So in the run to Christmas I may have had the need to visit some e-tail outlets. Time poor / inspirationally barren – who? moi?!
Anyway – something struck me on one particular site. Hadn’t been there for a good while (maybe even 12months previous) – but I went back and forth to it a couple of times over a few days. Didn’t purchase. Indecisive? As if!
Anyway – I then get an email from this site offering me a 20% discount incentive to convert my browsing to purchasing (which I did – Tight? Never!).
Coincidence? Now I’m not certain, but I actually don’t believe so. It would make perfect sense that they had a means of tracking my activity as a one time customer (most likely Cookie based), and rather than pestering me all year round and risk my annoyance followed by a swift request to be removed from their database for ever more, they wait for me to return to their virtual shopfront again – and then, when I’ve identified myself as a “ditherer”, use their intelligence to incentivise my repeat business. Impressed? You betcha!
And it got me thinking – it’s a whole virtual world of wonderment out there, and yet are we guilty of dragging our feet too much in the recruitment world? Imagine a facility that really knew who was back browsing your site and alerted relevant recruiters when a relevant candidate was coming back into a position where they could be more open to influence by particular elements of the employer brand / proposition. But then I got to thinking - does it really matter how pioneering solutions providers are – I’d be interested to hear how many of the “other than run of mill” facilities UK plc recruiters actually use. My money says that like with most of us and our use of Microsoft packages – they probably only harness a tiny fraction of the power it offers.
So are there any readers of this blog from one of the plethora of ATS providers who can / are willing to comment on how their systems are used? Perhaps I’m very wrong and actually an encouraging percentage of recruiters are working their systems and facilities effectively and efficiently – communicating with their candidate base and embracing new innovations to facilitate better employer brand penetration. Or is the “talent pool” more of a “talent swamp” were interested potential employees are left to fester with little contact or hope of being engaged – until next time they happen upon the employer again (probably on a job board) and realise on trying to apply that they actually have a candidate account from which to apply already?
Go on – stop me from being such a cynical bugger in 2008.
:)
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