Having the right team in place is essential to the long-term success of any business. Acquiring talent is an art unto itself. Give your recruiters what they need to succeed.
1. Recruiters need employer brand recognition
Recruiting is absolutely easier when an employer has brand recognition. While it’s true that employer branding is a vastly different field than recruiting, the dividends of the employer branding effort are paid off in the recruiting effort.
In particular, it’s much easier to recruit for a company with an established employer value proposition (EVP). Solid understanding of your EVP helps you determine what makes your company different from other employers hiring for the same roles. Use that knowledge to create content that speaks directly to candidates–and to give recruiters the persuasive talking points they need.
2. Recruiters need true stories
Recruiters need true stories they can use to help candidates figure out if they belong at your organization. Give recruiters insights into cultural, business, and interpersonal successes in your organization. Make sure they also know about challenges and obstacles a candidate might face. What does your company expect candidates to give? (Long hours? A pay cut?) What can a candidate expect to get? (Leadership experience? Supportive colleagues?)
When recruiters have lots of examples and anecdotes at the ready, they can connect authentically with candidates and make sure hires are truly aligned.
3. Recruiters need informed candidates
Recruiting from an informed pool of candidates creates the opportunity to connect quickly and have deeper conversations. Candidates can start by asking for validation of their ideas about your company instead of asking basic functional questions about the organization. The more information available for a candidate audience, the more informed your candidates will be.
Make sure your careers site isn’t just fluff; give candidates actionable information. And consider creating something like the Team Portraits we craft at Job Portraits, which can be shared with candidates prior to an interview to give a close-up view of how a specific team functions—and hires.
4. Recruiters need an engaged talent audience
An engaged talent audience results in a high-quality recruiting funnel. When you regularly communicate compelling truths about your organization, you give potential candidates the chance to self-identify as ideal employees—or to realize they wouldn’t be happy working with you. In other words, cultivating a quality content ecosystem will help filter the recruiting funnel even before an ATS gets involved.
Simply put, an engaged talent audience leads to more qualified applicants.
5. Recruiters need clear, consistent job descriptions, complete with salaries and benefits
Providing job descriptions that clearly state both what is expected of an applicant and what they’ll be offered is a gesture of respect, for candidates as well as recruiters. We know most candidates factor in salary requirements and benefits before they’ll truly consider a role, so don’t make recruiters waste their time answering questions that could be shared from the start. When the basic terms are a given, recruiters can focus on more authentic communication with candidates.
6. Recruiters need to be aware of your competition
Recruiters need to know what they’re up against. What are other companies offering candidates applying for similar roles? What does your company have that makes you stand out?
When recruiters can easily answer these questions, they can confidently navigate conversations with candidates who are in high demand.
Do you know what makes your organization an exceptional place to work? Make sure your employer brand has what it needs.
7. Recruiters need segmented messaging throughout the funnel
It is never a good idea to get people in the talent acquisition funnel and then leave them there. Your talent network needs nurturing—and one type of communication won’t be best for all types of people. Develop a messaging segmentation strategy for people at different levels of the funnel. Utilize your company’s applicant tracking system to automate some of these messages. Make sure you aren’t sending emails addressed to a stranger when you’re talking to a candidate who has been through a couple rounds of interviews.
8. Recruiters need internal communication tools and protocols
Set your recruiters up for success by making sure they know exactly how best to represent your employer brand, aka your strengths—and weaknesses!—as a workplace. Create documents that detail how to deliver core messages to candidates. Implement communication protocols for outreach of all kinds, from how you offer phone screens to how you reject candidates after a third-round interview.
And if you do nothing else, please develop a system that prevents you from ghosting candidates. Remember that every single person who gets ghosted or receives insufficient communication has experienced your neglect in a very personal way, and that will be their takeaway of your employer brand.
9. Recruiters need ways to stay in touch with silver medal candidates
Just because someone didn’t ultimately get an offer doesn’t mean they won’t be a great fit for another role at your company. In fact, silver medal candidates are some of the best leads a recruiter could have for filling future openings. After all, recruiters already know the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates, and they also are uniquely positioned to keep candidates informed of new opportunities. So make sure you’re not throwing away valuable relationships.
Develop ways for your recruiters to keep in touch with candidates who made it through multiple interview rounds. Maybe they can collaborate with hiring managers to provide custom feedback. Perhaps silver medal candidates form a separate segment of your talent audience and receive special notifications about new and relevant openings. It could be as simple as setting calendar reminders for quarterly email check-ins. However you do it, help your recruiters stay in touch with anyone who comes in second–because next time they could be first.
10. Recruiters need your support
All of the above takes time and money, so what recruiters need most is true support and buy-in, particularly from leadership.
Remember, your company can’t succeed if no one is there to do the work—or if the wrong people ruin what you’ve built. So giving your recruiters the resources and tools they need is one of the wisest investments you can make.
