Recruiting is constantly evolving and companies need to reevaluate the value they put on talent and technology.

Founded in 1946 in Troy, Michigan, Kelly Services pioneered the concept of ‘temp workers’ when they began connecting growing companies with readily available office employees in the post-war economic boom. Today, as one of the largest staffing firms in the world, the company provides a veritable bouquet of services in specialty areas from education to engineering.

One of the reasons Kelly Services has continued to lead the market is the organization’s commitment to agility, as well as its ability to leverage technology to consistently deliver amazing results in an ever-changing labor market. 

Part of the Kelly Services team driving this future-facing strategy is Tim Pröhm, VP of Digital Product Development. It’s Tim’s responsibility to discover and understand the up and coming digital trends in the world of Talent Acquisition (TA). And, after over two decades of experience in the trenches of  TA and recruitment process outsourcing (RPO), he’s up to the task!

We caught up with Tim at  Hiring Success 19 – San Francisco, where this leader shared with us what he’s seeing in TA now, and his recommendations for the future of recruiting.

If you want to learn more about the next Hiring Success EU – Amsterdam, September 10-11, 2019, check out our agenda here!

In your experience, what do organizations need in order to succeed in the current landscape of TA?

Nowadays, every organization understands talent scarcity and they know they need to compete for talent. I think the ‘how‘ of it is three-pronged: creating an employer brand that speaks to their target audience, optimizing processes through the intelligent use of technology, and leveraging pinpoint solutions to find that person that will contribute the most to their organization.

What are some of the challenges that are ‘top of mind’ for TA today?

The biggest question I’m seeing is, ‘How can I attract passive candidates?’ In the past, you could simply post a job ad and people would actively apply. Now, that talent is scarce, people simply don’t apply, so you need to go in front of talent, you need to make sure you advertise your brand and really transfer a compelling value proposition.

This is something where traditional TA organizations say they struggle because they don’t do that from an outsourcing and RPO perspective. The best organizations have shifted their focus to attracting and approaching candidates as one of their main functions and that is something that will continue to be important.

Is TA finally in the boardroom?

The saying, ‘TA needs a place at the table’ has been tossed around for a long time. Companies realize access to talent is critical and if they don’t have the right talent in their organizations, they are going to struggle to achieve their business objectives.

On the other end, I think that TA is becoming more complex than ever before, especially with Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).  There is talk of some companies not wanting to hire permanent employees, and are instead looking to the gig economy and the ‘human cloud‘ for solutions.

There are a lot of changes happening in the marketplace in the ways people want to work, how you get in contact with people, and how you can attract them to your organization. So, from an HR/TA perspective, you really need to make sure that you have a good strategy in place and can make strategic recommendations to the board, and the CEO of the organization. Talent was once commodity, but that’s not the case anymore.

What has been your experience with the trends in HR technology and where do you see them going?

Fifteen years ago,  it was much more about process optimization, now it’s about technological optimization. Today, when you go to conferences, the question is ‘how can I find that new niche technology that helps me to get a competitive advantage when fighting for talent for my brand?’

A few years back, the biggest innovation was the ATS. Now, there is talk about chatbots, artificial intelligence, and how TA can utilize blockchain… All this didn’t really exist three years ago. Everything is digital now and I think the speed of change from a technology perspective will increase even more.

If you had one piece of advice to give TA leaders, what would it be?

I’d say get your processes in order so you can automate. I think automation is one of the biggest things for the future. Talent no longer waits, so if you have a two week or more decision process, people are going to go somewhere else. I think based on that, a lot of TA functions don’t really have a straight process flow in place today, and they don’t think about making them automatic. That’s a mistake…

See more from leaders like Tim in the next part of the blog series – 10 Things I learned at Hiring Success – where we find out what it is like on the front lines of the war on talent with Matthieu Rivière of Devoteam.

Getting your new hires up to speed takes time, but without a positive onboarding experience, many employees lose interest. Here are five ways to keep up the momentum—and engagement—in those first few days.

So, you sent an offer letter, the candidate accepted, and now you’re ready to sit back and congratulate yourself for a job well done. Your bit isn’t over just yet. You’ve still got to onboard. For new hires, the first few days are hugely important to their future work performance, their job retention, and their overall satisfaction. Research conducted by IBM found that when employees have regrets about accepting a new job, they are three times as likely to leave. However, positive employee onboarding experiences can be a crucial first step for everyone you welcome into your organization.

But before you drop a payload of paperwork on your new hire all at once, here are five ways to maximize your onboarding, and keep new employees happy and excited about their career decision.

1. Start Onboarding Before Day One

This one sounds like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at how many companies wait until the last minute—or the day of—to start onboarding a new hire. The fact is, the sooner you begin, the more up to speed your new employee will be before he or she starts. It’s important to consider your employer branding—if you’re giving new hires the silent treatment between the offer letter and their first day, you’re already sending them the wrong message. Personal touches like an email that walks them through their first day, a welcome pack with a personal note or card, or even a phone call from a manager, can help ease anxieties.

More pragmatically, the time before a new hire starts is prime to begin the dreaded paperwork process. No one wants to spend their first few hours, or days, sitting in HR working their way through a mountain of forms, so send them important documents such as employee handbooks, I-9s, payroll forms, and non-disclosure agreements beforehand. Even better, set up a portal that contains digital versions of important documents that employees can complete during downtime, or throughout the week, rather than in one long sitting.

