Silk road source-hire-2014

TOP SOURCESFOR HIRES 2014The Definitive Report on theMost Effective Recruiting Sources

A SilkRoad TalentTalkRESEARCH REPORT

INTRODUCTION

HIGHLIGHTS

EVALUATING SOURCE EFFECTIVENESS: QUANTITATIVE VERSUS QUALITATIVE METHODOLOGIES

WHAT SETS THIS REPORT APART

SCOPE OF THE SAMPLE SIZE

SOURCE EFFECTIVENESS: TOP SOURCES OF INTERVIEWS AND HIRES

RECRUITMENT ANALYTICS: A WORD ABOUT AUTOMATED SOURCE TRACKING

WHAT THE DATA SHOWS: INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL SOURCES

NEW THIS YEAR: SPOTLIGHT ON SOURCES

ADAPTING SOURCING STRATEGY: A BUSINESS IMPERATIVE

CONCLUSIONS: THE TOP 10 FINDINGS

ABOUT SILKROAD

03 04 04

040505

05

06

1215

1516

TABLEOF CONTENTS

1 “Corporate recruiting explodes,” Josh Bersin, Forbes.com, May 23, 2013.2 “How Much Employee Turnover Really Costs You,” Suzanne Lucas, Inc. Magazine, August 13, 2013. Note also that replacement costs are highly industry-dependent.

Everyone’s talking about talent acquisition. Employers worldwide perform the complex act of juggling cost containment against anticipated future growth while coming to terms with an increasingly online, social, networked, and next-generation hiring marketplace. Continued recovery from a global economic slump makes companies cautious about recruitment spending and where to spend those limited resources. At the same time, they recognize the need to grow their workforce and close skills gaps to keep a competitive edge.

Recruitment is a high-stakes activity. Current data shows that companies around the world can spend more than $3,300 per hire on recruiting1—depending upon the region, business size, and the worker’s skill set. Moreover, if an employee jumps ship, the turnover and total replacement costs have been estimated to run as high as 150 times annual salary for specialized senior level positions. This number is less for lower level positions, but still substantial2. Hiring the wrong person drains money and productivity; hiring the right person helps control costs and contributes to a healthy bottom line.

Wherever you recruit, from high-tech campuses in Mumbai, a hospital in San Diego, or a factory in Tokyo, you’re expected to find and access a pool

of best-fit candidates. Sourcing taps into a pipeline of talented individuals who will drive business results. Sourcing e�ectively eliminates administrative time, helps reduce employee turnover, and optimizes precious recruitment dollars.

For the last three years, SilkRoad’s Top Sources of Hire Report has provided insights to help professionals understand top recruitment sources used by other companies so that they can develop their own top recruitment strategies. Objective and substantial in both scope and depth, the report includes quantitative source data extracted directly from the talent management systems of more than a thousand employers.

In some instances, we’ve supplemented our findings by citing research from outside experts, such as Pew Research and the Society for Human Resource Management, to give greater context to our analysis. This year we also examine several new source categories in more detail: campus recruiting, former employees, veterans, state job boards, and social media. We’ve turned a spotlight on these categories because they either show evolving trends, represent topics in the news, or reflect new legislation governing recruitment compliance.

Read on to learn more and see comparisons of sources used by your peers.

INTRODUCTION

THE LOOMINGTALENT SHORTAGE

Talent shortages a�ect more than one in three businesses

globally. Business performance is likely to be impacted by

talent shortages in terms of reduced client service capacity and reduced competitiveness, according to hiring managers.

Source: 2013 Talent ShortageSurvey, Manpower, Inc.

©Copyright 2014, SilkRoad Inc. // Silkroad.com

03

THEEMPLOYMENTOUTLOOK:A SOURCINGCHALLENGE

HIGHLIGHTSEVALUATING TOP SOURCES FOR HIRES:NUMBERS VS FEELINGS

The 2014 Source of Hire report is unlike other industry reports: It relies on quantitative methods to analyze business data from millions of applications and thousands of interviews and hires. All of the figures reported here are entirely data-driven. That means HR and recruitment professionals have reliable, fact-based sourcing information to make good decisions about their own hiring sources and budgets.

When preparing a study on which sources are the most e�ective for delivering hires, some studies rely on qualitative methods (interviews with professionals, business case studies, preference surveys, and the like). While perfectly acceptable, these methodologies provide only partial information and fail to supply hard metrics and primary, objective data. Survey’s and interviews often elicit “top of mind” answers and reflections, while corporate case studies tend to focus on the practices of a few companies, rather than on a larger sample.

For all of these reasons, measuring top sources for hires based on hard data, just the numbers, makes good sense for HR professionals looking to base their strategies in objective data gathering and

Between 2012 and 2022, 50.6 million total job openings are expected in the U.S alone. While growth will lead to many openings, more than two-thirds (67.2%) are expected to come from replacement needs.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections 2012 – 2022, December 19, 2013

analytics. And a study of recruitment source e�ectiveness lends itself perfectly to quantitative analysis.

With solid, reliable data, analytics technology can help management gain a clearer picture of the quality and e�ectiveness of sourcing strategy. Recruiters and HR professionals can use a numbers-based study, like this one, to show the how sourcing channels a�ect the bottom line—first in terms of numbers, then in terms of outcomes. Advances in applicant tracking systems and analytical techniques are enabling companies to dig into very large data sets and harness their data for better decision making. This new frontier and emerging practice is transforming the ways companies source, screen, and hire talent.

TOP SOURCES:WHAT SETS THIS REPORT APARTThis report di�ers from others in three ways:

ONE. Unbiased data. The findings are based on source data extracted directly from applicant tracking systems.

