1You’ve seen the “Now Hiring” signs… they’re everywhere today.

2These signs, banners, and window slicks are showing up on nearly every retailer, quick service restaurant, or small businesses store front.

WorldMarket Hiring Now Signs

3But… do they work?

4The US unemployment rate is at a 50 year low, and job seekers have lots of options. So, it’s no doubt that employers and hiring managers need to be creative and start branding to their own customers, local foot traffic, and even passers-by. But just copying what your competitors are doing doesn’t mean it’s going to work.

Here’s a couple of reasons I think Directors of Talent Acquisition, HR and Hiring Managers, and their ad agencies, might want to think about other options, like Apply By Text.

The Problem

Most of these signs send candidates to the corporate career site to apply, like:

Apply online at our career site at homedepot.com/careers.

Problem #1. Disrupted Candidate Journey.

If you’re a job seeker, standing in front of Home Depot, looking for a job, you’d have to type 22 characters into a mobile browser, just to get to the career site.

That’s a hassle, but possible.

(Lowe’s solves this problem by including a QR code on their signage, that pops open the career site web page. It’s pretty cool, but I don’t know how many part-time, hourly workers know how to use a QR code.)

Problem #2. Poor Career site Conversion Rates and Poor Candidate Experience

If the candidate actually gets to the career site, they then have to find the job search, enter keywords and location, click on results, and then, if they’re lucky, and the career site is mobile optimized, apply via a mobile phone.

That’s a conversion nightmare.

While this candidate journey is an admirable attempt by the corporate talent acquisition team to help local hiring managers, my guess is that doesn’t work very well.

Here’s why – Over 90% of Career site visitors leave without providing any contact info!

The average career site Visitor to Apply rate is less than 10%, based on tracking over 2.5 million clicks and applies via Appcast and Jobvite.

That means that 90% of career site visitors LEAVE a career site, without applying or providing any contact information to join a talent network, or for recruiting or hiring managers to reach them again. That’s understandable if you followed the candidate journey above.

Problem #3. It’s not Trackable

While the intent is to help the local hiring managers to recruit workers, this type of recruitment marketing provides no feedback or tracking! And while hiring managers probably applaud the help with the signage, does the signage actually work well?

It’s great to have a sign in the store as a point of reference, but without some sort of tracking, there’s no way to know if the campaign is working, or where candidates are coming from.

I think there’s a real opportunity here:

It’s a broken candidate experience, because they came with an intent, but left, unfulfilled.

It’s a broken recruiting experience because any traffic to your career site is probably from paid ads or other marketing campaigns and 90% of your visitors leave unfulfilled.

Recruiters or hiring managers never get leads, and candidates probably aren’t coming back.

It’s a HUGE problem and only getting worse as the economy continues to grow to full employment in many regions.

I think there’s a simple and effective solution that, Apply by Text

What is Apply by Text?

Apply by Text is pretty much what it sounds like… providing a text number that allows job seekers, and often your existing customers, or local foot traffic, the ability to engage the store manager, with their contact info, some pre-screening questions, and even create an appointment for a walk-in.

What kind of results are employers seeing?

* Captures 9X more candidate profile information.

* Increases candidate apply rates by over 500%.

* Speeds and automated the recruiting process, because it’s Real-Time & Mobile Optimized.

* With Pre-screening for Qualifications, Interests, and Availabilities, hiring managers get more candidates faster.

* Engages and Informs candidates of the process and their eligibility.

* Works locally and nationally.

* Can be implemented with or without an ATS Integration

* Tracks every candidate and interaction.

* Can help schedule candidate interviews.

* Flexible and Scalable for different recruiting workflows.

The Solution: