The job market and the world of work have changed drastically in the last few years, leaving employers to deal with the new challenges. For example, in the U.S., there are currently more than 11 million job openings, and year-over-year wage growth was at 5.2% in May. On top of that, the Great Resignation has record numbers of workers leaving their jobs: In the last six months in the U.S., more than 4 million people left their jobs each month. And, it’s spreading across the globe; CNN reports that resignations have also jumped in countries like the United Kingdom, Australia and France.
But, employers are dealing with more than just a tight talent market, increased turnover and rising wages; the world of work has changed permanently—and so have candidate expectations. For instance, nearly two-thirds of the workforce wants some form of remote work option and nearly one-third wants hybrid work. As such, employers can’t simply plan to return to the pre-pandemic ways of doing business; instead, they must adapt.
More precisely, to succeed in this job market, you need to both hire the best talent and retain the workers you already have—and that requires multifaceted solutions that address the specific issues within your organisation. In this article, we’ll cover the potential sources of your talent challenges, some signs that they may be negatively affecting your organisation and strategies you can use to get ahead.
Is Your Employer Brand on Life Support?
Throughout the pandemic and initial recovery, many organisations didn’t have the resources to invest in their employer brands. Unfortunately, if this was the case for your organisation, it may be affecting your ability to recruit top talent. That’s because, if your employer brand is weak, qualified candidates won’t apply because they simply have other options.
So, how can you tell if your employer brand is holding your organisation back? Watch for these warning signs:
Solution: Rebuild Your Employer Brand
If any of these signs look familiar, it’s time to focus on your employer brand. Luckily, there are a few things you can do. The first is to build out a strong employer value proposition (EVP) as the foundation of an employer branding campaign.
It’s important to note that building a strong EVP to drive your employer brand requires research into the short- and long-term goals of your organisation; the reality of what it’s like to work for you right now; and the outside perception of your organisation. That information is distilled into an EVP that’s unique, aspirational, authentic and dynamic. From there, you can communicate your message through an employer branding campaign via your careers site, social media campaigns, hiring events and more.
At PeopleScout, we supported work on the employer brand at Vodafone, a telecommunications company in the UK. In this case, consumers knew the brand well as a mobile phone retailer, but didn’t see it as a multifaceted tech innovator. So, to help Vodafone hire more young workers, we worked to create an employer brand campaign that captured the spirit of change and possibility that’s part of their EVP. At the end of the project, PeopleScout had generated more than 16,000 applications and increased the number of female candidates by 23%.
Does Your Candidate Experience Leave Much to be Desired?
If your employer brand is in good shape, but you’re still struggling to hire qualified candidates, the next area to evaluate is your candidate experience. Candidate experience has always been important, but it’s even more critical in today’s job market. Nowadays, people have plenty of other options, so they won’t take the time to complete a long application or wait weeks for a call back.
How can you tell if your candidate experience is the cause of your hiring woes? Look for these signs:
Solution: Update Your Talent Tech Stack
The right technology can have a significant influence on your candidate experience. Candidates want the recruitment experience to be fast and easy and allow them to feel in control. For this reason, evaluate every step of the candidate journey to identify where you can make improvements with technology.
Your first step is to look at your application. Have you tried filling out your own application recently? How long does it take to complete? Is it simple or does it feel drawn out and tedious? Can you complete the application on a mobile device? If the process takes a long time or requires a desktop computer, it’s time to update your application.
Then, look for other points in the process where you might make things easier for candidates. Do candidates have to wait weeks to schedule a screening or interview? If so, consider adding a self-scheduling interview tool or virtual interview solution, like text interviews or on-demand interviews. Furthermore, adding something as simple as a status bar that shows candidates where they are in the process can help them stay engaged.
At PeopleScout, we work with a large retailer that had a strong consumer brand, but still struggled to recruit candidates. Their application required a computer and took more than 30 minutes to fill out. As an alternative, we developed a mobile-first application with just 11 questions that took less than eight minutes to complete. Now, half the candidates apply on mobile devices and the application conversion rate rose to 85%. For comparison, employers using a traditional application have an average applicant conversion rate of just 35%.
Are Your Offers Competitive Enough in the Job Market?
Salary and benefits are the elephants in the room in any discussion about hiring challenges. Wages are rising significantly. While the average year-over-year salary growth in the U.S. is at 5.2%, some industries are experiencing even steeper wage growth. For example, in the leisure and hospitality sector, wages are up more than 11% in the last year. In fact, the World Economic Forum reports that wages are rising in every region of the world. Therefore, in the current job market, your offer needs to be competitive.
Here are some signs that your offers may not be competitive enough:
Solution: Adjust Your Compensation to Current Job Market Rates
If you’re experiencing any of these warning signs, evaluate your compensation against the market and adjust where necessary. Due to remote work, the job market has changed. Now, you’re not just competing against employers in your area for talent; you’re competing for talent across the country and, in some cases, the entire world.
To that end, an RPO or MSP provider can help advise you on market rates and what types of adjustments are needed to make your offers more competitive. Plus, increasing your wages could even save you money in the long run.
This happened for one PeopleScout client, a major rural healthcare system. Hit hard by the ongoing nursing shortage, the healthcare organisation was relying on expensive travel nurses and struggling to bring in enough candidates. PeopleScout advised the provider to implement a $10,000 hiring bonus. This resulted in a cost savings as the client was able to reduce its nursing recruitment spend by 77%, totalling more than $4 million. The client was also able to reduce its use of travelling nurses by 68% and experienced its lowest-ever nursing vacancy rate—just 1.3%.
Does Your Company Culture Send People Running?
Perhaps the best way to avoid staffing shortages is to ensure that you don’t have to backfill large numbers of roles due to turnover. The Great Resignation is in full swing, but employers shouldn’t just throw their hands in the air as employees leave for new jobs.
The good news is that employee turnover isn’t just about money. Talent leaders are finding that a major driving factor is employee disengagement. Throughout the last few years, many employees have experienced negative effects on their mental health, causing burnout and driving a reevaluation of work/life balance. Conversely, company culture can play a huge role in keeping employees happy, healthy and engaged.
Is your company culture a problem? Watch for these warning signs:
Solution: Determine What Employees Want in the Job Market & Meet Their Needs
To improve your company culture, you must first determine what employees feel they’re lacking from your organization. You can gather this information in two ways—and both are valuable. First, you should be conducting exit interviews with employees who have resigned. Try to get an idea of why they decided to take a new role. Is it simply increased pay? Did they feel they lacked a clear career path at your organisation? Did they not feel appreciated by managers and colleagues?
Next, try to identify problems before they drive employees to leave. You can accomplish this through anonymous pulse surveys; there are a number of tools you can use to track employee engagement and look for areas of improvement. Do employees want more opportunities for training? Do they want to feel as though they’re part of something bigger? Do they feel as though company leadership is not addressing their concerns?
Then, once you determine the biggest pain points for employees, make targeted improvements to your company culture. You can demonstrate appreciation for your workers in tangible ways: Communicate actively and often. Define paths for advancement and look at learning and development programs. Offer more flexibility. Provide training for managers. Not only will these kinds of investments keep tenured employees from leaving, but they can also improve your employer brand and make your employment offers more competitive.
There’s no doubt that the current talent market is difficult for employers, but the sources of the struggle are multifaceted and complex. There isn’t an easy, one-size-fits-all solution. Employers need to evaluate both the candidate and employee experience and alter their processes where inadequacies reveal themselves. You can’t keep waiting for “things to return to normal.” We’re in the new normal, and we have to adapt. To learn more, check out our ebook, “Employer Brand: Helping the Right Talent Choose You.”
