You can improve your chances for a successful hiring campaign if you follow these three guidelines. Effective recruitment starts with: 1) defining your employer brand, 2) clarifying your candidate personas, and 3) developing your strategic playbook. The Industrial Marketer podcast offers up a roadmap.
You can improve your chances for a successful hiring campaign if you follow these three guidelines. Effective recruitment starts with: 1) defining your employer brand, 2) clarifying your candidate personas, and 3) developing your strategic playbook. The Industrial Marketer podcast offers up a roadmap.
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the industrial Marketer Podcast your place for the tips, tech trends and tactics for industrialists who care about driving leads and revenue to their businesses. As you already know, I am one of your hosts industrial marketer mega fan, Joey Strawn. And as always, I am joined by Who else but Nels, how are you, man?
Nels Jensen:I'm doing great. Doing great excited to talk about today's topic, do a lot of work on this on the my day job. And I think we have some good stuff.
Joey Strawn:I agree. I think that this is a topic, it's one of those where we're diving a little bit deeper into the industry, because we're talking about a very specific issue. That kind of is an umbrella issue that focus over a lot of b2b and industrial sectors and markets right now. You know, Nelson, you and I were brainstorming about what would be a good topic would be something that a lot of people need, and a lot of people are talking about right now. And we've landed on workforce, there is a lot going on in the world of workforce right now. Whether it's recruitment, whether it's the the age gap, whether it's the workforce gap, whether it's, you know, driving business or interest into industries in particular. And then very, very specifically, we've got a lot of hiring issues and needs to fill positions that just aren't being filled right now. And so there's a lot that goes into that we today, Nelson, I have decided to focus on it from an industrial marketers perspective. So we talk a lot about how the industrial marketer is a collaborator, you're working with sales, you're working with the business leaders, you're working with your service, you know, departments to make sure that customers are being taken care of, and that your narrative, you know, is communicated correctly. But one thing that we haven't dived into on this show yet and we want to today is how you can collaborate with HR and how you can as an industrial marketer, truly drive benefit to the workforce related issues that your company is facing? I mean, nails this is a topic that when I said, Hey nails, what are you reading a lot about? And what are we writing a lot about, that our industrials are focused on you, this wouldn't jumped out immediately for you. I mean, what are you hearing? What are you seeing out there in the world? What are people dealing with?
Nels Jensen:Yeah, well, you know, workforce is by far and away the number one topic for the manufacturing extension partnership, one of our one of our clients, the MEP centers, consultants, who helped small manufacturers with a wide variety of issues, whether it's how to be more lean, whether it's supply chain management, whether it's industry 4.0, adoption, you know, they're in touch with small manufacturers all across this great country of ours. And in their most recent survey, workforce was easily the runaway number one topic, and it is it is falling under the realm of marketing in many ways. It's like you can't just keep doing, you know, the skilled workforce issue and manufacturing has existed for a long time. And it's, it's evolved at an even quicker pace with the sort of pandemic driving just overall workforce changes. And they obviously have direct and indirect impacts in the manufacturing world. But it's, I think the key point for the industrial marketers out there is that, you know, yeah, you need you need to bring your A game for every facet of your company, right, you know, just as we've talked before you open up the hood and look at your operations. And, you know, manufacturers are historically good troubleshooters. And they're resilient. And they, you know, they, they understand how they can become more efficient, and it has worked to their advantage, if they can become more efficient in the front office, it's work to their advantage if they can be more, you know, efficient with their finances, it's become if you have a, you know, a more efficient recruitment thing, you're way ahead of the game now, and one of the key elements of that is, how are you reaching out into your communities to find key people, you know, so right, there's definitely a messaging and, Mark, you know, there definitely tactics, strategies and tactics, that work that industrial marketers should be aware of.
