Samara Parker

We are very lucky to be living in an age where we have access to such a wealth of information.

Big data is all around us and, when used wisely, it can enrich our lives and our work.

When it comes to social recruitment, the information at our fingertips can help you navigate the vast world of social media in order to build effective strategies by better understanding the candidates that you wish to attract.

We’ve poured over the latest research on social recruiting and job seekers to find the most salient data points to share with you, our readers. And, in case the numbers alone fail to inspire you, we’ve also including some insight as to how each one of these powerful statistics can help guide your social recruiting efforts.

73% of 18-34 year olds found their last job through a social network. (Source: Aberdeen Group)

By 2020, less than 5 years from now, Gen Y will make up 50% of the workforce.

According to this stat, that means almost 50% of the workforce will be using social media as a key part of their job search.

Millennials grew up online and they spend most of their waking hours plugged into social media (an average of 9.5 per day), so it makes perfect sense that they would turn to social networks in their job search.

If you want to reach them, or at least make it easy for them to reach you, then you’ll need a social employer brand and recruitment strategy.

 59% of recruiters rated candidates sourced from social networks as “highest quality.” (Source: Jobvite)

Yet another reason to get social with your recruiting.

Gen Y isn’t the only generation on Facebook, 80% of Gen Xers and 70% of Boomers are also active on the social network. So, if you are looking for a way to recruit the best quality candidates, then social media is the way to go!

3 in 5 job seekers have used their mobile device to look for a job in the past year. (Source: Glassdoor)

If your career site isn’t already mobile-friendly, then it’s time to make a change.

If not, you risk losing out on over half of your potential candidates.

Even if you aren’t ready to make your application process mobile, you should at least make it easy for candidates to view, save, and share your job opening from any device.

(Learn how the Jobcast Jobs Widget can make your application process mobile.)

94% of recruiters are active on LinkedIn, but only 36% of candidates are. Job seekers, by a wide margin, prefer Facebook; with 83% reporting they are active there, compared to just 65% of recruiters. (Source: Jobvite)

This stat does not necessarily mean that you need to make Facebook your number one choice for social recruiting.

What it does is emphasize the importance of knowing your audience.

Social recruitment strategies aren’t all that different from any recruitment strategy in that the end goal is to reach the largest number of qualified candidates possible.

The best way to do this is by figuring out where those candidates spend their time. Do some research and run some test campaigns to learn where your candidates live online and tailor your social recruitment strategy to match your findings.

Content containing images attract 94% more total views than content without images. (Source: Heidi Cohen)

No matter which social networks you choose to focus on, you must share visual content. Even on your company blog and career site.

Visual content is highly engaging, increases social sharing, and captures job seekers attention immediately.

A successful social recruiting strategy is a visually compelling one. Always.

 73% of recruiters said that to compete against other employers they highlight company culture. (Source: Jobvite)

This is especially important for companies looking to improve their recruitment of millennials who value company culture more than any other generation.

Unemployment is way down and the competition for talent is at an all-time high. To win the war for talent, a strong employer brand is the best weapon in most companies’ arsenals… Unless those companies are in the Fortune 500, then an obscenely large paycheque is tops.

For those of you not able to offer staggering salaries, focusing on growing an attractive employer brand is the way to go!

Videos are shared 12x more than text and link posts combined. (Source: Sprout Social)

Sprout Social’s research shows that sharing video as a part of your content strategy is great.

Combine this info with the previous stat from Jobvite about the importance of employer branding and I think that we can all agree that sharing a recruitment video is even better.

The takeaway is clear. Whenever possible, make a recruitment video!

Share that recruitment video on all of your social networks, you career site, and even via email. Use that recruitment video to express your company culture, thereby making it a potent employer branding tool.

Your video does not have to be perfect, but it does have to be a reflection of what makes your company awesome and highlight your best employees.

(Learn more about social recruitment with video.)

21% of candidates say they found their favourite or best job through a social network. (Source: Jobvite)

This one’s my favourite! 21% may not seem huge, but what is huge is the potential for growth that it represents.

