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The Frontlines - 2026 Employment Branding Report
16 Plays29 days ago
What does the future of employer branding look like in an AI-driven hiring world? In this episode of The Frontlines Podcast, host Tim Sackett sits down with Amit Parmar, CEO and Co-Founder of Cliquify and former talent leader at IBM, Deloitte, and Thermo Fisher Scientific, to unpack the findings from the highly anticipated 2026 State of Employer Branding Report. Based on insights from global talent acquisition and employer branding leaders, the report reveals how the world's leading employers are adapting their hiring strategies, employer brand investments, and talent attraction efforts in a rapidly changing labor market.
Tim and Amit dive into the biggest trends shaping recruiting and frontline hiring today, including the growing influence of AI on candidate applications, the rise of social media as the highest-quality source of talent, and why employee storytelling is becoming more important than traditional job advertising. They discuss why organizations continue to underinvest in employer branding teams, how global companies are structuring their employer brand functions, and why social-first recruiting strategies are outperforming many legacy talent acquisition approaches.
The conversation also explores practical insights from the report, including employer branding budgets, technology stacks, content creation challenges, employee advocacy programs, and the increasing need for personalized candidate journeys. Amit shares lessons learned from building Cliquify into a successful HR technology company without venture capital funding, while offering actionable advice for CHROs, talent acquisition leaders, recruiting professionals, and employer brand practitioners looking to improve hiring outcomes in 2026 and beyond.
If you're interested in employer branding, recruiting technology, candidate experience, talent acquisition strategy, frontline hiring, employee referrals, AI recruiting, social recruiting, workforce planning, or the future of work, this episode delivers data-backed insights and real-world examples you can put into action immediately.
In This Episode:
- Key findings from the 2026 State of Employer Branding Report
- Why social media is becoming the top source of quality hires
- How AI is changing candidate behavior and recruiting processes
- The future of employee storytelling and talent attraction
- Employer branding team structures, budgets, and technology trends
- Frontline hiring strategies that actually work
- Why employee referrals remain the gold standard for hiring success
- How to build a stronger employer brand in the next six months
Listen now to discover how leading organizations are winning the battle for talent and why employer branding has become one of the most strategic investments in recruiting today.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Frontlines Podcast
00:00:03
Tim Sackett
Hey, everybody, it's Tim Sackett back with another episode of the Frontlines podcast brought to you by our great partners at Workday and their entire suite of frontline management solutions. They have the candidate experience. They have the talent management, the workforce management.
00:00:20
Tim Sackett
You can do it all with Workday.
Amit Parmar's Career Journey
00:00:22
Tim Sackett
Amit, how is that for a cold read for the sponsor?
00:00:24
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Hey.
00:00:25
Tim Sackett
but i'm just I'm just thankful. This is the first episode, I think, that I actually remembered to shout them out at the beginning. Like I'm usually at the end, I'm like, oh crap, we have a sponsor, Workday.
00:00:35
Amit Parmar Cliquify
I love that. Hey, look, you're you're right.
00:00:36
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:00:37
Amit Parmar Cliquify
They can do it all. So so that was very well done.
00:00:41
Tim Sackett
Amit, introduce yourself to the to the pod family here, the the millions of listeners across the world.
00:00:47
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah, man. i appreciate you as always, Tim. Thanks for having me today. For the folks who I haven't met, Amit Parmar, a CEO of Clickify, we're a storytelling platform. Spent about 20 plus years in the trenches.
00:01:02
Amit Parmar Cliquify
leading talent functions from the likes of IBM to Deloitte to Thermo Fisher Scientific out of Boston. We were talking about Boston earlier.
00:01:10
Tim Sackett
and
00:01:11
Amit Parmar Cliquify
I'm from Philly, so I've got this love-hate relationship with Boston, but happy to be here.
00:01:16
Tim Sackett
Well, you're a New York City guy now, right?
00:01:19
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yes. ah Yeah.
00:01:20
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:01:21
Amit Parmar Cliquify
I'm like between Philly and New York. It's like you know any given day of the week, but it's close enough.
00:01:23
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:01:25
Amit Parmar Cliquify
It's
00:01:26
Tim Sackett
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, um you like you said, your actual practitioner, master's in HR. um like You're like the real deal. like You actually were doing the same. You were out there you know making the donuts every day.
00:01:38
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Oh, yeah, still am, I feel. No, really, though. Yeah, I was fortunate to to know, like, hey, this this this world of HR and just people was the world I wanted to be in. so I went on to shout out to Rutgers University School of Management. That's that's where I got my master's in HR. Like in 2002, there were only like 10 of us in the classes.
00:02:03
Tim Sackett
Yeah. like like It's funny because Rutgers is actually like it's like one of the bigger universities that no one really knows like anyone that's ever went there. I know you.
00:02:12
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah, I know. It's crazy.
00:02:16
Amit Parmar Cliquify
It's like, it is like, i don't know. I don't even know what the count, the student count is.
00:02:19
Tim Sackett
it's in Jersey, right? It's a New Jersey school?
00:02:22
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah, it's in Brunswick and amazing employers come there to recruit, right?
00:02:23
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:02:27
Amit Parmar Cliquify
From Johnson & Johnson to IBM to Deloitte to, mean, you name it. Some solid employers who come out there to to recruit HR talent.
00:02:36
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
Founding Clickify: A Focus on Human Connection
00:02:37
Tim Sackett
So talk to us about like, how do you go from practitioner to starting your own like technology company in the HR space or obviously employer branding technologies, what Clickify is, but like, how do how do you make that leap? Cause that's like, I mean, you know, we're kind of conservative in our nature in you know, it's like, that's a big jump.
00:03:00
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah, you know, I was I was never conservative, Tim, as you know me already. Right. So for me, it was more it was more around a big problem in the industry that I saw, which was, you know, a lot of tech, but not a lot of human connection.
00:03:14
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:03:15
Amit Parmar Cliquify
And the only way really to to drive that human connection, being that we're all in human resources, at least that the folks we talk to on a regular basis,
00:03:23
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:03:24
Amit Parmar Cliquify
It is about how do you drive the stories to to really you know really hit people in the right way.
00:03:30
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:03:30
Amit Parmar Cliquify
and I think more and more with AI, because we saw this, right? Like being at IBM, Watson AI was everything, right? And so we had the foresight to, like six years ago, to really start building something that honestly, ah maybe it exists somewhere in the world, but we we decided there was a gap here.
00:03:49
Amit Parmar Cliquify
and and we built it. And given that my first job out of college was with IBM, I grew up in tech. i started out doing like massive PeopleSoft implementations. Remember People?
00:04:01
Tim Sackett
Oh, God. Yeah, everyone, anyone that's been in HR over 20 years remembers PeopleSoft. Like you came in contact at some point.
00:04:07
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah, and I know Workday is your sponsor. So of course, Workday like basically just swooped in and like took over a large part of that market share. But
00:04:14
Tim Sackett
Yeah, yeah.
00:04:14
Amit Parmar Cliquify
but Anyway, long story short, I always had a tech bend and and I basically had the edge to to build something for the practitioners who are who really meaningfully trying to connect with talent.
00:04:26
Tim Sackett
Well, you're coming up on your six-year anniversary with Clickify. Clickify.
00:04:29
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah, can you believe it, dude? Like six years.
00:04:30
Tim Sackett
i
00:04:31
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Oh, my God.
00:04:31
Tim Sackett
I don't. I don't even Do you remember the origin story of how we met?
00:04:35
Amit Parmar Cliquify
I don't. but
00:04:36
Tim Sackett
I don't either. Like it seems like I've known you, I mean forever, but like it has to be within the last six years, you know?
00:04:43
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. Six years, here we are. Of course, ah the product has evolved based on a lot of customer um you know inputs, and we're just grateful.
00:04:53
Tim Sackett
Yeah, yeah.
00:04:55
Amit Parmar Cliquify
We're grateful to be in a position that we are.
00:04:57
Tim Sackett
Here's what I'll say, and it's not a commercial for Clickify. You know, like I love the technology and I love what you and Moet have put together. But I think it's a testament to what you've built. One, you you were a lover of the in the of the industry and what needed to be done. You knew firsthand what had to be like you know what had to be built.
00:05:15
Tim Sackett
But you guys went out and built stuff without... I mean, it's all... I mean, it's not VC backed. So you didn't go out and like someone gave you just millions of dollars to just go build something that nobody wanted to buy. You actually, guys put your blood, sweat and tears and it built it and then sold it. And you're selling it at enterprise to big companies. You're doing really well without that, which I think, I mean, and it's weird because again, six years ago,
00:05:40
Tim Sackett
VCs were throwing money at people for stupid ideas. like i literally had This is a true story. I had a guy working at a car dealership in Toronto, like a Toyota dealership in Toronto, on his lunch break call me, pitching me for an idea and thinking he was going to get $3 million dollars for it.
00:05:57
Tim Sackett
And I'm like, so tell me talk to me about why like why should you get... like The dude was selling used cars.
00:06:03
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah.
00:06:03
Tim Sackett
And I'm saying that you can't be a used car salesman and have a great idea for HR technology. I'm just saying his idea was not great for HR technology. and ah But all he had was an idea.
00:06:10
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah. You're right.
00:06:12
Tim Sackett
He didn't actually build like an MVP and all this. You guys actually went out built all this stuff um that people are um are using in in global enterprise companies right now without having to take a bunch of money.
00:06:23
Tim Sackett
And I got to tell you, man, like it's super impressive that you've been able to do that because it speaks to how good what you built is. So again, just shout shout out to you guys.
00:06:30
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Oh, man, thank you. i really appreciate that, Tim.
00:06:31
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:06:32
Amit Parmar Cliquify
And I appreciate the support from the community, right? Of course, the partnership that that we have, the the community has just been just superb in terms of just, you know, getting getting the word out there.
00:06:45
Amit Parmar Cliquify
um You know, that's not to say we've had VC offers, but we have actually decided to to continue down this path for for a number of reasons, right?
00:06:50
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:53
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Like, we We love kind of being masters our own destiny. And also, you know, there's there's something to be said about we only answer to customers.
00:07:02
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:07:02
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah.
00:07:03
Tim Sackett
Oh, 100%. Yeah.
00:07:05
Amit Parmar Cliquify
And that's...
00:07:05
Tim Sackett
i i mean, I was, I was on, I was on with the founder today and like, you know, they're getting their same thing.
00:07:06
Amit Parmar Cliquify
the
00:07:10
Tim Sackett
Like they're out of the gate doing really well without any money. And now PE is coming in and I'm like, Oh God, no. Like run. Like you do not want that. Like that money is, that's like blood money. Like you're going to have to answer for that money.
00:07:24
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah, and I've had amazing mentors along the way and and coaches as well. and And this is for other founders, right, who may be in a position that I'm in or I was in five years ago.
00:07:31
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:07:36
Amit Parmar Cliquify
You know, one of the mentors when we first launched was like, just remember one thing if you don't remember anything that I say. And he said he said to me he's like, equity is the most expensive thing you're going to give up ever.
00:07:50
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Okay.
00:07:51
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:07:52
Amit Parmar Cliquify
So guard it. I mean, he's like, you're better off giving like, you know, $500,000 to somebody versus like equity. Right. So, so that one thing kind of stuck with us and and we'll continue, we'll continue down this path.
00:08:00
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:08:05
Amit Parmar Cliquify
We'll, we'll see, like nobody can predict the future, but, uh, but for the foreseeable future, we're, we're doing just fine.
00:08:07
Tim Sackett
Yep.
00:08:11
Tim Sackett
Yeah, cool.
Partnership with AMS: Employer Branding Survey 2026
00:08:13
Tim Sackett
So I brought you on today, not to talk about obviously Clickify, but like you guys partnered with AMS, put together the 2026 employer branding, state of employer branding survey with some really good data. So let's, and I'll put I'll put a link in the show or in the show notes. Everybody can download that. If you're listening, you can find it. I mean, I literally just went out and found it by Googling Clickify and the 2026 employer brand survey. you know, state of employer brand survey and it came up. So, um, so give us the highlights. What, what did you find this year that, um, and where things are at?
00:08:47
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah, absolutely. Shout out to the folks at AMS for for this partnership. We've been running the survey for four years now. So this is like an annual survey that we've been running. And every year, Clickify has been the constant. And then every year, like last year, we did it with Top Employers Institute.
00:09:05
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Yeah.
00:09:06
Amit Parmar Cliquify
And so we like to get different perspectives every year into the report. But k Clickify is the constant because we basically were the creators of this report. The intent of this report is is really to identify the mechanics of how employer branding is done inside enterprises.
00:09:24
Amit Parmar Cliquify
So we saw a ton of reports out there in terms of candidates, like how they perceive companies, amazing reports out there for that. But the intent of this was purely like functional excellence, if you will.
00:09:35
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Yeah. yep
00:09:37
Amit Parmar Cliquify
And what we found four years ago was there was no real report or thought leadership really helping employer branding practitioners, right? Or even talent leaders, right? We're building this function from scratch maybe, or we've had it for some time, like how do they actually manage the function? How do they organize it?
00:09:55
Amit Parmar Cliquify
What should budgets look like? What should the tech stack look like for employer branding? So, and by the way, these are all questions I had as a talent leader and there was no report, right?
00:10:07
Amit Parmar Cliquify
So
00:10:07
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Hell yeah.
00:10:09
Amit Parmar Cliquify
That genesis for why this report was created and will continue to be our annual marquee report that we generate. And over the last four years, we've seen some interesting insights, right? Not just for 2026, but now that we have four years worth of data with all the macro trends that are happening, not just with AI, but you know budgets, the how the tech is shifting from you know programmatic to organic, like there's all all these little details that we've been able to capture.
00:10:40
Amit Parmar Cliquify
And this year is no different in terms of what the the insights that we gathered. So just to give you you know who provided the input, because it's all about like the quality of input before we produce any output.
00:10:54
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:10:54
Amit Parmar Cliquify
AMS and Clickify partnered in January, actually in December of 2025. So right around Christmas time, we got put our heads together and identified you know folks, talent leaders, employer branding leaders in the world's most massive companies around the world, right? And of course, you have the SMBs included in there too, but but really wanted to to identify those folks. So we reached out to about 80 or so companies.
00:11:23
Amit Parmar Cliquify
So these are heads of talent, heads of employer branding in different regions, right? Because you know we tend to get North America-centric, but of course, as we know, stories are global in nature.
00:11:34
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:11:35
Amit Parmar Cliquify
So we went out and we got input from, you know, folks who had worldwide remit to employer branding, or they might have a regional remit to like EMEA or UK or Latin America or Asia Pacific.
00:11:48
Amit Parmar Cliquify
So we basically had a nice spread of input. And we asked some very, you know, simple questions, right? Like, hey, how is your team structured?
00:11:56
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:11:56
Amit Parmar Cliquify
What's your head? How is your budget shaping up for 2026? Because remember, we started collecting this in like January, right? Of the year.
00:12:03
Tim Sackett
Yep. Yep.
00:12:05
Amit Parmar Cliquify
What is your tech stack like? What are your biggest priorities? What are the challenges that you foresee? we got a lot of qualitative insights, but then we also had numerical insights like, hey, um as part of your budget, let's say you had a you know, they said that the budget was $250,000 on average, which is a real number.
00:12:26
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:12:27
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Of that 250, like how much are you spending on programmatic versus organic? Like very tactical actionable insights that we want to provide to our audience.
00:12:39
Tim Sackett
um um When you think about, like i mean, I know one of the things was like a tech stack question around like how many different tools an employer branding team uses. And I use team loosely because you and i both know Fortune 500 companies that have like one talent brand person. And you're just like, wait a minute, you're a billion dollar company. How does this happen? But it does speak to how new the function is really, right?
00:13:05
Tim Sackett
And so when you look at that and they use, on average, again, 86% of them use between one and three tools. What are those tools in your mind? i mean, obviously Clickify is one of those, but like what are the two or three tools out there that you would say are common employer brands?
00:13:23
Amit Parmar Cliquify
ah Such a great question. And by the way, I'll take this this bit, which is like you're spot on. I am I'm always surprised at when I talk to organizations and I ask them, like, how big is your team? And these are massive, to your point, massive organizations.
00:13:39
Tim Sackett
Oh yeah, sometimes they have hundreds of hundreds of recruiters and you got like, oh Jill over there does branding.
00:13:39
Amit Parmar Cliquify
And it's like one or two. yeah
00:13:45
Tim Sackett
Like what? You know?
