When you have a job opening, rather than recruiters cold calling or messaging people who haven’t heard of them, it’s so valuable to already have a database of potential candidates. This is the power of Recruitment Marketing and building a talent pipeline so when the time comes, there’s already a pool of people in the candidate funnel.
For strategies on how to grow your talent network through your careers site, I spoke with Marcus Strang from Clinch. He walked us through practical tactics and best practices for converting visitors to your website into members of your talent network.
Rally note: Watch Marcus demonstrate these strategies in action on our webinar on demand, How To Build a Talent Pipeline from your Careers Site.
Meet Marcus Strang
Marcus Strang, Head of Solutions Engineering, Clinch
Marcus is Head of Solutions Engineering at Clinch, a software platform that offers talent teams a full suite of easy to use tools that help bring your Recruitment Marketing strategy to life with seamless integration with your ATS. Marcus is from Australia, currently based out of New York City and leads the Solutions Engineering team for North America and Europe at Clinch.
Marcus walked us through practical tactics for encouraging people to opt-in for more information about your company through the careers site, and how to nurture this talent pipeline.
Give candidates a way to hear from you when the time is right
With most visitors to your careers site not looking to apply for a job on the spot, it’s important to provide opportunities for visitors to opt-in to hear from you later.
First, evaluate your careers site and the story you’re telling visitors about who you are. Marcus explained further:
Through our research with partners at Clinch, we’ve seen 3 factors stand out that are influencing job seekers today and candidates are looking information about for on your careers site:
- Values of the company
- Diversity, equity and inclusion
- Career pathways
After you’ve communicated stories around these 3 areas on your careers site, then you can add opportunities for job seekers to opt-in.
Let’s take the Equinix careers site as an example, made entirely through the Clinch platform. Equinix has specific micro-sites for its Career Pathways Program, Corporate sustainability and Inclusion initiatives, which goes more in-depth on these areas and highlights employee stories.
Equinix micro-site on Career Pathways Program includes videos from employees across departments and levels highlighting their career growth at the company.
Marcus emphasized that every page has an opportunity for a job seeker to opt-in. This includes signing up for job alerts or to join the talent network where they’ll get emails tailored to their interests.
The call to action to join the talent network is also on the Equinix Career Pathways Program site, and will then tag this person’s profile that they’re interested in career growth.
You can also add exit calls to action (“CTA”), where a pop-up comes up as visitors are leaving your careers site and asks if they want to sign up to join your talent network. This is a common tactic used in consumer marketing that works well, and can be applied to Recruitment Marketing. It’s another opportunity to remind people to join your talent network and be added to your pipeline.
Rally Note: For help with keeping candidates engaged throughout their entire journey with you, explore our tips on Middle of the Recruitment Funnel Fixes. It includes ideas for creating content that keeps candidates engaged at every stage of the funnel.
Make it easy for recruiters through segmenting
When people sign up for your talent network, make sure to get key information as they opt-in. You can prompt them to provide further information which will help you for future segmentation. For example, if they check the box that they’re a student, you can prompt them to add when they’ll graduate.
Getting specific and segmenting candidates in your talent network as they’re coming in allows you to provide content that’s more personalized, and makes it easier for recruiters.
Marcus highlighted some segmenting features where you can filter by different data points to create a specific group of talent to promote open positions to. For example, you can filter to see people interested in IT roles who are active on your careers site (and, say, visited more than 10 times), but haven’t yet applied for a job. This segmentation through Clinch can also integrate with your ATS, whether it’s through their own products or another tool, to keep it all in one central place.
Engage passive talent through automation
Once people have opted in that they want to hear from you, it’s important to follow through and not just let that list grow and collect dust.
This is where Recruitment Marketing and employer branding content is so powerful. If people have expressed their interest to learn more, you can send them employee stories, updates about your company, and insights into your company culture, and it can all be automated. This is an opportunity to provide interesting content so they can learn more about your company. You can nurture people in your talent pipeline throughout various stages of your recruiting funnel to help recruiters down the road.
As we know working in the Recruitment Marketing field, getting a new job is a life-changing decision and you want to help candidates feel confident in their decision to join your company. Content is key.
As Marcus highlighted, engaging passive talent is crucial well before they have even decided to leave their current organization. Clinch research found that organizations that set up auto nurture campaigns to people with incomplete applications can see a 20% conversion of potential candidates completing their applications – without recruiters lifting a finger.
—————
Inspired to build your talent pipeline from your careers site? We hope so! Watch our full webinar on demand with Marcus Strang here.
Building your talent pipeline can seem like a daunting task, but can be as simple as adding a few opportunities for site visitors to opt-in and experimenting with what works. For more helpful tips as you’re revamping your careers site, check out our blog 3 Focus Areas for Updating Your Careers Site.
