You’re Posting Jobs Wrong with Thad Price
Are you posting your jobs to as many job boards as possible and then crossing your fingers that the right candidate magically applies? Well, there are a lot of problems with that approach. Thad Price, CEO of Talroo, and I discuss what other approaches might be better for you.
Find Thad here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thad-price-2368b/
Transcription below was auto generated from the video above
00:05.41
Brad Owens
Hello everybody welcome back to another episode of the transformer recruiting podcast as always I'm your host Brad Owens and with me today I bring on the amazing the wonderful Mr. fad price that welcome sir.
00:20.59
Thad Price
Brad Great to be here. Thank you so much.
00:21.99
Brad Owens
So I want to make sure that everyone at least starts with the solid foundation of who in the world I'm even talking to So can you give them just a little bit of background on yourself where you're coming from.
00:30.70
Thad Price
Yeah, absolutely so hi I'm thd I'm Ceo of Austin -based tawru and I've been in the job search and online recruiting industry for almost twenty years now so been spending a lot of my time in helping job seekers find the right job and helping employers find the right job seeker.
00:46.10
Brad Owens
Love it and that's exactly why I wanted to bring you in 1 you've got a lot of experience in all this space and 2 from the the word on the streets and you know and talking with some couple people that's that knew you I was like ooh he's got a little different perspective here that I think everyone would want to hear from. Um, so in your opinion I mean the show is called transform recruiting right? It's the people the ideas in tech that are transforming the landscape so in your opinion. What is the current landscape of recruiting what are you seeing.
01:19.66
Thad Price
It's exciting. It's changing in front of our eyes. We're moving in more of a data-driven experience than we've ever seen before recruiting is looking more like the connection of marketing and sales I think we've all been living that and seeing that over the past years especially you know. When we think about the trials and tribulations of attracting talent, especially high volume hiring in frontline workers. It's harder than ever before and so there's there's a calculus that happens when a job seeker makes a decision to apply for your job or to search for jobs and there are a lot more opportunities than ever before and so you have to really. Connect with your marketing with your marketing experience and your sales experience to ensure that you can actually close the job seeker and drive a new hire and so from our perspective we like to think that there's this amazing evolution that's happening and how we recruit. And that evolution is made possible by innovation. It's exciting to see a lot of the technologies and some of the interesting things that are in place right now to automate more of the redundant process of recruiting so we can spend more time with people and more importantly, the right people the right people that you can recruit and attract to grow your business.
02:26.76
Brad Owens
Who now innovation you're speaking my language when you say innovation So give me the the top 2 things that you see as being some of the most innovative whether it's just. Purely ideas or tech or I'll leave it open to to whatever you want to interpret that as but what are some of the top 2 biggest innovations that you're currently excited about.
02:49.27
Thad Price
So. The first thing that I've seen. It's been a movement over the last few years that I think that has been really exciting and we saw this early on with with traditional advertising outside of you know job advertising employment advertising and this was the idea of being able to attract the right audience at the right time and the right place in the. Thought process is is that if you are in market to buy a home. Let's say um, real estate agents will will advertise to you right? There is data that shows that you can attract the right audience for people that may be in market to buy a home. The same thing goes for folks in market for a new job. And so what I think has happened is if you've looked at the trends in advertising traditional advertising over the last or the last probably I would say 1015 years it's gone from this kind of point process of I want to advertise on this site to I want to advertise where the audience is right. And I want to fish where the fish are and I think that that's a really interesting thing we're in this now world of what is referred to traditionally in online advertising as programmatic right audience right time right? place you're starting to see that now move over the last probably I would say. 7 eight years and it's increasing. It's increasing as well to online Marketplaces Employment marketplaces so you know when you think of this idea of I want to post I want to post a job on indeed or I want to post a job on Ziprecruit. It's changed right.
04:22.48
Thad Price
I want to advertise to audiences wherever those audiences may be so essentially in that world. You're turning the internet into help 1 inside and you're using data and audiences to connect real time so that you're advertising to the right audience at the right time and the right place. And so I think that's pretty exciting right? This change of how we're thinking about online recruiting and advertising to be more kind of consumer oriented is pretty fascinating to me.
04:50.77
Brad Owens
I like that one because that has been a big bugaboo of mine every time I'm interfacing with someone that's like oh well Ken? um, where we have this new job opening. We should definitely get that outs on one of these um like. Posting aggregators I could give this to 1 site and all of a sudden they did they shotgun it right? Um, oh boy.
05:08.89
Thad Price
Niche site. And or checkboxes or checkboxes right? You you post you open a wreck inside the applicant tracking system and you check boxes right? It's like post to your post to your poster you click submit and suddenly it's like $1500 or whatever the number is right.
05:24.14
Brad Owens
Yes, so here's my question on that then based on your talk track so far I'm curious to hear your answer tell me why that's not a good idea.
05:36.64
Thad Price
Well I think the big thing is is. It's not a good idea because the best advertising solutions use feedback use what you know? What's referred to as more like return on ad spin feedback. So and at the end of the day what you want is you want the right candidates and you want apply you want people to apply to your job. And so when you think about that experience you know years ago. Um in in online advertising that was like hey I I I want to I want to buy this spot on Yahoo right? because Yahoo is one of the top destinations and Yahoo is great still today and a lot of people a lot of access. But people don't wake up and say I want to buy this spot on Yahoo any longer right? They want to attract the audience through using programmatic advertising when they're hanging out on Yahoo and they have data that says that this person is in market for something and so from that perspective you know I think it's not a good idea. Because you're not connecting the data experiences. You're not connecting the data sources what you need is you need to be able to say okay, this source of candidates drove an ah roi and in your world. An ah roi is ah is an applicant right now. Ultimately, the ah Roi would be a hire because that's what you know? that's the that's the kind of the holy grail of everything in our world is a hire. We all want to drive a hire but there are a lot of things that influence whether you hire someone or not so you know maybe you can drive an interview but you definitely can drive an applicant and so the best systems and we do a lot of this here at Taalru right? The best systems.
07:12.66
Thad Price
Leverage kind of that apply signal to be able to scale up what's working and scale down. What's not working when you're just kind of in a checkout process and paying $1500 for for a job posting whatever that whatever that fee is. You're not. You don't really have that. Really don't have that data- driven experience where you're able to scale up anything and scale back. Anything. You're essentially paying to post and putting a you know you're putting a stake in the ground and saying my job is here. Not my job is here and driving applicants and I think that's how we continue to see our. Market involved and with companies that are focused on outcomes for employers first outcome being an apply second outcome being a quality application. Third outcome being an interview and fourth the Holy Grail being the hire. You know all the companies that are focused on outcomes are the ones that will win. As the market continues to as continue to evolve.
08:09.21
Brad Owens
I agree with that So You tell me your reaction to this then because this is how I've typically thought of it I think that for firm owners and you know those in executive level leadership at these recruiting firms or even internal recruiters or whatever it might be their funnel. For so many years has started from here's who has applied I feel like and I'm picking up on what if I'm reading the tea leaves right? You are suggesting what I have been suggesting for a long time now and so I completely agree with you that the funnel begins way before they apply.
08:44.82
Thad Price
Absolutely I mean yeah absolutely I mean you think of it in a typical environment just easy numbers. You know I would say a typical apply rate is throw it out 10% so 90% 90% aren't right and there's a reason for that whether it's.
08:57.38
Brad Owens
Sure abysmal.
09:04.66
Thad Price
You know, lack of brand whether it's lack of you know, really being competitive in pay. I mean there's a buying that lack of transparency in applying for the job. There are all, there's this again, there's this calculus that happens when people say. You know I want to apply for a job or not and you have to stir the pot as much as possible to get to first understand who you're competing against right going back to you know and in some of someies I use ah use a term that I believe a lot in and that is like recruiting battle cards where it's like who are you recruiting against. If you don't know who you're recruiting it. You should because recruiting is a sales process and you can go to the glass door and you can find out who you're recruiting against and you can read. You know what people are saying about your competitors and make sure when you're connecting with that when you want to connect with that job seeker. That you're the alternative. Whatever people are complaining about you've solved about your competitor right? and so that's part of like building your battle cards understanding exactly who you're competing with talent but all of that should be should manifest itself in the all powerful job ad because you have to realize you have to interest the reader right? You have to. Be transparent you have to be competitive and quality connection. Yields quality use a quality yields a quality application and I think we we tend to forget all of that. It's just like you know we think oh you didn't give give me qualified applications. Well you know, did you follow up quickly with the job seeker.
10:37.84
Thad Price
Where are you transparent where you're competitive in compensation. All of that is about quality of connection with the job Seeker and more importantly, what's what's important to the job Seeker and if all of that connects and checks all the boxes then you've got a quality applicant. But if if all of this happens. If. All of this doesn't happen regardless of how great your your marketplace is your resume that you may have you're not going to be successful with converting that candidate job seeker into an interview on a hire.
11:12.80
Brad Owens
I'm Goingnna make sure everyone listening right now understands that I'm talking directly to them. Yes, that and night are having a conversation right now. But I'm talking to the person that is currently listening to this podcast posit I give you permission what I want you to do is go to Google type in why. Your applicants hate you use my name Brad Owens or you can type in disrupt hr and type in why your applicants hate you literally the thing that got me started on this whole journey was that initial presentation that went viral about why your applicants hate you. It is everything to do with exactly what that just said. This will drive the point home. Okay, you can come back now. Sorry so anyway, yeah that you need to go watch that one because that will show you why I'm so passionate about exactly what you're talking about. Um this might be a fun conversation then to start turning us to what's the first way that a company has's been focused for so long. On spray and prey what's the first step for one of those companies to start doing this a better way.
