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iCIMS Announces a New Framework for Talent Acquisition

The talent acquisition technology market has experienced significant transformation over the past few years with new products, providers, categories and startups. It is an exciting time to be in the recruitment industry but at the same time, it can feel incredibly overwhelming as companies try to understand what a modern technology stack should include. Furthermore, a lot of organizations are stuck with the technology they have today and aren’t able to switch off systems that aren’t meeting their needs.

Models have been created to show the breadth of products companies need to include in end-to-end talent acquisition, but most don’t align with the priorities or strategies that talent acquisition leaders have in place. And, many of the providers tend to overcomplicate an already complex market.

iCIMS is one provider that is committed to helping meet clients’ needs within the talent acquisition market. It has announced a new framework that helps to simplify the market with a new product portfolio for customers to invest in solutions that they need at the stage that they need them. The portfolio includes three suites: recruitment marketing suite, advanced communications suite and a hiring suite (after a candidate applies for a job). These suites can be integrated with other applicant tracking and HR systems.

The Recruitment Marketing Suite: By definition, recruitment marketing includes the activities and strategies to nurture and engage with talent before they apply for a job. According to Aptitude Research, 70% of companies are investing in recruitment marketing this year yet, only 2% of companies are using all of the functionality that their provider offers. Recruitment marketing needs to be simplified. iCIMS customers can leverage recruitment marketing capabilities through dynamic career sites with iCIMS Attract, and through a CRM (what iCIMS is calling its Nurture product). These capabilities were made possible through the Jibe acquisition iCIMS made earlier this year.

The Communication Suite: 1 in 2 companies still use email as their primary form of communication with candidates and 62% of candidates never receive any communication from employers. iCIMS is helping companies improve this through “live communication” with iCIMS TextRecruit which includes chat, text and social media messenger and iCIMS ARI (Automated Recruiter Interface) which uses artificial intelligence to automate repetitive, high-volume tasks like candidate screening and interview scheduling.  

The Hiring Suite: This suite of solutions includes recruiting, offer and pre-onboard. This suite includes the ATS capabilities as well as communication and compliance that needs to happen with employees before they join an organization. Aptitude Research found that the growth of the ATS market remains strong at 10% with companies looking to invest in true partners.

With several acquisitions over the past few years including TextRecruit and Jibe, iCIMS is providing clarity about its offerings and flexibility around how companies can adopt technology solutions to meet unique needs. It simplifies the talent acquisition technology market and makes it feel more manageable to companies that are confused with where to begin. These suites are supported by a unified platform with access to a marketplace of hundreds of providers that integrate with these core suites.

 

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New Research on Talent Acquisition Technology Trends

Talent acquisition technology trends seem to change every few months and it’s hard to keep up. In fact, over 60% of companies are increasing their investment in recruitment technology this year according to Aptitude Research. Companies are looking at both traditional providers as well as startups to help solve challenges with attracting, recruiting and hiring talent. But, determining what solutions provide value and what solutions create additional frustration is not easy. Currently, only one in five companies are measuring the ROI on their talent acquisition technology investments.

Fortunately, many companies are thinking more strategically about their technology with a focus on efficiency and innovation. Technology needs to do more than keep organizations compliant and provide a workflow for moving candidates through the process. Technology needs to empower talent acquisition leaders with the tools they need to solve business challenges. But, sometimes companies need help figuring out what technology to use.

I am so excited about our latest research report in partnership with CareerXroads designed to help companies navigate the trends in talent acquisition technology. The report includes new survey results, a series of interviews with enterprise organizations, case studies, RFPs and vendor reviews.

Below are some of the research findings:

–          Scheduling and Candidate Communication: Companies that use bots are twice as likely to fill positions in 2 weeks.

–          Recruitment Marketing:  Only 2% of companies are using all of the functionality in their recruitment marketing platform.

–          Assessments: Only 30% of companies are using mobile-optimized assessments.

–          Automation: Nearly 40% of companies are investing in automation but only 1 in 3 companies understand what automation can do for their talent acquisition efforts.

The report also features companies such as GE Appliances, Lowe’s and CVS. Below are some highlights from the case studies:

Lowe’s Corportation: Lowe’s needed to create greater efficiencies and improve candidate communication. It decided to leverage Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to manage over 3 million applications that it receives each year.

Enterprise Telecommunications Company: Since implementing Brazen, 15-20% of chats have turned into hires. Improvements have also been seen in managing the volume of applicants and identifying better quality applicants.

GE Appliances: The overall candidate experience has improved at GE Appliances and the apply rates have improved from 40% to 80% through the use of Talentegy.

We are fortunate to be in an industry where so many organizations are willing to share their experiences. I hope this research project can help companies along their journey to understand what options they have and what partners to consider.

 

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Blog Talent Acquisition Strategies

iCIMS Acquires Jibe and Continues its Leadership in All Things Talent Acquisition

If you don’t know the history and the background of iCIMS and CEO, Colin Day. It’s an interesting story. iCIMS is a SaaS talent acquisition provider that has achieved tremendous growth and profitability in a highly competitive industry. Most of its early success stems from its commitment to customer service and Colin’s strong leadership (even through two recessions). While other providers have tried to reinvent the recruitment model favoring what is “new”, iCIMS has focused on what it does best- helping companies attract, recruit and onboard talent. It’s a basic strategy and one that has worked.

But iCIMS’ success is not just the result of its customer support, it has also taken significant risks.  In 2012, I met with Colin and CMO, Susan Vitale, in Boston. They were about to announce the decision to ditch iCIMS’ talent management products in favor of a talent acquisition suite. It seemed like a crazy idea when every other vendor was “biggering” and “biggering” into all things HCM. iCIMS was scaling back to focus solely on talent acquisition. Colin recognized that talent acquisition deserved its own suite of solutions and its own conversation. And, he was right.   

While many other providers struggled with acquisitions and customer churn, iCIMS continued a path of steady growth eventually moving up market to support some global enterprise clients. It acquired Jobmagic and TextRecruit and built out a marketplace to provider connectors with third-party providers. The recent acquisition of Jibe further supports its vision for an end-to-end platform.

Below are my thoughts on what this acquisition means for the market and what customers and prospects should consider:

–          Recruitment Marketing Platforms: Recruitment marketing continues to be a top investment for enterprise organizations and the value of having one provider for both CRM and ATS is clear. Similar to K1’s acquisition of Talemetry and Jobvite, one provider offers more consistency of data and experience. It isn’t long before we will see other recruitment marketing providers getting acquired.

–          Customer Support: Many of the recruitment marketing providers have neglected customer support. They have angry clients and angry former clients. It’s not pretty but it’s true. This is a market with significant market churn as customers look for better partners. I can name a handful of companies that I work with that will not even take a briefing from some of the providers in this space. Jibe has remained under the radar but has maintained its customer support. Johnson & Johnson is an example of a long-time customer that improved its job discovery of critical roles to a 41% increase in high-quality job applicants per search.

–          Enterprise Growth: Recruitment marketing is an enterprise market- at least for now. Large companies want solutions that can help them enhance their branding and engage with talent before they apply. As iCIMS looks to move up market, having a recruitment marketing provider with demonstrated support for enterprise companies is critical.

–          Branding: Acquiring a new company can create growing pains in terms of product and development and branding. This acquisition is not iCIMS first rodeo. It has learned some lessons with the TextRecruit acquisition and plans to make this a smoother process. We can expect a consistent experience and brand for customers.  

It is a great time to be in talent acquisition. Companies want better solutions and providers are making smarter decisions about where and how they should grow. We should expect to see more acquisitions in the recruitment marketing space over the next year and I am looking forward to seeing how this announcement unfolds.

