One common theme through the December 2021 RallyFwd conference was creative ways to improve your candidate experience.
As Recruitment Marketers, often we can feel like we’re in reactive mode, aiming to keep up with increasing hiring demands. Now into the start of 2022, it’s a great time to reflect on your own company’s candidate journey and make some changes.
We rounded up some top tips from RallyFwd speaker presentations on ways to step up your candidate experience today. If you missed RallyFwd, you can watch all of the presentations on-demand here.
1. Map out the hybrid candidate journey
After many companies shifted to remote working and a hybrid model, the candidate journey changed with it. But rather than tweak what you had for an in-office candidate experience, it’s time to map out the hybrid candidate journey from scratch. The experience is different, and to better understand the needs and motivations of candidates today in this new work model, the journey needs to reflect that.
Hanady Khourshid, Manager of Employer Brand & Diversity, and Andrew Mott, Senior Manager of Talent Acquisition, Technology, Process & Operations from CDW shared their experiences and tips for adapting to the hybrid candidate journey.
First, put yourself in your candidates’ shoes and understand the process from attracting talent to when they join the company.
Hanady and Andrew walked through their hybrid candidate journey at CDW through stages from awareness and attraction, to onboarding.
With candidates increasingly interested in hearing authentic employee stories, CDW focused efforts on employee advocacy. On their careers site, they added short #LifeatCDW employee videos where employees answer questions like “how has CDW supported your well-being during the pandemic?” and “how does your team collaborate in a remote environment?” This allows candidates to hear from employees what the hybrid and remote working culture is really like.
On their careers site, CDW features short employee videos about #LifeatCDW.
CDW also encourages employees to leave reviews on Glassdoor about their experience working at the company. Hanady and Andrew’s teams ensure they’re regularly updating their company Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn, Fairy God Boss and other profiles with fresh content.
2. Increase response rate with applicants through quick apply tools
Craig Fisher, Founder of employer brand and Recruitment Marketing strategy firm TalentNet Media, shared his expertise with what he called the candidate experience trinity: tech, process and people.
He emphasized how candidates are applying to many jobs at once through quick apply tools. This makes it especially important that TA teams are timely in their responses to candidates and have an efficient application process.
If you’re not already, Craig recommended using quick apply tools, and sending candidates auto-responses to help them remember you. Keep the application momentum going by allowing self-scheduling with the help of a tool or chatbot, and make it as easy as possible for applicants to move forward in the process.
3. Engage talent with personalized content
Jessica Rose, Director of Global Talent Marketing at Equinix, shared how her team has used Clinch to revamp their careers site and grow their talent network. Equinix overall was experiencing rapid growth, and Jessica’s team not only wanted to keep up, but be proactive in their hiring efforts. They were looking to create warm talent communities and amplify their employer brand.
Through Clinch, they rebuilt their Equinix careers site with dynamic content and job postings that are tailored to serve the talent audience. On each page, site visitors are asked if they want to join Equinix’s talent network and sign up for their hot job alerts and receive additional personalized content. As the Equinix team is growing their talent network by asking people to opt-in, they’re also automating nurture campaigns. Members of their talent network then receive personalized content based on their professional interests they indicated when signing up, and this way when they are actively looking for a job, Equinix is top of mind.
By shifting their hiring focus from reactive to proactive, Jessica’s team was able to reflect back and clearly see the impact of this shift in their work.
Jessica’s team at Equinix shared their key outcomes of shifting to a proactive hiring strategy with Clinch.
To learn more about building your talent network, watch our webinar: How To Build a Talent Pipeline from your Careers Site.
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As the world of work has evolved over the past year, so has the journey of your candidates. Being proactive in your Recruitment Marketing approach and going through your candidate experience at your own company is worth it to set yourself up for a successful 2022.
Watch all of the presentations from RallyFwd on-demand here!
