You posted a job ad. and it’s looking great, the job is well-paid and attractive and your company culture is (supposedly) impeccable but you are receiving bad, irrelevant or no applications at all.
Why? Think again!
When was the last time you wrote a blog post for your target recruitment audience?
When was the last time you checked how you rank on relevant keywords or when did you ask your employee to tell about their day at the company and showcase your great working culture?
Living today is incredible because you can check, find, order and pay anything online. Consequently, it’s also the time of distraction and brands fighting for attention in the most creative and oftentimes also bizarre ways. Wanting it or not, you have to keep up.
It’s not enough any longer to publish an ad and get back to daily activities while waiting for superstars to apply and fight to be your employees.
Previously, applicants would jump to the part where they fill the application. The time is limited, as well as research resources and there were fewer companies. Perhaps sometimes they were even placed to a job after being recommended by someone.
Now- not so much. It takes a great deal of effort to build the buzz around your brand name, showcase working culture and make people interested to even consider working for you.
It’s not a one-way process anymore, now both you choose employees and they choose you.
So, what does it take to make your new potential employees want to work for you and also become your brand advocates?
1. Brand Yourself Internally
You should ask yourself what is your brand truly about and what would you like your ideal candidates to think about you. Don’t be afraid to communicate it clearly and through diverse channels. It’s highly recommended to engage your current employees and ask them what they think.
They can be your best promoters but also biggest detractors. You can get a honest feedback from them and find out how to improve your current working culture, communicate your brand and attract new great people.
Never forget your employees are more than just their job descriptions.
Make sure to check platforms like Glassdoor. They’re anonymous but they will tell you what your employees think about jobs, salary level, overall culture and management. Plus, you will get an insight about interview process from people who applied to your vacancies.
In a long-run, work on an open feedback system on your own. Create a safe environment where your employees can openly tell you what’s great and also what’s not so great. That’s an ideal starting point for employer branding.
2. Who Are You Talking To?
You don’t want your message to be scattered and reach everyone but rather plan your audience. Think where do your dream employees might be. How do they believe on the internet? Do they read industry-related blogs, attend workshops and events? What is the best way to reach them? Set your goal, determine your best channels and fire your arms!
Your best audience is gathering on Stack Overflow? There you go, go to the platform, brand yourself among people you’d like to work for you and create appealing company site for people to use as a reliable source of information.
3. Create Genuine Content
Content wasn’t regarded as something so essential in recruiting until everybody got online and started recruiting. Luckily, now when you say “content” or “writer” in the business setting, nobody will think of a poem or beach novel writer.
Brands do have their social media strategies oriented towards buyers but most of them disregard the fact that their audience is also composed of their potential employees.
If you are, for instance, a travel agency who needs to hire developers, you can’t afford a luxury of talking about your product all the time. Create something your audience (meaning your potential employees) would like to read.
Give them a sneak peek into your office culture, show how cool your new gadgets are, offer an insight in how your afterworks look like. Offer something educational, powerful and inspiring. And yes, keep in mind content creation is more than a mere blog writing.
Get creative with videos, pictures, quizzes, podcasts and eBooks. Moreover, this is an ideal opportunity to encourage your employees to create stories. They will be seen as more genuine and trustworthy as compared to ones published by your company.
Don’t forget to be yourself.
4. Make Killer Ads
Sorry to rain on your parade, but you can’t just leave that ad there and expect a miracle. It’s like leaving an apple seed on the table and expecting it to become an apple tree in a week.
Your career page should be clear, straightforward and easy to navigate. Don’t hide the “Apply” button in a dark dungeon. Calls-to-action should be easily visible. Don’t describe your jobs in a way that not even the most desperate job seeker would click them.
Make your ad clear and attractive. You can choose to make it visual but traditional written format works as well, if done right.
Include all the relevant information such as: tasks person will be performing, description of how their day would look like, what kind of challenging projects you’ve been working on in the past, what are position requirements, perks and start date if applicable and why they should work for you.
Don’t forget to add contact information in case candidate needs more information or has certain questions.
Try to make application form really simple and easy to fill. You don’t need applicant’s shoe size and great grandmother’s surname. You need their basic details, contact information and CV.
Having to play a detective while applying for a job will definitely repel people who might be your next superstars and it will also make your company look bad.
5. Social Media as a Powerful Recruitment Method
If you think of recruitment as only posting a job ad on your Career page, it’s time to change. Everyone, especially Generation Y (born in 80s and 90s) and Z (late 90s and early 00s) heavily rely on technology for everything, including landing a job.
If your audience is on Snapchat– go there, get creative with ads and even geo-specific filters if you are holding an event or having a campaign.
Fully utilize social media and don’t forget to update and maintain your channels frequently to prevent them from looking like you are overworking your employees and even don’t have time to give an update about great successes. You don’t have to have all the possible social media channels.
Develop a few channels, be present, engage with your potential clients and employees and leverage their power to the maximum.
6. Follow Up, Follow Up
We all know those companies most of the people wouldn’t mind working for. They can let themselves ignore applications and answer to them with delay, an obviously automatic reply or not at all. Most of them, truth being said, do follow up. And so should you.
This is not where it stops. Just because your company is doing great doesn’t mean you don’t have to maintain relationships with your talent pool. There will always be people who want to work for you but best ones won’t hold their breath and wait for you to open a job ad, they will move on.
People also appreciate personal touch so if you have nothing suitable at the moment, you can keep them posted about suitable opportunities in the future.
You can read how to leverage your talent database in this article.
7. Once Rejected Candidates are Still Valuable
Of course, candidates can’t be held in the pool for a long time without anything happening or they will drown (pun intended). At some point they should be converted and taken forward to the process.
Although they weren’t suitable for some position in the past, it doesn’t mean they were not suitable for your company in general.
Invite them to your events, if you have any, engage and converse with them on social media, encourage them to sign up for your blog and keep them updated on what’s happening in the company and in the industry.
Not many companies can afford to lose reputation through ignoring people who most likely have a good opinion about them and who were at some point of time really eager to work for them.
8. Don’t Forget to Analyse
It’s true that person without data is just a person with an opinion.
Whoever has the data has the power. If you don’t track and measure how you performed, what was the most valuable lesson you learned, what are some good points to use for the future- why bother doing anything at all?
By analysing data and drawing significant conclusions from it, you can create standardized processes, save resources for the future and learn to grow as a compan. Only in this way you will establish yourself as a next employer of choice.