00:13:46
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Right. so and And I think you'll start to see, to your point, you know it could be a maturity curve thing depending on the region that you're in. Like EMEA seems to be more ahead of the curve, actually, as it relates to branding.
00:13:57
Amit Parmar Cliquify
and And we can have a separate podcast just on why that is. I have some theories around why that is.
00:14:02
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:14:03
Amit Parmar Cliquify
I think it has a lot to do with just how people view the concept of work and in certain regions around the world. So there's a ton of, like, we should actually do a research study just on that.
00:14:16
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
00:14:17
Amit Parmar Cliquify
but But to answer your question, yeah we're seeing we're seeing tools like you know like Canva. Of course, Clickify is one of them. Adobe for content creatives.
00:14:29
Amit Parmar Cliquify
A lot of video tools are starting to pop up. I mean, you turn around, there's like another video tool, right?
00:14:34
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
00:14:34
Amit Parmar Cliquify
There's like so many of them. But I think there's an inherent like issue with video in the sense that people, like they love to do TikToks, but when a company asks them to create a video, it's all of a sudden it's like, whoa, right?
00:14:46
Tim Sackett
I know.
00:14:46
Amit Parmar Cliquify
So there's a whole thing with that.
00:14:47
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:14:48
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Even though Clickify has a video solution, I'm always like, hey, and it depends culturally, right? But I'm always hesitant to say, hey, video is going to be super successful for you.
00:14:59
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Even though there's all these metrics, that tell you the engagement, but actually the act of getting those videos is still tough. that something That's something we have to crack practice the code on.
00:15:09
Tim Sackett
i think I think it does speak to the maturity curve, right?
00:15:09
Amit Parmar Cliquify
it
00:15:12
Tim Sackett
Because when you start thinking about the tools being basically, and don't say basically, but but but they're basically digital content creative tools, right? Canva and some of these other ones that are out there like that.
00:15:22
Tim Sackett
like And so you're asking somebody to go create collateral when in reality is, they probably already have a marketing digital team that should be or could be doing that and allowing them then to focus on deeper stories, connections, to be able to get that information out there sharing.
00:15:39
Tim Sackett
Instead, again, from the maturity side, they're doing a lot of blocking and tackling of like, okay, I need to get a LinkedIn post up or I need to do, you know, and they have to go out and create something on their own because they have nobody else that can kind of help them.
00:15:51
Tim Sackett
and to me, that's just, it's still kind of shocking at kind of how early days we still are at employment branding, you know?
00:15:52
Amit Parmar Cliquify
a
00:15:57
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know you you talk you you mentioned this, right? Like a typical ratio of an employer branding to like a recruiter is like one to a hundred.
00:16:05
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:16:06
Amit Parmar Cliquify
And so what ends up happening inevitably is like a recruiter in like Hungary and Budapest might say, hey, I've got a higher data scientist here in like two weeks.
00:16:06
Tim Sackett
It's crazy.
00:16:14
Amit Parmar Cliquify
They're shooting off an email to the employer branding person and saying, can you help me create a campaign? Right.
00:16:19
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:16:20
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah.
00:16:20
Tim Sackett
Yeah. And it it doesn't happen. So then they go to GPT and get some crap thrown up. on like And they're like, oh. And like that's why you see all the brand stuff is different and no one's using the same thing is because you have recruiters out there running around like crazy people doing their own thing.
00:16:33
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah, and so that's then there's a huge opportunity to drive that consistency in your messaging around the world. And there is a way, I mean, Clickify, I believe, has cracked the code in the last six years, right? There's a way to drive that consistency in the look and feel, but also the data-driven storytelling, right?
00:16:50
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Because I always tell our teams this, like anyone can create content in the age of AI, but very few can create content based on intelligence.
00:16:51
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:16:59
Amit Parmar Cliquify
ah And that's that's one of the reasons why what, two years ago now, we launched Clio which will actually arm the employer branding leaders or the architects of these stories with like, hey, here's the sentiment.
00:17:13
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Here's what your engagement survey is telling you. Here's what the candidate survey is telling you. Like, hey, these are insights before you just go off and start building any content, right?
00:17:21
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Do you believe um that talent brand, employment brand, like we kind of like mess around with like what we call it already, right? um Should that live within marketing or should it stay in talent acquisition? Because I think I believe...
00:17:38
Tim Sackett
That there's a world where I would say, if I have a really great CMO marketing team, and I want to have some consistency across consumer brand and talent brand, that I should just live there, at least matrixed, right? And and and be a part of that team and live within that team potentially, just to leverage some of that expertise as well.
00:17:58
Tim Sackett
But you don't i don't do you see that happening? Or or is it just everyone still living in TA? Yeah.
00:18:04
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah, I mean, the current state is, would say of the 10 UB people or employer branding people I speak with, like at least eight of them report into TA. Okay.
00:18:12
Tim Sackett
yeah, yeah.
00:18:13
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Like that's about 80%, right? Every now and then, i'll i'll be pleasantly surprised. ah You know, one of those 10 reports into this this function called the employee experience, okay?
00:18:26
Tim Sackett
oh yeah yeah
00:18:28
Amit Parmar Cliquify
which is Which then, you know, there's a broader question, Tim, on what where is the future of TA, right? And I see, at least in the larger organizations, I see TA and talent management, like talent acquisition and talent management role into one role.
00:18:43
Tim Sackett
Yeah, our friends our our i mean i i mean I talk about my friends at Marriott all the time, Jessica Lee, leading global TA and talent management together, um gives her so much flexibility for that employee experience, right?
00:18:56
Amit Parmar Cliquify
That's right. and And that was actually my role before Clickify. So I i was i come from talent management and i inherited talent acquisition.