Mental health for employees continues to be at the top of minds since the COVID-19 pandemic, which significantly contributed to deteriorating employee mental health around the globe, bringing new awareness to the importance of employee wellbeing. Globally, the overall number of mental disorder cases rose dramatically in 2020, with an additional 53.2 million cases of anxiety and 76.2 million cases of major depressive disorders, as reported by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). Many of the factors that led to this dramatic increase at the height of the pandemic remain—childcare and other caretaking responsibilities, financial difficulties, economic uncertainty and unemployment, to name a few.
“These are stressful times. Half of Americans say their mental health has been affected by the pandemic. When you add racial injustices and a recession into the equation, a mental health crisis is imminent.”
Forbes noted that nearly six times as many employers have reported increased mental health issues among employees since the pandemic began. Clearly, this growing problem is one that employers can’t afford to ignore.
Staggering Statistics
Mind/body health company All Points North conducted a survey of 1,000 individuals. They found that, since the onset of the pandemic, 36% of respondents reported experiencing more anxiety, 32% were suffering more panic attacks and 27% reported greater depression—with more than 30% saying that they regularly battled stress and anxiety. Similarly, a report from Indeed found that 52% of all workers were feeling burned out, up more than 9% from a pre-COVID survey.
According to the 2022 State of Workplace Mental Health report by Lyra Health, working parents and other caregivers are more likely to face mental health challenges; nearly 90% of caregivers surveyed said they had experienced at least one mental health challenge in the last year and were more likely to experience worsening mental health. Moreover, Mental Health America estimates that depression costs the U.S. $51 billion in absenteeism and lost productivity alone, and Gallup data backs up this theory, finding that burned-out employees were 63% more likely to take a sick day and more than twice as likely to be actively looking for a different job.
However, just as employee mental health is not a new concern, it’s also not one that will vanish anytime soon. As such, it’s essential for employers to recognise and prioritise the psychological safety of their employees, just as they protect employees’ physical safety. But, how do employers prioritise mental health in order to retain employees and give themselves a competitive advantage? Let’s start by taking a closer look at worker expectations.
What Workers Want: How to Better Support Mental Health at Work
The pandemic shined a light on previously unexamined areas of peoples’ lives—causing many to shift their priorities, rethink their work/life balance and reevaluate what really matters. And, these moments of clarity are unlikely to be forgotten anytime soon. Workers want a change in their working lives and are prepared to leave their jobs if they don’t feel support for their mental health at work.
For instance, according to a FlexJobs survey, 56% of workers listed flexibility in their workday as the top way that their employer could better support them. In fact, remote work is considered the most important element to compensation and benefit packages, ranked only behind salary. Encouraging time off and offering mental health days were tied for second at 43%, and 28% said increased PTO and better health insurance were needed. Evidently, adopting a remote or hybrid work model could go far in many organisations, although that may not always be realistic depending on the role or industry. Fortunately, there are other ways that employers can ensure employee wellbeing.
Actionable Ways to Prioritise Mental Health for Employees
The problem is clear: Employees are suffering mentally, emotionally, psychologically and even physically. So, to effectively prioritise the mental health of employees, it must be woven into the fabric of a company’s culture. The following are a few actionable ways you can do so.
Effective Leadershipand Mental Health at Work
As with any meaningful cultural change, leader buy-in is essential—and mental health prioritisation in the workplace starts at the top. By demonstrating awareness, compassion and openness toward mental health, leaders can reduce employee concerns of being perceived as weak or vulnerable if they come forward with an issue. And, the most successful leaders know that leading by what they do is far more effective than what they say.
In an article on post-pandemic mental health predictions from Forbes, Adam Weber, SVP of community at 15Five, said,
“If executives want their employees to prioritise their mental health, they need to be doing the same in a very visible way. It’s one thing to encourage people to take time off for therapy or a mental health day, but most leaders have yet to take the next step of doing that themselves in a transparent way.”
Adam Weber, SVP of community at 15Five
Leaders should also regularly and actively listen to their employees; having open and honest conversations with employees about what matters to them and how they’re feeling mentally and emotionally is critically important. For example, in a study with Qualtrics and SAP, Harvard Business Review found that nearly 40% of global employees said no one at their company had asked them how they were doing. Conversely, ensure that your leaders are creating a safe space during one-on-one meetings with their staff to bring forward any worries, anxieties, struggles and concerns.
In the People Managers’ Guide to Mental Health, UK-based mental health charity Mind and international champion for better work CIPD offer the following suggestions for a management style that promotes employee mental health:
Create realistic deadlines.
Communicate job objectives clearly.
Deal with problems as soon as they arise.
Give employees the right level of responsibility.
Encourage participation from the whole team.
Act as a mediator in conflict situations.
When managers and executives are on board with prioritising mental health, the groundwork is laid for a culture that acknowledges and protects all aspects of employee wellbeing.
Recognise the Signs of Mental Illnessin the Workplace
Once top-down buy-in is achieved regarding the importance of employee mental wellbeing, it’s important for employers to understand and be able to spot the early signs of mental health issues in the workplace—and know how to respond. While employers should not give advice about a mental health problem (as they’re rarely qualified to do so), identifying warning signs and responding appropriately can help prevent issues from escalating. This awareness is also a critical component of a culture that prioritises the mental wellbeing of its employees.
Early indicators of a potential mental health struggle may include:
A sudden change in the employee’s work habits
A dramatic difference in an employee’s personality
An increase in absences or arriving late to work
A sudden inability to control extreme emotions
Social withdrawal
If you notice any of these red flags, or if an employee approaches you with concerns regarding their mental health, be sure to approach the topic carefully and with respect. Make them comfortable by showing empathy and compassion, and reassure them that there is no judgement or risk to their professional reputation.
Organisation-Wide Training
Beyond identifying the warning signs of mental health concerns, employers must also equip employees at all levels of the organisation to manage issues as they arise. In a recent global managers’ survey from Yahoo, less than one-third of managers said they felt equipped to handle the mental health needs of their team and 80% of managers worried about using the wrong language when addressing sensitive topics like mental health.
Additionally, some individuals may feel more comfortable bringing forward a concern to a peer, as opposed to their leader. For this reason, it’s critical to educate all employees on the best way to manage these situations. Plus, the right training can help bridge the gap between mental health awareness and effectively meeting the mental health needs of the workforce. Investing in mental health training for all levels of the organisation will pay dividends in employee wellbeing and retention. Formal learning programs can also help substantially move the needle by debunking myths, reducing stigma, and building skills to appropriately and effectively manage concerns.
Employee Resource Groups
If you don’t have the budget to invest in training, mental health employee resource groups (MHERGs) are a low-cost way to build a culture that prioritises employee wellbeing. Regardless of the segment of your employee population that they represent, ERGs provide employees with the unique support that only those with shared experiences can provide.
According to Bernie Wong, manager of research and design at Mind Share Partners, MHERGs are “an effective resource that reduces mental health-related stigma through an evidence-based model of social contact, peer support and education.” Further, Wong believes that MHERGs should be open to the general employee population and that participation should be encouraged for all employees—regardless of their mental health needs—so that belonging to the group doesn’t “out” someone as having a mental health issue. This also ensures that membership doesn’t violate employee privacy rights.
At PeopleScout, our Healthy Minds Collective is an ERG that “inspires individuals to enrich their mental health and wellbeing by enhancing the mind, body and spirit connection.” Additionally, our team in the Europe/Middle East/Asia region (EMEA) also created a group called “Here For You.” This team of volunteers received the training and certification* required to serve as “Mental Health Responders” to provide employees with a confidential channel for reporting mental health concerns and share valuable resources with employees.
Even if employees choose not to participate, simply making employees aware of ERGs such as these and openly communicating about group activities and discussions can go a long way in normalising mental health in the workplace, which helps foster a culture of inclusivity and emotional wellbeing.
