The Right Content for the Right Candidate

Authenticity in recruiting can mean a range of things, but at its heart, it’s when you admit that your organization won’t fulfill every person’s needs. In the back of our minds, we all know this is the case. We know that certain people fit our organization’s culture better, but that seems to go by the wayside when we enter into a competitive talent market. At that point, it’s more traffic, more engagement, more visibility – and the most candidates.

Instead, we should be driven by quality traffic, quality engagement, and quality visibility. But that requires an uncomfortable level of honesty.

At best, a majority of recruiting content that lives online is selling our organization to anyone who will listen. At worst, it’s not present at all.

The harsh reality we need to acknowledge as talent acquisition organizations is that our company is not a fit for a lot of people. The sooner we acknowledge that the sooner we can move onto the next step, which is embracing and strategizing it.

As I’m sure most of you are already getting the cold sweats of acknowledging your organization’s actual negatives, before we get into the how, I wanted to ask you to think back on a meaningful ad, content piece, blog, article, that really stuck with you. What was it?

Here’s one of mine. Chatbooks is a company that takes images from your phone and puts them into a print version book for meaningful memory capture. What makes this commercial memorable? Take a look around minute 2:15, or watch the whole thing, because it's pretty amazing.

Want a customizable book that allows you to add fancy borders? Want a book that lets you spend hours (that you don’t have) to make the best coffee table book you ever did see? Well, then back off, because this isn’t the product for you.

Why don’t we do this more often for our organizations and hiring? Why wouldn’t we want to give candidates this information to make their own decisions?

At the end of the day, content marketing should be about “helping candidates make the best decision for themselves.” Right? Because if we’re just looking out for our company, we’ll get a bunch of bushy-eyed candidates who leave at the end of six months because our brightly promising job descriptions made this sound like the most amazing thing ever.

And before you disagree, your job probably is the most amazing thing ever. For the right person.

So how do you start? Define your personas. This blog will focus only on developing authentic content for your personas – there is a lot more to persona development, but breaking it into pieces makes this more manageable.

Gather your hiring verticals. This is how you can begin a persona.  Most often, personas will align with your hiring verticals (ex: nursing, information technology, administrative, engineering), but they can also align more closely with initiatives like diversity and military. Don’t tackle everything at once. Prioritize the largest volume, or most visible, hiring verticals to start.

Include employees. While talent acquisition has a great idea of the positives and negatives of an organization, be honest with yourself and acknowledge that you don’t have all the information. Incorporate key employees from each hiring vertical in the development of your persona. When you ask for their participation, make sure you know what’s in it for them (better coworkers). Additionally, make sure they know there’s no penalty for being honest - make participation anonymous if it makes them feel more comfortable.

Start with the positives. Ask your employees why they love working here – and ask them to get specific. There are a lot of options for this portion, but here are some suggestions:

• What was your most meaningful day at company X?
• What do you love most about your job?
• How do you live up to mission X in your position?
• What made you accept your job offer here at company X?
• Insert question that aligns with your mission and values here.

Follow up with the authentic. Okay, yes, positives are authentic. But consumers (who are candidates) NEED both sides. 82% of consumers seek negative feedback. It’s why Glassdoor and Indeed exist. Why let these sites be the only place to provide an aspect of reality? And remember, negative doesn’t necessarily mean negative. For the right audience, it won’t be a deal breaker. Here are some questions/resources that will help you identify authentic feedback that will help you capture the right audience:

• What is the hardest aspect of your job?
• What do you wish candidates knew about this job before applying?
• Who shouldn’t apply for this job?
• Access your known negatives - exit interviews, employee engagement surveys, Glassdoor and Indeed reviews.

Make it marketable. Okay, I realize that we live in the real world. A lot of corporate marketing teams might not feel comfortable with full transparency. But there is a line that you can walk. Here are some examples:

• Negative: Long work hours
• Suggested Content: Committed to the mission, which might mean long working hours.
• Negative: Constant changes
• Suggested Content: Requires someone who feels comfortable with discomfort.
• Negative: Poor work environment
• Suggested Content: Our mission requires certain gives and takes, but is worthwhile.
• Negative: Lots of red tape
• Suggested Content: Our processes ensure that we do the right thing for our customers.

This space won’t be comfortable for many of you, but the reality (and end result) is that you get a better employee who doesn’t start day one with unrealistic expectations. It leads to a more engaged employee base and stronger retention rate for your organization. And lastly, it aligns more closely with your candidate's expectations based on their consumer experiences.