ALC - CareerArc blog

Nearly 60% of candidates have had a poor candidate experience, and 72% of those candidates shared that experience online or with someone directly. We surveyed 1200 professionals to find out why.

We asked 826 job seekers and 374 HR professionals on their thoughts on the State of the Candidate Experience, focusing on each stage–from the application, notification, and beyond– and we found several disconnects between what candidates expect and what employers deliver in the applicant process.
The infographic below follows the applicant journey, revealing surprising stats, and the risks and opportunities they present today’s employer brands.

Silicon Valley has become the mythical land of “unicorns”–the term coined to define the 100+ tech startups valued at $1 billion or more. But in the past few weeks that fantasy hit a few snags with news of devaluations of prominent tech unicorns, including social messaging app, Snapchat, and HR benefits startup, Zenefits.  

As Fortune and the WSJ report, Fidelity has marked down the value of its investments in Snapchat by about 25 percent, and of Zenefits by about 48 percent. According to the WSJ, Zenefits has cut employee salaries and curbed employee benefits.
This news comes soon after several recent layoffs in tech, helping fuel talks of an impending pop in what some perceive is a more volatile tech bubble than the dot-com blow of the 90’s.
Related: Webinar – 3 Keys to Protecting Your Brand in a Downsize: Lessons from the Tech Industry
NYT tech and business writer, Nick Bilton, illustrates in his recent Vanity Fair piece how the tech bubble debate is hitting home, becoming the central topic of both opening address and casual conversation at a recent glitzy Silicon Valley event hosted by renown VC firm and major Zenefits-backer, Andreessen Horowitz.

Related: How to Prepare for Layoffs – 3 Tips for Tech Companies
One of the most notable points Bilton makes is in reference to the 1,070-ft Salesforce tower now under construction and soon to eclipse the hallmark peak of the Transamerica tower, a defining symbol of San Francisco’s skyline for nearly four decades. Bilton explains why monuments made in the name of empire building may actually serve as signs of bad times ahead:

After the NYT exposé of (allegedly) Amazon’s “Bruising Workplace” and following the quick rebuttal from Amazon employees and execs–including from CEO Jeff Bezos himself–highly differing opinions began surfacing from all corners of the media.

On one side were those who blamed the company for instituting a culture of overwork and sabotage, as claimed by the testimonies of Amazon ex-employees. On the other side were those who suggest Amazon employees knew exactly what they were signing up for. Somewhere between were those who ask if we could really blame Amazon for “perfecting what the American work culture created?”
Beyond the deluge of opinion pieces, and before getting lost in debate, what employer branding lessons can we all take away from this story?

 

If you’ve read any HR publication these past weeks, you likely already know the top three trends that will impact human capital in 2015:

In last month’s issue, we covered the top trends to impact human capital in 2015, and chief among them were increased turnover—up by 44% in 2014—and the increased focus on retention and employer branding.
Our recent survey, The 2015 Workplace Flexibility Study, comes right in time, revealing the types of workplace benefits organizations invest in and how these programs are actually swaying job seekers and retaining employees. The study also uncovered a powerful disparity in employee and employer views of work-life balance:
While 67% of employers feel workers have work-life balance, 45% of employees disagree.
Is this overestimation of employees’ work-life satisfaction hurting organizations? We found that companies’ estimation of employee work-life balance wasn’t the only area employees and employers failed to see eye-to-eye.

Protecting one’s employer brand is more important than ever as social media and review sites have become the online employee bullhorn to rave and rant about workplace practices.
Layoffs in particular have been observed to incite instant employee reaction on sites like Twitter, and companies have become more vigilant in defending their reputation and finding more preventative ways, such as providing career and transition assistance to affected employees, to get ahead of a bad review.
But do unemployed workers really use social media to discuss jobs, employers, and their employment status?
A recent study weighs in on the topic: Researchers from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid mined and tracked a database of 19.6 million geo-located tweets published between November 2012 and June 2013 in Spain—a country plagued by a crushing 24.4 percent unemployment rate.
The study found these 3 surprising correlations between Twitter use and unemployment:

We released new data today with WorkplaceTrends.com on workplace flexibility and work-life balance in a study entitled the “2015 Workplace Flexibility Study.” We surveyed over 1,000 professionals (both employed and unemployed) as well as 116 HR leaders to understand their views on workplace flexibility.
Interestingly, 67% of HR professionals think that their employees have a balanced work-life, yet almost half (45%) of employees feel that they don’t have enough time each week for their personal activities. While that disconnect exists, HR leaders are certainly aware of the benefits of workplace flexibility in their recruitment and retention efforts: