Striking the Right Chord in Recruitment: How Employers Can Build Talent Pipelines and Engage Top Candidates

In the dynamic realm of talent acquisition, connecting with job seekers mirrors the artistry of music, requiring a nuanced and personalized approach. Join Recruit Rooster’s Elliott Obermaier, Tyler Poling, and Jeff Ringgenberg as they explore the stark differences between playing music at somebody vs. playing to an engaged audience, drawing analogies to the challenges of recruitment, such as playing hard rock at a jazz club or dealing with the dissonance of a loud cover band in a restaurant. Tune in as they explore how talent acquisition technology adapts to various recruitment scenarios, and how similarly to music, it relies on personalized connection and developing a strong understanding of your audience to create a personalized and engaging recruitment experience.

Transcript

DirectEmployers Association (00:00):

Get ready. The DE Talk podcast starts now, insightful conversations and dialogue, helping you put the human factor back in HR.

Tyler Poling (00:18):

Hello and welcome to a special Recruit Rooster takeover, the DE podcast today. I'm Tyler, the Director of Product Development here at Recruit Rooster slash RocketBuild, and today I am joined by my colleagues Elliot Obermaier and Jeff Ringgenberg. So I'll let you guys to intro yourselves really quick before we dive in.

Elliott Obermaier (00:36):

Absolutely, yes. My name is Elliott. I'm one of the Sales Associates at Recruit Rooster by DirectEmployers here, and I'm super excited to talk about this. Part of why I was selected to talk a little bit about the CRM product and how it connects to music in this capacity was that before working at Recruit Rooster, I actually spent some time in the music industry and the music world. And weirdly enough, a lot of the skills and services that I learned working with distribution and specifically online distribution like Spotify, translates very directly into recruiting.

Jeff Ringgenberg (01:07):

Wow, that was a great intro. This is Jeff Ringgenberg. I am a product manager at Recruit Rooster / RocketBuild. I am not coming from the music background, so you do not want to hear me or by my Spotify playlist, but I do run the product lead for Talent Engage, so I can talk all about the product side and how it relates to Spotify. So how's that?

Elliott Obermaier (01:31):

It's pretty darn awesome. You're definitely more technically savvy than I am, Jeff.

Jeff Ringgenberg (01:34):

Hey, I can strum the guitar so every once in a while I might be able to keep up, but not for very long. Anyway, I digress.

Tyler Poling (01:41):

Alright, well another podcast, we'll get the band together and we'll play some music and see how that plays out. Well cool. Well thank you guys for joining me today. Kind of on the topic similar to what Elliot talked about is thinking about how our recruiting strategies can be similar to that of say Spotify or Apple Music or these other platforms that we use to listen to music today. So just imagine if finding the right job was as effortless as discovering your new favorite song or picture of recruitment journey where every job recommendation feels perfectly in tune with who you're just like that weekly Spotify playlist that somehow nails your vibe. Today we're diving into how employers can use data and technology to create a recruiting experience that's personalized, intuitive, and as addictive and as great as that playlist that gets recommended to you. So stay tuned with us today as we explore how the world of job hunting could mirror one of our favorite streaming platforms. So today I'm going to ask Elliot and Jeff here some questions to get their thoughts on this topic and so we can all get a better understanding of how we can put our CRM and recruitment marketing strategies to work and better connect with our job seekers overall. So if you guys are ready, let's dive in.

Elliott Obermaier (03:00):

Let's do it.

Tyler Poling (03:02):

Alright, so question one, what are the core similarities that you see between A CRM or recruitment marketing tool and Spotify in terms of personalization?

Elliott Obermaier (03:15):

I think a lot of the time it depends on the CRM in question. There are all kinds of ways that different CRMs really try to capture and retain job seeker data from those visiting, but the most effective ones are as personalized as possible and have as much information. And this is really, I think where the biggest similarities come into play is because Spotify or Apple Music or whatever the main ones, but Spotify was really I think the first to start capitalizing on this data oriented marketing approach. They capture every single bit and piece of musical data about their listeners that they can possibly use because in turn it allows them to expand their app and create a much more engaged user experience. I think one of the biggest advantages that a company like Spotify does within this is it makes everything feel so personalized, right?

(04:03):

Like you were mentioning earlier, every single playlist that you has is recommended to you based on previous artists that you were listening to, previous genres that you were listening to. Spotify even has AI options now to where it's already on playlists that you personally create adding songs that suggest based on any sort of factors such as genre, BPM, anything like that. And I think the best CRMs similarly mirror that you want to create an experience for your job seekers and for people that are interested in your company that really showcases how your company might fit them and might already kind of align with their core values or their core skills from a job seeker standpoint.