If 21% of candidates found their best job through social media, then chances are they will continue to use social as a key part of their job search.

Chances are that they will talk to their friends about how great their job is and how they found that job.

Chances are that their friends will try using social media in their next job search.

And chances are social recruiting will just keep on getting bigger and bigger.

Until, the time when the Internet is replaced by some crazy new technology that our current brains cannot even fathom.

But we’ve got at least a couple of years until we have to start worrying about post internet recruitment, so until then just focus on that recruitment video and staying social!

I have never been asked a quirky interview question. Not a single one! I’d like to think that if I was I would be able to fire back with a witty answer, but after reading through Glass Door’s list of the strange questions job seekers get asked… I’m not sure how I would fair when faced with the quirkier side of human resources.

The questions, gathered from companies in the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, and France, range from the unusually specific: “Can you calculate how many tennis balls are used during the course of Wimbledon?” – Accenture Analyst job candidate. To the downright weird: "Is batman a super hero?" – AlphaSights. Check out the rest of the questions on the Glassdoor blog.

Top Oddball Interview Questions of 2015 – Glassdoor Another equally interesting, yet admittedly less funny study released this week covers the use of analytics to explain the effect of social media marketing on branding.

You Know Social Media Is Advancing Your Brand—Now Prove It! -  Conference Board of Canada This new research from the Conference Board of Canada is helpful for anyone who needs to distill and edit data to clearly demonstrate the impact of social media on their business. A great read for anyone looking to improve their social recruiting.

Recruiters – It’s Time to Embrace Your Inner Troll! - Joshua Jones Joshua Jones explains how human resources can source passive candidates and gain insight into competitors’ employer brands by trolling with a new app called Canary.

Facebook’s Ad Images Checklist - David Cohen A cheat sheet to help you choose what images to use for your Facebook recruitment adds.

7 Cringe Worthy Crimes LinkedIn Users Make – Marisa Sanfilippo Are you making any of these LinkedIn blunders? I was definitely guilty of number 3 when I first joined the network!

#1 Secret To Being A Savvy Recruiter - Careeralism I was shocked to learn that the answer is not providing candidates with delicious snacks. According to Careeralism the secret to great recruiting has more to do with the way that you communicate with job seekers than feeding them!

Bonus link because I care about your general happiness as well as your hiring process:

10 Habits That Will Make You Happy Today (Even if Life Isn’t Going Your Way) – Alexander Heyne I’ve implemented some of these tips already and highly recommend the article. Happy link loving!

I have never applied for a job via mobile, but the last time I was looking for work Swype Keyboard did not exist, so what do I know?! Personal experience aside, mobile is one of the biggest trends in recruitment. We all know the importance of having a mobile-friendly career site and companies all over the world are investing top dollar in making their application process mobile. The results are mixed. Chipotle recently launched a mobile recruiting app and they’ve seen great results.

Now You Can Apply at Chipotle with Your Mobile Device According to this press release, within one month of launching their app, Chipotle has received 5, 000 applications via mobile (approximately 20% of their total application volume.) Chipotle is a massive brand with a younger talent pool. Their success with mobile recruitment is not necessarily representative of the average employer. That’s where this next article comes in handy.

Mobile Recruiting - You Need It, But Results May Vary... – By Kris Dunn When Kris ran two months of mobile recruitment numbers for his company Kinetix he found that less than 1% of their applications came from mobile. Kris still believes that having a mobile recruitment strategy is essential, but you’ll have to read his article to learn why!

How Recruiters and Job Seekers Use Social Media - From Career Glider More stats on mobile recruiting, as well as social recruiting and candidate behaviour presented in a beautiful infographic.

A Conversation: Top Influencers in HR And Recruiting - By Paul DeBettignies

A fantastic exploration of the use, importance, and accuracy of influencer lists. Read the comments and contribute yourself to get the most out of Paul’s piece.

Why Your Employees Are Leaving (and How You Can Win Them Back) - By John Ruhlin I certainly hope that your employees aren’t jumping ship on mass, but if they are, then John’s blog post is just what the doctor ordered!

