The recruitment marketing industry is best depicted as an ever-changing landscape. In the first half of 2016 alone we’ve seen a number of significant shifts to our space that we believe are quite noteworthy.
Therefore, to cap off the close of Q2 and welcome in the second half of 2016, we put together the following recap of some of this year’s biggest stories thus far:
- Job boards and aggregators continue to optimize the candidate experience for staffing:
Today, recruitment--and most importantly, the job search--occur primarily, if not entirely, online. Therefore, job boards and aggregators have worked to continuously optimize their candidate experience. To accomplish this, employment websites have begun altering their algorithms to return better results for candidates, streamline their experience and create return visitors. If this sounds similar to Google’s frequent algorithm updates that often shakeup search results, it should, because it’s a direct parallel to what we’ve seen in recruitment marketing. This has made the job search more efficient, engaging and meaningful for candidates, which helps companies find better hires. However, this has also changed the way staffing companies do business with these employment sites, as many of the top job search providers have limited where staffing company jobs can be posted. As a result, staffing companies have had to begin digging into their recruitment data to better understand which sources are still providing valuable traffic and where they may need to find supplemental candidate traffic to maintain a steady flow of applicants and pipeline.
- Recruit, Indeed’s parent company, acquires SimplyHired:
News that SimplyHired would be shutting their doors ripped through the recruitment marketing space like wildfire, as many wondered what might happen to the industry once the second largest job aggregator closed down. It was tough news to digest, for sure, as SimplyHired not only provided high quality traffic and leads for many hiring companies, but it also marked the end of partnerships that were made valuable by SimplyHired’s commitment to providing a better recruitment experience for all parties involved. With that said, many may have noticed that simplyhired.com is still up and operating. Recruit says that they will use SimplyHired’s technology to provide even greater traffic and quality leads to Indeed customers--allowing the job search giant to continue to fulfill SimplyHired’s important mission of connecting great talent with great organizations. As a result, Indeed customers should expect even better traffic and results from their spend with the company, or at the very least new options to improve upon their current recruitment marketing strategies. And, with more quality traffic funneling to open positions than ever before, we can also expect an uptick in the number of talent acquisition professionals investing in recruitment marketing analytics that can help them better understand where spend is being allocated and how they can get the most out of this new Indeed/SimplyHired partnership.
- Microsoft enters the space as it acquires LinkedIn:Did we mention that the first half of 2016 was a gold mine of big news for the recruitment marketing industry? As if Recruit’s acquisition of SimplyHired wasn’t enough, Microsoft also decided to make waves with their recent purchase of LinkedIn. However, while it’s easy to see how the Recruit/SimplyHired deal will benefit hiring companies and job seekers alike, many are still speculating on Microsoft’s motivations. Whatever they might be, it’s easy to see that Microsoft is similarly interested in providing an even greater quality experience for the recruitment space. One interesting hypothesis industry thought leaders have proposed, and one we agree would be greatly beneficial for the industry, is the idea that Microsoft might use LinkedIn’s robust catalogue of job candidates in conjunction with their Bing search engine. Doing so, could potentially create a one-stop-shop, so to speak, for anyone interested in locating an individual. Think Google, but for people. If this hypothesis were to be proven true, it would certainly send waves throughout the recruitment marketing space, and would present new challenges for talent acquisition professionals, as new media buying opportunities would open up rapidly, and the way online recruitment is currently conducted could see a significant shift. Regardless of the aftermath of such a change, one thing is for certain: the need for recruitment marketing analytics and the ability to see source- and job-level data will be greater than ever. This is because, as new media buying opportunities present themselves, talent acquisition professionals will need to find ways to become more efficient within their current strategies in order to free up budget for new initiatives.
- Monster purchases Jobr mobile job search app:Jobr launched in May 2014 as an app with an interesting angle: creating a job search experience similar to Tinder. Tinder, of course, is the online dating app that made headlines with it’s simply “Swipe right if interested, swipe left if not,” approach. Similarly, Jobr presents job seekers with an open position that matches their skills and interests, and allows them to engage with the job posting with a simple swipe in one direction or the other. Monster, seeing the tremendous potential in this different way of looking at recruitment marketing, decided to swipe right on Jobr. With Monster’s support and backing, Jobr will now have greater budgets for marketing and customer acquisition efforts, meaning hiring companies should expect to see traffic significantly increase to the app--and we believe a jump as large as 5-times the traffic is possible. Furthermore, with the backing of an employment website the size of, and with the reputation of Monster, an international launch of the app is all but an inevitability. Finally, and possibly most interesting about this acquisition, is the fact that the Jobr app primarily targets mobile app users, the majority of which fall into the millennial generation. Monster, then, may have found a new secret weapon in targeting the number one demographic on every business and industries acquisition list.
- Snagajob and PeopleMatter join forces in what could come to define the Gig Economy:Snagajob, a leading hourly job search engine, and PeopleMatter, a leading hourly talent management provider, recently joined forces. The result, as many experts agree, could change the face of the Gig Economy. In this partnership, the two recruitment organizations have amassed a database of more than 70 million hourly workers that businesses can choose from through a self-service option. And the results are sure to be impressive, as the duo is already boasting more than 250,000 active employees--hourly workers who have found employment through their websites. This will give Gig Economy companies yet another avenue to find traffic and leads for their open positions, allowing them to better diversify their recruitment marketing strategies, and therefore more efficiently reach their goals.
While these five headlines are what defined the first half of 2016 in the recruitment marketing space, they just barely scratch the surface of all that’s happening in this ever-changing landscape. With that said, the biggest news from the first two quarters all point toward one telling trend: that it’s more important than ever before to have a diverse recruitment marketing strategy in place.
By diversifying your strategy, you protect yourself against inevitable shifts in the industry, all while creating the greatest amount of traffic and qualified leads to your open positions. Of course, diversifying a recruitment marketing strategy can come at a high cost, which is why it is also paramount that talent acquisition professionals analyze and optimize their efforts constantly.
A tool like Recruitics Analytics can give you access to source- and job-level data, allowing you to better understand where your recruitment dollars are being spent, identify deficiencies in your current efforts, more confidently diversify your strategy and allow you to more easily cut wasted spend from it. Sign up for a demo today to learn more.