Tyler Poling (04:41):

Yeah, gone are the days of listening to the radio, which is just here's a bunch of music that you get that might kind of fall in line with stuff you're interested in because it falls in that same genre. But I think today, much like you said with Spotify, it's able to start to listen to or pay attention to what kind of music you're interested in, the trends that they're seeing, and then it's positioning that music that's really specific to the type of stuff you have, even down to maybe your mood for that day. And I think that's where we're seeing some change in the recruitment marketing field as well, is how do we use those tools to look at data to understand the trends, to understand individuals so that when we're communicating with them or marketing to them or sending emails or SMS or whatever, that we're really focused on those unique aspects of those individuals versus more of a broad approach that maybe would've used in the past.

Elliott Obermaier (05:35):

Totally. I think in a lot of ways radio reminds me of a job board where it's just very, very generalized jobs being listed, top 40 hits being played and nothing that's really going to stick out or maybe feel as personalized and tailored to the actual job seeker themselves. So I think that that's really apt comparison and the companies that are going to be standing out the most are the ones that are thinking in a much more forward oriented approach of how are we connecting to these job seekers? And especially one of the more interesting topics I always think is the younger generation of job seekers, the Gen Zs that in 2025 are going to make up 25% of the workforce as a whole. Those are, that's a generation of people that have constantly received all kinds of marketing that is data mind marketing, right? It's marketing based on Amazon suggestions, it's marketing and ads based on what they've liked on Facebook or Instagram. It's a generation that's really a lot more used to technology and companies catering to them based on the data because so much more data is out there about them. If you're reaching those job seekers, you really have to keep in mind with that approach in order to stay ahead of competition really.

Tyler Poling (06:44):

Yeah, for sure. Awesome. Well that leads me into the next question in playing along the lines of what we just talked about, but how do data-driven insights, fuel that personalization in both recruitment marketing and music streaming? So what types of data are collected and how do they inform the recommendations for job seekers and listeners alike?

Elliott Obermaier (07:06):

Yeah, Jeff, can you talk a little bit, I know I can speak to the Spotify side, but you've definitely built out more as far as what you're actually collecting and the kind of forms and whatnot that you're using through the actual CRM tools?

Jeff Ringgenberg (07:17):

Yeah, sure. Well, I think we're not doing quite what Spotify's doing. Like Tyler mentioned the mood side of things. I hear that they had a patent that came out a couple years ago where they can basically take the voice biomarkers that a user is kind of talking to and then translate that into the type of mood that they're feeling and then conveying the music that fits that mood. Similarly, on our end, we're really trying to tap into the data that we are uncover, which would be what their interests are, what anything that we can pull from their resume, anything that we can pull from their engagement. So if they're high engagement, meaning they're engaging with the content that we're sending them, whether that be one-on-one messages or a campaign message or interacting by clicking or opening an email, we can then cater the messaging based upon that engagement. So if it's a high engagement individual, we can put the right type of engagement or right kind of content in there that's going to meet them where they are also based upon what we know about them in terms of the role that they have or the role they're seeking and the search queries that they're putting in to discover new jobs that meet them. So that's kind of some of the things that we're doing in that regard.

Tyler Poling (08:28):

Yeah, I think also looking at some of these new trends that we see with location, if data submitted based on specific locations or trends in the type of jobs that people might be searching for and the data that we're able to track along, that also allows us to build a better data set and also when we're responding back to those individuals, personalizing it based on maybe the needs we have in those areas or trying to find ways that we can find a similarity or correlation between that data. So yeah, a lot of good aspects of the new tools that we can use to collect. And I think very similar to how music is, we kind of stated before in what ways do A CRM and recruitment marketing tools engage and retain job seekers similar to how Spotify keeps users coming back. So you don't just jump into Spotify, listen to the song and then go off. A lot of times you're going to come back to the app because you're looking for those new personalizations, you're looking for those new recommendations. It's Friday, a new album released, you want to see what's out there. What kind of things can we find correlation between A CRM and those marketing tools that may be similar to want to bring recruiters back into the system that they're using, but also kind of focus on the job seekers wanting to engage in that communication on both sides?

Elliott Obermaier (09:45):

Absolutely. I think Spotify does such a phenomenal job and one of the advantages that they have over any company that any company's talent acquisition team is that people are constantly giving them data very willingly by listening to music. And it's a lot harder, as Jeff was talking about earlier, to get people to release their information to a lot of companies that they're interested in. But something that they do really, really well with the information that they have is just creating consistent communication strategies based on that personalization. Whether it's upcoming events near you based on location or a concert that might be in your area of an artist that you've listened to within the past few months, or if it's creating that regular weekly or monthly playlist or sending your yearly wrapped on Spotify, something like that that just really keeps you at the front of mind, even if it's not an aggressive, we think you should listen to this song, right?