TWO. Online source data gets identified automatically. An ATS with automated source tracking identifies the source and reports it, removing any subjectivity or interpretation on the part of the recruitment professional about the candidate. This is particularly true for online sources, where the data is passed directly to the ATS without human intervention.

THREE. The scope of the sample is substantial in both its size and its variety of recognized employer brands.

The data that comprises this report was pulled directly, with permission, from employers who use the SilkRoad OpenHire applicant tracking system (ATS). It is primary data—valid, untainted and objective—without the anecdotal or subjective information found in typical surveys or interview-based studies.


04

3 An American National Standard for Human Resource Management, SHRM, February 2012.4 Dr. John Sullivan, “The Silliness of Measuring Cost Per Hire,” www.ere.net, August 6, 2012

SCOPE OF THE SAMPLE SIZEThe 1,140 participating companies ranged in size from as few as 100 employees to mid-market and large employers.

Combined, the data gave us insight into:

• How many job postings• Almost 10 million applications• More than 150,000 interviews• More than 150,000 hires

SOURCEEFFECTIVENESS = INTERVIEWS AND HIRES

Four common metrics are frequently used by businesses to evaluate source e�ectiveness: applicants, interviews, o�ers, and hires. In conversations with a broad spectrum of businesses, we asked them to identify which were most important in evaluating e�ectiveness of recruiting sources. They generally agreed on two key metrics: interviews and hires.

ONE. A candidate qualifies for an interview. The source—at least at that early stage—is judged e�ective. Beyond that, other elements are added to the mix that might determine whether a candidate receives an o�er, such as salary requirements or fit with the company culture. But ultimately, the interview is the first important step.

TWO. Hires, the second key metric, combine other factors such as external costs for agency fees and internal costs for sta�ng e�orts and physical infrastructure.3

Together these elements give professionals cost-per-hire information, one of the most widely used measurements in the industry. Furthermore, cost-per-hire calculations should be coupled with other metrics, such as quality of hires, including their time-to-productivity and tenure rates to determine the return on recruiting investment (ROI). ROI ties recruitment e�orts directly to

business results and enables organizations to compare spending relative to the return that the costs produce.4

RECRUITMENT ANALYTICS:A WORD ABOUT AUTOMATED SOURCE TRACKINGThis study rests on the data collected from 1,140 employers who use Automated Tracking Systems and the Automated Source Tracking information those systems provide. In all cases, the findings come directly from the data supplied by these systems. However, there are a few anomalies in the findings that you should know.

Applicant tracking systems typically interoperate with online recruitment advertising sources. To seamlessly capture that source information accurately, the online source site needs to pass along a value in the job URL that identifies the source to the ATS. This eliminates user error of candidate self-selection (the “where did you hear about this job?” questions). Obviously this is the most reliable data about the source. This report uses data obtained from SilkRoad’s OpenHire ATS, which uses automated source tracking. The SilkRoad ATS provides URL tracking values to sources for each job feed when that is possible. So do the findings of this report.

An ATS with automated source tracking works “behind the scenes”. The system identifies the source and reports it, removing any subjectivity or interpretation on the part of the job seeker.

The benefits are:

• More accurate recruitment source data

• More reliable data to measure sourcing e�ectiveness

• A speedier application experience for the job seeker


05

WHAT THE DATASHOWS: INTERNALAND EXTERNALSOURCES

Internal and external sources were evenly split (50-50) as sources of interviews.

However, internal sources produced more hires (59%), compared to external sources (41%).

INTERNAL50%

EXTERNAL50%

INTERVIEWSEXTERNAL VS. INTERNAL SOURCES

Even when an ATS like OpenHire o�ers automated source tracking, some employers and sources do not leverage its full capabilities. For example, an organization may fail to track a key data element, such as interviews. While the ATS continues to work and provides excellent support for all of the processes around recruiting and hiring, the employer chooses to not track interviews to sources. The employer cares, in this case, about tracking hires to sources rather than intermediate steps.

Business decisions play another factor. For example, data elements within the ATS may be coded so generally as to be unusable. For example, an employer may fail to keep up with the variety of available sources, so that the “other” category continues to grow. We found this year’s data showed a surprising number of interviews and hires were attributed to “other.” Obviously, this is not the best practice recommended for employers who confront new sources of talent every year and need to make good decisions.

Results show that internal and external sources are equally e�ective in generating interviews. Yet as shown in the graph above, once an applicant has made it through that essential interview process, internal sourcing produces more hires. In later discussions, we will explore those internal sources and others in more detail to o�er some reasons for this finding.

Internal sources made slight gains as sources of interviews this year (6%), as compared to last year’s findings. However, for hires, the percentages of internal and external sources remained essentially the same as those in last year’s report.

The SilkRoad OpenHire ATS data for this report came from approximately 5,044 sources.5

Examples of external sources include:

• Job search engines• Branded and unspecified job boards• Print advertising• TV/Radio advertising• Job fairs• Campus recruiting• Agencies

Examples of internal sources include:

• Recruiter sourced (employer sourcing)• Company career sites (employer websites)• Employee referrals• Current employees• Inside hires

HIRESEXTERNAL VS. INTERNAL SOURCES

INTERNALEXTERNAL59%41%

5 Note that of the 5,004 sources, approximately 350 of them accounted for 95% of the interviews and hires.


06

TOP 10 EXTERNAL SOURCESHIRESTOP 10 EXTERNAL

SOURCES: INDEED DOMINATES THE FIELDThe top 10 external sources for interviews and hires were a mixture of online and offline sources—with online sources dominating.

