TheLadders Blog

After many weeks of careful planning, my colleagues and I were proud to launch our inaugural JobMobile event in New York City last night. This was the first in a series of nationwide events that brought together the talent acquisition community to discuss major innovations and strategies in mobile recruitment. It also served as a festive platform for us to honor the top 1% of recruiting professionals in New York, better known as TheLadders ELITE.

Our CEO and Co-founder, Alex Douzet, gave a keynote presentation on the ever-increasing demand for mobile solutions across a broad spectrum of sectors, including recruitment. It’s estimated that within the next twelve months, employers can expect 50% of their web traffic to come from mobile devices. This shift in our businesses creates many opportunities, but also comes with its challenges.

Employers cannot simply transform their companies’ web experience to an iPhone screen. Mobile requires an intuitive design and user experience that brings convenience to the job seeker with functions like “one-click apply.” With that in mind, Alex discussed TheLadders’ latest projects, including our mobile-responsive site redesign for job seekers; the introduction of our proprietary, competitive-analysis tool, TheLadders Scout; and our impending mobile app that will allow job seekers to find and apply to the right job on the go.

I had the honor of moderating a diverse panel discussion featuring industry thought-leaders Karen Miller, vice president of people for Seamless; Jack Kelly, managing director and co-founder of the Compliance Search Group; Karsten Vagner, director of people for ZocDoc; and Melissa Enbar, director of recruiting for Birchbox.

Our goal was to have an honest conversation about mobile recruitment and discuss what’s working for their organizations and what challenges remain. This group did not disappoint! Not only did they share their best practices and common gripes, but they also talked about the differences in their approaches. For instance, corporate recruiters look for synergies between their product and marketing teams to build a mobile recruitment strategy that fits their brand and shows off their corporate culture; whereas agency recruiters tend to utilize mobile and social in different ways to attract the right type of candidates to suit their clients’ needs.

What I learned from this lively conversation is that every professional interprets mobile recruitment differently to suit their business needs. From the utilization of social media, to developing mobile-optimized career sites and mobile apps, to incorporating Skype and texting into the interview process, organizations can find large and small ways to attract the right candidate pool.

After the panel discussion, TheLadders Director of Client Relations, Employer Marketing & Sales, Thomas Murphy, honored TheLadders ELITE and presented them with their awards and ELITE jackets (I have to admit I’m jealous – those jackets are great)!

The night ended with cocktails and conversations. As always, it was a pleasure to meet so many great people and get a chance to chat. I want to thank everyone who was able to attend and give a special shout-out to our wonderful panelists for their participation. If you’re a recruiting professional who lives in Chicago, San Francisco, or Atlanta, keep your eyes peeled – we’re coming to your town soon!

Amanda Augustine is the Job Search Expert for TheLadders, the online job-matching service for career-driven professionals. She is a Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC) and Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) who provides job search and career guidance for professionals looking to make their next career move. Have a question for Amanda? Submit your question here for a chance to have it answered in her weekly column, and be sure to follow @JobSearchAmanda on Twitter and “Like” her on Facebook for up-to-the-minute job-search advice.

About a month ago, there was a rally held in Washington D.C. to protest a perceived lack of action by the government regarding climate change. This was estimated to be the largest group in history that has gotten together for this purpose – 35,000 individuals, filling the National Mall, from the Capitol building to the Washington Monument. For those unfamiliar with our nation’s capital, this is an expansive 1.2-mile piece of land.

I’m telling you this because TheLadders would now require a space of the same proportion to fit all of the employers on its site. That’s right – we hit a new milestone this week: more than 35k employers are using TheLadders to find the most qualified job-seeking candidates out there. Luckily, each hiring manager can search for candidates from the comfort of their own computer or mobile device, so we won’t be renting out the National Mall anytime soon.