00:18:59
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:19:04
Amit Parmar Cliquify
and I loved it. right so but But really, i think that's where the biggest value add is for this role, for the employer branding role.
00:19:05
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:19:12
Amit Parmar Cliquify
um There is, to your point, there is this, it's very important to to be aligned to the the marketing organization as it relates to the broader story that they're trying to portray to their customers.
00:19:26
Amit Parmar Cliquify
But I think it's more of a matrix as opposed to like a, it's a dotted line as opposed to a solid line into that function.
00:19:34
Tim Sackett
So when you think about yourself as a practitioner going like you know growing up in this industry and then obviously building over the last six years, and andre obviously we're talking about frontline hiring, what what have you seen change over that period of time um in terms of employment branding in regards specifically to like frontline hiring?
00:19:56
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Oh, wow. um You know, so look, Clickify was born as like social first.
Clickify's Social-First Approach
00:20:01
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah. Of course, we've added many other channels since then, like we've got Microsoft and Slack and so on as well as integrations.
00:20:04
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:20:06
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:20:09
Amit Parmar Cliquify
But our native integrations have always been social first. Right. um And of course, we looked at a ton of data even back six years ago. Right. Like. You have, and we have ah we have a slide on this somewhere that we share with our clients.
00:20:22
Amit Parmar Cliquify
I mean, if you look at all the major social channels, you're looking at about 500 billion people around the world spending on average two and a half hours a day on one of these channels. Yeah.
00:20:33
Amit Parmar Cliquify
on average. So there's this massive shift away from TV screens, even laptop screens to just like these social channels, be it Instagram, TikTok, or, you know, WeChat in China. Like there's just so much opportunity to to get in front of those those people.
00:20:52
Amit Parmar Cliquify
And they're all, the way, they're all like, there's this, you know, people think TikTok is for like, you know, my 15 year old.
00:20:52
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:20:57
Amit Parmar Cliquify
No, no, no.
00:20:58
Tim Sackett
No.
00:20:59
Amit Parmar Cliquify
You've got people, right?
00:20:59
Tim Sackett
there
00:21:01
Amit Parmar Cliquify
You've got physicians on it.
00:21:01
Tim Sackett
you Yeah, you could like to crochet socks for 83-year-old African-American men. like There's a channel on TikTok for you. like It doesn't matter what segment you're into, you're you're going to find it.
00:21:13
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Right, right. Yeah, so going back to your front line, like, ah i can guarantee you the front line talent is probably spending more than two and a half hours a day on one of these channels, right? so so getting getting your content in the right way, because there there is there is science behind the content, yeah?
00:21:32
Amit Parmar Cliquify
ah to get it in front of the right people at the right time ah is is the biggest opportunity ahead of us as relates to engaging with the frontline talent.
00:21:41
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:21:43
Amit Parmar Cliquify
And what's interesting, and because now we have we have ah approximately, what, 38,000 stories now on Clickify over the last six years.
00:21:51
Tim Sackett
Yep.
00:21:52
Amit Parmar Cliquify
And stories come in different formats, right? It could be photos, it could be videos, so we support multiple formats. when you When you look at the trends, um sometimes it has nothing to do with the job.
00:22:03
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:22:05
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Sometimes it's like, hey, you know what? I want to know like what my team is going to be, even if I'm frontline talent. going to be working with like you know you know the jerk factors out there.
00:22:16
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:22:19
Amit Parmar Cliquify
What we're finding is, yes, you can you can bring them to the job ultimately in the journey, but it's your content doesn't always ah have to be like, hey, i have this job open.
00:22:29
Tim Sackett
Yeah, yeah.
00:22:29
Amit Parmar Cliquify
In which but of job boards, right? Like that's what we all grew up with, right? Being in talent. And so there there is this storytelling aspect that we're seeing with frontline talent that's actually resonating better.
00:22:42
Amit Parmar Cliquify
So for example, ah pool operators for one of our clients in the hotel industry actually, right? So they're honestly just sharing like, hey, these are these are our pool operators and this is Forgetting day in the life because that's like getting so old.
00:22:55
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:58
Amit Parmar Cliquify
But like here is here is their journey. Like, would you would you want to be part part of that journey?
00:23:01
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:23:04
Amit Parmar Cliquify
So the journey was something like, hey, they started out as an intern. ah this This customer of ours paid for their internship. Like that's the stuff the frontline talent just absolutely loves.
00:23:15
Tim Sackett
or Or sometimes it's just even like, look, I know this job's doing this job. i got Someone's got to make the fries, blah, blah, blah, right? It's not to it's not sexy or exciting, but like it's the interaction you have with your coworkers where you show up and you actually have a fun day because, oh, I'm going work with Amit and we have this great – and we have a friendship and I get to work with my friend. And even though you're dealing with customers and you're dealing with hard jobs or dirty jobs or whatever – it doesn't mean you're going to hate the job or the work because you have this interaction that's happening.
00:23:42
Tim Sackett
right And so I think when, when people see that, they're like, Oh yeah, I would like to work. And I'm not trying to make up like, Oh, this is a fun work environment. Like, you know, and these like stupid things we have, we've said for years, but when you actually have a real employee show, like, why do you like it here?
00:23:51
Amit Parmar Cliquify
right Absolutely.
00:23:58
Tim Sackett
And then they, there's, they just goof off for a second because somebody behind him is like, give them rabbit ears. And you're like, Oh, you see the, the energy and the interaction is taking place when someone's in a workplace. Like, why do we show up to work every day? And you're like, oh, because i have friends there. I have a social life there. I have people that I you know like to hang out with and they happen to be at work. And I think sometimes in the history of how we tried to show employment brand, that was lost. And I think with this video aspect or the stories aspect, you can start to show some of that in a real way, you know?
