Have you experienced your candidate experience? Try looking at things from their point of view.
I swear, this has happened to me many times. When I look at career-related content, I feel like I’m being approached in the following manner: A stranger walks in with no introduction and says, “Listen, this is what I need...”
When resources and dedication are spent on creating the right content for your careers website, you have taken one step in the right direction. However, as candidates go through many touch points, from the first encounter with your company all the way to onboarding, you aren’t quite there yet. Every touch point is an opportunity to bring candidates one step closer. Or depending on their candidate experience, it may scare them one step away from the employment door. Take a closer look at your job descriptions. Do they communicate in the same way as you would personally try to bring someone in through the door? How about your social media presence? Does it paint a consistent image of what the company cares about, or is it merely used as a job board extension?
Job seeking is not a linear process, but one that can take turns at any given moment depending on the information candidates encounter.
So where do you start? An insightful exercise is to get an external point of view. Ask someone who is not within your company to look at the existing career-related material. Can they find what they’re looking for and what impression do they get from your company as an employer? The feedback should give you a good idea of what needs to be fixed urgently. If all your hard work so far results in no harsh critique, focus on how your HR department can take it to the next level.
In the next paragraphs, I’ll walk you through some examples of how to craft your employer communication in a more candidate-friendly way.
Job descriptions
It’s almost needless to say that the majority of all open positions are looking for a ‘motivated’ ‘team player’, who can ‘work independently’ with ‘strong problem solving skills’. When job description templates look like a checklist of requirements, most likely you’re forgetting that it’s people you’re talking to. In fact, this piece of content gives you about 5 minutes to convince the right candidates that not only is this position worth applying for, but joining the company is worth it too.
Careers website
If your company claims to be an employer with innovation as one of the key value propositions, how convincing would that claim still be when a candidate finds out your careers website is not even mobile friendly? As career websites are the employers’ showrooms designed for candidates, it is an exciting challenge for HR to curate this space in a way that strikes a balance between information, candidate experience and transparency. Apart from recruitment information, potential candidates come to the careers site seeking to experience the work environment, what team members have to say and what this employer cares about – essentially, it all builds up towards getting a good sense of being “a good fit” for each other.
Social Recruitment
Social proof from you as an employer, your employees and the collective network is one of the strongest communication messages when it comes to reach and convincing power. The synergy of what you say as an employer and what others say about you can result in engaging conversations that have longer impact than most of the other career channels out there. Key in “what to talk about” to find the overlap in what you want to tell and what your target audience is interested in discussing and you’ll get to the so called ‘content sweet spot’. If done well, your employer brand will be amplified through the social nature of this channel, adding a more human voice to the corporate picture.
Remember: recruitment is not transactional, it's a people’s process.
Here’s my advice to HR professionals who are involved in creating career-related content: Try being a picky job seeker for a day and assess if your company’s communication materials fit your expectations of a company you’d like to join, if this is all you have to go on. At the same time, get your creative juices flowing and brainstorm on how to improve your employer communications.
