Recently asked to help a SM drive by writing a few short “scripts”. They are currently in production.

Video scripts – 15 seconds

LinkedIn/Recruiter – 1:

Remote work supports thoughts of flexibility: “A bit here. A bit there. I work best at night or with a deadline. The cat needs attention.” But does this feed productivity and job satisfaction, or just the cat?

That’s why we call our approach: Remote Control.

CTA screen: Read Remote Control: Cat-In-The-Lap Productivity, Hiring and Retention now.

View demo

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LinkedIn/Recruiter – 2:

What’s the work-life balance of your remote teams? Time zones, meeting requests, problem-solving, brainstorming, training, deadlines, standups, fun-nights. Phew! It all matters. That’s why we call our approach…

[Lifts a remote control device, points at the camera and presses. The words “Remote Control” appear on the screen.]

Remote control!

CTA screen: Read Remote Control: Cat-In-The-Lap Productivity, Hiring and Retention now.

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Facebook/Member:

Filling out long, dull, endlessly repetitive job application forms helps most people understand how Bill Murray felt in the movie Groundhog Day. With our Apply4Me service, your application forms are completed and sent for you. Don’t you just love happy endings?

CTA screen: Learn more about Apply4Me from Ladders.

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Twitter/Member:

How can I express what Ladders Apply4Me service does in a tweet? It’s complex! A member presses a button next to a job and our team completes the form and sends the application for them. [Pause] I wonder if there’s a tweet-for-me service anywhere? Hmm.

CTA screen: Say “Goodbye!” to endless job application forms with Apply4Me!

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Instagram/Member:

If hiring teams don’t love your resume as much as you do, it’s their loss, right? If your answer to that is “Erm, no?” you can always download one of Ladders seventy-three resume templates, edit the sample text, and own a resume based on the needs of hiring teams. Free!

CTA screen: Check out our 73 resume templates and download yours free!

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TikTok/Member:

TikTok is fun, but nobody wants to hear that sound when they’re filling out endless job application forms. It gets really loud and oppressive. That’s why we complete and send our members’ job application forms for them! That way they have more time for TikTok! Yay!

CTA screen: Say “Goodbye!” to endless job application forms with Apply4Me!

Pat Brien | Nov 29, 2021

“Synchronize watches and move out!”

We’ve all heard that line, or something like it, in a movie. XML job post management doesn’t usually require groups of anxiously determined people, bent over their watches, before scooting determinedly off in different directions.

But the job management stakes are high for millions, including you.

Whether you love or hate action movies, your career is about action and results. You are tasked with making things happen in a world where the stakes are high and the plot thickens with every technological or societal twist.

Casting You as the Action Hero

Your plot saw a huge twist with the advent of the internet. Suddenly it was easy to get job posts out there; and just as easy for enthusiastic amateurs to apply for any job — as easy as ABC, in fact — on the off-chance they might get a result. Making management tough.

Then came the downturn; then the upsurge; then the COVID catastrophe – desperation, mass resignation – it all seems to crash down on recruiters whatever the weather.

Targeting your jobs at the qualified experts you want to fill your candidate pool is key. Avoiding the enthusiastic amateurs who use technology to their career advantage is more important now than it ever was. And retention is everything.

ABC vs. XML

XML (eXtensible Markup Language), is designed to turn the ABC ease of online job applications in your favor. By enabling you to manage your job posts in a fast and efficient manner, you can target talent and control results with synchronized efficiency.

But it’s still about how the hero of the movie goes about it.

Advances in technology turned the phrase Post-and-Pray into Spray-and-Pray. XML job post management does offer huge advantages in terms of high quality distribution across the net.

An XML job feed connects your jobs to job aggregators and optimizes the process for formatting, consistency, and so on. Online search optimization is also easy enough and covers various areas:

• Use keyword sensitive job titles
• Maximize keyword density
• Mention the nearest metro area in location
• Allow aggregators to pull from your careers page

It all helps to get you out there, like the ATS solution helps you process the results.

Ladders’ XML Job Feed

Let’s give Ladders a part in this movie.