* Level 2 Award in Mental Health: Workplace Responder qualification from St. John Ambulance service
Employee Assistance Programs
In addition to employee resources and training, comprehensive health benefits that include mental health services are quickly becoming a requirement, not a perk, according to Corporate Wellness Magazine. These benefits (or lack thereof) are influencing employees’ decisions about staying in their current job versus looking for a new one. For instance, in Lyra Health’s 2022 State of the Workforce Mental Health, it was reported that 84% of employees surveyed indicated that it was important that a prospective employer offer “robust and comprehensive mental health benefits,” with 29% saying it was “very important” and 55% saying it was “somewhat important.”
During COVID-19, many companies added or expanded their Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) to help employees cope with the added stress, uncertainty, personal loss and safety concerns associated with the pandemic. However, as we’ve learned, heightened mental health issues aren’t dissipating anytime soon. Therefore, providing employees with access to quality, convenient and affordable mental health care is more important than ever.
Encouragingly, many employers are catching on to the need for comprehensive health benefits to attract and retain employees, as well as improve employee satisfaction and experience. As an example, Kara Hoogensen, senior vice president of specialty benefits at Principal Financial Group, said EAPs, telehealth and mental health programs were among the top benefits that employers planned to increase in 2022.
Employers across the globe are recognising the importance of supporting and protecting the mental health of their employees as a vital component to the future success of their business. However, although we saw a rise in conversations around mental health during COVID-19, the stigma still remains. Therefore, above all else, practice normalising conversations about mental health and creating a safe space to raise and address issues. Additionally, encourage employees and managers to openly use the term “mental health” and integrate associated language into corporate training, company newsletters, meeting agendas, and more to make it clear that your workplace acknowledges and prioritises mental wellbeing. Finally, practice self-care at all levels of the organisation—in a visible way—to assure employees that they can and should do the same.
Recruitment marketing is now an essential stratagy as the talent acquisition landscape is more competitive today than it has been at any point in history. Specifically, the global talent shortage stands at 40 million workers and is forecasted to reach more than 85 million by 2030, costing employers around the world more than $8 trillion in lost revenue. This means that, to stay ahead, employers need to implement new strategies and reimagine what talent acquisition can be; talent leaders need to be able to draw in candidates in the same way that brands draw in consumers.
To make that process even more difficult, the types of offerings that job-seekers want from a potential employer has shifted dramatically in the past few years: According to LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends Report, since 2019, there’s been sharp growth in members posting about the following topics:
The data is clear: Candidates are seeking employers that can provide flexibility and a greater work/life balance. As a result, organisations that excel at highlighting a company culture that’s compatible with current talent market trends will remain competitive in the hunt for talent.
As a talent professional, you may not think about marketing as a recruitment function. However, a large part of ensuring that your talent pipeline is stocked with the best talent involves making sure that your organisation is an attractive place to work for candidates. Thus, recruitment and marketing need to work together. The job of a talent acquisition team is more than just hiring great talent; it also includes attracting talent and enticing them to commit. In this four-part section, we’ll cover how employers can leverage modern marketing techniques to recruit and better engage candidates at each stage of the recruitment marketing funnel.
Recruitment Marketing and Hiring Strategies Part One: The Case for Implementing Modern Digital Marketing Strategies
Typically, consumers require engagement across multiple touchpoints before deciding on a purchase—and it’s up to an organisation’s marketing team to facilitate engagement at each stage of the sales funnel. Job-seekers are no different and often need multiple interactions with an organisation’s employer brand before applying for a role; in this case, it’s the job of the talent acquisition team to facilitate these interactions throughout the recruitment funnel.
Granted, the stages of the talent acquisition funnel depend on an organisation’s hiring practices, but we can make some generalisations. For the purposes of this article, we’ll cover three vital functions in the recruitment marketing process: 1) attracting active and passive candidates, 2) converting candidates and 3) closing candidates. During each of these functions, talent teams need to properly engage and nurture job-seekers with the right recruitment marketing strategies. Below, we outline smart recruitment marketing strategies for sourcing passive candidate and active candidate engagement.
Talent Attraction: Sourcing Passive Candidates
According to LinkedIn, 70% of the global workforce are passive candidates, with the remaining 30% of talent actively seeking jobs. With that in mind, the first—and arguably most important—function in recruitment marketing for talent acquisition teams is to determine a strategy to attract candidates. Of course, candidates may already have some idea of your organisation as a consumer brand, so the main objective of this stage is to introduce your organisation’s employer brand to job-seekers for the first time to improve recruiting passive candidates.
At this stage, your engagement with candidates should be designed to gain and retain their interests, with the hope of converting them later in the recruitment marketing funnel. As such, building employer brand awareness and providing positive candidate experiences is key. For instance, consider how candidates will perceive your organisation through the channels listed below. Will they have a positive view of what it’s like to work for your organisation? Do they get an accurate picture of your company culture?
Converting Passive Candidates
The main marketing priority for talent acquisition teams during the passive candidate conversion stage should be to steer candidate interest into action, thereby converting them from job-seekers into active prospects in the talent pipeline. This step occurs when candidates gain a positive impression from the touchpoints they encounter in the attraction stage.
Fortunately, there are various methods for converting candidates. For example, they can sign up for a newsletter, register for an event or request job posting updates via your career page. And, while they may not have applied to any of your open positions yet, they’re interested enough in your organisation to provide their contact information. Similarly, employers can also leverage talent communities to convert candidates looking to connect with other professionals in their industry. Remember, to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), just make sure to collect two types of consent when collecting personal data (such as email, phone, address, name, etc.) from applicants.
Additionally, at this stage, keep in mind that you’re asking candidates to provide your organisation with two of their valuable resources: Time and personal information. Next, at the conversion stage, you’re asking for contact information, but only a small amount of time. Then, to get to the next stage, candidates will have to give your organisation even more of both. Therefore, in the touchpoints listed below, consider what the experience is like for candidates; is it positive and easy enough to get someone to a closing stage?
Closing Candidates
During the closing function in recruitment marketing, talent teams are managing a flow of vetted and engaged candidates with a goal to turn these candidates into applicants. This means that candidates are willing to take the time to complete your application and provide you with a significant amount of personal information. Notably, the candidate is also making an emotional investment in your organisation; they’re excited for this role. As such, they could be setting themselves up for disappointment if they don’t make it through the process. For this reason, it’s important to consider what you’re asking of candidates to help get them through the closing process.
Furthermore, while closing prospects, your recruitment marketing materials should aid the candidate’s decision-making process by informing them of open positions, inviting them to recruiting events, or even proposing a virtual meet-and-greet where the candidate can casually meet with members of your team. Think about the touchpoints listed below and how candidates will experience them. Likewise, communicate about your interviewing and hiring process upfront for a more seamless experience for both candidates and hiring managers.
Closing Candidates
In parts two and three, we’ll go into greater detail on how talent acquisition teams can leverage modern marketing techniques to intelligently engage candidates at each stage of the recruitment marketing funnel.
Recruitment Marketing and Hiring Strategies Part Two: Creating Talent Acquisition Content That Engages Candidates
Content marketing has fast become a go-to channel for marketing teams looking to generate interest in products; gain leads; drive organic traffic; and build a library of informative and in-depth content for clients and prospects.
However, attracting both active and passive candidates with content isn’t limited to just marketing to potential customers; rather, recruitment departments can also harness the power of well-crafted content to convert job-seekers into applicants. In fact, content marketing can help talent teams engage top candidates in a number of thoughtful and meaningful ways that intersect with a job-seeker’s interests.
Effective content for recruitment marketing can also make a difference in moving the candidate along to the next stage. In particular, content marketing as a talent acquisition strategy should focus on engaging job-seekers with relevant articles, white papers relevant to their career interests, webinars, videos, or podcasts to help a candidate navigate through an employer’s recruitment funnel. When brainstorming recruitment content, look at industry publications and professional groups on LinkedIn to identify current topics of interest for candidates in your industry.
