An interview with Megan Elmore, Marketing Manager at GDH Consulting
Megan Elmore is an expert at employment branding and has been at GDH Consulting for eight years. As a marketing manager focusing on social media marketing and Internet recruiting strategies, she’s very aware of the up-to-the-minute changes in the staffing and recruiting industry.
Recently, she ushered in a major overhaul to GDH Consulting’s website and in the same year, GDH Consulting was awarded with Inavero’s Best of Staffing Client and Talent accolades—making Elmore the perfect person to discuss how the staffing and recruiting industry has adapted to technology and how this will shape the industry’s future.
Creating an award-winning community
As GDH Consulting celebrated their 14th anniversary this past May, now is a great time to reflect on the growth and success they’ve seen in that time. After all, winning Inavero’s Best of Staffing Talent award for the fourth year in a row and Best of Staffing Client award for the sixth year in a row means that GDH Consulting is doing something right. It is clear that their employment branding and hiring strategies are resonating with their audiences, but what exactly are they doing that is leading to such high client and candidate satisfaction?
“Mostly, we attribute our success with clients to how we’ve invested in our consultants,” Elmore says. “We created a Consultant of the Month award as part of our Consultant Care program to ensure that our internal team is getting all the support and motivation they need to do a great job. We also give our sales team all of the training possible to ensure consistent marketing and messaging. And we give our recruiters all of the tools and resources possible; we ensure our consultants are supported.” All of these resources and supporting efforts are creating an expert community working towards a common, award-winning goal.
Becoming more approachable, more accessible
Plenty of staffing firms would see six sequential years of awards as a reason to stay the same—but GDH Consulting noticed an opportunity to change and grow. So what inspired a rebranding and building out a new website, engaging blog and social media presence? As Elmore says, “Our perception and brand online didn’t match who we were. And as job seekers are doing more research online, as well as employers, we needed to update our look. By rebranding, we focused on becoming a more transparent company and hosting all the information you’ll need, using partners’ tips and trends to educate our candidates and clients.”
The newly launched website coincided perfectly with the incorporation of CareerBuilder’s Talent Network tool, which creates a pipeline of candidates who can express an interest in working at your company, and makes future hiring easier and more organized.
“We implemented Talent Network and the new site at the same time and saw a huge uptick in site traffic,” Elmore says. “Week over week we started seeing more and more potential candidates we hadn’t seen before. Together with that and our brand overhaul, we were able to communicate to job seekers very quickly and clearly who we are. We’ve seen higher traffic to the site and sign-ups with our Talent Network.”
Adapting standards to industry demands
It’s no secret that the Internet has substantially changed how talent is recruited, and mobile technology is the next wave of accessibility for staffing and recruiting to adapt to. Elmore says, “Applications tend to drop off within websites if they’re not mobile friendly, and you can lose the candidate altogether if you’re not currently hiring—unless you have a Talent Network.” Retaining that visitor to your website, and giving them every opportunity to express an interest in your company is how you access the hard-to-find talent. This is one of the few ways to capture passive job seekers who have in-demand skills and may be looking to see if the grass is greener elsewhere.
It is also critical to offer as much information—through social media, company websites and other portals—as possible. Primarily in IT and engineering, Elmore says, “More of these candidates are looking at consulting work, doing more research on their own to make a decision. But you can still have a crucial role in that decision by offering them that information. Candidates want to see the size of companies, tips and trends that are relevant to their specific role, and what it’s like to work with a staffing company.” The more information you can provide to candidates online, the better. Recent candidate behaviour research shows that the average job seeker uses 18 different sources when searching for a job — a steady increase from previous years and reinforcing the idea of the consumer candidate.
“Recruiting has evolved so much,” Elmore concludes. “When I started recruiting, the social networks for business were nothing like they are today. The data mining and Recruitment Edge advancements that CareerBuilder offers are crucial in getting all of the information we need. This data also gives us a key advantage over our competition as well since it enables us to educate and answer our clients’ and talent’s needs, too.” GDH Consulting understands that in order to exceed client and candidate expectations, they must utilize the most up-to-date data and technology to stay competitive.