00:24:29
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Oh, absolutely. and And, you know, I mean, there's there's so many ways to to engage with the frontline talent. And, you know, many, many places will call it like, you know, i've I've read like invisible talent, right?
00:24:40
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Like, which I hate, by the way. But, you know, and and some in some ways, like the invisible talent that kind of hits home. Like, hey, how do we make them more visible? Because they are the ones running essentially some of these countries.
00:24:54
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Like, it's crazy, right?
00:24:54
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:24:55
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Like, so...
00:24:55
Tim Sackett
Oh, yeah.
00:24:58
Amit Parmar Cliquify
you know For me, I'm very passionate about like how do you how do you get, like as ah as as an industry, how do we get better at engaging with this talent versus just like putting jobs out on job boards?
00:25:11
Amit Parmar Cliquify
I'm not saying that that's not the right way. It's just let's connect with these folks in a more meaningful way.
00:25:17
Tim Sackett
Well, I always go like, is to me, like we you have to put the jobs out on the job boards. That's like a lowest common denominator. That's like, again, we had to make the donuts. But so often, so many companies stop there and they don't go to like figure out, like there's another chart that you guys had in the report about like source of hire or quality of, sort like quality of hire by source, right?
00:25:29
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah.
00:25:37
Tim Sackett
And you take of things like social media, which is the biggest at 40%. And then you have employee referrals at 25%. So 65% of the hiring at a quality aspect come from a socialization really.
00:25:51
Tim Sackett
And then you have the display ads and agencies and and job boards that take up the rest of it. and But we spend so much time on the display ads, the job boards in the recruiting agencies when the 65%, the majority of the hiring, ah you know, is really going to come from these other aspects that we tend to kind of go, oh, hey, I got a referral. Oh, hey, we hired someone off of Instagram. you look They're almost shocked by it versus going, hey, how about you spend some real time and resources and energy there, you know?
00:26:20
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Totally, totally. And then by the way, i know I totally know the the word quality is so subjective, right? So we didn't even go in the report like asking how you define quality because would have gotten like 50 different answers.
00:26:31
Tim Sackett
Oh, it's a completely, yeah, that's a whole nother thing.
00:26:33
Amit Parmar Cliquify
But quality is yeah.
00:26:35
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:26:36
Amit Parmar Cliquify
But, you know, the the question really was from what you know of, however you measure quality today, right? where do you where do you believe your your highest you know quality source of hire is coming from?
00:26:48
Amit Parmar Cliquify
right That was the that question.
00:26:48
Tim Sackett
Yeah. know
00:26:49
Amit Parmar Cliquify
right So social media, even last year, because we have the year over year, last year social media was up there This year is actually a little higher. So we are starting to see the shift to to social referrals.
00:27:03
Amit Parmar Cliquify
are like They're like the gold standard. right like they've They've always been. right So that's And there's an overlap with social and so and and referrals as well, because when you drive advocacy, in in many ways, you're actually driving referral campaigns, if you think about it.
00:27:18
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:19
Amit Parmar Cliquify
It's a mature way of doing it.
00:27:22
Tim Sackett
I always think it's funny because there's there's a segment of the talent acquisition population that loves to dump on referrals. Oh, referrals are crap, blah, blah, blah. and And I was always fascinated by that. And then I started digging in and i was like, oh, that's because they don't have anything to do with referrals.
00:27:41
Tim Sackett
Referrals are just coming and they end up being good hires and it has nothing to do with you being a good recruiter. but if you go out But if you go out and source and you go out and find, like, hey, like I'm muscling the recruiting function, then I have value.
00:27:48
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:56
Tim Sackett
But if Johnny just shows up at the door because he was referred by Tim, I had nothing to do with that. And like, I can't take credit for that. And like, there's this weird kind of dynamic between referral hires and recruiting that sometimes don't align.
00:28:08
Amit Parmar Cliquify
yeah
00:28:11
Tim Sackett
and so i'm always kind of fascinated because we would sit there and go, yeah, if if you run the numbers at a macro level, referral hires are the gold standard by far. And yet you will find like recruiters and TA leaders that will be like, oh no, referrals suck, blah, blah, blah.
00:28:25
Tim Sackett
And you're like, tell me more. What's what's going on there?
00:28:28
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah.
00:28:29
Tim Sackett
you know?
00:28:30
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah. And I think yeah to your point, right? Like, I think it has to do with how, um, like what aspects of the recruiting role is, is weighted more than the other. Right.
00:28:43
Amit Parmar Cliquify
So, uh, for me personally and professionally, right. Like I view the role of the recruiter as being more strategic in the sense that, you know, it's not about the ah sourcing. It's important.
00:28:55
Amit Parmar Cliquify
But for me, what's even more important is did that recruiter take that referral candidate and actually assess that person the right way for succession planning or whatever that, you know, depending on the level place, right?
00:28:55
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:29:08
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:29:09
Amit Parmar Cliquify
But really drive like that quality aspect, even if it came from from a referral source.
00:29:16
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:29:16
Amit Parmar Cliquify
So i think it all has it also has to do with how how people or leaders, TA leaders or talent leaders, you know, weight, like what is, what is higher weightage? Is it sourcing or is it more like, Hey, what are you going to do with this talent to drive fit?
00:29:31
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Is that
00:29:31
Tim Sackett
Yeah. So I'm going to get you out here on a couple of questions. But first, before before that, for those who are watching on YouTube, you're you've seen, I think, three members of Amos' family now in the background.
00:29:41
Amit Parmar Cliquify
right?