In Part Two of this section, we’ll discuss how to create relevant content and ensure candidates are able to find it.
Recruitment Digital Marketing: Considering Different Types of Talent Acquisition Content
An effective content marketing strategy includes a variety of content types to fill various channels and appeal to different types of candidates. That’s because some candidates may prefer to watch a video, whereas others would rather read an article. Likewise, some may like to learn in bite-sized pieces, while other appreciate an in-depth article. With that in mind, below are a few types of content to consider adding to your mix.
Recruitment Marketing Ideas: Leverage Your Career Blog
Your organisation may already have a blog where the marketing team regularly posts content for your potential customers. In the same vein, consider a blog on your careers site to better educate and engage candidates about what it’s like to work for your organisation.
Interviewing employees across all roles and asking them to describe how they got to where they are today
Sharing news about exciting projects
Featuring hiring managers to discuss the hiring process and post updates on upcoming events
Similarly, if you have strong writers on your team, ask them to write short blogs about their experiences.
Video Content
Video is a great format for recruitment content that often boosts candidate engagement. Take the booming popularity of video-based social media platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram as evidence that this is a particularly influential type of content for young workers. Video is particularly powerful on social channels, so consider amplifying your efforts by encouraging colleagues to act as employee brand ambassadors for your organisation on their social channels. Besides, job-seekers trust an organisation’s employees three times more than the company itself to provide credible information on what it’s like to work there.
If you’re just getting started in video, don’t worry about high production quality. Due to the popularity of tools like Zoom during the pandemic, as well as the proliferation of video on social media, candidates are used to watching basic videos. In fact, the authentic feel of these types of videos can often yield even higher engagement than professionally produced content.
Micro & Social Media Recruitment Content
Talent teams are stretched thin, so consistently creating long-form content may be challenging. So, if your team lacks the bandwidth to create long-form content, consider shorter, “micro content.” This might include sharing small bits of entertaining or informative news or industry updates with candidates on social media or micro-content platforms.
Social media, in particular, is perfect for micro content, with 94% of content marketers using social media platforms to distribute content. This content could include fun moments from the workplace, employee testimonials, or short videos of the company participating at a career fair or a conference. Essentially, content marketing is an opportunity to explore as many different ways to connect with your audience as possible; just remember to stay on brand and keep a consistent theme with language and design. This way, prospects will enjoy a more uniform and cohesive candidate experience.
SEO & Recruitment Marketing: Leveraging Search to Source Talent
If you take the time to create content for candidates, it’s important to make sure that they can find it easily. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of optimising a website to rank higher in search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing—and doing so can help drive job-seekers to your careers page organically. In particular, well-optimised pages rely on homing in on and deploying the right set of keywords, as well as tailoring metadata for search and making sure the pages load quickly.
When done right—and in conjunction with high-quality content—SEO can lead to a great deal of traffic and conversions on a career site. Plus, leveraging SEO as a talent acquisition strategy makes sense, as 226 million job-seekers use Google each month to begin their job search. What’s more, 51% of all content consumption comes from organic traffic. Accordingly, with employers across the globe struggling not only to source and recruit talent, but also to increase retention, a smart SEO strategy is an integral component in the recruitment marketing arsenal.
Metadata
Meta titles and meta descriptions are the two fields that show up on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). This is the page you see after typing something into a search engine like Google. Metadata makes it easier for Google to spot and index your careers page content on relevant search results pages. For this reason, your meta title should be clear so job-seekers immediately know the title and location of the job opening when they visit your page. The meta description is the caption beneath the title that describes the web page’s content in more detail. A tailored meta description helps Google and job-seekers quickly identify and interact with your content in the way that you intend.
When creating a meta description, try to stick to the following guidelines:
Limit it to no more than 155 characters.
Keep it clear and concise, with a call to action for job-seekers.
Reference the language of the page you’re working on to really nail your metadata.
Keyword Research
Although it can be time-consuming, researching and choosing the right keywords can also help you obtain greater visibility from qualified job-seekers, as well as increase organic search traffic to your site.
Begin by understanding which short- and long-tail keywords job-seekers use to search for jobs relevant to your company. You can also research which keywords your competitors are using in their job postings, as well as more comprehensive content, to inform and expand your keyword list. Notably, this may require job titles and descriptions to be altered. While you’re at it, pay close attention to keyword intent—the reason for a job-seeker’s search. Ensuring that this is part of your SEO recruitment strategy guarantees that keywords are aligned to your broader business goals. Additionally, if you’re a brick-and-mortar business, utilise locally focused keywords in your content to better reach quality candidates in close proximity to you.
Content marketing can also fuel other parts of the recruitment marketing mix, and email is the perfect channel to start expanding your content marketing programme. What’s more, content and email marketing campaigns can complement each other by increasing the sharing of content and expanding reach. In the next section, we’ll offer tips on how email marketing can give your content a boost.
Recruitment Marketing and Hiring Strategies Part Three: Email Marketing & Talent Acquisition
Email marketing has been around for decades as an effective means of prospect engagement. However, that doesn’t mean that you can just throw together an email, send it out and expect great results. Nowadays, prospects are savvy about techniques deployed by marketers and may become annoyed or tune out marketing messaging that’s done incorrectly.
However, when recruitment marketing email campaigns are successful, recruiters can engage candidates at the right cadence. According to a DataBox survey, 33.3% of marketers said they sent weekly emails, while 26.7% sent monthly emails. In this case, recruiters can leverage the expertise of their marketing teams regarding send times, email schedules and other data points to ensure that content is optimally delivered. Plus, well-cadenced and timely emails ensure that your employer brand is in front of prospects at the right time, making your employer brand more memorable to prospects looking to shift careers.
Furthermore, email recruitment marketing can be an effective strategy for distributing your marketing content to candidates, as well as building additional trust in your employer brand. Notably, 77% of consumers preferred email marketing over other methods of permission-based advertising. And, email marketing often produces results because the audience has opted in to receive marketing materials and wants to hear from you. (Plus, they can choose to opt out at any time.)
So, in this article, we’ll cover the different types of emails that you can use to interact with candidates; how you can use your content marketing collateral to boost the influence of your emails; and how to craft effective messages.
Types of Recruitment Marketing Emails
Email Newsletters
Marketing teams often send email newsletters to prospective and current clients to update recipients on company news, content, products, and other company updates. Similarly, talent acquisition teams should also consider creating newsletters to keep candidates warm.
Specifically, your newsletter could share thought leadership pieces from your organisation, webinars, job events and more. You can also use email newsletters to share the content marketing pieces you’ve created for your careers site. Or, link to articles on your careers blog or a video interview you’ve posted with a current employee. Periodical newsletters and other helpful content will also keep your employer brand top of mind and increase the likelihood of your talent community recommending you to a member of their network.
JobApplication Invitation Email
The first time many candidates hear from an organisation is when a recruiter or sourcer reaches out inviting them to apply for a specific role. These types of emails are common, and your recruiters likely already send them frequently. However, they can be made more effective.
For example, the goal of your email copy should be to gain a prospective candidate’s attention in the first sentence. Therefore, crafting an engaging, but brief introductory sentence or two helps the reader understand who you are and why you’re reaching out.
Typical recruitment emails often begin with an introduction of the recruiter, such as: “Hi, I’m a recruiter with {employer}. We have an open position you may be interested in.”
Instead, consider opening with: “Hi {Name of Candidate}, My name is {Your Name} and I noticed that your experience in X could make you a great fit for Y role at Z company. Would you be interested in setting up a time to discuss Y role and Z company?”
In the first approach, notice how the company puts itself ahead of the candidate. Alternatively, in a more personalised approach, the employer places the prospect at the heart of every communication.
Interview Invitation Email
If a candidate makes it further along in the recruitment funnel, you’ll likely send them an email inviting them to interview. And, when inviting a candidate to interview, it’s crucial that the following are included in your recruitment email:
Where the interview will be
The agenda of the interview
Who will be involved in the interview
Providing all of this information upfront will help everyone be better prepared, more productive and better focused on what matters during the interview. Below, we’ve outlined how to structure your interview invitation email:
1st paragraph: Quickly explain who you are and why you’re emailing the candidate so they know they’re being invited to interview, not apply.
2nd paragraph: Here, provide a date that’s best for your team or give a few options for the candidate to choose from.
Third paragraph: Offer a clear agenda to keep the candidate on track. This will also give the candidate a better idea of what to expect and help them prepare.
Fourth paragraph: Provide the location of where your interview will take place, including how to get there and who to ask for when they arrive. Or, if the interview will not be in-person, share instructions on how to interview virtually.
Offer Emails
Top candidates are often sent offers quickly after interviewing, so it’s important to reach out fast. The moment your talent acquisition team is ready to make an offer, be sure to include the following in your offer email.
First paragraph: Include a brief greeting and review of the interview you had with them.
Second paragraph: Get right to the point and congratulate them on the offer. Double-check everything and make sure that you’re presenting the offer in the best way possible in terms of candidate expectation, salary, benefits and work location. Many times, this information is the deciding factor as to whether the candidate accepts the offer.
Call to action: Remind the candidate that they need to take action, outlining when and how to take it. Also, include contact information in case the candidate has questions about the offer. Finally, to end this email with a persuasive punch, include a line about the candidate’s future with your organisation.
Best Practices for Crafting Recruitment Emails
Subject Lines
Subject lines are arguably the most important component of an email as 64% of email recipients decide to open emails based on subject lines. Therefore, while much of your focus may be on creating the copy and imagery of your email, you should also take time to write a great subject line.
More precisely, a great subject line is short, descriptive and provides a call to action (CTA). Unfortunately, many recruiting emails are written without mobile users in mind. But, with 41% of emails opened on mobile devices, it’s crucial to keep your writing concise because most mobile devices are only capable of displaying five or six words of a subject line. Also, consider a little personalisation in your subject lines. Personalised subject lines in email increase unique open rates by up to 27%, leading to an 11% higher click-to-open rate overall. Consider this option:
In this example, the sender has personalised the email by referencing a career milestone, while simultaneously inviting the recipient to have a low-pressure conversation. This approach appeals to the candidate’s experience and offers the promise of a career opportunity where future growth is possible.
Body Copy
While you may be tempted to share a lot of information in your cold recruiting emails, recipients might not have time for all of it. Conversely, a study by Boomerang found that emails with 75 to 100 words had the highest response rate; so, write short, descriptive and action-driven copy and provide only the essential information that’s relevant to your candidates. Additionally, avoid buzzwords or jargon so that your offer clearly stands out.
The labour market will likely remain highly competitive for the foreseeable future, with employers battling it out for candidates’ attention. And now, more than ever, candidates understand what they want from work and are trying to find an environment where they’ll belong and grow. So, to attract talent, it’s essential to show candidates that you’re offering more than just a job—and that begins with recruitment marketing that showcases the value you provide to candidates.
Remember, the goal of talent acquisition marketing is no longer to just post a job offer and wait for applicants; it’s about fostering a community, enriching its members, and helping to nurture and encourage them to consider a career with your organisation.
Part 4: Recruitment Marketing Strategy in Action: Bridging the Gap Between Consumer & Employer Brand for Vodafone
A well-managed and reputable employer brand can go a long way in helping organisations recruit better talent, improve hiring metrics and position an organisation as an employer of choice in their industry. In fact, according to Glassdoor, 92% of candidates would consider changing employers if they were offered a role within an organisation that had a good reputation. As a result, a strong brand can improve cost per hire by up to 50%.
Moreover, Glassdoor found that the benefits of a powerful employer brand extended beyond recruitment; consider that nearly 30% of candidates have resigned within the first 90 days of starting a role, citing misalignment between the employer and their employer brand. Conversely, organisations that actively invest in employer brand improve their turnover by as much as 28%.
At PeopleScout, we pride ourselves on our ability to partner with clients to hire top talent by building a strategic talent acquisition architecture with employer branding at its heart. So, in this article, we present a real-world example of how PeopleScout’s expert team of talent advisors provided employer branding guidance and delivered a recruitment marketing strategy for the campaign that attracted, engaged and hired the best talent for multinational technology conglomerate Vodafone.
Changing Minds
When an organisation’s brand is a household name, there’s often an overlap in sentiment between consumer and employer brand in the minds of the public—an association that can sometimes come with unforeseen complications. This was the case for PeopleScout client Vodafone. Its reputation among the UK public was one of a mobile phone retailer and nothing else—a perception that hurt the organisation’s ability to become an employer of choice among young people.
However, behind that perception, Vodafone is a multifaceted innovator in the technology and communications industry with a mission and purpose to make the future a better place. With this knowledge, it was up to PeopleScout’s team to reshape Vodafone’s employer brand in the minds of its target demographic: Newly graduated job-seekers who shared the company’s passion for improving communities and the lives of their customers.
Hiring with Purpose
In employer branding, purpose is the key to unlocking the way that an employer engages with job-seekers. Now, more than ever, job-seekers want more from their employer; they want to feel a sense of belonging and that the work they do has meaning and provides a sense of personal development. In fact, according to research from Blue Beyond Consulting of knowledge workers aged 45 and younger, 52% said they would quit their jobs if their employers’ values didn’t align with their own.
Notably, Vodafone’s future hiring strategy was focused as much on purpose as it was on placing great talent in the right roles. Its purpose was to address high levels of youth unemployment head on by committing to hire up to 100,000 young job-seekers with digital workplace experience. Then, Vodafone set another ambitious goal: To support the development of digital skills in 10 million young people, given that one in five candidates in their target demographic stated that they felt underprepared for the digital economy.
To help Vodafone meet its bold vision of the future, PeopleScout needed to craft an employer brand with multigenerational appeal to attract candidates from Millennials to Gen Z and beyond. Ideally, these candidates are achievers with ambitions beyond working in mobile phone retail. As such, Vodafone’s employer brand campaign had to engage imaginations and change its audiences’ perceptions by presenting itself as a major tech company—not a retailer—and by building its reputation as a youth employer of choice for ambitious job-seekers.
Audience Insights: Leveraging Social Media to Reach the Right Audience
For Vodafone, we found that 90.4% of the brand’s target audience regularly used social media. On top of this, 91% of all social media users accessed channels via their mobile devices. With this in mind, we developed a mobile-first, social media-friendly campaign. Additionally, further research showed us that many students with the right background and personal qualifications didn’t apply due to a lack of confidence. Therefore, we needed a message that was bold, relatable and empowering.
Meanwhile, just as important as the audience insights were the strategic considerations. Candidates are also customers; when buying products, they expect a streamlined, user-friendly, friction-free process. And now, they have the same expectation when making career decisions. So, we made every touchpoint (especially applying) as slick and easy as possible.
Granted, no contemporary attraction approach can be just about advertising; long-term connections are far more powerful. So, central to our strategy was helping Vodafone engage in conversations, initiatives and support with high-potential university students throughout their full university lifecycle. In short, the strategy was to start on day one, not year three.
The Core Message: #GENERATIONPOSSIBLE
There are a variety of strategies you can employ to share your employer brand with candidates, but storytelling is one of the most powerful. From career sites to job-search platforms, there are plenty of opportunities to tell interesting, unique stories that capture the attention of job-seekers and entice them to apply. But, knowing exactly what stories to tell—and how to tell them—is not always easy.
So, our message for Vodafone’s campaign aimed to capture the spirit of change and possibility, as well as draw on the opportunity for young people to have an influence on the world for the better. For instance, the visual elements of the campaign approach used photography that reflected our target audience, combined with bold headline statements. Similarly, social and site content featured current grads and interns sharing their advice for the next generation of Vodafone employees.
Campaign Highlights:
A six-month social media strategy targeted to mobile users
A #GenerationPossible video at the heart of the campaign
A campaign matrix of 104 social posts with 20 mini videos/GIFs
Supporting Executions
Our research identified that our target audience felt like they weren’t good enough or lacked the skills to take on these roles. So, we created a series of videos featuring current Vodafone graduate recruits and interns. These videos explored Vodafone life, wellbeing, social responsibility, innovation, assessment centre and other advice to help prepare candidates for the interview process.
Hiring Strategies:Spreading the Employer Brand Message
Apart from social media, we also organised a series of 41 on-campus events to connect students directly with Vodafone employees. We also carefully targeted campuses with the highest female-to-male ratios for tech degrees as a way to help increase female applications.
Results
The campaign comfortably exceeded Vodafone’s expectations:
Vodafone generated more than 16,000 applications, performing 60% above its targets.
PeopleScout’s campaign helped improve diversity, increasing female applicants by 23%.
We increased Instagram post impressions by 89.3% (post-campaign vs. pre-campaign).
Social media drove strong engagement and provided more than 1.5 million Facebook impressions, as well as 6.8 million impressions on organic posts on LinkedIn.
PeopleScout also deployed a hyper-targeted paid Facebook campaign that produced 390,510 impressions and 2,541 clicks—all from the audience we wanted to target.
These numbers are backed up by audience sentiment: We significantly improved Vodafone’s reputation as an employer, jumping 27 places in the TT100 rankings. As a result of this success, Vodafone also asked us to develop the concept for its apprentice campaign audience and roll it out through a new assessment process design.
At PeopleScout, we’re committed to providing you with information to help guide your talent acquisition decisions across the globe. This article is part of our series identifying talent trends across the globe.
Asia Pacific (APAC) is home to more than 4.7 billion people, as well as some of the largest global economies. And, because it’s made up of more than 50 countries and territories with varied cultures, languages and job roles, it’s impossible to leverage the same talent acquisition strategy across countries.
APAC by the Numbers
However, according to the International Monetary Fund, APAC is also the fastest-growing region in the world and, as such, represents a huge opportunity for global enterprises to capitalise on this diverse talent pool. For this reason, it’s imperative for organisations to understand the skills shortages, demographic gaps and pandemic recovery challenges throughout the region.
In this article, we’ll cover some of the labour market trends in APAC. We’ll also point out what multinational organisations should be aware of when it comes to immigration, education and diversity, as well as their effect on talent acquisition in the region.
Pandemic Recovery Continues to Vary Across APAC
The COVID-19 pandemic recovery continues to lag behind in Asia. For instance, China is still enforcing its “zero-COVID” policy, while Shanghai and Hong Kong are dealing with spikes in infection numbers and deaths, which is delaying border openings and stifling employment recovery—particularly in economies that are dependent on tourism.
In Australia, the unemployment rate is at a record low of just under 4% as of May 2022, and it’s expected to drop even lower. However, the country is also experiencing an acute labour shortage: The closure of Australian borders during the pandemic meant that overseas migration to the country was negative for the first time since 1946. Pre-pandemic, one in 10 workers in Australia was on a temporary work visa. Then, as lockdowns went into place, hundreds of thousands of workers with temporary visas had to depart Australia—leaving a record number of jobs vacant. Accordingly, with only the local labour pool to pull from, unemployment dropped and vacancies soared, tripling in the retail and manufacturing sectors from 2020 to 2021.
Then, in December 2021, the country’s borders reopened to students and migrants with visas, which is helping to fill positions—especially among casual jobs in retail and hospitality. Now, many Australian organisations are looking to new talent pools, including tapping into globally dispersed talent. As an example, PeopleScout recently helped a hospitality client take advantage of a visa strategy introduced to attract chefs to Australia’s tourism industry: Through a Recruiter On-Demand solution, we were able to source chefs in the United Kingdom who were willing to relocate.
With a large and complex country, the knock-on effect of the pandemic on the Australian labour pool is still yet to be seen. Yet, CEOs in the country are optimistic, with 88% expecting growth in the Australian economy.
Global Hiring: Key Takeaways for Employers
Shifting Demographics Affecting Talent Pools and Global Hiring
Across APAC, many countries are facing labour shortages due, in part, to aging populations and the accelerated rate of retirement during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Gen Z makes up 25% of the APAC population—and they’re keen to have an influence.
Meanwhile, in another part of Asia, India is experiencing a talent surplus: While most countries have seen a post-pandemic drop in unemployment, India is experiencing a decline in jobs, with an unemployment rate of more than 7.8% in April 2022. At the same time, the Indian workforce grew by 8.8 million people in April; so, even with unemployment dropping, available jobs are still not enough to satisfy the demand for work.
In 1991, the Indian government made sweeping reforms to its industrial and trade policies, which led to greater foreign investment due to its youthful population. As a result, India went from a primarily agricultural economy to a services-led economy with a boom in IT-related jobs. Consequently, there are now fewer lower-skilled jobs to absorb the large number of unskilled or low-skilled workers.
Moreover, the vast majority of jobs in India are informal: Just more than 2% of Indian workers are in secure jobs with access to benefits like retirement savings and healthcare. Therefore, these high unemployment numbers could be influenced by the number of educated young people who can afford to remain jobless while they find desirable work, rather than take low-paying positions. On the other hand, the poor—who have limited access to education—are forced to take any work they can get, which often involves pursuing unstable, daily-wage labourer roles in manufacturing and construction.
Key Takeaways for Employers Exploring Global Hiring and Recruitment
Tech Investment is Up, but Women are a Missed Opportunity
The technology sector is having a significant influence on talent trends in the APAC region: India is home to the largest tech companies, like Wipro, Infosys and HCL. The growth of the Indian IT industry has also created more than 16 million jobs that drive the digital transformation for global enterprises offshoring their IT and R&D functions to take advantage of India’s less-expensive software talent. To keep up with the demand for tech talent, STEM university grads have more than doubled in India. Yet, despite IT being a top interest for 21- to 25-year-olds, there’s still a talent shortage.
What’s more, with global enterprises embracing Indian talent, the country has also become a gateway to other markets in Asia. Now, $1 of every $2 in global investment goes to companies in Asia, some of which is fueling their own talent pools. For example, tech giant Apple has committed to building three Developer Academies in Indonesia, which will each produce 200 iOS developers annually.
Meanwhile, as a long-time leader in innovation, Japan’s high-tech and renewable energy sectors are the most profitable industries in the country. As a result, the Japanese education system is now adjusting to keep up with the demand for digital and software skills: In 2020, computer programming languages were introduced to elementary curricula. However, not all countries in APAC are stressing technology education. In Australia, only 3,000 to 4,000 IT graduates enter the workforce each year, which won’t meet the need for 156,000 new technology workers by 2025 to ensure that economic growth is not stalled by skills shortages.
Any company looking to remain competitive—especially those in the manufacturing or technology sectors—must emphasise becoming a top employer in APAC. And, one talent pool they could look to attract in Asia is women. Diversity and inclusion is one area where the wide variety of cultures across APAC shows itself, but the region scored highest on the importance of maintaining gender roles. Of course, it varies from country to country but, in patriarchal societies like Japan and China, females are often underrepresented in the workplace due to traditional views about women taking care of the home, rather than contributing to the household income.
Unfortunately, the tech sector will suffer the most from this, with men making up 84% of STEM graduates in Japan alone. Conversely, companies that invest in reskilling and upskilling women—while also providing flexible work arrangements—will reap the rewards when it comes to attracting and retaining female talent. Indeed, research from McKinsey shows that Asia Pacific could add $4.5 trillion to annual GDP in 2025 by closing the gender employment gap.