(10:38):

Or this is the next artist that you're going to love, prompt message. I think a lot of CRMs can mirror that in a way that's really, really effective. Whether it's we just had these jobs open up and we know that you haven't submitted new data to us in a while or that you haven't applied to anything recently, but I just wanted to send you an email about these open development positions that just came up at our company and doing that with a level of regularity that kind of keeps your company front of mind without seeming promotional towards a new product or anything like that. I think it's really similar to Spotify of just finding creative ways to use that data, whether it's a location-based thing, if you have in-person job fair within X amount of miles of the job seeker data that you've received from your career site or other opportunities and other data gathering areas. I think that those kinds of consistent communications are what really sets Spotify apart, but then also is what's going to keep a lot of companies at the front of mind for job seekers.

Jeff Ringgenberg (11:38):

Yeah, I'd agree with you Elliot. I think consistency is key. Content is one thing, but you got to be consistent with that content and do it in a smart strategic way, whether that is checklists of what you can think about as a job seeker that's interviewing tips. There's all kinds of ways that you can really elevate content to job seekers. And then going on the recruiter side, I think that really comes down to consistency in terms of being proactive.

(12:07):

I think as a recruiter you really need to get in there and see who's been active, what kind of engagement they have, what do you know about them that can really personalize the content that you send and then get into a cadence of sending it. So one of the features that we have is called roadmaps where it's a automated drip campaign and you can really set up messaging in a strategic way that aligns with their engagement and just getting them, like I said before, getting the right content to 'em at the right time based upon their engagement. So I think that, like you said, consistency is key and you got to make sure you have the right content at the right time.

Tyler Poling (12:43):

Thanks for the insights on that. So let's move on to the next one. How do CRM and recruitment tools segment and communicate with job seekers? So think about playlist and how we can segment music into certain groups. What are similar ways we might do that with our job seekers today with the data that we're looking at?

Elliott Obermaier (13:05):

Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the more interesting things, and this is less about playlisting, is it is more distribution and marketing from an artist standpoint, but one of the tools that Spotify offers artists is analysis of geographic location of listeners. And a lot of times what artists would use then say we had an upcoming show in Indianapolis and there were a group of 500 monthly listeners in Indianapolis that had listened to XB band's music in the last month. Spotify would then allow you to create kind of a customized ad for only those Indianapolis listeners showcasing what the show is, where the venue is in Indianapolis, and that it's near them. And I think that that's definitely something that A CRM can do if it's capturing geographical data as well. If you have a position that comes up for an opening in Cleveland, Ohio, it doesn't really make sense to reach out to a lot of jobs seekers in California, even if your company is nationwide.

(14:04):

And I think that that's one of those areas that can really make you stand apart. I see job notifications all the time from LinkedIn that says, oh, you should apply to X, Y, and Z marketing role in the middle of Toledo and nothing against Toledo, but I wouldn't want to relocate in anything like that. But if a job came up in Indianapolis, I'm a lot more likely to at least take a peek around it because I know that it's similarly located to where I'm already at. And that's definitely something that if you have that with your CRM and you're really utilizing the right kind of crm, and Jeff, I know you can speak to this more, but creating customizable campaigns within those CRMs that really target specific data groups of location or job experience, then all of a sudden you're sending this really personalized and tailored message.

Jeff Ringgenberg (14:50):

Yep. Yeah, spot on. I mean the geography thing is certainly one thing. We have segmentation through lists, and so you can create a list based upon the location. Let's say there's holding a job fair and that particular location, you can really segment it based on that and send strategic messages to that group of people. You could also segment in a myriad of other ways too. You could do it based upon the category. So if you've got a group of software engineers, then you have content that's really aligned with what they're seeking, then do it based on that, or maybe they're opted in for SMS and you want to send a text messaging campaign, you can kind of just hone in on those particular set of users as well. So there's a myriad of ways that you can segment using lists and then strategically message those individuals.

Tyler Poling (15:37):

Yeah, I think it's genres with music, if you're into types of genres, obviously there's segments of those genres that you might recommend to folks, but if you're into, say, pop and metal might not be the space that you want to get into, listen to, maybe not, but there may not be some overlap. So as you kind of look at recommendations for job seekers, you want to try to find things to fit into similar aspects of music they've been listening to. Same with music, you want to start to ease someone into those different genres. So you can certainly explore that as you look at the data, you look at the groups that they get kind of partner placed into and start to move those individuals into list and then build your marketing campaigns, build your communication strategies, build your whatever that might look like, kind of just the lead gen off of how you're segmenting those individuals. For sure. Let's get into something that's kind of a hot topic right now, ai. So can you describe how machine learning or AI are used in both recruitment, marketing tools and maybe what we see with Spotify and other music services, what they might be doing with their recommendation systems? What roles do you think these technologies are playing in refining the recommendations over time and how can we use that to enhance those strategies that we might be introducing into the market?

Jeff Ringgenberg (17:05):

Do you want to talk about the Spotify side and I'll take the recruitment side on this one.

Elliott Obermaier (17:08):

That sounds perfect. I don't know enough about the recruitment side, as I'm sure as you do, you've actually worked with the AI and our tools.

Jeff Ringgenberg (17:15):

Well Spotify, you go first because I'm very curious how Spotify does this.

Elliott Obermaier (17:20):

Yeah, I think a lot of what Spotify uses is generative AI and personalization technology to create those personalized music tastes that you were talking about earlier. From a playlist standpoint, anything like that, they can basically, if they're using that generative AI to learn and gather information about factors of what the music that you're listening to, whether that's genre, whether that's mood, tempo key, anything on that aspect, they're going to be able to really, really understand and dive into who their listener is based on AI and doing that at such a fast rate because it's actually, there's not a human behind it thinking, oh, this is what Jeff likes to listen to and let me spend my whole day analyzing what Jeff's listening habits are. And then moving on to Tyler, the AI is giving them something so much faster. They use it to create personal playlist based on text descriptions.

(18:11):

So if you created a acoustic chill playlist, they could analyze songs that had acoustic descriptors or go to other playlists with acoustic ideas and use that to offer suggestions about songs to add to that. So they've been using it for a while, especially from most companies. AI has been around for more than the AI boom that we've seen over the last few years. And then I think one of the more obvious answers from Spotify for any users out there over the last year that when their Spotify wrapped came in 2023, the little Spotify DJ that would talk about your listening habits or kind of regurgitate some of that information and then suggest songs to you, that was a completely AI tool. So there are definitely a lot of ways that Spotify has been using it as a company

Jeff Ringgenberg (18:57):

For sure. So on our side, we're kind of getting into this in a couple of different ways. So we've got some gen AI with integration with chat GPT and provide an AI composer side of things and allows recruiters in a compliant way just try and get it for inspiration. Not that we want them to just send out just completely AI driven messaging, but it does provide some inspiration and allows them to kind of write messages a little bit faster. And then more on the category matching side when we're kind of utilizing the search queries. So when a job seeker goes in and they put in a search to find jobs and meet what they're looking for, we are then kind of predicting what kind of category they fit into. We may have those categories already matched, but sometimes they're outlier words. And so we, based upon a certain level of accuracy, can suggest other categories and may align with that particular job seeker. And on the recruiter side, they can then confirm that that category does in fact match what they're looking for. So that's one way we're doing it. Tyler, I was going to bounce it back to you as well though because you've been working a little bit on the job matching side of things as well. I wanted to have you talk a little bit about that side of it.

Tyler Poling (20:12):

Yeah, just kind of in a generalized stance. I think summing up what you guys talked about with AI in general, you look at how you can analyze stuff. If you're looking in the crm, it can take a long time to sift through a bunch of data that you have for job seekers and finding the correlation between those job seekers, their interests and the jobs that you might have can be quite a task looking at the jobs, you're looking at the data and you're trying to flip back and forth and see who those right individuals might be. The thing that we're starting to explore and look into is how can we leverage AI to not only analyze our job seekers that have come in and get a better understanding of who they are, what they're interested in, where they're located, what their work history might look like, but how can we take that data and then go look at the jobs that we have available and kind of create that correlation between them really speeding up that process, giving that more of an analytical approach from a computer's mind for lack of a better term, to see where those correlations might be, and then being able to take that data and start to reach out to those individuals or make suggestions to those individuals.

(21:22):

There might be opportunities, their work history lines up with a job that we have that might fall into a realm that they didn't even think that they were qualified for, capable of anything like that. So just being able to see those correlations and those patterns and understanding that through more of a data analysis perspective I think is going to be really interesting. And I think the same goes for music too. I mean, I know when I use a service and it's presenting music to me on playlists like chill playlist or something, it might present some music to me that I'm like, well, I never thought I would listen to that, but it does kind of correlate and fall in line with stuff that I'm interested in just based on the similarities and structure of songs and artist history, those kinds of things. So I think there's a lot to be explored there, and it's a really exciting time to understand how that can work for talent acquisition as we move forward

Elliott Obermaier (22:12):

A hundred percent. And I think one of the more interesting aspects of AI that has always been brought up with people who are pretty against ai, they'll talk about the lack of personalization or how that a robot can't get to know you better anyway. And I don't think it's about using AI necessarily to replace getting to know the people or replacing an authentic experience, but it's about creating those extra steps and learning a little bit more about a person on a surface level. So from a job seeking standpoint, you can get to know your job seeker on that really, really in depth level during the interview process, but you can kind of eliminate some of those initial steps, but also make them feel more comfortable by showing that you've learned a little bit about them to start. It's kind of like that old sales adage if you should look the person up on LinkedIn before you go into a meeting with them, so that way you can see if you went to college together or if you have any commonalities to find.

