Talent acquisition has become increasingly complex and competitive in recent years, requiring organizations to seek new tools and technology to better support how they find and attract talent. In a new report, "The Talent Acquisition Trifecta: A New Framework," human capital management technology research firm Aptitude Research Partners found that in order to have a successful, modern talent acquisition strategy, companies must have three technologies in place: a Recruitment MarketingPlatform to attract leads, nurture and convert them into applicants; an Applicant Tracking System to manage applicants through a compliant hiring process; and an Onboarding System to manage new hires as they become productive employees.

"The Talent Acquisition Trifecta: A New Framework" Key Takeaways:

• The Talent Acquisition Trifecta is comprised of best-in-class technologies that manage candidates at different stages of their journey: a Recruitment Marketing Platform, Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and an Onboarding System.
• These platforms are designed to integrate with each other and with other HR solutions in a company's broader ecosystem.
• When an organization invests in recruitment marketing, it is able to shift from reactive to proactive recruiting, enabling the talent acquisition team to fill jobs faster today, and have a pipeline of quality leads to fill jobs faster tomorrow.
• Over 70% of companies surveyed are planning to invest in a Recruitment Marketing Platform in the next 12 months.

The report also highlights a user case study in which Bright House Networks, the sixth largest owner and operator of cable systems in the U.S. (and recently acquired by Charter Spectrum), built a recruitment marketing strategy that has established a talent pipeline of leads and uses modern marketing practices to nurture leads and convert them into applicants ? resulting in more than 5,500 applications between November 2015 and April 2016. Other achievements within the same timeframe include:

• $2.63 average cost per application, a decrease of 22% since 2015;
• 14.5% click to apply rate – with pay per click job ads performing over 10x higher than organic job ads on the same channels;
• 1,923 referrals (152% increase from 2014).

Jennifer Tracy, the company's Senior Director of Talent Acquisition and Diversity, said, "It's no surprise to hear that 70% of companies are planning to invest in a recruitment marketing platform. In the last five years recruiting has become increasingly challenging, and we've needed to spend more resources to get the right people. Before, it was an employer's choice, but now it's a candidate choice. Since adding a Recruitment Marketing Platform from SmashFly Technologies to our ATS, we now have complete visibility in our recruiting strategy as well as end-to-end metrics that allow my recruiters to be much more strategic and proactive. Also, we've been able to reallocate budget across our entire strategy by reducing spend in advertising and job boards that didn't work. Our KPIs are better than ever: between 2013 and 2015 we had a 24% increase in filling positions and at the same time decreased cost by 48%."

Madeline Laurano, Co-Founder & Chief Research Officer of Aptitude Research Partners, said, "Identifying, attracting, hiring and onboarding talent can be a daunting process for companies. Our research into what makes talent acquisition teams successful led us to create a new framework for organizational thinking and how companies should define success. These days you need more than just an ATS to find and hire top talent — a talent acquisition strategy isn't strategic if it doesn't have the right technology in place to manage candidates throughout the different stages of their journey. The best approach is to invest in the 'Talent Acquisition Trifecta' — a Recruitment Marketing Platform, an Applicant Tracking System and an Onboarding System. With these three solutions as part of your HR technology stack, the task of identifying, attracting, hiring and onboarding talent will be less complex and organizations will be able to shift from reactive to proactive recruiting."

For more information, listen to this webinar in which Madeline Laurano presents the Talent Acquisition Technology Trifecta, how each of these systems help organizations create a more effective talent acquisition framework, and what organizations need to have in place to attract, recruit and hire the best talent.

To sign up for information about SmashFly's first recruitment marketing conference, SmashFly Transform™, to be held November 2-4, 2016, in Boston, Mass., visit: http://go.smashfly.com/transformrecruitmentmarketing.

About SmashFly Technologies

SmashFly's award-winning Total Recruitment Marketing Platform enables talent acquisition teams to find, attract, engage, nurture and convert candidates into qualified applicants using a centralized management system that automates and measures recruiting strategies and programs. Customers use SmashFly to unite their previously disconnected recruiting tools into an integrated software platform for Job Marketing, Web Sourcing, Candidate Relationship Management (CRM), Talent Networks, mobile-responsive and SEO-optimized Career Sites, Employee Referrals, Social Recruiting and Recruiting Analytics. Used to target pre-applicants in the front-end of the talent acquisition process, SmashFly integrates with any applicant tracking system (ATS) to provide unparalleled, real-time analytics on the sources that produce the best hires for the organization. Learn more at smashfly.com and follow us on Twitter @SmashFly.