5 Stages of the Human Resources Life Cycle in Need of Improvement - Margaret Jacoby A simple, but wonderfully written article about the cyclical nature of recruitment and how a few small changes can improve the process for everyone. Enjoy these links and rest of your week! Oh and just in case you haven’t already, check out our white paper to Learn the Basics of Facebook Recruiting.

It was International Women’s Day this past Sunday.

I celebrated by going to see Focus starring Will Smith and eating a large tub of popcorn.

This was not very feminist of me considering that this film does not even come close to passing the Bechdel test.

To make up for this crime against my gender, today’s blog post is dedicated to women in the workforce, more specifically the importance of getting more women into the workforce.

The case for hiring women is not just about equal rights. It is about doing better business. – Click to Tweet

In the last decade, research has proved that there is a significant financial and strategic benefit to hiring and promoting more women.

Here’s what the data shows:

• According to a study from Carnegie Mellon, teams with at least one female member have a higher collective IQ than all-male teams.

• ABI’s report, The Case for Investing in Women, showed that Fortune 500 companies with at least three female directors see their return on invested capital increase by at least 66%.

• Gallup found that teams that included more women had a 22% lower rate of turnover.

• And, in a study by Credit Suisse, companies with at least one woman on the board outperformed companies with no women on their boards by 26 percent!

Having a diverse team, that includes a significant number of women in key roles, is also vital for identifying with the female contingent of your market.

Here is a somewhat extreme albeit fitting example of why diverse teams are so important: an all-male team designed the first generation of airbags; this led to an airbag designed with only adult males in mind. The result was the avoidable deaths of women and children for whom the airbags were not properly configured. Diversity saves lives!

Having diverse teams not only saves lives, but it also leads to innovative solutions that address a larger portion of the market.

This is why recruiting more women has become a huge goal for employers and a heightened demand for qualified female candidates.

If your company wants to attract more women, then social media should be a part of your strategy. – Click to Tweet

Social recruiting solves two of the major pain points of engaging female candidates: Creating a woman-friendly employer brand and finding female candidates.

Women may only make-up about 10% of the tech industry, but they do have a huge presence on the web.

78 percent of online U.S. adult females use Facebook while only 69 percent of men do!

Learn the Basics of Facebook Recruiting.

Women are more active on Facebook and Twitter than men so it makes sense to try and connect with female candidates on these channels.

To reach them, create Facebook Ad campaigns that target women specifically and tailor your content and hashtags so that they appeal to female candidates.

More on using Facebook Ads to target top talent.

Social media is where today’s employer brands are built. And a female-friendly employer brand is an essential part of attracting women candidates.

Great female candidates are not only in high demand, but they are also wary of ending up at a company with a culture that does not welcome them. There is a strong chance that the women you want to recruit have been burned in the past and as such, are paying very close attention to your employer brand.

Industries such as engineering and tech have been publicly criticized for promoting a work environment that is hostile towards women.

Companies in these industries have turned to social media to show women that their company culture is one that elevates and celebrates female talent.

You can use your social media channels to build a woman-friendly employer brand by sharing content promoting women in your field, highlighting the impact of current female employees with employee profiles, and advertising the benefits and perks available to women that work at your company.

How to create employee profiles to build your employer brand.

If your company doesn’t yet pass the Bechdel test, then it’s time to implement a social recruiting strategy to engage, attract, and recruit some awesome female talent!

Before I post this week’s links, I’d like to share with you a cautionary tale of hiring horror.

My husband Leif is a UX genius  lead product designer by profession, so his particular set of skills and experience are in high demand and very useful when applying for jobs.

So useful in fact that someone, let’s call him “John”, claimed Leif’s work for Silk.co (a fantastic data visualization app) as his own in an attempt to prove that he had desirable skills to a potential employer.

John also claimed honesty as one of his core values on LinkedIn :/

Thankfully the potential employer was smart enough to do a thorough reference check and learned that John had never worked for Silk.

This reference check saved the employer a lot of time, money and tears.

You have been warned!

Now here are this week’s best HR and social recruiting articles 😀

The Unholy Trinity of HR: Reference Checks – by Dawn Burke

Prepare to be warned again, but this time with the added benefit of Dawn’s useful advice.

