New Trends In Hiring

September 14 2010 - Organizations are planning to increase hiring as the economy recovers but are making significant changes to their recruitment strategies according to research from Job Search Television Network (JSTN), a leading video and social media based recruiting company. Cuts to recruiting staffs and budgets during the recession have resulted in a greater emphasis on lower cost, efficient technological solutions. The report notes increasingly targeted use of social media in the recruitment process.

Roger Stanton, CEO of Job Search Television Network, commented:

"LinkedIn and Facebook with links to video has been hot for a while, but now we’re seeing clients ‘micro-target’ employees using niche blogs and LinkedIn groups. For example, one of our clients successfully uses niche blogs to locate workers with very specific types of financial service backgrounds. They started doing this when a new blog showed up on JSTN’s client metric report. When they posted a video to the blog, it quickly became a ‘home run’. Clients are finding sites they weren’t aware of because JSTN’s video provides highly detailed traffic metrics and they can make changes on the fly."

The study also considered the proportion of viewers who go on to apply for the position advertised.

Roger Stanton explained:

"We will usually see an enormous spike in viewership for a position right after a video is placed on websites and social media. With clients hitting average conversion rates of viewers to applicants around 18.8 per cent, the video is far exceeding other sources. In some cases, the conversion rate is as high 45 per cent! That can mean thousands of people have seen the video for a job, at very little cost to the employer and it provides very powerful employment branding. The candidates who do apply are more likely to be a more qualified fit for the job, since they’ve seen the video and have responded based on the compelling information they have viewed."

The study found renewed interest in Employment Referral Programs (ERP) in the recruitment process, but again with a different emphasis.

Roger Stanton said:

"The idea of ERP programs is coming back in a big way, because it is so much faster and cheaper if you can get a referral from your current employees. The difference this time is that since e-mail readership is going down, particularly among younger employees who prefer social media, companies are using video messaging. The video can be placed on a company’s Facebook page, blogs, etc. and is far more likely to get watched and sent to friends via mobile phones. And again, the traffic results can be closely tracked for ROI [return on investment] purposes."

The study identified mobile phones as the third major trend in hiring for 2010.

Roger Stanton explained:

"We knew when payment systems started being developed for cell phones that mobile would replace computers as the center of our digital lives. This is why JSTN was created with the ability to TEXT ID videos to mobile phones. Now with smart phones penetrating the market at exponential rates, we’re seeing this really take off. Looking forward, research states that by 2014, over 66 per cent of all mobile data traffic will be video [Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2009 - 2014]. One of our clients regularly sends job videos to prospects on cell phones with amazing results. Not only does the receiver actually view the video, they also usually forward it to numerous contacts in their network. The video quickly goes viral."

Roger Stanton concluded:

"What these trends point to is that we are truly becoming a video-centric society, with much of that centering on mobile phones. Companies are recognizing that if they want to reach prospective hires, this is where they need to be. And with tight budgets, its not surprising they would turn to these technologies now to reach new candidate pools at low cost while maintaining professional identity. As we come into the fall hiring season, which will ramp up in earnest right after Labor Day, you’ll really see these trends as play out in the workplace."

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