Kelli Schutrop: Hello, it looks like we are getting started. I'll wait just a few minutes to let everybody get started. Hello everybody. We are going to get started with "6 tips to elevate the candidate experience" here shortly. We'll wait just a couple of seconds to have people join. And I want to share that we do have a Q/A opportunity.

Kelli Schutrop: So if you have questions, please feel free to enter them into that section and I'll check them out as we're getting toward the end or as they come in. So we've got a number of people here. Thank you for joining. Why don't you go ahead and pop into the chat where you're joining from, and then we'll go ahead and get started in just a couple seconds.

Kelli Schutrop: Great. Great. Looks like people from all over. Well welcome. Why don't we go ahead and get started today. We are going to be talking about six tips to elevate the candidate experience. Now, what is this all about now? Your raving fans and most successful placements, really all have one main thing in common.

Kelli Schutrop: And that's a great experience, whether it's starting at their application process all the way through their conversations with your recruiters, and then becoming hopefully an alumni advocate for your staffing firm. Now, unsurprisingly. Talented candidates who might fall through the cracks, don't have that great experience.

Kelli Schutrop: And so today we want to talk about how to leverage marketing automation, to really create a positive candidate experience all across the board and talk about why that's imperative to the success of your company. So whether you are a couple of years into using marketing automation and you just want to provide those candidates with the best possible experience and determine your ROI.

Kelli Schutrop: Or you're new to automation. You are in the right session to hear those key tips to creating that legendary candidate experience. So who is talking? I know it's always fun to hear a little bit more about the speaker to get some context. So my name is Kelli Schutrop. I've spent the past 12 plus years focused specifically on digital marketing in the staffing industry, and prior to that in other industries.

Kelli Schutrop: And so this space is near and dear to my heart. I've held roles as leading marketing teams internally at staffing firms, as well as within agencies, helping to consult business owners, leaders, and other marketers on how to grow their brand drive leads, nurture their audience, et cetera, all those fun things.

Kelli Schutrop: You see a few pictures here. This is my family. I've got a little guy who was born right as the pandemic hit. He keeps things lively. And my husband and I love to travel. And then on the professional side, my role is Vice President of Sales for Parqa Digital Marketing Agency so just by way of. Here at Parqa, we are a performance and technology strategy and implementation company that supports the staffing industry.

Kelli Schutrop: So we really work with those staffing firms of the future to solve enterprise level business challenges, ranging from solutions and brand identity, marketing strategy, digital execution, and technology integration. But that's not why you're here. You are here today to learn about those six tips to help you really create a better candidate experience for your marketing automation.

Kelli Schutrop: And I want to pause here for a second before we dive in. The HR tech space has experienced massive growth in the last year. In fact, according to Crunchbase just in the last half of last year, it massively exploded. So just to put it into perspective, there have been total venture dollars over 7.5 billion.

Kelli Schutrop: That was just as of a few months ago, invested in HR tech. Sense is a sweetheart near and dear to our hearts. Everyone listening here, I'm sure they received a massive investment and there's all kinds of companies like that. So that investment was actually larger than 2019 and 2020 combined. So what that tells me, what that tells you is that our staffing industry is starting to really accelerate the adoption of technology and what it can do.

Kelli Schutrop: So. Let's go ahead and dive right in today. We're talking about those six tips to elevate the candidate experience in your marketing automation strategy. These six key areas we will talk about include one business process and making sure that you lead with your objectives first and your technology.

Kelli Schutrop: Second, we'll dive into that. Two are your ideal candidate profiles. So what motivates them? What are their decision phases? How do you develop content strategies around their needs and how to, how do you ensure that your data truly aligns? Everything that you're pushing out from an automation and marketing standpoint.

Kelli Schutrop: Three is the journey workflow. So creating that visual representation of your user journey map, and how to physically establish that. 

Kelli Schutrop: So your team can transition into four, which is adoption. So how do you implement this? Who does it impact? How do you secure buy-in? How do you make sure you're maximizing your investment? 

Kelli Schutrop: Five we will talk about the user driven experience.

Kelli Schutrop: And how to get out of your own head of just implementing and hoping it works and really start looking deeper at AB testing and having those users drive. The results tell you what's working and what's not and what needs to be modified. 

Kelli Schutrop: And then of course, six, we will dive into results, analytics, and optimization, and really elevate from that one and done approach.

Kelli Schutrop: So this is not the type of technology that once you implement it, you walk away and say, Good. I'm glad we're done with that. This is something that involves multiple iterations to optimize and create the best experience for your candidates. Ultimately the best experience also for your team and the best ROI.

Kelli Schutrop: And then at the end, we are going to dive into one of my favorite visuals, which is the digital maturity model. So you can get an idea of a snapshot of where your company is at and where you need to progress to take it to the next level. All right. So, like I mentioned, for those joining, now we do have a Q/A section, so please feel free to add questions or thoughts there, and we'll dive into those toward the end.

Kelli Schutrop: Now one business process objectives. First technology second. Okay. I'm going to run a scenario by you love to see a show of hands virtually you know, comment in the chat. If this is familiar to you, the CEO or the visionary goes to a conference. I just heard about this epic technology. It's automation.

Kelli Schutrop: We need to do it. Here you go, person in charge, implement it. Or you are the person in charge. You've seen all the demos, you get super pumped about what this piece of technology around automation can do for your business. So you just get approval for the budget and you dive right in. Well, the challenge that comes into play with automation is that it is a beautiful tool, but it needs strategy and content and adoption in order to make it successful.

