Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen: How to Unify Your Employment Branding Efforts #SHRM15

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

These days, employment branding is on the hearts and minds of many talent acquisition leaders. Even though it seems to be everywhere, it is still a relatively new phenomenon and subset of the recruitment industry. The concept is developing rapidly and catching on, but it’s still in its infancy. One of the ways that the concept is growing is through conversations happening all over the place. Employment branding thought leaders are sharing their own best practices and evangelizing in the field through communities like the newly formed Employment Branding Chat on Twitter, or #Ebchat. I love all the conversations, resources and questions shared on these social peer communities. It helps professionals learn from each other and helps in identifying trends as this subset of recruiting and HR continues to develop.

One of the issues that I’ve been able to identify as a problem for many companies and HR or recruiting teams is what to do when you have too much employment branding. This is both a challenge and an exciting problem to have. This means that your people are actively promoting the employment brand and truly get it, though the team’s efforts need to be consolidated and focused.

Consistent, fluid and focused messaging

It’s amazing to have buy in on the idea of employment branding from many team members, but like traditional marketing, it’s important for your message and conversations to be fluid, in line with the current campaign and clear. When you are a large organization it’s hard to get a handle on the massive amount of recruiting and talent acquisition materials and information that recruiters and hiring managers want to be shared, but there absolutely has to a consistent, fluid and focused message, and all your people must embrace it.

In order for this to happen, your organization should exercise employment branding unification, which is essentially the simplification and organization of your employment branding efforts. When you unify, all communications, media pieces and collateral materials are in line with the brand.

With these four steps you can unify your efforts to ensure employment brand success, which means that recruiters have what they need and candidates aren’t overwhelmed:

Conduct an employment branding inventory

Research, absorb and account for all media, materials and branded elements used in the recruiting and hiring process. Talk to your recruiters to ensure that no one has gone rogue and is using materials or messaging they created independently.

Organize and sort your materials

Develop categories so that materials are easier to sort through. You can sort by topic, candidate type, when in the process the material is used or really any other way that makes sense for your team.

Prioritize and purge

Find out what messages resonate with your employees and candidates and hone in on those. Those that don’t should be set aside or recycled for another later campaign. Quality should be the focus, not quantity.

Create employment branding buckets

Authorized materials for different campaigns can be stored in each bucket. Your “bucket” could be as simple as a Google Drive, Dropbox or could be housed within your TalentCircles Talent Network. Give your candidates options of information and resources to absorb and engage with while also providing recruiters and hiring managers with materials and guidelines based on the specific campaign.

TalentCircles is the most comprehensive candidate engagement platform on the market. Take a product tour or request a live demo today. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology anthropologist specializing in HR and recruiting. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs and author of The HR Technology Field Guide. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.

Sales Training Might Be Your Most Powerful Recruiting Asset - Part Two

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

If you haven’t yet picked up on it, let me be the one to tell you that recruiters are the sales people of talent management. In part one of this series I talked about how similarly aligned our processes are with traditional sales people, from generating leads to building relationships to sealing the deal and making the sale. I highlighted the fact that in this competitive job market, recruiting teams must start thinking like sales teams to gain an edge on the competition and be best in class recruiters. A significant part of getting to a place where you can think and act as a best in class recruiter is investing the time and resources into training your recruiting team, just like a sales team would.

There’s no doubt that many, many recruiters are talented in their own right. They likely have tips and tricks that work for them, but even the best sales people would be expected to go through training before they were thrown into the lion’s den. All too often, recruiters don’t go through any kind of formal training, whether it be to acquaint them with the company or to just develop further professionally. And of course, we cannot forget that for every talented recruiter out there, there is at least one who is green, learned the wrong way or just needs to sharpen their skills. In short, your recruiting team needs sales training. The good news is that it can come in many forms and methods and doesn’t have to be complicated.

Actual sales training

You can’t acknowledge that there are so many striking similarities between recruiting and sales and not be convinced that actual sales training wouldn’t benefit your team. The art of generating leads is a valuable skill, as is relationship building and closing the deal. Let your team learn how sales pros manage the process and bring in revenue for their companies. There are a number of ways you can provide this training, from workshops to books to keynote speakers.

