Why Corry Prohens is a Genius

If you don't know who Corry Prohens is, you should. He is a god. The god of analytics recruiting. At last Wednesday's Accelerate Boston conference, Corry Prohens of IQ Workforce gave some excellent tips to hiring managers on how to improve the hiring process and attract the best candidates. From my perspective as a candidate who's been on endless rounds of interviews over the past few months (and in years past), his advice is brilliant. Here are some of his top tips and my interpretation as a job seeker.

1. Don't jam all of your company's needs into one job description.
This leads to conflicting interests among interviewers. Invariably there will always be one dissenting voice, and no consensus will be reached. The result? The job will stay open for months.

My interpretation as a candidate: You are not grounded in reality. What unrealistic expectations will you have for me if I work here? 
 I can't tell you how many times I've interviewed for a position that had been open for 9 MONTHS or longer. Last summer I interviewed for a position that had been open for almost 2 YEARS! During one phone screen the hiring manager told me they were looking for someone with marketing strategy, campaign management, Omniture tagging skills (yes, YES, this is a home run!)...and, wait for it, developer skills such as javascript and the ability to write your own apps. Wait, WHAT? Do you want a marketer or a developer? You couldn't have divided that into two different jobs? Needless to say, I didn't make it to the next round and the job remained open.

2. Don't put the candidate through endless rounds of interviews. 
Cap it at 7 for  Director, 5 for a Manager and 3 for an Analyst. Don't give HR one of the rounds.

My interpretation as a candidate: Don't you have the authority to make a hiring decision? If I work here how many layers of approval will I need to get something done? Don't you trust each other to hire competent people? 
I can think of at least 3 occasions in which I've been put through 13 interviews. Yes, I said 13. On two of those occasions I received an offer. On a third occasion a few years later I was convinced I was going to get an offer, but after each round of interviews they asked me to come in AGAIN for another round. The third time it happened it seemed like they were just digging for something not to like about me. Simultaneously I was interviewing with a company that really seemed to want me and only made me interview with 4 people. Even though it paid less, I was more inclined to work for them. So when I got the offer I accepted immediately. The other company must have finally found something they didn't like about me, because they didn't extend the offer. And I was approached by a recruiter a year later for that same position, so I know it stayed open for a very long time.
On the flip side of the coin I was once asked my one of my colleagues to interview his candidates for some open developer positions. I told him that as a marketer I didn't know enough about development skills to lead a successful interview and that I fully trusted him to make the decision.

3. Give the candidate feedback. 
If you don't, it will only hurt your company.

My interpretation as a candidate: This company doesn't treat people well.
I can't tell you how many times I've been led down an extensive interview path, having spent countless hours on interview "assignments" such as writing up case studies and creating powerpoint presentations, only to hear absolutely nothing. This has even happened on several occasions when the company went to great expense to fly me half way across the country, put me up in a hotel, and interview with 8-10 people. You have to be really interested in a candidate to get them to that point. So if there was something specific about me that you didn't like, please tell me what it is so I can address it going forward. Or if the position was suddenly restructured or taken away, just let me know. No hard feelings. That's happened quite a few times, especially in this economy. But to say nothing seems rude. And when I do find a position and need the services your company provides, I'll be less likely to hire you or recommend you to my friends in the industry, because if you don't have the courtesy to get back to me after we've gotten to know each other, then how will you treat me as a client?

Employers take note: when hiring picks up - and it WILL - good candidates are going to take the path of least resistance. So if you want to hire the best people, don't raise any red flags like the ones listed above.

Trendslide's Recap of Accelerate

Here's a great recap in tweets of yesterday's Accelerate conference at the JFK library in Boston.
My favorite pic shows who was tweeting the most courtesy of Randy Zwitch:

Accelerate Boston

I'll be at the Accelerate conference at the JFK library today. This event is free! If you are there, please be sure to say hello. I look forward to meeting and reconnecting with everyone in the analytics and marketing communities!

Google announces free tag management tool

Today Google announced its free tag management tool Google Tag Manager. The tool allows marketers to set up and store all of their tags in one container without enlisting the help of IT, thereby allowing marketers to implement campaigns more quickly. I've personally had to wait weeks (sometimes months) for the developers to set up my tags - a huge problem when you're trying to promote sales of a current month's magazine.

Here's a quick video on how the tool works.

DAA Boston Chapter Event

This morning I was thrilled to attend the Digital Analytics Association Boston Chapter's Event, "Trends in Mobile, Testing & Optimization, and Your Career" held at Fidelity Investments in downtown Boston.

Raj Aggarwal of Localytics gave a very interesting talk on trends in mobile. Here are some of his key findings:

• Engagement on ios is 40-50% higher than Android.
• Downloads shouldn't be your primary success metric for mobile apps, because they find that 21% of users tend to leave - they use the app once and never again.
• ios beats Android in terms of retention, primarily because the ipad offers more opportunities for engagement.
• He declared the era of paid downloads dead and that publishers are shifting to more sophisticated models such as in-app purchases, subscriptions, and commerce within the app.

Raj had some very interesting insights in terms of metrics and the importance of shifting away from traditional web metrics for measuring apps, because they simply don't apply. For example:

• Session and events are the primary use metrics instead of page views, because apps aren't a collection of pages.
• Location support is difficult. The web method of tracking IP addresses doesn't work because oftentimes it looks like everyone is coming from certain carrier gateways.
• Understanding offline usage is critical, because 51% of launches occur offline. This makes it critically important to have the ability to capture data locally, queue it up and send it when the user is back online. This requires batching and compressing, because data upload can affect battery life and data fees for the end user.

Managing the Digital Audience

In this article in Folio Magazine I discuss the value of online users and how to value your audience segments.  http://www.foliomag.com/2012/managing-digital-audience

Interviewed for Folio Magazine article

Last week I was interviewed for an article in Folio Magazine about managing print vs. digital subscribers and the differences in marketing to them. I also discussed my online audience segmentation techniques and how I evaluate segments and define a visitor's worth. Look for it in the April issue!