Kelli Schutrop: So I want to share with you this technology adoption, really pillars of success that you do truly need to have not only your technology, but it has to come from an overarching strategy. And we'll dive into that here shortly, what needs to be included in your strategy? So not only do you need the technology piece, what's your buying?

Kelli Schutrop: But you need that, that people team, right. Who is executing on it, what is the process? How does it tie into your other data sources and ultimately, what is your content strategy? That's going to drive it forward. So by way of example, something that's near and dear to all of our hearts, I would hope is Disney, right?

Kelli Schutrop: And so just the concept of Disney, they set out to create an incredible customer experience. But if you strip back the entire experience, they've put together what you have. You have some structures, you have some restaurants, you have some rides, you've got a big property. You've got ticket sales, right? You've got all of the infrastructure or the technology, so to speak without that, they would just be another theme park, but they have truly crafted their art around that.

Kelli Schutrop: The customer experience. And so that's what we're going to be talking about today. How to take your technology, your automation platforms, and actually make them a fantastic experience. So when we're thinking about your business process, we need to really pause and think about what challenges you're facing.

Kelli Schutrop: Right. So it's not about running out and buying the latest technology, even if it's awesome, even if it is the right move, the right product for your team, if you don't have your challenges and the ultimate objectives that you're trying to accomplish in the back of your mind, you probably won't stay true to that north star of what you're trying to accomplish.

Kelli Schutrop: So I want to ask if some of these common challenges are bouncing around on your mind. How do I drive more qualified candidates into my pipeline? How do I measure the success of my technology or marketing efforts? How do I leverage my database more strategically? How do I create content that doesn't sound automated and thus, right?

Kelli Schutrop: Like these are the kinds of things that I would encourage you to start thinking about. Why are you looking at technology in the first place? What are you trying to solve from there? Map out your desired outcome. Okay. Yes. You want to place more consultants? Yes. You need to find them. Yes. The speed to market needs to be faster.

Kelli Schutrop: Fill in all the blanks, but what is your desired outcome? Is it that you create better efficiency with every single recruiter desk? Is it that you want your IT consultants that get placed out in the field to come back and work with your recruiters every single time, as opposed to just whichever staffing firm has the next cool role for them.

Kelli Schutrop: Is it because you want to place more people hidden in your database? Now all of these can track over to tangible KPIs, right? Such as retaining 90% of your recruiting team over the next 12 months. Because as we have all heard and seen the term recruiter is actually. One of the highest sought after roles right now, even above, you know, different technology roles that have always been massively in demand.

Kelli Schutrop: So thinking about how you can create efficiency that ties into your retention is huge. Or maybe you want to grow your revenue by 30% next year, or you want to place 25% more candidates. Who are already in your database? These are all valid outcomes and you may have others as well. Please put them in the chat.

Kelli Schutrop: If you've got ideas that you'd love to share with the crew here. And then you want to think about your motivations. So what if this works truly? What if you say, all right, we're putting the investment into automation or we already have, we know our challenges. We know our desired outcomes. We have goals around them.

Kelli Schutrop: So what, There are so many decisions to make in business, maybe you're. So what is that? You want your staffing firm to be more attractive for future acquisitions? Maybe it's because you want your recruiters to truly have careers, rather than just jobs. Maybe you want to travel or spend more time with your family in the coming year.

Kelli Schutrop: You know, these are all things to keep in mind, even though I know today, we're talking about that candidate experience within automation, it all circles back to what it is you're trying to accomplish and why. And then establishing those smart goals, right? Specific, measurable, actionable, relevant time.

Kelli Schutrop: And just thinking in that entire context of what are my business challenges, what are my desired outcomes and what is my current process and how does that align with technology? So you know what you're looking to accomplish, but what is already in place. So I would say one of the best ways to make automation work for you is to evaluate your current recruiting process.

Kelli Schutrop: See, what could be automated throughout that? See what makes sense to keep physically with your recruiters. And that's where you can start filling holes within your technology. Next, we will move on to ideal candidate profiles, their motivations, their decision phases, your content strategy, and your data to ensure that everything is well aligned.

Kelli Schutrop: Now, what drives your candidate? What are their motivations, their pain points, their career desires. I guarantee they don't wake up in the morning and say, man, I just can't wait to get that recruiter note in my inbox, because that is what, that's just the ultimate dream for me today. Right? Like that might be a means to an end for them.

Kelli Schutrop: Maybe their goal is to progress their careers so that they can have some of those motivations we talked about. They can have more flexibility with their family and in their life, maybe they want to work for a company that's going to stay remote focused. And of course I can completely appreciate being a part of this industry for so long.

Kelli Schutrop: As many of you have, these are different scenarios. If you're talking about a light industrial staffing candidate base or an IT professional candidate base or travel nurses, it is completely different. And your recruiters, you know, if you are a recruiter, your boots on the ground and you're having those conversations day to day.

Kelli Schutrop: So think about that. What drives me? And then take that step back and say, okay, if we're going to produce content in our automation channels to create the Disney effect, right? We don't want to just set up an automation and forget it. We actually want it to speak to our audience to help engage and nurture them.

Kelli Schutrop: What are those journey stages? And by and large, whether it's a candidate or a client focused in, you know, we're focusing on the candidate more for this conversation. People move through the stages of awareness, consideration, decision retention, and advocacy. So tangibly, what that looks like is I need a job or a recruiter has brought something to my attention.