As a company dedicated to $100K-$500K+ professionals, with an average of 15+ years of experience, a bachelor’s degree pool that stands at 89% and a Master’s degree pool that stands at 36% across industries, we answer specific needs by design.

With an XML job post management feed, each time a new $100K+ job is added to your system, it’ll be automatically added to Ladders, too, for flawless targeting of high-end candidates. And when it closes, the post will be automatically removed.

Automated targeting combined with flawless synchronization.

If interested, you can learn about our XML feed guide. After your development team has created the feed, you can submit it to us at the address provided and you’re good.

Staying up with the times doesn’t get you ahead. Smart choices based on specific needs still spells success. That will never change.

So what’s the next evolution of the phrases Post-and-Pray and Spray-and-Pray?

Automate-and-Celebrate? Get-Wise-and-Synchronise? 

Aim-and-Hit? (Recommended)

In the movies, the hero makes the call, so we’ll leave it with you.

Pat Brien | Apr 14, 2022

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” – Charles Dickens wasn’t thinking about 21st century recruitment when he wrote that famous line, but it’s a sentiment that fits like the perfect candidate.

And its retention rate is looking great.

Recruiter salaries, adjusted for inflation, had jumped 14% by the end of 2021 from the year before, according to Revelio Labs. High demand for jobs, driven by the pre-pandemic “job hopping” trend, soon joined by the “great resignation”, has greatly increased the need for talented recruiters and, at the same time, put them under tremendous strain.

How recruiters have coped with the seismic disruptions to our working lives over the last two years is anybody’s guess: Resilience? Ability to adapt? The famously focused mindset of the “fast on your feet” professional? Zero choice? (Other than to join the great resignation themselves?)

Either way, they weathered the storm courageously and have possibly created new opportunities in their own careers as a result. Well deserved, if it happens.

Turmoil and Talent

The labor market, to be blunt, is in turmoil, and recruiters would be increasingly useful as professional advisors, or project managers, within hiring teams, from the earliest stages of hiring considerations.

Today’s recruiter certainly needs to advise companies on how to attract and keep talent. Established, growing and ongoing hiring and retention issues have created a gap in the market, with recruiters being the best qualified to fill it.

Questions arising around talent optimization internally, and the talent market externally, are the long-term stomping ground of recruiters. Why look elsewhere for answers? Instead of handing down requirement orders to be fulfilled, fulfilling recruiter potential by making them part of the initial discussions on requirements for roles, profiles, etc., could lead to great results.

Recruiters are your perfect fit talent advisor candidate. Own it.

Getting On Top of “Under Pressure”

The sheer pressure of skyrocketing competitiveness for talent, soaring hiring demand, and the need to adapt to – and adopt new ways to meet – new attitudes to employment expectations from candidates has been shocking in its power. To gain the upper hand, talent acquisition leaders have found themselves in a leading business position, central to selling the company brand, attracting the best talent, and increasing fast decreasing retention rates among companies.

The Ongoing State of Retention Rates

SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management), published a report in 2021 stating that over 40% of American workers are either actively seeking a new job, or have plans to do so. There’s no need to point out how staggering this number is, and probably no surprise to state that the number doubled from 2019.

BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics), states that 4 million people quit their jobs in July 2021. Resignations had peaked at 2.7% in both June and July 2021 — with a new record set for available jobs in the US at the close of July – 10.9 million.

In February 2022, 4.4 million people quit their jobs, but new hires moved up to 6.7 million, according to BLS, all of which only continues the new reality of “The Great Reshuffle”. There were an estimated 1.8 jobs for every unemployed person in February.

Choices, choices.

Reasons, Recruitment and Results

According to SHRM’s report, the top reasons given for leaving jobs by employees were:

• Better compensation
• Work-life balance
• Improved benefits
• Career advancement
• Career change

The list indicates, at least in the top four, that employees were becoming unhappy in their jobs and seeing better opportunities elsewhere. The final item appears to imply a general feeling of restlessness; a need for change in a quickly changing world. After all, if the world is disrupted to the point where daily routines are battered or shattered, why cling to the same spot?

