How Programmatic Job Ads Improve Quality of Applicants with Doug Shonrock, Joveo

In this HRchat we focus on data-driven recruiting. Listen as we talk about programmatic job ads, how 'stack creep' is a product of HR analytics and process automation, and why many Talent Acquisition pros still struggle to establish a common data set and fluid data sharing.

Bill's guest today is Doug Shonrock, Business Unit Director at Joveo, a platform helping businesses to buy, manage, and track recruitment media to attract and hire the most relevant applicants on time, and within budget.

Doug has spent the better part of 4 decades in the recruitment marketing, talent acquisition, and employer branding arena. He has dedicated his entire career to understanding how companies recruit for talent, how talent searches for companies, and the reasons it can be so difficult.

For the last 20 years, Doug has focused on the technology side of the talent acquisition process. Working with, and listening, clients and the problems they experience, roaming the aisles of the HRTechnology Conference understanding the ever-growing number of HRIS solutions being offered, and watching how these problems and solutions have evolved – and become even more complex.

Get Doug's take on:

• Which industries and markets have seen the maximum adoption for programmatic job ads?
• How does Programmatic Job Advertising solve the problem of the quality of applicants?
• Candidate sourcing costs: Many sectors have seen big increases in costs associated with attracting employees. e.g. restaurant workers, retail etc. Why is this?
• What is the most dramatic way that data has changed the way recruitment happens?
• Four things HR and TA pros should consider when thinking about their talent acquisition process
• Tools and technology they use to get, and charge, the battery needed for a high-powered TA operation. Can you share those 4 tips?
• What could a possible global recession mean for recruitment rates?  If a recession does hit, how will the ecosystem (job sites, technology providers, agencies, etc.) need to adapt to this shift?
• What is the next "horizon" for data-driven recruiting?

Enjoyed the conversation with Doug? Check out HRchat episode 388 - featuring Joveo Founder & CEO, Kshitij Jain.

We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the HR chat podcast, bringing the best of the HR talent and leadership communities to you for more episodes and the latest articles covering what's new in the world of work. Visit HR gazette.com. Subscribe and follow us on social media.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Doug, welcome to the HR chat show today.

Speaker 3: 0:26

Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 2: 0:28

So beyond my reintroduction there, Doug, why don't you start by taking a minute or two and telling our listeners all about yourself and a little bit about Joo.

Speaker 3: 0:37

I'd love to cause I've been in this business longer than I care to admit to just about anybody, uh, better than three decades. And it has all been in the talent acquisition market space. And I have seen this arena and, and the, the environment just change exponentially over the last 30 years. Um, as I say to a lot of people, I remember when the only thing that would get in the way of you getting a job was an envelope in a stamp because you didn't have something to put your resume in, but it has just grown from there to become a digital talk. I mean, it is the definition of digital transformation, I think. And as part of that, Joo has entered the market. And, um, what excites me about Joo is that it's a very mission driven company. Um, the actual name comes from the same, a job for everyone and, you know, there are four and a half billion, uh, job seekers, uh, in the workforce globally. And I think when you look at it, having scalable global, um, platforms that you can put into your HR talent acquisition tech stack is critical and Jovia was one of those being, you know, a leader in the programmatic job advertising platform area.

Speaker 2: 1:56

Okay, wonderful. Thank you very much, Doug. So tell me now, which industries and markets have seen the maximum adoption for programmatic job ads.

Speaker 3: 2:06

Yeah, that, I mean, that's a good question. I, I don't think there's an industry or a company out there that has a corner on the market when it comes to budget savings or efficiency. I, I can't Ima I can't remember the last time a client said to me, oh, don't worry about budget and cost. We have all the money in the world. So it programmatic job ads and programmatic, uh, advertising is really built for everyone. But to your specific question, it's probably the most well accepted by the large scale, large, higher hiring volume clients. Um, those companies that might have at any given time on their career site, 2,500 plus requisitions, and, you know, 20, 25 recruiters that have got more than they can even imagine to do in a given day. So by using your programmatic advertising platforms, you can automate a lot of that, that task work, so that as requisitions are built, they get ingested into a system. They are, um, automatically put out to the best channels that are for that particular job category or that particular job title. And then of course, when you start to use that, um, especially if, you know, requisitions, requisitions are really legal documents, more than anything you must have, we require you will, those kinds of things. So they're not really built for, you know, branding. So by having a programmatic platform that can expand the job title or make it more user friendly or update the actual requisition to be a little bit more about what the company, the job and the, even the department they're working in is about adds a lot more engagement to the actual client. And it increases then your ability to, to draw qualified applications.