Joey Strawn:Right, and well, and, you know, it's not as easy as well, you know, in the olden days with our HR director, he would put up a job on monster or career builder or, you know, whatever job boards we were using, and we would have a flurry of applicants, and we would be interviewing people and getting them and our shifts would be filled and, you know, whatever be the word of
Nels Jensen:mouth, right? Legacy families, right. And you had friends of workers, they invited their friends to come work there. And, you know, yeah, and so a lot of the workforce changes obviously I have changed that. But also the industry perceptions to you know exactly what manufacturing is, is grungy work and it's potentially dangerous work or it's a noisy facility or, you know, I'm gonna be on my feet all day or I'm gonna, you know, machine all days hard, you know,
Joey Strawn:I can speak from experience, there are a handful of organizations that we have worked with personally that their entire purpose is to change the perception around what an industry is like, you know, there's Manufacturing Day that's really dead set on folk changing the idea that manufacturing like you said, now, sir, grimy, grungy jobs that they're not up to date, you know, technologically advanced jobs. You know, I know that there are organizations within the woods sector doing the same thing to say, it's not just working in a in a sawmill, it's not just working at you know, with lathes. And those days, it's a very technologically advanced, very modern industry. And there are these just perceptions. And so that's what I think is interesting now is that there are struggles and there are hurdles, that HR reps that marketers and companies are running into where communication narrative and nurturing the things that we do as industrial marketers, really can come into play, because, like you said, said analysis is not as easy as just throwing something out into the market is the you've got skilled labor gaps, we've got industry perceptions, that it's hard work, you know, and a lot of cases, that flat out is just hard work, and it's not fit for everybody. And then outside of that, I mean, you and I were talking about this the other day is that, you know, even the pay increases, you know, it the the industrial sector has this reputation of of having slow pay increase, and, you know, they have studies that have come out. So they're, they're fighting all of these different perceptions. And that's where I and you truly believe that as an industrial marketer, we can come in as that partner, because that's where communication, that's where nurturing, and that's where a constant surrounding of a message to a prospect really, really comes into play saying you're looking for a job, we have a job that you should have that you shouldn't want.
Nels Jensen:The right, the reality is, is that manufacturing does have high paying careers. The majority of manufacturing jobs now basically rely on STEM education, you're talking about engineers, you're talking about software, I mean, the the amount of work now that is based on, you know, the operating machines through interfaces, and you know, whether it's, you're on the floor programming via tablets, or on the machine, or remotely or whatever, it's that, you know, you're not you're more likely to be supervising a set of machines than you are to be actually operating a handle aid. I mean, that's it's part of the perception and things that have changed, and how you go about reaching engineers, how you go about reaching software, you know, experts is very different than the general purpose, you know, oh, how do we get people to come to our place to check us out? It's, it's a, it's a different approach. And it requires as what doesn't this day and age and much different digital approach, right? How do you who, you know, who are you trying to reach? And how are you reaching them? Right?
Joey Strawn:I agree. And you know what, I think that's a great place to start now. So we have a fantastic second half of the episode, we're inviting an expert who deals in workforce recruitment, day in and day out. So we're going to talk with Dan, the media man and the second half of this, but I think that you've just introduced a great way to talk about how us we industrial marketers can help this process. And one thing that I want to hit on is what you were sort of touching on is that the journey, like we know that prospects are looking for a job. So if we can put it into marketing terms or marketing think, if you will, we know that those prospects are also going to go on a journey. So as our marketing content is our marketing journeys, and our nurturing efforts are leading business prospects and targets through the target journey. If we can think of it the same way as a customer journey, then we can follow the prospect along a similar journey we know that they're going to either a know they want a job or kind of passively be thinking about it, they're either going to be searching for it or in places where we can get messages in front of them. We need to give them a conversion place and then a path to get a you know, the X thing that they want, which is a job so we can follow the same type of theory when we're thinking of the steps along the journey is you know, what channels would people be present in when they're looking for a job? Job boards, obviously, but what advertising what remarketing? What programmatic services can you get in front of the correct people when they're looking for it? job or right after they've been looking for a job to tell them about your opportunity. So there's a lot as marketers we can bring to the equation that an HR representative or an HR lead may not be thinking about or may not have the tool access to bring to the table. So be thinking of what partnerships you can provide as an industrial marketer to that effort and leading that prospect along their hiring journey. Yeah.