Company resources

Consider what internal resources your recruiters could benefit from. This could include internal mentor programs, joining in your company’s sales team training activities, or shadowing in the areas they hire for to learn more about the positions and organization, all for the purpose of being a better job opening sales person.

Ongoing training and support

Your HR department probably does a great job of offering training and resources for those within the company, but our own departments tend to be forgotten. Don’t neglect your recruiting team. A study by Aberdeen found that 44% of companies surveyed provide post-training reinforcement beyond initial sales training. Do the same for your talent sales people and provide ongoing sales training and support. Providing initial training and never revisiting the subject is like going to rehab but never meeting with your sponsor after the fact. Success is not happening if it’s not an ongoing effort.

Mentor programs

Some the most valuable learning happens from experts outside of the industry so expand beyond HR and recruiting and discover what can be gleaned by learning from those outside the industry. A really great way to do this is by pairing recruiters with mentors in the marketing and sales industries. Mentors don’t always have to be, and in fact shouldn’t always be, in the same industry. As an added bonus, it’s also a way to build personal networks, which is never a bad thing in sales or recruiting.

TalentCircles is the most comprehensive candidate engagement platform on the market. Take a product tour or request a live demo today. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology anthropologist specializing in HR and recruiting. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs and author of The HR Technology Field Guide. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.

Sales Training Might Be Your Most Powerful Recruiting Asset - Part One

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

I’ve always been of the opinion that even though we are in the recruiting and HR industry, our profession resembles other industries in many ways. I’ve talked before about how similarly aligned we are with marketing, and how we take some inspiration from IT with our use HR technologies. However, there’s another area of the business that we resemble maybe more than anything else, and that is sales.

It might seem funny to say such a thing when HR has traditionally been thought of as the anti-sales department because our industry was long seen as a cost center, not a revenue generator. That may have been true 20 years ago, but today’s recruiters make a real impact on the company’s revenue success with the people they bring in. More importantly, they truly are sales people themselves. 

No matter how you slice it, recruiting is a sales activity. Just as a sales person is generating leads, cultivating relationships and following leads to make a sale, we are sourcing and qualifying our prospects to fill open job requisitions before we submit our best candidates to our organizations. Candidates truly are our customers, and they have a buying decision to make. Our pursuits and efforts in recruiting often make the difference between a candidate making the buying decision of applying for and accepting a job at our company and them choosing a competitor instead.

Making the sale

In traditional sales, those hoping to close a deal are ultimately matching a product or service with their customer. It has to be the right fit, and equally important, the customer has to buy in to the idea of it so that it’s not a one-off sale but a repeat sales opportunity. In order to do this, they discover the customer or client’s needs, help them determine what will fit their needs and ensure that they are confident in the decision. They highlight the benefits of the product or service, identify which features will be most enticing and perhaps even use testimonials or surveys to back up what they’re saying.

Does that sound familiar? Recruiters do exactly the same thing, but the end result is a new employee instead of an actual sale. We work hard to source candidates and generate leads, then connect with our candidates to determine their needs and wants and compare that with culture and skill fit. We use brand ambassadors and recognitions received to support our claims. Last but certainly not least, the relationship we develop with the candidate and the features our company has to offer seal the deal for us.

Time to think like a sales team  

 If we know that a significant portion of a recruiter’s job is to perform has a sales function, why don’t we invest in sales training for our recruiting talent and teams? Most sales people and teams go through extensive training to ensure they’re ready to make a sale, but there’s not a lot of emphasis on training to make the sale in recruiting. Not all LinkedIn InMails, phone call or candidate interviews are created equal.

Sales training for your teams can compliment your existing training and work hand in hand with recruiting tools and technologies. All these elements combined create a competitive advantage for your company and exhibits best in class recruiting. This is especially important in the competitive job market we are experiencing now. It’s time for us all to think like a sales team.

TalentCircles is the most comprehensive candidate engagement platform on the market. Take a product tour or request a live demo today. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology anthropologist specializing in HR and recruiting. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs and author of The HR Technology Field Guide. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.

