May 15, 2025 • 39 mins
In this episode of The Changing State of Talent Acquisition, hosts Graham Thornton and Martin Predd welcome Maria Christopoulos Katris, Founder and CEO of Built In. Maria shares her 15-year journey growing Built In from a Chicago-based tech community to a global recruitment platform, offering sharp insights into why traditional applicant tracking systems (ATS) are failing to capture the full candidate journey and how employer branding has become a cornerstone of modern talent acquisition. With Built In’s latest trends report as a backdrop, Maria reveals why companies are doubling down on employer brand investments and how referrals are surging as a top channel for tech talent—while also exposing the limitations of relying on them.
Topics include:
- The evolution of recruitment from job boards to a marketing-driven discipline
- Why ATS source-of-hire data is only 20% accurate and how to move beyond it
- The rise of employer branding as a core pillar of talent acquisition
- The surge in referrals for tech talent and their potential impact on diversity
- Strategies for improving candidate experience and treating applicants like consumers
- The growing importance of employer branding for internal retention
- How to educate executives on the value of employer brand investments when ROI is challenging to measure
Links:
Maria Christopoulos Katris, Founder and CEO of Built In
- Built In 2025 Talent Trend Report
- Connect with the Built In team to learn more about how a recruitment marketing approach will help you attract top talent."
Tune in to discover how to transform your talent acquisition strategy by embracing recruitment as marketing and building a candidate-centric employer brand that stands out in today’s competitive landscape.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Changing State of Talent
Acquisition, where your hosts,graham Thornton and Martin Cred,
share their unfiltered takes onwhat's happening in the world
of talent acquisition today.
Each week brings new guests whoshare their stories on the
tools, trends and technologiescurrently impacting the changing
state of talent acquisition.
Have feedback or want to jointhe show?
(00:21):
Head on over to changestateio.
And now on to this week'sepisode.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
All right and we're back with another episode of the
Changing State of TownAcquisition Podcast.
Super excited for our nextguest, maria
Christopoulos-Katras, founderand CEO of BuiltIn.
Maria, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah, super excited to have BuiltIn.
So you don't know this, but in2011, when you started Built In,
we started a company calledSeatsync in Chicago and we went
to pretty much every monthlymeetup that Built In started
hosting when you were growing,and so we've been big fans of
Built In since, quite literally,your inception.
(01:04):
One of my big gripes startingChangeState is boy, I really
wish in Seattle we had a techecosystem or a startup ecosystem
that built-in helped create inChicago.
So big fan of built-in.
But that said, why don't youtell us a little bit more about
starting built-in from your lens?
Tell us a little bit more aboutyour career journey first,
(01:24):
maria.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Oh, I appreciate that and that brings back some fond
memories, for sure, for sure.
I think you know it's justunfortunate.
You know the world's evolvingand we've had to evolve with it.
But thinking back to those dayswhen events were really big and
in-person meetups were big andright, all the incubators, you
know, everyone would huddleevery day at the incubators and
(01:48):
it was so special and it was sohopeful for companies at that
earliest stage in their journey.
Now it's just a lot of theevents like outside of I
jokingly say outside of peoplein sales who are really leaning
into events right now andin-person meetings, and it's
working really well.
I'm finding that most peopleoutside of the nine to five
(02:10):
don't want to, you know, networkand go to events and things of
that nature.
So it is interesting.
It brings back so many fondmemories.
So, yeah, that was built in inthe early days.
Fast forward to today.
We are now a global recruitmentplatform that helps companies,
from the smallest startups tothe Fortune 500, hire the
hardest to find techprofessionals, and we do this by
(02:32):
branding companies so they canattract, convert and ultimately
get candidates to apply to theirhardest to fill roles.
Why that matters today isrecruitment is marketing.
Recruitment was not marketingwhen built in first started.
We really set out to promotelocal technology companies and
in doing so, found that we weredriving really high quality
(02:53):
applicants into their funnel.
And that was before employerbranding was a term.
It wasn't even a term.
It was definitely not a roleinside a company, and so it's
been crazy to see how theindustry has evolved and how now
, for 75% of our buyers I wouldsay, recruitment, marketing and
employer branding sit undertalent acquisition as a core
(03:14):
pillar of the function.
So it's been fun to watch, it'sbeen a labor of love indeed.
As far as my career, I startedmy career in consulting.
I come from immigrantentrepreneur parents who
identified as being pharmacists.
My parents and I are Greek.
We were either a doctor or alawyer.
As a first generation kid ofimmigrant parents, they didn't
(03:35):
know what to think of me.
They thought I was going to bea lawyer.
Year of college switched mymajor to business Glad I did
that and just had some criticalpieces of my journey along the
way that led me to realizing I'man entrepreneur and it was sort
of like I've had these threelight bulb moments I like to
call them throughout my careerjourney.
The first is when a friend tookme to an entrepreneur's
(03:58):
organization event right after Ihad left consulting and I was
in a room full of entrepreneursand I was like, oh, this is me,
this is who I am, and I hadnever really identified that way
.
I'm aging myself right now.
But startups weren't really athing when I was graduating from
college as a finance undergrad.
You either went to work for abank or consulting firm, and so
(04:20):
it wasn't something that was topof mind, to be honest, and my
parents identified aspharmacists.
It wasn't something that wastop of mind, to be honest, and
my parents identified aspharmacists, not entrepreneurs,
but they were both, and so thatwas step one was just this light
bulb of like ooh, these are mypeople, they think like me, they
act like me, this is the worldI want to be in, and that led me
to start my first business.
And then the second light bulbmoment was when I ran a
(04:41):
nonprofit for a short period oftime for tech entrepreneurs,
between selling my first companyand then starting at Built In
and realizing that everyone wascomplaining what the tech
ecosystem in Chicago at the timedidn't have and really felt
like we had so much.
No one was talking about it Atthat point.
(05:01):
A number of founders andventure capitalists in Chicago
had met and together came upwith a name built in Chicago,
and Matt Moog, who was one ofthem, launched Built in Chicago
on a Ning site.
And when I got invited to jointhat site, it was like that was
my second light bulb moment ofmy career, where it just was
like, oh, this is what I've beentalking about.
(05:24):
And so here we are 15 yearslater, and I would say the third
was likely when I realizedfairly early on with Built In
that we needed to be global.
Obviously, being globally mindedmyself, having been raised by
immigrant parents, I really sawvery early how flat the world
(05:46):
was becoming and how flat itwould become in the future, and
so had bought essentiallyhundreds of domains globally
very early on in built-in days,and my co-founder, adam, always
laughs about it because he's hadto strip me away from a bunch
of them over time.
But what's funny is like it'scoming full circle, back to
location-based hiring, onsitehiring, locals coming back, and
(06:09):
so it's really fascinating tosee how we've gone from local to
remote globally now back tolocal, national and global, both
onsite, hybrid and remote andso yeah.
So I would say those wereprobably like the three, you
(06:29):
know, really critical pieces ofthe journey.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Wow, quite the backstory.
Thanks for joining us, maria.
You know there's a lot ofthings that I think we want to
talk about today, but maybe wecould start with something you
said a few minutes ago.
That feels a little bitprovocative, but maybe you could
just unpack it for us.
You said, when you firststarted built in and correct me
if I'm misunderstanding here butrecruitment was not marketing.
And during the time since wherewas that 2011,?
(06:55):
You've seen a major shift to, Iassume, a time now where maybe
recruitment is more likemarketing.
Could you just tell us what you?
Well, first of all, did I getthat right?
And secondly, in what?
Speaker 3 (07:08):
ways.
Is recruitment like marketingand not like marketing in the
current moment?
Yeah for sure.
No, you absolutely got thatright.
So the way I like to explain itis like recruitment 1.0, right
Was the job board era.
I mean, if you go past where itwent off newspapers, like, if
you really want to go back, youknow it used to be the newspaper
ad.
Then it became online jobboards and it was very simple,
(07:30):
like you posted a job ad andsomeone would find it and apply
to your job directly and itwould come through your African
tracking system.
Then it became, then LinkedInintroduced the world to sourcing
, like oh wow, like you don'thave to just sit and wait for
candidates to apply, youactually can go outbound and you
know, ping people and send themin mails, et cetera.
And then we walked into the eraof recruitment as marketing.
And what does that mean?
(07:51):
Effectively, it means the wayyou and I book our hotel
reservations, look for hotelsand book hotels and or
restaurants is the same waycandidates look for jobs.
And what that means and whythat happened is, if you think
about it, it was like.
What that means and why thathappened right is, if you think
about it, it was like the wholeproliferation of social media,
right, like influencer marketing, the rise of Instagram and Snap
(08:12):
and now TikTok, right.