Why be tossed aimlessly around when you can leap in any direction by dint of will?

It’s also possible that the first four in the list were heavily influenced by exactly the same feelings that gave rise to the final entry, which could sensibly raise the question: What seismic shift is coming down the pike next?

Outside of the finance industry, corporations have enjoyed their best profits for decades, so there is the opportunity to increase salaries and benefits to attract talent and gain long-term growth from the investment; but, like any investment, the question is: Will it pay off?

It appears so far that higher wages and better benefits aren’t attracting enough unemployed workers back into the workplace. Ironically, as this happens, the result is the offering of even greater pay, more offers of increased benefits, and so on.

And while the increased offers don’t appear to be getting those on the sidelines back into work, the result, for short-term survival, is more work loaded onto the shoulders of those still bothering to show up – until they can’t take it any more, leave, then find themselves being offered more money, more benefits, for jobs they’ve learned to hate.

Flexibility Is Stability

The “throw money at it” problem-solution technique aside, many smart recruiters are becoming increasingly attuned to what candidates want – a shift in attitudes from candidates becoming a sharp shift in focus from the recruiter. Some are studying where people are leaving in high numbers, with a view to building relationships in those spaces.

Whatever is top of mind for that hard to get candidate tops the list for hiring and retention. What is top of mind for forward-thinking recruiters is candidate/employee experience, not checklists of demands skillfully completed.

And it’s entirely possible that flexibility rather than finance will be the winning card. In that sense, employers and employees may have common ground. The sharp rise in remote work in the first quarter of 2022 may indicate that employers, absent a crystal ball, want the most stable environment possible for long-term growth; and employees seem to want the same.

Flexibility is the new stability. Or the closest thing we have.

The Evolution of Hiring

Not surprisingly, many are now predicting that 2022 will get harder, not easier, with remote work choices and remote interviews making job change more accessible than it’s ever been, at least for those who still wish to work – meaning competition for jobs will continue to increase.

And organizing, hiring, training, encouraging and retaining talent in a remote world raises a lot of questions, and presents a lot of issues, in and of itself.

Just because the initial sense of urgency starts to die down as recruiters scramble successfully to adapt, doesn’t mean the recruiter’s job will become easier as a result.

It won’t – but what it should do is evolve.

Pat Brien | January 4, 2022

COVID-19
Masking
Social Distancing
Vaccine Mandates
Job Furloughs
Lockdowns

No matter what we’re hit with, or how it affects us, applying for jobs remains our shining star in terms of proactive career action. Technology created a huge buffer against the reaction to COVID-19 across the world, helping many of us realize that there hasn’t been any real need to commute to an office for years.

Americans adapt quickly. They tend to stay positive in the face of overwhelming odds. And technology was more than ready to cope with millions of people working from home and searching for remote work, even when we weren’t so sure.

Still, whether or not that applies to you makes no difference. Asking for a promotion from an ungrateful boss aside, job applications remain the best way to take that next step up. Being proactive is one of the big winners in life, and we’ll spell that out using real experience here.

Here’s how we proactively adapted at Ladders and what it now means for job search.

Thinking ahead to get ahead – remote working

In early March 2020, in the face of growing concerns about COVID-19 and increasingly loud whispers about lockdowns, Ladders Founder and CEO, Marc Cenedella, brought two things to the table: leadership and his laptop. The table itself was in his kitchen.

This happened after he ordered an “experiment” to evaluate how the company would cope if obliged to work remotely under potential lockdowns. Online meetings were brushed up on or practiced, then everybody went their own ways, hoping to stay connected.

The move was so surprising that The Washington Post interviewed him and wrote an article: “This New York CEO put his company in a simulated coronavirus lockdown”. The proactive move meant that Ladders didn’t miss a beat when the lockdowns hit. In fact, the experiment was so successful that we continue to work remotely today, simply because proactivity fuels success, and success fuels staying power.

