Recommendations for restructuring the CBIZ applicant portal

Abstract:

As it stands, the CBIZ jobs site is great. It looks attractive, provides easy access to relevant links and information on CBIZ, and is professional. However, after finding a job to apply for and working through the application, that drastically changes. The Taleo applicant portal does not match the look or feel of the jobs site; it exists as a plain blue page for filling in fields and eventually acknowledging the fact that you have submitted an application.

Once you have submitted an application, the only provided links are to outdated CBIZ social media accounts. The Youtube channel hasn’t been updated in two years, the Facebook page hasn’t been touched in 3 months, and the twitter account provides no professional articles or information; it just posts job openings and links to apply. Beyond the Linkedin page, all of the other accounts do not appear as professional, relevant, or properly managed to display content desirable to CBIZ candidates.

After a candidate submits an application, we should be doing all we can to give them reason to want to stick around. The more candidates we have that follow through the interview process, the more power we have to pick the best candidates and improve aggregate employee quality.

Thus, I suggest that the portal should be altered to be as attractive and professional as the CBIZ jobs site. We consistently win awards for being a great workplace and employer, and we should be capitalizing on that as an area where we stand out when compared with other companies that candidates might be applying to. The portal should be full of information to draw in the new applicant and make them want to be a part of our company.

Additionally, the applicant portal requires that every applicant create a username and password to log into the portal. Yet, we supply no reason for candidates to log back in at any point. We do not send notifications when application status is updated, or even when a candidate is rejected. And even if they did log back in, again, there is no relevant content for them to look through. We as of now are giving applicants very little reason to want to stick with their application through the process. This does nothing but promote a sense of uncertainty and willingness to start looking elsewhere for a job.

We could alleviate this problem by providing reasons for them to log back in periodically (relevant content about CBIZ as an employer/workplace, etc.) as well as prompting them to do so. If we for example set up an automated email template to send to every applicant when their application went from “accepted” to “under review”, but just said in that email that their application status had been updated, there’s no candidate out there that wouldn’t want to check up on it. They want a job, and they would absolutely want to check in on their application status if prompted to do so. And we could also add in stuff like “by the way, be sure to check in on all of these recent awards CBIZ has won as an excellent employer”, etc., again with links provided in the portal. Applicants are then going to see these things, have more reason to want to get a job at CBIZ, and have less uncertainty/reason to initiate a job hunt elsewhere.

All of this is possible to do within Taleo, as far as I understand it.

Issues/areas for improvement on our current portal:

Attached Youtube page that hasn’t been updated in over two years Attached social media accounts that aren’t all that relevant No attachments or exposure to CBIZ employer awards No available information on CBIZ as a company No pictures of CBIZ or its employees No notification sent out as application was received, status changes, etc. No notification of rejection After being rejected, candidate can’t log back in to view status as rejected Background and text boxes of site do not match the color or pattern of other CBIZ sites CBIZ logo not present After application has been submitted, the portal of a logged in candidate displays no content

other than links to search for other jobs to apply to

Proposed solutions:

1. Restructuring the recruiting portal on Taleo:

The physical appearance:

The portal as is does not match our careers site or overall look and feel of our other company websites. Both our home intranet page and our careers site/talent network have a white background with forest green overlaid text boxes. Gold and blue are the two colors used to compliment the green. Gold is largely used on the white background standing alone, while blue is largely laid over green text boxes. On the white and gold backgrounds, plain black text is used, while white text is used over the green and blue fields.

There are a plethora of customization options for the applicant portal (generally referred to as the “career center” within Taleo administration functions), as shown in the instructions below:

Headers and footers are used as well on most all of our company website pages. The header would feature the CBIZ logo consistently throughout the pages (see below for how to upload images to insert into the header). The footer provides consistent links for information on CBIZ. Terms of use, and the privacy statement are largely provided on most all the pages. Additional links could be provided as well, possibly that link back to our main website. This would allow candidates to have a provided route back to our site to see what we as a company have to offer and how we showcase ourselves after they submit their application. Other links along these lines can be inserted on a page-by-page basis, but I think at least this one would be beneficial to have provided in a consistent location on every page the candidate would access.