And when you think about it,like I always use the analogy of
like how I booked my trip toItaly.
It's, you know, when we went toItaly last year, that was
informed by like a couple ofyears probably at least, of me
seeing people in my Instagramfeed, hearing my friends'
journeys, seeing where they weregoing on trips, like
screenshotting images.
(08:33):
You know that I kept in afolder and then getting research
across the internet where I'mlike, ooh, cool places to stay
in Italy, and starting my searchwith Google.
Well, guess what?
Candidates 55% of candidatesstart their search on Google
still to this day when they'relooking for things and that's
when they're active.
Just like, I started that whenI was active.
(08:54):
But, like all those brandmoments, like the two years
prior to me going on, that tripsuper influenced my short list
of where I wanted to go and likewhich hotels I wanted to stay
at, which restaurants I wantedto eat at right, and then,
ultimately, for my husband and I, when we book a trip, we book
it using American Express, right, and that's because it gives us
(09:15):
insurance and it's our creditcard.
My co-founder uses bookingscomright and he likes it for the UI
and they save his informationand he has his reasons.
Our CTO uses a totallydifferent platform to book his
hotels, and so I always use thisstory to say this is what
candidates are doing today.
They are seeing things aboutyour company you know on
(09:37):
third-party platforms.
They're researching you onthird-party platforms.
They're hearing their friends'experiences and who they're
interviewing with and what itwas like and what it was like to
work at said company.
They're seeing articles they'rereading and then, when they're
active like a true passivecandidate that's hard to find
when they're active, they'reactive for like 10 days.
At that point, their decisionhas narrowed down to a specific
(10:01):
set of companies they want totarget right and then ultimately
, where they apply well in thismarket.
Research will tell us, like inour data that we've just
released, referrals is coming inone behind job board platforms.
However, why is that?
It's because the market is moreflooded than normal and
candidates are not all gettingresponses to their applications,
(10:25):
and so they're leaning in ontheir network.
So they may go to LinkedIn seewho's connected.
They may send a note to alltheir friends come in through a
referral.
That way they may applydirectly through your careers
website.
Because now the job seekers arebeing told apply through the
career site, you'll have ahigher likelihood of being seen.
Is that necessarily true?
No, but so ultimately, wherecandidates apply isn't
(10:48):
necessarily what informed theirdecision at all, right.
And so we now are in a worldwhere recruitment is marketing,
where we have less visibilityinto why candidates discovered
us, how they discovered us, whatinformed their opinion right.
And so there is thismulti-touch sort of attribution
(11:09):
needed to really understand thestory of like how a company
truly finds value in theirrecruitment channels and their
recruitment partners.
And unfortunately, just therecruitment systems haven't
caught up to that.
But that is recruitment today.
Recruitment is marketing, andit just wasn't like that 15
years ago.
So that in and of itself iscausing a whole host of
(11:31):
challenges that we can get into.
But generally speaking, the morerecruiters can think like
marketers, bring marketers ontotheir talent acquisition teams,
the farther they're getting.
And so now we're seeing somecustomers at one end of the
spectrum who their entirerecruitment strategy is employer
branding.
First, they spend all theirmoney branding, they've cut any
(11:53):
kind of sourcing team, they pipein candidates into their CRM
and they're nurturing their CRM,running campaigns in their CRM.
They're sourcing inside theirCRM, not cold sourcing, because
now these are hand raisers,these are people who have some
familiarity with their brand,and so we have that at one end
with customers all the way downto customers who still believe
(12:15):
ATS source of higher data isaccurate, which it's not.
It's wildly inaccurate Becauseit's essentially saying where
they apply.
That doesn't tell you whatinfluenced them along their
journey.
And so the more we get more andmore customers and more and
more TA teams to embrace thisrecruitment as marketing, the
better.
But, as you know, it's going tobe a long road in education
(12:36):
because the industry, you know,we're not marketers by trade in
TA, right, and so it is afascinating challenge and one
that we feel very passionatelyabout at Built-In.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah, I feel like this is a walk down memory lane.
So you know, 15 years ago whichyou know, time flies.
First of all, talking about theearly days of Built-In that you
know, I was working on SeedSync, but I was still over at
CareerBuilder back in the day,spending my decade there cutting
my teeth in the job board spaceand everything you just walk
(13:10):
through, maria, is spot on andquite the journey.
What's interesting is we justdid our trend study and we'll
get into built-ins in a bit andthere are some ironic pieces in
there.
And I think what you justmentioned kind of reinforces
some of the challenges that TAfolks are seeing.
And that's like, hey, what'sthe hardest thing for us to
(13:31):
measure?
Return on employer brandmessaging or employer brand
investments?
But if, hey, if you had 25%more budget, where would you put
it?
Employer brand.
And so I think what you'resaying, maria, is, is reinforced
by some of this data.
And that's boy, the smartestrecruiting teams recognize that
you know what we really shouldbe investing more in our brand.
(13:53):
But they also are having thatsame challenge that you just
mentioned.
And that's boy, we know this iswhere money should go, but, boy
, we just don't know how tomeasure it.
And then the other challenge ishey, we don't know how to get
budget from our executive teameither to invest in.
We'll call it marketing rightand make it easy.
(14:14):
So I'm curious, where are youseeing brands, recruitment
marketers, sort of turn the page?
You know in that conversationand you know, is this just a
matter of hey, education ofexecutives and you know, and
talent leaders that you knowwhat we're just going to have to
understand and recognize thatATS data isn't accurate.
(14:35):
You know people are coming inthrough other channels and you
know, accept that it's not goingto be a perfect measurement.
Or what are those conversations, like you know, with the TA
leaders and folks that you knowyou're engaging with?
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yeah, oh, I love this topic so much.
So how do we talk about ROI?
When I speak about this to roomfull of heads of TA, especially
throughout the last three years, as so many tech companies went
through downturns, and they'relike help me tell the story.
My number one piece of adviceis stop, when someone tells you
(15:08):
what is your ROI on youremployer brand spend, stop
saying and looking at your ATSas your source of hire.
So when people say, oh, whatwas the investment in this tool?
Everyone's going, tool by tool,to see who they're going to cut
, who they're going to keep.
The worst thing TA teams can dois cite their ATS as their
source of truth for data,because that would be the
(15:30):
equivalent of my head ofmarketing coming to me as the
CRO of built-in and saying, hey,we're getting all of our
inbound leads, for the salesteam is coming directly to our
B2B website.
Well, I would say well then,great, so you don't need any
budget because everyone's justmiraculously coming to our B2B
site.
And they would say you'rekidding, right?
(15:51):
So why are talent acquisitionteams citing their ATS source of
higher data?
It will always, right now, sayyour career site and LinkedIn
are one in two effectively insome way, shape or form, whether
it's the volume from LinkedInor, if you're still outbound
sourcing, et cetera.
So that's not the story, right?
That's not the story.
(16:11):
I was on the phone with a headof global TA for a 20,000 person
company last week and he said,for all intents and purposes, we
look at ATS, source of higherdata is about 20% accurate.
And now this is a company whohas the means to fully embrace
the CRM pixel tracking,multi-touch attribution.
So they see the whole journeyand they get it and they
(16:34):
understand it.
Our goal is to get everyonethinking like this, because if
we keep citing ATS, source ofhigher data, ta teams will never
get the dollars they need toinvest in the tools and
infrastructure they need tomeasure ROI, and that's the
second part of this conversationthat's super critical.
If we have the rightconversations, educate the exec
(16:57):
teams on recruitment is nowmarketing.
So the same way we allocatebudget to marketing is how you
should think about us inrecruitment.
We then will get the budget toinvest in CRMs.
We will get the budgets toinvest in things like pixel
tracking right, because thatreally our buyers who can enable
a pixel on our platform, forinstance, see the highest
(17:20):
attribution because now they canfollow a candidate who
discovers them on built-in oruses built-in and leverages them
, but then they can see if theyultimately ended up applying
through their career site.
They know that we helpedinfluence that decision and
that's critical to thisattribution piece, just like any
other vendor you invest in, butso?
But the challenge is is thepixels and the CRMs.
(17:42):
They're really expensiveinvestments, and so this is why
we're seeing a lot of ourlargest enterprise clients doing
great and have moved in thisdirection, but the smaller and
mid-sized customers are juststuck, because they're stuck
with one investment, which istheir ATS, and ATSs do not do
multi-touch attribution, and sowe are, at the enterprise level,
(18:04):
seeing companies jump aroundtheir ATSs and start going
directly to CRMs, which I'mfinding really interesting and
wouldn't be shocked if that isour future.
We're seeing people separate outtheir CRMs from their HRIS,
even because their HRIS is toocomplicated to work within.
