Candidate experience, employer branding and talent attraction are terms that have existed for quite some time. Yet it’s only in recent year’s business start-ups and well established companies have really started to take note of what they actually mean. One of the biggest struggles for recruitment start-ups is finding the time and funding to manage all these responsibilities.
Our growing knowledge and obsession with digital technologies is one of the biggest contributing factors in the battle to attract talent today. Audiences have personal and virtual networks bigger than ever before – and it’s these growing networks that give candidates the power.
The candidate experience has become increasingly crucial to talent attraction and is a constituent part of the entire employer brand strategy. The journey spans touchpoints online via your career site, job boards like LinkedIn and even third party external review sites like Glassdoor. The list is endless and so we can see exactly why the power has shifted from companies to candidates.
External Influencers & Employer Advocacy
Online external influences can have an enormous impact on the mapping and execution of the candidate experience journey. This is a factor that recruiters and companies have little or absolutely no control over giving candidates yet more power to build a perception of an employer that isn’t always accurate.
Audiences have personal and virtual networks bigger than ever before – and it’s these growing networks that give candidates the power.
According to LinkedIn Slide Share 46% of Glassdoor members read reviews when they have just started their job search before even speaking with a company recruitment or hiring manager.
Human testimony seems to resonate with candidates more than any other kind of marketing message or online content – which in the grand scheme of things is no surprise given the amount of recruitment jargon that flies around these days.
Every company won’t choose to use Glassdoor as part of their recruitment strategy, however candidate use has increased, and so not using it all together could ring some alarm bells.
Getting personal can be a great way to utilise Glassdoor in order to enhance the candidate experience journey. Positive or negative, reviews from current and past employees give you an opportunity to emphasize positive comments or diffuse negative ones.
The importance of your careers site to regain some control
Active candidates may come across your career site as the first or one of the earlier touchpoints in their candidate experience journey. This in itself gives both candidates and organisations opportunity to cut through noise social media and digital media brings in order to get to what they are really looking for.
Career sites have enormous reach and have become one of the most effective tools for showcasing internal brand and employer value proposition to candidates. This is where content comes in – this can be completely controlled (unlike on Glassdoor) so organisations should be making the most of this.
This is your opportunity to come across clear and genuine about the kind of employer you are and who you’re looking for. Why should candidates come and work for you? Remember, they hold the cards so you have to work extra hard to grab their attention.
Career sites have enormous reach and have become one of the most effective tools for showcasing internal brand and employer value proposition to candidates.
What are your values, intentions, goals and aspirations? Messaging should inspire while also be in line with the corporate brand to ensure consistency – candidates are more switched on than ever so they will be looking out for these things.
Use your site as a source of valuable and sought after content. You should bring the best out in your candidates. Those that resonate with your content are those who will with your organisation so you should do all you can to support them.
Getting in front of the right candidates and being able to entice them by speaking directly to their needs is growing increasingly more difficult in the talent space today. There are, of course many more digital and non-digital touchpoints in the candidate experience journey.
If you begin by understanding that candidates hold the cards before you start to take strategic steps to regain some of that power – you’re on your way to creating a great candidate experience. Recruitment has changed and will continue to evolve, so bare these in mind when trying to recruit top talent.
