Candidate Engagement – Marketing Buzz or Culture Shift? Angie Brooks & Dannielle Sayre of Beyond.com @HRTechConf

Hey, I applied for these jobs and I have no idea why nobody talked to me, no idea why I feel like I was the perfect fit but no feedback”

Steve: How much do you think the world of candidate engagement is linked to economics or to social change?

Are we seeing a shift in culture and how we care about candidates, or would a shift back to a job rich market see candidates shot to the bottom of the marketing buzz-word ladder?

Danielle: In part culture – but I think there’s been a lot of analysis of the whole recruitment process within a lot of companies. Though it’s not our area of expertise, one of the biggest complaints of jobseekers is the lack of communication and engagement with them once they’ve actually gone through the apply process.

I have a lot of friends that aren’t in the industry, and they share with me their frustrations of “Hey, I applied for these jobs and I have no idea why nobody talked to me, no idea why I feel like I was the perfect fit but no feedback”.

So, I think that the industry is responding to a lot of assessments and studies that have been done in the market and the biggest complaints of job seekers.

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Angie: I think it’s more driven by the economy instead of anything else because I come from a different perspective. Danielle lives in a large city, and I live in the country, right? So where I’m from and what I see my family go through, they’ll take any job because there are no jobs.

One open job and you’ll have hundreds and hundreds of candidates. If a candidate has no choice, they’ll say ‘so, whatever’. If the employer tells them to jump their hoops, that’s what they’ll do to get that job. I think the economic plays into it a whole lot. It’s like the real estate market. There’s a buyer’s market and a seller’s market, and it turns. And it’s the same thing. I have been in this industry and doing this since 1998 and I’ve seen that turnover several, several times, but it always comes back to the economy.

Steve: From my point of view, in the case of a the downturn of the economy you still want to engage with candidates, but perhaps more for the top jobs. In a downturn you’ve got to compete even more effectively, and to do this you’ll need to attract the best talent for the choice roles.

Thank you both for you time.

Angie Brooks is Director (Agency & Alliances) and Danielle Sayre is the Strategic Alliance Relationship Manager at Beyond.com.