Job Applicants Want a Touchable Application Process – It’s Time to Give it To Them

I heard a lot of frustration in their voices.  A very tech savvy crowd yes, but still unsure how to present themselves as a job applicant.  “I have a beautiful resume, but the online application is asking me to cut and paste my resume,” laments one job seeker.

“I fill my resume with keywords, but never hear a word from the company after filling out the online application.”

“How do I link up to my online portfolio when they just want me to type in my work experience?”

The questions during the SXSW 2012 session on “Online Personality Disorder: Resumes and Profiles” highlighted the gap between the expertise of the applicant, and the technology of the average applicant tracking system.  I had to raise my hand and admit I am with an applicant tracking system (although one of those that does allow portfolio uploads, online profiles, and formatted resumes), and suggest that when a cut and paste resume is required (by an ancient system, ahem), make sure to put a link to your online profile/ portfolio at the top of the resume text.

In this age of TVs that change the channel based on your hand motions, video enabled vending machines that measure your smile, and touch table computers, basic electronic resume applications fall flat.

The truth is that applicants want to reach out and touch the application process.  They want to put their unique mark on their application – they want to demonstrate their passion and their skills.  They don’t necessarily want to apply with just “two clicks,” they want to interact with the organization and provide relevant information.

And the truth is, hiring managers want to let them.  But too often time constraints and technology get in the way.  The solution isn’t to go back to the paper resume or in-person hiring event.  The solution is to adapt applicant tracking technology to let applicants express themselves, while automating as much as possible.

Here’s some ideas on making the online application and the hiring process “touchable” for the applicant, and still protect the hiring manager’s time:

• Allow the applicant to upload digital portfolios, images, and formatted resumes as part of their online application
• Provide easy ways for the applicant to link to their online professional content
• Give applicants status updates throughout the process – via email, text or a self-service portal.
• Word status updates and email communication as personally and warmly as professionally possible, so applicants realize they are communicating with a real person
• Consider using a company like Send Out Cards to send out recycled paper thank you notes with a status update after a phone interview.
• Provide a kiosk in the employer’s lobby to allow applicants to apply online and/or check their status.  It’s relatively inexpensive to do with an ipad kiosk.
• Use in-depth job descriptions and basic pre-screening questions to allow applicants who aren’t a fit to self-select out.  This allows more time for the hiring manager to review the information of qualified applicants.

Technology doesn’t have to be impersonal.  In fact, most innovation in tech sectors over the last few years has focused on making technology more and more personal.  Talent management systems and HR can provide a touchable application experience for applicants.  We all just have to try harder.

Takeaways for HR Tech from SXSW 2012

SXSW Interactive 2012 was my first time at SXSW, and I found inspiration for making HR Tech better from a number of channels including film, gaming, media agencies, and consumer focused start-ups.

Treat applicants like a consumer and let them be social

• Let applicants be social about the jobs they are applying to, potentially letting them share the  fact that they are applying with friends, ask for recommendations
• Help applicants sell themselves – they have a difficult time demonstrating their passion to an  applicant tracking system
• Let applicants link to their rich online content, if applicable to the job application

The days of our personal and professional lives online being separate are over. There is much more overlap now. #sxopdrp #sxswi

—
Will Staney (@willstaney) March 12, 2012

APIs are a growing trend

• Companies are making millions off just API transactions
• APIs are now primarily written in REST, not SOAP
• Well-document your API and make the documentation public
• Create tools for programmers to build transactions with your API

Mobile is huge and is not being replaced by tablets

• It is now an appendage to people, and everyone was a “cyborg” during SXSW12, per Amber Case
• Mobile has become notebook, internet, phone, map, entertainer, camera, video cam and more, in one
• Video and photos are the new “text”

"Everytime you look at a screen, every time you use an interface, you are in a symbiotic relationship. You become a cyborg." #Ambercase

—
Latoya Peterson (@LatoyaPeterson) March 11, 2012

From the gaming world we learn the importance of incentivizing users = goals & metrics

• With gaming, people are incentivized to complete tasks
• People like to see visually that they are making goals
• Users by nature have a hard time figuring out metrics and are embarrassed by it
• Requirements for a user to get into a good flow with software:
  • Goals, then challenges,  then skills, then feedback, then control

Relevance more important that simplicity

• In user’s mind, relevance = usability
• No matter how simple you make something, it isn’t usable to the user unless it does what they wanted to do
• In the case of job applications, less clicks does not = user satisfaction.  Rather, the right questions and truthful feedback = user satisfaction.

Users define simplicity through relevance. Page clutter also adds difficulty to the equation #sxsw

—
FireStarter (@dfcbfirestarter) March 10, 2012

#SXSW Interactive – Saturday & Sunday in Photos

Samsung’s smart TV – no need for a remote, just use hand gestures to change the channel, the volume, or any setting.  Development kit available.

Keynote speaker Baratunde Thurston inspired us to use comedy to change society. “Comedians are good at smashing idols” – per @occupyjudaism.

Touch table at the Nokia tent. I want this for our coffee house.

Cell phone charging lock boxes

Boxing robots powered by Kinect – using hand gestures. Motion technology is a big theme.

Third Eye Blind. Gotta love alternative music launched in the 90s. I do, so I had to throw that in here.

