Rec Tech: the Recruiting Technology Podcast
Job Board ROI
Mon Jun 19 2023job boardsrecruitment marketingtalent acquisitionanalyticsemployer brandingfraud prevention
Description
This episode covers various topics related to job boards, recruitment marketing, talent acquisition, and optimizing recruitment strategies. The guests discuss the role of job boards in hiring, the importance of analytics and metrics in reducing costs and improving candidate conversion, the challenges of attribution and understanding analytics, the different aspects of recruitment marketing and employer branding, the maturing talent acquisition field, transitioning from click-based metrics to quality-based metrics, improving job board performance, and optimizing recruitment efforts for the 2026 World Cup. They also explore strategies for understanding the candidate journey, selecting job board vendors, and addressing fraud concerns in recruitment advertising.
Insights
Job boards still play a valuable role in hiring
Despite claims that job boards are dead, they continue to be an important source for generating candidates at high volume.
Transitioning from click-based metrics to quality-based metrics
Shifting the focus from click-based metrics to metrics that measure actual hires and conversions can help reduce costs and improve candidate conversion.
Understanding website metrics and recruitment marketing strategies
Analyzing website metrics like bounce rates and conversion rates is essential for accurate analysis. Recruitment marketing encompasses employer branding, recruitment advertising, and traditional marketing strategies.
Differentiating employer branding, recruitment marketing, and talent acquisition
Employer branding focuses on shaping people's perception of a company, while recruitment marketing involves driving candidates at high volume through job boards. Talent acquisition is a separate department from HR that focuses on innovation and sales-like approaches.
Optimizing recruitment strategies and understanding the candidate journey
Understanding where desired candidates are coming from, creating candidate personas, and analyzing data from all applicants can help in identifying the right people to hire. It's important to track performance data and make contact with potential candidates.
Addressing fraud concerns in recruitment advertising
Fraud is a growing concern in recruitment advertising, with AI-generated profiles becoming more prevalent. Verification services for candidates may become necessary to ensure they are real people.
Chapters
- Job Sync Roundtable podcast with Alex Murphy from Job Sync and special guest Jim Durbin
- Using available resources to optimize recruitment budgets
- Understanding website metrics and recruitment marketing strategies
- Differentiating employer branding, recruitment marketing, and talent acquisition
- Transitioning from click-based metrics to quality-based metrics
- Improving job board performance and recruitment efforts for the 2026 World Cup
- Optimizing recruitment strategies and understanding the candidate journey
- Understanding the job board ecosystem and addressing fraud concerns
Summary
Transcript
Job Sync Roundtable podcast with Alex Murphy from Job Sync and special guest Jim Durbin
00:01 - 07:03
- Discussion about job boards and recruitment marketing
- Job Sync helps large organizations hire at scale by creating integrations between systems
- Jim Durbin has experience in staffing, headhunting, corporate recruiting, and marketing agency
- Focusing on generating candidates at high volume and converting them
- Job boards are not dead, they still play a valuable role in hiring
- What's working today is using available sources like Indeed to make money
Using available resources to optimize recruitment budgets
06:35 - 13:51
- Focusing on job postings and people analytics to reduce costs and improve candidate conversion
- Shifting from click-based metrics to metrics that measure actual hires and conversions
- Breaking down the cost of advertising, sourcing, and referrals to understand true cost per hire
- Challenges in attributing the source of applicants due to multiple touchpoints and user experiences
Understanding website metrics and recruitment marketing strategies
13:24 - 20:34
- They're gonna fill into my costs, but I'll never know that that person was interested.
- It's very hard to do attribution and understand analytics.
- Referrals are often seen as a number one source, but we need to be careful about how we present this data.
- The career site is an important part of the tech stack, but it's crucial to understand how people find it.
- There are two ways to track traffic and conversions: direct integration and pushing traffic to the career site.
- Understanding website metrics like bounce rates and conversion rates is essential for accurate analysis.
- Recruitment marketing encompasses employer branding, recruitment advertising, and traditional marketing strategies.
Differentiating employer branding, recruitment marketing, and talent acquisition
20:07 - 27:09
- Employer branding is closer to traditional marketing, focusing on experience, surveys, and value propositions.
- Recruitment marketing includes emails, local marketing, and text-to-apply strategies.
- Recruitment advertising involves driving candidates at high volume through job boards.