But I do think this how do wetalk about ROI?
(18:26):
How do we measure it?
And then those two will lead toinvestments and tools to
support measurement on the backend.
So really passionate again, andreally try to help our buyers
at least and educate them onlike, what can you do?
And even if you have access toGoogle analytics, like, work
with your marketing team.
(18:46):
If your marketing team usespixels, like, ask them to help
you, right.
And so we're really trying tohelp TA teams think and act like
marketers so they can get thebudgets and the funding they
deserve.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Yeah, I think this is great and, like you know, you
mentioned that I'll workbackwards.
Hey, work with your marketingteam.
You have Google Analytics.
You know, speaking fromexperience, I think you know
we're continually shocked howfar of a disconnect there often
is between, you know, marketingteams and recruiting and TA
teams, just in general andwhat's possible.
(19:20):
But I do love this idea of hey,we've been saying for a while
we do a lot of ATS selectionprojects.
The headline is no one lovestheir ATS, whether you buy a new
one or have an existing one,and I think part of the reason
people don't love their ATS isbecause that lack of flexibility
.
It can't do some of the thingsthat you'd like to do.
(19:41):
If you're thinking like aconsumer marketing team, and so
we've always said for a lot ofsolutions, you look towards
consumer marketing to see whatthey're doing first.
And the other thing is arguablyconsumer marketing tools cost a
lot less than recruitmentmarketing.
You know systems and toolsanyway, and so I think of when
(20:03):
we're turning on some you knowemployer brand, you know
testimonial videos and you knowyou go to an employer brand, you
know video site or platform andit's hey, we're going to charge
you 60 grand a year and youknow you can put out a video
every month and you know, go toa consumer video tool and it's
hey, we're going to charge you60 grand a year.
And you can put out a videoevery month and go to a consumer
video tool and it's hey, 1500bucks for the year, as many
(20:24):
videos as you want to create,and it's like there's no
difference outside of one markettowards recruiting.
And I do think that people seeit's kind of like I'm getting
married in three weeks.
You want to get someone to cometake photos of you for a
weekend, it's a, it's a hundredbucks.
So you want to go get someoneto take those same photos at a
wedding, it's a thousand.
And I think that you know many,many times you know, just
(20:44):
standing recruiting in front of,on the front end of it, you
know people charge 10, x andthat's just.
You know the unfortunate natureof how recruiting maybe works.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
That's such an interesting, it's such a valid
point.
I don't think in all the timesI've been talking about this, no
one has really highlighted thatit's so true.
It's so true.
It's like sell something toparents or dog owners.
You know, I would like to thinkthe more necessary it becomes.
I'd like to think costs willcome down.
But who knows, who knows?
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Well, maria, I love the analogies to consumer
marketing because that's what myback owners, folks who listen
to the show for a while knowthat, and I've always I mean
honestly we've been thinkingabout this question of how to
measure ROI of quote unquoteemployer brand investments
probably as long as changedate's been around, and it's a
tough problem, and part of it, Ithink, is this isn't even the
(21:34):
right question to be asking.
If you went to a consumer brand, a reputable brand, and you
would go, I can't imagine asking, in a consumer brand setting,
is it a good idea to invest inour brand?
And expecting some immediatepayoff?
And yet it's so obvious whenyou look at TV and the amount of
money that major brands thatare already well established
(21:55):
spend on advertising.
Clearly this has value, but Iguess do you think so, point
taken?
On the one hand, there's sourceattribution issues.
It is a journey.
There's a lot of channels thathave influence on a purchase,
not just the one that justhappens to be the final one
before the application getssubmitted.
But more generally, how do youthink about ROI as it relates to
(22:17):
employer brand Things thatwe're not even necessarily
looking at source attribution?
There's just bigger investments.
Is it a fair question to evenask you know what's the ROI of
this in a dollar and cents kindof way, or should it just be
understood as of course?
You should do this because youknow the employer brand is sort
of the container for allrecruitment marketing and of
course you need to invest inthat.
(22:38):
That was a lot.
I don't know if any of thatmade sense or resonated, but I
was curious how you think aboutROI with relation to employer
brand.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
No, a hundred percent .
You know, I was meeting with acustomer this was a couple of
years back and this customer wasone of the more forward
thinking in embracing this wholerecruitment as marketing
concept.
And when I said to him, how doyou get investment for employer
(23:07):
brand, he said well, easy.
I basically tell my CFO,recruitment is three pronged
it's referrals, it's sourcingand it's recruitment marketing
employer brand.
And he goes the first two I cantell you specifically their ROI
I'm going to get based on ourinvestment.
The last one, employer brand,I'm not going to, and it is what
it is.
You're just going to have totrust me that I need to spend a
certain amount on brand to getthe job done and it is what it
(23:28):
is.
And so I would say that is verysimilar to how CMOs talk to
their CFOs.
Right, they're always getting acertain level of investment for
specific demand gen activitieswhere they could point a direct
line to Like we're going to doan event or we're going to do
something else, where they havefull tracking and visibility.
(23:48):
And then they have brand spend,and CFOs know that they're not
always going to be able to trackspecific ROI against brand
spend.
It's just a known thing in themarketing world, right.
That has not translated yet torecruitment.
And what I would tell you ispart of this right is you have
the majority.
Almost nearly every global headof TA doesn't come from
(24:10):
marketing.
It's very rare and, if not,existent at best.
And so until we get to thepoint where all heads of global
TA look at their orgs andoperate their orgs like chief
marketing officers do, we're notgoing to get there.
So this question of cost perhire, cost per applicant, cost
(24:32):
for employer brandsmen, this isnot going to stop.
Now we do have ways to measureit.
They just aren't wildly adopted, right, and they're not
foolproof, but they can at leastgive you directional
attribution, and that's what Ialways say is pixel tracking,
like when we see we have acouple of customers who go we
could see their ATS source ofhigher data for an investment
(24:55):
like built-in.
We then do something calledhigher comparison reports where
again flawed at best, but we cansee if people did update their
LinkedIn profile and they hiredthem.
We can bump it up against ourown internal data.
It is not a light effort and itis not full, because a lot of
technical candidates don'tupdate their LinkedIn profiles
(25:16):
and so we can give you someattribution.
That way, our customers whohave enabled pixel tracking in
concert with a CRM tend to getthe highest attribution because
they can follow people aroundover a period of time.
It doesn't matter where theyultimately apply from or how
they ultimately get them.
But again, this is a multi-yearjourney.
(25:37):
At times, right, people aren'talways active today when you're
marketing to them, but couldcome in a year from now, and so,
again, there is a long way toget sort of what I call
full-blown attribution.
But now, when you're talkingabout companies who are doing
employer brand investments onbillboards or commercials or
things of that nature, no, likeit's going to be straight up
(26:00):
like consumer brand marketing.
Right, you're not going to beable to see direct attribution
and grab direct ROI, but it isjust part of the game now and
you have no choice.
And what we're seeing is it'sgoing to be even harder and more
important, because nowcompanies are hiring globally
and in an increasing volume, andthe global markets are becoming
(26:22):
more competitive.
Now, whereas people used tofocus on the US for employer
branding, now the need to brandin international markets is
becoming even more importantbecause of the fact that no
international market is the bestkept secret anymore and a lot
of Western brands are going intosmall international markets
competing for the same talent,so the problem is only getting
(26:43):
worse, which is great.
It's a huge opportunity.
I think we're a ways away fromre-educating CFOs and heads of
TA on the concept.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Yeah Well, I want to, you know, kind of click into,
you know this idea of peopleinvesting more in their employer
brand, maria, because in yourtrends report, I think one of
the takeaways and keep me honest, if we got this wrong is more
than half of your respondentsare now saying they plan to
either start or increase theiremployer brand investments in
(27:14):
the next year.
It sounds like the winds mightbe changing a little bit.
You know what's your sense of,maybe, why employers are
deciding that.
You know what it's time right,like, is this just a overall hey
, the market's getting a littlebit more educated.
Is it a, hey?
Is it a competition, you knowpiece where people are just a
(27:34):
little bit more fearful?
Or, you know, is this somethingthat we're not thinking about?
Like, hey, like a lot moreentry level AI?
You know tech roles, you knowwith.
You know with the increase inAI, you know skills requirements
, like what, you know, what doyou think is driving, maybe the
moment of now where people aresaying you know what it's time
for us to start.
You know ponying up and youknow investing in our actual
(27:56):
brand?
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yeah, it's a great question.
I think there's a couple ofcomponents.
One is the shortage of highlyskilled tech talent, right, so
that's just increasing right now.
