5�e Tru FilesSOCIAL RECRUITING & PERSONALIZATION

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@BillBoorman and Klaus Toepfer

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We scoured presentations and conversations from the last twelve months of TRU events to bring you the best forward-looking ideas in the field of recruiting. 48

8,00010evenTs

aTTendees Big ideas

social recruiting & PersonaliZation /03

This will Be The year you move Beyond aimless social chaTTer. if you wanT your social neTworKs To funcTion as recruiTing power Tools, iT’s Time To consider personalizaTion.

Pre-2006 (the year Facebook opened to anyone over 13 with an email address), recruiters would post and pray—post a job on the company website and a few job boards, and then wait for applicants to respond.

When professional social networking sites like LinkedIn became popular, recruiters moved on

to a source and spray approach—identify every java programmer in the area, for example, and

send out mass emails hoping for just a few hits.

Neither approach makes any sense.

Both assume a recruiter’s job is to attract as many applicants as possible in the hopes that

one of the hundreds is exactly right. But in truth you aren’t searching for hundreds—you’re

actually searching for just one person. One perfectly suited candidate for the position. And

for most companies, the 999 applicants who aren’t chosen are essentially throwaways—in the

metaphorical wastebasket of recruiting files.

Something has to change.

/04social recruiting & PersonaliZation

Recruiters must begin working on attracting the right candidates rather than a massive quantity

of candidates. And recruiters must begin wooing not only the right candidate, but also those

who may not be a good fit … for now. Many applicants you reject could become a perfect fit

for another opening. With that in mind, every applicant should be considered part of a larger

network of talent—people you want to stay in touch with for possible future openings. People

you want to impress, even if you’re not on the verge of hiring them.

/05social recruiting & PersonaliZation

from TalenT rejecTers To TalenT aTTracTorsAccording to TRU conversations over the last 12 months, this will be the year of behaving less like job brokers and more like relationship-builders.

Recruiters will spend less time scouring the globe to fill a particular current vacancy, and more

time building talent networks for jobs that may become available in the future.

If it’s true that recruiters will be given the role of building networks for forward-looking talent

needs, then we must stop thinking in terms of candidates and clients, and instead start thinking

about audience. How will we interact with this vast network of talent in a way that’s interesting

and engaging? Particularly given we won’t be dangling a job in front of them?

With an audience-minded approach, recruiters will ask: What kind of information do job

candidates seek out online? Which social networks do they use, and to what end? How do

job seekers prefer to receive information? How do responses to these questions differ when

we consider unique segments of our market (e.g. engineers vs. developers; millennials vs.

experienced professionals)?

/06social recruiting & PersonaliZation

/07

Answering these questions—and dozens of others—will help recruiters build long-term

relationships with their audiences rather than one-shot tactical relationships. By understanding

job candidates as members of an audience, recruiters will be able to develop content streams

(e.g. educational articles, eBooks and videos) to keep in touch with candidates beyond a single

application or job opening.

social recruiting & PersonaliZation

/08

The promise (and piTfalls) of personalizaTionThis is also the year recruiters will learn audience development tactics like market research, segmentation, targeting and personalization—the Holy Grail of publishers everywhere.

First, let’s understand what personalization means. When marketers discuss personalization,

they are referring to content personalization—offering web visitors content or product

recommendations based on that individual’s prior viewing or purchasing history.

There are two types of personalization:

Segment-driven personalization: As an example, a T-shirt company can deduce,

based on viewing patterns, whether a visitor is male or female, and whether or not they are a

parent. The company makes product recommendations based on broad customer segments (or

what marketers call personas).

social recruiting & PersonaliZation

/09

One-to-one personalization: Used more often in consumer marketing, one-to-one

personalization offers customized recommendations based on a single individual’s viewing

patterns (ascertained through cookies or by sign-in data). If last month the customer spent most

of her time examining women’s shirts with cartoon designs, the next time she visits the website,

it will serve up examples similar to those she enjoyed last time.

To apply the personalization concept to recruiting:

• Sourcing tools offer very nuanced profiles of individual candidates or groups of candidates.

Ideally, a recruiter can use all the details within these profiles to create a customized

candidate experience. For example, if a Toronto-based statistician working in biotech visits

your website, he will encounter open positions well-suited to his background and location.

