Jobhop Jobhop's blog : What Is Creative Recruitment?
In this blog post, we’ll cover what you need to know about creative recruitment.
Creative recruitment is quite different from some of the traditional recruiting methods. Long gone are the days when you could rely on writing out a job description, posting or publishing it somewhere and just wait for the phone to ring.
Creative recruitment is a way of finding, attracting, and hiring new job candidates in non-traditional ways.
The traditional method consists of writing a job description, posting it online, and interviewing the best candidates who apply. Job boards can certainly be a major part of a creative recruitment strategy, but to get it right it requires much more than just that.
Research tells us that 86% of candidates are not actively looking for a job, so, how do you reach them? These candidates who aren't looking for a job are usually the ones you ideally want in your employment. They're the ones who have probably got lots of industry experience, they could have worked for your competitors, or are still working for your competitors; how do you hook them and reel them in?
Identify your candidate
Before you even begin recruitment marketing, you must first identify who you’re trying to reach. This means knowing who your ideal candidate is, where they hang out online, and what makes them tick. Knowing these things will help you develop a creative recruitment strategy.
Develop a candidate profile
Once you have identified your ideal candidate, then develop a profile for them. This includes identifying their interests, skills, and personality traits. Once you have a candidate profile you'll have a better understanding of the content you need to create to hook them.
Creative recruitment content
Content can come in many forms, picture posts, blogs, videos, stories, podcasts, gifs and more.
Remember, it's not just pretty-looking job posts, your content needs to deliver a message to your ideal candidate.
Content can say:
It's better here than where you are
We have fun here
The training is brilliant
Working with like-minded people
We're all on the same mission
Fast career progression
Wow, the seats are comfy
We get fresh fruit every day
Look at the view from the window
You want your ideal candidate to start thinking that they will do anything to work for you.
Create a journey
Where do you want your candidate to go once they've been hooked and reeled in? You might want to qualify them first by getting them to watch a video and then answer some questions. Perhaps you'd like candidates to register for a webinar where they can find out more about the company. Do you want them to join a talent community where they can ask questions and learn more? Don't just send your candidates to a page on your website that has a few jobs on it, that's not being creative at all.
Be consistent
You should be consistent with the content, people need to see it a lot to become familiar with it, and trust it enough to want to find out more.
If you just post a few bits of content and expect it to work immediately then you'll be disappointed. You could be lucky and by chance hook someone immediately, but most of the time it takes a while to get noticed by the candidates you're out to reach.
Repurpose content
One piece of content can be used in many ways.
For example, a video can also be used as a blog post by taking the transcript, tidying it up a bit, adding some pictures and then publishing it on the website. You can then take some soundbites from the blog post to create posts or tweets. Soundbites can also be taken from the original video and turned into stories for Instagram, and so on.
The end goal is to get your ideal candidate to want to work for you and apply for a job or speculatively send you their resume.
Wouldn't it be good if you never had to spend valuable time firefighting because there's a whole talent community who would be eager to come and work for you?
JOIN Jobhop and spread the word.
- Expert