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Aptitude Weekly Update: Jobvite, TMP, Yello, Google and IBM

It is the end of another exciting week in HCM technology with some major acquisitions, product announcements, and new partnerships. The recruitment marketing landscape is changing while AI continues to define technology decisions in 2019.

Below are some of the highlights from this week:

–        K1 Investment Management (a private equity firm based out of Los Angeles) invested over $200 million in Jobvite. This funding will be used to acquire three distinct (and notably different) talent acquisition providers: Talemetry (Recruitment Marketing Platform), Rolepoint (Employee Referrals), and Canvas (Candidate Communication and Text). Each provider offers a unique set of products and capabilities that when (and if) integrated will provide one of the most robust talent acquisition suites available in the market. You can read my thoughts from Monday’s blog.

–          TMP Acquires CKR Interactive. TMP Worldwide also announced the acquisition of CKR Interactive, an employer branding and recruitment marketing firm founded in 2001. This acquisition expands TMP’s market share in the recruitment marketing space and gives CKR Interactive access to more creative services and technology (through the TalentBrew platform).

–          Yello Launches a New Interview Scheduling Product. Scheduling interviews is one of the greatest challenges facing talent acquisition professionals today. Ineffective scheduling can negatively impact recruiter productivity and the candidate experience. According to our recently survey, over 60% of companies have dedicated schedulers on their talent acquisition teams. Yello is helping companies manage the way interviews are scheduled with a new product that is powered by AI and can match and manage complicated schedules in one system.

–          Hire by Google Expands in the US and Canada: In 2017, Google launched its Hire product in the US and began to expand its products in the talent acquisition market. This week it announced expansion in Canada and the UK. I am guessing we will continue to see global expansion and a possible move up market in the next year or two.

–       IBM Announces Partnerships with Skillsoft and ServiceNow: I was at the IBM Think conference this week to learn more about AI, blockchain, automation and talent. I will post more from this event on Monday but two major announcements were IBM’s partnerships with ServiceNow and SkillSoft. These partnerships represent IBM’s commitment to areas like internal mobility and succession planning.

Have a great weekend!

 

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Blog Talent Acquisition Strategies

Recruitment Marketing: Four Trends to Consider When Evaluating Providers

compass with the arrow pointing towards the word talent

In a few weeks, we are publishing an updated Recruitment Marketing Index. It is a project I started a year ago and this market continues to surprise me. Although, it is one of the most exciting areas of talent acquisition technology, evaluating these providers is not always easy. Organizations are looking at these solutions from very different perspectives and based on very different needs. Some companies want support with career sites. Some companies want a true CRM. And, some companies are not even sure what they want. Unlike the ATS market, recruitment marketing can feel like apples and oranges.

Over the past year, many of the providers in our report have enhanced their capabilities, secured investment, created service offerings, and acquired large global customers. It has certainly been a year of change but some of the confusion around what these solutions do and what value they bring has remained the same. The goal of this research is to help provide clarity on a complex market and highlight the key differentiators in this space. With over 70% of enterprise companies investing or planning to invest in these solutions this year, we want to share some of the latest trends.

Below are a few of the key takeaways from the report:

Replacement: It is amazing to see how many second and third generation buyers exist in a market that is still immature. Recruitment marketing is the top area of replacement in the next year above ATS, assessments and background screening. Organizations looking to replace these solutions cited capabilities, price and customer support as the top reasons. The providers that succeed in this market are not those that have secured the most investment but those that are committed to building products that their customers want to use.

Adoption: Adoption continues to be one of the greatest challenges with recruitment marketing. Only 2% of companies are using all of the functionality in their recruitment marketing solutions. The problem is two-fold: many companies do not have the resources in place to support implementation and adoption and many of these providers are not making products that are simple enough to get adopted. These solutions provide great value but only if they are getting used.

Buyer: The recruitment marketing buyer is different for every company and it is not always the head of talent acquisition that is the key decision maker. At many companies, recruitment operations professionals are responsible for evaluating providers and talent acquisition teams with candidate experience roles, campus recruiting roles and employer brand specialists are having influence as well.