Why Employment Branding and the Candidate Experience Matter

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

Right now the job market is growing every day, our economy is booming and recruiters are stretched thinner than they ever have been. It’s an exciting time for businesses to be expanding and recruiters to be challenged professionally, but we’re past the point where good old sweat and hard work will get the job done. With the job market as healthy as we’ve seen it since 1999, it takes a village to engage, hire and retain talent in your organization.

If you’ve seen that it’s more challenging than ever and that your time to fill has increased over the last several months, you’re not alone! I’m here to tell you that economic indicators are pointing that the job market will continue to challenge us. High quality candidates will remain in demand, boomers will continue to retire, millennials will continue to turnover between a year and 18 months. In short, recruiting will not only remain challenging but with the talent pool shrinking, you will also have a harder time recruiting, onboarding and retaining talent at your company.

The solution to successfully recruit in 2015 and beyond is to make employment branding and candidate experience part of all that you do. These two strategies are intertwined and should be weaved through every effort. This is the best way to make an impact on your hiring efforts. Here are five tactics that your probably already putting to work that can be enhanced by employment branding and focusing on candidate experience:

Candidate engagement

I would argue that candidate engagement could be the most important tactic you can use, and when you add in employment branding and a focus on candidate experience, these three things play off of each other so well. Candidates are more likely to engage if you’ve been exercising your employment branding, and if you approach candidate engagement with the mindset of creating a positive candidate experience, you’re more likely to be consistent and leave a better impression. Build your engagement around these two strategies to see the most return on your investment.

Improved candidate quality

This is probably what first comes to mind when you consider why to focus on employment branding. Improved candidate quality is a result of both your efforts and a reason why you should focus on these two things. Employment branding helps candidates better understand your company, leading to a better fit.

Developing talent pipelines

Developing talent pipelines is essential for staffing your company in the future. As a recruiter you must think long term and be prepared to establish relationships with prospective candidates and passive job seekers that will last for years. This only happens when you respect them, create a positive experience, solidify your brand in their mind and focus your efforts.

Expand the brand

When you’re engaging candidates, seeing improved candidate quality and developing talent pipelines, expanding the brand is bound to happen. When you also add employment branding and candidate experience to the mix, you’ll see a major boost in expanding to reach different types of candidates in all different places.

SEO

Search engine optimization happens through strategic efforts, and this is certainly true when it comes to recruiting. This will come from the work you’ve done establishing relationships online, via social networks and in person, both internally and externally. It’s then that your company will get noticed online and in real life.

TalentCircles is the most comprehensive candidate engagement platform on the market. Take a product tour or request a live demo today. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology anthropologist specializing in HR and recruiting. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs and author of The HR Technology Field Guide. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.

How to Create Clickable Content in Employment Branding

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

Employment branding is one of the most talked about strategies in recruiting right now and there is a focus on creating content that is clickable and contagious. While this is a great focus to have, we’ve got to remember that employment branding is about far more than just a high click rate. Employment branding is an overall strategy, not a tactic. One of the tactics that support your strategy may be creating content that you hope will spread like wild fire, but employment branding is all encompassing and goes beyond the content.

No matter what type of tactics you use, clicks are not the end goal. The end goal is getting highly qualified people who fit settled at your company. There are three ways employment branding helps us achieve this:

It assists in acquiring high-quality applications. – By being transparent, consistent and highlighting the benefits of working with the company as well as the ins and outs of the job, you’ll see higher-quality applicants. This means someone who has the skill level you’re looking for and fits with the company culture. Remember that it’s not all about skill, or even culture fit. A CEB study found that candidates who fit the company culture are 12% more likely to be a quality hire, but those who fit with the people they work with are 30% more likely to be a quality hire.

    It helps to convert candidates into applicants that join our talent network. – Your company’s talent network is a place that can help convert candidates, get them connected and move them from a mindset of uncertainty to knowing they’re headed in the right direction. Employment branding helps get them there.