2. Make the Process Cross-Departmental with Collaborative Onboarding

Pairing up your new hire with a seasoned employee to teach them the ropes is a tried-and-true method, but maybe it’s time to try a collaborative approach, which builds rapport with other teams much faster than one-on-one onboarding. It’s a challenge for any one department to know the answer to every question to arise during onboarding, so it makes sense to rely on each team for their area of expertise—HR knows compliance; management knows performance expectations; coworkers know the day-to-day, and IT knows how to get equipment up and running.

Social-media-manager app Buffer assigns every new employee three buddies during their onboarding—leader buddy, role buddy, and culture buddy—as a way to give “a variety of interactions within and outside of their core areas”. This allows them to see how their new role fits in with the larger company structure, and can lead the way to future collaborations between departments, especially if your new hire comes in with strong ideas for projects or improvement.

3. Arrange One-on-One Time with Direct Managers

According to a recent LinkedIn survey, which polled 14,000 global professionals about preferred onboarding techniques, 96 percent responded that spending one-to-one time with their direct manager is the most important aspect of their onboarding experience. Entry-level and veteran hires benefit from learning about their responsibilities and expectations, and it gives them an opportunity to lay a solid foundation for a key work relationship. Studies show that greater supervisor support in a new hire’s first 6–21 months result in greater job satisfaction, higher engagement, and quicker salary increase over time.

4. Set Expectations and Goals Early

Uncertainty about job expectations and performance goals is a new hire’s worst enemy, which is why steps like establishing a relationship between new employees and direct managers are crucial to a new employee’s success. According to LinkedIn’s survey, understanding performance goals was the second most important aspect of onboarding. Setting goals and communicating them at the outset allows new hires to evaluate their own progress during their first few months. A formal performance review will help keep new employees on target, and allow for any course correction early on.

It’s also important you listen to new hires’ understanding of the goals and expectations. Maintaining communication will encourage even the most timid of new hires to voice honest feedback about what is or isn’t working for them—and may point out problems in your organization you didn’t know were there. SHRM reports that 38 percent of employees felt that when leaders dismiss their ideas without entertaining them, they tend to lack initiative. Don’t underestimate or waste a fresh perspective by discouraging open communication and feedback.

5. Double-Down on Company Culture, Values, and Principles

Eighty-one percent of new hires fail due to a lack of cultural fit, so proactively broadcast your company’s culture by sharing content on the company’s social media channels, include new hires in meetings or events, or feature the company history in the employee welcome packet. Be sure that your company’s Employee Value Proposition, mission statement, and guiding principles are all aligned.

At Zappos, employees who complete the five-week course focused on the company’s culture and values are offered around $4,000 to quit if they feel like the culture is not the right fit for them. Why? The company knows that poor cultural fit will impact employee engagement and performance.

Turning new hires into lasting employees isn’t rocket science, but with a thoughtful approach to how you onboard, you can set up your organization—and your new coworkers—for both short- and long-term success

Nowhere are the stakes higher for recruiters than in the military. Find out how these TA pros hit 70 thousand hires in a year, and why your team should start practicing drills.

Though they may not be actively engaged in combat, Army recruiters have one of the toughest jobs in the military. In 2018, US Army recruiters were tasked with enlisting 70k new recruits by the end of the fiscal year. With the Pentagon working to boost the number of active service personnel to 500k by 2024—a five percent increase over current numbers—these quotas are will only increase in the coming years.

With unemployment at record lows, the US Army has revamped many of its traditional recruiting practices in order to hit these ambitious goals. Many of these same strategies can also be useful to recruiters hiring in the private sector, as the current talent shortage affecting industries from tech to healthcare present similar challenges. Here are four Army recruiting strategies that civilian recruiters can learn from.

1. Proactively Recruit through Community Engagement

Sergeant First Class Duggan Myron has a saying: “First contact, first contract.” It’s no secret that high schools are one of the top sourcing-channels for military recruiters, but Myron takes a more proactive approach to finding potential recruits. He contacts faculty, teachers, and guidance counselors ahead of the school year to build rapport, creating channels of communication so that students who have questions about joining the service, or perhaps need career advice, are directed to recruiters for more information.

An effective method for recruiters—military or otherwise—to reach the people they want to hire is by being actively involved in their communities. For Army recruiters, this means participating in community events, sports games, and school functions to demonstrate they aren’t simply robots looking to fill quotas. Perhaps your company would consider sponsoring a youth sports team, or throwing a block party.

Communities aren’t always geographical; it’s about identifying the places where your ideal hires come together—online forums or networks, colleges, professional groups—and nurturing them. CRM solutions top the list of 2019’s best recruiting tools for enhancing sourcing so that recruiters can attract and hire great talent ahead of demand.

2. Sell Your Organization’s Purpose

After the US Army switched over to a volunteer model in the wake of the Project VOLAR during the 1970s, they began promoting careers within the military. They currently offer 150 different career paths in fields like engineering, law, and medical, as well as unique roles like band officer or culinary specialist. For many, enlisting in the Army is a way to learn vocational skills, travel, and earn a steady income not available elsewhere.

When talking with potential recruits, Army recruiters spend time figuring out what motivates them, and how to tailor their message to best suit that. “You can’t just tell a recruit everything he or she wants to hear,” said Myron. “You’re more of a life coach.”