(23:03):

And if you can use AI to find that ahead of the time and create some of those personalized messages or those customized campaigns, whether that's SMS or email, that's going to go a long way. I think one of the more interesting things that when we were researching this topic initially it just came up how much personalized messaging meant to people. 57% of job seekers said that they were more likely to apply to the job if a recruiter reaches out personally or that those personalized emails have a six times higher open rate compared to just blanket open market communication. And that's definitely something that I think AI is really, really adept and strong at is that icebreaker kind of information, and then you get to see the candidate more if it is actually a better fit later down the process when AI might not have as much of a use.

Tyler Poling (23:50):

Yeah, certainly kind of sift through that data and get you to pinpoint the individuals, and then obviously you're opening up those communication lines to be much more personalized and authentic. So you touched on this a little bit about when to make their recommendations or presenting information to people, but how important do you think timing is to delivering that relevant content or recommendation do you think? Obviously you don't want Spotify serving up Christmas music to you too early, unless you're Sierra who works on our team who's probably already listening to Christmas music a month ago, so you got each individual there, but obviously the timing on that has got to be specific and I think it's going to keep people engaged and you don't want to be sending stuff at the wrong time or sending them too much, I guess, if that makes sense, because I think even that's going to turn them off. But what are your thoughts on that, the delivering of the relevant content?

Elliott Obermaier (24:43):

Totally. I think it's a little bit what Jeff touched on earlier of just being consistent and being accurate and being timely without being spammy. Having these job seekers information and being able to analyze it and see where they're from, see what experiences they have, really feel like you're getting to know these people, that doesn't mean that you should take all of that information and regurgitate it back onto them in the span of a week. You want to be very, very tactful and core with the information that you have about those job seekers and let it be more of a personalized touch rather than a, Hey, we have this information and now we're going to spam you with your own information and make it feel a little bit weird, and then they're never going to want to apply to your job because it feels like you're just an aggressive marketer. We've all had those moments where you mention something in conversation and then the Amazon ad for that exact product or something similar that comes up right away in your email and it's like, I don't really want to buy that. That just feels a little unnecessary, and I think that that's kind of similar from a CRM standpoint.

Jeff Ringgenberg (25:45):

Yeah, I think about real estate, they always say location, location, location. Well, I feel like even in real estate and everything else, it's timing, timing, timing. Because even if you've got a perfect location, the timing just may not be right. So I think timing is incredibly important for getting to a job seeker at the right time. I also think on the content side though, sending content just for the sake of sending content is not the right idea. I think you got to be really strategic with the type of content that you want to send and then the right time to send it. So like Elliot said, I think you got to be careful with sending too much and overloading them with content. But I do think that it goes back to that consistency standpoint. You got to be consistent with that content that you're sending out, and if you can set the stage, try and set, whether it's email, it's a weekly email or a monthly email to try and get it out about the same time so that users can look forward to getting it. I have certain emails that I subscribe to. I'm always looking forward to it on a Thursday morning or whenever it comes out. So yeah, I think that timing is key,

Tyler Poling (26:47):

And I think there's tools out there now today too that go above and beyond there where you can actually help create those pathways. So you actually put that into the job seekers hands, let them kind of choose the frequency at which they're receiving stuff or the type of content or the type of messaging they might be receiving. So utilizing those kind of tools in your CRM plan I think can help with this as well, where it's a little bit more automated, but it allows the timing to be kind of put on the job seeker themselves versus you trying to play a guessing game all the time as well.

Jeff Ringgenberg (27:20):

Yeah, and I'll just double click on that real quick. One of the things around the frequency of job alerts being sent, we do give job seekers the option of do they want to send those weekly or monthly or daily, and we'll tell you that the vast majority of people want to see those daily because they don't want to miss a job, and so they send them out on a weekly basis or that's when they get 'em. That's the vast majority of the job seekers what they want. Yeah,

Tyler Poling (27:44):

Absolutely. Thanks for that insight. How do feedback loops kind of enhance personalization in both of those industries? For instance, Spotify uses skips and replays and ways that you can kind of gauge what an individual is doing with the songs and the albums that they're listening to, but how might that correlate back to, say, a recruitment CRM? What are we able to learn from candidate engagement patterns if you're seeing any on a daily basis?

Jeff Ringgenberg (28:13):

That's a tough one. Think about that. Do you have anything on your end, Elliot? Let me keep thinking over here.

Elliott Obermaier (28:19):

Yeah, I mean, I think again, it's kind learning about what might require special attention immediately in my mind, if from a Spotify standpoint, if it's you realize that this song that was released is not generating a lot of traction or people are skipping it in the track listing order on an album, that might not be the song that you want to push as a single, right? That might not be the song that you want to use in an ad for an upcoming show that might not be the song that you want to create a music video for. And I think it's kind of similar that you can learn if this is more desirable or less desirable. What does that mean from a talent acquisition standpoint? If we have pushed X amount of jobs and recognize that the developer position gets a hundred applications and a hundred clicks and people are so willing to apply for this, but the financial analyst role is only getting five, even though we're sending that out to the same list of people, what does that tell us about our financial analyst role?