Kelli Schutrop: That might be the next step for me. I'm going to consider it. I'm going to think about it. Kick the tires, determine if this is the right role, the right company. Do I like the experience I'm having with the staffing firm I'm working with and then that decision. Am I going to take this role once I'm offered and then retain, especially when you're talking about the professional IT or Finance and accounting or HR staffing consulting roles. 

Kelli Schutrop: You want to have your staffing firm be the one that places them again and again, and then they can become advocates. So, as you're thinking about this, you know, people move from that new phase where you need to engage them. Now, new in marketing means a lot of things, new can mean, oh, I'm finding them through a paid ad or through a job board or through social news and automation is more likely to mean.

Kelli Schutrop: We have their information, whether they were sourced by a recruiter or they applied to a job they're here, but they're not placed yet. So how do we build that credibility and keep their interest and keep them moving throughout the process in a way that's not. And I'll just pause here for a moment to share a story that's probably familiar to all of you.

Kelli Schutrop: You know, not one we love, but familiar. So let's say there is a travel nursing candidate who applies for a role on a Friday. Let's say it's Friday 4o'clock the recruiters are wrapping up the last few things. The recruiters now on their weekend, once the recruiter hits Monday morning, they might be.

Kelli Schutrop: Checking their emails, grabbing coffee popping into three or four back-to-back interviews. And it might be Monday afternoon or even Tuesday before that particular candidate gets any formal touch point, unless you have automation. And so rather than relying on that process, which creates stress for your recruiter, less efficiency for the overall company, less placements for your clients and less communication for the candidate.

Kelli Schutrop: You can amplify all of that by saying, okay. Let's have tangible mechanisms in place that ask the candidate in an automated fashion, through a forum or a chat bot on the website. All right. You've applied. Here are some common questions that come up during the first interview. You know, you don't have to explain it quite like that, but the very things that your recruiter would need to vet through, do you have this certification?

Kelli Schutrop: Are you open to this type of travel? Is this the comprehension you're looking for? All of those things, they can be pre-vetted which saves so much time. And creates a great experience because then that candidate knows where they're at in the process. They can move forward quickly. They can understand if they're in or they're out where they're progressing and the recruiter can say everything in my inbox right now is actually pre-qualified.

Kelli Schutrop: How exciting would that be? Right. And then as an owner or a leader of the organization, can you imagine the efficiency on your recruiters desks when they're not spending every single moment? Scheduling calls. Like that's not what any recruiter signs up to do. I mean, nobody goes to school to be a recruiter, at least not yet that I've seen everybody falls into it, but they get into it because they love and you love that one-on-one communication and helping people establish career paths and having a great career out of it.

Kelli Schutrop: So those are the types of things to keep in mind as you're engaging. And then of course you move into retention, how to stay in touch in a meaningful way. So let's say you've placed a recruiter out on contract, and you've got the best of intentions to follow up with them once a month. But oh my gosh, we've got those NPS scores.

Kelli Schutrop: Messages going out and I'm just going to touch base with them a month before their contract ends, because that's my, I know I have to do it well. If they have other recruiters from other staffing firms touching base with them more frequently providing value. Who do you think they're going to pay more attention to?

Kelli Schutrop: Right. And so those are some of the things to keep in mind and we'll get into some tangible examples here as we continue in our conversation. And then you think about alumni. So people that have been placed, right? So whether this is a warehouse worker that you have had on site or a travel nurse who has done a 13 week contract with you.

Kelli Schutrop: Or if this is an IT director who has been out on contract for the last nine months and is considering their next opportunity, it's important to stay in front of them. Right. And just provide them with valuable, relevant content and touch bases so that you can have that opportunity to create efficiencies among your recruiter team and for your candidates.

Kelli Schutrop: So let's take a look at the content by your ideal candidate profile. These are just a few examples. So you may have heard the term ICP, which historically, and typically refers to a, your ideal client persona are, excuse me, your ideal. Your ideal customer profile. There's a few different iterations of this, but historically it's been around the client.

Kelli Schutrop: And then you think about your buyer personas within that client. Well, the industry has completely flipped on its head. The last number of years, and every staffing firm we're talking to at Parqa is focused so heavily on the candidate. And I get it. It is such a candidate driven market. So it is vital to not just say, well, we know our candidates, everybody knows who they're trying to recruit.

Kelli Schutrop: Right. So that's not what I'm trying to reinvent. There. Isn't a wheel being reinvented around that. It's actually more around. Who are these personas? You know, is it an executive? Is it a manager? Is it an individual contributor? Each one of them has a different pain point, has a different set of desires that they're looking to accomplish.

Kelli Schutrop: And it is so crucial that you capitalize on that to have communication with them. So when you think about those different stages, right? Whether you're engaging them or retaining them, or re-engaging them, you have an opportunity to serve them content and interact with them. Where it matters For example, if you're placing an executive, they may be looking for new challenges, career progression, a trusted partner to work with.

Kelli Schutrop: They may be looking for a more comfy role as they start exiting and transitioning into a different phase of life. But for them, they may be really interested in it. Trends at large in their industry or in their space. Right? And so if you, as a staffing firm, can provide them interviews or blogs, featuring those high level trends in the industry, featuring other people with the same title of them working with your company or building out really cool case studies of what they're implementing with the companies you guys serve.

Kelli Schutrop: Those are pieces that are interesting to them beyond simply. The NPS score. Did you like it? Did you like it? Who would you refer to if those things are important and there's a place for those, but making it more of a conversation can turn into much stronger ROI. Likewise, with the manager, right? Maybe that manager is looking to grow their career and they're focused more on the skills, right?

