Neaves & Neat Employment Services writes:
Victoria Rush, Host of The Recruitment Marketing Podcast, explained in our recent webinar on recruitment marketing that; “most companies needed to stop hiring but are now looking at restarting hiring. Now the challenge is, how do you go back and start from scratch? There is a lot of work people need to do after being silent for three or four months”.
So, where do you begin restarting your recruitment marketing strategy?
EMPOWER YOUR EXISTING EMPLOYEES
Your employees are your strongest asset, particularly if you don’t have much budget set aside for employer branding and recruitment marketing.
An excellent example of this is what Asda did in March 2020. Asda created thousands of jobs for people who have been impacted by COVID. The supermarket’s employees were encouraged to use social media to invite friends and family whose work had been affected by Coronavirus to get in touch with their local stores about job opportunities.
This campaign is a great example of empowering employees and utilising your existing resources for minimal monetary investment but maximum return.
TRANSPARENCY
Transparency is an incredibly powerful candidate attraction tool.
Jan Back, Employer Brand and Recruitment Marketing Partner at Astra Zeneca explained that “the recruitment market has been very turbulent, people have lost their jobs; there’s a lot of nervousness about whether it’s the right time to move jobs.”
Companies need to be transparent and honest in a difficult recruitment market. Prospective employees need to feel reassured that their future employer values and respects them.
One way businesses can show they are honest and transparent is to talk about salary, especially during the hiring process. Remuneration is an essential benchmark for applicants. People need to know they can survive and if you’re hiding a salary that is £10,000-15,000 lower than they need, the relationship will be off to a bad start. Furthermore, if you are willing to hide things, like salary, what else are you hiding?
BETTER JOB ADVERTS
With budgets being a big concern for businesses going into the second half of 2020, you need to think strategically about how you present jobs to potential candidates. Companies need to answer these three questions when they post a job advert to ensure they maximise return:
Who do you want to attract?
Firstly, great businesses with meaningful brands attract the best candidates. However, to ensure you’re getting the best candidate for your business, you need to have the right role. A well put together job advert, which covers all of the essential qualities the candidate needs to possess in order to be successful is a starting point, but in the digital age it is not enough.Posting on specialist jobs board is also another great way to ensure you’re attracting the right candidate. For example, if you advertise for a Backend Software Developer on a specialist job board, you automatically get a more focused response than if you posted the role on an open job board.
What do you want to resonate with them?
You need to make people want to work for you. Research shows that 50% of candidates wouldn’t work for a business that had a bad reputation. Having a meaningful brand which connects with people on a more authentic level is a powerful candidate attraction tool.
How do you reach them?
According to Back, accessing the right candidates at the right time is, arguably, what has is what has changed the most as a result of COVID. The focus at AstraZeneca has shifted to carefully targeting the right people for the right jobs. However, it is no longer as simple as posting a vacancy online and hoping for the best. Businesses need to be thoughtful in how they reach candidates more than ever; this can include maximising career sites, optimising job adverts for search engines and audience channelling with paid social media adverts.
IN SUMMARY
Now lockdown has lifted, many organisations are restarting their hiring processes, marketing their recruitment process and having a well-thought-out strategy for candidate attraction has never been so important.
For more information on recruitment contact us on 01353 667005 or email hayley@nandn.co.uk.