Before you start using Marketing Automation in your recruitment process, start with an analysis of candidates and create personas for the type of employees you want. You can also create personas in case you have recurring positions in the company with different person profiles.
Just like in marketing communication, there is a risk that if you try to appeal to everyone, the risk increases that no one will feel targeted. To facilitate both strategy work and production, it is smart to segment target groups based on personas, i.e. fictional people based on roles in the different target groups to give a clearer picture of different target groups. Designing a job ad and career page with a clear target audience in mind increases the chances of attracting candidates with suitable personalities.
Social media is an important channel for building your brand and attracting the right candidates for different positions. Email, SMS, banner ads are common marketing channels but what are they right for HR? Social media may play a bigger role here. Where your organization has a presence and how you present yourself on social media says a lot about your company culture, values and success. Many Marketing Automation systems have social media functionality such as "Social Posting" and can push out or schedule posts from specific accounts.
By linking social media with Marketing Automation, analyzing social posts that measure impressions and clicks can allow you to segment and market to those who show interest in the other channels as well. Trying to work "cross channel" in communication where the message is adapted to who you are trying to communicate with instead of which channel the person happens to encounter you in becomes more important to be relevant.
Traceability also makes it possible to find the source where you reach the best candidates and to adapt the messages to who you are communicating with. Modern recruitment requires companies to know which communication channels their ideal candidates use and want to be contacted through, which social media they use and which groups they participate in most. By tracking and collecting this type of data, companies can have a more relevant conversation with candidates.
Using forms in a smart way can simplify data collection. A dedicated recruitment form allows you to decide which fields you think should be included - and not be limited by the form fields of standardized "contact us forms". By using dynamic fields, the questions in the form can be adapted to the candidate's answers to ask follow-up questions directly in the application, for example.
The collected data can go directly to the right place without manual administration and the right recruiter can be notified about the application, initial qualification or disqualification can be done directly based on the answers, if the candidate does not meet basic requirements, for example if someone is not authorized to work in the country.
It is also possible to take information collection one step further through so-called 'progressive profiling. To spread the data collection over the different phases of the recruitment, you can progressively ask for more information from the candidates who are still in the process, which means that only unanswered form fields are displayed.
What motivates and drives different candidates varies, although income is a factor, it is usually not the only thing they look for in an employer. They want meaningful work in a pleasant workplace and an employer whose mission and values align with their own personal values. Here, communication is an effective tool to inform, inspire and spread company values, whether it is a company's engaging mission statement, philanthropic efforts or interesting jobs. It can also use scoring and grading to identify and interact with the most interested and engaged candidates.
The scoring model is behavioral and shows how much someone interacts with your content on the website or other digital channels.By tagging and scoring relevant pages for candidates, you have the opportunity to reactivate old candidates. You can also reach out to the right person when a vacancy arises.
With the help of scoring and grading, you can increase relevance and deepen the relationship with all those who have ever applied for a job with you and hopefully create positive candidate journeys that lead to candidates becoming brand promoters.
All too often, the candidate journey ends for all applicants when the position they applied for is filled. At best, they are informed that the position has been filled and thanked for their interest. By automating communication and establishing candidate nurturing flows, the relationship can be maintained. You can also create more opportunities to attract back old candidates when new positions open up. This can be especially valuable with candidates who have gone far in the recruitment process but did not get the advertised position.
The next challenge is to keep candidate details up to date. The candidate may have changed jobs or industries while you were missing a dialog. Missing it can hurt recruitment opportunities, or worse, negatively impact your company's brand.
By using the possibilities of Marketing Automation, you can collect data from different sources. This makes it easier to stay up to date with potential candidates and through targeting, prompt past candidates to keep their profiles updated and let you know if they are no longer interested in new career opportunities. A structured candidate database built up over time will make it easier to segment candidates and quickly target new offers to an already warm candidate list.
By utilizing the opportunities that Marketing Automation systems bring to HR, the candidate journey can be developed and the recruitment process becomes more efficient.There are excellent opportunities for Marketing Automation in Business to Employee (B2E) communication, even beyond talent acquisition. In the age of digitalization in HR, Marketing Automation can be used to improve other talent management phases as well. Examples include onboarding of new employees, employee retention, employee branding as well as career and skills development. All areas that are becoming increasingly important priorities for you as an HR professional.
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