     It enhances the brand, which you’ll benefit from for years to come. – One of the most valuable aspects of employment branding is the ability to help shape your reputation and in turn the public’s perception of you as an employer.

Where clickable content comes in

If these three aspects of employment branding propel us forward to reach the end goal of a successful, satisfied workforce, then where does clickable content come in? Clickable content is used throughout an employment branding campaign to reach targeted and specific candidates that we might otherwise not reach or convert from our existing efforts. The goal here isn’t for everything we produce to go viral. We don’t need or even want that every time. Instead of simply thinking clickable content, think clickable content with a purpose.

Clickable content with a purpose isn’t about quantity, it’s about quality. Quality content will yield quality hires. Think about these three essentials for creating quality clickable content:

Information that people want and need

      Stop selling your company and start providing content that your candidates need, want and are looking for. The type of content you produce will be determined by your target candidates.

Language that grabs people

    Quality content is a must, but you’ve got to convince people to click on that link before they can experience the value of it. Use headlines that are exciting, relevant to your target candidates and are inclusive – think we instead of me.

   

      Be in the right places

    The most shareable content in the world isn’t going to be shared or clicked if it’s hidden. Use your social networks, company blog, personal connections, LinkedIn groups, employees who are your brand ambassadors, industry-specific message boards and any other channel that has been proven to work for you to promote it. It’s not going to share itself, so get out there and do it.

TalentCircles is the most comprehensive candidate engagement platform on the market. Take a product tour or request a live demo today. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology anthropologist specializing in HR and recruiting. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs and author of The HR Technology Field Guide. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.

5 Ways to Repurpose Your Employment Branding Content

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

Content is a major part of any employment branding campaign, and a lot of time and effort goes into creating content that people want, need and are looking for. Since we work hard to produce quality content, we definitely want to make the most of it and get the most bang for our buck, so to speak. Repurposing content is an excellent way to achieve this. It allows you to recycle previously used content and share it in a new way. It’s not just a great way to get the most out of your efforts but it also creates real added value. If the content was relevant and popular six months ago, chances are that people will still find it relevant today. Present it in a new way and you just might reach an audience you weren’t able to the first time around.

Take a look at these five ways you can repurpose your employment branding content:

Use Video

It’s 2015 and video absolutely should be part of your content strategy. You can repurpose almost any other medium, such as a blog or webinar, and create a short 90-second video that hits the highlights. This can stand alone, but it also provides you with video that you can embed in a blog or elsewhere later on. Feature other resources in your video by directing people to a downloadable resource, landing page or blog.

Get visual

People are much more likely to stop and look at an image than they are to spend 10 minutes reading your content. Take advantage of our visual nature by choosing your best, most popular interactive content and creating a visual image for sharing on Instagram, Facebook or Pinterest. Be sure and use a bit.ly link to drive candidates to a specific page when you share it so you can see your social return.

Create a slidedeck on Slideshare

Slideshare slidedecks combine the best of a blog and webinar. They’re easy to digest, you can read at your own pace and on your own time, but they’re also more interesting than paragraph after paragraph of content. Turn your existing content into a slidedeck and you’ll be able embed it in blogs and on your recruiters’ individual LinkedIn pages. As a bonus, you’ll also be driving different traffic from a new audience. Pro tip: use Slideshare’s pro version to monitor analytics and landing page information.

Write a blog

It’s great to have a blog post that’s groundbreaking, but not every post is or needs to be. You also need human interest stories that candidates can connect with, so take a popular series of quotes, a Q&A or an employee story, and publish it on your blog. You can also repurpose infographics, videos and webinars into blogs. With each new medium you use, you’re likely to reach a new candidate audience.

Blend your content

You know by now that you can turn a blog into an infographic and a webinar into a video, but have you thought about taking bits and pieces from various content and blending it together? Consider finding two topics you’ve created content about that are aligned and playing off of that to create something new. You can also do a compilation, such as “10 things we learned this year” or “15 best kept secrets of…” and use several different resources to pull together something fresh, new and consistent with your employment brand.

