NEW YORK and LONDON, JANUARY 14, 2021 – Symphony Talent, a recruitment marketing technology company that helps recruiting teams automate tasks and empower interactions, just released its 2021 Recruitment Marekting Strategies Report, based on six years of research on Fortune 500 companies.
“We’ve been able to quantify the growth and investment in recruitment marketing as a necessary discipline since 2015,” said Roopesh Nair, chief executive officer at Symphony Talent. “In this volatile year, it’s clear that the most agile and successful companies were the few that had already established a solid strategy and technology foundation.”
Some of the most prominent businesses in national news due to their impact on and response to the pandemic — like CVS Health, Stryker, and Ecolab — were among the 14% of the Fortune 500 categorized as recruitment marketing pioneers (“A” grades), scoring high in categories like nurture, personalization and initiative hiring.
CVS Health — a company that hired more than 61,000 people this year, including 2,000+ displaced workers from hard-hit industries — took the number one overall spot for the second year in a row due to its leading strategies in employer branding content, talent network communication, and adoption of emerging technology like conversational engagement and candidate relationship management (CRM) automation.
“Our plans for innovation ‒ like utilizing new strategies in our CRM, upskilling the team on tools, improving the candidate experience touchpoints, flipping our recruitment funnel ‒ started long before 2020,” said Kerry Noone, director of employer branding at CVS Health. “When COVID-19 hit, our plans just accelerated, and we continued to grow throughout the pandemic, allowing us to hire pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and nurses to administer the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it was available.”
While A-scoring companies are slightly up over six years of research, the vast majority of the Fortune 500 still struggle to utilize technology, effectively communicate with unique talent audiences, and connect the dots across recruiting channels. A few crucial findings include:
“I’m extremely excited to see more employers leveraging talent networks to connect with passive candidates in 2020; however, I’m also surprised at the lack of utilization of powerful, intuitive tools that help them communicate to and ultimately hire the right candidates,” Ben Eubanks, principal analyst at Lighthouse Research & Advisory, commented. “I expect the lessons we’ve learned in 2020 will help propel these adoption numbers higher in the coming months.”
The Symphony Talent in-house research team focused on 27 critical recruitment marketing strategies utilized by the Fortune 500 across search, career site, talent network and social media channels from August to November 2020. For the first time, Symphony Talent’s report also looks at a comparison set of companies from the Fortune 50 Fastest Growing.
Download the research report here.
Software that works for you, and you love to work in. Symphony Talent is a recruitment marketing technology company that helps recruitment teams automate tasks for efficiency and empower smarter candidate interactions. Its SmashFlyX platform unifies CRM, career site, and programmatic advertising for the most comprehensive talent campaigning and marketing in the industry. As an employer brand and creative partner, Symphony Talent has won major awards for EVP strategy, employer brand campaigns, career site design, and more. The company supports more than 600 customers across the globe, with headquarters in New York, London, Bangalore, and Belfast. Visit symphonytalent.com to learn more, and follow us on Twitter @SymphonyTalent_ and @SymphonyT_EU.
NEW YORK and LONDON, JANUARY 14, 2021 – Symphony Talent, a recruitment marketing technology company that helps recruiting teams automate tasks and empower interactions, just released its 2021 Recruitment Marekting Strategies Report, based on six years of research on Fortune 500 companies.
“We’ve been able to quantify the growth and investment in recruitment marketing as a necessary discipline since 2015,” said Roopesh Nair, chief executive officer at Symphony Talent. “In this volatile year, it’s clear that the most agile and successful companies were the few that had already established a solid strategy and technology foundation.”
Some of the most prominent businesses in national news due to their impact on and response to the pandemic — like CVS Health, Stryker, and Ecolab — were among the 14% of the Fortune 500 categorized as recruitment marketing pioneers (“A” grades), scoring high in categories like nurture, personalization and initiative hiring.
CVS Health — a company that hired more than 61,000 people this year, including 2,000+ displaced workers from hard-hit industries — took the number one overall spot for the second year in a row due to its leading strategies in employer branding content, talent network communication, and adoption of emerging technology like conversational engagement and candidate relationship management (CRM) automation.