Our primary goal at TheLadders is to match the right person with the right job. As a member of TheLadders’ Employer Relations team, I am reminded of this goal every day as I approve new employers to use our site. For those unaware, every single employer profile submitted has human eyes on it before it gets approved (more often than not, my own beautiful blues). Taking this step allows us to verify that only legitimate recruiting professionals are allowed to post and search on our site.

Now, there is no certification needed to make a recruiter “legitimate” – we simply use the information on each person’s profile to ascertain whether they are right for TheLadders. The information can be found in a corporate email address, it can be found on the company website they provide, it can be found in the “About Me” section they write, etc. We take a look at the total package and then make a judgment call. If an individual doesn’t meet our standards or have a complete profile, he/she receives a personal email explaining why they weren’t approved. Often times, those turned away contact our Employer Relations team to find out what they need to do to get approved, and eventually are.

So, is this process of maintaining a high standard for employers on TheLadders worth it? Are we able to have our cake and eat it too? This is a commonly used idiom, albeit one that has never made much sense to me. Rather, I would say that through our approval process, we are able to eat a larger piece of cake that is delicious while still being nutritionally sound. On second thought, maybe desert analogies are not the best way to categorize this success. More than 35,000 employers using TheLadders, all meeting our high standards for quality, is a mark of success that stands on its own.

Andrew Wilson is a Junior Account Manager at TheLadders, specializing in recruiter acquisition and onboarding for the Employer Relations team. He enjoys Cleveland professional sports teams, and things that don’t make him miserable.

TheLadders has predominantly operated with the goal to make the job hunt shorter, less painful, and more efficient for job seekers and recruiters. We’ve had our successes, but of course we’re always trying to get better.

One of our initiatives was to partner with professors from seven leading universities to research and understand various aspects of the job search and recruitment process. We conducted an in-depth study of job-search challenges, in partnership with Connie Wanberg, from the University of Minnesota, an internationally recognized expert on the topic. The study,  “Navigating the black hole: Explicating layers of job search context and adaptational responses,” has been published in the Personnel Psychology journal.

For this particular study, we had semi-structured phone interviews with more than 70 job seekers that lasted anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes. These calls were transcribed and analyzed to identify common challenges across all job seekers.

For me, hearing our job seekers’ personal stories was insightful. Frustrations with the current economic climate, the lack of human touch or feedback, the technology-driven application processes – all came to the forefront in the form of real stories. Day-to-day challenges of managing the time and effort needed to find and apply to the right jobs, as well as the discouragement one often faces in the process, compound the stress related to finances and life-changing decisions that a job search can bring about. While it can be a learning opportunity, most people viewed the job search experience negatively and understandably so.

Our research here at TheLadders allows us the luxury to be curious. We strive to know more about the job search and how it works, and predict events and human behavior that drive job seekers and recruiters. Teaming up with world-class experts, we’ve been able to look at our customers’ pain points through a new lens, and we look forward to continuously improving our offerings to alleviate these struggles for our customers.

A white paper, commissioned by TheLadders, can be downloaded here, and a video interview with lead author Connie Wanberg can be viewed here.

Archana Agrawal is the Vice President of Strategy at TheLadders. In this role, Archana is responsible for managing the planning and analytics function, including product utilization, marketing analytics, and financial planning and analysis.

With the Presidential election closing in, many Americans are focused on what most of us would consider the biggest “interview” process for the title of “Leader of the Free World.” Our own job search, however, is no less important. Candidates can learn a lot from the Presidential candidates, in terms of what strategies to employ and what tactics to avoid.

If you’ve watched the debates (or have been within 100 miles of a computer), you know that the first debate went to the candidate who was better equipped and engaged. By asking questions during interviews, job seekers can show the hiring manager that they have done their research and are genuinely interested in the company. That said, it’s imperative to have the facts. Know the company’s strengths, and also the areas that can be improved, and make sure to call out personal strengths that will positively impact the company, overall.

Connections are key – both in politics and in the corporate world – so it’s not surprising that 82% of job seekers feel that knowing someone at a company gives them a leg up and that 73% said they landed an interview based on an employee referral.  Referrals are generally the hiring managers’ preferred method of finding candidates. If someone is willing to stake their professional reputation on you, then you must be worthy of consideration. Don’t be afraid to seek out referrals. Getting your foot in the door is often the hardest part, so use your connections to get the interview and THEN show the company why you deserve the role.

While Presidential candidates start campaigning heavily a year or so before the actual election, job seekers always should be networking. In fact, networking is one of the most important components of the job search, and establishing a strong network takes time. If you don’t network while employed, it’s likely that your network will be weak when you need it most. Leverage social networking, and be diligent  about noting the names and numbers of new contacts. You never know, they could end up being your swing vote.

Download TheLadders’ Election Day Infographic

David Levy is a Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC) for TheLadders. While he loves his job helping clients build their careers, he usually manages to sneak out of the office on weekends to play Lacrosse and make new friends on New York City’s friendly subway system.

This past Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending a Step Up Women’s Network Power Breakfast with Banana Republic’s Chief Marketing Officer and SVP Catherine Sadler.

For those of you unfamiliar with the group, Step Up Women’s Network is a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to “igniting women and girls to fulfill their potential.” They provide after-school and weekend programs to help teenage girls from under-privileged communities become confident young women prepared for college. Their members gain access to social networking events, professional development panels and hands-on volunteer opportunities. If you live in Los Angeles, Chicago or New York, I highly recommend checking them out.

The event, which was held in Banana Republic’s Fifth Avenue location, was packed! Catherine discussed the journey she’s taken throughout her career, from her early days in publishing, to leading the marketing groups of renowned retail companies, including Ann Taylor and Coach. She also led her own creative and marketing agency, and worked with Donna Karan on her Urban Zen Foundation.

Catherine then answered a myriad of questions from the audience on all aspects of her career, from how she balances family and work, to what she looks for in candidates when hiring. Here are a few key takeaways:

On marketing: Catherine says that, as a marketer, it’s vital to a company’s success to integrate marketing efforts with other divisions of the organization. Additionally, if becoming CMO is your goal, take an active role in all marketing functions, from public relations and advertising, to branding and visual merchandising.

On hiring: In looking for prospective employees, Catherine is interested in the person who, in addition to having the required skills, possesses a genuine curiosity about the business and its direction. She looks for people who have the right level of engagement, interest and passion, who’ve researched the brand and industry, and come prepared with questions.

On career: When asked what three words she’d put on a t-shirt, Catherine gave these options: “Dreaming the Dream,” “Follow your Bliss,” and “Find your Passion.” However, she also warns that work shouldn’t define you completely, and you need to keep that in mind when trying to strike that perfect balance between work and life.

I think she’s spot-on. You spend a large portion of your life at work. Shouldn’t you be doing what you are great at and passionate about? I know that I have, and hope the same for all of you!

Amanda Augustine is the Job Search Expert at TheLadders. Always on the go at work and away, Amanda trains and competes in races and triathlons in her spare time.

At TheLadders, we pride ourselves in providing our members and affiliates with valuable tools that make the job search as seamless, and painless, as possible. As such, I’m very happy to announce that we’ve added two more resources to our already established arsenal: The Career Chronicles and the Recruit Blog.

The Career Chronicles is TheLadders’ premier job search and career advice blog, written by our talented staff of resume writers and career coaches. Additionally, beginning today, our resident Job Search Expert Amanda Augustine will answer your toughest job-search questions in her weekly advice column Ask Amanda. If you have a question for Amanda, submit it here for a chance to be featured in an upcoming column.

For our recruiters and employers, we have our new Recruit Blog, which is chock-full of information from our enterprise team about candidate sourcing, resume selection and interviewing. What’s more, we will publish a variety proprietary research conducted by TheLadders to arm you with valuable insight into the mindsets of today’s job candidates.

