Recruiting Isn’t Business. It’s Personal.

With global talent shortages, growing skills gaps and increasing competition for qualified individuals, talent acquisition has become much more challenging in recent years. Further complicating the process is that the workforce has never been more diverse.

With five distinct generations in the workplace, each with their own unique wants, needs and expectations, as well as changing attitudes toward work among all generations, trying to attract candidates in this dynamic, ever-changing talent pool can be incredibly frustrating.

And the companies that continue to use a standard message to engage with their desired candidates will only fall further behind.

Personalization and Aggregation: A Delicate Balance.

In this jobseeker’s market, with employers scrambling to hire the best talent before their competitors do, the same old recruiting techniques no longer work.

Rather than posting a job description and expecting the perfect candidate to walk through the door, employers must actively identify, engage and build relationships with those individuals.

This entails creating a unique message for each type of candidate you seek, and using the right channels to ensure that messaging makes it to the right audience.

Taking such a targeted approach will put the focus of recruiting back on people, rather than process, enabling companies to connect with candidates on a personal level and better attract top talent.

So, what’s the best route to take to get to that point? The key is to leverage data; and with 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created each day, there’s plenty to go around. Through resumes, cover letters, social profiles, “likes,” blogs, comments and more, today’s candidates leave a trail of information that can be used to learn a great deal about them.

The challenge lies in aggregating such data and using it to tailor your recruitment marketing activities in a way that drives engagement and leads to your next great hires.

Candidates Are Consumers, Too.

To do this effectively, recruiting teams can take a page from their colleagues in the sales department.

Salespeople understand the need to leverage consumer data to find their ideal customers, in order to uncover their purchasing habits and preferences and deliver on-point, personalized communications to get the sale.

How can recruiting take a similar approach?

By adopting the technology solutions that enable recruiters to aggregate relevant data about their candidates, identify what is most meaningful to them, and present targeted content that encourages them to apply.

Leveraging the same tools and techniques salespeople use enables recruiters to deliver the personalized experience so crucial to building relationships with candidates. One of the most effective approaches is the use of sales demo solutions, which enable candidates to select the topics most important to them.

Presenting candidates with a list of topics via email about the company, including career development, location, work/life balance, company awards, culture and more, and having them rate their level of interest in each one, provides the insight into what a candidate values most.

An automated demo solution can then provide relevant content on the topics in which the candidate is most interested, showing how the company can deliver the work experience they seek.

Conversations And Conversions: Rolling Out the Recruiting Red Carpet.

But getting candidates’ interest through an automated pitch is only half the journey. It is then up to company recruiters to build the personal connections that can convert the most qualified talent into their newest employees.

Leveraging the data about the factors most important to candidates will equip recruiters with in-depth knowledge necessary to creating a personalized approach.

This allows them to have more meaningful, targeted conversations about the company and how it can help them meet their personal and professional goals.

Once again, the right technology solution is crucial to making this happen. Today’s candidates want the red carpet treatment, from their first interaction with the company through to the offer and onboarding. As such, employers must leverage the platform that can facilitate this process, treating each candidate like a customer and delivering a one-to-one experience throughout.

And just how salespeople know they must move fast to maintain the customer’s interest, recruiters will benefit from the solutions that enable them to move candidates through the pipeline just as quickly.

This includes being able to conduct key aspects of the talent acquisition process on their mobile devices, thereby allowing recruiters and hiring managers to evaluate candidates and share feedback where and when it is most convenient.  As a result, employers can deliver a high-touch experience throughout the candidate lifecycle, while building deeper relationships with the people they want to hire.

As recruiting the best candidates will only become more challenging, adopting the solutions that can not only streamline key steps in the process, but make them more personal, is key to success. By creating a personalized candidate experience, recruiters can increase interest in their company and be seen as an employer of choice.

Rather than relying on traditional job descriptions or one-sided emails, creating a recruitment marketing strategy around the preferences of the candidate and providing a highly personalized and engaged experience throughout will give companies the competitive hiring advantage they need.

About the Author: Greg Mannon currently serves as a solution consultant for TalentObjects by Lumesse. His innovative and creative approach in recruitment strategy, candidate experience, and outside the box sourcing techniques has won him several awards throughout his career.

Greg’s mission is to help companies create successful strategies that bring in the best talent and keep them coming. He is a full-time father of three and a volunteer firefighter.

Follow Greg on Twitter @GregMannon or connect with him on LinkedIn.

By Greg Mannon