This article also contains my favorite quote of the week:

“If you think references are irrelevant, unimportant or worthless YOU ARE NUTS. CUCKOO. MAD AS A HATTER. BELONG IN A BOOBY HATCH.”

What Recruitment Can Learn From Community Managers – by Andy Headworth

Social media and mobile technologies have significantly changed the recruitment process, which is why Andy decided to attend a major conference for community managers.

In this article, Andy talks about what he learned and recommends 10 ways that he thinks all recruiters can learn from community managers.

How to Create a Company Blog That Attracts Talent – by Heather Huhman

Blogging is a powerful tool for building a positive employer brand, but only about 22% of employers make use of the medium for this purpose. If your part of the remaining 78% then Heather’s article is a must read.

9 Things to Considering When Creating a Mobile Friendly Recruitment Website – by Newman Stewart

3 in 5 job seekers are now using mobile devices to search for jobs. – Click to Tweet 

I’m willing to bet that number is actually on the low side! If you want to attract top talent your recruitment must be mobile. Newman’s article will help you navigate what it means to have a recruitment website that is truly mobile-optimized rather than just mobile-sort-of-okayish.

Google+ is Poised for a Big Breakup – by David Nield

Via Andy Headworth’s blog

Google Plus is beloved by many recruiters, including Andy Headworth mentioned above, but recent developments may make the network much less valuable for social recruiting.

Google+ is going to be split into separate services called Photos and Streams. It’s still not entirely clear what Streams will look like, but David speculates that this separation may put an end to G+ as a social network.

Do you use Google Plus to recruit? Do you think that this split will make the network less useful for recruitment?

Let us know in the comments!

It may not be as massive as Facebook, but there’s no denying that Twitter is a fantastic social recruiting platform.

• Twitter has 250 million active users.

• Twitter ranks second after Facebook as job seekers favourite social network.

• 45% of job seekers use Twitter as a major part of their job search.

• 8 million Americans have found a job using Twitter.

Numbers aside, Twitter is the only network out of the big three that allows you to directly engage with users that you don’t already have a relationship with. In fact, Twitter chats encourage and facilitate complete strangers to come together, connect, and engage in discussion on topics of mutual interest. Engaging on Twitter is also more casual and unobtrusive than a cold call or email. If your company has a Twitter account but isn’t leveraging the social network for your recruitment process, then this article is for you!

1 - Start With a Strong Brand

Select your Twitter profile photo and header image work together to convey your employer brand to potential candidates. Your profile photo should either be your company logo or if you are tweeting as yourself, a flattering and friendly headshot.

If you have a more casual brand you can even use a fun graphic to inject a little personality and humour into your profile, such as the martini glass used by the lovely Sharlyn Lauby of @HR_Bartender.

Use a high-resolution header image (1500 by 500 pixels) and represent your brand well. You can use photos of your offices, employees or something unique to you that shows off your personality.

2 - Perfect Your Bio

Your Twitter bio is a 160 character summary of who you are and what your Twitter account is all about. Being descriptive with your bio is critical because when you first engage with someone on Twitter your bio is the first thing that they’ll turn to in order to figure out who you are. State upfront what you do or what your company does and that you are looking to hire awesome people. Inject a little fun with some personal info and humour. If your bio makes candidates crack a smile, then you’re winning at Twitter already!

3 – Put Your Audience First

Always keep your target audience in mind. Your tone, branding, and content should all be tailored specifically to appeal to your ideal talent pool. If your audience is straight-laced, then keep your tweets professional. If you want quirky candidates, then be quirky. And if the talent you seek has a penchant for football, then by all means tweet about football! Which brings me to my next point:

4 - Post ALL the Things!

Okay… So I don’t actually want you to post everything, more like a good mix of engaging content. Tweet your open jobs, Tweet about Sarah from accounting’s latest marathon, share links to articles about finding jobs, share blog posts related to your field, and make sure to post lots of photos and video. Mixed content is more engaging and will grow your reach far more than only posting jobs as job posts don’t receive the same levels of shares as other types of content. Tweets using a picture are 94% more likely to be retweeted! – Click to Tweet And 92% of all Twitter interactions occur when readers click links.