And while sort of generalvolume of software engineering
roles is going down, there areall these critical roles of the
future popping up that peoplehaven't recruited for or are
going to need to recruit for,and the roles like security with
(28:24):
cyber, sre roles, et cetera,are in such high demand right
now that they are still reallyhard to find.
So that's one is critical.
Highly skilled tech roles arestill super hard to find, and
especially in this market wheremore and more companies are
going to three to five days onsite, back to office mandates
(28:45):
are coming through and there'sglobal hiring needs.
All of that feeds into kind ofthe first reason.
I would say the second reason.
What's really interesting itdoesn't get as much attention,
but we're seeing it a lot rightnow is just the workforce we're
in today is exhausted.
People are unhappy.
(29:06):
The Wall Street Journal articleearlier this year cited that
the number of Americans wantingto switch their jobs has hit a
10-year high and the reason isespecially in tech.
We've been through a rough threeyears since 2022.
And starting this year, I thinkpeople thought it would be a
little bit better.
It's now volatile again in themacro, and so people are tired
(29:30):
and people are unhappy, and sowe are seeing more often than
not I would say in the lastthree to four months I've heard
more frequently than I've heardin 15 years how many employer
brand leaders are starting tothink about employer branding
for internal retention reasonsas well, and so, while it used
(29:52):
to be really thinking of brandfor acquiring net new candidates
, it's now almost like hey, wedon't really have the highest
volume of roles anymore.
It's not only for net new, butwe really want to focus on
retaining the team we have andmaking sure our team feels good
internally.
And so we are seeing so I thinkboth are driving this increased
(30:16):
investment or same investmentas last year movement.
So, anyways, that is my theoryon and what I get from my six to
eight customer calls a week,frankly, is where the
investments are coming from.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Yeah, well, I'd love to talk a little bit about
referrals.
I know you brought it upearlier and we've so far been
focused on these questions fromthe advertiser, the employer,
the people spending the money.
But I think another lensobviously is the candidate, and
candidate experience is horrible.
Of course, I think that's beentrue for a long time.
(30:51):
Maybe there's some outliers outthere, but if you think about
this from the lens of thecandidate and, like you said,
these are often multi-yearjourneys you know it's not like
you just sat down and said, hey,I'm going to go buy a job on
LinkedIn and click something andyou know it's not.
It's not a really a straightline kind of thing.
And most experiences that peoplehave with applying for jobs is
(31:12):
you maybe you Googled a job andthen you clicked an apply link
and you got redirected 17 timesand then you ended up on
somebody's career page and youclicked apply.
And if you were to tell thecandidate that the last place
they ended up after those 17directs had the biggest
influence on why they appliedfor that job, I mean they would
laugh at you, right?
It's kind of absurd at facevalue, I think, just thinking of
(31:34):
it through the lens of thecandidate experience which
brings us to referrals.
Referrals have been used for along time and the value of it
through the lens of thecandidate experience which
brings us to referrals.
You know, referrals have beenused for a long time for, and
the value of it for employees oremployers is pretty obvious.
But you're seeing also thatreferrals seem to work a lot
better for tech talent inparticular.
I think I could guess why, butI'd love to hear it from you.
You know, what do you think isbehind the popularity of
(31:55):
referrals from the candidatespoint of view?
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Yeah, and to clarify, I don't think we're seeing it
work better.
I think we're just seeingreferrals jump from number four
last year in terms of how arepeople recruiting tech talent to
number one, and I think it's acombination.
It's one to your point earliercandidates are not thrilled with
(32:19):
a candidate experience today,and so they don't want to apply
to jobs that they're not gettingany responses to, and so
they're becoming disenchantedwith the whole job seeking
process, and so it feels easierand faster to come in through
referrals.
So that's one.
Two, I've also seen it from thecustomer side of things.
They've had to cut a lot oftheir investments of how they
(32:41):
attract talent, and now they'retrying to get their employees to
refer right, and so I thinkit's happening both directions,
and what I always like to say isbut it's not necessarily
getting them to where they needto be either.
They still need more talent andthey're still not satisfied with
their time to fill, even withreferrals jumping to number one
(33:04):
right.
So it's not the end game, butwe do need to make the job
seeking process better forcandidates.
That's something we internallyat Built-In are working really
hard on, to really make the jobseeking process so much better
than what it is today, becausecandidates deserve that, and I
think we need to eliminate someof the barriers that are causing
(33:26):
candidates to feel like theyeither have to just jump hoops
to apply to not get anyresponses, to connecting them
directly with hiring teams andactually getting a response to
their application right.
So it'll be interesting to seewhat happens as AI continues to
escalate.
(33:46):
Right Customers are also seeingfake profiles coming through
from certain platforms.
We're really keeping a closewatch on how will the candidate
journey change and how quicklywill talent platforms adjust,
adapt and help hiring teams dotheir jobs better?
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Yeah, well, you know, I think referrals are
interesting.
You know if you think of Iforget what guest has this
statement, so I don't want tomisattribute it, but one of our
previous guests in the employerbrand space says that you know,
brands are like a relationshipthat a company has with an
audience you know and to treat.
And so in the case of employerbrand, the disappointment with
(34:29):
these candidate experiences andI think it's related to this
question of trying to do a causeand effect linear connection
between an investment and areturn on that investment is
that it's very transactional,which is not really much of a
relationship.
And I think referrals areprobably one of the few places,
at least historically inrecruiting, where it does
actually begin with arelationship.
(34:49):
In this case it's somebody youknow quite well and I think good
employer branding builds uponthis idea that what we're trying
to do is cultivate arelationship, and this is a
multi-year process.
There's a lot of touch pointsand it's not that complicated I
mean, it's hard to get there,given where we've come from, I
(35:13):
think but we're just talkingabout treating people like
people and referrals is one areawhere it's an easy way to start
a relationship, at least Ithink.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Yeah for sure.
But what I always say is, thenwe revert back to the age-old
problem that customers used tocomplain about, which is, oh, we
built ourselves throughreferrals and now we have no
diversity of thought, nodiversity of skills.
You know, we have, you know,dominance from three
universities and twofraternities, and you know and
need to diversify.
And so there's a lot of cons tothe referral piece, right, and
(35:41):
so I.
But I think what we really needto solve for is treating
candidates the way they shouldbe treated.
These people are hand raisers.
They deserve a response,minimum, bare minimum.
They deserve a response totheir application.
I tell all my customers thisthey deserve a response because,
guess what, whether you thinkthey're qualified or not today,
(36:04):
they may be qualified foranother role you may have in the
future.
And they've raised their hand,they're interested.
So this goes to the whole.
Recruitment is marketing.
Like you know, not every leadthat comes inbound to our
marketing team at Built In isqualified, but you can.
I'm assured that we willnurture you and we will talk to
you if and when you do becomequalified.
(36:25):
Right, and so same thing withcandidates, and and we actually
heard, anecdotally, a candidatetell us that they did not take
or no.
A customer told us this.
Someone declined their offerbecause their good friend had a
terrible experience interviewingat the same company offer
because their good friend had aterrible experience interviewing
(36:45):
at the same company.
And so candidates talk in thismarket, and so everyone has to
assume that the way they'retreating candidates is the core
to their employer brand firstand foremost.
And so the one thing that'scoming up a lot right now, a
trending topic and I heard itthis week when I was traveling
in Boston with customers is thistheory of we also need
recruiter enablement.
(37:05):
So the employer brand teamsreally need to be spending time
with recruiters, enabling themon the talk tracks how to sell
like marketers right, becausethey're the ones selling the
brand.
And so it's a really coolconcept of how do you take all
this employer brand work andmaterials and then enable your
(37:26):
recruiters, just like marketersenable sales teams right.
Same thing Again.
I know the recruitmentmarketing thing is getting old,
but it's just.
The analogies are never ending.
It's how do we ensure thatemployer brand starts with the
candidate journey and goes allthe way through the life cycle
of someone staying with yourcompany, through retention and
(37:46):
you know, for years.
And so lots to do, lots to do.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Yeah, well, I think that we can go on about
recruitment marketing as a whole.
I think you really helped shinea light on.
You know some different ways tothink about recruitment
marketing.
You know marketing for some ofour organizations and it's nice
to hear someone that thinksabout things in a similar light.
Right, and like, hey,attribution's hard.
(38:13):
Like hey, ats data isn'tperfect.
And hey, the best and smartestcompanies are investing in their
brand because they recognizethey have to.
So I think, with all theuncertainty going around, maria,
it's nice to have a little bitmore of an exciting take on the
future of recruitment as a whole.
I do recognize we didn't evenget to talking about the
built-in trends report, so Iwill say we will certainly link
everything in the show notes too, because built-in is more than
(38:35):
just recruitment marketing as awhole.
