Job seekers, like all shoppers, crave good information. The more they can get, the happier they are. This is true at all phases of the job-hunting process, from first touch to final offer. And it is a progressive need, rising as candidate quality and value increase. Tier Two candidates in the talent pyramid, successful managers and professionals for example, almost always require more extensive and detailed information before accepting an offer than Tier One candidates do. Tier Three candidates – senior managers and executives – need even greater amounts.
The traditional recruiting model is based on information scarcity: a trail of crumbs that is thin at the top of the funnel and thickens appreciably only very near the bottom. After all, (says the typical employer) why waste valuable recruiting information on situations where there isn’t a high degree of mutual interest? Also, why place more of that value than you have to where competitors can see it and trump it?
2010 Corporate Recruiting Report
Job seekers clearly see things differently. Those traditional employer attitudes ignore the profound effects of the information-rich, Internet-centered recruiting environment on the attitudes and behaviors of today’s candidates. Let’s use benefits information as an example because it comprises the information most desired by candidates, yet most hidden by employers.
Say I’m one of the roughly 40% of the employed workforce who is not active in the job market (hence not visible to you yet) but who is ruminating about a job change. Something triggers my browsing session: a news article, a blog post, a friend’s comment or a Google query. Perhaps I’ve just missed out on a promotion, been dinged by my boss, or suffered through one too many trying commutes. Or maybe my wife has soured on our neighborhood, the local school and my child are bouncing off one another, or my parents back home increasingly need support. There are scores of such triggers.
Anyhow, I start my occasional browsing, seeing roughly the same things, in the same places, described in the same way, on corporate job sites I can’t recall five minutes after clicking away. Mind you, nothing I’ve seen has been inept or off-putting, but none of it has been memorable. Then, on your site, something catches my eye. I see a box that says, “How much could you make working for us? Click here.” How can I resist?
Now I’m in a calculator. All the elements of your robust salary and benefit program are laid out, from the high level social responsibility initiatives that might interest me to my medical plan options. I plug in my job level and get a salary range. I select a mid-range number, then check out 401K matching levels. Next, I look at training programs and promotion schedules. I note the historical appreciation of a hypothetical matching stock grant. I read your career planning policy, give myself excellent reviews (because I always get excellent reviews) and look at the impact on promotions and compensation according to your stated policies. I refresh my adult beverage and spend the next 17 minutes with you planning my future. Cool.
Guess whose site I remember when I log off? Guess who has given me something to think about; who has inched my search forward? All right, it’s only a game and I haven’t even decided to register with you yet, but put this kind of interactive tool on your website and I guarantee, yes guarantee, that I will not be the only one who plays with it.
What got me thinking about this was my conversation with a company called Benesytes, who have created an interactive web version of their more traditional corporate benefits packaging service. Now, behind the firewall is an information trove replacing the thick packet of comp/benefits detail still given to candidates and employees at many small and mid-size companies. The employee benefit is personalization, convenience and ease of use. The employer benefit is SaaS simplicity, cost savings, rapid updateability, and better informed employees.
But what caught my attention was the potential recruiting benefit. Could their calculator be configured to operate outside the firewall, I asked? Sure, they answered, yet no one had ever requested that placement because employers considered such information privileged...etc.
A dead end? Maybe not. I’m constantly surprised by how a few corporate recruiting leaders are expanding the boundaries of traditional staffing. They’re simply listening to the market and responding logically. If a job seeker wants information, they’re breaking down the obstacles to providing it. Naturally, both sides benefit.
Recruiting devices like web benefits calculators are perfectly suited to today’s high touch, high information recruiting environment because they make the application process a pleasure rather than the plague it was in the last century. They may be “little things,” but in a recruiting market overflowing with same-old, me-too recruiting offerings, it’s the little things that count.
Chuck Busse at Benesytes was very cordial and helpful when we spoke, and I assume will be to you as well if you care to contact him at www.arecruitingedge.com or www.whybenesytes.com
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