When rolling out any Recruitment Marketing initiative, grand plans and goals are part of the package. But as practitioners, we must also be prepared for the unintended consequences of what we put out there, whether good or bad.
That’s what happened with the Wells Fargo Job Seeker Resource Center. Don’t worry – this story is a happy one.
This Job Seeker Resource Center was born out of an idea – a crazy idea, I’ll say – to have a place where any and all questions that candidates might have could be answered. When first brainstorming and developing the project, my team and I put ourselves in the candidates’ shoes, which, after all, wasn’t difficult to do as we’ve all been job seekers.
At the beginning, our main goal for this Center was to serve as a one-stop shop for candidates to find out everything they wanted to know about Wells Fargo and what it’s like to work for our organization.
We got that, and more.
Through our Job Seeker Resource Center and our content partnership with The Muse, we were able to not only better engage talent with valuable and informative content, but we found that our recruiters were able to use that content to better connect with their own networks. This unintended yet welcome consequence of our efforts has helped us to grow our engagement efforts even more and find the right talent for Wells Fargo.
Here’s what I’ve learned since we launched the Job Seeker Resource Center, and I want to show why it’s important to expect and adapt to changes no matter the scale of your Recruitment Marketing projects.
Note: Aaron will be speaking at our free RallyFwd™ Virtual Conference on May 1, 2019 on how his team enables Wells Fargo recruiters to become career advisors and will be showing us examples of what works and what doesn’t. Register today to grab a seat for his session!
Eyes on Creating Transparency
To dig a bit deeper in our initial goals for the Job Seeker Resource Center, we envisioned it as a way for us to create more transparency into Wells Fargo, our culture and what it’s like to work at the company. We also wanted to provide candidates with a clear picture into our hiring process and what they can expect not only when applying and interviewing with us, but also what happens once they are brought on board.
Through long-form copy and videos promoted via email and social media, we’ve been able to provide candidates with information on a wide range of topics, such as how to improve their resume, honing their interview skills, a step-by-step guide to our hiring process and tips directly from Wells Fargo recruiters.
The results we’ve seen from a candidate engagement standpoint has exceeded our expectations. Traffic has been steadily coming in, and we’ve even garnered feedback directly from job seekers during their interviews. Many candidates have said that the transparency we aim to provide is like a “breath of fresh air” when looking for new opportunities.
It’s a great feeling to hit your initial goals, but it’s an even greater feeling to realize that your efforts are paying off in more ways than one, as we came to see when looking at the Center more in depth.
A Shifting Talent Engagement Focus
It wasn’t only candidates who were giving us positive feedback on the Job Seeker Resource Center. Over time, our own recruiters were coming to us to say that they had been relying on the content we provide in the Center to better connect with candidates and help them find the right opportunities.
Talk about hitting the jackpot! Recruiters were sending this content to candidates at various stages of their journey, and it was having a powerful impact on how job seekers interacted with and viewed the Wells Fargo employer brand.
It was a teachable moment for our team: We knew we had to be willing to test, learn and be surprised by the outcomes, even if they didn’t perfectly match up with our original goals. We had been presented with a significant opportunity to better enable our recruiters through our Job Seeker Resource Center, and we set to work building out a strategy to provide them with the content that candidates found most useful.
The Lessons We Learned
We started this recruiter enablement strategy in a very grassroots way, but we’ve built it into something sustainable and successful. Here are the key lessons we learned:
- Gather feedback from everyone: While candidates can provide the feedback you’re looking for, it’s important to ask internal team members how those candidates are responding to your message. You never know – it can provide you with another way to amplify your efforts.
- Embrace the change: Even if you’ve met your initial goal, you should consider changing your strategy to include new initiatives. For example, we’ve introduced podcasts into our content mix based on candidate and recruiter feedback we’ve received. Allowing for change can help make your strategy more successful.
- Go where the data leads you: We’ve been able to maintain solid talent engagement by letting the data dictate what information we are sharing with candidates. Whether they are more interested in content on our benefits, internship programs or the interview process they’ll go through, we aim to push that content front and forward.
The Job Seeker Resource Center is still a work in progress, but it’s one that has shown significantly positive results so far. As it continues to grow and evolve, our strategy will grow and evolve right with it to ensure we continue to provide candidates with the information they need to make the right decision for the next step in their careers.
Note: To learn more about recruiter enablement and talent engagement, sign up for our free RallyFwd™ Virtual Conference on May 1, 2019, where Aaron will provide more insight into his efforts. Register today!
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