00:29:42
Tim Sackett
i think, well, it maybe just two. It might be your son twice going back and forth. I thought at first it was your wife, but i it was real quick. I know you for sure it was your son coming down the steps and then the dog was just like poking his head in, like looking.
00:29:54
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Oh, that's funny.
00:29:55
Tim Sackett
And I'm like, this is amazing. I get the whole family. Yeah.
00:29:59
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah, I didn't realize I'm so like locked into you. I'm like not even focused there, which by the way, I tried to change my background. So apologies for the audience were for this distracting you with my with my family.
00:30:10
Tim Sackett
Oh, I think it's amazing. They're like, its this is perfect.
00:30:12
Amit Parmar Cliquify
ah
00:30:13
Tim Sackett
So when you think about employment branding, talent branding overall as a function, and you think of people you know that are in the audience that are listening, like heads of TA, practitioners, CHROs, and you go, if I could give you like just one golden nugget of advice to focus on to make your make your your employment brand better today or over the next six months by the end of the year, what would you tell them to do?
Advice for TA Leaders on Quality Hires
00:30:41
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Oh, man, um that's a loaded question, actually, and I may answer it in in more than one way if that's okay yeah
00:30:48
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:30:50
Amit Parmar Cliquify
okay. You've got this this massive like AI applicants and AI filters in place right now, all these tools, right? So you know one thing I would certainly suggest for TA leaders to to play closer pay closer attention to, which I'm sure they are, right?
00:30:58
Tim Sackett
who
00:31:07
Amit Parmar Cliquify
It's just something that certainly keeps me up at night, even though i'm no longer in the role, is how how are you driving that quality of hire when you have ai applicants and then you have AI filter?
00:31:24
Amit Parmar Cliquify
And of course, you've got all, you know, there's some recent announcements with like Plum. I'm a huge fan of Plum, right? So there are assessment technologies, but, you know, they come at ah at a price.
00:31:31
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:31:34
Amit Parmar Cliquify
So how do you
00:31:35
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:31:36
Amit Parmar Cliquify
where At what point in your process do you enable that? Or do you use storytelling right as a mechanism to kind of filter out the the folks you don't want to even get into this AI applicant you know conundrum? right so yeah And it's not an easy thing to solve, but but that's one thing as a TA leader that would keep me up at night is, man, like what are we doing? like Are we just a volume play now or are we a quality
00:32:04
Tim Sackett
Yeah, I saw um some technology that's in beta right now where you could do this kind of screener question, which which relates to kind of what you're talking about, where you go, hey, talk to us about the kind of culture or like the you know what you would want to work in.
00:32:21
Tim Sackett
and then it explained and then like in the criteria for AI, it says, hey, this is our culture, right? Here's like a one page around what our culture is. And then let's let's kind of try to get some weighting to when someone answers how close was what they are looking for as to what we have.
00:32:36
Tim Sackett
We discount so highly someone's match to our culture.
00:32:36
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Love that.
00:32:41
Tim Sackett
And like 10 years ago, we talked about that a lot. and then it became kind of like a dirty thing. Like, don't, oh my gosh, no. And be inclusive. Welcome everybody. I'm like, no, no, no. I want to welcome everybody. But I also want to welcome people who actually want to work here.
00:32:53
Tim Sackett
They want to be a part of what we do, which is super important. And I think we can actually build that in. And we talked about, like you said, like talked about plum or just assessment science in general, as AI starts to match jobs and candidates and and everything becomes the same, we have to have more signals of noise to be able to kind of go, okay, now who really are the people who can perform and want to be here?
00:33:14
Tim Sackett
And then let's, let's focus our energies on those people because there's going to be, cause everyone's going to look the same, right?
00:33:21
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah. and Yeah. I think, I think, you know, and you're already seeing this, right? Like you, you post a job on LinkedIn, you got like 200 applicants. And I'm like, are they, is it really, are they really 200?
00:33:29
Tim Sackett
Oh, yeah. within the Within the first hour, right? That's the crazy part, yeah.
00:33:34
Amit Parmar Cliquify
It's crazy. And I can, I can see like there there's some macro trends happening with the labor market, but it's just, i find it hard to believe that there's actually some, somebody's even thought about anything before applying for that job.
00:33:47
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Right. Like, and that's, that's, ah that's scary because you know For years, right like we're trying to drive like one of the core functions in a company is the talent you're bringing inside the door.
00:34:00
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:34:00
Amit Parmar Cliquify
yeah
00:34:00
Tim Sackett
Yeah. yeah
00:34:01
Amit Parmar Cliquify
and And right now, that core function as a company, I believe, is is on a balance. Yeah. so
00:34:09
Tim Sackett
You know, my one my one nervousness of all this is that we're going to go back a decade, 15 years ago, where remember when we used to have apply processes that were like, literally you're like, hey, can you hop on one foot for 23 minutes? Okay, next step, right? Like we had to we made candidates jump up. We had made candidates jump through so many hoops that it wasn't, and we because we thought, oh, well, I have so many candidates.
00:34:31
Tim Sackett
How do we get that candidate number down to the management level? We're like, okay, let's make the most painful process ever.
00:34:34
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Right.
00:34:37
Tim Sackett
And then we'll have just a few candidates that make it to the end. And those candidates really want to work here. you're like, well, or maybe they're desperate to work here.
00:34:44
Amit Parmar Cliquify
right
00:34:44
Tim Sackett
And and it's the only and so you're losing your grade.
00:34:45
Amit Parmar Cliquify
yeah
00:34:47
Tim Sackett
So then we went right ditch, left ditch. Now we're on the other side where it's like, oh, just wave your hand in front of your face and you apply, right? like you know It's like anybody can apply.