Key Takeaways for Employers
RPO in APAC
Despite the challenges of COVID-19 and changing demographics, corporations in the APAC region have showed resilient, expanding profits throughout the last decade. And, enticed by the large labour market, leading organisations are investing in the talent pools of APAC as a means of future-proofing their workforce.
However, the complexity of the region also means that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for recruitment in APAC. So, increasingly, global enterprises are turning to recruitment process outsourcing (RPO). According to Everest Group, Asia Pacific is the fastest growing region for RPO and is set to make a swift recovery; finding the right RPO partner in APAC can help you navigate the region’s unique talent market conditions—and capitalise on the growth it offers.
Learn more about how RPO can support your global talent acquisition strategy, download our free Definitive Guide to RPO.
Candidate engagement after extending a job offer is now more important than ever, as employers across most regions are seeing a dramatic increase in the number of new hires who are ghosting on their first day: Data from Robert Half shows that 28% of professionals have backed out of a job offer after initially accepting it, thereby costing employers time and money on a job offer ghosted.
In today’s candidate-driven market—and with the major influence that the pandemic had on the way people view work and personal life—it’s no surprise that candidates are receiving multiple job offers and thinking critically about what they truly want in an employer.
Top 3 Reasons Candidates Backed Out of an Offer They’ve Already Accepted
Source: Robert Half
With candidates in the driver’s seat, employers need to do everything they can to keep new hires from taking an early exit. So, in this article, we offer actionable strategies for your organisation to do just that.
Why Do Candidates Ghost?
With record numbers of job openings, job-seekers are more empowered than ever to be picky about the company they choose to work for. This means that candidates are likely interviewing with multiple companies at the same time—and they may not disclose it.
At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic was a catalyst for an immense digital transformation of the recruiting process, with everything from phone screens and interviews to offers and onboarding being conducted completely online. Of course, while this has made it easier and faster to apply to jobs (with “easy apply” options and text interviews the norm), it has also informalised the process and made it feel less personal than a face-to-face hiring journey.
As a result, employers who rely solely on these technologies without establishing a human touch might struggle to build a more personal connection with candidates. Furthermore, because the majority of the hiring process now takes place online from behind a screen, it can be difficult for recruiters and candidates to build the same rapport that they would have when communicating in person; when you remove the investment that comes from traveling to meet someone in person and replace it with a simple click, the entire process can start to feel more transactional and less human.
All of this can lead to poor communication overall, leaving candidates feeling like they might not need to provide any formal closure. According to Indeed data, here are some of the consequences of ineffective communication with the recruiter or hiring manager:
And, not only is ghosting happening, but it also appears to be a rapidly growing trend: According to a 2021 survey from Indeed, 28% of job-seekers have ghosted an employer—a 10% increase from 2019 data—and 57% of employers believe it’s more common than ever before.
It’s important to note that the same Indeed survey found that ghosting in the workplace is a two-way street, with 77% of job-seekers saying they’ve been ghosted by an employer. So, while ghosting has become a normalised part of the hiring process (with employers starting the trend and candidates catching on), there are some actionable steps that employers can take to avoid ghosting on both ends and help combat this rising trend.
Strategies to Keep Candidates Engaged After Job Offer Acceptance
In addition to the increasing likelihood that candidates will renege on an offer, employers should also keep in mind the various notice period requirements in countries around the world, which could be anywhere from two weeks to six months, in some places. Clearly, half a year is an incredibly long time to keep someone engaged and excited about your business, especially when that candidate is exploring other offers and evaluating the benefits of each. So, how can you do it? Consider the following:
Focus on Employer Brand
It should come as no surprise that keeping candidates engaged after they accept an offer starts with the work that’s done prior to them even applying; maintaining a powerful employer brand is key to keeping candidates with you throughout the entire hiring process. More precisely, when a candidate receives a competing offer or a compelling counteroffer from their current employer, is what your company offers going to be enough to keep them from changing their mind?
To that end, it’s important that your organisation presents itself—on social media, employer review sites and your careers site—in a positive light. You’ll want the candidate to be reminded of the value you offer—whether that’s in the form of benefits; flexibility; growth opportunities; diversity and inclusion initiatives; or otherwise—everywhere they look. The mental picture a candidate keeps of you in the back of their mind (or when someone mentions your company’s name) is make or break when it comes to them following through on an offer acceptance and showing up for day one.
Make Open Communication Standard
Lack of communication is one of the top reasons candidates ghost after accepting an offer, so establishing strong, open lines of communication from the start can make a huge difference in how the hiring process plays out. For example, encourage recruiters and hiring managers to communicate with candidates frequently by keeping them informed of their application status, providing updates on next steps and simply checking in to see if candidates have any questions. This can help build a sense of familiarity and rapport that is often lost when recruiters only communicate when absolutely necessary.
Your organisation can also stand out from others by candidly asking candidates where they are in the hiring process with other potential employers. Then, depending on your recruitment timeline, you can adjust key interviews and deadlines to avoid losing your candidate to a competing job offer. A personalised offer letter for job candidates will place you ahead of competitors. This will also help you get an idea of whether your candidate is entertaining other offers that they may be more interested in overall; then, even if they do accept an offer from you, this can help you be better prepared for the possibility that they’ll renege and accept a position elsewhere.
Finally, the key is to maintain that line of communication even after the candidate has accepted an offer; if you ghost your brand-new hire, they’ll be more likely to ghost you in turn.
Get the Offer Out Fast
The more time your hiring process takes, the more time candidates have to consider taking other jobs. You’ve received a verbal offer acceptance; that’s great. Now, the time it takes for you to get official paperwork out and signed is critical. Engagement levels are highest at this point, and it’s critical that you get the offer out before the candidate has the chance to get cold feet.
If possible, get all of your organisation’s internal approvals finalised prior to your verbal offer so that the official written offer can be sent almost immediately. If your organisation has a lengthier process that cannot be shortened, then be sure to communicate that to the candidate so their expectations are set accordingly.
Utilise Thoughtful Touchpoints
Perhaps most important, maintain frequent communication with the candidate during the period between offer acceptance (whether verbal or written) and day one. This can include messages of congratulations from the hiring manager and anyone else they may have met and interviewed with during the hiring process.
Additionally, consider pairing your new hire with a current employee who can help them prepare for their first day. Or, in smaller organisations, set up a one-on-one meeting with a key leader to welcome them to the company. This can help the candidate feel connected to the team before they’ve even officially started—and will help keep the organisation front of mind.
Redefine Onboarding & Start Immediately
When competing with multiple offers and long notice periods, beginning your onboarding process before the new hire officially starts can be a great way to keep them engaged and feeling like they’re a part of the team. For instance, if you’re in an office, consider sending your new hire a video tour or inviting them in for a real one. Or, if your team is planning to get together for an in-person or virtual happy hour, invite the new hire to join.
You can also send your new hire more information about your company, culture, employee resource groups and more to help them start feeling like a part of the team. Plus, what better way to foster a sense of connection and pride than by sending a welcome kit and some company swag? Finally, encourage the new hire’s colleagues and manager to reach out frequently to check in and express excitement for them to officially get started on the team.
The Whole Job Offer Package
Essentially, candidate experience is really about the whole package—from establishing a strong employer brand all the way to onboarding. How you present your organisation—as well as how it’s perceived by the public—is paramount. Moreover, remaining front of mind for candidates throughout the entire hiring process (and especially post-offer) is critical so as not to lose them to competing offers or a change of heart. In today’s market, employers can’t afford to slip and miss any opportunity for communication, connection and engagement.
Let’s be honest, you won’t often find me with my head in a copy of Psychology Today. But I’m increasingly interested in how people engage with organisations and brands in the current world.
So I found an article called “Friendology: The Science of Friendship” in Psychology Today which is a worthwhile read. Research has found that the best and longest friendships are those formed between people who are the most similar in values and behaviour.
