Instead, by using personalization tactics, you can revolutionize your recruiting strategy—and end up with far better results.
Why Does Personalization Matter?
Personalization is all about altering your strategy in ways that cater to a specific individual, rather than applying to all possible candidates. There are massive benefits to this approach:
- Breaking through white noise. Professionals receive something like 121 emails every day, on average. Many of those emails are promotional, or may have little to do with the recipient’s job or interest. Accordingly, most of those emails blend together as white noise. Personalizing your message allows you to cut through this white noise, allowing your brand to stand out.
- Making a relevant pitch. Personalizing your messaging allows you to make a more relevant pitch. Instead of just asking someone to consider working for your company, explain to them why they’re going to benefit from such a move—specifically.
- Starting with a warm interaction. Let’s say the first time someone hears about your brand is through a cold email that seems like it was written by a robot. Chances are, their first impression is going to be less than favorable. A personalized approach allows you to start the interaction off in a much warmer context.
How to Personalize Your Recruiting Strategy
There are many ways you can personalize your recruiting approach, but these are some of the most valuable:
- Reduce reliance on templates. Templates can be great tools to save time and ensure consistency, but they also hold you back; relying on the same templates over and over means you’re not thinking about individual candidates at all. Cut back on your reliance on templates, and instead write more custom messages—or at least allow more room for adjustments in the templates you do use.
- Use personalization tools. To save time or narrow down the field, you’re still going to rely on mass market tactics (like cold email campaigns). In these approaches, try using more personalization tools to do what you can to personalize your messaging. Even little touches, like including your recipient’s first name in the subject line of your messages, can have an impact.
- Avoid jargon. Corporate jargon may work in some of your marketing materials, and may be commonly exchanged in your business, but it sets a bad tone with individual candidates who want to be seen as human beings. Review your recruiting messaging for buzzwords and other technical lingo that might turn someone off.
- Get to know your target demographics. Just like your marketing team, your recruiting team will need to define the target demographics you need to recruit. You have specific types of professionals in mind, so spend some time researching them to get to know them better. What do they look for in an employer? What are their biggest frustrations? Most importantly, what would it take to get them to change jobs?
- Use tailored calls-to-action (CTA). The call-to-action (CTA) is arguably the most important part of your initial interactions, since it’s what leads to subsequent interactions. Spend time polishing it to ensure it speaks directly to your target candidate.
- Get talking ASAP. Nothing is more powerful or capable of more personal connection than a genuine conversation. When looking for candidates, try to get them talking as soon as possible; call them on the phone, or set up an in-person meeting. Either way, you need the chance to get to know them better and exchange information in an organic way.
- Learn from your mistakes. Finally, understand that you’re going to make mistakes, and candidates are going to lose interest—even if it feels like you’re doing everything correctly. When things go wrong, take the time to analyze the situation. Where did the conversation go awry? What steps could you have taken to prevent this? Which actions did you take to weaken the potential deal?
Personalization, in many cases, requires a sacrifice or compromise in at least one other area; for example, if you’re going to have individual conversations with each recruiting candidate, you’ll spend more time than if you mass emailed all those candidates simultaneously. However, these compromises are often worth the cost. Measure and analyze your results carefully, so you understand which tactics are working and which ones are falling flat.
