HRchat Podcast
Listen to the HRchat Podcast by HR Gazette to get insights and tips from HR leaders, influencers and tech experts. Topics covered include HR Tech, HR, AI, Leadership, Talent, Recruitment, Employee Engagement, Recognition, Wellness, DEI, and Company Culture.
Hosted by Bill Banham, Bob Goodwin, Pauline James, and other HR enthusiasts, the HRchat show publishes interviews with influencers, leaders, analysts, and those in the HR trenches 2-4 times each week.
The show is approaching 1000 episodes and past guests are from organizations including ADP, SAP, Ceridian, IBM, UPS, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Simon Sinek Inc, NASA, Gartner, SHRM, Government of Canada, Hacking HR, McLean & Company, UPS, Microsoft, Shopify, DisruptHR, McKinsey and Co, Virgin Pulse, Salesforce, Make-A-Wish Foundation, and Coca-Cola Beverages Company.
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Podcast Music Credit"Funky One"Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
HRchat Podcast
Speed Matters: How Career Sites Can Learn from Formula One with Bryan Adams, Happydance
Ever wondered what Formula One racing and career websites have in common? More than you might think, according to Bryan Adams, CEO and founder of Happydance, who recently joined Bill Banham on the HRchat Show to discuss an innovative new campaign that's bringing F1-inspired competition to the talent acquisition space.
The "Careers Site Grand Prix" pits career websites against each other, measuring their performance in speed, accessibility, and SEO – creating an F1-style leaderboard complete with weekly podiums and seasonal champions. This timing perfectly aligns with Formula One's 75th anniversary celebrations and the iconic Silverstone Grand Prix.
Bryan, a two-time bestselling author with 20 years in employer branding and a past guest on our sister show, the People and Performance Podcast, shared a startling statistic that frames the entire conversation: for every second past three seconds that your career website takes to load, you lose 10% of your audience. "You're not up against other career websites," Adams explains. "You're up against Amazon and Netflix, TikTok and Instagram" – platforms that have dramatically reduced our patience for digital experiences.
The parallels between F1 and talent acquisition run deep. Just as racing teams seek marginal gains through precise optimization and teamwork, organizations must optimize their career sites across multiple dimensions – load speed, accessibility, mobile responsiveness, and personalization – to create winning candidate experiences. As more candidates browse and apply for jobs on mobile devices, meeting them where they are becomes increasingly critical.
What's refreshing about Bryan's approach is his emphasis that creating high-performing career sites isn't just about having Fortune 100-level resources. It's about getting fundamentals right, measuring what matters, and using data to drive continuous improvement, much like successful F1 teams. When asked which F1 team Happydance resembles, Bryan bypassed the obvious powerhouses to identify with teams that "are constantly punching above their weight, constantly relying on ingenuity, creativity, teamwork, new innovation."
Want to see how your organization's career site measures up? Visit gp.happydance.love
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Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, tech enthusiasts and business leaders. For hundreds more episodes and what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom. And visit hrgazettecom.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. Hello listeners, this is your host today, bill Bannam, and I don't know if I've ever shared this with you before, but I am a huge F1 fan, formula One fan. I took a little bit of a break when Lewis Hamilton was robbed of his deserved eighth title, but I'm back and I'm loving this season and actually this season represents 75 years of F1. And to celebrate 75 years of F1 and the iconic Silverstone Grand Prix, happy Dance is launching the careers site. Grand Prix HappyDance is launching the Careers Site, grand Prix a bold, buzzy six and seo and showcase the results in a dynamic f1 style leaderboard complete with weekly podiums and end of season champions. And I'm delighted to say that the hl gazette is a media partner for this campaign.
Speaker 2:Joining me back on the podcast after way too long is Brian Adams, ceo and founder of Happy Dance Careers websites. Brian is also a two times bestselling author, a TEDx speaker and pun intended an all round good sport. Brian Adams, it's been too long. Welcome back to the HR chat show. How are you doing today? I'm all right. Thanks for having me back, bill. It's been too long. Welcome back to the HR chat show. How are you doing today?
