Comments (14)

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  Dave Mendoza

  11 July 2012 at 16:14 | #

  You make excellent points. I can add to that assertion with the fact that today's platforms make for poor parsing, which undermines the searchability of records - a key cornerstone rationale one would create a platform in the first place. That said, the SEO component as an attracter and providing critical inputs such as keywords driving traffic do provide critical market intelligence to drive strategy. I think the argument is not whether, "talent community" as an engagement device is true to marketing ploy, - we know that isn't its strength. The relevant question is what the company's TA does to develop cogent, non-intrusive engagement strategies with the incoming contact data.

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    Ed

    12 July 2012 at 13:31 | #

    Dave - if what you mean by "engagement strategies" is getting people to interact with one another - I agree. Everyone is focussed on the SEO and Marketing to get people to show up, and all the analytics to see how they got there, but have no clue what to do with them when they arrive.

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  Linda B

  11 July 2012 at 16:26 | #

  It's simply a branding problem. Instead of calling it a "talent community", they should call it "spam".

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    Ed

    12 July 2012 at 13:25 | #

    Love it. There should be a law that requires some fine print that says "I acknowledge that by joining this community I will receive spam at a future date."

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      Sean Sheppard

      01 August 2012 at 21:43 | #

      Spamming is not engaging :)

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  Peter

  11 July 2012 at 20:00 | #

  What's interesting is that many talent communities take credit for candidates that start the process, leave, and then come back (for whatever is possible). So the message to clients is "look how successful" a Talent community is.

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    Ed

    12 July 2012 at 13:33 | #

    Exactly! And "look how many dropped out of the apply process, thank goodness we captured their info in the talent community" - when the double hop apply process may well have been the reason they dropped in the first place.

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      Chris Brablc

      13 July 2012 at 20:31 | #

      I figured I'd comment on this in addition to my other comment but for this type of process, your form should be short, unobtrusive and optional (as well as quickly take you to the apply process). The companies that make you create a log-in for the Talent Community, only to have you do the same for the application will see the high drop-off.
      
      We've done some quick testing for one of our clients on the effects of a simple optional form in front of the apply process and there was a negligible affect on drop-off when tested with and without the form.

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      • 

        Ed

        16 July 2012 at 11:38 | #

        Chris - glad to hear you have eliminated the login on the talent community, and that your tests have shown negligible impact. But it is still and impact. Until all the data you enter into the short form, flows all the way through to the apply process, it is not good enough. We should expect more.

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  Deb

  12 July 2012 at 04:31 | #

  You are dead on Ed! All it is is a database per se of names. Here's my question.... Typically in capturing someone in a talent community, you ask very limited info to make it easy. And although you might be able to view the source of entry into the community (ie the referring job), unless you encourage your candidates to log in at a later date to update their "talent community profile", all you have is a database of junk that your recruiters can't use to target candidates. All you can do is throw a general net (aka spam).

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  • 

    Ed

    12 July 2012 at 13:51 | #

    It's a little bit of a downward spiral. The ATS apply process has become about as unfriendly as you can get, so we make this community sign up as easy as possible, some only take email address. But this just makes the ATS apply that much worse because you are asking me to do something twice. And the limited data collection makes it hard to tailor any kind of meaningful messaging. Amazon probably knows more about a jobseekers career interests than corporate HR.
    
    I think some companies realize this sham and instead of calling a community they us the "Talent Network" label. I don't buy that either because in a network you have connections with people, and as you suggest the easy data capture process creates a database of junk. No networking happening there.

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  martin snyder

  15 August 2012 at 14:24 | #

  The problem is that communities create themselves based on some raison d’être, and it’s obviously highly unlikely that a wide variety of hiring interests would all be able to foster viable motivation for members beyond a direct employment advantage.
  
  It takes more than just having a common occupation to create a community, and it takes bandwidth to participate in a community, and people have ever more limited bandwidth: so which “community” is going to get dropped first and fastest, even if you gain some initial engagement ?
  
  I have a feeling “talent community” will end up as a laughable buzzword within a few short years.
  
  What has enduring value ? Person to person communication between recruiter and candidate. Aint no shortcuts, even with the siren song of social media, which if you ask me, is two-thirds played out anyway…..

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  Regan George

  16 August 2012 at 16:19 | #

  Couldn't agree more --- brand/corporate talent communities are a waste of space. What 'hard to hire' candidate is going to join one?
  
  On the flip side 'skill based' communities, run like communities eg discussions, engagement, moderation, content MANAGED by a Community Manager work a treat!

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• 

  Regan George

  16 August 2012 at 16:36 | #

  Talking of talent communities -- can you make out what this chap is talking about? They have raised millions of $$$ for Talent Communities.
  
  http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/27/davos-bravenewtalent-allows-job-seekers-to-follow-their-future-employers/

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