“Our plans for innovation ‒ like utilizing new strategies in our CRM, upskilling the team on tools, improving the candidate experience touchpoints, flipping our recruitment funnel ‒ started long before 2020,” said Kerry Noone, director of employer branding at CVS Health. “When COVID-19 hit, our plans just accelerated, and we continued to grow throughout the pandemic, allowing us to hire pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and nurses to administer the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it was available.”
While A-scoring companies are slightly up over six years of research, the vast majority of the Fortune 500 still struggle to utilize technology, effectively communicate with unique talent audiences, and connect the dots across recruiting channels. A few crucial findings include:
“I’m extremely excited to see more employers leveraging talent networks to connect with passive candidates in 2020; however, I’m also surprised at the lack of utilization of powerful, intuitive tools that help them communicate to and ultimately hire the right candidates,” Ben Eubanks, principal analyst at Lighthouse Research & Advisory, commented. “I expect the lessons we’ve learned in 2020 will help propel these adoption numbers higher in the coming months.”
The Symphony Talent in-house research team focused on 27 critical recruitment marketing strategies utilized by the Fortune 500 across search, career site, talent network and social media channels from August to November 2020. For the first time, Symphony Talent’s report also looks at a comparison set of companies from the Fortune 50 Fastest Growing.
Download the research report here.
About Symphony Talent
Software that works for you, and you love to work in. Symphony Talent is a recruitment marketing technology company that helps recruitment teams automate tasks for efficiency and empower smarter candidate interactions. Its SmashFlyX platform unifies CRM, career site, and programmatic advertising for the most comprehensive talent campaigning and marketing in the industry. As an employer brand and creative partner, Symphony Talent has won major awards for EVP strategy, employer brand campaigns, career site design, and more. The company supports more than 600 customers across the globe, with headquarters in New York, London, Bangalore, and Belfast. Visit symphonytalent.com to learn more, and follow us on Twitter @SymphonyTalent_ and @SymphonyT_EU.
NEW YORK, March 5, 2020 — Symphony Talent, the global leader in employer brand services and candidate experience technology, and SmashFly, the pioneering recruitment marketing and CRM platform, today shared the findings of its fifth annual Recruitment Marketing Benchmarks Report on the Fortune 500 that analyzes more than 20,000 data points on 33 recruitment marketing criteria and external business metrics. Inaugurated in 2015, the report has tracked the development and trends of recruitment marketing as a discipline amongst the nation’s most successful companies.
While Fortune 500 employers have increasingly built up their employer brands, employee storytelling and talent network opt ins over the last five years, how they utilize content and technology to nurture and personalize experiences at scale has remained quite stagnant.
But there is good news yet amongst the best of the best talent acquisition organizations: pioneering companies – those that earned an “A” grade – have increased fivefold since 2015, from just 3% in 2015 to 16% in 2019. And those companies shine in critical areas of competitive advantage: 84% of “A” companies send at least monthly communication to their talent networks and are 6x more likely to utilize personalized content and/or videos on job pages.
Shannon Taylor, director of talent acquisition at Republic Services, an A-scoring company that took the top spot in the business services sector, shared, “No one wants to feel left out. It’s our duty to create a sense of belonging and help candidates envision careers, not just jobs. Our talent network is a way to welcome them, encourage them to engage with our brand, and ultimately, alleviate that ‘FOMO’ feeling with consistent communication.”
All 500 companies are graded on a scale from A (Pioneering) to F (Lagging); this year, Symphony Talent and SmashFly created the Recruitment Marketing Pioneer (RM Pioneer) Award, given to the 79 companies that earned an A in 2019. The report highlights best practices and strategies of specific RM Pioneers like Republic Services, among others.
“Our research always brings very telling findings to the forefront; this year, while technology continues to rapidly develop in our industry, most employers simply aren’t adopting critical strategies within career site, CRM or conversational engagement,” said Elyse Mayer, SmashFly’s vice president of marketing and lead researcher for the report. “What’s promising are the true pioneers who have only gotten more intentional and masterful in their recruitment marketing and talent experience over five years; other talent acquisition and business leaders should be inspired, and perhaps a little propelled, by what they’re accomplishing.”
