Is your company having a difficult time attracting the right candidates? With the unemployment rate being so low, savvy recruiters must be creative and innovative. A recruiter’s primary goal is to quickly fill openings with people who possess the knowledge, skills, abilities, and cultural fit for their organization’s needs. The days when you could post an opening on a job board and receive plenty of qualified candidates have passed.
Technology makes it faster and easier for candidates to research companies and make decisions about whether or not a job is a good fit for them. Candidates can be selective and have plenty of options from which to choose. While job satisfaction is down, the good news is job browsing is up. This means your potential candidates are open to new job opportunities if presented to them.
The key is to present your opportunities to the right candidates in a way that addresses their needs. This takes some strategic thinking and the ability to empathize with your candidates. Recruiters must act more like marketers and sell opportunities to jobseekers. And there is plenty of opportunity to do so.
According to Jobvite’s 2017 Recruiter Nation survey, 48% of job seekers would take a 10% pay cut to work at a job they’re passionate about. This is great news for recruiters who can creatively source candidates who would be passionate about their organization’s mission. Social media is a great way to uncover this information and engage with potential candidates. The key is to know which social channels your candidates use. For example, younger job seekers are using Instagram more than LinkedIn, but Facebook and LinkedIn are their go to sites for researching potential employers. This means you’ll want to use both strategically to give job seekers a way to learn about your company.
Some innovative approaches to engaging with candidates are emerging. Marketers have used e-mail to nurture and engage prospective buyers for years. Recruiters can now do the same. You can provide your prospective candidates with a way to opt-in to receive personalized job openings or to provide career advice. Another way to use e-mail is to simply remind candidates to complete their application. If you’ve ever abandoned a shopping cart at check out, you most likely received an e-mail reminding you to complete your purchase. With your candidates, you can let them know where they left off or ask if there was a problem you can help them solve.
If you choose to use e-mail as a recruitment marketing tool, here’s a word of caution: Candidates are tired of being tossed into black holes. The first black hole is submitting a résumé and never getting a response, even one that simply acknowledges it was received. With e-mail recruitment marketing, we’ve created a second black hole when a candidate opts-in and never receives any content. You’ll want to make sure you deliver content that helps them see how they might fit into your organization.
Remember, a career opportunity is one of the most important decisions people make. Think about what candidates want to know and make it easy for them to find that information. After all, recruiters are in the business of people and strategic recruitment marketing may be the best way to connect with prospective candidates and build a talent pipeline for your organization.
Join Rebecca Barnes-Hogg for the live webinar, “Social Networks for Building Candidate Pools: All-Star Strategies for using Online Networking Tools,” on Tuesday, March 27, 2018. Register today!
Rebecca Barnes-Hogg, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, works with organizations who want to hire the right people to be more efficient, effective, and profitable. She is the author of The YOLO Principle: The Ultimate Hiring Guide for Small Business.