Of the top 10 external sources, Indeed is the leading external source of interviews and hires. CareerBuilder was the second most prevalent source of interviews. CareerBuilder and Unspecified Job Boards were tied in second place as sources of hires.6

Print advertisements, which were included in last year’s list of top 10 external sources, fell o� the graph this year, confirming their decline in importance as recruitment marketing sources.

An additional note for readers: College/campus recruiting—an o�ine source—is one of the top 10 external source of interviews and hires, though still a relatively lower percentage overall. Later in this report, we explore this category in more detail and highlight its potential importance as a source in the coming year.

TOP 10 EXTERNAL SOURCESINTERVIEWS

EXTERNAL ONLINE SOURCES: THE LION’S SHARE OF INTERVIEWS AND HIRESIn an evaluation of external online and o�ine sources, it’s clear that online sources produce greater recruitment results. External online sources account for a remarkable 84% of interviews and a hefty 73% of hires of external sources.

INTERVIEWS

HIRES

ON

16%OFF

73%ON

27%OFF

REMINDER• External online sources included specific job search engines, and branded and unspecified job boards.• External o�ine sources included agencies, job fairs, and print advertising, among others.

INDEED.COM

CAREER BUILDER

UNSPECIFIED JOB BOARD

LINKEDIN

MONSTER

COLLEGE/CAMPUS RECRUITINGCRAIGLIST

RECRUITING AGENCY

SIMPLY HIRED

INDEED.COM

CAREER BUILDER


LINKEDIN

MONSTER

COLLEGE/CAMPUS RECRUITINGCRAIGLIST

RECRUITING AGENCY

SIMPLY HIRED

JOB FAIR

JOB FAIR

13%7%

5%

4%

4%

4%

39%

2% 1%

2%

9%

3%

4%

4%

4%

32%

4% 4% 2%

9%

84%

6 Unspecified job board includes responses where the job website was not identified. Examples include “Internet job board,” “job website,” and “online job board.”


07

INTERNAL SOURCESHIRES

A DEEP DIVE INTO ONLINE RECRUITMENT SOURCESA close examination of the data showed that online recruitment marketing is crucial for generating both interviews and hires. Of all the recruitment sources in this study, online sources produced:

• 58% of all interviews• 45% of all hires

Reviewing last year’s data, we see that online recruitment marketing sources accounted for 65% of all interviews and 48% of all hires. In this year’s data, we see the number of interviews from online sources drop, while hires remained roughly steady. One potential explanation is that employers are becoming much more selective about whom they choose to interview, when faced with the barrage of online applicants. In other words, the screening process for reviewing resumes for online sources might have become more stringent.

INTERNAL SOURCES: EMPLOYEE REFERRALS REIGNEmployee referrals are the strongest base for recruiting among internal sources, yielding the majority of interviews (57%) and hires (61%).

Customer career websites were the second most popular source of both interviews (33%) and hires (26%)7. Current employees comprised most of the remaining activity from internal sources. 96% of interviews and 95% of hires came from these three sources, i.e. employee referrals, company websites, and internal hires.

As a source, the predominance of employee referrals might be explained as follows: Often employees are “alerted” to job postings early in the hiring process, and so their associates receive interviews rapidly. Moreover, a personal recommendation is often considered heavily in a hiring decision. And finally, candidates referred by employees are often perceived as being “best fit” for the company culture and position, since current employees understand the organization well.

Later in this report, we will examine more closely the category of “former employee”, since those candidates share some of the same characteristics of employee referrals.

INTERNAL SOURCESINTERVIEWS

EMPLOYEE REFERRAL

CUSTOMER CAREER SITE

CURRENT EMPLOYEE

FORMER EMPLOYEE

WALK IN

RECRUITER SOURCED

EMPLOYEE REFERRAL

CUSTOMER CAREER SITE

CURRENT EMPLOYEE

FORMER EMPLOYEE

WALK IN

RECRUITER SOURCED

33%

26%

6%

8%

1%

2%

57%

61%

1%

1%

1%

2%

FAST FACTAccording to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 70 percent of all jobs are found through networking.Source: Cited by Cornell University http://as.cornell.edu/academics/careers/networking/

The two following graphs show the top 10 online sources for both interviews and hires. Indeed, a job search engine, produced the greatest number of interviews and hires, followed by company career websites. A careful look at these findings shows that Indeed far outnumbers other online sources of interviews; however, company career websites ranked relatively close to Indeed as a source of hires (a di�erence of 8%).

TOP TEN ONLINE SOURCESINTERVIEWS

7 In SilkRoad’s Employment Marketplace Survey, the majority of job seekers (67%) said that company Web sites were their most important job hunting source. In the same survey, over half the respondents (53%) noted that use of Web-based recruiting technology positively a�ected their impression of an organization. (August 2013).


08

TOP TEN ONLINE SOURCESHIRES

A DEEP DIVE INTO ONLINE RECRUITMENT SOURCESA close examination of the data showed that online recruitment marketing is crucial for generating both interviews and hires. Of all the recruitment sources in this study, online sources produced:

• 58% of all interviews• 45% of all hires

Reviewing last year’s data, we see that online recruitment marketing sources accounted for 65% of all interviews and 48% of all hires. In this year’s data, we see the number of interviews from online sources drop, while hires remained roughly steady. One potential explanation is that employers are becoming much more selective about whom they choose to interview, when faced with the barrage of online applicants. In other words, the screening process for reviewing resumes for online sources might have become more stringent.

A NOTE ABOUT COMPANY CAREER WEBSITESAs shown in the previous graphs, company websites sites were the second most prevalent sources of both interviews and hires, demonstrating that they are a vital component of recruitment marketing strategy.

An attractive, well-designed company career site serves both the employer and the candidate in the following ways:

• Easing the candidate’s search in finding and applying for jobs.