• If a UX designer opts-in to receive updates from you, she will get notices of open positions

and educational information that suit her particular profile.

• If your organization wants to host an event for developers in the London area, you’ll be able

to query your database to find out who should be invited, and which educational tracks you

should promote to different segments of your developer database.

social recruiting & PersonaliZation

By understanding job candidates as members of an audience, recruiters will be able to develop content streams (e.g. educational articles, eBooks and videos) to keep in touch with candidates beyond a single application or job opening.

/10

Keep in mind, personalization doesn’t always have to be technology-driven. Consider this

example: Your company will need to hire 10 java programmers in your London office over the

next three years, beginning in six months (which means you have time to cultivate relationships).

Your sourcing solution has divined a group of 200 high-value java programmers in the London

metro area, and an additional 200 across England. How to begin? Will you send out a mass

email? Get on the phone and begin dialing? If you answered yes, for shame!

This is a ripe opportunity to personalize the recruiting experience for your 400 targets. Do

they use social media and where are they most active? Which social network groups do they

participate in? What subjects interest them most? Do they use Foursquare to check-in to local

pubs? Set up listening posts to study your target candidates. For example, use HootSuite

to build Twitter lists of cohort groups (e.g. java programmers at Dell) and listen for common

themes and activities.

With a more studied understanding of your target group, begin segmenting the list with an

eye toward personalization. For example, younger programmers may respond to different

messaging than more established professionals, or women may use different social channels

than men. Choose segments you feel will meaningfully segregate the different cohorts,

particularly in relation to what your cohorts find interesting online, and develop content streams

for each of these.

social recruiting & PersonaliZation

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What drives and inspires your high-value candidates? Do your competitors’ programmers

like to visit the Starbucks two blocks away from the office? Place an ad on the bus stop

outside to catch their attention. Do they share a common obsession with Family Guy?

Live-tweet an episode and engage them. The key is to approach them in a way that’s interesting

and personalized.

As your program becomes more sophisticated, you may invest in content personalization

solutions—such as those your colleagues in marketing likely already use. These are most

effective for companies that already publish educational content for job seekers (e.g. blog

posts, eBooks or videos) and will help create a personalized candidate “journey” through

your library of content. And unlike the previous example of hiring 10 java programmers, using

personalization technology will let you scale your recruiting outreach efforts to encompass many

disciplines and regions. Plus it will be sustainable over time, allowing you to maintain longer

term relationships.

The goal is to treat people less like job candidates for currently open positions, and more

like members of a lifelong professional community of talent. As long as you provide high-

quality, easy interactions—whether by sharing informative content, customized job openings

or other personalized experiences—you’ll be learning more and more about these members

of your talent network. Ideally, each interaction builds on the last, until you have such a depth of

information about each candidate that you’ll be able to create job matches much more

easily and quickly.

social recruiting & PersonaliZation

/12

employees as an asseTYour employees are already connected to people you would potentially like to recruit, and have the means to make an introduction—and most recruiters have already used this method.

But more sophisticated recruiters are taking it a step further, asking employees to share

information about the company or share high-quality educational content.

Recruiters beware: You should only take this step if what you have to share with your audience

is truly of the highest quality, such that your employees will be proud to share it. So if you think

you’re ready, consider these four steps:

• design easy-to-share content. While it seems a small point, unless the individual in

question works in HR, they aren’t paid (nor inspired) to help you recruit. Ensure your content-

sharing ask is automated and easy. Solutions like Circulate (circulate.it) allow you to send

a digest of content to employees for social sharing; with a simple drag-and-drop your

employees can share brand-published articles and job openings with their peer group.

social recruiting & PersonaliZation

/13

• consider mining (with permission) your employees’ networks. Tools like DataHug (a

Salesforce plugin) tie together your employees’ professional networks, letting you unearth

who within your organization may be connected to a high-priority lead. For example, you

may be looking for a UX designer and by coincidence Joe in customer service is connected

to someone on your shortlist.

• Be transparent. Establish immediately and unambiguously what you’re going to do with any

information or contacts your employees share. And never message anyone without explicit

permission. (Even better, always ask employees to initiate the conversation.)

