In Recruitment Marketing, one of the key markers of a successful recruiting event is getting the right number of qualified candidates to attend.
Even if the recruiting event is incredible and planned out to the last detail—including a great event flow, dynamic team members representing your organization and an Instagram-worthy spread of food—it won’t matter if the right candidates aren’t there to experience it all and learn about your jobs and employer brand.
So, here are the 3 steps I take to boost attendance at my organization’s recruiting events:
Step 1: Invite a Targeted Audience
The first step to getting more people to attend your recruiting event is to get the word out to targeted candidates!
We do this through sharing our event collateral across key channels. In the invitation, we make sure to title events clearly as a “Recruiting Open House” or “Interview Day” so those attending know exactly what to expect.
Additional details include who they can meet, the highlights of the job(s) or locations we’re promoting, general timing of the event and if we intend to do on-the-spot interviews or job offers.
Here is an example of one of our typical invites:
We promote this collateral to a target audience via several channels:
Social Media
For each recruiting event, we create an event on our Facebook Careers page. Then, to reach more of our intended audience, we boost the event and/or a corresponding post with an ad, targeting based on geography, job titles and education.
We also leverage LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram to reach our target candidate audience. We send links to each post to the event organizers, location leaders and team members, encouraging them to share with their own networks, as well.
We reach a very targeted group via email by using our own Talent Network and ATS database, as well as purchased lists of people with applicable certifications or licensures. We send the branded email template via our CRM platform, Avature.
Depending on the event focus, we may also send an internal email to current team members, inviting them to attend in order to grow their careers. As with social media, we also encourage team members to forward the email to their network, also reminding them of any applicable referral bonuses that may be in effect for the location or positions.
And then there’s good old-fashioned print! We create a simple flyer that can also be emailed, but with the intended use to post at coffee shops, gas stations, schools and anywhere else our intended audience may be. For select recruitment events we’ve also created a formal printed invitation that is mailed to home addresses.
Step 2: Collect RSVPs
Through Avature, we create landing pages with forms and RSVP lists for each of our events. As part of the invitation, we drive candidates to this page to enter some basic contact information, including their email address and phone number, as well as what their area of interest may be.
On the landing page, we also ask “Are you able to join us for the event on XX day?” which leaves the door open for those who are interested in opportunities and joining our talent network, but may not be able to attend the event. From Avature, we’re also able to export the RSVP list to create a simple check-in form for the day of the event.
Step 3: Send Reminders
Finally, to encourage those candidates who have RSVPed to actually show up to the event, we send several reminders:
- Using data collected via our RSVP form, we send an email to all prospective attendees, reminding them about the event, providing additional details about directions, parking, etc. and inviting them to bring a friend.
- Using TextRecruit, we’re also able to send a text reminder. This simple practice resulted in a more than 10% increase in attendance by those who RSVPed.
- On Facebook, we post reminders in the event and encourage our recruiters, team members and leaders to do the same. With each post, people who have marked themselves as “interested” or “going” receive a notification, reminding them about the event as well as encouraging them to update their RSVP status.
By following these three steps, and tweaking and enhancing with learnings from each event, we’ve been able to host four recruiting events at different locations in the past three months and have three more scheduled for the next few weeks.
The results from these recruiting events? We’ve hired several dozen new team members, from hard-to-find registered nurses and operating room staff, to candidates for our new nursing assistant training program.
I hope these steps prove as effective for you as they have for our team! Best of luck knocking your next recruiting event out of the park!