• Providing detailed content about the company, management, history, vision, and culture.

• Creating a compelling candidate experience, so that best-fit candidates become engaged.

As a recruitment marketing tool, company career sites are more than just a set of job listings. They are an excellent method of delivering a cohesive “brand image” of an organization. Beyond job listings, testimonials from customers and employees and messages from management in video, audio, or text, can attract and engage candidates. With the addition of multimedia features, the content on the company career site now goes far beyond traditional recruitment marketing collateral, such as the printed company brochure. In this new recruitment mode, company career sites are being used as relationship marketing tools: Candidates are treated more like customers or consumers as recruiters use career sites to entice them and showcase their brands.

In practice, the company career site plays an important role as a “showroom,” where a crucial stage of recruitment begins. No matter where the person started to hunt for jobs, the conversion of a job seeker to an actual applicant happens at the career site. Company information presented on the site helps the potential recruit decide whether he or she is a good fit for the job and organization. In sum, the company career site is the stimulus that motivates the candidate to apply for a position.

INDEED.COM

CAREER BUILDER


LINKEDIN

MONSTER

CRAIGLIST

GOOGLE

COMPANY WEBSITE

SIMPLY HIRED

SEEK

The two following graphs show the top 10 online sources for both interviews and hires. Indeed, a job search engine, produced the greatest number of interviews and hires, followed by company career websites. A careful look at these findings shows that Indeed far outnumbers other online sources of interviews; however, company career websites ranked relatively close to Indeed as a source of hires (a di�erence of 8%).

TOP TEN ONLINE SOURCESINTERVIEWS

11%

6%

4%

3%

3%

8%

8%

3%

34%

3%

4%

2%

2%

0.5%

1%

1%

1%

13%

29%

21%


09

EXAMPLES OF COMPANY CAREER SITES AMPLIFYING THE CANDIDATE EXPERIENCEMany of SilkRoad’s customers use the power of company career portals to attract, engage, and hire the world’s best talent. Here are just a few examples of companies that use career sites to drive recruitment results:

CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS(careerchannel.silkroad.com)

Clear Channel Communications, a global media giant, is always on the lookout for the most creative, talented professionals—from digital media professionals and programmers to designers and producers. To help recruit the best, Clear Channel has built a dynamic career portal that clearly articulates the company’s innovative brand and o�ers candidates colorful employee profiles. The company’s career portal sets it apart as a clear leader—and helps HR to engage and hire candidates who are at the “top of their game.”

CARLSON REZIDOR HOTEL GROUP(https://carlsonrezidorasiapacificcareers.silkroad.com)

The Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group is constantly seeking the most talented employees for its regional o�ces and hotels throughout the Asia Pacific—from Mumbai to Melbourne, and Beijing to Brunei. To recruit for this large hospitality chain, Carlson Rezidor developed a single Web portal where applicants could see all openings in the Asia Pacific region. All Asia Pacific job applications are directed at the portal, making it faster for candidates to apply and easier for managers to track candidate generation at any given moment.

WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY(wakejobs.silkroad.com)

The university not only attracts some of the best and brightest students from around the world but also works hard to attract the best educators for those students. To help do all of that, Wake Forest uses OpenHire and its built-in Career Portal studio

INDEED.COM

CAREER BUILDERUNSPECIFIEDJOB BOARDLINKEDIN

MONSTER

CRAIGLIST

DICE

SEEK

SIMPLY HIRED SNAG-A-JOB

9%

6%

5%

4%2% 1% 1%

3%

tools. The tools allowed the Wake Forest team to design a rich, engaging career site that’s loaded with constantly changing content.

JOB SEARCH ENGINES VS. JOB BOARDS: A CLOSE EXAMINATIONAmong all the online external recruitment sources in this study, job boards and job search engines showed an approximate 50-50 split as sources of interviews and hires. Does this indicate that both are equally successful as sources? The answer to this question lies in the data, so to gain a clearer picture, we dug deeper into the source categories that were used.

Among all the online recruitment marketing sources that SilkRoad clients identified, only two—Indeed and Simply Hired—are job search engines. These di�er from job boards in that they give job seekers access, in a single search, to potentially millions of jobs from thousands of sources across the Web. Even though there are only two specific search engines, the sheer numbers of interviews and hires they produce is striking: 50% of all external online interviews and 47% of all external online hires.

JOB SEARCH ENGINES VS. JOB BOARDS: EXTERNAL ONLINE INTERVIEWS

48%

16%


10

INDEED.COM

CAREER BUILDERUNSPECIFIEDJOB BOARDLINKEDIN

MONSTER

CRAIGLIST

DICE

SEEK

SIMPLY HIRED SNAG-A-JOB

ANALYSIS MATTERS: JOB SEARCH ENGINES VERSUS JOB BOARDS It’s important to note that the impact of job search engines in the previous two charts might be either underrepresented or di�erent within your organization depending upon the level of integration between your ATS software and search engines.

Here’s an example: For its customers, SilkRoad has established integration or “feeds” with Indeed and Simply Hired, ensuring a consistent experience and current job information for applicants. However, if your ATS vendor does not provide direct integration or “feeds” to job search engines, candidates could be directed to another job board rather than to your career site. In this case, your organization runs the risk that potential applicants are viewing outdated job postings. Moreover, your organization

would not be leveraging the strength of its career site.

There are also di�erences in the way that job boards and job search engines price their services. Job boards charge employers for posting their positions. In contrast, job search engines list employers’ jobs for free in their organic search results and only charge for additional job-seeker tra�c on a pay-per-click basis.

To put the power of job engines in further context, these two sources alone (Indeed and Simply Hired) accounted for 20% of all interviews and 14% of all hires.