Nels Jensen:And I would back it up a step also, Joey, I think, let's not underestimate the nature of a lot of small manufacturing companies, second generation, third generation. And still, you know, now dealing with the tribal knowledge that's aging out, you know, the whole workforce dynamic changes of I'm just going to say, the past three years, you know, where it is, now, you have to be with the, you know, the smaller workforce, population, right, so only decreased by three 4%. But that has a huge trickle down impact into a lot of industries. So, you know, you have to be more employee focused than you were in the past, right, people are looking for, it's not just, you know, what do you do for me, but they're looking for companies that are good for the community, that they're good for the, you know, environment as well, right. It's like all about collaboration. It's all about how, how do you fit into the big grand world? And so there's a different message that a lot of manufacturers have to figure out how to what they're going to tell people in Yeah, you know, we can we can get caught up in the tactics, but it does start with the message. It's so you know, why do and understanding for a lot of you can help your manufacturing companies and your manufacturing clients with, you know, helping them craft that message is, it's Yeah, so oftentimes we try to look at why do people, you know, we have retention issues, why are they leaving? Well, there's also a way to look at why do people stay? Yeah. And that tells a very powerful story. And if you can leverage that you can get people to stay longer, and be more engaged. So really, it's, it's all about there's there's a lot of transformation that's going on in the workforce. Now, across all sorts of sectors and manufacturing is definitely included. There are people who figured out, yes, we have a lot better perks that we offer for people, and we're you know, I mean, manufacturers are evolving, because they have to, and, but I think, you know, understanding that message is key so that when you go out and and try your new approaches, and you try to reach new pipeline talent pipelines, that the message will resonate. So yes, it's it's don't overlook the, the key main message of why do people stay? Why do they come to your place? Why do they stay? And why should somebody want to work there? It's not, you know, that transformation has happened. People aren't just showing up for work because they need work.
Joey Strawn:Right? Well, and you know, and there's, there's data that we can look into it, and people, you know, leave it to me to bring it back to the data side of it. But the data equation of it all is, let's look at what our applications are looking like, do we have a lot coming in, but no one's getting hired, we do not have enough coming in? Are we getting people hired? And then our retention rate, you know, is people leave it above 100%? You know, what's, where is the disconnect? Because it may come down to well, we're not getting enough attention. So we need better marketing collateral, we need a better message, just then, hey, we're hiring engineers, maybe it's, we're giving engineers you know, free tuition or something and get a different message in front of them. Or maybe it's something different, maybe you have a lot of applications coming in the door. But nobody's coming to orientation. So somewhere between that first step and the orientation step, you're losing them. And maybe there's collateral or email or a phone call, or something that needs to happen in that gap. Or maybe, like, as you said, now, so people are coming and then just bailing, then that's a whole other question. You know, like, maybe look to look into which phase we're losing people at and then exactly the data direct, or that attention needs to be
Nels Jensen:So if I if I hear you correctly, Joey and I think I am you're saying that these touch points, just like you use your CRM to measure your prospect touch points and you can look at okay, where, where are the key junctures where people qualify, or where are the key junctures where they drop out or where are the key junctures where they convert. So you're saying we could be doing that with our recruitment or attraction, our recruitment and our onboarding, too.
Joey Strawn:I am saying if there is if workforce and recruitment is an area that is a company is struggling with that that's very much a place to look to help diagnose that. I think those tactics, the things, the strategies, the activities, and the optimizations now that, that we as industrial marketers live in every day, those are the same ideas to bring to the stage here. Because just like with any, you know, we've got CRMs, that will set up on the marketing side and the sales side to track a deal and a lead. There are applicant tracking systems, you know, recruitment. I mean, trucking recruitment has a big one in 10 Street, that's the one that everybody uses, or, you know, there's jazz, and there's a handful of different applicant tracking systems. But those are where you can set those gates. And if you have the data, it's like, Well, every time we post a finance position, we get 150 applications, and then nobody's qualified. But every time we post an engineering job, we get zero application. Sure. So you know, so where was that? What does that data look like? What are the systems telling you?
