Industry Research: Talent Marketing to Reach Today's Candidates

Candidate experience is key to reach the talent you need for success

It’s no secret that wide-reaching digital transformation is underway. For organizations, though, it’s not just about advancements in technology and its impact to their industry. It’s the way people work — and the type of work they do — that is changing, and changing fast. If a business is going to stand the test of time, it’s necessary to not only think about the future of work, but to also consider ways to empower, reskill and upskill your people. Simultaneously, you have to successfully attract new, quality talent that keeps you agile and on the cusp.

 

How? A meaningful, purposeful candidate experience — one that aligns with your goals and differentiators as an organization — is key in your strategy for reaching the talent you need in order for your organization’s success. It begins with understanding people while also solidifying and successfully communicating your aspirations as a company. Who you are and what you stand for matters, and today’s workforce knows it. Not only do they want to work for an organization that impacts the world at large, they want every experience — each step of their journey — to feel personal and tailored exclusively to them. They can see through a lack of credibility, so, you need to communicate that message clearly, effectively and — quite frankly — emotively.

Data is the new “oil” fueling HR technology. It makes interactions with potential candidates (never mind employees) more meaningful — and memorable. Data helps organizations do a more effective, purposeful and efficient job of attracting, hiring and engaging top talent. It also helps you activate existing employees, making them advocates for your brand.
 
Engagement on the candidate level starts with connecting your applicant tracking system (ATS) to data that reveals demographics, click behaviors, employee conversation data, and site performance. That invaluable information can then be leveraged to personalize interactions with job seekers, improve your quality of hire and boost overall engagement.
 
Try thinking about it from a retail perspective. Consumer marketers discovered that customers’ abandoned “shopping carts” didn’t inherently mean an opportunity was missed, nor was it necessarily the end of the relationship. What they learned was that many customers need to be persuaded over time — and across multiple touch points — before they make an informed purchase.
 
Using that same mindset, organizations also learn a great deal about candidates through online interactions. They can cull data — including from an ATS — in order to gain a bird's-eye view into system performance. Recruiters, meanwhile, can use insights to personalize interactions that attract and retain top talent.
 
Too often that candidate data is disjointed, appearing across multiple disparate systems with no clear, overarching view of what’s happening — much less why. Today’s technology works best when everything appears on a single dashboard that identifies trends. Predictive analytics let you zero in on opportunities and successfully market to talent in a personalized way.
 
It’s not as overwhelming as it sounds. You don’t have to do a complete and utter overhaul, tearing apart systems and starting from scratch. You can actually run effective technologies on top of your existing systems to make them work on your behalf.

It’s beyond time to reevaluate the rules and expectations about the candidate experience. Machine learning and automation have the ability to gather data from prospective candidates, and to fuel the personalized experiences you need and your candidates have come to expect.
 
Take an organization’s career website and job pages as examples. As the central hub for reinforcing your organization’s brand, they’re where you engage with (and begin collecting data from) candidates. Assuming it’s a “cold call” landing — the user’s first site visit — it’s an opportunity to sell job seekers on your company. Based on how they interact with a page, you can then deliver more tailored content and drive engagement down the line.

Machine learning and AI are significant not only because they simplify the candidate experience, they also let you acquire vital pieces of candidate information, such as an email address, to gain deep insight into individuals and their journey. AI helps remove bias and lets you know where candidates “live” online; where a candidate works; and if (never mind when) they began applying for a job.  
 
Armed with this knowledge, you can begin the process of seamless, personalized engagement. You can nurture relationships over time, while letting technology do the heavy lifting. When technology takes the lead with engagement, recruiters and hiring managers are free to develop meaningful content that speaks to candidates’ interests and aspirations. That content can become more relevant and more tailored each time the candidate interacts with your site.
 
At the end of the day, AI isn’t scary — it helps you predict outcomes and shape them. Bringing data to the core of the talent acquisition process brings clarity to each step of the candidate journey. It also lets you speak effectively to digital natives, including those already within your organization. All told, you gain a 360-degree view of the talent marketing process through the lens of a digitally sophisticated workforce that readies you for the future at hand.
 
For more than 45 years, Symphony Talent has partnered with forward-thinking talent acquisition leaders to help attract the best talent and stand apart from the competition. To learn more about Symphony Talent’s solutions, click here to speak with an expert.