December 2008
Help your advertisers
- to maximise the benefits of matching – they’ll be back for more
Matching is a unique and very valuable feature of the MatchWork proposition and no-one has yet come close to challenging the power and accuracy of our algorithm.
Everyone knows how the system works – lists of matching candidates in rank order are supplied to advertisers requesting matching shortly after an ad being placed.
But what happens next?
We have studied data from the first six months of 2008 to see if we could assess the impact and value of matching – and came up with some very interesting results.
Firstly, we found that advertisers fall into two categories – active and passive.
Active advertisers follow-up the match list, request release of the contact details and contact the potential candidates.
Every advertiser doing this gets a positive response, typically ranging from 50% to close to 100% of the contacted candidates and, over a six month period, we can see that quite a high number of matched candidates release their contact details on request.
Our analysis went further and we were surprised to find that quite a number of advertisers do not follow this procedure and, instead, wait for the matched candidates to contact them.
This is a mistake for one very important reason.
It can be the case that the candidates who are the best matches may, for a variety of reasons, be looking for something slightly different and won’t necessarily respond to the email alert. These candidates need prompting before they take a closer look at a specific opportunity which is similar to their current job. There may be other simple reasons – a full inbox, or perhaps a business trip, holiday or family occasion has provided a distraction – so, for many reasons, the prompt from the advertiser is of critical importance.
The evidence is conclusive. Advertisers taking an active approach gain an initial selection of highly qualified candidates very quickly. Those taking a passive approach get less value for their money.
So, remember to stress the importance of immediate follow-up to every advertiser paying for this service. You’ll find they will like the results they get – and return for more when the need arises.