Applying for jobs under scrutiny

Using over 18 years of experience, we looked at how this would affect our seven million plus high-end members and 22,000+ verified recruiters. There really hadn’t been anything quite like the pandemic before, of course, but the potential ups and downs of remote working from a member and HR/recruiter perspective could be proactively studied and acted on.

Once we started reaching objective conclusions about job search, job applications, hiring and retention, we started giving advice to all sides, while conducting surveys and interviews to find out what everybody was feeling and thinking. That advice continues and the results of our surveys and interviews led to other strong conclusions.

Just as proactivity fuels success, looking and listening fuels ideas, from which comes innovation, serious solutions, and more success. COVID or not. Lockdowns or whatever rears its head next. All comers taken on. We’ll be ready.

Making applications easier, because we can

One thing we found is the only thing more frustrating than lockdowns for our members is endlessly filling out repetitive, boring, job applications forms. Experienced professionals jumping through hoops for potential employers, grinding out the same details time after time, as if already employed in some soulless, dead end job.

Remote working appeared to make it worse. Perhaps finishing a hard day’s work at the home office, only to have to start on job application forms, one after the other for as long as bearable, is actually worse than taking a break between the two things – even in the form of a commute. Or maybe many factors created that feeling?

Either way, we got proactive again and created Apply4Me – a service for Premium members, in which they complete 1 form, 1 time, and our expert team applies to jobs on their behalf. Today, the Apply4Me button can be found sitting beside virtually every job on our jobs page. With a single click, the job is applied to, the member is informed and given access to the application, and the action is recorded in their account, for easy review.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, it’s a smash hit. Today, members can even download an app and use Apply4Me on jobs sites across the net. The frustration of endless job application forms is over for our members; but, more importantly, time is saved for living life – and the value of that can’t be overestimated, obviously.

As an end note to this section, we conducted research and found that our Premium members save an average of 18 minutes per job application. Which is great, because it’s easier to be proactive in your job search when it isn’t limited to mind-numbing, time-wasting tedium, right?

Moving “remote” closer to home

Terrible pun in the title aside, remote work job search has always been a bit remote in the past as far as job search goes, so we decided to bring it closer to home. Under “Jobs” in the Ladders search bar, “Remote Jobs” can’t be missed in the dropdown box. On the search page itself, a “Show me remote work only” option can be seen and clicked in the search options on the left of the page.

We even send dedicated “Remote Jobs” emails out to members, with job title, location, salary, etc., based on their chosen preferences, to be sure nothing gets past them.

And if job opportunities are for some reason too remote to pop up in your search, or in an email from us, you can make your resume work for you by uploading it to Ladders and joining a talent pool regularly searched by our 22,000+ verified recruiters. 

Even proactively getting your resume ready to represent you in the new remote-friendly world couldn’t be easier. We have many resources available, including a free resume rewrite from our partners at Leet Resumes. For other options, you only need look in the Ladders search bar under “Resumes”.

Why applying for jobs should be easier for experts

Any talented person who has honed their talents, gained qualifications and experience, and worked hard to help companies thrive, should not be expected to spend weeks or months reading about, writing and editing resumes capable of getting past Applicant Tracking System (ATS) technology, then attracting attention from busy recruiters who scan them in seconds.

Anybody who wishes to do so should be supported and helped by experts at every step, of course. A resume is vital to successful job search and career advancement, therefore doing it yourself and going it alone should be recognized as two different things.

Each professional has a right to a team, just like the teams they work with in companies, so that everybody helps everybody else’s expertise shine through in the final product.

And they should not be expected to jump through job form hoops, just for a chance of being considered by a company, as if the company is doing them a favor, rather than a deal being reached based on mutual benefits. That’s the bottom line and it’s important to us at Ladders and to our members.

So when we say: “Get proactive in your job search!” – you can rest assured that we’ve worked hard to make that job search as easy and productive for you as possible. 

Now “Get proactive in your job search!”

Pat Brien | January 3, 2022

Do you make your resume work for you? Does it have a full-time job? Is it out there every day, advertising your skills and achievements to employers who need talent?