• Think carefully about rewards. Whatever you do, don’t call it a referral program, which

makes it sound temporary and a bit like frequent flying. And second, never pay employees

to refer people in their networks. Paying finders fees simply invites complexity and

regulation. We find giving gratitude to employees is best designed as a series of “micro-

rewards.” Rackspace, a cloud-based hosting company known for its strong workplace

culture, hands out “Takes One to Know One” T-shirts to employees to who refer new talent,

and also raffles gadgets like iPads. All small but consistently positive signs of thanks for

sharing networks and content.

social recruiting & PersonaliZation

/14

If it’s true recruiters will

stop thinking in terms of

candidates and clients, and

instead start thinking about

audience, then how will

recruiters interact with this

vast network of talent in

the future?

social recruiTing & personalizaTion: acTionaBle insighTs

asK The experTs

Begin with research.

To engage professionals who

are not necessarily looking

for a job, recruiters must

understand what interests

professionals (defined by

segment or role), what

questions they may have,

and where they currently

seek out information. Which

social networks do they use,

and to what end? How do

job seekers prefer to receive

information? Answering

these questions—and

dozens of others—will

help recruiters map out an

engagement strategy.

partner with marketing.

Marketers in your

organization have likely

been adapting the way

they reach customers in

the last five years, focusing

on educational content and

moving away from purely

promotional content.

They know what changes

recruiters will need to

make to engage potential

job candidates online.

Consult with marketing

and ask them to help you

define your audience

engagement strategy.

Build a content framework.

To engage professionals

over a long period of time,

recruiters will need an

ongoing stream of content

to share through social

networks. Begin to think

about what this library will

look like (e.g. educational

articles, eBooks and videos),

and the processes and team

members you’ll need to keep

it going. Members of the

marketing team can help you

build a strategy and train the

recruiting team in areas like

social media engagement

and measurement of impact.

social recruiting & PersonaliZation /15

I first discovered the Unconference concept when I led a track at #RecruitFest in Toronto in

1999. I was taken aback by the way discussion flowed and how different the format was to a

traditional conference. I led a track all day under a tree and learnt far more than I gave.

Two months later and back in the UK, we ran the first #truLondon at Canary Wharf in November

2009. Today, we’re running dozens of #tru events a year across Europe, North America, Africa

and the Asia-Pacific. Thousands of recruiters, HR leaders and providers come together in an

informal spirit of information sharing and networking.

#tru is based on the BarCamp principle, which means that everybody can be an active

participant instead of listening to speakers and watching presentations all day. The emphasis is

on communication and the free exchange of ideas and experiences where the participants fuel

the conversations.

The #Tru sTory

Bill Boorman

social recruiting & PersonaliZation /16

The role of the recruiter is experiencing a fundamental change: It is no longer about being the

gatekeeper who waits for applications coming in, neither is it about being the broker who wants

to “sell” the job to as many people possible. To be a successful recruiter you need to focus on

relationship-building and management, while engaging your hiring managers to become part

of the relationship. Content matters, especially first-hand-content provided by experts!

In order to engage the hiring managers to invest in building relationships, companies have

to accept the strategic impact of talent and need to align their recruiting structure. How

many “Chief Talent Officers” do you know? “Talent” has not made it to the board yet, but

almost certainly will do in the future. Building talent communities will become the key success

factor for companies. We will no longer speak of “candidates” instead referring to “audience”

and “communities”.

To stay on top of this, you need to be equipped with the relevant tools and technology. But

besides the technology driven trends, there’s still one thing that is key to success:

Understand the talent you’re targeting and speak in the same language, while communicating

and offering content which is both relevant and authentic.

And don’t forget, there’s one thing which will make the difference: the personal touch!

The role of The recruiTer

Klaus Toepfer

Klaus Toepfer, director Talent sourcing emea, access Kellyocg

Klaus leads the KellyOCG Talent Sourcing Practice, which designs and delivers project-related support of bespoke recruiting and employer branding activities to attract, hire and retain academic talent through a toolset of innovative products, services and solutions. He is based in Cologne, Germany. Klaus has been working for more than 15 years in the employer branding and HR-marketing business. Before joining KellyOCG, he led the graduate recruitment for Germany, Switzerland and Austria at Booz & Company. Klaus holds a degree in psychology and completed the Young Managers Program at INSEAD.

for more thought leadership go to talentproject.com

exiT

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