TALENT ATTRACTION 101. A guide for founders & hiring managers.
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The market for talent is COMPETITIVE
So you, as an employer, have to be REMARKABLE
But then you already knew that, right?
So, how do you find talent?
So, how do you find talent?
How does talent find you?
Or, more importantly
How do you attract talent?
and
Careers Page
Email Blog & Content
Word of Mouth
Paid Ads
Events / IRL
Referrals
Social Media
Your Recruitment Channels.
But
You’re not Google (yet) So what makes you an attractive company
to work for?
How are you perceived as an employer?
How are you perceived as an employer?
+
What do candidates see when they find you?
How are you perceived as an employer?
+
What do candidates see when they find you?
+
Do you offer an attractive proposition to candidates?
How are you perceived as an employer?
+
What do candidates see when they find you?
+
Do you offer an attractive proposition to candidates?
=
This is your EMPLOYER BRAND
Image + Reputation = Employer Brand
Source: Brandon Hall Group, 2014
Why should you care about your employer brand?
50% reduction in cost-per-hire A few FACTS
Learn more: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/employers/popular-topics/hr-stats.htm
68% Of job seekers would not take a job with a company with a bad reputation (even if they were unemployed)
A few FACTS
Learn more: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/employers/popular-topics/hr-stats.htm
50% reduction in cost-per-hire
68%
Of candidates would consider leaving their current role for a company with an excellent EB.
89%
Of job seekers would not take a job with a company with a bad reputation (even if they were unemployed)
A few FACTS
Learn more: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/employers/popular-topics/hr-stats.htm
50% reduction in cost-per-hire
A strong employer brand is your competitive advantage for
attracting talent.
“But we’re just a startup with a messy office, few perks and we
all work long hours.”
The best employer brands are polarising.
They attract the right talent and repel
the wrong talent.
Be proud of your culture: it’s a feature, not a bug and you need people who ‘get it’.
So be open, honest and transparent.
Always be looking for a cultural fit. The right talent will join you for your mission or myriad other reasons. Those
put off by your so called ‘weaknesses’ are probably not the right fit anyway.
Recruitment is marketing led.
Recruitment is marketing led.
You need to treat candidates the same way you treat your customers.
Attract è Convert è Close è Delight (this is a virtuous cycle)
Here’s how…
Careers Page
Email Blog & Content
Word of Mouth
Paid Ads
Events / IRL
Referrals
Social Media
1. Careers Pages.
- Communicate your Employee Value Proposition & Mission
- Showcase your team
- Make it visual and engaging (but please, please no stock
photography!)
- Be transparent and authentic
- Illustrate your culture and values
- Provide details about your benefits & perks
Careers Page – Your hiring hub.
Careers Page – AirBnB Example. airbnb.co.uk/careers
Compelling Employee Value Proposition
Careers Page – AirBnB Example. airbnb.co.uk/careers
Showcasing their team
Careers Page – AirBnB Example. airbnb.co.uk/careers
It’s visual and engaging! (no stock photos here!)
Careers Page – AirBnB Example. airbnb.co.uk/careers
And in case you’re interested, here are their perks.
Other Examples.
mailchimp.com/about/careers hubspot.com/jobs
Careers Page
Email Blog & Content
Word of Mouth
Paid Ads
Events / IRL
Referrals
Social Media
2. Social Media.
- Distribute your vacancies to your profiles.
- Involve employees in creating content and sharing on their personal channels to increase referrals.
- Include calls-to-action on your profile descriptions linking to your careers page.
- Prepare and share native content about what life is like working at your company.
Social Media – engage your audience.
The Zappos example.
Social Media– Zappos Example. Twitter.com/insidezappos
Distribution of their open positions
Social Media– Zappos Example. Twitter.com/insidezappos
Driving awareness of their culture and career opportunities
Social Media– Zappos Example.
Huge employee advocacy
Social Media– Zappos Example.
Sharing what life is like inside the company
Careers Page
Email Blog & Content
Word of Mouth
Paid Ads
Events / IRL
Referrals
Social Media
3. Blog & Content.
- The best candidates do deep research. Sharing your thought process is the best way for them to gain a deeper insight.