Events Management: One of the key drivers for investing in recruitment marketing is the ability to create, track and manage all events. It is surprising that many of the providers in this market are still lacking some robust capabilities in events management. This is one area that is becoming increasingly important especially with the demand for more campus recruiting solutions.

The Recruitment Marketing Index report profiles eight of the leading providers in the space and will look at differentiators, product roadmap, investment, and capabilities. We are looking forward to sharing this research with you!

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Six Strategies for Improving Recruitment Marketing

Recruitment marketing is one of the fastest growing areas of HR technology with nearly 70% of enterprise companies investing in some capabilities. It is a popular topic and one that tends to focus on some obvious trends CRM, career sites, and analytics. Companies want solutions that will help them attract talent before they apply for a job.

The challenge is that most companies have very little understanding of what recruitment marketing is and how to evaluate and select a partner. Building a business case can be a challenge when companies feel overwhelmed with a lot of product and a lot of use cases. Some companies need to start out small and consider strategies that can help to bring immediate benefits to recruitment marketing initiatives. These strategies may not be the most obvious but they are simple to adopt.

Today, I am presenting on a webinar with Stephen Schwander, Director of Client Solutions at Talemetry, to address six innovative trends in recruitment marketing that are practical and easy to implement including:

• Communication: How texting directly with candidates optimizes response rates
• Personalization: How personalized content empowers the candidate journey and builds ongoing relationships
• Feedback: How sharing and reviewing feedback earlier on prospective talent provides an expedited and higher quality recruitment process
• Insights: How gaining insight and visibility into career site visitor behavior can empower recruiting teams to segment candidates and nurture the most engaged talent
• Machine Learning: How Google machine learning can maximize career site traffic and engagement to increase candidate conversion
• Candidate Conversion: How improving candidate conversion on Indeed can increase overall application volume

Recruitment marketing doesn’t have to be a future goal. It can be an immediate goal and something your company can start working on today.

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Hiring Success 2018: Top 10 Key Takeaways

The ATS market is not really about the ATS anymore. Companies are investing in solutions that are less about compliance and workflow and more about strategic talent acquisition. This is a market where differentiators go beyond product capabilities and include services, customer support, and leadership. This new reality certainly rang true at SmartRecruiter’s Hiring Success event in San Francisco last week. Over 1000 companies came together to discuss topics such as diversity and inclusion, recruitment marketing, and collaboration. Most of the sessions didn’t even mention ATS.

SmartRecruiters’ CEO, Jerome Ternynck, kicked off the conference defining what success looks like including a positive candidate experience, hiring manager accountability, and recruiter efficiency. It was a refreshing and simple message for a very complex topic. In addition to some very meaningful discussions about the role of talent acquisition, SmartRecruiters made some significant product and company announcements last week.

For those of you not there, here are the ten things we think you might want to know:

  1. SmartJobs: SmartRecruiters has launched its own programmatic advertising solution that will help companies with job advertising and attracting talent.
  2. Recruiter Assistant: As most talent acquisition providers are marching down the path of AI, SmartRecruiters is offering its own AI solution to help communicate with candidates and enable better decision making.
  3. SmartStart– If you have been in talent acquisition for the past ten years, SmartRecruiters original vision back in 2008 was to offer a free ATS to companies. They are continuing that commitment with SmartStart, a free ATS for companies with under 250 employees.
  4. CRM: In our latest survey, we found that 1 in 4 companies are looking at their ATS for CRM capabilities. So, it is no surprise that SmartRecruiters has developed a CRM solution to help attract and nurture leads.
  5. Shelley Winner– SmartRecruiters included candidates in their agenda. Shelley Winner presented a truly inspirational story about her candidate journey from prison to her role as an impressive Microsoft product leader.
  6. Leadership: Jerome’s passion for recruitment is hard to deny. He is the type of CEO that greets every customer and employee with a hug. With so many startups and ERPs dipping their toes in talent acquisition, this expertise and commitment to this space is rare. (Dan Finnigan, CEO of Jobvite, and Colin Day, CEO of iCIMS, also fall under this category.):
  7. Ecosystem: Most talent acquisition user conferences do not have a large expo or partner presence. Hiring Success was an exception. Many of the leading talent acquisition providers were in attendance at this conference both in sessions and in the expo.
  8. Diverse Industries: It is hard to find a company in the Bay area that is growing outside of the tech market. So, it was encouraging to see a wide mix of industries including retail, hospitality, professional services, and healthcare.
  9. Moving Up Market: Like many of their peers, SmartRecruiters is moving up market with significant customer wins in the past year including Adidas and Avery Denison. Avery Denison said that integration with LinkedIn and Workday were key factors in their decision to move to SmartRecruiters.
  10. Nor’easter: With 18 inches of snow headed for the east coast last week, I was very happy to be in San Francisco and in no rush to go home.

It is amazing to see how much talent acquisition has evolved in the past few years and how companies are thinking more strategically about the way they recruit and hire talent. These conferences are a reminder of how critical talent acquisition is in both hiring success and organizational success.

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New Research: Talent Acquisition Trends 2018

We launched our talent acquisition survey last week and we have been busy analyzing the results. Forty percent (40%) of companies are increasing their headcount this year and as a result, talent acquisition leaders are looking closely at what strategies and technology they have in place. Background screening, internal mobility, candidate communication, and recruitment marketing are all recurring themes as we look at the early findings. Especially in high-volume industries such as retail and hospitality, organizations need solutions that will help them quickly identify quality hires and provide a more meaningful candidate experience.

We have lots of new research and data we will be publishing over the next few weeks but here is a sneak peek at some of the early findings:

Background Screening Has the Greatest Impact on Quality of Hire: Over 50% of companies said that background screening solutions have the greatest impact on quality of hire. Screening solutions help organizations make better decisions around the talent they are bringing into the organization. Most companies are investing in criminal background checks as well as verification of employment and education. Over 60% of companies view screening as so strategic that they are moving it up in the process.

LinkedIn is Losing Some Love: Companies are still leveraging LinkedIn and identify it as top area of investment for the next year. But, some companies are beginning to question the value of the tech giant. One in 5 companies that use LinkedIn do not believe it is effective at sourcing passive candidates. One in 4 companies that use LinkedIn believe it is too expensive and are unsure about alternative sourcing solutions.

Candidate Communication is Still Immature: It is the most basic area of talent acquisition. Yet, most companies still fall behind in their ability to communicate effectively with candidates. Only 11% of companies are providing transparency on the status of the application (a significant decrease from 32% in 2017) and only 24% of companies are providing candidates with information relevant to the job.

ATS and Recruitment Marketing: More companies are looking at the value of one provider for recruitment marketing and ATS. One in 4 companies use a single provider for both and these providers cited a consistent experience, bundled pricing, and integrated data as major drivers for investing in end-to-end talent acquisition. We are expecting to see an acquisition or two in the recruitment marketing space in the next year or two.

Yes, we have lots of data on AI, GDPR, Blockchain and all the other trends you might expect in talent acquisition. If you would like to schedule some time to talk through our early findings, we would love to hear from you!

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We Are a Tech Company

This phrase seems to be the rally cry for many of today’s largest companies. Financial firms are now competing for tech talent against companies like Google and Facebook. According to CB Insights, Goldman Sachs is hiring more tech talent this year than financial talent with a third of its workforce in engineering roles. JP Morgan has created “Tech Connect” to attract and develop tech talent and Morgan Stanley is upping its game as well. These firms are offering competitive salaries and considering more relaxed work environments that might appeal to the Silicon Valley genre of talent. And they are not alone. According to McKinsey & Company, large companies will make technology-related investments averaging hundreds of millions of dollars and some upwards of a billion dollars in the next five years. Every large company seems to be trying to become a tech company. But what do these firms need to consider if they want to recruit the best of the best?

