I had the chance to interview Doug Berg the creator of Jobs2web and ZAPinfo. I was a huge fan of his first tool Jobs2web back in 2011 which allowed users to track job applications through social media. I was definitely excited to see that Doug created a new tool called ZAPinfo. It offers many capabilities like: finding contact information, scraping, automation, time tracking, and database updates.
It’s a fantastic tool that cuts down on many mundane tasks that sourcers and recruiters have to currently do between Excel sheets to ATS or CRM systems. With all that in mind, I sat down with Doug to do a deep dive into his extensive recruiting career and how he came up with these phenomenal tools.
How to did you first get into recruiting?
I started in programming and a huge data junkie. I took a job as a recruiter sourcing for IT related developer positions. This was pre-email and most applications applied over mail. My manager gave me a Rolodex with over 500 names of developers/programmers and they tasked me with calling every person on that list to see if they would be open to a new job. I soon learned that I didn’t ask the right question(s). The question that should I have asked was are you happy in your career, what could make you happier, or what is your true passion? It was a good lesson to learn, and it taught me the value of building relationships with the candidates.
After that first job, I learned about the hurdles of hiring and after 8 years of experience and I decided to start my own staffing agency. Over time, I grew that agency to over a 100 person staff. I was interested in learning about the latest technologies in recruiting and created my first tool called Jobs2Web – which helped Sourcers and Recruiters track applications through social media.
Why did you create the tool Jobs2Web?
During the recession that was absolutely NO jobs open. The concept of building a talent community was fairly new. When you would go to a careers site there were no jobs available and companies we’re missing out on all those applications. I was astonished that corporate career sites were ONLY interested in applicants and not capturing the career interest in their company’s by allowing career site visitors to register with their career sites and set up an account and saved job alerts like so many job boards were doing. This meant that visitors were basically told ”apply or goodbye” – which 90% left the career site never to return, which was a horrible waste of employer branding interest.
So we created the idea of the ”Talent Community” where visitors could register with a company’s career site ahead of applying for a job and could set up job alerts based on their interests, locations, etc. This resulted in amazing results where some large employers were getting 5,000 to 10,000 new members every day and many grew their talent communities to be larger than 90% of the job boards in just the first year. Within the first year Best Buy had over 3-8 million applicants in this database and because of this, it became the top 10 job board online at the time. It was a real light bulb moment for me. There was a huge need to build these types of recruitment technologies.
What needs to change in the recruiting industry?
The old way of doing things is when a recruiter looks at individual applicants and decide if they would be a good fit. We need to hire the whole haystack instead. We’re missing all the applicants who have previously applied or decided not to apply at all. We’re also spending an immense amount of time with outbound sourcing channels.
Recruiters need to bridge the gap
I call it the QYA principle – 1. Who is interested. 2. Qualified. 3. Available. Instead of doing this we need to look at a more holistic approach and look at all the data. We missing out on applications who view the careers site but never apply. Through API when someone optins into a talent community you always have there must up to date profile/resume. Recruiters and Sourcers need to look at the entire haystack entire of just doing the QYA principle.
Where’s the next frontier for job boards and talent communities?
I think Facebook is the next frontier. They are just getting into job boards and I could see them getting more into talent communities. It’s truly an untapped market for applications and for sourcing for applicants.
How will AI impact the application process?
Let’s say someone under 18 applies for an hourly position and they get rejected right away. There are AI tools that will now allow those applicants to select when they will turn 18 and they can automate a Birthday message and redirect them to apply. The problem is — when applicants apply they get sent to a black hole. AI will really impact this and help build a better experience for applicants in the future.
What is ZapInfo?
It’s a tool that offers many things! It connects ATS+CRM+Screening Software+Video Interviewing altogether. Recruiters have been slowed down by all the tracking and reporting process. There’s so many mundane things that they have to do. So, Zapinfo is basically an information automation tool that connects every together. This includes “zapping” many things: resumes, profiles, contact information, and social profiles. You can zap on this data and put it directly into your ATS or CRM. It also offers a talent community function – you can send an applicant an email and have them join your community. Once, they join through API – you always have the most up to date profile of that individual in your community.
You can easily build a large community of passive leads. Instead of bugging the same profiles on LinkedIn over and over – you can track on your updates like a CRM. This tool brings more efficiency to the recruiting marketplace.
Time Tracking Capabilities (beta mode)
Zapinfo also tracks a Recruiter search history. What are they doing every day? Out-bound sourcing to searching in a job board database. There’s no tool on the market like this that tracks this type of data. They are working on creating a gamification piece to this feature. So, every week the entire team will see which areas the individuals are spending there time and will get ranked out like a scoreboard.
Zapinfo is creating a new Pre-Recruiting Cycle:
The old way of doing these is to just passively do outbound sourcing. There’s a new feature in Zapinfo that will help you find the top (10) qualified leads and you can send those directly to the hiring manager via a folder. It helps recruiters just focus in on the top leads and helps cut back on mundane search tasks.
How is the “application process” flawed?
Well, over 95% of the applicants that apply never hear anything back from the company and they just get a rejection email. So, it’s an emotional feeling. You invest in a company and hear nothing back in return. They’ve done studies that when applicants don’t hear anything they stop supporting or shopping for that consumer brand. Zapinfo can help automate certain weekly reach out updates and help create a better candidate experience in the long term. When someone joins the talent community, you always have the most updated profile (resume) of that individual. Which will help with finding future leads and also help keep passive leads warm.
I recommend joining ZAPInfo’s group on Facebook if you want to learn more. They are planning on adding new weekly updates to this tool which is very exciting.
Update Zapinfo was purchased by Indeed in 2020
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