Designed to make Talent Attraction more strategic and bring marketing technologies and techniques to recruiters, these platforms are certainly making an impact but I sense that there is still a lot of confusion surrounding them.
My guest this week is Madeline Laurano, principal analyst and co-founder of Aptitude Research Partners. Madeline has recently authored a market report on recruitment marketing platforms which is designed to give potential buyers much needed insight into this emerging space.
In the interview we discuss:
• What recruitment marketing platforms are and what they are not
• The changes in Talent Acquisition that are driving the market for this type of technology
• The key features and capabilities of recruitment marketing platforms.
• The value and results clients are seeing from using these platforms
• What buyers should be looking for when selecting a recruitment marketing platform
Madeline also gives us her view on the likely future of this market in terms of partnerships and consolidation.
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
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Matt Alder [00:01:05]:
Hi everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 85 of the Recruiting Future podcast. Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen the development of a new type of recruiting technology, the recruitment marketing platform, designed to make talent attraction more strategic and bring marketing techniques and technologies to recruiters. These platforms are certainly making an impact, but I also sense there’s still a lot of confusion surrounding them. My guest this week is Madeline Laurano, principal analyst and co founder of Aptitude Research Partners. Madeline has just published a market report on recruitment marketing platforms to give potential buyers the insight they need into this emerging space. Enjoy the interview.
Matt Alder [00:01:53]:
I’m Madeline and welcome to the podcast.
Madeline Laurano [00:01:56]:
Thanks, Matt. I’m excited to be here.
Matt Alder [00:01:58]:
So could you introduce yourself and tell.
Matt Alder [00:02:00]:
Everyone who you are and what you do?
Madeline Laurano [00:02:02]:
Absolutely. So my name is Madeline Laurano. I am principal analyst and co founder of a research firm called Aptitude Research Partners. And we study the human capital management space. We look at changes in technology, we look at strategies companies are doing and provide research and reports and data on all of that, all of that fun stuff.
Matt Alder [00:02:27]:
Cool. Fantastic. Sounds like a very busy job. And you’ve basically just released a new report on recruitment marketing platforms. What was the background to that? Why this report and why now?
Madeline Laurano [00:02:43]:
Yeah, it’s interesting. And I can tell you, having done research in these reports for well over a decade now, I never in my life thought I’d be doing anything on recruitment marketing. That wasn’t even something that we talked about five, six years ago from a technology standpoint. So this was a really exciting report to do. It was a difficult report to do as well. I mean, we get a lot of requests from companies trying to understand what recruitment marketing is, what these platforms do, how they’re very different than CRMs, how they’re different from ATS providers. So we really wanted to do a deep dive and really put a stake in the ground and say, this is what a recruitment marketing platform is and this is the value it can provide to your organization.
Matt Alder [00:03:25]:
So I suppose, you know, there will be people listening who don’t know what a recruitment marketing platform is from, from a technology perspective. Could you just give us a kind of a bit of background to that? You know, what is this technology? How’s it changing talent acquisition? You know, what’s, what’s sort of going on in this market?
Madeline Laurano [00:03:45]:
Yeah, it’s a great question. So we define recruitment marketing platforms as the pre applicant platform to talent acquisition. So if you think about talent acquisition having three buckets, an attract phase, a recruit phase and a hire or an onboard phase, the recruitment marketing platform really sits in that first bucket. In attract, it does everything pre applicant everything before somebody actually applies for a job. I think a lot of people think it’s just a CRM. And these platforms are actually much more than that. We define them as having CRM capabilities, but also being able to manage career sites, landing pages, to be able to run campaigns, to be able to manage event management and everything that goes along with that, to do social sourcing, to do SEO, to be able to do analytics and provide insight into all of that pre applicant activity. And it’s really a way to engage and provide a really positive experience for individuals before they’re even ready to move forward with an organization. For most companies, they probably had nothing in place before a recruitment marketing platform. So it’s a very new area of talent acquisition and a very impactful one.
Matt Alder [00:04:57]:
And how big is this market? How many companies are providing this kind of service and how many employees are buying it? Buying it?
Madeline Laurano [00:05:08]:
Yeah. Well, to be honest, right now most of the companies we see as buying it are more enterprise level. So companies with 5,000 employees and above, or even 10,000 employees and above, depending on how you define it. So you know, we see that there will be an opportunity in the mid market, there’s certainly value there, but right now that’s sort of open territory. When I first started doing the report, you know, we identified nine providers, three ATS systems that were leading in this area and then six pure play providers that were leading in this area. I was amazed at how many companies contacted us after and said we actually provide it too. And companies that started last year or even have been around for a few years and are certainly growing. So there are more and more providers in this category every day. And I would say again that opportunity in the mid market is still there for someone to come and grab it up.
