Sound Strategy: Revolutionizing Job Postings with Audio

For a moment, consider the number of messages you come across online in a single day. It could be related to products, services, news, and employment opportunities. How many such messages do you encounter?

Research findings paint an enlightening picture:

• According to one survey, active job seekers view an average of 38 job advertisements daily during their online job hunts. This figure fluctuates based on the specificity or broadness of the job search.
• Regarding overall online messages, it's estimated that the average office worker receives around 120-150 emails daily, a considerable portion of which are work-related.
• The surge in messaging and social media platforms like Slack, WhatsApp, or Facebook Messenger means people are likely seeing hundreds, if not thousands, of messages daily across their different accounts and groups.
• On top of these, the number of notifications across numerous smartphone apps and accounts adds up swiftly. One study discovered that an average individual receives approximately 63.5 phone notifications daily.

Now, factor in TV ads, digital billboards, and word-of-mouth recommendations; we are bombarded with messages. How does your message or job opening stand out amid this sea of information? To tackle this, let's journey back in time and trace the evolution of what was formerly known as classified advertisements.

Dating back to the 1700s-1800s, classified job listings first appeared with the proliferation of print newspapers. Initially, these were simple text advertisements, neatly categorized under headings like "Help Wanted" that detailed the job openings, salaries, and qualifications required. By the late 1800s-1900s, industry-specific recruiting became commonplace, with many professions publishing job openings in their respective trade journals and publications. Newspapers gradually enhanced their classified sections, introducing bold fonts, borders, and other formatting elements to make advertisements more striking.

In the early 1900s, private employment agencies emerged, assuming some of the recruiting duties from companies. They facilitated applicant screening and connections. The mid-1900s witnessed the rise of radio and television broadcasting, opening up new avenues for job advertising and making them interactive. Starting in the 1990s, the digital revolution birthed dedicated online job boards like Monster.com with searchable databases of text-based listings. As the internet expanded, company websites, general classified sites like Craigslist, niche job boards, aggregators like Indeed.com, and social media dramatically increased job ad channels.

Modern technology allows job ads to incorporate multimedia elements like video, offer quick-apply features, and utilize automation for targeting, text analysis, and more. We've been exploring these new interactive features at Suzy to understand end-user behavior better. We tested with pictures and videos, leading to an incremental rise in interaction and more applications. That's when we stumbled upon Puck, a leading employer branding and candidate engagement platform.

We were looking for a unique spin on our job openings. While videos didn't quite cut it, audio was gaining popularity. The idea to incorporate audio came from Suzy’s Speed of Culture podcast featuring our CEO, Matt Britton, interviewing Gayle Troberman, the CMO of iHeartMedia. The discussion revolved around the rise of audio listeners, sparking the idea of introducing audio to our job descriptions. Essentially, a podcast-like feature that offers job seekers a glimpse into our company before they even interview with us.

With Puck, this was a simple process. We selected a few individuals within Suzy, Puck's podcast host, interviewed them, and had engaging audio content, both long-form on our careers site and concise snippets on each job. We introduced a staff member relevant to the team of that specific open role or a high-level view of the company and culture of our CEO, Matt Britton. But Puck's work doesn't stop there; they're considering recruiting as "talent marketing" and extending the features to include company landing pages, team pages, or quick interactive interview guides. Check out some of our open roles with the interactive audio below:

Director, HR Operations

Enterprise Account Executive

Software Architect

Site Reliability Engineer

From simple newspaper listings to the dynamic, internet-based job ads of today, the classified job ad has witnessed a significant evolution in distribution and format over the centuries, adapting to new technologies while maintaining its fundamental role in aligning jobs and applicants. Our bet here at Suzy is that audio will be the next frontier.