5 – Hashtags Are Your BFF

Including relevant hashtags with your Tweets is the best way to get your content discovered and shared by fellow Tweeter. According to Buffer, brands can see a 50% increase in engagement by using hashtags and individuals can see as much as a 100% increase. When you tweet a job post some hashtags worth including are the location, the job title, the job field, #hiring, and #jobs (in the relevant language, of course!) You can use apps like Buzzsumo to see what hashtags are trending amongst your followers and use that to help you choose what hashtags to use, just make sure that you only use hashtags that are relevant to what you are tweeting or you will confuse people. Lastly, less is more with hashtags so don’t go overboard or people get annoyed. 1 - 2 hashtags is perfect, 3 – 5 is pushing it, and anything more than that is just plain offensive and will most likely decrease engagement with your post. More about which hashtags are best and how many you should use.

6 – Build Your Foundation

The more people that see your job postings, the better your chances of connecting with top talent. Building up your Twitter audience means getting more eyes on your job posts and the content you share. This article by Mashable will give you all the info you need to grow your Twitter community.

7 – Participation is 90% of Your Grade

Follow back, retweet, reply, join chats, and say thank you! You wouldn’t be very popular at a dinner party if you spent the entire evening shouting out recommendations, proclaiming your opinion without ever actually engaging with the other guests. The same goes for Twitter. Following back, retweeting other people's content, and thanking fellow tweeters for sharing your content is just as important as the content you choose to share. Replying to DMs and comments is how you foster engagement, and it’s just plain polite. And joining Twitter chats is probably the best possible way to meet and engage with new people who share similar interests. To start, I highly recommend joining in on #TChat. Here’s a guide to finding, joining and starting Twitter chats.

7.1 – Don’t Be a Bot

Unless you have developed some sort of ground breaking technology with which I am not familiar, then there is a person, or perhaps even multiple people behind your Twitter account. Use this to your benefit by letting the human shine through the technology. People want to interact with other people, they want to be able to relate and connect to the person behind the tweet, so let them. Share the occasional joke, laugh about your mistakes, and inject personality into your tweets. In short, be more than a robot! Want to learn more about how Jobcast can help your Twitter recruiting? Shoot us an email team@jobcast.net or try Jobcast Premium free for 30 days :D

I did not watch the Oscars… In fact, I completely forgot about them. Why would anyone choose to spend their evening watching beautiful, talented people be rewarded for great artistic feats when they could be reading about recruiting and human resources?! Why watch Broadway vet Neil Patrick Harris deliver an exciting musical theater performance when you could be watching a video about how to perform in your very own exciting recruiting video?

Your Guide to Making a Compelling Recruitment Video – By Rob Humphrey And really, you don’t learn any practical tips about filmmaking by watching the Oscars, whereas blog posts are full of useful movie making advice!

17 Essential Elements Of A Successful Millennial Recruiting Video - By Ryan Jenkins Honestly, I’m glad I missed John Travolta manhandling Idina Menzel’s face like a dummy in favour of reading about how not to use SEO like one.

SEO Recruitment For Dummies - By Roxanne Abercrombie

I do actually care a lot about The Lego Movie. In fact both our CEO Ryan St. Germaine and myself would like to make “Everything is Awesome” the official theme song for team Jobcast… But a motivational theme song is much less important to our company’s success than new info showing that social recruiting is now the top source of talent for recruiters in Southeast Asia!

Social networks rank foremost for two in three recruiters - by Jerene Ang Lastly, I may be completely alone in feeling this way, but I think Birdman was totally overrated whereas learning how to get the most out of HR Tech is a topic that deserves way more hype than it gets.

Success with Implementing HR Tech: Know Your Requirements - By Andrea Devers There is a small part of me that is curious about the best and worst dressed list, but I still haven’t finished reading Jobvite’s 2015 Job Seeker Nation Study... So the ball gowns are going to have to wait!

