Applicant Tracking Systems are being tested during this economic recession.  There are two things causing this:

1. More displaced jobseekers looking for work
2. Technology’s impact on making it easy to apply for jobs online

Employers that do not have an ATS in place right now, probably wish they did.  If you are an employer who has ‘real’ jobs, applicants are in abundance right now. Employers who used to see 10-20 qualified applicants per job req are now seeing 100-200.  This increased volume tests the strength of any applicant tracking system. 

Let me share a story from the last time we had a spike in application activity (post September 11):

Back in the late 1990s we were pioneering the online job board space.  We encouraged all of our clients to register their own URL in the shape of CompanyJobs.com.  We were building these out on the back-end of the job board technology we were working with at the time. 

Now, in the late 1990s – it was a job seeker’s job market.  The unemployment level was low and employers were struggling to meet their targeted applicant-to-hire ratios.  So we were tasked with increasing that – and more importantly, increasing it with qualified applicants.  And obviously, the Internet provided us the level of success our clients were looking for. 

At this time, very few applicant tracking systems existed.  In fact the only one really being used in Las Vegas was a DOS-based system that a buddy of mine built out for Arte Nathan when they were opening up the Bellagio.  MGM-Mirage now owned the technology and it was in use with a few of their properties, but not very efficient.  It was developed in DOS and really designed for single property use….. not the portfolio of casinos that MGM-Mirage was using it for.  The level of sophistication that we have in an ATS today just did not exist then. 

Our ad agency at the time was working with the majority of properties up and down the Strip.  Boyd Gaming was one of the first properties to launch a network of employment related URLs with BoydJobs.com, SamsTownJobs.com, etc.  Their applicant flow was tracking very nicely until September 11, 2001 hit.  As all of the other cut their workforces, Boyd held steady and actually had jobs to offer. 

Needless to say, jobseekers flocked to Boyd Gaming.  Applicant flow almost became uncontrollable.  And Boyd wished they had an applicant tracking system at the time. 

Fast forward to today….nearly every casino on the Strip has an applicant tracking system.  And we are facing more trying times than we did post 9-11.  Applicant flow is higher than it has ever been.  So how is your ATS holding up?  I am interested to learn.

I have been critical about Applicant Tracking Systems in previous posts, with the primary criticism being that their primary purpose is to ‘track’ applicants – hence the name Applicant Tracking System.  But if the applicant “source” is not properly gathered and stored, the ’source of hire’ can not legitimately measured.  And if an employer relies on the applicants’ self selection of the source, we have learned this is often 80% wrong.

Now, what I have not done a good job of (my apologies to the ATS folks that are doing a good job) is talking about the benefits of using an ATS when proper applicant source identification is made.  When an applicant is properly tagged to a source, the true success of that source can be measured. 

When this ‘tagging’ method is automated, as it can be, employers are able to ‘test’ the waters of various advertising outlets and effectively track each media outlets effectiveness.  Now…..this adds huge value.  The ATS can now measure items such as:

• Cost per exposure
• Cost per interest
• Cost per applicant
• Conversion ratio per source
• Time to convert
• Cost per hire

Now this is what an Applicant Tracking System should be doing.   

Recently I have had several requests about Applicant Tracking Systems.  I thought it would be best to simply provide a list of them in a blog post.  These are in alphabetical order to keep is easy. Each has different features that may, or may not, apply to your particular industry. 

Authoria Recruiting                         www.authoria.com
First Advantage                              www.fadv.com/employer
Hire Desk                                       www.talenttech.com
HodesiQ                                         www.hodesiq.com
Hrsmart Recruiting Management        www.hrsmart.com
Irecruiter                                        www.icims.com
Kenexa                                          www.Kenexa.com
Konos Workforce Acquistion            http://talent.kronos.com
OpenHire                                       www.silkroad.com
Oracle  iRecruitment                       www.oracle.com
Peoplesoft                                     www.oracle.com
SAP E-Recruiting                            www.sap.com
Smart Search                                www.smartsearchonline.com
Sonic Recruit                                 www.Sonicrecriut.com
Success Factors                            www.successfactors.com
Taleo                                           www.taleo.com
VirtualEdge                                   www.adp.com
Workstream Recruitment                www.Workstreaminc.com

We often talk about ‘tight’ labor markets and the need to drive applicants in order to source the best candidates.  And many HR departments measure the success of an advertising medium on the applicant volume thinking that if they source enough applicants, they are sure to find good candidates and ultimately make a quality hire. 

