Lorraine Buhannic & Ashley Babinecz

Campus to Corporate: How recruiting Millennials enabled AppNexus to incubate its strongest recruiting strategies

An internet technology

company that harnesses data

and machine learning to power

the world’s largest digital

audience platforms.

NA EAST 5 Offices NJ Data Center

NA WEST 6 Offices LA and Denver Data Centers

EMEA 10 Offices Amsterdam and Frankfurt Data Centers

APAC • Offices Singapore & Tokyo Data Centers

LATAM Brazil office opened in ’15 Remote sites in Argentina, Chile, Mexico

SCALED GLOBAL FOOTPRINT1091 full-time employees

23 global offices108 billion impressions seen daily at peak

120TB data processed daily at peak$2.4 billion spend through platform in 2015

Define & develop talent brand

Build a campus recruiting program

Improve data, metrics, & reporting

Diversify candidate pool

Stand up internal mobility

KEY FOCUS AREAS

INTRODUCTION Talent Acquisition at AppNexus

APPNEXUS RECRUITING BY THE NUMBERS

2012 2016

5 3

229 EMPLOYEES

GLOBAL OFFICES

RECRUITING TEAM 23 23

1091

356 HIGHLY SKILLED

HIRES PER YEAR1

2012

Notes: (1) Average hires per year, 2012 through 2015

use your

CAMPUS RECRUITING

EFFORTS AS AN INCUBATOR

INNOVATIVE RECRUITING

STRATEGIES

for

PRINCIPLE #1 Hire for Potential

PRINCIPLE #1 Hire for Potential

FULL-TIME HIRE INTERN STUDENT

PRINCIPLE #1 Hire for Potential

Refreshing a dry pipeline Shortage of AdTech talent meant we needed a non-traditional approach to hiring

PRINCIPLE #1 Hire for Potential

ASSESSMENT CATEGORY

ASSESSMENT COMPONENT DEFINITION PROOF POINTS SAMPLE QUESTIONS

Intrinsics High Potential Drive/motivation: insists on high standards and drives to be great at whatever they do

Courage: takes on new challenges, pushes themselves

Intellectual curiosity: continuous learner; explorer

Uniqueness: interesting experiences professionally or personally; takes the road less traveled

Optimism: sees the best in people and situations

Humility: able to learn from others, servant leadership (no jerks!)

Self-awareness: understands their intrinsic motivations and how they are perceived by others

Did the candidate demonstrate a drive to be great both in and outside of a work environment?

Has the candidate proactively challenged themselves? Have they turned challenge into opportunity?

What makes this candidate an interesting or unique human being?

Did the candidate have a positive outlook?

Was the candidate able to show self-awareness, talk about failure and consequently self-development?

What leadership positions have you held in or out of work? What drove you to do that?

What’s an example of a challenge you took on that was totally out of your comfort zone and pushed you to the limits? What was the situation? What was the outcome? What did you learn and what would you do differently?

What’s an example of something you wanted really badly but failed to achieve?

We like to hire interesting people at AppNexus.  What makes you interesting?

What are some areas you’re working to develop and grow in? What was the most impactful constructive feedback you’ve ever received?

What are you working on personally to become better?

Tell me about a time you failed (in this case we're looking for them being transparent about failure and telling someone)

PRINCIPLE #1 Hire for Potential Define what it means and how to spot it

DEFINITION PROOF POINTS SAMPLE QUESTIONS

Courage: takes on new challenges, pushes themselves

Has the candidate proactively challenged themselves? Have they turned challenge into opportunity?

What’s an example of a challenge you took on that was totally out of your comfort zone and pushed you to the limits? What was the situation? What was the outcome? What did you learn and what would you do differently?

Hire for potential

Leverage your community

PRINCIPLE #2 Leverage Your Community

PRINCIPLE #2: Leverage Your Community

PRINCIPLE #2 Leverage Your Community

AppNexpo An open house event for students to come check out our space, meet our teams and learn more about AppNexus

Eng@ AppNexus Video

PRINCIPLE #2 Leverage Your Community

The AppNexus Impressionist Blog Customized LinkedIn Banner

PRINCIPLE #2 Leverage Your Community

Invest in Employee Referrals 45% AppNexus employees referred a candidate this year 2X Each AppNexian who submits a referral

refers an average of 2 candidates 7% of referred candidates are hired each year by AppNexus

ü Weekly emails and office hours ü  Incentives and contests ü Referral sourcing sessions

Hire for potential

Leverage your community

Create a winning candidate experience

PRINCIPLE #3 Create a Winning Candidate Experience

Tons of resumes

2 weeks to Identify, assess & close

PRINCIPLE #3 Create a Winning Candidate Experience

High volume of candidates over a shortened recruiting cycle

EXPERIENCED LIFECYCLE CAMPUS LIFECYCLE

Don’t Forget the Influencers!

PRINCIPLE #3 Create a Winning Candidate Experience

45% FASTER

Overall time to fill 100 DAYS

“Blitz” method time to fill 69 DAYS

First Round Interviews

Lunch & Interview Deliberations

Final Round Interviews

Final Round Deliberations

The Interview Blitz

Notes: Data contained on this slide reflects hiring activity in H1 2016

PRINCIPLE #3 Create a Winning Candidate Experience

PERSONALIZE THE INTERVIEW

•  Turn your waiting area into a common space for employees

•  Use glass conference rooms for interviews •  Write a personal welcome note & interview

schedule on the whiteboard •  Provide tablets in the interview room AppNexus interview room

AppNexus waiting area

Hire for potential

Leverage your community

Create a winning candidate experience

Our Top Three Principles CONCLUSION

Our Results

Hire for Potential Leverage Your Community Create a Winning Candidate Experience

Despite nearly a full work day of

interviews, I didn’t feel overwhelmed

or burnt out. It was actually a relief to

get the first round/second round

stuff done in a day. - Glassdoor

…by the end of the day I felt like I had

a good sense of the company’s

values/culture, and they had a good

idea of who I am as well as how I

think. - Glassdoor

CONCLUSION

Thank you for such a wonderful

experience. I loved the thoroughness

and transparency throughout the

process. Definitely felt very taken care

of and that you cared about your

prospective employees. Thank you!! - AppNexus Candidate Experience Survey Internal candidates filled 22% of roles in

H1 2016; 39% of transfers moved up into more senior-level roles

~200 Intern & Full-Time candidates were hired at AppNexus from our Campus

Recruiting Program since 2012

Over half of these campus hires are still at AppNexus today; 6 former interns managed interns on this summer

The @AppNexus Video Series has generated approximately 17,000 views

year to date

35% of open roles were filled with Employee Referrals so far year to date

Volume of applications to open roles has more than doubled to about 24,000 per

year since 2012

Questions? Contact us on LinkedIn to keep the conversation going!

Lorraine Buhannic: linkedin.com/in/lorrainebuhannic

Ashley Babinecz: linkedin.com/in/ashleybabinecz