Here are a few or our recommendations for a more tech-friendly talent acquisition strategy:

–          Invest in Best-of-Class Technology: The top tech talent are not going to want to work for a company that uses outdated or traditional recruitment software. If you are going to be taken seriously as a technology company, consider you own tech investments including your recruitment marketing solutions, employer branding, ATS, and onboarding solutions. These solutions should provider the right candidate communication and a simple, consumer-like experience.

–          Consider Scheduling Tools: Many of the tech companies are startups are experimenting with different scheduling tools such as Olivia, Brazen, and Calendly. Not only do these tools lift the administrative burden for recruiters but they show tech companies that your firm is up-to-date with the latest innovation.

–          Narrow Your Candidate Pool: If you want to be more effective at identifying the best candidates and competing for talent, you may want to consider assessment tools. These solutions can help you identify talent with the right skills, personality, and cultural fit.

–          Invest in Employer Branding: If your company is transforming, you will need to update your employer brand. You will need to showcase why top tech talent would want to work for your firm using video and social channels. It might mean a change in company culture, competitive salaries, or highlighting your existing top talent.

As most companies try to establish themselves as tech companies, they will need to do more to identify and attract top talent. Recruiting in tech is one of the most competitive markets right now and companies that will succeed will need to highlight their brand, connect with candidates in a meaningful way, and use innovative technology.

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It Is a Good Time to Be in HR Technology

Last week was a big week with some major announcements about investment in HCM. First, Workday announced a $250 million venture fund with investments to go into early and growth stage providers focused on topics such as AI, blockchain, and machine learning. This announcement not only demonstrates Workday’s growing leadership in all things HCM but it also enables startups to develop better products and expand their customer base. Less obvious announcements from last week include Gartner’s decision to sell its talent assessment business (through the acquisition of CEB – which acquired SHL) to private equity firm, Exponent, for $400 million. Not to mention, investment raised by Joveo ($5 million), gr8people ($8 million), and ZipRecruiter ($50 million). Investors recognize the opportunity and the demand for better solutions to attract, engage, and retain talent. And, it is a good time to be in HR Technology.

Here are some of the areas where we see the most investment:

–          Recruitment Marketing: Interest in the recruitment marketing space has not died down. Investors recognize that recruiting is evolving the same way marketing evolved several years ago. They are looking at solutions that offer one platform for engaging, nurturing, and connecting with talent before they ever apply for a job. Research we did last year found that 1 in 3 companies are increasing their spend on solutions that handle everything before someone applies for a job.

–          AI: The topic of AI is pervasive in HCM. Yet, most companies are still confused by what AI is and how it can be used to solve talent management challenges. Companies are curious about the value of AI and what use cases they should consider. But with so many providers entering this space, it is challenging to know who to consider. Hopefully, some of the investment in AI will help to provide clarity around AI and differentiate some of these providers.

–          Blockchain: The topic of blockchain is everywhere and not just because of the buzz around Bitcoin. Essentially, blockchain is a database that is not stored in just one central location but is everywhere- making the data easier to maintain. Sourcecon published a great article recently, where it explains Blockchain in this way:  “Imagine a Google or Excel sheet you’ve shared with your recruiting team to track hiring activities. Your sheet updates automatically in real time, it’s asynchronous, and everyone has access to the ability to update it.”

–          Employee Recognition: At one time, an area where investors seemed to tread lightly, the employee recognition market has really taken off. Investors recognize that employee recognition is the key driver of employee engagement and are looking at solutions that enable social recognition, feedback, and peer-to-peer interaction.

We will continue to watch the investment in this space are we are excited for the opportunity it presents providers and practitioners. Our friend, George LaRocque, does an exceptional job of covering the investment in this space. We also recommend checking out his research and publications on this market.

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