- Employer branding is the pre-soak that shapes people's perception of a company.
- Talent acquisition emerged as a separate department from HR in the early 2000s.
- Talent acquisition is different from HR as it focuses on innovation and sales-like approaches.
- The talent acquisition field is maturing and gaining more budget respect.
- There are differences between employer branding and traditional marketing due to budgets and workloads.
- The talent acquisition industry can learn from the crisis in B2B and B2C sectors to avoid similar issues.
- Consolidation may not happen in the job board market as different companies have different focuses.
- HR needs to improve processes, data analysis, software, and technology to prevent other departments from taking over their role.
Transitioning from click-based metrics to quality-based metrics
26:45 - 33:39
- Indeed cannot analyze quality of hire until employers do it themselves
- Vendors in the industry will have to choose a path, whether to focus on traffic, applicants, or hiring
- Building a one-size-fits-everybody type of generic analytics like Google Analytics is not possible
- Pay per click (PPC) is effective initially but becomes less cost-effective as more competitors join in
- Moving from PPC to quality-based metrics is similar to what happened in the SEM and SEO world
- Google is concerned about losing advertising results and facing fraud problems in the B2B world
- Customization and face-to-face interactions are becoming important in email marketing
- Analytics alone cannot provide all the necessary information for effective hiring strategies
- Budget minimums on Indeed require generating less traffic at a higher cost for better results
- Posting fewer jobs that receive more clicks leads to more qualified applicants on Indeed
- Analyzing job postings and optimizing them can reduce budget spend by up to 20%
- Lack of time and resources makes it difficult for TA staff to individually review job postings on Indeed
- ZipRecruiter offers flexibility with launch-in-before-you-launch feature
Improving job board performance and recruitment efforts for the 2026 World Cup
33:10 - 46:44
- The lack of time to fix fake costs is a huge problem on job boards like Indeed and Zip.
- To drive performance, it's important to have someone dedicated to looking over campaigns and results.
- Terrible titles, lack of segmentation, and incorrect campaign setup are common audit findings.
- A good title in advertising is short, clear, and reflects what users are searching for.
- Understanding candidate behavior and making UX improvements is crucial.
- Testing everything and making changes based on results leads to better outcomes.
- HR for FC Dallas is ramping up recruitment efforts for the 2026 World Cup hosted in the US
- Recruiting is done in both English and Spanish to cater to the Spanish-speaking population
- Candidates on the database are contacted daily through instant messaging in both languages
- Hiring about 500-600 people per game day season
- Housekeeping and custodian roles have been successfully recruited by targeting niche markets
- Outsourcing reduced from 75 to 20 housekeeping staff on game days
- Budget allocation should be strategic, solving problems of majority jobs first before focusing on hard-to-fill positions
- Recruiters need to understand full life cycle recruiting instead of just sorting resumes
- Location segmentation is important for effective job postings and targeting the right candidates
- Understanding local transportation and commuting patterns is crucial for successful recruitment campaigns
Optimizing recruitment strategies and understanding the candidate journey
46:15 - 53:06
- Knowing where your desired candidates are coming from is crucial for effective recruitment.
- Understanding the person you're trying to recruit and their characteristics is important.
- Creating candidate personas can help in identifying the right people to hire.
- Analyzing data from all applicants, not just those hired, can provide valuable insights.
- Avoid constantly tinkering with your job postings as it can negatively impact algorithm learning.
- Focus on tracking performance data and making contact with potential candidates.
- Define your goals and expectations realistically based on the supply of applicants in your area.
- Test different job boards to understand their organic traffic and specific focus.
Understanding the job board ecosystem and addressing fraud concerns
52:37 - 58:46
- Understanding the ecosystem of the job board space is important when selecting vendors.
- Different job boards have different focuses and sources of organic traffic.
- Some job boards trade traffic back and forth, so it's crucial to identify those with organic traffic in your area.
- The candidate journey involves multiple stages and it's important to consider how candidates feel after going through several steps.
- Evaluating the quality of traffic requires looking at the source and tracking hires from specific sources.
- Fraud is a growing concern in recruitment advertising, with AI-generated profiles becoming more prevalent.
- Verification services for candidates may become necessary to ensure they are real people.
- Future conversations will likely focus on fraud prevention and its impact on ad budgets.