Ad agency workout

For those that visit a gym you will have seen the various types of members.  The people that amaze me the most are those that do everything in a hurry with no finesse or control and wonder why, 12 months later, they still look like someone who has never visited a gym.

Clearly no real focus, measures or plan; just do it all, sweat a bit, look busy and surely it will work?  I'm sure most 'normal' people would consider them fools and wonder why on earth they would attempt such a ridiculous activity with no 'measures of success'.  I agree!!

So why is it that I constantly see HR letting their Ad Agency do the same with  online recruitment activities?

Chuck a load of cash at it, forget about measures (until maybe a year later), no finesse, loads of everything; then still reliant on recruitment agencies and wondering why.

Although it seems pretty obvious, just having a plan and some defined measures before starting will hopefully make both parties think about what they need to do (before they do the doing) so that they can measure the results of the do!

Some of the measures could be:

• Volume of site traffic increases (make sure you know what you currently get).
• Type of visitors i.e. new versus returning.
• Mix of referral sites and how it changes from paid for (e.g. job boards) to free (e.g. search engines).
• Number of registrations for e.g. recruitment newsletters.
• Number of applications.
• Number of direct/non-agency hires even if the exact source is not known.

There are of course other measures that could be included but any are better than none.  So stop sweating and just focus on a few relevant measures; progress is better than perfection!