In this third blog from our series, we’re taking a look at content…
The research conducted during the production of our white paper ‘Attracting Top Talent Using Human Connection’, showed that (after finding quality candidates) your biggest candidate attraction challenges were related to producing good content. Thirty-eight per cent bemoaned lack of brand awareness and 19 per cent cited dull advertising as problems to be dealt with on a daily basis.
The problems exists as many people think that talent attraction and content marketing are completely unrelated. This is a fundamental error. Your content strategy should be constructed around your recruitment goals, as a massive part of front of mind attraction is what you put out there in terms of blogs, whitepapers, infographics, guides, etc.
Bear in mind that relationships usually begin with the delivery of information. In recruitment, this is probably a well-written job ad or useful blog which prompts candidates to start engaging with you in the first place, so good content is vital. What’s more, if you share information which is of value to your target market (strictly for your target market, not to please your MD or FD), then you’ll be perceived as an authority, gaining a credibility which makes you appear more trustworthy and attractive to talent. It also satisfies more of Google’s requirements, ensuring that your page should be returned in the search results and your brand becomes even stronger.
Producing content which engages is crucial, as ideally, it should attract the right people to your website and keep them there, guiding them through relevant pages until they reach a job advert and then apply. So while you can’t possibly control the labour market, you can control your brand and your advertising so that it appeals to the candidates you want.
Google aside, content is what starts the candidate journey; it’s the first interaction someone has with your brand, often starting well before the application stage of the hiring process – so it’s vital that recruiters, marketers and/or HR nurture these fledgling relationships from that very first touchpoint. Additionally, it helps the candidate form an impression of the company – if they’re not keen on your tone or content, they can rule themselves out of the process, thus reducing workload. While content is used to attract candidates, it also serves as the first stage of applicant screening.
It’s not just about job adverts, which have short shelf lives, it’s again about the long game; creating pieces that have an ’evergreen’ longevity and continue to attract visits to the site for months, if not years – converting people ages after the piece was initially published.
What makes you stop and look at a website? When would you read a blog? Usually when it’s of relevance or interest to you. Hence your content must always be valuable – never write just for the sake of writing.
Ideally, your content will answer a question that they’re searching for, such as: ‘How to answer difficult interview questions’ or ‘How to create the perfect engineering CV’. When generating content, don’t think like a recruiter, think like a candidate. Consider what’s of interest to them, what their emotional state is. See past the CV and think about the person. If it helps, try to remember when you were last job-hunting – what would you have stopped to read?
If you’re an internal recruiter, then use your website to humanise your company. Include information about your culture, your values, your reward schemes – all the things prospective employees want to read about. Showcase existing talent and share their stories, highlighting their journey and career paths. The more you can convey about the company’s warm, friendly environment, the better. According to Indeed, 46 per cent say that company reputation has a massive impact on the decision to apply for a job.
Recruiters are busy, we know that. They have umpteen jobs to work, emails to send, interviews to schedule, documents to get signed, the list is endless. Writing job adverts, let’s face it, doesn’t always take priority – and when they are written, it’s fair to say that copy and paste job is a little lacking. Right?
But job adverts should be viewed as content designed to promote a role and the brand in the very best light possible. They should be constructed in such a way that they attract the right people. They should be optimised, containing phrases top talent is searching for, and use commonly accepted job titles. We know that recruiters aren’t always allowed to mention the hiring company, nor sometimes even the salary ranges, but it’s still possible to produce an ad that appeals. Bear in mind that a poorly-written advert will have a detrimental effect on your brand, be it salary exaggerations, poorly written or repeated typos. Job adverts are, in effect, marketing collateral for your business.
Or to really give applicants a flavour of what the role is about, use landing page technology to incorporate videos in addition to great copy, for some attention-grabbing brand storytelling. Including appropriate screening questions will also discourage time-wasters, while displaying an advert that looks really slick, and integrates responses into a candidate record.
Content enables you to drive long-term engagement, to establish an emotional connection with your target candidates, which can only get stronger over time. Using the latest technology will allow recruiters to develop that relationship further.
If you’re interested in a deeper dive, feel free to download our new white paper – “Attracting top talent using human connection” – here.
In it we got into more detail about front of mind attraction and also engaging content and using tech to increase human connection.
idibu provides intelligent candidate acquisition to hundreds of recruitment businesses of all sizes as well as analysis of activity and hiring funnels to greatly improve ROI and performance.
Click here to arrange a FREE demo or get in touch now on 0800 311 2750.
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