Kelli Schutrop: So they may be interested in webinars and conversations about their subject matter expertise. Whereas the individual contributor. Maybe more interested in growing their career from the ground up. You know, if you think about an HR consulting firm, if you are placing a recruiter versus CHRO, the recruiter who's maybe a year into their role, may be very interested in.

Kelli Schutrop: The how tos, how to become a consultant. Should I be 10-99? You know, all of those types of questions that you think about when you first start out consulting versus CHRO who may be a seasoned consultant and has been doing this for the last 20 years, those key messages are not relevant to them. So you need to look into that and evaluate what is relevant.

Kelli Schutrop: And at the end of the day, your content strategy really does need to come down to what is it you want to say? And what are they interested in? Because if you want to say it and they're not interested in it, it doesn't matter. Right. So it's all about the relevance of how to create a communication with them that will keep them interested and engaged.

Kelli Schutrop: All right, so let's keep rolling with so much good content. And I also want to share for anybody who's joined later, if you have questions, feel free to put them into that chat. I'm seeing that people are sharing where they're joining in from. So, automation is one of those topics that is very interactive and there's a lot of layers to it.

Kelli Schutrop: So, I'm doing my best to cover and I will do my best to cover a variety of topics. But if. Specific question, please put it in there. All right. We will keep going here. Now, data is still within that ideal customer profile, as you think about who you're talking to, right. You know, your audience and you think about what stage they're at in their journey.

Kelli Schutrop: So maybe they're a new candidate. Maybe they've been an existing consultant to fill in the blank. And you think about the messages you need to convey. It is also incredibly relevant to think about your data. You know, these are all logos and companies that we know well in our space. And let's say, for example, you do all that work.

Kelli Schutrop: You have your ideal consultant profile, you know, who they need to, who you need to get in front of, you know, what's important to them. You've got your topics mapped out and you say, awesome. I'm going to set up this Sense or Herefish automation to send all this content that I just created. Oh, but shoot, I don't have the right data points in my ATS to actually target the right people.

Kelli Schutrop: I mean, it would be very similar to hiring, excuse me, to buying Textus and finding out that only 10% of your records have phone numbers. Like what good is that going to do you right. And so thinking about all right, as I evaluate my ICP is my data clean. So. Do I have a title? Yeah. Typically you're going to have a title, but do I have a level, do I have demographic all of those pieces that make the content relevant and need to be well-represented in your database?

Kelli Schutrop: And of course there's a play here for the marketing side. Like automation is typically when you are in conversation with someone, whether they downloaded an ebook and they're not actually a candidate right now, per se, or they applied for a job. Right. It's usually when someone's there. So it is so important to make sure that your data speaks to that.

Kelli Schutrop: And then from there, we talk about the journey workflow. So the visual representation of your user journey and really the importance of mapping it out. So when we talk about this, I want to show you a few examples. So on the left here, you'll see a recruiting and placement process, just a snapshot of a current state.

Kelli Schutrop: Now, every candidate goes through different stages. They're in their research stage, they prepare, they apply for the interview, they decide, right? So, they're determining if they're going to take a role, they go through that process. Once they decide they've got time off between that in their next role. And then they've got their new job or their new opportunity and they've got a trusted partner.

Kelli Schutrop: And then of course, if they're a consultant, this stage repeats many times over, right. And it could be once a month, it could be once a year. It really just depends on what type of role you're filling. And then you can think about how. How your automation maps into those different stages, right? So at the research phase, they may be a stranger to you, and then they move into a visitor phase and then they have an intake.

Kelli Schutrop: So as you're looking through that process and really evaluating your journey workflow, you also want to take that step back and think about, okay. What matters to them at these different stages? What is triggering them and how are we going to map this out? Now this gets really nerdy, right? Not even necessarily technical, just really nerdy.

Kelli Schutrop: And you think about those triggers, what's triggered them, moving into the research phase in the first place, is it because they had a change in workload and they're not interested in maintaining it or their company was acquired or their family just moved and they want to have something that has different flexibility in hours or all of the above.

Kelli Schutrop: Right. So you can check out those different triggers as an option but then you want to think about what is their goal at every phase and what questions do they have? So they may want to learn more about the particular company, or they may want to meet with the different hiring managers. And these are the types of questions they have.

Kelli Schutrop: And then you can start from there, mapping out ideas. So if that's what they're trying to accomplish, and those are the questions they're asking from there, what kind of content pieces can you serve up to? And so there's so much as you can see that goes right from yes. By the automation tool. Yes. Make sure it aligns with your business goals.

Kelli Schutrop: Yes. Make sure it speaks to your audience. Really make sure it speaks to your audience because no two candidates are alike. You can group them into different categories by ideal candidate profile. But just like this one, you can see overworked, Olivia overworked, Olivia might have the exact same job title as somebody who has a different persona because they're moving for different reasons.

Kelli Schutrop: And so the really beautiful thing about having a journey workflow at the end of the day is being able to tell your team. Here's what's going on. Right. And we'll talk about adoption here shortly. But as you bring a new tool or you work to enhance an existing tool in your company, if everybody's like, well, there's another tool I got to implement another tool I got to use, but they're not able to really see the big picture of where it fits in.

Kelli Schutrop: It's going to be lost on them. Right. And then you're probably not going to get that adoption. The acceleration that you could. But by showing the leadership team and by showing your recruiting team, what the purpose is behind an automation process and how it will address these points and how it alleviates your recruiters to then create a better experience for the consultants, because the recruiters are not having those people fall through the gaps, it creates so much value.

