’s a lot of fun and has some great tips like “century gothic is a preferred font amongst recruiters because its the most eco friendly.

Being a jobseeker sucks! Its so hard to navigate this crazy space and there are limited resources out there to support candidates along the way. Because we see 1million+ candidates apply to SR customer’s jobs every month we are in a unique position to give back by providing insights, best practices, etc. to a large pool of people that really need the help.

“To Whom It May Concern” is a podcast to help jobseekers tackle the next step in the career with confidence. The idea is to host a 12 part series that takes a candidate through the different stages of job search.

We plan to have customers, thought leaders, SR employees, and even candidates on the podcast to share their insights, best practices, experiences, etc. We aim to keep it light-hearted but extremely valuable to our listeners.