In Nevada, we rarely have the opportunity (which is a good thing) to talk about ‘loose’ labor markets where there are an abundance of not only unqualified, but qualified, candidates in the talent pool.  During this time, we need to adjust some of our measurement tools to pay more attention on the quality of the ‘hire’ and not the volume of applicants.  We know the volume will be there for some time and there will not be an abundance of Nevada jobs. 

Quality of Hire is surely the best recruitment metric to measure.  Now is the time to perfect this process. 

Two of the larger Applicant Tracking System providers in Las Vegas recently merged.  Publicly traded Taleo bought Vurv Technology for some $128 million. 

Vurv entered the Las Vegas marketplace through some health care clients (St. Rose Dominican Hospitals) many years back when they were known as RecruitMax.  They strengthened their position in the marketplace when they partnered with Arte Nathan to develop the ATS that allowed Wynn Las Vegas to open. 

Taleo strengthened its position in the Las Vegas marketplace through the acquisition of JobFlash who has been battling it out on the Las Vegas Strip with HRLogix.  HRLogix was acquired by First Advantage a ways back. 

All things considered, it is interesting to watch Las Vegas as the accelerator.  With the massive amount on jobs in Las Vegas being created each year, it is no wonder this is the battle ground for Applicant Tracking Systems.

Each year, WEDDLE’s analyzes the data supplied by visitors to its Web-site who answer a questionnaire that explores both their online and real world experience either in recruiting talent or finding a new or better job. We question recruiters to determine which sourcing techniques work best, and we question job seekers to determine how they found their last job and expect to find their next one. The results of the latter questionnaire provide what we call our annual Source of Employment Survey.

Unlike traditional “source of hire” polls, the WEDDLE’s Source of Employment Survey collects data from individuals who are actually in the workforce and actively or passively looking for an alternative employment opportunity. It has the following advantages:

• The Source of Employment Survey collects information directly from the individuals who have found employment during the survey period. Source of hire polls, in contrast, collect information from recruiters and employers who must rely on notoriously inaccurate data collection technology-their applicant tracking systems-to determine where new hires first learned about their position.
• The Source of Employment Survey generates findings based on primary rather than secondary data. Source of hire polls, in contrast, average information collected across multiple organizations which can reduce the visibility of key factors and even eliminate important exceptions to the general rule among the findings.

WEDDLE’s 2008 Source of Employment Survey ran from March 2007 to March 2008 and generated responses from over 15,600 individuals. The respondents were 65% male, 35% female; they had a median age of 40-45, and they described their workplace experience level as follows:

• 19.0% were managers,
• 16.7% were mid-level professionals,
• 15.5% were executives,
• 15.1% were senior-level professionals,
• 12.3% were entry-level professionals,
• 11.0% were skilled tradespersons, and
• 10.4% were administrative persons.

When asked to describe their employment situation,

• 25.1% said they were currently employed, but actively looking for another job;
• 22.6% said they were not currently employed and actively seeking a new job;
• 20.9% said they were currently employed and thinking about make a job change this year;
• 15.7% said they were reentering the job market after a prolonged absence (2+ years); and
• 15.7% said they were employed and not planning to leave their current employer.