So I'm going to leave with theeasiest question probably of all
, maria, and that's where canpeople find out more about you
find details about Built-inonline.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yeah, absolutely.
So obviously you can absolutelyconnect with me on LinkedIn.
You can always send me an email.
If I can be helpful to you,it's mariabuiltincom.
And.
Or if you're interested in whatBuilt-in does and how to
leverage Built-in forrecruitment, you can visit
employerbuiltincom.
And thanks for having me Reallyenjoyed the conversation and
(39:07):
love talking to like-mindedfolks All right.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Thanks for tuning in.
As always, head on over tochangestateio or shoot us a note
on all the social media.
We'd love to hear from you andwe'll check you guys next week.
Welcome to the Changing State of Talent
Acquisition, where your hosts,graham Thornton and Martin Cred,
share their unfiltered takes onwhat's happening in the world
of talent acquisition today.
Each week brings new guests whoshare their stories on the
tools, trends and technologiescurrently impacting the changing
state of talent acquisition.
Have feedback or want to jointhe show?
(00:21):
Head on over to changestateio.
And now on to this week'sepisode.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
All right and we're back with another episode of the
Changing State of TownAcquisition Podcast.
Super excited for our nextguest, maria
Christopoulos-Katras, founderand CEO of BuiltIn.
Maria, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah, super excited to have BuiltIn.
So you don't know this, but in2011, when you started Built In,
we started a company calledSeatsync in Chicago and we went
to pretty much every monthlymeetup that Built In started
hosting when you were growing,and so we've been big fans of
Built In since, quite literally,your inception.
(01:04):
One of my big gripes startingChangeState is boy, I really
wish in Seattle we had a techecosystem or a startup ecosystem
that built-in helped create inChicago.
So big fan of built-in.
But that said, why don't youtell us a little bit more about
starting built-in from your lens?
Tell us a little bit more aboutyour career journey first,
(01:24):
maria.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Oh, I appreciate that and that brings back some fond
memories, for sure, for sure.
I think you know it's justunfortunate.
You know the world's evolvingand we've had to evolve with it.
But thinking back to those dayswhen events were really big and
in-person meetups were big andright, all the incubators, you
know, everyone would huddleevery day at the incubators and
(01:48):
it was so special and it was sohopeful for companies at that
earliest stage in their journey.
Now it's just a lot of theevents like outside of I
jokingly say outside of peoplein sales who are really leaning
into events right now andin-person meetings, and it's
working really well.
I'm finding that most peopleoutside of the nine to five
(02:10):
don't want to, you know, networkand go to events and things of
that nature.
So it is interesting.
It brings back so many fondmemories.
So, yeah, that was built in inthe early days.
Fast forward to today.
We are now a global recruitmentplatform that helps companies,
from the smallest startups tothe Fortune 500, hire the
hardest to find techprofessionals, and we do this by
(02:32):
branding companies so they canattract, convert and ultimately
get candidates to apply to theirhardest to fill roles.
Why that matters today isrecruitment is marketing.
Recruitment was not marketingwhen built in first started.
We really set out to promotelocal technology companies and
in doing so, found that we weredriving really high quality
(02:53):
applicants into their funnel.
And that was before employerbranding was a term.
It wasn't even a term.
It was definitely not a roleinside a company, and so it's
been crazy to see how theindustry has evolved and how now
, for 75% of our buyers I wouldsay, recruitment, marketing and
employer branding sit undertalent acquisition as a core
(03:14):
pillar of the function.
So it's been fun to watch, it'sbeen a labor of love indeed.
As far as my career, I startedmy career in consulting.
I come from immigrantentrepreneur parents who
identified as being pharmacists.
My parents and I are Greek.
We were either a doctor or alawyer.
As a first generation kid ofimmigrant parents, they didn't
(03:35):
know what to think of me.
They thought I was going to bea lawyer.
Year of college switched mymajor to business Glad I did
that and just had some criticalpieces of my journey along the
way that led me to realizing I'man entrepreneur and it was sort
of like I've had these threelight bulb moments I like to
call them throughout my careerjourney.
The first is when a friend tookme to an entrepreneur's
(03:58):
organization event right after Ihad left consulting and I was
in a room full of entrepreneursand I was like, oh, this is me,
this is who I am, and I hadnever really identified that way
.
I'm aging myself right now.
But startups weren't really athing when I was graduating from
college as a finance undergrad.
You either went to work for abank or consulting firm, and so
(04:20):
it wasn't something that was topof mind, to be honest, and my
parents identified aspharmacists.
It wasn't something that wastop of mind, to be honest, and
my parents identified aspharmacists, not entrepreneurs,
but they were both, and so thatwas step one was just this light
bulb of like ooh, these are mypeople, they think like me, they
act like me, this is the worldI want to be in, and that led me
to start my first business.
And then the second light bulbmoment was when I ran a
(04:41):
nonprofit for a short period oftime for tech entrepreneurs,
between selling my first companyand then starting at Built In
and realizing that everyone wascomplaining what the tech
ecosystem in Chicago at the timedidn't have and really felt
like we had so much.
No one was talking about it Atthat point.
(05:01):
A number of founders andventure capitalists in Chicago
had met and together came upwith a name built in Chicago,
and Matt Moog, who was one ofthem, launched Built in Chicago
on a Ning site.
And when I got invited to jointhat site, it was like that was
my second light bulb moment ofmy career, where it just was
like, oh, this is what I've beentalking about.
(05:24):
And so here we are 15 yearslater, and I would say the third
was likely when I realizedfairly early on with Built In
that we needed to be global.
Obviously, being globally mindedmyself, having been raised by
immigrant parents, I really sawvery early how flat the world
(05:46):
was becoming and how flat itwould become in the future, and
so had bought essentiallyhundreds of domains globally
very early on in built-in days,and my co-founder, adam, always
laughs about it because he's hadto strip me away from a bunch
of them over time.
But what's funny is like it'scoming full circle, back to
location-based hiring, onsitehiring, locals coming back, and
(06:09):
so it's really fascinating tosee how we've gone from local to
remote globally now back tolocal, national and global, both
onsite, hybrid and remote andso yeah.
So I would say those wereprobably like the three, you
(06:29):
know, really critical pieces ofthe journey.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Wow, quite the backstory.
Thanks for joining us, maria.
You know there's a lot ofthings that I think we want to
talk about today, but maybe wecould start with something you
said a few minutes ago.
That feels a little bitprovocative, but maybe you could
just unpack it for us.
You said, when you firststarted built in and correct me
if I'm misunderstanding here butrecruitment was not marketing.
And during the time since wherewas that 2011,?
(06:55):
You've seen a major shift to, Iassume, a time now where maybe
recruitment is more likemarketing.
Could you just tell us what you?
Well, first of all, did I getthat right?
And secondly, in what?
Speaker 3 (07:08):
ways.
Is recruitment like marketingand not like marketing in the
current moment?
Yeah for sure.
No, you absolutely got thatright.
So the way I like to explain itis like recruitment 1.0, right
Was the job board era.
I mean, if you go past where itwent off newspapers, like, if
you really want to go back, youknow it used to be the newspaper
ad.
Then it became online jobboards and it was very simple,
(07:30):
like you posted a job ad andsomeone would find it and apply
to your job directly and itwould come through your African
tracking system.
Then it became, then LinkedInintroduced the world to sourcing
, like oh wow, like you don'thave to just sit and wait for
candidates to apply, youactually can go outbound and you
know, ping people and send themin mails, et cetera.
And then we walked into the eraof recruitment as marketing.
And what does that mean?
(07:51):
Effectively, it means the wayyou and I book our hotel
reservations, look for hotelsand book hotels and or
restaurants is the same waycandidates look for jobs.
And what that means and whythat happened is, if you think
about it, it was like.
What that means and why thathappened right is, if you think
about it, it was like the wholeproliferation of social media,
right, like influencer marketing, the rise of Instagram and Snap
(08:12):
and now TikTok, right.
And when you think about it,like I always use the analogy of
like how I booked my trip toItaly.
It's, you know, when we went toItaly last year, that was
informed by like a couple ofyears probably at least, of me
seeing people in my Instagramfeed, hearing my friends'
journeys, seeing where they weregoing on trips, like
screenshotting images.
(08:33):
You know that I kept in afolder and then getting research
across the internet where I'mlike, ooh, cool places to stay
in Italy, and starting my searchwith Google.
Well, guess what?
Candidates 55% of candidatesstart their search on Google
still to this day when they'relooking for things and that's
when they're active.
Just like, I started that whenI was active.