Here are a few examples of headers we use to reference look and feel:

Adding images:

Beyond the headers and footers, all of our sites include images to showcase the positive and attractive work environment that CBIZ strives to provide for associates. These often times accompany the links provided to give information on CBIZ, to provide a more tangible preview of sorts of the associated link. Additionally, they simply serve to provide a more welcoming atmosphere about the site, and give people a positive impression of our company. It’s been stated that we want to give everyone the best possible impression of CBIZ, whether or not they may get a job here. Being that this portal may be the final page they see after submitting an application and the first thing they see every time they log back in to check up on their application status, it might not be a bad thing to spruce it up with some attractive images.

Removing outdated social media links:

As noted above, the recruit portal currently has buttons that link to Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and Linkedin. Linkedin is the only one of these that’s really been kept up to date. I can’t find information on the user guide to figure out how to remove these links, but I’d assume it would be found somewhere under administration in customizing layouts/formatting.

2. Email updates and statuses: Statuses:

It’s entirely possible to customize the number and specificity of statuses that we have for applicants. For example, we could have “resume received” to “resume reviewed” to “phone interview pending” to “phone interview completed, recommended for ___”. I’m not suggesting we follow that particular layout, but the point is that we can use these statuses to trigger notifications (as shown below) to control when and how we send out information to a candidate and get them to check in on their application status. As I have stated before, in order to engage candidates, we want them to keep in touch with their statuses on their own and in a manner that puts minimal extra work on recruiters, interviewers, and HR departments.

With what I’m proposing, we would just have to set up a system of statuses and corresponding email alerts, and update candidate statuses as they move along. This would supplement our normal hiring processes. Emails would not only provide information on CBIZ, but also links to showcase the positive aspects of our workplaces so that candidates can become directly immersed in what CBIZ has to offer. Upon receiving a notification of a status update, candidates would also likely want to log back into the portal to check on their specific status, which as noted above would now have links to the CBIZ home page, attractive pictures, a professional feel, etc. And by doing so, and giving candidates more information, they would likely have more engaging talking points for upcoming interviews, as this would prompt them to prepare and be more ready to have an in-depth conversation about CBIZ with interviewers.

Status triggered emails:

The intent is all pretty much explained above, but here are some instructions on how to set those up:

Email templates:

These templates can be used to create customized emails for status updates that can be regularly sent out to candidates once they reach a certain point in the process. A different template can be used for each status, to ensure standardized information be sent to appropriate recipients. Status-based groups of recipients can be designated to receive particular emails.

Below are a bunch of example email templates. One that jumps out at me is “interview reminder”; this could be something we use to send out information/links a set amount of time before an interview to cast us in a positive light so that the candidate comes in with an already positive impression, and again have more to talk about in-depth during the interview itself.

Candidate rejection emails might also not be a bad idea to consider. This way, we have an automatic, standardized way to professionally communicate with candidates that they didn’t get the role. This provides an objective and balanced notification to prevent notions of unfair hiring practices or anything along those lines in order to maintain the best possible impression of CBIZ. And, we could be including links to encourage candidates to look into or apply for other positions.

Additional notes:

I believe that these areas of focus could, if used effectively in conjunction, provide candidates with increased repetitive engagement with CBIZ. In the aggregate, this would help us retain a greater number of candidates as well as increase positive exposure of our firm, even to applicants who don’t obtain a position here.

I do not personally have experience with HTML coding/formatting, so I have no means to do any of the page layout restructuring. I don’t know if any of you do either. The email templates and other functions seem easy enough to configure through the administrative Taleo interface.

The instructions throughout this document are the best I could come up with from the user guide, though I haven’t been able to look through them firsthand. I believe that these are the correct sequences available for the edition of Taleo that we have, as far as I can tell. Additionally, there are lots of video tutorials provided by Taleo on how to customize the site, which can be found under their resource center at: http://www.tbetvonline.com/index.php

So, you guys are free to take this and use it as you see fit, if you believe it will help to mitigate the issue of candidate retention. From my perspective, a lot of what I’m proposing here is modeled on what colleges are doing to try to prove themselves to be the most attractive option and maximize interest through reiterative engagement. I think CBIZ has a lot going for it in terms of being a very attractive option as an employer, and should be doing stuff like this to capitalize on those aspects.

My last day on the job here will be this Friday, 8/12. But if anyone has any questions or wants any other feedback, feel free to email me at dtubs213@gmail.com at any point throughout the year. I’d be more than happy to help.