iCIMS Hire Expectations™

In many ways the coming decade will redefine the talent management space. Coming out of the worst recession since WWI, talent management is on the rebound and organizations must ensure they have the talent acquisition processes in place to flourish during a time of increased growth. Looking ahead, organizations need to take a step back and evaluate their talent acquisition processes. Does your organization have the technologies in place to attract, engage and retain the most qualified workers? Is your organization prepared for a retirement surge when the baby boomers leave the workforce at an astounding rate? These are only two of the many questions talent management professionals should be asking themselves asthey prepare for the new decade, and in many ways, a new era in talent management.

Below are Five Key Talent Acquisition Strategies your organization should incorporate into your Talent Management program throughout the new decade:


The latter part of this past decade is proof of the unyielding power social media networks have on talent management. Since inception in a Harvard dorm room only 6 years ago, Facebook has grown to more than 400 million users worldwide. To put this figure in perspective, that’s more than the population of the United States and Canada combined! Even more remarkable, the fastest growing age bracket of active Facebook users is 35 - 49 year olds, highly contributing members of the workforce¹. Add Twitter, LinkedIn, Ning and the countless other social networks, and you have a powerful talent acquisition tool.



Throughout the coming decade, social networks will continue to be the best way toform relationships with both passive and active candidates. Instead of the one-time static relationships candidates might have expected from recruiters, social networks will allow recruiters to have long term dynamic relationships with an extensive talent pipeline. With passive candidates making up more that 70% of the workforce, leveraging these relationships through social networks is more important than ever². Social networks also directly affect your employment brand and a candidate’s perception of your job opportunities. By formally incorporating social networks into their talent management strategies, organizations can take ownership of how their employment brand is portrayed³.

Furthermore, forward thinking organizations are now leveraging social media outlets to strengthen and promote their employee referral programs - programs often cited as the most cost effective source of qualified talent. Long viewed as the most effective way to attract and identify top hires, social media programs that leverage employee referrals decrease turnover, reduce cost per hire and improve new hire time-to-productivity⁴.

Contrary to original predictions, social media is not a fad. More and more organizations are discovering the remarkable value proposition social media holds. With Talent Management Solutions integrating with social networks, it is easier than ever to launch, measure and capture data from candidates and employees through social networks⁵.

The Figures:
Facebook has grown to more than 400 million users in 6 years.


Social networks allow recruiters to maintain long term dynamic relationships with an extensive pipeline of passive candidates.


What was once a buzz word will now play a critical role in talent management. In addition to realizing substantial cost savings, organizations that build sustainability into their daily operations improve their image in the marketplace for customers, current employees and future applicants. More and more people want to work for companies that make a difference in the environment and community. Competitive organizations should recommit to becoming green and promoting corporate citizenship throughout the community as well within their given industry. According to the 2009 Green Workplace Study conducted by the Society of Human Resources Management, 20% of HR Professionals work at companies that have formal, environmentally friendly policies. This percent is expected to sky rocket in 2010 asmore and more organizations seek to gain a competitive advantage by becoming the GREEN leader in their given industry⁶.

Did you know that an average pine tree yields 80,000 sheets of paper? That may sound like a lot of paper but consider this statistic: an organization that hires 500 new employees a year wastes more than 80,000 sheets of paper on offer packages alone. Now factor in employee handbooks, stock option information, employee surveys, benefits enrollment, performance assessments and all of the other critical documents that HR distributes on an annual basis. An HR department’s dependence on paper based processes often translates into killing numerous trees each year. Automating your organization’s HR processes, such as recruiting, onboarding and performance management programs, is the first step towards going green. And, thanks to the wide spread success of Software-as-a-service HR solutions, it is easier than ever for HR departments to GO GREEN. Web-based models allow users to access the platform from anywhere in the world, including their home office. Furthermore, unique iForm technology eliminates the reliance on paper processes throughout the talent lifecycle.

Going green and giving back can mean something different to every organization. Common green workplace initiatives outside of automating HR processes include Web conferencing, reduced paper use, direct deposit, mass transit programs and recycling, however that is just the beginning. An increasing number of organizations are taking their corporate green initiatives a step further. Organizations are purchasing Green-e Certified Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) to match their annual energy usage and balance out their corporate carbon footprints. Furthermore, many organizations are opting to work in LEED certified work spaces. LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building was designed using strategies aimed at improving performance across the following metrics: energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts. ⁷

The Figures:
20% of HR Professionals work at companies with formal green policies.

A pine tree yields 80,000 sheets of paper- enough for 500 offer packages.


Incorporate Green practices into your talent management strategy to improve your employment brand and attract higher caliber candidates.


While job boards will continue to play an important role in sourcing and identifying qualified talent in the coming decade, search engine optimization will also become a key component in strategic recruiting. Search engine optimized talent hubs will gain popularity, allowing candidates to filter jobs by class, location and company. Organic search engine optimization is now viewed as one of the most cost effective and under utilized ways to generate applicant traffic to a company’s listed job openings. Every month, there are over 226,000,000 job related searches on Google. A rapidly increasing proportion of job seekers are now turning to a limited number of search engines to locate opportunities that were previously found through traditional jobsearch channels⁸. This means that in order for candidates to find job openings within your organization, your job descriptions must be optimized to rank well with search engine results.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is defined as the process of developing and structuring Web content to be easily discovered by search engines and therefore by people. SEO has long been part of an organization’s strategy to drive traffic to their individual corporate website. The concept is simple, the higher your website or job description appears on the list of search results for a given set of terms, the more web traffic your website and job description can expect to receive. Quality content that is search engine optimized will get picked up for a wider range of relevant searches, resulting in a higher number of quality candidates and essentially a more effective recruiting campaign.