00:34:57
Tim Sackett
And now we have 1,000 people 20 minutes. I still think we should allow everybody to show interest, but then we have to build in again, not i would say like it's it's not going to be frictionless, but I wouldn't say, like hey, don't build stuff just to build stuff to like get rid of people.
00:35:07
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Please.
00:35:15
Tim Sackett
like Build in real signals where you're going to go, hey, does a person actually can they actually do you know what they say they can do? can Do they actually want to be here? like But still make it easy for people to show interest.
00:35:26
Tim Sackett
like I'm so fearful that... we're going to get back to these people building in like all these, you know, hoops and shit for people to jump through that. Like, you're just like, come on, man. Like not nobody that's decent, ah you know, quality of talent ever going to survive that, you know?
00:35:41
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah, and it's, look, we can have such a deep dive session because it's, you know, it's, of course, talent segment, you know, focused, like it depends on, you know, if I'm hiring a callt call, don't know, call center rep jobs are even available now under the eye, but, you know, let's I'm just making this up, right?
00:35:56
Amit Parmar Cliquify
But let's see your call center jobs, right?
00:35:56
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:57
Amit Parmar Cliquify
But the call centers, like, you know, they're very specific things that we would be asking for, right? That they're like either knockout questions and in Workday, so I was a Workday customer for many years, right?
00:36:10
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Didn't mind it at all, actually. So, so you know, it's all it's all how you configure it. but
00:36:15
Tim Sackett
For sure.
00:36:16
Amit Parmar Cliquify
But really, how are you mapping that journey for every talent segment, right? So if I was hiring data scientists, it's a very different process, right?
00:36:22
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:36:26
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:36:27
Amit Parmar Cliquify
And that, by the way, and you'll see that in the report, we are in a very encouraging way. We are seeing talent and branding leaders starting to think about that journey.
00:36:38
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Each talent segment, And it's not there yet because you know you have one AV person for like you know thousands of employees, right? that's The ratio is all screwed up. But really, it's encouraging to see that folks are starting to think about the talent segments and and actually parsing out, like, what does that journey look like for a data scientist versus a call center rep, right?
00:37:00
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:37:02
Amit Parmar Cliquify
And that's encouraging to see. What I get nervous about is you know CEOs, right, in these large companies, They'll say, hey, you've got AI, like you just invested, you know, $2 million dollars in, you know, XYZ tool.
00:37:15
Amit Parmar Cliquify
um Therefore, you know, you should be able to do more with less. Yeah.
00:37:20
Tim Sackett
yep oh yeah no doubt right i
00:37:22
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Right. And that's that's ah that's another watch out. Yeah.
00:37:26
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
Early Career Experiences
00:37:27
Tim Sackett
All right. I usually open with this question. Madeline's going to like yell at me because I forgot. um But I did get the sponsor down. So I'm like, I'm like, I'm like a plus to one minus one. we usually open when we say, Hey, frontline job, what was your first frontline job that you ever had to do?
00:37:42
Tim Sackett
um
00:37:42
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yes.
00:37:43
Tim Sackett
and then, yeah.
00:37:43
Amit Parmar Cliquify
I remember this. I remember this.
00:37:45
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:37:45
Amit Parmar Cliquify
I was actually in the back of a kitchen and at a local Indian restaurant. I'm of Indian heritage in Edison, New Jersey.
00:37:53
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:37:54
Amit Parmar Cliquify
So I was born, i was raised in everything.
00:37:55
Tim Sackett
Cooking, cleaning, what did you have to do?
00:37:58
Amit Parmar Cliquify
I was basically doing everything. I got, I remember i got, I would, this was before I started driving.
00:37:59
Tim Sackett
you
00:38:03
Amit Parmar Cliquify
So there'd be this white, there'd be this white van that would basically come and pick up all these kids.
00:38:04
Tim Sackett
oh wow.
00:38:09
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Right. Right.
00:38:11
Tim Sackett
Child labor.
00:38:11
Amit Parmar Cliquify
right and basically, right? And then, you know, they would they would basically pay us 30. I still remember this. They'd pay us $30 from like 7 p.m.
00:38:21
Amit Parmar Cliquify
to like 1 a.m., right?
00:38:23
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:38:24
Amit Parmar Cliquify
I would do that on weekends because, of course, I had to you know to go to school, right?
00:38:27
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:38:28
Amit Parmar Cliquify
And that was my first job. So, you know, sometimes I'd be in in the kitchen, like just cutting like, you know, the vegetables.
00:38:34
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:36
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Or sometimes like if I'm needed to serve tables, I did that too.
00:38:41
Tim Sackett
I love to me. these the like I love to hear that everyone, because I mean, people that are in like the ah HR talent space tend to like, there's so many of us, like our first job was in a restaurant or in a service capacity of some sort.
00:38:54
Tim Sackett
And then, you know, it's like, it just makes, it's it's great.
00:38:54
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Yeah.
00:38:57
Tim Sackett
So, all right. Tell everybody how they can find you. What's the easiest way to connect with you?
00:39:01
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Oh, man.
Closing Remarks and Contact Information
00:39:02
Amit Parmar Cliquify
LinkedIn, of course. You know, I'm i'm forever active on on LinkedIn, but you can reach me at Amit at Clickify as well.
00:39:10
Tim Sackett
Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on. um Everybody, that's another episode of Frontline. Shout out to Workday and the Frontline Hiring Solutions that they have. Super excited to have them on board.
00:39:21
Tim Sackett
Again, go find Amit on LinkedIn and we'll see you guys next time.
00:39:27
Amit Parmar Cliquify
Thanks.