Nels Jensen:What are your what? channel knowledge, right? How are we? How are we our efforts on LinkedIn? What's the data for LinkedIn? What's the data for a job board? Whether it's indeed or monster or whatever else? What are, you know, your niche places that you're going specifically for engineers, for example, or specific right for, you know, maybe you're looking for health and safety officer, you know, you're you're probably not going to have the same success on a general place as you might with you need some expertise with compliance, kind of whatever. So yeah, it's, it's all,
Joey Strawn:I'm so happy that you said the phrase, channel knowledge. Because that is, is something that is huge. It's something that we as an industrial marketers can bring to the table is that, you know, and I'm not gonna say it for every company, I'm not gonna say it for every industry, but you may find that your HR guy is like, I hate LinkedIn. I've never used LinkedIn and LinkedIn is terrible. And you as a marketer could bring to the table, you know what I think we could find a lot of candidates for what we need that position we need, if we were to use it, let me look into it and see what I can do to help. You know, that's where that partnership and that collaboration can come into play, because the HR director is going to know all the specifics and the hiring particulars that need to be included in the outreach. But you may know the channels better, you may know that there's a very unique job board for engineers in the marine industry, that your jobs aren't on, but you're looking for engineers in the marine industry. So that type of cross education can help a lot.
Nels Jensen:And and LinkedIn is a social platform. And sometimes the power of your own employees drives results to where it's like, okay, so your current employees have networks in you know, your current engineers may have some networks that could help you leverage that via social channel, your, you know, again, that doesn't mean it's the be all end all but again, the channel knowledge right, what are right, right. And I think there's some basics too, we can't overlook the basics too, like in the terms of general website content. You know, we always joke about we don't joke we always point out, Hey, make sure your websites current, right, make sure that you have that current product information that you know, if your salespeople like, Oh, God, that's like that stuff's all right, well, then update it. Well, that's the same for what it's like to work at your place. Every company, every manufacturer ought to have a why you should come work here, video on your website. And it should be great. It doesn't have to be fancy. But find your ambassadors find the faces that you know, tell your story the best. And just you know, it can be a 92nd video, especially manufacturers make cool stuff. It's always cool to see stuff made so right. You know, it's like your website content. Don't overlook it, right? This step, the 100% and best thing that the workforce experts say you can start with is the why you should come work here video, right? Simple. Don't overthink it. Yeah, it helps if you have a nice fancy one. And maybe do you need to spend some money on it, you don't need to spend a fortune on it. But you could put something together that has why people stay why they come to work there, what they like why they stay, you know, that's a very basic, but it's a foundational element.
Joey Strawn:Well, and I'll say you know now it's one of the things that that you and I talk about a lot with this show is wanting there to be applicable benefit to it and applicable benefit for the listeners. And I think if there's one takeaway from this part of the show, it's that if you have anything at all have a really well done good looking, why you should work here video if workforce recruitment and recruitment is an area of concern for your company. Yeah, have that and either put it on your about us page or work for us page. or, if you really need people to work there, put on your homepage and link it to your opportunities, like get it front and center, if you if you're needing that to be put to you. So yeah, and leverage yours that you should have, leverage your, you know, your people to help you with that, too.
Nels Jensen:You know what it's like, they, they are your, you know, your most powerful ambassadors, and in many cases, I'm just going to be ageist and just say, hey, get some of your young hip, you know, technically savvy people to help you. And, yeah, you you can, you can go a long way by leveraging your internal assets on that one.
Joey Strawn:And I'm gonna, I'm gonna be a just on the flip side and say, once you have those young people helping with the channels, ask the older people who have been there a long time, why they've stayed so long. Yeah. And then use that as your content and marry those two sides of the business, the why we stayed and the young, technologically savvy, but bind them together to tell that story for your brand. Yeah. So now, I think we've, we've shared a lot in this first section, but I am really itching to go talk with Dan, the media man, and see what he has to say about the world of actually getting media and outreach and outbound marketing to try and help drive recruitment. Because again, as you and I have said, in the first part, the workforce is a big topic right now that a lot of people are dealing with this in different ways. And so you want to head down to the shop floor and see what Dan has.