In other words, when it comes to friendships, opposites do not attract.
These similarities of personality are most notable in four specific areas found in all strong friendships:
Pleasure in each other’s company
Reciprocity
Mutual respect and trust
Social or political benefit
Whilst relationships between employers and their existing and potential staff are not the same as those between two friends, we can incorporate these pillars into our candidate attraction and employee experience strategy.
Pleasure in Each Other’s Company
For businesses, this translates into the total employee experience, including how well you engage and communicate with existing and potential employees.
Before they give their loyalty, they are looking for a more personal connection and to know that they are heard. Do you have the channels and mechanisms in place to capture ideas and feedback on an ongoing basis – not just an annual survey? And how consistently do you act on it?
Reciprocity
Reciprocity simply means that there is a perceived fair exchange of value between the brand and employee.
It’s your EVP – ‘the deal’ – and ensuring that it’s fair, authentic and compelling will go a long way in supporting your retention goals.
Mutual Respect and Trust
Trust is a foundational aspect of any long-term relationship, regardless of whether it is among groups of people or between businesses and their staff. Trust begins with transparency and honesty in communications. Employers must be honest about their business practices and deliver on their promises.
Social or Political Benefit
We all want to be friends with popular, inspiring people who reflect well on us. Anyone hiring graduates or apprentices will recognise that organisational culture and purpose are increasingly important to potential hires.
According to Bright Network, 89% of students think about an employer’s commitment to DE&I before applying and 91% think about their commitment to employees’ mental wellbeing. We want to be associated with a brand that is a good reflection on us. This is especially true for Millennials, who rank a company’s reflection on them as their highest criteria for brand loyalty.
I’ll leave you with that as I get back to my reading.
With consumer experience heralded as the prime battleground for businesses, it’s not all about technology. According to PwC, 74% of European consumers want more human interaction in the future, but only 46% agree that the employees they interact with understand their needs.
And the stakes for customer-facing staff keep rising.
With 71% of customers paying more attention to corporate values in 2022 than they did in 2021, 89% of customer experience (CX) professionals confirm that their contact centre agents are expected to be better versed on their brand’s stance on social issues compared to a year ago.
Plus, there’s a real focus on personalised, non-scripted engagements. Boston Consulting Group research shows that NPS scores are 20% higher for businesses that deliver a high level of personalisation, compared to those that don’t.
Candidates Want a Consumer-Like Experience
These trends are mirrored in candidate expectations of your recruitment process.
Take these stat—80% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services, and 65% find a positive experience with a brand to be more influential than great advertising.
Snap.
Plus, 79% of consumers say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends or family. Negative reviews can have a significant impact on consumer behaviour, making 92% of consumers less likely to use a business.
Same in recruitment.
So, if we check what consumers want from a great digital experience, it’s likely to mirror candidate aspirations.
The key contributors are – the Three S’s – Speed (94%), Seamlessness (92%) and a Sense of Control (92%). Combine that with an individualised experience (83%) and you’ll have a winning strategy.
Is it time to review your candidate experience through a consumer lens?
For job seekers this is often good news. There are more roles available, with higher salaries and greater flexibility (especially in relation to remote working), plus there’s an emphasis on training, upskilling and creating a great working culture. Candidates can sit back and take their pick—after all, they are the ones in demand. What employers need is more job seekers—and it’s entirely possible that they can proactively increase that supply.
Talent Acquisition Has New Rules
McKinsey calls this the “New Talent Game.” Employers are now competing not just with each other, but with the wider array of work experiences on offer—not to mention locations. I’m based in Bristol, and for half a decade all my people were too. Now I am nabbing talent from other regions of the UK. Plus, people are increasingly making the (often temporary) decision not to work at all—to, as George Michael would have worn it, CHOOSE LIFE.
How do you win in that context? Organisations must redefine their attraction and recruitment strategies and build an employer value proposition (EVP) that takes employees’ whole lives into account and makes work a more positive choice. What is clear is those candidates are only coming back on their terms: workplace flexibility, adequate compensation and reasonable expectations about performance.
Winning with RPO on Your Side
As a leading, global talent partner for a diverse range of businesses, PeopleScout’s RPO solutions have long been designed to amplify employer brands with a recruitment approach that focuses on an enhanced candidate experience. The missing talent can be won by placing the employee experience at the heart of your talent strategy, and I’m proud to say in Q1 2022 we are re-delivering hundreds of employees each month into the consumer and retail sectors for our client partners in the UK, with fulfilment trending positively each month.
It hasn’t been easy – but we are playing the New Talent Game to win.
I was lucky enough to spend the past 4.5 years of my career in Dubai. During this time, I embraced a different culture, immersed myself in understanding and educating myself around the Islamic faith and its celebrations. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my Muslim colleagues and their families for the kindness shown to me during my time as an expat.
Our different faiths had the outcome inclusivity for all.
A generosity of spirit is displayed during Ramadan in the Muslim world. I had the honour and pleasure to work on food bank distribution for those less fortunate, and witnessed my Muslim colleagues and friends give money and gifts to those less fortunate.
Fasting during the month of Ramadan is not about disappointment or deprivation. It is a form of discipline, and the opportunity to achieve clarity and a deeper connection with one’s faith.
Ramadan is a time of reflection. Some may choose to use the month to start anew. Some make resolutions to be kinder. Ramadan is all about being the best YOU possible. something I know I have learnt from.
In addition, I highly recommend attending the amazing Iftar, the meal in which Muslims break their fast at sunset, with friends.
To all my Muslim friends and colleagues across the world, when Ramadan commences tomorrow on 2 April, I will be thinking of you, remembering all you taught me about Ramadan, and thanking you for the love and kindness you have shown. We all should take time to reflect, be humble and be the best versions of ourselves that we can be.
By Vanessa Hawes, Senior Employer Brand & Communications Strategist
So, a company has accidentally hired the wrong person or made a rushed hire due to business needs. Does quality of hire matter in the long run?
Yes. Bad hires are expensive for a whole host of reasons. They are likely to generate less revenue than good employees, or even cost an organisation money due to their errors or complacency. Plus, it’s contagious since they impact the productivity and morale of the employees around them.
Further, the employer may have to invest over the odds in additional training or performance management. If and when the employee does leave, the employer will likely need to invest more in finding an urgent replacement. It’s clear that hiring the wrong people can cost a company a lot of money.
Quality-of-Hire Boosts the Bottom Line
Getting great people rather than good people into an organisation is not just nice to have—it has a profound impact on business performance. Great employees are valuable in themselves, but they also drive wider team performance, inspire others and make recruiting other great people easier.
McKinsey completed a study of more than 600,000 researchers, entertainers, politicians, and athletes, and found that high performers were 400% more productive than average performers. In highly complex occupations such as software development, high performers were found to be an astounding 800% more productive.
Roles described as having low complexity, such as a packing job at a large distributor—unfortunately, the kind of work that for many organisations does not merit special focus in terms of recruitment—demonstrate a productivity gap of 50% between average performers and high performers. The impact on productivity increases as the complexity of the role grows, with an extraordinary jump between high and very high complexity roles.
Clearly, employers would do well to actively recognise and retain top employees, especially when the cost of replacing them is so great.
Quality-of-Hire: What to Look for
Organisations looking to drive the best results and value from employees would be wise to consider the economies of scale that come from an improved selection process for low complexity roles as well as reaping the benefits from hiring the most able candidates for highly complex jobs.
So, what does this mean in reality? A great hire will be highly motivated, and they go above and beyond to do their work. Poor performers go through the motions, are not proactive and may encourage colleagues to adjust to these lower standards. After all, if everyone is being paid the same, why go the extra mile?
As such, using an assessment process that is able to identify (and ideally excite) great candidates at all levels of the organisation is well worth the investment.
