Social Recruiting

On April 21st Google changed its search algorithm in a major way. Google mobile search results will now rank mobile-friendly sites higher than non-mobile-friendly sites. About 38% of Enterprise level websites are negatively affected by this update and millions of sites will take a hit to their SEO. Why does Mobilegeddon matter for recruiting? 30% of all Google searches are employment related. (Source: The Muse) – Click to Tweet  Mobile recruiting matters because your company’s site ranking will significantly affect job seekers’ ability to find your job posts. Most companies create their online job postings using an Applicant Tracking System, which makes the situation even more dire for recruitment. According to Mike Roberts, even if they are “mobile-friendly”, many of the most popular ATSs are not responsive. More importantly, they do not allow mobile candidates to upload a resume which is a huge mobile recruiting no-no. Google does not look kindly on this.

Mike also points out that many of the most popular ATSs do not offer any mobile experience at all. Total Google Search fail! Here’s how Mike suggests you check to make sure that your jobs will not be down-ranked by Google:

• Enter the URL of your careers homepage into Google’s mobile-friendly checker tool.

• Do the same with one of your actual requisitions (because sometimes these are on different systems.)

• Search for one of your requisitions on Google—it will actually say “mobile-friendly” in the search engine results page beneath the URL.

• Go through the experience of completing one of your own applications on a smartphone.

What if your career site doesn’t pass? If your career site does not pass Google’s mobile-friendliness test, then you risk losing out on a significant number of applicants The best thing that you can do is to upgrade to a site that is mobile-friendly and built with responsive design. This is the only real long-term solution for mobile recruiting, but it isn’t a quick one. While you wait on tech to bring your career site into the 21st century, you can keep your online recruitment process healthy by focusing on social recruiting.

The mobile web is twice as social as desktop, according to a study of 2.4 million websites by ShareThis. 71% of social media use is on mobile, 76% of Twitter users access the network on mobile, and 1.1 million users access Facebook via tablet or phone. If your job posts are getting buried in Google’s new search, then you can use social sharing to ensure that mobile jobseekers find them. Sharing job posts to your Twitter feed, Facebook Timeline, and LinkedIn Page gives mobile users a way to access your job posts other than Google search. This is not a perfect fix, but it is a great way to maintain a mobile presence while your website is brought up to speed. What about the application process? Google did not decide to bring Mobilegeddon upon us out of some deep-seated hatred for the human resources department. They changed their algorithm in order to improve their user’s experience. Google’s mobile users do not want to waste their time attempting to navigate a site that is not responsive, so hiding these sites (and possibly your site) from them improves their overall experience. If you do decide to share your jobs via social media to reach mobile candidates, then you must also give them a way to apply to those jobs on their phone or tablet. If you do not provide them with this option, then your candidate experience suffers. To make your application process mobile-friendly, try using a social recruitment app. There are many different apps that will allow you to set up a Career Page on Facebook, where mobile candidates can both apply for, and view your jobs. Jobcast, TweetMyJobs and Work4labs to name a few! One thing to note is that Facebook does not allow these “third party apps” to display a tab on your company Facebook Page, which can make accessing your Career Page difficult for candidates. Here’s a trick for getting around this problem:

• Create a Facebook Post with a call to action that encourages job seekers to check out your Career Page.

• Add a direct link to your Facebook Career Page and a nice image.

• Then “Pin” that post to the top of your Facebook Timeline.

Just like Beyond Recruitment did here:

This gives mobile jobseekers an easy way to access your Career Page and apply for your jobs. To give this a try with Jobcast Premium follow this link to install the Jobcast social recruiting app and you’ll get a 30-day free trial.

Mobilegeddon is upon us! As of yesterday Google’s new algorithm of SEO annihilation will begin to affect mobile search results. How exactly will Mobilegeddon affect you? When you do a Google search on your phone the results will rank mobile-friendly sites. Which doesn’t really seem all that scary… Except that millions of sites will be impacted. More specifically Google will downgrade 38% of all enterprise websites over the coming weeks. This will shake up online recruitment in a major way. So, this week’s link love is all about understanding and preparing for Mobilegeddon.

Google’s Mobile-Friendliness Test Plug your website into Google’s app to see if Mobilegeddon will affect you.

#Mobilegeddon: Why Candidates Aren’t Going to Be Able to Find Your Jobs – By Mike Roberts Be afraid, be very afraid! If your company is like most large organizations, then you use an ATS to build job requisitions. Then you host them on your career site. Mike explains why if you do this, then job seekers will not be able to find your job postings!

Is Your Career Site Ready for Mobilegeddon? – By Chris Brablc Chris’s article breaks down what it means for a career site to be mobile friendly, how to check your career site, and what to do if you don’t pass Google’s test.

What Google’s 'Mobilegeddon’ Means for Your Candidate Experience – Resource Solutions According to Resource Solutions’ Recruitment Outsourcing Insights Report 68% of candidates are using a mobile device to search for a new job at least once a week! Read more about their findings and what it means for Mobilegeddon and candidate experience in this blog post.

Google’s Mobilegeddon: Everything You Need to Know – By Emil Protalinski A detailed explanation of Google’s new algorithm and the effect it will have on your website. Mobilegeddon Checklist: How To Prepare For This Week’s Google Mobile Friendly Update - Barry Schwartz This extensive checklist that will help you ensure that your site is fully prepared to meet Google’s mobile demands. These articles will teach you everything you need to know about how Mobilegeddon will affect your recruitment process. If you’re worried about reaching mobile candidates, then remember that social recruiting is one of the best ways to make your hiring mobile-friendly! Learn about how Jobcast can help you make your recruiting social!

Social recruiting is no longer just a trend. The vast majority of recruiters (about 94 percent) use social media as a part of their recruitment strategy. Unfortunately, social recruitment myths are going just as strong! Even the sharpest of HR managers fall victim to many of these myths because of their limited experience with social media. Social media is a confusing beast even to the experts and at times it can be near impossible to separate the good information from the bad.

Stay Professional At All Times

Social recruiting is all about business, but social networks are about people. If your content and interactions are devoid of personality you won’t get the engagement that you need to succeed. Social recruiting is the perfect medium to highlight the people behind your company. Make the most of the medium sharing staff pics, employee profiles, and even the occasional joke or meme.

 The Only Audience That Matters Are Job Seekers

Reaching qualified candidates is the goal of social recruiting. Reaching more fans and followers even if they are not candidates is a means to this goal. With social media, the more followers you get, the more people are likely to find you because it improves your SEO and visibility. And theses followers are also a great source for referrals!

 Go Big Or Go Home

Many HR managers think that they need to create a perfect strategy, write a month’s worth of content, and join every single social network before they can roll out their social recruiting initiative. This could not be farther from the truth. Starting small with social media is smart. It allows you to focus on mastering one or two networks at a time and keeps you from spreading yourself too thin. Keeping your efforts minimal at first will also give a chance to experiment with the content you choose to share. This will aid you in discovering the most effective types of content for reaching your desired candidates.

Status Updates and Job Posts Are All You Need

If you share a diverse range of content, then your content will attract a broader range of people. So sharing interesting blog posts and links to trending content is a great way to increase your social reach. Then there’s the not so small matter of visuals:

• Videos are shared 12x more than text and link posts combined (Source: Sprout Social) – Click to Tweet

• According to MavSocial, Tweets that contain images are said to be 150% more likely to be retweeted. MavSocial

• Tweets that contain images are said to be 150% more likely to be retweeted.

• Facebook posts with photos or video content are 180% more likely to engage audiences (Source: MavSocial.)

Sharing visual content is one of the best ways to drive engagement and build your social reach. Visually engaging content captures candidate’s attention. This makes them more likely to view your job posts and click through to your career site. Sharing memes and interesting videos are two great ways of boosting engagement with minimal time investment. I’m also a huge fan of creating posts by layering interesting quotes on top of compelling photographs:

Check out Pablo by Buffer to make a similar image for yourself!

The More Hashtags the Better

Using too many hashtags will annoy your followers and make your posts difficult to read. 1 – 3 hashtags situated at the end of your Tweet or Google+ post is enough!

Hashtags Don’t Matter

Neglecting hashtags all together is even worse than hashtag spamming. Hashtags make your content searchable. They also tie your posts to other conversations happening online. Both of these factors improve the visibility of your content. Including a few relevant hashtags with your posts is a must!

 A Social Network is A Social Network is A Social Network

Just because Starbucks uses Instagram to recruit doesn’t mean you should follow suit. Every social network has its pros and cons. Find the ones that work for you and leverage them for all they’re worth.

