Marketing 101 for Recruiting: A Paradigm Shift
APQC’s and Kennedy’s joint benchmarking effort has uncovered a surprising finding concerning what recruiters fail to do. The “Recruit, Source, and Select Employees” benchmarking survey, part of APQC’s Open Standards Benchmarking CollaborativeSM (OSBC) initiative, helps organizations systematically and holistically measure their recruiting performance. In this third and final article for Kennedy customers, we discuss a surprising observation from the survey results.
(Benchmarking results represent a snapshot in time of the data; OSBC data will continually update as additional participants complete the benchmarking survey. Visit www.apqc.org/kennedy to take the survey and receive a complimentary benchmarking results report.)
What Are Recruiting Functions Not Doing?
In recognition that recruiting is ultimately a marketing function with huge impact on the employment brand, APQC recently added the following question to the “Recruit, Source, and Select Employees” survey: Does your business entity measure new-hire satisfaction with the recruiting experience? Surprisingly, 82 percent of the almost 90 respondents to this new question indicated they do not.
This is an opportunity for recruiting functions to shift from an internally focused model to one that considers the external customer experience and its impact on the overall corporate image in the marketplace.
The Fundamental Difference between Sales and Marketing
With the pressure to fill open positions quickly in order to minimize lost opportunity costs and meet promised organizational revenue and customer service targets, it is tempting for the recruiting function to liken itself to a sales function. A refresher on basic sales concepts reminds us that “selling focuses on the needs of the seller and the need to convert product to cash .” In other words, selling is very internally focused, with the recruiting function primarily focused on the organization’s needs and how to fill those needs as fast as possible by hiring qualified employees. However, with this philosophy of recruiting, an organization is not necessarily thinking externally to the needs of its external customer, the candidates themselves, and their experience with the organization (whether or not ultimately hired).
In such cases, a paradigm shift from viewing recruiting as a sales function to acting as if it were a marketing function is needed. The difference between sales and marketing in this context is that “marketing focuses on the needs of the buyer and the need to satisfy the customer through the products produced1.” In the marketing paradigm, recruiting is focused on the candidate experience while also working to satisfy the internal business partner. Rather than selling a product to potential customers, recruiting is selling the organization to potential employees. The candidate experience has a huge impact on the company’s employment brand. Recruiting and recruiters have a very tactical role in making sure that each interaction with the candidates and their overall experience with the organization are positive and fulfill the key tenets of the employer’s brand promise.
Instill a Strong, Consistent Employment Brand
Findings from APQC’s Best-Practice Report Recruiting, Selecting, and Retaining Talent exemplify the marketing approach to recruiting. Two related findings from this study are the importance of effective recruiting to instill a strong, consistent employment brand and the importance of building relationships with potential employees.
The five best-practice organizations benchmarked in that study all focused on talent branding. These internal and external efforts compound over time to attract high-quality candidates. Most importantly, strong branding initiatives help to ensure that candidates accurately understand the organization and will support its primary business objectives and values. For example, Microsoft’s staffing marketing team develops specific strategies to target various candidate audiences. For each audience segment, the team conducts research to identify the perceived pros and cons of working at Microsoft and then develops a candidate value proposition framework outlining its message and opportunities. For example, campus recruiting developed a candidate value proposition that centers on options in order to appeal to recent college graduates. The campaign was based on research showing that students are attracted to the varying roles and multiple career paths available within Microsoft. Thus, the campaign communicates how an individual can focus on different products or types of work within the organization while moving from role to role. This campaign has been highly successful in softening Microsoft’s image and appealing to today’s students.
Create a Strong Candidate Experience
The Recruiting, Selecting, and Retaining Talent best-practice organizations also acquire top performers by ensuring a positive recruitment experience through regular communication from a consistent point of contact that is knowledgeable about the organization and the open position. This relationship enables the study partners to achieve above-average acceptance rates. As stated by the assistant vice president of strategic staffing at Lincoln Financial Group: “If you look at our acceptance rate, we’re running an average of 90 percent. And much of that is due to the recruiter’s involvement in the staffing and selection process. The candidate knows the process and knows what’s coming to him, so the recruiter can manage that accordingly.”
Booz Allen Hamilton’s leadership believes that the most important responsibility of the recruiting function is to ensure candidates have the best experience possible. The organization has found that candidate experience affects both its acceptance rate and its retention rate. Booz Allen research shows that in a competitive labor market, employees expect to have a positive experience from the first day of work. This is especially important in Booz Allen’s “comeback kids” program, which encourages ex-employees to return.
The Booz Allen’s recruiting function is organized into four key service areas to support the candidate experience: client-facing teams, the global sourcing organization, the recruiting management office, and special teams. Client-facing teams are responsible for client management, candidate management, and the overall recruiting strategy for the organization. These teams focus on the development of innovative and creative recruiting strategies to meet the business needs of internal clients. For example, within its global government function, each recruiter is aligned to a specific function and is responsible for understanding that business. In addition, client-facing teams must be strategically focused on the recruiting needs of the business.
In a final example, Textron also exemplifies a strong focus on the candidate experience by communicating with candidates throughout every step of the recruitment process, including those candidates not selected. Candidates can view the status of their applications online at any point and receive e-mail alerts. Both the selected and the unselected candidates are surveyed to determine their satisfaction with the hiring process; the results of these surveys are used to drive improvements.
With the pressure on recruiters to deliver quickly and meet internal customers’ expectations, it is not surprising that many recruiting functions operate under a sales – instead of marketing, framework. However, recruiters are important ambassadors of the overall corporate brand in the marketplace. As such, they should evaluate monitor and measure the candidate experience to ensure they are perceived as an employer of choice.
Article by Rachelle Williams and Lawson Arnett and courtesy of Kenndy Information Recruiting Trends providing leading edge insights and strategies for the recruiting professional
