Great candidate engagement is critical in uncertain times. Here are 10 keys to success in difficult times, based on our conversations with recruiting leaders.
1. Have an authentic Employer Value Proposition (EVP): It may be tempting right now to reposition your EVP. Certainly, an EVP that is reflective of your commitments to employee welfare can help to connect with candidates. However, it is even more important to ensure your EVP is one you truly align with and can deliver on.
2. Plan coordinated and differentiated engagement strategies for different talent pools: For instance, if you are facing a hiring freeze, let qualified candidates know and put them into an email nurture sequence that keeps them warm; for top candidates, be sure to pick up the phone and connect with them one on one.
3. Engage early: Whether the candidates are passive or active jobseekers, it is imperative to establish trust and build rapport early. Be consistent and transparent with your messaging, and start early.
4. Ensure your employer brand is represented end-to-end: Engage and deliver your EVP effectively end-to-end: in webinars or virtual events and videos, across your website, via email, in talent banks, during the application, in interviews, and so on.
5. Engage leadership, employees, and advocates to amplify, authenticate, and bring to life your EVP: Present your EVP as a tribe, not just as an individual. Having good spokespeople is crucial. Relatability works well if you can get the internal traction.
6. Go virtual: Embrace virtual interviews as the new normal and do everything you can to set recruiters and candidates up for success. Offer helping hands where technical issues occur or candidate engagement appear uneasy. Help paint a picture of office life using virtual office tours. Share information and stimulate thinking through webinars with playback.
7. Future-proof your talent pipeline: Leverage data-driven insights to help understand what constitutes a high quality candidate engagement for a specific role at your company and nurture promising talent who have the potential to be great future employees.
8. Set expectations early and offer hires jobs as quickly as the system allows you to: Ensure you manage expectations by providing all of the information a candidate needs to consider in a timely manner. Be cautious of cultural differences, and consider feedback in light of any regional legalities and mediation barriers that may exist.
9. Ignite and strengthen the passion of future hires and customers: New intakes always like to hear from their successful peers. Record videos to share stories of success to add an element of real-life traction to the hiring campaign.
10. Make automation your ally: Right now we’re all trying to do more with less. Whether it is hiring at high volumes, or sifting through hundreds of candidates for a single opening, or working hard to redeploy employees into new roles, data-driven and templeted automation can be your best friend and recruiting force multiplier.
Whilst these times might feel dire, the good news is that technology has the power to offer a helping hand with providing this crucial messaging. Indeed candidate engagement expect employers to use modern approaches to provide this to them. Hopefully these keys help you to strengthen your engagement strategies in these uncertain times.