Speaker 3:I'm all right. Thanks for having me back, bill. It's been too long, hasn't it?
Speaker 2:It's been. It's been several years. I feel like maybe it was a conversation during the early part of the pandemic. I'd have to double check. And, of course, listeners. I will add a link to Brian's previous appearance in the show notes. Brian, for those people who did not listen to our previous conversation, why don't you start by taking a couple of minutes telling our listeners all about yourself, all about Happy Dance and what gets you up in the morning?
Speaker 3:Yeah, cool, thanks, bill. Well, I won't take two minutes. I'll just try and keep it brief, but for the last 20 years, I've been obsessed with employer brand, employer brand strategy and helping organizations tell their story of what makes them different and relevant to talent when it comes to people making great career decisions. In 2020, I released my second book, give and Get, employer Branding, which has proved fairly popular and sort of created the spark for a number of conversations that I just love to have about employer brand, evp, employee value proposition, and in the last 18 months, I've pivoted to sell that company of 20 years so it's a major shift and showcase their employer brand online so they can find the best talent available to them. Yeah, it's been a wild ride. So a lot of a lot of change since we last spoke, bill, but also still in the same ballpark, and I'm still obsessed of the same sort of stuff employer brand and storytelling and candidate experience.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat podcast. If you enjoy the audio content we produce, you'll love our articles on the HR Gazette. Learn more at HRGazazettecom. And now back to the show. Yep, so previously brian was at ph creative. I missed you, brian, at a conference I think it was last year, I don't know if it was sherm or hr tech or something. I popped by the stand when you were still with those guys to say hello and I was told I'd missed you by two minutes. There we go, there we go, so it's good for catching up today. Now, then, what we're talking about today is the fact that Happy Dance has launched a careers-like competition inspired by a sport that I love, and I'm still reeling over Hamilton not winning his eighth title, which he should have done, but that's a different story. Formula One it's fast, it's high stakes and it's full of precision. What made F1 the perfect metaphor for the world of candidate experience? And, as part of the answer, what message are you hoping to drive home?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I mean, my sort of origin story is all about employer brand and how we make people feel and the messaging and you know, all of the soft stuff around a human connection between an organization and a candidate, which is lovely and it really does serve as a differentiation factor between us and competitors in the marketplace, factor between us and you know competitors in the marketplace.
Speaker 3:But actually, bill, you know, when it comes down to it, we're a sas company and the software needs to work and at the really sharp end, if this was an e-commerce company, like you know, it'd be really important for us to make sure that the technology loaded quickly, the experience on the page was sharp, the information was there, you could buy when you wanted and all that good stuff. So actually this is a campaign to get right down to the nitty gritty, to the really sharp end of what we really do and prove that our career websites are the best technology out there in the marketplace, not just our differentiation of the brand and how we position companies and how it looks and how it feels and how it reads, you know. So that's our approach and that's what we're really trying to get to, bill.
Speaker 2:And also F1 is sexy and cool.
Speaker 3:Well, that doesn't suck as well, right, and it was funny, actually, our MD Jim Taylor, it was his idea, and he's as well. Right, you know, um, and it was funny, actually, our, our md jim taylor, it was his idea, and he's like do you know what? We've got a couple of companies that are attached to f1 and I think, uh, drive to survive is just like thriving, like I mean, it's like really sort of captured my attention as well, you know, um, and he's like I think there's something in this. There's a really good parallel. What if we did something to compare the speed and precision of F1 with how fast a career website launches and lands and makes a difference on candidate experience? I just thought, wow, this is a brilliant idea. So we ran with it and you know, it's exciting and fun. And you know, here we are, you know.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I once met Lewis Hamilton'silton's dad, by the way, an absolute gentleman just no way, that's amazing, and jake humphries lived down the road from me. I met him once too.