Speaker 2: 3:57

Now, maybe you could tell me how does programmatic job advertising Doug solve the, the problem of the quality of, of applicants.

Speaker 3: 4:06

If someone is unqualified for a job and they apply, there's really nothing a programmatic platform can do to, um, keep that from happening. But what it can do is I mentioned, uh, previously, um, is that many companies have just tragic job titles and requisitions that are 40 and 50 bullets long, and they're, they become impossible for a candidate to actually look at and read through and comprehend. So they kind of make a decision that, okay, I'm not gonna read all this. So I'm just gonna apply for this job by being able to, uh, manage and brand some of the requisitions. Uh, and this is, I think is especially true for the gen Z and millennial audience. That's out there 140 million, uh, job seekers. And in the workforce in north America is they are much more concerned about your corporate responsibility, about your D E and I information about what the department that they are going to be working in. What is the culture at the company at the organization at the department level? And when you're able to add some of that, I think if a candidate doesn't see what they want, they self-select out. So to your point, the people that do actually apply, have read through what your culture is. They believe that they see that culture in them, and then they apply, which means you're probably getting a better quality of applicant down the line.

Speaker 2: 5:46

What is the most dramatic way Doug, that, that data has changed the way that recruitment happens?

Speaker 3: 5:53

There's no question. I mean, if you look at it in baseball terms, I mean, back in the day, if you had a batting average of 300, you made it to the hall of fame in sabermetrics, there are 50 or 60 different data points, you know, that, uh, you'll that any, uh, major league baseball club will look at. I think the same is true for the talent acquisition. There is so much more data back in the day. It was, you know, number of requisitions per recruiter, time to fill, um, a, you know, cost per hire. Now we are getting into, as, uh, the technology has advanced, you know, it's cost per click, um, uh, percent of clicks and call to actions on a specific button. There are AB testing. You can have two different requisitions for similar jobs and see which job requisition is actually, um, engaging the candidate more. So you can track applicants down at that level. There's a lot more track to hire data that's going on. Um, and I think the future of that, um, you know, is going to expand, we're going to get into engagement metrics, we're going to get into, um, content engagement metrics. So I think it, it really is the number of data points that talent acquisition has access to has exponentially increased, which of course then creates its own problem. Is drip data rich, but information poor. What does all of this mean? So, you know, obviously you need to have, have to have BI tools that can help you come out with actionable items. And I think that's part of what some of these the programmatic platforms can do is they're able to manipulate, um, just massive amounts of data into actionable, um, steps forward on how to save money, how to increase applicants, how to get quality of applicants and how to at a certain point internally increase pro recruiter productivity.

Speaker 2: 8:00

I came across a recent, uh, blog post that you'd written, uh, a very good post that you'd written, sir. So I wanted to make sure that I included a question related to that in today's conversation. The, um, the post, which was pu published on the Joo blog was called new power for TA point solutions, a battery charged platform, uh, and, uh, and listeners, I won't spoil it for you, but there are lots of, uh, battery related references within the post. Um, and in it, you offer four things that HR and TA pros should consider when thinking about their talent acquisition process and the tools and the technology that they use to, to get and to charge, uh, the battery needed for a high powered TA operation. Can you now take a few minutes, Doug, and, and share those, those four factors that, and, you know, those tips that you have around them