Kelli Schutrop: So from there. I want to share a little bit more about adoption, right? So who does this impact? How do you secure buy-in? So this visual may not be new to you. Talent Tech Labs is a sponsor of the World Staffing Summit, and they have done a fantastic job. This is actually their 10th talent acquisition ecosystem.

Kelli Schutrop: And as you can see everything from source to engage, to select, to hire, there are literally a few hundred. Different companies here that can support the technology ecosystem. And of course, automation doesn't touch every single one of these. But as you start looking into this. It's important to say, okay.

Kelli Schutrop: Depending on the tools I buy and I invest in, how does it benefit? How does it benefit my company, my recruiters, my sales team, my leadership people, my consultants, my clients, because if you're not able to have that narrative going into investing in automation, like I said, you're probably just not going to gain the full traction and the potential you have.

Kelli Schutrop: Now I have a comment here and I'll try to jump into them as I see them come in. Now, I've got a comment around, we use empathy maps in the past to help build stories around clients and candidates. And it's been really helpful in developing target personas. Thank you, Erin, from Vander Howan. Erin is a really smart marketing leader.

Kelli Schutrop: So shout out to her. Now that's such a good call-out just around those empathy maps to say what is important to your audience. And then let's tie that back to technology. So. In this landscape that I've seen in being in this space over the past 10 years, there are historically people that think about marketing and people that think about technology, and it's almost a necessary evil that they have to combine, and it is no longer it no longer needs to be a necessary evil.

Kelli Schutrop: It's a beautiful marriage and synergy. So you're thinking about your MarTech or your marketing technology stack, but you're also thinking about. What does this do to create a better experience for our consultants? And I'm starting to see roles pop up across the industry. You know, for example, there is a VP at insight global, and there is a VP at Advanced Group and they're, you know, they're, these are probably people that you guys are familiar with, and there's more where they're taking that mindset.

Kelli Schutrop: These companies are taking the mindset. We need someone who gets the operations, gets recruiting and is going to truly focus on the candidate experience. And those leaders, you know, I've talked to Lauren Jones about this at length like this. This is where the industry is going. You're no longer just going to have people siloed and operations, people siloed in IT.

Kelli Schutrop: People siloed in Marketing. You're going to have leaders that really represent each of those stakeholders and help to bring it together. So great. Call-out again, Erin, feel free to comment more. If people have thoughts now, moving into the next stage here. I want to think with you about if you are truly maximizing your investment, just like you would, if you invested in an MBA for your career.

Kelli Schutrop: Right? So let's say you're all jazzed. You're going to amplify your career. You sign up for your MBA. You go through the grueling process, you know, nights, weekends, homework, all of the things that you thought you were done with. And let's just say you did the investment, you learned all the things it's benefiting your own personal brain.

Kelli Schutrop: It might be benefiting your current role and you don't do anything else with it. It doesn't end up on your resume. It doesn't end up on LinkedIn. You don't talk about it and interviews that would never happen, right? Like literally in a million years, that would never happen. And so I would view automation and other technology investments, the exact same way.

Kelli Schutrop: If you're going to take, if you're going to implement it and only. Your current inner circle that you did it, right? Like, Hey everybody, I'm rubbing shoulders day to day at work. We did this cool thing with automation, but you don't turn it into really a branding and a PR and a differentiator push to your clients and to your consultants and to your future recruiters.

Kelli Schutrop: You're missing that opportunity. So as an example we work with a company that focuses on HR consulting and there's one particular recruiter that I've gotten to know. And she has so many consultants out of the field at a given time. And prior to them truly investing in automation. In order to keep those consultants happy and to keep them placed into maintaining the relationship.

Kelli Schutrop: So they didn't accept roles with whatever competitor found them for their next role. She'd have to send manual texts, manual emails. And now that process is automated. As you all know, it's such a beautiful thing because she has literally, you know, over a thousand automated texts that go out in a given month for her particular candidate pool, excuse me, her consultant pool.

Kelli Schutrop: And she's got automated emails and they're written in a way where it literally comes from her. Right? So if someone replies, she gets the reply and she can maintain that conversation. And it just elevates the experience. Not only because it's from her. But it allows her to actually make those touch points because we all know how it is.

Kelli Schutrop: Your day gets busy and you're like, shoot, everything is on my list. And these are the three fire drills that have to get done. But my burner list, which is super important, I never get to you because I don't want your consultants. To be on that back burner list, right? Because your recruiters are making money to keep those consultants in the field, but they're also making money by gaining new consultants.

Kelli Schutrop: So in that particular story, this recruiter was struggling because she wanted to maximize what she could make, like physical, like the check sheet took home. She wants to make more. But she's got a family. She's got kids in middle school and she wants to be around and wants to be involved and wants to show up for their sports.

Kelli Schutrop: And so she was forced to decide before they had automation. Do I want to sit and spend more time plugged into my computer to send more messages, do more follow-up. At the detriment of not being able to see my kids and spend more time with my family. But now that it's automated, can you imagine the retention scenario that creates in that recruiter?

Kelli Schutrop: Like if she were to be recruited by another staffing firm and they didn't have that level of support, I mean, she's literally doubled the number of consultants she has out in the field and has maintained that. Because the company invests in automation. And like I said, it still all comes back to that automation and the experience around each consultant because they're getting better and more touch points.