Speaker 3:Very nice man, very tall practically part of you know mclaren or ferrari at this point bill.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean that's like brilliant, humble brag stuff so, uh, brian, this campaign combines storytelling with serious tech analysis. Of course. How important is it for ta and employer brand teams to understand both the creative and the technical sides of the digital candidate experience?
Speaker 3:that's a really good question and we sort of take for granted the speed of the digital candidate experience. That's a really good question and we sort of take for granted the speed of the technology and the performance of the technology because ultimately the candidate experience is sort of memorable and differentiated by the messaging and how a brand presents itself, but actually that all falls away if the technology doesn't perform. You know, with my origin story and my passion and my expertise and you know my 20 years experience in employer branding, it's really easy for me to sometimes gloss over the amazing work of my team, my sort of crew, if you like, um of engineers. You make sure the technology loads quickly, is super optimized, is like the top, tippy top of performance. You know it's easy for me to gloss over that stuff, but actually this is a campaign that really celebrates the technical expertise and performance and reminds us just how important like load speed, seo, accessibility, optimization, all of these things how they contribute to a great candidate experience.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, let's just take one of those aspects for a moment Load speed, which is something I spoke about with your team prior to this interview today and now that's a key focus here here. What difference does that make in terms of the candidate going to a site and maybe adding their details, or maybe an employer going to a site and looking for candidates what, what, what's the difference? What? What difference does half a second make to that experience in terms of ultimately finding a job or ultimately finding a candidate?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean you know you go to a career website and the analogy with F1 is phenomenal. Actually, the more I think about it Because you know this is an old study, it's over 10 years old but it says that for every second past three seconds that your career website takes to load, you lose 10 of your audience. Now just think about that. You know, after three, four, five seconds like you can lose half your audience before they've seen anything at all. You want to tell them about your company just by the speed at which it loads. And you're not up against other career websites. You're up against other digital experiences, which include Amazon and Netflix, tiktok and Instagram and all of the things that have absolutely diminished the patience we have from the time of clicking a button and expecting an experience on the other end. And you know this can be the difference between getting the attention, creating affinity and driving a candidate to action, or they completely disregard your organization before you've had a chance to say anything at all.
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Speaker 2:What about some of those other components you mentioned a moment ago? You mentioned SEO, you mentioned accessibility. That's huge. This is an hr podcast we're on today. Uh, why? Why do those two things matter too?
Speaker 3:well, you know I mean um accessibility correlates directly to um diversity, inclusion, all of the different segments of your audience who might be on a desktop, on a mobile, might be on 4G or 5G or, you know, in a third world country sometimes, like you know, you have to accommodate for your entire audience and optimize for all of those conditions to be truly inclusive, to get the best candidates possible. You know you don't just want to hire the best candidates with the best broadband speed. You know, it's just, it's just like. Unfortunately, it's not that easy. You know, and your organization is designed to present a brand experience, to be as inclusive and diverse as possible.
Speaker 3:And you know load speed is just the absolute tippy top of priorities when it comes to engaging with a full audience wherever they are. And there's a brand experience. It's your job to take your brand to your audience, not the other way around, and that is just. It's becoming more and more important and the data shows it. More people are applying for roles or experiencing a brand for the first time on a mobile, more and more as the months go by. And you know, if you want to compete for the best talent, your job is to be there and meet them where they are so my understanding is part of this competition.
Speaker 2:Uh, the winner gets a trip to silverstone to see the, the british gp, which sounds amazing. I want to enter or find a way to win myself, but the point is you've opened this challenge up to everyone. It's not just to crown a winner, of course, but to raise the bar across the board to hopefully improve industry standards. Why was it so important to design the campaign as a learning opportunity, not just as a race? Well, you know, bill, we've got nearly 100 customers.
Speaker 3:It's so important to design the campaign as a learning opportunity, not just as a risk. Well, you know, bill, um, we've got nearly 100 customers and the the data that we aggregate across 100 customers who get millions of impressions on a weekly basis, not just a monthly basis, is is is enormous. Um, sharing some of those lessons is important for us to raise. You know, a rising tide raises all ships, you know that kind of thing. But but can I be honest, bill, we're just really bullish and we're really arrogantly confident that we've got the best tech out there and we can perform the best, and we welcome open competition. And do you know what?
Speaker 3:We've had some great entrants already, some other organizations, I've got some fantastic career websites. So it's going to cause chaos on the grid. I'm going to really upset my team thinking that this is going to be a breeze, but this is what it's about. You know, if we can have healthy, positive, fun competition, we can share the results, we can learn from it, we're going to raise the industry, we raise our standards, and that's what it's all about a fun question for you that's just occurred to me, um, but I'm going to ask it because we're using also cheesy f1 language today.
Speaker 2:And so, brian, if happy dance was an f1 team, which f1 team would it be, and why?
Speaker 3:whoa, what a great question. Oh, bill, you always throw me these questions. Um, do you know? I think, and um, I've got to be honest here. Uh, I am an f1 fan because of drive to survive on um netflix. I'm not one of these people who've sort of avidly followed it for years and years and years and years, but you know what's captured my heart is the likes of McLaren, who, or Williams, who are constantly punching above their weight, constantly relying on ingenuity, creativity, teamwork, new innovation all the time, not just sort of budget and money and you know, to sort of guarantee the win of a race. That spirit exists in happy dance and it's what keeps a smile on my face, it's what drives the team forward and makes us want to do better tomorrow, better than we did yesterday. So it wouldn't actually be Red Bull or Ferrari or you know the obvious. I would like to think everybody agreed with me in happiness that we have the spirit of the underdog but the ambition of the winner.
Speaker 2:You, sir, are a wordsmith. What a good answer. Thank you very much. Personally, I'm a Hamilton man, although he's at Ferrari now, and that's a problem for me because I'm not really a Ferrari fan. I'm kind of torn there. There is a lad from Norfolk, where I'm from, who is an F1 racer at the moment as well, so I quite like him too. Now that you've highlighted the concept of marginal gains, which is a key F1 principle We've spoken about the SEO, we've spoken about the accessibility. We've spoken about the site speed issues these marginal gains. They are essential to winning in talent acquisition, just like they are in F1. What are some of the smallest changes that can have the biggest impact on a career site performance, beyond what you've already mentioned?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So you know, to win this competition and to create the marginal gains that make a real difference, we've tried to change it up a little bit so it's not just the obvious aspects of top performance, um, and when it comes down to it, from a, from a brand experience perspective, the personalization, the detail you can go to to personalize an experience, to optimize an experience for a candidate so they feel like they are really talking to the brand and having their questions answered with the insight that makes a difference to their life, not just an insight to the organization. This is the stuff that matters. That doesn't just offer a positive candidate experience. It offers a more relevant candidate experience that takes a person closer to the organization and paints a sort of more realistic picture. So we're trying to delve into that aspect as well.
Speaker 3:You know there's tangible things that are easier to measure which, of course, are really important, really important, but when it gets down to it, you know when, like the pit crew, are looking for those marginal gains, the 10th of a second and all of the aspects that make a world class performance, we're looking for those aspects of evidence and those elements that really make a difference in a career website that, you know, goes into all of those conversations with f1 pick per team. So you know the analogy. I don't know is it corny, is it obvious? But when you look at the performance and how many people contribute to making an f1 team and the degrees of world-class number one on the grid versus a few points for 10th, you know it's amazing, and the similarities are just so apparent and obvious that we just couldn't resist leaning into it.
Speaker 3:So you know, all of those marginal gains go into what we're trying to measure, and if we can highlight at the end of this is a learning experience as well. But at the end of this we don't want to just say here's what we knew was important, so here's what you need to look at. We're hoping that some new things pop up, some things that really challenge us and challenge the industry and offer some insight and value to say hey, listen, turns out we need to spend more time thinking about the language we use to answer the questions, not just the specifics of the yes and no's and this like who knows. That's the exciting thing.
Speaker 2:For me, though, okay, very good, we are doing a fantastic job here of using all of the f1 references. So let's, let's keep up with those racing words. Uh, you, you work. I think you mentioned you work with around about 100 clients at the moment. I'm guessing they're big and small. With careers site innovation moving fast, there we go. How can organizations keep up, especially those without the resources of a Fortune 100 company?
Speaker 3:Well, do you? You know what it's not about the resources and the budget of a fortune 100 company? Uh, you know it's. It's a lot easier to make sure that your career website is optimized and performs than just literally throwing money at it. It's not about that. Um, you know and a lot of the analogies really do hold true Making sure you get the basics right, making sure that what you want to improve is measured and managed, not falling into the old sort of conventional pitfalls of just assuming best practice, but actually testing and measuring and using data to drive your agenda forward. You know, when it comes to accessibility, seo which now doesn't just include search engines but like chat, gpts and like different ways we engage with technology and more conversational sort of experiences that we need to optimize, for all of these needs to be tested and measured and driven forward from a data perspective.
Speaker 2:That's how f1 works and that's how our industry is driven forward as well so the focus of today's conversation, up to this point, of course, has been career websites. Um, but, depending on the type of job whether it's um, whether it's, uh, an hourly job, contingent worker, a more traditional white collar career folks also use social media um very much for for looking for jobs these days. Um, how important is that? Um, and how can, how can career websites make sure that they're maximizing their reach by leveraging LinkedIn, tiktok, instagram, whatever it might be?
Speaker 3:I mean, that's a great question, bill, and the simple answer is any brand that wants to be relevant to their audience needs to take their brand where their audience is, and it's our job to make sure that we show up, we are relevant, we have the information at hand.
Speaker 3:The experience is positive, you know, and I could say that for like Netflix, amazon, apple, meta, like any of these organizations, not just on the talent space, but on a brand relevance and a brand experience perspective. That's how we need to be thinking TikTok's not going away, instagram's not going away, whatsapp is not going away, linkedin is not going away. We need to optimize for the places where our audience is and make sure we show up. We're differentiated, we're more relevant than our talent competitors and there's something in there that makes us memorable and stand out, that gets the attention and we're in an attention economy. The platform is irrelevant in the eyes of your audience. Our job is to show up consistently wherever our audience is and make that experience as optimal as they get from all of the other branded digital experiences possible. Not just talent, but like in general excellent.
Speaker 2:And before you race off, before you race off today, mr adams, uh, one last question for you. Uh, how can our listeners connect with you? So maybe that is LinkedIn, maybe that's TikTok, maybe whatever you want to share there and, of course, how can they learn more about Happy Dance?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I appreciate the opportunity there, bill, linkedin is great for me, so LinkedIn type in Brian Adams, just like the Canadian singer, and Happy Dance, you will find me and I'm very, very active on LinkedIn. That's great Love to connect people there. If you're interested in this campaign specifically, it's gphappydancelove. You can enter your organization and see how you get on on the grid there. It's open to the fortune 100 organizations plus any organization who thinks they can challenge. So that's exciting. Or just check out happydancelove generally and get in touch with the team and we'd be happy to talk to you excellent and brian.
Speaker 2:I know I said this to you before and I appreciate that you're based in california, but, as you know, I do a whole bunch of hr related events over here, the disrupts and things in the uk um I do some in Canada and the US at the moment mainly in the UK these days because that's where I'm based. Whenever you are back over here, sir, you have an open invite. I'd love to hang out with you. I'd love to get you on stage. Thank you very much for being my guest today.
Speaker 3:My pleasure Bill.
Speaker 1:And I will take you up on that. As always, until next time, happy working. Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show. If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and listen to some of the hundreds of episodes published by HR Gazette and remember for what's new in the world of work? Subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom.