(08:54):
But, like all those brandmoments, like the two years
prior to me going on, that tripsuper influenced my short list
of where I wanted to go and likewhich hotels I wanted to stay
at, which restaurants I wantedto eat at right, and then,
ultimately, for my husband and I, when we book a trip, we book
it using American Express, right, and that's because it gives us
(09:15):
insurance and it's our creditcard.
My co-founder uses bookingscomright and he likes it for the UI
and they save his informationand he has his reasons.
Our CTO uses a totallydifferent platform to book his
hotels, and so I always use thisstory to say this is what
candidates are doing today.
They are seeing things aboutyour company you know on
(09:37):
third-party platforms.
They're researching you onthird-party platforms.
They're hearing their friends'experiences and who they're
interviewing with and what itwas like and what it was like to
work at said company.
They're seeing articles they'rereading and then, when they're
active like a true passivecandidate that's hard to find
when they're active, they'reactive for like 10 days.
At that point, their decisionhas narrowed down to a specific
(10:01):
set of companies they want totarget right and then ultimately
, where they apply well in thismarket.
Research will tell us, like inour data that we've just
released, referrals is coming inone behind job board platforms.
However, why is that?
It's because the market is moreflooded than normal and
candidates are not all gettingresponses to their applications,
(10:25):
and so they're leaning in ontheir network.
So they may go to LinkedIn seewho's connected.
They may send a note to alltheir friends come in through a
referral.
That way they may applydirectly through your careers
website.
Because now the job seekers arebeing told apply through the
career site, you'll have ahigher likelihood of being seen.
Is that necessarily true?
No, but so ultimately, wherecandidates apply isn't
(10:48):
necessarily what informed theirdecision at all, right.
And so we now are in a worldwhere recruitment is marketing,
where we have less visibilityinto why candidates discovered
us, how they discovered us, whatinformed their opinion right.
And so there is thismulti-touch sort of attribution
(11:09):
needed to really understand thestory of like how a company
truly finds value in theirrecruitment channels and their
recruitment partners.
And unfortunately, just therecruitment systems haven't
caught up to that.
But that is recruitment today.
Recruitment is marketing, andit just wasn't like that 15
years ago.
So that in and of itself iscausing a whole host of
(11:31):
challenges that we can get into.
But generally speaking, the morerecruiters can think like
marketers, bring marketers ontotheir talent acquisition teams,
the farther they're getting.
And so now we're seeing somecustomers at one end of the
spectrum who their entirerecruitment strategy is employer
branding.
First, they spend all theirmoney branding, they've cut any
(11:53):
kind of sourcing team, they pipein candidates into their CRM
and they're nurturing their CRM,running campaigns in their CRM.
They're sourcing inside theirCRM, not cold sourcing, because
now these are hand raisers,these are people who have some
familiarity with their brand,and so we have that at one end
with customers all the way downto customers who still believe
(12:15):
ATS source of higher data isaccurate, which it's not.
It's wildly inaccurate Becauseit's essentially saying where
they apply.
That doesn't tell you whatinfluenced them along their
journey.
And so the more we get more andmore customers and more and
more TA teams to embrace thisrecruitment as marketing, the
better.
But, as you know, it's going tobe a long road in education
(12:36):
because the industry, you know,we're not marketers by trade in
TA, right, and so it is afascinating challenge and one
that we feel very passionatelyabout at Built-In.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah, I feel like this is a walk down memory lane.
So you know, 15 years ago whichyou know, time flies.
First of all, talking about theearly days of Built-In that you
know, I was working on SeedSync, but I was still over at
CareerBuilder back in the day,spending my decade there cutting
my teeth in the job board spaceand everything you just walk
(13:10):
through, maria, is spot on andquite the journey.
What's interesting is we justdid our trend study and we'll
get into built-ins in a bit andthere are some ironic pieces in
there.
And I think what you justmentioned kind of reinforces
some of the challenges that TAfolks are seeing.
And that's like, hey, what'sthe hardest thing for us to
(13:31):
measure?
Return on employer brandmessaging or employer brand
investments?
But if, hey, if you had 25%more budget, where would you put
it?
Employer brand.
And so I think what you'resaying, maria, is, is reinforced
by some of this data.
And that's boy, the smartestrecruiting teams recognize that
you know what we really shouldbe investing more in our brand.
(13:53):
But they also are having thatsame challenge that you just
mentioned.
And that's boy, we know this iswhere money should go, but, boy
, we just don't know how tomeasure it.
And then the other challenge ishey, we don't know how to get
budget from our executive teameither to invest in.
We'll call it marketing rightand make it easy.
(14:14):
So I'm curious, where are youseeing brands, recruitment
marketers, sort of turn the page?
You know in that conversationand you know, is this just a
matter of hey, education ofexecutives and you know, and
talent leaders that you knowwhat we're just going to have to
understand and recognize thatATS data isn't accurate.
(14:35):
You know people are coming inthrough other channels and you
know, accept that it's not goingto be a perfect measurement.
Or what are those conversations, like you know, with the TA
leaders and folks that you knowyou're engaging with?
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yeah, oh, I love this topic so much.
So how do we talk about ROI?
When I speak about this to roomfull of heads of TA, especially
throughout the last three years, as so many tech companies went
through downturns, and they'relike help me tell the story.
My number one piece of adviceis stop, when someone tells you
(15:08):
what is your ROI on youremployer brand spend, stop
saying and looking at your ATSas your source of hire.
So when people say, oh, whatwas the investment in this tool?
Everyone's going, tool by tool,to see who they're going to cut
, who they're going to keep.
The worst thing TA teams can dois cite their ATS as their
source of truth for data,because that would be the
(15:30):
equivalent of my head ofmarketing coming to me as the
CRO of built-in and saying, hey,we're getting all of our
inbound leads, for the salesteam is coming directly to our
B2B website.
Well, I would say well then,great, so you don't need any
budget because everyone's justmiraculously coming to our B2B
site.
And they would say you'rekidding, right?
(15:51):
So why are talent acquisitionteams citing their ATS source of
higher data?
It will always, right now, sayyour career site and LinkedIn
are one in two effectively insome way, shape or form, whether
it's the volume from LinkedInor, if you're still outbound
sourcing, et cetera.
So that's not the story, right?
That's not the story.
(16:11):
I was on the phone with a headof global TA for a 20,000 person
company last week and he said,for all intents and purposes, we
look at ATS, source of higherdata is about 20% accurate.
And now this is a company whohas the means to fully embrace
the CRM pixel tracking,multi-touch attribution.
So they see the whole journeyand they get it and they
(16:34):
understand it.
Our goal is to get everyonethinking like this, because if
we keep citing ATS, source ofhigher data, ta teams will never
get the dollars they need toinvest in the tools and
infrastructure they need tomeasure ROI, and that's the
second part of this conversationthat's super critical.
If we have the rightconversations, educate the exec
(16:57):
teams on recruitment is nowmarketing.
So the same way we allocatebudget to marketing is how you
should think about us inrecruitment.
We then will get the budget toinvest in CRMs.
We will get the budgets toinvest in things like pixel
tracking right, because thatreally our buyers who can enable
a pixel on our platform, forinstance, see the highest
(17:20):
attribution because now they canfollow a candidate who
discovers them on built-in oruses built-in and leverages them
, but then they can see if theyultimately ended up applying
through their career site.
They know that we helpedinfluence that decision and
that's critical to thisattribution piece, just like any
other vendor you invest in, butso?
But the challenge is is thepixels and the CRMs.
(17:42):
They're really expensiveinvestments, and so this is why
we're seeing a lot of ourlargest enterprise clients doing
great and have moved in thisdirection, but the smaller and
mid-sized customers are juststuck, because they're stuck
with one investment, which istheir ATS, and ATSs do not do
multi-touch attribution, and sowe are, at the enterprise level,
(18:04):
seeing companies jump aroundtheir ATSs and start going
directly to CRMs, which I'mfinding really interesting and
wouldn't be shocked if that isour future.
We're seeing people separate outtheir CRMs from their HRIS,
even because their HRIS is toocomplicated to work within.
But I do think this how do wetalk about ROI?
(18:26):
How do we measure it?
And then those two will lead toinvestments and tools to
support measurement on the backend.
So really passionate again, andreally try to help our buyers
at least and educate them onlike, what can you do?
And even if you have access toGoogle analytics, like, work
with your marketing team.
(18:46):
If your marketing team usespixels, like, ask them to help
you, right.
And so we're really trying tohelp TA teams think and act like
marketers so they can get thebudgets and the funding they
deserve.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Yeah, I think this is great and, like you know, you
mentioned that I'll workbackwards.
Hey, work with your marketingteam.
You have Google Analytics.
