Tag Archive: Candidate Sourcing

  1. Strengthen Your Employer Brand Strategy Through Storytelling

    Storytelling is becoming the crux of employers’ brand strategy. Because it works.

    Storytelling has been a part of the human experience for 30,000 years – or longer, if we assume that people were telling stories before the advent of writing.

    From ancient mythology to the latest Netflix original, the draw of storytelling is so powerful that it cuts across age, gender, race, culture, and all other demographics. Brain scans show that stories activate important social and emotional processing centers in our brains. Marketers and advertisers know that storytelling is the key to connecting with consumers. It works for connecting companies with candidates, too.

    Here are 5 effective strategies to strengthen your employer brand and attract more candidates:

    1. Be authentic.

    It may be tempting to paint the perfect picture of your company, but be careful not to oversell it. Your brand is how people build trust with you, and with sites like Glassdoor, the truth will quickly come out.

    The best way to present an authentic brand is by showcasing your employees. Use short videos as a way for employees to talk about their experiences and explain why they like working with your company. Then you’ll have compelling stories to share, and by listening to employees, you’ll also understand your brand’s strongest selling points.

    2. Provide details.

    People are inundated with messages every day, so speaking in generalities – like, “This company is a great place to work!” – is nothing more than background noise. Instead, craft stories around a single element of your brand.

    Dollar General, for example, tells stories of career growth, showing how employees can move from sales associate to store manager and beyond. Your story might be about work-life balance, community involvement, mentorship programs, or something else. Whatever it is that makes your company interesting or unique, that’s the story you should tell.

    3. Create a narrative.

    The narrative arc is what makes a story a story. While you’re not writing a screenplay or a novel, your employer brand story should still have a beginning, middle, and end.

    Your company’s history is a story. There was a time before your company, then something that brought your company into existence (an idea, a discovery, a merger). You might chronicle the events that shaped your company into what it is today. Or, you might give the backstory of your company’s mission with give examples of how it’s fulfilling its purpose.

    4. Make experiences easy and enjoyable.

    Candidates will be more receptive to your company’s stories when they’re simple, stay on point, and easy to navigate through. The best experiences are those that follow a logical path or journey.

    You might have great employer brand stories, but are they easy to find? At the end of a story, which might be page on your career site or company culture video, is there a call to action showing the candidate where to go next? Think about how your stories fit together, and how candidates might consume those stories throughout the recruitment and hiring process.

    5. Give a taste of what’s to come.

    Employer brand stories will feature your employees, your culture, your benefits. You’ll have to find ways to help candidates see where they fit in, and how they can contribute to the story if hired.

    This starts by showing candidates how your company can help push them to the next level in their career. Through your stories, represent your brand as the bridge that gets them to where they want to be. You can do this by demonstrating your company’s growth, as well as the growth of employees within your company.

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    To learn more about how to tell compelling stories through video, check out the Ultimate Guide to Video Interviewing.

  2. Recruiting and Hiring: Lessons Learned from Marketers

    In today’s world, recruiters and talent acquisition leaders are acting more and more like marketers. Why? Because the process of converting a candidate into a hire is a lot like the process of converting a prospect into a customer.

    It’s all about the funnel. The recruitment funnel, much like the sales and marketing funnel, is the best way to understand how effective your messages are, and if you’re attracting the right people to your brand.

    Here’s what the sales and marketing funnel looks like:

    The Top of the Funnel: A Lead

    This is the entry point, and the widest part of the funnel. Someone enters your funnel by expressing interest in something you do. You don’t know much about them at this point, other than they raised their hand by clicking on a social post, visiting your website, downloading an eBook, etc. To move them further down the funnel, you have to nurture their interest, or they’re likely to forget about you.

    The 2nd Level: Discovery 

    A lead moves into this part of the funnel when they express a little more interest in finding out who you are, what you do, and how it might affect them. At this point, a sales rep will start a conversation to qualify the lead and understand things like budget, needs, and timeline.

    The 3rd Level: Opportunity

    This is the consideration stage. The lead is likely doing their research and vetting your company against others before making their final decision. A lead converts into an opportunity when the sales rep decides that this is a viable deal and there’s a real probability it will close.