Where Did Survey Respondents Find Their Last Job

When asked to identify where they found their last job, the respondents listed the following sources as their top ten (not all sources are listed so the percentages will not total to 100%):

• 13.3% An ad posted on an Internet job board
• 7.0% A tip from a friend
• 6.8% Other
• 6.3% A newspaper ad
• 6.2% They posted their resume on a job board
• 6.0% A call from a headhunter
• 5.8% They were referred by an employee of the company
• 5.2% They sent a resume to the company
• 4.9% At a career fair
• 4.8% By networking at work.

How do these findings compare to those of a year ago? An ad posted on an Internet job board was the highest ranked source last year, as well, but the percentage of respondents citing this source has almost doubled; it was 7.6% in 2007 compared to 13.3% in 2008. A tip from a friend was the second most cited source in 2007, as it was this year, but the third and fourth most cited sources in 2007-career fairs and a call from a headhunter-both dropped a bit in the rankings. Newspapers, on the other hand, gained a notch ,moving from the fifth most cited source in 2007 to the fourth most cited source in 2008, and the percentage of respondents citing newspapers went up , as well (from 5.7% in 2007 to 6.3% in 2008).

What else did the survey uncover? Respondents gave a thumbs-down to two sources of employment that have generally been viewed more favorably by recruiters. Just 3.9% of the individuals in the poll said they found their last job:

• through the publication of their professional association, or
• on a social networking site.

Traditionally, associations have charged a premium fee for recruitment ads in their publications, and these findings, at least, suggest that those fees may not be completely justified. And, all of the brouhaha of late about the recruiting power of Facebook, Friendster, Xanga and other social networking sites appears to be more sound than fury, at least if the measure of merit is the number of jobs they actually help to fill.

Where Will Survey Respondents Look for Their Next Job

When asked to indicate where they expect to find their next job, the respondents cited the following top five sources (not all sources are listed so the percentages will not total to 100%):

• 19.0% said an ad posted on an Internet job board
• 7.9% said posting their resume on a job board
• 5.8% said sending their resume into the company
• 5.6% said a call from a headhunter
• 4.9% said by networking at work.

The top five sources in 2007 were:

• An ad posted on an Internet job board (cited by 13.2% of respondents)
• Posting a resume on a job board
• Sending a resume into the company
• A tip from a family member
• A tip from a friend.

So, what does all of this mean? First, there is no silver bullet for sourcing top talent. Online resources are clearly effective, but they must be integrated with a range of other approaches to produce a truly effective recruitment strategy. And second, beware conventional wisdom. Not only do newspapers continue to offer effective connections to talent-despite much media blather to the contrary-but association publications and social networking sites are much less effective than other talent acquisition methods, despite all of the support they have had in the past and present. Anyway, that’s my take.

Thanks for reading,
Peter

Written By Peter Weddle, Weddles 

How are people finding jobs? It’s an important question, of course, because answering it correctly enables you to make smart decisions when selecting recruitment advertising venues and, as a result, upgrade the quality of the candidates you are able to recruit.

Traditional “source of hire” surveys turn to us, the recruiters who interact with job candidates, to answer the question. It’s a reasonable approach, I guess, but one that has at least two serious problems:

• First, we rely on our applicant tracking systems and the data they collect from candidates to provide the answer. Many of these systems, however, force candidates to identify their source of information about an opening by selecting from an often incomplete and out-of-date list and thus are notoriously inaccurate.
• Second, source of hire surveys normally sample a very small population of employers and collect the data they report as averages. They then establish an overall set of results by averaging the employers’ averages, an approach which can overemphasize data trends and minimize important data anomalies.

To avoid these deficiencies, we at WEDDLE’s launched a Source of Employment Survey last year. This study has the following benefits:

• First, it acquires information directly from working men and women. As a consequence, it avoids the distorting filter of applicant tracking systems and the inaccuracies of their data.
• Second, it samples a huge population. WEDDLE’s 2007 report is based on responses from over 11,500 people. The data were collected between January 1, 2007 and July 31, 2007 at the WEDDLE’s Web-site, www.weddles.com. 

