Behind the Scenes of Wired & Hired

I recently came across the Wired & Hired blog when looking for staffing firm blog best practices. I found one of the posts was particularly well done, and have been tracking the site ever since. Apparently others in the blogosphere think similarly, as the site won best job hunting blog of 2007 on Recruitingblogs.com. So in homage to the victory, and to help all of us staffing firm marketers with our own blog strategy I scored an email interview with Ryan Watkins, TalentZoo’s Web Editor. I wanted to know the secrets to success and Ryan was happy to oblige. Here’s what I learned.

Tell me about your blog strategy, when, how, and why did it come about at TalentZoo?
Talent Zoo has several blogging sites, each of which serves a different industry and reader. The overall goal is to spread our name throughout the blogosphere to drive readers, job seekers and industry professionals to TalentZoo.com.

The blogs were created long before I came into the picture. Our company saw the importance of interactive marketing, and there is nothing more interactive than blogging. Creating a relevant dialogue with our readers was, and continues to be, the basis for the blog sites. Our authors have valuable information that we feel will help our readers in their careers, job searches or even personal lives.

Your title is Web Editor. What does that mean, and where does your role fit into the organizational hierarchy?
I belong to the Development Department here at the Zoo. It is my responsibility to ensure that all of the written content on any page on any site we produce is correctly presented. There is a lot of content on our sites, but I’m a wordsmith – I enjoy editing, proofing, and writing as much as I enjoy any off-the-job activity.

Wired & Hired is recruiters speaking directly to the Creative job seeker masses. How did you find the right recruiters for the job?
Our Wired & Hired writers come directly from Talent Zoo. I have to admit that I don’t have anything to do with the hiring process, but our HR department does an excellent job of brining in smart, driven recruiters.

Most of the writers on our recruiting sites are Senior Level. They have the experience and the smarts to present their knowledge in a meaningful way. They’ve been around the block a few times and will gladly share their opinions to anyone who will take the time to listen. The advice they give the readership also makes their jobs easier, so who can blame them for that?

Do you give your bloggers any oversight or content ideas? Do you dictate any tone guidelines or stylistic hints?
I rarely give any input on the content. As I said, our recruiters know their game – they know what fits and what doesn’t. My job is to make sure their content is proofed, properly worded and relevant. The tone and style remains their responsibility. I have never had an issue of having to pull or send back a submitted article. These guys make my job much easier than it could be.

What has been the biggest challenge of the project? What advice would you give to other staffing firms that are trying to enter the blogging arena?
If you’re interested in blogging, it’s an inexpensive marketing resource. The only advice I can give anyone would be to choose quality writers and posts. You may not always know who that will be in your company, but it’s worth finding out.

Presentation can go a long way, as well. There are hundreds of templates and dozens of excellent reference books on blogs and blogging tools. The more seriously you take blogging, the better your results will be.

We work in a high turnover industry. What is your approach as your recruiters who blog come into and exit from the TalentZoo organization?
Like I mentioned earlier, most of our bloggers are Senior Level. They’ve been with Talent Zoo for a while and have created a niche for themselves here. Recruiting does have extremely high turnover, but a lot of industries do, as well. We’ve yet to lose any of our bloggers since I was brought on. In fact, we’ve actually added a few!

What is the approach you are using to measure the ROI?
We keep track of how many users find our homepage from our affiliate sites. When a marketing or ad professional finds the perfect job after reading through one of our sites, we certainly consider that a major success. Of course we monitor traffic, incoming links and comments on all of our blogs, but the primary goal is to drive job seekers to Talent Zoo’s homepage and ultimately to our job board.

That’s not to say we sacrifice any aspect of the blogs’ traditional purposes. It takes excellent, relevant content to keep the readership returning. Without solid contributions from all of our writers, we would cease to expand our readership. We have the most knowledgeable contributors in the industry and their insights are readily available to the world. That sort of information is valuable to anyone who reads our content, and that in itself is strong ROI.

What are your immediate goals in the coming months, do you see your approach changing?
Our immediate goal is the continued expansion of our readership. We’re going to continue to provide the best content possible. We’ve found a stride in recent months with our sites and will continue to ride the wave.