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Creative Storytelling: How to use Purpose in High-Volume Hiring

Reading Time: 6 minutes

This post was originally published on the SmashFly Technologies Blog.

Whether you’re hiring a new class of summer interns, increasing your sales force by 20% every quarter or recruiting call center professionals all year, hiring a high volume of people for one type of position requires a creative boost in recruitment marketing content and campaigns.

 

Want to learn more about creating content for candidates? Check out our ultimate guide here!

 

The benefit of initiative and bulk hiring campaigns is that you’re able to really target your message to a group of people who share a common skill set, job family or experience (like soon-to-be-grads or military veterans). It allows you to create more specific job- or role-focused content. Work has become about so much more than the job. Everyone, regardless of age or generation, cares about how the work they do every day and a company’s overall mission aligns with their personal sense of purpose.

Finding a balance between aligning with candidates on purpose and job is pivotal in successful initiative hiring.

 

So how do you find the balance? 

Show how the purpose or values of your company differentiate your brand and this job from the competition. Help the candidate answer: “Why choose this role at this company at this time?

For example, atFrontpoint, customer service is a key cultural tenet throughout the entire company. Even in a high-volume sales environment, Frontpoint doesn’t place time limits on customer phone calls. Senior Sales Trainer Starski Cena recalls one example of superior customer service:

“A sales rep was on the phone with one customer for four hours. This customer didn’t have an email set up. The rep walked the customer through the process, from creating a username to filling out the CAPTCHA. And the customer had a lot of other questions, too.

Four hours later, the customer purchased from us. She said, ‘I can’t believe I spent four hours on the phone getting help and the sales rep didn’t rush me off in hopes of getting another call.’ It’s about that customer in that moment. It’s the difference between getting your home protected with a good security company or getting your home protected with a great security company, right?”

Frontpoint empowers their reps to be themselves on the phones and go above and beyond to take care of the customer on the other end. This story showcases an important part of Frontpoint’s culture while sharing specific details about what their sales positions might entail.

This is just one of many stories thatStories Inc.gathered during our onsite interview process with Frontpoint. Their team could use this story in a written job description or day-in-the-life video. It could be used on their career site, the sales rep could write it about the situation on Glassdoor, or it could appear in a nurture campaign to sales agents all over the country. Imagine if 1,000 sales agents heard or read this story. Some would undoubtedly think, “Spending four hours on the phone with one customer is not for me.” And that’s great! Because if your recruiters are hiring 300 sales reps, they won’t spend time on the 400 applicants that aren’t the right fit. They want to talk to the 600 who can share similar stories of when they went above and beyond for a customer, because serving others is one of their personal values, too.

You can’t be afraid of authentic storytelling turning people away. In fact, you should want some people to be turned away: that leaves more quality, right-fit people who align with your brand.

Tying job details to purpose

You can also highlight job details of specific roles by showing how they fit with your brand’s purpose and values.

For Menzies Aviation, hiring cargo handlers is a major focus.In a 75-second video, Cargo Agent Jered Dedmon shows what it means to work at Menzies. He checks freight for screening, unloads trucks and ties down air cargo pallets. Doing his job requires the ability to operate a forklift (Menzies will train you!). Then, Dedmon tells us why his job is important: keeping the warehouse running smoothly allows for aircrafts to operate safely.

This short video demonstrates to any prospective Menzies cargo handler exactly what the job is: both the day-to-day responsibilities, plus how it fits into the organization’s larger mission and values. Some people might not have thought handling cargo at an airport was for them, or they might have assumed they were automatically unqualified by not knowing how to use a forklift. Then, through this video, they find out Menzies will teach them how to drive that sucker. Now, they’re an interested candidate excited about a new challenge!

As a result of seeing a job in action and learning how it ties to purpose (both the organization’s and their own), people that start the application process are one step closer to, well, closing. And you’re on your way to an entire hiring class that better fits both the role and your organization.