Employer brand – an organization’s reputation as an employer – is the deciding factor for job seekers when selecting a new employer (LinkedIn’s Talent Trends 2014).

Employers’ cannot ignore the importance of their company’s reputation as an exceptional place to work… Especially considering the mounting war for talent!

The US is closer to full employment than it has been since 1999. – Click to Tweet

According to George Bradt, this has caused a seismic shift in the war for talent.

With options expanding for employees and declining for employers, emphasizing employment brand is critical.

The war for talent is not the only change in today’s recruitment landscape necessitating robust employer branding.

The rise of the social and mobile job seeker demands that companies build employment brands with social reach as, according to Jobvite, 76% of social job seekers found their current position on Facebook and 43% use mobile in their job search.

Companies with attractive and social employment brands will win the war for talent.

So if think that your employer brand is in need of improvement, then there’s no time like the present.

Here are 11 questions to ask yourself in order to build a better employer brand:

1. What does your company stand for?

This question goes to the heart of your employment brand. You, your employees, and anyone involved in talent acquisition for your company should be able to answer this question with clarity and confidence.

2. What do your employees think your company stands for?

The answer may not be what you think! Learning more about what your employees think your company stands for will help you ensure that everyone is on the same page and may even provide a source of inspiration for your employer branding efforts.

3. Why would someone want to work for your company?

Great perks, flexible work arrangements, competitive salaries, a supportive team, a chance to make a positive difference… Not only do you need to assess what it is that makes your company a great place to work, but you also need to know which of these benefits appeal to the candidates you want to attract.

4. Do your managers receive employer brand training? (On how to deliver the brand experience, how to promote the employer brand)

Managers need to understand your company’s employer brand and their interactions with employees should reflect this knowledge.

5. How do your current employees perceive your employer brand?

The answer to this question will help you assess the authenticity of the employer brand that you are trying to project.

6. What percentage of your employees would recommend your company as a great place to work?

Word of mouth is still one of the most effective tools for building a trustworthy brand, if your employees wouldn’t recommend your company to their colleagues, then you need to know why and you need to make some changes.

7. How visible is your company’s employer brand?

Whether your company relatively unknown to potential job seekers or well known by candidates in your field should influence how you structure your employment branding strategy so you must have some idea of your company’s employment brand reach.

8. Is your employer brand social?

Being social means more than just having a Twitter account and a Facebook Page, it means actively sharing content and engaging with potential candidates via social media! If your answer is no, then check out this article on how to grow your employer brand on Facebook.

9. Does your brand reach and facilitate mobile candidates?

If your employer brand is social, then you have the means to reach and engage with mobile job seekers, but you must also make it easy for them to apply for your jobs via mobile.

10. Who owns your employer brand strategy?

This is a bit of a trick question as the answer should be your entire company. According to Brett Minchington “The traditional siloed approach to managing the attraction, engagement, and retention of talent is out of date and out of step with today’s candidate and employee needs.” In short, a more inclusive approach is needed in order to achieve cohesive employer branding.

11. How are you tracking ROI and using the data that you collect?

You need to know the metrics on your current employer branding efforts in order to make an educated decision about the direction of your future brand strategy. Number crunching may be boring, but it’s worth the effort and the extra shots of espresso!

Answer these questions and you’ll see the steps you must take to create an employer brand that will effectively attract top talent.

For more on employer branding check out how this company used Facebook to grow their employer brand and social reach by 500%.

This morning I was thrilled to find a plethora of share worthy articles in my reader, making compiling this week's Link Love a total breeze. As per usual I’ve put together 5 of the best HR and recruitment related articles to share with you. On a completely unusual note, Sports Illustrated is the source of my pick for #1 blog post of the week!

How Social Media is Shaking Up Recruiting; Punt, Pass, and Pork – By Andy Staples Did you know that the NCAA forbids coach-recruit communication on Snapchat? I certainly did not. Andy’s article for Sports Illustrated magazine shares interesting tidbits like this along with a fascinating look at how campus sports recruiters like Matt Dudek, Director of On-Campus Recruiting and Player Personnel at the University of Arizona are using social media to make their recruiting efforts significantly more successful. According to Dudek, “The power of social media is really second to none in recruiting.” – Click to Tweet

A meme Matt created for their social recruitment campaign!