Speaker 3: 8:49

To kind of give some, some background, is it all started? I mean, I have a leaf blower and a lawnmower and a hedge trimmer, you know, and they all use the same battery power. So if I have two batteries, one is charging one's in the actual implement. And then when it runs out, I change batteries, charge one and put it in the other. And it got me thinking is that the HRA S and the talent acquisition tech stack, that's one of the issues that, um, really gets in the way of having a seamless talent acquisition and sourcing funnel. And the four factors that we talked about is, you know, um, do the solutions that you have in all that, whether it be your CRM or, I mean, is, is your CRM connected to your ATS? Do you have a chat bot? Do you have a content engagement platform? Do you have a video, um, component in your talent acquisition process? So the question is, do they all run off the same battery, so to speak, do they connect seamlessly? Does it allow for upstream and downstream data flow? And that that's important because I think a lot of talent acquisition processes are very linear. And as with anything, candidates can fall in and out of different statuses, they may be, uh, uh, applicants on one day, they may get put into a requisition to be considered for hire, and they may be interviewed, and then they may not get the job. Maybe there was someone with better qualifications. So that per that candidate is then moved back into the applicant status to be reviewed again for some other requisition. So that's not a linear process and your, you know, the solutions you have need to connect seamlessly to allow data to flow up and downstream. The second thing was, you know, um, if you're, if they don't use the same battery, so to speak, to stick on that, um, analogy, then any change you make upstream or downstream can have a massive impact on your ability to then get that data to flow or to, if you wanna bring in a new tool, it could take a lot of integration and, um, technology solution time just to bring it into the stack. So that's good to have, if they're all using the same battery, you don't have that problem. And then the third thing was, you know, if you are looking at an end to end solu, uh, solution, and you have currently a point to point solution is not all those points, don't all have the same infrastructure. They don't use the same data schema, and that can all start to get your data into silo. So you have a silo of candidates in your ATS, a silo of candidates in your talent community, a silo of candidates, perhaps if you've got, um, a CRM that you're involved in, and then even those can get segmented down. So you have to be careful that the point to point solutions interact well. And then the fourth thing is, um, the full line of sight. So if you have that siloed data and you have a lot of information in various solutions, having a BI solution or a dashboard at the end, that gives you a full line of sight is very difficult. So by being able to have that battery, that powers the entire process from job seeker to interested candidate, to applicant, to in the process to hire so that you have that full line of sight, that those are the things that you really need to be aware of when you're looking to either purchase a, um, end to end solution, or you're looking to add, or, uh, change out pieces within your tech stack.

Speaker 2: 12:46

Okay, wonderful. Now, Doug, we are recording this interview in mid July, 2022. And, um, that's, that's starting to be a bit of talky about a potential recession coming. I mean, some, some economies look better to handle it and more robust and may escape the worst a bit than others. The us is looking more healthy than say the UK, for example. Um, nevertheless, you know, there is, there are these dark clouds on the horizon. Um, what, what, what could a possible global recession Doug mean for, for recruitment rates? And maybe as part of that answer, you, you can suggest, you know, if, if, if a recession does, how, how will the ecosystem that's, you know, job sites, tech providers, agencies, and so on, how will they need to adapt to that shift?

Speaker 3: 13:32

That is, that's a great question. And, you know, hopefully since I'm in the us, hopefully the us will be able to weather the brunt of any, any really big, um, recession. But I, I think at this point we're still working with a 3.4% unemployment rate. Um, there was a recent article I'll, I'll kind of go a little bit astray with it, with this response, but there was a recent article that Amazon is concerned that I think it was by 20, 24, they will have absorbed the entire available, um, workforce that's out there because their growth plans are so, um, massive. So, I mean, even there going, it's like, well, we, in, in the north America, we may not even have a big enough workforce. Uh, we're gonna just absorb them all. So I think with that, while there are economic recessions looming, the, um, marketplace, the employment marketplaces remain strong, the unemployment rate has stayed low. Um, there are still, while we have replaced a lot of jobs from, uh, the pandemic, there are still some growth and, um, availabilities for job seekers probably over the next six to 12 months, for sure. But that being said, then there's always gonna be a need. So in the actual tech marketplace, you might, if there is a huge recession, you might see some, um, mergers and consolidation because the actual dollars being spent that whole pie is shrunk a little bit. So there may be, you may see mergers and, um, and, uh, acquisitions, but I think for some of the major players, um, there's always gonna be a need for skill sets. Uh, nursing is, is probably the best example. It is. It they've determined that over the next 10 years, we will run out of nurses that the, the nursing schools are not, uh, putting out enough graduates to be able to take care of the people that we need healthcare for. So if you look at nursing and actually for that matter, most healthcare occupations therapists, psychologists, nurses, uh, physicians in rural marketplaces, because they're having difficulty getting physicians. The Amazon example, I, I think the employment marketplace is probably in a pretty good position to weather an economic recession. Um, and if there is anything big, it would probably be just more in some consolidations in, in the provider arena.