Or is it a sleeper agent, sitting unused until the moment you spy a new opening? Something worth brushing it up for before sending it out? Perhaps special occasion agent would be the best name for it?

If so, that isn’t good for your career. Here’s why.

Your resume as talent agent

Talent is a great word in this context. In a way, a resume that’s fully employed is like a talent agent. It’s out there while you’re resting, or working, or playing. No matter what you’re doing, it’s advertising your skills and experience, getting attention, and being available for that big break.

Whether you’re aware of it or not.

Your resume’s product is you

A resume with a career considers your needs. Your desired job title(s)? Check. Your desired career-level(s)? Check. Your desired location(s)? Check. Your desired salary? Check. You want to work remotely now? No problem. Check.

There aren’t many job openings today that don’t attract huge numbers of applicants. The internet makes it so easy to apply for jobs that recruiters and hiring managers use applicant tracking systems (ATS) technology just to deal with them all.

So recruiters do what works for them.

They sign up with jobs sites like Ladders and conduct targeted searches for qualified applicants. In the same way that you search for jobs, they search for the best talent. And where you see companies, job titles, and job descriptions, they see…

Take a guess.

Recruiters read resumes

During a job search, you target your searches and bring up job openings. On Ladders, 22,000+ verified, high-end recruiters, target their searches at talent and bring up resumes. They do this every day. And Ladders members with uploaded resumes are in that talent pool.

Which brings us to Sir Roger Moore.

Sir Roger Moore & your resume

From its humble beginnings to its celebrated international highpoints across cinema and television, Sir Roger Moore’s charisma-fueled career spanned a massive 72 years; his work with UNICEF leading to his knighthood in 2003.

Famously self-effacing about his acting talent and huge international success, he did once tell reporters who noticed that his wife’s foot was bandaged: “She was helping me count my money and she fell off the pile.”

So what has this to do with your resume? Well, when he was asked about how he’d achieved success in his career, he gave a straight answer (for once); and it was this:’Real World’ star Danny Roberts reflects on Julie Stoffer’s alleged homophobic letter: ‘It was damaging’PauseNext video1:20 / 6:14Full-screen

“It’s no good being the best actor in the world if nobody sees you because you didn’t happen to be there on the day a part was being cast.”
– Sir Roger Moore

Every day, thousands of high-end recruiters conduct searches for resumes, while talented professionals like yourself keep their resumes hidden from the world, waiting for inspiration to strike; the perfect dream job to suddenly appear.

Of course, those who understand this gain a huge advantage.

He also said of his career: “It was 99.9 percent luck and a minuscule bit of talent.” His modesty aside, the statement above shows how doggedly he worked at creating that luck.

As his career took off, his agent would have done the legwork on his behalf; but, before he had a power agent, he made it happen himself. He knew that being there was half the battle.

And he was right.

Your resume – dressing for the part

Your resume is your agent – or your advertisement. The point is, its job is to be out there drawing employer attention toward your skills, qualifications, and talent. When you turn up on the day yourself, it’s because you have been invited. Interest has been created.

So how does your resume dress for the part? It is an important question.

Your career competitors are probably more concerned about dressing up their resumes for those special occasions than they are about making their resumes work for them every day.

Conduct an online search about getting help with resumes and you’ll see a plethora of websites showing huge varieties of resumes of various designs: multiple columns, highlight boxes, images, colors. One type of resume for this job, one type of resume for that job.

They look great – even if the words are generally conjuring nonsense.

People like things that look great and pander to their vanity, so they use them. Just like a shopper wandering through a store looking at designer clothes, they search around for the perfect killer outfit to dress up their expertise.

Google also likes these sites. All that content serves the customer well, it thinks. Tons of colorful designs, explanatory text, links and downloads. Wonderful! So the sites go up the rankings and even more people are drawn in. Soon half the world is in agreement on the issue.

Apart from hiring managers and recruiters.

And ATS (applicant tracking system) machines.

The ATS machines get to chew up those colorful, multi-format resumes like so much candy; but hiring managers and recruiters still have to trawl through the hundreds that make it through.