The original research is conducted over four months every year and continues to examine data year over year for trends and growth. To hear Elyse Mayer and Shannon Taylor discuss the report findings and RM Pioneer strategies in depth, join the live webinar on Tuesday, March 24.
You can also download the full report and methodology here.
Symphony Talent is a global leader in employer brand and candidate experience solutions for some of the world’s leading brands. Combining award-winning creative and marketing technology, Symphony Talent offers the most strategic and comprehensive suite of solutions on the market, transforming employer brands to deliver world-class experiences for candidates, employees and recruiters. For more information, visit www.symphonytalent.com and follow us on Twitter @SymphonyTalent_.
Acquired by Symphony Talent in 2019, the award-winning software company serves more than 100 customers, including 25 of the Fortune 500. Powered by AI, SmashFly’s enterprise platform combines CRM, career site, events and analytics solutions to create a smarter, seamless experience for talent – and your team. For more information, visit www.smashfly.com and follow us on Twitter @SmashFly.
NEW YORK, November 4, 2019 – Symphony Talent, a global leader in Employer Brand and Candidate Experience solutions, announced today that it has acquired SmashFly Technologies, the industry leader in enterprise recruitment marketing and candidate relationship management (CRM) technology.
The acquisition combines Symphony Talent’s award-winning creative and employer brand services and talent marketing technology with SmashFly’s recruitment marketing technology to provide talent acquisition teams with the most strategic and comprehensive suite of solutions on the market. Together, the companies will be uniquely positioned to execute on their shared vision for transforming the future of talent and employee experience.
Founded in 2007, SmashFly was one of the first recruitment marketing and CRM platforms in the recruiting space and has played an integral role in the growth of the recruitment marketing category. Together, Symphony Talent and SmashFly support nearly 750 customers across the globe. More than one-third of SmashFly’s customer base is in the Fortune 500. Combined with the 30+ large enterprise brands supported by Symphony Talent, the expanded company is positioned for increased success and growth with large, global enterprises. Symphony Talent excels with clients in healthcare, retail, FMCG, tech and high-volume hiring, as well as the mid-market; SmashFly complements those strengths by bringing success with financial services, professional services, manufacturing and technology clients.
“SmashFly is a longstanding industry trailblazer with an exceptionally strong brand and product perception in the market,” commented Symphony Talent President and CEO Roopesh Nair. “Through this acquisition, we have an immense opportunity to diversify our customer base, grow our global presence, and strengthen our market leadership by uniting the best solutions and creative minds in the industry.”
“We have an exciting path ahead to innovate where it matters most to customers,” said SmashFly’s Chief Customer Officer Ted Ruscitti. “With expanded offerings between Symphony Talent and SmashFly, we’ll be able to better answer the needs of our customers today. Plus, with more resources and a strategic focus on innovation, we’ll be able to better guide our customers on what’s next in talent experience.”
“Symphony Talent has continued to strengthen its deep functionality in career sites, candidate journey, and candidate communication. It has differentiated itself in a competitive market with an innovative product, global capabilities, and strong services,” said Madeline Laurano, founder of Aptitude Research. “The addition of SmashFly’s CRM and internal mobility solutions to the portfolio creates a powerful force to be reckoned with in the talent acquisition industry.”
The acquisition also extends the breadth of the combined company’s global footprint with operations in Belfast and Bangalore, alongside their current full-service European headquarters in London.
Symphony Talent continues to capitalize on its strength in the market with this acquisition, following recent wins in the 2019 MarCom Awards, 2019 Recruitment Marketing Awards, 2019 Employer Brand Management Awards, 2018 Human Resource Executive’s Top HR Product, in addition to being named the Most Innovative Recruitment Advertising Agency by TATech Recruiting Service Innovation (ReSis) Awards.
The transaction closed on November 1, 2019, and financial terms were not disclosed. Moelis & Company was the exclusive financial advisor to SmashFly on the transaction.
About Symphony Talent
Symphony Talent is a global leader in Employer Brand and Candidate Experience solutions for some of the world’s leading brands. Combining award-winning creative and marketing technology, Symphony Talent transforms employer brands to deliver world-class experiences for candidates, employees and recruiters. For more information, visit: www.symphonytalent.com or follow us on Twitter, @SymphonyTalent_.
About SmashFly Technologies
SmashFly Technologies is a global recruitment marketing and candidate relationship management (CRM) technology provider. One-third of the company’s customers are part of the Fortune 500 and its platform has users in 69 countries worldwide. Powered by intelligent automation and AI, SmashFly’s platform combines CRM, career site, event, and internal mobility solutions to help talent acquisition teams discover, market, and create careers across the talent lifecycle from intern to retirement. To learn more about SmashFly, visit www.smashfly.com and follow us on Twitter @SmashFly.
SYMPHONY TALENT APPOINTS HAVAS, SAPIENTRAZORFISH VETERAN AS ITS CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER FOR US OPERATIONS
The appointment of Gunnar Kiene strengthens the organization’s commitment to bring together creative, technology, data and strategy to power dynamic employer brand transformations and experiences
NEW YORK, N.Y., October 28, 2019 – Symphony Talent, a global leader in Employer Brand and Candidate Experience solutions, today announced it has named Gunnar Kiene as Chief Creative Officer for the organization’s US operations. In his new role, Kiene will be responsible for helping to set the creative vision for the organization and will oversee innovation, engagement and the creative direction for Symphony Talent’s roster of clients. He will also be leading Symphony Talent’s overall product experience. This appointment drives Symphony Talent’s key differentiator as a leader in creativity and technology and amplifies its competitive advantage in the market.
“Symphony Talent is challenging the industry and redefining how technology and creativity should be brought together to help talent leaders amplify their brand,” said Roopesh Nair, President and CEO, Symphony Talent. “Gunnar’s passion to embed design with purpose and value adds another dimension to our ability to create more personalized and meaningful experiences and solidifies our position as the lead innovator in the market.”
According to Nair, the digital era has accelerated and radically changed candidate experiences. “The candidate experience is the new battleground for talent acquisition and Symphony Talent is leading the charge. Brands, especially in the US, need a renewed focus on bold creative expression to transform their employer brands and candidate experiences. Gunnar’s digital leadership, coupled with our award-winning creative and data-driven technology, is the game-changer that will revolutionize the recruitment marketing industry.”
Kiene joins Symphony Talent with more than 20 years of experience in design and advertising. Previously, Kiene was the Executive Creative Director at Havas where he reinforced design thinking while leading a multidisciplinary team across design, UX and copy. Before that, Kiene led the New York Creative department at SapientRazorfish where he helped triple the size of the business, working across accounts such as MasterCard, Lufthansa, Target and Verizon. He also helped stand up their product innovation practice which laid the foundation for many of his projects including Marcel, the new employee enablement and engagement platform of the Publicis Groupe. Kiene began his career with agencies R/GA and AtmosphereBBDO and most recently served as Executive Creative Director for Gunnar Kiene Consulting.
“Symphony Talent’s ability to pair its storied employer branding expertise with its leading technology to help clients successfully navigate brand transformation demonstrates it unrivaled leadership in the industry,” said Kiene. “After meeting with Roopesh and the Symphony Talent team, I immediately knew our visions of combining strategy, creative and innovation were aligned. I could not be more excited to collaborate with Symphony Talent’s global teams to deliver exceptional brand transformations and experiences to our clients.”
NEW YORK, April 25, 2019 – Symphony Talent, a leading Talent Marketing solutions provider, today unveiled a selection of case studies highlighting successful transformations and campaigns of its global client base. The case studies showcase the organization’s collaboration with clients to build, activate and manage their employer brands and enhance their candidate and recruiter experience while leveraging Symphony Talent’s award-winning creative and technology solutions.
“We are proud to deliver on our promise with measurable value for our clients,” said Roopesh Nair, President and CEO, Symphony Talent. “These case studies are strong examples of how our creative agency, Hodes, and our talent marketing technology, XCloud®, are helping brands win top talent through seamless, personalized experiences for recruiters, candidates and employees.”
“It’s so exciting to show the breadth of our expertise utilized across such a wide variety of our awesome client partnerships as well as so many different industries,” added Simon Phillips, Hodes/Symphony Talent Managing Director. “Our team is inspired by the challenges we’re helping our clients solve through the tremendous impact of our brand, creative and tech solutions.”
Symphony Talent’s most recent case studies feature the stories of the following clients:
NEW YORK, April 29 – Symphony Talent, a leading Talent Marketing solutions provider, was recently recognized as a “Major Player” in three IDC MarketScape reports on Talent Acquisition software.* This is the second consecutive placement in the Major Players category in the IDC MarketScape.
The IDC MarketScapes analyzed and evaluated providers supporting applicant tracking systems.
“From Hodes’ industry-leading recruitment marketing and branding services to XCloud®’s data-driven media optimization capabilities, Symphony Talent’s extended suite of talent acquisition solutions is one of the most robust in the market,” said Kyle Lagunas, Research Manager for Emerging Trends and Technologies at IDC. “Their ability to take client or industry feedback and turn ideas into product is unparalleled in this space.”
Symphony Talent’s momentum and expansion of its global reach and product footprint is fueled by its collaboration with Google Cloud Talent Solution, integration capabilities with the industry’s enterprise Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), including Workday, Taleo, Infor Talent Science (Lawson), and Kenexa, as well as industry award recognitions for Symphony Talent’s creative and employer brand transformations for its clients, product innovation and leadership.
“We believe our consecutive recognition by IDC MarketScape validates our data-driven strategy and that brands can continue to rely on Symphony Talent to optimize their employer brand and personalize their candidate, employee and recruiter journeys,” said Roopesh Nair, President and CEO, Symphony Talent. “We will persistently challenge ourselves to meet the digitally transforming expectations of our clients and talent as we pursue future innovations and partnerships.”
IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor’s position within a given market. The Capabilities score measures vendor product, go-to-market and business execution in the short-term. The Strategy score measures alignment of vendor strategies with customer requirements in a 3-5-year timeframe. Vendor market share is represented by the size of the icons.
IDC MarketScape: Worldwide and US Modern Talent Acquisition Suites for Large Enterprise 2019 Vendor Assessment (Doc # US45016419, April 2019).
IDC MarketScape: Worldwide and US Modern Talent Acquisition Suites for Medium Enterprise 2019 Vendor Assessment (Doc # US45018519, April 2019).
IDC MarketScape: Worldwide and US Modern Talent Acquisition Suites for SMB Enterprise 2019 Vendor Assessment (Doc # US45020719, April 2019).
IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Modern Talent Acquisition Systems 2017 Vendor Assessment (Doc # US41542217, September 2017)
NEW YORK, May 1, 2019 – Symphony Talent, a leading Talent Marketing solutions provider, today announced the addition of more than 10 new clients during the first quarter of 2019. The new additions continue the momentum experienced in recent quarters as customers continue to select Symphony Talent for their employer branding and talent marketing initiatives.
“Our continued growth is demonstrated by the increasing demand to leverage creative fueled by talent marketing technology,” said Roopesh Nair, president and CEO, Symphony Talent, “Global brands are seeing the value in providing a richer, more personalized experience to more effectively engage candidates.”
Recent global client roster additions include: ArcelorMittal, Weir Group, Rockwell Automation, La Senza, Micron, Extended Stay America, Drybar, SmartCare and Ward Trucking. These signings, the organization’s expanded relationships with existing clients, and continued solutions innovation have fueled Symphony Talent’s 2019 successful start.
“Our new clients are all excellent examples of brands who are seeking a strategic partner for both brand, creative and tech solutions to help activate and manage their employer brand,” noted Hodes/Symphony Talent European Managing Director, Simon Phillips. “The depth of our team’s unique capabilities and innovative solutions can help them bring their talent marketing stories to life.”
NEW YORK, June 19, 2019 – Symphony Talent, a leading talent marketing solutions provider, today announced the availability of messaging features within its Experience Cloud (XCLOUD®) platform to empower brands’ conversational engagement with candidates and employees.
Recognizing the need to communicate with talent in the channel of their preference, and that messaging has become the preferred form of consumer communication, the addition of messaging conversational engagement optimizes multiple recruiting channels and further enhances the talent marketing automation suite within Symphony Talent’s Experience Cloud.
Recruiters and Hiring Managers are now able to communicate with external and internal candidates in a simple, fast and effective way through a unified interface that tracks all engagements within XCLOUD®. The new feature includes SMS mobile messaging, Facebook, Whatsapp, and Slack. Candidates will have the choice to communicate with brands based on the channel they most prefer.
“With low unemployment rates and rising candidate expectations, talent leaders now need to improve the delivery and quality of the candidate experience to more effectively engage candidates,” said Roopesh Nair, CEO and President of Symphony Talent. “The addition of the messaging feature in our omnichannel talent marketing approach eliminates disjointed experiences through siloed channels and reaches candidates on their preferred platforms. Our clients are equipped to deliver personalized candidate experiences across digital and offline channels to build and nurture relationships faster to produce higher engagement and increase conversions.”
Symphony Talent’s Experience Cloud leverages AI and machine learning technology to enable brands to market to the right talent at the right time and by the means they prefer. Additional omnichannel marketing automation features within Experience Cloud include: Automated Job Alerts, Email Marketing, Chatbot and Messenger Apps and Candidate Journey Management. Symphony Talent’s omnichannel solution also includes career websites, offline hiring events, campus events, microsites, digital media (via media optimization platform), and digital billboards.
“Personalization is no longer optional for brands, it’s crucial,” noted Nair. “The features we have added to our Experience Cloud suite continue to optimize and deliver contextually personalized experiences to help brands reach today’s digitally-native candidates and employees on their preferred communication channels.”
NEW YORK, August 7, 2019 – Renown Health, Nevada’s most comprehensive and integrated healthcare network, has won the prestigious ACE Award for Best in Social Media by the Reno-Tahoe American Marketing Association. Renown Health is a long-time, valued client of Symphony Talent, a leading talent marketing solutions provider and creative agency for employers.
The Reno-Tahoe American Marketing Association’s ACE Awards recognize and celebrate marketing excellence within the Northern Nevada community.
Renown won the esteemed Best in Social Media Award for its 2018 social campaign to increase awareness of Renown Health as an employer brand of choice, to encourage engagement with the brand and to increase the conversion of candidates to hires. The campaign featured key hiring personas including nurses, providers and Information Technology.
“I am so proud of all of the accomplishments that this social campaign has yielded for Renown including visibility, sharing great employee stories, and the ability to help attract amazing Talent,” said Michelle Sanchez-Bickley, Chief Human Resource Officer for Renown Health. “I am appreciative of the partnership with Symphony Talent we have in order to collaborate for great outcomes.”
“This award is a testament to the great strategic and creative work from our team, and the true partnership we have with Renown to bring it to life,” noted Symphony Talent’s Content Marketing Strategist, Lynnette Bellin.
Symphony Talent is redefining how brands and talent connect by applying data-driven consumer marketing best practices to talent marketing. Symphony Talent is the only talent marketing solutions provider that combines award-winning creative (Hodes) and award-winning marketing technology (Experience Cloud) to deliver seamless, personalized experiences for candidates, employees, and recruiters. Companies such as Renown Health, Chili’s, UCLA Health, Mars, Sky, Unilever, and UnitedHealth Group rely on Symphony Talent to power their employer branding, employer reputation, and talent acquisition efforts. For more information, visit: www.symphonytalent.com or follow us on Twitter, @SymphonyTalent_.
Renown Health is a locally governed and locally owned, not-for-profit integrated healthcare network serving Nevada, Lake Tahoe and northeast California. Renown is one of the region’s largest employers with a workforce of more than 7,000. It comprises three acute care hospitals, a children’s hospital, a rehabilitation hospital, the area’s most comprehensive medical group and urgent care network, and the region’s largest and only locally owned not-for-profit insurance company, Hometown Health. Renown Health’s commitment has extended beyond traditional health care to include community health and well-being. For more information, visit www.renown.org and follow Dr. Tony Slonim on Twitter @RenownCEOTonyMD.