In summary, these findings provide a lesson in analytics: When evaluating recruitment marketing, it is crucial to drill down into the data and to understand the way sources work. A particular source could look good under initial analysis, but when examined more closely, it might not deliver the highest return on investment for recruitment dollars spent. More thorough analysis prevents an organization from making haphazard decisions.

TOP 5 BRANDEDJOB BOARDS: CAREERBUILDER RULES Job boards are an important recruitment source to analyze, since talent acquisition professionals have received conflicting information about their e�ectiveness. For the past few years industry watchers have proclaimed the “beginning of the end” for general job boards and have noted their declining influence—as well as their value to investors.

In fact, SilkRoad’s customer data showed that 504 job boards comprised roughly 10% of all recruitment sources in this study. Yet, they produced 19% of all interviews and 15% of all hires. This finding generally indicates their general viability as recruitment marketing sources.

Looking at the data for the top 5 branded job boards, we saw that CareerBuilder accounted for the greatest number of interviews and hires. LinkedIn, the professional job networking site, provided the second greatest number of interviews, and Craigslist the second greater number of hires.

12%

5%

5%4%

2%1%

1%

1%

45%

13%

JOB SEARCH ENGINES VS. JOB BOARDS: EXTERNAL ONLINE HIRES

Note: Only the 10 largest External Online sources are shown on the graphs. The remaining sources were highly fragmented. Therefore, the numbers shown in the graphs do not sum to 100%.


8 Job Boards are Down but Not Out, Sarah Fister Gale, July 16, 2013, http://www.workforce.com/articles/9128-job-boards-are-down-but-not-out9 “Frayed Prospects Despite a Degree,” New York Times, Shaila Dewan, July 2013.

11

2%

2%

Interestingly, in a year-over-year comparison of the data, LinkedIn, the professional networking job site, rose in the ranking this year as a source of interviews, replacing Monster from last year. Given the “social” capabilities of LinkedIn with its wide range of professional interest groups, it’s likely that candidates are networking more to find openings. Craigslist advanced as a source of hires this year, also beating Monster. These findings are intriguing, because Monster remains the largest job board, with more than 70 million stored resumes and over a million job postings at any given time.

A final note about job boards: Although there are questions about their future relevance, job boards still ranked as an important external online source for both interviews and hires. It’s possible that job boards are not dead, but the way companies use them has shifted. One explanation is that recruiters may be spending less money on passive job board postings and advertisements, but more time actively searching boards’ databases for candidates’ resumes and exploring candidates’ networks8. This might be particularly true of “niche” job boards for specific and highly competitive industries, such as engineering, computer science, or medicine.

TOP FIVE BRANDED JOB BOARDSINTERVIEWS

NEW THIS YEAR: SPOTLIGHT ON SOURCESThe data provided by 1140 companies highlighted some recruitment sources that will be more important in the coming year. We have chosen to explore these in more detail—either because they show evolving trends, represent timely topics in the news, or reflect new legislation governing recruitment compliance. For talent acquisition professionals, the following are source categories to watch in 2014.

CAMPUS RECRUITING:BRIGHTER PICTURE FOR THE CLASS OF 2014

Campus hiring has been flat over the past few years, with many college graduates working part-time, living at home, returning to graduate school, and postponing career plans while waiting for the market to improve9. As economic indicators signal growth, recruiters will turn to the campus as a recruitment source10. SilkRoad examined activity

CAREER BUILDER LINKEDIN MONSTER

CRAIGLIST DICE

CAREER BUILDER LINKEDIN MONSTER

CRAIGLIST DICE

39%

32%

15%

12%

13%

11%

11%

14%

TOP FIVE BRANDED JOB BOARDSHIRES

in campus recruiting over the past year: The data showed that nearly a quarter of a million applications were submitted, and campus recruiting was the fourth largest external source of hires.

Note: The totals in the two charts shown here will not sum to 100%, because the percentages are based on all branded job boards

10 The Employment Situation, News Release, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, December 6, 2013. The unemployment rate declined from 7.0 percent to 6.7 percent in December, while total nonfarm payroll employment edged up (+74,000). Employment rose in retail trade and wholesale trade but was down in information.


12

Recruiters who are seeking candidates in certain high demand fields will find competition for talent.

What are some tips for sourcing the top candidates on campus? Face-to-face recruiting via campus job fairs or scheduled interviews are certainly e�ective. However, these methods should be coupled with postings on specific college job sites. What’s more, video, online chat, social media, a strong online employment brand, and a company career site with mobile capability are important for attracting and screening campus candidates. This is a tech-savvy

NEW THIS YEAR: SPOTLIGHT ON SOURCESThe data provided by 1140 companies highlighted some recruitment sources that will be more important in the coming year. We have chosen to explore these in more detail—either because they show evolving trends, represent timely topics in the news, or reflect new legislation governing recruitment compliance. For talent acquisition professionals, the following are source categories to watch in 2014.

CAMPUS RECRUITING:BRIGHTER PICTURE FOR THE CLASS OF 2014

Campus hiring has been flat over the past few years, with many college graduates working part-time, living at home, returning to graduate school, and postponing career plans while waiting for the market to improve9. As economic indicators signal growth, recruiters will turn to the campus as a recruitment source10. SilkRoad examined activity

in campus recruiting over the past year: The data showed that nearly a quarter of a million applications were submitted, and campus recruiting was the fourth largest external source of hires.

“Employers focused on hiring new college grads are optimistic about the job market for the class of 2014 grads. They expect to hire 7.8% more Class of 2014 grads for their U.S. operations.

Factoring in hiring for international operations the outlook is even brighter.”

