No candidate wants to feel like they’re just a number. However, vague and generic recruitment messaging can make candidates feel just that. By crafting personalized messages that speak to candidates’ unique qualities and preferences, organizations can make candidates feel seen, valued, and wanted.
Research has found that personalized marketing gets attention and encourages action. In one study, 83% of consumers said they preferred to receive hyper-personalized messaging and that it would likely motivate them to purchase. Personalization can have a similar impact on recruitment marketing. It helps organizations inspire and engage target candidates more effectively as they move through the candidate journey.
Generic job postings and candidate messaging can only go so far, as they’re often designed to appeal to a broad audience. However, by speaking directly to candidates’ specific wants and needs, talent acquisition teams can increase the chances of converting them into applicants and hires. In fact, LinkedIn found that InMails personalized to a candidate’s profile receive 15% higher response rates than InMails sent in bulk.
Here are some other benefits of personalization in recruitment:
Personalization allows talent acquisition teams to hone in on the candidates they want to attract to specific positions. For example, it ensures potential retail applicants aren’t being shown job postings for administrative roles and vice versa. When candidates see more opportunities that match their skill set and interests, they avoid spending time viewing postings that aren’t relevant to them and can direct their attention to positions of interest.
Personalization customizes the candidate experience, making it more memorable for candidates. As individuals move through the candidate journey, personalized messaging helps them feel less like part of a group of candidates and more like someone the organization has a particular interest in hiring.
Tip: Research has found people who are satisfied with their candidate experiences are 38% more likely to accept a job offer. AI-powered talent engagement tools can help organizations build career sites, landing pages, and other branding content that improves candidate experiences and boosts applicant conversations.
Organizations that take a personalized approach to recruitment can improve their reputation among prospective applicants, which helps to strengthen the employer brand. By personalizing emails, text, and social media outreach, recruitment teams help their organization stand out from the rest and gain the attention of quality prospective applicants.
A Robert Half survey found that 42% of job applicants lack the qualifications to fill the position for which they’ve applied. Personalization can potentially reduce that number. By customizing job postings to match the aspirations and capabilities of target candidates, recruitment teams can attract more of them. As a result, recruiters spend less time sifting through unqualified applications and more time engaging qualified candidates and moving them through the hiring process.
Considering the potential benefits to the candidate experience and employer brand, it makes sense for recruitment marketing teams to leverage the data and tools that make personalization possible. Here are five best practices for an effective personalized recruitment strategy:
Attracting and engaging quality candidates requires understanding their preferences, interests, and where to find them. Creating candidate personas deepens this understanding and helps recruitment teams define what different segments of target candidates look like. Personas come in many forms, but organizations typically create personas by role (.e.g., Sales Manager), experience level, or some other set of candidate traits.
After developing each persona, it’s possible to craft talent acquisition strategies based on the specifics of each persona or group of personas. For example, recruitment marketers can use programmatic job advertising tools to determine which messaging types, job posting sites, and social media platforms yield the most quality applicants for specific personas and applicant segments.
After defining and segmenting candidates, recruitment marketing teams can build a strategy that meets candidates where they are. Utilizing recruitment channels that make sense for each candidate segment increases the likelihood that job postings and messaging campaigns will perform as expected and convert target candidates into applicants.
Organizations should consider personalizing the following recruitment marketing channels:
Tip: Adopting an omnichannel recruitment strategy allows talent acquisition teams to reach active and passive candidates right where they are.
To drive candidate engagement, talent acquisition teams should tailor recruitment content according to the needs and preferences of candidates in each segment. Though all content types should showcase the company EVP and emphasize its culture, values, and uniqueness, the actual messaging should vary according to each segment's career aspirations, preferences, and pain points. For example, sales job ads covering topics related to revenue targets and rewards are more likely to engage sales candidates, whereas ads for restaurant positions will probably be more effective if they cover shift flexibility and frequency of hourly rate increases.
Other content types that should feature messaging tailored to each candidate segment include recruitment videos, career site blog posts, social media posts, employee testimonials, etc.
Recruitment technology has advanced far beyond the applicant tracking system (ATS). Today, integrations and automation tools allow recruitment marketing teams to deliver more of the personalized messaging candidates value.
With the right tools, recruitment marketing teams can not only understand what candidates are looking for in a company and position but also identify trends in candidate behavior and develop personalization strategies based on those trends.
Here are some of the ways technology enables more personalization in recruitment:
Like everything else in recruitment, personalized marketing campaigns don’t lend themselves to a “set and forget” approach. It’s necessary to routinely measure what works and what doesn’t so the organization can continuously refine its overall recruitment strategy.
Advanced data visualizations and reporting tools allow recruitment teams to track metrics such as cost-per-application, click volume, and application-to-hire. Additionally, as tactics change, these tools can also display a visual representation of the real-time impact on the organization’s recruitment ROI.
Tip: Data-driven decision-making is at the core of a successful recruitment strategy. Recruitics’ VISiON Analytics solution boosts transparency and helps organizations draw better insights from their recruitment data.
Successfully competing for talent requires a strategy that delivers the right recruitment messages to target candidates at the right time. By creating personalized experiences for prospective candidates and applicants, recruitment marketing teams can better understand candidate preferences and behaviors, improve the candidate experience, and elevate their employer brand.
The team at Recruitics is here to help you get started! Recruitics’ recruitment marketing and talent engagement solutions help organizations engage target candidates and boost application conversion using the power of personalization.