Relevant information is all over the place; no two look the same. And after a lot of scanning, they are inevitably left with the usual dull descriptions of duties, rather than short, easy-to-scan accounts of successes.

So recruiters tinker with the ATSs.

Which means awkwardly adding lots of criteria to the ATS, in an attempt to find only “perfect fit” candidates. According to a Harvard Business School report, this is contributing to a “broken” hiring system in which millions of viable job candidates are automatically dismissed.

These qualified experts are known as “hidden workers.”

The best way to ensure that you aren’t – and don’t become – a hidden worker, is to dress your resume correctly and make sure it turns up on the day, every day.

Here’s how that’s achieved.

1. Upload your resume to Ladders free and join our talent pool.
2. See how your resume looks when processed by an ATS, free.
3. Download a free editable resume template that’s ATS and recruiter-friendly.
4. Have your resume rewritten free by experts at Leet Resumes.

Remember – uploading your resume means taking an action (however simple); and taking action is the only thing that earns results.

Sir Roger Moore became a legend because he understood that.

And acted!

Pat Brien | April 21, 2022

Here’s how Apply4Me works for you.

Imagine a serious professional painstakingly copying and pasting every element of her resume into a huge electronic form, piece by piece; or fixing every messed up element after being invited to drop her resume into it, only to see it turned into a bad jigsaw puzzle loosely based on her career. And after spending at least eighteen long minutes laboring over this mindless task (yes, we’ve tested the average time spent filling job application forms), a late request in the painful process is often to “Please upload your resume.”

Arrgh! And once done, you start the next one.

Based on our research, it’s not only the sheer time-wasting frustration that bothers professionals; there’s a sort of belittlement often described; a tinge of humiliation. After all, if somebody has the verve, vision and tenacity to create a business, then decides that experts in various fields are needed to cover specific areas, it’s a straightforward proposition. “Hi, I need somebody great to cover this area of my business.” “Your business looks interesting to me and I’m an expert in that area.” It reads like a conversation among equals, right? A deal is being struck that will benefit both parties. So far, so good.

Endless job application forms – forever?

“The only sure thing in life is death, taxes, and job application forms.”
— Benjamin Franklin

Ok, the last part of that quote was added on, but it will make perfect sense to millions of career-minded people. So why are you filling endless job application forms? If you’ve worked hard on your resume, or sought out experts who optimize resumes, why are you painstakingly recreating it on business websites for companies you’re not employed by? Shouldn’t they do it themselves, if they get such a kick out of it?

Why are you constantly expected to perform drudge work free of charge, simply on the off-chance your resume might make it through the application process? It would be easy to become cynical (many do), and think: “They don’t want experts as much as they want people willing to demonstrate subservience, or eager-to-please desperation, rather than people who see their expertise and experience as having inherent value.”

That view is almost certainly incorrect, but it’s hard not to empathize with people who’ve spent years honing their skills, then worked hard day and night for years, only to spend precious spare hours laboring over such nonsense. And, of course, it is mindlessly one-sided in favor of the companies who do it. And you are certainly expected to give your labor freely, if you want to get your foot in the door – regardless of your experience, your position, or your sheer brilliance.

All underlying intentions or issues aside, it falls on you to jump through hoops with a fixed smile on your face. The bottom line is: “You have no choice, so you’d better get on with it.”

So the question is, is that true?

Of course it isn’t. This is still (at time of publication) America. Free choice, innovation, and respect for hard work and unique talent are still what it’s all about. At Ladders, anyway. That’s why we decided to listen to our members and start working on a solution. And that solution has proved to be a hit for us.

Apply4Me – we apply to jobs for you

It works like this. You fill one form, one time – made up of 18 questions – and our expert team completes your job application forms on your behalf.

Members with a 1-month, 3-month or 6-month subscription can use the service a massive 100 times each month. So in a Mon-Fri working week, 25 job applications are covered with a single click. Or 5 each day. Members with a 12-month subscription have no monthly limit, only a limit of 1,200 applications annually! Not bad for busy professionals, right?