- Interview your team.
- Share your thoughts and insights. Write about life inside your company.
- Document your growth and challenges.
- Include your best content on your careers page.
- Repurpose content or publish native content on slideshare, medium etc.
Blog & Content – tell your story.
Example: no one does this better than Buffer.
Blog & Content – Buffer Example. Open.bufferapp.com
Sharing their challenges and learnings
Blog & Content – Buffer Example. Open.bufferapp.com
Writing about their team and culture
Blog & Content – Buffer Example. Open.bufferapp.com
Discussing their hiring plans
Blog & Content – Buffer Example.
The Buffer Culture deck on Slideshare
Learn more: http://www.slideshare.net/Bufferapp/buffer-culture-06-with-a-change-to-be-a-no-ego-doer
Careers Page
Email Blog & Content
Word of Mouth
Paid Ads
Events / IRL
Referrals
Social Media
4. Referrals.
- Make your existing team and wider networks work for you.
- Do everything you can to spread the word. It’s about being as visible as possible.
Referrals – your most reliable source!
Referrals – Tactics & Hacks.
Email Signatures - Add ‘we’re hiring’ with a link to your careers page
Fun maths: If you’re a team of 15 and each person sends 15 external emails a day, for 250 business days, that could be 56,250 of your recruitment ads seen each year.
John Doe Full Stack Employee at Awesome Startup [email protected] Awesomestartup.com @awesomestartup >>We’re hiring! Check out our open positions.<<
Referrals – Tactics & Hacks.
LinkedIn Profile – Optimise your profiles for maximum exposure
Pro tip: Use the summary section of your profile as a call-to-action to drive the most important action from visitors to your profile.
(Make your team do this too!)
Referrals – Tactics & Hacks.
Onsite– Make it visible on your site that you are hiring
Your visitors / customers are a potential source of referrals.
Careers Page
Email Blog & Content
Word of Mouth
Paid Ads
Events / IRL
Referrals
Social Media
5. Word of Mouth.
- A good reputation starts with founders and management.
- Be so good (and nice) that people can’t help but want to help you.
- Look after your team and they will look after you. A
high employee net promoter score (eNPS) is the backbone of a strong employer brand.
Word of Mouth – be nice!
Word of Mouth – be nice!
Learn more: http://info.zealify.com/employers-blog/employer-branding-starts-at-the-top
Careers Page
Email Blog & Content
Word of Mouth
Paid Ads
Events / IRL
Referrals
Social Media
6. Email.
- Rule 1: ALWAYS respond.
- If you have a jobs@ email alias, make it clear that the account is monitored and who will respond.
- Create canned responses to make your life easier.
- You could use a mailing list to announce new jobs to
interested candidates. (if you have built a talent pipeline).
- Make candidates feel valued. (treat them like customers).
Email – be accessible to candidates.
Email – Fog Creek Software Example.
Hurrah! We have received your job applica4on. At least, we think it's yours. It is possible that someone who thinks very highly of you is forwarding around your resume while pretending to be you. That's not a bad thing, is it? In any case, this is an automa4c email, sent by a mindless robot, to let you know that we're absolutely thrilled that you would be interested in working for Fog Creek SoGware. We're very honored. Even though this is an automa4c email, it's not the usual blah blah, so please read on!
They respond to every application with this autoresponder. Read the full email here. (It’s very good.)
Learn more: http://www.careercloud.com/news/2015/5/9/this-auto-response-email-from-an-employer-will-make-you-laugh
Careers Page
Email Blog & Content
Word of Mouth
Paid Ads
Events / IRL
Referrals
Social Media
7. Paid Ads.
Sometimes you need additional distribution that you just can’t achieve organically.
- Paid job board placements. (make sure you’re producing killer
job descriptions – more on this later)
- Retargeting ads for visitors to your careers pages.
- Twitter cards, Facebook dark posts, LinkedIn ads. (all
can be highly targeted to relevant candidates)
Paid Ads– distribution, distribution, distribution
Paid Ads – Promoted Tweets.
