Jobster sits down with - Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Division

Jobster: What is Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Division?

Marvin: Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices (E&D) mission is to deliver digital lifestyle experiences in collaboration and integration that are designed for a community of users. We call this Connected Entertainment. Connected Entertainment enables people to experience a broad spectrum of entertainment content across a range of devices - and they can interact with that content as well as personalize and share it with their friends and social communities.

Microsoft Entertainment & Devices is the consumer products oriented businesses within Microsoft. In addition, most of the core manufacturing as well as the supply chain is the responsibility of this business. It is a multibillion dollar business with 8,000 employees, adding employees at the rate of 15+% per year.

Jobster: How has Jobster made your recruiting experience more effective?

Marvin: Jobster helps us focus on the specific target pipelines of talent that we are needed for our businesses. We basically go to our hiring teams and say: "we have a target audience of 5000 prospects—what do you want to communicate about your business and the unique career opportunity Microsoft E&D offers?" By building out specific pipelines of talent, we are able to segment our target prospects into distinct communities and more easily network and build a relationship.

Jobster: What is one of your most frustrating recruiting experiences and how did Jobster help you?

Marvin: I think the pilot example below illustrates a great degree of frustration from our hiring teams. Jobster was able to calm them down within 2-3 days. That slowed the emails, telephone calls, and uncomfortable meetings and immediately rebuilt creditability with staffing.

Jobster: Tell me about an initiative that had a positive outcome using Jobster.

Marvin: In a pilot test I conducted using Jobster, I enjoyed exciting results. To put the test in context, my challenge was to fill critical supply chain positions for Procurement Leaders. Each of the positions "needed to be filled yesterday" and we did not have a pipeline of available prospects. I generated a list of 5000+ prospects in North America and messaged this target audience using Jobster. An astounding 38% of the target audience clicked through the messaging. From that group, 6% joined our talent network and 5% applied for positions. The bottom line was 50+ qualified, interested and available candidates. We hired 4 Procurement Managers in 41 days. In addition, we have hired 2 more since that event. We concluded that Jobster offered a solution that was better, faster and delivered more value. It was better in that it tapped into a specific target community with absolute precision; it was faster in that we had interested prospects within 24 hours of messaging and were able to beat our normal days to hire by 33 days; and Jobster delivered more value in that we were able to show anxious hiring managers qualified candidates almost immediately, while delivering candidates from more passive and normally hidden sources that were in fact, higher quality and more talented individuals.

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