Nels Jensen:Yeah, did Dan lives in this world? Let's go. Let's hear. Let's hear it. Yeah,
Joey Strawn:I love it. We'll head on down there. And we'll be right back. Oh, now, that was such a long walk down to the shop floor. I'm exhausted. But I'm so excited that we're here because we have brought back to the show. Dan, Dan, the medium man, the man with the plan. I'm so happy because Dan deals, media recruitment and outbound media and recruitment strategies and thinking all day long. And he's he's great at it. So now see you and I were like, well, who better to talk about workforce with us than Dan. So we roped him in. We pulled him through many portals many multiverses and he's here now. Dan, welcome back to the industrial Marketer Podcast.
Dan Fitzpatrick:What's going on? What an intro? Thanks.
Joey Strawn:Oh, you're very welcome. I we were excited, because, you know, you haven't listened to the episode yet. But the whole first half of the conversation was about workforce and recruitment and the struggles that the industrial and supply chain sectors are dealing with right now, you know, we talked about, you know, there's a skills gap, but it's been there for a while, there's new digital channels, and niches that are out there that, you know, that are hard to break into. There are, you know, industry perceptions, and pay gaps and all sorts of things? You know, you're you're dealing with this stuff on a day to day basis. What sorts of challenges do you see advertisers and marketers running into when trying to find workforce when trying to deal with recruitment and find people to work these jobs?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah, really, really, there's a myriad of challenges that we're facing right now. And, you know, like you mentioned, so my job is kind of within the paid media strategy. And, you know, let's say, our client is Acme, and we're previously we were developing ways to, you know, get their advertisements out there as a premium forging facility. Now, it's shifted almost entirely to okay, how do we get people to work at this? And that? Yeah, yeah. And that's really, that's a challenge, because they're, we're not alone in that boat. So many of the media channels, many of the job boards are flooded with a lot of similar companies within the same industry. So really, you know, separating yourself and figuring out what, what it is that applicants are looking for. And what it is you can offer that matches that. And really putting that out to market creatively. Is, is sort of the silver bullet, while it's also a huge challenge to get there.
Joey Strawn:Right. Well, I mean, and elsewhere, one of the things that you and I talked about in the first half is that it's not as easy as just saying, Hey, we're hiring engineers, you know, now, so you were talking about making a message and having that narrative.
Nels Jensen:Yeah, you know, it's obviously the evolution of the workforce to be more employee focused and employee centric is front and center for a lot of people. But um, you have a lot of tools that you're working with Dan. So now you're you know, you're able to bring some data to the table to perhaps get people to look at things a little bit differently, are there things that are emerging? In in the, you know, sort of recent past that you guys can point to that, hey, you might not be aware. But, you know, here's something that we're seeing across different industries or across different channels.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah, yeah, from like a macro perspective. For all of our workforce recruitment clients, we saw a flooding of applicants going back to September 2021. That's when the unemployment benefits from a federal standpoint, began to kind of be cut off, if not cut off entirely. So they sort of flooded the market. Yeah. So what happened then, is everybody got comfortable? And everybody said, okay, look, applicants are back, Labor's back, we're in a great place. Now, that was just a blip. We're back down in terms of, of applicants for a lot of our clients from that September peak. So really a big challenge is making sure that we're continuing our recruitment efforts and not letting not letting up.
Nels Jensen:So is the focus become more conversion, than just generating leads to help help us understand the dynamic and how you can drill down into some of these different facets of recruitment?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Exactly. So for us, you know, we want to be the path of least resistance. So as minimal friction as possible, is important. That's why we establish kind of a quick app system for many of our clients where you can fill out just a couple of lines, and you'll get somebody from that company on the phone calling you almost immediately. That is a huge advantage. Because these people when they fill that out, that's a very high intent. They're looking for a job in that moment, and they're interested. But what do we really want to measure obviously hires, but from there, they usually do sort of a longer application, or they'll take a facility tour. So we're starting, you know, the funnel, the employment applicant funnel, it's not just binary of the job seeker, somebody hired. Now, there's layers within the fall. So we have to sort of speak to people and nurture them, as they go through an applicant process and are courted, so to speak by other similar companies.