Matt Alder [00:06:00]:
And I think One of the interesting aspects of the report is you sort of identified key trends in this recruitment marketing space. Can you sort of talk us through those or tell us a bit more about them?
Madeline Laurano [00:06:15]:
Yeah, I think the first trend and the first thing I noticed, especially with doing all the demos and the briefings and talking to companies, is that they’re very complicated. And I think there’s a lot of amazing product there. You know, they’re fun to use, they’re easy to use, especially when you’re creating these landing pages and putting content together and running campaigns. But there’s a lot of product. So the more we can simplify what these solutions are and show the value and provide use cases, I think the more likely we will to see companies adopt them. I think right now a lot of companies feel a little bit overwhelmed with all of the product, if that makes sense.
Matt Alder [00:06:52]:
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. What were those sort of use cases that you’ve identified that are kind of driving this forward?
Madeline Laurano [00:07:01]:
Yeah, I think most of the use cases that companies have are familiar with are all around employer branding. And while they’re important and certainly very important for companies looking to improve their brand and strengthen their brand, there’s a lot of use cases around just running campaigns and some of the tactical stuff around events and being able to create these career sites and these landing pages that companies still need some insight into. So we think about it, certainly the technology as well as the services that are supporting that is falling under kind of two buckets. The very tactical use cases about running those campaigns, managing those events, and then some transformational services and capabilities that really are looking to change a talent acquisition function into more of a modern marketing function.
Matt Alder [00:07:50]:
That’s interesting. And I suppose I’m kind of interested in terms of getting your view on what’s driving this market forward. Is it that talent acquisition is changing and these platforms are serving that need, or are these platforms actually kind of setting the agenda and sort of moving people more towards the kind of technology that we see in other, other forms of marketing? Or is it a mix of the two?
Madeline Laurano [00:08:21]:
I love this question. We could talk about this for probably hours. I really think it’s a mix of the two. I mean, I definitely think talent acquisition is changing. It certainly has. It’s becoming more strategic. Even if you think about the talent acquisition function, it’s not just made up of recruiters today, it’s made up of employer branding specialists, data scientists, it’s made up of analysts, it’s made up of social sourcers that are now internal companies aren’t outsourcing that. So the function has changed and it’s certainly become more strategic. And there are different specialties within talent acquisition, similar to marketing, where marketing has become very specialized. But also I think the technology is helping to push companies because if you look at the opportunity and there’s still so many companies that haven’t adopted these systems and have a long way to go to even make some changes internally. So I think it’s talent acquisition has changed and I think these systems are continuing to push it forward and make it more strategic.
Matt Alder [00:09:21]:
Now in the report, you kind of got a couple of case studies and you talk about the value of these. What have you seen from the employer’s perspective? Are these systems driving value? What kind of results are they intending to deliver?
Madeline Laurano [00:09:37]:
Yeah, we’re seeing they’re driving huge value, making companies more strategic. And I think some of the case studies talk about improvement in quality of hire, certainly improvement in time to fill, improvement in the candidate experience. I think one of the values of these systems is that it’s really an experience system. The ATS is not that the ATS is really a workflow and a recruitment marketing platform. Really make sure that the candidate experience is very consistent. You’re letting candidates know about an organization, you’re communicating with them, you’re providing very personalized information and you’re doing that frequently. And there’s a lot of value to that and to making sure that you have quality talent, making sure that you’re targeting the individuals you want to work for your organization, and making sure that you’re doing it in a way that’s improving the efficiency of the overall recruitment function.
Matt Alder [00:10:30]:
So you identify a number of different providers in the report and there are standalone companies and there are a few ATSs who offer this type of type of technology. How do you think the market’s going to develop? Is it will more ATS providers look to develop their own offering in this space or are they likely to partner with some of the sort of pure play recruitment marketing providers that are out there?
Madeline Laurano [00:10:59]:
Yeah, this was surprising to me too in doing the research. While all of the ATS providers think that they already have it, that’s the first thing. I think they all think that they already have it and probably wish that they would have been included. But most of them do partner as well. You know, they’ll partner with some of the standalone providers and especially at the enterprise level, companies will make an investment and sometimes it’s even more than their ats. I think ats, and we’ve seen this Even with the three that were included in the report, have made more of an investment in this space in recruitment marketing and will continue to do so. And I think it will be interesting, you know, even to check back in a year as we do this report again next year to see where companies are leaning. Because right now I think a company that does decide they want a recruitment marketing platform isn’t pinning their ATS against a standalone. They’re looking at several different standalone solutions or pure play solutions. But it will be interesting to see what happens in a year or two years if the ATSs are actually competing not against each other, but against these pure play providers.