Finding Talent: Set Your Sites on Social Media – By Rebecca Lewis Rebecca gives some excellent social recruitment advice geared mainly towards start-ups, but useful for anyone.

How Recruiters and Job Seekers Use Social Media in 2015 – Infographic by Career Glider Interesting stats about the current state of social recruiting and how employers plan on growing their use of social media for hiring in the future make this infographics an excellent resource. The awesome graphics make it fun. What’s not to love?

There IS a War for Talent in 2015 – By Will Thomson According to Will 2015 is going to be the most competitive year for recruitment since 1999, in his words “2015 will be a blood bath!” Will stresses the fact that this isn’t entirely a bad thing as it means a lot of the candidates that you’ve been looking to hire away from other jobs are now more open to a change of careers. But the same can be said about your current employees, so make sure you have an effective retention program and recruitment strategy in place!

New Social Recruitment Platform Can Make You Money – By Steve Taggart

GigPlug is an app that matches its users’ social contacts with a database of open jobs. Users are then prompted to referral their contacts for the jobs that they match up with. Successful referrals can garner rewards of up to £2 500. Needless to say I have downloaded this app… So far I have been sorely disappointed with its matching algorithm, the app suggested that I recommend a very talented UX designer/developer for an office management role, not cool! But matching algorithms are extremely complex so I would still like to give GigPlug the benefit of the doubt and see how they improve and grow. I’d love to hear your thoughts on GigPlug. Have you tried it? Is it something you would use as a recruitment tool? Or maybe as a way to make a little cash on the side? Let us know in the comments!

It’s hard to find anything in recruiting that has failed to live up to its potential more than recruiting metrics. – Dr. John Sullivan I think most HR experts would tend to agree. Considering how popular the sharing of HR related data points is on social media, the practical use of data in people management has been remarkably poor. Stats like 40% of work turnover is due to job stress, or 71% of American workers are disengaged at work are all over Twitter.

Yet, according to research by Deloitte only about 4% of HR departments apply predictive analytics to their decision making process. Download the Bersin by Deloitte report to learn more about the state of talent analytics. Cloud based HR Tech developers are attempting to change this by embedding analytics right into their applications.

Cornerstone and Workday have both acquired predictive analytics human resources software companies in order make this big data dream a reality. This is in response to an expressed desire on the part of HR to find easier to adopt solutions for integrating more data into their talent management process. The goal is to track, sort, and present data in a useful way for improving HR and recruitment. For example, predictive analytics can be used to determine common behaviours that an employee exhibits when they are about to quit, track those behaviours, and then provide warnings in order to prompt a pre-emptive. Retention is a major focus for Workday. Along with the kind of information mentioned above, the company also attempts to provide users with insights as to what makes employees more likes to leave or stay. Their software uses comparative data to make hypotheses about how pay raises or benefits impact an employees’ decision to stay or go. Hypotheses like, web developers who are able to work remotely at least 1 day per week are 20% less likely to quit (this is just an example). Cornerstone’s acquisition of Evolv gives them the tools to provide users with the internal and external data needed to objectively evaluate job seekers. Evolv is lauded as one of the top 10 most innovative companies in big data. Their work with Xerox is a perfect example of why they got this reputation. Xerox used Evolv’s software to revolutionize their hiring process. The data gathered and processed by Evolv helped them create a much more effective candidate assessment process that is able to rank candidates based on more than just work history. The program uses comparative data to determine a candidates problem solving, prospective retention rates, and even soft skills. Credit for the improved adoption and use of talent analytics is not just due to the HR tech industry, but also to the human resources department itself. At Jobcast we’ve noticed a huge increase in the amount of Jobcasters that prioritize recruitment data. We’ve always provided our users with reporting, but in response to this increased emphasis placed on analytics by HR we have decided to improve our reporting further. Human resources, recruiters, and employers want to make decisions informed by real numbers and they finally have smart tools to accomplish this goal. The future looks bright!