12:12.35
Thad Price
The first thing I would say is look at your funnel and look at the steps in the recruiting process and trackable and you know you can't improve what you don't track. It's just just life right? So go through that process and stage process and by the way. If you have a great colleague in marketing. Go grabbble. Go talk to them talk about their funnel have a conversation with them. Buy them lunch I can tell you also from a recruiting perspective as folks start to look at you internally as a more data-driven recruiting professional. It will open a lot of opportunity for you because. Most other you know, most business processes are very data-driven. But first is you've got to track it. You've got to understand your funnel your metrics know your funnel your metrics. What's happening behind the scenes once you track it and once you understand it then you can start to really question. Well, how do we improve it. What's the process. Be the job seeker what happens when you apply for a job. How long does it take a recruiter to respond what's that engagement look like that entire process. You know I I share with customers frequently. I said you know I imagine if you walked into know what people like to buy from Nordstrom they like to buy from norstrom because you walk into norshamm. Feels good feels nice. You say hello people are friendly. Um, and you want to buy from there because they provide great customer service and job seekers. Want the same thing too as hard as it is to reject someone for a job. They still want something in return.
13:47.98
Thad Price
And I think that that's I think it's really important to think about that that you know it's okay to deliver bad news. But at least they're getting their expectations set through the process if if that's a concern for you all. But. And going going back to the Nordstrom store imagine if you walked in an orstrom every day and said hello and no one responded. That's what's happening in our recruiting process people are applying to a job and we and for years we're not responding people are saying hello hire me and we aren't responding wow how long.
14:11.30
Brad Owens
Yep.
14:22.23
Thad Price
You know the impact to Brand is just tremendous.
14:24.13
Brad Owens
So Could I be a devil's advocate just to see how you're potentially reacted these types of things. So every single time I've ever brought this up and every single time I've worked with a customer that is thinking. Yeah I know but I don't have time. Why is this even important to start and how do you find time to do this. This takes so much time to respond to all these candidates.
14:50.30
Thad Price
Um, well I think there are a lot of solutions out there that can help you through that journey and I think if you were able to dig into some of your applicant tracking system functionality. It's probably easier than you think but it all starts with it all starts with just understanding that there's a problem. That you strategically think that this is a problem you need to solve um and then look for the solutions in your current in your current system that you're using and I I bet their solutions that most have the ability to easily Trigger. You know this process. Another thing you could do believe it or not as simple as it is. Is add an Autoutumn respondder like if let's say you don't have an applicant tracking system and you just have you know hiring at your you know your company name have your it T team Add a little autores responder saying hey thanks for your interest in our open rec. You know we'll be in touch with you shortly you know and maybe. Add a link to you know, maybe add a link to learn more about you. Maybe add, you know some of your of your values that are important but just receiving something on the other end is better than is better than you know, nothing. Ah so I think that's one thing I think I think.
15:56.70
Brad Owens
Depth.
16:01.98
Thad Price
Like in many issues in business I think we try to we try to solve a problem and manifest an issue in a way that we aren't necessarily breaking it into into bite size chunks and this is a very. Easy way in which you can use what you have which isn't going to cost you a lot of time you know to actually provide value and little by little if you do this little by little you will improve your perceived Reputation. You know as an employer of choice and that's what it's all about.
16:37.32
Brad Owens
People talk and if you don't think people talk go to glass door and type in your company name and hold your breath watch out that hurts I have been in those meetings where they say well we don't need to do this like go to glass door.
16:45.71
Thad Price
Absolutely absolutely.
16:56.73
Brad Owens
And then watching the look on their face if you are currently scared to go to Glassdoor and research your company name that tells you everything you need to know that's it. So all right? We've given them the first easy step of don't be a candidate black hole. Don't be the person that is just silent.
17:04.74
Thad Price
Absolutely absolutely.
17:16.90
Brad Owens
Don't be the company that says nothing after you feel like we can increase that candidate satisfaction by at least giving them something to respond to Um, how do we go about widening our net from our marketing. Brothers and sisters side of the world. How would we go about posting a job or do we even post a job. What would be kind of your for steps.