(29:16):

Does it tell us from a job seeker standpoint that there are less qualifications for financial analysts and that there are less financial analysts out there? Or is our job description bad? Do we need more employee testimonial contents that people can actually engage with that job and actually envision it? Or is it something that it's just this is going to be harder to fill because it's in a more remote location? I think that we can use that engagement with specific jobs to tell us more about how we might need to fill that job or what we can do to maybe a pay increase if we need that job filled. Stuff like that. You can really start learning and reflect on your own positions if you see someone has really high engagement with it or not.

Jeff Ringgenberg (30:00):

Yeah, I think the one that comes to mind is really the analytics side of things. If you can track the type of content that has high engagement, double click on that content, continue to send that out. And conversely, if you're not getting a whole lot of engagement, maybe it's time to switch up that content or send it to a different group of people.

Tyler Poling (30:19):

I think it can go even simpler than that sometimes, where when you're looking at communication, you get opens and clicks and unsubscribes. That kind of data can give you an insight into maybe this individual's frequency of receiving stuff. And we talked about frequency previously. Maybe they're getting too many emails. Maybe we need to look at ways that we can send them less. Maybe their messaging is too, just coming too frequently. They're not opening any of these emails, so maybe it's time to change it up. Maybe we delay for say a week or two weeks or even a month and try to reengage those individuals to catch 'em at a time where maybe they're more interested in the positions that we have because they may have signed up for say, a job alert or some way to receive communication from a company about jobs that might be open.

(31:09):

But there's a lot of factors involved. Maybe it's the holidays, maybe they're busy with kids support, so they just don't really have time to put their minds on that stuff. So switching that up and trying to communicate with them at a different time might actually kind of reengage them. And I think we see that based on just how they're operating with the data that we're sending to 'em. So there's a lot of things that can be tried there, I guess just by exploring what that feedback is coming in and looking like. Yeah. So what kind of metrics or KPIs are most important you think to Spotify and recruitment marketing tools? What similarities in, I guess, success indicators for retaining and engaging users? Might there be?

Jeff Ringgenberg (31:53):

Yeah, I'll take this one. I think Spotify side, they just want to see plays, right? They want to see the amount of times that one particular song or album is being listened to. And I'm sure that Elliot has a lot more than I do in terms of the insights that Spotify can pull from, but I just kind of think about they want to hear the plays and we want to see the applies. We want to see that they're clicking on that apply button and really going for a job. So a lot of the tools we have are for early passive job seekers, and so once they click that apply button, then we know that they're actively interested in that particular job. So that's kind of the two sides there. So the play and the apply.

Tyler Poling (32:32):

Sure. Elliot, anything you want to add to that?

Elliott Obermaier (32:35):

Yeah, I think you really hit the nail on the head there, Jeff. I think that a lot of, with Spotify specifically, it's figuring out what people are engaged with. It's kind of understanding, again, it's the analytics of understanding your audience and that's what's going to be a lot more fulfilling as a

Jeff Ringgenberg (32:53):

Whole. And forgive me, I just realized that the right terminology should have been streams, the number of streams.

Elliott Obermaier (32:59):

Is that right? Yeah, I think that it might be the more technical term, but it's pretty

Jeff Ringgenberg (33:04):

Fantastic. I want to get technical. We're technical today.

Elliott Obermaier (33:07):

It is. We are a tech company. That's how that goes.

Tyler Poling (33:09):

Alright, shore it up here. Last item I might have is what are some challenges unique to recruitment marketing that might differ from those that Spotify faces in user personalization? So what kind of behaviors might we see that are unique to someone who's looking for a job or interested in a job or interested in your business versus an individual who's just trying to find the right song to play at a party for the night? What kind of impact and recommendations are made there just based on the insight you see?

Elliott Obermaier (33:46):

I think this is the ultimate deciding factor in this conversation. The gravity of finding music as much as I love music and worked in it is much less than providing somebody with a job. Music is so much more of a casual thing, and because of that, people are so much more willing to engage with it. It's easier. You're not telling them personalized and information about your resume, your job search experience, how much money you were making or expect to make in the past. Really all that kind of information that Spotify can gather is it's a lot easier to extract from users on Spotify. And I think that's really the challenge for job, for people in the job seeking world and in the talent acquisition space is how do you find out information about those job seekers to make them more comfortable to apply to your job?