All Social Job Seekers are Millennial’s or Gen Z

I am a millennial; my husband is not. My husband is on Snapchat; I am not. Upon first inspection, I thought that the Snapchat icon on his phone was for PacMan. My husband is a Gen Xer and he has used social media as major part of his job seeking approach for years. Point made! If my anecdotes and conjecture are not enough proof, check out these findings from Global Web Index and Penney Fox:

• 70% of Boomers are on Facebook

• 65.5% of Gen Xers have used Facebook in the last month

• 52% of 55-64 year old Internet users have joined a social network

Social media is an excellent tool for reaching older candidates. Don’t neglect Boomers and Gen X when devising your social recruiting strategy. Hopefully, this blog posts will act as a social recruiting PSA and help keep people from falling for these common myths. If you have any social recruiting myths that you would like to see put to rest, let us know in the comments!

Visual content gets more engagement on social media than any other type! Attach a video, photo, or illustration to your Tweet and you’ll up your chances of getting retweeted by 150%. Images also help us absorb information. In fact, our brain processes visuals 60 000 times faster than text.

Perhaps this explains the rise of the infographic. Infographics have come to dominate online content marketing and social media. If you want an effective, engaging, and attractive way to convey a message, infographics are the perfect medium. Infographics are also a wonderful way for HR and recruiters to learn more about social media. Here are 7 social media infographics that you can use to improve your social recruitment strategy.

2015 Social Media Marketing Trends – JSH&A

Recruiting and marketing are merging in the age of social media making it more important than ever for HR to monitor marketing trends. The trends explained in this infographic are all applicable to social recruitment.

The Best (and Worst) Times to Post on Social Media – SurePayroll

One of JSH&A’s key trends to pay attention to is the importance of timing your social sharing for maximum effectiveness. The times at which you post determine who sees your content. This is exactly why Jobcast’s social recruiting automation tool allows you to schedule when your jobs are shared to which network! SurePayroll’s fantastic infographic will show you the best times to share your job posts and promote employer branding content.

5 Steps to Effective Social Media Measurement – Salesforce

Measuring ROI is essential for ensuring that your social media efforts are successful. The steps presented in this infographic will help you keep tabs on how effective your social recruiting strategy is, and where you need to make adjustments. Hot tip: replace the word conversion with application, sale with hire, and lead with candidate!

The 2014 Social Recruiting Survey Infographic – Jobvite

Jobvite’s social recruiting surveys are always a fantastic resource and chock full of information, but their surveys are long. Jobvite’s infographic highlights all of their most important findings in two pages, and is a great way to quickly revisit their most salient points whenever you need a refresher.

How to Create an Infographic That Boosts Social Shares and Leads - Social Media Examiner

Okay, so this one isn’t an infographic, but the article does contain several of them! If you’ve been inspired to create an infographic of your own, then this article is for you :D Oh, and if you do decide to make an infographic, or if you’ve made one in the past, tell us about it in the comments!

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!

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!

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

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!

Where do you work? Whenever I ask that questions what I really mean is, what is your workplace like? Not whether you work in an office downtown or in a truck… but whether you work surrounded by coworkers, alone in an office, in a group workspace, or in the comfort/discomfort of your own home. I am curious because I work remotely, and as much as flexible work is trendy and totally Gen Y, I do miss being surrounded by colleagues. I am also curious about what other people’s workplace interactions are like. Whether the environment is one of happy collaboration, all work all the time formality, or a festering den of resentment and gossip. Fascinating stuff!

And, why his week’s link love is dedicated to the workplace. How to make it more fun, how to get along with colleagues, and how to perform your best at work. 10 Signs You Are Working in a Happy Workplace - By Amy Johnson In response to statistics showing that 63% of employees are not engaged at work, Amy shares 10 important factors for creating a happy workplace.

How Introverts and Extroverts Can Live in Harmony at Work - By Alison Green Let’s face it, most teams are made up of a combination of introverts and extroverts and this can make workplace interactions tricky. Alison’s fantastic article explains where things go wrong when introverts and extroverts work together and how to make simple compromises that will keep the team dynamic going strong.