17:43.29
Thad Price
Yeah, so the first step I would say is you know there are a lot of ways within your local market where you can focus your energy and I would say that's part of an overall overall process and and plan. As you think about this so you know I said earlier this movement of like programmatic where you're focused on the right audience at the right time at the right place. All that's a movement that's been happening. You know we're integrated with most of those programmatic all of those programmatic systems to help orchestrate job advertising and recruitment advertising. Um, which is. Been great for us and we continue to use our data to help ensure that we're reaching the right audiences for those partners. Um, the second thing that I would say is before we kind of automate and drive a lot more a lot more process a lot more candidates in the funnel I would say let's try to automate whatever we want to automate because if we automate whatever we can automate. That leaves more time to connect with humans and that's what we're in the business for is connecting with humans in a lot of levels and's part of you know the the super is the superpower of recruiting is that human connection and so the first thing I would say is all right. You've got this idea you think hey you know you're buying into this idea of you know it's not It's about a single job posting in a single destination. It's about finding the right audiences the right time or the right place connecting data from the applicant tracking system to be form those decisions so that I can drive the right candidate now when you do all that now you've got to automate that process.
19:12.88
Thad Price
Because now you're going to have a lot more candidates in the funnel and if you just have all these candidates in the funnel now and you're not automating the process then what happens is you're just creating and you know you're perpetuating this bad experience of not contacting the candidates within 24 hours of applying for the job. Not given the ah the ability to immediately sync and find ah to schedule an interview so I would say now focus on that mid-funel activity which is what I can automate which depending on what systems you're using can provide. Um, once you've automated that and you figured out all right? Well how can I make it easy for qualified candidates to schedule an interview. How can I um, qualify the experience a little bit more then it's okay now I can invest and now I can um you know put the pedal down to ensure that I'm accessing and advertising to these audiences. But I wouldn't do any of that until I have kind of this midfunel automation secure because then you're just going to create a bad experience.
20:15.57
Brad Owens
Yep, agreed completely agreed. Ah so I realized that we've been dancing around this but please tell everyone what Toweroo is please tell them, please tell them what this can do for them.
20:27.29
Thad Price
Ah, yeah, yeah, absolutely so Taru is a talent matching platform. It's been most of our time most of our time in helping companies recruit frontline team members and we do that help companies reach the right audience. The right time at the right place at the right price within the taalru ad platform so we power billions of job searches billions of job searches a month and so companies use us to help so source and advertise their jobs and again find the audiences that are right for them and that can hopefully they can convert to. And interview into a hire and so that's how we help companies today.
21:05.81
Brad Owens
Got it So this whole filling your funnel with Applicant's thing. Yeah, but you work before that even happens.
21:14.72
Thad Price
Work before that even happened or you know, orchestrate kind of that talent matching experience Companies. We sync directly with an applicant tracking system. So you know companies say you're using Isms Smart Recruiters or every applicant tracking system you're using we work with them. And we connect and attract prospects to the applicant tracking system. We're not, We're not another system. You need to use um and those applicants will then funnel into your current applicant tracking system so that you can kind of go through your emotions and your recruiting process. Um, so you know. Like to think of it as the new way to advertise jobs that's focused on you know, productive experiences. It's focused on Quality. It's focused on all the different things but you know what I will say to you is that you know we could be great at reaching the right audiences we can be great. And advertising and ensuring we're reaching the right audiences so you can drive and the can to hire. But if we aren't spending time on Brand If We aren't spending time on transparency and and understanding the Market. It's hard to it's it's hard to drive that. Top of funnel candidate volume without more of a holistic view in what it means to attract the right team members and so I always encourage you know companies to really take a step back and think about you know what? it means to be holistic in your thought.
22:47.60
Thad Price
And your views on recruiting and that that starts that starts day one which is you know our north Star you know where are we going? What are we doing and how that manifests itself in our brand and how we treat and connect with our job seekers.
23:02.70
Brad Owens
Kind of makes such a huge difference and like every recruiting function that I have seen worked with advised partnered with whatever it might be every single one of them starts with well we have to be on this job Board. And I immediately push back and be like no, that's not where your process starts your process starts. Well well before that you may not even need the job boards Hard job Boards may not even need them. Ah, but I. Can't tell you how much I appreciate the conversation and how much I appreciate you giving this kind of knowledge to everyone Where would you like people to come and find out more.
23:41.72
Thad Price
Yeah, you can connect with me on Linkedin and be happy to answer any questions you may have and and hopefully if there any ways we can help you or there.
23:50.80
Brad Owens
Perfect. Well I'll have all the links in the description below and thank you that for coming on and sharing your opinion and and letting people know more about what you're seeing in the marketplace because it's always great to get different perspectives. So thank you I appreciate it? Truly yep all right? everyone? Well that was yet another episode of the transform recruiting podcast.
24:02.33
Thad Price
Um, you got it. Thanks so much. Brad.
24:09.94
Brad Owens
If you have any questions on this or other episodes you can head over to transformerrecruiting.com or shoot me a note. It's hello at bradowins.com I will be back with another episode next week until then I hope you all have a fantastic rest of your week and we'll talk soon.