National Association of Colleges and Employers,Job Outlook, 2014 report

HIGHEST MAJORSIN DEMAND IN THEEMPLOYMENTMARKETPLACE- Computer and Information Sciences- Engineering- Finance- Communications- Business Administration and Management

National Association of Colleges and Employers,Job Outlook, 2014 report

generation, and the more opportunities to engage candidates via technology, the better11. When a recruiter is on campus, technology is an indispensable tool: potential applicants can register and log information on a company career sites via a kiosk or tablet. Varying the employment presentation and messages for new graduates is critical:SilkRoad’s 2013 Employment Survey of job seekers showed that Millennials value flexible work arrangements and a passionate, engaged workforce more than good benefits or recognition and rewards on the job.

FORMER EMPLOYEE: FAIR TREATMENT REVERBERATES“Former Employee” was another new source category highlighted in the report this year. A close inspection of this group showed that it included candidates who were “boomerangs,” i.e. applying to their previous employer.

This source is noteworthy for several reasons. During the recent economic downturn many employees were downsized. As the economy improves, the industry may see employees reapply to their former companies. Furthermore, top performers might have left voluntarily to pursue other job opportunities, but have decided that the “grass isn’t always greener.” Former employees are a source to track, because some employment specialists report that the cost to hire a boomerang employee can be one-third to two-thirds the cost of hiring a new employee12.

When former employees reapply to a company, it reflects positively on an organization’s culture, employment practices, and o�boarding processes. To a certain extent, these candidates have already been vetted. Though “boomerangs” or “Former Employees” represented a small percentage of sources overall, they are a category to watch in the coming year.

11 2013 SilkRoad Employment Marketplace Survey. Over half (53%) of respondents indicated that Web based recruiting technology would positively a�ect their impression of a company. 26% had no opinion and 21% indicated that this would not a�ect their impression of a company. 12 Fastcompany.com, January 24, 2013, Lydia Dishman, “Did You Let a Good One Go? The Benefits of Boomerang Employees”


13

RECRUITING VETERANS:MORE CHANGES AFOOTOn March 24, 2014, companies will see fundamental changes in the laws regarding recruitment of United States veterans13. The U.S. O�ce of Federal Contract Compliance (OFCC) has enacted rules that greatly expand the a�rmative action requirements for the way companies source, track, and hire veterans. If an employer has federal contracts or contracts that exceed a certain dollar value, the new law applies to that organization14. Moreover, if a subcontractor supplies a product— whether paper clips or spark plugs—to another company that sells these to the federal government, the subcontractor is also subject to the new law.

Employers subject to this law must develop an a�rmative action plan and set a hiring benchmark for veterans, which can vary with local hiring conditions. Moreover, companies must track sourcing e�orts and show that they are recruiting in local state employment o�ces, where veterans are likely to apply for jobs. Finally, the OFCC has increased employers’ record-keeping obligations on their outreach and recruitment to 3 years. Compliance is critical, because the OFCC will actively monitor companies’ hiring e�orts and outcomes.

Reviewing the sourcing metrics for the past year, SilkRoad saw moderate numbers of job applicants among veterans but much smaller numbers of interviews and hires in that same group. However, we plan to monitor activity in the coming year to see if the new laws spike increases in interviewing and hiring in this category.

STATE JOB BOARDSState job boards are a source category highlighted in this year’s report. These are a necessary outreach method for Federal contractors who must meet OFCCP mandates for making jobs available to protected groups, including veterans, persons with disabilities and minorities. State job boards typically o�er no-cost job postings, databases of

candidates, and online screening tools for employers, as well as resume-building tools and free online accounts for job seekers.

SilkRoad’s source data showed that state job boards garnered more than a hundred thousand applicants and over a thousand interviews and hires each for employers in 2013. As with veteran’s job sites, we will track activity in the coming months to determine whether these sites become more popular in response to legislative changes

SOCIAL MEDIA: CASTING A WIDE NETNo report on recruitment marketing sources would be complete without a mention of social media as a recruitment tool. In this report, “social” refers to websites that can be used for communication, networking, and sharing information about jobs. Applicant tracking systems typically distribute open positions automatically on social media platforms, such as LinkedIn or Facebook. This approach to recruitment can be particularly e�ective among small to medium sized businesses that are seeking to maximize their recruitment budgets. Social sites are free for users and o�er the opportunity for recruiters to reach new, large, and diverse pools of candidates.

Without a doubt, the world’s population has become more social: By the end of 2013, Facebook—a public company—reported that it was used by 1.23 billion people worldwide15. In October 2013, LinkedIn reported having 259 million members worldwide16. These kinds of platforms can o�er an interactive experience, where recruiters engage with candidates, and candidates engage with employees—beyond the traditional job board posting. Social sourcing can serve as a powerful recruitment tool, can serve as a powerful recruitment tool, particularly when coupled with online employee referral networks, such as those that exist on LinkedIn or even company career portals. “Relationship marketing” via social media is considered by many recruiters to be a business requirement for engaging with candidates in high-demand fields, such as science, technology, engineering, and medicine17.

Examining this year’s customer data, we saw that LinkedIn as a social site ranks among the top 10 online sites and the top 5 job boards as a recruitment

source18. Still, we also noted that some customers chose to use the general category “social media” to code their data sources, so that tracking specific social sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest, was challenging. We do know, however, from industry surveys that large numbers of professionals use social media for recruitment. According to the Society for Human Resource Management’s 2013 survey, more than three quarters of organizations (77%) employ social networking sites for recruitment marketing19. Given its capabilities for interactivity, branding, and networking, we would expect social sourcing to gain in prominence.