According to research from CECP, a coalition that promotes greater corporate social responsibility, organizations that care about social good retain employees 23 percent more than organizations who don’t. Greater employee retention means happier, more engaged, and more productive employees, with fewer open positions.

Get to know your candidates and find out what they want in their career path in order to best sell your organization’s benefits and purpose.

3. Be Honest and Upfront

“The best message to get through to somebody is harsh reality,” said Sergeant First Class Joshua Morrison, and with thousands of US troops currently deployed in conflict areas like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, the Army doesn’t want disillusioned soldiers or early washouts to find out after they enlist that this isn’t the right career path for them.

Managing expectations is a daily routine for recruiters, and is hugely important when speaking to candidates. Today’s workers have fewer qualms about leaving a job if they feel the responsibilities or culture was misrepresented. In fact, 17 percent of employees quit within their first three months of starting a new job, eating up company time, resources, and creating a poor company image.

4. Focus on Recruitment Marketing that Truly Resonates

Gone are the days of patriotic Army posters featuring a sincere Uncle Sam pointing at the reader. At the time, the call to serve one’s country in times of war were enough to drive new enlistment, but that strategy doesn’t work with today’s recruits.

In 2015, the Army Marketing and Research Group partnered with McCann Worldgroup to roll out “the Army team” campaign. These 60-second, black-and-white commercials focused on the many aspects of service and sacrifice, while highlighting the virtues of enlisting. No longer focused on the individual, the language used in these ads is more inclusive and pluralistic, and has since established a major presence on social media through hashtag and veteran outreach efforts.

“Research has shown that Gen Z is all about making a difference,” said James Ortiz, director of marketing at the Army Marketing and Research Group, “a difference for family, for community, for their country, for the world.”

Today, the US Army is heavily invested in employer branding, and its efforts to reach recruits goes beyond simply pointing a finger. Modern companies who want to attract and hire the best talent need to find ways of presenting compelling messaging accompanied by a candidate-facing brand that showcases why their organization is where today’s candidates want to work.

Monster’s “state of recruiting” survey finds competition for candidates is taking its toll on practitioners. Here’s what managers can do about it.

The rate of Americans leaving their jobs voluntarily reached a 17 year high this spring, just as unemployment hit an 18 year low. Economists and policymakers see these numbers as a measure of job-market confidence, and expect accelerated wage growth through the rest of 2018. All great news, but, for recruiters, a tight labor market makes for steep competition, especially for tech talent: the number of unfilled job openings is the highest it’s been in 17 years. Computer programmers can expect a million unfilled positions by 2020.

“Today’s strong economy is increasing the overall demand for talent, so recruiters are under tremendous pressure,” said Bob Melk, Chief Commercial Officer, Monster. In the company’s latest recruiting survey of more than 400 practitioners this August, 62 percent report their jobs being more difficult than the previous year, and 67 percent say the difficulty exceeds that of five years ago.

“[All this] underscores the need for an integrated recruitment strategy spanning the entire candidate lifecycle,” Melk says. “For recruiting to be effective in 2018 and beyond, it must go beyond traditional methods. A multi-solution approach – combining marketing, digital, and analytics – is critical in moving recruitment stress to recruitment success.”

Yet despite these concentrated efforts, the results aren’t what they used to be, with an average 44 percent of candidates being passed off to hiring managers, a 10 full percentage points short of the desired 54.

If you think about it, the above solutions are just different ways to advertise; important, but not a complete strategy in itself. It’s time to lay the foundation for longterm TA success, and the general consensus is that it will take new skills, and, for many, new tools to better recruit in a tight talent pool.

So what are the three action items to begin achieving these hiring goals?

1. Start marketing: Only 36 percent of recruiters surveyed reported using employer branding strategies, this despite the fact that 67 percent said they needed to understand Marketing to be successful.
2. Balance the scales between digital and human: Sixty-four percent of recruiters say they lack the tools to make their job smoother and another 51 percent say that a lot of the tech they do have actually makes it harder to connect with humans.
3. Learn to analyze your data: Fifty percent of recruiters report feeling anxious about time management and 67 feel they need to be analytics experts to begin tracking important metrics.

The proliferation of human capital management solutions in the last five years has given HR high hopes of becoming a strategic business-function, like marketing did the early 2000s. The tools to attract, select, and hire the right candidates are out there. Recruiters just need to convince the boardroom to invest in them.

Putting your best foot forward isn’t a platitude for these organizations doubling-down on attracting candidates through company websites that are intuitive and sleek!

If the eyes are the windows to the soul, career pages are the open door to a company’s moving parts. With 75 percent of job seekers researching company social media pages, Glassdoor reviews, and company branding before applying to jobs, it’s critical that your career page conveys your company values, principles, and mission statement.  Make sure your messaging speaks to your prospective talent.

Company career pages are now a point of pride for many businesses, and the effort put into the page layout, design, and messaging demonstrates how many organizations rely on their career page to attract the right talent to them. To that end, we scoured the internet to showcase 10 of the most compelling and attractive company career pages for 2018.

1. Oath

Flying under the Verizon banner, Oath’s mission is to “build brands people love”, including Yahoo! AOL TechCrunch, HuffPost, Tumblr, Makers, and #builtbygirls. Oath produces digital media content for consumers, as well as digital advertising solutions for brands across the globe.