On your Ladders jobs search page, you see the Apply4Me button next to virtually every job – there are always low-level outliers, maybe a couple of dozen among the 40,000+ on Ladders. You read the job description, think it could be a good fit, and click the button.

With that, our team gets the notification and you also receive a notification in your inbox, then they go to work. Not only that, they review the application to ensure all those electronic form errors that mangle your resume are fixed, before applying for you.

If the company website needs an account to be created, the team does that for you, too, using your Ladders email address. Once done, they send you the information and the application is recorded on your “Jobs Applied” page, along with company name (and link to website), application date, application type and current status. If you want to check your application, you simply click the company name, then, using your Ladders email, change the password using “forgot password” (for security), and it’s securely held by you.

As mentioned above, we did our research and it showed that Ladders Premium members save an average of 18 minutes per job application. When it was first rolled out, many careful professionals preferred to fill their own job applications for companies they were particularly keen on, then use Apply4Me for companies showing jobs, salaries, and benefits they liked, but weren’t sure that a long, drawn out application would be worth it. Some surprising results helped turned that round for many of them. Here’s an example:

“First, I wanted to say thank you – Apply4Me did exactly what it was advertised to do: it saved me a ton of time and eliminated the drudgery of filling out the same forms over and over.

I wanted to add that this feature is the specific reason that I have the job that I have now. When I first saw the job listing, it did not look like the ‘perfect fit’. In the old way of applying, I would have moved on and not taken the time to apply. 

With Apply4Me, it was just a single click, so I didn’t have to be as picky, and I could include some of the ‘outliers’. This led to a callback which clarified the position was actually a great fit, then interviews, and then an offer.

When ‘finding a job’ was my full-time job, being able to apply for significantly more jobs in a lot less time was a game changer.

I’d be more than happy to provide more details, but I wanted to make sure I could tell you personally how grateful I am for Apply4Me and what it specifically meant to me.

Thanks again!”

— Josh Carpenter, Knoxville, MD

We’re delighted to say that we’ve received many letters like Josh’s and you can see more testimonials from members happy to go public about the service on our Apply4Me page. But aren’t we guilty of having our Premium members fill out a long form (17 questions!), just to use Apply4Me in the first place? Well, yes. The thing is, once that’s done, all that’s needed afterwards is a single click of a button, time and time again. In that sense, it’s the difference between drudgery and investment. If endlessly filling out long forms isn’t part of your expertise, you shouldn’t be doing it – especially free of charge.

That’s why we’re here to apply for you.

Pat Brien | Apr 7, 2022

The Ladders Q1 2022 Quarterly Remote Work Report, released on April 04, shows that the predicted rise from 18% jobs permanently remote in Q4 2021 to 25% by the end of Q4 2022 was blown out of the water by a stunning increase, leaving us at 24 percent in Q1 2022 – meaning that the number of full-time jobs available remotely has nearly tripled in the past year.

And that means a lot more adapting for recruiters already besieged by the seismic shifts in the way we all live and work.  Of course, there’s nothing normal about the “new normal” – but adapting correctly can mean thriving rather than surviving.

In a world very different from the one we inhabit today, the reasons for remote hiring were often based in business decisions grounded in:

• required skills being scarce in the business area
• desired avoidance of the logistics relocation demands
• demanding the best expert talent without relocation limitations

In today’s pandemic-disrupted world, COVID has remained the key influencer. Companies forced to take part in the remote work experiment found that they could indeed adapt and thrive, and may now consider the remote arrangement the most stable environment for long-term growth. After all, who really knows what’s going to happen next?

85% of managers predicted that having teams with remote workers would become the “new normal” in 2021 and beyond. In one sense, they were right; in another, they had underestimated the scale of the changes underfoot. The need to be conservative in our thinking has led to a lot of underestimation of how entrenched remote work is quickly becoming.

And with the bottom line always in mind, items like productivity increases from remote workers – along with lower overheads – led to record profits for many companies across industries.

