In his session on technology trends shaping recruiting today, expert Bob Corlett used GRIM to help outline his thoughts. His remarks came at BLR’s RecruitCON conference held last year in Las Vegas. Corlett is the founder and president of Staffing Advisors.
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The Role of Google
The first part of GRIM is “Google.” Where do active jobseekers go to look for a job online? According to a CareerBuilder study, 73% of jobseeker searches begin with Google. So, says Corlett:
- Google is the dominant force directing jobseeker traffic.
- Look where Google takes jobseekers to decide where to post jobs.
Mobile Dominance
Another part of GRIM is “Mobile.” Mobile dominance is another major trend in recruiting, says Corlett. Smartphone/tablet usage now far surpasses personal computer usage, and recruiters need to be aware. It’s the time of the mobile candidate; every major platform has an app, he says.
- The internet in our pockets has fundamentally changed our real-world behavior. Any business practice that ignores mobile recruiting is obsolete.
- The social web, augmented by mobile, also shifted how people interact. It lowered the barriers to being participatory … And critical.
Abandon Hope
And that leads to the other part of GRIM, “Reputation’s Impact.” Corlett offers the following as typical of what an organization may be faced with in an online review:
“Abandon hope all ye who enter here” is one contributor’s lament found on an online site regarding employers. Here’s another typical set of comments:
Pros
Benefits are fairly decent. It is near a metro stop.
Cons
Very old-fashioned, top-down, hierarchical office. Terrible pay for the worker bees; so this place tends not to get the best and brightest in the field. Offers no exposure to current best practices, so it’s hard to justify the low pay in terms of a tradeoff for work experience, because you’re unlikely to learn anything that will propel you toward a better position elsewhere.
Advice to Management
Management makes money doing things the way they’ve always done things, so any advice from disgruntled former employees falls on deaf ears. Requests for more transparency and complaints about pay come up regularly during the annual meeting, senior staff reviews, and countless exit interviews. But because the system isn’t “broke” for management—they’re not going to fix it.
Studies Suggest, Corlett Says, That:
- Ninety-eight percent of online shoppers read online reviews when making a decision.
- Anonymous reviews are more trusted than the company CEO.
So where do we stand?
- Reviewing platforms are ubiquitous, trusted, and easy to use.
- Posting a review is empowering and democratizing.
- Increased participation results in more social/useful sites.
- Reviews can be done from anywhere, anytime.
- Your brand is not what you say it is—it’s what others say it is.
So, Corlett says, you end up with an employer site that says “We’re great, look at the happy pictures and the puppies,” but public reviews paint a different picture.
In tomorrow’s Advisor, we’ll go over what you can do about it.