Andrew Levy, Sr. Manager, Talent Brand and Social Media, Autodesk
We live in a post-employment brand world—the stories others tell of us are our brand. We no longer trust marketing. In a hot talent market like today, transparency and access are the most important ways to build trust and interest in your company. Andrew will discuss ways to encourage and enable employees and prospective candidates to do the storytelling for you, engage with your talent community, and make real changes internally based on the real world’s engagement with your talent brand. Attendees will learn how to encourage transparent communications across all levels of the organization, as marketing messages no longer work as well as they once did --and how employee and applicant generated content and social communications are most trusted and important in the post employment brand environment. Check out the best of Talent Connect: http://bit.ly/1MBqz6m
Autodesk’s vision is to help people imagine, design, and create a better world.
And how do we do this?
Over a hundred million design professionals, engineers and architects, digital artists, students, and hobbyists use Autodesk software to unlock their creativity and solve important design, business, and environmental challenges.
But what does all that really mean?
If you’ve ever driven a high-performance car, admired a towering skyscraper, used a smartphone, or watched a great film, chances are you’ve experienced what Autodesk customers are doing with our software.
Now for a little video…
Almost everyone knows us for AutoCAD – but we’re so much more!
A perfect example of how production is changing is the new San Francisco MOMA extension. The architect’s vision of more than 700 rippling façade panels was almost never realized because of the complexity of their unique shapes.
Traditional building methods simply wouldn’t work, so the solution had to come from the manufacturing industry. Equally daunting was the desired look and texture of cast concrete, which, due to its weight, would have required a substantially sturdier primary building structure. Such a solution would have also inhibited the goal of creating spacious galleries providing uninterrupted movement.
Instead of concrete, fiber-reinforced plastic was used to create the largest architectural application of composites technology in the United States, reducing the weight by a stunning one million pounds. Nearly indestructible, the sandblasted panels mimic concrete in look and feel but resist moisture absorption.
But it’s not just manufacturing. We’re seeing a convergence of how things are designed and made across all of Autodesk’s industries (Architecture, building, and construction, infrastructure, media and entertainment, natural resources, and manufacturing…).
Construction companies are operating more like manufacturers by pre-fabricating and assembling things like apartment units, exterior walls and ductwork.
Media and entertainment firms are behaving more like car brands by planning and pre-visualizing their entertainment properties – like film and games – long before production. Just like an automotive manufacturer would plan and develop a concept car.
Soon, people from all industries will face similar challenges and need similar capabilities.
NEW PANAMA CANAL IMAGE (MASSIVE GLOBAL COLLABORATION)
***
Personal creativity (consumer)
Technology isn’t the only thing that’s changing however. There’s a cultural shift taking place as well, where everyone from amateur designers, homeowners, students to professionals are going back to their roots and creating things for themselves. Whether it’s a kid looking to build a new contraption or create a fun digital rendering to be 3D printed, an entrepreneur developing the design assets needed to start a new business, we’re taking technology originally built for movie studios, automakers and architectural firms, and making it available to anyone who wants to create something.
And in this new Era of Connection, people aren’t waiting for innovation to trickle down from big companies. Technology is the great equalizer, enabling individuals to innovate up. More and more we’re seeing the next big thing come out of a garage and force its way into the marketplace. Not only are the big players noticing; they’re adopting what the little guys are doing.
For DIY and making things: Instructables, 123D family of products
For photography: Pixlr family of products
For art: SketchBook, Creative Market
For home design: Homestyler
----- Meeting Notes (8/17/15 14:33) -----
Fabricated things in the gallery, tinkercad, 3D printed stuff, homestyler, 123D design, 123d Ccreature
Add # Monthly active users of consumer products
And Autodesk will continue to fuel that shift through strong and continuous growth.
Don’t be offended if i use a picture of your brand in this presentation. No one is perfect. I’m guilty too.
Fancy websites
Push messaging
Crazy, fancy career fairs – giveaways/expensive collateral
Polish, polish, polish
Super snazzy videos and carefully
Carefully curated communications
Message saturation, mistrust
As a consumer you communicate with the corporation, not the individuals that make it up
Word vomit, hot air
You have buying power now: Yelp, Youtube stars, Amazon, Etsy, informed choice and customization
Instant gratification: (Tivo, Spotify, Apple TV, cutting the cord), citizen journalism, mobile explosion
Bottom line: has ended, the truth and trust is with the people.
Centralized things no longer the message or the content, employment branding is dead, talent branding is born
Employment brand dies, we now have talent brand – of and by the people (employees and candidates)
“Things are going to get messy, but it’s totally ok. No one is going to die. You’re not going to get delisted from NASDAQ. Namaste. Accept.” -- Me.
Lift the curtain, grant full access – to both candidates and employees
Empower others to speak (meaning not your corporate channel – it’s the job of your employees to tell this, and your candidates – make the space to do it)
Listen – then do something
Lift the curtain, grant full access to
Ongig: anatomy of the video job description
LOAD PAGE: http://autodesk.elasticapp.ongig.com/jobs/executive/americas-united-states-of-america-california-san-francisco/vice-president-tax-treasury-risk/15WD18832
Data points: (platform is down)
- 3.5 social shares on average per job
- 16% of all jobs receive comments, aiming at 100% response rate from autodesk
- Slideshares time on page is 55.5 seconds on average
- 63.6 seconds average for video pages vs low as 10 seconds, sometimes 23 seconds average
Lift the curtain, grant full access:
No one wants to talk to a recruiter anymore. Especially if you’re in tech.
What to do? Community engagement. It’s a new program – only a few months old.
What we do? Invite people though your doors, show them for real.
Delight with service and experiences
Partner with existing groups, share lists, respect the lists of names
Examples of these include
Design night (public event)
Girl geek dinner / diversity events
Technical meetups
Hackbright
Grace Hopper
We don’t directly recruit here, this is the first step in a high touch process.
From bigger events, The next step is more intimate --
Smaller list building allow for more intimate experiences like <NEXT SLIDE> pier 9 tours
Intimate behind the curtain looks at Pier 9 space on embarcadero!
Invite only guided tours and lunches
2 team members in TA support this effort, right now no budget – all partnerships with the business units
Top level data points:
716 actionable leads generated from events
15k+ email contacts from partnerships
7 Hires tracked to date (very difficult to track), it’s likely more
Impressions / wow factor – priceless to recruiting
Let technology help your employees get great referrals in the company.
Taleo Social Sourcing was picked by ADSK
Allows for employees to more easily share our jobs with their networks (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc and track back to hire)
We pay out awards globally on a flat structure
WHAT MATTERS: SLA is 3 days to respond to employees and candidates, it’s important to build trust in this for a program to work.
WHAT DOESN’T WORK: increasing the money rewards – it’s all about relationships and trust in the program.
Go to page live: www.bonfire.autodesk.com
We wanted to make social media easier for employees
2% - 8% overlap between a company’s corporate branded social channels and an employee’s personal social network.
Employees share receives 8X the engagement -- your employees are marketing goldmines
90% of consumers worldwide trust recommendations from people they know more than advertising
To date, ~15% of the company participates across 32 countries, and we offer content in 6 languages (English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese)…we’re about to add Chinese
Shared 116,168 pieces of content, created 201,847,126 impressions
Employees can also submit content. On average we receive about 125 submissions per month, in addition to what we source and publish
Added benefits: users are more connecting to Autodesk, are growing their networks, building their personal brand, driving more sales (social selling), enhancing their skills in social
Empower others to speak: all of this power and speaking authority in the hands of employees is new
Go on a road show -- Sell this to your employees – train them to be ambassadors
LinkedIn profiles – encourage healthy bragging, rich content – don’t be boring (pull from bonfire!)
Socialize Glassdoor from the TOP down: salary, reviews, content, respond to reviews,
Encourage employee referral program – the less the market is bugged by recruiters the better – have employees convince the market to join you -- tighten this experience up, make it social, no one wants to talk to a recruiter anymore
Glassdoor is here to stay and it really matters
Terrible reviews happen, it’s ok.
DATA POINTS:
61% of candidates use Glassdoor even before considering a company
2x growth in traffic to Autodesk content on the platform in 1 year
50% of traffic are engineers in the millennial age range
These are the most important demos for a software company – pay attention! Nurture that community
Personal / Professional opinion – don’t use company updates – this isn’t your space to brag, it’s for the community
Strategy with response:
Is there an actionable claim in the review? -- respond and traffic internally, even if the answer is “we’re not changing this”
Is it a rant or troll? Leave it alone
Thank the great reviews too!
Share these internally, use these insights in the recruiting process – candidates do come at you with a bad review during interviews
Communicate out the changes you’re making, lift the curtain into why things are the way they are --- even if it’s not good
Professional opinion: Don’t use the broad cast functionality (newsfeed) – this isn't your space to market, it’s for candidates and employees – nurture the community, don’t blabble at it
In the spirt of openness, I’ll share with you some of the worst reviews and what we did about them.
Take time to explain how things work externally – people want to know!
Survey your candidates, survey your hiring managers. They’re voices matter:
New program, only a few months old – so not a lot of data to share yet
Nearly 50% of delivered surveys were completed (80% of new hires surveys completed)
Make sure there’s space for open ended feedback
More frequent contact would be nice
Grateful we don’t require spec work from designers
Great feedback around IT and onboarding support
Internal feedback: more clarity around opening reqs and TA process – we did a whole series of updates and trainings to address this
Idea connection is a space for employees to be heard
Born from our IT group, the platform grew like wildfire
Lobbied HR leadership to start answering and trafficking comments / ideas internally
35% of ideas on the platform are about HR / employee experience
Lean team – 1 – 3 people at a time who traffic and research feasibility
244 HR ideas on the platform now, ¼ of ideas we’ve provided solutions to, 16 currently under review
We are able to redirect employees to existing resources – everyone can see the responses, so it’s great for all employees
Some are simple – adding a bathroom shelf to a certain office, improving maps / conference room names
Some are a bit odd – “ ban office chairs”
Some are really great – company wide no meeting day (still in process, but I’m hopeful it’ll go through), do more with diversity programs
Net net: this is a great selling point, when possible I communicate out the success to candidates
I want to dig into one in particular that came up: strategically target diversity
3. Listen then do something
What does all of this listen then do something look like wrapped up into one?
Give affinity groups a voice: calls for diversity on idea connection, in recruiting,
Pride group was formed because there wasn’t one
Contest around t shirt design, Pier 9 designed a float, lot’s of parties
Donated travel for 1 person from each region to come to SF
1 engagement on the golden gate bridge with a 3d printed ring
100s of marchers and members in the group now
Group lobbies internally for change -- Candidate decline due to transgender benefits – now we have them
Expanding pride participation two more cities next year
Looking into local volunteer opportunities
All great stories to share, all make for happier employees
Employer brand is dead. It’s now in the hands of your talent – and by talent I mean your employees and the stories candidates tell about you.
Fear not, do the above.