In early March 2020, in the face of growing concerns about COVID-19 and increasingly loud whispers about lockdowns, Ladders founder and then CEO, Marc Cenedella, brought two things to the Ladders table : leadership and his laptop. The table itself was in his kitchen.

This happened after he ordered an “experiment” to evaluate how the company would cope if obliged to work remotely under potential lockdowns. Online meetings were brushed up on or practiced, then everybody went their own ways, hoping to stay connected.

At the time, the move was so surprising that The Washington Post interviewed him and wrote an article: “This New York CEO put his company in a simulated coronavirus lockdown”. The proactive move meant that Ladders didn’t miss a beat when the lockdowns hit.

Remote working worked out surprisingly quickly – for us and for those who followed us. Make no mistake, then, remote hiring is here to stay – throughout 2022 and beyond.

We speak from experience.

Remote Hiring: Social Distance & Success

A potential remote candidate for your company is likely to know nothing about you, what you do, how you do it, or the kind of talented people you choose to help you do it well.

Except for your online presence. 

The value of your company website and social media presence has gone up.

So how is your careers page looking? Does it reflect your company culture? Does it show the team and have cool short stories about remote working with the company?

How about a bunch of faux TV screens thrown onto the page? Photos of team members in each, along with names and titles beneath? And all with little lines interconnecting them?

As each is clicked, a video of that team member opens and they talk about the company, culture, working remotely, and how its all done effectively and enjoyably?

Too cute?

Fair enough. Your page should at least give a sense of the team, the culture, and how remote working functions. This is all critical information for a potential new hire. Especially as it establishes critical structures in an informal, even fun way.

Cat-In-The-Lap Productivity

The idea of remote work runs seamlessly with the thought of flexible hours. Do a bit here. Do a bit there. I work best late at night or under a tight deadline, anyway. The cat needs attention.

Hence the structures mentioned above. Hence the need for a strong website and social media presence that promotes your culture and remote work ethics and habits.

Answer this: What is the work-life balance of your remote employees?

Timelines and deadlines, video meetings, schedules, fun video get-togethers, informal meeting requests, cat-in-the-lap five-minute “standups”, online happy hours — it all matters.

Make potential flexibility and necessary availability known from the get-go.

Are time zone issues connected to the position? Regions that must be catered to by your new team member? Timelines that must be followed? Deadlines met? Meetings attended on a regular basis?

All nailed down? Then smile as those on-camera cats jump around.

Sourcing & Establishing Career Success

Appearing in directories dedicated to remote careers is a good idea for sourcing needs. High-ranking roundups of companies that hire remote workers are a good place to be seen.

Your social media presence could get inroads in remote working communities on Facebook, for example. 

Here at Ladders, we have a remote work only job search feature for our $100K+ professionals, which lists all relevant jobs for remote experts. Once they start a search, the option appears.

Targeting & Training

Still, targeting for talent may need to be followed with training for remote productivity.

Screen for compatibility with your company: Compatible OS, software: product management, internal communication tools, etc., high-speed connection and so on.

Decide the value of the candidate: What investments in hardware, software, upgrades — and training would be required? It’s much harder for a remote worker to learn as they go.

Touching Base in Cyberspace

And if you haven’t upgraded your website and social media for remote hiring, or have opted for a low key approach, consider the following:

Video interviews with candidates — in which team members talk through the culture and the structures mentioned above.

Another employment element whose value has skyrocketed is competencies.

Competencies cannot be trained into people; and cannot be viewed and assessed in-house, so assessing core competencies is critical. A short list includes:

• self-discipline
• organizational abilities
• communication abilities
• collaboration abilities
• time management abilities

Don’t Guess, Test!

And that’s why pre-employment testing has recently become far more important for employers.  Also, trial employment periods are an option used by many companies before committing to a new remote worker.

But always ensure one thing.

Once onboard, your new employee is part of a remote team in which robust internal communication happens throughout each working day, including video meetings.

Your company’s unique usage of the OS’s and communications software has been second-nature from (pretty much) day one. And she soon feels a personal, dynamic working relationship with each team member.

It’s what we couldn’t resist calling Remote Control.