Kelli Schutrop: All right now user driven experience. I want to encourage you to get out of your own head and actually AB test automation is one of those things, you know, as I've talked to marketers, you know, there's some familiar faces here, like Rob Mann and Lauren Jones, you know, they host a really great podcast called you only experience that.

Kelli Schutrop: I'm sure you're all familiar with it. You know, we've had some conversations about how automation gets the rap for plug and play. All right. We bought it, you know, Herefish, Sense fill in the blank marketing cloud. It's implemented. We, you know, we've got the basics. We've got a happy birthday. We've got a happy anniversary.

Kelli Schutrop: We're good. Right? Like check it off. Like let's just be done with it, but it truly is an ever evolving process. And so getting out of your own head, what I mean by that is don't just set up the workflow and assume it's good to go. And there's nothing that can be optimized from there. So let's say for example, you are moving into.

Kelli Schutrop: Redeployment campaign, you know, you've got your audience there, that active candidate profile you've got your intention. You want them to keep coming back. You want to give them value for your KPIs, maybe around content engagement different triggers that they're taking redeployment conversions. And you've got your basic touch points, right?

Kelli Schutrop: 60 days from the end of the contract, then six weeks, then five weeks. Any of these different workflow example. You could say, I'm going to set it and forget it. It should be good. Right. But instead of doing that, take a step to say, all right, what's working, what's being opened. Are the subject lines actually relevant once they're in it?

Kelli Schutrop: Are they clicking? Are they taking the action? Are they doing the call to action? That I am hoping that they're going to do a prime example of this. And we've seen this multiple times with staffing firms that are really impressive. They'll set up an automation. Around that NPS score, right? I've got a consultant in the field.

Kelli Schutrop: I'm going to hit them with the same, you know, how are you liking your role? How's it going? What's your experience like I'm going to hit that with them every 30 days or every 60 days. And it's the same ranking on a score 1 to 10. And then at the end of it, we will say, Hey, do you have anyone you want to refer to?

Kelli Schutrop: Here's our referral program. This is why it's great and beneficial. But a way to AB test this process and really be thoughtful and strategic about it would be to say, okay, How about if the first email I send, they actually do a 10 out of 10. This is the best role I've ever had. That is the time to ask for a referral and to say, do you have any friends that you think would love doing the same thing you're doing?

Kelli Schutrop: And we've got awesome companies that we can introduce them to as opposed to waiting. So that's what I mean, just start thinking about what AB test because it's pretty likely that it is not at its fully optimized. And as the industry continues to evolve, you can't assume that your automation workflows and even your content is going to stay flawless in two years, right?

Kelli Schutrop: Like it's something that you should be checking out on a consistent basis just to evaluate and optimize which flows lovely into our next point of results analysis and optimization, and really elevating from that one and done mentality. Now I know this audience is probably quite broad. Actually. I would love to hear a quick show of hands in the message.

Kelli Schutrop: What is your role? What do you do? Okay, so here's your option. You're a marketer of some kind, you're a Recruiter of some kind Sales, Operations, Leadership role, right. And fill in the blanks if I'm completely blanking on a role. So I would love to hear what you are and what you focus on because this can help me shape what it is that.

Kelli Schutrop: Speaking to great automation, sales, very exciting. Okay. Recruitment, Marketing Specialist, Marketer Operations Leader Recruiter. So we have a wide audience here. This is great. A sales leader, marketing strategy and operations. So honestly, automation touches each of you in different ways. If you are the marketer, you are literally the ones that.

Kelli Schutrop: Okay. I got to get in the heads of my recruiting team of what it is they share with their consultants, because I need to automate it and make it amazing and provide value right now. If you are. Focused on recruitment technology operations, you are trying to evaluate, okay, what is the right tech stack?

Kelli Schutrop: Like doing the right pieces, communicating that can actually drive revenue. And if you're on the sales front, you're just like, man, how does this help me? How can I get it to move? Right? And so, as we talk about the results, the analysis, the optimization, and elevating from one and done. It really does get that rap of like once it's in it's set, but we can't think about it that way.

Kelli Schutrop: So, I want to encourage you that whether you are looking at redeployment campaigns or re-engagement campaigns nurturing on contract or curation, in order to elevate that candidate experience, you have to think about it. Like, okay, it went out, it's running. What does it do? You know, as another example, we have a client and they focus on very high volume staffing and we've set up a variety of workflows and this is actually not anything to do with park.

Kelli Schutrop: It's more just, this is a common use case, right? Even if you're a marketer implementing this internally, now your automation is set up. Getting interest from other people in the company who have made this investment, maybe to the ownership. Maybe it's a leader. Maybe it's an operations leader that says art, what is it doing?

Kelli Schutrop: Is there ROI? And it's not always as simple as saying yeah, that redeployment campaign, here's the open rate. It's totally exciting, but that's not the number of people who want to hear about the number they want to hear about if we had this many additional consultants placed. Because of the automation we have in place, but that is something that takes time.

Kelli Schutrop: So it's important to remember that it's not all a one fell swoop. You have to give it, you know, give it a few months, give it a quarter to start evaluating. So I want to share a few examples with you about when automation goes wrong and when it goes, right? So these are hopefully not familiar scenarios to you, but I can say they happen very often in the industry.

Kelli Schutrop: And these are tangible examples that I've had conversations with. So. One is a mid-sized staffing firm, 70 different workflows, primarily asking candidates for referrals to fill up surveys, provide reviews, but they didn't prove value back to the candidates. Now, if you think about how much time it takes to have 70 workflows and how many consultants and candidates that applies to, that's a lot of work.

