Today's guest blog post comes to you from Ron Kasner, iCIMS' Chief Corporate Development Officer. Ron has leadership responsibility for corporate strategy and development, business process improvement, and legal affairs.

A little over one month ago, I attended the 13th Annual HR Technology Conference & Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. As the Chief Corporate Development Officer here at iCIMS, it was an excellent opportunity to hear directly from hundreds of HR professionals (mostly high-level), technology vendors, and analysts.

What I immediately noticed is that it seemed every other booth was somehow involved in one way or another in Talent Management. Either they engaged in talent management directly or were an ancillary product. In fact, many of the companies that were not in the space before, now are – well, at least from a marketing perspective. Unfortunately, that means a very crowded, convoluted market for those truly interested in and in need of a talent management solution. As a result, I personally found the need to truly dig into the “real” capabilities of various talent management vendors.

Luckily, I found many visitors to iCIMS’ booth doing the same. The people visiting our booth generally already knew about the functionality iCIMS and other technology vendors are offering, and subsequently knew what features they need out of a system. What was made clear to me is that ATS functionality alone isn’t enough; these professionals are interested in the total package – not only the complete HR system, but the entire customer experience.

HR professionals, especially those working for small and mid-sized companies, wanted talent management software beyond the traditional ATS. They wanted a solution that would drive their entire HR program from recruitment and onboarding to performance and training management. Finding one system that can support those needs is no longer a bonus, but a requirement.

Many people appeared to truly recognize that the right functionality is pointless without the right people to implement it, support it, maintain it, and enhance it. They asked many probing questions about our company history, growth, and future, as well as, how we service and benefit clients, and what we do to ensure a great transition to and experience with iCIMS. A handful of people shared some poor past experiences with other vendors, including long, costly implementations, confusing product navigation, limited configurability, inadequate training, and slow responsiveness to issues.

Candidly, this put me in a very good position to respond. iCIMS has over a decade of experience in delivering talent management Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). We have over 850 customers, the 2nd largest number of customers in the talent acquisition market, with one of the highest customer retention rates in the industry. Not only have we been recognized by Inc. Magazine and Deloitte for our growth in the industry, but we’re also one of the most profitable vendors in the market. We have the only “pure” SaaS offering, with the most vast configuration capabilities. We also provide free, unlimited storage of candidate, employee, hiring manager, and job profiles. In addition, we offer free, unlimited email and toll-free support, training webinars, and learning materials.

From a customer’s perspective, this means we can provide one of the quickest implementation times, at one of the lowest implementation costs. This not only translates into a lower overall investment, but a faster return on investment as well. This also means superior usability and greater flexibility, driving more user adoption. This translates into a greater return on investment.

While I admit these conferences are good for seeing what competitors are doing or what technology partnerships can be made, I think the most important takeaway is the information and feedback received from the HR professionals, themselves. This may just be my two cents, but in order to be the best in the business, it is essential to provide what your clients need and not just what competitors are doing. These conferences give vendors the opportunity to hear what prospects want and what trends seem to be steering the HR industry. It will be interesting to see which technology vendors were listening…

These days, everybody is talking about search engine optimization (SEO) which, as the online traffic coordinator for iCIMS, I know a bit about.  Is my website optimized?  Is my blog optimized?  Are my tweets and social networking profiles optimized?  These are some of the more common SEO questions people are asking themselves.  The internet is a busy place and it can be hard to get noticed, but HR professionals should be asking themselves one important question: Are my job postings optimized?

Companies spend a fortune listing their open jobs on job boards, but recruiters are starting to realize that getting access to the best candidates may not be as simple as signing that fat check.  More and more candidates are starting their job searches with a visit to a search engine, not a job board. If the first point of debarkation for candidates is no longer the job board, the portion of the talent pool which can see certain job postings may be significantly reduced.  This shift in candidate behavior has led me to come up with the following suggestions for HR pros to maximize their jobs’ exposure.

1. Use appropriate keywords in your posting - A lot of job descriptions boil down to being acronym soup.  Make sure that you actually spell out what you’re looking for in the description so that you capture people who search for “Human Resources Manager,” rather than “HR Manager.”


2. Keep your postings where they are – The more sites they are posted on, including your friendly neighborhood job boards, the better.  This is especially true if they link to the posting on your company’s career portal.


3. Avoid using flash-based interfaces and portals – Flash-based sites are indexed by search engines as blank and, in many cases, forego the benefits of search engine optimization.  You need to make sure that you use appropriate keywords and that the search engine can read them. 


4. Make sure your talent acquisition software enables SEO – Did you know that you can turn off search engine indexing for security purposes?  What I find strange is that some providers of talent acquisition and talent management software do just that on their career portals, robbing their clients of valuable traffic.


5. Employ adequate candidate-screening capabilities – You will be tapping into a new source of traffic for your job postings and thus have more candidates to screen through.  Your time is valuable, so make sure that your talent acquisition software can handle the load for you by auto-responding to candidates who do not qualify.

As companies start hiring through this recovery, the best talent will be the first to go.  HR professionals owe it to their organizations to do what they can to get in front of the best candidates.  While that may not mean an immediate investment in new technology, it’s certainly something to keep an eye on.