TalentCircles is the most comprehensive candidate engagement platform on the market. Take a product tour or request a live demo today. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology anthropologist specializing in HR and recruiting. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs and author of The HR Technology Field Guide. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.

Recruiting & Hiring Tactics vs. Talent

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

Recruiting strategies have grown increasingly complex over the years. As an industry, we’ve done a wonderful thing by taking what we know about traditional recruiting and combining it with the ideas and tactics from other industries. We’ve taken bits and pieces from industries like sales and public relations, but perhaps one of the most leaned on industries we have available to learn from is marketing. In a lot of ways, what we do is closely aligned with what marketers do on a daily basis. We’re marketing our company as an employer of choice, they’re marketing their company as a leader in whatever it is that they do. We market job openings, they market products. It makes sense that we would be taking similar actions to reach our audiences.

Though there are probably more similarities than we can discuss in one sitting, I believe that there are two major ways we resemble each other: outbound and inbound strategies.

Inbound vs. outbound

Outbound and inbound marketing both have the same end goal - to win the sale, or in our case, hire the candidate - but the ways in which the two are handled are very different. Inbound marketing refers to an unsolicited response we receive from a marketing effort, such as an advertisement or job posting. We made the initial effort of advertising the product or job, but the customer or candidate proactively contacted us. Outbound marketing refers to our efforts to find candidates or customers and solicit a response, such as through a tradeshow, career fair, online sourcing or personal leads. The difference between these two tactics is that the customer or candidate is at a different place in the buying decision, therefore our approach must be different.

For those who proactively respond to a job posting, connect with us online at the prompting of an ad or seek out a conversation, the initial buying decision of applying has ether been made or is being contemplated. It shouldn’t be discounted that the actions they took very likely have to do with your efforts to reach them through one or more touch points, but in the end they took the initiative. Those you make contact with through outbound recruiting strategies are typically not as far along in the buying decision and in fact may never have even contemplated it before. They’ll probably require more education, effort and time. The strategies required to convert these two groups of prospects must be different because they are in different places.

A perfect mix

It’s unfortunate that many companies, HR departments and recruiters tend to be really good at one or the other, but many times not both. A robust and successful recruiting strategy requires both. This is especially true as companies scale and grow over time. Pushing your jobs listings only outward is not the best way to fostering long-term relationships with candidates, which is important for building a candidate pipeline and planning for the future. On the other hand, relying only on personal connections and employee referrals closes you of from thousands of potential candidates. The most successful companies will diversify, using many different channels and tactics to reach candidates. 

TalentCircles is the most comprehensive candidate engagement platform on the market. Take a product tour or request a live demo today. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology anthropologist specializing in HR and recruiting. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs and author of The HR Technology Field Guide. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.

How to Increase Your Candidate Offer Acceptance Ratio - Part Two

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

Job acceptance is something we focus heavily on because it’s the moment that a candidate chooses to join our team, but it’s important to remember that not every acceptance is going to lead to a strong partnership. Job acceptance regret is a very real thing, and it’s detrimental to both the candidate and the company they wind up at. Competitive job offers may make it easier to accept an offer, but it doesn’t mean long-term happiness and satisfaction with a company. In fact, in many cases it doesn’t even mean short-term happiness.

Recent Indeed research revealed that many workers continue to search for jobs even after they’ve accepted an offer and started their new job. This research found that 65% of recently employed Indeed members looked at job postings after they had been employed at their job for at least 90 days. Buyer’s remorse exists as much in hiring as it does in retail. However, it’s not as easy to go back on a career decision as it is to return a sweater to the mall.

Excitement can wear off quickly, and what’s left could be an employee who is looking for a way out. Once a candidate has settled in and gotten the lay of the land, it may become all too clear that money doesn’t equal happiness. We know that statistically speaking, money isn’t what workers care most about, even if it led them to make a career choice. When it comes down to the day-to-day grind, it’s the people they work with and for, the opportunities they have and the organization’s culture. An extra boost in their paycheck can’t change those things.

However, not all job acceptance regret is equal. There are some who will never be happy with their new decision and find it best to move on. Then there are some, in fact I would dare say the majority, that are simply human and are unsure of the new situation. Some of the burden is actually on your company to help them overcome candidate offer remorse, leading to a lower new hire employee turnover rate.