Kelli Schutrop: That's not just somebody flipped a switch and hoped it works. Right. That high level, taking a step back and analyzing what's working also comes back to the strategy of why you're doing it in the first place. And if it is truly to grow as a company, to make more revenue, to create a better experience for your candidates to place better talent with your clients.

Kelli Schutrop: If you are only sending messages that are asking. Right. Like, please fill this out, please do this. Please do that. And you're not providing value. You're creating a one-way street and it's gonna, it's gonna hurt you in the long run. Right? So by adding that value back, kind of like how we talked about how applicable it is to speak to each individual, ideal customer profile or candidate profile, that's where the value comes in because that mid-sized firm says.

Kelli Schutrop: God, I don't know what else we should be sending. Like we can ask them for referrals. These are all the basic things. This is just what everybody's always done. But then you start on peeling the layers and say, okay, this is what's important to this audience. This is the type of content we should be producing.

Kelli Schutrop: Right? Another one large staffing firm built a linear journey at different stages of the candidate's life. That wasn't dynamic based on the feedback of the candidate. So this particular example goes back to that NPS score. If you just pepper people with how's it going? How's it going? Right? Like, do you like your role and never dynamically interact with them based on their feedback?

Kelli Schutrop: They're just going to start to view your emails, us man. And like, that's not ideal, right? Like you, you are their staffing agency. You're the one that literally has them out on contract. You do not want to become the spammy piece of email in their inbox. So in order to really take a step out of that, you want to think strategically about every workflow.

Kelli Schutrop: What is the purpose? Is the NPS purpose ultimately, to find out if we are doing a good job as a staffing agency is the company that they're placed at. A good representation of what we portrayed. Right. All of those things, but then how do you act on it? If they love it? Can you get them to refer to someone else because they want to have somebody else have that experience?

Kelli Schutrop: If they're hating it, do you have an instant response that can go out that says, we hear you, we will be in touch with you here shortly and then your recruiter can reach out and have that conversation. Because as we all know, this is a small industry. And if you can take the opportunities to have those one-on-one conversations when it is the highest touchpoint and not every single one, right?

Kelli Schutrop: Like automate what you can, but have those physical one-on-one conversations when it's going to add the most value. That's what makes the difference.

Kelli Schutrop: Now global staffing firms that have automation only set up around birthdays and anniversaries. I wish I could say I've only seen this once, but it happens all the time because that's a really good starting point, but let's actually dive into automations that have gone. Right. And these are things that I hope you guys are employing.

Kelli Schutrop: One would be a global staffing firm set up. I don't send notifications and emails and texts that are sent directly to candidates that match them to their job qualifications. Right. So instead of waiting for a candidate to come back to your website or apply every time or find your recruiters, you've got all that information in the database.

Kelli Schutrop: So you have the opportunity to assign different triggers to contact them proactively. And I won't read through every single one of them, but you have them, and these will be available on demand later. But another example would be a mid-sized staffing firm creating a strategy, content automation, workflows for both existing clients and candidates that historically were having a bad experience with that staffing firm.

Kelli Schutrop: Just because there weren't enough people. There weren't enough boots on the ground to physically meet the demand. Now, this is a very common scenario. I'd actually love to see a show of hands in the chat. What area your staffing firm focuses on. So are you focused on professional services like IT, Finance and Accounting, et cetera.

Kelli Schutrop: Are you focused on travel nursing? Are you focused on light industry? Or are you a provider of services into the staffing and recruiting space? So I'd love to kind of hear a show of hands or see a show of hands virtually aware it is you guys focus. So I'm seeing it, I'm seeing professional services.

Kelli Schutrop: Okay, perfect. Know, and I see a comment just because this is a live format where it says iterate, iterate, iterate. I would love to hear some additional expansion on that. I missed it when it came at that moment. So I'd love to expand on that if there's additional thought. But thank you to everyone who is sharing right now, where their focuses are.

Kelli Schutrop: Right? So travel nursing, mostly it professional services. So these automations. Are probably going to be so, so relevant to each of you, just because you think about the shortage of recruiters and that being literally one of the most in demand roles and then the shortage of candidates, there's just not enough demand to go or excuse me, enough supply to go around.

Kelli Schutrop: So in order to actually create something that provides a good experience and retains your recruiters and doesn't burn them out, you want to have these automations in place. So. I want to share next the importance of thinking about your technology, truly like an investment. Right. So this is a funny cartoon.

Kelli Schutrop: It's one of my favorites. Right. See them all over the month. You've had days to deliver results. Maybe it's time for a change. Now, unfortunately, this is actually a very common thing, especially when you're looking at CMOs and VC or PE backed firms, but it should not be something that's common with your technology, especially.

Kelli Schutrop: You know, when you implement automation, it takes time to massage it, to get it right. And the best way you're going to have ROI from that investment is to really evaluate it like an employee. So let's say. You have a role open. So track with me, you have a role open, you look for an employee or a potential candidate set that has the best experience that comes from some similar background.

Kelli Schutrop: And they say, here's my track record. And you say, great, let's try to pick you up and put you in this company and see how far you can run. You would not give them a month and just say, I dunno, you sat it at your desk or you were remote and you didn't do anything, right. Like you would set them up on orientations.