The Oath career page boasts a slick, 360-degree video tour of their 80+ offices around the world, and features an interactive map that shows available jobs at each location, driving home the message that “opportunity is infinite.” The layout is clean and attractive, the messaging is clear, and the delivery is well-executed.

2. Spotify

Spotify wraps its product into the company career page without feeling shoehorned in. The bold declaration to “join the band” and links to “go backstage” to find out more about employee diversity statistics feel fun while staying on brand. Whether navigating by location or department, the site’s navigation is simple and enjoyable, and feels familiar to anyone who has used the music streaming platform.

3. PayScale

PayScale offers real-time salary, benefits, and market compensation information to employees across a variety of industries by comparing user-submitted job profiles and salary data.  

PayScale isn’t shy when it comes to its style, which feel playful and self aware, as evidenced by the photo of an office dog at the top of its career page. The colorful layout encourages candidates to keep scrolling down the page, where company perks, EVP, and available jobs are prominently featured alongside more photos of happy employees. A final, personal touch is the option to click on an employee photo, which opens a popup that breaks down their personality type into various “fun fact” categories.

4. Square

Square keeps things simple and clear, emphasizing that “entrepreneurial minds thrive” at the company. Each of the company departments are neatly organized by teams and broken down into specific skills to “see where you fit in” best, immediately followed up by the company’s mission statement and future goals. The organization feels deliberate and exacting, which convey a high level of professionalism alongside the company’s desire for “curious, hard-working leaders.”

5. Refinery29

This digital media and entertainment company knows its target audience, and Refinery29 reinforces its commitment to “inspire, entertain, and empower” with its media-heavy careers page. Flashy visuals of young women hammers home the brand’s attention to female empowerment and advice on “how to live a stylish and well-rounded life.”

Big and bold headlines immediately draw you into the company’s about us and available positions pages. R29 refuses to sacrifice attitude or style no matter where you are on the company career page. If that’s not confidence then we don’t know what is.

6. Airbnb

In the same way that Airbnb entices travelers with countless possibilities for their next vacation accommodations, the company’s career page lures you down the page with an attractive balance of cleverly worded values, company benefits, and a clean aesthetic. It isn’t until you reach the bottom of the site that you can apply for positions, but this format suggests a linear flow that feels like a cohesive narrative.  

7. Scality

Scality is the industry leader for secure and high-volume cloud storage that powers digital businesses. The company features its motto and mission front and center, and showcases employee interviews discussing their experience working at Scality, drawing a clear link to company values like transparency and social purpose—all from the main career page.

Clicking away to the about section offers a careful balance of useful company information as well as videos featuring current employees outlining different facets of the company structure departments, and locations.

8. Ubisoft

Ubisoft’s career page is everything you expect from a video game studio that brought the Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Watch Dogs, and Tom Clancy franchises into the upper echelon of entertainment. Like a video game, the company likens their employees to heroes, with behind-the-scenes video interviews that follow employees through their day-to-day lives with the company. An interactive map gives you a deeper look at Ubisoft’s international offices with photos, videos, and messages from company leadership that make each click on the company page feel like a quest.

9. Kickstarter

For a company that deploys a wide crowdsourcing approach to funding, Kickstarter’s career page feels much more intimate and personal in scope. The page is dominated by photos of the company’s bright NYC office and its employees, accompanied by conversational and friendly snippets of company information, values, and principles.

The open positions portion of the page is easy to navigate and continues the conversational motif with relevant information about where each role sits in the company structure, the key responsibilities for the role, and outlines what you as an ideal candidate could bring to the position.

10. Salesforce

Salesforce has its brand identity nailed down, from its color palette to the language used to describe the company’s family dynamic. Each department has its own page with employee testimonials alongside descriptions of what makes every team an invaluable part of the company.

Salesforce goes the extra mile by breaking down the nuts and bolts of their hiring process in a step-by-step chart. Clearly, the importance of transparency is not lost here, and establishing the company’s employer brand from the beginning is a feature not seen on most career pages.

Quality candidates know what they want from employers, and companies who don’t define and market their value risk losing them to competitors.

It’s no secret that top-quality candidates are more savvy than ever before, and with the majority being passive candidates, companies are realizing the value in communicating through advertising and targeted social media campaigns to vocalize why candidates want to work there. This has led many companies to reevaluate the criteria that attracts quality talent to the workplace. Spoiler: it’s more than just a great paycheck.

Today’s job candidates stress the importance of company culture, social initiative, and work-life balance more than previous generations, motivating companies to double-down on their candidate-facing strategies, namely their Employer Branding and Employee Value Proposition (EVP). Where Employer Branding speaks to the company’s reputation as an employer, the function of an EVP is to make a company or role more attractive, unique, and meaningful to candidates. Both concepts revolve around the qualities that make a company a great place to work, as well as the benefits, career growth opportunities, work-life balance, and company culture that attract top talent.

The Basic Elements of a Strong EVP

How can companies demonstrate their value as employers? Candidates who are open to new opportunities want to see the measurable value of another company, and according to the Corporate Executive Board Company, the criteria candidates find most important are:

Rewards: Salary, benefits, and vacation

Work: Job-interest alignment and work-life balance

Organization: Market position, product/service quality, and social responsibility

Opportunity: Career growth opportunities, development and training opportunities, and organization growth rate

People: Company culture, Manager and coworker quality, senior leadership reputation, and camaraderie

Employee Value Propositions are particularly important in today’s job market, as a majority of candidates heavily evaluate companies before they even consider applying for open positions. Knowing what makes a strong EVP and why it matters in recruiter marketing tactics such as job advertising is crucial to attracting and hiring great employees.

It might be tempting for organizations to list off job features and perks, slap an EVP sticker on it and call it done, but a truly successful value proposition tells candidates what an organization stands for, and the reasons employees are motivated to work there. But defining these criteria are only useful if they can be communicated to candidates through intelligent marketing efforts.

Job Advertising Gets the Message to the Right Place and the Right Time
Recruiter marketing campaigns are designed to attract candidates before they even apply, and methods like paid media advertising are ideal for appealing to passive job seekers. Candidates value transparency, so showing a look at what a day in the life of that particular role looks like is one of the easiest ways to highlight the work experience.

Job ads are many candidates’ first impression of a company, making them an ideal opportunity to communicate an organization’s EVP. While it’s all too common that companies copy-paste the same, boring job descriptions, including an accurate and compelling Employee Value Proposition can make a job ad stand out, and is far more likely to attract candidates than a template.

Alternatively, an increasing number of companies are turning to video. According to Hubspot, over half of all marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI, with one digital marketing expert claiming that one minute of video equals 1.8 million words. Video content typically holds viewer attention longer than text alone, and with social video generating 1200% more shares than text and images combined, companies need no other excuse to tap into the internet’s preferred medium of consumption.

When EVPs Fail to Attract

Even with the most airtight marketing strategies, a poorly-constructed employee value proposition can break the hiring process. Some of the ways EVPs fall short are when they don’t differentiate from competitors, the wrong attributes, or fail to deliver on their promise to employees. Before prominently featuring a company’s Employee Value Proposition in recruiter marketing efforts, it’s imperative that companies spend time researching, designing, and implementing an EVP that accurately represents the company’s value to employees.

Research, Design, Implement, Hire

Modern recruiting strategies have adapted to pace the changes in today’s job market, and with the rise of social recruiting, larger skill gaps among tech workers, and unemployment at a record low, companies require new strategies. Additionally, candidates have resources like Glassdoor to find out what employees think of an organization. Successful companies know what candidates care about, build a culture around it, and publicize it. Defining an authentic EVP is an important step to bringing that talent to the company’s doorstep; knowing how to sell it to candidates ensures that they choose your company over a competitor.

We’ve cringed over some of the most gut-wrenching depictions of interviews gone wrong. Now we’re tackling the best-case scenario, and addressing four things recruiters can do to create the smoothest possible interview process.

Interviews are a recruiter’s bread and butter, but conduct enough of them and the shine wears away to expose a mundane and repetitive process. And that has a direct effect on a recruiter’s ability to fill positions. A recent survey found that 83 percent of candidates felt a poorly conducted interview can change their opinion of a role. Conversely, 87 percent of candidates said a positive interview experience could sway their opinion towards accepting a job.

To place the best candidate in the right role, recruiters rely on insights and information gained from the interview process, so a positive experience should be top priority. Here are four ways that recruiters can conduct a more efficient interview.

1. Do the Homework

It’s no secret that recruiters manage extremely busy schedules, but preparing for an interview should be the recruiter’s main focus, especially with the expectation that candidates will conduct their own research before coming in. Proper interview preparation includes:

• Having a clear understanding of the position, its responsibilities, and where the role fits in the larger team structure.
• Gathering a set of open-ended interview questions.
• Reviewing the candidate’s documents and credentials—resume, LinkedIn profile, cover letter, application.
• Preparing for candidate questions about the role—financial compensation, metrics for success, and expectations.
• Providing an assignment, assessment, or task for after the interview (if applicable).
• Knowing the next steps to advance the candidate to the next stage of the hiring process.

2. Ask the Right Questions

Questions asked during an interview should reveal information about the candidate’s experience, their motivation for applying, and what skills they offer. Open-ended enquiries that allow for creative responses are the best way to discover what recruiters and hiring managers are looking for. Examples of good open-ended questions are:

• What made you decide to apply for this job?
• Where have you interviewed recently? What opportunities have you had?
• Why did you leave your last job?
• Can you describe your most significant career accomplishment?
• What duties or responsibilities do you want more of in your next role?

The role may also influence the types of questions being asked. When hiring for entry-level jobs, hiring managers often have to read between the lines and evaluate a candidate’s potential based on limited work experience and how they present themselves in the interview process.

3. Have a Positive Attitude and Be Engaged

For many candidates, a recruiter may be their first interaction with a company, so it’s crucial to foster a positive experience for the candidate. Recruiters should be passionate about their company, the role they are hiring for, and the interview process. Demonstrating a professional and enthusiastic attitude will calm nervous candidates and allow for a more meaningful exchange.

Actively listening to a candidate’s responses and asking thoughtful follow-up questions demonstrate a recruiter’s attentiveness, and reflect positively on the company. As an ambassador, it falls on the recruiter to convey the company’s principles, employer brand, Employee Value Proposition, and other unique values.

4. Follow Up and Provide Feedback

Candidates value transparency in the hiring process, so creating a feedback loop that informs them of their status after the interview greatly contributes to the candidate experience. If possible, recruiters should offer candidates feedback on their interview, regardless of whether they will advance to the next stage. Maintaining communication means that when it comes time to extend a job offer, the candidate is more likely to accept, and faster, because of this rapport.