Speaker 2: 16:23

Okay. Thank you. That's a very thorough answer. I appreciate it. Um, okay. So as part of, uh, this process, uh, getting, getting to this point today, I invited your team to, to suggest any topics that they, they became for you to touch upon as part of our chats. And, um, well, there's a pretty big question thrown at me. Uh<laugh> as, as a potential, uh, uh, talking point. So as we look to wrap up before I do ask you how we can learn more about you and about Joo. Uh, I've got this big question for you. Um, and it is as follows. Doug, what, what is next? What, what is the next horizon for data driven recruiting?

Speaker 3: 17:02

Oh, oh, do we have about another hour<laugh> To, to bring it down? The next horizon is, I think falls into two very critical, um, words, content and engagement. Um, as of now companies don't have a problem building requisitions, distributing requisitions, having hundreds of, uh, applicant getting hundreds of applicants applications for each of their requisitions. Most of the clients that I talk to and I research will not say that getting applications is a critical problem. In fact, many of'em will say they get too many applications, which you and I touched on earlier. You know, they want more qualified applications, but I think the next big horizon is that as we look at the gen Zers and the millennials and they come into the marketplace, they are not going to put up with the talent acquisition process, whereas, and I'll use my son as an example, if I can. Um, he got out of college, he was a pandemic graduate, 2020, and he got out with a degree in chemistry and, you know, we're working together to help him find a job we're on various, you know, job boards and, um, requisition area companies. And he's sending in applications. He found a company, it was a, uh, a manufacturing company that had a need for, um, chemistry grads throughout various, um, manufacturing facilities. They had nationwide and there were probably two dozen of them. He had picked out eight markets that he was really interested in and he sent in an application and he signed up for their talent community. He did not hear back once on any of his eight applications, but he kept getting emails going, Hey, here's another job we think you might be interested in. And as a millennial and a gen zer who has grown up on Facebook and now TikTok, you know, I mean, they are used to content constantly changing and they're used to communication. So the next big horizon is that companies are going to have to figure out that job requisitions are not content. Content is your social responsibility platform. It is your D E and I platform. It is your brand. It is your community outreach, how you act as an employer in the communities in which you serve. Um, so that, that is the new content because that's what the new job seek is looking for. At which point, once you have that content it's called engagement. And in the engagement, as we talked about earlier, there is, you know, they go, uh, a job seeker would go from unaware of a company to aware of a company, to consideration of a company, to interest in a company, to applicant, to in the recruitment process, to hire and companies treat every one of those, those groupings the same way. And they're not at every point, the, the candidate, the job seeker is looking for unique information to engage with to help them move through that funnel from unaware to hire. So I think the next horizon really is going to be in the content and engagement marketplace. And then the, the data that we talked about earlier, the data and data points of how often these candidates are engaging with you to get engagement scores is, is really the next horizon.

Speaker 2: 20:51

Wonderful. And just finally for today, Doug, how can our listeners connect with you? So maybe you wanna share your email address, LinkedIn details, perhaps, and also of course, how can they learn more about all of the cool things happening over at Jovi? Yeah.

Speaker 3: 21:05

Wow. That's yeah. That's the easy question for today. Um, I mean, just, uh, head to the web jovi.com, J O V E o.com. Um, but a as a subject matter expert in, in the talent acquisition marketplace, uh, I'd love to get into conversations with people so they can reach me@dougatjovi.com on LinkedIn. It's Doug Shrock S H O N R O C K. You know, um, connect with me, hit me with a message. You know, I love the discussions and I, I I'm really passionate about the, the talent acquisition marketplace.

Speaker 2: 21:42

Excellent. Well, that just leads me to say for today, Doug, thank you very much for being my guest on this episode of the HR chat show.

Speaker 3: 21:49

Thank you. I enjoyed it very much, bill

Speaker 2: 21:51

And listeners as always until next time. Happy working.

Speaker 1: 21:57

Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR chat podcast. There are hundreds of conversations with business experts available for free on the HR Gazette website, apple, Spotify, and all the main platforms, and remember to like subscribe and follow us on social media.