10 Powerful Ideas that Will Change the Way You Work – By Angel Chernoff Angel is a respected productivity expert. The title of her blog post may sound a little bit cheesy, but trust me her ideas are sound. I just read her post this morning and am already attempting to implement her advice! How To Build High-Performing Teams - By Sally Hogshead This article is a must read for anyone doing a high volume of hiring. Sally explains how to find hidden patterns within the stacks of resumes piled up on your desk, and how to use those patterns to find your best hires.

10 Reasons Why I Love Being an HR Professional - By Andrea Devers There are three top ten articles in this blog post! Maybe I should take a hint and start writing more 10 best… articles for the Jobcast blog, as this is obviously what the people want. Andrea’s 10 reasons are a lovely reminder for anyone working in HR that it’s a truly rewarding pursuit. The post is a nice bit of motivation to get you through the midweek slump. So, what is your workplace like? Let us know in the comments. Enjoy the links and the rest of your week :D

Automation has developed beyond pushing job posts to online job boards and scanning resumes for key words. Complex HR tech can automate social recruitment, candidate outreach, employee referrals, and a multitude of other repetitive tasks, improving and simplifying the hiring process. From LinkedIn developing mechanized outreach systems to FedEx using an algorithm to determine culture fit, the automation of hiring is everywhere!

From Weeding Out the Week to Finding the Best

Originally, the algorithms designed to help HR sift through applicants was focused on excluding unqualified candidates rather then finding top talent. Today’s best HR tech is focused on finding qualified candidates. - Click to Tweet

Zao, a company we’ve talked about already in our article on candidate matching, is able to search through your current employees social networks to identify the best potential hires. Employees are then alerted by Zao’s software and prompted to make a referral. Xerox is using a computer program to test applicants for their call centers. This test, created by software company Evolv, asks more typical questions such as “How would you respond to this angry customer?,” basic problem solving questions involving pattern recognition, and just plain weird questions like, “Which statement do you most agree with: Most managers are motivated to make ethical decisions or I almost always ask for help in difficult situations.” Job seekers are rated based on both their answers and the way in which they go through the test. The test asks no questions related to time efficiency even though, according to Xerox, this is one of the most important skills call center worker should have. Evolv’s test examines how applicants divide their time spent per question and the efficiency with which they provide their answers to rate them. For more on Xerox's collaboration check out this fantastic podcast: Will a Computer Decide Whether or Not You Get Your Next Job?

Tests like this do not negate the importance of one-on-one interviews, but they do a fantastic job of identifying which candidates should be interviewed. Especially useful about software like Evolv’s is that, unlike older technology, it doesn’t rely on keywords or job titles to make decisions about a candidate’s suitability, a process that really only works in fields where very specific certifications are mandatory. Automation is only game changing when computers make judgments by creatively assessing skill and ability, not based on a minimum number of years of experience or certain degrees!

Eliminating Redundancy

If you are in HR then I’m sure that you are all too familiar with redundancy creep. It is not fun. It is, in fact, quite soul sucking. Having to copy and paste job posts again and again just so that you hit each of the different sites that you use to advertise to candidates is a complete waste of time. Enter automation. HR tech is evolving to become more collaborative. ATS integrations that allow companies to automatically share the jobs they post to major search engines are old news, but current HR tech takes this kind of automation to a new, and much more social, level. Higher end applicant tracking systems now offer automated job post sharing to social networks as well as job boards. ICIMS and Simplicant allow their users to share job posts to their social networks without having to do any annoying copy and pasting. They also automate sharing to search engines. Depending on job volume this kind of mechanization can save you hours each day. Even if you don’t use an ATS that offers social sharing (or an ATS at all) then you can still use recruitment apps like Jobcast to synchronize with either your ATS, or your career site to automate your social recruitment process. Much like Hootsuite or Buffer, which I highly recommend using to automate your social employer branding, Jobcast can automatically grab your job posts and share them to your social networks. Unlike non-recruitment specific tools, the Jobcast app’s technology ‘understands’ things like job title and category and can use that information to ensure that your job posts are properly formatted for social media. Have a look at this article for more excellent social recruitment app recommendations.

Robot Recruiters

No thank you. HR and the hiring process specifically needs a human touch. It may be up to bots to send out quick contact messages, but those messages still need a real person's name attached to them to appeal to candidates! Smart recruitment technology makes the decision process easier, sifts through big data, provides quick reminders, and reduces mundane tasks. It does not, and it never will, replace the recruiter.