HootSuite used promoted tweets to get distribution of their open job opportunities
Last but not least, underpinning your entire talent attraction
strategy…
Last but not least, underpinning your entire talent attraction
strategy…
The JOB DESCRIPTION
Last but not least, underpinning your entire talent attraction
strategy…
The JOB DESCRIPTION (Never to be underestimated or overlooked)
- Very often the first time a candidate will come into contact with your brand!
- Candidates will most likely form their opinion of your company, and make their decision about whether to apply based on this document.
- When you spend so long crafting landing page copy to attract customers, shouldn’t you be doing the same
to attract talent? (think of a job description as a landing page for
potential hires. After all, your team comes first, right?)
Job descriptions.
- Don’t just copy and paste a template!
- Job descriptions should be crafted (not just thrown together).
- Tell a story. (it should never just be a checklist)
- Explain WHY you are hiring.
- Be careful of the language you use. (no ninjas here please)
- Be open, transparent and authentic.
- Be specific and explicit.
- Get feedback from other people in similar roles.
- If you can, be open about remuneration.
- Don’t forget to include your location.
Job descriptions.
Here’s Some Examples.
Wanted: Cowpoke/Intern at Lowercase Capital
Read >>
Editorial Intern at Medium
Read >>
Learn more: http://lowercasecapital.com/2010/10/10/ranchhands/ https://medium.com/@lotto/we-re-hiring-an-editorial-intern-d27ec446cafe
Some last tips… (To hopefully help you close those hires.)
Always communicate the WHY.
Candidates will buy into the WHY much more than the what.
Why are you building what you’re building?
Why are you hiring for the role?
Why is it important and why does it fit with the big
picture?
Explain the role in the form of a ‘tour of duty’.
How does this role fit with the candidate’s wider career aims?
How does it help them progress?
What does success look like for the candidate and for the company?
Why is it a great joint venture for both you and the candidate? What is your commitment to helping the candidate achieve their long term goals?
Learn more: https://hbr.org/2013/06/tours-of-duty-the-new-employer-employee-compact
Even if you don’t hire them, make such a great impression they recommend their friends.
Be obsessive about creating a GREAT hiring process & candidate experience.
- Hiring is a two-way process. Make candidates feel valued and try to ‘win’ them. They’re evaluating you
too.
- Ask for feedback on your process and experience. Be constantly iterating and improving.
Final Thoughts.
- ‘50 ideas to improve your recruiting with marketing tactics’ by Zealify
- ‘On Recruiting Part 1’ by Jesse Hertzberg (our favourite blog post
on the subject we’ve ever read)
Further Reading.
Learn more: http://info.zealify.com/employers-blog/50-ideas-to-improve-your-recruitment-with-marketing-tactics https://medium.com/@huss/on-recruiting-part-one-74c94a5e3e22
Questions? [email protected] | @Zealify
Thanks for reading
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…Read on to see how Zealify can help your hiring
How can help?
Your Zealify Careers Page
Independently wri-en content around company culture & employer brand.
Professional videography including interviews with some of the team and video tour of the office.
Professional photography of the office and team.
The opportunity for candidates to gain a true insight into your company culture
Remodeled, op@mized job adverts to increase candidate engagement
We help startups build an employer brand, & talent pipeline, by leveraging their unique culture through online
profiles.
Improved candidate percep@on through a more transparent
recruitment process.
Access to candidates who are 100% degree educated & engaged with the company.
Audience reach of 10,000+ who are looking for ‘stretch
jobs’.
Significant increase in specula@ve
applica@ons & referrals
Zealify Benefits
4x candidate engagement on any hiring materials,
including job adverts.
Reduced cost per hire and opportunity for
significant ROI through employer brand.
Brand Pipeline Cost
Advocacy Engage Reach
Zealify is great because it verifies that the company’s culture and lifestyle matches up to what they say.
– Daniel, Python Developer“
“
…and more
Boost your hiring with Zealify. Get started today
[email protected] | zealify.com/employers
…and more
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