Matt Alder [00:12:08]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s, you know, it’s obviously a very interesting, A very interesting space are there. You know, you sort of mentioned that, you know, some ac were surprised they weren’t included and they thought they were doing this and perhaps they weren’t. Was there kind of some core criteria or a core set of features that you were looking for in order to sort of classify what is a recruitment marketing platform?
Madeline Laurano [00:12:34]:
Yeah, absolutely. So we looked at companies. ATS providers had to have a CRM or strong CRM capabilities, plus at least five other of the capabilities that we defined, which were career sites, SEO, event management, talent networks, analytics, and running campaigns. The other thing I would add too, Matt, is that we looked at providers that really demonstrated an investment in recruitment marketing and had made considerable changes and updates over the past year even. And the three that we included, iSims, Jobvite, and Smart Recruiter, certainly did that and have a lot of customers using their capabilities.
Matt Alder [00:13:20]:
Okay, that makes a lot of sense from a buyer’s perspective because this report is obviously designed to help buyers demystify this new space and see the value and ultimately make a decision about who they’re going to partner with. How do they tell these providers apart? What’s different in their offering? What are the sort of clues that buyers should be looking for in order to sort of find the system that’s best for them?
Madeline Laurano [00:13:50]:
Yeah, and I think that’s a great question. And I think one thing that really stood out to me in meeting with these companies and doing the research is those providers that really act like a partner to the companies they work with. They are willing to really go hand in hand with these companies and make sure that the companies understand how to use the product, that it’s able to be customized to meet their unique needs and that they’re getting the most out of it and really able to improve their talent acquisition. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re offering a huge level of professional services to these clients. It just really means that they’re acting like a true partner, which is, you know, not typical of software companies. So I think if you look at providers in recruitment marketing, even from five years ago that were either acquired or aren’t around anymore, I think that’s often where they failed is that they had such powerful solutions. Companies made this investment and often their recruiters didn’t know how to use them. The providers that really stood out to me were those that really acted like partners.
Matt Alder [00:14:54]:
Yeah, again I think that makes a lot of sense because I think if we’re looking at recruitment teams and employers learning new sets of marketing skills, it’s not just about software, is it? They have to really understand what the software does. So it’s great to see that support that supports, that supports available. Where you could sort of mention that you’re going to do the report again next year. Where, where do you think these, these platforms are going? What sort of, you know, technologies are they adopting? Are we kind of seeing machine learning, artificial intelligence? What’s the, what’s the sort of future, you know, the future sort of progress look, look like in this space?
Madeline Laurano [00:15:39]:
Yeah, that’s a great question too. I absolutely. Artificial intelligence, you know, it’s a touchy subject in recruitment overall. I think companies are either fearful of it or just unsure about it. And there’s a lot of confusion and misperceptions around what it is. But to me in recruitment marketing, the value that it has is it’s really able to help companies make better decisions around talent to have greater understanding to say, oh actually this is, this is the type of content that will help attract the type of talent we want. This is where people are more likely to, to stay and be engaged or communicate or apply. And it just helps with that decision making process empowers recruiters to be better at attracting talent, which is something that most companies have a hard time doing and haven’t done for the past few decades. And I think thinking about the future, I think that we’re going to see more and more providers. I know that’s certainly on their roadmaps is to think about AI. And another area where I think they’re going to be moving into more is internal mobility. There’s some use cases and some of the providers have done a good job of that, but I think we’ll see more of them really think about how internal mobility plays into this idea of recruitment marketing.
Matt Alder [00:16:54]:
So final question, where can people find the report?
Madeline Laurano [00:16:59]:
They can find it on our website, aptituderesearchpartners.com and it’s free. That’s the beauty of this report. It’s free for anyone that wants to download it.
Matt Alder [00:17:06]:
That’s fantastic news. And I’ve read the report and it’s great. And you know, I’d personally recommend it to anyone who wants to understand this space a little bit more. Thank you very much for talking to me.
Madeline Laurano [00:17:16]:
Thanks, Matt.
Matt Alder [00:17:17]:
My thanks to Madeline Laurano. You can subscribe to this podcast on itunes, on Stitcher, or via your podcasting app of choice. Just search for Recruiting future. You can find all the past episodes@www.on that site. You can also subscribe to the mailing list and find out more about Working with me. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next week and I hope you’ll join me.