In our mission to supply you with the best resources available, we hope that you find these new tools useful. As always, we welcome your feedback.

Patty Youngclaus is the associate manager of public relations at TheLadders. Outside of work, Patty enjoys going to the beach, playing softball and being around family and friends. Once football season begins, her weekends (and sometimes Mondays and Saturdays) are reserved for the New York Giants.

RSVP Here
Date: June 19th, 2012
Time: 630PM
Location: 137 Varick Street (@ Spring Street), 8th Floor, New York City

Business models don’t last as long as they used to. Historically, CEOs have managed a single business model over their entire careers. Even today, while business and design communities talk about product and service innovation, no one is getting to the heart of the issue. It’s not just about creating new, sustainable product lines, it’s about innovating the way a company creates, delivers, and captures value. Companies need to become skilled at exploring new business models out in the wild, not in the laboratory. Saul Kaplan’s book is the first exploration of this important topic. The Business Model Innovation Factory provides business and non-profit leaders, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs with the toolset to create new business models in the face of disruptive markets and competition.

Most leaders realize they face a serious threat from new social platforms, new skilled labor forces overseas, and a constant stream of new startups. TheLadders faces this level of competition every day. Last year alone we saw the launch of over 100 startups focused on career matching. While most companies would strengthen their entrenched business model by adding new services, as Saul argues, “these strategies may create value in the short-term but none of these efforts… are effective for long in the face of a disruptive competitor.”

Join TheLadders June 19th at our offices in SoHo, NYC in welcoming Saul to discuss The Business Model Innovation Factory. He will outline the 15 business model principles that provide guidelines to discover new ways of creating and delivering value.

Saul Kaplan is the founder and chief catalyst of the Business Innovation Factory (BIF), a real-world laboratory for exploring and testing new business models and social systems. BIF has attracted a global community of over 5,000 innovators and organizes the internationally renowned BIF Collaborative Innovation Summit. Saul shares his innovation musings on Twitter (@skap5) and his blog (It’s Saul Connected), and as regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and Bloomberg Businessweek. www.bmifbook.com

Will Evans is Manager, Experience Design for TheLadders in New York City with 15 years industry experience in interaction design, information architecture, and user experience strategy.

TheLadders Enterprise team was on the move this week. We headed down to National Harbor, Maryland, for the SHRM Talent Management Expo. This wonderful Expo gives us the opportunity to meet with today’s most influential HR professionals—not to mention, get some very cool swag! We were able to showcase our various product offerings, including “Recruitable,” our new mobile app that connects recruiters on TheLadders to fresh candidates instantly.

There was also a buzz around TheLadders Passport, where we treat recruiters to a free posting and offer them limited search access. Since we always try to go above and beyond here at TheLadders, anyone who signed up for Passport at the Expo was also entered into a drawing to win $500. As recruiters came to our booth, they’d ask, “How do you get me closer to the finish line?” For those of you who weren’t at the booth, they weren’t talking about a track meet. They were reading our signage.

“TheLadders starts recruiters closer to the finish.” In other words, TheLadders delivers accurate, qualified, interested candidates with almost no effort on the part of the recruiter. We put you in a position to discover the best candidates right at the beginning of your search. If you missed this expo, make sure to visit us at the SHRM 2012 Annual Conference & Exposition, where we will be providing more solutions to get you closer to the finish line!

Eliverta Nika is an Enterprise Marketing Associate at TheLadders, and she absolutely loves getting out and meeting our recruiter customers at events like SHRM.

When our VP of Public Relations, Lisa Hagendorf, first asked me if I wanted to work with AMC’s The Pitch, I broke out in a cold sweat. It wasn’t the show’s fault — it was that simple phrase: The Pitch.