You know, speaking fromexperience, I think you know
we're continually shocked howfar of a disconnect there often
is between, you know, marketingteams and recruiting and TA
teams, just in general andwhat's possible.
(19:20):
But I do love this idea of hey,we've been saying for a while
we do a lot of ATS selectionprojects.
The headline is no one lovestheir ATS, whether you buy a new
one or have an existing one,and I think part of the reason
people don't love their ATS isbecause that lack of flexibility
.
It can't do some of the thingsthat you'd like to do.
(19:41):
If you're thinking like aconsumer marketing team, and so
we've always said for a lot ofsolutions, you look towards
consumer marketing to see whatthey're doing first.
And the other thing is arguablyconsumer marketing tools cost a
lot less than recruitmentmarketing.
You know systems and toolsanyway, and so I think of when
(20:03):
we're turning on some you knowemployer brand, you know
testimonial videos and you knowyou go to an employer brand, you
know video site or platform andit's hey, we're going to charge
you 60 grand a year and youknow you can put out a video
every month and you know, go toa consumer video tool and it's
hey, we're going to charge you60 grand a year.
And you can put out a videoevery month and go to a consumer
video tool and it's hey, 1500bucks for the year, as many
(20:24):
videos as you want to create,and it's like there's no
difference outside of one markettowards recruiting.
And I do think that people seeit's kind of like I'm getting
married in three weeks.
You want to get someone to cometake photos of you for a
weekend, it's a, it's a hundredbucks.
So you want to go get someoneto take those same photos at a
wedding, it's a thousand.
And I think that you know many,many times you know, just
(20:44):
standing recruiting in front of,on the front end of it, you
know people charge 10, x andthat's just.
You know the unfortunate natureof how recruiting maybe works.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
That's such an interesting, it's such a valid
point.
I don't think in all the timesI've been talking about this, no
one has really highlighted thatit's so true.
It's so true.
It's like sell something toparents or dog owners.
You know, I would like to thinkthe more necessary it becomes.
I'd like to think costs willcome down.
But who knows, who knows?
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Well, maria, I love the analogies to consumer
marketing because that's what myback owners, folks who listen
to the show for a while knowthat, and I've always I mean
honestly we've been thinkingabout this question of how to
measure ROI of quote unquoteemployer brand investments
probably as long as changedate's been around, and it's a
tough problem, and part of it, Ithink, is this isn't even the
(21:34):
right question to be asking.
If you went to a consumer brand, a reputable brand, and you
would go, I can't imagine asking, in a consumer brand setting,
is it a good idea to invest inour brand?
And expecting some immediatepayoff?
And yet it's so obvious whenyou look at TV and the amount of
money that major brands thatare already well established
(21:55):
spend on advertising.
Clearly this has value, but Iguess do you think so, point
taken?
On the one hand, there's sourceattribution issues.
It is a journey.
There's a lot of channels thathave influence on a purchase,
not just the one that justhappens to be the final one
before the application getssubmitted.
But more generally, how do youthink about ROI as it relates to
(22:17):
employer brand Things thatwe're not even necessarily
looking at source attribution?
There's just bigger investments.
Is it a fair question to evenask you know what's the ROI of
this in a dollar and cents kindof way, or should it just be
understood as of course?
You should do this because youknow the employer brand is sort
of the container for allrecruitment marketing and of
course you need to invest inthat.
(22:38):
That was a lot.
I don't know if any of thatmade sense or resonated, but I
was curious how you think aboutROI with relation to employer
brand.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
No, a hundred percent .
You know, I was meeting with acustomer this was a couple of
years back and this customer wasone of the more forward
thinking in embracing this wholerecruitment as marketing
concept.
And when I said to him, how doyou get investment for employer
(23:07):
brand, he said well, easy.
I basically tell my CFO,recruitment is three pronged
it's referrals, it's sourcingand it's recruitment marketing
employer brand.
And he goes the first two I cantell you specifically their ROI
I'm going to get based on ourinvestment.
The last one, employer brand,I'm not going to, and it is what
it is.
You're just going to have totrust me that I need to spend a
certain amount on brand to getthe job done and it is what it
(23:28):
is.
And so I would say that is verysimilar to how CMOs talk to
their CFOs.
Right, they're always getting acertain level of investment for
specific demand gen activitieswhere they could point a direct
line to Like we're going to doan event or we're going to do
something else, where they havefull tracking and visibility.
(23:48):
And then they have brand spend,and CFOs know that they're not
always going to be able to trackspecific ROI against brand
spend.
It's just a known thing in themarketing world, right.
That has not translated yet torecruitment.
And what I would tell you ispart of this right is you have
the majority.
Almost nearly every global headof TA doesn't come from
(24:10):
marketing.
It's very rare and, if not,existent at best.
And so until we get to thepoint where all heads of global
TA look at their orgs andoperate their orgs like chief
marketing officers do, we're notgoing to get there.
So this question of cost perhire, cost per applicant, cost
(24:32):
for employer brandsmen, this isnot going to stop.
Now we do have ways to measureit.
They just aren't wildly adopted, right, and they're not
foolproof, but they can at leastgive you directional
attribution, and that's what Ialways say is pixel tracking,
like when we see we have acouple of customers who go we
could see their ATS source ofhigher data for an investment
(24:55):
like built-in.
We then do something calledhigher comparison reports where
again flawed at best, but we cansee if people did update their
LinkedIn profile and they hiredthem.
We can bump it up against ourown internal data.
It is not a light effort and itis not full, because a lot of
technical candidates don'tupdate their LinkedIn profiles
(25:16):
and so we can give you someattribution.
That way, our customers whohave enabled pixel tracking in
concert with a CRM tend to getthe highest attribution because
they can follow people aroundover a period of time.
It doesn't matter where theyultimately apply from or how
they ultimately get them.
But again, this is a multi-yearjourney.
(25:37):
At times, right, people aren'talways active today when you're
marketing to them, but couldcome in a year from now, and so,
again, there is a long way toget sort of what I call
full-blown attribution.
But now, when you're talkingabout companies who are doing
employer brand investments onbillboards or commercials or
things of that nature, no, likeit's going to be straight up
(26:00):
like consumer brand marketing.
Right, you're not going to beable to see direct attribution
and grab direct ROI, but it isjust part of the game now and
you have no choice.
And what we're seeing is it'sgoing to be even harder and more
important, because nowcompanies are hiring globally
and in an increasing volume, andthe global markets are becoming
(26:22):
more competitive.
Now, whereas people used tofocus on the US for employer
branding, now the need to brandin international markets is
becoming even more importantbecause of the fact that no
international market is the bestkept secret anymore and a lot
of Western brands are going intosmall international markets
competing for the same talent,so the problem is only getting
(26:43):
worse, which is great.
It's a huge opportunity.
I think we're a ways away fromre-educating CFOs and heads of
TA on the concept.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Yeah Well, I want to, you know, kind of click into,
you know this idea of peopleinvesting more in their employer
brand, maria, because in yourtrends report, I think one of
the takeaways and keep me honest, if we got this wrong is more
than half of your respondentsare now saying they plan to
either start or increase theiremployer brand investments in
(27:14):
the next year.
It sounds like the winds mightbe changing a little bit.
You know what's your sense of,maybe, why employers are
deciding that.
You know what it's time right,like, is this just a overall hey
, the market's getting a littlebit more educated.
Is it a, hey?
Is it a competition, you knowpiece where people are just a
(27:34):
little bit more fearful?
Or, you know, is this somethingthat we're not thinking about?
Like, hey, like a lot moreentry level AI?
You know tech roles, you knowwith.
You know with the increase inAI, you know skills requirements
, like what, you know, what doyou think is driving, maybe the
moment of now where people aresaying you know what it's time
for us to start.
You know ponying up and youknow investing in our actual
(27:56):
brand?
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Yeah, it's a great question.
I think there's a couple ofcomponents.
One is the shortage of highlyskilled tech talent, right, so
that's just increasing right now.
And while sort of generalvolume of software engineering
roles is going down, there areall these critical roles of the
future popping up that peoplehaven't recruited for or are
going to need to recruit for,and the roles like security with
(28:24):
cyber, sre roles, et cetera,are in such high demand right
now that they are still reallyhard to find.
So that's one is critical.
Highly skilled tech roles arestill super hard to find, and
especially in this market wheremore and more companies are
going to three to five days onsite, back to office mandates
(28:45):
are coming through and there'sglobal hiring needs.
All of that feeds into kind ofthe first reason.
I would say the second reason.
What's really interesting itdoesn't get as much attention,
but we're seeing it a lot rightnow is just the workforce we're
in today is exhausted.
People are unhappy.
