Programmatic recruitment is an innovative solution that allows companies to optimize their recruitment processes.
Appearing in the 2000s, this model has revolutionized the traditional advertising approach and allowed the HR sector to solve the lack of visibility and applications.
Indeed, it aims to reach talents everywhere online, notably by automatically distributing job offers to qualified candidates on digital advertising media.
Thus, it allows recruiters to save time by reducing the difficulty of recruitment campaigns and optimizing the company’s attractiveness to candidates.
In this article, discover the approach of programmatic recruitment and its stakes for a company.
The foundations of programmatic recruitment
Also called programmatic HR, programmatic recruitment is a form of advertising targeting specialized in recruitment.
This model relies on the use of automated technologies to target candidates more precisely in order to optimize the recruitment process.
The technology behind programmatic recruitment
Programmatic recruitment is a 2.0 recruitment approach that is based on technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning.
These automated tools utilize massive data or Big Data collected through cookies from candidates’ web browsing to highlight job offers corresponding to these candidates’ online behavior.
In other words, programmatic HR is founded on the use of data, algorithms, and platforms for the automatic dissemination of ads, targeting of qualified candidates, and management of the selection process more efficiently.
Its main goal is to optimize the visibility of job offers according to the interests of target candidates.
The concept of precise targeting
Thanks to personal, behavioral, and professional data collected, recruiters can refine their advertising campaigns to specifically reach the most relevant candidates.
Precise targeting enhances the visibility of the company and its offers across various online advertising channels. Similarly, it makes talent search more effective and faster.
Thus, programmatic recruitment is beneficial for both the employer and the candidate. This automation approach to sourcing reduces acquisition costs and increases the rate of qualified profiles.
You can monitor these rates by using the appropriate recruitment KPIs.
The advantages and stakes of programmatic recruitment
The implementation of programmatic recruitment by a company offers a number of advantages. However, it also presents some challenges to consider.
The advantages of programmatic recruitment
Between time savings, cost reduction, and improvement of candidate quality, programmatic recruitment offers many significant advantages.
Efficiency and time saving
Based on detailed data of the sought profile, programmatic recruitment is primarily a reliable, efficient, and fast approach.
In principle, sourcing steps in recruitment involve several stages: personality tests, logic tests, analysis of a CV database, online CV databases from job boards or professional networks (like LinkedIn, Indeed, etc.), and so on.
Thanks to precise and effective targeting, a programmatic recruitment campaign promotes a significant time-saving by relieving the first time-consuming stages of the sourcing strategy.
This model allows recruiters to almost effortlessly reach a wider audience, composed both of qualified talents actively seeking work and employees open to professional opportunities.
Cost reduction
Another advantage of programmatic recruitment is related to its relatively advantageous budget compared to the costs incurred through traditional acquisition channels.
In reality, thanks to Machine Learning technology, targeting algorithms are continuously optimized. This ongoing optimization promotes increasingly effective targeting of the best candidates.
As a result, acquisition costs are reduced, and the rate of qualified applications is increasingly high. This automation allows recruiters to reserve themselves for value-added tasks like logic tests, interviews, etc., for selecting the best candidates.
Improvement of candidate quality
According to a study conducted by LinkedIn, the leading professional social network, it turns out that nearly 79% of potential candidates are passive. In other words, these are talents who are not actively searching for a job on job offer sites and who do not share their CVs.
This assumes an active potential candidate rate of about 21%, which significantly reduces the impact of CV sourcing approaches. In this difficulty, programmatic recruitment presents itself as an effective approach to also reach passive candidates.
By opting for programmatic HR, recruiters no longer have to wait for candidates to visit specialized job offer sites, often flooded by competition.
This solution consists of distributing a sponsored job offer through programmatic advertising software to source candidates directly where they are on the internet.
Enhancing employer brand
Besides the advantages listed above, programmatic recruitment also allows companies to improve their online visibility. It offers them the opportunity to communicate their values through a variety of media:
- Company videos;
- Native Ads;
- White papers;
- Animated banners, etc.
By communicating about their company culture, teams, and working conditions, this captures the attention of potential candidates and contributes to optimizing the recruitment process. But for this, it is crucial to choose the right sourcing tool.
Challenges to consider
Certainly, programmatic recruitment is advantageous in many ways, however, it is important to highlight some crucial challenges.
From an ethical standpoint, the use of candidates’ personal data raises questions about the protection of their privacy. Therefore, it becomes crucial to establish ethical standards to ensure responsible practices.
Another major challenge is related to the confidentiality of information about candidates. On this issue, companies must adopt rigorous measures to protect this sensitive data against any violation.
Finally, adopting programmatic recruitment requires rapid adaptation of HR teams. For effective implementation, it is important that they are trained in new technological skills and the use of recruitment algorithms.
Steps to integrate programmatic recruitment
The implementation of programmatic recruitment follows a three-step process.
Defining clear and precise objectives
The first step is to define clearly and precisely the targeted objectives. In the context of programmatic recruitment, it is possible to set three types of recruitment objectives:
- Traffic objective: this type of campaign aims to increase the number of visitors and applications;
- Awareness objective: this aims to enhance the employer brand of the company;
- Conversion objective: this objective aims to promote job offers and encourage candidates to apply.
Objectives are crucial for defining the settings of a recruitment campaign. However, some advertising tools such as LinkedIn Campaign Manager and Google Ads already incorporate pre-set campaign formats.
Establishing the target profile of the ideal candidate
Once the campaign objective is defined, it’s time to proceed with audience targeting. This can vary depending on the campaign objectives.
If the objective is to valorize the employer brand, it may be relevant to direct the advertising strategy towards a broad audience. In the case of sponsoring a specific job offer, the ideal is to target a typical profile of candidates.
This candidate persona will allow selecting internet candidates based on precise criteria, such as:
- Age;
- Experience;
- Interests;
- Geographical location, etc.
Purchasing advertising space
To reach the target, it is necessary to go through a Demand Side Platform (DSP) to purchase advertising space sold by sellers.
The purchase operates on a principle called Real Time Bidding (RTB). It is conducted through auctions in real-time on a marketplace and is won by the advertiser who bids the most. The latter will see their ad displayed on internet users’ screens during their browsing: this is called an impression.
The process of buying advertising campaigns is fully automated. Investment choices are guided by algorithms and data that determine the most effective bidding strategies.
These are based on the match between the candidate audience and job offers. The recruiter only pays when a potential candidate, likely to apply, shows interest in their offer.
The operation of programmatic recruitment: In summary
Based on data and algorithms, the operation of programmatic recruitment is similar to that of an advertising campaign.
During their web browsing, internet users generate huge amounts of data on their searches, interests, geolocation, visited pages, etc. This data is analyzed by an algorithm to display tailored job offers to them. The distribution of offers operates according to the purchasing process explained earlier.
Thus, while surfing the internet, the candidate-internet user discovers the job offer as targeted advertising. By clicking on it, they are invited to apply through a form or a company career site.
This fast and effective approach of programmatic recruitment is undoubtedly the best method available to companies to optimize their recruitment processes.