Kelli Schutrop: They'd have conversations with all of the key leaders. They would get you know, stakeholder buy-in on the just ultimately they try to understand what's going on. Right. They'd get their arms around it before they jumped in and started making recommendations and started making massive changes. Now, this is the case for just about any leader role, right?

Kelli Schutrop: So if you think about automation in the same way, If you just plug in your technology and go play and then a month later go, I dunno, it didn't do anything that's probably not the problem of the automation tool, right? The challenge there is on the onboarding of the automation essentially. So if you can take that step back as we've discussed throughout this presentation.

Kelli Schutrop: Why am I investing in technology? What are the pain points I'm trying to solve? And if you're here, it's probably to create a better candidate experience for one who are those candidates? Beyond the title, beyond the pay, beyond the experience level, what motivates them? What are their pain points? What type of content would help them as they move throughout those stages?

Kelli Schutrop: And then you create really thoughtful content around that and plug that into your automation and then let it proceed through its workflow. Right? Like give it a number of months, give it a quarter seat, see how people are interacting with it. That's when it's time to start making. More educated decisions around what's working.

Kelli Schutrop: What's not, what else needs to be implemented. Right. So, I'm sure this is fun for all of you, just to think about every piece of technology that your company has as a staffing firm, or even a supplier to the staffing industry. It's insane. You know, you've got your. Your ATS, you've got potentially a different CRM.

Kelli Schutrop: You've got your automation tool. You may have a different texting platform. There's so much. But automation is doing a really good job in our industry of pulling it all together. So. Today, we talked about a lot of different pieces. We could spend an hour on each of these and dive deeper. If you have questions, let's talk offline.

Kelli Schutrop: Find me on LinkedIn, but I want to recap what we looked at today, and I want to dive into that digital maturity model. So as I'm recapping this here, if you have any specific questions, please put them in the comments below and I'll do my best to hit them before we head out today. 

Kelli Schutrop: Now we talked about the business process and how you need to have an objective before you start investing in your technology. We talked about your ideal candidate profiles and their motivations, their decision phases, the content strategy, and how to start approaching that as well as making sure your data in your ATS or any other location is aligning well to that.

Kelli Schutrop: Then your journey workflow, and the importance of showing the team and really breaking down. Here's the journey. That our candidates and consultants are going on and here's what's important to them in each stage. And this is how we're mapping it out and starting to get that buy-in then we talked about adoption, right?

Kelli Schutrop: So who it impacts and how to secure that buy-in and then user-driven experience and making sure you're AB testing. And it's not just based on what you think you should change. It's based on how your users are interacting with it. That prompts the change. Right. And then of course, results. And analysis and optimization, right?

Kelli Schutrop: So elevating from that one and done mentality now here is the beautiful and epic and complex digital maturity model. Shout out to smart insights. They've created wonderful resources such as this. What are you looking at? You're looking here at digital capabilities on the left side and the different stages companies can be at, throughout the right and beyond every company starts somewhere, whether you're talking about automation or you're talking about any sort of technology or marketing implementation.

Kelli Schutrop: Right. So if you look through your strategic approach or your performance improvement process or your management, buy-in, I want you to look at this and start mentally circling where your company is right now. And maybe it can drill down. Maybe you're a part of a massive company, right? Like maybe it's a multi-billion dollar company and you own one specific dynamic.

Kelli Schutrop: And that's just where your real house is. Maybe think about it for your specific division. Where are you? Right. Do you have no strategy? No KPIs, no digital skill to implement these things or. Are you fully agile and strategically aligned? Do you have lifetime value, key performance indicators? You know, most companies are kind of smattering.

Kelli Schutrop: I wouldn't say there's few in our industry that have self identified, at least that I've talked to over the years in all fours and all fives. So if you're seeing that, I would say it's okay. But if you are there, many props to you because it takes a long time. So please comment below. What overall average would you give yourself?

Kelli Schutrop: Right? You might be five and one. You might be a one in any other but what score on a scale of one to five, your digital maturity, what would you say as it comes to implementing technology, automation, marketing, to help support your candidate experience? You know, so as you guys are commenting there keep thinking about any other questions you have as we're approaching the end.

Kelli Schutrop: So I want to leave you with one of my favorite quotes which ultimately is that Rome wasn't built in a day, but they were laying bricks every single hour. So the journey and the story and the message behind automation is nothing happens overnight. And it's going to continue changing. So I encourage you to have people on your team that are those leaders thinking about what is my overall candidate experience and how do I align technology and marketing and that strategy in that content piece to truly elevate what it is we're looking to accomplish and drive it back to your business school.

Kelli Schutrop: My name is Kelli Schutrop. I'm with Parqa Digital Marketing Agency. I've enjoyed being with you guys all here today. If you have any additional questions, I'll hang out for a few minutes. Otherwise let's connect on LinkedIn. I share a lot of nerdy content like this. It's a fun space to be in between marketing in the staffing world.

Kelli Schutrop: So I would love to hear from you and love to share with you. I also hosted fireside chats every single month where I'm interviewing some really cool leaders on what they are doing and implementing throughout the industry. Lauren Jones has been on there from Sense Billy Davis from Herefish, et cetera.

Kelli Schutrop: So thank you everyone for joining me. And I appreciate the shout outs. Hopefully this was helpful for all of you to comment with any questions below and we'll hang out for just a few more minutes.

Kelli Schutrop: All right. Great. Well, thank you so much, everyone. I hope you enjoy the rest of the World Staffing Summit. Moritz, who is helping coordinate everything behind the scenes will happen and we'll end the presentation and I will see you in some future conversations. Thank you.