Our 2007 survey confirmed some previously reported trends and yielded a couple of interesting surprises. As shown below, the five largest sources of new employees were online job boards, staffing and executive search firms, tips from friends and family members, networking in a business context, and two methods that have been pooh-poohed recently by the cognoscenti of employment: career fairs and newspapers.

• The #1 source of employment: answering ads and posting a resume on job boards, reported by 13.22% of respondents;
• The #2 source of employment: a call from a headhunter or staffing firm, reported by 11.3% of respondents;
• The #3 source of employment: a tip from a friend or family member, reported by 11.1% of respondents;
• The #4 source of employment: networking at work or at a business event, reported by 10.5% of respondents;
• The #5 source of employment: a virtual tie between career fairs and answering an ad in a newspaper, reported by 5.8% of respondents.

As you can see, these five sources accounted for almost six out of ten (57.7%) of the positions that people took during their last job search.

What were the least helpful sources of employment, as reported by our survey respondents? Beginning with the least effective, they were:

• Networking at a social event;
• Answering an ad in a publication of their professional association;
• Using a social networking site;
• Sending a resume directly to an employer; and
• Responding to a notice posted in a store.

What can we learn from these results?

• First, while social networking sites and social networking, in general, obviously have their benefits, one of them is clearly not finding a job or, by extension, connecting us with viable employment prospects.
• Second, while associations serve a number of important functions, many are apparently not meeting the employment needs of their members and, by extension, our requirements in recruiting.
• third, many of our own employers aren’t faring much better.

In a War for Talent, such crude recruiting tactics as placing placards in a window are the functional equivalent of using a bow and arrow. Equally as important, the technology we’ve deployed to fight that war-those applicant tracking systems so many of our organizations have purchased-are letting us down. They’ve created a black hole experience out of resume submission that turns off and turns away the best and brightest.

What should we do about these findings? I have the following suggestions:

• Devote more time to online or e-networking. This activity enables you to leverage the job seeker’s confidence in networking while capitalizing on the productivity benefits you can achieve online. I’m not suggesting that you forego traditional telephonic and face-to-face networking, but rather that you augment those more labor- and time-intensive methods with the Web’s capacity for efficient mass 1:1 relationship building.
• Invest in multimedia advertising. Regardless of what you may have heard about the demise of newspaper advertising, it’s clear that job seekers still turn to that medium as a trusted and useful source of employment. You can capitalize on that view by creating relatively inexpensive “teaser” classified ads that connect job seekers to more fulsome and persuasive job postings online. However, don’t make candidates laboriously search a job database (on your own corporate site or on a commercial job board) to find the opening in which they’re interested. Instead, include an alphanumeric code in your print ad that will return the exact job they want to see and do so without any effort on their part.
• Expect more out of your applicant tacking system. Re-read the text that’s included in your system’s auto-responder. If it’s something only a lawyer could love, change it so that it reflects the attributes of your employment brand and delivers the courtesy and respect that applicants deserve. Also check the functionality the system is using to identify the source of candidates. Some of the better systems are now using a form of tagging, but most still rely on simple drop down windows with a list of options for job seekers to select. If that’s what your vendor is providing, make sure its list is up-to-date and that the vendor has an effective way to help you keep it that way.

The WEDDLE’s Source of Employment Survey will be reported here in my newsletter each year in September. We hope it helps you to maximize the return you achieve on your investment of recruiting time, effort and advertising money in the War for the Best Talent.

Thanks for reading,
Peter

Sign up to receive Peter’s free newsletter here.

A lot of attention has recently been placed on the ineffectiveness of many Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), and their ability to track the ’source’ of the hire.  Employers spend thousands, sometimes tens or hundreds of thousands, on a sophisticated ATS.  Then discover that the ATS does not “Track” the source.  It simply allows the user (jobseeker) to self-select, which four times out of five, they do wrong.

Then an employer is asked to make buying decisions, specifically in the area of recruitment advertising, based upon the wrong data they are analyzing. 

A recent article in Workforce Magazine digs into this problem area and the problems it is causing in the strategic planning process.  It is well worth the read.  You can vie it here:

Talent Acquisition: Where’d They Come From?

To read the White Paper referenced, you can download it here.

In 1999 we pioneered the concept of hosted career centers in Las Vegas.  We managed career centers for the likes of Burger King, Boyd Gaming and Valley Health System.  At the time, they made sense.  IT departments did not provide HR assistance in the development of an online presence and Applicant Tracking Systems were not yet heard of.  Career Centers provided HR departments the ability to easily manage their online presence and maintain their online job postings without any technical assistance.  (Read more about this in a previous post)

Today – when I see a ‘hosted’ career center I cringe.  Why?

1. The ‘hosted’ solution provider is typically a job board who’s primary business is to attract applicants for a multitude of clients.
2. They raise their prices/rate card based upon the number of resumes in their database.
3. The job board also sells resume database access to other employers and third party recruiters, both staffing firms and retained/contingent recruiters.
4. As your company promotes your employment brand and sends applicants to your corporate website to apply, they will be uploading their resume into the job board – not just your application bin.

Congratulations, your recruitment advertising and marketing dollars just cost you more money and benefited your competition.  How, do you say? 

Imagine these scenarios: 

1. You are at a career fair and find the ideal candidate.  You ask him or her to apply online.
2. You place an ad in an industry specific magazine that reaches a hidden talent pool.  These candidates are directed to apply on your website. 
3. A loyal customer is visiting your company website and sees that you have a ‘careers’ section.  Visits it, sees the perfect job and applies.
4. A new graduate is searching and learning about all companies within your industry.  Visits your career center, finds a great opportunity and applies.
5. A top employee is chatting with friends over the weekend and shares the fact that your company has job openings. Several go online and apply. 

Now – because your website is hosted by a public job board.  Those candidate resumes  are uploaded into the job board’s resume database because it is a ‘hosted’ solution.   From that, a copy of that candidates resume is then put in your in-box.  However, a copy of the resume is now in the general resume database.

Your competitor down the street, a staffing agency used by you and/or your competitor and the contingent/retained recruiter you and/or your competitor use – all have purchased resume database access to the same job board.

Each has established a search agent that is scheduled to run daily for all new candidates with the same skills as your new applicant.  They are immediately notified of your applicant and sent a copy of their resume.

Sadly – It was your advertising dollar (from the career fair, employee referral program, niche market advertising, or general marketing) that attracted the candidate into the resume database for all of your competitors to gain access to. 

Do hosted Career Centers make sense?  I don’t think so.  The only way that it could is if the provider of your ‘hosted’ career center does not allow resume database access or has somehow developed the software to allow you to build private applicant pools. 

DISCLOSURE:  Recruiting Nevada has never allowed any level of resume database access, therefore never violating the privacy of its’ clients applicants. 

As mergers and acquisitions in every industry becoming popular, the concept of centralized sourcing just makes sense.  Typically all of the working entities and business units fall under one ultimate brand, although each may maintain its’ own identity.  That one brand is where the largest investment is usually made.

Because each department or business unit has a unique culture and workplace environment, does not mean that they must manage their own applicant tracking system.  This just duplicates a business process and many times creates problems with the sharing of any data.  Each entity should however have a strategy to manage their own candidate talent pool and ability reach out to that talent pool each time they have a job opening that is relevant.

The ‘power’ of the corporate brand carries a lot of weight.  More importantly, it allows a centralized HR department to source candidates using the strength of that brand in non-traditional mediums to build a larger candidate base for the whole.  An example of that would be networking in professional associations.  If a corporate HR representative is attending an event and meets a highly qualified candidate – there should be only one place to send that candidate, rather than multiple.  It eases the application process and provides a better experience for the talent you are trying to attract.

If the company is using a sophisticated applicant tracking system, the process is very easy.  If not, a simple excel spreadsheet will do the job many times if all you want to do is notify the candidate pool of a recently opened job req.