(34:37):

And how do you get them to be willing to give that information? How do you market your job so that they're as engaging as possible? How does your company express itself? Right? That's one of the things that I talk about from our career site standpoint is if you create a very visible company culture and something that is a lot more engaging, people are going to really remember that you want to work there, right? Recruit Rooster. When I first applied, I didn't expect to see myself in the talent acquisition space, especially coming from music. But the company cultural components, the employer engagement videos, all of those areas were so high that I was much more likely to give my information and see, you know what? I like the people here a lot already just from how they've marketed this and I like the work that they're doing. Maybe this would work. And I think that's kind of the next step. That's the step really before the CRM in a lot of ways is making sure that your company and your jobs are so marketable that people want to give as much information the way that people are willing to just give information about their listening habits so frequently on Spotify.

Jeff Ringgenberg (35:36):

Yeah, I think you really articulated that well, Elliot, I think there's a lot of passive data collection that comes along with Spotify, and like you said, they're so willing to provide that because it sparks emotion. Music is so rude, deeply rooted in emotion and we want to listen to it. I think that there's a lot of emotion and job seeking, but I think a lot of the job seeking emotions are probably right around the fear side of things. And then anxiety, at least that's where I always came from was I need to find a job. I don't know what kind of job, I don't know the type of people or the organization that aligns with my values and my skillset. It brings up a lot of emotion as well, but it's not that happy-go-lucky feeling that I get from just clicking the play button and listening to a song.

(36:22):

I think all the things that Elliot is talking about with an organization with demonstrating what the culture's like and what the people are like and building and establishing trust with those job seekers is just so incredibly important because the more that trust that's established, the more those job seekers will be willing and wanting to provide any sort of information about themselves and really kind of lean in to listen and learn more about the organization. So I think that there's definitely emotion to all of these elements is just figuring out how do you make your brand attractive and build a brand that's trustworthy, because I think that's when people are going to lean in it a little bit more. That sounds,

Tyler Poling (37:03):

Yeah, I think it's important too. I mean, when you think about music and the music you listen to, a lot of times if you like an artist, you may find yourself liking a similar artist. So there's opportunities there for music to open the doors for you to listen to more and more individuals versus a job. You're looking for a job, you're not looking for multiple jobs at multiple companies, you're looking for a job at a company. So how does that company set themselves apart? And I think playing off of what you both said, it's important to show the personal side of that video is a big component that's being used today to be able to show the human side of an individual. So show someone who might be working in that same role that you're working in so you can put a face to an individual that's going to be on your team.

(37:56):

It allows you to see what the company's like inside. I think using those kind of tactics to market your business, market your opportunities is really going to be big to those job seekers and it hopefully allows them to feel more comfortable with the decisions that they're making, wanting to join your team or exploring opportunities with your team. And I think that it can all be done through authentic messaging, through authentic marketing campaigns and getting to more of a personalized communication versus just that kind of blast email that we talked about. That's kind of your high level start, but how can you get those individuals into more of a one-to-one conversation so that you can show them the more humanistic side of what the company looks like and what opportunities are going to be presented to them should they come join. Well, thank you guys for the conversation.

(38:48):

As part of the podcast, I always like to do something fun that isn't necessarily directly related to the convo we're having. So as we kind close out, we like to do this kind of rapid fire question series. So I'm going to go through a few short questions that I'm going to ask each of you and just tell me really quickly what comes to mind so we can get a better idea of the personal side of you guys. Are you an early bird or rather a rooster, kind of a night owl? What's your day look like for you?

Elliott Obermaier (39:18):

Both. Right. I like getting up in the mornings as much as I can handle it, but yeah, if I'm working on something or engaged, it's also pretty easy to stay up late. But definitely if I had my preference getting up early in the morning, getting some work done before starting the work and having a couple of cups of coffee then

Tyler Poling (39:37):

Right on. Jeff, how about you? I know you personally, so I think you might be early, but I want to hear if from you.

Jeff Ringgenberg (39:42):

Yeah, you took it early bird. So I work out I get up at 4:30 and I have a 5:15 workout in the morning, and then the evenings are a little bit slower for me. I'm beat by the end of the day, so I go to bed fairly early.

Tyler Poling (39:54):

Alright. Kind of playing along what we just talked about, what is the best concert other than your own Elliot that you've been to? Just kidding.

Elliott Obermaier (40:05):

Oh man. Tedeschi Trucks band with Marcus King at the TCU Amphitheater in 2018 or 2019. One of those times.

Tyler Poling (40:15):

When it was still White River back then, right?

Elliott Obermaier (40:17):

Yeah.

Jeff Ringgenberg (40:20):

Besides seeing Elliot Hi-Fi, which was a highlight last year. That was awesome. I would say Childish Gambino in Chicago, actually. It was fascinating. He did a standup routine. If anyone doesn't know Childish Gambino is, Donald Glover is his real name. He got the Childish Gambino from the Wu Tang name generator site, and he did a comedy routine before and then he segued into the music side of things. It was beatboxing with this guy in London over the big screen. It was just a different experience altogether. So I'd say Childish Gambino.

