Rising recruitment costs. Smaller candidate pools. More ghosting.
Staffing companies are facing huge challenges with candidate engagement. But the companies that are more proactive with candidate engagement have seen much higher redeployment rates, longer assignment lengths, decreased no-shows, and higher employee satisfaction.
Here are some ways you can drive more candidate engagement:
1. Use marketing automation/candidate engagement. Leverage technology to build communication workflows or journeys to engage with candidates at every point of the candidate lifecycle—especially during initial onboarding. Provide exactly the type of information candidates need, build a stronger relationship with the recruiter and company up front, and uncover issues before they lead to a no show.
2. Run ATS remarketing ad campaigns. Export your candidate list from your ATS and run targeted ads on social sites to build visibility and engagement. Use those ads to improve your brand recognition, feature recruiters to build personal relationships, and highlight local jobs that are applicable. This is a great way to stay top-of-mind, and it’s especially important for the weeks right after they have first applied.
3. Provide job alerts. Allow candidates to not only apply to jobs on your website, but also setup job alerts. Allow them to choose what types of jobs, skills, location, etc. they are interested in and provided automated alerts when a job matches their criteria. “Sell” this as a benefit to applying with your firm (i.e., “We deliver jobs that match your criteria right to your inbox!”).
4. Use personalized mass email. Many staffing companies send email newsletters each month. Most don’t personalize them. Share relevant content with candidates, making sure it’s personalized with their first name, and then also feature the recruiter that they first worked with. This helps to build a more personal relationship and add value.
5. Highlight your candidates. The staffing industry puts so many amazing people to work each day and helps improve the lives of so many more because of that. But we rarely tell those amazing stories. Write case studies about your candidates and outline how their jobs have helped transform their careers, their lives, and how their families have been impacted. People love to see their name “in lights” and that content creates an emotional connection with others who are in similar positions.
6. Be THE source for current salary data. People want to make sure they are being paid what they are worth. Become the source of this information for your candidate base – and also use this to educate your clients on necessary pay rates. If you can help your candidates increase their average pay rate, you’ll build strong advocates.
7. Provide career training. Offer candidates training programs to help them take the next step in their career. Some agencies offer very advanced programs, but if you’re just looking to get started write great articles and guides. For example, create content that shows a picker/packer how they can take the next step up and what that really means to them in the long-term.
8. Feature your recruiters. In many industries like healthcare, the personal relationship with their recruiter is what keeps candidates engaged. Build website and social content that features your recruiters and allows people to get to know them on a more personal level.
9. Offer jobs closer to home. Beyond pay, one of the biggest factors candidates consider is their commute. Build a process (or better yet automate the process) to share jobs that are close to the candidate’s home—or jobs that are remote.