Both concepts are candidate-facing, but your company won’t reach top talent unless you integrate them with your overall TA strategy.

Today’s job seekers have more employment options that ever before, empowering them to choose the right company based on fit. In response, businesses are moving away from traditional methods of candidate attraction (public job boards, cold outreach) in favor of more employer brand-focused efforts that target talent before they apply. With this shift, two key elements—employer branding and recruitment marketing—work to achieve a common goal: attract and hire the best possible candidates.

Companies that don’t understand the difference between employer branding and recruitment marketing risk misrepresentation and brand inconsistency, which in turn creates a poor candidate experience. Creating a positive, candidate-facing company image means your company is primed to attract the 75 percent of job seekers who consider an employer’s brand before even applying for a job.

What is Employer Branding?

More than just a marketing tool, employer branding is the external image that attracts active candidates and converts passive candidates, as well as the internal image that retains employees. Employer branding also encompasses your company’s impact on customers, employees, and society at large.

To define your company’s employer branding, you need to look at the core elements of the company’s mission, values, and vision. From there, you can define other important factors such as your Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and candidate personas, which are essential to answering the question of what makes your company a great employer.

The best employer brands are consistent across all communication channels—social media, word of mouth, company pages, and job descriptions. These brands find ways to take the internal narrative of satisfied employees and turn it into the external narrative that attracts candidates. With 52 percent of today’s job seekers combing through company websites and social media pages to find out more about an employer, a positive and clearly defined employer brand is your company’s “first impression”.

For companies, a strong employer brand has a positive, bottom-line impact on three major recruiting metrics: time-to-hire, cost-per-hire, and quality-of-hire. According to LinkedIn, companies with great employer branding see 50 percent more qualified applicants, hire at a rate of 1–2x faster, and reduce cost per hire by 50 percent.

It’s important to note that employer branding serves as the foundation upon which an effective recruitment marketing strategy can be built.

What is Recruitment Marketing?

Recruitment marketing is employer branding in action, most commonly via social media campaigns and intelligent advertising spending. These methods are specific and targeted promotion designed to get your company message in front of the right candidate at the right time.

Being proactive in the pre-application phase of the recruitment process allows recruiters and hiring managers to build an inbound pipeline of qualified applicants, rather than the “spray and pray” method used with conventional job board postings.

Much like employer branding, great communication is essential to a recruitment marketing strategy. It’s important to think about how a candidate interacts with your brand—through paid media (job advertising); SEO traffic and company reviews (Glassdoor); and internal channels (company career sites, blog posts, live events, social media). A strong talent acquisition suite gives companies access to post on a variety of job boards, and allows recruiters to make data-driven decisions about where ad spend yields the highest ROI.

Another recruitment marketing strategy that goes largely underused is employee referrals. Compared to previous years, hires resulting from employee referrals is declining, thanks in part to the rise of recruiter marketing, but that doesn’t mean organizations should abandon their referral strategies, which still account for 27 percent of all company hires.

For most companies, their own employees are their biggest advocates, and tapping into your existing employee’s social networks to make and track referrals expands your sourcing efforts without any additional work. A robust talent acquisition suite leverages your company’s internal network to discover talent within your organization that may be the right fit for an open role.

Know the Difference and How to Use Both When Recruiting

As we’ve seen, competition among organizations to attract and hire top talent is fierce, and maintaining an edge over competitors means taking a proactive and forward-thinking approach to recruiting. Establishing employer brand across all channels should be your company’s first priority, as your company’s reputation as an employer should remain consistent over time while the tactics and methods of recruiter marketing should be adapted in response to industry trends. While both employer branding and recruiter marketing rely on each other to work optimally, recruitment marketing cannot work without an established employer brand. Once your organization has a strong understanding of what makes each of these concepts different, you can use them to ensure the right talent discovers your company before discovering your competitors.

In their shiny new e-commerce avatar, can battered AA rebrand, be forgiven by justice-minded Millennials, and embraced by woke Gen Zers?

For Sam, Tuesdays meant one thing –  the conference call. For one hour each week, every American Apparel store manager, visual merchandiser, and back-stock director the world over dialed into stream-of-consciousness rants from then-CEO Dov Charney, each employee praying they weren’t the unlucky soul singled out for reprimand.

During his three years working at AA stores in Seattle, Sam, a sales associate turned visual merchandiser, became accustomed to what he describes as the company head’s “Trump-esque” tirades. Some store manager in Ann Arbor would be called out for slow sales, or a back-stock director in Tel Aviv would be given a raise for suggesting a new sock color. It was that arbitrary and unpredictable. Sam didn’t love the work, but he wanted to be part of such a cool brand.

Back then, there was a certain prestige in being connected with the hyper-sexual, made-in-America label. The clothes were cool and ethically made, the aesthetic was very “in”, and anyone who worked there was “in” by extension. But, while AA had all the right optics, the reality of working there was not in line with its image.

Looking back, Sam says his hours were routinely taken away as punishment for “infractions”, and understaffing put unnecessary pressure on store managers who were “mainly a bunch of 19 and 20-year-old kids trying to figure it out on the fly.”

AA filed for Chapter 11 in November, 2016, with $234.9 million in debts, a steep descent from its peak profitability of $634 million in 2013. Bad news for hipsters now required to seek a new neon bodysuit supplier, but comeuppance for employees who came to see the oversexualized, super skinny, white AF label as all that’s wrong with the fashion world.