    The Bottom of the Funnel: A Win

    This is the purchase stage, when the opportunity takes that final action to become a customer. The deal is closed, and the sales team celebrates.

    Now here’s how that same funnel applies to recruiting:

    In the recruiting funnel, candidates are your leads. They can come from anywhere. Maybe they saw an ad on Indeed, or maybe they visited your Careers page. At this point, they’re not qualified yet, and they may or may not take any action to begin the application process.

    Next down, you have people who have expressed interest in a specific job. They’ve gone from being a passive candidate to an active candidate. After initial screening, if they’re qualified for the job, they’ll move to the third level—the interview process. You have to decide if this candidate is worth spending time with and why. The last stage is similar to the sale—you make an offer and if they accept, the job is filled and you have your new hire!

    Is your recruitment funnel delivering?

    The purpose of the funnel is to weed out the uninterested and unqualified candidates, leaving you with the ones who best fit your culture and have the right competencies for the job. Take a look at your funnel to see how it’s working. What are you conversation rates from one part of the funnel to next? Are you meeting your goals, or do you need to invest more in a certain area? For example, if you don’t have enough qualified candidates at the bottom of the funnel, you may need to expand your sourcing efforts in order to cast a wider net and increase the chances of getting qualified candidates to apply.

    To learn more about cross-functional collaboration between talent acquisition and marketing, watch our webinar: How to Recruit Like a Marketer.

     

  3. 4 Reasons You’re Losing Candidates—And How to Fix It

    The job market is bouncing back, and that means employers aren’t just hiring to fill vacancies, they’re hiring to grow. With more jobs on the market than people to fill them, job seekers can be selective about the opportunities they pursue.

    All that to say, competition is fierce, and every time you lose someone from your candidate funnel, you lose a potential great hire. Possibly to a competitor!

    Here are 4 common reasons candidates jump ship (or don’t apply at all):

    1. Job ads are generic and make the position seem dull.
    2. Companies don’t sell themselves as a great place to work.
    3. The process is difficult, frustrating, or takes too long.
    4. High potential candidates get lost in the masses.

    Remember, active job seekers are probably applying for several jobs at a time, so they’re having to repeat this process again and again. The best way for you to stand out as an employer is to make the candidate experience a positive one. Not only will you keep more candidates, you’ll also create happy customers—nearly 70% of job seekers say they’re more likely to buy from a company that treated them well in the application process.

    Here are 6 tips for improving your candidate experience:

    1. Keep the application process short and sweet. Step into the candidate’s shoes and see what the experience is like from their perspective. Also see how your process compares to other companies. Candidates aren’t on your payroll yet, so lessen the workload as much as you can.
    2. Connect people to the purpose of your organization. As the job market evolves, we’re seeing that meaning really is the new money. Job seekers and employees are looking for the “WHY” in their work-life. They want jobs that are driven by purpose, not just paychecks. To attract and keep candidates, you need to give them purpose.
    3. Give candidates a reason to stick with you. Look at how theme parks like Disney have made waiting in line part of the ride. In the HR world, the end game isn’t a roller coaster, but you can certainly take something tedious and turn it into something that’s engaging and has value for the candidate, not just for you.
    4. Know how to pinpoint your best candidates. Top candidates may not be on the market long. You need a way to quickly separate high potential from the rest, before they’re snatched up by the competition. Pre-hire assessments are a great way to do this, especially if you’re working with a large pool of candidates.
    5. Lean on technology, but keep it human. Automating your process is the best way to create a seamless experience, but don’t forget to add a human touch. Candidates want to know that you’re interested in them as a person and that they’re more than a number in your system.
    6. Don’t leave candidates in the dark. A little communication goes a long way. Let candidates know what to expect at each step and what’s next in the process. And consider following up with all of the candidates who apply, even the ones who didn’t make the cut.

    The key is to keep as many candidates as you can in the funnel, and then narrow down to the very best fit. But don’t stress if you optimize your process and still see some candidate drop off. Be confident in your recruitment message, and know that the right people will stay.