Recession has HR Organizations Playing “Catch-up” with Candidates

Polls Show Job Seekers Adopting Alternative Search Methods Quicker than HR.


Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) July 20, 2009 –

While HR organizations have dramatically scaled back their recruiting in the economic downturn, many have learned they must embrace new recruiting habits now if they want to attract top candidates before the inevitable turnaround, according to NAS Interactive, a division of NAS Recruitment Communications.

At a recent learning event for HR professionals co-hosted by NAS and job aggregator SimplyHired, attendees were polled about their current hiring practices. Over 80% still relied primarily on the major job boards for posting job openings.

However, the habits of job seekers have dramatically changed. Studies by digital measurement giant comScore has found that 60% of all job searches today are being conducted through search engines and job aggregators, versus a total of 40% on the big three boards—CareerBuilder, Monster and Yahoo!—combined.

“Most HR professionals recognize how quickly the digital landscape is changing, and that they need to continually put new practices into play to attract top talent,” said Caroline Slomski, NAS Interactive Marketing Strategist. “It’s why our Social Networking Boot Camps and interactive media webinars prove so popular. But we don’t want clients to just follow the trends. We encourage our clients to put the kind of analytics in place that will help them understand what is working and what is not. Where are your candidates coming from today, versus six months ago? Which channels—both paid and unpaid—are bringing in the most completed applications? And how can you adjust your strategy so you can maximize your ROI?”

“There are so many opinions out there on what’s working and what’s not,” said NAS Vice President of Development Stephan Kruger. “That’s why every organization needs real data that tracks what media their candidates are attracted to, and how they respond with the employment message. It lets you react to changes in the landscape as they occur, so you’re always in the driver’s seat.”

NAS Interactives analytics tools, such as Total Source Tracker, can help organizations track candidates from all media - from initial click to completed application - so they can measure media efficiency and reduce overall advertising spend.

To find out more about NAS’ comprehensive array of Digital Recruitment Solutions, please contact Patty Van Leer at pvanleer@nasrecruitment.com.

NAS Recruitment Communications, part of McCann Worldgroup, delivers best-of-class HR strategy solutions for online and offline candidate engagement and specialized expertise in career websites, onboarding, employee communication and HR metrics. Creating Demand. Delivering Talent. Changing Lives.

NAS Social Networking Boot Camp Gets HR Shops in Shape to Recruit in New Web 2.0 Environments

Posted by Emily Hargrave, Total Quality Account Manager

Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) July 6, 2009 – HR professionals from dozens of organizations have recently learned how quickly and easily they can connect with candidates on social media networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn through NAS Interactive’s new Social Networking Boot Camp.

NAS Interactive, a division of NAS Recruitment, began offering its Social Networking Boot Camp to help client organizations incorporate social networks into sourcing strategies, and how to use them efficiently. Since the Boot Camp’s introduction, many organizations have taken advantage of the program via onsite presentations and webinars, and the results have been remarkable.

“Many of our customers thought that introducing social networking would require a significant time investment—one that would be hard to realistically maintain,” said NAS Interactive Marketing Strategist Caroline Slomski. “Social networks are too important to ignore when implementing a sourcing strategy. That’s why we introduce participants to tools that can be incorporated into their everyday communication channels—like email—so recruiters can interact with their social networks without a major time commitment or project interruption.”

According to Linda Novak, Director of HR Development for West Penn Allegheny Health System (WPAHS), the onsite format is ideal for bringing new social network users up to speed. “Our novice social media recruiters were able to set up their LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter accounts,” Novak said. “Others who already had accounts learned better and more effective methods to use social media for recruiting. There was something for everyone. In addition, Caroline oriented all staff members to the vast array of tools available and made specific recommendations to enhance recruitment at individual hospitals as well as the health system overall.”

Treva Spencer-Dupree, Supervisor of Recruiting and Onboarding for United Water whose recruiting organization took advantage of the program via webinar concurred. I thought the Boot Camp was thorough and very informative. As a utility that is looking to be on the forefront of technology, the camp gave insight to communications and company awareness presented to the masses via the web, she said. To learn more about NAS Social Networking Boot Camp and its entire line of digital recruitment solutions, please contact Caroline Slomski at cslomski@nasrecruitment.com.

NAS Recruitment Communications, part of McCann Worldgroup, delivers best-of-class HR strategy solutions for online and offline candidate engagement and specialized expertise in career websites, onboarding, employee communication and HR metrics. Creating Demand. Delivering Talent. Changing Lives.

ERE Article: Tripling Traffic to Your Careers Site With a Facebook Account?

Posted by Laura McPeck, Director of Total Quality, Business Development

Interested in learning more about the benefits of social media to drive traffic to your career site?

Check out this ERE article by Jim Durbin, owner of Durbin Media Group regarding Sodexo and how they utilized social media to increase traffic flow to their site.

http://www.ere.net/2009/04/21/tripling-traffic-to-your-careers-site-with-a-facebook-account/

ClickZ Article: At the Intersection of Search and Social

Posted by Kate Wardwell, Director of Total Quality, Business Development

Great ClickZ article on the importance of integrating your organic search, pay-per-click, and social media efforts: http://www.clickz.com/3633291

Ad Age Article: Facebook May Be Traffic Driver, but Won't Reap Search Dollars

Posted by Laura McPeck, Director of Total Quality, Business Development

Check out this insighful article from Ad Age regarding “Why Social Media Is Complementary to SEM”.

According to Peter Hershberg, Managing Partner at Reprise Media “SEO may become a bigger factor in maximizing social media's impact in a search environment as the channel begins to mature and find a way to successful monetization through marketing.”

To check out this full article, visit http://bit.ly/m7pmT