When Sam heard that his former employer was back, this time online-only, he couldn’t help shaking his head. “Honestly, I thought it was foolish. They just aren’t relevant anymore. There are other brands doing the same thing with less bad press.”

All the same, and for better or worse, AA is back. The new site, launched last August in the US and globally just this April, features a “back to basics” campaign, complete with iconic neon bodysuits, crop tops, hoodies, and all the rest. The difference between American Apparel then and American Apparel now seems to be, essentially, the absence of brick-and-mortar sales points, and a tacked-on mantra-du-jour of “diversity and inclusiveness”. The April press release stated new AA models would be “real people who represent a diversity of body types, ages and ethnicities.”

But can our memories really be that short? Could AA truly now be all #goodvibesonly, or are someone’s shiny disco pants on fire? The challenge in courting of Millennials and Gen Zers will be proving authenticity in a political climate that demands corporate integrity in exchange for brand loyalty.

Sarah Wilson, Head of People at SmartRecruiters, and former director of talent acquisition for Aritzia, has no illusions about what AA is up against in their search for redemption in this day and age. “It’s a really competitive industry to begin with, but rebranding now, on the heels of movements like #timesup and #metoo, will be an uphill battle, more so than it would have been five years ago, or will be five years from now.”

This challenge is even more pronounced for a brand whose ad campaigns cashed in on the sexy-skirting-pervy vibe, ever since its first store opened in LA in 2003. The AA aesthetic, often described as “porntastic” and previously lauded as edgy, crossed into creepy once its founder and CEO, Dov Charney, admitted to masturbating in front of a female reporter from Jane. This opened the doors for a slew of complaints from employees claiming sexual harassment, all of which ended in a $3M payout from the company, and $9.3M in legal fees.

AA’s current head of brand marketing, Sabina Weber, claimed in a recent interview with Fashionista that “the brand is still sexy, but it’s about a woman’s choice to be sexy; it’s in the gaze; it’s ‘If I wanna show my ass to the world, I’m gonna show my ass to the world’.”

The first picture is a swimsuit campaign from the brand’s latest iteration, while the “Spring Fever” addition is taken from the AA archives. The difference is negligible, even if, under the wing of their Canadian acquirer, Gildan Activewear, the company raised the minimum age of models to 21, and in their most recent casting call requested they be over 25.

It could be argued, however, that anyone over 25 remembers AA scandals like the “teens do it better” t-shirt – created in collaboration with Ey! Magateen, a magazine “celebrating the sexuality of young men”, which used models as young as 16. AA also owned the maxim “all press is good press” by notoriously having ads banned for sexualizing school-age girls.

Other efforts of the new dispensation include employing more female photographers, and sourcing brand ambassadors from social media – the people they refer to as “real models” – and staffing AA HQ with roughly 25 mostly young, mostly female employees. (In its heyday the label employed 10,000 people.)

So what more can AA do to let consumers and candidates know it’s taking this second chance seriously? For Joel Cheesman, employer branding expert and founder of Ratedly – an employer reputation management platform – it’s simple: “People are willing to forgive when you admit wrongdoing and outline the ways change will occur.”

If you ever find yourself in AA’s situation, Cheesman suggests ridding yourself of anyone in a leadership position from the past, particularly the CEO, bring in people with a flawless background to lead the company, and spin how tomorrow is “a new day and a fresh start” to the media.

American Apparel may be off to a good start in re-establishing themselves as socially conscious, but even with the figurehead gone – and running a copycat company called LA Apparel – have the hiring practices he created really been eradicated, and if so, what else needs to change for AA to claim a true transformation?

As Dov Charney has said in the past, “I am in the DNA of the company,” and it’s true, but his imprint is pathological. The dysfunction is in the proverbial company fabric, and it’s going to be hard to get the Dov stank off these ethically made clothes.

To wit, the following email that internal AA investigators, keen on finding evidence to oust the troublesome CEO, found addressed to Charney from a female employee:

Add this to other accounts of Charney yelling racial slurs, sending pornographic emails to employees, then later, during the investigation, requesting workers to “delete any naughty emails”.

Meanwhile, AA stores had taken on a different type of toxicity, mostly in hiring and firing practices. “There were no standards of how employees should be treated, or how managers should act,” Sam recalls, “and this behavior went right up the chain to corporate.”

At 19, Sam was hired by a friend who managed a Seattle AA store. A few weeks later he was promoted to floor manager. “I don’t think anyone looked at my resume, I just showed up and was hired. I don’t think most people were actually qualified for the jobs they had.”

Six months in, Sam was upped to visual merchandiser. “To this day I don’t know if I did everything a visual merchandiser is supposed to do, ” he admits. “I placed orders, arranged the store and made sure I enforced the dress code,” which was to wear American Apparel, head to toe. “That meant if someone broke the dress code, the choice was to buy something on the spot or go home.

“We were required to keep the store open an hour past close if we were within $100 of our sales goal. Once I couldn’t stay late, and the next week I saw my hours were cut from 32 to 4. I followed up with my manager and then the district manager, but I was just put in a circle of them referring back to one another. No one would give me a straight answer.”

In 2010, Gawker published a series of anonymous AA employee recountings, which let readers into the catty chaos behind the Helvetica storefronts. For example:

And there were specific conditions on hiring black women:

“It’s an extremely fine line for apparel companies, between articulating brand image and discriminatory hiring practices,” says Smartrecruiters’ Sarah Wilson. “American Apparel isn’t alone in that. It’s a broad challenge in the fashion industry.”

