Why You Need to Change Your Reactive Recruiting Strategy
If you have been involved with hiring for your company, you probably know how this scene plays out. You have a position to fill, and you post the job. Applicants come in and you screen the candidates to get a shortlist, and so on. You end up with a hire that may or may not be a good fit. Time will tell, and hopefully you don’t find yourself filling the same job again in a few months or even a year or two down the road.
This recruiting model can be described as reactive because the hiring activity doesn’t take place until there’s a looming need. It relies on there being a good source of candidates that will see your job posting. It assumes that people will be interested enough in the job ad to go through your entire application process.
This used to work when there was a large pool of people looking for work, and they did their job search by studying classified ads in the newspaper. The job ad usually only offered one call to action – apply now. If you weren’t sure about the job or the company, you would try to find someone who had first-hand knowledge to help you decide whether to take that next step.
Technology Has Changed Job Search Behavior
It’s a lot different now because of the internet. People not only have more sources of information to research their job options, but technology has changed human behavior.
We use the same behaviors to explore, discover, and research jobs that we use as consumers. We hop around to different digital destinations to find the information we need to give us confidence that we’re making the right decision.
The digital destinations on your consumer journey include web pages, blogs, eBooks, social media, and reviews. That’s what job candidates are looking for too, but what are they finding instead? Job descriptions and not much else.
If a reactive recruiting process doesn’t meet up with modern digital behavior, what does? The answer is a proactive recruiting process.
Adopt a Proactive Approach to Talent Attraction
A proactive recruiting process creates online touchpoints that allow people to learn not only about the job you want to fill, but what it’s like to work at your company. This new process gives people the information they’re looking for and guides them down their decision-making path. Then, when they’re ready to go through your application process, they’ve already started to feel confident that working for you is the right thing to do.
There’s something else at work that helps you influence job candidate decisions when you have a proactive process. A proactive process builds relationships. Each time a person interacts with one of your touchpoints, they get to know your company a little bit better, and that’s what allows you to stimulate job candidate actions.
Submitting an application isn’t the only action that a candidate is going to do along their journey. There are many decisions that people make along the way as they learn about what your company has to offer, find answers to their questions, and gain assurance that you are a good employer.
Build a Proactive Recruiting Process with Marketing Tactics
You use marketing tactics to build a proactive recruiting process. It’s marketing that gives your company the vehicle to show up consistently and communicate the messages that will be remembered. The touchpoints you create become a welcome mat for the people who will be your future employees.
When you add marketing tactics to your recruiting process, a different scene plays out. Instead of always being reactive, you can adopt an approach to talent attraction that’s always turned on. Becoming proactive means that you can get better results from recruiting today, while you’re building the foundation for attracting the talent you need in the future.