ADAPTING SOURCING STRATEGY: A BUSINESS IMPERATIVEDeveloping sourcing strategy should not be a “one-shot” activity. Sourcing strategy should be fine-tuned with changes in an organization—such as mergers or new product development—and with the appearance of new sources and technologies in the marketplace. A prime example of this is the decline of print advertising and the emergence of social media as a recruitment source. In today’s talent marketplace, leaders are constantly evaluating their spending on o�ine sources such as job fairs and print advertisements against the variety of free social media sources that are now available—a dilemma not as notable ten years ago. As this year’s findings showed, print advertising is no longer ranked as one of the top 10 external sources of interviews and hires.

The answer to some of these complex sourcing issues is found in recruitment marketing data. That’s why organizations must regularly analyze their source data and adjust their marketing strategy to continue producing an acceptable ROI.

Still, even with hard data available, many organizations delay or fail to adjust their strategy. They are married to previous ways of sourcing candidates, loyal to a specific agency or source, overestimate the brand strength of a source, or lack confidence in the hard data that is collected.

Finally, HR professionals must be hard-nosed pragmatists who can interpret data, determine its impact on the company, and communicate it throughout the business, especially to the C-suite.

By doing so, they will increase their own strategic value to the business—and realize the ROI that companies expect from their recruitment dollars.

CONCLUSION: THE TOP TEN FINDINGSONE. SilkRoad customers agreed that interviews and hires are the two most important metrics they use to evaluate source e�ectiveness.

TWO. Internal and external sources produced equal numbers of interviews, but internal sources provided more hires.

THREE. Among external sources, online sources proved to be the most e�ective. They produced an impressive 84% of interviews and a substantial 73% of hires.

FOUR. Indeed is the leading external source of interviews and hires. Indeed provided three times as many interviews as CareerBuilder, which was the next largest external source. Moreover, Indeed provided two and a half times more hires as the next two top branded sources—CareerBuilder and LinkedIn.

FIVE. Of all the internal sources, employee referrals dominate the field for recruiting, accounting for the majority of interviews and hires.

SIX. Of all the internal sources, customer career websites were the second most prevalent source of both interviews and hires.

SEVEN. Of all online sources—internal and external— Indeed provided the largest number of interviews and hires.

EIGTH. Among all the online external recruitment sources in this study, job boards and job s+earch engines showed an approximate 50-50 split as sources of interviews and hires.

NINE. A deep analysis of job search engines and job boards showed that job search engines actually outperformed job boards. The study included dozens of job boards, but only two job search engines: Indeed and Simply Hired. These two job search engines provided a substantial amount of recruitment activity—50% of external online interviews and 47% of external online hires.

TEN. Of the top 5 branded job boards, CareerBuilder was the leading source, providing approximately a third of all interviews and hires.

13 United States Department of Labor, http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/faqs/VEVRAA_faq.htm#Q514 The stipulations regarding covered vendors are as follows: Regulations generally apply to contractors with an existing Federal contract or subcontract in the amount of $25,000 or more that was entered into before December 1, 2003. Contractors with a Federal contract or subcontract in the amount of $100,000 or more that was entered into or modified on or after December 1, 2003, are also covered by reporting requirements.


14

RECRUITING VETERANS:MORE CHANGES AFOOTOn March 24, 2014, companies will see fundamental changes in the laws regarding recruitment of United States veterans13. The U.S. O�ce of Federal Contract Compliance (OFCC) has enacted rules that greatly expand the a�rmative action requirements for the way companies source, track, and hire veterans. If an employer has federal contracts or contracts that exceed a certain dollar value, the new law applies to that organization14. Moreover, if a subcontractor supplies a product— whether paper clips or spark plugs—to another company that sells these to the federal government, the subcontractor is also subject to the new law.

Employers subject to this law must develop an a�rmative action plan and set a hiring benchmark for veterans, which can vary with local hiring conditions. Moreover, companies must track sourcing e�orts and show that they are recruiting in local state employment o�ces, where veterans are likely to apply for jobs. Finally, the OFCC has increased employers’ record-keeping obligations on their outreach and recruitment to 3 years. Compliance is critical, because the OFCC will actively monitor companies’ hiring e�orts and outcomes.

Reviewing the sourcing metrics for the past year, SilkRoad saw moderate numbers of job applicants among veterans but much smaller numbers of interviews and hires in that same group. However, we plan to monitor activity in the coming year to see if the new laws spike increases in interviewing and hiring in this category.

STATE JOB BOARDSState job boards are a source category highlighted in this year’s report. These are a necessary outreach method for Federal contractors who must meet OFCCP mandates for making jobs available to protected groups, including veterans, persons with disabilities and minorities. State job boards typically o�er no-cost job postings, databases of

candidates, and online screening tools for employers, as well as resume-building tools and free online accounts for job seekers.

SilkRoad’s source data showed that state job boards garnered more than a hundred thousand applicants and over a thousand interviews and hires each for employers in 2013. As with veteran’s job sites, we will track activity in the coming months to determine whether these sites become more popular in response to legislative changes

SOCIAL MEDIA: CASTING A WIDE NETNo report on recruitment marketing sources would be complete without a mention of social media as a recruitment tool. In this report, “social” refers to websites that can be used for communication, networking, and sharing information about jobs. Applicant tracking systems typically distribute open positions automatically on social media platforms, such as LinkedIn or Facebook. This approach to recruitment can be particularly e�ective among small to medium sized businesses that are seeking to maximize their recruitment budgets. Social sites are free for users and o�er the opportunity for recruiters to reach new, large, and diverse pools of candidates.

