Think Differently - Think Like a Web Designer

How can you disrupt the recruiting industry? Take your cues from other industries that have been solving the issues we face for years.

Today we talk about how applying the new trends in Web Design will help you get ahead.

[transcribed from the video above]

Hello everybody welcome back to another episode of transform recruiting I'm your host Brad Owens it'll be another quick one today because I want to continue this series of thinking differently. How are you going to disrupt the recruiting industry if you don't think differently you have to differentiate yourself. Somehow right? Well today I want to start off with a question. What's on your Amazon homepage what's on your Amazon homepage I can guarantee you 1 thing. It's completely different than mine 100% completely differently differently. 100 % completely different why well because Amazon learns from you. They see all of your interactions. They see your purchase. History. They see what you spend time on. They see what you scroll right? past. They. Place different icons on different parts of the screen based on who's looking if you're on a phone. It'll be completely different, not just because it's mobile friendly, but because they know you're more likely to click on different kinds of icons and different types of things while you're on your phone they can market the perfect stuff to you because of how they have designed their website. And the technology that it's running on. There's no chance that us as recruiting firms can do that I get that the majority of us do not have that type of resources at our disposal.

01:34.57

Brad Owens

Ah, there are far fewer that can do that than exist out in the world of recruiting. There are a couple and I know of some that are actually going that direction I realize that not all of us can do that. However. What I want to help you think about are ways that you can do tiny versions of that so that you will be able to have the similar types of experiences for your customers for your talent for your hiring managers if you think about what they're used to on a daily basis. They're used to that Amazon experience. They're used to the Netflix experience. Did you know on Netflix not only will your home page be different than mine. But if even if we have the same movie pop up your what do they call it movie poster or your icon for it could be different than mine. So if. I don't know. Um, if we both watch Harry Potter or we both watch mighty ducks or what's another fun one that we could think about um, whatever we'll just go with mighty ducks if ah, plus one if you enjoy mighty ducks. Yay ah, how about a thumbs up for that one. This. So if you and I both watch mighty ducks and I root for the ducks and you root for who did they play? Oh my gosh banks's team who who banks is that the stars I don't know whatever it was ah and you root for them and you watch.

03:03.60

Brad Owens

A lot more movies with that type of villain or that type of hero you could have a completely different poster than mine. They know insane things about us and they can do that because they have essentially what. Amounts to a customer data platform. It's called cdp if you look it up out there. What they're able to do is process all these different points of engagement and be able to customize what you're seeing because of that it's the same thing about sending you marketing emails based on the type of emails that you've signed up for it's the same thing. So. How can we do this on a tinier scale. Well, let's take the big things that are included in those types of interactions and apply them for us. So first they're all personalized right? That's what we've been talking about. It's personalized. A lot of the problem in the recruiting industry is we have what amounts to a brochure as a website. We have here's all the amazing things that we do and how we can help you and how it's all awesome for us and how we deserve your business. Um, that's that what people are looking for. They're looking for personalized content that is relevant to them so at the very least there should be a client and a talent side to your website. Very least that should be relevant to their specific needs because the second thing that we do that. The larger organizations are able to do like the amazons and Netflix whatever it's relevant not just because of who you are. It's not personalized to you.

04:34.91

Brad Owens

It's relevant to your specific point in time and what I mean by that so personalized would be hey we know you normally order chocolate cakes. So we're only going to show you chocolate and if by some chance you want vanilla. It's way down here at the bottom of the list relevant. Would be hey we know it's almost your birthday and that you like chocolate cakes. So let's show you a birthday promotion for that chocolate cakes right for that chocolate cake. So it is relevant to that point in time. That's what we're talking about. So. Ah, if you have someone that has been to your website 2 or 3 times in the past forty eight hours there should be something that can pop up and say hey it looks like you're really interested in whatever x is we can put you in touch with the right people. There are simple chat bots out there that you can do look at look at sense. Look at um, who is it a staffing engine um look at when there's a couple others salesforce has their own service bots things that you can start using as a number of different things that are out there. Ah, so start thinking about how you might be able to you know make things relevant to people at that point in time. The next thing that these web designers are really doing with the amazons and Netflix everything like that. It's got to be 3 clicks for whatever they're looking for or see ah they're gone the big.

06:01.67

Brad Owens

My biggest bugaboo which if you wanted to go out and search. Um, why your applicants hate you at disrupt hr. So why your applicants hate you disrupt h r that was a speech that I gave or a talk that I gave down in Cleveland. And it was all about why applicants just absolutely hate your hiring experience and the biggest thing that I kept pulling in were the amount of hoops that we make these candidates jump through to apply to a job. There are there's that. There's that side of the recruiting world that says yeah, but we're making them really commit to wanting to be at our job and yeah, you sure are but what it's actually bringing you are those people that are copy pasting. Everything. They are throwing them into as many jobs as they possibly can and they're not being targeted specifically to you those that are are looking for the experience that targets exactly what they want what they are looking for not what you want them to fill out. You're actually turning more people away at would assume so 3 clicks. How can we take all of these different things that we want them to do while on our site and minimize that minimize those actions down to 3 clicks that will be the most important thing you could do and then finally self-service. What part of your website.

07:27.57

Brad Owens

What part of your experience for your clients or your talent are they able to do on their own. What are the status updates they can see on their application. What are the status updates they can see on the role you're trying to fill for them. What are The. Ah, messages back and forth that they can send specifically to their recruiter because they're not out of place. They can take a phone call but they could log into their phone and they could text back and Forth. What are their? What is their ability to self-service for your services for your either job filling job finding whatever it might be for your recruiting services. What's their ability to self-service think about how many times you're interacting with customer service. Um, where and go back 3 episodes ago. We talked about this about customer service. Um, when's the last time you've had to. Ah, seek out a person to call and get on the phone for a particular issue that you're having likely not I mean most research that's out there says that individuals want to be able to solve their problem and they search through 3 different potential solutions Whether it's like a Web article or a magazine or. Listening to a video or whatever might be ah before they want to actually get in touch with someone so they want that ability to self-service. That's what we desire right? now. That's just what the the research says so the 4 different things that I want to feel like you all take away from this is your website.

08:58.69

Brad Owens

If you're thinking like a web designer needs to be personalized to that individual. It needs to be relevant to that point in time. Whatever they are doing needs to be 3 clicks or less or they are gone and then four it has to have the ability to self-service in some way so combining all of those will give you the aspects of the experience. That our customers want while not having to spend on these crazy ridiculous Amazon Netflix experiences that they've designed but if you want a taste of that look into a customer data platform. That's the the keywords that you're going to need to use in your search. It's a customer data platform. If you want to learn more about that I've got tons of different options for you just ah, send me an email. It's hello at braddowins.com. So again, that's hello at bradawins.com if you like this kind of content and want some more you can find everything you need at transformrecruding.com or brabradowins.com ah, you could find all of that and more there have been multiple and multiple episodes we talk to the the people that are disrupting this industry. We bring you the tech that's disrupting this industry and we bring you some thoughts like this one that are disrupting the industry so until next time. Thank you all so much for joining me again on an episode of transform recruiting. Talk to you soon bye.