See, before I started my successful career here at TheLadders, I was an agency guy. I’ve worked at some of the biggest and best advertising agencies — Ogilvy, Euro RSCG, Draft and McGarryBowen. Throughout my agency days, I’ve worked on over 50 pitches. They can be exhilarating and they are always exhausting. Late nights. Bad take-out dinners. Intense discussions. Strategies. Concepts. More intense discussions. New strategies. New concepts. Arguments. Sometimes there was crying. Too many calls home, saying you’re still working. Finally, we’d finalize the concepts and send them off to production. There would be a light at the end of the tunnel.

But wait! Emergency meeting!

The new Executive Creative Director took a shower and now has a new strategy and creative idea. Swearing. Lots of swearing.

As soon as I became a Creative Director, I vowed to respect my teams and make sure I understood how they felt. But that goes out the door after a few late nights and the pressure you feel to win. No other professional business gets close to the insanity and pressure of “the pitch.” You have to be willing to put everything you have into it. No one wins because they brought in work they could do in one day. They might have done the work in one day but that’s because they only had a day to do it.

As I watched The Pitch, I felt the pain and excitement of the teams. A part of me wanted in. The competition showcased is really addictive and brought up old competitive feelings. The rush.

And it’s on AMC. Who doesn’t love AMC right now? They’re the most Emmy-recognized network on basic cable. Many of you know it as home to your favorite shows, including Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Killing and The Walking Dead.

TheLadders is happy to collaborate with The Pitch. How do we fit in? We’re experts on the elevator pitch, one of the key aspects of career advancement, and an essential part of a strong personal brand. The Pitch reached out to us because they know we can help professionals give the perfect Elevator Pitch and move their careers forward.

Learn more about perfecting your elevator pitch ›

Todd Hoza is Director of Creative & UX at TheLadders. When he’s not busy helping build the brand from the inside out, he’s taking credit for all the great work his talented team creates.

We live in a mobile world where business never stops. Most of us read emails, send texts, and engage with coworkers, friends and family on our mobile devices. It’s easy. It’s fast. It’s makes us more productive wherever we are.

So why are recruiters still reduced to staring at their monitors as they try to find the perfect candidate?

We asked our product and development teams that same question. During a “hackathon,” a few of them answered it: Recruiters can go mobile, too. With a lot of hard work, a mobile app was born.

Today, TheLadders is proud to launch our first mobile app for recruiters: “Recruitable™.”

TheLadders Recruitable mobile app will instantly connect recruiters to fresh “recruitable” candidates that match their job posts, so recruiters can contact great candidates instantly, wherever they are.

This is great for TheLadders recruiters and job seekers alike. It means more frequent—and faster—connections.

(For now, Recruitable is only for recruiters on TheLadders who have a full RecruiterLicense, and only available for the iPhone. Download Recruitable from the app store now.)

So what does Recruitable bring to the table for recruiters?

Instant notification of great candidates.
We spend a great deal of time away from our desk: waiting for the next train, buying special order lattes, or jumping between meetings. Recruitable aims to make these moments more useful.

Recruitable compares every new candidate who joins TheLadders to a recruiter’s existing job posts, and immediately sends the recruiter a push notification when there’s a match. Recruiters don’t need to keep checking email or even run a search. Recruitable simply hands them great candidates.

Key candidate info.
Recruitable provides the candidate’s name, location, title, company, and dates of current and previous roles. According to our recent eye-tracking study, that’s what recruiters need to make a decision on whether or not to connect with a candidate.

Recruiters quickly see new matches for their open positions, and job seekers are given a jump start on a job. Win, win.

Instant communication.
First impressions are important, but being first is more important. Recruitable gives recruiters the chance to send a personalized message to matching candidates at the moment they join TheLadders. That means both the job seeker and recruiter have a competitive edge.

We’re excited about Recruitable. We can’t wait to help both recruiters and job seekers find the right match, at any time.

Download Recruitable from the app store now or read the press release.

Dan Logan is a Product Marketing Manager at TheLadders. As a frequent host of company meetings, he’s used to answering questions and keeping up with industry trends. He also lives in Brooklyn… and loves it.