Without a doubt, the world’s population has become more social: By the end of 2013, Facebook—a public company—reported that it was used by 1.23 billion people worldwide15. In October 2013, LinkedIn reported having 259 million members worldwide16. These kinds of platforms can o�er an interactive experience, where recruiters engage with candidates, and candidates engage with employees—beyond the traditional job board posting. Social sourcing can serve as a powerful recruitment tool, can serve as a powerful recruitment tool, particularly when coupled with online employee referral networks, such as those that exist on LinkedIn or even company career portals. “Relationship marketing” via social media is considered by many recruiters to be a business requirement for engaging with candidates in high-demand fields, such as science, technology, engineering, and medicine17.

Examining this year’s customer data, we saw that LinkedIn as a social site ranks among the top 10 online sites and the top 5 job boards as a recruitment

source18. Still, we also noted that some customers chose to use the general category “social media” to code their data sources, so that tracking specific social sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest, was challenging. We do know, however, from industry surveys that large numbers of professionals use social media for recruitment. According to the Society for Human Resource Management’s 2013 survey, more than three quarters of organizations (77%) employ social networking sites for recruitment marketing19. Given its capabilities for interactivity, branding, and networking, we would expect social sourcing to gain in prominence.

ADAPTING SOURCING STRATEGY: A BUSINESS IMPERATIVEDeveloping sourcing strategy should not be a “one-shot” activity. Sourcing strategy should be fine-tuned with changes in an organization—such as mergers or new product development—and with the appearance of new sources and technologies in the marketplace. A prime example of this is the decline of print advertising and the emergence of social media as a recruitment source. In today’s talent marketplace, leaders are constantly evaluating their spending on o�ine sources such as job fairs and print advertisements against the variety of free social media sources that are now available—a dilemma not as notable ten years ago. As this year’s findings showed, print advertising is no longer ranked as one of the top 10 external sources of interviews and hires.

The answer to some of these complex sourcing issues is found in recruitment marketing data. That’s why organizations must regularly analyze their source data and adjust their marketing strategy to continue producing an acceptable ROI.

Still, even with hard data available, many organizations delay or fail to adjust their strategy. They are married to previous ways of sourcing candidates, loyal to a specific agency or source, overestimate the brand strength of a source, or lack confidence in the hard data that is collected.

Finally, HR professionals must be hard-nosed pragmatists who can interpret data, determine its impact on the company, and communicate it throughout the business, especially to the C-suite.

By doing so, they will increase their own strategic value to the business—and realize the ROI that companies expect from their recruitment dollars.

CONCLUSION: THE TOP TEN FINDINGSONE. SilkRoad customers agreed that interviews and hires are the two most important metrics they use to evaluate source e�ectiveness.

TWO. Internal and external sources produced equal numbers of interviews, but internal sources provided more hires.

THREE. Among external sources, online sources proved to be the most e�ective. They produced an impressive 84% of interviews and a substantial 73% of hires.

FOUR. Indeed is the leading external source of interviews and hires. Indeed provided three times as many interviews as CareerBuilder, which was the next largest external source. Moreover, Indeed provided two and a half times more hires as the next two top branded sources—CareerBuilder and LinkedIn.

FIVE. Of all the internal sources, employee referrals dominate the field for recruiting, accounting for the majority of interviews and hires.

SIX. Of all the internal sources, customer career websites were the second most prevalent source of both interviews and hires.

SEVEN. Of all online sources—internal and external— Indeed provided the largest number of interviews and hires.

EIGTH. Among all the online external recruitment sources in this study, job boards and job s+earch engines showed an approximate 50-50 split as sources of interviews and hires.

NINE. A deep analysis of job search engines and job boards showed that job search engines actually outperformed job boards. The study included dozens of job boards, but only two job search engines: Indeed and Simply Hired. These two job search engines provided a substantial amount of recruitment activity—50% of external online interviews and 47% of external online hires.

TEN. Of the top 5 branded job boards, CareerBuilder was the leading source, providing approximately a third of all interviews and hires.

15 The Facebook Newsroom, http://newsroom.fb.com/Key-Facts16 LinkedIn, Third Quarter 2013 Earnings Report, http://investors.linkedin.com/results.cfm17 American Society for Training and Development, “Recruiting Top Talent in the Age of Social Media,” Annemarie Neal, January 16, 2014.


15

18 In SilkRoad’s 2013 Employment Marketplace survey, 86% of job seekers reported that LinkedIn was the social media site from which they were most likely to receive job leads. 19 Society for Human Resource Management, 2013 findings, Social Networking Websites and Recruiting

©C

opyrig

ht statement is - C

opyrig

ht 2014

, SilkRoad

. All R

ights R

eserved. A

ll tradem

arks are the prop

erty of their respective ow

ners.

ABOUTSILKROAD

SilkRoad is a leading global provider of cloud-based end-to-end HR solutions that enable customers to find, attract, develop, and retain the best talent. Why simply manage talent when you can unleash it? The award-winning SilkRoad Life Suite of Talent Acquisition, Talent Development, and HRMS Solutions is delivered through a Talent Portal to drive greater user engagement, collaboration, and adoption.

• SilkRoad OpenHire for recruiting

• SilkRoad RedCarpet for onboarding and life events

• SilkRoad WingSpan for performance management

• SilkRoad GreenLight for learning management

• SilkRoad Point for social collaboration and content for content & intranets

• SilkRoad HeartBeat for HRMS

The Life Suite is ideally suited for businesses of every size because of its unique and open “start anywhere” architecture: you can implement the complete suite or begin with one product and add functionality as you need it. Either way, it’s the fastest path to develop more productive and empowered employees who can rapidly boost business performance.

16

SILKROADCORPORATE HEADQUARTERS20 West Kinzie Street, Suite 1420

Chicago, IL 60654TOLL FREE: 1 (866) 329.3363 U.S.

PHONE: 1 (312) 574.3700

Documents

Silk road source-hire-2014