Tyler Poling (40:52):

Cool. Awesome. Alright. Elliot, are you a podcast guy or a music guy?

Elliott Obermaier (41:00):

I mean music for sure. I like a lot of podcasts. I think New York Times Daily, some other stuff like that. Definitely in football season I'll listen to some 49ers talk, but other than that, yeah, it's pretty strictly music right now.

Tyler Poling (41:16):

Awesome. Jeff, how about you?

Jeff Ringgenberg (41:17):

So I've been a music guy my whole life, but podcasts I got into several years ago and it's hard to shake 'em. I listen to music a lot when I'm in the car with the girls, so a lot of Taylor Swift that goes on in the car, but I'd say probably on the podcast side. So I listen to Morning Brew every morning, shout out to the Morning Brew guys. On Purpose with Jay Shetty, listen to that one quite a bit. And then we'll say The Get in podcast here in Indiana. So all things Indiana. So yeah, I'm a big podcast guy.

Tyler Poling (41:47):

Cool. Awesome. All right. This is one that's near and dear to my heart, but what's your preferred streaming platform? Spotify, Apple Music, Title, YouTube Music. What do you prefer?

Elliott Obermaier (42:03):

I sit back and forth between Apple Music and Spotify, but I was an Apple Music user for a long time, and then when I got into the industry, I started using Spotify more just because of how much it dominates the space. So I would say Spotify, but I think all of them have their pros and cons. Title has the best audio quality of any of streaming services and it gives the highest percentage to artists. So I would say Title from just a pure artist standpoint, but from the customization standpoint, I think Spotify takes the cake.

Jeff Ringgenberg (42:34):

Okay. I'm a mixture of the two as well as Spotify and Apple Music. I've got both. And I think that I typically listen to Apple Music is what's integrated throughout our house with Alexa and stuff like that, so. Well, I'll stick with the Apple side.

Tyler Poling (42:48):

Right on. All right. And this is probably the hardest question. I dunno if you're me, it's maybe the hardest question, but what is your favorite band?

Elliott Obermaier (42:57):

Well, I don't think I could pick one. I'm going to give you the lamest answer on that. Yeah, I think it changes so much all the time and it's so different genre wise. But yeah, I think that I love, it's so cliche, but so many different kinds of musics listening to Oscar Peterson this morning, but then was watching a Chapel Run live video over the weekend and it all kind changes at some point.

Jeff Ringgenberg (43:23):

Yep.

Tyler Poling (43:24):

Yeah. Jeff, how about you?

Jeff Ringgenberg (43:26):

I don't know, man, that's tough. A favorite band. I mean, I grew up, the two albums I bought are first CDs I ever bought were Pearl Jam Ten and UAchtung Baby. So both phenomenal bands. I feel very proud to say that those were the two CDs I ever bought because I've heard some pretty bad ones out there. So I feel very proud about those two recent artists that I've been listening to is Ren, REN out of Wales. So he is got some interesting stuff, just a very talented lyricist, so yeah.

Tyler Poling (43:58):

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I always don't like that question personally. It is hard to narrow down. I think music, it can be, we talked about timing earlier about when you receive emails or receive communication, timing with music I think can be pretty specific to a time in your life. So it is really challenging to, who was your favorite musician back in college, who was your favorite musician when you maybe got married? Those kind of things. I think it really plays into those different points in your life. So it's a tough one to narrow down, for sure.

Jeff Ringgenberg (44:33):

Yeah. Good points.

Tyler Poling (44:35):

Well, thank you guys so much for joining today on the DE Talk podcast and sharing your insights into recruitment marketing. If our listeners would like more information about Recruit Rooster or would like to connect, what's the best way that they could get in touch today?

Elliott Obermaier (44:52):

Yeah, I mean all social media platforms with Recruit Rooster. I know Sierra and the team does a great job of constantly pumping new information there, but if there's any sort of specific questions that they have, I know that there are direct links to some demonstrations or informational links as well on our website RecruitRooster.com.

Jeff Ringgenberg (45:11):

Yeah, and I'd say all over the web. You find me at J-R-I-N-G-G – J Ring – and Connect on LinkedIn and then my email JeffR@RocketBuild.com.

Tyler Poling (45:21):

Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you guys again. This is really informative. Appreciate the conversations and hopefully your listeners can take away some points on either which streaming platform to use or how to kind of amp up your talent engagement strategies and recruitment marketing efforts. So we thank you for your time today and look forward to the next one.

Jeff Ringgenberg (45:42):

Alright, see you gentlemen.

Elliott Obermaier (45:44):

Absolutely. Thanks for hosting.

Jeff Ringgenberg (45:45):

Thank you.

DirectEmployers Association (45:46):

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