Smashfly, the enterprise recruitment marketing platform, released their 2018 Recruitment Marketing Benchmark Report this week and it’s loaded with data. As you can see from the image above, some things have gotten better than others!
What’s up with Job Description and why the hell can’t we figure this out!?
So, apparently, we are really against having pictures and video in job descriptions! 1% of job descriptions having this type of media is actually a really strange stat to have in 2018. You would think by now we would have shoved just about anything into a JD to make it more appealing for job seekers. But, we haven’t!
Why?
A few things are at play here that I think corporate TA folks will want to point out:
– Job descriptions are a legal document, not a toy like job postings are, so we treat them appropriately. Okay, yes, a JD is a legal document. But, that doesn’t mean you need to bore people to death to read it! “Legal” doesn’t mean you can’t add pictures or videos. Just be smart.
– Our ATS only allows text. Okay, you need a new ATS that was built in the last decade!
– JD’s are an HR issue, not a TA issue. We’re lucky if we can get the hiring manager to look at them, let alone update them!
So, there are problems. No real problems. Mostly made up, we don’t like change problems.
There is no reason that your Job Descriptions shouldn’t have pictures and video. Some organizations have gone completely to video-based job descriptions, and guess what!? They didn’t even take those TA pros to jail! No, really! Not even a ticket from the EEOC or OFCCP or anything!
Here’s what we know. Having a job description that actually gets people excited about a job will get people to apply, at a far higher rate than a text-based document with paragraphs and bullet points. Also, you don’t have to have a production studio to do this! You have an iPhone, go down to the department and take some pics and video. Take ten minutes to work with your ATS and IT to figure it out.
We think JD’s don’t matter but they do. They matter because the JD is the one thing every candidate reads about the job and your company. They might not visit your career site, or stop by your lobby, or your social feeds. Everyone reads the JD. Also, the JD is basically the only thing we share socially and within our talent networks (which is an entire another post!):
95% of organizations in the Fortune 500 only send JD’s to their Talent Networks. Oh boy, that sounds like a great network to be apart of! Come on! We’re better than this!
Some other cool facts from Smashfly’s Benchmark Report:
– There’s a correlation between having Recruitment Marketing strategy and Revenue growth. Be careful. That doesn’t mean those with Recruitment Marketing Strategies will grow Revenue, there’s no causation, just correlation. There’s also a correlation between me starting to blog and the stock market going up 1265% since I started writing!
– Those who do really great at Recruitment Marketing will have higher Glassdoor ratings. Make sense, right! Tell people you’re awesome and people will say you’re awesome. I love marketing! It works!
– Only 15 Fortune 500 companies won a Candidate Experience Award in 2017. All 15 had Recruitment Marketing Strategies in place! Want a better CX? Probably helps to have a strategy.
– Only 1% of organizations have implemented the most talked about technology on the planet! A chatbot! Seems low. Seems like I’m running into them more and more as I look at career sites, but not surprising. We like to wait and see when it comes to TA Tech. I’m guessing that number will be higher next year!
Check out the full report, it has some great data and some great ideas as well on Recruitment Marketing!
I’d love to get some data around this: “Here’s what we know. Having a job description that actually gets people excited about a job will get people to apply, at a far higher rate than a text-based document with paragraphs and bullet points.”
But this is a great article. Thanks for putting this together. Really exposes a simple gap that can be filled.
I’m sure one of the vendors like SkillScout, Ruutly, ViziRecruiter, VideoMyJob, Sparc, etc. will have client data around before and after that might be willing to share at a high level.
Great question,
Tim
Q: 1% OF JOB DESCRIPTIONS HAVE PICTURES OR VIDEO! WHY?
A: Lack of understanding of tech that can support this content. Lack of funding for tech to support this concept. Recruitment marketing was born out of social recruiting and is just starting to pivot to true content marketing, with JDs being the lowest common denominator of that approach.
I read some stats yesterday published by TMP and data they’ve been collecting across their TalentBrew product and there has been a drastic uptick in candidates landing on jobs first vs. these other channels teams have built out. Tides will start to turn.
Correlation – of those 15 companies who won a CX award and had an RM strategy, my gut says they probably have a good people strategy all around… One of my issues with RM is it’s one-sided. You need strong HR and people strategies in place to deliver on the bill of goods you sold.
HD –
Stop being smart and making sense! 😉
Can you share a link to the TMP data? I do think that is a big piece of what makes this so important. If we know the majority of candidates will see a JD of ours as their first connect with us, we better be doing a way better job at making the JD more engaging.
T