Joey Strawn:Yeah, I mean, and as you were saying earlier, having that message is, is going to be critical to that. So you were saying having some sort of, you know, quick app process, knowing that people need quick turnaround, someone on the phone has driven some success, there are those sorts of the strategies that you see a lot of people working towards is raise your hand, then then as soon as you raise your hand, we're, we're biting on it. were attacking, you know that hand to us, you know, a violent analogy, but is that, you know, Dan, sort of some of the successes and some of the approaches that you've seen, is that more, almost a gated approach of let's get in front of them as quick as possible, and then get to the details.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah, and kind of continue with your violent analogy. It's sort of the first 48 It's sort of like the first 48, that TV show about, you know, solving crimes in the first two days. One of our one of our clients, which is truck driver recruitment, they're very candid about it, as soon as a quick app hits their box, if they're not in the pipeline, and offered a position within 48 hours, they're gone. They're off to another company. So that's exactly like you're saying, get them in, or you have two days to work it before it's gone. Yeah.
Nels Jensen:But you're, you know, ultimately, you raised a really key phrase earlier, reducing friction, right? So you You're, you're already at the intense stage. So reducing friction becomes critical. And, you know, so I guess, are you finding that a lot of a lot of folks in the industrial sector are having to redo their processes? Is this? Or is this just captain obvious where they they had to or they've already fallen behind?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Part of our approach is absolutely taking a look at that entire process. And almost certainly with all of our clients, we're recommending, redoing the way that they were previously hiring, just to reduce that friction that we're seeing. So, you know, part of that approach is, you know, hey, do you have an employee referral program? And you learn about that and you say, well, and then you know, folks, like you knows you'll go And then we'll interview these employees and say, Look, if your best friend was applying to this job, what do you say about the company? Because the answer we need to get to is why Acme? Why would somebody work at Acme versus, you know, Steve's plumbing company down the street. So those those clues that we can learn from them, and really challenge these organizations to identify what their culture is, and how that's advantageous, and how what they're offering, you know, beyond pay, what how what they're offering, separates them from the company down the street.
Joey Strawn:Dan, I was
Nels Jensen:So glad that you just said that, because I brought that up before the break.
Joey Strawn:That's what I was gonna say, as I was so glad Nelson, you're so glad that he brought that up. I, I and I love this train of thought. So Dan, I'm going to ask us to stick here for just a second. Because those are some very tangible good questions to ask, you know, if your best friend was working here, what would you tell them? You know, about why you work here? Do you have a referral program? You know, those types of things? What are some other good questions that you've seen to kind of help jog the conversation because part of our conversation, or Nelson i in the first half of this, Dan was talking about where an industrial marketer can play a lot of good ally to a recruitment personnel is helping craft that story, helping craft that narrative. And some of these questions can really drive that story.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Absolutely. So you know, even talking to an HR person within these organizations, if they have that, about exit interviews that they've done, especially for people who are leaving, you know, what we're finding is we'll bring it will increase applicants will reduce that friction, and then within a week, they're leaving the organization. So that means there's something wrong with what we're putting not just what the message that's being put out there is. But there's some disconnect as to what the actual job is, and what the company culture is. And you know, how a day in the life actually is at the company? And what's being sort of put forth in the application process. So learning from folks who, you know, maybe not even last a day, which happens, they leave at lunch. Why did he leave? What did they tell him? Oh, the job was different than they thought it was. The company was different than they thought it was. The other employees were different than they thought they were going to be. Those are really key questions to find out. Because when we talk about reducing friction, one of the key components of that is making sure that the applicants not only are qualified, but know exactly what they want to do. Because once you start onboarding somebody, it just really sets you back when they leave immediately.