Help your new candidates avoid this mentally taxing situation with these five strategies.

Give a realistic job and company culture preview

Give your candidate the tools they need to make the best decision for them. Empower them by providing a realistic explanation of the job and a preview of company culture, then trust them to know when it isn’t a good fit.

Have the candidate meet the hiring manager quickly

Avoid going through three rounds of interviews only to finally find out that the hiring manager and candidate don’t click. Arrange a meeting early on and allow each party to assess each other. One of the most significant factors in job satisfaction is the person you work for, so it just makes sense.

Welcome them the right way

You have a small window of time when a new employee starts to shape how they see the company. Of course you want to make sure they are acclimating personally, but this also includes a formal onboarding and new hire training program. You’ll never have another opportunity to affect how they view the company like you do in the beginning.

Provide ongoing support

Remember that initial onboarding and training are important, but they can’t possibly meet every need and answer every question your new employees have. Provide ongoing support and mentoring to build on the foundation that you laid with onboarding.

Foster a relationship

It seems simple, but just maintaining ongoing communication and talking to your new hire can help build a relationship that will make you their go-to when problems do arise. This could mean the difference between them coming to you to work through the regret they’re feeling and simply leaving your company.

TalentCircles is the most comprehensive candidate engagement platform on the market. Take a product tour or request a live demo today. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology anthropologist specializing in HR and recruiting. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs and author of The HR Technology Field Guide. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.

How to Increase Your Candidate Offer Acceptance Ratio – Part One

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

As the job market becomes more competitive, candidates are in the driver’s seat. This not only means that they can be a bit picky about where they want to apply but that they also have ability to negotiate compensation and even turn down offers that aren’t up to par. For companies who are working hard to bring in the best and brightest, this can mean a lot of things. For one, companies are having to become more competitive to keep up with other offers and stand out. Candidates are looking for a perfect mix of compensation, opportunity and convenience, and companies are actively trying to figure out exactly what that looks like.

Take a look at these six ways your company can stand out, be competitive and see a higher job acceptance ratio:

Qualify your candidates aggressively

It is a candidate’s job market, but that doesn’t mean you should feel or act desperate to fill a position. Do your homework and make sure the candidate actually has the skills you need and will be a good fit. Candidates may seem eager for the position, but they want to feel confident in their abilities to do the job. If you pursue candidates who don’t have the skills and experience for the job, they’re less likely to accept the position at the end of the day.

Research the market

Your company must stay competitive to bring in the best and brightest, so research the market and know what it takes to truly be competitive. Consider compensation, perks and sign on bonuses so you won’t be caught off guard. You’re working hard to woo those candidates, so don’t let this be the area you’re lacking in. If you just can’t be competitive, at least you’ll know where your organization falls short and can consider your company’s unique selling points.

Market your position and company honestly

Candidates have more avenues for finding out about future employers than ever before, whether that be by posting anonymous questions in a forum, reading employer reviews or just following their intuition. Be open and honest about what the position entails and what your organization brings to the table. Talk about what makes your company different, but don’t pull a bait and switch or coerce candidates into a position just so you can check a box.

Be smart about your offer

When you’re ready to offer a candidate the job, lead with a strong offer but don’t give away your hand. You may even want to build in some wiggle room for negotiating, whether that be through a sign on bonus, relocation or higher salary. Don’t lowball your candidates, but be smart about your job offer strategy.

Focus on candidate relationship building

One of the most effective ways to increase job acceptance is to develop relationships with your candidates. You can do this by communicating through a talent network or through old-fashioned email or phone. By establishing a personal connection, candidates will feel tied to your organization before they ever receive a job offer. Additionally, when they feel at ease to communicate openly, they’re more comfortable asking questions and discussing their concerns.  

TalentCircles is the most comprehensive candidate engagement platform on the market. Take a product tour or request a live demo today. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology anthropologist specializing in HR and recruiting. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs and author of The HR Technology Field Guide. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.