The company will undoubtedly seek out new employees who know and love the brand’s aesthetic, but in the digital space, no one will have to physically embody it: consumer-facing retail positions are generally entry level, whereas UX designers and digital marketers have university degrees or equivalent experience, which both raise the age of entry, and shift focus from appearance to qualifications. “With an e-commerce candidate,” explains Wilson, “it will be less about what you wear to the interview, and more about how you describe the brand’s aesthetic.”

As opposed to the scalability of employee hotness, the label is making a great push to bring its socially conscious side to the forefront, even if it can no longer boast it’s all “Made In America”.  With the global relaunch, clothes will be made in both the US and “sweatshop-free” factories in the developing world. Consumers can choose the product source, with the American-made version costing between 17 and 26 percent more.

Without the founder’s nefarious ways to overshadow them, AA’s strides in labor standards could actually garner some good press – including new 24/7 medical clinics for workers in Central America. Charney may have even given American Apparel an unintended boost by taking his bad rep, along with much of the same branding, models, and even former AA employees to LA Apparel.

“I knew Dov,” reflects Sam. “ but I didn’t know about the sexual harassment until it came out in the press. I don’t know what happened, but I err on the side of believing the women, so I couldn’t work for him again.”

And what about American Apparel? What if they asked Sam to come back?

“Nope.”

When a young business analyst decided management consulting wasn’t her calling, she found it difficult to find career advice that spoke to her as a millennial job-seeker.

Given the average adult in the US changes jobs around 12 times between the ages 18-48, with the majority of those transitions happening in the first six years of their career –  it seemed strange that no one had created a platform to locate expert career advice, surface unexpected opportunities, and guide young people to success.

In 2011, former business analyst Kathryn Minshew became a founder and CEO when she made her dream resource a reality with The Muse website, a non-traditional job board focused on fit, culture and career advice for job seekers.

And 50 million millennial professionals visiting the site to date says ‘job well done!’

Kathryn has become something of a career guru for millennials, authoring the Wall Street Journal bestseller “The New Rules of Work,” and acting as an operating partner at XFactor Ventures, a venture capital fund investing in the next generation of female founders.

Kathryn recently spoke at the Hiring Success Conference in San Francisco about the effect of candidate experience on employer brand in an era of full transparency.

What does the concept of Hiring Success mean to you?

Hiring Success is about creating meaningful fits between companies and candidates. At The Muse, we think more about experiences than jobs because jobs can box people in, whereas experiences set people on a path for learning and growth. But, in order to build a satisfying career—or a progression of experiences over time—both companies and candidates have to be more aware of making considerate and purposeful choices. When that happens, a meaningful fit is made, which leads to quality hires and better retention.

Where on a CEO’s list of priorities should ‘recruitment’ be?

I’ve always felt that recruitment should be a top priority because it’s so intrinsic to company culture. You have to know who you are as a whole so you can hire people who will add value and keep your culture strong as you grow.

We hired The Muse’s first internal talent acquisition manager when we had just 25 people because we knew were going to grow pretty quickly and we wanted to make sure our culture never faltered. Bringing the right people on board is imperative when it comes to reaching your growth goals, and recruiters can help you attract and engage the best-fit talent.  

What do you think will be the defining feature of recruitment in five years?

Work is about connections and it’s full of commitments. The best companies understand this and create a work experience that’s centered around some of the most fundamental relationship dynamics (values, trust, vision, effort, and selflessness). Ideally, recruiting in five years will no longer be transactional, with applicants applying through a job board and hiring managers sifting through stacks of resumes. Hopefully, companies and candidates will feel empowered to make intentional decisions about what makes a meaningful fit.

You have traveled the world extensively. Did you gain any insights which have played into your approach to employer branding and recruitment?

I’ve traveled or lived in over 60 countries in the last 15 years, and I’ll say this about both travel and employment: they’re highly subjective. Whether something is a one-star or five-star experience depends on whether your expectations and needs match with reality: what were you looking for, and did you receive it?

Travel rating sites work because we can assess the type of environment we’re seeking, and then we can rate a property or experience based on those expectations and parameters. It’s unbelievable to me that we have no common language to talk about types of company cultures. I’d like The Muse to change that.

You speak often about millennials and job branding. What do you find millennials want to see?

Authenticity. Millennials want to see that your employees’ experiences are in sync with the message your employer brand is putting out there. So if you say you support learning and development, or value work-life balance, they want to see those statements reflected in company reviews or validated by employee testimonials. They want to know that what they see is the real thing.

How can companies better appeal to millennial candidates?

Millennials want to feel like their career has real purpose, so when they look at potential employers, they’re looking for a place where the mission and values match their own, or where the learning opportunities are substantial.

For companies, this means using your employer brand to authentically show candidates what you’re committed to as an organization. It’s also an opportunity to encourage employee advocacy by asking your workforce to share their stories—even if it’s something as small as posting about an exciting work event on social media.

In terms of company culture, what are the most common mistakes companies make?

Trying to be everything to everyone. When companies aren’t being authentic, it creates a ripple effect in the culture, so this really goes back to hiring, because every new person who joins your team has the power to change your culture.

It’s OK if your company and culture aren’t for everyone. Know your audience and appeal to those best-fit candidates.