“make mistakes. Make big ones” #Tambor #SXSW

#SXSW Interactive – Friday Reflections of a Newbie

It’s rainy and cold in Austin, but the locals are cheering on the rain. That’s ok, because it can’t put a damper on the enthusiasm of #SXSWi.

This is my first time at the convention, so I have a couple newbie observations. First of all, I’ve never seen so many gadgets in one place – and that’s not on the trade show floor – but rather in attendees hands. High powered cameras, video cameras, mobile devices galore and of course ipads and laptops, so much so, that attendees camp around power outlets. (Someone please come up with a phone that lasts all day – when actually used all day.) Each session is given a twitter hash tag, and often the speakers encourage tweets throughout the session, and use twitterfeed to pull questions from the audience. I like that use of technology.

After this, I am convinced of the mobile device as a staple of society moving forward. (No, I wasn’t already). I’m excited to see what form it will take. We need innovators to break out of the rectangular box design.

Speaking of mobile innovation, one demonstrator that stood out to me, Isis, offers a mobile wallet solution. It requires a user to have a NFC-enabled phone, which will be release by major carriers this summer. Merchants just need to have a contactless reader that accepts Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express. To make it even simpler, the merchants should also have Isis software, although it can work without. Customers just select their payment option on their phone by clicking on the credit card icon they want to use, then tap their phone against the reader, and payment is transferred. Great concept, although it still gives a percentage to the big four credit card companies, which takes money out of local economies, but maybe this will allow for a surge of local credit cards? Might be possible with this setup. I was told I could integrate a local rewards program into the software.

Went to an intriguing session about training positive neuroplasticity. Too much information to share here, but I’m definitely going to share it with our development team. As you might have guessed, the condition of our bodies is directly related to the performance of our brains. However, moderation is the key – simple things can exercise your body and brain without hitting the gym five times a week. And easy nutritional guidelines help as well. It has implications for ADHD, Asperger’s and Autism, and I can’t wait to research that more.

Knowing there are a lot of smart people in attendance, I was surprised at the amount of lame questions asked at the end of the session (people not using their brains), until one attendee asked a GREAT question – if it is shown that these types of non-pharmaceutical solutions are available for our health, why isn’t science delving into these areas of research? WHY INDEED? Basically, the neuro-scientist said that a hypothesis is currently necessary to prove/ disprove something in the medical world. Thankfully with all the data floating around in cyberspace, we can start to figure things out by just chugging through all that data – without first having a hypothesis.

Was proud of the representation of my home state at a session by a group of Ohio design companies who highlighted some of the very innovative machines they’ve built – a vending machine that records your photo and dispenses ice cream based on the strength of your smile – various carnival games that exist in real-life, but that are controlled remotely by users over the internet – a mobile 1973 RV named MERV that interacts with students at college visitations – really creative stuff.

Creativity is the name of the game, and I’m ready to get some more inspiration.

#SXSW Thursday – The Startup Crawl

While SXSW doesn’t officially start until Friday, I was excited to be able to jump on board with a new official event – the “startup crawl” – on Thursday night.

I jumped on a shuttle bus and joined other tech fans to shuffle from downtown startup to downtown startup. The array of technical creativity was impressive. I noticed a lot of very young faces in the crowd. After asking around, I realized that quite a few of the startup companies rely on college interns to help build their next new product. Austin, I am told, is a very young city.

Two companies stood out to me because of their creative approach to real-world need:

digby – mobilizing retail

digby puts a kind of hot spot they call localpoint into a retail location, and then recognizes customer phones as they walk through the door. With their mobile app, customers can then receive personalized content and coupons based on what store they are in, or even where they are in the store. The company offers a development kit that allows small businesses to build their own apps, but also has built these types of apps for large retailers such as The Home Depot and Toys R Us.

They say they don’t keep a record who the actual customer is, just the ID of the phone. For small businesses, though, if the app recognizes loyal customers as they walk through the door, it would meet a need to provide personalized service to those best customers. Would be really creep if wal-mart did that though.

Within the HR tech space, I could see some use for this for job applications onsite.

Bypass Lane

I have to admit Bypass Lane was my favorite startup of the night. This company offers a mobile app that allows you to order a drink or food at a large event, such as a football game, and then get it delivered to you, or schedule it for pickup. The app was live at the bar where they hosted their startup stop last night, and I was able to download the app while at their location, and order a drink from the bar. I got a text when the drink was ready and went and picked it up.

Right now they have limited their app to just large venues such as the Ford Center. I asked if they would set it up for my coffee house. Instead of the laugh I thought I would get, the developer said pensively that they hope to push it out to small business somehow, but haven’t focused on that market yet. I would love to see them team up with an independent business organization, such as AMIBA, who could offer it to their members.

Speaking of small business, I’ve read a few articles in the national media about SXSW and they seem to focus on giants such as google and Microsoft offering their innovations. That’s not what SXSW is about. SXSW is about independent business, innovators and startups. They invite the big guys too, just because it’s fair, but they get the same amount of consideration by attendees as the above startup companies I mentioned.

These conference is about recognizing that innovation and talent can come from someone’s PC in the basement as much as the billion dollar lab at a software giant. I’m very excited to learn from those talents today.