Your open jobs and employer brand are picked up hundreds of times a day and delivered to end users via search engine results. With SEO, content is king. When preparing job postings, make sure your job descriptions are extremely detailedfocusing on keywords and phrases that are likely to relate to your candidates. As you prepare to optimize your job descriptions, it is helpful to imagine yourself as the job seeker. What attributes, skills, job titles, locations, or other keywords would they enter into a search engine to find your job content? To rank highest with search engines, you want to make sure those terms are included towards the top of your job description page. The title of your individual job postings should also be the role, location and skills for that individual job and it is important to make sure that page titles are directly accessible (ie. no iframes).

The Figures:

Every month there are over 226,000,000 job related searches on Google.


To improve SEO, use detailed job descriptions with key words and phrases that relate to your candidate.


With the graying of the American population, it is more important than ever for organizations to devise multi-faceted talent acquisition strategies that consider short and long term hiring needs. Workforce planning will play a critical role in talent management over the next decade as the baby boomers prepare to make a mass exodus from the workforce. According to a report by the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College, 77 percent of employers have not analyzed projected employee retirement rates or assessed employee career plans⁹. In other words, employers are largely unaware of the true impact the baby boomer exodus will have on their business processes. In 2000, baby boomers were 48% of the US labor force. By the end 2010, they are projected to represent only 37% of the labor force. This decline represents a shortage of 10-15 million workers; now imagine the impact baby-boomers will have on talent acquisition throughout the rest of the decade. The talent gaps created by experienced and skilled baby-boomers leaving the work force will be large. Even if most of the replacements for retired workers come fromwithin the company, new hires are still needed to replace the replacements. With these intense waves of retirement and internal promotions on the horizon, HR professionals must plan ahead and adopt strategies. Remember that the candidates being hired today will be in line for those leadership positions currently held by babyboomers.

Select talent management solutions have workforce planning tools built right into the core technology. These tools provide HR professionals with the resources they need to shift from a reactive, task-oriented role to a proactive strategic partner in forecasting and planning talent acquisition programs. By analyzing current workforces and taking steps to plan for future human capital adjustments, workforce planning can position your company for sustained success.

The Figures:

Baby boomers make up 37% of the current labor force.


Leverage workforce planning tools to become proactive in forecasting short and long term hiring needs.


When considering the above strategies, it is important to take a holistic view of talent management. As the talent management industry continues to mature, the trend towards a holistic approach is more pronounced than ever. Holistic talent management encourages organizations to maximize their talent pool by aligning it with short and long term business objectives. While encouraging an organizational culture of engagement and innovation, a holistic talent management approach requires organizations to view talent acquisition, development, retention and employee management in a radically new way- as a single entity rather then distinct parts. During this new era in human capital management, HR professionals will become catalysts for strategic change only when they understand the relationship and interconnectedness of the different components of the end-to-end talent lifecycle.

The use of talent management technology is the first step to implementing this holistic approach and often, the key to unlocking the full potential of your workforce. From attracting and selecting talent wisely, to retaining and developing tomorrow’s leaders, to helping former employees transition out of the company, talent management technology is available to streamline the entire talent lifecycle. By leveraging one platform, or a limited number of platforms that communicate with each other, talent management technology helps your organization tie key business decisions to your human capital management.


Talent Management platforms help organizations tie key business decisions to human capital management.


iCIMS delivers the industry's premier on-demand Talent Platform by offering robust yet scalable technology, capable of powering multiple talent initiatives within one core platform. Recognized as the leading provider for the mid-market, iCIMS’ Talent Platform automates and streamlines the end-to-end talent lifecycles of more than 800 industry leading organizations around the world.

Powering talent management into a new decade, iCIMS’ Talent Platform provides organizations with the tools to succeed in a new talent marketplace. With web 2.0features built into candidate profiles, social media widgets on career portals and Facebook work-with-me feeds, iCIMS makes it easier than ever to launch, capture and measure data through a variety of social networks. Turning any piece of paper into fully searchable and reportable software, iCIMS’ iForm technology removes the burden of manual paper processes and enables organizations to Go Green. iCIMS clients also take advantage of search engine optimized career portals; ensuring that their open positions are easily located by candidates and receive the most applicant traffic. Furthermore, iCIMS’ Talent Platform offers robust Workforce Planning functionality, helping clients strategically plan for both short and long term hiring needs while attracting the most qualified applicants.

With robust candidate and employee management tools, iCIMS offers a holistic approach to talent management and enables organizations to tie their key business objectives with their human capital management processes. In addition to this superior Talent Platform, iCIMS clients benefit from an unparalleled customer experience and award winning customer support teams. Try the free candidate management software demo today and see how iCIMS’ Talent Platform can power your organization’s talent management program into the new decade!