Joey Strawn:Right? Especially if they're like leaving, it's like, All right, well, I have filled out an application, I have gone through the onboarding process, it is day one, I'm going on my lunch break, and I never returning, you know, there's a lot of wasted effort in advertising dollars and onboarding time and personnel time in, in that string of disappointment, if you will. And so making sure that and then Dan, one of the things that Nelson I talked about in the first half as well was identifying where those drop off points are. Because as you as you hinted that if you have a lot of applications, then okay, the message ad that you put out there is good, if you have a lot of hires, than the way you're selling the job and your HR team are doing a good job. But if you're losing people after the hire, or if you're losing people, both after the application, and before the hire, now you know where to explore. And unfortunately, the real part of the real truth of this is that if it's hard, you know, if it's after the hire, there may not be a lot that an industrial marketer can do an effect for that reality. But, you know, that's what the data is leading us towards. So, you know, as an industrial marketer, we can help with the input, we can help with the interest, we can help with the awareness and the attraction. But you know, in telling that in that narrative, but follow the data, follow the numbers and follow those drop off points. Dan, we've we've kept you a long time. I know you've got a lot going on and you're in a in a busy hiring environment right now. In Are there any final parting words that you want to leave us with before before we let you get back to the your job?
Dan Fitzpatrick:Yeah, no, I mean, I think we really covered it all, especially with the challenging questions, because, you know, as industrial marketers, who, when we, when we talk about brands, when we talk about what your company is sometimes it's so product focused and so customer focused. This actually gives a really good opportunity for organizations to start focusing on their people and start developing okay, what is it I'd like to be here. What is it like working here? And you know, when you answer those questions, all of a sudden, you might become better at answering the questions about what are your customers? Like? What are your customers like about you, that isn't just product focused. And, you know, there's sort of becomes this more emotion to it for lack of a better word. And that's, that's exciting when we're able to challenge our clients. And when we overcome that, we learn more about them. Yeah.
Joey Strawn:And that, I think is fantastic. And, Dan, thank you so much, again, for taking time and coming to talk to us about workforce today. We this is a big topic, and you, you are in the trenches. And so we wanted to learn from your experience. So thank you for bringing that to us today.
Nels Jensen:Yeah, so really like the way you Yeah, I love the way you tied the culture and the human element into it, right? We have the tools, we have the data, we, we can look at what's working and what's not working, but you know, yes, focusing on the people for Well, for one thing, if you're not people focused, you're going to struggle with recruitment now more than ever, but yes, it's ultimately about it's ultimately about culture. And, you know, if you, if you are employee focused in your own shop, then that does help you become customer focused with your outward work, too. Yeah, it's not just technology, not just tools, it's also culture.
Dan Fitzpatrick:Exactly. And I know you were asking about metrics earlier. And just to kind of put a bow on that, too, is, of course, you know, part of our discovery, when we start when we undertake a recruitment program is well, what's your current cost per hire? What's your current timeline? How long does it usually takes you to get somebody from applicant to hire, because that sets up our KPIs, and that's what we start driving towards, with a myriad of different media channels, whether those are job boards, whether those are really search, whether it's the, you know, video, video ads towards, you know, a specific segment that we want to push towards becoming, you know, this profession or joining this organization. So, there is a lot of data that we utilize as well, and I didn't want to get I didn't want that to get lost in the shuffle here.
Joey Strawn:No, I think this has been good. And honestly, I doubt this will be the last time we talk about workforce and workforce recruitment and marketing on the show. So Dan, well, we'll have you back. And we can dive deeper into the data of workforce recruitment and and really spend some time diving into that and giving people some helpful advice on what to look forward and what questions to ask. So thank you for joining us today. Thank you listeners for another episode of the industrial Marketer Podcast. Please feel free to if you haven't subscribed, you've got to subscribe. I don't know what you're doing. Go on your friends phones and subscribe there too. We want you to listen and we want you to sharing we want you conversing with us. If you have thoughts, questions, ideas for topics that you want us to do. Email Nelson, I we check the email daily its podcast at industrial marketer.com. And if you haven't been to industrial market or.com There is a wealth of content over there for you to read, subscribe and also share. So go over there subscribe to us, follow us on on the socials as well. We want this to be a community and we love when we can grow and learn together as industrial marketers. But now, thank you for joining me on another fantastic episode today.
Nels Jensen:Yeah, thank you, Joey and thank you to Dan, the man.
Joey Strawn:Yes, and for listeners and until next time, I'm Joey. He has been nows and we are the industrial Marketer Podcast. Thank you so much.