(29:06):
The Wall Street Journal articleearlier this year cited that
the number of Americans wantingto switch their jobs has hit a
10-year high and the reason isespecially in tech.
We've been through a rough threeyears since 2022.
And starting this year, I thinkpeople thought it would be a
little bit better.
It's now volatile again in themacro, and so people are tired
(29:30):
and people are unhappy, and sowe are seeing more often than
not I would say in the lastthree to four months I've heard
more frequently than I've heardin 15 years how many employer
brand leaders are starting tothink about employer branding
for internal retention reasonsas well, and so, while it used
(29:52):
to be really thinking of brandfor acquiring net new candidates
, it's now almost like hey, wedon't really have the highest
volume of roles anymore.
It's not only for net new, butwe really want to focus on
retaining the team we have andmaking sure our team feels good
internally.
And so we are seeing so I thinkboth are driving this increased
(30:16):
investment or same investmentas last year movement.
So, anyways, that is my theoryon and what I get from my six to
eight customer calls a week,frankly, is where the
investments are coming from.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Yeah, well, I'd love to talk a little bit about
referrals.
I know you brought it upearlier and we've so far been
focused on these questions fromthe advertiser, the employer,
the people spending the money.
But I think another lensobviously is the candidate, and
candidate experience is horrible.
Of course, I think that's beentrue for a long time.
(30:51):
Maybe there's some outliers outthere, but if you think about
this from the lens of thecandidate and, like you said,
these are often multi-yearjourneys you know it's not like
you just sat down and said, hey,I'm going to go buy a job on
LinkedIn and click something andyou know it's not.
It's not a really a straightline kind of thing.
And most experiences that peoplehave with applying for jobs is
(31:12):
you maybe you Googled a job andthen you clicked an apply link
and you got redirected 17 timesand then you ended up on
somebody's career page and youclicked apply.
And if you were to tell thecandidate that the last place
they ended up after those 17directs had the biggest
influence on why they appliedfor that job, I mean they would
laugh at you, right?
It's kind of absurd at facevalue, I think, just thinking of
(31:34):
it through the lens of thecandidate experience which
brings us to referrals.
Referrals have been used for along time and the value of it
through the lens of thecandidate experience which
brings us to referrals.
You know, referrals have beenused for a long time for, and
the value of it for employees oremployers is pretty obvious.
But you're seeing also thatreferrals seem to work a lot
better for tech talent inparticular.
I think I could guess why, butI'd love to hear it from you.
You know, what do you think isbehind the popularity of
(31:55):
referrals from the candidatespoint of view?
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Yeah, and to clarify, I don't think we're seeing it
work better.
I think we're just seeingreferrals jump from number four
last year in terms of how arepeople recruiting tech talent to
number one, and I think it's acombination.
It's one to your point earliercandidates are not thrilled with
(32:19):
a candidate experience today,and so they don't want to apply
to jobs that they're not gettingany responses to, and so
they're becoming disenchantedwith the whole job seeking
process, and so it feels easierand faster to come in through
referrals.
So that's one.
Two, I've also seen it from thecustomer side of things.
They've had to cut a lot oftheir investments of how they
(32:41):
attract talent, and now they'retrying to get their employees to
refer right, and so I thinkit's happening both directions,
and what I always like to say isbut it's not necessarily
getting them to where they needto be either.
They still need more talent andthey're still not satisfied with
their time to fill, even withreferrals jumping to number one
(33:04):
right.
So it's not the end game, butwe do need to make the job
seeking process better forcandidates.
That's something we internallyat Built-In are working really
hard on, to really make the jobseeking process so much better
than what it is today, becausecandidates deserve that, and I
think we need to eliminate someof the barriers that are causing
(33:26):
candidates to feel like theyeither have to just jump hoops
to apply to not get anyresponses, to connecting them
directly with hiring teams andactually getting a response to
their application right.
So it'll be interesting to seewhat happens as AI continues to
escalate.
(33:46):
Right Customers are also seeingfake profiles coming through
from certain platforms.
We're really keeping a closewatch on how will the candidate
journey change and how quicklywill talent platforms adjust,
adapt and help hiring teams dotheir jobs better?
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Yeah, well, you know, I think referrals are
interesting.
You know if you think of Iforget what guest has this
statement, so I don't want tomisattribute it, but one of our
previous guests in the employerbrand space says that you know,
brands are like a relationshipthat a company has with an
audience you know and to treat.
And so in the case of employerbrand, the disappointment with
(34:29):
these candidate experiences andI think it's related to this
question of trying to do a causeand effect linear connection
between an investment and areturn on that investment is
that it's very transactional,which is not really much of a
relationship.
And I think referrals areprobably one of the few places,
at least historically inrecruiting, where it does
actually begin with arelationship.
(34:49):
In this case it's somebody youknow quite well and I think good
employer branding builds uponthis idea that what we're trying
to do is cultivate arelationship, and this is a
multi-year process.
There's a lot of touch pointsand it's not that complicated I
mean, it's hard to get there,given where we've come from, I
(35:13):
think but we're just talkingabout treating people like
people and referrals is one areawhere it's an easy way to start
a relationship, at least Ithink.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Yeah for sure.
But what I always say is, thenwe revert back to the age-old
problem that customers used tocomplain about, which is, oh, we
built ourselves throughreferrals and now we have no
diversity of thought, nodiversity of skills.
You know, we have, you know,dominance from three
universities and twofraternities, and you know and
need to diversify.
And so there's a lot of cons tothe referral piece, right, and
(35:41):
so I.
But I think what we really needto solve for is treating
candidates the way they shouldbe treated.
These people are hand raisers.
They deserve a response,minimum, bare minimum.
They deserve a response totheir application.
I tell all my customers thisthey deserve a response because,
guess what, whether you thinkthey're qualified or not today,
(36:04):
they may be qualified foranother role you may have in the
future.
And they've raised their hand,they're interested.
So this goes to the whole.
Recruitment is marketing.
Like you know, not every leadthat comes inbound to our
marketing team at Built In isqualified, but you can.
I'm assured that we willnurture you and we will talk to
you if and when you do becomequalified.
(36:25):
Right, and so same thing withcandidates, and and we actually
heard, anecdotally, a candidatetell us that they did not take
or no.
A customer told us this.
Someone declined their offerbecause their good friend had a
terrible experience interviewingat the same company offer
because their good friend had aterrible experience interviewing
(36:45):
at the same company.
And so candidates talk in thismarket, and so everyone has to
assume that the way they'retreating candidates is the core
to their employer brand firstand foremost.
And so the one thing that'scoming up a lot right now, a
trending topic and I heard itthis week when I was traveling
in Boston with customers is thistheory of we also need
recruiter enablement.
(37:05):
So the employer brand teamsreally need to be spending time
with recruiters, enabling themon the talk tracks how to sell
like marketers right, becausethey're the ones selling the
brand.
And so it's a really coolconcept of how do you take all
this employer brand work andmaterials and then enable your
(37:26):
recruiters, just like marketersenable sales teams right.
Same thing Again.
I know the recruitmentmarketing thing is getting old,
but it's just.
The analogies are never ending.
It's how do we ensure thatemployer brand starts with the
candidate journey and goes allthe way through the life cycle
of someone staying with yourcompany, through retention and
(37:46):
you know, for years.
And so lots to do, lots to do.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Yeah, well, I think that we can go on about
recruitment marketing as a whole.
I think you really helped shinea light on.
You know some different ways tothink about recruitment
marketing.
You know marketing for some ofour organizations and it's nice
to hear someone that thinksabout things in a similar light.
Right, and like, hey,attribution's hard.
(38:13):
Like hey, ats data isn'tperfect.
And hey, the best and smartestcompanies are investing in their
brand because they recognizethey have to.
So I think, with all theuncertainty going around, maria,
it's nice to have a little bitmore of an exciting take on the
future of recruitment as a whole.
I do recognize we didn't evenget to talking about the
built-in trends report, so Iwill say we will certainly link
everything in the show notes too, because built-in is more than
(38:35):
just recruitment marketing as awhole.
So I'm going to leave with theeasiest question probably of all
, maria, and that's where canpeople find out more about you
find details about Built-inonline.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Yeah, absolutely.
So obviously you can absolutelyconnect with me on LinkedIn.
You can always send me an email.
If I can be helpful to you,it's mariabuiltincom.
And.
Or if you're interested in whatBuilt-in does and how to
leverage Built-in forrecruitment, you can visit
employerbuiltincom.
And thanks for having me Reallyenjoyed the conversation and
(39:07):
love talking to like-mindedfolks All right.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Thanks for tuning in.
As always, head on over tochangestateio or shoot us a note
on all the social media.
We'd love to hear from you andwe'll check you guys next week.
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